Category Archives: Quickies

Your Generic VoiceMail Message Sucks!

How often does this happen to you? When calling a business or colleague, you hear ‘Your call is being forwarded to an automated voice messaging system … 475 338-0298 is not available … beep.‘

That sucks! While short and harmless, these recordings can subtly imply characteristics about the business or person:

Read More »

How to Overcome Stage Fright

A prospect asked me if I could help him overcome his ‘stage fright’ when delivering routine workplace presentati0ns. My short answer was ‘I can’t – it’s a perfectly normal human response to fear or stress.’ Here are the highlights from the rest of the conversati0n.

Read More »

Doing Well by Doing Good

Here’s a great idea for distinctive holiday gifts that will set you apart from your competitors. I’ve used this best practice myself and recommended it to my clients. Instead of sending the usual food or SWAG gifts, make a small donation to a local charity in each customer’s name. Better still, find a local charity that they already support if you can.

Read More »

Carol Roth Likes My Style

Regular readers may recall that I often contribute content to Carol Roth’s popular e-publications. She’s a nationally known PR and Entrepreneurship expert, speaker and author … and, apparently, a fan of my writing.  She ran my most recent item in her ‘Small Business Tips for Dealing with Customer Complaints’ blog. This is the seventh time I’ve appeared in her blogs in the last three years. Read on …

Read More »

Networking Worst Mistakes

(Now that some live networking events are returning to our area, it’s time to re-run this bit of sage advice.)

I’ve seen a lot of Networking Worst Practices in my 25 plus years of writing and speaking about the topic, but the worst of the worst is making an absolutely terrible first impression on a stranger in less than one minute by delivering an Elevator Speech from Hell!  That happens when pitifully amateur networkers: Read More »

Dealing with Angry Customers 

How do you deal with angry customers? First, have a well-defined policy in place that senior management participated in creating and signed off on. Second, make sure that everyone who touches customers understands, embraces and follows consistently. Third, periodic re-training or review can be helpful.

Read More »

Networking with Uncommon Courtesy

Networking with ‘Uncommon Courtesy’ is both simple and easy and can clearly differentiate you from everyone else:

Read More »

Titles Make Me Crazy!

While skimming some LinkedIn postings recently, I encountered an author who was seriously title happy. After his name was ‘… MBA, BA, BS, NP, MPM.’

Read More »

Choose Your Attitude

Regular readers may recall that I often contribute content to several of Carol Roth’s popular e-publications. She’s a nationally known PR and Entrepreneurship expert, speaker and author … and apparently a fan of my work.  She ran my most recent item in her ‘Positive Mindset Tips for Small Business’ blog. 

Read More »

Ride up on the Escalator

Take your Elevator Speech to the top floor by converting it into an ‘Escalator Speech’. Assume you’re going down on the escalator as someone passes by you going up on the other one. You only have a few seconds to communicate. So, your Escalator Speech is an even more concise version of your Elevator Speech. Read More »