Archive for Communication
January 16, 2010 at 12:17 pm · Filed under Communication, Connections, Next step
Inspired by Joe Vitale, I thought I’d write some “Positive Predictions” for 2010.
- My e-book, Six Practical Ways to Use Clean Language at Work, develops into the central core of a distance learning product which gets people really using the Clean Language they’ve learned. This goes on sale during the spring: more than 200 copies are sold in the first three months.
- As a result, hundreds of people around the world benefit from the technique, getting into closer rapport with their own unconscious minds. They’re naturally curious to learn more, resulting in increased sales of Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds. There is a further reprint.
- This results in increased demand for me to lead events and training courses. I travel to three different countries to teach X-ray Listening to different groups; I run several telephone and web-based training groups; I deliver in-house courses to business analysts, project managers, web developers, UX experts and others. Things are ticking along brilliantly – I sometimes have to refer interesting work to colleagues because my diary is full.
- I have a regular column in at least one trade and one consumer magazine, perhaps using X-Ray Listening to interview celebrities.
- A major publisher offers me an advance to write the next book, to be delivered in early 2011, and plans some serious launch publicity including media appearances.
- The wedding goes brilliantly: people have fun and some new friendships are formed between guests.
And all of that’s like what? It feels like a sort of clockwork landscape, a Heath Robinson machine made up of brightly-coloured flowers unfolding in sequence, expanding in all directions…
October 7, 2009 at 12:53 pm · Filed under Communication, Interviewing, Listening, Metaphor, Next step and tagged: elevator pitch, meme, niche, Seth Godin
Call it an elevator pitch, a strapline, a meme or a tweet, the marketing men are all agreed: the business offering must be reduced to a single short sentence. That has been a huge challenge for me. I’m a generalist, and the stuff I do is very generally applicable. I hate the very idea of “finding my niche”.
But in the last day or so, I’ve had a realisation.
Focussing on just one thing right now doesn’t mean I’ll be focussing on that one thing forever.
I was listening to Seth Godin talk about the process of creating ten bestsellers. And I realised that at the point where he wrote and published Permission Marketing, he was already a very successful, well read and intelligent man. He could have written knowledgeably about a dozen or more subjects. But he chose one – the one he felt most passionately about, perhaps, or the one he thought would make the most difference, or the one that would make him famous. He chose just one idea.
The idea he chose could be passed on “virally” in a few sentences: the essence of the idea is in the book title.
I thought I had already cracked this with X-Ray Listening. “Better insights – better projects – better products.” Or “we help IT professionals to elicit customers’ real requirements – the stuff that they don’t know that they want or don’t know how to ask for.” But even that’s too complex for a tweet or a book title.
The killer meme for my business must be easy to transmit, and for that it needs to be:
- short
- easy to remember
- compelling.
“Need to know what’s beyond ‘I don’t know’? Learn X-Ray Listening.”
October 1, 2009 at 2:49 pm · Filed under Change, Coaching, Communication, Connections and tagged: David Taylor, ideas, independence, naked coach, potential, recommendations
David Taylor is one of the world’s biggest-selling business authors. His book ‘The Naked Leader’ holds the record as the fastest-selling business book ever and has sold millions worldwide. And now he’s backing me and X-Ray Listening!
I made contact with David a few weeks ago, interviewing him to promote Business Analysis Conference, which took place in London this week. After the call we exchanged books: I imagined mine would languish in his unread pile for months. But something about it grabbed his attention, he read it, and he loved it.
He emailed to say: “Your book is simply outstanding. It deserves far higher sales and attention.”
At the conference on Tuesday, after his keynote, I sidled up to David to introduce myself and thank him. I wasn’t expecting to be hugged vigorously, and pulled aside for an impromptu coaching session.
It turned out that Clean Language had had a major impact on him. He’d taken it with him on one of his regular strategy retreats, and was now using the questions in his coaching sessions with Chief Executives worldwide.
The notion of ‘Clean’ is wildly different to David’s usual style – he’s highly directive, full of recommendations – but he was finding them valuable and could see their potential. And he had a string of recommendations for me and for the future of my business.
Now I have a personal challenge. I can see the solid commercial sense in what he says, I have great respect for him and what he has achieved, I’m very grateful for his time. And his ideas would take me way outside my comfort zone.
Will I follow them? I haven’t decided yet.
But meanwhile, I’m pressing on with X-Ray Listening, offering rapid, 100-minute training sessions for teams at the ‘peopley’ end of IT who want to better insights, better projects, and better products. Find out more here.
Judy Rees 