communication

The Annual Library Book Sale raised over $28,000 this year (several thousand dollars more than any other year in its history). This is a great opportunity for people to drop off boxes of books they're done with AND pick up new boxes of books. I tried really hard to spend $20 at the sale. I came away with 32 books and still had to give a $4 donation to get me up to the $20 mark.

In the marketing section of the sale I found a number of gems. Sometimes I recognized the author and sometimes I judged the book by its cover and bought it solely on the title. Here are a few of the books I found:

• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. This book is precursor to The Secret. If you don't know about it, find a copy and read it. Or at least watch some of his classic videos.
• The Money is the Gravy. I loved the title. I admit it.
• A Passion for Excellence by Tom Peters and Nancy Austin. Written in the 1980s I'm hoping to find some tips that apply to today as much as they applied to yesterday.
• Getting Through to People by Jesse Nirenberg. A somewhat hokey-looking book written in 1963 with the following back-cover claim, "the author reveals constructive ways to convey opinions, get your message across, or hold a group's attention—all using nothing more than clear thinking and persuasive considerate words!" and then it gets better and claims the book is, "A must for anyone who wants to achieve personal or professional effectiveness." How could I resist?!

Be sure to check to see if your own library has an annual book sale. It's a great way to support the public library, and you may just find a few new gems for your personal library. You can always donate the books back to the library when you're done with them.

Someone once told me that it was inevitable that I am occasionally apologetic and embarrassed about my expertise. She cited two very simple reasons: (1) I'm a woman and (2) I'm Canadian. On hearing this I immediately apologized. I blurted it out before I even realized what I was saying. After a moment of stunned silence we both burst out laughing as I had proven her point.

When you know that you are an expert, your confidence will grow and you will be more effective at helping your clients and attracting more clients. There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but it only takes 8 steps to be able to say with confidence, "I am an expert."

1. Write a list of the things you're good at. Be bold. Be brave. Be truthful.
2. Make a second list of what's missing from your skill set to be a "master." Keep it focused. Think about how narrow a PhD is and figure out what your personal PhD is going to be.
3. Build on your strengths in the first list and fill in the gaps from the second list. This may take a bit of time, but if you narrow your definition of what you're an expert at, you will probably find that you are already an expert at something!
4. Write a position statement. (More about this in The confidence to be a master.)
5. Find (famous) people who've written similar things to what you say in your position statement. Do the research. If you find no one, that says you're either brilliant or .. wrong. If you find lots of people, you already think like an expert.
6. Document your experience in case studies. Write about the ways you have been successful and/or helped your clients realize success. Things that may seem trivial to you can be mind blowing to someone else. Describe each accomplishment no matter how small you think it might be.
7. Create a new "pattern" document that describes the patterns you have seen in your industry and in your business. Refer back to the expert reports (Step 5) and your case studies (Step 6) to show the patterns really exist and are not isolated cases.
8. Write and publish a summary of what you've discovered. It doesn't need to be a New York Times bestseller—a simple article on your Web site is enough to get you started.

Following these simple steps will help you to feel more confident about your expertise. The next big thing is to learn how to communicate your expertise. Rikki Kite has a fantastic talk called, Her PR Problem. The link takes you to a detailed set of notes from the talk. If you ever get a chance to see Rikki give this talk in person, go! She's a wonderful presenter and has a lot of valuable information to share.

Right now I'm in the process of redesigning the Bazaar Web site. It's a really exciting project for me as each major step in the redesign process involves a community consultation process. This is similar to the same process that the Drupal community went through with Mark Boulton Design, but on a smaller scale.

One of the things I've learned about working with communities and committees is how to solicit feedback. By directing people to specific questions you can generally get more usable feedback. Of course things will always drift a little bit, but the more focused you are in the "ask", the more useful the comments will be to you.

Asking specific questions is only one part of getting useful feedback though. You must also be asking the right people. The stakeholders. The customers. The people willing to pony up and foot the bill. Karyn Greenstreet wrote about this recently on her blog post The Fallacy of the Small Sample Size. In the post she shows that patience is key to getting the feedback you need. But she's missing one part. Of all the people who provided feedback, which of the target group has (1) paid for services in the past and (2) is likely to pay for services in the future?

In the Bazaar redesign project I've been referred a number of times to the "vulnerable" or potential users. In the case of the redesign I have developed a series of Bazaar front page personas. The personas are used to ensure the loudest feedback I receive does not steer the design away from what my vulnerable users need to see on the front page of the new site.

Karyn's open call to her mailing list raises a great point about sample size, but also a concern. Asking a large number of people about future business offerings does not address one key point: who in this group is ALSO planning to buy this offering in the next year?

Next time you ask for feedback be sure to keep these lessons in mind and:

1. Determine which specific questions you really want answers to.
2. Determine who, specifically, you want to get feedback from. (Hint: you want to help the "vulnerable" people make a commitment to your service or product.) Write a description of this person is.
3. Solicit feedback from people who match your potential consumer for this specific offering. You will end up with several different kinds of people that you solicit feedback from for various initiatives.
4. Don't be distracted by the loudest feedback. Be sure to look for answers from the most vulnerable, and those most likely to buy/consume/download or use your services and products.