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When Your Manager Doesn’t Listen

There are two types of managers.
There are managers who listen
and managers who don’t.

Managers who don’t listen
will likely never listen.
It doesn’t matter how loud you are
or how long you talk
or how clever or right you are.
They aren’t going to listen.

The best way to deal with
a manager who doesn’t listen
is to get all her crazy requests in writing
(good to do for all managers),
keep your misgivings to yourself
and do whatever she asks you to do.

Don’t worry.
You won’t have to pull these nutbar moves for long.
Managers who don’t listen
tend to make big, big mistakes.
She’ll then have to quickly move
from that position of authority
(because none of her staff will save her a$$)
and soon she’ll be someone else’s problem.

Of course, if you’re managing people
and you’ve never changed a decision
based on employee insight,
you’re one of these dreaded managers.
That means
your employees are,
right now,
patiently waiting for you to f**k up
and get your a$$ fired.
Yes, you have good reason to be paranoid.

No April Fools

Yesterday, a loved one gets an invite
from his company’s social committee.
They’re organizing a tour of a few different industries
including a sewage treatment plant.
The loved one emails me,
excited,
because he knows this is my type of event.
I get excited too.
Who wouldn’t want to learn about different industries?
Who wouldn’t want to meet
prospective clients this company could station consultants at?

Turns out…
management wouldn’t.
This was an April Fool’s joke.

Another company sets up one-on-one meetings
with managers and human resources reps.
All employees are in a panic.
Lay offs are coming.
Resumes go out.
Calls to headhunters are made.

Ha ha!
Fooled you.
April fools!

At worst, an April Fools prank results in a lawsuit.
At best, you’re seen as a liar.
Neither benefit a career.

The Twitter Age Of Brevity

I’ve noticed a trend lately.
Emails from some coworkers
have gotten shorter.

From some.

I had a theory as to the cause
so I asked a few questions.

The common link?
They’re all on Twitter.

I’m not a crazy Twitter fan
(though I do use it).
It can be a time waster
and a lawsuit waiting to happen.

However, one benefit is
it forces people to communicate in 140 characters or less.
That cuts out B.S.,
posturing, useless information.

And that saves me time.

Chris Martin – Be Like Vegemite

Chris Martin,
lead singer of Coldplay,
is still hungry and it shows.

“Every day I wake up
and think,
‘OK, today we’ve got to really prove ourselves.
We’ve got to justify where we are.’
I always feel like
my dad’s going to burst through my bedroom door
at any moment
and wake me up to go back to my real job.”

But he realizes that no matter how hard they work,
they’ll never please everyone.

“We’re like Vegemite in many respects.
A lot of people like us,
but many more people don’t.
I’d like to convince everyone
that our particular brand of Vegemite
is brilliant
but it’s never going to happen.”

Be like Vegemite
and work it.

Kanye West On Risk Taking

Rapper/Producer/Businessman Kanye West
believes in innovation
and pushing ideas forward.

“I like the challenge of having
to win people over
with a new concept.”

“My father was a salesman.
And I saw him
have to talk people into things
and expose people to new ideas
all the time.
And I like that.
What’s the point
if you’re not presenting something new
to people,
that people might not be ready for,
and exposing people to new ideas?”

Exactly.
What’s the point?

Dollars In Disconnected Numbers

The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur
has a list of 6 ways to increase revenue quickly.

All are good
but I especially liked #6.

“Go through your local yellow pages
and call on your competitors ads.
You will always find several ads big to small
that have disconnected numbers.
Now call your local telephone company and
have those disconnected numbers assigned
to “ring to” your main number and voila!
You’re now receiving tons of yellow page advertising for Free!”

(In the comments,
you’ll read an entrepreneur
doing the same with domain names.)

This is especially effective now,
during a recession,
with many companies
going out of business.

Take the time and do this today.

Focus On You, Not We

In Susan Gunelius’ post on
10 Steps to Effective Copywriting,
she reminds marketers
to focus on ‘you’,
rather than ‘we.’

“Remember, writing in the second person
helps your audience quickly connect the points in your copy
to their own lives and
allows them to personalize
the advertisement or marketing piece.
This is how the ad is connected
to an individual customer’s own life.”

Using ‘you’ in copywriting
is difficult for most corporate folks.
We’re trained from entry to use ‘we’
in every communication.
It is part of team building.

But that is the corporate environment.
Selling is different.
The customer doesn’t care about your team.
They care about themselves.
Use ‘you.’

Selling Experiences

In an awesome interview with
Sydney Biddle Barrows,
the Mayflower Madam,
she talks about how experiences differentiate
your product from being simply a commodity.

“People will pay you more money
for a memorable experience,
something that they can remember
with pleasure and happiness
that they can talk about to other people.
Something that validates who they are,
who they think they are or
who they would like to be.
Something that gives them
the opportunity to try something
that they’ve never tried before.”

That’s why when I hear about
companies automating customer service
or downsizing sales staff,
I groan.
Employee contacts with the customer
is where these experiences often happen.

The Ready Position

Bert Decker in
You’ve Got To Be Believed To Be Heard
points out that the ready position
is the ideal stance for public speaking.

Why?
“When you speak confidently
from a self-assured stance,
your energy is directed forward,
physically and psychologically,
toward your listener.”

What is the ready position?
“Lean slightly forward,
knees somewhat flexed,
so you can bounce lightly
on the balls of your feet.
You should feel like an athlete
ready to move quickly in any direction.”

I use the lean in
during interviews
and while sitting in an audience.
Try it next time.
Notice how the speaker zooms in on YOU.

Women And Website Design

A study by Glamorgan University shows
that women prefer
curved lines on sites,
more colors
(and women prefer warm tones like reds or oranges
vs men’s preferences of cool tones like blues or greens,
women also prefer complimentary not contrasting colors),
and informal language.

I can vouch for the informal language difference,
especially when selling to romance readers
(the majority are women).
Women buy from friends,
not salespeople.

Women also value other opinions.
I saw an increase in sales
once I put reviews by readers and other authors
on my romance site.

If your target reader is female,
design your site with her in mind.