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Katie and Carol talk about Tips 27, 28, and 29 from Skirt Strategies: 249 Success Tips for Women in Leadership.
These may seem shallow, but others will quickly judge you when you need to make a strong impression in some instances. Here are the ones that stick with us for showing appreciation and a few good manners.
Tip Number 27. Learn to give directions precisely.
Use real directions like north, east, south and west, rather than rattling on about landmarks and personal observations.
People don’t care about which church your niece got married in or the site of the last place you were seen with your pantyhose caught up in your skirt. (That’s a real story…)
Tip Number 28. Own personalized stationery. Use the USPS for a kind note to a customer.
If you are in a competitive industry, you know that defining your value proposition is an ongoing exercise. Edging the competition makes a difference and using the old USPS may make that difference.
If you are not in a competitive industry, you should still like this entry, because setting yourself apart is always a good idea.
But the special touch of a hand-written message, sent from a person rather than a company, and using the snail mail instead of the electronic mail, says something about your manner. Remember that subtle level of excitement as a kid when you received a letter in the mail? Nice.
A challenge: pick 3-5 people that you’d like to thank for anything and show your gratitude with a quick note. Don’t over-think it. Just a simple thought and drop it in the mail.
Gratitude is like karma; it comes back to you in unexpected ways.
Tip Number 29. Share your garden vegetables with your co-workers.
My dear uncle, living in New York City, read this one and stated wryly, “I have no idea what you mean by this.” I had to laugh. If you live in an urban area where home gardeners are a rarity, consider this one metaphorically. Or substitute “homemade cookies” for “garden vegetables.”
This simple idea is a nice reminder for exhibiting gratefulness and appreciation of others. We like it!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Hello and welcome to the Skirt Strategies podcast, the podcast to help you get the support, validation, and skills you need to accomplish your goals and really succeed in a male-dominated world, all without having to give up your incredible female strengths.
It’s another podcast of Skirt Strategies for women in leadership.
Katie: Learn how to give precise directions. I want you to tell us about why this is important.
Carol: That’s good because we’re recording. I’m Carol White.
Katie: Oh, we are? I’m Katie Snapp. Let’s jump right in.
Carol: Let’s do and you already read that tip, Learn how to give precise directions.
Katie: We’re at Skirt Strategies podcast. We’re giving women great tips for managing their lives on the go, being better at what they do, staying sane.
So this podcast, where we are right now is delving into the book, Skirt Strategies: 249 Success Tips for Women in Leadership.
We’re pulling ideas from there for topics of discussion through our podcast because the book has been globally renowned and popular. So a tip at a time– we thought we’d give you maybe three tips this type, do you think Carol?
Carol: I think so. We try to get you through about a half an hour worth of podcast and we don’t think we can talk forever on how to give precise destructions, so we’re going to go through some others as well.
Katie: This tip is kind of one of those life’s little instruction book tips. It’s not anything one would teach you at work necessarily. It might be what your mother teaches you.
Carol: And not really. We don’t really get told how to give directions.
One of my first jobs I had to– I sold apartments all over town and so I had to get people that were new in town, I had to get them from one place to another, giving them directions over the phone sometimes.
So I had to get very good at this and interestingly I had to learn north and south and east and west because you never know if somebody has to turn left or right because you don’t know where they are coming from. So learn that and don’t go into too much detail.
Katie: Why is this important? Why is this in the book?
Carol: I think it’s because we sound a little messed up when we give directions.
Katie: As women?
Carol: Yes. You just go right past the pink building and if you passed it too far then you have to back up so don’t go passed it too far. Give a street name. What street name do I turn left on?
Katie: I don’t think I’m so bad at this. Are you bad at this?
Carol: No I’m good now. I got good at it but what drives me crazy is when I hear a woman and maybe sometimes it’s a man but generally men give very clear, concise directions. “Go two block to Emperada Street and take a right.”
When you try to rattle off landmarks and other things that make no difference, I’m looking for a street to turn on, I’m not looking for the landmark. Now if it’s hard to find and there’s a landmark near it then tell me that but don’t give me a landmark at every corner that I’m supposed to be turning on because I need a street name to look at.
Katie: I think we have a tendency to do that because we’re good at – we observe. We’re very spatial and we observe things so when you go by that intersection and you know that’s kind of ratty gas station on the left, you know the one I’m talking about? And there’s a place on the right that has the yard ornament, the funny looking bird, you know that?
Now we’ve just added a lot of interesting color to the direction, and it drives some people, maybe men, crazy. Just be specific.
This is a great skill for translating into giving people direction at work, too. The more specific you can be the more straightforward and sometimes dumbing it down, being more basic than it needs to be.
Often when giving people directions we think, I don’t want them to think that I don’t think they are smart so I don’t want to be too simple. I want to elaborate. And you lose people that way.
Generally when somebody talks to you in a real simple form, like “Here’s what I need you to do. So there are three different policies that are new. Two of them have to do with this and the other one has to do with this. I’m going to talk about the third one first.” You know something that’s real simple and broking down into pieces like that.
Carol: Yeah break it down. In the end, since we are giving directions – and you are right it works at work as well, but in the end you are going to end up in this part of town. Here’s how you are going to get there, so that they have the goal in mind. So have that goal in mind to get there and then tell them the details of the directions.
Katie: The problem I run into often is when someone says, “Well how far is it? Is it like a mile?” And I’ll think, “I know how far a mile is when I’m riding on my bike roughly so, now translate it to the car.” So it’s distance. Here we go to women and size. We are not very good at judging. So we don’t know what’s a mile or half a mile. “No you go for about five minutes.”
Carol: No I absolutely agree on that and for those of you women who have this ability, God bless you but I don’t know what a 150 yards is.
Katie: I do think about a football field when someone says yards.
Carol: But how long is a football field?
Katie: Well if I’m standing at the end – I have stood on a football field before.
Carol: How long is a football field?
Katie: It’s a hundred yards. Was that an advanced question? Wow.
Carol: And you are the engineer so you have all the answers.
Katie: I do. People think I do. I act as if – so that helps with distance.
Carol: Have we beat this to death? Just like giving directions, we would beat it to death.
Katie: Let’s go to another tip.
Carol: So in the tip, when you catch your verberia running loose, reel it in, less is more.
Katie: It doesn’t sound very pretty does it? Verberia is a word.
Carol: Is a word? Okay good.
Katie: Yeah. I wrote that one.
Carol: Fabulous. I know you did.
Katie: Tip Number 28: Own personalized stationery, use the U.S. postal service for a kind note to a customer.
Katie: This is a great way to differentiate yourself.
Carol: It is. Anymore nobody does it. I get a personalized note in my mail and I absolute am thrilled.
Oh did I tell you about the one I got? I got a personal note from the governor of the state of New Mexico written to me and she had to go over to the other side to fill it out. And I think we talked about this and I can’t remember where but the thing that impressed me so much was her handwriting was a mess but she still wrote me a note. I thought that was fabulous.
Katie: Oh so it didn’t keep her from doing it.
Carol: No and it has in many cases kept me from writing handwritten notes.
Katie: I got a note a couple of years ago when I gave a book to the lieutenant governor and she wrote me a thank-you note, and I kept it. You remember those sorts of things. Now I remember it because it was somebody in high position and I actually got her attention and that’s kind of fun but when people do send you a nice thank-you it does stick out.
So this isn’t a tip along the lines of you need to do this like don’t let your cleavage hang out which you cannot do that, this is one of those tips that is an opportunity to be a little bit more classic, classy, a little bit more refined, sets you apart, says that you come from a good background where somebody’s taught you manners. It’s very important.
Carol: And it’s also playing to that feminine side that we have as well. It shows caring. It shows building relationships. It shows that we are on a personal level with that person enough to write them a note.
Katie: Now I have a Godfather that writes, well he does it for birthdays and Christmas, but he’s not a business associate. I’m trying to think of a man that I know that – my dad writes handwritten things.
Carol: Mine does too. He comes from a time when – I mean everybody gets a birthday card. Everybody gets a card for an occasion and he’s really good at keeping up with his friends that way.
Katie: At my birthday Dad often says – I don’t think he says this every year but he has said it more than once, he’ll write a little note. This was back when he’d send me a check for my birthday and he’d have his personalized stationery and he’d say, “I still remember the day that you were born and the little smile on your face,” or something like that. Dad, that’s so nice.
Katie: That is a way to get someone’s attention. If you are in a competitive industry, that can be a great way to get a notch above your competitors. It does take a while.
So do you have – this is often what deters me from doing it. I have to have stamps. I have to have someone’s address which is easy to look up nowadays and I have to have stationery and I have a lot of stationary and girlfriends give me notes. So I usually have it and it’s kind of fun to pick one out.
I gave my daughters personalized stationery. We went to the stationery store and ordered it from Crane and got the – what do you want for the monogram? What colors do you want? We found one that wasn’t astronomically ridiculously expensive but they both have now, a box, of personalized stationery. They love that. They just think that’s the coolest thing in the world.
Carol: Good. That’s wonderful and I need to do that for me because I went to write thank-you notes the other day and I didn’t have a single one.
Katie: You didn’t have any?
Carol: I didn’t have any.
Katie: It would be a better sign if their stationery box was empty which means they will have been using them.
Carol: Right. So we have a challenge this week and the challenge is to pick 3 to 5 people that you’d like to thank for anything and show your gratitude with a quick note. Now this does two things.
Katie: What would they be?
Carol: Number one, it gets you out there in a way that you’ll feel good about it and it’s a gratitude piece and you know I love gratitude and I love being in gratitude so pick something kind of off the wall. Pick two people that you want to thank for some something specific and then pick one that’s just a little off of wall.
Katie: Okay. Like somebody you wouldn’t send something to?
Carol: Yeah. I have some friends this week – I had asked them to be references for me for something and they have answered some calls and references and so I need to send them a thank-you, right?
Katie: I know somebody who owes you a thank-you. Did she send you one yet?
Carol: Uh-huh.
Katie: She hasn’t dropped it in the mail. She says it’s written.
Carol: Okay.
Katie: This is not germane to the tip at all but I’m just checking.
Carol: She did say she just didn’t have my address. I don’t remember if I sent it to her or just said, “That’s okay,” which I think she was fishing for my address.
Katie: Oh I’ll give her your address. Life happens. See, real live things happen here on the Skirt Strategies podcast.
Carol: And so gratitude is karma. It comes back to you in unexpected ways so keep that in mind when you are writing.
Katie: One more tip to add to this episode of the podcast and this one is kind of a quirky one. I would also love to hear from people that live in big cities to see what they think of this. So, number 29 – why don’t you read it Carol.
Carol: Share your garden vegetables with your co-workers.
Katie: This is a same dear uncle that writes personalized notes. He read the rough draft, one of the rough drafts of Skirt Strategies, this book and he said, “I don’t know what you mean by this.” He lives in Manhattan, right? So the tip, share your garden vegetables with your co-workers. He said, “I don’t get that.” Maybe it’s because he lives in an apartment and –
Carol: – never had a garden vegetable.
Katie: So you have to think about what’s the appropriate – and maybe it’s just metaphorically – take things from home into work that show others that you are considerate. I don’t know that you want to say that you are thinking about them but you are considering sharing things with them.
Somebody gave me some little mini cupcakes for a speaking engagement a couple of days ago – it just happened – like 12 of them. So they are in this little plastic – oh they are so cute – and when I got them I actually squealed! Somebody is sharing some little cupcakes with me and then I started thinking, I don’t know if I want 12-cup cakes around the house so I shared them with some girlfriends and it was just a nice little way – I had them so it was easy.
What is it that you have around your house and I think of garden vegetables because those are sometimes nice or I’ll never forget a guy I worked with at the labs in my engineering job, he came in with a five-gallon bucket full of roses. He had a great rose garden and they were the most gorgeous roses I think I’ve ever seen and it was for the taking. He’s sharing them. I loved that. I still think about that and that was probably 20 years ago.
Carol: Very nice. So whatever you do at home, if you can take it to work and share it that’s fabulous. There’s a woman in my office who has a jar of chocolate and about mid-afternoon we all go in and start helping ourselves to some chocolate and it just breaks up the day a little bit and it’s very nice. So anything like that.
Katie: There’s the difference between a man and a woman. I know men that have candy on their desk but women have the hosting of the hostess built into them. They want to accommodate. They want people to feel comfortable at their desk. They want to know that you are thinking about them.
Well let’s leave it at that for those great ideas. We’ve given you something about giving directions. We’ve given you something about personalized stationery and writing personalized notes. We’ve given you something about sharing with co-workers such as garden vegetables or maybe homemade cookies or whatever it might be.
Skirt Strategies is here to help women feel like they are focused on their natural female leadership skills and we hope that you continue to join us.
(Music plays)
That’s it for this episode of the Skirt Strategies podcast. Thank you for joining us and please be sure to leave a question or comment at Skirtstrategies.com. Remember that success comes when you lead using your natural female strengths.
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