[Podcast] HIT Piece 11.18.2014: 3 Announcements + Links

I am proud to announce that there are 3 new project developments in the world of Human Services Consulting and Training:

I am busy this month, January and February, doing interviews on radio and via podcast, getting the word out about Human Services Consulting and Training’s launch in January 2015 of the ongoing podcast series, Earbud_U.

This podcast will start, Netflix-like, by dropping 12, pre-recorded interviews featuring artists, film directors, illustrators, and perhaps even my wife, on January 15th.

I have also recently agreed to begin writing two, 500 word blog posts per month for the online alternative dispute resolution journal, ADRTimes.com.

I consider them to be (as do many others in the ADR field) the “New York Times” of ADR and I am very excited to be distributing content focused around marketing philosophies, techniques and best practices for ADR professionals. Please check them out here.

Finally, I will be delivering the keynote address and also performing a breakout sessions with the attendees at the BOLD Conference at Ithaca College, focused on the topic of “Negotiating with Outrageous Confidence.”

This is the second year that I have been invited to present and speak at this conference, focused on developing the skills and strategies of future business leaders and influencers, and I am happy to be invited.

And, considering how many women and minorities don’t negotiate at all (or negotiate nervously, poorly, or from any other untenable position) negotiating with outrageous confidence is the only way to go. At least, that’s what I think…

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Interviewing For Cultural Fit

Culture defines how employees make meaning about the work that they do.

Workplace culture is defined as ways of thinking, behaving and working in an organization that provides boundaries for where employees can and cannot place value.

The issue comes when the personal culture that an employee comes from doesn’t match the culture of the organization that they are joining.

In other contexts, this disruption is noted as lack of product market fit, and typically, in the open market, when an organization makes something that no one wants to buy, they go out of business.

When we think of hiring, the interview process is used as a way to avoid—or minimize—the detrimental results of a lack of product (people) market (job) fit.

However, these days the interview process is so artificial and so unable to determine if a person can actually do the job for which they have been hired, it is a wonder we haven’t done away with it.

Conflicts in the workplace arise from the get-go, because the initial person/organization fit is poor, and then they escalate when two people, tasked to work together to accomplish a company goal, can’t get along with each other and disagree about where they fit in the organization.

Cultural interpersonal conflicts at work are corrosive, damaging and dangerous and could probably be avoided if–instead of asking a series of artificial questions, or filing out meaningless, psychological assessments—the hiring organization could discover each individuals’ story about why they want to work for an organization in a particular position.

Would this be harder, more time consuming and require a deeper level of emotional intelligence on the part of the hiring committee? Sure. But firing and rehiring are just as time consuming and harder still.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

The Truth in All of Us

Honesty is such an ugly word, everyone is so untrue.

Except that while people may be untrue, they are often also unreliable, full of mixed motives and notoriously prone to following their own emotions and senses, rather than inclined provide the truth.

How do we provide the truth to others in love?

Well, there’s no easy way to tell the truth in love.

Major philosophies, major religious figures and even major political and social leaders have gone to their deaths either from telling the hard truth in love, or from not telling the truth at all.

Maybe the real key is to focus less on our struggles against what we think resides in other people’s heads and hearts, and to instead begin focusing on our own internal struggles with our own stuff.

And, the truth, once crushed to earth, will rise again.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Networking, Word-Of-Mouth and Marketing You Can Afford

For the consultant the three most valuable forms of marketing are as follows:

Networking
Word-of-Mouth
and Referral.

Let’s break those three down from the most valuable form of marketing to the least valuable, because we approach them a little differently than many other consultants operating in this same space, no matter what the field.

Everything is networking, from the sales funnel conversations to any random email, we approach every opportunity to connect with somebody—client, customer, fan or follower—as a potential networking opportunity.

Does this mean that every contact will give us cash in exchange for services?

Absolutely not.

As a matter of fact, 95% of all of our networking never ends in a sale.

Disheartening? Maybe. But it’s our most valuable form of marketing, because the more people we get in front of the better the exposure we have and the stronger our story becomes.

Then there’s number two:

Word of mouth is possibly the least sexy way to make a sale.

After all, no film or television show ever popularizes the interaction where a person states that, “Oh yeah, Susan is a great person. You should work with her.”

But, word-of-mouth comes about because of a job well done, a client well satisfied, a blog post well written, a networking conversation well handled or an “I don’t know” honestly said.

You know. The really unsexy stuff that happens in between the cracks of the business.

Finally, referrals are great, but here at HSCT we don’t chase them as a primary marketing driver.

They are very hard to get and are based on trust, time and relationship.

They don’t come because of a blithe turn of phrase or a perspective well stated.

Referrals as a marketing tool are the furthest down the funnel, because they are the most expensive to buy and are the least easy to afford.

Networking is the most valuable form of marketing that a consultant has when building a business. Word of mouth can only come after networking and thus becomes the second most valuable form of marketing. Finally, referral is the least valuable form of marketing, not because it can’t be mastered, but because it tends to be promoted as the easiest one, and is really the one based on years and years of the other two.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

HIT Piece 09.02.2014

I have a problem with gatekeepers.

But they aren’t going anywhere.

I have a problem with organizational structure based on warped economies of scale.

But that isn’t going anywhere either—yet.

So, I have to make a decision everyday:

How big a dent do I want to make in the universe?

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 08.26.2014

Faith has to be the driver.

If you are building something, after doing everything that you can do, with all the resources that you have available to yourself, then all that you have left, should be faith.

But, have I done everything that I can do in my power to build my idea?

Or have I stopped short, expecting faith to close the gap.

I know that work without faith is worthless, but work without effort (smoke without fire) makes faith look foolish.

Where do you think I am at?

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 08.19.2014

Going to the US Capital is always an adventure for me.

The museums are free and are open even on Sundays, but the trade-off is that you’ve gotta walk everywhere and buy overpriced food.

Museums, monuments, street names, bill titles, building names are all reflective and demonstrate to others what we value, whose side we’ve decided to be on and the nature of historical moment realities that may not translate to future realities.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 08.12.2014

As the media market continues to fracture and as consumers are allowed more and more opportunities to create their own entertainment, subscription (and micro-subscription) services for content delivery will be all the rage.

I don’t think that 260 million people will be creating their own micro-subscription services anytime soon; there will always be consumers of content, rather than just creators.

I also think that as the media landscape continues to fracture, the idea that there will ever be one world, united in opinion and purpose, becomes ever more tenuous.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 08.05.2014

I always tell the Steve Martin, San Francisco coffee house story before I begin speaking in front of groups of ten or less.

At some point in my career, I will be speaking before an empty room.

What matters is not the empty room, but how I handle what happens afterward.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 07.29.14

Things I heard at work:

“How can you keep working there with what they pay you?”

“What are you doing wasting your time there?”

“You’re too smart to be working there.”

“The problem with you is that you always took this place more seriously than I ever did.”

I agree.

That’s four of several hundred reasons that I don’t work there any more.

-Peace Be With You All-