We increasingly encounter the people and cultures of other nations, both in business and elsewhere, and we need to understand how and why clashes will occur. In my training programmes on cross cultural communication (www.pkpcommunicators.com) I help people to identify why and how people from other cultures behave differently. Here are 10 of the most common flashpoints.
1. When you notice a 'violation' of any rules or norms, you tend to think it's the ignorance of others, for example, when 'foreigners' jump the queue.
2. If these violations persist, you suspect people are being deliberately rude and in some cases downright dishonest. You expect them to learn and conform after being corrected once.
3. You are more likely to accept that they have a different set of rules after you have been abroad and justified your own departure from their 'norms' by saying, "Doesn't matter. I'm a foreigner/visitor."
4. The more similar two cultures are, the greater the shock when discrepancies surface, especially if you share a common language. You expect them to be 'just like us'.
5. Cultural friction is aggravated by communication breakdowns. People who do not understand what you are saying will often look blank. While their intention is to avoid the problem of language, that blank look (and avoiding eye contact) may cause you to consider them stupid.
6. When there is a cultural clash, people tend to give up easily rather than fight for principles, partly because it is difficult to explain, and it sounds weak to say, "Where I come from, we believe in ..."
7. Groups look for external referees and arbitrators when they are unable to communicate with each other. They want more than translators. They want someone to confirm that their way is right.
8. People who communicate effectively usually get their own way! Two factors matter most: one is command of the other's language, and the other is a smiling, patient approach that includes listening carefully to what the other person is saying.
9. People become embarrassed when they have to communicate in 'new' ways (remember trying to speak a foreign language at school?) They limit what they want to say to their available vocabulary, and rehearse their words before speaking.
10. When abroad, there is a common tendency to seek the company of compatriots, as a welcome relief from coping with the foreign language and customs. This not only gets in the way of understanding the local scene, it actually reinforces entrenched prejudices.
Friday, 10 December 2010
Monday, 29 November 2010
!5 Top Tips for Public Speaking
It seems to me that the main reason why people get anxious about speaking in public is that they are not sure what is expected of them. Here are 15 tips to help dispel that anxiety by making sure you are well prepared.
These tips will help you feel confident that you know your stuff, and also that you know why and how it will be relevant to your audience.
Tip 1: Imagine you are speaking just to me and answer this question: What do you want me to know?
Tip 2: Why should I care about what you want me to know?
Tip 3: Why do I need to hear it from YOU? What's your special connection with the message?
Tip 4: Would you pay to hear YOU speak?
Tip 5: Record your voice and ask yourself and some close friends if your voice is attractive.
Tip 6: What's your reason for speaking? Money? Influence? Ego? Passion? Just be clear about it.
Tip 7: When you have credible answers to tips 1-6, write your Core Message (the 'carry away') in a single sentence.
Tip 8: Develop your message in 3 streams of argument or thought, e.g. Problem / Consequence / Solution.
Tip 9: Decide on your call to action. What do you want people to do when you have finished speaking?
Tip 10: Create an opening 'Hook' -- something unexpected or dramatic that grabs attention right at the start.
Tip 11: Write out and learn your opening and closing paragraphs. Just use prompts for the rest, to sound more natural.
Tip 12: Decide on the 'point of arrival' or climax of your speech or presentation and build up the energy to that point.
Tip 13: Practise in front of a mirror or camcorder. Watch your gestures and body language.
Tip 14: When you are confident of your text, answer (aloud) the questions in Tips 1-3.
Tip 15: Unless you are in a speech contest, don't try to give a world class performance. Just be sincere and passionate.
For more detailed help, go to www.pkpcommunicators.com or call 0845 165 9240 (local rates).
Phillip
These tips will help you feel confident that you know your stuff, and also that you know why and how it will be relevant to your audience.
Tip 1: Imagine you are speaking just to me and answer this question: What do you want me to know?
Tip 2: Why should I care about what you want me to know?
Tip 3: Why do I need to hear it from YOU? What's your special connection with the message?
Tip 4: Would you pay to hear YOU speak?
Tip 5: Record your voice and ask yourself and some close friends if your voice is attractive.
Tip 6: What's your reason for speaking? Money? Influence? Ego? Passion? Just be clear about it.
Tip 7: When you have credible answers to tips 1-6, write your Core Message (the 'carry away') in a single sentence.
Tip 8: Develop your message in 3 streams of argument or thought, e.g. Problem / Consequence / Solution.
Tip 9: Decide on your call to action. What do you want people to do when you have finished speaking?
Tip 10: Create an opening 'Hook' -- something unexpected or dramatic that grabs attention right at the start.
Tip 11: Write out and learn your opening and closing paragraphs. Just use prompts for the rest, to sound more natural.
Tip 12: Decide on the 'point of arrival' or climax of your speech or presentation and build up the energy to that point.
Tip 13: Practise in front of a mirror or camcorder. Watch your gestures and body language.
Tip 14: When you are confident of your text, answer (aloud) the questions in Tips 1-3.
Tip 15: Unless you are in a speech contest, don't try to give a world class performance. Just be sincere and passionate.
For more detailed help, go to www.pkpcommunicators.com or call 0845 165 9240 (local rates).
Phillip
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
When you are chasing payment
In the twilight zone of credit control, there has always been some ambivalence in the attitude taken by companies towards their customers. On the one hand, they cannot afford to alienate customers, and on the other hand they cannot afford bad debts. This uncertainty is revealed in the stock phrases that commonly occur in letters chasing payment:
• We thank you for your valued custom
• Failure to settle your account could result in suspension of service
• Your account is delinquent
• If you have paid within the past 7 days please ignore this letter and we apologise for troubling you
One reason for the strangulated language is that these letters have almost never been written by a copywriter. They were drafted by someone in credit control whose focus is debt recovery not customer relations, and they cannot usually see the connection.
Copywriters have a persuasive reflex. Their task is to get you to like their clients' companies and their offerings. They want to win you over, create that warm glow, develop the relationship.
Credit control people are focused on the figures. "You owe us money, we are not your bankers, you are holding things up" is what they really want to say. Such an attitude is in conflict with the concept of customer relations.
When I was Senior Copywriter at Reader's Digest, London, I volunteered to re-write the entire portfolio of credit control letters. As my main job was to write the music mailings and prize draws, my reflex was already pro-customer. I was therefore able to make both sets of letters congruent. Payment reminders started with the same tone of voice as the sales letters, and that made all the difference.
If you want someone's business, why would you ever use terms like "delinquent"? Why would you threaten to suspend service (e.g. mobile phones) and remind them that you hold the power to affect their business? It changes the flavour of the relationship, probably forever.
So my advice to all credit control departments is to integrate their communications with the marketing efforts. And employ a copywriter.
Phillip
• We thank you for your valued custom
• Failure to settle your account could result in suspension of service
• Your account is delinquent
• If you have paid within the past 7 days please ignore this letter and we apologise for troubling you
One reason for the strangulated language is that these letters have almost never been written by a copywriter. They were drafted by someone in credit control whose focus is debt recovery not customer relations, and they cannot usually see the connection.
Copywriters have a persuasive reflex. Their task is to get you to like their clients' companies and their offerings. They want to win you over, create that warm glow, develop the relationship.
Credit control people are focused on the figures. "You owe us money, we are not your bankers, you are holding things up" is what they really want to say. Such an attitude is in conflict with the concept of customer relations.
When I was Senior Copywriter at Reader's Digest, London, I volunteered to re-write the entire portfolio of credit control letters. As my main job was to write the music mailings and prize draws, my reflex was already pro-customer. I was therefore able to make both sets of letters congruent. Payment reminders started with the same tone of voice as the sales letters, and that made all the difference.
If you want someone's business, why would you ever use terms like "delinquent"? Why would you threaten to suspend service (e.g. mobile phones) and remind them that you hold the power to affect their business? It changes the flavour of the relationship, probably forever.
So my advice to all credit control departments is to integrate their communications with the marketing efforts. And employ a copywriter.
Phillip
Friday, 12 November 2010
Get more from those networking meetings
If you are reading this, you have indicated an interest in Networking. But are you getting enough from the process?
Let’s start with what you bring to the party. First, can you state your own USP in 10 words or less?
When you go networking, i.e. when you meet people in the flesh, you need a clear understanding of the value you could offer to those you meet. You don’t have to wear it on your sleeve, but you need it on the tip of your tongue, in case you are asked. And you will be asked.
Second, what’s your offer? How do you describe it? Most people describe it in a fairly literal way, as though they were listing all the parts in a car’s engine. That approach is guaranteed to lose your listener in about 10 seconds flat.
At a Networking function I met a man who told me his business was to provide a different kind of online shopping process. He described what happens when you wish to buy certain kinds of products online, and how he provides choice and an agreeable experience.
After some questioning from me we identified the real benefit, which was the ‘lifelike shopping experience’ as distinct from ‘online buying’. So when I re-worked his Elevator Speech, starting with the ‘experience’, he realized that he needed to think differently about his company’s offering.
So what’s your offer? What’s the main benefit it delivers to your customers? What’s the ‘pain’ it removes? Identify that, work out a 15-second statement about it, relating it to a typical customer’s needs, and you’ll get much more interest.
Here’s my own USP in under 10 words: I can help you get your point across convincingly. And whenever I have the opportunity to state that, I immediately ask, “Tell me what you do.” My focus is always on the person I meet.
There’s more. I have put my ideas in a brief e-book called “Getting More from Networking Meetings”. Send me an email with Networking in the subject line and I’ll email you a pdf of the book. Free of charge.
Please also write Yes please if you will allow me to send you relevant information on verbal communication from time to time.
Phillip
Let’s start with what you bring to the party. First, can you state your own USP in 10 words or less?
When you go networking, i.e. when you meet people in the flesh, you need a clear understanding of the value you could offer to those you meet. You don’t have to wear it on your sleeve, but you need it on the tip of your tongue, in case you are asked. And you will be asked.
Second, what’s your offer? How do you describe it? Most people describe it in a fairly literal way, as though they were listing all the parts in a car’s engine. That approach is guaranteed to lose your listener in about 10 seconds flat.
At a Networking function I met a man who told me his business was to provide a different kind of online shopping process. He described what happens when you wish to buy certain kinds of products online, and how he provides choice and an agreeable experience.
After some questioning from me we identified the real benefit, which was the ‘lifelike shopping experience’ as distinct from ‘online buying’. So when I re-worked his Elevator Speech, starting with the ‘experience’, he realized that he needed to think differently about his company’s offering.
So what’s your offer? What’s the main benefit it delivers to your customers? What’s the ‘pain’ it removes? Identify that, work out a 15-second statement about it, relating it to a typical customer’s needs, and you’ll get much more interest.
Here’s my own USP in under 10 words: I can help you get your point across convincingly. And whenever I have the opportunity to state that, I immediately ask, “Tell me what you do.” My focus is always on the person I meet.
There’s more. I have put my ideas in a brief e-book called “Getting More from Networking Meetings”. Send me an email with Networking in the subject line and I’ll email you a pdf of the book. Free of charge.
Please also write Yes please if you will allow me to send you relevant information on verbal communication from time to time.
Phillip
Thursday, 11 November 2010
18 Top Tips for Copywriting
Copywriting is much more than joined-up writing. It's the skill of persuasion in print.
Whether you do your own copywriting or get someone else to do it for you, here are 18 things you need to know.
1. Write headlines that offer the main benefit clearly. Don't try to be smart, clever or tricksy. Or even 'intriguing'.
2. The public is not your market. It contains your market. So allow readers to decide quickly if you are speaking to them.
3. Advertising is selling in print. If it doesn't sell, it isn't good advertising.
4. Your advertising is a salesman. A mediocre salesman affects only part of your business. Mediocre advertising affects it all.
5. Put your prospect into your headline, e.g. MEN! Can you grip spare flesh around your waist?
6. Make your headline specific, e.g. Here's a 7-step low-cost way to double sales.
7. Don't hide behind facts. They are neutral until they have been interpreted. Then they become information.
8. Follow the sequence of persuasion. AIDA usually works. That's Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.
9: Use the language of daily speech, as if you were selling face-to-face. Read your text aloud. Would you speak like that to a prospect?
10: In a sales letter, always have a PS, and put your special offer in there. Everyone reads the PS. Headline, PS, signature. That's what we read.
11: Avoid analogies. If you write, "Like a Constable painting, our resort is peaceful ...", people don't make the connection. They think you are selling Constables.
12: Use a 2-line subhead under the headline to increase readership. The subhead extends the promise of the headline.
13: Limit your opening paragraph to 12 words. You need to reel them in gently. The sight of a long opening para will turn people off.
14: For a direct response ad, you have 3.2 seconds to answer 3 questions: What is it? Is it for me? How do I get it? It has been measured.
15: Always test. Write 2 approaches to the offer, and test them against each other before rolling out. Then use the stronger one and test against that.
16: For email marketing, always use a salutation, even though the medium is less formal than letter writing. Use their names! Just don't overdo it, or it will seem patronising.
17: Long or short copy? Make it as long as it takes to tell the story without needless repetition. First write what you want to say, then edit.
18: Avoid long words. Do a character count, and take an average. You should average under 5 characters per word for plain speaking.
Above all, remember these three things about copywriting:
1. You need to persuade, so follow the disciplines of persuasion
2. Use the language of the common man
3. It's good only if it sells
Phillip
Whether you do your own copywriting or get someone else to do it for you, here are 18 things you need to know.
1. Write headlines that offer the main benefit clearly. Don't try to be smart, clever or tricksy. Or even 'intriguing'.
2. The public is not your market. It contains your market. So allow readers to decide quickly if you are speaking to them.
3. Advertising is selling in print. If it doesn't sell, it isn't good advertising.
4. Your advertising is a salesman. A mediocre salesman affects only part of your business. Mediocre advertising affects it all.
5. Put your prospect into your headline, e.g. MEN! Can you grip spare flesh around your waist?
6. Make your headline specific, e.g. Here's a 7-step low-cost way to double sales.
7. Don't hide behind facts. They are neutral until they have been interpreted. Then they become information.
8. Follow the sequence of persuasion. AIDA usually works. That's Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.
9: Use the language of daily speech, as if you were selling face-to-face. Read your text aloud. Would you speak like that to a prospect?
10: In a sales letter, always have a PS, and put your special offer in there. Everyone reads the PS. Headline, PS, signature. That's what we read.
11: Avoid analogies. If you write, "Like a Constable painting, our resort is peaceful ...", people don't make the connection. They think you are selling Constables.
12: Use a 2-line subhead under the headline to increase readership. The subhead extends the promise of the headline.
13: Limit your opening paragraph to 12 words. You need to reel them in gently. The sight of a long opening para will turn people off.
14: For a direct response ad, you have 3.2 seconds to answer 3 questions: What is it? Is it for me? How do I get it? It has been measured.
15: Always test. Write 2 approaches to the offer, and test them against each other before rolling out. Then use the stronger one and test against that.
16: For email marketing, always use a salutation, even though the medium is less formal than letter writing. Use their names! Just don't overdo it, or it will seem patronising.
17: Long or short copy? Make it as long as it takes to tell the story without needless repetition. First write what you want to say, then edit.
18: Avoid long words. Do a character count, and take an average. You should average under 5 characters per word for plain speaking.
Above all, remember these three things about copywriting:
1. You need to persuade, so follow the disciplines of persuasion
2. Use the language of the common man
3. It's good only if it sells
Phillip
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
What the Chancellor could (and should) have said
George Osborne's problems may have been avoided by a different approach to speech writing. His announcement that he is withdrawing child benefit from the better off was worthy but poorly expressed. This is what he could have said instead:
One of the central planks of Conservative thinking is self-reliance. It is also one of the qualities that made this nation great in the past, and it is one of the qualities we stand in danger of losing. Fortunately, it has not died as yet.
Let me tell you about Sarah Robertson. Sarah and her three children were abandoned by her husband, who left them with huge debts that he could not face. She could have carried on living as before, increasing her debt, she could have gone bankrupt, she could have relied on the State to bail her out. Instead, she decided to do none of those things.
She gave up her comfortable life style, she started a small business, she took her children out of their expensive schools, and she made arrangements to pay back the debt, a little at a time. She is still doing so. She is paying for a debt she did not create, but she doesn't feel sorry for herself, and she knows that she can resume her comfortable middle class lifestyle at some point in the future.
Sarah Robertson is a symbol of the state this country is in, and we need to follow her example.
When we came to power in May, we found the cupboard bare, except for a pile of IOUs. We saw that Britain was, and is, in serious trouble. The previous government have left us with debts so huge that it would cost every man, woman and child £XXX,000 to repay. We have to pay it back. We cannot go bust, we cannot be like Greece and expect the EU to bail us out.
Every one of us has to share in the recovery. Will you do it? Will you share in the pain? Will you join with me in a programme that not only gets us out of the debt but which will get us back among the leading economies of the world? I'm going to ask you to accept some changes, to make some contributions that will hurt.
We will have to cut State spending. We will have to reduce State benefits. But the guiding principle will be this: we will help those who need help, and we will ask those who do not need help from the State to forgo the benefits you do not need. I know it will not be pleasant, I know you will feel you are paying for a debt you did not create, but there is no other way.
We are a party and a government that believes in self reliance. Like Sarah Robertson, we will take charge of our lives, and we will pay back the debt. That's what I am asking you to help me with. Will you do it?
Phillip (0845 165 9240)
One of the central planks of Conservative thinking is self-reliance. It is also one of the qualities that made this nation great in the past, and it is one of the qualities we stand in danger of losing. Fortunately, it has not died as yet.
Let me tell you about Sarah Robertson. Sarah and her three children were abandoned by her husband, who left them with huge debts that he could not face. She could have carried on living as before, increasing her debt, she could have gone bankrupt, she could have relied on the State to bail her out. Instead, she decided to do none of those things.
She gave up her comfortable life style, she started a small business, she took her children out of their expensive schools, and she made arrangements to pay back the debt, a little at a time. She is still doing so. She is paying for a debt she did not create, but she doesn't feel sorry for herself, and she knows that she can resume her comfortable middle class lifestyle at some point in the future.
Sarah Robertson is a symbol of the state this country is in, and we need to follow her example.
When we came to power in May, we found the cupboard bare, except for a pile of IOUs. We saw that Britain was, and is, in serious trouble. The previous government have left us with debts so huge that it would cost every man, woman and child £XXX,000 to repay. We have to pay it back. We cannot go bust, we cannot be like Greece and expect the EU to bail us out.
Every one of us has to share in the recovery. Will you do it? Will you share in the pain? Will you join with me in a programme that not only gets us out of the debt but which will get us back among the leading economies of the world? I'm going to ask you to accept some changes, to make some contributions that will hurt.
We will have to cut State spending. We will have to reduce State benefits. But the guiding principle will be this: we will help those who need help, and we will ask those who do not need help from the State to forgo the benefits you do not need. I know it will not be pleasant, I know you will feel you are paying for a debt you did not create, but there is no other way.
We are a party and a government that believes in self reliance. Like Sarah Robertson, we will take charge of our lives, and we will pay back the debt. That's what I am asking you to help me with. Will you do it?
Phillip (0845 165 9240)
Thursday, 9 September 2010
The start of the Saatchi story
Forty years ago this Sunday, the Saatchi brothers announced their arrival on the advertising scene with a full page ad in The Sunday Times.
It aroused attention for three reasons:
1. Ad agencies didn't advertise themselves in those days
2. Layout: there was a headline and two solid columns of type. No pics.
3. The ad criticised the failure of a cigarette ad in colour
The headline ran: Why it's time for a new kind of advertising, and spoke of the need to follow the sequence of persuasion (AIDA). The cigarette ad in question had appeared in the Daily Express in colour (a new medium in those days) but had not done well.
Although the paper had not been named, the Directors of Beaverbrook newspapers (owner of the Daily Express) got their knickers in a twist, and were wondering how to respond. I was on The Evening Standard, and wrote a reply -- a full page ad in the same two-column layout, headed: Yes it is time for a new kind of advertising.
It appeared in The Evening Standard the following Friday under my own name.
The switchboard rang me during the day to say that someone called Saatchi had rung to ask if there really was a Phillip Khan-Panni, or was it a made-up name? I thought that was a bit rich, coming from someone called Saatchi! But I returned their call and spent an interesting half hour with the brothers at Golden Square, drinking Schloer.
In a sense, I suppose I had helped their cause by extending interest in their launch ad. I wonder if they remember.
Phillip
It aroused attention for three reasons:
1. Ad agencies didn't advertise themselves in those days
2. Layout: there was a headline and two solid columns of type. No pics.
3. The ad criticised the failure of a cigarette ad in colour
The headline ran: Why it's time for a new kind of advertising, and spoke of the need to follow the sequence of persuasion (AIDA). The cigarette ad in question had appeared in the Daily Express in colour (a new medium in those days) but had not done well.
Although the paper had not been named, the Directors of Beaverbrook newspapers (owner of the Daily Express) got their knickers in a twist, and were wondering how to respond. I was on The Evening Standard, and wrote a reply -- a full page ad in the same two-column layout, headed: Yes it is time for a new kind of advertising.
It appeared in The Evening Standard the following Friday under my own name.
The switchboard rang me during the day to say that someone called Saatchi had rung to ask if there really was a Phillip Khan-Panni, or was it a made-up name? I thought that was a bit rich, coming from someone called Saatchi! But I returned their call and spent an interesting half hour with the brothers at Golden Square, drinking Schloer.
In a sense, I suppose I had helped their cause by extending interest in their launch ad. I wonder if they remember.
Phillip
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