Business Growth Newsletter #201 – Weekend enjoyment, Eye to eye, Comfy Pants
GREG’S BUSINESS GROWTH NEWSLETTER #201
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Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week.
In this issue:
– Techniques for FIT
– Being Human
– Random Stuff
Techniques for FIT
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- Everyone wants to enjoy the weekend. Encourage your people to plan Monday before leaving Friday. A simple list of 3 things to make Monday great helps everyone have a great weekend including Sunday night.
- You and I know the way to get the most done in the least amount of time is eye-to-eye, belly-to-belly, knee-to-knee. Make it easy for you team to do. Give them permission.
- Other perspectives are great to have in chaotic times. When people start whispering “economy” or “layoffs” or “cuts” the tendency is to look inside for guidance. Go outside and spend more time with customers. It will pay off.
- Unless you avoid calendars, you know the end of a decade is coming up. Prepare yourself. It looks inconspicuous but the experts say we will avoid looking back at what we’ve accomplished in the year and instead look back at how we’ve done for the decade. Recruiters get ready!
Being Human – Windows to the soul
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[The Interrotron] “Named by my wife because it had the words ‘interview’ and ‘terror’ in it. . .I like eye contact.” – Errol Morris
I’m back! Back in the recruting game. It’s for a special project and after a half dozen phone/zoom/coffee house visits I’m thinking about communication. Errol Morris is a documentary filmaker known for his extreme close ups in interviews. Instead of the camera being off to the side raking both the interviewer and interviewee, the film’s subjects look right at you and tell their stories. I heard him say he had to come up with a special teleprompter-like system to make it happen so both he and the subject could be in the same room and maintain eye contact.
Why did he have to invent such a contraption? Eye contact is simply that important to him. There’s a Netflix special from illusionist Derren Brown called “Sacrifice.” In it he has his subject develop empathy with a stranger in minutes by asking him to sit face-to-face, knee-to-knee and stare into the stranger’s eyes. It’s only four minutes but by the end both of the men are in tears.
I want business development people and buyers to have better communication by sitting face-to-face, uninterrupted. If we can’t get face-to-face, I want a sales Interrotron. It will cut down on bad decisions made on both sides. It has to.
(of course, as I write this two other images come to mind: Mad Max 2 & Die Hard. . .
. . .so maybe getting face-to-face isn’t foolproof, but with my version of the Sales Interrotron it’ll be hard to get assaulted.
I think. It’s still in testing.)
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But, were you comfortable?
Last week I mentioned not remembering anything making me laugh hard early in the week so I didn’t have any stories to share. I wrote that on Tuesday because on Friday I knew I’d be up early driving to the Frozen Tundra.
I love the drive up north, but this time of year it’s hard to dress for the journey because it’s sub-20F outside but inside the truck is 68F and if the sun is shining on your side it gets uncomfortably hot. Sometimes the passenger gets punished, sometimes it’s me so I picked some loose layers to wear on the drive, including a pair of black, fuzzy, running pants. Two hours in I knew I made the right choice because I felt great. I was chatty, the passengers were right with me, and the roads were clear. Good times.
The best part is I remembered my runing pants have no pockets, so before leaving I slipped my fancy tennis shorts on underneath. This way, when we stopped for gas, snacks, and bio stuff, I could carry my phone and wallet. However, on the first stop I remembered another feature of my shorts/pants combo. No fly.
Yep. All the way across the midwest I was like a five year old dropping full trou to use the urinal, hoping no one had to wash their eyeballs after unexpectedly wandering in behind me.
That, mis amigos, made me laugh. A lot.
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