Category Archives: Shared Experience

Defy Mediocrity & Resistance

How do you defy mediocrity to overcome resistance?

Developing the ability to unknow allows you to freshly apply your expertise in existing or new contexts to overcome resistance in yourself and others.

In times of change, this resourcefulness is the most powerful communication lesson experience teaches us.

Unknowing—that is, consciously letting go of existing patterns and behaviors to embrace change—challenges professionals and their clients. Many find it difficult to alter their immediate reactions. They overlook the need to shed and ignore the benefits of shedding related habits in behavior and decision making.

One key reason is that, although they say their intentions may have changed, context does not.

Merely saying “I’ll try to…” when stuck in the same frame of reference and with the same mind-set, means they are destined to repeat their established behavior.

Predictable or reflex reactions are frequently associated with communication errors. With experience, these often-dated mind-sets can be anticipated and counteracted before miscommunication occurs. That corrective communication process is an essential element of the established and emerging services you are paid to deliver to clients.

What have you learned by observing communication errors made by clients, colleagues, and competitors as they deal with challenges, including flawed decision making? If you do not test errors like these for cause and effect, you can drift into mediocrity.

You’ll miss opportunities to head-off repeat mistakes and misunderstanding, which often materialize as resistance, and chances to save others from the same fate.

The following are three examples of opportunities to expand a client base, increase sustainable revenue, and eliminate miscommunication that are often missed:
1. What convinced you to stop looking for someone else to blame and started you understanding the chain of events and communication flaws that cause undesired outcomes, including resistance to change?
2. Which social-media-related communication problems and solutions do you anticipate will challenge you, your target prospects, and your clients?
3. How do you minimize problems and lower resistance to make your online-delivered solutions, including products, services, and standards, easier for targets to further customize?

Successfully heading off communication mistakes for you and your clients means adapting the way you think and communicate to ensure you are always steps ahead. Instead of reacting to what happens, anticipate prospect and client reactions to minimize miscommunication, misunderstandings, and missed opportunity—all elements of resistance to change.

When this proactive skill is perfected into consciously-ingrained communication ability, opportunity is rarely overlooked or discounted.

© 2021  Copyright   PJ Wade The Catalyst   “What’s Your Point?  Cut The Crap, Hit The Mark & Stick!” All rights reserved.

Achievable Focus Essential to Success

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.

Is Payment Not Privacy The Answer?

“There’s big money in your personal data—for others. Why not you? It’s your data, after all.

If you were paid for the use of the digital data you generate—that is, you shared directly in the benefits that draw corporations to this juicy financial frontier—would privacy be an issue?”

How would your clients or customers respond to this income-generating perspective on who benefits from the data they create through their social media interaction and digital transactions?

If your business or practice stresses a strong client-centric mission—like “our clients come first”—is it ethical to use client data to earn profit without respecting clients’ role in its creation and sharing a “piece of the action” with them? Their share could be income or reduction of service fees, interest rates, or other valued service factors.

Sharing All But Profit

The “everyone else does it” argument for cutting data-creating clients out of sharing data-based profits may be wearing thin for these client users, especially as they bear the brunt of data-related risk:

  • Facebook (FB) has granted access or shared FB users’ data with Amazon, Netflicks, and others, but what did FB users get out of this business exchange? FB users were not asked for their permission to allow FB to earn money or engage in business relationships like these with corporations and who knows who else. When social media corporations like FB insist they “do not sell but share” user data, this still means they make money, but consumers do not and consumers may have their privacy jeopardized in the process.
  • The “free” online features and services that initially dazzled users have become compromised and degraded by practices centered on corporate goals and profit, not value for data-generating users.
  • Efforts to manipulate users to spend more time on social media platforms are directed at increasing value to advertisers and at generating revenue, not at client goals. For instance, when user viewing drops, FB sends out intrusive updates designed to entice engagement.
  • Privacy breaches and identity theft are becoming the norm. Will the ease of online shopping and communicating become overshadowed by data vulnerability, hacker devastation, and lack of compensation for data violation?
  • The big data bite comes from Artificial Intelligence (AI), which uses massive data banks of user information and digital activity to generate savings, efficiencies, revenue opportunities, share price increases, clout increases, and service provision for corporate benefit. Haven’t users earned a piece of the action?
  • Technology makes creating and tracking micro-transactions very doable. The degree of detail possible to collect and categorize data could make tracking each transaction in a shared-benefits arrangement straightforward. That’s blockchain. This means that attributing a reasonable percentage to the user who created the date is practical. Repeat use of the data would create a stream of income for users. Will sharing become the new brand loyalty strategy?

For Clarity: Don’t confuse this suggestion of payment with loyalty-reward-point programs which concentrate on gaining repeat business for the corporation—a grocery store, credit card, airline…. Consumers often pay higher prices and are limited to specific spending patterns to gain benefits—not dollar-for-dollar by a long stretch. This involves consumers spending and then jumping through hoops to receive benefits with earned-reward points they must keep track of to manage expiry dates.

New Client-Retention Frontier

Online users realize that the continuous treasure trove of data arises from every digital thing we do each day, each hour. It’s making corporations richer and more powerful. Online users are only now understanding that all their data adds up to big money for others, not for them. Corporate spokespeople—from FB’s Zuckerberg on down—talk about the importance of user privacy, but do not give privacy or respect for users priority over profiting from users’ personal data—considered the juicy corporate profit-center.

Privacy laws are emerging, but they offer too little advance protection for users. Penalties may be as ineffective as license-to-pollute fines levied against environmental violators. The 2018 EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) [ https://eugdpr.org/ ], California’s 2020 privacy law, and emerging regulations are one approach to protecting privacy, but most, if not all,  protection provided occurs after the fact: after sharing, breach, misuse….

Missed Opportunity?

Do your clients or customers understand exactly where you and your organization stand regarding respect of client privacy and full disclosure of benefits gained from using their data, perhaps without preserving privacy?

Is this a new client-retention frontier for earning valuable client trust?

Outsourcing: Knowledge Attracts Knowledge

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?

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Expansion Demands Preparation

Q: How do you reach out globally to evaluate the potential of a country you want to target for expansion before investing heavily?

A: Find a global conference or think tank that features speakers and business experts knowledgeable about your chosen international market.

When “global” is the big issue, conference organizers will include embassy, trade, banking, and other dignitaries. This means a two- or three-day conference can place you in face-to-face contact with highly-knowledgeable, well-connected experts who are knowledgeable about the market you value for expansion.

This combined “been there, done that” expertise can save you from expensive dead-end inquires and false-starts. I known entrepreneurs who used this type of contact-rich investigation opportunity and discovered their business was not the exact match that they expected. I’ve known even more entrepreneurs who found that attending a global summit opened was like an advance screening and opened doors for them that they never knew existed. Contacts made during the conference may lead to introductions for the first country visit that amplify progress.

Intellectually-stimulating global conferences and forums allow engagement with business people who know from experience. For instance, discussions concerning the relevance of North American best practices can save a lot of time and help avoid offending cultural norms when visiting the target country. This is networking at its best—if you are prepared!

Merely showing up with a fist full of business cards or a snazzy web presence is not enough.

Preparation for global expansion involves investigating the target country, so you can articulate why this country is your best expansion choice. This preparation will enable intelligent exchanges with those who know what you do not and will help you learn how to make the right expansion match:

  • Details of population, culture, traditions, and geography are as important as legal and financial frameworks and economic policies.
  • Where politics are dramatically different, issues regarding civil rights, rule of law, and foreign (that’s you) requirements will define your project. This is where professional expertise will be essential.
  • Don’t expect others to do the thinking for you. Know what you need to know from your business’ perspective. Understand which types of professionals to search out when at the conference. Aim to discover where your thinking and knowledge may be off and how to avoid mistakes obvious to decision makers in your target country.

The more prepared you are to make your point, that is, communicate the advantages of doing business with you and your company, the luckier you’ll be.

“Chance favors the prepared mind.” — Louis Pasteur

More

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Entrepreneurship: What’s Your Edge?

Serial entrepreneur Tunde Kehinde’s successful mimic of Amazon astounded Africa—and many others, too. Now, he fosters entrepreneurship across the emerging African market of 1 billion…and beyond.

Dynamic entrepreneur Tunde Kehinde, with three successful start-ups to his credit and another well on the way, shared ideas on entrepreneurship and emerging markets as a speaker, panelist, and attendee at the recent Global Forum. I had the privilege of speaking with Kehinde privately to explore entrepreneurship further.

Listening to Kehinde explain his business theories and strategies, I was struck by one question: “What gives Tunde Kehinde his unique entrepreneurial edge?

The list of career highlights for this man—who has many more decades ahead—is already impressive. When matched with essential entrepreneurial skills, the list explains a lot about his serial success, but not everything…

  • Nigerian Kehinde credits his education and work experience as the foundation of his entrepreneurial success. A finance major, he earned an MBA at Harvard Business School. Hands-on experience as a business development executive with Diageo in London and as an Investment Banking professional with Wachovia Securities in North Carolina and New York City revealed the difference between theory and reality. This experience accounts for his solid foundation in analysis, quick thinking, and flexibility, but it’s only the beginning.
  • This impressive communicator has a warm, natural style and a creative command of public speaking that facilitates his delivery of his point in any context. For all these reasons, he was a popular Forum speaker. One media colleague referred to him as a “rock star” since each time he spoke, lines of attendees gathered, eager to speak with him and snap a pic. Essential communication skills and salesmanship often separate successful entrepreneurs from those who merely have a good idea, but there’s more to this.
  • Kehinde’s track record has created a credibility and momentum that makes future success almost predictable:
  1. Kehinde began by co-founding Bandeka.com, an online dating platform identified by Forbes Magazine as one of the hottest tech start-ups in Africa.
  2. Then, he saw the need for a version of Amazon that would fill infrastructure and other system gaps for Africa and Jumia.com emerged as Nigeria’s leading ecommerce platform. As Co-Founder and former Managing Director of Jumia, Kehinde helped grow the business from 5 employees to almost 1,000 to serve customers across Nigeria.
  3. Next, he emerged as the Co-Founder and Co-Managing Director of Africa Courier Express (ACE) (www.ace.ng), a technology-driven logistics platform, that enables ecommerce companies, financial institutions, and healthcare businesses to ship items directly to consumers across Nigeria. ACE shipped to almost 400,000 customers and collected payments on behalf of 1,000 merchants. ACE plans to expand across Africa.
  4. To address financial and banking barriers for ACE clients, merchants, entrepreneurs, and the growing African online middle class, Kehinde co-launched Lidya.co which offers easy, reliable, secure online access to finances.

What gives Tunde Kehinde his unique entrepreneurial edge?

When I explained to Kehinde that I had met entrepreneurs with credentials similar to his that explained his and their polished professionalism, he nodded. When I went on to say that I saw more than the sum of these parts in his ability, magnetism, and calm resolve, he smiled. When I asked, “How’d you get so smart?” He laughed and began to explain…

Acknowledging the importance of education, career opportunities, and practical start-up experience, Kehinde revealed that his parents were both entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurial mind set was ingrained in him. That’s what makes the difference for him.

That’s the key to a powerful entrepreneurial edge: a clear inner, empowering “you can do it” voice.

This inner determination is either instilled early in life or deliberately acquired later. Parents who embody entrepreneurial drive and repeat entrepreneurial sentiments to their children can be powerful role models. The resulting family environment, can make the business drive to succeed part of both conscious and unconscious thinking and decision making in the next generation.

Family is what gave Kehinde a very early start and a unique entrepreneurial edge. He’s taken it from there.

What gives you your entrepreneurial edge?

Even if your parents were not in business and never encouraged you—or, perhaps were even a discouraging force—that inner certainty came from somewhere. The more conscious you are of how your certainty arose, the more in control of it you’ll be, even in the toughest times.

For more from Tunde Kindhe…see “Harnessing the Potential of Emerging Middle-Class Markets” in “Explore New Markets At A Global Forum

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Part 2: Framework Responsive to Millennials

Mobile-friendly or responsive websites and online content are vital if you aim to attract and serve millennials.

Research proved to Boston-based social enterprise Framework Homeownership, LLC that mobile-savvy millennials make up more than 35% of the target for their national online home buyer course, so creating a mobile-friendly or responsive version of their highly-regarded home education resource was a “no brainer.”

For-profit Framework arose out of the combined efforts of two leading national nonprofits that share empowerment mandates to build strong communities: the Housing Partnership Network and the Minnesota Homeownership Center. The social enterprise has two main directives:

  1. Access: Any time, anywhere, anyone…responsive home education which sets a high standard for home buying and home ownership
  2. Revenue Sharing: Framework’s future lies in partnerships—profits shared with non-profits and for-profits intent on serving their real-estate-intent clients with unbiased online education.

Framework’s Holly Mott, Vice President of Brand Marketing, reports that almost 80,000 Americans from all 50 states have completed the online course since its creation in 2013—including more than 49,000 this year!

Even if real-estate-intent millennials are not your prime target, you can learn a lot from how strategically this innovative home education organization serves users and partners.

Framework has done many things right in communicating its “responsive” intent in all senses of the word:

  • The online course, with optional downloadable content, is available in English for platforms from mobile to desktop. (The Spanish version is not yet mobile friendly.)
  • The course has proven to be such a strong buyer-be-aware starting point that Fannie Mae made it an eligibility requirement for a major program. Wells Fargo and others see the value of home education for their clients.
  • The fee is counterbalanced by readily-available discounts and coupons (scholarships) from advisory partners and growing numbers of lending and real estate professionals.
  • Framework acknowledges that expanding product offerings and applications is essential for continued connections. For instance, free monthly email content concentrates on what new homeowners need to know. The expanding national network of free, unbiased expert advisors (not salespeople) keeps millennials and other buyers, sellers, and borrowers coming back to Framework.
  • Mott says they broke start-up rules by launching in 2012 with just one product—the online course. However, Framework has built significant credibility by developing the best-possible, high-standard responsive course and online platform. This effort is very deliberately balanced by establishment of an industry-wide advisory and partnership network. Now, next steps can be giant steps. Three new products are in the R&D phase. Future plans will transform the responsive site into a revolutionary online platform to create new national standards for home-buying and ownership education and to let consumers, including millennials, reap the real estate rewards.

How responsive is your online presence?
Do you understand your target markets well enough to be responsive—online and off—to what they want and to what they may not realize they need from you?

Resource:
To learn more about Framework:

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Part 1: Are You Responsive?

More and more people are using their phone to search the net. This means your net presence must quickly make a vital user-friendly statement. What message do you deliver when your website or online courses are not responsive?

Google™-recommended Responsive Web Design is the most common method of achieving mobile-friendly web pages configured to look great on the small screens of smartphones and other mobile devices. Search engines favor this user-friendly design. Responsive uses computer code that responds differently to different screen sizes, but ensures page displays remain similar and readable on any mobile device.

Are you asking users and target clients to deal with non-responsive websites and online content that are stuck in the “desktop dark ages?” They’ll probably vote “no way” by clicking on the mobile-friendly competition.

If your target market is mobile savvy, engage them on their terms. Transforming your website, blog, and online content into mobile-friendly territory is essential. Take time to decide which change strategy is most compatible with your short- and long-term goals and those of target clients:

  1. Nowhere Fast: Those who find little or no business comes to them over the internet may decide there is no need for responsive design. (There is a very good business case for going responsive and optimizing the site to gain traffic, leads, and referrals, but that’s another article, for another time.)
  2. Halfway There: Blogs are not automatically responsive. For instance, WordPress  (WP), which accounts for almost 25% of internet activity, offers many mobile-friendly templates or themes, however, earlier WP blog templates were not responsive. Even now, new bloggers do not have to choose responsive themes. Check it out: Transforming your non-responsive WordPress blog and website may merely involve switching to a responsive theme.
  3. All the Way: The process of transforming a website to responsive is not as simple as switching templates. Coding changes are just the beginning. Design—including layout, fonts, images, and site navigation—will need modification to optimize smaller reading “windows.” Then, there’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to consider. Although this may be an opportune time for a full-site overhaul of content, navigation, and all related marketing elements, a phased-in re-do or scaled-down site are other alternatives. A big job with a big budget? If the website drives your business, delay will be even more expensive. Action: In some cases, recreating the site as a responsive WP site may be faster and less expensive. Google suggests  other ways to optimize for mobile search.

Are YOU responsive? This post explores communicating your value and intentions using technology. “Responsive” means much more. In both the technical and relationship sense of this word, how do you manage client and partner interfaces including websites and online interactive content? Closing the gap between what target prospects and clients value and need and what you offer enhances your relevance and responsiveness. That’s what credibility means to targets.

Resource: What’s Your Point?

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Sao Miguel coast

Itinerary: 12 Days in the Azores

Itinerary: 12 days in the Azores

My first visit to the Azores, Portugal’s mid-Atlantic archipelago, landed me on São Miguel for a month and hooked me on this green-blue island, the largest of the nine islands. My recent 12-day trip combined a return to São Miguel and brief visits to three new islands: Faial, Pico, and Terceria. Now, I’m hooked on the Azores and I still have 5 more islands to go.

This adventure introduced a significant element of context. The Azores trip followed a month traveling throughout mainland Portugal, so how did my view of the mainland—its people, culture, and countryside—color my latest island explorations?

For now, I’m resisting the urge to rave about the natural beauty of the Azores—the stunning landscapes, striking coastlines, rolling green farm fields lined by blue Hydrangeas, inspiring sunrises and sunsets, colorful red-roofed homes, artistically cobblestoned plazas and streets…and much more. The accompanying photos were hard to select because the Azores is paradise for a photographer (or artist or traveler of any kind).

In subsequent posts, I’ll share ideas, observations, and inspiration from the Azores relevant to this whatsyourpoint blog’s themes: perspectives on context, extreme service excellence, entrepreneurship, meeting dynamics, and related communication topics, as well as suggestions for your trip to the Azores.

If you want travel details now, visit the Azores Promotion Board’s www.visitazores.com The regional airline, Azores Airlines, offers direct flights from North America: www.azoresairlines.pt

My itinerary: Courtesy of SATA Azores Airlines
Day 1: Leave Lisbon Portugal 12:30; arrive Ponta Delgado, São Miguel 13:45

Day 6: Leave Ponta Delgado 8:20; did not arrive at Horta, Faial at 9:20 but diverted to Pico Island airport because of fog on Faial. Short tour of Pico and then ferry ride to Horta, Faial.

Day 10: Leave Faial airport 11:20; arrive Terceira Island

Day 12: Leave Terceira 16:45

Why do I say the right hotel makes your visit?

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CUBITAT: Think Around The Box

CUBITAT, a 10’x10’x10′ (3-meter cube) with “plug and play elements” that seamlessly reveal and hide the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, laundry, entertainment area, and storage.

Exploring CUBITAT revealed the potential for future flexibility and mobility in the way we live, treat our “stuff,” and invest in ownership. The CUBITAT Project examines how our “stuff” and life functions could fit into a self-contained cube.

Take this concept a few steps further and consider that we could move the cube, or have it moved for us, when it was time for a change. This could foster Continue reading