I’ve been on a kick lately to collect older movies – movies that I remember as influential or just entertaining from ‘formative’ years (which probably are still going on now that I think about it).

Some of them have held up better than others (I watched the director’s cut of The Warriors recently and I was really disappointed – there are some great scenes, but it didn’t really pull together the way I remember it in college!).

Anyway, one movie that actually was better than I remembered it (and I liked it a lot the first time around) was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  With John Hughes recently passing away, I was inspired to find this and relive one of the best movies of the 80’s.

There are a lot of things Ferris can teach us – even 20+ years later.

Confidence:

The reason Ferris is so compelling – both to the viewers and to all the people he interacts with is because he has boundless confidence – in himself and how the world works. 

A person should not believe in an "-ism," he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, "I don’t believe in Beatles, I just believe in me."

Ferris has a plan.  He’s going places, making things happen – even with some slips along the way, he continues to believe in himself.

Friendship:

Ferris didn’t take the day off for himself – he did it for Cameron (his best friend).

Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you’d have a diamond.

Cameron has a lot of issues, but Ferris knows he has to shake him up and get him to see there’s more to life than just stress!

Hey, Cameron. You realize if we played by the rules right now we’d be in gym?

Perspective:

Probably the biggest takeaway for me  (when I saw it the first time and when I watched it again) is that you have to have fun with what you’re doing – other wise what’s the point?  And if you’re having fun, being creative – there’s really no limit to what you can do and how people will respond to you.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

That’s a lesson to live by – what’s your favorite part of the movie?  Share your thoughts below, I’d love to hear them.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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Regardless of the type of business you’re in, the last 2 or 3 years have been a challenge, including the longest recession since 1929.  The good news is there are a lot of positive signs that the economy, led by small business, is ready to take off.

How do you make sure that your business takes off as well?  There’s one key ingredient that has to be there (the absence of it is the leading cause of business failures).

You have to actively plan for growth (and take action on that plan)!

Yes you have to have money, great people, solid ideas – but it all starts with a plan that makes sense…to you, to your employees, to the bank – whoever needs to know.  A plan that’s inspiring and actionable…and one that you actually do take action on!

As a business owner, or an entrepreneur you know how important it is to plan, but if you’re like most people it’s almost impossible to routinely find the time to be able to catch your breath, much less work on big picture planning.  What can you do?

It’s a classic problem – how do you find more time in the day. You’re a business owner, an entrepreneur, and you are responsible for everything when it comes to your business. Here’s the bottom line – if you’re not setting aside at least a few hours a week for planning and strategy, you are ultimately going to fail.   The good news is that it doesn’t have to be rocket science. 

Here are 4 steps that will get planning into your weekly routine.

1. Make planning a priority

One of the biggest problems most entrepreneurs have is an aversion to planning. They’re action oriented and they want to be in the thick of things, fighting fires and making things happen. All of those are great traits, but without planning and strategy it’s like having a car with a great engine and wheels, but no way to steer.

You might be going somewhere fast, but you don’t know where and you don’t have any control over the road you’re taking. However if you can take some time to plan, map out a smoother route and keep improving your car your chances for long term success go up immensely.

Make planning a priority.  Don’t just talk about it or think about it, make it a top priority!

2. Get it scheduled…in writing

Now that you are on board that planning’s important, then you need to treat it that way. If you had a major client that was paying you to do something for them, you would build that time into your schedule – in fact you would build your schedule around that major client.

Your time for planning needs to be the same way. Block out at least a couple of hours each week and treat it like a top priority client meeting that can’t be missed. By having it in writing (and sharing it with your staff) you are much more likely to actually do it.

3. Be productive

When you’re taking the time to plan, you need to make sure it’s productive (otherwise you’ll stop doing it). Split your time between establishing long term goals and plans and identifying the short term constraints that are currently holding you back.

The long term view will help you focus and prioritize on what’s important. The shorter term view will focus on solving the problems and issues that are causing all of the day to day fires and constraining your progress. By doing both, you will generate short term and long term benefits that will keep you motivated and continuing to plan and implement both the short term and long term improvements.

4. Be held accountable

Finally a plan, whether it’s long term or short term, doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t actually get implemented. Here are a few things to keep in mind when you’re planning:

- Build in specific and measurable goals as part of your plans.

- Make sure you have a way to track your progress against those goals

- Work with someone else: a partner, a coach, a mentor or a peer to hold yourself accountable for delivering on the plans. At a gym, the people that are mostly likely to hit their goals are the ones working with a trainer – partly because they get new ideas and they’re knowledgeable but also because the trainer will hold them accountable.

Planning for your business doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does need to be done if you’re going to have long term success. What can you do this week to get started on a regular planning regimen? 

I work with business owners to help them figure out how to get their businesses to lift-off and key part of that is helping them develop and implement plans that challenge them and actually get done.  If you’re interested in learning more about how I might be able to help you, contact me for a free strategy consultation to see if it might be a fit for you.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on planning – what works?  what doesn’t work?  Share your thoughts below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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Professionals don’t get much coverage when it comes to using social media and at first glance (or two) it’s not obvious how those that are in the B2B marketplace could successfully use social media for their business.

I was doing a social media presentation earlier this week to a group of business owners and a couple of questions came up that I get a lot.

The first question was triggered by covering several examples of businesses successfully using Facebook and Twitter to promote their businesses:  “Can you show us a good example of a Business to Business company using social media for their business?”.

The second question was kind of related to the first one, but it had a bit of a different spin to it:  “We only sell to other businesses and for us it’s all about building relationships – how does that fit into all of this technology?”.

They’re both good questions – most of the discussion / press / examples of social media tends to focus on business to consumer types of businesses – and even more specifically it’s the type of B2C business that people get excited or emotional about (photography – especially kids, food, entertainment, clothes, etc.).

However there are great ways to use social media for business to business situations – let’s take a look at a few ideas:

Use social media to engage clients and prospects!

The social aspect of social media is a great way to connect with friends, family, people you used to work with or go to school with, but in a similar fashion it can also be used to engage your clients and prospects.

Linkedin was designed and built to support business networking…only online.  Let’s say you meet a great prospect at a networking event.  You hit it off, have a strong introductory conversation and agree to get together for coffee in a few days.  A logical follow-up to that coffee discussion would to be link on LinkedIn which will allow both of you to keep in touch and learn more about each other.

People buy from people that they Know, Like and Trust and by continuing and furthering a real life relationship online by engaging on LinkedIn, you will accelerate or enable that process.

See what your contacts on LinkedIn are talking about (status updates, questions they are asking or answering, groups they’re participating in).  Initiate activity by asking or answering questions on your own, providing the occasional status update or responding to what other people are doing.  Share the books you’re reading, events you’re interested in or post a presentation.  All of these are great ways to stay in front of and engage the people that you’re connected to.

Engage by educating

The other great way to promote yourself, engage clients, prospects and partners is to create interesting or educational content and share it with social media.  A great example of this in an extremely Business to Business situation is the Signal Integrity blog, which is written by a product manager at Agilent to promote their highly technical product (Signal Integrity refers to the network engineering benefit their product provides…I think).  The readers are other engineers in the industry who get an inside view on what Agilent is doing and why.  It puts a human face on a technical product and educates them on details that might not be obvious from a standard website (it also helps immensely with Search Engine Optimization which was the biggest driver to create it in the first place).

Another example would be Jonathan Kranz and the Content Marketing Playbook.  I started following Jonathan on Twitter because I thought his stuff was interesting and worthwhile and I wanted to make sure that I could keep up with him.  A few weeks later I happened to catch a tweet from him about a new eBook that he just released – it’s educational, it’s well written and I got something out of it.  I’ve never met Jonathan, but because I’ve been able to read his blog and his materials, I feel like I know him well enough to be able to recommend him to people I do know….and isn’t that really what you’re looking for?

Business to Business examples of Social Media aren’t as flashy as a lot of the consumer ideas (have you seen the really cool example of the BakerTweet product out of London?).  But a big reason they aren’t as flashy is that business to business success is driven by relationships…relationships take time and they aren’t driven by a flashy twitter strategy, they’re driven by genuinely engaging with people over time.

How could you (or do you) use social media for your business to business professional setting?  I’d love to hear some more stories and examples or just your thoughts – share them below.

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach

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“If a good reputation is like Gold, then having Integrity is like owning the mine.”  John C. Maxwell / Jim Dornan – Becoming a Person of Influence

I had a great opportunity to sit in on a Core Advocates training session this morning that focused on the importance of Reputation when it comes to building your business by word of mouth.  I’m going to be doing some work with the Core Advocates team in the future and I’m impressed with what the ‘core’ ideas behind the training.

Reputation is a critical part of anyone’s business success (or success overall), but how often do you actually hear anyone talk about it or take the time to really think through what their reputation actually is and what they’d like it to be?

Your reputation is up for discussion every single day.  “I’m looking for a good plumber…do you know one?”  “I’m going to that new restaurant on Metcalf this weekend – what did you think of it?”  People will talk, and with the explosion of Social Media, they have an easy platform to share their opinions and they’re doing more than ever.

Do you know what your reputation is? 

There are several reasons why Reputation is critical – the obvious one is that people won’t do business with an individual or business that has a known bad reputation (shoddy products, unfair dealings, poor customer service, etc.).

Just as important, people will not refer someone they believe has a bad reputation – in fact, they are much more likely to tell others about a bad experience than a good experience, especially in the age of the internet!

On the flip side, if you can demonstrate a positive reputation – if people get to Know, Like and Trust you (even if it’s outside of work) they will consider doing business with you and they will refer you!  Think about the implications of that…social contacts, neighbors, parents that are at your kids games – all of them have the opportunity to experience your character, even if it’s outside of a work setting and if they like what they see they will jump on your bandwagon – possibly doing business with you or referring others.

Reputation Audit

List out all the characteristics that you are looking for when you do business personally or professionally.  Most people would include things like honesty, integrity, professionalism, friendly, helpful, etc.

Now – picture yourself at work…do you exhibit all of the traits that you expect from others?  Picture yourself out at a restaurant, a bar, your church, a crowded parking lot on a hot day…do you still exhibit all of the traits that you’d like to be known for?

Contrary to what Corporate Brand managers would have you believe, reputation only comes from the actions you take.  You might tell me what a great business you are, but I’m going to judge you based on what you do – not only at the workplace, but everywhere else as well.

“You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.” – Henry Ford

What do you want to be known for?  What are you specifically doing to make that happen?  Is being yourself enough or do you need to consciously push yourself towards the reputation you want? 

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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Search Engine Optimization has become a mystical term, invoking the idea of wizards laboring in their lofty towers to get websites onto the first page of Google.

The reality is that SEO for really competitive online sites is an arcane art and if your business is going up against the big boys then you need to seek out professional help. 

However if you are a typical small business and you are in a well defined, narrow niche or you’re in a contained geographic area then there are a couple of basic SEO principles that will make a world of difference to you and won’t cost an arm and a leg to implement.

The challenge I’ve had is how to explain these basics to business owners that don’t know HTML, don’t want to know HTML and really don’t want to get bogged down in the details.  Here’s my attempt – let me know what you think.

Think of Google as a Giant Library…in fact it’s the largest library in the world!

Instead of physical books, this library is made up of virtual ‘pages’, each of them like a book on the shelf of the library.

Google wants to make it’s users happy!

Google makes money (lots of money) because 64% of all searches happen on Google – giving them the leverage to charge a lot of money for ads and other stuff.

However those users only continue to use Google if they get what they want when they’re searching.  So Google wants to make the users happy and the best way to do that is delivering search results that best answer what the user is searching for.

Therefore Google has to understand what all of the books (web pages) are about so they can find the best responses depending on what was searched for.  (With me so far?)

Back to Google being a library

Just like at a library – if you wanted to know what a book was about, the first thing you would do is look at the title of the book (the title of the web page).  If the title is “Great Burgers in Kansas City” then Google would assume the book is about Great Burgers…in Kansas City.

The next step to identify what the book is about is to crack it open and look at the Table of Contents section.  What are the chapters in the book about?  For a web page, the equivalent to a Chapter or Section title is a Header Tag – specifically a Header 1 (H1) or Header 2 (H2) tag. 

Using our example, it would be likely to assume there would be a chapter titled “Best cheeseburgers in the Kansas City Metro area” or maybe “Unusual burgers found in KC”.

Finally – the last thing that Google will do is thumb through the book and glance through the content.  Does it look like it’s a book about burgers in Kansas City?  For Google to really be comfortable, there should be a lot of content that would support the chapter titles and the book title.

Where Google isn’t as much of a library

The other thing that makes Google comfortable that a web page is important (and helps determine what it’s about) is based on the number of other web pages that point to a web site with a link…and how they  point to it.  Ideally other sites would setup a link that says Learn about Great Burgers in Kansas City.

The more sites that point to a page, especially if they’re related to the content overall, the more important that page or site becomes to Google and the higher up it will rank for searches on topics related to the title.

What most sites look like to Google – the reality!

Most small business books (web sites) that are out there either don’t have a title or the title is the name of the business…or sometimes even just the word ‘Title’.  So if your business is BFD and Associates and that’s all you’ve got in your title tag, all Google can do is assume that your book is about BFD and Associates (whatever that is).

Then Google opens your book and there’s nothing in the Table of Contents – there are no Header tags anywhere!  Now Google really isn’t sure what your site is about.

Finally – Google flips through your book – maybe there are a lot of words, but nothing really stands out…as far as Google is concerned, your book is about…NOTHING!

I don’t have actual numbers, but I would bet that 90% or more of small business websites don’t have Titles that reflect what the site is about (Keywords), Header Tags that support the Title and reinforce the keywords and content that additionally reinforces those same keywords.

The really great news about basic SEO!

Because almost no one does it right and most of your competitors don’t understand that Google is a library – if you can make a few small changes to your site, you will quickly start moving up the search results, without expensive black magic!  Here are some Quick Tips to get started:

1. Come up with at least 3 keywords for your home page that you think your best customers would use to search for your services.  That could be something like Peer Group Advisory Board or Kansas City Small Business Accounting.
2. Add those keywords to your Title Tag for your home page (it may be difficult to get 3 of them in there, especially if they’re longer, but do what you can).
3. Create headers on your home page content using H1 and H2 tags as natural descriptions for sections of your page.  Use the identified keywords in those sections.
4. Add those same keywords into the overall content on that page.  They should show up at least 3 or 4 times on the page – but make sure the page doesn’t sound stupid when you read it.  This is not more important than readability!
5. Don’t use flash or scripts as your home page (or only use it in 1 section) – it may look interesting but to Google, that’s like have a book without any pages.  You will get NO credit for search if there’s no readable content.

Start looking at your websites or your competitors websites and see how your book reads to Google.  (Try right clicking on your browser page and ‘View Source’ to see the code for your page – you don’t have to understand all of it, just look for Title and H1 or H2).

Does this description make sense?  Send me an email (skinkade at aspirekc.com) to request an article that gets into more detail on this idea – I’d love to hear from you (or post to the comments below)!

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach (letting Google know who I am)!

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Halloween is just around the corner, which means it’s time to start thinking about carving pumpkins.  I remember learning how to carve a pumpkin around our kitchen table from my parents and older brothers.  There was always an element of creativity in terms of the design and certainly some of us were better than others in terms of drawing or actually cutting, but overall we used a consistent system to create our art.

Now imagine that you want to create a really cool Jack O’Lantern this Halloween, but you don’t have a clear process or system for how to do that.  You’ve seen the end result, but you’ve never actually gone through any steps…and in fact you don’t even know what steps there might be!

Odds are your pumpkin is going to look more like road kill than a cool, scary design!  Without a systematic process, you’re stuck with making it up as you go and even though it’s not that hard (once you know how to do it) there are lots of points where you can trash your pumpkin if you do it wrong.

The importance of a system

When I talk to business owners about the importance of using systems in their business, they usually get a look of dread on their face, thinking about all the work that it will take to create all of their systems.  Although it may be a pain up front – good systems can mean the difference between success and failure in the long run!

A system will keep you focused.

A lot of business owners will ‘do’ marketing without a system – which results in an approach of marketing du jour.  This week it’s direct mail.  Next month it’s social media.  The month after that, maybe it’s networking.  But without a clear plan and a system to stay on track, there’s no clear focus.

A system will keep you consistent

Your clients want your best work, but more than anything, they want to deliver to their expectations…consistently.  That’s true whether it’s you delivering or one of your employees.  Without a system, any consistency is either going to be luck or an awful lot of oversight and rework.

A system will let you improve

Without a system, it’s impossible to make long term improvements to anything that you do within your business.  Without a system, the next time you do something (marketing tactic, creating your product, paying your bills, etc.) you will do it at least slightly differently than you did before – losing the great idea you had for improvement.  With a system you have a clear baseline and improving isn’t a big deal.

Examples of a System

Systems don’t have to be overly complex – here’s a high level description of the system I use to send out my newsletter (register here if you’re not currently getting it):

1. During the month create at least 1 foundation article in my blog to use for the newsletter.
2. At the end of the month, copy over the template from last month’s newsletter and update all of the issue specific information (date, etc.).
3. Add all new contacts collected through the month into the mailing list in Constant Contact.
4. Create a theme / headline / key message for the month.  Include a quote or two that supports the theme and write the introductory paragraphs and header information.
5. Decide if the newsletter needs to promote any particular offers or activities (i.e. special offers to clients or prospects, upcoming workshops, networking events, etc.).  Add special promos if necessary.
6. Create the main article, including a picture and reworking the introductory paragraph from the blog if necessary for readability or length.  Link to the blog.
7. Create a short article on a business resource that readers would find helpful.  Include image (same size as other images).  Optional – link to the blog.
8. Create a short article on interesting or fun pop culture topic. Include image (same size as other images)
9. Review and rewrite close and P.S. to drive any desired actions.
10. Preview and correct any issues – schedule for the morning of the first Tuesday of the month for delivery.

There’s a lot of leeway for different ideas and creativity within this system, but I could hand the steps above over to someone else and they could create a newsletter that’s very similar to what I do every month.

The system for carving a pumpkin can be equally simple – but using that system will save you a lot of time, heartache and extra pumpkins!

Do you have clearly thought out, documented systems for all aspects of your business?  If you’re like most business owners, the answer is no! – Contact me if you’re interested in learning more about how to actually go about systematizing your business.  It’s the key to freedom and success.

What do you think about systems?  Share your thoughts below – I’d love to hear them.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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We all love buying something with a great guarantee – it takes the risk out of an unproven product, it gives you confidence that the vendor really stands behind their work and it generates a lot of credibility that you are getting what you pay for.

Guarantees are a great thing…for the buyer, but not the seller…right?

Wrong! – Guarantees are great for both the buyers and the seller!

We had a great discussion this morning at one of my Peer Group Advisory Board meetings about one of the business owners rolling out a guarantee as part of his latest marketing campaign.  It was a tough topic with lots of things to consider.

Guarantees are scary things!

In this particular situation, the product is a service that’s delivered over a period of time (think training) and the overall success in large part is driven by the actions (or lack of action) by the customer.  Kind of a ‘you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink’ kind of thing.

If you look at a case by case basis, there’s no way to guarantee results for any given individual – what if they don’t pay attention?  What if they aren’t very smart?  What if they intentionally screw up?

However this client had almost 2 years worth of results that showed clients improved an average of 28% when going through his process!  Additionally, like many small business owners, client satisfaction wasn’t just a buzzword, this guy practically kills himself making sure his clients are getting the best of everything.

In short – he’s a perfect candidate for a guarantee because he’s already doing all the work that you need to do (and getting the results) to keep your customers happy, he just wasn’t getting any of the credit for all of that hard work!

As we talked through the idea, the rest of us could visualize the headline and the excitement but the business owner in question became more and more uncomfortable.  What if everyone decided to take advantage of the guarantee?  Studies have shown that the number of returns on products that are of reasonable quality is very low.  In this case, working with hundreds of clients, there had been less than a handful of serious complaints, but the fear of a run of money back is a scary one when cash flow is tight (and cash flow is almost always tight!).

Now – think about your business, your products or services…do you offer (and highly publicize) a guarantee?  If not, does it make you nervous to think about it?

Points to consider for a worthwhile guarantee

The best thing, in small businesses guarantees are often uncommon.  If you’re feeling nervous, your competitors are feeling exactly the same way.  If there aren’t many visible guarantees, then it’s a great way to stand out (and if there are a lot, you probably need one just to keep up).

Guarantees should be straightforward and have minimal fine print.

Guarantees should cover the results / outcome your customers are interested in the most (which may be different than what you’re selling) – see a great summary of what I mean in this article by Kevin Donlin on How to create a winning guarantee!

Your guarantee should be as specific as possible – ideally it should be something that can be measured objectively.

You don’t have to offer money back (although that’s probably the strongest position), you can also offer credits on future services, offer to make it right, etc.  If you’re up for it, make it memorable – something that people will really talk about (which is really the point).

Make sure that if you do have to honor your guarantee that it’s cheerful and hassle free.

When you’re just getting started, test out different guarantees to see which one gets the most response.

Make sure your guarantee is in writing – and in fact, make a big deal out of it.  You do great work, you’re standing behind it anyway – let people know and get more customers!

Start thinking guarantee!

Why go to all the trouble (and the perceived risk) of putting together a guarantee?  Because you could substantially increase your business!  Companies like L.L. Bean, Nordstrom or Eddie Bauer all had crazy growth – in large part of their no questions asked guaranteed return policy.

My client’s going to give it a try – let me know if you’d like an update once he’s given it a shot.  I think it will be a big deal, but the proof will be in the results.

I offer ‘Risk Free’ coaching – if for any reason you aren’t happy with what we’re doing, you can get a full refund on your first month, no questions asked.  I’ve considered some other ideas, but I haven’t landed on anything just yet.

Do you have a guarantee?  Have you thought about creating one?  I’d love to hear your thoughts or stories – share them in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach

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Imagine that all of the money, influence and power in your world is a pie (apple in this case).  Now imagine hundreds…no thousands…of people in your industry, your geographic space, your niche of business all vying for their piece of that pie!  There is no way there’s enough pie to go around – if you’re going to get the pie you need it’s clear that you need to step on people, be ruthless and constantly be looking out for yourself.  You must win at all costs!

Sound overblown?  Unfortunately it’s not – it’s called a scarcity mentality and most people default to this mentality unless they actively guard against it.  Here’s Stephen Covey’s take (from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Habit #4 Think Win-Win):

Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality….

The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life. People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit – even with those who help in the production. The also have a a very hard time being genuinely happy for the success of other people.

It’s an insidious problem because it gets worse with fear, so if you start to struggle in your business, you will shift to more of a scarcity mindset, which brings on more fear, less collaboration and ultimately makes all the problems worse! 

You start looking at all transactions as a Win-Lose proposition – you have to win and the other person has to lose (‘cause there’s only so much to go around).  However Win-Lose relationships aren’t sustainable and you’ll soon find yourself alone against the world wondering why everyone has turned on you!

Overall it’s a pretty bleak picture (especially since we started with apple pie!).

Or…you could think abundance and Win-Win!

Here’s what Covey has to say about the abundance mentality:

The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flow out of a deep inner sense of personal worth and security. It is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity.

Ultimately that sounds like a whole lot more fun and it positions you for long term success, great relationships with other people and the ability to follow your passions and believe that good things can happen!

An abundance mentality is a choice – not that it’s easy to just start looking at things a new way, but if you work at it and really focus on developing only Win-Win scenarios, you can change your outlook.

What to look for?

How you can you recognize if you’re stuck in a scarcity mentality?  Here are a few things to look for:

1.  You spend more time worrying about your competition than about your customers.

2.  You’re in a networking group and extremely concerned that a new member of the group is going to overlap with what you do and take your referrals.

3.  You refuse to share ideas, resources or your connections with anyone else – regardless of whether they are sharing with you.

4.  You worry constantly about whether you’re good enough or whether you’ll have enough.

5.  You constantly look at how hard things are and why you can’t do things.

6.  You fear change, other people, pretty much anything that’s not the status quo.

Do you notice this with anyone around you?  It may be difficult at first to notice it in yourself, but I would challenge you to periodically see if you’re slipping into ‘scarcity’ mode.

What can you do about it?

As mentioned above, the first step is to be aware that you have choices and you can consciously work on having a Win-Win approach and an abundance mentality.  A couple of months ago I wrote about a great book called Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, she talks about Fixed and Growth mindsets (and how to migrate to a Growth mindset).  It’s not exactly the same thing, but it’s related and can move you forward.

Secondly, start hanging around with can-do people that have the right mentality.  If you start noticing people that are around you have the wrong approach – do the hard thing and stop hanging out with them (even if they’re friends and family)!  Relationships can be poisonous or they can be uplifting…you get to choose.

Start challenging yourself to consistently to ask “how can we make this work for both of us?” , “What can I do to help you?” and to look for the successes and positives rather than the failures..

Fear and scarcity ultimately leads to regrets, struggles and failures.  It doesn’t sound like a great way to go…so why does it seem like so many people are stuck there?  I’d love to hear your thoughts – share them below.

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach

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Photo by Adam Pniak

These days more than ever it’s critical that your business stands out from the crowd (for the right reasons).

Recent studies show that an ever growing majority of people are turning to the internet first to solve their problems and buy solutions, services and products.  Specifically they’re using search engines like Google.

They’re looking for you, but if they can’t find you…if you’re not standing out, then they’ll go with who ever they can find and you’ll be out a customer opportunity (and an easy one at that since they were ready to buy when they started looking).

The good news is that most small businesses aren’t doing a very good job at building an online presence.  For most businesses owners the bar is pretty low – if you do just a couple of things on purpose you could find yourself on the first page of Search Engine results when those customers come a searching.  A little creativity and some focus could be all it takes to really ramp up your lead generation.

Below are 8 examples of different ways to stand out online – real businesses, real examples that you can steal borrow from.  What could you start doing with your business to stand out?

1.  Develop a viral video!

Blendtec makes high end blenders.  A few years ago, the CEO of Blendtec noticed some of his R&D engineers cleaning up a huge mess.  It turns out they had decided to try blending some wood (2×4’s) just to see what would happen.  The end result was a mess of sawdust and very blended wood!  Sensing some cool possibilities, the CEO asked them to do it again – this time with a camera running and the WillItBlend campaign was born. 

Over the years they’ve blended everything from an iPhone to a bunch of glow sticks with 90 videos posted to date (each at about 3 minutes or less and many of them will millions of views).  This is the only marketing that Blendtec has done for several years and despite a tough economy and an expensive product, their sales have gone up steadily every single year!

2. Move up in the search rankings with a blog!

Search engines love blogs – a blog will supply your website with fresh content that’s (ideally) built around keywords and ideas that your customers are looking for.  In fact one study discovered websites with blogs are getting 55% more traffic than their blogless counterparts.

One great example is the Signal Integrity blog written by Colin Warwick, a product manager with Agilent.  Signal Integrity is the premium keyword for the product that Colin is responsible for, but unfortunately his company website was showing up on page 5 of the Google search results – prompting him to jump into his own blog to start improving the search results.  And improve they did, moving from spot 44 up to the top 5 spots.  You can read more details on all the benefits on an interview he did at WebInkNow.

3.  Educate the old fashioned way

Social Media marketing doesn’t have to be about high tech – Lehman’s is a catalog company that’s been around for 54 years and started out targeting the Amish community in Ohio.  Here’s how Multichannel Merchant describes Lehman’s product lines:

The Kidron, OH-based marketer sells old-fashioned, non-electric merchandise from oil lamps and Amish-made wood toys to soap-making supplies and butter churns.

The starting point is the Lehman’s Country Life blog, the single largest driver of traffic to the website, augmented by educational videos on Youtube and a Facebook group that’s used as a focus group for the business.

4.  Promote your product via Twitter

Kogi BBQ in Los Angeles is one of my favorite Social Media success stories.  It’s self described as Korean BBQ but with a twist of Mexican and just an overall unusual menu.  To make things even more fun – the primary way to get Kogi BBQ is from one of their two trucks that cover metropolitan LA.  And the best way to know where the trucks are going to be?  You have to follow them on Twitter. 

They have over 45,000 followers, and more importantly their trucks typically have a 1 to 2 hour long line waiting for them when ever they show up!

Here’s a great write-up from the LA Times with more details.

5.  Get more traffic than you can handle…literally!

Threadless.com is a cool story – it’s an online t-shirt store where the designs are submitted by artists / wanna be artists around the world and voted on by customers and members of the community for contests and to decide which shirts actually get made.  However this isn’t some small time thing – Threadless has over 1.2 Million followers on their twitter feed and they recently ran into the nice to have problem (but still a problem) of crashing their servers when they ended up with too much traffic! 

It takes a lot of traffic to bring down a server like the one that they’ve been using.  All of that traffic was driven by an online campaign!

6.  Break the rules!

Ask anyone in Financial Services and they’ll tell you that marketing is a huge challenge because of all of the regulatory issues they have to deal with.  In fact they’ll generally tell you it can’t be done.  Anything they share with the public has to be reviewed by seemingly dozens of people before it can see the light of day – making Social Media an impractical marketing opportunity…or so everyone thought!

Putnam Investments is rocking the boat when it comes to participating on social media.  Their CEO is on Twitter.  They’ve built a blog focused on the Retirement Savings Challenge.  It’s not about their products (which would get them in trouble with the SEC and likely wouldn’t be very effective anyway).  Instead they focus on educating and discussing the challenge that all of us face as we try to figure out how retirement planning works in the first place.  By educating and not selling, they set themselves up as progressive, helpful and experts to turn to.  As David Meerman Scott points out Putnam is a great example – it’s fear that’s holding other companies back.

7.  Give away great educational content!

Infusionsoft is a software company that sells an automated marketing solution aimed at small to medium sized businesses.  They do several things well when it comes to marketing themselves, but the thing that stands out is their focused effort to create really strong free educational materials (reports and ebooks).  What’s great about the eb00ks is that they specifically don’t focus on the Infusionsoft products, instead they focus on the problems that their target market have and offer solutions.  Then they encourage sharing those materials out to a wide audience through contests and email campaigns.

I’m not a client of theirs, but I continue to be impressed with their educational approach and how they position themselves in a challenging marketplace.

8.  Increase your leads by 850%!

Few things suggest cutting edge online marketing and social media practices less than a 116 year old company that manufactures Fencing materials in Massachusetts.  However looks  can be deceiving – Louis Page is in a niche, blue collar market that most would think of as old school – in fact, they only put up a website about 5 years ago.   However when they launched their blog (The Fence Post), last December they started seeing a dramatic increase in traffic and leads for their products.

In fact as the owner Duncan Page describes to a local news station – his leads have increased by over 850% in just a few months.  People have been drawn to his educational approach and a focus on writing about topics that their customers are struggling with or interested in.

It doesn’t have to be that hard to stand out!

Although these are all impressive stories, looking at them collectively, none of these companies is doing anything that most small business owners couldn’t do. 

They’re doing the basic technical things around search engine optimization that anyone can do (I’m a perfect example – I’m not an SEO specialist, but if you do a search on Kansas City Business Coach on Google, I’m at the top of the list – because I’m doing a few basic things consistently).

They’re in touch with what they’re customers want and they’re willing to take the extra steps to make themselves available and to share valuable content to make it worthwhile to search them out.

What could you do today to start standing out online?  I’d love to hear your thoughts or questions – or let me know if you have some other great examples.  Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade – Kansas City Business Coach

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  photo by emdot 

It’s a Friday afternoon and I thought I would share 3 fun and interesting, but totally unrelated things.  The internet is an amazing resource…what is it not capable of?

Item #1 – Accidental Innovation

Most of the time you think about inventors laboring away in the lab, spending years coming up with great ideas and products.  However for a lot of products, the innovation actually comes about accidentally.

You may have heard the story about Post-its as an accidental creation at 3M, but did you know that  Corn Flakes were totally an accident discovered by the Kellogg brothers in the late 1800s?

Or that the x-ray was discovered accidentally when a fluorescent screen unexpectedly started glowing during an unrelated experiment? 

The fun folks over at Business Pundit have pulled together an article on popular products that were invented by accident – you can see it here at the unique origins of 25 popular products!

Item #2 – Unbelievable Photos!

I’m a big fan of photography and the amazing things you can do with Photoshop, but it’s even more amazing to find untouched photos that are unbelievable.

  photo by phillip perold

The WebUrbanist has come up with 15 incredible images that look altered but aren’t.  As an example, the picture above is actually a reflection on a beach, not a body of water.  Cool stuff – check it out.

Item #3 – Google Wave is coming!

Finally, if you haven’t heard about Google Wave, you’re hearing about it now and you’ll be hearing a lot more in the next couple of months.  The quick explanation of Google Wave is that it’s a new platform / technology / application that represents what email would be if it were invented today instead of 40 years ago – bringing in all of the real-time collaboration and sharing that people are using in Social Media applications everywhere else. 

Confused?  Me too – but this video might help you make sense of it (and it’s only 2 minutes long!). 

If you can’t see the video, you can find it here.

I can see a ton of uses for something like this and with Google’s backing you know it’s going to get a lot of exposure.  Stay tuned, it will be interesting.

If you’ve seen some fun stuff lately, share it in the comments below – I’d love to see it.

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach

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