The Three Most Important Factors of Business Success
Posted on 04. Apr, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, Duct Tape Marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Vision
The Three Most Important Factors of Business Success
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
While there are many factors that come into play when building a business, I believe that most important ones have nothing to do with innovation, balance sheets, finance or marketing. The most important over arching variable to your success in business is you.
ChodHound via Flickr
Success, however you choose to define it, is a continual work in progress. Ask anyone who’s made lots of money if they are “there.” Even though we’ve been sold on the idea of making it big, most often you’ll find there is no there for truly successful people – it’s not when I make my first million, it’s not when I get my fiftieth employee, it’s not when I land on the cover of the industry publication. Success is simply a road to travel in an attempt to create a more compelling and enriching future.
But, as with all roads, there is a direction you must travel to keep moving towards your destination even if, like the far off horizon, that destination keeps moving away no matter how quickly you move towards it.
In my own journey I can tell you there are three factors that have both led me and, at times, held me from advancing towards my picture of success.
Some of the most fruitful work I can do is centered on improving in these three areas.
1) Who I am
This a pretty big one and I won’t propose any prescriptions here, but I have found that when I commit to working on my core beliefs about what’s possible, what I’m driven to give to the world, how I want that world to experience my gifts, I have very little trouble taking action that’s in line with who I am.
The really beautiful thing about working on things like internal passion and purpose is that your progress comes out so authentically in all manner of external interaction. When people can genuinely feel that you care about what you are engaged in you are an incredibly convincing salesperson – without actually trying to sell anything.
This is an area that most everyone must practice. You must develop habits that force you be conscious of who you’re being. For me, writing my thoughts on paper each morning, spending time meditating and revisiting simple passages that serve to remind me of the version of my best self keep me focused on this practice.
I’ve also developed a series of questions that I can roll through before anything I do in an attempt to bring the right intention to every situation. Simply stopping and asking yourself why your are doing something, why it’s important and what a great outcome would look like is a great way to center yourself prior to making a large presentation to a group or meeting to discuss a new project with a staff member.
2) Where I’ve been
This doesn’t have anything to do with travel, although I suppose it could. For me this is all about leveraging what I’ve experienced, what I’ve learned, skills I’ve acquired, and what I intentionally expose myself to in an effort to learn more.
We’ve all been exposed to a life time of lessons, some serve us well and some hold us back, but it’s how you use this mixture and enhance this mixture and overcome elements of this mixture that defines success in many areas of business and life.
I didn’t do particularly well in school, but my brain is kind of wired to learn new things, dig into new subjects and explore topics seemingly unrelated to my field of work. I read some portion of about twenty books a month, subscribe to at least one hundred blogs and still get seven or either magazines delivered in my mail box.
Lifelong learning, exploring and simply tuning your brain to pay attention to everything that’s going on around you is another key factor in moving towards success.
3) Who I hang out with
There are many studies that offer validity to the notion that what you believe, how you act and even how much earning potential you have has a great deal to do with the people you surround yourself with.
Now, this can work for you or against you. Parents, school friends and social setting initially influence most people. As you venture into business you soon realize that customers, vendors, mentors and even competitors can play a big role in the success of your business.
When you’re first getting started you may attract customers that mirror your sense of self worth or doubt, but as you begin to grow you’ll soon learn that you must raise you own expectations to the level where you insist on working only with people you respect and admire.
I belong to two mastermind groups and I get to hang out for full days with people that have already achieved many things in business that I aspire to achieve. In addition to developing a network of people that can help me succeed in tangible ways this experience also opens me up to accepting that I can indeed think much bigger.
In order to move towards this ideal many people have chosen to immerse themselves in the study of people they admire through memoirs or even a mentor relationship. Pick three or four people that you view as successful, dead or alive, and learn everything you can about how they think act and grow.
Study and seek out a team of like minded strategic partners and focus a great deal of time and energy on building deep and meaningful working relationships with this group and you’ll quickly find that your own personal network will begin to fill up with people that can help you grow and thrive.
Find and join a mastermind group that pushes you to stretch and think bigger.
There are so many things we can get caught up in trying to accomplish, but experience tells me that if we go to work everyday on the internal, the external success we so crave will show up as mileposts along the road.
How to Make Your Customers the Hero of Your Story
Posted on 29. Mar, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
How to Make Your Customers the Hero of Your Story
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
I use the idea of hero a fair amount when I talk about what we do. I don’t use it in an egotistic way, more aspirational really than anything. I think aspiring to be a hero to someone is a good thing.
kindercapes via Flckr CC
You can substitute leader if you like, but I love the image of hero because I think it paints a much more vivid illustration of the whole package – struggle, denial, acceptance, achievement, and purpose.
While I think it’s important that you and your business strive to be the hero in somebody’s story, I think it’s equally important that you understand how to position your customer or community as the hero of your story.
Below are some of my thoughts on how you do this and if you find yourself thinking this sounds a bit like crafting a screenplay, it’s because there’s a bit of that art to it. In fact, there’s a book I would recommend to anyone that takes this idea to heart. It’s called Save the Cat – The last book you’ll ever need on screenwriting by Blake Snyder.
Learn their backstory – Before you can really thrust you customer into the hero’s role you have know who they are and you find that out by knowing where they came from, what’s bugging them and what they really would rather have that they don’t.
This kind of information isn’t rentable, you have to dig, and it’s starts with asking, listening and paying close attention. I don’t know how you could manage this, but I’ve always thought the greatest marketing research tool you could ever create is family dinner. You could learn more than you would ever need about a person by going with them to their parent’s house for dinner one Sunday.
So, short of that, how could you learn what makes them tick. Spend time and earn the right to learn about them outside of your business context. Follow everything they share in social media, it’s a lot like Sunday dinner in there at times.
There is no greater way to earn trust than to demonstrate you understand someone’s story.
Give them an antagonist – Every great story has a bad guy or girl, it’s what makes us cheer for the good guy or girl.
There are times when you draw your customer closer by simply helping them understand who or what the antagonist is. Sometimes they don’t even realize what the problem is that your business can solve. Many times you have to help them see the extent of the enemy’s grip.
Now, more often than not the word antagonist here is simply a metaphor for a challenge like leaking profit, poor time management, wasted effort, lost opportunity, living in pain, or needless risk, but you have to help them understand what they are up against.
Call them to duty – In order for someone to be a hero they must be called – they must have an idea to serve.
Your marketing story must give them hope that they have the power to overcome whatever the challenge is. I know this is starting to sound a little dramatic, but that’s the point, a connection to a higher purpose or at least a meaningful idea is much stronger than simply trying to convince someone that they need what you have to offer.
In order to create impact in the life of your customer they need to feel like what you have to offer is hope and empowerment. Those are pretty strong words and you’ve got to believe them if your customer is going to be the center of your story.
Help them persevere – Once you’ve demonstrated that you know who your customer is, you know what a rough time they’ve endured trying to results and you know what the future overcoming their challenges might look for them, you’ve got to be prepared to demonstrate you’ll be there with them until they do overcome.
I guess you could demonstrate this most easily in your sales, service and follow-up, but it must be a part of the story that your customer understands is a given.
Free them – Finally, help them understand the results they’ve received, help them measure just how far they’ve come, how much impact they’re making on your business and perhaps in the lives of those they now impact.
Since I’m attempting to apply these rather abstract ideas to no particular business I know some will find this idea a bit confusing at best.
Here’s my suggestion, grab a piece of marketing copy you currently share with customers and ask yourself this series of questions:
- Does it demonstrate they we get who they are?
- Does it paint a picture of the real challenges they face?
- Does it provide hope for what a future without those challenges could be like
- Does it give a solution for how those challenges could be addressed?
- Does it offer proof that others are indeed experiencing these results?
The Cycle of Getting the Important Stuff Done
Posted on 13. Mar, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, Duct Tape Marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
The Cycle of Getting the Important Stuff Done
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
In yesterday’s post I listed what I called The Hierarchy of Getting the Important Stuff Done. Truthfully, I wasn’t prepared for the immediate and passionate response from my readers.
It seems that staying focused on priorities is one of the toughest jobs we all have.
Several readers correctly identified that while I had outlined the path for staying focused, I hadn’t addressed just how you stay on that path. So, that’s what I want to address today.
By dividing my week into specific kinds of work I get more done
There are lots of time management systems out there and I don’t profess to claim that my adopted method is anything more than the cobbling together of systems from some terribly genuine and creative people like Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach and David Allen of GTD. I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with both and credit them with a great deal of my thinking on managing myself.
I will say that, like any good hack, I have my own take and it starts with a focus on managing energy and the whole person over managing time. I wrote specifically about energy here.
People constantly remark that they have no idea how I get so much done. While it does involve mirrors and an incredible spouse, a great deal has to do with an organic system that I’ve used for years and have only recently been able to articulate.
The basic unit of my time and energy management tool and the thing that allows me to stay on important stuff done path is the week.
I divide each week up into days with a specific type of work plan. Each type of day plan has a unique emphasis that is biased towards a certain type of work. I have Intention Days, Attention Days and Ascension Days.
Intention Days are set aside to concentrate on my big ideas, my own personal growth and in some cases renewal. I take my higher purpose into these days and allow myself the luxury of dreaming.
At the risk of getting too personal, these are days where I often spend a lot of time alone and reassess meetings and feelings and words I’ve used wisely and unwisely. These are days when I forgive myself and forgive others. This type of renewal allows me to tap that little flicker of creativity that I so often attempt to extinguish.
While I intentionally protect my thoughts and actions on these days I don’t go as far as banning all digital activity, I simply make certain that I witness my thoughts and spend time doing things I wouldn’t normally do. I go to art museums and read books about architecture and geometry.
Attention Days are set aside to spend as much time as possible making money. Now, this may sound a little too focused for some, but what I really do is spend time doing my three or four highest payoff activities. The kind of stuff that either makes me money now or lays the foundation for meeting objectives down the road.
For me that’s writing, creating products or courses, working with sponsors and customers or writing an email that entices people to sign up for a workshop.
I typically plan these days with my staff during our weekly all hands meeting and take them outside of the office to limit the temptation to stray from full attention.
These days are easy to plan as I limit them to just a few items. In some cases I may only get to creating a PowerPoint Deck and writing one article, but I know it’s the right work and I know it’s time well spent.
Ascension Days are days spent climbing the hill. It’s when I get to those meetings, interviews, WordPress plugin tweaks, accounting reviews, inbox emptying parties and pretty much everything else screaming in my ear.
Maybe one day I’ll get to the point where I never have these kinds of days, but I doubt it. Ascension Days are like physical therapy, you’ve got to do this work so you can grow and get to the high payoff work.
All of these types of days, in fact, all of this type of work, is important, but my experience tells me that if you don’t carve out and make time and space to dream and create and focus on priorities, every day will turn into a climb the hill day of stirring the noise.
My pattern for these days can change depending upon what’s going on around me, but I typically try to take one Intention and two Attention Days a week and it’s the thing that keeps me most sane.
The Hierarchy of Getting The Important Stuff Done
Posted on 12. Mar, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, Duct Tape Marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
The Hierarchy of Getting The Important Stuff Done
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
If you like this post be sure to check out follow-up The Cycle of Getting the Important Stuff Done for even more.
There is always more that you want to do than you can humanly or otherwise actually do. That’s just the nature of owning a business and the minute you let up it comes right back at you.
The key is to find a way to focus on the right things and let the other things, no matter how loud and shiny, go.
The trouble is that in the course of a week, a day or even an hour, what’s important work and what’s a distraction can look pretty much the same unless you have a plan – A plan for knowing what’s important, a plan for what’s now and a plan for what’s next.
While this may sound like a to do list, and perhaps there is an element of that, it’s much more than that. It’s actually a strategy that begins with it a clear understanding about what’s pulling you forward, what’s on the horizon, what’s your target, what’s the next hill and what’s on tap for the day.
Planning the Hiearchy of Important Work
There is a hierarchy of work that must ebb and flow throughout your days and weeks that acts as the filter for your focus. This hierarchy has to inform what you allow yourself to do and not do throughout your week.
You can only focus on so many things and if you are to move your business forward in a way that doesn’t feel like treading water you’ve got to focus on the right things.
BAI – At the top of the pyramid is what I call your one big audacious idea. This is the one thing that is far out there, but that possesses a gravitational pull that keeps you going. It’s the big thing you know you want your business to become, even if you’re not really sure today how you’ll get there.
I believe you must always take stock of this idea and make sure it’s alive and, in some cases, actually big enough to alter your behavior. Without this pull, the other stages can turn into busy work.
Priorities – Each year you should define your top 3-4 priorities. Keep this list small or your focus will become diluted. Most business can’t accomplish more than this number and trying to do so means nothing really get accomplished. This is also a great way to identify the highest payoff work when it comes down to utilizing scarce resources like the owner’s time.
When you pare your list to only the top priorities, you have a filter for making determinations about what projects or great new ideas should actually receive consideration going forward. If they don’t support one of you annual priorities, they go on the back burner for later consideration. It’s a great way to keep everyone moving in the same direction, including the self-sabotaging owner!
Goals – Everyone is familiar with the idea of using goals, but few businesses establish goals as a key way to track and measure progress, particularly as it relates to the stated major priorities for the year.
After you agree upon the 3-4 priority objectives, you must establish goals that allow you to track your progress in ways that help you understand what’s working and what’s not.
Projects – Each of you priorities will involve any number of projects. For example, if one of your primary objectives for the year is to increase revenue by X percent, you’ll probably need to identify a series of projects that are geared towards reaching that objective. This might include a new product launch or aggressive lead generation campaign.
You should attempt to identify only a handful of ongoing projects that support your main objectives on a quarter by quarter basis. These projects should have owners and supporters and progress should be tracked and reported on a weekly basis.
Tasks – The smallest unit of work is the task. Even so, tasks should be associated with projects, which in turn support the primary objectives.
Now, tasks often pop up in the form of the daily to do list. Where people fail in their the day to day productivity is that many don’t use to do lists and those that do employ them don’t always have the end in mind when they plan.
The hierarchy of important stuff suggests that unless you plan with the end in mind, or with a focus on the big audacious idea, you’ll constantly fall victim to the swirl of what seems important at the time.
When you build your pyramid from the top down you can plan your days, weeks and months with each of stages firmly rooted in every decision you make hour by precious hour.
Teaching Your Business to Manage Itself
Posted on 06. Mar, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, culture, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Teaching Your Business to Manage Itself
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Have you ever encountered a business where everything just felt in place? The experience was perfect -the products, the people, the brand, everything worked in seemingly effortless fashion. You made an odd request; it was greeted with a smile. You went to try a new feature; it was right where it should be. You walked in, sat down and felt right at home.
Building a business can seem a bit like a giant set of Legos scattered all over the room. There are countless bits and parts and pieces that might fit together or they might not, but the game appears to be locked in composing these fragments in a manner that verges on what seems like some kind of normal.
But here’s the thing. Normal is a trap. Normal is the business you ran from to start this business. Normal is the last three businesses that choked and spurted and collapsed under the weight of management. Normal is a poor imitation.
Businesses that run so smoothly as to seem self manage aren’t normal. In fact, they are terribly counter intuitive, but terribly simple it turns out. The key is a tremendous focus on three things only – clarity, culture and community.
Clarity
Until you can get excruciatingly clear about the one thing your business really does that no one else does and, perhaps more importantly, the handful of high payoff behaviors that you the owner of said business must to spend as much time as possible immersed in, you will have a very difficult time practicing anything that looks or feels like art.
Until you can feel why you do what you do and use that as your guide the road ahead will always seem uncharted.
When you are clear about the one thing everything just gets so simple. You don’t even have to think about decisions anymore because you have the perfect filter and the filter runs the business.
If clarity for your business means earning a referral from 100% of your customers everyone know what to ask, how to greet a customer and who owns the result.
Culture
If a business is to mange itself a culture of ownership should be the sole objective. This must come at the expense of hierarchy and the assertion of autonomy. Every business, regardless of size has a culture. The only question really is whether or not it serves the business and the people that come to work there.
I’ve worked with business owners for years now and in my experience control, or the inability to give over control, is the greatest threat to business growth. Until a business can extend trust to those around him and give up control, there will be little more than constriction and contraction.
This means that you must also be able to communicate your sense of clarity and package it in a set of core values that when practiced in action become the road map for culture and the mantra for “this is who we are.”
Community
There was a time when community meant only customer. Today the customer is the community and that includes its customers, employees, mentors, vendors, advisors and even competitors all conspiring to advance and influence the business ecosystem.
When there is a clear picture about what the business stands for and the people that fill in that picture are given the freedom to manage their outcomes, the creation of a strong, vibrant and supporting community is a natural outcome.
A fully alive, self-managed business is little more than the sum of these parts orchestrated with total purpose.
Teaching Your Business to Manage Itself
Posted on 06. Mar, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, culture, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Teaching Your Business to Manage Itself
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Have you ever encountered a business where everything just felt in place? The experience was perfect -the products, the people, the brand, everything worked in seemingly effortless fashion. You made an odd request; it was greeted with a smile. You went to try a new feature; it was right where it should be. You walked in, sat down and felt right at home.
Building a business can seem a bit like a giant set of Legos scattered all over the room. There are countless bits and parts and pieces that might fit together or they might not, but the game appears to be locked in composing these fragments in a manner that verges on what seems like some kind of normal.
But here’s the thing. Normal is a trap. Normal is the business you ran from to start this business. Normal is the last three businesses that choked and spurted and collapsed under the weight of management. Normal is a poor imitation.
Businesses that run so smoothly as to seem self manage aren’t normal. In fact, they are terribly counter intuitive, but terribly simple it turns out. The key is a tremendous focus on three things only – clarity, culture and community.
Clarity
Until you can get excruciatingly clear about the one thing your business really does that no one else does and, perhaps more importantly, the handful of high payoff behaviors that you the owner of said business must to spend as much time as possible immersed in, you will have a very difficult time practicing anything that looks or feels like art.
Until you can feel why you do what you do and use that as your guide the road ahead will always seem uncharted.
When you are clear about the one thing everything just gets so simple. You don’t even have to think about decisions anymore because you have the perfect filter and the filter runs the business.
If clarity for your business means earning a referral from 100% of your customers everyone know what to ask, how to greet a customer and who owns the result.
Culture
If a business is to mange itself a culture of ownership should be the sole objective. This must come at the expense of hierarchy and the assertion of autonomy. Every business, regardless of size has a culture. The only question really is whether or not it serves the business and the people that come to work there.
I’ve worked with business owners for years now and in my experience control, or the inability to give over control, is the greatest threat to business growth. Until a business can extend trust to those around him and give up control, there will be little more than constriction and contraction.
This means that you must also be able to communicate your sense of clarity and package it in a set of core values that when practiced in action become the road map for culture and the mantra for “this is who we are.”
Community
There was a time when community meant only customer. Today the customer is the community and that includes its customers, employees, mentors, vendors, advisors and even competitors all conspiring to advance and influence the business ecosystem.
When there is a clear picture about what the business stands for and the people that fill in that picture are given the freedom to manage their outcomes, the creation of a strong, vibrant and supporting community is a natural outcome.
A fully alive, self-managed business is little more than the sum of these parts orchestrated with total purpose.
The Single Most Important Word In Any Business
Posted on 21. Feb, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
The Single Most Important Word In Any Business
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
I want to ask you to take a little test.
Go out and grab five or six of your best customers and pose this question to them: What’s one word you would use to describe how you think about our organization?
The ability to capture and hold one word in the mind of your intended market is perhaps the most telling measure of marketing success.
Organizations that pass this test do so because they have a single-minded purpose that permeates everything they stand for and everything they do. The word most people associate with them represents that purpose and it’s often their most potent brand asset.
So, what did your customers say, what would they say, if you really did this?
Do you have any idea? Do you know what you would hope they would respond?
Let’s look at this idea another way. Think of a business you truly love doing business with and consider one word you would use to describe how you think about that organization.
Did you come up with your one word one single-minded sense of purpose that evoked that organization’s story for you?
A single-minded strategy
In the movie City Slickers Jack Palance’s character tells Billy Crystal that the secret to life is one thing. Crystal, of course, is left to discover what that one thing is, but I believe the same is true for business. I believe the most effective marketing strategies hold together by focusing relentlessly on one simple thing.
That one simple thing can be an idea, like providing shoes to kids in need around the world as shoe retailer Tom’s One for One Movement does. Focusing on simple, yet stunning design, as many people feel Apple does, or building a business by intentionally keeping things simple, in both products and processes, as I believe software developer 37Signals does.
In all cases though, these companies accomplish many, many things, but do so first and foremost through the realization of one single-minded purpose as strategy. This single minded purpose is the filter for every business decision, hiring decision, product decision, and marketing campaign – and it often starts by simply realizing and capturing who the company is being at some point in time – the here’s what we really stand for moment.
Of course, finding and committing to a real-life marketing strategy – the one thing – isn’t enough. You’ve also got to find a way to make it part of the DNA of the organization. You’ve got find symbols and stories and metaphors that invite and allow every part of your business ecosystem to embrace the strategy.
Find your word
This process starts with understanding why you do what you do and how that sense of purpose impacts those that you do it for. It doesn’t really have to be as deep as it sounds, it just has to be something that’s simple and meaningful to those that come into contact with your organization and you must own the word.
For my organization that word is “practical.” I’ve worked very hard at owning that word and in large part my market gets it. Owning that word has taken consistency, patience and discipline.
But, it’s become our trust mark, our filter and our very useful decision making tool. I’ve made many a decision about a tool, a service, a point of view, by simply asking if they way I was viewing it or characterizing it was practical.
Capture your metric
Once you land on the word you need to own, you must also find your solitary metric – the way in which you’ll determine your progress. This can be a simple a monitoring mentions, it can be through informal surveys it can be through the increase of some act such as testimonials and referrals.
We monitor mentions of our brand online using a tool called Trackur and one of the things we obsess over is the word practical in relation to our brand. This is a scorecard idea for us and one that keep front and center.
So, let me ask you this – what’s your word – what does it need to be – how are you going to make it so?
There Can Be No Real Commitment Until You Surrender All Doubt
Posted on 16. Feb, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, Duct Tape Marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Vision
There Can Be No Real Commitment Until You Surrender All Doubt
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
mirandiki via Flickr CC
There can be no life, passion or purpose in a business that lacks commitment. It’s just too hard otherwise. I’ve stated here before that I believe commitment or failure to commit is one of the central themes of our lives.
It is what drives us forward and drives us away. It is what provides us with passion and fuels our greatest fears. It is what guides us to take a road less traveled or herds us on to the deeply rutted path.
As it turns out I’ve written an entire book around this idea because I think it’s such an important topic for our times. (The book will be out in the fall from Portfolio.)
Commitment is one of those very tricky words. It gets a great deal of play in the worlds of sports, romance and business alike. It’s a word that’s often linked to achievement, but I believe it’s a word that is greatly misunderstood.
Commitment isn’t about projects or events; it’s a long-term game. In fact, it may really be a lifelong game, but it’s not the kind of game that’s portrayed in movies. It’s not about being committed to something no matter what. It’s not about staying committed even to only one thing.
It’s about searching for the deeper meaning of your life and bringing what you find in that to every moment that you can.
I am committed to my wife, but when I tell her I love her, what I’m really telling her is that I’m committed to figuring out how to love her even when I struggle doing so.
I am committed to my business, but when I say that I’m not saying that I’m committed to growing it to some size or stature. What I’m really saying is that I’m committed to the idea that I can help small business owners find their purpose and passion through my words and my work even when I’m not sure what my next move should be.
See, commitment isn’t about the grind it’s about clarity, control and consent.
In order to possess the kind of commitment that will serve you, serve those around you and ultimately serve your business, you must be crystal clear about what you believe and why and you must put those beliefs into action in every decision.
In order to possess the kind of commitment that will serve you, serve those around you and ultimately serve your business, you must develop a sense of control about where you are headed but release a great deal of control about how you’ll arrive there.
In order to possess the kind of commitment that will serve you, serve those around you and ultimately serve your business, you must give yourself permission to learn and grow and evolve with the help of others.
Until your sense of commitment is infused with these three things there will always be uncertainty.
And mostly, there can be no real commitment until you surrender all doubt.
Turn Your Business Into a Community Building Platform
Posted on 08. Feb, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, Duct Tape Marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Turn Your Business Into a Community Building Platform
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
I believe the future of business and commitment building resides in the idea of viewing your business as a platform for your community.
The notion of a platform is one that receives a fair amount of play in various contexts.
An author is said to possess a platform when they have built a following. Consultants might work with a business owner to build a platform through speaking, writing, blogging and connecting in social media. And finally, many tech firms have built platforms by creating open source software, such as WordPress, that allows other 3rd party providers to build commerce and community on top of their framework.
Amazon sells lots of books, but in order to do that they needed to develop lots of file serving and storage capacity and get very, very good at delivering lightning quick web results in one of the highest traffic demand environments online.
Amazon took something that had little to do with their existing business, but which they had become incredibly proficient at, and created Amazon Web Services that allows thousands of business to build on the Amazon framework. I host and stream all of my product videos using Amazon S3 servers.
Airbnb is a community marketplace that allows property owners and travelers to connect with each other for the purpose of renting unique vacation spaces around the world. I use it frequently and love how simple the service is to use. Airbnb is built on Amazon Web Services and uses their database tools to build their community.
I would like to suggest that the notion of a platform is one that we can apply to almost any business.
What is a platform in this context?
A platform is a system that helps people create products, services, profits, businesses, communities, and networks of their own. The dynamics that must be present to create a platform environment are openness and collaboration.
So, the questions you need to ponder are:
- How could you or your business act as a platform?
- What could others build on top of your business or products?
- How could you add more value through your platform approach?
- How could you grow a network on your platform?
- Are there other businesses that your platform could launch?
- How could your community generate value for each other?
- How could your platform learn from community members?
- How could you create something open enough to attract your competitors?
- What platforms already exist that you could build on?
- Could you use your existing purpose, culture or community as a platform?
- What could you acquire as a way to build a platform?
- What could you extend as a way to build a platform?
When you start to think about your business in this manner you can move beyond the traditional applications of the term platform and blend platform type thinking into your business model, your culture and ultimately how you engage and communicate with your community.
Find your unique framework for openness
The key is to locate your unique framework as the foundation for the platform. Often times this requires thinking far outside of what your core business was designed to do and looking purely at things you can do, things you’ve gotten good at doing, even if they are simply things you do to support your core business.
AppleTree Answers is a call center business headquartered in Wilmington Delaware. The company has built a platform of sorts by figuring out how to change the paradigm of the call center culture. The company has received numerous awards for workplace excellence and is a frequent member of the Inc 500 and 5000.
AppleTree’s rapid growth then has come about by acquiring other small call centers and installing Appletree’s unique framework of openness. Appletree’s strong culture is the platform they’ve built all of their expansion on.
It’s all about building more value
A major dynamic of the platform component is value creation. No matter what your business does it will sink or swim based on the value (perceived or otherwise) it creates in someone’s life. This is extremely so when we talk about the community aspect of a platform.
Further, if you want to differentiate your business from others that are already providing value to a market, you’ve got to find a way to create more value as a competitive edge.
Many people default to adding features to products and services as a way to address value, but I think the real impact in value creation comes from strategically finding ways to add value in the way your business delivers a unique experience to its customer rather than through some sort of product enhancement.
The beauty of understanding value creation at the strategic level and then forcing that thinking into every tactical decision is that this is some of the most profitable work you can do. When a market comes to value what you have to offer as the “go to” choice you’re on your way to a premium pricing opportunity. People will pay dearly for an experience that helps them get more of what they want out of life.
This Is a Message from Your Heart
Posted on 06. Feb, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Vision
This Is a Message from Your Heart
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
I had a heart scan the other day – mainly because I’m old and my spouse is convincing in the most loving way.
a4gpa via Flickr CC
If you’ve never done it, it’s a pretty incredible experience to get to watch the awesome mechanical miracle that is you heart spray blood in and out through a series of valves, tubes, chambers, levers and doors that any engineer would be challenged to recreate.
More often than not the heart is the subject of poems and songs about romance and love but in addition to being a physical masterpiece I believe it is a formidable business tool.
The idea of love as it relates to business is a tricky one. People talk about loving or not loving a business or the products and services of a particular business, but rarely is love looked at as a strategic way to run a business or lead a team.
The heart is seen as weak and squishy and emotions like love have no place in cold hard world of commerce.
But, here’s what I think. It takes incredible courage and strength to lead with your heart, but it’s actually the most natural and freeing way to do so. The heart isn’t all sappy and bending at all, it’s a ridiculously appropriate and intuitive decision-making tool.
May I suggest that you lead with your heart.
Heeding the mind body connection that comes with following your heart is how you fill your business with passion and purpose. It’s how you make the decisions in every instant that are right for you and most likely right for others involved.
Try this – get up and walk across the room and focus on leading with your heart – literally taking steps with the mind to push your heart out in front with every step. As physical as this action seems you’ll find that it also creates an immediate emotional sense of confidence and well-being.
Running coaches and yoga instructors alike frequently urge their students to lead with their heart as they perfect their form and move gracefully from pose to pose.
When it comes to building your business, tapping your passion, brining a sense of higher purpose to your work, making decisions that determine the outcome of a situation that impacts your life and the lives of others – lead with your heart.
Your heart – or at least that sensations that you receive as you ponder a decision – will instantly tell you the right choice to make, if you only pay attention.
But let me warn you, lest you think this is simple pop nonsense – making a decision out of love is much more difficult than making one out of fear.
Have you ever made a decision or taken an action in the heat of the moment, maybe in a moment of doubt or fear, only to regret it or overturn it when you regained some sense of calm and you thought more about it? That was your heart regaining the wheel.
Have you ever experienced that “something about this doesn’t feel right” kind of moment and then learned later that you’re instincts were dead on? That was you listening to your heart.
The heart is good for business because it cherishes
- Love over hate
- Faith over doubt
- Hope over despair
- Light over darkness
- Joy over sadness
- Passion over indifference
Leading with the heart is good for business because it prefers
- Giving over receiving
- Lifting up over tearing down
- Teaching over dictating
- Abundance over scarcity
- Understanding over telling
People frequently advise that you must find something you are passionate about in order to succeed and, while I believe there is merit in that advice, I further believe you can fall in love with whatever you do if you choose to lead with the heart.
The opportunity to lead with your heart is the absolute best part about doing what you love.
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