Imagine Your Reality

You’ve probably heard the saying, “Do what I tell you to do, not what I do.” While it is a bit of a cliche, there’s some truth to it as well. How often have you worked with a client and and after you’ve helped them with your particular, you’ve said to yourself, “I should be doing that for my business?” If you’ve found yourself saying that, don’t worry you’re not alone. I also find myself saying that on occasion, when I’m providing business and social media advice to other businesses.

It’s all to easy to not follow your own advice. You’ve got a client who needs you, a project that needs to be attended to, or something else you need to accomplish for your business and in the process you forget to put time toward doing the very activity you would advocate your client to do. So how do you stop and find time?

First, keep a pad of paper on hand that’s just for you. If you find yourself saying to yourself, that’s something I should do, scribble a note down for yourself.

Second, put aside fifteen to thirty minutes to review any notes you made. By putting aside that time you can then review the notes and determine what activities you will follow through on. Use that time to not just review, but also follow through on activities you feel you should be doing for your business.

Third, do it every day. Make notes, review them and follow through every day. Think of the 15 to 30 minutes as a time to reflect and review what you’re doing with your business to make it successful. And remember you can’t really take care of anyone else, until you take care of yourself. This applies to your business as well, so making that time to follow up on your internal business activities can make a big difference in the work you do for your clients and also in attracting new prospects.

What do you think? What would you add that I haven’t?

Beyond Culture by Edward T. Hall

I’ve always found Hall’s books to be interesting and relevant to my life from business to spirituality and this book has lived up to that same expectation. In this book Hall, discusses inter-cultural communication patterns and raises up concerns about the tendency to focus toward using external resources as opposed to examining and utilizing internal, behavior skills. I find this relevant in an age where more than ever the focus is on using technology to communicate, with all the inherent problems that brings, especially when relying on text only to interact. This is a useful book for exploring cross cultural communication and examining the increasing role of technology in communication.

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5 out of 5

Never be the Same (Link to author’s website) by Mark LeBlanc

If you’ve had the privilege of working with Mark LeBlanc, you know that he is a dynamic person who is always on the go with business. Never be the Same, an autobiography and business book presents a different side of Mark, but one no less compelling than him as a professional speaker. In this book he is candid about his ups and downs as a business owner and as a human being. I found his description of his pilgrimage on the Camino in Spain to be particularly moving and engrossing. But most of all as I read this book, I came away with a better understanding of how I can learn from Mark on yet another level and also never be the same. I highly recommend this book as one that will give you insights into your business process, while also reminding you of the value of also being more than just your business.

Note: You can only currently order this book from the author’s website

10 out of 5, because 5 stars wouldn’t be enough

I recently watched a movie called Stingray Sam, and the song of the movie explains that: “Stingray Sam is not a hero, but he does the things that other folks don’t do that need to be done.” It’s a rather catchy song, but my mind turned toward how I could apply that to my business.

The truth is that a business succeeds in part due to how it stands out in the minds of other people, and in part on the quality of its products and services. A business that combines the quality of what it does with how it stands out has a definite edge over the competition. So studying your competition can tell you what they are doing and also what they aren’t doing.

Sometimes you will co-opt and improve on what they are doing because you recognize they are onto something, and you also know you can do it better than they can. And sometimes you will look at what they aren’t doing and recognize that there is a gap and you can take advantage of that gap. If a business isn’t doing something, look carefully at what it’s not doing and see how you can use that to your advantage. If that means passing out flyers on the streets, give it a try, and see what happens.

It’s easy to do what other people are doing, but think of what they aren’t doing and ask yourself if you could do it. If you can, then try it. It might cost you a bit of money and time and effort, but it could also pay off, and will payoff at least in terms of the experience you get in doing something other people won’t do.

Sometimes, no matter how much money a client can give you, the relationship you have with that client is toxic, and you have to fire him or her. Many times, a business won’t take that action, because they are more concerned with getting the money than actually preserving their sanity or happiness. The problem with that mentality is that its a scarcity mentality. You are more worried about the money and the security it brings, than about focusing on being happy. The irony is that when you focus on trying to keep that kind of client with you, you actually can end up more stressed and lost money, because you’re always having to deal with the client’s issues. You know the client I’m talking about:

S/he constantly complains about the price, constantly has questions or problems, constantly complains about business, and otherwise makes your life miserable, because nothing you do is ever enough for that client. There’s only one thing you can do with a client like that:

Fire your client. That’s right: fire your client. If you find yourself spending more time on that client and his/her issues, business and personal, then it’s time to fire him/her. You might lose some money, but you’ll be surprised at how much time and energy you free up and how much happier you will be. In fact, you just might find you get more clients, better clients, because you’re no longer invested in trying to make that problem client happy.

Not all clients are good clients. Some are toxic…and you can recognize them by how much they complain and how much they bring down you mood. If you feel depressed or unhappy about working with a client, it’s time to let go and get focused on clients who will appreciate you, even as you appreciate them.

What do you think?

When we think of times of trouble, we might think of it in the broad sense of a recession, where everyone is in effected, or we might think of it in terms of a personal experience that occurred to someone. On Sunday, January 17th, I found out that I was getting a divorce. Needless to say the initial shock I felt melted away into panic as I realized my support system was going to change and in fact already was changing. What I realized however was that panicking was the last thing I wanted to do, so while I did allow myself to feel it, I also started thinking of what I could to handle this situation.

I realized immediately I needed to reach out to my network, both personal and professional. I need to reach out to my personal network for comfort and talking about how I felt, and I needed to reach out to my professional network to get advice on what I could both about the divorce and also about finding a way to stay self-employed full time, especially when my business isn’t currently bringing in enough income to enable that.

Reaching out to my network involved telling them what was going on, and being vulnerable. Admitting that my business was not as solvent as I would like it to be wasn’t easy, but I realized that if I wanted their help I needed to be upfront about my circumstances so that I could get the best possible advice from them.

It’s important to reach out to your network in times of trouble, and to do that you need to be open and vulnerable. That’s not easy to do, because culturally we are told to keep our feelings to ourselves, to put on a stiff upper lip, but I found that being so open was helpful and I realized that if someone came to me in a similar situation, I’d want to know what was going on, so that I could really help the person. The advice I got definitely helped me start to put a plan together that I could use to help me deal not only with a difficult emotional situation, but also a difficult financial situation.

When you go through a difficult time, don’t pull away from your network. It might seem that’s the best way to handle the situation, especially if you are hurting, but reaching out to your network can help you find the strength to deal with a difficult situation and develop a strategy for moving forward, while still being able to do something you love.

I’m featured in an article on 21 areas of self-improvement for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

In my tweetstream the other day, I saw an interesting question about the difference between communication and conversation in social media. It was an interesting question to consider, because of the difference in engagement and intimacy that a conversation has as opposed to communication. Given that social media is a public domain phenomena this question becomes even more important.

I think of communication as formal, as marketing, and as a way to convey policies. Communication is about providing information and instilling guidelines.

Conversation, on the other hand, is intimate, sharing information, but also sharing a lot more. It’s a closer kind of relationship, about a wide variety of subjects, without an agenda.

This blog is about communication. I communicate with my readers. If my readers comment and I comment back it can start to move toward conversation, depending on the length of the engagement.

When I tweet out my status I’m communicating, but when I reply I’m possibly conversing…again I think its dependent on whether there’s a response as well as the context of the response.

And perhaps what also needs to be considered is just how personal a site such as twitter or Facebook can really be. Social media is a public forum, which ultimately can make it impersonal in terms of what people will share. How intimate can someone really be on a social media site? How intimate does a person want to be? Conversation can and still does occur, but how different is it really from communication?

On Monday, I started the Fast Track program with the National Speaker’s Association. It’s a program focused on teaching you how to become a paid speaker. Needless to say that’s one of my goals, so it made perfect sense to start attending the class. While there, we also got some recommendations for books that we might want to read and I ordered them from the library on Tuesday night.

Something I’ve always found important with anything I do professionally is the value of getting additional training on what you are doing. The truth is you can never really be an expert on a subject, if you’re really serious about that subject. And I say that because if you feel that way about the subject, you’ll always be trying to learn something new about it, or experimenting with it, or getting training on it, because you want to see what other people have to say.

Something I do on a fairly regular basis is attend seminars other people offer on the subjects I teach about. I want to see what they have to say about the subject, and I always learn something I didn’t know about the subject that I can take back to my clients to help them, as well as continuing to develop myself as a professional.

Getting additional training is the mark of a true professional. It says this person believes in the value of getting more education about the subject s/he is an “expert” in. It shows that s/he is willing to go the extra mile to learn new information and keep updated and informed about the topics and subjects important to his/her profession.

At the very least I think it’s important to be reading up on the subjects you teach on, or offer services and products in. I’m always reading at least one book on a subject related to business at a given time, so that I can learn more about what I’m teaching others. I don’t feel this makes me less genuine. If anything it shows that I want to provide the best information possible to my clients and recognize to do that I need to learn more.

When you start thinking of yourself as an expert, do a humbleness check on yourself and take a class, read a book, or do something where you learn from someone else about your field of study. Challenge yourself to learn at least three things from the class, book, etc. Doing that will keep you humble and also help you learn something new about what you love doing.

One of the issues that occurs with social media is whether you are actually communicating with your audience or just spewing out self-promotional spam that people ignore. One of my clients, when I first started working with her, didn’t realize that what she was putting out was spam. She would post a message once a day with information going back to her website. Her interactions with others was minimal, and consequently the few followers she did have probably ignored her.

Communicating with your audience or community involves doing more than just sending out promotional tweets about your latest service or product. While an occasional tweet with a link to your website is acceptable, it’s important to offer something more substantial than just that to the people who are following you. Using services such as klout or twitalyzer can help you analyze what you are doing or not doing effectively, but it also helps to simply engage people. Following people you know and communicating with them about news they post is a great way of showing interest and developing a genuine conversation.

Equally importantly is knowing what your audience needs. Spending some time finding out what the conversation is around can help you understand what it is they are looking for as well as how to engage them effectively. The contribution you make can greatly enhance the interactions you have, while also allowing you to move beyond being a spammer to being an influencer and contributor to your online and offline community. Truly communicating with your audience means doing more than tweeting once a day or posting just about your services or products. It means you share and learn and converse and otherwise do what you would with people you’d meet in any other situation.

Latest Biznik article: Do you like your clients

I was working with a client today and one of the issues that came up was calling potential clients or past clients versus emailing them.

“I don’t want to call them because I might be bothering them.”

Now I’ve heard that excuse before…from myself, and from other people, so I knew what my client was really dealing with is something common to any person who’s been in business for a little while. It’s feeling self-consciousness about asking for business.

So what happens when you feel self-conscious…you resort to email. It’s very impersonal, distant, and once it’s sent off, you don’t have to think about it…much. But as any self-employed person knows, you will still think about it, and toss and turn and wonder if the person read the email, if the person doesn’t want to do business with you, and any number of other concerns. Sound familiar?

The problem with email is its impersonal, distant, and easy to ignore. In fact, all you have to do is hit delete and you’re done. No more email. No more message.

Do you know it’s much harder to say no, when you talk to someone on the phone or in person? Why? Because we don’t like to say no. I’m not saying you should create a scene and confront the person into doing business with you, but what I am saying is that calling someone is much more personal. I can hear your voice and you can hear mine. And consequently saying no is a bit harder to do, because we’re no longer with dealing a computer screen. We’re dealing with another person on the end of the other line.

Call someone because you want to genuinely connect. Ask that person if s/he has any questions about what you do or how you can help (This is presuming the person is a prospect you’ve presented information to). If the person is a networking contact, set up a time to meet and chat. Invite the person to lunch or to a tea meeting.

Call a person because then you are talking to each other. The worst thing the person will say is no, not right now. And that just tells you not to put any more energy toward that person, beyond perhaps sending your e-newsletter his/her way if s/he is on your list. Follow-up with a phone call to remind the person you exist, to remind him/her of what it was s/he spoke to you about, in the first place.

Call, don’t email, if you want to reach people.

Here’s an action you can take, if you feel self-conscious about calling people. Make it a goal that for one week, you will call one person each day to set up a meeting, to follow-up on previous meetings,, to get together for lunch, or to find out what s/he needs. The next week increase to two calls, and the week after to three calls. You want to get to the point where you are ideally calling at leat three people each day.When you can do that, then you will start making connections with people. You won’t be bothering them…you’ll be connecting to them.

I have a confession to make: I’m an avid video and board game player. The other day I was playing through Fallout 3, a game set in a post apocalyptic future America , and it occurred to me that underlying the adventure aspects of the game was a very simple formula found in just about every role playing game I’ve played. In order to win the game, or succeed in the quest the player has to rely on other characters to succeed. S/he can’t do it alone!

In fact whether it’s a competitive or collaborative game, some kind of networking ocurs in games, unless you are playing solitaire. Even video games involve having the main character interact with other characters to achieve goals. You have to get information or items from people, find out what they need, and otherwise network in order to get the necessary information needed to help you accomplish your goals.

I won’t say that gaming taught me everything about networking, but what it has taught me about networking is the value of information gathering for solving problems. In order to win a game, you need to solve problems. To solve problems you need to get information, and then connect the right information to other pieces of information. After that you can then find a solution and apply it.

When I network with people, one of the questions I ask is, “What do you need?” When I know what a person needs, I can start to think of other people and what they have offer or need and then match people up so that they can help each other and succeed. And that’s somethign you see a lot in games. One character has a problem and doesn’t know that another character has a solution, but character, the connector, does know the solution and so connects the two people together.

Networking is about connecting and sharing information and resources. Not surprisingly so is gaming. Games teach you to cultivate a mindset of problem solving, asking, “How can I solve this?” And while not all networking is about problem solving, it certainly is a way to stand out to someone, when you ask what s/he needs and help him/her find that need.

How have games helped you become better at your business?