Keep Your Career on the Tracks

90% of communication occurs silently.

So many people don't understand this, which is why we often see careers derail like a speeding train, full of passengers, ideas, and dreams. Everything inside is destroyed.

Naturally we don't want that to happen to us. 

What we read, what we watch, the people with whom we associate, the organizations to which we belong, the neighborhood in which we reside, the clothing we wear . . . everything we do and say, in other words, sends a message about who we are.  Outfluence identifies this form of communication as Constant Messaging®.

One aspect of Constant Messaging® involves sensory gateways and how they function in communication.  As individuals approach us at a network gathering we first observe their general appearance, and we make a judgment.  Then as they get closer, we see their facial expressions, and we make a judgment.  The final gateway is the greeting, when we hear and possibly experience their handshake, and we make a judgment.  We often know at the conclusion of the sensory gateway process whether this initial meeting will develop into a relationship.

Other components of Constant Messaging® are active and passive listening, message interpretation including bias in interpretation, feedback, barriers to communication, intentional and unintentional messaging, and more. 

Kay Betz, MBA, is a recognized expert in the subject of Constant Messaging®.  It has been a part of her curriculum as adjunct faculty at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland for the past 20 years.  On September 27th, 2016, Kay will be a Featured Speaker at the Outfluence Fall Workshop Series. 

Her presentation yields necessary communication tools to ensure that your career and your business stay on the tracks to success.

Register today atwww.outfluence.com/fallworkshop.     

(Three mornings - 9/27, 10/12, 10/27 - Westminster Conference Center, Westminster, MD.) 

Construct a Fulfilled Life

Through personal experience and observation over 5 decades I understand what it takes to construct a life that is, in the end, looked back upon with satisfaction.  Today my team and I at Outfluence teach youngsters, young professionals and business leaders how to build a life of which they will be proud, a life that will be filled with achievements large and small, that will make them happy and fulfilled.  Their path from here to fulfillment won't be easy.  It never is.  But if we can create awareness in them so that when they do fall down, an a-ha! moment will reveal itself and they will know how to recover and move forward.  Awareness is what will help them to avoid the long delays in their journey to fulfillment brought on by mistakes that are compounded by bad decisions. 

We teach our audiences that one bad decision, a relationship decision, for example, can cost them 5 years or more of pain and delay. 

A fulfilled life is composed of knowledge, communication skills and performance.  Within those 3 components are numerous skills that must be learned and absorbed into daily living.  They include message development from the perspective of both the sender and the receiver.  They include personal development skills such as decision-making, time and money management, leadership.  They include learning how to inspire a performance in all of its aspects.  These examples only scratch the surface of the knowledge to be gained and the skills to be acquired.

We are so easily thrown off track in our quest to live a life that is fulfilling to us.  Ego, jealousy, misunderstanding, excessive competition, overreaction to unfortunate experiences and following misleading influences all contribute to delayed or unrealized fulfillment.

As we work to construct lives that are fulfilling the question becomes how much of who and what we are can we control?  What influences us more, nature or nurture?   As written in Simple Psychology magazine, "Nature is what we think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and other biological factors. Nurture is generally taken as the influence of external factors after conception e.g. the product of exposure, experience and learning on an individual."   

If we were fortunate enough to have grown up in a loving and nurturing environment, we have a leg up in constructing our life.  If our early years were painful and frustrating, we can certainly construct the life we want.  We just might need a bit more help and it may take a little longer. 

Outfluence takes people where we find them developmentally.  We help them to discover, or re-discover, their genius.  Then we show them how to build on that genius and take it where they want to go.

---

---

Tendencies are Your Silent Communicators

"William McGirt, you just won the Memorial Tournament, your first win on the PGA Tour.  How did you do it?"

"Well, I've been close several times before.  I recognized that my tendency was to speed up when under pressure.   So this week I focused on slowing things down."

We learn so much from the experiences of others.  If we listen carefully, little nuggets like "tendencies under pressure" resonate loudly.  Tendencies to speed up are the result of lack of confidence, inadequate preparation, insufficient knowledge of a subject, inexperience and other reasons.  But I believe those four are the primary reasons why we tend to speed up when we are under pressure.

I remember early in my public speaking days I tended to speak very quickly.  In my mind I tended to speak quickly because I had so much information to share, I was afraid I couldn't fit it into the time allotted.  Really it was poor preparation. 

Tendencies are great teachers.  One of the things they teach us is that failure is the result of doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.  In my case, after speaking publicly and not feeling good about the result, I spoke to some experts on the topic of public speaking, specifically about my concern, and they coached me to overcome my tendency. 

Sometimes we just need the perspective of an outsider, an uninvolved third party, someone emotionally detached from the situation to look at what we are doing and voice an opinion.  A good business coach will teach the principles of Constant Messaging© and Silent Communication from the perspective of the receiver as well as the sender which may uncover those tendencies before they cause more failure. 

A business mentor once told me that when negotiating the wise negotiator will make a statement and then sit silently.  The weak adversary will tend to feel the need to fill the air with words.  Chances are he or she will reveal something in that moment that the savvy negotiator can use strategically later.  Maybe what is revealed is simply the tendency to react too quickly. 

So much happens in silent moments. 

---

---

Perspective From Higher Ground: Business and Problem Solving

I remember as a kid always talking to ankles and knees when an adult approached to greet me.  And then there was that awkward look up to try to see his or her face.  As an adult I'm sensitive to that moment, so I bend down to get at eye level with a youngster. 

Recently I visited the Gettysburg Battlefields and I felt a little bit of that looking at the ankles feeling as I looked at the base of large trees that surround portions of the grounds. 

As we got to Cemetery Hill, we found ourselves atop the tree line, overlooking the battlefield, and what happened there became very clear.

As I reflected on the moment later, it got me thinking about how some of us conduct business today.  You know ... a few years ago the "big thing" movement  in business was to think outside the box.  The battle cry was if you want to advance in your career, don't do what you've always done.  That will just get you what it's always gotten you.  You must think outside the boxif you want to move your business forward.  So, business men and women began to look increasingly to technology for creativity in leadership and for new ideas in communication and in management.  And now as we move to higher ground and we review where thinking outside the box has led us, we find that what's happening outside the box isn't all good, and in some significant areas.

For example, communication has grown exponentially digitally.  Voice mail, email, text messaging, video conferencing, while great tools, have left younger entrants into the business world lacking in face-to-face communication skills.  Leadership sometimes delivers bad news digitally, coldly, mercilessly to save difficult face-to-face moments.  Teamwork is conducted in less than a civil manner often initiated by carelessly crafted e-mails.  Here are some other thoughts about outside-the-box thinking. 

A website called Lateral Action states,"The research evidence suggests that thinking outside the box fails to produce the expected creative solution. And far from being a hindrance, past experience and training can actually be the key to creative problem-solving."

So, before you think outside the box to create new solutions to age-old problems in business, take a look from a higher perspective.   Like experience maybe?  Training is a good idea, too.  It just so happens that Outfluence is conducting a 3-part series this Fall in Westminster, Maryland that will address this question:  What did we leave behind when we began thinking outside the box?  Visit Outfluence.com in a few weeks when we will begin publishing information about the series.  It begins in September.

View fullsize

This event occurred in the Fall of 2016.

---

Will Robots Need the Soft Skills, Too?

I read an article this morning about robotics.  It is estimated that 30% of the workforce in Europe will be replaced in the next 20 years.  The United States will face the charge of the robotics brigade, too.  A number of restaurants are already considering the move to robotic servers.  Even lawyers are not immune to robotics entering their world.  This article will tell you more.  You can also find it here,  http://bit.ly/1YZ3zUa.

If and when this move to robotics occurs in what I call the regular workplace, in other words the middle class, opportunities for humans may become limited, and those opportunities that are available will demand ever-increasing amounts of skills.  No longer will humans be able to climb the ladder from entry level positions to higher-paying positions over a number of years.  In the future humans will need to advance their skills and look sideways for advancement.  This will require excellent communication skills and inspired performance every day. 

I listened to the McDonald's robot accepting a service order from a customer.  The robot was polite and helpful, and even had a smile on its face.  The robot's designers seem to have built into the robot soft skills very often found lacking in their human counterparts.  I must say I was pretty impressed by what I was seeing from this early version.  What could possibly be next?

My grandchildren, your grandchildren, and possibly some of your children will be facing robotic competitors in their workplace.  Some humans are already sharing the workplace with robots.  The jobs the robots take will likely be gone from human attainment forever.  So where does that leave us?  It leaves us with a highly technical, very competitive workforce.  Skills such as effective communication of all kinds - oral, silent, written, body language - and inspired performance that gains an advantage for its practitioner - as well as the Outfluence form of teamwork called The Silent Storm will be sought after by employers.  The unprepared, uncaring, disinterested employees of today will not, are not now, being tolerated.  The move is afoot to change.  

Many park benches, seaside lounges and oceanfront arcades will be filled with unemployed citizens who ignored the call to action this article is calling for.  It's time to train yourself and your young family members communication and performance skills that will be needed to compete in the years ahead.  Outfluence is offering community-based small group training to help you prepare for the changes that are arriving as you read this article.  Contact us attraining@outfluence.com for additional information.

Business Owners: Who Are We Listening To?

If you are a business owner, you most likely receive a lot of unsolicited advice and unwelcome comments.  You may also receive advice that you pay for.  Who do you listen to and who do you ignore?  I listen to all of them.

Here's why:  The unsolicited advice and the unwelcome comments keep me motivated.  Not too long ago I ran into a guy who went into business a few years after I began Outfluence.  He took on a lot of debt and constructed an impressive facility for his business.  He got off to a great start.  The visuals were excellent.  But now the doors were closed and litigation was looming.  As we spoke, he asked me how my venture was doing.  I told him we were still "climbing the mountain."  He laughed and commented about how long we had "been at it."  I chose not to incur outside debt in my venture but instead chose to invest time and personal funds to gradually improve my product and slowly position my company.  I was still climbing while he had been derailed by debt. 

Another person told me that his friends told him that my business would not succeed because I didn't have the ability to make it work.  Now, how many times have you heard stories of successful people of whom similar comments were made?  Oh, he'll never be able to do it; or, she's too weak to withstand the pressure.  I chose to listen to successful people who were encouraging me to keep going, people who were leading me to resources that would support me, people who were where I wanted to be.  Why would I listen to someone who was going south when I wanted to go north? 

I have written before about my friend who counseled me that it sometimes takes 10 years for a business to reach maturity.  I am in a business that requires others to make a commitment to change.  Change does not occur quickly.  It took us six years to reach maturity in our business.  Most businesses fail in the first three years.  Had Ilistened to the naysayers, I may have ended my business journey too soon. 

Remember that clear vision you had for your business in the early days?  Chances are your vision has been changed by circumstances, or opportunity, or market conditions, or knowledge gained over time.  Listen to the marketplace, listen to your customers, listen to your heart, and persist.  Never quit.  Be open to change. 

Listen to everyone but listen most intently to people who are where you want to go.

---

Why Not Finish?

Is it important to finish what you start?

Yes, say these finishers:

The Importance of Finishing What you Started, by Larry Lewis –    

But to me once you start something you’ve got to stick with it no matter what. You’ve got to finish what you start. Success in whatever it is you do is very much down to self-discipline and perseverance. But there is one element that to me is absolutely key, and that is …..

Our inner thought process is what is behind our successes and failures, it is responsible for us completing a mission that we set out on or giving up. It’s when we start to think: this is so difficult; I can’t do it. Or I hate this; it’s not fun anymore.

Well cut the crap. No longer allow your negative self- talk to stop you in your track and prevent you from finishing what you started. When paralyzed with doubt, remind yourself that you have gone that far in the project and you can complete it if you stick with it.

Why It’s Important To Finish What You Start, by Alex Mullan –

Every morning, people awake bursting with brilliant ideas. Many of these ideas have the potential to change the ways of the world. Some of these ideas hold the potential to shape one’s surroundings into something fresh, invigorating and alter their course to take him or her on an entirely new path. These ideas, if fulfilled, have the power to transform the life of the creator.

Yet, these brainwaves are often ignored, neglected and cast aside, much like trash and last night’s stale meatloaf.

Looking back now, I realize I was afraid of failure and rejection, two things which I believe are the guiltiest culprits of the ever-accumulating wasteland of abandoned ideas and shattered dreams.

The Secret of Finishing What You Start, by Time Management Ninja

Are you good at starting things? Can you get a project or idea in motion quickly? Some people are fast to charge into a new task. However, finishing them is another matter. Undone projects litter their desk, inbox, and to-do list. How are you at finishing things?

Being good at starting things is an important skill. After all, you cannot finish if you don’t start. However, being good at completing things is an entirely different skill. Many people spend their lives “starting”things…However, the ones who are successful are the ones who actually finish them.

Lots of people come up with great business ideas. Few people actually make a business a success. Many people start writing a book. Few people actually publish one. Most individuals have a dream. Few fully realize it. As a general rule, we are good at starting things but we tend not to finish them.

Here are a few Things You Should Finish…

1. The Thing You Should Have Done Last Night 
2. The Promise You Made to Someone Else
3. The Item You Forgot
4. The Todo That Is ALMOST Done
5. The Never Ending Project
6. The Dream You Started

The attributes needed to finish what you start include tenacity, integrity and creativity.  The subsets of those attributes are what Outfluence can help you to understand and to develop.  Those subsets include awareness of the soft skills, knowledge of communication elements particularly the 90% of communication that happens silently, ability to inspire your performance, and familiarity with sensory gateways and sensory perimeters.  These subsets form the foundation of success in your personal life as well as in your business life because they enable you to put your focus on others and relate to their motivations.

---

Tweet Your Heart Out.

75% of businesses own a company page, like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

But only 69% of that percentage actually post.

Who cares? Well, it seems, everyone does nowadays.

A shocking 73% of Americans use social media today. (1) That's a large potential audience for your business. And not everyone is micro-blogging about what brand of dental floss they use, or Instagraming their duck lips. For the business professional, social media can be the most valuable tool in your kit, whether you are an owner, a marketer, or just a member of the workforce.

View fullsize

In the business world, the quickest way to sell  is through visibility. The consumer sees your product, likes it, and thus considers buying into it. Social media can be your best introductory 'handshake'. You  present your cause the way you want it to be seen, more easily than ever before. Most sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram are free to use, which effectively eliminates other costly methods meant to increase visibility, like newspaper ads, or radio segments. 

You also have the opportunity to attract more customers. In 2013, 52% of all marketers attracted new customers via Facebook alone. (2) The relationship between the company and the consumer has become closer, and easier to nurture, with the advent of immediate personalized messages.

Customer service is easier than every before, too. Every consumer can reach out, and feel like they are safe in your company's hands. Check this out:

View fullsize

Possibly your greatest advantage, when using social media, is the ability to observe your audience first hand. What do they need? How can you better serve them? These are questions your marketing department is asking themselves everyday, and now we have exact answers. Got a new idea? New product? Share it with your followers and friends, and get instant feedback. You can also distinguish your group of people with a hashtag, like #Outfluence, to promote a feeling of unity, and keep up with everyone's latest  point of view.

"If you can write with a smile and insert emotion into your respectful and coherent messages, you are again sending a silent message. The person you are communicating with will know that he or she is important and worth the extra time you take to get the message just right."

-Al Betz, Co-founder of Outfluence

There is such a thing as online etiquette, though. For example, you may want to avoid doing this:

View fullsize

And this.

View fullsize

Bottom line? Start Tweeting.

Need help? Have questions? Chat with us today on Twitter @OutfluenceLLC, or visit our contact page http://www.outfluence.com/contact-us/. We are always happy to help you.

(1) According to Statista.com

(2)According Pewinternet.org

---

Support the Future Workforce

Businesspersons I speak to lament the unpreparedness of the workforce.  When asked what improvements they would like to see in new entrants to the workforce, the near unanimous reply is help them with the soft skills, communication in particular.  Now, soft skills and communication happen to be in the Outfluence wheelhouse, so we know how to fix that.

Business leaders generally prefer not to spend their money teaching these skills to the workforce.  They believe that these fundamental skills should be taught either at home or in school.  To bring about soft skills and communication improvement we need to reach high school students.  One method for enticing students to want to learn these skills, and an incentive for attracting the attention of busy school administrators who must approve programs such as the Outfluence program You Are Here . . . Next, You Are Hired,  is to ask business leaders to award a number of internships and other benefits to students who successfully complete the program.

This is a clear win/win/win/win - Students win because they gain valuable knowledge and experience.  The schools win because they are meeting their mission.  Parents win because not only do their children advance their personal development but parents will have the option of also participating in the program. Reinforcement at home of the skills learned in school is a valuable learning tool.  Finally, businesses win because they receive an improved workforce and they gain early access to their future workforce.

(Outfluence, LLC is a teaching and training organization headquartered near Washington, D.C. )

---

---