Successful Blog

5 Reasons You Absolutely MUST Share Your Vision Early and Often

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(Updated in 2020)

10-POINT PLAN: 1.1 Articulate the Vision

Why Define the Vision?

Tom Peters says that a business either supports the over-achievers or the under-achievers. The ones who feel supported call up their friends to say “This is a great place to work!” The other group feels unappreciated and leaves. My experience has shown over and over again that this is true. A business reinforces gets the behaviors it reinforces through its models and processes.

Zappos is a great case study in a how to build a internal community of brand loyal fans. What makes the Zappos culture uniquely strong and attractive is the commitment they make to the core values of the community. The vision is articulated clearly and acted upon in highly visible ways.

“Everyone that’s hired, it doesn’t matter what position–you can be an accountant, lawyer, software developer–goes through the exact same training as our call center reps. It’s a four-week training program and then they’re actually on the phone for two weeks taking calls from customers. At the end of that first week of training we make an offer to the entire class that we’ll pay you for the time you’ve already spent training plus a bonus of $2,000 to quit and leave the company right now.” — Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos, as interviewed in Fast Company, The Happiness Culture …

They pay new employees to leave!

It’s Not How Or What … It’s Why That’s Important

Zappos says that it’s not a company it’s a mission — the Happiness Culture. That says something about who they are and why they do what they’re doing. Read the the core values of the Zappos culture.

The Zappos Core Values are:

  1. Deliver Wow Through Service
  2. Embrace and Drive Change
  3. Create Fun and a Little Weirdness
  4. Be Adventurous, Creative and Open-Minded
  5. Pursue Growth and Learning
  6. Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication
  7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
  8. Do More with Less
  9. Be Passionate and Determined
  10. Be Humble

They explain why people work there, why people do business there, and why people talk and write about them.

Tony Hsieh has articulated, built, and protects the community values that make Zappos a great place to work and a great company to work with. No wonder Zappos has such a huge and love-them loyal fan base.

That vision built a company in an enviable position. There is Zappos! and the companies who wish they had what Zappos does.

It’s Not the What or How, It’s the HUGE WHY Behind It

Leaders know where they’re going — direction and vision. They know how they will get there — a strategy and tactics. Leaders who are community builders articulate that direction and strategy with intelligence and resolve, with clarity and passion, and through a generous invitation for collaboration.

At the core of community building are three key understandings:

  1. A community-building business offers financial, professional, and philosophical/political growth for the community. As we invest our time and resources, a thriving community and its members become more successful at earning income / revenue, gain more visibility and professional authority within their industry, and know that their work has meaning and contributes to a higher purpose.
  2. A community-building business looks to align goals rather than trade services. Communities collaborate and communicate to raise a barn. Gone are the hierarchies and silos that used to negotiate to build a coliseum. The difference is in shared ownership of ideas, interactive problem solving, and commitment to the vision. Invest in people and they will return the investment.
  3. A community-building business knows that the people doing the work know what’s working and what isn’t. The exact interpretation of how the HUGE WHY vision is put into action is defined at the team level. Teams discuss and design simple decision models based on the agreed upon core values. As a result, people at every level know how to respond to new situations with positive action.

The vision of where a community-building business is gone draws from those three understandings. It’s good to know them, but it’s not enough.

5 Reasons You Absolutely MUST Articulate Your Vision

It’s critical to put the three key understanding of community building into action by defining and sharing a distinct vision. The vision sets the value of the business and the higher purpose that attracts and unites the community. It defines the internal brand and affects everything from hiring decisions to how employees treat customers.

Here are 5 reasons you absolutely must share your vision early and as often as you can:

  1. To make the thinking concrete and achievable. We all know things better when we have to communicate them. By articulating our vision, we internalize our commitment, begin to know it, and see the reality and flaws our thinking.
  2. To fulfill your leadership responsibility. It’s the role and responsibility of the community leader to define the reality of the community. The vision is and will be what attracts and retains the best employees, vendors, partners, and customers as part of the community.
  3. To visibly underscore the community values. Once the vision is articulated, the core values of the community can be listed, illustrated, discussed and integrated into every part of the business.
  4. To unify the community around one well-defined vision. Without a well-articulated vision, each community manager and member will be forced to make his or her own definition of what the community stands for and how those values are best incorporated into decision making.
  5. To empower and protect the community. In the same way that a budget or a schedule allows people to make decisions with confidence, the definition of the vision allows people to make decisions. A strong vision statement lends confidence to people who want to do the right things for the business.

A loyal internal community is a huge advantage. Every employee becomes a brand ambassador who invests emotionally in building the community as well as the company. Even in a solo practice, not to set your vision is to leave yourself in a place where your idea of where you’re is open to redefinition and loss of focus far too easily.

The strongest businesses know where they’re going and can share that with confidence and clarity. Yet too often we assume that folks understand the importance of where we’re going and why we’re going there. We have to share our vision or folks won’t see it and believe it’s going to happen.

Have you set the vision for your business? Is it HUGE enough to include everyone who helps your business thrive?

Related
To follow the entire series: Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Attention! Jim Kukral Knows Customer Evangelists Rule

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ATTENTION! Jim Kukral’s Book will make you money! One month ago today, Jim Kukral’s groundbreaking book officially launched and if you’ve not read it yet, what are you waiting for?

Attention marketing is all about attracting attention to your business and your brand — in such a way that you turn that attention into revenue. And that’s what the new book, “Attention! This Book Will Make You Money” is about. — Anita Campbell, Small Business Trends, August 14, 2010

The books opens with a challenge and a genuine opportunity to work with Jim himself … all you have to do is get Jim’s Attention!t Then every page after delivers on ways that a thinking small business can get the right kind of attention in a marketplace where attention is everything.

I’m delighted to share this guest post by Jim Kukral, the man who wrote the book on Attention!

Customer Evangelists Rule
by Jim Kukral

If you’re like me you’re a super fan of a select few things, which makes us both customer evangelists. Being a customer evangelist, or as some call them, super fans, means that you go out of your way to tell other people about the things you love so much. It’s a business’s wet dream to have a rabid fan base of proactive promoters out there spreading the word about you. Or at least it should be.

Assuming you want to be an evangelist for something you love, be wary before you set out on your journey to tell the world. It can be tricky navigating between short-sighted corporate executives who have no vision or tolerance for exuberant customer evangelists and your vision for how you’d like to promote their product. I’ve personally dealt with this situation, having become a vigilant fan of a major hosting company. I went as far as to spend an enormous amount of time and effort and money working on a video commercial to promote the company, only to get contacted by the company’s legal representation telling me “you can’t do that”, in so many boring legal words. Ugh. I guess I should have asked them if I could say how awesome they were before I did it, right?

Smart businesses embrace their customer evangelists and help them by first acknowledging them and then second by providing them tools to help them spread the word. I’m an evangelist for a dietary supplement called JoeBees. It’s bee-pollen that comes in capsules that give me tons of energy (I don’t drink caffeine), better digestion, and helps me sleep like a zombie on NyQuil. I love this product, and I will take every opportunity to tell the rest of the world about it whenever I can, and I do. Joe B., the owner of JoeBees.com, gets this and has personally reached out to me to help me in my quest to promote his product, often sending me free samples to give away and personally phoning me multiple times to just say thanks.

What a concept! Let me ask you this. When was the last time you picked up the phone and called your best customers or fans? You don’t know who those people are? It’s time to find out, and find out fast. If done right, before you know it you can have your own group of customer evangelists out there preaching to the world about you. Or, maybe you’d just like continue spending more and more money on advertising?

Being an evangelist means you want to tell people about what you love. It makes you feel good to do so.

That’s probably what most marketers don’t realize about the power of word of mouth and customer evangelism. It’s not about “getting something in return”; it’s about sharing. It’s about making ourselves feel good by helping others, and a little bit about our ego. The challenge for you is to tap into that feeling from your biggest fans and help perpetuate it.

———

For over 15-years, Jim Kukral has helped small businesses and large companies like Fedex, Sherwin Williams, Ernst & Young and Progressive Auto Insurance understand how find success on the Web. Jim is the author of the book, “Attention! This Book Will Make You Money”, as well as a professional speaker, blogger and Web business consultant. Find out more by visiting www.JimKukral.com. You can also follow Jim on Twitter @JimKukral.

Get Jim’s book and get some attention!

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

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SOB Business Cafe 09-10-10

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Six Pixels of Separation
Is it a Facebook page? Is it Twitter? Is it posting a video to YouTube? What about creating a Blog? What is the best way to grow an audience?

Fast Company by @KitEaton
Twitter’s traffic skyrocketed 33% over the summer, according to one survey. Meanwhile Digg’s influence was fading even before its controversial makeover.

Late yesterday Twitter announced that it had 145 million registered users–impressive, at around a third of the number of Facebookers and comparable to the number of people Apple’s just opened up its new music-based social network Ping to.

Redhead Writing
Let me get this straight:

You go somewhere to meet friends.

You arrive. You “check in.”

Aaaaaaand there are your friends.

***where’s the part about your phone being a requirement for a meaningful experience?

Brian Solis
There’s a saying, “technology changes, people don’t.” Yet, when we consider the impact of technology on our daily lives, some very interesting observations surface…

Resume Bear
So, you got the interview all lined up and your ready and raring to go…well if you plan on doing well, you better avoid these 50 interview killers (and yes, every single one of these we have seen or have heard about from colleagues)

Related ala carte selections include

Inc Magazine
Participating in a broadcast interview conducted by a television reporter can certainly be exciting—or nerve wracking, depending on your perspective. The presence of a camera frequently changes the dynamic between the reporter and the subject. And it is true that there are some different factors that you need to consider before an interview with the broadcast press.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Steve’s Shorts: Search, SEO, and a Twitter ReTweet Tip

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We Interrupt Regular Blogging for Steve’s Shorts

Take a simple few minutes where a guy who is brilliant makes an observation about the social web that you might have already be thinking. This interruption brought to you by the evil conspiracy that is Steve Plunkett and Liz Strauss.

Search, SEO, and ReTweet Strategy
by Steve Plunkett.

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– What is Search? Search is about being there when the customer is READY TO BUY. When they ask, hopefully you did your homework and are #1 in the organic results. (also known as.. how to get to #1 and stay there)

– You want to learn SEO..? Examine your analytics and find out which keywords make the cash register ring… Focus on those keywords, Focus on providing the most uniquely RELEVANT content for that keyword.

A Short Look at … What’s Next?

Hope you enjoyed these moments with Steve’s Shorts.

steve_plunkett

M/C/C’s Director, Search, Steve Plunkett, is responsible for all aspects of search engine optimization (SEO) and Internet user behavior. Plunkett’s competitive personality makes him a perfect fit in the competitive world of SEO. As a child and a gamer, he worked hard ensuring that it was his initials at the top of every arcade game unit in his neighborhood. Today, he uses SEO to ensure his clients appear at the top of the search engine results –and offers an array of optimization services that are scoring big for those clients.

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3 Sales Lessons we all need

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by Patty Azzarello

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On a recent flight I had a fun conversation with a top sales executive about the profession of selling.

The best sales people have some fundamental things in common:

  • They put themselves out there over and over again with no fear
  • They hear “NO” a lot, and always keep trying
  • Disappointment, hurt pride, and failure have little impact on their continuing to do the first 2
  • They always tune their offer to what their customer values most.

Skip the disappointment

The best sales people get over disappointment quickly and jump right back in the game. They don’t let failures along the way discourage or stall them, or damage their confidence.

One of the best stories I heard about this was a sales person telling a non-sales colleague:

The difference between you and me is that if you went up to every woman in this bar and asked them for a date, and they all said, NO, you would not talk to them again.

If I went to every woman in this bar and asked them for a date, and they all said NO, I would go back and ask each one of them again. And a third time…

Three Sales lessons for your Success

1. NO is never a dead end

Every good sales person I know, can tell you how many NO’s on average it takes them to get to a YES. If their number is 17, when they hear NO for the 14th time, they don’t get discouraged.  Their reaction is more like, “Great, I’ve got through one more step to YES!”

NO, is not only a critical step in the process, it’s viewed as a positive step forward. This is so important in building your career as well.

You need to get turned down.

You need to get over disappointment quickly, and see this rejection as a step forward in the process. Then you need to put yourself out there again – as many times as it takes.

Don’t Stop Trying

I can offer my personal example.

While my corporate career, and sequence of promotions was highly successful by any external measure, people didn’t see all the failures.

They didn’t see all the times I heard, NO, and all the times I went for promotions and was passed over or turned down. The success came from acting like a sales person, improving my value, and putting myself out there — and to keep asking.

So out of about 25 times at the plate, by putting my fears aside, and selling myself again and again, I got about 20-something NO’s and 3 life changing YES’s

You don’t get to the YES without the NO’s.

I see people make the mistake of going for promotion once or twice, getting turned down, and getting discouraged. Then they stop trying.

They blame the unfairness of the environment. Or they manufacture an imaginary high ground, and cite that they refuse to take part in the political maneuvers they believe are required.

The biggest thing holding these people back is that they got turned down, discouraged and then stopped trying.

If you are not willing to keep trying, you are the one creating the obstacle to your success.

2. Find a Bigger Pond

Good sales people go where the opportunity is. If they are assigned a “bad territory”, they find a way to expand or develop it. If they are assigned a genuinely bad territory, they move on and get a different job.

I see many people make the mistake of not moving on, when their environment can no longer support their advancement. They will stay for years, frustrated that there are no promotions available.

I’m all for advancing within your company, and much of what I write about is to help you do exactly that. But if there are no jobs, and several people above you need to die before a position opens up, you need to take it upon yourself to move on if you want to advance.

Or if you have an incompentant manager, you will get stuck. You need to get yourself into a different spot.
Go outside your comfort zone, go get some NO’s from new people, and keep trying!

3. Increase Your Value

When a customer is not buying, a great sales person will pump up the value of what they are selling.
They do this by getting a better understanding of their prospect’s needs, and putting together an offer which is more useful and valuable, and therefore much harder to refuse.

This is also critical in you career.

If you are not seen as promotable, ask yourself why.

Go the extra mile to really learn about and understand what is most relevant to your executive management. Is it new customers? Is it innovation? Is it cost cutting? Is it developing people?

Learn what counts and tune your job to offer more of it. Build up your value.

No one will instruct you to do this. It’s up to you.

Doing your job as written is more like selling a commodity product. Instead create a new product, higher value product. Differentiate your value by tuning your job to have more business impact.

The only way to reliably advance your career is to be always be adding more value to the business.

But don’t forget to keep selling !

What about you?

When did having the guts to be persistent make a big difference in your success? I’d love to hear your story in the comment box below.

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Patty Azzarello works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. She has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at The Azzarello Group Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello

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Have You Really Tried Everything?

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By Terez Howard

My daughter is so stubborn.  In many ways, she is the most stubborn person that I know.  In some ways, it’s good.  I know that no one will be able to make her do something she doesn’t want to do, and far more important, something she should not do.

When it comes to eating, she is stubborn.  Last week, she had a McDonald’s Happy Meal in front of her for lunch.  (It’s one of her favorite things to eat, like any kid!)  And guess what my little girl ate?  One lone French fry.

Right now, you’re probably making excuses for my 3-year-old.  She wasn’t hungry.  She didn’t feel well.  She doesn’t really like French fries.  I can assure you that all of those reasons are far from true.

Micah refuses to eat because she does not want to.  She wants to do something else, like play with her Leapster.  Or, she wants to make me angry.  Yes, I believe that she secretly likes the attention that goes along with my disappointment in her.

I have tried everything to get her to eat.  My husband and I have done rewards, punishments, baby doll mimicking, ignored her, prayed with her, just about anything you can think of.  When I told my mom about this, she gave me one tactic I hadn’t considered.

“I will try anything!” I told her.

Have you done everything with your blog?

Maybe you don’t have many readers.  Perhaps you would like to have a higher number of subscribers.  Do you want buzz surrounding your name?  That’s what I want for my blog and my business.

So, what do you do?  “I will try anything!”

That should be your response, and that certainly is mine.  But recently I took an honest look at my business and my blog, and I have to admit that it’s not where I want it to be.  So, I’m ready to try anything and everything to reach my fullest potential.

I have tried everything.

Really?  Me, too.  I’ve done cold e-mailing, blog commenting, guest blogging, interview requests, article writing and more.  After all that, why am I not where I want to be?

Time for another honest look in the mirror.  I haven’t been organized enough, and I consider myself a very organized person.  Visit my home, and you will see that everything has a place.

With my blog, I haven’t had clear-cut plan to take me from point A to point B.  Do you ever feel like you’re dabbling in a little this and that to surround your blog with buzz?

This and that are not going to cut it.  Trust me.  I believe in trying everything before signing your blog off as no good and starting anew.  I also believe that everything must be organized.  What am I going to do?

I’m going to try to market myself and my blog one way every month.  I am going to spend time focusing on making one form of marketing work for me each month.  My blog will chart what I’m doing and the progress I make.

Any of you other bloggers out there claiming to do everything and not getting ahead are free to join me in this challenge.  I’m determined I will not fail.

What’s your plan for getting your blog heard?

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Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility.  She has written informative pieces for newspapers, online magazines and blogs, both big and small.  She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez!

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