What’s Your Pillow Talk? (WT516)

What’s Your Pillow Talk? (WT516)

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by Shirley Dalton | 8 May, 2020 | Blog, Customer Service

WT516 What’s Your Pillow Talk?

The past few weeks, I’ve been focussing on my business and digging deeper into who it is I serve and how I can help, and of course, that means digging into the language I use to help my ideal customers identify themselves. 

I was first introduced to the concept of Pillow Talk by Lisa Sasevich.

Pillow talk is different to marketing speak from marketers and copywriters. 

Pillow Talk is the language your customers speak.

It’s what they say to each other when they are laying in bed talking to each other.

For example, “Honey, I don’t know how we’re going to pay the mortgage this month. I don’t know where the money’s coming from for the school fees. I’m really worried.” 

Compare this to marketing speak, “Would you like to save x% on your mortgage?” “Are you paying too much for your mortgage?” 

Pillow talk speaks to your customer using their language.

It shows them that you know them; that you get them; that you know the conversations they are having with others and in their head. 

It also speaks to their limiting beliefs. 

When you study copy, you can easily pick the ones that resonate with the customers.

Ryan Levesque, creator of The Ask Method, is a huge AFOL – Adult Fan of Lego. Ryan’s genius is in asking your customers what they think, feel and want. Why? Because that’s where we learn our customer’s language. As an AFOL, Ryan gives the example of people who are Lego fans know that it’s spelt and pronounced LEGO, not LEGOS. According to Ryan, anyone who uses the term LEGOS is not really a dedicated LEGO customer because they would never use that term. It’s fascinating to see the difference. In fact, I recently read an article entitled, “Give Away Your Legos”. The article was about business growth, delegation and leadership. I instantly knew the author was not an AFOL. 

Back to you, do you know what your customers are saying when they’re laying awake in bed at night, stressed out and worried about things?

If not, that’s your homework. Go find out.

It’s on my To Do list for the next few weeks, so thank you in advance if I contact you and ask you.

Feedback – Giving and Receiving (WT515)

Feedback – Giving and Receiving (WT515)

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by Shirley Dalton | 8 May, 2020 | Blog, Mindset

WT515 Feedback – Giving and Receiving

Firstly, a warm welcome to our new Weekly Thoughts readers. I’m so thrilled to write to you each week. I trust you’ll find the messages helpful, inspiring and educative. We’ve been going almost 10 years and I’m so grateful for all our readers. Thanks for showing up. 

This week, we’re talking about being open to both giving and receiving feedback.

I was coaching with a client this week, and we’d almost finished the call when he mentioned one last topic. I was looking at the time and knew that if mentioned the thoughts I had, we would definitely go over time and I also had a presentation to prepare for straight after the call.

I was also concerned about how he might take the feedback. I had some thoughts and opinions and some questions around the topic and I wondered to myself, “Well, do I say anything? We have to finish the call? Do I not say anything? Will I upset him with my feedback? If I say anything, will it be perceived as being negative?  

I chose not to say anything on the call.

I thought about it for a couple of hours and decided, if I don’t say anything, I’m doing this person a disservice. So I called them. I checked to see if he was open to the feedback. He was. I shared my thoughts and questions and was relieved to hear how much he appreciated the feedback.

He appreciated the fact that I had continued to think about him and his situation. He appreciated that I cared enough to call back and share my thoughts. He appreciated being able to see things from a different point of view.

It turned out to be a Win Win.

This week’s reminder is to be open to both giving and receiving feedback.

Is there someone who needs to hear your feedback? If so, go ahead. Check to see if they are open to it, and if so, share away.

When Someone Else Believes in You (WT514)

When Someone Else Believes in You (WT514)

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by Shirley Dalton | 1 May, 2020 | Blog, Leadership

WT514 When Someone Else Believes in You

At times, we don’t always believe in ourselves and this can hold us back from achieving our full potential. 

I remember years ago, when Ross’ supervisor was promoted, he wanted to nominate Ross to take over his position. At first Ross was hesitant.

“No thanks. I just want to do my work. I don’t want to supervise anyone. I’m not management material,” he protested.

With a little encouragement from me, he reluctantly took the role. 

When he began, he had few leadership skills and zero experience. He joined one of my Leading Yourself and Leading Others experiences and immediately started applying what he learned and within a short time, became an exceptionally good leader.

The guys he supervised complimented him and remarked how much they appreciated his loyalty to them. 

A few years later, it was Ross’ turn to nominate someone to take over his position. Sadly, his choice didn’t believe in himself and wouldn’t borrow Ross’ belief, so he turned down the opportunity. Six month’s later, at a work reunion, he shared how much he regretted that decision.

In the past few weeks, I’ve witnessed a similar scenario where upper management have offered the opportunity to participate in our Leadership experience to some of their middle managers who disappointingly declined the opportunity.

Upper management believed in their people and were happy to invest in them. They were shocked when one employee attempted to negotiate for the training investment to be spent on technical training which would have benefitted the employee, not necessarily the company or the team they lead. 

If you find a similar thing happening in your workplace, ask yourself whether you need to give your people the benefit of the doubt and teach them the rules of the game or encourage them or find out whether they fit the category of those who really do not wish to be managers.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks.

When you have someone who believes in you, say ‘Thank You’ and accept the opportunity. 

In the meantime, know that I believe in you.

If It Doesn’t Feel Good… (WT513)

If It Doesn’t Feel Good… (WT513)

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by Shirley Dalton | 24 Apr, 2020 | Blog, Mindset

WT513 If It Doesn’t Feel Good

Firstly, a big shout out to John Lizzio for correcting my reference to Steven Covey’s story about sharpening the saw in last week’s thought. “In Covey’s story of the two lumberjacks, one worked through. The other sharpened his saw for 10 minutes each hour. And cut more.” Thank you, John.  

This week I’d like to look at your feelings. Your feelings or our emotional guidance system can signal to us that our thinking is off.

Here’s an example. I recently provided some online training for clients. At the end of the training, I collapsed back in my seat and started to criticize myself.

“Oh, that was hopeless.”

“There was no connection.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No-one is interested in learning this stuff.”

“They were only there because they had to be.”

On and on and on went my inner critic. As I listened to myself, I felt worse and worse. I was disappointed with myself, frustrated with myself and feeling hopeless.

I was in the primal state. The state of fight or flight where I’m not able to come up with creative solutions.

I did my best to move myself out of this state into the creative, joyful powerful state, but it didn’t work. My critic was having a field day. I decided to go for a walk to clear my head.

When I got back to the office, I was so surprised to see some text messages and emails showing me the graphic summary that one of the team members had created after the training. 

“Wow! They had gotten something out of the training. Wow! They did understand the message. Wow! They enjoyed it and were grateful.”

What a classic case study for what we teach. According to David Bayer, if it doesn’t feel good, it’s not true. This was certainly the case for me. It didn’t feel good and when I examined my thinking, and the positive feedback I received, I could see that what I was thinking was absolutely not true. I moved back into the powerful state.

With all that’s going on at the moment with COVID-19, please remember that if you’re not feeling good, whatever you are thinking is not true. Life is always working for you, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment. If you’re not feeling good, look to your thinking and look for the evidence of the opposite. If it doesn’t feel good, what you’re thinking is not true.

Are You Getting What You Wanted? (WT511)

Are You Getting What You Wanted? (WT511)

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by Shirley Dalton | 10 Apr, 2020 | Blog, Mindset

WT511 Are You Getting What You Wanted?

With all the doom and gloom, and fear and stress around COVID-19 at the moment, I’ve been fascinated to see that many of my clients are actually manifesting what they want.

Have a look back over the past year or so and recall the things that you said you wanted to be, do, have or feel and see if some of them haven’t actually manifested through COVID-19.

Here are some examples to show you what I mean:

  1. 12 months ago, I said I wanted an online business. Boom! Overnight a few weeks ago that’s what I got. All of my face to face consultations and training events were cancelled. Online business manifested.
  1. One of my clients wanted to be a stay at home Dad for (wait for it) 4 months. Boom! His wife has just gone back to work in the health industry and he gets to stay at home and look after the baby. 
  1. Another client wanted to have at least a 2 week holiday with his entire family where they all stayed together and enjoyed breakfasts and evening meals, etc. Boom! The lockdown meant his kids came home and they will be together for at least 2 weeks. 
  1. Another wanted to present her new program on Mindfulness. She missed out on a scholarship and ended up presenting for the very people who funded the scholarship. 
  1. Finally, another had been saying for 12 months, I’d like to just shut the doors. Boom! Guess what she had to do recently? 

If you look closely, it’s not all gloom and doom. 

Recalibrate your Reticular Activating System (RAS) and change your perception. You might be surprised to see that on some level, you are actually getting what you wanted.

It’s all about perception. Start seeing what you haven’t been seeing and start focusing more on the things you want, because even though we don’t know the how, Life is Always Working for Us and we eventually get what we really desire.

Stay safe.

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