Sometimes it’s better to not say anything One of my favorite advice columns is Miss Manners. I enjoy Judith Martin’s wit and style, and I’m fascinated by the questions people ask. I’m especially intrigued by the “What should I say when …” type of question. We’ve all been in situations where we didn’t know [...]
Are you making it hard for people to respond to your message? QR codes are everywhere these days. And they’re great for smartphone users to respond instantly to a promotional message. But what if your customer doesn’t want to use a QR code? Assuming that everyone else prefers the same communication method they do [...]
What’s the leading cause of death among black men in the United States? If you support Black Lives Matter, do you think it’s important to know the answer to that question and be supporting efforts to address the problem? On a recent episode of The Crossman Conversation, Mark Salmon, president of Appliance Direct in Orlando, [...]
Four Words Can Open Up Communication or Shut It Down Ask the magic question Years ago, in one of my sales training sessions when I was working in the freight industry, I learned to never answer a question without knowing why it was asked. Instead of immediately answering a question, we were taught to say [...]
Your bio is not your introduction The person who introduces guest speakers sets the stage for the presentation. They can either get the audience excited or have them dozing before you take the microphone. At a recent seminar, the speaker gave a dynamic, information-packed presentation. But it was preceded by an introduction that was so [...]
The Many Meanings of Medium I’m developing an online class on how to promote your business using the publishing platform Medium (watch for an announcement and link when we launch it). Of course, I have to say the word “Medium” over and over in the training. And it got me thinking about the many meanings [...]
Can you hear it in your head? There must be … “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” I wonder if Paul Simon had any idea when he wrote that song how many ways the title would be modified and reused. More than 20 years after the song’s 1975 release, a magazine gave me an assignment [...]
Serve Steak, Not Stew I like steak. I also like stew. What does that have to do with writing? One of my biggest challenges is when I’m in the middle of writing one thing and something unrelated pops into my head. What do I do with the new idea? I don’t want to lose a [...]
Critique your performance so you can improve A pastor I know is quite comfortable getting up in front of his congregation, but he’s a mediocre preacher. When I asked him if he watched the videos of his weekly sermons, he said, “No. I don’t like to see myself on video.” These days, more and more [...]
When you say, “Don’t worry,” you’re telling me I should worry. I’m not talking about trying to comfort someone who is already worried (although when does simply saying “don’t worry” ever stop someone from worrying?), I’m talking about prefacing a statement with, “Don’t worry” and then saying something that might be worrisome. When you do [...]
