Monthly Archive: March 2016

Public Speaking Tips for people who’d rather die than speak in front of a group.

Which scenario describes you best 1 minute before a presentation?

1) Heart racing.  Nervous, but antsy.  Alert.  Reviewing your notes for the umpteenth time. Worried you might forget something, but slough it off – they won’t know what they missed if you forget something.  You rock at winging it!  Step in to the room, find your light (or the nearest fluorescent fixture) and go! Clear loud voice, moving, engaging the audience.  See someone looking a bit bored, but immediately assume they are clinically insane because this presentation is AMAHZING. Redirect attention to the 9 people smiling and vigorously nodding. Become more alive and energized with every nod. Eliciting laughter and interaction. Cut to end of presentation. Fist-pump.  Nailed it.

Or does this sound more accurate?

download2) Heart racing.  Cold sweat. Also feel oddly hot.  Face is bright red, as is neck, chest, and….can’t look any further down.  Read notes again – DON’T FORGET to use the word gargantuan in the 3rd sentence you have planned for the 3rd slide.  It is the only word that is important and if you forget it, the whole presentation is ruined. ARE THOSE PIT STAINS? OMG.  This is going to be the worst. They are going to think I am stupid. I hate this. I’m the worst at this.  I’d rather be in a coffin right now.

Public Speaking is my worst enemy.

Anything sound familiar? If you said #1, thanks for stopping by. You are like me and totally get your jollies from presenting.  Share this with people who don’t get how you do it. Bye Felicia.

If you said 2, you are the MAJORITY.  75% of people have glossophobia.

3 Public Speaking Tips

1. Look for your person. There is always one person nodding and smiling and totally eating up everything you are saying.  Either they come naturally, or you plant them in the front row.  I’ve found that there is always one empathetic soul who “feels” your presentation pain, and does everything possible with their face to make you feel comfortable.  Look at them, trust that you are doing ok.

2. Recognize people intake information differently. The fact of the matter though, is that not everyone nods and smiles and looks so excited every time you speak.  Others take in information differently, they are seeking details, or are analyzing information. Their facial expression ranges from quizzical to what appears to be downright offended at what you are saying.  Look away and find #1.  Calm down.  Now – are you speaking with enough detail? Too much detail? Too high level? Not high level enough? Take stock of those furrowed brows, and make some adjustments – even better – call it out. “I see some quizzical faces out there – how can I help?”

3. The triangle of power. If you are one to get shaky hands, or in your aatrumphitler_thumbexcitement flail your arms around more than a bird in flight – this trick is for you. Activating pressure points while also giving your hands something to do.

Even the most confident and authoritative speakers use it. Not that I want you to harness the energy of these two.

We’d love to hear your public speaking nightmares and successes @whiteboardconsulting on Twitter.

Until next time,

Nicole

 

 

 

When to Survey Your Customers

Surveys. Love them or hate them, they have a place in business, helping organizations and retailers find out what their customers think about their services and products, and helping them identify ways in which they could improve.

We are peppered by surveys seemingly every time we take a receipt from a store or restaurant, buy something online, or – the worst – answer the phone. In fact Survey Monkey, a popular online survey company, estimates they collect 3 million survey results per day!

But people are getting ticked off. In fact, a Forbes article says that response rates are down from 20% to “a paltry 2%.” Add low response rates to poorly constructed and executed surveys, the article goes on to say, and you are just annoying your customers and not getting the information you want anyway.

survey

So you should stop doing surveys then, right?

No. Not right. It’s very very important to get your customers’ viewpoint – just not to the point of annoying the heck out of them.

So as a business owner, how do you go about getting that crucial Voice of the Customer? How do you know when to go to the trouble of asking clients who might not even respond?

Two Simple Questions

There are two things to ask yourself if you are wondering whether to send out a customer survey or not:

  1. Am I making a branding decision?
    • In other words, are you deciding the direction of your organization based on your personal vision or goals? If so, that’s probably something that you don’t need to ask your customers. This is YOUR vision, and hopefully it’s based on the right amount of market research and has a strong business plan behind it.
  2. Am I making a decision on behalf of a customer?
    • If you’re trying to decide on an action that will impact customers, and you could take action A or action B (both of which are in line with your brand), then it’s wise to ask your customers vs. assuming what they would like. For instance, if you want to institute a rewards program and can’t decide whether to offer free product or free product or service dollars, the tendency is to choose what you would prefer. It’s better to ask them.

Don’t Get Carried Away

Once you’ve decided to do a survey, make sure you follow these three simple rules so that you can get the right data AND not risk the loyalty of your customers:

  • Don’t offer people free stuff just to do the survey. It will dilute your response and encourage people to click through quickly for the reward at the end.
  • Make your survey SHORT. Statements like “this survey should take 5 minutes” are misleading – you don’t know how long it takes people to read! Keep it under 5 questions, and keep each one very short.
  • Make the questions relevant! Don’t bother asking stuff you’re just curious about – only the things you really need to know.

It’s always a good idea to ask permission too. In these days of spam and junk mail and survey overkill, it’s wise to allow people to opt in to your survey.

Good questions, well asked, will result in priceless information for your business, and will allow your customers to speak for themselves. That’s ALWAYS better than assuming you already know what they want to say.

Until next time,

Ruth.

 

 

Happy Birthday to Us!

bday

On March 28th Whiteboard turns 4 years old. 4 years! This is a big deal – according to Start Up Canada, only 70% of the more than 100,000 new small businesses that open each year actually last to year 2, and only 51% to year five. These are pretty daunting stats, and we are really thrilled to still be here, loving what we do.

What’s our secret?

Besides persistence and patience you mean? Well, the other day Nicole and I were talking about how our business has changed and grown in its short four-year existence. We started out as a company focused purely on process improvement consulting, determined to help businesses become more effective and efficient using our own methodology, The Whiteboard Way©.

We soon discovered that people didn’t just hold up their hands and say, “Oh pick us! We need process improvement!” No, in fact a lot of people don’t even know what the term means or why they should care about it. So we found ourselves trying to explain our business to people, most of whom nodded politely or stared like a deer in the headlights.

We found our work shifting to training and facilitation, knowing that what people REALLY need is a culture shift that will encourage innovation, inspire creativity, and allow people to try, fail, and try again. It is only by developing culture that organizations can attempt a massive (or moderate) change and hope to be successful. As the saying goes:

We started focusing on proving training on things that are most likely to help organizations be successful at implementing change. Things like:

  • Learning how (and when) to have rewarding conversations with people at work. Yes – conversations. It’s not as simple as you might think, and our coaching course helps people-managers build their skills in this area. It’s probably our most popular course.
  • Understanding the difference between leading and managing, and why that’s important in building an effective team.
  • Becoming self-aware and realizing how that can lead to truly effective communication.
  • Knowing how to set goals and understanding why measurements are important (hint: people like to know when they’re winning).
  • Helping teams understand the flow of work through an organization, and how gaps in process can cause frustration and inefficiency.

So now we don’t do process improvement? We teach?

Uh, no.

Don’t misunderstand me. We “do” process improvement. It happens to be one of the most amazing tools there is to help organizations improve business results. It’s just not the only tool.

We now describe ourselves as Change Management consultants who help uncover hidden opportunities to improve business results. And we do that by seeking to understand our clients, our course participants, our partners, and – always – ourselves.

  • Through our coaching program, we seek to understand you – the person – and help you get to the root of whatever barriers are in your way.
  • Through our process improvement work, we seek to understand the organization, and uncover hidden opportunities to improve business results.
  • Through our psychometric assessments (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) we help you seek to understand yourself and the people around you.
  • Through our speaking, training, and facilitation, we seek to understand our participants, and by so doing we ensure our workshops are dynamic, fun, relevant, and valuable.

And for our 5th year?

Not only have we added new services to our repertoire, but this year we are also excited to be exploring a new associate model which will allow us to expand the Whiteboard brand to other cities! This is going to be awesome, so stay tuned for more on that later in the year.

Thank you to all our clients, partners, and supporters who make it continually fun to do what we do. We couldn’t – and wouldn’t – do it without you!

Until next time,

Ruth.

 

3 Questions to ask your potential new boss to avoid a toxic workplace.

Why oh why did I take this job?

You spent days perfecting your resume.  Days finding the right salutation for your cover letter.  Weeks ruining your manicure fretting about the interview process.  And if you happen to work in the public sector, you’ve spent hours rehearsing your presentation assignment with anyone who will listen.

All that hard work, and the phone finally rings – “We’d like to offer you the job!” download

Fast forward 2 goodbye cake parties, 12 transition meetings, and 17 emails about how lucky you are to “get out of here”.  You’ve got your big girl/boy suit on and it is week 3 of your new job.

You said the biggest challenge was going to be what?

You thought you did the right thing! You asked the golden end-of-interview question:

“What will be the biggest challenge you foresee for the winning candidate in this new role?”

This is a great question.  But they didn’t tell you that the office is the perfect example of a toxic workplace! You are dissapointed, demotivated, and think you may have made the worst decision ever!

Don’t get me wrong,  “a challenge” from one individual to another has a great deal of variability. For one it might be subject matter expertise, for another it is senior management support. Managers looking for a team member aren’t going to say things like:

  • The culture is super toxic, have fun!
  • I’m a really great operational manger, but I suck at leadership (oh and I hate team meetings FYI).
  • Your team is the worst performing team in our entire company.
  • My boss is even worse than I am.

3 Questions to ask your potential new boss (BEFORE you say YES!)

You might feelimages awkward asking these questions.  I guarantee that this moment of mild awkwardness is FAR less painful than arriving at TWCC (Toxic Workplace Culture Central). Read more on the signs of a toxic workplace culture here.

  1. How would you describe the culture of the organization? This is a great open-ended question that’s pretty hard to hide behind. If you have an honest hiring manager, they will be clear about the challenges and opportunities.  Be ready with some probing questions to help you out in case you get some tight lipped answers (i.e. You say “Great”, tell me more? How would employees describe the culture? How would another team describe the culture?).  I would be delighted with answers like: our branch does a bi-annual team building event offsite, we have a running club, we have a lunchtime yoga session that more than half of the team participates in etc.
  2. Can you tell me about the history of the team that I’ll be working with? Ooh.  This question is more loaded than a baked potato. Here’s where you can find out things like how new (or how established) your team is.  Perhaps you do some diagnosis on their stage of team development, or how you might apply the situational leadership model.  You can start to understand how resilient the team might be to change (based on their recent history with change).
  3. What kinds of systems/processes are currently in place in the organization to support open and transparent communication and team building? What I would want to hear in this answer are things like: we have weekly 1:1 coaching sessions with our team, we have a very rigorous performance review process, we believe strongly in training, coaching, and having difficult conversations…

Remember, the hiring panel is not only interviewing you, but you are interviewing them – to see if this job, culture, and environment is a great fit for you.  Otherwise, on to the next opportunity!

Now what if you’ve got the job and you’ve got the toxic culture blues? Not to worry, stay tuned and next time I’ll share the top 3 tips to dramatically improve your culture (even if you aren’t a manager)!

Until Next Time,

Nicole

P.S.  Looking for a new role?  Ruth is offering 3 coaching sessions to a select few volunteers, snag this $500 value before spots are gone! Ruth@whiteboardconsulting.ca/staging