Focusing on customers

Archive for January, 2008

Jacob, my high-energy two-year old really hit the jackpot this week. Last week he figured out how to use his entire body weight to open the refrigerator door. Opening every single cabinet in the kitchen and removing all their contents is now passe for Jake. He’s discovered something new – trying to remove the contents of our refrigerator! We have caught him every time he tries, until a couple of days ago when he wandered slowly towards the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and picked up a heavy glass bottle full of orange juice. Mind you, he did this in the blink of an eye, for when my husband and I looked over at him, there he was, huge glass bottle in arms, walking slowly across our granite kitchen floor. Picture this, a chubby two-year old in Dr. Denton PJs hugging a bottle of OJ almost as big as his torso and trying to walk across our floor. Of course, we can all guess what happened next in this exact order: he lost his grip, the bottle fell and shattered in hundreds of pieces across our floor, and there he was standing there with a blank look on his face and the feet of his pajamas soaking in orange juice. He is only a few feet away from us! My husband races to pick him up off the mess as I immediately ran for towels and whatever else I could find to soak up the sticky mess. Yet during all of this I remained calm…hmmm, interesting.

My husband changed Jake while I rushed to get a hot bucket of water to clean up the floor. Of course, this happened at bed time, so everyone went off to bed, and I’m left to pick up the pieces, literally! Yet during all this I remained calm…hmmm, interesting.

I picked up the glass, wiped the floor spotless, and even lay down on it afterwards to see if I missed even the tiniest pieces of glass. The whole process took about 45 minutes. As I was wiping the floor I caught myself thinking, “Wow, why didn’t you freak out?” For some reason, the worst I felt over the whole incident was inconvenience. I was proud of myself that I took care of the moment and didn’t stress out over it and even found the whole thing to be humorous.

Next time something “inconvenient” happens in your life, remember that it happened and there’s nothing you can do to go back, only go forward, therefore, don’t sweat it. “Clean it up” and move on!

Being a marketer for 14 years, writing is central to my work. I believe that writing is the most difficult thing to do, and you either like it or you don’t. I happen to love it and am always reading books and blog posts on writing.

I just finished the audio version of the classic “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser (I prefer listening to books on my Zune rather than reading them and use Audible). Zinsser stresses four simple principles of writing. These principals apply to non-fiction writing–business or personal. These points are logical, but we all know logic isn’t as easy as it sounds. He also instructs his readers to take some previous writing or mail you may have received and rewrite them based on these principals. Put away your cliches, industry buzzwords, and fancy words. You don’t need them! Zinsser goes into detail about these four points, but I will keep them brief.

1. Clarity

“If it isn’t clear, you might as well not write it. You might as well stay in bed.” says Zinsser. If you can’t make your writing clear to other people, they shouldn’t waste their time trying to read it. Life is too short!

2. Simplicity

Clutter is our enemy. Stop trying to make yourself sound important. Instead, use every day English. Example: Instead of “Are you experiencing any pain?” use “Does it hurt?”

3. Brevity

Keep it brief! Short is better than long whether words, sentences or paragraphs. Zinsser believes that most writing can be cut by 50% without losing the main points or author’s voice. An exercise he uses is to take your last piece of writing and cut it down to 50%. It may sound impossible at first, but you’ll be amazed at how many words you didn’t need!

4. Humanity

Writing is more about you than anything else. It’s your personality and how you communicate with your audience. Whether you’re writing a marketing brochure or a post in your blog, people appreciate your sincerity and the way it comes across in your writing.

Zinsser emphasizes that simple writing is the result of the most intelligent and difficult writing. Finally, always read your writing out loud.

Keep these four points in mind while you’re writing. Happy editing!

It’s the age old thing that you hear about, read about, and see on a daily basis if you have small children. They are terrific in the beginning when they are babies, consuming just about anything you put in their mouths. Then they hit that wonderful age of 2, and all of a sudden, they have preferences! Where did that come from! I witnessed it with my daughter, now seven, and lately with my little guy, Jacob, who turned two last October. Now you’re on the standard menu of mac and cheese, pizza, and chicken nuggets. I’ve been lucky with my daughter liking salad, broccoli from time to time as long as it’s saturated with butter or cheese (I’ll take it!), and my mom’s Portuguese dishes, which I’m not very good at preparing myself! My son will take veggies from time to time, but now he will look at the dish and tell me “No, mommy, no green!” What’s a mom to do?

I’ve always tried to eat healthy, although I must admit with a full time job and balancing a family, it has been tough to be consistent with good foods, but I have always loved juices – all kinds including carrot-apple-ginger, apple-orange, or whatever I have in my fridge and cabinets that I can put in my juicer. Since I like it so much I figured I would start juicing veggies for the kids and lo and behold, they like it (lately anyway)! I now mix carrots with orange juice, apples, and am going to take out my Jack LaLane juicer recipe book.

Don’t laugh, but years ago on a business trip, I was flipping channels in my hotel room and saw a Jack LaLane Juicer infomercial where Jack LaLane (the “Godfather of fitness”) and his wife live on a diet of various fruit and vegetable juices. Being a finicky eater myself and thinking, I’ll just drink my meals, I ordered it. I used it for the first month and then put it away in the closet after getting tired of feeling bad to get rid of so much good pulp (yeah, there are some minuses). Well it’s back now and back for good because now I can prepare nutritious juices for the kids and not worry about them getting their veggies.

I highly recommend trying a juicer if you have finicky eaters. It doesn’t have to be a Jack LaLane juicer. You can find many types of juicers in stores, but I highly recommend getting a quality juicer. I really like my Jack LaLane juicer and it has lasted a long time. They offer a lifetime warranty so it may be worth picking one up today!

Now go drink your juice!