Yes, I can say that…I’ve been diagnosed. Would have been nice to know in high school. Perhaps my college GPA would have been a bit better, too. But is it any wonder this condition has resulted in so many new diagnoses? Ever wonder why? Take a look around.
Everyone everywhere is being interrupted every second of every day…computer-screen pop-ups, television commercials, radio ads, flashing billboards, text messages, cell phone ring tones…Holy cow, it’s like technological Chinese water torture out there. The interesting thing is that many of us ignore the fact that we actually have control over these external stimuli and go about our business every day accepting these interruptions as the “norm”. Think about it…twenty years ago, how many of these interruptions existed? That’s right, NONE. We only had 3 channels on our television! Today, we have over 300 with the ability to DVR two shows while simultaneously watching a third.
Priorities today are being established for us by other people, other companies, and other influences through repetitive, strategically placed messages intended to disrupt our routines and make us question our relationships. The more attention we give to these external stimuli, the more uncertain and fearful we become about our own decisions that impact what matters most to us. Only we can change this status-quo by taking back control of our time and important decisions and strengthening our trusted relationships.
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?
Posted by Gary M | Posted in Personal Insight | Posted on 14-01-2010
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.
Posted by Gary M | Posted in Personal Insight | Posted on 06-01-2010
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.”
Should we appreciate Santa more for what he does or the kind of person he is? I’m not talking about Christmas as a holiday as much as referring to the spirit of the season. What does Santa do? He delivers gifts to all the good little girls and boys throughout the entire world. Kids track his route on Nexrad radar, eagerly anticipating his arrival at their house no matter wher it is. To them, he’s the hope of the season for getting “everything they always wanted”. But is THAT what’s really important here? Or is it the KIND of person it takes to be Santa that matters most? What kind of person is willing to sacrifice his entire evening flying around the world with a sleigh full of toys being pulled by a bunch of reindeer? Admittedly it would be fun to hang out with him for an hour or so, but to keep doing it year-in and year-out?
So many people see any gathering of multiple people as an opportunity to promote what they do to others. That’s what we’re taught in “sales school”, right? “If someone doesn’t know what you do, how can they ever ask you for help?” is a common argument. Totally understandable in the old way of thinking, but what about today when there are hundreds of alternatives to the products and services we offer? Does it really matter more than who we are as people? And if I don’t really like you as a person, why in the world would I want to do business with you? If you’re attending a party among friends, they already know what you do.
Santa is certainly kind enough to give you his business card if you ask for it, but he’s not going to just hand them out without being asked first…perhaps you shouldn’t either.
Successful businesses care about every person they serve. They wouldn’t survive if they didn’t. Armed with infinite amounts of information, the question that now needs to be answered by customers intrinsically is: “What and who do I care about?” “Do I care enough to make this decision?” “Do I care what happens to my family if anything happens to me?” What anyone else says really doesn’t matter unless it matters to the customer first.
There has to be a better way to help people get what they need in this business besides using scary stories of human tragedy that usually elicit a “”it won’t ever happen to me” response. What’s the missing piece of the puzzle?
Do you ever get a voice mail with no message except “Call me”? The person who gets this message is essentially walking into a dark room where there could be (a) a dozen roses, or (b) 4 people with baseball bats waiting to take their head off. The person responding to the call is forced to enter into a battle of wits unarmed. Admittedly this seems a bit unrealistic, but the service industry is known for having days filled with difficult questions. Why can’t the person returning the call at least be prepared for the interaction?
So, how does one get their point across? A very good way is e-mail. It forces you to think about the problem and how to communicate it before you press “send”. If the phone is the preferred method, the discussion tends to be improvisational unless the call is scripted in advance. This then wastes 10 minutes on a 1-minute point. By using e-mail, both parties also have a record of the question and the response so a printed copy is available if the response was forgotten in 6 months.
A few years ago, my wife and I were in Maryland. While walking down the sidewalk, we stumbled upon a Restoration Hardware. We had never seen one before. Was it a hardware store? Was it a DIY supply store? Whatever it was, it looked intriguing…Large entry doors, beautiful decor, the works. We just had to check it out.
Once inside, what we found was an incredibly limited yet high quality selection of everything from bedding to furniture to accessories for every room in the house. But what was really cool was this: Instead of the plethora of paint shades and samples, Restoration Hardware had 32 carefully-selected colors… Not 320, not 3200.
How much stress could we eliminate from our lives if we weren’t overwhelmed with hundreds of low-quality choices and instead presented with a few high-value decisions to make each day?
Some of the most wonderful experiences in life start on a whim. Like the other night when when we got together with some of our neighbors on the back patio for a few beverages and appetizers. The kids ran around while we all talked and listened to music. Every time we’re around them we feel like some of the luckiest people in the world to be part of a real “neighborhood”. Imagine how it would be if we had the ability to make decisions without being presented opinions that influenced us or made us feel bad for making a choice.
My family took a weekend vacation this summer where we visited an art museum. In the hallway sat a red phone under a glass cube with the sign: ”In case of emergency, break glass”. It was supposed to be a replica of the phones in White House movie scenes. We have always had a running joke in our family that if the phone rings after 10 pm someone had better be really sick, injured or dead. In other words, it had better be an emergency. 10 pm in our house is bedtime and my brain is “closed for the day”.
The question in today’s world then becomes “Why is 10 pm the cutoff time for the phone ringing?” Why is it acceptable to interrupt family time between 4 pm and 10 pm? Is our family not as important as the 8 hours we just spent answering the phone at work? A time management CD produced a few years ago said: ”The phone is for the convenience of the person who owns it, not for the person who is using it.” In other words, we are not required to jump to attention every time the phone rings, especially since 8 out of 10 times it’s someone calling to sell us something. Surprises are only fun on birthdays or if someone you love is on the other end of that unexpected call. And unless it is either of those cases, is anything ever said in a phone conversation that can’t at least be started in an e-mail (No SPAM, please)? How often when the phone does ring is it actually an emergency? Maybe once or twice per year. Anyone know where to get one of those glass cubes?
