Wendy's Desk

Referrals Don’t Come From Conversation Stoppers

Wendy — Sun, 16 May 2010 23:34:24 +0000

Meet someone you know, whether at a business event or restaurant, and right away you’ll be asked the ubiquitous “How’s it going?”

My answer has been “Busy! We’ve just got no time to breath we’re so busy!”

And then I started watching the result of my answer:
it stopped conversation.
Really.
If you ask, and I give you this answer, you’ll nod, and smile, and move on.

That is not the way to get referrals!

It’s been hard, but I’m training myself to say “This week I’m working with a client who . . .”
with the speed and ease I used to blurt out “Busy!”

It’s been hard to change the habit because

It’s a habit after all.
That means I do it without thinking.
Now I have to think.
Thinking is hard.
I feel valued by my work, and by my busy-ness.
If I’m not busy, I’m not valued.
Therefore, I want to be busy.
(Show-off.)

I’m eager to hear your thoughts.
Have you already had this epiphany?
If yes, how did you get into a new habit?
If no, is this concept resonating with you?
Tell me why.

Link-surfing for gold

Wendy — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 02:16:32 +0000

My friend Anita Hampl taught me the term link-surfing. We were having a chat with someone who doesn’t. (how sad) Tonight, after everything (I’ll save that for another post) I clicked Swift on my phone to see what had happened on Twitter today. I follow Evernote (more on that later, too) and they’d linked to a blog post about themselves.

What a treat she is!
What a fun read.
Lots to learn.
And look at that funky calendar on the right–
It’s called Human Calendar, a guy in Portland does it.

I think, if I click like this, and hold my mouth just . . . so . . .

The Way You Make Me Feel–The Way I Want To Make You Feel

Wendy — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:40:07 +0000

For three months (out of every 10) five of us focus on developing a training program. We work hard to be creative, we put in extra hours, we decline invitations, we focus on fun, and we always keep in the front of our minds the singular fact that the 200 people attending have chosen to, aren’t being paid to be there, and must receive a very real Return On Investment for their personal businesses.

Individually the 200 people don’t think about anyone but them self.
That’s natural.
They don’t know our focus in on them and their benefit; they simply don’t give this the same value we do.
That’s natural too.

When one of them cancels at the last minute, with the self-validating reason “I know all this, just give me the handouts, I don’t need your information” I admit to being susceptible to a deep blue funk.
I think that’s natural, too.
And I try my very best to suck it up, understand, and get over myself.

But this post isn’t about whining . . . really!
This post is to say thank you to the two people who lifted me out of self pity.

The first was Hildee Isaacs.
At 7:34 on Sunday morning she sent an email:

“I never thought to email visitors a copy of my InfoMinute! I will definitely do this in the future, thanks!

I thought your entire team did a highly energized, well informed and professional training. I wish it could have been 30 minutes longer to allow for more Q & A.

Thanks for the opportunities you offer me!”

Here’s what made me sing with a smile: she told me where she got value.
She didn’t say “good info” –not much value in that–she said “I never thought to email visitors a copy of my InfoMinute! I will definitely do this in the future.”
That’s her value.
I need to know that she gets value.
Her ROI is my focus.

Next she complimented my team.
Oh, I’m grateful for that.
They’ve worked so hard, and for her to notice makes it worthwhile.
And then . . . then, she asked for more! More! 30 minutes MORE!
She validated the benefit!

YOWZA!
My feet still hurt,
my hips are still sore,
I’m not looking forward to the 4am alarm clock to set up tables,
or schlepping in six 2.5 gallon water jugs in the rain,
or coming back to a InBox that will take three days to respond to…

But I don’t care, because she got benefit. YAY!

Two hours later Dan Hagaman’s email hit my box:

“I am scheduled to attend officer training on Monday and am unfortunately stuck in Baltimore due to the snow storm of the century. It will be Monday evening before I will be able to get a flight back to Atlanta. I really never dreamed that I would be stuck in Baltimore. What can I do about the training? Any way to reschedule something for middle of the week before my Team’s regulary scheduled meeting on Friday? Please let me know. Thank you!!!”

Thank you, Dan Hagaman.

Thank for letting me know with a reason–before, instead of an excuse–after.
Thank you for suggesting a quick recoup.
Thank you for validating what you missed, and wanting to have it before you need it.

Perhaps not coincidentally Hildee and Dan are on the same Team. I’m betting their like responses are an indication of great Team leadership. So, my loud THANK YOU to the leaders who carry the torch.

Happier now, in my head, I’m thinking of how I could be more like Hildee and more like Dan.
For that list, I solicit your help.
What could I do that would validate your hard work, the work I don’t even know you do? What pulls you out of an “is this even worth it?” funk?

Grateful, and eager to see your ideas, W!

SWAY: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

Wendy — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 17:49:10 +0000

Veronica stopped by my desk with this book in her hands. “I know you’re busy, but you’re going to want to read chapter four, it explains why paying for referrals doesn’t work–the altruistic part of the brain and the work part of the brain are in two different areas. And you might want to look at just this part in chapter 7 . . .”
She had me at read.

We are in the middle of a massive project right now, so the book traveled in my extra bag—back and forth from the loft to the office–then down to Florida and back–and then one day when I couldn’t make it to the gym I hopped on the Airdyne and brought Sway (and a diving magazine, and a pen catalog) along for the ride.

She was right, I wanted to read it.
Starting with page 47 I got empirical support for the script I use to close InfoMinute Seminar.

You might want to read Sway

for validation that it is the fear of loss that makes us give a list (not the reality of profit) check out page 28. (And stop listing.)
to remind yourself not to share what didn’t happen (only what could have) look at page 104. (And start smiling more.)
to justify the effort and time, and the hard work of thinking, that you put into preparing and perfecting every word of every marketing message, look at page 72. (I had typed 84, and 119, and 72, before I remembered the rule about the list.)
to give yourself hope and motivation in the pursuit of referrals, check out page 171. (Stay the course. It’s worth it.)
for leadership tips, page 28. (Get the exact results you want.)

The video Masters of Persuasion illustrates the power. I’m eager to hear your thoughts.

Every review I’ve read compares Sway to Predictably Irrational, Blink and Nudge. If you like those, along with Wisdom of Crowds, SuperCrunchers, and Freakonomics, you want to read this, too.

How To Leave A Group. Profitably.

Wendy — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:23:05 +0000

Just finished the chapter on leaving a group profitably
for my new book
Exceptional Networking: Get In Touch, Stay In Touch, Make It Count

Click here if you’d like to play.

Download the .pdf.
Read.
Come back here to comment.

I’m up for every kind of feedback.

Tell me what isn’t clear; what you had to re-read.
Let me know what questions aren’t answered.
And yes, let me know if you find typos.

This chapter is at the stage where every form of feedback is valuable.

Let me have it!

Gratefully, W!

You Can Read A Face Like A Book

Wendy — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:05:37 +0000

A couple of years ago Scott Tufford called to tell me about a seminar he’d attended the day before. The presenter, he enthused, was teaching Realtors how to be more effective salespeople based on the shape of their clients’ eyes and ears.

It sounded . . . interesting (and a little bizarre, which is always interesting to me) so I added You Can Read A Face Like A Book to my que. It’s a long list. I hadn’t gotten back to it.

Thursday George came back from BBA with a book, for me!
And since a book on the desk is worth 171 on the list,
I popped it into that bag o’ stuff that travels where I do.

What Shelle Charvet did for communication with words Naomi Tickle has done with faces.

And as usefully.

One trait at a time, at first, (whether someone is able to sit at a desk for long periods or needs to be active during the day) then comparing traits, (the difference between liking to analyze or preferring to get right to the point) Naomi teaches three things:

How to identify the characteristic
How to use the knowledge about yourself
How to use the knowledge with children and others.

Today we got the invitation for my Aunt and Uncle’s 50th anniversary celebration, sporting their wedding picture and my Aunt Marcia’s distinctive eyebrows. I remember being fascinated by her eyebrows as a very young child. Now I know they signal the Design Appreciation trait. Initially this didn’t jive. I wanted to find a picture of George’s Mom, who, had she been born 50 years later, would certainly have become an architect. Aunt Marcia doesn’t seem to have . . .

“The Design Appreciation trait indicates an innate appreciation for
how things are structured. An individual with this innate ability
has a sense of the overall structure of whatever interests him or her.”

Well, that describes Aunt Marcia.

Before I was in first grade she taught me how to make potato chips.
After college she taught me how to read a story to a baby.

And how helpful it would be, if I were trying to sell her something, to know she will want to understand the how and the why of the system before making her decision.

Last week included a funeral service. Of the 98 people in my line of sight only one had Backward Balance, a time orientation trait indicating that decisions will be made based on what has happened in the past more than what is happening in the present or what could happen in the future.

Only one.
Of 98.
Yet, it’s common sense to describe our past success to to prospects.

Could common sense be wrong?

I’ve got a feeling this book will travel in the bag o’ stuff
for a while yet before it finds a home on a shelf.
(You could have known that from the shape of my lips.)

This Makes My Eyes Water. [It's written by my high school {now Facebook} friend Allan Clarke]

Wendy — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:07:25 +0000

Allan and I dated in high school.
Twenty years earlier my mom had dated his dad.

Allan is the person who got me
{and the rest of our class}
on Facebook.

So though I haven’t seen him, or spoken with him in
– gosh, can it be 30 years? 34? –
I remember his folks, and his younger sister and brother.
(Oh, I have stories about his brother!)

There is another reason his story is real to me: it happened to my Aunt Vera. She was 67, and deemed “past usefulness” and therefore ineligible for health care. Even pain moderation. Aunt Vera’s experience has been the reason I’m against nationalized health care.

Twenty-five years later nothing has changed: Allan’s parents are living Aunt Vera and Uncle Bill’s deja vu.

My Mom’s story… and what it means to us in the USA

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 10:59pm

Just three weeks or so ago, I removed my mother from the “public option” in Canada and rented a motor-home to bring her to the US for proper care… (read that as “care directed toward and presuming survival instead of rapid demise!”)Let me share our story as briefly as I can. Late last year my mother, who lives in Canada, was diagnosed with a heart problem… atrial fibrillation. As best I can understand it, that’s a valve problem that causes turbulence near the heart and causes the blood to pool and clot. Instead of prescribing a blood thinner, which I understand is common practice here… the doctor suggested she “take a baby aspirin” everyday… and that was supposed to take care of the issue. In February my mom had a TIA. With the TIA it’s common for the stroke symptoms to subside within 24 hours… which hers did. Because they subsided her doctor did… NOTHING!

Now anybody who knows these patterns knows that the TIA is a precursor to a full blown stroke.

At minimum she should have been given a blood thinner at that time… but she is 76… and after all meds are expensive and she was just “sucking pension funds out of the public coffers.” Bottom line… it isn’t the policy of the Canadian Single-Payer Healthcare system to do much at all for citizens over 65, let alone 70.

So she continued on her baby aspirin knowing that the big stroke was coming… it was just a matter of time. She drafted a document, and asked myself and my siblings to sign it, stating that if either parent were incapacitated, to the point where their care would be hard for the other parent, we agreed to do all in our power to encourage the well parent to institutionalize the incapacitated parent.

She knew that she was facing a certain stroke… or worse…. and that she would get little or no remedial care from her Government-run Healthcare. they would, however, provide nursing-home care until she died.

On Sunday, June 28 she was feeling particularly ill. her heart was racing and her blood pressure was very low… classic atrial fibrillation symptoms… I talked to my folks and they said they were concerned but that they were monitoring the situation. They’d been to Urgent Care and they’d been told that her heart rate was high and her BP low… they knew that already! I told my dad to get her to the ER immediately, that either a stroke or heart attack were imminent. He said they’d been to the ER and they’d finally given her a blood thinner (8 months too late!) but she was too nauseated to keep it down.

The stroke had already started… the nausea was a symptom. I suggested strongly that she go to the ER… STAT! My dad agreed and left immediately to get her there. As they pulled up to the ER door my father said “I’ll drop you off and park the car.” No sooner had he said that than she slumped over toward him in the car.

He asked if she was alright and she said she was, but she couldn’t move to open the door or get out. The stroke had hit! They did a round of TPA to break up the clots, but otherwise no medication, no therapy, and no pain meds, even though her back pain was severe. She’d always managed her back pain, as many of us who are older do, with exercise. Since she couldn’t walk, she just had to lay there and take it.

One of the nurses asked my sister who was caring for mom before she came into the ER. My sister said that she’d lived at home with my dad. The nurse seemed credulous… “at her age?” Julie replied that if she’d gotten to ER 20 minutes earlier she would have walked in on her own. The nurse asked my sister where mom’s false teeth were… Julie said she didn’t have any… “Oh, she left them at home?” “No” Julie replied, “She has her own teeth.” “I don’t think so,” said the nurse… “Not at her age!”

The sense we got from everyone on those first few days was that they expected her to pass on quickly and “of course we don’t want any heroic measures…”

I know that’s a long tale but I told it all to give you a flavor of what health-care will be like with a single-payer government system.

I think we’re at a real crossroads in American history… a “tipping point” if you will…

We have to decide if the citizens are going to live FOR THE GOVERNMENT or if the government will exist to promote the well-being and interests of the citizens.

I’ve seen some of the more socialized systems… they’re survivable… but they have stripped the people of any real hope or incentive to be the best at what they do… or even to do what they do to the best of their current ability.

Socialism inserts a strange “third party” into the consciousness. It’s not just the individual functioning as best they can in the world… There’s a kind of Santa Claus entity that “knows what’s best for you,” rules your life, and uses your money to provide for yourself and others at whatever level it deems best. It assumes the role of both God-like wisdom as to what your needs are. and complete feudal lordship over all that you own and produce.

That’s the kind of tyranny that this countries founders fought a revolution and risked their “lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor” to defeat. We would do well to realize that the strange entity is not our friend if it’s not our servant.

On a recent trip to Ireland my friend sat in a small local pub and talked to the townsfolk gathered there. they asked him why America hadn’t help the psunami victims. He replied that we had sent millions to help… we’d done bike-a-thons and fund drives… done all kinds of things to get money to send over.

They said “But your government didn’t help…”

“And then,” he said “it dawned on me… Their government isn’t the people… it’s another entity that in some sense owns as well as represents them.”

As I watch what is happening here daily… the struggle for more federal control of all aspects of our lives… I wonder what it will take to rid ourselves of the mounting tyranny if it’s allowed to run its course.

I was a political liberal in my 20s… Until I worked a summer and fall in the projects of Benton Harbor, Michigan. I saw first-hand how degrading and dangerous the lack of incentive can be. I saw how wasteful of tremendous human potential it is to make the dignity of work unnecessary. I saw that people don’t care for, or take pride in, what they don’t earn… and how they devalue themselves for giving up that dignity and self-determination.

It changed me and my political philosophy forever.

We do need to provide lavish short-term life saving intervention in situations of dire need. But we must never provide it so lavishly, or for so long that the incentive to strive, to live out ones own life adventure and serve others is replaced by indolence, entitlement, self-pity and apathy.

“Short term life-saving care… long-term dignity producing work and trade… I think most smart people can hold those two thoughts in their brain at one time!” – Bill Hybels

We do need to protect our environment from needless abuse and waste… we don’t need to worship it as though it created us.

We need our government to provide extravagantly for the national defense… and equitably for her national defenders.

We need to hold our elected officials to account for their use of any funds on our behalf… especially funds we haven’t even earned yet.

We need to say loudly and clearly to and through our representatives that we don’t want the government owning banks, manufacturing facilities, hospitals, insurance companies or any other businesses that compete with unfair advantage and on uneven ground with the businesses we own.

We need to be in charge of our own lives… and deaths… within the confines of morality and the laws of the land. Not to have rationed heath-care and have it delivered in an “economy” where the government is incentivized TOWARD our death! THAT IS AN UNEXCUSABLE CONFLICT OF INTEREST!

We need to look for and rally around articulate, intelligent and thoughtful leaders who understand what hand-outs and special interest policies do to a nation and it’s people over time… and who abhor that path. The current political junta knows the outcome… they just embrace it toward their own ends!

This is not an easy road I’m proposing… the path will be strewn with boulders of legislation and social programs gone awry… but it is a road toward renewed prosperity, dignity and productivity.

Our founding fathers had seen first hand how increasing taxation was tyrannical… How it spins out of control starting on the first day of its enaction… and empowers and accelerates corruption until the only thing that can reign it in is revolution.

Let’s stand up and use our voices and our votes to attempt the required changes… let’s renew and re-envigorate the political process and force it to serve the people… all the people… again! And most of all let’s pray for God’s wisdom… protection and mercy as we attempt to bring freedom… once again… into favor in this still great country!

5/6ths of half of the second 1/3

Wendy — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:09:33 +0000

Exceptional Networking: Get In Touch, Stay In Touch, Make It Count is a hands-on, here’s how book.

I have so many books
swirling in my head right now!

Everything else is the answer to the
questions that comes from this one.

And I have so much research to do,
(I love research!)
but right now I’m shaking with
eagerness to get this out.
(oh, maybe that’s hunger!)

Filled with gratitude for those of you who are reading,
and giving me eyes-on-the-page feedback,
here is the second section:
Stay In Touch

(The first 11 pages are the same as last night,
no major revisions. – well, check for yours!)

The link above takes you to a snazzy book reader thingy (that’s the technical term: thingy) If you’d rather download the .pdf file click here.

Stay In Touch – Making The Case

Wendy — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:18:00 +0000

The book is titled Exceptional Networking: Get In Touch, Stay In Touch, Make It Count and I offered a sneak peek download yesterday, here.

Today I worked on the first 11 pages of the Stay In Touch section. I’ll trade you a look for your feedback. (You’ll notice several changes based on yesterday’s comments.)

Click here to read.

Waiting eagerly for your thoughts in the same three areas -
[1] What did you already know, that I can leave out.
[2] What is written confusingly, and needs a re-write for clarity.
[3] What questions are still unanswered?

Gratefully, W!

I’m Writing, I’m Writing, I’m Writing!

Wendy — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:34:20 +0000

It’s Labor Day Weekend, and Veronica scheduled five precious days off on my calendar. No appointments from Thursday morning until Tuesday morning. Five days to write!

I woke up yesterday at 4:57, without the alarm, and set to work, in the dark. (My screen is lit, I know where the keys are.) Fourteen hours later, a solid foundation. More than half of the first third of the book is laid down. Now the troweling, sanding, smoothing . . . but before that

If you would like to play, [1] Download this first draft. (I can’t tell you how long it will be up here, but you’re welcome to forward this link to friends while it is.) Exceptional Networking: Get In Touch – Draft 1
[2] Read. (as much, or as little as you would like)
[3] Comment – (right here, for God and country to see) - there is a restriction: Please give me comments in these three arenas

[First Approved Comment Arena]
Tell me what information was, in the words of my nephew Michael,
“Zoinks. Everybody knows that.”

[Second Approved Comment Arena]
Tell me where you had to re-read a sentence, or a paragraph,
because the meaning wasn’t initially clear.
(Please reference by page number)

[Third Approved Comment Arena]
Tell me what questions you still have,
that weren’t answered by the material.
{you’ll see *** where there will be appendices,
but I haven’t written those yet,
so go ahead and list every question now.}

“And what”, you might ask, “do I get in return?”
I need some real life examples in the book.
If you comment you’ll get press; I’ll promote your business!

Gratefully, and with no small amount of trepidation, W!