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3 Steps to Take Yourself from Good to Great

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In a good economy, you can do reasonably well with “good enough.” Good enough design, good enough marketing, good enough skills. When demand is high and dollars are sloshing around, there’s a market for Decent. Capable. Adequate. Acceptable. Unfortunately, we’re not in a good economy. We’re in a wretched economy. Industries all over the world are falling like bowling pins, and “good enough” professionals in all fields are scrambling. There’s always room at the top, the guru says smugly. Don’t you want to smack that guy sometimes? How are you supposed to get to the top? And how are you supposed to pay your bills until you figure that out? But believe it or not, there’s a map to the top. And you don’t have to have superhuman skills, talent, or even perseverance to get there. Take these three (ok, four) simple steps. No, they’re not easy, but they are simple. You can do them. And you must do them. Good enough isn’t good enough anymore. Find out what you’re better at than anyone in the world Now before you start hyperventilating, hear me out. You’re probably not going to be the greatest copywriter or greatest web designer or the greatest dry cleaner on the face of the planet. You’re going to be the greatest in your world. The greatest copywriter for Dallas high-end commercial real estate, or Orange County chiropractors, or for B2B direct marketing in Bangalore. You’re going to find a world small enough, and then work your tail off to make yourself the greatest Doer-of-the-Thing-You-Do in that world. Sometimes you create a world of one. I’m the world’s greatest practitioner of Sonia-style marketing. Brian’s the world’s greatest Copyblogger. (I nip at his heels to keep him honest, but he’s still the greatest.) Seth is the world’s foremost Seth. Being “the world’s greatest you” isn’t an excuse to slack off, though. It means that every day you show up and try to do your thing a little better than you did yesterday. Find a viable business model If what you’re best at is playing Mozart sonatas on air guitar, even if you’re quite amazing at it, you may struggle to find paying customers. If it’s a business, you’ve got to get paid. Sometimes there are multiple strong business models for what you do, and it’s a matter of picking the one that suits you best. Sometimes one strategy will stand out. And sometimes, what you do is a very enjoyable passion, but it doesn’t form the kernel of a business. A viable business model isn’t a matter of will power or can-do attitude. The customers are either there or they aren’t. If they aren’t, keep framing and reframing your ideas and strengths until you find a market of buyers. Then offer them something they want (not need) to buy . Find something that gives you juice Remember when I mentioned working your tail off? Running a great business, even a business of one, isn’t easy. You’re going to have to be stubborn. You’re going to have to get past hurdles that make you uncomfortable. You’re going to have to give some things up, especially when you’re getting started. You’re going to have to care. A lot. And you’ll never do that if your business bores you to tears. Understand — you don’t have to necessarily love real estate to be the best agent in your well-defined world. You might love negotiation, or you might love the type of clients you focus on, or you might love playing matchmaker between houses and buyers. But you’ve got to adore something about it. It’s got to give you juice. It’s got to make you stronger . Otherwise you’ll run out of gas before you can make it happen. Of course this comes from the book Good to Great The three steps above are from Jim Collins’ groundbreaking book — he calls this trio the “ hedgehog concept .” (Hence the cute if slightly creepy small mammal at the top of this post.) These three factors aren’t just for copywriters and web designers — they’re for multinational conglomerates and billion-dollar empires. And they’re for soccer teams and nonprofits and musicians. I’d heard great things about Jim Collins’ book for years, but I never read it. I looked at it this way: Every idiot CEO and Dilbert-worthy executive in the country has read Good to Great . And from what I’ve seen, most of them couldn’t effectively manage a hamburger stand, much less run a great company. But then I read Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness , and darn it, Hsieh does run a great company, and he found Good to Great essential reading. If I can pick up a $14 book that made Tony Hsieh smarter about business, don’t you think I should? So I did. And it’s brilliant. But I can also see why it failed. The crucial fourth step Collins (or more accurately, his team of researchers) found another common element in great companies. It’s certainly the case with Hsieh. You’ve got to love the business more than you do your own ego. The leaders of Collins’ great companies were, without exception. personally humble and self-effacing, but they were fanatically passionate and driven to make their companies succeed. If you’re in it for the Breitling, the house in the Hamptons, the thrill of watching minions scurry to carry out your personal immense vision, then your endeavor (small or large) is in deep trouble. (If your CEO is in business for these things, start looking for a way out now. Luckily, mine isn’t). If you’re crazy in love with the market you serve, the product you create, and the good that you do in the world (even if that good is a bit frivolous … frivolity can be a beautiful thing), you’re on to something big. Don’t stop. That’s why Good to Great didn’t create a million great companies. Every executive in America read it and puffed up with pride. “Why, we’re in luck! Humble and self-effacing, that’s me to a tee!” Self-delusion is a powerful thing But you’re more honest than that. You have the potential to level with yourself, and to step up your game. Good to Great is probably a pipe dream for most big companies — the entrenched egos are too giant to shift. More important, they don’t really want to. But you can hone your hedgehog concept. You can refuse to let yourself off the hook. And you can get the hell over yourself and start getting obsessed about helping people. And when you do, you’re going to do some amazing things. How about you? What has your own “good to great” journey looked like? Let us know in the comments what you’ve found along your path. About the Author : Sonia Simone is CMO of Copyblogger Media and founder of Remarkable Communication . Share your brushes with greatness with her on twitter .

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8 Bad Habits that Crush Your Creativity And Stifle Your Success

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“The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts the moment you get up and doesn’t stop until you get into the office.” ~ Robert Frost It’s a myth that only highly intelligent people are creative. In fact, research shows that once you get beyond an I.Q. of about 120, which is just a little above average, intelligence and creativity are not at all related. That means that even if you’re no smarter than most people, you still have the potential to wield amazing creative powers. So why are so few people highly creative? Because there are bad habits people learn as they grow up which crush the creative pathways in the brain. And like all bad habits, they can be broken if you are willing to work at it. Here are eight of the very worst bad habits that could be holding you back every day: 1. Creating and evaluating at the same time You can’t drive a car in first gear and reverse at the same time. Likewise, you shouldn’t try to use different types of thinking simultaneously. You’ll strip your mental gears. Creating means generating new ideas, visualizing, looking ahead, considering the possibilities. Evaluating means analyzing and judging, picking apart ideas and sorting them into piles of good and bad, useful and useless. Most people evaluate too soon and too often, and therefore create less. In order to create more and better ideas, you must separate creation from evaluation, coming up with lots of ideas first, then judging their worth later. 2. The Expert Syndrome This a big problem in any field where there are lots of gurus who tell you their secrets of success. It’s wise to listen, but unwise to follow without question. Some of the most successful people in the world did what others told them would never work. They knew something about their own idea that even the gurus didn’t know. Every path to success is different. 3. Fear of failure Most people remember baseball legend Babe Ruth as one of the great hitters of all time, with a career record of 714 home runs. However, he was also a master of the strike out. That’s because he always swung for home runs, not singles or doubles. Ruth either succeeded big or failed spectacularly. No one wants to make mistakes or fail. But if you try too hard to avoid failure, you’ll also avoid success. It has been said that to increase your success rate, you should aim to make more mistakes. In other words, take more chances and you’ll succeed more often. Those few really great ideas you come up with will more than compensate for all the dumb mistakes you make. 4. Fear of ambiguity Most people like things to make sense. Unfortunately, life is not neat and tidy. There are some things you’ll never understand and some problems you’ll never solve. I once had a client who sold a product by direct mail. His order form broke every rule in the book. But it worked better than any other order form he had ever tried. Why? I don’t know. What I do know is that most great creative ideas emerge from a swirl of chaos. You must develop a part of yourself that is comfortable with mess and confusion. You should become comfortable with things that work even when you don’t understand why. 5. Lack of confidence A certain level of uncertainly accompanies every creative act. A small measure of self-doubt is healthy. However, you must have confidence in your abilities in order to create and carry out effective solutions to problems. Much of this comes from experience, but confidence also comes from familiarity with how creativity works. When you understand that ideas often seem crazy at first, that failure is just a learning experience, and that nothing is impossible, you are on your way to becoming more confident and more creative. Instead of dividing the world into the possible and impossible, divide it into what you’ve tried and what you haven’t tried. There are a million pathways to success. 6. Discouragement from other people Even if you have a wide-open mind and the ability to see what’s possible, most people around you will not. They will tell you in various and often subtle ways to conform, be sensible, and not rock the boat. Ignore them. The path to every victory is paved with predictions of failure . And once you have a big win under your belt, all the naysayers will shut their noise and see you for what you are — a creative force to be reckoned with. 7. Being overwhelmed by information It’s called “analysis paralysis,” the condition of spending so much time thinking about a problem and cramming your brain with so much information that you lose the ability to act. It’s been said that information is to the brain what food is to the body. True enough. But just as you can overeat, you can also overthink. Every successful person I’ve ever met has the ability to know when to stop collecting information and start taking action . Many subscribe to the “ready – fire – aim” philosophy of business success, knowing that acting on a good plan today is better than waiting for a perfect plan tomorrow. 8. Being trapped by false limits Ask a writer for a great idea, and you’ll get a solution that involves words. Ask a designer for a great idea, and you’ll get a solution that involves visuals. Ask a blogger for a great idea, and you’ll get a solution that involves a blog. We’re all a product of our experience. But the limitations we have are self-imposed. They are false limits. Only when you force yourself to look past what you know and feel comfortable with can you come up with the breakthrough ideas you’re looking for. Be open to anything. Step outside your comfort zone. Consider how those in unrelated areas do what they do. What seems impossible today may seem surprisingly doable tomorrow. If you recognize some of these problems in yourself, don’t fret. In fact, rejoice! Knowing what’s holding you back is the first step toward breaking down the barriers of creativity. How about you? What mental habit has been hardest on your creativity? Let us know in the comments how you’ve handled it. About the Author: Dean Rieck is one of America’s most creative advertising copywriters. He shares his writing and freelancing experience at Pro Copy Tips .

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Terms And Phrases Used To Describe Your Products And Services

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What terms or phrases would your customers use to describe your products or services? What would the term for terms and phrases used to describe your busienss be called? I have an idea of what this term is called – I invented it -  and its central to my book.

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The Freakonomics Guide to Making Boring Content Sexy

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It’s easy to write about certain topics, like celebrities, or technology, or even social media. Everybody wants a piece of it. But what if your passion is botany, supply chain logistics, or cognitive psychology? How do you get noticed with a compelling story when your subject is … well … boring? In the summer of 2006, an economics book was on the New York Time Bestseller list. The title was provocative and promised to be anything but a boring read. Even my hero Malcolm Gladwell said, “Prepare to be dazzled.” Since I really can’t stand economics (hated it ever since college), I skeptically handed over my $25 and took Freakonomics home. From the very first page, I was treated to a wild ride through the most bizarre stories I’d ever encountered. I learned about cheating schoolteachers and self-sacrificing sumo wrestlers. Why drug dealers still live with their moms and how the KKK is like a real estate agent. Every story taught a boring economic principle in a way that made me want more. I realized that Freakonomics was an instruction manual for transforming boring blog posts into sexy must-read masterpieces. Check it out: People love “dot connectors” Our world is getting more complicated by the second. Every day your readers are trying to get a handle on what happened yesterday, what’s happening now, and what will happen tomorrow. If you connect the dots for them, you can get popular in a hurry. Freakonomics is built around connecting dots in an interesting way. For example, it’s long been an economic principle that almost every choice we make is connected to incentives. Pretty boring stuff — until author Steven Levitt used a story about daycare centers to show how some incentives backfire. Since parents were showing up late frequently, the daycare center started a policy of a $3 fine to incentivize parents to show up on time. Unfortunately, the fine wound up incentivizing parents to pay $3 for an hour of babysitting and not feel guilty for showing up late! Giving your reader’s these “aha” moments is a great way to keep them reading a so-called boring topic and have them asking for more. Headlines still matter Even with all of our shiny social media tools, good ol’ standby skills like writing a great headline still matter. You can be a masterful storyteller and write killer posts, but you still lose if no one reads them. Titles are the closest thing us writers have to a “silver bullet.” Don’t waste ‘em. Do you think that Freakonomics would have been a New York Times Bestseller with the title Aberrational Behavior and the Causal Effect of Incentives ? The quickest way to give your boring blog a facelift is to put some eye-hijacking power into your headlines. In fact, write your headline first , before you even start the rest of the post. It’s that important. Numbers are a blogger’s best friend One common complaint of blogs is that they can’t be taken seriously. We are accused of playing fast and loose with the facts and being weak on proof. It’s easy to avoid hard numbers and focus on writing the soft stuff, but Freakonomics shows that this is a mistake. Many bloggers are afraid that statistics, equations, and hard facts will scare away our readers, but that’s not giving our readers enough credit. The problem isn’t the numbers — it’s that we stick numbers out there without a story. Freakonomics uses numbers to reveal a hidden story. Levitt looked up the numbers on standardized tests for Chicago students. On the face of it, this was pretty boring data. This district got such-and-such a score, this district got such-and-such a score. Yawn. Until those numbers revealed that teachers were cheating. In some districts, teachers received salary boosts when their students performed better on standardized tests — motivating them to fill in a few additional correct answers for their students. The story makes the numbers interesting. The numbers make the story credible. Give it a try. Everyone loves a mystery Why would a successful sumo wrestler throw a match? The obvious answer would be that he’s getting paid to do so, but Levitt quickly discovered there was a much more mysterious motivation that drove who won and who lost in Japan’s sumo contests. The answer is buried in psychology, probability, and incentives, but the only thing that I care about is that there’s a mystery. Any mystery begs for gumshoe detective work. We can’t leave well enough alone and we want to know why — especially if someone else is going to do the legwork of figuring out the answer for us. That’s why the CSI series has spun off more offspring than a jackrabbit. You can use this quirk of human nature to make your topic enticing. Look closely at your topic and uncover some old-fashioned mysteries. Now write a post that presents the mystery and leads your reader through the investigation to its incredibly satisfying conclusion. Provide a better way to solve common problems Freakonomics uses a powerful set of tools to explain the way the world works. By the end of the book, you can’t help but think that every problem imaginable can be solved with the right incentive, data analysis, or storytelling. When you’re finished you feel that there is a better way to tackle your problems. This is what “added value” means. Simply restating a problem is boring. Offering new tools and perspectives to solve problems helps your reader get closer to their goals — and that makes you someone whose content they’ll want to read every time you come out with something new. Freakonomics: The Movie is coming out soon, and I’ll be first in line — because reading the book was so valuable to me I can’t wait to see what else the authors have to offer. To get devoted fans who’ll anticipate your every output with the same enthusiasm, give them some solutions. Time to get freaky Have you ever used any of these techniques to make your content sexier? Can you see how to apply some of them to your own blog? And if you read Freakonomics yourself, tell us in the comments about any other blog-enhancing tips you picked up! Stanford obsesses about how to get passionate people’s blogs noticed and promoted at Pushing Social , except when he’s fishing with his boys. Follow him to get the latest about his new ebook “Get Noticed.”

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Why This Blog Covers Everything Yet Says Nothing

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Sounds kind of ridiculous doesn’t it? Why spend the time writing a blog while saying little to nothing new? Why spend the time writing a blog to not sell something? Good question! After posting here everyday for a year during 2010 – with the exception of one day; a day where I got distracted and thought I had pressed publish when I had not – my answer has been – to see what comes of it. To my surprise, there are actually subscribers to this blog. When I first started writing this blog it was supposed to be more personal in nature. However, I soon realized a blog wasn’t the best channel for expressing myself. Anyway – back to the subject: Why this blog covers everything yet says nothing. Its because maintaining two blogs each and everyday provided the degrees of  focus and discipline I knew were required for my staying current in the businesses covered here – the media, internet / web and search businesses. The latter are by definition the fastest moving businesses on the planet and missing a day or two can mean missing both minor and major developments – news I have drawn from to develop my understanding of communications. So while I was covering everything media, internet / web or search whether here, on my main blog SearchMarketingCommunications.com or through my Twitter account, my primary objective was to pass along the news but retain the information was relevant for filling in the hole in the knowledge base I have built. I haven’t published those findings because those findings – the knowledge gleaned – is what I will be selling in my book For Sale by Google. If I had put my knowledge on the web it would have been stolen, repackaged and redistributed like everything else is on the web. As I have said in the past, the internet is the world’s first perpetual motion copying machine. I know better not to stick anything I don’t want copied into it.

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