Change the World: What if We Chose a Different Color?

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog, The Big Idea | 10 Comments

Don’t Decide in Anger

Change the World!

Awhile back I wrote about stories I would make up about the grains of the mahogany in the headboard of my childhood bed.

The wavy lines were roads to villages where people had feelings that came in colors — anger went from red to orange.

And in the villages, they couldn’t see when in my mind I’d change the universe. On joyful days, I’d see the wood in shades of purple. On quiet days, it would be blues to greens. Rarely there would be yellows. On angry, lonely days I’d see it go from red to orange.

Red to orange. How I remember that feeling.

Anger is a lonely place.

In the response, a friend, brad4d, spoke of wisdom and anger…

“Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind” ~ Rabelais ~ means to me, anger erases wisdom.

How skewed my thinking becomes when I feel angry. I lose sight. I lose perspective. I forget other people. I lose the wisdom and love of a lifetime. I lose the person I want to be.

Most times, I’m far from anger. Those days I’m a decent human being.

I know we couldn’t do it forever — I know we couldn’t all do it simultaneously.

But . . .

What if just once a whole bunch chose a different color? What if instead of the red of anger we chose the gold of compassion? How wise might the world start to be?

We can change the world, just like that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

4.6: Simple Sales 101 — How to Get Customers to Sell Themselves

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Perfect Virtual Manager, Successful Blog, The Big Idea | 5 Comments

Customers Get to Pick

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It’s a rule of childhood. Every kid seems to know it. I get to pick my favorite. You don’t. Some folks, as grownups, forget that simple truth. — they make us feel like we should let them pick for us.

That’s called the hard sell.

Ever been told, ‘You HAVE TO see this new product. You WILL LOVE our new service!” ?

What’s your response, right now, reading that? Mine is “You don’t know that! In fact, now I’m predisposed to like it just a little less.”

We’re hype adverse. Put that together with these natural human responses.

  • No one likes to be told what to think.
  • No one likes to lose the right to pick their favorite.
  • No one likes someone else to decide what they need.

We know other folks don’t get to pick — so when they talk as if they do, we back off. If you’ve met a sales rep who brings out these responses in you, it’s no wonder if you are having mixed feelings about taking on a sales role for what you do.

How to Get Customers to Sell Themselves

The question then is: How do we communicate an offer — a product or service — that we’re thrilled about and we’ve done all of the work to know folks will like it too, if only they’ll try it out?

Here’s what to do. You can do this in text or in person. (In text, point 2 looks a lot like an FAQ.)

  1. Offer a taste — a movie trailer. Make it a little one — spoon sized like at Baskin-Robbins 31 Flavors. It might be one example of what you do, a case study, a blog post that you keep for sending to clients, a free weekly seminar, a phone call with you. Whatever you choose. Keep it concise and tightly focused on only one idea. It’s only one scene from your movie — overcome a tendency we have to give the plot away. (Often having the taste as an option makes people feel secure enough to buy without it.)
  2. Make everything about THEM. Ask questions and listen. Hardly say anythng. Be a verifier. Repeat back what you heard, “I heard you say you’re looking for . . .” Ask questions in that way until you’ve helped them draw a complete picture of your product or service. “I also hear you want . . . and a . . . If I put that together I get a . . . with the features of . . . . Does that sound like the ideal that you wish someone would offer someday?”
  3. Listen to see how his or her needs line them up with your offer. When you see that, you’ll have the confidence to say so. “We actually do that! Would you like me to tell you about it?” (Don’t worry if the needs and your offer don’t line up, just say so and don’t try to make things work.)
  4. Talk to the customer/client unemotionally about what you have to offer. You’ll know that you’re going somewhere when the person you’re talking to starts selling you on why it’s a good match. That’s when it’s time to start listening again.

Letting the customer pick is the same as when we were kids. We know what we need and why. We’ll even justify for you why it works for us, in essence selling ourselves on why we should buy.

What do you need to give this a try?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to work with you on these three easy steps, you’ll find her number on the
Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar. Call her now!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

4.5: 25 Things that People — Our Key Customers — Really Want

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Perfect Virtual Manager, Successful Blog, The Big Idea | 18 Comments

Everyone Has Customers

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I’ve been thinking a lot about customers lately. We all have them. Some are traditional sorts. They come to our businesses and pay us for products or services. Some are a little less conventional — they come in a customer role for things that don’t cost. Blog readers, first graders, park users are customers like those. Other customers don’t seem like customers at all, but really they are . . . mothers, fathers, sons, daughters all rely on our services like customers.

So it seems that knowing what customers want is more than a good idea. With that many customers everywhere we look, knowing what keeps them on a happy note would seem more like survival. Don’t you think?

25 Things that People — Our Key Customers — Really Want

Whether we have a business or we are just in the business of living, it’s good to know what will help us deliver a smile on the faces of the folks we care most about.

This list works for every kind of customer I’ve been able to think up. (Don’t go getting kinky on me.)

  1. People want help solving a problem.
  2. People want folks to notice them.
  3. People want to be heard when they offer their thoughts.
  4. People want to feel smart.
  5. People want to be a part of things.
  6. People want to be generous and for you to be generous too.
  7. People want give and be good things and want you to give and be good things too.
  8. People want to not worry . . . about time, money, health, injury, or other danger.
  9. People want to know that you’ll be the same person or better than the last time they saw you.
  10. People want to be entertained.
  11. People want to be informed.
  12. People want to learn.
  13. People want to know you don’t say bad things about them.
  14. People want to know they aren’t a number or a metric.
  15. People want good cake not just icing on a bad one.
  16. People do want the truth. They just don’t want it delivered with a sledgehammer.
  17. People want to believe in something without someone picking on them for it.
  18. People don’t want innovation. They want things that make life more livable.
  19. People want things and experiences that make their fill their time more meaningfully.
  20. People want to be understood.
  21. People want their questions answered even when the answer is “I don’t know.”
  22. People want the right to make mistakes without losing every time they do.
  23. People want to make their own choices.
  24. People want to know that you value their differences.
  25. People want to know that you know they are people.

People aren’t hard to understand. We all were born one of them. The trick is to keep in mind that folks around us — even folks we don’t know –are people too. They have their own thoughts and desires in the same way we have ours. We can meet with them where we agree — 25 points up there give us plenty to start with.

In our lives and in our businesses, people are our only customers for our actions and behaviors. If we make it about THEM, everyone will be just a little bit nicer. Lose track of that and they’ll remind us.

What things do the people in your life want? Are you a product of your environment? Could you be a better one?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

4.4: The 7 Secrets to a Fiercely, Loyal Community of Readers

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Perfect Virtual Manager, Successful Blog, The Big Idea | 36 Comments

Reading Is My Life

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We all learned to read and kept on reading. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be here. I went on to learn about readers and literacy — how folks interact with text and ideas became my field.

Knowing about reading is a tricky thing. People think that because they can read they must know how it all works. Just underneath the surface are secrets they don’t realize . . . Why would they, unless readers have been their customers for years?

I’m going to share those secrets with you.

The 7 Secrets to a Fiercely, Loyal Community of Readers

Ever been to a great restaurant or club where the mood is right; the service is grand; and every offering is spectacular? When the whole experience comes together in just the right measure, we leave a place already thinking about when we’re going to go back.

Written information, when it’s presented well, has the same effect. It’s a great fit that’s so satisfying, we’re thinking about the experience as a whole and the feeling that we came away with.

These secrets have been researched with every age group from pre-school to graduate school and every reading level from pre-literate to way over my head. But I know you’ll know they work, not because I said so, but because when you read them they will totally make sense.

  1. Be interesting. Be entertaining. Be silly. Be informative. Be controversial. Be anything but preachy or boring. Contrary to popular belief, you CAN tell. You DO know. Take the time to look. If you don’t, you’re lost before you start.

  2. Be simple. Put away the big vocabulary words and the long sentences. Only use that incredible word once in an entire piece. Elegance is understated. Impact is quiet. Take away all of the words you can without losing meaning. Extra words get between your message and me.

  3. Be positive. Know what you’re saying and show me how to get to a positive end. No one wants a problems without a solution. No one wants to live every day reading about doom. Think about how you invest your time with friends . . . do the downers really get more than the ones who help make your world better?

  4. Be trustworthy and respectful. Be who you say you are. Deliver on your tagline. Make sure your headlines tell the story of what you write. Answer comments. Most of all, know what you don’t know and invite your readers to share what they do.

  5. Be consistent. Let folks know what to expect of and from you . . . and in like manner, what you expect of and from them. Every relationship is based on an exchange. Readers and writers exchange the same way. It’s okay if folks don’t like one of your features, if you are consistent about how you label things or when you offer them, you make it easy for folks to get to the content they appreciate.

  6. Be readable. Make sure that every word you write is readable without distraction in every browser that your readers use. Configure your content to serve readers. Some folks get confused and try to do it the other way around.

  7. Be generous and satisfying. Care passionately about what you write. Care even more about the folks who come to read it. Know that readers want to like you and what you write, just as diners want to like the chef and the food in a great restaurant. Let us look smart. Let us help. Let us feel important, connected, and a part of what you’re doing. In other words, make readers the stars.

Readers and a writer work have a relationship like diners and a chef. Only part of that relationship is what is served up from the menu, the rest is the experience. Every successful chef . . . writer . . . first grade teacher knows that.

That’s how we’ve been getting folks to come back for years.

Got more to add to the list? I’m thinking you do.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

4.3: 50 Reasons To Love You! — A Survey

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Perfect Virtual Manager, Successful Blog, The Big Idea | 4 Comments

Tell Me Why, Why, Why

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Ever wonder why someone is your friend? Ever think about what you have to offer? Do you just sail along wondering, or do you ask? Asking isn’t easy.

Maybe with friends it’s okay to take it on faith that we have that special “something,” that indescrible “who knows what” that gets our friends to keep coming around. But it sure doesn’t work in business.

When it comes to business, we need to understand what our customers think about us. It’s not an option in business. It’s not a “good thing to know.” It’s survival.

Knowing why our customers love us is the only way to attract more customers and grow. One great way to find out might be to send out a survey. Use the following traits to set up your own survey of traits you think are important to them and your business.

50 Reasons To Love You! — A Survey

Be sure to handwrite the opening sentences to make each request personal if you possibly can.

Hi, ______
I’d really like to know how think about (my/our) work. Could you take a minute to help us out? For each trait below would you write a letter rating? Feel free to cross out those you think don’t apply at all. Thanks!

The ratings are:

  • L= Love how you’re doing. Keep it up!
  • N = Not so in love. Could you try harder?
  • W = Would you work on this one? It would do us both a favor.

The Traits
Here’s how I rate working with you for the way you:

  1. move toward action
  2. adapt
  3. analyze
  4. define boundaries
  5. collaborate
  6. communicate important information verbally
  7. communicate important information in writing
  8. conceptualize
  9. connect
  10. see context
  11. are deliberate
  12. demonstrate
  13. describe
  14. design
  15. handle details
  16. develop an idea
  17. discipline
  18. empathize
  19. enjoy working
  20. explain
  21. are fair
  22. focus
  23. interact with ideas
  24. inform
  25. innovate
  26. use interpersonal skills
  27. learn
  28. manage meetings
  29. manage time
  30. manage teams
  31. manage projects
  32. market to my customers
  33. organize information
  34. organize processes
  35. have positivity
  36. are present
  37. prioritize across levels and processes
  38. problem solve
  39. productive
  40. question
  41. are responsible
  42. are rational
  43. respond
  44. research
  45. sell/persuade
  46. teach
  47. translate/interpret
  48. strategize
  49. use story
  50. have vision

Thank you for taking the time to tell me what you think. I’m listening.

Do personally sign each one.

Fifty reasons customers might love you and 50 ways to love your customers — how many have you already mastered? Could it be more than you expect?

Got more to add to the list?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

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