bc Archives - Page 344 of 959

Delegation 2: I Can't Let Someone Else Do That!!

June 16, 2009 by Liz

No One Can Do This Like I Would

Delegation is the art and a science of communication needs. For most of us, it’s a skill we acquire, not a talent that comes naturally. Delegation takes practice in order to fully share
enough information for another person to complete a task successfully. Have you ever left a meeting sure you knew what to do, only to realize later that you didn’t understand. Yeah, me too.

More than that, it takes the ability to communicate the importance of the task and to negotiate a work agreement that shifts the accountability for making sure that the task is on time, complete, and of high quality.

Before you delegate a job, have a plan to communicate to the person who’s joining your project. Great communication will help in making sure that you pass on accountability and a sense of mission with the work that you’re handing over.

Start with the big picture. Decide what every person on the project must know. Offering the big picture context helps a new player immediately frame decisions and judgment calls properly.
Show where this piece fits. By placing the delegated assignment into the context. We communicate its importance to us and to the success of the project.
Explain and show exactly what a good result would look like. Write guidelines or goals for the task. Have examples of a prototype or something similar that you and the delegatee can discuss. Take the time to say what you want and what you like.
Invest more time if the meeting can’t be face to face. When a conversation isn’t face-to-face, communication degrades significantly. Some figures say it goes as low as 35% comprehension without visual reinforcement. Send an agenda or samples before you meet.
Know your goals and how you’ll check whether you’ve communicated clearly. Include and early sample to check that messages you think you communicated are the same ones that were heard. A quick look at a first step can save a project gone way off kilter.

The minute we delegate, communication becomes key. Unfortunately in an effort to show respect for other professionals we often tell them less than they need to know and still think we’re telling them too much. In like manner rather than looking like they don’t know, the often ask less than they might.

What’s the single biggest error you find you make when you’re asking someone to do work for you?

Tomorrow … Delegation Happens: Working with Friends Can Be Dangerous

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Buy the Insider’s Guide. Learn how to write so that the Internet talks back!

Delegation: How Do You Scale Up and Still Do Your Best Work?

June 15, 2009 by Liz

DELEGATION 1

No One Can Do This Like I Would

The single social media questions I hear most is:

How do I find time do it all?

I usually answer, “You can’t and I don’t think you’d want to, even if you could.”

We all can only do what’s humanly possible.
We all get the same 24 hours in the same day.

So what’s the best way to get things done in the time that we have?

How Do You Scale Up and Still Do Your Best Work?

Communication might be easier, even quicker through technology, but more people further apart take longer to communicate with. Take, for example, a simple request for information. One message might get to 20 friends, but not all of them will get and respond to that message at the same time in the same way. Not all of them will respond completely. Some will not respond at all. Some will misread or not read the directions and send information that doesn’t help.

Time is an unrenewable resource. We can’t make more. So how do we make the best use of the time that we have?

Analyze the work you do to find your high impact value and core compentencies. Why do people hire you? What do you do that makes the most difference? Isolate those tasks and skills. No one is expert at every step of the process. Decide which steps are where you add the highest value. Is it planning, service, execution, design, management, writing, administration? Choose no more than two.
Identify the skills and tasks that you do least efficiently — those that you like least, those that you don’t do well, those that anyone can do.
Change the way you work to offer those tasks to someone who does them better than you do.

That’s right, the way to offer more of our best work is to delegate. It’s easy to think that no one would do it like we would. And it’s probably true.

But different isn’t the same as wrong and sometimes different is better.

The trick is knowing what to delegate and knowing that we don’t have to delegate the WHOLE task. We can delegate chunks.

Start with the obvious stuff. Let fresh eyes read your work for errors. Ask another person to key in the changes. Those are tasks that are easily isolated and executed by someone who’s probably more proficient at them than we are. We can check the final before it goes out.

When we pass on the tasks that we don’t like, don’t do well, and don’t need to do, we can put the best of our time where it makes the most difference — doing what only we can do.

How so you offer more of your best work when you’re scaling up?

Part 2 tomorrow … Delegation 2: I Can’t Let Someone Else Do That!!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Buy the Insider’s Guide. Learn how to write so that the Internet talks back!

Thanks to Week 190 SOBs

June 13, 2009 by Liz

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Shout It Out for Libraries!

June 12, 2009 by Liz

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Using Sales Techniques in Relationship Management

June 11, 2009 by SOBCon Authors

Long Term Customers With New Needs

Most sales people have experienced that moment when a customer says, “Oh, you have that? I just ordered one from someone else!” Often this happens because we have failed to continue to treat existing customers as prospects.

Even with a reliable customer, we may miss opportunities when our product line or their responsibilities change.

woman-phone On every call be sure to:

Find out what’s changed for them since you spoke last
Alert them to any changes in your product line or services
Make sure they have your latest catalog or product list
Go back and ask again, “I know you said you don’t need _____, has anything changed since we last spoke about that?”

Even our most loyal customers won’t buy from us unless they know we can fulfill a need when they need it fulfilled, and they don’t have our catalog memorized.