Category Archives for "Holidays"

Thanksgiving – heart-centered sales and marketing thrives on a spirit of gratitude

By John Aberle | Gratitude , heart-centered , Holidays , Sales and Marketing , Soft Sell

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s filled with abundance including feelings of love and family plus food including my favorite turkey and Dorothy’s favorite, pumpkin pie which she bakes. There are family recipes we enjoy year to year, like the cranberry relish Mother always made with fresh cranberries. It’s thrilling to see the next generation active in helping prepare the family meal for 20 to 21 members of our extended family.

A day to appreciate the good things in life

Most of all, I love that Thanksgiving is a day of gratitude for all of the blessings of the prior year, even those that don’t look initially like blessing. Additionally, it’s free of the anxiety of gifts, both giving and receiving.

Over 20 years ago a friend taught me the value of keeping a gratitude journal. In sales and marketing we often talk about how important attitude is to a person’s success. Customers and clients want someone who’s upbeat, positive, who sees the opportunity to help them improve their situation.

Wish I’d learned earlier the value of focusing on gratitude

I know that as well as I have done in sales, I could have succeeded to an even higher level had I recognized that commiserating with people about how bad things are or how tough we have it puts them into a defensive, protect what I already have mindset while it simultaneously dropped me out of a position of positive expectancy. It’s tough to help customers buy when we are both in a negative frame of mind. Filing your heart with gratitude for the people, experiences and opportunities in your life will boost your desire to use heart-centered, soft sell sales and marketing to grow your business relationships too.  Continue reading

A Year of Gifts

By John Aberle | Gratitude , Holidays , Sales and Marketing , Social Networking

Think Back on the Blessings of this Past Year
As we are about to start another calendar year, this is a great time to reflect on the blessings of this past year. For me, it has been a time of fantastic education. I have conducted a self-directed course of study at the University of Hard Knocks as I have upgraded my sales and marketing skills for the 21st Century by diving into Internet marketing and social networking. It’s been fun though often frustrating. It seems every time I think I am about to finish my major projects so as to start on something new, I find another aspect I need to tackle first if I am to lead by example.

Developing New Friendships
In the process of all this learning, I have been developing some wonderful new friends – people I really admire. At the Master Trainer Camp, I made quite a few contacts with people I want to get to know better. A couple, I have already started to build a tighter relationship with. One in particular, DeBorah Beatty, has been a Godsend as she understands the technical aspects of websites and blogs so she’s given me excellent assistance when I needed a coach. To read about the highlights of the fabulous trainers’ presentations at the Master Trainer Camp, check out my website, http://www.johnaberle.com for a page on that experience.

Additionally, I’ve found mentors, gurus, and experts on Internet marketing and social networking whom I really like and respect. Some of them are already friends. Others I hope to earn the right to their friendship. One, especially, Cathy Perkins, the WordPress Wizard, has taught me so much about the technical aspects of running a blog – all at the level of a knowledgeable user, not a programmer.

Build a Community with Social Networking
I have also added dozens of friends on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Plaxo, and Home Based Business Network. I’ve shared pictures on Flickr, Facebook, and now Tweetpic. All of this is in an effort to develop a personal community.

During the last month of 2008, the idea of community has become increasingly important to me. I’ll be writing more on it because of realizations I’ve had regarding the importance of community to business. But for right now, I’m going to make it more personal.

Writers’ Group Provides Support in Improving Skills
A year and a half ago, my wife, Dorothy, found a writers’ group for me at the Glendale Barnes and Noble. Since I joined them, we have relocated to the Burbank Barnes and Noble. This group has been an incredible find. The members are amazingly talented writers who give skillful and frank feedback – while remaining kind and constructive. We genuinely care about each other and support each other. <Read the Rest of this Article>

Happy Holidays!

By John Aberle | Holidays

This season of the year is a wonderful time for reminding us of what’s important: community, connecting with others, sharing love. Oh, don’t forget the lights and music.

It’s late Christmas Eve in Covina California where I’m writing this greeting. The tree is brilliantly lit with colored lights and capped with a white star. The gifts are spread around it ready for tomorrow and shortly Dorothy and Martha will put out the stockings.

And to ensure that the body, as well as the spirit, is well fed tomorrow, my darling wife, Dorothy, together with her sister Martha, daughter Stephanie, and niece Pamela have invested a large portion of the past two days preparing for tomorrow’s meals. We expect 15 people for breakfast with dishes like a breakfast soufflé of eggs, cheese, sausage, and bread; mush (deep fried cornmeal patties); eggs; and bacon. Then we’ll exchange and open presents with those of the family who are here for breakfast.

By mid-afternoon, we should have 21 family members gathered for Christmas dinner and more gifts with those who arrived later. We’ll have a 15 pound turkey and a large ham, cranberry-orange relish using my Mother’s recipe, and all the trimmings and pies. It’s going to be a wonderful feast. And the best part will be sharing with family.

This will be our intimate community tomorrow. Six families will gather under the extended family of Granny Hawkins. It takes a major holiday to get us all together. One member of the family, Kevin, is in the Navy. He’ll be missed but understandably he chose to stay in the Seattle area to spend the day with his infant son, Jackson.

Yes, gifts are nice, don’t get me wrong. I enjoy seeing the excitement on people’s faces when they get something they really want. I enjoy giving things I think the receiver will like. I enjoy receiving a gift from a loved one who thought of me and selected something she or he thought I would like.

But I also get pleasure out of the spirit of giving and sharing that permeates this Holiday Season. I love seeing the people making an effort to ensure that those with little financially will have enough to enjoy Christmas too. In McAllen Texas, I was one of the breakfast club Rotarians who gave part of one Saturday to do the bell ringing to collect for the Salvation Army‘s program. Then in El Paso, as part of the Westside Rotary Club, I helped assemble food baskets for 100 families. It was a wonderful team effort and very satisfying. There is something wonderful that happens when you give with no expectation of return.

Remember too that the simple gift of a smile and a warm greeting can often make another person’s day. It costs nothing beyond the thought and tiny effort to give.

So, I’ll close this article with a wish for you that you get to enjoy whatever it is that brings joy into your life this season. May the Spirit of this Holiday Season (Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Happy Kwanzaa ) bring you and yours joy, peace, health, love, and prosperity.