Inside-Out Thinking Archives - Page 2 of 9

Are You Letting the Internet Think for You?

March 19, 2008 by Liz Leave a Comment

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 Leave a Comment

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

March 3, 2008 by Liz Leave a Comment

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!!

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

February 28, 2008 by Liz Leave a Comment

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

When Is Being Good Not Good for Business?

February 27, 2008 by Liz Leave a Comment

Good Isn’t Good Enough

A good friend of mine is a designer. His ideas are good. His service is good. The artwork on his blog is good and the information is easy to access. Everyone I know thinks he’s an all around good guy.

He’s the guy everyone invites to every event. They ask his advice and solicit his input. His reputation is impeccable. He has a pile of references. Everything about this guy is good, except his business. No one chooses him for their projects.

Could it be that he’s the wrong kind of good? Can being good be not so good for business?

When Is Being Good Not Good for Business?

In a blogosphere of 80 million blogs, being good isn’t enough to get noticed — that’s something folks might not recognize right away, but eventually we all tune in. This conversation is bigger than that. Some folks I know are more than good and it’s that very fact works against them in at least five ways.

Good makes some folks think they don’t need to be nice. Having the skills to do a job well doesn’t go far if folks don’t like to work with them.
Good makes some folks think that the world will eventually come to them. It’s naive to think that the rest of world has time to find out what we don’t have time to tell them in a compelling way.
Good makes some folks focus on perfection. They end up adding quality only they can see. That drives up their costs and lowers their understanding of how clients see their work.
Good makes some folks unable to talk about the price of their work. They feel that a true artist or a “good person” shouldn’t ask for money.
Good keeps some folks from being great. It’s hard for some folks to take risks when they’ve achieved a place of some stature. Thoughts turn to defending against what might be lost rather than what could be won.

What good is being good if it’s not good for your business? Being centered on those we serve is more fun and less complicated to do. Deciding how to offer a unique value to the people we work with and for makes a whole slew of “good” issues disappear.

In what ways do you think being good can be not so good for business?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Analyze whether you’re getting in your own way. Work with Liz!!

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25 Ways to Love What You Do So That the Money Follows

February 25, 2008 by Liz Leave a Comment

Do What You Love — Love What You Do

Often I work with service professionals to focus their businesses. We identify their unique value proposition — what they bring that no one else can. In that way, we develop a service that they love offering and their clients love too.

Doing what we love can’t be infatuation. After the first congratulations about our new job, other folks might care, but they have their own work to do. They won’t be paying attention to whether we love what we’re doing. Many will take for granted that we’ll get over that that “love thing” in a week or two. Yeah, we need to keep the love alive on our own.

They say, “Do what you love and the money will follow.” I might suggest that it could work better to say

“If you want the money to follow, do what you love and love every bit of what you do.”

25 Ways to Love What You Do So That the Money Follows

It’s the love that gets us up in the morning. On some days, it takes gut-wrenching love to keep us going. Start each morning with these 25 ways to love what you do, and success with be always in view.

Love your clients and everything they care about, even when they’re unreasonable.

Love thinking things through so that they don’t have to worry at all.

Love the clients who change their mind more often than they change their underwear.

Love promoting your work so that folks can find you.

Love the fact that you’re always learning, mostly by doing things wrong.

Love the challenge of figuring out how to pay the rent.

Love the hours you’re working, and working, and working.

Love the accomplishment that makes your client look like a hero.

Love the calls from people who think you have free time to talk to them.

Love that you solve problems before clients even see them.

Love the clients who offer you a chance to learn.

Love that you can sneak in a nap or a movie break now and then.

Love your successes and your failures.

Love the 13-foot commute to your computer.

Love the folks who love you, but don’t “get” what you’re doing.

Love everyone who offers you a chance to show what you can do.

Love the folks who get paid vacations while you wish for a free minute.

Love the chance to be your own boss working for clients who hire you.

Love the chance to do work for free to build your portfolio.

Love the chance to get intimate with your credit card number.

Love deciding for yourself which clients are not a good match for you.

Love meetings when folks wish they could leave the building with you.

Love the feeling of being slightly out of control.

Love that you’re adding your unique value.

Love going to sleep tired, knowing you’ve been doing what you love.

We all define love and success differently. Yet is seems that success comes more easily when we full-out do what we love and love every part of what we do.

What’s your experience with doing what you love? Has it really been easy for you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz to focus in on what doing you love to do!!
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