Author: Steve Header

 

 

Learn what types of content will move consumers through the funnel and help you earn conversions.

By Susan Gunelius

It takes time to convince people to make a purchase. One of the best ways to move people through the buyer journey is to create a conversion funnel, which provides consumers with small actions that lead to a purchase.

What types of content and messages can be used to successfully move consumers through the marketing funnel? There isn’t a single recipe for success, but there are some proven strategies that can work for you.

Top of the funnel (TOFU)
At the top of the funnel are consumers who aren’t yet aware of your product or service. This is the stage where you need to raise brand awareness, not to try to sell your products or services. You wouldn’t walk up to a stranger on the street and immediately try to sell your product or service to them, and you shouldn’t do that in your content, either. Much of your content marketing success comes from indirect marketing, so don’t go for the hard sell yet.

At this stage of the funnel, you want to make people realize they have a problem and a need for your product or service. To that end, your content should be non-threatening and require very small, easy actions from the audience. Try to be helpful in an effort to build an early relationship.

Lead magnets work particularly well. It’s quick and easy for consumers to download a free checklist or worksheet that can help them solve a problem. At this point, the problem could be as simple as saving time or money.

The goal is to make sure you’re offering something of value to your target audience to generate a basic interest in your brand, products and services. Without this initial awareness, you can’t generate the interest that leads people to the middle of the funnel and closer to conversion.

Keep in mind that, to get people into the funnel so you can move them to the next stage, you need to know who they are. That’s where gated content comes into the picture. Don’t just give out a link where anyone can download your checklist or worksheet. Instead, create an opt-in form where you can collect their email addresses and any other contact information you want (the more information you try to collect, the lower the response rate will be). When you have their information, you can add them to your email marketing campaigns and other marketing initiatives.

Middle of the funnel (MOFU)
Once consumers have become aware of your brand and interested in your products or services, they’ve reached the middle of the funnel. At this stage, they’re considering your brand, but they’re not ready to buy yet. You need to give them reasons to buy to move them to the bottom of the funnel where they actually make a purchase and convert.

Ebooks and case studies work very well in the middle of the funnel. If you revealed a problem and solution to consumers through your content in the top of the funnel, then your content in the middle of the funnel should be the next logical step in solving that problem. Focus on benefits and results while continuing to tap into the audience’s emotions in your messaging.

Free trials, discounts and money back guarantees work well to move consumers from the middle of the funnel to the bottom. Your goal at this point is to motivate them to make a purchase, so your messaging doesn’t have to be as gentle and indirect as it was in the content you create for people at the top of the funnel.

When consumers get to the middle of the funnel, targeting and segmentation becomes very important. The content you develop and the offers you share in that content should be created for specific buyer personas. Make sure the entire consumer experience is created for their specific buyer persona and related need by developing highly targeted offers, messages, content, landing pages and follow-up campaigns. This is how you make consumers feel special and strengthen your brand’s relationship with them.

Bottom of the funnel (BOFU)
This is it — the final, decision-making stage. In your conversion funnel, you need to create content that motivates consumers to take that final big action to buy. To that end, your content should be product-specific. It should talk about the pros and cons of your product or service compared to the competition. Share data to prove your claims and tell consumers how to take the final step to solve their problem.

Your messaging should pique consumers; emotions, be targeted to them individually (this is where dynamic content works extremely well) and get them excited to buy. It’s important to understand that not everyone in the bottom of the funnel is ready to buy immediately. Yes, some people might just need one more reminder, but others will need a bit more motivation. Use discount offers strategically in the bottom of the funnel to increase conversions without negatively effecting revenue. This is where testing becomes so useful.

Beyond the funnel
Once consumers convert, your job isn’t over. Keep them engaged and maintain the relationship by providing ongoing useful, meaningful and relevant content. They might have made a purchase as a result of this conversion funnel, but you’ll still need to provide content to them in other conversion funnels in the future.

Furthermore, an engaged consumer is more likely to become a brand advocate and boost your sales over time through word of mouth marketing. In other words, well-implemented conversion funnels can create a form of perpetual marketing that increases your revenue today and in the future.
 

Blue Fountain Media

By Laurie Jo Miller Farr

Is your small business one of the 40 million actively using a Facebook page for marketing purposes? With currently more than 2 billion monthly active users, the social media platform has morphed into a massive advertising media channel. Facebook’s ability to highly target audiences, as well as to build a custom audience, are tools built into every business page. The site guides you through a process Facebook refers to as — get started, engage, maintain and measure.

“The majority are non-tech businesses — the plumbers, the bakers, the local florists who are using technology to reach customers and sell their products and services,” said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in 2017. A Facebook page for business is free to create. However, gone are the days when those small businesses could reach all their business page Facebook friends with zero spend.

This 6 step process will help your company actively attract and build engagement with customers.

1. Create a Facebook business page
Visit Facebook on mobile or desktop to create a page for your small business, choosing from a category type that describes it best. Facebook will walk you through the steps as you invite others to like your page and begin building a Facebook community. Show off your brand personality, create a cover image, post a video and share links. Choose someone to manage your business page and provide managerial access.

2. Create and promote posts
Keep customers interested, engaged, and stay top-of-mind through activity on your Facebook page. You can grow reach using Facebook tools such as boosted posts, target audiences, custom audiences, and look-alike audiences. For example, you can choose to put budget behind showing a post in the news feed of people who like your page and their friends, or to reach similar users by demographic indicators. There’s a button for the option of promoting a post on every post you create. You can stop, pause, set a maximum budget, add to budget, and finally check on the results in order to determine engagement, click throughs, and return on investment.

3. Generate more attention
Extensive amounts of studies and research all over the internet points to the importance of compelling content, images, video, and mobile. Try Facebook Live to engage audiences in an update or event at the moment it’s happening. You can also schedule your posts to publish at a time that suits your audience.

4. Get inspiration
If you’re stuck or wondering what works best on Facebook, check out the gallery of business ads they love. You can see how they worked and why they were so successful. Then, by visiting Facebook’s success stories, you’ll find a gallery containing more than 200 examples of dynamic small business ads. Search further to focus on examples by business size, type, service, product, or location.

5. Choose an objective for every ad
When you’re ready to boost a post or promote an ad, decide on the objective first. Facebook offers several objectives which include getting website traffic, calling your store, getting more likes, taking a poll, entering a contest, buying something and an RSVP to an event. You can also choose another call to action.

6. Turn on messaging
A good tool for customer service and interface, Facebook Messenger is integrated with business pages. You can use it to communicate privately with customers who contact you or like your page.

Ready for the next steps? Facebook has a free online education program aimed at small businesses that offers more than 80 e-courses in 15-minute chunks of time. Facebook Blueprint is a deeper dive into how to use Facebook marketing tools to build effective campaigns and lead to a Facebook expert certification.

Photo: from Ladders

By Travis Bradberry

We all reach critical points in our lives where our mental strength is tested. It might be a toxic friend or colleague, a dead-end job, or a struggling relationship. Whatever the challenge, you have to see things through a new lens, and take decisive action if you want to move through it successfully.

It sounds easy, but it isn’t.

It’s fascinating how mentally strong people set themselves apart from the crowd. Where others see impenetrable barriers, they see challenges to overcome.

Too many people succumb to the mistaken belief that mental strength comes from natural, unteachable traits that belong only to a lucky few. It’s easy to fall prey to this misconception. In reality, mental strength is under your control, and it’s a matter of emotional intelligence (EQ).

When it first appeared to the masses, emotional intelligence served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into the broadly held assumption that IQ was the most important source of success.

Decades of research now point to EQ being the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack. The connection is so strong that 90% of top performers have high EQ.

Emotional intelligence is the “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions to achieve positive results.

Despite the significance of EQ, its intangible nature makes it very difficult to know how much you have and what you can do to improve it if you lack it. You can always take a scientifically validated test, such as the one that comes with the Emotional Intelligence 2.0 book.

Unfortunately, quality (scientifically valid) EQ tests aren’t free, so I’ve analyzed the data from the million-plus people TalentSmart has tested in order to identify the behaviors that are the hallmarks of a high EQ. This data shows that what you don’t do is just as important as what you do when it comes to EQ.

The beauty of EQ is that it’s a flexible skill that you can easily improve with effort. Absolutely anyone can enhance their EQ by emulating the habits of emotionally intelligent people. If you’re up for it, start with these critical things that emotionally intelligent people are careful to avoid. They consciously avoid these behaviors because they are tempting and easy to fall into if one isn’t careful.

They don’t stay in their comfort zone.

Self-awareness is the foundation of EQ, and increasing your self-awareness isn’t comfortable. You can’t increase your EQ without pushing yourself to discover what you need to work on and what you should be doing differently. This is hard because when you take a really good look at yourself, you aren’t going to like everything you see. It’s more comfortable to keep the blinders on, but they make certain that you’ll never have a high EQ.

They don’t give in to fear.

They say that bravery is being scared to death to do something and doing it anyway. Many times, that’s true, even when it comes to your career. The fear doesn’t have to come from something as extreme as rushing into a burning building; it can be a fear of public speaking or going out on a limb to try for a promotion. If you use fear as an excuse not to do something, you’ve already lost. It’s not that emotionally intelligent people aren’t afraid—they simply pick themselves up and fight on regardless of the fear.

They don’t stop believing in themselves.

Emotionally intelligent people persevere. They don’t give up in the face of failure, and they don’t give up because they’re tired or uncomfortable. They’re focused on their goals, not on momentary feelings, and that keeps them going even when things are hard. They don’t take failing to mean that they’re a failure. Likewise, they don’t let the opinions of others keep them from chasing their dreams. When someone says, “You’ll never be able to do that,” they regard it as one person’s opinion, which is all it is.

They don’t beg for attention.

People who are always begging for attention are needy. They rely on that attention from other people to form their self-identity. Emotionally intelligent people couldn’t care less about attention. They do what they want to do and what needs to be done, regardless of whether anyone is stroking their ego.

They don’t act like jerks.

People who act like jerks are unhappy and insecure. They act like jerks because they don’t have the emotional strength to be nice when they don’t feel like it. Emotionally intelligent people place high value on their relationships, which means they treat everyone with respect, regardless of the kind of mood they’re in.

They don’t hold grudges.

The negative emotions that come with holding onto a grudge are actually a stress response. Holding onto that stress wreaks havoc on your body and can have devastating health consequences over time. Researchers at Emory University have shown that holding onto stress contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease. Holding onto a grudge means you’re holding onto stress, and emotionally intelligent people know to avoid this at all costs.

They don’t hang around negative people.

Negative people are bad news because they wallow in their problems and fail to focus on solutions. They want people to join their pity party so that they can feel better about themselves. People often feel pressure to listen to negative people because they don’t want to be seen as callous or rude, but there’s a fine line between lending a sympathetic ear to someone and getting sucked into their negative emotional spiral. Emotionally intelligent people avoid getting drawn in by setting limits and distancing themselves from negative people when necessary. Think of it this way: If a person were smoking, would you sit there all afternoon inhaling the second-hand smoke? You’d distance yourself, and you should do the same with negative people.

They don’t feel sorry for themselves.

Here’s the worst thing about feeling sorry for yourself, other than it being annoying, of course: it shifts your locus of control outside yourself. Feeling sorry for yourself is, in essence, declaring that you’re a helpless victim of circumstance. Emotionally intelligent people never feel sorry for themselves because that would mean giving up their power.

They don’t feel entitled.

Emotionally intelligent people believe that the world is a meritocracy and that the only things that they deserve are those that they earn. People who lack EQ often feel entitled. They think that the world owes them something. Again, it’s about locus of control. Emotionally intelligent people know that they alone are responsible for their successes or failures.

They don’t close their minds.

When people close their minds to new information or opinions, it’s typically because they find them threatening. They think that admitting that someone else is right means that they’re wrong, and that’s very uncomfortable for people lacking EQ. Emotionally intelligent people aren’t threatened by new things; they’re open to new information and new ideas, even if it means admitting that they are wrong.

They don’t let anyone limit their joy.

When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from comparing yourself with others, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something they’ve done, they don’t let anyone’s opinions or accomplishments take that away from them. While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, you don’t have to compare yourself with others, and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what other people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within. Regardless of what people think of you at any particular moment, one thing is certain—you’re never as good or bad as they say you are.

They don’t get eaten up by jealousy and envy.

Emotionally intelligent people understand that the happiness and success of others doesn’t take away from their own, so jealousy and envy aren’t an issue for them. They see success as being in unlimited supply, so they can celebrate others’ successes.

They don’t live in the past.

Failure can erode your self-confidence and make it hard to believe you’ll achieve a better outcome in the future. Most of the time, failure results from taking risks and trying to achieve things that aren’t easy. Emotionally intelligent people know that success lies in their ability to rise in the face of failure, and they can’t do this if they’re living in the past. Anything worth achieving is going to require your taking some risks, and you can’t allow failure to stop you from believing in your ability to succeed. When you live in the past, that is exactly what happens—your past becomes your present and prevents you from moving forward.

Bringing It All Together

Improving your emotional intelligence is the single most important thing you can do to advance your career. The good news is that you can make it happen with a little determination, effort, and a good model to follow.
Travis Bradberry is the coauthor of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and the cofounder of TalentSmart.

 

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Next time, you text Uber for a ride, consider that there’s a new boss in town: Dara Khosrowshahi. Can he really change Uber?

By Mario Moussa and Derek

Dara Khosrowshahi, a wildly successful entrepreneur, former chief exec of Uber and one-time Iranian refugee — and as of this month, Uber’s CEO — faces a daunting task: He needs to replace the dysfunctional dude-bro environment that once made the company thrive and now threatens its survival.

Khosrowshahi’s unfolding story serves as a valuable reminder for any entrepreneurs who find that the way of doing things that at first made them successful may become a huge stumbling block at a later stage. Fortunately for Khosrowshahi, and anyone else who has to change the direction of a troubled business, the required pivot can be accomplished in three simple steps.

Simple? Well, maybe we’re exaggerating. In reality, the steps are easy to describe, but their execution is always going to be an absolute bear.

Organizations of all kinds resist change, because there are always people who have an interest in maintaining the status quo, even when the company is heading into a ditch.  Consider: Many Uber employees have openly opposed ending the old regime. However, even the most difficult journey begins with a small step — or three — and the following road map has been used by many other businesses.  You should use it, too, should you find your company on the wrong track and in need of that 180-degree pivot to the future.

Step #1: Tell a story that connects past and future.  

Uber clearly needs a strategic shift; the company loses money on every ride and survives only because its backers continue to subsidize a hemorrhaging business model. But entrepreneurs’ successful change is determined more by the stories they tell investors and customers than by the content of their strategy.

In a study of two robo-advisor startups that made similar pivots, Harvard Business School researchers found that the main reason one succeeded where the other failed was in the compelling narrative the founders created about why they were changing course. If Khosrowshahi wants to make his own pivot successful, he would do well to change more than the Uber strategy– he should change the subject entirely.

A successful business story connects the past to the future, and creates an opening for those who value the old way of doing things, to change their behavior without feeling that they are selling out. This is especially important for Uber, whose former CEO, Travis Kalanick, was outrageously competitive, and left an imprint on every part of the company.  An insider explained that Uber values like fierceness and super-pumpedness express “pretty much a do-whatever-it-takes attitude to move the company in the right direction.”

But there was a problem here: This attitude, manifested in words and actions inside and outside the company, and at all levels, led to big trouble, even though it was a source of pride for many Uberites.  Khosrowshahi’s task now is to start telling a story that acknowledges the good parts of the old Uber, such as the energy and enthusiasm Kalanick generated, while explaining the need to get rid of the bad parts.

This kind of turnaround story lies at the core of any successful change and provides direction for day-to-day decisions for everyone in a company, from the board all the way to the front -line.

Another example? Alan Mulally connected the past and future in turning around Ford Motor Company. After becoming CEO in 2006, when losses reached almost $6 billion a quarter, Mulally studied the company’s history and found an ad that Henry Ford had created way back, in 1925.

In it, that famous founder described his vision, proclaiming that “an organization . . . must be large in scope as well as great in purpose.” The ad inspired Mulally to articulate his own vision, which he shared at a subsequent board meeting. On a slide that showed the old Ford logo were Mulally’s new, updated words: “People working together as a lean, global enterprise for automotive leadership.” The logo invoked the past, but the new CEO’s words led to the future.

Step #2: Find Where Future Has Already Arrived.  

According to a famous quote attributed to the visionary novelist William Gibson: “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”  T
That’s certainly true in organizations: To the extent that some units or groups work in new or different ways from others, they are the “future,” the harbinger of an evolving market, consumer preferences, a distinctive outlook and other things to come.  Big change stands the best chance of succeeding when it comes from these pockets of innovation that already exist in an organization, rather than being imposed from the outside.

Otherwise, too much “newness” may result in culture shock and produce an overwhelming desire to bring back the past.  When one of our own clients, a global manufacturing business, sought to create a cultural change of its own, it found “the future” in a production site whose engineers were especially flexible and open to new ways of working.

In fact, that was the very mind-set that the leaders wanted to develop across the company. We advised this company to use that home-grown innovation center as a case study for behaviors and success stories that could be spread to other units.

In the same way, Khosrowshahi should look within Uber for the places where the future has already arrived, in the form of units or teams that welcome diversity, ethical behavior and continuous improvement. These positive internal role models — think of them as “positive deviants” — will be needed to model change and prevent backsliding.
Khosrowshahi will need to rely on those role models’ power to bring tits foot-draggers along. And, you can be sure there are plenty of those, since 1,000 Uber employees expressed strong support for Kalanick in an open letter not long before he was fired.

The point is that there are always deviations from normal practices or levels of performance, and sometimes those deviations reveal the “future” in that they represent a new, positive way of working.

At Genentech, for example, it was discovered that two salespeople were consistently outperforming dozens of colleagues. At first, management assumed the outliers were cheating. But a closer look revealed they were doing more than simply selling a product; they were helping doctors learn how to administer the drug they were selling. This difference explained the superior results. Bottom line: You will find the future somewhere in your organization if you look for it.

Step #3: Live the future.

An authentic vision for the future must be more than words. It requires that CEOs become the vision they espouse. One of our clients told us that, when he rose to the top spot at a major financial services firm, he became a “symbol.” And this was not necessarily good: Everyone was scrutinizing his behavior to determine just how to interpret the firm’s new strategy and values.

This puts an enormous amount of pressure on leaders. Consider Jim Yong Kim’s shock when he got advice from none other than Ford’s Alan Mulally on how to be an effective leader of the World Bank. Mulally’s simple suggestion? Smile more. Kim realized that people took something as personal as his facial expression to be a sign of the mood for the whole organization. High pressure, to be sure, but with this pressure comes the power to help a business change course through simple words and actions.

In late August, Khosrowshahi seemed to show he was ready for this part of the job: He had a selfie taken of himself at his first company staff meeting, wearing an Uber t-shirt.  It was a small gesture, but it was one that sent the right message.

Change a company’s direction in three simple steps?  Okay, honestly, Khosrowshahi will be stretched to his limit, as anybody would in his situation.  Guess who was standing right next to him in that selfie?  That’s right — the old CEO, Kalanick himself, smiling as though he were still in charge.  Time will reveal the meaning of this image. Will Khosrowshahi succeed in pivoting to the future, or is the past not really past? Time will tell.

Image credit: Hero Images | Getty Images

If you love your job, you’re lucky and rare

By Kimanzi Constable

Studies show that we now spend 47 hours of our 168-hour week in some form of “work.” When you spend that much time doing something, it will affect your life one way or another. Studies also show that only 13 percent of people actually like what they do to make a living. You might not hate how you earn an income, but spending so much time doing what you “tolerate” still has a profound effect on your life.

For decades, our society has been programmed to believe that the only way to make a good living is to go to college, get a degree and land your dream work situation right out of college. The stats on the job market for college graduates and jobs that even require a degree are not great. Most graduates today will have a hard time getting a job in their major.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t go to college — everyone has to make the best decision for their life. There is no one singular answer that applies to all of us as far as how we earn a living is concerned. But, we can agree that our work is an important part of our lives.

Here are five ways what you do for work could be affecting your life.

1. It makes life better. 

You could be one of those 13 percent of people who enjoy their work. That’s not to say you never have sucky days, but in general you enjoy your work. When you do what you enjoy everything is in alignment in your life. You don’t dread what you have to deal with on a daily basis. You get to go to bed knowing the next morning will be good.

2. It adds stress. 

Forty-seven hours of your week spent in a stressful environment doesn’t stay at work/your business. You can try to leave it there, but the thought of what you went through or what you have to go through the next day will affect your home life. As those thoughts enter your mind, you will feel your stress level start to rise. If you have ever snapped or felt low and were curious about the reason, stress from work is a likely culprit.

3. It takes time away from what’s important. 

If you’re working “normal” hours, it takes a big chunk of your time. If you add extra time/longer hours into the mix, you are taking time away from what else is really important to your life. Time is the one thing we’ll never get back. As far as I know, none of us will live forever. Our time is precious. When you spend hours, days, years doing something you can’t stand, you’re wasting your most precious resource.
Related: Don’t Believe Success Comes From Hard Work Alone

4. It keeps you complacent. 

Settling is almost second nature in our society. We listen to the news and think we should be grateful that we even have what we have. While the economy isn’t the greatest, this is still the land of opportunity. We still have the power to do something about all the changes we want to make in our life. Life is too short to settle for “good enough.” Settling teaches us to settle in other areas of our life. We learn to accept mediocrity. While I definitely believe we should be grateful for what we have in life, there’s a difference between gratitude and complacency.

5. It holds you back from an amazing life. 

Spending years of your life settling for a work or business situation will keep you from the amazing life you deserve. You could waste the best years of your life making no progress towards your dream life. Ignore the doubt, fear, and negative voices of others. Ignore what society teaches us. Be a rebel determined to live a life of no regrets. It may take years, but the struggle will be worth it once you reach your goal.

What you do for work affects your life and it’s time for us to stop ignoring what we know deep down inside. We have to stop settling because the road less traveled is hard to ride down. We have to say, “screw it,” and chase every major dream we have. You only get one life to live. Make it count.

 

 

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By Shaun Buck

People don’t like to talk about fear, but sometimes it’s necessary

Fear is a sensitive subject. Entrepreneurs like to act as if they are invincible, even if the truth is that they are wracked with fear behind closed doors.

As a marketer, the discussion of fear first brings to mind how this tactic is used in business. If you’ve ever studied copywriting, you’ll know that fear is a powerful motivator. People are always looking to avoid pain, so scratching the surface of their fears is a great way to incite action.

The gurus tell you that when you’re trying to sell to someone, you’ll get a better response if you focus on people’s fears over their desires to gain. Humans are more likely to buy something if it helps them get rid of a pain point than if it simply gets them more of a positive outcome they’ve already experienced.

This is why you see so many presentations that are doom and gloom. For example, if that was my selling style, I may tell you, “If you don’t get a newsletter now, you’ll lose all your customers and be bankrupt!”

If I could make you believe that, you’d do just about anything to get started with us and not lose your business, wouldn’t you?

If I told you that you should get a newsletter because it will get you more referrals, despite the fact that virtually 100 percent of business owners say they want more referrals, that isn’t enough to get you to drop everything and beat a path to my door.

The amount of power that fear has in our decision-making process is crazy, but I don’t want this to be a copywriting article. Instead, I have a serious question for you: If fear is controlling your outside-of-the-norm purchasing habits, what else does it control in your life?

This question can be applied both personally and professionally, but I’ll focus on the professional perspective.

Seriously, think about it. What big decisions are you allowing your fear to make for you?

What are you not doing because you’re scared?

I’ve found that it is helpful to write down your fears. Once you have defined the fear, answer these next four questions.

1 Why are you scared? (Be real here. You’re the only one who is going to read this.)

2 What impact is this fear currently having on your life or business?

3 Reality check: Is this fear justified or are you blowing things out of proportion

4 What will life be like 10 or 20 years from now if you don’t confront this fear and overcome it?

I’ll give you a personal example.

The fear
I’m scared that I’ll one day lose everything I’ve built and be poor again.

Why?
I was very poor growing up, and as a teenage dad, I wasn’t exactly swimming in cash. Despite owning businesses, I went through phases during most of my 20s where I had money, and then other times was totally broke and couldn’t afford bread and milk. The thought of struggling like that again makes me very fiscally conservative.

The reality
The odds of being broke like that again are slim. I can outwork most challenges, and the connections I’ve made along my entrepreneurial journey can’t be taken away.

The impact 
As I always say, if you’re not growing in business, you’re moving backward. If I don’t invest and take calculated risks, I’ll increase my chances of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy five or 10 years from now.

One of the most important things for your own personal development is to be introspective. If you’re not clear on who you are and why you’re making the decisions you’re making, you’ll increases the odds of making a bad choice, which may justify the fear and keep you stuck in an endless loop of fear and failure.

Work today to identify your fears and tackle them head on.

Don’t let fear steer your ship.

 

 

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There are characteristics I’ve noticed that most successful entrepreneurs have. It’s not what people think are the important ones either — smarts, work ethic, creativity. Those are helpful, but we all know plenty of smart, hardworking people with great ideas who aren’t entrepreneurs. No, what I’ve seen the most is something that no one is born with.

By Avi Savar

You aren’t born with grit just like you aren’t born with thick skin. It takes time, failures, trying again, failing again and trying once more. Success isn’t born of just getting back up on the horse, however. Grit is balanced by gratitude — humility combined with the ability to understand how your past experiences affect your future, without including your ego.

What Makes Grit?

It’s hard to define grit, because even though it’s found in the boardroom, classroom, and playing field, everyone has taken a different path to get there. What it does have in common wherever it’s found is success. The ability to not only get knocked off the horse, but to get right back on. Again and again, no matter how many times it takes.

Marcus Aurelius wrote, “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” Reflecting on this quotation was the inspiration for Ryan Holiday’s book The Obstacle is the Way. Drawing on three sections — perception, action and will, Holiday discusses how obstacles don’t impede, but rather provide opportunity to see the positive that lies past the negative.

Anyone who has tried to start a company has probably failed at least once, and the people who’ve started a successful company have probably failed a lot more than that.

They managed to do it again, taking with them the lessons from their prior failures, rather than living in them. Ben Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley’s most successful venture capitalists, author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things, and no stranger to hard times notes, “You have to keep looking for a move. Even if you are dead and buried and they have shoveled dirt on you, you have to keep going.”

What Makes Gratitude?

In short, gratitude makes grit effective. Where some might wallow in a failure, an entrepreneur with gratitude realizes the lessons learned will help propel the next project to success.

Gratitude encompasses more than just a positive attitude. People who are thankful are generally happier. Starting a business takes a lot from a person, and giving thanks allows you to better understand those around you. This empathy is absolutely key for any successful venture. When you appreciate and respect those you work with, you build a team that is not only talented, but even more dedicated to achieving your goals.

How Grit and Gratitude Work Together

Starting a business is a balancing act. Figuring out how to manage your time, life, and limited resources effectively requires give and take. Grit and gratitude are the same. One cannot dominate the other, and too much of either can be dangerous. Holiday writes about the importance of zeroing out the ego, “the unhealthy belief in your own importance” in another bestselling book Ego is the Enemy.

Not to be confused with confidence, ego inhibits building relationships, mastering a craft, recognizing or even creating opportunities. In short, ego directly opposes humility, the key to developing gratitude.

Where gratitude allows you to recognize the part that others play in your success, ego blocks them out, and isolates you in the process.
Where confidence allows you to recognize that you have what it takes to succeed, grit is built from every attempt to move forward.

Where the two come together is right in the middle. True success takes the belief that you can achieve, and the understanding that you need the people who make you succeed just as much as you need yourself.

 

workingmomsagainstguilt

The most difficult obstacles to get past are the ones we place in front of ourselves

By Kimanzi Constable

I’m a people pleaser. It’s hard for me to say “no” to people who ask for something — despite a reluctance inside of me. This has gotten me into trouble more than a few times in life and especially in business. Time is precious and slips by quickly but there is also no lack of things that have to get done in an entrepreneur’s life.

For 12 years, I took life a day at a time. I had a dream but no goals for making it real. I just woke up each day hoping for something more. In 2011, I had had enough and began chasing my dream of starting a lifestyle business. This meant more work on top of a service business that took 60-80 hours of my week.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that something had to give. I had to learn how to say no to open up room for the things that were important. Seeing how much time and energy was freed by saying no, I started looking at all the other areas of my life. Here are six things I said no to. Saying no helped me live a much better life and create the kind of business that I love.

1. Other people’s baggage.

Life is hard for all of us. Sometimes it’s easier to push your baggage onto someone else, maybe even without you realizing it. If you are trying to make changes in your life and someone reacts a certain way because of their baggage, it’s up to you to say “no”. You don’t need any more drama in your life. For me, this meant ignoring some people on social media and purging negative people from my life. It meant ending the business partnerships that were not in alignment with the direction I was taking my business.

2. Situations that I knew would make me angry.

There are things in life that you know you don’t want to do. For years, I just rolled with it. I went to gatherings and hung out with people who I knew would make me angry. I got on “get-to-know-you” calls with entrepreneurs who were all talk and no action. I entered into collaborations with business owners that weren’t serious. When I said enough and stopped, it felt like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders. It freed my mind and business and helped me focus.

3. A business that I absolutely hated.

I had a service business in the vendor industry for 12 years and hated it. I felt stuck and believed that someone like me — a high school dropout — couldn’t do better. In 2011, I said “no” more and worked hard for four years to make my dream of being a global lifestyle entrepreneur a reality. I now wake up loving what I get to do for work and traveling the world. Saying no led to happier days.

4. Unhealthy habits that felt good.

I love food. I said yes to junk food and no to healthier choices. This, as you can imagine, led to major weight gain. At one point, I was 193 pounds overweight. I started saying no to unhealthy choices and started exercising, I’ve lost 121 pounds so far this year. Today, I have more energy, focus and confidence. Life is better. I wake up ready to work on my business. I feel great when I travel for consulting presentations at multinational corporations.

5. Toxic relationships.

Purging negative people from my life and saying no to what they tried to project into my life led to relief and happiness. These relationships included romantic relationships, friendships and business connections. It was hard, but I had to say no. Toxic people will keep you off track and make your life unenjoyable. Purge negativity from your life and business whenever it’s possible.

6. Holding onto the past.

I had a messed up childhood that involved physical and mental abuse. I chose to be homeless at 17 instead of continuing to be beaten with lamp cords. The demons from my past threatened to destroy me as I grew into an adult. I had to let go. I had to say no a lot more. I had to forgive to begin the healing process. I don’t know what you have or are facing. I do know that to heal, you have to let go.

Just because you’re saying no right now doesn’t mean you’ll have to say no forever. Life has seasons, and some are busier than others. The point is to make sure you’re doing the things you want to do and that lead to the kind of life and business you want.

Don’t let other people’s motives make decisions for you. This is your life. This is your business. You get to decide. Say no to things that don’t make sense for you. Say no to things that don’t feel right to you. Trust your intuition. You know whether or not you want to do something. Don’t be pressured into saying yes.

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By Sherrie Campbell

 Seize every opportunity to fulfill your dreams.

When you think of working hard for what you want, does that thought carry a deeply unexpressed negative vibe of dread, or are your thoughts of succeeding soaked in desire?

If you want to be successful you must dream, yearn, want and, most importantly, you must consistently be in pursuit. Success is not just about money; it is about grinding for what you want, it’s about having the heart to grab the dream you envision in your mind.

Success will always bring unexpected challenges and obstacles. How willing are you to face and overcome these challenges? Who you are, standing face-to-face with obstacles, defines the depth of your character, and it’s your character that defines how successful you will or will not become.

1. Grit
The greatest successes are not always the most talented. So, who are they? They are the hard workers, the committed, the involved, the inspired and the vocal. Striving for success must come from your guts; from the pure desire to live your dream. Your desire to succeed must be so deep that you hold no other option in your mind as a viable choice.

To be ranked amongst the elite, you have to make the decision to be the chooser of your own destiny. There is no reason you cannot reach and experience your highest potential. If you want to be successful, you have to dig deep, and refuse to get in the way of your own success. You must allow your hard work to dispel all self-doubt. When you feel “purposed” in this life you will be more than willing to wake up early, stay late, and pursue, pursue, pursue because you absolutely cannot imagine living your life in any other way than to live it doing what you love.

2. Observe
If you want success, start observing everyone around you. To compete with the best-of-the-best, you must watch, learn, observe and emulate what other successful people do, and take notes on why other less successful people are where they are. Emulate the attitude you see successful people carry.

Observe their body language, eye contact, speech, handshake, smile, listening skills, work ethic, the schedules they keep, the sacrifices they make, where and how they gain their skills and knowledge, how they treat other people, what books they read or talk about, and how they stay fit in mind and body. They more you observe the qualities you admire in other successful people, the more you can shape your success-path around what you observe to be a winning formula. In reality, the path to success has already been laid out for you by those before you; take advantage.

3. Focused
It is easy to become distracted by the outside world. Succeeding is never an easy upward jaunt. Succeeding at anything requires a daily commitment. Each day is a new day that will bring its own unique challenges, pressures and irritating details. You can either lose focus and let those things drop you into a negative mindset, or you can turn these negatives to positives, increase your focus and commit to staying in the channel of success.

If you lose focus, take a minute to regroup. Regrouping increases your capacity to sustain forward moving progress. To stay in the channel of success, focus on solutions, not problems. Keep grinding. Make sure each challenge you face makes you stronger.

4. Contribute
Success is never a one-man job. To be great, you must bring people up with you, and have people above to guide you. The more you contribute to the success of others, the more you succeed, and the greater a reputation you develop.

You must be unselfish. Your job is to know what your role is and to give that role everything you’ve got. The next step is to gift the knowledge you gain from performing your role to others. Invest in the grind with the intention of making yourself and everyone around you better. Success is a team sport. The better and more successfully you work with others, the brighter your future. You must change your mindset from an “I” to a “we.”

5. No excuses
Success boils down to a simple formula: If you do the little things right, the small things will fall into place. There is no excuse to point your finger at other people for the things you did not do, or for the success you have yet to achieve. Success comes down to effort, not excuses.

If you want to succeed, then do it. It’s that simple. If you experience a setback acknowledge it, change it and move forward as a smarter and wiser person. Be gracious and humble. No one likes an entitled blamer. Transmute any itch you feel to complain into the desire to get back onto the playing field and slay whatever was standing in your way. Effort is the most composed and effective way to recover from a mistake.

6. Keep moving
To be successful you must hold the mindset that learning never stops, the dream never stops, and the ground never stops. You’ve got to keep moving. You’ve got to bring your own energy into the game, and not count on others to supply you with what you need to keep going.

Each day that your eyes open is an opportunity for you to improve and take your success one step further. You’ve got to dig deep and hold the vision of what you want at the forefront of your mind. Movement is everything. If you stop, progress stops. If you give up, you just killed your dream. Access your inner strength, and champion for the results you want.

7. Stand out
To stand out on a roster of other successful individuals, you’ve got to bring your best effort every single day. You want your character to represent how tirelessly you’re willing to work to perfect your craft, how willing you are to risk getting out of your comfort zone, how coachable you are, how much time you’re willing to put in, and how willing you are to put certain leisure’s aside to take advantage of every moment that gets you closer to your goal; knowing that once you’re there, you can pick your leisure’s up again.

You’ve got to sacrifice. Do not make sacrifice a dirty word full of negative associations. When you love what you do, there is nothing negative about the word sacrifice; it is the armor you wear that represents how much pride you have in what you’re aiming for.

8. Faith
The journey to success is extraordinary. It’s a real-life drama, where each day you’re given the opportunity to fulfill your dreams. Each day is an opportunity to be grateful for the passion, commitment and abundance your success brings. There is nothing more fulfilling than pursuing the goals that wake you up in the morning. It takes deep belief, commitment and a tremendous amount of faith to keep going. If you don’t give up, even in the face of unexpected detours or losses, you will find the light at the end of the tunnel. Hard work and faith are your soldiers. If you feel both of these to depths of your bones, you cannot lose.

By Shubhomita Bose

Building a universally loved brand without engaging in price wars against competitors is not easy. But one brand that has achieved this seemingly impossible feat is Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL).

Behind Apple’s phenomenal success lies its strong product portfolio and design standards. But the company’s unparalleled marketing strategy has also played a crucial role in ensuring it stays on top of its game.

According to an infographic created by web design company, The Website Group, Apple’s winning marketing strategy provides lessons for small businesses.
The company created the infographic based on an article published in Entrepreneur.