Word Marketing Blog

Better Gifts

This holiday, budgets are tight. So what can you give your fellow associates, your boss or your employees that will be meaningful and cost effective?

1. A sincere and specific hand-written thank you note
2. Homemade goodies
3. A jar of nickles and dimes placed in the break room and marked "parking meter money"
4. An afternoon off - surprise!
5. An offer to start someone's car for a warmer ride home
6. An invite to lunch
7. The offer to help with a project that's had them overwhelmed - without pointing out how overwhelmed they seem
8. Surprise bagels
9. The delivery of a fax/fixing of the copy machine/making a pot of coffee/taking out the trash - quietly and without seeking recognition
10. A genuine smile and "Merry Christmas!/Happy Holidays!"

Of all the cliches we encounter in our daily lives, "it's the thought that counts" is one that holds true. Be inventive this year. Be thoughtful. You'll save money, but more importantly, you'll likely touch someone's heart.

Creating The Future

Peter Drucker said "the only way to predict the future is to create it".

Anxiety, worry and fear are all caused by nervousness over the unknown. Predictability creates confidence. If you are driving in traffic in a major city and you grew up there, you probably have a lot of confidence about your destination. Conversely, if you've never been to that city, your palms may be sweaty, your voice terse and your actions a little erratic. Why? Because, you've never been there before and confidence is low about the outcome.

The way to more confidence is clarity and predictability. Take ownership of your future and your ideas. Know what you want to achieve in the next year, the coming quarters, weeks and days. Know what you want TODAY.

Couple of suggestions:

• Brainstorm: Get quiet, write down all your thoughts and ideas. Clarify them on paper. Let your mind go free, brainstorming is a time to let yourself totally go. Only have one rule with yourself, don't judge your ideas or thoughts, just try to let the ideas flow as freely as possible.

• Prioritize: Put your thoughts together in the order they are important to you. Trimming your vine can keep your fruit plentiful.

• Eliminate: The beginning of strategy is what NOT to do. As soon as you realize there are more reasons not to do something, you will no longer want it. Think each item through and prioritize.

• Visualize: Begin to take your priorities one by one and think them through to completion. Reverse-engineer your way to success. All goal setting begins at the end. Play this "movie" as often as your can in your daily thought-life. Create your own future.

Everyone is in Sales

The fact of the matter is, everyone is in sales.

It could be in the traditional sense of the idea, and you have a solid product or service that you would like someone to buy from you. It could be that you have ideas, which when capitalized or back by investors could really be effective. It could be that you have been wanting a promotion and more compensation. It could be that you want your children to grow up and be your legacy in a positive and impactive way.

In all these situations, sales is required.

If you are a student, parent, teacher, musician, actor, doctor, manager or maybe doing nothing for work, you are still a salesperson. Selling does not necessarily have to involve the exchange of money. In fact, people sell something to others every single day, they may not even realize they are selling or have even ever heard of a selling process.

• Parents sell values and wisdom to their children
• Teachers sell knowledge and learning to students
• Doctors sell skill, advice and comfort to patients
• Actors sell entertainment to the audience

The fact is, to build your company and your brand, everyone needs to sell. At least, gracefully persuade.

I've heard people say "I'm not a salesperson". They are when they want something bad enough. Kids are really good salespeople, sometimes better negotiators.

From this perspective to build brand try these tips:

• Teach and train every staff member that they are salespeople
• Make sales a good word in your company and not a dirty one
• Expose all staff to the same sales training your sales department gets
• In your role-plays (yes, you should be doing them) involve all staff in the role plays, after all when non-sales staff deal with customers, it's not a "dry-run". 

Institute a 4-part belief system into your company:

• Why do you believe in the company?
• Why do you believe in our products and services?
• Why do you believe the customer is better off with our company?
• Why do you believe in yourself?

Stressing on Busy

Everyone I talk to is swamped. It's probably a condition of fewer people having more responsibility due to companies cutting back or simply not hiring. But getting stressed out about how busy things are isn't healthy, and even if you go at warp 10 for awhile, you're bound to burn out. With the approaching holidays, things will only get trickier. So how can you cope?

Here are some tips to help make your time more efficient and ease your stress.

1. Take time to plan.It may just seem like something extra to add to your list, but by taking time at the end of each day to look at what you accomplished, what you didn't and what is priority for the next day, you will get peace of mind and avoid taking the stress of the say home into your evening. Added bonus: tomorrow will be much more productive.
2. Learn to prioritize.Structure your to-do list in order of importance and make note o those thing that you would like to get done today and those things that have to be done today.
3. Know that it's okay if you don't get it all done today. It will still be there tomorrow. Relax, take a breath and be proud of what you did accomplish.
4. Learn to group together items that can be completed fairly quickly, and spend a block of time knocking these off your list. Not only will your list get shorter (relief!) but you will feel a sense of accomplishment.
5. Learn to multi-task. Hold your own brainstorming sessions in your morning shower or when stuck in traffic. While working on a project with steps that hold up your computer, also work on a project off the computer in between steps.

Learning to manage your time and your stress will make for a happier you. And the positive side of busy work days ? Weekends come sooner!

E-(mail)scape

Can you imagine getting fired via e-mail?

Time and time again we witness the inappropriate use of e-mail for communication. It really just boils down to courage.

Most people know what's right and what's wrong. They know that a congratulations via email is typically acceptable for any occurrence. They know that a handwritten thank you note goes much further than an e-mail note; but a thank you, none-the-less, is always appreciated. And they know that it is not okay to fire someone, quit a job, break up from a relationship, coach behavior or reprimand someone via email. So why do we do it?

Most people fear confrontation and believe that avoiding it will make things easier. But avoiding confrontation will bring no benefit to any of the parties involved.

What avoiding confrontation will do is:

• Make you look like a coward
• Cause the other person to loose respect
• Not provide proper closure for you, likely leaving you to deal with more guilt, longer
• Never make you any better at facing confrontation
• Provide zero opportunity for growth

Dealing with confrontation is not fun for anyone, but doing so is a necessary part of life. Those who summons the courage will emerge better on the other end, and will have gained more respect along the way.

Next week, some sugar to help swallow the medicine.

The Skill of Focus

Lion tamers use the whip and chair technique.

It's so difficult for the animal to focus on the multiple legs of the chair, that it gets confused and can't formulate an attack plan against the trainer. While the animal in it's confused state, the trainer will crack his whip every now and then for some added confusion and punishment.

In looking at this technique, it's easy to see what happens to both people and businesses when they begin to lose focus.

Focus is threatened when the issues are multiplied and nothing is given the proper attention.

Vacillating between different objectives causes failure. Achievers establish goal-oriented activities and attitudes. Their thought processes are directed consistently toward a well-defined goal. The goal itself is not as important as your daily progress toward achieving it. Target your decisions and skills squarely on that mark.