Much has been said, and written, about the perils of comfort. Comfort zones that turns into ruts, which turns into graves over time. There are common factors which contribute to a person’s decline both in confidence and capability. Comfort zones often boil down to a numbness cultivated by defeatist mindsets that echo “Now is ok, no need to change anything.”, “You’ve done enough.“, “What does it matter, just chill.”, “What does commitment and focused effort get you?”, all topped off with “You’ve earned a rest. Go watch tv.”

Being in that rut holds us back from performing when we most need to - in times of adversity. Staying in our comfort zones or waiting for other people to tackle problems denies people opportunities to prove they can do meaningful and necessary tasks. And that rut becoming a grave can become a very unwelcome reality.

Thinking this might describe where you are today? Or someone you know or lead? Move out of the rut before it becomes a grave! Because adversity is always around the corner.

Two of types of adversity exist in our world. One that which forces itself upon us. Maybe it’s a surprise. Maybe it was ignored until that was no longer possible. Then there is adversity we embrace and leverage to prove ourselves.

Every struggle does not result in victory. But each time a person ignores, shuns, pawns off, or performs “adversity theater”, odds on how everything turns out favor failure. Heavily so.

A key aspect of dealing with adversity is how we communicate to get through it. Which means fixing a problem, limiting damage, and trying to prevent a repeat crisis. How can a person prepare to communicate during adversity?

1. Identify three crisis situations most likely to occur in your business or for your role if you’re not in a leadership position.

2. Visual how to handle each of these situations using the “Four Elements of Crisis Leadership” framework available here -> https://www.communicatoraccelerator.com/p/four-steps-in-crisis-leadership-and

3. How often you repeat this visualization exercise (on your own and with others) depends on how high your risk is of experiencing one of these issues. Maybe once a quarter, monthly, or weekly if things around you are going sideways. What would you say? Not say? How would you communicate with other parties involved in each crisis?

4. Role playing can help people build more confidence and posses a higher level of readiness to deal with crises.

If you strive to be good, excellent, or to mastery communication, you cannot do nothing. These four steps will stretch and warm-up your mind, getting it ready for adversity when it strikes. Because one will strike at some point, maybe little or huge in scope and damage. To best weather them, other communication skills are essential for use in this framework. This is true for one reason.

If a person is lazy and sloppy during their daily activities, why would you trust them in a crisis? They are not going to turn into rock stars. When stressed, people’s performance drops to their baseline. This means how they typically perform and react when faced with a challenge.

Most people do not suddenly turn into a super hero. They down shift to what they know and can handle. Especially when it comes to how well they can communicate with people.

They are two terms you might be looking for which are golden and about as rare (sadly). Composure. And Accountability.

What you do today during “normal” times prepares you for adversity tomorrow. Specifically when there are severe consequences at stake. Make that maximum effort in how you communicate, think, make decisions, and act as a regular part of your professional persona.

Introducing one’s self is something as business people we do on a regular basis. Is it a daily thing for you? Maybe weekly? In this flash of time, you can seize an opportunity, make a crucial connection, or you decide you no longer want or need to interact with a person. Or they might do the same with you.

How to Make Better Introductions: Part 1: Video 1 (Intro, Projects, & Risk)

How to Make Better Introductions: Part 1: Video 2 (Judgement & Conclusion)

Transcript/Text

How good are you introducing your self to others? At this point most people will respond with the knee jerk reaction of “I’m good”. Typically with little actual thought going into that response. Think back to an event you attended where people introduced themselves to others. How many of them were memorable? Where there people who gave off a bad vibe?

What percentage of people do you think forgot about you twenty minutes after leaving the event?

People will try to avoid answering this because it’s usually an unknown answer. And people like to err on the side of the positive. If I don’t know, it wasn’t bad. So I must hove done ok at least. Right?

Now, some of you rock out your introductions. People get lucky (sometimes). For most people, your introduction and impression were discarded into that eternal dust bin of “never to be thought of again”.

The upside is there are things to learn and do that will improve the quality and outcomes of your introductions.

Two of the major factors I’ll share here with you. Along with a perspective that better frames how you can view introductions as a professional. One that goes beyond just “seeing what happens”. Or living in blissful ignorance while going through pointless motions when meeting new (but often not the right) people.

Like many aspects of communication, how well people introduce themselves has been deeply impacted by the pandemic. People are still readjusting to work, life, and communication in our post-pandemic normal. Within the span of two years most of us were yanked from our regular work environments to being virtual and behind masks and than back to living again like…well, people.

Throughout this time, introductions have remained just as important for businesses. Desired outcomes are mostly the same. Venues and how we present ourselves changed a lot.

These factors influenced how well or poorly we perform and interact with people. For some people, their confidence has taken severe hits. These are just some of the reasons why it’s important to practice how you communicate and understand more of the concepts and strategies the help you achieve desired outcomes.

There is a tendency when it comes to things we do on a regular basis of believing we do a good job. Even when we don’t. One of the toughest things about this deficit is realizing it exists.

When it comes to commonly performed actions people are quick to say they perform at a normal or average level. It sounds safe. It’s not bad. Or is it?

Average is not good, much less excellent. This next line is something an awful lot of people resist and refuse to recognize. Average (or normal) skills (since they are not good) are bad. An acceptable level of bad for the mediocre and unmotivated people. Good enough to eek by but not to be recognized as a top performer. With appropriate and often frustrating levels of compensation and recognition by decision-makers. That’s what happens when people deliver performance that is tolerable but unremarkable and unlikely to yield exceptional results.

Don’t be average or normal. Don’t be bad. Be good, excellent, or even elite. You don’t have to know everything. You need to know the right things.

Invest in yourself in the right areas (communication is always at the top of the heap), do hard things, and be better today than you were yesterday. I know you can do this and it’s why I do this work in communication coaching (ha - didn’t realize this is coaching, did you?).

Introductions as Projects

How you introduce yourself (and interact with people) is a project - with risks and benefits. These interactions at networking event or in the proverbial elevator can influence if there is a “next time” talking with someone. Most of the time, people will not tell you they don’t like you or that you don’t have value for them. They will just ghost you. You might find out at your annual review or in some other unpleasant manner.

Introductions are perpetual projects. When successful, they become ongoing conversations and perhaps more significant relationships. During that first conversation there is more risk. You might be nervous. Your opposite number may be skeptical and slow to trust you. After that introduction and each subsequent interaction, don’t forget that a large part of a relationship’s strength is contingent on how well the previous interaction went for each participant.

With this being said, business projects are far from a sure thing. Just like introductions. Business projects fail more often than they succeed. Sixty-five percent of business projects fail (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2014).

Begin viewing your introductions as projects. Ones you are seeking to have successful outcomes. Some people will say this is transactional, like it’s a dirty word. Yes. It’s transactional. And it’s a beautiful word. When you’re transactional it means you provided someone with something or service they valued enough to give you money.

Being transactional does not make you a bad person. It makes you a person of value. Focus on how to provide value to people. Would you rather be a professional that gets paid or some loser who wears failure as a badge of honor to avoid being called “transactional”.

Risks

Anyone who does not acknowledge risk accepts mediocrity. In business and life, risk directly correlates to two factors. Success and failure. This can become a big problem if failure becomes associated with your reputation and face during a poor introduction.

Another problem with ignoring or being ignorant about risk is you can’t do anything about it. To take action against failure, it must be acknowledged as a possible outcome. Once you’re aware of these risks associated with introductions, you can take steps to tilt your interaction’s outcome towards success and away from failure.

Remember, sixty-five percent of business projects fail. That’s more than half of them. Failures have real world results. Such as lost revenue, eliminated jobs, failed businesses and lots of other nasty results.

For every ten projects, one is a home run, two or so are partial wins, and then six to seven are complete failures. Of the complete failures, half of those fail due to poor communication.

This is how we can reduce risk. By becoming a better communicator.

When we look at these introductions as projects, that means with better communication skills, you could convert up to three or four total failures to total or partial wins! That leaves you with seven wins/partial wins and three losses. Much better odds, right?

The Icky Part

When we talk about feeling icky in the context of working with other people what do you think of first? If it’s not the top answer, it’s probably in the top two…maybe three. Sales. That is not what I am talking about.

Being judged by other people is the icky part. After an introduction, people judge everyone else by factors important to each person. Judging is an essential part of dealing with people. Which is great, people love to judge others. Until it happens to them. And that is the really icky part.

Introductions (and relationship in general) come down to how people judge each other. This is probably not what many of you expected to read in an article on introductions. It is a critical part of relationship building. Poor judgements of people kill introductions.

Without embracing this fact, you can learn all of the networking skills and tips, but you are severely handicapping yourself if you do not understand the role of judgement. When you do this your networking strategy becomes one that is more dependent on luck than intention. It should be the other way around.

You cannot avoid being judged. People who preach that judging is only a bad thing miss it’s value and are likely have been judged negatively…perhaps wrongly. But that doesn’t change the fact the judging is not inherently bad. It’s a critical part of forming opinions and making decisions. How it happens and what’s done with resulting verdicts, that can be another matter. But it’s going to happen.

Odds are some of you are judging me for writing this article. This fact of humanity and communication is being shared to help you best achieve your desired outcomes. For you to gain an edge over your peers and rivals when it comes to communication, strategy, and getting things done. This is not about a fair fight. This is about being successful pursuing your desired outcomes. No one in their right mind wants a “fair fight” in the real world (while still being ethical and adhering to laws and regulations). People want to win. This means out performing others with knowledge that translates into action.

This is not an argument for the reckless judgement of people or poor behaviors. When judgements are made they should be guided by reason and logic.Emotional inputs should be minimized if not eliminated when possible.

This philosophy will offend some as being unfair and harsh. That is your opinion. For which I do judge you for holding that belief because it is intellectually weak. It’s also something that can be changed upon reflection.

If you consider making judgements “bad”, I hope you reconsider your position. You are inhibiting your potential. You might be thinking you are doing “alright” or “good enough”. What if your could do better? I believe you be and do better by adopting this philosophy regarding judgement and communication.

Acknowledging the reality and role of judgement can can translate into a massive opportunity for a person. Principally because other people shun it benefit. You display courage by thinking creatively in real world terms focusing on results by taking action. Mentally weak masses denying judgement’s advantages instead feign shock and complain incessantly as they fall short in the eyes of peers, spouses, leaders, customers, their “favorite” baristas and …you get it.

More on judgement-deniers in future content. Let’s get back to the people who matter. Those of us who acknowledge judgement occurs and its role in introductions. We’ll dive into techniques focused on mitigating negative impressions in the next paper in this series.

Conclusion

At this moment, adjusting your mindset is critical. An introduction is not just meeting someone. It’s an intentional effort to secure that next conversation with the right people to better achieve your desired outcome(s). This means cultivating a favorable judgement by others and mitigating risks.

Think of this in terms of racing a row a boat across a lake in darkness. You are one of the best rowers on the planet. At first your information is limited to being a row boat racer across a lake at night. Until you learn someone will be evaluating not how fast you get across the lake, but resulting from the precision and form of your rowing strokes and mechanics (judgement).

This is not a leisurely evening row. Next you learn there are rock outcrops scattered in various places in the lake (risks). Now you know about the stroke evaluation and the rocks, This exercise is not just about a technical skill (rowing). It’s also about how it’s done (judgement) and without hitting a rock and sinking (risk).

Being great at a skill (such as an Olympic-level rower) is not enough by itself. It’s critical to understand how judgement and risk influences your pursuit of a desired outcome. Just as it does when introducing yourself to people.

You likely encounter emails similar to those I mention below. To me, they're nothing short of trash, embodying poor and unethical choices. Are these people worthy of your business? These messages (often unsolicited) often come from business "celebrities" eagerly marketing their latest workshops and other offerings.

Sound familiar? Just six months ago, they claimed expertise in neurodiversity, and now they're AI gurus claiming to solve your issues for the cost of a workshop. What will their new persona be in another six months? Who knows; however, it's likely they'll continue to employ these questionable email tactics.

The Misleading "Re:" Emails

Avoid sending emails with subject lines starting with “Re:” when your message is not genuinely a reply. It's deceitful and brands you as dishonest. Some might argue it's the bot doing this, but the person utilizing that bot... well, they are liable for the deception too.

“This address does not accept emails"

Never request feedback from an email address that doesn't accept replies, only to follow up by instructing the recipient to reach out via a help page or social media. This wastes the recipient's time, a significant business blunder. Moreover, if you can engage via another channel, why not respond by email—the very medium you initiated contact with?

What does this mean when it comes to presentations?

Most people do not possess the personality, charisma, and skills of Freddie Mercury when he performed in front of Live Aid in 1985. There’s a lot to learn from him…about the right way to inspire and connect with an audience.

Have you attended a seminar, presentation or some other event where the person on stage asks how is everyone doing this morning? Or does everyone feel good? And it felt hollow?

Congratulations, you have been manipulated by someone too lazy to invest in the speaker-audience relationship. It’s filler. It’s lazy. It’s unimaginative. And that person is betting that no one will break the herd mentality and say something different.

At best it’s manipulative...at worst it’s lazy and insulting. Don’t be that. Be better as a presenter, professional, and a person.

Then you see it. A typo. Not in a full freak out yet, you keep going. There’s only one…right?

Typos hurt your credibility. That damage becomes exponentially worse for you, your message, and anyone you're representing that day. It shows a lack of preparation and discipline. It’s also a visible sign of disrespect for the audience and customers. If you wouldn’t be rude to someone’s face, don’t do it through a slide.

We discuss these impacts and seven things you can do to best avoid the embarrassment and damage inflicted by typos.

Maintaining credibility and focus as an expert is critical during presentations. use of smartphones and other devices to read notes detracts from the speaker’s presence and effectiveness. There is an array of problems this practice introduces that can damage your message and destroy your reputation. Alternative methods for managing notes are suggested to enhance the delivery of presentations. Overall, the goal is to ensure that the speaker remains the central focus of the audience’s attention.

You said something incorrect or silly. Move past it immediately. Keep your momentum. Stay on track. Stay on time. Don’t get rattled. Unless it was really bad, most people probably did not catch it. More on BIG goofs and getting called out in the video.

• Be Someone Interesting - Networking & Credibility

• Learn to be an interesting communicator (3x10+10 Exercise)

Are you a veteran business owner in the Chicago area? Check out Chicagoland Veteran Business Owners to network and learn from other veteran entrepreneurs.

Gaining a competitive advantage through leadership interactions is identified as a key benefit, placing individuals in a favorable position over peers and rivals and setting new standards of excellence. The discussion extends to the importance of being perceived as valuable for promotions and professional advancement, highlighting the role of visibility, consistent demonstration of skills, and alignment with organizational goals. Improving compensation as a measure of success and advancement.

Part 1 - Overview

Part 2 - What Leaders Need From You

Part 3 - Leadership Interaction Checklist

Part 4 - Frameworks & Formats

Part 5 - Preparation, Perspective, & More

Content

• 4 videos

• 3x10+10 Speak on the spot workbook PDF download

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Most people are not very good at impromptu speaking skills. You probably see this a lot when people are meeting strangers. How often have you been speaking to someone at a networking event, conference, or meeting who is boring? Perhaps this describes you?

This exercise (3x10+10) sets you on the path to speak with confidence in most situations. With this skill, you will be remembered as an interesting and intelligent person when you speak with people. Not as a bore or an idiot.

Benefits of adopting this simple framework include:

• Demonstrating confidence when speaking in spontaneous situations with associates and strangers

• Overcome fear and cringe often associated with public speaking

• Learning a strategy to learn and recall information for conversations

• Be an interesting person others remember and want to associate with in social and/or professional settings

Far too many people earnestly believe they are portray themselves as interesting and intelligent people when they speak. That they can “wing it” when speaking to people who can influence their prosperity, businesses, and careers.

They can’t and they don’t. Gain an advantage over your peers and rivals with this simple exercise. Invest forty minutes in yourself each day. Through confidence that comes from preparation, show decision-makers why they should hire you or your business.

Part 1 - Exercise purpose & overview

Part 2 - Materials & Mindset

Part 3 - Practice and growth

Part 4 - Review and execution

Download

3x10+10

4.46MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

It’s all about people

You need people. I need people. People need people! Yes, this sounds like hippy lyrics from the seventies, but it’s true. 

Regardless if you work in a big corporation, small business, or as a solopreneur, at the very least you need customers. There will be other people. They may be co-workers, collaborators, teachers/professors, suppliers, mentors, employees, and contractors to list a just a handful of work-related relationships. On the personal side there are parents, spouses, significant others, children, siblings, friends, and that person who waves when you walk your dog. And then there’s the dog!

Life is filled with relationships.  As business people we crave additional relationships. Especially in the form of customers. Even if you don’t work in sales directly, you need customers to keep getting that pay check. With this in mind, it matters how and when you interact with customers. More customers equal more money.

In addition to customers, people that can introduce or recommend us to them are great. Looking for that promotion with your employer? You need people that like you. People who will say nice things about you. 

There’s nothing wrong with saying you want and need these things. And the relationships that go with them. Where people often sabotage themselves is what they do to gain these relationships.

Where can you turn strangers into people that remember you in a good way? So many options. There are networking events, association meetings, dinner parties, sporting events, and alumni gatherings for starters. Then there are those relationships that can significantly influence your life on a professional or personal level. Such as job interviews and dates. Or meeting future in-laws.

How do you introduce yourself? Some of you may be wondering what is the secret or hack to a great introduction? What is the recipe for that perfect introduction?

Do you go quick and dirty with only a handful of words? After typing out your own personal version of “War & Peace”, should you email that around and print it out to share hard copies? Something in between? Do you create and practice an “elevator speech” until you know it by heart and can recite it perfectly while a building burns down around you? 

What do you want?

What do you want to happen when you meet strangers? Be specific. Write it down. You may have different desired outcomes depending on who you meet. Write those different desired outcomes down. Include when you want those outcomes to occur. 

A couple of quick observations.

• Meeting people is not enough. Some people measure their activity or “success” solely by the number of people they meet. If you get paid for the number of contacts you make, that is not the same as focusing on making quality relationships. It makes you a telemarketer.

• Do you recognize forming most relationships usually take time? If not, go ahead and embrace this unfortunate fact. Denying this will only make the pain last longer.

• Why should the people care about you when it comes to business? This really comes down to two things. 

  • They need what you’re selling. You may stumble into a transactional need by someone. They need what you’re selling at that precise moment in time and space. Awesome if it happens, but believing this is the norm is a sin committed by most new salespeople and business owners. It’s nice when lighting strikes, but don’t get used to it.

  • They are interested in something about you, your business, and/or your product/service. If someone finds you interesting, it (usually) means that person finds you credible.

You have far more input and influence on becoming interesting than you will seeking out lighting strikes.

Be interesting

But how? Here is the one line of action you need to makes this happen.

Be an expert → Build confidence →Project credibility →Be interesting TM

Many people will see this one line and say, “Whoa! This looks like a lot of work.” It does and it is.

Don’t worry about shortcuts on how many words to use in your elevator pitch (fyi - never do one of these again. They are offensive and trite). Or how to  use some language “technique”.  Doing this just makes you manipulative.

Instead of focusing on the latest networking “technique” or sales hack, focus on building and sharpening your expertise and conversation skills. Mastering your topic makes you confident. Confidence makes a person credible. Credibility helps to make a person interesting. Sound familiar?

This process is easily seventy percent of the work that goes toward being a good at networking. That’s right. Being an expert matters. Then there is the communication skills part (twenty percent of the work). How can you best share your expertise with other people? You can be great at what you do, but can you express it so you’re an interesting person/professional?

For those keeping track of the math for the work required to be a good networker, you’ve noticed we’re up to ninety percent. That leaves ten percent, which is showing up. More importantly, it’s showing up for the right audience.

But….there’s always a “but”, no? Don’t I just need to know how to sell? To persuade someone to buy my product/services which I generally don’t understand to any significant degree. This perspective is why a lot of people don’t like and/or don’t trust sales people.

Do you want to work with a person that doesn’t understand what you need and only focuses on hitting their numbers for their benefit? Like Boeing, cough, cough. I mean, you wouldn’t want to do something like place an engineer in charge making jetliners instead of some finance/business “expert”. Just an interesting aside, the CEO of Airbus…he’s an engineer.

Back to being better at networking. Back to being an interesting person. While the path is simple, it takes work. Building an inventory of interesting things to say takes time. Where to start? How to do this? The 3x10 +10 framework is described in the post Learn to be an interesting communicator for building a collection of topics and being ready to use them during conversations.

Be an expert → Build confidence →Project credibility →Be interesting TM

People remember interesting people. Even if they don’t buy from you today, they might tomorrow. Or tell someone else about you in a month. Perhaps they think about you for a completely different opportunity you never imagined for yourself. But they did. Because you are interesting to that person.

Forget about your elevator pitch, or how many words to use when describing “what you do” to a stranger who is only looking for someone to become their customer. Don’t just say something interesting. Be someone interesting.