Are You Afraid To Express Yourself In Business?

(Photo by venkane)

I call it the I Factor. I as in I Am.

In Professional Networking: It’s Not Just Who You Know, I wrote about how various networking efforts work toward the big goal of bringing people to the “I know you, you know me” relationship, which is the most fruitful of all relationships. Once you get to this relationship that allows mutual communication, you want to deepen the relationship and maintain it well. Pay attention to each word — “I know you” means I care to know who you are. “You know me” means I will let you know me who I really am.

Abandon the idea that you can somehow trick others to believe you (and your products / services) to be someone you are not. Such trick won’t work, not in the long run, and not worth the effort anyway. Nor the pretence of a smiley face will substitute genuine caring for the people you are dealing with. So here is something we know deep inside yet seldom discussed in business workshops. . .

Self-Love is the basis of marketing, and business in general.

If you are not comfortable with yourself, people will sense it. They will know consciously or subconsciously, and your relationship, both business and personal, will be affected accordingly. And this is far more than just words. I know plenty of people who say they have a high self-esteem and, at the same time, are so afraid of expressing themselves. They say something like, “Oh, I’ll do it when I get a degree / lose 5 pounds / or (fill in the blank).” I’d say we, each one of us, get comfortable with ourselves right now. With all the imperfections.

When we love ourselves as we are, we can extend our caring to others.

Simple. And yes, I know how challenging this is. When and how did loving ourselves and others get so difficult?

Let’s go back in our time and think, for a moment, how we felt about ourselves and others as a baby. Did we love ourselves and others then? I am thinking about my friend’s little boy. He seems to know love. He looks happy when he is held by his mother, when he sees toys, or when – most of the time. He is a happy baby who smiles at everyone. Sure, he cries, too – really badly when he is hungry, wet, or plain bored. But he doesn’t seem to carry grudge. He doesn’t get upset like, “Well, you are not feeding me quickly enough. You are not a good parent. I don’t like you.” Instead, he simply gets happy when he gets fed. Is this because he doesn’t remember his hunger he went through a few minutes ago? No, he is capable of remembering his mother, or even me. He just knows love, and doesn’t know non-love. Because he only knows love, he probably doesn’t know he knows love. I guess this is how we were initially, no matter how our parents and circumstances were. We knew love, including self-love. So what happened since? In my case, I had no clue about love by the time I entered adolescence, and I was also strongly questioning if I was worthy of love . . .

Worthy of love? Do I need to clear certain requirements to be worthy of love?

Maybe even to get the love from myself? This appears to be the mainstream thinking. When I was getting divorced, my counselor emphasized the importance of self-respect, and asked me to write down the qualities I liked about myself. You know, like the fact I have a college degree, I can speak two languages, or that I had a good paying job. Or, in terms of appearance, I was supposed to write things such as I like my dark straight hair, cute smile, and so on. And add my kind nature. Have I reached the point of loveliness yet?

I now think this was quite a ridiculous exercise. It only reinforced my judgment system. Judgments like having higher education is better than not having one, more money is better than less, straight hair is better than curly. . . So if I qualify for the better, I deserve self-respect, and if I have less of those, I am no good? Sounds to me that if I am in the “respect” group, I’d live in fear of losing that status, and if I am in the lower group, I’d live in anxiety. This is the opposite of love!

This is why I no longer use the word self-respect and say self-love instead.

Words like self-respect and self-esteem make me nervous. They imply I somehow have to qualify for respect. The truth is we all deserve respect. However, the word “respect” is often used in a more discriminating manner in our society. So I prefer self-love. Here, I am as I am, and I love myself! I don’t have to do or have anything. I love myself, period.

When we are comfortable with ourselves, we are empowered. People like self-assured, naturally caring person. So it gets so much easier to connect with others, and the connection can get to much deeper level. When this happens in business, it is marketing beyond the superficial marketing tactics and strategies.

When you express yourself and connect with your customers at deeper level, your business becomes indispensable.

Express who you are and who you aspire to be, your dreams and values, and people who identify with you will seek you out. Maki at DoshDosh just wrote an outstanding post titled It’s Not Just Words: The Importance of Empowering Your Audience. In this article, he discusses the power of connecting with your audience (customers) by sharing common dreams. When people see you as someone close to their heart, and feel you share their dream and they can achieve their dream “with and through you”, you (and your business) become special. Let me quote:

This is the ultimate form of marketing. Why? Because when you become so deeply associated with a vision, you move beyond selling. You have become an essential component of your audience’s lives.

(Maki always writes well – which is amazing – but this post is by far the most insightful, explaining the power of words and the superpower of your being behind the words. And yes, your being needs to be effectively expressed for good marketing.)
Marketing tools such as wording and images and strategies such as networking and campaign are best used to enhance this process of becoming part of your customers’ lives.

The I Factor of putting yourself in front of others is possible only when you first love yourself.

After all, how do you empower your customers when you are not empowered? As I wrote in 5 Qualities I See In Successful Entrepreneurs, I consider self-love and compassion are critical for business success. So please open your heart to yourself and others. (Oh, in case you are wondering what my dream may be. . . I want to help you learn the mindset of successful entrepreneurs so that you can make the leap with confidence. I believe in more holistic approach to entrepreneurship. This also means helping you unlearn conventional thinking and realize that the source of your true power and wisdom is within you.)

How are you expressing yourself in your business? What dreams are your clients trying to achieve with and through you?

Thank you to Brad for including this post in Carnival of Sales & Management Success, to Aaron for inclusion in Doing It Differently Carnival.

Professional Networking: It’s Not Just Who You Know

(Photo by Gail S)

What you know and do really matters. And who you know. And more.

Much has been said about the importance of networking in business, but I am yet to see a comprehensive account how each piece fits into the big picture. I also know, from experience, some challenges we face especially when connecting online, and would like to share my perspective.

Who knows you matters more than who you know.

The two are not the same. The most fundamental form of communication is the mutual two-way communication between two individuals who knows each other. I like the comfort and trust of this kind of communication. But things get more complicated in modern life. There are people I know but don’t know me. For example, I read a lot and learn from the writers, who don’t know me. It is a good learning experience for me, but in terms of my business development, they don’t help – how could they, they don’t know me. Conversely, there are people who know me but I don’t know, such as my silent readers. I’d love to make a good impression to them, firstly as basic manner, and secondly because there are so much they can do to help me, such as providing feedback, talking about my blog and business to their friends and possibly sending me referrals, or even becoming my clients themselves. So, who knows me matters far more than who I know when it comes to business development. And this leads to the second point. . .

Reaching out to who you know is the critical step.

This is the step that changes the one-way communication to the fundamental, often mutually beneficial two-way communication. It’s a critical and difficult step. It’s difficult because, while I know them in the one-way generalized communication, I don’t really know the person, so I’m not sure how to relate to them. In the two-way communication, we adjust the way we relate to the specific person we are communicating with based on our knowledge about them, but in the first contact, we don’t have much knowledge pool. Especially when the communication takes place online, I don’t even get the immediate feedback from their words and body language, so it is even more difficult. (After all, I don’t even know if the person is reading my email, or if my email is ending up in their spam box.) So I rely on the two basic rules of inter-personal communication: be myself and be courteous. Yet, it raises questions like. . .

Is it okay to ask for a favor in the first contact?

When we reach out, we usually have a reason. The reason why we are breaking out of our comfort zone and making this difficult first contact. But is is okay to ask right away?

I can’t speak for others, but for me, if it is a small favor I can do myself, asked in a civil way, I don’t mind it. We live in a fast paced society, and I am a pretty open person, so I don’t need a long prelude of friendship. For instance, if someone emails me asking for feedback about his or her new blog, I’d be happy to take a look and write back, and I’ve done this many times by now. I do want to know, however, who they are and how they know me. In other words, we do need to build a relationship first, even a quick one, before getting to the asking part.

For a bigger favor that involves others, such as referral and link love, I take more caution because if I recommend something or someone I don’t know well, I am undermining my own reputation. I once received an email from a complete stranger titled “link exchange request”. The email consisted of two sentences, saying she has put my blog on her blogroll so I should do the same for her. This is a wrong way of asking because she didn’t take even a minute to build relationship with me. I felt like I was used as a tool, like link providing vending machine. I still took the time to check out her blog, and wrote back I couldn’t do so because her blog didn’t have a contact info. But I have to say I really don’t like being TOLD what to do, unless I’m doing something harmful.

But really, online or off, I don’t mind doing some act of kindness even to a stranger, provided the situation is right. Again, other people may be more cautious or private. So I wouldn’t take it personally if I reach out to someone and don’t hear back. Maybe he is busy. Or maybe my way of relating to her was not her favorite way of being contacted. I feel a bit down, but I have one more thing to do to complete the cycle of network. . .

What can I do to help others connect?

There are people I know who do a great job. There are also people I know who may benefit from my friends’ work. However, they don’t know each other. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could help them connect with each other?

The real power of who you know is this indirect perk you get when you help others network.

To do this well, you need to make it a habit to think about possible match-making. You already know quite a few people who can make unique contribution for others. Some more examples I can offer are: I recently worked with a graphic designer for my business cards. Elaine at Designer Passport did a beautiful job at a reasonable fee. In addition to the business card design, she turned it to logo (see below), and customized the header of this website. (See Yes in orange?) Also, I know some excellent coaches. If you are an active woman who want to achieve the next level, like running a full marathon, or if you are going through divorce and can use extra help to stay put, let me know.

There are four kinds of relationships.

The first is “I know you, you know me” and this is the most fruitful mutual relationship. The objective of networking is to upgrade other three kinds of relationships to this mutual relationship.

1. For “I know you, you don’t know me” relationship, my action plan is to reach out in a courteous manner.
2. For “I don’t know you, you know me” relationship, my effort goes to make it easy for you to reach me out, such as providing contact info and encouraging you to contact me.
3. For “I don’t know you, you don’t know me” relationship, my hope is the people who knows you and me would take the trouble of connecting me to you. I can encourage them do this by making it clear who I’d like to know and showing gratitude for the things they do for me.

Once you establish a good relationship, it is important to maintain it well. Don’t be like the stupid salesperson who is super nice until you sign up and never returns your call afterwards. I will write more about this later.

How do you like networking? Did this article help you to be more active in networking?

Related post: Learning To Love Networking

Thanks to Alex for including this post in Personal Development Carnival, to E3 for inclusion in Carnival of Success Principles, to Joe for inclusion in Working at Home Carnival.

How To Improve Customer Service By Spending Far Less Time

(Photo by Sleestak66)

The customers are demanding attention. You address them the best you can, but there are so many that you can’t keep up with them all.

The bigger your business grows, the more customers are asking questions and complaining about more and more issues. You want to treat your customers well, but you just can’t stretch any more . . .

Believe me, this will happen sooner or later when you become an entrepreneur and your business takes off. Even when you offer outstanding service or products, there will be inquiries and also complaints about perceived problems. What do you do?

It seems the majority of business owners choose one or both of the following two options:

1. Work longer hours
2. Get other people’s help (ie, their time), starting with your family members and then hiring others

Both approaches above are based on linear thinking.

You are addressing each problem one by one, and each problem solving takes certain amount of time, so the total time needed to solve all problems is the sum of time each individual problem solving takes. Obviously, you need more time to solve more problems this way. So you either work longer hours yourself or, realizing your human physical limitations, you get other people’s time. The quality of your personal life, your health, your relationship with family, and the bottom line of your business suffer when you approach problem solving this way. You started your business with passion and lots of wonderful dreams, yet you find yourself dreading . . .

It doesn’t have to be this way.

There is another approach that radically shortens the time needed to address customer service problems while keeping the level of your service high, even higher than before. And you can learn and use this approach right away even if you are currently an employee. In fact, I strongly recommend we all practice using this approach as it is so effective that it will change your work life.

It is to learn systematic thinking and implement effective system.

Let me explain with real-life examples, one by Christine O’Kelly at Self Made Chick and another my own experience.

In How to Achieve Ridiculous Goals, Christine explains how she, as a new Operation Manager of a start-up company, cleared 80,000 customer email backlogs in 3 weeks. She says it took more than a year for the backlog to build to this level. There weren’t enough number of customer service reps to answer these emails one by one. Just demanding them to work faster didn’t work, either. So what did she do? She says:

I created a system analyzing the most common customer service questions, creating pre-made responses for each of the main types of questions, ran the 80,000 emails through a series of keyword-based filters to identify the topic of the email, separated them each into different “buckets,” and then had the CS team run these through a rigged up process that would send out back the correct auto response to each person. In exactly 3 weeks, the backlog was cleared.

This is the power of system. It leverages time and effort. Instead of addressing one problem at a time, you create a system that can address bunch of problems all at once.

Another example . . . I used to work for a large bank (now part of JP Morgan Chase) as International Banking Coordinator. One of my main responsibilities was to take care of Japanese expatriate businessmen, who were not familiar with American banking system. It was in the 90s, and they had never used debit cards, didn’t know the difference between credit card and debit card, not to mention being unfamiliar with various security restrictions used for credit cards. My predecessor’s day was all about answering customer calls. Several months after I took the job, the angry or panicked calls were gone and I could focus on sales calls and learning about other banking services for my own growth.

How did I do it? I figured most problems can be tracked down to certain causes, and addressed them proactively in a systematic manner. As a starter, I added some info on the brochure we were using, educating them about the differences of American banking products and how they can take advantage of them. When I opened accounts for new clients, I took a few minutes explaining them, referring to the brochure, and this system of educating customers pretty much eliminated their confusion and complaints. Further, I would ask my new clients about their function as part of relationship building process, and if they were in sales or senior management, I would ask them if they travel on business to meet their customers. If they said yes, I asked them if I may remove one of the restriction on their credit card that blocks out-of-area usage. My clients loved me for being so attentive and helpful, and I became free from calls like, “ Aaaargh, I am at dinner with the president of my biggest customer and my credit card doesn’t work! What do I do!?”

To sum up, here is the basic procedure to build a good system:

1. Find pattern and categorize the problems
2. Identify the root cause(s)
3. Build system that addresses problems by the categories. Implement and verify the system.

Many people are so used to linear thinking that it will take some conscious learning to understand system. We are conditioned to just jump at the problem and “deal with” them. It takes fundamental change in thinking to sit back first to design and build the system. However, the rewards are huge. As I wrote in 5 Qualities I Find In Successful Entrepreneurs, I think this is one of the most critical skill for entrepreneurs. It is so important that I will write more about this in future posts.

Do you have your story of building your great system?

Thanks to Brad for including this post in Carnival of Sales & Management Success.

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