Read This If You're Getting Tons Of Useless Emails From Companies About Corona Virus
"The health of our employees is important to us . . ."
"Please, remember to wash your hands . . ."
"We're washing down all our keyboards and sending people home . . ."
Unless you are contributing some new information or notifying of some important procedural change that impacts customers in a big way, these emails are basically just spam.
That's the definition of spam, isn't it?
It's pretending to be ham.
But it's not.
So, it's spam.
Here's what I think is happening:
Someone at the office is saying "Jeeze, a lot of people are talking about this and I just got this email from Bob's Crab Shack telling me they're only serving pick-up orders. What do you think, Bill? I guess we'd better send something out to our list to let them know we are taking this seriously."
Doesn't that just inspire you?
The best email I've gotten so far has been from a financial advisor saying "don't make any moves!"
From a user perspective, getting a zillion emails is not a good thing. It means I have less time to distinguish the spam from the ham. I have less time to do useful things.
If the people who wrote the email thought of what the customer actually needs, I don't think 90% of these emails would be sent at all.
If anything, all this nonsense is an indication that the bar is low!
The bar is low for interesting, useful, and important messaging!
It's your time!
2 Minute Action:
Take one small, single thing you do today and just before you execute it, consider what your customer or end-user will actually think.
I guess another way to say all this is to "treat others the way you wish to be treated."
And the crazy part?
I bet it only takes 2 minutes or less to consider.
The Part of Perfectionism Everyone Struggles With
If I’m being honest with you, writing every day is hard.
Especially considering the parameters I gave myself.
Each post must:
- Be in my own voice
- Have my unique viewpoint
- Be quickly digestible
- Be actionable
When I committed to writing every day, I realized that this was big.
Coming up with a fresh concept, in my own words, that was easy to consume, and that also demanded a discrete action that could be achieved in 2 minutes or less is a pretty difficult challenge.
So, what happened?
Sometimes posts didn’t go out at the right time. I travel a lot so timezones have messed with my automated triggers that send out emails and tweets.
Sometimes I am finishing my workday at a weird hour and I’m exhausted—but I still have to write. It’s painful.
Sometimes I miss typos, fail to get the point across or make the post too short to really communicate the point.
Basically, I fail a lot.
And however much I fail, it feels like I’m failing 10 times that.
The point isn’t to make it perfect. Well, at least not today. Or tomorrow.
The point is to constantly approach the upper limit.
The point is to ride the asymptote of improvement as far over to perfect as I can.
The only way to do that is by writing, reviewing, adapting, testing, getting feedback, and writing again.
The other part is to accept that people are going to criticize what you’re doing, especially you. In fact, you are often your own worst critic.
This is the case for writing and it’s the case for everything else.
There’s no substitute for consistently doing the work.
And you’re not allowed to beat yourself up.
2 Minute Action
What’s something that you’ve been meaning to improve in your life?
- Exercise?
- Marketing your brand?
- Motivating your volunteers?
- Energizing your students in the morning?
Here are some things you can do right now in 2 minutes or less:
- Do burpees for 2 minutes straight. If you can’t, do 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off.
- Send out an email to past clients and ask them to write a testimonial for your brand.
- Pick a measurable outcome that volunteers can see. If they can see how well they’re doing, they are more likely to improve.
- Google “fun facilitation exercises” like “rock, paper, scissors, posse.” You have the whole internet at your fingertips.
The Counterintuitive Effect Of Employee Of The Month
What is it about the employee of the month program that feels so fake and contrived?The weird thing is, that it's programs like this, that are intended to recognize people for their hard work, that fall short in delivering the one thing that people need to be the best, highest output versions of themselves.It's the recognition for their work that people are looking for.It's the idea that their work matters.Still unsure? Check out these quick and powerful stats about employee recognition.
It's clear:
People don't leave bad jobs.People leave bad managers.
So what do you do?
Take literally 2 minutes each day and recognize someone on your team.
2 Minute Action:
Just call them out for something they did when no one was looking.
- Send an email.
- Post in your Slack lobby.
- Write a thank you card.
It takes 2 minutes.Everyone has 2 minutes to recognize the people around you for the great work they're doing.