Liz, Author at Successful Blog Page

Thanks to Week 284 SOBs

April 2, 2011 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

Be a Magnet Not a Missionary

March 29, 2011 by Liz

When Your Values Are Baked Into Your Value Proposition

At SxSW this year, I enjoyed a deep conversation with Dave Fleet @DaveFleet about the new offer that Terry St. Marie (@Starbucker) and I are launching. I was telling him how we’re applying the SOBCon models and masterminds method to build high-performance leadership influence teams who

guide their decision making with high loyalty customer values and a high ROI value proposition.
get to innovative ideas through that balanced customer-company foundation.
can make that innovation reality through influence — by showing the benefit of doing it to peer employees, senior managers, and customers

Needless to say I was quite passionate. I’ve been working on getting this enterprise offer exactly right for about 3 years.

Then Dave said something like this to me, “So who will be your key market? I would think that with so many companies in Chicago you might never have to leave.”

I said, “My market will be people, like you, who get what I’m saying as quickly as you did.”

Be a Magnet Not a Missionary

What being in an emerging market like social media and building an event like SOBCon has taught me is that I’d rather be a magnet than a missionary.

According to Dictionary.com, a missionary is “a person strongly in favor of a program, set of principles, etc., who attempts to persuade or convert others.” He or she has to educate, evangelize, relay information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs.

A missionary considers every person in a given group or location a possible client and thus, has to turn disinterested folks, nonbelievers, and skeptics into converts. The very nature of disinterested, nonbelieving, and skeptical folks is that they don’t value or trust what the missionary does. They aren’t likely to pay for what they didn’t want, don’t trust, and didn’t value from the start.

The missionary has to offer a new belief system that gives disinterested folks, nonbelievers, and skeptics a reason to want to convert. At the same time that missionary has to establish a relationship of trust and communicate the value of his or her work. If the missionary succeeds, it’s a sale, but that’s only the first battle. Converts don’t always stay converted especially in times of stress. When a crisis occurs or difficult decision crops up, the missionary has to do the conversion work over again.

A magnet has a much easier time. According to the World Dictionary, a magnet is a person or thing that exerts a great attraction. We find people who think in the same ways we do attractive and smart (and those who don’t think as we do are less attractive because they seem to be not so smart or are being difficult.)

When we have an offer we believe in our bones that we can deliver with highest standards to the benefit of the people we serve, the folks who understand their needs and value what we offer will recognize it immediately. No conversion necessary. If you take the magnet metaphor seriously, it’s our unlike poles — our solution to their need — that forms the true bond. However it’s the magnetic field of immediately clear communication, like values, aligned standards and goals that attracts the ones that fit and repels those that don’t.

A magnetic person only shares his or her offer with people he or she respects and trusts. When someone of value joins the conversation it’s easy to mention there’s a new offer and let the other person open the door. Then the conversation isn’t about conversion or education, it’s an invitation. The magnet can learn more about the valued friend’s needs and goals, and the valued friend can learn more about what the offer is. The trust and open communication leads to a variety of connections that might be moving forward on that offer, new introductions and referrals, or entirely new ideas that spark in the moment.

Magnets Win

If you have to convince or convert someone to work with you, you’ll be convincing and converting every time you make a decision. If you have to explain why what you do is valuable and worth the price more than once, move on.

It’s easier, faster, more meaningful to be a magnet. And the people attracted to what you do actually value your work. A magnet starts with a bond of trust that a missionary doesn’t. The client who values and trusts you will value your work and trust your decisions. That’s why the client who doesn’t value and trust you is always more work (and never worth the price of admission no matter where you set it.)

Is your business thinking like a magnet or a missionary?

Be irresistible.

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

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Successful-Blog is a proud affiliate of

Why Our Heroes Will Always Be More and Less Than the Pedestal We Put Them On

March 28, 2011 by Liz

All the Stories Are True and Un-True too.

I was 13 when my grandmother died. I never got to know her well. My experience of her was a tall, loving woman who smiled often and spoke only Italian. So you can see the gap.

However, I grew up with a wealth of stories about her to add to my small set of interactions. And because she was and is a hero of mine I was a always curious to know more to fill in the picture of this person I wished I knew better and more deeply as a person.

Now as each day brings closer to the age she was when I knew her, I realize she was more complicated and had more experiences and feelings than I’ll ever know. She will always be more and less of the hero she’s come to be defined in my mind.

It’s important to realize that stories and small sets of meaningful interactions can’t reveal a person to us.

Why Our Heroes Will Always Be More and Less Than the Pedestal We Put Them On

Stories and meaningful interactions are powerful things. But the very essence of what makes a good story or a meaningful interaction is that it highlights one quality, one action that reveals something about the person in question. But no person is only one quality.

Ask my son what he knows about me.

What I’ve learned is that, like great characters in movies, we’ve all got our great strengths and weaknesses. We’ve all got our stellar qualities and our deep flaws. And any one of us that gets put on a pedestal is destined to fall. Here’s why and why I never want to be on a pedestal myself.

The heroes we put on a pedestal don’t really know what qualities or traits got them there. They can guess, but they didn’t define the “character” who was raised up and so they’re destined not to live up to the definition.
The people who put the heroes on the pedestal can only see the heroes from far away. The closer we get to people the more we see their complexity, the more likely we are to change that hero-worship into friendship. True friends see a whole person and accept the humanity — what’s great and what still needs growing about them.
Sooner or later every hero will be human and step outside of pedestal definition. Suddenly the hero-worshipers will feel a betrayal that the hero was less than they thought, but really he or she is also more … the more that they couldn’t see.

So let’s give up the Pedestal mentality. Heroes are only infallible from faraway. It’s unfair to make them one-dimensional and expect them to live up to a definition that no human could possibly be.

I love the stories of my grandmother. I’ll always keep her high in my heart, but I also know that she had to work for what she got and that she faced real decisions and couldn’t have possibly always chosen right. No human ever does.

If we truly want community, it’s our job to remember and protect our heroes as the humans they are so that they can keep growing and showing us what they’ve got. What kinds of fans would we be if we made all of the protection go one way and left all of the heroism to them? Where would Harry Potter be without his band of friends who have his back? No pedestal takes the place of a community of friends.

I think I like her better knowing that. It makes it easier to imagine she’d also be proud of me.

How do you protect your heroes and see them people not characters on pedestals?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Thanks to Week 283 SOBs

March 26, 2011 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

The People Standing Around You

March 25, 2011 by Liz

friends?

I walk into an event. I’m looking forward to seeing you. I look across and there you are.

I start to walk over. Then I notice the people standing around you. They’re a few folks you sometimes hang with. You call them friends. I’m not so sure they live up to that title where you’re concerned. One’s a whiner. One’s a complainer, One’s a slacker. All three are takers. You give them your best and all they seem to give you is more of their problems to solve. They don’t see you, only what you can do for them.

You haven’t noticed that you keep giving your energy to folks who don’t energize you.

I was set to have a great “let’s catch up” conversation, to find out what you’re doing, to tell you about some people I’ve met who might be able to help you move forward. I value what you know, what you can do, what you’re willing to invest in learning.

But I’ve been part of the group you’re with on other occasions. Those three around you always talk about the same things — mostly gossip and what’s unfair about the world. If we try to talk about the future, they will hijack the conversation with negativity and distractions.

I reconsider. I’m not ready to share my contacts if they will have to navigate through that group.

I say a brief hello and keep moving. You never know that I’m waiting for you.

Are the people around you helping you grow or holding you down?

It’s not loyalty or friendship, or even business, if the the energy and positivity isn’t coming back to you.

Surround yourself with folks who can see you and value you.
You’ll have more energy, more confidence, and more positive people who want to spend time with you.
Please do.

80-20 Rule of Customers: Stop Thinking 20th Century! Attract Only the Top 20%

March 22, 2011 by Liz

10-Point Plan in Action

Who’s Not Your Ideal Customer?

I was sitting waiting for a friend in a San Francisco Bistro. The art designer at the next table was bemoaning his business clientele. He said,

20% of my customers are a pleasure to work with. 80% are not, but they pay the bills.

It was all I could do to say, STOP THINKING 20TH CENTURY!!

80-20 Rule of Customers: Quit Thinking 20th Century! Attract Only the Top 20%

In the 20th Century, when we were stuck in geographic niches, we were been limited by location and broadcast advertising. We might have had to serve more people who weren’t our ideal clients and customers. Word of mouth referrals could only reach so many more like the ones we loved already.

The Internet and social business through social media together have blown that 20th century notion apart.

Whether we’re a one-person shop or a huge corporation, we can identify our ideal customers — those 20%-ers that make our work faster, easier, and more meaningful. We can get to know them and let them get to know us. We can develop trust and relationship, discuss solutions and suggest creations, so that by the time they find our front door, they’re already in our community of fans.

Here’s how to do attract those 20%-ers …

Build an offer that only can deliver. Design it to the detail to suit the customer group you know best. Set your highest standards for the outcomes it guarantees. Know every detail of its execution and performance. When you can believe in your head, heart, hands, and soul that you and every member of your team can consistently deliver on it. You’re ready to talk to the people you want to attract.
Have standards for customer relationships. Whether your customers buy pencils or designs for major stadiums, know what behaviors you believe in as eithical and trustworthy. Offer those behaviors to your customers and expect those behaviors in return. If a customer disrepects your product or the people who make or sell it — no matter what that product or service is — send the customer packing. No money is worth your ethics or the self-respect of your business.
Take a minute to remember your best customers – those 20%-ers. The qualities they have in common probably add up to something like these: They
- Understood your product or service and its value.
- Were willing to pay a fair price for great work.
- Saw your unique contribution.
- Trusted your expertise.
- Communicated their problems with concern for their needs and yours.
- Were happy to talk their friends about you and your work.
- Working with them made you better at what you do.
So look when you want to identify new 20%-ers that you want to work with, look for people who
- See how your product or service can improve what they do.
- Agree on the value of the work and the relationship.
- Know their own unique expertise and recognize yours.
- Communicate well and honestly.
- Share your values and are open with their friends.
Holding your standards on customer relationships will attract customers who have the same standards as you.
Invite, don’t sell. The difference between inviting and selling is the strength of your trust relationship. Pack that invitation with the offer you guarantee to deliver on. Describe it with the values you hold for relationships and how that pays off in having more time to building quality and real return on investment.
As @MichaelPort of Michael Port says, “Match your offer to the level of trust you’ve developed.”

Example these words mean something different from someone we love than from someone we just met …

Come to my room. I guarantee you an unforgettable night of sex.

Speak with and show respect for work and the people with whom you work. Handle your products like valuable investments. Describe your services with calm and passionate reverence.
And as @SteveFarber Steve Farber says, “Do what you love in service to the people who love what you do.” You’ll know in seconds if the people you’re talking with don’t “get” the value you’re offering. If they don’t “get” your products and services don’t try to convert them, they won’t stay converted and they’ll keep asking more of you.Instead find the people who value you.
Deliver on every promise so that folks feel proud to talk about you.

Great businesses don’t qualify our customers based only on interest and cash to buy. Though crucial, as our only gating factors, those two alone will lead us to serving folks who don’t value what we do.

80%-ers don’t build our businesses. They take more time, They question every price and every action because they don’t trust. If they’re loyal, they’re loyal to price or because we’re the ones who tolerate their indecision, misbehavior, lack of communication, without charging for time lost

The 20%-er Attraction Standard

When we hold ourselves to our best standards and performance, people notice.
When we treat people with trust and respect, trustworthy and respectable people come to us.

When we invite the right people to try our best offer, we make it easy to choose our products and services. We also make it easy to share our best offer with friends. 20%=ers think of us when they’re asked “Who do you know that can …? ”

And soon those 20%-ers we invite bring their 20%-er friends who want to enjoy that same standard of products, service, value, and respect.

Because 20%-ers know, as we do, that alignment like that is easier, faster, and more meaningful. And we all know that working with lower standards attracts lesser customers, wastes time, costs more, and leaves us feeling like less. Find the fit that matches your 20%-er values.

Have you set your standards high enough to attract only that best 20%?

That’s irresistible.

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

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Successful-Blog is a proud affiliate of