Communication

Does Feedback Determine Your Direction?

Feedback in a public address system is annoying. It may be an indication that the mic is too close to the speakers. It may be that the volume is too high. Whatever the cause, it needs to be fixed. An adjustment needs to be made.

Luther experienced feedback from the PA. He also got some feedback on his speech. “Atta boy, Luther!” He’s a terrible public speaker who doesn’t need to be encouraged. The applause and shout outs might have caused him to think he was headed in the right direction though.

Feedback can let us know what our next step should be – what adjustments need to be made so we can improve. Or it can derail us, delude us and frustrate us by robbing us of clarity.

Daily we’re surrounded by feedback. Twitter, blog comments, Google +, Facebook, YouTube comments, Flickr comments and a thousand other services provide some way for people to communicate with each other. Feedback.

Does feedback change your course? Which feedback do you find most useful in helping you figure out your next step?

In “The Design of Future Things” author Donald A. Norman writes of technical design, but stretch your application of what he says.

Today, many automatic devices do provide minimal feedback, but much of the time it is through bleeps and burps, ring tones and flashing lights. This feedback is more annoying than informing, and even when it does inform, it provides partial information at best. In commercial settings, such as manufacturing plants, electric generating plants, hospital operating rooms, or inside the cockpits of aircraft, when problems arise, many different monitoring systems and pieces of equipment sound alarms. The resulting cacophony can be so disturbing that the people involved may waste precious time turning all the alarms off so that they can concentrate on fixing the problems.

In the design of smart cars and homes and other forms of automation, Norman argues that we “need to transition toward a more supportive form of two-way interaction.” The key may be that term, supportive. Feedback should have a benefit. That doesn’t mean it must always be, “Atta boy, Luther!” It shouldn’t just be noise. We need feedback to help us figure things out. Or do we?

Does feedback determine your direction? Do you alter your course based on feedback?

 

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Salespeople, Never Enter A Prospect’s Office With A Syringe In Your Hand

One of the major problems of selling is a person’s failure to qualify. That is, if the salesperson jumps right into a presentation without knowing anything about the needs of the prospect, then it’s highly likely the prospect will walk away without buying. For good reason. The salesperson failed to find out any meaningful information about the needs or desires of the prospect.

In other cases, the prospect may buy, but then problems erupt because the salesperson didn’t get enough information to make the purchase stick. As the old sales adage goes, “Anybody can sell somebody once!”

When it comes to qualifying a prospect, or failing to do so – maybe anybody can sell something once, but can you keep it sold? I’ve known too many salespeople who could sell something, but their return rate (the number of customers who would demand a refund) was sky-high. That’s not quality salesmanship. It’s poor service.

Quality questions solve some of these issues. By learning to ask better questions salespeople can accomplish three critical things:

a. You demonstrate how much you really care about solving the prospect’s problem.

b. You’re better able to tailor the best solution for their problem.

c. You build rapport and develop a relationship, not just a transaction.

Imagine going to a doctor because you suspect you’ve got a sinus infection. You’re ushered into the examination room. As you wait for a nurse, or the doctor, you’re anxious to get on with it. You want to tell somebody what’s wrong with you so you can get on the road to feeling better. The door opens, in walks a nurse with a syringe. She asks you to roll up your sleeve so she can give you a shot. Would you let her?

Of course not! You’ll look at her like she’d lost her mind, probably thinking to yourself, “She’s got the wrong patient!” Quickly, you’d let her know that you haven’t had the opportunity to tell anybody what’s wrong with you.

Every day sales calls take place just like that. A salesperson walks into a room armed with a syringe – their solution – before they even know what the problems are.

A young man asks a young lady out on a date. At dinner he holds forth telling her all about himself. He talks about his background, what he likes, what he doesn’t like, his favorite sports, music, books. On and on. He rambles incessantly about himself all evening long, never stopping once to ask the young lady about her life. All the while she’s thinking, “Boy, he sure is full of himself.”

Does she go out with him again? Not on your life. She’s happy to have that date behind her. She quickly tells her friends how he didn’t care to find out anything about her. Soon, word spreads throughout her circle that he’s not a guy any self-respecting girl would want to date.

Word will spread about you, too. Enter a prospect’s office and dive right into your sales pitch. No need to find out more about them, or their pain. Your solution is a one-size-fits-all so you’re convinced the prospect needs what you’ve got. Just like the young man is convinced that any young lady would be honored to have him ask her out on a date. Not so much!

Quality questions don’t just improve sales and a buyer’s experience – they can also improve our careers and our businesses. Pre-think good questions that can help you serve others. You’ll craft better questions beforehand then you’ll ever craft on the fly. Besides, not everybody is intuitively given to wise inquisition.

Some years ago I was running a retail operation that sold consumer electronics and high-end major home appliances. Delivery was part of what we did. The warehouse manager was reporting considerable delivery problems. It seems we’d arrive at a client’s home, prepared to make the delivery, only to find out that due to the difficulty of this particular delivery we needed additional men.

I visited with the sales team and asked them a question. “What are you guys asking the customers to find out about the difficulty of making a delivery to their home?”

“We’re asking them if there’s any abnormal about their delivery,” they replied. “Well, a customer might have 185 steps up a 45 degree incline in the front of their house. To them, that’s normal because it’s their house. Besides, who wants to admit that they’re abnormal?” I said.

“Can anybody think of some better question to ask?” I said.

They shrugged and thought for a moment. Nobody came up with a suggestion. And this was a very talented and veteran sales team.

“Do you think it might be more helpful if you asked the customer to describe how we’ll have to make the delivery from our truck to where the product is going to go inside their house?” I asked.

Sure. They all concurred that’d be a pretty good question. But I followed it up with another suggestion. “And as they describe it, listen carefully and ask them to fill in details so our delivery teams can be fully prepared when they arrive at the customer’s home. It’s an inefficiency for us, but worse yet – it’s bad service when we have to make the customer wait as we dispatch a second truck with two more guys who are needed to make the delivery happen.”

Don’t be so quick to think you know what the answer is going to be. Quality questions require an answer. Take the time to carefully hear the answer. Restate it if you must. Make sure you and the prospect clearly understand things alike. Many sales problems can be avoided simply by making sure things are clearly understood. Details do matter. Listen for the answers so you can refine and drill down as finely as you need to in order to solve the prospect’s problems.

If I’m attempting to sell you a piece of software and I ask you what type of computer hardware and operating system you have – I’d better pay attention to the details of your answer if my software has specific requirements. Perhaps my solution requires more disk space than you have. It may require more memory. It may require a more recent operating system than the one installed on your computer. I can’t assume that because Windows 7 is the current OS for PC’s and Snow Leopard is the current OS for Mac (soon to replaced by Lion) that my prospect has either of those. What if they’ve got Windows XP Pro and my solution won’t run very well on that? Problems can be easily avoided by simply finding out. An enormous part of finding out is listening and paying attention to the details of the answers.

Show you care enough to learn more about the person and the problem they’re experiencing. That doesn’t mean the interaction is like an NCIS interrogation room. It simply means like a good friend who is trying to help, or like a doctor who is trying to diagnose, we’re concerned enough to learn more so we can help. Service begins with caring enough to find out how the prospect feels, what they think and what they want or need. Every person respects being asked about their life, their business and their problems. We’re flattered when people take such an interest in us. While I don’t propose you do it as a flattery tactic, I encourage you to show genuine care and concern for your prospects so you can serve them better – so you can help them!

Do not presuppose that you have the answer to their problem. First, find out what their problems are. Never enter a prospect’s office with a syringe in your hand.

 

 

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Cussing: The Junior High School Strategy Of Attention-Getting

The F bomb still gets attention. Cee Lo Green’s latest hit – a terrific tune – hit You Tube months ago. There were under 250 views when I first saw it thanks to a Tweet sent by @cc_chapman. The video has since been removed by YouTube, but when I looked last it had well over 5 million views.

The tune is among the catchiest tunes released in a very long time. And I think Cee Lo is a terrific talent. The clean version of the song replaces the F word with “forget.” We now hear it in every sporting event in America. The song single-handedly landed Cee Lo on the new TV show, The Voice.

“(Bleep) My Dad Says” began as a Twitter feed that drew lots of attention for the crude and funny things supposedly said by the account holder’s aging father. As an aging father myself, I could see the humor in many of the things uttered by Dad. Profanity drew even more attention and garnered lots of re-Tweets. The attention grew and morphed into a TV series featuring William Shatner.

The blogosphere is full of headlines that contain cuss words. For good reason. They catch attention. They draw readers. In short, cussing works.

My question is, “Why?”

I heard my first cuss word when I was in elementary school. I’m guessing. I honestly don’t remember. I didn’t hear it at home. I know that much. Maybe  I had a disadvantaged youth, but my parents, our friends and those people close to my family simply didn’t curse. It wasn’t part of my environment. Somehow I never felt slighted or left out.

By the time I got to high school I began to make some money working in sales. Retail sales in a hi-fi store. I quickly realized that the other young men working around me were now at a disadvantage if they had begun a habit of regular cussing. They constantly had to filter their language as they greeted and engaged in dialogue with shoppers. I didn’t have that problem. At the time – the 1970’s – politeness, kindness and civility were more the norm than not. We said “please” and “thank you.” I called my friends parents “sir” or “ma’am” – not Bob or Betty.

Years before I began selling stuff to the public I went through junior high. Junior high in the early 70’s consisted of three memorable things: hot pants, fist fights and cussing. Girls began to dress in ways I’d never noticed before. Hot pants became all the rage in 1971. James Brown had a song about them. Southwest Airlines flight attendants – we called them stewardesses at the time – wore them. So did the girls at Ridgewood Junior High. They were hardly the stuff of modesty, but I was neither blind nor dead and they made junior high quite difficult for classroom concentration.

Fist fights were fairly commonplace before and after school in junior high. I’m sure those hot pants fueled the testosterone levels, which amped up the anger and frustration. I didn’t know that then, I just thought it was a bit crazy to see two guys – sometimes two girls – go at one another. Some were nothing more than circling each other with few swings, and still fewer landed blows. But other times they were bloody affairs resulting in a broken nose, a blackened eye and gruesome sounds of fist against face.

Then, there was the real cool grown up activity of cussing. Other than smoking, nothing spoke of adulthood like cussing. You were all grown up if you were fluent in cussing. When I was in 7th grade some boys were throwing around two terms that a teacher – in class – overheard. The terms were “bastard” and “bitch.” High usage junior high terms at the time. She stopped class to explain these terms. These boys – like most kids my age – were using these terms to deride guys and girls, respectively. If a guy was a jerk, they called him a “bastard.” If it was a girl, she was a “bitch.”

The teacher explained to us that a “bastard” could be either a boy or a girl. If a child had a mother, but no father – by marriage – then that child was a “bastard,” a child born outside of marriage. Keep in mind, this was in the early 70’s and such things weren’t very common. See how far we’ve advanced as a society?

I was brought up in a church going family. I’m currently very involved in my church. God is THE priority of life. You may not agree with that. That’s okay. It’s my life and my conviction. It’s my faith and it trumps everything. I grew up knowing the Bible. And I was familiar with Hebrews 12:8, “But if ye are without chastening, whereof all have been made partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” I knew, because adults had explained it to me already, that in this Biblical sense “bastards” meant “illegitimate.” And that’s exactly what the teacher was explaining to us in class that day. The cussing boys were shocked to learn that a girl could be considered “bastard.” They just knew the teacher didn’t have that right.

Her lesson on these words continued with the word “bitch.” She explained that it technically meant a female dog. I had always had a dog. Sometimes a female dog. We never called our dog by that name. They had names like “Shelley” or “Buttons.” Okay, Buttons was a boy dog. You get my drift.

Well, these guys – and all the rest of us – knew now that our teacher was an idiot. There’s no way that’s what “bitch” meant. That’s not how we all understood it anyway. She regained some of our trust when she continued to point out that it sometimes was used as a verb (oh, boy – in a discussion about cussing and wouldn’t you know an English class breaks out). It meant “complaining.” Junior high kids I knew didn’t use it as a verb. It was always a noun. By the time high school came around that would change, but not now.

From 7th grade to 9th grade the vocabulary of cussers expanded faster than the water balloons we’d fill for Halloween shenanigans. Even then I had been taught that profanity was the only option left to a mind with a limited vocabulary. Of course, I was taught that it wasn’t right and that God cared about our language. I knew the book of James had a lot to say about our duty to God to control our tongue and our speech. Saying “crap” or “shoot” wasn’t exactly endorsed in my house and those were the words that got me in trouble.

By the time I entered 9th grade the graphic nature of the profanity was in full force. It was almost always sexual. It made me tense. We used to call it “dirty” and I admit I was put off by it. It just sounded so awful, disgusting and demeaning. That was exactly the point. It was shocking. I’m sad to report that over time it became less so. We grow acclimated to our environment and what once shocks becomes old hat. Now that I’m 54 it’s safe to assume I’ve heard every vile word known to man. Even the ones that have recently been invented. I’m no longer shocked. Disgusted still, but not often shocked.

So why do people use profanity?

Simple. People think it’s cool. It still has the same impact – particularly on young adults – that it had on my 7th grade social studies class. It shocks. It’s a complete act of showing off. That’s why kids did it in the 7th grade. It’s why grown ups do it, too. Bravado. Cockiness. Look at me! Aren’t I cool?

Those boys who were shocked to learn that a girl could be a “bastard” had no idea. Their disbelief morphed from “she’s full of crap and has no idea what she’s talking about” to “I didn’t know that.” It was a moment of enlightenment for them. For all of us. Of course, being wise beyond my years I already knew these boys were idiots. Limited vocabularies resulting from limited brain power coupled with an extraordinary need to be seen, heard and given attention. The best cussers I knew were among the most active fist fighters, too. I suspected the fights and the talk all stemmed from the same basic desire to be noticed. It worked in 7th grade.

It still works.

I didn’t say I liked it. And I didn’t say these kids were the sharpest knives in the drawer. Or the most interesting kids in the class. Over time they began to serve a very useful purpose for many of the rest of us. They were the people we’d compare ourselves to – with the exclamation, “At least we’re not like that idiot.”

I felt I already had enough obstacles to overcome. I didn’t need to contribute anything else to my own idiocy. From then until now, I continue to tell myself, “Don’t be THAT guy.”

Hip, hip. Hooray!

So I say, insert that cuss word in your headline. Fill your blog posts with cuss words. Show off. Call attention to yourself. Be shocking. It works for Howard Stern. It’s bound to work, albeit at a much lesser level, for you. Cuss up a storm.

And while you’re at it. Knock on your neighbor’s door and flatten his nose when he opens the door.

P.S. Don’t worry about embarrassing yourself. You know how you look back at those junior high or middle school photos and can’t believe you thought that garb you wore was cool? See how ridiculous you looked? Why couldn’t you see it at the time? Because we were all morons then. We didn’t know better. Now, we’ve grown up. Back in the 70’s I wore a white belt – me a million other guys. We thought it was cool. We were wrong. What are you being wrong at today? What will you see more clearly tomorrow…that you don’t see today? It’s likely the same for all of us – our own foolishness and stupidity.

• On December 31, 2007 I wrote this article on my first grand son’s blog, Max. It’s about how men influence boys. Sometimes in ways that are right, but sometimes in ways that are wrong.

 

 

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