SOBCon2010 Webinar
Mon, Feb 15, 2010 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM EST
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/197073915

We’ll be talking strategy and tactics for our online business.

We’re doing everything we can to bring you all the value, the experts and expertise, and the time to work and network that you need to make your business outstanding and extremely profitable in 2010.

What could you do with a weekend of the time, expertise, and support you need to focus your business?

We’re all coming for the same reasons.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

What Influence Could Push You to the Magic that Is Missing?

Filed Under Marketing, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 14 Comments

It’s old news and I think we all know …

If we’re not adding value, we’re taking it away.

So we’re busy adding value, doing great things, working, building, being productive. We want to get on with what we know how to do well. We do something that adds to the big thing and it gets bigger and better.

Somewhere near every one of us is someone who thinks differently. He or she is smart as we are, but has different experience or a different view of how things work. He wants to add his own extra value. She has reasons to care and contribute. He might not know the process, the culture, or the traditions. One’s a coworker. One’s a customer. One’s a big brand client.

Most come with a job. We have to include them.

The temptation often is to move forward. Try to ignore them or keep them from the core of things. Add our value and show them when we’re done. That makes it hard for even the most collaborative and curious to find the right way to join in.

But what if we invite them? What if we ask these different thinkers to sit beside us, to invest in our quest and be part of the process?

They’ll bring ideas, thoughts, and opinions. They’ll influence what we’re doing. They will challenge our assumptions. People who think differently make us uncomfortable … and that can make communication and progress seem a lot slower.

The more different we find someone’s experience and thinking, the more we should consider his or her questions and reasoning. It’s the best safety net and idea test in the population. We love and understand our own thinking. Agree with the guy who thinks unlike us and we’ve got something hot cooking.

That difference — in their experience, how they see things, and how they do things — is added value we might be overlooking. That influence could the the one thing that pushes us to add the magic that was missing.

When do you invite a different influence to be part of what you’re doing?

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

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Influence: He Leaves People Feeling Proud to Know Him …

Filed Under Marketing, Successful Blog | 1 Comment

This is Carly Simon, No Secrets
, in 1972.

His friends are more than fond of Robin
He doesn’t need to compliment them
And always as he leaves he leaves them
Feeling proud just to know him … — His Friends Are More Than Fond of Robin

Those few lines made me want to meet the guy the song was about. That description has influenced me for more than 30 years.

When I say I’m proud to know you, it unpacks to many things:

• I respect your values.
• I trust that you hold people around you safe.
• I see your competence, credibility, and generosity.
• I recognize your integrity.
• I want to share you with my friends.
• You make it easy to be my better self when I am with you.

Proud to know you, for me, means outstanding, shareable, and easy. Robin had the best Word of Mouth in the 70s. No wonder the lyrics also said

He’s talked about before he gets there …

We talk about what we like.

Who do know that’s talked about like that?

What makes you proud to know someone?

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

I’m a proud affiliate of

Are You Listening? Influence and Participation Above the Noise

Filed Under Marketing, Successful Blog, The Big Idea | 12 Comments

Listening Is Essential to Communication

“To listen well, is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well, and is as essential to all true conversation” –Chinese Proverb

Last week, I got a chance to talk with Patrick Rooney, of the Zócalo Group in Chicago. As we discussed social media, Patrick discussed the perspective of corporate clients moving into the social media space now. He made a powerful point about how some corporate clients are slow to enter social media because they perceive bloggers as having no forgiveness for mistakes they might make. [not a direct quote]

Patrick and I talked about the digital divide that needs closing. the stereotypes in both directions: a bunch of undisciplined bloggers and social media rockstars who don’t like companies and a bunch of uptight, uppity corporate folks who think they know more than everything. We discussed opportunities to get some conversations started. I told him about the barns and bridges project. We made some plans to move things forward.

It seems so easy. All we had to was introduce them and get them talking and listening. Listening is the crucial part.

Influence and Participation Above the Noise

If you want to make a deal or a partnership, build a bridge, or solve a conflict, listening is the way in. If we don’t listen to what people believe, what they need, or what their goals are, how could we have their best interests in mind?

Listening is influence. A good listener has the power to change conduct, thought, or decisions, by encouraging discussions to go deeper, thoughts to get bigger, and people to raise their ideas above the noise.

Listening is participation. Great listeners are involved and thinking. That’s how we connect with other people’s ideas and values. Active listening helps us find the places where our minds meet and understand the places where our ideas separate. Here are just a few ways that listening enhances influence through participation.
Listening:

• is learning
• demonstrates respect which builds reputation
• allows us to learn about and improve ourselves and our ability to connect with others
• gathers information about how people perceive things, making their actions more predictable and increasing our ability to communicate in “their language.”
• offers attention which opens channels to more information
• collects data on which to test and build goals and strategy
• uncovers issues and opportunities
• invites new ideas which influence future actions
• sparks new dialogues which lead to deeper relationships
• allows people to get to know, like, and trust us at their own speed
• allows us to find places where our goals align with possible partners

We talk, teach, tell people what we think and walk away feeling we’ve had an influence. Have we really? The folks we’re addressing could be ignoring every word we say and smiling while they do so.

If we want to form effective partnerships — raise barns and build bridges — we have to understand what the other guy cares about, where he or she is going and which of our goals match well alongside those. Listening tunes us in to potential partners.

Listen gives us direction and purpose in any collaboration. When we listen first, we make better choices about what we say and how we say it. Our voices become more powerful.

. . . it’s the listening that separates Social Media experts from Social Media theorists. said Brian Solis

Has social media changed the way you listen? How would you explain listening online to someone who’s new here?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Some Listening Resources:
Chris Brogan offers a slew of advice on how to listen.
Conversations are happening online in all kinds of places. It’s important to understand how to get in there, and how to listen where the conversations are happening. Here’s a very impartial list of places to listen and how.

Once you’re through Chris’ list, here’s a Starter List of a few more Web 2.0 Social Tools.

Some new new tools that help us tune in include:
monitter, which allows you to follow conversations by keywordyacktrack which allows you to track a single term or a url, social mention which searches across 8 web media formats