There are literally thousands of business people using social networking today and taking advantage of the benefits of being able to build their brand quickly and globally, and yet being able to develop their business locally.  By becoming the expert in you’re particular business category you can create an enormous amount of attraction in the marketplace, so that people locally, start to become aware of you and you become top of mind when you’re services are required.  Social networking, creates an amazing environment, where you can create new types of customers, building credibility and reputation in an ever expanding audience, and also being able to communicate regularly with existing customers building relationships very cost effectively.

Many social networking sites are available to business people to access.  The choice is huge in the marketplace, so that today it can be very, very confusing to the novice.

As a professional business person, it is important that you look at a number of strategies using social media.  One of the most effective strategies is to harness the power of Facebook, Twitter, you’re website, the concept of blogging, as well as using You Tube to create a whole new method to branding yourself in the marketplace.  The power of social networking, creates a great new way to leverage your time and you’re resources so that you as a professional can get on with looking after clients and generating income on a more consistent basis.

Over the next few posts, we will be looking and how you can use Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and your website to create a very powerful brand in the marketplace.  We have started and will continue to talk about blogging, which is a very powerful strategy to grow your business brand.  Shortly, we will look at Facebook and Twitter and how you can drive traffic to your website, to your events, and to your business in general, where new customers will be happy to connect with you and purchase your goods or services now and in the future.

Should you get involved in social networking?  Let me know what you think, I look forward to hearing from you.

Notice: Only 7 Weeks Left to Comment...

Success in all things requires practice, practice and more practice…

It is often said that those who are very successful follow the 1000 hour rule.  this rule states that If you want to be very good, or exceptional at anything, you need to discipline yourself to practice that thing (perfectly), for a 1000 hours.  At the end of a 1000 hours you will have a proficiency that very few people will attain.  WHY?  Because most people wouldn’t knowingly devote 1000 hours to any task to create success for themselves.

There are plenty of things that we have devoted over a 1000 hours to UNKNOWINGLY and we enjoy the benefits of these tasks: Poor work habits; Poor personal habits; Overeating; Under-exercising; Under committing; Under promising; under delivering…. I gotta stop, I’m starting to depress myself!

Look at it this way, the guys who fly in the Blue Angels don’t get to pull stunts like the one above without KNOWING what they are doing… that takes discipline and practice.  Now I know most of us are never going to get up into a jet and get to do 3G turns and ‘Under-Over’ maneuvers like this one, but you know what, we can still create an awesome and powerful blog that is going to build your brand successfully and help you make lots of money.

I can tell you quite honestly, I’m not good at this either and writing a blog takes me a lot of time (my CIO/muse always complains about how long I take to write a blog post), but I have noticed that each time that a write a post, it gets a little easier.  Personally, I think that my business is worth the effort, do you think that YOURS is…?

Now, honestly, if you truly feel that you can’t do this… that’s OK, because there is always the opportunity you may be able to enlist the support of others in your business to help write content or you can hire a ‘Ghostwriter’.

But if you are going to give this a shot, then put a little time aside, even one hour a week… that’s enough to get you started.  You will be astounded at how quickly your posts will add up and how your branding will improve in the marketplace.  I’m always astonished at who actually reads my posts… it feels great.

See you all soon when we will cover starting to get traffic to your blog…

Notice: Only 3 Weeks Left to Comment...

One of the hardest things to do as a blogger (besides creating regular posts), is creating posts that are captivating, interesting and useful so that your regular visitors, as well as your new visitors keep coming back.  Often it can be difficult to make your blog unique and appealing.

Here are a few suggestions which I hope will be useful to you in making your blog positively outstanding:

1.     Check out other blogs in your niche.  Often people will post information that is quite good and their idea can spark a follow on idea, or even give you an idea that no one has written about that could be very useful to your audience.

2.     Read newspaper articles or magazines around your industry or area of interest, often general stories will allow you to come up with 2 or 3 specific ideas on a topic which you could post about.

3.     This one is a little obvious, but one that very few people actually do… ask your audience, your friends, your co-workers what they would like to see you write, regarding a particular topic or idea.

4.     Let others write posts for you, there will always be someone who you know or work with that loves the blog that you have created.  Even though this step requires a bit of trust on your part, having others write and post to the blog (other than comments), takes and enormous amount of pressure off you, and allows you to be more creative yourself.

These are only a few ideas and I hope that they will be helpful, but the best advice I can give you is practice, practice, practice…

See you soon when I write about discipline and creating a blog plan… Cheers.

Notice: Only 3 Weeks Left to Comment...

I came upon this poem 23 years ago, and it has been an interesting signpost for me to measure my own time usage, and boy o’ boy, have I wasted a lot of it, as we all have.  Over the next few posts there are going to be some perspectives on time that you will find valuable… enjoy them… I intend to add value to YOUR time investment.

We waste it… we gift it… we give it away… we sacrifice it… but ultimately we place little importance to it until it is too late.

Time in reality is the thing that was given to us as a true gift by our parents.  their need to procreated (on purpose or by accident), created us and everybody else on the planet.  The time we have is so precious that it is the only commodity that we own which cannot be bought, begged for, borrowed, or stolen.

We can steal another persons time, and we that can allow that to happen to us, but it cannot and doesn’t replenish our own allotment of time… in fact if we waste another persons time we are also wasting our own.  Here, I am going to share some ways on how to leverage our time and make the most of it and let the opportunity we have together create better time usage, and less time wastage.

For this week, the first thing I’d like to ask you to do is STOP, PAUSE, TAKE A MOMENT…. and reflect on how YOU use your time.  A phrase I use a lot and I make no apology for the fact that you may get sick of it as time goes by, is this…..

“For many things in our lives and our businesses, if we want to accelerate the processes, go faster and speed things up… often we need to SLOW DOWN, to get the best value and create the best result”.

….. talk to you on the next post.

Notice: Only 2 Weeks Left to Comment...

If you want to be a successful blogger, have a look at these 5 suggestions.  These are the characteristics that I’m developing for myself and these are a good start for your success as well.

1.    To create a successful blog you need to be resourceful and look for lots of ideas that are relevant to your industry.  It’s important to create a blog that is captivating, interesting and useful so that your regular visitors as well as your new visitors keep coming back.  Try and find ways of making your blog as unique and appealing to your visitors.  Think about their needs and interests and find ways to engage them.  Do a little research and identify what your visitors might like to see on your blog that would be of interest to them.

2.    If you are serious about your blog, you need to be disciplined.  You might not be aware of this, but you will need to create content for your blog on a regular basis.  This means that you may need to invest some time writing content for your blog, which will require some effort.  You won’t be able to generate traffic to your blog or your website if you aren’t prepared to spend some time writing your content.  If you feel you can’t write, then you may be able to enlist the support of others in your business to help write content or you can hire a ‘Ghostwriter’.  Either way some effort and resources will be needed to create your blog content.

3.    You will need to start looking for ways to drive traffic to the blog or to your website.  A great way to do this is to exchange traffic with other blogs and websites in the same target market as you.  This is a particularly effective way to generate traffic if you select websites and blogs that have high traffic and popularity rankings.  This will help to increase your blog and website traffic.

4.    To be a successful blogger you will also need to look for all the possible opportunities to make money from your blog.  There are a number of ways in which you can make money from your blog.  You can sell your own products and services, you can sell someone elses products as an affiliate or you can sell some advertising space.  If your blog starts to generate high volumes of traffic, you can start make money with your blog.

5.    Never give up.  It takes time and effort to grow significant traffic to your blog or website so that you can start making some money from your efforts.  It is essential that you are consistent with your blogging efforts.  I said it before, I’ll say it again…..never give up..

If you develop and apply these five characteristics detailed above, you can grow into a successful blogger that can generate high volumes of traffic and develop a source of online profits for your business.

Notice: Only Left to Comment...

I can think of 3 reasons immediately, BUT, before we cover them. I’d like to touch on a few important issues where blogging is concerned.

What is a Blog? – “A blog is short for “web log” a sort of online personal diary where “anyone” can reveal his/her innermost thoughts, feelings, desires, dreams, ambitions, fears, hopes … – Dr. Mani – one of the earliest marketers to embrace blogs. It is basically a website, with one small difference. It allows you to create and list posts that are ordered by date in a personal journal format, and it is much easier to create than a normal website.

Do I have to be good at it? – In a word NO. the only reason I say that is, I’m not good at it…but I’m getting better with every opportunity I take to write something down that I feel would be of value to someone else. If fact, I used the ‘I’M NOT GOOD AT IT’ excuse for so long, it took a very good friend of mine to kick me in my ‘mental-butt’ to get me started. Do I struggle? YES, but it is worth it when I realize I can actually do this….one post at a time.

Is it hard? – Only as hard as you want to make it for yourself. There are plenty of people around you that can, and will help you if you find them and ask. You’ll be surprised at who you know well is actually blogging and you didn’t even know.

Have a purpose! – Many blogs are just there as a venting or sharing page for an individual, but if you want to make your business blog effective, you will need to decide on it’s purpose. Is it for: educating you clients and prospects, building your brand, identifying and converting clients, or just sharing your expertise….? Whatever the reason, talk it over with others to help you get clarity on the purpose.

Now to the reasons why your business needs a blog…

· Easy to get started

· Easy to update

· Allows people to interact with you

Blogs are extremely easy to get started. You can use Blogger or Word Press, and both can be started easily without much more than creating an account and clicking a few choices that you want to use to make your blog work effectively for you. Now there are huge advantages to having your blog hosted on your own domain (more on that in a future blog post). And the bit I like best, you don’t have to have any great technical skills.

Blogs are easy to update! All you have to do is push a button and your post is published. This works on most of the blog platforms, making them one of the easiest web sites to update. Also on most platforms you don’t have any need to know HTML (a web language), though it does help. If you can create a word document you can update a blog.

Finally, the biggest advantage to businesses is that blogs can be very interactive. Most blog platforms allow your readers to make comments on what you have written. People are able to easily subscribe to your blog and when they have, they are informed as to when you have updated your site through various RSS readers. This does two very good things for you.

1. You get to create regular, additional, updated content for your blog (which the search engines like), and…

2. You can get feedback on what you have written from your subscribers when they comment on your posts

Which are you most likely to do? Click a comment link and leave your input on a blog, or try and find a way to contact the average webmaster. Even if you do find a webmaster, it is usually through a form or email that does nothing to increase the content of the site.

A blog definitely gets my vote. How about you?

The following story recently came across my desk and I thought to share it with you.  I think that it really does illustrate that a little effort, really does make a difference between just hanging on and truly reaping the rewards of success!

Excerpt from: The Simple Truths of Service - by Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz

Years ago, my friend, Harvey Mackay, told me a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point. He was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey. He handed my friend a laminated card and said: “I’m Wally, your driver. While I’m loading your bags in the trunk, I’d like you to read my mission statement.”

Taken aback, Harvey read the card. It said: Wally’s Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment.

This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!

As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, “Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.”

My friend said jokingly, “No, I’d prefer a soft drink.”

Wally smiled and said, “No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.”

Almost stuttering, Harvey said, “I’ll take a Diet Coke.”

Handing him his drink, Wally said, “If you’d like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustratedand USA Today.”

As they were pulling away, Wally handed my friend another laminated card. “These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you’d like to listen to the radio.”

As if that weren’t enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him.

Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of the day. He also let him know that he’d be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights, or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts.

“Tell me, Wally,” my amazed friend asked the driver, “have you always served customers like this?”

Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. “No, not always. In fact, it’s only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day. He had just written a book called You’ll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you’ll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, ‘Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don’t be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.’

“That hit me right between the eyes,” said Wally. “Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.”

“I take it this has paid off for you,” Harvey said.

“It sure has,” Wally replied. “My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I’ll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don’t sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can’t pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.”

Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. I’ve probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever I go to their cities, I give them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told me all the reasons they couldn’t do any of what I was suggesting.

Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles.

Think about your business, what one small thing can you do today, that will make a difference to your business.  A clean uniform, a clean car, smiling often at customers, saying thank you regularly…… Give it a shot, and let me know how you get on.

As we grow up, we learn about people, success and money from our parents, teachers and friends, whether directly or indirectly. By the time we are teenagers, our beliefs are firmly cemented into our mind, for many of us, the rest of our lives. These beliefs now control our thinking about people, success and money and influence many of our decisions, in the background.

Until you can identify and replace your limiting beliefs and disconnects around success you will struggle to become truly successful or wealthy – no matter what you try!

If you grew up hearing things like “A leopard doesn’t change its spots”, or “Don’t speak until you’re spoken to”, or “Don’t talk to strangers”, then you have almost certainly been negatively conditioned about your ability to connect with other people in some way. If your parents were not socially active, then chances are that you too, unconsciously, inherited their attitudes towards meeting people.

The problem is that most people’s conditioning around success is not supportive of becoming successful or wealthy AND you probably are not even aware that you have this conditioning, because it is so deeply entrenched in your subconscious mind.

These limiting patterns will keep you stuck unless you can change your unconscious conditioning around being a success. Your subconscious will determine your success or failure, in all areas of your life.

Are you ready to move beyond your old patterns and create a new conciousness for your success?