Tag Archives: advice

August 5, 2015 · 8:55 am

60

I’m 60 today. In the words of Eubie Blake, who lived to 100, if I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself. That said, I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel like, but I certainly don’t feel like 60. That seemed very old growing up but I’m feeling as if I’m just getting started.

If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to give you youngsters the benefit of a few things I’ve picked up along the way. You’re thinking “but that’s what you do every day on the screed.” I try, yes. These things, however, are more about you than about your business.

  • It’s ok to be nice. That doesn’t mean you need to be a pushover, but you can make your point and have your way more often than not without radiating hostility, negativity, or arrogance.
  • Listen more than you speak.
  • You’re not an island (thanks, John Donne) so appreciate that you need to work with others. More importantly, sometimes you need to trust them. You are going to get screwed every once in a while but you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised a lot more often.
  • Learn from it and forget it. Unless you have some time machine, you can’t unring a bell. Like Edith Piaf said, Non, je ne regrette rien.
  • Pick your battles, know you’re going to lose a few (but win the ones that count) and learn from the losses.  Stay positive and move on.
  • Be curious, ask questions, challenge answers. Learn something new every day.
  • Most importantly, get a life – something that will be there whatever your job.  You will make many many acquaintances in business.  You’ll find out who among them are friends when you can do nothing for them. On that last point, I’ve been extremely fortunate.  I’ve gone the last 7.5 years doing what my family lovingly calls my “phony baloney made up job.”  Nearly all of the clients I have and have had are because a friend put in a kind word.  Part of my job is to repay their faith.

Thank you all for indulging me today.  It will be back to our regularly scheduled stuff tomorrow.  See you then?

 

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August 3, 2015 · 11:22 am

Editors

As I was reading the sports section with my breakfast this morning, a couple of articles caught my attention. How they were written and how the topics were covered popped a business thought into my head and I’d like to share it.

If you’ve ever read the screed before, it’s no secret to you that I am sort of obsessed with golf. Naturally, I read the reports of the weekend’s events. The men’s tour was near Washington, DC., and the man winning the tournament was a bit of a surprise. He was a first-time winner, has an interesting back story, and fought off some of the best players on the Tour for the win. 80% of the article, however, had nothing to do with him. It was all about Tiger Woods, currently ranked #266 in the world, and a blow-by-blow of his rounds. We got none of that about the winner. I get it: Tiger’s performance, or lack thereof of late, is always THE story in golf. More about this in a second.

On the women’s side, the Women’s British Open was won by Inbee Park, who completed the career grand slam (winning every major at least once) at the ripe old age of 27. It has only been done a handful of times previously. The story received all of maybe a hundred words.

The article about the men’s tour was half a page, and the focus was not on the real news. After all, many other players finished ahead of Tiger or scored as well. The biggest golf news of the weekend was that one woman, who has captured six of the last fourteen majors the women have played, won again. My point isn’t that the women aren’t getting any respect either.

The business point is that we must always remember that when we get news and information from any source, it is generally filtered to reflect someone’s point of view. The editors decided Tiger’s ok weekend is more interesting than a first-time win or a huge achievement by a woman. You may be getting weekly reports of sales, opportunities, personnel, etc. that bury the real story.  It’s incumbent on us as businesspeople to ask questions about everything we read.  Is this research biased?  What’s the self-interest of someone who shares some news?  What isn’t in a report I’m reading?

The information we get is only as good as the editor chooses to make it.  Giving a ton of golf coverage to a guy who finished in a tie for 18th may distract you from the real story.  In business, our job is to find those stories and edit them into the narrative.  Agreed?

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July 28, 2015 · 9:33 am

Don’t Pitch

Every business needs customers, and along with acquiring those customers inevitably comes the need to make a sales pitch. Think for a minute: how many sales pitches have you seen over the years (and yes, ads are pitches too) and of those, how many were really memorable? I’m willing to guess not many.

I want to focus on the personal kind of pitches today – generally those in some sort of business-to-business context. Maybe what I have to say applies to ads as well but they’re generally shorter. This is one of the things with which clients seem to need a good deal of help for a number of reasons and I’d like to lay out some of the guiding principles we discuss.

First, don’t pitch. While some of us who have been in sales enjoy watching someone sell, most people don’t seem to find “being sold” very appealing. The nature of marketing has changed. Prospects want to have a conversation, so take it easy on the superlatives as you’re describing your product or service.  If you make a claim (we reduced costs and increased profits for our clients), back it up with specifics.  Prospects are skeptics and verifiable hard data goes a long way to changing that.

Before you get to that product or service description, however, you need to explain the problem you’re solving for them. In order to do that you need to demonstrate that you’ve taken the time to research their business and to understand the challenges they face. I realize that’s difficult as an outsider, but it turns out this internet thing makes research really easy if you’re willing to spend the time and to ask the right questions.

Finally, and I can’t stress this enough, assume that your prospects can read.  If you’re going through a deck with them, remember that it isn’t a bedtime story and that they’re not children.  Do not read the thing verbatim off the wall or page and expect that you’re going to hold their interest.  They can read faster than you can speak and their minds are elsewhere while you are on bullet point #6.

The plan is this: research the target, solve their problem, and tell them a story in a conversational tone.  I’ve found that method to be pretty effective.  You?

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