Chris Bonney

Could Mad Men Be The Future?

My wife and I spent the last three months getting up to speed on the hit series Mad Men on AMC. 

We rented seasons one and two and would watch up to three episodes in one night. It's an addicting show. Donald Draper and his dark twisted lifestyle even haunted me in my dreams. I couldn't get him out of my head.

We eventually got caught up to the third season, which just ended last week. We watched the last three episodes in real-time, when it was actually scheduled to play. Who does that anymore? But we suffered through the commercials because we had to see how season three ended as soon as humanly possible.

Suffice it to say, it ended interestingly. 

So, now today as I sit here with nothing but a residual Mad Men buzz, it hits me. 

Could the seemingly antiquated method of having a girl (in today's PC world, it would have to be a "person," of course) sit outside your office and take your calls and type up your voice recordings actually be a model for the future? Could 1962 be more relevant today than ever?

Tim Ferriss already does it. In his book 4-hour Workweek he talks about using a virtual assistant for his email and virtual necessities. Does this scale?

As a client manager, what if you could spend more time creating proactive, strategic initiatives for your clients instead of manning email 24/7 putting out one pointless fire after another? Peggy! Take care of that, will you?

As a designer, what if your "girl" read Smashing Magazine for you and synopsized what she thought you'd find interesting?

What if you and your "girl" could each work fewer hours in the week and achieve exponentially more than you do now?

It's a new model of working, sure. But clearly our titans of industry could use a paradigm shift. In this knowledge worker, service-oriented country of ours maybe a new staffing model is just what we need. 

Do You Work With A Gen Yer?

Tamara Erickson wrote an excellent article about Gen Y and how they view technology and how those views affect the workplace. Are you a Client Service Leader who works with a Gen Yer? If so, this blog post will prove ultra valuable to you. Like it or not, the business landscape will be shifting as this generation take on more and more leadership positions.

Tamara bullets 7 ways that Gen Y a.k.a. Millenials will change the way we do business. I've included one below. Learn them all now and be ahead of the inevitable.

Y’s coordinate, rather than plan -- Y’s home in on friends like ships using radar and will bring this practice to the workplace. Work in the future will, in all likelihood, involve much more coordinating and far less planning or scheduling than is common in most organizations today. For a number of activities, this will prove more efficient.

Don't Scoff, It Could Be The Next Flip Phone

Back in the mid-90s I got one of the first Motorola flip phones. It had a battery the size of a deck of cards. I couldn't have been more proud when it rang in public so I could answer it and feel like the early adopter I thought I was. The cost of the phone seemed outrageous at the time (over $200) and the bills the same (about $60 per month), but what was more outrageous was the unexpected backlash I received from certain people who felt cell phones were a white collar luxury.

I remember one day walking down the street when a giant cement truck slowed down next to me. The driver and passenger yelled some obscenities at me and implied that I probably wasn't even talking to anyone, I was just trying to look cool. They couldn't have been more down on cell phones. Needless to say, I felt a bit intimidated, so I finished my call and vowed not to walk down the street gabbing again.

Fast forward to today. The construction industry along with all blue collar industries are absolutely dependent on cell phone technology. Were they the early adopters? No. But so few businesses ever are. So, the question is: Is your client scoffing at a technology, methodology, or idea because they don't feel any emotional connection to it at this time? Maybe it feels too elitist for them or maybe even below them? Don't necessarily jump on their bandwagon to appease them. Tell them this story and remind them that an open mind could ultimately lead to a huge competitive advantage.

Is Your Client Experience like Disney World?

As a client service leader, it is your job to not just service a client, but to provide them with a meaningful experience working with you and your company. It's an important distinction to make and one that Tim Sanders touches on today in a post on his blog.

Don't focus so much on the day to day deliverables, though they are vitally important, but think big picture and the type of experience someone has with you in the long-term. It is the trusted long term relationship that allows you to have your ups and downs with a client from week to week. The client is judging their experience with you based on a collection of interactions, not a distinct few.

How New Is Your Information?

As a client service leader, you no doubt are keeping up on your clients' industries. But how are you doing it? Are you subscribed to a magazine you thumb through once a month? Do you attend the annual tradeshow? Do you read an industry blog and consider that enough? If you don't know about Google Alerts, then by all means check it out. It is the fastest way to catch wind of current changes in an industry or even if someone is out there blogging about your client.

I was recently able to email a client and inform them that a blogger was questioning their method of gaining financial backing. The client was appreciative to know that we caught a potential PR issue before it started and the client was also able to comment on the blog themself and quell the blogger's inflammatory remarks. Seems like a decent enough return for one more email in my inbox each day.

http://www.google.com/alerts

Don't Sell the Partner Thing

Technology vendors, such as the one at which I work, are always trying to find a differentiator in the world of what seems like commoditized technology. One approach many companies in the field seem to take (and technology is not the only place this happens) is to stress how they want to be “partners” with their potential client. How they want to learn their client’s business and curl up next to them each night before they fall fast asleep.

From the potential client’s perspective, this can seem like the equivalent of sitting across from an attractive person on a first date and glazing over as they tell you how much they can’t wait to get married. It’s poor dating etiquette to get too serious too early. Same goes in sales. Don’t try to get too cozy too soon. Give your potential client some space, let them breathe a little. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a vendor, acting like a vendor, and being treated like a vendor. There are companies making billions of dollars out there gladly being called a vendor. Even if you think you’re client is your partner, there’s no guarantee your client thinks you’re their partner. Embrace vendorhood and get that second date. We all know what happens on the third.

How To Handle an "Oops" Moment

As many sports fans know, there was a recent verbal blunder in the college football world:

Florida coach Urban Meyer accidentally confirmed Monday former USC running back Emmanuel Moody is transferring to the defending national champions.

"He's not here yet," Meyer said during his weekly news conference.

Meyer quickly realized his error and said, "He's not here." Then he paused and said, "Oops."

(I grabbed this blurb from StarTribune.com though you could find it anywhere online.)

You've got to admire Coach Meyer's tendency toward disclosure and honesty. He couldn't keep a secret, clearly, even if he had to. What a breath of fresh authentic air in a world of demagogues and turf-based managers reluctant to admit even the smallest mistakes. Could he have covered up his blunder with some garbage rhetoric that they taught him in PR school? Yes, sure, but he opted instead for a simple, "Oops."

When was the last time you said "Oops" to a client when you were wrong? What are you afraid of, a write up on StarTribune.com?

Readers are Leaders

Tim Sanders has a great saying: "Readers are Leaders". There are some interesting statistics out there and one of them is that on the average people in business read .7 (yes, point seven) books a year, where executive level and above read 7 (yes, seven). So, are readers leaders?

Here are some other alarming numbers whether you're a reader or a writer. The question really is, are you a leader?

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.

42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.

80 percent of

U.S.

families did not buy or read a book last year.

70 percent of

U.S.

adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.

57 percent of new books are not read to completion.

70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.

70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.

(Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

53 percent read fiction, 43 percent read nonfiction. The favorite fiction category is mystery and suspence, at 19 percent.

55 percent of fiction is bought by women, 45 percent by men.

(Source: Publishers Weekly)

About 120,000 books are published each year in the

U.S.

(Source: www.bookwire.com)

A successful fiction book sells 5,000 copies.

A successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies.

(Source: Authors Guild, www.authorsguild.org)

On average, a bookstore browser spends 8 seconds looking at a book's front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover.

(Source:

Para

Publishing, www.parapub.com)

Each day in the

U.S.

, people spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines.

(Source: Veronis, Suhler & Associates investment banker)

And then there's this recent article about Americans and their reading habits.

Being Good Is Not Enough

As a Client Service Leader, there is no excuse for mediocrity. When you understand your motivation for doing the job (you do want to do the job, right?), then the next step is to elevate yourself above everyone else that is doing that same job "just good enough". Seth Godin articulates the downfall of being just good enough better than anything I've seen in a while.

What Did You Say?

As a Client Service Leader one of your top principles for redefining client service is Communication. So, yes, be brief, informative, and relevant in e-mails; don't drag on meetings unnecessarily; and certainly return any voicemail your receive within one working day (they're so rare and precious these days they should be handled with care), But, above all, the most important facet of communicating successfully with your client is listening.

Tim Sanders has a great post today that articulates this point well and it includes a recommendation for a Covey book worth checking out.

Remember the 7 principles of redefining client service. They all start with you:

1. Motivation
2. Elevation
3. Intuition
4. Communication
5. Negotiation
6. Mediation
7. Execution