Kent Blumberg

Ten reasons I keep coming back to Toastmasters

Sometimes life gets too busy and I can't make it to a Monday evening meeting.  But whenever I can, I'm going to hop in the car at 6:40 pm and head to the meeting of GSU Baton Rouge Toastmasters.  I keep coming back for ten reasons.  For the same ten reasons, you should consider visiting your local Toastmasters club.

How to fire a client

Not long ago I gave you nine reasons you might want to fire a client. In this post, we'll explore how to do that - how to pink-slip a bad client.

Paul Chaney on maximizing your marketing dollar via the web

Just a quick link to a recent post by Paul Chaney on Five Ways to Maximize Your Marketing Dollar Via the Web.  I heard Paul speak on this topic last Thursday and loved the simplicity of his approach.  Great stuff here for any business in 2009.

Air Force Blog Response Assessment

Through Twitter, I found Joey deVilla's post on "The Air Force's Rules of Engagement for Blogging."

Class: Networking for the shy and the not-so-shy

You have heard that referral marketing – networking – is the most powerful way for entrepreneurs and small business owners – like you – to build business. But you just can’t bear the thought of all those meetings, all those strangers, all those phone calls.

What are you to do?

Join us for a six-week teleseminar with Kent Blumberg and learn the secrets of networking for the shy and the not-so-shy. Learn why you might want to become a Comfortable Networker. Re-frame the goal of networking from Get to Give. Gain five key networking skills, learn how to bring your strengths to the party, practice spotting and using personality styles, and make it all happen in real life. Try out your skills in a safe class environment, and then put them to work out in the world. Turn your fear into Excitement about networking. Learn to Initiate encounters, rather than just respond.  Move from “could do” to “am doing.”

Knowing what drives you and others increases your effectiveness

Knowing what's important to you makes it easier to decide "what's next" for you.  Knowing what's important to others makes it easier to persuade them to do what you need them to do, to give them meaningful recognition, and to communicate your ideas in a way they will understand.

I often work with executives who are confused about which of many possible next steps makes the most sense for them.  As long as they are looking only at the next step it's often impossible to decide which to choose.  Once we sort out what's really important to that person, however, the choice becomes clearer.  My job is to periodically remind them of the core motivators we have discovered and ask them which next step seems to most honor those motivators.

On the other hand, my business owner clients sometimes encounter an employee with whom they just can't seem to connect.  Rather than fire that person and try to find someone else for the job, a bit of understanding about values and motivations might be just what the doctor ordered.

Here are a few tools to help you sort out what's important.

Change your response to events in order to increase your personal effectiveness

In their book, Play to Win!, Revised Edition: Choosing Growth Over Fear in Work and Life, Larry and Hersch Wilson offer a simple formula for changing how we respond to events around us:  Stop-Challenge-Choose.  Here's how to use it to reduce your stress and improve your results.

Join Toastmasters and hone your speaking and leadership skills

[Update:  Corrected author name on Toastmasters blog at bottom of post.}

Looking to improve your public speaking skills?  Need to learn how to think faster on your feet?  Hoping for some leadership practice, too?  Consider joining Toastmasters.

Leading Millennials

Lately the issue of how to motivate and lead the newest crop of college graduates (the millennials, I believe they are called) has been top of mind for some of my baby boomer clients.  And I've had the chance to talk with a few 20-somethings who are struggling with how to work with us older folks.

This is an important thing to get right.  There are far fewer of these young workers than there were when we baby boomers graduated from college.  Competition will be stiff for the really good ones.  If you want to attract and retain the best, you will want to know more about what floats a 24 year old's boat.

Wanting to learn more myself, I turned to LinkedIn and asked, "If you are 20-something, what would you advise a 50-something manager about how to help you engage in the organization, flourish and contribute?"  Here's what I learned.

Know when good enough is good enough

Sometimes we don't know when to stop.  We keep revising an idea, a blog, a plan and are never satisfied enough to actually push the button and release our work.  Why and when should we settle for "good enough," why do we sometimes get caught seeking perfection, and how can we find the right balance?