Womens Forum - The Place For Moms

One of my favorite commercials is for Staples and it features a guy named Dave who single-handedly serves as the CEO, the IT guy, the administrative assistant, the mailroom clerk, the billing department and more. Running a boutique business for the past 10 years, I can relate.  Entrepreneurs often feel like they are standing in front of a dozen or more buckets that are slowly losing water and their job is to keep all of them equally filled - (and did I mention the only tool they can use is a teaspoon?).

As a publicist, I often work with authors and have covered a wide range of subjects over the past 10 years.  I recently engaged a business author Ben Benjamin whose new book, Conversation Transformation – Recognize and Overcome the 6 Most Destructive Communications Patterns (McGraw-Hill Professional, March 2012) discusses why our conversations become toxic.

Since I earn my living communicating, I figured that I would never engage in any of the six destructive conversation patterns he mentions – but apparently, I did so in one of our earliest conversations.

Recently, a longtime client decided to end a contract with our company one month before the agreement was scheduled to come to an end.  Part of his reason was that we are good at our jobs and so had achieved most of his PR objectives earlier than expected.  The other reason was that he wanted to use what he saved from ending our contract prematurely to hire a business consultant and financial planner to help drive company sales.

We’ve all done it.  Made assumptions about someone or something by what we see on the surface and not bothering to go deeper.  The other night, I was reading my son a Berenstain Bears Book which is a clever series that teaches children life lessons through the toils, travels and troubles of the Bear family.  The lesson Mama was teaching the cubs in this book was that “appearances can be deceiving.”

Sorry, what am I supposed to be doing right now?  Ah, yes, I’m blogging about distracted audiences.  Did I turn off the dryer, reply to that text message and send out a morning tweet?  Every day I feel like the plate spinner at the circus, focusing attention for a few precious seconds on the one plate that’s about to crash before shifting my focus to its neighbor.   And I’m not alone.  Suzanne Bates, CEO of Bates Communications, explains that each of us, to some extent, lives in a virtual world where we can be in two or three places at once.  “We’re watching the morning news, checking our messages on our iPad while responding to a text message on our phones,” she says.  “We’re ‘toggling’ rather than listening”.    

Why has this happened?  Bates says there are several reasons:

For the last ten years, I ran my public relations company out of my home. I took out a $50,000 loan, remodeled the basement and had my employees come to the house to work. I had fantasies of spending more time with my two sons, saving time on my commute, juggling the work-life balance with ease and being able to win more business based on my ability to underprice larger PR firms that had higher overhead costs.

Last month, I took the plunge and signed a lease for office space out of the house. Quite frankly, I had reached the end of my rope. The lines were blurred between home and work to the point where I didn’t enjoy being home anymore because even on weekends, there was a little voice nudging me to go downstairs and get something done to make the following work week just a little easier. When a contractor came to remodel our upstairs bathroom, the dust, chaos and number of people in and out of my home drove me to the office of the nearest realtor.

I’ve been on thousands of conference calls since I started my career and while most have been unremarkable, there are those that stand apart and will forever be fodder for cocktail party repertoire.  Share your conference call memories below and I may post them in an upcoming column!

What was THAT? 

We all have horror stories about shoddy customer service.  Whether it’s the waiter who ignores you until the bill is delivered, the salesclerk who takes a phone call while you’re standing in front of her at the register, or the frustration you experience when calling your cable company and ending up in automated response hell, no one wants to be ignored.  It doesn’t matter whether you are a career veteran or brand new to the workforce, everyone can benefit from these five commandments of customer service.

Founder & CEO of Goodwin Group PR

Hello! My name is Tara Goodwin Frier and I am the Founder & CEO of Goodwin Group PR, a Public Relations, Event Management, Crisis Communications and Social Media company. Founded in 2001, The Goodwin Group partners with clients to increase visibility in target markets, generate excitement for products and services, and create momentum to increase bottom lines.

Tara Goodwin Frier’s Career

My first full-time job was giving guided tours of the Massachusetts State House. I have fond memories of those years. Jodi Beck, Co-founder and Editor-In-Chief of Womensforum.com, and I had just graduated from Boston University and decided to move into our first grown-up apartment.  My most vivid memory was running a hot blow drier up and down Jodi’s neck while she washed her hair in the kitchen sink because we never had hot water.