Today is the official launch of my new book The Snowball Effect (communication techniques to make you unstoppable). The book has one main objective: to make a permanent improvement to how you communicate.

I’ve been delighted by the reviews so far. For example: business guru Brian Tracy said: “this fast-moving, helpful and practical book shows how to develop instant rapport, connect with the basic interests of the other person, and persuade him/her quickly to your point of view in a warm, professional manner.”

The book contains lots of simple, practical techniques, which I’ve split into four main sections:

• Persuade people to say “yes” more quickly, more often
• Enjoy your job more, because you’re calling the shots for a change
• Remove the communication frustrations you feel all too often
• Get more done more quickly, by getting people on your side faster

Click here to buy The Snowball Effect

Special offer – for today only

If you buy the book on Amazon today, I’ll send you a link to these fantastic insights from 14 top thought leaders:

• ‘Transform your ability to market yourself and influence others’, by marketing legend Drayton Bird
• ‘Raising your visibility with personal branding’, by Lesley Everett, the leading voice on Personal Branding
• ‘An hour of insightful, engaging and humorous views on how to better ourselves, and the people around us’ by international best-selling authors Paul McGee and Andy Cope
• ‘How to give impactful radio interviews and create compelling core messages‘, by Alan Stevens, an expert at helping companies enhance their reputation. Alan is currently President of the Global Speakers Federation
• ‘Quick tips for the perfect presentation’, by Simon Morton founder of Eyeful Presentations Ltd
• ‘A simple guide to successful reviewing’ by Tony Birch, who has 20+ years’ experience of preparing winning bids and pitches
• ‘40 power questions to grow your business’, by Bev James, CEO of the world’s largest training centre for coaches, and bestselling author of ‘Do it! Or ditch it!’
• ‘LinkedIn for Leaders’ and ‘The Three Click Myth’, by Phil Blything, co-founder of digital agency – Glow New Media
• ‘How to network your way to more business’ by Charlie Lawson, who runs the UK arm of the world’s largest networking and referrals organisation, BNI
• Excerpts from the book ‘OMG’ by Geoff Ramm – a multi-award winning international speaker, known as ‘the Billy Connolly of marketing’
• ‘Top ten negotiation tips’ by Alan McCarthy, a sales expert who has helped his customers win $billions of new business
• The e-book ‘How to achieve your goals’ by high performance coach Antony Stagg
• Plus five short videos from me, showing how to improve your meetings, emails, sales, PowerPoint slides … and your ability to say “no”!

To buy the book, and get all this advice for free, you only have to:

1. Buy the book on Amazon today
2. Send your proof of purchase today to my colleague emmamerry@andybounds.com

And that’s it.

Amazon will send you the book; we will send you the advice.

This offer is open to anybody. So, please feel free to forward this email to anyone who you think would be interested.

But the offer’s only valid if you buy the book today. So why not make it the next thing you do?

Thank you,

Andy

Click here to buy The Snowball Effect, and receive all the specialist advice for free

The three quick wins

To improve your communication, you have to get on the right BUS:

• Ban powerless PowerPoint
• Use the right channel
• Stop pointless meetings

In more detail…

Ban powerless PowerPoint. I don’t carry an umbrella when it’s sunny. That’s not what it’s designed for. It’s similar with PowerPoint. It’s great sometimes; but it’s terrible for stimulating debate, interactivity and just plain old thinking. Steve Jobs banned PowerPoint from meetings because it stifled ideas; and he was pretty successful. Unless it’s needed, leave that PowerPoint Umbrella at home.

Use the right channel. When an email is taking ages to write, it probably shouldn’t be an email. Just pick up the phone instead. When only one person speaks during a conference call, they probably should have emailed the detail upfront, and then hosted a shorter call to discuss the key points. When meetings stifle progress, discuss topics 121 first, and then meet to formalise consensus. If you want to channel things right, you have to use the right channel.

Stop pointless meetings. You know those meetings which achieve nothing? Well, stop having them. And if that feels too scary, stop them for a couple of weeks and see if it causes any problems (and then stop having them). Or, make something smaller – the number of attendees, the agenda, the time each presenter is allowed to speak, the meeting duration… anything.

All these are pretty simple to do. Which will you do first?

The special offer

My new book The Snowball Effect (communication techniques to make you unstoppable) is out now.

But please don’t buy it.

Not yet, anyway. Let me explain…

Like Tuesday Tips, The Snowball Effect has only one aim: to permanently improve how you communicate. In fact, Dragons Den’s James Caan describes it as “A toolbox of powerful techniques that will help anyone communicate more powerfully, effectively and confidently than ever before.”

So why don’t I want you to buy it?

Well, I’m officially launching it on Amazon next week. Anyone who buys it next Tuesday (5th March) will also receive some fantastic insights – for free – from ten of the UK’s top thought leaders. So, in addition to the book, you’ll get advice on such topics as: influencing others, personal branding, self-development, impactful media interviews, impressive presentations, best-practice documents, and much more.

Action point

So, please don’t buy the book… yet. (Don’t worry: I’ll remind you about the offer next week).

For now, why not get on the Communication BUS, and see how much time you can free up for yourself and others?

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All businesses are looking to make things “simple”. After all, Apple – the pioneers of simplicity – has done pretty well because of it. So, there’s lots of talk and initiatives about removing needless processes, and simplifying others.

Of course, it’s also important to simplify communications. Here’s a list of things that don’t make things simple:

1. Running meetings with too many people, who make decision making slower
2. Meetings where some/all agenda items could have been decided in 121s/by email
3. Groups being constrained by having to sit through a detailed PowerPoint, when a chat accompanied by a flipchart would have done much better
4. Discussions about solving problems which focus largely on the problem and its ramifications, rather than going straight to looking for the solution
5. Lots of senior people giving their own personal slant on centrally-produced information. This often just adds noise, not value
6. Needless communication processes that were initiated years ago because one person did one thing wrong once. These processes are pointless, but have become entrenched in the culture
7. Insufficient preparation upfront. This means the communication doesn’t go well, so everyone has to spend ages trying to rectify it
8. Weekly update meetings that add nothing
9. FYI emails, again, that add nothing

I could advise ‘just stop doing all that’. And, in an ideal world, that would be all that’s needed. But, it’s hard (impossible?) to permanently break habits just like that.

However, there are simple things you can do which would take zero time, but make a big difference:

1. Invite less people to meetings (maybe send the arising actions to interested non-attendees?)
2. Have shorter agendas. Even better, don’t call a meeting unless it has to be a meeting
3. Take flipcharts to meetings, not PowerPoints
4. Start problem-solving meetings with “we all agree X is a problem. This meeting will help us remove it. So let’s start by discussing the first possible solution we’ve identified, which is …”
5. If you’re senior, don’t communicate your views on centrally-produced information, unless it’s absolutely necessary. Once you’ve stopped, ask people what were the adverse effects, if any
6. Stop pointless comms/processes for a week and see what happens. If ‘nothing’, don’t re-install them
7. Diarise to prep
8. Reduce updates – have them fortnightly, not weekly; and/or make them 30 minutes, not 60… or just stop having them
9. Never, ever send something FYI. Instead, write what you want them to do with it: ‘Please read, and tell me if we need to adapt our approach’ etc

All these are simple. The only reason for not doing them is habit, not complexity.

Given all this, it’s clear that it’s simple to make certain things simple. How can you best help yourself/others by doing so?

Action point

Look at your communications this week. What could you do, to make some/all of them simpler? (This Tip’s given you nine ideas to kick things off).

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You’ll be communicating a lot today.

But when will you be following up?

As you know, follow-up is essential, in that it:

• builds momentum
• ensures everything gets done (after all, unless you’re lucky/skilled/important/surrounded by saints, you have to follow certain things up. It’s just the way it is)
• ensures previous activities have worked as planned (“Did last week’s session improve things as you wanted? How else can I help?”)

But, despite its importance, follow-up is often:

• not discussed during a communication; and/or
• not diarised

The former means you have to re-start momentum later – never as easy; the latter means you’ll probably forget to do it on time/at all – never good.

Fortunately, the solution is very simple:

1. Agree during a communication when you’ll follow-up later. Simply ask “how and when shall we follow-up?”
2. Think “5 and 5”. Create a daily 5-minute reminder at 5pm called “diarise all today’s follow-ups” where you review your day’s activities and schedule when you’ll follow each one up

So, you’ll be communicating a lot today. When will you be following up?

Action point

For all today’s communications, remember the two Ds: agree During the conversation when you’ll follow-up; then Diarise it, so you ensure you do.

And if it works today, do it every day!

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When two people meet, they only need to have one agreement: Mr. A must agree with Mrs. B.

When four people meet, they now need six agreements – AB, AC, AD, BC, BD and CD.

When eight people meet, they need 28 agreements (don’t worry – I won’t list them all!)

When you look at it like this, is it any wonder that big meetings don’t achieve all you hoped?

People often think it helps when they invite more people to a meeting. But, if you’re not careful, it just ends up “deciding by committee”, in that:

• Nothing gets decided
• Even when things do get decided, it takes ages
• The noisiest person gets their way (and “noisiest” can – but doesn’t always mean – “most insightful”)

So, reduce attendees by doing some/all of:

• Make decisions 1-2-1 as often as possible
• Only invite people who can influence the decision; and/or will make the decision better; and/or care
• Similarly, only go to meetings where you can/want to influence the decision (obviously contact the owner beforehand if you’re not going)
• If you can only contribute to agenda items 3 and 6, call the owner in advance, and ask them to change the agenda so they discuss your topics first, so you can contribute then leave
• Once a decision has been made, choose the person(s) who will run with it, and ask them to take the detail off line. This is much better than eight people having 28 (dis)agreements about it
• If appropriate, send relevant non-attendees an “Actions arising” e-mail, so they are up to speed (note: “Actions arising”, not “Topics discussed”)

As with any communications advice, remember the rule of “first, do no harm”. All the personalities and politics involved in meetings mean that you have to treat this advice sensibly.

But always remember; ideally, you should only attend a meeting because it helps you and others; not because you always have done.

Action point

Review your diary for upcoming meetings that you are chairing and/or attending. What can you do to reduce the number of attendees at each of them, including – when appropriate – yourself?

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Do you have all the time you need, to do your job?

If you’re anything like most people, probably not. In fact, a recent McKinsey study found that people spend only 39% of their week doing their core job. In other words, they spend three days every week doing other stuff – three days!

And, not surprisingly, much of this ‘other stuff’ relates to inefficient and/or pointless communications.

Sound familiar?

Imagine if you could free up these three days (though, let’s be honest, just one extra day would be life-changing).

So think of all the communications you give/get. For each one, ask yourself if you:

• Remove it – a good test: remove any communication that, when you stop it, will do no harm whatsoever
• Reduce it – e.g. change updates from weekly to fortnightly
• Shorten it – e.g. make 60-minute meetings last 45; when you’ve created a document/presentation, try and reduce it by a third (I’ve found many people can achieve at least that)
• Change it – e.g. if you have regular conference calls where only one person speaks, change to sending an email instead
• Skip it – if you can’t add anything/don’t want to/it’s not a priority, suggest to the owner that you don’t attend
• Ban it – e.g. stop people hitting ‘reply all’ (not everyone cares), ‘FYI’ (hardly anyone cares) or giving lengthy background info (nobody cares)

Remember, when you communicate, your aim isn’t to say something, it’s to cause something.

So, change/stop communications that cause nothing.

Action point

Look at this week’s diary. Which would be the best communication to change? You want the one that:

1. will save you lots of time, and
2. doesn’t cause you a problem when you change it.

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