"We'll call you within two days"

My furnace died yesterday morning.  I called some local heating guys and I called our electric & gas utility, too, because someone suggested it to my partner.

The locals were at my house almost before I hung up the phone.  The utility said, after I got through the computer responses and managed to talk with a human being, "We'll have someone call you within two days."

I guess the concept of "dead furnace" means something different to a guy sitting in a phone bank with some headphones wrapped around his head than it does to the person sitting a freezing house.  The small businesspeople know that. The big business doesn't care.

For the record, the utility called in less than 36 hours...While my new furnace was being installed.

"I played an important role, but not the determinant role"

As counselor to John F. Kennedy, Jr., Ted Sorensen was present at the creation of some of the most stirring oratory produced in my lifetime.  And that's about all he would ever admit to.  The first fact makes him one of the best speechwriters in modern times; the second makes him one of the classiest as well.  A life well worth emulating.  I'm grateful to have met him and heard him speak.

Be sure to watch the "Last Words" video feature embedded in the Times' obituary.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Sorensen.

Public Speaking

A lovely walking path follows the curves of the harbor across the street from San Diego's convention center.  The path offers something for just about everyone: art (an arresting silver sculpture), nature (a small dog park with the prettiest dog-level drinking fountain I've ever seen), a reflecting pool (surrounding yet more art).  But the most interesting feature to me were the square granite plaques spaced every few feet along the path, with quotations engraved on them.

Now, San Diego is not the only city to do this: The public spaces in Manhattan's Battery Park City feature passages by Walt Whitman and Frank O'Hara, celebrating what one web site calls "the exhilarating spirit of New York City."   But those passages are actually about New York City.  The quotations in San Diego's park were not created for or about San Diego; the man who wrote the words never lived there.

From the written word to the art inspired by it, the entire park - its official name is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Promenade - celebrates the spirit and the vision of this great leader.  And the fact that San Diego has placed this tribute in such a prominent location, across the street from its Convention Center, where tens of thousands of tourists encounter it every day, gives even casual visitors a real sense of the culture and priorities of this beautiful city.

I can't wait to go back.

Blockbusted

Q: When is a blockbuster not a blockbuster?
A: When you can't tell anyone about it.

I walked into a meeting recently and the client greeted me with, "We've just been singing your praises!" (Well, don't stop on my account.)  It seems a series of profiles I'd written was generating spectacular page-views on their intranet.  One in particular had done "blockbuster" numbers - 12 times their average readership.

It's the kind of result you want to stand on the rooftops and crow about - or at least put in a marketing email to current and prospective clients. Writing that gets results is rare.  Not to mention valuable.

But I can't.  Sensitive subject, confidential, etc., etc.  This client doesn't have a problem with my telling people I wrote the pieces...I just can't say what they're about. 

Same sort of thing happened a long time ago with a speech of mine printed in Vital Speeches of the Day.  It was my first Vital speech, and that's quite a milestone for a speechwriter.  The client was pretty happy about it, too.  Naturally, I asked if I could use it in my marketing and you could have knocked me over with a feather when she said no.  Said she didn't want anyone to know that she hadn't written the speech herself. And yes, of course, that's her choice to make.  But I went on to write even more awesome speeches for the woman, and it kills me that I can't show them to anyone else.

Occupational hazard, I guess.

Talk to Me

I don't know about you, but I get very grumpy when I feel a speaker hasn't tailored remarks to me.

I don't mean me personally, but whatever audience I'm in.  When you're speaking to the teachers' association, you don't talk about saving the financial services industry.  You talk about education.

And when you're speaking to a more heterogenous group - where some people care about education and others about financial services - you find something unique to say to them.  Think about what brings these people together to hear you and acknowledge that they are different than the people you spoke to yesterday or this morning or the group you'll address tomorrow.

Some politicians do this well.  Bill Clinton was (still is) a master at this.  The first George Bush, not so much.  Remember the campaign stop where he read his notes to the audience? "Message: I care."  Implication: He clearly didn't.

You want to give a successful speech?  Think about what you're saying.  And talk to me.

On a mission

"Don't you have a mission statement?"

Well, no, I didn't.  But I do now - and a "vision statement," too.  Whaddaya think?

Making the world a clearer place, one sentence at a time. That's been the vision of Bennett Ink, LLC, since its founding in 1993. 

Elaine Bennett specializes in meaningful, concise business communications: writing speeches, by-lined articles, and award-winning annual reports for Fortune 50 businesses.  She also spreads the gospel of good writing, teaching professionals from entry-level to executive how to craft clearer, more effective prose.

"Bank of Evil"?

The New York Times tells us that Wall Street is hiring again.  But don't break out the party hats and $2,000 bottles of Champagne just yet.  Wall Street has a reputation problem: Most firms will ignore it, but the smart firms will acknowledge and address it.

Yes I know, I know - Wall Street has a reputation problem every five or six years.  This is probably the third such cycle I've lived through since I started working in financial services in the late '80s.  Back then, the punchline was a survey on trustworthiness.  The good news, Wall Streeters were not the least trusted group in the nation; the bad news, they placed lower than the KKK.

How far has anti-Wall Street sentiment penetrated the public discourse in the current cycle?  I had occasion to sit through the animated feature Despicable Me this weekend (save yourselves - don't do it) during which the evil genius, seeking to finance his dastardly plan, visits the bank to secure a loan.  Not surprisingly, the sign over the door read:

"Bank of Evil"  

More surprising was the all-too-legible subhead:

"Formerly Known As Lehman Brothers"

Does it really matter what the movie-going public thinks?  Unlike consumer products companies, Wall Street firms believe they don't need to curry favor widely.  After all, their business model doesn't depend on millions of people buying a few dollars' worth of products; it depends on a few people (investment managers) buying millions of dollars' worth of products.

But there's another constituency eyeing Wall Street: the government.  Elected officials - and the regulatory agencies they control - are extremely sensitive to popular sentiment.  As the country gears up for the political fisticuffs of a midterm election, you can expect to see financial services executives on the hot seat.

The best way to handle this onslaught of negative publicity?  Don't fight it, roll with it.  If there was wrongdoing - or perceived wrongdoing - admit it.  That's what I advised Bankers Trust CEO Charlie Sanford to do when some of his derivatives traders were in the spotlight, and The New York Times approved.  Then find something positive your firm does and talk it up.

Making money isn't intrinsically evil. Without financial services firms, the world's economy would grind to a screeching halt.  Someone needs to tell this story, honestly and compellingly.