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- Learning Your Productivity Personality Type
- Can a Small-Business Boss Learn from a Crime Boss?
- Relationship Race
- Why You Shouldn’t Blog
| Learning Your Productivity Personality Type Posted: 27 Jan 2012 08:30 AM PST
I've been reading your columns, and I have to say I'm intrigued by your ideas. But there have to be other types than Fantasticals, right? What are they? Signed, Curious Dear Curious, Thank you for asking! There are additional types other than Fantastical – three of them, to be exact. I call them Environmental, Analytical and Structural. The Environmental is an externally focused, people person. If you have an Environmental in your life, you should count yourself extremely blessed, because they have a unique gift for reading the people around them and a strong drive to ensure that those people are happy, healthy and feel welcome and safe. But that same drive is what can kill their productivity – think of how many plans get torpedoed by someone else's emergencies, even if you're not an Environmental. So when we work with Environmentals, we're working to create frameworks that are extremely flexible and can roll with whatever comes their way. The Analytical is an internally focused, goal-driven person. They are excellent at seeing the big picture, and understanding how the tiniest detail fits into that larger image. The weakness of an Analytical is that they don't, for the most part, want to handle those little details themselves. They see the value of them, but they know their attention is better focused elsewhere. At the same time, they often don't trust others to do the job properly, and they end up overloading themselves and sabotaging their larger goals. When we work with Analyticals, we create teams that can work together to cover the big picture and the little details, with each person playing to his or her personal strengths. The Structural is a natural scheduler and organizer. There's a reason 99% of the productivity and time management books on the market are variations of the same message – they're all written by Structurals! It's simple for them to create the perfect system for their situation, and then they look around at the other types struggling and feel a natural urge to share their systems and help out. But their systems may as well be Greek to the other types, leading to frustration and resentment all around. Despite their mastery of system creation, we do occasionally get Structurals coming to us for help. The problem almost always lies in the intricacies of their systems, because they rarely think to circle back to look at what they've already created. When we work with Structurals, we purposely try to break their systems, and then we put the pieces back together to create something stronger and leaner than it was before. And let's not forget the Fantastical – our visual thinker and problem solver. The Fantastical is excellent at connecting the dots and coming up with innovative new ideas, but that skill comes at the expense of more traditionally valued traits such as time awareness and tidiness. The trick to working with a Fantastical is to understand that those piles are extensions of their brains, not evidence of an inability to clean up at the end of the day. They need to see the items they're working on to remember that they're there. We work primarily with Fantasticals, and our first step is almost always to tackle their environment and make space for the piles. It's possible to easily manage your workflow and keep track of everything without spending hours moving papers from folder to desk to folder and back again. As you can see, the four different types need radically different strategies, none of which appear with any regularity in the organization, time management or productivity genre. Thanks again for asking – great question. Kirsten Have a productivity question for Kirsten? Send it over!  |
| Can a Small-Business Boss Learn from a Crime Boss? Posted: 27 Jan 2012 05:30 AM PST
But Donald DeSantis argues that small-business owners could learn a few lessons from organized crime. DeSantis, a columnist on the website GigaOM, says he learned some of these pearls of wisdom from an acquaintance who supported a family and led a comfortable lifestyle through a career in organized crime. Among the lessons DeSantis offers in his piece: "Don't sell rocks when you can sell mountains." For small business, risk is essential. He writes, "Thinking small increases our risk. So let's think big." "Cut out the middleman." DeSantis writes that his crime-boss friend went straight to the source of what he needed, rather than paying for someone else to accomplish what he could do. "Everywhere he saw a third party making money, he figured out a way to replace that person or bring them in-house." "Don't screw with your users." DeSantis users slightly cruder language on this point, but he argues that you should protect your customers, and avoid mistreatment like spamming them with irrelevant marketing messages or abusing them with unfair treatment. Though he's not arguing that small-business owners should turn to crime itself, he does lay out a case for taking a few plays from the people in the world that take risks, focus on profit, and create their own path to success in the tough world of small business. Photo Credit: yoni sheffer  |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2012 05:00 PM PST
I'm a recovering relationship junky. I tried meeting as many people as possible to make sure that I had all the right connections. It was actually sad to think of my business and life this way. I was more worried about who I was connecting with instead of making smart business decisions. I wanted that huge trophy of a fish (client) on my resume. I recently tried to land a client that I knew could grow my business. I tried emailing, tweeting, Facebooking, Google plus connecting, and everything else I could think of. I tried everything. Nothing was working. I thought that if I landed this client my business would skyrocket. So I focused hours upon hours of my time wooing this guy. Only ending up with nothing. He didn't want to deal with me. I felt broken and exhausted. I couldn't believe that he didn't just want to give me 20 minutes of his time. I'm not going to call him out in this article, because it wouldn't do him or me any good, but what I will do is tell you what I missed out on.
You have probably caught yourself getting too caught up trying to land a client or trying to reach a certain goal, only to look back and see what you've missed. Relationships aren't a race. The race to grow your business through strategic relationships can wreck your happiness. They can crush your ability to grow your business in a sane and enjoyable way. Look at who you want to connect with, make a list of 10 people. Then start reaching out to each one of them. By choosing a small group of people who might want to connect with you, you are open to growing your business in many directions. If five people don't return your email or call, but 5 others do, you can focus on these 5 and still enjoy yourself. Spreading your attention around to a small group of people will help you avoid the trap of losing out on landing that one big client. It will also keep you on emotionally stable ground. You have to be patient, try a few different spots and kinds of fish before you hit your stride. In the beginning it's better to come back with 5 smaller fish then nothing at all. Photo Credit: Marcos Vasconcelos Photography  |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2012 12:30 PM PST
According to the article: “The world needs more participants and more people adding to the existing conversations, so share your thoughts on someone else's blog. Or, join a Biznik, LinkedIn or Meetup group and go the events that those groups spawn and meet in person, in real life. Do everything you can to connect with an individual, because the individual makes [the] decision to buy.” The author then goes on to cite four very specific reasons you shouldn't blog, and they're enough to make you stop and think twice about it. The first one in particular is noteworthy:
The author recommends a great alternative:
Do you agree with this concept? Do you blog for business and, if so, do you feel it's a productive way to connect with your people? Photo Credit: Brett L.  |
Big business has certainly had its brushes with crime in recent years. From Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme to Martha Stewart's stint in prison for insider trading, Americans have seen massive corporate success stories succumb to illegal acts.
Are you racing to connect with more people to grow your business?
You've heard it a million times: Every business needs a blog. So why are you reading an article about NOT blogging? Well, | You are subscribed to email updates from Upmarket To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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