Judy Rees

Connecting people and ideas

Archive for Next step

Positive Predictions for 2010

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…

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Just one – short – thing

October 7, 2009 at 12:53 pm · Filed under Communication, Interviewing, Listening, Metaphor, Next step and tagged: , , ,

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.”

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Constraint inspires creativity

September 25, 2009 at 4:55 pm · Filed under Change, Coaching, Next step and tagged: , , , , , ,

I discovered this fantastic phrase while browsing the Twitter help pages. “Constraint inspires creativity.” How true! Almost the story of my life.

With Clean Language, the constraint of the twelve questions has inspired the creation of an entire field of endeavour. The elegant simplicity of the questions constrains the attention of the facilitator, which in turn constrains the attention of the client.

With Teletext, the limited colours, fixed font, rigid number of rows and line length, and the six-pixel ‘square’ inspired one of the most profitable organisations in the British media.  Its staff were inspired to create and deliver a fantastic service. And its service, in turn, inspired tremendous love and loyalty.

In creating my new business, the advice I was given constrained my thinking: I was urged to choose a specific market niche and offer only products and services which would appeal directly to them. I could always expand later. X-Ray Listening was born – and already feels more ‘successful’ than my previous, more sprawling company.

Constraint has also inspired my new offerings.  My customers don’t have time for day- or week-long training courses. So what could I teach them in the time they have available? My six “X-Press” 100-minute courses were the result.

X-Press Insight, X-Press Clarity, X-Press Coaching, X-Press Connection, X-Press Meetings, X-Press Motivation.

And the pattern keeps on running. I’ve known the content of these courses for over a month. But it wasn’t until I received my first booking yesterday (Hoorah!) for a breakfast session next week that I actually sat down and created the Powerpoint and handouts. And were they better for the time pressure? Only time will tell.

What I know is that constraint certainly inspires my creativity. I have a ‘Ready-Steady-Cook’ attitude to life. Give me total freedom – a totally blank canvas – and I’ll find a way to constrain myself.

Because that’s what brings me joy, what makes me tick, what powers my engagement with the universe.  I love it!

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