Luck is What You Make Yourself: Zen and the Art of Shameless Self-Promotion
Every now and then you meet someone who you just know is going to succeed no matter what because they have the characteristics that people would describe as a real go-getter. That person for me is Rachel Thompson (aka @RachelintheOC and @BadRedHeadMedia).
Within minutes of connecting with her on Twitter, she immediately engaged me in conversation. Not the slimy auto DM “Hey <INSERT NEW FOLLOWER NAME HERE SO THEY FEEL SPECIAL> please download my free whatever” conversation yuck, but real conversation BEFORE she launched into her shameless promotion.
You see Rachel knows she has to make her own luck so she takes advantage of conversational situations to build connections and also make people aware of her eBooks. Within that very first conversation, she offered me a free download of her eBook, no strings attached, and not before she engaged with me personally.
That’s how she got invited to write for MOMeo Magazine and I have no doubt that’s how she got profiled in the Huffington Post and the reason why her books, A WALK IN THE SNARK and MANCODE: EXPOSED, have hit #1 on the Amazon Kindle bestseller list multiple times. She consistently looks for opportunities to turn simple conversations into promotional opportunities (without resorting to the slimy push tactics).
Lessons in the Subtle Art of Shameless Self-Promotion
Don’t Be Shy! Tell people what you do! Don’t open with your blatant self-promotion as you will put people off. Use your social savvy – engage with people about their interests and what they do, ask questions and wait for the opportunity to talk about what you do. More often than not, people will invite you to talk about yourself.
Do Your Homework! Research who you are talking to before you jump into the conversation. If it’s in social media, doing your homework is as easy as reading their profile and visiting their web site. At a networking event, it may require a bit of sleuth work to find out who’s in the room. It’s worth the effort to know who you are engaging with as you may be missing important opportunities.
Ask for Help. Remember, asking is free! Because you have already done your research, you likely know how that person can help you. Know what you need help with, the more specific the better, and simply ask. My colleague, Craig Elias, makes it a habit of asking everyone he meets if they have a connection to a particular CEO he’s targeting – eventually he finds someone who can make the personal introduction!
Respect Boundaries. Be aware of and respect boundaries. That’s where shameless self-promotion becomes a subtle art. Continually slamming people with requests is not only annoying, but it’s ineffective. This is where your relationship building skills are essential. Start with the relationship first and foremost, then move into self-promotion.
Focus on Win-Win! Know what you can offer others. Requests that benefit both parties equally tend to go farther than a simple “Can you help me?” Try to figure out an equal trade or make it clear that you are eager to find ways to help them. Asking how you can be of assistance is the best way to break down those sales barriers.
Are you a shameless self-promoter? Share your best self-promotion tips and stories in the comments below!
Managing by Calendar: How to Use Your Calendar to Maintain Control of Your Time
Your time is your most valuable resource as an entrepreneur because it’s the only thing you can’t make more of. You can add more products, hire more people, and even invest in better technology to improve productivity, but you can’t make more time – just make better use of it.
Most often what happens to entrepreneurs is they hit a time wall when they reach their innate maximum capacity, meaning they can no longer keep up with their daily tasks and projects without a little strategic planning. Tackling the daily to-do list willy-nilly just won’t cut it anymore.
It becomes a chain-reaction of productivity. As the key-driver of the business, your inability to handle the tasks in front of you inevitably means that you are holding someone else in your company back. That’s why managing your time effectively is critical to your success and your ability to grow beyond your capacity.
The secret to moving beyond your innate maximum time capacity is to get strategic with how you manage your time on a day-to-day basis. That means using your calendar to manage and maintain control of your time.
How to Start Managing Your Time by Calendar
#1: Account for how you use your time. How you REALLY use your time. Do you spend 30 minutes every morning warming up to the day with a coffee in hand while scanning social media for the latest news? Do you need to spend an hour getting your team organized so they can continue with their projects?
Whatever it is, you need to account for it. Deduct from your available work time all the must-do’s you include in your day. Often this is where entrepreneurs get into trouble when they think of their work day as being a full 8 hours when in reality, it’s a lot less when they account for meetings, people management and buffer time.
#2: Schedule everything in down to the minute. Make your calendar in charge of your daily schedule, including all meetings, telephone calls, work blocks, batch task blocks and appointments.
Your calendar should include all the key details related to each. For example, the details for a telephone call should include the telephone number, the purpose of the call and any key discussion points you wish to cover.
#3: Limit the time you spend on tasks and projects by assigning time in your calendar and stick with it. Getting in the habit of working to a time deadline will help you work quickly and efficiently.
Don’t be afraid to communicate your time constraints to others. For example, at the beginning of a call, let the other person know how much time you have to talk at the beginning of the conversation. Placing time limits forces participants to focus on the purpose of the discussion rather than falling into idle chitchat.
#4: Assign tasks and projects to specific work blocks in your calendar. Project tasks that require 30 minutes or longer probably require their own work block in your calendar; whereas, short tasks should be batched together in a batch task work block.
Get in the habit, for example, of checking your email with your calendar open ready to receive any of the new tasks that arise. That way you ensure that you get everything you intend to do done.
#5: Evaluate! Are you getting everything done in your calendar or do you need to give yourself more breathing room? Where are you hitting time-crunches? Why are meetings and project tasks spilling over into the next time blocks? Do you need to build in more time to handle the unexpected?
The only way managing your time by calendar will work is if you honestly assess it on a regular basis. For example, you may decide you need to give yourself regular 5-minute breathers throughout the day or schedule in extra time buffer for a particular meeting that always runs over.
Whatever You Do, DON’T Look Over the Edge: How Focusing on the Negative Attracts the Negative
Ever hear the saying, “You go where you look?” It applies to practically any sport that involves steering, from downhill skiing to mountain biking to equestrian riding. So wherever you look – over the edge, toward that lone tree or even into the fence – is exactly where you’ll end up.
The same holds true for all those negative thoughts – the ones you use to steer yourself (and your business). Focusing on the negative draws more negative toward you. Don’t miss this critical opportunity, don’t lose the sale, and whatever you do, DON’T fail! Somehow that’s (magically) exactly what happens.
Call it what you will – law of attraction or good old-fashioned bad attitude – whatever it is drives your outcomes. The trick is looking where you do want to go. Straight down the trail, through that clean line between the trees and into the stables (minus any side trips into the irresistible tall grass).
How to Focus on Creating Positive Outcomes
Look Where You Want to Go – Know where you want to go and FOCUS (like a laser) on going there. Post reminders, break down the steps and complete one each day and keep looking in that direction no matter what!
Put on the Bad Outcome Blinders – Stop the questioning, playing the failure what-if game and thinking about what you don’t want to happen. Don’t let all the potential bad outcomes become a distraction!
Assume the Positive – Pretend like every question, ask, request gets an automatic “Yes”. That’s not to say you will get a guaranteed “Yes” every single time, but if you act like you will get what you want, more often than not, you will. Just remember that every time you don’t ask, you get an automatic “No”.
Watch Out for Negativity Traps – Remember that momentum creates more momentum in that direction – and that hold true for negative outcomes. Don’t turn small setbacks into a negativity trap. Stay focused on your chosen direction.
Create Your Own Luck – Stop waiting for the magical bullet to drop good luck in your lap! If you want good luck, go out there and create it! Action gets results, not wishing.
So where are you going to point your business? Focus on THAT this week!
Stuck for Topic Ideas? 5 Never-Fail Blog Topics that Get Clicks
Sometimes the hardest part of writing is deciding WHAT to write about. As a blogger, the trick is striking that fine balance between writing what interests and inspires you and writing about what interests and inspires your audience (to click).
In a perfect world, that would be the same thing, but sometimes what interests and inspires you falls flat with your audience and vice versa. So when you are stuck for topic ideas, try something from this list of never-fail blog topics that get clicks!
5 Never-Fail Blog Topics that Get Clicks
How-to’s and Hacks – Let’s face it – we ALL want to figure out how to work the system which is why how-to’s and hacks are incredibly popular. Blog readers are voracious learners, happily consuming and sharing helpful tips and shortcuts.
Example post: In “How to Get Your Website Up FAST! A Beginners Guide to Building a WordPress Site”, Michelle Mangen walks readers through, step-by-step, how to build a WordPress site.
In-Depth Discussion – The typical blog post is short and sweet and gets right to the point because the typical attention span of blog readers is extremely short. That being said, sometimes a topic needs and your audience wants an in-depth discussion.
Example post: Unlike a lot of social media posts that merely skim the surface or assume WAY too much knowledge, Erika Napoletano (aka Redhead Writing) gives you the down-low on social bookmarking in “The Essential Social Bookmarking Primer for Pseudo Nerds“.
Personal Experiences – We read to relate and give context to our worldview. That’s why blogging is such a social activity – because in no other platform can you interact and engage with the author. Writing about intensely personal experiences is a way to not only engage your audience, but connect with them on a deeper level.
Example post: Our feature column, “The Journey”, profiles the road that leads to becoming an entrepreneur. In “Reframing Adversity – Turning Life Challenges into Life Change”, MOMeo Tami Gaines shares how overcoming extraordinary challenges became her source of strength.
OMG Funny – There’s a reason ridiculously silly sites, like The Onion, are shared over and over and over again. Funny not only gets clicks, but gets shared in social media like CRAZY!
Example post: In “6 Things Husbands of Work-at-Home Moms Don’t Know” and the follow-up post “11 Things Friends of Work-at-Home Moms Don’t Know”, Alisa Bowman shares her humorous take on the common misconceptions about working at home (funny because it’s so true).
MEGA Resource Lists – Don’t think lists of 5, or 7, or even 21 – we’re talking MEGA lists people! Think 50 or 100 smart ideas, useful resources, helpful hints, must-have apps, sneaky shortcuts…you get the idea.
Example post: It may just be a list, but oh, what a list! “50 Can’t-Fail Techniques for Finding Great Blog Topics” on CopyBlogger gives you 50 starting points for coming up with your next blog topic!
Marvelous Mini Muffins: Healthy Bran Mini Muffins Kids Actually Eat!
Nothing says “I love you” quite like homemade muffins in the lunchbox, especially when those muffins are mini muffins! Even better if those mini muffins are packed full of nutritional goodness.
What I love about sending mini muffins in my daughter’s lunchbox, besides the fact that she considers it a treat, is you can give your mini muffins a nutritional boost by adding lots of healthy ingredients, like wheat germ, flax seed and applesauce!
Muffin baking tip: Substitute 1 tablespoon each of wheat germ and flax seed per 1 cup of flour in almost ANY muffin recipe. Just add both to the bottom of your 1-cup measure before scooping your flour to maintain proper dry ingredient proportions. If you want to reduce the fat, substitute half the oil for applesauce.
OMG Kids Actually Eat Them Bran Mini Muffins
I never in a million years though my picky-eater would even try bran muffins, much less like them, but when served a Honey Bran Mini Muffin at a hotel brunch buffet, she not only ate it, she asked for more!
I immediately went home and searched for a basic bran muffin recipe on AllRecipes.com. From this basic bran muffin recipe, I created my own healthier mini muffin version (the secret is serving them up in the mini muffin version):
Ingredients:
3 cups wheat bran
2 cups buttermilk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 eggs
1 1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1/4 cup wheat germ
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Method:
1. Add wheat bran to the buttermilk and let stand for 10 minutes.
2. Combine oil, applesauce, egg, sugar and vanilla and add to the bran mixture.
3. Sift together flour, flaxseed, wheat germ, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
4. Add to the bran mixture until just blended.
5. If adding any nuts or raisins, add now.
6. Spoon into greased mini muffin tins.
7. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in a 375-degree oven or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean!
Note: This recipe is already doubled so if you want to make fewer mini muffins, cut in half.
The Psychology of Failure: How Sometimes YOU Are Your Own Worst Enemy
Our fear of failure shows up in many curious ways. Sometimes it’s accidentally forgetting to do something really important, sometimes it’s busywork that makes you feel like you are getting stuff done, but doesn’t actually step you any closer to your goal, sometimes it’s only half showing up so you can say that you failed because you didn’t really try.
The common thread is that our fear of failure is most often the reason why we fail. It happens when we give in to the negative self-talk, when we overwhelm ourselves with so many complicated details that we get bogged down or when we just get plain stuck in that never ending loop of paralysis by analysis. This is the reason we are our own worst enemies.
Understanding the Psychology of Failure
Ever have someone tell you NOT to do something so you end up doing it MORE? Like when you get yourself all psyched up about mispronouncing a name, only to overthink it and mess it up? Or when someone tells you not to stare at so-and-so’s scar and that’s all you can do?
What we focus on expands and grows, especially if that something is intensely negative and self-destructive. So when you listen to that little voice that says, “Don’t fail, don’t mess up, don’t embarrass yourself,” you get so overwhelmed and paralyzed by fear that you either get stuck and can’t move forward or you secretly sabotage yourself.
How to Make Your Fear Your Frenemy
Just as fear of failure can hold us back, it can also propel us forward. It’s the fear of losing a client that gives us that extra oomph to hit that deadline and it’s the fear of not achieving a target goal that has us obsessively checking metrics and doubling and tripling our efforts to reach it.
How to stay on the right side of fear of failure and use it to stay motivated:
Know the Warning Signs – Learn to recognize the workings of negative fear and quickly turn it into a positive motivator. Dragging your heels, procrastinating, renewed enthusiasm for busywork are all signs that self-sabotage is at work. Stop and take a look behind the behavior for what is really going on and find ways to turn it into a positive motivator.
Let Go of Outside Judgment – Ignore what the little voice is telling you about how others will see your failure. Ask ANY entrepreneur and they will tell you they have had their fair share of failures – big and small. Chances are you are your harshest critic and your entrepreneurial peers will be a lot more sympathetic than you give them credit for.
Focus on Key Milestones – Often fear and overwhelm takes over when you are trying to tackle an enormous audacious goal and the end seems so far away that you can’t possible fathom how you are going to get there. Don’t try – just focus on succeeding at the next series of steps!
Do the What-If Exercise – If the fear of failure has you so wound up that you can’t even take a single step, do the ‘What-if’ exercise. What if you fail? What happens then? How bad would it really be? What would you do to deal with that situation? How can you avoid the worst-case scenario? By breaking it down into what exactly there is to be afraid of, more often than not you will discover that even failure wouldn’t be that bad.
How do you deal with fear when it has you stuck on go? Share your tips in the comments below!
The Best Time to Fire a Client is BEFORE You Start: Watch for These Bad Client Red Flags
Ever start with a new client only to regret the decision immediately? You know the ones I am speaking of – the disorganized, demanding, high maintenance clients who basically drive you crazy!
These clients fall into the other 80% of the 80/20 rule, the 80% who are responsible for the majority of your headaches and trouble, but NOT the majority of your profits. These are also the clients who drain your customer service resources, sometimes costing you more money than they are worth!
Be firm, be fair, but fire them before you even start!
Watch for these Red Flags BEFORE You Start
Boundary pushing early on in the relationship is a good indicator that there will be even more boundary pushing later on. Typical boundary pushing behavior includes insisting on meeting with you NOW, incessant calling and refusal to ‘Wait in line’ while you finish up your current projects with existing clients.
High maintenance behavior of ANY kind! These are the ones who start off the relationship in a tizzy. And guess what? They continue that way. Watch out for drama and a ‘Poor me’ attitude because trust me, they will bring that drama right to your door if you let them.
Disorganization is a warning sign of even more (you guessed it) disorganization, only this time it’s going to land squarely on your desk. Chances are you will end up spending more time helping them get it together enough that you can even start work! Signs of a disorganized client are showing up late for meetings, not being prepared to hand-off work or failure to respond promptly to requests.
Hurry up and rush is a sure sign that you are dealing with a disorganized and demanding client! They tend to know they need something done for weeks and weeks only to tell you about it moments before the deadline. They have unrealistic expectations and tend to drop problems directly on your desk without warning or apology.
Bargain-hunting and tire-kicking are two red flags that you are dealing with a prospect who shops and buys based solely on price. Unless you are willing to enter the race to the bottom and radically discount your prices, don’t bother. These clients will never be loyal and will jump ship as soon as they find a better deal elsewhere.
Know-it-alls who know nothing THINK they know exactly what they want and if only you could read their minds, you’d be able to do it perfectly. They tend to overlook and over manage to the detriment of the end result because in truth, their lack of ability isn’t the only barrier to success!
Do any of these clients sound like your current clients? Check out our post on how to fire bad clients for tips on letting go of disaster clients!



















