Tag Archives: Communications

Feb 06 2013
Learning, Positioning, Professionalism, Solutions

Logic and Data; Yin and Yang

In a recent engagement, I’ve been paired with a pecuniary peer in pursuit of building a business case.

We worked together with the customer in a workshop and emerged with very different interpretations.  On its own, this is not surprising-  ask different individuals what happened in a meeting and you’ll get different answers- but we had core and complimentary purposes for the workshop.  I found obstacles and points of change.  The logical implications and resolutions flowed from that seed.  He found an accounting indicator that was far out of range (and not in a good way) for the customer’s industry. 

I focus from the qualitative perpective, taking processes, systems, information, strategies and data and craft the logical argument; he approaches from the quantitative perspective, taking processes, systems, information, strategies and data and crafts the fiancial justification.

Together we earned executive buy in.  We made a formidable team.

This post was originally titled “Logic vs. Data,” but that’s wrong.  It’s not Yin vs. Yang; it’s Yin and Yang.

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Aug 20 2012
Creativity, Presentations, Professionalism, Tools

Tip: Culling Presentations down to size

It’s easier to edit than to create.

It’s also pretty clear that our peers in Marketing, Product Management, and Engineering have time on their hands to create, judging from the long, detailed, generic presentations they provide us.  Let’s take advantage  of all this raw material.  If we know what we specifically want to say to our audience, we can start pruning.

Here’s a tip:

Open up your 127 slide master deck and grab a pen and paper.  As you scroll through the presentation, jot down the slide numbers you find relevant. 3, 5, 7-10, 22, 30-34, etc. Create a new, customer-specific deck, and start copying over those slides.

The next hour or so can be spent adjusting (improving?) the grammar and phrasing of the copied slides to your needs.  I’ve found that removing  half the words improves clarity.  Less is more.

Yes, there’s a completely separate debate about PowerPoints:  Why not Prezi? Why slides with bullets? You don’t read presentations, they’re a backdrop; just use pictures.  All that is fine, but sometimes a PowerPoint is a PowerPoint.

Let’s bang them out efficiently, shall we?

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May 30 2012
Leadership, Learning, Professionalism, Solutions, Uncategorized

“Well, I guess you’re a manufacturing company.”

Years ago, in a discovery session with a manufacturing company, my peers (manufacturing, planning, and production) poked and prodded as we walked about the facility, asking insightful questions about the customer’s operations, the challenges they faced, how they ran this and that process, when they resorted to manual lists and spreadsheets, when they made decisions with autonomy, when they went up the hierarchy; they even discussed the most economical approach cutting small pieces of steel out of a large piece of scrap.

In short, my peers proved themselves to be not just product and solution experts, but to truly be subject matter experts.

The moment that most impressed me was at the end of the day when, gathered around a table (okay, a folding-table like you get at Sam’s Club) in a conference room just off the manufacturing floor, one of my peers exhaled a sigh and summarized her day with, “Well, I guess you’re a manufacturing company.” Chuckles and agreement all around. Obvious but true.

This is winning the deal in discovery.

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Apr 25 2012
Leadership, Professionalism, Selling, Tools

“Sent from mobile phone. Please excuse any typos.”

No, I won’t.  No excuses.

We are highly paid professionals.  We are the ones the decision makers trust.  We are the front-line representatives of multi-million-billion dollar organizations, asking our customers to invest with us.

Our communications must be clear and void of careless mistakes.

Instead of making preemptive excuses or advertising in your email signature, include your contact information, so your customers can effortlessly reach back to you.

That’s what the signature is for.

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Apr 17 2012
Presentations

Consider the Comfort of your Passengers

When I was first learning to drive, my mother advised me to consider the comfort of my passengers as I sped up, slowed down, and took the corners.

The same applies to presentations and software demonstrations:

  • “Can everyone hear me okay?”
  • If online, “I want to make sure I’m sharing my computer full screen.”
  • Set your screen resolutions low, which might seem odd in a world of huge monitors, hi-definition projectors, and wall-sized screens, but your product has to look big, bold, and simple.  Showing all fifty fields doesn’t gain you any credibility.
  • Pay special attention to your mouse, moving it slowly and with purpose.  Drag it in a straight line,  very slowly circling key areas you want to highlight.  Take your hands off of it if the pointer has nothing to do.  Don’t talk with your mouse the same way you talk with your hands.  No shakes, no jumps, no bruises.

No-one should spill their coffee when you’re behind the wheel.  They’re out for a scenic drive, so be their chauffeur through your solutions.

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Apr 09 2012
Creativity, Learning, Positioning, Presentations, Tools

Letting Go?

You work in teams.

Teams imply collaboration

Collaboration implies more than one person responsible for execution.

A challenge creeps into this cooperative approach, this division of labor, even when those in the team execute according to expectations. Their execution and vision isn’t the same as yours. It’s of a different quality. The writing – the messaging you’re trying to craft- looks like it came from a committee. The audience will see this. 

But…

How far can you push before the whole project crumbles? Do you let go and face the audience knowing it isn’t the best? Do you go all Steve-Jobs-it-must-be-insanely-great on the team?

Tough call.

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Mar 09 2012
Presentations

Today’s Specials…

Hi my name is Karen welcome to Anthony’s for today’s-specials we have a caramelized-pear salad with fresh strawberries with brown butter caramelized pears roasted sweet potatoes fresh sliced strawberries and goat cheese drizzled with a raspberry vinaigrette we also have broccoli-rabe and grilled Italian sausage sauteed with garlic and olive oil topped with grilled Italian sausage and fresh mozzarella with shaved romano cheese can I get you a drink?

Slow down.

When a waiter rips through the specials of the day that quickly you can’t follow them. They know the specials list well; they’ve memorized it, have tried them.  A professional wait-staff will even have their own set of notes about each dish.

But ripping through them as if preparing the cabin for takeoff doesn’t help the audience understand them. You’re probably still trying to figure out what a caramelized pear is never mind the sum of the salad’s parts.

When you’re presenting systems and features, slow your pace, add some emphasis, give each thing you mention a purpose, pause, let it soak in, and then move onto the next one.

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