Thursday, March 31, 2011

Start Your Christmas Letter NOW!

I should talk. I still am not finished mailing out my 2010 Christmas letters.

Mainly because I haven’t cleared a space on the table, finished checking my map collection and so on. Truth is, I haven’t set aside the time to do it.

But what about next December? Will I have two corporate letters ready-to-go-to-print?

You betcha!

So can you.

Here’s how

  • Fire up your favorite word processor.
  • Save a new document as Christmas2011.doc
  • Create a two-column table.
  • In the left-hand column place the months January through December.
  • In the right-hand column write one short paragraph for each of the past months – January, February, March.
  • Save and close your document.

You are looking for the most significant commercial and personal event in the month. (One event for each newsletter).

During the current month, when something significant happens, load it into the right-hand cell for the current month (or contemplate replacing what seemed momentous four days ago).

And don’t worry; at the end of the year much of this will seem trivial in retrospect because you have issued lost of newsletters, blogged lots of items, made lots of lunches, gone on many trips since then. But to your readers the initial event will be as fresh as your Christmas letter in their hands.

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Learning from My Peers

This may come as a surprise to you, but I am not the most experienced in the bunch, nor always the brightest.

I just got off the phone with Julia Wooster of Prime Admin Solutions again, and we agreed to exchange emails.

I noticed this at the foot of her email:

Visit www.ChrisGreaves.com for this image! Learning.png

I said to my self, “Self”, I said, “Why don’t I have my Twitter and LinkedIn URLs in my email signature?”

So now I do.

Thanks Julia!

You’re a great incremental coach.

Talk to Me !

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

3 Easy Lessons

Down at the foot of the article “ How I cut my credit card rate in half ” I read:-

There are three lessons here.

The first is if you don't ask you'll never find out what you can get.

The second is that just because you ask you don't always get what you want. In this case, I figure I still came out ahead because I got rid of a high-interest card and have a new one with a lower rate.

The third is that I will now be shopping around for a card that offers low interest rates and high benefits.

The first two lessons are somewhat familiar to us. As entrepreneurs – no different from Lawyers and Print Shops – we are somehow reluctant to ask for a deposit up front. But when we do ask we are surprised when the client says “OK”. I regularly stipulate a 50% deposit on every proposal that goes out now.

The third lesson was more interesting to me.

Once – again as entrepreneurs - we have had the experience of asking for compensation, we learn that it’s OK to ask for other things, too.

For years my policy has been that I do not charge for travel within the boundaries of Toronto and Mississauga. (TTC and Mississauga Transit). My home office is smack on the border between the two cities, so both cities are adjacent to me.

Recently I’ve decided to ask for travel costs – a one-hour-each-way fixed rate – for any part-day assignment.

You want a ½ day’s training? Sure. $550. Plus travel costs.

And what if the client negotiates a not-travel-cost deal? Then I still place the travel item on the invoice, but set it at zero.

No harm in reminding the client that they got a good deal.

Talk to Me !

Monday, March 28, 2011

What Your Client is Thinking

You run the city’s top Animal Medical Hospital, a 24-hour emergency clinic. Vets refer their own clients to you on the weekends. Pristine, efficient, modern equipment, the entire staff fully qualified and they care about humans more than they care about their passion in life – the well-being of pets.

The client arrives with a cat-basket from which emit pitiful howls. Agony for everyone, especially the articulate.

After a 5-minute examination you present the printed estimate for $2,100 which is a fair and honest estimate; you are in business and it costs a whack to set this place up and maintain a near-100% success rate. The client knows this.

Now if the client has $2,100 (or more – say $5,000) cash sitting in their personal account, they will pay. If they have less than $2,100, say $500, they will come to a (literally for you all) painful decision.

Let’s introduce a factor of 10. Suppose the estimate came to $210. The client would pay. Suppose the estimate came to $21,000 (some do come to that!). The client would walk away.

It’s not the absolute amount of the estimate that counts – you arrived at the factor after due diligence and a flawless addition of detailed and documented components. It’s where the estimate sits on the client’s number-line.

Now let’s suppose that the client has unlimited funds (for example, $5,000,000 sitting in their personal account) and make the estimate $210,000 or even $2,100,000. Still the client walks away. Only this time it’s not about where the estimate sits on their number line (anyone with $5,000,000 in their personal account can liquidate a downtown office tower tomorrow morning and raise an additional billion or so), this time it’s about the client’s sense of reality.

No matter how much you love your cat, no pet cat is worth $210,000 (unless you are buying life insurance, of course).

In every case your estimate is fair and accurate.

In all cases the client has a number line.

The one redeeming feature that might let you cover your absolutely basic costs is that the client expects at the very least to pay a basic consultation fee just for walking in the door, say $150. You’ll get your $150.

And if the client decides to terminate the pet relationship (a most difficult decision by the way), you’ll make a small profit on the $390 euthanasia service.

Talk to Me !

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Expires July 8, 2011

I read with interest a paper titled “ Email DNSBL Best Practise ”; don’t sweat the spelling, it is an international open-source effort that reduces the volume of spam in your mail box, and mine.

A header/footer text that read “Expires July 8, 2011“ caught my eye.

Visit www.ChrisGreaves.com for this image! expiresJuly82011.png

For the past 15 years every MS-Word document I produce has been pre-loaded with a default header/footer that includes as a minimum my phone number, the date/time of printing and a unique document number.

In the early days I had an idea that I would run a DMS on my system, but the need never rose above “interesting”.

I had not previously thought of including a “Best Use By” date on my documents, and why not?

A great deal of what I write is timeless (these blogs for example!); training material I wrote for Excel 5 and DOS Lotus -123 still holds true because it is all about application development, and that hasn’t changed since 1968.

Some of what I write will become dated quite quickly, especially when I am documenting some weird feature of a specific version of MS-Office, or perhaps this year’s plan to take over the world.

The “Best Use By” date is not meant to cover my ass in any legal dispute; it is there to caution the reader that the material MIGHT stale rather quickly, and my phone number is always available for a checkup.

Hmm!

Talk to Me !

Friday, March 25, 2011

Selecting Contacts

“Some Body has been named Director of Product Development in Canada”.

I have to be more selective with my contacts.

A recent news release announced the appointment of some one to a position in one of my target market forms – a large insurance company.

Now I can call Some Body and invite them out to lunch, but this is a way of working my way up the tree, and apart from “Congratulations”, what are we to use as a vehicle?

My plan to invite ONLY Presidents, CEOs and CFOs means that it could be a long while before I get a good hook on one of those via a press release for this major firm.

On the other hand, going with Some Body is likely to be just as time-consuming, without the guarantee of my getting there at all.

Talk to Me !

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Statistics

Statistics has a bad rap.

I’m here to speak up for statistics and mathematics.

On February 22 2011 an earthquake rocked the city of Christchurch in New Zealand.

Early (24 hours) reports told of 65 dead. We know that figure may well rise as rubble is cleared.

Christchurch is the second-largest city in New Zealand .

The population of New Zealand is 4,315,800.

The population of the U.S.A. is 307,006,560

The U.S.A.’s second largest city is Los Angeles.

How would you feel if 4,624 people died in Los Angeles?

Do the math for your own country.

It isn’t difficult.

But it will help you put the New Zealand news in perspective.

(February 24 2011) The toll has risen to 98 , so …

think in terms of 7,000 dead in Los Angeles.

(February 25 2011) The toll has risen to 145 , so …

think in terms of 10,315 dead in Los Angeles.

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

There’s No Such Thing As Bad Weather …

… Just the Wrong Clothes.

OK, so I stole that from a TVO broadcast of the Billy Connoly trip around the top of Canada via the elusive North-West Passage .

His point is valid, and Australian friends and relatives have often enough asked me “How do you COPE in Toronto?”.

Truth is, I don’t like the winter weather; I grew up in the mirror image of San Diego and Borrego Springs . Nonetheless I dress warm, gloves, cap, scarf, and set off on a 10-minute trek to a friend’s house for supper, carrying the meal’s ingredients ( I love to cook ).

It struck me that the same could be said of my business contacts:

  • There’s No Such Thing As Bad Clients – Just the Wrong Product.
  • There’s No Such Thing As a Bad Sale – Just the Wrong Conversation.
  • There’s No Such Thing As a Bad Prospect – Just the Wrong Hook.

I am sure you can continue paraphrasing whenever things go wrong in your business.

Talk to Me !

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Exit Interview

We generally associate an exit interview with a change of job; and a good thing it is, too.

But exit interviews take place whenever two humans part company. They occur for me on a regular basis every time I leave The Montreal Deli ; the waitresses bid me to return soon, and by that I know that I’m tipping them way too much.

My neighbor just had an exit interview with Jenny Craig; it did not go well. She went in to tell them she was going to wing it, thank you very much, after 3 months at $600/month for the JC food menu.

Quite right, too. You want to lose weight? Decide that you want to; tell someone you are going to do it, then eat smaller portions of better foods (i.e. non-packaged food). Take the stairs from time to time just for the hell of it.

Jenny Craig of course is not in the business of helping people lose weight; not at all. They are in the business of selling cheap food in cheap packages expensively. When someone quits The Program, JC’s revenue stream takes a hit.

My neighbor reports that her consultant was quite negative, “You’ll not lose any more weight once you leave us”. This is true, actually; anyone who has lost weight will tell you that it’s quite easy to lose weight at about a pound a week for the first three months; after that shedding a pound can take up to a month or more. Of course, you can’t go on losing weight at a pound a week for 200 weeks, can you?

The whole interview was sordid, to hear it told.

What a missed opportunity for JC, to wish my neighbor well, thank her for taking part in The program, smile, and “Here’s my card, don’t hesitate to get in touch, for any reason, at any time …”.

Instead my neighbor won’t recommend JC to anyone.

The same must hold true when someone decides that they don’t require my services, or that that they don’t require my services any more.

My job is to smile, say “Please don’t hesitate”, and put a positive spin on the whole thing.

  • My door is always open for you.
  • I’m always sitting by the phone.
  • Waiting for your call.
  • Love to hear from you.
  • Anytime.

Talk to Me !

Monday, March 21, 2011

Your Personal Invitation to Lunch - Follow-up

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

I was out all day Monday delivering training; not a single voice-mail or email from my five invitations. Disappointing, but we are not done yet!

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

One no-thanks so far, by email. At least that one person responded; the other four have not done so yet.

“I really don’t think it makes sense for us to meet at this point. XXXXXXX has no money available for the kind of work that you do; I don’t think there is a fit and it would not be a worthwhile use of your time or mine.”

I erase one penciled-in date from my diary.

Then:

“Thanks very much for your luncheon invitation. Our training requirements are well covered at this time, this along with my hectic schedule, means I need to decline your invite.”

Two turn-downs out of five; does this mean that three are still in the running?

Both the two turn-downs indicate a pre-supposition on their parts, one of the kind of work that I do, the other that I was selling training.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

A third not-quite-yet, also known as a “Continuation”. Not this day, let’s do it in April.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Two outstanding invitations; no reply. The dates were for tomorrow and Friday.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Well, there you go.

  1. Two replied and said “No Thanks”.
  2. One replied and said “Later”.
  3. And two did not bother to reply. At all. In any way.

Given that this was an experiment to see if difficult-to-reach-by-phone could be reached by a personal invitation, the experiment was a success.

It has taught me (I think) that those contacts who are difficult to reach by phone are also difficult to motivate by personal letter-mail.

WHY they are difficult to reach is another question:-

  • Perhaps they just can’t stand me.
  • Perhaps they never visit their mail-box down in the basement.
  • Perhaps they are just plain rude and their parents never taught them to be courteous.

But see also The Exit Interview

Regardless, it suggests to me that difficult-to-reach-by-phone translates quite easily into difficult-to-reach, and that difficult-to-reach-by-phone can be easily dropped as not-worth-my-time-and-effort.

Talk to Me !

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Why You Need to Count to 3

Because you can only do one job at a time.

Not three.

Despite humans trying to mimic their higher-cousins, operating systems, by claiming “I’m Multi-tasking!”.

So I am no different from you. I function best, produce the most fastest when I can focus on one job and deal with it to completion.

Visit www.ChrisGreaves.com for this image! Count3_HPIM3638.JPG

That’s why this (Saturday) morning, feeling overwhelmed, I took 15 seconds to identify the 3 tasks in my overwhelming task stream that ought to be done.

Turns out they were:

1: Complete the draft of the Excel Application course

2: Set up MailChimp for my eLetter

3: Work on the Marketing Plan proposed by the brilliant Geoff Hewko

So it’s out with three manila folders, three hanging folders and three plastic tabs.

Three labels, and into each folder goes the collection of notes and items that have accumulated on my desk this past week.

Now my work desk sports 3 hanging folders; I will pick one, work on it, and then file any new notes back in the hanging folder and file it away in my “Projects” file cabinet drawer and start on the next task.

I might, this being a weekend, leave the 3 folders on the other desk so that I can pick which one I feel like working on.

This brings in yet another aspect of Goals, Objectives, Deliverables and Deadlines. Even for this weekend, a short time span, I need to set myself an attainable goal for each project BEFORE I open the folder.

Talk to Me !

Friday, March 18, 2011

What is Your Freebie?

I have just signed up for MailChimp to manage my new eLetter. The FREE MailChimp service.

If it works I might upgrade to a paid version.

I regularly use free software or free data sources.

Why not? Why pay for something that is genuinely free, especially if it comes from a professional organization.

But how do I reconcile that with my old-fashioned pay-for-what-you-use mentality?

I consider how much free advice I give out over the phone or in the technical forums, and that my Indexer is a free download (as are several other applications), and I don’t feel so bad.

I bet too that you make use of freebies.

Just out of interest, what freebies do you give away?

Talk to Me !

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Why I Meet Face-to-Face

The basic reason is that I am old and old-fashioned. I can live with that, because I have to live with that.

A recent Robert Half survey “identified the top five technology etiquette breachers and gives advice to help workers avoid these labels”.

Surprise! Surprise! “5. The Conference Call Con. This multitasker pretends to pay attention during teleconferences but is so busy checking e-mail he has no clue what's being discussed.”.

I often wonder, when I’m chatting with you, whether you are doing the old cocktail-party chat (Uh-huh! You don’t say! I never knew that …) and checking email, or at least, trying to win at MS-Hearts.

When I meet face-to-face for 60 minutes, I get 60 minutes of undivided attention.

It’s true that there is often a 2-hour travel time added to the cost, but at the very least I know I have your attention and, presumably, you consider the matter important enough to invest your time in it too.

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Nag Screen

Related to “ Why You Need to Count to 3 ” is the business of staying on track within the project.

If you find that you are easily distracted (as am I) you might want to try this little trick:

Create a list of the steps you need to take to complete today’s goal (not this week’s goal, but just for today).

Take a screen snapshot (PrtScr key on your keyboard)

Paste the clipboard into MSPaint

Save the MSPaint as a BMP file on your hard drive.

(Win7) Right-click on the desktop, choose Personalize, and browse to your saved screenshot

(WinXP) Right-click on the desktop, Properties, Desktop and choose your screen shot as the background.

If you have trouble following these steps, please Talk to Me !

Visit www.ChrisGreaves.com for this image! NagScreen.png



Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Your Blogging Responsibility

If you host or moderate a blog with public access, you may want to read this Sack Goldblatt Mitchell article , from which “ … The defendants were not alleged to have been the authors of the defamatory posts, but rather moderators who had the ability to publish or delete the allegedly defamatory comments.”

As usual, for us, it’s not a question of who wins or loses – but the resources expended in making or denying these sorts of claims.

If you are a moderator, be aware of your responsibilities.

Especially if, like me, you have the ability to publish or delete comments.

Talk to Me !

Monday, March 14, 2011

Leaving The Office

Last night in conversation I was reminded of an encounter back in 1989, or even earlier.

For some reason, a fellow-consultant dropped in to visit me; we sat in the living-room and chatted.

During the conversation he told me that he did not leave his office without charging someone.

The gist was that he would discuss matters on the phone, sitting in his office, for free (presumably with some sort of time-limit), but that any thing that required his physical presence in another place, expressly, that required that his brain, eyes, hands and mouth were present, was important enough to warrant a fee.

I am considering implementing such a philosophy here, albeit twenty two years later.

If you are a consultant, then satisfying people with your physical presence suggests that your physical presence provides something that cannot be otherwise obtained.

And that suggests that you have something of real dollar value in you when you visit a client.

Talk to Me !

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Help Desk/Technical Support

An interesting press release from Robert Half Technology “CIOs express optimism about second-quarter hiring” ( http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/March2011/10/c9538.html )

Under the heading “Skills in Demand” I read “… the greatest challenge in finding skilled IT professionals are help desk/technical support and database management, …”

Help Desk/Technical support is outsourced more and more to solo-entrepreneurs who have deep technical skills and can communicate and train over the phone.

Database management is a no-brainer: “A company is known by the data it keeps”.

Talk to Me !

Friday, March 11, 2011

Your Personal Invitation to Lunch

I have documented this as a technical paper on my web site.

As I work through my contacts list I come across people with whom I have had minimal contact in the past. I telephone them, they don’t pick up the phone (for whatever reason), and I log the date/time with “got vm” to indicate that I tried to contact them without success. I roll the record forward a few days.

After half a dozen successive failures at different times of the different days I begin to wonder if this is a worthwhile contact.

Perhaps they don’t want to talk with me, and ignoring the phone is the easiest way to deal with it; perhaps they spend all day in meetings elsewhere; perhaps they only respond to voice-mail messages.

I don’t know.

But I do know that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life dealing with a client, even a paying client, that I can’t reach by phone.

The time has come to drop them – or to escalate the campaign in one last burst of stellar energy.

INVITATIONS TO LUNCH is that burst of energy.

Visit www.ChrisGreaves.com for this image! Invitations_HPIM3619.JPG

I had five records tagged for invitations over the past two weeks.

I have mailed off (Friday 5 p.m. collection) the five invitations; I used my custom postage stamps. The invitations will land on desks Monday morning.

Sadly I won’t be here Monday, so in an ironic twist THEY will have to leave a voice mail or send an email if they choose to respond.

I penciled each name into my diary on a separate day a month away; this minimizes the chance that they will already be booked for a lunch-time meeting that day.

If they respond positively, and I hope that they will, we will have something to talk about, for sure.

If they don’t, I won’t feel badly about dropping that specific person (but not the company) from my contact list). I will erase that penciled meeting from that date, freeing it up for people who I can reach by phone.

One other thing: I printed out a sheet bearing the five names and will monitor the impact of this trial campaign closely.

Talk to Me !

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Maybe You’re 65, and Starting a Freelance Marketing Shop

Interesting post from CopyBlogger about rejection, or at least failure-to-impress.

“You know, those customers really want your product to be the one they’ve been looking for. They aren’t against you, they’re waiting for you to nail it, to solve their problem, so they can get on with their lives.”

It is worth reading no matter what your age, no matter how long you have been ramping up your SOLUTIONS.

Everyone you talk with is hoping that YOU will be the miracle they were looking for, that YOU will have the solution.

The original story is about casting directors and auditions, but now that I think about it, I’ve spent a great deal of my (single) life giving women the once-over, wondering if SHE will become the next Mrs. Greaves.

Not in a chauvinistic sense, I hope, but you too, don’t you hope that THIS interview will clinch the $100,000 contract? That THIS prospect will end up being the client-who-puts-you-on-retainer?

Truth is, they too are hoping that you will be the round peg that fits into the round hole!

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

8 Work-At-Home Pitfalls 5-8

The Toronto Star recently published an article whose title starts with a digit “8” and the prospect of a list always intrigues us, so we went to see what is was about.

I’m going to tackle each pitfall and suggest what you-the-general-manager might do to avoid the pitfall.

Yesterday – Pitfalls 1-4

5. Guests never seem to get it that you have work to do and when you are in the office you’re not playing solitaire. Recently, I had a visitor who loudly sang off key while I tried to work to a deadline.

If the guest is your pal Rick who you haven’t seen for two years, then the General Manager should be scheduling off-time for you so that you can spend time with Rick. If the guest is Gwendolyn who stays overnight each Tuesday to catch the opera films, then the General Manager needs to remind Gwendolyn that after 8am you are at work, and need a quiet atmosphere.

A guest who does not appreciate your situation ought not be invited back. That’s the General Manager’s job, too.

6. Credit is a problem. Banks still look askance at the self employed. I believe they have a secret, negative category for us, particularly those who work at home. Assets, sparkling credit score and low debt to income ratio be damned, the work-at-home crowd have a tough time getting things like a business related line of credit without pledging their first born.

If banks don’t appreciate your business, go chat with a credit union. Credit unions pay interest and bonuses, are staffed by friendly people (not clerks hanging in until retirement) and are flexible on loans.

Banks don’t have all the solutions to your problems. Banks are geared to the most-common-needs of the general public, and still have problems understanding someone who chooses not to work in a cubicle on the 23rd floor downtown.

7. Too many bosses! Everyone you do business with is a potential boss. Juggling them all is often a challenge. And you can’t make the excuse that a job will be late because a certain VP demanded your time.

The Gm again. Why are you juggling 8 projects? The General Manager doesn’t need to make excuses, either. This is the world of business.

Back in 1990 I had three clients who each wanted me full-time. I had all 3 discuss the situation between them, and they came up with a schedule that they could live with (until one project ended and we re-assigned my time).

Admittedly I started work at 5 am on the northern end of the city, then travelled 70 Km to a suburb for an 8:30 start there, then 50 Km for a 11am start, but I got to nudge each project along each day, and the clients were happy.

8. The kids hate it. When mine were in the tween and teen years they yearned to be latch key kids. How can you get into after school trouble if Mom is always there when you get off the school bus?

Tough One. I have no tweens living with me, but I do have a couple of cats, one called “BleatsALot” and one called “WouldBleatIfHe Didn’t”.

My General Manager recognizes the value of living creatures in my habitat, and lets me schedule time to be with the cats, to play, serve lunch. At 3pm we “cut grass” and they get a few blades of oat grass. At 9:30 “let’s Have TREATS!”, and so on.

It is your General Manager’s job to schedule arriving-home time as a 30-minute tea-break so that you have time to quiz the kids about, well, quizzes, change clothes, get them settled etc.

And yes I know that point 8 was written as a downer for the kids, but the principle is the same.

Talk to Me !

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

8 Work-At-Home Pitfalls 1-4

The Toronto Star recently published an article whose title starts with a digit “8” and the prospect of a list always intrigues us, so we went to see what is was about.

And we didn’t agree with all we saw their, and I don’t think the disagreement is a matter of shades-of-grey.

My overall take on this is that if you suffer from more than 3 of the 8 pitfalls listed here, then you are not exercising your role as a manager, and for those of us who are solo entrepreneurs, we maintain at least four baseball caps on top of the computer.

My caps are labeled Chris-the-marketer, Chris-the-sales, Chris-the-trainer, Chris-the-application-developer, then there’s the cameo appearance of Chris-the-accounts-receivable (rare nowadays since I insist on a 50% deposit for all jobs) and the omniscient Chris-the-General-Manager.

It’s the last guy I take to task.

One of the many jobs of Chris-the-General-Manager is to allocate time, set priorities, and come up with brilliant ideas such as unplugging the phone when it seems appropriate to do so.

With that in mind I’m going to tackle each pitfall and suggest what you-the-general-manager might do to avoid the pitfall.

1.The if-you’re-at-home-you-can’t-be-working effect. This can range from unwanted drop ins during prime work hours to family calling for lengthy chin wags. Once I had a friend appear with her two toddlers. She told me she’d lost her babysitter and needed emergency help to keep an appointment.

This is not a friend. A friend is someone who communicates well with you. A friend would phone up front, and a friend would understand that you are at work.

To me this reeks of the General Manager’s failure to publicize to the world that between 9am-5pm (whatever) an area of your home is in use as an office, you are employed, you have a job to do, and you see people by appointment only.

Of course, once people learn that you bill out at $100 per hour, they’ll be happy to pay a 50% premium for unscheduled emergency tasks, right?

2. No water cooler! It can get lonely, without co-workers for time-wasting chats. You might find yourself gaily conversing with delivery people and offering them coffee just to keep them hanging around.

The General Manager recognizes this and schedules time for you to meet with peers on a regular basis. Every Tuesday morning 8am-9am you meet, rain or shine, at The Montreal Deli or the local coffee shop; no attendance rolls, no rules, just air a few topics, grievances, success stories.

As well you have a telephone on your desk; you are allowed to contact a peer and ask “Got a couple of minutes? I want to run something by you”.

Delivery people have their appointed rounds and schedules; they don’t really have the time to keep you company. Don’t be selfish.

3. No work, no pay. Sure you can take a break or vacation any time you want, but when you’re not working you don’t get paid. Most self employed people I know rarely take holidays. And sick days? Forget about it!

The General Manager’s job is to make sure that you DO get a regular salary. The huge contract cheque goes into an interest-bearing account at the local credit union (I recommend DUCA ) and from that a regular bank transfer takes place to your checking account. Whatever the amount, you are guaranteed a personal cash flow inwards each month.

As for sick days, any General Manager who doesn’t factor occasional illness into budget estimates is falling down on the job.

I am lucky in that I rarely get sick; once a year a sinus infection maybe, but when it strikes I follow the B’s – Bed, Bread, Beverages, Books – and lie still for 2 or 3 days to let the old body do its stuff.

My General Manager recognizes this and asks that I justify EVERY trip to the desk. Is that email truly essential? Today?

4. The office is always open. Even on a Sunday morning an unfinished job seems to find you and push the guilt button. And those you work for know you’re there, so they don’t hesitate to call outside normal office hours.

The General Manager has provided you with an office and a door. OK, perhaps you are working out of the dining-nook for now, but your computer has a power switch and the light has a switch too. Turn them off.

Push away from the desk at a set time (noon for lunch, 6pm for supper) and close the door. I unplug the phone at 8pm and plug it back in at 8am. (Actually, that’s what I tell people, in reality I unplug it before I go to bed and I plug it in when I get up. The General Manager agrees that the principle is the same.)

If you find you are coping with too many emergencies, discuss this with your General Manager and point out that he/she/it is only working one hour a day five days a week, and should help you to trim your schedule to 8 hours a day 5, or at most, 6 days a week.

Use your calendar wisely; schedule trips away from the house. “Sorry! I’m not in. Leave a message”.

Tomorrow – Pitfalls 5-8

Talk to Me !

Monday, March 7, 2011

Technical Difficulties

By the time you read this the Toronto Star will likely have moved on, so I have made a snapshot of part of the page:

Visit www.ChrisGreaves.com for this image! technicalDifficulties.png

You KNOW that you have serious problems with a commuter train service when technical problems inhibit your reporting of, er, technical problems.

Note however that GO’S biggest headache this morning is that people are using the system, and GO hadn’t catered for that possibility.

How, in the name of all that is modern, can heavy passenger volumes be a PROBLEM?

Aaaargh!

Let me rephrase that:

How many of you would consider having your phone ring off the hook with new business a stumbling-block on your path to fame and fortune?

I’m going back to bed.

Talk to Me !

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Happy Birthday

Sort of.

This is my 500th post, at a rate of 6 per week.

I`m taking the day off to celebrate.

I’ll probably play games:-

http://balldroppings.com/js/

http://chir.ag/stuff/sand/#

http://games.allmyfaves.com/ramps/

http://games.allmyfaves.com/bubbleshooter/

If I read anything at all I’ll probably be so incensed that I’ll blog about it.

Talk to Me !

Friday, March 4, 2011

My eLetter

As a direct result of the excellent talk by Promod Sharma at a recent AIC meeting, I am prompted to set aside serious time to get me long-promised eLetter off the ground.

You’ll probably learn of my experiences in the days/weeks to come, but for starters, here is a list of about 30 ideas I gleaned from my head and from reading the PDF files at MailChimp. You can see that I’ve left a few blank for quick fill-ins as they come to me.

Nothing is perfect, but having some sort of checklist steers me away from the worst mistakes.

My eLetter

My eLetter is sent on a regular basis by request only to senior executives in my target market, in particular, only those who I have met face to face.

The digestible format delivers at least one original article written by me, a few selected references to subsidiary articles written by me, and my pick-of-the-month links to other articles.

My written articles are available in podcast and video format.

I maintain a searchable online archive of past eLetters

Point 1: Template should be attractive to CEOs

Keep my most recent meetings in mind, e.g. D Mason, J Vanderkooy, S Yutzpe et al.

Point 2: Content (4 in pipeline)

I ought to be able to maintain a reservoir of 4; that takes pressure of creation and leaves me free for perfection.

Point 3: Content should be aimed at CEOs

Keep my most recent meetings in mind, e.g. D Mason, J Vanderkooy, Steve Yutzpe et al.

Point 4: The initial membership list is probably small

I am allowing a select membership, and only those CEOs I have et face-to-face.

In theory I could hold an annual get-together …

Point 5: This is a single long-term campaign

For the rest of my career, however long that is.

Point 6: Reports from ??

Point 7: Inbox Inspector

This appeared to be a pay-per-use feature.

Point 8: Check Rick & Promod’s formats and content of their first issues.

I lean more towards RS because I am thinking that the primary content is from my mind, rather than passing on links to useful stuff.

Point 9: Double opt-in

As recommended

Point 10: Opt-out link at TOP as well as bottom

Check this after the first issue

Point 11: Send a “scheduled next issue” message when they opt in AND SEND the current month’s issue

Point 12: Why does this audience want to hear from me?

They have opted in, so initially they were fascinated by me at our lunch meeting and now want to learn more about (a) how I think and (b) what benefits I can offer to them.

Point 13: What useful information can I provide to this audience?

A cold-blooded insight into the relationship between consultants and client executives.

Point 14: What do I want to accomplish with my email marketing?

I want to (a) improve circulation and (b) receive invitations to submit proposals.

Point 15: Each issue should have a benefit up front and immediate.

The lead article will be practical in addressing a real day-to-day concern of executives.

Point 16: For a long article, publish it in the blog and provide a link and summary in the eLetter

I am considering a new blog “TheCEOsConsultant”. http://theceosconsultant.blogspot.com/

I maintain http://torontrepreneur.blogspot.com/

I am considering resurrecting http://windowspowercrazy.blogspot.com/ (38 posts). I would drive this with Windows-7 related tips.

I am considering resurrecting http://imbloggled.blogspot.com/ (22 posts) or http://bogglemeboggleme.blogspot.com/ (21 posts) and merging them, then post-loading them from http://www.chrisgreaves.com/ClearThinking/ ( 143 posts)

The CEO_Blogger would be of direct and immediate interest to CEOs; the Clear Thinking blog would be of high-interest to anyone wanting to know more about my way of thinking.

Point 17: Six-month goal: Your goal; How you’ll achieve your goal; How you’ll measure your goal

My subscription goal, assuming I meet a new contact each week, is to add one out of every two I meet, thus 13 by the end of six months. This represents 50% of the new VPs I meet, and is separate from any existing contacts who opt-in

I will achieve my goal by asking EVERY VP contact, over the phone or towards the end of our meeting, if they would like to subscribe; if they do NOT offer a flat-out No, I’ll offer to send them an email with a link to my opt-in page, and I’ll follow that up with a phone call.

My opt-in page and/or my CEOBlog should guide people into subscribing.

I’ll measure my goal by tracking who I’ve dined and whether they have subscribed.

Point 18: Frequency:

Every month is too regimental, every two months might be better. Every 6 weeks? I probably have loads of material, but my purpose in the eLetter is to … There again, if I schedule a training course I want to give them plenty of notice.

Date


Title

March 2011

01

Goals

April 2011

02

Objectives

May 2011

03

Deliverables

June 2011

04

Deadlines

July 2011

05

Acceptance Tests

August 2011

06

Measurement

September 2011

07

Slippage

October 2011

08

Proof Of Concept

November 2011

09

The Written Goal

December 2011

10

Definition of Business for the Techies

January 2012

11

Where Did the Time Go?

February 2012

12

Endeavour

Point 19: Timeline for production

The material will be pre-composed, so Day1 Build and Preview in printed form, Day2 Emit for comments, Day3 Final Revision, Day4 Publish at 9:00 a.m,.,

Point 20: Include a short “Who am I?” text and a link to the web site each issue.

Done in the first issue; let’s see how well spread it is after that issue.

Point 21: When is the best time to check reports? Hours? Days? After emission?

Since my “market” is essentially GTA, if I issue the eLetter at 9:00 a.m. I might expect to see results at 10, noon, 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. that same day.

Point 22: “This is why open tracking only works in HTML email—not plain-text—and why the new email applications that block images by default (to protect your privacy) can screw up your open-rate stats.”

Seems like a good reason not to include, or at least not to rely on images in my eLetter.

Point 23: You can use MailChimp’s Inbox Inspector to get screenshots of your work in all the major email programs and webmail clients, to see if your CSS is breaking.

This appeared to be a pay-per-use feature.

Point 24: Why not include my phone number in the address block?

I have asked RS/PS about this.

Point 25: Don’t put all your energy into the HTML version of your email. Save some love for your plain-text message too.

Best bet seems to be

Step 1: Write the source in Word (for spell-check etc)

Step 2: Paste it into Notepad

Step 3: Save as text

Point 26: How do I phrase “add me to white list”? Is the address MailChimp or ChrisGreaves.com?

Point 27: RATES of Open, Click, Unsubscribe, Bounce back; traffic to web site; New signups

Allocate serious time for mastering the reports after the first 3 issues.

Point 28: Set up an abuse@ email account. Register that abuse@ address online (go to http://www.abuse.net)

Point 29: Bear in mind that after issue #1, CEO’s will be jumping on mid-stream.

It is important therefore to include in any item which is not #1 in a series, a link back to the first item in the series.

Point 30: The name?

Some months ago I dreamed up “Simply Brilliant CEO Newsletter”; I wanted it to be written in simple terms, I wanted it to reveal brilliant ideas, and I want it aimed at the CEO level.

Point 31:

Point 32:

Point 33:

Point 34:

Talk to Me !

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Now THIS is Embarrassing!

Almost a year ago someone at a client’s site asked for help with an Excel workbook; date calculations.

I submitted a draft version with 90% complete, asking for confirmation that, as far as I had gone, everything was in order. After which I planned to code the remaining 10%.

The contact never got back to me, so I assumed that the job was dropped.

Yesterday I was asked to update the workbook for the current year, but I had not written the final 10%, the customization, for last year.

Presumably the workbook has been in use for 12 months, operating on only 9 of 10 cylinders.

Should I use this as an opportunity to complete the workbook, or should I gently tell the client that apparently they don’t need the special treatment – that last 10% - which they believed they DID need last year?

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Prospector – Scanning for Hooks

There are a few contacts (companies) in my data base for which I have as yet no firm “hook” or reason for calling. In some cases I have given up on the contact (Person) and am waiting for a better contact.

Think of me as one of those fish that hide in a cave and dart out whenever food comes swimming by!

Prospector delivers me a slew of links each morning, and I glance, 3 seconds tops, at each release.

Today I realized that I am looking at just the footer to see if there is a name I DON’T recognize with a title other than “Media Relations” or “Communications”.

Any new contact name with a title of President, CEO or CFO represents an opportunity for me to make a better contact with that company.

Talk to Me !

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Turning Down Work – part 3 of 3

Interesting.

Same client now wants to pay cash!

They have no brick-and-mortar address.

The web site consists of a login screen (no Home, About Us, Contact Us, etc.).

Only a cell-phone number, no land-line.

And the training is to take place off-site.

Payment in bank notes.

I smell something not quite business-like about the whole arrangement.

Years ago my accountant told me about accepting payment in cash: “On the way home, deposit the full amount in a bank machine, and on the paper receipt write the name of the company or person who paid you. When you get home, make out and mail an invoices for the total amount, reversing out the tax”.

In other words, stay on the right side of the law.

Today, of course, I don’t have to carry banknotes around with me.

They can wire the money by direct email transfer from their bank to me, and I can deposit it in my bank account.

Without leaving my office.

In fact, they’d have to make sure I had the email BEFORE I left my office to deliver the training.

Which sounds even better!

Talk to Me !