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Category: Leadership

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Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

Thanking Your Customers: How To Do It Correctly

Do you thank your customers for doing business with you? If not, you’re in good company. Most businesses don’t make an effort to thank the people who keep them in business. Yours doesn’t have to be one of them.

Don’t you want to stand out from the rest?  Of course you do!  I’m here to tell you how to do it for the ridiculously low price of just forty-nine cents!

Step back and think about the last time you received a hand-written card from someone you did business with.  Can’t remember?  It’s probably because you never received such a note. Still, think how good you would feel if you did. Your customers would feel just as good to receive a note of thanks from you. Making customers feel good equals stronger relationships with them, which translates into more referrals.  More referrals mean more business.  Get it?

How to Do It

The most effective way to thank your customers is to handwrite notes. So invest in a package of cards. Not standard ‘thank you’ cards, but a box of cards that resonate with you. I personally have several boxes. One has flowers while the other has beautiful landscapes.

With cards in hand, start sending them ASAP.  Every time you get a new customer, send a card thanking them for choosing to do business with your company. They could have gotten the product or service you provided from another company, but they chose to get it from you. You are obviously pleased by that decision – let the customer know.

I don’t know about you, but when I see a personal, handwritten card in my mail, I make sure to open it first. Handwritten cards sure beat bills any day of the week. They make me feel valued and special. Isn’t that a feeling you want your customers to experience after doing business with you? I think so.

Follow these quick tips to show some love to your customers or clients.  I promise they’ll love you back.

  1. Be timely. Send a personal thank you note in the mail within a few days of receiving business from a customer or client.
  2. Don’t send a cheesy corporate card. Instead, find something that represents you or your customer.
  3. If all you’re going to write is “thanks for your business” and sign the card, don’t bother. You will be wasting a stamp. Instead, write a short note thanking them specifically for the product or service they bought or the referral they made.
  4. Don’t skimp and send an e-mail. While it’s free and easy to do, it won’t stand out like a handwritten card Remember, the point is to stand out from the competition.

Notes for Potential Customers

Let’s close by going one step further to thank potential customers. It can be very productive to thank someone for contacting you about your products or services, even if it doesn’t result in an immediate sale. In some cases, the process of making a sale is a long one.  Let’s say a potential customer is thinking about making a purchase. How do you suppose he or she will respond to a personal note card from you? I’m willing to bet that your note could tip the scale in your favor.

 

Categories
Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

14 Power Facebook Tips to Build Your Brand and Business

If you are not using your personal Facebook as a tool to build awareness for yourself or your company’s brand, you are missing out on arguably the world’s most powerful, free marketing tool.

Yes, I did say “free.”

Facebook is used by more than half of the world’s online population, and by the end of 2015 it had more than 1.5 billion monthly users. In addition, the average smartphone user spends one out of every five minutes on Facebook. AOL had a dream to monopolize the Internet in 1985. Facebook has realized that dream today.

“I have a business page and my personal page is for friends and family.” Well, it’s time to start using your personal Facebook to build your brand, business and awareness. There’s Snapchat, Whatsapp, and a host of other fun platforms to interact with friends and family.

Your business page can sometimes be effective but since these pages are a major source of revenue for Facebook, it’s difficult to get a lot interaction on them without paying a lot. Spending $100 in Facebook advertising to get 2000 views (what value that has is unclear), 27 likes, and 6 clicks is not worth it. Facebook decreases the organic reach of posts on these pages – they are like playing the slots at a casino: you always hear about someone who walks out ahead, but the house wins 97 percent of the time.

The good news is that your personal page can get a lot of attention if you use it right – and it is free. Here are 14 Facebook tips, that will maximize your reach, likes, and interactions, which will drive awareness to you and your business.

1. Be Professional

Your Facebook page should look serious and be representative of your brand, business, or whatever it is you want to promote. Do not post things you wouldn’t want co-workers, customers, or suppliers to see. You don’t want to alienate or turn off potential followers. As a rule, don’t ever make a post about partying, drinking, or anything vulgar. One off-putting post and you will lose a friend or follower — and you won’t even know it.

2. Smart Security

Allow your posts to be publicly visible. Nothing your posting should really be private and you want as many people to view your posts as possible. At the same time, go to the setting: “Who can add things to my timeline?” and set to “only me.” Turn on approval of all tags before they appear on your timeline. You don’t want other people’s thoughts on your wall and you don’t want to be tagged at the strip club — as someone’s joke.

3. Be Friendly

Friend people often and approve all friend requests from real people. Like any social-media platform, the goal is to have as many followers as possible, but be wary of fake accounts and decline those invitations.

4. No Politics

No one should be able to easily determine your political views. I always take into account what a potential customer, who is opposite of my political views, would think of my posts. If you need to vent, there are many closed groups on Facebook where you can.

5. No Whining and Complaining

No one wants to hear about bad service at the DMV, the traffic, the boil on your toe that burst, or how bad your life is. If I wouldn’t say it to a first date, I won’t post it on Facebook. Face your problems, don’t Facebook them.

6. Play Tag Fairly

It is appropriate and good technique to tag people who are in pictures or are with you at an event because it increases viewership and makes your post available to their followers too. However, do not tag people in posts that have nothing to do with them for the sake of getting their attention.

7. Rock Your Profile Picture

If your profile picture has you shirtless or is of you taking a selfie in a mirror, immediately stop reading this article and go change it. You look ridiculous. This is not LinkedIn, so you don’t necessarily have to have a professional headshot, but you do have to have an interesting picture. You want to have a picture that represents you or your brand and creates a conversation. The goal is to get people to interact with you anyway you can. Sometimes when I have little to post about, a change in my profile picture can generate a lot of interest. Here’s an example of how I worked a post with my profile picture.

8. Like a Lot

The more you like someone’s posts the more of their posts you will see — and they will see more of your posts. When you pass by a post and don’t click “like,” Facebook thinks you really don’t like that person’s posts and will stop showing them to you. I like hundreds of posts everyday (unless I really don’t like it). I also don’t stand on ceremony — even if someone doesn’t like my stuff, I’ll like his/her posts anyway. It’s good for me.

9. Like Comments

Like every comment on your posts. If a person took the time to comment, you should acknowledge it because it builds interaction and rewards him/her for doing so. He/she will be more likely to interact again and Facebook will be more likely to show them your posts. The goal is to get as many likes and comments on a post as possible.

10. It’s a Happy Birthday

Wish every friend “happy birthday.” I do it as my morning ritual. It’s a chance to increase interaction with friends and see what they are up to. Sometimes it even reminds me that I need to contact them for some business or personal reason.

11. Always Post with a Picture

Never make a text-only post. Picture posts get much more attention from the viewer and Facebook promotes those posts more. Even if it’s just a holiday wish to your Facebook friends, make sure to use a picture. As an example, here is my Thanksgiving post, which is just a simple statement, but the picture sends it big.

12. Instagram Is a Post Booster

When possible, post a picture on Instagram and click the “share to Facebook” button. Not only does it give your picture two chances to get noticed, Facebook promotes Instagram pictures more than pictures posted directly.  And you have the ability to edit the post on Facebook later, adding comments and picture tags. A recent picture I took in Seattle, is a great example of this technique.

13. Timing Is Everything

The timing of posts is crucial because Facebook promotes your post to more of your followers  if and only if it gets likes and comments quickly. This sometimes requires trial and error to see when your followers react best. Posting business related posts late at night is a sure fail. Similarly, making a post that is more personal during the middle of the work day is not going to be effective either. I have had a lot of success with posting late afternoon and early evening on weekdays and mid-afternoon on weekends. Avoid posting anything business related in the hours before a holiday begins.

14. Be Interesting and Informative

Content is king. A post that says, “It’s hot out” is not going to get the same viewership and interactions as one with a cool picture of an egg frying on the hood of your car. Similarly, a post that tries to sell a product is a no-no. You can tell about the features of a product or service without obviously selling it. Every post you make should be thought out carefully on how it will build your brand and increase interactions — and keep your friends wanting to see more from you. Use humor when appropriate because making people laugh always draws them to you. Finally, don’t be overly narcissistic. My rule is for every self-promoting post, I also try to have a few posts that make fun of myself. You want people to like you.

These 14 tips will get your posts more likes, comments, and shares on the largest social platform on earth. You will be creating an image of yourself, your brand, and your company that people are attracted to. That is what any good marketing campaign should do.

Facebook is free and now you know how to use it. So what are you waiting for?

 

Categories
Management Marketing Operations Personal Development

A Marketing Idea: Deliver Amazing Customer Service

Customer service and marketing have traditionally been viewed as two separate departments, but more and more, their interdependence is coming into focus. It’s even been said that customer service is the new marketing.

Traditional marketing is typically an expensive proposition involving advertising and other ways to reach potential customers and make an impression. The goal is to get them “in the door” – be it in person, on the phone or to your website. However, studies are proving that typical marketing messages are becoming less and less effective, and in some cases, customers are flat-out skeptical.

However, one form of marketing that has proven very effective is word of mouth. Potential customers trust the opinions of their colleagues and friends far more than traditional marketing messages, and that is where customer service comes in. The concept is that if you want more business, and new customers, deliver amazing customer service to your existing customers. Not only will your customers come back, they’ll also tell their friends, colleagues and family members about you.

So, customer service, while maybe not the new marketing, as many are referring to it, has become an important part of any business’ marketing strategy.

My friend Tom Baldwin, former CEO and President of Morton’s The Steakhouse restaurants, believed in this concept completely. When he was at the helm of the restaurant chain, they didn’t advertise on TV or radio or in print publications. He would proudly claim that the restaurant’s employees were the best marketing department. The guests were simply presented with great food and an amazing customer service experience, and they would walk out happy, return for another fabulous meal and tell others about it too.

Another company that builds its marketing efforts around customer service was featured in my book, Amaze Every Customer Every Time. Ace Hardware is a chain of independently owned local hardware stores, many of which compete against much larger “big box” stores such as Lowe’s and Home Depot. The bigger stores, with bigger marketing budgets, spend up to 30 times more on advertising. Yet somehow, Ace is successful, and its secret is simple. Ace amazes customers with its special brand of helpful customer service. Even the traditional advertising that Ace puts out is not focused on the product or the price – it’s all centered around the amazing service that Ace offers.

Zappos.com is another company that promotes customer service as its value proposition. They don’t view customer service as a cost, but instead as an opportunity to amaze customers to the point that they evangelize the company. There are many other places where customers can buy the shoes and other items that Zappos offers, but again, it’s not just about the product. It’s about the promises that Zappos makes and keeps. And that consistency builds trust, and happy customers who tell others about their experience.

Customer service has come to the forefront as companies, large and small, make promises of a higher level of service. There are even awards given to companies that excel at customer service, increasing the awareness of its importance. Customers are more aware and better educated. Now more than ever, customers know what good customer service looks like, and they demand it from all of the places they do business.

Traditional advertising may play a role in getting customers in the door, but it’s not what makes them come back. The customer service that you offer, and how you make them feel, is what brings them back – and their family and friends, too.

And keep in mind that customers who receive bad service will also tell others about it. Or, in today’s social media world, it’s more accurate to say that they will broadcast it. They will share their experience with their friends and colleagues – and the world – via Twitter, Facebook, Yelp and other social channels.

So, as part of your marketing efforts, make the promise of an exceptional customer service experience, and then deliver on that promise so well that your customers not only want to come back, but also talk to others about you. Customer service is not just a department. It’s a smart marketing strategy.

 

Categories
Growth Health and Wellness Management Women In Business

Mindful Leadership – Be Alive With What You Believe

If mindlessness is being asleep at the wheel of life, mindfulness is becoming more awake and aware of your beliefs—as media mogul Oprah Winfrey says, “What I know for sure.” What do you know for sure?

Your mindful practice for today is to push away from your desk for just two to five minutes—yes, you can set your phone timer.

Use that time to ask your inner self what is it you believe about the way you are running your life. What is it you believe about the way you are running your business?

Breathe, pause, breathe again.

Don’t panic! You don’t have to tell anyone, and there are no right or wrong answers.

The answers are found in mindful breathing.

What you believe tends to be what manifests in your life. If you believe life is a challenge, you get more challenges. If you believe it’s supportive and easy, you get more ease.

This week, spend those few minutes a day thinking about what you want to believe about an experience you are having. Feel in your body what you want to believe. Your feelings are your power center.  Believe in the power of you!

AFFIRMATION:  My beliefs empower the life I want to live. 

Mindfulness matters!

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Leadership Skills

Need to Make Connections? Get on the Phone!

The key to breaking the ice with someone new is meeting them face-to-face. You can immediately judge the impact of your words by their facial expressions. Their face has 43 muscles that are able to produce more than twenty expressions. Some of these are negative. If you see a negative one, you know right away how to direct the conversation. But you can’t see those facial expressions through email. If someone doesn’t like what you have to say in an email, you’ll never know until they’ve already digested and reacted to it. And, even then, you still may not know for sure.

When you meet them face-to-face, they know that you are giving them your undivided attention. You now have the chance to demonstrate who you are. This can be the beginning of a fruitful long-term business relationship.

If you can’t meet face-to-face, choose video conferencing. For at least the first meeting and any important conversations thereafter, you will notice physical feedback better through a video conference. Then, both of you will be on the same page.

The next best choice is the telephone. But why not email? You can’t hear the other person’s intonation through email. There are no moments of silence through email. The intonation in someone’s voice can say a lot—are they interested? Pleased? Confused? On the phone, you have countless chances to win someone over just by adjusting to their intonation.

Jeff Stevenson, our client at VinoPRO, says a phone number is worth more than 100 times as much as an email address. According to him, he’s in “the relationship-selling business”. He has the top telephone sales company in the wine industry, and he’s done this by mastering “an ancient form of communication: the telephone!”

More and more companies today prefer email marketing. The first challenge is to get people to open your email. Then, they have to want to read it. And finally, they have to make the decision to invest in your product. Sure, you can reach tens of thousands of people at once, but there may be only 50 buyers. Most email recipients see these types of emails as intrusive and impersonal, so why would they buy?

Jeff uses the “ancient form of communication” to his advantage. He made the Inc. 500 list (with three years running) and is currently developing his third call center. Why? People want to talk to a real person, especially when it comes to luxury items like wine. People want a real relationship. They want to talk to someone who has their best interests at heart. What makes real-time conversation so effective is personalized attention—it just isn’t possible through email!

Being in business through the “ancient” age of fax machines, snail mail, and the telephone has taught us that those technologies work! This isn’t to say we’ve abandoned email or text-based communication, but there is a time and place for them. Our experience with face-to-face interaction has shown us when we must be more personal. For example, when it comes to settling a mix-up, email is completely unreliable. For us, the place for email is recording correspondence, conversation history, and keeping track of documents. Again, it has its place. But you can’t un-send an email!

As convenient as email may be, sometimes you really have to just pick up the phone!

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

 

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

Trust Is Essential for the Health of an Organization – Part 1

The health of an organization is directly dependent upon the level of trust between employees, management and customers.  Results cannot be predicted when the health of an organization is threatened. Therefore, results depend on the level of trust.  Exceptional leaders recognize all this and will work hard to build and maintain trust.  In my experience however, they are often frustrated with their efforts to build trust.  This is often because their theory of trust is incomplete, and therefore their methods of building and maintaining trust are often ineffective or prove to be short lived.

More and more CEO’s are becoming convinced that the soft skills of building and maintain trust is at least as important as technical skills for individual and organizational success.  According to Stephen M. R. Covey, a 2003 study by Watson and Wyatt showed how a high trust organization can return 286% higher total return than low trust organizations. (Covey, June 2007)

Furthermore, high trust organizations require less bureaucracy, enjoy lower turnover, are better able to manage change, are more collaborative, and can manage growth more effectively and quickly. (Covey, June 2007)

What should be our strategy to build trust? Of course, one can just trust others and hope they reciprocate.  Ernest Hemingway once said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”  This may be true, but a leader must have a predictable plan to build and maintain trust or risk wasting time and increasing costs.  We cannot afford increased costs, nor can we live with wasted time.  We cannot afford to just trust others and hope. As Rudy Giuliani once said, “…change is not a destination, just as hope is not a strategy.”

If one of the most important responsibilities of a leader is to manage the variation in trust, then a he/she must have a theory and method.  The purpose of this 4-part series of blogs is to clarify why trust is so important, define and appreciate a definition for trust, to clarify the most effective way to think about trust, and to provide a framework for a predictable method for building and maintaining trust.  It needs to be predictable. We cannot depend on hope.

Part 1:

Our bodies self-regulate.  Water is essential for good health and performance of bodily functions.  When our bodies need water, we become thirsty.  Our thirst motivates us to drink and therefore satisfy the need of our bodies.  Without water our bodies have trouble performing basic functions such as digestion.  We can become lethargic, develop headaches, lack concentration and can even stop performing our responsibilities.

Just as our bodies send signals for water, our organizations and employees can send signals for the need for trust.  With low levels of trust people can become disengaged, unproductive and even cynical.  Successful leaders will not only trust people to do the right things, they will know how and when to provide the “water” necessary for healthy organizational function.

Some leaders still create environments of distrust.  Often there are a few untrustworthy employees who continue to perform poorly.  Their presence, and the leader’s inability to know how to act cause the perceived need for rules and policies which damage trust for all.  Even though there may be a few bad ‘apples”, why not create a system that sends a message of trust instead of distrust?  What we need is a system that allows us to provide the ‘water’ when needed while eliminating the opportunity for the few ‘bad apples’ to influence policy.  This four-part blog series will help us do just that.

To accomplish this requires an appreciation of the right definition of trust. I suggest we adopt The International Association of Business Communicators definition of trust:  “a willingness to be vulnerable because of the presence of integrity, concern, competence and shared objectives.”  Knowing that trust can be defined with four key elements, managing each of these four elements can provide us with a framework to become more vulnerable while concurrently creating a trusting environment.   A trust environment will help us to bring out the genius in every employee.

We also need an effective leadership model and theory.  The leadership model best positioned to create a trusting environment is called THINK – BEHAVE – IMPROVE (TBI).  TBI clarifies how an optimum leader thinks in order to create a trusting environment, how he/she must behave to create trust, and how he/she takes action to improve the organizational trust.  Because trust is not a destination and because of the speed and frequency of change, trust must be managed constantly.  Just as one can’t just have one glass of water a day and expect to maintain personal health, a leader must be able and willing to provide ongoing trust when needed.  It never ends.

Soft skills are needed more than ever today and the ability to build and maintain trust is one of those critical skills.  “…the types of skills increasingly in favor are strong communication, empathy, collaboration, and trust building.” (Boris Groysberg, March 2011)

The following three blogs will describe the detailed method of how to think, behave, and improve trust in an organization.  Stay tuned.

Boris Groysberg, L. K. (March 2011). The New Path To the C-Suite. Harvard Busienss Review.

Covey, S. M. (June 2007). The Business Case for Trust. CEO Magazine.

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal.  Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.   Wally is a Certified Speaking Professional or CSP.  Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.

 

Categories
Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development Technology

Cybersecurity Resources That Your Organization Must Have

This article is part of a series where we are discussing your role as an organizational leader in the cyberwar that has been all over the news on regular basis lately. I started with a frank discussion on whose side you might actually be on when you don’t protect your organization’s network. In the second article we discussed creating a culture of security and the third article was all about strategy. This is the fourth and final article in this series and we are discussing resources for your security team and organization.

In order for your security team to be on the front line of this cyberwar, defending your network and your data, they need to have the best resources available in order to defend against the many threat actors attacking organizations like yours every day.

One of the biggest challenges in this war we defend against in cyberspace is that it is always changing. The adversaries continue to get better and change their strategies, and if we don’t arm our people with knowledge and skills we will continue to be on the losing side. Depending on your industry that could result in a loss of data, intellectual property, or national security secrets, and could literally be a question of life or death for those in the healthcare industry.

New technologies emerge at lightening speed, which provide hackers new ways to launch their cyber attacks that we need to keep up with. Every time a new application is deployed, a new line of code is written, or a new Internet of Things (IoT) device is connected to the network, we invite the bad guy in. Not because we are asking to be attacked, but because they know how to use our technologies against us for their gain.

Let’s look at the three categories of resources and the key factors they address to win this never ending cyberfight waged against us on a daily basis.

People

Have you created your cyber team with the best offensive and defensive players? Like sports and traditional war, you have to have the best players or soldiers to win in a cyberwar. Not only does that mean that you have the right people in the right roles; it also means you have trained them and continue to train them. This applies to your internal employees and any third parties that work on-site or off-site to help secure your organization’s cyberspace and data.

Security personnel are in a constant state of adversity, trying to keep up with new technologies and threat actors. They almost never hear “job well done.” Often your security team is only recognized when something goes wrong, but not  for the success of stopping a breach, which is their job every day. Other employees are recognized for a job well done, for doing their job well, but the security team is often overlooked since their success is typically invisible.

People want to be recognized for what they do and often the security professional goes without such recognition most of their career. You want to help your team avoid burnout and apathy, this is going to be one of the key ways you can do that.

Time

Time is most definitely a resource and if you have ever said “I don’t have time for that” you know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen it myself, too many times, good people leave due to overwhelm and exhaustion.

This is a team of highly specialized people where you can’t afford high turnover. Not only because turnover is expensive in and of itself, but because these individuals have such specific knowledge that when they leave the time it takes a new employee to catch up is dangerous. In the time spent ramping up, they can easily miss what their predecessor would have seen. While you can’t avoid all turnover, it will happen, you can reduce the amount of turnover by understanding how much your team can actually do and providing additional resources like contractors, third parties, and tools where needed.

Whether you hire more staff or outsource, you must remember that time is a resource that cannot be changed and security is a role that cannot be given to just anyone or ignored due to budget constraints.

Tools

Every good mechanic needs a set of tools and the same is true for your security team. The problem often becomes which tools to use within your security team since there are so many and the tools can be very noisy. Noisy being all the alerts they can generate if not configured (or tuned) properly.

The best way to ensure you are getting the right tools for your team is to include your frontline defenders in the vetting process for new tools. Who knows better what you need, the person doing the work day in and day out or their manager or the executive team? You want what’s best for your security team so ensure the users are part of the decision making process.

It is often good to include a vendor-neutral security consultant who can ask questions of the vendor that you and your team may not have thought about and do it with complete objectivity.

  • What is the tool truly capable of?
  • Does your team already have a tool that can do something similar they are not fully utilizing?
  • Does the new tool integrate with the current infrastructure?
  • What alerts will it generate?
  • How hard is it to configure?
  • And often missed but extremely important, will you need a support contract or consulting contract from the vendor just to make it work?

With the right team doing the amount of work that makes sense with the right tools, you are setting your organization up for success in the fight against cyber attacks. If you have not given this issue much thought or deep thought before, that’s okay;, you’re not alone in that. It’s time to get started and the sooner the better because as we continue to see there are more and more breaches, attacks, and threat actors in cyberspace than ever before. As we continue to put more in the cloud, connect more devices, and have a larger remote workforce, this becomes more and more part of your everyday operational concern just like keeping the lights on and the water running.

If you want to discuss any of these resource concerns with a vendor-neutral consultant email sharon@c-suiteresults.com to start discussing the resource questions you have now. Sharon provides virtual Chief Information Security Officer (vCISO) and advisory services, consults with clients on security strategies, writes policies, and helps organizations of all sizes become and maintain security and compliance.

Categories
Growth Health and Wellness Management Women In Business

Where to Begin Mindful Leadership? Centering

Our world is overwhelming. This is the third week of the last fifteen that a major shooting has been in the news as I write.

Our fear of being alone, or missing out on something important makes us feel we need to sift through the constant, unprecedented deluge of information coming at us, even though we know most of it is just noise. We have less recovery time between events, and we’re getting less of the sleep we need to rejuvenate. It’s unsustainable, it’s exhausting, and it leads to a mindlessness that takes a toll on our personal and professional lives.

Enter mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the practice of becoming fully present in the moment. It is often confused with meditation. While meditation is one form of mindfulness practice, it’s not the only one. In today’s 24/7/365 world where stress is rampant, mindfulness has been scientifically proven to reduce stress, decrease health challenges, and increase focus, resulting in a better quality of home and work life.

Mindfulness has seven practices. I’m going to guide you thru these steps. I intend this series will educate, connect, and hopefully inspire you to try each of the seven for just two to five minutes on the next seven posts—and all week long.

Week 1 Mini-Practice: Centering
Centering is practicing the process of reconnecting to the still, small voice inside of you. Centering in partnership with breathing and small hand motions will bring you back to you.

Today, push yourself away from your desk for just two minutes.  Yes, you can set a timer if it reduces your stress. Feel your breath enter through your nose and move through to your heart center, then exhale through your mouth. Do this three times. When was the last time you took a mindful breath?

Next time you are heading to a conversation that may be less than mindful, try centering. This practice, while simple, is not easy.  The more you try it this week, the more you are likely to let go of mindless and become more mindful.

Mindful Matters!

 

 

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

3 Bad Speaking Habits You Don’t Know You Have

If you’re like most people, even if you consider yourself to be a “pretty good” speaker, you know you could always be better. The irony is that, while that’s generally true, you probably don’t realize the actual problems you need to fix.

So let’s turn the microscope to three of the most common pitfalls to effective speaking.

  1. Fillers

We’re all familiar with the sins of the repeated “um,” “uh,” and “like,” “you know” and “I mean,” but fillers get much more sophisticated and subtle.

Words like “actually” and “really” can transform into what I call educated fillers. They seem to fit into the conversation, but repeatedly sneak into speech in places where they have no inherent value. They just chop up the sentence, making it harder for the listener to cognitively process the underlying message.

But where most of us get tripped up is the variety of fillers used. If you alternate between them as you speak, they’re less likely to be noticed… but still detract from the fluidity of the point you’re trying to make.

  1. The Vocal Cliff

The “vocal cliff” is what I call the habit of trailing off at the ends of your sentences. This happens for a variety of reasons. First, we tend to speak in a stream of consciousness, which is full of commas rather than periods. As you’re running along, you run out of air but don’t know where or how to refuel, so your voice creaks its way to a slow, grinding halt, much like if your car ran out of gas in the middle of the road.

Another cause of falling off the vocal cliff is when you’re halfway done with your point but your brain is jumping ahead, cueing up the next point you want to make so you don’t forget it, while your mouth struggles to catch up. Your lack of attention to what you’re currently saying comes through as your voice falls off the cliff. Stay present.

Or maybe you trail off because you lose confidence in what you’re saying after reading some displeased faces in the audience. This causes you to hold back, and you fall off the cliff, which projects your self-doubt.

  1. Negative Facial Expressions

As you listen to people, chances are, you don’t even know what kind of facial expressions you make, but more often than not they can convey negative thoughts. Maybe you’re just thinking about what the person is saying, but your “thinking face” has furrowed eyebrows and an ever-so-slight frown. This leads to two problems.

First, people will infer anger or disagreement, regardless of how you genuinely feel. Second, when you do speak, those down-angled facial features actually flatten your pitch and tone, making you also sound displeased. Even if that’s how you feel, do you really want to telegraph it so transparently? And if that does not accurately reflect your feelings, then you’re sending mixed messages and sabotaging your own credibility.

To avoid any of these pitfalls, awareness is the first and most important step. Don’t assume you know which habits you do or don’t have. Try video recording yourself talking on the phone. When you watch it afterwards, do you hear fillers creeping in, or does your voice fall off “the cliff”? Do you appear anxious or irritated? You’ll be amazed at what you discover, and what adjusting such small behaviors can do for your overall executive presence and leadership image.

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Do you have questions or comments about your bad habits or how to avoid them? If so, contact me at laura@vocalimpactproductions.com or click here to schedule a 20-minute focus call to discuss them with me personally!

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Growth Health and Wellness Management Women In Business

What is Mindfulness?

What is Mindfulness?

We live in world that demands our immediate attention 24/7/365.  We have created a culture that rewards busy, but also punishes it with poor health, stress, often relationship crisis and often-mental fatigue.  As the world seems to speed up year over year many professionals are opting for a different way – mindfulness

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the process of bringing your whole self, body, brain and spirit, awareness to the present moment.  It is taking moment to pause and calmly acknowledge how you are feeling and thinking in the present moment.

Mindfulness is not simply meditation.  It’s a way of being and a choice on your leading and living.

Mindfulness was named one of the 2018 business trends. There are seven practices to become a mindful CEO running a more peaceful, presence filled, and profitable company. I’ll share with you the strategies and research behind the companies applying mindfulness in the next 7 weeks.