Successful Blog

Does Your Credibility Show in What You Do?

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about credibility and what we do.

Not long ago, while we were listening to a talk show, a friend made a remark about a woman caller who argued a passionate opinion. She talked a bit longer than was acceptable for the the show in question. What he said was, “Anyone who can’t stop long enough to let someone else talk isn’t worth listening to.”

Have you met the pot that called the kettle black? With that sentence his credibility was shot.

This friend loves to argue science, politics, and how things work — he uses the same arguments more than once. His style is exactly that. He makes his voice such a strong force that no one has the energy to argue his point. It’s fine tactic for winning, but not one for reaching the truth. It’s also, as he himself said, not a way to win people who want to listen to you.

I’ve been thinking about that dissonance ever since. What struck me is how often we dislike in others what is our own habit or fault. We hold up our values when we call someone out for misbehaving, but we lose our credibility when the misbehavior is something we do too.

I’m going to be a little slower to talk. I’m going to check for my own version of someone’s bad behavior before I point theirs out. I don’t want to be the pot that calls the kettle black.

Credibility is hard to renew.

Credibility means believability. How believable can we be if we knock a behavior we do ourselves? .

Does your credibility show in what you do?

Be credible.
Be irresistible.
Be the best version of you.

Liz's Signature

Let your competition focus on you

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Rosemary O’Neill

Focus on the Path Ahead

The Summer Olympics are coming up, and I for one will be perched in front of my TV and iPhone app (yes, there’s an app for that) watching the proceedings.

I draw inspiration and courage from these athletes who dedicate their entire lives to achieving greatness in their event. There are so many lessons to take away, but one seems to jump out.

Have you ever noticed that the runners, swimmers, and other races NEVER look behind them during the race?

They focus their entire attention. Their entire being. Everything is focused on the path ahead, the swim lane ahead. The world may be on its feet screaming “he’s coming up behind you” and the sprinter is in a zone of silence.

Let your competition focus on you

The next time you’re tempted to spend time worrying about the competition, think like an Olympic swimmer. Stretch, jump, and swim like hell toward the other side.

Let them worry about you.

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

How to Manage Your Business Reputation After the Google Penguin Update

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Steve Albright

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Online Reputation Management in the Penguin Update Aftermath

Whether you have an online or offline small business Google’s latest algorithm update, innocuously named Penguin, is something you should be paying attention to. One unintended consequence of this update is the wide open path it cleared for businesses to take control of their online reputation.

If you’re unfamiliar with this latest algorithm change, the Penguin update’s main target was sites manipulating search engine results to improve rankings. Most hit were sites that used large amounts of low quality inbound links with keyword rich anchor texts to rank for desired search terms. Another aspect to this update is the over “SEO’d” penalty that slapped sites with pages that were clearly created for SEO benefits and not users. The combined effect of these updates has been serious upheaval in Google’s search results.

So what does this mean for you and your Online business?

The benefit for your ethical business is that no matter what niche you’re in Google has most likely laid waste to a good portion of your competition.

Most obviously in the arena of branded search terms; it’s very difficult to rank for competitors’ branded terms without using some form of search engine manipulation. This means all those pesky sites siphoning off traffic from your brand name, product line, niche, etc were most likely penalized.

Another effect of the update is a great opportunity to take control of your business’s online reputation.

Here’s how …

How to Manage Your Business Reputation After the Google Penguin Update

If you’ve run a business for any amount of time you know that no matter how hard you try there’s always going to be that one person who’s not pleased with your service/product. Despite your best efforts at customer service an event like this seems inevitable.

While many small business owners disregard these rare occasions as a standard cost of doing business, it becomes a problem when complainers take their complaints online. And plenty of sites are ready and willing to post their grievances.

This becomes an even bigger problem when review sites start ranking alongside, or even above, your site. This is why you absolutely must take advantage of this window that Google has provided.
Now is the time to go on the attack and take over your niche and brand.

Meet your potential critics head on.

Here’s what to do:

  • Create pages on your site that address any impending problems your customers may have. Use Google Analytics and other search tools to dial in on specific terms that people are searching online i.e., brand name + reviews, complaints, refunds, how to cancel, support, and so on.
  • Write blog posts and feature articles about your commitment to service that intercept your customers before they start looking for these answers elsewhere, not only is that good customer service but it allows you to control the online narrative for your business.
  • Be proactive about solving problems. Instead of saying that we’re a company that doesn’t care about bad press or providing help to our customers it says we’re a tech savvy business that has taken preemptive care to make sure the customer has easy access to resources for all their pre/post purchase needs.
  • Create a feedback channel. It’s better to create an immediate channel for dialogue and resolution than being forced to address negative reviews publicly after they’ve already been posted.

This is also the best way to cleanup or prevent unfavorable first page search results. You can see that Google is on board, as most brand name search results are dominated by the companies own web properties, news mentions, and profiles. Simply put, if you have the right content on your site Google is more likely to show it first over 3rd party sites.

Ultimately, while you may not be able to purge the internet of unfavorable posts you can certainly control a large portion of your branded online real-estate just by having the right content.

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Author’s Bio:
Steve Albright is the editor of Reviewopedia.com, a product review site that helps online shoppers make smarter choices everyday.

Thank you, Steve. Online reputation is so important!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

4 Steps to Declare Your Independence

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INDEPENDENCE


Yes that’s me.

My birthday is July 3. The country’s birthday is July 4. I have a cousin who’s 361 days younger than me.
Those three facts added up to personal birthday celebrations that were often combined and moved around because of the holiday and the idea that one party — usually a picnic — meant less disruption for everyone.

As I got older, I reached adult birthday status much earlier than my much older brothers — whose birthdays fell on days that had no competition with other events. They got their private parties well through high school. My birthday more quickly became a piece of another event rather than my own day. We’d go see fireworks or a parade to celebrate, but those events were bigger than my birthday.

4 Steps to Declare Your Independence

The fact that I was born on the Eve of Independence Day was never lost on me. I was already saying “My birthday is the day before 4th of July.” when I was kindergarten. My birthday couldn’t compete. I was never at the center of my birthday. Being a painfully shy child, I have to think that worked for me.

But there comes a time in any life that we have to claim our own independence. We have to learn how to make ourselves the “center of our own life’s plan,” or we’ll end up spending the time of our life without actually living it. Here are 4 steps to declare your independence right now.

  • Decide who you are. At first it seems natural to let the people around us define us. Our family teaches us how to be social. Our teachers and peer groups tell us what they see. The universe is larger than the thoughts and images those groups put in our minds. Our potential is too. Don’t rely on the observations of the world to tell you who you are. They haven’t lived your life. The world can’t get together to take a vote on who you are. Choose your own best true story. Decide and show them instead.
  • Be that person now. Don’t try to be that person. Don’t work toward some future date when you’ll know you are. None of us have enough future to waste on getting there. You know what you value. You know who you admire. Define yourself with those and be what you’ve defined immediately.
  • Surround yourself with people who recognize you. Use your values to choose the people you trust. Shared values reinforce themselves. Time is unrenewable. Spend your time with people who make you feel proud to be who you are. You’ll know them because you’ll never have to focus on what you want or need. Being with people who see, hear, and understand us, frees us from having to highlight, underscore, or prove who we are. It move us away from living through self-consciousness, self-centeredness, and a conflict of selfishness with selflessness to consciousness, centeredness, and a balanced view of ourselves.
  • Own the good things about you. Influence yourself. Get to know and value what others see and value in you. That’s how you’ll grow what’s good in you naturally. You can’t share or give what you don’t truly own.

Somehow we have it backwards. We live as if at the end of our life, we’ll know …

who we are.
what we’ll do.
where we will end up.

Decide those things first. — The Problem Isn’t Not Knowing What You Want to Do …

Before I found my own independence, sharing my day always felt a bit disappointing. Hearing folks say, “enjoy YOUR day,” didn’t resonate with me. Yet once I decided who I am, began to live that, focused on people who truly see me, and learned from them what I offer, sharing my day — any day, any amount of time — became as easy as breathing. That’s how I learned to live the moments of my life.

Once I declared my independence, I learned how irresistible the people in my life truly are.

Have you declared your independence?

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related: Top 10 Ways to Start Living Your Life

What Remarkable Footprints Have You Already Left?

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A Minute Reflecting Can Change the World

Some mornings when I’m ready to be still and reflect, I’ll sit back, click over to my writing blog, and find something I’ve written before to see where I’ve been while I think about where I might be going next. This morning in seconds I landed on something called, “Remarkable Footprints.”

Whenever I’m in the midst of travel or meetings, it seems a nice way to explain how the world has supported me and how I rely on it to keep me going. Here it is.

Remarkable Footprints

I’d been watching the water since just about sun up. I’d been writing in my journal, thinking about life and stuff. A reoccurring theme kept playing in my head and on the page I was writing on. Like the waves on the ocean that theme kept repeating, repeating without regard to the sky, the sand, or my staring and wondering.

My life keeps circling round to lessons I’ve met before. The same mishaps keep happening. The same rugs keep getting pulled. Two years now had been as if all of the losing and learning had been wrapped and served up to me at once. This time it had come close to changing me. The concrete way down there was all that had kept the wolves from coming in.

I put my pencil down to watch the water. Watching was all I had been good at doing for quite a while there. I mentally let the waves wash away worries, clean off the weight of fears that I’d fought my through. I saw myself lean back on the surface to let my cares float to the sky to dissolve. The bubbles in the wavy foam would have done the same if they could have done what they wanted to. All things in nature know what they must do. People could learn something from that natural way of thinking.

People had told me I was too much or too little, too tall or too filled with feeling. They had made it clear that I couldn’t do what I do so well. I came close to actually believing them. What made me want to listen? What stopped me in the end from giving in, from giving up?

Who knows how long before I packed up my journal to walk back to life again. With a new resolve I set off. It was time to say, You’re wrong. I can. I will. Stand back, and watch me.

When I turned for a last look, I saw people caught in a conversation. They were gathered together at the path I had taken. Who could explain what they saw before them?

They were staring at remarkable footprints in the sand.


credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/500089

What Remarkable Footprints Have You Already Left?

Every step we take leaves a footprint.
We move the molecules of life, earth, air. People see where we got and are moved by our travels.
Others follow because we’ve made the way safer, easier, more meaningful because we’ve been there.

Have you thought about the remarkable footprints you’ve already left for others to follow?
Think about them again.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there back to your blog.

Ask someone to dance

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Rosemary O’Neill

Ask Someone to Dance

There are so many small business owners and entrepreneurs out there, just plugging away, waiting for someone to reach out and invite them into the social media party. They’re excited, intrigued, and all dressed up, just waiting for someone to notice them.

The Gym is Crowded

The high school gym is sweaty, packed with breathless teenagers of all types. There is a gaggle of jock types over near the punch bowl, a gaggle of cool girls dancing as a group to Rock Lobster, and a slew of hopeful, terrified boys strung along the outer wall of bleachers. On the other side of the gym, against the wall, are clusters of shy girls, furtively glancing toward the other side.

Burning down the House


I have an idea. Let’s light this sucker on fire. Let’s run across the gym, grab one of those shy kids by the hand, and drag them out into the Soul Train line.

  • Pick one of your Twitter followers who has very few followers themselves and give them a FollowFriday this week.
  • Search for one of your customer’s blogs and comment on a post that had zero comments.
  • Know someone who’d be a great speaker? Email them the panel submission form for SXSW or another conference.
  • Ask to do a video interview with one of your colleagues who’s never done it before.
  • Find a way to shine a spotlight on someone who’s working behind the scenes (an IT person, a administrator, a great community manager).
  • Do you know a blogger who’s awesome, but just needs a little attention? Round up your Twitter friends and do a surprise “blog bomb” one day.

Report back, please…who did you ask to dance this week? Was it fun?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

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Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss