Not Just Talk can now be found at tiltconsulting.com/blog. RSS feeds and email subscription links are available there.

Don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any questions. Looking forward to keeping you aboard!

Gretchen Anthony

An engineer was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess.” He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week.” The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.

The frog then cried out, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess , I’ll stay with you for AS LONG as you want.” Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.

Finally, the frog asked, “What is the matter? I’ve told you I’m a beautiful princess, that I’ll stay with you for as long as you want. Why won’t you kiss me?” The engineer said, “Look I’m an engineer. I don’t have time for a girlfriend. But a talking frog, now that’s cool.”

Not sure what, exactly, this has to do with communication. I’m sure if I thought hard enough I could come up with something. But sometimes, laughing at a talking frog is just about, well, laughing at a talking frog. Reading more into it would spoil the moment.

I’ve been on the phone regularly this week with a colleague undergoing management change in her organization. Specifics aside, my colleague is living a case study: that people who once had power don’t give it up without a fight, that management changes often leave leadership vacuums and long periods of strife in their wake, and that what once was a dream team can quickly become a dysfunctional nightmare.

Our conversations have been an exercise in listening and in strategy. And I’ve been reminded of the following:

• That progress doesn’t always elicit celebration. Progress is messy and, here’s that word again, painful. But I find it worthwhile always to recognize progress for progress’ sake. The progress in my colleague’s case is hard to find, but it’s there and finding and recognizing it helps move issues forward.
• That today starts where yesterday left off, not two days ago or last week or last year. It’s easy to slide back in time to drudge up old issues, but that’s backward, not forward, thinking. Starting where you left off yesterday is the only way to maintain productive momentum.
• That we may not own our own destiny, but we do own our integrity. We’re the only ones who can destroy that.

Without engagement, you may as well be standing alone in a field with your feet stuck in the mud calling for a taxi.

So, check out The Engaging Brand, whether you’re in the business to sell product or lead employees, Anna’s likely got the goods to get you there.

Take a walk down the hall into the room with the coffee and the copier. Scan the walls. Do you see it? The sign citing “communication” as a an organizational priority?

Are you sick to your stomach yet?

I’ve come to find that the statement “we just need to communicate better” is code. It says more about about organizational culture than about communication skill, effectiveness or frequency. It says more about the person/group proclaiming it than about the person/group receiving the proclamation.

To help you decode the real meaning behind the message the next time hear it, here are my 5 favorite translations of “We Need Better Communication.”

Translation #1: We talk at each other, but we don’t listen to each other.

It’s true. Communication requires speaking and listening. And it requires both actions by both parties. If you think this is what you’re being told, consider yourself lucky because this tends to be the easiest challenge to take on. People listen better when they feel they’re being listened to. Start showing that you’re listening and you’ll get the same in return.

Translation #2: I’m communicating with you, but you’re not doing what I tell you.

This one’s trickier, but typically easy to spot. People tend to throw this coded message around when they’re frustrated by lack of progress, success or follow-through by the people who work with and among them. The best way to solve this one: conclude conversations by clearly summarizing (and documenting, if possible) the content and conclusions of the discussion. Be sure to include any decisions on next steps and the persons responsible for those actions. Sometimes being a parrot has its perks.

Translation #3: We don’t have time or care to bother with communication.

Even trickier. This coded message implies something about hierarchy. In other words, the person on the receiving end is being told that they’re not worthy of the time and effort required by the act of communication. They are also being told that they will be held responsible for any lack or failure of communication. Solution? Set forth a mutually agreed upon process and schedule for communication. Knowing that you’re working with a resistant party, keep requirements to a minimum. At all times, keep to the process and refer to the process when you’re lacking the information that you need from the other party (or parties). Maintain iron-clad documentation.

Translation #4: We’re an open book. You must not be paying attention.

It’s common for people or groups to believe that they provide better information than they actually do. Or, that outside parties understand where to look/who to consult for necessary information. A good solution for this one: information trees. Document the areas where you or your team most frequently are frustrated when trying to find or pass along information. Then identify the primary information resources (personal or electronic) that are most likely to fulfill your most common needs. From there, drill down and document a tree of deeper and deeper sources of information, knowledge and expertise. If the person or team you’re working with truly is an open book, this should not be hard for them to compile.

Translation #5: We gave you the information. Doing something with it is your job.

I call this one, “informational sabotage.” Some people make a habit of turning information into hand grenades; as soon as they throw it over the wall they don’t care what the consequences. To tackle this one takes 1-part finesse and 2-parts hard-nosed project manager. When not given proper time to manage and process new information, you and/or your team are put at risk. So, think like a steel magnolia: as sweetly as you can, tell the other party that you understand why the information came in so late and of course they just couldn’t help it. Stroke their ego. And then take pains to figure out what it will take to make sure it never happens again.

So, how should the leader as communicator plan to balance their marketing and sales efforts? It goes without saying that I have a theory on this. Shoot for 30%. If you’re effective with the group you lead, you shouldn’t have to invest more than 30% of your time maintaining a sense of like-ability and trustworthiness. But invest less than that and you’ll run your well dry.

Take a look at what I mean (finally, a chance to chart!).

Getting Swampy

The leader who spends the majority of his/her time getting known, being liked and gaining trust doesn’t have much time left to motivate others to “buy” their concepts, to move on their ideas. Concentrating on the relationship is perfectly appropriate during certain leadership phases such as taking on a new group or a new role. But once they know you, you’ve got to get selling. You’ve got to use the capital you’ve earned. Like water in a pond, too much attention spent on being liked (and not enough on putting ideas in motion) and you’ll overrun your borders, turning the fertile farmland of your relationships into a swampy slog.

 Forecast: Drought

Just as being overly concerned about relationships can dampen your influence as a leader, a lack of concern for them can drain your well of influence dry. No matter how established and successful a relationship, asking someone to invest their time and energy on your behalf is ultimately a one-sided proposition. People who hold great amounts of trust and respect for you may occasionally be willing to act and take risks on your behalf without asking much in return. But even the greatest devotion is finite. Spending time to understand how others stand to benefit from acting on your requests keeps your relationships well-irrigated and tended.

As Goldilocks said, This One is Just Right

So, how did I settle on my 30% rule? Primarily because it just feels right. But there is a little more to it. As a general rule, companies looking to grow their sales and market share spend about 25-30% of their operating budget on marketing. As a business professional, you’re not likely looking to stay in your current position for the rest of your career. You’re probably looking to grow, and in order to do so you must increase your level of recognition, power and influence within your organization. That means a good 25-30% of your time is marketing. But let’s face it, a business isn’t a business if it doesn’t sell and a leader isn’t a leader if he or she doesn’t get things done. So, what’s not spent on establishing and maintaining relationships has to be spent on selling.

Like I said, 30% — it just feels right, doesn’t it?

Monday, March 31st 2008

Oh, no! I’ve been influenced by a marketer. I’ve succumb. . .  a marketer just reshaped my ideas on leadership communication.

John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing and the Duct Tape Marketing blog wrote a two-part series (well, loosely a series — you have to check it out to see what I mean) last week that began with the entry, “Those idiots in marketing just don’t get it.” In it, Jantsch provides his personal definitions of marketing and of sales. He writes, “marketing is – getting someone who has a need to know, like and trust you. Now let’s blend in my definition of sales: sales is – taking know, like and trust and converting it to try, buy, repeat and refer.”

So, yeah, I agreed with that and it that struck me as interesting. As did Jantsch’s point that marketing owns the idea, while sales owns the relationship. Again, yes, interesting and I agree . . . so what made me blog about it?

While I don’t consider myself a true marketer but rather an organizational communication expert, I see marketing as an essential element of org comm, particularly of leadership communication. Effective leaders understand (intrinsically or otherwise) that communication requires sound ideas, supported by a demonstration of humility and integrity and an active pursuit an audience’s trust.

But until this post, I don’t know that I’d put together the notion that effective leaders (at every level) function as individual, walking, talking sales and marketing teams. I myself hadn’t separated the communication of the message from the sell. Here’s how they’re different. Effective communicators:

• Not only pass a message along, they invest personally in the grand ideas within it (idea + relationship).
• Not only understand (are not told, but understand) what message needs communicating, but also who needs to hear it (let’s face it: over-communicating is as fundamental a problem as a lack of communication).
• Not only communicate the big idea to their audiences, but move their audiences to action, to “try, buy, repeat and refer” the idea (communication + sell).

The point to Jantsch’s series is that sales and marketing need to come together. He writes, “to be more effective sales teams should learn how to be more about ideas and relevant conversations (more like marketing), to be more effective marketing should learn how to build better relationships (more like sales).”

The point to me is ownership: ownership of the ideas (you don’t have to originate it to have a stake in it) as well as ownership of the relationship with those who need to buy it. If you as a communicator feel as sense of ownership on both sides of the equation, you’re chances of a successful close (sale) are high. It’s when you lack ownership that your buyer begins to see right through you.

More to come next week on using a relationship for the benefit of all.

Eating humble  branding pie.

In my defense, blogging is not my real job. And it was my real job (family, clients) that kept me from posting to my blog on time. But that’s not the point now, is it? The point is I’m setting expectations for Monday morning postings. I guess I’m just lucky that I experience 50% fewer Monday mornings than my average reader (how’s that for messaging spin!).

It’s a tricky thing, branding. How closely we must watch. How closely we must monitor. How easily we miss the subtle, yet meaningful hints that we’re off our mark.

Example: I was approached by a small-business owner recently who wanted to build his business based on personalized attention to every customer. Great. Great! Wow, that’s great. Except that he countered each of my comments with, “Did that!” “Tried that!” “Didn’t work!” After 5 minutes I didn’t want any more of his attention, personal or otherwise.

Example: I’m always in the market to partner with new firms and a few months back was urged by a web developer to check out her online portfolio. I got a 404 error. Guess she doesn’t have any clients.

Example: I subscribe to a delightful, wise, insightful blog that posts each and every Monday morning. Oh, wait . . .

You get my point. Now, take a look at your own subtle branding points. What are you missing there?

Now, for those of you still with me, the details . . . As a consultant and writer, I find myself bringing attention to things that aren’t working. So it was with some skepticism last month that I signed up for a free trial with Constant Contact, the email marketing and survey service. I need a tool to help me manage the newsletter and email marketing efforts for my communication consulting company, Tilt Consulting [shameless plug].

The Constant Contact website has all of the typical online customer support tools (FAQs, online help library, email contact) plus a few not-so-typical tools (live webinars and recorded tutorials). Pretty good, no? But is it enough to prevent abuse of the generous 60-day free trial?

Here’s what got me. Less than 24 hours after registering I started receiving phone calls and emails from a guy named Jeff who identified himself as my personal “communication consultant.” Oh, really? I never anticipated needing one of those.

Within that same 24 hour window Jeff provided me with his direct email and phone extension, notified me of upcoming webinars for new users, and urged me to contact him personally so that together we could discuss how to best achieve my email marketing goals. Oh, and get this, I think he was even located in my time zone.

Turns out Constant Contact assigns a consultant to every new subscriber to help get them over the bumps of learning a new tool. And, though they don’t say this, to increase their customer conversion rates. My best guess is that it’s working.

When sales and marketing folks talk about customer conversion and retention, the non-technical term is “stick.” Those folks at Constant Contact seems to have figured out that to get customers to “stick” you must do one thing without fail: you must prove valuable to your customer. And that’s best done by showing that you value each and every customer, rather than by leading them to a deep and dark online customer support jungle and leaving them there armed with nothing but a problem and customer logon ID.

When was the last time you got timely, personalized attention on a tool so critical to achieving your business objectives? If you’ve got a story to share, I’d love to hear about it.

Is it getting nasty out there, or is it just me? Here are some of the tee shirts and bumper stickers I saw this weekend:

• Shame on you. Yeah you. The one looking at my chest. [expletive deleted]
• If you want your husband to listen to you, you’ll have to pry his head out of his butt. [expletive also deleted]
• Oh, I get it. You’re stupid.

Maybe I should wonder about my neighbors.

So, is communicating with each other getting so difficult that we have to turn people off before they speak to us? I contemplated approaching the woman wearing the “You’re stupid” shirt when I saw her in a local store this afternoon. Ultimately I didn’t; I figured I’d embarrassed my kids enough for the day. But I was curious. Why did she choose to make that statement? What did she want people to think? That she was funny? That she was angry? That she encounters such flocks of stupid people that she can’t function in her daily endeavors?

The 2007 results of the Harris Interactive Poll shows that 56% percent of Americans feel a sense of alienation. The annual poll studies how much control people feel they have over their lives. 2007 showed the highest sense of alienation since 1999. So, not the highest sense of alienation in history. But over half of Americans polled indicate they feel a sense of powerlessness and isolation. That’s significant.

I have a hunch. It’s not that we walk among the functioning stupid. It’s that we’re out of touch. We’re alienated and isolated. And consequently, socially illiterate.

So, the question becomes this. When isolated and out-of-touch, do you choose to engage or withdraw? Do you choose to maintain an open posture, or a hostile one? Is the world around you stupid, or a puzzle which you have yet to piece together?