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Every once in a while you have to stand and be counted. Something comes across your desk that you know will be huge, but you also know that you have to run with it and run with it fully.
Often it is easier to just play down the possibilities of what could happen so that you can feel less guilty about doing nothing, and staying within your comfort zone.
We have all done it… But we have all also taken action and basked in the results.
I got the chance when I was a kid to play at a big music show for exactly that, I was shaking but still walked into the audition.. right at the last minute when everyone was just starting to pack up and go home. I most definitely wasn’t the best of the candidates, and by a long shot too, but I knew I could nail the piece in question… Just had to go in there and get it done.. Which I very nearly decided not to do.
If I had have gone with my original gut move, shyed away from it and let everyone pack up and leave, I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to play with some of the most amazing and talented musicians out there, and play gigs way above my station.
But you gotta make the move.
So, why is this week going to be a big?
I’ll tell you why… My team are pulling out all of the stops this week and are throwing webinars, 2 everyday, all week. Webinars to get your business off to the best start; to turn your prospects into your distributors.
There are some crazy incentives for all too… But I’ll let them tell you all about those ;p
So, what is it going to be? Another week of not quite getting the results that you crave, or a week of bold and brave action, synchronising with a team who is going ‘balls out’ to make sure you get results?… and results by the end of this week too.
You jump into this week with both feet and I’ll bet you’ll be glad you did.
I can’t stop thinking that that guy in the pic is having a pee lol
Anyway, it’s no surprise that engaging your fellow human, when it comes to business, has taken a plethora of different turns in the last 10 years. So many, that most of us are never really quite sure where ‘it‘ is all at.
Think back to the 80′s…
Hardcore business guys riding the crest of the boom, much champagne, many lambourghinis and the sport of choice being hoovering of Columbia’s GDP. Things were banging in the ’80′s (apparently… I was still in school), but on a much less personal level. Advertising was big bucks because you needed to pay the price for premium real estate rental, be that billboards, TV or radio advertising.
Media was much more limited back them, so to get on it took some wedge.
We now live in the 21st century and things are a little bit different, anyone can have an online news column for free, or can go crazy and create their own online premium real estate starting at about $5-7 a month (given some time). Media is everywhere and not now just in the hands of the megacorps (although the Protect IP legislation may well change that). The problem we all now have, as no-one is looking at the billboards, is how to engage people when there is a lesser defined and obvious medium of choice?
As Gary Vaynerchuk points out, people aren’t looking at the billboards because they are all on their smartphones texting people or on mobile social media. The second problem you have when it comes to the new technosavvy oiks is that they are not taking anymore ‘push’ marketing, mainstream advertising media is fading, people fast forward the ads on their pre-recorded shows on their Tivo. How do you get them to see your message… that you just spent a small fortune on encasing in an audiovisual spectacle à la mode?
This is where I highly recommend Gary’s Inc 500 talk, he’s the Ambassador of tackling this point and gives you some great insight to where he believes it is all ‘going‘.
So everyone is moving online en masse, to more modern media, in which to consume information about products and services. They all now have a voice and are listening very closely to each other. The old strategy would be to barge into the conversation and change the subject, but we all know that that doesn’t work, just the same as doing it at a drinks party.
It appears that we all need to connect on a deeper level than just shouting out our message .
But we know that too…
Gary has a point when he identifies the ‘interesting place’ that Google is at when it comes to their algorythm. If Google is going more social, then surely the most social lion in the jungle wins no? He with the biggest network gets the traffic; The most popular guy in school gets the chicks?
I can’t get a straight SEO result without using an external plugin to keep my results ‘clean’ (here’s more on how to do it). If me or anyone in my network has ‘liked’ commented, subscribed, even blinked at a piece of content that contains the keyword that I’m trying to rank for, it’s coming up on page 1. Beware the Google +1 I reckon.
But now also begs the question, and something that Gary would tear me a new one over, is that I have quite a bit of automation going on, especially when it comes to Twitter. I am running a bit of a ‘pushfest’ admittedly, using TweetAdder. The thing here is though, no-one has ever been able to explain why having a load of Twitter followers has been of any use to anyone, but if Google are moving more into the social domain for SEO (presuming it hasn’t been dragged into the ‘Social Media Optimisation’ category) could having a gajillion Twitter followers improve your placements?… because 3 of them just liked your post, are also connected to Mary, whom has just done a Google search for your keyword? Ya see, I think that is quite possible, at least in the early transition (or until TweetAdder launches it’s IPO).
I suppose I should really get back to the point of the article…
Is ‘touchy feely’ where you want to go with your online business? Truth is, as time goes on I think you are going to have less and less of a choice. Word of mouth marketing (WOMM) has always been the most effective means of getting a message out there, but it is hard to track and rely on. The internet is quickly becoming the home of WOMM. People are looking at what other people are doing, Facebook already puts ‘X amount of your friends like this‘ in the top right sidebar for product and fan pages. We are herd creatures, we like to ‘keep up with the jones”, we like to feel incuded.
If Mary’s herd like you, she is more likely to like you too.
Gary has it right, if everyone is going social how do you stand above the noise? As always, go over and above. Fix the problem that your customer or prospect needs fixed and be there with them, then they’ll stay with you for the long haul.
What excites me the most is that the further this moves along its course, the closer brands will need to work with their customers, just like business was done in the old days, but on a global scale. Push it even further and you’ll realise that every sale will be a Social Media Word of Mouth Affiliate Sale and we’ll all be entrepreneurs
Jim Rohn was known as ‘America’s Foremost Business Philospher’. Unfortunately he passed on in late 2009, but he has left one hell of a legacy for all to tap into.
I was about 19 years old when I started my first business. I sold my car and bought the biggest Transit van you could buy and started moving bands about to gigs and also moved tech equipment during the day. Little did I know though, when listening to a tape given to me by some sales guys that I had met, that Jim Rohn would have such a profound influence on my future.
The guy on the tape, which I was listening to in said van, said something that to this day I have not been able to shift out of the back of my mind.
“Be employed and earn a living, be the employer and earn a fortune”
I only found out about 8 months ago that that man was Jim Rohn…
Now to follow just that mantra is a little bit uncouth, but when you are 19 that is all that you care about.. Money, chicks and good times. It was that short term philosophy that ended up being the downfall of my original one man megacorporation.
A better philosophy to live by, or guideline should I say is something else that Jim said…
“You Don’t Get Paid for the Hour, You Get Paid for the Value You Bring to the Hour”
He had a knack of making things so simple! To increase your means, you can’t increase the amount of hours in a day or week, but you can increase/augment/improve the person that works those hours.
And here is my challenge to you, which goes against the average philosophy of the modern adult. Always be looking to increase your value. I mentioned yesterday about how Donald Trump rebuilt his property empire from scratch, he could only do that because he was valuable. He had cultivated the knowledge of how to do it, which you don’t get from watching 4 hours of TV a day.
Always be looking to move out of your comfort zone and stretch yourself too. The bigger a person you become, the bigger an income you can command, or as I prefer to see it, the more people you can help. If you think that your education stopped when you left school, you are stifling your true potential to achieve anything that you want. If you want to be a business owner you are going to need to change that.
So nicely put, by Mark Twain…
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education”
What that illustrates to me is the disconnect from traditional schooling and the eternal quest for understanding; for betterment of one’s self.
Once you get past the ‘sales’ and ‘product’ speil in the business arena and really look into what entrepreneurship is all about, you soon find out that the real name of the game is becoming a better entrepreneur, which more-often-than-not means becoming a better person in general too. It is your respective community that will be the pool that will permit you to succeed, but in return you need to bring value to the table, something that is useful to them that they can use… And bring it time and time again. That’s how you succeed. You bring more value to the table and to the hours that you work.
So if you haven’t begun your quest yet… And a quest it is. Always aim to become a bigger and better version of you and focus on what it is that you can do to help others. There is no succeed or fail, there is only progress.
Donald Trump, the man with the hair, the man who lost it all and then used the skills that he acquired by ‘getting it’ to ‘get it’ all back.
I have just seen a picture on Google depicting his hair blowing in the wind making out that it is a ‘combover’, if anyone can clarify this for me, as I don’t think it is, answers in the comments section pls
If I am honest, I really am not very receptive to the ‘Hard-Nose Business Man’ image, I have never gotten it and to me it wreaks of a philosophy of profit over people, which I believe we are beginning to see the ramafications of in the global economy.
I’m not suggesting that Mr. Trump is guilty of inflicting any malaise on his fellow human being, but his character role in ‘The Apprentice’ isn’t very pleasant (but I suppose that’s what ‘getting ratings’ will do to you). I’m sure he is a lovely bloke in truth.
Anyway…
There is one thing that I can’t deny, and that is that the man is successful. It is as if he is addicted to success he’s so good at it. Here’s a man who lost all of his New York property empire, something that could well break the average hominid, but, showing his true grit and determination he went out and got it all back and much, much more.
To be able to do that you have got to have a vision, energy and most definitely understand what your passion is.
“If You Don’t Have Passion, You Have No Energy, and if You Don’t Have Energy, You Have Nothing”
- Donald Trump
What is your ‘Passion’ | Ways to find out
Yes I know that that sounds a bit of an odd question, but you will be surprised at how many people really don’t understand it. I have met far too many people that tell me that they are passionate about their job, when the thought of Monday morning gives them a heavy case of the Sunday night blues. Most people hate their job, but they like to believe their own bullshit. They will tell themselves that they are passionate about it because that way they don’t have any internal resistance, nor reason to face their fears.
Sorry if that was a bit blunt, but I call it as I see it. If your childhood dream was always to become a cashier at Walmart then I salute you, I really do, because you are far more a noble character than I am. I am always restless for change.
If you can’t wait to get to bed on Sunday night, for being excited about what Monday will bring, then I might start believing you. Until then, stop deluding yourself, it is really unhealthy.
Many people like to think that money is their passion, I would like to question that. I believe that they like what money can do for them but the ‘having of money’ doesn’t really bring anything to the table. What money can facilitate is where someone’s joy may derive. You may be sitting there thinking, yes but, an extra $500 a month would be great, and I won’t deny that it can help 99% of the population, but the sense of joy would come from lifted pressure from one’s shoulders or maybe the thought of the holiday that you may take this year. not the paper itself.
Write a list of everything that you do this week. Look into what you spend the most time on. You may say to me at the end of the week that you spend most of your time on YouTube, which I also have a habit of doing. The big question is, what information/videos are you actively hunting out?
What would you do if you never had to worry about money ever again? I’m guessing that if most people won the lottery they would party like it was 1999, but what would you do after. Remember you do not need to work, as you do not need money. Something that we all quickly find out is that doing nothing for a long period of time becomes ever so boring and depressing… Unless you have a project that you love…
I certainly don’t want to make this post about me, because it is here to get you to think about you, but I want to list a few of my passions so you can get an idea.
I am passionate about being human above race, colour, creed, nationality or any other affiliation
I am passionate about family
I am passionate about providing solutions to problems, for the benefit of all mankind
I am passionate about seeing people grow to realise who they really are, not who society dictates them as
I am passionate about seeing people succeed
I am passionate about information and knowledge – I was just discussing it last night with an old friend whom also appears to be afflicted with an information addiction
Unfortunately, most things outside of those criteria I see as distractions.
To ignite that feeling inside, to turn your determination into a robust entity you need something that really fires up the soul. Embrace whatever it is and plan to head towards it and really get in and amongst it. Align your goals with your passions and you cannot fail, you will just brush yourself off after every fall and carry on. You can only fail if you give up and as I have said before, to give up on things so magnanimous is a real tragedy.
As a smart man once said… ‘To infinity and beyond!’ ;p
Every once in a while you have to stand and be counted. Something comes across your desk that you know will be huge, but you also know that you have to run with it and run with it fully.
