We spoke to author of Speaking Up: Surviving Executive Presentations Rick Gilbert in an interview for Twine Talk Workplace Communications Podcast.

The book starts with the observation that giving presentations to executives is not the same as giving other types of presentation or public talking opportunity. You may think that public speaking skills are only for people who give large-scale presentations, but if you think about it, every time you talk in public you are public speaking. By definition, you are public speaking every time that you open your mouth in a meeting at work.

But the type of meeting that you are talking in makes a large difference to the degree of depth you should give those to whom you are speaking. The key observation made by Gilbert is this: communication at the C-level differs vastly from communication to other mid-level managers or team members.

C-Level Executives Don’t Want the Smalltalk

Executives don’t want to be asked how the family are or how the vacation was. They don’t want to ask you about yours either. Save the small talk for the others in your office with whom you have a daily working relationship. The difference here, is that a C-level executive cannot afford to invest in anything other than bare bones relationships with the majority of their staff.

Why? Mostly that is because there are lots of you and only one of them!

Communication Should Be Clear and Direct

Make sure that you know what the meeting is about, what you are going to be asked, and what you need to prepare. If you go in to talk to a board of executives and do not have to hand the data that they might want to see or talk about you are not going to win any respect. In fact, if you frustrate them and cause them to delay their decision-making process you will probably find yourself in the firing line.

Executives Control the Meeting

Gilbert made it very clear that when you meet with executives it’s not about you, and you are not in control. You can have this whole speech and deck of slides prepared and the chances are that they will totally derail you or not be interested in half of it. Don’t worry about that and don’t let it phase you. Not getting through your prepared material is not necessarily a bad sign. In fact, it could be a good sign if they got what they needed from you in the first five minutes and then send you on your way.

You are there to provide the information that they need, and nothing more.

Slide Decks Should Be Lean

According to Gilbert, when giving presentations to team members or even in large-scale public speaking events slide decks can be elaborate and go into depth on a concept. When you communicate with c-level executives you want to keep the deck minimal if it exists at all. Think of the least possible slides that you can use to illustrate the data that you want to give.

-Tabitha Farrar

The post How to Communicate with C-Level Executives appeared first on MobileDay.

Dude, the World’s Gonna Punch You in the Face

–Here’s how to make it hurt less

by Kris Wilder and Lawrence Kane

Time Investment: ~300 pages, but the point is not to read it all in one go.

Reader Ratings:

Reader: Tabitha Farrar

General Readability Rating: 4/5

This book isn’t designed to be read cover to cover, so it’s not easy to give a general readability rating as such. The whole point is that you read it a page at a time, and a page at random. I have to admit this concept threw me a little at first. I’m used to reading cover-to-cover and found it difficult not to default to doing so. However, if one does as instructed and puts the book somewhere it can be picked up and flicked through, this method of a quick snippet of wisdom works a treat.

Skill Development Rating: 4/5

This book is for your teenage son, so don’t expect it to act as a skill development resource for yourself, but read it anyway as you might find that you re-learn something that you should already know. The lessons are all about respecting other people, making good life choices, and learning how to weigh up the consequence of any given situation before acting. While designed for teenagers, these are concepts that most of us could use a refresher course in every now and then.

Reader notes:

Timeless concepts, don’t be put off because it says that it is for boys, girls will get a lot out of this book too.

Would you recommend this book to a colleague?

Nope, but I would give it to their son!

The post Book Review: Dude, the World’s Gonna Punch You in the Face appeared first on MobileDay.

We know networking meetings are effective, they wouldn’t exist if they weren’t. Yet many of us dread them and view them as events to which we are unable to get out of going to. What happens then, is we fail to get the most out of them as we aren’t setting ourselves up for success.

The whole reason we attend networking events is because we want to socialise with people who are business professionals. We want to meet more people like ourselves, and we want to widen our own professional networks. As a starting point, there are two things that you should check yourself for when you walk into a networking meeting.

Put your phone away

It’s like a tic that we all have now. We cannot bear standing alone — that’s not new — so we immediately pull out our cell phones and proceed to look as if we are doing something incredibly important. Ninety-nine percent of the time we are not responding to a crisis at work at all, we are searching frantically for an email that requires an answer so we can distract ourselves and not have to just stand and be okay with the face that nobody is talking to us.

Sure, standing on one’s own at a networking event is uncomfortable. But there is a reason for that. The discomfort makes you look for someone new to talk to. Then guess what? You just made a new friend.

It’s not really that different from the playground at school, is it?

The problem is that when you use your phone to lessen the feelings of awkwardness instead of letting it force you to approach another human being, you just totally wasted your own time. You’re not going to find new connections in your phone, or if you are, you could have done that at home.

Know this:

Everyone at the event feels as vulnerable and awkward as you do.

Try this:

Next time you are at a networking event, leave your phone in the car.

The post Leave your cell in your pocket at networking meetings appeared first on MobileDay.

Communicating across cultures is challenging: we know this logically. However, it seems that often we forget that American and British cultures are extremely different due to the shared language.

When a different language altogether is spoken, or an accent is wildly detectable, cultural differences are top of mind for all involved. When the language spoken is similar, — and familiar due to the prevalence of film and television — the cultural differences can become camouflaged by the visual and audio similarities.

We’re communicating multinationally even more than ever. American salespeople may get off the phone from someone in the UK and report feeling somewhat rejected — even if the conversation resulted in a sale.

The problem here, is not the American salesperson. Nor is it that Brits are cold. It’s just that there is a cultural difference present that should be taken into account. Americans are taught that they have to be toasty warm and gain a prospect’s trust in order to get them into the funnel. With an American audience this is expected, welcomed, and essential due to the level of customer service that is demanded. Brits on the other hand dislike it when a stranger is adoring and attentive to the point of making a Golden Retriever look nonchalant. They prefer business transactions to be a little more sterile, and treat too much warmth with suspicion.

Now granted that we are all individuals and that no two people from the same culture will react in the exact same way, but as a general rule these cultural differences hold true.

Another note to Americans: British people are often joking with you — you just don’t know it. People in the UK have a subtle sense of humor, but it is rife and rarely do a couple of sentences pass without some form of joke or irony quip in there. But don’t worry, because you’re not supposed to laugh. That’s part of the fun.

If British people are mean to you it generally means they like you. They are inviting you into their cult of backhanded compliments, underhanded insults, puns, irony, and sarcasm.

So American salespeople, don’t be disheartened when you get off a colder-than-usual conference call with a Brit. But whatever you do, don’t go overboard in the “We’re in this together,” theme. In the UK they don’t kiss on the first date — well, at least in business related dates, anyway.

Separated by a Common Language

Tips for American businesspeople talking to British businesspeople:

When a Brit says “I’m sorry,” that doesn’t mean they are sorry, it means: “You’re an idiot.”

“A bit dear,” means that your product is too expensive, not that it is cute.

If you detect a joke, whatever you do don’t laugh. Maybe snigger — but not for too long — the game with British jokes is that the less obvious they are the more important it is that you pretend it was so obvious it doesn’t warrant a laugh. But a chortle will make it clear enough that you outed the joke. Whatever you do don’t do nothing, as then it will be assumed that you didn’t get the joke at all. Clear? Good.

The post Cultural Communication Differences: Are Brits Meaner than Americans? appeared first on MobileDay.

The Speechwriter

-A Brief Education in Politics

by Barton Swaim

Time Investment: 200 pages. Factor 2-3 hours reading time.

Reader Notes:

Reader: Tabitha Farrar, CMO at MobileDay

The Speechwriter provides us with a peek inside the office of the modern politician. In doing so, it brings to light not only the processes behind the more administrative aspects of the office, but also the narcissistic tendencies of the people who place themselves in positions control. More importantly, The Speechwriter poses the question: why do we celebrate people who will do anything to be in power?

General Readability Rating: 5/5

This is a memoir rather than a workplace self-help book. For that reason, it reads like an enlightening tale, rather than a point-to-point of tips and tricks. Delightfully, however, you can read this as a yarn, and still pick up a number of insights on communication, the language of politics, and the behavior of politicians/people in positions of authority and power. Swaim is a talented and meticulously correct writer, which is one of the things that makes his relationship with the governor for whom he wrote so interesting.

Would you recommend this book to a friend?

Yes. Some very real questions underlie this enjoyable and humorous read. If you are not interested in politics — and you should be in light of what is happening out there right now — you still know someone like the governor that Swain worked for.

Favorite Line:

The post Book Review: The Speechwriter by Barton Swaim appeared first on MobileDay.

Driver distractions such as social media and making calls on phones are the leading cause of most vehicle crashes and near misses. A study released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that 80 percent of crashes result from the driver being distracted in some manner. In most cases, the distraction and the crash are only three seconds apart!

The “don’t dial and drive” message is crystal clear. No further explanation needed.

But there are still gray areas that many of us negotiate on a daily basis. We know not to dial, but pressing a button in order to answer the phone with the car’s built in audio is okay, right?

Common sense tells us the more we can limit looking away from the road the better. In an ideal world our eyes would never leave the space in front of us, but realistically it happens. You cannot avoid it — even checking your rearview mirror means you have to divert your attention from the road in front.

When self-driving cars are the norm we won’t have to concern ourselves with any of this. But until then, we need to limit distractions as much as possible. This is one of the reasons the MobileDay App is so popular with business travelers and people who make a lot of calls — some of them from the car.

The automatic dial-in to conference calls and meetings eliminates the need to dial in passcodes and PIN numbers. This means that people can join calls when on the road much more safely.

Additionally, MobileDay allows you to set the default setting to speakerphone, so that is one less button for you to press while driving. You press the “Join Call” button and you are instantly joined via speakerphone so you don’t have to look at your phone again.

How Set Speaker Mode to be the Default for iPhone Calls

1. Open the “Settings” app on the iPhone and head to “General”, then go to “Accessibility.”
2. Look under the Interaction settings for “Call Audio Routing” and tap on it.
3. Change the setting from “Automatic” (the default) to “Speaker” to make speakerphone the default for all calls made to and from the iPhone.
4. Exit out of Settings as usual.

Now you have one less button to press while driving. Congrats! You are already a safer driver.

The post One less button to act as a driver distraction appeared first on MobileDay.

Speaking Up

–Surviving Executive Presentations

by Rick Gilbert

Time Investment: ~200 pages, 2 hours reading time.

Reader Ratings:

Reader: Tabitha Farrar

General Readability Rating: 4.5/5

Reading about business can be dry. In fact, I expect it to be dry, which is why this book was a pleasant surprise. It reads like a story, but it’s not one of those twee “workplace conflict” scenarios — you know, the ones that try and get you to empathize with a character in a very hypothetical scenario and then transfer that to your real life situation. Not only are these sorts of books usually incredibly painful to read, but they are often so entangled in a specific scenario that they are useless because one cannot apply them to one’s own unique work situations. Not the case with Speaking Up, I’ve already applied some of the things I read.

The book is based on research and observation and it is a case study, but it’s presented in a way that focuses on the behaviors, outcomes, and conclusions rather than the nuances of the hypothetical. In short, this makes the information within it relevant to any situation.

Skill Development Rating: 5/5

Outstanding acknowledgment of the mis-match in expectations and needs in a situation that most people come across on a regular basis in their professional careers. Very precise and actionable advice on how to nail executive presentations that can be put to use instantly.

The profiling of the executives used in this book clandestinely delivers a bonus skill — knowing who executives are.

Reader notes:

Gilbert’s passion for how to present to executives comes through in the book, and it is hard not to join him when you first get that “a-ha!” moment. Understanding the differences between audience wants and needs, and in particular those that govern the C-suite will help you advance at work simply because you’ll stand a greater chance of not annoying the most important people in the industry as far as your career is concerned.

Would you recommend this book to a colleague?

Yes. Unless that colleague was someone which whom I was competing for a promotion.

The post Book Review: Speaking Up — Surviving Executive Presentations appeared first on MobileDay.

According to a recent Salesforce Research report, the top sales professionals are also those who are actively looking for ways to improve how they communicate with prospects. Especially in a highly competitive sales environment, connecting gives the upper hand when it comes to securing the trust of potential clients.

The report showed that in small, yet highly productive, sales teams, those that did best were the ones that strived to actively create a great customer experience across a number of touchpoints. When it comes to a great sales team, communication with customers isn’t the only differentiator. Communication with other team members proved to be something that really made great teams stand out from mediocre ones.

By keeping the customer a the centre of the team’s joined operations, the prospect can enjoy a seamless product journey regardless of who they are talking to on the product end. Teams that communicate well with one another share prospect’s data and therefore everyone is up to date with who that contact is, where they are at, what they need, and where they are going.

Enhanced communication amongst sales teams leads to a better customer experience.

Is your team communicating as well as possible?

See if you can identify the communication strengths and weaknesses that exist within your sales team. Who are the great communicators that lead by example, and where do those squeaky wheels lie.

Are you using the tools available to help this communication?

There are so many communication tools available to help push your sales team to the next level of interaction. Slack is one that we love for instant messaging, and MobileDay is all you need for a delightful conference calling experience. Both of these are free to use, and even if the team decides not to use them long-term, you have learned something along the way.

The post How top sales teams make use of communication tools appeared first on MobileDay.

So Why Do Your Boss’s Communication Skills Suck?

Firstly, it is hard to define a single reason because there are so many!

Preparation Skills

Awkward silences in meetings, mid-sentence brain freezes, and lots of talking that never gets to a point are all examples of a lack of preparation rather than strictly bad communication. At least there is communication, right?

Being prepared around what one wants to say is a part of making sure that you give a good delivery of your point. Lack of preparation means that you lose the point, or worse still you call everyone in to meeting and realize half an hour in that you never really did have a point in the first place. Everyone has had their time wasted and nobody likes that.

In the same way most of us have a plan before we start writing, we all need to have a plan before we start speaking. Having a plan should not be mistaken for having a ton of slides or talking for a long time. If people are getting bored in meetings that is a sign that the information they are being given is not crucial. When non-crucial information is presented to a captive audience, then resentment builds.

Which leads us on to complacence …

One of the reasons that you might think that your boss has bad communication skills is due to this dynamic. He or she has a captive audience in you and the rest of your team. Because they don’t have to convince you to be there, they can become complacent in the way that they run meetings.

If and when your boss has to talk to their own boss, however, you can bet they will be less complacent. They will prepare, and as a result they will not babble on. If they do, they are bound to be told about it!

Listening Skills

According to Alan Weiss, communication expert, most people are really great at telling others what they know. But, they are not so good at telling others what they need to hear. Listening is the skill that needs to be improved most here. If you listen to what people tell you, you can decipher what it is that they actually need to learn from you.

We have interviewed a number of communication experts for our upcoming podcast series on communication (launches in September) and the one thing that every participant has touched on so far is listening. When we listen, we know what our audience wants and needs to hear. When we don’t listen, we default to what we want to say, rather than what needs to be communicated.

What do you think? Maybe you are in the 57.5 percent who think that their boss has good communication skills — if you are we would love to know what people are doing right too.

The post Why Your Boss’s Communication Skills Suck appeared first on MobileDay.

Then, there is the business traveler. No reason not to stay on top of what is happening in the office if you can dial in from anywhere in the world. You can talk to clients, colleagues, your boss, anyone … connection is easier. But with that connection there often comes a cost. Right?

Not aways! Here are the best free conference calling services out there.

MobileDay

MobileDay is a free app that:

1. Offers one-touch dialing into conference calls and online meetings.
2. Gives you a free conference bridge.
3. Gives you free features such as running late.
4. Has upgrade options so that you can use WiFi and other features.

It syncs with your online calendar, pulls the PINs and passcode that you need to dial to get into the correct conference bridge, and does all that dialing for you. All you have to do is one-touch of the Join Call button.

Free, easy conference call dialing.

Google Hangouts

We all have a Google account, so that means that we all have a Google Hangout account too. Hangouts is perfect for when you want to chat with a group of people. It is more suited for non-business meetings with friends too due to the abundant nature of Google products.

Hangouts is also integrated with Google Docs. This means that while you are on the conference call you can work with teammates on documents.

You can also stream a hangout to your YouTube channel — if you are into that sort of thing.

Doodle

Other than getting onto a conference call, one of the most difficult parts of online meetings is scheduling them. Firstly, everyone is busy. Secondly, we are often operating in different time zones. Argh!

Doodle makes scheduling simpler. You send out a poll-style request for a time to the person with whom you wish to schedule a meeting. They reply by selecting a time, and you get it directly into your online calendar — regardless of what calendar you use.

The post Best Free Conference Calling Services appeared first on MobileDay.

Speaking Up

–Surviving Executive Presentations

by Rick Gilbert

Time Investment: ~200 pages, 2 hours reading time.

Reader Ratings:

Reader: Tabitha Farrar

General Readability Rating: 4.5/5

Reading about business can be dry. In fact, I expect it to be dry, which is why this book was a pleasant surprise. It reads like a story, but it’s not one of those twee “workplace conflict” scenarios — you know, the ones that try and get you to empathize with a character in a very hypothetical scenario and then transfer that to your real life situation. Not only are these sorts of books usually incredibly painful to read, but they are often so entangled in a specific scenario that they are useless because one cannot apply them to one’s own unique work situations. Not the case with Speaking Up, I’ve already applied some of the things I read.

The book is based on research and observation and it is a case study, but it’s presented in a way that focuses on the behaviors, outcomes, and conclusions rather than the nuances of the hypothetical. In short, this makes the information within it relevant to any situation.

Skill Development Rating: 5/5

Outstanding acknowledgment of the mis-match in expectations and needs in a situation that most people come across on a regular basis in their professional careers. Very precise and actionable advice on how to nail executive presentations that can be put to use instantly.

The profiling of the executives used in this book clandestinely delivers a bonus skill — knowing who executives are.

Reader notes:

Gilbert’s passion for how to present to executives comes through in the book, and it is hard not to join him when you first get that “a-ha!” moment. Understanding the differences between audience wants and needs, and in particular those that govern the C-suite will help you advance at work simply because you’ll stand a greater chance of not annoying the most important people in the industry as far as your career is concerned.

Would you recommend this book to a colleague?

Yes. Unless that colleague was someone which whom I was competing for a promotion.

The post Book Review: Speaking Up — Surviving Executive Presentations appeared first on MobileDay.

Many of us have the ability to work from home if we choose to. (If you don’t, and you want to, consider that you are in the wrong job!) The technologies enable for streamlined communication also allow for transportable working stations — i.e. your laptop. You can access all your files, all your colleagues, and all your clients from your house. And you can do so just as easily as you can get to them in the office now.

There are certainly some benefits to be had from the office environment. These mostly come down to person-to-person physical interaction ability now. Some people choose to work from home on some days because they find that they can actually concentrate better. When they are out of the office there are less people to distract them. This is especially true for the new open-plan offices that are preferred by most startup companies.

You might chose to work from home on a regular basis due to other factors. Bad weather on the forecast is certainly a reason for some. It is often safer not to brave the roads when a storm hits.

Are You More Productive When Working from Home?

Fewer Distractions

Many people report that they are more productive at home because they are not having to deal with the daily office distractions. We are talking about colleague interruptions mostly. While it is true that a person working from home might have the radio on, or they might not get dressed all day, if they are committed to working they can actually crank out a hell of a lot left to themselves for an entire day.

More Time to Work

Another productivity boost that comes from staying at home rather than venturing into the office is that you don’t have the time-drain commute. Many people admit that they actually end up working longer hours when they are not actually driving or commuting into work.

Uninterrupted Connection

It used to be the case that a day working from home meant that you could not attend any meeting. No more. Now, you can dial into meetings and still be there even when you are not there. The whole process of online meetings and conference calls has become so much improved that the conference call jokes are less and less relevant now. With MobileDay installed, you don’t even have to waste time with the dial in codes and PIN numbers so that you can get into the call in the first place.

Should You Schedule Working-from-Home Time?

It might be worth scheduling focused work-from-home time for you and your team. Especially for those who are in creative roles, taking some time out from the office distractions can be a real boost to productivity. Now that working from home is so much easier and you can still communicate when you need to, it could be a very interesting experience for you to see what a day at home can do for your team’s output.

The post How Working from Home Can Make You More Productive appeared first on MobileDay.

noun: conference; plural noun: conferences

1. a formal meeting for discussion.

verb: conference

1. take part in a conference or conference call

This word was first recorded in the 1550′, and describes the “act of conferring,”. It comes from the French word conferentia. Conferentia is itself derived from the Latin conferre, and that means to “bring together.”

The meaning of conference “formal meeting or discussion” comes from the 1580s. Older books (really old, like Jane Austen) do use the word conference in scripts to describe an arranged, or informal, meeting of close friends or even family. These days it would seem rather odd to declare to your mother that you needed a “conference” with her rather than a “chat.”

Exactly how and when the word conference started to mean more formal business is not recorded.

Do your conferences bring your colleagues together?

While the definition of conference seems to have changed in the 16th century to mean more of a formal discussion than a bringing together, it might be useful to remember the original meaning of the word when hosting and facilitating work-related conferences. The bringing together of people and ideas sparks images of collaboration, and fertile brainstorming that seems altogether more human than the image of a conference room full of grey-suited and dour business people.

Conference, meeting, symposium, or chat: they all should be interesting

If you groan silently when your boss invites you to a conference call, there is something wrong. Meetings don’t have to be solemn to be serious, and you can have fun and be productive—in fact you may find the two things complement one another.

Take a step to take the stress out of conference calls with the MobileDay app

The MobileDay app will take you to your conference call without you having to dial. By removing a rather dreaded and onerous task of getting into the meeting, you’ll be in a much more playful and productive frame of mind when you actually get in there.

The app is free, so really it’s a no-brainer.

Try the MobileDay app

The post Conference: how to bring together communication at work appeared first on MobileDay.

We’ll start this post with a question:

Who knows more, the person asking the question, or the person to whom the question is being asked?

Just about any person asked that question will reply that the person who knows more is the one being asked. The reasoning behind this is that is someone is asking a question, they are lacking the knowledge that they require and are requesting that knowledge from someone else—someone more knowledgable than they.

And a lot of the time that might be true. But, not always.

Your teachers in school asked you a lot of questions — but that wasn’t because they didn’t know the answers.

A problem-curious leader might choose to ask a question rather than give an answer to any given problem.

The Power Behind Asking Questions

Asking Questions of Others Empowers

I know, I know, “empower” is an overused word. It’s relevant here through.

“When the boss asks for a subordinate’s ideas, he sends the message that they are good — perhaps better than his. The individual gains confidence and becomes more competent.”

Those are the words of Michael J. Marquardt, author of Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask (John Wiley & Sons, 2005).

Marquardt’s point is that when a person’s boss defers to them for help, they are flattered. They feel more confident as a result of a person in a higher workplace position than they asking for their expertise or advice. Why would a leader do this? Because when your team consists of confident and empowered individuals you all benefit—and the company certainly does.

Additionally, if you can effectively increase a team member’s confidence he or she will probably stop defaulting to asking you questions and will trust their own judgement more. Sometimes questions asked are more about affirming a stance than they are about not knowing the answer. While this type of communication isn’t bad per se, your team will get more done at a faster rate when individuals feel empowered (there’s that word again) to follow their own judgement without defaulting to you for backup.

Questions Develop Problem Solvers

Problem solving is a skill. It comes more naturally to some people than others, but it is a skill that can be trained. When a leader asks questions, he or she is training the recipient to think strategically and develop that valued problem-solver mindset. That’s why your teacher never just gave you the answer if you didn’t get to it immediately — but rather gave you a slew of clues.

In the workspace this problem-solving brain concept goes even further. If you and a colleague regularly sit down and thrash out an answer to something together, your combined brainpower takes on a whole new life of its own. In the team situation you are developing a style of “group think” that in essence is a practiced mode of thinking together and learning from one another to build on solutions rather than treat them as end points.

In the short term, the two minds together might come up with a superior answer than just the leader would have done. In the long term, the training pays off as a more confident and critically thinking employee develops.

Try the MobileDay app

The post Leadership Communication: The Power Behind Leading with Questions Rather than Answers appeared first on MobileDay.

That’s news that you don’t hear too often: everything is fine and dandy.

Not true if you are in sales through … .

Sales Manager Fail

Sales managers  didn’t feel as confident that they were achieving balance. Only 46 percent in comparison. Developers and customer service managers scored in the middle of the two extrememes. Even CEOs and founders, groups that are often assumed to be populated with workaholics scored a high 77 percent when asked how happy they were with their career and leisure mix.

Who Determines What W/L Balance Is, Anyway?

One could argue that perception comes into the mix here. Founders and CEOs who are passionately putting their all into a business that means a lot to them may be able to work around the clock but still not think that they are out of balance per se. Senior designers may also feel happy and satisfied even if they are putting in a lot of hours simply because they are involved in a creative process that they love.

Maybe the perception of work-life balance is more to do with the individuals levels of in-work happiness. The more we enjoy being at work the less we will notice that we are spending the vast majority of our time there. Comparing the tasks associated with creative roles to those that the sales professional is bundled with also sheds some light. Day in day out of cold calling, emailing, and delivering the same sales deck over and over again is surely enough to make anyone watch the clock?

Technology Is Here to Help

At MobileDay we know that most of you are stuck for time — especially those of you who work in Sales. We know this because you use our app to dial into conference calls and online meetings while you are in the car. Driving to meet clients. Driving to meet prospects. Driving to meet colleagues. You are on the move and you simply don’t have the time to listen to the radio while you are in the car. No, you need to spend that time on the phone to clients, prospects and colleagues.

Work-life balance gets a lot of press. We are told that we all need to make more of an effort to take more time off. The reality is, however, that some humans were built to overwork; some humans enjoy work so much that even when they are working 100 hours a week they do not feel overstretched or unhappy.

The good news is, that apps and technology can help us to ensure that we are not wasting time doing things that don’t need to be done. Dialing into meetings is a time waste that MobileDay seeks to eliminate. And that’s not all, as we have more to come in the workplace communications space that will help you achieve your own work-life balance satisfaction — whatever that is.

Try the MobileDay app

The post Work-Life Balance: Do you have it? appeared first on MobileDay.

Nerdist Podcast: Nick Frost

If you travel a lot or commute to work, you’d be crazy not to turn that idle time into something productive. Listening to podcasts is as good as reading — only better because you can do it while you drive. Also, you won’t get car sick.

Podcasts beat audio books because a) they are free, and b) they don’t go out of date — or at least they keep reproducing themselves so they stay current. Books and audiobooks might be topical for the year that they are published, but anything older than 365 days is too old.

6 podcasts to improve your sales skills

1. The Advanced Selling Podcast

Doesn’t that sound like a podcast that sales professionals need to listen to?

Hosted by Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale, the Advanced Selling Podcast is concise, funny, and educational coverage on all things sales and selling. This is aimed mostly at B2C marketplace sales, but many B2C principles can also benefit the B2B sales professional. Topics are varied, examples include how to sell a premium priced product when your competitors are undercutting you.

2. The Sales Playbook Podcast

Hosted by Paul Castian, who has mentored over 10,000 sales professionals, The Sales Playbook Podcast combines more traditional sales methods with more modern social media tools and productivity apps. Personal branding is also covered. “The Opportunist’s Guide to Leveraging the Holiday Season,”is Castian’s highest-rated podcast, and an example of the sort of content you’ll get.

3. The Brutal Truth About Sales and Selling

The Brutal Truth About Sales and Selling is hosted by Brian Burns and is highly entertaining as the name suggests it might be. It’s varied and full and slightly different than the usual, more corporate, podcast offering. Episodes include titles such as “The Future of Sales and Selling and How it Will Affect You” and “How to Visualize Your Pipeline and Close More Deals.”

4. Sales Tip a Day

Just as the name suggests, Sales Tip a Day offers you a sales tip every day. Hosted by Chris Hamilton, the episodes vary wildly in length. Some are a couple of minutes long, some over an hour. “Why Don’t People Ask for Referrals” is his most popular episode, but topics also frequently include cold calling, use of content, and why cold calls don’t work.

5. The Sales Leader Blog

The Sales Leader Blog by Colleen Francis provides cutting-edge strategies for sales leaders. Episodes include titles such as “The Fastest Way to Frustrate a Prospect” and “Using Criticism to Increase Sales.” So as you can probably tell, Francis is not afraid to talk about the things that most sales people shy away from.

If you want to be successful in sales, you must learn to take criticism and use it to your advantage

6. SalesGravy

Cute name, huh? SalesGravy sounds rather yummy. It’s a podcast that features a wide variety of experts and sales professionals. The episodes are mostly pretty short—we’re talking under 10 minutes. It’s a big old mix of guests and topics, so you’ll be sure to find something relevant to you.

And a bonus podcast just for fun!

Because life can’t all be about work.

The Nerdist Podcast

The Nerdist Podcast is a weekly broadcast about what it means to be a nerd. The hosts, Chris Hardwick, Jonah Ray and Matt Mira, interview comedian guests and entertainers. The varied guests are usually in standup, nerd culture, or both, and have included Ozzy Osbourne, Bill Gates, and a lot of the current Doctor Who staff.

Try the MobileDay app

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You don’t want to waste time. Even if you are goofing off and mindlessly browsing social media, you are not actually wasting time if you are allowing your brain to take a recess. We all work better when we take breaks and recharge regularly.

So who are you?

If you are a road warrior—a frequent traveler—then this post was written for you. Read on to discover the apps that are most likely to be a great fit for you and boost productivity.

Boost productivity with these apps:

MobileDay

This app will save you time, but most importantly it will save you stress—and it could save your life.

A big claim for a little app? Maybe, but you should ask some of the long-time MobileDay users who swear that this little app has saved them from crashing their cars while trying to get onto a call while on the road. Yeah, we know you are not supposed to fiddle with your phone while driving, but the truth is that people do. With MobileDay installed they only have to press one button and they are one the call, and that is a hell of a lot safer than the alternative of manually dialing into conference bridges and entering all those lengthy passcodes and PIN numbers.

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A couple of years ago it would have been considered risky

We just had World Emoji Day. In case you missed it, it was Sunday July 17. Did you celebrate what is considered to be the universal language of our generation?

Whatever you think about emojis, they are useful. There is the universal application for a start — that’s huge. You don’t need to go to language school to understand what someone who speaks a different lingo to you is saying in emoji. Happy, sad, angry, scared, shocked, the is a face for every emotion. Lots of faces actually; the Unicode Consortium counts 1851 official emojis.

“Emoji have come to embody a core aspect of living in a digital world that is visually driven, emotionally expressive, and obsessively immediate,” – Oxford Dictionary

Emojis first appeared in 2011, so they have only been around five years, but man have they stuck. I bet you remember the day that you mother first used one. That simultaneous feeling of amazement and panic. Emojis are no longer the secret code of the young and hip; anyone can use them.

Before the official emoji, many of us would use keyboard commands to communicate a smile, a wink, or a frown. :). ;). :(. These were certainly only used in informal situations, and mostly just in text messages to friends. The emoji has come a long way since then. You see them in text, in emails. But generally not in the workplace.

Then came Slack

Slack, the workplace communication tool that has taken the business world by storm, has a slew of emojis. In a study of over 1,000 Americans last year, it was found that 76 percent had used an emoji to communicate to a co-worker. Most of these were the standard “happy face,” but there were a lot of thumbs up in there too.

The emotional connection

In the same study, 78 percent of the workers asked reported that they felt that they were not emotionally connected enough with the people that they work with. Thirty-three percent said that they wished there was an easier way to express emotions at work without it being considered inappropriate. It was also noted that in feeling more emotionally connected with others would lead to a less stressed and more productive workplace.

Better understanding leads to fewer miscommunications

According to Jim Patterson, CEO at Cotap, the risk of being misunderstood is high when we communicate digitally. Humor can be lost, and ever worse, offense can be taken if a person misinterprets the intentions of another’s written quip.

We get a lot of the meaning of communication in the body language of the speaker. That’s why email can be so difficult sometimes. While it is true that to some, the emoji will seem silly, frivolous and not meant for serious work communication, that can be a very limiting attitude.

Many companies today are realizing that teams that communicate well do better. Simple as that. Combined with text and punctuation, emojis can take on some of the parts of communication that body language conveys in speech. There is no amount of fuddy-duddy attitude that can weigh up against this truth: an emoji is an complement to written language that allows for a deeper understanding of the communicator’s demeanor, attitude, and mood.

“People tend to use emoticons when there’s some kind of what linguists call a face threat—something kind of awkward or potentially offensive, or somebody could take something the wrong way,” says Lauren Collister, a socio-linguist at the University of Pittsburgh. Further studies in the workplace have shown that emojis are used more to signal how information should be interpreted in order to avoid miscommunication. So it seems that when we use emojis at work, we are not using them to convey emotion as much are we are to ensure understanding and intent.

TL;DR: Thanks to platforms like Slack, workplace communications have evolved. You can use emojis at work. (Although the kissing face might be taking things a bit too far.)

– Tabitha Farrar

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Adults need time to have fun too you know!

Some days being an adult feels overrated. Basically it just means that you get to do all the things and take all the responsibility for your life all the time. Some of us even get the added bonus of having to take responsibility for the lives of others too: children.

When you were a kid someone else paid the bills. When you were a kid someone else filled the fridge with food. When you were a kid someone else made you dinner. Now you pay the bills, you fill the fridge and you make the dinner.

Kids have it made. If it’s any consolation, however, all those kids you see running around having their parents do all the things for them — those kids are going to turn adult one day too.

Do adults really have to do all the things?

Nowadays, not so much!

Ten years ago you had to physically walk into your bank in order to pay in a check. Now you can do that with your phone. That’s just one example of the way in which apps have allowed adults to do the adult stuff — like pay bills and get paid — without it taking as much time and energy as it did before.

With apps, we’re turning adult-ing around. We’re taking our time back and saying “no” to the mundane tasks that our parents were forced to do.

At MobileDay, most of us have accepted that we are now adults and that we have to do that adult stuff. Some of us even have kids which means that we really have to. All of us, however, are up for things that remove some of the worst parts of being an adult and free up time for doing the fun things.

Apps that take the sting out of being an adult:

1. Audible — for Books

If you are an adult, the chances are that you have a job. If you have a job, you probably have to commute by foot, bike, scooter, car, bus, or camel to your place of work. If you have children, you probably have to drive them places; you might even have to sit and wait for them while they do stuff like football or baseball practice.

Audible lets you listen to books while you are doing other, less stimulating, things. If you ever say sentences such as ” I don’t have time to read,” then you need this app in your life.

2. Podcasts — for Knowing Stuff

For all the same reasons as above, but podcasts also deserve their own mention as they fill a different slot too: up-to-date news and knowledge. You can get a podcast on just about anything, but the best part is that when you subscribe to regularly produced shows you get the most relevant information in the world today. News, politics, finance, (ah, so adult!) , celebrities, fashion, Game of Thrones … if you can name it, you can listen to a podcast on it.

Podcasts mean that any time you can put a pair of earbuds in your ears, you can listen to something that interests you. That something might be a very grown up something indeed, but it needn’t have to be.

3. MobileDay — for Conference Calls

Conference calls are the epitome of “adult.” Conference calls are so adult, that even most adults don’t really know how to do them right. If you are going to embark on an activity as outrageously adult as being in a conference call, you might as well do it in style.

The MobileDay app gets you into any conference call without subjecting you to the horror that is dialing the conference call bridge. You just press a button and you are on all call — not late, not stressed. It’s rather like having someone else do the hard part for you. It’s also free!

4. Vivino for Wine

One of the best things about being an adult is being allowed to drink wine. But, as with all great things, there is a cost. Literally: wine is expensive.

If you find a wine that you like, you could just buy that wine and never worry about wasting money on a bottle that tastes like cat pee. But what if you want to explore the fabulous and exotic world of wine? Chances are, you’ll buy a couple of bottles of something that just isn’t you in the process of broadening your wine horizons. Suck.

But wait, there’s an app to the rescue. Vivino knows you, and knows what you like. If you scan the label on a bottle of vino, it will tell you —based on your preferences — if its a good match for you or not. Magic.

5. Intuit Self Employed for Taxes

One of the least fun things about adulting is finances. Enveloped neatly within that, come taxes. If you are self-employed or a small business owner, reporting on expenditure and income is crucial unless you enjoy spending the month of April in a mild to extreme state of panic.

Quickbooks Self Employed is a cloud-based accounting service by Intuit. It works for business and personal but neatly separates the two. You swipe left or right to tell the app if an expense is either business or personal; you do the same with deposits. It uses the transactions it has downloaded to help you track your income and expenditure — then estimates quarterly taxes with that information.

What are your favorite apps for working parents who want more time?

The post 5 Apps for Working Parents Who Want More Time for Fun Stuff! appeared first on MobileDay.

If you are a frequent flyer or road warrior type, you are going to appreciate this new addition to your MobileDay app’s capabilities. You’ll see that your scheduled flights appear as “calls” but instead of the Join Call button that looks like a phone in the middle, there is an airplane.

We wish that we could transport you straight to your airplane seat with that button, but unfortunately teleportation technology is rather lagging. One day Monty, one day.

The best that we can do today is put you on a direct line to your airline, so that is what will happen if you press the airplane button. If you want to talk to someone at airline support, you can touch on the set of headphones hovering above the airplane button.

Why did we do this? You asked. Well, some of you asked. And why not?

TL;DR: Direct dial the airline by pressing the airplane button.

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