Greetings and welcome back to more on maintaining your Pitch Pace and Attitude and other ways to succeed at work! Today we will discuss Phase 2 which is communicating with a short story.
This is an insert from Jean-Renaud Cherubin’s new book
‘Pitch-Pace-Attitude; & other ways to be successful at work!
This blog is slightly different than other blogs since this blog will read like a book hence it will soon be a book. Each week we will add some parts of chapters on WordPress and my fans and followers will help with the whole process of the book simply by reading and commenting each week on a new insert; leading to newer, fresher rewrites before the final draft of the book. Fans will also help with titles, cover art selection and font style and later they will get the advance copy before the release date in 2014.
Pitch-Pace-Attitude & Other ways to be successful at work!
Chapter 1
CREATE YOUR OWN OFFICE ATMOSPHERE AND OFFICE ROUTINE
Phase 1 Short Story
Your Daily Success Script!
Phase 1
How important is it to communicate well? Some give it no thought and just go about their day. It’s not easy to plan a conversational attack; I will equip you with the tools to have an arsenal of communication styles to maximize your success. A basic conversation has layers and levels it starts with the introduction of your daily script. Later you need to work on the body of the script through a short story. In the most efficient manner this will explain who you are and what you are doing. With this style of conversation and forward thinking you will know what you need to say before you say it. Sounds silly but I encourage you to practice your script on everybody. Your whole day has a script no matter who you meet or work with. Your conversations will run a whole lot smoother and you can get things done through team effort more consistently. Your conversation skills will be admired by many. But you have to keep abreast on your foundation and here it is.
The Morning
In an ideal setting one needs to be successful in the first four hours he or she wakes up. Usually 2 hours to yourself and 2 to your job or morning endeavors. The average American is willing to travel by car 45 or more minutes to get to work. I suggest you split your four hours and give yourself three hours in the morning and one hour at work including commute.
Now before one can start having a great morning leading to a great day, one will need a great night of rest. Rest is very important to your health and career. Health wise resting 6-8 hours a day helps 5 things. First it helps your immune system by avoiding high blood pressure and diabetes. Two, it can help your brain store a day’s worth of information and sift through the important stuff. Third, it helps weight control by maintaining what you have, if you’re working out it also grows muscle and lose fat. Forth, it helps your coordination for the upcoming day and lastly it replenishes your skin, eyes and organs all things to slow down aging if you sleep properly. Literally called ‘Beauty Sleep’ and if you look your best you will perform your best. [www.popsugar.com/fitness/5 benefits of sleep 7-13-2007]
There are many sleep patterns to choose from as well if 8 straight hours does not work for you, do two spans of four hours or 8 long naps during your day, or maybe 3 hours, 1.5 hours and a couple of 40 minute naps. It has been studied that no matter how you get it, as long as your brain repairs itself during your most in depth sleep called REM, you are all set. But what best fits your personal and professional goal is the one you can go with. [HuffingtonPost.com/surprising sleep patterns that work]
Now that we know sleep is important and needs to be implemented to have success. Let’s organize your first four hours.
Train your brain to not be late to work, in my profession we tell our students to rewire their brain by saying “On time is late and early is on time.” This will be the beginning of creating ones atmosphere with a daily script. The first three hours make sure you do all you have to and not have any last minute rushed assignments. Shower, shat, shave, makeup, and use the rest room, making and eating breakfast, pick out clothing, reading and writing your daily goals, spend time with loved ones and leave for work early. Remember what we say here. People mess up their morning routine by snoozing at 8 a.m. and waking up at 10 a.m. for an 11 a.m. meeting. Everybody is always 2 minutes late, I employ you to do the opposite because in Japan they feel disrespected and leave after three minutes, I always think of their culture when thinking about my tardiness.
First it is important to get your 6-8 hours of sleep. Now you can wake up three hours before your next assignment. At the sound of the horn your off, up and ready to go. Make sure your voice is nice and cool, smooth, no cracks, no high notes, no low tone. Doing any of the latter will show weakness and uncomfortable and or nerves. Every morning practice your pitch or your script to really get it down pact. Remember, once you have it down you can adjust it to your audience. In the beginning you will need to stick to your script. Use the same communication style and similar wordage or verbiage. This instills people will want to communicate with you more often, they get a since of comfort with you and when you add the SEE Dynamics of Smile, Eye Contact and Enthusiasm you can fill in the blanks as more people will want to help you get to the top i.e. which are your personal goals anyway.
Let’s review from last blog and look at our introduction and then add the short story.
“Hey, how you doing today? {Pregnant Pause} Real quick… (I’m doing something special for the accounting department)…..”
Seems real simple but the intro is actually designed scientifically for human interaction. In the prior blog it explains the break down. Click and read it here if you missed it. {wordpress.jrcherubin.com/the American dream pitch pace attitude part 1}
In the short story you will need to qualify the people you are talking to and the project you are working on.
Let’s continue with the scenario of a man from accounting who needs to work with the marketing department and he knows very little about the standard procedures of the marketing department.
Add the short story
“Hey, how you doing today? {Pregnant Pause} Real quick… (I’m doing something special for the accounting department)…..”
“We are focusing on a budget for a new product, {Pregnant Pause} you’re the marketing budget guy right?
“Okay so, I assume you have worked on projects like this before right?”
“You have designed projects like this before right? And if you were to work on this project you would not change your style right?
“Great………………….
Let’s stop there for now and analyze this seemingly simple conversation between two people.
- The word ‘We’ implies this project is bigger than the both of us, though in actuality you were assigned to do this project alone. Leading with this in your short story catches their team mentality and short attention span.
- The 3-5 second pause gives you time to read their body language and their willingness to move forward. If not ask someone else. You still have not spilled the beans on your project, but they are eager to learn more, letting you cut ties whenever you are ready.
- After the pregnant pause look to see if they are giving back those S.E.E Dynamics which is a Smile, Eye contact and lastly Enthusiasm. The first qualifying question has a yes or no answer.
- The words “Okay so, I assume” gets their curiosity up instead of opening with “how would you do this?” and again the second qualifying question has a quick yes or no answer which creates urgency and gives you time to think about your pitch and delivery.
- Using the question word “Right?” implies you are confident in what you are doing and you are looking for the same in the person you are talking to. You are setting up excellence and won’t accept anything else.
- The last two qualifying questions seem simple. But these are the last two questions that let you know you have the right person in mind. Even if they are not (The marketing department only has three people and he is the budgeting guy, you are setting him up for success)
- You end your short story with the style of the project question without even saying what the project is and that gets the listener to want to comply and give results. In essence you made them feel special. More on that later!
- The word Great means you have found your target and excellence is already expected. This word leads to your Presentation (More on that Next week.) Now they are ready for your presentation. Today’s challenge is for you to say this to everyone 100+ you meet this whole week without fail. This is the beginning of your pitch to success
In close, everything here in this script is all qualifying questions. This will let you know you are speaking to the right person so you do not waste time with unqualified people. We want quality time with quality people. This will allow the person you are talking to express themselves and their expertise to see if it’s a fit. Some people will be nice and try to help even though they cannot. It is up to you to know the difference and learn when to move on from the conversation. Many humans well reciprocate the way a person approaches them as a defense mechanism. So bring a big smile, eye contact and enthusiasm and you will get the same, for a fleeting moment anyway. It’s up to you to know what to do next.
If you notice this (SEE Dynamics) in someone’s body language that means you have built comfort, curiosity and trust. Once you have practiced your pitch and you combine the short story with the intro it is merely not enough to just mutter the words, you’ll need to speak with a clear pitch, pace and attitude. You are now taking control of the conversation, though it’s a two way conversation. You have now set up the pitch and here is what you need to do to make it most effective in your work environment.
You have to sell yourself and plan your path to success. Remember it all starts in the morning,
- Fix your morning routine.
- Practice your pitch, its tone, and its verbiage.
- Practice your S.E.E Dynamics (Smile, Eye Contact, & show Enthusiasm)
- Trail run on any new script you create (same foundation of course), talk to as many people as possible. [mentally record peoples reaction to certain words and actions]
- Maintain your workflow and mix in now your Pitch, Pace and Attitude. I also want to help you increase productivity not drown it.
- 6. Learn to step away from unwanted conversations {example: quality time with quality people; more on that next time, The Art of Walking Away.}
Thank you for reading Phase 1
Next week is Phase 2 (Pitch: The Presentation)
Please subscribe and stay tuned…
Do you agree or disagree with the author Jean R Cherubin, feel free to comment.
Feel Free to review and comment on Jean’s older book.
Amazons 2012’s The Time is Now 2.0 before the release of his new book PPA due 2014
The American Dream Rekindled. 