Here’s a cool infographic for you to check out from Villanova University about how to use Twitter (and other social media tools) better to improve your social media results.
Check it out…
Archives for September 2015
Are You Minding Your P’s and Q’s?
Do you remember your parents and teachers telling you to mind your P’s and Q’s?
Basically mind your manners. There are a few other explanations as well – click on the link above to check it out.
But today I want to talk about P’s and Q’s as they relate to your success in your business and in life.
As I was preparing to write this post I was intrigued by the P’s and Q’s that represent so many things it is necessary to pay attention to when growing your business or achieving more in life.
So let’s jump in and explore some of the words that carry so much impact with them.
First the P’s…
1 – Purpose
Your purpose. This is your mission. Your passion. Your reason you do what you do. And where possible it needs to be tied to how your community of customers benefits in a way from your contribution that they wouldn’t even think of buying from someone else.
2 – People
People in your life can be the difference between abundance and minimal impact. You need prospects that you turn into customers that become repeat customers.
You need great vendors to support your vision by providing you with the raw material or services to achieve your objectives.
You need employees or independent contractors to handle all the administrative elements that would otherwise slow your progress.
You need mentors and peers to hold you accountable and help draw out your vision and help you see what you are blind to being inside your company.
3 – Presence
Presence is your brand, your marketing, what people know and think of you. Is it doing what you want? Does it represent you accurately? Is it compelling enough to make them want to buy from you?
You need to own your presence. Your marketing and advertising, joint ventures, and sales efforts all must continually and reliably keep your pipeline of business full.
Are you a proprietary brand? Are you a thought leader? A maven in your industry? How are you leveraging that?
4 – Potential
Potential is all those ideas, experiences, relationships, concepts, plans, etc. all ready to work for you. Have you identified those areas of you that are waiting to be released? Do you know how to harness that potential? Are you working with mentors or consultants or peers who can hold you accountable for tapping that potential? And making it translate into repeat, fully satisfied, raving fans?
5 – Persistence
Persistence is what translates ideas into results. It is keeping going when times get tough. When you struggle to make payroll. When you’re pounding the pavement trying to make that next sale. It is pursuing your vision even though your friends and family think you’re crazy and try to talk you out of it. It is having the inner fortitude and willingness to buck the trend, that keeps you going when things look bleak.
Nothing incredible was ever achieved without persistence. And with persistence, almost anything is possible.
6 – Priorities
What are your priorities? Is it work? Or family? Or pro football? Or “Survivor” on TV?
In your business are you working the priorities that will make the biggest difference on your company’s success? Are you measuring the results and actions to make sure they’re effective? Are you leveraging the most impactful and making those areas your priority from the time you wake up in the morning to when you go to bed at night?
Are you handling the most important items during your most productive hours? Proper prioritization can move mountains. Make sure you’re prioritizing appropriately for your goals.
7 – Perspective
Whether it is your perspective, your unique view of things that makes the difference in your success. Or whether it is “having perspective” – letting stuff go that really isn’t that important. It is what you bring to the table.
Your unique vision for your business is what sets you apart from everyone else. Your perspective is what keeps you from losing it when things go wrong or people don’t do what you expect.
Sometimes that takes decades to fully develop – getting in those pressure-cooked situations and clawing your way out.
By gaining perspective over time you’re training yourself for success in the higher stakes games that are played when there is more money at stake. Learn early and often.
8 – Power
Knowing who holds the power and gaining that power yourself at the right time is a skill that can pay dividends. Power can be granted by title (i.e. CEO has a certain built-in power generated by the title). But it can also be conveyed due to expertise. If you learn, work hard, and build up an area that you are insanely good at, you can be the power broker in a room of CEO’s.
It may come down to who has or controls the scarce but critical resource or skill set that everyone else desires and requires. In those cases the lowly receptionist or office manager can make top salesmen and CEO’s quiver at their feet. Why? Because they control entry to the top decision makers. They are the gate keepers. They may not be paid the most but at times they wield incredible power.
9 – Preference
What do you prefer? Sometimes there is not right or wrong answer. It is just preference. But just because it isn’t black or white, doesn’t mean your preference doesn’t matter.
If you are company CEO or leader, you often don’t realize how much your preferences play a part in how those team members around you react to what you do and say. So make sure you are aware that innocuous comments you make could be driving behavior around you.
10 – Pain
The strongest marketing offers make liberal use of pain. They uncover an existing wound, scratch it, irritate it, make you feel like jumping out of your skin. Then they point to their product or service as the way out. The magic pill to take you away from all this pain.
11 – Pleasure
The other side of the pain coin. Pleasure is the good side of motivation. It is the carrot that goes with pain’s stick. What is the incredible benefit your customer can expect by choosing to buy from you today? You need to be dimensionalize it for them. Make it real.
12 – Progress
Are you making it? Are you tracking it? Are you setting goals and reviewing them regularly (quarterly, annually)? No real progress is made without clarity as to where you’re headed and reviewing results along the way.
13 – Prevention
Whether it is compliance requirements, getting the appropriate business entity in place. Insurance. Addressing governmental regulations. Planning for the unthinkable so you’re not caught in a business killing situation.
As entrepreneurs we often are optimists – even the most pragmatic among us. How are you ensuring your optimism doesn’t send your business into the abyss? You need people, processes, and paperwork to handle those potential eventualities. And make sure you survive.
And now on to the Q’s…
1 – Quality
Being the best will take you far. But even if you can’t be the best at everything, find something you can be the best at. That can be tied to a personal or professional unique selling proposition or competitive advantage that sets you apart from your competitors.
2 – Quantity
You need volume. The more the merrier. Don’t rest on your laurels. You need to keep pushing ahead. #1 and #2 in a market often rule (think AT&T and Verizon, Coke and Pepsi, Bud and…). Everyone else is fighting for scraps. You don’t want to be below #2 in any competitive arena for very long.
3 – Quibble
Don’t. Just don’t. Life is too short to sweat the small stuff. If it isn’t material to your success, then just deal with it and move on.
4 – Quiet
Ahhh…the quiet time. As a leader this is often very underrated. This is your planning time. This is where your greatest ideas often come from. You need to step away from your business. Step out of the day to day. And work ON your business instead of IN it.
By doing that in the quiet recesses of your mind you’ll find the solutions to your most pressing problems.
5 – Quit
Never. No business ever reached success by giving up. No leader ever succeeded by quitting. Do you think Richard Branson would quit? Donal Trump? What if Thomas Edison had quit? What if Disney had given up on his dreams?
Whatever you do never quit. Now go take on the world and make your mark in it.
Learn something? Please share/like/comment.
Are You Marketing a “Blood Moon Eclipse” Sale?
Is it the end of the world?
Or just a cool looking moon?
Heavenly occurrences often are used to explain dire consequences. Whether it is an eclipse or a blood moon or flood, famine, or earthquake. You name it, people impart meaning to it.
So how can this tie to marketing?
Well look a a couple key elements here.
Is it rare or unusual?
Check out the news, dates in history, pop culture. The unexpected, rare or unusual catch people’s attention. And catching attention is a critical element of marketing. Until you get someone’s attention, you can’t get them to listen to what you have to offer. And you definitely can’t sell them your product or service.
Is it timely?
Talking about something when it is trending on Twitter or showing up on TMZ or Breitbart or the Huffington Post catches people where they are. Talking about old news doesn’t move the needle with people. But tie it to the current buzz in the media, and you have the start of something good.
Can you relate the news item to your niche or offering?
Getting attention is a great start. But if you can translate that into how it matters relative to your offering, it is just amateurish bait and switch tactics that your prospects will see through.
But if it is something that you can tie in with a beautiful transition. And even better reference the item in your offer (like a “Blood Moon Eclipse Halloween Sale”) then you’re moving in the right direction.
How about a little history?
The Blood Moon Prophecy promoting the end of times could be just enough supporting information to guide an “End-of-Times Clearance” promotion. Your opportunities are only limited by your imagination.
Anyway, celebrate the Blood Moon in all its glory. And enjoy your last days. And if the prophecy doesn’t happen…well there’s always the next end of times marketing message to promote.
10 Blunders Newbie Entrepreneurs Must Avoid
Starting a new business.
It is exciting. Scary. Fun. Hard Work. You name it. All wrapped into one bundle of joy/pain.
So as a newbie entrepreneur, what pitfalls do I need to avoid?
Here are 10 gotchas you need to watch out for…
1. The Perfection Trap
You have a great idea for a new product or service. You work on it night and day. Craft it carefully. Making sure it is just right. A little tweak here, a touch-up there. Almost ready to go to market. But not quite. Is the pricing right? The color. The texture. Placement on the shelf.
You could go on for days, weeks, months…even years before you’re satisfied with it.
STOP!!!
You will never make any money doing this. You need to launch. Things will never be perfect. You need to get your product or service in front of prospects. You can adjust and improve your offering based on the results you get from TESTING in front of live customers. Don’t try to make it perfect.
2. Cash Demands
Cash, cash, cash. The lifeblood of your business. Without cash you’ll be back looking through the help wanted adds and tossing your business into the scrap-heap of other failed business ventures.
Sales is not cash.
Credit is not cash.
Growth sucks cash.
Overhead eats cash.
Everywhere you turn your business is temped with the siren song of offers to take your hard-earned cash.
So what do you do? Carefully monitor your cash needs. Make sure you know where your money is going. Sometimes the old fashioned budget is just what you need.
Also look at your conversion of sales to cash. Good old accounts receivable. Do your customers pay cash at point of sale? Or do they pay at 30 days, 60 days, or whenever they get around to it.
Also look at your margins. When you make a sale, what percentage of it is profit after you back out the cost of the product or service delivered to your customer. This doesn’t include overhead costs of your office or staff not contributing to the direct delivery of your offering. The bigger the margin, the less impact sales on credit has on your cash needs. The tighter the margins or the faster your growth, the more you need to keep tight tabs on things.
3. Overboard on Overhead
Oh, overhead. The shiny, cushy, so-called necessities, that make your work easier. But do they actually contribute to increased sales and profits? And do those increases more than justify your overhead costs? If you’re not getting at least 2 or 3 times the profits on your increased overhead costs, then suffer and put it off til you’re able to make it work for you.
Too many people think they need an office (and a nice one) to show clients through. But I can’t count the number of times a client actually comes to most service business offices. If they don’t visit, why not have a minimal office that does the job rather than have something that costs twice as much and doesn’t add anything to the bottom line of your company?
Now that doesn’t mean you can’t outsource certain things like accounting to keep you focused on your highest value tasks. It also doesn’t mean you couldn’t look at an office sharing arrangement (I can’t count the number of businesses who are only using a fraction of their office space and would love to sublease a portion to someone with a similar business profile). So think outside the box a little and don’t just spend on overhead unless it really does justify the expense.
4. Being a Commodity
I’m a real estate agent. Or a marketing company. Or a clothing store. If you are referred to that way then you are likely a commodity in your customer’s and prospect’s eyes.
Being a commodity means all the prospect hears is price. They don’t see you as distinctive, proprietary, unique, different from all your competitors.
You can’t remain in that role or you’ll soon find yourself scraping by on the scraps left over by your competitors.
You need to look hard at where you are and what the possibilities are. Look at each of your key competitors. What are they best at? What are they promoting as their competitive advantage on their website? To their clients? Where are the holes in their offerings? Where are the opportunities you can capitalizing by promoting yourself as the best in the world in that micro-niche? Dig deep. By doing so you have the potential to drag yourself out of that hole and move to the top of the pile. Become the top dog among your competitors.
5. Not Starting
The greatest ideas of all time. The greatest products and services. All will be worthless if their originators never take them to market. And think of what a shame that would be. Your greatest ideas sitting on the cutting room floor because you lacked the courage or money or initiative to proceed.
Don’t let that happen to you and your ideas. Action is critical. And no one but you, the one who cares most to make your ideas a reality, can push them across the finish line.
So get started and make a difference in the world. You do matter. So make it happen.
6. Not Testing the Market
As in the perfection trap, not testing will eat up your money and your potential success. The market will tell you if something works. It will define success. It will point out to you what is effective and what is not.
Whether it is a headline (testing different headlines can increase results 2, 3, 100, 1000 times) or a product color or placement or advertising source. You name it, test it.
7. Not Learning From Your Mistakes
We all make mistakes. But the biggest mistake is not learning from them. Entrepreneurialism is often about making thousands of mistakes and adjusting based on the results you get. As you must test, you must constantly learn from those tests.
You need to take notes. Write down your assumptions and expectations, note your approach and implementation details, and then review and assess the results. Keeping a journal or notebook will help you leapfrog the competition who just coasts along.
8. Trying to do Everything Yourself
When you’re starting out it is often necessary to do most everything yourself. However I’d caution you that that can be the biggest trap of them all. None of us are experts at everything. We don’t have all the answers. We don’t have endless amounts of time or money to hope we get things right.
There are reasons successful people don’t mow their own lawns, clean their houses, or wash their cars themselves. For these people time is money. They recognize that freeing up their time for what they see as the most impactful use of their time helps them achieve their goals.
Now that’s not to say you go out and outsource everything if your time is not generating more than the outsourcing cost. But if it is then jealously guard your time and go outsource crazy. For salespeople this means hiring someone to handle the paperwork so you can spend time in front of customers selling.
9. Not Preparing for Time Demands
Starting and running businesses suck your time. That is why relationships often take a back seat when running a small business. That doesn’t have to be the case if you prioritize appropriately. But it does mean you must protect your time. You’ won’t likely be watching much TV. You won’t be going out with friends all the time (unless you can convert that to marketing time and sales results).
Don’t underestimate the time required. But if you prepare and understand that, then you can take on the world.
10. Not Planning for Problems
Problems are life. You make great plans and goals. And as soon as you start they’re now obsolete. You need to plan for the problems, have backup plans to backup plans. You can’t dwell on that and let them drag you down. But you can’t have a Pollyanna attitude about it either. Problems will come. And over time you will get better and better at dealing with those problems. And the problems you though we’re like climbing Mt. Everest in a few years start to look like speedbumps you laugh at as you hardly slow down for them.
So take charge. And avoid these 10 blunders. And you’ll see success come faster than you ever thought possible.
50 Plus Must Read Books for Small Business Entrepreneurs
I’ve spent a good part of my life buried in books of all kinds. But none more than business and self improvement books. Taking notes and getting the best gems of information out of them.
Books I’ve read decades ago still provide ideas that are just as effective today as when I first read them. And re-reading these books (particularly if you’ve read them a while ago) can provide you new insights that you might not have noticed originally.
And so here are over 50 business and personal growth books for you to dive into. They’ll be like rocket fuel for you and your business.
I’ve read nearly all of the books on this list and highly recommend them. A few others are on my upcoming reading list but have good reviews from others who are in the know.
So jump in and enjoy.
General Business
- Celestine Chua / Foter / CC BY
These books cover everything from high level strategy to in-the-trenches tactics to grow your business. These ideas work for everyone from small business entrepreneur to medium and large business leaders.
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t – Jim Collins
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference – Malcolm Gladwell
The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less – Richard Koch
The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything – Stephen M.R. Covey
Sales
- coolinsights / Foter / CC BY
Sales is one of those topics that have hundreds of books written on them. These are some great classic sales books. You’ll likely find at least one that fits your selling style. And regardless you’ll learn a lot about what it takes to be successful in the selling profession.
Many of these authors have quite a few other books on related topics that are worth checking out as well.
Particularly Zig Ziglar (I saw him several times in person and he was a wonderful person, speaker, and salesman), Brian Tracy (all his books are easy reads and covers a variety of business topics but mostly in the sales category), and Jeffrey Gitomer (a leader in the field today).
The Greatest Salesman in the World – Og Mandino
Secrets of Closing the Sale – Zig Ziglar
The Psychology of Selling – Brian Tracy
How to Master the Art of Selling – Tom Hopkins
How to Sell Anything to Anybody – Joe Girard
Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness – Jeffrey Gitomer
Marketing/Advertising
This section covers everything from how the brain works to small business marketing tactics to how to differentiate yourself and classic advertising tomes. A ton of great reads in this group.
Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable – Seth Godin
80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More – Perry Marshall
Scientific Advertising – Claude Hopkins
Tested Advertising Methods – John Caples
Ogilvy on Advertising – David Ogilvy
Breakthrough Advertising – Eugene M. Schwartz
The Robert Collier Letter Book – Robert Collier
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind – Al Ries & Jack Trout
Psychology/Persuasion
- Dean Hochman / Foter / CC BY
Starting with the persuasion classic by Cialdini and moving into some newer persuasion experts like Kevin Hogan, you’ll learn a ton about how to influence and ultimately prepare better offers for your prospects that are more likely to convert to a sale.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert B. Cialdini
Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive – Noah J. Goldstein, Ph.D.
The Psychology of Persuasion: How To Persuade Others To Your Way Of Thinking – Kevin Hogan
Hypnotic Writing: How to Seduce and Persuade Customers with Only Your Words – Joe Vitale
The Irresistible Offer: How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less – Mark Joyner
Management/Leadership
The management/leadership section covers everything from general management topics (One Minute Manager) and leadership (Five Dysfunctions) to technical situations (Fierce Conversations). If you have a management problem, here’s where you need to head next to solve it.
The One Minute Manager – Kenneth Blanchard, Ph.D. and Spencer Johnson, M.D.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable – Patrick Lencioni
Who Moved My Cheese – Spencer Johnson, M.D.
Jack: Straight from the Gut – Jack Welch
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You – John C. Maxwell
Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time – Susan Scott
First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently – Marcus Buckingham
Personal Improvement/Motivational
- drcliffordchoi / Foter / CC BY
You can’t lead unless you’ve developed your own personal power and understand how to get the most out of yourself. These are books from each of major change leaders in the personal growth industry both past and present. All are good reads (although the 7 Habits takes a bit to get into – once you’re past the first few chapters it picks up and is definitely worth the investment of time).
Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
How to Win Friends & Influence People – Dale Carnegie
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change – Stephen R. Covey
Personal Finance
- 401(K) 2013 / Foter / CC BY-SA
If you can’t handle the money on a personal level and don’t understand how to make the most of your working life, then the rest probably won’t matter. There are some great ideas here as to what it means to be financially successful, how to get there, and how not to let debt take over your life. These are focused as much on overcoming human nature (that causes your financial life to come apart) as it is the mechanics of handling money and investing.
The Richest Man in Babylon – George S. Clason
The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy – Thomas J. Stanley
The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich – David Bach
The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke – Suze Orman
The The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness – Dave Ramsey
Hope you enjoyed this journey from some of the most read and most influential business related books of all time. If you have others you like and would recommend, please add them in the comments.
P. S. After this first posted, Jay Abraham posted his Jay Abraham’s Readers Choice “Book List” (Shade # 19 of Jay’s “50 Shades of Jay” series) for which I provided five book suggestions and reasons why they were my favorites.
Below is a listing of those books (from the full list at the link above) and how they impacted me.
- #111 – Good to Great – “The biggest key point for me was putting the right people in the right seat on the bus (put them in the right job/role). Often people who are good for the team may not be the stars but make everyone around them better.”
- #334 – The Art of the Deal – “Love him or hate him, Donald Trump is a great businessman and this book lets us in on some of the largest deals that he had made up to that point. The book was a little overblown on the personality of DT, but his persona is a huge part of his brand. The nuggets of wisdom contained in this book bump it onto my top 5 list because they are both valuable and relevant.”
- #367 – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – “Having gone through challenging times and the break up of an executive team, I learned how both trust, and lack of trust, can make or break a team. And as I learned also from Jay and Stephen M.R.
Covey’s “The Speed of Trust”, trust is a key factor to getting things done.”
- #440 – The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People – “Seek first to understand then to be understood. The book was a hard read through the first few chapters (took me three times to get through it). This point was about learning to listen (I used to interrupt and get impatient to talk). By learning to truly listen…and
listen and reflect back what I heard, this reduced many future problems that could have been headed off earlier.”
- #451 – The Tipping Point – “Broken Windows Theory (from the days of Rudy Giuliani trying to fix the crime problem in New York City). Basically if there is one broken window then it is easier for non‐criminals to treat the area like broken windows are standard and not treat the city with care. This also tied to understanding that you might not see results until there is critical mass ‐ then all of a sudden the results show up. With the broken windows, crime didn’t immediately drop off but once people learned and saw that even petty crimes would no longer be tolerated, crime dropped off substantially. This ties pretty well to what you see in business as well. If you are doing marketing, you may see few results until the effects of repetition of your marketing message kick in. Then the results show.”
