The best use of your time

February 7, 2018

Now that we are a month into 2018, are you still looking for ways you can kick-start your business successes, sales and marketing wins?  One of the best ways is by really being intentional about where you spend your time. I truly believe in Jim Rohn’s “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” philosophy and we’ll dig into that next week but for this week, I want to step out a little further and think about the events we attend.

When you think about it, for most of us, the most finite professional resource we have is time. So being smart about where we spend that resource just makes good business sense.

My mom always used the phrase “chat, chat, love your hat” to describe events where everyone air kissed or shook hands and then had conversations that stayed on the surface with people they didn’t know very well. Think the neighborhood barbeque or typical mixer events for business.

The truth is, for us professionally, there are a ton of “chat, chat, love your hat” kinds of events that are available to us as marketers, business owners, and business leaders. Some of them have an educational component, like a professional association monthly gathering with a speaker. Some are business development driven, like a networking event or rotary type gathering and others are really more of a see and be seen sort of opportunity. Every one of them can be valuable. But you also need to dole yourself out judiciously or else you won’t have enough time and energy to actually accomplish what you need to get done.

Like most marketing tactics, these events yield far better results if you do a little pre-planning. As you decide which ones to attend, ask yourself these questions:

What three things am I looking to walk away with from this event? This could be a new connection, new insights or spending time with someone you already know. But if you’re going to spend an hour or two, shouldn’t you know there’s something specific in it for you?

What can I offer the other attendees? How can you add value to the other people who attend the event? Have you recently read something that you can refer them to? If it’s an event or a gathering you know well, can you go out of your way to make introductions for the newcomers? Can you go and ask better questions that really get beyond the small talk?

Who can I take with me who would also benefit from the event? There’s something to be said about tag teaming these sorts of gatherings. Is it a mentoring situation? Could you bring someone who is new to the community? Or an old sage who hasn’t been as active lately and everyone would love to re-connect with?

Can I go and be completely present? Are you going to be distracted by your phone, texts, emails, or have something pressing on your mind? Can you leave your phone in your pocket and really tend to the people you meet, the content being presented and the opportunities that may present themselves? If not, maybe it’s not a good use of your time.

What’s your capacity to follow up? You always meet or re-connect with someone at these events. But ideally, that’s not the end — it’s just the beginning. Do you have time to reach back out and take the next step?

You’re going to have to pick and choose where you invest your time. When it comes to these sorts of events, be sure you choose wisely and make the most out of every time investment.

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The implications are not tiny

January 31, 2018

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past couple years, you are aware of the tiny house movement that is taking the country by craze.

In case you’re one of the folks who is not familiar with this concept, tiny houses are exactly what they sound like: super small houses, usually under 300 square feet, that are designed in such a way to maximize space, while using virtually no space at all. They can be stationary on the ground but in many cases, they’re built on a trailer so they’re mobile.

The movement began way back at the beginning of the century but lately, it has exploded thanks to this new generation of consumers and the media. There are all kinds of TV shows focusing on tiny homes like Tiny House Hunters on HGTV. If you Google tiny house you’ll find a very vibrant community where owners exchange information and offer advice on living in small space.

Here’s a look at the typical tiny housebuyer:

• They have an average income of $42,038 ($478 higher than the average American)
• 89% of tiny house owners have less credit card debt than the average American
• 65% of tiny house owners have no credit card debt
• 55% of tiny house owners have more savings than the average American
• 68% of tiny house owners have no mortgage (compared to 29.3% of all US homeowners)
• 2 out of 5 tiny house owners are over 50 years of age

While all of this is fascinating just on the surface, when we dig deeper – I think this movement is a huge wake-up call to marketers. There are some pretty significant clues in this phenomenon as to where consumers are heading and that’s going to impact us all.

Here are some of the trends I see buried in the tiny house movement:

Independence as a core theme: Imagine all the levels of freedom you’d have if your house could be moved anywhere you wanted it to be, you didn’t have a mortgage and your housing costs were power, water, Internet, and insurance.

A return to a simpler life: Tiny home buyers want to owe less, so they have more choices in terms of spending time with their family, work less and have a lot less to maintain. By default – if you live in 350 square feet, you can’t have a lot of stuff. Simpler by default.

A different definition of success: For these consumers, success isn’t a big house with a big screen TV and a beautifully manicured lawn. It’s no debt and no strings. This frees the homeowners up to spend more time traveling and being out and about.

Mobility: By default, if your house is on wheels – you don’t plan on setting down permanent roots. Even if you stay in the same community, you’re not tied down.

Eco-friendly: These homes are very eco-friendly with composting toilets, very little energy usage, solar panels and multi-use furniture. The footprint created by one of these homes is minuscule compared to a traditional home.

A new relationship with money: These consumers are not willing to owe anyone anything. They want the economic freedom to do what they want when they want. But that doesn’t mean they don’t like nice things. Many tiny homes have very high-end appliances and finishes like cherry-wood floors and stained glass windows. When you’ve got less than 500 square feet, those kinds of upgrades are very affordable.

This consumer group is growing at an amazing rate. Even if someone doesn’t opt for a tiny home, it’s safe to assume these consumer attitudes are emerging among the more traditional homeowner as well.

These attitudes and buying patterns are going to trickle into every category. I think it’s important that you begin to think about how this is going to translate to your business. Because if it hasn’t already – it’s coming.

 

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Your enewsletter is missing the point

January 24, 2018

Despite all of the talk about digital tools like programmatic media buying and social media, the old newsletter, or nowadays, the enewsletter is still a staple of many organization’s marketing efforts. Rightly so, when done right, they’re incredibly effective and a great way to stay in front of a prospect until they’re ready to buy.

Unfortunately, the ones that are done right are few and far between. Let’s dissect how to create an enewsletter that your prospects will welcome in their inbox.

Intent: This is the first place companies screw up. They think the enewsletter is there to sell stuff. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The purpose of your enewsletter is to be so helpful/useful that the recipients will allow you to keep showing up in their inbox, sometimes for years, before they’re ready to buy.

Your content should be constructed to be of value each and every time you send it. Think about your audience. What do they care about that you can help them improve, protect, or grow? It should be bigger than you and what you sell. Depending on your sales cycle, you may be sending that enewsletter for years before they’re ready to buy. So you have to be helpful for all that time. No small or easy task. But if you stay focused and resist the urge to sell, by the time they’re ready to buy, they’ll know, like and trust you enough to give you an opportunity.

Layout: Be mindful of how your content will be accessed. Today, over 68% of emails are opened on a mobile device of some kind. You need to be using software that is mobile friendly. You need to keep the masthead, color scheme, and style very clean and simple.

Avoid complicated backgrounds, reversing your text out in white or funky fonts that may not translate on all devices. Be sure you test your layout on several different mobile phones, tablets and desktops as well as different browsers and email tools.

Tone: For some reason when people write marketing content, they stiffen up, and their words become more formal and forced. You want your enewsletter to help the prospects get to know and like you. It’s tough to get to know someone who isn’t being themselves. Instead of writing your enewsletter word for word, try outlining it and then record yourself talking about the content. Transcribe what you said and voila – odds are it will be in your voice.

If you’re not sure if your enewsletter’s tone is aligned with who you are, read it out loud. Does it sound like how you’d say it in an actual conversation? If not, either sharpen your pencil or try my transcription trick.

Length: Remember – 68% of your audience is probably reading your missive on their smartphone. Those devices are not made for lengthy reading. There is no universal rule in terms of word count, but keep the reader’s tolerance in mind.

If any section is more than a couple paragraphs long, be mindful to use eye breaks like bullet points, subheads, and plenty of white space.

Email marketing is still one of the most effective and reliable marketing tactics available. For businesses with a longer sales cycle, it’s a critical component in staying top of mind until the prospect has an immediate need. But they’re in control and can kick you out of their inbox any time they want.

An enewsletter that is packed with useful information and is designed to be easy to digest is one that will never get the boot. Make sure it sounds and feels like you so that when they’re ready to buy, you’re exactly who they expect.

 

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Reinvent your category – Be different

January 17, 2018

This past year my daughter and I were in New York City and saw the play that took Broadway by storm – Hamilton. It was spectacular in every way imaginable, but it was also the antithesis of a Broadway musical in every way imaginable. It was different.

According to Broadway League research, the average theatergoer is a 44+-year-old, Caucasian, female tourist. 78% of these attendees have completed college, and 39% have advanced degrees. The average income of a Broadway attendee is $205,000 so clearly, this is primarily an affluent, white, middle-aged audience.

Which is why the traditional Broadway musical is such a hit. They’re packed with big dance numbers, elaborate sets, over the top musical performances and happy endings.

It’s also why most Broadway hits look a lot like each other. Many of them are based on proven stories like Lion King or use iconic music (Mamma Mia or Beautiful) from a popular entertainer/group. It costs between $5-$10 million dollars to launch a Broadway musical, so the risks are huge. Why would someone ever vary from the successful formula?

I think that’s the same question that we wrestle with all the time. When there’s someone in your category (or everyone in your category) that does something in a certain way, it feels smart and safe to do it the same way. The problem is that it’s pretty tough to stand out when you’re just like everyone else. The only way to compete is to outspend the competitors and for most companies that isn’t an option.

Or you can pull a Hamilton. Take everything I just said about a Broadway musical and turn it on its head.

• The play’s primary spoken style is rap/hip-hop (hardly the language of the middle-aged white woman).
• The storyline is based on the life of Alexander Hamilton, who is famous sort of. He was chief staff aide to General Washington during the Revolutionary War and our country’s first Secretary of the Treasury (hardly sexy roles).
• The main character is not a typical hero – in fact, he was arrogant, and his blunders and ego cost him dearly, both personally and professionally.
• There’s no happy ending to the story – as you know, Hamilton is killed in a duel.
• The set is a simple, almost rustic wooden set with a single turntable to create movement.

Despite all the reasons why Hamilton isn’t like all the others and shouldn’t be successful by Broadway’s standards – it has broken every attendance record you can imagine. Tickets are impossible to get. It has sold out for months at a time not just in New York but all around the country, and the secondary market (StubHub and the like) sold the worst seats in the house for $700+. It received a record-breaking 16 Tony nominations and many people referred to the Tony’s in 2016 as the Hamiltonys because they were expected to sweep the awards show.

My point – people are not the lemmings we assume they are. What Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda understood is that being different is marketing gold. Being different means you have less competition, and every dollar you spend telling your story is amplified because it’s not competing with as much noise. He also understood that being different means you get plenty of media attention, which creates curiosity, interest, and momentum.

How can you take your product or service and turn expectations and “the norm” on its ear? How can you authentically (that matters a lot) give a unique twist to what you do so you stand out from the crowd?

I encourage you to identify the 3-4 places where everyone in your industry looks the same and figure out how you could deliver something different and fresh. Hamilton isn’t just a spectacular play; it’s a business lesson we should all pay attention to.

 

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Business development by the numbers

January 10, 2018

Last week we started to identify some key financial metrics that you need to have a handle on as you plan your business development for the upcoming year in a smart way. If you did the math I outlined last week, you now know:

• How much of every earned dollar you actually get to keep to spend on your business (salaries, overhead, and profit)
• How much you can expect to produce per employee
• If you have capacity with your current staff or if you get new clients you’d need more help to support them
• If your business is profitable and if so, by how much

Those are the facts you need to make the following decisions:

• Are you content with your business being the size it is now?
• Are you happy with your current net profit (amount and percentage)?

If you decide you’re good where you’re at, it’s just a matter of trying to increase efficiencies to be even more profitable or trading up to better-fit customers who will also be more profitable.

But if you think there’s some room for growth, then let’s talk about what you really need.

I want to provide a caveat here. I am really simplifying this process. There is lots of averaging and rounding going on. I want you to understand the concepts and have some ballpark estimates of where you want to take your business and what it will take to get you there. My goal is not to make you a CPA. My goal is to give you some simple tools and metrics to use so that your business development planning isn’t just a shot in the dark.

When businesses set annual growth goals, they usually just pick a number based on historical trends or an impressive milestone they’re trying to reach. “Hmm, we grossed $3 million last year, so how about $3.5 million this year?” Have you already set growth goals for 2018? How much was it? 10% growth? 25% growth? More important than the number – the goal was based on what?

The truth is that most businesses set a growth goal but they rarely know what that actually means or what it’s going to cost them to get there.

This year, I’m going to suggest you do it differently. Let’s use the numbers we discussed last week to put together a projection and a plan that actually has a financial foundation under it.

You’ve now got a significant advantage. You know how much in gross revenue you need to generate to earn (approximately) whatever profit increase you’d like to have. You also know how many additional people, if any, it’s going to take to support that new opportunity.

Let’s assume you have decided you want to grow your profits by 10%. Do the math to determine what that means in gross revenue. If that means you need to have another $250,000 in client work to make that happen, we now know your 2018 gross revenue goal, right?

Will you need to add staff to support the new revenue goal? If so, don’t wait until you’re stretched too thin. Start looking for the right additions now.

Usually, when a business goes through this exercise, they discover that they don’t need as much new business as they feared. It puts the effort into perspective and allows them to build a business development program that’s tailored to their actual need without throwing them into an unnecessary panic.

I’m not suggesting that these are the only financial metrics you need to monitor. But in terms of understanding how to set realistic growth goals, even these basics will give you a factual foundation to put you on the right path.

 

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How many customers do you need?

January 3, 2018

By now, it’s occurred to you that the holidays are not coming back, it isn’t getting warmer any time soon and you’d better get at it. It’s about this time every year that businesses really get serious about attracting and winning new customers.

What happens next is as predictable as the gyms being packed in January. Businesses put together these elaborate, grandiose plans that come with Gantt charts, calendars, and color-coding.

But even with all that planning, two key questions are rarely asked or answered.

How much do we need? And of course the follow-up question should be: and how much could we even handle?

Most business development plans fail because first we get all excited about them but we behave as if we’re trying to create the Mona Lisa and second because we have no idea how much is enough. The truth is most businesses create plans that, if they actually executed on them consistently, would bring too much opportunity their way. They bite off more than they could possibly chew and then they choke on it.

Why are the gyms empty again by February? Two reasons. First – the New Year’s newbies tried to tackle too much and couldn’t sustain it. Second – they didn’t have realistic goals. If they did, they would have been able to scale back their plan to better bring them what they actually needed.

That’s true of the business development patterns of most organizations. We try to do too much because we don’t know the answer to the “how much” questions.

To get to those answers, you need to make some decisions and gather some data. It’s not difficult but it will take a little bit of time and requires us to do some simple math. But if you hang in there with me, I promise it will be worth the effort.

Gather up the following facts from your 2017 financial data.

1. Total gross billings (Everything you billed/charged your customers)
2. Cost of goods (All the hard costs you incurred on behalf of your clients. This does not include any costs related to your employees or your overhead. COGS are hard costs like raw materials, what you paid a wholesaler for what you sell retail or if you act as an agent for your clients – buying printing or some other service on their behalf and then charging them for it.)
3. Your net profit (What’s left over after you pay out all your expenses, including your staff and overhead.)

When you subtract your COGS from your gross billings, you get your net income or adjusted gross income. That’s the number we’re going to focus on. You’ll want to know what percentage of your gross billings turns into net income. Let’s say you bill $1 million dollars and $500,000 is COGS. That means your net income is 50%.

Now, figure out how many FTEs (full-time equivalents) you have on staff. Divide your net income by the number of FTEs you have. That tells you how much net income you earn per employee.

If you’re happy with your net profit number, then your employees are producing approximately as much net income per person as you need them to. If you’re not profitable or the profit number is too low, then you need to increase that per person average by helping your people be more efficient or by re-thinking your pricing model (or one of a million other things).

Next week, I’ll show you what to do with these numbers (I figure you need the week to gather them up) and what decisions you need as you define just how much business development you should be doing.

Gather the facts and next week we’ll use them to get realistic. I think you’ll be both relieved and surprised.

 

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Coming in loud and clear – Podcasts

December 27, 2017

When I was a kid, I loved listening to the old time radio shows that my parents grew up with. The Shadow was my favorite. I loved the storytelling but I also loved the portability — I used to listen when I was mowing the lawn (on my old Walkman, if that doesn’t age me!). Today, my old time radio fix is met through podcasts. There are so many podcasts out there – I don’t care what your interest, personal or professional, there’s a show for you.

I can listen when I’m driving, taking a walk, working out or on a plane. I love video but it requires all of my attention. One of the best things about a podcast is that I can consume them during “down time” and turn it into productive time.

I believe that podcasts are one of the most under-utilized marketing tactics out there today and if you haven’t considered it, I want to make sure it gets on your radar screen.

We probably do them a disservice, calling them podcasts. Who actually listens to them on an iPod anymore? The new term that seems to be gaining momentum is on-demand radio. 64% of podcasts are being consumed via smartphones or tablets today.

Consider these stats (from a study done by Edison Research):

• 36% of all Americans have listened to at least one podcast
• 21% listen to podcasts on a monthly basis
• Podcast listening has increased 23% from 2015
• Podcast listening has increased 75% since 2013
• The same number of Americans listen to podcasts as there are Twitter accounts
• The average podcast listener consumes five podcast episodes a week

This medium has huge potential as a part of your content strategy, but only if you build it with your audience in mind. Podcasts aren’t about selling. They’re about teaching, entertaining or both. Just like I’ve preached about your blog posts, videos or any other form of content — your podcast needs to be engaging and helpful. Otherwise, you will never build an audience.

Here are some other best practices if you’re going to launch a podcast.

Use good equipment: You don’t need to spend big bucks, but you do need to invest in a decent microphone and headphones. You’ll have to decide if you’re going to do the editing yourself or hire someone. For my podcast, I don’t have the time or technical expertise to do the editing/uploading to iTunes etc. I’ve got a great partner who handles all of that for me. If you’re interested in an introduction – shoot me an email.

Time is of the essence: The average commute is 25 minutes. Podcasts that are shorter than 30 minutes tend to have more listeners and get more downloads. But if you are providing high-value content, people will stick around.

Don’t wing it: Even though the best podcasts feel like they’re just casual conversations – they are anything but. You want to do some serious prep for your podcasts. It takes a lot of poise and preparation to sound unrehearsed. At the very least, have your intro and closing comments drafted and an outline of how you’d like the conversation to go.

Consistency wins: This is one of those “don’t start if you’re not serious” marketing tactics. Your efforts will not be rewarded if you’re inconsistent. Podcasting is also not a once a quarter or once a month effort. Weekly seems to be the ideal frequency for a busy brand that isn’t trying to monetize their podcast.

I guarantee that you have plenty to teach and that there’s an audience out there that’s hungry to learn. Why not consider jumping on the podcast bandwagon while it’s still building up steam?

 

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Measure what matters – business metrics

December 20, 2017

A while back, we explored the business metrics that every business owner and leader should be monitoring to keep their finger on the health of their organization. We dug into the purely financial metrics like lifetime value of a customer and profitability.

Today, I’d like to explore the marketing/sales and employee metrics that we help clients define and grow as we work with them. Just as a reminder, those metrics are:

Marketing/Sales

1. Retention percentage (How many customers did we keep from last year)
2. New business win rate (How many prospects did we convert to becoming customers)
3. New business traffic patterns (How are our new customers finding us)

Employees

1. Employee satisfaction/retention (Average tenure of your team and the health of your team)
2. Employee value (How much value does each employee contribute to your company and are they continuing to grow/add more value)

Now let’s look at each of these and why they matter.

Retention percentage: One of the truths that many business owners forget is that the largest source of new revenue should be your existing customers. It makes perfect sense. They know and trust you. If you deliver consistently, they should need and want to spend more with you, year after year. Well, to make that work – you have to keep them as customers. When you combine this with customer ratings (how good of a customer are they for your business) you really have valuable insights.

New business win rate: When you get a chance to win a new customer, how often are you successful? If the number is too high, your pricing strategy might need some work. If the number is too low, you might be talking to the wrong people or there’s something else that’s not working. This data will also help you decide if you’re wasting a lot of time chasing after business you have no chance of getting or you’re setting your sites too low.

New business traffic patterns: One of the ways to assess your marketing spend is to understand how prospects find you. When you understand what brings your best prospects to your door – you know where to spend your time and money. Even if your best avenue for new opportunities is through referrals, there are tactics you can strategically employ to enhance the quality and quantity of referrals you get.

Employee satisfaction/retention: The team that serves your customers is a make or break element of your business. Keeping your best performers and knowing that your crew feels appreciated and well prepared to do their jobs is a vital metric for every business. As we enter into an era of scarcity when it comes to skilled and talented employees, this will become increasingly important to your business. Don’t scrimp on this – figure out a way to benchmark and then routinely measure this key metric for your business.

Employee value: Every employer knows that not all team members are created equal and that each of them contributes at a different level. You want to have a very clear understanding of the value they deliver to your customers and to your bottom line as you are determining career paths, salary increases, and bonus amounts. This will also help you decide where to invest for your long-term growth.

Once you decide how to get the data you need to track these metrics, the mechanics are pretty easy. For most organizations, quarterly monitoring will give you a good handle on the trends that have a huge impact on your company’s profitability and viability. This information will also help you determine new opportunities to explore and where you need to keep a watchful eye.

 

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Don’t Cut Yourself Short – Go Long Form

December 13, 2017

In a world where 140-character tweets, Facebook posts, and USA Today style graphics are the range, it’s easy to assume that brevity is the key to great content creation. Add to that the reality that more and more of us are accessing our online news, social networks and other content via our smartphones and it would be easy to make the leap that people don’t want to read long form stories anymore.

That’s the danger in marketing. We observe and assume. There’s a place for that in the mix but we need to check those assumptions against something a bit more objective and with a broader lens than our own experience.

That’s why I was so fascinated by a study out of the Pew Research Center that found that long-form news articles are actually more effective than shorter pieces for audiences viewing the content on their smartphones.

According to Pew, the total engaged time (which they defined as time spent scrolling, clicking or tapping) with news stories that were 1,000 words or longer averaged about twice the amount of time spent with stories of under 1,000 words. The longer articles earned 123 seconds versus the shorter articles being consumed in 57 seconds on average.

Another conclusion we might jump to is that well sure, the longer articles were longer, so of course, people spent more time reading them. But other bits of evidence suggest it was more than that.

Some people dismiss writing longer articles because they think if a browser lands on something that long, they’ll abandon the story without reading it. But the study showed that the long-form stories attracted visitors at nearly the same rate as short-form stories.

Not only did people not shy away from these longer pieces but the truth is, they really dug in.

• 36 percent of interactions with long-form news lasted more than two minutes, compared with 10 percent for short-form news.
• 66 percent of complete interactions with short-form stories were one minute or shorter, compared with 42 percent for long-form news.

How the reader got to the article mattered as well. If the long form reader was served up the piece via an internal link, they spent an average of 148 seconds with the piece. If they got to the piece directly or via a link in an email, their time investment dropped to 132 seconds. Social media links got the shortest time span – 111 seconds.

While social links might have delivered the shortest attention span, it was responsible for the most traffic overall, with over 40% of both the short and long form stories coming from one of the social networks.

Here are some other noteworthy observations from the study:

• Facebook drove the largest volume of social network sourced readers (80%) but those readers are not as engaged, on average, as Twitter users. If someone clicked on a link from Facebook, they spent an average of 107 seconds in longer-form stories, but the amount of time rose to 133 seconds when they came from Twitter.
• Late night and morning are the times of the day with the highest engagement.
• Only a very small percentage of readers (long form – 4%, short form – 3%) return to those stories via their smartphones, but when they did, they really invested some time. Return visitors to long-form articles spend an average of 277 seconds, compared with 123 seconds for overall visitors, and those figures for short-form stories are 110 seconds and 57 seconds, respectively.

There are several takeaways from this study but I think the biggest one is that we need to be very careful about assuming that short form copy is the only option in this smartphone driven world.

 

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Silence Kills

December 6, 2017

I had to call United’s 800-number the other day to change an existing ticket. At each step of modifying my ticket, the customer service rep would have to key in some data and then there would be this long silence. I couldn’t hear him typing or even a single breath. I assumed he was still there because I wasn’t served up any on hold music or messaging. But, several times in the process, I’d actually say something just to make him respond because I was convinced we’d been disconnected.

As the call dragged on, I imagined that something had gone wrong. The silence was not only deafening but it made me fill in the blanks. This is not the first time I’ve had to alter a plane ticket. I know the drill and I know it takes several steps and more time than you think it would. But in the past, if there was a long delay as the computer was thinking or the rep was verifying something – they’d say something like “oh, my computer is slow today” or “this will take a few minutes, sorry for the wait.”

My imagination worked overtime as the United rep continued in silence and I wondered what disaster must be befalling my travel plans. As I sat there fretting, it occurred to me that businesses do this to their customers all the time. I’m sure, from the United guy’s point of view, he was doing exactly what he was paid to do – change my ticket in the most efficient and effective manner possible. So he was probably concentrating on the work at hand. He was focusing on the facts of the transaction, not how I might be reacting to his methodology.

Silence breeds worry and uncertainty. Neither is a healthy ingredient for any relationship. The only place silence does even more damage than what it does in our client relationships is the impact it has on our relationships with our employees and teammates. I believe it’s all about vulnerability.

Here’s my “how much should I communicate” barometer. The more the power has shifted in my direction, the more I must communicate. So if you’re the boss or a customer is particularly beholden to you or at risk if you drop the ball – you must overcommunicate to keep them secure.

This isn’t just about being benevolent. When your employees and teammates feel completely in the loop and know what’s going on – they can help you get to the finish line faster and more profitably. They don’t accidentally derail your efforts nor do they make up things in their head that encourages them to intentionally get in your way.

We’ve all done it. We misread clues like a closed-door meeting or someone’s absence and before you know it, we’ve spun a doozy of a tale. That’s not just silly. It costs you money, productivity and in some cases, it might cost you the employee. All because they didn’t understand. It’s your job to over communicate so they do understand.

The same is true for customers. This isn’t just about giving them peace of mind because you’re a kind human being, although I’m going to assume that is part of the motivation. A client who knows what is going on, is given forewarning if there’s about to be a problem and is kept apprised of the status of your work together will stop micromanaging. They’ll stop constantly asking for updates or altering the details.

When in doubt – tell them again. Have you ever had a customer or an employee tell you that you’re going overboard in terms of keeping them in the loop? I honestly don’t think it’s possible. Whatever you’re doing – double it and it’s probably about right.

 

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