Get Along with People

Theodore Roosevelt said, "The most important ingredient in the formula for success is knowing how to get along with people."

Business owners who possess great people skills or emotional intelligence have a huge advantage. It doesn't matter how big your company is. It doesn't matter whether you employ three people or four hundred. The customer's first impression of your company is formed based on how you present yourself. No one is born with great people skills. By being aware of your actions, your emotions and how you speak around others you're headed in the right direction.

Quick Tips on Keeping your Customers

Keeping the customers you already have is vital to staying afloat right now. Using fresh, cost-conscience ideas, such as online promotions, is a great way to keep your base coming back. Be Creative... come up with a few ideas for incorporating online promotions into your marketing that will help you retain customers and weather this challenging economy.

• Give Your Customers What They Need, Not What They Want.
• Give Your Customers Hard Numbers.
• Stay Disciplined in Your Message.

Reflection Of The Day: Prosperity Begins Within, A Deeper Thought

Reflection of the Day: Prosperity Begins Within, A Deeper Thought

May 12, 2009

 

So if the past month hasn’t been painful spring cleaning your soul, good for you. Give yourself a hi-five and step into your place of wealth. To the damaged goods I referred to last, stick with me for the next couple of minutes and we’ll join the others in a bit.

Admit The Pain and Don’t Complain

Don’t ignore the wounds. Denying the pain is a counterproductive move. Pain is an indicator that something is not functioning properly so count it a blessing that you are now an informed individual. Knowledge is power and self-knowledge is power on steroids (apologies for lack of a wholesome reference). Once you have identified the issues that cause malfunction in your ability to excel, you are now perfectly positioned on the offense.  I call this the stance of the victor.  Don’t let your circumstances or your weaknesses torment you with defeat.  Resist the victim mentality and adopt the victor’s stance.

Nurse The Wound

So how do you nurse the wound in the victor’s stance without submitting to the temptations of defeat? Treat it like you would a physical wound. With the expectation of recovery,

• identify the severity
• prescribe and apply the proper treatment
• bandage the wound
• monitor the healing progress to determine continual treatment 

Don’t let the severity of the wound define who you are. Pain is nothing more than a side-effect no matter what degree it manifests. It’s irrelevant to the essence of you. A healthy way of tackling pain is to simply endure it like you would a road block on a highway—you may rant and rave for a brief moment, but ultimately (and quickly, I’d hope) you work your way around. The lesson here is you make do. You find an alternate route (or just plow through, more power to you) and get to the place you need to be without hesitation.  Pain will back off when it can no longer intimidate you and manipulate your perspective.

Understand that issues need to be dealt with. They can’t be ignored or simply swept under the rug. It’ll fester into an infection and show up like a persistent bully sometime in the near future.  Blow the bully from the roots and “sweep the leg” like Johnny’s sensei told him to do Mr. Miyagi’s apprentice Daniel san.  You will have to discern (or seek guidance) as to what would be the best appropriate method of working out your issues and apply them. Don’t skip this step. Just don’t.

Move On

Once you have taken steps to work through your issues and you have set the healing process in motion, it is now safe (and wise) for you to move on.  Bandaging the wound has a two-fold impact on your psyche. The maneuver will protect the wound as it undergoes recovery, and it will also simulate health as if it wasn’t there. This allows you to move on as if nothing happened, while (important) you are mindful of the condition and respectful of the healing process.

Why the spring cleaning and the first aid talk? It has everything to do with your financial health. For enduring success and wealth in your life, it’s important to build financial health. This requires the same attention and mindset you would invest in your own physical health. In order to manifest prosperity, you must prosper within, because the inner road blocks will spring up like weeds to tear down what progress you have achieved. Don’t worry, we’ll jump into monetizing your vision as soon as we repair this bridge to your place of prosperity. In time, once healed, you’ll be sporting the battle scars with a proud sense of accomplishment and a million dollar smile. For now, admit the pain, quit the complaint, and move on to the better tomorrow.

Become a Thought Leader

TV commercials and print ads have been losing their effectiveness for decades. The Internet has only accelerated that curve. Today's TiVo and delete key are yesterday's fast-forward and channel-surfing. As far as print ads go, have you noticed how thin magazines are lately?

So what's a marketer to do? You still have to reach your target audience, right? You now need to put useful and relevant information in that ad space you buy. Your ads can't just talk the talk, they must walk the walk. Some would argue this can only be done in b2b marketing, not b2c. I disagree. Look at the leadership role Apple has taken with iPod. Below are examples of Thought Leadership Marketing.

Talk Less, Listen More...

I've met my share of industry leaders, gurus, wizards and virtuosos. I find most of them ask loads of questions of everyone around them. The seasoned ones tend to be reflective and very observant of what goes on around them. The older they are, the quieter they get.

Start a Newsletter, RSS and/or Blog...


If your product or service has a long lead time, it makes good sense to start a periodic publication online. An email newsletter is the most obvious way to go, but you should probably augment and amortize the content by employing other channels, such as publishing your own blog (which can also help boost your rankings in search engines). When done right, there's no better way to spend your marketing money.

The Power of Public Speaking...


Some people are scared to death to speak in front of audiences while others think they're really good when in fact they aren't. Sometimes, what you have to say is so strong it doesn't need to be polished into a perfectly controlled presentation. But if you are going to be presenting in front of an audience, you might as well communicate as clearly as possible while letting a bit of your personality shine through.

Get Published...

There is a distinct halo effect when you can add the word "author" to your self attributions. If you can get a well-known book publisher to publish you, so much the better. While it is maybe less important in today's digital age than before, it's still impressive. Don't expect to make money on your book. Even with a decent advance you're likely to spend more promoting it, yourself and your firm than you get in an advance.