Grow or die... or not?

I love making speeches! I am a freak, I know. Like a songwriter who will tell you that the song must be sung, that it is bursting from their very pores, I get the same way with a speech.

But everything has a time and a place. Barbra Streisand would probably not be well received at a Tattoo Festival. In a few months from now I am scheduled to make a keynote speech at a women business owners conference in Detroit. For me, this is something of a homecoming appearance and frankly, I want to knock it out of the ballpark. My old colleagues wonder what the heck happened to Mary after she moved up north? I'm sharing with you my thoughts about preparing for this in hopes that it will help you in how you approach your own communications, be they one-on-one or one-to-one thousand. My second reason is to get some feedback from folks I know and trust who may want to tell me to re-think this.

My experience as a public speaker has taught me:

• Speak from the heart. You can never fool a crowd
• Give your audience information or inspiration that they can use that very day
• Speak for the benefit of your audience not yourself

My heartfelt message these days is to enjoy the place (emotional, physical, financial, etc) that you are in, so as not to overlook the joys that are yours while scrambling to figure out how to be bigger and better than you are right now, right here. Could you find yourself in your sweet spot and not be living the life of a millionaire? Find yourself living where the ranking of your priorities match the energy expended.

A few years ago, when I was scrambling for career and business growth, I had a conversation with a businessman who was new to the area. He wanted to work with local companies to help them expand into new markets. He shared his frustration with me over local folks satisfaction with "enough". He told me that he found himself actually having to convince people (plumbers, insurance agents, small manufacturers, etc...) that they should want to grow. I completely sympathized with the guy! "You're kidding! Grow or die, baby!". They told him they made more money than their parents ever dreamed of, had a nice house, 2 cars in the driveway, went to Florida for a week each winter. Why grow? They would have more work, more worry, and less time to spend enjoying things that really mattered to them. They had enough right now. The poor guy was left speechless.

I feel compelled to share this message because I have spent a great deal of my time in "scramble mode" and I can practically smell the burn of it on others. We are programmed to expand, grow and win. 

I suggest that you re-examine your assumptions of your own priorities, your own goals, and then decide if ambition is your driving passion. If it is, go for it! If you adopted in from the ad managers at Proctor & Gamble or More magazine, I say hit the brakes. 

Personally, I feel like Alice in Wonderland when she drank from the cup labeled "Drink This". I see things from a very different perspective these days. I am fully committed to do the best at what I do, but not in a bigger, splashier, more recognized way. I love what I am doing right now. Yes, I could make more money somewhere else, but then I would have to give "this" up! I love this. Right now, right here. And that's okay dammit! Maybe next week I'll want to conquer the world. But not right now.

This might sound like a message of giving up your dreams and that is when I get nervous about ending a major address on this note. Keep in mind, I will be speaking to hundreds of women running businesses in a cut throat depressed economic market. I am the first speaker of the day before the conference goers spend the morning at various workshops on business marketing and finance and technology. Is it unrealistic to ask frightened business owners to take a moment to smell the roses, celebrate their accomplishments and maybe (just maybe) accept this time as a season of maintenance and not growth?

Am I creating this message because I want to give it OR because it could be inspirational to the women I'll be speaking to. Am I ignoring the reality of their daily life?

Your very satisfied friend,

Mary Rogers

Would you like fries with that?

No matter what type of business you are in, the old truism stands: Nothing happens until someone sells something. You may be the best at what you do, but if you avoid selling, you are dead in the water. If prospecting isn't your idea of fun, and let's face it, who among us enjoys cold calling, maybe there is another way to boost your selling. 

Before you get a cold call panic attack, let's maximize each sale that comes in the door now. Fast food companies are the ultimate marketers of selling more than the customer plans to buy. "Would you like fries with that?" or, " Would you like to Super Size that for just a dollar more?" Why not apply the same philosophy to how you service your current clients? 

Keep them in the Family

Do you have related products or services to your core business? Begin today to offer them with every sale! Consider packaging or bundling products and services with different names (Silver, Gold, Platinum). Example: Siding installers can offer power washing. Call it what you want but offer an add-on of 3 annual power washings and free inspections. 

Get a Commitment

Do your customers need your services repeatedly? Example: Hair stylists... Offer an annual hair care package of a cut every 8 weeks, color every 16 weeks, nail service and a $50 retail credit for products. Discount it for advance purchase or throw in a labor only expense such as unlimited brow waxing.

There's a place down the road...

Could you expand your line of products or services. Here's an exercise: What type of referrals do your salespeople make most often to another business. Why pass revenue to someone else's cash register. If you are a window cleaning service, think about adding screen repair. If you are a travel agent, consider a house or pet sitting service.

It's that time of year

Check in with customers as they near the anniversary date of their last purchase. Your business may be seasonal, or the customer always calls you in October because that is when their birthday reminds them of your service, in any case, take advantage of the opportunity to call and check in. Even if it is just to "see how things are". It is a chance to tell them about new offerings that may be of interest.

Your current clients are the easiest path to larger revenues. Before you embark on a prospecting campaign, be certain that all staff with customer contact are looking for sales potential of current buyers and that they have a menu of offerings.

Good luck and get selling!,
Mary

Men in bras

In 1986, I was charged with establishing The Women's Business Council of a local chamber of commerce. As the staff member leading a group of member volunteers, it was my role to implement the member's vision of the Board of Directors directive to serve the needs of women in the business community. I was filled with a passion for celebrating modern empowered women. I came to my first meeting with the group armed with a folder full of workshop and speaker ideas on accessing capital, establishing gender-neutral employee policies, sexual harassment awareness programs, etc... All designed to provide cutting edge information and strategies to liberate us from the oppression of the patriarchal business culture. The group wanted to host a fashion show.  I wanted to cry.

"No!" I railed. I probably said something like "Over my dead body", but I can't be sure, it is a blur, a big pink blur. But I am sure that I tried something along the lines of..."Ladies, we have been given an opportunity to be taken seriously, to rise above the ranks of the secretarial pool, we must provide programming that not only serves women but sends a message to the entire community that women in business must to be taken SERIOUSLY!!!!! They stared at me. "Oh".

Keep in mind that my manila folder full of ideas was the ONLY accessory to my plain blue suit with sensible flat-heeled shoes and understated (if even existent) jewelry. We were dressing like men so that we would be treated like men. Those of us at the helm of the womens' business movement were denying our every feminine quality.

Twenty-five years later, I would host a fashion show without a second thought. In fact, Mary in the Morning and Marigold are the proud sponsors of the National Cherry Festival's Royal Pageant of Fashion . Whodathunkit? So what's changed? We can now be WOMEN instead of men in bras.

The worlds of feminism and fashion have always clashed. When I think of an over-the-top hard-core feminist I see a hairy arm-pitted woman in no make up with stringy, if not un-brushed hair. She's not prettying herself up for a man! Well, the message is she's not prettying up for ANYBODY! 

Nowadays, I'm perfectly comfortable expressing myself through fashion and beauty as a complement to what I have to contribute to a conversation. I see a fashion show as an opportunity to preview what is available in stores to help save me precious time when I need or want a new outfit. I am definitely not a fashion plate and consider myself to be fashion-challenged, so for me, a fashion show is like spell check, preventing me from making gaffes that would be potentially embarrassing to "Brand Mary".

I hope to see you at The Royal Pageant of Fashion!

Change Your Plans for Thursday!

Whatever your plans may be for Thursday morning, you will want to change them. At 7:30AM you want to be by a radio, tuned in to my conversation with Donna. Donna? Yes, Donna. She's going to say some things that may shock you, may make you uncomfortable, but I guarantee that you will be talking about her for the rest of the day.

Donna Estes Antebi has written a book, The Real Secrets Women Only Whisper, The 21st Century Woman's Guide to Success and Survival - including dirty tricks every woman needs to know! 

The book is not being released until this fall, but I have an advance copy. Now, keep in mind that I get a pile of books each and every week from publishers and publicists wanting to get their author on Mary in the Morning. I've become very discerning in deciding who I feels has something new, relevant and original to lend to my show. Since first picking up this book about a month ago, I've thought about it every single day. I've given it to friends to read and review, and despite her Keep This Book Away From Men warning on the cover, I've given it to men and listened to their ideas as well.. Everyone who reads it is somewhat shocked, somewhat jarred, but all are impacted.  

Last week I caught up with Donna by phone at her office in Los Angeles. We spoke for an hour or so about our adult sons and their choices of women, WEEDS (her term for younger women stealing married men and destroying families), the swinging pendulum and backlash of feminism on the role of men. It was fascinating conversation. 

She'll tell you to just stop being a bitch to your husband, why to sign a pre-nup, why not to sleep with men you wouldn't marry, how to be a Cleo instead of a Cougar,why it's okay for your man to dress badly, and why you will never be Oprah.

I will interview her on Wednesday afternoon, it will air on Thursday at 7:30am. We do have a few copies to give away to listeners, but don't expect me to give up mine!

What does Mary think of Dr. Laura

Last month YOU-FM, the home of Mary in in the Morning, switched to an all talk format. Will it be a ratings coup? A bomb? It will be a couple years before we know for sure, but the line-up of shows has certainly gotten some tongues wagging. I'm thoroughly enjoying the comments I'm getting from listeners.

The reaction so far has been completely random from love to hate, very little middle ground here. The prime time line-up includes the Queen of the Left, Stephanie Miller who airs immediately after Mary in the Morning; Dave Ramsey the Live Debt Free guru who brings Jesus into the conversation with callers quite comfortably; the acerbic Dr. Laura is there for your afternoon drive, followed by rightie-pants Jerry Doyle.

When I'm out and about I'm asking people their thoughts on the line-up, 90 percent of the time the conversation leads to: "Mary, what do YOU think of Dr. Laura?" This is a very polarizing question, or at least I think it is meant to be. If you say they you like Dr. Laura, people can fit you into a box full of assumptions (pro-life, anti-gay, women should stay home with the kids, blah, blah, blah) So here you have it: I love Dr. Laura for being Dr. Laura. I don't agree with many of her positions on how we humans run our lives, but I do respect and cheer for her decision to not be politically correct.

This woman has balls.  Dr. Laura filters her callers questions through a simple filter of right and wrong, black or white, her way the highway. She doesn't have the inclination or interest or time to sugar coat it. She gives her opinion. And that is why people continue to call and take the abuse. She makes the drama of our lives so simple. Do this, goodbye, Next caller....
Even when I'm disagreeing with her, calling her names, rolling my eyes at the radio, I am completely and thoroughly enjoying myself. I try to catch at least part of her show every day. We seem at times to be a nation of very stupid people, and Dr. Laura is one of the only brave voices out their.

Most importantly, Dr. Laura has been on the scene long enough that every caller to her show should know what to expect. She is so predictable that she couldn't possibly be accused of ambushing anybody. Simplistic? Yes. Heartless? Perhaps. Ambivalent? Never!

Tune in to Dr. Laura daily 3-6PM and let me know your thoughts on her show.

Mary

Trash Talk Recycling

Would you tell Barb what Jill said about her if you were certain that Barb was going to confront Jill using you as her source of information? Confused? Let's make it a story problem.

You and Barb have been close friends for years, you support each other through thick and thin, working on community projects together, helping with each others garage sales, you are known for being best friends. Jill, an acquaintance of both of yours tells you that she thinks Barb's decision to keep chairing the Festival of Bird Baths is ridiculously but predictably selfish and that it's time Barb passed the torch to another member of the Babes for Bird Baths Association. She has plenty more to say about your friend Barb, but realizes she's getting a chilly reception and clams up.

All too often, we pass this sort of trash talk along to the "trashed", but forbid them from telling the "Jills" of the world who spilled the beans.  This leaves Barb insulted and powerless (probably the worst one-two combo in the world). Here's my view of this: If you aren't completely comfortable being quoted on your reporting of trash talk, keep it to yourself. Or better yet, tell the Jill to take a hike. "You are talking about my friend and I don't like it".

It seems to me, when we pass along an insult in the spirit of "I thought you should know....", but haven't...

1. had the guts to confront the trash talker yourself and defended your friend; and
2. given your friend your permission to cite you the source

...you leave her in the position to doubt YOUR friendship. I sure would.

This happened to a good friend of mine recently and as she told me the details, my very first question was: Why in the world did she tell you this? And she swore you to secrecy, that you could never mention it? Huh? Who is the queen of mean here?

If this sounds like high school junk, I agree. As we get older and wiser(?), the stakes get higher with careers and families in the balance. Let's all stand up for each other when we hear this junk, and to the betrayed: the favor of not retelling the story.

Lady Campers!

Is it always such a good idea to get out of your comfort zone? When you get that "uncomfortable" feeling, isn't that a message to re-evaluate your circumstances and plan the exit strategy? Or does it mean that you are growing? Growing is supposed to be good for you I hear.

Here's the story: My family wants to go camping. Yes, camping. Outside. In the woods. I've gotten this far in life with "Just Say No".  Camping just isn't my thing, and yes I say that for all the girlie reasons that you would expect. I'm not proud.

I recently made the mistake of adding a caveat to the whole camping issue: OK, I will go, IF: We go with another family of veteran-campers who have kids and all the equipment to make it something I ATTEND not CREATE. I don't know how to camp. I'm certain that other women like myself have been initiated into camping and have figured out all the tricks to make it fun for kids and grown-up sorts.

Just like when you negotiate with God and tell him you'll never eat chocolate again if he could just make that police officer pass you on the highway and pull over the the car ahead of you, my wish has been granted and just such a family has invited us to go into the woods with them. In fact, two families have come forward. They have the equipment. My family looks at me with  raised eyebrows and they smirk at me. I am cornered. I want my chocolate back.

So lady campers... send me your secret tricks to make camping a magical family experience...please!