Can your new and existing clients see your expertise?- Removing the angst from value conversations by demonstrating your brilliance.
This morning at 9am I was a “model” at my client, Rodney Wayne Takapuna for their L’Oreal Inoa color training session with L’Oreal’s specialist trainer. I have had my hair colored one shade or another for as long as I can remember, but this morning was the first time I fully appreciated, and fully understood, the level of professional chemistry expertise that goes into hair color and getting it right.

How come this was the first time I got it? I think its because I was, for the first time, privy to the conversations that usually go on in the head of the stylists and color technicians but never get voiced. In a training session everything is explicit and voiced to demonstrate the processes. Normally, when I say “make me blonder” I hear “yes” what I don't hear are the mental acrobatics going on in the head of the stylist, analyzing my current color, my hair condition, my natural color, my skin tones, my allergies and a whole bunch of other things too many to mention.

Now earlier on this morning at 5am, I sat in on a virtual classroom session run by ninetyfive5 in San Francisco. Ninetyfive5 provides sales training with its sales success system and simply say “less nonsense more sales”. This morning we were learning about the “Demand Creation Process”. Sean Frontz described Demand Creation as “an artful balance between inquiry and advocacy” .

As I sat in the chair looking like Medusa with 8 different dye colors on my head, assimilating everything I had heard, learnt and seen this morning, I concluded:

that just because hairdressers don't traditionally demonstrate their expertise by writing or blogging they need to find a way to demonstrate that expertise in other ways;
thought leadership in hairdressing requires demonstration of specialist brilliance to the extent that it earns the trusted advisor mantle;
expertise can be demonstrated to new clients or potential new clients by making a more conscious effort at inquiry balanced with advocacy;
the value and associated price discussion would be eliminated in more cases, if only clients got to see and hear more of the decision making process. Which process is entirely predicated by the client’s own particular and unique combination of factors combined with a high level of technical and product knowledge; and
the demand creation process needs to happen, whether we are service or product suppliers and, provided we are driven by that genuine desire to “try to determine if there is a good fit”. In hairdressing as everywhere else, as Sean said this morning “the first few minutes will be the most crucial”.

I am back in my office, (not bald!), with natural healthy looking hair, after my morning in the chemistry lab and pondering on when the first opportunity will arise for me to practice demand creation in my legal practice.

Jennie Vickers
18 August 2010

wpc10 elearning using installs are going six feet under with the arrival of the cloud, Guidetools Aegility has been in the cloud since the time it was just a raindrop, are you ready to trash the instal and get into cloud learning with 90% pass and completion rates instead of the old 10% failure?

“There is no rule 6” and there is just one rule-the reality of the Chatham House Rule-Post 1 in the your legal s**** series

A crazy skit by the classic English comedy troupe, Monty Python was a weird and wonderful starting point to my lifelong interest in the common confusions around legal rules.

The skit depicted the Australian ‘Bruces’ working out faculty rules at the University of Woolamaloo (there were 7 very politically incorrect rules but no rule 6) Alarmingly, this was also my first introduction to Australians!

I attended a seminar last week where the presenter announced that the Chatham House Rules would apply. What they were meaning was, that to allow free discussion, which might involve known or identifiable individuals, the discussions should be kept confidential. Whenever anyone talks about the CH Rules, I wryly think first of the Bruces and then the lawyer in me gets bothered because there is only one rule and it is not about confidentiality of subject matter, as many believe.
The rule originated in 1927 in the building now known as Chatham House in London, at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. They needed a protocol to allow free and open dialogue so speakers could express their personal opinions outside of party lines, without concern of attribution to them. It did not mean confidential discussions with information not to be expressed outside the room; it just meant no attribution to an individual speaker, ever. The refined rule published in 2002 says "When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed".
The nub of the matter is if you want total confidentiality for any discussions in a meeting say so, or go with the more relaxed "what goes on tour stays on tour" principle, but if you only want or need anonymity of personal contribution with no attribution, go with the CH Rule.
The Rule is clearly unnecessary and inappropriate if you are jamming with a group of Thought Leaders throwing ideas around, but could be absolutely essential with clients and colleagues if you are trying to have an open conversation without the limitations caused by butt covering.
It might take time to get to grips with this distinction, but using this rule when what you need is confidentiality can, as the Bruces would say "going to cause a little confusion".

Jennie Vickers

To what extent are parents needing to take more control of their children's behaviour and decisions? and why is no one discussing this? The government cannot be responsible for everything. Sadly in the paper this morning yet another story of a teenager's death due to alcohol and last week another due to drink driving. In last week's case the mother was asking why the courts had not taken her daughter's keys away. Why had the parents and friends not done so? If we do not want to be over governed we need to sort these issues out for ourselves so we do not see any more grieving parents and regretful friends.

Come to the first Thought Leaders Summit in New Zealand, http://ping.fm/uES9d Be there 18 May 2010 a radical rethink of conferencing, seminaring, and workshopping for people interested in cutting edge ideas.

Hi
I am great at promoting other people's work and programmes and have been forgetting about my own! So here goes..

As I am sure you are aware, apart from being a LNZ graduate I am also Tony Buzan's principal instructor in New Zealand. Tony being the creator and inventor of mind mapping. Many people have expressed an interest in hearing and experiencing more about these programmes either for their own advancement or for consideration for having courses run in house. Hopefully many people still remember the crazy names we developed in early sessions at LNZ.

Here is the perfect opportunity to learn some more. Next week I am running 4 half day courses:
Range and Rapid Reading-Morning of Tuesday 27 April
Memory and Memorability- Afternoon of Tuesday 27 April
Mind Mapping-Morning of Wednesday 28th April
Computer Enhanced Thinking-Afternoon of Wednesday 28th April The details are on our Buzan site at http://buzan.com.au/. We have a special running, if you sign up for a morning course you can stay for the afternoon for only an extra A$99. Please note all pricing is in Australian dollars.

Would love to see you there, any questions feel free to email or call. If the dates don't work I will be running the course again on 21 and 22 July. Sign up now and the special will apply to the July programmes as well.

If you think a friend or colleague or even your entire database would be interested please feel free to forward this and they can enjoy the discount as well.

Small claims and Disputes Tribunals-I am looking for stories of people's experiences. Share with me jennievickers@xtra.co.nz

Mental Fitness is a must for all of us. Brain week is coming up so take the opportunity to limber up that brain. Become a fan of Brainweek New Zealand on facebook

Meetings should matter-try today to change the way you meet-deal with the most important matter first forget the admin and the blah blah, see www.zeopard.com for my paper on creative meetings.

Looking back at the predictions and suggestions of things we needed to do going into the new millennium and they reveal that little has changed. Taking the time to go back and read books published pre 2000 to look for wisdom and gems we have chosen to ignore is an illuminating process!

Rowdy Mclean delivered an awesome keynote here in NZ on Friday night. He is getting hot and bothered about the cottonwool society. I am absolutely with him on that. One of the ramifications is that we have more laws and more opportunities for our young people to screw up. Time for more personal awareness and accountability-those guys have to run the World in 30 years time, no use if they are locked up or useless.

Finally the elder statesmen of our business community are starting to understand the reasons why they must understand social media and marketing, thanks to the patient and persuasive words of Rod Drury at the IOD this morning. Having run my entire ADLSi presidential campaign using social media and had virtually no interest from the legal profession it was good to hear that accountants are ahead of the game! Possibly though these are signs of further threats to the legal profession as it gets left behind in the dinosaur dump!