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The Book List: ‘I’m There for You, Baby’ and ‘Social BOOM!’

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The Book List: a weekly series by Teresa Morrow

I’m Teresa Morrow, Founder of Key Business Partners, LLC and I work with authors & writers to help them with their online book promotion and marketing. As part of my job I read a lot of books (I love to read anyway!).

The books in The Book List series will cover a range of topics such as social media, product development, marketing, blogging, business, organization, career building, finance, networking, writing, self development, and inspiration.

‘I’m There for You Baby: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to the Galaxy’ by Neil Senturia

I'm There for You Baby Book Cover

“Neil Senturia is San Diego’s own ‘Larry David;’ charmingly acerbic, witty and straight to the point! Neil is a high energy guest who makes business concepts entertaining, informative and accessible to our audience. Hope Neil never curbs his enthusiasm or his willingness to share his insight on business!”
–Maureen Barnes, Producer, The Big Biz Show with Sully and Russ T Nailz

When reading this book, you are hit right off the bat with Neil’s humor and wit and love for storytelling. And intertwined in the mix are delicious tidbits of insightful resourcefulness and experience from his been-there, done-that entrepreneurial life.

Here are a few of the “baby rules” I enjoyed while reading this book and my take on the rule:

Rule #220 – Treat your Superstars well, if not, they may leave and take your universe with them.
When I read this rule, it made me think about the 80/20 rule and how entrepreneurs should be mindful to take care of the top 20 percent of their clientele because that is where the loyalty is.

Rule #243 – Do you actually think your customer is stupid or do you just tread him that way?
This rule reminds me of the principle of “being your customer” and remember that you need to KNOW who you customer is in order to be able to be the go-to person for them.

Rule #300 – It never hurts to ask.
This rule speaks directly to me and this is something I share with others all the time. This is what I tell others….if you don’t ask the question, the answer is automatically “no”. You negate the possibility of yes if you don’t ask the question. So if you want to ask someone to talk with you or do a joint venture with you or even connect with you….ask!

About the Book*:
Success, failure, joy, pain, and rejection. Neil Senturia shares the ups and downs of his entrepreneurial life and how the lessons learned along his journey can be applied to all of our lives. The book reads like Neil talks (with the occasional four letter word!) so be prepared for a humorous and insightful read. Two hundred and twenty three of his Baby Rules are included here, and you ll have to wait for Volume 2 for the rest.

About Neil*:
Neil Senturia has re-invented himself several times in his relentless pursuit of entrepreneurial success. Currently he is the CEO of Blackbird Ventures, an investor in high growth potential companies. He also serves as the chairman of the board of directors of Valore, an online marketplace for the sale and rental of used textbooks.
Neil’s diverse endeavors range from writing sitcoms to technology with a stint as a real estate developer in the middle. He has been CEO of six technology companies, three in software, one in material science, one in media and most recently clean tech.
His companies have been sold to Cisco, Kofax and Lockheed Martin. And no bio is complete without noting that one of the six went broke.
Neil has taught new venture creation as an adjunct professor in the MBA program at San Diego State University and has served on the board of directors of SDSU’s Entrepreneurial Management Center. Currently he teaches entrepreneurship at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement (http://www.vonliebig.ucsd.edu). He is a member of the San Diego Venture Group (http:/www.sdvg.org) and the MIT Enterprise Forum.
His numerous honors include winning the Microsoft Retail Application Developer Award twice, the Arnie Karush award from the San Diego Software Industry Council, CONNECT’s Most Innovative New Product Award in software, and CONNECT’s Lifetime Contribution Award in Technology.
Neil graduated from Tufts University with a B.A. degree in English and received a masters’ degree in cinema from New York University. He was a Fellow at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and served in the U.S. Army from which he received an honorable discharge.
He is married to Barbara Bry, and their blended family includes four children between the ages of 25 and 29, and Momo, a Himalayan cat.

You can purchase a copy of ‘I’m There for You, Baby: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to the Galaxy’ online at Amazon. *this information came from Amazon.

Next, I would like to introduce you to another book on the business book list on Amazon and on my reading list: ‘Social BOOM!’.

‘Social BOOM!’ by Jeffrey Gitomer

This book came out recently on the new releases (business) list on Amazon.

I can attest to Gitomer’s wonderful writing style and never ending insights about business sales (I have purchased several of his books) and now he has written about the mix of social media within the business world…all I can say is I am so looking forward to reading this book!

“…He helped clarify the message that every business person needs to incorporate into their philosophy: GIVE VALUE consistently and you have a great chance to succeed in the emerging behemoth of “Business Social Media Marketing.”
Here’s a hint: If you don’t know what Business Social Media Marketing even IS, then you need this book. If you think you Maybe do, then you need this book. If you own any size business, you need this book. If you coach, train, advise or counsel any professional or business person, then you need this book…” *Review on Amazon by Lowell Sheets

About the Book
Social BOOM! contains every aspect of social media, including the business periphery (blog, personal website, e-zine) that you need in order to create the real law of attraction. When you create a connection, it’s an indicator that that prospect, or that customer, or that person wants to continue the online relationship, which may lead to real business. Graduate from social media to business social media by creating value that others will perceive as important to fulfilling their needs.

As you go through each aspect of this foundation-building, platform-building book, you will read the ideas that Gitomer and others are using right now. None of the ideas are random. All of them are fully tested and can be implemented by you, too. None of the ideas contain solicitation (buy my product, make a lot of money). All of them get you and your brand out there in a systematic way that will bring in dollars.

Gitomer has invited a number of social media experts to “guest speak” in the book, to help you get a wider range of views and options. The best part about this book is that the minute you begin to read it, if your laptop or mobile device is handy, you can begin to implement it in the same minute.

About Jeffrey*:

I remember my mother chasing my car as I backed out of the driveway to register on my first day of college: “Take pre-med!” she screamed, “You can always switch!” But I wanted to be a businessman, like my dad.

He was the consummate entrepreneur. Growing up, I used to sneak downstairs and listen in on his Thursday night pinochle game. Arguments and laughs about business and life. It proved to be my inspiration for my life’s pursuits. My pal, Duke Dalton said, “You know what I hate about your old man? He’s never wrong.” I miss my folks, and I’m grateful to them for their wisdom – the stuff they accused me of never listening to for 30+ years. If your parents are alive, call them right now and tell them you love them.

In college, I played Scrabble every day with my best friend, Michael Toll. He usually won. It taught me about words and how to use them. Michael also provided me with the challenge of winning at games, both sports and intellectual. He’ll tell you he was better than me at everything. I feel the same about him. That was the fun.

I spent a year in Europe and came to the realization that I knew very little compared to what there was to know, which is funny, because I left for Europe knowing everything.

I raised a family. My three beautiful daughters taught me patience. They also gave me the courage and inspiration to achieve in the face of failure. Girls, I love you.

And I became a salesman. My first goal was to be the best salesman in the world. I’m still on that journey, every day. In the pursuit of that goal I surprised myself by becoming a columnist, an author, a speaker, a consultant, and a sales trainer. I used to hate flying. Now I spend about a quarter of my life in an airplane. But I really don’t mind, because it gives me the precious opportunity to share my sales knowledge and my secrets with a worldwide audience. What could be better?

My name is Jeffrey Gitomer. I’m a salesman. I’m a dad. I’m a college dropout.

My objective in life is to help others, establish long-term relationships, and have fun – every day. When you love your work like I do, every day is the same. It’s a holiday.
*courtesy of book website and/or Amazon

You can purchase a copy of ‘Social BOOM!’ at Amazon.

Are You A Cookie Cutter Writer Or Something Else?

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By Terez Howard

I am a writer. If you stood over me while I type at my computer, you would wonder how anything discernible is going to come from what you see. I don’t normally write from sentence to sentence and then follow up by writing one paragraph after another in sequential order. My mind processes information in a somewhat scattered manner.

The mess going on in mind has to be sorted, processed and regurgitated in an intelligible way. That means, I think of a thought and type it. That sentence, paragraph or even single word might get moved all around my blog post before it finds a home.

I start a sentence, and sometimes I finish it. (This sentence happened to be the second sentence of this post, and I think it’s going to stay here now). I like to attribute this writing style to my journalism background. When you write for the newspaper on deadline and you’re sorting through notes and remembering key ideas in all sorts of orders, you realize that you better get what you know on paper fast. Organize later.

I’ve maintained that style when I blog.

Writing with a template

This was new to me. I recently purchased an e-book that actually was about building AdSense websites, and the author spoke about using a template to write articles. I appreciated these simple template ideas, like Q&As, Myths vs. Facts and 10 (or whatever number) Reasons For Something. I said to myself, I’m going to do this. It will make writing much easier.

About two or three articles into it, I totally forgot about the templates and went back to my old ways. I’m not cut out for templates. (Ha, pun).

For people who aren’t much for writing or who have a difficult time coming up with ideas, I find templates to be a fabulous spring board. You fill in the blanks and voila. You have a well-thought-out, organized, helpful blog post.

Some possible template ideas that I’ve noticed on other blogs using, besides the ones I listed above, are:

  • Tutorial. A step-by-step guide of what to do.
  • The interview. You ask questions, and someone important answers.
  • Pros and cons. You say what is good and what is bad about a certain issue. You take a side, or you don’t.
  • Review.You review a product, service or other website in your niche.You review your own blog.
  • A blend. Blend some of the template ideas I listed here. For instance, write a review based on a pros and cons list.

Still not for me

Writing against a template is not for me.I feel like my freedom of expression is inhibited in a cookie cutter post.I can definitely see how a template would be beneficial to people who do not like to write or struggle with what to write about.But for those of us that just want to get our thoughts on the page, we don’t do it.

I guess it’s more of a matter of order. I put writing first and organization second. A template writer puts organization first and writing second.

One is not better than the other. Templates are for some, and free writing is for others. Which do you prefer?

—
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!

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

Be a Magnet Not a Missionary

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When Your Values Are Baked Into Your Value Proposition

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At SxSW this year, I enjoyed a deep conversation with Dave Fleet @DaveFleet about the new offer that Terry St. Marie (@Starbucker) and I are launching. I was telling him how we’re applying the SOBCon models and masterminds method to build high-performance leadership influence teams who

  • guide their decision making with high loyalty customer values and a high ROI value proposition.
  • get to innovative ideas through that balanced customer-company foundation.
  • can make that innovation reality through influence — by showing the benefit of doing it to peer employees, senior managers, and customers

Needless to say I was quite passionate. I’ve been working on getting this enterprise offer exactly right for about 3 years.

Then Dave said something like this to me, “So who will be your key market? I would think that with so many companies in Chicago you might never have to leave.”

I said, “My market will be people, like you, who get what I’m saying as quickly as you did.”

Be a Magnet Not a Missionary

What being in an emerging market like social media and building an event like SOBCon has taught me is that I’d rather be a magnet than a missionary.

According to Dictionary.com, a missionary is “a person strongly in favor of a program, set of principles, etc., who attempts to persuade or convert others.” He or she has to educate, evangelize, relay information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs.

A missionary considers every person in a given group or location a possible client and thus, has to turn disinterested folks, nonbelievers, and skeptics into converts. The very nature of disinterested, nonbelieving, and skeptical folks is that they don’t value or trust what the missionary does. They aren’t likely to pay for what they didn’t want, don’t trust, and didn’t value from the start.

The missionary has to offer a new belief system that gives disinterested folks, nonbelievers, and skeptics a reason to want to convert. At the same time that missionary has to establish a relationship of trust and communicate the value of his or her work. If the missionary succeeds, it’s a sale, but that’s only the first battle. Converts don’t always stay converted especially in times of stress. When a crisis occurs or difficult decision crops up, the missionary has to do the conversion work over again.

A magnet has a much easier time. According to the World Dictionary, a magnet is a person or thing that exerts a great attraction. We find people who think in the same ways we do attractive and smart (and those who don’t think as we do are less attractive because they seem to be not so smart or are being difficult.)

When we have an offer we believe in our bones that we can deliver with highest standards to the benefit of the people we serve, the folks who understand their needs and value what we offer will recognize it immediately. No conversion necessary. If you take the magnet metaphor seriously, it’s our unlike poles — our solution to their need — that forms the true bond. However it’s the magnetic field of immediately clear communication, like values, aligned standards and goals that attracts the ones that fit and repels those that don’t.

A magnetic person only shares his or her offer with people he or she respects and trusts. When someone of value joins the conversation it’s easy to mention there’s a new offer and let the other person open the door. Then the conversation isn’t about conversion or education, it’s an invitation. The magnet can learn more about the valued friend’s needs and goals, and the valued friend can learn more about what the offer is. The trust and open communication leads to a variety of connections that might be moving forward on that offer, new introductions and referrals, or entirely new ideas that spark in the moment.

Magnets Win

If you have to convince or convert someone to work with you, you’ll be convincing and converting every time you make a decision. If you have to explain why what you do is valuable and worth the price more than once, move on.

It’s easier, faster, more meaningful to be a magnet. And the people attracted to what you do actually value your work. A magnet starts with a bond of trust that a missionary doesn’t. The client who values and trusts you will value your work and trust your decisions. That’s why the client who doesn’t value and trust you is always more work (and never worth the price of admission no matter where you set it.)

Is your business thinking like a magnet or a missionary?

Be irresistible.

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

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Why Our Heroes Will Always Be More and Less Than the Pedestal We Put Them On

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All the Stories Are True and Un-True too.

I was 13 when my grandmother died. I never got to know her well. My experience of her was a tall, loving woman who smiled often and spoke only Italian. So you can see the gap.

However, I grew up with a wealth of stories about her to add to my small set of interactions. And because she was and is a hero of mine I was a always curious to know more to fill in the picture of this person I wished I knew better and more deeply as a person.

Now as each day brings closer to the age she was when I knew her, I realize she was more complicated and had more experiences and feelings than I’ll ever know. She will always be more and less of the hero she’s come to be defined in my mind.

It’s important to realize that stories and small sets of meaningful interactions can’t reveal a person to us.

Why Our Heroes Will Always Be More and Less Than the Pedestal We Put Them On

Stories and meaningful interactions are powerful things. But the very essence of what makes a good story or a meaningful interaction is that it highlights one quality, one action that reveals something about the person in question. But no person is only one quality.

Ask my son what he knows about me.

What I’ve learned is that, like great characters in movies, we’ve all got our great strengths and weaknesses. We’ve all got our stellar qualities and our deep flaws. And any one of us that gets put on a pedestal is destined to fall. Here’s why and why I never want to be on a pedestal myself.

  • The heroes we put on a pedestal don’t really know what qualities or traits got them there. They can guess, but they didn’t define the “character” who was raised up and so they’re destined not to live up to the definition.
  • The people who put the heroes on the pedestal can only see the heroes from far away. The closer we get to people the more we see their complexity, the more likely we are to change that hero-worship into friendship. True friends see a whole person and accept the humanity — what’s great and what still needs growing about them.
  • Sooner or later every hero will be human and step outside of pedestal definition. Suddenly the hero-worshipers will feel a betrayal that the hero was less than they thought, but really he or she is also more … the more that they couldn’t see.

So let’s give up the Pedestal mentality. Heroes are only infallible from faraway. It’s unfair to make them one-dimensional and expect them to live up to a definition that no human could possibly be.

I love the stories of my grandmother. I’ll always keep her high in my heart, but I also know that she had to work for what she got and that she faced real decisions and couldn’t have possibly always chosen right. No human ever does.

If we truly want community, it’s our job to remember and protect our heroes as the humans they are so that they can keep growing and showing us what they’ve got. What kinds of fans would we be if we made all of the protection go one way and left all of the heroism to them? Where would Harry Potter be without his band of friends who have his back? No pedestal takes the place of a community of friends.

I think I like her better knowing that. It makes it easier to imagine she’d also be proud of me.

How do you protect your heroes and see them people not characters on pedestals?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Thanks to Week 283 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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young-entrepreneur

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