Oh, pet peeves at the office. We’ve all got ‘em. And now an official poll has been taken to tell us what honks American workers off the most.
According to said poll, which was conducted by Harris Interactive, 60 percent of respondents noted gossip in the workplace as their biggest office annoyance. 54 percent reported poor time management (including making personal phone calls during work time) as they’re biggest grievance.
Another annoyances included:
(45%) Messiness in communal spaces (like the kitchen),
(22%) Misuse of email (notably, “reply all” and excessive use of blind carbon copy)
Despite the amount of office grievances, 42 percent said they would say something directly to a person if they were being too loud, while only 34 percent would raise concerns about gossiping. Only 25 percent would talk to someone about their misuse of email.
Anyone who works in an office (or, for that matter, watches “The Office”) probably has quite a few peeves of their own. I’m sure Harris Interactive missed a few. Care to share yours? Feel free (but keep ‘em clean!) via comments.
Get the right tone.
Question: Do you want to return a message left by a guy who sounds slightly harried, kind of bored, or mildly anti-social? Of course not! Try to keep your message lively and friendly. People like lively and friendly. People want to call lively and friendly.
Don’t ramble!
Checking voice mail is the modern equivalent of tossing the bedpan’s contents out the window. Necessary but not fun. So make sure you spare the listener any more anguish than is absolutely necessary by being quick and to the point. BUT that doesn’t mean you should be terse and cold. Short and clear yet lively and friendly. Short and clear yet lively and friendly. Lastly, short and clear yet lively and friendly.
Speak your telephone number s-l-o-w-l-y.
Not everyone is as familiar with your number as you are.
Leave your number in the beginning and end.
This spares the person from having to listen to the entire message if she didn’t get the number during the first listen.
Don’t assume that your flawless voice mail will inspire a callback.
Set a time to call back (make sure, though, that you give the person an ample opportunity to call you).
Ever wonder why InsureMe started blogging? Check out this recap of The Skinny on Blogging for Business as published in the September issue of the TAAR Report, and learn why.
Now that you know the rewards and have examined the risks, you’re probably wondering how to enter the blogosphere.
Use your blog as a marketing and sales tool by not cramming it with sales fluff. Provide something valuable and the sales will follow.
You can start with:
Read. Listen. Participate. Read other blogs. Starting with those related to your industry is a good idea. Listen to what the readers are saying. Participate in the conversation.
Once you’ve got a handle on the blogosphere:
Hone in on a topic. Generally, blogs that are focused on one topic gain more visibility than the ones that cover everything.
Define your audience. Who do you envision writing to? Health insurance professionals? Auto insurance underwriters? Defining an audience will help keep your blog tight and focused.
Once you’ve thought these factors through, it’s time to start writing. There are a handful of free and low-cost blogging platforms available for public use, and most of them require little to no knowledge of HTML or web design. In fact, Blogger (Blogger.com), Wordpress (Wordpress.com), and Typepad (Typepad.com) all come with tech help and templates to make your transition to blogging an easy one.
This week, the Senate received a warning: global warming is stirring up health problems and will continue to worsen.
Witnesses at the hearing cited the 35,000 deaths in the 2003 European heat wave, the spread of the West Nile virus to 47 states (unseen in the U.S. eight years ago), and most recently the droughts, heat waves, and massive wildfires.
Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that it’s not a question of whether there will be ill health effects from global warming, but of who, when, where and how.
The director also presented a CDC chart showing that rising temperatures are likely to affect public health not only in the form of heat waves, but of severe weather, increased air pollution, water contamination and disease, and disruptions to food supply–yielding increases in cardiovascular disease, malaria and dengue, among other afflictions.
We’ve seen the property-casualty industry start to react to global warming; will the health and life industry follow suit?
One of the best ways to develop rapport with a prospect or existing client is to connect with that person on a human level. By definition, that means foraying into conversation areas that have nothing to do with insurance–like sports, cars, pets, weather patterns, etc.
But even if you have the gift of gab, that won’t guarantee rapport. The test is not whether you can talk about things besides insurance. It’s whether you can be both interesting and engaging.
In practice, this means conversing about things the other person is interested in. It doesn’t mean talking ad naseum about your cat–unless you detect that the person is keen on felines.
The key, of course, is to be attuned to the person and look for telltale body language. (Actually, unless you’re a first-rate storyteller, an even better option is to ask questions instead of hogging the mike.) When you start to detect that he’s not into Nascar–glazed eyes, fidgeting, pained look–switch gears, and quickly.
OK, this is going to be short and sweet. Here are 3 tips you can learn from the best martial artist/actor to come out of Belgium in recent times: the one and only Jean-Claude van Damme.
1. Know your limitations and be flexible.
A little guy, Jean-Claude quickly gave up on his body-building ambitions. He chose to supplement his karate classes with ballet, which gave him with more flexibility and grace than his heavily-muscled counterparts.
2. Know which limitations don’t matter.
Jean-Claude probably knows he’s a bad actor, but that’s never stopped him, and he’s starred in more movies than a great many talented actors. Never give up on your dreams!
3. Exploit your talents, find a niche.
Jean-Claude made up for poor acting skills by learning how to kick butt–and do splits. (It’s that flexibility thing again.) Not as big as Arnold? Be a better dancer than Arnold.
Ever wonder why InsureMe started blogging? Check out this recap of The Skinny on Blogging for Business as published in the September issue of the TAAR Report, and learn why.
So the rewards of blogging are great. But what about the risk?
Blogging Isn’t For You If…
Blogging is cool, but it isn’t for everyone. And you’re better off recognizing this before you start, because it can open you and your business up to certain risks.
James Omdahl, InsureMe’s Marketing Strategist (whom some of you met at HIGH TECC in July), spoke at Commission Junction’s annual summit last year on the topic of business blogging. James and a lot of other big name marketers agree: Don’t start a blog about your business if you have something–anything–to hide. If you can’t be transparent in your blog, visitors won’t be interested in reading it. And if they learn you’ve been the least bit dishonest, you can bet you’ll hear about it in the comments section.
Naked Conversations also identified a pretty solid list of questions to ask yourself and your organization before embarking on a blog. Some of these questions include:
Riding the train yesterday evening, I struck up a conversation with a woman who turned out to be an insurance agent. (Go figure.)
Most of our conversation was focused on local sports teams–namely the Rockies, who won 21 out of their last 22 games to ultimately make it to the World Series. (We also talked about how neat it is that you can buy margaritas a Rockies games, but that’s neither here nor there.)
As it often does, the conversation turned to business, and she gave me her unique approach to selling insurance: work only with nice people–not just nice co-workers but also nice clients.
“Property-casualty is a full-time, non-stop job. If I’m going to be called in the middle night, I want it to be someone I want to talk to,” she said. Sounds reasonable to me.
It’s an uncommon niche–selling insurance only to nice people–but I think it’s brilliant. Not all of us can be picky about which clients we take on, but I think it’s something to work toward!
If I had to pick one word to describe what’s new, what’s different and what’s important about now vs. then, it would be “choice.”
The choice of more products.
The choice of more retailers. Many a click away.
The choice of more consumers to ask for an opinion.
The choice by marketers over who to market to (precision increases).
The choice of workers to be virtual or flexible or change careers.
I used to have one choice to make a phone call. Now I have a dozen. I used to have one place to buy insurance for my company, now I have thousands. One bank near my house, now ten thousand a click away.
I have more choice in who to hire, who to work for and most important…
More choice in who to listen to (and who to ignore).
One of the best ways to develop rapport with a prospect or existing client is to connect with that person on a human level. By definition, that means foraying into conversation areas that have nothing to do with insurance–like sports, cars, pets, weather patterns, etc.
