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Thanks to Week 324 SOBs

December 31, 2011 by Liz

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Empower Yourself!

December 30, 2011 by Guest Author

by LaRae Quy

It’s an Inside Job

Someone needs to tell the political candidates that personal empowerment is not about power over others. Rather, it is understanding that you are in charge of your own life.

People who are personally empowered know that happiness is an inside job. They donât wait for someone else to make them happy and they can take care of their own needs for affection.

You Are Responsible For Your Own Actions

In other words, there is no finger pointing and blaming others for your lack of performance. You are willing to take responsibility for your actions. OK, so now itâs very obvious that most political candidates have no personal empowermentâthey are just power hungry.

I make this distinction between power and personal empowerment because they are two very different things and people often assume that to be empowered is to be powerful.

Wrong.

Empowerment is a process where you do something, reflect on your actions, assess whether you made the right choiceâand whyâand continue on. This progression is a very important piece of the puzzle because personal empowerment acknowledges complete responsibility for self and the choices that are made. It is strong enough to look at itself and say, âBadly done, Emma. Badly done,â and then move on, taking with it lessons learned from the experience.

Personal empowerment is not for wimps. It takes a strong character to look at oneself with honesty and decide what to keep and what to throw out.

Where To Begin?

Life unfolds in phases. As we look back over time, we can see when we felt empowered and when we did not. Each time period has itâs own characteristics.

We all spent time as students when our lives revolved around classes, teachers, and other students. The academic calendar was central to all of our planning. Life as a student is a unique time.

Similarly, we are always in different phases of life as we mature and circumstances change. Life is a series of interconnecting phases. So when we stop to take that honest look at ourselves, we will be empowered only to the degree to which we understand what phase of life weâre in.

Our life is bigger than a single moment. The things that we cherish, the goals that motivate us, and the issues we wrestle with are connected to the period in which we currently find ourselves.

We feel lack of personal empowerment when we are unable to make choices that are always in our own best interest. Indeed, it is impossible to feel empowered if we cannot identify the issues that hold us back. We feel out of control when we try to live up to the expectations of others. We give power over our life to others when we allow them to define success or achievement.

But when we let others generate ideas and solutions for our issues, we are no longer taking the lead.

We become the ultimate follower when we are no longer the leader of our own life.

Dig Deeper Into the Now

As an FBI counterintelligence agent, the first phase of a recruitment operation was to identify the target. This meant collecting as much information as possible about the targetâs past and current situation, as well as aspirations for the future. Every investigation starts with understanding the nature and character of the NOW phase.

Here is a list of typical questions used in FBI recruitment operations to help agents get clarity about the issues and specific needs of the person weâre investigating. These same questions may also help you define the phase of life you are now living in. It is impossible to attain personal empowerment without understanding the nature and character of your current phase of life:

When did this current phase begin? Identify the boundary that separates this phase from previous phases. The boundary may be a transition (a new job, relationship, or a new city), an event (marriage, divorce, death, children), a discovery, or a decision (a different career or going back to school).
Who are the key people in your life during this period? What role does each play? Which relationships are satisfying? Disappointing? Why?
What events characterize this phase? They may be personal or professional events.
What are the major opportunities and responsibilities that characterize this phase? How do you spend your time? What interests you most? Least? What is most creative about your life during this phase? Most demanding?
What characterizes your inner state during this phase? How would you describe your spirituality? Reflections? Feelings? Do you journal?
What is your physical state during this phase? Are you healthy? What are your health challenges?

To attain personal empowerment, itâs important to understand the key issues in your life and decisions you are being asked to make during this phase.

What kinds of thoughts, impressions, experiences, etc. came to you during this exercise? What are some key insights in this phase of your life? How do these empower you?

—-
Author’s Bio:

LaRae Quy was an FBI agent, both a counterintelligence and undercover agent, for 25 years. She exposed foreign spies and recruited them to work for the U.S. Government. Now she explores the unknown and discovers the hidden truth via her blog Your Best Adventure. You can find her on Twitter as @LaRaeQuy

Thanks, Larae!

—-

Be irresistible.

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

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Be Ready for Your 15 Minutes of Fame!

December 29, 2011 by Rosemary

A Guest Post by
Rosemary O’Neill

âUm, Rosemary, Fox & Friends is on line one??â

Itâs every entrepreneur and every small business ownerâs dream, right? That phone call is awe-inspiring and exciting. But be careful what you wish for. Being in the center of a media scrum, even a friendly one, is stressful and demanding if youâre not ready for it.

Bottom line, if youâre sending out any sort of media communications (formal or informal press releases, or even company information on your website), you need to be ready in case lightning strikes.

Here are some tips for surviving your first bit of media attention.

Be camera ready before you do a PR campaign – you never know if your release is going to click with a TV outlet, radio, or online. If you are due for a hair coloring, go do that before you send out the release.
Get your talking points ready – you need to have a coherent message across numerous interviews. The best thing is to come up with two sentences that you absolutely want to get into the conversation; donât bog yourself down, but know what you want to say to the world.
What to say if they ask âis there anything youâd like to addâ – without fail, you will be asked at the end of the interview if you have anything else to say. Make sure you do have something to add, especially if thereâs something you wanted to get across that the interviewer didnât ask you about. Sometimes this tidbit will lead to further coverage or a whole new angle for the story.
Be flexible – life on a media schedule is weird. With time zones, deadlines, and breaking news stories, you need to be ready to get up early (the morning shows in NYC are brutal if youâre on the West Coast), give interviews outside your sonâs basketball game, or get cancelled at the last minute. Thatâs the way the cookie crumbles.
Follow up with a thank you note – this is a place where I fell down, and I wish someone had shared it with me beforehand. I was thinking that there was some taboo about thanking a journalist, because they are supposed to be impartial. Not true, they appreciate being thanked just like everyone else. You can stand out from the crowd by using your best manners.
Press releases are (almost) dead – the two times we received major coverage stemmed from non-press release situations. Like any other small business, weâve been diligently putting out formal releases for years, with minimal return. Then, a dashed off, two-sentence note to a local blogger turns into two years of media attention, including NPR, Fox & Friends, CNN Headline news, etc.
Media coverage has long legs – a year after the initial media scrum, I was contacted by NPR to do a followup radio story. That update sparked a renewed interest by a few new outlets. The internet makes your story live forever.
Promote your media on your website – once youâve gotten some media attention, you should highlight it on your own web presence. You can ask the journalist for a DVD or audio clip of the interview, and you can often find it on the web as well. Putting these on your website gives you instant credibility.
Find out topic and setting in advance – if you can do some advance homework for the interview, it will help. What is the topic and format? What color is the set? Who exactly will be conducting the interview?
Get media training if you can – we were hit out of the blue, and had no thought of becoming âmedia ready.â Many of our staff members bravely spoke with the journalists who visited our office, but it would have been nice to have some minimal training beforehand. If you can afford it, and you plan a major PR blitz, it would be good to invest in some basic training. At the very least, do some Googling for tips.
Be ready to wait – the journalists you are contacting are on their own crazy schedule. They will leave you a message saying they absolutely, must must must speak with you in the next 10 minutes, and then wait a day before returning your voice mail message. You need to be at peace with this fact, and you do need to return their call as quickly as possible.

These are some of the things I wish someone had told me before we got our 15 minutes. Good luck with your own media journeys, and if you have tips to add, please share in the comments!
_____

Author’s Bio: Rosemary OâNeill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out their blog. You can find her on Twitter as @rhogroupee
_____

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

The Grinch Who Stole Blogging Past

December 28, 2011 by Thomas

As your business winds down 2011 and looks forward to a fresh start, it is likely to review company practices for the past 12 months to see what worked, what did not work, and what flat out needs changing in 2012.

If your company blogs for its customers now is as good time as any to review the material you put out there for clients and others, seeing what is resonating with those who may end up putting money in your pocket.

In the event your company blog is getting little or no traffic at all, perhaps you can relate to those poor people down there in âWhooville,â those same folks who are targeted every year at this time by none other than The Grinch.

You see, The Grinch doesnât like happy things, one of which is a productive company blog that drives traffic to your Web site, increasing the chances of selling your products and/or services.

So how can you outsmart The Grinch at his own game?

Well, you need to:

Set your blogging goals for 2012 â What is it exactly that you seek to accomplish with your companyâs blog? Are there clear intentions with the blog or are you just seeking to fill some space and/or producing a blog because others do it? Donât wander out into the cold aimlessly with your blog this winter, map out where you want it to go ahead of time;
Peer in on some successful company blogs â They say copying is the greatest form of flattery. While you do not want to duplicate a rivalâs blog, you can certainly learn from them as to what is working and what is not. See how they interact in real-time with their customers, if they blog about industry trends and analysis, do they mention and/or offer special deals, coupons etc. through their blogs;
Review your content â No blog is successful if it contains stale and boring content. If your staff does not have the proper time to give to a blog, then you need to think twice about having it in the first place. The more successful blogs are those that provide relevant content, are updated frequently, have an appealing look to them and are rich in keywords that search engines will pick up on. If your company blog has trouble meeting some or all of those areas, you seriously need to rethink the purpose of having one;
Balance communicating and sales â If the company blog is just one big sales pitch, it will likely fall on deaf ears for the most part. You need to find the proper balance between selling and serving, i.e. the blog should provide informative material for your customers and potential clients, not be an advertorial time and time again. You will likely be in a tug-of-war between your marketing/editorial folks and the sales staff. The former will want to provide solid copy that offers relevant content, while the sales team will seek to turn the blog into one big sales pitch;
Alter your posting times â When posting your blog, alter the times it goes live to the public. Some helpful hints includeâ¦. Fridays are a bad day to post because a lot of people have their minds off of work and turned towards the weekend. Then again, a blog centered on outdoor activities and purchases can be good for this time of the week. Tuesdays are generally considered a good day to post due to the fact Monday is out of the way and more attention is likely to be paid to it. Lastly, make sure to end the blog with a call to action so that customers and those potentially interested in your business have reason to respond;
Lastly, use your blog to interact with customers â Real-time interaction with customers is priceless, even when they are upset with you and your products and/or services. The one thing you need to remember is that not all businesses have company blogs, hence you have an additional means by which to interact with customers that they do not. Take advantage of that opportunity and speak to your customers on a regular basis.

Your companyâs blog can be the envy of many other businesses if you devote the right time and resources to it.

Heck, even The Grinch would smile about that.

Photo credit: holderbaum.educationextras.com

Dave Thomas, who covers among other items home-based jobs, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

What IS Most Crucial to Influence? What Moves People to Action?

December 27, 2011 by Liz

Redux: I wrote this post in Dec. 2010. Based on recent conversation, it seems even more relevant now and so I choose to pick it up, add some clarity and publish a newer version this week.

The Outcomes We Achieve

Every person has influence. What what we say, and how we act has an effect on how others think, feel, and behave. As a writer, an observer, and manager, I’ve watched and studied how people respond to what we do, what we say, and what they see.

As every parent and pet owner knows, sometimes the outcome we’re going for — a change in belief or behavior — isn’t the outcome we achieve. Our intent, our feelings toward an audience are only one side of the equation. How that audience interprets our words and deeds determines the change in belief or behavior that might result.

Our influence is highly affected by context.

The world view of the people we might influence. An individual’s emotional associations and beliefs can filter how people interpret our intentions, our words, and actions. A person who believes all learning must be their own experience will ignore a warning to avoid a dangerous part of town. A person who has only had bad experiences with people from our “group” may fight against any message we offer.
The value those people put on their relationship with us. Filters such as the halo effect and other cognitive biases, such as wishful thinking, can change how our message is processes and received.

We don’t control how other people think, what they feel, or how they interpret what they hear and see.

Though we may carefully consider and choose the most generous way to communicate and interact within those those contexts, the audience will choose their interpretation of that interaction. The same authentic, highly influential, collaborative message to one audience will be a disingenuous, controversial, alienating rebuff to another audience. We see that all of the time in the world of politics.

The most crucial element of influence is understanding what the audience already knows and already believes. If we want to influence people, to move them to an important action, to change their core beliefs, we need to know the audience, listen to their world view, champion their cause, and honor their reality.

Do likes, follows, impressions, site visits, retweets and the similar quick expressions of attention really qualify as actions. Have they influenced anything?

Don’t fool yourself by the game of numbers — don’t start thinking that 1 in X000 of those likes, follows, impressions, site visits, retweets and the similar quick expressions of attention will buy!!

The kind of influence that gets me to buy a product isn’t a result of a frivolous passing gesture on the Internet. Talk to the people who buy your products and ask …. what moved them to action? what got them to believe?

I know it’s a novel idea, but the people you want to influence know what will get and keep their attention and most of us would be relieved if you’d just ask.

How do you decide what will move people to action?

Be irresistible … and ask them.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!