College basketball fans turn their attention each spring to March Madness, otherwise known as the NCAA Tournament. It's a hoop-junkie's dream come true - four weeks of "win-or-go-home" basketball featuring the best teams in the land. But what if they didn't keep score? What if they just played for fun?

It doesn't work that way in athletics, and it seldom works that way in the professional world. We set goals, we measure results and, ultimately, we win or go home depending upon how well we do against the competition.

by Brock Henderson www.bhenderson.com

In an article I wrote some time back, I compared initiating a marketing campaign to pushing a car. At the very beginning it takes a great deal of effort to get a car rolling, but once you do get some momentum it is much easier to push.

This is true in marketing as well; there is a great deal of effort (behind the scenes as well as in the media), before things begin to happen.

Marketing takes time. It isn't like walking into a room and turning on the light, it's more like waiting for water to boil. Time and energy are expended up front to get a significant result. Planning is very important in any campaign, be it marketing or military.

by Brock Henderson www.bhenderson.com

There isn’t anything more rewarding than having a satisfied customer refer a friend to you. That customer comes to you pre-sold on you, your business, and your product or service. Referrals, (aka word of mouth), are worth their weight in gold to any business; the mistake some business people make is in relying on word of mouth as their primary, or even sole form of marketing. There are two basic problems with word of mouth advertising that most either ignore or don’t recognize:

1. Nobody cares more about the success of your business than you; and, 2. To get people to talk about you, you must do something to get them talking.

by Mac Hammond

To be certain you are hearing someone accurately, especially in conflict resolution, use paraphrases to reiterate to the person what you believe you have heard him say.

For example, you may need to say something like this: "Okay. Let me be sure I've heard you correctly. I understand that you think I believe this and this and I did that. Is that what you said?"

This technique will keep both of you from misunderstanding. It also allows the other person an opportunity to validate your understanding, and it short-circuits distorted communication caused by the hurt feeling so often present in these kinds of exchanges.

by Mac Hammond

When Lee Iacocca was appointed vice-president of Ford Motor Company at the age of thirty-six, it didn't surprise him one bit. Why? Because, as a college student at Lehigh University, he had established it as a goal. At the age of twenty, he had decided to become a Ford vice-president by age thirty-five. He only missed his goal by one year.

For most of us, we've been hearing all our lives about the importance of setting realistic goals and objectives. It's almost become old hat to talk about the need to write down achievable, measurable goals as a key to accomplishing things. But in spite of that, I never cease to be amazed at how few people actually do it.

Have you ever tried to explain something to someone, only to be met with a blank stare? Maybe you were trying to tell a client why his one-of-a-kind inventory tracking program wasn't working. Maybe you were seeking to inform your team about subtle changes to your company's health insurance plan. Maybe you were attempting to help your teenager with a calculus problem.

Whatever you were trying to do, it just wasn't working. Somehow, the message you were trying to convey wasn't getting through to your audience. In fact, you may as well have been talking to a rock.

The ability to make the complex seem simple is a mark of a good communicator. Some people do this naturally—they have an innate capacity to explain complex concepts in ways that evoke understanding instead of vacant looks. As I often say, they know how to put the cookies on the lower shelf so everybody can have some.