Inside-Out Thinking Archives - Page 11 of 20

Get Unambiguous and Get More Customers

March 25, 2008 by Liz

“Give Me Ambiguity or Give Me Something Else!!”

A client comes to you with a problem. The person you meet is your perfect “work soulmate,” but for some reason you don’t get the job. Why is that?

Could it be that you’re ambiguous?

When it comes to hiring people, we want to know exactly who they and what they promise unequivocally. We also want to know what they won’t do.

That’s why it’s critical when someone says, “What do you do?” You have a strong and interesting answer that invites them in to ask you more.

I say, “I help companies and individuals develop irresistible offers (products/services) that attract customers.”

Shama Heyder says, “I help service professionals built a long-term plan to get more clients.”
Chris Brogan says, “I use social media and technology to show businesses, organizations, and individuals how to build authentic conversations between coworkers, customers, and even competitors.”

Do we all do more than that? Of course we do, but we’re umambiguous about where our focus is. People know who to go to for which thing.

Get Unambiguous and Get More Customers

Here are some ways to get you closer to unambiguous.

Choose the client you want to work with most. We can’t work with everyone. Not everyone is a good fit with our skill set or our personalities. The time we spend trying to make a bad match work good be better invested in finding a great client. choose group that talks to each other and can afford to pay you.
Think about what you do well and why you like doing it. What skills do people often ask you to help them with? What have people already paid you for? Those are a place to start.
Make a list of what exactly you can do. Assign that list a monetary value.
Prepare a story to explain how what you do takes a continuing problem off the desk of your chosen client group. Explain how you can do the work easier, more efficiently, in less time, and still make them look like a hero.
Stick to the list for a month or two. Talk to the folks who can use the service you’ve outlined about their goals. When you hear a way you might help, tell them what you offer.

Do the above steps and suddenly, you’ll not only know what you do. But you’ll also know what you don’t do too. You’ll feel unambiguous.

It’s much more fun to know who we are and sitting across the table with something to offer.

How might you get on the road to unambiguous today?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

10 Compelling Reasons People Read YOUR Blog

March 24, 2008 by Liz

You’re a HUGE Part

Information is everywhere. My younger, older brother said once,

“Our parents we lucky. They had less information. Information is the curse of this new era. We have so much information. We can’t move for sorting it out.”

He was right in so many ways.
My answer is to ignore most of it, only take what I need now.

I’ve talked to a few readers about why they read blogs and about how they choose the ones they go back to every day. Information isn’t the key ingredient. With so many blogs out there and so much information, we gotta wonder. Here are ten reasons people read YOUR blog.

10 Compelling Reasons People Read YOUR Blog

You have ideas not just information. You look at what’s happening and add a thought about it. You’re there in the text giving the information context.

You have thoughts, not just ideas. You look at your ideas from a variety of views giving them a “once over” with possibilities.

You have experience. You may not have a resume from here to Mars on the subject, but you’ve tried what you’re talking about and you’re willing to say how it was for you. That’s key. Like listening to my favorite movie critic, I may not like what you like, but I know where we agree and disagree so I can tell how what you’re saying applies to me.

You don’t try to teach me. You don’t write so complete that I’m not left with nothing to say, but “good job.” You show me what you’ve learned and how you learned it. That’s a big difference. I like learning with you. Being taught isn’t quite so appealing.

You don’t try to be someone else. You know what you bring is of value. It’s attractive to be with people who know who they are.

You interested in me too. Every question you ask is thoughtfully posed to find out more about me as a person who reads your blog. You don’t expect me to answer question that are too big or too personal for the comment box.

You make me feel welcome. I get the feeling that everyone who stops by is a friend, even if he or she just arrived. That’s very appealing.

You don’t apologize for what you write or take people down in public. It’s nice to know that folks who come by your blog get great information and get treated well too.

You do what you can to make it easy to comment. Other than a small fence for spammers, you take the load of keeping a “clean yard” on yourself so that folks will find it easy to be part.

You don’t write other people’s blog posts. You know you can only be a bad copy of who they are, but that you make a really good you.

More than anything, you know that you are the only you on the Internet. You’re the one we come for.

As I said, information is everywhere.

What are you doing to put more of YOU into your blog?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!! SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Are You Letting the Internet Think for You?

March 19, 2008 by Liz

Back Again to the Idea of Signal to Noise

When I first got to the Internet, it was about finding out about blogging. I was intent upon writing and developing content. Then I became part of a community. Soon enough one community begot another, and another. I began to read and listen. The result was more information that this single person could process in a week. I was taking that much in everyday!

The subliminal messages were strong, loud, and constant. Be a producer! Have idea! Make things happen! Look at what everyone else is accomplishing!

I got to work having ideas and thinking about how I could change the world immediately!

I was at no loss for ideas, but somehow I managed to forget a basic principle I learned in publishing — anything worth doing requires a well-thought plan. Starting with fire and no plan often ends in a lot of smoke and nothing more.

I began to notice that a whole lot of a people with great ideas weren’t making any money.

Are You Letting the Internet Think for You?

I started a few projects with a few friends and I found out some truths about the Internet. Folks have ideas, but they don’t always think them through. I know.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend who has a thriving Internet business. Whenever he considers a change or a new product, he leaves the Internet for a week or two just to think. He was saying that the reason that he does this is because he doesn’t want to be like the guy in this story.

My friend changes his “business” every 9 months to a year. He just did it again. He left behind all that he had built in readership — just left them. He’s decided to follow another Internet guru. He built a new blog, dressed it all out, and then came to me to ask, “How do I make money with it?” What was he thinking?

What was he thinking? I suspect that he was letting the Internet think for him.

I repeat something I said earlier this week, “A blog isn’t a business any more than a building is a company.”

If you want to make money on the Internet, make sure you have three things crucial to any business.

Have a value proposition — a product or service that people want to buy
Have a plan — know how you’ll offer it and deliver it and how it will support you
Have a someone outside the thinking to work with you as you make decisions so that you stay on track

Thinking it through is harder when a barrage of signal to noise is always assaulting us. The noise from the Internet often repeats things that have nothing to do with good business practice.

How much time do you spend thinking your own thoughts about your business –questioning what the Internet says to do?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!! SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Why It Takes a Personal Plan to Be Outstandingly Successful

March 4, 2008 by Liz

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

The road to success — We’ve all heard of that one. Do the things everyone does and you’ll probably get to something that’s . . . well, . . . not broken. But if you want to be successful and outstanding. Doing what everyone does won’t get you there . . . because to be outstanding, by necessity, you have to be individual.

To do stand and shine as uniquely valuable, a business or an individual needs a road that leads in a singular direction.

Note that I used the word leads.

A Plan to Be Irresistibly, Outstandingly Successful

Any effective, efficient project, business, or life has structure and direction. It starts with a destination — literal or figurative — and then a route to get there. Without a plan, we leave ourselves open to winds that push us toward distractions or detours. A plan, well thought and well provided for is the only way to get where we want to that shining end point.

Have a plan and work the plan is sage advice.

Why It Takes a Personal Plan to Be Outstandingly Successful

Last week we talked about making decisions. Here are the reasons that outstanding success demands a plan.

If we don’t have a plan, we’re just wishing.
If we don’t have a plan, we’re always here and success is always out there.
Without a plan, we have no direction. Any road will take us anywhere, but we won’t end up there.
Without a plan, every decision is likely to have as much power as a whim.
A plan is the only way to benchmark our progress and to build on what we’ve accomplished.
A plan is keeps us focused when other ideas tempt us away from our dreams.

Decide. Plan. Get determined. The plan makes a dream into an outstandingly success. It’s the plan — the decisions and determination — that fuels the reality. Distractions are easier to disregard when we can hold them up to a plan we know we can achieve.

Without a plan, we’re always getting ready to succeed. Christine Kane says it eloquently.

“How will you go the long, long journey,
if you’re always about to begin?” — Christine Kane, Falling in Love with the Wind

If you want to be outstandingly successful, plan for it. Outstanding is a stake in the ground that we keep our eyes on. It’s a path that we plot for the life that we want. It’s as easy as a decision.

Have you planned outstanding success into your life?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Need help deciding? Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Does Your Value Proposition Say that You're Small Time?

March 3, 2008 by Liz

Do You Want One Thing and Say Another?

Last year I worked with a fabulous small business. They had spent many years doing the small jobs. Clients saw them as the ones to call when something needed fixing in quick order, but never seemed to call when something new needed to be conceived or designed. Their goal was to move from a “menu driven” production house to the agency status.

The business had the award-winning talent, had the proven expertise, had the elegant web presence, but the projects that came in were still small time. Their client base still saw them as something they had been long ago. Our goal was to change the way clients thought about them.

We looked at their value proposition. It was something like this:

We offer [our niche] a menu of highest quality services at reasonable prices.

It’s an invitation to buy small services according to price. It says “We do the small-time jobs.”

Does Your Value Proposition Say that You’re Small Time?

What do you do when you have big goals and you realize that your customer base sees you as a small-time operation? It’s time to realign your value proposition and how you offer your services to them.

Back to the fabulous small business I worked with last year: Now that we had identified the problem, we could move to a solution that made clients take a new look at what the business had to offer. We talked about the business they wanted to be and outlined this list of criteria.

Corporate level clients
Agency level and agency-level partnerships
Management of major projects not pieces

Using those we constructed a new value proposition that went something like this.

We offer [our niche] the thinking and expertise that moves your ideal customers to action.

We tweaked what they offered — took the itemized list off their web presence, changed how they talked about what they do — in text and in person, made sure the message was clear throughout the business and throughout their offers, and wrote a new tagline to reflect their new direction.

It was two weeks when they called to report a major client project and a possible agency partnership.

What’s your value proposition? Does it reflect your goals?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Need to align your value proposition? Work with Liz!!

SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Decision or Choice: Is the Difference Stealing Your Focus and Your Time?

February 28, 2008 by Liz

Possibilities and Direction

You walk into an ice cream store. So many flavors sit in the case before you. You consider or you know right away. You place your order.

You have a meeting with your boss only to find out that the job you love is likely to be gone in six months. You have an opportunity to take a higher position in another state or you can stay in the city you love with a fair certainty that your job is going away.

One is a choice. The other is a decision.

One is about possibilities. The other is about direction.

Decision or Choice

Whether we’re thinking about sending a child to private school, where to go on holiday, or buying office supplies, every day we opt for one thing over another. Sometimes we’re choosing. Sometimes we’re deciding. Doing one when the other is called for can get in our way.

Do you know the difference between a choice and a decision? Consider what the words mean and how that might apply to your business and your life.

The Definitions [via Answers.com ]

A choice is a selection from a number or variety of options.
A decision is reaching a conclusion or passing judgment on an issue.

The Etymology — History of the Words [via Merriam-Webster Online,]

Choose — Etymology: Middle English chosen, from Old English cÄ“osan; akin to Old High German kiosan to choose, Latin gustare to taste
Decide — Middle English, from Latin decidere, literally, to cut off, from de- + caedere to cut

Synonyms [via Thesaurus.com]

Choose — (definition select) — accept, adopt, appoint, call for, cast, co-opt, commit oneself, crave, cull, decide on, designate, desire, determine, discriminate between, draw lots, elect, embrace, espouse, excerpt, extract, fancy, favor, finger, fix on, glean, judge, love, make choice, make decision, name, opt for, predestine, prefer, see fit, separate, set aside, settle upon, sift out, single out, slot, sort, tab, tag, take, take up, tap, want, weigh, will, winnow, wish, wish for
Decide — (definition determine) adjudge, adjudicate, agree, award, call shots*, choose, cinch, clinch, commit oneself, conclude, conjecture, decree, determine, elect, end, establish, figure, fix upon, form opinion, gather, guess, judge, mediate, opt, pick, poll, purpose, reach decision, resolve, rule, select, set, surmise, tap, vote, will

When we choose, it’s like picking an item from a menu. If we come back the next time, we can make another choice. But a decision, cuts off — kills — other options. By its very definiton a decision is a turning point.

Is the Difference Stealing Your Focus and Your Time?

Decisions and choices build our character, form our life path. They’re the sum and substance of what makes our resume and our business success. Even so, what is a decision or a choice for you, me, or anyone is, in itself, a decision or a choice.

How we handle decisions and choices deeply affects our lives.

Do you angst over every choice as a life-changing decision? Take a look at what you’re investing — time, energy, stress — and what you’re investing in.
Do you avoid clear decisions by treating them like choices? Take a look at the options you’re holding onto and how they’re holding you in place.

Those two mistakes steal time and focus and often generate stress.

The difference is fairly simple.
A decision marks a direction.
A choice marks an option until we return to choose again.

How will you use this information?

It’s your decision . . . or your choice.

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss