Momentum #338 – This week: Problems, Training, Technology

GREG’S BUSINESS GROWTH NEWSLETTER #338
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Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week.

In this issue:

– Thinking about Momentum
– Being Human
– Random Stuff

Thinking about Momentum
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• Defining terms is good communication. “We have a problem” can mean something needs to be fixed, or a decision is to be made, or a plan needs to be developed. Find out.
• People are better with change than we give them credit for. However, the journey to get there, that black box of ambiguity, is just as hard as we think it is.

• Problems are in the past and benefit from pessimism. Strategy is in the future and feeds on optimism.
• Exercise your brain with some “what would have to take place for _______ to happen” scenarios. You’re a problem-solving, strategy generating machine.

Being Human – Fortune cookie wisdom
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The Sure Way To Sales Improvement

Most sales training falls short of expectations because it pits a yes answer against no. As in, yes is the optimal answer from a customer, and no is the suboptimal one. If this same sales training elevates no to the same plane as yes and pits them both against an answer of maybe, and effectiveness goes up. Just like the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference; the opposite of yes isn’t no, it’s maybe.

Good stuff.

Random stuff

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“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” –Confucius

I am listening to a podcast about the porn industry. Don’t judge! It’s a Financial Times series, and it’s fascinating. Among the interviews are people who in trying to solve porn problems helped build the modern internet. Like streaming video. They’re talking to a woman who was among the first to figure out how to stream live video using html and something called active .jpgs.

Necessity truly is the mother of invention.

Speaking of mothers, the woman who helped figure out streaming video tells the story of how she spent most of her time doing simple computer tech support. You know, saying things like “no, the CD drive on your computer is not a cup holder.” It’s the early 90s, a long time ago. Everyone has become so much more tech-savvy.

Jump cut to my son’s recent graduation ceremony. All the parents, families, and other well-wishers are milling about outside the auditorium. Lots of hugs, lots of pictures.

In the crowd is my Mother. She sees one young man, a new graduate, with his shoes untied. Never one to miss an opportunity to talk to strangers she tells him to tie his shoes. This leads to talking about his graduation cords, the symbols of the various honors he earned while in school. This leads to the young man asking her to take a picture of him and his family.

We hear this story later while at brunch. It turns out the young man was my son’s roommate last year. And it turns out this was the picture my Mom took of the young man and his family.

Yep. An unintentional selfie. “No ma’am, that is not a drink holder on your computer.”

Hilarious stuff.

(compost update: I pulled out a wagon load of glorious garden compost, mixed it with vermiculite and applied it around the vegetables. I imagine the plants are like “this stuff is great! I feel stronger. What is it?” and like the movie Soylent Green, I scream “You gotta tell ’em! Soylent Green is PLANTS!”)

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