Author Jess McCann has a new book out called "You Lost Him at Hello" in which she coaches women who are looking for love to apply the same strategies that work in a sales environment to meeting men. (I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I don't have time to read the book. I only read the review, and yet, I feel free to talk about it. Sue me.)
McCann's point, as far as I can tell, is that there are two key elements when you are trying to meet new people. First, you have to be prepared. Have a plan for what you'll talk about and be prepared to tell your story so that someone will find you interesting and memorable. Second, you have to have the right attitude. Make eye contact, smile and demonstrate positive energy.
These are the same critical success factors that we've identified for people involved in a job hunt or interview situation. In a competitive job market, every conversation you have may result in an opportunity found...or an opportunity lost. The scary part is that you may never know that you missed an opportunity because you were talking about the crab dip instead of about yourself.
We even put together a tool to help you plan your Personal Pitch so that you are prepared to describe yourself in a few short sentences, rather than going on and on and never really making the point you want to make.
Preparation not only means planning what you will say. It also means planning some questions to ask. We tell our workshop participants that they should only talk about 50% of the time in a job interview. If you are talking all the time, you aren't asking enough questions.
Remember when you were in high school and your mom told you to ask questions and listen if you want to be considered a great conversationalist? It's still true in a dating situation and even more true when you are looking for a job, which leads me right back to Jess McCann's second point - attitude.
Positive Listening means you are smiling, responding to what is said, and clearly demonstrating your interest in the conversation. In this way, you show your positive attitude and make yourself more appealing, whether you are looking for a date or a job.
I love it when multiple people who have never heard of each other arrive at the same conclusion at the same time. It gives me hope that there is Truth in the result.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Too Many Blogs, Too Little Time
I've been reading about how to increase traffic to my website, with the intention of selling more books and workshops. One of the things that is frequently suggested is blogging. Apparently if your blog is interesting enough often enough, people will come back again and again to read what you've written.
Oh. It has to be interesting? Every time? No pressure there.
In addition to being interesting, the experts strongly suggest that you stay on topic. Your blog should be a meaningful reference tool for your customers, so you need to make sure that every post contains only information they would care about. (Obviously this only applies to blogs created to help sell things.) For those who are involved in a number of different activities, the experts suggest maintaining multiple blogs. Often in the next paragraph, they also say that I should post to my blog every day, or at least three times per week.
Now I have to be interesting three times per week for each of the six lines of business I am currently promoting. That's 18 interesting messages each week, which will inevitably cut into the time I have available for writing books, making speeches, coaching consultants, selling books and incubating new businesses. While I can see that this problem would eventually solve itself, as those other lines of business die off, I'm not willing to become a full-time blogger or ignore everything else.
Instead, I'm going to try harder to put meaningful tags on my blog postings and continue to post everything here. If you don't care about my thoughts on publishing, don't read them. I'll be interesting tomorrow on whatever topic originally made you subscribe to my blog, I promise. Deal?
In the meantime, Casey and I have combined all our various interests under one website. Visit us at www.redlineaustin.com and see what's new!
Oh. It has to be interesting? Every time? No pressure there.
In addition to being interesting, the experts strongly suggest that you stay on topic. Your blog should be a meaningful reference tool for your customers, so you need to make sure that every post contains only information they would care about. (Obviously this only applies to blogs created to help sell things.) For those who are involved in a number of different activities, the experts suggest maintaining multiple blogs. Often in the next paragraph, they also say that I should post to my blog every day, or at least three times per week.
Now I have to be interesting three times per week for each of the six lines of business I am currently promoting. That's 18 interesting messages each week, which will inevitably cut into the time I have available for writing books, making speeches, coaching consultants, selling books and incubating new businesses. While I can see that this problem would eventually solve itself, as those other lines of business die off, I'm not willing to become a full-time blogger or ignore everything else.
Instead, I'm going to try harder to put meaningful tags on my blog postings and continue to post everything here. If you don't care about my thoughts on publishing, don't read them. I'll be interesting tomorrow on whatever topic originally made you subscribe to my blog, I promise. Deal?
In the meantime, Casey and I have combined all our various interests under one website. Visit us at www.redlineaustin.com and see what's new!
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