Be a Yes Man? No Man.

Is what you want to hear different than what you need to hear? One of the biggest problems in business communications, is that too many people are out there screaming yes. We call them yes men. Yes offers immediate gratification and seems harmless at the time but often results in future peril. No requires discipline and the ability to think clearly. Yes is easy. No is hard.

People sabotage themselves on a daily basis by agreeing to the impossible or just hiding the hard truth. It is easy to view no as disappointing, letting someone down, not coming through or not being a problem solver. However, sometimes no is exactly the right answer.

Reasonable people shouldn't expect you to be perfect all the time but if they do, are those the type you want to sustain relationships with? The only thing people should expect of you is to live up to what you say you will do. By always saying yes, you are setting yourself up to let them down.

While I'm an advocate for the power of no, saying no and thinking no are two different things. If your propensity is always to please, you can still say no while thinking yes. Just because you can't personally produce for someone or tell them what they want to hear, doesn't mean you should leave it at that. Instead, try offering an alternative solution or recommending a competitor. People will grow to respect you more as a result.

As you gather with friends and family on this Thanksgiving, take a moment to remind yourself of the power no. Perhaps you can check out a classic Thanksgiving Day movie, Miracle on 34th Street, that certainly embraces this concept. One of the class scenes from that movie shows Kris Kringle, a Macy's store Santa Claus, sending a mother to the competitor Gimbels for a pair skates that her young daughter wants. Word of the generosity spreads like wildfire and Macy's ends up with even higher sales as a result of their new strategy to send customers to competitors if they don't have it.

Now Kris could have said yes and over-promised on something that he couldn't deliver on (after all, Santa Claus isn't real). He also could have simply said no and left the young girl very disappointed and sad. Instead he chose to truly provide the maximum value to the customer by saying no but thinking yes, I can still help. All people would do good to remember this timeless business principle that truly wins customers for life.

How To Make Paper Look Old and Create Direct Mail Guaranteed to Get Opened

Marketing and advertising has been increasingly over produced for many years. The mass production of media means that consumers give less time and attention to advertisements. The supply of marketing is greater than the demand given to it and the bubble is bursting on ineffective forms of communication. Total customization or the ability to create a unique experience for each and every consumer is the marketers new goal.

Today, only hand-crafted, highly-customizable printed materials consistently get noticed. The new art of printing begins with a creative idea, is achieved through a unique process and shipped with a personal touch that connects to people on a human to human level.

The creation of an aged mailer offers a perfect opportunity to create a real connection to the past and revisit a time in printing when the artisan was more powerful than the machine. An aged mailer offers you the ability to touch people's senses and send them back in time.

Just think about all the times we hear stories in the media of letters delivering decades later? People emotionally connect with the past and the dated look of an aged mailer immediately makes one think of the old and forgotten times.

As a fellow print chef, you can begin aging paper right away and rekindle the past with uniquely, hand-crafted printed materials.  To create this highly-customizable printed item right in your own kitchen, here are a few quick and easy to follow steps:

1. Print your message on the paper before beginning the process
2. Pre-heat an oven to 200 degrees
3. Soak paper in tea, coffee or vinegar and plan on your mailer still smelling like your ingredient of choice (If aging an envelope, while soaking, carefully open flat at the sealed areas as glue will now be ineffective)
4. Remove from liquid and sprinkle coffee or tea grinds on paper
5. Rub in grinds to create an assortment of random stains
6. With a dry towel or cloth, carefully pat the wet paper to remove any excess liquid and brush off remaining grinds
7. Place the paper on an oven proof pan 
8. Put pan in oven and frequently check paper every minute to test for dryness and ensure the paper does not stick to the pan
9. Remove as soon as dry and let cool (once cool, if aging an envelope, re-seal with a glue stick)

Masking our Authentic Self

In life we wear masks. These masks are of all shapes and sizes and they hide our true, authentic self.

Think about it, everyday...

...a salesman is making a promise they know they can't deliver on.
...a company is re-branding just to re-brand (GAP).
...an employee is working to build and promote a product they don't believe in.
...a printer is lying to themselves about the effects of e-readers on the printing industry and not taking steps today to adapt and change.
...someone is deceived by falling into a relationship built on lies.
...blame is assessed to an undeserving scapegoat because the fear of taking ownership of an issue or fixing the real problem overwhelms others.
...an artist becomes a suit.
...a musician or band goes mainstream, moving on from their raving fans.
...a teacher is forced to adhere to a system of education as opposed to touching student lives on a daily basis with unique, thoughtful and tailored methods.
...the truth is hidden.

We wear these masks out of fear of reality. Sometimes we are forced to wear these masks to make a living while other times we wear them because the truth just doesn't seem profitable.

Halloween gives us the opportunity every year to dress up and wear a mask in a more obvious way. In some weird way, many of us represent our true, authentic selves on this holiday more than any other day of the year. As an adult, if I like to emulate a Will Ferrell character (Mugatu) on Halloween because it's fun and makes the other people around me laugh, why is it so hard bring that same honesty, energy and laughter to work on a daily basis?

As a sales rep and marketer, I struggle with this constantly. I'll get so caught up in coming across as professional and portraying a certain image, that it becomes easy to lose sight of who I really am. No one can expect perfection out of people and sometimes just being who you are makes more business sense than the mask that you think you should put on each day.

Long term relationships are build on the kind of tough honesty where people are willing to take off their mask.  However, being your true, authentic self means you are probably not standing in the middle on every issue. When you take a strong position or represent a more clear image of who you are, then you will certainly have more enemies but you'll also create bigger fans. Fans like this will stand behind you through thick and thin. Fans like this make it profitable to take off the mask.