You do Everything!

This comment came after a colleague posted a general question seeking “…a trainer to conduct soft skills seminars - Effective Communication, Organization and Time Management, etc.”

I emailed back a link to one of my training pages http://www.chrisgreaves.com/Train/TrainingBusinessCommunications.htm .

Wow!

I’m not just an Excel Guru!

I’m always struck by people’s reactions when they discover that I canoe , or know Scottish Country Dancing, Vermicomposting, Document Conversion , speed up slow computers or provide leads to new business contacts from press releases .

But why not?

We all have interests outside our published niche or focus.

What’s the difference?

I write mine down and publish them on the web so that they are always available as a reference.

Talk to Me !

Unwanted Attention from LinkedIn

Another invitation to join someone’s group.

I investigate and find that the correspondent has four contacts, that’s all. Also I have no knowledge of the name.

I search my contacts database by first name and last name. Nothing turns up.

Who is this person?

There is a chance that we met briefly at a trade show or a networking meeting, but if so, we have had no contact since then. Not an email, not a phone call. Nothing.

The person is in effect a total stranger to me.

I decline the invitation.

I learn the same day from a colleague of an invitation whose message content read I think “Don’t say you don’t know me”.

CLICK!

I don’t see LinkedIn as a way to make relationships.

I see LinkedIn as a way to be in touch with people with whom I already have a relationship.

LinkedIn isn’t a replacement for meeting people, or for getting to know them. That will always be done in person or by phone or by email; a combination of the three will cement the relationship.

But a random polling for interest?

Never!

Talk to Me !

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Now Keith I’ve met several times, chatted on the phone etc.:

“I didn't realize that you were a member of LinkedIn. I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.“

CLICK! Instant Acceptance.

Phone vs. Email

• Some people are good with phone; some are not so good with phone.
• Some people are good with email; some are not so good with email.

This was made clear to me this afternoon during a phone call with a client.

I’d phoned to get a confirmation of what I was about to investigate (an apparent bug in a program), but before I could get my question out the client assured me that there wasn’t a problem. “OK”, I said, “I’ll not worry about it”.

(Less revenue for me, less cost for the client, more problems down the road).

This got the client’s attention. “Write me an email and I’ll organize a meeting”.

The client’s company believes in meeting as frequently as possible, which is why so little gets done.

Remember, I’d started with what ought to have been a 3-minute confirmation call, after which I would have issued an email for discussion, but my client’s habit of interrupting and jumping to conclusions before the facts are in, side-tracked the question and built a meeting out of thin air.

The same client who does not believe in written goals and written objectives now wants a written statement of a minor problem.

There’s a fine line between phone and email, and with this client I need to take 60 seconds before picking up the phone, 60 seconds before writing an email, and decide which method is less likely to set off unnecessary fireworks.

Talk to Me !

Skype – the Perils of

If like me you use Skype for long-distance calls between friends and close colleagues, you may be interested in this.

Happened yesterday.

I got an email from a friend “Let’s chat”, so I fired up Skype and dialed her. We had not been on the phone for one minute when my land-line rang (see “ Skype - an Expert's View ”).

“That’s my supper-date, can I call you back?” I asked my friend. Sure. 10 p.m. tonight.

So at 10:15 p.m. I loaded Skype, dialed my friend and was greeted by a loud blast of a Perry Mason rerun.

What’s going on?

Linda (not her real name) had left her computer on and Skype running.

When I dialed her through Skype, Skype at her end picked up the phone.

Skype can’t distinguish between Raymond Burr’s voice and Linda’s (Oops!) and from Skype’s point of view we are having a real conversation, although my end consists of screaming “Linda! SKYPE!!” at the top of my voice.

We finally sort that out – I am to call the next day – and I hear Linda walk back to the couch saying "That was Chris in Toronto; He was trying to SKYPE me ...".

At this point I figure that I don’t want to hear what goes on between Linda and he husband on the couch when they are watching a rerun of a Perry Mason show, so I click “END” in Skype and we are done.

Now consider this: Skype can be used as an eaves-dropping tool. If you leave Skype on and loaded, you could have an unwanted listener.

Talk to Me !

To Bill, or Not to Bill

It’s a good deal all round.

I get paid $1,000 a day when I visit the client on-site, regardless, I tell them, of the start-time or end-time. Billing is easy (It’s $1,000), there’s no need for either of us to be distracted by the clock, and hey! Whatever you want me to do, I’m here. Train, coach, write, test. I’m yours for the day.

A wider variety of tasks gives me the opportunity to showcase my varied skills.

Working off-site is a good deal too. I do the off-site work from my home office, charging only 50% of my normal hourly rate. Good for the client, good for me.

Good for me because I can schedule tasks into my time as I please, and good for the client because I don’t run the meter when I’m doing R&D stuff that remains with me. (That effectively cuts my rate to 25% for the client!).

Then comes the day when I am asked to be on-site for ½ a day.

Should I bill for the whole day on the grounds that the other half day is spent traveling?

Should I bill for travel time – 75 minutes each way?

Should I bill the whole day and suggest that the other ½ I deliver training?

I wrestled with this for a week, then realized that over the past 3 months I’ve had 3 whole days ($1,000) on site and three ½ days on site, and about 180 hours of OFF site work.

That’s a pretty good deal, and I’d be silly to start picking nits over the occasional 1 ½ hours traveling.

Not to Bill, that is the decision.

Talk to Me !

Embrace the Most Argumentative Colleague

Of all the people I meet with, he is by far the most argumentative. It doesn’t matter than 95% of the time he is wrong.

Sometimes I think he argues just for the sake of arguing.

(A bit like someone else I know!).

I come up with an idea for business, and he is the first one of the group to comment, and usually with a negative reaction, rather than a positive and supportive comment.

But the more I think about it, the more I see that I should welcome this.

I could surround myself with fawning yes-men who stroke me at every opportunity.

But then how would I ever see through the pink clouds and discern the storm clouds on the horizon?

Better, during the wave-hands-in-the-air preliminary idea phase get a rock-solid barrier and prove that I can surmount it then, rather than wait until I have invested days of work setting the thing up, only to discover I’d not thought of everything.

Yes.

Better to embrace this source of negativity; if nothing else it is an early acceptance-test for my ideas.

And it is free.

Talk to Me !

Another Way of Staying-in-Touch

A major part of my job is sales, marketing etc. On a daily basis this involves making new contacts, and staying in touch with existing contacts.

You may, like me, stare at the phone in horror.

Pulling up the contact list and staring at the “stalest” contact, the one we haven’t spoken with in a long time, is just as bad.

I’ve written about this before in “ The Hard-To-Touch Contact ”, “ Staying in Touch 2 ”, “ Staying in Touch ” and “ The Easy Touch-Me-Again ”. Here comes another dose!

• Check the contact’s web site.

If they have a blog, read the last half-dozen blog items; make a comment.

Your contact will surely be notified of your comment, and probably will moderate it.

You have re-established contact.

You haven’t given anything of value (except a nice stroking!), but you have brought your name before their eyes.

Again.

And isn’t that what you wanted?

P.S. Make a tickle-file to re-visit the blog after 2 days to see if they commented on your comment – here comes a dialogue phone call!

You Pay Cheap, You Pay Twice

An old saying , variously attributed to each European nationality.

Except it is not true, especially in today’s wired business world.

Consider an example:

A business asks a trainee to develop a spreadsheet model; the trainee spends a month on the project, at a salary of $40,000 p.a.

A rule of thumb is to double the salary to get the full cost of employment (rents, support staff, benefits, pensions etc.) So we are talking $6,600 here.

For a workbook.

One small mistake in a formula, not caught due to a lack of formalized testing and the workbook goes out to the field and is used to give quotations to customers.

The quotes are too high (loss of customers) or too low (loss of profit and/or customers) and the business goes through a severe cash-flow crisis, if it survives at all.

That’s not “paying twice”; that’s paying with your (business) life!

Talk to Me !

The Top 3 Reasons

(1) People will always read a numbered list

(2) A list helps focus your mind

(3) Numbering helps you place things in some sort of priority

(4) Adding an extra item shows you give extra value!

Talk to Me !

Mistakes Happen

(Today is this blog's first anniversary)


“Classy all the way around. Mistakes happen. Character is revealed by how you handle them.”

The quote is lifted directly from Bad Call, Great Apology , and you DON’T need to know a thing about baseball to understand that, or this posting.

My clients make mistakes, and I forgive them, always (sometimes grudgingly, but I do forgive them), in part because my clients put food on my table and a roof over my head.

I make mistakes and my clients forgive me, but all too often I don’t forgive myself.

A professional approach to all this might be for me to forgive myself just as quickly as my clients forgive me; by doing that I am aligning myself with my client, instead of opposing them.

Apart from which, it would be nice to be known as someone who picks himself up and carries on working.

Joyfully.

P.S. And after my mid-morning meeting was stood-up, I received this email:

I just realized that I missed our meeting this morning. I must apologize profusely. No excuses, however my day was thrown into disarray due to my son being sick, setting up a doctor's appointment etc. and I just completely gapped on the meeting. I really hope you were able to set up some other meetings and have some productive time in town. Perhaps we can set something up when I'm out your way soon. Again, my apologies.

The Stiff-Arm

Amongst other things, I develop applications that deal with word-processing documents. Amazing applications, I am told.

I call a firm that provides software for legal firms, anticipating a conversation, perhaps leading to a meeting downtown.

In less than ten seconds I am stiff-armed with a “No, Not Interested!”.

I’m puzzled. How can this be? You don’t know what I do.

Figuring that I have nothing to lose, I persist.

“Do you produce software for legal forms? Yes? So do I.” Is my thrust for three questions.

Finally comes the “Send me an email” and I will.

But my mind thinks that there is not much future with an organization that dismisses potential opportunities without even hearing what they are about.

Minimalizing

I downloaded three hours of audio books to the little Zen Stone MP3 player, and headed off across town to the client site. On arrival at the bus stop I realized I’d left the 20g player on my desk.

There I was, no hard-copy book, no magazine, no printed reports to read. Stuck for 75 minutes on the public transit system.

I refuse to read the trashy free papers that decorate the floor and seating of the subway cars.

What to do?

Out with the little notebook, jot a few topics for the blog. Close the notebook and file it in my slim leather folder.

And sit back.

The more I thought about it, the more I wondered why I was carrying the little leather folder. It held a pen, a pencil, some business cards, my notebook, and three memory keys.

I buy lunch at the client cafeteria. At $6.00 it’s a refreshing treat for me.

I don’t really need a notebook; the client site has scrap or blank paper. I really need only one memory key, and that would fit in my pocket.

Next trip I’m leaving the leather folder behind, and traveling with

Pencil (5g)

MP3 player (20g)

I’ve come a long way from the briefcase-stuffed with-the-world.

Scheduling Next Year

The client is bogged down with the mechanics of updates and issuing updates to users in the field.

What should have been a simple set of edits has degenerated into what starts to look like a full-scale project of maintenance and enhancement. Costly to me because I quoted a fixed-price for this little exercise.

What have I learned?

I have made a diary entry for next year.

• Six weeks before the field work starts we will have a meeting, by phone and email at the least, and identify all requests.
• They will be implemented and tested over a 4-week period.
• I will make one on-site visit to implement and train in the new features.

And that will be an end to it!

Scheduling Today

Who knows what I will get done by the end of today.

I know some of the things I would like to get done by the end of today.

All the things floating around my mind, and on my desk, right now, can be classified as either

Directly and immediately beneficial to my business goals or

NOT Directly and immediately beneficial to my business goals

There’s no argument there.

From the group in (a), I can identify tasks which will

(i) have an immediate benefit to my existing clients and

(ii)NOT have an immediate benefit to my existing clients

There’s no argument there.

From the group in (i), I could break the client list down into

(1) Those who have paid in advance and

(2) Those who have NOT paid in advance

And so on, but I don’t have that many clients pending action this morning.

It’s pretty clear that my priorities should be for the (a)(i)(1) set, and after I have cleared up all those tasks, and ONLY after I have cleared up all those tasks should I start on the (a)(i)(2) set.

And so on.

Sadly this leaves “cleaning the bathtub” way down near the bottom of the list. And, you think, ‘making the bed”.

Not so.

Some things, such as making-the-bed and brewing-the-coffee can be seen as tasks designed to wake me up, get my limbs moving, get air in my lungs, and establish my daily ritual or routine.

The 6:00 a.m. bike ride is essential for my physical and mental health, and the time for it has been factored into my schedule.

But within my scheduled hours of business (roughly 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.) triage of business tasks is essential.

The Meeting – Body Language

You can look it up on the web, but the two that stick in my mind relate to arms and legs.

Crossed Arms

Arms folded across the chest indicate a wall of defense. “Don’t come near me”, they say.

When I saw it in Robert, my host I was mightily puzzled.

Why is he feeling defensive? It is his office in his home; he invited me here; he is talking, I am listening.

In the end I guessed that he was defensive because it had begun to dawn on him that he was not doing such a good job of selling his idea, but he didn’t know how to re-assemble his thoughts, so it was “Up with the drawbridge!”.

Crossed Legs

Michael sat to my right.

I sat with my legs crossed, left over right, so my left foot closer to the right of me – where Michael sat when he arrived – than my right foot.

Michael sat down, and after five minutes I saw him re-cross his legs so that his RIGHT leg was crossed over his left, his right foot closer to me than his left.

When two people sit alongside each other, crossing legs so that the opening is toward the other person is a sign of openness, closeness; crossing legs away is a sign of defense.

Naturally enough you are wondering what happens to the middle person when three people site side-by-side.

Check it out next time you sit alongside each other in an area where you have enough space to cross your legs, and they theirs.

Goofing Off

At 1:37 p.m. my phone rang. A colleague was five minutes drive away and was going to visit the European Deli. Would I like to tag along?

Yes I would.

What/where is the European Deli?

I had no idea, but on the spur of the moment I downed tools, put on some decent clothes, and headed out the door.

Two hours later I was back.

Two hours of wasted time, never to be recovered.

You think?

I could beat myself about two hours not-spent-on-the-phone, or two hours not-spent-updating-my-utility or whatever.

Instead I dressed up (a bit), got some fresh air in my lungs, spent 2 hours laughing and chatting, brought home some ground beef at a good price, and then got back to work.

In retrospect, I often feel scared when going to a new place; perhaps my colleague wanted some “hand-holding”, and perhaps that was the purpose of the call.

I’ll never know.

But it felt good.

The Meeting – Close the Sale!

The meeting lasted an hour, and ended when I got up to leave. Not once during that hour was any attempt made to “sign me up” to the causes.

I find that odd.

Three people meet to discuss the venture sponsored by two of them, and for 60 minutes neither of the two makes a single move to see if I am ready to commit to joining them, even in a limited way.

I think that the moral is “Have a contract ready for your ‘client’ to sign, even if it is unwritten”.

Have a sentence that you can bring out after 30 minutes to see if there is any commitment on their part.

If there is not yet a commitment, the 30-minute mark is as good a time as any to find out and take corrective action.

Linkedin – and My Reluctance to Respond

I realized this morning that a great deal of my reluctance to joined LinkedIn members is the imperative subject line that appears in my Inbox:

“Join my network on LinkedIn” it demands, and I usually see just the subject line in my spam filter before I see it again in my mail processor.

So by the time I click on the mail item to open the message, I’ve been TOLD three times “Join!”, and am feeling a tad annoyed at a machine telling me what to do.

Of course if I don’t know the person at all, it’s easy enough (but still costs me time) to tell LinkedIn “I don’t know this user” and hope that they will be led aboard the next rocket to Mars.

If I know the user well, it’s no problem accepting the invitation; we have most likely discussed hooking up on LinkedIn, or perhaps we are already meeting monthly at some event.

The in-betweens are the at-risk.

If I know OF you but haven’t yet got to know you, I’m more likely to think carefully before joining your network.

And that imperative subject line suggesting to me that I’m being forced against my will tips me towards ignoring the email invitation altogether.

Since LinkedIn knows who is sending the invitation, and why, it would make more sense for them to load the first sentence of the message as the subject line.

Instead of

“Join my network on LinkedIn”

I’d see

“Fergus Drennan has indicated you are a colleague at Wild Man of Food …”

and be more inclined to join.

The Meeting – Drinkies

After thirty minutes, Rob asked Michael if he, Michael, wanted something to drink, and as an afterthought, asked me too if I’d like a drink.

Now I’d had a medium coffee across the street, having arrived early, so I declined a drink at this stage; as well I had a second meeting in a Starbucks café in an hour’s time, so I didn’t want to be coffee’d out.

But it struck me that the drinks should be offered before people sit down.

It is a social lubricant, also a courtesy.

Who was it said that any successful date had to have at least two of three components – food, entertainment and sex?

It seems to me that as host, offering your business guest a drink is the first step in establishing rapport.

And no, it doesn’t have to be a cappuccino or a latte.

A (sealed) bottle of water is adequate.

The Meeting – Establish a Time Limit

After thirty minutes, I decided to point out that I had to leave at 11:00.

By 10;30 I had sat through thirty minutes of monologue, and wasn’t sure where the conversation was going to end, if indeed it was ever going to end.

My fault in part; I could have asked in the first two minutes that we establish a goal for the meeting (even if that had been established by email – it wouldn’t hurt to confirm) and that we acknowledge each other’s time, that at least one of us might have to leave earlier than another.

Since I was the visitor and my host was the resident, the anxiety fell on me; how to terminate the discussion, and would I have achieved anything worthwhile at the time I had to leave?

In the end the answer was no; I gained no benefit at all from the meeting, and I doubt whether my host gained anything at all.

Management Measures!

The Real Problem

I am here to fix a problem; something has gone wrong with the installation of software I wrote, and I’m here to make it work. My goal is to produce the stream of documents, PDF files, emails, envelopes and labels that engulfs my client.

It is no one person’s fault that things aren’t right. It is very much like an airplane crash – one small thing went wrong, and while that was being addressed something else cascaded into being, and now here we are, ten o’clock, staring at a growing list of matters-that-must-be-resolved, some of them mine, some of them the client’s.

Panic sets in, which is a good thing for me, because I am stubborn, tenacious, and I write things down.

I tick off my list three items that indicate serious problems with the host system.

The client has no one to fix these problems.

The client is panicking.

But I see my job clearly.

The first priority is to get the client calmed down, to make them comfortable with the idea that problems will be fixed in a methodical way and 9unspoken) that screaming isn’t going to help.

As usual, it is a people-problem rather than a technical problem.

The Meeting – Handouts

Handouts are essential.

At least two sheets of paper.

The first sheet is handed out at the start of the meeting; it states in tangible form the date, time and place of the meeting and the attendees. Thus it establishes the foundations of the meeting.

The first sheet also holds the agenda, which is at least a stated goal of the meeting.

The second sheet, prepared in advance, contains some aspect of feedback measurement.

It can hold a suggested date/time for a follow-up meeting if one is thought to be useful.

It holds a request for an evaluation of the meeting – what did we learn, what do you see as our next step?

The second sheet is a call to action, even if the action becomes ‘Thanks, but no-thanks”. At least we have some decent and business-like closure to the venture, and the courtesy of asking, and giving feedback leaves to door ajar for either party should they wish to re-open it in the future.

Late, Later, …

I was late, my fault, no doubt about it.

I’d said I’d be there at nine, and arrived at the car rental at 7:30 as planned. I figured half-an-hour for paperwork, and a quiet coffee at the other end, and an hour’s drive.

It was not to be.

I had left my credit-card at home, and no-card-no-car is a reasonable policy.

Enterprise drove me home to pick up my card – bless ‘em – and I was therefore tootling along the highway, right-hand-lane, speed limit, thinking “When in a hurry, obey the speed limits”. Sure enough, minutes later I spot a speedster pulled over by the OPP.

I rolled into the parking lot at 9:04, not to far off my target, but was waylaid by a couple of ladies who wanted to ask ME about parking regulations.

Thus it was 9:10 when I turned the door handle into the client’s suite.

Or tried to.

Locked.

No one had arrived yet.

So I sat down and pecked away at my laptop, glad that I hadn’t panicked, hadn’t speeded, had made two little-old-ladies happy AND was relaxed enough to acknowledge the client’s apology with forgiveness and honesty: “It’s quite alright!”.

The Meeting – Look for Boredom

There must have been signs of boredom in my physiology; I am not such a good actor that I can hide my feelings, no matter how polite I might want to be.

Glazed eyes, head resting on hand, sepulchral absence of response, yawning, glassy eyes, granite face – the list goes on.

By the time you notice them, it may be too late to re-engage the attendee, but it is not too late to try to re-engage the attendee.

Not to try to re-engage the attendee is to fail.

And to lose the attendee forever.

$100 of Discouragement

Yesterday I test-drove a training center which I am considering as a venue for regular scheduled training sessions.

I charged attendees just enough to cover the room rental - $50 each – so it was a good deal for them. $50 got them 6 packed hours of intense accelerators in Windows.

Everybody a coupon worth $100 of the next course that they, or the bearer, took on any course offered by me at the training center.

What a deal!

Some people received two coupons!

What they don’t know is this: if they pass the coupon on to a colleague, I’ll give them a replacement coupon.

Am I giving money away?

No.

The coupon’s main benefit is not to them; it is to me.

I was worried that I’d be tempted to offer a second or even a third day at-cost, $50 each, in which case anyone rolling up with a $100 coupon would expect me to pay them the balance of $100.

The $100 coupon has as its main purpose the stiffening of my spine. From this trial at-cost day forward, every session will be $300 per head.

No exceptions.

I have made sure that I can’t afford to offer another $50 day.

Ever!

Get the Word OUT!

Want to make your emails a little more useful?

Well, you already know about using the signature block to make announcements. Any email you’ve received from me over the past four weeks has announced my $50/day training session.

But each day I receive various digests of online journals, I read online newspapers and read business blogs.

There’s a wealth of useful stuff out there.

This morning I decided to add “How to talk shop with tech suppliers http://www.backbonemag.com/Magazine/2010-04/how-to-talk-shop-with-tech-suppliers.aspx ” to my signature. It’s a canny article and some recipients of my email will click on the link and benefit from reading the article.

There’s no need to commit to changing my signature every day, but whenever I read an article that can have an impact on my correspondents, I can just update the signature with the latest “goodie”.

The Meeting – Same Height

We entered the host’s office and Robert gestured to the other office chair. I spotted the couch and elected to sit on it.

This set me at a lower height from Robert, who maintained his desire to sit on his office chair.

Now I am a good twelve inches lower than Robert, which means he is in the superior or dominating position (which may explain his monologue), while I am in the submissive or inferior position.

My role is to listen.

I think that Robert’s initial gesture to the other chair was correct; he was correct in his aim to set us at the same physical level.

But when his gesture failed and I opted for the couch, his best tactic was to sit alongside me on the couch.

That is the body language which says “I am prepared to meet you”.

No New Technology!

As a solo-entrepreneur I am acutely conscious of time slipping away (whether you rent an apartment or are buying a home, “time slipping away” means, each month “money slipping away”).

I am guilty of it, as are you: wanting to believe that this new technology will save me time.

Doesn’t matter whether it is a voice-recorder-that-transcribes-into-text or a new software tool that, once installed and mastered will … or a revolutionary stamp-licking-and-envelope-sealing machine.

IT’S A WASTE OF TIME!

If you keep track of the time you spend installing, configuring, and maintaining software, there is very, very little out there that you could truly describe as “saved me a bundle”.

It doesn’t happen.

Whatever new gizmo you are thinking of getting hold of, buying, downloading, etc. today, take ten seconds and ask yourself; Is this just an excuse to divert me from my primary task?

I bet it is.

The Meeting – Snookered By a Long Break

Significantly the interviewer droned on and on with, to me, long-winded explanations of stuff I already knew.

Why is he telling me this?

Twenty minutes passed by without a break.

I sat there thinking that no side of a conversation should last longer than 120 seconds without another party being given an opportunity to chip in.

Otherwise we have a monologue, not a dialogue, and that means only one side is learning, if they haven’t already tuned out.

Try this in the privacy of your boudoir: Talk (monologue) for 120 seconds about something you love, your passion in life.

It is hard to do, isn’t it?

How do you think 1,200 seconds sounds to your audience of one?

The One that Didn’t Get Away …

So there you are, ready to quote for the $3,000 service, and the prospect says that they can get it for a lot less – they are probably thinking of hiring a student straight out of college (“It’s not a big job”).

So, “If you can’t pay $3,000, what do you think the student will charge you?”

About $500.

Of course; the student is still living at home with Mum and Dad, borrowing Mum’s car, eating for free, and so on.

You can’t compete with those prices, nor should you.

But you don’t need to let the prospect off the hook.

If you can’t swing them over to your bank, just cut them a bit of slack:

“I’ll tell you what: If it doesn’t work out for any reason at all, get back in touch with me and I’ll give you the $500 as credit towards the job”.

Neat.

Now either they get badly burned by the student and are glad of a safe haven, or else they decide to call your bluff, forget about the student, wait 4 weeks and then engage you at a lower price than they had been quoted.

What do you care?

You landed the client.

(Thanks to Carl Sarfi of www.MaximumBusinessPerformance.com )

The Meeting – Solicit Feedback

Along with the feeling of being Snookered By a Long Break I had the impression that I was merely an ornament, that I had nothing to contribute – and hence my presence was a waste of time for us all.

The wise interviewer pauses every 120 seconds and asks for feedback.

If nothing else it serves as a check to see if the audience is still awake.

Better still, it lets us measure if we are still on the right track, or if, perhaps, we have strayed a little way from our jointly perceived goal.

Be prepared to wait 3 months for payments.

Apart from the all-too-frequent "We take 90 days to process", bear in mind that large corporations have very strange structures.

One of my clients is based in New Jersey. I chat by email and phone for a month or so, we write down the goal, objectives, I do specifications and issue a proposal for a fixed-price. My contact in the corporation agrees to the proposal, and understands that a 50% deposit is required for me to start work.

So far so good.

Now comes the dance:

To receive payment I must

(1) Issue an invoice (for the full amount) by email (minutes)

(2) Wait for the accounting department to issue me with a Purchase Order number (a week)

(3) Transfer the P.O. number to my invoice (minutes)

(4) Re-issue the invoice in signed hard-copy form by postal mail (this takes a week to skip across the border)

(5) The accounting department in New Jersey checks the invoice, and then mails it (hard copy) to an office in Texas.

(6) The office in Texas does something with it, and then mails it (hard copy) to India.

(7) After that, from somewhere in the labyrinth, a real cheque gets issued and is popped in the mail (this takes a week to skip across borders)

(8) If I'm on the ball, or at least, desperate, I deposit the cheque the same day in my bank account.

(9) The banks can transfer money electronically in seconds, but insist on five weeks to clear a U.S. cheque, no matter that I receive several cheques a year from this company, drawn on the same branch, etc.

Now add up those standard delays, toss in the random glitches (my ISP is down, it's a public holiday in NJ, TX or India, Marlene is "off sick" for two days and so on), and you have an extra-long wait before you can pay your rent.

Factor these figures into the cash-flow portion of your business plan.

The Meeting – The Late-Comer

The meeting started with Bob and I. As I thought it would.

Ten minutes into the meeting Michael appeared.

Who is Michael?

I never found out.

No introductions were made about who he was, who I was, why he and I were there.

I knew why Rob and I were there – we had set up the meeting.

If a member arrives late, it’s essential to take a time-out and make sure that everyone (in this case only me) knows who the newcomer is, why they are here.

Otherwise there is a nagging feeling that something secretive is going on.

• Who is this guy?
• Why wasn’t I told about him?
• What is his part in the deal?

How to Write a Stunning Corporate Profile in 2 Minutes

Browse a few press releases. My favorite source is Canada News Wire .

Quickly find a press release whose corporate profile statement (at the foot of most press releases) sounds like something you wish you’d said:

• Jimmy’s Capital Corp. is a Toronto-based public merchant bank specializing in the financing of and investment in mineral resource companies. Jimmy’s manages a merchant banking portfolio of emerging resource stocks.

Make changes to the facts:

• Chris Greaves is a Toronto-based provider specializing in the streamlining of best practices in major companies. Chris Greaves provides a portfolio of more than 140 applications and proof-of-concept models for evaluation.

Or, if you prefer:-

• Chris Greaves is a Toronto-based trainer specializing in measurable improvements in productivity in staff and users in the business environment.

The Meeting – The Web-Cam

I noticed as soon as I sat down that although the monitor screen on the computer went blank – perhaps a screen saver – the web cam still sat top the monitor.

Was this meeting being recorded? I don’t know.

I do know that it left me feeling a bit uneasy that I was sitting in a direct line from the web camera.

A significant portion of the meeting consisted of me alternately trying to align myself almost in line-of-sight with the interviewer so that I could stare at the web cam (“If you are recording this I want you to know that I suspected you were recording this”) and alternately trying to re-seat myself so that the interviewer’s head blocked the line-of-sight from the web cam.

I’m Against Good

Down with “Good”.

“Good” is mediocre.

Good is at best only slightly better than bad.

Take a look at the last five documents you have produced.

Find each occurrence of the word “good”.

Think of a better word, not a synonym, but measurably better, than “good”.

• Is this good advice? Isn’t it, rather, timely?
• Is this good advice? Isn’t it, rather, useful?
• Is this good advice? Isn’t it, rather, high-impact?
• Is this good advice? Isn’t it, rather, cost-reducing?
• Is this good advice? Isn’t it, rather, revenue-generating?

I thought so!

Good.

I’m glad you read this little article.

Your Most Essential Task Today is …

We know that we are not getting sales; prospects; contacts.

We know that several months, almost amounting to a year, have slipped by and we seem to be no closer to our goal of fifty-two new clients than we were a year ago.

Where has the year gone?

It doesn’t matter where the year has gone.

All that really matters is today, and what we do with it. I’m prepared to argue about this for as long as you like, at The Montreal Deli , if you think you can win this one.

Let me give you an example: It is 11:30 p.m. as I type this; this day is as good as gone; writing this blog item is just a get-me-off-to-sleep item.

Tomorrow morning, before I check email, read the online newspapers or even post my daily blog (from my “Coming soon” funnel), and while the first pot of coffee is still brewing, and while the computer is performing its first-boot-of-the-day tasks , I must filter out of a big pile of paper every brown window-envelope; I must open each envelope and lay the contents out on a clear desk.

It’s all about taxes, you see.

By the time I’ve laid them out and worked out what they are, I’ll be in a position to phone the tax department.

They left a voice-mail on the phone three days ago, you see, so I’m sure I owe them a return, or a tax payment.

Whatever it is, it can’t be good.

But if I don’t make sure it gets done (the phone call) tomorrow, whatever-it-is will still be waiting, and it will probably get worse.

And you know that I know that once I hurdle the obstacle, the fear of the unknown won’t be hanging over my head.

And I’ll sleep better, work better, and just have a better life, instead of worrying myself through the valley of stress into an early pit of despair.

If you are reading this first thing in the morning, treat yourself to resolving the most important thing in your life TODAY.

You deserve it!

3 Days Without Stress

60 hours have passed since the bolt of lightning hit our building Friday night around 9 of the clock.

I’d seen the storm coming, through my window and on the weather radar, so my computers were turned off (but not my modem – although it appears to be OK).

I called Bell at 4:30 a.m. Saturday and again at 7:30 a.m. Sunday; a summary of the conversation can be read here. The précis is that BELL has failed miserably as a communication company in not keeping us informed of the situation.

• I can’t fault them for the lightning strike.
• I can fault them for the delay in repairs, and for lack of communication.

What has this done to my business (and my busy-ness)?

Well, for one thing it has made me aware of how often I’ve been popping on to the web for a little light entertainment, a break between tasks. I am now aware of a frisson each time I’ve reached for the mouse thinking “I’ll just check up on the news/weather”, or “I wonder what new postings have been made on Eileen’s Lounge”; “I think I’ll blog that, it won’t take but 5 minutes” all the way to “It really is time I learned the lyrics to the 2nd verse of Neil Diamond’s "Save me a Saturday Night’”.

There was an initial period of withdrawal that lasted about 6 hours.

I have a cell phone (which I rarely use) which has come in handy for picking up voice-mail AND changing my voice-mail greeting: ‘If you know anyone who sells Rogers phone and internet service, please have them call me on my cell-phone”).

It’s 9:30 Monday morning.

Right now I want to phone the editor of a national trade journal and invite him to breakfast, lunch or supper, and I reach for the phone …

Right now I’m wondering how my colleague in Orangeville weathered the weekend …

Right now I should be calling my client in New Jersey to let them know of the progress I made over the weekend …

Right now I should be responding to a small flood of emails that have, no doubt, arrived from the client in the east-end regarding that critical project …

And the 60 hours?

I got a lot of work done on that New Jersey project; head down, thoughts, paper/pencil etc.

I did some superb batches of no-knead bread; sorted out the spare bedroom, and did some gardening.

In short, while I lament loudly that lack of a communication channel, I recognize that I have been driven by the communications channel.

Think you couldn’t survive without it? You can, for short periods.

Try this:

Unplug your internet and phone connections for one hour. It’s as if you’ve been out for coffee for one hour.

Next day try 2 hours. Go on! No-one will know.

Try unplugging at 6 p.m. Friday, and see just how long you can go. If you can make it to 9 a.m. Monday, like me, you’ll have proved that you are your business, regardless of the medium.

More stuff

(1) I have arranged a meeting downtown at The Jersey Giant. My first instinct is to jump on the web and find out exactly where they are; “St Lawrence Market” isn’t good enough for me. I want my internet!

(2) Perversely, now that I don’t have access to fre elocal calls (I get charged for my cell phone), I want to Hit the Phones. I want to get in touch with him, and her. No Time Like The Present!

(3) I’ve become a dab hand at Spider Solitaire.

The Hard-To-Touch Contact

We all have them.

They sit in our little database and we dare not pick up the phone because

1. We have nothing to chat about
2. We haven’t chatted for such a long time
3. We don’t have a clue what their current problem is.

Of course, I see nothing wrong with picking up the phone and voicing those three concerns directly; sometimes a quick “Thinking of you” is all that is needed.

But take a look at this picture:


My hoarding instincts serve me well. You are looking at a collection of magazines, brochures, generally collected by the armful at trade shows, but also scooped up from the laundry room.

Each journal is opened to the Contents page (ah HAH!) so that any hard-to-reach contact can be satisfied with a page carefully cut out of a free journal.

As the collection grows in variety, chances are strong that that awkward contact can be satisfied with a page, and envelope, a 50-cent stamp, and if nothing else, I can call next week and ask how they liked the article.

I Can Change My Mind Only Once

Flexibility is often the key selling point for a solo-entrepreneur. My ability to make snap decisions to accommodate a client is easy, costs me little, and impresses the client.

And gets the job done faster and cheaper.

(That’s why it impresses the client).

By definition I must be more flexible than The World Out There, so by definition the world is relatively inflexible.

I recently announced a training session, at cost (room rental), $50. What a deal!

A great many people couldn’t make it that day.

Not a problem; I’ll make it a week later.

I’m flexible.

I can change.

But a week later is the day after a long weekend.

Should I skip forward yet another week?

No.

Changing my mind once is being flexible.

Changing it twice is indecisive.

And confusing.

And sends a message that perhaps I’m not really serious about this, that it isn’t going to happen after all, that I’m scared or ready to back out.

A Fresh Take on Backups

We had finished the training session and Bernie had unplugged his fairly new DELL computer when I asked him “Do you backup your computer?”.

No, he didn’t. There wasn’t much of value on it. “A few emails, a Gilbert And Sullivan Society brochure or two. Some of Corinne’s teacher stuff, that sort of thing”.

Uh Huh.

My comment caught him by surprise: “Here’s a thousand dollars. Go buy yourselves each a brand new netbook, and I’ll keep this computer”.

No way, not without he “first gets to copy some stuff” off his DELL.

No, I insisted. The deal is right now. One thousand dollars and you walk out of here.

Nope.

It seems that the data that is on the machine is worth more than Corinne’s wrath if Bernie turns up with two new computers but without the data from the old one.

And yet that is exactly what will happen when Bernie’s hard drive crashes.

Their data is gone and they have absolutely no choice

The small difference is that today the money would have come out of my pocket, whereas tomorrow it will come out of Bernie’s pocket, making a sad, bad situation even worse!

Don’t Try to Sell

• Not on the first call.
• Not on the second call.
• Not on the third call.

It takes me at least three conversations to get to the point where the contact knows me well enough to even hint at a problem or pain.

We don’t reveal our weaknesses to strangers (unless we are stuck next to them on a bus).

If I can’t sell on the first three calls, what can I do?

I can give: “I’d like to send you a press clipping”; ‘I have a white paper to bring to your attention”; “I’d like to invite you to our next meeting”, and so on.

The gift had better have obvious or at least curiosity value, and it should bring me something in return – an email address, a postal address, or an excuse to call them back in two week’s time.

Here’s the good news: You won’t be doing any cold-call sales calls any time soon.

You’ll be perceived as the bearer of good news.

Make Sense Out of Non-Sense

In I’ve Run Out of Time I introduced the statement offered by many a VP to explain why I should be the one to take up the burden.

The same statement is usually accompanied by a second statement “This is the most important project we have”, and you should anticipate the word “deadline” or “presentation” soon.

The two statements “I’ve Run Out of Time” and “This is the most important project we have” represent a logical conflict.

If this really IS your most important project, how come you are not assigning priority time to it? What is it you are doing that is 2nd- or 3rd-rate in importance instead of getting this life-or-death project off the ground.

Pairing up client statements and examining them for inconsistencies is a useful tool.

These two statements tell me either that my client is lying, or else they are illogical.

Either way trouble lies.

The explanation is most likely that they haven’t run out of time; they are really out-of-their-depth, but as a senior VP they are not allowed to admit that.

I do not ask the client “So are you lying or just plain stupid?”; instead I quietly acknowledge the inconsistency and look for the truth.

If the truth is, as usual, that they are out of their depth, then I know that the project will by now be patched with duct tape and baling wire, there will be deadwood to remove, and a fair amount of tidying up before progress is seen.

I may even have to drag a specification document out of the mess.

But it’s my job to take an insane state of affars and make it sane.

The Position Statement As a Resume

For us the days of the generic resume are gone; generic resumes are good when you leave school, and cease to be good after your first job.

After the first job, you need a resume tailored to a specific position; if you are applying for a job as “COBOL Trainer”, then your resume is geared towards training programmers in COBOL.

The same is true of your position statement or elevator speech; if it is worth delivering, it is worth delivering in fashion tailored to the specific listener.

That means that my elevator speech, no matter how constructed, centers on “training” if I know the other person has an interest in training, “application development” if I know the other person has an interest in application development or “business communications” if I know the other person has an interest in business communications.

That’s why I can’t deliver an elevator speech unless I first know who I’m talking to; that means I must draw them out in conversation BEFORE they get a chance to ask me “So what do you do”.

And that means I have to learn to be a listener and to ask provocative questions.

The Position Statement As a Resume

For us the days of the generic resume are gone; generic resumes are good when you leave school, and cease to be good after your first job.

After the first job, you need a resume tailored to a specific position; if you are applying for a job as “COBOL Trainer”, then your resume is geared towards training programmers in COBOL.

The same is true of your position statement or elevator speech; if it is worth delivering, it is worth delivering in fashion tailored to the specific listener.

That means that my elevator speech, no matter how constructed, centers on “training” if I know the other person has an interest in training, “application development” if I know the other person has an interest in application development or “business communications” if I know the other person has an interest in business communications.

That’s why I can’t deliver an elevator speech unless I first know who I’m talking to; that means I must draw them out in conversation BEFORE they get a chance to ask me “So what do you do”.

And that means I have to learn to be a listener and to ask provocative questions.

Staying in Touch 2

In Staying in Touch I covered the log-jam when phoning contacts.

Here’s an easy email to send that will be perceived as a benefit to your contact.

Remember, you’re looking to “touch” each contact every two months, more or less; here is Rup, time for a “touch”, but if you have nothing to chat about on the phone, and he works too far away to join you for a coffee, …

So, ( http://www.meetup.com/members/2429199/ ) Rup Jolly is Interested in new groups about Adventurers, Men's Social, Small Business, Cashflow, Hypnosis,is he?

OK then. (grin!)

Here's a personal invitation from me to you!

Come and check out AIC Monday March 29th.

http://www.aiconsult.ca/en/aic_meeting.html

A bunch of us meet for a light supper at Boston Pizza at 6pm, doors to the meeting open at 7pm

(If you get to AIC before me, tell them you're my guest and get in for only $10).

Whether Rup goes or not, I’ve stayed in touch by sending an invitation to an event.

Note that there are THREE WINNERS here:

1. Rup gets an invitation and a discount offer.
2. One of my networking groups gets a potential new member walking in the door.
3. I get to look good to Rup AND to the AIC , since he will announce “I’m Chris’s Guest”.

The Sales Funnel

If you are creating a new data base or contact list, consider including a field that helps you to monitor what you are doing.

Each record on your contact list will hold a name, address, phone, email, postal code and so on – the regular stuff.

Now add a field called Sales_Status or similar, and let it be devoted solely to showing you how far along the process someone has progressed.

Each contact starts off as only-just-met-them-yesterday and in our wildest dreams soon ends up as made-the-sale-let’s-make-another-one.

It doesn’t really happen that way.

Some initial contacts develop quickly into a sale, and a repeat sale; some wither away and drop off, but they need not drop right off.

Let’s qualify a contact as they pass through our system;

(1) New Contact – we met them yesterday, literally

(2) First Communication – we have sent them and email, mail or telephoned them.

(3) Fact Finding – we have met them in conference to learn the nature of their specific problem.

(4) Solution Development – we determine by ourselves that we can develop and provide a solution. This is sometimes called proof-of-concept.

(5) Proposal – we issue a contractual document known as a Proposal. It will contain a deadline for acceptance, and a price that is valid until the deadline date.

(6) Discussion – we discuss with the prospect various aspects of the proposal; we put them at ease and convince them that we can implement this solution to their problem.

(7) Negotiation – we establish a final price, we agree on a schedule of dates for deliverable objectives.

(8) The Sales Order – we obtain the paperwork that leads to the monetary transaction – this may be as little as a Purchase Order or it may be a 50% deposit, or it may be payment in full in advance.

(9) Account Maintenance – what else can we do for this contact? We try to generate more business.

It will not escape your attention that we make no mention of working here; as a business owner our job is to get the business; we have a programmer/writer/facilitator who does the delivery. Our job is to keep those sales coming.

And yes, if we are a one-man form, we wear several hats.

To stay in business we need a steady stream of new contacts coming in the top, and sales flowing out of the bottom.

Some contacts will stop partway through. We don’t need to toss them out – they either stay “on hold” at their current level, or are cycled back into the top as “new contact” after a suitable delay; perhaps in 3 month’s time the situation will have changed and we’ll have another opportunity.

Each week, or each month, print off a summary of each level.

There ought to be a healthy volume at each level.

Any empty level is a dangerous sign that the pipeline is blocked.

Find the blockage and remove it.

Staying in Touch

I ran into another log-jam late last week. Wading through the contact list each day – first tackle the “follow-up calls”, folks I’d promised to call on a certain day – then the “stale calls” – folks who I hadn’t called for the longest time.

Then slam! Into the brick wall of staring at a contact with no idea what to say when I pick up the phone. Bump them forward to be a follow-up call tomorrow; let tomorrow worry about that one.

Likewise the next one.

And the next.

I was caught staring at a series of contacts with not a single reason for calling them – except that I hadn’t called them for a long time.

That night at a boring seminar it dawned on me – I had become too focused on phoning my contacts, and had forgotten that I was supposed to be “Keeping In Touch”, and Keeping In Touch is more than just a telephone call.

It is an email, a visit, a postal mail, and therein lay my solution.

If there is no benefit to my contact by my phoning them, I can find an article to cut and mail to them (another reason for keeping stacks of magazines from my University in Perth, Western Australia, and for hoarding back-issues of IT World Canada, and so on)

There HAS to be a suitable articles in that pile, somewhere.

And if there isn’t, why not just print out one of my blog articles (one that is relevant) and mail that off.

It’s is keeping my name in the front of their mind.

And that’s what counts.

Getting Through it

Face the truth.

You are not going to be done by the day you die.

(My gravestone will read “I was hoping for a good long rest”).

There is just so much to do each day, that even were we to get at it ten hours a day seven days a week, we’d still not get it done. And we’d still be behind on our taxes.

On top of that there are the hours spent trying to get to sleep worrying about what didn’t happen today – a cheque didn’t arrive, we didn’t send the email we promised, we failed to …

Here’s a Thought

Plan on going to bed tonight with a sense of achievement.

Each day pick, as your day’s goal, one doable, measurable, rewardable task. Then treat yourself as an employee.

Pick one thing on your list that will take about one hour; certainly less than two hours, and then do it to the exclusion of everything else.

You are not going to waste the day doing it; you are going to do it and when it is done you’re going to frame it as a certificate of achievement, thank yourself as you would an employee, and reward yourself with something tangible.

I don’t care what the reward is; walk across the street and buy a slab of Brie for all I care.

I don’t care what the task is; clean the bathroom, bottle that pureed ginger, remove everything off the top of the second desk; make notes about the new course.

Find ONE THING that you know you can complete this morning, then put on the blinkers.

• Unplug the phone if you can (*).
• Turn off the monitor if you have to.

You will go to bed tonight with a feeling of well-being.

(*) I discovered late last year that the world rotates every 24 hours whether or not my phone is plugged in!

Rejection Projection

I suffered three rejections in the phone calls I made today. In the past these would have been crushing rejections, but today they are rich fodder for my digestion.

My goal is to arrange face-to-face meetings with people. I ask if we can meet for 15 minutes over coffee.

Remember that in the mind of the gatekeeper, the scripted response is correct, because it works for them. It keeps me away from the door.

They don't want me at the door because they see no value in having me there.

From that I reason that I am not presenting myself to them as valuable.

That means that I need to strew the ground with roses, or at least mail in some interesting press-clippings before I call.

As well I must have a value statement ready early on in the call.

And here's the catch: If I can't describe my value of myself to myself in the sanctity of my own office, how can I consider delivering it to a "stranger".

Every 3-in-a-row rejections tells me that I need to quite phoning and do a bit more work on my own script.

"The next time you see someone clicking with the mouse for over 60 seconds, think of me; I can automate that task".

No.

I can do better than that ...

Don't Let Google Stampede You Into a Panic

It can do that to you, I know.

Five months ago I put a little video up on YouTube showing off my free Indexer application.

To monitor it, I placed a Google Search in my daily-dose folder of bookmarks.

Each morning for four months I saw the results of the search - 37 hits, which was, I think, the number of times I'd watched it.

A month ago it jumped to 80 hits.

What happened, I have no idea (if you think you can help, Talk to Me !)

Yesterday it had climbed steadily to 157 views. Not viral, but satisfying.

This morning's daily dose?

It is GONE!

Has YouTube deleted it from all of its one-and-a-half million servers?

Has Google begun the process of black-listing me?

Panic sets in easily nowadays.

I decided to blog about this, and returned to the scene of the crime:

Yup! I'm back.

What happened?

I still don't know.

I suspect a timing glitch in Google's search engines right at the time my automated search was submitted.

Moral: Check, and re-check before taking action that could lead you by the nose down an expensive and wasteful path!

In a Month or Two, I Should Be Ready

No you shouldn't.

I should know, because I've tried that route, and so have you.

You had that good idea last October, and here it is, March, almost April, and six months have managed to slip by because of all the other things that sucked away your time.

DO IT TODAY!

Do it have-assed, half-baked, half-cooked, half-done, half-empty, ... (Notice how there is a "half-" term for every letter of the alphabet, and ask yourself if today is the day to find the other 21 phrases)

Nike got it right, God Bless 'Em, with the phrase "Just Do It", because a hundred years from now, it'll all be over, so who cares about the occasional typo, the small pear-juice stain on the shirt, the little ball of fur (but no more than three!) along the skirting board.

• Thinking of writing a blog? Do It Today!
• Thinking of becoming a freelancer? Do It Today!
• Thinking of stripping every material object off your desk? Do It Today!
• Thinking of picking up bike-riding? Do It Today!

But Oh! You have to commit to doing it.

And the best time, the ONLY time you can commit, is today.

Yesterday is gone, you can't do anything yesterday.

Tomorrow isn't here yet. You can't do anything tomorrow

Do it Today

Does this Job Interest You?

No, not the job itself.

It's all about staying-in-touch, "identifying" with your peers, and so on.

I'm always on the lookout for that little something - call it a stocking-stuffer - that I can use to touch my contacts.

Once you get into it, they pop up everywhere, articles in online newspaper stories, opportunities for business or pilot studies, jobs ...

A common incoming email, for me, is a job, forwarded by email from a colleague.

The job doesn't fit, because it states explicit requirements for a skill I don't have, and which is an essential requirement for the position.

But who do I know who is in transition, looking for work, contemplating freelance work?

I can send the email, personally address (so it's four emails leaving my desk, not one email with four BCCs), and presto! Four contacts have been touched today.

That was easy.

Hope vs. Will

• I will have some answers for you by Thursday.
• I hope to have some answers for you by Thursday.

If you were my client, which statement would you prefer?

If you were me, which statement would you use?

We Always Require Net 60 Days Payment

If you haven't met this yet, you will. The client who pays 60 days after receiving the invoice.

If you operate as I used to operate - do the work, send the invoice - you can wait up to 90 days to be paid while your client merrily makes use of the product or training at your expense.

Canadian banks used to take five WEEKS to clear a US cheque. Add five weeks to 90 days and you've got a banker.

I do not operate a bank

I do not lend money (except to friends).

But when a client hangs on to what is rightfully mine, they have turned me into a bank, against my wishes.

What's the answer?

Operate in several different manners:

(1) Insist on a 50% deposit up front. That 50% should cover all your expenses and a bit more. If you have to walk away from the second 50%, you've still come out ahead of the game. A bronze instead of a Gold, but a medal none the less.

(2) Raise your rates for those clients. Ask for their payment schedules BEFORE submitting the proposal. Prime lending rate seems to be about 4.5%, so let's say 5%. Raise your rates 5% and incorporate that into your proposal. Yes, I know it's only for ¼ of a year, not a whole year, but you have to factor in your time as a book-keeper doing these extra calculations etc.

(3) Tie your Lifetime-Technical-Support into the payment. For me the Lifetime-Technical-Support accompanies every service, product or training that comes from me, but it doesn't kick in until the final payment is made and the cheque has cleared. Now you're still perturbed about waiting 90 days, but you need not invest any more time until the $5,000 is safely in the vault. And let your client know that just as they have their business practices carved in stone, so too do you.

Cheryl Scoffield : "Get a bank draft if the client is US based. Depending on how I am billing, contract employee or consulting, I get paid in advance 2 weeks to 1 month until the contract end date. The Monday morning the bank draft fails to hit my account is the Monday I take the dog for a walk!

"Money paid through a bank draft can not be clawed back. Cheques can bounce or a stop payment can be issued after you deposit. That means, if it is a large cheque, your bank account will be FROZEN!! ... all cheques start bouncing! Like your mother said, play safe. Get paid in advance."

A Road-Block for Her Firm

I called Margo again today; she is, of course, too busy to schedule a 15-minute meeting, but not too busy to spend 20 minutes on the phone.

My initial referral, five years ago, told me "Getting around Margot could be a problem".

He was right

Today Margot managed to bring up an objection to every suggestion I made; she has a well-honed repertoire, and I understand she is but a legal secretary. I don't think I'm talking with the senior partner's VP here.

I'm sure that you have encountered Margo: "We don't have a need for your kind of training", but when I ask her, nicely, for her vision of what I deliver, she finally admits that she assumes I am identical to the contact of five years ago.

I can bet good money on being able to improve the productivity of any firm I enter.

How can I be so sure?

Firstly, I have years of experience reducing 60-minute jobs down to 60 seconds, and only last week, reducing a supposedly six-hour job down to 10 seconds.

Secondly, 90% of the firms are not automated; you only have to watch anyone clicking away madly - all user-intervention.

Thirdly, even for the 10% of firms which might be automated, I develop tools that automate the development process of - automation tools.

There is, perhaps, a 1 in 10,000 chances that I'll meet someone as advanced as I in automating tasks.

So the chance of meeting them in the 200 or so firms that I do contact is close to zero.

It's a sure bet

Margo is truly a road-block for her firm; I wonder if they know how many opportunities are being missed, opportunities from me, and from every other person who contacts the firm.

It is sad, truly sad

An Easy Way to Address Your Target Market

It doesn't matter whether you are engaged today in writing your email newsletter, building a web page, or sending an email.

While you develop the text, start off as if you were writing a personal letter.

My target market is the large financial, health science and aerospace firms.

My target audience is the President and/or CEO.

My address therefore is:

"Dear President"

or

"Dear CEO".

If your target market is managers in corporations "Dear Manager".

Then build your text.

Proof-read it, spell check it, and let it mature overnight.

In the morning, re-read it, make any changes, and just before it goes out the door delete the salutation; it will have served its purpose by then.

Stay focused!

What Do all These Emails Newsletters Have in Common?

They are cluttered, everyone of them.

Which newsletters am I talking about?

The last six newsletters you received.

From your suppliers, your hosting service, the email marketing guy, the insurance colleague.

• Small images.
• Sidebars with links.
• Incredible offers.
• Tables.
• Fancy formatting.
• Clickable logos featuring the sponsors, the LinkedIn, FaceBook and twitter links-where-you-can-find me.

Now dare to be different.

How about an email newsletter with just three articles, original text developed by you.

Two fonts - one for the heading (and there will be only three headings) and one for the body text..

A link at the top and at the bottom to your home page.

How refreshing.

And attractive just because it says "I know that you're busy, so I won't take up much of your time. Thanks for reading"

“I’ve Run Out of Time”

If I had one hundred dollars for every time I’ve heard that, I’d have lots of dollars.

Nine times out of ten, they’ve not run out of time, not really; they’ve run out of space.

THEY’VE RUN IN TOO FAR.

A consultant works on a small project for a year and then “runs out of time”? I don’t believe it. The consultant has finally conceded that the design requirements are way over his head, and the project, if it is to progress, needs serious help.

Seven Product Managers hand over their Excel workbooks three weeks before the big conference because “they just don’t have the time to finish them off”? I don’t believe it. They are now in seven separate ways, up to their necks in adjustments and modifications that don’t fit in with their original concept of six months ago. Imperial and Metric. Who knew?

So I get the project, big or small.

And I am delighted.

But I’m not fooled.

Any consultant with too much work only has to jack up the prices a little bit to shave off the work they can’t handle.

And product managers (VPs, every one of them) are in the strata of folks who manage their own calendars.

Check it out next time someone tells you “I’ve run out of time”; I bet it’s not about the 24 hours we each receive each morning.

Harvest The Reaction

Michel Neray made a good point when he was discussing the dialogue between me and my client.

I really wow! Some clients; “How’d you do THAT?” they exclaim, and I replay nonchalantly “Oh, that just comes naturally”, and start in discussing some other, really difficult stage of the job.

“That was COOL!”, is met by me examining the tips of my fingernails and “ … not if you’re used to doing it”.

Michel’s point, as I understand it, is that it’s the really cool, WOW! reactions that tell us how we are different.

Those client reactions alert us to what it is we are expert at (lousy grammar, I know).

Harvest those reactions; those reactions tell us WHY others should buy from us; those reactions tell us what will appeal to other clients, what sets us out from the rest of the “I can save you money” crowd.

How to Win a Free-Lunch Bet

There was a Seinfeld episode about this years ago …

If one of your objectives is to meet face-to-face with a prospect and you are struggling to get them to agree, find a way to make a harmless bet, preferably related to something in your business conversation, and engineer it so you can’t possibly win.

A recent bet with a merchant banker arose out of a conversation “You should chat with so-and-so”.

“OK”, I responded, “I’ll take him out to lunch”.

“You’ll never get him to agree to go to lunch with you!”.

“Wanna bet?”.

I can’t lose this one.

Either I get to take so-and-so to lunch (a winning situation for me), or I fail to persuade so-and-so to lunch with me (in which case I lose the bet and get to take my merchant banker to lunch – a winning situation for me).

Bet your business relationships on the impossible, and win!

The Green-Chair Technique for Handling Phone Calls

My home office has a long desk of plywood; on it are the keyboard, monitor, mouse and telephone.

The phone rings. I pick it up, push my chair away from the desk, and sit eight feet away in a green chair, fabric covered, thin wooden arms.

Why?

When someone phones me, it is a substitute for a face-to-face visit, and I like to give them my full attention; I can't give them my full attention when my eyes are staring at the screen, wondering what's new in Google News or what the weather is like in Paragonicia.

Here is a chance for me NOT to sit, shoulders-hunched over a keyboard, a chance to move my two feet eight feet, a chance to stretch, and to enjoy whatever the conversation might bring.

Sometimes too I can't immediately place the caller, so I am more relaxed as I try to figure out who and why the call.

There in the not-totally-comfortable green chair, I indulge in the to-and-fro, but then after a while, my back gets sore.

It's time to end the conversation and get back to work.

Well, not quite sore, but while the break from the computer was welcome, it still calls to me, and the call becomes more insistent as time passes, so there is a steadily-growing urge to bring the conversation to an end and get "back to work".

If you don't have a Green Chair, I suggest you pick one up at a second-hand store this weekend. It doesn't have to be fancy, and it ought not to be too comfortable, or too large.

You may be surprised at how well your phone conversations go, after you get your Green Chair.

Knowledge and Experience

Knowledge can be picked up in a day, a half-hour, or sometimes in a flash of a few seconds at a seminar. "Wow! I didn't know that!".

Knowledge can be picked up from Books, the Web, in a Classroom or at Desk side .

Knowledge of a specific technique is what most employers look for, and some clients.

If you don't know VBA you're going to be hopelessly mired in the desktop automation job.

Experience takes a lifetime, but relax, you don't have to wait another day.

You already possess the experience of a lifetime - your lifetime.

No matter how old you are, today, you hold the sum of ALL your experience - the 2½ years in France, the 6 months in Singapore, the Data Warehousing course you took for $3,500.

You can BUY knowledge, but you can only GAIN experience by doing something.

And your experience is what separates you from every other entrepreneur, and that, we are told, is your selling point.

I can teach anyone the language of VBA in two days or less. Ditto the controls of a motor-car in two hours or less.

But true driving experience comes from many many hours on the road, regrettably some collisions, different weather conditions, getting around a strange city, at night, in fog, after a snowstorm.

The knowledgeable driver knows how to press the brake pedal.

The experienced driver knows how to drive so as not to need the brake pedal.

See the difference?

The knowledgeable VBA programmer can fix your messy code in your workbooks (and bill you for doing it).

The experienced VBA programmer knows when to call a halt, and rebuild the suite from scratch.

• What is your experience?
• Make a list.
• The list had better not contain the name of a book.
• Unless you co-authored it!

Educate to Make a Decision

My goal is to have The Prospect make a decision to buy.

The Prospect doesn't know whether to buy or not. Seems like a lot of money! Have I enough in the bank? How risky is this? Will it work? Does Chris have what it takes to get the job done? Who else has gone this route? What is the worst-case scenario?

If The prospect knew the answers to these questions, the decision would be obvious: either "buy" or "walk away".

But The Prospect doesn't know.

My task is to provide answers that will help The Prospect make a decision.

My task is to educate The prospect to make an informed decision.

In order to do that I must (on my web page) identify the questions The Prospect will ask, and provide answers to them. Either in a Q & A form, or else sugar-coated in small but true stories.

Unhinging the Gatekeepers

I suffered three rejections in the phone calls I made today. In the past these would have been crushing rejections, but today they are rich fodder for my digestion.

My goal is to arrange face-to-face meetings with people. I ask if we can meet for 15 minutes over coffee.

One spent 20 minutes with me on the phone explaining that she couldn't set aside 15 minutes to actually meet someone face to face.

Draw your own conclusions.

One came up with a few excuses for not meeting me before she got around to asking what I do.

Draw your own conclusions.

One told me flat out that they had their own in-house trainer. I OK'ed that, then asked her what sort of training I offered. I enjoyed the five seconds of silence while she tried to dream up an answer that complemented her previous statement.

Draw your own conclusions.

Bit of a let-down, because I know I can help firms - because the firms that ask me in say that they are greatly helped, and they ask me in because they have met me; so if only I can arrange a meeting, they'll ask me in, then I can help them.

Out of all of this I learned that many gatekeepers have set scripts in their heads - how to straight-arm the caller, and since now I can recognize some of the scripts, I can brace myself for them.

This afternoon we were both surprised by the 5-second silence

Next time, the gatekeeper will still be surprised, but I'll be prepared.

About that Bootleg Software ...

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1817&tag=col1;post-1817

I truly have lost count of the number of times over the past 25 years that friends and colleagues have begged for help with their systems, only to find that they are out of luck - "screwed" is not too strong a word - because they have purchased a copy of an operating system or application software from a shady source.

It runs fine until something happens, and then it can't be re-installed.

Or the "original disks" are no longer available because "I bought the computer cheap from a friend who no longer needed it".

This blog post of mine serves notice on you all.

A QUARTER OF A CENTURY OF DISAPPOINTMENT IS ENOUGH

More than enough.

The blog posting at the head of this article is a must-read for all of you.

Read it before you call.

When you drop by, be prepared to sit and read a printed copy of it.

And remember this: I develop applications for a living.

I hate pirates and those who try to steal software without paying full price for it.

I'm with Microsoft on this one.

When Not to Present the $1,000 Invoice

I have been agonizing over next Thursday's appointment.

I saw it as a sales call; sit down, ask questions, get facts, then come back to the office and write a proposal and send it off.

If the prospect agrees to the proposal, they send a cheque and I start work; otherwise, nothing else need be done.

But now The Prospect wants me to start work the minute I arrive at 9:00 a.m.

The Prospect wants the job done and complete by close of business Thursday, or 2pm, or 11 am, it doesn't matter. And The Prospect has stated that they will pay me for a full day, even if it is only two hours.

It sounds like a dream job, but I worry that the task might be insoluble - something I usually determine after extracting some facts.

The solution?

Take the invoice with me, $1,000 plus tax, but don't even think of presenting it unless the job is complete.

That way I don't leave feeling that I've taken money from the client under false pretences, and as well, I have an option to walk away at any stage.

Of course, we all hope I'll be able to pull bunny out of hat, but if I don't, I don't have to make things worse for us all by taking money that I feel I've not earned.

What is My Marketing Goal?

Simply put, my reason for marketing is to increase my stream of prospects.

My prospects are those people who, I believe, offer a good chance for a sale within a specific period, and that period is dependent on my business.

My prospects have to be reminded of me from time to time - perhaps every two months - and that means time and effort on my part to telephone or email them on a regular basis.

A prospect is not someone who has expressed no interest, or has expressed a very low interest in my product or services.

There's no profit to be made investing three hours a year making follow-up calls when we both know that the two-man legal firm's chances of wanting training in Application Development in VBA is close to zero.

If I have a service (monthly financial data summaries) and a product (a really cool application) and some training courses, then I'll have three marketing streams, each of which should be delivering its own stream of prospects.

And each stream should have a measured quota, and a measured result.

Management Measures !

One Easy Way to Make a List

Always leave a vacant item!

At the bottom.

You start out without a list.

The vacant item at the bottom is, by definition, (a).

Alongside (a) you write your first idea, task, promise.

Then on the next line you write (b).

Got a second idea? Write it alongside the (b).

Keep going until you run out of ideas, probably round about (g).

On the next line, write (h).

Then wait.

Your brain will work to complete that vacant line.

Pop! I told you so!

Write it down.

On the next line, write (i).

Then wait.

Your brain will work to complete that vacant line.

Pop! I told you so!

Write it down.

Continue like this until it's time to go home.

On the way home, your brain will find yet another idea to complete that vacant line.

I promise

Beware of Wolf Questions in Sheepskin

The question asked at the end of the seminar seemed innocent enough: "Do I believe in the potential of Internet Marketing?".

But I paused long enough to ponder whether the question refers to my business, or to the-world-in-general.

If the latter, then for sure, Internet marketing is here, it works. Look at what you have spent in terms of time and money over the past year buying products and services over the internet, reading online newspapers, searching written papers for information and so on.

But the model that works for you (selling downloadable software) has to be different from her model (selling accessories by mail order) and the model that works for me (have brain, will train).

In once case it is eminently possible to set up a web site, have the money sent via PayPal to your credit card account, and spend the rest of your life at Eddy's bar on Grand Cayman knowing that the web hosting service will take the annual payment automatically.

In another case you'd need a shipping-and-handling staff to stay behind.

In my case, it's really all about standing in front of people.

So the question boils down to how much time and money you need to put into your web site and email marketing campaign to get the money your business deserves.

The Montreal Deli does very well solely by word-of-mouth and its regular customers.

I Don't Want to Know About You

I attended an afternoon networking event today, 90 attendees.

I managed to speak with seven of them.

Two of them (first time we met!) informed me about their divorce, and their recent bankruptcy.

One told me about the roof of his convertible being ripped open and his briefcase and laptop stolen.

I'm sorry, but I don't want to know that right now and I don't need to know that right now.

The First Meeting is Too Soon to Learn that You Just Got Divorced

In this blog I can acknowledge that I will feel your pain once we get to know one another, but at a business networking event, the first order of business is BUSINESS.

Tell me about your business dreams, your business problems, not your ex-husband.

Your business problem is not "My wife just took off and cleaned out our bank account".

Your business problem is "Cash flow".

Same impact, and it's going to be the same solution, but without the blood and gore stinking up the place.