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Feeling overwhelmed and overloaded? Can’t seem to get things done? Having a hard time focusing? Consider the following:
1. Do Less! Unclutter your schedule. Ask yourself: ‘What am I trying to prove and to whom?’
2. What’s driving the overwhelm? Is it fear? Fear of what? Delegate. Re-negotiate your commitments. Ask for help
3. Take one easy action. Then do one harder thing. Alternate back and forth. easy…more challenging…easy etc. This will help build on success.
4. Celebrate your successes. Cut yourself some slack!
5. Tell the truth. If something isn’t working, say so. Let the truth be. Let yourself be with the truth. A lot of energy is tied up in resisting the truth…in resisting what’s true for you. Once the resistance is released by truth-telling, the next steps will present themselves.
6. Turn away from negativity. Commiserating with others on what’s wrong only expands what’s wrong. To expand positivity, speak and relate in a positive way.
7. Allow yourself to experience your negative feelings completely. Then learn how to re-frame negative situations to be able to see the gifts that they are, no matter how negative they seem. Ask yourself this: ‘What is the gift that this person or situation is presenting to me by being what it is (or who they are)? What is it, or they, helping me to see that I don’t want in my life any longer?
8. If you are complaining about anything, ask yourself, “What do I get from complaining? What feels good about complaining? Be honest. Then ask yourself, “What is it costing me?” This is not new information, but how many of us actually do this kind of soul-searching? Fundamentally, by complaining we get to be righteous about what’s not working. We get to be indignant, judgmental and NOT responsible for feeling better or creating a solution. So, if we’re not being responsible for feeling better or finding a solution, of what value are we?
So what does this have to do with feeling overwhelmed? Overwhelm implies that we have become victims of ourselves, that we have temporarily lost control of our thoughts and behavior. To get back on track, ask yourself this, ‘ What will make me feel even the slightest bit better or happier right now (that will not harm me or another)?’ Then go and do that. At least you would have taken charge of your thoughts and behavior; the only things we can control.
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“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive” – Howard Thurman
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In any prolonged customer engagement, such as in the fields of custom building, interior design and architecture, rarely found are preemptive practices for customer conflict prevention. If you are a professional in residential custom building, either in the design or construction side, have you had more customer ‘headaches’ than you’d care to think about? If you are a homeowner who has built a custom home or done a major remodel, did you have more frustration, stress and anger involving misunderstandings than you’d care to remember?
Conflict resolution, mediation or arbitration are the instruments most commonly used in our culture to resolve conflict civilly. Don’t get me wrong, these are useful and potentially transformative tools. However, how much money, time and heartache would we spare ourselves if we focused on conflict prevention practices…practices to create mutual understanding up-front, rather than mucking through the emotionally and monetarily costly post-conflict swamp?
Initially, as an industry professional, you may balk at the perceived cost of making this kind of investment in changing your business practices, especially in a changing market. Consider this: How many times have you left money on the table or discounted your fees in compensation for misunderstandings that could have been avoided with routine communication protocols that include documentation? How many unnecessary phone calls have you received because your business model doesn’t effectively deal with the uncertainty your client lives with when so much of their money is at stake? How much time, aggravation and stress could you save yourself and your client, not to mention your reputation, by educating your client and preparing them each week for what lies ahead, being accountable to your word and deed and keeping them informed ahead of the curve?
After all, we remember experiences because they involve our emotions. It’s the emotion that sticks. What kind of emotion do you want creating your reputation? Are you just ‘hoping to get it right’ or are you proactively stacking the odds in your favor by having effective routine communication practices in place? Don’t you and your clients deserve less stress and more peace of mind? Certainly your reputation does.
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Now it’s time to talk about presentation design from my learning experience at the Madhatter’s Tea Party with Meri Walker, the virtual meeting coach.
Here is the biggest take-away, especially if your meeting is educational in nature: Design with as much spontaneous interaction as possible. Remember you can’t see what your attendees are up to on the other end. You have no way of knowing if their bored, distracted or asleep! For example, if you are working with a small group, ask questions throughout your meeting and ask for responses from each of them. Demonstrate how they can use the text chat function in the virtual meeting space so they have the option to respond in writing or speaking.
An effective virtual presentation hinges on the engagement of your audience. Given you’re not in the same room together sharing the group experience and its energy, how can you deliver an engaging experience? For when all is said and done, it’s situations that get us to feel something that we remember. And believe me, boredom is not the feeling you’re going for here!
In short, design your presentation more as a ‘conversation‘ than a information hosing. Be more engaged with your participants than with your material! Being present to your audience’s experience is key.
Of course to make sure you’ve hit the mark with your design, ask friends to rehearse with you and play your participants. Their feedback will be vital to helping you work out the kinks and create an engaging virtual meeting. Did I mention it should be engaging? 
[ONE OTHER TECHNO TIP: Make sure to tell your participants how to self-mute their phone line, if your using a teleconferencing line. This way when their dog barks, their kids interrupt, or they have to use the bathroom while on the call, they will have privacy and your session will be spared their background audio scene.]
Happy Virtual Meeting,
Susan
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What if we thought of ‘customer service’ not as a set of practices to implement to obtain & retain business, but as a practice of being present, person-to-person, being-to-being, no matter if we’re the customer or the sales person? What if we STARTED there? What if we took the time to reflect on the interactions we wish would have gone better? What if we consider our reactions as being caused by what we need to learn about ourselves, even from the most ‘nasty’ people we just want to write off?
What part, consciously or by default, have we played in this relational play? Consider that feeling insulted or judged aren’t reasons to blame, but reasons to examine what unexamined part of us has contributed to an unpleasant or hurtful interaction.
It’s not easy, nor comfortable to engage in this level of self-examination. Matter of fact, it can be downright sickening and extremely humbling when we see our culpability. But it is what’s at the heart of growing spiritually, emotionally and integrally.
This is conversation isn’t for everybody, but what if it were? What if we stopped compartmentalizing our business from our personal life…customers from the rest of the people in our life…who we are at work and how we are outside of work? What if all encounters were opportunities to ask, “What is this interaction reflecting about my life and where I need to grow”?
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To conclude this techno tip series from my Madhatter’s experience, here are my final pearls of novice wisdom.
THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT FOR THE JOB
TELEPHONE HEADSETS
If using a telephone for the audio portion of your delivery, rather than VOIP via your computer, make sure the telephone headset is the over-the-head type with the rigid microphone stem that sits in front of your mouth. If you use the ear bud type with the mic on the cord below your chin, your voice will sound soft and distant. Make the investment and purchase the right tools. There is nothing more distracting than people telling you they can’t hear you and having to give up one hand to hold the mic in front of your mouth. Trust me on this.
You’ll have enough to monitor in the online environment. Save yourself the frustration and the disengagement from your listeners from this easily avoided hassle. Free your hands and voice to be able to do what they need to do without your having to monitor them too!
WEBCAM
If you choose to use a webcam for your presentation so that people can see you, make sure your lighting is right. Checking this should be part of your rehearsal.
Seeing you on the webcam can help your audience stay engaged. That being said, it is VERY important to relate to your webcam as your audience. Make sure to look at the webcam while you are speaking so those on the other end experience you BEING with them. When speaking to your audience through the webcam, make sure not to move too much as you run the risk of being pixelated on the viewers end.
Coming up…my tips on presentation design!
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Traveling back up the rabbit hole here are a few more techno tips
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!
Theory is very different than reality. Even if we think we know, in the online meeting world chances are we don’t.
Make sure to run a full rehearsal using all your tools, materials and team players. Especially in the current developmental stage of these online tools, something assuredly will go awry. The more familiar you are with the tools and their operation, the more at ease you will be when the inevitable happens. Trust me, it will!
IN DIMDIM, MAKE SURE TO HIT THE ‘START MEETING’ BUTTON!
The meeting tool I used for my virtual demonstration was DimDim.com. In DimDim, you can preset the meeting time. Once DimDim is opened, just prior to your start time, a ‘START MEETING’ button is displayed. Make sure to click on that button at your ‘start time’ to make sure the preferences previously set take effect. If you miss your ‘start time’, there’s a chance the preset preferences may not take effect.
More to come…stay tuned!
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I recently returned from my trip down the rabbit hole with the virtual meeting coach, Meri Walker. I was on her maiden fall to The Madhatters’ Tea Party, a fun filled wild ride to teach those of us born in the mid-20th century how to EFFECTIVELY deliver online virtual presentations.
I will spare you the details of my demonstration, but am glad to pass on what I learned as a novice on this trip.
Here is tip #1 in the series of I don’t know how many, yet!
TECHNOLOGY TIP #1
Have a checklist of all the tasks to do prior to your scheduled presentation. In the nervousness or excitement before starting the meeting, it’s easy to overlook important details.
- Make sure to set the preferences in your selected online meeting tool–such as meeting start time, time zone, call in number, and participant code.
- If you are using a teleconferencing tool along with your online meeting room, double check that you have copied the numbers correctly into the meeting tool preference settings.
- If you have a slide presentation, make sure you have uploaded the slide show into the meeting tool before the meeting.
- If you intend to share your computer desktop during your online presentation, make sure you have previously downloaded any screen sharing software required by your meeting site to allow the screen share capability.
Stay tuned…more to come
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We each have a reaction to uncertainty. Some find it exhilarating. Some find it terrifying. In all cases there is an element of stress. If you are a custom builder, you are intimately involved with managing stress-your own as well as the effects of your customer’s stress upon you.
As the builder you come to the table with years of experience in a field your client usually knows little or nothing about. Without addressing this disparity in the way you communicate, you are setting yourself up for almost certain misunderstandings throughout the life of the project.
Consider wearing the hat of an “educator” when interacting with your customer. Educate them about how you do business. When it comes to the contract, create a summary sheet with bullet-points of the most critical pieces that you need to stress, and make sure to use stories from your experience as examples.
Educate them about why you prefer the subcontractors that you use. Educate them on the implications of delayed decision making on the project time-line, their budget and your business, especially if you have other jobs in the pipeline ready to start.
Continue to be an educator to minimize misunderstanding all the way through the project. The worst thing you can do is assume the customer knows your business! If you are stumped as to what topics to cover in this education effort, look no further than the communication breakdowns in your past and ask yourself, ‘What did I learn from that situation that will make a difference for me and this new client?”
This stance may seem elementary to some or bothersome to others. But the question remains the same. What are you doing to create mutual understanding and reduce uncertainty throughout your projects? Your reputation depends on it.
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Clients SaySusan's presence is powerfully authentic and her facilitating masterful. Her unconditional listening and guidance allows her client's desires to be fully heard and subtly directed toward the best possible results.Lee Glickstien Speaking Circles International Mill Valley, CA |
