Ideas To Deals

Prep For A Productive Week

As I write this it is Monday morning. We have a brand new week in front of us to really make a difference in our business. What do most of us do first thing? Flip on our computer, plow through emails then start to work through a list that is probably made of stuff that your didn't get completed last week. Let's break this cycle and get ready for a productive week for you and your business.

Action Steps:

• Spend the first hour of your day focused on the future. Focus on the future! This will allow you to get motivated and inspired to take positive actions not just read emails.
• Wake up 30 minutes early. Not always the easiest thing to do especially on a Monday but it will allow you to get your focused hour in with less guilt (not that you should be guilty about working on your business).
• Review ~ Mission and Vision: Take a minute to look back out your company's mission and vision. These statements are all about why you started your business. Don't loose sight of these statements in all of the daily activities of our life and business.
• Review ~ Current Business Performance: Just a quick overview, where are you? Is your business where you planned for it to be at this time? Why/Why not?
• Review ~ Your Previous Week: What did you do last week? Were your actions tied to your strategic plan? Did what you accomplish last week move you forward, keep you just above water or drag you down?
• Review ~ Your Upcoming Week of Meetings and Activities: What are you planning to do this week? Are you jammed with meetings? If so are they going to improve your business? Is there ample time available in your schedule to complete needed tasks you have to get done? Guard your time!
• Look Forward: Look out three and six months. What do you see? Are there opportunities that you should be focusing on now that you are missing? Don't let opportunities slip by because you didn't see them early enough to take advantage of them.
• Be Proactive and Put First Things First: See your opportunities and begin scheduling time to work on the things that will really move you forward.
• Set Your Plan: However you do your scheduling whether it is a list, a planner or on your computer put in the activities that are more than busy work and email. Put in items that will keep you moving toward the goals you set when you started your business. When this is done fill in the other tasks in around the bigger items.
• Execute: Once you get everything set for your week work your plan. Sure things will come up and you may not get to everything on your plan but if you have a plan and focus on that plan you will get more done than if you didn't have that plan to start with.

It doesn't matter when you read this you can implement this at anytime. So let's get at it and make this a great week.

You can't go back and change the past but you can start now to make a different future.

Are You Sharp?

If you are a fan of my LinkedIn profile you may know that I worked for FranklinCovey in the mid to late 1990's.  During that time I was able to attend pretty much every training they offered and I got to be pretty proficient in their principles specifically the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People"    by Stephen Covey.  If you are not familiar with the 7 Habits here are my takes on each: 

• Habit 1: Be Proactive: Base actions on self-chosen values and not on moods, feelings and circumstances.
• Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind: Base actions on mission and vision.
• Habit 3: Put First Things First: Say "no" to the unimportant, regardless how urgent, and" yes" to the most important.
• Habit 4: Think Win/Win: Look for solutions make everyone successful.
• Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood: Listen first, talk second
• Habit 6: Synergize: Create solutions that are greater for the whole than the total of the combined parts.
• Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw: Continual improvement/Self renewal

Whether you have read the book or not at one time or another there are probably some of these that you have heard in  corporate communications or trainings but I bet the one you didn't hear a lot about is Habit 7 ~ Sharpen the Saw.  Note...In this post I am discussing the importance of this relating to business but there are a number of ways that you should sharpen the saw in many areas of your life such as physical fitness, time with friends and family, etc.  Sharpening the saw in business is about taking a step back, looking at what is going on around you and how to make your business better.  Many entrepreneurs and business professionals (everyone for that matter) feel they can't stop and always have to keep pushing forward at full speed.  The problem with this is that you are going to miss opportunities for your business and yourself.  Doesn't matter how much you like what you are doing you have to give your mind a chance to catch up.  You must give yourself time to focus on important activities that are not driven by the clock.  Take some time weekly to review your strategic plan, spend time with employees focusing on improvement and look at where you have been and where you are going.  This doesn't have to take the form of an organized strategic planning retreat.  It can be as simple as starting some mornings at your favorite coffee house and taking stock of what is going on around you and your business.  The key is that you take the time to make sure you are on track and making progress toward the outcomes that you started your business to achieve.

So let me ask you...How sharp are you?

 

Personal Branding Without Being A Jackass

Personal Branding Without Being A Jackass ~ Is it possible? 

The more I've gotten into social media over the past few years the more offended I've become by some people's attempt to build their personal brand.  I have a number of friends I follow, particularly on Facebook, that are so annoying on-line it is incredible (they are great people in person).  There are others that are using the "Fake it until you make it" theory doing and saying things on-line that they can't back-up in real life.  Both cases are using what all of us hate about personal branding the "Look At Me, I'm Great" technique to promote and push themselves out into the public.

I'm here to help all the jackasses, you know who you are, fix your personal brand or at least stop annoying me.   

• Change your profile picture:  Your professionally done, air brushed, ultra-cropped picture is so over the top that I may not recognize you if I met you in person. 
• Stop the "Like" Requests:  If I am your friend on Facebook and you have sent me a request to "Like" your professional page like three or four times and I haven't done it, stop sending me the request.
• Stop dropping names:  Just because you are at Blog World and Guy Kawasaki is at Blog World you are not boys.
• Stop with the smug, look at me videos: No I don't want to see you mugging for the camera, yucking it up with your buddies telling inside jokes that none of the rest of us understand (and I like vlogging just not this crap).
• Don't over schedule your Twitter posts:  I woke up the other night about 3:00 am (as I am apt to do) and I decided to check out Twitter (which is probably why I couldn't get back to sleep).  I was amazed that so many of the posts were obviously scheduled posts because that was all that was there (except for @desireekoh13 who is currently in Asia so at least she was real). 
• Get the pop-ups off your blog:  I know you want to sell your shit but if you want me to come back to your blog you need to get me to buy into you and your concepts then I will buy your shit.
• Don't abuse Follow Friday: Don't create #FF for all of your followers on Twitter.  Even worse don't just randomly put people the #FF list that you hope will drive followers to you.
• Don't call yourself a "Guru":  If you are smart and post great content that has value I'll get it.  If you have to tell me you are a "Guru" for me to realize it, you may not be that good.
• Stop with the salesy Auto-DM's: If I start following you on Twitter please don't send me an auto-DM saying "I'm looking forward to your tweets, go like my Facebook page". 
• You are not Kim Kardashian, of course neither is she.

Let me be clear I don't think it is wrong to promote yourself.  The internet and social media hasn't changed everything but rather it has amplified the noise.  Just because things are louder doesn't mean you need to yell louder.  Be smart in how you build your brand.  Does it reflect what you want people to see in you?  Are you authentic?  Is what you are projecting the real you or at least close?  If so you are on the right track and your personal brand will naturally evolve, see Shane Haggerty's post "Skeptic's Personal Brand Builds Itself".  It's easy to build a brand based on who you are and what you want to say so let's all be real and stop the foolishness.

Unless You Are An NBA Star Protect Your Personal Brand

Although I'm not a huge NBA fan, like many other Ohioans, I found myself following the Lebron James "Decision" (it was either that or watch the World Cup, child please).  Throughout the process I was fascinated with the deterioration of the "personal brand" that he had spend the past 10 or so years building.  By the time he finally announced I found myself thinking...what an A-hole.  Was this bad advice or bad branding?  As time pasted I started thinking that this could have been a calculated effort to shift his personal brand to appeal to a different demographic.  I think in Lebron's case he is just an A-hole but I think there is a lesson here.  Most of us won't get paid millions of dollars regardless of how people see us so it is important that your personal brand be managed not just allowed to flow with the current.

Honestly your brand is not how you see yourself it is how others see you.  You can attempt to influence but you can't control perceptions of others.  This is why managing your personal brand is important.  Now more than every there is a tremendous amount of information floating around the internet about you.  This information might be old or even incorrect but there may be people using that information and building an opinion about you.  You can go in after the fact and take down those Facebook pics of you and your friends in Mexico but are they really gone or have they sunk your chances of getting that dream job?

As you move along your life think about what you are all about.  What do you want to be when you grow up?  Knowing this will allow you to prep the steps you want to take in your life.  If you really want to build a personal brand decide how you can best position yourself relating to reaching your goals. Remember there is more than one way to get to the same destination.   As you build your brand don't create something that you are not.  You should take advice, read, plan but choose a path that will allow you to be yourself.  You might get away with playing a character for awhile but you'll be much more comfortable being genuine.