What is the value of being approachable?

If you ask Scott Ginsberg, the answer is, “priceless.

Scott knows more than a thing or two about being approachable. For the last eleven years, he’s worn a name tag EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. He’s even taken it one step further — he’s had his name tag tattooed on his chest.

This high energy marketing student turned entrepreneur and author of thirteen books is now walking talking life changing expert on approachability and the good fortune it brings.

His newest book, The Nametag Principle captures over an entire decades worth of rock candy solid, hard earned lessons learned on how to attract people and get more opportunities in your life.

The pages are filled with a years’ worth of crisp, hard-hitting actions, organized by month, with each days’ reading containing a daily dose of brain candy, all designed to galvanize you into taking action and making daily strides to become more engaging, more joinable, more human and more approachable.

Here’s an excerpt from the month of February:

A friend of mine recently purchased an online sales training course for his employees. When I asked why his salespeople liked the program so much, his answer surprised me:  “Because it’s fun. We can get good content anywhere. But the personality of this program is what makes it so cool.”

JUST AS I SUSPECTED: Nobody buys boring, nobody notices normal and nobody pays for average.

As my friend Rohit so eloquently suggested in his must-read book, Personality Not Included, “People don’t sue doctors they like.”

Your challenge is to figure out which unique attribute of your personality, life experience and expertise you can leverage in a remarkable way. Put values before vocation, individuality before industry and personality before profession.

After all, people buy people first.

How are you leading with your person and following with your profession?

Business people in corporations, governments and organizations all over the world are well advised to take his lessons learned and incorporate them into their culture if they are to survive and thrive in a world

Ginsberg is on a global mission to teach people all about how being approachable can produce dramatic improvements in work environments, cultures, relationships between people and their customers, and in profits.

“When you wear a name tag, people know that you want them to be free to engage you in conversation.  It’s an invitation that tells people ‘Approach me, introduce your self. It’s OK!’ says Scott. That’s they way you want to be seen as a manager and that’s the way you want your people to be seen.”

“When people see you as approachable all sorts of opportunities open up.”

Through a VERY generous offer from Scott, ESB Journal is able to offer his awesome new book for FREE! No strings, no opt-in necessary. You can download your copy by clicking this link.

You know what would be REALLY GREAT?

If you’d take a moment and SHARE this link with your friends and colleagues — help us get the word out about Scott’s book, and help him spread the message of approachability, and it’s value to your overall business success. Use the links at the bottom of this article. Thanks!

About the Author
Scott Ginsberg is a fun, lively, energetic and experienced media guest who has been interviewed and featured in USA Today, CNN, NBC, 20/20, Fast Company, Redbook, the Wall St. Journal and dozens of radio and tv talk shows across the nation. Scott is a regular contributor to the St. Louis Small Business Monthly, INSTORE Magazine, PR Canada and Expert Village. His conversational, content-rich articles have appeared in hundreds of online and offline publications worldwide. Also, his work has been reprinted in dozens of textbooks and resource guides.

His other books include Stick Yourself Out There, The Approachable Salesperson, The Approachable Manager, The Approachable Frontline, The Power of Approachability, How to Be That Guy, Hello, My Name is Scott, and Make a Name for Yourself. Visit him online at http://www.hellomynameisscott.com.

Ries’ forthcoming book, THE LEAN STARTUP, is anticipated to be a bestseller and is already among Amazon’s top 100 in the management category months before its release.

Meanwhile, ultra-successful companies like Groupon and Dropbox are putting Ries’ ideas to work to remarkable effect, and the likes of Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus, and Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit, joined Ries as keynote speakers at Lean Startup’s 2nd Annual Startup Lessons Learned Conference on May 23rd in San Francisco.

But for Ries, who co-founded IMVU, a social entertainment company with 40 million users and $3 million in monthly revenue, the real barometer of Lean Startup’s success are the 100,000-plus people who have created their own “Lean Startup Meetups” in cities around the world. At the Meetups, entrepreneurs gather to apply Ries’ approach to their own business projects, posting videos, projects, and results on Ries’ http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/.

“Startups are the lifeblood of the American economy,” says Ries, “In the past two decades, they have accounted for nearly all the net job growth in our country.”

It’s a surprising realization: American job growth is no longer driven by steelworks and car plants, as it once was, but by innovation and entrepreneurship. Today’s biggest job-driving companies – Google, Yahoo, Intel, eBay – were born as startups. As America’s economy continues to shift, jobs and growth will depend on startups to an even greater extent.

This shift has put the spot light on Reis who has caught the attention of President Obama who asked the U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra to specifically ask Ries to advise on ways the government can successfully create entrepreneurship initiatives.

What this also means to Ries is that revitalizing the U.S. economy is really about maximizing every American startup’s chances for success. Lean Startup is the first business movement to do exactly this, and it’s doing it with a surprising degree of success – even for a startup.

Despite status quo statistics-women earn 75 percent of what men earn; women hold only 15 percent of C-level positions in the U.S.-and a challenging economy, the almost-constant changes to the way we communicate, interact, innovate, and do business today are setting up an opportunity-filled future for women. Why? Because the qualities that are valued in today’s socially driven culture-participation, engagement, collaboration, relationship-building, an appreciation for the greater good-come naturally to most women, points out Vickie Milazzo. She says women simply have to be willing to reach out and grab the coming opportunities.

“No wickedly successful woman ever got anywhere waiting for the economy to get better or for women to suddenly become as valued as men in the workplace,” says Milazzo. “The rise in social media and most importantly a growing appreciation for collaboration, participation, and relationship-building have created a perfect storm for entrepreneurial and enterprising women. These qualities are at the very heart of what women do best.

“Men certainly exhibit many of these qualities. But women synthesize these strengths into a potent energy that is distinctively female, and we should not be afraid to express them. Women have every advantage right now. It’s time for more women to harness their strengths. We’ve never been better positioned to make our mark.”

Read on for a few feminine factors that make women primed to succeed in the social revolution and how you can take advantage of them:

Women aren’t afraid to take action. Whether it’s getting worldwide attention for a new product through a viral video, building support for an important cause through Twitter, or using Facebook to report a nation’s revolution, there’s no denying that social media has made taking action easier than ever before. “Successful women know how and when to take action,” says Milazzo.

“They know that success is not about what you do when the road ahead is golden and every dip and turn smoothes your way. It’s about how you respond when you hit the biggest, nastiest roadblock of all time. By taking action every day, you develop the habits and discipline to make your vision a reality. When you focus not just on the idea but on making it happen, you stay in motion, not merely dreaming your passions but living them.”

Women aren’t afraid to ask for help. Be it through message boards, questions posted on Facebook, or informative YouTube videos, much of what makes social media so appealing is its capacity to help us help each other. And because women have often had to fight for everything they’ve achieved in the business world, helping each other has become a common practice.

“I pioneered the industry of legal nurse consulting, so there was no one to teach me how to do what I set out to do,” says Milazzo. “Yet I didn’t feel alone. I gathered the biggest CEOs and successful business owners in the country-at least those who’d written a book-and devoured everything I could find about launching a business. I became a successful student of business strategy for life. Some of the best advice I received when I started my business was ‘Vickie, you will encounter many challenges you will not know how to handle. But there’s always someone out there who has already successfully handled that very challenge.’ Intelligent women know what they don’t know and when to seek answers. Smart women appreciate that what works today won’t necessarily work tomorrow, and aggressive learning is a competitive advantage to achieving any desired goal.”

Women know how to trust their intuition. The concept that women are more in touch with instinctive inner guidance is so intrinsic to our culture that most people (even men) accept it without expecting any scientific explanation. On the side of science, the larger splenium of the corpus callosum accounts for greater interconnectivity between the left and right hemispheres of women’s cognitive brains. Some scientists believe this broader connection enables women to access both sides faster and easier than men. Women are not more “right-brained,” as is the myth; their brain functions are actually more holistic and generalized. Women fluently engage the limbic brain, where higher emotions are stored, and the instinctive brain, which is responsible for self-preservation. This holistic combination of emotion, instinct, and cognition equates to women’s intuition.

“Many of our social interactions are driven by intuition,” notes Milazzo. “We can instinctively sense if we should or shouldn’t ask a friend why she’s upset or whether to continue a conversation that is heading down the wrong path. Does it make sense to have such an extraordinary tool and not use it? Not in my book. By trusting my intuition, I created a new industry where a void formerly existed. My intuition told me lawyers needed nurses, even if they didn’t know it yet themselves. If anyone ever tells you one person can’t accomplish anything big, or you shouldn’t go against the odds, don’t believe it. Intuition worked for me. And it will work for you. It all starts with your intuitive vision.”

Women are great relationship-builders. Most women want to give their all to every relationship they have, be it with a coworker, significant other, child, family member, friend, client, etc.-and when they can’t, they often feel guilty. Our complex society of family, friends, career, and spiritual and social obligations constantly pulls us in different directions. Social media adds yet another layer of complexity, and our always-on devices give us instant access to the world via email, texting, and Skype, but they also give the world instant access to us. Opportunities to commit bombard us at every turn. For many women, it leads them to over-commit in relationships, but when tempered to a manageable scale, this willingness to build relationships sets women up for great success today.

“When you’re in pursuit of a great opportunity, one source you can count on for harvesting more energy is positive relationships,” says Milazzo. “We all know at least one person who lifts our spirits and makes us feel more alive. It might be your mother, your spouse, a good friend, your children, or, if you’re truly fortunate, all of them. Surround yourself with positive relationships, especially with those who support your passions, and you will be eternally rechargeable.”

Women are natural multi-taskers. How many things can you do at once? How many things can your spouse or significant other do at once? Chat up any group of women with a variety of talents, emotions, and intelligence and you’ll find most of them are juggling a dozen different projects, a handful of important relationships, and at least one pressing dilemma. Women excel at multi-tasking-a true leg up in a world that is constantly asking us to do more, more, more.

“Flexible and adaptable, women handle unexpected change gracefully,” says Milazzo. “We’re not thrown by 10 things hitting us at once-that won’t wreck our day. We’re wired for agility. Hand a woman an iPhone and you turn her into a captain of high-tech industry. She’ll set appointments, answer email, snap and send photos to friends and family, update Facebook, arrange a party, make dinner reservations, and text her husband to pick up the dry cleaning. We’ve learned to bend technology to fit our needs and increase our agility for handling more complex situations at increasingly higher and faster levels.”

Women know how to collaborate. The rising use of Wikis and other collaborative software indicates the rapid acceptance of a growing need to share knowledge, ideas, and energies. Office technology has advanced to provide a platform for sharing, reviewing, editing, and completely rethinking documents or graphics. Documents that were passed around in brown office envelopes from desk to desk for sign-off can be accessed by workers anywhere there’s a computer. As our workforce has gone global, software has permeated the vacuum created when we are unable to meet simultaneously.

“It’s only when we come together and engage in conversation that we raise new questions and think of possibilities at a collective level we would not have considered on our own,” notes Milazzo. “Collaboration is not just connecting with people. It’s also an attitude of helpfulness. Wickedly successful women know that playing nice is a sign of strength. Inside every woman is a natural collaborator. That’s a wicked advantage we have as women, an intellectual edge we can leverage for using our genius at the highest possible level.”

Women know the importance of mutual support. Fusion occurs when you merge diverse, distinct, or separate elements into a unified whole. More and more that is exactly what is happening in our highly connected global society. Women, it seems, benefit from this connectedness more than men. According to a landmark UCLA study on managing stress, the bonds women form with each other also benefit their health and longevity. The hormone oxytocin, enhanced by estrogen and released as part of their stress response, encourages them to gather with other women. The bond that forms helps to fill emotional gaps and lowers the risk of early death. Men experiencing stress go into a fight-or-flight response. Women’s broader response system may explain why they consistently outlive men.

“When women come together and share their passions, visions, experiences, fears, and promises, an amazing bond occurs,” says Milazzo. “From that bond emerge sparks of brilliance and insight that none of these women alone, or in any other combination, could have inspired. Female fusion is a truly powerful force.”

Women understand the power of giving. Milazzo writes that one of her favorite things about social media is that within seconds you can lift up a person’s day, and in doing so lift yours up too.

“One of my best friends will often Facebook, text, or leave me quick voicemail messages reminding me she’s thinking about me,” says Milazzo. “She always ends them with ‘Love you.’ I get a big smile from each one. She makes my day.

“Giving does not always mean pulling out your wallet. Time is a valuable gift. Mentoring is a valuable gift. Spiritual or emotional support is a valuable gift. Sending a person positive thoughts costs nothing and benefits you as much as the people you’re thinking about. If there’s something you want more of, give it away. If you want more money, encouragement, or love, give it today and you will receive it tomorrow, but not necessarily from the people you give it to. It comes through other manifestations. By giving back, I have received more abundance in every aspect of my life than I ever dreamed possible.”

In her book, Milazzo writes about an East African tribe that became famous for its rain dances because they were 100 percent successful. Members of rival tribes with low to mediocre success rates jealously theorized that the tribe had better dancers, special steps, more powerful chants, or more sincere prayers, or that their costumes, feathered accoutrements, and masks made the difference. Finally, they claimed it was simply luck that made the gods smile on that one fortunate tribe but not on their own.
After observing the “lucky” tribe’s practices, an anthropologist uncovered the secret to their success rate. He was surprised that it was so simple. They had no special powers, no magical interventions. They simply danced their rain dance until it rained.

“They never quit, never gave in to their exhaustion, and never grew despondent over how long it took for the rain to come,” notes Milazzo. “They expected it would always rain when they danced, and their experience supported their belief. They just kept dancing, knowing that sooner or later the gods would be satisfied and reward their persistence with rain. Rewarded they were-every single time.

“This is one of the most basic and simple secrets to wicked success,” she concludes. “It’s always easier to quit the dance but much more rewarding to dance on. And that’s what most of us women have been doing for centuries. We’ve fought for everything we’ve achieved. Now, as the world becomes more and more flat, as consumers become more engaged in the way companies do business, as diversity programs open doors for more women and minorities, it’s about to start raining. To take advantage, you simply need to have the wherewithal to keep dancing and go for your wicked success.”

About the Author:
Vickie Milazzo, RN, MSN, JD, is author of Wicked Success Is Inside Every Woman. From a shotgun house in New Orleans to owner of a $16-million business, Wall Street Journal best-selling author Milazzo shares the innovative success strategies that earned her a place on the Inc. list of Top 10 Entrepreneurs and Inc. Top 5000 Fastest-Growing Companies in America. She is the owner of Vickie Milazzo Institute, an education company she founded in 1982. Featured in the New York Times as the pioneer of a new profession, she built a professional association of 5,000 members.

For more information, visit http://wickedsuccess.com.

Regardless of their position or job description, there’s an opportunity for all levels of workers to be salespeople, ambassadors, promoters, and cheerleaders for your company–and boost your profits and sales revenues in the process.

Here are 8 ways to make sales and profit promotion part of every person’s job description.

Create an easy-to-follow “package” for employees.
Come up with a bulleted list of messages about your products and services that tell a story, illustrate value, and trigger positive emotions. In every phone call, email, and face-to-face meeting, encourage employees to engage the client or potential client in a conversation that conveys your company’s valuable offerings, reinforces the company’s brand, and boosts its reputation. This isn’t about “overselling” for a person who is a nonsalesperson. It’s about subtle message-spreading. When everyone is speaking the same language and delivering a compelling message, it builds a powerful image of your company and the people behind it.

Make email an everyday marketing tool.
For every email that leaves your office, create a tagline below the signature that promotes the website, has the company logo, emphasizes the mission statement, links to a blog, or even offers a service. Adding a pertinent article link in the email, such as a new research study or a hot trend, is a good way to get your company’s information passed along virally when receivers forward that great link to others.

The body of emails, too, can house reference links, videos, and researched material pertinent to a client’s questions, which makes them selling tools. And emails to business peers, vendors, and nonclients are as important as any professional client correspondence because you never know where a new client is lurking. Respectfully ask your employees to pay attention to grammar, spelling, accuracy, and email etiquette.

In face-to-face encounters, look sharp and be positive.
Whether it’s a face-to-face meeting, a service call, or a web conference, insist that employees dress appropriately, arrive promptly, and treat the client with utmost respect. A company with consistently well-dressed, considerate, articulate professionals then becomes part of your brand and image. And finding a way to say “yes” instead of “no” when answering a client’s question will go a long way in creating a positive image.

Recruit profit-boosting talent from within.
Every employee has a hidden talent that can be tapped to promote the business and improve profitability. For example, which of your employees has a knack for Facebook or Twitter? Who has a design flare to help update the company website? Who writes with sparkle and pizzazz, and might be a great blogger? Which of your employees is good with web conferencing, online forums, and CRM software? You can also diversify tasks departmentally. For example, your HR department can learn to be astute in locating potential sales opportunities. Your part-time receptionists could research market trends online. At a brainstorming meeting, ask employees what ideas and hidden skills they have for generating more profits and sales. You’ll be surprised by what they come up with.

Foster and inspire self-growth.
One of the best ways to improve your company’s image, performance, and profits is by raising the caliber of your employees. But here’s the catch: Motivate your existing employees to bump up their skills rather than trying to find outsiders to do the tasks. To promote self-growth efforts that aren’t job mandated, it’s useful to copy the tactics of large corporations. These include: starting an in-house newsletter; setting up roundtables, conferences, lunchtime meetings, and webinars; and rewarding employees’ self-driven accomplishments and development.

Build a pro-company attitude.
The easiest way to get everyone at your company rooting and working for its success is to formally ask employees what’s working and what’s not working. Ask these same questions of clients. The trick is to show everyone involved in your company that you are listening and want to make things as good as they can possibly be. When you find problems, fix them. When you are looking for solutions, always keep sales and profitability in the forefront of the equation.

Enlist club members–from your ranks.
Encourage employees to join the club. Everyone at your business should be using your products and services-and swearing by them. What’s needed is complete buy-in and dedication of the staff to the company so that insiders and outsiders both can sense and respect the pride and work ethic behind the door of the business. If you have a staff of 30, that’s 30 salespeople talking about your products and services to family, friends, friends of friends, and casual acquaintances after hours. You couldn’t pay salespeople to do that!

Actively promote team spirit.
Come up with fun and meaningful activities that demand cooperation and that foster team spirit among your workforce. For instance, sponsor a community event; have a company barbecue; hold a volleyball tournament; or get involved in a charitable cause. The more your employees come to see the company as their extended family, the more loyal they’ll be. Close-knit, loyal employees will be motivated to go above and beyond the call of duty to help their company succeed.

About the Author:
Patricia Sigmon is a successful entrepreneur, a sought-after speaker, and one of our leading experts in the field of profit management. She is founder and president of David Advisory Group http://www.DavidAdvisoryGroup.com, a boutique firm that specializes in helping CEOs and small and midsized businesses reengineer their business practices to generate more profit, cut inefficiency, and optimize their earning potential.

“It is far more powerful to invest in brains than dollars. Quite often, the less you spend on marketing (certainly before you devleop a code-breaking message that can generate high levels of ROI), the more powerful the force you can set in motion for creating the internal combustion that drives the enterprise.”

In Your Company Sucks: It’s Time to Declare War on Yourself, author Mark Stevens, is back with his straight-talk style that made “Your Marketing Sucks” and “Your Management Sucks” bestsellers.

Stevens details WHY all businesses fail and how every business can rebound from its lows and regain its momentum without over-spending on fancy marketing campaigns.

Accept that developing or revising a company’s business model so that it thrills its customers does not require major infusions of capital. It take thought in the form of fresh, original, iconoclastic, and unconventional thinking

Declare War on the quality of your product and services and on complacency.

Focus on answering, “What can we do that will truly surprise and exhilirate our customers?”

And “How can we change the traditional operating model in our business to one that is truly unique and, in fact, breaks the rules?”

Appoint a Chief Customer Officer who has the power to make certain that every one of the company’s strategies and tactics is designed with the customer in mind.

About the Author:
Mark Stevens is the CEO of MSCO, the global marketing and management consultancy and a popular media commentator on a host of business matters including marketing, branding, management, and sales. Stevens is known for delivering business insights with blunt truths and unconventional wisdom.

Stevens’ wildly successful blog, “Unconventional Thinking,” is ranked among the “Top 10 Marketing Blogs in the World” by http://blogged.com.

Stevens is an in-demand speaker at organizations from Wharton to RE/MAX. He is a commentator on the Fox Business Network and frequent media guest on NPR, Bloomberg, and others.

At the center sits Millennials, controlling their world via cell phones, laptops, iPods, and iPads. But, what are these elusive and complex creatures thinking? What do they care about? How strong is their purchasing power? And who will actually earn their discerning dollars, and why?

Whether you’re a business professional trying to decode the $43 billion youth market, a marketer looking for a message that connects, or an entrepreneur trying to develop youth-oriented products, Chasing Youth Culture and Getting It Right gives readers an unparalleled field guide to the newest wave of millennials and their mindsets.

Inside this unique book, you’ll meet four major tribes: the Wired Techie, The Conformist But Somewhat Paradoxical Preppy, The Always-Mellow Alternative, and The Cutting-Edge Independent, and understand their key traits, likes and dislikes, and what kind of adult they will likely become. The book includes many examples of companies, brands, and organizations who chased the youth demographic and got it right, or who failed to nail their audience. It also explains such concepts as Warholism, Tweenabees, Hand-me-ups, Massclusivity, The Facebook Effect, and Instantity.

Author and “teen whisperer” Tina Wells explains that millennials are “more wired, interconnected and aware than any generation before them, Millennials hold great power to launch and sustain brands that impact America’s cultural landscape – and the economy at large.”

Recent studies into the attitudes and spending habits of millennials yielded surprising facts, including:

• Tweens spend $43 billion annually, which translates to about $2,047 per tween
• Young people in droves are using the Internet for shopping: a whopping 84% of respondents in our survey claim to shop online regularly
• 61% of teens hear about new products online, while 15% still hear about them from friends
• 99% percent of teens have a Facebook page
• 36% of high school students claim that they would delay or forego college due to costs

Wells’ new book, Chasing Youth Culture and Getting it Right: How Your Business Can Profit by Tapping Today’s Most Powerful Trendsetters and Tastemakers, shares insights that can help businesses adjust their marketing efforts in order to take full advantage of these trends.

Among the topics covered in the book include:

• Traits of this generation’s four main tribes – the Wired Techies, the Conformist but Somewhat Paradoxical Preppies, the Always Mellow Alternatives, and the Cutting Edge Independents

• How technology is rewiring the New Millennial

• What Millennials buy and why

• The coming of the Global Mobile: How the New Millennials will shape the future

• Why Millennials don’t like the U.S. two party political system, very likely to pass away

• Importance and impact of concepts like Warholism, Tweenabees, Hand-me-ups, Massclusivity, The Facebook Effect, and Instantity

• Organizations who chased the youth demographic and got it right …and those who failed to nail this attention-challenged audience

• The top brands millennial deem as “luxury” – and those surprisingly not on their radar, and why

• Why some brands will be around when Millennials have kids of their own

About Tina Wells:
As the founder and CEO of Buzz Marketing Group, Tina Wells has spent the last decade keeping her finger on the pulse of what’s hot for tweens and teens – what makes them tick and their economic influence. Prior to becoming America’s youth expert, she earned a B.A. in Communication Arts from Hood College, and she’s currently a student at Wharton School of Business.

Popular blogger and speaker Jon Acuff says don’t quit that day job! In his latest book, Quitter, Acuff writes that there’s a smart way to go after your dream and quitting isn’t the answer.

Jon used to be a serial quitter. He jumped around to 8 jobs in 8 years thinking the next one would be “the one.” He discovered that in fact keeping his day job actually gave him the security to pursue his dream. This book is all about hustle and hope and how to avoid the most dangerous type of failure by going all in on your dream.

For anyone who feels caught in the tension between a day job and a dream job, the book, Quitter, by popular blogger, speaker and author, Jon Acuff, should be added to your “must read” list.

Acuff says it’s time to bridge the gap between what you do and what you want to do, and there’s a smart way to do it! As a serial quitter, having jumped around to eight jobs in eight years, Acuff learned quitting is not the answer! With the wit and insight gained from a dozen years of cubicle living, Acuff shows his readers why they don’t have to become the “I’m, but” generation. I’m a teacher, but I want to be an artist. I’m a project manager, but I want to start my own business. Quitter offers practical insight to be successful at chasing your dream.

“This is not the standard “sell everything you own, move to Guam and get an apprenticeship as a glass blower” chase-your-dream kind of book,” says Acuff.

From figuring out what your dream is to quitting in a way that exponentially increases your chance of success, Quitter is full of inspiring stories and actionable advice.

About Jon Acuff:
From writing advertising for The Home Depot to branding for companies like Bose and Staples, Jon Acuff is no stranger to the cubicle. In 2010, he closed the gap between his day job and his dream job when he joined the Dave Ramsey team to become a full-time author. He has contributed to CNN.com, speaks nationally on a variety of subjects, and is author of three books: Quitter (Lampo Press); Gazelles, Baby Steps And 37 Other Things Dave Ramsey Taught Me About Debt (Lampo Press); and Stuff Christians Like (Zondervan®). Jon’s wildly popular blog, StuffChristiansLike.net, has more than 2 million readers. He lives in Nashville with his wife and two daughters.

For more information visit http://www.jonacuff.com.

The dealer had the greatest opportunity because he could manipulate the cards, engage in the infamous “dealing off the bottom of the deck” move, or skillfully peek at the cards he dealt other players.

To avoid fights over whose turn it was to deal, they passed an object to the next dealer. Usually it was a knife. It became known as the buck, short for buck horn, which most knife handles were made of.

Over time, the meaning of the phrase “passing the buck” changed. Instead of legitimately moving a responsibility to the right person to handle, it became known as a way to pass off a job or responsibility to someone else. That person was stuck with it whether or not he had the time or skill required.

President Harry Truman’s famous statement that “the buck stops here” was viewed (and still quoted) as a way to state that, as President, he took responsibility for whatever was happening in the country. He had courage.

In his book, Leadership Courage, David Cottrell asks, “What are you responsible for at work? You are responsible for the success or failure of all activities you are associated with … for everything you can control or influence.”

His statement was aimed at people in leadership roles, but in one situation or another each one of us has to lead.

Cottrell doesn’t mean we have to do everything our self. Delegating a task, project or routine to another person, one who is qualified to do it, is a good move.

It’s far different from “passing the buck.” But when we’re the dealer at any level, we should make sure the one we’re dealing to has a chance of success.

In Clutch: Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Others Don’t, he identifies people across a range of professions and determines what qualities keep their performance consistent in every kind of situation. They are:

• Focus
• Discipline
• Adaptability
• Involvement in the task
• Fear and desire

The author says he has battled “the choke” for many years in order to find the answers to why he, and many others, choke when called upon to perform.

Sullivan gives examples of people in sports, such as Alex Rodriguez and Tiger Woods, and in business, the military, and on stage. He examines what they had to overcome.

The culprits included such unexpected problems as:

• An inability to accept responsibility for what was happening
• A tendency to overthink and be overconfident.

In analyzing what makes a person do well, the author emphasizes, “It’s not luck!” Rather, it’s the ability to do what you normally do and do it when it really counts, whether it’s in business or your personal life.

Clutch is concise, well-written and thoroughly entertaining. Critics have been appreciative. Geoff Colvin, author of Talent Is Overrated, says “Chokers everywhere, that means almost all of us in some part of our lives, owe him thanks.”

Start with no. Resist the urge to compromise. Instead, invite the other person to say “no” to your proposal. (Hint: Don’t tell him or her what it is — at least not yet.) And be clear that, personally, you don’t take no as rejection, but as a candid start to an honest discussion.

Dwell not. Dwell on what you want, and you hurt your advantage. Throughout the discussion, focus instead on what you can control — your actions and behaviors.

Do your homework. Learn everything you can before you begin. This way, you prevent a minefield of surprises, whether you’re dealing with the boss, a car dealer, or your teenager.

Identify obstacles. Identify everything might come up in the negotiation that could blow up in your face. If you don’t spend time doing this beforehand, you’ll walk into a trap.

“Out” the elephant. If there’s a big, unspoken problem neither of you wants to talk about, don’t ignore it. Bringing it into the open clears the air and gives you the upper hand.

Check your emotions at the door. Exercise self-control, and let go of any expectations, fears, or judgments. Whatever you do, don’t be needy.

Get them talking. Ask open-ended questions that begin with what and how. Find out what the other person wants and needs. The one who talks most loses the advantage.

Be humble. If someone wants to brag, lecture, name drop, or use big words, let it be the other guy. When they feel superior, the advantage goes to you.

Respect, don’t befriend. In a negotiation, being friends is not the goal. Your goal is to come to a fair agreement. Stop worrying about being liked and you’ll make better decisions.

Don’t sell. Don’t pitch or make a presentation — akin to shooting yourself in the foot. Instead, let them tell you what they want. It’s the best way to shape your strategy.

Build a vision. Now that you know what they want, create a story that presents your proposal as the best way to solve their problem.

About the Author:
Jim Camp is a leading negotiating coach and author of NO: The Only Negotiating Strategy You Need for Work and Home. President and CEO of Camp Negotiation Systems, he’s coached individuals, corporations, and governments worldwide through hundreds of successful negotiations. Contact him on the Web at http://startwithno.com.