Recently I was on the street in a downtown area, and I came across a group of young people with clipboards.

One of them engaged me to share the plight of the polar bears, and all the bad things that are happening to them because of global warming.

My policy on donating to charities is twofold:
1. I have a group of organizations that align closely with my values to which I donate the bulk of my charitable contributions, and
2.  If someone has a good pitch, I’ll usually give them something — 10 or 20 or 50 dollars, because I respect the work they are doing.

OK.  So I want to help the Polar Bears…

I didn’t need to hear a long story about the Polar Bears. I understood the issue.
I cared.

This young woman was selling her heart out so I said, I’ll give you $50.  She said, “I can’t take cash”, what you need to do is sign up here for an ongoing monthly contribution.  Your credit card will be billed each month for the amount you choose. (The lowest monthly contribution on the form was $20.)

I understand you can’t take cash, I said, but I am not going to sign up for a monthly donation.  Can’t you check off somewhere on your form that this donation is a 1-time payment?  NO.  And then she proceeded to tell me why I was wrong to ask.

How to prevent your customers from giving you money

So let me get this straight.  Here is a chance to get my name, my email, and my credit card information – and $50.  And the opportunity to remind me forever after about the polar bears, or other related causes, and ask me for another contribution.  And the answer is NO, we can’t do that…

So I started thinking about all the things businesses do to prevent their customers from giving them money.

The root of it is that buying is an emotional decision at any level for any product or service.

In the mood…

I thought it was very well put by a shop owner I know in Carmel which is a fairly wealthy town.  Earlier in the year he was telling me, “It’s really hard.  Clearly, my customers have money, that’s not the issue.  The issue is that they are not in the mood to spend it right now”.

Think about that.  The opportunity of having a customer who is in the mood to buy.  Wouldn’t you want to do everything possible to tip them over the edge to buy from you, right now, while they are in the mood?

I was in the mood to help the polar bears.  I was turned away.

If you have a customer who is in the mood to give you money right now.  Take it!

More income-prevention techniques

Here are some additional things I have seen businesses do to “break the mood”, and fail to close the deal.

1. We don’t offer this as a product, only as a service.  Or, we don’t offer this as a service, only as a product.  Know how your customers want to buy what you offer, and offer it the right way.  Yes, it’s hard for you, but that’s why you get the profits — from dealing with the hard parts and making it easy for the customers to get what they want.

2. “Please call us to order”. No online purchase option. Then staff the call center with incompetent, annoying people, who can’t help, or answer questions, let alone sell.

3. We don’t’ take American Express. Get over it.  It’s a little more expensive to you as a merchant.  But people like using their Amex card, and often have business reasons to do so.  You are just demonstrating that you are not a real business.

4. This product isn’t available yet – well sell something that IS, now, and include an upgrade to the thing they want later.

5. Continuing to sell after the person is ready to buy.  There’s almost nothing more annoying.  Once the customer wants to buy – STOP selling!!

6. Or the ego play. The big executive likes to be the one to officially close the deal and do the smiling and handshaking.  So the working rep gets everything done for the close, but then has to wait for the exec’s calendar to free up to put on the big show.  Just close the deal!  The customer is in the mood to buy NOW.

Dear Charity Organizations,
In my humble opinion, you should give this army of enthusiastic young people (not to mention the polar bears) a chance, and let them close the deal on one-time contributions and get email addresses of actual donors that you can upsell later.  They are working their hearts out for you,  and you have tied their hands.  I’ve since, been similarly approached in two more cities, and my one-time donation refused.  PS. Because i wrote the blog post, I have made a donation to help the endangered polar bears.  But in general, by the time I get back to my computer and have the chance to go to your website, find the program I was interested in, to make a one-time donation, I am no longer in the mood.

Remember, Your product and your value proposition are only part of the reason people buy. If all of that is great, getting them to part with their money is still a personal, human, emotional action.

Whether you are selling shoes, subscriptions, or enterprise technology, make sure you don’t miss the mood.

Related Articles on Customer Care:

Customer Cost or Care?
Customer Value and the P&L
Service or Torture?

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… of this month’s Webinar:
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Here’s a Preview:

1. Doing an excellent job at your job is critical, but it doesn’t make you Stand Out – it makes you Average.  You need to do stuff on purpose with the specific intention of standing out.

2.  DO Better, Look Better, and Connect Better – A combination of all three is required.  Standing Out happens when excellent work that has a high impact on the business, is visible, and has the support of key stakeholders.  Missing any one can get you stuck.

3.  Know what Stand Out behaviors look like as opposed to Average & Invisible ones, and build your plan to stand out.

4. DO Better: (The Work) Develop Stand Out behaviors in the areas of getting the right FEW things done, Raising the Bar, Increasing Capacity, and Changing the Game

5.  LOOK Better: (Credibility) Develop Stand Out behaviors in the areas of Relevance & High Impact Communications.

6. CONNECT Better (People) develop Stand Out behaviors in the areas of Leading, Mentoring, and Networking.

7. Look to your core strengths, and Personal Brand and choose areas to stand out where you can easily excel, and that will give you a chance to demonstrate what you most want to be known for.  This is your power alley.

8. Know what is most relevant to the business and make sure you map your Stand Out investments to things the business really cares about.

9. Get Started. Do your current job really well first, then make room to do more, and then pick 1 or 2 Stand Out behaviors you can do on purpose.

10.  If you are in a job search or just starting a job, make sure how you communicate about yourself  demonstrates some Stand Out traits.

Get the Podcast!

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Cost:
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If there is any secret in being the one who wins the job — it’s to do start doing the job before you are in it.

There are lots of people looking for work right now.

And there are also many people trying to position themselves for a promotion.

If you want to have the advantage here are some ideas:

Do your first month on the job before you get to the interview

Learn everything you can about the company, the people, the competition, the customers and the market.

Go into your interview with your deliverables:

• An assessment of the current state
• Challenges and opportunities
• A desired outcome description of the future state
• A straw-man list of strategic priorities
• Key initiatives to fill the gap
• A list of problems to be solved
• A list of key communications necessary to support the work

This give you three advantages:

1. It is a great way to demonstrate that you get the requirements and you are able to work at the right level.  You are showing you are not going to get lost in the detail, and will focus on those elements of the role that will have the biggest impact on the business.

2. It shows them how you think and work. It’s hard to know people in an interview.  Your work will give them a way to really understand how you will perform.  This will make them comfortable about what they will “get” if the get you.  That gives you a leg up.

3. You will have already added value to their business. If you do this well, they will see you in the job, doing the job, and will  get addicted to the work you are doing.  So they will want you to keep doing it!

Work this into the interview and conversation

During the interview, present your work, ask questions about it and get feedback. It’s pretty easy to work it in.  Sure you have to answer their questions, but not for the whole time.

When someone asks, “How would you handle this?” or “What have you done?” you can say,

“Well actually, I did an assessment of the business and I found two key areas that I believe need significant attention. Could I ask you some questions about that to see if I got this right?…”

Bring in External Feedback

Make sure to bring in an external, customer-experience, outside voice into your evaluation of the business.

There are many good reasons for this:

• It makes you appear really smart — you come across like an industry expert.
• Having information about customer, competitor, analyst and media reactions to the business shows that you know where the real drivers for the business are.
• Having a broad set of external inputs shows that you have a strong personal network that you can use for other things.
• They are not hearing this from most of the other internal candidates who are coming to the interview with an internal view.
• They are not hearing this from all of the external candidates either – it’s a real chance to stand out.

Caution: It’s not about what you have done

The underlying thought in all of this is that you don’t want to be talking about what you have done as much as how you will DO the job you are interviewing for.

Doing the job ahead of time ensures that you will come across as someone who is not resting on their past laurels, and that your past skills will translate to be effective in what the new job requires.

If you are a remote employee trying to exert your influence on the business, you can feel invisible, isolated, and powerless.

And no one can see how truly impressive you are in your slippers.

The big issue for you is Presence.

Any leader needs to make their presence felt –  in the room or from afar.

If you want to build credibility and influence you need to build up your personal presence.  It’s harder as a remote employee, but not impossible, and even more important.

Face time first

Every time I have had a remote assignment or managed a remote employee I required a 2-4 week break-in period where the person begins the assingment in the office with the team.

If you “live” with people for awhile first, you’ll do MUCH better later.

You will build up some social comfort with each other, and then remote is not nearly as distant.  I would not accept a remote assignment if this was not how it began.

If you are in the middle of the remote assignment, and you can get approval to work on site for 2-4 weeks, arrange it.  It’s never too late.  Your productivity forever after will increase. 

In today’s economic climate, travel budgets are frozen so this is not posible. And many managers and employees who have come together because of re-orgs have never met.  This is not ideal and it is hard.

If you can’t establish the face time, the ideas below are even more important.

Don’t Hide on Conference Calls

Don’t dial in 5 minutes late, do your email and not speak.  Instead dial in 5 minutes early.  Greet everyone who joins.

Tell them about the weather where you are at and what you have been working on.  Learn about their life.   Then don’t check out during the call.

Participate, interrupt, contribute. Make your presence felt.

Make people feel like you are “in it”.

Use Video

I have to say that I am blown away by Skype video.  I have clients around the world who I have never met,  but after a hours of conversation with a webcam and skype video I feel like they are colleagues that I know personally.

Skype is really easy to set up, and it is free.

Just install your webcam, then install Skype.  Then make a call and it just works.

Unfortunately many corporate firewalls do not allow Skype.  If I were a remote employee, I would encourage all of my key colleagues and stakeholders to take a Skype call with me from home once in awhile (convenient in their time zone), so we could connect “in person”.  It makes a huge difference.

(Skype is not paying me!)

Lead things

Step forward when things need to get done.  Take the lead.  Put yourself in the center of a project even though you are not there.

Of course it needs to be something you can succeed at remotely, but don’t fail to ever take the lead just because you are remote.

If you want to be relevant — be relevant!

Network More

As a remote employee you miss the company lunches and the discussions around the coffee machine.  But you don’t need to miss connecting with people.  Identify people in the company you need to have a relationship with, and build a relationship with them.

You should spend at least an 2 hours a week (if not a bit more) just connecting and talking with people at your company.  Live connections = presence.

Get Personal

Share photos with your colleagues.  Enable them to remember what you look like.  Where you have key relationships invite them to connect with you on Facebook.  Keep yourself current and present in their thinking.  Learn what they care about and enjoy.  Contribute things of interest.

Share your ideas and knowledge

Write an internal blog.  Become a thought leader in your area of expertise.  Share interesting news that people at corporate don’t see.  Seek out external information relevant to your business and be the one to share it.  Have a point of view.

Just because you are remote, doesn’t mean you need to be invisible.

I am on vacation this week, so I thought I would share 10 of the many sound business reasons to go on vacation — in additon to the fact that you deserve it and are supposed to enjoy your life and have some fun…

1. Going on a vacation shows you are competent at your job because you can manage and plan enough to free up some time in your schedule, and not leave a festering mess in your absence.  Not being able to take a vacation for years shows that your work and your team are so out of control that you can’t even be gone for a week.

2. No one is impressed that you have not had a vacation  If you think your company, or your team appreciates your extra-work ethic, they don’t.  

3. Your team is motivated from seeing that you support and allow people to have a life — as long as you don’t send them email every day!  Set the expectation you will be generally out of touch.  Arrange 1-2 check-in points if you can’t stand to let go entirely, but don’t just go somewhere else and keep working.

4. Your team gets more productive when you go away.  You give them a break from worrying about all the things you throw in their way when they are trying to get their work done.  After about 2 weeks they will miss you and need you again, but in the mean time their productivity will go up.

5. Being unavailable is an effective technique for developing people.  It forces them to step up.  Just be careful not to un-do everything they did in your absence just because it was different than the way you would have done it.

6. If something comes up in your work that you can’t avoid and you need to cancel your vacation, reschedule another one while you are canceling.  This will minimize resentment and disappointment, give you something to look forward to… and ensure you don’t go too long without a vacation.

7. You will be more productive at work, if you step away from it and give your back-of-mind processes a chance to chew on things while you are otherwise in a good (or at least different!) mood. 

8. You will realize that some of the things that you thought were important before your vacation don’t actually need to get done after all.  When you step away, the most strategic things re-assert themselves and all the clutter drops several notches in volume.

9. Your company prefers people who enjoy their life because they have more positive energy for their work.

10. You need a break whether you know it or not!

Here is a snap from my vacation in Colorado with my husband Nick this week at the top of Grey Rock. 

I often talk about Ruthless Priorities – a way to focus on those few things that you refuse to put at risk.

I know I always have too much to do, and even when I have my list of Ruthless Priorities staring me in the face, there are things that lure me into wasting time.

A colleague of mine, Barbara Nelson, who I interviewed awhile back in one of my monthly webinars, on Ruthless Priorities shared with me a concept that she calls the “Don’t Do” list — the things that tempt you away from what you need to do.

Here are some ideas for your “Don’t Do” list.

Stuff that is Easy

Most Ruthless Priorities are the stuff of gut-wrenching strategic challenges that have draining complexities, obscure obstacles, weighty decisions and giant blank canvases to be filled.  They are hard to do.

There is always a steady supply of things to do that are easier and more fun.

And you can always justify somehow that they need to be done.  These are things like researching new suppliers, re-working a presentation to make it better, or working on the bookkeeping for your business instead of working on the content of your business. Catch yourself doing the easy stuff that is not serving your Ruthless Priorities, and  get back to the hard stuff.

Puzzles & Mysteries

Humans don’t tolerate knowledge gaps.  Once you are aware of a gap, when you see a puzzle or an unanswered question, it becomes irresistible.  You need to get the bottom of it.  You need to know how it works.  Figuring it out makes you feel smart and satisfied.

Puzzles and mysteries land in your day all the time. Your USB drive suddenly becomes read only. Some of your materials have disappeared.   You’ve done something before, but it’s working differently this time.  You have a idea of something you want to do, but you don’t yet know how to do it — so you want to experiment and learn.

You can lose hours or days on a captivating puzzle and hardly notice that any time has passed.

When you encounter a mystery, catch yourself before you get in deep.

Allocate a time budget to your puzzle up front.

How much time is it worth to personally solve this puzzle?   Is it worth 15 minutes?
2 hours? a day?

If it must solved to support a Ruthless Priority, have an alternative plan, or get someone else to do it when it goes beyond your time budget.  If it does not support your Ruthless Priority let it go.

Stuff that is Broken

If you are a fixer, remember that not everything needs to be fixed.

Only the broken things that align with your ruthless Priorities really need to be fixed now.

If you spend your time fixing something because you are compelled to do so, or because you are embarrassed to have something broken associated with you, you may be squandering time you can’t afford.

If it is not strategic, leave it broken.

If fixing it makes you feel good that you have fixed something, but it prevents you from succeeding on your Ruthless Priority, you have lost the game.

Unresolved Issues

All businesses (and individuals) have unresolved issues.  Why did that system work better than this one?  These two people disagree. The description in this document does not match the one on this related document. Which one is right?  Or maybe it’s that there is a bunch of old data that is not organized well…

Does it matter?

Does getting to the bottom of it move forward one of your Ruthless Priorities? What happens if you leave it unresolved for another week? Or another 2 months?  Or forever?

I know I have squandered away loads of what could have been productive time, resolving things that in the end, served no real benefit by being resolved — other than I felt good about clearing it up.

One of the best pieces of advice I got early in my career is “Work fast, not perfect”.

Email

How about 1 hour/day limit?  How about sorting your email in terms of your Ruthless Priorities. See a prior post about not letting email kill you.

The Internet

Let’s face it.  The internet is often as much a of a productivity aid as a pitcher of Margaritas.  Know your vices.

Budget a specific amount of time in the day for the internet.

If twitter and Facebook are fundamental to your business strategy, by all means spend significant time there.

But catch yourself when your search for a best practice on your Ruthless Priority to restructure your organization diverts you to a fascinating series of photos on the moon landing, and then you get get sucked into researching African tree frogs, reading news, and shopping for red stilettos.

My confession…

Here is an example I will volunteer.

I should have been doing something really important, and really hard one day,  and instead I invented a little mystery to work on.  I wanted to see what happened when I typed “Patty” into Google.   How many and who comes up before “Patty Azzarello”?  This occupied me for almost an hour!  Here are the results:

(Google search recommended)

Patty Hearst – General notoriety
Patty Griffen – Singer, songwriter
Patty Duke – Actress
Patty Murray – US Senator
Patty Loveless – Porn actress
Patty Mills – Native Australian Point Guard
Patty Smyth – Rocker
Patty Cake – Song, vegan bakery, sex site, religious music site
Patty Melt – Sandwich

(Here is what else came up on the first 10 search results pages – I showed up on page 11.  Thank goodness. This might have taken all day!)

Patty Bolands – Irish Pub in Ottowa
Patty Shapiro _ Personnel recruitment company
Patti Smith (comes up under Patty) Rocker
Patty Larkin – Musician
Patty Stanger – Millionaire Matchmaker
Ask Patty – Automotive advice for women
Patty’s Toxicology – Text Book Series
PattyStamps – Arts and crafts site
Patty Sailor – Romance novelist
Patty Wooten – Nurse, humorist
Patty Ross – Comic actress, public speaker
Crabby Patty
Chatty Patty
Patty Diet
Patty-o-matic