Motivate Your Sales Team

To succeed in business, your company needs a great sales team. But great sales teams don't grow on trees. In fact, developing a capable and effective sales force might be one of your most challenging jobs as a sales leader. 

Here are a few tips to help you: 

Hire Quality, Not Quantity: The number of salespeople on your staff isn't nearly as important as their ability to set up and close a sale. A few skilled and proven sales reps will not only outsell a fleet of novices, but also form a solid core for future staff expansion. If geographic coverage is a concern, consider leveraging technology to help a smaller, more competent sales team cover a wider area. 

Communicate Expectations: Many sales teams fail to meet their leader's expectations simply because they never knew what was expected of them in the first place. Don't make the same mistake! Your sales team should have a clear understanding about what you expect from them. They should also feel free to voice their concerns and seek assistance should problems or unexpected setbacks arise. Team meetings, group e-mails, and status reports are essential, but it never hurts to meet with team members individually, particularly if a team member is falling short of the goals you have established. 

 Sales Training: It's easy to overlook training as a resource for building and motivating a sales team. However, training provides your sales team with the tools they need to reach their goals as well as much-needed confidence for the sales process. Consider scheduling regular training sessions with your entire staff, covering not only sales technique, but also team-building strategies and exercises. 

Set an Example: One of the best ways to motivate your team is to lead by example. A positive, can-do attitude is contagious, but so is a negative one. Since your team will follow your lead, it's important to maintain an upbeat presence with your staff. If sales is your forte, you might even want to lead the charge by assigning yourself sales calls and mentoring new sales staff.

Accomplishments

It’s that time of year. Students are returning from summer break and going back into the classroom. One of the first questions I will ask in my classes is: “What are your key accomplishments?” For many, this is the first time anyone has ever asked them to prove their worth. 

 In fact many of us don’t keep records of our accomplishments. To help, here are some ideas about keeping track of your accomplishments: 

Use LinkedIn. It’s a good idea to regularly update your LinkedIn profile. If fact, your profile should be a public record of your successes! Anyone who looks at your LinkedIn profile should see your capabilities and accomplishments. However, be careful you don’t share sensitive company information. 

Treat your resume as a strategic visioning document. Most often, after a job search, resumes get buried in a cabinet or folder. What if you kept your resume where you could read it on a regular basis? You may not be looking for a new job, but you are looking forward. Treat your resume as a career-planning tool, rather than a static, one-time use document. 

Share your accomplishments with friends and followers. By sharing your work related success, they live a little longer and help you build influence in both your industry and community. In addition to updating progress on your 5K training, let friends and family see your work contributions as well. Write these with a fun and upbeat style. 

By documenting your success as they happen, you’ll be more conscious of the role you play. Tracking “wins” is also great for your confidence. The habit of tracking them leads you to look for new ways to create them. 

How are you tracking your accomplishments?

Staying Objective When Hiring Sales People

I’ve seen it so many times! A manager either falls in love the sales candidate or develops an instant dislike. In either case, at some level, the candidate reminds the manager of someone they either really like or really dislike. 

If you find yourself moving too far in one direction or another, pause and make a note of the fact and why it might be happening. It helps if you can identify the person you are thinking about or with whom you are comparing the candidate. 

This often helps you better understand your feelings and often results in being able to disconnect your feeling for the candidate from the other person. If you’re going to make a good hiring decision, it’s critical that you remain objective to the very end of the hiring process. 

That’s one more reason to consider using an assessment. To do otherwise can skew the decision, often in the wrong direction.

Are you conducting too few interviews?

I’ve often felt that many companies are too fast to hire into slow fire. One of the hiring traps that companies fall into his hiring someone after the first, and sometimes only, interview. Even the worst sales candidate can come across as being presentable during that first interview. 

It’s like being on a first date; they are on their best behavior. Once you really get to know the person, however, you may not want to take them anymore. 

By the second interview, the candidate may have loosened up a bit because he or she knows that they are under serious consideration or they would not have been asked back for second interview. 

By the third interview, most candidates will begin to let their guard down. Now you can begin to see different aspects that make up the real candidate. It’s usually by the third or fourth interview when you discover that the person is a non--stop speaker or some disguised bad habit that comes to light. 

To this end, our sales assessments can help you “peek” under the tent and see what the candidate would rather you didn’t see. It’s best to find out this stuff before you hire and not after.

Why People Quit Their Jobs

Last month, I was on my way back to the office after facilitating a training program. I stopped for coffee and overheard the man behind me talking on his cellphone. 

“We need to be stricter with our hiring practices.” he said. “We want to keep them past a year.” 

I could not help myself. I turned around and introduced myself. I told him “I certainly recommend that you take a close look at your hiring practices. But remember, even if you hire the best people, the reason people leave is primarily because of a bad boss. So take an even closer look at the boss." 

But did you know this? 

The Gallup organization polled more 1 million employed U.S. workers and found that the No. 1 reason employees voluntarily leave their jobs is not the company, not the work, but is because of a bad boss. 
Plain and simple: People join good companies, but leave a bad boss. Turnover is less about selection and more about leading effectively. 

In fact, this points to a fundamental question: Are you a Leader or a Boss? 

While both may be “in charge”, a leader guides, teaches by example, and supports people. A boss, on the other hand, likes people working for rather than with and actively reminds them who is at the helm. 

Leaders use “we” when a boss uses “I” and “Let’s do this” as opposed to “Do this.” They inspire by acting with humility rather than ordering, criticizing, or humiliating. 

I love this quote: “If you think you are leading and no one is following, then you’re just taking a walk.” Sometimes a picture tells a better story, so here’s a great graphic that caught my attention making the rounds on social media recently. It sums this idea up so nicely… 

Do people who exercise make better leaders?

Medical experts have been stressing for decades the health benefits that exercise provides. Recent studies have also been conducted into how exercise can play a part in performance in the workplace – particularly for those in leadership positions. 

While you may be skeptical, it seems there may be a strong case for the argument that people who exercise make better leaders. 

 Here are some of the reasons why: 

Less sick days - Those who are physically fit are less likely to pick up the dreaded office bug that goes around. Absenteeism costs companies millions of dollars every year. While it is reasonable to expect anyone to fall ill from time to time, when a leader takes unplanned time off work it not only impact their own work, but also the team’s work. 

Increased energy - Are you ever surprised at how much energy you have right after exercising? That’s because regular exercise gives you increased and sustained energy levels throughout the day. This is particularly important for leaders who need to remain focused and pro-active all day. 

Higher Confidence - The fitter you are, the more self-confidence you’re going to have. You look better, feel better and feel that you can accomplish the goals that you have set for yourself. As a leader, confidence is vital. If you don’t believe in yourself, how is your team going to? 

Effective Stress Management - Anyone in a leadership position will be familiar with stress. Strict deadlines, difficult people, budget issues, and long hours are extremely demanding. Some leaders seem to take this all in stride. Chances are that they are the ones who regularly hit the gym or find ways of keeping themselves active. Exercise releases the physical and emotional tensions that are experienced on a daily basis, which means that fit leaders have lower stress levels. 

Taking care of yourself physically is a critical element in effective leadership. You can't do great things at work if you don't feel good. The best leaders eat well, exercise, and take care of themselves.

Believe it or not, it’s mid-year...

In 6 months, we will be thinking about New Year’s 2014! You may not think twice about your New Year’s resolutions at this point in the year. Yet, just 6 months ago, everything seemed possible! 

Losing 10 pounds, quitting smoking, finding a new job, and taking a new class were achievable goals. For many people, once they accomplished their goals they quickly set new ones. For others, however, demanding lives, frustration at the lack of immediate success, and the passage of time may have pushed those goals to the “back burner.” 

However, many motivational psychologists say revisiting resolutions at the midyear point and taking even small steps to reinvigorate them can boost our determination, making them achievable before the year is over. From this “second chance” perspective, the opportunity exists to refine those original goals that may have been too big or overwhelming. 

Whatever your original New Year’s resolutions, revisiting them will re-engage and energize you. Owning them again with whatever “tweaks” you need to apply can give you the drive to see them through this time. With unexpected benefits along the way, a feeling of even great satisfaction may follow in January 2014 when, because you’ve achieved your goals, new resolutions will be in order!

Hire slow, fire fast…

What do college football coaches spend up to 70% of their time doing? 

Watching game film? 
Coaching players? 
Preparing game plans? 

No. College football coaches spend up to 70% of their time recruiting talent to play on their team. 

Does that surprise you? If you hire like most companies do, then it probably did. Most companies hire the wrong way. They hire quickly and hold on to poor performers too long. 

 The best thing a great leader can do is always be recruiting and have a constant flow of talent to evaluate and hire. Your goal should be to hire slowly – after a structured and careful assessment and evaluation process – and then don’t hesitate to let people go who have not shown performance. 

 The key here is that if you have a steady flow of talent and candidates to choose from, then you’ll be much less likely to make quick and ill-advised hiring decisions. Plus, you’ll be less likely to hold on to poor performers who are likely to never make it in your environment.

Advice to new graduates: Work In Sales!

There’s a persistent perception that sales is a “last resort” job. I don’t know where it comes from, but I get angry when I hear people say, “I’m just a sales rep.” When you choose a sales career, you are not settling for a second-rate job. 

Selling is challenging and you should be proud of your job. What you may not have thought of, however, is that sales experience is vitally important if you ever hope to have an executive level job. Surprised? When I work with professionals near the top of their non-sales careers and eager to move to the C-Suite, they often lack sales experience. 

You may think: 

“What does selling have to do with being a COO or Division Vice President?” 

“Why would the head of finance or a business unit need sales experience?” 

It does not matter what role you have. If you are an executive, you are going to have customer-facing responsibilities, and there’s no better place than sales to learn how to interact effectively with customers. You may be called on to help resolve customer satisfaction issues or to participate in important sales calls. You may need to speak at customer events. Yes, even COOs. 

As a key representative of your company, you’ll be expected to interface with your counterparts at other companies, where you’ll need to be conversant in your company’s offerings and why people need them. 

Again, sales is the best place to develop this knowledge, because you hear directly from customers why they like what you sell. Even if you didn’t need customer-facing skills, you’d still need a thorough understanding of sales. Why? 

Because sales is the lifeblood of business – Any company exists to sell something. As a leader in your company, you need to be able to enter into discussions and decisions about top markets, top sellers, and sales strategies. If you do not understand what’s going on in your sales organization, you don’t understand what’s going on in your business. 

It’s that simple.

Burn the Ships!

The great NFL Hall of Fame coach, Vince Lombardi, had it right: "The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor." Most often, people fail to achieve their goals, not because they are lazy or lack self-motivation, but because they never "fully committed" to succeed! 

 In 1519, Hernando Cortes and a small army left Cuba and set out to conquer Central America. Cortes was going to accomplish his goals, no matter the consequences. The myth states that once Cortes' troops landed in what is now Mexico, he ordered the ships destroyed by fire. 

In burning his ships, Cortes took away all options to retreat and, I am sure, got the full buy-in from his troops to make it a successful campaign. They had no choice. Either drown in the sea or conquer this new world. 

Do you allow "what-if" scenarios to dominate your thinking? Do you find yourself questioning your job or other significant decisions or commitments? A lack of commitment not only creates apathy, but it is emotionally draining and erodes your creativity. Without a clear commitment, you will be defeated even before you start. 

It’s time to "Burn the Ships"… 

You cannot achieve success by timidly venturing forward. You have to take bold action and decisive steps to go after your dreams! Burn the Ship! 

Look at your life and really ask yourself: "Am I committed enough to my goals and dreams to put it all on the line?"

Optimism

The great Zig Ziglar put it well: “There are seldom, if ever, any hopeless situations, but there are many people who lose hope in the face of some situations.” Faced with the stream of confusing and contradictory economic news, it is easy to get caught up in thinking that nothing positive is happening. We start to believe that there is little that we can do; we withdraw, play it safe, feel concern, and fear the future. We become especially vigilant for further signs that we are at risk. So, if you are a leader feeling “glass half-empty”, here are two key points you need to help you lead through it: 

1. Develop Optimism: If you are not optimistic about the future, how can you expect your team to be? Whether it’s your employees, vendors, friends, or family, you’ve got to lead with true optimism. Sometimes it can be a lonely position to take, but it’s what your team needs and WANTS from you. While most others are focusing on complaining, whining, and multiple regrets, your job as the leader is to look for opportunities and possibilities. 

 2. Show Courage and Be Energetic. Do not be afraid of confronting problems or those that create them. And don’t be “that manager” hiding behind the office door, hoping the problems will just go away. Newsflash - They WON’T! Being optimistic takes courage and energy. As a leader YOU have to be fully committed to the long term. It takes an energetic leader to carry the torch. Get your rest, eat right, exercise, and lead your team with high energy. 

 One of my favorite other quotes from Zig Ziglar is: “I’m so optimistic I’d go after Moby Dick in a row boat and take the tartar sauce with me.” Optimism is a conscious choice that has a huge impact on your ability to succeed. Optimism will inspire the confidence of your team that is required to take full advantage of the opportunities that exist.

Hanging on to Marginal Performers

Why do we hold on to people that we know we shouldn’t keep in place? Here are a few reasons: 

• Kindness, Loyalty, and Being nice. Maybe we “like” them, they “like” us, or both. Perhaps their performance in the organization was, at one point, successful. Out of a desire to be a “nice person” or please people, and not to be the “bad guy.” Perhaps we worry about their family, livelihood, or future. 
• Confrontation. These conversations are difficult, and you simply don’t want to have it. This again can be tough when you really “like” the person. 
•  Being too optimistic about their ability to change. We often think: if I give it more time… or I'm not helping them enough… 

When someone on the team becomes a marginal performer, it hurts them, their colleagues, and you. Initially, it is the leader’s responsibility to support change by offering the resources to help marginal performers improve. After that, if the issue persists, you are not doing anyone any favors by keeping them in place. 

Certainly, this is not a recommendation to fire someone with a long and successful career who may be having a few bad months. Yet, if the problem persists, it’s time to help them find a better situation. 

If you are still holding on to a marginal performer, it’s time to look at the reason and make a change. Recognizing your own pattern of holding on too long, and helping all involved by making a positive, perhaps difficult, change is not only good for you and your organization, but also it is the right thing to do.

Waiting Too Long to Develop Leaders

Like any skill, leadership skill develops over time. The sooner organizations get started on leadership development, the better. Yet, according to a study posted at HBR.org, leadership development is not being encouraged by many organizations. 

This study found that people start supervising at around the age of 30, but get their first leadership training at the age of 42! The implications are that organizations have managers leading people for ten years before they get any leadership training! 

Think about it this way: would you go to a Doctor who practiced medicine for 10 years before going to Medical School? How about your Accountant? 

People need to be exposed to leadership training as soon as possible. Well before being placed in supervisory or management roles. Leadership is everyone’s responsibility and leadership training should start from the first day on the job. 

What is your organization doing to develop leadership at all levels? 

The Wrightone 360° Leadership Development Survey is one of the best ways for leaders to get effective feedback. 360° feedback is a powerful tool that gives leaders feedback from those who work with them - peers, managers, subordinates. If you would like additional information about our 360° Leadership Development Survey and a copy of our guide Focusing on Leadership Development, please contact us.

Patience

I am very impatient. When I describe this for people, here is how it comes out: Good impatience. It’s my sense of urgency. However, I have also learned that patience is the most important attribute necessary for effective leadership, and it is rarely talked about. 

Here is why Patience (at the right time) is the effective Leader’s best choice: 

1. Too much speed, speed, speed. People and teams, like athletes, cycle through periods of great productivity and periods of recovery. Good leaders understand that recovery time is essential for speed in the next “sprint”, and they manage the pace and rhythm of their teams accordingly. 

2. Developing people takes time, deliberate effort, (and yes) a great deal of patience. While you as the leader might see pure raw potential in a team member, people develop at their speed, not yours. Your encouragement is appreciated, but display impatience (even good impatience) and you risk derailing and demoralizing the individual. 

3. People process change at different rates of speed. Some are quick to dive into waters they don’t yet understand, however, many others prefer to process on and internalize the issues around change at their own pace. Fail to show patience with those who are in mid-process, and you risk losing them. 

Most leaders I know, like me, are impatient for action. They are excited about helping drive people towards a destination and they often see the gap between today’s situation and tomorrow’s idealized state. The most effective leaders however, understand that patience, for all of the list reasons, can help everyone get there faster.

Accountability

There are many aspects of effective leadership: at times you need to be a guardian, protector, and advocate. Other times you need to be a coach, developing and inspiring your team. However, one of the most important aspects of effective leadership is holding people accountable. 

In your role as a leader, you need to get people moving towards objectives. Yet some people don't want to move. And when you hold people accountable, some people will push back. 

Why? It’s because we really don’t like to be held accountable. But here is a secret: Most people need it, even want it, from their leaders. Most bosses don't even try to hold people accountable. I said "bosses" and not "leaders". Bosses micromanage. Leaders hold people accountable. There is a HUGE difference. 

Imagine lying in bed and trying to shut off your alarm, but it won't shut off. The alarm just keeps beeping and beeping and beeping. THAT'S micromanaging. Effective leadership makes a contract with you (sets the wake up time), monitors the progress of that contract every so often (checks the time), and goes about its other duties until the contract is complete (waits for the alarm to go off), then creates a new contract with you. 

Here is the lesson for leaders: make agreements with your people, and then trust them to get the work done. Check with them at your agreed-upon times. And, by all means, if they're not delivering, hold them accountable. The rest of the time, focus on what you need to do.

Fear: Not A Way to Live or A Way to Lead

Have you ever run into someone who is afraid they are going to lose their job? Or who is afraid of failure? Or who is just plain risk averse? Are they successful? In my experience, they are generally not successful or at least not as successful as they could be. 

Leaders must understand risk and be able to accept risk. While there are courses in risk management, the important thing to remember is that there is always risk. Everything we do comes with some risks. Driving to work in the morning has risk (Actually a very high risk). If leaders are unwilling to accept risk, they will be ineffective. 

Someone who is so afraid of losing their job that they refuse to take a risk, may lose their job because they are ineffective. Think about it. 

Leaders must be able to adapt to the situation and be willing to accept the risk of failure in order to be successful. Leaders who are unwilling to accept risk must be satisfied with mediocre performance from their teams, their organizations, and themselves.

Dealing with People Problems

People problems are inevitable on teams. One person, consistently acting inappropriately can destroy the fabric of a team. They can reduce productivity, destroy morale, and sabotage the working relationship between the leader and the team.
 
What is a leader to do when confronted with this situation?
 
1.    Don’t get so wrapped up in the problem that your relationship with other team members suffers. Continue to relate to everyone. They need to continue to see you and to have open communication with you. They also need confidence that you are actively working to enforce standards.
 
2.    Second, work one-on-one directly with the problem and the person. Nothing in the world is more demoralizing for a team than to have a leader send a blanket email stating the policy and trying to solve a problem involving only one person. Usually the person with the problem doesn't know it's meant for them (so they ignore it) and everyone else is insulted that the leader isn't dealing directly and personally with the issue. Hiding behind blanket emails sent to everyone about every transgression is a sign of weakness and insecurity. It sends a message to the team that you are unwilling to engage and you don't understand the dynamics of the team.
 
This is a time for the leader to be involved and engaged. Get to the bottom of the issue. There are established standards being violated. Leaders also need compassion. It is important to assume "noble intent" on the first meeting. Some people just don't see how what they are doing is divisive or contrary to the team.
 
Dealing directly with people shows the team that you are engaged and willing to take care of the "tough stuff" personally. It demonstrates that you have a good knowledge of the team dynamics and reinforces to the team that you care about each of them and understand their contributions.

Leaders must act when confronted with people problems. And they must act personally and directly to resolve the problem.

Hard Work Beats Talent, When Talent Doesn’t Work Hard!

On an athletic level, this is so clear. There are plenty of “gifted” athletes that never excel because they rely on their natural ability to pull them through. This lesson can also be seen in academics. Some students rely far too much on their natural ability and end up paying the price.
 
There is no simple secret to success. There are no silver bullets or short cuts. But nothing is more important than preparation and hard work. Yes, we can all point to examples of people who are successful “flying by the seat of their pants”.   There are always exceptions. 
 
In business, we compete every day.  We compete with other companies.  We compete with other employees.  We compete with other candidates during interviews.  Does the most naturally talented individual always win?  No.   Does the most naturally talented individual win most of the time?  I would argue “No”.  In my experience the most prepared individual wins.
 
The lesson is simple, “Hard Work Beats Talent, When Talent Doesn’t Work Hard”.  Don’t make excuses.  Simply work hard and be prepared.  You will win more often than you think.

Important things you won't learn in school

As I tell my students, you can learn a lot of things in the classroom. But there are some things you’ll never learn in the classroom. Hopefully, this will fill some of the gaps:
 
The Whole Truth Is An Illusion – You will almost never know the whole truth, so don’t pretend that you do or that you will.  Our perceptions of the world are clouded by our own subjectivity and by our interpretation of information.  But this shouldn’t stop you from making a decision. Analysis paralysis is a term used to describe the situation where the deeper you dig into a topic the more questions you have.  As a rule of thumb, don’t make decisions with only 10 percent of the available information – but don’t expect to have more than 75 percent before a timely decision is required.  Most importantly, be humble in your decisions and opinions because of this fact, but stand by them until proven wrong by more information.
 
Great Ideas Are Nothing Without Execution – Great ideas without good execution get slaughtered in the market by ‘good enough’ ideas with great execution.  There are plenty of examples of the same idea failing until properly executed such as Facebook when compared to earlier attempts such as Six Degrees and Friendster.
 
Intelligence Still Requires Experience – In school we compete against classmates that have generally the same level of experience. Thus, one’s intelligence plays a key role in academic performance.    In the real world brilliance alone, especially in competitive situations, simply isn’t enough. The Dunning-Kruger effect, sometimes termed Illusory Superiority, tells us that the less competent we are in any given area (competence is driven by experience), the more likely we will rate ourselves as “better than average” in competency.  This illusory superiority often drives bad decisions.
 
Not All Conflict Is Bad.  We grow up being told not to argue with our teammates or peers but both scholars and practitioners agree that there are good and bad forms of conflict.  The good conflict, known as cognitive conflict, is the healthy debate that teams participate in when determining what or why something should be done.  It involves a wide range of perspectives and experiences and can help generate strategic options for growth.
 
Leadership Is About EQ not IQ – Evidence suggests that the most successful leaders have some minimum IQ.  But IQ alone is not sufficient to be a successful leader.  The greatest leaders have high emotional quotients, often considered a combination of social intelligence and emotional intelligence.  Leadership is not about you. It’s about your teams.  As a leader you need to check your ego at the door and worry more about your team’s welfare, performance, and improvement.

Decisions

One of the easiest ways to take control of your actions is to take control of your decisions.  Decisions are what precede all of our actions. A truly committed decision is one where you release all the possibilities from your mind, except for the outcome that you are absolutely committed to.

The challenge is that most of us have weak decision making muscles mainly because we tend to say "I will give it a go and see if it works." A truly committed decision is like a laser beam that is so focused on its target that nothing can get in its way. In its Latin form the word "decide" means to "cut off" and that is what a truly committed decision calls us to do.

Cut off all other possibilities to the extent that you will not even consider any other result. Now this might sound easier said than done and I have to agree. BUT once you realize that making decisions is a skill and that the more you practice it the better you get at it, you will begin to powerfully direct and shape your life towards your ultimate destination.

Consider this: Start by taking a different look at problems and challenges. Commit yourself to seeing them as the necessary "weights" to build enough strength to reach your goals. Learn to welcome problems as opportunities to grow and soon you will habitually turn challenges into opportunity.

How Do You Treat Waiters?

The way you treat others offers a window into the type of person you are.  Your interaction with people, whose job is to serve you, reflects on your character and offers a glimpse into the way they will react to you.
 
When you behave in a condescending manner, you are sure to elicit a negative reaction.  Immediately, the person you are talking down to will be put off, even if they don’t show it.  You will squelch any inclination for the other person to go out of their way to help you.  At most, they will do no more than the bare minimum necessary to keep you mollified.
 
Many Managers like to observe how job candidates treat waiters.  How a prospective employee treats a waiter offers a clear picture of the type of person he/she is.  Someone who is polite to you but discourteous to a waiter does not have desirable interpersonal skills.  They tend to be abrasive, causing friction among coworkers and subordinates.
 
People, who are rude to waiters, erroneously believe they are displaying power and authority.  They mistakenly think their behavior will impress others.  Anyone who attempts to elevate their status by stepping on others will ultimately fall flat on their face.
 
People with integrity and character treat everyone with courtesy and respect, regardless of their occupation, financial, or social status.  They don’t view themselves as being above or below anyone else.
 
Treat everyone you encounter with dignity.  In so doing, your relationships with people, even strangers, will improve.  You will still find some individuals you just can’t deal with.  But they will be much more of an exception.  You can never go wrong by treating another person well.