How To Get Everyone To Return Your Calls.

You’re not going to believe this, but I hate the phone. You would think as a coach and someone who runs a highly successful business, being on the phone all day would be fun, exciting, and powerful. It is for coaching — I get energized! It is for colleagues, friends, and family — we can talk for hours.

It’s when I have to either cold call or play the dreaded phone-tag. That’s when I want to throw my phone out the window. Why?

Because most people don’t return calls. And if they do, they pick a time when it’s impossible for you to answer them (I think they strategically pick these times).

Let me give you a scenario that happens to me infrequently:

I get a prospect that has either heard me speak, read my articles, or has heard from a powerful friend about how I changed their lives with my coaching.

They call me up for a complimentary session, we have it, they love it, and will get back to me within 24 hours to let me know. Then they fall off the map. I try to call them and follow up leaving voicemails, email, etc.

No response.

Then one day, I was at my sales team meeting and a close colleague of mine gave me the secret to virtually compel people to call you back. And it works like a charm.

I send a short, simply worded email and end with three choices. Here’s what I write:

Dear Ryan Reynolds,

I really enjoyed our coaching session a few weeks ago. It’s rare when someone comes to me with clear business issues and the energy to deal with them. Kudos!

Near the end of our session, you were excited about coaching with me, but you said that you had to think about it and get back to me the next day. Over the past few weeks, I’ve endeavored to reach out to you via phone and email since I am holding a March coaching spot open for you.

There must be one of three reasons why we are not connecting:

1. You are no longer interested in coaching with me.

2. I have offended you in some way during our coaching session or through my messages.

3. You’re too busy with work to get back to me.

I await your response. Regards – Rich 

Within one business day, the prospect calls me at my office, guaranteed. It happens every time.

They always start out with, “You haven’t offended me in any way — I’ve just been so busy with work lately . . .”. I always listen, agree, and in the end, they become my client.

Try it — it works!

What techniques do you employ to get people to call you back?

10 Ways To Have Fun At Work.

Okay — We're in the middle of August and work is the last thing you feel interested in doing right now.  You can either have fun or turn it into a clock-watching, tedious, and painful nightmare. Your choice.

How can you have fun at work?

1. Keep a 'glass half-full' attitude at all times. The more you look at situations and problems with a positive attitude, the more fun you will have. Honest.
2. Try to do something different every day. Mix it up. Variety is the spice of life.
3. Add 'pizazz' to everything you deliver. Go the extra mile and ensure that every deliverable will wow your boss, your peers and your clients.
4. Sing! Dance! A little spring in your step or a quick little ditty will never hurt anyone - it will immediately change your mood.
5. Be light & funny. Don't tell jokes — but a little humor or light comment always brings in a little sunshine to the office.
6. Get outside. Instead of a meeting in a windowless meeting room - go outside for a 15-30 minute stroll with your team.
7. Stand up at meetings. When you have a status meeting, make it for no more than 15 minutes, have everyone stand around a white board, and adjourn early. People will love you. Have meetings in the gym (if you have one) — move everyone around.
8. Compliment people. Take the time to notice something on everyone you meet and mention it - be honest.
9. Stay connected. Keep your contact list robust and healthy by calling 1-2 people every morning for 5-10 minutes. Catch up, keep it light.
10. Think . . . There are always options. It's not the end of the world and most of the time, people aren't going to die. So don't take everything so serious and hard. Think outside of the box — brainstorm options — you will surprise yourself.

POST YOUR QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS BELOW

P.S. Changing your perspective at work isn’t hard — it just takes a little imagination coupled with action. You and I can work on it together so you instantly get what I’m talking about - Let’s talk. I’ve worked with thousands of people who wanted to take assertive steps in this area — call or email me to schedule a complimentary session.

10 Tricks To Get Control Of Your Email.

I say email is dying! New generations are moving towards texting to communicate — I welcome that improvement! But email is still around for the short term — and if you're like me — you get hundreds of emails a day. And if you're like a lot of my clients, it's hard to navigate all that email without a few tricks. So here they are:

1. Eliminate your email alert setting in Outlook or MacMail. If you find yourself watching the email alert bar move up and down or the small circle alerting you to the number of unread emails - you're letting email control YOUR life.

2. Read certain times of the day. Set up times during the day to read your email — say 9 AM, Noon, and 4 PM. Otherwise, do real work. If it's an emergency, let everyone know to call, stop by or text message you with an 'URGENT' or 'IMPORTANT' header.

3. Take action, delete or file. So many people who jump into email and need to jump out quickly tend not to act on emails. They scan and then move on — they know they need to do something with the email, but they don't have the time. So they whip through their list and then rush off to a meeting. If you commit to an email, read it and then act, delete or file. It's that easy.

4. Don't start chain emails, pick up the phone. Even better, instead of writing a long and boring response email (that no one will really read), pick up the phone and take care of the issue immediately.

5. If it isn't filed, trash it. I know it's hard, but kill email whenever you can.

6. Don't print emails — only if you REALLY have too. If you print, you have now brought the electronic into the real world. And you have to now find a place for all those emails. Good luck!

7. Minimal file folders — no parent/child lists. I love it when people have HUGE lists of file folders and sub-folders. Don't you know about search? I use search every day and it works perfectly.

8. Clean up daily. If you decide to file the email, do it immediately and don't let them build up. At the end of every year, I bunch up all of my filed emails and archive them. Guess what? I only access the archive a few times a year. Go figure.

9. Email is a POOR communication vehicle. You have to realize email causes a lot of problems — missed messages, hurt feelings, arguments, unnecessary wasted time, etc. It's NOT 2-way communication. Pick up the phone or stop by the person's office. And if it's really important, set up a (short) meeting.

10. Don't worry. So many people obsess about email — they love to complain about it. A number of years ago, I took an approved sabbatical from work for 30 days (we were allowed those back then). I set up an email rule to let everyone know not to email me (I wouldn't be reading them) and that I would be back in 30 days. Guess what? I still received 3750 emails. Under the advice of my coach, I:

• Took the emails and filed them in their own file folder named 'Sabbatical'.
• I only read emails from my boss to me.
• I only accessed that file five times over the next three months.

What Would Happen If You Disconnected From Email?

Take a trip with me. You have your smartphone and you unlink your email settings from your email server, making it impossible to receive email on your smartphone. You could probably still access your email via the browser on your smartphone — but that is so time-consuming, you'd rather not.

Your last email to your team, clients, and colleagues is to let them know you will be checking email at regular intervals during the day while you are at the office and if there is an actual emergency, to call you on your smartphone. But for all intents and purposes, you are not reading or responding to emails when you're not in the office.

What would happen?

1. You might get a few more phone calls.

But that's not a terrible thing. Instead of getting into a viscious email communication chain on some obscure topic, you can probably handle it with a quick 3-5 minute call. And you can group your callbacks and keep them short.

2. You get more organized and focused when you did access your email at the office.*

Initially, it would build up. But as team members, clients, and colleagues would notice, email would cease to be a primary communication vehicle for you. Since you only had a limited amount of time to read your email, you would only focus on those emails that were from key members of your team or were directly sent to you. Anything else most likely can fall by the wayside. *I totally understand if you spend 90-100% of your time away from the office — your smartphone is critical. But what would happen if you just checked emails when you opened your laptop? Or if you checked your smartphone at discreet times during the day and not ALL the time?

3. You would get slower replying to email.

No more quick responses — email is not texting or twitter. In fact, I would ask you not to use those tools either. The whole idea is to limit interruptions to your day to be able to focus on the important and strategic things happening in your life. If it's tactical- or emergency-based use the phone.

4. You would get faster communicating with your staff, clients, and colleagues.

No more long-winded emails — no death-defying email chains that go on forever. Just small phone interruptions (or grouping of phone calls) to connect and engage, manage, or inform. You can get a reputation of fast phone calls, keep them to 1-2 minutes or less and focus on the task at hand and make decisions or take action. Email prolongs debate — how many times have you been put through the email wringer with various vicious email cycles?

A number of clients of mine have done this and they've found a significant lightening of their load AND they are getting more things done. Why?

Email is not a very good communication vehicle.

It takes a long time to compose an email, there are many instances when you do give direction and someone doesn't see it, or the email message is misconstrued in a way where you come of yelling or reprimanding. Bottom line - email is not 'two-way' communication — it's a broadcast medium. In fact, it's worse, when you run into CC: and BCC: transmissions of the same email.

These reactive responses deliver the wrong message — not promoting or pushing projects and people forward — they actually get into email ruts. Trust me — I've been there.

Finally, email turns into heroin for some people. You know who you are — reading your email constantly like a stock ticker — responding instantly to people. How much productivity is wasted with this type of communication? What might be a better way of communicating?

So if you're brave — try unlinking your email today. If you just want to try it, don't check your email at all today — have an email response: "I won't be able to check my email today on my phone, please call me if it's urgent."

Go for it.

How To Stop Working So Late - Part Two.

Last week, I wrote my first installment on working late and received a powerful uproar from my readers (massive page views and comments on my site, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook!). To finish out my thoughts on this subject, I promised to give tangible tips to help people go home at a reasonable time. So here goes: Work hard when you're at work.

Right off the bat, I've probably insulted you. But to be honest, most people don't work that HARD while they're at work. On the contrary, they fill up time. Be honest, we all do it.

There's a great book by Tim Ferriss called the 4-Hour Workweek, where he targets those behaviors which allow you to elongate your performance to fill up time. He uses the 80/20 rule to uncover what activities really deliver true performance and which ones don't.

What do I mean by work hard?

• When you get to work . . . WORK. Don't schmooze. Don't procrastinate. Don't wander around. Don't daydream.
• Set up a daily to-do sheet (here's a great one I modified from GTD guru, David Allen).
• Stay on top of all your voicemails.
• Don't take frequent breaks (to get coffee, walk around, etc.).
• Don't surf. No personal calls. Don't text. You're at work.

Work smart when you're at work.

I know, you're smart, I'm smart, everyone is smart. Most of the time. But we all do some stupid things. Here are key tips to work more efficiently and effectively:

• Don't go to every meeting you're invited to. Kill (at least) one meeting every week — tell them you either can't make it or you don't really need to be there. Trust me, you don't. (1 hour per week). Kill more as you get good at it.
• Don't read EVERY email you receive. Don't read EVERY email when you get it. Set aside certain times of the day to read your email — read this.
• Set aside a certain part of the day to return phone calls. I use the Nine/Noon/Five technique — three times during the day, I return calls - at 9 AM, Noon, and 5 PM. You're not a heart surgeon — no one is going to die on the operating table if you don't return the phone call within minutes.
• When you answer the phone or return a phone call, give the person on the other line a deadline. Say, "Tom, I only have 4-5 minutes to talk, can we cover this now with a quick decision, or later?" — most calls need a quick decision from you.

Have an open/closed door policy at work.

Most managers live at the fringes of the 'door' spectrum — come on in anytime or don't bother me. Try to gravitate to the center of the spectrum and do both:

• When the door is open — your people should see it as a sign to quickly ask you a question, get your thoughts, or just talk (for a VERY short time). To get your team to leave quickly, ask them about taking on more work — they will scatter.
• When the door is closed — your people should understand not to bother you unless it's an emergency. Most things can wait until the door opens again.

Run VERY short meetings.

Why do meetings have to be one hour? Or 30 minutes? Why can't you have 5 minute meetings? It's because of MS Outlook. It makes it difficult for you to schedule a 5 minute meeting — 30 and 60 minute meetings look nicer and are easier to schedule.

Be honest with yourself — how many meetings have you attended where you walked out thinking, "that could've been handled in five minutes". You currently have to power to schedule 5 minute meetings.

• Ensure everyone arrives on time.
• Start exactly at the top of the hour.
• Get everyone to stand, not sit. This is not a seminar.
• Huddle around a whiteboard and use it to illustrate your points.
• Shut long-talkers down — get to the point.
• If you do go down a rabbit hole, everyone doesn't have to be there. Schedule it for later.
• Close the meeting ASAP and get out of there. Your people will LOVE you.

Develop clear communication policies with everyone.

Colleague or client — set specific boundaries. There are too many people in the workplace who goof off all day and then get serious about work at around 4 PM.

• Don't let people drop in. There must be a purpose for the meeting.
• Let people know you leave at 5 PM — don't let them abuse it.
• If they try to catch you when you're leaving, tell them you'll pick it up when your come back in the morning.
• Promise to return all calls within 24 hours.

The more YOU value your time, the more THEY value your time.

Try just one of these — you will be surprised how much work you accomplish.

POST YOUR QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS BELOW

P.S. If you liked these two posts, let me know - Let’s talk. I love working with people who want to excel in their career — call or email me to schedule a complimentary session.

Why You Hate AND Love Your Email.

Who loves their email? Lovin’ those 150-200 emails you receive each day? I expect your answer to be “NO”. But why do we put so much emphasis on it then? Why do we check it whenever we get a spare moment?

Why do we treat each email equally? That’s STUPID.

Email is not a good communication platform. Actually, it’s really not communicating – good communication happens in real-time and is two-way. How many misunderstood emails have you sent or received in your lifetime?

Here are some simple tricks I teach my clients:

1. Prioritize your email. Use Rules to assign colors to important emails (Red for the Boss or Clients, Blue for emails with you on the TO: line) and Gray for all other email. Trash any CC: email – trust me, it’s not important and you're not missing anything.

When you open your email (you never keep it open all day), you will immediately see the Red and Blue emails first - choose one of four actions:

Act - if you can respond within 1-2 minutes with an answer, do it. Delegate - Push it to someone else and let all parties know. File - Read info and file, not all emails need a response. Trash - Get it out of your head and life, stop thinking about it.

2. Check your email 3 times a day. In the morning, after lunch, and right before you leave. Instead of responding by email – call. If there is something important or an emergency, they should call you.

And most importantly, keep your email 'bat-signal' OFF. Having an animation or number appear only distracts you from your more important work.

3. Use the phone more often. Leave 20-30 second messages and only talk to someone for no longer than 3-5 minutes. If you need longer, set up a 10-15 minute meeting, no longer. You will get a reputation for short calls and your colleagues/clients will most likely pick up the phone rather than let it zip to voicemail.

4. Stop by offices more often. You then control the time you talk. Make the ‘drive-by’ 3-5 minutes and then be off.

At the end of the day, email will suck the living daylights out of your productivity, motivation, and life. Trust me.

What tips and tricks do you use to keep your email behaviors efficient and effective?