Score a Meeting with Just About Anyone

We’re all inundated with meeting requests these days. It’s easy to say no to the egregious ones, like the stranger who recently emailed me to suggest that I meet with him on a specific date so I could provide him with free career coaching. But — though I know better than to ask for pro bono resume critiques — I’ve certainly been on the other side of the equation at various times, having my meeting requests turned down or ignored altogether. In fact, most of us probably have; in an increasingly time-pressed world, almost no one has the leisure to connect “just because.”

Here are the strategies I’ve learned over time to ensure the people I want to meet are more likely to say yes.

Recognize where you’re starting. A good friend can easily drop you a line letting you know they’ll be in your city and suggesting a meetup. “You can write with a presumptive tone at certain levels of intimacy,” Keith Ferrazzi, the author of the networking classic Never Eat Alone, told me during a recent interview. “But you have to lead with certain degrees of currency when you don’t have that level of intimacy.” In other words, strangers should never presume that the other person wants to connect with them — that fact needs to be established first. So in your initial message, you need to give them a good reason (the “currency” that Ferrazzi mentions), which could be anything from a PR opportunity (such as interviewing them for your blog) to something you can teach them  (how to improve their search engine optimization) to the opportunity to connect with another guest they want to meet at your dinner party. Make clear the value proposition of getting to know you; otherwise, it’s far too easy for them to underestimate you and assume you don’t have anything to offer.

Start with a modest ask. An hour or a half-hour doesn’t seem like a lot of time. But if you’re one of 20 or 50 requests that week — which isn’t an uncommon number for busy professionals to receive — it can quickly become overwhelming. So don’t ask to meet for lunch; aim smaller, so it’s easy to say yes (a strategy I describe in “How to Land an Interview with a Cold Call”). I recently agreed to a phone conversation with one aspiring author who vowed in his email, “You must have a full schedule, so I will get to the point quickly and can keep the call to less than 10 minutes.” In the end, I didn’t speak with the author for 10 minutes; our call, which proved to be engaging, lasted 30 — despite the fact that I likely would have rejected a request for that amount of time. That’s the same strategy that well-known psychologist Robert Cialdini discovered in his early research on door-to-door fundraising campaigns for the United Way. Adding five words to the standard pitch — “even a penny would help” — doubled contributions. “Because how can you say no if even a penny is acceptable?” Cialdini told me in an interview for my forthcoming book. “We doubled the number of people who gave and no one [actually] gave a penny. You don’t give a penny to United Way; you give a donation that’s appropriate.”

Always find a warm lead. No matter how successful you are professionally, there are always going to be some people you’d like to meet that haven’t yet heard of you. The challenge is to break through and ensure they view you as a colleague — someone “like them” — rather than a stranger impinging on their time. Finding mutual contacts is one of the best ways to do it. Even Ferrazzi, known for his networking prowess, still has “aspirational contacts” he’d like to meet. In those cases, he says, “I leverage others to help with outreach.” Facebook, with its “mutual friends” function, makes this simple; LinkedIn — which charts connections out to the second and third degree — makes it even easier. Having shared contacts introduce you puts you on peer footing and gets your relationship off to the right start.

Just as sitting is apparently the new smoking, time is the new money. No one can afford to give it away carelessly these days. If you’re asking someone you don’t know for a half-hour, or even 10 minutes, you have to think of your request like you’re making a VC pitch. Why should they speak to you? How can you establish your credibility upfront? How will it benefit them? How can you pack the greatest ROI into the shortest time? If you can answer those questions well, you should be able to get a meeting with just about anyone.

Dorie Clark is a strategy consultant and speaker for clients such as Google, Yale University, Microsoft, and the World Bank. She is an Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and author of Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future. Follow her on Twitter at @dorieclark.

Leaders Who Take No for an Answer Build Trust

115

inCharlie is a charming, highly persuasive marketing executive for a growing technology company. He’s a delight to work with — until you tell him what he’s asking for isn’t possible.

Then, his charm rapidly dissipates. On a good day, you’ll get a reptilian smile with, “I’m sure someone with as many years in the business can find a way to make this work”; on a bad day, it’s a terse “just find a way.” No amount of reasoning will work with Charlie because, in his mind, there are two types of people: winners and losers. And Charlie doesn’t lose.

The media is filled with stories of CEOs, celebrities and highly paid sports figures run amok with their inability to take “no” for an answer. Whether their reactions are all-out tirades or a more subtle approach like Charlie’s, leaders who must hear “yes” at all costs put their organizations’ financial health at risk. Moreover, these win-at-all-cost types create a culture that damages trust.

According to Loyola University professor Linda Stroh, people who consistently respond poorly to being told “no” are on track to be perceived as one of the “bad guys” — people who are not to be trusted. Stroh, the author of “Trust Rules: How to Tell the Good Guys from the Bad Guys in Work and Life,” has done research to uncover the key elements that make a person trustworthy. The ability to accept a rejected idea graciously indicates a person is more likely to be perceived as trustworthy.

Persistence and tenacity definitely pay off. But at what point does sticking to your guns become a liability and threaten the trust between you and your team? Here are three ways to tell if you’ve crossed the line:

The thrill of victory. Many business people are former athletes; they enjoy the thrill of winning. When you engage with your colleagues, do you get a buzz when the interaction turns competitive? Be aware: are you unconsciously setting up a win-lose scenario in your mind? Remember, you and the people you lead are a team, not adversaries. If you are somehow thinking you need to “win” the argument, or have your specific idea adopted, you’ve stepped over into trust-damaging territory.

The need to be right. My kids often argue over the smallest details, struggling to maintain who is “right” over the debate at hand: “You said that I said that it happened on Wednesday.” “No, I said that YOU said it was on Thursday. I was at Jimmy’s on Thursday, so I couldn’t have done it on Thursday.”

And so on; the argument continues over irrelevant minutiae. Sadly, similar debates occur with adults in the workplace, as well. The problem is, when we’re embroiled in the discussion, it’s hard to step back and see how ludicrous the conversation has become. When you’re in a discussion in which there are differing opinions, and the debate centers on a small detail, pull back. Can you make the choice to be wrong (or simply concede the point) in order to help the team move on?

The tendency to take it personally. Not every disagreement from a team member is an attack on your character or your intellect. Believe it or not, some leaders are perfectly comfortable with their team members saying, “Um, Stacie, that’s a terrible idea, and here’s why.” They’ve cultivated an atmosphere of “tell me if I’m off track,” and their employees are comfortable giving difficult feedback. If you’ve never heard your team push back on your ideas, then most likely you are somehow sending the message that disagreement is a bad thing. The next time a spirited debate takes place at a meeting and you feel your ideas are being attacked, remind yourself that it’s the idea being questioned, not who you are as a person.

Leaders like Charlie, who see “not taking no for an answer” as a sign of strength, may win in the short term, but their actions have long-lasting negative effects. Their inability to listen to others’ opinions and, if appropriate, concede a point, drives down trust within their team. They overplay the persistence hand, and in doing so, damage not only their personal credibility, but their organization’s ability to thrive.

Jennifer V. Miller is a is a leadership development consultant whose writing and digital training materials help business professionals better lead themselves and others so they can achieve greater career success.

Four Tricks for Unlocking Your Imagination so you can Innovate!

Passion, determination and fearlessness are qualities most successful entrepreneurs and small business owners are known to possess. But where does imagination fit in? It’s imagination, after all, that leads to creativity. It’s imagination that fuels innovation. And, as conventional wisdom goes, if you don’t innovate you may not survive.

While memories of childhood — of looking towards the stars to create your own worlds or playing games with friends while making up new rules as you go — are normally the first things that come to mind when thinking of “imagination,” the ability to imagine doesn’t disappear upon entering adulthood.

Of course, as a small business owner, when you’re in the throes of paying bills or seeking funding, hiring or firing employees, and finding new customers while keeping the ones you have happy, there doesn’t seem to be much room for letting your imagination run wild.
How do we get past the barrier of day-to-day responsibilities and pressures to get to a creative space? I know from my work with start-up founders involved in the Constant Contact Small Business Innovation Program that these tricks work for anyone looking to unlock their imagination.

1. Inspiration is everywhere, so go out and find it

There is no limit to the number of places where you can find a great idea. However, it does take some practice to train your mind to be constantly on the lookout.
To begin, I recommend these activities:

• Scour the news and competitive landscape. Keep regular tabs on what is happening in your industry, what your competitors are doing, and what trends are occurring among both businesses and consumers as a whole. You can often discover ideas that can apply to your business.
• Become aware of what you like in the products and services you use. Hypothetically, take your interest (bourgeoning on obsession) with Instagram. It’s just a photo sharing app on its surface, so what makes it so addictive? For you it may be streamlined and simplified layout, or the pre-set filters that allow you to easily create something beautiful that you otherwise would not have been able to make, or maybe you just like to stalk your friends. You may find an idea in your favorite products that can strengthen your own business offerings.
• Get out of the office and observe the world around you. While customer surveys are certainly valuable (more on that later), it is also valuable to go out and see consumers in the field. Observing how the world works with a lens of “how can I make it better” can go a long way in developing your professional imagination.

2. Listen — and I mean really listen — to your customers and their pain points

A lot of businesses only talk to customers in order to mitigate problems. Take your business one step further and use conversations with customers to spark an idea to improve your business. Some easy ways to collect feedback include sending out surveys via email, asking questions of your Facebook and Twitter followers, or simply having a conversation with someone at your place of business.
For example, innovation and design firm IDEO recently worked with State Farm Insurance to find ways to better build relationships with millennials. Through extensive rounds of interviews with consumers between 18 and 35 years old, IDEO discovered that millennials found insurance companies to be intimidating and unwelcoming. With this information in hand, State Farm and IDEO sought to introduce brand-new State Farm brick-and-mortar locations, designed specifically to accommodate and educate millennials on insurance. The results were, well, quite welcoming.

3. Step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself in new ways

We all have a tendency to think in limited perspectives based on our strengths and experiences. If you have a marketing background, you may look at your product in an entirely different way than if you have a design background.

When stuck in a creative rut, many songwriters will switch to an instrument other than their one of choice in order to become re-inspired. Push yourself to consider different perspectives and think of problems from a different angle and you too may soon see great new ideas form.

Similarly, push yourself to think bigger. It’s perfectly fine to have “pie-in-the-sky” ambitions as long as you remember that not every idea will result in success. Search engine giant Google is particularly good at this. Take a look at its recent ventures: wearable technology, self-driving cars, smart thermometers. Do any of these fall in the category of its “bread-and-butter” search engines? No. Will all of them succeed? Probably not. But it is through Google's willingness to push itself that it has become one of the most successful companies on the planet.

4. Make distractions mandatory

At our Small Business InnoLoft, it’s common to see Nerf gun fights and skee ball competitions. Taking a step away from your everyday tasks gives your mind the space to wander — or simply not think at all — for just a bit.

The benefits of distraction have been scientifically proven. The Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology found that 20-minute “progressive relaxation” midday breaks reduced stress in the afternoon, helped blood pressure, produced better sleep quality, and more.
The benefits of fostering imagination and creativity are many, from the creation of a rewarding work environment to the discovery of those “wow” moments (big or small) that make your business a success.

And remember, as George Lucas put so well, “You can’t do it unless you can imagine it."

Written by Andy Miller,chief innovation architect at Constant Contact.

Creativity Is Not Innovation (But You Need Both)

"Creativity" and “Innovation” are two words that constantly get thrown around in brainstorming sessions, corporate meetings and company mission statements. There's no question that these values are highly prized in the fast-paced modern workplace, but do leaders who use the terms truly know the difference between them?

Shawn Hunter, author of "Out Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes," (Wiley, 2013) defines creativity as the capability or act of conceiving something original or unusual, while innovation is the implementation or creation of something new that has realized value to others. Business leaders frequently interchange creativity and innovation, without understanding what separates the two.

"Creativity isn't necessarily innovation," Hunter told Business News Daily. "If you have a brainstorm meeting and dream up dozens of new ideas then you have displayed creativity, but there is no innovation until something gets implemented."

 Hunter noted that many leaders focus more emphasis on generating creativity on demand, instead of simply building innovative products, processes and interactions. "Innovation isn't a mysterious black box," he said. "It can be simple small tweaks to existing processes, products or interactions. And by focusing on the process [of innovation], and not the heroically creative individual, we can build innovation at scale."

In other words, process is replicable and scalable; a creative individual is not. Once leaders understand the difference between creativity and innovation, they can work on inspiring both among their team members and building a culture that supports these values.

"While leaders can foster innovation, the organization as a whole must also support innovation through the makeup of its culture and the way it designs its processes," Hunter said. "Sometimes the best way to spark innovation is by allowing activity within the organization that deviates from the norm but that may lead to positive outcomes." 

Hunter cited the birth of Starbucks' now-popular Frappuccino drink as an example of how leaders giving their employees some room for deviation allows creativity to blossom into innovation. In the early 1990s, the staff at a Santa Monica, California, Starbucks invented a new drink and asked an executive to propose the product to headquarters, where it was ultimately rejected. Later, the same store invented another drink (the Frappuccino), and the executive asked the staff to quietly make and sell the drink to local customers. It quickly became a hit, and the management group implemented the successful idea companywide once its value was proved.

"The Frappuccino turned out to be one of Starbucks' most popular and profitable drinks," Hunter said. "And, according to [Starbucks' then-vice president of sales and operations] Howard Behar, it happened because someone was allowed, and even encouraged, to experiment with a new product that deviated from the company's core product line."

by Nicole Fallon, Business News Daily Assistant Editor 

10 Phrases That Will Make You a Better Leader

Want to be a better leader? Try improving your vocabulary.

No, I’m not talking adding the latest management and leadership buzzwords or jargon to your repertoire. If that’s what you’re looking for, try the Wall Street Journal’s Business Buzzwords Generator. You’ll be able to walk around uttering leadership gibberish such as “Moving forward, it’s time to act with strategic vector and transform our team bandwidth”and “Looking forward to 2015, ideation will be key to our ability to impact the solutions holistically.”

I’m talking about adding some powerful phrases to your vocabulary that will engage and motivate, encourage people to come up with ideas, and inspire commitment.

It’s not an exhaustive list – just a collection I’ve picked up over the years – so please feel free to add your own in the comments section.

1. "How can I be a better leader?" Credit goes to Marshall Goldsmith for this one. Variations of the question include “How can I be a better parent?” “How can I be a better spouse?” and “How can I be a better child?” Just make sure to listen and say …
2. “Thank-you.” Use these two powerful words as a response to constructive feedback (which should be seen as a gift), positive feedback, as a way to express gratitude for going the extra mile or a job well done, or when someone brings bad news or a problem to your attention.
3. “Nice job.” Variations include “good work” and “way to go.” Giving positive reinforcement becomes even more powerful if when it’s specific, timely, and you can explain why (positive impact), but let’s not over-complicate it too much for now.
4. “What do you think?” Credit goes to Tom Peters for this one. Asking someone for their opinion or ideas is the ultimate demonstration of respect. And when you get those ideas, don’t forget to go back to #2.
5. “How can I help?” Often used as a way to express support during a development discussion, in problem solving, when someone is going through personal difficulties, or when problems or ideas are brought to your attention.
6. “What’s possible?” Credit goes to Jack and Carol Weber for teaching me the importance of “possibility thinking.” Instead of coming up with reasons why something won’t work, ask yourself and others “what’s possible”. And if they do come up with examples of how similar ideas have been tried in the past and have not worked, use the phrase “Up until now.”
7. “I don’t know.” Use this when you truly don’t know the answer to a question or solution to a problem – it demonstrates humility and authenticity. It goes well with “what do you think” as a follow-up.
8. “Why is that important to you?” This question demonstrates that you care, and you’ll learn a lot about the person’s motivation and values.
9. “Help me understand.” A much better way to understand someone’s logic, reasoning, feelings, etc… than “really?!” or “seriously?!” or “what the heck are you smoking?!”
10. “I believe in you.” I may have saved the best for last. What a way to express confidence in someone’s ability or potential!

Dan McCarthy is the director of Executive Development Programs at the University of New Hampshire and runs the Management & Leadership channel of About.com. He writes the award-winning leadership development blog Great Leadership and is consistently ranked as one of the top digital influencers in leadership and talent management.