I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential.
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Check the terms first
No doubt you’ve heard it before “don’t sign anything you haven’t read” – it may sound trite but it is a valuable rule legally.
I have mentioned before that I am going to the Business Mums Conference in Melbourne this weekend, and that I submitted proposals to be a speaker. Before submitting my proposals, I read the documentation about what was expected from a speaker and what I could expect in return. I had the choice there and then to decide if any of those terms were unreasonable or disagreeable to me.
Apparently, not everyone read those documents – or maybe just didn’t take them seriously – as potential speakers sent in proposals but refused to meet one or two of the terms. And the same thing happened last year. I just don’t understand how you can agree to do something with clearly set out rules and then be surprised at having to keep those rules.
The end result is that I am speaking twice at the conference! It is not too late to get your tickets and come along – book online for the whole weekend, a day or even just my session (joking – any single session can be booked, but I would love to meet you!) And if you get back to me by COB Thursday, I have some discounted booking forms I can give you.
* I am speaking about promotional articles (of which I have written a few!) and email newsletter content.
Sharing salaries…
It’s one of those questions we don’t usually ask, or answer – how much do you get paid? I’m not going to discuss whether that’s good or bad, or even why it may be the case, but something on the news last night made me think of it.
Apparently, a 16 year old boy was offered a job in the USA for $400,000 a year, which he turned down as he wants to stay here with family and friends. What I find interesting is how everyone found out about it.
I find it hard to believe that the company contacted the media and said “we offered him $400,000” I mean, that sort of announcement can’t be good for them – it shows them being rejected (even if through no fault of theirs) and may cause problems between staff who aren’t being paid $400,000!
I know I’ve had jobs where I didn’t want others knowing my salary – largely because I didn’t want them to get into ‘why does she get that much?’ or ‘but I should get more than him!’
A 16 year old earning so much also makes me wonder about his expectations. I am not making comment on his ability in any way or whether or not he deserves such a salary, but $400,000 is such a lot of money to start a working career with! Where does he go from there?
I see some value in young people starting with small jobs so they learn the value of earning money and getting a realistic view of the working life. It’s not so much the $10 an hour as learning their time is worth something and that it takes time and hard work to increase their pay rate. And learning how to use and manage that money is also important.
The value of clear communications!
I have recently being working through a training book (as a student, not a writer) and found various bits hard to understand. Luckily, I have a group of people around me who have been able to help interpret some of the questions – and I have interpreted other bits for them! I would hate to be struggling through it alone!
One question I thought I understood and prepared an answer for – it took me half an hour or so to get it finished and involved someone else getting some restricted information for me.
At the training course itself, my tutor read through my bookwork and pointed out that the question above was not correctly answered – it was asking for something else entirely. With that knowledge, I could just see what the question meant but it was a struggle! So I rewrote my answer – taking another two hours to do so.
A simpler example from the same training weekend was “Collect the names, titles and contact details for everyone in the training team.” I therefore wrote a list of names, titles and email addresses for the other members of my team on the course (we worked in teams throughout the course.) I then realised what they really wanted was a list of the names, titles and contact details for the trainers themselves – THE training team, rather than my training team!
Clearer questions would have saved me the stress of worrying I knew what to answer, the confusion of having no clue what to answer at times and the time of having to rewrite some answers. So a very concrete example of how useful clear communications are!
Unethical or ignorant?
Is ignorance an excuse for giving the wrong advice? Or is it as unethical as someone deliberately misleading a client for their own gain?
I have previously written about the integrity of businesses misleading clients, but how different it is if the supplier gives bad advice from ignorance?
If you are paying someone as an expert, you have a right to expect their information to be reliable and trustworthy. Let’s face it, if you had the information and knowledge yourself, you wouldn’t have asked them in the first place!
Some supppliers will give advice based on out-of-date information (“it worked in 1995 so why should we change it?”), personal opinion (“I don’t like brown therefore it is a bad colour to use in every situation” reasoning) or no knowledge at all. And they mean absolutely no harm by it and probably think they are helping you.
Personally, I don’t think that is professional or ethical – if you are charging people money for your knowledge, then you should have that knowledge to start with! And you should keep that knowledge up to date.
Have you come across this sort of ignorance in busienss? Did you consider it unethical for them to charge for knowledge they didn’t actually have?
Set your sights to the details
Although we may use the word sight a lot more often than site or cite, it is worth knowing the difference between them!
Cite: to mention or quote a document or legal result.
He cited Judge Brown’s findings from case 32.
Site: a relevant place or piece of ground. It includes a construction site (where building works are taking place), a sacred site (a place of significant meaning to some people) and a crime site (the area where an activity took place, in this case an illegal activity).
They chose the best site for their sleeping tent.
Sight: the ability to see and what is seen.
Sight is one of the five senses.
It was a magnificent sight from the lookout.
Site is easy to remember if you think of a site being a place where you can sit.
Email content is factual
Over the weekend I attended the second weekend of a training course. One session was on communications as part of relationships, and the instructor said something that stuck in my mind.
He said “emails are for facts, never emotions”.
[Tweet “Emails are for facts, never emotions”]
So, you can write an email “We will meet at 5 pm” or “Please write me a promotional article on woggles.” And it is ok to write something like “I am upset – can we please talk about it?”
Using the phone is often better than email for emotional issues
No emotions in emails?
I had never thought of it quite that way, but it is a good point. What you write can be misinterpreted, especially when emotions are involved, which can cause more problems than you already have. It is also harder to write clearly when you are feeling emotional so you are more likely to be negative than constructive.
If there is an issue to resolve, it is much better to deal with it face to face or via the phone than in an email. For one thing, tone of voice can impact on the understanding of the message and for another, it is more immediate – there can be delays in replying to each other via emails and that can also add to confusion, misunderstandings and problems.
And don’t think this is just referring to personal relationships. If there is an issue between you and a supplier or customer, grab the phone or arrange a meeting and get the issue resolved.
For a business situation, it isn’t just a matter of smoothing relationships either – it is your business’ reputation and having emotions in writing can be used out of context to your detriment.
So a simple rule to add to your business model – keep emails for facts, not emotions!
Use your words wisely.
*Image courtesy of Frugo at 123rf
Take my advice…
There are many pairs of words that sound or look very similar, but they can mean very different things. There is no easy way around these words, you have to learn them as you can’t rely on spell checkers and the like to pick them up every time.
One such pair of words is advice/advise.
Advice: Opinion given or offered as to action, counsel; information given. (noun)
As a business coach, I sometimes give advice to my clients.
Advise: Offer advice; recommend. (verb)
I advise you to wear a hat when walking in the desert.
So I advise you to take care with words. And my advice is to learn the correct use of each word.
How can you remember which is which?
“I give you advice and I give you ice” will help you remember which word is the noun.
* Definitions from the Concise Oxford Dictionary
Choosing your environment
One of the factors influencing your happiness and success is the environment you find yourself in – and you do have control over it.
I recently read a blog post by Donna-Marie which reminded me of the impact people have on your life. I honestly believe that if you surround yourself with positive people, you will have a more positive attitude and are likely to find solutions and opportunities. Which of course means that if you spend lots of time with negative, no-hope people, it is much harder to reach your potential and feel happy.
This can impact many of your choices, such as:
- make sure you employ staff who are positive and creative rather than complainers
- only attend seminars and networking events where you feel a positive environment – if group members are not supportive or encouraging, you probably won’t benefit much from spending time with them
- if choosing between two suppliers, pick the one who has a can-do attitude or enthusiasm over the one who makes the project sound like hard work or an interruption to their schedule
- only use a coach or mentor who believes in success and finding solutions
Who you associate with can even impact on your writing style – positive people use words like “can”, “will”, “value” and “ideas” which inspire you and make your writing positive, too.
Have you ever experienced an obvious change by changing who is around you?
I once knew some people who couldn’t help themselves from lying and adjusting perceptions to maintain their view of reality. Their behaviour made me uncomfortable and I didn’t like being unable to trust them, so I made a conscious decision to not associate with them. There was actually a great sense of relief when they were no longer part of my life, and I have taken care since to choose who I spend time with whenever possible.
Be prepared
Back in April, I wrote about cuboree – a camp for Victorian cubs and leaders. I wrote that I expected to be able to use cuboree as examples in business behaviour and strength.
As I mentioned, cuboree was affected by strong winds that have since been called a cyclone. The entire campsite of about 4,500 people (mostly 8 – 10 year olds) was locked down for an entire afternoon.
It was certainly an experience to remember and thankfully there were no major injuries, but it wasn’t something anyone had expected or hoped for!
There were various things put in place over the storm period that kept us all safe. For instance, leaders were told a storm was coming the previous night so we could prepare our campsites and warn the cubs in the morning that there would be strong winds. Programs were adjusted to suit the conditions and regular updates were provided to pack leaders. The fact that there were high wind rated marquees available, as well as permanent buildings, shows how the organisers had planned for problems. The cuboree website was already in place so it was simple for the camp to keep parents and others ‘at home’ informed about the cubs, rather than having 3,000 parents ringing or visiting the campsite.
In business, being prepared for possible problems is called contingency planning and is very important. Planning doesn’t mean you think the problem will arise, but makes it easier to deal with the problem if it did arise. It’s like having some paracetamol in the cupboard – you may never get a headache but if you do, you want the medicine quickly.
Contingency planing depends on the size and potential impact of the problem. For instance, running out of ink for the printer is probably covered by having a spare cartridge in the cupboard and ordering a new spare once it is used. However, the plan for how to cope if your business premises are burnt in a fire will be a lot more complex and detailed.
Some contingency planning is simple and practical – having spare ink for printers, spare light bulbs and a first aid kit – while others are much better if written out and added to the procedures.
How much contingency have you planned for in your business? Have you done this formally or just built up a supply of spare materials for instance?
I would love to hear some examples of how contingency planning has saved your business in some way, too.
A rose by any other name…
Have you ever noticed how changing one word can totally change a document or someone’s understanding?
I don’t mean where the wrong word is used accidentally (for example, a typing error changing boy to buoy) but where an appropriate word doesn’t work as well as intended.
Sometimes the word doesn’t work because of the audience. For example, I have seen Australian children (and adults actually!) struggle over American books when they write about pacifiers (dummies) and diapers (nappies) – that’s life if the author was aiming at American children, but bad judgement if the author was aiming at Australians.
Often, however, a word is used that has hidden meanings that can detract from what you were actually aiming at.
I recently had a discussion about the word therapist versus counsellor. While both words can describe a person you talk to about issues and (hopefully) get some insights and direction from the sessions. However, people perceive the two words in different ways – do you? Personally, a therapist implies someone who will help fix a problem (compare to a speech therapist or physiotherapist) but a counsellor is more about working through ideas or situations. So which word is best will depend on what message you are trying to give.
Another example is calling goals or targets ‘milestones’ instead of goals. Michelle of Shel Design was struggling with the concept of setting goals – to her, the word goal implied a final step whereas setting milestones was easier as they were just part of her business process and development. In this case, the word goals was appropriate but had certain hidden meanings for people like Michelle – when writing, those hidden meanings are important to consider, too.
When reviewing your writing, consider your use of words – are some of those words going to mislead some of your readers? Are there hidden meanings you haven’t considered?
Use your words wisely!
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