I wanted to alert you that we have some great new articles coming out in the January issue of The Voice of Leadership - our monthly on-line newsletter.  “My Best Year Yet” will have a simple, five step questionnaire that is guaranteed to get you focused on how you will make 2009 successful for you.

Whatever is going on in the economy, I think we all feel it’s time to take matters into our own hands, decide what success means for us, and start moving in that direction.  If you would like to order the questionnaire, we can send it to you in a PDF form - it’s only five questions — but it will make you think!  You’ll want to spend about an hour contemplating and writing.  I also encourage you to get together with a friend or mentor and share what you’ve written.  That makes it real.  And you’ll get a lot of encouragement from someone who matters to you.

The questionnaire will be available by Monday December 22nd, so if you want it now, email Shellie Dunlap at sdunlap@bates-communications.com

This is a wonderful time of year - none of us is insensitive to the challenges that so many people face now with businesses downsizing, restructuring and reorganization.  But as I look ahead, I believe people are going to come back to work in January with a fresh resolve to move forward and make it a great year.  I wish you a very happy holiday season, filled with joy. 

Wishing You a Season of Joy!!!

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I just wanted to share a photo of Meredith O’Connor, our Marketing Director, and me, holding the first two copies of Motivate Like a CEO!  They’re shipping the book to bookstores in the next couple of weeks so they should be available, especially on amazon.com, around January 9th.

http://www.amazon.com/Motivate-Like-CEO-Communicate-Strategic/dp/0071600299/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229465387&sr=8-1

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Last week in the middle of a presentation to of 500 people at the Massachusetts Conference for Women, my PowerPoint presentation became suddenly “unavailable.”  The screen went dark and a signal sign was flashing.  As luck would have it, even though we had “tested it twice,” the computer crashed while Meredith O’Connor, our Marketing Director, was loading  videos.  These videos were an important part of the program, an exercise called “You Be the Coach,” in which the audience critiques well known CEO speakers. 

To compound things, I had arrived there in the morning without a hard copy of the PowerPoint slides.  They were not printed for the audience.  So without PowerPoint slides it would have been tough to make sure the “show went on.”  Fortunately, I have had so many experiences like this, that I knew I would need a print out.  I asked a terrific conference aid if she would take the flash drive and run to Kinkos downstairs at the Boston Convention Center to have it printed for me.  This is an important reminder- you ALWAYS need to have  hard copy in front of you - little did I realize it would save me.  I was able to go on and even joke about how whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, and to point out how to rescue yourself when you encounter such an inconvenient technological glitch.

Here are five tips on how to resuscitate a presentation when the technology gremlins threaten to ruin you.

1.  Bring backup: Flash drive of the PowerPoint, hard copy of the same, and any other visual aids that do not depend upon technology.  Make sure whatever happens you can deliver a great program.

2.  Be flexible: While the technical gurus work on “fixing” a problem, go on with the program, ask questions, do an exercise, get people engaged in a discussion, so that you don’t continue to call attention to the technical issues and people feel the time is used productively.

3. Bring a side-kick:  It would have been extremely difficult to resolve this technical issue with only the technician that the conference center provided; in fact the guy was nowhere to be found at the moment it went down.  Meredith rebooted and kept working on it while I kept the program going, and that was what made the difference.  Whenever possible, bring along someone who can trouble shoot.

4. Stay cool:  What impresses audiences is not the PowerPoint, but how you handle yourself on the platform.  They feel bad for you but they don’t want to have to live your pain.  You will be judged by clients, prospects, bosses, your board of director and other audiences by how you manage under pressure and keep your focus.

5. Have a sense of humor:  When I turned to Meredith (semi seriously) after it looked like she had rebooted and we would be able to see the video.  I said, “Don’t make a liar out of me!”  and that got one of the biggest laughs at the conference.  Later people came up and said, “you model what you say.  That could have been a disaster and you handled it well.” 

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Today I had my monthly meeting with a group of women entrepreneurs and I have to say this is a dynamic group.  While some are obviously having to manage through a difficult year, we decided that compared to the once big-three automakers, the shortfalls look like chump change.

You do have to laugh — especially in stressful times — and you also have to share.  That’s why we decided to talk about  “what works” when communicating with clients and prospects.  And we were able to generate a great list of ideas which you’ll find below.

You may recall a  few weeks ago, I gave a one-hour teleseminar on The Power of Adversity, Communicating with Clients and Prospects in Challenging Times.  This is part of our new sales success series.  It’s available now on CD and in a booklet.

I thought I would share the list of “what works” from this dynamic group.  We’re interested in hearing from you, too.  What’s working in your outreach right now?  What do people respond best to?

If you’re interested in purchasing the brand new booklet/CD program, The Power of Adversity, Communicating with Clients and Prospects in Challenging Times, please click here, or, if you don’t find it in the store (it should be posted soon) contact Shellie Dunlap: sdunlap@bates-communications.com

Here’s that list of “Best Practices” from my entrepreneur friends.  Enjoy!

1.  Make the call- you never know what’s really going on or why you haven’t heard from people - and they appreciate hearing from you

2.  Don’t assume you know what’s happening with any client - because half the time you will be wrong.

3.  Reframe the conversation - if you’re positive, they’ll be more positive and that gives you an opening to talk about how you can help them achieve their goals and solve immediate problems.

4.  Market aggressively without alienating people (if you get unsubscribes to your newsletter from people who you want to subscribe, that’s a clue )

5.  Make sure your marketing is content driven - write articles and provide real value.  Nobody cares about the news about your business - save it for your family and friends.

6.  Know your value in terms of how the customer thinks of you and offer what you can at “no charge” - use your brain and solve their problems!  That builds relationships!

7. Put an actionable item at the end of your newsletter - then you’ll know whether people are reading and test what works.

8. If you receive a PR leadds feed, scope it for leads your clients could use, and copy and paste into an email 

9. Handwritten notes - they are still special

10. Take people out (breakfast, lunch, drinks after work–whatever works in your industry–you need to be face to face with people –you learn so much more.

11. Go to see your clients at their place of business- you get a real sense of what’s going on in their business, how they like to work, interact with people.  And they really appreciate it when you go out of your way for them.

12. Keep track of the A-list people - those you want as clients, or have as clients.  Set aside an hour a week to comb the newspapers, cut out articles about them, clip a brief note and mail them out.

13. Take work off your staff’s desk - and make the call yourself- it makes clients feel special when they hear from you!

14. Listen and learn about their personal interest - mail them a magazine or article about skiing, golf, whatever they like to do

15. Track google alerts on your clients - it’s great “intel” and when there is good news you can be the first to congratulate them!

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The November/December issue of The Conference Board Review has an article I want to recommend on The Attention Deficit.   The issue about productivity in a world of constant communication is important.  This isn’t about interruption - there has always been interruption in the workplace.  From the guy who stops in midday to tell you what his kids are doing to the friend who always calls you in the office while she’s traveling or in her car with nothing to do — there have always been those.

What’s new, as the article points out, is the sheer number of such devices and their intrusive nature, from e-mail to instang messaging, XML feeds, blogs, social-networking sites, cell phones, pagers, “they connect the knowledge worker, but to what?”

According to BASEX, a New York-based IT research company, a thousand executives and knowledge workers last year repored receiving on average 200 e-mails, instant messages, phone calls (office and cell) and text messages a day.

One of the most relevant points for the leaders who are readers of The Power Speaker Blog is this - “Many people permit their e-mail to deflect them from their plans for the day.  Their inbox, in effect, becomes their daily schedule.  People end up working on stuff that’s not important.”

Here’s my own QUICK QUIZ: Are Your E-Mail Habits Getting in the Way of your Career?

• Are you anxious to hit the reply button as soon as a new email comes in?
• Are you checking your email more than 4 times per day? 
• Do you get sidetracked answering email when you know other things are more important?
• Do you spend too much time replying?
• Are your messages too long?
• Do you find yourself answering surveys, checking out unimportant attachments, and otherwise, getting sidetracked?
• Do you feel that email “relieves” your stress when you don’t want to do something else, or something you’re working on seems too difficult?
• Does it drive you crazy to have anything sitting in your inbox?

If you answered yes to half or more of these questions then it’s time to look at your email habit as a habit.  Unless you have the type of business (or an explicit promise to your clients and customers) that you will return all email correspondence within the hour, then you need to set strict guidelines and stick to them.

Why? You’ll never get promoted to the top or stay at the top if you can’t manage your time, and more important, execute what’s important.

E-mail is literally threatening many rising stars future.  I’m not old fashioned about this - I’m as connected as the next person.  But you know who you are.  This is about more than your productivity, it’s about creativity, time to think, innovate, plan, prioritize, and move your organization forward. 

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