Biographies of mayors from America, Europe, Asia and Africa Ellen Naylor’s insight: and much more… In a range of profiles of mayors from Asia, Africa, Europe and The Americas, City Mayors’ editors and freelance writers examine what makes an outstanding mayor. They also ask city leaders which of their policies and actions have been particularly …
Read moreCity Mayors: Mayors from Europe, The Americas, Asia and Africa
Few marketers have a formal competitive review process in place. The extent to which they do competitive analysis typically consists of subscribing to their competitors’ email promotions and newsletters; there is little analysis of their programs. Understanding a competitor’s frequency, use of personalization, and other apparent tactics is a necessary, but often-untapped knowledge resource. Late …
Read moreREPORT: COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE – THE UNTAPPED RESOURCE
Self publishing: Guy Kawasaki’s latest book APE (author, publisher, entrepreneur) shows you how to go from manuscript to book, without giving up control to a publisher. Of course, when you’re Guy Kawasaki with his cache and name recognition, people want to buy what he publishes since he seems to often be ahead of the pack in …
Read moreHow to Write, Publish and Market Your Book | Social Media Examiner
Want to get a leg up on your competitors? Here are 10 tips for gathering intel Read more by Tom Searcy on CBS News’ Sales Machine. 1. Educate yourself about Google Scholar 2. Go where the writers go, the Writers Guild of America 3. Get to know university librarians 4. Run a background check https://www.knowx.com/index.jsp …
Read more10 tips for ‘spying’ on your competition – Sales Machine – CBS News
Short, shallow, frequent bursts of communication via Twitter, Facebook or texting do not develop deep and emotional relationships, whether among friends, parent to child or between business colleagues. I fear that people are losing their ability to hold a conversation in our infected society of social networks, which favors many forms of digital connection with numerous people who are practically strangers, rather than really getting to know fewer people a whole lot better.
I recently gave a webinar on “How to improve your collection skills through interviewing and elicitation.” I particularly enjoyed the Q&A and will share my 2 favorites: What are some tips to get the interview in the first place? Reaching people live, referrals or customized email requests leading up to a phone call? How do you differentiate yourself from a telemarketer? Do you say what you’re doing?
Remember it’s not just what you say, but how you say it that makes you a successful interviewer.
People often ask me what is the benefit of elicitation versus the standard interview. Actually they share more in common than they differ. Preparation in similar. You want to learn as much about that person as you can before you talk to them. Elicitation is a conversational interview, a planned conversation. Elicitation builds off human tendencies that most people have: a desire for recognition; showing off, curiosity, gossip, complaining, correcting you.
A recent HBR blog post, “Just Call Someone Already,” focused on when to use the phone versus email, often used instead of the phone. I resonated with the author, Dan Pallota in his comment, “Much worse than the inefficiency of using email to set up phone calls are the missed opportunities and unnecessary misunderstandings that come when we use email instead of phone calls.” A best cooperative intelligence practice is to think about how the individual you want to reach likes to be communicated with, even if it’s not your preference. Another cooperative best practice is only send communication to those who will value it.
Be skeptical of the business information you find through digital media and traditional media sources. So much of it comes from press releases and is regurgitated more or less at face value by other news sources. Press releases are carefully crafted to further the interests of the originating organization, whether a company, government organization, trade association or other special interest group. So who is telling the truth? A skeptical, informed person recognizes that news contains some bias, distortion and misinformation. You also know you can’t rely on a single news source, and if the same news is repeated by many sources, it’s good idea to find the original source, so you can check its veracity and the content that JDLR (just don’t look right).
People often ask me how I engage people so readily in conversation over the telephone. “Who do you say you are? Why do you say you’re calling?” With all calls, you want to give the person a good reason to talk with you, and not waste their time with small talk and listen very closely to how and what they share with you. The bottom line is I consider who I am talking to and try to think of all the ways the person might answer my questions to be prepared for the unexpected. Calls seldom go just as planned. Don’t take yourself too seriously and keep that smile on your face.