business coach
Don’t Brush Off Positive Feedback — Study It
Most of us remember critical feedback. Criticism is jarring and threatening, so it tends to stick in our brains. Most of us dismiss positive feedback, sometimes people think of it as people being nice and sometimes people assume that it’s sarcasm…
Losing Your Audience During a Presentation? Try This
You can tell when an audience has stopped listening to a presentation. Phones come out, people slouch in their seats, maybe someone dozes off. If you notice this happening during your talk, try a few techniques to grab people’s attention. Move around t…
Set “Time Boundaries” to Protect Your Schedule
Meetings that run long or unexpected requests from colleagues can prevent you from getting an important task done, make you leave work late, or even disrupt family time. How can you set and communicate boundaries so that you feel your time is respected…
Don’t Let Work Stress Keep You Up At Night
Work stress is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to get in the way of a good night’s sleep. Try these strategies during the day to avoid worrying about work at all hours of the night. Make a to-do list. The act of writing down uncompleted tasks allows yo…
The Problem With Studies
There are a number of business books which talk about how you should sell, what you do to grow, how you should run your business, etc. Many of these are from academics and the work is based on studies that they have conducted. Unfortunately, despite th…
Skate To Where The Puck Is Going To Be
Hall of fame hockey player Wayne Gretzky famously described his method for success in the quote, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where the puck has been.” Business people have recited the quote for years, but what does it …
Manage the Endless Stream of Email by Setting Boundaries
One of the reasons email is so hard to manage is that sending it is easy. We can fill up each other’s inboxes by just clicking a button — which is why it’s important to set boundaries around email. Harvard Business Review recommends trying three things…
No You Are Not ‘The Same’
In a recent conversation a sales manager told me that his product was the same as all his competitors. I was appalled. Having used his product and his competitors’ products I knew this was not true. If you are the same, you have a commodity and t…
How Much Time Are You Wasting ‘Communicating’?
Clear communications is important to your success. The more transparent you are and the more your various audiences understand, the better off everyone is. There is a point of diminishing returns. How much time are you wasting in your quest to be trans…
Why You Should Have A ‘Personal’ Professional Website
The nature of work is changing. The world where you went to work after school and stayed with a company for your entire life are long gone. As more companies use consultants instead of employees, you have to treat your career as a business, and that in…