Do you have people with whom you can share intimate details with no repercussions other than a greater gift of self-awareness? Well according to former Medtronic CEO and author of the book, True North Groups, A Powerful Path to Personal and Leadership Development, you need to.  A True North Group is a group of between 6-8 trusted life and business advisors who you can turn to on a consistent basis to help you become better at work and at home.  Whether it is a life-threatening illness, divorce, or career change, your group can give you a perspective from many angles…angles that are easy to miss.

So if you believe there is room for improvement in your life, setting up your own True North Group just might be the answer. To do so, here are some tips from the book to get you started:

• Forming- Choose 6-8 individuals you trust
• Norming- Create habits, practices and rules characterizing your group’s behavior. Confidentiality is crucial in your group.
• Storming- As your group grows closer, passionate discussion may lead to storms. Open communication will insure you can weather them.
• Performing- Openly sharing and deep listening insure that all members find value in the experience.
• Reforming- Don’t be afraid to evolve to keep the group fresh. This will ensure longevity.

Ultimately, the greatest benefit of a True North Group is the opportunity to get feedback that will make you a better friend, father, mother, business owner or work colleague. As former secretary of education John Gardner said, “Life is an error-making and an error-correcting process.” Having your own trusted group will help you find your errors and correct them, as well as give you new ideas to make you a top performer at work and at home.

For some more great tips on forming your own group, listen to Brian Sullivan,CSP interview best selling author Bill George on his weekly radio show by going to http://www.preciseselling.com/on-radio. And for even more tips, stop by Amazon and pick up a copy of the life-changing book, True North Groups,  A Powerful Path to Personal and Leadership Development.

Half the time people think they are talking business, they are wasting time.
-Edgar Watson Howe

Think of the number of meetings you attend each week. What percentage would you say are a waste of time? If you are like many, that percentage is high. Because too many meetings take too long, get too little done and often only add to the confusion that existed before the meeting. Studies show that one key reason meetings are unproductive is because too much time is spent going over the same topics discussed in previous meetings.

So this week, follow these tips to a successful meeting (or sales call).

•    Have a clear objective. A good objective is what you want the people in that room to do as a result of you being there. In other words, it’s not about what you do, it’s about what THEY do as a result of you being in that meeting.

•    Simplify- Quit “re-visiting” old issues. Then pick no more than three action items that must take place as a result of the meeting. If you walk away with fifty things that need to be done, not all will get done. And the stuff you do get to will not be done as well as it should.

•    Shorten- Cut the time you set aside for meetings in half. The urgency to get things done will force you to trim the BS and help you accomplish more.

In short, be PRECISE. Which means exact, sharply defined or stated. And by following the lessons above, you will find you are about to get twice as much done in half the time.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
-Albert Einstein

“I’ve been in this business for over 25 years. I have run out of things to learn,” was one of the saddest comments I have ever heard from one of my recent seminar attendees. Stop learning? Don’t we need to learn from our customers so we can effectively serve them? Don’t we need to learn what our competition is doing? Don’t we need to learn how our peers and employees feel about working with us? Don’t we need to learn how much we DON’T know? Once you lose your hunger to learn, you lose the ability to positively affect everybody around you. And who would choose that? And it’s not enough to be open to learning; you have to aggressively seek opportunities to learn.

For example, this week try these three questions with your current customers…and family members:

•    What am I doing I should keep doing?
•    What am I doing I should stop doing?
•    What aren’t I doing that I should begin doing?

Because customers, peers, employees and family members won’t often seek you out to tell you how you can be more valuable to them, you have to ask. And when you ask, you show a willingness to learn. And once you create a habit of LEARNING, you will create a habit that creates some of the world’s top performers.

President of Kansas City-based PRECISE Selling, Brian delivers seminars and internet training programs on sales, customer service, leadership and presentation skills to companies of all sizes.  To find out more, visit him at www.preciseselling.com or email Brian at bsullivan@preciseselling.com.