I visited my friends Jane and Chris last summer, the weekend after a fierce windstorm hit their city. Through the dining room patio doors, I saw Chris in the back yard, clad in a tool belt, re-constructing their latticed patio fence. He was whistling, and he waved to me. “Yeah, Chris is enjoying himself today as the handyman,” chimed Jane. “The wind ripped down the entire wall. It came down with an awful bang.” We both sat staring at him through the steam rising from our tea cups. For a moment I marveled. “Isn’t it funny, Jane? Imagine if your neighbours had torn down your...


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Some of life’s lessons are tough. They can be humiliating, frustrating, even debilitating. But there are ways to capitalize on the learning, and I mean capitalize in both senses: take full advantage of it, and even translate it into future revenue. A stretch? Not in my experience. A contractor I know—let’s call him Frank—has the habit of trusting people and jumping into working situations with no guarantees from the customer. In 20 years he has been burned maybe 3 times. Recently, however, he worked for two weeks for a new client, travelled to a distant city and incurred all his own expenses...


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Recently a group of massage therapists approached me with the quandary of how to market themselves in a saturated market. Because of association rules similar to those for Canadian dentists and lawyers, they are limited in their marketing options. “How do I convince people to call me for a massage? How can I persuade them of how much it will benefit them?” one lady asked. The quandary is familiar to me. For many years I too was faced with the challenge of convincing people to hire me, when I knew they needed me but they did not. You cannot convince anyone they need you. You cannot convince...


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The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud. COCO CHANEL We tend to enter conversation—verbal or written—with the goal of making ourselves heard or presenting our own points of view, making us sound more convincing or profound than the others in the conversation. Those of us who may not like this role tend to recede into a shy corner—and this describes most women. Those of us who thrive in this role tend to be poor listeners—and this describes many men. Good conversation requires a healthy combination of the two. One half of great conversation is the art of listening....


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Industrial psychologist Guy Beaudin offers a practical perspective on a psychological imperative for every business leader, manager, supervisor, or executive. Instead of telling them they should praise their employees because it makes employees feel better, he relates it to the actual consequences that makes a leader and her business succeed. “As a leader, part of your role is to increase the behaviours that will enable you to execute a new strategy, serve customers better, improve results. And clearly, behaviours that are positively reinforced tend to be repeated.” (Globe & Mail, 4 December...


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I love this one. If you must know, it’s the skill that tops them all. It’s my pastime. It’s the source of daily delights. The best part is that, eventually, you’ll start doing it without even knowing you’re doing it, and it will come as a surprise. My friend Rob received a calendar in the mail from City Hall. Only two printers in town are capable of doing the job, and neither of them got it. Rob is one of them, so he knew. In fact, while he had been in business 3 years, he had been asked to bid on nothing for the City. He asked me to call on his behalf and inquire. Guilt was doubtless...


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In some businesses, anger may be always hovering around the corner. If you have numerous customers, tight turnaround times, tiny margins of technical error, and predatory competitors, your customers may be looking for the first chance to complain about the smallest glitch. If you are good at receiving anger, you will develop the intuition to know when it’s a gift and when it’s not. If it’s just another complaint from a chronically demanding client who wants to squeeze you dry, that’s no gift, and you may want to cut them out of your client list. If it’s an attempt to avoid paying you and evade...


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Not too long ago I was given the gift of anger by a cherished client. She had asked me to participate in a conference call with the VP of a partner company. We were working on a proposal together, and the conversation was supposed to get further information from the VP to refine our strategy. During the call, I took the liberty of divulging information we had discussed in a meeting where he had been absent, and asking for his response. I had no idea this information was classified, and assumed he knew since he was the VP. I was wrong. During the call I had no indication anything was wrong....


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When clients get angry, you are receiving a gift. Let me explain. Expressions of anger are a gift in any relationship. Consider for a moment your relationship with your spouse, parents, siblings and friends. Suppose they are angry with you but they refuse to express it. This can be the source of fragmentation and break-ups, the chronic disease that chips away at trust and mutual understanding. The anger is there, it’s evident, but it’s not expressed. It comes out in unhealthy ways: they withdraw, talk behind your back, do things to get underhanded revenge, or find some way to retaliate for what...


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People like to brag about a good thing. People like to reassure themselves they’ve made the right choice. And people like to be the bearer of good news and the object of thanks from their friends and peers. This is why people will brag about you if you’ve given them good service. “You’re planning a training program? Well let me tell you something. We just finished a fantastic training program here, and everyone’s still talking about it. Have you heard of Marcia Kreller?” And so it goes. But remember this: the most important factor in any referral is not the prospective new customer....


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