Successful Blog

Productivity and Focus: Avoid Relationship Detours in a Pay-It-Forward World

by

Relationship Detours on the Road to Success

cooltext443809602_strategy

Monday morning seems a good time to realign our focus, set new goals, dig in and get going on the week. How long does it take before something happens and you find you’ve been pulled off your path?

Avoid Relationship Detours?

A strong reason for deciding where we’re going and what we want to build, make happen, or become is that if we don’t chart out our own true path, other people will. Even after we decide on our destination — the mission and vision that will propel our business or our life — our own true nature can pull us away from that true path.

One of the coolest things about the internet is the community ethic that we’re here to help. I figure it comes from the fact that statistically we’re more alike than different.

  • We all have access to the internet.
  • We all can communicate in text
  • We all use the same tools to do that

Sometimes we even agree on what the tools can do for the world.

Productivity and Focus: Avoid Relationship Detours in a Pay-It-Forward World

Now we’ve started to move that social business ethic into the larger world. Whether we work at home, with a team, or for a company we love, contributing to the community is part of our own success. That community ethic makes it easy to reach out to new people who join us. We want to keep the culture that we’ve come to know and value. So why not show them how it works? Someone helped us when we got here. It’s a pay-it-forward world.

The downside of that can be relationship detours.

  • Are you so busy helping other folks that you’ve lost your own way?
  • Do ideas and projects that other folks propose take you away from your personal goals?
  • Do you spend more time on other folks’ success than your own?

Helping is good, but doing is necessary to get to where we want to go. You have to know where you’re going to know who to help. Time is a limited resource and focus is key to achieving our goals. So, when you choose to help, ask yourself if you’re extending the most help to people who are heading on a similar path. Then the help you give can be part of your learning, expertise, and growing skill sets.

And when folks expect you to set aside your own productivity to focus on theirs, remember that sometimes the most useful help is to show someone how to find the answers rather than to offer a hand.

Be generous with your time.
Share your expertise with abandon.
Help others achieve their goals without expecting something in return.
But know how to decline when what someone asks you will detour too far or too long off your true path.

How do you decide who gets your time and your help?

Knowing where you’re going in irresistible.
Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

How Storage and Removal Helps a Business Be More Efficient

by

by
Rony Mikal

cooltext443809602_strategy

Every business strives to achieve competitive advantage, customer satisfaction and excellence to become more successful. Competitive advantage is required by every business in order to strengthen its position and stay ahead in competition. Satisfying customers with products and services is the primary objective of business organizations. It helps businesses advertise their products well and improves the overall image of a company.

The rapidly advancing technology has made businesses more advanced with most utilizing IT skills for increased growth. With numerous businesses looking for better growth prospects, moving to another cheaper location is the best option. By shifting company to another place, businesses can save money and come nearer to customers or vendors. Moving a house or a business is made easier with the help of household removals and storage.

At the time of shifting business, most firms could use the help of moving and storage companies, who make the task simpler. Storage is the best option for businesses and proves beneficial to them in the long run.

How Storage and Removal Helps a Business Grow and Be More Efficient

Most businesses these days utilize computers and have equipments like furniture, important files, documents and books. Each of these equipments must be stored in safe and secure locations to avoid incidents of theft. Storage and removal prove advantageous for every business, as it helps in its growth. Here are a few ideas on how storage and removal makes a business more efficient.

  • All important information is stored in files and computers. Storing computers in climate controlled units minimize loss of data and keeps them safe. The saved data can be utilized for future needs. This helps business grow further.
  • Storing goods in climate controlled units minimizes their damage and keeps them secure for longer duration. Stored goods can be used in future, particularly at a time when you fall short of inventory.
  • Removal firms offer cost-effective storage solutions to most businesses in storing items during relocation. All goods stored are insured and this helps business avoid additional costs.
  • Moving to a new location having a strong customer base proves beneficial, as it improves business, thereby increasing profits for the business.
  • Relocating to a place that has enough space and in a prominent area visited by people often, improves the overall image of the organization, as more and more people are able to access your business easily.

Storage and removal are important processes that every organization requires at some point of time. Business can emerge successful if they plan well prior to the big move and opt for cost-effective removal and storage services.

Author’s Bio:

Rony Mikal is a blogger and freelance writer. He writes extensively on topics related to environmental issues, business, moving, household removals and storage and removal services London. Apart from writing, Rony takes keen interest in traveling and photography. He is an avid traveler and spends quality time with family and friends.

Jump start your social media planning with Tony Robbins

by

by
Rosemary O’Neill

Success in Life, Business, and Golf

Social media planning with help from Tony Robbins

Time to jump up on your chair and say “AYE!” No more messing around with a wimpy Facebook post here and a lame Youtube video there. Your social media plan should be vibrant, purposeful, and radiating crackling energy, just like live wire Tony Robbins.

How does he do it? He uses something called the “Rapid Planning Method” (or RPM). With RPM, you chunk your to do list into a few desired outcomes, and then take immediate, massive action to achieve them.

Tony Robbins is the reason I’ve been blogging here every week for almost a year. “Submit guest post to Liz Strauss” was an item in my massive action plan. At the time, I thought it was crazy on the level of “train to be an astronaut,” but guess what? When you achieve one crazy goal, it gives you the confidence to reach out for the next one. I’m thinking coffee in NYC with Seth Godin would be cool.

Jump start your social media planning with help from Tony Robbins

I thought it would be interesting to apply RPM to social media planning specifically.

Here’s your worksheet:

What specific result do I want to achieve? (For example, increase traffic to my corporate website.)

Why do I want it? (Could be to increase opportunity to convert customers.)

What is my massive action plan? (Write down two actions you can take today, right now, and then a list of action items for this week, the next 30 days, and the next 90 days.)

“Never leave the site of a decision without doing something towards its achievement.” (Tony Robbins).

Let’s go knock off a couple things from our list right now.

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

6 Ways to Take Advantage of QR Codes in Your Marketing

by

by
Celina Conner

cooltext443809602_strategy

QR Code Sample
Put yourself in this scenario:

While shopping in your favorite store, a flyer of a newly launched product was handed over to you by a sales agent. The flyer did not say much, but the product has quite captured your interest. You wanted to know more but somehow the agent could not answer more of your questions. Instead, he advised you to look into the quicker response (QR) code printed at the bottom of the flyer. The instruction is just to scan the code in a place with Internet access using a mobile device (e.g. smart phone, tablet, etc.) app. You did as told and you get access to exclusive content, the history of the product, price quotes, and special promotions.

In this article we will tackle 8 steps on how we can use QR codes properly in marketing our products.

1. Identify your target market.

Knowing your target market is the first step in propagating the use of QR codes in marketing. Studies state that most technology-aware people and mobile device users are those in ages between 25 and 40. So if your business’ target demographic is not in range, this marketing tactic might be more difficult for you to implement as it would be hard to encourage them to make good use of the codes.

If your target is in this age range, look into the ideal public places and the right media to post and distribute your QR codes. Majority of people in this age group are readers of newspapers and members of famous social networking sites like Facebook. So it’s suggested to put your QR codes in portable magazines, newspapers and websites (as side panel ads) for your audience to comfortably scan the codes right in their homes, offices, etc.

2. Post on the right spots.

Aside from newspapers, magazines and social media for targeted customers, you may also post your QR codes in other places for potential others. However, you have to make sure that they are the right spots. Good examples are on business cards, giveaway coupons, storefront displays, restaurant menu, product label, e-mails, newsletters where the codes can be scanned conveniently.

Bad examples, in contrast, are in moving vehicles like trucks and public billboards because getting the image from there is not that easy. When you’re moving, you most probably won’t take close attention to anything than the road itself. Another bad suggestion is in airplane magazines and in risky zones because passengers are not allowed to turn on or connect to the Internet for safety. These are places where people will just ignore the codes, no matter how striking they are.

business

3. Give useful campaign information that will enrich their lives.

In using the QR codes, you have the liberty to post it just about anywhere as effective without changing the code every time you have an updated content. The good thing about the QR code is that it serves as a bookmark icon or shortcut image that links your website and content to your customers instantly. So you can just alter the content behind it for them to get a different experience and depth of knowledge every time they scan the code. This form of advertising is a living and evolving one. Hence you should take good advantage of it by providing rich information that will make them come back next time.

4. Link the QR code to a specific and exciting message.

A common flaw is to just link this two-dimensional tag to a generic company website or home page. You have to remember that these are mobile people that are scanning the codes. So instead of a lengthy text, you must incorporate a creative short video or direct them to the page relevant to their interest (e.g. freebies, contests, discounts, etc.) to keep them around.

For example, if they are scanning the code from the back of a multivitamin bottle, the recommended linked items would be the nutrition contents about the multivitamin, the benefits it brings and instruction to post their own testimonies of the product online to win prizes.

In most cases, when both the product and company are still not known, customers would want to see info on the product, its uses and promotions rather than take an overview of the profile of the company, manufacturer or distributor. If you’re linking to a specific article in your web page, make sure that you have optimized pages for mobile devices.

5. Use them to get more “likes” and “follows.”
Macys-QR

You can link the codes to land into your Facebook fan page or Twitter account for a quick hit on the Like and Follow buttons. Attach an on-going contest or promo with it so people can be more engaged and you can establish a long-term marketing strategy after using the QR code as “bait.”

6. Integrate the codes to extend your marketing ad.

A great example is that of the Victoria’s Secret poster for its “Sexier than Skin” campaign. Victoria Secret had clutched into ingenuity when it placed the QR code right on the revealing area of the nearly nude models in the picture, to make users want to know more about the “secret” in their line of lingerie. People will always want to be surprised so position the code well in your print, instead of placing it in the most bottom part or the side lines.

Using QR codes is now a growing fad that will stay for years to come. It is an easy way to get customer information and track their interests by the content they access. If you use QR codes for marketing your offerings and brand, you are interacting with both potential and existing customers in real-time and entice them even more to interact with you. Posting QR codes is a fun way of advertising that is low-cost but effective when used properly.

Author’s Bio:
Celina Conner is a Yoga Instructor, an alumna of Marketing Management at Martin College Australia and a mother of a beautiful daughter, Krizia. She has a passion in cooking and formulating vegan recipes.Follow her adventures on her Twitter.

How to Identify the Highest Potential Strategic Partners

by

Strategic Partnership Series

The Story

cooltext443809602_strategy

I sat at the conference room table with two other people. I was the consultant. They were the President and Key Partner of the Investment Firm that Owned the Company. It started as a simple conversation.

We talked about the company’s situation — their revenues were declining by 10% a year. Their product mix wasn’t robust enough to support growth. Attempts at new product had been poorly conceived. Now they were sitting with one potentially successful product that, if left alone, would leave the business in a slow growth, high risk situation.

We talked about product life cycles in their industry. Successful products could expect to grow for 3-5 years. Then the natural decline — the downside of the bell curve — would follow and sales might continue out to year 10.

“What would be your product strategy?” the big boss asked me.
“I’d get on a plane. Go to the U.K. Buy quality product and adapt it to fit the U.S. market.”
“Why the U.K.?” was the next question.
“Because everyone has already been to Australia, and if you don’t get some product to market and earning as fast as you can, it won’t matter what strategy I conceive.”
“You’re going to London,” was the man’s answer.

By the end of the year, I not only went to the U.K., I was hired and I took my first of what became a yearly trip to build and nurture strategic partnerships around the world.

How to Identify the Highest Potential Strategic Partners

The idea of entering a strategic partnership is both intriguing and challenging. Strategic partnerships grow TWO businesses at a faster rate. The ability to share ideas, piggyback resources, decrease costs, and shorten timelines by distributing, versioning, and repackaging can bring a huge increase in ROI even to the smallest business.

But partnerships are tricky to begin with. Choosing the right partner is critical to success. Use these questions to identify the highest potential strategic partners for your business.

  • Who has product we can version for our customers? Would they consider making two versions as they build their next product? Potential strategic partners have to make product appropriate for our market that we might want to distribute. Define that as something for customers who are like ours, only slightly different.

    If we make packaging for boutiques, we might explore companies who makes packaging for department stores, grocery stores, computer stores, jewelry stores, restaurants — the list is huge. We’d be looking for what we might distribute to our boutiques. Those tiny “to go” boxes used by Chinese restaurants might make interesting packaging for boutique candy stores. Would they be willing to print an exclusive series of those boxes in fashion colors, we could sell them to our clients at exclusive prices?

  • Who shares our standards and values? Naturally a partnership needs to agree on what is quality workmanship, what is good service, and how to respond when problems arise. Shared values and standards are foundational to trust. Partners who share our values and standards see the quality in our work, understand our pricing, and trust our choices and decisions.
  • Who is good at what we’re not and needs what we’re good at? Can they extend our brand or strengthen our marketing? Can we shore up their product offers and idea development? A great partner doesn’t look like us. They look like what we’re not.
  • Who has a similar process for approving ideas? My experience over time has taught me to be wary of potential partners with numerous approval stages. A business with the more approval stages will control final decisions. The approval process will break down ideas and steal time.
  • Who sees the value of the partnership immediately? High potential partnerships are agreements between businesses each contributing value to the other business. If a potential partner needs to be converted to the idea, that equality of agreement is missing. It’s wise if we don’t work at making it work. Converts rarely stay converted. We’re likely to end up in something that looks more like a client/vendor relationship.

Great strategic partnerships demonstrate the idea that leaders look to build things that they can’t build alone. We share easier, faster, more meaningful way to reach customers that are just outside our “sweet spot.” We can offer product ideas that we could pursue without partner help.

Have you given strategic partnerships enough thought?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Watch for more on negotiating strategic partnerships.