Successful Blog

How to Find a Mentor for Free

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In my life, it seems as though I’m pretty “successful.” I’ve interviewed 50 millionaires; I’ve been on CNN, Yahoo, MSN Money and more. Plus I’ve been in Success Magazine so I suppose that I must be a success right?

But the truth is I’m just Jaime, a gal from a town of about 2,000 people in Maine. I only consider myself “successful” because of the amazing people that have helped me get here along the way.

How did I find these amazing people and who are they?

They are Kurk, Nathan, Pat and Chris. I consider all of them like mentors to me, and they have spent hours of time to help me without me paying them anything.

How did I ask these amazing people to help me–AND get them to say Yes?

How to Find a Mentor

Don’t just pick someone and then ask them to be your mentor. That usually doesn’t work and it often comes across as weird.

You want to form a relationship with them that makes them think, “Wow, this person really has a ton of potential.” Successful people like to help others, as long as you don’t waste their time.

When I started coaching, I was green. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to email my “competition” and say Hi. Kurk was a business coach with tons of experience, who had also sold a million-dollar business. When I met Kurk, he said that he could see I was eager and willing to learn, and hours later he emailed me asking for another meeting to discuss working together more.
I ended up helping him with all of his computer tasks and networking, and worked for free a few hours a week while he taught me everything he knew. He pushed me to my limits. We formed an amazing relationship and he helps me to this day. I consider him my business godfather. 🙂

When I decided to bring my coaching practice online three years ago, I found two amazing online entrepreneurs, Nathan and Pat. With them, I offered up my expertise as a trade for theirs. I had a lot of valuable skills, and leveraged them to learn their set of skills. I now consider both of them good friends.

Chris is a millionaire and serial entrepreneur. We started chatting shortly after I interviewed him. He has been so helpful, and has asked nothing in return. Chris is like the trusted adviser. I’m not sure why he decided to help, as I didn’t offer any expertise, but I am eager and want to help him in any way that I can.

1. Form a relationship. It all started with forming a relationship. If you have a meeting and feel the synergy between you and the other person, just start to feel out how you could work together more.

2. Ask if you can help them. Ask if you can help them in their business, or save them time by doing something for them. Tell them you really respect their expertise and would love to learn about what they know.

3. Keep helping and gradually ask for their input. If you have been an asset to them, they will start to open up and become an asset to you as well.

How to Find a Role Model or Advisor

Instead of finding someone who will officially mentor you, you could also find a role model. This can be simple, like an email with a question every few months that gets a response.

Derek Sivers, a millionaire I interviewed and founder of CD Baby, was able to get an open channel with Seth Godin, and through that they became friends.

Derek suggested this:

“You’d be surprised how effective a simple, quick-pointed three-sentence email can be.
I’ve sent emails off to my favorite authors and they have no idea who I am and I don’t include my website. They’ve never heard of CD Baby and I’ve been amazed how well the three-sentence email can get a reply.

Just a one-sentence qualification like, ‘I’m a huge fan of your books’ or, ‘This one changed the way I think.’ Sentence two is a simple direct question. Follow with ‘Any reply appreciated. Thank you.’

I think if you send somebody a simple direct question, not trying to dump the weight of your life on them or anything, sometimes you can go back and forth like that a few times. Then if you include a URL in your signature, they can go there, explore your company and possibly see interesting posts or your philosophies, which it may lead to more interaction.”

Action Item:

Look for people who have the skills you want to have, and start a relationship with them. Email a potential role model like Derek suggests, or take a local business person out to coffee.

Commit to one action this week that will help you find a mentor. It could drastically improve your business.

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Author’s Bio:
Jaime interviews self-made millionaires and talks business and life at EventualMillionaire.com. You can find her on Twitter as @eventualmillion

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

Influence: Do You Believe What You Know?

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When I was in college, I had a vinyl recording of the London Philharmonic performing “The Planets” by Gustav Holst. On the back of the album cover notes were written on each movement of the music, each named after one of the planets the world knew then and each with a few words of poetic wisdom. Of all of them, I remember only one sentence that has stayed with me for decades now. It was with the movement called “Neptune.” The sentence read:

What the mind yearns for most is not to know, but to believe.

For years I considered it forward and backward. I wondered about it and applied to situations in my life.I asked myself whether knowing or believing was the core of everything. Which defined me? Which moved me forward? In the last few years, I’ve come to see it as it was written and understand this way …

I can know what are my strengths and talents. I can understand with my mind what values and value I bring to the table. But if I don’t believe what I know, I undermine them. If I choose not to see what I see right in front me, if I choose not to know what I know, and instead listen to other voices around me, I’ll never be a work of art, I’ll simple be a mirror — at best a reflection. No matter how perfect a mirror, it’s can be replicated by silvering some glass and placing where I stand. What’s in the room decides what’s in the mirror.

A mirror brings nothing new. A mirror is all give back and no give.

But if I believe in my own ability to see what I see — to look for and find my own world view and experience — then I learn how to believe in what I know. And other people begin to take interest in my thinking despite the curved lines and the flaws.

Art brings a new view. It gives and can give back too.

All true leadership and influence starts with a compelling core belief based in knowledge.
Competence and commitment are the fuel that ignites a call to action.

Stop right now. Ask yourself, what do you know?
What would it take for you to believe that?
Then act on what you believe and know.

You will have your true north direction.
And knowing where you’re is irresistibly attractive.

Be irresistible.

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

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!!

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!!

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!!

Be Flexible

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A Guest Post by
Rosemary O’Neill

“The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.”
— Confucius

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The last few years have been rough on everyone. It seems that just when you think it’s safe to poke your head up and take a chance, another wave of economic bad news hits. But if you look around, there are some who are continuing to thrive despite the bad economy.

Those who have been brave enough to be flexible in their approach have come through in good shape, while those who stuck rigidly to their original plan are out of business. How can you be a flexible entrepreneur, or a flexible business?

Signs of flexibility:

  • Willingness to put aside rigid “policy” when dealing with a customer complaint
  • Freedom given to employees to innovate and think outside the box
  • Constant review and tweaking of methodology to accommodate changing conditions
  • Acceptance of new industry realities
  • Ability to change perspective based on new information
  • Comfort with new ideas, whether they’re from within the company or external
  • Persistence in the face of roadblocks; seeking another way around
  • Keeping the goals solid, but the path toward achieving them fluid
  • Leaving space to dream and create without limitations or boundaries
  • Actively seeking information from different sources

Maybe we should all be doing a bit of corporate yoga.

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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 their blog. You can find her on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee
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