Greg's Right FIT Newsletter #281

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

In this issue: 

- Techniques for FIT
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Techniques for FIT

• Unless you ask, it's hard to know if you are or aren't understanding where the other party is coming from. The iceberg effect of language is real. Ask questions.  
• Sales and selling is my background. "You don't sound like a sales guy," says an executive I meet. I nod. "Describe an objective your after. I'll give you an example of my work." He nods. "I see what you're doing. Well played."
• Letting go is tough when you're bored. For successful people, used to winning, it's tough to let go when you're busy. When the ruminating starts, blink twice, mentally snap the rubber band on your wrist, and let it go. 
• It's not enough to have a great sounding background story. The story should provide evidence your unique background is perfectly suited to solving the problem at hand. (and it needs to be true)

Being Human - The best evidence

“Instant gratification takes too long." – Carrie Fisher 

Don't look to scale before you can say to yourself, "Nothing surprises me. I've heard it all before." 

I'm working with a client launching a new product. It has promise and he's received scores of positive feedback from multiple markets. He tells me he can sell this one customer at a time all day, but he wants to scale. He needs salespeople doing this work, not him. The product is ready to roll. 

I suggest he stays away from scale for a while longer, if he is able.

"Why?" he asks.

Because the last three new customers he tells me about have three new problems he is describing to me, I reply. 

The best evidence is direct. It's also the most time-consuming and the most expensive. It's tempting to outsource or force the issue. But like those kids in the Stanford marshmallow experiment, the longer you can hold off, the greater your reward. Describing the problems your product solves, hearing the problems your client's want solved, and tweaking the product to fit uncovers the process you will scale with. 

Of course, it's easier to have patience to while a patent is pending, but patience is rewarded when you're itching to scale. 

Hold off on eating those marshmallows. 

Random Stuff

I am driving by a grade school and the kids are out on the blacktop playing games. As I pass I notice a boy close to the road. It's a small private school and the kids are usually in uniform, but today must be a coveted "casual" day, where the kids can wear something other than a uniform. This boy, who looks to be in third or fourth grade, is retrieving a sweatshirt and turns triumphantly to the line of kids heading into the building. One of the kids in line breaks away and runs to the sweatshirt. He must have forgotten it's casual day because he's in full uniform. 

A sinking feeling pops into my belly. I don't know if this child is self-conscious, but when I was his age, in Mrs. Esbenshade's class, forgetting a casual day meant a day of ridicule.

"Dude, didn't you know it's a casual day?"

"I forgot."

[repeat 100 times]

I can see myself walking to the bus stop, scrubbed, fed, and ready for a big day, but as soon as I step on the bus and see that weird kid in the front seat wearing a T-shirt and shorts, I gasp. We lock eyes and I can almost read his mind. If I could make myself drop dead, I would.

I'm sure no one noticed what I was wearing. In my mind's eye, however, I stuck out like a sore thumb because my KISS concert T-shirt and Op shorts were home, in a drawer. As with most elementary school trauma's, it would ruin my morning, but by first recess life is right again. 

Our grade school bus stop changed locations a few times over the years, from one door down from my parent's house, to the far end of the block on Lehigh Ave. After it moved to Lehigh, my sister and I waited with a classmate/neighbor, Jolie. She was in my grade but might as well have been going to school on Mars because boy world and girl world didn't mix at school.

(I'd see this repeat when my kids went to grade school. I went to an adult get together after a school event when my daughter was graduating 8th grade. In surveying the crowd I see an old friend and we start chatting.

"What are you doing here," I said. 

"My son is friends with so-and-so." 

"Weird, my daughter is too. What grade is your boy in?"

"Eighth."

"Hmm, mine too." 

Wait, we have kids the same age?! They've been at the same school for 8+ years! How come no one ever told me? 

In each head, a world, as they say.)

Not only did Jolie and I attend the same elementary school, I went to high school with her too. Through Facebook, Jolie and I re-connected a few years ago, exchanged some pleasantries, but decades on we didn't have much of a connection. Just happened to be the same age, sent to the same schools, but we were never really in the same circle.

I received a note saying Jolie passed away. No details, only a reference to it being sudden. Seeing those kids on the playground reminds me of her too. I'm guessing her passing wasn't from the trauma of a forgotten casual day. Life gets complicated.

Hang in there.

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