Month: May 2016

I went to a workshop recently.
Many of the people
in the audience
were staring down at their phones.

What a wasted opportunity!

Here they were,
surrounded by people
who wanted to learn,
who wanted to better themselves.
These people likely had connections
and expertise.
And they weren’t talking to them.

That message on the phone
would likely wait.
The opportunity to talk to others
at the workshop
wouldn’t.

Herb Dwyer,
co-founder of
ASI Energy,
shares
one of his secrets
for success.

“Act like a sponge.
Be a sponge.
Absorb.
When you go to conferences,
have conversations,
collect business cards.
When you’re at the library,
read.
When you wake up and
you’re sipping coffee,
find out what’s going on.
Ask people about their business models.
Just take things in.”

Put your phone away
and absorb
what is happening around you.

Sales, partnerships,
other opportunities
are often awarded to the confident.

No one is confident
100% of the time
but
we can fake it
and often,
simply by faking it,
we can become more confident.

Lillian Glass,
a body-language expert,
shares

“Confident people are always looking up,
never down at the table,
the ground, or their feet.

Whether in conversation
or just walking in the office hallway,
they’re looking at other people.

They’re engaging them
through their eye contact.”

Look upward.
Convey confidence.

We often throw around phrases
like ‘calm while under fire”
when describing great leadership.

Some folks think
this means great leaders don’t freak out.
They don’t get scared.

It doesn’t mean this.
Everyone gets scares.
What it means is
great leaders don’t SHOW their fear.

Why don’t they show it?

Because when a leader shows her fear,
her followers totally lose
their sh*t.

If she ACTS calm,
her followers tend to calm down also.

Bill Treasurer
shares

“Often that means that
your leadership demeanor
needs to be compensatory
to your followers’ demeanor.

When people are freaking out,
you need to portray confidence and resolve.
When people are complacent and apathetic,
you need to portray worry and concern.

This may not exactly be authentic,
but it’s what people need and
what the role of leader calls
for you to portray.”

Act the way
you want your followers to act.

This time of the year,
the weather is getting warmer,
friends are on vacation,
and it is easy
to feel lazy.

Fight it.

Building businesses takes dedication
and hard work.

Nick Woodman
shared

“To get GoPro started,
I moved back in with my parents
and went to work
seven days a week,
20 hours a day.
I wrote off my personal life
to make headway on it.”

Remind yourself why you’re passionate
about this business,
why it is worth the sacrifices,
why you need to do this.

And then work it.

I keep a close eye
on what my competitors are doing.
Their actions and products
change my customers’ expectations
of my own products.

However, I am more focused
on what my customers/prospects want,
what is missing in the market
that they desire.
I like to be where my competitors
aren’t yet playing.

Jeff Bezos
once said

“If you’re competitor focused,
you have to wait
until there is a competitor
doing something.

Being customer focused
allows you to be more pioneering.”

Keep track of what your competitors
are doing
but focus on your customers/prospects
and what they desire.

A loved one and I have an agreement.
When he’s down,
I pep him up.
When I’m down,
he peps me up.

Why?

Because it is very difficult
to be successful
when we’re feeling down.
We are unlikely to work hard,
to excite prospects about our products,
to rally people around our missions.

As Brian Tracy
once said

“Optimism is the one quality
more associated with
success and happiness
than any other.”

Consider pairing with someone
and help pep each other up
when you’re down.

Before I publish a book,
I ask myself,
“Will this book excite readers?
Will they talk about it?
Will they recommend it to friends?”

In this crowded marketplace
(and EVERY marketplace is crowded),
it makes no sense
to launch an okay product or service.
No one will talk about it.
Few people are likely to buy it.

Products and services have to thrill
at least one prospect
enough that she talks about them,
starts the buzz on them.

Paul Graham,
serial entrepreneur,
once shared

“It’s better to make
a few people really happy
than to make
a lot of people semi-happy.”

Thrill prospects
with your products or services.

Building a business
is a marathon,
not a sprint.

I market my products every day,
make a few sales every day,
push development of products
ahead every day.

It feels like I’m making a lot of effort
for nothing,
like I’m not achieving anything.

Then five years into a brand (pen name),
one of my products made its way
onto the USA Today Bestseller List.
That customer here and that customer there
added up to an impressive sales base.

Bill Gates
once shared

“Most people
overestimate
what they can do in one year
and underestimate
what they can do in ten years.”

Keep pushing forward.

Every damn day on social media,
I see a writer
correcting a reader’s
or a reviewer’s grammar.

A knowledge of grammar is expected
of writers.
A reader doesn’t necessarily need this knowledge.

You might be shaking your head
but I bet you’ve caught yourself thinking
negatively
about a person
because she doesn’t know anything
about your area of expertise.

I know I’ve had these thoughts.

One of the reasons
we’re valuable to others
is because we know something
they don’t.

Never look down on customers
or partners or vendors
for not knowing about our area of expertise.
This is why they need us.