Disguising the circumstances, I’ll say that I encountered this at a recent event where I ran into two old friends whom I hadn’t seen in a long a time and one person whom I knew slightly and the others didn’t know at all. Person number three not only monopolized the conversation but did so with topics completely unrelated to the event. Celebrity names were dropped, information about excretory symptoms of illness was overshared. Our naked attempts to seize control of the discussion sailed over the offender’s head like Titan rockets.

I was thus happy to find this article about conversational narcissism from artofmanliness.com in a Lifehacker article on how to make a good first impression.

Here are a couple of subspecies of conversational narcissists:

 The Punctuation Deprived: One thought flows seamlessly into the next. There are no pauses and, by the time you realize the subject has changed, there’s no way to go back to comment on the previous one or to derail the runaway train of thought.

The Provocative Interjector/Hijacker: This guy often thinks he’s a real card. In a conversation about sleep disorders, he pops in with “Well that’s only true if Herman Cain wears red pajamas” and, next thing you know, you’re talking about the GOP debates.

That’s the great thing about blogging. It’s the written equivalent of conversational narcissism. That’s enough about me, but you can talk about me some more by using the comment box below.

“The Done Manifesto is a set of working rules based on a sense of urgency.” These rules aren’t for every industry – you wouldn’t want them applied to nuclear plant operations or brain surgery – but in the creative sector they can light a fire under the seats of procrastinators and perfectionists.

In my business, we used to obsess over printed materials that had to be “perfect” because they were so expensive and had to have a long shelf life. You can change web-based content immediately and infinitely. Having something up there online, however preliminary, is often better than having nothing at all.

This article about koshering the White House kitchen for a banquet appeared in the December 14, 2011 New York Times. In it, Rabbi Shemtov showed similar view of perfection: “We are very careful, we are meticulous but we are not O.C.D.,” he says. “Otherwise, no one would ever get to eat.”

In a free market economy, things that are rare are expensive. Good designers have innate artistic talent, professional training and experience plus the ability to understand their clients and give them not just what they think they need but what they didn’t even realize was possible and brilliantly appropriate.

Adagio Graphics is a frequent partner for us at Douglas Communications Group. They’ve written this excellent guide to using a graphic designer. Note these important tips:

• Know yourself
• Let us be free
• Twice is not nice. Revisions that seem simple to you may be time-consuming (= expensive) to change in the graphic design software, thus the following:
• Organization = money

I enjoy espionage fiction, in film, books and on TV. It’s a pure escape from reality, which is not to say that I don’t learn from it. Take, for example, “tradecraft,” the label for all those spy tricks. I know how to follow someone, how to lose a follower, how to use a dead drop and how to change my identity and disappear.

Here’s how to communicate secretly and securely with one or more other people: Create an email account with an online service, like Gmail or Yahoo. You and your associates know the log in ID and the password. You write messages but you don’t send them; instead, you save them as drafts. Your associate reads the drafts when they log into the account and permanently deletes the messages. Nothing is ever transmitted and, even if the account is hacked, there’s nothing there to read.

Happy to share something so useful.

The presentations have overwhelmed the content; no, they have usurped it. They have become the very purpose of the session: I Powerpoint therefore I am.

Powerpoint makes people with little artistic ability think they are artists. Hey, they chose a colorful background and a creative font! They used dissolves. They found a cute caricature; never mind the fact that they had to revise their script to rationalize the picture. They Powerpointed!

Public speaking is story telling. Your objective is to make the audience believe or feel or do something. Even if you are presenting mind-numbingly dry technical information, you still want them to at least exclaim “Aha!” at the end of your talk, if not write you a check.

Because it’s a story, a presentation needs an arc: A beginning, a crisis, a dénouement and a conclusion. Powerpoint slides trudge along at the same tedious pace, sabotaging the rhythmic changes and drama that make your story compelling. Nobody ever complained that a speaker was too entertaining.

And while we’re talking about drama, why are you standing off to the side of the room hiding behind a podium while that projection screen hogs the spotlight? You are the star. Don’t share the honor. Any actor will tell you that downstage center is the place to be.

I think the problem is that, as speakers plan their presentations, they start not from the story but from the Powerpoint. They do Powerpoint, not persuasion. If you’ll promise me that you’ll knock it off and write your story first, I might allow you to use Powerpoint as a noun: As a tool to deliver images that explain, expand and enhance your story.

You don’t need a fancy template. You don’t need a continuous stream of slides. Maybe you only need three or four images that you call up when a picture really will replace a thousand words.

That’s easier said than done, because relevant, evocative images are hard or expensive to create. If you want to take viewers’ breath away when they see the scope of your factory, you’re going to need a photo. Shot from a helicopter. If you’re going to show illustrations – maps, artists’ renderings, site plans – they have to be well-executed to begin with because, if they’re bad, they’ll be worse when they’re 10 feet tall instead of 10 inches. One dramatic pie chart is better than a dozen wishy washy ones and those created in Excel look like it. What story does the picture tell that words cannot? Is it therefore obvious that slides with words on them are equally limiting and pretty much useless?

Here’s a parenthetical reason to use Powerpoint as a noun: Murphy, who correctly said that, if anything can go wrong, it will. The projector bulb burns out, the technician shows up with an immobilizing hangover, your computer rewards your optimism with a blue screen of death, the lights in the room either can’t be dimmed enough for slides to show up or is so dim that you can’t see your notes. If you were planning to Powerpoint (verb), you’re dead. If you were planning to Powerpoint (noun) the show will go on.

For grins, here’s a site with some examples of spectacularly bad Powerpoint slides.

Here are her four rules of improvisation:

• AGREE. If your coworker says “Let’s do a news release about this,” agree, at least for starters, and see where it takes you.
• Say YES, AND. Say “let’s do a news release and share the information on social media.”
• MAKE STATEMENTS. Be a part of the solution.
• THERE ARE NO MISTAKES, only opportunities.

You can read it online at Amazon.com. It’ll take a little effort, but it’s worth it. First, go to this link. Click the “search inside this book” link below the picture of the book. Then, in the search box type

the rules of improvisation that will change your life

Enjoy!

When you’re counting close friendships, loving relationships, acts of kindness, or the gold bars securely stashed away in your secret vault, the answer is, “Yes!”  It’s better to have more…rather than fewer of them.

Is the same true when it comes to the tools for building and growing your business?

Many salespeople (and their organizations) believe that more is better.  Unfortunately, “more” often translates to the latest technology or some “magic bullet” process for attracting new clients or closing sales.

Do you really need the latest and greatest to grow your business?

Do you need the newest and most comprehensive CRM application that allows you to not only record, but also organize, prioritize, and analyze every bit of information about every contact and every customer?

Do you need a cutting edge marketing program that gets your message out to a scientifically defined demographic, in a precise manner, at a predetermined point in time?

Do you need the latest computer applications to preload, download, and explode each step in your business development process so you can track, document, and report every interaction with every prospect?

All of the “latest and greatest” can provide some advantages… sometimes.  And some can be very beneficial.  But, do you need all of them?  And, do you need more of them?

Probably not.  In fact, they can hinder your ultimate productivity and progress. Continually seeking new resources to make your job easier, more effective, or more efficient, sidetracks you from the actual work that needs to be done.  It’s a form of procrastination that has a compound negative impact.  Not only do you spend time looking for and researching the next magic bullet, but once you find it and obtain it (or what you think is “it”), you must spend additional time learning how to implement it.  And all of that time is time diverted from your primary objective of building your business.

When growing your business, it’s not about how many resources you acquire…or whether they are the latest and the greatest.  It’s about how you use the resources you already have to solve the problems you face, and to create a path for accomplishing your goals.

It’s about thinking strategically; understanding the true nature of the roadblocks between you and your objectives, and then calling on your initiative, skill, and determination to find a way around, over, or through them.

It’s about tackling the hard tasks first and getting them out of the way as quickly as possible, rather than wasting time looking for magic bullets to make the tasks easier…or perhaps make them disappear.

And, it’s about being honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses; identifying the strategies and skills you need to improve; and then taking the necessary steps to refine the strategies and develop your skills.

There will always be a new shiny object to attract your attention—one that promises unparalleled results.  But, your ultimate success won’t come from a new technology, a new computer application, a new marketing process, or a new sales tracking system.  It will come from your determination to do what has to be done…and your willingness to do it to the best of your abilities.

Erik is the CEO of the EAM Consulting Group in Troy.   He trains, coaches and consults as an authorized licensee of Sandler Training,  a world leader in innovative sales and sales management training. Click here for information about Erik’s Nov. 30 introductory seminar. 

Here were two of Jon’s messages.

If you’re explaining, you’re losing.

The city lost 17 percent of its revenue overnight, after a decade-long tax appeal. Angry citizens demanded explanations for a complicated process that is hard to explain in 10 words or less, Lynch said, especially when opponents had simplified THEIR sound bite down to “You mismanaged money.”

“As municipal leaders, we WANT to explain,” Lynch said. “We strive to be open and transparent and provide information; that’s the right way to do business.  People take advantage of that. The message gets lost: ‘If you’re explaining, there’s something wrong.’”

The city turned its part of the conversation into “Tell us what you want.” They conducted a community-wide visioning process that succeeded in part, according to Lynch, because “People understand when you ask what’s important to them.”

In a world of 15-second commercials and USA Today McStories, you must be concise.

“The information is the same.  It’s how you explain it and how you deliver it,” said Lynch.

If you don’t tell your story, someone else will gladly do it for you.

A Midland child with severe allergies wanted a pet. His parents discovered that a miniature pig was the best solution, but Midland’s ordinances prohibit pigs as pets. The city wanted to accommodate them but, as in the previous example, had to go through several time-consuming municipal processes to do so. The Midland Daily News covered the story accurately; not so the blogosphere. The further away the story got from Midland the less accurate it became.

“We learned the hard way that there are thousands of opportunities for anybody with an interest in a particular subject to offer their opinions,” Lynch said.  “People opined on what was happening in our community — sometimes accurately sometimes inaccurately – and we weren’t even aware that they were talking about us.”

The city’s communications staffer spent two weeks doing almost nothing except responding to the resulting blizzard of emails.

“People didn’t understand the need for a regulatory foundation,” he said. “They weren’t interested in being informed.”

The city ultimately found a solution that would allow miniature pigs as pets. They also began more closely monitoring social media mentions, using tools like Google Analytics and SocialMention.com.

The author also riffs a little on branding:

“We recently asked 51 CEOs in one industry whether ‘customer service’ was the reason they were a better choice than their competitors. And 51 out of 51 said yes.

“At the risk of sounding obvious: Nobody will believe it if everyone is saying it. In that industry, the customer-service pigeonhole is already full—and no doubt it’s full in yours, too.”

I, too, meet many business owners who say that their customer service distinguishes them from the competitors. Uh uh. Bad service will drive them away, but good service just keeps you even. Unless you’re committed to legendary levels – think Nordstrom and Ritz Carlton hotels – you should look at other qualities of your product or company for the characteristics that define your brand.

Day 8: Start segmenting your Facebook friends. This series was published in 2010, so some of it is a bit outdated; however this piece of advice presages Facebook’s recent grouping improvements and the advent of Google Groups. I do want to connect with clients and journalists who are my friends on Facebook but I don’t want them to know everything. There are updates I only share with the theatrical community. Only my women friends would be interested in that new mascara (OK, some of the men, too. You know who you are.)

Day 10: Lock your phone already. I didn’t even need a separate app on my Android phone. Go to home screen/menu/settings/security/change screen lock. A refinement: Clean your screen regularly, because the swipe path is a visible smudged line.

Day 23: Switch to Firefox or Chrome. Firefox offers supreme customizability. Chrome is clean and fast: Type a URL into the address bar and it’ll take you there or enter words or a phrase and it will initiate a Google search.

Here’s my additional tip, for Android users: Move as many of your applications as possible onto the SD card. Go to home screen/settings/applications/manage applications (be sure you click “all” at the top of the screen). When you click on each app, you may see a button that says “Move to SD card.” If you don’t see that option, it’s because that app must run in the phone’s memory.

 Got tips? Share them as a comment on this post!