Use visuals to simplify and clarify.
August 26, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
RedShift: Natural influence expansion in the connected world
Most of the popular small business advice is tailored to product companies. That’s because service firms are always more challenging to define and differentiate without creating complexity which then leads to confusion. And that confusion will increase as new small and solo professional service firms are founded by generalists, multiple careerists and encore careerists.
The nimble solo psf’s are uniquely able to create services for evolving markets that emerge from disruption, convergence and shifting demographics. Their challenge is to simply and effectively communicate who they are, where they’re going and how they help their clients.
If I can’t easily explain my content, I step back, formulate a question that I think needs to be answered and then convey that answer in some visual format. I give my right brain the right of way so to speak. I know its a highly effective method for gaining “creative clarity” and I use it extensively and successfully in client work.
Here’s a recent example of mine. To improve my ability to more clearly communicate RedShfit’s benefits to my clients and community, the question I asked myself is: How do RedShift programs create natural influence and why is that good?
By creating the graphic, I let my right brain (mostly) give me the answer.
You don’t need high-end graphics skills to do this; a whiteboard sketch is great. I used CmapTools for the natural influence concept map.
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Naturally influence the sales call
August 25, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
If you’re in professional services you’re hearing some version of this when you make a sales call: “All this blogging and social networking and having conversations is too much work, too expensive, giving my expertise away for free and just another passing fad. I need to get good leads because I know I can close the business if I have the leads. So I want you to help me with a business development plan so that I meet my business and life goals and objectives.”
In the past, I’d be immediately mentally rehearsing my exit thinking “they’re clueless, don’t waste your time, there’s nothing here.” I’m now practicing a better response by being be present with, open to and curious about these potential clients. My approach is to meet them where they are and drop any attachment to getting their business. I don’t try to persuade them about anything, its futile. And I avoid getting drawn into long, detailed story and history, its meaningless.
What I commit to is understanding how a business owner responds to change out of old habit and then continually reinforces the counter-directing assumptions by endlessly, willfully and forcefully repeating them. “Push” is the modus operandi. But “push back” is no longer mine. That alone can shift the dynamic of the meeting and create an opening for inquiry, deep listening, re-framing and shared understanding. Whether new business results or not, positive fulfillment, often indirectly, unfailingly corresponds with my choice to be naturally influential, even when the sales call seems hopeless.
I may not get a new client, but I’ll definitely gain a new friend.
RedShift News
August 20, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · 1 Comment
RedShift Web 2.0
I’ve recently made significant changes (yup - again!) to my web site and blog and it may be of interest to those of you who are starting a new business needing online content or who are thinking of bringing your existing site(s) to another level. I’ll try to explain in the simplest, non-technical language as possible.
I decided 2 weeks ago to migrate to WordPress and to self host my blog. I’d previously used TypePad, a blog service. I was so impressed with its capabilities, that I decided to integrate my web site and my blog, bringing them both together in one WordPress site. Not only is it more professional looking and integrated, but it also provides a greatly enhanced architecture for Web 2.0 trends and search engine optimization. On top of that, its easier to maintain, manage and update, and its cool and fun which I like to be. Its no longer a big deal to add additional functionality (calendars, forums, social networking….you name it) and the capabilities are extensive.
Custom web design and programming is expensive for solo’s and small business and often does not really serve the purpose of building community and relationships. On the other hand, standardized applications, developed specifically for Web 2.0, provide a pre-built structure for doing just that. When business owners don’t have to deal with the mechanics, they can focus on education, collaboration and relationship building - the things that keep people coming back for more. Another huge advantage is that WordPress sites are developed to maximize search engine placement.
Although I’ve resisted doing Web site work for clients in the past, I believe that these great new web tools, combined with my strategy, writing and coaching skills, allow me to offer “my kind” of creative program that provides clients real value for a very reasonable investment. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions!
I still have a few things on my new site to fix or complete. But I’m trying to adhere to a mantra that someone I respect recently posted: “better done than perfect”.
RedShift on Twitter
I’m now on Twitter and send out very short posts - information, ideas, inspiration. If you’d like to check it out, or if you’re interested in following me on Twitter, you can get my little snippets by email or on your cellphone. You may want to experiment with Twitter yourself. Like most Web 2.0, its very simple concept providing a lot of community development potential.
As always, thanks so much for your time, interest and feedback!
Chain reaction of overwhelment
August 18, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
You know how some days you leap out of bed before dawn because you have so much energy and so many ideas? And then, by 10 a.m. you feel lethargic and let-down. You probably overwhelmed yourself. I get it. I’m a generalist which makes me very prone to the condition.
I was so excited at 5 a.m. about what I wanted to produce, that I took a rest day from rowing. Its now 11 a.m. and I have a headache, I feel like I’ve been working hard but have nothing to show for it, and I have to leave in 45 minutes for a meeting. All I can think about is “wake me when its over”. But what is “its”? Well, its just my thinking over which I have total control. In fact, at the end of the day, its really the only “it” that I have control over. But I choose to ignore that today.
So what triggers caused me to unwittingly flip my excitement over to anxiety, its shadow form? I’ll re-trace my morning:
- I read dozens of tweets by people I’ve been following and started to mentally compare myself to them, even though I have little in common with them and care less. I started to think that I’m not doing enough.
- I went on a support forum to review a thread about about a software problem I’d been dealing with but that I’d decided last night I could put aside for now because its fairly trivial. I started looking hard again for the “answer”. I started to think that my new site is not perfect enough.
- I browsed through some feeds and noticed a trend that annoys me: popular coach/consultants marketing their very expensive and exclusive secrets of “how to triple your business” to struggling solo professionals. I got angry, thinking about how I hate pyramid schemes. I started to think that these people are not ethical enough.
Urgency. Perfectionism. Judgment. And the chain reaction was set into motion.
I could feel it happening but chose to not hit the “kill switch”. Sound familiar? This comes up in my work with so many clients, in so many contexts and situations. I often hear people self-describe it as their ADD.
Why is it so hard to stop it in ourselves or to help others caught up in the chain reaction? Well that’s a huge learning that I want to share: its because we protect our hidden beliefs that counter-direct us away from what we want. And there’s hidden payoffs in protecting those beliefs…or, there once was.
That’s it. When the spinning starts, and the anxious feelings kick in, just remind yourself that you’re choosing the thoughts that are creating your reality in that moment. Stress is an indicator. A different thought is yours to choose.
Belief shift
August 3, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
“To shift” is becoming a popular phrase with marketers, advertisers and coaches who use it with respect to attitudes, preferences and perceptions. Friday, while watching the terns from my beach chair on Briggs Beach in Little Compton, RI, I thought about the difference between those usages and what I mean by “to shift”.
The flock of terns shifted direction in perfect unison either towards what they wanted, like food in the water or in the wet sand, or away from what threatened or interfered with them, like people, dogs or larger birds. They moved like a single instinctually guided entity in response to their environment.
photo “Shorebird Synchronicity” credit: stevevoght on flicker
I saw the terns as a metaphor for how the 50 trillion cells of our bodies respond in unison to the environment we create with our beliefs. Our beliefs direct and we shift accordingly.
Like each tern in the flock, each of our individual cells is aware, receptive and collaborative, moving towards growth or towards protection. When we’re consciously directing this movement, there’s a shift. But we don’t see it, we feel it. We’ve changed.
The challenge for everyone now is to resist the temptation to direct ourselves too far towards protection because we feel threatened, unsafe and insecure because of everything that’s going on around us. That’s when we miss the proverbial school of minnows in the shallow waters and wet sand and we become undernourished in spirit, devoid of joy and blocks to the fulfillment and results that we’ve been desiring and working towards.
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intuition, metaphor q, metaphysics, natural influence, personal coaching, self-awareness, solo professional service firm