The 1-2-3 of Moving the 1-2-3

If cold-calling is so darned awkward and embarrassing, why do so many of us leave that initial contact at the 1-2-3 stage?

The 1-2-3 stage is that part of the spectrum where you rate your contacts on a scale of one to ten, ten being those who have sent you a cheque that hasn’t bounced (to quote Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach) and one being those who seem totally dis-interested.

It isn’t that hard to move folks from a one to a ten.

Here’s Why

You do it in easy stages.

You move the 8s and 9s to be 10s; you move the 7s to be 9s; you move the 6s to be 8s, and so on until you are attempting to move the 1s to 3s.

Rinse and Repeat

Not all of the 1s will move up to the 3s, but some will, and those that don’t get some more attention next time around; after all, of the so-called “failed” conversation, you learned something, right?

Here’s How

Noooooo! YOU have to do the “how” yourself, based on your service or product, but since you are going to rinse-and-repeat you will need a variety of “how”s, so you may as well just use the first one that comes to mind, record its success, and gradually hone your sales skills.

Talk to Me !

Customer Service

Since I met Michelle Romanica of Customer Experience Management I’ve paid more attention to deeper aspects of Customer Service.

Here’s an example.

Twice now I’ve driven to Brantford with an eye to touring the Alexander Graham Bell home – a museum of the developer of the telephone. Twice I’ve struck out, both times, from memory, in mid-winter and, knowing me, during the Christmas New Year break.

Should’ve checked the schedule

This time (mid-summer) I checked the web site .

9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., it said. “unless otherwise posted”, but nothing can stop me now. They are open, so it’s Hey! For the open road.

We arrived at 2:30 p.m., two hours should be ample, right?

Nope. The dis-interested clerk told us as she took the $20 bill that they were closing at three today.

So the Brantford museum of Alexander Graham Bell is quite prepared to take our money, but truncate our visit to 30 minutes.

I snatched (it is the correct word) the bill out of her hand and we left.

Once again we walked around the grounds, me muttering. As usual.

Later it struck me as most odd that when an un-announced closure takes place – unannounced on their web site – that they aren’t public relations savvy enough on that one day to allow visitors in for free for that final hour.

What would that mean?

In practical terms, anyone arriving after 2 p.m. would get up to 60 minutes viewing for free.

That ought to rank pretty high on any customer satisfaction survey.

What would it cost them?

$5.50 per customer, but then, they didn’t get our money anyway, so how can they lose what they didn’t have?

And if 60 minutes is not enough to see everything, surely we would return another time.

And at the very least, having seen the museum, we would be two more people who could tell other people about it.

Instead, I tell you, steer clear of Brantford. They don’t know how to welcome tourists, and while they want your tourist dollars, they don’t want you to be happy about it.

Talk to Me !

For the Non-Golfers Amongst Us

I played golf once in my life. I was one of the mandatory duffers in a Friday afternoon social game with Murray Bulger and Associates back around 1986. That was enough.

Nonetheless This New York Times Article caught my eye.

This first group is self-evident.

1. Be on time.

2. Be quiet, be quick.

3. Know when to speak up and what to say.

6. Help others look for lost balls.

8. Maintain a good attitude regardless of how you’re playing.

9. Avoid giving unsolicited advice.

10. Be generous, be honest, be nice.

I couldn’t recommend “4. Mind the flagstick. “ as is; it’d have to be “Make a fresh pot of coffee” in my business.

“5. Watch the flight of everyone’s shots. “ would have to become “Stay in touch with the pace of other parts of the project”.

“7. Don’t make everyone look for your ball for 10 minutes” is a little trickier. I think it’d have to be something along the lines of “If you can’t come up with a coherent reason not to do it within 60 seconds, you just don’t know enough to object to the idea”!

Talk to Me !

Controlling Those Hanging Folders

I have just counted; thirty-four hanging folders in the drawer marked “Clients”

Does this mean I’ve had only 34 clients in the past 20 years?

No.

And remember - I’m a pack-rat.

Here’s how it works: I added a new hanging folder each time I landed a new client. Now landing a client, to me, is just a little ways beyond that first series of emails.

A new client

About the time I submit a proposal, the contact is classified as a client; they get a hanging folder with their name.

Into their hanging folder go all my sheets of hand-written notes leading up to the proposal.

Ideally they will respond to the proposal with a 50% deposit.

Sometimes I get no response. The proposal, like the client, is “dead”.

I place the most recent addition at the front of the drawer; when the client calls, I can quickly grab the folder.

That means that the stalest folders are now at the back.

Here Comes a New Client

Take the stalest folder and empty the contents into the shredder. Gone!

Let’s face it, nothing ever came of it, and if they do contact me again, from my point of view, after all these years, they are a new client. We never got past the 50% deposit, remember?

Put the new client into the now empty hanging folder, place it in the front of the drawer.

I never have more than 34 hanging folders in there at one time.

Active clients

I am working on three projects at the moment. I pull those hanging folders and put them in my bookcase next to my desk. To work on the project I pull the folder, work on the contents, and replace the folder in the bookcase at the end of the day.

When the project wraps up, that folder goes to the front of the drawer.

My stalest clients are always at the back, and are prime candidates for dropping.

Chances are strong that when I do drop them, the original person with who I had contact will be long gone from the firm anyway.

Re-Awakening Clients

It happens often enough; a client calls or emails.

The hanging folder is pulled, updated, and replaced in the front of the drawer. That breathes new life into it.

Talk to Me !

WhatFAQ

I have a fool-proof method for keeping on top of things and not wasting time.

It is called WhatFAQ .

A WhatFAQ document is assigned to every project under my control or on which I am working. For every end-user application I write, there is a WhatFAQ; for every developer utility I build, there is a WhatFAQ; for every client project, there is a WhatFAQ.

WhatFAQ grew from three separate documents. About fifteen years ago I built three documents for a project: “What’s New?”, “What’s a Problem?”, and “Frequently Asked Questions”.

That meant I maintained three extra documents on top of any user requirements (Specifications, User guide etc.)

My three documents existed as Microsoft Word documents WhatNew.doc, WhatProb.doc and WhatFAQ.doc, and it made sense to merge them into one document, nowadays known as WhatFAQ.doc

How Does it Work?

Quite simply, when I have a thought about a project, when an idea strikes me, when a client expresses an opinion or a suggestion, or finds a problem with my work, I make an entry in the WhatFAQ.

The idea will not be forgotten, but I don’t need to break off from what I’m doing and lose my focus. I’m not dancing with fifteen partners each day.

The process is semi-automatic. I can paste ideas from emails. Every item receives an identification number that is unique to my computer system.

The WhatFAQ can be sorted (again automatically) so that the most-recently-fixed items appear at the top of the document and the still-to-be-addressed appear at the bottom in date sequence.

Project members can sort and filter by their initials to see what I’ve done about their pet peeves.

The best part for me is that I learned back in the seventies “Never make a promise or a threat you’re not prepared to keep”, and my WhatFAQ helps me to remember every item that’s ever come up for discussion.

The second-best part is that, from time to time, the client asks “Is there anything else we need to do?”, and I have a list of potentially billable items to hand.

Here is a link to an article that captured my interest: Action Steps

You can download a copy of WhatFAQ right now!

Talk to Me !

A Very Succesful “Cold-Call”

I sent a letter to the publisher of a local paper, and ended the letter with this:

• Call To Action: None. There is nothing you need do. I will telephone you in a few days to learn of your reaction to this letter.

I called the 19th at 10:25 and got voice-mail. I don’t like leaving voice-mails when we’ve not previously spoken.

1. I left my letter clipped to the paper near my phone.
2. I called the 21st at 9:15 and got voice-mail.
3. I called the 23rd at 11:55 and got through!

I asked first off “Do you have two minutes?”. Yes he did, just two. It is, after all, just before lunchtime on a Friday.

I reminded him of my letter. He told me the focus of the paper was on “events and happenings”; I think that is an objection.

I acknowledged that my offering was not about events, nor about happenings, and maybe there was not a good fit.

He came back then and asked for specifics. I gave him a 20-second overview, reminded him that my 2 minutes was up, and asked if I could send him an email with 6 short samples.

Sure!

That’s success.

Talk to Me !

I was Half Expecting a Bunch of Complaints

This from a colleague:

It's been such a long time since I've written a newsletter I was half expecting a bunch of complaints (who are you, and why are you sending me emails?!?). I haven't had anyone burn my house down, though, so I count that as a win.

This in reply from me:

I have been saying for 12 months now that I'll put out a monthly eLetter for CEO/CFO/COO/CIO only of the large ("deep pocket") corporations I target.

• Once a month.
• One item
• No ads
• NOT about computing

I have a stack of ideas, a stack of articles, I have several formats I'm quite prepared to admire/steal.

I have the (programming) mechanism to distribute it.

What's holding me back?

Probably fear of rejection.

I suspect (but can't prove) that the general feeling that we are "spamming" recipients arises because there is such an easy negative reaction to spam.

In the Real World(TM) I don't let annoying telemarketers dull my pleasure when a genuine friend or contact phones me; I move away from the computer to the green chair and enjoy a yak.

I see a monthly newsletter from anyone I do business with as a valid means of staying in touch with a valid contact.

You are not anonymous. We've done business, we've chatted. If you were in Toronto you'd have the spare room for as long as you needed it. Internet access, home cooking, two cats ...

The various entrepreneurs I've met in Toronto are not anonymous; we've said Hi! at 3 meetings, had a coffee, supper maybe. A monthly letter from them isn't an unwarranted intrusion. I might not take the time to read it right now, but it is not unwarranted.

I have blacklisted a few people who claim they spoke with me at a meeting 12 months ago, regret not establishing contact sooner, and hope I won't mind receiving a monthly letter from them. Blacklisted because (I'm not sorry), No; we've not done a single face-to-face meeting to learn about each other.

I hope this makes sense.

I'd rather you did a short eLetter each month; if nothing else it'd help jog my brain that I should spend more time selling software.

P.S. I find it OK that your letter comes in plain text, but then I'm interested in ideas, not fancy dress.

Talk to Me !

Dropping-in Method

In If in Doubt, Show up I mentioned the use of a pack of old business cards – blank on one side – on which I scribbled contact details of those people who have invited me to drop in at any time.

On thinking it over (and about to make another trip downtown) it seems to me worthwhile to print them, to give them some permanency.

Why not just use the business cards they give to me? Because nowadays business cards are not always handed out. Besides which I can print my own stored comments on the cards, update phone numbers and so on.

I’ll probably dash off a quick boiler-plate text document with a single-cell table where the data goes, and use adhesive tape to build a wallet on a sheet of paper.

Dump the text in the cell, load the wallet-paper into the printer, Click!

Talk to Me !

Dropping Clients

A year ago (when I began this blog) I’d decided to shift my market focus, away from the 2-man legal firms along The Danforth to the large financial and pharmaceutical companies.

My previous clients still phone me, but if they aren’t taking me up on my proposals, it’s time to gently edge away from them.

09/16/2009 6:08:00 AM 0001.08 clients 4811: the descriptions (attached) do not have this extra line stating “Enhanced Warranty Coverage“

09/16/2009 10:09:00 AM 0000.15 clients 4811 examine code

09/16/2009 10:18:00 AM 0000.37 clients 4811 phone sandra

12/17/2009 8:11:00 PM 0001.02 clients v4 spec data file

12/17/2009 9:12:00 PM 0000.23 clients v4 spec draft

12/21/2009 10:02:00 AM 0000.85 clients proposal

05/11/2010 2:41:00 PM 0000.18 clients Phone AP re 5393: (Ref 3837) The attached document was opened

05/11/2010 2:52:00 PM 0002.00 clients 5393: (Ref 3837) The attached document was opened

07/16/2010 12:20:00 PM 0000.33 CLIENT call from AP re Word bug

CLIENT 6.22

Above is pasted a record of the time I have recorded on one particular client over the past 12 months.

Now 6.22 hours recorded is close to a day’s work. There are undoubtedly a few more phone calls in there that I didn’t record.

So how does “client” look to me now?

1: They have provided no revenue for the past 12 months.

2: They have soaked up a day of mine over the past 12 months; I’ve done a bit of research and provided some answers, all for free.

3: The chance of getting them to pay for a serious bit of testing and modification to their system is remote. They haven’t accepted my previous two proposals.

4: My goal for the next 12 months is to whittle them down to zero hours, allowing me either to focus on paying clients, or to take a day’s vacation and stroll along the Danforth.

P.S. If you are not keeping track of your time during the day, start doing it now.

There are many packages out there. My BillT is free, works, and is based on Windows Notepad!

Talk to Me !

Creepy Clients

“Project Creep” is a leading cause of project failure; the goal or target is changed repeatedly and becomes a near-impossible target.

Client Creep is just as bad.

It starts off with an innocuous email “I'm looking for Access VBA coding that will automatically populate business days of the week based on a start date and entry of number of days”.

I can do that!

But then I have no idea of the client’s abilities, so I suggest a face-to-face inspection of the database, and this seems expensive for the client who responds by pointing out that they are capable of inserting my code.

We carry on this way for two or three more exchanges, and then I give up.

The whole deal is too costly in terms of the time it is taking me to extract information from the client, and as soon as we clear up one misunderstanding, the client slyly reveals yet-another-card, more data that could have been volunteered up front.

I don’t abandon the prospect of work, but I retract into my shell with a suggestion that I be emailed some procedure specifications, and that I will craft code to meet those written specifications.

The message is: If you’re good enough to specify what you want, then do so. If not, you need me to help you specify what you want.

Talk to Me !

A Balanced Diet

Top of her class :

“Brianna Smrke didn’t know she was perfect. But after a phenomenal final year of high school, logging hours of homework a night, there’s no doubt she is, earning 100 per cent in each of her eight courses. Grade 12 students usually take six courses.”

And:

“While Smrke spent about seven hours doing homework each night — working from 3 p.m. to about 11 p.m., with a break for dinner — she also found time to work on fundraising initiatives, help distribute food to the homeless, be a volunteer math tutor and a “best buddy” to a special needs student at her school.”

I was struck by the combination of long hours and varied diet.

Brianna worked on matters well outside the study arena.

Our parents were correct: “ All work and no play makes jack a dull boy ”.

Here is a quote from “ 5 ways to take a guilt-free vacation “:-

I never cease to be amazed by people who wouldn't dream of giving back part of their paycheck, yet who don't take the time off to which they are entitled.

Talk to Me !

The Winning Goal for the Day

I am prompted to write this after the dust has settled over Spain’s winning goal in the World Cup match Sunday, July 11, 2010. Don’t worry if you are not a fan.

All you need to know is that the two teams were tied 0-0 at the end of the first half, 0-0 at the end of the second half, 0-0 at the end of the FIRST 15 minutes of extra time, and that Spain scored a goal about 5 minutes into the second 15 minutes of extra time, and that they managed to hang onto that lead for ten more minutes.

A cliff-hanger, you might say (although I found it all a bit boring).

So did the Spanish team shower, don casual clothes and hop on a 1 a.m. flight home? I doubt it.

They probably went to bed at all different hours, and some poor manager had the job of locating each player for the flight home the next day.

But this I’ll guarantee: Each player, wherever and whenever and however they dropped off to sleep later that night/morning had one thought in mind: We got our goal!

I Reached My Goal

At the end of the day I’ll often field a phone call from a close friend or two, “How did you day go?”.

If that day I’d met a CEO/CFO/COO face-to-face for the first time, my day has been successful.

If that day I’d managed to clear one of my desks of junk, my day has been successful.

If that day I’d tested and delivered a deliverable phase of a project, my day has been successful.

If that day I’d completed and dispatched my tax returns, my day has been successful.

If that day I’d {fill in your goal here} , my day has been successful.

You Get the Idea

At the start of each day I write on the back of an old business card a single goal. It’s usually something that’s been bugging me.

What will make me happy at the end of the day?

As I write this at 6:10 a.m. on a muggy summer morning, I know I’ll feel happy tonight if by then I have completed fixes to the Booster project and have issued a ZIPped file with my latest efforts.

No matter what else I get done, no matter who else I meet, no matter what new projects or cheques arrive, at the end of the day I will lean back, relaxed and happy, if I’ve emailed that ZIP file.

That’s why I have a stack on old business cards, blank face out, in a little holder right next to my monitor.

And a little holding-slot that takes just one card, atop my monitor.

Talk to Me !

Do They Love What They Do?

I love part of what I do.

That part is “telling computers what to do” – it is more than “programming” and certainly more than “programming in VBA”, it is a passion for getting the very best out of a computer.

(I once devised a means of using 81 columns of an 80-column punched-card!)

My passion started 6 months before the end of my schooling, 6 months before my first job.

My passion has outlasted two marriages, five countries, three nationalities and an uncountable number of setbacks, cancelled projects and failed business relationships.

I sometime get exhausted, or plain bored with a project that drags on.

But come the next one, and I’m awake at all hours devising clever algorithms …

I look around me at the very small group of people I’d love to work with.

Each one of them is truly passionate about what they do to bring in the money.

Passionate enough to laugh at themselves while they are doing it.

The business is one gigantic barrel of colored balls and we are wallowing around in them, making money while nagging in a giant game of whoop-de-doo!

Robert Townsend said it best:

“If you don’t do it excellently, don’t do it at all. Because if it’s not excellent, it won’t be profit or fun, and if you’re not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing here?”

Talk to Me !

When Ignoring Emails Becomes Profitable

The original email looks innocuous enough:

“I got your name from {your name here}. There is a spreadsheet that several people use to input data. The president wants to receive an email when the value in a cell is equal to a certain criteria.”

I replied with eight questions:

“Hi Jason, thanks for the email. Some questions:; 1 Is the email to be emitted every time the cell switches to a certain value? (a.k.a. "drive the president crazy by changing the value every 5 minutes"); 2 Is the value explicit to 15 digits accuracy or is it to be within a tolerance?; 3 Is there only once cell to be monitored, or a set of cells?; 4 Is the cell defined with a range name, or will you maintain and re-distribute the worksheet whenever the cell address changes?; 5 Does every user have Outlook installed as the default mail client, or are some users using Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora etc?; 6 Is the email to be issued the instant the user changes the cell value? How will you cope with people who turn OFF autosend in Outlook?; 7 Have you considered the option of logging the changes to disk and having the president (run a job on his schedule to) poll the saved log files?; The task will be written in Visual Basic for Applications(VBA). 8 Will every user have macros enabled?; I can probably dream up some more questions if you'd like.; There is no problem monitoring a cell and emitting an email; we would need tight specifications of when/how it is all to be triggered; I hope this helps.”

Nine Days Later

I have received no response, not even a “Thank you for taking the time to respond”.

Luckily for me I keep track of my time, and frequently examine time taken to perform simple tasks such as replying to an email like this like this.

Careful composition of a 260-word email as a first-time email to a potential client, spell-check and proof-read, takes fifteen minutes of my time.

Don’t pretend it doesn’t. You think it is 5 minutes, but it is much closer to 15 than 5. I know, because I’ve measured it.

I had BCC’d {your name here} on my reply, so’s they’d know that I had responded, and how I had responded and of course a few days later {your name here} emailed me back asking if I’d heard anything, so I responded to THAT email saying, in essence, “No”.

Bottom Line

20 minutes sucked out of my life. For what? For someone I’ve never met who can’t even say ‘Thank You”.

If they can’t say Thank You what makes me think they’ll be happy forking over money?

Where else can you spend time fruitlessly on a potential customer?

The Answer

Store Clerks do it all they time, but they are paid to stand behind a counter all day and smile as the customer approaches.

But I am not a store clerk. I do not stand behind a counter waiting for someone to swim into my view. I am a consultant with a business to run, and MY business is setting up meetings with CEO’s of large corporations.

The original email came from someone who thinks that I am a store-clerk. That is precisely the sort of person I can safely ignore.

And just in case you are thinking that times are tough (they are) and I’m strapped for cash (I am) and should leap at every opportunity – you’re wrong!

The path out of my hole lies in spending as much time as possible getting the word out to potential clients, not chatting with passers-by.

How Will You Throw Away Your Time Today?

Talk to Me !

Domestic and Corporate Models

Despite what I wrote in There Are No Corporate Decisions there is a difference between domestic and corporate clients.

Ten years ago I was happily fixing computer systems – hardware and software – for my friends and small-business owners. Today I avoid that like the plague.

I have been burned too often fixing a system at night-time only to get a call a week later “My nephew installed some new software and now I can’t Print/Type/save/eat/Drink/Sleep”, or worse “… and now the changes you made don’t work; please come and fix them”.

Sometimes it is their spouse’s best friend’s gardeners mechanic’s son.

Corporate clients seem to expect to be billed at a daily rate starting around $1,000 and just going UP. Domestic clients want to know if twenty-dollar bills is alright.

Corporate clients speak in terms of P.O. numbers, proposals, contracts, and it is pretty easy to generate a water-tight proposal that spells out, in writing, what you’ll do for them, how much it will cost, and when it will be finished. (if you need help with this Talk to Me ),

So you’ve got your little domestic business model worked out, the colored crayons, the place mats, the bits and pieces, and people pay you for the small jobs, and it all adds up.

The catch is that the corporate clients can’t understand that. No corporate client worth their salt thinks in terms of $25/hour for a two-hour job.

So you need a second business model for the corporate clients.

Domestic clients get to pick and choose how much of everything they want, and they get charged per item, per hour.

Corporate clients are offered a rather large and very inclusive package; there is little choice. They get three of everything without being asked – no discussion no negotiations.

Two hours training is not an option. It’s a 2-day workshop. And it isn’t $150 per person per day; it is $1,500 per day for a group of eight. Whether they send eight or not.

You Don’t Believe Me?

Keep track of your hours the next time you start treating a large corporation like a domestic client. You’ll be amazed at how much time you spend trying to communicate on the wrong wavelength.

Talk to Me !

Google Cache

A much over-looked resource.

You do your Google Search, here are the links.

You click on a link (well, if you are a Firefox user you right/click and choose “Open In Tab”) and receive that dreaded “404” or “503” page error.

Drat!

And it looked so promising and all …

Return to the page of found links.

Look Closely at the end of the link you sought.

If you see “cached”, click there.

You’ll receive a copy of the page from one of Google's millions of servers, a copy of the page as it was the last time Google saw it.

The page might have been moved or deleted by the owner.

But Google still has a copy!

Talk to Me !

Business Poetry

Every successful human endeavor

 Has a start and an end
Successful: A start and an end
Most unsuccessful projects
 Wither and die
  Starved of money
   Bored to death over time
It is the start that defines the end
 A successful project’s end point
  Can be seen from its start point
At a successful project’s end
 The start point is still visible
  And where we are now
   Looks better than where we were.
And we feel that the journey
 Was well worth the price.
If you can’t see your end point
 From where you are
Move the start point
 Or the end point
  By splitting the project
   Into two parts.
The start point
 Is well-defined
  In space
  In dollars
  In staff
  In tangible resources
  In faith that the end point is attainable
  and that today is today.
The end point
 Is well-defined
  In space
  In dollars
  In staff
  In tangible resources
  In faith that the end point is attainable
  and that tomorrow is not today.
These things are called quantifiers
 And each is said to be one of
  Numeric
  Spatial
  Boolean
  Date/Time
Management  Measures
 If you aren’t measuring
  Then you aren’t managing
A measurement
 Is a quantified fact
Words are the building blocks of communications
Words are either spoken and then heard
 Or written and then read.
Spoken words
 Hover in the air
  Float across the wind
   And vanish in the haze
But written words
 Are forever.
It it ain’t written down
 It don’t exist.
I wrote that!
A goal
 Is where I am not.
A goal
 Is another place
 At another time
 With more money
Do you agree?
A goal is visible
 And believable.
Because I know where I am
 (facts, measurement)
And can prove it
 (written down)
A project
 Is just a means
  To reach my goal
   From where I am
In a series of steps
 One step after another
Yet some people on my path
 Call them “Objectives”.
If you are human
 Then state your endeavor
  And write it down!
Identify your goal, your end point.
Identify where you are right now, your start point.
 With numbers
 With dates and times
 With locations
 And with faith.
If your faith is lacking
 Move your end point
  By splitting your project
   Into two parts.
Quantify, quantify, quantify.
And write it all down.
“I want to be home
 with my two cats”.
My home is on the corner of Bloor and Mill.
I’d like to be home before the sun sets
 Which tonight means eight of the clock.
I’ve done it before so
 I can do it again.
Here I am
 Standing at the bus stop
  Corner of Warden and Bertrand.
The bus flew pat me
 Before I could cross the busy road.
I think the buses here
 Run every seven minutes or so.
I can do this.
I will enjoy standing in the sunshine
 For seven minutes
After all
 It is only twenty past five!
My objectives are to
 Keep an eye out for the next bus
 Flag it down
 Board it and pay my fare
When it reaches Warden station
 I must get off,
 Walk up the stairs 
 To the island platform
 Board the next westbound train
 To Kipling station.
When the train reaches Kipling station
 I must get off,
 Walk up the stairs 
 To the bus platform
 And board the Bloor street bus.
As we pass Mapledawn road
 I must ring the bell.
At Mill road I must 
 Get off
 Walk to the building
 Open my door
 And enjoy the welcome
 As two cats twine them selves around my legs.
Jupiter, and Bumpous.
Some goals for tonight:
 Make and eat my supper
 Check and answer voice-mail
 Check and answer email
 Build and issue the next deliverable for
  Gary
  Brent
  Shaun
  Tony
  And David
 Write my blog
 Enjoy some ice-cream
 Treats (3 each) for the cats.
 Print three documents for tomorrow’s meeting
 Brush my teeth
 Go to bed
 Read some more Rudyard Kipling
Boy oh boy oh boy!
It’s been a good day.
I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. 

Talk to Me !

If in Doubt, Show up

A trip downtown is always made with a set of old business cards.

On the back are written the name, address and phone of each person I am scheduled to meet. Those cards are accessed from my shirt pocket with ease, it beats trying to unzip my port-feuille in a crowded elevator.

As well, since the address is written there, I have a second card up my sleeve when I call for a pop-in coffee at short notice.

It happened again today – I called his office and got voice-mail, no receptionist, nothing.

I was in the adjacent building, so I marched right up to suite 720 and introduced myself.

If he is in and can spare me 5 minutes, he will do so.

If he can’t spare me 5 minutes, at least he’ll know that I think of him when I’m downtown.

Talk to Me !

Let Words Shift Your Focus

So there I am presenting myself, and doing my best to come across as a great-guy-to-call-when-there-is-a-problem when …

… “We already have several IT people and a team of researchers”

The message is clear.

It is not rejection, but it is an obstacle to be circumvented (in this hot weather hurdling is out of the question)

I learned from this that “I don’t replace, I augment”.

It is not a question of me replacing the existing IT staff, or replacing the current researchers, but of giving them better tools, more knowledge, and hence more power to do their jobs.

I need to switch my vocabulary away from “This is what I do” to “This is what I help people to do”.

In the end, if there IS no IT or research tem, I’m an obvious candidate!

Talk to Me !

How Successful was the First Meeting?

A trip downtown could be judged a failure if I measured it solely on whether or not I got a job.

It was not a job interview. It was an introductory meeting, and it ended well, because I was warmly received and warmly farewelled with an unsolicited invitation from the contact to stay in touch by email.

• But wait! There’s more!

My host was gracious enough to deliver feedback to me after my opening spiel, and the feedback was spot on!

Even if I’d been shown the door, it was a most valuable learning experience.

I noted the feedback and will adjust my spiel accordingly (“try to stay away from using the word computer or IT”).

For that alone it was well worth the $5.00 in subway fares.

Talk to Me !

How Many Contacts?

A trip downtown could be judged a failure if I measured it solely on the number of new COO’s I met.

One.

Just one.

But after the meeting with John ended at 11:06 I called Leon to see if he could do lunch; he couldn’t but suggested I come on the company boat trip in a few weeks time. I agreed. Then Leon said he was sitting with David who controls a $1.4B budget for the U.N. I chatted on the phon with David about mutual interests in history.

Then I called a different David and suggested lunch. He could not; he was en route, but he asked I send my material and he’d look at it.

So I called Rae, and he said Sure! He’d be happy to do lunch, so at 12:30 Rae and I sat down to lunch and I picked his brains.

By 2 p.m. I was back in my office having chatted with five contacts in my target market area.

Quite a haul for a (long) morning’s work!

Talk to Me !

Of Oranges and Bottled Water

(Please see also Sprinkles – part 2 )
Two new restaurants last week.
The Mekong River and Silk. Both serve Thai and Asian food.
Both have nice décor, friendly service.
And I will return to both.
Why?
The Mekong River brings, unasked, four ice-cold segments of sweet orange after the entrée plates are removed.

• Unasked.

It’s not a substitute for dessert.
It seems to me it is a nice token of appreciation.

• Unasked.

Silk brings a large bottle of iced tap water to the table.

• Unasked.

For once in my life I did not spend time flagging the waitress to bring me another glass of water.
Having a bottle (or jug) of water right there on the table makes sense.
It saves distractions, interruptions, and by golly I like it!

Both restaurants have developed a “ sprinkle ”; it costs them so little yet has such a high impact.

Talk to Me !

Why the Local Church Rummage Sale is Important

Off I go to another introductory meeting downtown.

Of course I’ve done my homework before going; summarized the press releases, read the web pages, harvested all the Interesting Words from both sources and read through them to fix their vocabulary in my mind before entering the office.

I am wearing a suit and tie, for I am going to meet the COO of a rather large financial firm.

The shirt and tie are central to my image, especially the tie.

The web site is decked out in pale-blue and a pale-gray-blue.

• Just like my tie.

What a co-incidence.

Not really!

I pick up neckties at rummage sales at anything from $0.50 each and upward, but I prefer the 50c ones.

Dozens of ties.

I match the tie to the web site on the grounds that I need all the help I can get during this first meeting, and a subliminal message that I am the same color as the web site can’t hurt.

Women: the rummage sale has scarves. Same deal.

Talk to Me !

My New Career in Public Relations

I am listening to an audio-book “Spin Cycles” based on CBC radio talks.

Spin as in spin-doctor; skewing of facts etc.

There is an interesting discussion about “spin” vs. “pubic relations”, and what, after all, is the role of Public relations.

Turns out that although I say my business is meeting people (my money comes from doing what they then ask me to do), I am a one-man public relations firm.

This morning I head downtown again to meet a COO who I’ve not met before. I have asked for 15 minutes; I’ll consider myself fortunate if I get 30.

We will check each other out – if he has a problem I’ll ask for some detail, but mainly I suspect he will want me to describe myself, along the lines of “Why should I ever talk with you in the future”.

My job this morning is to present myself in a light that will cause the COO to accept me as a art of his arsenal in the fight against whatever-it-is.

I’m in Public Relations.

Talk to Me !

Meeting with the CEO

Off downtown again to a face-to-face meeting with a CEO. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again.

I got the name from a CNW press release , made the phone call, and within 2m35s was hanging up having secured an appointment.

I have nothing to sell, except my self, and there’s a potential contact like this every day, so why do I feel pressured?

My idea is to sit and chat about our respective businesses for 15 minutes, 30 if I’m lucky.

I have a set of about 5 conversational points that I can develop, but I rely on my attributes (fast-mind, vast experience) to parlay any enquiry into a discussion about me.

And I trust myself.

I maintain that I’m good at solving problems, making estimates, setting boundaries and so on. The computing is a small part of it (but it’s where people see the payoff).

If I’m not comfortable with being adaptable and confident, then I have no business there.

So off I go.

It’s a trip downtown, a great opportunity to expand my business down the road, and what’s the worst that can happen?

I can learn from a mistake!

Talk to Me !

Stay-in-Touch Cards

Wednesday July 14 18:00.
Sorry. They are all GONE!

They Have Arrived.

Please see also Another Way of Staying-in-Touch, Staying in Touch 2, Staying in Touch and Does this Job Interest You?.

Arrange to Pick Yours up Today.

A carton holds 24 packets. Each packet contains 24 cards. There are 16 cartons. Do the math.



Cats are NOT part of the deal

The cards are in tent layout, 25.5 cm by 10 cm, and come with envelopes with a pre-printed “modern floral” design.



The floral design is in the lower-left corner, which leaves the top, and top center free for your return address and promotional message.

There are 6 card-types (please see images below), by painting:

1: Ontario Badlands

2: Milton Escarpment IV

3: Sixteen Mile creek II, Oakville

4: Bluff’s II

5: Oak Ridges Moraine

6: Georgian Bay, Craigleith

Paintings are by Sabelis , and a bio of Sabelis appears on the back of each card (please see images below).

The inside of the cards are blank, thus presenting 25.5x20 cm of laser-printable white space to carry your promotional message or your Christmas Greetings.

These cards are NOT for sale. I need the space. You’ll be doing me a favor by collecting a carton, or two, and distributing packets (of 24 cards each) to your clients as promotional gifts.

If you’d like help in envelope layout, and what to put on the BACK of your envelopes, and why, Talk to Me !

Business Card Boxes

Wednesday July 14 18:00.
Sorry. They are all GONE!


They Have Arrived.

Arrange to Pick Yours up Today.

I have two cartons of 100 boxes-and-lids each. (Thanks to Ruven Gotz of Anilet for pointing this out to me)

The boxes are 15 cm x 10 cm x 5 cm.


If you have a stack of business cards, count them, measure them, and divide that measurement into 15 cm!



Here’s a view of an opened-up box sitting atop a column of 100 boxes, adjacent to a column of lids.

So, You Don’t Print Business Cards?

OK, so your name isn’t Ken King of Source Imaging.

Think outside the box.

These little collapsible boxes can be used to

1: Hold slices of iced cake if you are organizing a cheap wedding.

2: Store that vast stack of cards you intend to wade through over the next Christmas holidays.

3: Present your little bag-of-treats that you plan to place at every seat at the next Markham Board Of Trade meeting (naturally, your business card will be face up at the bottom of the box!).

4: Organize a game of pelmanism with your cats; place a cat-treat under each upturned box

5: (other)

If you’d like to hear my views on Business Cards for Entrepreneurs, Talk to Me!

When the Power Goes Out …

Like it did Monday, what will you do?

You work from home. The power dies.

The whole apartment is deathly silent, and the cats look puzzled.

No soft music, no fan or air-conditioning.

Just the steady beep of the UPS (you do have one, don’t you?) and after that, blank screens.

At least you do a proper backup every night , right?

What next?

Here’s what I learned.

1 - Step outside the apartment; if the lobby lights are out, it’s them, not you. Otherwise it might be you and your fuse board. Don’t spend 12 hours waiting for the hydro people to fix things.

2 - I work with paper and pencil; the computer is the last step. It is necessary, but it is not the source of my work. I can keep on working even though I have no computer.

3 - I have a paper diary, and in the back of that diary are phone numbers. Even though my business contact list is out of action, I can catch up on those phone calls to domestic friends; that’s one minor task out of the way.

4 - No I can’t. My phones are mobile phones, apparently dependent on electrical power from the mains. Good thing I’ve got a cell phone. Bad thing it is pay-per-minute-or-part-thereof.

5 - It is late afternoon; the sun streams into the kitchen. A good time to wash dishes.

6 - There are leftovers in the ‘fridge – steamed rice, cold beef, half an onion, red, green and yellow peppers. I can make myself a yummy supper. (Memo to self: Keep a small container of steamed rice or boiled past on hand throughout the summer months)

7 - Since my phones are out, my fried won’t be able to reach me. Phone her using my cell and tell her my landlines are out.

8 - Think now: What’s an ideal office-related job that can best be performed without electrical power. That’s right; re-cable the three power bars that drive UPS, computers, monitors, external backup drives, modems, lights, mug-warmers etc. (I have 12 such devices on this side of the office alone)

9 - Walk through the apartment playing pick-up-and-put-down-somewhere-else. It’s a great excuse to tidy each room. A long-overdue task.

Talk to Me !

Testimonials that Give Pleasure

If you’ve ever spent time chasing up testimonials, you know what I mean. The chased-up versions are somewhat painful.

The unsolicited ones are great, but perhaps rarer.

Here’s a thought:

Lodge in your email signature a 1-line testimonial, including web address, to your most recent small-business supplier.

It could be a $50 graphic artist job, a $20 proof-reading – nothing major.

Find a way to let them know that you are praising them with every email you send out.

You’ll be surprised at the response.

EVERYONE loves an unsolicited testimonial!

You will too!

Email Me to see how it works!

Get Right Back on that Horse!

Advice often given to you when you fall off a horse, right?

Applicable to the entrepreneur when the “cold call” failed. The message is “Don’t dive into the ‘fridge for a snack; pick up the phone and do it again …

But when did anyone advise you to stay on the horse when you didn’t fall off?

That time is now!

I just made a call, 2m 35s, and snagged a meeting downtown with the COO of a financial house. Just what I wanted.

The temptation is strong to do one of those crazy end-field football dances, but I must steel myself to move right on to the next call.

The best time to make a cold call is when I am flushed with success with the previous call.

My business is meeting people, not computer/accounting/massage/floral arrangements etc.

My business is meeting people; it’s what I do.

Talk to Me !

Money-Transfer Trick

As you get into small-business transactions, you’ll receive payment by email and make payments by email. In Canada this is the Interac system, and it is ideal for small businesses

If you haven’t tried it, try it now. Email $10 to a friend and claim it back next time you meet (or else have them pay for breakfast)

A downside of the Interac system is that you cannot receive confirmation that the supplier has received the email (and cashed the cheque).

You can monitor your online bank statements, but who wants to type in their secure password every hour to inspect a bank statement.

Here’s the trick:

Massage the security question

All email money transfers include a security question.

Typical question: “Initials of the society where we met” ( AIC ).

Typical question: “Initials of the restaurant where we met” ( Boston Pizza ).

Here is an A-Typical question:

“What did I see outside my bedroom window in 1956”.

There is no way the recipient could know that SIX GRAPE VINES on trellises were outside my bedroom window in Southern Cross in 1956.

To access the money they are forced to phone me (or email me) for the answer. If they want the money, they’ll phone me.

Now of course, expecting someone to know something about an event in my life fifty years ago will be seen as nasty, so don’t go that far away in time and space.

But phrase an atypical question about something that has happened between you, and phrase the question do that they will need to phone you.

Talk to Me !

The Best-Laid Plans ….

Typical!

I get all fired up to establish new contacts; I have grabbed some useful press releases, spent an hour researching, writing a cool telephone script that ought to start me down the path to securing a meeting with an officer of a serious financial house.

I sit up straight, get the recorder handy (I like to review my efforts after a phone call), take a sip of water, clear my throat, note the time, and pick up the phone.

Dial the number.

“Hello, you’ve reached Ziv Korman” (not his real name). “I’ll be out of the office until July 7th ….”

Aaargh!

Talk to Me !

Snail Mail Handicaps

Twice in the past three weeks I have been handicapped by snail-mail.

The post office is not at fault. Canada Post is pretty good at next-day delivery for anything posted within the GTA going to the GTA. I’ve known this for years, because I’ll drop something in the letter-box across the street and get a phone call about it the next day at 10:30 a.m.

1 A well-loved client stopped sending cheques. Turns out it coincided with my switch from hand-delivery to twice-a-month mailed invoices. My contact rarely goes down to the mail-room (and the company doesn’t have a clerk), so the letters just pile up in her pigeon-hole.

2 A well-loved colleague ignored my evaluation form and gift-card. Turns out he usually checks his PO Box twice a week, but has been too busy this past fortnight to do so. His mailing address is a street address, not a PO Box number, so I had assumed it had gone to his home or shared office.

The solution to both these situations is obvious: Whenever I am mailing something to someone I’ve not previously mailed to, I should send an email as soon as I have dropped the letter in the box, so that people like these are made aware that something will be waiting for their attention.

Talk to Me !

SUFE – A Second Use For Everything

This is not the place to push my passion for SUFE, but it does illustrate how a broad base of interests can serve us well.

A call this morning from a colleague Cathy of Cathy’s Crawly Composters . Could I use some Cards?

Turns out she was in DUCA Newmarket and was given a carton of cards. Greeting cards but blank on the inside. Was I interested?

Was I interested!

YES PLEASE.

Are there any cards left at DUCA? Apparently yes.

Please call them and tell them you’ll take the lot.

This is a nice little coup for me.

I’ll get a mountain of cards for free; I can mail them out to “stay in touch”.

If there are too many, I can pass some on to my colleagues who like to stay in touch with their clients.

DUCA wins because their name is on the back. (In small print, I hope).

Cathy wins because she looks good in DUCA’s eyes.

Best of all for me: I am passionate about SUFE. That Cathy thought to call me is my big success of the week.

The message is getting out there.

Talk to Me !

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!