PRODUCTIVITYThe Mess Can Wait
If you feel the urge to tidy your desk before you start on meaningful work, The Guardian’s Oliver Burkeman has a simple rule for you and other “pre-crastinators” … reschedule. “If your job permits it, schedule a daily deck-clearing hour — but at 4:30pm, not 9am,” he says. “It’s time to abandon the secret pride we precrastinators feel in completing 25 small tasks by 10am: if they’re not the right tasks, that’s not … something to be proud of.” Instead, Burkeman recommends the time-worn advice to work on your most important project for the first hour of each workday.
sellingIt’s A Win Win
The stylists at Eye Candy Optical in Beachwood, OH, play a simple game called “hate, don’t hate” with their customers. “We used to say ‘like and hate’ but our customers found the word ‘like’ to be too committal,” say co-owners Steve Nelson and Anton Syzdykov. “If they ‘don’t hate it’ it stays in the tray. It’s that simple!” At the end of the game, the cream rises to the top and the customer can be certain they found the best frame, they say. Of course, the caveat is that it takes a very skilled person to lead this process. “They must know the person’s style, features, skin tone, color palette, occupation, and image they want to project. We are all psychologists, detectives, artists, and stylists.”
sellingKeep ’Em in Your Sights
Eye contact is important in any kind of sale. Jack Mitchell, author of Hug Your Customers, suggests asking your sales associates: “Do you know the color of your top customers’ eyes?” Quiz them on this once in a while. A customer’s eyes are the one thing they should remember. You are ECPs after all.
sellingGood Citizens
If you refer to potential customers as prospects or targets, Seth Godin urges you to stop and instead call them “citizens.” He says conventional “marketing-centric terms” don’t reflect the way power has shifted in the marketplace. “Citizens are no longer the weak, isolated pre-consumers in front of a TV set in 1971, with few options. Now, they appear to be holding all the cards.” Try it and “you can’t help but become a little more humble and a little more respectful,” he writes on his blog.
LEARNINGBrain Squeeze
This may sound a bit odd, but work with us, it’s doctor-approved. Dr. Allen Bradon, author of Learn Faster and Remember More, suggests bringing a tennis ball to work. When reading documents, squeeze the ball in your right hand. This will stimulate the left side of your brain, the side that processes words. If it’s blueprints or instructions with diagrams, switch to your left hand; the brain’s right side deals with spatial relationships.
sellingLike a Charm
Great sales mantra seen on the website of author and sales expert Jeffrey Gitomer at gitomer.com. A reader writes that while he is selling to a customer, he tells himself, “I am transferring enthusiasm, I am transferring enthusiasm.” That’s exactly what you should be doing.