Greg's Right FIT #414

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Questions
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Questions

• Practice self-talk that puts your brain to work by asking yourself questions like, "How will I . . .?" and "If I want X to happen, what do I need to do next?" 
• Gathering evidence is an example of a hard question you need to ask in a soft way. "Where does that show up?" is a good place to start. 
• After attending an event, enhance the experience by asking "best and worst part" questions. Sometimes you'll enjoy it more because reliving the event is great. Other times the event stinks, and it's a joy to pile on a bit.
• One more thing about questions. If one catches you off guard, double check why they're asking it. "Before I go into that, can I ask where that question is coming from?" It gives you time to think, and an explanation improves the answer.

Being Human - Offloading work

"There are two pillars of happiness. . . . One is love. The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away."
– Arthur Brooks 

Do you read anything from  Arthur Books? He's a professor at Harvard that teaches about leadership and writes a regular column for The Atlantic. He shared results from research that suggests making more money doesn't necessarily lead to more happiness. To be happier with our improved situation, we need to look at how that money is spent. The researchers break spending into four categories:

• Buying consumer goods
• Buying help to free up time
• Buying experiences with others (vacations)
• Donating to family, friends, or charity

The studies showed that while consumption of the first category increases with increased earnings, it's the other three categories of spending that bring the most happiness. 

This is similar to a happiness lesson I learned when managing a training center. To help our top sales reps overcome limits on their productivity, we invested in administrative assistants. The thought was that the reps could remove a lot of non-selling tasks from their day, and spend more time in front of customers. More time in front of customers would translate into increased sales. Enough sales to more than pay for the cost of the assistant. 

In practice, it didn't work that way. The high-performing reps brought in a little more in sales, but not as much as expected. What we didn't count on, what we weren't trying to measure, was the rep's happiness with their job. They were more relaxed, more accurate, and enjoyed the job more. All good things, but not great for quarterly revenue results.

Outsourcing work to increase free time is the second bullet on the list. Whether it's the use of assistants, offshore agents, or another investment, the result is roughly the same. Job satisfaction goes up. Happiness increases. More income isn't guaranteed, just as we didn't see a lift in sales. 

When your sales people ask for an investment in administrative help, keep my experience in mind. The impact on revenue is probably going to be found in the revenue you don't lose, versus the additional revenue they bring in. Harder to measure in the short term. But like the benefits of compound interest over time, it will show up. The research is telling us so. 

Random Stuff

"Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side." – Atticus Aristotle

 (robot artist interpretation)

Did I mention the time I was walking through my neighborhood and saw a couple walking their goats? 

I'm in a mostly urban area, and besides the occasional clucking of a chicken, front yard garden, or big truck, I don't see farm lifestyling around. I mean, I sometimes see foxes, once a woodchuck, and another time saw a deer in my backyard, but for the most part it's lawns, dogs, and cats. (fun fact: I do live in an area with an above average raccoon population. Lots of trash pandas according to the reports.) 

As I was saying, I was out for an evening stroll and across the street from me was a couple, each one with a goat on a leash. If you've ever seen goat videos, they jump all over and these two were no different. The street we spied each another on is relatively busy, and these goats were jumping way up, like 3 feet off the ground, straining to cross the street and visit me. It was hilarious. This couple were not big people. It was all they could do to keep their goats out of traffic. 

The moment passed and I never saw them again.

Fast-forward to last night. I am walking back from viewing the movie Napoleon, (wait for video) and a post-movie discussion. It's late and cold, and I'm taking side streets, trying to pick the flattest route home. Walking at night, sometimes you can see into people's homes, maybe seeing what's on TV. In some cases you can see into their yards. Like last night. I peeked into a yard and came to a stop. 

I found the goats.

They were curled up to stay warm. One on a car, and one on some kind of box. This made me chuckle. They heard me. They both stood up, one on the box, one on the car, and I thought, "oh-no-they-can-jump-over-that-fence" and I didn't know what to do about a wandering goat, so I looked straight ahead and picked up my pace. Hoping they lost interest. 

There were no goat issues. I made it home without being attacked or head-butted or whatever they do.

But now I know where they live. And I have questions.