Category: Leadership

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The Fun Factor

Have fun. Those two words represent crucial advice for the new entrepreneur. Before you think I’m being glib or casually throwing some cheap feel-good motivation out there, I’m not. The necessity of fun is so important that it merits as much attention as things like marketing and revenue management. Fun, friends, is mandatory. Fun is serious business.

I know this because I’ve failed to have fun before. I’ve run businesses that were completely un-fun. It’s not just that it wasn’t enjoyable. It’s that it wasn’t sustainable. I have personally experienced a business crumbling for want of fun, when all the other factors were nominally peachy. Experience has convinced me that fun is not a happy bonus. It’s a prerequisite.

Why Fun Matters

Fun-seeking is the default setting of a healthy person. For all the puritanical notions of fun being a distraction from what matters, in a finite life it may be what matters most. This isn’t abstract philosophy. When someone tries to make their living by doing something joyless, they don’t tend to do well. Working unhappily may be fine for a cog in the wheel of some bigger business, but it’s death to the entrepreneur.

A joyless business—and again, I speak from experience here—slowly becomes an existential crisis. Some people become entrepreneurs because they faced that crisis in their conventional career. They get the feeling they’re wasting their life, having no real freedom, and getting nothing for their work except pay. Unfortunately, the same thing can happen to an entrepreneur if they don’t approach their own business with the right mindset.

I’m not saying everyone has to “do what they love.” If you can, great, but it’s not realistic for most people. What is realistic is the bare minimum of doing something that you enjoy, that has meaning, and that allows you to feel your work is valuable. Otherwise, the blues will creep up. They will affect first your mood, and then your performance. Then the product. Finally, they’ll affect the bottom line. Joylessness trickles down, and you’ll either leave the business as soon as you can, or watch it slide into failure.

I had to learn the hard way that entrepreneurship isn’t just about making your own money. I had a profitable custom men’s tailoring business, Zenhom Designs. It was high-end stuff, and it was lucrative, but it wasn’t fun. It was so funless that I couldn’t sustain the effort necessary to continue. I hated it—and I couldn’t pretend otherwise when it was time to be the face of my business. Where there was no fun, there was no motivation other than the money. At that point, how was it any different from some crappy regular job?

How to Keep it Fun

There are a few things you can do to keep the fun in your business. It’s important to start with this goal, and it’s important to keep it in mind as your business grows—especially as the initial excitement wears off and the daily grind sets in.

Choose the right business for you. I realized too late that menswear was not the industry for me. I like clothes as much as the next guy, but I don’t get any intrinsic satisfaction out of producing them. My problem wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy menswear; it’s that I hadn’t even asked myself the question. I started my company because I thought it would make money, period.

Don’t choose a business just because there’s a great idea behind it. Don’t choose it just because there’s a need in the market for it or just because it’s viable. If you don’t have a personal pull towards it, you’re not the right person to do it. Again, it doesn’t have to be your lifelong passion, but it does have to be something you care about.

Embrace the hard parts. Even in a business you love, there will be days that suck. This is universally true of all pursuits. Even with a positive attitude there will be periods of drudgery. I love chocolate, but if I ate it for every meal I’d get sick of it pretty quickly. That’s why it’s important to have a healthy approach to productivity.

Productivity, even on the rough days, is a matter of good habits, smart scheduling, and routine. You can alleviate most of the fatigue that threatens your output by organizing your tasks and focusing on them one at a time. Avoid “multi-tasking” at all costs; it’s quicksand that will pull you under a seemingly unmanageable workload. Figure out when you’re doing what, and stick to that schedule every day. Each scheduled accomplishment is a little light at the end of a shorter tunnel, so that even when you’d rather be at the beach, you’ll have the will to push on.

When setbacks arise, don’t see them as cause for frustration. See them as puzzles to be solved. Isolate each challenge, and address it like a level in a video game. Find the fun in overcoming obstacles.

Maintain intention and gratitude. There’s a line in the film No Country For Old Men: “we dedicate ourselves daily anew.” They were talking about justice, but it’s a good way to approach your business mission, too. Have daily reminders of why you’re in business, what you hope to accomplish, and why it matters enough to give up the reliability of conventional employment. Hang images or written mission statements on the wall. Take a minute each morning to ask yourself why you’re doing this. It matters.

Along with that, practice gratitude. Too many people think gratitude is just something you either have or don’t, but I like to think of it as something you do. Time to acknowledge what’s going well, what privileges you enjoy, and what fun you’re having is time well spent. Motivationally, it’s better than an army of cheerleaders. Being happy about what you enjoy makes work seem less like work, and more like purpose.

Get weird. Smile. For no reason. At nothing. Laugh. Dance. Rock out to something fast and loud. Embrace the absurdity of the fact that even manufactured fun can work backwards through your physiology and literally make you happier. Assert your freedom as an entrepreneur to open the window and appreciate something random. Watch some stand-up on YouTube. Whatever. Just do something to break the silence every once in a while and remind yourself that your work is something you’re choosing to do, not something you’re forced to. Smile, and get back to it.

Realize that you always—ALWAYS—perform better when you’re having fun. This may be the most important strategy. No one in the history of human endeavor has performed worse when they were enjoying it. You can see it in athletes and great leaders. It’s not determination. It’s joy. No one reaches the upper echelons of their potential joylessly. Ever. It hasn’t happened once in the history of humanity. Even people who are great at things they hate would be even better if they didn’t.

If you’re just getting started as an entrepreneur, remember that you’re completely free. You have nothing to lose yet. Take that advantage and use it. Commit to having fun, to being yourself, and to doing business in a way that produces enjoyment as well as money. Do that, and you’ll build a business you’ll want to stick with.

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Turning Ideas Into Action

Most people are full of ideas. The light bulb comes on, a brief internal conversation ensues, and then…well, that’s usually it. The reason most people aren’t entrepreneurs is because most people end up leaving ideas—even really good ones—exactly where they found them: in their head. Ask yourself (and answer honestly) how many times you’ve thought of a potentially great idea, and ultimately done nothing with it. Chances are, for each one you’ve remembered, you’ve forgotten a few.

I’m of the opinion that an idea is a terrible thing to waste.  It’s not our fault, per se; the human mind tends to generate far too much thought to be actionable. Plus, great ideas come at the weirdest times. It’s hard to start implementing your latest stroke of brilliance when you’re on the subway or at your bi-weekly chest-waxing (right, fellas?). Fortunately, technology has given us a solution to the problem of idea neglect. It’s called Evernote.

Before you get the impression that this is an advertisement, it’s not. My job here is to muse as honestly as possible about business, based on personal experience. It’s been my experience that Evernote is invaluable for turning thoughts into results. Nobody is paying me to say that, any more than Google pays me to recommend using Docs or Apple pays me to use iTunes. It’s just that kind of blog, friends: honest.

Rather than trusting in my flawed human brain to store my best ideas, I reach for the nearest connected device and open the app. Evernote is accessible on laptops, desktops, phones and tablets. The mobility means that no matter where I am or what I’m doing, short of giving a keynote address or delivering a baby in the back of a cab, I never have to worry about forgetting an idea.

So how do you go about using Evernote to turn ideas into reality? I use a fairly simple 3-step system to store, organize, and act on the whims of my businessman’s brain.

Step 1: The Brain Dump

Evernote allows you to create multiple “notebooks” with which you can categorize different texts, links, web pages, images, and in this case, thoughts. The first place a new idea lands is on my “Brain Dump” list. It’s important to use the to-do list feature here, because you can check the ideas off as they progress to the next notebooks. At first, though, I simply jot down whatever inspiration has struck me, without bothering to think about how to move forward…yet.

In this step, it’s important to be specific. Often, people are tempted to write only a keyword or two that makes perfect sense at the moment but isn’t very useful later. With so many ideas and so much to do, it’s important to describe to your future self exactly what you were thinking in at least a sentence. You may think you’ll remember what “hamster manicure” means, but by the time you get around to it, you may not. Was it a new spa service? A short story idea? A band name? Be clear and direct with yourself.

Step 2: Idea Implementation

Schedule a time every week (about 30 minutes or so) for the next phase Take an idea from the Brain Dump, and create a new to-do list under the notebook heading “Idea Implementation” (or whatever you’d like to call it). There, list what needs to be done in order to move forward with the idea. For example, let’s say I had the idea of collaborating with John Corcoran of Smart Business Revolution on a webinar. In my implementation list, I’d have items like “create a proposal,” “email John,” “meet with John”, “create webinar,” “promote webinar,” etc.

Once you’ve established everything that would need to be done, cross it off the Brain Dump list. In this way, you can take your ideas one by one from the Dump to this more actionable phase, ensuring that no idea gets left behind (unless the idea turns out to be unrealistic or impossible). If you’re not sure how to implement it, simply leave it on the first list. Either way, the app functions as your memory while you move on to real-world action.

Step 3: Order of Operations

The last notebook to create is what I like to call the “Order of Operations” list. All you’re doing here is taking the necessary steps identified in the “Implementation” list and putting them in the order in which they need to be accomplished. This is where the plan becomes concrete. This is where the path to realizing your ideas takes its ultimate shape, becoming the roadmap to fruition.

Again, use the to-do list feature. Once the Order of Operations is established, you simply have to check off the actions one at a time until your idea is a reality. Careful planning and solid critical thinking in this stage is what will make execution strictly a matter of doing. You’ll be free to take the bull by the horns without second-guessing or strategizing on the fly.

Why Ideas Are Lost

Great ideas are lost far too often. That’s not because they’re unfeasible or the resources aren’t there. It’s because most people lack the organizational skills to see them through. Even people who take the time to write down their ideas (or enter them into Evernote) tend to let them stagnate indefinitely, as the rest of life happens around them.

This is because a list of ideas is NOT a to-do list; it’s the seed of a to-do list. So many factors have to be negotiated between the idea phase and the action phase that simply having ideas is no guarantee you’ll ever do anything with them. Actionable steps have to be plotted and planned in a way that maximizes efficiency.

Evernote is a free app, with a premium pay version that offers even more organizational tools. Start with the free version and create your three notebooks. Schedule your weekly “idea time.” Go where those ideas take you. They won’t all work out. Even if half of them don’t—even if most of them don’t—some of them will. On top of that, you’ll develop the organizational habits that make an entrepreneur effective, not just creative. By developing this consistent approach to translating your thoughts into action, you’ll find your way to success one great idea at a time.

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4 Things Women Entrepreneurs Should Know

Entrepreneurship is never easy. For everyone who attempts it, there are hurdles galore. In fact, the greater part of succeeding as an entrepreneur is simply learning the skill of obstacle navigation, regardless of the business you’re in. The challenges, however, are not necessarily the same for each individual. Depending on your demographic, you may face challenges—and possess advantages—that others simply don’t. For women, breaking into independent business involves a host of factors that don’t affect men, for better and for worse.

Let’s address the elephant in the room first: I am male. I type this with a fully functioning Y chromosome at my disposal, and I’m not unaware of the irony of our tasking a man to chart the lay of the land for the ladies. However, that’s part of navigating the gender gap—understanding that men and women both have insights to offer each other, even concerning each other’s perspective. My writing this blog while producing testosterone also serves to illustrate what I think is a dearth of female voices in independent business, and my conviction that women entrepreneurs are an underserved market.

I’ve known and worked with many outstanding female entrepreneurs, not the least outstanding of which is my partner in business and life, Nicole (who personally edits this and all my blogs, in case you thought I was doing this all by my manly self). I want to see more women use their unique advantages and break through their unique obstacles, as she does on a daily basis. Hopefully, these few little insights can encourage that:

1. Women entrepreneurs don’t have to cater exclusively to women. One obstacle faced by women entrepreneurs is assumptions, and not just those of men. Often, a woman’s own assumption is that her best chances are with exclusively serving other women. There’s nothing wrong with catering to women or having a feminine brand—unless you’re doing so simply because you don’t think you can cater to both genders, based on your own.

Again, if your product is strictly for the ladies, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What’s bad, though, is when an entrepreneur accepts baseless limitations, or imposes them on herself for fear of an inability to compete. Most of the most successful female entrepreneurs I’ve seen have made unisex products, catering to the fellas as well or better than the fellas themselves do. Marketing expert Dorie Clark, Heroic Public Speaking cofounder Amy Port, Arianna Huffington: none of these women allowed themselves to be boxed into women’s markets, and we’re all better for it.

The reality is that the unisex business world is dominated by men. I don’t think that’s because men are inherently better than women at business. I think it’s because of limits that are imposed on women artificially. Businessmen rarely feel incapable of marketing to women, so why should the opposite be true? And why confine yourself to only ever selling to half the population?

2. Opportunities abound for women entrepreneurs. Related to the first point, there is definitely room for more female entrepreneurs in the market. This is because, again, the artificial limits imposed by sexist assumptions are keeping the supply way behind the demand. The different experience and unique perspective of women is simply something that consumers (and other budding business people) don’t get as much of. It’s a classic case of “who goes first?” With relatively few female mentors and role models to follow, the market needs pioneers. Remember: entrepreneurship is all about solving a problem. If you’re an independent business woman, you can help solve the problem of female underrepresentation. Why not you?

That’s not to say that only women need female leadership. Men need it too. Everyone in business can benefit from as many perspectives as possible—especially the ones that aren’t their own. For that reason, I hope to see more women acting as ambassadors; learning public speaking, taking on leadership roles, and generally putting themselves and their perspective out there.

3. It’s still an uphill climb for women entrepreneurs. This is just a cold, hard reality. While modern society likes to congratulate itself on making progress from the past, true equality of opportunity has not yet arrived—though it’s closer than ever. Regardless of how far the business world has come, a woman will be asked to prove herself more thoroughly, demonstrate greater competence, and work harder than her male counterparts to achieve the same status, pay and respect.

If you’re a woman, your competence and confidence will have to be the twin hammers with which you smash through what’s left of the glass ceiling. I advise every entrepreneur to lead with value, to make substance the basis of their image. That goes double for double X. Don’t hesitate to demonstrate your abilities and tout your successes. Look at the language on your website or in your professional dialogues. Are you underselling yourself? Are you focusing more on how you feel than on what you can do? You’re under no obligation to be submissive, however much it may be expected of you.

4. Many women entrepreneurs have abilities that many men don’t. While we can’t assign a certain skill set to all women, there are some things more common to women than men. Emotional intelligence. Empathy. Emotional endurance. It’s been my experience that our culture has encouraged these abilities less in men, and more in women. Men being subject to irrational and sexist expectations as well, many are underdeveloped in these areas. That’s where women can have a huge advantage, and why the female perspective is so desperately needed in business.

Being a woman in business (especially independent business), is a fundamentally unique experience. For all its disadvantages, the advantages are there. The need for a stronger female influence can be felt across many strata of the business world. I think that’s an opportunity. I hope that down the road, enough women will have seized that opportunity to make blog posts like this one much less relevant.

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5 Dream-Killing Qualities of Unsuccessful Entrepreneurs

Movies and novels tell us that the story of success goes something like this: Person has an innate talent. Person has a business idea. Person faces some obstacle. Person’s talent and the strength of the idea overcome said obstacle. End credits. That’s great for Hollywood, but here in this world, it’s a little different. Real success is a longer story, one that involves the purposeful cultivation of certain qualities, and the discouragement of certain others. Knowing which is which can mean the difference between black and red, no matter the talent or product.

A more realistic story of success goes something like this: Person has a big-picture view of what success means to them personally. Person calculates the long-term goals needed to live that notion. Person commits themselves to the presence of mind required to develop the right qualities and shed the wrong ones. Slowly, steadily, success comes—not in a dramatic moment of triumph, but as the accumulation of a million little decisions informed by good habits.

Obstacles come and go, but the hero of our story has already overcome the biggest of them all: the qualities and habits of mind that breed failure. Here are a few of them.

1.  Inflexibility

The inability to move is the inability to take your business where it needs to go. The inability to change is the inability to grow as an entrepreneur. The inability to switch direction is the best way to find yourself and your business lost. The entrepreneurs who succeed are the ones who respond to problems with flexibility. They don’t double down on what doesn’t work, and they don’t let their ego extend their sense of commitment to going down with the ship of a bad idea.

There’s a fine line between sticking to your guns when you know you’re right, and going full Captain Ahab. It’s important to remember that you’re serving customers; you have to cater to them, not bring them around to your way of thinking. It doesn’t mean abandoning your own values or opinions, but being a good realist. It means considering all the possibilities, even the possibility that you need to change. It means bowing to the evidence, and going where the hard truths take you.

For a great example of flexibility, look at Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, formerly best known for their record “megastores.” You won’t see those anymore, but you will see Virgin, having branched off and diversified enough to survive the collapse of the CD industry. For the opposite example, see Blockbuster, and their too-little-too-late attempt to move from storefront rentals to DVD by mail—while Netflix was moving from DVD by mail to online streaming.

2. Short-Term Thinking

Looking for quick success? Want to be an overnight millionaire? I can’t say that it’s impossible, but it’s really, really, really unlikely. So unlikely in fact that it’s not worth trying. Immediate success in business is like winning the lottery; it happens to some people, but it’s not going to happen to you. You wouldn’t consider the daily purchase of a Powerball ticket to be a serious business plan. You shouldn’t consider building just one product and “cashing in” to be one, either. Realistic success takes time and patience. It’s a long game, one that requires years of development and minor adjustments. It requires the willingness to do a million things wrong in order to get a few things right, and build on those few things until they become a lot of things.

Great writers, for example, know that they’re not going to just sit down and write a classic; they write thousands and thousands of pages that they throw in the trash, refining their game bit by bit until they produce something great. Yes, occasionally a bad fan-fic writer taps out a bestseller on her Blackberry, but 50 Shades is the exception that proves the rule, not a business model.

3. Lacking Focus

This quality is the flip side of the “inflexibility” coin. While refusing to budge when it’s time to budge is bad, refusing to give each idea and task the focus it deserves is just as deadly. Constantly flitting from thing to thing, idea to idea, product to product is how entrepreneurs fail by being too flexible. Or more accurately, too flighty.

Whatever you’re doing, do it fully, with 100% of your attention and effort, before moving to the next thing. Be disciplined with your scheduling, and give yourself the time to do each task completely. I’ve written a lot about the scourge of multi-tasking, a supposed skill that really boils down to doing several things badly at once. Don’t multi-task, and don’t do anything halfway. Every endeavor (even those that ultimately fail) deserves your all.

4. Poor Problem-Solving Skills

Business is never a straight road. It’s a maze full of puzzles and obstacles and—above all—the unexpected. Being able to work out solutions, think creatively, and innovate your way out of tight spots is a must. Solving unexpected problems with calm, clarity and a commitment to your overall vision is just as necessary a skill as any industry-specific one.

You probably already know that there’s always bumps in the road. Rather than seeing them as storms you have to endure, try to see them as opportunities to refine your problem-solving skills. See them as useful reflections of what needs improvement, and as launching pads to further success. The alternative is frustration, and too much of that will burn anyone out.

5. Ungenerosity

Being stingy with your time and resources may seem like a safe way to stay in the black, but it’s a long-term business killer. There’s a difference between being careful with your resources and being a miser. That doesn’t just apply to money; it applies to content, advice, and support for your peers.

Again, content marketing is the art of giving. It’s not the art of trading, at least not in the short term. You don’t expect a specific return for every blog, video, or webinar you produce. You simply trust that months and years of offering value will add up to a huge amount of trust and credibility, and it’s that you can use to sell your product. It all starts with being generous.

To succeed in business, you have to work on yourself. Employ good habits to make yourself more competent, more present, more mindful, and more realistic. The qualities you develop are what you’re investing into your business, as much as any amount of time or money.

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5 Actions to Take While Business is Slow

Every business has its busy times, and its slow times. Holidays, seasonal downturns, the occasional zombie apocalypse; all of these can lead to a natural decline in sales. This is not the end of the world (except for the zombie thing). In fact, it’s an opportunity. Time you don’t spend keeping up with high sales volume is time you can devote to that which otherwise wouldn’t get much.

When sales are naturally slow (due to predictable market forces rather than a slump), you can make improvements to your business that will make the high times even more profitable. Rather than trying to boost sales through the slow season by doing promotions or events that few will attend, use the time to make your business even stronger. It means taking a more complex approach to scheduling, but if you can maximize the value of your down-time, you’ll be that much more successful.

Here are five of the most effective ways to make the most of a slow day, week, or month:

1. Take a break

Seriously. Time off is important, not just to your personal well-being, but to the health and growth of your business. If you can schedule it during a typically slow period, all the better. Entrepreneurship is a full-time job, but even the independent business person needs to let off the gas and allow themselves to forget about work from time to time. When you come back, refreshed and invigorated, you may even outperform your pre-vacation self.

2. Train

Yourself, your employees, or both. Professional development is key to the long-term success of any business, so any opportunity to focus on improving everyone’s skill set is a bonus. Identify the weakest aspect of your own business game and focus on that. Maybe you could use a crash-course in web design. Maybe you could take a public speaking course. Maybe you could bone up on your tech. Whatever it is, take the time you have and do it. For your staff, you can do team-building exercises or experimental projects. The options are myriad.

3. Fill Your Content Bank

If you read this blog regularly, you know that content marketing is my favorite kind of marketing. Content production, however, takes time. Lots of it. So when you have some to spare, it’s always a good idea to get ahead of the workload. Write as many blogs as you can and store them up for later release. Film instructional videos. Create infographics. Record podcasts, like the $100 MBA Show, which I like to pre-record and batch as far in advance as possible. Write emails for your marketing campaign. Get all your content locked and loaded for when business is back on the upswing.

4. Product Development

While you’re waiting for your current product to sell, make a new one. Write an e-book, design some software, create a new tutorial course, or simply consider what else a customer who buys your product might want. Or simply modify an existing product, add upgrades or new features, or create a supplemental companion product. Use the extra time to really explore the furthest reaches of your imagination.

Brainstorm (alone or with your team) without the pressure of having to create a product. Consider even the weirdest ideas that occur—one of them might turn out to be a great outside-the-box innovation. Time spent at the drawing board is never wasted.

5. Improve Your Website

One thing any business website needs is constant refreshment and renewal, perhaps better described as “new reasons for people to visit.” When business is naturally slow, consider a redesign. Study your analytics to see what aspects of your site are under-performing, and revamp around the goal of improving the numbers.

Alter the design, the flow of your pages, or go all-in with whole new site built from the ground up—it’s a perfect excuse to have a grand launch event to kick off the next busy cycle.

Identifying “Slow” Periods

Planning the productive use of slow periods is a game-changer, one that can give your business an extra edge. However, you’ll need to be able to anticipate those periods accurately. You’ll have to study the patterns of your industry, and your business in particular, to identify where on the calendar you can take the action of your choosing.

For example, most of the West experiences a slowdown in non-retail business around the end of the year, what with the big holidays. However, New Year’s in China is a good month or so after the ball drops in Times Square. Most people don’t alter their purchasing habits between semesters at Universities—but college students do. Every market, especially the more niche markets favored by entrepreneurs, has its own unique cycles.

Scheduling around predictable slow periods means taking a more nuanced, complex approach to your calendar. That might seem difficult at first, but the reality is that not every day, week, or month should look the same—not if you’re syncing your actions with the flow of business. Refer to your analytics and identify the slowest sales week for your business. Highlight that week for the upcoming year, and devote it to one or two of the suggestions listed above. When the week is over, you’ll be glad you did.

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The Face of Your Business: Do You Have to be Well-Known?

Does the success of your business depend on how well-known you are? Does your profile really make the difference between black and red? Is the modern model of entrepreneurial independence more about the person than the product? Can you run your business from behind the scenes, if that’s where you’re most comfortable? Is a whole paragraph devoted to reiterating a single question really the best way to start a blog post?

I have an answer for most of those.

Many a great business runs largely on the strength of its “face,” a charismatic founder whose personal charms and apparent sincerity woo customers straight to the checkout page. Tim Ferriss, Jason Zook, and Michael Port are great examples. Their businesses are inseparable from the force of their own personalities and unique outlooks, to the point where their customers’ trust in their product is a reflection of their customers’ trust in them. But is a strong personality a necessary ingredient?

The Need For A Face

While the strength and value of your product is the bedrock of your biz, marketing is something you have to always be doing. Marketing, in a nutshell, is the act of connecting with your customers—and connecting with your customers is best accomplished by introducing yourself along with your product.

Some people are reluctant to take this approach. Some shy away from the limelight, and want their product to be the star of the show. Unfortunately, no matter how great your product is, expecting your audience to Pay No Attention To That Man Behind The Curtain makes it harder to sell. This is because today’s consumers (especially the younger ones) are used to knowing the story behind the product. This generation likes to know how the sausage is made, right down to the fitness regimen and personal hobbies of the pigs. An unwillingness to interact with the audience can even be misinterpreted as an attempt to hide something.

Consumers don’t just want to shop; they want to connect. From Rockefeller to Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg, the personality (or the perception of it) defines the business. We’re social animals—try as we might, we see everything in terms of interpersonal relations. From sports to politics to marketing, it’s simply impossible for the public to divorce their feelings about…well, anything from their perception of the people behind it.

Building Your Reputation

The biggest misconception about being the face of your business is that you have to somehow “craft” an identity with which customers can relate. Some entrepreneurs even fear that who they are isn’t “good enough” to make a favorable impression on an audience. This is a complete misunderstanding of how good, honest marketing works. It’s not about being something you’re not. It’s about doing something your audience appreciates. If you consistently provide something valuable to your audience, the only thing you have to “be” is yourself.

If you’re known as a giver, as a font of something useful to people, you’ll build the kind of personal capital that can be converted to sales. This is the essence of content marketing. Master self-marketer Seth Godin once said that the fastest way to grow a business is to become famous. You don’t have to walk the red carpet, but earning the gratitude of a wide audience and popularizing your authentic self can do more for your business than any number of pop-up ads. Eventually, people will find out about your business by researching you: not the other way around.

The key is positive familiarity. Noah Kagan sells software, but when people think of AppSumo, they think of him just as much as they think of the product. Kagan makes a purposeful effort to stay in front of his audience, speaking, presenting, touring, and dealing personally with customers. This isn’t because he couldn’t have someone else do this. It’s because he knows that familiarity with him as a person underpins the strength of his brand.

Doing the Work

While not everyone is comfortable being in the public eye, I have to strongly recommend coming out from behind the scenes. Be well known, in a positive way. Be known for your honesty, for your expertise, and for your refusal to put on a facade. Be known for being yourself, and be trusted for what you deliver. I know from experience the difference this approach makes; a substantial portion of our customers agreed to try our products because they felt like they “knew” Nicole and I well enough to put some faith in us.

Of course, it takes a long time to build that kind of reputation. With rare exceptions, it takes months and years of networking, public speaking, writing, and generally producing content. That investment of time and effort is part of the cost of doing business. Carving your public image through consistent work takes time, but it pays off. Blogging, producing videos, offering instruction—these are the bricks with which you build the audience’s image of you.

We live the Internet age. The distance between producers and consumers has narrowed drastically. If you’re not putting yourself out there, you’re not giving the audience what they need to trust you. Sharing the story behind your business, your motivations and your perspective is a huge part of what helps people decide to choose your business. Modern consumers don’t just think about the product; they think critically about its origins and the merits of the company’s overall mission. You are a part of—a massive part of—what you’re selling.

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Entrepreneurship Leadership Uncategorized

Habit Building: 3 Daily Tasks That Foster Success

Habit-forming is a popular concept in business education and the self-empowerment industry. That’s not only because it’s a clever way to condense good practices into catchy formulas; it’s because one of the most important keys to any great endeavor is consistency. No matter how smart, informed, or hard working a person can be, it’s the ability to maintain a consistent daily regimen that ultimately produces true long-term success.

While there’s no shortage of advice out there about which habits add up to the best results, there are a few that my experience has taught me to rely on. I’ve come to depend on three daily tasks that I believe form the core of consistent growth and consistent sales. They’re not tricks, gimmicks, or hacks; they’re simply three ways to guarantee that every workday makes a contribution to the overall mission of the business.

Like flossing or exercise, these good business habits are worth the commitment, and the mindfulness they foster can be one of your greatest assets.

1. Create Content

Not a workday should go by in which yourself or someone in your company isn’t creating content. That doesn’t necessarily have to translate to a blog per day or a video per week or any other specific number. It just means remembering that your relationship to your audience is based on (and maintained by) the value you offer them day in and day out.

This commitment to content production isn’t simply a matter of throwing content out there for its own sake. It’s about honing your own thought process, and your own view of what matters about your business. It’s exercising your own commitment to your industry and exploring all its angles. It’s about sharing that never-ending process of your own growth with an audience that will trust and respect you all the more for it.

By making content creation a daily task, you ensure that you never let the conversation with your audience end. That conversation is the bedrock on which your marketing and sales are built, because the trust your audience has in you is directly proportional to the sales you’ll make over the years. Commit to making some contribution to your content marketing every single workday, and your audience will stay with you for the long haul.

2. Help Someone

Every day, find a specific person to help. This doesn’t mean that you have to personally address every single need of every single member of your audience, but it does mean that you have to demonstrate your ability to solve their problems. Answer a question on Twitter or offer some guidance to someone who’s sent an email. Doing one useful thing for one person every single workday will build up a store of credibility and gratitude that will go miles towards establishing your reputation in your field.

Each time you help a specific individual, it adds to the buzz about your abilities, and generates the word of mouth that’s so vital in separating legitimate services from the sea of less-than-reputable operations out there. Your “help” doesn’t even have to involve problem-solving; simply showcasing someone else’s work or sharing a link to someone’s website or project helps to enmesh you into the community in which you make your living. Whatever you do for others, it will show that the purpose of your business is to make life better for everyone else as much as it is to support your own goals. That’s not some sappy altruism or naive do-gooderism; it’s the kind of approach to business that creates invaluable customer loyalty.

Not only do you foster good will when you devote part of every workday to helping others, you also deepen your understanding of the needs of your audience. By consistently trying to help someone out, you’ll learn what the common struggles of your audience are and position yourself to address them. You may notice patterns or a common cause of frustration among your audience. Let your product design be guided by that intimate understanding of what your customers need, and you’ll be unstoppable.

3. Work on Your Offer

Of course, content marketing and being a good samaritan are really means of supporting the actual core of your work: your product and the selling thereof. It may seem obvious, but it’s important not to forget about your bread and butter. Every single day is an opportunity to refine your product, to brainstorm innovations, and to sharpen the focus of your marketing. Never allow yourself to get complacent about what you’re selling, or how you’re selling it.

Consult your analytics and track your revenue stream. Take a look at it every workday and try to distinguish the patterns in your sales numbers. Identify what’s working and what’s not. Consult your customer feedback and see if anything about your product could be altered for the better. Above all, don’t trust your product to sell itself. Improve it, refine it, and use all the trust and credibility you’ve build with the other two habits to sell the heck out of it.

We get into entrepreneurship to be free- free from the dictates of traditional employers, free from the burdens of traditional schedules, and free from dependence on businesses that may not have our own or customers’ best interests at heart. Freedom, however, requires us independent business people to impose good, consistent habits on ourselves. By doing so, we maintain the freedom we’ve dared to earn by striking out on our own- and it’s well worth the effort.