Fearing Failure is a Choice!

Have the courage to fail big and stick around.
Make them wonder why you’re still laughing!
~ From the film Elizabethtown

There is a lot of wisdom in that statement.  It isn’t so much that you want to prove to others that you’re strong in the face of adversity but rather, to me, it portrays an individual who understands that fearing failure is only a result of caring about the opinions of onlookers. In the vast configuration of things that really matter, what those people might think have nothing to do with your actual experience.

Children are inherently good at moving past failures because, in their youthful pursuit of life experiences, they have no idea what failure means. Like everything, children are taught that fearing failure is “normal” by some well-intentioned adult who explains the mechanics of failure and success.

Strictly speaking and in my opinion, you can only fail if you are comparing yourself to external standards that may or may not apply.  Yes, this sounds a bit like double speak but please bear with me while I explain.

When we measure our success against another person’s accomplishments and find ourselves falling short of that mark, we are doing ourselves a disservice.  What worked for them in their environment may have no bearing on what will work for you.  Have you ever noticed the small print in advertisements and sales copy that informs us that results are not typical?

Don't let Fear of Failure Stop You!

I don’t mean to imply that you shouldn’t surround yourself with people whom you admire and pursue the level of success apparent in their lifestyle.  That is the premise of working with a mentor, after all.  They have traveled the road that you wish to undertake and, if they are charging fees for mentoring, they have *hopefully* learned something about the route that they can teach you.  But, if you cannot immediately mirror that level of success, please don’t let it slow you down or stop you!

In my mind’s eye, any effort to do something that one has never done before cannot ever be considered a failure.  Fearing failure has potential to stifle your creativity as you imagine ways to proceed with your plans. If things do not turn out as expected, that is not a failure either.  Remember, goals are only intended to measure progress.  If you have to regroup or reset your goals, that is NOT a failure.

Who says you have to have it all together by a certain age? In my early 50s, I threw away the success model my parents prescribed and started all over again because I discovered that what was true for them was not bearing out to be true for me.  You can read how to avoid fearing failure here.

Fail Forward, Fast
~Tom Peters

I can’t help finding analogies in the behavior of children when I think of this topic.  Children pick themselves up from a fall and keep moving after their goal.  If something hurts, they eventually learn to avoid it.  The same is true for our businesses.  Inexperience might cause a painful lesson or two along the way to your own definition of success but fearing failure can stop you from trying something new. It’s all about your attitude.

This is a link to a story about an 11-year old who understood the iterative process of succeeding. It is a pretty awesome video example.

In the video below, Brian Tracy gives some great advice for overcoming the fears that may be holding you back in your progress.

Related Posts

No related posts were found, so here's a consolation prize: Cyber Vandalism, Skype Hackers and Social Networks.

It is completely true that we must have confidence in our abilities in order to gain and keep the trust and respect of our prospects and customers.  If we become too forceful about the value that we feel we are delivering, that can be perceived as arrogance which will be off-putting to people.

your ability to be transparent shows if you are confident or arrogant

In this era of full-disclosure and social networking, whether that is through Instant Messaging or other well-known social networks, it is critical that we are above-board with regard to our accomplishments and skills.  One of the easiest ways to demonstrate your expertise is to reveal the value of the knowledge you’ve gained by sharing it openly with colleagues, where this is practical and do-able.

It isn’t enough to say to others that you are the best at what you do.  The ONLY way that your colleagues, prospects and customers will come to believe that you are an expert in your field, as you claim, is through their perception of who you are and by the  information you share openly to back up your claims.   If someone asks you why you are saying what you are saying, this does not mean that they don’t believe you or are challenging what you are sharing.   The way you handle yourself will show people if you are confident or arrogant.

I’m not suggesting that you should give away all that you know without compensation.  What will gain more respect and higher quality referrals will be to display a spirit of collaboration when you are in group settings or in pre-sales discussions.

whether confident or arrogant, remember that you are not always right

Even though you have spent years doing what you’re doing, you will be viewed as either confident or arrogant based on your willingness to accept the possibility that you still have something to learn and letting people see that this is the case.  Face it, people are inherently innovative and it is possible that someone has discovered something that can enhance your previously earned wisdom. 

The ability to hear a message without the background noise of your own filters is not easy for some folks.  When you KNOW you are the best at something and a new person inquires about the wisdom you are sharing, check your ego before responding.   The way that you respond will inform those directly involved in the conversation, as well as those looking on, as to whether you are confident or arrogant.

You can easily avoid confrontations by keeping an open mind.  If you feel that the person asking the question has less knowledge than you, do not react to their inexperience with a phrase like:

I’ve been doing this for years so I know what I’m talking about.

Kick your ego to the curb by admitting, to yourself, that nothing is static in our world.  Try to actively listen so you can learn more about their position.  You can experiment with statements such as:

I hadn’t thought of that.  Can you tell me more about it, please?

The first part of this phrasing validates the speaker by giving them credit for their idea.  The second part lets them know you are interested in what they have to say and leaves the door open for them to discuss it with you.

People will notice whether you are confident or arrogant, especially  if you have a genuine interest in learning more about them and what they have to say.  A good rule of thumb which I’ve discovered is that it is much better to be interested than it is to be interesting.  Besides, you actually might learn something new!

mean what you say!

Overly confident people rarely have the ability to truly appreciate someone else’s expertise, especially if it approaches their own.  If you are in this position and find yourself congratulating someone, make sure that your praise is sincerely offered because insincerity has potential to undermine the less experienced person with whom you are in conversation.

Always focus on building or improving your relationships by being honest.  Sarcasm or self-deprecating humor is a tactic that is sometimes used by arrogant people to draw attention away from others and to themselves, so be careful about how and when this is used.  If you can’t offer praise authentically, wait until you actually feel that emotion before dishing out your Kudos so the recipient knows whether you are being confident or arrogant when it is offered.

make yourself easy to approach

Your relationships will be enhanced and define you as being either confident or arrogant based on your ability to set aside your judgments that someone younger or having less experience automatically knows less about your subject than you do.  This will also make you seem more approachable. 

When you position yourself as an authority in your field, people will gladly follow you and have more respect for you because they want what you have.  They may not have decided yet whether you are confident or arrogant, and their decision is based on their perceptions of you.

As I used to quip:

She puts on her pantyhose one leg at a time too… 

When given the opportunity, provide your fans and followers with some personal information about how you arrived at your position of authority in your area of expertise.  I do not recommend being overly dramatic, as this will turn some people off.  What I’m suggesting is that it is totally OK let people know about things that bug you or mistakes you’ve made along your way. 

In the spirit of authenticity, always ensure that you are differentiating between what is your opinion and what is a fact, based on your knowledge. 

It is too much work to be perfect and it is probably an unobtainable goal anyway.  Your admirers need to know you are human in order to truly value the expertise that you have to share.

confident or arrogant?

Leaders and mentors understand the responsibility of the characteristics that have attracted people to them.  Marketers sometimes appear to have problems weighing the balance between being confident or arrogant and, sadly, some do not even recognize that this is an opportunity for them to change and gain higher respect. 

It is my opinion that confidence and ego have the power to make or break your patterns of success.  As useful as it is to have an ego to propel you, that same ego will cause people to stop listening to you if you stomp on them in public or stifle their ideas by telling them they are wrong.

People will quickly spot whether you are being confident or arrogant. Truly confident people don’t have to prove that they are good at what they do for it is obvious without declarations.  Such people have a very firm BELIEF in their own capabilities, as well as a CLEAR UNDERSTANDING about their own strengths and weaknesses. 

An individual with a properly balanced ego will embrace what others feel is risky because that person believes in themself and knows that they have the ability to manage the risks and make it work.  Thus, these sorts of people will often take leaps of faith that would totally freak out a less confident professional.  But this can be inspiring to onlookers.

Having talent and being good at something is a gift.  Don’t abuse your power by diminishing those around you, no matter how much you know. 

Incoming search terms:

• ARROGANT
• ARROGANT PICTURE
• confident
• are you confident or arrogant
• people icons confidence
• critical undermining arrogant people
• you sure are arrogant
• arrogant people
• overly confident will be arrogant
• confident or arrogant

Related Posts

No related posts were found, so here's a consolation prize: Brands that matter.

Lately, it seems like new clients have expectations that exceed their budgets.  It remains true that my all inclusive wordpress website design and consulting services are rare and I totally understand what it feels like to not know how to do what needs to be done where skills are lacking.  Wherever possible, I extend myself to help out.  I”m recently reminded that the speed with which I isolate and resolve problems seems to be projecting the idea that , because I make it look easy, it is.

I can’t count the number of times that I’ve heard a new client tell me that they don’t want to know how something works and that is why they’ve hired me.  I also can’t count the number of times that clients have protested my resistance to continuing without additional compensation.  A handful have been presumptuous enough to question why it would take so long to do.   Excuse me?

With all due respect, if you don’t know what it takes to get something done and you don’t want to take the time to learn how to do it yourself, don’t challenge the person who does know how to do it when they tell you how long it will take to do what you need to have done!

I like living with the belief that all people are reasonable and that they are also willing to parlay a little give and take in our business agreement.  Recently, a handful of  new clients and prospects have come my way who are much happier with the “take” part of the equation, however.  These same people have had no qualms expressing their opinions about wordpress website design services that I should deliver for free or at an unreasonably low price when the simple truth is that they don’t want to pay fairly for the services they are requesting and they are upset about the fact that they are unable to convince me that I should perform those services within their limited budget because they are low on cash.

For those of you who are reading this and are feeling a twinge of guilt about making similar demands of your website services professionals, please ask yourself these questions:

1. If you wanted to buy a luxury car and couldn’t afford it, would ranting at the salesperson change the facts?
2. If that sales person felt sorry for you and went the extra mile to find a financial program that lowered your monthly expense, would you blame them for the fact that the payment was still out of your reach?

When I chose an entrepreneurial career, I was happy to leave my IT Executive role behind in Corporate America because I was weary of leading teams whose contributions to the company’s success were repeatedly diminished by some top-level executive who viewed IT as a necessary evil.  It would seem that I’m growing weary of explaining to new clients and prospects that the skills and knowledge that I’ve gathered throughout my professional life are worth much more than a waitress’ wage.

Yet, referrals keep coming in from my large base of previously satisfied clients.  Several times a week, new business comes in through my website at http://virtuallymarj.com.  Generally speaking, life is good and I enjoy working with the many nice people on my client roster.  I also enjoy taking on a good challenge now and then so I guess I’ll continue growing my wordpress website design business  and keeping it fun by choosing to work with clients who are willing to take advice, understand the value that I bring to their efforts and are willing to pay fairly. 

Incoming search terms:

• im not really a waitress
• blogs on waitressing
• i\m not really a waitress
• ш фь тще куфддн ф цфшекуыы

Related Posts

No related posts were found, so here's a consolation prize: Mixing Friendship and Business is a Bad for Business.

In an effort to overcome my disappointment about their denial about what is owed for my services … or even discuss a compromise, I decided to write a post to advise and educate small business owners on better ways to structure contracts with clients who expect to receive benefits prior to payment.

Qualifying Business Prospects

As a former Realtor, one of the refrains that they drilled into my head during training was that Buyers were Liars.  We were taught to qualify people for mortgages prior to investing time and energy in setting up showings or writing contracts.  This is easy to do when you can “spin” your request for qualification as a service that will benefit the Buyer but it is not so easy to do in other service businesses.

The difficulty may lie in the fact that most small business owners cannot afford to use expensive credit checking services.  Thus, the qualification process involves interpersonal communication that almost seems intrusive while qualifying a prospect for their ability to pay.

In a perfect world, you would take 100% of the payment up-front but that is a hard sell.  In lieu of that, insist on a retainer of no less than 50% of the total contract price and establish milestones that pay the remaining 50% for each deliverable at the time of acceptance.  You may want to consider using an escrow service to ensure that you will be paid as tasks are completed.  If you are in the middle of their project and they begin to tell you they are having trouble paying their bills, stop working on their project.  Retainers are non-refundable.  You cannot recover the time you’ve spent once it is gone.

Get it in Writing!

If there is no written contract to enforce a business agreement, things can easily go wrong.  At the very least, put the request into an email message after you’ve agreed to deliverables and pricing.  Don’t begin work on the project until you have an email reply that acknowledges the agreement.

Stick to Business

Since time is the commodity that service providers trade, don’t allow yourself to get engaged in personal discussions with your clients during the project.  Clients will act friendly and they will say anything to get what they want.  Inevitably, they will try to gain your sympathy and convince you that they will pay you later when they want more than they can afford.  In my experience, this never happens when the bill comes due and the friendship that you felt was merely the tool they used to get what they wanted.

Negotiate Before You Do the Work

If a services client requests work that you know will take more time than the payment arrangement allows for, take notes about their request and tell them that you’ll have to get back to them with a price.  Regardless of their insistence, don’t lift a finger to get the work done until you have reached an agreement about compensation and received an additional retainer payment.  This is business and you are delivering value.

I repeat:  Don’t budge if they say they will pay you later.  They won’t.

Don’t be Afraid to Walk Away

As the saying goes, when one door closes another is opened.  If you feel that your client is difficult to work with and they are exhibiting signs of ambivalence about your requests for payment, this is a sign that you need to move on to another client who understands that this is your business.  You are not their employee and you owe them nothing.  You are an independent business owner and it isn’t your job to save them at your expense, no matter how nice they seem.

Don’t Get Distracted by the Noise

When a client knows they are wrong, they will endeavor to assign blame to you for their irresponsibility.  If you get caught up in their accusations, you’ll get distracted from the goal of being compensated for the work that you’ve done.  Acknowledge that you have heard what they are saying but do not engage in a debate about why you are demanding to be paid and do not involve yourself with explanations about your actions as you pursue payment.  You did the work.  In a business relationship, you deserve to be paid.

Incoming search terms:

• friendship
• bad friendship
• friendship images
• friendship pictures
• FRIENDSHIP PHOTOS
• a bad friendship
• Friendship bad
• photo of friendship
• can friendship and business be mixed
• mixing personal bussiness and bussiness not good

Related Posts

No related posts were found, so here's a consolation prize: How To Market Effectively.

If you’re thinking globally about the events that led up to where things stand today in the USA economy, it cannot all be assigned to fiscal irresponsibility on the part of individuals and/or government.  Simply put, the root cause culprit is greed and any business who is outsourcing to overseas resources is contributing to the problem.

During my adult lifetime, from automobiles to toothpaste production, I’ve witnessed the discontent caused when corporate financial decisions were made to improve shareholder earnings.  Opposing forces clashed at annual meetings as the affluent passed through the picket lines of the affected employees.  But it didn’t stop or slow down the processes that have embraced offshore outsourcing and speeding the erosion of the financial foundation of the USA.  Since the early 70’s when this began, more and more US citizens have been put out of work and entire communities have been hobbled by the closing of manufacturing plants and businesses that once enabled them to thrive.

A trending online business is training that teaches internet entrepreneurs how to use offshore outsourcing for parts of their business.  While this may enhance one’s bottom line, these business owners seem to have lost sight of the larger picture.  By sending their business offshore, they are contributing to the problem that their training seeks to solve, in my humble opinion.

I’m not just ranting.  Over the years that I’ve been in the Online Marketing & Branding business, I’ve acquired new contracts with many USA business owners who have been burned by using offshore outsourcing tactics.  When those people seem to expect me to lower my rates based on their bad experience, I’ve had to remind them that whatever happened before they began working with me does not create an obligation on my part to make it better for them.

My rates are my rates, and I’m worth every penny! 

For new entrepreneurial technical talent who are just starting out, using freelance sites to acquire new clients without incurring advertising expenses is a valid but temporary tactic.  I only could do it for about 3 months because devaluing my services was not good for my business … or my self-esteem.  When buyers who had invited me to bid pursued me and begged me to reconsider, I would sometimes calculate out their proposed hourly rate in an effort to inform them that what they were willing to pay was below minimum hourly wages in the USA.

Pretty simple project. Please bid reasonably.

These are words that you might find in a post on a freelancer site.  What are the parameters of a “reasonable” bid?

Budgets for gigs with statements like these normally range from $5 – $200 USD, and they assume they will win by outsourcing to an offshore developer.  When the low end of the proposed budget is $5 USD, the definition of “reasonable” is guaranteed to unreasonable for anyone who is trying to sustain a lifestyle in the USA.  Scanning through the requested deliverables, qualified AND experienced wordpress website design talent can see that the level of effort involved in meeting their expectations will consume no less than 20 hours of development and iteration time, including the iteration time that is part and parcel of the client not having a clear idea about what they want until they become aware of what they can have.

Much to my amusement, many such postings state they will only consider USA resources.  Either these buyers are lacking an understanding of what their outsourcing request entails or they don’t care to pay fairly.  I applaud wanting to control business operating costs but I can’t help wondering if they would ever consider a position that paid a maximum of $2 an hour?  And, with all due respect to anyone who has put something like this on a freelance posting, if someone is incapable of doing the work themselves in a few minutes time, how can they possibly characterize it as being simple?

More importantly and back to the point of my post:

When will those racing for wealth by using offshore outsourcing understand they are undermining themselves too?

Freelance outsourcing service values are only the latest in a long chain of progress that has cascading peripheral effects for us all.  As our country’s dependency on petroleum products shows no signs of lessening and the cost of a loaf of bread spirals upward, we all are feeling the pinch in our pocket books.  When manufacturing began moving offshore during the late 70’s, the source of our country’s expertise was described as being the service industry.  The train has left the station but which way is it heading?  After we’ve outsourced our services industry,  what will be left?

Incoming search terms:

• is anything made in the usa
• is anything made in the usa anymore?
• is anything made in usa
• is there anything made in the usa anymore?

Related Posts

1. Human Capital and Local Economic Constraints
2. I’m Not Really a Waitress …
3. PLR WordPress Websites … Turn Key or Not?
4. Business Styles and Personal Productivity
5. Mixing Friendship and Business is a Bad for Business

As an Online Branding Consultant and website developer, I’ve been monitoring website tools and trends for years.  When my daily research introduced the idea that the color orange converted better than any other color, it seemed like a reasonable thing to try.  Within a few months, just about every site that I saw had an orange buy now or add to cart button.  Recently, this button has gotten much larger.   Does the image below look familar to you and did you feel compelled to press the button?  It took me 2 seconds to find one. 

One trend that I have no argument with at all is to use WordPress website technology as the basis for a business and sales funnel.  The software is remarkable, easy to manage, and delivers great SEO benefits too.  Many top guns have migrated their sites to wordpress with good reason and anyone paying attention knows that WordPress is much more than a blogging tool.

Video capture pages are a very good idea and they have been for a long time.  However, there has been a disturbing trend with them recently.  The latest video marketing tactic is to enforce an opt in before one is granted access to the video.  This is a ploy to build a list, which I understand, but if you do this please manage your lists so you aren’t broadcasting the same message multiple times.  That is kind of irritating.

Another rising video marketing trend is to put up content with no controls or information about duration.  I find to be both inconvenient and rude, and I know I’m not alone.  If it is off-putting, why does it convert?  Perhaps someone who is doing this and tracking results can enlighten us all.

The OTO (one-time-offer) tactic has taken on new proportions of irritation.  When I opt in to something for free, I expect an obligatory up sell but is it really necessary to introduce two, three or more?  Newbie or not, I’m betting that I’m not the only person who loses patience and gives up.  It would be great to see the split testing results that support the claims of people who say this builds loyalty and increases sales. 

Please save us all from the disingenuous “fear of loss” call to action tactic.  If you aren’t sure what this means, it is the one that compels you to decide right now and threatens that, if you don’t, the offer will be lost forever.  If it really is a limited time offer then using this tactic doesn’t constitute coercion.  A high percentage of the time, however, the claim is not true.  How many times have you bought something because you were led to believe you needed to decide right away and found that same site months after the fact?

When internet marketers began to sell products that teach how to target local business owners, it intrigued me.  I wondered if they really knew what they were talking about.  As it turns out, few internet marketers have ever dealt with offline business owners so please don’t expect them to teach you everything you need to know in order to succeed in this niche.  I’m not saying it isn’t a good idea but, trust me, it isn’t an automatic gateway to wealth.

If you want to have credibility with a local business owner, you need more than a spiel and a ghost written book to hand to them at your first meeting.  You must understand THEIR business and be prepared to explain how you can help them improve their bottom line.

Think about the different businesses that you see in your neighborhood for a moment, excluding chains and franchises.  I doubt that the target market for an attorney, accountant, florist, or day spa lends itself to hype, being forced into opting in to view a video that has no controls on it, or the huge orange “add to cart” button.  Please let me know if you think I am wrong.

Small busines owners understand their niche and they’re good at sensing deception or they don’t stay in business long..  You won’t know how to help them if you haven’t done your homework.  Customer acquisition costs are a factor to small business owners, as well as return on investment.  If you want to play in that field, make sure you understand business basics first.

The bottom line is this:

No internet marketing formula is one-size-fits-all.

Incoming search terms:

• spas blog comment website list

Related Posts

1. Good Website Design and SEO are not Mutually Exclusive
2. Mixing Friendship and Business is a Bad for Business
3. Website Copyright: It Matters!
4. Eliminating Blog Spam on Your WordPress Website
5. SEO and Watching Paint Dry

An acceptable definition for creativity is having the ability to find solutions where none are apparent.  This is often seen with children who are learning something new.  Less obvious are the toiling movers who manage to fit your heirloom dining room table through a narrow hallway without destroying the furniture or the walls, which is certainly admirable. 

In business, creativity is characterized as thinking outside the box, creative problem solving, and maybe even critical thinking.  Has your business creativity ever been stifled by colleagues or clients?  Have you ever inadvertently stifled them?  There are so many ways this can happen, and this article exposes a few of them.

You Want it When?

During my corporate days, I had an image of a person beneath a thumbscrew with a caption that read:

Turn it again you SOB!  I work well under pressure!

The poster was irreverent and got many laughs but there really was no truth in it.  The fact of the matter is, people don’t perform as creatively when severe deadlines are imposed.  While the tasks may be completed on time and satisfactorily, there is kind of a hangover after the fact for those involved that can literally immobilize them for days after the effort is over.

Time pressure disrupts one’s ability to fully engage themselves in the solution.  True creativity requires an incubation period.  In my business, premium rates are applied to “rush” projects for good reason.  When we come to terms on delivery dates and pricing, another dark side can be introduced by anxious people.  Folks who are in a panic with a high need to feel in control can upset the creative flow with interruptions.  To avoid this possible problem, I’ve learned to suggest a date in advance for status updates.

Please Put Your Weapons Away

With morbid fascination, I’ve observed threats that some people have  imposed in an effort to inspire.  This was more or less a daily fact of life on the job in the information technology industry.  As a Realtor®, a client’s posturing that they would withdraw their listings didn’t motivate me to change anything about the marketing plan we had agreed to at the time we wrote our contract and the listing still sold within the pricing and terms we had set forth at that time.

These days, as an internet entrepreneur, oppressive behavior serves as a signal that it might be time to fire the client. Proceeding with people whose projects are fraught with self-serving drama is rarely worth the effort involved in their high maintenance, although some empathy and discussion can sometimes alleviate the  problem.  Yet, if someone wants to be a unhappy, they want to be unhappy and it is never worth entering into a battle of wills.  Let them be right and move on.

If we enjoy what we’re doing, getting out of bed in the morning is never a chore.  Happy liaisons are not only much more fun.  Working with joyful people induces higher creativity for everyone involved.

Roles and Responsibilities

Casting a stereotype, based a limited perception about the skills involved in that role, can be limiting for the individual contributor and dangerous for the type-caster.  Consider your bookkeeper, for example.  The joke associated with creative financing is well known to us all but, when your accountant suggests a financing solution that you’ve never heard of before and it helps you to forward a business goal, their creativity is a huge asset to your business.

Financial Incentives May Not Be The Answer

A study on business creativity suggested that tying compensation to overall team results isn’t necessarily the ticket for inducing higher creativity OR better solutions.  In fact, the study’s results demonstrated that people who were focused on bonuses were less productive than those who worked for the love of the effort.

Although there is a somewhat common belief that people will work harder if they are rewarded through performance incentives, concerns about negative compensation effects lead people to risk aversion, which ultimately affects creativity.  Ranging outside the norms of what is imagined is an outcome of being truly interested in the effort at hand, knowing that it’s OK to try anything that has potential to work, and believing that one’s suggestions are taken seriously and that their contributions are valued.

How this Relates to VirtuallyMarj.com

As a WordPress website designer,  the truth in the tagline at Codex is not lost on me.  Even though most people will never truly appreciate the elegance of some of the code they use, which the tagline describes as poetry, one’s ability to envision and develop it certainly requires a special sort of creativity.

Personally, I get much more satisfaction out of consulting with clients, who have come to me for help with their marketing and branding strategies, and seeing the light bulb illuminate.  This happens when our discussions unearth something about their pursuits that is not obvious to them because they are too close to the proverbial forest to see the trees.  That is fun!

Right Brained or Left Brained … Does It Matter to Creativity?

Our right brains influence our creativity, so science says.  Here’s a place for you to take a test, if knowing your brain’s preference is important to you.

I’ve known remarkably creative people whose claim to fame was clearly left brained.  The most renowned example is a former real estate client and friend of mine, Leo Hurwicz, who achieved Nobel Laureate status for his Economics Theory at the age of 90.  It was a privilege to know him and and memories of our talks are truly treasures for me.

His special skill was mathematics, which is clearly left-brained and analytical.  Yet, his creativity allowed him to see beyond the equations and develop a theory that explained financial markets and ultimately garnered world-wide recognition.

So, the moral of the story is to not hold yourself back if you are left-brained by nature.  Creativity is the product of what you believe is possible for you to do and it is nurtured by an environment where your ideas can expand to reality … regardless of your brain’s bias or your assigned role.

Incoming search terms:

• creativity and income
• articles about creativity in business
• brain image of creative people
• creativity in business statistics
• how to find creativity in business
• using creativity for income
• web articles about creativity in business

Related Posts

1. Mixing Friendship and Business is a Bad for Business
2. Are You and Your Business Partners Oceans Apart?
3. Balancing Your Business with Your Business Growth Goals
4. Fearing Failure in Business
5. Business Styles and Personal Productivity

Very few people understand how awkward it can be when questions they are asking begin to encroach on the time you had set aside to relax.  Under most circumstances, gentle reminders that you are “off the clock” will be enough.  Conscientious people will never ask you to work for free and there is no reason to feel guilty about accepting compensation in exchange for your expertise.

Here are a few gray areas that you may have encountered:

1. Someone expects you to do something for them which is a service for which clients normally pay.
2. You’ve earned an affiliate commission because someone clicked on your link and that person treats it as if they are owed services in exchange.
3. Sudden demands for a “finder’s fee” months after an introduction.
4. Promising future work for reduced fees.

Expecting Free Help

We’ve all hit financial speed bumps.  My first response to someone who asks me to work for free so they can preserve their cash is to suggest that they need to adjust their mindset.  This sounds brutal but it isn’t.  We are what we believe and, if we believe we are broke, we are broke!

Many philosophies, including the Law of Attraction, conceptualize thought as energy that attracts like-kind energy.  If your thoughts are trained on what you lack, you will attract more of that.  In other words, your lack will increase.  This is so stupidly simple, yet so difficult to master!

Placating your associate’s fears by working for free is a choice that you make based on whether or not the time commitment will put your real business obligations at risk.  We all like to help people out but, if you do, recognize that it can be a slippery slope.  Like silencing your barking dog with a treat reinforces bad behavior, your associate may expect that you will continue to work for them for free.

Leveraging Affiliate Commissions

You’ve taken the time to set up accounts and establish affiliate relationships for products or services that you want to recommend.  Affiliate earnings are intended to be passive.  Thus, any expectation that you will provide services in exchange for an affiliate commission you’ve earned is flawed logic.  All that person did was click a link to buy something of value that they wanted.

In the rare instance that someone insists they could have purchased the same product on their own, it may be their way of inducing guilt.  Don’t fall for it.  If you are like me, you have not overpriced your services to begin with and you’re worth every penny.

Does this mean you should not offer affiliate links to clients and friends?  If you do, ensure that you disclose the fact that you will earn an affiliate commission and that it is their choice to purchase elsewhere.

What Finders Fees?

True Story:  A year or so back, a “friend” asserted that he was owed 25% of everything that I had earned since we met.  This came out of nowhere so I was stunned when I realized he was serious.

I explained that I would never have agreed to referral fees of that magnitude without having a formal contract in place.  This fell on dead ears.  His rage and desperation, coupled with some other observations about his online behavior, created an awkwardness that ultimately ended our friendship.

Expecting Immediate and Repeated Help

Most people admire my intuitive grasp of technology.  I will always answer quick questions but, if I know that a request will take more time than I have available, it must be postponed.  When I find a solution, I take the time to carefully explain exactly what solved the problem, in layman’s terms, so people can more become self-sufficient.

Some folks repeatedly return for help with the same things.  I don’t mind re-explaining but, if I can’t drop everything at the moment of their request, enduring unfounded accusations or complaints is unacceptable.  My rule is no tolerance for such bad behavior.

Beware of Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

One client relationship relationship evolved into spending a lot of time exchanging ideas about WordPress website design, CSS and Photoshop techniques.  Those sessions always began when they would ask a “quick question.”  Since my associate already had some skills, it didn’t occur to me that I was providing information they planned to use to start a new and competing business.  When they announced their plans, they invited me to become a resource, with the provision that I could not use my own business name or offer a link to my website.  I declined and wished them luck.

The tactic of promising “future work” for a discounted rate is the proverbial Pandora’s Box.  In my experience, such requests better serve the requester.  In one extreme case, my willingness to work in this way resulted in many delinquent invoice payments and their expectation that the delayed payments would not compromise the development schedule for the project.   This particular client also neglected to mention very time-consuming development requirements at the time we settled on price and refused to discuss additional compensation.  When their behavior turned into abuse, they were summarily fired with no regrets … at least on my part. 

Choose to NOT Diminish the Value of Your Expertise

We all have unique skills to offer in professional liaisons.  The confidence you gain through exceeding customer expectations can lead to business expansion.  When your clients trust you, they will naturally recommend you who their friends and colleagues.  Referrals from such sources are the best kind of business.

Related Posts

1. I’m Not Really a Waitress …
2. Mixing Friendship and Business is a Bad for Business
3. Website Conversion Tactics
4. Intentional Changes
5. Are You Confident or Arrogant?

This trend reminds me of a desert character that I met recently on an outing.  Although the dialogue was entertaining, this person spent an hour telling my friend and I what he was going to tell us AFTER he told us why he was going to tell us what he was going to tell us.  Of course, we were free to leave at anytime but he seemed to have a need to tell his story, and I wanted to give him a chance.  In the end, it was a circular and one-sided discussion and he never really told us anything.  :D

But it was interesting to behold…

Time is a non-renewable resource

How we spend our time each day is one of our more important decisions.  An email or link sent through Skype sometimes elevates my interest .  When the destination turns out to be a video landing page that provides no text to scan, the journey is predictable.  Someone is going to try to sell me something.

While it is entirely possible that what they have to sell is something that I want or need, what is the benefit of biding my time through more than 30 minutes of self-aggrandizing dialogue, waiting to hear the price and being forced to endure so much “ but wait … there’s more” yammering?

deep discount or inventory liquidation?

People don’t like to be convinced of something’s worth.  Idle curiosity led me to computing the discount of the bonus items for the most recent Video Sales Letter so I could report it to you.  The add-ons for this particular Video Sales Letter offer were “conservatively” valued at $38,731.  Yet, this internet marketer was willing to “give” them to me for $1,997.  That’s nice, but is it believable? 

If you are quick with a calculator, you’ve already determined that this is a 94.8% discount.  I’m fairly certain that opting into this offer would have led multiple upsells and an offer to have a trial membership with on-going fees of $97 a month, or more.  I’ve seen it before.

But here is my point:  Liquidation sales are not a new idea.   In fact, Russell Brunson just had one and he didn’t pretend it was anything other than it was.  I truly admired that.

ambiguity, logic and the law of averages

During the dialogue, the marketer informed us that his secrets had only been released to a handful of people who had proven to him, during 8 months of trialing his methods, that what he had found was not a fluke.

What is a handful to an internet marketing millionaire with a huge list?  If the handful of people privy to the software and techniques have an 8-month head start, is there a prayer that these “hand selected niches” can be still penetrated and leveraged?

Even though I’m basically an optimist, this sort of talk makes me skeptical.  I learned in the racquetball court that timing and position are everything in life.  In other words, creating the money-making idea or being part of the cadre of founders is the place to be if you really want to be if you want to cash in on something.

If you are invited through a mass mailing, you are not in that group.  Applying their techniques to your current tactics has potential to improve your sales but please stick with your own niches.  Those “hand selected” niches are highly likely to be saturated.

Passionate Pursuits

My viewpoint is that wealth will follow the pursuit of something that you already are interested in and will enjoy working with every day.  Using that base formula, your marketing, whether or not it is a Video Sales Letter, will genuinely convey your enthusiasm and have greater potential to become viral.  Your time spent researching the niche is time that you would be spending anyway because it is interesting to you.  Your targeted list is easy to acquire and grow because you are interacting with people naturally already, through Twitter, Facebook,LinkedIn and your blog.

Identify those things that you truly enjoy and focus on what you like to do anyway and don’t invest yourself in the outcome.  It will come to you without a struggle if you maintain focus and don’t allow yourself to become distracted by the noise around you and frivilos get rich quick schemes.

Incoming search terms:

• allintext:allintext take our free skype minutes
• blog about being in your 50s

Related Posts

1. Intentional Changes
2. I’m Not Really a Waitress …
3. Mixing Friendship and Business is a Bad for Business
4. Are You Email Marketing or Spamming?
5. Website Conversion Tactics

Everyone working on the internet must be aware of the rising popularity of WordPress.   If you aren’t, feel free to contact me to learn more about how you can leverage this amazing software for your websites, beyond the traditional blog.

PLR WordPress Under the Covers

WordPress Websites require knowledge of more than simple HTML to set up correctly.  WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) that uses databases for content storage and PHP scripts to access that content for presentation on a website.  Learning how things all work together can be a rewarding journey if you like knowing how things work.  If you have limited experience with technology and become impatient when things don’t go as expected, your project can be less than fun.

The whole idea of PLR is that you can purchase content, slightly modify it, and put it up as your own.  This permits the ability to begin creating a web presence with a minimum of effort and can also save on expense of hiring someone who can adequately translate your vision into a functional website for a product or service launch.  If your goal is to monetize a site quickly and you lack the base technical skills you need to read into the instructions,  you are likely to be confounded by a PLR WordPress Website purchase.

PLR wordpress products will give you all of the information that you need about installation, usage and reselling privileges.  There are some generalized guidelines but PLR products do have differences so reading the license for your new software is advisable.

PLR WordPress Database and Security Matters

A simple WordPress installation creates 11 tables, at this time.  WordPress requires that certain things are set up in order for the software to operate correctly.  These specialized data are stored in various tables within the site database.  The list of items includes a site URL and blog URL, if it is different.

While reviewing the installation script for a recent project, I saw that the PLR WordPress Product had altered the standard WordPress Installation script, apparently in an effort to bypass the need to make these changes in the database.  All things being equal, uploading the database export to the destination database on my client’s servers was easy.  As I analyzed the data that was stored in the tables, however, I realized that the instructions lacked very important information for truly owning the site and its data.

Another observation that I made about the PLR wordpress setup script was that it didn’t follow secure WordPress Website installation practices that have been recommended for more than two years.  As we are all painfully aware, website security is critical … especially if it is a source of income for you.

A new user of WordPress, who may have been misled into believing it is a one-click install would not have known what to look for, let alone how to change it.

PLR WordPress Setup

No one that I know puts up a website, WordPress or otherwise, just for the sake of having a website alone.  At least I hope not!    The whole idea of having a website is that you want traffic to your site so you can share some specialized knowledge, build authority in a niche or campaign about products and services that you might be offering.  Once again, knowing what settings affect the visibility of your new WordPress website are the key.

The PLR wordpress software package that needed to be installed did not have the privacy settings nor ping list optimized for broad access to the new site.  Indeed, the website was up as predicted but nothing in the installation instructions addressed these critical and necessary changes so it could be found through organic searches and paid advertising campaigns.

The Virtually Marj Service team uses standardized procedure for optimizing settings, as well as a standard list of plugins for analyzing and improving traffic to the site.  This is our “secret sauce” so I won’t be laying all of that out for you here but if you’d like to know more about that, you can contact me.

To PLR or Not to PLR, that is the question

PLR WordPress Products are a great way to jump start your business and niche websites. I’m grateful that people take the time to create them.  As with all business decisions, choosing the “right tool for the job” is an important step along the way.  As for PLR WordPress Websites, they are not recommended for people who do not have the underlying wordpress skills that will allow them to read between the lines of the instructions or who don’t have staff to make them work properly as a business building tool

Incoming search terms:

• plr websites
• wordpress plr turnkey
• Specialized SEO
• how to setup websites plr
• where to move and start over in your fifty\s
• what careers to start in your fifties
• starting over in your fifties blogs
• starting over again at 50
• starting a new life in your 50s
• complete website setup plr

Related Posts

1. Anyone Can Install WordPress … Right?
2. How to SEO Optimize WordPress Images
3. Eliminating Blog Spam on Your WordPress Website
4. With all the outsourcing, is anything made in the USA anymore?
5. Website Conversion Tactics