Olympic Champions – a case of mind over matter?

The body is a marvellous thing and the lengths to which it can be pushed never fail to amaze me. The sportsmen and women who will be competing in Bejing next month have spent years of their lives in prepation for an event which lasts only sixteen days. These elite athelets may only have a few moments to achieve their ultimate goal of Olympic victory – and in these tense seconds it is the power of the mind that will really make the difference.

So what are the ingredients that combine to make an Olympic champion? Undoubtedly the hours they spend practising and honing their skills. Obviously genetics, dedication and physical prowess also play a vital part. But ask any champion and they will tell you that it is the proper mental preparation that separates bronze from gold.

As a cognitive hypnotherapist, I deal in the realities our brains create in response to a range of situations. In simple terms, I work out why one person acts a particular way in a specific situation, whilst another responds in a completely different way. So what enables Justin Gatlin (2004 Olympic 100 metre sprint champion) to storm away from the blocks whilst others are slow off the mark? It is only by uncovering the pattern behind the behaviour that it is possible to help effect real change.

As a cognitive hypnotherapist, I deal in the realities our brains create in response to situations that occur around us. In simple terms, I work out why one person runs away from a dog someone else is happily stroking, why someone can speak up confidently in some situations and feel a complete fool in others, and why one person can kick accurately anywhere, anytime, and another can’t. By uncovering the pattern behind the behaviour I use the most effective method to assist them in changing.

Sport is full of examples of highly skilled people who are let down by their mental processes. One most recent example is that of John Terry who missed a crucial penalty in the European Cup Final. It seems inconceivable that someone earning what he does for being able to kick a ball should miss something that most 12 years olds could score from. So, what went wrong? I suggest it was his mind, not his eyes or his feet, that let him down. And we’ve seen it many times before, with the likes of Tim Henman, Jana Novotna (unkindly dubbed the lady from Chokeoslovakia), Greg Norman and any England football player called to take a penalty. So what goes on? What turns a superb athlete into a choker? And what can be done about it?

In any situation your brain (in simplistic terms, your unconscious thought) is working out the likely consequences of the actions you could take, it then selects the one most likely to bring you the result it believes is most beneficial to you. This is your brain. Your unconscious works using a simple, reflexive form of thinking; its fast but can sometimes be wildly inaccurate. If the calculation the brain makes of your future is negative it will release chemicals into your body that were originally intended to protect you from sabre-toothed tigers. They increase your heart rate, your respiration, stop digestion and, if strong enough, shut down those parts of our brain responsible for logical, considered thinking.

This puts you into a state best described as a trance. Not one that will get you to dance like a chicken, but one that will cause you to sky the ball over the cross bar, or forget your name in an interview. Anyone who’s ever felt ‘hijacked’ at such moments will know what I’m describing, a loss of feeling in control – truly, strong emotions make us stupid. It’s this fight or flight response that causes someone to run from a friendly dog, shake in front of an interview panel, or fluff a shot at match point, all because our brain looks at the present situation and calculates the likely consequence. As you stand ready to make your serve, do you foresee an ace, or the laughter of your friends as you hit yourself on the head? As you stand to make a sales pitch do you foresee an enthusiastic reception, or a mass of shaking heads?

Context is highly significant: you could be cool as a cucumber serving for the championship at Wimbledon, but a nervous wreck afterwards at the prospect of speaking at the press conference. This is because the meaning of the present situation you’re in (whether it’s good or bad), and its anticipated outcome is based on calculations the brain makes based on your past.

For example, if a young child trips over at the school play they will feel disoriented by the surprise and will look around her for what it should mean. If she spots her parents looking supportive and encouraging she might interpret the crowd’s laughter as something positive, shake herself down, and carry on happily. If they look disapproving or embarrassed then she’s likely to interpret the laughter as being humiliating and perhaps run off the stage in tears. A dozen different children experiencing that same moment could end up with different interpretations, mainly based on a split-second interpretation by the brain.

This moment may become what is called a hub memory, one that is used by the brain to calculate the meaning of present or upcoming events. So, the next time she is in a similar situation – the brain foresees the possibility of future humiliation and begins to trigger the flight or fight response hormones to help her get ready to run away from it. This is likely to be experienced as nervousness, something that grows stronger the nearer she gets to the event.

By the time this new event arrives the nerves are so strong that it’s likely to cause the predicted outcome to come true – the idea of self-fulfilling prophecies has a strong element of scientific validation. She’s so nervous she feels a fool all over again and is unable to perform well.

Now imagine a string of such calculations stretching up to adulthood. Each subsequent event would mould the context so the same event could be the cause of interview nerves in one person, or sports performance anxiety in another, or both in someone else; the permutations are endless, which is what makes my work as a cognitive hypnotherapist so fascinating – every day is a detective story.

So if the brain creates a version of reality that causes people to underperform, what you can do about it. Most people do is to try to wrest control back from the brain and ‘deliberately’ serve, or kick, or run. In other words we try to consciously perform an action that is so practised it’s almost completely unconscious and make a hash of it. We need something to keep us out of our own way and leave our unconscious to perform the actions we’ve practised.

Method One: Anchoring

Has a record ever come on the radio that reminded you of a past event and left you feeling a particular emotion? These are called anchors and work on the stimulus-response mechanism first identified by Pavlov. Basically the principle is that if, at the moment you’re experiencing a strong emotion, a stimulus is paired with it (a song playing, a group of people watching you, a dog running at you), then the two become wired together in your neurology and one will trigger the other off in you. Those examples were negative, but they can also be used beneficially by pairing a stimulus or trigger with an emotion relevant to your performance. A powerful trigger is a smell because the response to it can’t be controlled – even if you know something is going to smell bad you’ll still recoil from it.

British athletes have used this for a while. During training, whenever they get into a good performance state – run a personal best, feel full of energy or confidence – they’ll focus on their feeling and inhale a smell that’s impregnated on a wrist band. The smell itself is usually just something they like, although some natural products have been shown to have particular effects (peppermint improves short-term recall). They’ll continue to ‘stack’ these states over a period of time so the smell becomes strongly evocative of the emotional state that accompanies a good performance. On the big day, before serving, or settling into the blocks, or….taking a penalty…they take a deep breath and reaccess the positive state. Try it. Songs are another good trigger, and physical pressure like squeezing a finger and thumb also work well. All of a sudden the mannerisms of top athletes might take on a different significance – ever notice Tiger Woods twirling his club?

Method Two.

If I tell you not to think of a blue tree what happens? If I tell you not to think of…missing that penalty…the problem is that the brain has to process a negative; it has to think of the blue tree to not think of a blue tree. A key maxim in any situation where you want to perform is to think it how you want it. Before a game rehearse how you want it to go, see yourself performing well – make it a picture where you see yourself in it, rather then through your own eyes, because research shows that makes it more compelling. Fall asleep thinking of a positive aspect of your performance because it will prime you to notice your qualities and not your faults. If you play a sport where you have a moment to prepare, like tennis, golf or set pieces in football or rugby, then ‘play forward’ the next thing you’re going to do in your mind – while firing your performance anchor – precisely the way you want it. So, as John Terry approaches the penalty spot he pauses, takes a deep breath of his wrist band, and sees himself running up and placing the ball in a precise part of the goal. It will probably help if he closes his eyes so the goalie doesn’t get a clue from where he’s looking. For Arsenal footballers that line will magically disappear and you won’t remember reading it. Repeat that rehearsal until the effect of the anchor feels strong and then take shot, get in the blocks etc.

Method Three.

Imagination is one of your most powerful tools. I work with the mind/body connection everyday and know of its power, but you don’t have to take my word for it; researchers have found that old people given the task of spending time each day imagining bench pressing actually got stronger – and put on muscle! Imagine that, changing your body shape just by thinking. Also, an experiment was done where basketball players of equal ability were separated into three groups. One practised shooting hoops, one imagined shooting hoops, and one sat around reading magazines. After the allotted time they were put back on the court and their ability re-accessed. Who do you think had improved the most? Those who imagined, because they sat and rehearsed shooting perfect baskets and their mirror neurons – neurons which imitate the actions of others (and in our imagination we trick the brain into treating ourselves as an ‘other’) stored this ‘map’ of shooting a hoop and used it when it was next performed physically. Those who’d physically practised failed on some of their efforts so the map was more flawed. So, practise doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent, so make sure that what is being made permanent in your muscle memory is the best possible representation of your skill. Set aside 10 minutes a day to mentally rehearse key aspects of your game. As before, see yourself doing it – you have to represent yourself to your brain as an ‘other’ – and really focus. That’s why I suggest doing it for no more than 10 minutes, any longer and your concentration tends to drift.

There are many other things that modern psychology can teach us in order to improve our performance, and often they come from unrelated fields of study. One thing is for sure, in any contest between evenly matched opponents it’s going to be the mind factor that makes a difference – and sometimes it will against someone who is physically superior to you – remember Buster Douglas against Mike Tyson? So if you want to make headway, do head work.

This entry was written by a client of The Ideal Marketing Company – Trevor Silvster who is MD of The Quest Institute www.questinstitute.co.uk  

Whilst it is important to allocate a significant percentage of your marketing budget on obtaining new customers, I always advise my clients that they should really be spending between 25 – 50% of their marketing budget on their existing customers.

Why?

Because if you look after your existing customer base well, you will hardly need to look for new business; your existing customers will stay with you for longer, spend more with you and be happy to refer you to their contacts.

If you have an unhappy customer base who think badly of your company, you will forever be recruiting new customers.  Every customer who leaves you for your competition will take with them their harsh words and resentment.  How much better is it for your business to have kind words and repeat business?

Consider This: A client calls your business, the call is handled poorly. Perhaps the enquiry is for a simple job – it isn’t worth much. You, or your receptionist, are busy and the caller doesn’t receive the attention they deserve. They decide to go elsewhere and use one of your competitors.  You already have plenty of customers anyway, so it’s no big loss.

How much has that cost you?  £100? It’s no big deal.

Here is another way to look at it.

Imagine that call is handled well and the customer orders from you.  Because you did a good job, they then continue to order from you again – say on average, twice a year.  This pattern continues for the next ten years.  Let’s also assume that, because of the good service they receive, they recommend your services to just two people a year who also become customers.

The first year, this totals £200 from the original, customer plus £400 from the other two new customers – £600 in total.  Not quite so easy to shake off. Perhaps a few more minutes on the call would have been justified?

The second year, the customer still spends £200, and recommends you to an additional two customers, plus the two recommended from the previous year. This now comes to £1,000 worth of business.  By the end of year ten, this now totals £4,200 worth of new business generated by that one original customer. In fact, over the ten year period this works out at an amazing £24,000 worth of business. From one neglected phone call.   

The following 37 tips  will aim to assist you in

a) Keeping your customers for longer
b) Making customers keen to spend more with you
c) Making customers want to refer business to you

37 Ways To Create Happy Customers

1. Encourage feedback at all stages so that you can discover what the customer is really thinking.

2. Keep in touch.  Most customers leave because of ‘perceived indifference’- that means that you didn’t necessarily do a bad job, it just means that you didn’t keep in touch enough.  You might not have the time to call every customer personally, but you do have enough time to send out a newsletter, an e-mail newsletter or even a postcard to customers on at least a bi-monthly basis.

3. Web site and information – added value.  If you are good at what you do, the chances are that you know things that are useful to your customers. By keeping all that information to yourself, you might think you are being clever, but in fact by sharing at least a portion of that information with your customers you do two things in their eyes.  First of all, you demonstrate what an expert you really are and secondly, you appear generous.  Newsletters, seminars and websites are all places where you can share that knowledge with your customers and potential customers to enhance your reputation.

4. Avoid misunderstandings.  The quality of your verbal communication is very important in keeping a customer happy by making sure that everything is understood.

5. Value for money.  You may be expensive, but if you represent value in the eyes of the customer, then they will be happy.  Take a restaurant.  We expect to pay one price for a lunch in a burger chain and quite a different price in an exclusive restaurant.  Both experiences of eating are very different, but both can represent ‘value for money’ as it is the overall eating experience we pay for.

6. Listen to what your customers tell you.  People value being listened to very highly.  If you can be one of the few people who will listen carefully to what your customer wants, and show that you understand by delivering their request, you will stand out amongst all of their suppliers.

7. Really care about your customers.  Take notes about when their birthday is, who their children are, hobbies and interests etc.  This creates a far deeper level of communication and shows that you are interested in them as individuals.

8. Encourage complaints.  Do you know what most people do when they hear a customer complain?  They think of a reason why the complaint is not valid.  When a customer complains, they are telling you that they want to keep using you despite the problem, but would prefer to do business with you if you could sort it out.  For every customer that TELLS you about a problem, 10 customers may have experienced the same problem and gone elsewhere or are getting progressively more annoyed by it.  When a customer tells you something is wrong, listen and then ask them if anything else is wrong.  Most people treat complaining customers with contempt, when in fact, they act as an early warning system alerting you to the majority of customers who will sit in silence and then quickly leave you ‘for no reason’ one day.

9. Avoid confusion. If you have a contract, make it so simple that it can be explained in a paragraph.  If you are doing work on a customer’s behalf, make sure that they understand exactly what you are doing and when.  Don’t do anything that you think will confuse or frustrate your customer – just keep things simple and clear.

Help that is above and beyond
10. Source new suppliers.  Does your customer have problems with some of their suppliers?  If you know of a good alternative, pass those details on.  Make a habit of collecting details of reliable and good value suppliers who you can pass onto customers if the need arises.

11. Be easy to do business with.  Do people have to spend ages chasing you down?  Does everything have to be done in triplicate?  Are your opening hours restrictive and your staff suspicious?  Break down all barriers and make it as easy as possible for anybody to do business with you. Make them feel significant and wanted every time they want to part with their hard earned cash.

12. Take action.  If you are asked about something that you don’t know the answer to, say you will get back with the answer and make sure you do.  Get known as a person who follows up words with actions and results.

13. More is more. One of the reasons we love going on holiday to Crete is that when you go out for a meal, you often receive more than you bargained for.  Puddings will turn up without being ordered or a bottle of dessert wine will arrive with 2 glasses.  In Greece it is a sign of friendship.  How lovely to receive a little something extra that is unexpected – try treating your customers to more than they bargained for.

13. Demonstrate care.  If you care for your customer, show them.  If you don’t, perhaps a competitor will.

Staff
14. Employ good staff.  If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys as the old saying goes.  Your staff are your company in the eyes of many customers.  What are your staff like?  Would you be proud to have your company represented by them?  Do they have an excellent attitude – always keen to help and sort out a customer’s problem?

15. Sort mistakes FAST.  We all make mistakes and errors happen.  One of the ways that a customer judges your business is how quickly you accept that you have made a mistake and how quickly you sort it out.  If you have got something wrong, it is down to you to correct it as quickly as possible, minimising its impact on the customer.

16. Don’t worry, be happy.  Do you like your customer? If not, what are you doing talking to them?  If you know you are a grumpy, backroom boy then spend as little time talking to customers as you can and put somebody who loves dealing with customers in the front line.

17. Be honest.  Be honest with your customers at all times.  If you ever try shading the truth or telling an outright lie it will come back to haunt you in the end.  If you can do something, tell them, if you can’t, tell them, if you are too busy to do a proper job, tell them.  Your customers will appreciate your honesty and admire your integrity.

18. People buy from people.  Remember that you don’t really buy from companies. You really buy from the people who work for that company.  If a customer leaves, it is often because the person (account manager, shop worker etc.) just wasn’t giving them the service they required.

19. Be positive.  We’ve all got problems, but if your customer asks you how you are, don’t use that as an excuse to talk about all your problems or badmouth your other customers.  I have stopped using companies because (even if I didn’t ask) the owner seemed to use me as an agony aunt for all the wrongs in his world.  It wasted my time and left me feeling depressed every time I called him!

20. Be good at what you do.  At the end of the day, you have to be good at what you do if you are going to retain customers for the long term.  Every piece of training you and your staff undertake will help to retain customers.  Don’t short change your customers by skimping on the constant training or re-training of your staff.  Invest in the best systems, equipment and people that you can afford to make sure that when people come you, they are getting the best and can be confident that you will do everything you can to stay the best.

21. Innovate.  Earl Nightingale said that “it’s not good to get into a rut because a rut is nothing more than a grave with the ends kicked out.”  If you are not constantly looking for new, faster, cheaper, more exciting ways of doing things then the chances are your competitors are.  And if you look at what happens to companies without competitors, you see what unwieldy, slow moving, bureaucratic organisations they become – until competition comes along and offers a better service for half the price.  Always be looking to innovate and give your customer a better deal.

21. Customer care manager.  Do you have one?  I know of companies with only three staff who have a customer care manager.  Even if it’s not a full time role, it shows your customers that you take their concern seriously.

Being OK is not enough
22. Be innovative and different. In today’s crowded marketplace it is important to stand out from the competition.  Make sure your customers remember you for being the company that is always changing, always improving, always coming up with great new ideas.

23. Exceed expectations. It is no longer good enough to be OK.  If possible, always aim to exceed your customer’s expectations.  Promise to deliver by Tuesday, but deliver by Monday lunchtime. Deliver extra items with no charge.  Drop off personalised gifts such as mugs or calendars.

24. Thank you.  Every time somebody gives you business, make sure you say thank you – and mean it.  These are two words that everybody likes to hear.

25. Don’t create a product and figure out a way to sell it.  Find out a need and work out a way to satisfy it.  What do your customers genuinely need?  Ask them what it is and then work out a way of either adapting or creating a product to fill that need.

26. Customer charter.  Create a customer charter or guarantee that sets out to any customer and member of staff exactly what should be expected.  Set your standards high and do everything in your power to stick to them.

27. Introduce a money back guarantee scheme.  If you do business by post you need to offer a 30 day money back guarantee anyway.  Smart businesses do a lot with this.  Most companies try to bury it in the small print.  If you are selling something that you are proud of, you shouldn’t want people to pay for it if they don’t want it anyway.

28. Exit survey.  Why has that customer stopped using you?  What did they like, what did they hate?  When most customers leave we have no idea why they went.  If you take the time to ask them, there is statistically more chance that they will one day come back (if only to see if you have smartened up your act) and you will stop others going the same way. You should already be doing this with staff who move on, so why not find out why customers are too?  You might uncover some uncomfortable information, but it could be key information that could turn around your company.

29. Keep your word.  If you say you are going to do something, then do it.  Become known as the person who keeps their word. Ask customers what they want from you.  Do they want more contact, less contact, more / less information etc.  It’s always a good idea to be led by the customer; because what you think might be a useful regular update might be time wasting junk as far as the customer is concerned.

30. The golden rule – do unto others as you would have done to you.  If you stick by this rule when it comes to customers, you won’t go too far wrong.

31. Speed stuns.  It is said that in restaurants, the speed and quality of waiter service is rated as more important than the food.  That’s quite interesting if you consider why people go to a restaurant!  The speed of your response will make a big difference to the experience and opinions of your customers.  If you can solve problems swiftly, you will win over any customers and win new friends.

32. Take responsibility.  Things will go wrong in life – have you noticed?  Most suppliers and most of your competitors will blame everybody and anybody instead of themselves, but because you take responsibility when something goes wrong, you will tell the customer the words they want to hear.  “I will take complete responsibility for sorting this out.  Let me look into it, find out exactly what the situation is and I’ll get back to you with an answer by X o’clock”  And even if you don’t know everything you hoped you would by that time, call them back when you said you would.  Would you like to deal with a company that says that when things go wrong? I know I would!

33. Encourage referrals.  What gets rewarded gets repeated.  If you send a thank you letter and voucher when a new client is gained as a result of a referral, do you think your customers will do it again?  By making it clear that you appreciate the effort they have made to refer business to you, you are making it much more likely that you will continue to receive business in this way.  It is not so much the gift; it is more the fact that you have taken the trouble to acknowledge the kind referral from a customer.

34. The most important people in your company are your customers.  Accept this, believe it and make sure everybody else in the company believes it too.  In some companies, customers are viewed as an inconvenience that gets in the way of getting the job done.  There would be no job, no wages and no company without them so remember who pays your mortgage, for your holidays and puts food on your table. Thank them and be grateful for them every day.

35. Get together with customers at social events, restaurants or other places away from the office or factory floor.  This change of scenery help you to be seen as more of a friend than a supplier and helps to foster deeper, more productive long term relationships.

36. Avoid silly mistakes.  When we rush it is all too easy to make simple mistakes.  These reduce your credibility in everybody’s eyes.  We all make the odd slip, but concentrate on making a great job of everything you do.  Don’t accept mistakes as inevitable, many of them can be avoided with some thought, preparation and attention to detail.  Remember, in most cases, the quality of the job will be remembered longer than the time it was delivered in.

37. Aim for consistency.  There is a large telecoms / cable company I deal with that is 90% bad and 10% OK when you call them up for service. The few times I get my hopes up, only to be dashed when the promised delivery never arrives or the scheduled repair man doesn’t turn up.  As customers, we like to know where we are.  That’s why we like dealing with one person organisations – if that one person is good.  We know that we will get a good level of service from them.  If you have a good attitude towards customers, it’s important that any new staff you take on are briefed and trained in this.  Wouldn’t it be great if your customers felt that ‘no matter who you talk to, someone will help you out?’  There is nothing worse than playing Russian roulette with a company’s call centre.  One day you get a little star, the next you get somebody who would clearly rather be elsewhere.

Booking are coming in quickly for the September evening seminar. 12 people are so far confirmed on the session.  Whilst there is plenty of time and plenty of spaces, it makes sense to reserve your places now to avoid disapointment.

Alastair Campbell has recently written an article for the IOD (Institute of Directos) on how to use marketing to avoid the ecconomic slowdown. 

To read the article in full just click the link to the IOD website.

http://www.director.co.uk/ONLINE/marketing_11_06.html

To find out more marketing ideas that you can use to avoid the worst of ecconomic slowdown come to the next free marketing seminar at Hothorpe Hall in Leicestershire on September 17th at 6pm.  Admission is free and you can bring up to 3 friends with you – but please book in advance as these events are usually over subscribed. 

Next Free Marketing Seminar event announced for September 08

The next free marketing seminar event has been announced as September 17th at Hothorpe Hall.  This will take place from 6pm and cover the 17 key marketing ideas that evey company should impliment.

The event is free but must be reserved in advance by calling 01858 44 55 43 or by e-mail mentor@idealmarketingcompany.com