Tag: The Write Concept Inc.

My Now and Zen Kitchen

Posted on by Linda Anger

It happened accidentally, the day I reached below the sink for a dishwasher “tablet” and found the box empty. Dang! I had a washer full of sticky, dirty plates, guests coming for dinner, and no time to run to the store.

So I washed all those dishes by hand, and in the midst of it, I realized several things. One was that the job was done in 20 minutes rather than running an hour’s worth of electricity and gallons of water through the dishwasher. That’s good for my electric bill and good for the environment.

The other was that in those few minutes I wasn’t thinking about the mortgage, the president, the price of gas, or where I needed to be the next day. I was focused only on feeling the plate in my hand, enjoying the sensuality of soapy water on my skin, and the “wax on, wax off” aspect of washing, rinsing, and wiping dishes. That’s good for my spirit, and good for my mind.

The zen teachers say the way to enlightenment is to “chop wood and carry water.” Allowing my thoughts to ebb away while I concentrate only on the task of washing the dishes reminds me daily that extraordinary understanding comes from doing the simplest things with absolute focus.

And it’s helping to save the planet.

Ten Pounds of Wasted Paper

Posted on by Linda Anger

A few months ago I added a new element to my weekend ritual of shredding the name and address labels from mail received during the week. I weigh the bags before I put them in my trash hauler’s recycling container. Last week’s batch was ten pounds, including the unsolicited magazines, flyers, and catalogs on which the labels came.

Assuming the other residents of my condo community receive the same amount of mail as me, that’s just shy of a full ton of wasted paper, ink, postage, and shredding time coming in and out of one small corner of the world each week.

What a waste.

I’m doing what I can to go green, so I ordered the United States Postal Service “Handbook to Greener Direct Mail,” which came with a free 100% cotton t-shirt emblazoned with their “environmailism” trademark.

Here are a few tips from the handbook:

  • Build your list consciously, and scrub it regularly. I live in a condo but still get promo cards from lawn services and roofing companies who could have saved money (and trees) by eliminating condo or apartment complex addresses from their list.
  • Choose environmentally friendly paper. While there are many options, the USPS suggests you buy the highest post-consumer content paper your budget and function allow.
  • Reduce the use of plastics by using windowless envelopes.
  • Collaborate with your printer to make the best use of their press. Sometimes a slight change in a design allows them to produce more from each press sheet.

Are you schlepping ten pounds of wasted paper to your curbside every trash day? You can begin to decrease the amount of junk mail you receive by checking out DoNotMail.org.

 

How to Be Smarter Than You Look

Posted on by Linda Anger

So there you are, at a networking event or a business meeting, eying a couple across the room. He has a gym-perfect physique, a crisp designer suit, and carefully manicured hands. She has a few extra pounds, a button missing on her blouse, and a hairstyle that hasn’t changed since sometime in the 1980s.

Which of the two is smarter?

The bad news: We are judged by our appearance.
The good news: We are respected for our brains.

Looking smart feels great, is great—but being smart is the icing on the cake.

These five simple practices will boost your “smart” rating:

  1. Boost Your Vocabulary: Crack open that dusty dictionary or thesaurus. Commit to learning and using one new word each day. Bookmark http://wordsmith.org/awad/ in your browser, or sign up for their “word a day” emails. Learn correct pronunciations, spelling, and context.
  2. Ask Questions: Benjamin Franklin said, “Humility makes great men twice honorable.” Focusing the conversation on what the other person knows and asking respectful questions achieves two things: It gives you an opportunity to learn even when you think you already know it all, and it engages the other person in their favorite topic—themselves.
  3. Read Good Books: If time is an issue, carry a book or e-Reader with you—read a few paragraphs or pages while you’re in the waiting room. Commit to reading two or three pages each day, or listen to books on tape. Buy magazines on topics with which you are not familiar—it will help you broaden your knowledge.
  4. Speak Simply: Increasing your vocabulary amplifies your ability to communicate, but obscure words, jumbo words or industry lingo confuse the conversation. Sadly, most American adults read at an 8th grade level. Use simple, ordinary words, and gauge your word choices on the “pomposity factor.” Never use a three syllable word when a two syllable word will do, and never use a two syllable word when a single syllable word gets your point across.
  5. Listen More than you Speak: William Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” No one likes a conversation hog. Practice your listening skills, speak simply and concisely, and understand your role in the theater of the moment.

Being smart is the icing on the cake!

 

Sentenced to Death

Posted on by Linda Anger

Technology gives us the ability to post and retrieve information in a jiffy. But, too often, the pearls of wisdom are buried in mountains of unnecessary sentences.

As tempting as it may be to whip out a draft and send it flying across the internet, don’t do it. Your communications will be more powerful, and more clearly understood, if you learn a few tricks used by writers and editors to keep readers from being “sentenced” to death.

3 Tips for Editing and Minding your Words:

  1. Cut Transitions. Get rid of phrases like, “for instance.” Just state your example.
  2. Shorten Sentences. Dividing rambling thoughts into smaller, simpler sentences results in crisper expression.
  3. Helper Verbs Don’t Help. Use the present tense whenever possible. Examine every may, or might, or other “helpers” for relevance and necessity.

The Law of Attraction

The Law of Attraction says those things on which we dwell—and particularly those things that come out of our mouths—become our reality. Every thought we think is a “sentence” we impose on ourselves.

It’s cool that we can choose whether we sentence ourselves to positivism or negativity… and when you put it that way, who would consciously choose the latter?

As Mike Dooley of Tut.com says: Thoughts Become Things… Choose the Good Ones!

 

Four Business Card Blunders

Posted on by Linda Anger

When calling cards first appeared in France during the 17th-century reign of Louis XIV, they were used as symbols of aristocratic position. The higher the position in court or society, the more impressive the calling card, and the more sophisticated the rules governing their use.

Four hundred years later, calling cards are no longer a luxury reserved for royalty, but a business necessity whose roles and rules shift based on culture and fashion. But one thing remains constant: the psychological impact of visual appeal and readability.

Four Business Card Blunders that Lower your Credibility:

  1. No Physical Address. One of the blessings of technology is that we can live and work anywhere in the world… but people are skittish about doing business with someone they can’t physically track down. A post office box is better than no address, and will add a subconscious level of credibility to your business.
  2. Huge Graphics and Tiny Print. Your name and contact information should be the focal elements of your card. If your logo dominates the space and forces a small type size to fit the text in, your card will end up in the trash. Most people don’t carry magnifying glasses.
  3. Single-Sided Printing. You’re paying for the paper, and the back side of your card is valuable real estate. Use it for a larger display of your logo, website address, or specific information on your company.
  4. Obvious DIY Job. No matter how hard you try, a homemade business card can’t compete with professional design and commercial printing.  Invest in a professional design that will support your company image for five to seven years, and a quality paper.

In the 17th century, people kept calling cards as proof that an influential person had come to visit. They were, in a sense, as much a symbol of the recipient’s social standing as they were of the caller’s status. We’re a bit less formal with them now, given the low cost of producing cards and the mountains of them we collect each year. But the questions still remain: What is the psychological significance of your business card? Do people have reason to keep it? Does it serve you in furthering your business image?

If not, perhaps you should give us a call.

From Water to Ice and Back Again

Posted on by Linda Anger

Life has its flow. People come and go in our lives, the economy dips and rises. We are children, then have children. In a culture of advanced technology and continual change, we sometimes hold deep nostalgia for the way it has always been. Not so in the village of Jukkasajärvi, Sweden, 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, where the people celebrate as their greatest achievement melts away each April.  Jukkasajärvi is the site of an annual construction project called the Ice Hotel.

A Deluxe Suite in the Ice Hotel

For centuries, the amazing summer experiences offered by the “Land of the Midnight Sun” were offset by dark, sub-zero, “we can’t do anything but hibernate” winters. But Jukkasajärvi’s winter life was reborn when Åke Larsson and his team created the first Ice Hotel in 1990. Now in its 18th year, the Ice Hotel is redesigned and rebuilt annually, using only snow and ice from the River Tome. Artists and artisans from around the globe vie for the honor of sculpting one of 80+ rooms, and international travelers book their rooms years in advance.

The Ice Hotel is a marvel of architecture and human resilience that shimmers through the winter and melts into the River Tome year after year – an example of how human spirit and creativity can change the face of the earth, and sculpt new life – a new industry – in a remote village.

Life has its flow. Much needs to change here in metro Detroit, and it will. People will come and go in our lives, the economy will dip and rise, and our children’s children will have children. If it is possible to amaze the world by building a hotel out of ice and snow in a small village 200 kilometers inside the Arctic Circle, it is also possible for the people of metro Detroit to once again change the face of the world.

What will you do today?

 

The One-Word Difference

Posted on by Linda Anger

When William Shakespeare penned Romeo’s famous line, What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, he invoked a universal truth —how you perceive a thing is more important and more powerful than the name you assign it.

Most of the time, that is.

But as Frank Luntz, head of the Luntz Research Companies in Washington, D.C. points out, choosing one word over another can make a huge difference in how your company is perceived.  In his book Words that Work, Luntz shares statistics and insights from the political arena that also apply to the business world:

“… by almost two-to-one, Americans say we are spending too much on welfare (42 percent) rather than too little (23 percent). Yet an overwhelming 68 percent of Americans think we are spending too little on assistance to the poor, versus a mere 7 percent who think we’re spending too much.”

As Luntz points out, welfare is assistance to the poor. The difference in public response is in the positioning and phrasing. Welfare has a negative connotation. Assistance to the Poor sounds compassionate and charitable.  His results were similar in a survey regarding taxes to further law enforcement versus taxes to halt the rising crime rate. While the terms essentially point to the same thing, one was viewed as increased administrative costs, and the other as achieving a desirable result – making our world safer.

Back to Business

How your customers view your product or service is directly related to the words and phrases you choose to use in marketing and advertising, just as public opinion is swayed by the conscious word choices of politicians. According to Luntz, for example, accountability trumps professionalism and responsibility because it is the only one of the three that implies enforcement. Learn to weigh the impact of your words and designs carefully, and you’ll soon find that attending to Shakespeare’s question, What’s in a name? can make a difference in your sales, and help you turn thorns into roses.

 

What She Really Meant to Say

Posted on by Linda Anger

What do you suppose Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay, really meant when she said she was “encouraged by the fundamentals that underlie usage growth on the net”?

A)  She believes eBay is more popular than ever
B)  She’s glad Internet technology is growing
C)  She’s happy more people are using the net

In keeping with Ms. Whitman’s language choices, I have to say that I am discouraged by the fundamentals that underlie usage of obscure communications in business. That is, I’m sad that so many business people are more concerned with sounding intellectual than they are with communicating clearly.

Simplicity is the name of the game in getting your message across, and in the end, it’s not what you say that matters. What your client or prospect hears is the critical factor.

Five Guidelines for Clear Messaging:

  1. Avoid words that require a dictionary for interpretation. Few people will bother to look them up.
  2. Use short sentences. Try to keep each sentence under 20 words. Break longer thoughts into multiple sentences.
  3. Make your message relevant. If what you say doesn’t matter to your intended audience, you will not be heard.
  4. Find a clear, concise message and stick with it.
  5. Do not assume your reader thinks and believes as you do.

In the end, language is a tool used to inform and enlighten. The simple choice between one word and another really does make a difference in how your message is understood.

As Dr. Frank Luntz says in his book Words that Work, we need to make people the center of our communication, not the target.

Wal-Mart Reconnaissance

Posted on by Linda Anger

John Nottingham and his business partner, John Spirk – a pair of 50-ish guys from Cleveland, Ohio – spend a lot of time in what they call “Wal-Mart Reconnaissance.” It’s a pastime that has brought them 464 patents and more than $30 billion in sales.

Their success is based on a simple process: find the things ordinary people use every day and make them better. The team invented things like the Sherwin-Williams Twist-and-Pour paint can that saves us from blobs of unintentional color on our otherwise neutral carpeting, and the Crest SpinBrush – the bestselling electric toothbrush on the market.

I heard about them through a profile on NBC news.

The Nottingham-Spirk story makes it clear that a bit of innovation and creative thinking can change an “ordinary” product or service into something extraordinary and wildly popular. Increased function or ease of use equate to higher value and desirability, which leads to increased sales.

Incorporating “Wal-Mart Reconnaissance” into your business might involve:

•  finding and expanding a niche area overlooked or underutilized by your competition
•  developing collaborative partnerships with industry-relative but non-competitive businesses
•  reworking the content and design of your websites, blogs, or brochures

Do your prospects and clients view you as “extraordinary”?  If you’re not sure, it may be time for a trip to Wal-Mart.

 

Ben Franklin’s Business Advice

Posted on by Linda Anger

Before he became the most famous Founding Father of the United States, Ben Franklin was a businessman. His career began at age 12, when he became an apprentice typesetter.

Franklin founded his own printing business at age 22, became the official printer for Pennsylvania at age 24, and was so successful that he retired at age 44.

Some call him the Founding Father of American business.

Franklin’s – 12 rules of management make it clear where modern business gurus have gained their inspiration:

 

1)      Finish better than your beginnings
2)      All education is self-education
3)      Seek first to manage yourself, then to manage others
4)      Influence is more important than victory
5)      Work hard and watch your costs
6)      Everybody wants to appear reasonable
7)      Create your own set of values to guide your actions
8)      Incentive is everything
9)      Create solutions for seemingly impossible problems
10)    Become a revolutionary for experimentation and change
11)     Sometimes it is better to do 1,001 small things right than one large thing right
12)    Deliberately cultivate your reputation and legacy

In “retirement,” Franklin founded the first subscription library in the colonies, the first fire department in Philadelphia, the American Philosophical Society, a school that became the University of Pennsylvania, the first insurance company, and the first hospital in Philadelphia.

He eventually became a statesman, and was the only Founding Father to sign the three most important documents in America’s young history: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and the Constitution.

Despite his amazing influence and contributions to the American cause, Congress in 1788 denied him compensation for his service to the government. He died of pleurisy on April 17, 1790.