Successful Blog

Believing Dots

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Connecting dots with The Idea Dude

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Earlier this week, Liz was thinking about the sound of words. It got be me thinking too, how words are affect our hearts, moods and minds. Take for example.

Adversity The word is ominous, like an unscalable mountain.

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Stephen blogs about facing adversity with examples from his own life. Sometimes adversity is real, other times, it is a perceived position we choose to take in our minds. Stephen talks about our debilitating habit of comparing ourselves to others and how it makes us feel small. It did not feel good. That’s exactly what your ego wants you to feel. He chides himself for that temporary weakness by recognizing, that each and every one of us is exactly where we are supposed to be, right now at this very moment. (If you love his attitude to life, you’ll love his story on self-acceptance.)

Liz looks at it in a very similar way when she says, It’s the knowing that I’m going in the right direction that counts. . . . Who do I want to be? was where my focus belonged. Being true to myself suddenly became easy. Believing in ourselves is the beginning.

Sometimes an adversity is just a setback.

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Tony tells us the best weapon against setbacks is momentum. It’s about taking responsibility, picking youself up and saving yourself. Tony is smart (btw, he also draws terrific cartoons). Hmm, if we view any adversity as a temporary setback instead of a failure, we have hope. Hope is belief in the future.

Responsibility

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Being responsible for our own setbacks is something Terry wrote to himself when he was faced with an untenable situation. On that particular day I decided to take control of my life. . . . From that point, I can imagine Terry felt more like the master of his destiny than a victim of circumstance. It made him believe in himself and his says, I still believe.

Hope

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April coined a very interesting word, Opi. It means future you. It’s a wonderful concept, she says it’s writing about your future in the present tense. To me, it’s about focusing on everything you could be despite where you are today. It’s about setting your own ceiling.

Terry is a terrific singer. To all this week’s dots, I’ll leave you with these words that Terry sang at SOBCon, I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words. How wonderful life is while you’re in the world. . . . It’s for people like you that keep it turned on.

Terry, I believe too!

May the dots be with you!

Vern, The Idea Dude

121: Help! I'm Lost — My Business Is Out of Control

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Wandering through the Woods

I just got done reading Dawud’s answer to my question . . . What advice would you give to a friend whose audience wasn’t his niche market group? He laid out a set of six factors that the person might consider to refocus again.

At the end of his article, Dawud left me (and you) with a question.

So Liz, what would you suggest my friend do if they looked around and found themselves lost with their business?

Being lost is not a fun thing. I get that way on a regular basis, so I ought to know.

Whether we’re walking through the woods by the river in my old hometown, or navigating the issues of a business that seems out of control, getting lost is a real situation that we can only deny for so long. Walking in circles doesn’t get us anywhere.

If your friend is stuck, the first I would do is introduce myself and ask him to sit down. Then we’d take a moment to breathe.

I’d let him know that I’m on his side and that no one stays lost for long. He’d get a few minutes to tell me about his journey.

Only a few minutes. . . . no point in spending time talking about what isn’t working, at least not while we’re still lost.

If it’s possible, I get your friend out of his usual work environment. The best would be to get outside where there is sky and trees. Figuring out how to unbundle and unburden chaos is so much easier when we’re not surrounded by human-made things. As a second choice any neutral ground will do.

Then I’d ask, “Who are you What do you love doing? Who loves what you love to do?” My guess is that he’d probably try to tell me why he’s not doing it. I’m kind of relentless at times like that — I wouldn’t let him talk about how he got lost.

You can’t get “unlost” until you know where you are and where you want to go.

Some folks take longer than other folks, but we’d talk until I understood what his answers to those three questions are. All along the conversation, I’d keep checking to make sure that I was hearing what he said.

When we agreed that we both had a clear picture of who he is, what he loves doing, and who loves what he does, then we’d return to the state of his business now.

With the first part decided, the second part becomes easier. Hold up the business to day to see how it’s not doing what we’ve just defined. Then carve the path to bring reality back in line with the definition.

That’s how I’d start to help your friend who is lost.

Many paths lead out of the woods. How would you help a business friend who is lost?

And Dawud, I’ll leave you with this question for next week.

What do you do when your business is going well and close friend’s is not?

If you’re reading this, I’d love to hear your answer too.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

One2One is a cross-blog conversation. Find the answer at dawud miracle on Monday. You can see the entire One-2-One Conversation series on the Successful Series page.

Personal Integrity: Sometimes a List Is Just a List

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This is an invitation for a conversation on personal integrity and how we, as humans, interact. In this case, I’m having what might be called an examination of conscience.

Every person comes to his or her own views on religion and politics. I respect and honor those. I’d like to keep this conversation focused on the personal and the individual, not the national or international. Conversations on political or social problems are better and more deeply thought through in places other than on this blog in a single blog post. Please note that contributions that obviously belong in those other discussions will be not be posted here.

I need space to be understood and offer that personal space to the people I meet. If you are new or a long-time commenter, please feel welcome to discuss your views on the problem below. I truly would appreciate your wisdom and counsel.

There is, as always, only one rule here: Be nice.

Can we talk about . . .

personal integrity.

Last night, I put up a list of Women Bloggers. People have every right to question my doing that. I did too. I still am. It’s a matter of personal integrity.

I don’t speak a great deal about link lists on my blog, but it’s not hard to know my feelings about link lists that were made to boost rankings or game the system. So why did this one elicit a different response from me?

Did I cross my own line? Was I seduced by unconscious peer pressure? Was my reasoning really just a rationalization? Or was I being the complicated person I am? Humans are nothing if not complicated beings.

Too much information makes this problem bigger than I am. Yet I think it’s worth exploring, because we face dilemmas of this nature every day. What contributes to such decisions, I wonder?

Here’s what I know unequivocably.

As I begin writing, I don’t know for sure why I made the list.

I do know this. I invested close to 3 hours putting my part of the list together, despite the fact I worried about the people I would leave out. I find the list a resource because sometimes a woman’s point of view is what’s needed. Last night proved that I don’t know enough of them. Even now two blogs come to mind that I wish I had remembered to include.

When I first saw the W-List, my plan was to say “thank you and move on.” Sometime last night that plan changed. Several factors might have influenced such decisions come to be. Here are the influences and the questions those raise for me as I look back.

  • Who I am as a person — I am an individual who creates my own path. I don’t feel I’ve be obstructed unfairly — Was it link love or a sell out?
  • My history — I grew up with brothers in an all boys’ neighborhood. Don’t you dare say I throw like a girl — Was I honoring women or leaving out men?
  • I was on the list — Was it ego or gratitude?
  • New versions of the list were coming up, always with new content added by the blogger who offered it — Was it appreciation or peer pressure?
  • The fact that I was surprised by the number of great blogs I had not seen before — Was it guilt or a wish to share?

Who knows what other factors might have been an unconscious part? I went back to my “Dear Emperor” post this morning. I can say I passed the test that I set.

As they say in the world of law, we might be able to prove possible motive, but we cannot ever know someone else’s intent. I’m finding now it’s not that easy even to know my own every time.

At the end of writing this . . . it’s been close to two hours and then, I’ve taken out 60% of what I wrote . . . but I know more. I state it calmly and gently here with my head and my heart.

I celebrate the women bloggers on the list. By giving to them, I take nothing from the men I esteem. I only wish I had taken the time to celebrate the men too.

As a child I knew, sometimes my parents celebrated one of their children without mentioned the other two. Yet each of one of us was always their favorite.

One lesson that I have always had trouble with is that when I’m not included it’s rarely about me. (And when I am, that’s usually not about me either.)

Sometimes is just a list.

Gosh, thanks for listening. Feel free to disagree.

Liz's Signature

As a following note: Before I leave, I’d like to mention that I don’t believe much in fate or omens, but I do enjoy delicious irony and blogger synchronicity. When I awoke I found these. Brief Case Study: Liz Strauss appreciating readers on Successful Blog through comments and through encouragement awards and Now, Make me feel important! who pointed me to The W (and M) List – Promoting Quality Bloggers

Do A Survey to Focus Your Business

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Our Customers Know

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Have you noticed? Everything about setting up a business requires clean decisionmaking that comes from both heart and head. In other words, to do it well, we have to know who we are.

My friend, Dawud Miracle, and I take that idea seriously. We don’t just discuss it in the one2one conversations on our blogs. We talk about it on the telephone and via email whenever the need strikes, which is often enough.

A few weeks ago, I asked Dawud how I might help a client get to his core offer and together we decided a survey might be one way to go. If you’re feeling a bit the same way, let’s see how a survey would help.

A Survey to Focus Your Business

The single greatest value that I bring to a client relationship is the truthful perception of someone who is not them. I stand outside their business and tell them what a naive, intelligent customer sees.

Getting focus means seeing who we are and what we do well. If the picture is too foggy, it’s helpful to have several points of view against which to test our perceptions of ourselves.

An informal survey can gather those points of view.

A Survey to Focus Your Business

Let’s start with the survey itself. Here are some survey questions to make this happen for you. You’ll notice a blank for your name or the name of your business.

  1. What kind of work does _____ love doing? Why do you think so?

  2. What successes can you point to that _____ has had in the past? What does _____ do better than almost everyone else?

  3. If you were to recommend _____ to a close friend, what would you say?

  4. Do you see any disconnects in what _____ loves doing and does well, and what _____ could be doing to serve customers?

  5. What do you think _____ can promise to deliver that people really need? Are you confident that _____ would keep that promise? What makes you think so?

  6. Would you count on _____ to deliver on that promise? What makes you think as you do?

Only six questions, but use them well and they’ll get some critical information.

Putting the Survey to Work for You

Sometimes the key is asking questions. Sometimes the key is having someone ask for you. To get a true picture of how folks see your business, I recommend that you allow them to talk a friend anonymously rather than having them write to you.

People often say the best things about us when we’re not listening.

Let’s get this survey rolling.

  1. Ask a friend to be an interviewer.

  2. Provide the interviewer with no more than 7 questions. Use the ones above to get you started. Ask interviewer to help you word any additional questions so that they leave room for explanation.

  3. Identify no fewer than 5 people who are familiar with your business or your performance at businesslike tasks. Have the interviewer help you choose folks who can give an informed response. Work toward a list that represents the customers you want.

  4. Discuss with the interviewer the best way to introduce the interview to each person on your list. Make it a goal together to set up a high-trust situation so that each respondent can answer freely.

  5. Have the interviewer contact the people on the list and conduct the interviews.

  6. Ask the interviewer to compile the constructive information into a summary or a bulleted list for each question. Respect respondent’s privacy. You’ll want to survey them again.

  7. Discuss a plan of action with the interviewer. He or she was heard the responses and so can say whether your reaction is the right size for the information gathered. He or she knows whether you need to find out more on some points.

  8. Use what you found with what you know about yourself and your business to
    • Decide what businesslike thing you love doing.
    • Choose your ideal customer.
    • What you can promise and deliver to the ideal customer you want to serve.

  9. Introduce changes you’ve identified into your business slowly and one at a time.

Information from people who know us is the most valuable data we can find. When we put it with what we know about ourselves and what we do well, we can make incredible things happen.

How might you use a survey to improve your business?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

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

25 Outstanding Links to Help You Write a Compelling Tagline

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An Internet of Taglines

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Writing a tagline can seem an overwhelming task. How do you pack all of that promise into four or five simple words that will resonate with the folks you want to reach?

I discussed the strategy behind taglines yesterday.

To fill out the information, I thought I might reseach what some other folks are saying. Here’s the best I found from around the blogosphere. They are 25 to add to the one I wrote yesterday.

  1. Several Links and Information worth exploring: Channel 9 Tagline/Strapline Contest!

  2. Tag Lines Can Make Or Break Your Advertising

  3. A Good Tagline Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

  4. Wag the Tagline – The Rhetoric of Brand Messaging

  5. Tag, You’re It: Benefiting From a Memorable Tagline

  6. The Phrase that Pays- Creating a Tagline You Can Take to the Bank

  7. Tagline – your brand mantra

  8. How a Great Tagline can Help your Business

  9. Drew McLellan: Is a Tagline Part of the Brand?

  10. Does this Tagline “Get it Done?”

  11. That’s not a tagline!

  12. Taglines – Why Your Brand Needs a Tagline

  13. Got tagline? Arrrggghh!!

  14. Tagline Basics

  15. Are You Tagging? Create a Successful Tagline for Your Business

  16. Zzzzzz…Oh, was that a Tagline?

  17. Create a Winning Tagline: The Best Column You Can Get for a Box of Chocolate

  18. Playing with some homeschool stereotypes

  19. The Power of Taglines: Take My Tagline Test!

  20. 1% company ownership for a tagline

    21. Software and Other Related Posts

  21. YouTube Digger Tagline Poll

  22. Tagline Randomizer for WordPress

  23. RANDOM TAGLINE MANAGER

  24. Job description of a movie tagline writer: Big Screen, a Few Small Words

  25. How To: Hide Title and Tagline

Sometimes immersion is the best way to get to know how to do something.

I gathered these links as a resource. Everyone needs a different sort of support when it comes executing the vision of a business that customers will see. Find the ones that suit you and take the wisdom you need.

What words will you use to define your promise in a tagline?
Want to test a few? Write them in the comment box here.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you find your strategy, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Related
3.2: Three Steps to a Killer Tagline that Customers Pass On
Strategy: 40 Outstanding Blog Links, Bookmark Carefully!
20 Blog Promotion Guides to Inform Your Strategy
Strategy: How to Get Maximum Benefit from Complex Link Lists
The 5-Point Strategy to a Powerful Network

Change the World: Let Them Discover

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It’s about Them

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It happens something like this. I meet a person who intrigues me. I rush in where the proverbial fool would fear to go. I want that person to see my value. I put it out there. I don’t realize that my thinking is all about me.

“Look at me behavior” is what I call it. The subtext of what I do is something like “I want you to see what I know, think, understand, have accomplished. I want you to see how worthy I am. I want you to see me.

The irony is that whenever I make things about me, it’s not me who shows up to tell the story.

I end up saying things in ways that aren’t my way of saying them. I hear myself handing over my weaknessess as I tout my strengths.

When I am lucky, when I have my wits about me and my heart in the right, relevant place, I know that the other person doesn’t know or even suspect. I’m only ludicrous facts that I’m spouting without context.

It’s so silly, We all know that folks discover the things they need to know.

When I choose to trust the person I’m talking to, I find that the right parts of me show through — without effort, within the bigger story of who I am. I find that my defensive self promotion falls away like water falling down a moutatin cliff.

When I trust in the thoughts of others, I am who I am.

When I trust the thoughts and humanity of others, the rest happens rightly more often than not. It’s so much easier to let them discover wht I am.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss