Thoughts, Words, Actions

This morning my son sent me a passel of photos he took last May at SOBCon2010 It took a few minutes to download them all. But those few minutes were punctuated with lovely memories and glimpses of familiar faces. They recalled a weekend of working together to build a barn.

Rather than uploading the entire photo roll to flicker — the good, the bad, and the oh so not attractive — the way the photos came was irresistible.

• The photos were only the best. My son took the time to choose those that he thought were the best. That led me to spend my time on those that I truly enjoyed and could find great uses for.
• He had weeded out those that were less attractive. He saved me time having to sort our the ones I’d probably never use. He saved me space on my computer, probably knowing I’d never be able to toss images of my friends once I had them.
• The wow was that he delivered them to me. He fit the process easily into my life by emailing them to me. That was nicely done. It’s far easier to locate and keep them in my gmail account. When I want to access and share an image from my iphone it’s already there.

So I used the time I that I might have used sorting and reviewing photos to choose four or five that were outstanding images of attendees and send them on as a surprise to the people who were so beautifully depicted in them.

Being irresistible is mostly thinking about how to makes someone’s else life easier, faster, more meaningful.
What irresistible thing will you do today?

Liz Strauss
How can I help you be more irresistible?

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No Spin, Just Deliverables

Ever had a website or a blog designed?
It’s a process not unlike a new home design or new product conceptualization. It requires a meeting of minds and serious visualization. And in between all of the talking, describing, showing, and tweaking, a key component of a successful design relationship is trust.

You can’t get past it. Trust is one thing that makes a guy irresistible.
Especially the guy who designs your website.

Trust is there to make it easy when the words can’t describe what you’re seeing. Trust holds things up when something doesn’t feel comfortable and you’re not sure if it’s wrong or different. Trust is that connection that keeps the communication easy, honest, and productive.

Trust is something pretty special.

When trust comes with intelligence, talent, and vision in a guy who’s a pleasure to work with and who knows how to laugh, that’s irresistible.

OhDoctah, It’s You! A sincere thank you and congratulations to Owen JJ Stone, Internet Consultant and his team at WORDPRESSIOUS for a job beautifully conceived and executed — the irresistible new design of LizStrauss.com.

Liz Strauss
Find out what makes you irresistible.

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Is It Time to Get a New Look?

I’ve always been a bit frivolous and uninvolved with fashion. I like nice things, but I don’t like to spend time acquiring them, maintaining them, or thinking about the right thing to wear. Yet, I know that the right look in what I wear can send a message to a roomful of people who’ve never met me. What we wear can quietly and powerfully underscore our identity or lead folks to wonder whether we’re making a statement of some sort.
Some extremes of this might be …

• A woman who regularly attends the jeans and t-shirt geek parties consistently choosing against her fashion jeans to wear a black dress and pearls makes me wonder she might be trying to point out her differences rather than find ways to connect with the people in the room.
• When a guy’s hair is dyed a color so unusual that I have to fight to see the face beneath it, I wonder what he doesn’t want me to see.
• When I’m in a room of highly fashion savvy people, I start shrinking a bit and wondering what other cool things they know that I don’t.

We have a way of knowing which group someone belongs to by checking their t-shirt against our own. If the way someone is dressed looks familiar and to our taste, we immediately credit that person with similar intelligence and like experiences. Those similarities lead us to listen and trust more.

We sort with our eyes before anyone even says a word. We assume a person’s visual presentation reflects his or her choices, values, and intelligence. We gravitate toward people who choose as we expect. People who look like who they are and what they’re saying get our trust more easily. When the clothes and the conversation don’t match, we go with what we see.

Blog Design Communication

Online, we project the same presence and gain or lose the same instant credibility in the way we “dress” and design our blog. A blog design can change the tone and meaning of what people take from our words.

Does a new blog design change my thinking? Of course not. But it does underscore my values before I even talk. In that way, I’m more likely to be seen, heard, and understood. The message people take is more likely to match the message I send.

When your look is working for you, you don’t have to work so hard.

Being congruent in that way makes it easier for folks to trust what we say.

Does your look make communication easier?

Liz Strauss
Find out about working with Liz.

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It Hasn’t Changed

What you need to know is simple …

• Know who you are.
• Know what you you value.
• Know who values that too.
• Know the language to communicate the nuance of what you’re saying.
• Know the culture into which you are reaching.
• Know the tests you expect people to pass and how you pass them.
• Know the difference between numbers that are growing and numbers that are inflating.

It’s that easy.

Liz Strauss
Find out about working with Liz.

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Hi!
I’m Liz Strauss and I’ve been blogging a couple of years across the street from Belmont Harbor. I’m on a quest this year to meet as many Chicago Bloggers as I can.

To that end, I have decided to feature Chicago bloggers, Chicago companies and their stories on my LizStrauss.com blog I’d sure like to make you a part of that. If you’re interested, please comment below.

A Little about Who I Am

My blog, Liz Strauss at Successful Blog
has been called both a destination and an event. According to EatonWeb, “Liz Strauss is perhaps the most influential relational blogger on the Internet.” (I’m not sure who wrote that, but I’m guessing that the writer must be a fan.)

I’m a strategic planner who shows businesses how to focus and organically grow in ways that keep and gain customers. I explain why what they are doing might not be working and how people perceive a blog, a product, and an experience. Basically, I denibstrate the head and heart exchange that builds a thriving brand-loyal community by turning first-time visitors into participating customer-friends.

I’ve worked over 20 years in print, software, and online publishing, and developed strategies with publishers in Europe, Australia, the UK, and Ireland. I had the fun of conceiving and directing the strategy that turned around a $9M and sold it 3 years later for $35M. I also led the vision behind last year’s SOBCon07 — THE Successful and Outstanding Bloggers’ Conference for building relationships that gained the attention of BusinessWeek, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Innovation Initiative of the Kellogg School of Business.

I sure would like to meet you, get to know you, and feature you on my
LizStrauss.com blog. Please email me at my gmail address if you think you’d enjoy being a part.

Let’s do something successful and outstanding together.

Thanks!
Liz

When a manager finally comes to the conclusion that he or she needs help to finish a project on time, often the timing of that idea is usually 2-3 weeks or more past an ideal time. Instead the decision has waited until the manager is under stress and deadline pressure with many plates to keep spinning and many balls to keep in the air.

The manager looks at the project and sometimes decides that no part of it can be delegated. This conclusion is patently false. In 30 years as a manager, I have not found a project that did not have parts that were appropriate to delegating. The way to find them is in how you look at the project.

Finding Tasks to Delegate

Delegating appropriately requires a flexible mind that moves easily from part to whole and whole to part. In this context, a part is a discrete task that can be completed without reliance on the rest of the project or with minor checking against another part of the project.

On a blog a discrete task might be checking all post titles for the use of key words.

Use this process to identify appropriate tasks to delegate.

1. Identify discrete tasks. Look for small tasks. Look top down, bottom up, and latterally. Mentally think through each step of the process and consider how another you might take part of the work load without interrupting what you are doing.
2. Determine the level of project knowledge required to do each task.Checking page numbers, for example, requires only the ability to make sure numbers are in sequence and all are present. Checking content requires experience in the industry to understand what choices are costly and time consuming. It also requires project knowledge and history of decisions already made about content grary areas.
3. Determine the skill set needed for each task that could be delegated.
4. Find the folks who have that skillset in house or hire them from a temporary agency.
5. Have a short sample of the work prepared to test the candidate’s performance on the task.
6. Determine how you will verify to your own satisfaction that the candidate is strong enough to ask questions when necessary, but to work alone without much direction.

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Once you’ve gone through these steps you are ready to meet with the candidate to present the work. At this point is when you begin to reap the benefits of the time you have invested.

These steps are designed to ensure that the delegation process is successful. Following them will get you to your goal faster. Taking a shorter timeline in delegating, almost always results inthe work being done over — thereby losing more time than appeared to be gained when the proejct was delegated.

Behind every Successful business, there is an Outstanding Manager.

Liz

We expect things from the organizations that employ us. If we interview to work for one, we want to know how well the enterprise supports its people. A strong candidate gets to the matter by learning the answers to questions such as these.

• How are job roles defined?
• What are the functions of each department?
• How do you ensure that employees are fully trained to handle the responsibilities that are theirs?
• What happens in the case of a major skills deficit?
• How are employees kept up with changes in the industry, technology, and business practices?
• Does the organization offer tuition reimbursement or continuing education?

A organization that doesn’t stack up in answering those questions would be considered unfavorably in a job search. Yet as entrepreneurs, we often fail to define our own job roles further than “jack of all trade.” Many of us don’t take time to delineate the functions and roles that we need to fulfill or seek out the training that we need to do them. The pressure of time and lack of funds to invest often make us short-sighted about gaining the skills to keep up with changes in the industry and technology.

From this perspective in many cases, the standards we hold for work-alone businesses are lower than those we hold for an organization that might hire us. This irony is detrimental to success and unnecessary.

Every job function that a small business needs is available for hire. Most can be learned and incorporated into the work plan of an owner. Training is a value that might require a paradigm shift for some, but it’s not unrealistic to think that they’ll soon see it as an investment in their future.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, over 50% of small businesses fail in the first year and 95% fail within the first five years.

Being unprepared, remaining untrained, and confronting unexpected needs are key reasons these failures occur.

There ia an answer in a thorough and cohesive business plan that includes training A plan doesn’t need to be complicated or overwhelming. Yet, a simplified, but solid, business plan can make the difference between a small business that fails or succeeds.

Behind every Successful small business is an Outstanding Manager. — Perfect Virtual Manager

Liz Strauss

Our approach to anything we do can change the outcome to make it a positive or a negative experience. Blogging is no exception to this rule. Often we do things that seem right, but in reality have a negative impact. With that in mind, I offer these blogging mistakes to avoid.

Blogging Mistakes to Avoid.

• Don’t try to be someone you’re not. A successful blogger has a style and tone that is uniquely the blogger’s.
• Don’t play it too safely. Experiment. Take thoughtful risks, try new things. Add spice and energy.
• Don’t try to trick your audience . A game or a hoax might be tempting and may even be fun. However, you risk not only your credibility, but the trust readers have placed in you.
• Don’t try to be too clever. Write in clear language with a friendly voice to a reader who is as intelligent as you are. Leave the big words for eighth grade teachers, unless your readers have shown a predilection for higher-level vocabulary.
• Don’t use marketing speak, buzz words, or jargon. Use real words that real people use to talk to each other.
• Don’t lie. It’s the ultimate disrespect for your readers.They’ll find out.
• Don’t steal. A thought leader has thought and doesn’t need to take those of others. People want to read your thoughts. If you quote someone else (be sure to attribute and give a link back) and make your own commentary.
• Don’t get upset when you make a mistake. Fix your errors and move on.
• Don’t ignore your readers. Engage readers. Be there to answer their comments.
• Don’t ignore criticism. Answer negative comments with the mindset of the beginner/learner. Listen and learn all you can from the commenter. Place what you learn in context and keep what is valuable.
• Don’t get defensive. When someone points out a mistake, take a step back and look at the situation objectively. If you were wrong, admit that. Readers respect bloggers who own their actions and who stay cool headed in tough situations.
• Don’t write when you’re angry or intoxicated. Wait.

As you can see, all of these fall under the advice, “blog smart,” or to say it another way, “don’t do stupid things.”

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

Officially published by Perseus Books Group in 2000, the cluetrain manifesto, the end of business as usual, by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger — four guys who have been called ringleaders, provocateurs, even renegades for their dynamic and human-centered take on business and marketing.

It begins with the words

if you only have time for one clue this year, this is the one to get…
we are not seats, or eyeballs, or end users, or consumers,
we are human beings — and our reach exceeds your grasp.
deal with it.

Then begins the introduction to the 95 Theses — statements about markets, organizations, and customers, how they are changing as people realize that they have a powerful voice as consumers.

The book itself is organized into seven chapters, each written by one or two of the respected renegade authors.

The point? Marketing is about trust and human beings. People like to talk to people who tell the truth about things. Companies who tear down their firewalls and trust their employees to interact with customers will thrive. Companies who do not will not. End of story.

The business minds who have endorsed this book are beyond listing here. If you’ve not read it, you’re well behind. It’s here. If you have, I bet you’re thinking, you might pull it out and have a look at it again.

Now you can read the entire book online.

the cluetrain manifesto is still that important.

Liz Strauss

In the world of what Chris Anderson named, The Long Tail, the noise and clutter of our lives has become so loud that we’ve learned to filter out most of what we hear and see. Every market has become more competitve than it was a few years ago, and even more competitive than it was a few years before that. The old forms of interruption advertising — and now a word from our sponsor — find us tossing them out, ignoring them, or don’t show up on our TIVO. Mr. Anderson explains the solution as a need for the market to learn to sell less of more things, to understand that today’s blockbuster movie will make less money and be forgotten sooner.

In this new Web 2.0 economy, folks who are prepared to buy are no longer “qualified leads,” but instead are buyers looking for specific goods and services offered by vendors who understand their needs. The difference is a shift of control. We are the “qualified leads” now.

Sending out mailings to their trash cans, standing in front of our stores and dragging them in, bringing them to our websites with special offers they aren’t seeking won’t significantly increase their numbers on our customer rolls. They don’t have the time, the attention span or the money, to invest in tasting something they’re not hungry for. That’s not a priority in their lives. Customers filter out nonpriorities.

The gap between our websites and our customers is growing wider. As they find more things to do and discover, they have less time to visit us to see what new things we have to offer.

We’re just not as cute as the newest thing that they’ve never seen before. Maybe that newest thing can offer answer we’ve never had — but always wanted. They’ve searched our site for it and not found it.

Maybe we’ve never found out what they’re looking for.
Maybe we’ve got it and they couldn’t find it.
Maybe we’re making it, but haven’t told them.
Maybe we’ve not told them that what they’re looking for would have a Rolls Royce price point. (Maybe they’d still want it at that price.)

Now they’re at another website exploring everything because of one thing they couldn’t find at our website.

It’s harder get or gain back a customer than it is to keep one happy.
But it’s hard to talk to a customer from behind a static shopping cart.
Even Amazon doesn’t know much about what I need — of course when you offer everything . . . . We could go the that route . . . Offer customers everything. Yet, we’d still know that at any second they can go to Barnes and Noble to get the same thing we offer.

Seems an expensive endeavor, much more expensive than just listening.

Liz Strauss