Free-Reprint Article Written by: Mark Silver See Terms of Reprint Below.
***************************************************************** * * This email is being delivered directly to members of the group: * * [email protected] * ***************************************************************** We have moved our TERMS OF REPRINT to the end of the article. Be certain to read our TERMS OF REPRINT and honor our TERMS OF REPRINT when you use this article. Thank you. This article has been distributed by: http://Article-Distribution.com Helpful Link: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act - Overview http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/dmca1.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- Article Title: ============== The Curse of Professionalism in Your Business Article Description: ==================== Have you ever received (or written) an email like this one? 'Thank you for your correspondence. We appreciate your desire to contact us, and someone will get back to you shortly.' Kinda cold and stale, eh? I'm used to seeing things like this from corporations, and from the back of our refrigerator, but how about us teensy business folks? Additional Article Information: =============================== 967 Words; formatted to 65 Characters per Line Distribution Date and Time: 2008-07-31 11:12:00 Written By: Mark Silver Copyright: 2008 Contact Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For more free-reprint articles by Mark Silver, please visit: http://www.thePhantomWriters.com/recent/author/mark-silver.html ============================================= Special Notice For Publishers and Webmasters: ============================================= If you use this article on your website or in your ezine, We Want To Know About It. Use the following URL to let us know where you have used this article, and we will include a link to your website on thePhantomWriters.com: http://thephantomwriters.com/notify.php?id=6203&p=load HTML Copy-and-Paste and TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of Article Are Available at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/s/curse-of-professionalism.shtml#get_code --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Curse of Professionalism in Your Business Copyright (c) 2008 Mark Silver Heart Of Business http://www.heartofbusiness.com/ Have you ever received (or written) an email like this one? "Thank you for your correspondence. We appreciate your desire to contact us, and someone will get back to you shortly." Kinda cold and stale, eh? I'm used to seeing things like this from corporations, and from the back of our refrigerator, but how about us teensy business folks? You don't want to sound like an automaton, but you also don't want to be inappropriately familiar, or sloppy. And, of course, there's that thought going on in the back of your head: 'Do I sound unprofessional?' Professionalism is a good thing, except that what passes for professionalism in the business world, really isn't. It's more like zombie-ism. Where Did Corporate-Speak Come From? Professionalism is defined by the Oxford American Dictionary as "the competence or skill expected of a professional." Notice that the definition only refers to "competence or skill." Nowhere in the definition does it say that you have to starch your shirt, speak in multi-syllabic gobbledy-gook, or maintain a robotic-like unemotional composure in your writing and speaking. Here's what I think happened to professionalism: As businesses changed from primarily sole proprietor craftsmen to larger and larger corporations, it became less and less likely that anyone you spoke to at a business had any real decision-making power at all. And yet, they still had responsibility for results. When someone is responsible to create results, but doesn't have the power to make decisions, what happens? Well, often someone feels nervous about their job security. And so they play it safe. Playing it safe in this instance means hiding by creating as much distance as possible between them and the situation. And thus good, old-fashioned politeness turns into: "Please excuse our situation, we are endeavoring to respond in as rapid a fashion as possible." Ugh! Who talks like that? Perfection is a Quality of the Divine. Here's the obscure, unnamed hope driving the drivel: "If I handle this perfectly, there won't be any problems, and it will all work out okay." Unfortunately, that's a myth. True perfection belongs only to Source. Although our hearts, as doorways to the Divine, can swim in that beauty and perfection, we can't really express perfection. Which is actually a good thing. Your clients do want your Divinity. But, what enables them to access it is your humanity. Your imperfect, vulnerable, quirky, lovable self. Be Yourself, Gosh Darn-It! Listen, it may sound trite, but I'll say it anyway: Be you! Bring in your sense of humor, your zaniness, your vulnerability. Show up as a human being with a heart in your communication, and your clients, readers, customers and anyone else who comes 'round your business will come to know you. And as they know you, they will love you. If instead you hide behind a so-called "professional" demeanor, they wont ever get a chance to know you, and so they wont get a chance to trust you. And if they dont come to connect with your heart, then youre just another whatever you are, and your sacred, beautiful gift of a business is reduced to just another commodity, and a less viable one at that. Be yourself and people will come to trust you and risk stepping in with you. Then you and your business will thrive. It can be a little intimidating, I admit, to think about letting your hair down, kicking off your shoes, and doing the boogie-woogie with the folks who show up. So let's take it one step at a time. Keys to Doing the Boogie-Woogie. * Match the situation with the mood. If it's an apology email, think about how whatever mistake you made is affecting the other person. For minor mistakes, a little bit of self-deprecating humor can help. For big mistakes, humor might sound flippant, and so going with empathy might be better. But, either way, speak human. If you made the same kind of mistake with a friend, what would you say to her? "Wow. I totally goofed this up, and I feel miserable about it. Here's what I want to do to make it up to you." That sounds a little more natural, at least for me. How would you say it? * How sloppy is too sloppy? If you get too chummy you risk TMI- too much information, as when one business owner whom I hardly knew shared some pretty deep stuff about their personal life, and I felt uncomfortable. Remember that by cracking the professional wall you are trying to build trust and connection with people. So, if you're thinking of sharing personal information, spend a few moments in your heart and see it from their perspective. Will sharing help or hinder the connection? Something like this statement is taking attention from the listener: "Hey, I had a goiter removed last September, wanna see it?" It's not creating empathy, it's asking the listener to participate in the speaker's experience.. On the other side, people have come to Heart of Business asking about: "How can I handle a business when I'm struggling with a chronic illness?" Then, I'll usually share that my wife struggled with a chronic illness for years (she's pretty much fully recovered now, thank God), and so I know first-hand how a chronic illness can affect a family business. This builds trust that I actually do 'get it'- I share the story so I can participate in their experience. Sometimes you do walk a line, and yet vulnerability, humor, and personality make such a big difference. Risk a little. Take some chances. I think youll be surprised at how much fun your business can be, and how much your clients will love you once you let go of being some robotic vision of "professional." The best to you and your business, Mark Silver --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Silver is the author of Unveiling the Heart of Your Business: How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your Heart, Heal the World, and Still Add to Your Bottom Line. He has helped hundreds of small business owners around the globe succeed in business without losing their hearts. Get three free chapters of the book online: http://www.heartofbusiness.com --- END ARTICLE --- Get HTML or TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of This Article at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/s/curse-of-professionalism.shtml#get_code ..................................... TERMS OF REPRINT - Publication Rules (Last Updated: May 11, 2006) Our TERMS OF REPRINT are fully enforcable under the terms of: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.2281.ENR: ..................................... *** Digital Reprint Rights *** * If you publish this article in a website/forum/blog, You Must Set All URL's or Mailto Addresses in the body of the article AND in the Author's Resource Box as Hyperlinks (clickable links). * Links must remain in the form that we published them. Clean links should point to the Author's links without redirects having been inserted into the copy. * You are not allowed to Change or Delete any Words or Links in the Article or Resource Box. Paragraph breaks must be retained with articles. You can change where the paragraph breaks fall, but you cannot eliminate all paragraph breaks as some have chosen to do. * Email Distribution of this article Must be done through Opt-in Email Only. No Unsolicited Commercial Email. * You Are Allowed to format the layout of the article for proper display of the article in your website or in your ezine, so long as you can maintain the author's interests within the article. * You may not use sentences from this article as an input for any software that steals sentences from others in order to build an article with software. The copyright on this article applies to the "WHOLE" article. *** Author Notification *** We ask that you notify the author of publication of his or her work. Mark Silver can be reached at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** Print Publication Reprint Rights *** If you desire to publish this article in a PRINT publication, you must contact the author directly for Print Permission at: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ..................................... If you need help converting this text article for proper hyperlinked placement in your webpage, please use this free tool: http://thephantomwriters.com/link-builder.pl ===================================================================== ABOUT THIS ARTICLE SUBMISSION http://thePhantomWriters.com is a paid article distribution service. thePhantomWriters.com and Article-Distribution.com are owned and operated by Bill Platt of Stillwater, Oklahoma USA. Learn more about our article distribution services by visiting: http://thephantomwriters.com/x.pl/tpw/info/article-distribution/index.html The content of this article is solely the property and opinion of its author, Mark Silver http://www.heartofbusiness.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX --------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* To have your article appear in this distribution list, you must absolutely be a client of thePhantomWriters. We offer a paid article distribution service, and this is one of the more than 60 groups where we submit our client articles. To learn more about our program, visit: http://thePhantomWriters.com/x.pl/tpw/index.htmYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thePhantomWriters/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thePhantomWriters/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
