Take More Breaks in your Selling Day . How to thrive in twenty one five

In a professional tournament game of tennis for each set, players get a 90 second break between every two games. Between sets, players get 120 seconds.

 In a game of professional soccer the half time break after 45 min of play is  between 10-15 mins   

for boxing it is one minute between each  3 minute round

The physical fitness of these elite sportspeople is tip top

- yet they take their breaks.

 I guess they take this time to rest and re focus  for  the mental part of the game. Keeping positive , reassessing tactics , reviewing the game plan and  keeping calm.

Why then do we not value breaks in our work ?

Recent research reveals that the average British worker in 2015 will take less than half an hour for lunch  (26 minutes and 28 seconds of lunch)

No doubt the Gordon Gekko Lunch is for wimps syndrome is ever present for some7%  of the working population do not take lunch at all according to research undertaken by Leerdammer.

 This figure was similarly quoted in research undertaken by the  on line recruiter Monster  five years ago..

Back in 2010

 7% did not eat or break for lunch at all

21%  would always eat at their desk so they could get more work done,

32% said they would take a lunch break if they were not too busy

and 40% said they would always take lunch.

Have a break , Have a Kit Kat  ? ( Hershey)-
wrapper from a trip to Chicago last year.
Looks a bit different to the UK  Nestle version

The 2015 study was conducted by Leerdammer , which questioned 2,000 people about their lunch habits. 

 The main reasons people gave for skipping lunch  in this 2015 survey was

 to impress their boss (11%),

 14 % of people said they felt under pressure because of their workloads.

Overall 22 % of those interviewed said they felt less efficient if they did not take a break.

Aude Romelly from Leerdammer said

“ It is a sad fact that eating our lunches at our desk has become a norm.”

“It’s not about doing ‘nothing’ with your lunch hour, but switching your mind onto something different allows you to refresh your perspective, making you more effective later.”

In the Metro Aidan Radnedge piece on this story include a quote from Behavioural expert Karen Meager “ When sitting at our desks we are actually programming  our mind and body to feel bad. Taking a break from work has many healthy, psychological and emotional benefits”.

Brief diversions vastly improve focus, researchers findings in 2011?

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

In the this study, Professor Alejandro Lleras and postdoctoral fellow Atsunori Ariga tested participants' ability to focus on a repetitive computerised task for about an hour under various conditions. The 84 study subjects were divided into four groups: 

•The control group performed the 50-minute task without breaks or diversions.

•The "switch" group and the "no-switch" group memorised four digits prior to performing the task, and were told to respond if they saw one of the digits on the screen during the task. Only the switch group was actually presented with the digits (twice) during the 50-minute experiment. Both groups were tested on their memory of the digits at the end of the task.

•The "digit-ignored" group was shown the same digits presented to the switch group during the task, but was told to ignore them.

 

As expected, most participants' performance declined significantly over the course of the task. But most critically, Lleras said, those in the switch group saw no drop in their performance over time. Simply having them take two brief breaks from their main task (to respond to the digits) allowed them to stay focused during the entire experiment.

"We propose that deactivating and reactivating your goals allows you to stay focused," he said. "From a practical standpoint, our research suggests that, when faced with long tasks (such as studying before a final exam or doing your taxes), it is best to impose brief breaks on yourself. Brief mental breaks will actually help you stay focused on your task!"

Back in the day 2007

Source:   Jakki Stubbington -Benenden Healthcare Society ( reported Metro March 12^th 2007)

Sample Size :   1,000 adults

Smokers spent an average of 30 minutes every working day on ‘fag breaks’. The average smoker takes at least three ten minute breaks a day.

This equivalent to 290,000 working days every year.

Hundreds of thousands of workers took cigarette breaks of more than half  an hour a day- often leaving the office seven times in a shift to smoke.

Smokers in the North take the most breaks with only 13% going through the day without sneaking off for a cigarette compared with almost a third in the Midlands.

Related links


Report on study of effectiveness of short breaks

The Learning Mind App for our Selling Brain part 4

Exhibit from the Art of the Brick . 

Lego® brick sculptures by Nathan Sawaya

Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane London UK

Dan Pink’s book published last year, is titled

 “To Sell Is Human”.

It  argues that moving people    (selling, but also persuading or influencing) has become an essential building block of nearly everyone’s job in our modern workplace.

 Everyone is in sales. 

So it is a skill we all need and you will find plenty of tips on the blog on selling better.

However on this post let's focus on the business of learning for all good sales people must be good learners. Learning how the Human mind works is helpful.

Learning is what our brain does naturally. 

It has been doing it every waking minute since about a month before we were born.

It is the process we acquire and store both useful and useless information and selling skills.

The question can we make our selling mind more efficient?

As our brain processes information, it makes and breaks connections growing and strengthening the synapses  that connect neurons to their neighbours. or shrinking them back.

When we are actively learning, the making of new connections outweighs the breaking of old ones.

In some parts of the brain , notably the hippocampus the brain grows new cells as it learns.

Exhibit from the Art of the Brick . 

Lego® brick sculptures by Nathan Sawaya

Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane London UK

However once a circuit is in place it needs to be used if it is going to stick. The process of myelination occurs when a circuit is stimulated enough  times to grow a coat of fat membrane. This membrane increases conduction speed making the circuit work more efficiently.

So the best way to learn things and retain them is :-

Focus your attention e.g. Listen with interest to your client (use  eye contact)

engage your working memory e.g. take and make notes

a little later try to recall it  e.g  just run through your mind what you have learnt

Allan Badelley of York University UK advises that we test ourselves in this way as it causes your brain to strengthen the new connections. In addition he suggests that we try to link bits of information we already know. This will make the connection more stable  and less likely to deplete through under use.

How might we apply this in the selling situation?

The following will help you employ attention, working memory and learning.

Concentrate- make the effort to pay attention to your client

Take and make notes – key points

Focus on the main points your client raises

Question and confirm to check your understanding

Keep an open mind- take care not to jump to conclusions

Analyse and organise and see if you can connect it to previous knowledge

Practise Active Listening ( if sitting lean slightly forwards, make gentle eye contact, nod occasionally, smile where appropriate, use verbal affirmations)

Exhibit from the Art of the Brick .

 Lego® brick sculptures by Nathan Sawaya

Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane London UK

It appears that learning is more difficult as we get older. But the neuroscientists suggest this not so. The learning process carries on for life and there appears to be no physiological reason for the slowdown.

As adults we have a large store of mental short cuts that allow us to skip over details.. But we do have the capacity to learn new things in the same way as children, which suggests that if we could resist the temptation to cut corners, we would probably learn a lot more.

A more tried and tested method is to keep active.

With a little exercise the brain can leap back into life. In one study 40 minutes of exercise three times a week for a year increase the size of the hippocampus- which is crucial for learning and memory. It also improved connectivity across the brain , making it easier for things to stick..

By the way even master Lego® sculptur Nathan Sawaya uses glue to make his bricks stick !
 

 Feb 15 2011 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS vol 108 p3017  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21282661

Related Links

Attention app for your Selling Brain part 1

Working Memory for your Selling brain part 2


Logical and Rational thoght App for your selling brain part 3

Logical and rational thought App for your Selling Brain part 3

We salespeople most of the time like to think of ourselves as rational and logical folk. And we can be – but not without some effort.

Logical thought requires us to behave like a micro processing chip, performing stepwise operations on information .

Lego sculpture by Nathan Sawaya part of
the Art of the Brick Exhibition
 at the Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lana, London UK

There are sales processes that use the analogy of a series of steps as  questions to gather information or build agreements to win over the heart of the buyer. 

However such logical behaviour does not necessarily come naturally to many of us, and requires outside instruction to learn and lengthy training to master.

 Even then we, we may struggle to maintain a purely rational perspective.

Caroline Williams in New Scientist reports that there is a kernel of truth in the popular wisdom that " left brain equals logic”.

Imaging studies have shown that the left prefrontal cortex is needed to make logical trains of thought happen and much of the time no input is needed from the right.

However when there is conflict between what seems logical and beliefs that we already hold, the right side prefrontal cortex kicks in to help us sort out the confusion – Brain Research vol 1428 p24.September 2012

In such circumstances the right hemisphere usually wins

Nathan Sawaya's 'Grasped' sculpture in Lego®
bricks from the Art of the brick exhibition
 in London currently

Many studies have shown that where new information conflicts with existing beliefs, our brains ‘fight’ to keep beliefs in tact rather than revises them.

 It is as if our forward motion is held back maybe like Nasthan Sawaya's 'Grasped' sculpture from Art of the Brick Exhibiotn currently on in London.

For sales people this gives further weight and significance to the skills  required when handling buyer objections  such as

 “ We are happy with our current supplier”

“ We have used  their X product satisfactorily for 5 years ,it worked fine,  I see no reason to change over to your Z system”

or even the colloquial

“Don’t fix it , if it’s not broke”.

It is not so much that old dogs can’t be taught new tricks but unlearning a belief will take time because the right hemisphere has dug in.

 So the pill of logic needs a little sugar of appreciation to help the rational medicine go down.

Cognitive psychologist at York University, Toronto Canada says that a zap to the head may help.

“ Brain stimulation techniques may eventually  offer a route to improving reasoning as has been used to stimulate creativity. "

But for now there is no short cut,  so he suggests practice being our best option.

Some recent studies with students studying for law exams benefited from training in rational thought. It was observed that the number of connections between frontal and parietal lobes and between the two hemispheres ( Caroline Williams in New Scientist 4th Oct 2014 cites Frontiers of neuroanatomy vol 6 p32) 

The catch is ,without regular practice this effect is almost certainly fades away a few months are the course ended.

So the old adage hold “ If you don’t use it your lose it”

Related Links

Attention app for your Selling Brain part 1

Working Memory for your Selling brain part 2

Frontiers in Nueroanatomy archive

Prefrontal Cortical Activation during Arithmetic Processing Differentiated by Cultures:

Working Memory App for your selling brain part 2

Everything you know and remember whether it’s a call event, a skill or a fascinating fact, started is way into your selling mind’s storage by going through your working memory.

Lego® artwork by Nathan Sawaya at the "Art of the brick"
exhibition at The Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane ,London

Neuroscientists tell us that it is more than just a clearing house for long term memories. It is better to envisage it as the brain’s scratch pad: where information is held and manipulated.

If you are doing anything which requires effort and focused  thought such as concentrated listening, finding solutions to client’s problems, resolving complaints, answering customer objections you are using working memory.

An influential model proposed by University of York’s Badelley and Hitch in the ‘70s came up with the concept of an executive controller which runs the show by focusing on the relevant information.

This controller also kicks ‘slave’ systems into action.

3 slave systems of working memory

1. One of these holds up to 4 pieces of visual information at a time.
2. A second one can memorises about 2 seconds of sound especially spoken words, which it loops over and over a gain (think of mentally repeating a phone number while searching for a pen.  
3. The third is the episodic buffer, which adds relevant information from the long-term memory.

A weakness of this model is that working memory does not occupy a discrete area of the brain that can be monitored  in action in a brain scanner.

Due to this some neuro scientists have suggested that it might not be a separate system at all but part of long term memory we are currently paying attention to.

Whatever it is , it comes as a standard to our selling mind but some people have better memories than others.

Hugh Alford sharing thoughts with Nathan Sawaya's
Seated Lego® man from "The Art of the Brick " exhibition 
currently at the Old Truman Brewery , Brick Lane London

Working memory capacity is a better predictor of academic success than IQ, so getting the most out of it is useful.

The good news is that the system can probably be upgraded. Some studies show that braining training  programmed aimed in particular at working memory can produce improvements.

Cognitive neuro scientist Jason Chein of Temple University , Pennsylvania who works on the field of working memory  says that there seems to be improvements  in other cognitive skills although the changes are quite small . But even a modest gain can have a meaningful impact on every cognition.

 Jason Chein says we don't yet know for sure how to improve working memory, but here are some suggestions:

• Engage in regular physical exercise
• Find mental tasks like Boggle that challenge working memory.
• Try mindfulness meditation, which isn't just relaxation, but focusing internal attention.
• Avoid continuous periods of high mental workload just before important tasks, as they can deplete working memory.
• Give your mind some actual downtime.
• Don't pull out the smartphone every time you have a break.

Related Links and Info


The Selling Mind Attention App

New Scientist October 4th Issue 

Mindfulness for salespeople

Mindful Attention and your Selling brain part one

The much loved comical saleswoman Mrs Slocum ( played by Molly Sugden) from BBC’s TV sitcom  “ Are you being served” used to express her decisions  about various matters with the catchphrase

“... and I am unanimous in that...”

A salesperson’s mind  however is not one thing.

 Apparently the Old English word from which our word 'mind' is derived is gemynd which  refers to memory. As neuroscience discovers more about the workings of the brain, we realise that memory – although an important aspect is not the only aspect.

The Thinker in Lego® bricks @NathanSawaya
 #artofthebrick exhibition currently 
at the Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London

Our human mind is the most complex information processing system we know. 

Suppose our mind is seen as a contemporary mobile device,  let's call it the FOS i-mind * , it has all sorts of useful design features. (* Fruits of Success i-mind  :) )

However this sales mind also has many glitches and weaknesses.

 Fortunately, your FOS i-mind* has apps to help it work better available for retinal download from this blog  ;) !  

Using your industry standard  free Retinal Information Download App (RIDA) you have free access to the 24/7 streaming fruitsofsuccesswithhugh.blogspot  through FOS i-mind *. 

The content is in the form of fonted characters and images received by your FOS i-mind * and RIDA software to your personal retinas through your natural focusing facility i-lens. 

OK enough of this funny nonsense-  now to the serious matter of using our selling brain better.

Neuroscience in the last few years has been helping us to better understand the workings of our mind.

1. Attention
2. Working memory
3. Logical and rational thought
4. Learning
5. Knowledge 
6. Creativity
7. Intelligence 

For this post let's look at how to use the first app for better selling  brain usage

1. The Sales Attention App

The Sales Attention App.
Probably the most useful feature  of a salesperson's brain begins with attention. Attention determines what you are conscious of at any given moment of opportunity.

 Learning to work this app is just about the most important thing your selling brain can do. 

Firstly this app will help you give your buyer a 'damned good listening to !' .

In research polls of Buyers' views of salespeople, time and again they wish we would listen more !

However to make sense of the frantic business world world , we need to filter out almost everything around us and focus only on what is relevant - namely what the client is saying to us.

Such focused attention is essential for our learning and memorising.

So if you can BOOST your ability to pay attention it follows you can at almost improve everything in selling.

Apparently the the brain has two attention systems.One the 'bottom up"   BU mode, automatically snaps up potential new information (but often distracting information) e.g. moving objects, sudden noises and sensations of touch. BU mode is fast , unconscious and always on.

The other system the " Top Down"  TD mode is  deliberate , focused attention which zooms in on what ever we need to think about  and hopefully stays there long enough to get the job done.

This is the type of attention that is useful for doing tasks that require concentration like listening to your client.

Unluckily being distracted is both a bug and a design feature. TD mode requires effort and is prone to losing focus or being overridden by the BU system

Distractability comes therefore as both a bug and a design feature. The good news from neuroscience is that we can tweak our attention settings to stay more focused more easily.

We can cut down BU mode by:

• switching off email notifications, Facebook alerts etc
• putting mobile on silent 

UCL's cognitive neuroscientist  Nilli Lavie suggests we actually should give our brains MORE  to do.

Her work has shown that better control of TD mode comes by not reducing but increasing inputs.  Lavie's Load Theory says that once the brain  reaches its limits of sensory processing , it can't take in anything else including distractions. She observes that this seems to work for both distractions and mind wandering.

Hugh Alford standing next to the attention grabbing

 Giant Pencil in Lego® bricks 

 #artofthebrick exhibition currently 

at the Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London 

Lavie recommends adding visual aspects to make more attention-grabbing without making it more difficult e.g. colour bordering a document , using a colour for copy. So the old adage about taking physical notes has neuro-scientific support.

Further studies are under way  and initial results appear to  suggest  the right kind of brain training could help most people.

The next best option is learning to chil-out in the right way. 

Experienced meditators  have been shown to have thicker parts of the brain associated with attention, while other studies have found that attention scores after a short course of meditation.

So learning to focus better may be as simple as making time to sit still and focus on not very much.

Related links

5 ways to help your buyer pay attention 

Mindfulness for Salespeople

Break Breathe and Be Sales #Mindfulness

Today’s professional salespeople have a lot on their plates, which are likely as not to be of the spinning variety.

Checking in to a University Hall of residence in Chicago a few weeks ago for a conference, the graduate in the queue in front of me was given his code key for the internet link.

  Additional code keys required a supplementary charge.  “Oh, I will need three more please.” It turned out he had not only a work laptop, but a tablet, and two smart phones.

Glazed phrenological bust

 by Lorenzo Niles Fowler (1811-1896)

So in effect four screens of information to juggle. It is the way of modern sales that there is a daily barrage of visual and aural distractions on the senses.

The overload of these stimuli has increased the stress modern business folk have to contend with.

Our attention is constantly being stirred.

The pioneering American psychologist William James observed that

“ the ability of bringing back a wandering attention is the very root of

 good judgement, character and will”

Yet can attention be trained ?

Can you quieten down the jabbering of modern business life  and the continual internal dialogues  in the mind which can lead to over thinking, the constant scanning for problems for which our attention has been evolutionary hard-wired?

Could today’s worldly wise, nay cynical  and commission incentivised salespeople be persuaded that their concentration can be boosted by sitting still and being quiet ? !!!

Our mental health and happiness are profoundly shaped by what we do with our attention at our workstation , speaking to clients over the phone or through conference calls, face to face or for that matter at a seminar.

Yet for good survival reasons our attention is constantly on  “look out” , raising our stress levels, latching onto problems, spinning stories, and interpretations of what we  think might be going on in our clients’ mind let alone ours !

Setting aside a few minutes of each day with our attention focused on sensing rather than thinking can be hugely beneficial.

Essential mindfulness employs the use of breathing exercises to focus on the present moment found in meditation practise, yoga and prayer.

The key to its effectiveness is REGULARITY.

I noticed in the programme for DAVOS this year there were daily sessions of guided mindfulness sessions. Corporations such as Google, E bay and Apple all offer mindfulness programmes for their staff.

Sports stars such a Johnny Wilkinson endorse the practise. So Mindfulness is good enough for the likes of the good and great it must be good for salespeople.

Sales Mindfulness  in essence N.B. Remember the three Bs

Break                 Stop ! Take a break

Breathe              Concentrate on your breath

and BE.              Be in the present.

3Bs of Mindfulness

http://fruitsofsuccesswithhugh.blogspot.co.uk/

Here are some simple exercises you might care to try :

1.    Feel the ground beneath your feet
2.   Eat a piece of fruit - be wholly absorbed in its taste, smell and texture.
3.   Breath in for a count of 7 seconds and exhale for a count of 11 seconds

Neuro-scientific studies on mindfulness practitioners has shown changes to the amygda region of the brain- an area known  to be associated with attention, empathy increases.

Maybe the next habit of highly successful people ( the 10^th ?) of Steven Covey will be Mindfulness.  Certainly there are more courses , books etc. coming onto the market.

Meanwhile why not text the 3Bs to yourself , your colleagues and your friends!

Related links

5 minute Busy Buster on Mindfulness

Selling Silence

5 minute Busy Busters Sales / Life Balance Tips #MondayMindfulness

Seeking some mindful balance right now ?


Treat yourself to ONE of these:-

• Drink a glass of water

• Do a guided meditation / deep breathing

• Take a walk round the block

• Stretch

• Text or email a friend to say you miss them

For further tapas sized selling tips-to-go

,drop into the "The Tapas Bar".

each post is less than 250 words.

Selling Silence Mr Selfridge Headspace and mindfulness

With the reintroduction of a 'quiet room' in Selfridges now in the lower ground floor in Oxford Street, this January, perhaps we should honour 'Mile-a-minute Harry" as a early pioneer of the Mindfulness Industry.

In the Selfridges of 2013  you can chill out from the bombardment of messages in a quiet pod there - a sort of hemispherical acoustic absorbent dome where there is a short audio tape from Headspace.

Some interesting facts are in the presentation  given by specialist Andy Puddicome and Headspace Headspace.

Do you have a smart phone ?

 Apparently research has shown that 80% of smart phone owners keep their phone on all the time - including all night.

Most check their phone for messages, emails etc before going to sleep and first thing in the morning.

Additionally 40% will use their smart phone to check work messages etc 'out of hours' and even on holiday.

Our relationship with technology has taken on certain qualities of an addiction.

Many feel quite overwhelmed. There is good reason for this . We have to process 3-4 times the amount of information that the previous generation had to.

Scientists have identified in children that way our brains are developing. The researchers can identify a measurable change in the neural pathways of the current generation.

More on this can be found on this link Selling of Silence

and "Help I'm addicted to facebook and twitter" by Benjamin Cohen

 Here is a  contemporary poem  published around the same time of  early years  of Selfridges - it's an appeal for mindfulness.
 
"Leisure" by William Henry Davies  1871 - 1940 Poet, writer, tramp.
from Songs of Joys and Others 1911

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

 

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.










No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

 

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.



Related links:

No Noise at Selfridges

Headspace  http://www.getsomeheadspace.com/

Benjamin Cohen's excellent article in London Evening Standard  "Help I'm addicted to facebook and twitter"