Apple gibberish

I occupy myself primarily with verbal communication, rather than the written word, but I couldn’t help noticing a spectacular bit of gibberish from Apple on their iTunes Store.

Now, the context is that the indefatigable Simon Cowell has released a charity version of REM’s Everybody Hurts in aid of the Helping Haiti appeal. The album’s page on the iTunes site features two songs at £0.99 each or (obviously) £1.98 for two:

“The following donations will be divided, in equal shares, between the Disasters Emergency Committee and The Sun’s Helping Haiti Appeal for each download of the specified product types featured on this page, which amounts include at least 100% of iTunes’ share:

• At least £1.62 for each download of a two track bundle; and
• At least £0.81 for each download of a £0.99 song.”

Well that’s clear, isn’t it?!

Before I read this, I had assumed that 100% of the amount I would pay would go to charities involved in the Haiti disaster. Having read the explanation, I was far less clear.

As it turns out, iTunes is making it clear that 100% of the profit it would normally make from selling a song or album does – in this case – go to Haiti charities. The rest, presumably, goes to Simon Cowell and his team. And I assume that the amount there either goes towards covering costs or is also donated to the charities concerned.

Clear? Well, sort off. I wonder how many people haven’t bought this record because of the lack of clarity?

Could anyone have written this blog for myself at all?

Language pedants lurk everywhere, waiting to snigger smugly at your split infinitive (something so easy to accidentally do). I confess: I am one. And, like the Freemasons, we pedants like nothing better than discovering another language purist.

Just this week, a friend of some years revealed (confessed?) that she is similarly passionate about language. And every pedant has their own particular bêtes noires. My friend has a loathing of ‘enormity’ being deployed to mean ‘great size’ (incorrect) rather than ‘great wickedness’ (correct). My own include ‘less’ being substituted for ‘fewer’ (it’s “there are fewer people here” and not “there are less people here”) and ‘over’ being applied to numbers instead of ‘more than’. As my journalist mother (and fellow pedant) keeps telling me “you go over a bridge, not a number”. It’s “more than 10 cars” and not “over 10 cars”.

All too often, language is contorted into the most unnecessary shapes. And the business world is the biggest perpetrator of this terrible crime – you can read my blog on corporate wonks loving to ‘leverage’ here. Many people assume that more complex language is better language and so they elevate what they say, invariably incorrectly, in an attempt to sound more polite, more clever or more posh.

Browsing in Waterstones just the other week I spotted a ‘Book of English Verbs, Fully Conjugated’ which included, unbelievably, the verb ‘to interface’ in all its supposed forms. “I interface, you interface, they interfaced, we will interface” and so on. Since when was ‘to interface’ a verb?! And don’t get me started on ‘to diarise’ (apparently meaning ‘to put in your diary’).

Another growing calamity is to misuse ‘myself’, ‘yourself’ and ‘themselves’ when the sense is not reflexive. It can be a bit of a tricky one, admittedly, but you only use one of these when the subject of the verb (ie: I, you, she/he/it, we or they) is doing it TO themselves. So “I wash myself” or “please help yourselves” or “they drove themselves”.

What is absolute gibberish is the waitress who said to me recently “can I get anything else for yourselves?” which I suppose implies that we would get it while she watched! She actually said “can I get anything else for yourselves at all?” These extra two words get endlessly tacked on to phrases when they add nothing and can, in fact, only properly be used in the negative – eg: “I didn’t eat anything at all.”

Sometimes, the errors are just hilarious. An airline check-in agent was overheard by a relative asking a passenger “could anyone have unknowingly tampered with your bag at all?” which strikes me as more of a metaphysical conundrum than a security question.

But does any of this matter? How important is language and its correct deployment?

A friend from university – an excellent English teacher and extremely clever bloke – once stated on Facebook that he was “bored of” something. I commented (in my annoying grammar pedant way) that this was a fairly egregious clanger from an English teacher. It should, of course, be “bored with”. I fully expected a contrite response and a red-faced acknowledgement that he had slipped up. I was a little surprised when he responded: “Sod off. Common usage is king.”

Is that true? Does common usage trump what the grammar books (I still love my Fowler’s) say is ‘right’? Personally I think there has to be a sensible compromise. Language is always evolving, changing, growing and developing. But whilst I am fundamentally open minded (I, for one, will happily start sentences or paragraphs with ‘and’ or ‘but’, something that would enrage a traditionalist) there has to be a sense of rule, structure and style – things which should be observed, sometimes strictly.

And just to prove that some companies will simply change the meaning of words to suit themselves, my sister tells the story of booking a delivery with a courier company on a “Before Noon” service. At 12.15pm when the package still hadn’t arrived, she rang the firm to ask where it was. “Well,” the woman replied, “Noon for us means 1pm.” You couldn’t make it up.

Clegg’s lightweight language destroys his grown-up intentions

Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said in an interview with BBC Radio 4′s Today programme this morning that it was important to “treat people like grown-ups.”

His use of language in the rest of the interview made a mockery of this noble intention.

Seconds after this comment he pointed out to the Today listeners that “money isn’t growing on trees”. Is this a serious politician talking to people like they were grown-ups? Money doesn’t grow on trees? That’s what my Mum used to say to me when I wanted to buy something expensive! It’s the complete opposite of what he stated just moments before – he’s talking to people like they were children!

Overall, his comments were stuffed full of broadly meaningless metaphor –  ”the politics of plenty… we can’t bandy about shopping lists…I am absolutely wedded to it…a heavy weight of debt around their necks…we haven’t got a magic wand…”

Really? So money doesn’t grow on trees and you don’t have a magic wand, Nick? And presumably the LibDems don’t have a unicorn at party headquarters, right?

Nick Clegg’s problem is that he, and his party, often aren’t taken seriously. He knows this, and tries very hard to look and sound as serious as possible. Watch his performances at the weekly session of Prime Minister’s Questions and you will see every sinew strive to be as statesmanlike as possible. He is constantly undone, however, by a use of language that is lightweight in content and far too earnest in terms of delivery. A deadly combination. This allows even Gordon Brown – hardly the most nimble of political performers when it comes to communication – make Clegg look foolish on a regular basis.

Clegg is not a statesman – he is the leader of a medium sized political party that has never been in government in its current form. His strategy should be to avoid these daft political soundbites and cut the grandiose delivery. Instead, he should be hard hitting and punchy in terms of content but much lighter in terms of delivery. At the moment, he looks and sounds out of his depth and far too keen. High impact content delivered in a calm, measured way (ie: actually talking the way grown-ups talk to each other) can be devastatingly effective. Clegg doesn’t understand this and tries to be an Obama-Brown-Cameron hybrid. Of all the party leaders he seems the most obsessed with style. It’s never going to work. No wonder the LibDem’s polling numbers are stagnating.

For as long as Clegg’s language is lightweight and frothy, he will never be taken seriously. As I say over and over – start with the content and then work on the style and delivery. Just read my transcript of the closing statement from the Today interview:

“I think we need to rebuild a Britain of fairness, but in terms of characterising politics I agree I think the politics of plenty – and most people now realise this – is over so it’s the politics of priorities and that has to be driven by conviction; if you don’t have conviction you can’t make those choices and that’s why I’ve sought to be as open as I can about my core conviction, the core conviction in the Liberal Democrat manifesto which is fairness and that will drive all the choices we will make.”

What?!

In terms of content he is absolutely nowhere. Remember the principal that if the opposite of something is nonsense then it probably isn’t worth saying. And what political party or politician has ‘unfairness’ as a core conviction?

No grown-up will vote for this.

Let’s leverage words correctly

The word ‘leverage’ is now a staple of every day business vocabulary, and all too often in its incorrect sense.

Leverage is a noun, and means “the power to influence people and get the results you want” (source: Cambridge Online Dictionary). The key point here is the idea of influence. For example: “the right wing had lost much of its political leverage in the Assembly” or, if you have to use it as a verb, “I was able to leverage my friendship with the CEO to win the contract.”

But I can find no dictionary definition for ‘leverage’ as a verb, except in its pure financial sense: “to use borrowed money to buy a company” (Cambridge again).

And it is as a verb that many business people now use the word. All too often, ‘leverage’ is deployed when what is really meant is ‘use’.

One of the most egregious examples I’ve seen was on the CV of a client I was preparing for an important interview: “I leveraged my abilities to speak French when working in Paris.” This is a great example of dressing up a fairly average point with a long word to make it look better than it really is. Don’t do it – nobody is fooled!

But even top level executives can be guilty of leveraging…sorry, using….the more complicated word when the simple one will do. “We can leverage our knowledge to improve your reporting” is the kind of phrase I mean. You don’t leverage knowledge – you use it. Keep it simple. Say what you mean. And for goodness sake let’s leverage words correctly!

Just answer the question Prime Minister!

You may have read that Gordon Brown refused to answer a question during a recent web-chat.

The question deemed unsuitable for an answer?

“What is your favourite biscuit?”

Quite why the Prime Minister couldn’t or wouldn’t answer this is beyond me. Yet again, Gordon Brown reinforced the idea that he is evasive and incapable of delivering a straight answer to a simple question. An idea which David Cameron mines to great effect.

Can anyone tell me how any biscuit he might have mentioned could have caused any sort of issue?! It’s hard to imagine anything, short of it emerging that Hitler also liked a KitKat with his tea, that would have generated the same volume of negative media comment. Alastair Campbell has blogged one possible explanation – that the PM didn’t want to be dragged into dealing with trivia rather than discussing more pressing issues. I don’t buy this. In a situation like this, answer the question in a few words and then move on. If asked more trivial questions, it is then perfectly reasonable to move the discussion on to something more significant.

I was reminded yesterday of the importance and power of straight talking and how honest, clear, simple answers to questions can defuse situations rapidly.

In my local yoga studio I saw a woman charge up to the Manager and demand, with bulging eyes and indignation written all over her face, to know when the two broken showers were going to be fixed.

“Tonight,” the Manager replied softly, with glorious one-word simplicity.

The woman’s eyes stopped bulging and her fury turned to meek acquiescence. She looked positively guilty for her aggression and sloped off.

Biscuits or showers, budget deficits or Afghanistan, just answer the question. If yoga studio managers can do it then why can’t politicians?

My blog on Baroness Scotland addresses similar themes.

Please Baroness, just talk like a human being

The moment the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, was fined £5,000 for employing a housekeeper who was not legally allowed to work in the UK, three things were inevitable:

1. The media would give the story a disproportionate amount of attention.
2. The opposition parties would make as much hay from the matter as was humanly possible.
3. The response from the government and the Attorney General herself would be utterly feeble.

The story indeed dominated the BBC News for much of Wednesday, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have called for Baroness Scotland to resign, and the responses from the government and the Baroness  herself have, once again, made it appear that Gordon Brown’s government only speaks English as a distinctly remote foreign language.

Here is the Baroness being interviewed by a BBC reporter.

Let’s start with what she said. My brackets are what a normal human being, rather than a politician, would have said.

“There’s no suggestion at all that I employed someone knowing them to be illegal.” (“I didn’t know she wasn’t allowed to work here.”)

“But what I did not do, is that I didn’t copy the documents and retain them.” (“I didn’t keep copies of the documents.”)

“I have apologised for that wholeheartedly.” (“I’m sorry.”)

“I think that I absolutely accept that I should have photocopied the documents…That was a flaw.” (“It was a big mistake.”)

I’m not entirely sure how someone can think that they absolutely accept something – a wonderful example of politician nonsense speak. It is a vice that female politicians seem particularly guilty of – Harriet Harman, Theresa May, Hazel Blears and Jacqui Smith all speak in this grossly contorted way far too often. Of course it has been suggested that women may be genetically pre-programmed to be better communicators than men, so we may notice it more when they fail. (If you’re interested, read Simon Baron Cohen’s terrific book on the difference between male and female brains.) But, male or female, if you use obfuscatory language, you will only sound as if you want to obfuscate and have something to hide. Keep it simple.

“I think we need to be very clear,” Baroness Scotland says. This is a phrase I hear time and again from government minsters (and most of all from the PM himself). It makes me want to tear out what little is left of my hair. I tell my communications training clients all the time that if the opposite of something is gibberish then it’s not worth saying. No-one would ever say “I think we need to be very unclear”, so the original phrase is clearly nonsense.

I cannot for the life of me believe that Baroness Scotland talks to her colleagues, friends or family in the way she talks to the reporter here. She speaks in a totally flat monotone, there is no rise or fall to her voice and no use of pause, cadence or variation in tone (Thatcher used to do this of course, to stop the interviewer interrupting her). The effect is numbingly robotic. No-one is going to sympathise with her or believe a word she says. The irony is that it’s all easily fixable – most of the time I don’t train people to do something, I ‘untrain’ them out of their bad habits. This is often a much easier task as I’m returning someone to something more natural, rather than training them in something unusual.

In Clear and Present Danger, the brilliant 1994 political-action film, Harrison Ford’s Jack Ryan offers the President some advice when a close friend is caught in a drug smuggling operation. “Don’t play it down. Play it up. If they say you were close friends, say no, you were lifelong friends. Don’t give them anywhere to go.” It’s great advice for anyone attracting criticism, and how I wish politicians would heed it.

Here’s what Baroness Scotland, instead of blathering on about it being a ‘technical breach’, should have said: “It was a really stupid thing to do, a terrible oversight…I’m the minister who wrote the legislation so I should have known so much better, I’m incredibly embarrassed…if I were Gordon Brown I would be pretty angry with me right now.”

Why can’t politicians talk like human beings? How much easier life could be for them if they did.

No-one is more guilty of this than Gordon Brown himself. He communicates in a way that only emphasises and enhances his stereotype of someone remote, disconnected and unable to speak simple truths. I would ban the Prime Minister from saying “I do say to you…” and “look” and “I think you’ll find”. No normal person talks like this. Can you imagine asking someone directions in the street and them saying “look, I do say to you that I think you’ll find it’s first on the left”? You would think they were mad.

The PM’s other major problem is that he seems unable to answer a straight question (something David Cameron has repeatedly pointed out with enormous glee at Prime Minister’s Questions, again feeding the stereotype). Even in this interview on American television with NBC’s Brian Williams, when the PM is asked if he has any doubts that David Cameron is capable of the job of Prime Minister, Gordon Brown evades, and seems incapable of a straight answer. What a great question this is! A gift. But did Gordon Brown begin his answer with the words “yes, I have many doubts…” Of course he didn’t. He waffled around, and ended up sounding like he was giving some strange endorsement of David Cameron. More on Gordon Brown soon. But, in the meantime, if anyone can explain why a simple “yes” wasn’t the right answer to this question, I would love to know.

Is American business culture inherently hierarchical?

A clinical psychologist tells me the story of the American banker who had a well-known and unrestrained cocaine habit. This banker was so prolific in bringing in millions and millions of dollars that an enormous blind eye was turned to the equally prolific amounts of the white stuff that were disappearing up his nose. The bank only took action when, during a company conference, he got so high he jumped naked into the jacuzzi with the CEO.

“American institutions, and especially banks, are very hierarchical. You have to know your place and you mustn’t step out of line,” the psychologist tells me. “For as long as this chap remained in his place and brought in loads of money, it didn’t matter how much cocaine he took. And everyone knew about it. But as soon as he broke the hierarchy and jumped in the jacuzzi with the boss there was hell to pay.”

It’s an interesting story and an interesting assessment. My experience working with Americans backs this idea up. I’ve never had a naked banker high on drugs jump on me in a jacuzzi but I have worked with people from every continent on earth; the only groups where I routinely notice a sense of hierarchy are Americans.

A few years ago, I was working at a conference coaching a number of speakers. My week started off with a wonderful trio of Spaniards who were giving some important presentations in English. They were brilliant – open to feedback, instruction and guidance, recognising that I could help them improve. The second half of the week saw me working with a group of Americans who, by contrast, were much less open to any help at all. It was a frustrating experience, and one that taught me a lot. It was  strange being paid to help people who were completely uninterested in receiving guidance.

The feeling I got was that to accept help and guidance would be an inexcusable admission of weakness, and would somehow relegate them in a ‘hierarchy’ around their colleagues. This is, to my mind, absolute nonsense – I personally have the most respect for people who are open to developing their skills.

More recently, I was sent to advise an Executive at an American multi-national on presentation skills. I got the feeling this bloke fancied himself as something of an alpha-male, although he was extremely genial and polite. And yet it became increasingly obvious that he was resenting deeply the weaknesses I had identified (despite having also identified many strengths) and was hugely uncomfortable with the idea that I may have more expertise than him in this particular field. I discussed this with him and asked him if he agreed with what I was saying and happy with my suggestions. He committed my biggest bête noire by answering “yes” when he evidently meant “no”. We didn’t get very far.

I may be doing American business people a disservice. But it does seem to me that an over emphasis on hierarchy exists in American business culture, and that it may hinder self-development and progress. And this might be especially true in the sensitive field of communication.

Honestly admitting to weaknesses and the need for help, guidance and expertise is absolutely vital to avoid mistakes, problems and poor performance. It guarantees self-awareness and self-development. And it will ensure a climb up the ‘hierarchy’, not a fall down it. After all, it is not the same as failure. And nowhere would more awareness and honesty have been more valuable in recent years than in American banks.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Laura the PR expert on how to pitch

Last week ended with an enjoyable coffee and catch-up with Laura, a good friend who is flying high in the PR world.

Formally an Account Executive at one of London’s biggest PR firms, Laura now heads the UK PR team for a global brand and has recently been securing all sorts of excellent coverage across the national press. She has an uncanny ability to get business journalists eating out of her hand.

Laura has been on both sides of the PR pitching process and knows the tricks of the trade inside out. An experienced pitcher from her PR days she now sees firm after firm trying their hardest to secure the juicy contracts she has on offer. She knows what makes a good pitch and, when we compare our approaches over coffee in her new employer’s swish cafe, it’s good to know that we’re on the same page.

There are few communication situations where I don’t advocate a simple, honest, straightforward and ‘everyday’ approach. And it’s the same with a pitch. Talk in a normal voice, in a normal tone and don’t perform. Just talk. Communicate. In other words, transfer information to the person listening in the simplest and most effective way possible. Don’t embellish.

Laura agrees: “I just want people to talk to me normally in a pitch. I might be speaking to them countless times a day, I might even have to travel with them, and I need to know that they can communicate with me like a normal human being. Too many people have a ‘pitch mode’ where they change the way they communicate just because it’s a pitch. Why?!”

She is spot on here. After all, if you can’t show in a pitch what it will be like to work with you on a day-to-day basis, how can someone decide whether they would want to or not? You should pitch as you work. In other words, make the pitch feel the way it would feel to work with you. That way, the prospective client can make an informed decision.

Secondly, we discuss content. It’s fast becoming my mantra on this blog that “content is King” – check out my blog on Steve Jobs as an example. All too often firms pitching for contracts misdirect their content by not seeing things from the perspective of the person they’re pitching to. Think how the prospective client sees things, not how you see things or how you would like to see things.

“We obviously spend a lot of time in-house complaining about how our organisation does things, and how it makes life difficult from a PR perspective,” Laura explains. “But there’s nothing I can do about it, I just have to live with it and deal with the PR challenges it throws up. It’s no good a PR company coming in and telling me what my organisation should do differently – I can’t change it and they certainly can’t. Those decisions are made at a global level. Our job is to respond to the PR situation, whatever it may be, and I need a PR company who can work in that way.

“I once had an experience with a firm who flatly refused to respond to a recent event because they didn’t have it in their long term media plan,” Laura adds. “This was just ridiculous. I need responsiveness – it’s why I ask loads of questions on pitches, to see how people respond.”

Laura makes a key point about the content of a pitch – don’t confuse the difference between how you would run a company’s media relations, and how you would run the company. They are different things – you will almost certainly never have influence on the latter! And be ready for questions. A good tip would be to brainstorm a few days before a pitch and write down every single question they might ask, and then practise the answers. Even better, bring someone in from outside the pitch team to ask questions, as they will inevitably come up with something you haven’t thought of.

As we finish our coffee and biscuits, we get on to my favourite topic. PowerPoint. I’m interested (and pleased) to hear that Laura’s company is what she calls “almost entirely PowerPoint free.” This is encouraging – and yet far too many pitches (and, of course, presentations) still over-rely on PowerPoint to communicate their message. And, when used badly, it is a massive hindrance.

“The way we communicate here is by talking,” Laura explains. ” We don’t show each other slides, we just talk. It’s how things get done.”

And it’s worth pointing out that this is a large, multi-national, rather traditional company. Not some hip young start-up. If they’re ditching the PowerPoint, maybe it’s time for PR companies to hit delete as well.

“Big PR companies are a little stuck in the past,” Laura explains. “They love PowerPoint and they love their PR buzzwords but it doesn’t always work. Things have moved on. We actually gave a recent contract to a non-traditional, young, new PR firm who work in a very informal way. But they are incredibly responsive and just get things done. And in terms of style, they weren’t great at pitching – but the content was spot on, so they got the contract.”

It’s a great lesson for any firm pitching for business – keep it simple. Content is key, and will win contracts. Style alone never will. Pitch as you would work. Normal everyday language. Be open and responsive. Focus on content. And above all, to quote Laura, just talk!

Steve Jobs is an inspiration to poor public speakers

Have a look at this clip of Steve Jobs. Technically, he is not the most natural public speaker – his body language isn’t brilliant, he looks at the floor too much, the tone of his voice is a little ‘flat’ and he has a slight tendency to fidget with his hands.

And yet, he has an audience absolutely in the palm of his hand. The reason? The total clarity in his mind of what he wants to say. Now, of course, being the boss of such a strong brand as Apple would help anyone retain an audience’s attention. But, despite that, Jobs is a good example of how you don’t need to be the most technically gifted public speaker in order to hold an audience.

Too many public speaking coaches teach a ‘style’ of public speaking – you must stand in a certain way, gesture in a certain way, speak in a certain way. This leads to many people just doing a bad impression of a good public speaker. But if you don’t possess the natural skills then an hour or two with a public speaking coach won’t get you very far.

The trick is to ensure the message is clear – however the speaker is able to deliver it. Obsessing over body language, gestures or vocal traits and tricks leads only to a speaker becoming hyper-aware of his or her deficiencies in those areas. It can take years to correct body language and posture on a technical and fundamental level. No good if the speech is next week.

But if the speaker focusses on the message, the audience will too. Think of it this way – is it theoretically possible for someone with appalling posture, two broken arms and a stutter to speak effectively in public? Of course it is. Style is not important – it’s the content that counts. And more often than not if you get the content right then, at worst, no one notices the style or, at best, style just drops into place.

Don’t get me wrong, technically Jobs isn’t terrible – on the positive side he is incredibly relaxed and speaks at a perfect pace with terrific use of pauses. And overall he is extremely successful. And part of his success (and charm) is his natural and unfussy delivery. But he can be an inspiration for anyone who doesn’t feel like the most natural public speaker. Content is king. Focus on content, not style, and you’ll be absolutely fine – even if you don’t have a new range of Apple products to announce to an eager and expectant public.

Tube woe for The Verbal Coach

After a summer break, I return to London and head back onto public transport. Joy.

London Underground has made great strides in recent years in its efforts to communicate better with its passengers.

Some Tube drivers really understand the importance of good communication and use the public address system to inform and reassure those on-board. On a recent Piccadilly Line journey signal failures meant a crawl between two stations. The emergency brakes slammed on (rather unnervingly) every time we inched past a red signal. The driver, however, kept us informed throughout, told us exactly what was going on, and the delay – plus the sudden jerks – were no real inconvenience, and any uncertainty at the train’s odd movements were soothed by the explanation we heard.

Yesterday, however, I experienced on London Underground a quite egregious example of non-communication. My District Line train was weaving its happy way towards the City when the automated display on-board suddenly announced the train was stopping at the next station, Earl’s Court. How odd. This then disappeared. At Earl’s Court, however, the display suddenly flashed High St Kensington – a brand new destination for the train, nowhere near where any of the passengers wanted to go.

Instead of making an announcement to explain the change of destination, the driver simply went to close the doors – just as dozens of people realised what was going on. A rush for the closing doors ensued. Can non-communication be dangerous? You bet it can. The doors reopened, a grudging voice barked the new destination over the public address and the doors went to close again, almost immediately. By this time, everyone had realised what was happening and another rush for the re-closing doors. Chaos. The driver opened the doors again without a word before rumbling off.

It never ceases to amaze me that some Tube drivers (who are probably paid more money than the majority of their passengers) either can’t be bothered to communicate to the people they transport, or they just don’t understand the importance of clear, accurate, timely information. Unbelievable.

What some Tube staff don’t realise – and this is a lesson for any organisation – is that it is often the lack of information about a problem that causes customers to be irate, not so much the problem itself. Even telling someone you don’t know what’s going on is better than stony silence. Even in times of crisis, even in times of no information – tell your customers what you know. It’s really not difficult.