No sooner did I post my article on the pitfalls of misusing jargon that I found myself in a conversation that was confused and distorted by the use of technical terms without a shared context.
A client mentioned his plan to delegate the task of staying in regular, informal contact with customers between transactions. We naturally agreed that these “keep warm” meetings were a valuable and often overlooked source of repeat business. Since the activity is so valuable for the business, I asked how he was going to track the sales representative’s performance on scheduling and conducting these visits. “I’m not worried about that. Her personality assessment is clearly very high ‘I,’ so I know she will happily do the meetings.”
I told him that puzzled me. The most popular assessment tool is (more…)
Some people hate to talk to mechanics. Most people don’t know what their doctor told them.
No one likes reading the fine print. Computer departments often find it difficult to get support from the business side. The operations people find it impossible to get the technical people to listen. Jargon used with the wrong audience is a big part of the problem.
People want to be included but using jargon cuts both ways. If everyone in a conversation knows the jargon, everyone feels included. Everyone is “in.” The person who does not know the jargon is “out.”
Consider a sales call on a doctor’s office. The salesperson begins to talk about VoIP, SAAS, and generational back-ups. How would the office manager feel if he were a computer
expert? Respected, included, and comfortable. How would the novice feel? Disrespected, incompetent, and uncomfortable, perhaps? The typical reaction of a person feeling that way is to (more…)
One of the six became Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., who had his first encounter with meditation that night. Kabat-Zinn is a pioneer in the scientific study of mindfulness and is responsible for teaching meditation to many thousands of people.
What is the right audience? The Zen answer is, the audience you have.
Wharton Professor Jonah Berger talks about his book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On. The book details six key steps to drive people to talk and share. STEPPS is an acronym for:
Social currency:, It’s all about people talking about things to make themselves look good, rather than bad
Triggers: which is all about the idea of “top of mind, tip of tongue.” We talk about things that are on the top of our heads.
Emotion: When we care, we share. The more we care about a piece of information or the more we’re feeling physiologically aroused, the more likely we pass something on.
Public: When we can see other people doing something, we’re more likely to imitate it.
Practical value: Basically, it’s the idea of news you can use. We share information to help others, to make them better off.
Stories: how we share things that are often wrapped up in stories or narratives.
Podcast #13: Teleseminar on the power and practicality of integrity: doing what you said you would do, by when you promised, and the it was expected to be done or, as soon as you know you will not, communicating and taking responsibility for the breach.
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Dar and I were childhood friends who met at a trampoline school.
One day we climbed a ladder up to a billboard, high above the roof of the school, and dove off, landing on a soft pad below. I climbed to the fifth rung; Dar just kept climbing. Ten years later, he was one of the most daring and successful stuntmen of modern times.
For one of his stunts, Dar had to run full tilt forward, spin around backward, crash through a glass window, fall sixteen stories, and then do a somersault with a half twist, before dropping into an airbag. Any miscalculation or mistake would have cost him his life.
Dar’s stunts included diving off the top of the Capitol Records building in Los Angeles, leaping from a helicopter hovering at three hundred feet to land in an airbag (that looked the size of a postage stamp below), and driving a car off the rim of (more…)
Participating effectively in trade shows and conferences requires significant investment of time and treasure. I always encourage my clients to do only as many as they can afford to do thoroughly. What does “thoroughly” mean?
Essentially, have a plan and a purpose. Start early, months before the conference. Have the right people at the conference with the time, attention, and resources necessary to work the plan. Be ready to follow up after the conference. Everyone returns from these with lots of ideas and good intentions that whither the first day back at the office. It’s up to you to pick up the thread and maintain the momentum.
Have a clear goal or purpose that is consistent with your marketing message and sales targets. One way to formulate the goal is to answer the question, “If I (more…)
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