You Hear But Do You Listen?

I have had the pleasure of speaking to and listening to top executives from all sizes of companies. A common trait they share is - when someone spoke, they listened. Not only did they hear, but they also listened.

The good listener knows that a good conversation is definitely two-sided, but one learns through listening. Successful people know that and practice the art of listening constantly. “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” - Epictetus

Here are tips to be a better listener:

• Be Legitimately Interested: Drop whatever you were doing and focus.
• Be Honest About Your Time: If you really are in the middle of something important, tell the speaker. Apologize and plan for another meeting where you can ensure your full attention and focus.
• Accept the Speaker’s Point-Of-View: At least until he or she is done speaking.
• Use Body Language, Eye Contact, and Repetition: To show you are listening and interested, lean slightly forward in your chair.
• Go Beyond the Words: Good listeners are actively thinking not just about what was said but also why and how it was said.
• Avoid Planning Counterarguments: Mentally record your disagreement and formulate a response later after the whole message has been received.
• Ask Questions: If there is something said that is not clear to you, ask for clarification. Only ask questions that’ll help your understanding of what the speaker is saying.
• Watch and Learn from the “Good Listener”: We all know one or two “Good Listeners”. Next time you are speaking to them, really pay attention to what they do.

Being a good listener is an invaluable ability and skill. Once aquired it is sure to make you happier and more productive in not only your business but in your life.

Communication is Undervalued

Probably the most important skill anybody needs today in business is the one rarely taught in our education system - how to communicate. This is the skill that gets people their first job, helps them get promoted, creates respect and trust from meetings, develops confidence in others, and help them become leaders.

Technological changes have indisputably led to faster and more efficient communication. To name a few, we have:

• Email
• Fax machines
• Cell Phones
• Telephones
• Telephone conferencing
• Video conferencing
• Pagers

but are we communicating more effectively? No.

Communication is largely undervalued and untaught in the modern world, often with disastrous results. Professor Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University recently stated – that ‘the world’s problems could be solved if we kept talking’. This idea can be applied to almost any situation.

1. Speak to people
2. Smile at people
3. Address people by name
4. Be warm, friendly and helpful
5. Be enthusiastic about life
6. Be genuinely interested in people
7. Look for the opportunity to give praise
8. Be considerate of other people’s feelings
9. Be thoughtful and respectful of other people’s opinions
10. Be a great listener

On the above list, Number 10 may be the most important and also the hardest to do.

Listening and hearing are not the same things.

I will give some tips for being a better listener in tomorrow's blog. For now I will part with a quote from Ernest Hemingway, "I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen."

A Free Way to Market Your Business

If you offer complementary consultations send those who take you up on it an invoice showing your cost and value after your "discount."

If you are like many small business's, you may offer a free or no charge complimentary consultation as a way of getting your foot in the door of prospective customers, to simply educate prospective customers about your business, or as a way of meeting other small business owners you can refer business to and to get out of the home office.

Do NOT forget to send them an invoice with one line showing the actual cost they would have spent on your service if you didn't offer this service for free (this is a good time to review what you talked about in the description field). Make sure to add another line showing the discount which reduces the bill to zero.

You can also suggest that they write a compliment on a social networking site, their web site or Blog, or for your web site. Just remember to make it easy for them to do and to not take more than a minute or two to complete. An example would be to suggest that they write a sentence or two about how their business "fill in the blank" benefited.

That way, your value is in front of prospective customers and they are less likely to take your services for granted. In most bookkeeping programs, you can set up income and discount lines to track this marketing expense (even if the net is zero dollars) and see how effective this type of marketing really is.

A bonus tip! After you make a first sale/service to a new customer send a thank you letter along with the invoice. I have many repeat customers because of that thank you letter.

After a long holiday...

Whew! Am I glad the holiday is over so I can get some rest. I could hardly wait to get back to my office chair and get comfortable in its ergonomic design. What?! Your office chair isn't comfortable? It should be. If a person is comfortable, they will be more productive. Two new studies by Alan Hedge, Ph.D., CPE and Cornell University found that a comfortable working environment can do more than make workers happy: it can improve productivity as well.

A normal chair can give comfort for some period but an ergonomic chair will give comfort the entire time it is occupied. Using these chairs releases pressure from back stretches and pains. Ergonomic chairs distributes the whole body weight equally. An ergonomic chair will have its seat pan in a perfect position with suitable dimensions. An ergonomic chair is provided with pneumatical height adjustment. Not all chairs have enough back support for lower back and upper back with good lumbar support. An ergonomic chair satisfies all kinds of body posture with good back support in addition to lumbar support. Locking the chair backrest in one position generally isn't recommended. Before choosing a chair be sure that its armrests are broad, cushioned and comfortable.

Now I am going to lean back, relax, and enjoy.

A Note To Employers: 8 Things Intelligent People, Geeks and Nerds Need To Work Happy

There are many reasons to let geeks work the way they want to work. Today they work in every industry. They are the knowledge base, blood and sweat equity of many businesses. They work harder than most. They work longer than most. Their job isn’t a separate “thing they do” while they look forward to going home and relaxing. Geeks *live* what they do. They eat, sleep and breathe it. They are your systems administrators, your IT team, your programmers, your web developers, your designers… and sometimes even your customer service and sales people.
Anyone who understands how to leverage todays technology to increase intelligence, productivity and efficiency; anyone who stays up nights working to get better at what they do; anyone whose job is their life - is a geek. These are the most important asset your company has. For this reason, its important to give geeks what they want. Best part is, if you do, they most likely will not leave your company to work for someone who will.

#1. Let them work when they wantGeeks work almost every moment they are awake. They are online before they go to the office. They are home working after the office closes. They work weekends. They are even sometimes working in their dreams. Employers should understand this and more importantly appreciate it. Don’t force geeks to work 8 - 5 if there is no real need other than “company morale.” Meetings are one thing (, so is socializing with coworkers, but a relaxed office schedule will do wonders for the contentment levels of your employed geeks.

#2. Let them work where they wantGeeks prefer to have a couch around to nap on if they are tired. Some like no windows, others want to stare out into a city or landscape. At home, geek’s offices are usually more lived in, more comfortable and enjoyable than anywhere else in the world. This is because they love what they do, and they do it so much of the time they need to be comfortable where they do it.

#3. Let them control their lightingThere is nothing more annoying than working in bright crappy fluorescent lighting if you prefer to work in the dark, or vice versa. Geeks usually have sensitive eyes from staring at CRT monitors for too long. The last thing you want is your geeks to have headaches. Most geeks aren’t very pleasant to work with when they have headaches.

#4. Let them wear headphonesGeeks are experts in the arts of “focus.” Focusing takes removing all unnecessary distractions from your environment and creating a state where nothing else is going on but what they are working on. The harder the problem they are trying to solve or the more creative they have to be, the more they need to focus. Headphones, or simply a lack of ringing phones and talking sales people allow geeks to focus much easier.

#5. Do not expect them to wear a suitGeeks find arbitrary activities that lack real and meaningful purpose, a waste of time and energy. This includes attire. Most companies today are aware of this and even practice casual dress so as to make everyone more comfortable, but geeks are a special case. “Suits” (the kind of person) usually represent a business man who lacks most things other than a nice smile and great negotiation skills.

#6. Do not make them participate in company events (unless you are sure it is geek-friendly)Most geeks will not be jumping up and down with joy to attend a company party to celebrate the local football team, unless of course there is beer, and they can hang around and talk to each other about geeky things. Keep this in mind when planning company events. Geeks like to have fun, just not the same kind of fun as your typical non-geek.

#7. Do not hold a lot of arbitrary meetings that could have otherwise been handled through email or IMThis one is important. Like I said, geeks need to focus to be happy and able to focus. Nothing is more of an interruption than someone walking into their space unexpectedly and saying “hey do you have a minute?” The answer is usually going to be a disgruntled “Sure.” The truth is geeks are fine with attending planned meetings (and will happily be there if the meeting is really a necessary one for them to attend in person), but are usually most happy communicating through email and IM. These forms of communication are most appealing to geeks because they do not interrupt you, and polite geeks will even respond with a quick “hold on a sec, I’m in the middle of something.” Email and IM are recorded, searchable records of conversations. They are efficient and to the point. This also makes geeks happy. Geeks can discuss anything through email and IM and will usually be more willing and thorough with their response. Face to face meetings are important, geeks know that, but I would guess that 90% of conversations and meetings held face to face, would be more efficient and end with happier people, if they were held in a recordable, written, virtual space.

#8. Do not make them do anything other than workThis one isn’t completely accurate all the time. Geeks are team players, but they are also easily insulted by being given a task below their level of expertise or outside of the scope of their position. They’ll do it, but they won’t be totally happy. This includes: answering phones, taking out trash, going shopping for company supplies, and “filling in” for a sales person.