Successful Blog

7 Things I Learned about a Shining Offer … from the Stars

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The Stars Never Interrupt Me

I’m an introvert. Always have been. Painfully shy when stretched too far.

I love people. Interacting, talking, learning. No holds barred conversations exhilarate me like a thrill ride edging out of control. I leave conferences and speaking gigs ready to be alone and … um … kind of cranky.

It’s then that I need permission to think my own thoughts, find my own feet, realign with the universe, on my own.

After a day of conference talks and highly engaging meetings, I went to dinner with two of the best folks in the world. They were fun and lovely. The food was marvelous. The conversation got better for me when it started to slow. It was a nice transition. We stayed up late talking about companies and events and ways to use the web in this new conversational world.

One by one, the others went their ways to crash. I went for a walk with the night sky, delighted to see Orion waiting like an old friend. I got thinking about people and stars. Then I thought about stars as the original shiny objects — how, unlike the shiny things on the Internet, stars don’t demand our attention. Stars are experts at permission marketing. Here are seven things I learned about permission marketing from looking at the stars.

  1. The Opt In. Stars shine with understated elegance and beauty waiting for me to opt in.
  2. The Respect. Stars don’t interrupt, steal, or borrow my time. They anticipate and await my attention with a distance that allows me to move, breathe and live my life without them, if I choose.
  3. The Signal without Noise. Stars don’t draw overdue attention to themselves. Falling starts don’t fall in my face to get me to notice them.
  4. The Relevance. When I look at the stars the message is always fresh, inspiring, and meaningful in my life.
  5. The Emotional Attraction. I always feel better for having participated in a star show.
  6. The Viral Response. I always want to tell folks about what I saw and how it moved me.
  7. The Delivery on the Promise. I’ve never been disappointed by looking at the stars.

Stars are available, relevant, and personal. Even when we look at them from afar, they put on a show.

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If we take a cue from the stars, we can offer value that will lift folks up and make them feel good to pass it on. And like the stars we won’t have to worry about having an audience who values us.

People and stars have a lot more in common than just what we’re made of.

Have you seen any shining offers lately?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your web presence.

Have You Found the Irresistible Rock Star in You?

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An Ever-Growing Group of Fans

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Social media can be an interesting exercise in watching the number of people who click on the button to become followers or fans. Yet you’ve probably met that fickle group who easily buy in on a whim bo become a friend of that kind.

Sometimes we connect to be around in case we need each other. Not every friendship needs constant maintenance. We make conversational networks of acquaintances. We make large groups of Twitter friends. We know that they not really fans. Some might be around for the longest time without actually listening. Or they might clearly participate for “15 minutes” until something or someone shinier or more interesting happens their way.

It’s unreasonable and unrealistic to think that every person would be a lifelong friend. I’m not sure anyone could handle the load if it were possible for a life like that.

But some folks have a way of attracting dear friends and loyal fans. They’re the rock stars of whatever world they’re working in. They so love what they do and do it so well that they attract an ever-growing group of devotees and fans. These rock stars have three unmistakable traits that make what they offer irresistible.

  1. A Beginner’s Mind …

    “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” –Steve Jobs

    Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to get from good to great. Music, science, acting, cooking, art, architecture, engineering, writing — any domain you might name — has core group of knowledge, insights, and best practices that defines a solid, quality product in that space. A real rock star has the curiosity, takes the time, and puts in the work to saturate his or her mind in finding out how every bit of that works. Until we understand how the notes in the scales or the colors in the palate combine in positive, structural forms, reaching for the creative or the beautiful will be a random attempt to make something that sticks and stays.

  2. A Creator’s Heart …

    If at first, the idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it. — Albert Einstein

    All that learning of the traditional pieces and parts becomes a real rock star’s tool kit. Rocks improvise and innovate by making new connections and new relationships. They see opportunities to solve problems, make art, and surprise us with the results because they know their domain well enough to play with it. They don’t fear failure or small risks.

  3. A Giver’s Outlook …

    Do what you love in service to the people who love what you do. — Steve Farber

    Rock stars aren’t stingy with their talent. They also know that their core group of fans will never include everyone. A jazz musician doesn’t try to be a star pitcher in the world series. Rock stars make simple and elegant offerings to the people who value what they do. They don’t worry about the folks who want something else.

Knowing, playing, and centering in on the people who thrive on what you do. Those are the keys to an irresistible offer. Every one of us has the power to reach inside to find that rock star potential and make it evident.

Look to the ideas, the topic, the thing that you can’t NOT do. Learn everything you can about it. Go deep and wide learning and experimenting with combination and creations just to see what happens. Then have fun showing other folks how you can use what you love to solve problems for them.

Have you found the irresistible rock star in you?

Make new connections …
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Beach Art Gallery: Sculpture by the Sea

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by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

A special local event each September for the past few years has been the Swell Sculpture Festival http://www.swellsculpture.com.au/ . Over ten days, as our southern hemisphere summer is in the wings, we join the throngs of people studying the sculptures all along the shorefront at beautiful Currumbin Beach.

This year, one sculpture which we both thought rather special was Richard Howie’s Wind Totems, made from oxidized recycled mild steel and recycled hardwood. The turning of the timber was absolutely masterful and the balancing of each work superb. The wooden vanes turned slowly, gracefully in the breeze.

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We loved the harmony of place, materials, artistic vision and execution. Much simpler than some of the other works on display, illustrating the old expression “art that conceals art”.

It’s easy to find complexity, dissonance and stress in the world today. Works like Wind Totems can encourage us to take the knowledge and skills we have in our businesses and our lives and focus our creative and productive energies in the direction of elegant, harmonious, inspiring simplicity.

The other work that appealed to us and had a fun element was Creation’s Heart by Wendy Johnson & Katrina Kelsey.

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What inspires you?

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

SOB Business Cafe 09-25-09

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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


Of course, gear and technical know-how are important, and I’ll touch on a couple of salient points. But there are other equally important, more esoteric concepts at the heart of stage photography.

the fluent self
Here’s what I want:
You know how people say they need a vacation from their vacation? So that’s what I’m doing.

Going on vacation from my vacation.

The Social Media Marketing Blog
See who pops as a thought leader. See who resonates with you.

Another way is to see how many of them have written a book.

Read more: http://www.scottmonty.com/#ixzz0RtHG9BKQ

Seth’s Blog
usiness Development is a mysterious title for a little discussed function or department in most larger companies. It’s also a great way for an entrepreneur or small business to have fun, create value and make money.

spoon graphics
Here’s 10 solutions to easily create an online portfolio of your own, giving you the platform to showcase your work to the world.

Related ala carte selections include

make use of
Armed with Opera 10 and the latest version of Flash, I went to Kongregate, one of the most popular flash game communities. The following games were those of the highest rating in the puzzle category (at the time of writing). In descending order, here they are.

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

Have You Ever Used the Power of Being an Original You?

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I've been thinking . . .

about the search for the original idea.

I used to work to find only original ideas. Learning about true originality has be an education in business, self-awareness, and life for me.

True originality –a brand new idea — is rare. That’s probably a good thing too. True originality is expensive and hard to sell.

Original ideas are take time, precious time, to conceive, imagine, invent, and develop. They’re a risk of resources by the very fact that they’ve never been tried before. They’ve never stood a test or built a following.

The more original the idea — the harder it is to explain. Marketing is a huge endeavor — just figuring out how to describe something people have no experience with. How do you relate something that’s never been to what they know? How do you prove the value of something awesomely original?

And if no one has imagined it before me, no one is using Google to find it.

Those times I’ve had what was surely “a never been done before totally original idea,” I realized later that maybe other folks had been there before. Maybe they too had conceived my brainstorm and found that

  • the idea was impossible to execute.
  • it was incredibly expensive.
  • no one wanted to pay for it.

These days “never been done before totally original” ideas doesn’t interest me.

What gets my attention is an “original YOU.”

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People who know their unique value can bring a unique something to an old idea — they can make something people know more personal, more profitable, and more pleasurable (or less of pain).

Have you ever used power of being an original you?

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