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.

Dear reader...

Dear reader,

thank you for spending your time trying to know more about me and what I learned in my last years about marketing.
I decided to share my experience with you and take the chance to compare my opinions with yours. It does not matter if you are a professor in economic science, a successful manager or simply a self-made man as I am. I am not sharing my successes but my faults, and what I learned from them about business, about relations and more about life.

Will this blog be able to change your life? I do not think so. If you are looking for the golden rule to get rich, I am afraid this is not the blog you can find one. My huge aim is that you can find here one phrase, one single idea which can stimulate your mind in working to enhance your life.
I am sure my word will not sound 100% new, of course my opinions comes from my education, my culture and my studies. Then if this blog will be just a synthesis about all that I would have achieved my two goals: to analyze my experience and understand better what happened, and give you the opportunity not to learn from your mistakes, but learn from mine. Those mistakes made me a successful man.

This is exactly what I am today, a successful man and not just a successful entrepreneur, because I understood that it is not money what worths to live for, but happiness. That does not mean I reached the target, but at least I know where my efforts are aimed at. So… I do not think I am successful because I “have” success, but because I “tend” to success.

That is all, and I wish it will be enough to convince you to share together our life experiences. As George Bernard Shaw said: “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas”.

I really appreciate your interest. Let’s share.