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Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You're only a stranger once.

Interruption 2: A Survey to Focus Your Business

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Perfect Virtual Manager, Successful Blog, The Big Idea | 4 Comments

Our Customers Know

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Have you noticed? Everything about setting up a business requires clean decisionmaking that comes from both heart and head. In other words, to do it well, we have to know who we are.

My friend, Dawud Miracle, and I take that idea seriously. We don’t just discuss it in the one2one conversations on our blogs. We talk about it on the telephone and via email whenever the need strikes, which is often enough.

A few weeks ago, I asked Dawud how I might help a client get to his core offer and together we decided a survey might be one way to go. If you’re feeling a bit the same way, let’s see how a survey would help.

A Survey to Focus Your Business

The single greatest value that I bring to a client relationship is the truthful perception of someone who is not them. I stand outside their business and tell them what a naive, intelligent customer sees.

Getting focus means seeing who we are and what we do well. If the picture is too foggy, it’s helpful to have several points of view against which to test our perceptions of ourselves.

An informal survey can gather those points of view.

A Survey to Focus Your Business

Let’s start with the survey itself. Here are some survey questions to make this happen for you. You’ll notice a blank for your name or the name of your business.

  1. What kind of work does _____ love doing? Why do you think so?

  2. What successes can you point to that _____ has had in the past? What does _____ do better than almost everyone else?

  3. If you were to recommend _____ to a close friend, what would you say?

  4. Do you see any disconnects in what _____ loves doing and does well, and what _____ could be doing to serve customers?

  5. What do you think _____ can promise to deliver that people really need? Are you confident that _____ would keep that promise? What makes you think so?

  6. Would you count on _____ to deliver on that promise? What makes you think as you do?

Only six questions, but use them well and they’ll get some critical information.

Putting the Survey to Work for You

Sometimes the key is asking questions. Sometimes the key is having someone ask for you. To get a true picture of how folks see your business, I recommend that you allow them to talk a friend anonymously rather than having them write to you.

People often say the best things about us when we’re not listening.

Let’s get this survey rolling.

  1. Ask a friend to be an interviewer.

  2. Provide the interviewer with no more than 7 questions. Use the ones above to get you started. Ask interviewer to help you word any additional questions so that they leave room for explanation.

  3. Identify no fewer than 5 people who are familiar with your business or your performance at businesslike tasks. Have the interviewer help you choose folks who can give an informed response. Work toward a list that represents the customers you want.

  4. Discuss with the interviewer the best way to introduce the interview to each person on your list. Make it a goal together to set up a high-trust situation so that each respondent can answer freely.

  5. Have the interviewer contact the people on the list and conduct the interviews.

  6. Ask the interviewer to compile the constructive information into a summary or a bulleted list for each question. Respect respondent’s privacy. You’ll want to survey them again.

  7. Discuss a plan of action with the interviewer. He or she was heard the responses and so can say whether your reaction is the right size for the information gathered. He or she knows whether you need to find out more on some points.

  8. Use what you found with what you know about yourself and your business to
    • Decide what businesslike thing you love doing.
    • Choose your ideal customer.
    • What you can promise and deliver to the ideal customer you want to serve.

  9. Introduce changes you’ve identified into your business slowly and one at a time.

Information from people who know us is the most valuable data we can find. When we put it with what we know about ourselves and what we do well, we can make incredible things happen.

How might you use a survey to improve your business?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

25 Outstanding Links to Help You Write a Compelling Tagline

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Links, Perfect Virtual Manager, Successful Blog | 15 Comments

An Internet of Taglines

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Writing a tagline can seem an overwhelming task. How do you pack all of that promise into four or five simple words that will resonate with the folks you want to reach?

I discussed the strategy behind taglines yesterday.

3.2: Three Steps to a Killer Tagline that Customers Pass On

To fill out the information, I thought I might reseach what some other folks are saying. Here’s the best I found from around the blogosphere. They are 25 to add to the one I wrote yesterday.

  1. Several Links and Information worth exploring: Channel 9 Tagline/Strapline Contest!

  2. Tag Lines Can Make Or Break Your Advertising

  3. A Good Tagline Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

  4. Wag the Tagline – The Rhetoric of Brand Messaging

  5. Tag, You’re It: Benefiting From a Memorable Tagline

  6. The Phrase that Pays- Creating a Tagline You Can Take to the Bank

  7. Tagline – your brand mantra

  8. How a Great Tagline can Help your Business

  9. Drew McLellan: Is a Tagline Part of the Brand?

  10. Does this Tagline “Get it Done?”

  11. That’s not a tagline!

  12. Taglines – Why Your Brand Needs a Tagline

  13. Got tagline? Arrrggghh!!

  14. Tagline Basics

  15. Are You Tagging? Create a Successful Tagline for Your Business

  16. Zzzzzz…Oh, was that a Tagline?

  17. Create a Winning Tagline: The Best Column You Can Get for a Box of Chocolate

  18. Playing with some homeschool stereotypes

  19. The Power of Taglines: Take My Tagline Test!

  20. 1% company ownership for a tagline

    21. Software and Other Related Posts

  21. YouTube Digger Tagline Poll

  22. Tagline Randomizer for WordPress

  23. RANDOM TAGLINE MANAGER

  24. Job description of a movie tagline writer: Big Screen, a Few Small Words

  25. How To: Hide Title and Tagline

Sometimes immersion is the best way to get to know how to do something.

I gathered these links as a resource. Everyone needs a different sort of support when it comes executing the vision of a business that customers will see. Find the ones that suit you and take the wisdom you need.

What words will you use to define your promise in a tagline?
Want to test a few? Write them in the comment box here.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you find your strategy, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Related
3.2: Three Steps to a Killer Tagline that Customers Pass On
Strategy: 40 Outstanding Blog Links, Bookmark Carefully!
20 Blog Promotion Guides to Inform Your Strategy
Strategy: How to Get Maximum Benefit from Complex Link Lists
The 5-Point Strategy to a Powerful Network

3.2: Three Steps to a Killer Tagline that Customers Pass On to Others with Enthusiasm

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Perfect Virtual Manager, Successful Blog, The Big Idea | 22 Comments

The Decision Model

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Back to business . . .

We’re on the way to Building an Outrageously Solid, Customer-Centered Model to Test All Business Decisions. What we’re going for is to define the business by building these four parts.

My version might look something like this:
Ideal customer: Thinking businesses and entrepreneurs who understand that relationships are crucial to success
Company name: Successful-Blog
Tagline: You’re only a stranger once.
Do line: I show businesses how to make irresistible products and services that attract fiercely loyal customer-fans.

What’s packed in that definition? Let’s concentrate on the tagline for now.

Three Steps to a Killer Tagline that Customers Pass On

A tagline is brand statement. It’s what we want folks to remember about us — the perception and reality of who we are rolled together in a few words. Nike said, “Just do it.” Burger King said, “Have it your way.” Verizon knew we were all saying, “Can you hear me now?” Think on the businesses you know. How many taglines can you remember? My point exactly.

A killer tagline is not just one that we remember. It resonates. We find something we recognize, something we identify with inside the words. That’s why we wear a “Just Do It!” t-shirt.

Killer taglines describe something about who or where customers want to be.

Here are three steps to a killer tagline that customers pass on.

  1. Make a promise that benefits the customer.
    Do you remember ever saying, “But you promised. . . .”?

    Promises are things we don’t usually forget.

    If you want folks to remember a tagline, make a promise. Make it a promise that your customers will care about. That means the promise has to offer something for THEM.

    Make your promise about what you will do for them. What one thing will you deliver without fail. What need will you fill? What can your customers count on you to do over and over again?

    I want to work with thinking businesses that care about relationships. My tagline promises they’ll learn ways to establish long-lasting relationships with a community of customers they want.

  2. Say it simply, out loud, and often.

    Powerful taglines don’t waste words. The longest example I gave has only five. Five words make it easy to understand, remember, and repeat. Five words means that there’s nothing hidden, no small print, no “take backs,” no thing to worry about. Five words means that you have through what you’re promising and that you know it well enough to say it in five words. Can you use six? Sure, but be certain that you need every one.

    Talk about your tagline promise often. In other words, repeat your promise out loud. Call attention to it. Let folks know that you stand behind the words. No one does this better than Phil Gerbyshak. He’s the Make It Great! man.

    When we say the words out loud, or write them in a comment box, it tells folks that we use those words with intent. Every time we repeat our tagline, the subtext is “and you can say I promised.”

    Imagine a promise offered that comes with a subtext that says “You won’t be disappointed.” Who wouldn’t want to try that? How many folks wouldn’t talk about it after they did?

  3. Deliver on that promise every time.

    Under promise and over deliver. You’ve heard that before. But don’t back off on what you can do. Be there. Show up. Put your head and heart fully in it. That’s what you’re following your passion to do.

    Nothing beats the feeling of a promise that someone kept. Even better than that is when someone keeps it a second time. That moves a person to a special category of friend.

    When a business delivers on a promise once we’re impressed. When a business makes it their business to keep their promises every time, we give them back our loyalty and our trust. The next guy has a hard time stealing us away from that.

Three simple steps. We’ve known them since we were kids. Make a promise that means something. Say it out loud to show that you mean it. Then deliver without fail.

Who wouldn’t want to tell their friends about service like that?

What do you know about promises that businesses have made to you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

3.1: Building an Outrageously Solid, Customer-Centered Model to Test All Business Decisions

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Perfect Virtual Manager, Successful Blog, The Big Idea | 14 Comments

Me You Me You

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Are you still with me?
Here’s where we are.

We started inside our hearts and looked inside the hearts and heads of our ideal customers, as best we could . . . hopefully we’ll keep doing both. It’s not a spreadsheet. It’s personal, from me to you, to me, and back to you again.

Me you me you

Now that we’re used to that, we can work on the most basic decision model. Every decision that follows will have this model as a test.

Here we go. We started building it sometime last week.

Building an Outrageously Solid, Customer-Centered Model

the model that we’re building will test future decisions about a specific business. To do that we need to define the business by building these four parts.

All parts work as a whole to define the business from view of the ideal customer. When all parts are defined together, this definition becomes the touchstone to which all future questions and definitions can be tested and verfied.

Does what I’m about to do fit within this model to make the business stronger, clearer, and more real to my ideal customer . . . or does what I’m considering weaken my plan and fogs up my message?

Use the model to be sure that future decisions support how we’ve defined the company.

What do you see here so far? What questions do you have?

More is coming I promise.

Next: The tagline

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

Interruption 1: How to Master an Overwhelming To Do List

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Perfect Virtual Manager, Successful Blog, The Big Idea | 16 Comments

Worse than herding Cats

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I admit it. To my thinking, one thing is worse than herding cats. It’s wrestling with the things I have to do. In my world, a To Do List can quickly get overwhelming. It can be filled with things I don’t know how to do, little things that are labor intensive, and too many things that are unrelated yet need getting done in the same time period. It always seems that part of the list is extremely URGENT and can’t wait for my learning curve. I can’t get to done that way.

How to Master an Overwhelming To Do List

To Do items are in the flow of things when there are only a few. When there are many, I have to get out of the details to where I can see to move them into a organizational groups. These are key steps to mastering a To Do List.

Every item I write begins with a verb. When appropriate, they begin with “Learn to” to remind me that they need more time and more steps.

  1. Brain dump. Write all of the items down a list in any order. Do it first thing in the morning, or last thing — to be able to hit the ground running when a new day begins. Get them out of your head and on paper or on computer. A spreadsheet works nice. It allows one item per box, and they’re easily movable.
  2. URGENT Sort. Group those things that are URGENT. Define URGENT as something of high consequence will be impaired, if this action does not happen in the next 24 hours. Calculate the amount of time these actions will take. If the time to do them is less than the time you have, get help now. Set the rest aside until the URGENT list is under control. Looking for URGENT items should be routine. Finding them should be rare.
  3. Action Sort. Sort all projects three ways to get things done. Group actions that are better done together. Two criteria rule this step: time sensitivity and power to make things happen.
    • HOT List. Sort everything about the most time-sensitive (HOT) project. List all related actions that need to be executed in the next 2-3 days. First apply these two questions to the HOT project. Then apply the questions to the whole list you have made.
    • What can I do in a few minutes that will get someone else working when I move on to the next item? List these so that you can do them first. Two people working move two parts forward.
    • What similar things can I do in series to save time? List like activities together, if doing them that way will save time. Blocking time to make all phone calls or writing all email related to the HOT project can save bundles of time. When is the best time in your day to do each type of task?
    • Quick Hits List. Sort short 5-10 minute tasks that are not HOT!! but need to be done in a timely fashion. This list is one to keep close. When a few minutes open up, or a piece of writing gets stuck, you’ll be able to grab the list to move something forward. Then switch back to regularly scheduled programming.
    • To Do List. Sort the remaining items. List them by their importance and time sensitivity. Then schedule them into the next 2-3 days.
  4. When new actions anitems arise add them to the list where they fit.
  5. Have a partner on call for emergencies. Some folks, like me, are drawn up to the macro level, we work well organizing strategy. We work best at the 30,000-foot view. Other folks are down to drill down to the beauty of details to build structure at the micro view. When time is short and a pile of action details demand attention, nothing compares to a working partnership — one person sorts the relationships, the other makes the lists.

Attend to the HOT List immediately. Attend to the Quick Hits as time opens — carry it with you to take advantage of opportunities wherever they arise. Attend to the To Do List when you have scheduled each item. Turn off interruptions when you’re working. Revisit your plan every morning to sort, list, and schedule the day.

You might think that three lists are more work than one, but in fact, three shorter lists allow focus and save time when scanning for the next thing to do. The key, of course, is to list everything that needs doing and doing everything on the lists.

Did I just confuse you?

–ME “Liz” Straus
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

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