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Is Social Noise Unraveling Your Quest?

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Social Noise Steals the Fuel to Do Extraordinary Stuff

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When I was a kid, I wasn’t looking for my direction. No one said to follow my passion. I was a kid. I was on a quest to be extraordinary.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t bombarded with information from every dimension. My social circle was small. Now I have more social network passwords than the number of connections I had when I was kid.

Everyone seems to doing more than I am. Everything seems to be growing faster than anyone could manage to follow. Conversations bifurcate, trifurcate, and splinter off in bit and pieces. Sorting value from spam isn’t always a case of checking whether it came from a friend.

Ideas get kicked around like a soccer ball on the field where I hang out. I’m following echoes down trap of social media noise and deafening conversation straining to hear what my friends are saying.

In the process, I’m losing my own voice.
And the social noise is unraveling my passion one thread at time.
Sheer exhaustion steals the inspiration and the direction that I had when the day began.

Is Social Noise Unraveling Your Quest?

It’s a challenge to stay calm when the screen is always updating and we’re always chasing the next link or headline that shows up. Curiosity takes fuel to run. And every generous spirit who does a good turn or sends a good wish seems to be calling us to return a good one now then. Do you find that after some time on Twitter or Facebook, your head needs a long, cool transition? It only makes sense that all of that fragmented data makes a brain want some time to sort.

The social interaction can undermine the strongest determination we have to move forward by using it all just to keep up with what’s going on. Is social noise unraveling your quest?

Do you lose track of the kid in you who wants to do extraordinary stuff?

Here’s my recipe for getting past the noise and distraction and back to doing extraordinary stuff.

I turn it off.

In a minute of silence, I remember my quest.
When I look out the window or stand and stretch, it gets easier to tune into my resolve.
Knowing where you’re going is irresistibly attractive.
It also fuels the noble cause.

Passion needs direction, or it gets lost.

How do you keep the social noise from unraveling your quest?

Be irresistible.
–Me “Liz” Strauss

GenConnect’s Laurel House and Liz Strauss Talk Irresistible Attraction

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Who Gets You Where You’re Going

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In a lovely conversation with GenConnect’s Laurel House at BlogHer in August, we explored the questions:

  • What makes an irresistible offer?
  • How does being fully-expressed in your work remove the problem of self-promotion?
  • How do you start the first connections with people you want to meet?
  • How does celebrating your heroes make you and your business better?
  • How are values a part of your attraction?

What works best for you to connect your business to the people who love what you’re doing?

Check out GenConnect – the place to connect with life’s experts.
You’ll find Laurel on Twitter as @QuickieChick

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

Irresistible Consistency: Are You Suited Up for Soccer When Golf Is the Game?

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Right People, Right Positions, Right Game

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In the NYTimes bestseller, Good to Great, author Jim Collins laid out the foundation of an outstanding enterprise class organization. When I heard him speak, last October he said that the winner is the one with the best team. To achieve the best team,

  • A leader has to identify the right people who are the smartest.
  • A leader has to put them in the right positions.
  • A leader has to value, reward, and celebrate teamwork.

Those who change the world are enormously consistent in how they do it. The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency. – Jim Collins, World Business Forum, 2010

It’s my experience that Mr. Collins’ short list brings constant improvement in situations where the game never changes. The hidden assumption is that the playing field, the conditions, the climate, the trends, and rules of business remain the same.

They didn’t. They don’t. They never will. They won’t.

Are You Suited Up for Soccer When Golf Is the Game?

I don’t doubt for second that Mr. Collins knows that and chooses his people to match the game that’s currently in play. Yet, when I work on strategy with big corporations and small business, too often I find their still suiting up and running the plays for the game that was on the field yesterday. It doesn’t work if you’re suited up for soccer and golf is the game.
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The Internet has moved the field, changed the rules, disrupted conditions, upset the culture, sparked new trends, shifted the playbook with new models and more flexible teams, and relocated the executive locker room.

The consistency that was a strength also built silos, sales scripts, and standard procedures that has lead some of those “smartest people” not to see what they see and not to know what they know in deference to rules build to ensure one-size-fits-all consistency.

Those companies suited up for a highly consistent playing field are finding their sales numbers and their service reports frustrated by customers who value responses that are custom-made for what they need. Because to over-value consistency is to focus on process, when it’s people who help a business thrive.

So how can we use Jim Collins’ Good to Great research and insights to leverage the opportunities of the new people-focused game — the social business culture, changes in the way companies and customers communicate, constantly moving metrics and toolkits, trend shifts, and elastic team dynamics of the 21st century online and off?

What Are the Highest Values of Your Business?

For 21st century organizations to move fluidly and fluently through multiple platforms and cultures, we need to look at the old short list in a slightly new way. The winner will still be the one with the best team, but now to achieve the best team, leaders will ignite communities of like-minded leaders at every level inside and outside the organization — employees, partners, vendors, customers, evangelists, friends, and fans who also want to invest in taking something from good to great.

Long-term, loyalty — trust — is a value-based relationship.

  • Live your highest values.
  • Be able to recognize the people who share them.
  • Invite those people to help build your business.

Consistency will win — a consistency of valuing the people who share your highest values is irresistible business strategy.

What are the highest values of your business?

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

Right People, Right Positions, Right Game

Deeper Shade of Viral: How 1 Brand Hero Delivered an Irresistible Experience

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A True Story of How to Win a Life-Long Advocate

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Now, more than ever, growing brands search for connections that mean something to their customers and the people who help their business thrive. The good ones reach to their employees to put human values inside their value proposition.

That isn’t a new thing.

And the brands that long for their messages to “go viral” might check out this story. It happened over 25 years ago, yet it’s so powerful, memorable, and moving that I think of it and repeat it every time I see the FedEx logo. I still choose FedEx over the others, because of this one event. I still forgive their occasional mistake as an accident. That’s a lifetime customer relationship and since I’m still telling the story, in my book I’d call that hugely viral.

In the last century, when Federal Express was at its peak performance. I was working at home right after my son was born. The work in my hands was on a drop-dead deadline that day. I called FedEx for a pickup because I was not going to be able to deliver the package myself.

We were in a suburban disaster – a fast-rising flood. Hours after the rain, we watched from our second-floor balcony as the water from the Des Plaines River in the parking rose above the door handles of our only car. My husband, my infant son, and I were waiting to hear when we’d be evacuated and for how long?
Then the phone rang. It was the FedEx man. He was on a high spot across the street. “Ma’am, I have a delivery. Do you need this package today?”
“I’m sorry. Yes, I do and I have one going I out too,” I explained the uncertainty, the deadline, and the evacuation.
“No problem,” he said. Then he confirmed the entrance he should use. The door was on a slope above the water line still.
I hustled to ready what I had to send. Then I went on the balcony, just in time to see a young man holding package over his head, walking through water that was up to his chest. Amazing! The neighbors on their decks were as transfixed with the image as I was.
We met at the door. We did the business of trading packages. Then he went back out. As he stood on the stoop, he thrust the new package up over his head and before he set off through the flood again. He surveyed my neighbors with a huge grin and shouted,

“We not only deliver. We pick up!”

He Delivered More Than a Package

That day that FedEx man delivered more than a package to the people who saw him. He delivered hope and trust to folks silently wondering when they would be evacuated, how long it would last, and what would be waiting when we got back.

He was a hero to people who were in distress. He saw what he saw – opportunity not a problem. He knew what he knew – he could use his power to refuse or do something outstanding, heroic, and incredibly cool. And with a huge and generous grin, he walked through four feet of water to make things work better than they were supposed to work.

He was living the values of company. Their tagline at the time was “Relax, it’s FedEx.”

If that same experience happened today, all of us watching the FedEx man in the water would have taken pictures and video with our smart phones. In seconds, we would have uploaded the pictures and video with the caption “We not only deliver. We pick up!” to YouTube, Flickr, Twitpic, and Twitter. Within seconds, thousands of people would be sharing his quote with the picture or the video.

What the FedEx man did was irresistible and shareable by definition. He made everything easy. He made me feel good about being part of it. And he left me with a story that I’m proud to pass on. It’s an unforgettable feeling when a guy is willing to trek through half a block of river water for you. You can bet I became a fiercely loyal FedEx customer.

FedEx built their brand on a company community of employees who were the value in their value proposition. It’s hard to compete with a community like that. The true stories about FedEx hero employees made them the company we trusted, relied on, and got to know as our friends. We didn’t think about other options until the heroes started to look the same as “the guys” who delivered packages from the lower priced brand.

And because my experience with the FedEx man actually happened, I’m still sharing it 25 years later.
Will you even remember the Old Spice Man in 5 years? Human relationships are a deeper, more lasting shade of viral.

Whether you’re a brand of 1 or 1,000,000, the deeply loyal relationship you make with your customers can outlast any single offer, product, or incident.

What is your brand doing to build a winning community?

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Need help building that winning community? Work with Liz!!

How to Promote Your Business Without Being Seen as a Smiling Shark

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Gotta Be Visible Authenticity

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The entrepreneurs and brand managers I work with both often start by asking how to use the social web. Their goal is to promote their business or their brand. The worry that seems consistently common in every first question is that they appear professional and helpful. No one wants to appear to be too aggressive in social web space.

How to Promote Your Business Without Being a Seen as Smiling Shark

When the wrong kind of promotion comes our way, it feels like we’re not being seen as people, but more like prey. Who wants to do business with someone that comes at us like a shark? No one in a marketing or sales role wants to be perceived like that.

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I’ve found that the key to elegant and authentic promotion is being fully present in the conversation. Too often we start talking before we listen. Too often we haven’t fully considered what brought us to be interacting. Knowing who we are, what we offer, and how it fits our reader-customers before we even start a conversation can make promoting a blog, a business, or a brand as seamless as talking to a friend about how our day went.

These questions can get us to that information.

  1. Are you truly passionate and excited about it? If not, go find out how you can be. Be clear on what drives you.

    “Can I tell you why I’m so excited to be working with big companies on big ideas that connect people and change lives in ways that really mean something.”

  2. Can you articulate that passion and excitement? What words explain why you are willing to invest the time of your life building that blog, business, or brand? Be able to tell the story that connects you to what you’re sharing. People will identify with that.

    “Every day people I work with tell me that they think that what we’ve put together to connect with new business is going to be so much easier and so much fun.”

  3. Can you name and claim what you offer so that folks can attribute it you? Can you explain how your blog, your brand, or your business will change people’s lives in a clear and specifically good way? Give that a name so that the idea stick. Draw a picture with words and name that. Become the person who is the only one who provides that.

    “Folks who know how to talk about their unique value attract amazing people who want to be part of what they’re doing. Knowing what you offer is powerful.”

  4. Do you call folks to action and offer them an easy way to talk about what you’re building? Can you show them how joining you will make what they do easier, faster, and more meaningful? If you don’t tell folks how to join, be a part, they could think you don’t want them to. Gotta invite them.

    “If want you to talk about how to do that, it only takes about 45 minutes.”

  5. Do you invite people offer their experience? Do you ask folks how you might reach more people who could benefit from your brand, your book, or your product? If they offer suggestions, do you follow through?

    “If you were me, what would you differently to offer folks like more value in faster, better, more meaningful ways?”

  6. Do you ask people to talk about you? Do you give them ways they might do that, ways that make them feel proud for helping you?

    “So glad you found value, would you tell your colleagues about our work together? I’d love to help them too. We can all grow together.”

Not every questions fits into every conversation. The thing is that when we know ourselves, our business goals, how to partner and how to extend an irresistible offer, promotion gets to be as passionately authentic as the other parts of the work we do.

How do you make sure that your promotion is authentically you?

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

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

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Want More Fans, a Bigger List? There’s No Skipping this Step …

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We Make It Harder Than It Is

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Sometimes we try too hard. Sometimes we reach too far. Sometimes we take the long way home because we never stopped to think about the easier one.

Are you looking trying to expand your community, your business, your sales, your blog readership? Want more followers on Twitter, more fans on your Facebook page, more members in your community?

I’m going to tell you straight out, there’s one step you can’t skip.

If you want more folks to love what you do, you have to be able to tell them why you love it yourself — clean, clear, fast — in ways they enjoy and understand.

It’s not that hard to do. It works this way …

If we make beautiful glass like this …

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… we have to be able to tell people what’s to love about it. Here’s how to do that.

  • Find the love stories in what you do. You can love the challenge. You can love the chase. You can love the heroic heritage. You can love what it does for people. You can love the time it saves. I love beautiful glass because it reminds me of the beautiful, beveled mirrors my dad used make. He taught me to appreciate the value of hot-sweat and workmanship.
  • Once you have the stories, find the ideal people to share those stories with. The people who love what you love are sure to think a lot like you do. You probably already know some of them. The first ones are probably very close to you. They probably have a few friends who have a few friends. To find the folks who value what you do, just share the irresistible stories and love behind the work that you do.
  • Tell the stories in ways that invite them to share stories of their own. Stories connect us in ways that small talk and transactions never will.
  • Listen carefully for details and doorways. Their stories will reveal their values — some the same and some unimaginably different from your own.
  • Pass on their stories to connect with new people new ways. Those might be people who work with what you make, who want to use it in different ways, who have ideas for partnerships.

The stories of what we value define us and better and faster than anything can. When we share those stories our relationships, our knowledge, our networks and our collections of stories expand. It’s a natural progression.

Whether we’re a huge corporation or a solopreneur, there’s no skipping this step …

If we want more fans, we have be a fan first.

How do you share your love for your work?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Be Irresistible!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

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