Never flatter

We use to respect people who treat us as equals. We hate snobs and arrogant, but probably we hate most people who flatter.

When you meet a CEO and his assistants, do not limit to look towards the boss, make sure you speak and listen everybody. If you focus only on the boss, your risk is that him and his assistants will see you as a flunky. The boss knows he is on the top of the pyramid, you do not need to remember it to him anytime!

Think at the assistants: they feel in some way subordinates who deserve the title and the regard you reserve for the boss. It is critical to give them the most of your attention and consideration: they will remember you when they will answer your phone calls, filter out your messages and be your allies when they will be asked for an opinion from about you.

A good rule is always treat bosses as equals, a and assistants as bosses.

Forget perfection

Claude Monet sayd "I wanted perfection and I ruined what was going well".

You should always concentrate on what creates enough value, without abusing on time and resources. Trying to achieve perfection is always too complicated and costly. It is a challenge that you are destined to lose.

What you mean with perfection is not necessarily the same your market means. Anyway, even while this happens: how long could this happen? The time and resources invested in the search for perfection can be appreciated by customers? Above all, the desire to purchase will be sufficient to justify the cost of perfection? The search for perfection is not sufficiently rewarding and rarely justifies the investment.

A manager should always remember not to be an artist. For a manager it is critical to achieve desirable and affordable solutions for the most of his customers. The manager must offer products and services that customers want to buy in such quantity as to justify the investment, contribute to the prosperity of the company and fund future development. An artist has the right to do what he loves, the manager has a duty to do what others love. On the market a good is better than a "perfect" for many reasons:

Perfect. Its real value can be understood and appreciated by few and sometimes only by its creator; Good. Its real value can be understood and appreciated by a large market;

Perfect. Generally requires a long construction time, and sometimes does not see the light then does not even reach the market; Good. Requires less time to completion, then arrives before the market;

Perfect. Requires investments which result in off-market price, then a competitive disadvantage. Good. Requires less investment, so it can have a more competitive price.

A marketing strategy should always be aimed at a broad market. The breadth of our market is the answer to the question: "How many people will say that the offer is well worth the price you ask?" - And then - "Who are my customers? What do they do? What do they buy? What do they love? ".
The niche markets are just happy for those who create them, for who knows them thoroughly, for those who recognize and capitalize the first. It's never a good choice to compete with the leader in a niche market, failure is almost certain. If instead we find our niche, we really know its components, the environment, the needs, habits and have the possibility to achieve and to introduce our solution, it is time to invest.

The search for perfection is strategy is just luxury, and as such not everyone can afford it: good is enough.

Listen, hush then talk

If you want your words to be memorable you have to know how to wait before talking.

When you respond immediately, without any pause, in a tone too enthusiastic you show that you have not listened. It means that before the other has finished speaking you were already thinking about the answer, and stopped paying attention to his words. People realize when you stop to listen and do not appreciate it (answering with no gaps you just confirm it). And think: you even formulate a thought that misses the whole information.

When someone listens to us moving the head, smiling like saying "I already knew, now I'll explain," closes his mouth and points us with his finger, playing with various objects, or looking away, the result is that we have a negative impression of him and we rush to end our speech. In business this is a missed opportunity both in terms of relationship, both in terms of knowledge.

The best thing after having listened carefully to our interlocutor, with our ears, eyes and the whole body ... is silence for one second. This will ensure that you interlocutor listens more attentively. He realizes how deeply you heard and reviewed his message, and creates an expectation by raising the words to a higher level.
Silence is elegant and says "the next words I will say are chosen carefully, are important". That favors the concentration so your audience can easier remember your message.

Beware: Non-verbal communication includes all aspects unrelated to the literal meaning of words in the message. This type of communication is considered universally understandable, and can transcend language barriers.

A study conducted in 1972 by A. Mehrabian (Non-verbal communication) has shown that what is perceived in a voice message can be in:
- Body movements (mostly facial expressions) 55%
- Vocal aspects (volume, tone, rhythm) 38%
- Literal meaning (words) 7%

Remember: the effectiveness of your message depends only minimally from the literal meaning. Master the way your message is perceived your nonverbal communication.

Talk less

An effective communication is a matter of economy on words. Don’t do it for your audience, do it for you: if your message is clear, you can expect people to act exactly the way you expect them to act, following your words, with no mistakes or misunderstanding.

Between 3 trees nobody will get lost, but anybody will get lost between 3,000 trees. The same happens with our words and our communication. When we write a speech, we should always remember a classic communication exercise: write a message, then divide by two the number of words, and once again divide it by two. The result is the number of words adequate to express the same concept in a more concise and effective way. This works with speeches, and for any communication, we should not kill our people with a torrent of adjectives, repetitions and endless parentheses. If we strive to ensure every word counts, we will be more convincing, appealing and our message will be clearer... and more important, we will prove we have respect for our interlocutor’s time, he will appreciate it!

If you fail to describe in 25 words what makes it different and excellent your company, you must not work on the phrase... you must work on your company. The clearness of your message shows the clarity of your thinking. If you have to describe the characteristics or benefits of a product with a slide full of words and points, you will not achieve your goal. Faced with an overabundance of data our mind gives up, gets distracted, because he is conscious that he cannot remember all, so often, does not remember anything.

The perfect alchemy for a memorable presentation is “3 points with 3 words”: this is the amount of information you are allowed to wish will be kept in mind by those who attend your presentation.
Think: anybody remember the 3 Musketeers’ name... And what about the formula the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit? Then, which are the names of the 12 apostles? The names of the 7 dwarfs from Snow White? Sleepy and Grumpy I remember, only 2 out of 7! Probably my brain is convinced of not being able to store all their names so it did not even try to store at least 3.

Just talk less, communicate more.

Stop playing

I really love people who make me save time, probably more than the ones who make me save money. And I am sure the most agree with me. So your client, so your suppliers, so your colleagues and collaborators do.

As a matter of fact, many people waste their time in useless things, that cannot produce anything, and give no advantage for them and for others. These “things” are kind of vices that we carry on through all our activities, without facing them. Then, without them we can save a lot of time for us and for others, enhance our relationships, enhance our reputation, enhance our results. There would be no need to solve many problems if we just do not provide us so many!

Try to write down everything we do, and what we should do on a paper during one day or even a week. If we were able to do it honestly we will surely realize how much time we could invest better, then how faster we could have reach our targets.
Here something you may find on your paper: bad communication, misunderstandings, bad organization, missing commitments or appointments, delays, losses… those are just a few of what you may find into your everyday’s ménage.

Apart from the entity of these vices, it is interesting to realize how repetitive they are. So we do not face them, vice versa we cultivate them, they are part of our method. How many appointments are just a ceremony of circumstance? How many meetings are drowned into rhetoric phrases? And what you do about that? Probably nothing, you just go on and so do everybody around you. So all of you keep wasting time.

A meeting should be arranged when there is something to discuss, and all participants can contribute to get the best result. All participants should receive a detailed agenda so they can sharpen their ideas about every single point and be ready to illustrate to others in the most clear and synthetic way.
Do not forget: sometimes it takes a lot of time to join the meeting, big distances, traffic, contingency. A video-conference is a great opportunity to save time and make it more convenient for all.

It is a matter of discipline, nothing more than this. To avoid wastes is the most effective strategy to save time and reach higher targets:

Shifts
Avoid to arrange or attend more meetings than you really need. Limit your shifts. Personal relationships are important, but usually a call is enough.
When every meeting has a special purpose, and no waste, everybody will be more motivated to attend it and to contribute.

Delays
Do not postpone and do not delay in meetings and in sending answers and info. Just consider deadlines and never miss them (especially when you set those deadlines). To miss a deadline requires also to find a good excuse… and to remember it!
If you are always in time you can expect people to be in time with you, again you can save time. It is a team work with clients, suppliers and colleagues, and anybody can easily win. There are few causes that allow you to delay, the most are just vain excuses.

Forgetfulness
You do not need a super-normal memory, not to forget your commitments, or just where you place things, you just need to write. Write everything you cannot do right now, write clearly what you have to do, why you should do it (so consider priority), who is involved and which is the deadline.
An electronic agenda is a useful tool that can send you alarms to remind you activities and appointments. When you write send your notes to the people involved into that activity so you avoid to experience misunderstandings. Do not forget and do not allow others to forget. When you forget you break your schedule and usually that provoke a chain reaction.

Inaccuracy
Do not be vague about deadlines, and do not allow anybody to be vague about them. “We will answer you in few days”, “We will meet as soon as possible”… does not mean anything, so it is just useless to give and receive such an information. You should be able to arrange an appointment in six months with no need to confirm it again.

Losses
We all manage thousands of contacts, emails, documents… we cannot count on our memory to remember everything. Avoiding to lose means avoid to work and decide upon an incomplete information, and also wasting time searching for lost things.
About Business Cards you should always catalogue all the ones you take with some notes just to make sure you will always remember who is that person and what he can do for you. You can even note something particular about him or something that happens with him so you can easily remind him about you next time you may contact him.

That is not just a method… it is a strategy: To be a reliable person, to be frank, punctual, accurate and to always keep your word will inspire respect, admiration and confidence. People loves that kind of people and do all they can to earn their trust. Confidence makes you save time, and get more from people.