• I was not important,
• I was not smart,
• I was not organized, and
• I couldn’t speak in front of people.

I learned that none of those things were true through the help of others.  Four things I learned from my earlier years were:

1. We can’t see ourselves objectively.
2. We need believable input to change our opinions of ourselves.
3. We need strategy with our belief.
4. We all need encouragement and accountability.

Watch my video and consider if it might be a good idea to get someone to act as an advisor, coach, mentor, or  “catalyst” to help you to achieve your goals faster.

Wishing you the best,

Jim

We can’t all be lucky but we can all be successful!

Why was I able to gain new insight in a few days? You might think it was due to Joel Bauer’s influence. I believe that in part, it was. But just as important – for two days I was focused on discovering what my inner beliefs and values truly were and how to communicate them to the world. I was completely involved and “present” at that event. There was no time for multi-tasking. I was not responding to email. I was not returning phone calls. I didn’t watch 30 seconds of TV. I was focused on a specific goal and so were those around me.

The result – I got more clarity about who I am, how I can help others, and what I need to do in one weekend than I have in six months.

What does this mean to you? I believe that if you want to get the most out of what you are doing you need to focus on that one thing. Multi-tasking is a dangerous illusion. It masquerades as productivity while it is a drains your attention, your purpose, and your ability to contribute like a vampire. Did you know that organizations like Xerox even have a name for the overload that our brain has when we multi-task. They call it IOS or Information Overload Syndrome. Here’s a funny but insightful video that may remind you of some people you know. (Hopefully not yourself.)

Plan your day and focus on what you are doing. You’ll be happier and more productive.

Wishing you the best,

Jim
“We can’t all be lucky, but we can all be successful!”

You can download a ten minute relaxation audio at no charge here. Find ten minutes to use it (especially in the afternoon) and you will find that your performance and memory will improve. This audio has special high-technology binaural and bilateral sounds that will help you to relax. It works best when you listen to it with headphones. Feel free to share it as long as you do not modify it in any way.

Ten Minute Relaxation Audio – Guided Breathing with Binaural and Bilateral Audio

Wishing you the best,

Jim
“We can’t all be lucky, but we can all be successful!”

I asked this question to a networking group this morning and the expressions that I saw were priceless. The very act of visualizing their cluttered “inbox” brought emotions that ranged from frustration to horror on their faces. My focus today is not whether you, I, or that @#$!! spammer should be sending so much email. The focus is what you can do that will cause your intended reader to “click” on your subject line and open your email – this time and especially in the future. Do you want your reader to look at your email as important, not intrusive? To adapt a phrase that is used by one of my favorite networking groups, the sequence to getting your email read is Visibility, Credibility, Readability

Is this You?

1. You care about your relationship with the email reader. It is your goal that the next time that they receive email from you that they will actually be more inclined to open it than this time. This assumption means that we are not going to do some of the “dirty” tricks that some use to get you to open your email. 2. You actually have a message that will be perceived as important your reader. This might sound obvious but as you will see in a moment, not all email really is worth reading. If you can’t decide why this email is important to them, then don’t send it.
3. Your time is important and so is your client’s. Again, this sounds obvious but if you want email credibility you need to make most email so that is quick to read, simple to understand why they should respond, and simple and easy to respond to.

If these assumptions are true about you then here are some handy guidelines.

Visibility

The Subject Line = The Headline. Everyone who writes copy will tell you that the most important part of any mailing is the headline. The subject for an email is your headline. If you don’t have a subject that states clearly why your reader should open the email (from their point of view) then it might as well be invisible.  Here’s a clue – see assumption #2. The important reason that you are sending the email (and the content) and their motivation should be included in the subject line. Examples of a good subject line look like:

• John – Attached is the report that you needed for today’s meeting; or
• 20% off special for my customers through Christmas Eve; or
• Mary – I need your response by 4PM today or I will not be able to make airline reservations for your trip this weekend.

This also includes replies to email messages. Have you had an email dialogue with someone where the Subject line looks like: “re: Subject” and you aren’t sure which reply it was? Are you likely to open it? Try this to improve the response on your replies. If the original subject read: “Which color of pen should we buy for upcoming tradeshow?” and you wanted to reply that you thought blue was the best color you might be able to simply reply by typing: “Blue is my choice – ” in the subject line ahead of the original Subject and click the send button. The result will look like: “re: Blue is my choice – Which color of pen should we buy for the upcoming tradeshow?” No need to even open that email – you’ve answered the question and the other person will be thankful for the easy-to-read response. By the way – do you think you get email credibility when you do this? You bet! What if you need a more complicated response. State what the main issue is and what you need in the subject line. From the previous example it could read: “re: Do we have samples? – Which color of pen should we buy for the upcoming tradeshow?”. You could then state in your reply that you need to see samples to see how your logo looks in the different colors.

Timing. This is the closest to a “trick” that I will recommend for this topic. If you want your email read have it sent either very early in the morning or very late at night. That way it will be the first thing seen the following day. Most email clients can schedule outgoing mail. Learning how to do that will help your email seen at the beginning of the day.

Credibility

The body of your email will have credibility if it does three things. One, the content should match/respond to the subject line. Two, it must be concise and clearly state what the reader’s benefit is and how you want them to respond. Three, it must respect their time. Most email gets about 10 seconds before the reader closes it or deletes it. Unless the reader can understand what to do in that time limit you are going to have a reduced response. If you have attended a networking meeting or you work in sales, you know the importance of an “Elevator Speech” or “30 Second Intromercial”. You learned to boil down your message so that it could be understood quickly – before the attention span of your audience faded. That skill is essential in creating effective email. Don’t get me wrong – there is a time and a place for longer email including certain sales letters. But most of the time our readers will not give us that much time. If we want to save that extra allowance for when we really need it then we need to be a clear and concise as possible.

Readability

If you practice the art of making your email’s subject line Visible (important) and the content is Credible (consistent with the title, beneficial to the reader, clear and concise) your email will be have high “Readability” and you will feel get better email results.

What went wrong?  Did I ask the wrong questions?  Did I not explain the job or my expectations? Did I not judge the person’s ability to do the job? It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized that the way that I had been trained to interview had a few missing elements.  One of the most important of these is the personality profile of the candidate.

If you are like me before I learned about personality profiles the first question you might ask is: “What does personality have to do with it?”  After all, isn’t the person who has the aptitude and the best fit for me and my team the best person for the job? Not necessarily.

Most of us are taught to check for two things when we interview.

1. Does the candidate have the capability to do the required parts of the job?
2. Will the candidate fit in the “company culture”?

Yes, it is extremely important that the candidate have the ability to do the job they are hired for.  Yes, they must fit in the company culture.  BUT  if you do not take into account the personality of the candidate along with the nature of the job they will be performing then you have a time bomb that will go off despite your and your candidate’s best intentions.

Here’s an illustration of one of my less-than-stellar hiring moments.  During one of my first management jobs I had the opportunity to hire an Executive Assistant to help me in organizing a new department.  The department was a new one with a mission to modernize the methods of manufacturing and test, reduce costs, and improve quality throughout the organization.  I wanted a staff of visionaries and doers. When I interviewed several candidates for the position one young woman who I’ll call Cathy stood apart from the rest.  She was young, bright,  and energetic.  She was almost as excited as I was when I explained the vision of the department.  After completing the interviews that were scheduled I made a quick decision to hire her.  In the beginning I looked like a genius.  Cathy could do everything I asked quickly and efficiently.  But as time progressed she began to slow down and she didn’t represent our department to the other parts of our organization with the same professional manner that had been her trademark.  After we talked about it, it was clear to both of us that Cathy would never be happy in the long run doing the work of an Executive Assistant even though she thought she knew what that meant when she was hired.  She discovered that she really wanted to do strategic planning.  Unfortunately, she did not yet have the training to do that work.  We worked out an arrangement in which she could look for another job while we planned her transition.

Looking back on that incident, if I had known that there is a specific personality profile that matched the job I would not have hired Cathy on the basis of her energy, intelligence, and enthusiasm alone.  I would have realized from the beginning that she was not going to be happy in that job.

We all hire people that we like, which usually means people like us. Instead of doing that I recommend that you make a conscious effort to hire the right personality for the job.

I highly recommend the use of a DISC profile so that you can take personality into account along with aptitude.  A “perfect” personality for a sales person is not the same as a perfect personality for an accountant.

Wishing you the best team you can have,

Jim

“We can’t all be lucky, but we can all be successful.”