Just today I wrote an email to a potential client I met with two weeks ago. In it I wrote this phrase I know my enthusiasm can be huge. We’d gotten into a conversation about blogs and how they were changing the world.
I wish that I had read the article I found exploring later that afternoon. It’s a piece by Anil Dash at Six Apart News called How to keep blogs from scaring the hell out of people. It’s just packed with truths. [Read more…]
In an hour or so, I move my computer downtown to a hotel in Chicago while I attend a literacy convention. I know. I know. I live here. I could stay at home.
It’s a bit of a financial hit. Convention hotels in Chicago aren’t particularly inexpensive, but I see it as an investment in my customers and myself.
It’s hard enough to give my clients my undivided attention at a convention of 15,000 attendees. I want to have the flexibility to be at their exhibit booth when meetings inevitably are rescheduled. I want to be around for the after-hours events when relationships become real.
An adage in publishing, perhaps in every business, says:
Quality. Schedule. Budget. Pick Two.
What’s the right choice? Is it always the same two?
Besides it will be fun, sending you notes from the convention. Any advice you have for me while I’m there?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related articles
Don’t Pay Attention — Are You Curious?
Better Than Hi! How Are Ya?
Do You Know a Customer When You See One?
It was an interview with the Chairman of the Board of a publishing company. We had just taken a break. I came back from stretching my legs to find six 4ft. x 8ft. foam core boards that made one GIANT flow chart, supposedly outlining the publishing process in complete and total detail.
I thought, “Ohmygod. They’re one of those kinds of companies.”
He said, “So, what do you think of that?”
I said, “I believe it was very useful for the folks who put it together.”
I usually think of work situations like I would a dating relationship You don’t date a guy thinking you’ll change him. That I took this job thinking I could change this company was just wrong. [Read more…]
Two words I guard ferociously when it comes to my brand — customers and credibility. They, in fact, mean the same thing as Brand You and Me. I cannot think of better brand promotion than valuing customers and earning credibility.
Darren is running a fabulous series on Credibility. If you’ve not been there yet. You need to be. There’s nothing else like it on the Internet.
Come back and tell me what you think of it.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related articles
5 Sure-Fire Ways to Break the Promise of Your Brand
Customer Think: Iââ¬â¢m Not a Kid, Iââ¬â¢m a Person
Brand YOUââ¬âWhen An Apology Is in Order
Brand YOUââ¬âHandling Problems
Pay attention.
How many times have you heard those two words?
What did they really mean?
To me they meant sit up straight; fold your hands; and be quiet. Look and listen?
I used to think life was all about paying attention. I don’t think that anymore.
Paying attention is passive. I don’t wait for things to come to me.
The world moves faster than waiting allows. If you want to know things, you have to do more than pay attention. Observing only provides half of the story. You have to get out there and find out things. That means you have to be active–get curious. Ask questions. Get interested in everything. Don’t leave an idea uncovered.
Pick a block of time today. Question everything you do. Use curious questions like these to build your business.
We have this way of fooling ourselves into believing that everyone thinks as we do.
After you’ve gotten curious about how you do things, check out whether other people do things the same way as you. That’s the whole point, you see.
I need curiosity to know my customers, my readers. I’m lucky. I’m weird enough that people have made it clear that I’m not focus group material in any way — but my curiosity is influence. It changes how I think and how people see my business. Curiosity connects. It forges links. My curious questions establish my interests and seal my one-of-a-kind value.
Still, you’re one of a kind too. Things you do in your own way or in a way that’s different from many of your customers, deep curious questions you ask establish that. Sharing your curiosity adds value to a business.
As a customer, I value a brand that’s curious about what I like. It makes me curious about the people behind the brand. I want to get to know them and once that happens, I want to do business with them too.
How might you use curiosity to promote your brand?
Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!
HAS POWER. I found that out last night. It was exciting. Here’s what happened.
In yesterday’s article, Job [and Client] Hunting ala Liz, I added three bits of advice I had learned about negotiating meetings. This was one.
The first one to name a number loses. To me thatââ¬â¢s self-explanatory. If I say a number, theyââ¬â¢re not going to go higher. If they ask, I usually answer with . . . what the work is worth, letââ¬â¢s talk a little more about whatââ¬â¢s involved and what you usually pay for this kind of work.
I found out in less than 2 hours I was wrong. WAY COOL. [Read more…]