Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? Every year, I’m surprised by how many people don’t make them. I love making New Year’s Resolutions, and I even have a strategy for keeping them. Mostly, my strategy involves making sure I keep my resolutions visible in my office and check in monthly to see how I’m doing in terms of making progress with those resolutions…and I could talk today about how to make resolutions you’ll keep. But instead, today I want to talk about the most powerful resolutions that can not only transform your business, but multiply your profits within 2012.
Resolution #1: This Year I Will Think Of My Business As A Business. You wouldn’t believe how many times clients come to me for our second meeting, after doing their “homework,” only to tell me they’re shocked to discover that they never really thought of their business as a real business.
To be successful, you must have a plan- it doesn’t have to be a big, formal business plan that a bank would require to give you a loan (unless you’re seeking venture capital or loans), but you do want to plan the future of your business and start looking at how you’re going to get there. Believe it or not, once you change the way you look at your business, you’ll be much more likely to take success actions that will increase your profits.
Resolution #2: This Year I Will Improve My Time Management. One of the biggest factors that sucks away your profitability is poor time management. You can so easily fritter away a day thinking you’re being active and productive, only to get to the end of the day and realize you haven’t really accomplished anything.
To increase your profitability, make every working minute count. Remember that every second you’re spending on Facebook “noodling” around, you’re essentially stealing from your business. You wouldn’t want an employee doing that to you…so don’t do that to yourself.
Resolution #3: This Year I Will Invest In My Business. For many entrepreneurs, one of the hardest things to do is to invest in your business. Especially if your business has suffered during the recession, even more so if you’ve been “taken” by so-called business coaches and gurus who don’t really have much actual business experience, you’ll find it difficult to part with your hard-earned money, even if it could really help your business to grow.
This kind of fear is understandable. But if you want your business to grow, you do have to invest money back into the business. Invest in an improved web site, work with a business consultant who can give you the direction you need to get your business growing, invest in a new marketing campaign, a PR campaign, or something, but also make sure you know the likely results of whatever you’re investing in. There are no guarantees, but good research can give you a solid sense of how well you’re betting. If you put money into something, know what it is and how it’s going to help grow your business, and then take action.
Resolution #4: This Year I Will Stop Worrying About Motivation and Take Action.
Many entrepreneurs get so caught up in trying to get motivated that they spend most of their time learning from others and attending webinars and teleseminars and live events in the hopes of finding that one thing that will motivate them that they never take the next step to action. In fact, do you know how many people buy books and products and never read or use them? Fully 85% (or more!) of the people who buy personal growth and business books (including e-books and products) never even open them up!
This year, commit to finding your true fervor, that which you love doing and get excited about, so that you can stop worrying about “getting motivated” and just start doing.
Resolution #5: This Year I Will Trust Myself and Relax. So many micro-entrepreneurs think they have to be doing everything to grow their businesses. What I mean is, I talk to people every day who receive five, ten, or twenty (or more!) business e-mails every week, and think they have to do everything that’s been recommended to them. They get one e-mail saying, “You should have a viral video,” and they scramble to get that set up. They get another e-mail saying, “You should speak from the stage!” and scramble to start doing that. They get yet another e-mail saying, “You need to be invested in social media!” and think they need to figure all that out. Next, an e-mail comes talking about blogs, articles marketing, e-zines, podcasting, internet radio shows, public relations….
It’s overwhelming. It’s too much. And it’s okay for you to relax a little bit and take a step back to think about what’s best for you, your business, and your target market.
When all else fails, trust yourself. It took me ages to trust myself and to listen to my gut instincts, but when I did, that’s when my confidence as a thought leader and as an expert really grew.
So this year, relax, stop trying to do everything, and trust yourself to know what’s best for you and for your business.
This time of year isn’t just about making resolutions that stick, it’s about making resolutions that can kick your business out of a rut and into profitability. And that’s what your 2012 should be all about. Happy New Year!
So what, right? Wrong. Facebook wants us to follow their rules. Facebook is designed so that people can connect to other people, so they want people to use their real names. If you want to plug your business, then you can set up a page for that and use your company name.
Except that Facebook, like many large companies these days, tends to enforce their rules rather arbitrarily and, it seems, only at the top, with people who “count.” So you end up with small business owners who set up personal profiles using their business names and “personalities” who mistakenly think they can become more popular by leveraging the popular “Yellow Pages” method, whereby you use a character like ” ‘ ” at the beginning of your name so that you come up first in search listings.
But random enforcement of the rules isn’t really the issue, is it? I mean, we’ve come to expect that with a vast user database, it’s almost impossible to police certain things across the board, so that Facebook can’t quite keep up with all the “little guys” who break the rules really shouldn’t come as a big surprise.
The issue, at least in my opinion, comes down to the real intent of Facebook. What is Facebook for, other than sucking up a whole lot of time? Frankly, it’s a question I get asked over and over by my clients, who occasionally wonder at the true utility of social media as a viable part of a marketing strategy.
Facebook started out, as we all know, as a way to connect students on a single campus. It’s now evolved into a way to connect people around the world (and, lest we forget, provide valuable marketing data about each and every Facebook user to advertisers so they can make sure they’re selling you exactly the stuff you most want to buy).
I think we’re still supposed to be operating under the illusion that our personal profiles offer us the opportunity to connect with others on a personal level, but let’s pull off the mask for a second and acknowledge that there’s literally no way that one could engage significantly on a personal level with 5,000 people.
So even though I myself am getting dangerously close to hitting my own 5,000 limit on my personal profile and long ago started spilling as much of my professional audience into my business page and personal fan page, I confess that I think the Facebook friend limit on personal pages might be too high. The proportion of folks who befriend me on my personal Facebook profile but don’t actually engage with me once they’ve been approved suggests to me that the 5,000 limit ultimately creates a status game that creates the illusion of success for some, but ultimately, simply doesn’t bear business fruit.
On the other hand, what Facebook does well (and Twitter, to some extent) is to provide access to people one might want to connect with but wouldn’t ordinarily have an easy or direct method for reaching. And while I fully support that notion, and the access it has provided me (and the friendships I’ve cultivated as a result), I imagine in most cases, I could have forged those relationships without the “official” access.
So, if Facebook really wanted us to connect on a personal level via personal profiles and leave professional networking to our professional pages, then yes, I imagine that the enforcement of the “use your real name” rule makes sense to a certain extent, if Facebook enforces that rule across the board. But if Facebook really wanted us to connect on a personal level via personal profiles, then one has to assume that the friend limit would be much lower, since studies show that today, most people have only two close personal friends and a circle of around 150 people in total (and in fact, the average number of friends on Facebook is 130).
According to Psychology Today, anthropologist and evolutionary biologist Robin Dunbar suggests that having 150 reciprocal and personal relationships pretty much maxes out our brains. Our neocortexes literally can’t handle more relationships than that. So while you might be able to influence far more than 150 people, creating the kind of relationships Facebook suggests we cultivate on our personal profiles would mean the friend rate ought to be capped closer to 150 or 200. And since Facebook pages offer unlimited space on pages, if you want to engage with that many people, it would seem that the psychological research indicates that we would do better to relegate our “relationship overflow” to pages, rather than personal profiles.
What do you think? Should personal profiles remain totally personal? Would it be useful for Facebook to lower the limit of friends one can have on a personal profile to, say, 200, and to leave anything beyond personal relationships to professional pages?
As an entrepreneur and small business owner, I know you probably struggle with the feeling that you’re never doing enough to grow your business. I know you probably wrestle with time management and getting more clients and customers. I know you probably grapple with knowing how to give your business the boost it needs when you hit a plateau.
How do I know? Because I’ve been working with entrepreneurs for fifteen years, helping my clients face those exact struggles. I talk with entrepreneurs and small business owners every single day who face these challenges and more.
Know how else I know? Because I’m an entrepreneur and small business owner, just like you. Used to be, when I put down a book or walked out of a seminar, I’d wonder, “What now?” I felt like there was something missing.
More than that, I wanted to know what I was missing so I could stop struggling, get out of a plateau, and then share what I had learned with you (and in this webinar, I’m sharing it for free). So I made a list of the most amazing, mega-successful entrepreneurs, authors, and experts, and I interviewed them to get real answers.
After studying the interviews and gathering the “missing pieces,” I discovered seven consistent, clear lessons. I’ve used these lessons in my own business to end my frustration and struggling, and now I’m ready to share…. Go ahead and register- this one’s on me!
Title: “The 7 Lessons of Mega-Successful Entrepreneurs” Date: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST
After registering, you’ll receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.
System Requirements PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP, or 2003 Server
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer
P.S.If this isn’t your interest, or you aren’t able to join me, please feel free to share this with your friends, if it’s comfortable for you. This webinar is open to the public!
Lately, in an effort to simplify and cut down on the “noise,” I’ve been culling down my list of people I’m learning from. The list still falls well into the three digits, but I’ve started focusing my attention on a “shortlist” of very cool, very interesting people and companies who have a lot to say about entrepreneurship and small business today. Today I’ve decided to share five of my favorites from my shortlist and tell you why I think they’re so important:
1) Dixie “Dynamite” Gillaspie (@dixiedynamite) Dixie “Dynamite” Gillaspie is the secret weapon behind several of my favorite mentors and recently became my own coach. Dixie is a coach, a consultant, a muse, an adviser, a friend, and she has earned her nickname, “Dixie Dynamite,” at least a thousand times over. She has helped me find myself and is helping me re-design Business in Blue Jeans around the vision that’s most near and dear to my heart. Her blog alone contains so much inspiring insight, but I highly recommend signing up for her e-mail newsletter. Dixie is, in a word, extraordinary.
This one should come as no surprise to any of you, if you’ve been following me for awhile. I make no secret of the fact that I “puffy heart love” Bob Burg and that he’s been one of my absolute favorite mentors for years. John David Mann is Bob’s co-author on books like The Go-Giver, Go-Givers Sell More, and their latest, It’s Not About You. John is “the quiet one” because he’s usually writing, but let me tell you, John, who I met recently, is a fount of wisdom that you must not miss. Both Bob and John are extraordinary human beings who have delivered to us a really beautiful way of approaching business, sales, leadership, and, dare I say, life. If you haven’t read their books, you must. The Go-Giver series really ought to be a part of your success library.
3) Scott Ginsberg (@nametagscott)
Scott Ginsberg, who I also met recently, is a seriously brilliant dude. Fortunately for us, he’s also a prolific writer. Go to Scott’s web site (aptly titled “Hello, my name is Scott“) and you’ll find an insane number of blog posts and articles about all manner of topics, but in particular, Scott’s unique forte, approachability. I have to confess that when I first met Scott, I had heard of him, but didn’t yet know who he was and inadvertently stumbled into asking him silly, inane questions about his nametags (Scott wears a nametag 24/7). What’s cool about Scott and his web site and books is that somehow, he manages to continuously come up with a fresh take on things, even though he’s written more than one can absorb in, I don’t know, like a month of solid reading. (also, Scott’s giving away his new book, The Nametag Principle for free. I’ve been reading it and it’s excellent. For details, visit http://bit.ly/rVJe71)
4) John Michael Morgan (@johnmorgan)
John Michael Morgan is a branding superstar. I bumped into John on Twitter recently when we discovered that we have a ridiculous number of friends and acquaintances in common. So I invited John to hang out on the phone with me last week so I could get to know him, and the guy is insane with knowledge. John lives and breathes branding and marketing- and since I do, too, I can tell you it’s rare to find someone who loves this stuff and thinks about it as much as (if not more than) I do. John’s first book, Brand Against the Machine, just came out and it’s also fantastic.
5) HubSpot (@Hubspot)
Hubspot is a new favorite of mine. Hubspot has been putting out a crazy amount of really solid learning content on inbound marketing. They have a bunch of e-books, articles, and webinars on their site, and so far, everything I’ve read is superb and on-the-mark. From what I can tell, HubSpot is actually a full-service web hosting platform that takes all the web site and blogging tools and combines them with a bunch of marketing tools. I’m not too sure about the platform itself, as I haven’t really explored it enough yet to make an assessment, but I don’t think I’d be surprised if their software is great, considering how as good their content is. Whether you’re looking for a tool like Hubspot offers or not, though, if you want to learn about inbound marketing, these are the people to follow.
In coming weeks, I’ll share more from my list of Awesome Entrepreneurial Superstars. Stay tuned!
Ever since I gained a certain level of visibility and credibility in the marketplace, I’ve been bombarded with private messages and e-mails from people who want me to promote their books, products, teleseminars, live events, telesummits…
I’m particular about who and what I promote. I only share people and products I have personal experience with. I only share things that have helped me and improved my business. If I connect with someone or read a book that just didn’t help me, I’ll be darned if I’m going to promote that to my subscribers and followers, just to get a fat commission. I’ve never believed in promotion for profit. It’s just not my style.
But what bothers me most is that I regularly receive requests for help from people who have befriended me on Facebook, never said “hello,” and then sent me a message a couple of weeks later asking me to promote their new book and help them get to “bestseller status” on Amazon.
Why would I do that??
Why would I ever promote someone I don’t know? Why would I promote content I haven’t reviewed? How could I possibly recommend someone I don’t know and maintain my own integrity and authenticity?
I imagine there are people who will promote anything, thinking that associating themselves with someone they perceive as more successful makes them look more successful. It doesn’t.
So here’s the scoop: if you want people to promote your products, here’s the way to do it:
Create really solid content. Don’t hold back. Give everything you’ve got and make sure you have a good editor (for print or audio).
Form strong relationships with other entrepreneurs and small business owners who have the same target market. Look for complimentary businesses to form alliances with.
Talk to people. Get to know them. Comment on blogs, Facebook pages, articles, and show your support.
Bring value to the table for other people before you ask them to do something for you. Believe it or not, things like what I mentioned in #3 are ways of bringing value and forming a relationship with someone. I remember the people who post comments on my Facebook status updates and blog posts.
If you want someone to promote your product or book for the first time and they haven’t seen your content before, send them a copy of your work before asking them to promote it. You might end up with a great blurb for your book cover or web site and you might also gain a fan.
Ultimately, the most important point I can make here is that if you’re using social media as a business networking tool, make sure you use it the right way. Remember to focus on the “social” part of social media. It’s all about the connection and the conversation.
These days, anyone and everyone are calling themselves an “expert” and there are tons of business “coaches” who are promoting the idea that you don’t need experience, education, or training to be an expert. So…what is an expert, anyway?
Let’s start with the dictionary definition:
Expert. noun. a person who has special skill or knowledge in some particular field; specialist; authority. adjective. possessing special skill or knowledge; trained by practice; skillful or skilled (often fol. by in or at).
Okay, that gives us a lot to go on.
To be an expert, you must have special skill or knowledge in some particular field.
How do you acquire special skill or knowledge in a particular field? First and foremost, I recommend reading. I’ve read over 3,000 books on small business, marketing, branding, personal growth, success, and profitability. But believe me, it’s not enough just to read. You have to read with a critical mind. You can’t read every single book and think they all contain The Answers. In fact, many books I’ve read contain one or two great thoughts, and the rest of the book simply builds on the theme. Other books have so many gems and wisdom, they tend to look like they’ve been through a war, with all the underlining and dog-eared pages. You have to learn to discern quality and substance, more than anything else.
Second, I recommend training. Take classes and courses in your area of study. I started my career as a web developer and I took tons of classes to acquire the skills I needed to be successful. Later, I taught classes in web development, and believe me, you become an expert very quickly when you teach! When I got carpal tunnel syndrome and had to change careers, I took a ton of training to be a coach. I didn’t take one course and call myself a coach. I took several courses and relied heavily on my Master’s degree in social psychology as well. And when I transitioned in to business consulting, I studied marketing and branding, startup and growth, and worked with mentors who taught me what they knew as well.
And that leads me to the third recommendation: study with the masters. Study with people who have vast amounts of experience in your field. Ask them to mentor you, as I did, and see if they’ll teach you or allow you to apprentice.
To be an expert, you must be trained by practice. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he shares a number that many of us know: 10,000. 10,000 hours is the number of hours it takes to become a master at something, to be truly proficient. So if you’re a chef, it takes 10,000 hours (or 10 years) to become a master chef. If you’re a violinist, it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become truly proficient. Likewise, if you’re a coach, it’ll take you 10,000 hours or 10 years to be a master (not in title, but in practice). I didn’t call myself an expert in small business until I had 10 years under my own belt. You just need time in the field and lots of practice to get beyond theory and to really know what you’re doing.
To be an expert, you must be an authority. You know, there are lots of ways to become an authority. People all over the net are showing you how to become an “authority” or achieve “expert status” by marketing articles and using strategic PR…but you become a true authority when you have studied and trained and practiced, and achieved credibility and legitimacy. Ultimately, you achieve authority status when you achieve the respect of your peers and of those who have less experience and practice than you.
At the end of the day, anybody can call themselves an “expert.” But authentically, are you really one?
“We’ll show you how to get on the Oprah show”
“Some of the graduates of our program have gone on to appear on Tony Robbins’ stage!”
“We’re always getting calls from publicists who want to know who’s hot right now so they can put them on Oprah.”
Have you heard any of these claims before? Maybe someone was trying to sell you a public speaking course, a public relations program, or your very own internet radio show, and they used what I call the “Oprah and Tony Marketing Strategy” to do it.
What is the “Oprah and Tony Marketing Strategy?” It’s a sales and marketing technique that’s based in another old strategy I like to call the “overpromise, underdeliver” strategy. They promise you the sun, moon, and stars, but deliver very little in the way of usable content or implementation. The Oprah and Tony Marketing Strategy is basically the “overpromise, underdeliver” strategy on steroids.
Let’s face it, if you’re a writer or an expert of any kind, if you have a message and you think it’s your life purpose to deliver that message to the world, then getting on Oprah’s show or Tony’s stage is your path to greatness, right? After all, Oprah changed the lives of Dr. Phil, Rachel Ray, and Dr. Oz, among many others. And Tony Robbins’ stage is the Holy Grail of public speaking, shared only by the best of the best.
Of course you want to get noticed by Oprah and Tony. And that’s what smart marketers and salespeople are counting on.
Let me tell you what happened to me the other day:
I received an e-mail on Facebook from a producer of an internet radio show company, subject line “Media Request.” He said that his company was developing a new internet radio show about small business and that I’d come up on his “radar” as a credible expert. He said he wanted to talk to me to see about having me host the show.
Luckily, I had heard of this company before, otherwise I might’ve been flattered by the “media request” (which, btw, is typically reserved for interview requests). I have to confess, I already didn’t like this company to begin with, because they named their company specifically to take advantage of a well-known classic in American radio, in the hopes, I think, of confusing people into thinking they were going to be appearing on that program or station.
But the thing is, I wanted to know what they were selling – I know some people who have been taken in by them, so I wanted to know how much they charge and what they promise. So I set up the meeting with the guy and settled in for the sales pitch.
As expected, this was a perfect example of the Oprah marketing strategy. I heard all about the many famous authors this guy had produced shows for, the implication being that if I did the show, then I’d become a famous author just like them, nevermind that none of them were currently paying him a dime, nor could I get confirmation that they had paid this particular company for this particular service. The fee was $6,700 for a 13-week internet radio show, and the guy said they’d help me produce it and then market it for me, so all I would have to do is call in each week, do my show, and then go on my merry way, doing nothing whatsoever to market the show after that. And by the way, publicists, PR reps, agents, and producers for shows like Oprah listened in on this particular company’s broadcasts all the time to find new talent, and they call this guy all the time to find out “who’s hot” and who they should bring on their shows for interviews.
See how slick that is? So basically, for a mere $6,700, I could get famous with my own radio show, have to do virtually none of the marketing stuff we all hate, and get on the Oprah show??? And you know that’s what most people hear.
But you have to listen in between the lines and know enough to know when you’re getting scammed. The marketing services they offered were minimal, some were unnecessary, and frankly, you could do much better yourself.
More importantly, there are companies that offer the same services for free, or with cool add-ons, up to $999 for an entire year of your own internet radio show. So why would you pay almost seven grand for this? Oh yeah…because you might get on Oprah.
Let me tell you another story. This time, a woman who found me on Facebook contacted me and set up a phone meeting to talk about a public speaking training program she was developing. She wanted to ask me (as well as several others) what I would want in such a program, so she could make sure to include stuff that people really wanted to learn. When we talked on the phone, she dropped several well-known names and bragged about how she can get people on Tony Robbins’ stage.
People? Seriously? When someone is trying to sell you something and they tell you they can get you on stage with Oprah or Tony? Hang up. Delete the e-mail. That is one of the biggest red flags of all time. Unless you’re talking to Oprah’s producer or reading an e-mail from someone with an e-mail address ending in tonyrobbins.com, stop falling for this nonsense! None of the big names you know were overnight successes because they paid for an internet radio show, a public speaking program, or anything else.
And I hate to say this, because for some of you, this might sting a little. It might seem harsh, but it’s the truth, and you need to hear it.People use the Oprah and Tony Marketing Strategy to prey on people who believe that the world is waiting to discover them. These are the same people who have been told that all they have to do to be successful is find their “life purpose” or their “passion” and then everything will be easy.
Small business is not easy. It requires work. You have to work hard and you have to work smart. Don’t be fooled into thinking you can build a million-dollar (or multi-million dollar) business on a 4-hour work week! Sure, there are ways to work smart so that you don’t have to work a 40 or 60 hour work week, but please, stop looking for the easy way out. Stop looking for the easy answers or for the magic bullet and start taking responsibility for yourselves and for your success, and remember that unless you’re hiring a reputable publicist with a solid, proven track record, the likelihood of you getting on Oprah is…unfortunately…slim to none. Not impossible, but unlikely. And Oprah is not the only path to becoming notable. So settle down and pay your dues wisely, and it’ll be easier to spot the scams.
Lately, I’ve received a large number of e-mails from people introducing themselves as ‘bestselling’ authors. Folks, this is a claim that is so simple to check out that you absolutely should not be lying about it.
Now…don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with you “spinning” your resume and credentials to sound a bit more impressive than they actually are, as long as what you say is still true. But if you’re blatantly disseminating information about yourself that is completely false, like saying you’re a ‘bestselling’ author when your book has never made it onto the New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestsellers lists, then you’re lying. Period.
According to Wikipedia, “a bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains.” Wikipedia goes on to say, “in the United Kingdom, a hardcover book could be considered a “bestseller” with sales ranging from 4,000 to 25,000 copies per week.” Per week, people. So be honest: is your book really a “bestseller?”
The authors whose work appears on bestseller lists (and I’m not talking about Amazon’s lists, which change hourly and are micro-specific, but rather the real lists of USA Today, New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal) tend to be exceptional at marketing their books. They know that to be successful, you have to know how to market and you have to know how to sell, and you can’t just sell one book at a time. True bestselling authors are smart marketers who know how to leverage the right tools and professionals to build awareness about and visibility for their product.
Today, you can claim just about anything you want. You can say you’re an expert of any kind without anyone having to verify it. You can say you’re a speaker, a published writer, and yes, even a ‘bestselling author.’ But just because you say it doesn’t make it true. So before you say that you’re a “bestselling author,” make sure you know what that means, and make sure it’s actually true. Have some integrity in your self-promotion and you’ll gain more respect…and eventually, you actually might achieve that dream to be a real bestselling author.
How would you like your business to grow? Slowly, and in small steps, or quickly, in leaps and bounds? In this article, I’ll show you how to create exponential growth using strategic, joint venture relationships. Read more…
