I like executive summaries
so when The Naked Negotiator
summed up his years of knowledge into one phrase,
I knew I had to share it.
What is it?
“KFC.
The K stands for Know what you want.
The F stands for Find out what you’re getting.
The C stands for Change what you do
until you get what you want.”
That’s it.
The secret of his success.
And it works.
I know.
I use this technique myself.
I was traveling for the past two weeks.
During that time,
I didn’t surf,
I didn’t watch tv,
I didn’t read a newspaper.
I checked email
and that was about it.
A loved one asked me
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll miss something important?”
My response was
“If it is important, I’ll be told.”
And you know what?
I was.
What does that mean for marketers?
If we want information to be relayed,
it must be important.
Seductive Selling has a great tip
on cleaning up sales copy.
Their suggestion?
Eliminate the word ‘will’.
Will is not a filler word.
It is worse than that.
Will implies work.
It implies that the prospect
has to do something
to make the product work.
An example?
Brushing your teeth will reduce cavities.
vs
Brushing your teeth reduces cavities.
Which is the stronger sentence?
Clearly the second.
Having spent a couple weeks overseas,
I’m now battling jet lag.
I’m lucky.
I can ease into the new time zone.
But what happens when you have
a business meeting half way across the world
that you have to be ‘on’ for?
There are a couple tricks I use.
If I live in New York
and have a meeting to attend in London,
I try to make the meeting for the afternoon.
I drink plenty of water after landing
(not before as I don’t like to use airplane toilets).
Because I usually sleep on the plane,
I take night flights
and by night, I mean night in my destination.
I’ve been seeing the thumbs up sign
a lot lately
(from mostly politicians)
and it always makes me wince.
In the U.S.,
thumbs up means everything is good.
In Ancient Roman times,
it meant you were going to die
a horrible death.
In some parts of the modern world,
it is the equivalent of
giving people the middle finger.
Do you really want to be using
a symbol with such mixed messages?
I wouldn’t.
U.S. Cellular has instituted
No Email Fridays.
Exactly what it sounds,
no emails allowed to be sent or received
on Fridays.
Excuse me?
A phone company cutting off communications?
All because an executive
doesn’t understand how to manage
his own email?
Here’s the thing,
“forcing” people to communicate
YOUR way
means that less people will communicate.
If that’s what a communications company wants…
According to the Department of Labor,
the number of employees working a second job
(or moonlighting)
in 2007 rose about 5%.
I suspect 2008’s number will be even higher.
I’ve done it.
Most entrepreneurs
coming from the corporate ranks
have done it.
I was very careful not to have my part time ventures
interfere with my full time job.
I only accepted consulting gigs outside of my industry.
This did two things.
It expanded my knowledge base,
making me more employable
and it ensured no conflict of interest
or confidential information leak.
What many non-entrepreneurs don’t understand
is that entrepreneurs are ALWAYS working.
As Michael Sexton says
“When you aren’t working “in” the business,
you will find yourself working “on” the business.
It will likely keep you up at night and
occupy your free time so
you can figure out ways to grow and
compete in your industry.”
For employees,
their work day stops at 5pm.
For entrepreneurs,
it never stops.
This can be a challenge
especially during the lazy summer months.
Your house may be
the biggest personal item
you ever sell.
Craig Schiller at Real eStaging
reminds us that a good home stager
is more than someone who makes
your house more attractive.
He/she packages the house properly,
creating that emotional bond
needed to make the sale.
We all know pretty products
that have been outsold
by better marketed ones.
Don’t let your house fall into this category.
Subway has launched a collection of tv ads
associating their brand with a monkey.
Viewers are asked to find the sub
that doesn’t belong
(the monkey sub)
or the item that has been moved
(the monkey).
It was very effective.
I’ve seen it so often
that I now associate Subway with monkeys.
However, I doubt that is what
the marketers were trying to accomplish.
Be careful of what you associate
your brand or company with.