When building a business or career, you are always conscious of your reputation and “brand.” And nothing can be more powerful or damaging than the things you say or talk about most. Below are three statements or conversations that people tend to frequently use or talk about that can be quite damaging or at the very least, annoying.
1. “Honestly “
Never use the preface “Honestly” or any of it’s variations. Your contacts would hope that you would always be honest with them, so why say it? You may view it as innocuous, but I view it as annoying and it can be viewed as a crutch when you aren’t one hundred percent secure in the dialogue or conversation. Watch out for other variations of being honest:
- To be honest with you…
- I am not going to lie…
- Honestly,
- To tell you the truth
If this is a bad habit you have developed and you need a temporary crutch, then use phrases that represent you being more blunt, direct or feeling explorative. People will always expect you to be honest with them, but may not always expect you to dump your feelings or being overly blunt.
2. Weekends
Stop talking about how you cannot wait until the weekend is here with your colleagues or clients. Yes, it’s important to know what your contacts do with their discretionary time but you don’t always have to be wishing the workdays away to get to the weekends. If you are always talking about being away from your profession, then it’s a cue that you are not passionate or enthusiastic about your career or business. So why do it? As with anything, there are exceptions to the rule if you have a certain event approaching.
3. Expenses and income
Stop discussing prices and how expensive things are all the time. This can be difficult to do because it seems like we are always spending money on something. Catch yourself. If you are always talking about the cost of things in a negative way then people will start believing you have a scarcity mentality. If the people you are conversing with are blind to it, then they may not think too abundantly themselves. Even sadder is the incessant dialogue around other people’s income. People who worry and talk too much about other people’s careers are often not concentrating enough on their own.
About
Eddy Ricci, Jr., has been labeled as “the emerging expert in developing Gen Y sales professionals” by the chairman of Publicis Kaplan Thaler and is also noted as “understanding what motivates Gen Y sales teams. He is on my radar and should be on yours” by international speaker and NY Times bestselling author, Erik Qualman. Eddy is the director of a unique training and development collaborative platform that services financial planning firms in the northeast where he has arguably worked with more Gen Y financial professionals than anyone in the country over the past four years. He is the founder of The Growth Game, LLC. ,a professional development company and has authored a book that holds the same title. Eddy is a certified coach and specializes in helping professionals develop sales skills, leadership approaches and implement business development activity systems.WWW.THEGROWTHGAME.COM
