When I Got My First Big Job

Thirty some years ago I started working for a Fortune 500 Corporation. I was the first female sales trainee in Chicago and the second in the nation. I was about five years out of college and ready for a real career. I smart, savvy, quick on my feet, great at presentations, and strong on building relationships. I was also the youngest and the quickest to pick up the new computer system. Let me tell you, I was pleased with myself and they were pleased with me too.

Then three or four months into my tenure a reorganization occurred. I was offered a choice I was unprepared for. I could stay in Chicago knowing that my job would probably be phased out by the end of the year or I could take a transfer to a new city where I’d have a territory of my own.
I was 27 years old. My mother had died nine months earlier. The move would put me four hours further from my 72-year-old father who was living alone.

Even in those glory days of great corporate training, a few months learning in a seasonal business of complex relationships is no learning time at all. I’d hardly learned what business we were in or how to talk to a client. I was more trainee than sales rep. I couldn’t spell the word “close,” let alone design a multi-store deal with major client.

Yet, I said yes I would go, though in my heart and every cell of my body I knew the right answer was no.

Part of it was moving to the next step on the success path, part of it was never having failed at anything, part of it was thinking this was what “the company wanted” and that what I thought didn’t count. I hadn’t thought through the risk or the reality. I hadn’t thought through whether I had the skills or the will to do the job. I was simply doing what we learned in school – do what the teacher says and it will work out.

I negotiated a nice deal. I kept my condo in Chicago. They paid for my new apartment in the best neighborhood. I moved down to that city and into a huge showroom with a separate office downtown where I worked alone. I was a business person now. I paid my office rent. I bought my samples that sat on the shelves. I booked my meetings, took my orders, and for six weeks twice a year, I packed my car and drove to hotel rooms that 13 sample cases and I called home.

I came face to face with who I was and who I wasn’t. I didn’t figure out what I’d loved about my job in Chicago until it was gone. I didn’t figure out what I needed to do this new one until I didn’t have it. I longed for someone to teach me and someone to be with me, but the guy who had been there before me had moved on. The information didn’t feed me. The competition depleted me. The lack of people and feedback made me feel small, lost, and alone.

I missed the thinking and connecting of ideas. I missed interactions with people and the relationship building that are so much of who I am. I missed being part of something that wasn’t just me. Everything about me has always been a teacher, a community builder, and a designer of ideas. I did my best to pretend I was happy, but I hated my job and I didn’t like myself for doing it badly.

Soon enough it was obvious that the move was a bad choice all around. I learned a lot about what works and doesn’t work for me at the expense of a territory that went nowhere. Luckily a bad economy covered some of what I’d not done.

And I’m grateful to that Fortune 500 company who saw the situation for what it was and who generously moved me back home.

Stories Like That Happen Every Day

My story was expensive for me and for my company. Every day, I hear stories of how many of us learned to be leaders on someone else’s path. A little too ready to fit ourselves into the job description set out without thought to what we already are or are suited to be.

Thirty years ago, I didn’t have the wisdom, the courage, the leadership to think through that first decision and to answer with what I already knew – that I should have said no.

They didn’t pay me to think then, but they do now.

Now I see what I see and know what I know — and I’ve figured out what I add. The rest is about aligning goals to build something together that we can’t build alone.

Still the start of it all was going down the wrong road to learn that…

our best strengths, talents, and skills often seem easy because they are naturally ours and
we often don’t recognize our best strengths, talents, and skills until we can’t use them.

Inside our successes is the key to our path. Inside each of them is what we naturally do well.
Look at your successes to see what you see and know what you know about yourself.

When you name it and claim it other folks will recognize and value it.

What comes so naturally to you that you’re not yourself if you’re not doing it?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Data is Interesting. People Are Irresistible

One evening at dinner, Rick Murray offered the most interesting insight into the state of marketing. He pointed to the moment that marketers started measuring everything as the moment when we lost the “art of marketing,” turning it into a science. It’s been a thought I’ve been thinking on for almost a year. To me, it seems a lot has been lost.

The numbers and data that we collect, plot, and analyze flatten out the people they represent. The time that it takes to build the surveys, administer and interpret them, and then discuss their various possible implications have taken away time once spent in more organic and natural conversation with people who help our businesses thrive.

Though those conversations are harder to quantify, they add to the intuitive detail that fills out the “personality” of our customers, the nuance of their motivations and intention, their yearnings and wants. Those numbers, charts, and graphs flatten the people we might be thinking about. That’s how we came to talk about living breathing human beings as users, eyeballs, consumers, anything but the people they are.

It’s important to sit silent sometimes with our thoughts about the people we serve. Who are the people who help our businesses thrive and what brings them to love what we do?

Numbers can’t explain your smile when you felt you were heard.

A check box doesn’t fully express the deliciousness of discovering a product feature that seems put there just for you.

A line graph doesn’t make my delighted response to a fabulous experience the same as yours.

Understanding the nuance of my loyalty and yours are what gets us each to find that company irresistible.

That only happens when the company has a mindset that were individual people, not numbers on a survey.

People go flat in a data stream and when we feel flat it’s hard to invest energy.

Every time you see data, get to the heart of it. Stop to think about the people it represents.

Be irresistible.
Liz Strauss
How can I help you be irresistible?

Buy the Insider’s Guide and Get your best voice in the conversation.

Build the Best Team

Again this year, I’ve had the honor to be part of the Blogger’s Hub at the World Business Forum. The first speaker, Jim Collins, Author of bestselling business books, Good to Great and Built to Last, started what became a theme of the day.

The winner is the one with the best team. To achieve the best team, a leader has to

• identify the right people who are the smartest.
• put them in the right positions.
• value, reward, and celebrate teamwork

Jim Collins sent a call to action to the audience with these words and this to-do list.

Those who change the world are enormously consistent in how they do it. The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency.

Ten to-dos

1. Do your diagnostics. Self assess.
2. Focus on building a pocket of greatness at every step.
3. Get to 90% key seats filled with right people.
4. Double your questions to statements ratio over the next year.
5. First question: How is our world changing and what are the brutal facts?
6. Turn off your electronic gadgets – one day for every two weeks.
7. Have the discipline to stop doing when you should.
8. Get inside your personal hedgehog. Do work you’re passionate about, work that you deliver as the world’s best, and being useful at something that society values.
9. Stop giving titles – titles name jobs. Instead give responsibility.
10. Set a Big Hairy Audacious Goal.

Never, never give in. Never, never, never, never. – Jim Collins

Now I’m listening to Jack Welch speak about leadership … and the theme continues. His thoughts include …

Fear is a dead issue as a management tool. It worked once, not anymore. You have to have a vision for where you’re going, how you’re going to get there, who you want to take with you, and what’s in it for them, and always keeping that out there.

We know this.
Great leaders are open, focused, and invested in a cause.
And they seek and attract people who are the same.

Be irresistible.
Liz Strauss
How can I help your business be irresistible?

Buy the Insider’s Guide and Get your best voice in the conversation.

Stop Looking in the Wrong Direction

Last week I was invited to speak for a networking group of professionals and entrepreneurs about social media and business development. In response to my interactive presentation on irresistible growth in times of the Internet a savvy professional photographer pointed out that as she looked at what her competition was doing, she was finding it difficult to differentiate. Her question?

How do I come to my own irresistible value proposition?

The words spilled out of my mouth, “Why are you looking at the competition and not at your customers?”

Once we were stuck with only those who could reach us geographically via available transportation … feet, cars, bikes, trains and such. Now the Internet has opened the conversation to include anyone who wants a solution anywhere in the world. What does that mean? We can decide more clearly the kind of customers we want to serve by attracting them.

• DECIDE. Look at the customer group you want to serve. What makes them light up? When geography limited us, we had to serve the folks who wanted who came into our shop. But now we can’t possibly serve the whole world well, nor would we want to. And should we try we’ll find ourselves lost in the noise of the undefined. By deciding that group that we love, we stand out and stand up for the people we find irresistible to us.
• PROVE. Build your store, your website, your blog, and your samples to show them that they are the people you serve. Get to know that group better than any other and you’ll understand their problems, their yearnings, and what they love. It will show in everything you do and they will see it too.
• KEEP YOUR EYES ON YOUR CUSTOMERS. If you’re looking at your customers, your competition will soon be looking at you. You won’t need to be looking at what they’re doing because your customers will be fiercely loyal to you.

Over and over, we get distracted by losing our focus. We only need to do two things to grow an irresistible business.

• Keep offering products and services our ideal customers want to buy — so perfectly matched to them that they can’t quit talking about what we do.
• Keep finding ways to give them more opportunities to buy, interact, and participate in what we offer them.

We slowly become what we look at most … don’t keep looking at your competition

I repeat … It starts with a decision to be irresistible to one specific group. Then we can move out slowly to the group that stands right next to them.

Strategy is a lot about focusing on the folks who love what we do.

Be irresistible.
Liz Strauss
How can I help you be irresistible?

Buy the Insider’s Guide and Get your best voice in the conversation.

If You Haven’t Changed Your Website in Years …

Lots of commercials these days tout the advantages of dating sites. I’m wondering whether some companies ought to join one or at least watch the commercials. The commercials talk about how to find a perfect match, someone who

• understands my needs
• shares my values
• is as intelligent as I am
• cares about me

and so on. You get where I’m going.

The last commercial I saw showed first dates — one person telling another something that the other had no interest in.

“And in the nut family, I love cashews.” Perhaps your perfect match is a nut.

“I’m the smartest guy in the world.” And also the most self-involved.

Who wants to date people who only talk about themselves?

In fairness, many of us do some of that when we’re nervous or feeling out of our depth in strange surroundings. But we should do a little better when we’ve had time to prepare.

I would hope that when we’re putting up a website we think about the people we’re talking to …

Why I’d Date Endless.com

Some websites are like the people who talk only about themselves. Great websites are like great dinner companions, they are interested in the folks who come to share time with them. They speak to the people who visit in easy conversational language and make it easy to hang around. The best website I’ve seen lately is endless.com

I would date Endless.com Look at all of the ways they make their site easy to spend time with …

• They talk TO Me and don’t talk too much.
• They talk about what I care about … Free shipping. Free returns.
• They remember details about me … up at the right, I can see what I saved from a past visit. I don’t have to remind them or go searching.
• They’re seductive … Indulge … Tempt yourself … Save $20 ….
• They ask me what I think.
• and their good looks don’t hurt

Endless makes me feel like they know what makes my life easier, faster, and more fun. The tracking of product from my iPhone was a breeze. I’ve quit other shoe sources online and off. [no disclaimer needed / I am just a customer.]

Click through on the screenshot to see even more, including how they let me sort product my way.

But seeing this might lead you to go check your own site. Is your website all about you?

Liz Strauss
Find out about working with Liz.

Buy the Insider’s Guide and Get your best voice in the conversation.

I’m a Person Talk to Me Like One

This morning my big blog is down and has been for two hours. I put in a support ticket to ask for some help.

This is the response I got …

We are currently experiencing intermittent latency in our Chicago network due to an issue with an upstream provider that may manifest itself in other datacenters based on the route taken through our network. Please stand by and we will let you know as soon as we have news or as soon as the issue has been corrected. At this time we do not have an ETA.

Thanks,
______________________

Senior Server Support Engineer
Layered Tech
https://layeredtech.com

Here are a few things about that response that don’t inspire me to be on their team about this situation …

• That 32-word sentence that basically implies that “it’s not our fault” sounds like they’re trying to avoid owning the problem.
• The second sentence that “we’ll let you know when we have news” sounds as if my inconvenience means nothing to them.
• Note that the fact that business is halted because of their problem isn’t mentioned.

Customers are people, not users, not eyeballs, not computers at the other end of network. We pay you to care about our business. It’s nice when you talk to us as if you might know that. When you do, we can understand that problems happen and that stuff goes wrong — you make a customer fan. When you don’t a problem can become something made worse by the fact that you didn’t seem to care.

A great response to win support and understanding might have said something closer to this.

Hi!
We’re sorry that a latency in our network is affecting your site. It seems to be an issue an upstream provider and we’re doing everything we can to get the issue corrected and get your site back online as fast as possible. We appreciate your patience while we get this sorted out.

Thanks,
…..

When something goes wrong, if you want folks to hang in there with you. Let them know that you’re working for them.

_________
Just received this UPDATE via email

EVENT UPDATE 22-MAR-10 10:00 CDT: At this time our Network Engineering team continues to work to resolve lingering issues which are impacting connectivity in our Cedar Falls location. The Chicago network is largely stabilized, but customers with services in both Chicago and Cedar Falls may be experiencing sporadic issues.

You may continue to watch http://www.ltstatus.com for news as it happens.

The update information most certainly helps. But the omission of concern for those affected still stands out.

Liz Strauss

A few month’s ago Lonnie Hodge wrote about Blue Feather Tweeters.

So, I thought “How about a list of the top 20-30 nicest people to meet and tweet on Twitter?” Here are my first picks for Blue Feather Friends – who actually talk to you….

It inspired me to make a list of my own.

Now we’re working on a project for a new iteration of our conference called SOBCon Hands-on Associations. I’ve been listening to association tweeters who talk about what’s going on in that most interesting space. I thought you might want to know who I’ve found to follow. Certainly these aren’t nearly all of the dedicated people in the association conversation, but these are ones I suspect wouldn’t mind a new person asking a question.

A Few of My Blue Feather Association Tweeters

1. @sweet sue Susan Kuhn Frost is the on-the-ground planner of our D.C. event.
2. @jeff hurt Jeff is helping us with the blog and the content. He’ll be there too.
3. @JoanEisenstodt A brilliant and generous consultant who has helped us tune our ideas.
4. @lizstrauss I’m putting myself on this list because I’m studying everyone else who’s here and have been for quite a while.
5. @kwells2416 Executive Director of an NGO that really cares about partner violence. Fabulous sense of humor and incredibly smart.
6. @JessicaLHansen Jessica is the real deal in the world of PR for associations.
7. @ekeating Content specialist with the Software Information Industry Association. — Knows what’s that.
8. @HansRuinemans Founder of Professional Speakers Association — Cuts Crap. Creates Insights. Inspires Souls. Heals hearts.
9. @ScottKelby Started the National Association of Photoshop Professionals — gives great tips
10. @DeirdreReid Seeking exec level position in the association space.
11. @tcar Todd Carpenter of the National Realtors Association, Chicago.
12. @tapangarg Chief Catalyst at the CIO Association of India.
13. @maddiegrant Association/non-profit blogger. Parter at SocialFish.
14. @lindydreyer Chief social media marketer and association nerd at SocialFish
15. @Mike Kujawski Marketing and Social Media Strategist for Government, Non-Profits, and Associations.
16. @DrDavidBallard Head of Corporate Relations and Business Strategy at the American Psychological Association
17. @saltzberg Association maven
18. @pinnovation Jeff De Cagna — innovator, thought provoker in the Association space.
19. @AvenueZ Beth Ziesenis, association groupie, speaker, a cool writer chick.
20. @Peggy Hoffman Association management is her thing.
21. @ewengel Elizabeth Engel, CAE, association managment and blogging.
22. @jamienotter Works with associations to raise their power..
23. @markbledsoe An association exec and blogger.
24. @scathcart Stephanie Cathcart is the Public Affairs Professional for the largest Small Biz Association – NFIB
25. @dswon Darcy Swon Soon to be Pres of the Iowa Chapter of the American Marketing Association.
26. @JudMod Woman born to partner. Global Alliances, Neighborhood America. President, Association of Strategic Alliances.
27. @BoardMagic Sheila Martin, Social Entrepreneur w/ biz focus in Association & Nonprofit Management
28. @MarylandADAKatie Jones twitters for Maryland Automobile Dealers Association (MADA) –the statewide association of new car and truck dealers in Maryland.
29. @ShelleRoseCharv Shelle Rose Charvet is President of Canadian Association of Professional Speakers
30. @KarenBrown Consultant and conference planner
31. @rgbroitman Web Publisher for the National Wildlife Federation.
32. @Reggie Henry Director of Tech at ASAE and always smiling.
33. @KnealeMann He makes associations and friends grow by knowing him.
34. @christytj CAE exec, AAUW, author, blogger
35. @StephenPeeler Association management consultant.
36. @PeterHutchins Charming, funny, and graciously good humored.
37. @ltwhite Leslie White, a risk management specialist who works with associations and nonprofits.
38. @MichaelMcCurry Creative thinking event planner from my neck of the woods.
39. @mmcallen His energy is beyond inspiring … It’s contagious!
40. @ljunker An association writer, editor, and source of information. .
41. @scottoser Great combination — publishing, associations, and multichannel marketing.
42. @sgiarde Sandra Giarde – A GenX Association Executive.
43. @shifted Another Chicagoan, this one is shifting the American Library Association
44. @krash63 American Heart Association
45. @renatosogueco Avid technologist for the floral industry and association
46. @jkhewett Julie does Association management and events services
47. @AnnikaStensson National Restaurant Association’s media relations director
48. @iawife Sandy ks the President and Founder of the International Association of Women in Family Enterprises.
49. @brianjohnriggs Consultant to associations, Director of Business aat AssociationHQ
50. @siddNullus master of the Xtreme Bowling Association!

And 12 Associations that tweet

1. @NAPP_News The National Association of Photoshop Professionals
2. @NAFSA Association of International Educators
3. @Loyalty360 Loyalty Marketer’s Association
4. @AAAnews official twitter channel off the American Automobile Association
5. @AICR The Association for International Cancer Research
6. @SMEI Worldwide Professional Association for Sales & Marketing
7. @ChicagoIMA Chicago Interactive Marketing Association
8. @AAEteachers The Association of American Educators (AAE) is the largest national, non-union, professional teacher association.
9. @RetailBC British Columbia’s retail trade association
10. @IABC International Association of Business Communicators —
11. @AssnMediaPub association publishers, communications professionals and the media they create
12. @ASHAWeb American Speech and Hearing Association

Of course before we talk, it’s always a good idea to listen first. Then do tell them I said, “hi.”

Feel free to add the Associations and Association Tweeters you know

Liz Strauss
Work with Liz!!

The People to People Connection

Social media attracts literate, intelligent, curious people — people who like to explore new ideas. Though some brand themselves as experts or gurus. In a industry barely defined, we’re all Social Media Explorers still learning the whys, hows, and ROIs. Folks new to the territory might find that the traits of the most qualified teachers aren’t what they would be in an older, more concrete type of enterprise.

Here’s what to look for in a social media teacher or guide.

• Count Internet years. 3 years experience is entry level in the concrete world. It can be extensive experience within Internet time.
• Check for depth. A deep understanding will show itself in the ways a person can describe the culture of the Internet, how it shifts, and how the values of social media worth within and against the values of ecommerce. Look for understanding how how social media as a piece of a comprehensive marketing / customer plan.
• Check for skill set. Even though the teacher may not be the person who’ll be executing the plan, he or she should be well versed in using the tools.
• Check the breadth, particularly the individual’s networks. Social media is business based in influence, relationships, and connections. Discuss how the networks match up to your business and its goals.
• Get the facts. Ask for cases and social media initiatives this person actively led.

The field, the metrics, and the best practices are still forming. Some folks have worked with the tools, but never applied them in actual P&L situations. Some have studied the theory. Some have built a narrow niche of expertise. While others understand how to move people all over the web, but can’t articulate it yet.

Many great minds and great practitioners are available to help. Know your goals and listen actively, the best match won’t be hard to find.

Let me know if I can help.

Liz Strauss

Want an hour of Liz’s personal consulting time? See the About Liz page.

Liz Strauss

Find out about working with Liz.

Buy the Insider’s Guide and Get your best voice in the conversation.

Pairing Sentences

When we learn to speak, it starts by listening. Google has started a global listening machine.

Google has announced it’s building a Translation Center to connect people who need text and documents translated with people who can do that. Such a central location for language conversation has fabulous implications for the Internet and the translation industry.

Amir Helzer, of I Can Localize a translation service that combines human and technological solutions, and I spoke about the Google Translation Center on Friday. Amir suggested that, looking at Google’s core business, it’s likely that this new center will function similar to Google AdWords — connecting buyers to seller without intervention. He and I discussed the nuances of accurate cultural translations. Amir pointed out that, “Now that Google has made this move, people are talking about the translation industry. It opens the door to a discussion of quality and standards and the value of providing a local feel to a global web business.”

Google will be collecting words in context to build what Brian McConnell has called a free global translation memory.

Google has been investing significant resources in a multi-year effort to develop its statistical machine translation technology. Statistical MT works by comparing large numbers of parallel texts that have been translated between languages and from these learns which words and phrases usually map to others — similar to the way humans acquire language. The problem with statistical MT is that it requires a large number of directly translated sentences.

Before we speak, we listen. Are you ready to start speaking and listening?

Global is the new local. Communication is relationship.

Liz Strauss
Find out about working with Liz.

Buy the Insider’s Guide and Get your best voice in the conversation.

The Larger Audience

The overwhelming difference about online communication seems to be that folks worry about who might be listening in the shadows — the readers we affectionately call lurkers. It’s easy to endow that unseen audience with power and mystery that they may not seek or want.

The point we miss that most all of our communication is subject to “lurkers” in some form or another, and because we’ve learned to manage for them, we no longer think about the threat they also pose.
Examples include conversations and secrets that get repeated after we’re gone, emails that get passed on, and industry gossip in which people talk about us and at times, even claim to represent our view.

In any business communication, the point has always been to be sure that what we share is appropriate and useful — and offered with care. Online communication works the same way.

Liz Strauss
Find out about working with Liz.

Buy the Insider’s Guide and Get your best voice in the conversation.