My Morning WalkNew day, uninterrupted thoughts

There used to be a game show on television when I was a kid called “Truth or Consequences”.  In every episode, the question and answer session ended with: “Would the REAL John Doe please stand up.”  Is that show still on the Game Show Network? 

How do people decide who to work with, who to support, who to “friend” or “connect with”?  Let’s hold everything PRODUCT-RELATED constant:  Price, features and benefits, customer service, and location/availability, etc.(Yeah, I know that’s not realistic, but we’ve got to have some basis for comparison.)  If all these factors were IDENTICAL, how would people decide who to work with for the products and services they need?

Would they choose WHO to work with on the basis of how they look, what they wear, what they drive, the size of house they live in,  who they are related to, what kind of charities they support, their political affiliation, what company they work for…. WHAT?  Some people get defensive when asked to look at my blog.  They ask where my “elevator speech” is and are surprised when I say there isn’t one.  That tells me they may not “get it”…That’s okay.  A lot of people don’t…yet.  The key to getting the word out about re-establishing the human trust factor in business is NOT elevator speeches.   Traditionally it was, but not any more. 

There’s a realtor in my town whose tag line is:  “So you don’t do anything stupid.”  Makes me laugh every time I read his traditional ad in the traditional newspaper.  People hate to feel stupid.  How does Elizabeth Edwards feel?  She’s one of the bravest people ever for how she is handling the physical and emotional pain she’s dealt with over the last 5 years and for how she is holding the family together.  And I actually thought her husband was a good guy when he donned the Spandex bike shorts and Livestrong bike jersey to ride a day of RAGBRAI with Lance Armstrong a few years back.  And how stupid do many people feel  who watched in awe as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa hit ball after ball out of the park during the home run race a few years ago?  I fell for that one, too.   

And now, what are the consequences to those people for not only not telling the truth, but also living a lie?  Mr. Edwards moved out of his six million dollar mansion this week.  Mark McGwire could have his records erased from the books.  What happens to people who live a truthful life when what you see is what you get?  Jobs, careers, and business ventures may have an impact today, but they pale in comparison to the legacy our children will create because of the time we spend with them, as parents first, today. 

There’s no elevator speech good enough.   

Thank you for your attention.   I truly mean that.

A great lesson learned from a couple of 13-year-old kids:  “Don’t waste my time.”  In talking with my daughter the other evening, I learned a fascinating bit of insight as to why she’d rather text than talk on the phone.  (Yes, you read it correctly.)  She said she would rather get to the point than listen to the other person “ho-hum around” trying to figure out what to say and creating long, uncomfortable pauses in the conversation.  She said it’s easier to just type what she is thinking (self-edited) and hit “send”.  Think about it…how busy are students today?  They have more balls in the air than a juggler in Cirque de Soleil.  So why has social media gotten a bad rap (until recently) in the business world?  It’s been seen as a waste of time, not as a business tool for improving efficiency. 

Imagine if you could make service 5 times more productive and you could sell 3 times as many widgets, all while improving your customers’ experiences.  How would this change your world?  It’s possible.  But what needs to happen first is that more people embrace this technology.  It’s not going away.  Perhaps we should even change the business category of the platforms of Twitter, Facebook, Ning, LinkedIn and blogging from “Social Media” to “On-Point Media” just to change the perception of what they are useful for.  Why?  As I learned from my 13-year-old, we have no time to waste…even on pauses, breathing, or thinking.  “On-point media” conveys that message.  When people we interact with think through their situations, questions, thoughts and problems on their own before contacting someone to help them, both parties’ time is actually used more effectively. 

Are there any times this wouldn’t work?

Close your eyes and imagine getting home after work, hugging your family and sitting down for dinner.  After dinner, you get the kids ready for bed.  After you tuck them in, you and your spouse share some quiet time watching TV, reading your favorite books, or whatever you most enjoy doing together.  Then you retire to bed, your minds clear of all the headaches and hassles of the day…all is quiet and peaceful.  The phone didn’t ring once.  There were no calls from friends or family, no calls from pesky telemarketers, your insurance agent, or the local charity hitting you up for donations.  (You’ve taken care of all of those things with online access, online bill payments, and e-mail.)  How would an evening like this make you feel…if you got to spend every waking moment without interruption, with those who mattered most to you? 

Is this a difficult thing for you to imagine?  Do you think a world like this will ever present itself to your family?  If not, why not?  What are you doing today to make this kind of quiet world possible?  Do you answer those phone calls?  Do you buy from those telemarketers?  Or do you research your products, purchases and service providers before asking a sales representative for help?  What will the trend be in the future?  Do we anticipate having more or fewer interruptions going forward?  And whose choice do we want that to be?

In business we’re told that if something doesn’t produce an immediate and measureable ROI we shouldn’t do it.  Can a family be considered a business?  There are financial considerations, problem solving, negotiation, sales and marketing, income and expenses, and even shareholders…all of them take a whole lot of time to manage.  What do you mean there’s no investment?  Tell a stay-at-home parent their time is worthless…Dare ya.  If there’s no investment, is it safe to say there’s no return, either?  Tell that to the proud parents of a professional athlete, a recent college graduate, or anyone, in fact, that has given every ounce of their being to another person’s success.  You’d be askin’ for a whoopin’. 

Let’s say a restaurant places coupons in the local newspaper.  That costs a finite amount of money.  Tracking the business that comes from the coupons is easy, too.  At the end of each day, just calculate the difference between average sales and sales with the coupons.  Divide that amount of revenue by the amount spent on the coupons and the resulting figure is the ROI.  If ROI is negative, the coupons didn’t work and the owner will stop doing them.  If the number is positive, he’ll do them again next week. 

Now let’s throw in a curve ball:  The day the coupons were taken in, the service team wa a group of back-ups with little or no experience and the manager wasn’t there.  Which had a bigger impact on ROI, the coupons or the people taking care of the business?  The point is this:  Does any marketing strategy really have more impact on a small business than the blood, sweat and tears of the business owner and key personnel?  Organizations are really good at assigning value to time:  It’s called SALARY.  (Otherwise known as the amount they pay to own YOU.)  If you’re a full-time employee paid $20,800 a year, your time is worth $10 per hour.  That’s easy.  What about the owner who has poured his heart and soul into the business?  Is he or she counting the hours worked during the start-up phase?  Not hardly.  But how does one quantify for the purposes of ROI the value of the time they spend making their vision a reality?  If they listened to the pundits, small business owners would give up before they started.  And I wouldn’t have a family.

Why is respect given in the first place?  It certainly can’t be because someone is trying to sell you something you don’t want.  That creates distrust and disrespect.  I’ve spent the last few days trying to figure it out and have come up with three things that contribute to someone’s willingness to provide respect:

1.  You have a thing that others want to have

2.  You have knowledge that others want to learn

3.  You have a relationship that others want to share

If you are the possessor of a thing, knowledge, or a relationship that someone else finds interesting, intriguing or desirable, you will have their undivided attention when talking about how to get it.  When you throw money into the mix the whole equation changes…UNLESS you add a proportionate amount of value.  If they have to pay for the interaction without an understanding of what’s in it for them, disrespect soon follows.  You begin having to prove not only yourself, but your value to them.   

So what will make them WANT to follow you, seek you out, read about you, learn what you know, etc?  It’s not really that hard:  Show them not only how to do it, but that it CAN be done, especially when you’re talking about a dramatic change in how they will be pursuing goals, knowledge, or relationships going forward.  As Zig Ziglar once said:  “You can get anything in life you want if you help enough other people get what they want.”