Successful Blog

Steve’s Shorts: Search, SEO, and a Twitter ReTweet Tip

by

We Interrupt Regular Blogging for Steve’s Shorts

Take a simple few minutes where a guy who is brilliant makes an observation about the social web that you might have already be thinking. This interruption brought to you by the evil conspiracy that is Steve Plunkett and Liz Strauss.

Search, SEO, and ReTweet Strategy
by Steve Plunkett.

cooltext467743303

– What is Search? Search is about being there when the customer is READY TO BUY. When they ask, hopefully you did your homework and are #1 in the organic results. (also known as.. how to get to #1 and stay there)

– You want to learn SEO..? Examine your analytics and find out which keywords make the cash register ring… Focus on those keywords, Focus on providing the most uniquely RELEVANT content for that keyword.

A Short Look at … What’s Next?

Hope you enjoyed these moments with Steve’s Shorts.

steve_plunkett

M/C/C’s Director, Search, Steve Plunkett, is responsible for all aspects of search engine optimization (SEO) and Internet user behavior. Plunkett’s competitive personality makes him a perfect fit in the competitive world of SEO. As a child and a gamer, he worked hard ensuring that it was his initials at the top of every arcade game unit in his neighborhood. Today, he uses SEO to ensure his clients appear at the top of the search engine results –and offers an array of optimization services that are scoring big for those clients.

I’m a proud affiliate of

third-tribe-marketing

Cool Tool Review: Bartering & Alternative Currencies

by

Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools and products that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks who would be their customers in a form that’s consistent and relevant.

Cool Tool Review: Bartering & Alternative Currencies
A Review by Todd Hoskins

What if you could hire a consultant, do a website redesign, or rent office space without spending a nickel?

For businesses that are forward thinking, or just tight on cash, exploring the frontier of bartering and alternative currencies, can not only help you through a cash crunch, it can also make you more connected within the communities in which you are active.

The Barter Network is a one-to-one exchange for products and services. For example, if you need to produce and file an annual report, someone within the network will likely be equipped to complete the task (there are over 20,000 participating members). Instead of paying in dollars, you could trade for one of your gadgets, an installation of your software, or fifteen hours of marketing expertise.

The process of bartering enables you to collaborate and get perspectives from outside of your business, share knowledge, and understand the value of your needs and assets apart from the industrial age notion of everything being measured in government-backed currencies.

Beyond bartering, there are a couple other projects that should be noted. First, TheSwop.com is a service launched last year focused on the exchange of favors for startup companies. “Favor points” are earned or spent, which is means you don’t have to find the exact match as with the Barter Network.

Also, Hub Culture is an organization I have been following for a while. Their Ven currency now has over 1.8 million units in circulation. With a sizable global membership, Ven can be used for a variety of exchanges from classes to Facebook Connect integration. They have a unique vision – worth checking out.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 4/5 – The only drawback is driving your Accounting (and/or Tax) Department nuts, at least for a while.

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – Innovative, connecting, and value-determining

Personal Value: 2/5 – Can you live a month without cash? It’s becoming easier.

Let me know what you think!

Todd Hoskins helps small and medium sized businesses plan for the future, and execute in the present. With a background in sales, marketing, and technology, he works with executives to help create thriving organizations through developing and clarifying values, strategies, and tactics. You can learn more at VisualCV, or contact him on Twitter.

3 Sales Lessons we all need

by

by Patty Azzarello

cooltext466496263_leadership
sales-lessons

On a recent flight I had a fun conversation with a top sales executive about the profession of selling.

The best sales people have some fundamental things in common:

  • They put themselves out there over and over again with no fear
  • They hear “NO” a lot, and always keep trying
  • Disappointment, hurt pride, and failure have little impact on their continuing to do the first 2
  • They always tune their offer to what their customer values most.

Skip the disappointment

The best sales people get over disappointment quickly and jump right back in the game. They don’t let failures along the way discourage or stall them, or damage their confidence.

One of the best stories I heard about this was a sales person telling a non-sales colleague:

The difference between you and me is that if you went up to every woman in this bar and asked them for a date, and they all said, NO, you would not talk to them again.

If I went to every woman in this bar and asked them for a date, and they all said NO, I would go back and ask each one of them again. And a third time…

Three Sales lessons for your Success

1. NO is never a dead end

Every good sales person I know, can tell you how many NO’s on average it takes them to get to a YES. If their number is 17, when they hear NO for the 14th time, they don’t get discouraged.  Their reaction is more like, “Great, I’ve got through one more step to YES!”

NO, is not only a critical step in the process, it’s viewed as a positive step forward. This is so important in building your career as well.

You need to get turned down.

You need to get over disappointment quickly, and see this rejection as a step forward in the process. Then you need to put yourself out there again – as many times as it takes.

Don’t Stop Trying

I can offer my personal example.

While my corporate career, and sequence of promotions was highly successful by any external measure, people didn’t see all the failures.

They didn’t see all the times I heard, NO, and all the times I went for promotions and was passed over or turned down. The success came from acting like a sales person, improving my value, and putting myself out there — and to keep asking.

So out of about 25 times at the plate, by putting my fears aside, and selling myself again and again, I got about 20-something NO’s and 3 life changing YES’s

You don’t get to the YES without the NO’s.

I see people make the mistake of going for promotion once or twice, getting turned down, and getting discouraged. Then they stop trying.

They blame the unfairness of the environment. Or they manufacture an imaginary high ground, and cite that they refuse to take part in the political maneuvers they believe are required.

The biggest thing holding these people back is that they got turned down, discouraged and then stopped trying.

If you are not willing to keep trying, you are the one creating the obstacle to your success.

2. Find a Bigger Pond

Good sales people go where the opportunity is. If they are assigned a “bad territory”, they find a way to expand or develop it. If they are assigned a genuinely bad territory, they move on and get a different job.

I see many people make the mistake of not moving on, when their environment can no longer support their advancement. They will stay for years, frustrated that there are no promotions available.

I’m all for advancing within your company, and much of what I write about is to help you do exactly that. But if there are no jobs, and several people above you need to die before a position opens up, you need to take it upon yourself to move on if you want to advance.

Or if you have an incompentant manager, you will get stuck. You need to get yourself into a different spot.
Go outside your comfort zone, go get some NO’s from new people, and keep trying!

3. Increase Your Value

When a customer is not buying, a great sales person will pump up the value of what they are selling.
They do this by getting a better understanding of their prospect’s needs, and putting together an offer which is more useful and valuable, and therefore much harder to refuse.

This is also critical in you career.

If you are not seen as promotable, ask yourself why.

Go the extra mile to really learn about and understand what is most relevant to your executive management. Is it new customers? Is it innovation? Is it cost cutting? Is it developing people?

Learn what counts and tune your job to offer more of it. Build up your value.

No one will instruct you to do this. It’s up to you.

Doing your job as written is more like selling a commodity product. Instead create a new product, higher value product. Differentiate your value by tuning your job to have more business impact.

The only way to reliably advance your career is to be always be adding more value to the business.

But don’t forget to keep selling !

What about you?

When did having the guts to be persistent make a big difference in your success? I’d love to hear your story in the comment box below.

—–
Patty Azzarello works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. She 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 The Azzarello Group Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello

I’m a proud affiliate of

third-tribe-marketing

Social Media Book List: #COACHINGtweet and Twitter for Dummies

by

A Weekly Series by Teresa Morrow

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

This week I will be highlighting one book written by an author I am working with “#COACHINGtweet’ by Sterling Lanier and the other book I have on my reading list, ‘Twitter for Dummies’ by Laura Fitton, Michael Gruen and Leslie Poston. The books I discuss in the Social Media Book List Series will cover a range of topics such as social media, marketing, blogging, business, organization, career building, networking, writing, self development and inspiration.

‘#COACHINGtweet: 140 Bite Sized Insights on making a difference through coaching’

by Sterling Lanier

#COACHINGtweet by Sterling Lanier

“When you have strong passion for “WHY,” “HOW” emerges clearly from the shadows.”

Now this was stated in the book under a label called, Being a Coach, even before the first tweet…and you know, it is so true. Think about it…if there is a positive reason why you wish to do something, the next thing that pops into your head will be, how will I do it?

Here are a few more powerful tweets from ‘#COACHINGtweet’ I would like to share with you:

#4 A great coach has a huge heart, enormous ears, and a tiny mouth.
—>I love this because it is so true and it goes right along with the next week I highlighted.

#14 Listen like you want to be listened to.
—> This can be easier stated than done, right? However, it can make such a difference in your life with those around you.

#28 “Neuroscientists tell us that people do not resist change. They resist what they perceive as a threat to what they know.”
—–>I agree with this as well. I am currently struggling with a deadline my publisher has set for me to write my book in about 3 months. Now, I asked myself, why do you wish to do this? I wish to write the book because I believe it will help other people. So then the how comes up. And I have questioned if I should attempt to do this because it is a change for me. But I can do it if I just put my mind to it and get it doen. However, the fear comes into places because I am fearing what I don’t know….can I really do it? Sure I can. I just don’t need to focus on the fear of not getting it done. Just focus on the getting it done.

#48 Wake up. Dress up. Show up.
—>You have already started a great day. So don’t allow it to go to waste by not doing anything. Get dressed and show up to your day.

About the Book:
Mentor…teacher…guide…friend…a coach is all of these, and more. Sterling Lanier, author of ‘#COACHING tweet’, has decades of experience coaching CEOs and CEOs-in-the-wings, and knows that coaching is no secret or magical process. Rather it is the art of inspiring, encouraging and motivating people through active listening, by asking thoughtful and thought-provoking questions and helping to set ambitious but realistic goals and action plans. It is a journey of self discovery, as much for the coach as for the person being coached.

In the corporate world, a typical ‘coaching’ session consists of an annual manager or supervisor soliloquy in which the employee receives ‘a mound of criticism sandwiched between two thin slices of praise.’ Instead, as Sterling shares with us, coaching should consist of a series of frequent dialogs between employee and manager on the employee’s goals, action plans, measurement milestones, alignment to corporate direction, and resources needed for improvement.

In ‘#COACHING tweet’, Sterling has distilled his practical experience into bite-sized insights on the power, practices and sheer joy of coaching. Individual sections cover coaching philosophy–coaching from the heart and being fully present in the moment–and coaching practices, which reveal the tools of the trade, including such subtleties as ensuring non-judgmental listening and peeling back the layers so that clients voice the hidden issues.

About the Author:
Sterling Lanier is a CEO Group Chair for Vistage International, the world’s leading CEO membership
organization. He helps CEOs become better leaders, make better decisions, and achieve better results through leading monthly meetings, peer group interactions, individual coaching sessions, and expert speaker workshops. Sterling has more than thirty years of CEO leadership and management accomplishments in specialty retailing, manufacturing, software, and fi nancial services. Sterling became a Vistage Chair in 2000 and leads three Vistage groups. Sterling is the author of ‘Eating Your Way Through Tuscany & Umbria’ and ‘Storie Italiane: A Student Reader with Parallel English Text.’

You can purchase a copy of ‘#COACHINGtweet’ online at ThinkAha Books.
*I have received a complimentary copy of #COACHINGtweet by the author as this book mention is part of a virtual book tour I am conducting. However, my comments (highlighted by —>) are my own solely and I have not gotten compensated for those.

A book on my reading list that I have not had the pleasure to read yet is, ‘Twitter for Dummies’ by Laura Fitton, Michael Gruen and Leslie Poston.

Twitter for Dummies

by Laura Fitton, Michael Gruen and Leslie Poston

About the Book:

A fully updated guide to the how and why of using Twitter

The fastest-growing social network utility sports new features, and they’re all covered in this how-to guide from a leading Twitter marketing consultant. Nearly 20 million people are tweeting on Twitter, and this book shows you how to join them and why you should. You’ll learn the nuts and bolts of using Twitter, how to make good connections, and how it can benefit your life and your business.

* Twitter is the fastest-growing of the social networking tools; this book gets you up to speed on the basics as well as how Twitter can enrich your life and boost your business
* Explains how to sign up, find friends and people you want to follow, make the most of shortcuts, use popular Twitter tools, and Twitter on the go
* Discusses how Twitter can be used for business, fundraising, and maintaining contact with people who share common goals

About the Author(s):

Laura Fitton: Laura “@Pistachio” Fitton is leading the charge of sussing out intelligent and productive business uses of emergent technologies like Twitter, where she is read by thousands of community members. The fi rst to publish a white paper on “Enterprise Microsharing” (popularly called “Internal Twitter”), she also writes for and runs the TouchBase blog and is an early beta tester of Seesmic and Qik. She relaunched Pistachio Consulting in September 2008 to connect businesses to new ideas and innovations using all the tools of microsharing. Pistachio comprises the TouchBase blog (covering business use of microsharing), the TouchBase Link Blog (stream of Twitter and microsharing articles for businesspeople, wherever they are published), and serves clients like Johnson & Johnson, Ford Motor Corporation, PeopleBrowsr, The Sister Project, Transplant-1, and CommuNteligence.

Michael E. Gruen: Michael E. Gruen has earned signifi cant respect in the corporate sphere and within the startup community as a trusted advisor since 2003. In many cases, he has fulfi lled the role of interim Chief Operations/Chief Technical Officer with several organizations in need of innovative leadership during crucial developmental periods. In 2006–2007, Michael briefl y joined Morgan Stanley as an Analyst. Currently, Michael is CFO/COO at NOM, a Digital Services Agency, and the CEO of a new healthcare startup.

Leslie Poston: Leslie Poston is passionate about helping people and businesses fi nd their way to success via technology. As a writer, she has more than 200 ebooks and books in her repertoire and several more in development.
*this information was provided by Amazon

You can purchase a copy of ‘Twitter for Dummies’ online at Amazon website.

I truly hope you will check out these books and please comment and let me know your thoughts on them.

Have You Really Tried Everything?

by

cooltext455576688_blogging

By Terez Howard

My daughter is so stubborn.  In many ways, she is the most stubborn person that I know.  In some ways, it’s good.  I know that no one will be able to make her do something she doesn’t want to do, and far more important, something she should not do.

When it comes to eating, she is stubborn.  Last week, she had a McDonald’s Happy Meal in front of her for lunch.  (It’s one of her favorite things to eat, like any kid!)  And guess what my little girl ate?  One lone French fry.

Right now, you’re probably making excuses for my 3-year-old.  She wasn’t hungry.  She didn’t feel well.  She doesn’t really like French fries.  I can assure you that all of those reasons are far from true.

Micah refuses to eat because she does not want to.  She wants to do something else, like play with her Leapster.  Or, she wants to make me angry.  Yes, I believe that she secretly likes the attention that goes along with my disappointment in her.

I have tried everything to get her to eat.  My husband and I have done rewards, punishments, baby doll mimicking, ignored her, prayed with her, just about anything you can think of.  When I told my mom about this, she gave me one tactic I hadn’t considered.

“I will try anything!” I told her.

Have you done everything with your blog?

Maybe you don’t have many readers.  Perhaps you would like to have a higher number of subscribers.  Do you want buzz surrounding your name?  That’s what I want for my blog and my business.

So, what do you do?  “I will try anything!”

That should be your response, and that certainly is mine.  But recently I took an honest look at my business and my blog, and I have to admit that it’s not where I want it to be.  So, I’m ready to try anything and everything to reach my fullest potential.

I have tried everything.

Really?  Me, too.  I’ve done cold e-mailing, blog commenting, guest blogging, interview requests, article writing and more.  After all that, why am I not where I want to be?

Time for another honest look in the mirror.  I haven’t been organized enough, and I consider myself a very organized person.  Visit my home, and you will see that everything has a place.

With my blog, I haven’t had clear-cut plan to take me from point A to point B.  Do you ever feel like you’re dabbling in a little this and that to surround your blog with buzz?

This and that are not going to cut it.  Trust me.  I believe in trying everything before signing your blog off as no good and starting anew.  I also believe that everything must be organized.  What am I going to do?

I’m going to try to market myself and my blog one way every month.  I am going to spend time focusing on making one form of marketing work for me each month.  My blog will chart what I’m doing and the progress I make.

Any of you other bloggers out there claiming to do everything and not getting ahead are free to join me in this challenge.  I’m determined I will not fail.

What’s your plan for getting your blog heard?

—
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!!

7 Reasons Why Investing in an Internal Community Makes Solid Business Sense

by

(Updated in 2020)

10-POINT PLAN: A Foundation of Solid Thinking

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

A Good Business Values Customers; A Great Business Values Every Person Who Helps the Business Thrive

I once had the best job of a life-time, working for the best boss I could have ordered up in my wildest dreams. Our relationship brought out the best in each of us and that ethic was true throughout the entire company. The operation of that business was smooth, reliable, and totally centered on customers and how to serve them. In an industry that was experiencing 2-3% growth, we were doing 10 to 20 times that. Conversations were honest and thinking was naturally strategic.

We were a community on a quest.
We loved what we did and we were outstanding at doing it.

Love. Not like, enjoy, or get kick out of, but have a passion for, live for, hold in highest esteem.

Every company that wants to grow should have some of that.

Here’s how to explain the value of internal community to leadership in ways that shout ROI and make business sense.

Why a Loyal Internal Community Is Crucial to Every 21st Century Business

People perform amazing feats when they’ve got a quest, a cause, and a purpose. We rise to our better selves when we become part of a community dedicated to building something that no one of us could possibly build alone.

Why?

It’s how we’re wired as humans. We’re better when we’re inspired by deep feeling. We bring our best to whatever challenge we face. Any less is inauthentic, second-best, didn’t try, plan b, ho-hum, phone it in, stand in right field and let that pop-fly pass us by instead of saving the game . . . we might as well be out!

There’s a reason that so many folks — online, in IT, in academia, in every career — say the same thing. . . . find your passion, do what you love.

The people who understand passion and work are not promoting self-indulgence. When people do what they love they perform better, faster, and with more skill. When a community gathers around a common quest, they raise the performance bar even higher by supporting each other.

What Makes an Internal Community So Important Now?

Big brands and small businesses have been talking about building customer communities for a few years. Yet, it’s been proven that the way we treat our employees is the way they treat our customers. So, it only follows that the strongest community starts inside the business.

The high touch and high concept of community draws a company together around a single goal. What could attract and support brand evangelists better than that?

In his book, A Whole New Mind, Dan Pink points out that “high concept” and “high touch” values (design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning) are as important to business success in the 21st Century as linear thinking, detailed analysis, and spreadsheets.

In this global economy, conversation and relationships matter as much as schedule and budget do.

In plain and simple words, thinking and doing what everyone always has thought and done no longer work.

It’s time align our goals and values and invest in what we do together. That’s the only way to attract the best people — employees, partners, vendors, and customers. That’s the only way to be the best.

Rather than checking our personalities at the door, why not check out what a loyal internal community can do for a business that wants to build a brand that wins the loyalty of life-long customers and fans.

7 Reasons Why Investing in an Internal Community Makes Solid Business Sense

A community challenges us to bring our best to a situation. We invest in the community and they invest in us. And in that manner, we share our goals to build something that becomes a common cause. When we bring all of who we are, full engagement of head and heart, 7 deeper values and higher outcomes show up in our work.

1. Complete presence — focus. We’re all there — the all thinking business is no longer sufficient. The business is more well-rounded and friendly to the people who help it thrive. Computers can’t smile. Computers can’t listen to the spaces between words. People conceive, design, build, buy and talk what we sell.

2. Peak performance — productivity. A computer might work every minute achieving great computation effort, but it will only be as good as the people who program it and it will never over-achieve its programming. People invest more, do more, go further for the work we love. People connect to other people who are doing that.

3. Tolerance — perseverance. We have more patience, time, and energy for problem solving when we directly reap the benefits. Peter Drucker proved that money is a disincentive … it has the most effect when it’s not there or too small. What leads folks to achieve greatness is the payoffs that a loyal community offers: support, feedback, acknowledgment, sense of purpose.

4. Value and Appeal — compelling story. To compete a product or service has to be useful and beautiful. Simple and elegant, for to the adult and the kid in each one of us. Bringing logic and emotion to a business outdistances the world view of logic alone. Competence and great execution are expected. A loyal community builds in added value in how they tell the story, how they treat the product and the customers who buy it, and how they talk about the company as a value in their lives. What’s more appealing than working with someone who’s not only good but also loves his or her job?

5. Total Differentiation — identity. An internal community develops it’s own culture and identity. The uniqueness of that common bound shines through in concept and execution. The respect of a loyal community shows in everything it does. It becomes it’s own barrier to entry. The competition can’t knock that off.

6. Fully Invested and Worth Investing In — market value. Rolling all of the above values into one, nothing beats the 360 degree investment of brains, money, and dreams all in the same direction. Any financial firm worth its salt looks for that combination when funding a small business.

7. Sense of Worth — authority. Community builds authority. We value what we earn and what we love. That value telegraphs itself. It’s contagious. Customers, vendors, and partners pick it up as well.

Can you see why it’s only sense that a strong business would move to build the most supported internal community on the planet? A fiercely loyal internal community is a secret weapon that stands on its own.

Have you ever worked for or interacted with a business that was a community of loyal fans? What was your experience of that?

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

–ME “Liz” Strauss