How to get your team (or anyone) to pay attention or care AT ALL! Seth Godin chimes in…

Want to talk to your team? Write a memo? Communicate a change? Want them to read your newsletter or blog?

Why not write NAKED. I have said this for years, communicate with clarity and with raw realness or don’t do it at all.

Seth Godin weighs in today too from his blog:

Writing Naked

Here are Orwell’s rules, edited:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. You don’t need cliches.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do. Avoid long words.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active. Write in the now.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. When in doubt, say it clearly.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. Better to be interesting than to follow these rules.

The reason business writing is horrible is that people are afraid.

Afraid to say what they mean, because they might be criticized for it.

Afraid to be misunderstood, to be accused of saying what they didn’t mean, because they might be criticized for it.

Orwell was on the right track. Just say it. Say it clearly. Say it now. Say it without fear of being criticized and say it without being boring.

If the goal is no feedback, then say nothing. Don’t write the memo.

If the goal is to communicate, then say what you mean.

My best tip is this: buy a cheap digital recorder. Say what you want to say, as if the person you seek to persuade is standing there, listening. Then type that up. Simplify. Send.

So, how will this change what you write today?

C

Paddi Lund, Christie Scott and Michael Gerber do this. Do you?

Paddi Lund (www.PaddiLund.com) has some great advice today in his newsletter. He is a dentist gone entrepreneur, but is most known for changing his reality by firing D clients, only accepting new clients upon referral, and insisting that he receive a certain number of referrals from each client! Here are some payoffs he experienced when he first fired D clients:

Simply “firing” his D customers immediately freed up 30% or more of your time … time which then is used to focus more attention on A and B customers with an instant increase in sales results as a consequence. Fewer hassles, more money – all good, right!

This has had a dramatic effect that is virtually responsible for every great innovation that followed in Paddi’s business.

Here’s why. Here’s the secret: S P A C E !!!

You read that right. Space. Time. Freedom from pressures.

Quite often when we start out in business we struggle to find the model that pays off. That’s just business. It’s hard. Very few people jag it and produce massively profitable businesses right from the get go. But even for those people, a similar process occurs. We get so busy, so caught up in the frantic pace of getting everything working that we get completely lost in the day to day pressures of it all.

Bills to pay, customers to see, people to hire, people to train, people to fire (because we never got around to training them!), marketing to write, advertising to try to forget (because it’s not working and you don’t know why), family to please, fatigue to fight … in business it just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on …… and on and on and on and on!!!

Before you know it, you have absolutely no S P A C E to think, let alone work on the business.

But that’s exactly what Paddi found when he “fired” his D’s. He was making just as much money, or more, and now he had S P A C E to truly start thinking clearly about his business.

Michael Gerber, author of the famous E-Myth, later called this vital discovery “Working ON the business, not IN it.”

———— A Fundamental Difference ————

Now, this isn’t the same as having lots of time on your hands when you’re young and starting out and don’t have any customers yet. Not the same at all.

There’s a fundamental difference between the time that the ABCD’s buys you and the time you have on your hands when there’s not much business on.

1) Ongoing Cashflow gives you room to breath

Say no more. Free time alone just won’t get you fed.

2) Experience gives you lots of information to work with

If you’re to this point, you have tried lots of things and failed with most of them. This experience is invaluable in helping you hone in on what’s really most important. You’ve also probably learned a thing or two about managing people – there’s nothing like being pushed around by an employee or two to galvanize the skill of leading from the front!

3) The Pain of being trapped motivates you to use your time wisely

… It’s only when you learn how valuable and scarce that S P A C E is that you really begin to use it wisely when it appears. Parkinson’s Law: “Work expands to fill the available time.” Well not when you have the motivation of great PAIN focusing you on making the most of this very valuable resource!

The 2nd Major Hidden Benefit:

* Making S P A C E for Key Results Producing Activities.

So, how could this idea help you?

One client of mine is facing this right now! She is SO overwhelmed by the everyday, that she cannot “see” or focus, prioritize, or even  enjoy life.  She is BRILLIANT! Simply amazing, yet this is overshadowed and hidden by the murkiness. Has she changed? No, but when you are overwhelmed, you cannot create or orchestrate your best work! Plain and simple.

So, my recommendation? Find space.

For this client, a getaway is in order, a getaway from emails, phones, and any work or responsibility. This will enable her to clearly see what she needs to do, how to overcome obstacles and have fun.

You may have experienced this when trying to come up with a name or fix a problem. When I was trying to title my book, I struggled for months. Then, when daydreaming while driving a car, it came to me.

Or sometimes the more you try to determine a solution, the more convoluted your opinion becomes.

So, what do YOU need to do to create S P A C E for what will allow you to reach the next level?

C

Why employees don’t care what they need! Instead give them what they demand…

Seth Godin wrote a post today about how to sell and market what people demand and tells you NOT to try to sell what people need. I think it is applicable to managing employees:

Needs don’t always lead to demand

One of the accepted holy grails of building an organization is that you should fill a need. Fill people’s needs, they say, and the rest will take care of itself.

But… someone might know that they need to lose some weight, but what they demand is potato chips.

Someone might know that they need to be more concerned about the world, but what they demand is another fake reality show.

As my friend Tricia taught me, this is brought into sharp relief when doing social enterprise in the developing world. There are things that people vitally need… and yet providing it is no guarantee you’ll find demand.

Please don’t tell get confused by what the market needs. That’s something you decided, not them.

If you want to help people lose weight, you need to sell them something they demand, like belonging or convenience, not lecture them about what they need.

So, how can you apply this to managing employees?

You may as the employer feel you know what is good for the employees, you may find yourself saying as I heard someone say yesterday “This is not just a lecture, but you really need to hear this…”.

Now, if you think that this is helping your productivity or morale or end results, you are wrong. It is not.

Instead, imagine for a moment that Seth is right, that people don’t care what they need, they only care about what they demand.

So, what are you employees demanding? They may not be saying it out loud or to you, so this may take some effort on your part, so go find out.

If you do not give employees what they demand, they will either work for you forever in a half-butt style or quit.

Employees generally demand to be treated with respect and honesty. Now, now, you are probably thinking “I treat everyone with respect and honesty!” Which you probably do, however what about the managers and co-workers?

MOST COMPANIES have someone in them that is a bully or rampaging personality who is not respectful or honest. However, they are excellent manipulators of the bosses, and they are the last to find out what is going on!

But, employees demand much more, especially these days! With companies vying for “the best place to work”, and companies follow the Zappos way, the gems of employees will be firmly planted there, with more joining their ranks everyday. Those that are left will be those that were not ethically or morally firm enough to be hired by these cultural companies.

How will you compete?

C

So, does managing HAVE to be this much work? Is it the employees that are the problem?

A different take on Seth Godin’s post today.

Here is what Seth has to say:

The power of buttons and being normal

Taxi drivers in New York were worried about adding credit cards to their cabs. The fee (5% of so) would cost them too much, they said.

It turns out that tips are up, way up. They’re actually making far more money now.

Why? Because most of the machines offer a shortcut for the tip: $2, $3 or $4.

You can decide to be a cheapskate and hit the $2 button. Except…

Except that if you had paid cash, you probably would have tipped 75 cents for that $4.25 ride. It takes a few more clicks to type in 75 cents, and hey, $2 is the lowest and it’s a more ‘normal’ amount.

It’s a three second decision that happens over and over. People really like cues.

And of course, I agree with this.

However, I began thinking about how this can also be applied to employees and management.

“People really like cues.” including employees…

Employees sometimes, or very often actually, fall into ruts. Ruts like office gossip at the coffee pot or ruts of complaining about overwork or the boss. Often a new client will talk about this problem and often they believe it is the people who are the problem. And sometimes they are!

But, MOST of the time, the problem is the environment. The environment allows and even encourages these ruts to form and continue.

So, thinking about your office, how does this affect the employees productivity? How does this deteriorate the customer service?

Once, I entered a  doctor’s office and rang the little bell at the window. The receptionists were in the back, having lunch and they were complaining LOUDLY about a patient. I said “hellooooo?” to politely let them know I was there, since they had not heard the bell. However, they continued to go on, so engrossed in the story and the animated retelling of the account, they did not hear me. On and on, the voice described the argument the doctor had with the patient. FINALLY, I opened the door and walked into the back a bit to let them know I was there. They went on like nothing had happened and the doctor had no idea the possible damage that was happening, o doubt often in his office.

Imagine if I had been a patient! Imagine if this was happening in your office/store/location!

Is it the people? The employees? Possibly, but more likely the problem is much bigger than that.

When there is an environment that teaches people to act this way, it allows people to act this way, then it will BE this way, always, no matter the people in it.

Instead going back to what Seth wrote above, people like cues. If you give no cue for the tip, you get 75 cents. Give a cue and quickly triple that! What kinds of cues are your employees getting from you.

Once I got told by an employer, “the “stars” among you will do SO well with this”.Well, that’s great, but the cue I got was some of you are losers! And none of us knew which ones where which, so we all felt scolded.Did it inspire us to be even better? NO. It made us feel like, “nobody is noticing our hard work, why try so hard?”.

Instead, if you give the cue that people are special, unique and you care about them, if you believe in the best in people and actually appreciate each and their contribution, you get more of that best.

If a culture is created that feeds and grows a set of values far above and beyond your average business, THEN, people in it are responsible and caring about their impact on the business and the world, the customer service is stellar and the future of that company is bright because the consumers LOVE to experience the difference.

Of course, Zappos is a fantastic example of this. If you have doubts that company culture pays off, look at their track record to over a billion in sales!

So, where should you begin?

How do you get started?

That’s what I am here for my friend. I am creating an entire course to teach this and as I do, I will post ideas and rants here for you to enjoy, learn from and transform your company culture!

But, until then, WHAT CUES ARE YOU GIVING TO YOUR EMPLOYEES?

C

These ruts of

Seth Godin explains why YOU might not be successful with your online marketing!

Ok, so here Seth Godin explains why YOU might not be successful with your online marketing!

Read it, learn from it and APPLY it! Then, PROFIT from it!

A good preacher ought to be able to get 70% of the people who showed up on Sunday to make a donation.

A teeny bop rock group might convert 20% of concert goers to buy a shirt or souvenir.

A great street magician can get 10% of the people who watch his show to throw a dollar in the hat.

Direct marketers used to shoot for 2% conversion from a good list, but now, that’s a long shot.

A blogger might convert 2% of readers to buy a book. (I’m aghast at this).

And a twitter user with a lot of fans will be lucky to get one out of a thousand to click a link and buy something. (.1%)

Likes, friendlies and hits are all fast-growing numbers that require little commitment. And commitment is the essence of conversion. The problem with commitment is that it’s frightening (for both sides). And so it’s easy to avoid. We just click and move on.

I think there’s a transparent wall, an ever bigger one, between digital spectators and direct interaction or transaction. The faster the train is moving, the harder it is to pay attention, open the window and do business. If all you’re doing is increasing the number of digital spectators to your work, you’re unlikely to earn the conversion you deserve.

Waiting for your fairy godmother (venture capitalist/ investor) to save you?

There are no EASY ways to do business. When talking with a client today, I realized something I had never really admitted before, BUSINESS IS TOUGH!

There is no magic bullet, no get-rich-quick. It’s about something much more.

Now, that’s not to say SOME people may find success by being in the right place with the right thing at the right time, but those times are far and few rather than the norm.

Expecting that fairy godmother to come and make all of your dreams come true is a great way to feel like a failure!

THE SMARTER AND MORE SURE WAY TO SUCCESS? FOCUS! Focus on the right things at the right time. Focus on serving your current clients/customers/patients better! Focus on making loyal followers, die-hard fans. (See my post earlier today about Facebook fans and their worth, if you are using social networking as part of your plan.)

Here’s another way to think about it, to quote our man, Seth Godin, “Delight the audience you already have, amaze the customers you can already reach, dazzle the small investors who already trust you enough to listen to you. Take the permission you have and work your way up. Leaps look good in the movies, but in fact, success is mostly about finding a path and walking it one step at a time.”

SOOOOOOOOOOO? How will this change your day, your month, your year?

C

The ONLY thing you need to do to build your business!

There is ONE thing that you need to build your business. I know! I know! You have all of these other things that you need to do to RUN your business.  Believe me, there is ONE thing that will make you successful! That one thing will create leads or create sales, create followers, whatever you want to achieve.

What is this, you say?

Well, it is different for each company. Sometimes, it is one referral source that works like gangbusters and all you have to do is manage the leads and convert them and of course, rake in the money.

Maybe it is one type of marketing, like radio or social media or PR. You know it is the old rule of 20% of your activities will bring 80% of the results. Actually, the pendulum swings even further, 5-10% of your efforts will make 90-95% of the results.

NOW, I don’t mean that you should only put in 5% of the effort! I MEAN you should spend 80-90% of your efforts on very strategic activities that will bring you major results, RATHER than spreading yourself SO THIN, that you only get a 5% return here or there for your efforts.

So, how do you know what those high-return activities are? Well, think back, what have you done in the past to create most of your success? If you want more leads, then how have you found the right leads en masse?

Has it been with referrals?

Then, how do you improve what you used to do? How do you systematize that effort and build on that success?

THIS sort of strategy, DONE WELL, can rock your world and change the game for you!

1. Think about your problem or a goal you would like to achieve.

2. List how you have found the MOST success in the past with solving this problem.

3. Determine how you improve this, then systematize it, and of course DO IT!

As always, hardly any one will improve according to something they have read, so be the upper echelon and allow this to improve and change what you do today, tomorrow and next week! Otherwise… (read in a singsong voice) we are wasting our time here!

Absolutely my best to you!

C

Typical Media is dying, what can you do about it?

The last flight I took, I browsed the shelves of the magazines. I LOVE MAGAZINES! I had my own magazine, once! I published, wrote and LOVED it!

As I browsed those shelves, my heart lurched, I ached to work with magazines again. My brain slipped right into working with a magazine, marketing a magazine, designing a magazine, the possibilities!

But, I then moved through the thoughts and jerked back into REALITY! In reality, magazines are dying! As are most brick and mortar versions of media! Unfortunate as this is, IT IS TRUE, whether you admit it or not!

So, how can you deal with this shift if you are a part of brick and mortar media?

OR even better, how can YOU benefit from the shift? Because SOMEONE WILL WIN! Someone will succeed! You can be part of that or not…

Seth Godin has a BRILLIANT take on this, basically, he points out that the opportunity is there for you to take! The opportunity is that YOU can reach and build your fan base with micro-magazines!

“There’s room in the market for 100,000 profitable micro-magazines. Why not have one about Aruba, for example? If all the people who vacation in Aruba could read about the island in detail every month, read about restaurants, resorts and politics, for free, in an easy to share format… Multiply this by every destination, every interest group, every type of profession (how about a micro-magazine for ethnobiologists?)

Surely you can think of a group of people that share a demo- or psychographic, that are appealing to an advertiser base and want to learn and share what they learn… for free.”

Here is how he defines an ideal magazines:

• Being digital (probably a PDF), that’s free to ‘print’, fast to make and easy to share. (Newsweek spends seventeen million dollars a year on paper.)
• Having subscribers, either by email or RSS
• Focused on issues that appeal to some, but not all
• Having a very specific audience (call it a tribe)
• Enabling that tribe to connect by sharing the ideas in the magazine among them, as well as supporting it with a forum or blog
• Containing ads that are relevant to that audience
• Being longer than 140 characters or even a blog post, so significant ideas can be exposed in detail.

So, what group could you target?

How could you use this to your advantage?

What will this change, improve, create for you?

C

Contest to WIN Tony Hsieh’s Book – Delivering Happiness, before it is even released!!!!!!

Delivering Happiness and the Zappos mentality that I SO adore, is all about delivering happiness to customers, employees and the world!

Obsessed with the subject of Customer Loyalty?

Read Daniel Pink’s book Drive?

Love the Zappos mentality?

I am pleased to announce that I am hosting a Book Club all about Culture Creation and Customer Loyalty AND I am having a contest. Enter to WIN a copy of Tony Hsieh’s book before it is even released!

Join the Book Club and be entered into a drawing to win a free copy of Tony’s book! ONE will be given out each week for the next three weeks!

To join, either place a comment here and tell me your #1 struggle/question with creating your company’s culture OR join my LinedIn group called Zappos Insights Mastermind Group OR re-tweet my tweet about this on twitter! My twitter name: christiescott1

Look forward to brainstorming with you on our Book Club calls!

C

Why companies/marketing/tactics fail!

The reality of the world today is harsh, whether we will admit it or not. It’s a killer situation for many businesses, destined to FAIL!

Why??????

They simply are not good enough! Average is not praised, noticed or bought anymore.

Seth Godin puts it well: “The biggest mistake companies make is that they chicken out.  If your idea doesn’t become a virus, it’s most likely because it didn’t deserve to become a virus.”

I blog and rant about it all of the time, if you aren’t innovative, you will not make it in this economy! So once again, I implore you, stand up, be counted! Be deserving!

Your coach,

C