s.n.baird communications

Sometimes I think it would be nice to own a donut shop.

You set up a routine, you define your products, you bring in repeat customers, and you build relationships.  People sit around in your donut shop and laugh, read the paper, and relax, and you’re a part of all of it.

It’s the best of both worlds.  You’re spending time with your customers, getting to know them and enjoying the development of those relationships.  But you’re also clearly selling a product, one people don’t get to taste until they’ve handed you the cash.

Providing services for my clients seems so much more complicated than that, primarily because I want to focus on the relationships and not on the product sales.

If I owned a donut shop, none of my friends or colleagues I respect would come in, see the quality of my donuts, and ask for a dozen without expecting to pay for them before they left the shop.  They would enter the transaction fully understanding that they would pay me before they ever tasted a donut, and after looking around the shop full of happy customers and inhaling the enticing smell of warm cinnamon rolls, they’d hand over the money and never even think twice.

More importantly, I wouldn’t feel bad charging them.  (Ok, maybe I would feel bad charging my close friends… but I’ve got issues.)  I have a product.  They want the product.  They offer me the money I ask.  They get the product.

Things are much fuzzier with my writing clients, and 90% of that is my failure to set clear boundaries and expectations.

A friend asks me to look over a cover letter she’s sending out to prospective employers.  Do I charge her?

A client gets referred to me from a good friend and needs a project turned around quickly.  Do I ask for money up front?

Intellectually I know the answer to the second scenario, but I continue to operate on faith that if I deliver what I say I will and the client appreciates it, he or she will pay me promptly, just as they would for the donut.

I have to adjust my mindset and make a commitment to the growth of my business by treating the writing and editing services I provide like donuts.  I’m happy to provide them, and am ecstatic if you keep coming back because you like them and want to hang out, but the money gets figured out up front.  Once the expectations are in place, then both clients and I can go back to enjoying the relationship and benefiting from the product.

Now about those  hot, fresh donuts…  mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Being in business is tough.  Being a small business is tougher.  Being a sole proprietor is one of the most challenging adventures of my life.

“Grass is greener” folks envy my freedom to set my own rules, schedule, pricing, etc.  They note my low overhead and absence of HR headaches, and believe that with only myself to answer to, I can take off for the beach or the mountains at a moment’s notice, because who’s going to tell me no?

I admit that being my own boss has its advantages.  I could also point out the list of challenges, like being responsible for every single facet of business development, maintenance, sustenance, and delivery, but I hate whiners.

I will say that as a sole-proprietor and service provider for whom traditional marketing is not effective, the secret of my success has been the relationships I’ve been fortunate enough to develop.  Networking is important, a Rolodex is nice, a qualified prospect list can come in handy, but absolutely nothing is more valuable and more essential that the ability and commitment to developing and enhancing relationships.

I’m a member of a networking group whose goal is NOT generating referrals, nor does it serve as a forum for members to outline their week’s goals and then be held accountable to the group to report their progress.  This group does not exist so members can socialize and gossip, and it doesn’t foster the cliques that sometimes sprout in professional groups.

My networking group is the Business Development Alliance, and its mission is to foster growth and success among its members through relationship development.  We believe that by learning about each other’s businesses — the good, the bad, and the ugly — we develop a bond that naturally motivates us to provide whatever support we can.  Because we develop these relationships, we’re invested in each other’s success, and we become the cheerleaders that assure each member that they can find a way through the obstacles and can achieve success.   We are fiercely loyal and could serve as a passionate sales force for each other because we can talk about the person and their character, which better illustrates the value of their company than any brochure ever could.

I challenge you to take stock of your business relationships.  Ask first what value you are contributing, and how generous you are being with ideas, feedback, and support.  Next, ask what support is missing from your current approach.  Do you need information?  Creative problem solving?  A safe place to vent?  A kick in the butt?  A reassuring pat on the back?  Are you receiving these benefits from your business relationships?  If you are, have you demonstrated appreciation and given back?  If you’re not, have you asked?

Genuine business relationships that grow into more than passing acquaintances are the safety net we need in times of uncertainty, and are the cheering crowd we need when celebration is in order.  Whether you’re a sole-proprietor like me who needs others to be sounding boards and advisers, or one of 10,000 people in a mega corporation, your success depends on the quality and depth of your relationships, and it is critical that you invest the time, energy, and brain power in each, because the ROI is beyond imagination.

When marketing folks and professional communicators like me wag our fingers at clients and declare that their prospects have short attention spans and selfish motives, we’re not kidding.  When we nag that you’ve got to catch their attention quickly, hold it just long enough, and then let go before they drift away, believe us.  We know…  because we’ve been on the other side….

I sat through a presentation today and wanted to crawl out of my skin.  My stomach was clenched in knots, my breathing was fast, and time slowed in dramatic fashion.  Had I not been sitting in the middle of the row in the middle of the room, I would have slipped out and been grateful for the additional 45 minutes of freedom I’d been given.

Here’s what I’ve realized.  I am an incredibly impatient communicator.  Note I said communicator, and not listener, because communication is a constant process and even as I’m listening, I’m also communicating.  Whether I’m reading or watching or listening, I need to find value early on, or I’m gone.  And that value has to be relevant to my day-to-day life, or my hopes and dreams, or my hot buttons, and not just some esoteric “all-for-the-greater-good” reward.

I am that easily distracted, often irritated, and usually rushed prospect my clients are trying to target.

If you’re going to request my attention and the time it will take for me to grasp your message, respect me.  Don’t talk down to me, don’t launch the hard sell, and don’t spend forever telling me what you’re going to tell me before you get around to finally telling me.  Don’t try to be funny if it isn’t natural and immediately connected.  Don’t bore me with the minutiae or read a list of features and benefits.  And by all means, keep it short and sweet, and help me see very quickly WIIFM!  Show me, don’t tell me, why I should care.  Learn about me so that I believe you empathize.  Offer me reasonable solutions for my pain and troubles, but don’t make promises that there’s no way you can keep.

You’ve got to connect with me on an emotional level.  You’ve got to establish credibility because you’ve been where I’ve been and felt how I’ve felt.  You’ve got to want the relationship more than the sale, and be ready to give away a lot for free to establish yourself as an expert with integrity who really does just want to help.

Face it.  There are too many messages to choose from, and too many ways for people to spend their time.  They don’t have to listen or pay attention to you, and won’t feel bad about tuning you out.  You get a moment to prove you’ve got something they might want, and then every nanosecond afterward needs to be spent building trust and demonstrating value, because without warning, your prospect or customer will be lured by another message.

If you don’t think the communication you deliver is critical to your success, you haven’t had me in your audience.   I AM the one you’ve been warned about.

Just like everyone else this month, I’m caught up in the Olympics. I didn’t plan to be, and would have proclaimed that I didn’t really care about any of it, but when flipping channels and catching a glimpse of the determined facial expressions, the deep, calming breaths, and the struggle to control the disappointment, you can’t help but get hooked.

My 11-year-old son has grown up watching pro basketball, baseball, and football, and can tell you about the big names in each sport. He’s also come of age in a tough time for the Husker football team, when fans can’t decide whether to cheer or tar and feather the whole lot. So he doesn’t really get the Olympics.

We were watching swimming last night, and he continued the running commentary about how boring it was. That is, until the men’s 4×4 relay, when the U.S. earned gold four seconds faster than the gold medal. Then he decided maybe the Olympics weren’t so bad.

However, it occured to me that with cash prizes, outrageous salaries, and millions of dollars of endorsements dominating sports these days, we’ve forgotten what it’s like to play for nothing but the love of the game. These days there’s always a carrot, always a bonus or external reward. Even in kids’ sports, pressure begins early to make the select team so you can go to the right high school and then the right college, etc., etc., etc.

What about playing just because you love to play — regardless of the score, or the title, or the press coverage?

I’m not naive enough to think that Olympic athletes don’t have pro contracts and endorsements riding on their performance, but the whole atmosphere is different. Every athlete from every country has worked harder than they ever thought they could, and made sacrifices few of us can fathom. This is their one chance — to make their hard work pay off, to bring glory to their team, and to exalt their countries on the gold medal platform. Every action, every event, every mistake matters. And you can read it on every face.

As I ponder my future as a writer and speaker, I worry about the money, and about making ends meet and paying the bills. But I also love what I do. I think my face scrunches up in that look of determination each time I tackle a new project, and I know I take deep breaths when my deadline is looming fast. I smile in the face of criticism from fickle clients, and send e-mails with happy faces and explanation points when someone raves about my work.

Yeah, I’m sacrificing, as is my whole family. It’s scary, and uncertain, and at least once a week I consider finding a regular paycheck in an office somewhere.

But for as long as I can, I’m going to keep playing for the love of the game. It doesn’t happen often enough anymore, and I want my son to learn that there is amazing satisfaction in doing what you love. Go U.S.A.!!

I’m a sucker for e-books, especially when they’re free. I’ll trade my name and e-mail for knowledge any day of the week, especially knowing I can opt out if the subsequent stream of e-mails becomes too annoying.

So I downloaded my latest e-book today and it’s really got me thinking. You can check it out at the Success Enterprises website, which I was happy to see is connected to a Sarpy County business.

This e-book is longer than most I take the time to tackle, but its story keeps replaying in my head, and the moral resonates with what I really need to be doing.

While the premise is a fairy tale about three brothers, the lesson involves how our perspective and attitude determines our level of success. Each of the brothers was blocked by various obstacles from achieving happiness, and it wasn’t until they began asking four critical questions (over and over and over) that their paths began to dramatically change.

Question #1: What do you want?

What’s the life you envision for you and your family? What specific elements comprise that vision? What emotions are connected?

Question #2: What will that do for you?

When you achieve the goals you’ve set, what does your life look like? What benefits do you enjoy that you couldn’t before? How are you better off by getting what you want?

Question #3: How will you know when you have it?

What has to happen to demonstrate that you’ve reached your goal? What are the specific, descriptive characteristics of the newly defined situation that prove you’ve arrived at your destination?

Question #4: What’s stopping you from getting what you want, and what do you need to do to overcome those obstacles?

What are your road blocks, and how do you bypass them? And if you don’t know, how could you find out?

A friend told me yesterday that each time we encounter information that resonates with us, it’s just another opportunity to reinforce what we already know. These questions may seem like common sense, but as the story demonstrates, they’re deceptively simple, and their answers continue to change.

However, by staying focused on what you want, how having that will improve your life, and what opportunities exist for you to achieve what you want, you train your brain to notice those opportunities, and find information and people that complement your journey.

Yes, it’s another version of the popular Law of Attraction, but it makes sense, especially about telling your brain what to notice. If you’re afraid of wasps, as my 9-year-old is, you’ll see every wasp in a 10-mile radius and be certain that they’re out for your blood. If you make friends easily, then you see friendly people everywhere you go. If you’re lonely and wishing you had a significant other, you’ll see loving couples everywhere. If you’re unhappy in your relationship, you’ll run into lots of other people who are also unhappy in their relationships. Our brain notices what’s foremost in our thoughts, and contributes additional evidence to affirm our current train of thought.

So by asking these questions, we stay focused on what we can have, and what we can achieve, and what blessings we enjoy, and thus we continue to find joy and rewarding opportunities. And like anything, the more we practice shaping our focus, the more natural it becomes.

Go check out this e-book, and then leave me a comment about what you thought. And in the meantime, start focusing on what that perfect parking place looks like. It works for me, I swear!

If you’ve been working as a “creative” for long, you already know where this post is heading. If you’re just a curious onlooker, then let me explain.

When I was growing up, I dreaded working on projects with my dad. He and I are a lot alike, which has its benefits … and curses. Dad didn’t get the sons he may have wanted, but that didn’t stop him from raising his daughters to be independent and self-sufficient. He valued the intellectual, and encouraged us to think and explore and challenge the status quo. He also loved any opportunity to break out the band saw, or load up the snowmobiles, or go hunting, or whatever other spontaneous project struck his fancy.

In those moments of discussion and debate at the round table in our living room, questions and suggestions were encouraged and expected. However, once we left the intellectual realm, it was a whole new ballgame. A usually patient and congenial man, my father transformed into a focused project-driven machine who had only one way of getting from point A to point B — his way. No other approach would work, and the process was as important as the end product.

The problem came when I became part of the project team. Dad didn’t have time for lengthy explanations, nor did he want to hear other points of view. I was supposed to dive in with a happy face to work as hard as he was with the same determination to finish the project. And while that was challenging enough, he expected me to understand not only his end goal, but the specific approach he had in mind to get there. He assumed I could recognize the various tools by name, that I knew how much throttle I needed to land the snowmobile back on the trailer in the perfect spot, and that I would be that extra pair of hands that would function in tandem with his master plan.

I can say that I learned a lot by trial and error, and that my dad and I had to walk away from one another more than once before frustration resulted in aneurysm. My need for clarification of project directions or goals confounded him, because the answers apparently should have been obvious.

I find myself flashing back to those days when I work with some of my clients. I worry a little when I begin asking my barrage of questions whether they’ll feel as frustrated as my dad felt. Some of them know what they want and can’t understand why I don’t immediately see their vision. Some of them struggle to describe the end product, but are certain they’ll know it when they see it. Some of them want to order a letter or a page of web copy and don’t want to know or worry about how the end result is achieved.

Sometimes I wonder if, by asking my list of questions, they doubt my skills, because if I was really good, I’d just know, right?

So here’s the way I try to frame it for them. Most people wouldn’t ask a travel agent to plan a vacation without telling her where they wanted to go. Few would expect an architect to design a house with no input from its future residents. And how many brides expect the wedding of their dreams to happen when they hire a wedding planner and then don’t check back in until they’re walking down the aisle?

These examples may be extreme, but they help my clients see that as a professional, I’m here to bring their ideas to life, but the process is a collaboration. Their input is necessary to ensure that the end product meets their needs, and so the questions I ask are essential for me to understand their goals, approach, and style.

You know, as frustrated as my dad often became with my questions, he realized he didn’t like the result when I proceeded without a clear understanding of what he wanted. I hope my clients come to the same realization.

Happy New Year!

What is it about the flip of a calendar page that makes us think we need to dive into self- and professional-examination mode?  Is it the thought of a fresh slate?  Is it the relief of the end of the taxable year?

For me, it was …  about time.

I have been accused of being too analytic, and I can easily annoy my husband by providing too many options for situations that need decisions.  And while I can certainly be introspective, I’ve never been good at seeing the big picture…  of my life, anyway.

So today I began my quest to get more clear about what I want to accomplish and where I want to take my business.  I’ve been using several great — and free — tools from my new favorite site, SuccessNet.org.

One of these tools is a series of questions that ask you to take a hard look at what you believe and how you behave, what you want and what you don’t.  It asks you to define your dreams, and to describe how you’d like others to describe you when you aren’t listening.

One of the most difficult questions for me to answer was “What was your greatest failure, and what did you learn from it?”

The question wasn’t difficult for the reason you’d think…  that it was too painful to recall the failures, or that I’d have trouble deciding which three to discuss.

The problem was that I couldn’t think of any failures.

Don’t get me wrong.  I have certainly missed the boat, made mistakes, let people down, and not achieved to the level I had hoped.  But outright failed?  That was a tough one.

I eventually came up with a few, but more importantly, I realized that by not failing, I had stunted my growth.  By only choosing paths that were safe and familiar, I missed out on a lot of adventures and the rewards that accompanied them.

I grew up believing that failure was unacceptable, and so I created a world where failure was highly unlikely.  And that’s a sad state of affairs.

One last comment regarding failure.  Schools today have adopted a dangerous approach to failure.  Like me, they’ve decided failure is unacceptable, so they create a world where students can’t fail.  Maybe they lower the bar, or they give repeated chances to those who refused to take advantage of previous opportunities, or they find an excuse to allow a student to squeak by.  Teachers are not to blame, and to be fair, administrators believe they’re serving the will of the community.

Take it from a veteran teacher and someone who has rarely failed, shielding kids from failure only makes it tougher for them later.

So this year…  I vow to fail at something, because to fail means I tried something new and learned something new, and that’s what real education is all about!

Thanks to Daphne Gray-Grant’s newsletter Power Writing, I’ve discovered the greatest website ever, because its developers have made it possible to give and to get at the same time!

You may already be familiar with FreeRice.com, but if you’re not, here’s how it works. You visit the site and challenge your vocabulary by selecting the correct definition for each new word. Every time you get the correct definition, the site donates 20 grains of rice to feed the world’s hungry people. So, the more time you spend enhancing your vocabulary, the more food you give to those less fortunate.

A host of advertisers support the site, and thus the food donations, but unlike most sites like this, the ads are tasteful banners at the bottom of the page, and they rotate with each new vocabulary word.

Another cool feature is that you can set the options to save your information, including your vocabulary level, so each time you return you see not only how much rice you’ve donated, but whether or not your vocabulary rating is improving.

It’s a win-win situation, so if you haven’t already made FreeRice.com a daily habit, what are you waiting for?

If this is your first time visiting, then you and I have a lot in common, because this is my first time posting to my brand new blog.

Obviously, I’d love for you to visit again! So here’s what you can expect to find:

• tips about how to write more cleanly and concisely
• thoughts about the freelance lifestyle
• insights about networking, both face-to-face and through the web
• references to great minds in a variety of industries and what they have to say about how to achieve success
• miscellaneous reflections about whatever seems worth talking about

And while I’ve been known to talk to myself, and answer back without hesitation, it would be a lot more fun to talk with you, so leave me a comment once in awhile so I know you’re out there!

My most sincere thanks to Harish Keshwani of Ideologic LLC who helped me launch this site, and who remains the patient blogging coach who keeps pushing me to grow.

I am also gratefully indebted to Andy Hughes, without whom I would have never had a website to begin with, and who is the kindest, most sincere person I know.

So that’s that. I hope you’ll stop by again, and I’ll try to make it worth your while.

Until next time,

Susan