Business Development Skills

Have you ever heard yourself or someone else say: "Some of my best friends are...(Black, White, Asian, etc.)"? or "I don't think of you as...(Gay, Disabled, Jewish, etc.)"? or "I don't see color, I'm colorblind"? These statements and dozens like them can build a divide between us and the people we interact with. Though well-intended, they often widen the diversity gap sometimes causing irreparable harm personally and professionally.

What do you have in common with West Point graduates, NFL players, and Fortune 500 CEOs? You too can learn effective leadership principles from two New York Times best-selling authors. John C. Maxwell will eloquently guide you on a journey through the five levels of relationships, capped with eight ways you can win with people. Brian Tracy’s leadership audio program offers proven ideas and strategies for setting standards of performance in your organization.

The S.U.M.O Guy returns with a fun, fast-paced guide to gaining confidence and getting the most out of dealing with other people. With his trademark wit and good humour, Paul McGee arms you with 21 simple, proven methods for quickly building your communication muscle. Packed with priceless insights, expert advice, and skill-building exercises, How To Succeed With People gets you quickly up and running with the skills you need to communicate effectively with bosses, team members, customers, family, friends, neighbours...even complete strangers.

Sometimes, that promising lead turns out to be a bust. That first date doesn’t lead to a second. The sales pitch fails to land the client. But what if they could? What if you knew the steps to “set up” each conversation to increase the likelihood that you connect, engage and win?

10 Ways to Increase Your Circle of Influence describes different ways to get others to know, like, and support what you are doing. These range from making connections with business and interest groups online and offline to creating a video channel blog. Other suggestions deal with both offline and online marketing, sales, and promotion. The book is formatted like a journal, so listeners can write down their ideas for what to do after listening to each tip.

In The Storytelling Edge, the strategy minds behind Contently, the world renowned content marketing technology company, reveal their secrets that have helped award-winning brands to build relationships with millions of advocates and customers. Join as they dive into the neuroscience of storytelling, the elements of powerful stories, and methodologies to grow businesses through engaging and accountable content.

Did you know that 93 percent of CEOs agree that this skill is more important than your college degree? Amazon's market cap is 1.7 trillion dollars. And it all started when Jeff Bezos used this skill to see a market inefficiency back in the day, before anyone else. Having this skill in your back pocket is like shortcutting Malcom Gladwell's 10,000 hours rule to learning something (who's got time for that?). So, what is it? Nothing complex or fancy. It's critical thinking. This audiobook is dedicated to imparting to you the maxims of how to think critically.

In Content-Based Networking, you’ll learn a proven three-part framework to consistently connect with potential customers, investors, referral partners, industry influencers, and anyone in between. Using this framework, you’ll develop thought leadership in your industry, while simultaneously creating meaningful relationships with the exact people that can help you reach your goals and dreams.

Presenting a down-to-earth explanation of the basic principles of emotional intelligence, how to develop its basic skills, and their role in the lives of self-made multi-billionaires, this book will help you discover what it takes to succeed so that you can make way for a real change in your entrepreneurial career.

Whether it's at home or at work, so much of our lives involves negotiating to get what we want. From negotiating a higher salary, to lowering costs from suppliers, to hammering out a new contract with a major customer, or even deciding where to go on vacation, the only way to consistently arrive at successful conclusions is to master the art of negotiation.

For too long, the term insubordination has evoked negative feelings and mental images. But for ideas to evolve and societies to progress, it’s vital to cultivate rebels who are committed to challenging conventional wisdom and improving on it. Change never comes easily. And most would-be rebels lack the skills to overcome hostile audiences who cling desperately to the way things are. Based on cutting-edge research, The Art of Insubordination is the essential guide for anyone seeking to be heard, make change, and rebel against an unhealthy status quo.

In What's Your Story? Using Stories to Ignite Performance and Be More Successful, author, entrepreneur, professor and master story teller Craig Wortmann demonstrates the powerful impact stories have on the three most common performance challenges: leadership, strategic selling, and motivation. While the technique of telling stories is the oldest form of communication, it's also the one form that rises above the din of our information-saturated environment.

As our ability to pay attention in a world of distractions vanishes, it's no wonder that our ability to be heard and understood - to convey our messages - is also threatened. Whether working with our teams and customers or communicating with our families and friends, it is increasingly difficult to break through the digital devices that get in the way of communication.

Most people typically listen with the intent to reply. Habit 5 explores the essential communication skill of listening to truly understand, which helps us to avoid reading our own autobiographies into other people's lives. It opens us up to one another's perspectives, ideas, and emotions. Then real communication can happen, new and better ideas can be conceived, and everyone involved can learn from one another.

Having played the role of a student, postdoc, researcher, research faculty member, author, reviewer, and editor, Kasthurirangan "Rangan" Gopalakrishnan, PhD, fully understands and empathizes with the struggles and pleasures of academic work. In this book, his goal is to assist you to do what you are already doing more effectively and efficiently with minimal stress and possibly to identify and eliminate those activities and habits that interfere with your academic writing productivity.

The Student Leadership Challenge tailors one of the world’s most respected leadership models to students’ unique needs, and provides a proven pathway to success. Based on The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership, this book merges solid research with personal stories from real-world student leaders to help students develop the critical skills they need to lead both now and after graduation. Useful from high school to graduate school and beyond, these lessons are reinforced by reflective and critical thinking activities to help students internalize important concepts.

Are you earning what you're worth? Master negotiator Roger Dawson shows you how to get a better deal from your current employer and how to negotiate the best deal from a new employer. And you won't come off as greedy, overly aggressive, or selfish. In fact you'll learn how to win salary negotiations and still leave your boss feeling like he or she has actually won! You'll also learn how to become more valuable to your employer or prospective employer and how to develop power and control over your career and gain an amazing ability to get what you want.

Discover your voice’s true power. Learn exciting and simple techniques to maximize your vocal potential and overcome your fear of speaking in front of others. Corff Voice Studios has helped thousands of actors, speakers, and business moguls find their optimum voice. Whether for professional, personal, or financial gain, this program will help you to communicate persuasively and master your speaking goals.

Negotiation is hard. It’s especially tough when you feel like the underdog—whether you face a ‘Godzilla’ counterpart, face threats of budget cuts during a downturn, or know that you need a deal more than the other side does. Seth Freeman can help. Freeman is an award-winning professor who has taught negotiation to thousands of leaders and students.

One of the nicest ladies I ever met was a school teacher. I think we chatted for about 30 minutes and then I never saw her again. Thirty minutes. I seriously thought that I could trust this lady with all my deepest darkest secrets. After years of observation, I realized that all master small-talkers have a few things in common but the biggest things are the two keys that were shown to me so elegantly by that school teacher. Once I had mastered those, no small talk conversation was a nightmare anymore. In fact, I started to enjoy them.