10 Reasons to Pick Up the Phone

Today fewer people get on the phone, preferring to text, chat, and e-mail. Here are 10 scenarios where a live voice is still the best option.

soylentgreen23/Flickr

I've noticed recently that the Millennial generation's trend of phone avoidance is quickly spreading to people of all ages. It started with smartphones. Texting replaced leaving voicemails and whole conversations now take place with our thumbs. Calling someone has now become low on the communication priority list and even frequently disparaged.

Certainly written communication has its advantages.

• You can get your message out whether or not the other person is available.
• You can respond without concern for time zones or sleep patterns.
• You don't have to waste time with unwanted chatty gossip.

But the phone has benefits that text and e-mail will never overcome. It's still an important tool for business etiquette and should be considered equally in today's communication environment. Here are 10 scenarios where a phone call does the job best.

1. When You Need Immediate Response

The problem with text or e-mail is you never know when someone will get back to you. You like to think the other person is sitting there waiting for your message, but it's not always true. These days when someone sees your name on the ringing phone, they know you are making an extra effort to speak to them. Of course if they are truly busy, in a meeting, sleeping, or hiding from you, the caller ID will tip them off and you go to voicemail, which they rarely check anyway. At least now you can express yourself with heartfelt emotion.

2. When You Have Complexity with Multiple People

My wife Van was recently coordinating an overseas engagement for me and there were six different people in multiple time zones involved in the logistics. After five cryptic e-mail conversations that created more confusion, she was literally screaming at the computer. Finally I suggested a conference call. In 30 minutes, all questions were answered, everyone was aligned, and Van went from frustrated to relieved. She is now a newly recruited phone advocate.

3. When You Don't Want a Written Record Due to Sensitivity

You never know who will see an e-mail or a text. True, phone calls can be recorded...but not legally in most states without prior notification or a judge's order. Unless you are absolutely comfortable with your message getting into anyone's hands, best to use the phone for conversations that require discretion.

4. When the Emotional Tone is Ambiguous, But Shouldn't Be

Sometimes a smiley face is not enough to convey real emotion. Emoticons help broadly frame emotional context, but when people's feelings are at stake it's best to let them hear exactly where you are coming from. Otherwise they will naturally assume the worst.

5. When There is Consistent Confusion

Most people don't like to write long e-mails and most don't like to read them. So when there are lots of details that create confusion, phone calls work efficiently to bring clarity. First of all, you can speak about 150 words per minute, and most people don't type that fast. Second, questions can be answered in context so you don't end up with an endless trail of back and forth question and answers.

6. When There is Bad News

This should be obvious, but sadly many people will take a cowardly approach to sharing difficult news. Don't be one of those callous people. Make it about the other person and not you. Humanize the situation with empathy they can hear.

7. When There is Very Important News

Good or bad, if there is significance to information, the receiver needs to understand the importance beyond a double exclamation point. Most likely they will have immediate questions and you should be ready to provide context to prevent unwanted conclusions.

8. When Scheduling is Difficult

After going back and forth multiple times with a colleague's assistant trying to find an available date and time, I finally just called her. Now I didn't have to worry that the time slot would be filled by the time she read my e-mail. We just spoke with calendars in hand and completed in five minutes what had exasperated us over three days. Later that day I watched one of my foodie friends spend 20 frustrated minutes using Open Table and finally suggested he simply call the restaurant. In three minutes he had a reservation and a slightly embarrassed smile.

9. When There is a Hint of Anger, Offense, or Conflict in the Exchange

Written messages can often be taken the wrong way. If you see a message that suggests any kind of problem, don't let it fester--or worse try and repair it--with more unemotional communication. Pick up the phone and resolve the issue before it spirals out of control.

10.  When a Personal Touch Will Benefit

Anytime you want to connect emotionally with someone and face-to-face is not possible, use the phone. Let them hear the care in your voice and the appreciation in your heart.

Like this post? If so, sign up here and never miss out on Kevin's thoughts and humor.

An Inc. 500 entrepreneur with a more than $1 billion sales and marketing track record, Kevin Daum is the best-selling author of Video Marketing for Dummies. @awesomeroar

3 Things You Don't Know About Sales

Ideas are great, but no start-up can survive without sales--and a mastery of the psychology behind selling. (Hint: manipulation skills are not required.)

truthout/Flickr

Sales can be a daunting task for any young entrepreneur.

If you're working on a start-up, you're spilling your heart and soul into your idea. Now, you somehow have to convince others to buy into--and literally purchase--your idea too. The truth is, most entrepreneurs don't know the first thing about getting an effective sales process up and running, let alone how to pitch customers.

Since we created ElasticSales, which is essentially a sales team on demand, I've had the opportunity to work with several different young companies. I always start by teaching them about the psychology behind sales. Why? Because most people think a sale is about manipulating or pushing people into making a decision. That couldn't be further from the truth. 

Here are the most important things I tell my clients (and my own salespeople) again and again about the psychology of sales:

1. People don't buy products or services. They buy emotions.

By "emotions," I mean: A desired feeling. Superiority. Love. Comfort. Excitement. Security. Or sometimes, the opposite--fear.

These and more are all emotions around which you can position your product or solution. However, you have to know what emotion your customers are actually looking for. If you don't, you won't understand how to sell to them.

The best way to determine this is to ask the customer what's important to them and what they need. Once you know this, you can position your solution around their needs and then sell your benefits--NOT your features.

2. Emotional states dictate buying (and all other) decisions.

Have you ever been in a "shopping rush?" A state in which you wanted to buy something desperately, though the feeling has very little to do with what you are about to buy?

This phenomenon happens in both consumer and enterprise sales. Make sure you pay attention to what emotional states your customers are in before selling them anything. Are they depressed? If so, they really shouldn't be making a big purchasing decision. Are they in that "shopping rush" where they have no idea what you're offering? Then the last thing you want is your customer to feel buyer's remorse because you pressured them into a purchase.

Above all, make sure you're in a good state for your customers as well! Customers can pick up if you're not in a good state to sell them your business.

3. Communication is all about tonality and body language--it has little to do with content.

This is a very old truth, but it's still surprising to most people. If your lips are saying "buy!" but your body and voice are communicating "don't do it," you won't win many deals. Listen to your phone calls or record yourself conducting a presentation. Make note of your tone and posture and ask yourself, "Would I buy from this person?"

If the answer is "no," then you have to adjust your pitch. Be conscious of your tone and body language to make improvements everyday. After a few weeks, you'll see improvements in your tonality, body language, and sales.

Steli Efti is a high school dropout, self-taught entrepreneur, anonymous learning addict, and owner of a one-way ticket that took him from Europe to San Francisco where he founded Supercool School, VibaTV and SwipeGood. As an alumni of Y Combinator, Steli recently launched Elastic. This post is adapted from a Q&A on Quora.com.

The Young Entrepreneur Council is an invitation-only organization composed of the world's most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program. @TheYEC

The True Cost of a B-Player

Here's how mediocre employees can take down a business. Don't let it happen to you.

mjtmail/Flickr

I recently attended VatorSplash here in San Francisco, and I had the fortune of listening to Renaud Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club speak about a variety of topics. The one that struck me most wasn't about innovation (which is one thing Vator is all about) it was about hiring. My ears perked up.

There's no shortage of information about hiring on Inc.com; Tony Hsieh let us in on the hiring snafus at Zappos. So I'll add this article to the list because it seems so obvious but it's not. It's about how a B-player can ruin your business, or at least take years away from where your business "should be."

Renaud laid it out simply: when you hire a B-player, they'll do an okay job and there's not really a reason to fire them. But B-players can do a few damaging things to your business:

1. They'll either hire mediocre people just like them or even worse, C-players, making an increasingly larger portion of your business run by them.
2. Your A-players will leave because they don't want to work on a mediocre team and they get sick of the general feeling of not being able to get things done.

You've got to nip your B-players in the bud. Either get them to "A" status by coaching and mentoring them, or cut them loose. You don't want to look back and think about where your business "could have" been.

How have you dealt with B-players on your team? I'd love to hear your challenges and successes.

Did you enjoy this post? If so, sign up for the free VR Buzz weekly newsletter and check out the VerticalResponse Marketing Blog.

Janine Popick is the CEO and founder of VerticalResponse, a leading provider of self-service email and event marketing, online surveys, social media, and direct mail solutions. The company was ranked No. 2,802 on the 2012 Inc. 5000. @janinepopick

4 Places to Find Big Ideas

Need to stop fighting fires and find time to think deeply? Here are four activities that can help even the busiest people make space in their schedule for big ideas.

dgmiami/Flickr

Business owners face a conundrum: The day-to-day functioning of your company keeps you super busy, so busy in fact that you generally have little time for the type of deep, strategic thinking on which the long-term success of your business depends.

You have to fight fires now, but saving your business from the current flames can leave it vulnerable to a slow death by stagnation over the long term. 

So what can you do to find time in your hectic day to clear you brain and think deep deeply about the future of your business? Author and entrepreneur Ben Casnocha has a few suggestions based on the psychological truth that we often get our best ideas when our brains are engaged in minimally taxing activities. A reality many of us experience in real life as the shower inspiration effect.

A steaming bathroom is just relaxing enough, and remembering to put the conditioner on after the shampoo just mentally engaging enough, that the rest of your brain is free of tension and self-policing chatter and can range widely to come up with your most creative ideas. (If you want the details of the neuroscience, this post is for you.) It worked for Archimedes and no doubt it's worked for you. Plus, even the busiest entrepreneur definitely finds time to squeeze a shower into their schedule now and then.

So what are some other ways to get into that chilled out but slightly engaged mindset? Casnocha seconds the usual suggestion of the extra long shower ("You're free from distraction, you're engaged in a monotonous activity that doesn't require active focus, and you're in a different environment. Sounds like the perfect place for a creative thought," he writes) and then offers four more activities that actually fit into your schedule and which you can re-imagine not as chores or lost time but as opportunities for inspiration:

Drive to and from the office. Driving a familiar route = good thinking time. 'When Joan Didion moved from California to New York, she realized that she had done much of her thinking and mental writing during the long drives endogenous to the Californian lifestyle,' Steve Dodson once noted. I'm the same. I can't tell you how many decent thoughts I've concocted in my head while driving on the 101 or 280 freeways in the Bay Area.

Take your dog for a walk. Same as driving, but safer.

Stare out of airplane windows. Travel journeys of any sort are the midwives of thought. 'Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships, or trains'Introspective reflections that might otherwise be liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape,' says Alain de Botton.

Organize your office/room/house. Tidy up documents, pick up around the floor, rearrange books. It's an excellent foil to serious thinking.

What activities double as deep thinking time for you, and should you make better uses of these pauses in your day?

 

Jessica Stillman is a freelance writer based in London with interests in unconventional career paths, generational differences, and the future of work. She has blogged for CBS MoneyWatch, GigaOM, and Brazen Careerist. @EntryLevelRebel

Want a Solid Online Reputation? Curate Yourself

The Web is a one-stop shop for people who want to learn about you. Make sure they find the best version of you with these tips.

speedoflightspeedoflight/Flickr

At one point in time, the word "curate" was associated solely with what goes on inside museums to create the perfect experience for their patrons.  

Now, everyone has gotten into the business of curating--from restaurants to retailers--and it's one bandwagon you should hop aboard. 

Why? 

If the Internet is the one-stop shop for people researching you, this is the way to ensure they get the best, most accurate and current information possible. 

Seriously, go curate yourself. Here's where to start: 

Decide what defines you.  

What should people know about you? Maybe it's just the based-in-fact basics. Perhaps it's the professional you--establishing your expertise in a certain field or niche industry knowledge. Maybe you want to include a passion for a certain hobby (like serious amateur photography). It's easy to narrow down with a simple litmus test: Is this the primary information I want people to know about me? Then, make sure everything you do online reinforces how you want to be known. 

Embrace the Big Three.  

If you're not one of the 200 million professionals on LinkedIn, what's stopping you? It frequently shows up well in search results--and a clean, well-organized profile says you're savvy about self-presentation. Actively reaching out to others and building your connections says you're smart about networking. Likewise, another no-brainer: Twitter and Facebook profiles that align with your communication goals. 

Explore other options. 

Use good judgment but invest some time in developing yourself on other sites; there is no shortage from which to pick. For example, Resume.com is a free online resume builder with a great interface that tends to rank well in search results. Hardcore hobbyist? There's guaranteed to be a Web community to join, whether you're a knitting enthusiast (hello, Ravelry!) or a tea tippler (here's looking at you, Steepster). 

Set up your site.  

I've said it before but it bears repeating: It's cheap, easy, and effective to buy your own Web domain. And it's even simpler to point a blog you establish to that domain name. Your easiest option? Set up a Tumblr account, which can be as low maintenance as posting a photo with a caption, and link it to your personalized website. WordPress and Blogger are also good choices.  

Once you're up and running, your work is not over.  Update, update, update!  Current content is king when it comes to your search results.

 

Michael Fertik founded Reputation.com with the belief that businesses and individuals have the right to control and protect their online reputation and privacy. He is credited with pioneering the field of online reputation management. @michaelfertik

Does Collaboration Actually Hurt Productivity?

In some offices the insistence on collaboration is forcing people to take creative measures to focus. What's the new etiquette when it comes to connection vs. concentration?

sektor5/Flickr

Collaboration is all the rage (so much so that some are even speculating it might be the new greenwashing), but this trendy we're-all-in-it-together ethos doesn't just set off some folks' hype sensors, it also presents other dangers.

Let's be honest: collaboration can kill productivity and focus. 

Open plan offices and helpful, chatty workplace culture definitely have their advantages, but according to many people's personal experience and a recent New York Times article, they can also drive you batty if you're actually trying to put your head done and plow through some concentrated work. John Tierney opens the Times article with an explanation of the problem and one of the coolest quotes on office culture you're likely to hear for awhile:

The walls have come tumbling down in offices everywhere, but the cubicle dwellers keep putting up new ones. They barricade themselves behind file cabinets. They fortify their partitions with towers of books and papers. Or they follow an "evolving law of technology etiquette," as articulated by Raj Udeshi at the open office he shares with fellow software entrepreneurs in downtown Manhattan.  

"Headphones are the new wall," he said, pointing to the covered ears of his neighbors.

No one may be mourning the death of the beige cubicle farm, but that doesn't mean they're not looking for new ways to get a bit of what cubes offered ' privacy. Headphones may be the simplest way to go (just about everyone has an iPod in their bag these days), but for those who find music distracting or are faced with truly persistent colleagues, other measures to keep would-be collaborators at bay may be in order.

Marissa Feinberg, owner of Green Spaces, a New York co-working space for socially conscious start-ups, observed this first hand. "In any open, collaborative environment, people must always fight interruptions. Therefore, collaborative work spaces, for start-ups, or for major companies like Accenture or Google, are going to need a new best practice for focus, and a new set of etiquette for connection," she told Inc.

Her low-tech solution to interruptions mania? A little gizmo called Flockd that sits on your desk. Turn it one way and it displays a big red X to colleagues warning them you're engaged and uninterested in connecting at the moment. Turn it another way and it becomes a little pyramid-shaped announcement to the world that you're open for collaboration.

Not only does Flockd serve as a visual signal beckoning co-workers to connect with you when you're in the mood, but Feinberg also believes that, by demanding old-school manual manipulation, it helps workers be more conscious of what sort of work they're doing and how much collaboration time is optimal of them.

"I may put [headphones] on and then forget I am wearing them. Consequently, everyone around me thinks I am busy and no one approaches me for the entire day. And I can get too deep into my head to remind myself that human connection is important. It's not healthy to be heads down all the time," she says.

Feinberg mentions "a new etiquette for connection." What are your rules for respectful collaboration? 

 

Jessica Stillman is a freelance writer based in London with interests in unconventional career paths, generational differences, and the future of work. She has blogged for CBS MoneyWatch, GigaOM, and Brazen Careerist. @EntryLevelRebel

How to Recover From Your Worst Mistakes

Leaders sometimes make big mistakes that threaten their careers and companies. Here's how they recover and survive to lead again.

mujalifah/Flickr

We all make mistakes. Over the course of your professional life, you can count on making a few bad career choices. It comes with the territory. Still, those mistakes can really drag you down. And recovering from them is definitely not a trivial matter, as I know all too well.

I once accidentally erased my boss's entire PC hard drive. After he calmed down, he said, "You can make mistakes; just don't make any you have to live with." Indeed, he had messed up in ways that continued to haunt him. But his comment turned out to be surprisingly prophetic for me, as well.

The following year I was courted by two high-tech companies: one an established leader, a public company; the other a start-up, a spinoff from that same company. Offers in hand, I chose the start-up. Just a few months later, I knew I'd made the wrong choice.

Hat in hand, I called the hiring VP of the company I'd turned down. He graciously declined to reengage. If I heard a note of satisfaction in his voice, it was drowned out by my disappointment. Actually, I felt a lot worse than disappointed. I felt like a failure.

There's nothing worse than failing by your own hand, your own hubris, your own stupidity. Now I knew what my old boss had meant. I would have to live with this.

It's Not the Failure That Matters...

But here's the thing. Jazz great Miles Davis once said, "When you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that makes it good or bad." To this day, I marvel at the wisdom behind that simple notion. If you just add a little self-confidence and courage, it's all you need to recover from even the worst blunders, career or otherwise.

In my case, I decided to take the song--I mean my career--in a whole different direction. A former associate had been after me to make the jump from engineering management to sales by joining his sales rep firm. So I took him up on it. After all, I had nothing to lose and nowhere else to go.

Looking back on it, that segue into sales turned out to be the smartest career decision I ever made. It expanded my horizons, taught me skills I needed, and opened a path that would soon lead to executive management and a successful and rewarding career.

Everything Comes Full Circle

That single mistake--the risk I took by joining a start-up instead of an established company--and more importantly, the decision to double down and take an even bigger risk, would ultimately make all the difference in my career.

Not surprisingly, I've since used Miles Davis's wisdom over and over throughout my career, and not just for me. I've used it to help executives and management teams overcome all sorts of issues, from relatively minor missteps to strategic blunders that threatened entire companies.

After I show the quote on a Powerpoint slide I've used too many times to count, I tell them this: We all make mistakes. If we don't, we're not taking enough risks. Executives with big responsibility sometimes make big mistakes. It comes with the territory.

Don't wallow in it or lament what could have been. Just pick yourself up, gain whatever wisdom you can from the experience, accept it as the new reality, and go from there. You're still in the band. Play your next note.

Steve Tobak is a management consultant, executive coach, and former senior executive of the technology industry. He's managing partner of Invisor Consulting, a Silicon Valley-based strategy consulting firm. Contact Tobak; follow him on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. @SteveTobak