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The Art of Follow-up

18/1/2018

1 Comment

 

In the business and professional world, you shouldn’t send a letter or e-mail unless you intend some result. If you send out a missive and don't achieve the result, you’ve not only wasted your time but you have now told the recipient that it's OK to ignore you. So much for relevance!

It goes without saying that the best way to get a response is to craft your letter well in the first place. But that is the subject of another discussion-- here the subject matter is how to follow up when you have not received an answer, or a proper answer, in a reasonable period of time.

The trick is to set the table. You need to let the recipient know you are expecting an answer and that you won’t be ignored. If the matter is time-sensitive, don’t leave the door open with vague language like “in due course” or “at your earliest convenience”. Use precise language such as “I trust that you can get back to me by the end of the month.”

An extremely useful device is the “diary date” ending. At the end of the letter or e-mail, you insert a line in bold caps, thus: DIARY DATE: February 2, 2018. And then you actually diarize it in your calendar!

When the date comes and goes, as it likely will, you send a follow-up: “We note that the diary date for our letter of January 19, 2018, a copy of which is attached for your reference, has arrived without any response from you. We would be grateful for your immediate attention to this matter.” And then you insert a new diary date with approximately half the delay time. You repeat this courteously but with increasing firmness until you get an answer.

When being further ignored is no longer an option, it may be necessary to phone. If you do so, don’t go for the jugular, but give the recipient an opportunity to redeem himself: “Bill, I just wanted to make sure you were getting my correspondence.” More often than not you’ll get a written response the same day.

Be careful, by the way, that you don’t accept a weasley telephone response when it is important that you have a written record. If you need something in writing, don’t take second-best.

If the recipient makes it clear that the phone message is all you're going to get, then sit down at your computer immediately and compose a confirming letter or e-mail: "This is to confirm our telephone conversation of this morning in which you advised that you do not intend to pursue the O'Brien purchase." And send it. It's all part of the record.

Very occasionally it’s necessary to “go up the chain”. Handle this with kid gloves, but handle it. Be careful, be diplomatic-- don’t make an enemy unnecessarily. But sometimes getting a written answer is important enough that you need to go over the head of the unresponsive “correspondent”.

From time to time, you will never get a response. That is sometimes all the answer you need. Your lawyer will be glad to have that one-sided paper trail.

As with all business and professional correspondence, always keep in mind that your written words may end up being scrutinized in court or on the front page of the newspaper. When your day comes, you will be grateful that you avoided intemperate, inflammatory or vague language. Remember that you are making a record with which you may have to live.

1 Comment

​How Hillary Snatched Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

18/1/2018

1 Comment

 

This is a communication piece, not a political piece. But political campaigns are all about communication. Unfortunately, Hillary’s lessons are mostly “what not to do”.

Most people believe Hillary Clinton to be an intelligent and decent human being who would have been a better president than the incumbent. But the Donald won and Hillary lost. Perhaps there was a little diddling by the Russians, and perhaps there wasn’t. The truth remains that Hillary ran an awful campaign. Although it’s difficult to commit suicide by a thousand cuts, the Democrats found a way. And almost entirely by inept communication.

The first critique of the Dems is that they played “safe”. This almost never works-- you have to play to win. Cautious and cagey just can’t deliver a message into the heart, especially with a sceptical audience. "I'm not perfect, but he's worse" isn't going to galvanize anyone.

The Dems counted on Donald Trump to self-destruct. With his having vanquished sixteen competitors and having brought the Republican Party to heel, it should have been fairly apparent that he was not to be underestimated. Good communicators can read the tea leaves.

Hillary didn’t deal with the skeletons in her closet. There was Benghazi, the e-mails and the server, but nothing was insurmountable with a little candour and a little vigour. As a communicator, there’s just no substitute for dealing with the ugly stuff up front and soon. Ignoring it makes people think you’re guilty, especially when your opponent is calling you "Crooked Hillary". Stuff like this never goes away on its own.

She didn’t deal with the Elephant in the Room, namely the disenchanted white working class. It didn’t take a genius to see that Trump was successfully pandering to them. Even if his pandering was insincere, their angst was real and he was picking up major points. Communication is also about listening to everyone who has a stake. 

Worse, while Trump was singing white working voters a love song, she insulted them. The revenge of the “Deplorables” put the Donald over the top. As a communicator, you just can’t say everything that is in your head.

She didn’t deal with the “Bill thing” and the Republicans wouldn’t leave it alone. All she needed to say was, “Listen, I’m not Bill and stop trying to hang him around my neck. But what I know is that I made a promise to Bill and to God forty-one years ago, and unlike Donald, I practice my faith, and I believe in marriage and I keep my promises.” I’ll guarantee that many Evangelical women would have said an "Amen, Sister!" to that.

There were dozens more communications failures, but mostly Hillary lost because she thought that elections are won by appealing to reason. Silly Hillary. A fundamental rule of communication is that you need to win my heart before you can speak to my head. 

Great campaigns are won or lost on passion and presentation. 

The Donald got that, the Dems didn’t. And that’s the whole story.

1 Comment

​Donald Trump: Communication Wizard?

4/1/2018

1 Comment

 
What???!!! How can Mr. Covfefe even qualify? Isn’t he the worst thing that has happened to the English Language since 1066? Well, yes and no. (How did you guess I used to be a lawyer?) 

Donald Trump is many things. As a practitioner of good English, he’s an utter disaster. But as a shuck-and-jive artist (my language is intentional) he has no equal. As such, he is still a master communicator, in a very narrow sense. As students of communication we would do well to consider his successes. If you only learn from people you like, you’ll miss a lot. Follow me, then...

There are at least five things at which he excels. 

First, he is a master of body language. When he hovered behind Hillary like a cloud of sewer gas he was very intentional. It was pure Hollywood. Feet braced, thumbs hooked in his belt and putting on his best Dirty Harry face, he was the Sheriff about to “lock up Crooked Hillary”. He knew that most of us found his antics boorish and abhorrent, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t performing for us. He was performing for his base, and they ate it up.

Which leads us to our second point: he understands his audience and speaks directly into their hearts. They aren’t concerned with theories or lessons, they just want some understanding, some love, and some protection. Hillary called them “deplorable”, but he sings them a love song. Does he really care about them? Who knows, but they think he does, and that’s all that matters.

Third, he has mastered the verbal devices of the shady used-car guy. Think Robin Williams' Cadillac Man, except not funny. Creepy and annoying, perhaps, but for the right crowd, completely effective. “Everybody else has lied to you, folks, but I’m telling it like it is.” Listen to him stop, start, dodge and weave, leaving gaps for you to fill in as you want to hear. He tosses around “Believe me!” and “by the way” and he gulls you into his confidence. It’s not the content, it’s the rhythm. P.T. Barnum would be proud. 

Fourth, he tweets to divert attention. This is straight out of Magic 101. While we snicker at “covfefe” and are outraged by his childish rants, our eye is entirely off the ball while he is changing the legal landscape of America by executive order. Right before our eyes, if we were watching, which we’re not.

But here’s number five, and the key: he knows how to count. He understands that about forty percent of voting Americans want (and perhaps need) to hear what he is saying, be it bashing the NFL or China or the Deep State, and he continues to tell them what they want to hear. That is the true genius of Donald Trump. For any politician or marketer, 40% bedrock ain’t bad. Are you treating your bedrock right?

Am I suggesting, dear scholar of communication, that you fully emulate the Donald? Heaven forbid. But there are lessons to be learned everywhere, even from the Donald. 

(For those readers who are going to ask, “Yeah, but what about Hillary?” let me save you the trouble-- Hillary was a communication and political disaster. But that’s for next Friday.)
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    Norman Bowley teaches the Alignment Doctrine and the Client Code-- secrets to building the professional practice you and your clients deserve.

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  • Home
    • Video >
      • The Alignment Doctrine
    • Communication >
      • Elements >
        • The Golden Rule
        • The Five Essential Qualities
        • The Five Essential Questions
        • The Five Step Cycle
        • The Ten Commandments
        • The Ten Sources of Authority
      • Modules >
        • Modules A-M >
          • Avoiding amateurism
          • Change: Understanding It, Facing It, Profiting From It
          • Communication for Long Term Relationship
          • Communications Horror Stories
          • Communications that blow up in your face
          • Communicating toward success
          • Earning the Right to Be Heard
          • Gerunds, Mesolects and Other Arcane Terms of Art
          • Having a Toad Day
          • Healthy Fear
          • Hippos and Raccoons-- Deadly Underestimation
          • How I Moved From Doing What I Liked to Doing What I Loved
          • How to Be on the Same Wavelength as Your Audience
          • How to Pick Up a Porcupine-- Dealing With Difficult People
          • Key of Trust
          • Manipulation
          • Mastering the Technologies
          • Mining the Subconscious
        • Modules N-Z >
          • Quick and Dirty-- the 80/20 Rule
          • Sabotaging Your Message
          • Scar Tissue
          • Secrets of the Druids
          • Some Specific Approaches to Communications
          • Specific audiences
          • Symbolism-- the Heart of the Communicative Process
          • Talking to Yourself and Why You Should Do It
          • The Difference Between Leadership and Management
          • The Eyes Eat First
          • The Eyes Have It
          • The Lizard Within-- What Your Reptilian Brain Makes You Do
          • The Media of Communication
          • The Respect Deficit
          • The Secret of Authenticity
          • Thinking About the Kinds of English
          • Websites, Blogs and Newsletters
          • When you don't have time to plan
          • When You'd Rather Shoot Yourself
          • Who's your audience? Targeted communication.
      • About us >
        • Karen Bowley
  • Norman Bowley
  • FREE
  • Services
    • Keynote Speaking
    • Training
    • Coaching
    • Troubleshooting
    • Consulting
    • Writing >
      • Ghost Writing
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