Successful Blog

SOB Business Cafe 11-19-10

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Ramblings from a Glass Half Full
There to meet us was the building’s concierge. As he helped us get our luggage into the elevator, my wife said to him “It’s a really gray day”.

He smiled, ear to ear. “Yes, it’s a GREAT day”

You could literally feel the positive energy coming out of him as he ever so cleverly “mis-heard” my wife’s comment.

At that moment, we forgot about the gray, and the rain. He was right – it was a GREAT day.

Social media today
More than ever, it makes sense – particularly for students right now – to get to work on enhancing their irresistibility factor in order to show up and stand out in this over-crowded and over-saturated environment. Of course, that’s exactly what creating a personal brand can do for you. It’s not only one powerful tool for getting ahead. It’s a total game changer.

How and Why We Blog
Give this checklist a try if you think your business blog needs a revamp; it’ll help you get started reinventing your site. I’ve broken the checklist down: look and feel and content items.

Six Pixels of Separation
People tend to shrug their shoulders, roll their eyes or simply get freaked out at the slightest thought of making something that is not like us “human” (if you don’t believe me, watch science fiction movies like A.I. or Blade Runner). Before getting into a philosophical and semantic debate over what it actually means to be “human,” first think about what a brand really stands for.

What’s next blog?
Only 11% of teens email each day, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told a Nielsen’s Consumer 360 conference in June. “Email is probably going away,” she said.

Related ala carte selections include

Do you think this would work?

Experience the Message
I just love this story: Nordstrom is rumored to be opening a concept store in SoHo where all thprofits are donated to charity.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of

third-tribe-marketing

What Three Values Drive Your Brand?

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(Updated in 2020)

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

10-Point Plan — The Brand Values Baseline Defined

Three Reasons Get Us to the Task at Hand

Now the core team returns to discuss the feedback from the stakeholder leaders who’ve helped them identify the brand values baseline. Review the words each group has returned with and talk through the meaning until the group can roll up the short list to three words that stand for the foundational core values that drive the business. Try one from the head, one from the heart, and one from the long-term vision or meaning.

An example might be these three that drive SOBCon:

Delivering brilliance: We believe in intelligent, elegant connected ideas that raise us up to higher thinking.

Trusting fearlessness: We believe in authentic trust in ourselves and others that has no room for fear as it stand with our intelligent ideas.

Deep Strategic Vision: Our quest and our purpose is to move ourselves, our businesses, and those around us forward with leadership born of strategy and deep meaningful purpose.

Or brilliance, trust, vision. Those three words wrap up the sentences and make the an easy reference for every decision that drives our business. Other people on the core team can choose their synonyms and as long as they mean the same thing, we can trust in the variations and the mutations that will grow from them.

We have our values aligned.

What three values drive your business?

READ the Whole 10-Point Plan Series: On the Successful Series Page.

Brand Haiku: Sweet Ride Chicago!

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In the social business world of social media and Twitter, online relationships are lead to offline relationships in amazing ways. The Buick Tweet to Drive test drive experience was a particularly special one for me.

With a simple Tweet
I was in the drivers seat
Sweet ride, Chicago!

drivebuickchi

Thanks Buick Tweet to Drive for the transportation and the conversation during the ride! It was more than great marketing. It was an experience.

“Visit Aaron Strout’s blog for the next brand haiku.”

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

I’m a proud affiliate of

third-tribe-marketing

Thanks to Week 264 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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210-consulting
brian-mcdaniel
event-reflections
franchise-king-blog
leave-it-to-weaver

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 Attract the Leaders in the Pack

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(Updated in 2020)

Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash

10-Point Plan — Attracting Second Generation Heroes and Champions

Employees as Volunteers and Volunteers as Employees

Whether you’re a small enterprise like SOBCon building a brand and a legacy to stand upon or you’re an internationally known brand with a legacy of success and relationships that you want to nurture and protect, your employees and volunteers are the heart of your brand.

What makes that heart beat?
What gets those people to invest their time into your quest rather than into some other endeavor each day?
One of three reasons brings us to work and that reason that drives us runs through every nuance of every interaction that we undertake — every success we enjoy and every error we miss, overlook or turnaround in a fabulous way.

Whether you’re paying for a job role or enlisting volunteers, what you want is a volunteer who leads like a $200,000 / year employee. Leaders like that are learners who are focused on the cause and willing to put their minds, hearts, and vision into making the best things happen.

The Three Kinds of People Who Show Up to Work

People often say “There are two kinds of people, those who … and those who don’t.” In this case there are really three. Knowing all three will help you find and identify the leaders you need.

  • It’s a job. These volunteers are looking for an in-kind return. They are worker economists in that they do a hard day’s work for a hard day’s pay. The return might not be money. It might be a free seat, new clients or contacts that translate into potential work, a chance to raise the level of their pay grade by raising their skills and contacts. Be aware that they aren’t working for your brand or cause. They are executing a transaction.
  • It’s a career. These volunteers are looking to build their resume.They are politicians in that they look for a return that will enhance their own value proposition. The return is not financial it’s power and positioning. They do a hard day’s work for the ability to say they were part of the team. They might be working for a recommendation or entrance into a new network that will offer more opportunity. Understand that their first purpose isn’t working for your brand, it’s to extend their reach.
  • It’s a quest. These volunteers care about money and reach, but are driven by a need to build something no one can build alone. They look for a situation that will allow them to invest their best and want the same in return. Leaders will actually work for less if they’re convinced that the quest, the people, and process will be tied to values and intelligent ROI.

I bet you could phrase a set of questions and conditions to attract the best volunteers to that outstanding project you want to take off.

How would you start?

READ the Whole 10-Point Plan Series: On the Successful Series Page.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Does Your Brand Promiscuously Sleep with the Whole Football Team?

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Here Everyone Gets It All!!

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Will take a trip with me into ancient history?
I was in my early twenties. A friend, a young lady who was unique, beautiful and fun to be with, was insecure about her personal value. She couldn’t see why any guy might want to be with her. She had a string of bad relationships. She’d meet a guy and almost instantly sleep with him. The next day she’d call him a “boyfriend.”

I would watch it happen over and over. What she wanted was guys who’d get to know her. What she attracted was a huge following of guys who wanted to sleep with her. Some of those guys told me later that they didn’t even like her.

She was promiscuously giving away the wrong thing.

Is Your Brand Guilty of Promiscuous Giving

Now I go to events and trade shows and sometimes I see the business version of the same thing. Big brands and small companies not thinking through their “offers.” They put out samples that attract people people who want “free” rather than people who want a relationship with their brand and their products.

It may be easier to plan one giveaway for a population. But it’s not necessarily the best way to connect with people who want to “love” your brand. That single giveaway is likely to attract people who take anything free whether they need it, want it, or can use it in any meaningful way.

How many bags, water bottles, t-shirts, and hats end up left in hotel rooms because suitcases had no room when they were packed for leaving?

Here’s how to avoid promiscuously giving away the wrong things.

Don’t give everything to everybody. No one wants to marry the girl who sleeps with the entire football team. Have something for the people who are just meeting you. Have a second thing for the folks who’ve tried something in your product line and are beginning to like you. Have a third set for the folks who are madly in love with you.

How Might Brands Do that?

  • The People Who Don’t Know You Ask them about what they love in their current favorite product. Invite them to be on an advisory board that will get special offers and invitations to meetups in their town. Recruit them as “nonusers” to review new products from your line — for internal publication only if they prefer. The best swag for this group might be an elegant portable screen cleaner kit that carries your logo or maybe that flash drive that is huge enough to back up an entire computer. Everyone can will use those and see your logo.
  • The People Who Like You, But Aren’t Customers Introduce them to a service person on a first name basis. Take a hint from the car companies develop a serious test drive offer. Invite the folks who use your competitors to a demo to compare their product with yours. For those who attend extend a special limited price offer. Match them up with the machine that perfectly suits their use and needs. Invite them to test drive your machine for 30 days trial. Give them a price point that they can’t help to talk about. As a swag gift for their participation, give them that screen cleaner kit and add to that a portable power pack with adapters for every gadget in their repertoire. Who doesn’t need more power?
  • Your Loyal Customers and Those Ready to Become One Have your database ready when they walk up and talk about the products they already own. Get to know their favorites and their wishes. These are the folks who should go home with the special new product that you’re just releasing. They’ll talk about it with their friends. It might even work to give them two or three coupons to pass on to folks they know would use your products and talk about them. Let your true friends decide who should be the ones to get the super swag. They’ll choose well for you and you’ll win their loyalty for it.

People get to know people and brands in small steps that break down boundaries and build relationships. If you overwhelm me with too much too fast, it’s hard to trust that you value what you give or that you value the relationship. I don’t want to you see me as the girl who sleeps with the whole football team and I don’t want to see you like that.

How might you step the swag you offer to meet the needs of your fans?

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

I’m a proud affiliate of

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