Categories
Success Attitude

5 Secret Steps the Positively Successful Take in Response to Change

5 Secret Steps the Positively Successful Take in Response to Change

I live in a part of the U.S. that received a once-a-decade snowfall last week. At least 12,000 flights were cancelled. Millions of people were home from work, rearranging untold numbers of meetings and assignments.

Such rapid change is commonplace in our world today. Snow is forecast. Other changes are not. How you deal with it determines your positive success at work.

Here are five secret steps the positively successful take in response to such rapid change:

Relax

When sudden change interrupts your work flow, your fight-or-flight response to stress emerges just as quickly. You will go thermonuclear or turbodrive away due to an overwhelming sense of powerlessness.

Successful business people first relax. They take a breath and see the moment as it is. They resist the urge to go Incredible Hulk or Chicken Little and focus on the positive.

Relate

Successful professionals secondly relate. They quickly turn to others and invest in their social circles. They offer support and gain strength from relationships.

Facebook was filled with pictures of parents at home, playing in the snow with their children. Residents of neighborhoods near highways left their warm homes to push cars stranded in roadside ditches.

Once you relax in the midst of rapid change, your focus shifts from “me” to “thee.” You relate to and invest in others.

Remember

Next, successful business people look behind the moment to previously similar times. They reflect on what they implemented that was most effective. They gather courage and strength from the knowledge that they survived and are in business today. Such emotional fortitude energizes them to deal strategically with the moment.

Everyone has a survival story. Such tales willingly suspend your disbelief in the moment and propel you forward.

Respond

Having relaxed, related, and remembered, successful professionals now choose to respond. Interestingly, the temptation is to first respond. However, success builds from well-chosen inner steps before it emerges in outer steps.

The focusing question behind your response is, “What can I do?” The powerlessness of rapid change paralyzes with a myopic view of “What I Can’t Do.” There is always some sliver of an opportunity open to successful people. They see what they look for. Seizing the moment, they respond with creative imagination and transform the paralysis into a powerful rewriting of the script.

They find an appointment for the patient who stayed overnight in hopes of seeing the doctor. They let the client text the picture of the damaged vehicle direct to claims. They respond positively and creatively.

Reward

Finally, successful business people reward themselves. They take off earlier than usual to play in the snow.

Also, they reward others. They gift the team member who came in on Saturday to complete what couldn’t be done on Friday.

Rewards recognize the importance of others to the success of the business. This secret step may be the greatest of all as it hooks the team member’s emotional engagement in a most personal way. Successful professionals lead from heartfelt recognition that it takes more than themselves to navigate rapid change.

Whatever your source of change, implement these five secret steps of the positively successful and Work Positive!

About the Author:

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), Positive Success coach, & speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they leave the office earlier to do what they love with those they love. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org.

Categories
Planning & Management

Strategic Backlash: Setting The Vision For Your Company #entrepreneurfail

entrepreneurfail-Too-Many-S

New Webcomics series brought to you by #entrepreneurfail and GetEntrepreneurial.com. Enjoy!

What is the vision for your organization?

In any business, the key stakeholders are always trying to anticipate the key decisions and turns. But, who is it that really influences and decides the overarching next steps?

In a large organization, you’ve got your CEO / President / Managing Dictator (misspelling intended) that sets the strategy for the organization – the long term growth plan, the key priorities, the budgets.

And in your own venture, your strategy is constantly adapted. You may attempt to set your own strategy based on your vision and experience. However, as you start, it seems like every new customer sets your strategy, your vision and influences your day-to-day activities! As the key decision maker in your own organization, you soon realize that the influencers pulling you in different directions are your existing customers and potential leads.  The best way to focus on a strategy is to develop key relationships and understand what drives your customers and constantly test and validate with the market.

How did you decide your first strategy? Let us know more in the comments below.

(Learn how this cartoon was made! Check out the stroke-by-stroke playback here)?? 

Laugh a little and enjoy the blips on the road to startup success. This comic and post were originally created by Kriti Vichare for #entrepreneurfail: Startup Success.

Categories
Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship: What you Thought vs. What you Got #entrepreneurfail

entrepreneurfail-What-you-t

New Webcomics series brought to you by #entrepreneurfail and GetEntrepreneurial.com. Enjoy!

Poll any entrepreneur – new, old, successful, flailing, product-focused, service-focused, solo or with a team – and they will all say the same thing:

“What I thought, was definitely not what I got”, each one would scream in unison.

We’ve rounded up some of the commonest misconceptions and surprises about entrepreneurship for you below. The list may help you be better prepared for the journey.

What entrepreneurs thought, before launching their ventures:

  1. “Money will start pouring in.” -Guess what, it only actually trickles!
  2. “Customers would be clamoring for my product and I have to be prepared because my servers may crash.” -This is actually a great problem to have – alas it never happened.
  3. “I can handle it alone.” -The reality is that no one can.
  4. “I am in control.” -Nope, you’ll have to deal with the unforeseen everyday.
  5. “Job satisfation is a given since I’ll be working on what I want.” -It’s not a guarantee.
  6. “I’ll be an overnight success” -The definition of overnight can be 3,4,5 or more years!
  7. “I’ll use all my knowledge from my Big company and MBA.” -My previous learnings weren’t really applicable.
  8. “I’ll just get online and do some social media outreach to grow my company.”           -Digital marketing is a science and an art, not just a few posts slapped together.
  9. “Cheap labor is great for my small budget.” -You get what you pay for.
  10. “I’ll be ready to deliver in a week.” -It’s always at least 3x longer than anticipated.
  11. “I’m launching my own business to be happy, not for money.” -Try being happy when your business isn’t sustainable. 

Did we miss any in the list? Let us know “what you thought, and what you got” in the comments below! 

This post and comic were originally created by Kriti Vichare for #entrepreneurfail: Startup Success.

Categories
Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs, Include These Permanently In Your Daily Work Schedule

startup-busy-day

Article Contributed by Lori Wagner

What do you think the life of an entrepreneur looks like?

It’s like chaos packed into the human form.

Entrepreneurs live that kind of life every single day. When they aren’t dreaming about how to grow their business and get more sales, they are thinking of their clients, resources, assets, payroll, cash flow, financing, and opportunities.

Somewhere along the way, they also keep track of what’s happening in their immediate domain of relevance.

Entrepreneurs do all of this without a sure finger on results, of course. They do it with sheer confidence executed with top-notch skills and a sliver of hope.

They usually grope blind.

Yet, in an entrepreneur’s typical day, there are some things that they simply can’t go without doing. Every entrepreneur’s “to do” list must have these entries. Period.

No Excuses. No Vacations. No Holidays. No Goofing off.

Keep half a brain out hunting

Chances are that you are already running a business. Perhaps, you are looking to start one. No matter where you are on this spectrum, you have to keep pivoting your direction. Change is imminent and it’s bound to happen to you, one way or the other.

Some of the hottest startups like Square couldn’t escape from this reality. In case you didn’t know, Square had to discard its “wallet pay” service and fall back on an earlier product. Instagr.am – the popular photo-sharing app that ended up being acquired by Facebook – wasn’t originally designed to be what it is today.

If you thought change was imminent and you claim that you are prepared, there’s a problem with this line of thinking: you can never be prepared enough.

That’s because you don’t know what’s coming. Uncertainties are very high for startups as Thomas Grota puts it “very gamely” if I could be permitted to use a pun.

So, what do you do? Keep half a brain out hunting. Let it sniff for new opportunities. Keep vigil on trends. Remember, all that feedback you get from your customers or clients is also supposed to give you cues.

Enter this into your to-do list.

Marketing, networking, and some more marketing

Marketing isn’t a one-time thing; it’s not a time-limited endeavor that you pursue until your reach a particular momentum. It’s the way of an entrepreneur. It’s the ultimate weapon. It keeps you in business. It gets you the money you need. It sets the stage for the freedom you covet.

Obviously, you wouldn’t be marketing to the walls. You’ll still do business with people. For that, you’d have to network. You’d have to keep in touch with people such as possible hires, clients, potential partners, and everyone else in between.

Next time there’s a meeting scheduled on your calendar, don’t be tempted to knock it off. Of course, build a marketing system you can depend on.

Hiring is forever

Do you know what’s more common than hiring people for your business? It’s losing people.

You’ll gain new hires and lose old ones. Of course, a few of those key people might stick around for a long time, but never for too long. Everyone leaves, sooner or later.

Hiring isn’t an activity you do when you need people; it’s actually best done when you don’t need anyone at all! For entrepreneurs, the best way to look for potential hires is to do so continually without the need to pitch, sell, or convince.

To hire better, you need to build a brand. You need to set the stage for a convincing story.

Once you do that, you have to lure “passive” candidates, not “active” ones. According to Jen Picard of LinkedIn Talent Solutions, up to 75% of the potentially viable folks fall in this group. Jen also points to the fact that staffers and companies are actually chasing the wrong end of the market with 25% active candidates and another 15% of candidates on the cusp.

Go looking for those passive candidates who aren’t really looking for jobs right now.

Chances are that you’ll find the diamonds in the trough.

Learning like you were just born

You can manage with a job with a certain level of skills and education. Nothing prepares you for entrepreneurship, though. Entrepreneurship is the rough school no kid would ever like to be in.

Yet, business owners find themselves fighting it out to learn new skills and ride on new learning curves every now-and-then.

It’s no wonder that some of the most successful entrepreneurs are also the most well-read. They consume books, magazines, reports, and content off the web.

As an entrepreneur, learning is no longer a choice. It’s you only ticket to sanity. So, if you were looking for business news and inspiration, go ahead and bookmark websites such as Inc, Fast Company, and Forbes.

Of course, you can dig deeper. Niche research done by well-known and not-so-well-known individuals, companies and groups can prove to be invaluable in your industry. For example, if you’re an online retailer, you could refer to Vend U’s retail resources for tips on managing ecommerce stores. If you’re a social media expert, you wouldn’t want to miss anything on Jon Loomer’s Facebook marketing blog.

There’s practically an authority resource for every minute detail you might ever want to learn about.

You just go and pick what suits you.

Learning isn’t just limited to books, magazines and websites and I have no intention of allowing you to stop there. Every human interaction, every issue you face in your business, and every challenge is a ruthless teacher.

So, go learn.

Over to you

As for entrepreneurship, there’s never been a better time to get into business. The Internet is your magic wand and if you can get the multi-channel DNA of digital marketing right, succeeding in business is just a matter of proper execution and time.

No one said it’s easy being an entrepreneur. The points above are only a few things you should do everyday, and it doesn’t even begin to touch on anything to do with entrepreneurship yet.

What goes into your typical day? What do you find yourself doing? Share a glimpse of a day with us.

About the Author

Lori Wagoner is an independent content strategist who gives online marketing advice to small businesses. Lori has blogged at Tweak Your Biz, The Social Media Hat and many other business and tech blogs. You can reach her @LoriDWagoner on Twitter.

Categories
Work Life

5 Tips for Avoiding ‘Disaster’ In Your Business

5 Tips for Avoiding ‘Disaster’ In Your Business

We arrived in plenty of time, exactly three hours before we were due to take off.  There was no security check, surprisingly enough, and then they told us that the flight was cancelled.

We could have just gone home and waited for them to call when they figured out if and when the flight would take off.  Or we could go and wait in the line to reschedule our flight, see if we could catch a flight through Europe instead.

We went to stand in line.

Along with about 250 other people.

And then the fun started.

After almost four hours waiting in line, we were finally given tickets for the next flight out that would bring us to our destination.

Of course, it wasn’t the ideal way to spend 4 hours, but I was amazed by the reaction of some of the people around us.

‘You can’t be serious’

‘This is horrific’

‘It’s a disaster’

‘We’re suffering here.’

I have to admit, the thought crossed my mind.  Tell me about a hurricane or typhoon, sudden death, human trafficking – that’s disaster and suffering, but cancelling a flight, oh please.

Of course, it got me thinking about how we tend to react to all our ‘special’ situations. How we, so often, let the incidents that occur to us, define us.

When everything is going well, we say that life is good, we are good

And when we are challenged, suddenly we begin to question everything.

It’s insane.

And of course, it got me thinking about business.

I reminded me of the 5 Tips for Avoiding ‘Disaster’ in Your Business.

1.       When something goes wrong, breathe deep and smile

That’s right, keep calm and if nothing else the extra oxygen will give you more thinking power to come up with an alternative solution and keep you in action.

2.       Know that it could be much worse

It’s true, it can always be worse and if you concentrate on the doom and gloom of stuff not being exactly as you expected, it probably will get worse!

3.       Keep it in perspective

If you look at the big picture, you’ll see it probably isn’t as bad as you’re making it out to be.

4.       Find where this is a blessing

Yes, I know this one sounds impossible, but believe me, there is a blessing in every moment – this one too.  You can find it, go on!

5.       Be thankful

Gratitude is the key to happiness.  And you can be thankful for this ‘disaster’ even just because it’s a reminder of how resilient and amazing you really are.

So, as I wait for that flight that we have been diverted to, I am truly thankful.  I got to write this!!

It’s your turn, what ‘disaster’ are you thankful for today?