Category Archives: Leverage Your Expertise

Achievable Focus Essential to Success

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Achievable focus takes the “almost” out of your push for success in any context.

Have you gotten so close to achieving an important goal—you can almost taste success—only to find success slips through your fingers?

Therefore, your targeted opportunity suddenly vanishes or a focused competitor swoops in and you’re out. The prospect stays a prospect; the deal does not become a deal; your projected income is zero.

You can want something—a new client account, a new job, a new business, or a second shot at anything—very badly or urgently, but your need alone may not be enough to achieve what you want.

Desire may get you close, but if your focus is even slightly off center or your concentration lapses, success may slip through your fingers.

The truly discouraging truth is that lose your focus and “your success” can slip right into a observant competitor’s hands.

To “focus” means to strategically direct and intensively concentrate your attention, activity, resources, and what is necessary for a goal—“your point.”

As an achievement strategist, key skills lie in achieving and applying what I call Achievable Focus for clients. To me, the distinction between “focus” and “achievable focus” is the difference between “almost successful” and “completely successful,” or almost making your point and making it with a memorable bang for target clients.

No magic or secrets here.

This is well within the skills of an experienced professional, like you.

Focus is not an achievement asset if you lack clarity.

Achievable focus will elude you…

#1. …if you are not completely clear what your point is to achieve your goal.

#2. …if you do not “cut the crap” that has been holding you back and will continue to do so until you let go of the past and commit to moving Onward & Upward, the only directions that really matter!

#3. …if you do not know “Who your WHO is?” so that you can concentrate your focus on the ideal target client for your business efforts.

#4. …if you do not commit to a success that includes having your WHO stick with you, not just open an email offer, download a click magnet, attend an event, or click on your marketing ploy.

Add the preceding four focus elements together and you have created powerful achievable focus. You know what you want to achieve, why, and for whom, so success is crystal clear and your achievement strategies and focus are equally clear.

Weakness or lack of focus with any one element makes success elusive. For instance, #2 Cut The Crap above includes:

  • Stop making excuses
  • Stop blaming others
  • Stop obsessing on why you haven’t been successful so far
  • Drop that and all unproductive baggage that is holding you back.

I’m not expecting you to do all the above immediately, collectively, consistently, and permanently. The first step is becoming aware of your ingrained bad habits and counter-productive patterns of behavior in the context of one goal. We all have room for improvement whether we realize if or not.

As an experienced professional, you can make a serious commitment to suspend your crap as part of shifting to achievable focus. This will focus everything on the main point that you’ve chosen as your top priority.

For instance, the path to achievable focus lies in answering these questions honestly—to yourself, no one else:

  • What are my favorite excuses for not making my best effort?
  • Who is holding me back from success?
  • What “failure reruns” do I dredge up to explain why it’s not my fault things did not work out?
  • What are the top three roadblocks to my success? For example, screen obsession, multitasking, or mental clutter

May I share an example that was directed to real estate and financial professionals? The intent was to help their clients achieve a common and compelling goal—one you may have, too. In helping their prospects make decisions about their goals, the professionals may achieve successful client relationships: Five “Grass Greener?” Challenges in Paradise [article to be posted soon]

Tip #1: Achievable Focus: If the above effort seems too much based on what you want to achieve, you’ve picked the wrong goal or point to start with. Fix that lack of focus first.

Achievable focus achieves success.

Source: “What’s Your Point?: Cut The Carp, Hit The Mark & Stick!” by PJ Wade. Print book coming soon.

© Copyright 2019  PJ Wade The Catalyst   All rights reserved.

Fiduciary Minefields: The Agency Mess

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Relationships and terminology may define what you do for clients, but do your clients fully understand your legal, moral, and ethical context for delivering extreme service excellence and protecting their interests and goals?

How clear are you and your communication, in all formats and platforms, about related fiduciary responsibilities?

A recent report addresses these issues for the real estate industry, so it offers an excellent example of misconceptions and missed opportunities which may exist in your industry and your communication as well. The bonus is we’re all real estate buyers, sellers, and investors, or wanna-bes, so this is a valuable read on many levels.

The Consumer Federation of America (CFA — www.consumerfed.org) started the year off by releasing the report authored by former-executive-director and Senior Fellow Steve Brobeck and entitled “The Agency Mess:Home Buyer and Seller Confusion and Costs Related To Diverse and Poorly Enforced State Laws about the Role and Responsibility of Real Estate Agents. The title tells the miscommunication story. The report incorporates CFA’s research of the literature on real estate agency, CFA’s mystery shopper survey of agents, and a national consumer survey.

I asked Brobeck my questions during a media conference to clarify the communication confusion which can lead to compromised fiduciary relationships, financial loss to buyers and sellers and, therefore, potential loss for real estate brokerages and professionals.

PJ Wade: Could you give us a very exact definition of agency law and what the fiduciary duties are to the client (…the client’s interests above all else but the law) and to the customer who is the third party. Also, in that answer, give us a clear definition of what the word “agent” means and to whom it can be applied. Is it the brokerage, is it the salesperson…?

CFA Steve Brobeck: “[CFA] is considering, in this report, every real estate professional that works directly with the home buyer or seller to be an agent. Some of those agents are just agents and some of them are brokers. But we do not really view a material difference, from the view of the consumer, between having an agent-agent or a broker-agent. So again, when you look at this report, you will not see the term “broker” used very often.

Define fiduciary…The fiduciary is obligated to procure (and I’m quoting from another source here) the greatest advantage for his client. The occasion of that being if you are the seller agent and you are working with a seller, you have an obligation to get the highest price, sale price for the house. If you are a buyer broker, you are obligated to get the lowest price for that house.”

PJ Wade: Do the real estate practitioners, brokers, salespeople, the agents really understand these [agency and fiduciary] distinctions as clearly as they must?

CFA Steve Brobeck: “I think that’s part of the problem. There are several issues related here: the complexity of the law, the variation of the laws, and even the definition of the terms from state to state are not just very, very difficult for consumers to understand. They’re difficult for many agents to understand. Keep in mind, too, that there are 1.2 million, 1.3 million, 1.4 million practicing agents. Some of them have only been practicing for a year or two. In some states, the training is not very rigorous; in other states, it is. They may not fully understand all of these terms and the law in their particular state. The problem is there just hasn’t been any effective monitoring, so even if they are ignorant of the law and they don’t make required disclosures, no on ever calls them on it.”

PJ Wade: So would it be a fair summary to say that fiduciary duties of the agent to the client are to keep the client’s interests above all else but the law? And for the customer—the third party—would responsibilities be fairness and not to misrepresent and care of answering?

CFA Steve Brobeck: “Yes, I think that is a good summary.”

PJ Wade: What should a consumer do if they feel something going wrong? Should they complain to CFA or…?

CFA Steve Brobeck: “I think the first thing—we’re trying to keep this as simple as possible. We’re hoping that the nonprofit groups with whom we work—as you probably know CFA is an association of 240 members [ https://consumerfed.org/history/ ]—and we’re going to be putting this information out for them to communicate to the people with whom they work. We hope the media will communicate this.
We are also going to be communicating with the State Real Estate Commissions and, I hope, [encouraging them] to take a more active role in informing the consumers in their state about agency relationships.
But the key thing is ‘Don’t make it too complicated!’ As I indicated in my prepared statement, people just need to know whether the agent they are working with is a fiduciary. If they are not a fiduciary, what is their role? Their role, if [working with] a buyer, could be a subagent, could be a transactional broker, but [buyers] need to know that.
I don’t think the industry is going to oppose us. They certainly took leadership in the 1990s in terms of passing state laws that actually did some good, but now we need to review those laws. We need to review them, simplify them, and, just as importantly, ensure they are enforced. Ensure that there’s not just heavy-handed enforcement, but that each Realtor, each real estate agent feels that they are obligated, morally and ethically obligated to disclose their relationship to their customers.”

PJ Wade: So, ethically, morally, and legally…

CFA Steve Brobeck: “Well, they are, in most states, legally obligated to provide disclosure. But you know, given the situation, we are not really going to solve the problem unless all real estate agents feel that they not only must comply with the law, but that they have an ethical obligation too, at the earliest substantial contact, to clarify their role as an agent to their customer.”

Did parallel examples of miscommunication and misunderstood services and client relationships come to mind as you read this interview?

The 14-page report, The Agency Mess, provides more detail on the range of fiduciary relationships that exist, most of them beyond what consumers may expect. Without understanding each type of relationship and related fiduciary duties, consumers don’t understand when to confide financial information and when not to reveal their true feelings about a property.

  • Are your clients right about what they are getting for their money when they work with you?
  • Do you survey and interview clients to be sure you understand exactly what they don’t?
  • How do your efforts stand up against relationship definition efforts by competitors?

As a real estate consumer or owner, what is your reaction to The Agency Mess?

Navigating a World in Disruption

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“Disruption” remains the current “hot” word—replacing “sustainable” and “innovative”—to underscore the latest “new thinking.”

Rarely is disruption defined to reveal long-term social benefits and pervasive problems attached to the 21st Century applications that the “new” concept involves.

The context for disruption varies, but unforeseen complexities and unexpected outcomes remain among the greatest challenges in each sector, industry, organization, or walk of life facing disruptive, long-term effects of the hot new approach to anything.

Where do you see yourself with respect to disruption in your profession, industry, or clients’?

You’ve noticed the obvious pattern:

  • Disruptor: Those who benefit, see disruption as a positive, modern force. Those involved in creating it, pat themselves on the back.
  • Disrupted: Those who are in the direct path of disruption lose—their earning power, way of life, standard of living, status, sense of self-worth…—so they do not celebrate disruption. They are busy attempting to replace what they’ve lost and rebuild lives.
  • Distracted by disruption: Those who do not feel they participated in creation of the disruption or were not in the path of its direct negative effects may be unaware of or have overlook challenges or benefits for them or their clients because they consider all of this to be happening to someone else.

Do you investigate disruptions that, at first glance, do not seem connected to your business or clients, but that at very least may create distractions relevant to your world?

Recently, I was invited to attend “Navigating a World in Disruption,” the 12th edition of the International Economic Forum of the Americas’ (IEFA) Toronto Global Forum. This lively, open exchange of ideas and experience brought together more than 3500 delegates and 170 speakers representing more than 65 countries—a mix of disruptors, disrupted, and those distracted by disruption.

FYI: Terrific Places to Think: The four annual IEFA Forums are by design and reputation, places that connect attendees with world leaders and with each other. IEFA declares its mission: “to facilitate agreements, offer business opportunities and provide access to unique insights from leading specialists.”

Navigating a World in Disruption

The three-day Global Forum provided opportunities for business leaders, decisions makers, government representatives, and heads of state to discuss how organizations and economies can thrive amidst intense, seemingly-escalating economic, social, and environmental transformation. Speakers across the broad topic range acknowledged that political upheaval, reactive populism, and protectionism provide charged, distracting climates for businesses. This is a challenge as they are already coping, locally and internationally, with the growing list of disruptive technology: digital transformation, cyber risk, artificial intelligence, fintech, blockchain…and the list continues.

Listening to speakers and attendees revealed practical insights for professional practices, independent business, and entrepreneurial ventures intent on successfully “Navigating a World in Disruption.” My research on disruption definitions confirmed the importance of context.

Reducing external and internal distraction is crucial for individuals and organizations intent on building momentum to take advantage of disruption or avoiding negative effects. Here’s three practical examples:

  1. Cyber-Security:
    Instead of becoming easier, maintaining cyber-security has become more challenging. Often it is the seemingly-simple issues that are most distracting. For instance, weak-password-creation habits persist. Using the same password for multiple accounts is a reality that hackers have trained their efforts on. Do your passwords and those of your employees hold up to scrutiny? These same welcomed users may inadvertently compromise security by clicking on a hacked link or visiting a malware-infested website. When employees leave, how much of your organization’s cyber knowledge leaves with or because of them?
  2. Talent Searches:
    The hiring search for specific IT skills and experience has proven less valuable than unearthing genuine desire and innate ability to learn and share. IT can be learned, but emotional intelligence (EQ) is the socially-valued talent that should be a crucial target during hiring. EQ is an important contributor on many levels from cyber-security to anti- and pro-disruption innovation, among other productivity issues.
  3. Collaboration:
    This word has become a conveniently-evasive catchall that is often used to demonstrate inclusive thinking when little may have taken place. Rarely explained or defined, collaboration frequently remains underestimated and undervalued. Collaboration does not involve only the willingness to cooperate or share, or at least talk about it. Collaboration must include communication skills like active listening, negotiation, and persuasive engagement. For individuals and groups who did not receive communication training in the 20th Century or who concentrated on 21st-Century social media, the conscious use of communication skills like these may not be automatic. The other meaning of the word—collaborating with the enemy—may also detract from its potential. The wish or intent to collaborate may not be enough to create practical, functional exchanges and commitment. Those with the knowledge and experience to facilitate collaboration may have the advantage in navigating the world of disruption.

What are your definitions of “disruption” and “collaboration”?
How prepared are you and your clients for disruption in your industry or their worlds?

Are You An Ageist?

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When was the last time you wondered if you are an ageist, that is prejudice against age?

Even if you are approximately the same chronological age as your ideal clients and your peers, you may not be immune from ageism. This insidious prejudice could still be a strong negative influence.

Ageism or prejudice related to age which labels others as either “too young” or “too old” for certain things, is usually automatic and unconscious.

Most people, consciously and unconsciously, adopt different sets of stereotypes as their personal norm. For instance, individuals often apply their own standards to others whom they consider their equal in age. Since individuals usually see themselves as younger by a decade or more than others perceive them, effective communication can become complicated.

Even prospects or clients who are the same age as you, can believe themselves “too young” for some things and “too old” for others. This means they’ll decide this for you, too, whether you share their ageist standards or not.

Do not use age-related comments unless you know exactly why age is relevant to the discussion. It usually is not.</strong

For instance, to build rapport, professional advisors, who perceive new prospects to be older than they are, may use foot-in-mouth comments like “that’s just like my grandparents” or still bad “that’s just like my parents” to break the ice with these “older” people.

  • If prospects see the professionals as being of a similar age, the prospects may feel they have just been insulted.
  • If the prospects are older, the professionals may have lost credibility by pointing out the probably-irrelevant age difference.

How’s that rapport building coming along?

If you want to bring your thinking and communicating into the 21st Century, tackle ageist anchors which may hold you back, personally and professionally. When there is a difference in chronological age between you and your clients—in one direction or the other—you have opportunities to end ageist stereotypes and help clients appreciate themselves as individuals. Which ageist barriers stand in the way of your delivery of extreme service excellence?

Stereotypes represent bias and weakness in our knowledge and understanding. These mental shortcomings emerge as ageism, racism, sexism, and on the -isms go.

This disconnect is compounded by the fact that many of these perceived limitations and restrictions can be traced back to the 19th and 20th Centuries, if not before. Particularly shocking news if the 21st Century is the only one you’re worked or even lived in.

Consider ageism in yourself, your peers, your staff, and those who you answer to, including prospects and clients. Who believes the “too old” and “too young” labels? Remember, ageism is automatic and unconscious. Ramp up your powers of observation before you shrug this analysis off as unnecessary or start calling other people out before taking a long look at yourself.

Which effective communication strategies will achieve the greatest results with the maximum enrichment of relationships and workplace productivity? The key to improvement lies in appreciating individual uniqueness instead of repeating clichés and perpetuating prejudice in its most insidious form—humor. For instance, stop memory-lapse “jokes” like “I’m having a senior’s moment.” Become part of the solution.

How have you deliberately shed out-dated reactions and aligned your communication with 21st-Century realities about chronological age?

Inspiration Is Your Choice

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How do you become inspired?

Do you associate inspiration with classic external influences like heroic deeds and nature with its spectacular sunsets and much more?

In reality, whatever your setting, environment, or context, inspiration starts within each of us.

Inspiration is a conscious awakening of creativity, problem-solving, or your special interest or thinking style to reveal otherwise overlooked or untapped potential.

Inspiration involves stimulation of mind and emotions in response to something or someone when we pay attention. Observe something, someone, or some event and react to it by opening your mind to wonder: “How can this experience be interpreted or applied in a different context or to solve a different problem?” Now you’re inspired!

Inspiration is always all around us and within us. An endless and often surprising array of things, activities, problems, or creativity abounds to act as stimulus for a wide range of inspiration.

Summits and conventions are a significant source of fast-forward inspiration for me and my clients. An invitation to attend the recent 109th Rotary International Convention held the added attraction of its theme: “Inspiration around every corner.” I joined 24,000 Rotary members from 175 countries—a mini-United Nations.

  • International big-name speakers and special projects like peacebuilding and end polio inspired many. The showcase of projects presented tradeshow-style as the House of Friendship was inspiration central for me and thousands more.
  • Large-scale events charged up many attendees, but there was inspiration all around us. A chance happening really touched me. A few hundred Nigerian Rotarians, most in native dress, spontaneously burst into their national anthem as the picture-only broadcast of a World Cup Soccer match featuring Nigeria began. Their obvious joy at singing together was only second to my amazement that they all knew all the words and sang them with gusto. Maybe helping people learn to sing their national anthem with obvious enthusiasm is a worthwhile project?
  • I learned a lot from the many Rotary members from around the world that I met. When I asked, “What inspires you about this Convention?,” they all exuberantly told me. The most common response revolved around meeting and re-meeting friends and colleagues they had worked with and stayed with around the world. The many other inspirations gave me food for thought and helped me see fresh opportunity around me and for my clients.

 

What I am reminded of time and again is that self-inspiration or training yourself to remain curious and to wonder about everything is a powerful and under-utilized skill.

Instead, of keeping your eyes on a screen where things—largely marketing—are fed to you, maintain curiosity and wonder as you move through the real world. Consciously, take this constructive stance at least part of each day and you may get hooked.

About Rotary: Rotary ( rotary.org ) brings together a global network of community leaders dedicated to tackling the world’s most pressing humanitarian challenges. We connect 1.2 million members from more than 35,000 Rotary clubs in almost every country in the world. Their service improves lives both locally and internationally, from helping those in need in their own communities to working toward a polio-free world.

Social Purpose: Falotico & Inner Balance

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Social Purpose Drives Startups

Part 1. What’s Your Point? PODCAST

Launch Day Perspectives PODCAST

Entrepreneurs Lino Falotico and Alicia Zadravec of InnerBalanceWear.com candidly share thoughts on inner balance and on integrating social purpose into their business venture. Are you searching for social purpose to enrich your work, contribute to obvious local need, and reach out to new target groups? Listen in…

PODCAST Highlights: 18:53 minutes
00:48 Lino Falotico’s social purpose & inner balance
04:16 Epiphany…from caterer to designer
05:56 Lino: “I believe my product will…” invisible awareness
08:20 Lino: “20 seconds” next step after epiphany
09:49 Evolution of the business concept of Inner Balance
11:26 Alicia: “Why underwear…”
13:34 The practical side…manufacturing
16:39 7% of net proceeds to Mental Health Awareness…

Part 2. Article: “5 Tips for Successfully Pursuing Social Purpose”

Before you plunge into a new social venture, consider our social-purpose example and these 5 Tips for Successful Pursuit which reveal the driving force of social purpose. This article adopts the perspective of real estate and related financial professionals to explore integration of social purpose into a practice. Simple extrapolation into other professions and business ventures requires only a pinch of imagination. Plus more on Startup InnerBalanceWear.com…

Part 3. Where Does Humor Fit into Social Purpose?

Increasing numbers of professionals, entrepreneurs, and business owners want to integrate social purpose into their business venture. Their reasons for doing so, range from personal involvement to client-based concern. In all cases, if social purpose is poorly or sloppily handled, it can setback the cause and undermine business relationships.

When social purpose is your intent, you’ll probably have to address sensitive topics and discuss subjects that can cause offense or upset. Language has evolved over this century to include more and more topics previously rarely spoken of. Have we improved our communication skills or vocabulary to be sure the point can be made clearly and sensitively?

Before you plunge into marketing and sales content and campaigns to spread the word about your social purpose, make sure you won’t get tripped by ignorance or blind-sided by overlooked perspectives. For instance, when considering your social purpose, invest time analyzing where humor comes in and where it definitely doesn’t fit:

  • Don’t assume your taste, experience, or education dictates what others think or react to. Consider the long list of social media “foot in mouth” incidents from the well-meaning.
  • Research the history of your social subject to clarify persistent misconceptions. Talk to those who really know about a subject and you’ll discover an amazing list of things the public misunderstand. Communicating your perspective will involve clarifying this confusion and make you a recognized expert.
  • Expand your understanding of related issues rather than investigating your social issue as if it exists in isolation. If you are already involved in the social issue, you may be too close to see the big picture. If you’ve only recently come across this issue, there may be a lot to learn.
  • Do you know enough about those who are directly and indirectly affected by this social issue? Assumptions are dangerous and often counter-productive.
  • Avoid impromptu responses, discussions, or interviews until professional communicators have helped you. They will clarify your social message, the match between this message and your business issues, and what you want to change about the current social situation. Start with clear simple messages and that will attract experts as well as those directly involved. These people will help build momentum for the cause that they also believe in.

Humor can add another element of complexity

If the social purpose involves changing views that included laughing at people or their behavior, then misunderstandings can complicate the situation. Remember that humor is an attitude. You’ll understand that changing the perspectives on your chosen subject will involve permanently shifting attitudes. How does that align with the client education that helps clients achieve the best results when they use your products or services?

Humor is not always about the punchline or a belly laugh. Often it revolves around every-day occurrences and involvements. When humor is properly applied, attention spans increase and learning increases:

  • Humor can bring people together quickly or widen the divide between them. What are the tensions associated with the social purpose you’re considering? Will humor reduce those tensions or could it inadvertently increase stress?
  • Humor can reveal common ground, common misconceptions, and the silly side of misunderstandings and miscommunication. Jokes and stories that make fun of others can build barriers and entrench resentment. What language, stereotypes, or misconception could build barriers?
  • If you want to use humor to raise morale, build teams, and enhance rapport to build awareness of the issues associated with your selected social purpose, you must understand the issues from all perspectives.
  • Humor may provide strong ways to offer coping mechanisms for those involved during the transition or in the new solutions you propose. People like working and volunteering in positive, optimistic workplaces, so humor will become an asset when intelligently and appropriately applied.

Just because you can get a laugh or tell jokes well, does not mean you understand how to professionally communicate with humor.

The unpracticed speaker often repeats catchphrases and cliché which perpetuate ageism, sexism, and other prejudices. Some people will tell you directly that you have made a serious misstatement, but social media is driven by those who’ll tell others, with much embellishment, about your misstep.

How helpful can you be to your social cause if you cannot communicate the point of your social purpose clearly in every medium, on all platforms your targets frequent?

For more on Forward Thinking, visit these posts:

For more on PJ’s work as The Catalyst, visit www.TheCatalyst.com

Marketing Involves Distraction, Good & Bad

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Businesses and professionals, with good or bad intentions, create distraction.

Marketing, advertising, and promotion intentionally distract targets—consumers or business-to-business decision makers, depending on the business.

These self-serving communication approaches refocus prospect and client attention on the company (its products or services) which pays for the marketing and promoting.

In this highly-distracting world, do your target prospects and clients see genuine value in the additional distractions you subject them to?

  • Your marketing and promotion distract target prospects and clients in an attempt to shift their focus toward your service or products. You consider this interference “good distraction.” Would your target prospects and clients agree?
  • Competitors’ marketing and promotion distracts your target prospects and clients away from your company and toward competitors’ products or services. Would you consider this interference “bad distraction”? Would your prospects and clients agree with you?

I am someone’s target prospect. So are you.

This means we are regularly distracted and interfered with in the name of marketing, advertising, and promotion, whether we want to be or not.

Are you always caught by a marketing or promotion message at the best possible time to make a buying decision for that product or service?

Even if you’re interested, don’t these messages often catch you in the middle of something that is as, or more important, to you than spending your money in response to someone else’s distracting marketing or promotion message? How do you feel about the value of these marketing, advertising, promotional, and other self-serving messages in view of the time they cost you?

Emails and online advertising are honed and data-manipulated to attract select prospects and clients, but these intrusive sales pitches can miss their mark when timing is off—distraction plus.

When the sender—that’s the marketer or promoter—decides what’s the “best” timing for them, not targets. When targets find the messages unnecessary or untimely, the resulting distraction can be a nuisance, an annoyance, an interruption, or a major turn-off.

How are you sure that your marketing and promotion messages carry value in their own right? Is the timing ideal for targets or is the message just a waste of time? Do your selected prospects and clients respond to your marketing, advertising, and promotion? Would your targets label your messages “good distractions”?

From The Target’s Perspective

Targets can be distracted by the cloud of marketing, promotion, and advertising you, your competition, and your industry surround them with, online and off. These distractions can keep target prospects and clients from making clear, confident buying or selling decisions which are in their own best interest.

What is your full intent when marketing?

Most of us are consumers of real estate and its related services in our personal or business lives. This means you may relate to the following example of how one aspect of distraction affects real estate buyers. Prospects and buyers can be diverted from clear thinking and decision making by real estate marketing, promotion, and other deliberate marketing distractions.

Take a look at “Seven Essentials for Buying a Safe Home:”

“In dazzling summer sunshine, everything in a home looks great. But…and it’s a big but! Buyers can be distracted by strategic staging, clever decor, and time pressures.
They benefit from stepping back to determine whether the home they’re considering will require expensive additions or overhauls to keep everyone safe—not just this summer, but every day of the year. As well as any safety concerns specific to your family, there are seven main safety issues that should be top of mind for buyers of houses, townhomes, or condominiums. How long is your safety list when home shopping?” Continue reading…

Are you aware how your marketing, advertising, and other communication distractions could intentionally or unintentionally undermine targets’ decision making?

Is distraction an intended or an unintended consequence of your determined outreach to prospects and clients?

For more on effective client communication and for client retention insight:

Roots of Resistance to Change

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Roots of Resistance to change—yours and clients’—can cause problems and distractions.

Reactions to change, whatever they are based on, are most disruptive when they arise between professionals and their prospects and clients, especially when a transaction is involved. Resistance to change is usually grounded in frustration, vulnerability, past experience, or miscommunication, not in change itself:

  • Resistance can arise when the interests of one individual or group seem to be, or are, ignored, misinterpreted, or disadvantaged by others.
  • Entrenched roots of stereotypes and prejudice in one group may lead to other individuals or groups being labeled “resistant to new ideas or procedures” before they actually reveal their true reactions.

Roots: Resistance to change is not always the wrong reaction, nor is it always negative.
 Continue reading →

Outsourcing: Knowledge Attracts Knowledge

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Professionals who employ their depth of knowledge to service clients, appreciate genuine expertise in others.

In delivering consistently high-quality services, professionals often have to outsource some or all of the work.

The challenge lies in locating complimentary services and products sold by professionals who also possess deep commitment to honing their expertise.

Tradeshows and conventions are terrific environments for discovering outstanding skills, products, and expertise without the hollow ring of “showing off” that marketing and advertising content can introduce.

For example, the annual IDS—Interior Design Show—is a professional-on-professional trade show that also invites end users to enjoy the mix of innovation and sustainability. If you’d like to observe professional communication in action, this is a great place to start.

Ask IDS Exhibitor Michael Pourvakil of Weavers Art about his business creating “the world’s most beautiful rugs” and it’s not long before he is extolling the value of professional interior designers.

Pourvakil explained, “The best products and best services are shown to advantage by interior designer expertise.”

The value of Weavers Art products and services is embodied in the “rugaholics”—Pourvakil and his staff—who curate the extensive and continually changing, internationally-sourced inventory.

They know that their expertise is amplified by the expertise of interior designers. At Weavers Art, they understand that this dictates their job is doing all they can to ensure working with Weavers Art is the best decision each designer makes.

Pourvakil stressed they do not sell on price since handmade rugs do not come down in price in a world where labor costs are increasing. The focus is peace of mind for all concerned which makes clear, accurate communication essential in every stage from design and creation to installation of the finished custom rug.

  • Does the process of servicing your clients involve the exacting delivery of products or service by other professionals? If so, how do you identify genuine talent and commitment when outsourcing? Or is price/cost the main focus?
  • How do you ensure you understand the specific value—from your point of view and your clients’—of outsourced professional expertise?
  • What steps do you take to guarantee respect for expertise—therefore, communication—works both ways and always benefits your clients?

Back to HOME… TheCatalyst.com

Social Media As Defined By Your Target

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The social media that drove your business and defined your target through start-up, may not be the social media that fosters equally amazing future growth.

That’s a reality to consider before you assume it’s full steam ahead with the social media platform you built the business around. Or before something happens to the platform: it’s snapped up by a giant, algorithms are changed, or your defined target market is swept on to the next new thing.

You may be comfortable moving forward along the same social media path that has gotten you this far, but prolonged status quo rarely works in any aspect of business. For instance, the skills and knowledge that enabled you to grow your businesses through start up, are not the abilities and capabilities that facilitate mature business growth.

The choice of which social media to build services and products around should probably not have been yours in the first place. Ideally, you began by identifying the target or preferred client group or groups that would would place the highest value on what you offer, whether it is a product, software, skill training, or any other B2B or B2C product or service. Target social media preferences and usage patterns dictated yours and defined your social media.

(If you were first drawn to a new or emerging platform and then to key groups using it, you’ll still find, over time, user tastes and needs shift and changes to the platform may not favor your business.)

Which of the two classic client service patterns represents your high priority target clients?

1. “Temporary” Clients/Niche Specific:
Your product or service is valued at a specific stage, for an identifiable niche, or for short-term use. Your business is designed to continually cultivate new “waves” of clients at that same high-usage stage. Acquiring new clients is high priority. For instance, clients may only need your products or services during start-up mode for businesses or during university years for individuals. These clients remain loyal during this time and then their need or interest in the product or service ends and they move on. If their client experience with you was positive, they may refer you to your targets.

2. “Permanent” Clients/Across Niches:
Your product or service is valued over each client’s lifetime or for long-term use. Your business is designed to “permanently” retain and maintain existing clients over years or decades, if not forever. Retaining existing clients is high priority. For instance, your business takes clients through a lifetime or all the growth stages of a business. Clients remain loyal “forever.”

The social media used by “temporary” client types may be different from that which attracts “permanent” client types. At least, how they use and engage will differ even within the same platform. The difference may also lie in which combinations of social media and technology targets use.

Would your prime target client group be considered “temporary” or “permanent?”
How does their social media usage reflect this pattern?
What’s next for your clients?

Defining your target client includes knowing how to anticipate their social media needs.

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