Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

15 Ways to Help the People in Your Business and Your Life

Filed Under Business Life, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 4 Comments

A Guide to Customer Service and Relationships of Sorts

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Our economy has become so self-service, we’ve all gotten good at knowing what we need and how to get things done for ourselves. Yet, the social business culture has also taught us that the most powerful question in business is “How can I help you?” Imagine if we took that “help you” view to every person we know.

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In his book, B-A-M!: Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World, business author and entrepreneur Barry J Moltz replaces customer service myths with a tactical approach that shows companies how to make more money through attitudes and actions that will help their customers feel satisfied in good times or bad. Creating satisfied customers is the only enduring competitive advantage left in a world market where virtually everything is a commodity. His advice applies to every blog, every business and every life.

He’s talking about treating customers — people — as if they count.

I’ve read Barry’s book twice now. Once as a manual on customer service and again as a guide for relationships of every kind. The validity of his guidance is that the advice works both ways. I don’t think he’ll mind if apply his customer service ideas to business relationships and replace the word customers with the word people when I restate of few of his ideas.

  1. Define your relationships deliberately, conversationally, and indirectly by observing and listening to what people say to and about you.
  2. Be personable and gracious toward every person at all times.
  3. Treat people with dignity and respect.
  4. Consider the other person’s needs, deadlines, goals, and point of view first.
  5. Encourage them to talk and listen carefully to what they say.
  6. Understand their expectations before we go beyond them.
  7. Anticipate in good ways with friendliness, openness, and patience.
  8. Talk to people one at a time and treat every person as an individual.
  9. Build trust by letting them be part of a balanced give and take.
  10. Remove negative talk and negative views from all of your interactions.
  11. Put quality in everything you do.
  12. Find some quality to admire in the actions of everyone in your life.
  13. Offer training or guidance and leave room for people who color outside the lines.
  14. Celebrate your advocates and fans. Get to know your critics, they understand you better than you might suspect.
  15. At the end of each day, measure your success by looking in the mirror.

Not every person’s opinion is of equal value, of course. Not every one will see you as you truly are. But every person is a human, at the very least find room to respect the lifeform.

People don’t care how good we are, until they know that we care. It’s the care that drives the service. A problem handled with respect and care brings us closer. It’s the care that keeps them with us even when things go a little wrong.

We’re learning about that “how I can help you”? question. Have you found it has power in your life too?

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Trusting Ourselves, Structure Damage, and Recovering

Filed Under Business Life, Marketing, Successful Blog | 4 Comments

A Project Post by Liz Strauss and Kristi Daeda

I’ve been working on a special project with Kristi Daeda, an awesome friend, writer, and career counselor. Our project will take many forms for people working on true trust and business relationships. Right now we’re working on breaks in our trust and world view. We’ve named them structure damage.

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What Is Structure Damage?

It can happen when the world seems most in order. Suddenly, without warning, someone or something pulls the rug out of from under us. Trusting what’s next can be hard.

Structure damage occurs when we are faced with a change that we’re not prepared to deal with. The change can be big or small, it can occur in our professional lives or our personal lives, it can be something that happens to us or something that we realize or decide that changes the way we see the world.

Not every change causes structure damage. Structure damage is when change moves us into that fight-or-flight mode, impacting our emotions, behavior or worldview. The change doesn’t have to represent a threat, it only has to be perceived as one.

If you want to catch the situation before it gets out of hand, get in touch with what’s normal for you, and what’s abnormal. If you’re experiencing any of the following, you might be suffering from a shaking foundation.

In high-stress situations, you may also experience physiological effects — things like your heart pounding, difficulty focusing, or headaches.

If you normally feel confident and in control, dramatic swings from even keel are a sign that something’s up. That’s your opportunity to ask yourself why you’re feeling the way that you are. Start working backwards — when did you start feeling this way? Did something trigger that change? What about that trigger situation upset you? Keep tracking, and you might be able to find the source — the body blow.

How to minimize the impact

Cultivate flexibility … a few words from Kristi …

Most people think of bridges as static structures. Concrete and steel, built to weather all manner of abuse. But bridges have hinges and joints. They flex and sway in the wind. Their components are engineered to not only be strong enough to bear the weight of traffic, but also to bend to carry the weight of traffic and respond to the elements. It’s this flexibility that allows this giant machine to function, bearing the impact, working with the conditions.

Growing up, my definition of a successful life was to pursue an education, get a job in a traditionally respected, intellectual, moderately lucrative field, get married, have kids, and buy a house in the suburbs. I had a few gifts to bring to the table, but perhaps one of the most notable was my ability in math and science. It was a natural progression to consider engineering as a field.

When I got to college, I struggled with my classes. Not because I wasn’t capable, but because I couldn’t motivate myself to do the work. For someone who has never had a shortage of drive, this was unsettling. What was wrong with me? I ended up frustrated, confused. I tried to reconcile my definition of success with what I was feeling every day — that I was on the wrong path.

My entire worldview — the plan I had laid out for myself, the rules that I lived by — was on very shaky ground.

The structure damage I experienced was to my understanding of success.

There’s a difference between being in control and being prepared. Being prepared allows you to create a platform for success as you’ll be ready to deal with most issues that come your way. The effort to be in control can only lead to frustration — the world is so large, and your span of control is really miniscule in comparison.

We’ve all found ourselves in a situation where someone or something has moved what we believe. Winners take up the gauntlet and find a new set of rules.

How do you recover when structure damage strikes where you live?

–ME “Liz” Strauss and Kristi Daeda
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How Do You Decide Who Is Trustworthy?

Filed Under SOB Business, Successful Blog | 15 Comments

I've been thinking . . .

about trust.

I look at the drops on this flower and trust they’re water.

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Truth changes. Water evaporates. Other clear liquids last longer in camera lights.

With the water, I would see it, feel it — I’d recognize water without thinking.
If it wasn’t water, it would feel and react wrong, suspect, inauthentic.

It’s the same with people.
Trustworthy people, I recognize without thinking.
The ones I don’t trust feel and react wrong, suspect, inauthentic.

Trust can be bravery, instinct, learned experience, or blind stupidity.

How do you decide who is trustworthy?

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Building A Powerful Personal Developmental Network - Is Your Next Teacher on Twitter?

Filed Under Business Book, Strategy, Successful Blog | 12 Comments

Great Networks and Partners Are Where You Find Them

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Last week was an exciting example of how Twitter has moved seamlessly into our lives. I left for D.C. on Wednesday stayed through Monday. It was the most productive week. Ideas were flying. Plans were being made.

How could so much happen in a city where I’ve hardly spent time?

It started with a quick conversation on Twitter with @SweetSue about her blog. Next thing you know, Susan Kuhn Frost, and I were planning an Association conference over several long phone calls, twitter DMs, and emails.

Susan had reached out to her networks — online and offline. I did to mine too. By the time I arrived in the capitol city. We had a week of meetings planned that made the conference and the content come together in record time. In the process, I think we both taught each other a lot. I’m delighted to have her in my network.

But I bet the story isn’t that unusual.

Building Your Powerful Personal Developmental Network - Is Your Next Teacher on Twitter?

Most of are great at seeing others, but it’s hard to see AND be the one we’re looking at. Whether we’re a company or an individual, it’s easy to find reasons that we made our successes, but that our failures were due to other circumstances. That’s where a powerful personal developmental network can keep things real.

In his new book, “Who’s Got Your Back?” Keith Ferrazzi talks about lifeline friends. They’re the sort of friends who hold us accountable and won’t let us fail. He suggests we build a handful of relationships based on vulnerability, generosity, candor, and accountability that’s reciprocal, constant, and intelligent.

Take Keith’s qualities and roll them into my definition of a Personal Developmental Network — a group of incredible people, individually chosen because of their unique abilities and their genuine interest in your success.

Imagine the power of that. It’s a personal board of directors time ten to the 23rd power!

Every day I touch base with people I trust — like Susan — to check my thinking and to stay accountable. Staying consistently in touch with my partners keeps the projects we’re working strong and able to move with action when opportunity arises.

My partners are a core part of my Personal Developmental Network — intelligent, incredible people, who help me stay on track with my most important goals. Many of my closest advisers are right there in my Twitter stream.

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Building A Powerful Personal Developmental Network - Is Your Next Teacher on Twitter?

Success for me, is when my whole life — head and heart — are focused on the same purpose. So my network helps me grow as a human meant to achieve something. I also believe that a network that grows with me will offer priceless depth and support.

To do that, build from the ground up.

1. Start with a foundation of concrete not sand.
– Qualitative Observations: Ask people who know you to describe your strongest traits — those that serve you well and those that get in the way. Make list. Then make a list of the kind of teachers who can teach you.

Use Twitter to ask questions and to find people who know what you’re looking to find out.

On Twitter, you’ll recognize the people who know you best by the way that they receive you. When we’re communicating people who know us, we don’t need to edit our behaviors for fear they’ll be misinterpreted. Explain why you’re asking and offer them more than one way to give you feedback: directly to you via DM, via email, or through an interview by a mutual friend.

– Quantitative Assessment: Check every test, performance appraisal, and personality measure you’ve taken. Ask your twitter friends for others that might offer a fresh view of your online persona. Learn what you can from all of them.

Use Twitter to find friends who have experience working with the tools or tests you choose. You might try a combination of Strengths Finder, the Enneagram, and the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory.

– Personal Reflection: Spend an hour / day for a week thinking about personal and business successes in your life. Look for traits and strategies that show up throw all of them.

2. Lay out a path.
Look three years down the road. Where do you see your best self? If you can’t pick a path, that’s a great place to start.

Pull it all together. Then look for online and offline partners who might help you define and refine what you found.

3. Wisely choose unique and valuable guides.
Choose people you would bet your life success and your reputation on — people who share your standards and your values, and who care enough never to let you fail. Choose people strong enough to tell you when they disagree. A strong network might include:

— a close friend who knows you and your history, both business and personal.
— someone from your business industry who knows you less well
— two or three someones who are from other industries
— two or three someones you respect and admire, but don’t know well

Use Twitter to choose people who can see the “you” people online see.

4. Check your bearings regularly.
Decide how you’ll meet with them. Will you call when you have questions or meet regularly? Will you meet one at a time? Check in with your network by asking, “How’ve I changed that you can see?”

Demand they hold you accountable. Do it by trading ways that you might hold them accountable for something they need to accomplish of their own.

5. Don’t Leave Out Learners.
People who are learning often teach us just by the questions they ask. Invite a learner to join your network to help you on your quest. That will make it easier to be a learner yourself.

When someone teaches you a skill, ask how you might use that skill to help that teacher. Ask questions, listen actively, and be first to offer a favor without strings. People remember sincere curiosity and true generosity. Add vulnerability and accountability and the combination is unstoppable, just as Keith Ferrazzi says.

6. Ask for Help — Communicate. Let your network know when you need help, when you have questions, or even when you need to vent safely. A developmental network that doesn’t know where we are can’t help.

A developmental network is not made from casual friending or among random followers. It’s the people who understand why we’re passionate about our calling. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find the right folks on Twitter and getting to know them well.

Wise teachers show up in all sorts of places.

Watch for and welcome every wise teacher you encounter. Wisdom and experience are a prize. True teachers show themselves by offering advice, expecting nothing in return. Mentors who come your way, offering experience and connections, see something in you. Let them help you discover what that is and what it could be if you let it grow.

Welcome all wise teachers into a Powerful Developmental Network, wherever you find them.

Nobody likes to go it alone, and it’s not a good idea. We need each other for information, insight, and inspiration.

Is your next teacher on Twitter? You never know.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Liz can help you find focus or direction, check out the Work with Liz!! page.

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What Would Need to Drive a Sexy Yellow Sports Car?

Filed Under Marketing, Successful Blog | 6 Comments

Context

All our lives we hear this statement.

Tell me what you need.

Do you hear it differently depending on the context?

When Is an Offer an Offer?

In the office supply store, “Tell me what you need.”
“I need a box of gel pens, colored file folders, and a nice notebook.”

In a project meeting, “Tell me what you need.”
“I need three months, two more designers, and a traffic manager.”

Planning a conference, “Tell me what you need.”
“I need a 3200 sq. ft. room with 30 small conference tables and 5 elegant executive chairs at each.”

Simple. Someone asks. We tell them what we require. We find out if our needs are available or if adjustments are in order.

But Then

When someone makes an offer of work to “die” for …

It can sound like this.
Would you like to

“Um, sure!”

“Tell me what you need.”
“I’m there!”

“Tell me what you need.”
“Whatever you’re offering.”

We wouldn’t use that response in the office supply store. “Tell what you need.”
“Whatever you’re offering.”

Not so simple. Not the best answer either.

Reality Check

Someone asks what we require. Do you give up your needs because the offer is cool?

Attractive work doesn’t stay attractive
when you work for less than you need.

Overlook the delightful; see past the golden; think through what it will cost you to explore that delicious adventure. Then you’ll know how to answer. “To drive your sexy yellow sports car for a year, I’d need … ”

Have you ever talked yourself right past the words, “Tell me what you need”?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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