I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and a great (and safe) New Year’s celebration.
See you all next year with more posts on networking!
Archive for December, 2009
Happy Holidays!
Thursday, December 24th, 2009Coffee House Tech Trends
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009As we move to the end of the year, I wanted to share an observation of technology and how we are using it.
Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I spend a lot of time in coffee houses. It’s where I meet my clients, prospects and people I network with. I am also a people watcher, and a gadget freak, so I like to see what gadgets other people are using.
Last year and very early this year, I saw a lot of Blackberrys, laptops and some netbooks. Those appeared to be the mobile productivity tools of choice.
As 2009 progressed, I saw a change. I now see fewer laptops and Blackberrys. What I see now are more netbooks, iPhones and other brands of smartphones.
It’s actually surprised me how the number of Blackberrys has dropped off. It’s a good mobile tool, but based on my unscientific measurement, it seems to be losing ground to the iPhone and other smartphones. I expect to see more Android-powered phones next year, especially as long as Verizon continues to not have an iPhone. People seem to like the touch screen phones, and the Blackberry Storm has not taken off here. I see it, certainly, but compared to the iPhone? No comparison.
The switch to more netbooks does not surprise me. More portable is better. Hence my recent netbook purchase. Most of the work done in coffee houses seems to be web browsing, basic word processing, email (and watching YouTube videos). Netbooks perform those functions very well.
What did surprise me until I thought it through was what I perceive as a switch from netbooks to iPhones and the like. Note the work I mentioned above. iPhones and many other smartphones perform most of those functions very well. Word processing is the only one where a computer is clearly better, but I have written plenty of documents on my phone, so it certainly can be done.
My observation is, of course, in the Washington DC area. Anyone from another location have observations to share? Is this an “inside the Beltway” phenomenon, or does it extend elsewhere?
Oh, just one more observation. While I was in Disney World last week, I noticed that while iPhones certainly were present, they were scarcer than the DC area. It might have had something to do with the fact that the AT&T service was horrible in the Orlando area. I couldn’t get 3G at all in the parks, and even my Edge connection was sluggish at best. I used to think all the complaints about AT&T were unjustified. The service in the DC area is quite good. Now I see that my experience here is hardly universal. Another reason to stay put for now.
Selling Without Being Obnoxious
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009This isn’t a topic I generally blog about, but I’ve had several conversations around this subject in the last couple of weeks, and I decided it was worth mentioning.
A lot of people think that selling is a bad thing. It isn’t. Obnoxious used car salespeople are offensive, but good salespeople aren’t like that. When I was going through my coach training, I actually got into an argument with one of my instructors around this topic. She said that coaches who effectively attract clients listen for needs, offer solutions, use empathy and are respectful to their prospects. I said, “Yeah. Just like good salespeople.”
Since she was the instructor and I the student, I “lost” that argument. I’m sure you can imagine how much I paid attention to the rest of that class.
But everything she listed are things good salespeople do. We like to be sold. But we like to be sold well. Small business owners tune in now. Many of you love your product or service but hate to sell it. If you hate sales, you’re not doing it right.
As I was hunting for my netbook, I walked into Staples to browse. The sales person headed in my direction. I did the usual deflect “I’m just looking.” Yes, even I, who know better, does that automatically. Then my brain kicked in. Wait. I needed information. And who better to get it from than a knowledgeable salesperson.
So I stopped her and asked my questions. She gave me good answers and exactly the information I was looking for. She made the sale.
Too bad for Staples that they were out of stock, and I wanted my netbook now. The Staples salesperson sold me on the product. But another store got the sale because they had it in stock.
Another lesson, small business owners. It doesn’t do you any good to sell effectively if you can’t follow up on your good salesmanship. Once we make a decision to buy, we often want it now. And if you are selling something that buyers consider a commodity, you can do a great job giving business to someone else if you don’t manage your stock.
So what did she do that was so effective? She listened. She asked some questions about how I was going to use the computer. She provided information targeted to my needs. She connected with me. Once she realized I had some technical knowledge, she spoke to me on my level. We even found a couple of things we had in common and bonded over them.
By the time we were done (about 10 minutes), I was sold on a netbook (and the specific one), and I had a very good opinion of that particular Staples (even though they were out of stock.) I’ll continue to shop there and recommend them to others.
That was good selling. She met my needs, and I got what I wanted. If they had the product in stock, I would have bought from them and no other. I wasn’t even going to price shop them. That’s how happy I was.
Take some lessons from this story and use them to be more effective selling your own products and services. Sales doesn’t have to be a four letter word!
Finally Got a Netbook!
Monday, December 21st, 2009I am back from vacation, and it was amazing. To think that less than a week ago, I was wearing shorts. And now I am back home with a foot and a half of snow outside. Is this a great country or what?
Anyway, it’s back to work and back to blogging. I have a new toy…I mean tool… to work with and share. It definitely helps with networking on the go, so I’m still on topic.
During my fight with Verizon a couple of weeks ago, I discovered that I am very productive in coffee houses. I was getting more done there in a couple of hours than I was at my home office. Which finally gave me the excuse the buy the netbook I have been lusting after for more than a year.
I decided on the Toshiba NB205. Why that one? My research indicated that Acer and Toshiba have the most reliable netbooks. And the Toshiba had much better battery life than the Acer. It’s rated for 9 hours. I’m not getting that, but I’m getting good life. I bought it on Friday, and I’ve charged it twice. The initial charge and one other. Definitely need to charge it today, but this has been good. Battery life is important since the Panera I spend the most time at has two power outlets. What were they thinking?
It’s definitely slower than my laptop, but it’s getting the job done. Operating system is Windows 7 Starter, and I discovered one major downside. I thought I had done my research well, but somehow I missed the “can’t run more than 3 programs at the same time” limitation. This is a bummer since my usual work lineup is Firefox, Thunderbird, Tweetdeck, iTunes and Open Office. iTunes is the obvious casualty (my iPhone can cover the music angle). Email or Tweetdeck will go when I need to use Open Office. I can live.
The keyboard was the other reason I got this one. Very comfortable. The keys are large with good spacing between them. Even my husband and his huge fingers can type comfortably on them.
I still have a program or two to install, but I’ve got the important ones loaded and running well. As I work now, I have Tweetdeck bringing in important stuff, like my 4:30 appointment DMing me to reschedule. My blog is almost done. Life is good. Tomorrow I will finally leave the house with it, and provided it survives two clients drooling over it, I think we are in business!
No Blog for A While
Thursday, December 10th, 2009I’m leaving town, and I won’t be back blogging until 12/21. This trip is personal, and even though I can blog on the go, it wouldn’t be appropriate this time.
See you all when I get back! Until then, network well.
Battling with Verizon
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009If you are looking for networking stuff today, sorry. I’ve had a very interesting few days fighting with Verizon about our DSL connection, and I wanted to report on the story. It does have some work implications, as you’ll see. But mostly I need an off-topic day to rant! If you want to share my rant, please do. Otherwise come back tomorrow when I resume my regularly scheduled posts.
Although we didn’t realize it at the time, our DSL connection has been gradually degenerating for the past month or longer. We just thought it was slow at odd times of day. Either that or my son was hogging bandwidth with one of his on-line games.
It started to get really bad on last Thursday, but it’s only in retrospect that I’ve figured that out. Looking back, that was the day my son couldn’t get Netflix to stream a Watch Instantly video. Then on Friday evening, I bought a Monopoly game for my iPhone. It took an awfully long time to download and install, but I thought it was just a big file. However, it crashed my iPhone when I tried to run it. At the time, I thought it was the game. Now I think it was a corrupted download. I’ll know for certain when I re-download it, which I won’t be testing until we get back from our Disney trip (we leave on Saturday!). I need my phone while we are gone, and testing stuff isn’t high on my priority list now. I deleted the game, and phone is fine now. I want it to stay that way until we get back.
Back to the Verizon story. On Saturday, our connection was very sluggish. Text pages would load, slowly, but they would load. Anything with images or video, though? Forget it! My husband was okay most of the day. He could get to his fanfiction sites. I managed (with patience) to get one of my game sites to load. But that was about it. All three of us tried over the course of the day to call Verizon tech support. Devan and David both wandered through their “helpful” phone prompts to untimately be told, “Your call can’t be completed at this time.” I tried in the evening and finally got through to a person. A person who spoke terrible English. The phone connection was awful too, but I managed to be understood. She said they would run a 24-hour line test and let me know the results the next day.
24 hours later, we got a call back. “All fine!” Not! The connection was worse. Now even text pages wouldn’t load. I needed to check some things for our trip, and I had to use the Internet connection on my phone. Thank goodness for the iPhone and a 3G connection.
I called back. I think I got the same tech support person as the day before. Same bad English. At least the phone connection was better. One hour and 20 minutes later, we had tried changing settings, disconnecting the wireless router and a few other things. She tried to tell us it was a computer virus. Not so fast! We told her three computers and an iPhone were all experiencing the same problem. She said she would submit another repair ticket, and we would hear from a technician on Monday.
We never heard from the technician, but I did get an automated call in the afternoon from Verizon saying, “All fine!” By now, you can probably figure out that it still wasn’t fine.
Back on the phone to Verizon. This time I could not get through to support. I would go through all the options and get “Your call can not be completed at this time.” By now I was pissed. So I called back and went through the options to “add more services.” I wanted a sales person, figuring he or she would connect me to someone who could help. Score! She hooked me up with Josh, a technical support guy who spoke English well. He looked at everything and agreed the problem was on their end. According to him, if three computers and an iPhone were all affected, the problem had to be on their end. Finally, someone admitted what we had known all along! He bumped me up to “Advanced Tech Support,” and Debbie in that department took down my information and created yet another ticket.
About 5:30 in the evening, we got another “It’s fixed” call. Nope, still not fixed. Another call to Tech Support. Another work around to a sales person. Connected to another tech support guy. This time I threatened to cancel my service if someone didn’t do something. He checked and said, “Well, your ticket was closed out by the Central office, but I’m still seeing a problem on your line.” This was good. Well, not good that the Central office closed the ticket. But good that someone from Verizon finally admitted a screw-up.
He bumped it up the line again and informed me that it was now officially an outage in my area. Hooray! Now maybe something would really happen.
We went to bed hoping it would be fixed today. And it is. We have connection, and it’s faster than its been in months. I have no idea what really happened, but it’s fixed now.
So why am I writing this post from Panera? (Couldn’t you tell?) Because I discovered yesterday, in my search for a WiFi connection to get some work done, that I am more productive in a public place. Lots of people in my Twitter stream were saying it, and I have discovered it’s true for me too. So my plan is to be a digital nomad a couple of days a week.
Not a bad thing to discover. And it gives me an excuse to finally research that Netbook I’ve been lusting after for months. But I would have rather learned this without three days without Internet connection and close to four hours on the phone with Verizon.
Oh, yes. After the new year, we plan to research other broadband options. I’m kind of soured on DSL now.
How to End a Conversation
Monday, December 7th, 2009This was another question that I received last week from someone who has trouble with “their new best friends” at networking events. The question was how to gracefully escape from a conversation with someone who is monopolizing your time.
The answer to this one depends on the person you are trying to escape. Is she truly annoying (and someone you don’t want to pass off to another), or is he someone interesting who just has a hard time ending a conversation?
We’ll tackle the annoying person first. While the temptation is certainly to tell her to get lost, it’s never a good idea to burn a relationship. Someone who is annoying today could change and turn out to be a good contact later. So, try this. “I’ve really found this conversation interesting, but I don’t want to monopolize your time. I’m sure there are other people here you’d like to talk with.” And then you make a hasty get-away. You’ve been respectful of the other person while still being able to move on. If she was just nervous and not sure how to work an event, you’ve preserved the relationship for later, if she ever gets it. And if she’s just an obnoxious person, you’ve gotten away without causing a scene.
But what if the person is actually interesting and just isn’t good at ending a conversation? This is a good situation for the smooth hand-off. Assuming there is someone else at the event you know, you can make the following offer, “I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you. You know, you really need to speak to [fill in the blank]. You two will have a lot in common. She’s right over here. Let me introduce you.”
Obviously, this works better if you can personalize it with some reason the two people need to talk. If you can come up with that reason, you are golden. You’ve escaped from a conversation, and introduced two people who have a reason to connect.
While it is tempting to pull the above strategy to stick two annoying people together, I don’t recommend it. That could come back to haunt you later.
The above strategies should work for almost any situation where you need a quick escape at an event. Anyone have another strategy to share? Or have you been in a situation where neither of the above would have worked? I’m open to an idea for a follow-up post!
Biggest Networking Mistakes: Not Describing Yourself Well
Friday, December 4th, 2009Yesterday I wrote about what I think is one of the biggest mistakes made in networking: not listening enough. Today I want to talk about the flip side: not describing yourself (or your business) well.
Have you ever been to an event where you asked someone, “So what do you do?” and been more confused after they finished than when they started.
Or have you ever asked someone “Who is a good client for you?” and they say, “Well, actually anyone is a good client for me.”
Neither of those messages accomplished anything positive. If they made the person more memorable, it wasn’t in a good way.
To network effectively, you need to have a clear message. You need to be able to describe what you do without jargon and in a way that people will understand. You need to know who you want to meet and be able to describe them in ways that will trigger a response.
This is one of the reasons I recommend people develop an elevator speech. Even if you never have a chance to stand up and deliver one, the process of writing about it forces you to think through who you are, what you do, and who you want to meet.
So how can you communicate those things more effectively?
1. Don’t use jargon! I can’t emphasize that enough. Jargon only communicates with people who know the jargon, and the majority of people you interact with won’t understand and won’t care.
2. Involve the senses. If you can describe what you do in a vivid way involving many senses, do so. When I was selling windows, I used to talk about standing in front of a large picture window and feeling either the heat or the cold through the glass. I got a referral from someone who felt the cold in front of the window in a friend’s living room. Saying, “if you know someone who needs my services” wouldn’t have given it to me. Making her feel it in my description did.
3. Be specific. If you want to meet plastic surgeons, don’t say you want to meet people “in the medical profession.” If you want to work with a particular company, mention it by name. If you can describe exactly what to look for of listen for, describe it. Our mind needs triggers to make connections. Give them to us.
4. Don’t wing it. Think through these things in advance. Sit down right now and write down what you do in vivid terms, using common language. Run your description past a friend or a client. See if it resonates. If you do it now, you’ll be ready when you need it.
Anyone want to share a particularly vivid description of what you do or who you need to meet? If I get some good ones, I’ll include them in an upcoming blog post. Don’t forget to leave a link to your site. I’ll include it in the post.
Biggest Networking Mistakes: Not Listening
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009I was having lunch today with Christine Clapp today, and, among the other great things we talked about, she asked me what I thought were the biggest mistakes small business owners make in networking. I said there were two, and I thought they’d both make good blog posts.
One of the biggest mistakes I see people make in networking is not listening. People think that networking means talking about themselves, and that is some of what you do. (I’ll be talking more about this one tomorrow when I cover the other really big mistake.)
But listening is key to success in networking for several reasons.
1. It shows you care. Remember that we refer people we know, like and trust. How can you build trust without showing you care? Listening for needs gives us an opportunity to give back. Listening for shared interests gives us something to continue talking about.
2. It gives the conversation more substance. Many people are bad at keeping a scintillating conversation going. Listening and asking good follow up questions makes it much easier. It’s actually easier to listen than to try to figure out what witty or relevant thing to say next. Asking follow up questions makes it easier for the other person to know what to say next. Besides, who doesn’t like talking about themselves?
3. Listening gives you clues for what to say. Of course, you’re going to want your shot at talking sometimes. If you’ve listened well, you know something about the other person, which makes it easier for you to decide what you want to say. You can tailor a message that will resonate with the other person. If you have uncovered a shared interest or philosophy, that gives you more to talk about and keeps the conversation flowing.
Tomorrow, I’m going to talk about the other big mistake I see and how listening first can help overcome the other mistake.
Until then, listen first. You will have a reputation as a great conversationalist, and people will keep coming back for more.