Often she’ll be busy.
The savvy organizers
will fill her free time
before and after the event.

Sometimes she won’t be.
I’ll ask her how many people
she wishes to have lunch with
and I’ll invite a mix
of folks at her level,
(because successful folks
like to mix with successful folks)
and potential fans.

The rare but golden time,
she’ll have plans
but she’ll invite me along.

I risk absolutely nothing
by asking
and have everything to gain.

“Success is the million little things
you do every day.
It’s the way you answer your phone,
how clean your office is,
how shiny your shoes were
when you went to make that presentation.

That’s what makes business hard;
it’s not a one-time thing you do,
but a lot of stuff
that you have to keep doing every day.
But that’s how you build a successful business -
with a million well-considered actions and decisions.”

Yep, the small stuff
REALLY does count.

One of his tips?

Be brief.
Give the answer
and nothing else.

“Brevity is eloquence.
No need to deploy every weapon you have.
Like my mentor says,
“Pastors need to learn
how to preach one sermon at a time.”
Are you vomiting when spitting would suffice?”

It used to be
we’d put up
with that know-it-all
(usually with the fancy degree)
in the office
who had the answers
but forced us to sit through
a long rambling speech
filled with fifty cent words.

With the internet
and the speed of information searches,
we no longer have
that sort of patience.
We want the answer
and only the answer
and we want it now.

If you want to be seen
as the go-to gal,
don’t make your customers wait.

You and I
and anyone with any IT knowledge at all
knows that is bullshit.

What they really mean to say is
“We won’t do it.”
or
“It will take time better used elsewhere.”

Be very, very careful
when claiming that something CAN’T be done
because someone, right now,
is doing that impossible something.
When your audience finds this out,
trust will be shot
and they’ll distrust every word you say.

There are no CAN’T’s in life.
Take that word out of your vocabulary.

He thought he’d get sympathy.
My reaction?
This man can’t handle his job.
And I figured
that I was one of those ‘demanding’ patrons
he’d tell his next table about.

If you complain about your customers
to other customers,
you soon won’t have customers
to complain about.

If it is a legitimate complaint,
talk to your manager
under the guise of
‘how would you handle….’

If it is one of those work grumbles
we all get,
talk to a friend who is disconnected
to your office
(i.e. she won’t tell anyone
about your rather trivial complaints).

If you need an excuse
to give a customer
like
’sorry, it has been crazy in here’,
present it as a positive observation,
rather than a complaint.

I once saw a waiter get chewed out
by a customer.
That waiter came to my table,
grinned
and said ’she’s one of our regulars.’
I don’t know if he was joking
but we all laughed
and he was seen as a professional.

Customers buy
solutions.
Don’t load them down
with more problems.

WTH?

I’m not eager to write every day.
I have to force myself
every single freakin’ morning
to sit in that seat
and type.

But I don’t often share that
because readers like to believe in
the ‘magic’ of stories.

You see,
professionals are expected
to make their often difficult jobs
look easy.
That we supposedly know
what we’re doing
can be reassuring to customers.

Unfortunately,
we often forget that with
the proteges we are mentoring,
we should be sharing
that exactly the opposite is true.

If we don’t,
our proteges will believe
they aren’t good enough
or gifted enough.
They won’t realize
that talent isn’t enough,
that talent needs to be paired
with hard work
to pay off in success.

So, yes,
show customers only the magic
but share the inner workings
and the blood, sweat, and tears,
with the people you’re mentoring.

Another friend told her daughter
she was too young to write a book.
She should gather life experience first.

Age is a bullshit excuse.

I buy products every day.
I don’t know the age of the founders.
I read books every day.
I have no idea how old the authors are.

If you want a goal to be achieved,
why wait for the perfect age?

It takes an average of 10 years
to get a novel published.
If you’re too young today,
in 10 years, you’ll be older.
Same novel, different age.

If you’re too old to start a company now,
tomorrow you’ll be one day older.
When do you plan to achieve this goal?

If you want to do something,
do it.
If you fail due to lack of… something,
figure out how to partner or obtain or…
that something.

Stop making excuses.
Get out there and do.

Dr. Susan L. Reid has a great post
on the too old excuse.

In a Women’s Health survey
on texting,
the number one pet peeve
was ‘Taking forever to respond.’

The number two was
a short response to a long story.
You pour out your heart
and get an LOL back.
The fast rule is
to reply with a message
no less than half the size
of the original message.

Oh, and if you’re making plans,
call.
79% of women prefer to talk about plans,
not text them.

Resist that temptation.

Why?

There are a number of reasons.

You don’t want co-workers to know
that, instead of working on that project,
you’re working out.

Gyms are a great place to network.
Why would you network
with the same faces you see every day?

Gym complaints
(and if you work out often enough,
there WILL be gym complaints)
will be put on your employee file.
Do you really want prospective managers
to know you let one go
during yoga class?

Pay the $30 a month
and use an external gym.

She watches the same movies.
She reads the same books.
She listens to the same music.
She plays the same video games.

Why does she do all this?

Because her job involves communication
and, to communicate,
it helps if you speak the same language.

She gets the one-word answers
her tweens often give her.
She encourages essays on current topics
like werewolves vs vampires
and she can talk the Twilight books
well enough
that she can give struggling students prompts.

If your sales prospect gave you
a one-word answer
using her industry’s jargon,
could you understand her?