Jigsaw Lessons - The Unexpected Benefits of Analog

“Regardless what technology is, I like analog too.” Lou Graham

Seeing everyone with their nose stuck to a phone lately has made me want to go more analog. Way analog, like 1976 analog. So I got a jigsaw puzzle. It’s an image of New York City’s Times Square. I picked it because I love New York and it makes me think happy thoughts of all my friends who live there.

Work on the puzzle has been going well. As I make my way through it I suddenly realized I’m gaining some special life lessons along with the sense of completion.

The first is: have something meditative in your life. Most of the time, my brain is streaming constantly with thoughts. But when I do the jigsaw they grow quiet. It’s such a visual activity that the only thoughts that come up are, “Is it you?,” “Where are you hiding?,” and “There you are you little nuisance!” I’ve never been successful at meditation but other activities that require focus and quiet the mind offer similar benefits. Far from tiring me, I find my puzzle makes me feel refreshed, and as long as I continue to find ways to have my own version of a meditative practice, be it yoga, a dance class or some other hobby, I’ll continue to reap these benefits.

My next discovery is that the piece you’re looking for is already there. As I start to complete a section, often there is one pesky piece that seems to be missing. I have a kitty cat who is into everything so I thought maybe she got up on the table at night and batted a few pieces around. But so far, every time I’ve kind of given up on locating a specific piece, one day is just shows up in the mix, having been sitting there all along.

How many times have you been startled to discover a truth you’re seeking has been sitting inside you? Sometimes we forget we don’t need anything external to validate us because we are already whole and complete.

Lately instead of assuming I don’t know something or need to go look for it, I trust it’s already inside and will reveal itself in due time, even if it might not look the way I expected. I can’t tell you how stress-reducing this approach has been.

One final thing that’s been soothing about the puzzle has been a connection to the past. I work on it on my dining room table, which was originally my grandparents, who I dearly loved. They used it for fifty years before it passed to me and I have enjoyed countless meals, holidays and many a childhood jigsaw puzzle on this exact table. There’s even a picture of me eating my first birthday cake on it when I turned one year old.

I can so clearly connect to my childhood and teenage self as I work on my puzzle and it gives me a feeling of connection and continuity, of life progressing properly thought its chapters and seasons. It puts the troubles of the day into perspective. I’m not advocating we all life in the past of course, but having little touchstones of it can give the present more depth and meaning.

I didn’t know when I opened the jigsaw box that it would hold such unexpected treasure. Technology is great and makes life much easier, but there is still a role for the analog in a life well lived. Maybe I can encourage you to go a little analog with a pre-digital hobby and see what it offers you.

Stop Talking

"Emotional entrainment is the heart of influence." -Daniel Goleman

We live in a culture that is constantly pushing answers at us all day long.  No sooner do you share something troubling you with a friend when that friend is offering all sorts of advice, sometimes before you've even finished your story.  We're taught that to care about someone means to help solve their problems.  But what if that weren't true?  Did you ever think that your mere presence could be enough? 

Recently I've been studying a concept called entrainment.  The word "entrain" means to pull along after itself, like a series of box cars on a track.  In a nutshell, it's a naturally occurring phenomenon about how we pull each other in synch, given proximity.  It was discovered by a seventeenth century clockmaker named Christian Huygens who invented the pendulum clock.  He would leave his studio only to find all the pendulums swinging in unison, despite his purposefully not setting them that way. 

You might not realize your energy works like that, but it does.  If you have a friend who is upset or sick, you can comfort that person simply by sitting near them and maintaining a state of peace.  Can you imagine how much better that friend would feel, compared to a visit by someone who spoke ceaselessly and advised them on all the things they needed to do to solve their problems?

Sometimes talking is overrated.  As my grandfather progressed through his nineties, his hearing became quite poor.  It became frustrating for both of us to try and have conversations like we used to, so instead I would just sit with him, smile at him and make funny faces, which he would return.  One of my favorite dinners we had was one where it was just the two of us, slowly making our way through three courses without much talking, just smiling, laughing and enjoying each other's company.

A really cool thing about entrainment is that it works just as well on yourself as on others.  With practice, you can slow yourself down, open your heart and surround yourself with peace whenever you wish.  You can train your heart to lead your mind, instead of the other way around.

Gandhi understood the power of silence so much that he devoted every Monday to it.  He believed not speaking made him a better listener and brought him more inner peace. 

While that ideal may be out of the reach of most of us from a practical standpoint, we can each consciously scale back our typical commentary.  For example, the next time you're with a friend, instead of diving in with a similar example, just empathize.  Say, "Wow you must have been so surprised," or "Gee that sounds rough."  You may find there is a lot more your friend would like to say, given the space.  And you may find you're able to be more present by simply listening, instead of waiting to speak. 

In A Box

 “How did it get so late so soon?” 

--Dr. Seuss

I had some losses recently. My beloved grandfather came within six months of his 100^th birthday, but stubborn as he was, he just couldn’t quite make it there.  Not too long after, the only pet of my adult life reached a similar end, at a very ancient (for a cat) age of 20 years.  You’d think that having both of these wonderful entities in my life for such a long time would have lessened the grief at their passing, but it was not so.  Greedily I still wanted more time with them and found it hard to let go.

On a cold, early winter day, we lowered shovelfuls of earth on my grandfather’s grave, while on a dark, lightning bug-lit summers’ night we gently lowered our cat’s pinewood coffin into its secret spot.  But this isn’t an article about sadness or death.  Rather it’s about the shift that happened following these two occurrences.  I started thinking about “the box.”

Poppy will always be in a beautiful, shiny brown metal box with gold handles, while Ernie’s simple pinewood box is one we built ourselves.  Perfectly sized for him, I used a Sharpie to decorate the outside with his name, dates of birth and death, messages of love and a drawing of him with us, his forever family.  I picture both of them in their boxes now, at peace and just resting.  Turning back into elements, grass and someday stardust again.

I think about how there is a box somewhere waiting for me. It might not have been built yet, but the idea of it, if not the reality, is now firmly planted.  And there is a box for you as well.  There is a box for everyone.  (And if you plan to be cremated or dropped in the ocean, there is a metaphorical box for you.) 

Every day, every moment, you are approaching closer to that box and a simple hole in the Earth.  We will each go in there, maybe soon, or maybe (hopefully) not for a long, long time. Death and taxes, this is where we all trails end.

Truly understanding the hard truth of the box has changed me.  It has made me less afraid.  In perhaps a strange way, it comforts and encourages me, reminding me to make the most of the minutes and hours left to me. It helps me keep failure in perspective, and gravitate toward what’s real and feels important.  If there is something I feel a pull to explore, I now do it faster and with more abandon.  If there is a letdown that sandbags me, I recover sooner.  I must.  I am driven now.  Life needs to be lived fully because the clock is ticking down.  Days are precious. The box is waiting.

Let's Talk About Role Models

If I were to ask you to name your biggest role models in life, could you rattle them right off?  Most people can't.  Most people have never consciously chosen role models, although of course, we all are influenced by others throughout our lives. 

When it comes to living an extraordinary life, role models are a requirement.  They're necessary because odds are, few people in your day-to-day life are inspiring you to greatness.  And even if you do have some powerful women or men you especially look up to and strive to be like, I've found we need lots of role models to embody a variety of different qualities we want to develop in ourselves.

Role models are delicious.  They widen your world from what you personally have experienced, inspire you, motivate you, fill your head with ideas and best of all, their influence is available to you any time at no charge thanks to libraries, bookstores, movies and the Internet.  How do you find them?  It's so easy.  Just look around at people, lives and experiences that speak to you.  As you read books, websites and magazines, notice what jumps out at you and find a way to delve deeper into that in your free time.

Throughout my adult life I've had dozens of role models who embodied qualities I wanted to develop.  My list includes:

• Cary Grant for his enduring friendships, financial frugality and foresightedness
• Audrey Hepburn for her grace and huge heart
• Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis for her fierce privacy and immovable personal boundaries
• Princess Diana for her raw humanitarianism
• Marilyn Monroe for her constant striving to perfect her craft
• Cindy Crawford for her entrepreneurialism and willingness to take professional risks
• Hubert Keller for his tireless enthusiasm and incredible work ethic
• Helen Gurley Brown for her generous career teachings to her own and future generations
• Jim Rohn for his humor and unique way of speaking that conveyed important ideas so simply and clearly
• Diana Vreeland for her boldness and elegant eccentricity
• George Balanchine for his extraordinary creativity

This list is just a small sampling of extraordinary lives I've studied in detail.  Each of these people has provided me with valuable instruction in how I want to live my life, even if I have never met them.  As they entered my world and engaged me, I made it a point to read books and articles about them, so I could get a detailed picture of their uniqueness and how they came to develop those special qualities.

Sometimes people make the mistake of thinking their role models have to be perfect.  To me, that's a big error in thinking because, for one thing, no one is perfect.  Secondly, just because someone has messed up in one area of their life doesn't mean they can't inspire and teach incredible things in another part of their life.  I don't require my inspirations to be perfect.  Even their flaws can teach me something important.

Fall In Love With The Process

Sometimes we set ourselves up for failure and don’t even know it.  For example, how many times have you changed your behavior to achieve a certain result like losing 10 pounds, only to backslide once you reached your goal and wind up back where you started?  Many of us seem to swing on a perpetual pendulum because our focus is on a short-term outcome rather than an ongoing change.

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately given my new interest in fitness competitions.  In this sport there’s a lot of concentration on upcoming competitions.  There’s kind of this outward pressure that you should always be gearing up for the next one. But once the competition is over you don’t want to end up burnt out, crabby and miserable because you can’t sustain the herculean efforts you put in temporarily.

I’ve come to see it’s better to have a long-term mindset where you purposefully fall in love, not with the end outcome, but with the actual things you need to do on a regular basis.  Fall in love with the process of improving.

In my case this means working out hard, watching my diet and developing my stage presence.  Rather than see these things as nasty chores or sacrifices I must make for a little while, I am now seeing them as exceptional skills that benefit me and that I am lucky to get to do every day.  I’ve given up seeing the end state as the trophy or even fixating on the end state at all. 

This philosophy applies to any goal, for example a person who wants to be a top sales person can decide to fall in love with making lots of exceptional sales calls, getting better at it all the time.  Someone who is seeking a long term love relationship can start to consciously enjoy the activity of dating, becoming a better and better person to date with each outing, all with the knowledge that that special person is coming.

When you develop a passion for the process of improvement you develop positive habits.  Success then becomes a natural byproduct of what you’re doing.  Instead of riding that pendulum of frustration, you hop on a rocket ship of inevitable victory.  Your success becomes a foregone conclusion.

It's Not Me, It's Them

As a professional PR person, I’ve had a chance to dive into social media. Twitter in particular I really like, because it’s fun to challenge yourself to say something pithy in 140 characters or less. The exchange of ideas and information there can be fast and furious as well as laser targeted, which makes the format a useful resource for all sorts of things. There is this one thing I’ve learned from my use of Twitter that I did not expect – to become unattached to what people think of you.

Students of self-improvement may be familiar with the phrase “What others think of me is none of my business.” This is a great philosophy because even if we twist ourselves into pretzels to people-please, we never can truly control how someone might choose to view us. And we burn ourselves out in the process. I believe that focusing on what I am creating and contributing is a healthier and more productive way to live. I have found that it is also important to let go of the need for others to like what I am writing/thinking, or to look for praise or agreement.

Easier said than done though. There’s this annoying ego that jumps in ascribing meaning to what others say and do about us, and sometimes those thoughts can become really destructive, causing great work to be abandoned, like when Stephen King threw his manuscript of Carrie into the trash. (It was rescued by his wife and became his first big success.)

As an early adopter of Twitter, my policy is to follow back everyone who follows me. I know this is not how everyone uses Twitter and I’m not saying it’s the right way. Maybe I am just old fashioned, but I feel like it is only polite to return a courtesy. To keep my Twitter feed from becoming unmanageable, I just use the Lists feature to pull out the updates I want to be sure to read. It’s no big deal really. But as a company, Twitter doesn’t want its follow/follower ratios to get too unbalanced, so if you follow folks back like I do, you kind of have to go in and unfollow them if they unfollow you so that your account can continue to grow naturally.

I use a website called JustUnfollow.com to accomplish this task. It is also very simple. I sign in with my Twitter account on the JustUnfollow website, it pulls up a list of everyone who has recently unfollowed me and I click unfollow by each one. (Twitter no longer allows bulk unfollows so you have to do it individually.) 

Now here’s the unexpected learning I’ve received: I have a lot of followers on Twitter so every week, oodles of people unfollow me. More new people follow me than old ones leave though, so my follower tribe has only ever moved in an upwards direction since I first tweeted back in 2009. And it’s not like the unfollowers are directly tied to what I am sharing either. I can have a day where I get the most retweets and favorites ever and still have plenty of folks say, “No thanks, your stuff is not for me.”

I find it kind of fascinating. It has forced me to adjust my previous belief that if I would just tweet amazing stuff all the time, everyone would always love it. And while it is true that the majority of people do seem to like it, I cannot control those who take offense, choose to weed down the number of people they follow, don’t appreciate my point of view or whatever. My personal Twitter policies have forced me to find a way to become comfortable with processing the steady unfollower stream without it impacting my desire and ability to continue to post what I believe is useful information. In essence, it has thickened my skin.

Thanks to Twitter and my ways of using it, I no longer see rejection as something that must be painful or unpleasant. For a variation on what Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can’t please all of the people all of the time.” That’s life. Accept it and move on. I am not suggesting to ignore all negative feedback or that I am absolute in my beliefs. Challenge and dialogue (brief that it may be) can be important. I am still interested in what others choose to share with me, and I am sure most others are too. But it feels very freeing to recognize that everyone has free will, your stuff is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea and that it’s totally okay. I appreciate people taking the time to check out my contributions and I am in agreement with whatever decisions they then make. Perhaps the next time I visit San Francisco, I will stop in the Twitter corporate headquarters to thank them for teaching me this valuable lesson.

7 Secrets For Leaving Better Voicemail Messages

If you’re like most business people, you leave voicemail messages all day long but you’re rarely given much thought to how you’re doing it. Voicemail can be a great way to save time, but it can also create unintended negative results if you’re unaware of a few bad habits. Here are 7 secrets to leaving better voicemail messages.

1. Start with something personal – Telemarketer calls are such a problem these days, people might think you are a spammer if you don’t quickly say your name and why you are calling them. If you don’t know the person well, it’s best to say “Bob, this is Pam Smith, we met at the NAWBO luncheon last Tuesday and you asked me to follow up with you.” Now you can be sure your message will be fully heard.

2. Keep it brief – Everyone is time pressed these days. Voicemail is no place to get into a long story. Just leave the tip of the iceberg and save all the juicy details for when they call you back.

3. Slow down – If you’re at all nervous, there is a natural tendency to rush. It is better to speak slowly and clearly, even if it means you will have to distill your message down to its essence. When you talk too quickly, people often miss what you’re saying.

4. Repeat your callback number – People are often distracted when they’re listening to their voicemail playbacks. Even if you say your number slowly, they may miss some of it. That’s why it’s considerate to repeat it. That way the other person doesn’t have to replay the whole message a second time.

5. If you’re cranky, don’t make phone calls – A person’s energy comes through loud and clear over phone wires, so if you’re having a bad day, focus on other tasks, or watch funny YouTube videos until you shake off your blues.

6. Don’t call and hang up repeatedly – With some phone systems, it creates a voicemail for each call received, even if you don’t speak. If you’re in the habit of calling people repeatedly until they pick up, you may inadvertently create a situation where they have to sit and delete multiple blank messages from you before they can get to their actual voice messages. This does not build goodwill.

7. Script important messages – Certain messages are critical. For these types of messages, it’s a good idea to write down your main points so that you don’t lose your train of thought and ramble. As long as you can sound natural, it’s okay to have some written words to guide you as you leave your message.

5 Google Results You Want

Today every business exists in two worlds simultaneously – the online world and the offline world. Even if a company has done absolutely nothing online, their lack of any presence still says something about them. And odds are, there are people talking about them anyway, they just don’t know it.

There are certain categories of information that you want to come up when people are checking out your business online. After you review this list you might want to do a quick Google search to see how many of these you have covered.

1. Content demonstrating your unique expertise – This is stuff that proves you know what you’re talking about. It could be articles, videos, blogs, webpages, whitepapers, newsletters, tweets, ebooks or any combination thereof. Each of these posts are ways to highlight what is unique and special about your firm, your voice and the specific way you help people. People go online to find out what you’re all about, so make it easy for them. Share that kind of information so they can get to know you.

2. Interviews supporting your thought leadership – This is where the media has asked to interview you about your area of expertise. You could be the featured expert or you could just be quoted as one of many in the resulting coverage. It could be a Q & A with a blogger, or a quick conversation on YouTube. This type of content is very powerful to have online because it demonstrates others are seeking out what you know. It is a great endorsement of your professionalism, so if you have never been interviewed by any media, you might want to set a goal for that to happen this year.

3. Pictures and images – You know how Google has a tab called Images? People can click solely to see visuals of you or your business, so you don’t want those results to come up blank. Be sure your website and online presence includes quality photographs. It could be someone demonstrating something, site pictures or images from an event. These visuals will give a fuller sense of you and your business beyond what words alone can share.

4. Testimonials – As a prospect is scrolling through your search results it would be ideal if they came across other people describing their experiences in working with you. You can have a testimonials page on your website, but don’t stop there. Use the testimonials section of LinkedIn as well, and identify third party websites in your industry where people share this type of information. Facebook and Twitter are also great places to share short endorsements too.

5. Participation in online conversations – As people search online for industry content, it is very helpful for them to come across you offering an expert answer to someone’s question or pointing someone else in the right direction. When these types of pages come up on Google, they demonstrate your expertise but also show your community involvement. You can even initiate a discussion if you prefer.

By proactively ensuring these five types of content appear in any Google search of your company, you position yourself as an expert in the best possible way and greatly enhance the probability of a prospect picking up the phone to contact you directly and do business.

Zombie Marketing

“The average American worker has fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.” – W. Edwards Deming

You might have noticed, zombies have become a popular part of our cultural landscape. The continuing interest in zombie-themed movies, TV shows and even events seems to keep growing with no end in sight. As a marketer, it got me thinking about places where “Walking Dead” might be appropriate for certain marketing tactics.

Telemarketing, junk mail and mailbox-stuffing paper campaigns all meet my definition of what I’ll call “Zombie Marketing.” These tactics are dead but they don’t know it. They may work in terms of enough people seem to respond to make it worth doing, but that doesn’t mean they’re a good strategy for a savvy business interested in building goodwill.

Please don’t misunderstand, I am not saying all phone calls, emails or mail campaigns are bad. Just the ones that are spammy, junky or clearly bogus and a waste of time.

See, as a culture, we are moving away from interruption-based communication. We’re moving toward information on demand. You don’t want a furnace repair company to call you on a random Tuesday when your furnace is working fine. You do want to find a reliable furnace repair company quickly when yours breaks down. That requires a completely different approach to getting the word out.

As a business owner who has had the same phone number for over a decade, you can imagine how many zombie marketing lists I am on. Each week I receive phone calls from solicitors saying they are “Checking on the copier,” when I don’t have a copier. Or they want to give me special offers on my phone account, when I have no such account with their company. When I inform them of this, they hang up and dial the next number on their list.

Zombies only think about their own immediate needs. They have zero empathy for anyone else. They’re mindless. They add little of value and their numbers can quickly get out of hand. Kind of like all the junk email in your spam folder, or the print solicitations that you dump in the recycling bin each day.

When considering marketing techniques, don’t be part of the undead horde. Ask yourself, “Does this tactic interrupt people? Does it annoy them? Have I bothered to figure out if this person is even a prospect for what I offer? Am I just putting this out in mass quantities hoping anything will stick?” It is far better to focus on providing quality information of value and making that available in as many forms as possible to those who seek it. One day the zombie techniques will truly die out. Until then, stick to tactics for the living.

How to Grow Your Social Authority

Social authority isn’t given, it’s earned. To develop social authority you basically need to do two things: 1. cultivate a following or network and 2. consistently add value. That’s it. Sometimes people make it a lot more complicated than it really is.

I believe every brand has information that is of value to the marketplace, and today there are more affordable avenues than ever before to showcase and share that knowledge. To begin, simply decide which social media platform is the best fit for you (hint – it is probably where you clients and customers are spending their time). Next, establish a professional profile and then you’ll be ready to start connecting to others and sharing what you know and learn.

I recommend sharing in ways that go beyond just words – use pictures, charts, graphics and videos as well because so many of us are visual and appreciate seeing as well as reading. Also, look for role models online to help guide you. It’s easy to do a search of who is the leading force in your industry on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or Facebook. Follow or connect with those people to discover what folks are responding to and finding helpful.

As you progress, you’ll more fully find your unique voice and you may be surprised at some of the far flung connections you make. You’ll also want to set some clear and specific goals for your online efforts early on. Knowing where you want to go will help keep you on track and will make it easier for you to decide if the time you’re spending online is providing a measurable return on investment. If you’re not prepared to form authentic, sincere relationships, social media is no place for you.

Ultimately, social media is a lot like networking – it involves developing relationships rather than selling. It is important to come from a place of contribution. Recognized and lauded social authorities share a focus on helping others succeed and reach their goals, so it’s best to keep in mind how your expertise can save others time, money or effort in developing your content. Les Brown said, “Help others achieve their dreams and you will achieve yours.” Keep an eye out for useful tips, showcase up and coming tools, help others make sense of new trends and provide feedback and input. Most of all, stick with it! When people realize you are steadily delivering great information your social stock will soar and you will become an important social authority.

Finding Time For Marketing

If you’ve subscribed to my ezine for a while, you know I’m all about consistency when it comes to doing marketing. That’s because you get better results with small, steady action than with occasional, splashy efforts. But finding the time for that small steady action can be tricky. Business owners are pulled in so many directions, and often marketing can fall to the bottom of the list.

To make sure that doesn’t happen to you, block out time in your calendar for marketing each week. Or delegate it to someone who can help manage the tasks for you. Now you only need to schedule a regular check-in meeting to keep your marketing on track. Another tip is to use an accountability partner – perhaps a business owner friend who wants to keep on top of her marketing too. You can touch base by phone or email as a way to help make sure you finish your top projects.

Batching tasks is another way to whip through your marketing – do all the writing for your blog, website, direct mail and social media in one fell swoop, leveraging the content different ways. Now you’ve fully reaped the rewards of that time investment. If marketing isn’t your favorite thing but you’re not ready to delegate it, set a timer and commit to working on it for at least 15 minutes. You can actually accomplish more than you’d expect in that small amount of time, and by just getting started you may find it’s easier to keep going.

A lot of wasted time in marketing stems from being unclear about your goals. Maybe instead of diving into marketing tasks, it would be better to clarify exactly what results you want, and then only do those marketing steps that are most likely to deliver. Lastly, make more time for marketing by letting go of less important activities. Do you really personally need to run to the store for envelopes and paper or can someone else do that? Notice what fills your time and look for areas to release so that you can focus on things that give a higher pay-off.

© 2011 Barbara Wayman, APR, BlueTree Media, all rights reserved

Barbara Wayman, APR, president of BlueTree Media, LLC, publishes The Stand Out Newsletter, an award-winning monthly ezine for people who want to know how to leverage the power of marketing and public relations. Get your free subscription today at http://BlueTreeMedia.com

Networking Hangover - Take the Pain out of Follow Up

Once a networking event is over, what do you do? If you're like most business people the answer is go back to your office and immediately get buried in a pile of work. STOP. Wrong answer.

A huge piece of your networking success is going to come from follow-up, and like anything else in life, it is your habits that make all the difference. If you routinely come back from events, throw the business cards you collected in a pile and forget all about them, you are probably not realizing the best return on investment from your networking activities. Follow-up is easy to do, but it is also easy NOT to do, which is why your habits are so important.

To make it as easy on yourself as possible, consider creating a follow-up checklist. Your checklist doesn't have to be long and complicated, it can be just a record of the simple steps you'd like to take once you get back from an event.

Maybe you will want to email some of the people you've met and thank them for something they said or did for you. Maybe you'll want to log onto your LinkedIn or Twitter account and send connection requests or follow certain people. Maybe there are prospects you need to call and schedule a meeting or coffee with. If you do an ezine, there might be names you want to add to your distribution list.

A simple networking follow-up checklist can walk you or your assistant through these steps so they get handled quickly and efficiently. You won't miss opportunities and you won't have that dreaded pile of businesses cards sitting on your desk collecting dust and making you feel guilty. A once-a-week trip through your checklist keeps everything fresh in your mind and ensures you're making the most of the time you spend networking.

TIP: Create and use a simple follow-up checklist to help make your networking effective and guilt-free.

© 2011 Barbara Wayman, APR, BlueTree Media, all rights reserved

Barbara Wayman, APR, president of BlueTree Media, LLC, publishes The Stand Out Newsletter, a free monthly ezine for people who want to know how to leverage the power of marketing and public relations. Get your free subscription today at http://BlueTreeMedia.com

Grow Your Business With Article Marketing

Did you know that writing and publishing articles on the Internet can be an effective and affordable way to grow your business and increase your visibility? There are hundreds of article aggregators online today that are actively looking for the kind of expert content you can provide to others.

Since I started regularly posting articles over the past couple of years, I've achieved my goal of letting a much wider pool of people who are interested in the topics I write about find me online. That's because article aggregators attract tens of millions of visitors each month. Their heavy traffic can benefit you too. Why might you want to publish articles online? Here are my top five reasons:

1. Increases your perception as an expert - Most people do not take the time to even write a personal letter, much less author articles. Even though it isn't really difficult once you get the hang of it, being a published author, even online, really adds to your expertise and the comfort with which people will chose to do business with you.

2. Expands your capillary system - Article marketing is like a giant capillary system that branches out, reaching a much wider pool of prospective customers than you could do in the physical world, and sucking them into your pipeline. Every business needs a steady flow of new prospects and article marketing provides it.

3. Ease of Entry- It is more difficult to publish articles in print publications than online. To write in a print publication, you'll need to be vetted by a gatekeeper or two and have discussions about exactly what you propose to offer, which takes time. Also, with print advertising budgets dwindling, most print publications have fewer pages available. But online it is a quick and simple matter to submit your articles and see them posted.

4. Long shelf life - Once people read a publication they either pass it along to someone else or throw it away. Your article might not ever be read again. But online, each one is up in cyberspace for years, greatly increasing your return on investment.

5. Provides leverage - Leverage is a key concept for all small business owners. It means re-using and repurposing your work in every way that you can. If you're already publishing articles for an ezine, article marketing gives you a way to further benefit from that work. You can also leverage your articles on social media to increase your return on investment for any writing you are already doing.

© 2011 Barbara Wayman, APR, BlueTree Media, all rights reserved

Barbara Wayman, APR, president of BlueTree Media, LLC, publishes The Stand Out Newsletter, a free monthly ezine for people who want to know how to leverage the power of marketing and public relations. Get your free subscription today at http://BlueTreeMedia.com

Your Email Signature - How to Make it Even Better

Forgive me, but I get a little hot under the collar when talking about email signatures. Email signatures are simply the information that automatically posts at the bottom of your emails, below your messages. Just this week alone I received two emails from business contacts asking me to call them to discuss work-related opportunities, yet neither one made use of an email signature, which forced me to try to track down their number like a professional investigator. Did I enjoy that? No I did not.

Everyone who uses email really needs to make use of an email signature. Otherwise you are inconveniencing the people you communicate with when it comes time for them to call you, visit your website or mail you something. Do you really want to force them to track down your business card from months ago, or go on an online search for how to reach you?

If you are already using an email signature, congrats! But you're still not off the hook with me. Is your email signature comprehensive, easy to read, attractive and does it have a message that gets across your unique service proposition?

In addition to having your complete mailing information and contact phone numbers, your email signature could also include a graphic of your logo, your tagline, a line of type sharing some cool new news about your company as well as a link to your website and social media pages. Use a font and colors that align with your overall brand to keep things consistent.

Email signatures are simple to set up, free to use and they offer a wide variety of options that can enhance the branding of any business. Take a moment today to look at your email signature with fresh eyes. When it's comprehensive, attractive and clearly shares something positive about what you do you're using it to its best advantage.

© 2011 Barbara Wayman, APR, BlueTree Media, all rights reserved
This article may be reprinted when the copyright and author bio are included. ©2010 Barbara Wayman, BlueTree Media, LLC.

Barbara Wayman, APR, president of BlueTree Media, LLC, publishes The Stand Out Newsletter, a free monthly ezine for people who want to know how to leverage the power of marketing and public relations. Get your free subscription today at http://BlueTreeMedia.com/ezine.html

Throw Sunshine On Their Parade

Has this ever happened to you? You get a new idea. You're all excited. You share your idea with someone near and dear to you and you hear, "Oh, that will never work," or "I knew someone who tried that once and it was a complete disaster."

People are often ready to rain on others' parades, especially those they love the most. I don't know if it stems from a desire to protect from failure or just a projection of their own fears, but people often tamp out others' enthusiasm and think it's a favor.

Recently I've taken a different approach. When someone comes to me with a new idea, I don't rain on their parade. I throw sunshine on it. I look for the good in their idea and how it can help people. I encourage them to pursue it, knowing that they're likely to grow from the experience regardless of the outcome. After all, it's often through mistakes and failures that we learn the most.

Consider this - a system of support is a major determinant of success for people trying to make a major change like lose weight or start their own business. Success is a social activity. While you think you might be protecting someone by pointing out the things that could go wrong with their endeavor, you are probably overlooking all the things that could go wrong if they fail to make a necessary change.

The next time someone approaches you with the beginnings of an idea, notice what is right about their idea and if it isn't dangerous, immoral or illegal, encourage them to give it a go. You never know where their idea could lead. Throw some sunshine around and see what happens.

Barbara Wayman, APR, president of BlueTree Media, LLC, publishes The Stand Out Newsletter, a free monthly ezine for people who want to know how to leverage the power of marketing and public relations. Get your free subscription today at http://BlueTreeMedia.com


© 2011 Barbara Wayman, APR, BlueTree Media, all rights reserved

10 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page

Is your business using a Facebook Fan page? With over 300 million active users, many companies have found fan pages vital to their marketing efforts. But how to get your fan page going? Here are some simple suggestions.

1. Create your own URL - the URLs for Facebook pages often are long and ugly. Register a separate domain name for your page and forward it to your Facebook page. If you already have a website you can use a subdomain, like yourwebsite.facebookfanpage.com.

2. Create an incentive to join. Give people a reason to become a fan. Offer a discount to an upcoming event, or make special announcements to your page before you do it elsewhere. Bribe your list with something they want. Run a monthly or weekly prize drawing just for your fans where you draw a fan's name at random for a special prize, ideally connected with your product or service.

3. Create content just for Fans - Offer stuff they can't get anywhere else such as videos, tips, special gifts, coupons and discussion threads.

4. Talk about your page on Twitter - Not just "check out my Facebook Fan page" but something more enticing like, "This video from our costume/anniversary party is going to crack you up," or "Last day to join our FB fan page and receive a free ebook."

5. Promote regular contests - Have fans upload videos and give a prize for the best one. Or let other fans vote. Engage fans with simple things they can do to win. Celebrity Chef Hubert Keller asks trivia questions in exchange for dinner for two or passes to a special event.

6. Acknowledge fans - This is a big one. Please no one tell me they can't get fans to participate when they've never even welcomed fans who join their page. That's like saying you're lonely when you haven't invited anyone over for dinner in six months. When a new fan joins your group or writes on your page wall, respond by writing back on their profile wall. This help create visibility for you and them. Click "like" on their posts. Also, look for your fans on Twitter and send them an @ message. Remind them there are actual people behind your brand and you're interested in them.

7. Provide a place for interaction - Start a thread on your discussion board that allows your fans to promote and/or network with one another. For example, invite your fans to submit their own and their favorite blogs. Ask them what part of your common industry they find the most challenging. Ask their tips. The fact that they're your fans means they already have something in common with other fans.

8. Send email broadcasts - Send an email blast to your regular opt-in list inviting them to join your new Fan Club. Offer an incentive to do so. Show them what's in it for them. Also include an invitation to join your club on your email signature line.

9. Keep your page fresh - Don't neglect it. Set up a regular time in your calendar to focus on your Facebook page. Don't forget the viral nature of Facebook. When someone interacts on your page it may appear on that person's Facebook feed, promoting your page to their friends.

10. Put a button on your website - Grab a button and flaunt it on your website, your blog, your YouTube channel, your ezine. A button is a graphic link that goes directly to your Facebook page. Once people click on it they're on your page exploring and hopefully connecting. With these tips your Facebook fan page should be off and running in no time.

Barbara Wayman, president of BlueTree Media, LLC, publishes The Stand Out Newsletter, an award-winning ezine for people who want to know how to leverage the power of marketing and public relations. Get your free subscription today at http://www.bluetreemedia.com

This article may be reprinted when the copyright and author bio are included.

©2010 Barbara Wayman, BlueTree Media, LLC.

The F Word

No, not that one. I’m talking about a different “f-word” – failure. Our culture shies away from the failure label. Some folks even refuse to use it, preferring euphemisms like “challenge” or “issue.” There’s something even more powerful than pretending failure doesn’t exist. That is embracing it as evidence of growth and a crucial pathway to success.

After all, failure and success are two sides of the same coin. You often must persevere past setbacks before you reach your goal. Most high achievers will tell you they’ve failed plenty of times. What set them apart is they didn’t let it stop them.

To take the sting out of this f-word, try looking at it head on – “That approach was a failure.” “I failed at producing that result using that method.” Big deal. Now you know something you didn’t know before – namely one approach that doesn’t work.

There’s a story that when a reporter asked Thomas Edison how it felt to fail 10,000 times in trying to invent the light bulb, he replied, “I have successfully found 10,000 ways it will not work.” But the question gave him a light bulb moment. He realized that to succeed he was going to need to fail faster, so he hired assistants and got busy attempting even more approaches until he finally hit on the one the did the trick.

Maybe it’s time to reframe failure. Instead of seeing it as a painful and embarrassing calamity, view it as an inevitable part of the success process and even cause for celebration. Failure means you put something out there. You tried, you learned and you probably got further than 80% of others. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. You might even set a goal to fail even bigger and faster, knowing that bigger success awaits you on the other side.



© 2011 Barbara Wayman, APR, BlueTree Media, all rights reserved

Barbara Wayman, APR, president of BlueTree Media, LLC, publishes The Stand Out Newsletter, an award-winning monthly ezine for people who want to know how to leverage the power of marketing and public relations. Get your free subscription today at http://BlueTreeMedia.com

Big Rocks Revisited

Have you heard that story about the teacher who showed his students how to get a sizable amount of big rocks, little rocks, sand and water into a jar, as long as they put the big rocks in first? The analogy was that the big rocks are your most important relationships and they deserve your first consideration.

With the pace of life today and the demands of both the online and offline worlds, how many of us can really be certain we're giving our most important relationships priority? Typically we're hounded on the phone, email, mail and social media by people who are either strangers or far from our inner circle. Yet these folks can easily consume a lot of our daily attention.

Social science suggests we can only have around ten close personal relationships at a time. This matches what I learned at a recent conference: on average only 10 people will cry at your funeral. And of those who attend, 50% will look to the weather to decide if they go out to the cemetery afterwards. Can you even identify the top ten relationships in your life right now? Are you guilty of letting people who don't matter matter?

Last year I made it a habit to write down the names of the people who are most key for my happiness and success. Then I took it a step further. I kept that list on my desk and cross referenced it to my monthly calendar. This step can be a shock if you've never done it before. You may find the way you spend your time is totally out of alignment with who is most important to you. If this is the case, seeing things in black and white can help you fix that.

TIP: This quarter, why not identify your top ten relationships and periodically see if your calendar reflects your priorities. And look for ways to make yourself less available to the others. Let some calls go to voicemail. Don't answer every email, just click delete. Take a social media fast every now and then. Trust me, you will miss very little of importance. Put the energy into your big rocks instead and let me know what happens.

Barbara Wayman, president of BlueTree Media, LLC, publishes The Stand Out Newsletter, an award-winning ezine for people who want to know how to leverage the power of marketing and public relations. Get your free subscription today at http://www.bluetreemedia.com

This article may be reprinted when the copyright and author bio are included.

©2010 Barbara Wayman, BlueTree Media, LLC.

Okay I'm On Twitter - Now What?

The logic of connecting more closely with your target audience has attracted many businesses to Twitter, but once they're there they can be unsure of best practices or what to do next. Here are some tips to help expand your reach in the Twitterverse.

1. Follow more of your followers. I would think at least 40% of your followers are in areas where it makes sense for you to get their updates. Look carefully through your followers and make your selections. If you're worried that your treatstream will get clogged up with stuff you don't care about, make lists by category so you can easily access your favorite tweets.

2. Print out a list of all your clients and prospects, and then use the Find People tab to see if they're on Twitter. It is a good idea to follow all your clients so that you can keep tabs on what's going on with them. Reading their tweets will keep you in the loop and might give you the heads up on new opportunities. If you don't want competitors to access your client lists, set them to Private and no one but you will be able to see them.

3. List yourself on Twitter directories so that people who don't yet know you but are interested in the topics you cover can find you. You can sign up at twellow.com, twibs.com, wefollow.com, whoshouldfollow.com, twubble.com twitterlinkup.com and tweetertags.com.

4. Always be thinking of bringing your website content to your Twitter feed. Many more people will see it on Twitter than just on your website. When you update your blog or website make sure to tweet about it. Sites like twitterfeed.com can automate this process.

5. Post periodic visuals using twitpic.com, to give your visually-minded followers the chance to engage with you in a new way.

6. Get in the habit of regularly following people as you go through your work week - if you read a great book, see if the author is on Twitter and follow him/her. When you get a new client, add them to your lists. Create a system internally so that everyone in the company can do this on a regular basis.

With these tips you should be able to more than double the number of quality followers you have in a short time, which will widen your sphere of influence. If you want to track your progress, I like twittercounter.com. It can show you exactly how you're growing.

© 2011 Barbara Wayman, APR, BlueTree Media, all rights reserved

Barbara Wayman, president of BlueTree Media, LLC, publishes The Stand Out Newsletter, an award-winning ezine for people who want to know how to leverage the power of marketing and public relations. Get your free subscription today at http://www.bluetreemedia.com

This article may be reprinted when the copyright and author bio are included.

Baby Steps

If you’re going to move forward you can take big leaps, regular steps or baby steps. It’s fun to focus on the big leaps because that seems like the fastest, most direct way to go. I used to think that and was always percolating on what big leaps I could take and then something happened to change my point of view.
It was last year when I decided to stretch myself by entering a beauty pageant. I had never entered a beauty pageant in my life, so I had a lot to learn. One of the areas of my attention was fitness, since there was a swimsuit competition that was 25% of my scores.

For two years, I regularly attended a weightlifting class twice a week. When I decided to enter this pageant I knew I needed to step it up but I wasn’t sure how so I asked my teacher what to do. She gave me the most amazing tip. She said I should use two bars. On the first bar put my usual amount of weight, and on the second bar put that amount plus a little more. Then she advised me to start with the heavier bar and stick with it for as long as possible, switching back to the lighter bar when it got to be too much.

I followed her advice and in a very short amount of time I was able to do the whole class with the heavier bar. Going to that higher weight helped to sculpt my muscles, which combined with watching my diet gave me a defined, strong, physique so that I rocked that swimsuit competition and took home the fitness award.

The coolest part though, was that it all happened not from a Big Leap, like grabbing some huge heavy weight and trying to pump that. That would have just given me injuries and set me back. No, it was the baby step of adding just a bit more weight and then just a bit more after that that did the trick.

The older I get the more I see the incredible power in baby steps and I think it's because they are so sneaky. They're so easy and do-able that it's hard for our minds to get involved and start talking us out of things. Baby steps build on what is already happening in a way that's so subtle we hardly notice. Baby steps are like a cute little toy you want to play with. They're non-threatening and fun, yet the results they can produce are astonishing.

TIP: The next time you’re brainstorming action, start small with questions like, “What baby step can I take to move me closer to my goal today?”, or “What one small thing can I do right now that will be the very best use of my time?” Notice what you come up with, and what results it produces.

© 2010 Barbara Wayman, APR, BlueTree Media, all rights reserved

Barbara Wayman, APR, president of BlueTree Media, LLC, publishes The Stand Out Newsletter, an award-winning monthly ezine for people who want to know how to leverage the power of marketing and public relations. Get your free subscription today at http://BlueTreeMedia.com