- Happy Independence Day! Be thankful for what you've been given by those who have gone before! #
- Waiting for fireworks with the brats. Excitement is high. #
- @PhilVillarreal Amazing. I'm really Cringer. That makes me feel creepy. in reply to PhilVillarreal #
- Built a public life-maintenance calendar in GCal. https://liverealnow.net/y7ph #
- @ericabiz makes webinars fun! Even if her house didn't collapse in the middle of it. #
- BOFH + idiot = bad combination #
Book Review: Small Message, Big Impact
I was recently given an advanced reader copy of Small Message, Big Impact by Terri L. Sjodin. It’s a book on crafting an effective and persuasive elevator speech.
An elevator speech is, according the the author, “a brief presentation introducing a product, service, philosophy or an idea. The name suggests the notion that the message should be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride, up to about 3 minutes. Its general purpose is to intrigue and inspire a listener to want to hear more of the presenter’s complete proposition in the near future.” It’s a 3-minute speech you give to intrigue someone enough that they will let you give a real presentation.
A lot of people–probably most–use their 3 minutes of unexpected access as an “information dump”. They pour as much data as possible into their audience. According to Sjodin(and I agree!), and elevator speech needs to be primarily persuasive, not informative. You need to include enough information to back up your persuasive arguments, but too much information is at least as bad, if not worse, than too little.
An elevator speech is either a sales pitch or a waste of time. You are selling the right to give more detailed information at a later time. The elevator pitch is not about making the sale. It’s about advancing the ball toward the eventual sale.
Who needs an elevator pitch? You do. Everybody sells. Even if you don’t have a product, a service, or a business, you have yourself. Can you pitch your boss on why you deserve a raise or a promotion?
The author walks you through creating an elevator speech that takes advantage of Monroe’s Motivated Sequence to advance your goal, whatever that is. She’ll teach you how to grab your audience’s attention and make them recognize a need for change. You’ll offer a solution, help them see the super-ninja-awesome future you’re offering, and give them a clear call to action. All in 3 to 5 minutes. Small Message, Big Impact will also teach you to provide a clear progression through those steps, making it easy for your target to say yes.
You’ll learn the basic outline of an elevator speech, including how to grab your target’s interest, build a persuasive case, and establish credibility when you’ve been surprised with a few moments of access. The three pieces of any successful presentation, from an elevator speech to a full-day presentation are
- Case. If you can’t make your case, nothing else matters.
- Creativity. You won’t win by being the same as everyone else. The same product, the same service, the same buzzwords won’t differentiate yourself from the competition.
- Delivery. Stumbling, stammering, and talking to the wall will make the the best product and the most creative presentation sound like crap, every time. You need to build your presentation and practice it, so you come across and smooth an knowledgeable.
One of the best ways to sound credible, which will assist your delivery like nothing else, is to use an authentic voice. Be sincere and sound it. Believe in the material and yourself. Know the material–inside and out–and practice it until you can deliver it smoothly, even if that means enlisting a friend for speech practice.
Of the books I’ve reviewed, I think this is my favorite. If you need to design an elevator speech or improve the one you’ve been using, you should read this book. Even if you don’t care about an elevator speech, the book provides a decent education on persuasive selling that easily carries over to the written word.
How would you(or do you) use an elevator speech?
FINCON Friday
When this goes live, I’ll be on the road to the Financial Bloggers Conference outside of Chicago. That translates to a day off here.
Monday, I’ll be back with a whole bucket full of bloggy goodness.
How to Die Well
Most people don’t die quickly.
As much as I would rather die suddenly–while putting a smile on my wife’s face–the odds are that I will spend my last hours or days in a hospital, unable to make the decisions about my care.
Will I be doing my vegetable impression after a car accident, or be left unable to speak during a botched Viagra implanantation in my 90s? I don’t know.
There is one thing I know about the end of my life. I do not want to linger for months, blind and deaf, on a feeding tube. I don’t want my family to spend the last few months of my life secretly ashamed of hoping for my burden to end. I’d like my end to be quick enough that the emotions they are feeling aren’t a sad combination of guilt and relief, just sadness at my passing and happiness at having had me.
That’s the legacy I’d like.
The problem is making my wishes known. If I’m lying in a hospital bed, asking to be allowed to die, they’ll consider me suicidal instead of rationally considering my request. If I’m completely incapacitated, I won’t even be able to ask.
I can certainly make my wishes known beforehand, but how will my family be able to communicate my desires to the doctors in charge and how will they convince the doctor that they aren’t just after my currently imaginary millions?
That’s where a living will comes in. A living will, also know as an advanced directive, is simply a formal document that explicitly states what you want to happen to you if you are too out of it to make your wishes known.
Aging With Dignity has put together an advanced directive called Five Wishes that meets the legal requirements for an advanced directive in 42 states.
The Five Wishes are:
1. Who is going to make decisions for you, if you can’t? For me, the obvious choice is my wife. She appears to like me enough to want me around and love me enough to do what needs to be done, even if it’s difficult. On the chance that we end up in the same car accidents, matching vegetables on a shelf, I’ve nominated my father for the unpleasantness. I don’t think I’ve told him that, yet.
2. What kind of treatment do you want, or want to refuse? When my Grandpa was going, he made sure to have a Do Not Resuscitate order on file with the nursing home, the clinic, and the hospital. He knew it was his time and didn’t want to drag it out.
3. How comfortable do you want to be? Do you want to be kept out of pain, at all costs, even if it means being drugged into oblivion most of the day? Do you want a feeding tube, or would you rather only receive food and fluids if you are capable of taking them by mouth?
4. How do you want to be treated? Do you want to be allowed to die at home? Do you want people to pray at your bedside, or keep their religious views to yourself? Some people want to be left alone, while others are terrified of dying alone. This wish also covers grooming. Personally, if I soil myself, I’d like to get cleaned up as soon as possible. I’ll have enough to deal with without smelling bad, too.
5. What do you want your family to know? This includes any funeral requests you have and whether you’d like to be cremated, buried, or both, but also goes beyond them. Do you want your family to know that you love them? You can also take this section to ask feuding family members to make peace or ask them to remember your better days, instead of the miserable few at the end.
The last 3 wishes are unique to the Five Wishes document, but they are excellent things to include. The most important part of advanced directive is the advanced part. You have the right to want whatever works for you, but your wishes don’t matter if nobody knows about them.
How about you? Do you have a living will? Does your family know what you want to have happen if the worst happens?
Little Monster Late Fees
Last week, I paid a late fee to daycare. I neverpay daycare late.
Except last week.
As I’ve said before, I work 80 hours a week.
For the last couple of weeks, my three year old has decided that she needs to sleep in every morning. No getting up at 6:30 for her. No way. That little prima donna wants to lounge in bed until 8, then watch a movie while eating breakfast in bed. She’s never gotten that treatment, so I don’t know why it’s become her goal.
Last week, she decided to throw a tantrum when I woke her up.
Followed by a tantrum when I reminded her she doesn’t get to wear diapers during the day.
Followed by a tantrum when I dared to pick out clothes that didn’t have horses, or didn’t look right, or weren’t sweats, or weren’t picked out by Mom, or this, or that or….
I’ve been the one to get her ready almost every morning for 3 years and she has never been catered to that way.
Me: overtired, with 1000 things on my mind.
Her: diva training, trying to wake up.
Her sister: teasing, asking questions, and generally doing her best to stand under my feet.
Her brother: gets himself ready, but tries to avoid combing his hair before school, and can’t be relied on to put on clean clothes.
Me: overtired. Juggling getting three kids and myself ready to leave. 1000 things on my mind.
Daycare: What check?
She finally got paid on Thursday. Over the 12 years we’ve had kids there, we’ve paid late maybe 5 times. I hate late fees.
What’s the fix?
Checklists don’t work for me, when I’m rushing around. I tend to ignore them while I’m herding children.
Selling the monsters to the gypsies is out. They are far too difficult to succeed working in the salt mines.
We need to start picking out clothes the night before, to short-circuit most of the tantrum. We also need to enforce bedtimes better, but that’s hard to do Sunday night if they are allowed to nap too long on Sunday afternoon, which happens when I nap with my kids on Sunday afternoon.
Maybe the best solution is to switch schedules with my wife. I’ll go in to work between 6 and 7. She can herd monsters while trying to get ready for work.
Good Friday
We don’t have daycare on Good Friday.
We do, however, both have to work today. Two rounds of little-girl tonsillitis have zapped our available vacation time.
On an entirely related note, we put our 12 year old son through Red Cross babysitter training a few weeks ago, just for something like this.
My wife gets nervous at the idea of leaving the girls with the boy for very long. I think she thinks the world will explode if he takes care of them correctly.
Our solution for today is to have a slightly older friend come over and help.
She’s 13 and she brought her 10 year old brother with her.
That’s kids aged 3,5,10,12, and 13 in my house today. Total Lord of the Flies.
Hold that thought.
My son, being 12, doesn’t feel it’s necessary to brush his hair for school, or change his clothes every day, and he needs to be reminded to brush his teeth.
This morning, he woke himself up and ran into the bathroom. He emerged with clean teeth and combed hair. I asked him if he was wearing the same shirt as yesterday, and he flew into his room to change.
Hmm. Something is afoot.
While I was putting my shoes on, I reminded him to take care of the house and his sisters, and he made some smart-aleck joke in response.
She giggled.
Watson, I think I’ve found a clue.
Her father told me, just yesterday, the she thinks boys are gross.
The boy has never shown an interest in girls, until this morning.
Grr. The next decade just got considerably more interesting.
Time to lock them both in their respective basements until college.
