Zugunruhe: Helping great people get [good] things done: Zoog.un.roo.ee

Happy Leap Day!

Happy Leap Day! Today is that extraordinary day in February that comes around only once every four years. I don’t know about you, but I am always wishing I had more time. What a relief to have an entire extra day--a whole 24 hours--to tackle something great.

As part of his terrific and influential book, Getting Things Done, David conceptualized the work of life as five altitudes:

• The runway: the ground floor where the actual doing gets done.
• The 10,000-foot level: Relatively short term collections of tasks--projects.
• 20,000-feet: Your areas of responsibility and the roles you inhabit.
• At 30,000-feet: your one to two year goals.
• The 40,000-foot level: three to five year goals.
• 50,000-feet: The top of the mountain: life. As one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, put it, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I was discussing the levels of focus with some folks yesterday. At one point, it dawned on me that David’s levels of focus invite us to press pause on the busyness of our lives, to look at what we might do at a much higher level, and connect our very highest aspirations with what we do every day. Instead of looking back on our lives in old age and saying, “I could have been a contender!” we give ourselves the opportunity to say instead, “I know I gave it my very best shot.”

Today, on Leap Day 2008, I challenge you to step out of the raging river of busyness. Step off onto the shore and ask yourself, “Is there something I’m not getting to? Something big that creates a yearning inside me? How can I take a small step every week that will bring me closer?”

Think about your life two years from now. There will be changes--those are inevitable. You can’t truly anticipate what life will throw at you. But you can create meaningful goals and set a trajectory. And once you have a direction to move in, you can be purposeful and put simple steps in place that will move you in your chosen direction.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to look back on my life someday and think, “If only I could have, I would have, I should have.” To hell with that. I want to live life fully, on purpose and awake so I can be present for every moment, truly alive. What about you?

Yes! Leap into life with everything you have. Play big! Celebrate Leap Day by aiming for the stars. And then jump. We can hold hands if you like. C’mon! It’ll be fun!

Ready? One…two…three!

40-Days Forward 2008: Moving into Planning

[This post is the seventh in the 2008 40-Days Forward series. The series begins here.]

Twenty-one days ago, we began 40-Days Forward 2008. To refresh your memory, the four key concepts of 40-Days Forward are:

• Rigorous reflection
• Planning and Goal Setting
• Letting Go
• Giving Back

Now that you’ve had the opportunity to reflect on your life as it is now, do some noticing and paying attention, identify some of your strengths, and perhaps seek some feedback, it’s time to take a look into your future--the territory beyond these 40 days in 2008.

The planning part of your journey is first focused on identifying your passion. This may seem like a no-brainer for some of you but even so, it’s a process that is useful to review every so often. That’s because the busyness of life has a way of pulling us off center and away from our passions.

The planning you’ll do as part of the 40-Days Forward journey is a little different from the scheduling you may already be engaged in. This is big picture planning, done by determining what is essential to you. The goals you create for yourself must be based on what you are passionate about, what you can be the best in the world at, and the fuel and resources that drive you. This is your personal Hedgehog Concept (a term and concept that drawn form Jim Collins’ wonderful book for businesses, Good to Great).

If you establish a deep understanding of these three elements (passion, purpose, and petrol--the stuff that “drives” you), and you remain firmly entrenched in acting within the intersection of those three elements, you will be well on your way to great success and to creating a life full of meaning and purpose.

Remember, passion is defined by what you love. Your passions may be tied to activities, causes, or people (individually or in community) and spring from your gifts and/or your strengths. What are your passions?

Think about the non-negotiables in your life. It could be family. Freedom. Justice and fairness. Review the thoughts you’ve captured so far, look at your strengths. Likely, your non-negotiables--the must-haves in your life--have already peeked through.

Your Checklist for Marketing Success

Great article in the March issue of Fast Company by brothers Dan Heath and Chip Heath (authors of Made to Stick). The key to great performance, superb follow through, all avoiding costly errors is…a simple checklist. “Checklists,” the brothers Heath write, “help us avoid blind spots in complex scenarios.” The example they give comes from the field of medicine.

If you’ve ever been in a hospital setting where patient care was going on, you know that intravenous lines (i.e., IVs) are ubiquitous. IVs are used to deliver fluids, life-saving medications, and blood transfusions. IVs are direct lines into the body’s blood system which means they can be quick routes for infection to get introduced into the patient’s body. When inserting an IV, it’s easy to do it right: there are five critical steps. Dr. Peter Pronovost created a IV insertion checklist and put it into use at hospitals in the state of Michigan. After a year and a half, IV related infections were cut to nearly zero, saving an estimated 1,500 lives.

Dr. Provonost’s IV checklist was powerful because it reminded doctors and nurses of the right way to do a routine procedure. And that’s needed because routine can get taken for granted. Careful procedures can start to slip and slide and morph into sloppiness. A checklist puts down the important stuff in black and white, where it’s harder to ignore. In essence, a checklist is “insurance against overconfidence” that we’ll remember what we think we already know.

When it comes to marketing, it’s even easier to start slipping and sliding away from best practices. We drift away from strategy into tactics. We start morphing into chameleons of our competitors. We do things because we see someone else doing it--not because it’s the best thing for our customers or our businesses. So here’s a handy checklist you can use to stay on track with your Duct Tape Marketing efforts. These are the mission critical elements for any and every marketing effort--from fundraising for a non-profit to attracting clients for to a financial planning service.

Seven questions to ensure marketing success:

1. Is there a clearly defined target market or target audience for your effort?
2. Is it clear how you’re different (e.g., besides competing on price)?
3. Is your core marketing message stated clearly, simply, and memorably?
4. Is there a clear path with obvious road signs directing people to information they’ll need as they think through the decision(s) you’re asking them to make?
5. Are you giving the prospect sufficient imagery that they can find something to like?
6. How much risk are you asking the prospect to take? You have to demonstrate enough expertise, build credibility, and put in enough safety nets that the prospect can feel good about trusting you.
7. Are you inviting the prospect to action?

Seven simple questions. Yet so powerful. If you just take the time to analyze every tactic you consider using these seven questions, you’re are guaranteed to get a better result. You don’t need a complicated formula. You don’t need tons of money or expensive advertising. All you need to do is check off on the important stuff.

Are you interested in learning more Duct Tape Marketing best practices like this checklist? Join me this coming Thursday, Feb 28 at 1 pm. This week’s marketing study group gets an exclusive chance to sign on to try out a free, seven-day mini-course on creating your own marketing kit. Only the folks on the live call will have the opportunity to try out this course. Want to join? Simply enter your email below to get all the details.

40-Days Forward 2008: Looking for Patterns

[This post is the sixth in the 2008 40-Days Forward series. The series begins here.]

As you’ve reflected on yourself and your world over the past few days, you may have begun to notice patterns in your life. Now turn your attention to what you do. Spend some time looking back at your daily activities. How are you spending your time? Here are some things to take note of:

• Activities that set your heart on fire. These are the things you love to do that make time stand still.
• Pastimes that refill your well. This is where your energy gets replenished.
• The non-negotiables. Who or what are the must-haves in your life: your kids, spouse, exercise, spiritual life, fulfilling work? What else?
• What you want more of. You may have some deep down desires that you’re not getting to: what are they?

40-Days Forward 2008: Reflection through Another's Eyes

[This post is the fifth in the 2008 40-Days Forward series. The series begins here.]

Reflection--the process of looking within--can be accomplished in numerous ways. You can take long walks, capture your thoughts in a journal, take time to simply think things through. But if reflection is meant, in part, to help you see yourself objectively, you may need to get someone else’s perspective.

Of course, the easiest way to someone else’s perspective on you is simply to ask. That simple strategy is actually not so easy. Two reasons. First, will the person you ask actually tell you what they really think? And second, do you truly want to know what they really think? The first is an issue of trust and the second an issue of risk.

Establishing trust is a long-term commitment. The first key to establishing trust is personal integrity and authenticity. Integrity means being the same person day in and day out. Authenticity means showing up as yourself without pretending or hiding behind an agenda (which itself may also be hidden). The number one way that people learn to trust you is to watch you in situation after situation. If you behave consistently (i.e., have integrity), they decide what they can and can’t expect from you. This expectation, in part, allows them to predict how you’ll react to various situations. The worst case scenario is the unpredictable person who is monumentally inconsistent in his or her behavior (imagine the worst boss you’ve ever had…times ten).

To establish the kind of trust that people need to have to tell you what they really think, however, requires that you put them at ease. That means that people feel that they can talk to you about yourself without fear of rejection, retribution, or other nasty consequences. The only way to get that kind of trust is to earn it by listening carefully and without flinching, allow the other person to be heard. Do this over and over and people will eventually realize that you’re not kidding and that they are not walking into a trap. Not easy. That kind of integrity and authenticity requires genuine strength and real mental toughness.

Receiving feedback and seeing yourself as others do is sometimes a bit uncomfortable. It’s a risk. After all, you’re putting yourself on the line in many ways: the willingness to admit you might be wrong, to see potential problems or unexpected obstacles, and to get your toes stepped on are all real possibilities. That element of risk may be what holds most people back. There’s also the bigger risk that a whole system may be in trouble.

Author Laurence Gonzales points out that “the human condition makes it easy for us to conceal the obvious from ourselves.” The obvious can be a simple as the first ugly incident that signals we’ve hired the wrong person or as complex as an ignored o-ring seal that leads to a big (and quite literal) explosion. Either way, facing brutal reality, in the form of feedback, data, and red flags is crucial. If you ignore the data, you do so at your own peril. Yet people do ignore data about themselves and their situations every day. Often, they get away with it. But if the ignoring goes on long enough, divorces, bankruptcy, layoffs, and all sorts of other consequences may eventually catch up. That’s the most compelling argument for getting the perspective that other people can provide to you. It may save your job, your business, or your life not to mention, the jobs, businesses, and lives of others.

What is the marketing impact of spelling and grammar?

Today, I dropped by to read someone else’s blog. And there, right there in the first sentence of the most recent post, was a big, glaring grammatical error. Farther down, there were two more mixed in with a couple of typos. All those careless mistakes got me to thinking: what is marketing impact of spelling and grammar?

Writing for your business can be a lot of things. It can serve as a point of introduction. It can allow people to get to know you. Readers of a blog, for example, may find something to like. When folks see that you’re consistent--you post regularly, have a coherent message, and show up on time--they may begin to trust you a little. And they might even come to hire you or buy from you because of your writing. I know this works because it’s happened to me. More than one client has said, ‘I started reading your blog and knew you were the right person for me to work with.’ Wow.

Studies show nearly 20% of web pages are visited for less than four seconds and almost 50% are viewed for less than 12 seconds. If the first thing your prospect sees is a bunch of grammatical and spelling errors, what impression do you make? At best, the prospect thinks you were careless. At worst, you wind up looking like a rube.

True, there are times and target markets that tolerate, and even encourage, variations on grammar and spelling. If you’re writing for a hip-hop audience, then the lingo dictates a certain style. When you want to create a vibe, you may need to bend the rules. There’s nothing wrong with having style. But style is a conscious, strategic decision. And so is using spell-check, doing some proofreading, and making sure you’ve got the facts straight.

Remember, your words paint a picture of you and your business in the reader’s mind. If you’re not a great writer, don’t despair. You don’t have to aim for the Pulitzer Prize. You can write simply and clearly--there’s nothing wrong with that. Use spell-check and grammar checking tools. Proofread relentlessly. Read what you’ve written aloud to see if it makes sense. And if need be, hire some help like an editor or a copy-writer.

In the end, the marketing impact of spelling and grammar is credibility. Writing well is a huge credibility booster. It shows you care about the little things. And if you’re faithful about the little things, it means you’re more likely to be faithful in the big things--where it matters the most.

40-Days Forward 2008: Applying Your Strengths

[This post is the fourth in the 2008 40-Days Forward series. The series begins here.]

Learning about your strengths allows you to see yourself more accurately. Once you learn what your strengths are, you can apply them to help you to carry out all your activities more skillfully and with greater enjoyment.

Say you’ve been asked to take on a new role in your job. By focusing on your strengths, you can quickly determine at which activities you will excel in your new role. Not only that, but you can bring your strengths to bear on situations for which you may not feel very skilled or just plain don’t enjoy very much. For example, my highest rated strength is gratitude. When I am paying bills or doing bookkeeping, both activities that I find a bit stressful, I engage gratitude. I often say out loud how grateful I am for a particular service (like the telephone) while I am writing the check. By taking the point of view that I am grateful for the outcome (being able communicate clearly with clients via reliable phone service), I transform my feelings about feeling awkward about my still-developing accounting abilities.

When people start to take on new programs, the focus is usually on doing. Doing new things by adding new activities. However, knowing your strengths helps you to determine what not to do or what to stop doing. To assess what to stop doing, you’ll probably need a full picture of what you are doing. Again, this is a process of reflection. You may need to keep track of your activities for a while to fully inventory all the activities that you spend your time on. I keep a list of my projects (project being defined as any activity that requires more than two action steps) and review the list regularly. Simply making the list (over the course of several days) revealed activities that I needed to stop doing because they were not helping me to make progress toward my goals.

Finally, think about using your strengths in novel ways. When you encounter a situation that seems stuck, look at your strengths. Is there a way to use one or more of your strengths to break the situation loose or to allow you to gain new perspective? For example, if one of your strengths is appreciation of beauty and excellence, you could step back and examine what’s going on by specifically looking for beauty or excellence. By focusing on what’s working, instead of what’s stuck, you may see a solution that was present but hidden from you.

If you are a manager or in a supervisory role, bringing strengths to the workplace may allow you to determine which roles people will do best. Simply by asking people to focus on and use their strengths, you will allow your employees and co-workers to carry out their jobs with a sense of greater confidence and enthusiasm that comes from inside.

40-Days Forward 2008: What are Your Strengths?

[This post is the third in the 2008 40-Days Forward series. The series begins here.]

Reflection is sometimes referred to as “metacognition,” or thinking about your thinking. That may sound daunting or narcissistic. It’s neither. Being able to stand back from your own thoughts is an incredibly powerful way to take control of your life. That’s because your thinking creates your perception of your world. Your perception is your reality.

Your perceptions are real. However your perceptions are not The Truth. The Truth is what you’d have if you were omnipotent and all-knowing. Instead, what you have is your truth, and with any luck, bits and pieces of other people’s truths. Reflection by noticing and recognizing is part of learning to recognize your truth as part of, yet separate from, The Truth. It’s also part of learning to see yourself as you are, not as you wish to be, not as you imagine yourself to be.

There is an objective tool that can help make your job of self-reflection easier. It’s called the VIA Signature Strengths Questionnaire (found at http://www.authentichappiness.com). The reason I suggest the VIA, as this assessment is known, is that it is widely used and very well validated for use across cultures. Thus, it is thought to measure strengths as a human characteristic. It’s a very robust assessment in that it gives consistent results (in other words, if you test high for a particular strength once, you’ll test high for it again regardless of mood or circumstance).

For now, I suggest you ignore the other assessments offered on the VIA site (and there are many). Focus your attention on the VIA and when you receive your results, write down the top five. Ignore the rest. This exercise is not about learning who you aren’t; this is about who you are.

Once you know your strengths, examine your life for how your top five strengths show up for and in you. For example, if you score high for kindness, think back to recent times when you were kind and look for opportunities to be kind again. Do likewise with any other strength you test highly for (that is, those in your top five). You may also want go through a period of discernment about your strengths. By discernment, I mean ask yourself, “is this the real me?” A true strength is one that gives you a feeling of confidence, authenticity, and excitement. True strengths will be those validated by people who know you well. Other people recognize your strengths and ask you to use them even when you don’t recognize what your strengths are. Now is the time to look back over your experience and look for the patterns.

What do people regularly come to you for? Which strengths do those requests appeal to?

How do you know you can do that?

How do you know you can do that?

I have to admit this question really threw me. I was talking to a prospective client--someone who was referred to me--and was coming to the end of an hour-long conversation. We’d talked about Duct Tape Marketing--how it works and what it does for people who use it--and then I’d given him a rundown of the services I offer.

“Can you show me a website of a client you’ve done this with?” he asked. Well, no, I admitted. I’ve worked with various people but all their websites are under construction. My own website isn’t fully up to speed--I’ve spent too much time working on other people’s stuff.

When this guy asked me, “How do you know you can do that?” My first thought was, I know because I’m doing it. But that’s not what I said. I explained my expertise, my background, my training--something I’d demonstrated for the past hour--but to no avail. In the end, I walked out leaving this prospect unconvinced. He didn’t believe me.

When I was leaving, the prospect said, “I like you. I really do.” I think what he was trying to do was be nice and make me feel better. But the truth of the matter was that I didn’t feel bad. The proof is in the pudding, after all, and I’d just seen it for myself. No trust = no sale.

I write all the time about sales and marketing as a series of milestones. Marketing is a process of introduction that leads to knowing. If knowing goes well, the prospect finds something to like. If liking allows rapport to form, then trusting is possible. Once real trust is established, an invitation to buy or hire can be extended.

With this prospect, I’d gotten to go on the journey from introduction to knowing to liking. As it turned out, the entire journey happened right there during the presentation--I’d done my homework about his business but he had no idea who I was. Liking created rapport but in that one hour, it wasn’t possible for him to make the leap to trust. He needed something I couldn’t give him: some kind of proof beyond my word, which clearly wasn’t enough for him.

When get a referral, and you get invited to present, it may not be enough for you to do your homework about the prospect. It may not be enough for you to be on your game and give a dynamite, well thought out, fully prepared presentation. It may not be enough that you know your subject backwards and forwards and unequivocally demonstrate your expertise. If your prospect perceives that he or she is taking a considerable risk, then you may not be able, in those few minutes, to create enough knowing and liking to help them make the leap to trust and buy. The take home message is this: don’t get discouraged when you walk out without the sale.

What I saw for myself (again) was the evidence that Duct Tape Marketing actually delivers what it says it does. The sales and marketing milestone process really provides a great framework for seeing where the prospect is in the process. My job, and yours, is to make sure that the stepping stones are sufficiently close together so that our ideal clients don’t have to make any scary leaps.

Over the next week, I challenge you to look at your marketing materials. Relive your last few sales presentations. Take a look at your numbers--leads and conversions--and see where prospects are dropping out. The drop-out point will almost always be at a transition point from one milestone to another. Wherever the drop-out point is, celebrate when you find it! You can only fix the leaks that you know about, right? And how do you know you can do that? Because you’ve got the world’s most practical small business marketing system--Duct Tape Marketing--at your fingertips.

Now, go out and get good things done this week!

40-Days Forward 2008: What Will You Pay Attention to?

Noticing and paying attention are simple but powerful tools. If you are to alter, measure, or improve something about yourself or your life, you must first notice it. This means seeing the thing as it is, without approving or disapproving. It means to observe with a dispassionate mind. Now don’t get me wrong, you will still feel what you feel. But when you are able to just see, with nothing added, you possess a more objective view of the world around you.

In Jim Collin’s book, Good to Great, he talks about how companies that made the leap from being good to being great all had leadership that was able and unafraid to “confront the brutal realities;” in other words, to see circumstances as they actually were and act accordingly. One of the characteristics that makes good-to-great leaders is this same quality of being able to see what is there.

What will you pay attention to during your 40-Days Forward journey? What five to seven things might you pay attention to that would make a big difference for you?