May 2009
This month’s Ramble is mainly about communication.
- Nag Nag Nag
- Idea Transfer
- Expensive MPs
- Comma, Pause
- Hubs and Spokes
- No War Paint Here
- It’ll Never Catch On
- Circulation Details
- And Finally
Nag Nag Nag
There is a fine line between helpful reminders and irritating nagging. I was discussing this with a manager in a business that has adopted a practice of reminding their customers on a regular basis as the date approaches for them to renew their agreement. As I have processes in place to make sure that I don’t overlook such things, I find it rather irritating to be reminded ... or at least reminded more than once. However, I accept that the less organised may welcome this approach.
Most business sectors are very competitive and traditional High Street operators have to work very hard to stave off the challenge from online companies. It seems that the approach of frequent reminders does lead to retention of customers who might otherwise have explored other avenues and potentially drifted away. Perhaps this is a message for any businesses wanting repeat custom.
Idea Transfer
Dilwyn Scott, training officer for the national Association of Speakers Clubs, defines communication as ‘The transfer of an idea from one mind to another’. US author and marketing authority Seth Godin contends that the only reason for making a presentation is to change minds. These are two useful concepts to consider when putting together a communication. If someone is already minded to buy from us we might be well advised to shut up for fear that we change their mind in the wrong direction. Does nagging fall into this category?
OK, so assuming that we are yet to persuade someone that they want to buy from us, invest in us or work with us, how do we present our case? Of course, that rather depends on what mind change we are trying to achieve. But I’d be reasonably sure that a slick PowerPoint presentation won’t do much to transfer an idea into most minds. Casting my mind back I cannot think of a single memorable PP presentation – oh, apart from one given by a guy when we were interviewing a few years back. He did a 46 slide presentation. Yep, 46 slides. I have no idea what any of them said. He certainly changed minds that day. Before he’d got a quarter of the way through his presentation he had successfully helped us to decide that we did not want him in the team. Death by PowerPoint indeed!
A good speech, presentation or sales pitch has to include audience rapport; that is the audience needs to feel engaged, involved. The audience may be one person only, but even if it is more, each person has to feel involved. US president Franklin Roosevelt was one of the first to use radio effectively as a means of mass communication. When making his broadcasts Roosevelt always visualised talking to just one person. In that way he was able to make his words seem personal.
Expensive MPs
Those of you who have been Rambling for a while may remember an article from the September 2008 edition. It described how one company boss removed the requirement for sign-off of expenses. He put the responsibility on his staff to claim what was reasonable and honest. This resulted in a dramatic drop in expenses claimed in all areas.
I saw an interview with Edwina Currie on TV a few days ago. She said that when she entered parliament MPs were not required to submit receipts; as Honourable members they were trusted. She also commented that Margaret Thatcher would have skinned alive any MP caught with their hands in the till! Edwina went on to say that the regulations governing expenses and the requirement to summit receipts are relatively recent change.
It appears that having a regulatory system makes some people inclined to push it to its maximum. Way back when the 70mph speed limit was introduced on motorways the average speed went up by three miles per hour, as people who had been content to travel at 67 now felt that 70 was the ‘approved’ speed for motorway driving.
So if you were thinking of tightening your expenses claims procedure, perhaps you should think again.
Comma, Pause
“I’m sorry this is my wife.” So said my son’s best man when he introduced said lady. This apologetic introduction caused great mirth amongst the bystanders. Of course, he was not regretful at being married to her; what he meant was, “I’m sorry” (for not having introduced her sooner), pause, “this is my wife.” The precise words used are generally unimportant when we speak, but the way they are delivered is critical. In English the word order is often not that important, but the punctuation can be; the absence or misplacement of a comma can change the meaning completely, or at the very least, cause ambiguity.
We all make mistakes but some communications that I receive from business organisations are littered with them. Perhaps the greatest offence is the misuse of the apostrophe. Undoubtedly some will say that these things are not that important, but I take the view that a business that sends out mistake ridden communications may be equally sloppy in delivering its services.
Email me for a simple guide to the use of the apostrophe. (I hope there are no mistakes in this Ramble!)
Hubs and Spokes
No, not an item on cycling but about communication. Recently BBC 2 screened a programme that studied the so-called ‘six degrees of separation’. The theory goes that we are all linked to anyone else in the world by a maximum of six contacts. ‘A’ knows ‘B’, ‘B’ knows ‘C’, ‘C’ knows ‘D’ and so on. The experiment carried out by scientists and mathematicians to prove the theory wasn’t entirely conclusive, but something far more important emerged. Most of us are aware of hub airports, places like Heathrow that are linked by regular flights to all the major airports in the world. But the same applies to rail networks, the electricity grid, mail distribution, in fact pretty much anything you care to name, even diseases. Yes, apparently there is a vast interlinking of diseases via relatively few hub diseases.
From a business perspective there is a very important lesson here. People also conform to the hub and spoke model. Most people have relatively few contacts whilst a few have many. It is generally recognised that sales success is heavily dependant on referrals and recommendations, which is why networking is so important. For maximum networking effectiveness it appears that we should seek out those who are hubs in preference to those at the end of spokes.
Now of course, nothing is ever black and white, well apart from black and white things. There are mega hubs and smaller hubs. If you consider your list of contacts you may find that you are a mini-hub. It will be in your interest to upgrade your hub status. In doing so you will increase your usefulness to others and so will attract more ‘followers’.
No War Paint Here
There is much said about tribes these days. These are not people who live in jungles and daub themselves with war paint. I first came across the term used by Mary Portas to describe different types of shoppers. In trying to help boutiques struggling for sales she encouraged them to understand their tribe i.e. the specific market group that they were, or should have been, targeting.
As an organisation you will have some sort of tribe. It may be tightly knit or it may be widely spread and disparate. In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, ‘belonging’ is in the middle. It is not the most important thing to us but it is pretty important once we have secured basic survival. Just think how useful you could be to your tribe if you acted as the hub for them. By linking tribal members you increase their sense of belonging to the tribe. You help them to help themselves and each other. And you strengthen their bond to you. By encouraging them to become fully involved in tribal activities you have the opportunity to become the tribe leader. Now you are not marketing to strangers, you are talking with tribe members. So out with the marketing department to make way for the tribe development department.
It’ll Never Catch On
When a few pioneering companies started to produce electricity, the gas companies responded by increasing their efficiency in anticipation of seeing off this upstart technology. Apparently the advent of the telephone was also seen as a passing fad. Quite a few of us will remember the first mobile phones. They were very expensive and the size of a brick. Clearly they had no future. And I can remember a phone call from someone within the company asking me about the benefits to us of using a thing called a word processor. I couldn’t get my head around this at all. And yet within a very few years we all had desktop computers and typists were people from another age.
Then along came Tim Berners-Lee and invented the Internet, and all of these other technological developments were put in the shade. I imagine that even the most backward business has an email account now. However, I suspect that the majority have not moved on to the next stage of exploiting the opportunities afforded by social networking sites. That includes me. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and the like are for personal use, primarily for teenagers aren’t they? Gordon Brown’s appearances on YouTube will do nothing to dispel the view that we should steer well clear.
Recently I read an article (
As a starter, you can follow me on Twitter (www.twitter.com) at DavidRWike. So far I haven’t quite managed to make it work, so maybe technology isn’t for me, but I’ll persevere!
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And Finally
You see, I told you that accurate communication is important. The following, courtesy of John Niland at Success121, is a message from a CEO to his team to encourage them. "I firmly believe that the coming months will present many exiting opportunities for staff." That missing ‘c’ may just have changed the emphasis!
David