Get in on the Ground Floor

I chatted recently with a member of a Rotary club. I have no reason to suspect that the conversation would have been different had I been chatting with a member of Lions , Kiwanis , or any other business leader’s service club.

If you have reached the age of 35 and have kept your eyes open while driving around the {name of your country here} you’ll be aware that every small town has signs on the outskirts advising of the regular dates and times of service meetings.

Great Organizations

I almost joined Rotary 10 years ago, but shied away from their excellent requirement that I should aim to attend 52 meetings each year; I felt I could not do that at the time, and that it would be wrong of me to pretend that I could.

Rotary’s web site says in part “If members miss a meeting of their own club, they’re encouraged to expand their Rotary horizons by attending a meeting of any other Rotary club in the world.”.

During our chat my colleague mentioned that his local group was aged; the average age of members was quite high, and I reflect that service clubs like Rotary, Lions, and Kiwanis must be prepared for this as the years go by.

My generation needed a place to network with other business leaders in the community.

Today’s Generation

Today’s generation get their satisfaction from social networking 24 hours a day, with occasional spontaneous face-to-face meetings.

I can understand and accept that email and other social networking tools reduce the need for face-to-face meetings.

That’s sad for Rotary, Lions, and Kiwanis, because they have been the backbone of society for about a hundred years.

The service clubs, of course, are hungry and getting hungrier for new members.

What this Means

That means that if you show up in a suit you’ll be welcomed more enthusiastically than ever before.

And you’ll have a greater-than-ever chance to accelerate your status in the local business community.

The fact that you’ll be welcome in thousands of business communities around the world is icing on the cake.

Talk to Me !

Tweet Tips

I have been twittering for about 4 months now, still finding my way about.

I want my tweets to be regular but low volume, perhaps two per day, at most, and I’m tied to my computer fir tweeting.

I have learned to not-follow people whose tweets flood out my screen.

I have learned to recognize twitter-spam – why would someone with 21,000 followers follow ME?

And I have realized that I can include many streams in my Tweets.

I hit on the intellectual challenge of trying to emit all my training in tweets – 140 characters or less, and given the broad range of material I own, that’s quite a challenge.

To test the waters I built a Microsoft Word document with a table 140 characters wide.

I set the font to be a fixed-width font – Courier – and made myself a ruler in the top row.

You can see where I typed in 10 digits then pasted it 13 times to yield a 140-character ruler.

Below it I typed or pasted in about 40 initial tweets, not one of which exceeds the row length (There is no line overflow within a row). I like to have a set of items in the pipeline; it inhibits stress and pressure.

I have a scheduled date on the left-hand side – Monday, Wednesday & Friday – and a published date on the right-hand side.

And away I go!

In writing this up I realize that I should have a link to my web site and /or my blog.

I’d better get started on that this evening …

P.S. I later reduced my ruler to 111 characters, restricting my text tweet to 111 characters means I have enough space left over to append 29 characters www.ChrisGreaves.com/WinTips to each tweet.

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One Small Step

• Sales are made through relationships
• Relationships are built meeting by meeting.
• Meetings are built conversation by conversation.
• Conversations are built sentence by sentence.

And so on

Three weeks ago I called Gordon. We chatted for ten minutes and I sent an email with a suggestion for co-operative marketing.

A week later I called with a follow-up, but got voice-mail, so I left a message.

This morning Gordon called me back; he is up to his armpits in tax-year stuff, can we talk once the April 30 deadline is gone?

Sure

I offered to re-send the email in the first week of May (as a service to him so he doesn’t have to locate it). Also as a bonus to me – in early May he’ll get an email from me AND then a phone call; I’ll nudge him twice!

Naturally I’m disappointed that this morning he didn’t endorse my idea and transfer cash to my bank account.

But that little frisson of disappointment is basking in the glow of knowing that Gordon and I are building a good mental picture of each other – I think of him as someone who returns phone calls, does have valid reasons for the delay, does offer to schedule a chat – and he sees me (I trust) as someone with ideas, someone who is flexible and graceful, and who can provide a service to others, even in the matter of rescheduling conversations.

Relationships, like houses, are built one brick at a time.

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Small is Beautiful

For amusement I read John Grisham stories, and often enough he describes courtroom or boardroom scenes with the head honcho billing $300/hour and two or three associates billing $150/hour each; they are also billing the reams, literally, of paper charged out to the client. Bulk is money, say the lawyers.

But the most earth-shattering ideas are succinct enough to make my lips purse.

Case 1: Watson & Crick’s famous paper on DNA.

Watson JD, Crick FH (April 1953). "Molecular structure of nucleic acids; a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid" (PDF). Nature 171 (4356): 737–738

Check it out. It fits onto a single sheet of A4 paper (“Letter” in the US) and changed the face of Biology. It didn’t derail Darwin; it reinforced his ideas and showed them to be ahead of his time.

Case 2: Edsger W.Dijkstra’s “ A Case against the GO TO Statement ”

It fits easily onto two pages, but I’ve seen condensation that fit on one.

I’ll augment this blog post with other examples as they come to my mind.

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Mill Stone or Mile Stone?

There’s not a great deal of difference in the spelling. Typically this would slip right through any spell-checker and embarrass me.

And yet this morning I had reason to look back over the past week, and in particular events of yesterday.

One particular part of yesterday was a milestone; something I can brag about for years to come.

Another part of yesterday is so embarrassing that I’ll cringe each time I think of it.

The two events diametrically opposed in terms of the publicity I’d like.

And yet, if I focus on achieving the milestones, and take some time to avoid the mill stones, life can only go on getting better.

Talk to Me!

Telecottages

I met this word for the first time today in The Telegraph . Of course I Googled it and got 27,600 results on 0.19 seconds, so it’s probably only been around for seven minutes.

“I should expect companies rapidly to adopt distance working practices like teleconferencing and small communities to build suitably sized local offices (telecottages) for those of us who find it hard to work from home.”

I like working from home, but I also like working in the company of other people.

I know (but have never used) of the shared-office concept, where one rents a room for a fixed schedule each week and shares a receptionist/secretary, or just uses the facilities as a mail-drop and boardroom.

I know (but have never used) the other extreme of working at that long table in the public library or that cheap table in the coffee shop.

I’m thinking of an alternative of setting up a spare room or corner in one’s own abode where solo entrepreneurs can come to sit and work quietly, or (at a mutually convenient time) indulge in conversation.

I have a spare bedroom with a table, chair and cable to my router.

I have a friend and colleague who stays overnight occasionally and/or uses the room as an office.

Now I wonder how it would be if I offered it as a retreat or facility where people could

(1) Book a specific time each week to come and quietly work through their business finances, sort dockets, issue invoices, chase overdue accounts and do data-entry.

(2) Stare at the leafy trees outside the balcony and jot down creative thoughts for a new approach, with paper on pencil.

(3) Avail themselves of coffee, tea and home-made cookies at scheduled tea-breaks (10:00 a.m. 11:00 a.m.) and possibly share a light lunch.

(4) Get that project wrapped up and tested on a different machine, or in isolation from the regular land-line. As deadlines approach it would be as if they were working-on-site for another client, but are secretly bunkered down in my place.

I wonder how many of us have a spare corner somewhere that we could weave into our network?

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What Shall we do with the Pile of Business Cards?

Two weeks ago I sat down with a pile of business cards collected over the years. The stack was about three inches high.

By tossing out the car-dealers and folks who make up flower baskets for corporate events, I managed to reduce the stack to about an inch.

I have half an inch left to process.

The Strategy is Straightforward: Tell The Truth

The tactic is just as simple: I pick up the phone and call them. I tell them that I have their business card but am struggling to know why. Honestly. We must have met at some event, but I have no written note on the back of the card to tell me why.

Usually we sniff each other and tumble to the why and wherefore.

In one case I’d written “Bluish Jacket” and got away with that by saying “I must have thought it was a lovely shade of blue for me to note it down on the back of your card”, which made her bush and giggle a bit.

Today I phoned Joel; same spiel, honestly, I don’t know where we met. He doesn’t know what AIC stands for; I haven’t attended an event in Ottawa for over 10 years …

Finally He Said “Let’s Connect on LinkedIn”

“Well I don’t want to waste your time”, I hesitated.

“No”, he said. “There is a reason you picked up my card”.

“I see this as an opportunity”.

I feel blessed to know Joel, and I haven’t even connected on LinkedIn yet.

I’ll do it right now.

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When is Free Not Free?

A few weeks ago I found myself staring at an online survey hosted by OfficeTeam .

“Take the FREE survey now” it said.

I clicked the button.

I clicked the next button (“Start Survey”)

Whoa!

How does my first name or last name affect my color?

And I didn’t choose my email address, it was foisted on me by the administrative staff at www.Grab_GrabMore_And_GrabAll.com .

My telephone number? I live in Oakville and work in Oshawa. Which number affects my color?

This is NOT FREE.

It is a personal data grab.

Really.

If you want my personal data, you have to earn it.

First let’s run the survey.

Then you get to ask ‘Want to know more about us” and I’ll consider adding my name to your mailing list.

But not my name and postal address.

Yet.

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Know When to Pick up the Phone

This post’s inspiration comes from another great Staples Blog .

25 years ago I worked at/for I.P. Sharp Associates, pioneers of global email systems, amongst other things.

The team on which I worked had about a dozen members, sitting in about 8 rooms, all within 30 seconds walk of the boardroom.

Projects dragged on for months because consensus was by email.

And since people did not then (and do not now) respond to email the instant it arrives, consensus took time.

The worst case I recall arose when someone discovered “enclosed arrays” and started using them, then passed on the rudimentary skill by email. An email discussion arose, with bugs, problems, novice acts and the whole range of ills that spread like a virus through a team of programmers.

I believed then, and I believe now, that much time and effort would have been saved has the team leader called a 15-minute standing-only meeting in the nearby board room.

Conversation would have taken place in real time with the benefit of a board room.

Instead six months later the debate was still in motion.

It is true today (a quarter century is a long time in computing technology!).

PICK UP THE PHONE if you want a discussion or a dialogue.

Use email to inform.

Want to decide where and when to meet for lunch? Phone and nut out the details. Then send an email confirmation so that you can be sure you are both reading from the same page.

Talk to Me !

How to Save Time with Hotkeys, Macros and Gestures

WinHotKey

Another great article from itbusiness.ca , but, of course, you are wondering whether you can trust the little application “ WinHotKey0.70.exe ”.

Well, I don’t know either, but I’ve stuck my neck out and installed it because I am always on the lookout for ways to remove the boring and repetitive tasks of my life.

It Works!

I currently have it assigned to opening common documents for me. The names of the documents may mean nothing to you, but the list should give you an idea that I am, as usual, following the 95/5 rule.

On the left-hand side of my keyboard, the Windows, Ctrl and Shift keys sit together so they are easy for me to tap with fingers of my left hand. The index finger of my right hand stabs out the mnemonic letter of the document.

A Great Timesaver!

AutoHotkey

Thus emboldened I set off to explore AutoHotkey104805_Install.exe.

It’s early days yet, so I’ll probably issue a short Technical paper on this more complex application.

In the meantime I am pleased to report that the following little script works!

; Chris Greaves pasted then edited the following line:-
#space::Run www.ChrisGreaves.com 

The Windows key and the Space bar launches Firefox 3.6.15 and opens up my home page.

Neat!

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The Top 3 of 55 Secrets to Master the Software Apps You Use Everyday

At Great Personal Expense™ I read through all 55 secrets – not secretes any more because they are published on the web! – and have distilled from them 3 which ought to satisfy any busy entrepreneur who needs more time:

(1) Change Windows Explorer's default folder:

Tired of clicking through Windows Explorer to find the one folder you use regularly? You can save precious time and mouse clicks by making Windows Explorer open your favorite folder by default. Right-click the Explorer icon in your taskbar, and then right-click Windows Explorer and select Properties. In the Target field, add a space and a file path at the end of the ‘%windir%\explorer.exe' section, so that the new (longer) path looks like this: ‘%windir%\explorer.exe C:\Users\yourusername\yourfolder'.

I’d go one better, and create (at most) a half-dozen shortcuts, one for each major project.

Here’s a screenshot of the (right-click then ) Properties box for one of my shortcuts.

(2) Restore your Quick Launch bar:

Windows 7 added a lot of neat features to the taskbar, but in the process it got rid of the Quick Launch bar. Fortunately, bringing Quick Launch back is fairly easy. Right-click the taskbar and uncheck Lock the taskbar; then right-click the taskbar again and choose New toolbar. Type %appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch into the file path, and then click the arrow button on the right to navigate to that folder. Quick Launch will be back in action.

I’d go further and use the old 95%/5% rule (95% of the time we are using 5% of our applications). Settle on a number – a dozen is good enough – and drop your top twelve most-frequently launched applications onto the Quick Launch bar.

Stop wasting time loading programs by following the rule “Never Close, Never Minimize”, and use Alt-Tab instead.

(3) Track time with Notepad:

Type .LOG (in all-capital letters) on the first line of a Notepad document, and Notepad will automatically stamp the current date and time in the doc every time you open it--handy for logging events or notes.

I liked this so much when I met it 15 years ago that I turned it into a billing application, which YOU can download for FREE from my web site.

When the phone rings, I click the Quick Launch icon BEFORE I pick up the phone; that way the start of the conversation is logged. If it is a long conversation, I tap the F5 function key when we are done. Now nobody gets away with a 2-minute chat that consumed 35 minutes of my precious time.

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Why You Need a Proof-Reader for a Friend

The recent press release on Canada News Wire left me confused.

“Véronique Cloutier, Éric Salvail and Justin Bieber all have something in common: they're helping people rebuild their lives after losing their vision - by donating their sunglasses to CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) for the charity's upcoming Shades of Fun auction on eBay.”

I knew that Justin Bieber was popular (amongst the younger set),

I hadn’t realized that he was blind.

What a guy!

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When Small is Ugly, When Small is Beautiful

Out driving today, I pulled up at Bloor & West Mall and watched a grandma escort a small boy across Bloor street. The small boy was driving an electric car, a micro-car, the sort that might be OK in the backyard, but I have doubts about the wisdom of a powered vehicle out near real traffic.

Nonetheless, beautiful. I can see the utility of a small electric car towing a small trailer of groceries so that grandma doesn’t have to lug home bags of vegetables.

Later that afternoon waiting to turn left at the intersection of Carlingview and International Boulevard I watched the driver of a large SUV edge up, desperately anxious to squeeze between a car waiting to go straight ahead, and the curb leading to the right, to the highway on-ramp.

Couldn’t make it.

Ugly. Ugly look on the SUV driver’s face. Ugly situation. Should’ve bought a smaller car!

Small businesses are beautiful when adaptability and flexibility are needed; small businesses are lithe and can often weather a minor economic downturn by eating rice, beans and pasta instead of laying off 100% of the workforces (Me!)

But small businesses are ugly when it comes to seeking a bank loan, or when they are too timid to charge a reasonable rate.

My small business can be both beautiful and ugly, depending on my situation, and my outlook.

Talk to Me !

Setting Goals

I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I’m quoting the CopyBlogger article here:-

1. Can you please define your project? You might imagine a company that’s called in a copywriter has an idea what they want. Much of the time, you would be wrong. They’re hoping you can help them figure out whether their best new piece of content would be a white paper, a revised landing page , or eight blog posts a month. If they can’t figure it out even with your help, try to find a small initial project they’re willing to greenlight to get things moving.

My first question to every client is “What is your Goal?”

Note that it has to be THEIR goal, and that it is singular, not plural.

If they start rabbiting on about plural goals, they are really giving you a list of objectives; write them down and then continue probing to see if all the objectives are sub-goals of a larger goal.

If the objectives are unrelated, or form into several groups, then you have a list of objectives that belong (separately) to different goals, that is, you now know that your client has several goals.

Identify the major goal (if this is your first dealing with this new client then you probably should define “major” as “maximize measurable results for minimal measurable effort”) and work on that.

If the client baulks and (with much hand-waving) says that ALL the goals are major, then the goals are themselves sub-goals of a larger goal. Great. You’re in there for the long haul.

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Get Your Clients to Pig Out on Fast Food

… and put extra cash in your pocket in the process.

Say what you like about McDonalds, they have some pretty bright people in their marketing and sales departments.

I’m assuming that they were the ones to come up with the “Biggy that?” phrase, asking customers if they would like to upgrade a regular order to a larger drink or fries serving.

It’s my guess too that McDonalds sparked the “combo” offer, where three items are packaged into a single-price bundle, usually (but not always) representing a saving on purchasing the individual items separately.

The Toronto Star article “ Combo meals feed our tendency to pig out on fast food ” suggests to me that I could make a bit more money by asking the client if they’d like a combo, instead of the project they have ordered.

You are buying two days training? Would you like to throw in some extra cash and have me install some of my time-saving utilities?

You are buying application development? How about a half-day’s executive training to explain the reasoning behind the design and development?

You want the seven VP workbooks merged? How would it be if I spend half a day with the VPs impressing on them the need for good design from the get-go?

In particular, I like the idea of simplification:-

“People say they like many choices, but in the end if they can eliminate the number of choices, they will do that,” she says. “They take the easy way. They perceive they are getting value.”

Lunch, anyone? It’s on me. The Montreal Deli

Talk to Me !

Get Your Clients to Pig Out on Fast Food

… and put extra cash in your pocket in the process.

Say what you like about McDonalds, they have some pretty bright people in their marketing and sales departments.

I’m assuming that they were the ones to come up with the “Biggy that?” phrase, asking customers if they would like to upgrade a regular order to a larger drink or fries serving.

It’s my guess too that McDonalds sparked the “combo” offer, where three items are packaged into a single-price bundle, usually (but not always) representing a saving on purchasing the individual items separately.

The Toronto Star article “ Combo meals feed our tendency to pig out on fast food ” suggests to me that I could make a bit more money by asking the client if they’d like a combo, instead of the project they have ordered.

• You are buying two days training? Would you like to throw in some extra cash and have me install some of my time-saving utilities?
• You are buying application development? How about a half-day’s executive training to explain the reasoning behind the design and development?
• You want the seven VP workbooks merged? How would it be if I spend half a day with the VPs impressing on them the need for good design from the get-go?

In particular, I like the idea of simplification:-

“People say they like many choices, but in the end if they can eliminate the number of choices, they will do that,” she says. “They take the easy way. They perceive they are getting value.”

Lunch, anyone? It’s on me. The Montreal Deli

Talk to Me !

1 Easy Tip for Spring Cleaning

It’s spring-time, right? And yes, you figure on setting aside a day to make-new-again (re-nov-ate) your office.

Here’s a tip:

Don’t

Instead, seize on just one item and do something with it.

In my stationery closet I see three types of cards – a Christmassy-card, suitable for mailing out at, well, Christmas time, an arty card , suitable for mailing out at other times, and a couple of cartons of promotional cards which didn’t really get off the ground.

Hundreds of cards of about ten types.

I have taken out about three dozen of each type and laid them in some narrow shelving.

ONE type I have placed by my front door.

For the rest of this month I shall take a couple with me whenever I go out.

• If I end up at The Montreal Deli I shall pin a couple to their notice board.
• If I end up at a networking meeting I shall leave a couple on the back table.
• If I am meeting with a prospect, I may hand one over as a parting gift.

But they aren’t doing me any good sitting in my stationary closet, are they?

And You?

What do you have lying around that could be put to good promotional use?

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Six Career Resolutions

Another great Accountemps press release outlines “Six Career Resolutions and Tips for Keeping Them”.

They are just as applicable to entrepreneurs:

1. 'I want an additional client.' Schedule time each week to revise your web-site, build your LinkedIn profile, research new prospects and set up meetings with business contacts. Reassess these goals monthly, and reward yourself when you meet key milestones.

2. 'I want to build my network.' Join at least one professional association, and attend meetings regularly. Foster your peer-level network by suggesting informal get-togethers in the early-morning.

3. 'I want to enhance my marketability.' Pursue a certification, learn a new software application or take a course to develop your skill set. Consider pursuing a leadership role with an industry or professional association or volunteering with a nonprofit group whose cause you are passionate about.

4. 'I want to improve my business performance.' Meet with your business coach or your accountant to identify areas for improvement. Take on a volunteer project that showcases your new skills.

5. 'I want a change in title.' Call your existing clients and ask them for their impressions of you. How do they describe you to their own colleagues?

6. 'I want to raise my rates.' Research rates in your field—perhaps by having a good friend phone your competitors. Then see how these rates compare with those in your Business Model.

Talk to Me !

Renewing Your Past Clients

Robert Middleton’s Blog is a good read.

On April 26th he blogged about "Renewing Your Past Clients".

Ho-hum so far – a good post, a read, move on to the next blog . . .

And then this caught my eye:-

“5. To make all of this work, you need a solid foundation which includes the following elements: a) A favorable past experience with that client b) (etc.)”

If you’ve been in business longer than a year, you will have at least one client-bad-memory. A project that went wrong; a terrible mis-understanding; a falling-out.

How can you recover from that? Especially when the last experience, the most recent-memory is a bitter one.

Robert Middleton makes this point “When you contact them, you are not a stranger to them”.

I went back and reread “A favorable past experience …”

Now . . .

“A favorable past experience” is different from “the last experience”, and so this morning I made a list of all the clients for whom I feel inhibitions.

In one column, face the facts, “Why do I feel awkward?”; not a matter of “Who was at fault?”, but just “What event or incident marked the watershed in our relationships?”.

In the second column I tried to remember the very best thing that had happened and that could/would be remembered by my contact.

My reasoning is this:

When I call them, I will be aware that their first unspoken thought might be that negative incident. So BEFORE I call them, I too have that incident to hand.

But what they don’t know is that within 3 seconds of the start of the conversation I will have steered them away from that negative thought to a very positive memory.

It’s an ambush, I guess, and it should work!

Thanks Robert!

Talk to Me!

He was a Terrible Neighbour, . . .

He was a Terrible Neighbour, Does that Mean He Can't Be a Good Lawyer?

A recent Toronto Star article carries a story about a lawyer whose “application to become a lawyer was rejected by the Law Society of Upper Canada when he failed to meet its “good character” requirement because of his aggressive and bizarre conduct as a member of his condo’s board”.

So, asks the Toronto Star, does that mean he can’t be a good lawyer?

My Take on this is “Yes, That’s What it Means”

Lawyers, as we all know, aren’t in it for justice or truth; they are in it to become partner and retire at 45 with a $1,500,000 income from the partnership.

Or as a close friend once told me “Get the meanest, baddest, ball-kickingest gun-slinging lawyer you can find, Chris, because you’re too human to fight dirty, and she isn’t”.

The lawyer or consultant who can’t get on with neighbors or other people on the streetcar isn’t going to get on with clients.

I know that I’m not the most at-ease person in a social situation; I also know that I can bite my lip and pursue social platitudes for a short while, providing I can see an earnest discussion of time-saving tactics in business –computing down the road.

I’d rather have an intense discussion about religion and politics than that milk-sop “what-books-have-you-read stuff any day.

A doctor who cannot put a patient at ease isn’t go to learn the full extent of the patient’s dis-ease.

A lawyer who cannot slide into a client’s mind with ease isn’t going to get very far into a client’s mind

And a consultant who cannot honestly identify with the organizations pain and problems isn’t going to ride side-by-side with the client off into the glorious sunset of their dreams.

Talk to Me !

When the Booked Conference Call Fails to Materialize

The conference call has been arranged for a week now, and I’m looking forward to it.

I have a great deal of respect for the gentleman, and I want to pitch an idea, not necessarily a sale to him (although I’d be delighted if he’d pick up on it!) as much as to get some feedback along the lines of “yes, this could work” or “no, this really stinks”.

I have exchanged emails with his Administrative Assistant, corrected my faulty impression of his phone number, cleared my desk, spent 5 minutes in deep breathing, got a fresh sheet of paper, a sharp pencil …

… and at 1:00 p.m. I pick up the phone and dial.

Voice-mail

I leave a short message, “it’s one o’clock and you’re probably running a bit late, please give me a call at 416-621-9348”.

Silence

A couple of times the phone rings and I grab it, staring at the Call Display; both times close friends, and they understand when I clear the line quickly.

At 2:15 p.m. I think “What have I got to lose?”, and dial again.

I get straight through and ask for 5 minutes and am told he has 15.

I pitch the idea, he is enthusiastic “Please send me something by email”, and I feel that I am having trouble dis-engaging.

What do I learn?

Something I seem to have learned every day of my life:

• We are human; mistakes happen; lines get crossed.

Also never fear being forward in establishing contact.

Talk to Me !

YouTube – What Took Me so Long?

I am surely the world’s slowest learner.

I’ve had a YouTube video about my 1-click Indexer up on YouTube for about 18 months now (October 5, 2009 06:53 PM). It has received 883 views, maybe a dozen of them mine.

That is Exposure

Yesterday I began making a list of Periodic Tasks – those things I must keep topped up, but distinct from my regular daily tasks.

For example, each month I ought to spend SOME time crating or upgrading LinkedIn, Product upgrade/upload, Home Web page, Home Web post, Podcast, Training item, eLetter, Personal Web page, Personal Web post, Camtasia Video, Technical paper – create or clean, YouTube videos … you get the idea.

YouTube Videos?

Since I already have about two dozen videos posted on my web site , why haven’t I shot them off to YouTube?

Who visits my web site? 300 visits per month, 600 in one good month back in March 2010, but I suspect that might have been me inspecting some updates!

Who visits YouTube? At least 883 people, obviously!

Clincher Number 1: YouTube & Google automatically indexes every submission

Clincher Number 2: YouTube is where people go to find out HowTo do everything. It is where I should post my answers to their questions.

Clincher Number 3: YouTube is forever. Long after I’m gone, people can get frustrated not being able to d/l tools from my web site.

Talk to Me !

P.S. For as long as I remember to update it, here’s a tracking of videos/views

Date	Uploaded	Views	Indexer
Tuesday, April 26, 2011	46	947
Wednesday, April 27, 2011	46	970	896
Thursday, April 28, 2011	46	988	902
Monday, May 02, 2011	47	1,009	914
Tuesday, May 03, 2011	47	1,014	919

P.S. Since drafting this article I came across a HighSpot blog item which reads, in part:

So many search queries are made for YouTube content that it can be considered the #2 search engine in the world . Did you catch that? Apart from Google, there is no other site that users search more often for content.

This is Disgusting!

26-Jan-89

The record was added to my database; that’s 22 years ago! Over the years I have essayed to get in touch with, in the hopes of getting work from, this prospect.

22 years surely has to be a record.

That’s what “disgusting” refers to – how can I have left this prospect dangling on the vine for so long?

2010/09/22

In mid-September last year, as part of my “blitz” aimed at meeting everyone face to face, I received an email advising that my contact no longer worked there, and with it, the name and extension of the new contact.

I began a new relationship, this one not hampered by “Why doesn’t he give up?”:-

“Great Chris, thank you..... I would like to chat with you sometime next week.”

We chatted by phone, then by a series of emails, during which phase I tried to secure a meeting:-

2010/09/22 Do you teach ACCESS at all? I am curious....as from time to time I have some of our Corporate clients looking for training in this.

2010/09/22 11:10 Roberta, thanks for the email. I have updated my contact database as you suggested. The mailed letter is for a course

2010/10/05 I called her back; Please send her a BIO (training related) and a set of Access topics.

2010/11/25 I left a voice-mail asking for coffee/lunch date

2010/11/29 She is busy these 2 weeks with a new project manager. "How about you give me a call in a couple of weeks".

2010/12/14 They are renegotiating contracts right now. I agreed to call her early in the New Year.

2011/01/05 I issued my Xmas letter

2011/01/14 They hope to start meeting with new facilitators late February. Call her back on the 18th.

2011/01/19 She doesn't have time; It sounds like a non-starter.

2011/04/01 I left a voice-mail suggesting a meeting Tue-Fri next week

Then this morning:-

2011/04/04 I decided to send an email "Hi Roberta. I am free this week and wonder whether you might find time to meet with me some time Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of Friday. * Please let me know what time suits you and I'll drive up to meet you."

Roberta replied:-

2011/04/04 I am available on Wednesday or Thursday

SUCCESS!

I settled on Wednesday.

But look at the record: 22 years of half-hearted efforts to establish contact, mainly by a Christmas card once a year and a phone call every two years. Never a determined effort to meet face-to-face.

Then within the space of 6 months, 12 contacts before I get an appointment.

I Nearly Gave up in January

Let’s see what Wednesday brings.

Talk to Me !

Ideas Pop up Everywhere

So I’m chatting with Cathy Nesbitt of Cathy’s Crawly Composters and she lest drop that she’s heading off to a cold-frame tour at 1Danforth Avenue.

Me being me once we get off the phone I search the web for “1Danforth Avenue” and find myself at this events page .

And what do I see there but “You will be working in pairs, so register with a friend!”. This is a construction workshop, right? Screwdriver, staple gun etc.

And I think to myself, why not use this as a condition for my training courses?

It makes sense to have two people from the same organization in class, because they can encourage each other once they return to work.

And it might even boost my revenues.

After all, it’s how I got into computing in May 1967.

Talk to Me !

Aristotle’s Ancient Guide to Compelling Copy

I have based these ideas on a CopyBlogger article from early March 2011. The entire article is worth reading.

Here is my distillation, bearing in mind I have to make a short telephone presentation this morning, nudging a prospect a little closer to the sale.

1: Ethos (show off those lovely morals of yours)

(Sharing personal experience) This is easy. The initial contact was made because I had a similar software application already in place. My brief personal story will be about how I needed to copy/paste vast amounts of intricate data between word processing documents on a daily basis.

2: Logos (give them proof, not piffle!)

(Back it up with proof) This too is easy. My initial contact in the prospect’s organization witnessed an on-site demo of my original software, and my web site holds two videos of a proof-of-concept model of the proposed software.

3: Pathos (get them feeling something)

(Trigger those emotional points) This is the toughest of the three steps for me.

I have a spreadsheet fired up with some simple data entry (“How many resumes do you think you process per day or per month?) and it spits out an estimated true cost of processing those estimates, company –wide.

But getting the prospect to reveal accurate figures for salaries will be like extracting teeth, I figure.

Talk to Me !

I’m a Shameless Liar

Or something. “Liar” is the first word that came to mind. “Fraud” or “Fake” or “Shyster” now start to drift across my forebrain.

Here’s why.

Last night at supper with a friend I was bemoaning the number of prospects, contacts and clients who do not return phone calls or emails. The number is not alarmingly high, but high enough that it makes me think “rudeness”.

I made the point that, amazingly, I’d rather do business with the people who respond “Thanks for you interest but I think we have nothing in common”, than with those who postpone a lunch meeting three times without the guts to say “Thanks for you interest but I think we have nothing in common”.

This morning my Inbox held a message from Carole St. Laurent of fluidIT solutions “I missed you at AIC last night. How’s it going?” which straight away reminded me that she had sent me two extremely helpful emails a month ago, after we had met for lunch, and I had not replied to them.

“Boy!”, as we say in the trade, “Was my face red!”.

I sat down, dashed off a reply to this morning’s email from Carole, then went and re-read the emails from a month ago. Both valid.

The good news is that Carole and I have since exchanged another email.

The gooder news is that Carole has brought home to me the value of staying-in-touch with an unsolicited nudge every now and then.

The even gooder news is that I have set aside this afternoon to clean out my Inbox entirely.

And as Carole says “Being on both sides of the client and consultant fence is a good reminder that good news may still be percolating when people aren’t calling you back. “

Talk to Me !

Things Aren’t Always What They Seem

If you’re old, you’ll remember the group “Blood, Sweat & Tears“. I remember them from heady days of being a young adult in my first job, money coming in, beer and port wine, newly married, setting up house, the world was mine.

Of course, secretly I wanted to be invited as lead singer of “Blood, Sweat & Tears“. It didn’t happen. Not because I wasn’t good enough, I just never got around to getting in touch with them.

If you’re not old enough, you’ll NOT remember the group “Blood, Sweat & Tears“. You won’t even remember The Beatles, but at least you’ll have listened to The Beatles, maybe watched videos, read articles in magazines and newspapers.

Whatever

How many members in “Blood, Sweat & Tears“?

The Beatles were a group of four, right?

“Blood, Sweat & Tears“? Four? Five? Maybe six?

Would you believe one hundred and thirty four ?

Over 43 years (1967-2010) that works out to just over 3 group members per year.

Of course, some stays were short, others long, but over my entire working life the group could have been re-invented almost every year.

While I was working in Wollongong and Newcastle N.S.W, in Adelaide S.A., in the UK, France, Singapore and Canada, the group was changing like a kaleidoscope – always the same sound and color, but the flakes (sorry!) re-arranged.

Who knew?

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More Good Staples Advice

Planning Translates to Dollars and Increased Productivity – another great blog item from Staples, IMHO.

Here, I’ll summarize it for you:-

1. Set your goals

2. Manage procrastination

3. Learn to handle interruptions

4. Manage your meetings

5. Write it all down

6. Conquer paperwork

I especially love the first point – Setting Goals.

But why not read the article in full – it will take you less than a minute.

Better yet, do what I did and read the KAOS Group blog !

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Promises and Threats

I’ve listened to a TVO podcast “ Moisés Naím: Metaphors Against Social Ills “, part of which discusses why wars fail, especially “war on drugs”, “war on poverty”, “war on Afghanistan” and so on; also a brief discussion on why clones of The Marshall Plan fail.

To me the discussion raised the interesting point about wars, and I’m fascinated because I study the origins of the Third Balkan War.

The Goal

The goal of war is victory (I’m also strong on Goals!), and so entering into a war is done in the belief, not the hope, that victory will be gained.

If I declare War on Weight in an effort to trim a few pounds of flab from my waist, I do so believing that I can shed 10 pounds over the next 6 months, and keep them off.

If I win, well, good! We are all happy.

But if I lose, it is very easy to segue into War on Ill-Health, and publish how I have changed my diet to eat healthy foods, diverting attention away from the fact that I’m not losing weight at all.

The War on Terror whose aim was to capture Obama bin Laden has turned into a war to reconstruct Afghanistan Society.

Gambling

Which leads me to believe that one should never gamble on war; one should not go to war on anything or against anyone unless one is 100% sure of winning; because failure to win means we get held up and ridiculed, making the next battle more difficult.

Which brings me back to my headline. In the early 1970s I learned “Never make a promise or a threat you’re not prepared to keep”, a sound basis for any business negotiation.

I should not threaten to walk away from a business deal unless I know that I can survive without that deal being consummated.

I should never promise to deliver goods or services unless I know I already have those goods or services in hand.

Talk to Me !

Promises and Threats

I’ve listened to a TVO podcast “ Moisés Naím: Metaphors Against Social Ills “, part of which discusses why wars fail, especially “war on drugs”, “war on poverty”, “war on Afghanistan” and so on; also a brief discussion on why clones of The Marshall Plan fail.

To me the discussion raised the interesting point about wars, and I’m fascinated because I study the origins of the Third Balkan War.

The Goal

The goal of war is victory (I’m also strong on Goals!), and so entering into a war is done in the belief, not the hope, that victory will be gained.

If I declare War on Weight in an effort to trim a few pounds of flab from my waist, I do so believing that I can shed 10 pounds over the next 6 months, and keep them off.

If I win, well, good! We are all happy.

But if I lose, it is very easy to segue into War on Ill-Health, and publish how I have changed my diet to eat healthy foods, diverting attention away from the fact that I’m not losing weight at all.

The War on Terror whose aim was to capture Obama bin Laden has turned into a war to reconstruct Afghanistan Society.

Gambling

Which leads me to believe that one should never gamble on war; one should not go to war on anything or against anyone unless one is 100% sure of winning; because failure to win means we get held up and ridiculed, making the next battle more difficult.

Which brings me back to my headline. In the early 1970s I learned “Never make a promise or a threat you’re not prepared to keep”, a sound basis for any business negotiation.

I should not threaten to walk away from a business deal unless I know that I can survive without that deal being consummated.

I should never promise to deliver goods or services unless I know I already have those goods or services in hand.

Talk to Me !

What’s the Difference Between …?

… a Prospect and an Investor?

None whatsoever, as far as I can see.

In both cases you are working to convince someone to part with some money UP FRONT, to bet on your ideas, service or product.

A recent itBusiness.ca article “ Why elevator pitches don't work with investors ” brings this home.

“The problem with elevator pitches is than no investor cares what you do,” said Mothersill. “It’s not that you’ve built a better mousetrap – it’s what pain does that mouse trap solve in the marketplace and whether or not there’s a buyer for it.”

So true of your clients.

“Investors want to make sure that their money will be secure and that they will get a profit out of their investment,”

So true of your clients.

“Twelve items that should be included in the presentation document are: …”

So true of your clients.

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It’s Happened Again

I got a call from a long-time client two weeks ago, a question about security.

I assembled a few pages of notes (“ Security of Files ”) and emailed the link within 20 minutes of our phone call.

“There you go, Bruce. Please let me know if this was any use to you.“.

Two weeks pass and I hear nothing; not even a short ‘Thanks I’ll take a look”.

So I called back first thing Monday morning. (I call this a limbering-up call) and asked.

He has to look through his voluminous email Inbox folder to find it.

“Oh! There it is. Yeah. Hmmm!”.

He hadn’t seen it and hadn’t read it, and …

The message to me is clear.

When someone calls with a problem and I email the solution to them, I ought to phone them the next business day to remind them that there’s an email in their box.

Because too many people treat their Inbox as an insurmountable problem.

Talk to Me !

I’m Under Stress

No wonder my blood pressure is high.

Apart from wandering the face of this planet, I have auxiliary matters of contention.

This morning I rose at 4 a.m. (not unusual for me), rebooted the computer and walked away.

The first re-boot of the day triggers all sorts of useful tasks, including flushing the browser cache, initiating a run of The Prospector to scour yesterday’s CNW press releases , fires up my weight-monitoring spreadsheet and a host of other things. While it is doing that I wander into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee and cater to the cat’s bowls.

Of course, the very first thing the reboot does is to load TrueCrypt and decrypt the encrypted hard drive which holds all the data.

Except this morning it didn’t.

TrueCrypt Just Hung There.

20 minutes had passed before I noticed this, so I rebooted; a little glitch is all; an experiment by the cosmos.

The machine wouldn’t reboot, so I did the old lean-on-the-power-button trick to force a shut-down and then powered up again for a clean reboot of the day.

Nada.

TrueCrypt Just Hung There.

Without a decrypted hard drive all I have is an encrypted hard drive.

Shut-down, Power-on.

TrueCrypt Just Hung There.

Shut-down, Power-on. Panic.

Well! To make a short story long (there follows 2,000 words of technical gibberish) it turned out to be a hang caused by a blank ready-to-burn-songs CD that I’d popped in the DVD burner yesterday and never got around to burning.

Puts all the device numbers out of whack.

Confuses TrueCrypt.

Which doesn’t tell me “Hey! You’ve got an extra drive here”; it just sulks.

While my panic sets in.

My last job each evening is to backup all computers to twin external drives, so on paper we’re alright. Except I wasn’t looking forward to reloading some 60 GB of stuff from an external drive.

That would put a crimp in my morning.

Oh well, let’s get on with the day. 60 minutes down the tubes …

Talk to Me !

Life Has Its Moments

… and the other day was one of them.

Down to The Montreal Deli for lunch for two:-

Check the docket number.

“33333”.

What are the odds?

I show it to George-The-Manager and ask him if this qualifies me for a free meal.

George is busy on the phone so all he can do is grimace and nod and give me a thumbs up.

It beats Tim Horton’s Roll-up-the-Rim-to-Win !

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Management Measures - Spatial

Yesterday I got into an argument (nothing unusual there) about the United States of America.

I claimed that their land-level border problems were immense. My friend claimed no-big-deal – “Just two borders, right? Mexico and Canada”.

I just KNEW that I was right; I also believed that the USA wasn’t handling its problems very well, on several fronts, but that’s another matter.

This morning I pulled out one of my trusty atlases and did some research.

But don’t YOU do that

You close your eyes and ask this question:

How many of the states of the USA have a land-crossing border problem, and by “border problem” I mean “Need to monitor a border that would permit inflow of illegal immigrants.

If you can’t do that, try a simpler question: “Does the USA have more than 50%, or does it have less than 50% of its states with Customs & immigration booths and officers?”

The answer is here , but don’t click until you’ve given this problem a fair shake.

Note that every US state has customs & immigration bureaus – for airplane arrivals.

I’m talking here about land-level borde-crossings – on foot, by car, bus, train or bike.

Talk to Me !

Fame And Fortune

I have just heard The Beatles singing “Fool On The Hill”, strictly speaking I have just heard a recording of The Beatles singing “Fool On The Hill”.

Nice song. Part of my youth. I was in late high school when The Beatles took the world by storm.

I found myself wondering which of the Fab Four were doing vocals. There are only two left alive.

I found myself wondering if the two survivors, on hearing a Beatles song playing, think back to the day that song was recorded, what they had for lunch, what they were wearing, and so on.

I contemplated that, perhaps, they didn’t listen to The Beatles. After 50 years, maybe you’ve heard enough. Maybe they listen to Lyle Lovett or someone else.

Then I wondered how galling it might be to be walking through a shopping mall and hear your own voice coming through a set of tinny speakers twenty feet above your head.

How Galling!

I think that if I were that famous and was forced to listen to my glory of 50 years ago for the rest-of-my-life, I’d go bonkers.

So I’m glad I don’t have that kind of fame.

I could use a bit of fame, but not that much.

A small fortune would come in handy, too.

Talk to Me !

DIY Projects

I read in the Toronto star “ Baeumler: The best job in the world ”.

Another memorable quote “If you’re planning on learning as you go, plan on spending 50 per cent more time and 30 per cent more money on materials until you come around the learning curve.”.

This is true of home renovations, writing macros, building web pages, rotating your tyres, mastering basic WordPress or MailChimp , and frankly, I think the 50% is low.

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Going Over Budget

I just had another great business meeting with young David Sappleton of Xcite Creative and then came home to read in the Toronto star “ Baeumler: The best job in the world ”.

David and I discussed projects; we work in different fields, but suffer the same penalties of clients accepting the product and then saying “Could you color it blue add another wheel to the left-hand side?”, which eats into our already-slender profit margin.

And we discussed ways to over come this problem; tightening the specifications doesn’t always do the trick.

I have tried proposing a fixed-price for the job, then hourly rate any time AFTER two weeks following delivery; if nothing else that tells the client to test the product quickly, not to wait 3 months before coming back to me.

The Star article includes this memorable line “… put away at least 15 to 20 per cent for contingencies …”.

That made me think.

I could issue a proposal for a fixed-price job, and then add (to the quoted value) 15% and mark that “contingencies”.

The message to the client is clear: I can do the job for $5,000, but we both know (don’t we?) that the unexpected crops up. Let us BOTH allow for that.

My message is clear: If nothing extra crops up (or if the client decides to say nothing crops up), then you pay the $5,000. But be aware that you ought to be prepared to pay up to $5,750 if part-way through the job your situation changes.

That way there are no unpleasant surprises.

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Strike up a Conversation

I stare out my window, looking towards the clouds scudding in from the south-west, and the Toronto Star headline reads “ Florida dealership will pay for your new car if it rains April 8 ”.

The details are hazy (Good one, Chris!), but you buy the car now and get your money back if it rains April 8. The article says the dealer made the decision “without a smidgen of complicated risk-assessment”, but I don’t believe that.

Still an all, the killer statement is buried at the foot of the report:-

“In our market, it seems to work better to get customers to strike up a conversation rather than screaming at us.”

I’ll come back to that in a minute

I am reading Neil Rackham’s “SPIN Selling” – SPIN as in Situation questions, Problem questions, Implication questions, Need-payoff questions.

Neil discusses the traditional sales training of Preliminaries, Investigating, Demonstrating capability and Obtaining commitment, that last being known as "closing” or “getting the order”.

Neil makes a good point that the sales process for small-ticket items has to be different from that of large-ticket items. He gives little thought to grabbing a $15 pocket knife at a display stand; it’s a token amount and a bad decision affects only him. No need for any kind of sales talk there. But a $3,000 computer system affects the entire office, so that needs a different sales cycle.

Most of us are selling large-ticket items – training sessions for $3,000, web sites for $2,500. If someone asks for an hour’s coaching, well, it’s about $150. I can wing that, but a 3-day tour-de-force for 8 staff members means WE had better have our ducks in a row.

Back to Florida

In both situations I learn that it’s the relationship, the conversation I have to develop.

I think the conclusion is that if I continue to work hard on educating my contacts (about me) and offer them tidbits of useful information on a regular basis, the sale will come quite naturally.

The client will have decided to buy before they approach me; the only question is, “What color would you like it?”.

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It’s a People Problem

• “Can you merge these seven workbooks for us?”
• “Can you merge these three contact lists for us”?”
• “Did he really score a goal?”.

The Guardian article scores a hit with "In principle the iview system can also solve specific goal-line issues, but the main reason it wasn't used in the World Cup was the approval of the governing bodies rather than the technology itself.".

We all knew that it wasn’t a bouncing tyre that killed the woman .

In the trade we quietly mutter “It’s a people problem; it’s always a people problem”.

At the root level it is never a technological problem. Cars don’t think. Spreadsheets don’t think. Footballs and goalposts don’t have brains.

It’s a depressing thought that all human problems in the world today can be laid at the feet of humans.

It’s an encouraging thought that I might be one of the humans able to solve human problems.

Talk to Me !

How Computers Boot Up

I came across two excellent articles recently and am posting a short commentary on them here and at Motherboard Chipsets and the Memory Map.

The first article should be of general interest to anyone who sits waiting for the computer to re-boot, or anyone who hates the process so much that they avoid a re-boot as much as possible.

This stuff is of interest to me in part because the first computers I ever used, in 1967, were bootstrapped – you pressed a button on the card-reader which caused the machine to read the first punched-card in a deck of 80-column cards, which card contained enough instructions to read the next card, and so on, until the whole program was loaded and ready to process data.

You’ll read this in “Things start rolling when you press the power button on the compute”, under the heading Boot Sequence, Boot being an abbreviation for Bootstrap, and nothing at all to do with giving the computer a kick.

In 1973-74 I was enrolled in a Systems course, part of which was to design computers from the DEC handbook – working out how to combine NAND, NOR and NOT gates into half-adder circuits and then continue upwards, and as a pastime I wrote a compiler for a computer with only one instruction .

Anyway, give the Duartes paper a single read-through; don’t be thwarted by some of the stuff you don’t understand; just skim through it and then say “Whew! I never realized how complex a device these things are”.

Much more complex than a vacuum-cleaner, even though it too has an on-off switch.

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Motherboard Chipsets and the Memory Map

I came across two excellent articles recently and am posting a short commentary on them here and at How Computers Boot Up .

This article is probably a little harder to digest than the boot-up article, but still and all it may be of interest to you, as much as when the salesman pops the hood of your new car and you go “Ok. Boring!”.

When you look at the diagram, you can think of the arrow-lines as wires connecting the bits and pieces.

“ … the CPU doesn’t really know anything about what it’s connected to.” Is ever so true. It’s just as true of computers. I spend hours listening to clients talk about their data (and they need to describe it to me so I can build a process), but I know that the computer doesn’t have a clue about dollars or names or temperatures – it’s just data, strings of characters or chunks of numbers. And in the end, of course, 1s and 0s, but not even that, it is plus-or-minus voltages, when you come down to it.

And even then the computer doesn’t understand anything. It’s just a wired-together collection of transistors, right?

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Getting the Word Out – Tapping Into Client Pools

I think the official umbrella name is “Reciprocal Marketing”, although my thoughts are a one-way street here.

I need to get the word out about my training courses. The material is ready, the room is available. I’m ready. Where are the customers?

I know the customers are out there, and that they are already doing some other form of business with someone known to me.

For example, Gary, not his real name, appears to be running a pretty successful financial consulting business. I suspect he has a hundred or so hot name son his list, existing clients, previous clients, ready-to-become clients.

I can approach Gary with this deal:

You pay the room rental costs and I’ll deliver a 3-hour training session to 8 of your contacts for free.

You will look good because you are giving them a bonus (Please see Oranges and Bottled Water ).

Your clients will feel good because they are learning something productively useful for free (plus doing a little bit of networking).

I’ll feel good because I’ll get my name, material, knowledge and techniques out there on display.

Talk to Me !

Can You Keep a Secret?

It’s OK.

I know you can.

But should you?

And when should you pass on a secret?

You know something the rest of us don’t know; that’s what you are selling – the brew made from your secret recipe, the experience locked inside your head, the special tricks and methods you’ve discovered.

Whatever it is, you’ve got it, and no one else has it; that’s your niche.

And here you are, mug of coffee in hand, being asked by your prospect “So, what’s your secret? How do you do it?”.

Should you tell them?

Of course you should.

It won’t take more than a minute, will it? Probably less than 30 seconds.

And how in the name of all that’s proprietary can you possibly give away the fullness of your secret in 30 seconds? You can’t. There’s no way a rookie prospect is going to take your overview and build a space shuttle from it, let alone the support system for the space shuttle.

Case in point: I know all about Microsoft Word’s styles – both paragraph and character. A prospect asks me how I’m going to achieve consistent formatting to brand their product.

“Easy!”, I say, “I’ll implement a hierarchy of styles”.

What can they do? Read the Microsoft Word help screens? Buy a book for $20 and become an expert in building style hierarchies overnight? I don’t think so.

How will they know which way to organize the hierarchy (there are as many ways as there are people in the office).

Do they really want to delve into the differences between Paragraph Styles and Character Styles? And why, at certain times, Paragraph Styles act as Character Styles?

Do you think they’ll discover fractional point font sizes, and how to craft a macro to make use of this in page alignment?

And so on.

I doubt it.

In fact, by replying to their question with just one word (triumphantly) “STYLES!”, there’s a good chance that they’ll be so overwhelmed with what’s out there that they’ll turn the whole exercise over to me. Instantly.

And how about you? What is your secret? And don’t you find it difficult to encapsulate it into a 30-second elevator speech?

I thought so!

Talk to Me !

I Will Pass on this Info

Sometimes the response both amazes and alarms me.

I issued a short email to a colleague announcing a new course I’ve produced.

My esteemed colleague’s response was short and to the point:

Hi Chris, I will pass on this info. Thanks

Now I know this chap well, and I know he means well, and I know that he means “I will let other people know about this resource”, and all is good.

But for just a fleeting instant panic reared its ugly head: What if he means “Thanks, but No Thanks; I don’t need this kind of information”?

I need a vacation ….

Talk to Me !

To Call, or Not to Call? That is the Email!

I have invested many hours (perhaps too many) in developing a sale here in Toronto. Then my contact passes me on to another member of the same firm but in Ottawa, with the words “Jackie will get in touch with you”.

I respond with thanks, “I’ll wait for her to contact me”, in part because I don’t want to seem too eager or pushy, and in part because I want to know that she wants it enough to call me.

Here’s the catch: She didn’t call!

Now I AM eager; I want to meet my sales quota this month (even if it is only one sale), so I brace myself and send off a short eMail “nudge”:

Hello Jackie, I just tried to reach you by phone but the line got dropped. I was calling to ask if you were anticipating anything from me. A week ago Harold indicated that you might contact me, but in case you were waiting to hear from me, well, here is an email! I spent a bit of time on a proof-of-concept model for Harold and uploaded a couple of videos which might be of interest to you:-

Her response?

Hello Chris and thank you for your e-mail. I have forwarded your documentation to a colleague of mine. After watching your videos focusing on a section of a document, and to have a better understanding of what a complete processing entails, would you happen to have a demo illustrating a document being completely processed with such a tool and what it looks like at the “end” ? We were also wondering about the following: - What type of format is used as the “desired situation” ? - How would it work if we were to attempt to use such a tool in different languages? Thank you in advance. Your assistance is appreciated.

From which I gather that

(1) I should be a little more forward in presenting myself; the shy wall-flower type gets to dance, but not as often as the flirt.

(2) In Maybe You’re 65 I quoted CopyBlogger as saying “those customers really want your product”. Spot On!

(3) These contacts are busy people, but they are busy responding to other people. I can be one of those other people.

Talk to Me !

Don’t Worry! Nothing has Changed.

SmallBiz Trends asks “Have We Lost a Generation of Small Business Owners?” and then answers its own question with some raw figures and a chart, on the grounds that if you can’t understand “We’re down more than 1.1 million” you’ll understand “{insert chart here}”.

They claim to be talking about “fewer self-employed Americans” but closer inspection reveals they really want to talk about “fewer incorporated self-employed people”.

There’s a world of difference.

As a man of the world I am painfully aware of the number of small businesses, one-man-shows, who charge cash for fixing everything from roofs to driveways, fingernails to toe-nails, and will walk your dog, or your granny, for a wad of twenty-dollar banknotes.

I don’t think there are less self-employed; I think that there are more self-employed .

And I think they are coming from the old-fashioned regular-salary crowd, tired of paying taxes, and from the newly-retired-at-55 crowd, who aren’t satisfied with their pensions.

And me?

My accountant told me twenty years ago – if you get paid in cash, go straight to the ATM, deposit it, and write the client’s name on the slip. Once you get home, print out an invoice and mail it.

That way, he said, you will never fear the police, tax inspectors, or anyone else.

He was right, as usual.

Talk to Me !

More Elevator Speeches

A correspondent writes:

In my Textual Intervention class last year, we had to explore writing personal ads. The first one was required to be straight. I came up with:

• Australian male, 34, enjoys silence and solitude, and cool, sunny afternoons reading old books. Is there a mid-thirties Christian woman who would complement me?

Then we had to write an alternative based on the original, so I wrote:

• Apparently self-centered Christian man seeks woman to wait patiently while he finishes the chapter. Must love cats.

Finally, we had to write an anti-personal ad (whatever that means). I settled on:

• Damaged goods will never trust another woman as long as he lives. Will reject as similarly damaged any woman who finds herself attracted to him.

No ad is longer than 32 words.

I gingerly put my toes in the water and came up with:

Tri-national male, 64, enjoys quiet music, conversation, and if that fails, reading old books. Is there a 60s woman from the 60s who would accompany me?

Easily-bored atheist seeks partner who will trigger his brain and listen to the results. Must hate spending money.

Self-centered brain seeks fuel to keep the furnaces going. Is not interested in dining-out every night. Respondent must own a car.

Come on, give it a shot (you can lie a little)

Then trying writing a Personal Ad for your business.

Date Me !

6 Orion Street, Southern Cross, WA 6426

A weakness of mine is to use Google Alerts. A sub-weakness is to use Google Alerts to keep track of my past.

So up pops a hit from “ southern cross yilgarn ”

I spent my first two nights in Southern Cross, back in June 1956, in that hotel.

For roughly $cdn1.5M I could quit my day job and run a hotel.

I was struck by the phrase “Only a full inspection will do justice to your consideration” because that’s exactly how I feel about me when discussing my products and services – if only the prospect would take a sample or a trial run, they’d see just how good I/it am/is, and then they’d buy the whole deal.

Now, how to translate “Only a full inspection will do justice to your consideration” into “Why not invite me in for a chat?”.

Talk to Me !

"Orion Street"? Yes. In Southern Cross, named after the constellation, the streets are named after stars and constellations.

My eLetter – 1st Issue

The first issue went out two days ago to a humble (small mailing list) start.

22 months have passed since first I said “I should issue a monthly newsletter”, and I regret the delay.

Where did the time go?

I think it was dissipated by fear; fear of getting started, fear of rejection, fear of poor quality, and fear of fearing fears.

In the end – SO WHAT?

Out it went, issue number 1, with eleven more issues in the pipeline – articles written – and it’s me, all me.

I figure of course, that those who subscribe will want to hear about ME and won’t care overmuch about the precise RGB code for the background of the thing.

My smartest decision – I think to use a service rather than roll-my-own. I used MailChimp and could have picked one of about a dozen candidates.

I could have started the thing 18 months ago – lord knows I have enough material to sink a public service building – and for 18 months I could have been telling people about it, building up a subscriber base.

Oh well.

They say better late than never, and today I have to start tweaking next month’s issue.

Talk to Me !

My eLetter – 1st Issue

The first issue went out two days ago to a humble (small mailing list) start.

22 months have passed since first I said “I should issue a monthly newsletter”, and I regret the delay.

Where did the time go?

I think it was dissipated by fear; fear of getting started, fear of rejection, fear of poor quality, and fear of fearing fears.

In the end – SO WHAT?

Out it went, issue number 1, with eleven more issues in the pipeline – articles written – and it’s me, all me.

I figure of course, that those who subscribe will want to hear about ME and won’t care overmuch about the precise RGB code for the background of the thing.

My smartest decision – I think to use a service rather than roll-my-own. I used MailChimp and could have picked one of about a dozen candidates.

I could have started the thing 18 months ago – lord knows I have enough material to sink a public service building – and for 18 months I could have been telling people about it, building up a subscriber base.

Oh well.

They say better late than never, and today I have to start tweaking next month’s issue.

Talk to Me !