Liz, Author at Successful Blog Page

3 Things I Learned, Lost, and Earned Being Off Social Media for 10 Days

May 14, 2012 by Liz

People or Screens

Every morning for almost a year, I’ve been publishing photos of the sunrise over Lake Michigan. Sometimes when the afternoon is worth a photo graph I also publish a photo of the sunset too. On Twitter I greet my friends with a “Good morning, Twitterville” and a kind word. I try to check in with them via Facebook and Linkedin too.

Many of my online social interactions help me keep my day moving … as I transition from one task to another, it helps me to stop by Twitter to give my friends a shout out or to take time for a short read and a retweet. Being social online is a natural part of how my day goes by when it’s just me and the keys.

But when I’m with people, I like to be with people.
I find it hard to be where I am, if I’m looking at at screen.

What I Learned, Lost, and Earned Being Off Social Media for 10 Days

The theme of #SOBCon this year was Creating and Leveraging Opportunity. I challenged myself to do what I believed.

Be balanced. In this case, have my head and heart in the same place as my mind and my feet.
Go deep. Be a saturation learner. Meet people where they “live and think.”
Build a business not a birthday cake. Allow for the fact that a business is not a closed system — that flexibility is a key component to strategy.
People ARE the opportunity. Buildings, companies, products, technology do not have the stability or the reach of human-to-human relationships.

Last Wed., May 2, I left home with a suitcase to head downtown in preparation for our annual #SOBCon event in Chicago from there I would be speaking at CMSExpo in Evanston to arrive back home on May 10th. But things being what they are it ended up that I was hardly around on social sites until the 12th.

Before I left, I loaded up my blog with the blog posts that I had planned for the week. I also loaded up my Twitter account with some great posts I’d been reading on other blogs — articles on small business, strategy, weird science, and cool brain stuff — my favorite information to share via tweets.

When I got down to the hotel, I did some last minute planning. I went over to the event center to check a few things and pick an HP Folio Ultrabook that the Small Biz Folks at Hewlett Packard had sent for me, thinking maybe if I set it up, I’d be able to Tweet some, or post some, or connect some like a good social media do-bee. I got the computer up and rolling in no time. It’s light, intuitive, and has a huge battery life — can’t say how long it lasts yet, because, well, once I got it going, I kept turning it on and then getting involved in other things.

And in the course of 10 days, here’s what I about social media, the Internet, and me.

The social is more important than the media. When the choice comes to talking to the people live and in person, take it! Be where you are. Look them in the eyes. Listen actively. What I saw and experienced in the richness of a hug, a tone of voice, smiles shared, and glasses clinked is something I carry back to the Internet. I hear the voices of those same people when I see them again this week on Twitter.
Being in the story is faster, easier, and more meaningful than reporting it. I can only speak for my experience, but seconds I spend trying to share something with people online turn me into a reporter. When I shed the reporter’s role, I see, hear, and feel so much more. I am mindful and present. I am also calmer, more flexible, and more fluent because I can attend to and respond to the world I’m in rather than trying to translate to the world I can’t see.
The Internet got along fine without me. As far as I know, no one suffered greatly by my absence. The world didn’t stop turning. I had no more than 3 “must respond to” emails daily – I’m just not THAT important.

What I lost is easy to measure …

Yes, my blog traffic went down a bit. I didn’t attract as many Twitter followers as I had in the previous 10 days. My stock price on Empire Avenue dropped. My stats on Facebook now need some attention. My email inbox took about two hours to get back in order.

Laura Fitton and Liz Strauss, SOBCon 2012 by @adrants

What I earned was more lasting …

Deep real connections.
Deep real memories.
A whole lot of learning and fun.

The actual business directly attributable to these particular 10 days outpace ANY 10 days ever.

Working or playing, showing up is most important.
How can they see you, if you don’t stop long enough to be you?

#justsayin’

Be irresistible.
—ME “Liz” Strauss

Buy the ebook. Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Thanks to Week 343 SOBs

May 12, 2012 by Liz

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

What Every Small Business Needs In Their Toolkit

May 11, 2012 by Liz

The Lifeblood of American Economy

Statistics provided by the U.S. Small Business Administration organization indicate that small businesses in the U.S. make up a staggering 99.7% of all employer firms. The almost 30 million companies of this size provide employment to half of all private sector employees, generating 44% of the total U.S. private payroll in the process. With statistics like these, it’s clear why small businesses are said to be the lifeblood of the American economy.

Despite their contributions to the economy, the sad truth is that a high percentage of small businesses will fail in the first five years of trading, if not the first. Industry professionals have long since speculated on the reasons why this happens with suggestions like insufficient capital, poor credit arrangements and unexpected growth commonplace. If you are just starting out, you’ll be keen to ensure that your venture doesn’t become a statistic. Let’s take a look at three tools the small business owner can call upon to bolster chances of success.

1. Social Networking

A social media presence is of utmost importance to business. A third of respondents to a survey of SMB owners conducted by Zoomerang and GrowBizMedia plan to use social media as a primary means of attracting new customers in 2012. Business Insider puts that figure at more like 75%. Whichever statistic you think is closer to the truth, there’s no getting away from the fact that 98% of the U.S. online audience use social networking. That’s a considerable audience for any small business owner. If you’re wondering where to start, consider these:

Facebook is undoubtedly the leader of the social network pack. With a user base that is rapidly approaching one billion members worldwide, it represents an excellent place to start your venture into social networking for business. It’s free to join and the new Timeline style pages make it easier than ever for businesses to connect directly to customers. Once a user likes your page, any content you post will appear directly in their newsfeed, where they are between 40 and 150 times more likely to consume your targeted branded content.

LinkedIn boasts over 50 million members in the U.S alone. A social networking platform aimed at promoting networks and connections, it is an excellent resource for business. The site also represents an excellent opportunity to find new talent. The Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey 2011 found that 94% who recruit through social networking have successfully hired via the LinkedIn platform. It’s an interesting and viable alternative to using costly recruitment agencies.

Twitter should also be considered. Don’t be put off by the 140 character limit of tweets. Think of it as an opportunity to show your creative side. Blackbox Social Media reports that 67% of people on Twitter follow a brand in comparison to just over 50% on Facebook. If nothing else, Twitter represents a chance for you to promote your business by linking to your other more detailed content.

join_myspace-759442 — Cyberlawcentre image: Licensed under Creative Commons for commercial reuse.

2. Cloud Computing

Cloud computing essentially refers to services such as office applications that are delivered over the Internet. In a report commissioned in February 2012, Microsoft reported that a quarter of companies with between two and ten employees are currently using paid cloud services. This figure is expected to triple to 76% within the next three years.

Cloud computing presents a number of attractive benefits to small businesses:

Cost savings on business applications: traditional technology applications and platforms can be costly and complicated for small businesses to adopt and maintain. With cloud computing, there is no need to allocate capital to expenditure to business applications. Services such as Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps are sold on demand, typically by user. Prices do vary but a few dollars per user per month are typical. Google Apps affords organizations with less than ten users with access to their services for free.
Cost savings on IT infrastructure: the very concept of cloud services mean that business is conducted in the cloud. There is no need for the small business owner to invest in costly dedicated servers, since all of your data will be stored securely on the cloud network. The removal of the need to store employee email in-house can alone represent significant savings in terms of disk storage space on a server.
Collaboration: data stored using this technology remains in the cloud. All of your employees access the same documents and have visibility of any changes immediately. This can significantly reduce mistakes brought about by outdated information and, in turn, improve the service you are able to offer to your customers.

3. Professional Membership

Last, but by no means least, comes membership to a professional organization aimed at helping small business weather the economic climate and succeed. In the U.S. there are many of these organizations so it’s worth devoting some time into researching which of them are best suited to your business. The following organizations are worth checking out.

– U.S. Small Business Administration (http://www.sba.gov)

– National Small Business Association (http://www.nsba.biz/)

– U.S. Chamber of Commerce (http://www.uschamber.com/)

– U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (http://usasbe.org/)

– National Association for the Self-Employed (http://www.nase.org/BenefitsHome.aspx)

– Small Business Benefit Association (http://www.sbba.com/)

– America’s Best Companies (http://www.americasbestcompanies.com/)

Adopting these various tools may not serve as a guarantee that your small business will succeed, but they will certainly go a long way towards helping you avoid some of the most common pitfalls.

—-
Author’s Bio:
Linda Forshaw is a Business Information Systems graduate from Liverpool in the United Kingdom. She is a full-time writer and published author who writes for several sites including Degree Jungle (http://www.degreejungle.com/rankings/best-online-colleges) specializes in social media, technology and entrepreneurship. You can find her on Twitter @seelindaplay

Thank you, Linda!

You’re irresistible!
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Influence: How to Attract Maximum Support for Your Business Idea

May 7, 2012 by Liz

IRRESISTIBLE BUSINESS: Network Building

Ask Everybody

I had THAT conversation again. You might be surprised how often it happens. It’s basically the same conversation with entrepreneurs, small businesses, and career professionals who have a new idea they want to present to their corporate team. The conversation goes something like this one.

I ask someone what he or she is working on.
I hear about a new product, service, or idea that has that someone truly interested, invested. and intrigued by possibilities.
I ask few questions and get some answers such as:

Why are you the best person / team / business to make it real?
Who do you know needs this idea?
What core group of people will find your idea absolutely irresistible?

Whenever I have this conversation, it’s rare that people answering these questions offer much detail. They seem to know far more of the intricacies and inner workings of their brain child than they do about the people who will actually use it.

That’s not good.

If you’re going to solve a problem, the better you know the people who have that problem the more likely you are to be able to attract those people to you.

Influence: How to Attract Maximum Support for Your Business Idea

Attraction is the power of evoking interest or drawing something to another. Mere exposure can build familiarity, but it takes some compelling similarity — something that reaffirms ourselves and our values — to build a true and lasting attraction.

Start with your existing network. Don’t ignore the people who love you to chase the people who are ignoring you. Find your first support in your existing network. Look at the people right next to you, they’re the people you have already attracted.

To build the deepest influence build out your business idea, product, or service by starting with start with what has attracted other people to you on the deepest levels — your core competencies and values — to what you want to see happen — your business idea, product or service.

Use the first question to qualify your business idea.

Why are you the best person / team / business to make it real?

Know your value. Who are you with respect to your business idea? What competencies, skills, and talents qualify you?
Know what attracts you. What about this idea attracts you emotionally? Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD.
Be invested. Why would you choose this idea over all others as where you invest your time?
Identify your unique attractiveness. What unique value and values will you bring to making it real?

Use the second question to qualify your core community.

Who do you know needs this idea?

Know who already values your competencies, skills, and talents. Who in that group will be most interested in what you’re doing? Who knows others who would be interested? How does your idea solve an important problem for them? How will you get their best thinking?
Know what attracts them. What about this idea will attract them emotionally? How seamlessly does it fit what they’re already doing?
Be worth investing in. What unique value and values will they see? How much time / money / resources are you asking? What’s their payoff for participating — what makes their work / life easier, faster, more meaningful?
Identify their unique attractiveness. Who in your network will increase the attractiveness of your idea by participating? How will you identify them?

Use the third question to combine the first two and refine them into an irresistible offer.

What core group of people will find your idea absolutely irresistible?

Name and claim your core group. Maximum support stand on deep relationships. 12 apostles can do more than 1200 subscribers. Who are the 20% who will give you the 80% of your support always? Who will spend the most time / money / resources on this idea? Focus there. Build your first offer to show you know them deeply.
Raise the value in your value proposition. What does your core community love most about your idea? How can you enhance that, refine that, and deliver it more seamlessly?
Lower or remove the irrelevant details. What does your community not care about or find irritating? How can you limit that, lower that, or remove it completely?
Be uniquely satisfying. What would delight and surprise your core community? How can you introduce something only you might add to the idea that would uniquely satisfy the community because you know them so intimately?

Keep the community in the process. Constantly talk to people about what you’re thinking and seeing. Ask them if they’re having the same experience. Whenever community members offer valuable insight, think of ways to bring them closer to what you’re doing. Encourage your fans to ask their friends what you’re wondering. Tell them how you’d like people to think of you and ask if that’s what they’re saying about you. Solicit their suggestions, insights, and corrections.

None of us can be inside and outside a system at the same time. As you stay inside the thinking on your idea, product, or service, find ways to share what you’re doing. Invite your influence network or community bring you news of what they’re seeing. That outside point of view will raise their investment and prove your assumptions.

The closer you get to your community, the closer they’ll be to you.

And that’s irresistible.

Be irresistible.

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

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Thanks to Week 342 SOBs

May 5, 2012 by Liz

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Want to become an SOB?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Top Five Industries to Start a New Business

May 4, 2012 by Liz

Where Do You Start?

Starting a new business is a big decision, which has to be taken with much thought and diligence. No two years are the same and with changing trends one has to be vigilant enough to tap the right business opportunities at the right time.

The year 2012 is the year of the retail business, personal care, hospitality and education. While these are not the out-of-box industries that seem to be providing good potential for growth, but it is the way one propels their business using the right techniques catering to the modern times. Success lies, not in what you sell, but how you sell it. Here is a brief overview of the top five industries to start a new business:

Health and wellness: a healthy lifestyle is something which every one aspires for. The health and wellness industry covers a large domain including healthy eating, fitness centres, fitness consultancy, personal grooming, care of the elderly and to an extent hospitality. Consumers are growing aware of what they are eating, the sources of their food, keeping fit by visiting gyms and fitness centres, consulting with yoga gurus and experts and even opting for stress management activities. All these areas of health and wellness offer opportunities to start a new business.

You could start a franchisee that offers healthy snacks or open up a fitness centre or a gym. If you are good at providing consultation, you can go for a health and fitness centre with expert consultants offering tips on healthy and nutritious eating. The corporate sector too is urging its employees to be more fit, healthy and stress-free, which means that you can introduce wellness plans for the corporate sector.

The beauty industry: trends are indicative of the fact that the beauty industry is a growing sector and so it has made the list of the top five industries to start a new business. As per the surveys conducted worldwide, it has been seen that consumers have more disposable income, allowing them to spend more on personal grooming and healthcare. For this reason, there has been a surge in beauty salons, spas and centres for beauty treatments. Barber schools and cosmetology are the growing sectors in this industry with more and more people becoming interested in looking and feeling good.

Clothing industry: clothes have always been a favourite with women. However, with the new trends pouring in, it is seen that even men are getting more particular about the way they dress up. For this reason, the clothing industry along with the clothing accessory industry is a very good area to tap into when looking to start a new business.

Education: with increasing globalisation and the need for highly trained and skilled professionals all over the world, education has come to the forefront as one of the top industries to start a new business. Whether it is a business school, language school, a trade school or an educational consultancy, you are sure to receive a very good response.

Food industry: with recession almost gone now, people have higher levels of disposable income. This means the capacity to spend on healthy and organic foods and snacks has increased. Taking up franchisees of a frozen yogurt, healthy snacks, organic foods can be a way to start a small business.

So, if you are interested in starting up a new business, one of the safest bets would be in one of these mentioned industries. However, these are only 5 of the many industries out there. So, if these donât take your fancy, there is a plethora of other industries to choose from.

—-
Author’s Bio:
Working as business & finance analyst in Brisbane, Jim is very much interested in management consulting for finance projects. He writes about new challenges coming up in next year’s in the industry. You can find more information at bsbdc.com or follow Jim on Twitter at @JamesForrest8

Thank you, Jim!

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

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.