I admit, I am not an easy customer; I get angry when strangers knock at the door or call me on the phone and say Hi my name is Ian. I hate when strangers use only their first name it’s not friendly and it’s defiantly not proper business etiquette, so why are some many sales people, so poor at etiquette?
I recently picked up a copy of Etiquette by Any Vanderbilt originally published in 1952, I am reading her 1971 final edition, Emily Post book on Etiquette was first published in 1922 and she was the darling of Etiquette with her institute still publishing books on proper behaviour and there are hundreds of others. Yet it seems to me that in areas of business behaviour (or business etiquette) we have somehow lost our will to win friends and make great impressions.
In the day of Amy or Emily I would of course been chastised for the affront of using their first names, yet today the world has moved on and it is socially acceptable to move to a first name bases rather quickly after a proper introduction. But what is a proper introduction. So I don’t get called mister Hughes anymore that’s Ok, but I should at least hear the name of the person with whom I am speaking at least once in an introduction.
I haven’t had a conversation with a customer service staff member in years without having to ask them for their surname! They all seem to think that they can ask me everything about me but I shouldn’t even know who they are! In Amy’s day we would have addressed ourselves by our surnames, which was too formal and inappropriate in modern business. Today I have worked with people that use first names only on the phone and email, not only do I feel that they have the advantage of me in the conversation but I feel they haven’t got enough respect for themselves either.
Tell me what do you think, is there a good reason for this familiar greeting.
Good morning, Contact ignition, my name is Ron, how may I help you?
Monday, August 16, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Do trainers need to reveil how they acheive their results?
I think this may be a question or an ecclesiastical nature, as father Ted would have said. Or it may be a question that we don’t really want to face. But should/must we fully disclose the methods used in a training room to reach the objectives of our programs.
Most people don’t have a clue as to what happens when you place your employees in the charge of a professional skills developing agent (a trainer). You do maybe realize that this person is doing something different than the in-house trainer is that they aren’t just feeding information, they somehow, change the minds of the delegate about doing the work they have done for years and replace the old way with a new way over night.
I never accepted the title of Trainer; training is something you do to a dog. Training requires constant re-enforcement, and I only have you for a day or two. What I am doing is, hard to explain. Unless I start to use jargon like NLP or hypnosis both of which, don’t describe what I do, but are terms used to describe techniques used to educate that may appear like mine. I liked the term Emotional Intelligence training; it comes close to what I do, but not exactly. Finally I hit on the “Secrete” which is this really cheesy advertising campaign for MLM (multi Level Marketing or Pyramid selling scam) that involves the idea that success is a Secrete hidden from your view, by “them” (the successful) that don’t want to share. The Secrete is that when you concentrate your desire on an outcome your mind will produce an attraction bringing more of that into your life.
The really funky thing is that this works! Although it’s is an error in our perception systems in that all of the things (more opportunities) that we see, more of, were always there. We do see more of them based on the changes in our perception. I am not big on talking jargon, but the unconscious isn’t a huge concept to get your head around, it is simply stuff we are not conscious of. My wife is a major part of my unconscious, I know I am doing something this weekend but I can’t for the life of me know where I know from, except for the fact that my wife told me half a dozen times and I still haven’t been conscious when she told me. That is unconscious, the fact that I was thinking about something else, busy planning my life, talking and listening to myself while she was speaking to me, means that I wasn’t consciously aware that I got the information but on a deeper level I am feel uncomfortable about something.
So do I disclose, that the information (the training) is all in the stories leading up to the training! It’s all the stuff that “is way to often the (middle) managers say we don’t really need you to go over the theory” “they say allot of it was over their heads” is the stuff that beckons the changes after you say it in English. That the way you say what you say has a lot more to do with the changes, than what you say. Do I tell the customer that what I do is to spend 6 hours getting people ready to hear the seventh hour? Do I tell the customer that what I do is related to NLP or Hypnosis any other so called method of education, do I tell the customer that “I developed” this method based on Transactional Analysis over twenty years ago and have successfully converted thousands of people to new processes using the techniques. Or do we just leave well enough alone and tell the customer (business owner) what they get at the end, happier, healthier more productive staff.
This isn’t a promotional message this is a question, my morals are saying that I need to disclose my rational mind says that disclosure is a waste of my talent in that I will not get any more work based on this?
Most people don’t have a clue as to what happens when you place your employees in the charge of a professional skills developing agent (a trainer). You do maybe realize that this person is doing something different than the in-house trainer is that they aren’t just feeding information, they somehow, change the minds of the delegate about doing the work they have done for years and replace the old way with a new way over night.
I never accepted the title of Trainer; training is something you do to a dog. Training requires constant re-enforcement, and I only have you for a day or two. What I am doing is, hard to explain. Unless I start to use jargon like NLP or hypnosis both of which, don’t describe what I do, but are terms used to describe techniques used to educate that may appear like mine. I liked the term Emotional Intelligence training; it comes close to what I do, but not exactly. Finally I hit on the “Secrete” which is this really cheesy advertising campaign for MLM (multi Level Marketing or Pyramid selling scam) that involves the idea that success is a Secrete hidden from your view, by “them” (the successful) that don’t want to share. The Secrete is that when you concentrate your desire on an outcome your mind will produce an attraction bringing more of that into your life.
The really funky thing is that this works! Although it’s is an error in our perception systems in that all of the things (more opportunities) that we see, more of, were always there. We do see more of them based on the changes in our perception. I am not big on talking jargon, but the unconscious isn’t a huge concept to get your head around, it is simply stuff we are not conscious of. My wife is a major part of my unconscious, I know I am doing something this weekend but I can’t for the life of me know where I know from, except for the fact that my wife told me half a dozen times and I still haven’t been conscious when she told me. That is unconscious, the fact that I was thinking about something else, busy planning my life, talking and listening to myself while she was speaking to me, means that I wasn’t consciously aware that I got the information but on a deeper level I am feel uncomfortable about something.
So do I disclose, that the information (the training) is all in the stories leading up to the training! It’s all the stuff that “is way to often the (middle) managers say we don’t really need you to go over the theory” “they say allot of it was over their heads” is the stuff that beckons the changes after you say it in English. That the way you say what you say has a lot more to do with the changes, than what you say. Do I tell the customer that what I do is to spend 6 hours getting people ready to hear the seventh hour? Do I tell the customer that what I do is related to NLP or Hypnosis any other so called method of education, do I tell the customer that “I developed” this method based on Transactional Analysis over twenty years ago and have successfully converted thousands of people to new processes using the techniques. Or do we just leave well enough alone and tell the customer (business owner) what they get at the end, happier, healthier more productive staff.
This isn’t a promotional message this is a question, my morals are saying that I need to disclose my rational mind says that disclosure is a waste of my talent in that I will not get any more work based on this?
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