PETER SHANKMAN
| POSTED ON July 7th, 2010 | 12 COMMENTS | + ADD YOUR COMMENT |
To compliment yesterday’s post involving five things you shouldn’t do, here’s five things you’re not doing enough of, and you should be doing more.
5) Read different things. If the only places you get your news and information are the same places you’ve been going for the past year, it’s time to find some new spots. Check out Newsmap as a start, and go from there. Also find some new blogs that you’ve never checked out before. Essentially, find the opposite of what you’re used to reading, and go from there.
4) Start getting down and dirty with some stats. Fact is, we get tons and tons of stats from our social networks, and 99.9% of them we ignore. Start looking! Right now, go look at the number of followers you have. Then look again on Friday, and see if you notice a difference. Less? More? If you lost them, what did you do to bring that on? If you were retweeted, why? Something interesting? Funny? Learn your audience and you’ll know how to better talk with them. TweetStats is a great place to start, as is FriendorFollow.com.
3) Countless studies have shown that we focus better if we’re utilizing the tools that work the best for us. For me, that’s texting and email. For you, it might be a phone call. Start molding the people to whom you talk into your way of communicating – My outgoing voice mail message tells people NOT TO LEAVE ME A MESSAGE, but rather to text me or call me – They’ll have a much better chance of getting in touch with me that way. And it works – I get maybe one voice mail a month. I turn questions into answers much better if I’m typing – and as more people realize that about me, the more they realize that if they provide me the question in the right way, I’ll return the answer that much quicker. Everyone wins. Are you using the right tools for your job? If not, fix it.
2) Get a pro-bono client. I’m not taking anything away from the Benjamins we all must make – but seriously – take 5% of your time and give it to a pro-bono client. It’ll balance your chi, and besides, you never know who you’re going to meet who’s also doing the same thing – who can wind up being a new paying client. It’s happened to me more than once.
1) Get the hell out of your office. I get a lot of crap whenever I suggest this – “Oh, we all don’t work from home, we all can’t just leave our offices whenever we want.” I’m not suggesting you leave whenever you want. I have meetings almost every day that prevent me from working from Phuket, Thailand this week. But – There are times when I don’t. And there are times when YOU don’t. And your job is to show your boss, or the powers that be, that you’re trustable, you can work without someone watching over you, and you’ll be just as productive whether you’re on a beach, at a park, on a plane, or at your desk. Once you get them to let you, work even HARDER, and prove their fears unfounded. Then you’ll have the ability to do whatever you want. And that’s where the fun starts.
Did I miss any? Leave them below.
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I would add one more: Always have good routines and habits, but change them often. For instance (and this is especially true if you work from home), I shifted many of the little household tasks I used to do in the morning before starting work to different times of the day so that I’d get to work sooner and I’d have some tasks to do during the day when I needed to get away from my desk. |
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If you work in a large building then get up and take a walk around the building every once in a while to clear your head and get away from your desk. Say hello to people you pass — you might meet someone interesting. |
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You list is great, and I try to do each one every day so some extent, although in this busy life, seems I am doing much of this in the middle of the night! As far as being out of the office, I agree; however, I find that not being in the office seems to impact not my productivity, but of my own employees. Seems they can’t stay focused and driven unless I am around. This is an issue I struggle with. |
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I really like point no. 1 (getting out of the office) and 2 (pro-bono client). I can relate to the first point as I’ve been working out of India for a Singapore-based firm for several months now. It’s not out of choice but due to some unavoidable circumstances. The situation is especially tough given that I’m the only one in the company who’s working out of a different country! It took a lot of time and hard work to prove to everyone that I was actually putting in as much effort as I could and working like any other full time employee instead of just slacking off in my PJs. However, now that I’ve earned my team’s trust, it’s really a blessing to be able to work out of home and move around a bit more. I’ve also wanted to do some pro-bono client work for a long time. However, since my firm hasn’t really been looking in that direction, I’ve started looking into some volunteer work and other side projects that I can take on with my current work load. |
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I have two things to add … or tweak. My favorite saying … by ME: You’re ripping off the world if you’re not being who you are meant to be. |
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#4 is missing a key element, “learn how to *understand* stats”. We’re bombarded with statistics every day and very few people actually know what they mean, what can be counted as a significant change, or how correlations work. You don’t need a full-on course to do this. Most stats that will be significant to people are very basic. The biggest help for PR would be for people to understand, notice, and track trends. Note your followers/subscribers always increase after you write in a certain way, but stay the same when you write in another? You now have data that shows what people expect, and want, from you. |
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Another to add… Worry more about what YOU think, instead of spending so much effort worrying about what THEY think. In life, in business, in everything, people end up focusing so much on what others will think of what they do. Who really matters? Some matter, sure, but don’t you matter first? Whether deciding what to make for dinner, if you should launch that new business, which book to read next, whether you really can compete in that Ironman, whatever…what do YOU believe? If you’re not sure, then go ahead and listen to them. But if you believe it strongly enough, let the worrying go and just do it. Thumbs-up on these 2 posts, Pete! |
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I’m thinking if you are looking for the 5% pro bono and are short a friend/site, etc. I’m in:) Love your site, HARO, etc. |
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I’ve heard #3 before, and I am so much better at filtering tasks via email (and even tweets) than voice mails, but have been told if you don’t word it right the message can be off-putting. How do you word it so you don’t turn off clients, bosses, coworkers…mothers…jk…(not really)? I would love to know how you word your voice mail message! |
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Peter – you’re ever so right and I couldn’t agree more with your comments. But there are those of us who never leave of office unless they’re totally cut off from the Internet or other communications devices. I promise I’m going to spend less time on line and then I find I have hell to pay. Perhaps the worst thing is working for yourself and living virtually and supervising a staff who operate on all time zones. How do you cope with getting (and trying to respond)m to more than 300 emails each day? Do you ever simply “delete all?” What a nice fantasy — looking forward to your advice. |
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#6. If you work from a home-based office, get up from behind that desk of yours and locate your pet (if you have one). Stroke pet and speak in gentle, soothing, loving terms. SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN to lower blood pressure and calm the mind. Especially effective remedy after communicating with your most difficult client(s). Repeat as often as necessary! |
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