One thing I’ve learned over the past 30 years is, when there’s a problem, it’s almost always a communication problem.

Does your boss not value you enough? Try talking to her honestly about what you’re trying to accomplish, maybe even ask for some pointers.

Does you girlfriend think you don’t appreciate her? Try talking to her about why you do.

Does a client frustrate you to no end? Rather than bad mouthing them with your team try setting up a heart-to-heart talk with them where you can listen to them. Chances are, they’re frustrated too. Talking honestly can help to bridge the gap and get your project back on track.

Communication skills are key to every aspect of your life. Don’t try to communicate with real people like you do on Facebook and Twitter.

Have you ever written an email to a client like this?

Dear Client,

Here’s the thing we promised you.

Let me know your feedback and we’ll start in on revisions.

Yea, so have I. It’s terrible. Stop doing it right now.

Your client hired you because you have some level of expertise and knowledge that they don’t. Remember that you need to communicate that value when you are selling your work. The selling part continues even after they signed the contract and work has started. Even quick notes to your clients need to have your values expressed in them.

Dear Client,

I’ve finished up the thing we talked about. I found that X, Y and Z will work best because of the super-awesome logarithmic system that we mentioned during the kickoff meeting. In the past that system has increased sales 9% and I think you should see similar performance.

Let’s set up a time tomorrow so I can explain the data points that lead us to thinking this is the best path for your business and what the next steps should be. During that meeting we’ll gather your feedback and plan revisions with you.

The truth is, you’re smart and the client should trust you 100% already right? Maybe after 10 years they will, but for the first 10 years you need to remind them how awesome you are.

Could you do a better job of selling your ideas?

photo by: John McNab via Flickr

Imagine you’re grabbing lunch at a restaurant and the soup you ordered arrives stone cold. You call over the waiter and tell him the problem. He takes the cup of soup and throws it out the nearby window then turns and walks away away. You wait for a while thinking he’ll come back to address the problem. He never returns.

If you were the manager of that restaurant, would you sanction that type of customer interaction?

That’s basically what happens when you remove a negative comment. You have accomplished 6 things:

1. You have shown the person that they wasted their time commenting.
2. You have missed an opportunity to engage with a customer and solve a problem.
3. You will probably not deal with the underlying issue of the complaint meaning others may leave the same comment in the future.
4. You may have pushed the person to start commenting places where negative comments live forever.
5. They will now talk about the bad interaction AND the fact that you deleted their comment.
6. You’ve raised the bar so that people will assume that you never have any problems.

Your customers are going to complain sometimes. You’re not perfect. The good news is that customers don’t expect perfect. What most people expect is communication and sometimes a pat on the back to let them know they are special.

Not long ago I was at Brewmaster’s Bar & Grill with a gang of friends. Everything was fine, but when it was time to pay and leave, it took forever. I left a review on Yelp with that information. The next day, I had an email from them telling me that they wanted to fix the situation and have me back again. That’s how you handle a negative review.

What was the last place that really impressed you with their customer service?

If you’re looking for great job hunting advice on a regular basis, you should make sure you read Karl Sakas‘ plethora of helpful tips. If you need up-to-date intel on new jobs, connect with Joanna Wolfe (aka The “Information Yenta) and read her job blog.

But, I just ran across an infographic resume that reminded me how important it is to stand out in a competitive marketplace. Imagine that you’re looking for graphic artist and you have a pile of typical resumes and then you see Michael Anderson’s:

The best part of this resume is that it doesn’t give you a reason not to contact him? Looking at a traditional resume gives you at least 3 or 4 opportunities to say, “I can’t hire this person because …” Michael has done the hardest of all things, he’s made himself memorable.

How do you stand out?

Have you ever noticed that when we don’t want to do something we start looking around for an excuse?

• I can’t take the awesome job over there, because I live here.
• I can’t apply for that job, I don’t have an advanced degree
• I can’t talk to her, she’s out of my league
• I can’t pitch that company, they’d never work with me

What if you stopped looking for a reason not to try? How awesome could you be? Could you be as awesome as Jay Fleming?

Way back in the early days of the web, I saw it’s power. I ran across a few interesting things today that reminded me of it.

I’ve been using the 1918.com domain since the late 1990’s. When my oldest son Collin was 6 he loved playing with his GI Joe’s. I had also been a big fan when I was young and enjoyed playing with them again Collin.  One thing we enjoyed was imaging scenarios and setting up the Joe’s and taking some pictures. We used to post those photos and chat with other GI Joe crazies that did the same.

Back in May of 1999 we spent one evening playing out a scenario where a pilot was shot down and her buddies were rescuing her. A couple of the photos came out really nice, mostly because it was a beautiful time of day.

I posted them at 1918.com and about a year later I was contacted by David Bottazzi, who was the Art Director at Four By Four Creative Services.

Hi Phil,

My name is David Bottazzi, I’m contacting you with what might seem a strange request. I work for a company called Four By Four Creative Services, we are an advertising/design company based in London, England. We are in the process of producing some advertsing for an English toy chain which will be recruitment adverts done in the style of Army recruitment ads, but using Action Men (GI Joe’s to you) instead of real soldiers. Our request is this, can we use/purchase one of the shots which you have posted on your site? I was searching everywhere for decent images of Action Men that we could use in a visual to try and convince our client to go down this route when i came across your site, one of the images from your “never leave a buddy” set would be ideal for what we are trying to achieve. I would be grateful if you could contact me about this, hopefully you won’t mind and we can come to some arrangement – it should make a cool looking advert if nothing else.

Thanks for your time.

David Bottazzi
Art Director, Four By Four Creative Services

I was terribly excited, and so was Collin. How cool to have one of our photos being used in a real ad! I told David he was free to use the image on one condition, that he sent me a copy of the final product.

So that’s part one. Back in the old days, the internet was a much nicer, more trusting place.  It was also a lot easier to rank for a term like “GI Joe” apparently 🙂

About 6 months later David sent me an email letting me see their proof.

Thanks for getting back to me so soon, the ad we’re doing is a recruiment ad for Beatties Toy Stores, it’s going to be running in The Daily Mail, which is a national daily covering all of the UK. I’ve enclosed a JPEG of it for you, if you can’t read this let me know and i’ll post a copy to you (can do this anyway if you like). The ad is a spoof of some ads that the British Army have been running recently – the thinking behind ours is that at first glance it should look like a regular Army advert, it’s only when you take a second look that you notice the soldiers are actually Action Man and his team and it’s for Beatties. Not sure when it will run (currently there are loads of suits trying to make a decision about it – could take some time) but hopefully should be in the next couple of weeks. Anyway thanks again for permission to use your shots.

A weird side note concerns iStockphoto. I uploaded this photo and it was flagged. I received an email telling me that I would have to remove it unless I could prove it was mine. I didn’t have the photo anymore, so I just removed it.