Friday, December 31, 2010

Handling Rejections - 1

First off, there are no rejections.

I hear that we fear rejections; if you truly believe that rejections exist, then I invite you to reject rejections.

And just like that the problem goes away.

Of course, if you don’t believe in rejection, then you can’t reject your rejections and the rejections that you don’t believe in will continue to hurt you.

And you’ll be stuck with the problem forever.

I walk. If I accepted every upwards pressure from the earth as rejection, I’d not walk.

Think of it not as rejection, but as resistance to the current direction.

Here’s an example:

After bringing your e-mail to John’s attention, he discussed it with others at Conglobulations. We currently do have processes in place and employees who do manage all of this for Conglobulations. John thanks you for your interest in Conglobulations and understands the value you bring to the business community; at this time, it’s just not required at Conglobulations. Thanks again Chris and we wish you continue success in your business.

Now straight off, he can’t possibly understand the value I bring to the business community. He’s never spoken with me, we’ve never met. So it’s not a rejection, because he doesn’t have anything on which to hand a rejection. (He thinks he has, but he doesn’t really have).

Thanks Griselda. My only puzzle is that back in August Joe Bloggs had said "We are always resource-constrained", and one of the things I do for companies is to devise means of speeding up internal processes and freeing up resources. I would like to stay in touch.

Would John be averse to receiving a monthly single-item newsletter?

I decided to treat the initial response not as an outright “No” but as a failure to communicate.

Perhaps a failure on my part.

Here is the response:

Thanks. I think a monthly newsletter might be a good idea. Would you please copy me as well. Thanks again very much.

Waddya Know?

I had thought to drop $40 to $60 on a lunch to meet the guy and lead him into saying “Let’s stay in touch by email”.

I’ve just saved $40 to $60 PLUS four hours of my time AND been invited to send emails to the president’s personal executive assistant.

Don’t tell me SHE doesn’t know everything that’s going on in the organization!

Nowadays I think of a “rejection” as an invitation to change my direction.

And I keep moving forwards.

Talk to Me !

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Divide and Conquer

It’s the 22nd of the month.

You need $5,000 by the end of the month when all the bills are due.

$5,000 seems, or is, impossible to get.

Should you throw yourself off a bridge?

No. Never.

If you can’t raise $5,000 then do the next best thing – divide and conquer.

Try raising $1,000.

Call a colleague and say “I need a favor; I need to raise $5,000 and I wondered whether you might help me raise $1,000 of it”.

If the answer is yes, than your $5,000 problem has been reduced to a $4,000 problem, which is way better than a $5,000 problem.

In short, if five colleagues can help you to raise $1,000, your original problem is as good as solved.

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

I Have SEVEN Honest Serving Men …

You will recognize the title as a clone of Rudyard Kipling’s poem .

It was brought home to me this morning as listened to a pod cast while strolling around in Commerce Court waiting for my 9 a.m.

The pod cast was making the distinction (in parenting) between what you do (to raise your child’s intelligence) and how you do it.

I thought that that is so true of the life of a solo entrepreneur.

What I blog and How I blog are two different issues (as are When I blog, Why I blog, and so on).

But there is most times a vital ingredient, which I would describe as “THAT I blog” (or THAT I invite contacts out to lunch, or THAT I build a list of prospects …).

Kipling’s six honest serving men are important, but not as important as my seventh.

Talk to Me !

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Common Courtesy Isn't Common

Promod , Thanks for the title!

Promod’s comment follows on from my comment that someone hadn’t replied to a submission-by-email with a short note “Thanks!”. We both know the person, and the relationships are good, but it comes to my mind following two incidents from yesterday.

(1) I was feeling poorly, and “phoned in sick”, which in my case means I spent as much time as possible lying in bed, reading a book, dozing, and occasionally browsing for food and drink, to give my body a chance to recover. It seems to have worked.

(2) I had a not-too-nice response to an innocent email I had sent asking about payment of an invoice.

For both reasons above, I had not replied to my incoming emails that day.

Avoiding an instant reply to the second class is a Good Thing; it prevents me from dashing off a violently reactive response that I’d regret later.

This morning I am calmer and can compose a proper reply. But the remaining eight emails sat in my mailbox overnight.

I am thinking that, if nothing else, I could have a standard line that was pasted into a reply to each of the eight emails saying “I have been ill; I’ll reply to your email tomorrow”, so that each correspondent would know that their email had been received, that I did care about it, and them, and that they weren’t being ignored.

That’s the thing about Common Courtesy. I don’t practice it myself.

I should.

If Common Courtesy Isn't Common, then by practising Common Courtesy I can differentiate myself from all the other consultants out there …

Talk to Me !

Monday, December 27, 2010

The Flying-Fish Syndrome

Next time you find something hard to believe, consider the flying-fish. If you’ve not witnessed one in flight, you’ve almost certainly seen a movie with the flying fish.

The fish swims through the water then broaches the sea-surface and flies (although “coasts” is probably a better word) through the air until gravity wins, as it always does, and the fish re-enters the water.

The resistance of air being less than that of water, the fish will travel further in the air than it would in the water.

Now think of yourself as a sea-bound shark chasing the flying-fish. You are bopping along at, say, ten knots when, to your amazement, your prey disappears, only to re-appear seconds later significantly far ahead of you.

How can that be?

One minute you are both bopping along at ten knots, you are only five feet behind and gaining, then five seconds later you are both still bopping along at ten knots, but you prey has temporarily disappeared and then re-appeared forty feet in front of you.

If you asked a marine-based consultant – a brainy dolphin for example – you might be told that the flying-fish had mastered the art of time-travel by making use of another dimension. A worm-hole in space.

As a shark you find that hard to believe, because you have no concept of traveling through the air.

As a human, familiar with both the sea and the air, it all makes sense.

But as a human you are bound to have problems comprehending the fourth dimension. Or the fifth.

You may also have problems comprehending the slowness of the world’s fastest typist when compared to the slowest computer still in operation on the planet, or the way of life of executives on the golf course.

That doesn’t make them less real.

Talk to Me !

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Bah! Humbug!!

I had a meltdown of sorts this week. Monday afternoon my laptop – my main machine – died.

I made a trip to my favorite repair store in Toronto and learned that it wasn’t the power supply this time ($70) but could be the motherboard ($300).

I could buy a new laptop for under $400, so off I went.

Sadly I am being forced into Windows 7, whereas I’ve spent ten years fine-tuning my WinXP system to a (to you unbelievable) degree of perfection.

Suddenly my fingers fly across the keyboard and create mayhem instead of a new folder; I can’t type the drive and path together in the File saveAs box – need I go on?

What’s really cheesing me off is that I didn’t publish my blog for four days, and no-one commented!

Hence the title of this post.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to you all (both of you?), and guess how I’ll be spending the Christmas break?

Talk to Me !

Friday, December 24, 2010

3 Reasons for Numbered Lists

The Independent a week or so ago showed on its front page the Most Viewed articles.

Visit www.ChrisGreaves.com for this image! NumberedLists.PNG

Of the 15 Most Viewed articles, how many of them could be said to be numbered list?

(1) The top 3 are numbered lists.

(2) 5 out of the top 8 are numbered lists.

What sort of Headline or Subject grabs attention?

(3) If we include superlatives (“most”, “funniest”) then 7 of the top 8 are numbered lists.

From which we conclude?

Talk to Me !

Thursday, December 23, 2010

The Eccentric Mr. Greaves

Sit me and three other colleagues around a table, and one of the other three will turn to the other two and say “You know, Chris is really weird”, and they smile lovingly while they say it, and I lean back and smirk in self-adulation.

I don’t know what they say behind my back, because I’m not there, and they never tell me.

My guess is that I am described as “eccentric”, which word has a bad rap, but in my case is used correctly.

Think of eccentric as ex-centric or off-centre; think of a bell-curve, and place me off to one end, preferably the brilliant end.

I am off-centre; I think differently.

I think differently about Marketing, Sales, Computers.

What most people call “trash” or “garbage” or “rubbish” I call “a re-usable (not recyclable) resource”.

What most people call “dirt” I call soil, and what most people call “soil” I think of as worm castings.

Here’s what’s strange: all my colleagues, fellow-entrepreneurs, are eccentric by definition; each one of them is off-centre. They have chosen, or been forced into a way of life that does NOT involve punching a figurative time-clock from 9 to 5.

Each one of my colleagues is finding a niche, an empty niche, which they can fill.

Each one of us is driven by the urge or need to determine what we do best that no one else is doing, and to establish ourselves in that small area before anyone else tumbles to it.

Sing the praise of The Eccentric Mr. Greaves, and if you’ve ever had breakfast, lunch or dinner with me at The Montreal Deli , pat yourself on the back.

You are one of my extra-ordinary crowd of fellows at the far end of the bell curve.

By definition.

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The 96-Step Method to Cleaning Your Apartment

Yeah, my apartment and home office is spotless, just like yours.

This article serves only to demonstrate the power of writing-it-down and the power of goals-and-objectives.

I’m using a hypothetical 3-bedroom home-office apartment as an example.

Honest!

And it is an easy ninety-six step method.

We start with a few simple definitions:

“Cleaning”: by this we mean

(1) Clear everything off every flat-topped surface

(2) Mop/dust/wipe every flat-topped surface

(3) Clear everything off every floor

(4) Mop/dust/wipe every floor

“Clear”: by this we mean “dispose of”; there are three methods of disposition.

(1) Send to the storage locker in the basement

(2) Huge garbage bag destined for the dumpster

(3) Return to rightful owner

“Every”: by this we mean “each major room or area in the apartment”:

(1) Third bedroom

(2) Bathroom

(3) First bedroom (a.k.a. “Office”)

(4) Washroom

(5) Second bedroom

(6) Lounge area

(7) Dining Area

(8) Kitchen

If you count these you will think I have a 15-step procedure.

Think again:


Each of 8 well-defined areas suffers from each of 4 well-defined actions, making for 8x4=32 separate action-areas.

Multiply those 32 by the 3 disposal methods and you have 96.

This technique of defining terms and breaking a large job into discrete, measurable components is the solution to all problems like this.

It doesn’t matter whether the problem is “Clean the apartment” or “Write my 5-year business plan”.

The method to be applied is the same: identify discrete components (that is, parts that have well-defined quantifiable boundaries. In my example I have used geographic/spatial quantifiers to break my apartment into rooms) and identify discrete actions to be applied to each component

So what brought this on? In the case of the apartment, perhaps a friend has loaned you her new vacuum cleaner and you want to check it out with a view to purchasing a similar model. In the case of your downtown office perhaps a member of The Deep Pockets Club is coming to discuss a contract.

You won’t use this technique to clean up your hard drive, because a new hard drive is cheaper than spending time deleting files from the old, but you can use it to bring the 1,206 word-processing documents or the 81 ZIP compressed files in your T:\Greaves\Training subfolders into a standard format.

Note that some parts of the fictitious plan outlined above go without saying (after which we usually say it anyway, as in …) for example, it is assumed that in clearing off surfaces, you will be placing papers in their correct folders, folders in their correct hanging files, and hanging files in their correct cabinets.

Note too that I have given myself no time-limit on the job ahead. I may spend all of Saturday getting the apartment ship-shape – but if so I should set the oven-timer for 50 minutes to force myself to sit still every hour . I may set a limit of noon, and go for a bike-ride in the afternoon.

Estimating the time taken to “do” each area and then comparing actual with estimated time is always a good exercise for the measuring manager.

P.S. If you DO end up one Saturday wanting to clean up your home-office apartment, I’ve added some hints from a recent experience of mine here .

P.P.S. If working from a table such as the one shown above works for you, consider using a table as a permanent method of maintaining your project in immaculate condition:

Area

Day

Third bedroom

Monday

Bathroom

Tuesday

Office

Wednesday

Washroom

Thursday

Second bedroom

Friday

Lounge-Dining area

Saturday

Kitchen

Sunday

Talk to Me !

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Rethinking My Voice-Mail Approach

I am rethinking my approach to voice-mail.

I dial the direct line to a new prospect. If we haven’t ever spoken before, I’ll not leave a voice-mail. My tactic is to establish direct contact with a 60-second call, and then build up on that. But there is no way I’m going to leave an unsolicited voice-mail with someone who doesn’t know my name.

I just tried to reach Kelly. My notes tell me that we spoke before, and that I sent an email.

A month later I am calling back to ask her out to lunch.

But I get her voice-mail and decide to hang up, because I’ve not mentioned lunch before.

Why am I hanging up?

If my purpose is to establish and build a get-to-know-you relationship, what’s the harm of leaving a voice-mail that says “I was phoning to ask you out to lunch”?

I want to meet her for lunch; that is My Want.

That’s the purpose of my call.

If she doesn’t return my call, that’s OK too. Maybe she doesn’t want to lunch with me (although I can’t imagine why).

Fast-forward a month; I call her again, and again get voice-mail. This time maybe I’ll remind her that I’d like to do lunch, and wish her a Merry Christmas.

I can’t see what’s bad about that. It is surely better than studying the database record and dialing a number and then hanging up.

Where’s the advantage in that?

And more to the point: How is that keeping in touch with my prospects?

Talk to Me !

Monday, December 20, 2010

Take a Break!

A recent Staples Blog says in part:

Take a break. The average self-employed person in Canada works 59 hours a week, which may result in “small business burnout.” Discipline yourself to take a breather every few hours and do something unrelated to work. Walk through the park, have coffee with a friend or go to the gym. Believe it or not, the work will still be there when you return.

Get a hobby. Entrepreneurs typically have trouble “turning their minds off” when they leave work. Always thinking about your business will stress you out – and the people you love. Find joy in a new hobby, activity or charity that has nothing to do with your entrepreneurial ambitions.

Remember the corporate prison. Part of the fun of being one’s own boss is a chance to set your own schedule, take time off and get paid to do what you love. Bring a smile to your face by recalling those days when someone else called the shots. You’ll quickly remember how great it is to be an entrepreneur.

I read books

I preserve foods

I invent recipes

I go canoeing

I ride a bike

I grow plants

I find a Second Use For Everything (SUFE)

And whenever I can, I jump across the Allegheny River

What do you do when you step away from the desk.

Talk to Me !

P.S. Also I blog .

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Still Finding My Way Here …

I’m still groping, not in the dark, but in a well-lit room that reveals more light switches as I explore.

I phoned the CFO today. He is involved in a street-kids program, as am I (loosely, but it’s a hook …).

The receptionist said he’s not in, would I like to leave a message; I said no, but thanks. We hadn’t spoken and I didn’t want to suck him into a game of voice-mail tag.

I asked if I might speak to his Executive Assistant. He is, after all, the CFO.

“That’s me!” chirped my new-found friend, buddy and ally, The Gatekeeper.

I’m fast on my feet.

“Oh, that’s great, I’m so glad”.

You see, I really don’t want to waste his time having him call me back, but perhaps you could let him know I read the press releases and found a reference to the street-kids program. Perhaps if I call back tomorrow he might be in?

Yes, he might.

Thanks.

FWIW:

1: I didn’t speak to him directly, as I had hoped.

2: I have primed Ms Helpful who will remember me when I call tomorrow.

3: I have acknowledged the utility of her position; both she and I serve to reduce time conflicts in the busy CFO’s life

4: When I call tomorrow I have made a small step, and with a bit of luck she will present my message as a friend, not as an unknown caller.

So I am violating my only-talk-directly tactic, but in this case it seems as if there is only one small step between me and the CFO, and it looks like an easy step, so it’s worthwhile the trip with/around/through The Gatekeeper.

Talk to Me !

Friday, December 17, 2010

Staying in Touch 5

In Staying in Touch 4 I suggested a regular end-of-month printed newssheet as a way of touching un-touched contacts.

This morning I culled 47 contacts who are due for a follow-up; I have printed off 47 letters and envelopes, and I am going to send them.

But what do I do about a follow-up date?

If I mark all 47 records for follow-up “in 1 months time”, my backlog will drop from 146 to 99 in a flash. But exactly one month from now, to the day, there will be a huge leap in my backlog of 47 entries!

It’s good that today I’m catching up on my backlog of follow-up, but I seem to be setting my self up for a fall in one months time.

Since I will want to append a comment to each of the 47 records (‘issued an interim mailing”), perhaps I should include a piece of code to bump up each follow-up date by 30 days, or 60 days; in that way the original spread of dates will be maintained and I won’t get a deluge in the near future.

The same logic must apply to a Christmas mailing; if everyone on my list gets a Christmas letter and card, haven’t I “touched” everyone of them? And if so I don’t need to touch them for another month.

But come January 25th comes the deluge!

Talk to Me !

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Why Your Email Might Not Get Read

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Hi Gretchen. We've yet to meet but Joe Bloggs suggested we get in contact regarding your new course offerings. After understanding what you're seeking, I might be able to help you directly and through my network. I'm a mechanic who has educated drivers (mainly Aussies) for years. Drivers say their brakes (especially in small motor cars) are useless for stopping quickly. Brake fidelity offers powerful but overlooked capabilities. However drivers generally have limited knowledge about what's possible. This limits the options they add to their cars. That's where I can help. I've spent my entire career in the world of brake mechanics and am committed to educating others via blogging (over 3500 posts since 2002), presentations, etc. Also, I have connections who can speak about other topics to help drivers decrease their stopping distance. If you'd like to explore, please let me know. We could meet over coffee or lunch. Next Wed and Thur (June 17 or 18) are currently clear from 10 AM onwards. For dates further out, my calendar is online to help with scheduling. Since you're on LinkedIn, I'll send you an invitation to connect. You can then review my profile, connections and testimonials.

I bet you didn’t read all of the previous paragraph.

I have no idea what the email looked like in the target’s InBox, just what it looked like in My Inbox when it was forwarded to me by the original sender. (Names and occupations have been changed to protect the innocent. Also the guilty).

229 words is a bit much to take for an introductory email, it seems to me, especially IF it arrives in a blob.

And here’s the point: We NEVER know how that first email will appear to the reader. We don’t know what program they use for reading email (Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, web-based email), We don’t know the platform (Windows, blackberry, 80-column punched cards …) . We don’t know that character set (ASCII, EBCDIC, ICL 24-bit etc.)

We don’t know whether they are sitting in a quiet place, or whether they are being shaken to bits in an old TTC bus crammed next to a bulky passenger whose headphones are leaking rap noise.

That first email has so many hurdles, one of which is “Who is this and do I want to be bothered with them right now?” that it seems to me a wonder that any of them get read.

A great many of them don’t.

My plan?

Trim my emails down to the absolute minimum required to get a meeting.

Everything else can be raised at the meeting.

After all, we have to have SOMEthing novel to discuss.

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

What are Your Plans for Christmas?

Apart from feasting (This year Christmas is being brought to me by the letter “D”).

I mean in terms of getting done all those things you ought to get done over the two-week activity gap that stretches in front of us.

We all have commitments to family and friends get-togethers, and we all want “down time”, but admit it – you’ve been waiting for a clear day before you

  • Migrate the contact database to its new form
  • Implement the super-fixes to your web compiler
  • Sort through all the cartons and move most to storage

And so on.

Do us all a favour.

Drag out your diary and set aside a complete day for each task you’d like to accomplish.

On that day, disconnect your phone, set your email to check for mail every ten hours (!) and get that day’s task done – migrate, implement, sort, whatever – so that partway through the day you are DONE with that task.

Use the rest of the day to goof off; you’ve earned it.

This I guarantee – if you don’t plan to do stuff, it won’t get done, and if you don’t plan by setting aside a day that you give to yourself for this task, it won’t get done.

And if it doesn’t get done, you’ll hate yourself come January 5th.

Again.

Talk to Me !

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

‘Tis the Seize-on to Be Folly

By which I mean you should throw all good reason to the winds and seize on a golden opportunity to flesh out your contact list.

Specifically that growing pile of names and businesses with which you have not yet established a contact.

More than any other time of year, the Christmas Season is the time when an unsolicited card has to be accepted at face value.

  • It’s the law!

Early in the new year when you phone to make that first contact, it won’t be quite so cold.

Your excuse for sending a mysterious card? You ran out of time to phone and didn’t want your contact to have to wait another year for their first Corporate Christmas Letter from you.

Be joyous!

I just helped you clear your backlog!

It’s also an OK time to leave a voice-mail with people you should talk to; “I called to wish you the best this Christmas Season and I hope to meet with you again in the New year”.

  • Does it work?

A very good afternoon to you. Sorry, I missed your call. I came in late today. Anyhow, thank you so much for your holiday greetings. I wish you too and your loved ones A Very Blessed Christm as and A Very Healthy & Prosperous New Year! FYI, I will be away from Dec 20 returning Jan 3 and will definitely be in touch in the new year.

If your goal in contact management is to stay in touch, to keep your name in people’s minds, then a short voice-mail with season’s greetings doesn’t hurt.

P.S. Indeed, wasn’t the whole point of that first telephone call so that you COULD call them unannounced to stay in touch? So any person on your contact list with whome you have ever met or cahtted is a fair candidate for a Christmas Greeting, whether direct or by voice-mail.

Talk to Me !

Saturday, December 11, 2010

The One-Off Custom Mail-Merge

It sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it?

A mail-merge is a bulk-send facility. Spit out 250 identical letters, customized with the addressees name, 250 envelopes, 250 postage stamps, then sit back and wait.

Think Again!

I’ve just got off the phone with Marco, head of research in a large and prosperous financial institution. I invited him to lunch. He very politely declines, saying that he didn’t see the connection.

That’s OK. In deed, I’m getting quite used to acceptance, so that rejection is almost a relief.

Marco’s line was similar to “I don’t see the fit; we are financial analysts”, which I knew already; I wasn’t prepared for that and should have been.

I could have trotted out my “Weather-Vain into prospector” line.

Still, it’s not too late.

Suppose in 3 weeks time I sent a letter that appeared to be a mass-mail-merge newsletter, but touched on, and was couched in terms that had appeared in the original press release?

The recipient, Marco, would perceive it as a mass-mailing, but perhaps be surprised by the closeness of my business to his.

It’s worth a thought.

Of course, I will automate this; it will be a mass-mailing in the sense that at the end of the month I’ll do a mail-merge run to identify all rejections.

But the letter content can be a carefully hand-crafted as the one I wrote to win back my girlfriend, years ago.

Talk to Me !

Friday, December 10, 2010

Define Your Audience and Clarify Your Message

A recent post from Andie Lewandowski includes the little zinger I used as my subject line.

The minute I read it, I wrote it down on a scrap of paper to carry with me today.

Eighteen Months ago I was challenged to define my New Target Market; I thought that was easy.

Today I realize that I still have trouble focusing on the “who”, and for the who, presenting a core message that should make them sit up and want to meet with me.

It’s that simple.

I’m sure that by now I have the audience nailed down.

It’s that initial (and continuing message) that I want to refine, and refine, and refine, to the point where issuing the message, in spoken or written form, prompts the recipient to invite me to their office.

Talk to Me !

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Dumber Than Two Cats

A recent posting on Stikeman Elliot’s blog is the miserable précis of a couple of idiots who were stupid enough to make Facebook postings on “the very same day the employer learned of the successful [union] certification”.

Stupid because the workers were staunch supporters of the union, and should have realized that their comments would be monitored.

Stupid because, regardless of the legality, I have two cats and remind them daily “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you”.

‘Twas ever thus.

Dumber than two cats, if you ask me.

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

(6/5) Resources

OK. So I lied about it being a 5-part series. After I’d started I realized that a small practical tip might be handy.

Start your research today and build lists of useful contacts in terms of Paid Speaking Engagements.

Trade papers should yield at least one high-level name per issue, and there you have a hook on which to hang a conversation.

Boards of Trade, Chambers of Commerce and similar groups require speakers. Attend a meeting and ask politely who is the speaker-seeker for the group.

Professional networking meetings of your peers which strongly promote awareness of members skills and offer contacts at a management, rather than a technical level. require speakers. Attend a meeting and ask politely who is the speaker-seeker for the group.

Wherever possible obtain two or three consecutive issues of a publication and attend two or three meetings to determine the tone, especially whether you would suit the level of expertise. (There’s little point in pushing programming techniques to the local gardening society, and little point in expounding domestic vermicomposting to the Toronto Board of Trade).

For each of the bulleted points above you should be able to obtain at least five contacts in your area.

Use each contact to locate further contacts; for example, in chatting with a member of a professional group, you might ask “What other groups do you attend that you find beneficial to your development” or similar. In this way you will branch out, like a tree growing shoots, and find other similar target markets for your Paid Speaking Engagements.

Talk to Me !

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

(5/5) How do I present the solution so that they see the value and are willing to pay?

Present the solution the same way you present your proposals and quotations. This is, after all, a proposal that you visit the organization and speak for an hour.

(1) : Establish that there is a need.

(2) : Establish your credentials.

(3) : Specify your service.

(4) : Calculate the value to the organization.

(5) : Propose the Paid Speaking Engagement.

Remember, the organization already feels that it will benefit from your time that you spend to disseminate your knowledge to them.

The only question is “What is the value to them of your time and knowledge?”.

The answer is a well-established $110 per hour.

For some organizations (e.g. Royal Bank) they won’t blink. For other organizations (e.g. the AIC) they will go into a huddle at the next board meeting.

(Actually, The Royal Bank will probably turn you down; they will reason that anyone who charges $110 to address senior management can’t be all that good. And let’s face it, you may not be in that league, yet, so a contract with them might well be an embarrassment if your resources are stretched).

You already have a boilerplate proposal on your hard drive. Save it with a new name, convert it to a Paid Speaking Engagements proposal, and then all you need to do in future is plug in the organization name and address, the proposed date and time, and you are done.

No sense in spending more than ten minutes on something that MIGHT net you $110 over 3 hours.

Talk to Me !

Monday, December 6, 2010

(4/5) What should I be charging for speaking engagements

(4/5) What should I be charging for speaking engagements and charging non-profits for my online marketing services at this stage in my career?

You set a standard fee and you stick to it. Your fee is about you, not about your client.

You may have a small range of fees that looks like this:

Item Rate
On-site visit $1,000 per day or part thereof; travel time included.
Hourly work on-site $110 per hour or part thereof; travel time billed at one hour each way.
Hourly work off-site $55 per hour or part thereof.
Training $1,000 per day regardless of class size.

Set your rates and stick to them.

Winnow out the clients who can’t afford you – you want only well-heeled clients.

I follow a similar principal with my calendar, which is a $9 eight-inch by five-inch spiral bound item from the store. I open it up to reveal one week per page.

When I make an appointment, I write it in my diary and it is fixed for all time, regardless of what else comes up. If I am meeting my buddy Fred for lunch on Wednesday, the time from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. is blocked out with “FRED” written in it. If a client wishes to meet with me, I tell them ‘I’m sorry I am booked from 11 until 2 that day”. I don’t have to explain that it’s my canoeing buddy. I’m not available.

And as much as I love Fred, when he suggested lunch on Thursday, I told him I was meeting a complete stranger that day, sorry.

I have no favorites in my diary; it is first-come, first-served, and it lifts the stress of relationships off my shoulders.

I run the same deal with clients; no favorites. These are my rates, my terms. Fifty percent up front if you want me to start work on the project. And as much as I like the project, I don’t lift a finger until the cheque arrives. (And if the cheque doesn’t arrive within two weeks, the hanging folder goes into the cabinet and makes its way to the rear of the set ).

So add one row to your table:

Item Rate
On-site visit $1,000 per day or part thereof; travel time included.
Hourly work on-site $110 per hour or part thereof; travel time billed at one hour each way.
Hourly work off-site $55 per hour or part thereof.
Training $1,000 per day regardless of class size.
Speaking $110 per one-hour speaking engagement; travel time included.

You recognize that to some extent this is a sales call, so you give the client a break – you don’t charge for travel time.

And regardless of who asks you to speak, it’s $110 per hour.

The Royal Bank? It’s $110 per hour. They have money, we know that.

Amnesty International? It’s $110 per hour. They have a donation scheme, we know that.

Toronto Cat Rescue? It’s $110 per hour. They pay rent, we know that.

Association of Independent Consultants? It’s $110 per hour. They have membership fees, we know that.

Talk to Me !

Saturday, December 4, 2010

(3/5) Likewise with the non-profits that are asking for my help.

Nevil Shute Norway was an astute businessman. Under the pseudonym “Nevil Shute“ he wrote 24 novels and an autobiography. In “A Town Like Alice”, chapter 1, he has the following dialogue between the executor of a will and the sole beneficiary:

I knew of several charitable appeals who would have found a first-class typist, unpaid, a perfect god-send and I told her so. She was inclined to be critical about those. “Surely if a thing is really worthwhile it’ll pay” she said. “I shouldn’t have thought that organizations that haven’t enough margin to pay a secretary can possibly do very much good”.

I am of the same mind as the heroine.

After all, a Non-Profit Organization is, by definition, an organization that makes no profits. Profit is defined as Revenue Minus Expenses, so a Non-Profit Organization is an organization whose revenue matches expenses. That is, they have expenses, and you could and should be part of the expenses.

The Non-Profit Organization you speak at will pay rent, electricity, office supplies, some paid or partly-paid staff members, and so on. It is no part of YOUR business to delve into THEIR finances. Your business is to deal solely with your finances, and that means you get paid each time you leave the office to speak or to engage with a client.

Talk to Me !

Friday, December 3, 2010

(2/5) What should I say to these college reps who are asking me to speak for their students so that I can generate $$ from helping students?

Tell them that you’ll be glad to fit them into your schedule and that your fee is $100 for a one-hour presentation broken down into a 40-minute talk and a 15-minute question-and-answer session.

The college may have a different schedule, say 45 minutes between each class rather than the 60 minutes I have supposed above. I’d be inclined to stick to 60 minutes and let the school adjust its schedule.

If your talk is 40 minutes, you won’t be presenting OR GETTING the full value by eliminating some of your material or by eliminating the feedback of questions-and-answers.

It is the Q&A dialogue that informs YOU of the client’s pain, problems, needs and wants. If you don’t get the Q&A you don’t get the client. You are a disposable source of knowledge.

Why would a college rep want you to address the students? To impart knowledge to the students. Doesn’t the college have someone to do that?

Obviously not.

You are getting the college off the hook by becoming a walk-on-walk-off instructor, with no overhead for the college. What a bargain!

Talk to Me !

Thursday, December 2, 2010

(1/5) How do you position yourself to get paid speaking engagements?

You are not a Professional Speaker.

Your business plan states your target market for your specialized product or service, and it isn’t Paid Speaking Engagements.

Paid Speaking Engagements are for you grocery money, so you don’t need to position yourself as shown in http://www.prospeakers.com/ or http://www.speakers.ca/

You can let each lead, prospect, contact or client know that if they want to learn more you’ll be happy to deliver a one-hour paid presentation to inform the management and executives of the organization.

Let’s face it: You are in the business of selling knowledge; your knowledge is generally embodied in your product or service. You should not be giving it away.

If Business is “the exchange of two pieces of paper, one of which must be a cheque”, then every time you speak and someone makes notes, you are giving them a piece of paper, but if they are not giving you a cheque, then it’s not business, it’s just a pastime. And who has the time or money to spend on a pastime nowadays.

Over twenty years ago I met a consultant who shocked me at the time; he explained that he never left his office unless he was being paid. “What about sales calls?”, I asked. No such thing in his books, unless it was over the phone. If a phone conversation convinced the prospect that it would be worth some time spent face-to-face with the consultant, then, on the basis that time is money, this consultant reasoned that an exchange of time for money was appropriate.

“But won’t you miss out on some work this way?” I harried. ”Yes”, he replied, and then showed me that a prospect who didn’t value his time was not going to be a good client. He was interested only in clients who valued the time he would spend disseminating knowledge.

It’s a mistake I have often made with prospective clients; sitting in their office listening to their problems, and then excitedly letting them know what the solution was. How many of your prospects have listened to you for free, and then bought a book or found the answer on the web?

Your positioning is therefore that of creating an image of a person who has great wisdom and experience that will be of value to a client organization.

How much value? That is reflected in your price, and if the prospect does not agree, then what makes you think you’ll be getting any future business from them? Or that you’ll be happy with a penny-pinching client?

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Paid Speaking Engagements

A typical set of questions from a service-area entrepreneur:

(1) How do you position yourself to get paid speaking engagements?

(2) What should I say to these college reps who are asking me to speak for their students so that I can generate $$ from helping students?

(3) Likewise with the non-profits that are asking for my help.

(4) What should I be charging for speaking engagements and charging non-profits for my online marketing services at this stage in my career?

(5) How do I present the solution so that they see the value and are willing to pay?

With your permission(1), I’d like to answer these questions one by one in an uninterrupted sequence.

You may not be interested in Paid Speaking Engagements, but much of what I have to say concerns payment for services in general, so it might be worth your while to join in.

I am answering these personal questions from my own experience; I provide training and I develop applications.

I am NOT a professional speaker; that is, I don’t make my living out of Paid Speaking Engagements - apart from scheduled training classes.

If you like, for me Paid Speaking Engagements are grocery money, or a contribution to the vacation I never seem to take.

Talk to Me !

(1) Please!