Extreme Hesitation and Extreme Strategy: Are You Willing to Own Your Life?
Filed Under Business Life, Motivation/Inspiration, Strategy, Successful Blog | 27 Comments
about hesitation and strategy.
I was painfully shy as a child. If you’ve been there, then you know. Painfully shy is literally painful — it scrapes at your being. You know who you are are, but for some cloudy reason, a wall prevents you. You can’t let the world see you. All you are or all you can be stays tucked away .
It’s what today would be called Extreme Hesitation.
Yet leaders outgrow those childhood fears and walls, don’t we?
Do we?
I was faced with a situation last winter. What was awful was that — even to me — the question looked so trivial, but it had to do with what I had named “visible authenticity.” They said wear this. I said “no.” They cared more than I did. But we had agreed that I would be dressing to reflect the essence of my personality. “This” wasn’t me.
I felt painfully shy once more … I recognized the conflict, but now I was grown enough to put words to the feeling.
I knew me better than they did. Authenticity was my choice, and choosing for me was my responsibility..
I learned about owning my life.
I think of it as Extreme Strategy.
Choose your own path, but always choose wisely.
Leaders don’t need to follow, nor do they choose the road that will draw the most followers.
They don’t say “yes,” when their hearts and their feet are telling them to say “no.”
Traveling other our path is what makes being shy truly painful.
Leaders don’t hesitate in moving forward.
People who are afraid do.
Leaders don’t look for approval.
They know.
They go where their head, their heart, and their purpose compels them to go.
And people follow.
Because deeply knowing where you’re going is irresistibly attractive.
Authenticity is the key to leadership strategy. Own what you know and find the opportunities. The rest is just learning. We’ve been doing that since we started school.
Are you willing own your life?
I make connections.
Delegation Happens: Working with Friends Can Be Dangerous
Filed Under Business Life, Successful Blog | 5 Comments
Ever End Up Doing Someone Else’s Work?
Susannah was an editor who worked me years go. She had a project that needed help and knew just the person she wanted to call … her friend Christie. Christie was an experienced editor on maternity leave.
A meeting was set. Christie came in to get the work. Susannah explained exactly what was entailed and when it was due.
When the due date arrived, the work never came. When the work came, it was less than what Susannah had described. Susannah ended up doing the work and paid her friend anyway.
Ever been there?
Some things to remember when you’re about to delegate work to a friend.
- Prepare for a friend as you would for someone you’ve never met. One clear signal to your friend and yourself of the business nature of what you’re doing is to treat the conversation as a strictly “work” conversation.
- Define the relationship as you would with a new client or a new employee. When we’re delegating to a friend, communication can complicate itself. Friendship filters can recast everything that’s said. State your expectations. Write out guidelines and share them.
- Leave room for the possibility that you’ve misjudged your friend’s skill set. As you describe the task ask whether this sounds like something he or she wants to do and has the time to do well.
- Explain everything as clearly and in detail. We tend to endow our friends with information they don’t have. Understanding is often assumed — we assume they know things because they’re our friends.
- Take time to say what the work means to you and your situation. Let the friend know that you are depending on him or her for your success. State clearly why you’re delegating the work and what depends on part of the project that you’re handing over.
- Talk about who will make corrections or revisions to things that get missed if the work is incomplete or incorrectly executed. If at all possible, have time in the schedule for sending it back to your friend for such revisions.
- If your ability to communicate during this conversation seems difficult, call off the delegation. It’s better to find someone else than to move forward with what doesn’t seem to be a good communication already.
On the Internet, we meet and make friends easily, but sometimes we endow them with the “halo effect,” thinking their great personality is a sign of their great compentency.
Sometimes the only way to learn that we’ve gotten a wrong impression is by asking for help and finding out the person isn’t who we thought. Usually though, asking a few questions, and offering complete information can get us to a great working relationship.
We all have friends who are better than we are at so many things. Are you finding the right ones to help you when you need them?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Buy the Insider’s Guide. Learn how to write so that the Internet talks back!
Delegation 2: I Can’t Let Someone Else Do That!!
Filed Under Business Life, Successful Blog | 3 Comments
No One Can Do This Like I Would
Delegation is the art and a science of communication needs. For most of us, it’s a skill we acquire, not a talent that comes naturally. Delegation takes practice in order to fully share
enough information for another person to complete a task successfully. Have you ever left a meeting sure you knew what to do, only to realize later that you didn’t understand. Yeah, me too.
More than that, it takes the ability to communicate the importance of the task and to negotiate a work agreement that shifts the accountability for making sure that the task is on time, complete, and of high quality.
Before you delegate a job, have a plan to communicate to the person who’s joining your project. Great communication will help in making sure that you pass on accountability and a sense of mission with the work that you’re handing over.
- Start with the big picture. Decide what every person on the project must know. Offering the big picture context helps a new player immediately frame decisions and judgment calls properly.
- Show where this piece fits. By placing the delegated assignment into the context. We communicate its importance to us and to the success of the project.
- Explain and show exactly what a good result would look like. Write guidelines or goals for the task. Have examples of a prototype or something similar that you and the delegatee can discuss. Take the time to say what you want and what you like.
- Invest more time if the meeting can’t be face to face. When a conversation isn’t face-to-face, communication degrades significantly. Some figures say it goes as low as 35% comprehension without visual reinforcement. Send an agenda or samples before you meet.
- Know your goals and how you’ll check whether you’ve communicated clearly. Include and early sample to check that messages you think you communicated are the same ones that were heard. A quick look at a first step can save a project gone way off kilter.
The minute we delegate, communication becomes key. Unfortunately in an effort to show respect for other professionals we often tell them less than they need to know and still think we’re telling them too much. In like manner rather than looking like they don’t know, the often ask less than they might.
What’s the single biggest error you find you make when you’re asking someone to do work for you?
Tomorrow … Delegation Happens: Working with Friends Can Be Dangerous
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Buy the Insider’s Guide. Learn how to write so that the Internet talks back!
When Anything Is Nothing Next to Something … One Sentence that Will Keep You Stuck
Filed Under Business Life, Strategy, Successful Blog | 8 Comments
People Who Need Help
In my business and though my conference, I meet people and businesses who are looking to move forward. I love helping people be successful. I love building businesses. Some make easy to help them. It’s a pleasure to help them get what they need or want. Some think they they make it easy, but in reality they do not.
One sentence I’ve heard too often lately has made me realize that it has the opposite effect of its intent. The sentence is …
I’ll do anything.
That sentence doesn’t win clients, doesn’t gain partners, doesn’t attract friends of the very best sort.
When Anything Ix Nothing Next to Something
Attraction happens when we know who we are. Whether we’re an organization or an individual, we need to attract people. Nothing attracts like focus. Focus draw others to us in the same way our eyes will follow a shining light curving through the dark.
That focus says they know where they’re going. They’re predictable. They’re productive. They’re positively contributing. Even when they aren’t in our business, we can learn something from them while we’re helping them.
Focus drives people and organizations to know things. You can bet they’ll know what sort of help they need. They’ll also know what values and skills they have to offer. When they ask for assistance, they’ll make it a conversation about working together. You’ll meet on the same side of the table.
People with focus offer something — they offer best of what they’ve got.
Focused people and organizations are easy to work because they come with an offer, a package put together with some thought. They do the work before you meet, which shows a high possibility that they’ll deliver. If the offer doesn’t match perfectly, it’s a place to start.
“I’ll do anything” is nothing next to something.
“I’ll do anything” leaves it to you to decide the offer. It leaves it to you to think up what the package might be and how to construct the relationship. It’s your time and it’s your thought put to work guessing at their values and their skills. Not a good idea. How can you be sure that they will deliver? It’s like saying “Here’s a tool you’ve never seen. Use it for anything you want.” The anything offer is nothing, because you have to decide everything about it for it to work. You do the work of thinking. You take the risk. They’re delegating up.
Turning Anything Into Something Valuable
Anything might only seem like something to the person who is offering it. Anything is nothing if the person getting the offer doesn’t know what to do with it. To turn an anything into a something think it all the way through. Be able to say exactly how your finished work will make what they do
- easier
- faster
- more valuable
Then you’ve got something valuable — something worth talking about.
Ever taken someone up on an “I’ll do anything” offer. How easy was it to figure out what that anything would be? Would you take the offer again?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
The Secret of Work-at-Home Businesses
Filed Under Business Life | 8 Comments
The Secret of Work-at-Home Businesses by Bizymoms.com
“Working for someone else is nothing like being an entrepreneur and the boss of your own business. To become an entrepreneur requires a different plan or map. You’ll be taking a different road to a different destination.”
~Noel Peebles (Author of “Sell your business the easy way.”)
Hundreds and thousands of home-based businesses are testimony to the growing popularity of work-at-home jobs. This is understandable; most people today are looking for work-at-home options because of the constantly looming threat of the dreaded recession-related job-cuts. Working at home also offers most people relief from a hectic lifestyle made worse by work-related stress.
However, not all such ventures are successful. What is then, that differentiates a successful home-based business from a not-so-successful one? What is the secret-formula that all those successful work-at-home business entrepreneurs are using? Noel Peebles was right; to become an entrepreneur requires a “different plan or map.” What is the plan/map that you’re going to use?
Do you have what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur? Just keep the following in mind and you should be on your way to building up a successful home-based business.
Don’t get caught to “get-rich-quick” schemes
The recent years have also seen a rise in “work-at-home job-scams.” This is when so-called “job posters” use “fake” job listings in order to get hold of applicant details, which include both personal and financial information. It’s important to be-aware of such scams before you start applying for jobs online. Always think twice before you provide any website with any of your details, no matter how “authentic” the website may seem. And remember – if it sounds too good to be true; it probably is. Contact the Better Businesses Bureau (BBB) for information on the company- The Better Businesses Bureau’s website will also give you information on complaints, (if any), in relation to the company. And if you require information on commission actions, contact the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Do something you enjoy!
If you don’t like what you’re doing, chances are that you’re not going to do your best. And if you don’t do your best, chances are that you won’t succeed. For your business to be a successful one, you simply have to do your best; give it your “best shot!”
Business planning is a must
It doesn’t matter how “small-scale” you think your work-at-home business is; you have to have a business plan. A business plan will help you plan effectively and keep an eye on your goals as well. Planning every single aspect of your business will ensure that most things – at least the ones in your control - run smoothly.
Be “money-wise”
Make sure you keep the cash flowing. If required, get yourself a good money-manager. No business can survive without a reasonable “cash-flow.”
Be “time-wise”
In order to manage a successful home-based business, it’s important that you manage your time wisely. This will ensure that your business runs smoothly, effectively and of course - efficiently. Even if what you’ve got is a small-scale, three-hour, part-time job; it’s important that you get yourself organized. When you work-at-home, most often than not, you get to choose “when” you want to work. This added time flexibility also means that most people who work at home begin to take time for granted. Make sure that you use the “time-flexibility” that comes with most work-at-home jobs, to your advantage -instead of the other way around. Allocate “business time” and make sure that you stick to your schedul
Create your own “work space” within your home. Get yourself organized. And no; you can’t do it later! Procrastination is a slow-but-sure way to kill your business. It’s also a very easily developed bad-habit; especially when you work at home.
Advertise effectively
Effective advertising can go a long way; whether you do it via a website or through flyers and leaflets distributed within your local neighborhood. Word-of-mouth advertising can go a long way too – so make sure you keep those customers happy.
Take extra care to keep your customers happy
Pay attention to your customers and make sure that you “follow-up” and “follow through.” Remember that keeping your customers is extremely important – just as important as “winning new ones over” is. Research has shown that most businesses thrive on business from regular customers rather than on business from new ones.
Register for SOBCon09 NOW!!
Experience the ROI of Relationships







