This is a great little post from Guru Marketer Seth Godin on how you can avoid the “better-than-them pitch” and make it easy for prospects to make a new decision (to retain you!).
The portion of the population that haven't bought from you or your competition yet is not waiting for a better mousetrap.
They're not busy considering a, b and c and then waiting for d.
No, they're not in the market. They don't believe that they have a problem that's worth the time and money they think it's going to take to solve it.
As a result, smart marketers don't market to this audience by saying, "hey, ours is better than theirs!"
If this group thought that they had a solvable problem, the would have solved it already.
No, they won't respond to a better-than-them pitch. Instead, they're much more likely to respond to a new statement of their problem and a new statement of the solution. Don't ask them to announce that they were wrong when they decided that they didn't need a tablet, a survival kit or an anti-impotence drug. Instead, make it easy for them to make a new decision based on new information.
For the feedback providers among us, there is ample available advice on how best to proffer messages and to ensure their effective delivery. However, there's far less guidance to help us when we are on the receiving end of these "gifts" (after all, aren't we always hearing how feedback is a gift?).
The purpose of this post is to start a conversation among us, to consider how best to take in the feedback messages we receive — not just at this time of year, but all the time.
Get rid of your vacation policy. Stop tying compensation to performance. Pay more to your people than the market demands. Drop the self affirmations and doubt yourself instead. Forget about annual performance reviews. And for goodness sake, pay more attention to your “To Don’t” list than your “To Do” list. Daniel Pink’s recently released Flip Manifesto (available gratis here) offers 16 pieces of advice that run counter to what you might have heard elsewhere and will certainly contradict how your own firm/ company is set up. This is precisely why it is worth the 30-45 minutes it will take you to read it. I liked it so much I have printed it out and highlighted it for a VP (R&D) I am coaching right now. I have chosen to use the paper and ink (85 whole pages worth) because I know he will never get to it if I send him the electronic version and I believe it is something he needs to read right now.
How about you? Is it time to flip some of your long held beliefs?
Susan Cain is the author of "Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking." A writer who formerly practiced corporate law and worked as a negotiations consultant, Cain spoke at the TED2012 conference in Long Beach, California. TED is a nonprofit organization dedicated to "Ideas worth spreading," which it makes available through talks posted on its website. Follow @susancain on Twitter.
Wendi Campbell's fantastic advice was featured in this month's CA Source Newsletter. See the link above or read her article below!
Get the Most Out of Your Day
It’s easy to say there isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done, but the truth is that most of us just aren’t using our time efficiently. The first secret to time management is to take a look at the big picture and consider what will matter most to you five years from now. By focusing on what really matters, you take control of the clock and begin to manage your time for better results.
One of my clients is a senior manager who wants to make partner at his firm. When he got to the office each morning, he looked at his calendar and saw a sea of meetings — some of them double-booked. Then he spent his few open hours answering questions and coaching members of his team. Since he focused most of his time on internal tasks he did not have enough time to reach out to his clients and network with contacts.
Schedule your objectives first
With e-calendars and workflow tools, it’s easy to let others muddle with your daily agenda. My client realized he needed to take control of his time— decide what he wanted to excel at and allocate his time accordingly. Just as financial planners say that the way to save money is to “pay yourself first,” the way to manage time is to “schedule your objectives first.”
Frame your to-do’s as specific goals
When blocking time in your calendar, be sure to schedule specific objectives and connect the dots with your to-do list. Written to-do lists are an easy way to track and prioritize work.
Written to-do’s should have specific goals. For example, instead of, “Call Marlene at Crystametrics”, write “Call Marlene to set up a meeting about that new project.” Using this strategy, many of my clients find they have more focus, decreased stress, and—as they cross things off their lists—more satisfaction.
Know your priorities
In Stephen Covey’s book First Things First, he offers a number of time management strategies, including how to prioritize your work by grouping it into four categories:
- Urgent and important items like client phone calls and staff retention emergencies. Deal with these things as soon as they crop up.
- Not urgent but important things like planning, business development, and technical reading. These items impact your achievement most, so spend the bulk of your time here.
- Urgent but not important items like internal meetings and staff distractions. Try to spend as little time here as possible.
- Not urgent and not important items like email shuffling and trivial work. Don’t waste any time with them.
Defend your schedule
Once my client had prioritized and scheduled his objectives, he needed to defend the time, so he told his team about his focus on building new business; explained his time strategy and asked them to help him stick to it; limited his open-door policy by setting specific times so his team would know when his door was actually open; and started checking his email and voice messages only once an hour. Sometimes he’d eliminate distractions by working in an empty boardroom instead of his usual workspace.
With these strategies, my client was able to take full control over his time and get the most out of his day.
How organized are you? Take this test at mindtools.com and find out:
Wendi Campbell is a Chartered Accountant and an executive coach with Impact Consulting Inc. Her coaching specializations are personal effectiveness, execution and implementation and engagement practice management skills. Impact Consulting Inc. provides customized hands-on coaching and assessment services and has coaches located across Canada. www.impactconsultinginc.com
It's not just the number of hours we're working, but also the fact that we spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time.
What we've lost, above all, are stopping points, finish lines and boundaries. Technology has blurred them beyond recognition. Wherever we go, our work follows us, on our digital devices, ever insistent and intrusive. It's like an itch we can't resist scratching, even though scratching invariably makes it worse.
Tell the truth: Do you answer email during conference calls (and sometimes even during calls with one other person)? Do you bring your laptop to meetings and then pretend you're taking notes while you surf the net? Do you eat lunch at your desk? Do you make calls while you're driving, and even send the occasional text, even though you know you shouldn't?
The biggest cost — assuming you don't crash — is to your productivity. In part, that's a simple consequence of splitting your attention, so that you're partially engaged in multiple activities but rarely fully engaged in any one. In part, it's because when you switch away from a primary task to do something else, you're increasing the time it takes to finish that task by an average of 25 per cent.
But most insidiously, it's because if you're always doing something, you're relentlessly burning down your available reservoir of energy over the course of every day, so you have less available with every passing hour.
I know this from my own experience. I get two to three times as much writing accomplished when I focus without interruption for a designated period of time and then take a real break, away from my desk. The best way for an organization to fuel higher productivity and more innovative thinking is to strongly encourage finite periods of absorbed focus, as well as shorter periods of real renewal.
If you're a manager, here are three policies worth promoting:
1. Maintain meeting discipline. Schedule meetings for 45 minutes, rather than an hour or longer, so participants can stay focused, take time afterward to reflect on what's been discussed, and recover before the next obligation. Start all meetings at a precise time, end at a precise time, and insist that all digital devices be turned off throughout the meeting.
2. Stop demanding or expecting instant responsiveness at every moment of the day. It forces your people into reactive mode, fractures their attention, and makes it difficult for them to sustain attention on their priorities. Let them turn off their email at certain times. If it's urgent, you can call them — but that won't happen very often.
3. Encourage renewal. Create at least one time during the day when you encourage your people to stop working and take a break. Offer a midafternoon class in yoga, or meditation, organize a group walk or workout, or consider creating a renewal room where people can relax, or take a nap.
It's also up to individuals to set their own boundaries. Consider these three behaviors for yourself:
1. Do the most important thing first in the morning, preferably without interruption, for 60 to 90 minutes, with a clear start and stop time. If possible, work in a private space during this period, or with sound-reducing earphones. Finally, resist every impulse to distraction, knowing that you have a designated stopping point. The more absorbed you can get, the more productive you'll be. When you're done, take at least a few minutes to renew.
2. Establish regular, scheduled times to think more long term, creatively, or strategically. If you don't, you'll constantly succumb to the tyranny of the urgent. Also, find a different environment in which to do this activity — preferably one that's relaxed and conducive to open-ended thinking.
3. Take real and regular vacations. Real means that when you're off, you're truly disconnecting from work. Regular means several times a year if possible, even if some are only two or three days added to a weekend. The research strongly suggests that you'll be far healthier if you take all of your vacation time, and more productive overall.
A single principle lies at the heart of all these suggestions. When you're engaged at work, fully engage, for defined periods of time. When you're renewing, truly renew. Make waves. Stop living your life in the gray zone.
TONY SCHWARTZ
Tony Schwartz is the president and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of Be Excellent at Anything.
Today is International Women’s Day. Canada’s 2012 theme for International Women’s Day is ”Strong Leadership. Strong Women. Strong World: Equality”
Be a leader today and take the time to do onething for women today. The “one thing” you choose can be quite small. As we each do one small thing, together we have a big impact.
Some suggestions? Help a friend with a difficult situation. Provide some guidance to a colleague. Volunteer at a charity. It doesn’t have to be hard.
Give your advice and support freely and unconditionally. Together we are stronger.
The CICA Women's Leadership Council hosted a webinar on the 7 Deadly Sins of Career Management, presented by Kathleen Grace.
One point which really hit home was not to shy away from risk as it can hamper career advancement. Rather than worrying about making a mistake, think of it as adding to your education. “Lessons learned are tuition not mistakes.”
Reframe your mindset and accept that mistakes simply add to your experience. Personal experiences, good and bad, are a big contributing factor in your likelihood to accept risk (and opportunity) in the future.
Despite how complicated leadership can seem at times, moments of leadership are accessible to all. Watch this 6 minute TED Talk and wake up to how you can make a difference in people’s lives.
IMPACT Consulting's Jennifer Campbell is taking social networking off-line... So, step away from the computer -- it is time for a girl's night out!
Join us for Network Night, a social evening where you will:
connect with new women while practicing your networking skills
relax and recharge in the company of cool, like-minded ladies
and learn the latest tips for “Keeping Your Career Fresh”!
Date: Friday, February 24th, 2012 - 7:30-9:00 pm Location:Yellow Griffin Pub, 2202 Bloor St. West (at Runnymede subway)
Your $15.00 entrance fee includes a facilitated networking program, top tips for career success in 2012, snacks and beverages, plus a whole lot of fun thrown in!
Brought to you by Beth Yarzab and Jennifer Campbell, creators of the Reinvent Your Career workshop and business owners of CareerFit Mom / Action Impact Movement (and great friends, to boot!)
Introverts are hot. Lately, thanks to a new book by Susan Cain titled Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, the quieter folks among us are having something of a moment in the sun. Here are some great tips for introverts to better thrive in the extroverted world of work.
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