Category Archives: Business

Public speaking and rhetoric

September 3, 2013 6:09 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Public speaking has always been a bane to me.  I found out way back when in 6th grade.  We were all required to take a semester of speech communications and I knew that I would never make a good speaker.  I can’t keep the audience interested let alone persuade them to come over to my point of view.  I do so much better through the written word as far as persuasion goes.

My theory is that it has something to do with my voice.  Maybe the pitch, the tone, maybe I need to sound more assertive or confident.  Possibly explains why I get shot down so much when asking for dates.

Another possibility that I have been exploring lately is the role of body language plays when speakers engage a person one on one or speak to a group.

Look at the following YouTube clip with the sound off.

speaking example

Notice the way the people in the video pose, the expressions on their faces, the attitude that they present.  They are interesting without the sound.  They tend to draw the audience in to whatever they’re doing.

So many times when a speaker gets behind the lectern they turn into speaking statues.  They might as well turn on a tape recording of their voice and just leave the stage.  Obviously you can go overboard doing this but a lack of body language is often one of the biggest sins out there.

Not knowing your subject and not practicing are other sins.  I can tell you from experience that not practicing a speech before you need to deliver that speech is deadly.  So is not properly developing and thinking out a speech.  It’s no sin to make a speech too short but it really is a sin to make a speech way too long and leaving some glaring error in the speech because you didn’t research the subject enough.

Lastly, know your audience.  Know what they may be interested in hearing, know what they don’t want to hear about.  When you know a little something about how your audience is apt to respond you can craft a more effective message.

motivating a crowd

In this example the speaker slowly warms to his subject by stating the obvious problem.  He speaks softly encouraging the audience to scoot up to listen.  He relates his own frustration with the problem and shares his own deficiencies.

Almost imperceptibly he starts to turn the crowd over to his views of the problem.  He very softly introduces his solution to the problem and begins to build on it.  As he does the crowd reaction grows and encourages him.  His volume starts increasing and he loses the meekness in his voice.  He is now almost commanding because the crowd allows him to.  He finishes by asking the audience “what are you going to do?”  This allows him to command the listeners with their willing assent.

Speaking has so many nuances and little tricks that it would be impossible to learn them all.  The best we can do is to study up on the subject and find a style that best suits us.  Something that you find comfortable and builds on your strengths and masks your weaknesses.  You will find it a useful tool in so many different parts of your life.

Posted in: business, language, talking

Working at home

June 24, 2013 8:00 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I have been working from home a little over 3 years now.  I have lived through the ups and downs of this type of work and I can share a few things that I have learned in that time.

This began out of necessity.  The company that I work at is a small consultancy.  We provide data and data related services primarily for the oil industry.  We are also an internet company which means that the primary way that new clients find us is through the internet.  Due to the structure of the industry this also means we have mainly international clients.

Being in this type of sales environment means that I rarely meet the people that I deal with face to face.  At most I may Skype with someone but mainly it’s emails and phone calls.  The largest deal I negotiated was a six figure deal with an Asian client based on the strength of 4 emails and to this day I have never even spoken to the guy on the phone.

Commuting 25 miles each way to an office and spending 3 hours in traffic every day made no sense for me.  My boss decided it made no sense for the rest of the company either.  Rather than signing another 3 year contract with the building he had everyone work from home and share online space.  Add in a virtual phone service and we had a company based on the internet and spread out between 4 cities.

So I packed up my desktop, a printer, some office supplies and headed home.  I bought a new desk and set myself up in a spare bedroom, had a new phone put in and I had my own home office.

Isolation

Suburbs can be eerily quiet during the day.  They mostly evacuate during the weekdays and in the back bedroom of my house you see nothing and hear nothing.  As I was in sales I had to be there.  The production guys could set their own hours and work after dark if they wanted to but I had to be tied to the phone in case someone called in.

At first I was spending 22 hours a day in my house.  My morale was crashing and I quickly put a stop to that.  I forced myself to go out and do things.  Didn’t matter what but I needed to be around people, any people.

Temptation

Even before I started working from home I knew I had to get away from temptations like the TV, radio, or whatever.  That’s why I got set up in a separate bedroom rather than my own bedroom.  The office is just that.  An office, Nothing to distract, nothing to interfere.

Sedantary

You never realize how much you run around and do things in an office.  You constantly jump from office to office, you walk down to the bathroom, you walk to lunch, you go to meetings, etc.  Not so when it’s all contained in one house.

But worse as you’re alone without someone looking over your shoulder you get lazy.  There’s a kitchen full of food just downstairs, lean back more in your chair, no one is watching.  Why shave?  no one is around to look at you.

That implied social whip that curbs our actions is no longer there.  You have to provide your own discipline.

It’s not for everybody.  I have known folks that have quit after 2 weeks due to a variety of factors.  But once you do get things sorted you find that you are not tied to 9 to 5 business hours, you can put in that extra work without having to drive miles out of your way.  You can address business emergencies on the weekend.  The hassle of commuting is a long distant dream now.

I now consider myself lucky to be able to draw a salary and to do something I like without having to go into an office to do it in.

 

 

Posted in: business, life in general

trial under fire

May 28, 2013 1:34 AM , 2 Comments ,

Getting chewed out at work is never fun.  The first time is even worse.  Specially if it’s not even your fault.

When I started out after college I was a general handyman type of guy.  I would get assigned all the monotonous and boring jobs.  Digitizing monkey was the worst.

Our company would make maps and someone had to take the hand drawn maps and transfer them to digital format.  Nowadays we have digital scanners and software that does this.  Back then it was labor intensive work using a digitizing tablet.  Something like a drafting table with a mouse attached.  I had to trace each and every line on a map.  After eight hours of doing that you felt mindless and asleep.  So we called the guys that did this the digitizing monkey because it was such a mindless task that we joked that even a monkey could do it.

I finished my first map after a week and drove to our cartographic expert at the time and delivered it to him.  He exploded.  He told me it was all wrong, that it was sloppy, that it was incomplete, that I had wasted his time and it was all garbage and then he kicked me out of his office.

I went home feeling that I had lost the job.  Totally dejected; I was already looking for another job.

I got called into my superior’s office the next day.  I was sure I would be fired.  I wanted to protest that it was unfair and that the cartographer was a jerk.  Instead I kept my mouth shut and stood up straight.  Determined to take whatever was coming without showing any emotion and be professional about things.

Instead he apologized to me.  The work I had done had been a raw version and not the finished version.  Our expert had realized that after kicking me out and called my boss to apologize to me.

I wanted to laugh or cry.  Don’t know which.  Most of all I was glad that I had stood up to my first real challenge at work without making a fuss.  Ever since that day I have learned not to react too quickly or to make snap decisions.  Always think before you do something that you may regret later on.

Posted in: business

beginnings

May 17, 2013 6:29 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Last Saturday night I was running late.

My niece had completed her Master’s and Mother’s day was the next morning and I had nothing.  Flowers were the prescribed gift for both events.  I was slightly dressy since I had gone out that evening and now it was past nine at night and I was looking for bouquets.

All I could find were Mother’s day bouquets.  One event covered but I still needed something for my niece.

By chance I wound up at the old Randall’s supermarket where I had my first job ages ago.  Not too many people working that night so I called over a stock boy and asked him to find the floral manager.  He was a young latino kid, maybe sixteen.  He called to one of his friends in spanish.  I guess he thought I wouldn’t understand.

Roughly this is what he said “Hey, this rich Senor needs flowers.  Get him some help and off my back.”  I wondered if he would believe that the “rich Senor” once did the same job that he was doing right now.

My job history began in this place ages ago and I suppose the job is essentially the same.  Hard work and little need to think.  The hours are long and the pay is low.  Even with medical benefits you could easily end up with a hernia, or some sort of repetitive motion injury.  One of the big motivators for me to get a degree and an office job was the thought that I would end up in a job like this for life.

Yet it did have its good points too.  Our managers were exacting task masters and would explode at the stock crews if things weren’t just right.  We not only had to be quick but exact too.  I gained a rich and colorful repertoire of curse words from those managers.

You need stamina to keep going at full speed for 8 hours and thick skin not to mind all the razzing and hazing from older stock “boys”.  We would all end up with torn nails from ripping open cardboard boxes all day long and the pay was ridiculous although back then it seemed like so much.

I wonder if any of these kids working now will come back one day as I did and look back fondly at their time spent here.

Where did you begin your business career?

 

Posted in: business, life in general

First contact

May 7, 2013 1:34 AM , 1 Comment ,

me:  Hello, how can I help you?

Faceless voice on the phone (FVP):  What are your prices?

me: Can you tell me your name and a little bit about your project?  I could give you a much more accurate price estimate if you told me where your project was, how large of an area you want to cover and what field you’re in.

FVP: that doesn’t matter.  Tell me your prices and how much profit do you make after paying for data and how much do you pay your consultants?

me: What?!?

<click>

Competitors are always trying to get a feel for how well their prices stack up against the rest of the field.  However this guy was a little more desperate than most.  Most sales calls of course don’t go this way.

Our company mainly does business on the internet.  The average first contact is a person that suddenly finds a need for maps or for satellite imagery or other remote sensing applications.  That person could be anyone from a property owner that wants a view of their property from above to a GIS (geographic Information Systems) specialist with 20 years experience who is shopping around.

With a diverse range of people I have had to develop over time a “voice” to engage each and every one.  I cannot sound too technical and I cannot sound as if I am being condescending.  I have to strive to reach a balance in all my communications while I try to figure out their level of expertise.

First I have to assess what I have been presented with.

Did they use technical jargon and does that mean that they understand what they are talking about? Some people will cut and paste information from RFP’s (request for proposals) without really knowing what they want.

What can I tell by their contact information?  Sometimes they use company email addresses and I can look up the relevant company and get some idea of what they are after.  Increasingly however, people will make first contacts using generic email accounts like hotmail or gmail.

I then have to decide what I can present to the client that will be most beneficial to further the conversation.

If the person is not very well versed in technical matters I can present a wide range of example data and links to our website to help explain what we offer.  I might give them a call to engage more personally and coax more information from them.  Walk them slowly and carefully to the point where I can present a price for the product or service that they need.

On the other hand if they are technically knowledgeable then they just want straight answers.  No need for long explanations and no real desire on their parts for long emails.  They want plain and simple answers presented in a professional manner.  If they want a full proposal then I oblige them but most of the time they want a short and clear answer.

Knowing how to deal with people on different levels is very useful for dealing with new contacts.  You may not always get a sale out of the experience but they will remember the fact that you dealt with them in a courteous manner and that you gave them the information that they needed in a way that they needed.

Posted in: business, relationships