A common saleswoman trick is
to travel with a navy blue or black blazer.
Putting on a blazer immediately dresses up
a polo shirt
or tank top
or a pair of jeans.
I took this trick
and applied it to corporate.
I had a blazer hanging
on a clothes hanger
behind my office door.
The rest of my wardrobe consisted
of pieces that I could wear with that blazer.
Even if I was pulled into a board meeting
on casual Friday
during the company bbq,
I looked half decently dressed.
When I moved from Road To Forbes
to my own domain,
I almost reposted
my two years of history.
I told myself that it was
because readers wanted the old posts.
A lie.
All that content is available
with a simple Google search.
No, it was arrogance, pure and simple.
It irked me to be back to being
a baby blogger,
starting all over.
The price for this arrogance
would have been high.
I’d be back in the Google Sandbox
(where I have my own chair)
penalized for duplicate content.
How is that serving my readers?
Easy answer.
It doesn’t.
An accounting friend is interviewing.
She’s gifted (yes in finance)
and companies are wooing her.
One of her criteria for
a prospective employer?
She has used the latest version for months
and it simply doesn’t work
(for finance people).
It has all the bells and whistles
(though no flight simulator this time)
and that is the problem.
The fancy Fluent menu bar
interferes rather than enhances.
The product is over developed
and is not longer usable.
Seth Godin has a great post
on how people accustomed to saying no
will continue to say no.
The opposite is also true.
People accustomed to saying yes
will continue to say yes.
A common sales “trick”
is to start the prospect off
with easy yes answers.
Have you thought about getting a new car?
Yes (or else what are they doing on the lot?)
Do you have some models in mind?
Yes (again, they are on your lot).
Those types of questions.
Working, of course, up to the big yes,
the yes to your sale.
Guy Kawasaki interviews
author and career columnist
Penelope Trunk.
What interested me was
her stance on being a specialist
vs being a generalist.
She says
“In Hollywood,
the best way to get your pick
of any role in the industry
is to become a specialist
funny guy, tough girl, action hero
get known for being the best at something,
and then use that star-power to branch out.
The same is true in business.”
That is exactly what I did.
I took my base in accounting
and wedged myself into
marketing meetings,
sales meetings,
and eventually
new business development meetings.
This tactic works.
Surprisingly, it is rarely used.
I love this cartoon by Hugh
at Gaping Void.
The pawn thinking that
all his hard work will allow
him to be King
and the King thinking that
all the pawn’s hard work
will allow him
to remain King.
A wonderful illustration of two people
thinking “what’s in it for me.”
That could be you and your client
or you and your boss.
When you frame your pitch
to appease her concerns
while satisfying your own goal,
you’ll have success.
How do you weed through
the weighty to-do list
to actually do?
Don The Idea Guy
asks himself this question
“Are you doing the most productive
thing possible right now?”
This allows us to first ask
what is truly important
and then to move that task
to the top of the list.
The least productive things?
Either delegate
or drop from the list entirely.
On the weekend,
I made a comment about
being an arrogant ass.
A friend turned to me
and said
“But even arrogant asses
cry sometimes, don’t they?”
Too true.
As Harry and Christine Clifford Beckwith
state in their new book
You, Inc.
“There are big eogs.
But there are no
invulnerable egos.
All people are fragile.”
Make a person feel important
and you’ll make a friend
or make a sale.
Mary Sullivan at Way To Grow relays that
“Peter Turla of the National Management Institute
estimates that 65 percent of the participants
in his time management seminars
compulsively check their e-mail.”
Email can be a time sucker.
As I’m currently
in my summer writing routine,
I keep my emails and phone calls
and blogging surfing
on a tight schedule.
I do first.
Report on it second.
Screenwriter Nika Rylski ‘s recent seminar
covered the 8 elements of voice.
They are;
-vocabulary
-grammar/syntax
-accent
-slang
-jargin
-speaking style, sentence length
-verbal ticks
-subtext
Why are these elements important?
Each tells a good saleswoman
more about her prospect.
For example:
vocabulary tells us class
grammar tells us level of education
slang tells us age
The more we know about our prospect,
the easier we close sales.