Entries Tagged 'Recommended Reading' ↓

I took a 3 hour session on How to Make the Most of your Internship Projects at Viva College in Virar yesterday. The session went great. Out of 95 attendees, 80%+ said they got great new ideas for their internship projects. 80%+ said they also got powerful insights in managing & implementing their projects. Here are some more reactions:

• Mind Blowing - Rajesh Gaikwad (professor in charge)
• Awesome - Brijesh Joshi (professor)
• I have attended other seminars, but this was the best ever!
• Where were you two months ago? (internship project planning started two months ago for the college, and many people repented the session did not happen two months ago)
• Superb - as usual - from you!
• I created some great project ideas by the end of the session.
• Excellent. Thank you!
• Truly motivating. This will help us a long way in our projects.

I am thrilled by the results! And am looking forward to see what projects the students do!

Here are the slides from the presentation.

World’s Best Presentation Contest

Would you like me to speak at your organization? Contact me at nirav at mehtanirav dot com.

We work on outsourced software development projects. One of the biggest challenges in that is to communicate effectively. We started having weekly telephone calls with customers to improve project execution. Here are some tips on drastically improving your effectiveness of handling conference calls with customers.

1. Connection: Have the number to call handy. And an alternate number to call in case the first does not work. Understand the timezone difference. Where will the client be when you call? Get connected 2 minutes earlier than scheduled.
2. Accent: Just as our clients have accent, for them, we have an accent. Indians have a variety of accents (per their cultural background) and that makes it even difficult for the client to understand what we say. Speak slowly, make sure each word is clear.
3. Disturbances: If there are disturbances on the line, don’t keep saying “are you there”, “can you hear me”, “i can hear you” etc. Keep going slowly. If you did not understand something because of the disturbance, tell the client “I didn’t get what you said (about …)” and let them answer.
4. Echo: Mute your microphone when you are not speaking. You may be on a speakerphone in a conference and the client may get echo of what he is speaking if you are not on mute. The same may happen to you if the client is on speakerphone. You can request them to mute their line while you are speaking. This will even save you some bandwidth if you are using VoIP.
5. Homework: Be prepared for the conference call. A conference call is a meeting. So be prepared with the agenda, be ready with your status updates or questions.
6. Culture Difference: Be aware of the culture difference. Your client’s expectations and understanding will not be the same as yours. The slang will be different. Some clients will be very demanding, some will be easy. Watch for this and act accordingly.
7. Cutting Long Conversations short: You or the client may keep on talking. Cut this short - unless it’s contributing. If the client is repeating himself, check whether you understood what they said, and if you reiterated that to them. Go ahead, explain the client what you understood. This will most probably reassure them that you got what they wanted to say. When needed, remind the client about the agenda and time limit for the meeting. And get back on track. Tell them you “would love to get to work on what’s been discussed. And will give an update at the end of the day”.
8. Correct Grammar: Speak good English. Incorrect grammar can upset the customer. It will not only make it difficult for your client to understand you, but will also give a bad impression of you. Practice speaking.
9. Greeting and Closing: Greet with a “good evening” (or similar, depending on the client’s time). And close with a “Thank you”. At the end of the meeting, summarize the actions to be taken now, and provide an update on when can the client expect to hear from you.
10. Listening: The most important thing on any call, is to listen to the other person! Listen actively. Repeat what the client says in your head. This will help you understand it. If you don’t understand, say what you did, and request the client to explain the rest. Practice listening! This is one thing that can elevate your performance anywhere!

What do you say about this? Are there any other tips you’ve got? Any experiences you want to share? Feel free to comment!

What do we normally do when we hear from an irate customer? The first reaction is to justify our position. No matter how much we say that “we understand your concern”, what we really do, is save ourselves. Look back at the last time you dealt with an unhappy client. What you did, and what was the reaction.

Now think how could you act differently next time? What could make it better for both you and the client?

Here are the 4 Sure Steps to Calm Down an Irate Customer:

1. Listen: Actively listen to the customer. Don’t get stuck in preparing your response that you don’t even listen to the client. Listen to their concern. Why are they saying this? What’s the actual problem they are facing? Repeat what the client says in your head. Paraphrase the main points back to him. Such that he knows that you understood the problem.
2. Take Responsibility: Take responsibility for the problem. Customer is always right, whether he is right or wrong! Take responsibility of the problem on behalf of your organization. Don’t blame it on any colleague or third party. You are the person who has the power to do something about the situation - whether you feel like it or not. So take full responsibility for the problem. Apologize.
3. Get Into Action: Ask questions to the client that force him to think. Figure out what will the solution to the problem and what’s the next action. Don’t just sit after listening to the client, take action to solve the problem.
4. Communicate: Keep the client in the loop. Communicate back your solution, the status updates on that. Keep talking till the solution is reached. Don’t leave it lose.

Image courtesy GetEntrepreneurial.

If you could relive yesterday, how would you live it? What will you do? What will you avoid?

Most of us will try to do more and be better if we could relive yesterday. We desire to accomplish more. Like we saw last month, you can be more productive by creating good habits and rejecting bad ones. But then, with all the right intentions, why do we keep practicing bad habits? What’s the bottleneck in achieving what we desire?

The problem is that we do not do what we said we would do. You can become what you want, if you do what you said you would do. We must continually review ourselves and stay in action. Keep practicing the good habits and keep rejecting the bad ones. This persistence will pay off!

But there is another fundamental question we got to ask ourselves. The question is: “Do I want to be great? Really?” Read further if your answer is “Yes!”

There is some good news! You can become great. All great people started like you and me. They had some traits that made them great.

Richard St. John, a millionaire marketer was puzzled when a small girl asked him, “What really leads to success?” Even though he achieved success, he couldn’t tell her how he did it. To answer her question he spent 10 years interviewing over 500 successful people, including Martha Stewart, Richard Branson, Russell Crowe, and the Google founders. After analyzing all the data, Richard discovered the 8-Traits that lead to great success. What he found surprised me with its simplicity! And I had no doubt that following those 8 traits will make anyone successful.

I want to share those 8 traits to become great with you. The picture below depicts the 8 traits. Clicking on the picture will take you to a video Richard made to explain the concepts. The video is wonderful and I strongly recommend watching it, and sharing it with everyone on your team.

8 Traits To Be Great

You can also find a nice summary of these ideas on Richard St. John’s site.

Vaishali told me about the FWA Theater. It has a clean interface and a collection of good videos. Some of them amazed me, some of them made me laugh. Go to the Best of FWA and watch the Kitkat Ad or the Nissan Stunt! I think you will like it!

Nice use of RIA!