by Andrea Howe | Jan 19, 2015 | Monthly-ish tips
This post is part of our Weekly Tips series.
Last week’s tip came from a marketing story with
embedded lessons about deepening existing client relationships. This week’s story holds an important lesson about what not to do when you’re trying to build trust with new stakeholders.
by Andrea Howe | Jan 13, 2015 | Monthly-ish tips
This post is part of our Weekly Tips series.
Five years ago I was surprised by a knock at the door—an unexpected delivery of baked goods from a local sweet shop. The package included a hand-written note from Kacy, the office organizer I had hired exactly one year before. The sweets were to commemorate my first anniversary in my new home office, with a reminder that she was available should any lingering piles be in my way, and a no-obligation request to
tell others about her services if I was so inclined.
by Andrea Howe | Jan 6, 2015 | Monthly-ish tips
This post is part of our Weekly Tips series.
I’m writing this message from the lobby of a schwanky hotel in Washington DC (my home town), where my colleague
Nicolette and I have dedicated a day to writing stuff that supports our respective businesses: weekly tips and blogs for me, and a book for her. This is the result of a pact we made late last year to help each other take time out to do what would otherwise fall by the wayside. We chose the hotel setting thanks to inspiration from my friends at Valuable Content, who advise that writing great content is most likely when we step away from our usual surroundings, and also
go somewhere we’ll look forward to.
by Andrea Howe | Dec 22, 2014 | Monthly-ish tips
This post is part of our Weekly Tips series.
Did you know the hallmark skill of the best salespeople is the same one that sets the extraordinary consultants from the pretty good ones, and that distinguishes advisors from trusted advisors?
by Andrea Howe | Dec 18, 2014 | Real Moments
Business people want speakers to motivate their staff with pep talks on innovation, creativity, and change. Thought leader Brené Brown upends that approach by making a case for being—gasp—vulnerable.
Brene’s years of study show vulnerability (the “V” word, which I wrote about on forbes.com) is the key to making progress in our business and personal lives.
Today’s Real Moment features Brene’s 24-minute TED lecture in which she acknowledges that it goes against modern society’s grain to show anyone weakness, ignorance or doubt. (If you don’t have 24 minutes, watch the first 2:30.) Then she asserts that admitting we’re not perfect, we don’t have all the answers, and we can’t do it ourselves are the very things that allow space for something new to be born. And she channels Teddy Roosevelt whose “Man in the Arena” speech underscores that you can’t wait till you’re bulletproof before you step into the fray.
When you have those real moments—those “this is who I am and how it is” moments—you’re actually becoming more trustworthy. In the parlance of the trust equation, being vulnerable is a trust trifecta: you’re simultaneously improving your scores on credibility, intimacy, and self-orientation.
So there you have it: three good reasons to let them see you sweat.
by Andrea Howe | Dec 15, 2014 | Monthly-ish tips
This post is part of our Weekly Tips series.
If you’re like most business professionals, you’re not short on holiday parties and networking events to attend. And, like most of us, you’re probably going about it wrong.
by Andrea Howe | Dec 8, 2014 | Monthly-ish tips
This post is part of our Weekly Tips series.
Of the 63,000+ people who have completed
Trusted Advisor Associates’ Trust Quotient™ survey (a self-assessment), Reliability comes out 21 percentage points higher than any of the other three elements of the
Trust Equation. This isn’t really surprising, given that reliability is the easiest to grasp and execute. Reliability is logical, concrete, and action-oriented.
by Andrea Howe | Dec 1, 2014 | Monthly-ish tips
This post is part of our Weekly Tips series.
Have you ever been to Yellowstone National Park in the U.S.?
If you have, you might have encountered Old Faithful, a geyser that gets its name because it regularly shoots steam and water to great heights. In fact, with a margin of error of 10 minutes, Old Faithful will erupt either every 65 or every 91 minutes, depending on the length of the previous eruption. It’s been doing this since 1870.
by Andrea Howe | Nov 24, 2014 | Monthly-ish tips
This post is part of our Weekly Tips series.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about one aspect of
The Trust Creation Process. It’s a five-step model describing how trust gets created in conversations: Engage, Listen, Frame, Envision, Commit (“ELFEC” for short). The Trust Creation Process was first introduced by Charlie Green and his co-authors in
The Trusted Advisor.
by Andrea Howe | Nov 20, 2014 | Real Moments
It’s happened to us all:
- We get talked over, distorted, or interrupted by someone’s barking dog
- We multi-task like a champ
- We forget to un-mute ourselves (or worse, forget to mute ourselves)
- We discover a “lurker” late in the game
- We pretend to lose a connection when we have something better to do.
That’s right: the conference call.
