A good article below from Brian Tracy….. So often, still, communication, lack of it or tone of voice directly or on email is one of the biggest causes for grumbles and unhappiness in businesss
“””Did you know that your ability to communicate effectively with others will do more to make you successful than any other skill that you can develop?
Nearly 85% of what you accomplish in your career and in your personal life will be determined by how well you can get your message across, how capable you are of inspiring other people to take action on your ideas and recommendations.
Once you’re able to master the skill of powerful communication, you’ll be living a life full of unlimited happiness. Imagine being able to express yourself openly and honestly to the degree in which others are influenced to do something because of what you have to say and HOW you say it.
Even if you are limited in education, experience or intelligence, being able to communicate effectively with others is the most powerful, un-limiting success tool you could ever have.
Nearly 99% of all of the difficulties between human beings, and within organizations are caused by breakdowns in the communication process. Either people do not say what they mean clearly enough, or other people do not receive the message that was sent in the form in which it was intended.
The good news is that effective communication is a learned skill.
Read the rest of the article….
Category: Communications
The pronouns you use on your website matter
I enjoyed this article by Graham Jones, internet psychologist. My clients will know I’m often ‘going on’ about pointing out the benefits of your service or product for your reader (WIIFM), how you’re going to solve the reader’s problem, so your copy HAS to be all about the reader. Still though many many website are all about the ‘author’ instead of about the reader. Is yours? check it out now. And if your website is starting with “Welcome to my website” call for help immediately!
“You matter; not just you, personally, but the word “you”. It is significant. Yet much of the Internet uses “we”. “We do this”, “we do that” are the kind of phrases you see all over the web. Indeed you might think that the Internet is weed all over.
Focusing on you visitor or customer is a well-worn mantra, of course. We all know that we do better if we focus on their needs. Oh bother, let’s write that again: you know that you do better when you focus on their needs. See, that’s different?” 3rd May 2013 By Graham Jones
Read the whole article here
Another great article from Psychotactics.com. I’m a great fan of New Zealand based Sean de Souza
“How To Write Faster and Better Using The Power of Limitations
When you walk into an ice-cream parlour, something weird occurs. We look up to the board and find twenty or thirty flavours of ice-cream. And to most of us, this doesn’t even seem weird. We expect to have tons of choice.
But notice what you’re doing as you step up to order your ice-cream”
Click here to link to the rest of the article
A great article by Bruce Kasanoff on working with your customers when things don’t go to plan. I had a very much smaller but similar experience many years back when in direct sales and the company supplying the goods had a strike and everything was delayed by a month. No comparison I know to the below story but nonetheless, many of my colleagues were having their orders cancelled. I didn’t lose any because I let them know how it was and kept them informed. “Simples” really.
Many years ago, my boss at The Danbury Mint had placed an ad in Smithsonian Magazine for a 1934 Packard Speedster model car. Far beating all expectations, 5,000 people ordered the car.
The problem was that the supplier he hired couldn’t make the car to our standards. We were advertising precision die-cast models, and they were making cheap toys. He left the company, and I inherited the business.
Die-cast is not like digital. It takes many months to make new tooling, and then to produce the models. To make matters worse, I had to convince my superiors to leave our original supplier in Macau, to increase by a factor of five our investment in each new model car, and then I had to find suppliers actually capable of meeting the exacting standards we had advertised.”……..
Read the rest of the article here
The problem was that the supplier he hired couldn’t make the car to our standards. We were advertising precision die-cast models, and they were making cheap toys. He left the company, and I inherited the business.
Die-cast is not like digital. It takes many months to make new tooling, and then to produce the models. To make matters worse, I had to convince my superiors to leave our original supplier in Macau, to increase by a factor of five our investment in each new model car, and then I had to find suppliers actually capable of meeting the exacting standards we had advertised.”……..
Read the rest of the article here
Challenging article by Hubspot’s Mike Volpe…
… “My blood curdles every time I hear someone talk about doing a ‘social media campaign’ or ‘blog campaign.’ Blogs and social media behave like compound interest, so if you treat them like ‘campaigns,’ you lose all the benefits. Marketers should be permanently creating, optimizing, promoting, converting, and analyzing.” ……
“Stop the madness of coming up with an entirely new theme and creative concept every three months. Start having a long-term view of your brand, message, and voice — and what value your company can add to your industry. Stop blasting and interrupting people with advertisements about you. Start being helpful . Start listening. Start communicating. Start publishing. Stop advertising. Start marketing”
Read the article here
Read the article here
Listen to the podcast here
or read the article below…
Some of you are regular attendees; others not sure and others again absolutely hate it. I have always networked and passionately believe in its value. When working in the telecoms sector and establishing an office here in the South West, I gained at least one third of my business through networking. And, equally important, those customers remain loyal and don’t get whisked away when the next ‘too good to miss’ telesales call comes in – so long, of course, that you have ‘done what you say on the tin’ and given them the very best customer service. So do give it a try.
But before you start: you must make the time to follow up every interesting conversation/potential lead from each event within a couple of days. If you’re not prepared to do this, then probably worth waiting until you can follow up effectively.
I’ve jotted down a few pointers to help you:
61% of the complaints the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received in 2011 were about misleading advertising. That equates to about 80% of the ads it looked in to. Making sure you don’t mislead people might seem straightforward, but it is a broad area that can require careful navigation by marketers in all sectors. So here we give a quick guide on how to avoid the most common pitfalls.
Sales tips to improve effectiveness
Generally people buy to make themselves feel better or to solve a problem. People buy for the ‘afters’ ie they go to University because the ‘afters’ can give them better job prospects. What ‘afters’ are you giving? What do you ‘leave behind’ after you have made the sale – a better lifestyle? more sales/profit? Really important to identify and communicate it.
How will you sell each product/service? – (to your already identified target market)
From my newsletter 25th May 2012
Just the people with marketing in their job title or ????
What about the person answering your calls – the first contact with your clients and prospects. First impressions, good call handling all very important. And the first contact in your office for visitors. Certainly part of marketing. And it’s at this initial point it is SO easy to enquire ‘may I ask whether you were recommended to us or xxxxx” This information is absolutely critical to focus efforts and test and measure expenditure on promotions.
Then how the call is handled, the enquiry dealt with, the information sent back to client/prospect. That’s all critical too in the customer journey.
“What happens when you make a promise to your customers, and then discover that your promise will be impossible to keep?