Category: People & Relationships

Article by Dr. Joey Faucette

Recently, I delivered a keynote presentation about business growth, “Fence Posts to Trees,” to the top forty emerging leaders of a U.K.-based pharmaceutical company. I ate with one of their five senior VPs during the meal that preceded. He lives in Scotland, commutes to London weekly, and travels to other countries.

We talked about his travel schedule a bit and I asked, “How much do you employ technology to conduct virtual meetings?”

To my surprise he answered, “More than I like. When we’re doing business in other countries, it’s difficult to virtually communicate some things.”

As we talked more, here’s what I heard him saying. Think of them as three reasons to do business face-to-face.

A face-to-face meeting:

Powers business

Let’s face it—there are a lot of companies out there that you can do business with.  What separates the companies you choose from the companies you don’t select is about the business transaction, but it’s more than that.  There is the human connection.

There are some aspects of the human connection that don’t communicate well even if you use video. The myopic view of the camera misses gestures, body language, some vocal intonations, and the je ne sais quoi of human interaction. It takes the total package of the human experience to transform a business transaction into a business experience. Such experiences break the ice in a different direction that captures our interest and imagination. It’s the most important “why” of closing a deal.

Builds trust

As my senior VP friend talked about communicating corporate core values internationally and how they take expression in the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, I realized he was talking about trust.

Getting in front of a manufacturing partner meant he could insure that the high standards by which his company produces viable health solutions is more likely to happen. By meeting face-to-face, he could validate the necessary protocols and procedures were followed, therefore building trust in the relationship.

Exchanges idea more effectively

Doing business in the global village means there are certain cultural assumptions we all make based on our background. Those assumptions don’t translate without explicit statements.

On site, my friend could not only impart knowledge, but receive ideas from the new partner. These ideas are more effectively exchanged person-to-person; looking someone in the eye, listening carefully for vocal nuances, and experiencing the total communication process. By meeting face-to-face, he was in a better position to give and receive information that improved the business relationship.

While technology certainly empowers us to do business in markets and manners previously unavailable, the desire for human interaction still exists deep within us.

To Conceive a Work Positive lifestyle and greatly improve your productivity and profitability, be sure to meet face-to-face whenever possible.

About the Author:

Dr. Joey Faucette is the founder of Listen to Life, a business-coaching and speaking firm, and creator of “7 Weeks to Work Positive” and the “Work Positive Master Coaching Program.” His latest #1 Amazon best-seller is Work Positive in a Negative World.

Article Contributed by Jenna White

There are so many places to find sources of information for your new business. Friends and family can be a wealth of advice, and online articles and other sites can give you a lot of information. However, having a mentor could mean that you will have the opportunity to receive wisdom frequently and for a long period of time from an experienced professional in your field.

What should a mentor do?

As you start your business, you may find the process confusing. You may also have a lot of questions specific to your business, but the answers are hard or impossible to find on your own. If you try facing this process on your own, you will be more likely to fail, so finding someone who can steer you in the right direction is very important.

Your mentor should be someone with more experience in entrepreneurial business than you. They are there to provide trusted advice over an extended period of time, and they usually provide this service at no expense to the mentee. This is because many business professionals who offer to be mentors want to give back to their community while developing their skills as a teacher, manager, or consultant. Through the process of mentoring, they should be able to learn just as much from you as you learn from them.

Benefits of having a mentor

There is a very long list of benefits that may come about while working with a mentor. Here are just a few:
• Someone to turn to – You are now the boss of your own business, so there isn’t a manager or anyone else more important to turn to when you have a question or are in need of critical advice. At this important time in your life, and in the life of your business, you don’t have to be alone. Sometimes, a second opinion and emotional support can be just as important as the money you make.
• Learn from experience – You can learn from the mistakes and successes of your mentor. From there, you will be able to use their strategies as a guideline for your business.
• Free service – Most of the time, mentors will offer to be a guide for your business with no expense to you, while other consultants may come at a price. This can be a great option if you are on a tight budget.
• Networking – Your mentor could also help you expand your social network with the contacts they have added to their social network over the years. These contacts with other business professionals could help you gain access to important people who could help your business grow.
• Build a relationship – A paid consultant usually has one thing on his or her mind: money. A true mentor has no ulterior motive, and should want to help you in any way they can. This creates a foundation of trust and friendship that will grow stronger during the years you will work together.

Important factors in a mentor relationship

When you are looking for a mentor, it is important to remember the following traits a decent mentor relationship should have.
• Teaching and advising – The mentor is only there to advise you in a time of need. They should not try to interfere with decisions made by you or anyone else in your company. You should feel comfortable seeking advice, but just as comfortable when you decide not to accept that advice.
• Confidentiality – Both the mentor and the mentee should be confident that all discussions between them will remain completely confidential.
• Know the limits – There should be a boundary set from the beginning as to what lines can and cannot be crossed.
• Communication – Know from the start of your mentor relationship exactly how you will communicate. Whether it’s through scheduled, face to face meetings, telephone conversations, or through email, you should make your preference known.
• Time limits and commitments – Find out how long the mentor plans to be available for you, and how much time they are willing to give you each week, month, or year until that time is up. Setting a schedule could help avoid misunderstandings later.
• Openness and respect – Both parties in this mentoring relationship should be completely honest with one another, yet respectful at the same time. Withholding important information could be very damaging to either party, and even the most devastating information should be reviled with courtesy and received with an open mind.
• Professional – The mentor relationship should always remain professional and not personal.

Jenna White is an author who works for a company promoting educational services for personal finance. They specifically want to help small business owners learn about credit cards.

Article by Lynda-Ross Vega

I have several friends who send me interesting emails. You know the type, You Tube videos, jokes, stories – you probably get a few of these, too. Recently, I received one that got me to thinking about its message, which was “Change your words. Change your world.” It’s a message that really hit home for me, especially within the context of human Perceptual Styles.

How you perceive the world – how you make meaning out of what your senses experience – really does determine your world. This means that the words you choose to create meaning and share your experiences with others have a powerful impact on your life.

We’ve all experienced the positive effect of a few well-chosen words – the smile you get in return for a simple “Thank You”… the glow that accompanies a compliment.

But we’ve all also experienced a complete disconnect with one or more people over words that seem out of context, harsh, or “unnecessary.” The fascinating thing to me is that the value and impact of a word changes based on our view of the world, not just on our understanding of the word itself.

For example, I know what the words ‘always’ and ‘never’ actually mean – in fact, I doubt there’s much argument out there over the meanings of these two words. But I rarely use either of them and neither do most other people with the Vision Perceptual Style.

Why? Because to us, those words feel limiting, and people of the Vision style experience the world as a series of endless possibilities. In fact, Vision folks tend to find comments like “you never….” or “you always……” insulting or challenging when applied to them. That’s because they know that they don’t “never” or “always” anything – they respond to life as it unfolds before them, improvising as necessary to take advantage of opportunities.

But for people with the Methods Perceptual Style, “always” and “never” are simple statements of fact based on what is known from an individual’s past behavior – no future application is considered or implied. So from a Methods perspective, Vision people really overreact to a simple fact!

There are a million other examples of differences between Perceptual Styles when it comes to the ways we use language. Those differences have a profound impact on many aspects of our daily lives – such as what marketing appeals to us and what kind turns us away, and which leaders motivate us and which leave us shaking our heads- not to mention our relationships. As a coach with 30+ years of experience, let me assure you that a key source of conflict in our personal and work relationships is the disconnections that result from the words we use (in guidelines or memos, for example, or at home, during conflicts and arguments) and what they mean to all parties involved.

So the next time you get a reaction from someone over something you’ve said that surprises you, stop to ask what it might mean to them before you react. You’ll be amazed at the differences you’ll uncover and the conflicts you’ll avoid! When you change your words you really can you change your world.

About the Author:

Lynda-Ross Vega: A partner at Vega Behavioral Consulting, Ltd., Lynda-Ross specializes in helping entrepreneurs and coaches build dynamite teams and systems that WORK. She is co-creator of Perceptual Style Theory, a revolutionary psychological assessment system that teaches people how to unleash their deepest potentials for success. For free information on how to succeed as an entrepreneur or coach, create a thriving business and build your bottom line doing more of what you love, visit www.ACIforCoaches.com and www.ACIforEntrepreneurs.com.

Article by Skip Weisman

Two startling facts regarding issues absolutely impacting the bottom line of manufacturing companies in today’s challenging economy:

1. The Gallup organization, an international research company with a division that focuses on employee engagement and motivation, estimates $300 billion is wasted every year in lost productivity at U.S. companies due to un-motivated, dis-engaged employees.

2. Another research firm, Sirota Survey Intelligence, reported in 2005 that in 85% of Fortune 1000 companies, employee motivation and morale “declined significantly” within the first six months of employment and continued to go down after that.

Those statistics are startling with regard to the potential impact on bottom line results of companies today. But, it is also not surprising.

Research I recently conducted of over 3,000 subscribers to the Workplace Communication Expert blog (www.WorkplaceCommunicationExpert.com) showed 44% of business leaders are unhappy with employee performance.

When you look around your workplace and evaluate the productivity, motivation and morale of your people, how much might your organization be contributing to that $300 billion?

And, in evaluating the cost of hiring, on-boarding and training new employees, if not being done effectively, could this be another place where company profits are stealthily slipping off the financial statement?

Here are three specific strategies manufacturers can apply to develop, maintain or recapture employee motivation, morale and engagement so that your employees are truly assets bringing high value to the work environment:

1) Define your “Championship Game”
From the first day of training camp everyone that is part of an athletic team at any level from little league through the professional ranks knows the ultimate objective and vision for their team (organization) is to reach the Championship Game (for baseball it’s the World Series, football The Super Bowl, soccer it’s the World Cup, etc).

It is the inspiring vision to win the championship that keeps everyone focused, doing the right things for the right reasons so they can contribute to the team’s success, while also being able to reap the well-defined, and not so-well defined, individual and collective rewards and opportunities that come with their contribution.

The same type of culture can be created inside any business. It takes strong, visionary leadership and consistent communication to make it successful.

2) Jointly create an agreed upon set of core organizational communication and behavioral values

Many organizations have their “values” hanging on posters in the hallways while managers and leaders both engage in, and enable others, in behaviors inconsistent with those values.

With no one holding anyone accountable to the values on the walls, performance and behaviors deteriorate and subsequently default to what is witnessed and experienced in the halls.

This, too, is a strategy that is both easy to create, plus easy to maintain when two processes are applied:

1. Bring your team(s) together to jointly create the organizational communication and behavioral values and commit to a “team agreement” that everyone, literally, signs on to.
2. Leaders, managers and teammates agree to address violations of the values and team agreement immediately (or, at the earliest possible opportunity after a documented and witnessed behavior).

NOTE: One client that recently concluded this process reported employees were self-regulating themselves and their teammates six months after installation of the above strategy.

3) Create a communication “Forum” that includes a “feedback loop”
Communication is always among the top three issues or problems identified by employees in organizations. The challenge with this generic, vanilla statement is that there are too many aspects of communication to fix the problems.

It must be more clearly defined.

In a recent client project three different teams in one focus group identified communication as an organizational problem. Yet, each defined it differently from a completely different context.

One simple way to resolve this issue is to create a formal forum for communication that includes a two-way feedback loop.

This sounds much more complicated than it really is. It simply means that regular, structured meetings are facilitated to bring issues, problems, ideas and suggestions to the fore for company leaders to address and respond to.

There are four key steps for doing this successfully:
1) Schedule meetings at regular and consistent times
2) Invite a cross section of participants representing the various departments, divisions, etc.
3) Collect ideas, chunk them into related categories and prioritize
4) Create a system through which company leaders can respond to every item in a reasonably timely manner.

Often company leaders are leery of developing this type of communication process for fear of the meetings devolving into gripe sessions. These fears are valid and can be eliminated by doing these three things:
1) Setting clear guidelines at the outset,
2) Ensure that all ideas and suggestions are articulated in a positive, constructive manner, and
3) Following through with prompt feedback on all ideas so that those contributing feel as if their contributions were taken under consideration and were valued (it is perfectly okay to say “no” to an idea as long as it comes with a credible reason).

Manufacturers that have implemented some, or all, of the three above suggestions have been able to generate dramatic results, such as:
. $900,000 in waste eliminated within 12 months of implementation
. 300% increase in pre-tax profits over a five-year period
. 100% increase in pre-tax profits within four months of implementation
. 65% permanent improvement in workflow processes and 22% waste reduction within 12 months.

With results like that no business leader in Western civilization can argue that they can’t invest the time, energy and resources to learn how to implement the three simple strategies outlined above.

Give it a try.

About the Author

Skip Weisman is The Leadership and Workplace Communication Expert based in Poughkeepsie, NY. Since 2001 he has partnered with business leaders and their teams to transform communication in workplaces in a way that offers dramatic increases in productivity, profit margins and the bottom line. His latest white paper report on which this article is based is 3 Simple Secrets to Increasing Your Bottom Line: How Maximizing Motivation, Trust and Commitment in Your Workplace Makes a Difference in Today’s Challenging Economy! The report is available free at www.TheEmployeeEngagementExpert.com. Skip can be reached at 845-463-3838 or by e-mail at Skip@WorkplaceCommunicationExpert.com

Article Contributed by Erin Ferree

Are you “marketing at” your precious potential clients or connecting with them? In other words, do your marketing efforts feel more like you’re shouting at them with a megaphone, or like you’re having a two-way conversation?

We all have a craving for connection and conversation – for that rich, recognition-filled two-way exchange of thoughts and information.

That goes for both YOU and your potential clients… in fact, the effect can be multiplied many times over for your clients.

Feel into how much you want to be in conversation with your potential clients. How much you’d like to be on the phone with them, or talking face-to-face.

Now, imagine how much they want to be in conversation with you. After all, they’re already listening to you. I suspect many of them are yearning to be heard, to have their questions answered and to really talk to you.

Here are two traits you can use to open the conversation in a refreshing way…

Curiosity:
Have you ever really stopped to wonder about, listen to and ask your potential clients about what’s going on for them?

This goes beyond a casual, “Hi, how are you?” at the beginning of your newsletter – where you’re not actually expecting an answer.

It’s time to think about who your potential clients are, ask about what they’re up to, and explore their thoughts and feelings.

Look at them as more than just a potential project. Open up a conversation with the full intent of simply learning more about them and getting to know them – not seeing how you could help them, or looking for a need.

What you can do – ask real, specific questions in your newsletter and assure people that you really do want to know the answer. Offer opportunities for your potential clients to speak with you on Q&A calls, during call-in “office hours” or even by appointment for a short, focused session – where you’re asking them questions.

Generosity:
When was the last time you gave your clients a truly free and fantastic gift?

People love presents – when they’re real, useful, desirable gifts. Too many “free gifts” in the internet marketing world are not really gifts at all, but thinly veiled sales pitches that people have to sign up for.

I realize this has become common practice… and there’s certainly a time and place for that in a marketing strategy… and, at the same time…

Why not give a valuable, amazing free gift that they really want, that they can use immediately and digest fully, and get deep value from? They’ll really notice and be impressed by a gift that fills a real need – that doesn’t simply open them up to a new need or shine the light on some gap or deficiency in their approach.

And, when was the last time that you gave something away that was really free? I mean that there’s no hoops to jump through and no forms to fill out. That you are giving to them with the true energy of gifting. Because you have created this gift especially for them, and you want them to have it – not because you want anything in return.

Try this – create a short and impactful free report. Tell your clients all about how to do one small, specific task. Give them resources or point them to tools. Package that gift lovingly. And then send it to all of your clients and invite them to send it to everyone they know. Include a two-line invitation to learn more at the end, plus a one-paragraph bio so that new people can get to know you. See what happens!

There is one final thought I’d love to leave you with – both of these traits need to be backed by genuine interest and attention, of course.

About the Author
Erin Ferree is a branding coach, design genius and strategic thinker. She loves connecting the dots between passion and profit, mixing strategy and inspiration and shaking things up. She’s branded over 450 small businesses in the last 10 years. Erin works with entrepreneurs who want to help more people and create an open, honest, inviting brand with integrity – instead of using icky, pushy, sleazy marketing tactics and trickery. Learn more at http://brandstyledesign.com