- On productivity: Being productive isn’t the same thing as doing more things or being busy. It’s doing the right things. Time, energy and attention are not unlimited: you should be stingy with each. Start with a purpose: three things you want to achieve each month, week and day. Reward yourself for finishing tough tasks. Work less than 50 hours a week. Write down every outstanding task you can think of to free-up brain power. More: check out Chris Bailey.
- On the death of expertise: Information wants to be free and is almost infinite these days. The days of making a good living by using ‘secret’ information are ending. But there are some problems. There is too much conflicting information out there on many topics. Many people – especially vulnerable people – have insufficient tools to sift facts from lies; evidence from fiction. Having less skill at a task can make you less likely to recognise your own incompetence. People pay more attention to information that supports what we think is true (confirmation bias). These factors create blind spots: we can miss the obvious. There’s never been a better time to add value by fact-checking and educating people on how to process information. But experts are frequently wrong. For more, read Tom Nichols’ book The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters.
- On sleep: Too many of us are exhausted! Sleep more. Rid your bedroom of electronic devices and invest in black-out blinds. Keep a sleep schedule. Set an alarm for bedtime (not just wake-up time). Wake up at the same time every day (even weekends). Nap more during the day. For more, check out Chris Winter’s The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep is Broken and How to Fix It.
SLP Three-Piece Thursday 6: on being original, managing your anger, and making it big
- Be original. Both the quantity and quality of your new ideas are important. You never know which one will be a hit. Sometimes, a good way to generate ideas is to procrastinate. Leaving things to the last minute forces you to improvise and stops tasks expanding to fill the time available. To test your ideas, try to convince people why an idea is a bad one – talk up the shortcomings and see if you can convince yourself. To sell a radical idea: (a) repeated exposure is required, so speak up and repeat yourself; and (b) tie it to something that already exists. Avoid group think and echo chambers – in the real world, and online. Surround yourself with critical thinkers who will tell you the truth. Surround yourself with people who are dissatisfied with the way things are. For more, watch Adam Grant at TED2016 – The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers.
- Manage your anger. Rage can be healthy, e.g. if you are trying to work up the courage to make a big change. But it can also damage your relationships and health. Know yourself: know the signs you are losing your temper (e.g. blushing, sweating, shallow breathing), and take control before boil-over point. Send yourself to “Time Out”. Schedule brooding time. Focus on the positive. Recognise that many set backs are temporary and solvable. Meditate. Exercise. Sleep. Recast problems as challenges. Focus on what you can control; on solutions or mitigants. Make lists of things you are grateful for in life. Tweak habits to reduce things that trigger stress and anger. For more, see Charles Elliott and Laura Smith’s “Anger Management for Dummies“.
- Make it big. Fame and fortune aren’t always awarded on merit. Being in the right place at the right time can make a big difference to outcomes. Clients are attracted to objects, products and services that are novel, but familiar (recognisable). People are attracted to repetition with slight variations, e.g. in music (verse-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge). The best marketing can’t help a poor service. Being too popular can trigger a backlash, e.g. when you scale and lose exclusivity. People look to others for validation, which is why Charles Douglas pioneered the use of laugh tracks into TV comedies. 90% of tweets don’t get shared; and only 1% get shared more than 7 times. Popularity can be boosted by exposure, the proper balance of familiarity and novelty, and repetition but, in the end, chance plays an important role. You have to be in it to win it though! For more, watch Derek Thompson – Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction.
The value of speech – 14 hot tips, from 107 1/2 years ago
Back when I was a pompous lawyer – with lots of books but no time to read – my wife bought me an embossed, original, 9-volume set comprising the “International University Course”. Exactly the kind of thing that looks good on a shelf, but no-one ever reads.
Until now.
With (slightly) more time on my hands as a (slightly) less pompous speech pathologist, I’ve cracked open volume 1. And, ignoring the regular blasts of British Imperial propaganda, several gold nuggets glint inside, including an address by Lord Bryce to the State University of Iowa back in 1910 called “The Value of Speech”.
Lord Bryce had 14 tips for speakers. Most of them are spot on for 2017. Paraphrased for a post-Colonial, ‘politically modern’ readership, here they stand for your inspection:
- Always have something to say.
- Always know what you mean to say.
- Always arrange your remarks in some sort of order.
- At all hazards, be clear. Make your meaning plain to your audience.
- In controversial speaking (e.g. in a lawsuit or when arguing with the government), always think of what your opponent will say and anticipate his/her answers. Meet your opponent’s jests with earnest, and earnest with jest.
- Know your audience and be prepared to adapt/discard your prepared speech to suit them.
- Never speak down to your audience, “whatever you may think of their intellectual attainments”.
- Be sparing of literary ornament.
- When you tell a story, plan it out, make it relevant, and don’t overdo the humour, even if you’re good at it.
- Never, if you can help it, be dull.
- Remember, delivery matters. “Articulation, modulation and expression may all be cultivated”. Make sure people can hear you. Do not shout. Don’t wear out your voice. Vary your pitch. Speak slowly.
- Never read from a script if you can help it. The fewer notes the better, unless you’ve got a terrible memory.
- Always memorise the last two of three sentences of your speech.
- Never weary your audience. If they are tired before you start, cut your talk short, unless your speech is good enough to freshen them up.
True to his tips, Lord Bryce finished his address with panache. Paraphrased and em-bulleted for your modern attention span and disposition:
- Remember the purpose of your speech. Are you trying to persuade or entertain (or both)?
- You will sometimes fail – no-one is always at his/her best.
- Don’t give up. If you stuff up a speech, try to fix it next time!
Source: Lord Bryce (1910). The Value of Speech. Address to the State University of Iowa, April 1910, in Volume 1, International University Reading Course, International University Society, London.
Image: https://tinyurl.com/ycly9vk9
SLP Three-piece Thursday 5: on business models, scaling up your practice, and making your website more useful for clients
- On getting your business model right:
- Are you looking to service the “mass market” for speech pathology services (e.g. children with communication issues), or just a niche (e.g. adult voice, or stuttering, or working only with children with ASD)?
- What value do you give clients?
- What “channels” do you use to sell your services, e.g. direct vs parent training, in a clinic, in schools, home visits, one-to-one, groups, telehealth?
- Do you sell products too?
- Will you personalise communications, automate communications, or use a combination of the two?
- Are some parts of your business self-service (e.g. online bookings)?
- Do you earn a fee per service, or do people book and pay for blocks of therapy like a subscription?
- What resources do you need? (a) physical resources (e.g. office, equipment); (b) human resources: staff, contractors, advisors, (e.g. lawyers and accountants); and (c) intellectual resources: your copyrights, licences, etc for assessments and therapy resources – your tools of the trade.
- What are your critical activities? production (e.g. session preparation/set up), problem-solving (e.g. developing management plans and recommendations), partnerships (e.g. alliances with key referrers and other speech pathologists).
- What’s your cost structure? Are you low cost, high volume (requiring lots of automation), or low volume, high cost (requiring lots of tailoring and extra servicing of clients)?
- What do your customers really need? Empathise with them: what do they think and feel when they come to you, what do they see when they see you, what do they hear, what do they say to others about you?
- Who is your ideal client? Think age, interests, needs.
- What emotions do clients feel when they use your practice? Write business scenarios about telling your ideal clients’ stories.
- Offer free services, e.g. community talks, eBooks and blogs, so potential clients can get to know you.
To succeed in business you need to add value to your client’s lives. For more information, see: Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. Also, our related resources: Profit Calculator (break-even analysis) and the One-page Business Plan for Speech Pathologists.
- On scaling up your practice: Growth doesn’t always lead to success. You’ll fail in the long run if your team/strategy/systems don’t grow with the practice – especially if communication breaks down. Before growing, establish and publish your core values and purpose; as well as your brand promises to clients. Have a long-term audacious goal and tell people about it. To grow a practice, use the 4Ds:
(a) Drive: stay motivated and improve yourself/team with training and mentoring;
(b) Demand-juggle: balance your reputation for quality, personalised client service with the need for delegation and automated systems (especially for backend repetitive tasks that don’t affect service quality);
(c) Discipline: use routines for meetings and reviewing performance against goals; and
(d) Decisions: don’t be afraid to make big calls.
Define who is responsible for what: if more than one person is accountable for a task, then no-one is. Switch from ‘managing’ to personally coaching your staff. Invest in training. Listen to your team. Set clear expectations. Use your strengths – what are you known for? Use incentives/training/bonuses to increase loyalty/reduce turn over. Have a one-page strategic plan. Routines set you free!
Watch your cash flow, especially your cash conversion cycle – growth sucks cash. Look at your prices, how long it takes clients to pay you, and how long it takes you to pay suppliers to find ways to get cash in, more quickly. For more, read: Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up and Rockerfeller Habits and other free growth tools. You can also check out our related resources: One-page Business Plan for Speech Pathologists, Performance Appraisal Agreement Template and Difficult Messages: Increasing Prices.
- On making your website more useful: Make it as easy as possible for clients to find what they want without having to think too much. No-one reads the user manual. People prefer to play around and figure it out for themselves. People won’t use your website if they can’t find their way around it. Clients make quick decisions when they surf the web, and most people click on the first thing that gets their attention. Don’t think of your website as a brochure: it’s like a billboard for browsers to zoom past as they look for what they want. Your home page should make a good first impression: include a tag line that summarises what you do and for whom. So use short paragraphs, headlines and highlighted key words. Use visual hierarchies – make important stuff obvious. Use sections. Have a search bar. Link your company logo to your home page on every page. Have a “utilities section” which includes all the nitty-gritty – FAQ, site map, etc.
Don’t hide information people want. Use conventions. Don’t sacrifice clarity for creativity – prioritise what the client wants. Test: ask clients and non-clients to use the website and to give you feedback. Ask people who’ve never looked at your website to look at it, and watch what they do. Look for ways to make your site more useful. Fix big problems with your website first, and leave details for later. Make your website mobile responsive so people can use it on their phones. For more, read: Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited.
So what to do you think? Do any of these ideas inspire you to change the way you plan or run your private practice? Let us know! Send a tweet to @speechiesinbusiness or leave a comment.
SLP Three-Piece Thursday 4: on becoming the boss, leadership and meetings
- On becoming the boss: To avoid burn-out, prioritise things that matter to your business vision. Leaders need to lead themselves first, so get organised – at work and at home. Being a great SLP is not the same as being a great boss. Good bosses have empathy, and a basic knowledge of the systems used to run their business and how they work together, including computers, resources, design, social media, accounts, etc. Good bosses are visible (they don’t hide away), different to others (they have something that makes them stand out from the crowd) and consistent (especially under pressure). Communication as a boss cannot be about you: your focus should be on the team. Call staff by their names, use good, assertive non-verbal language skills, and don’t be afraid to say you don’t know or to delegate tasks outside your skills set. Avoid gossiping about staff and especially about clients. For more, check out Lindsey Pollak.
- On leadership: All organisations have leaders and followers. A leader’s first job is to make staff feel safe (including safe to make mistakes and to learn). Empathy is underrated. Think of your business as a team of people working together to achieve something meaningful, rather than an abstract organisation. Stick close to the clinical coal-face. Trust is not formed over screens, but across tables. Own up to your mistakes – no-one expects you to be perfect. As in the US Marines, real leaders eat last. Read more: Simon Sinek, Why Leaders Eat Last.
- On meetings: Meetings can be terrible: they suck up time, energy and interrupt work – especially if dominated by people who love listening to the sounds of their own voices. Calculate how much a meeting costs your practice by multiplying the total of everyone’s hourly rate by the length of the meeting. Horrifying waste! Here are some tips:
- If the meeting isn’t relevant to some staff, don’t require them to attend.
- Start meetings on time and require everyone to get there 5 minutes early. This is especially important on phone/conference calls to avoid wasting time introducing and reintroducing attendees to each other.
- Good staff meetings can increase team spirit. Hold them when people’s energy levels dip – for me, this is often around 11am or 2pm – when people need a boost.
- For small practices, have a “daily huddle” – it can take as few as 7 minutes – to run through the day, air any issues, answer questions and solve problems.
- Share positive news – meetings shouldn’t all be doom and gloom.
- Finish meetings with a call to action: e.g. “Let’s get out there and go!” (not as corny as it sounds).
- For formal meetings: (a) have an agenda; (b) appoint a chair to stick to it; (c) appoint a time-keeper to track time; and (d) appoint a “closer” to summarise action points and people responsible for executing them.
- Let juniors run meetings for experience, and encourage introverts to speak up.
- To stay focused, it might make sense to have separate business and clinical meetings.
- At least once a year, get offsite for a new perspective. For more, read Cameron Herald.
So what to do you think? Do any of these ideas inspire you to change the way you plan or run your private practice? Let us know! Send a tweet to @speechiesinbusiness or leave a comment.