An Open Thought: Please Take the Keys

April 16, 2006 by Liz 58 Comments

32 Reallys

Last night, Gary paid me a stellar compliment for the whole world to see in two separate places. Wow, it was such a cool gesture, on so many levels, and totally unexpected. After a certain age, unexpected surprises aren’t usually good, so that made it even better.

On top of that, what Gary said underscored what I had said in the post that had started the entire chain of events–if you take a few minutes to do a favor for someone it often comes back in the most unexpected ways. Thank you, Gary. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Keith.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. As my son used to say, “32 reallys.”

A Path of Favors

A whole string of events have occurred to lead up to this post. I think of them as a path of favors. One conversation led to another and then to another until we are here. The chain of events, the path of the two favors in question, went like this.

The Path of These Two Favors

2. I was already at the keyboard when each man asked. Each favor took almost no time. Both favors were a fun break from the boring work I was doing, and both times I was left with a feeling of doing well by doing something good for someone else.

3. My small gesture came to me in not two, but three, unexpected ways–from Joe, Keith, and then Gary.

Then a bonus occurred.

4. Inside his response, Gary did me a favor in return without knowing it.

That’s the thing about favors and saying YES–the universe often starts saying YES back in so many ways. Favors reproduce faster than Easter bunnies (and folks don’t bite their heads off.)

Leaving a Thought Open

You see, I’ve been working on a problem with my writing, especially the writing I do on this blog. Conversation is so important to me. It gets lonely here inside the computer, and ideas need dialogue to grow. The blogosphere doesn’t need me talking at it. It needs folks talking together, shaping ideas–twisting and turning them, stretching them into new thinking. Besides, it’s more fun that way.

Gary stated my problem for me last night in a tactful and generous way–much better than I could have done myself. He said

I used to comment more than I do now, but she writes so completely that I find it difficult to add my thoughts to hers.

I know that’s a compliment, Gary. Thank you.

I value your mind and your thoughts and insights too. I can’t seem to figure out how to leave a thought open enough so that you and everyone else can have room to speak.

That’s the problem I’ve wanted to ask you about. My book background taught me to over-explain things. When I do that, you have no room to talk.

The Lost Relationship Builder

This particular skill, this blogger’s relationship builder–leaving a thought open–I had this skill not ago–It seems to be one I’ve lost track of. I keep tying things up so tightly, even I can see there’s not room to add much. I’ve been reading old posts to find out what I did differently a few months ago, especially this one, More Blog Designs to Discuss.

That was December 2005. Obviously my customer think was different then. It had to be. I’d love to get some of that back. We all need that skill.

Please Take the Keys

Movie stars have directors. Olympic athletes have coaches. I’m just a blogger. I have you.

If we’re talking about customer think–brand you and me–what better case study than this blog itself? You can’t hurt my feelings talking about my writing. I know it’s not who I am. I’d like to know how to get myself off the stage and back into the audience again. Will you tell me what you see? Would you do me that favor? Just say YES.

Sometimes the customer needs to be in the driver’s seat. Please take the keys.

How will I learn if you don’t?

Brand you and me.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Just Say YES!

April 15, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Unless There’s a Really Good Reason Not to

When someone asks for a favor, just say yes. Most favors don’t take as long as thinking up a reason to turn them down would. Doing one feels better than turning one down does. You might be surprised at the ways that the favor comes back to you. I was reminded of that twice just this week with a lovely gesture and a clever response to a request for a critique. Take a look, if you have the time. I’d love for them to get them your comments.

There’s no rule that says you can’t run a business and have a heart. In fact, I look for a heart in the people I do business with.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Customer Think: IÃ¢â¬â¢m Not a Kid, IÃ¢â¬â¢m a Person
Customer Think: Saying Things without Talking
5 Sure-Fire Ways to Break the Promise of Your Brand

Customer Think: I’m Not a Kid, I’m a Person

April 12, 2006 by Liz 32 Comments

Grouping People Doesn’t Work

Each year when my son started school with a new teacher, I would wait about three weeks. Then I would make an appointment to see her. I would bring along a few cool books I had carefully selected for her classroom as a gift. I gave her the three weeks because I wanted my son’s teacher to have a chance to get to know this rare and brilliant child on his own–we needed a common place to speak from. I brought the books because I wanted my child to move from being a “boy in class” to being a person–a child with a name, whose mother knows about books and cares about him.

I did those things because I was a teacher once. I know how easy it is to think of those faces as “the kids in my class,” not as individual people. Teachers are human beings and when you’re faced with 20-30 small people to get to know, it doesn’t happen very fast. The sad news is that extreme cases get center stage. Think of the names you remember from your early school days–they’re the extremes: the kids who were really smart, really bad, or really good friends with you. The rest become a blur. We’re human we make groups and unfortunately, we like to group people too.

Grouping people doesn’t work for getting to know them as individuals.

My son taught me that when he was all of three. I said, “Hey kid, let’s go.”
He stopped cold in his tracks, looked at me, and said, “I’m not a kid. I’m a people.”

We Have Relationships with People

We don’t have relationships with customers, or with users, or with eyeballs. We have relationships with people. It may sound like semantics, but it’s more than that. How we use words points to how we think and how we value ideas. If we think customer first and then person, we’re thinking backwards. Humanity wins out every time. Take care of the person and the personal relationship, and the work will take care of itself. Try it. It’s true. When we show people that we value them, they hardly ever let us down.

The reason that humanity wins is because real customer relationships are built around customer needs and desires. Needs and desires are individual human things, packed with individual human quirks and nuances. Sure there are patterns in any human group. You can even pile those patterns into demographics if you want. Stay at that level, and you’ll be skating on the surface where there’s only information and no heart.

I can’t begin to know my customers, if I don’t know what’s in their hearts.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Customers, visitors, and readers are people, not users, traffic, stats, or any other word that steals their humanity and steals our own humanity as well. It’s brand YOU and ME–together. My three-year-old customer-son was right to set me straight when he said, “I’m a people, not a kid.”

Who doesn’t want to walk into a restaurant where everybody knows your name? Who wouldn’t rather work with someone who knows who you are and cares about the things you care about? Who hasn’t had the experience of being treated like less than a person by a clerk, a doctor, or a boss? Didn’t that make you want to say, “Hey, I’m a person I have a name.”?

Do something small today to show a reader, a customer, or a visitor–someone who’s just met you–that you know that he or she is a person of value. See what happens. Then see how many times today people treat you–a customer–in that same personal way.

A business that values me as a person has my business and my brand loyalty from minute one. By week three, they’ll have the business of all my friends as well. There is no better promotion than valuing customers as the people that they are.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Introducing Customer Think

April 12, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Uh-oh I’ve Been Thinking Again

What happens when you cross thinking outside of the box with personal branding?

Customer Think–a series that takes Brand YOU outside the box to become Brand YOU & ME. We’ve let the world know who we really are and how to see the unique value we bring as individuals. It’s time that we do the same in return. We’ll be getting to know customers in a strategic, deep thinking way–from an outside-of-the-box, inside-of-the-customer perspective. So hang on.

You’ll be finding out plenty about customers, by finding out more about yourself. That’s the Brand YOU and ME part.

And just about everyone in our lives is a customer in some way, if you tilt your head to look at it from just the right angle. This isn’t your father’s business skills class, it’s life and business for the 21st century in that uniquely Liz way.

You know there will be nothing like it anywhere else.

Brand YOU and ME–can you think of a more natural way to promote your business, your brand, or yourself, than being able to think like your customers?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

5 Sure-Fire Ways to Break the Promise of Your Brand

April 10, 2006 by Liz 9 Comments

Brand YOU Common Sense

All of this Brand YOU conversation really does come down to common sense. In order to make a strong place for yourself in the world of business, you need to know yourself. You need to capitalize on your strengths and shore up your weaknesses, to find ways to let people know how you add value, and to think deeply so that you can speak to the unique assets that you bring to everything that you do.

Being able to do those things puts you ahead of most folks–if you keep the ideas in perspective–because most follks don’t quite understand the concept of brand versus product or store. Keep in mind your brand is a promise you make. Not everyone will take you up on it. Some will look for you to break that promise. One day, in some way, you probably will.

5 Ways to Break the Promise of Your Brand

Here are 5 sure-fire ways to break the promise of your personal brand.

1. Build a brand on what you wish you were instead of what you are. You’ve taken time to build a brand. You’ve gathered the attributes and strengths that you want people to see as yours. But they’re really just pipe dreams–wishes instead of realities. Your promise was made on false pretenses. People recognize soon enough when you’ve oversold yourself. They see it in what you can’t do. You not only lose your brand. You lose any credibility you might have had. It’s exponentially higher, if not impossible, to win back trust, than it is to earn trust you never had.

2. Crack under pressure. Sail along smoothly as a calm and charismatic leader until the chips get down, then lose it all and fall apart. It doesn’t matter whether you whine and shake, or yell and stammer. Lose your humanity, your leadership skills, your sense of humor and your brand is lost right with them. You broke your promise when it counts.

3. Change with the weather. A brand is a promise that you’ll always be there–you, the you that folks have come to know. Your coworkers and business relations don’t want to get to know you every time they meet you. They want a brand they can believe in. Consistency is a cornerstone of any brand. If you’re not consistent you don’t have a brand. Folks don’t make promises with the wind.

4. You don’t believe you. You know what you want to be, and in your heart you want to be it. You just don’t believe you ever will. If you don’t believe you, why in the world would I? It’s not good business to bet on a promise that starts with I’m not so sure, but I want to try.

5. You think Brand YOU is an entitlement. Whoa! Slow down cowboy. This isn’t a rodeo, and you don’t have the silver buckle yet. You see Brand YOU isn’t really about you at all. It’s about the customer, and the customer is every person who is NOT you–the folks you work with and those you serve. Brand YOU is merely a way of communicating to them what you stand for in shorthand so that you can get on to the relationship of working together with some common knowledge of each other as already established ground. The promise should be that you’re there for THEM.

Just like any broken promise, no personal brand at all is better than a broken personal brand.

Turning Brand YOU Upside-Down

Now that you’ve identified your personal brand and you know what it’s there for. It’s time to turn it upside-down. It’s time to add the most crucial part of it. ME–Well, me the customer. The customer is the reason you made a brand in the first place. The customer is the one who lets you know what your brand really is.

Now Brand YOU becomes Brand YOU & ME. Two is a lot more fun. Just wait I’ll show you why and how.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Perfect for Friday Productivity Checklist

April 7, 2006 by Liz 7 Comments

Productivity. Everyone wants it, thinks they have some of it, and loses it faster than they realize. Here are some things you might check and do on a Friday afternoon to feeling better about starting the week again on Monday morning.

Perfect for Friday Productivity Checklist

2. Use that half-hour to organize everything on your desk. Put things away. Lay out things that still need attending to. Mark what needs to be done. Make a to-do list, if that’s your way.

3. Make a plan for next week–at the least, decide what you will tackle first on Monday and what your three most important goals will be.

4. Do an office check. Are the things you use most closest to where you use them? If not, move them, so that they will be. Are the files you access most on your computer only one click away? If not, move them so that they will be.

5. Order the Monday tasks by putting what you can get done fastest first. Do this for two reasons. It will start your week with a quick sense of accomplishment, and you’ll be able to pass on what you finished–that means that when you move on to task two, someone else can be starting on what was your task one.

Then consider the week closed, leave the office at work, give your brain a break, and have a weekend. What a great way to promote yourself and your brand to anyone who walks by on their way home for the weekend. It says a lot for your personal brand–almost everyone wishes their office looked like it could be in a magazine . . .

Whether you work in a building away from home or in your bedroom, it’s boost to your Monday to walk back into a space that’s ready to work in.

What do you think when you see an office that looks well taken care of?

–ME “Liz” Strauss