Surveys continue to report a global skills gap that is hampering hiring. Other reports suggest training is paramount to employee retention. And I am sure that when released, the ASTD State of the Training Industry report will echo last year's report and the sizable investment companies are making to address these challenges.

Are you doing your part? As a company leader, are you re-investing enough of your profits in training and equipping your employees for the future? More importantly, as an upwardly mobile executive, what are you doing to ensure you continue growing and are ready for future tasks and opportunities?

Below is an illustration I often use in speaking and workshops. I learned it from Brian Tracy...he calls it the "Freeway of Knowledge and Skill". The point of the illustration is that no matter where you start post-education...whether you're an MD, a JD or an HSD (high school dropout)...to earn more, you must learn more.

You can only increase your earning ability by increasing your value, which comes as a result of constantly increasing your knowledge and skills.

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Once heard Chris Widener talk on a SUCCESS Magazine CD. During the talk he posed this question: "What hard decision are you not making?" He went on to say that by delaying our decisions, we are costing ourselves precious time. If on the other hand, we make the decision (and it turns out to be the wrong decision), we may still have time to correct it.

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Getting a job usually begins with a phone conversation (preferably preceded by a referral). How long do you think you have to sell yourself when talking to a potential employer for the first time?

They might give you up to an hour once you've won a face to face interview, but the time you have to really convince them that you are the person for the job may be much shorter than you think. Therefore, you should always be able to communicate your value as an employee in 30 seconds or less. So, before you begin your job search, be sure to perfect your elevator pitch (or elevator speech). But how are you supposed to fit a summary of your entire career and all of your accomplishments into a 30 second pitch???

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Is your business and career heading in the right direction? Do you want to raise your income or increase sales and boost profits? Do you want to work fewer, more productive hours? Do you have the right team in place? A Master Mind will help you achieve all of these and more!

In his book, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill furthered the concept of the Master Mind. A Master Mind is group executive coaching at its best.

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It's no secret that better relationships often lead to more sales. But, how do you affect better relationships? According to this article in the Journal of Retailing, one way to do this is through mimicking or mirroring. The article indicates retail salespeople who subtly mimicked a customer's speech and behavior were more successful at selling (based on an experiment by Nicolas Gueguen and others). Among customers who solicited salespeople for information about an MP3 player, 78.8% bought such a product from mimickers, compared with 61.8% from non-mimickers. That's a 17% improvement. Additionally, customers who had been mimicked were more positive about the salespeople and the store.

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