November 2012 – Page 3

Selling Your Story

When crafting a romance novel,
we usually show the character
in her ‘normal world’,
the world existing right now.
Then things happen in that world.

According to Nancy Duarte,
this is how effective presentations begin.
Presenters start
with the audience’s existing world.

“Start by describing life
as the audience knows it.
People should be nodding their heads
in recognition
because you’re articulating
what they already understand.
This creates a bond
between you and them,
and opens them up
to hear your ideas for change.

After you set that baseline
of what is,
introduce your vision of what could be.
The gap between the two
will throw the audience
a bit off balance,
and that’s a good thing
— it jars them out of complacency.”

Start with what is
and then move to what could be.

Managing Volunteers

In an employer-employee relationship,
managers can often
use carrot or stick tactics
when motivating employees.
We give employees incentives
($, verbal, emotional, etc)
or we punish employees
($, verbal, emotional, etc).

In an organization
run by volunteers,
the stick option is not available.

Recently,
the stick option was used
in a volunteer-run organization
I belong to.
The volunteers said ‘F**k it’,
quit, and
they’re not coming back.

That leaves managers
with only the carrot option.
As they are unpaid,
the biggest carrot – money –
is unavailable.

The best volunteer organizations
have the carrot incentive tactic
perfected.

If you want to learn
how to motivate your employees
in a positive way,
volunteer in one of these organizations
and learn.

You’ll become a better manager
while you’re making the world
a better place.

Blocking Time For Your Tasks

Many managers pride themselves
on their open door policies.
They drop whatever tasks they’re doing
to serve the people walking through the door.

They feel this is a good thing.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders
shares another perspective.

“Part of being a good manager
is demonstrating the importance
of focusing on high priority work.
I can keep my door closed
during certain times of the week
when I need to get things done
without guilt.”

Leading by example is powerful.

If you don’t complete your core tasks,
why would you expect
your employees to honor their commitments?

Close your door
and get your work done.

Meeting Notes

I don’t attend meetings
for informational purposes.
During a meeting,
I expect to help make decisions
or to be assigned tasks.

Both of these require documentation.
That’s the job of the note-taker.

Gwen Kuebler shares

“The note-taker provides a written record
to each participant.
Action decisions must be noted in writing.
Affix the proper person’s name
to the action,
along with the deadline completion date.
The moderator
(or another appropriate, assigned person)
is responsible to follow up on each item
until completed by the designated party.”

If you don’t need a note-taker
for your meeting,
you don’t need a meeting.

The President Of Interns

When I worked in product development
at a quick service restaurant,
store managers saw two types of employees.

There were the folks
who came in
and did the bare minimum.
They were there merely for the part-time pay
and they never progressed past
burger flipper.

There were also folks
who came in
and gave their all.
They were determined to be
the best damn burger flippers
our company had ever seen.

These driven folks didn’t last long
at the restaurants.
Managers, seeing their potential,
would tell head office about them
and these employees would be stolen,
given better paying jobs,
and put on the career fast track
(one of these ambitious burger flippers
ended up as CEO).

Same job, two very different results,
all due to passion.

Kevin Liles,
founder and C.E.O. of KWL Enterprises,
shares

“I’ve always felt that whatever I did,
I owned it.
I mean, call it arrogance.
Call it passion.
Call it taking the weight of the world.
Call it responsibility.

The point is,
you were not going to outperform me
at something that I felt I owned.

It’s a mentality.
It’s a way of life.

If I’m the intern,
I’m the president of interns.

If I’m a regional manager,
I approach the job like
I’m the president of regional managers.

But that’s every day in anything I do.
I don’t get involved in things halfway.”

If you in a role,
strive to be the best in that role,
even if you don’t want to stay
in that role
long term.
People WILL notice.

Small Bets

Yesterday, we talked about
how small daily improvements
could significantly improve
our odds of personal success.

This thinking also applies
to businesses.

Jason Jennings,
author of
The Reinventors
shares

“When Howard Schultz retook the reins
at Starbucks
he took 10,000 workers to New Orleans
to build homes for victims of Katrina
and told the assembled group
that Starbuck’s wasn’t as much about coffee
as it was about them and their futures.
He added that the only way
to have a bright future is to grow.

In the following 18 months
the company made a dizzying 150 small bets,
including new store design,
the testing of wine and beer sales,
a new logo,
mobile payments,
a dessert line called Starbuck’s Petites,
Via Instant Coffee in supermarkets
and even oatmeal.

Schultz’s small bets paid off.

The incremental revenue generated
brought Starbuck’s profits back to where
they’d been before the slide
(allowing for organic growth to kick in),
the shares more than doubled in value
and Schultz was named
Fortune’s CEO of the year.”

Can you make a ‘small bet’
on your business?

Small Daily Improvements

Matthew E. May shares

“The late, great basketball coach
John Wooden
maintained that,

“When you improve a little bit each day,
eventually big things occur.
Don’t look for big, quick improvement.
Instead, seek small improvement
one day at a time.
That’s the only way it happens
— and when it happens, it lasts.””

And this is a great thing
because if we’re working full-time
(and more)
for an employer
or starting a business
or juggling a thousand different things,
we don’t have the time
to achieve the big improvements.

All of us, however,
have the time and energy
to improve one thing by a little bit
each and every day.

Eventually, we become experts
and eventually, we’ll surpass our competition
because unfortunately
not that many people focus daily on improving.

Do one thing a bit better
than you did yesterday.

Social Media And Sales

As a writer,
my product is words
so you would think
that sharing words via social media
(Facebook, Twitter, etc)
would swing sales.

I haven’t seen it.
Emails (Yahoo loop chats) influence sales.
Social media… nope.

It turns out
I’m not alone.

According to a recent report
by Sucharita Mulpuru
at Forrester Research,

“Less than 1 percent
of the online transactions she tracked
could be traced to a social media post”.

Does that mean
you should abandon social media?
No.
It has its uses
including the perception of
customer responsiveness.
But don’t expect sales.

E-Mail Newsletters

Yes, e-mail newsletters still work.
I subscribe to them.
I buy off them.

But how do you hug the fine line
between spamtastic
and value-add
with your newsletters?

John Jantsch suggests

“Exchange lots of value.
There is no exact formula
but you can bet that
if all you do is sell,
people won’t stay engaged very long.

Think in terms of producing
six to eight valuable pieces of content
for every one offer.
Quite often marketers will keep
their newsletter all educational
and mail offers as solo mailings
between regular issues.”

What to write about?
You’re the expert in your field.
Offer expert tips or facts
or the history of your industry.
Show how passionate you are
about your industry.

Share why you care
and your clients will too.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, President Obama And Leadership

Hurricane Sandy brought devastation.
It also brought out the best
in leadership.

In the past,
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
has been harsh in his criticism
of U.S. President Obama.

On Tuesday,
a week before the U.S. Presidential election,
the Governor praised U.S. President Obama.

“I spoke to the president
three times yesterday.
He has been incredibly supportive
and helpful to our state…”

When asked about whether or not
he’d tour the area with Mitt Romney,
the Governor shared
“I have no idea,
nor am I the least bit concerned
or interested.
I have a job to do in New Jersey
that is much bigger than presidential politics.
I could care less about any of that stuff…
If you think right now I give a damn
about presidential politics,
then you don’t know me.”

THAT is what leaders do.
They set aside their personal beliefs,
their personal agendas,
and they do what they can do
for the people they lead,
not caring whom they receive assistance from.