You can often wind up a fabulous presentation only to be submarined by a tough question from someone in the audience. In Executive Excellence, speaking coach Dianna Booher divides those tough questions into three categories:

• Hypothetical Questions: When people ask a hypothetical question, they often want to express their own opinion. As a result, whatever answer you give will be "wrong," and they will change the details in the hypothetical situation so they can set you straight on what will and won't work. Sidestep the details in your answer, responding, "There are so many unknowns and variables in hypothetical cases that it's difficult to give a meaningful response." Or ask what their real concern is in raising the question, and deal directly with that issue.
• Show-Off Questions: Generally this question comes in the form of a monologue or a barrage of data, to which the questioner tacks on a limp query like "wouldn't you agree?" You can ask the individual to restate the question, or simply acknowledge the comment and move on.
• Hostile Questions: People ask hostile questions for a variety of reasons, including they disagree with you or have the wrong information; they think they are saving the day for others; or they have a hostile tone without realizing it. You can rephrase their comments for everyone into a legitimate question minus the hostile tone, or acknowledge and accept the feeling, which may defuse the hostility and help the person to receive your answer more openly.

See: http://www.eep.com/

Do you use a closed or an open To-Do list? On the Dumb Little Man blog, web site creator Ali Hale explains that using a closed list means you write the items down at the start of the day (or even the evening before) and don't add tasks during the course of the day. By comparison, an open list involves starting the day with a few tasks that need to be done and adding as e-mails and phone calls come in.

Most of us use an open list. And she thinks that's wrong.

"The problem with using an 'open' list is that it's very easy for it to get too long. It's also an inefficient way to work," she insists.

When you think of tasks that need to be done during the day, she suggests:

• Write them down on tomorrow's list unless they are super-urgent.
• At the end of the day, look at tomorrow's list and assess whether the tasks you have written down are ones you really need or want to do.
• Shift some of the tasks to later in the week, if they aren't urgent.

Obviously if the boss wants something immediately, it may not be possible to tell him or her, "I'll get to it tomorrow." But otherwise she believes this process will help your productivity by ensuring you don't end up getting distracted and aren't doing tasks just for the sake of getting them off your list.

See: http://www.dumblittleman.com/2008/09/how-to-make-your-to-do-list-work-for.html

Price objections can be difficult to stickhandle through. Ottawa-based consultant Colleen Francis advises to make sure you talk about price before you send anything to the client in writing. "Verbalizing what you think the price will be before sending a formal proposal can significantly reduce the chances that a price objection will arise," she writes on her Engage Selling web site.

While still with the client, give a rough estimate, saying something like, "It's going to be about $4,000. How does that sound to you?"

If the client objects, that allows you to deal with the issue face-to-face -- and immediately, rather than letting it fester. Sending a proposal without such a prior price conversation may lead to you never getting a call back.

See: http://www.engageselling.com/colleen/colleenfrancis_index.shtml

Sometimes instead of motivating others, we're faced with the challenge of motivating ourselves. In the Administrative Excellence newsletter, trainer Donna Deeprose suggests dealing with a boring project by enlisting a colleague to help so you can bounce ideas off one another and make the work more enjoyable. Or concentrate on being creative, inventing a different approach that might enliven the project for you.

If a task seems impossible, sapping your enthusiasm, find someone who has done it before and is willing to share his or her expertise. You can also benefit by finding individuals who tackled similar tasks without success, learning what traps to avoid. Also, talk to the people who came up with the assignment, to find out why they think it will work, what's their bottom line, and where they would start.

See: http://www.amanet.org/admin-excellence/editorial.cfm?Ed=668

• Economic times are tough for many people. Your customers, employees and investors will remember how you treated them when times were bad -- when they needed a break, and some extra support -- rather than how you acted in boom times. (Source: Seth's Blog)
• When a member of your team comes to you with a problem, ask for his or her opinion on what to do before you offer your opinion or take the burden off his or her back and put it on yours. (Source: JimClemmer.com)
• A continuing trend of significance is the desire of customers for customization. How can you allow your clients to customize? Remember: It need not be in the product or service, but in other factors, such as building their own payment schedule. (Source: The Marketing Minute)
• Companies have been told that team-based pay is the best way to encourage co-operation, rather than to have team members receive their pay based on individual effort. But Penn State University Professor Kimberly Merriman says research show that it takes a very high degree of team trust before individuals stop preferring individual-based to team-based pay. (Source: Harvard Business Review)
• Need to think fresh thoughts? Try changing your perspective. Look at a city map, choose an unfamiliar area, drive there, and get out and walk for an hour. Or go to a restaurant you suspect you won't like, and order something weird. It may seem peculiar, but peculiar helps you to break patterns. (Source: Monday Morning Memo)

Links:

See: Seth's Blog
See: JimClemmer.com
See: The Marketing Minute
See: Harvard Business Review
See: Monday Morning Memo

Start with reading through the site again, familiarizing yourself with it, and considering how well it matches your current operations. You may have new products or services not even mentioned on it, or products or services that have grown in importance. Your business strategy may have shifted, deliberately or through drift, as new opportunities arose.

Your web statistics should give you an indication of how visitors currently come to your site, and what pages draw the most attention. Although visitors may find those pages through links, you need to review whether the home page highlights those popular pages and makes it easy to reach them.

Talk to some customers about how they use the site. In some cases, a page other than your home page may be what they have bookmarked and head to first -- perhaps a list of prices, or delivery times, or informative articles. In effect, those are the home pages for at least some segments of your customers -- perhaps the majority. How can they best be designed so customers find it easy to locate the pages they need next? What links have to be added or accentuated?

Of course, your clients today may not be typical of the future customers you would like to attract. If those prospects have different characteristics, how can you better design the site to meet their needs? What are the most important tasks you would expect them to carry out online, and can they be accomplished easily from the home page?

That will start to give you an idea of the changes that may be necessary. You want to ensure that navigation is clear for all visitors -- that they can get to the page they want, ideally in one click or by a clear and easy path.

You want to make sure that visitors can easily find out how to contact you no matter what page they happen to be on. You may want to hire specialists to review whether the site is optimized for the search engines. And you certainly want to read through every page on your site, looking for stale or erroneous material.

Blogs, podcasts, and RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds might also be something to consider. But only if they fit your strategy and brand image; would appeal to customers or prospects; and can be carried out without significant cost financially or in effort. For most companies these features are a distraction (despite all the tweeting about them online), but for some companies they are essential and should be pursued and expanded.

It's always a pleasure to engage in a lively marketing discussion, and this past week we had the pleasure of moderating a panel at the Kingston Technology Council's Innovation 2009 conference. It featured a designer (Brian Dodo), a management consultant (Theresa MacBeth) and a sales management guru (Doug Girvin). Here's a sampling of some of the points they made:

• In an increasingly design-oriented world, business people don't think the way designers think and often leave them out of the critical early stages of a project.
• Although deceptive posturing in sales practice has maligned the discipline with a "liar liar" reputation, first-class sales staff can bring a lot of business and problem-solving expertise to the table. That experience, plus creativity and a strong working relationship between both parties, can create huge value for both the client and sales professional.
• There are times when an extremely detailed, step-by-step strategic plan is actually a handicap. In emerging markets where the situation can change rapidly, you may be wiser to establish a few core principles to guide your team when they must adapt nimbly.

8020Info helps teams develop, communicate and implement more effective strategies. We would be pleased to discuss your needs and welcome enquiries at (613) 542-8020, or by email at watercooler@8020info.com.

"It is what we learn after we know it all that matters."

   -- John Wooden