Image courtesy of Master isolated images / FreeDigitalPhotos.net Linked In member Alan started a good discussion in the Small Business Accelerator group with the question "What happened to the salutation in emails?" That is a closed group, so you can only see the discussion if you are a group member. It is an intriguing topic and the question received many varied and interesting replies. I thought it would make a good subject for a blog post, here is my response, I also recorded it as a podcast, just click on the player below to listen. Comment starts: As a general rule, I use "Hello" and the recipient's name for two reasons. One, very few people use Hello, the default seems to be Hi which as a non-North American for most of my life I find too informal for business use. I like to be outside the herd. I do not have an objection to Hi on emails sent to me, but would prefer the sender showed some originality if the correspondence becomes frequent. Secondly, as a Boomer generation male I am cautious about addressing younger females as "Dear". I do use Dear, when appropriate and will sometimes incorporate the recipient's name into a compliment as a salutation if it works. Generally only in follow-up emails in a series on a related subject. Time related salutations are awkward, we have no way of knowing when our emails will be opened and many of us are communicating across time zones. Your Good Morning might seem incongruous when I am checking my emails late at night. "Good Day" sounds antiquated. "Greetings" before a name is an alternative I occasionally use for Hello. Emails received with no salutation do not give me a good first impression and are more likely to be deleted unread. I rarely send a salutation-less email and only if I want to make a point or provide a one or two-word response. The salutation "Dear" and my first name in emails from people with whom I have had no prior contact assumes a familiar relationship status. In the pre-email days, the equivalent salutation in a letter would be one of Dear Sir / Madam, or Dear Mr. Mrs. Miss, and surname / last name. I accept that my last comment is due to my generational and educational biases and that society has evolved with less formal rules. However, we all have biases, so a marketer who ignores a generation's biases in email correspondence is going to experience a lower response rate than one who does recognise them. Even if the recipients themselves cannot identify which words or omissions are triggering the negative effect. Comment ends An inappropriate, disrespectful or offensive salutation can create a negative effect in the receivers mind before he or she has read the content. Sandwich that between a weak subject line and an ineffective opening sentence and you have an email that is not going to be read or get action. Groups of people have biases, they could be generational, educational, religious, ethnic, cultural, occupational, recreational, geographical or any of a range of distinctions. It's impossible to please all the people all the time, but exercising care with salutations in emails is just one way we can make our communication more effective. How do you prefer to be addressed in emails, what is your preferred salutation in those you send? Are they the same or do you use different salutations for different contacts? Leave a comment. Wishing you success.

Sugin Ong via Compfight Yes there really can be gold in a stable full of dirt. The metaphorical kind, not the kind that glitters, but it can be just as valuable. Here's how I discovered my latest find. My gold nugget was the glaring example of how persistence, small daily actions over a period, can amount to a huge goal. When we moved to Canada in 2004, we were fortunate to find this rented farmhouse where we can live out in the country. Although old and in need of serious renovation, the house is secure, the rental reasonable and we have the use of a couple of acres for our horses and two old barns. On the side of one barn, there is a huge run-in shelter that our horses can use to get out of the rain, wind and snow. We constructed stalls in the lower level of the better barn where we feed and groom the horses before turning them out into the small paddock around the barns and shelter for the night. We only have two horses now and a third boards with us over winter. Each evening we bring them into their stalls for a brush, to clean out their hooves and check them for cuts or scrapes.  My horse, Magic Penny, has been using the same stall for the 7 years we have had him, the same with Silver, Sue's horse and Top Gun the winter boarder. The horses do not spend the night in the stalls, only about 30 minutes for food and grooming. We do not put any straw or shavings on the floor. If they drop a pile of manure, we remove it immediately but we have not been sweeping  the dirt out of the stalls. Over the last few weeks, I had noticed how big the pile of dirt had become in Magic Penny's stall. On Sunday, I took a wheelbarrow and shovel and cleared it out, 3 full wheelbarrows of it, probably weighing well over 100 kgs or 220 lbs in total. Where had it come from? It had come from the dirt I clean out of the horses hooves every day, some days more than others, but generally only a hand full a day, no more than a few ounces. An insignificant amount, but multiplied by 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year for 7 years, that is over 2500 hand fulls - or a big pile of dirt. What has this to do with goals? Goals are important, the bigger and more audacious, the better, but too often we can be overwhelmed by those goals. Shovelling up 3 barrow loads of dirt in a short time took effort, scraping out a few ounces a day over a long period seemed easy. To achieve our goals, we need determination, courage and more, but without persistence, consistent daily action, we will not achieve them. Continual forward movement, no matter how small each step might be gets results. Sometimes we can take giant leaps, but the foundation is persistence. Malcolm Gladwell in chapter 2 of his book "Outliers",  writes about it taking 10 000 hours to become an expert in anything. Those 10 000 hours are not acquired in one giant burst of energy. They are accumulated over years and decades of persistent application, sometimes a few minutes at a time, sometimes hours or days, but always part of persistent action. If I think back to my running days, important as they were for stamina, it was not the individual long training runs that prepared me for the ultra-marathons, it was running 6 days a week for 3 years that got me through the first one. How does that translate to our businesses and life itself? One occasional slack day when we don't apply ourselves won't ruin our business or our life, the danger is when we lose the discipline of persistent action. How persistent are you in taking daily steps towards your goals? Wishing you success.     p.s. That is not my horse in the photo at the top. I did not have one of Magic Penny in his stall. It is raining to day, so I am not going to try and take one. Here is one of him from a few weeks ago with him standing quietly for a change. Mike the dog and Silver, Sue's horse also in the photo.

Joan M. Mas via Compfight In a recent Toastmasters speech, the speaker used the term "Incidentally Descriptive" to relate how a 13-year-old girl had said she was "devastated"  by her boyfriend ending their relationship. Apart from being a memorable and unusual pairing of words, the term stuck in my mind. That use of devastated, surprised me, I would think that someone being abandoned after a life long relationship would be devastated, but a young teenager? The speaker then went on to tell us that, in reality, the girl was far from "devastated". "Mildly irritated" would be more accurate and "Secretly relieved" perhaps even closer to the truth. It reminded me of how our choice of words can colour the meaning of the message we are trying to communicate. It also highlights the cultural variations of different speakers using the same language. The word choices we make to describe similar events can result in styles ranging from the factually sterile to the dramatically emotional. Why should there be such a huge variance in the same language? Cultural differences and biases. Educational biases. Levels of education. Reading habits and preferences. Visual media preferences, TV, Video, Film, Internet. Generational differences. Educational biases and standards, reading and viewing preferences, even generational differences are fairly obvious. Cultural differences and biases not so much. The education system in Rhodesia, where I spent most of my life, closely followed the British system. It tended to produce English speakers with wide but unemotional vocabularies. Because of the comparatively late introduction and then limited channel choices of TV, it also encouraged my generation of baby boomers to be enthusiastic and wide-ranging readers. Apart from the influence of American films, it was a very "British" culture. We did not grow up using words like "awesome", "fantastic" and other superlatives as they are used in North America. Perhaps as a result of the terrorist war, sanctions and being abandoned by our former allies, we became accustomed to bad things happening to good people.  A mother of 3 suddenly widowed by a terrorist ambush or a bomb in a supermarket might be "devastated". But not a 13-year-old breaking up with a boyfriend. Does language drive behaviour or behaviour drive language? Obviously both to some degree. Words and expressions seen as fashionable in a small clique of celebrity artists or athletes start to get used in the media, then get picked up by a wider audience, become accepted and evolve into the mainstream vocabulary. "Gay" and "Cool" are two prime examples of words that now have totally different primary meanings to the originals. Does the adoption of new words and meanings encourage the adoption of fashions associated with the original first users like low-slung  backside-exposing jeans and back to front caps? Or are they both mutually dependent? One problem with increasingly emotional language becoming the norm is that superlatives lose their meaning and impact. If we describe a cute kitten video on You Tube as "awesome", how do we convey the "awesomeness" of a tsunami wrecking hundreds of miles of coastline and killing thousands of people? It is another indicator that in this age of information overload, we need to regain the lost art of discernment. If relatively mundane events like 13 year old's romances ending are "devastating", is it any wonder that entire classes of North American school children are now subjected to counselling for events that in most other cultures would hardly warrant more than a few words of sympathy or explanation? Is the need for counselling an effect of emotional language? Or does counselling encourage its use? Are we on a downward spiral of needing to dramatise every event with the most emotional language possible? What happens when "awesome", "devastated" and "cool" are no longer "cool"? Will we have to invent new words,

Elena Pérez Melgarejo via Compfight Podcasting has been getting a lot of exposure as an attention-getting evolution of ordinary blogging. That is understandable for several reasons: It's still a bit of a novelty. We often have time to listen (while driving for example) but not enough time to read. Hearing the authors voice can create a more personal experience than written words. Two podcasters who have mastered the art are Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income and David Siteman Garland of Rise to the Top. Both produce great podcasts. Click on the links to hear how they do it. The technical side of podcasting frightens most of us ordinary bloggers, it was certainly the main reason for me not getting involved earlier. I imagined that I would need to buy a studio full of expensive equipment to produce even basic podcasts. Turns out that is not the case at all. Of course better equipment will produce higher quality productions, it is possible to start with very little expense or technical expertise. I recorded my first audio blog post recently using Audacity, free sound recording and editing  software, and a $25 microphone which gives a higher level of recording quality than the microphone built into a webcam.  I recorded straight onto my computer, exported the final version of the sound file to my WordPress media library and then posted the link in the blog post. Although it worked adequately, I was not able to display a media player icon in the post or an easy way for readers to subscribe to podcasts.In an effort to solve those two problems, I went on a search for a plugin that might make my life easier. I found one with the Bluberry Power Press Plugin. It is a free plugin, I found it by typing "Podcast" into the search box on the plugin page. It is easy to install and configure to display the media player either before or after posts or within posts by inserting a code word at the required place. Like this: It will also make it simple for visitors to subscribe to your podcasts via iTunes. Linking the audio to the blog post is a simple operation. Record the audio, edit it and export the final version to a folder as a .wav file, upload that to your media library using your WordPress dashboard. Then copy that link and paste it in the "Media URL" box in the "Podcast Episode" window which appears below the "Add new post" window when the plugin has been installed.           If you are nervous about installing plugins, I wrote a post about the process with screen shots on my Focused Prosperity blog here. If you want to make it easier for visitors to your blog to get your content via different media, then start podcasting and give this plugin a test drive. Something different but which could be a useful reminder to some readers.  A recent visitor Shanna Houston sent me this link on 6 steps to insuring antiques and collectibles. It's something most of us don't think about. The only antiques in my house are the house itself at 110 and myself a little younger. What if you do have a valuable antique and assume it's covered by your regular home policy? A bit late to find out it wasn't after a catastrophe of some sort. Wishing you success.

miez! via Compfight   A gas (petrol for international readers)  station attendant was tragically killed in Toronto last Saturday when he attempted to stop a driver leaving without paying for $112 worth of gas (petrol). My sympathies go to...

bluecinderella via Compfight Way back when I was in the corporate world and we had "Personnel" instead of "Human Resources" departments, I remember hearing the term "Attitude will always trump Aptitude". It has proved to be correct time and ...

This post is a hard one to categorise, it's a bit of marketing, a bit of motivation with a touch of creative thinking and perseverance thrown in. There is also an innovation (for me) which you will find if you read through to the end. Let's start with motivation, goals and creativity - and a subtle sales pitch. In my "Achieving Goals" book about "How to use Marathon Runners Secrets for Business Goals" (Kindle eBook version on sale for $2.99) I wrote how I was a hopeless athlete at school. Too slow for track events, too clumsy for high or long jump and downright dangerous throwing the javelin, shot put or discus. I did marginally better at longer distances and cross-country. In the 60's when I started High School in Rhodesia, attendance at school sports was compulsory. Unless a genuine note from a doctor could be produced, the penalty for missing a practice was three strokes of the cane. (6 strokes for getting caught presenting a forged note.) The punishment was sufficient motivation for me to turn out for athletics, rugby and cricket practice depending on the season and to make rare appearances for the school team as a poor substitute if there was a shortage of better players. My sporting ambitions were all focused on the back of a horse. I was fortunate that I was given my first horse (and the responsibility of caring for it) at the tender age of seven. I was also fortunate that all my sluggish clumsiness on the athletic field disappeared and I became recklessly fearless on horseback. The introduction to equine sports at an early age led to years of great experiences, but that is a story for another time. That is why running my first marathon and then a series of longer, ultra marathons in my late 30's and 40's were huge challenges and became the Big Hairy Audacious Goals that self-help and personal development experts love to talk about. Another skill I lacked and was seriously mocked for at school was any trace of musical or singing ability. After a few singing classes in junior school, I was told that a) I was tone-deaf and b)  my out-of-tune croaking was upsetting the natural harmony of the rest of the class. I was banned from taking part in any further singing or music classes and told to sit in the corner and read a book. That effectively ended any chance of a music career before it started. This was before the days of political correctness and the unfortunate modern practice of rewarding mediocre or worse, non-performance.  I believe our generation of Baby Boomers is better for it. My lack of musical ability was strange in that my late father had played in a military band before I was born and could pick up a guitar, a wind instrument or sit at a piano and in minutes play a recognisable tune by ear. I was shocked to hear him play the Beatles' "Yesterday". The ability skipped a generation with me and went instead to my elder son who has the same ability to very quickly learn how to produce a tune from an instrument. Having got the running bug out of my system by achieving all the goals and more that I set out to do, it has long been a goal to learn to play a musical instrument. This is partly a desire to learn a new skill, partly in the hope that it will help me become more creative in my writing and marketing, partly as yet another defence against Alzheimer's disease. Most of all, short of attempting to swim across Lake Erie, (I am a weak swimmer) it is one of the most difficult challenges I can think of. I have to overcome 50+ years of living with the knowledge that I have no musical talent what so ever. Because I know so little about music, choosing a musical instrument or even how to go about learning to play one, I thought I would start with a used one. On the way back from a dental appointment today, I remembered that an acquaintance was now working at a large antique / used goods centre and that he might be able to advise me. Here is the marketing bit.

There are hundreds of experts out there with their own success secrets for bloggers, some are good, some not so good, many are common sense. Few have become successful as quickly as Michael Stelzner with his blog Social Media Examiner. Here is a video of him being interviewed by David Siteman Garland of Rise to the Top. Michael now has over 85 000 subscribers to his newsletter after only 19 months, so I reckon he is worth listening to.   // Two big secrets I took away from this interview were: Most blog posts have a shelf life of only 72 hours Regular fuel is good but nuclear fuel gets you into the stratosphere Hope you find it interesting. Both Rise to The Top and Social Media Examiner should be on your list of blogs to follow. Are you getting caught up in all the buzz about Google+? I have been playing with it, I published a post on my other blog Wishing you success in all your endeavours. // //

mov02e2 Many people ask me what my life in Africa was like. It's a long story and it will be published in a book, but not yet. I have posted a short version on my About Me page. My intention is to show that despite the worst that the recession or even just life can throw at us, only we can decide how we respond. We can choose to stay in the victim role or we can choose to pick ourselves up and start moving again. Sue and I chose to keep moving forward, I am so glad we did. Wishing you success in all your endeavours