12 posts categorized "January 2008"

January 30, 2008

Check out my discussion with Seth Godin

Yesterday I participated on a call with aurhor and blogger Seth Godin.

We talked about marketing, blogging, branding and his new book, Meatball Sundae.

Check out the audio recording of the conversation.

January 28, 2008

Compare notes with a competitor

When I was working at Yahoo in the mid-2000s, there was little if any teaming up with Google going on.

Google was doing unique things in search, human resources, marketing, social responsibility and industry education.

We were focused on beating them, not learning from them. Our CEO at the time, Terry Semel, thought that we spent too much time hating on Google and too little time studying and trying to adopt their innovations.

During a meeting in 2004, where one Yahoo exec venemously denied that a Google innovation was worthy of adoption/replication by Yahoo, Semel remarked, "you cannot hate Google enough to improve the user experience by one percent!"

This is a paradigm shift. If you love your customers, focus on them, not your competitors. If one of your rivals has a breakthrough that is good for the industry, contact them and compare notes. Create a cooperative alliance to find out how the two of you can accomplish synergy and move the industry forward.

This is especially true with humanitarian efforts, like employee relations or environmental sustainability. There is no reason that your competitor wouldn't share information in these areas.

This concept is called coopetition, and is practiced in the airline industry when it is time to negotiate with the airplane manufacturers. By joining forces with each other, airlines have better negotiating power for terms, price, etc.

Recommended read: Co-opetition by Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff

January 24, 2008

Learn about CSR

Next Sunday, I'm giving the keynote address at the Meeting Planners International North American PEC conference. I'm talking about CSR, based on research I've been doing for my new book.

MPI asked me to put together a short (and entertaining) video to promote my talk. Here it is:
Email subscribers, click here

January 23, 2008

Just love them

What do you do when you have conflict with someone at work?

Just love him.

What do you do when your employees lack motivation, insight or good judgement?

Just love them.

In my first book, I define Business Love (Bizlove) as the act of intelligently sharing your intangibles to promote other people's growth. What are these intangibles? Your knowledge, network of relationships and your compassion. If you give these away to others, especially those that you are having problems with, you'll be surprised how things work themselves out.

Many people that are prone to create conflict do so because they are suffering emotionally. They often lack anyone in their life that cares about them. No one bothers to understand what they are going through. What if you learned that your enemy at work was a jerk to you because he has no friends and is merely lonely?

People respond to love, this is the Law Of Reciprocity. I call this the secret for business.

Tomorrow, pick someone that you work with and 'love them' -- give her a piece of advice, introduce her to someone you know that she needs to meet or just hug her (HR policy be damned). There's too much money and numbers and not enough kindess and compassion at work.

January 21, 2008

Do Business With Your Customers

Doing business with your customers means that you buy from them as well as sell to them. Otherwise, you are just selling and servicing. That's OK, but I think you are missing out on a golden opportunity.

When I consult or speak for a company, I go out of my way to buy their products or services. I bought my home from them, invest in their funds, bank with them, use them for shipping and even rely on them to do my taxes. Why? Level of service. It is through the roof! They know me, want to make me happy, and moreovoer I know them well too (and have a friend on the inside).

When you buy from your customers, you enter the virtuous circle -- a positive feedback loop of commerce and trading. You ask them for your trust, extend yours to them, and the both of you grow in your relationships. Do a personal audit on your customer base to see if you've missed any opportunities to do business with them. This is old school business practice, but often overlooked in our business life.

Are we chasing the best price or the best match?

January 17, 2008

Offer your email address and a free document

If you give a talk at a conference or business event, always give out your email address from the platform and offer to give your audience something if they email you.

You could offer a PDF with some tips from your talk, a recommended reading list or your power point presentation. You could also ask them to send you an email with their stories or comments.

If you do this, you'll be surprised at how many people email you and begin a conversation, and maybe a productive relationship. Don't miss out on a opportunity to convert a presentation into a valuable networking exercise. Sure, you might get a bunch of emails, but there's gold in there!

January 15, 2008

Have a post-shower writing session

If you are looking for the perfect time to write something, anything, do it right after you get out of the shower.

Whether you are a blogger, author, sales person or just a casual writer, finding inspiration is half the battle. Over the last year or so, I've developed a simple system to generate it chemically (and naturally).

Right before you take your shower, think about something you want to write or a subject you'd like to write about. As you shower, just let the idea roll around in your head. A hot shower naturally helps your body produce DHEA, so you'll find that your brain/mind makes synapse connections in this environment.

When an idea comes to you, say it out loud. Repeat it several times to find an anchor statement of inspiration. Right after you get out, find a handheld recorder or notepad and write for a few minutes. Let it flow, and don't try and edit.

If you do this everyday, you'll find that you will come up with great ideas, great phrases and your natural writing voice. Always think of shower time as creative time, instead of it being a chore.

I'm not the only author that does/did this. I've read that Kurt V, Jim Morrison and even Hunter S. Thompson all received divine inspiration in the shower. The question for you is, are you going to write yours down?

January 12, 2008

Check out my music picks from 2007

Instead of recommending full albums thsi year, I've put together an iMix that you can purchase for less than twelve bucks! Enjoy last year's best modern rock.
Email subscribers with ITUNES, click here.

January 10, 2008

Pick up the phone

I've just had a bad customer experience that could have been avoided with a phone call.

I hired a company to help with develop a product. They gave me a specific delivery date, then missed it by weeks, causing me to lose money. When I emailed my sales rep to tell him how disappointed I was, I received back a very short email from him that basically said, "This is why it happened. Thanks for understanding."

I emailed back with more specifics on why I was upset and he replied with another short and sweet email (hoping I would go away). I'll never do business with that company again. His emails made the problem worse. What should he have done? He should have picked up the phone immediately, called me, and smoothed it out in realtime.

Here's a good rule for running a business, I call it the 2 Minute Rule.

If one of your customers sends you an email that indicates that they are not happy with your service or product, within two minutes, pick up the phone and call them to talk about it. If you can, do it even faster.

This will produce surprise and delight.

Imagine emailing a sales rep at one of your vendors a nastygram and then having your phone ring a few seconds later with an answer. Chances are, you’ll have a conversation that leads to a positive resolution. Chances are, the business relationship would continue or maybe improve through the experience. Try it. If you run a company, you should require your sales reps and customer service managers to live by the rule.

As I mentioned before in a previous post, research indicates that tone of voice is five times more effective at conveying your intentions than words on paper (or in an email). When you pick up the phone, you increase your effectiveness at resolving customer service issues.

The alternative is hiding behind email and hoping for the best.

January 07, 2008

Let others speak

No one likes a conversational bully.

They don't pause to allow others to speak. The ignore questions and continue to make their point. When someone tries to get a word in edge-wise, they say, "I'm not finished. Let me make this one other point."

They seldom, if ever, improve relationships through conversation.

Have you been a conversational bully this week? Think about the presidential debates last night. Several candidates bullied moderator Charles Gibson, and droned on and on, tacking on additional observations to try and persuade a national audience. Instead of being persuasive, they came off as arrogant, angry or Gore circa 2000.

No one ever made a deciding point in bonus-time. You either make it right away, or you don't.

Next time you are in a conversation, practice restraint. Show your confidence by inserting interruptable pauses at the end of major points. Condense your ideas into simple statements that leave airtime for other people to react and talk. The more you refine this technique, the better you'll do in your conversational life.

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