From the Real Simple Success newsletter.

photo credit: daniel9d

In this week’s issue: It’s the technology plus YOU that makes the technology magic. Don’t forget this, if you want to the technology to work for you.

My father came home with his first personal computer in 1983. Time had just named the personal computer its “Man of the Year” a year before. They were brand new as mainstream appliances.

It was magic. It lit up, and the tiny green characters danced across the screen, changing at a whim. No more white out, no more backspacing to underline a word.

My father was a writer, and for years, he planned to write a novel, but never quite got around to it. (In the last years of his life,he did get around to it–and wrote many good novels.)

After a few months with the MBC-1000, my father said, “you know, I guess I have to admit:

“I somehow thought the computer would help me be a better writer. But of course, it won’t make me be a better writer. To be a good writer, you just have to write. The machine’s not going to do it for you!”

It’s the same now, as it was in 1983. The magic of the technology dazzles us, and somehow convinces us that we’ll magically be freed from doing any work!

I think it is easy to–often unconsciously–apply this same thinking to today’s web technologies. While many of these attitudes are below the surface, I think it’s easy to get into mindsets that subtly reflect this same viewpoint. Attitudes like:

The fantasy: “Once I have an amazing, beautiful new website, lots and lots of new clients will find me and give me new business.”
The reality: The website is a tool to facilitate new business; it won’t bring it to you on its own.

The fantasy: “Our new FaceBook page will create lots of new clients.”
The reality: You can create lots of new clients, using FaceBook as a tool, by focusing on producing value for them, over time.

The fantasy: “Once we optimize our page to the right keywords, we’ll start getting a flood of traffic to our site.”

The reality: Depending on your keywords, this could be true, or much more work could be required. Focusing too heavily on keywords can get you distracted from your main mission; unless you have lots of money to spend, you’re better of starting by focusing on

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I don’t mean to sound cynical here. The point I am making is that the combination of these technologies, plus someone who really has
something to say, and really wants to help their customers–now that is very powerful. To ignore any of these ingredients, right now, is very foolish.

In each case, the point is that the collaboration between these wonderful new technologies, and a person who cares about his clients, and is devoted to helping them succeed–that is the powerful combination.

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My father kept that MBC-1000 for, like, 10 years. “It’s a dinosaur,” I would think, but “it gets the job done”–that’s what he thought. And over the years, I am sure that simple computer saved him many hundreds of hours of effort, over using his old Brother electric typewriter. He learned how to get it to do what he needed it to do, and it did it well, for many years.

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What’s your relationship with the technology you use? Do you expect it to “do it for you,” or do you find ways of working with what you
do? Please share, by adding a comment below.

Selfish Selling includes these attributes: The focus is primarily on making the sale, not serving the customer; the attitude is primarily self-serving; the agenda is some level of deception, and the perspective is that of “win-lose.”

Selfless Selling includes these attributes: The focus is primarily on serving the customer; the attitude is one of generosity; the agenda is to educate and inform, and the perspective is that of “win-win.”

Link: http://actionplan.blogs.com/weblog/2008/11/the-spirit-of-selfless-selling.html

“Concretely, what I most realized about business in that year–and I have been learning more each year without finding it necessary to change my first conclusions–is this:

(1) That finance is given a place ahead of work and therefore tends to kill the work and destroy the fundamental of service.

(2) That thinking first of money instead of work brings on fear of failure and this fear blocks every avenue of business–it makes a man afraid of competition, of changing his methods, or of doing anything which might change his condition.

(3) That the way is clear for any one who thinks first of service–of doing the work in the best possible way.”

– Henry Ford