Successful Blog

Doostang Today: An Apology – Better Late Than Never

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Conversation Is Often the First Step

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In 2008, I wrote a blog post entitled “3 Reasons I’m Sorry I Joined Doostang … ” which has become one of most consistently visited blog posts on my blog. That missive explained a bad experience that I and my friends had with the web platform in mentioned in the title.

Upon publication, I heard no word from the people at the site in response to my many attempts to solve the problems.

About 2-and-a-half years, I received an email from an employee asking if we might talk. We had a lovely hour-long conversation in which we talked about what the company was doing and how she said it had changed. I asked her, how would I know? Could you give some reason that I might believe you? I never heard from the company again.

A few weeks ago, I received an email explaining that Doostang had been sold and set up another conversation with Jeff Berger the new CEO. We talked for almost an hour about what had changed, where they were focused, and the history of the blog post I just described. He asked if I would take the blog post down. I said I wasn’t comfortable doing that because of the extensive comments on it, but I offered him the opportunity to write a blog post of his own.

What follows is that blog post …

An Apology – Better Late Than Never
by Jeff Berger, CEO, Doostang

I recently came across Liz’s blog post about Doostang from 2008 and am disappointed that the previous team demonstrated such arrogance and poor customer service. The entire situation was mishandled – Liz, I’m very sorry.

I was not part of Doostang in 2008, nor was anyone on the team today. The company was acquired last summer, and we’re a new group with a single goal – to provide our members with thousands of hand-picked job opportunities from top employers. Our focus is entirely on quality job content, and we’ve removed the troublesome networking features that Liz blogged about.

We’re changing the way we do business at Doostang, and we hope you will give us another chance to help you find your ideal job. In the future, any prospective or current customers experiencing trouble with Doostang can email me directly at Jeff@doostang.com.

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Thank you, Jeff.

Do you have any advice for Doostang in this day of reputation management?

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

Thanks to Week 337 SOBs

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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.

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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.

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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

How to Be Leader of a Small Business

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Every leader should take their responsibilities seriously and treat their position as one of great importance. Whether you manage one employee or a thousand, your actions and attitude will determine the success or failure of those who work below you. Even the best employee will fall to pieces in the face of a bad leader, and even the worst employee can rise to the expectations of a great motivator.

That being said, one position of leadership requires an extra level of care and vigilance when it comes to cultivating the right culture and producing the highest possible level of motivation and productivity within their employees. That position is the leader of a small business. Due to the small, intimate and hands-on nature of the position, the leader of a small business holds a truly disproportionate sway over their employees and their organization.

Taking Small Business Leadership Personally

To successfully lead a small business you need to take great care of your own time and energy. All leaders lead by example, and need to appear to be someone worth following. Leaders of larger, more impersonal firms may be able to fake these qualities, but leaders of small businesses work so closely with their employees that few secrets can exist between them.

If you constantly run into problems of low energy, flagging motivation, lack of time, an inability to prioritize your work, and a near-constant disconnection with the larger picture of what your organization hopes to achieve, then you better believe your employees will notice your malaise, and eventually mirror it themselves. Any attempts to direct your employees when you are clearly incapable of taking care of yourself will be met with skepticism at best, and resentment-filled-refusal at worst.

As the leader of a small business you need to personally embody everything your organization stands for and you need to clearly demonstrate everything you expect from your employees.

Staying Connected with Your Employees

Simply demonstrating a rock-solid command of your personal resources isn’t enough. If you are the leader of a small business, you need to remain personally connected with your employees at all times.

The internal culture of a small business is incredibly intimate but it’s also often very stressful, centered on everyone constantly firing on all cylinders. If, in your work-oriented myopia, you lose sight of who your employees are as people, you will lose your ability to connect with them in a meaningful way. If you stop connecting with each of your employees on a one-on-one basis, then you will lose their trust and respect.

When you lose your employee’s trust and respect you will lose the ability to speak with them candidly, to learn where they are feeling overwhelmed and where they feel they can contribute more to your shared goal. A small business quickly becomes something of a family with you at the head, and if you choose to embody the “distant parent” archetype your employees will return the favor and play the “surly teenager” role, doing just enough to get by but never feeling understood or appreciated.

It isn’t enough to embody incredible qualities while keeping your employees at a remove, just as it isn’t enough to connect constantly with your employees but to fail to inspire them with your personal conduct. Yet by combining the two, you will become the sort of leader that every small business employee dreams of working for.

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Author’s Bio:
The post is written by Wilson Campbell. He is a HR professional, with an exceptional skills to understand knowledge and behavior of employees. He not only has subject matter expertise, but he is also adept in team building and team building activities.

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

Why Working Bloggers Should Hire a Personal Accountant

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Blogging is a great way to make extra income or to work from home. You get to set your own hours, write about what interests you, and control your earnings potential. However, this type of work does not make you immune from tax responsibility. No matter how much you make blogging, and no matter if blogging is your primary job or just something you do on the side, you will have to report your earnings and pay taxes on them.

Before you get out your tax forms and start filing yourself, consider these reasons why you should hire an accountant to help you instead:

You Have a Greater Responsibility

There are many overlooked benefits to working for someone else — namely, that a corporate employer pays payroll and social-security taxes on your behalf. If you earn more than $400 a year from your blogging work, you are considered “self-employed,” and you will have to pay your own payroll taxes and a self-employment tax. Depending on the type of work you do and how much you earn, you may have other tax obligations. An accountant can help you understand all of your responsibilities and ensure that you are being compliant with the law.

Deductions are Available

You know how so many large companies and the millionaires who run them are able to minimize the amount of taxes they pay? They hire accountants to help them find deductions. You can do the same.

Working for yourself entitles you to a number of deductions, which may include your cell phone bill, Internet service, computers and other equipment, part of your rent, items to give away on your blog, and more. An accountant can educate you about all the deductions to which you are entitled and help you minimize your tax obligation, helping you to keep more of your earnings.

Small Business Guidance

Accountants have expertise in the tax code and can offer guidance about the intricate laws that govern small businesses. If you hire an accountant, you can get advice about best business practices as you grow. For example, you may learn that you need to improve your record-keeping practices, or maybe you’ll learn that buying a computer with energy-saving technology can entitle you to credits. Not only will an accountant help you shape the best tax situation in the current year, but he or she can also help you ensure the best financial health of your business going forward.

Audit Advice

Did you overlook reporting earnings one year? Or did you incorrectly report some deductions? If previous reporting errors have resulted in an audit, an accountant can offer you advice on dealing with the IRS and on what your rights and responsibilities are. An audit can result in serious fines and other legal trouble. Hiring an accountant can ensure that you have someone working with you to fight for your interests and minimize the repercussions. If you hire an accountant to help you file your taxes, you are usually entitled to free assistance if an audit of that tax year is conducted.

No matter how much money you make blogging, you are required to report your earnings to the IRS and to pay the appropriate taxes. An accountant can offer you guidance and expertise to minimize your tax responsibility while still ensuring that you are in compliance with all the rules and regulations regarding your business.

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Author’s Bio:
Heather Green is a freelance writer for several regional magazines in North Carolina as well as a resident blogger for onlinenursingdegrees.org. Her writing experience includes fashion, business, health, agriculture and a wide range of other topics. Heather has just completed research on health care admin degrees and online physical therapy aide degrees

Thank you, Heather!

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

The Five Traits that Motivate People to Support a Strategic Decision

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Every Great Motivator Has Its Failing

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As I look back on every SOBCon event, a continuous them is …

Decide and Do.

Decide literally means to kill off all other options. But how do we choose the motivating strategic decision — the one that not only moves us forward, but also enlists, engages, and motivates people to join us in executing that decision?

Strategic decisions are built on understanding position and predicting.
On the most quantitative level, people are part of both position and prediction.
Yet too often we make decisions without considers how the decisions might impact the people who we want to keep closest to us.

How Do You Make a Strategic Decision that Moves People to Action?

Too often when we make decisions — especially important and urgent ones — our thinking narrows too tightly. We lose sight of the people and focus only on facts and information. We see the problem, but lose sight of the people who will help us achieve it.

Our decision is only an half strength if we don’t consider the people who execute it. Each of those people brings his or her thinking, traits, perceptions, and responses with individual goals and personal intentions.

How does a leader motivate people to support a strategic decision? A leader looks to the characteristics of the people he or she wants to move to action. Motivation is 100% about aligning goals — being mission critical to THEIR mission. Once we set our course and direction, the next strong step is to consider what fuels the people who will fuel our mission. The key to moving people to action is in how we communicate that decision. It’s important to reach out to the higher values that drive the members of the community.

The Five Traits that Motivate People to Support a Strategic Decision

The people we try to motivate will have have these five traits in differing levels. Addressing these traits when you communicate a strategic decision will increase your success in motivating people to move to action. Before you announce your decision, review these five questions.

  • Dedication: Do they care? Commitment and caring are deep strong motivators. Know which people care and invest their commitment deeply for the goal. People of commitment dedicate themselves to reaching the goal. Tie the goal to commitment and you’re likely to capture their deep and unswerving investment in the mission. .
  • Intelligence: Do they learn well and understand and deeply? Sharing the sound thinking that drives a decision will motivate the community members who value deep thinking. Don’t be stingy with communication.
  • Courage: Do they respond well to change and in times of uncertainty? Acknowledging the risk and the reward of the decision allows the brave ones to step forward to protect and serve and to know how to shore up the possible vulnerabilities.
  • Discipline: Do they value the systems and the rules? Chaos is uncomfortable and change can be confusing. A few clear rules of what will guide the strategy to success can enlist those who most need clarity of action.
  • Trustworthiness: Do they trust your decisions without explanation? Explain your thinking anyway. Trustworthiness is demands that you value their trust and respect it, especially in times of change.

You’ll know you’ve communicated well if your community starts selling you on the validity of your decision as they move to action.
you form strategy and make decisions that help you enlist the right team of people to carry out your life mission.

What do you consider when you want to motivate people to action?

Be irresistible.

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

4 Points of Clear Thinking in Social Business Times of Fleas and Mosquitoes

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Don’t Let the Adrenalin Cloud Your Thinking

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The biggest part of my business life takes place offline. For as much as I’m visible on Twitter and my blog, I’m most often on the phone or in offices listening and talking about how people think and respond in business situations — how we buy, how we create communities, how we rally to cause, and how we are moved by influences.

In those ongoing business conversations, people I work with and for sometimes bring up cases of negative social business behavior. I bring up a four points that we often lose sight of in such situations.

  1. It’s rare that someone dies or company goes bankrupt because of comment made on Twitter. From the words “Dell Sucks,” through the first time prominent bloggers chose to use and post about K-mart gift cards, to the Motrin ad about “babywearing,” and every iteration large and small debated in the online social business — none that I recall were a life and death situation. And some were obvious attempts by individuals to gain visibility and attention.
  2. Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see. Find out more about everyone and everything before you respond. It’s rare that we work with complete information. Every story has many layers and it’s human nature to lose sight of or devalue the parts that don’t support the position that we favor. If you haven’t considered the restraints and possible good intentions of what you’re criticizing, if you can’t offer a possible way to solve the problem, if you can’t articulate your own version of the same behavior you’re criticizing, if you only have third party access to what happened, then you probably don’t know enough about the situation to call what you’re thinking an informed opinion. It’s impossible, arrogant, and dangerous to think you know other people’s intentions.
  3. Consider the reliability of the source and what the source’s purpose might be. Who brought the first complaint and what might be their gain for complaining? I’ve seen someone ask “innocently curious” questions on Twitter to start a debate, designed to raise his own profile by rallying folks to kick and scream about something that was really none of his business. Very soon a pile-on occurred. If the questions were really so innocently curious, I wonder why they weren’t asked via email? The difference between innocent curiosity and manipulation in this case was the intent of the asker — he wasn’t interested in the answer. He was interested in the debate and gaining more followers.
  4. People can see what you do, not why you did it. Stick to your values and your actions will prove them true. Each time an issue occurs I watch social business experts lose sight of how social media tools work. We tell people to listen. Then we forget that they’re listening. What CEO wants to work with the guy who claims on Twitter to be the only person who understands business? What C-Suite executive or small business owner who’s listening will trust the opinion of a person who tears down a company or rants unmercifully on an individual’s opinion? If you know how the tools work, you don’t lose that perspective to join a witch hunt because someone choose to write an ebook.

What to do about negative social business behavior?

Try the rule of fleas and mosquitoes.

What do we do with fleas and mosquitoes? When they keep their distance, we don’t even think about them. They’re irrelevant. When they bite us, we build environments where fleas and mosquitoes don’t thrive and flick them away on occasions we must. Then we get on with what makes our lives worth living, not bothering.

It’s easy to have a knee jerk reaction in a situation where many have tools to reach a few thousand people. So those fleas and mosquitoes, who choose to suck bits of blood for their own advantage can appear to be powerful. But only have the power that we give them. Be aware of what feeds them and remove it from your environment. Starve the fleas and mosquitoes of attention. Gratefully thank them for their wisdom and move on. The folks you want in your community don’t like fleas and mosquitoes either.

Focus your attention on giving food to what keeps you strong and protects you — the folks who already love you. Give the folks who love you even more attention. They’re the ones who deserve the explanations. Give them your commitment to continue doing what they already love about you. Let them know your trust won’t be bent or broken by voices who yell louder than they might. Invite them to be closer to you. Reward them. Celebrate them as heroes.

You’ll never go wrong by valuing the people who love you more than the fleas and mosquitoes.
Keep your head, your heart, and your adrenalin on the mission of the people who share your values.

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