Category Archives: Articles

Speak Up … I Can’t Hear You!

By Phil Stella | Published: September 12, 2022

An easy way to make your workplace presentation more interesting is simply to speak louder. Really. That’s all it takes to become a more engaging presenter. Speaking up can significantly impact your audience’s attention, interest in your message … and positive impression of you, the messenger.

Loud is Good

In our culture, we tend to interpret a soft-spoken voice as coming from a person lacking confidence or credibility. Not good reactions for your audience to have about you. Even on a microphone, the soft-spoken voice delivers that weak impression loud and clear. It doesn’t matter if these reactions are valid – remember that Perception is Reality. If you sound weak to the audience – you are.

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 Gratitude Magnitude

By Phil Stella | Published: August 3, 2022

A key concept for a successful Referral Strategy is the Magnitude of your Gratitude. You have lots of potential people to thank – here are six steps to making the most of your gratitude. 

In this example, Bob is your current customer and you’ve just completed the transaction and delivered your service to him. Read More »

Ride up on the Escalator

By Phil Stella | Published: August 2, 2022

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.

Mine is ‘I empower business leaders to communicate confidently’ Short, simple and likely to generate some questions when the other person turns around and follows me back down. Read More »

Listen on Three Levels

By Phil Stella | Published: August 2, 2022

Listening? What does listening have to do with your job as hard-working and dynamic business leaders or entrepreneurs? Well … a lot, when you get out of your own box and view your role as a workplace communicator and problem-solver for your internal or external customers.

You spend a large part of your day verbally communicating important messages to important people – customers, staff, colleagues, bosses, suppliers, partners, etc. And listening is a critically important part of that verbal communication process. Yet, we tend to be terrible listeners, remembering very little of what we hear. Read More »

Master Marketing R&R

By Phil Stella | Published: July 2, 2022

Time to focus on ‘Marketing R&R’— with every sale or engagement, savvy entrepreneurs ask themselves ‘How can I earn repeat or referral business?’ The answer is easy to understand but hard to do. So, read on for ‘R&R’ Best Practices.

 

To Ask or Not to Ask?

Two schools of thought here. One says never ask for repeats or referrals. If your customers were pleased enough, they’d do it for you without being asked. To ask for them may even look cheap, weak or annoying. If you concur, good for you. Stop reading now. Read More »

Does Good Workplace Writing Really Matter?

By Phil Stella | Published: July 2, 2022

(A business reporter recently ask me for my thoughts on the impact of poor workplace writing skills. Here’s a summary of our conversation.)

 

1) How do poor writing skills hurt businesses?

Poor writing skills can make you and your organization look lazy, sloppy or incompetent. This is especially true with people who place a high priority on precision, accuracy and quality. Read More »

Give ‘Em That Old Power Look!

By Phil Stella | Published: July 2, 2022

Ready for a deep dive into Power Eye Contact? Great, because it can really project confidence, credibility and competence … take a look. 

If I could only enhance one presentation delivery skill with my executive coaching clients, it would be to help them maximize the impact of their eye contact. Properly done, it produces several positive results for your audience and for you. Nothing says more about your credibility, power and confidence than what you do – and don’t do – with your eyes. They are the mirror of your soul. Everything else is a ‘B’ priority. Read More »

FAQs About FAQs

By Phil Stella | Published: June 10, 2022

How often does a customer call, text or email you with a question? If you said ‘rarely’, then you’re either very good or very lucky. Stop reading now and go do something fun in stead. If you said ‘often’ or ‘a lot’, then read on …  this one’s for you.

How important are customer questions?

Our operational assumption is that effective, efficient and engaging customer communication is essential for any business to survive, let alone thrive. That said, responding to customer questions quickly, clearly and courteously is a critically important aspect of customer communication strategy. Read More »

Embrace the Platinum Rule

By Phil Stella | Published: June 10, 2022

Many business professionals diligently attempt to practice the ‘Golden Rule’ at work that we all learned as youngsters. A workplace communication version of that philosophy would be ‘Communicate with other people the way you want them to communicate with you.’  While a nice warm and fuzzy concept, a quick reality check indicates two serious flaws in the logic: the ‘Golden Rule’ assumes ‘everyone is the same and that ‘everyone is the same as you.’

While the ‘Golden Rule’ doesn’t work at a certain level of specific application, the ‘Platinum Rule’ does. Rather than communicating with other people the way you want them to communicate with you, it stresses communicating with other people they way they want you to communicate with them. I first learned about this strategy from Dr. Tony Alessandra in the 90s. It is 10 times harder to do well, but 100 times better than the ‘Golden Rule’. So, you do the math and see how much value you see using it. Read More »

That’s really a dumb question

By Phil Stella | Published: June 9, 2022

You know that old adage, ‘There’s no such thing as a dumb question’? Sorry to spoil your fantasy, but that’s wrong. There are plenty of dumb questions.

Three of my faves are:

1.  Excuse me, do you know what time it is? 

2.  Hey mister, got any spare change?

3.  Honey, do you want to take out the trash? Read More »