Everything is clear when it is in your head. Only when that has to be translated into reality, there’s a problem.
So, if you are alone and you are going at your goals, chances are you may not reach where you are headed. Why? Because at 20,000 feet level goals are simple and you can easily overestimate your capacity to achieve them. As you get down to the ground level, you will realize that you alone are not capable of achieving those big goals. Since long-term relationships cannot be built in the short-term (it just doesn’t make sense, isn’t it) you will probably fall short of achieving the goals.
On the other hand, it is exactly the opposite in the case where you have BIG goals but also have access to a lot of help. With good help, you will start realizing that you can actually achieve more than what you set out to achieve in the first place. So you might really overshoot your own dreams or just simply achieve them in less time than you planned earlier.
All the best and start building those long-term relationships NOW!
It is a referral site for the Jiffle service. It provides a brief overview of what Jiffle offering is and urges potential customers to go and sign up for the service. Think of it like a site with just a landing page. Companies do this all the time.
In this case though – this site was not created by us. It was created by one of your kind customers – Sylva Leduc. Sylva has been a long-time customer, power user and a long-time supporter of Jiffle. But creating a site dedicated to us – that made our day!
One option is to have simple goals. Goals that you can achieve easily. Goals that won’t make a big difference in your life or in the lives of others. Goals that really don’t matter.
The next option is to have big goals – goals that can change you and more importantly – goals that can change the world around you for better.
For that, you need help. And, how do you get that?
In simple terms, here are some tips:
1. You build an identity big enough that people are willing and open to help you. Building an identity is a lifetime process – you can start it but I don’t think you can ever end it.
2. You help others early while growing in your career. In fact, it is also a lifetime process. You can end it but it is better that you don’t. A sub-set of people will reciprocate your help.
3. You engage in activities that will help multiple people at once. Imagine you were completing a task and a thousand people benefitting from it. That’s leverage like no other.
4. You ask for help. But before you do, remember that you have to earn the right to ask for it. Nobody is entitled for any help – automatically – unless you have an emotional relationship with them.
Help is really a two way street. Take a look at this help matrix. There are four quadrants. Here are the descriptions:
1. Clueless: In this category, the person can’t get help and neither he has the power to reciprocate if he ever gets help. Needs serious help.
2. High Cost: The person gets a lot of help but can’t reciprocate. These are people who know how to convince others to help them – probably for the first time ONLY. Once others realize that they are “high cost” slowly people will move away from them.
3. High Potential: Here the person has the ability to reciprocate. This category is filled with smart people who can return the favors easily but they don’t want to accept any favors as they don’t want to feel guilty – just in case they can’t return the favor. Or simply they think that they can do it all by themselves.
4. High Leverage: This is the winning category. Only a small percentage of smart people get here. They know that they need help. They are happy to receive it and they are happy to reciprocate to the extent possible. You can never go wrong with them.
Since we can’t manage time, all we can do is to work towards increasing our leverage.
The first step to increasing leverage comes from superior thinking as thought precedes action. Our society pays a premium for action as compared to thinking.
Why?
Simply because thinking is invisible and action is visible.
You can’t make out that a person is thinking by looking at him or her. So thinking is typically not work. However, you can always see someone who is in action. So being in action is work. So if you want validation from the society that “you are doing something” than you better be in action. Otherwise, you may get asked something like “Are you OK”, “Is everything all right” or “Is something wrong” when you are in “thinking” mode.
Think about it – your general operating model is to make promises and fulfilling them. And repeating it all over.
So, in effect at any point in time you are in the execution mode for one or more of your promises. The promises may be something that you make to yourself or to someone else.
The typical execution path is think quickly and start acting. Because shallow thinking leads to shallow execution, you quickly start thinking again but you are itching to start acting. You got to – otherwise someone might think you are not doing anything So you start getting into action. And then, you go back to thinking and then action..
The optimal execution path would be think in a superior fashion and then act. However, it is not easy as the society wants you to be acting not JUST thinking
Starting to think differently about fulfilling your promises is the first step to increasing your leverage.
Take a look at the picture below (Photo courtesy: Kiruba Shankar). This is from an ad for the Samsung Refrigerator.
You would think that this is like any other advertisement. It’s not!
You will have to click through this link to find out how this advertisement is really implemented. (Hint: It is really not an advertisement but an Advertisement Experience)
Food for Thought: How can you create such an experience for one or more of your products or services?
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Update – July 10, 2008
I have recieved a few emails asking me why I am asking people to click through to Kiruba’s blog when I could just explain what this advertisement experience is – right here on my blog.
The answer is simple.You see – my first four published works were fiction. Specifically they were murder mysteries and spy thrillers. So I love suspense and wanted to create some suspense on the blog.
Just kidding..
Really, this interesting ad experience was discovered by Kiruba (who is a long-time friend) and rightly you should hear about it from him. Explaining everything on my blog and giving just a credit link won’t do justice as people may not click through the credit link
Anyway my $.02 only. There is no right or wrong way in these things. You do what your gut says. Sorry for those who thought I created an inconvenience.
After a long career in the traditional corporate training world, WayneTurmel is now the president of www.greatwebmeetings.com, which helps people develop the sales and presentation skills necessary to communicate effectively when you can’t be face to face with your customers. He is also the host of The Cranky Middle Manager Show, one of the world’s most popular management podcasts. (You may have heard our interview together a year or so ago)
I met with Wayne Turmel some time ago when he first interviewed me for his podcast show “The Cranky Middle Manager Show” on the topic of Personal Branding. Here is the link to that interview
I learnt that Wayne is now helping companies of all sizes to make the most of web meetings. In this interview he makes a business case for his business and gives some insights on how you can make the most of web meetings.
Here is the interview:
RS: Wayne, This may be an obvious first question – Can you make a case for salespeople to use webmeetings?
WT: The costs of sales are growing exponentially. Travel costs are going through the roof while travel budgets are getting slashed. Sales people are expected to better qualify their prospects before setting face-to-face calls and fewer bodies are covering larger territories. Any tool that helps speed communication is going to get a good looking at. And the cost of a webmeeting instead of going to the customer site can’t be beat- as long as they’re effective.
RS: Studies show that many sales people don’t like these tools (and avoid using them)- why not?
WT: Sales people by their nature love to be face to face with their customers…. Sales is based on a relationship, and it’s hard to fashion good relationships just through email or on the phone. Many people view webmeetings as one-way communication that doesn’t offer them a real opportunity for building those relationships…. and no wonder. The Vendors of these programs teach the tools you need to push information out, but most people never get taught to use the interactive components of these tools… they’re too busy figuring out how to use them at all never mind use them well.
I always use the analogy of PowerPoint. How many sales people got handed their first laptop with a presentation on it and never received coaching on how to use it? We sat through horrible presentations…when they could even get the projector and computer to talk to each other….how many hours of our lives were wasted?
RS: Audiences aren’t too crazy about them either….
WT: Our research shows that audiences quite like web demos if they are well done and focused on their needs. After all, they don’t have to leave their desk or have a sales person in their office they can’t get rid of. But they are often considered a waste of time. In fact we did a YouTube video on why audiences don’t like them… and some things you can do to make them more interactive and focused. It’s called Why Web Demos Suck- And What You Can Do About It.
Generally the most common mistakes according to our research are:
• Not being relevant to the customer’s business
• Too much information, most of it irrelevant at this stage of the sales cycle (going too far into features and specifics before they even know if they’re interested in the product)
• Not answering the customer’s most pressing questions in a timely manner
• The people doing the presentation are often subject matter experts but not compelling presenters (the word most often used was BORING)
RS: So, what are some of those things sales people can do?
WT: Just as in a face-to-face meeting you want to ask lots of questions and focus on what they really need, the interactive tools in webmeetings allow for two-way communication. Most sales people are so nervous about using the tool, though, they simply push information out. A wise sales organization will make sure that people not only get real-time practice with the tool before they are in front of a prospect, but they understand how to use it as a two-way communication tool, not just a one-way presentation platform. That’s what we teach at Greatwebmeetings- the sales and presentation skills they need to really engage their customers and be as effective “virtually” as they are in a face to face meeting.
RS: Can you please give an example?
WT: Sure. A software company in the Midwest had a subject matter expert who did their software demos. She was a very good presenter- engaging, fun to listen to- but her conversion rate with customers who had requested demos was about 50%. We worked with her to do a number of things. First, identify her outcome as the presenter, which was to get her customer to agree to a trial of the software. Then to ask plenty of questions before she started presenting (to avoid information the client wasn’t interested in) and to get to the customer’s most pressing questions right away. We also taught her a technique for presenting features tied to what the customer told her during the questioning and confirming buy-in before spending too long. Not only are her presentations generally shorter now, but the number of prospects moving to a trial of the product went up over 20%. Her CEO is delighted, needless to say.
RS: Isn’t there plenty of on-line training available?
WT: There’s lots of information, but much of it is in the form of recorded lectures and webinars. True training has three components- it addresses the real work the people have to do, it allows for self-discovery, and it’s assessed to see if the person has really learned something and get coaching and reinforcement of the new skills. With a regular presentation skills program, you’d expect people to get up and present after the training and show improvement. All our programs do that. Training without demonstrating improved performance is a waste of time and money.
What if you could be absolutely certain about how your projects will shape up?
Sorry. You can’t.
Simple reason is that for any significant project out there, there are always going to be factors that are outside of your control. Think whatever you want – you have only so much power on factors that are not directly under your control. Those with a deeper spiritual bent may say that there is NOTHING in this life that you control anyway
When you look for certainty in your project or initiative, you are in a certain context and are operating with a certain background. With that context and background, searching and reaching certainty is important at that stage.
However, the moment you reach certainty, your context and background changes because there is now certainty on the topics on which you were looking for certainty. Almost immediately, you will notice that there is uncertainty on a whole new set of topics that become relevant in the new context and the new background.
Either these topics were irrelevant in the old context or you simply didn’t have the time and energy to focus on these topics as you were occupied in searching for certainty on topics that were MORE relevant in the old context and background.
Coming from India, I have to say cricket is my weakness. So much that there is only one site bookmarked on my blackberry and it is CricInfo. Just keeping the priorities right
I was reading the story of a young spinner Pragyan Ojha who just got selected into the Indian Test Squad for the upcoming series. It was a fascinating story that highlights the need for mentors and teachers in our lives. I am fortunate to have had mentors for decades now and it has made all the difference in my life.
Here is an excerpt from the article
It wasn’t always so with Ojha. Talented but also afflicted by youthful frivolousness, he didn’t seriously start working on his game till the 2006-07 Ranji season. Kanwaljit Singh and Vivek Jaisimha, the bowling coach and head coach of Hyderabad, think the opening game of the season against Maharashtra in Karad was the turning point of Ojha’s career.
Hyderabad were bowled out for 385 in the first innings and the captain, VVS Laxman, Kanwaljit and Jaismiha decided it was time to have a chat with Ojha. “We told him, look you are our strike bowler,” Kanwaljit says. “This is a wicket aiding spin and we are confident you can run through them. Show us you can.” Ojha took 6 for 84 and his first small step towards maturity.
Having lived in the Silicon Valley for more than a decade now, I get to hear ideas almost ALL the time – in various shapes, sizes and forms. Ideas, like most things in life, follow a normal distribution curve. Of the ones that I understand and can make a reasonable assessment, there are good ones, bad ones and most are average.
For whatever reason, there is a lot of emphasis on the “value” of the idea and less emphasis on the “value” of the execution of the idea. Actually, I can think of many reasons:
1. Coming up with ideas usually takes less time than actually executing on one of them.
2. If your idea fails at the idea stage, it is less painful.
3. You can talk about your idea as if you can easily execute it. But you can’t fake execution
4. You can change your ideas in a day but it is hard to change the execution course easily.
5. You can appear to be smart with more than one idea. Unless you are a chronic parallel entrepreneur, it’s hard to work on executing on more than one idea
6. Ideas are fun. You need a lot more brains and help to make execution fun.
7. You alone can support an idea. Rarely you alone can execute on the idea. You need a lot more help for executing on the idea.
8. Most often stakes are low for an idea. Stakes are high for almost all cases of execution.
One would think that people should be worried like crazy on executing on the idea. It is way more complex than painting a rosy picture through an idea. Unfortunately that is not the case. People are disproportionately worried about the idea. On a lighter note, some behave as if this is the last ever idea that will come to them. So they hold on to the idea with both their hands and by the time they act on it, it’s already too late (somebody else somewhere in the world has acted on it or technology has changed to make the idea irrelevant)
So, whatever is your idea – stop worrying about it and start focusing your energy on executing on it – if you are serious about executing on it, of course!
Most people fall into the category of being an “Also Ran” in their careers. A small percentage of them will start on the road to distinction. It is a work in progress for a long time. Exceptions exist like in anything in life and work.
Just like a trapeze artist who has just let go of the previous rung and is on his or her way to catch the next rung, people on the road to distinction will find themselves in a spot that is not very comfortable. This is the chasm that they HAVE to cross if their quest is serious.
First, “Work in Progress” is an unfamiliar territory as there are no clear rules to become distinct. If they did, then lots of people would follow them and everyone would try to become distinct leading to nobody becoming distinct. That doesn’t work well.
Second, “Work in Progress” is a place where there is little support. Not everyone who have made it have the time to help someone who is trying to make it. Help from someone who has not made it may be no help or bad help.
Third, “Work in Progress” takes a long time to produce any serious results. Nobody gives a premium for marginal improvements and serious improvements take serious time.
Fourth, “Work in Progress” has no guarantees. In fact, that road is fraught with failures. It is easier to fall in the chasm and get lost.
Fifth, “Work in Progress”, if not planned well can be lonely. How can you expect “also rans” to be in your journey or how can you expect yourself to be in the company of “also rans” if both of you are heading towards different destinations?
I can go on but I also know that you can identity some more characteristics of the “Work in Progress” stage by yourself.
The typical path for most people on this journey is to just return back to the “Also Ran” category after a while.
Out of the few who do cross the chasm, there is a tendency for some to get complacent and return back again to be in the category of “Also Ran”.
The ideal path ( I think) is to be distinct for a very short while but heading back into the “Work in Progress” mode as soon as possible to re-invent yourself. The marketplace is always changing… so how can you expect to be distinct forever?
Enjoy your week and all the best to everyone of you who are on the road to distinction.
So you start getting into action. And then, you go back to thinking and then action..
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