Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel for U.S. Businesses?

Filed Under Business Life, Guest Writer, Strategy | 1 Comment

According to a report released Oct. 5, from Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP), U.S. companies brought on more workers in September than the previous month, however the number was not enough to put a dent in the large unemployment numbers nationwide.

While the ADP report brought some encouraging news, two separate reports unveiled the same day noted that layoffs increased rather dramatically last month, while service companies are not hiring additional employees despite the sector’s relatively stable growth.

Looking back at the brighter report, ADP and Macroeconomic Advisers LLC report that private-sector employers added 91,000 positions in September, an increase of some 2,000 jobs from the previous month. The government’s official jobs report is slated to be released on Oct. 7.

Is Minimal Growth Better than None at All?

While the news is somewhat encouraging in that the country appears at this point to be dodging another recession, the recent report also demonstrates that growth is coming in very minimal numbers at best, providing us with weak growth at best.

While everyone is looking for any signs of growth, we shouldn’t be deceived by the numbers.

Much like when gas prices are inflated to high levels, drivers think they’re getting a deal when they pay less for gas, the bottom line being it is still $1 or $2 above what they paid the year before. Improvement, but much better is possible.

As for expanding on the down side, a report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas points out there were sharp increases in layoff announcements for September, with businesses planning to cut some 116,000 jobs, more than double the August report and the worst in more than two years. The biggest cuts came among the government and financial sectors.

What is Your Business Doing to Grow?

With the recent numbers showing a mixed bag, has your company been impacted either positively or negatively when it comes to job growth lately?

For many companies, especially smaller businesses, growth has been hard when you throw in the added costs for health care that many employers have been dealing with. While the government has tried to throw some incentives in the direction of small business owners, a fair number of them have either stood pat on hiring or even laid off where they felt it necessary.

If your small business is contemplating hiring, do you plan on? -

Lots of questions still remain for many small businesses, many of whom are playing the waiting game.

Photo credit: gaebler.com

Dave Thomas, who has authored a number of articles regarding business phone service writes extensively for www.business.com an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

How to Choose the Easiest, Fastest, Most Meaningful Next Move

Filed Under Marketing, Strategy, Successful Blog | 4 Comments

THEN We Will …

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During the Q&A of his interview at SOBCon NW, I asked Rick Turoczy (@Toruczy) of the Portland Incubator Experiment, “What seems to be the single problem that most startups encounter?”

Rick’s response was telling. He said that the young companies he worked with were clear on their vision and their mission. They knew were they were going … Where they got stuck was figuring out the first small step to get there.

Are you surprised by that? I’m not.

The act of paying attention to what relates to our mission and vision gets us attuned to the wide range of options that could relate to our end goal.

We think of our goal as THEN.
THEN we’ll be there.
THEN we’ll have what we’ve earned.
THEN we’ll know.

We can’t know what things will be THEN, but we know all we need to know about now.

But strategy is a function of NOW.
What is our position NOW?
What are the conditions NOW?
What is the opportunity NOW?

How to Choose the Easiest, Fastest, Most Meaningful Next Move

Choosing that next step often seems a problem. We listen. We follow links through our networks and systems. If our minds and hearts are open, we find a world filled with possibilities. We pay attention to learn as much as we might. We gather up information, ideas, and options. Then comes the moment to move. We get stuck in too many possibilities. Big ones, little ones — which to do?

To head in our best direction, we have to do the opposite of listening and paying attention. NOW that we’ve gathered the immediate information, it’s time to pull it in. It’s time to narrow and focus. It’s time to choose the best possible easy move to advance now. The small opportunity that fits us most naturally is the one that easiest, fastest, and most meaningful to reaching our biggest, most important goal.

Here’s how to do that:

  1. Use your vision and mission to set your direction. Have a clear sense of where you want to be and why you want to be there.
  2. Use the information you’ve gathered by listening and paying attention to know your position — where you are now. Tell yourself the truth. Every position has advantages. Yours has advantages unique to you.
  3. Study the information you’ve gathered to understand the conditions under which you’re working. Look for openings that lead in the direction you want to go. You, your team, and your mission fit perfectly into openings right next to you. Look to do more for the people who love what you’re doing. Invite them to help you figure out what would be the easiest next small thing for you to do.
  4. Identify the easiest small opportunities and openings that move you forward by using these criteria. They will be those that
    • Align with your long-term goals.
    • Match with your values and culture.
    • Leverage what you and your team have already accomplished — skills, talents, and successes.
    • Make changes work for you.
    • Disperse the work to many best sources. (Do that thing you can get started and pass on so that another person is working while you work on the next one.)

Look for the position adjacent to the one where you’re standing. The best new positions look only slightly different than the position where we are right now. By moving into that slightly new position — serving the closest friends of our customers or adding a new flavor to the same offer — we built strength on what we already own. By keeping an eye on our vision at the same time as we make these tiny moves, we not only keep focus, but also bring our community of customers with us in a logical, predictable fashion that is easy to invest in, because it’s easy to trust.

Each small decision creates new opportunities that are unique to our position and the skills we bring. In that way, we create a path that is ours and impossible to replicate with authenticity.

We do what we are rather than are what we do.

How do you filter and narrow your options when you choose your next move?

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

How to Build the Deeply Connected Network that Is Key to Any Strategy

Filed Under Business Life, Strategy, Successful Blog | 2 Comments

The Magnetic Attraction of Values

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When we were writing the press release for the first SOBCon, I said,

Every business is relationships, and relationships are everyone’s business.

Our networks are relationships with people who help our businesses thrive.

If you look to your network, what will you find? What moves you to follow up when you collect a business card or meet a new contact? What brings you to invite a new company or a new person into that network that keeps your business alive?

It’s been said that …

If you want to know what you stand for, look at your friends.

It’s true in business as well as in our personal lives. It’s not what you say. It’s what you do that counts. We define and describe our values by the relationships we make. The values of the company we keep attract other people who keep those same values. We trust people who value what we do. We know they’ll choose as we choose and decide as we decide.

It’s an almost automatic, magnetic attraction.
The attraction occurs so naturally that we often don’t notice our common values until we grow our network without attention. Then like a bad download, we add a relationship that corrupts and we feel the loss we get an unexpected and negative response that doesn’t match our values set.

Trust relies on having our values aligned.
Trusted sources are foundational to strategy.

How to Build the Deeply Connected Network that Is Key to Any Strategy

They say …

Information is power.

The most powerful information isn’t published in Wikipedia or available to the masses via simple research. The best jobs never make it to the job boards. The best partnerships don’t get offered to everyone. Competitors don’t advertise their disadvantages or their future plans. It’s impossible to know about every startup about to launch and every web application that could expedite what you’re currently developing. Yet that scarce information is the rocket fuel that drives a brilliant strategic plan.

Strategic information like that depends on a deeply connected, values-based network of relationships. Access to prized information is what advances your position more quickly than any other resource can.

Developing a deeply connected network that brings that information to you is key to any strategic plan.

Here’s how to build a power network like that.

  1. Know your values. Identify the values that need to be present to determine a “go” or “no go” decision in your business. Those values represent your brand and the foundation of the relationships that will help your business thrive.
  2. Use those values to identify the network relationships you want to establish and cultivate. The people and businesses who share your values will be predictable and easy to trust because they will make the same decisions as you would even when the situation is not clearly black and white.
  3. Become an information magnet and filter. Develop a sense of what information is available to everyone and what is not. Put to use what informs your position. Capture and catalogue scarce information that is irrelevant to you.
  4. Pass on to others in your network information you’ve captured that will improve their position. If you share a trend building, a competitive initiative, or a new tech development about to be announced that could change their strategy, you’ll soon find they are sharing similar information with you.
  5. Treat your network as highly valued. Offer them the same regard you would offer a world leader you admire. Hold them in the highest respect. Keep their secrets. Make time for them. Value their time even more than you value your own.
  6. Show your clear appreciation. Point out their great work. Have gratitude not expectation. Realize and appreciate their achievement by filtering the connections you offer them.
  7. Choose them wisely and trust their truth. Enlist only those willing to invest to equal depth. Seek a comrades that “won’t let each other fail.” Ask them often to challenge you to see and know the truth.

A deeply connected network isn’t measured by numbers, but by commitment. Five people who hold us to a true north outweigh 500 who say we’re always right. Reach for one or two who are willing to grow your mind, your heart, your resolve, and your vision as well as your bottom line and you’ll find that many more of the same kind will find their way to you.

A deeply connected network like that is irresistible.

On what values do you deeply connect?

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Did You See the Netflix Movie that Bombed?

Filed Under Branding, Business Life, Customer Think, Marketing, Strategy | 1 Comment

As a business owner, you oftentimes have to put things out there and see what sticks.

What does stick can prove profitable, while other attempts can fall on deaf ears. Anyone remember the new Coke?

For business owners, effectively communicating with your customers and potential customers can mean the difference between turning a profit, breaking even and even going under.

Upset Customers are bad for Business

As many of you know, Netflix alerted subscribers a few months back that it was going to employ separate prices for its DVDs-by-mail and streaming video plans.

The end result would be a significant price increase for its customers, with the least expensive bill for customers who sought both services going from $10 to $16 a month. While $6 a month doesn’t sound like much, that is $72 a year that could go for other indulgences.

With the price increase kicking in this month, many Netflix subscribers indicated they would be turning elsewhere for their DVD and streaming video needs. Upset customers bombarded the Netflix site with countless comments, along with a barrage of tweets via the hashtag #DearNetflix.

According to the most recent data, it appears a significant number of those subscribers are holding true to their word.

Netflix recently trimmed its subscriber forecast for the present quarter, reporting it now expects to conclude the period with 24 million customers, some one million less than it had forecast just a few weeks back. When Netflix ended its second quarter at the end of June, it reported having 25.6 million global subscribers.

So, how did Netflix respond to this issue in hopes of righting the ship?

In yet another public relations nightmare, the company said it was separating its DVD mail rental and video streaming services, renaming the new DVD service Qwikster (the streaming service will remain under the Netflix name). Individuals who choose to both rent and stream videos will be required to log in to a pair of different sites and get two different credit card charges.

Research Ahead of Time Potential Fallout Issues

Not only have many subscribers expressed their dismay with the price increase, but they also were probably left scratching their heads as to the new name for the service.

As it turns out, Netflix apparently did not do enough research on the name Qwikster ahead of time, or officials would have known that the Qwikster name on social media venue Twitter is currently held by a male whose avatar is that of Elmo displaying a joint. Oops!

So not only now do you have a company upsetting many of its subscribers by hiking the costs for its popular service, but now you leave them confused with the name change, not even apparently taking the time to check and see who might hold that label on one of the most popular social media sites. Again, oops!

Due to the company’s recent gaffes, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings issued a statement to customers upset with the price increase for the service in recent weeks. “I messed up,” he remarked on the company blog and in an e-mail to subscribers. “I owe everyone an explanation.”

Running a successful business takes time and effort, but above all, the ability to always be one step ahead of the game.

In this instance, it appears Netflix and the changes it enacted, are getting tuned out by a large percentage of customers.

Photo credit: benzinga.com

Dave Thomas writes extensively for business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses. Among the topics he writes about is business cash advance.



How to Use Strategy to Build Opportunity into Your Life Now!

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Strategy, Successful Blog | Leave a Comment

Making Random Decisions Is as Reliable as Luck

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Get up in the morning, get working, solve today’s problems go have fun is that the way life is working for you? Facing each day with a single-day view will get you through a life or a career, but at the end you may find that many of those days might have put to better use.

If you think of it making random decisions probably has about the same long-term results as relying on luck.

Strategy is a longer view, a stronger view, and a more useful way of leveraging opportunity too.

20 Everyday Situations That Strategy Could Turn to Opportunity Right Now!

With a mind toward strategy, you can leverage the opportunity in any situation, fix the problem your facing, open the door that isn’t moving and get things working FOR you. Strategy is not some high-falutin’ sort of thinking that only great minds do.

It’s a method of solving problems. Did you ever want to …

  1. be more visible in your circle?
  2. become the first, trusted source at what you do?
  3. settle a conflict without becoming part of it?
  4. help solve a problem with friend, family or coworkers?
  5. enlist powerful people to your cause?
  6. get sponsors for an event or meeting?
  7. quit a bad habit or change unhealthy thinking?
  8. get out of debt or pay off a loan?
  9. negotiate a new or better position?
  10. get upgraded to a better hotel room?
  11. change how people see you?
  12. raise money for your cause?
  13. get a meeting with someone you admire?
  14. find a new career that fits you?
  15. organize a group trip?
  16. motivate people to join you in something cool?
  17. get a raise you deserve or raise your rates without worry
  18. start doing what you were meant to do with you life?
  19. do damage control?
  20. start investing in a retirement you look forward to?

Too often we walk into all of the above situations without putting together a system for finding success. A clear strategy could turn any of those 20 (or most other) everyday situations into an opportunity rather than leaving the outcome to instincts and chance.

What Isn’t Strategy and What It Is

We use the word strategy as a synonym for the word way or the word plan. It’s not right, but it sounds cool. Bet you’ve heard people say things like this …

Those are not strategies. Some aren’t even decisions or plans.

Strategy is more and more useful in our lives than most folks expect.

Strategy isn’t a business tool. It’s not a single goal, or a choice, or good idea, or a description of what we’re going to do. Strategy is a practical system that changes how we view and interact with the world.

Next time you have a situation that offers a change of any kind bring some strategy with you before you respond. Here’s how to do that.

Start by listening to what you know and asking questions to hear more about what they know. Offer a few suggestions that are unfinished, allowing everyone to participate in defining a great outcome. Call the group to action. Then claim and celebrate the agreed upon result! The hardest part is thinking it through before you begin.

How have you used strategy to build opportunity into your life right now?

Be irresistible!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.
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