Successful Blog

Thanks to Week 290 SOBs

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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.

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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.

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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

Inside out vs. Outside In: Choosing the Right Approach for Your Online Business

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A Guest Post by
Rahil Muzafar

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Which Is Best for Your Business?

When you are looking to setting up an online business (or any other business for that matter), there are two, totally different approaches that you can choose from, commonly known as “Inside Out” and “Outside In” approach.

Going Inside-Out:

You should know that you are taking the “Inside Out” route when you are trying to build on a business plan that you ‘think’ is profitable. Normally, it’s not a plan that you have laid out after careful research and assessment, but merely an imitation of what other successful businesses are doing. In other words, you try to get hold of a plan, which has worked for someone else, and then try to replicate the exact same model while hoping for the similar success (or should we say, hoping against the hope).

Choosing Outside In:

On the other hand, an online entrepreneur with “Outside In” approach will start from the market, or customers to be more precise. They will start from trying to decipher what exactly the customers want, and then finding a way to bring exactly that product or service on table. Therefore, it wouldn’t be wide off the mark if we say that a business with “Inside out” approach is basically a follower, whilst a successful “Outside in” approach will make you a trendsetter, which is an accomplishment in itself.

However, when we look at all of those new businesses popping up in the cyber world, we will see that more businesses are taking the Inside out approach, whilst very few are daring to opt for the Outside In. But before we disapprove of those businesses, let’s have a well-rounded discussion about the pros and cons of both these approaches.

Finance and Budgeting:

As you can make out from the aforementioned descriptions, Inside out approach is more feasible when it comes to finances and budgeting, for the reason that you can easily go through different “success stories” and choose the one that suits your budget.

On the other hand, Outside In will require a more flexible budget, because your main objective is to fulfill the customers’ need and come up with a product or service that doesn’t fall short of their expectation. In an Inside Out approach, you will be more concerned about your own resources and restricted while taking business decisions, whereas Outside In approach wouldn’t even allow you to start until you have arranged for enough resources that will let you deliver a good enough product.

Risk:

Outside In might come across as the more risky one, but then high profits are always a product of risky ventures. Besides, you are not really shooting in the dark. This approach merely requires you to try and comply with the customers’ demands, so it is far from being a gamble but a well calculated risk, which will eventually pay off.

Convenience:

Inside out approach is clearly the easier route, especially on internet, where replicating a business is fairly simple and doesn’t require much thinking. Lured by this handiness (that later turns out to be a trap), many people invest their time and resources in copying some successful business, which is precisely the reason why we see so many failures in the cyber space. In contrast, outside in requires research, lots of thinking, creativity, and problem solving skills to set the wheels in motion … quite difficult but then long term success is never an easy feat.

Long Term vs. Short Term:

Inside out doesn’t always end as a failure, but even when you’ve achieved something, that is going to be a relatively short term success. You might seize some profits but you will hardly make it big, and as Dale Carneigi once wrote “The surefire boat never gets far from the shore”. Outside In is the approach that promises long term success, mainly because you are required to continuously get back to the customers and adjust your business according to their demands and requirements.

Security:

Inside out businesses are the most vulnerable in the wake of some adversities like recession, or maybe in case of Internet businesses, an update in Google’s algorithm. Outside in businesses are less susceptible because they always have their eyes on the external factors and they are ready to fine tune well in advance of some inevitable change.

Which approach have you seen used most often?

Rahil Muzafar

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This post was contributed by Rahil, who is currently working for sell a Marriott timeshare and cancel wyndham timeshare .

Thanks! Rahil!

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

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Why avoiding conflict avoids success

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by Patty Azzarello

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Clarity Causes Conflict

As I work with management teams who want to successfully execute a change or be more strategic, they often tell me, “This is not a new idea, but we need to make it stick this time”.

I have been thinking a lot about this lately – Why is it so hard to for an organization to do something new?

Here’s the thought: Clarity is the secret sauce for execution. You can’t GO without real clarity. But real clarity reveals conflict, and most people don’t like conflict.

Therefore execution stalls so people can avoid being uncomfortable.

Comfort with conflict

You need to be comfortable with the fact that creating real clarity is going to expose disagreements. It’s going to expose gaps. It’s going to expose things that you need to deal with.

It can be much more comfortable to just leave everything fuzzy so you don’t actually have to address these things. This is one of the key reasons why so many change initiatives fail.

Clarity gives you the trail of bread crumbs to success

Any successful business agenda or initiative needs a tremendous amount of clarity to succeed. First you need to be really clear about the desired outcome. What is expected?

Then:

  • You need to break that big goal down clearly into smaller, concrete parts
  • You need to be clear about who is responsible for each piece
  • You need to be clear about how each piece is resourced
  • You need to be clear about what doing something different in each case means to the old way of doing something
  • You need to be clear about how the roles of specific people change
  • You need to be clear about not only what the new tasks and deliverables are, but what are the new behaviors and values that are expected at each level
  • You need to be clear about how the success of each role will be measured
  • You need to be clear about what the consequences are for not doing the new thing
  • You need to be clear about what will be communicated.


But getting clarity on any one of these points opens the door to conflict.

For example if you say: We need to improve the quality of our products. The priority of the next product release is quality.

That may sound like a clear statement, but…

  • Does that mean that you will hire new people for testing?
  • Does that mean that you will include customer testing earlier in the process?
  • Does that mean that you will measure the performance of the engineers differently? How so?
  • Will you re-rate the priority of all the bugs in the system? Or just some of them? Under what criteria?
  • Does that mean that you will stick to your quality plan when the sales force is clamoring for new features?.

Or if you say: We need to sell higher up in organizations

  • Does that mean that you expect every rep to spend some time on strategic deal making? How much time? Doing what, exactly?
  • How will you engage customers differently? Are people trained to do that? Who will be trained?
  • How will you measure if it is happening? What will you do it if isn’t?
  • Or does that mean that you will split the team into tactical and strategic teams?
  • Will you change the comp plans of the sales team?
  • Will you create new product/solution offers to appeal at a higher level?.

Discussing the answer to all these kinds of questions out loud, with your team, opens the door to conflict.

Once you get really clear, people will not agree.

But that’s the important part.

That means you are doing it right

As I bring teams through this process of getting real clarity, taking the time to hear the opinions and debate, we reach a point where everyone can see what to do differently, specifically.

It becomes clear what everyone needs to do personally to achieve the big goal. Everyone leaves knowing exactly what is expected, and how they will be measured on what they do moving forward.

Being Fuzzy – the comfortable hazard

If you are not clear enough to cause and then work through conflict, I call this being fuzzy. Being fuzzy may be more comfortable in the moment but it causes several problems.

  • Nothing changes.
  • People go back to whatever they were doing before because they clearly know what that is. They don’t know specifically what they need to do, to do the new thing.
  • When the outcome doesn’t happen, you can’t put your finger on what isn’t working, because you never defined exactly what “working” looks like.
  • If people are not performing you can’t do performance management because you haven’t defined the expectations clearly enough to show the gap.
  • If you can’t show the gap, you can’t get people to cross it.

Don’t settle for shallow team pleasantness, or avoid performance management at the expense of getting your business strategy implemented.

As a leader you need to create clarity and navigate through the conflict it causes, if you want to get anything important done.

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Patty Azzarello is an executive, author, speaker and CEO-advior. She works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. Patty 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 Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello. Also, check out her new book Rise…

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A Good-Bye from Terez

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By Terez Howard

Passion, Reason and Success: An Impenetrable Triad

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“If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.” — Benjamin Franklin

In the blogging business, do you think that passion should make your business decisions? Probably not. But should it be the motivating force behind your work? No harm there.

I have a confession to make. I have a passion. That passion has been alive for 5 years. During that time, I’ve read, researched and learned a plethora of information. I’ve hungered for more information and found myself starved. I desired to give people what I had been craving. More information.

I spent a few months writing more than 35,000 words on the topic of black natural hair. I spent April designing a website and compiling all of this information into an organized manner to give other naturals a whisper of the information we yearn for. This whisper will transform into a shout because my passion still burns and will grow.

What does this mean for me?

I’m not going to go into great detail about why I decided to write about natural hair. I’m not going to tell you my personal story with natural hair because I doubt that you care. What I want you to know is that this passion of mine has taken hold of my time and energy. Since I’ve always been one to keep my writing business hours at a part time level, that means letting some things go.

My guest blogging here is one of those things. Jael Strong too will cease guest blogging and focus on pursuing creative writing, her passion.

What does this mean for you?

Maybe nothing.

But, it might make think about evaluating your circumstances, including your work schedule and productivity. Are you working your passion? If you are, are you spending enough time to develop it? Are you spending too much time on it? Are you being reasonable?

Benjamin Franklin put it so well. “If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.”

Please be honest with yourself. There’s no sense in lying to yourself.

As for me, if you’re interested in the natural hair scene, you will see me around.

If not, know that I’m very grateful to have been here. Thank you, Liz, for the opportunity to know you and learn from your great wisdom. Thank you, readers, for checking in, commenting, tweeting and driving me to success.

And yes, I do think I’m successful, even though I’ve just recently started this endeavor.

I believe in what Pablo Picasso once said, “Action is the foundational key to all success.”

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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, for sharing yourself and your insights on my blog!

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

4 Essential Elements to Deliver Consistently Repeatable Success

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Can You Articulate What Makes Success?

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Once, at least once in your life, you succeed at something big. You learned to read. You graduated. You built something, won something, proved you could do something well and elegant. You stood up for something believed in. You held a friend’s hand through the night. You were part of a winning team. Your team brought in a project in a way that only your team can.

You know the feeling of succeeding. Everyone does.
But can you articulate what made that success?
Can you repeat it, consistently achieve it, and deliver success with confidence?

4 Essential Elements to Consistently Achieve and Deliver Repeatable Success

Success relies on a four important characteristics to be realized – the right mind, the right heart, the right skills and talents, and the right focus and passion in the right direction. How do we align all of these “rights” in a truly successful combination?

  • The right mind – The decided outcome was clear. Success was defined in clear concrete terms. You named it and were determined to claim it.
  • The right heart – The currency was trust not fear. The idea that you or your team wouldn’t succeed wasn’t even on the radar. Getting to the goal was just the plan.
  • The right skills and talents – The chosen challenge was at the right level. Peak performance comes when the challenge stretches us just enough to keep us from being bored without causing anxiety.You played to your strengths. You took advantage of opportunities.
  • The right focus in the right direction – Obstacles, distractions, and roadblocks were irrelevant. When we have our entire focus and passion on the prize, those things that might have sabotaged, undercut, or sidetracked was simply another detail to deal with or ignore on the way to success. If we look back, every roadblock and obstacle to a true success seems like a learning experience, an adventure, or a quest that made the hero’s journey more valuable in our eyes.

Let me say that as clearly as I can. I’m willing to bet that …
Every time you succeeded, just as many obstacles and roadblocks found their way to your path as every time you tried something and left it unfinished.

Those four essential elements of success are all you need to repeat the success that you’ve enjoyed in the past. Everything else — the people, the resources, the money, the business plan, the whatever you might mention — depends on the four that I just named.

We have to know a few things, believe a few things, and take on our path fearlessly. It’s a matter of commitment of head, heart, talent, and focused passion to achievement. Or as my husband just said, “No victory is won by the side that is only willing to fight until it hurt a little bit.”

Which of the four essential elements do you need most to achieve and deliver consistently repeatable success?

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

Not Speaking IS the New Black

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You might have heard the story of how I lost my voice at SOBCon 2011 and how I came to give the closing keynote without saying a word … even though at the moment we started my voice had come back. If not, you’ll find the story called how to turn a fail position to a win on successful-blog.com.

In the meantime, people have asked me to offer the text of those 27 pages so they might read them again and so that others might too. So here they are … with special dedication to @LisaHorner for more reasons than one.

Not Speaking IS the New Black
by the Event Whisperer and Friends

Can you see me?

Can you see each other?

Can you LISTEN with your eyes, and your mind, and …

(i love you) your (i love you) heart? (i love you) THAT MATTERS!

Can you see, feel, hear, taste, and touch your own brilliance … and …

the amazing brilliance inside each other?

People and stars are made of the same stuff!!

Leaders believe and act!

Leaders want to build something solid

strong and valuable

balanced to serve the customer and the company,

because without balance, we fall over.

Without each other, ideas are …

hollow, flat, and too flimsy to grow.

It’s the balanced foundation that LEADS to …

true innovation. ( <3 IRRESISTIBLE IDEA!) And it's the love of persuasion -> the fun and the meaning

that is influence, loyalty, TRUST.

Patrick Kidd and my dad taught me that

and each of you did too!

Thank you.

I’m blinded by the brilliance in this room.

believe then act.

[Thank you, @MarciaHansen, @gapingvoid, and Intel for the beautiful prints that embodied the spirit of SOBCon this year.]

Related:
How to Turn a #Fail Position into a #Win