How to overcome fear and enjoy the greatest success
Remember the scene in The Wizard of Oz that introduces The Cowardly Lion? The Tin Man and Scarecrow are terrified, and Dorothy is hiding behind a tree. When The Cowardly Lion takes off after Toto, it prompts Dorothy to jump out and give the lion a little bop on the nose. Instantly, The Cowardly Lion starts to sob and whine, showing his true colors. There’s a lesson in the initial response of The Tin Man and Scarecrow that has a near universal application: The objects of our fears are virtually always much bigger in our imaginations than they turn out to be in reality. I suppose this reflects both the curse and blessing of having a good imagination: Imagination allows us to conceive of great things, but it also allows us to inflate the magnitude of our fears. This fact of human nature prevents many small business owners from achieving all the success they’re capable of. In business, some common fears are: Fear of rejection or failure Fear of the unknown Fear of confrontation Each of these can manifest itself in many ways. Let’s look at some examples that touch on different areas of your business management and leadership. Fear of rejection or failure This fear often prevents sales professionals from achieving to their full potential. Growing sales success depends on developing new leads and new ways to sell to established leads. However, sales, like batting in the big leagues, is something of an exercise in failure. The best major league batters fail about seven out of ten times. When prospecting for new clients, the best sales professionals fail more often than they succeed as well. Too often, salespeople will begin to see the next prospect through a lens that magnifies the feeling of failure. Even if you understand prospects to the best of your ability and give the best presentation, you can’t guarantee that the end result will be a sale. However, you should be able to guarantee your response if no sale results. Do not allow your imagination to take off and run with the “failure,” because it will then be in a position to hold sway over your next move, or your next session with a prospect. How many sales professionals, after a disappointment, decide to “pack it in for the day”? Fear of the unknown Business owners and leaders can let the fear of the unknown keep them from expanding, forging new partnerships, and developing new products or services. Greatness is never achieved by always doing the safe thing or the strategy with the known outcome. I think we live in a wonderful time for finding examples that should motivate us to overcome the fear of the unknown. Let me ask you a simple question: Some 20 years ago, when Jeff Bezos was trying to figure out the best way to sell a Danielle Steele bestseller online, could you have imagined him trying to figure out the best way to send satellites into space? While they may not always be successful, we are blessed by daring, unconventional, thought leadership in business today. Join that group. While you might not want to send people to Mars, there are certainly some industry, geographical, or organizational limits you need to smash through. Fear of confrontation Small business owners...
read moreThis week in small business: Be productive like Musk!
Reach those supposedly unreachable Millennials, know when to step aside at your startup, and stay productive à la Elon Musk. Those are merely three of the great articles you’ll discover this week’s collection of curated content. Leadership, management, and productivity Heidi Burkhart, President and Founder of Dane Real Estate is the subject in this edition of Laura Emily Dunn’s series on women in business. Speaking of women in business, there’s some encouraging news from the island of Jamaica, reports Romario Scott. Look over Annie Pilon’s 10 Ways to Prepare Your Business for the Future to be sure you’re all set! It just might be possible…Increase employee productivity without financial outflow, by Diana Smith. Shoot for the moon – or Mars! You’ll learn how Elon Musk and two other successful leaders manage to stay productive in Zameena Mejia’s article. Peter Daisyme gives us a good list of five books every entrepreneur should read this summer. Who better for crisis management secrets than a two-star general? (Okay, maybe a three- or four-star general, but you get the idea.) We all eventually need this advice so check out Rob Starr’s article now. Marketing and sales Tere Scott gives seven solid tips that will help you create an effective logo for your small business. To learn about influencer marketing, why not go to a guy who is an influencer in the field of influencer marketing? That’s exactly what Deep Patel does in this Forbes article. Also on this topic is Dhani Mau’s piece that asks if we should all be influencers. If you think organic search is something vegans do, you need to get up to speed on the basics. This SEO article by AJ Agrawal will do it. If you’re more advanced, you’ll want to learn how to use Semantic SEO as explained by Wells Yu. It’s a question every small business owner asks: Will my company’s social media efforts pay off? Ruby Rusine does a good job addressing the answers in her Business2Community article. Need inspiration AND instruction? Then Cen Muruganandam’s article, 7 Digital Marketing Tips and a Success Story, will do it. Writing for the Bplans blog, Jessica Thiefels outlines five small business marketing ideas for every holiday. Joey Kercher offers interesting advice on how to reach Millennials in his article, Reaching The Unreachable: How Experiential Marketing Targets Brand-Savvy Millennials. Entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation Blogging and fashion. Those both sound good, don’t they? Steve Mariotti profiles a young entrepreneur who has made those two fields work for her. In entrepreneurship, the next move is always yours, says Kayvon K. In the South Korean tech startup EverYoung all the employees are over the age of 55. Nicola Smith tells the story. Learn from the mistakes of others: 5 Important Small Business Lessons from Recent Startup Failures. David Fastuca tackles the tough question of when an entrepreneur should release the reins. Politics, government, and the economy There are a lot of articles written on the best and worst states for business, but when you get right down to it, there are probably none more unbiased than Raymond Keating’s Small Business Tax Index 2017, which lists the best to worst states for entrepreneurship and small business. Writing for CNBC, Elizabeth Gurdus reports that Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein says global statistics...
read moreUber failure and the primacy of company culture
One of my favorite Despair Demotivator posters is titled “Mistakes”and it pictures a sinking ship with the tagline: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others. It’s not a new idea. In one of the oldest books in the Bible, Deuteronomy, it says, “You will become an occasion of horror, a proverb, and an object of ridicule to all the peoples to whom the Lord will drive you.” I’m wondering if that’s how Uber’s former CEO, Travis Kalanick, has been feeling lately. After a long series of startling public revelations about Kalanick’s bad, boorish, and sometimes contemptible personal behavior, the young gun had to resign in shame. He first tried the standard “leave of absence” ploy to buy himself some time and get positioned to retake the helm. However, it seems that investors wouldn’t stand for it and they soon pushed him out. Bad boy, bad culture I’m sharing this story because it illustrates a flip side of the “company culture” story we have often told on these pages. I’ve pointed you toward a variety of companies, praising their positive culture, and making the important point that culture starts at the top and has to be carefully cultivated. The culture at Uber has, apparently, been the opposite of positive. Currently it’s being categorized as Animal-House-Meets-Unicorn-Tech-Startup. The label most observers are giving its culture is “frat boy.” Kalanick famously ripped into an Uber driver like a spoiled brat and, of course, the video made its way onto the Internet. An internal memo from Kalanick outlining the do’s and don’ts governing inter-employee sex-capades on a company outing was also published on the social media. This kind of behavior from the top sets the tone for the rest of the team. The bottom line While a healthy culture can do a lot to position a company for success, a bad culture can set it up for failure and this is what investors were beginning to see. Writing for Tech Crunch, Connie Loizos details how Uber’s value on the secondary market is slipping. While investors have given it a $68 billion value (on paper), actual secondary market trades put it at $50 billion. Further, as Uber’s fortunes are sinking, things are looking much brighter for its main rival, Lyft. Loizos reports that the Avis of ride sharing recently received $600 million in new funding. Quick question: Do you think the leaders at Lyft have learned a few things as they’ve watched Uber self destruct? I think they have and I’ll fall off my soapbox if I ever hear of similar transgressions at Lyft. Universal lessons You should learn some things from Kalanick’s travails as well: Be cordial, friendly, supportive, and encouraging to employees, but don’t cross any line that would make your behavior unprofessional. There is no such thing as private correspondence today. Kalanick – and President Trump – have learned this the hard way. Be tough, but don’t be a jerk. Don’t abuse your position or think that you’re too big to fail (or be replaced). Fail on any of these and you can do severe damage to your company culture, and this damage will eventually bleed over into your potential for success. Don’t make yourself a living warning...
read moreEnhance your success: Take your dog to work.
Today is Take Your Dog to Work Day. The annual event was founded by Pet Sitters International to encourage employers to consider the benefits of pets in the workplace. Head over to their website and you’ll find a downloadable action pack that gives you a ton of background, great ways to convince people of the event’s worthiness and planning tips. There is a considerable amount of research that shows allowing dogs in the workplace reduces stress, enhances morale, increases productivity and ultimately profitability. ?Some studies show that it also creates more collaboration at work. It could also improve the health of your team. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites dozens of animal experts who report that pets can decrease blood pressure and cholesterol levels as well as increase opportunities for exercise and socialization. As one former Google employee noted that bringing his dog to work helped keep his energy up, brought joy to co-workers and helped him meet people he probably wouldn’t have met otherwise. Many small businesses are becoming pet-friendly work environments as a unique benefit they can offer to their employees. Small companies can’t compete with the big benefit packages larger companies offer, but there are a lot of animal lovers who would prefer being able to bring their furry companion to work to a big package of perks. So how to you make this work in your small business? Get Your Team on Board. First, you have to get buy-in from your staff. Check with your employees to make sure their aren’t serious allergies or people who are simply afraid of animals. Then you’ll need to establish guidelines for your pet-friendly program. Here are some things to consider. Types of Animals. You may not make the program available open to all types of animals. Do you really want someone bringing in their beloved pet Boa Constrictor? Make a list of what types of animals are allowed. Also, prohibit sick and dirty animals, and pets that aren’t socialized. Size may be an issue, as well as behavior. Dogs that are constantly barking may be a disturbance for your team. Establish Appropriate Areas. Not all workplaces are conducive to a pet-friendly environment. Establish parameters as to what areas of the office pets will be allowed. You may want to create pet-free zones — areas that are off-limits to pets. Small Dog Electronics in Vermont allows dogs in the warehouse area and corporate offices, but not in the retail store. Customers may not be appreciative of your furry staff Clean up. Pets should be house-broken but accidents happen. Make sure employees understand they must clean-up after their animals. Keep appropriate cleaning products on hand in your office. Trained or Contained. To keep dogs from getting out of control they should be trained to stay with their owner or they should have a travel bag the animal can rest in should the owner need to leave their work area without their pet. My dog has a little Sherpa travel bag he loves. Insurance Coverage. Check with your insurance agent to make sure your insurance coverage would protect you from liability should someone be injured by an animal in your workplace. Policing. Create a committee to police the program. Some companies have a three strikes you’re out rule. If...
read moreContent Marketing/SEO Success: Two Places to Gather Business Intelligence
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Microsoft Office for IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine. Ready! Fire! Aim! The order of those commands may seem patently silly, but frankly, they capture exactly what many small business owners do when they work with content marketing campaigns and search engine optimization (SEO). First we need to quickly explain that content marketing and SEO are, in many ways, “kissing cousins.” Good content marketing campaigns – especially those that involve posting articles to your website blog – will help improve your website’s position within search engine results pages (SERPs). But what’s required to make a “good” content marketing campaign? Good content? No. “Great” content, and creating great content starts well before you ever put one word down in whatever word processing software you use. Unfortunately, most small business owners I talk to believe that if they have a “good idea” for a blog, they just need to get to their computer, pour it out and post it. That’s “Ready! Fire!” There is no “aim” in that sequence. So the question becomes: How do you “aim” your content so that it is effective for content marketing and improving your website SEO? Answering this question moves us into an area of business intelligence. If you don’t approach content creation by first doing your homework and gathering accurate business intelligence, you’re simply rolling the dice on whether or not your content will do anything to improve your SERP or sales. There are two basic areas where you need to gather business intelligence when you’re about to create a content marketing/SEO piece, such as a blog article: * What attracts your prospects, and * What works for your competitors. You should have website history that tells you which content best attracts prospects and customers to your site. What pieces of content have logged the most views? Dig a little deeper when you answer this question. You might find that you have some content that isn’t at the very top of your list of popular articles yet, but it consistently brings in readers or viewers. When this happens, it means that the content is pulling in people without being supported by a crash social media promotional campaign. In other words, people are finding it organically. You may have discovered a “diamond in the rough.” If you create more content like this, promote it, and cross link it to the original content that you discovered, you may find that you’ve released the (organic website) Kraken! The principle here is simple: Find what works and do more of it! But this means that you need to spend a good amount of time looking through your website history before you ever start writing an article. If you invest this time, you should be able to come up with a list of promising article topics. For my second point above: What works for your closest competitors should also work for you. Your competitors may have found some keywords or topics that interest your prospects that you haven’t yet developed on your website. Buzzsumo SimilarWeb There are paid versions of these, but you can gather some good business intelligence on your competitors with their more limited free tools. Use them to discover the most popular articles in the...
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