Dot Connector Blog

“Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible.”

- M.C Escher

If you’d like to work on goal setting and still haven’t created your new years resolutions, here’s the method I use to create mine.  I’ve also included some tools, articles, videos, and a podcast to help inspire you.

1. Review what you learned in 2008. Sit down and brainstorm a list of your the most meaningful moments, events, memories, accomplishments, and mistakes of 2008. Try to extract lessons from those things that you can use. You can read an excerpt from my list here.

2. Conduct a “personal brand” audit to see how you’ve grown in the past year. You can copy and use the brand equity checklist located here.

3. Honestly identify chronic problems you have. Most often, we limit our own growth with chronic bad habits. What are those 2 or 3 habits you have that impede your personal growth?  If you can’t answer that question, think about the 2 or 3 things you wish you could do better.  What’s preventing you from doing them?  Then, use the 5 whys method to determine the root of the problem, and try Leo Babauta’s one habit at-a-time modification method.

4. Ask yourself 3 simple questions: What are your passions? What are your values? What is your purpose?  If you take the time to sit down, clear your mind, and truly answer these questions, you’ll shift your focus to lining up your life with them.

5. Dig deeper to understand how to improve yourself this year using your answers from #4 above. Some recommended ways to do this: Envision U’s 45-day leadership challenge, Mark Stevens’ success self-analysis, Franklin Covey’s prioritization systems, and Tim Ferriss’ Low Information Diet series of articles.

6. Establish your prism – the lens through which you see things. As we learned in the Mark Stevens interview, successful leaders have a prism they use to provide context to the world around them. Right now, I like to use a combination of inspirational quotes, metaphors, and Newton’s laws as my prism.

7. Get motivated! Let these inspirational video and audio clips lift you up when you’re in a bad mood, or just not in the right frame of mind to work on setting goals: Tim Ferriss on thinking big and challenging conventional thinking (video, especially the last 1/3 of it). A former New York Yankee batboy on persistence (podcast, a fantastic story about how he got the job). Michael Jordan on failure (YouTube video).

8. Set no more than 3 achievable, memorable goals that you can do one at a time (linearly, so you aren’t trying to accomplish more than one at a time). Then, track your progress. Make sure you accomplish one of these goals in January to capitalize on the power of momentum!

Good luck!

UPDATE: Having trouble achieving those things you set out to do at the beginning of the year?  Check out these 5 tips from Zen Habits.

“Common men go nowhere.  You have to be uncommon.”

- Herb Brooks, from the movie Miracle

When I began creating my new years resolutions and working on personal goal setting for 2009, I took some time to reflect on the past year.  2008 was an amazing, challenging year.  The biggest event – by far  – was the birth of our daughter.  Beyond that, but the year was filled with ups and downs, trial and error, and some truly amazing experiences.

Here are some of the things I learned in the past year…

• When your baby sees you and smiles, it makes your world stop. Literally. Having a child with my wonderful wife is an amazing experience and crazy adventure…and I know we’re only just beginning it!
• If you open your mind to the potential of others, they will amaze you. Some leaders try to push their own “fire” into other people.  I believe that it’s already there, and as a leader, you have to pull it out.  In 2008, three people on my team at Quicken Loans launched important, new websites.  The best part? None of these folks had launched a website before, or had been leading web projects for more than a year.  Man, am I proud of them!
• What you focus on you find. In the past year, we survived a literal hurricane in the mortgage industry. How? We were passionate, persistent, and focused on the goal at hand.  Several times, in several different ways throughout the year, my team and I achieved goals that seemed impossible.  We did this by staying dedicated to each other, and ruthlessly focused on our goals.
• Persistence wins in the long term. I’ve been working on a specific Internet marketing project for the past 7 months – a lifetime in Internet time.  Only now are we seeing consistent results.  This was after several people had told me no, and that the project couldn’t be done. I really believe that “informed persistence” (I.e. deconstructing an issue and knowing everything possible about it, while also ruthlessly following up on progress) was the key to the project’s recent success.
• Companies can change greatly when they are acquired. Sometimes, even the best relationships can’t overcome the effects of a merger or acquisition.
• Deals can be created out of nothing, as long as they solve a need. I created several new deals this year that didn’t exist previously by simply solving a defined need with a solid, mutually-beneficial idea.
• Relationships are the rock upon which everything, I mean everything, is built. You know the old saying “nothing happens until something gets sold”?  Well, nothing gets sold until there’s a relationship.  I simply wouldn’t have been able to succeed in the past year if it weren’t for all the wonderful people in my life.
• With the Internet, you are only 1 person removed from some amazing people. Through this blog, I’ve met some amazingly smart and talented people over the past year – people I likely would have never met otherwise.  Thank you for reading and participating in this with me!

Don’t get lost when serving your customers (Source: frielp)

“Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”

- Margaret Mead

My goal with this customer service article is to do nothing less than provide the blueprint for business-to-business (B2B) companies to change the world.  Why?  Because customer service is the single biggest issue in American business-to-business relationships today. If you are an organization selling services or products to another organization, the customer service lessons below are directly applicable to you.  These lessons are true regardless of the size of your organization, or the size of your customer.

Are you saying to yourself “but, Regis, in my line of work, I don’t have customers.”  Think again!  Every role in every organization has customers.  My team at Quicken Loans has no less than 3 customers: external customers (i.e. the Clients visiting our website who get mortgages from us), internal customers (other teams who rely on us to get things done online for them), and executive customers (senior executives who rely on us to execute business strategies). Bottom-line: Show me a business model that doesn’t have customers, and I’ll show you a business model that is about to fail.

15 Ways to Deliver Great Customer Service (in B2B relationships)

1. Turn your customers into raving fans. This should be the goal of every customer relationship you have, regardless of the situation.  You want to create customer relationships where your customers want to “shout from the mountaintop” about how great you are!  Everything else on this list is simply a way to help you get to this goal.
2. Provide multiple ways for your customers to easily communicate with you. It’s never been more important to be transparent in your communication with customers.  Providing multiple ways for customers to easily communicate directly with your team is critical.  Goal: every customer should be able to reach you via: cell phone, office phone, email, phone conference, and video conference.
3. Encourage immediate problem solving with customers. When a customer contacts you with an issue (via one of the methods in #2), get the right people on the phone immediately to deal with the customer issue.  Stop wasting time by “scheduling meetings,” “filing support tickets,” and “meeting internally first.”  Instead, have open, honest conversations with customers and key problem solvers at your organization.
4. Never tell the customer they are wrong, simply suggest alternatives. Your customers’ perceptions are your reality.  Whether they are right or wrong, whatever they think is the reality you have to work with.  Yes, they are paying you for your expertise.  However, if you continually tell them how they are wrong and you are right, they will start to tune you out.  Remember when your parents took that approach with you?
5. Never assume the customer remembers what you told them previously. Your customers are usually paying you to advise them.  What you deliver is rarely the customers’ only focus or daily focus.  Therefore, presume you need to refresh their memory on key decisions, reports sent via email, and previous discussions.  Doing so will increase the effectiveness of your customer interactions.
6. Never assume you know more than your customers. The second you assume you know more than your customers, everything changes: your tone, your patience, your propensity to ask questions, and your openness to new ideas.  Try to understand your customers’ business as well as they do, but be humble enough to know you never will.
7. Never assume you are meeting your customers’ needs. Even if things seem like they might be going well, they might not be.  What you don’t do in a customer relationship defines you just as much as what you do.  Your customers have more to do than simply tell you when you are not doing well, or when you are not meeting expectations.  Check-in frequently with your customers to ensure you are meeting their needs, and conduct anonymous customer satisfaction surveys to get additional feedback.
8. Find every opportunity possible to thank your customers for their business. Surprise your customers with your gratitude!  Every time you send an invoice, visit a customer, or hit a milestone together, you have an opportunity to say thank you.  The Thanksgiving holiday is coming up next week – do you have a plan to thank your customers that day?
9. Constantly bring new ideas to help your customers make money or save money. Your customers need new ideas, even if they don’t ask for them.  The pressure on your customers to generate or save money is greater than ever before.  Become a trusted adviser by giving your customers new ideas that help them do this, even if they aren’t related to the services your customer is paying you to deliver.
10. If you have a misunderstanding, take the blame, then relentlessly follow-up until you get it right. If you’ve missed your customers’ expectations, immediately take the blame.  Be brutally blunt about your strengths and weaknesses.  Then, do whatever is necessary to fix it and follow-up daily until it is done.  Then, follow-up at regular intervals (weekly, monthly) making sure that the solution still works, and that you continue to fulfill on your customers’ expectations.  This same method should be used after you have sold a customer something you have never done before.
11. Don’t commit to more than you can do. Only make promises you can keep.  Although sometimes it’s hard to do this, set expectations low with your customers and always exceed them.  Deliver on what you say you will do, and you will build trust with your customers.  Fail to deliver, and compound that failure with excuses, and the trust your customers have in you can evaporate overnight.
12. Don’t force customers to live by your rulebook. Companies create “rulebooks” – established ways to deal with problems that are rarely customized for a particular customer’s situation.  They do this to make life easier on them, not the customer.  Throw these rulebooks out, and challenge anyone who wants to create one!  Customers want personalized experiences, and fast resolution on their issues.  Rulebooks do neither.
13. Don’t assume that what your customer is asking for is what they really want. Practice using the 5 whys question-asking method to get to the bottom of a customer request.  Often, customers will come to you with a solution that they have developed.  Don’t throw out that solution (see #4 above), but instead take the time to understand why the customer needs it.  Listen more than you talk.  Doing this will help you get to know your customer better, and help you recommend alternative or complimentary solutions.
14. Ask really good questions. Your customers are tuning into everything you do.  Are you inquisitive?  Do you understand their business?  Do you understand their current need?  Tip: prepare a “20 list” (a brainstorming technique where you write down 20 questions you would ask the customer) before a big discussion with a customer.  You don’t have to ask all 20, but the exercise will help you generate really good questions to ask.
15. Check your greed at the door. Don’t simply look at the current sale as your only interaction with the customer, and milk it for everything you can.  Think about the future value of the customer relationship too.  Will this customer be a referral, or provide a testimonial for you?  Will they be a great addition to your customer list?  Will this project introduce you to other new customers?  Factor this value into your pricing model.

Bonus: Customer Service Manifesto

My team at Quicken Loans has a customer service manifesto that guides our work.  Inspired by Tom Peters, the key points of this manifesto are outlined below.  Feel free to adapt this for your team!

We believe…

1. We ONLY do two things: continuously improve our website user experience and develop leaders
2. We ARE our customers + our projects…and that’s how we’re remembered.
3. Every single one of our projects makes a difference, or we don’t do it.
4. We are only as good as our customers who push us the hardest.
5. Our customers are the source of our reputation.
6. We spend 80% of our time with customers
7. We push our customers to tackle new challenges and soar to new heights
8. We are paid to lead our customers to success
9. We focus on our legacy (What do YOU want to be remembered for here?)
10. We relentlessly serve our project teams, because we know without them we are nothing.

Are you “freaked out” by the current recession? Do you let that constantly put you in a state of stress and anxiety, or do you use it to find new opportunities?

Taking a look at recession history, we learn that: according to economists, since 1854, the US has encountered 32 cycles of expansions and contractions, with an average of 17 months of contraction and 38 months of expansion. However, since 1980 there have been only eight periods of negative economic growth over one fiscal quarter or more, and three periods considered recessions.

A critical component to personal effectiveness is to constantly look at the situation you are in from a historical context. Once you have that context, you open your mind to new opportunities you previously would not have thought of.

Companies Started in a Recession

Check out this list of companies from recession history. Let this list inspire you to find opportunities to do something today that you are proud of!

1. GE
2. HP
3. Disney
4. Microsoft
5. method (soaps)
6. Cliff Bar

(Source: Fast Company)

I’m often asked what books I would recommend for Project Management, Personal Productivity, and Business Strategy. Here are a few of my favorites:

Project Management Books

The Project 50 (Reinventing Work): Fifty Ways to Transform Every “Task” into a Project That Matters!, Tom Peters

Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application, 37signals

The Leadership Challenge: How to Keep Getting Extraordinary Things Done in Organizations, James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner

Leading with the Heart: Coach K’s Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business, and Life, Mike Krzyzewski

Business Strategy Books

Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company, Andrew S. Grove

Your Marketing Sucks, Mark Stevens

Good to Great – Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t, Jim Collins

Microsoft Secrets: How the World’s Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets, and Manages People, Michael A. Cusumano and Richard W. Selby

Body and Soul: Profits With Principles-The Amazing Success Story of Anita Roddick and the Body Shop, Anita Roddick

Personal Productivity Books

The Brand You 50: Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an ‘Employee’ into a Brand That Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion!, Tom Peters

The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss

All I Really Need to Know in Business I Learned at Microsoft: Inside Strategies to Help You Succeed, Julie Bick

Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day, Gina Trapani

The Art of Connecting – How to Overcome Differences, Build Rapport, and Communicate Effectively with Anyone, Claire Raines, Lara Ewing

Here are my top 3 business email etiquette tips that have worked well for me and many others:

#1 – Never flag business emails with “high priority”

• If an email is important enough that it warrants “high priority” (i.e. that red exclamation point in most email programs), then it warrants a face-to-face conversation, phone call, or urgent voicemail.
• Don’t “drop bombs” in email by sending high priority messages. Just seek out the people you are sending the message to and talk to them.

#2 – Never use BCC in business emails

• If you need someone to see an email you sent, forward it to them from your sent items. Never use BCC – if people ever find out that you use it, they will likely never trust your email conversations again.
• Since the reader of a BCC email can “reply to all” they can easily “reveal” that they are on the email.

#3 – Make your emails easy to read

• Most people are dealing with an email “avalanche” every single day. Create messages that are easy to scan, and don’t take a lot of effort to read.
• Keep your emails as concise as possible. Write it, and then try to cut it in half!
• Bulleted lists are your friend – use bulleted lists (which are easy to scan) whenever possible. If you are sending messages to Blackberry users, you can use an * (i.e. shift plus the number eight) as a bullet. Try to limit your use of long paragraphs of copy.
• If you are using formatting in your emails, use black text for normal content. Use red text for eye-catching, must-read content (and bad news). Use green text for good news.

If you’re looking for more info on email organization, check out my Email Management series.

If you can think of other email etiquette tips, please feel free to post a comment!

If you work in an environment where multiple projects are being worked on at the same time, you will often be a part of making decisions about what projects should be worked on, and which ones will have to wait.

In discussions with your team members and project teams, you will often get asked “is this particular task/project a priority?” Since you only do work that matters, of course it’s a priority! But be careful, there’s something you should always remember:

Priority is a relative term!

And because of that, you should always answer that question with another question:

Is this (task, project, etc.) a priority in relation to what?

That should be your answer! Then, you can have a productive conversation about benefits and trade-offs. Far too often, if you answer “yes” or “no” to the priority question, you don’t really deal with the issue at hand, which is basically: what do we work on, and what do we stop work on?

Try looking at things this way, and see if it works for you!

(Source: m o d e)

Many of the great people I work closely with hear me say this a lot: “you just never know when you might run into someone again.” I have several stories that support this idea. Here’s a little story for you today about my good friend Samer…

A few years ago, I was directing the sales, consulting, and account management functions of a web marketing consultancy in Detroit. One of my most dedicated account managers, Samer, came into my office one day and said: “I hate to do this to you, but I have to give you my notice.” I asked Samer to sit down, and he proceeded to tell me how he had been saving up all of his money to go on a trip around the world (literally!). After he told me about his plans, all I could say was “please stay in touch.” What a great idea, what great discipline it took for him to do this, and most of all…what an adventure!

Over the next year, I received emails from Samer every so often – his journeys in Europe, adventures in Thailand, etc. – all of his stories were amazing! When he did finally come back to the States, he came back to Detroit. Quickly, he realized he could not be in Detroit, and needed to move to New York City, where he could hopefully get a start in international business.

I talked to Samer just before he left. He told me “Reg, I have to get out of here, I’m moving to NYC.” I said, “Great Samer! where are you going to work?” Samer replied “I don’t have a job, and I’m going to crash on my cousin’s couch until I can find something.” That’s when I jumped in, “wait a minute Samer, let me call some of my contacts in NYC and see if I can find something for you.”

That day, I dialed up a few of my close contacts in NYC, and about a week later, Samer had an interview with Optimost, a company that helps other companies test new ideas on their websites. Samer was quickly hired at Optimost and began his new career shortly thereafter. Then, a few months into his new career, Samer got some great news: Optimost was opening a London office, and they wanted to send him there to help establish it! Finally, his dream of working in international business became a reality!

The moral of the story?

People will come in and out of your life. You should always meet and part on good terms, because you just never know how, or when, you might see them again.

Samer did a great job of ending his work relationship with me. In the end, it was his dedication, professionalism, and approach that made me never think twice about trying to help him find a new career.

If you’re thinking about changing careers, changing employers, or just changing something else in your life, think about this story and don’t “burn the bridges” you have to other people. You never know when those people may reappear in your life.

Are you about to start a project with a popular, well-respected, brand-name company? Cool! Here’s a tip: don’t assume they “get it!”

A common mis-perception I’ve made, and I’ve seen others around me make, is that just because a company has a well-known brand, they always do really cool stuff, they “get it,” and they can always live up to their well-known and respected brand. Although this is often the case, it is not always the case – hence, my words of caution for you as a project manager.

Here are a few examples (without naming the culprits!):

• A major professional sports organization – who is publically looked up to by millions, seems like a dynamic place to be a part of, is always in the media, etc. takes longer than expected to execute even the smallest projects due to the extensive layers of bureaucracy they have.
• A company with one of the most popular websites on the Internet – who seems like they are always innovating and doing amazing things, sells “vaporware” (i.e. software that doesn’t yet exist) to it’s biggest advertising clients, only to acknowledge later that their tools could not do what their overzealous sales force had said they could.

Of course, if I told you who these organizations were, it would pack even more punch. But, I just can’t do that.

The real point here is that you should never blindly put your faith in an organization you are working with just because they have a strong brand. If they are communicative, competent, truthful, innovative, etc. sure, put your faith in them. But don’t let their brand fool you into thinking they are something they aren’t.