What tends to happen in frightening circumstances is that we pull in, physically and mentally.  We play not to lose.

Making decisions out of fear is the hallmark.   Many times, we know these decisions aren’t good ones, but we make and commit to them anyway, because we’re afraid of losing.

What this looked like for me personally was staying in a job that I despised, that was ruining my health, that clinically depressed me, because I was afraid that I couldn’t earn what I needed to earn by leaving.

For small business owners, what fear-based decision-making may look like is not investing in things that will grow the business, such as advertising, marketing, or training.  What if it doesn’t work?

For larger organizations, fear-based decision-making manifests in large groups of employees hunkering down, laying low, hoping that they won’t get laid off.   There’s a pervasive belief that sounds like, “If they don’t remember that I’m here, they won’t lay me off.”   That leads to mediocre work in a climate when people need to be at their most effective.  It also leads to people withholding their good ideas, because speaking up looks like standing up.  That might get noticed.   There’s little improvement at the level of leadership where resources are invested.   Playing not to lose means not investing, even with proven return… because that requires investment which denotes risk.

Another hallmark of playing-not-to-lose is focusing on what we don’t want instead of what we do want.

Here’s what’s dangerous about that.  We get more of what we focus on.  That’s because our unconscious strives to create that on which we focus.

Imagine that power in the collective mind.  Do you really think this recession would continue if all of us collectively believed that we could sustain hires, that the market would be better?  How would you spend your money differently if you were reasonably assured that more money would be coming in?

The other issue with playing-not-to-lose is that once we get far enough away from losing, the sense of urgency goes away.  I know this just from my relationship with diet and exercise over the years.  I don’t want to be fat, ugly and decrepit.  So, I do what needs to be done.  Two years ago, I lost 40 pounds.  I wanted to lose 50, and somewhere around the 40 pound mark, there was much less danger of being fat and decrepit, so it was OK to have some wine and chocolate.  And when 5 pounds came back on, I could lose it next week.  Well, here we are again, and the sense of urgency didn’t come back until that last pound came back on.  Folks, this is what happens in our businesses.

And, as you know, as we practice behavior, the neural pathways get created in the brain and it becomes habit!  Imagine that in the collective conscious of your organization.

This is not the time to hunker down and hide.  This is the time to play like you mean it and play to win.  You can’t afford not to because those who are playing full on, playing to win, they are going to win big.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs

Jigzone.com is a great place to do some puzzles online

Today, I’m puzzled.

As I am out and about at various networking events here in the DFW metroplex, I meet a lot of struggling solopreneurs.  It seems like many businesses just aren’t doing as well as they were a year or two years ago.  Something about the economy?  Anyway, the usual topic of conversation when we have facilitated group discussions is around needing more clients or customers.

What I’ve noticed in these conversations is that what these folks used to do to generate business isn’t working for them anymore.

As I’ve been here and there, I’ve been sharing a program Grow Your Business Grow Your Life which is going to be in Richardson, Texas on October 2-3.   This is not news.  You all have seen this in my eZine, on my events page, and on every social media site that I do anything with. I went to this program in Kansas City back in January and just loved it and what it did for my business.  I think that any service-based solo-preneurs who are having challenges with their sales and marketing (e.g. – those business owners whose businesses are not full) would benefit from going.

It isn’t like I wanted anything for marketing this event.  It made sense.  I left with a lot of goodies.  It’s very affordable ($97), and I thought it was the best Sales & Marketing training I’ve ever attended.

Why?  Most S&M trainings are led by people who are both excellent marketers and who assume that our brains work like theirs.  Most of us know we need to articulate what differentiates us from the competition.  We know we need to be able to tell people the benefits of our services.  Knowing WHAT to do is very different from knowing HOW to do it.  If our brains worked like theirs, we wouldn’t be in their trainings.

So, here’s what puzzles me.  I get all sorts of odd reactions when I recommend this event.  I find the money one most odd.  If a business can’t afford $97 to improve its results, how can they afford not to be there?  Someone help me out here.  I don’t get it.

Another odd response… Carolann, you’re just trying to sell something.  Me?  Really?  Well, yeah, I guess I am trying to sell my coaching services because I too like to have a full business, but does this look like coaching middle managers?  That sure isn’t my picture on the website.  I put a little color on my black (sorry Mike!).

So, my very-serious-not-at-all-sarcastic response was, “Am I to take it that you don’t want me to invite you to events that I think you’d be interested in?”  (Silly me.  Here I am thinking that I am being helpful.)

The answer was no, they still want to be invited, just not to stuff like this.  I never got decent clarification on what “stuff like this” meant.  (I know, it was a rare poor demonstration on my part.)  Someone help me out here.  I don’t get it.

Do you think it is a value thing?

I can understand that.  I’ve been to plenty of inexpensive seminars that provided no value and were basically hours long sales pitches for a much more expensive program.  (Now that I think about it, that would really have pissed me off had I spent 14 hours roundtrip in the car only to hear a two day long sales pitch.  Thank goodness that didn’t happen.)

This isn’t the only time that I’ve observed this behavior.  Similar things cropped up with Jeff Klein’s Network to Success Teleseminar.  I find it odd that people will waste money on lunch and belong to a networking group week after week after week, make no sales, and think we’re trying to get something over on them when we recommend a great training program. It puzzles me.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

And this concludes my shortest blog post ever!

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

My friend, Dean Lindsay, Progress Agent, public speaker and author of Cracking the Networking Code offers advice about how you can create your own curb appeal on his blog. I recommend a look.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

p.s. – We have one final “Discover the Top 3 Mistakes that Job Seekers Make and How to Avoid Them” preview call before the next Replacement For Outplacement Bootcamp starts.  Curb appeal is important for any job seeker, and I invite you to register today.

So, how do you uncover opportunities in these times?

Many people would rather be right than successful. Is what you’re doing working for you?  Let’s look at Realtors® as an example.  They exist in a market that gives them a lot of protection.  When you’re buying or selling a house, you’re almost obligated to work with one, because it’s about the only way to get listed and about the only way to see what’s on the market (my apologies to FSBO’s).  In a good market, Realtors® don’t have to provide much of a service, and most of them don’t.  The beauty of a downturn is that those who coasted along giving the hard-working in the industry a bad name will be drummed out.

This is an extreme example, but guess what?  If you’re doing what you’ve always done, it may not be enough.   Most of us have had to change something about how we’re doing business to see the same (or better) results than we’ve seen in previous years.  So, what is your business doing differently to improve the bottom line?  What could it be doing differently?

This is a great time for employees to bring up small, new ideas to shake things up.  What new problems exist in your market that your or your company could be solving?

Follow up on every lead.  This is true for the business owner as well as the job seeker.  Do you have a system for follow up?  What is it?

What other opportunities are available to you?

There have been lots of top talent who have been laid of in this market.  Is this a time that your company could capitalize on this?

Can you provide services to a different market?  Not every industry is suffering in a down economy.

The one thing I know for sure is that cutting back on your marketing and customer service efforts is the last thing you need to be doing.  This is competition, and your top priority is being known and being known as adding value.

For those of you who are wondering how this applies to you in a career management arena, the next session of “Replacement For Outplacement Bootcamp” starts in April.  I limit the size of the group, and spaces fill up fast. Sign up today.

Everone, keep that postive attitude.  No downturn lasts forever.  Focus on what’s working and make sure you communicate that.  As you position yourself as the person who solves problems, you create opportunities for yourself as a small business owner, as a job seeker, as an employee.

Get out there, and Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

p.s.- Feel free to forward this post onto your friends in-transition (that’s the polite term for job-free).  I’d love to have them in my next bootcamp.

Photo by Taku

The first question I have to ask is, is it really perfect?  (By the way, the answer to that is always yes.  Human nature.)

It’s hard not to take pride of authorship, and this somehow seems to get worse in the face of stress or insecurity, doesn’t it?

We have a word for this in coach-speak.  It’s called “uncoachable.”  This is the person who has to be right even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

My father was a perfect example of this concept.  We went through a period after his quadruple bypass surgery in which chicken was was “what’s for dinner.”  Barbecued chicken to be more specific.  You see, Dad was a red meat kind of guy, and he still hadn’t developed a taste for skinless boneless breast.  So, it was always whole chicken, skin on, out on that grill.  Many people parboil it to get some of the fat off before putting it on the grill.  Not Dad.

So, every day around 6:00 [not exaggerating, it was every day], the chicken was on fire.  If the grill lid was open, it was on fire such that the soffits were in danger of catching fire.

The game in our house was not to be the one who had the misfortune to point out the the chicken was on fire {yet again].  But, there came a point at which self-preservation took over, and something had to be done.  As teenagers, god forbid either my brother or me go out to the grill and shut it off.  The problem with being the master of the obvious was that it became our fault that the chicken was on fire.  Yes, it was our fault, we who had no participation in the purchase or the preparation of the chicken.  And, there was no change to be suggested or made, because my father made chicken perfectly, even if it was charred through the bone [not exaggerating, the dog wouldn't even partake].

Uncoachable.

I was leading a free workshop recently about having a networking conversation, in other words, how to create a conversation from the question “What do you do?”  The example I gave of what not to do was this: “I’m an out of work Project Manager in the telecommunications industry.  My passion is bringing in projects on time and on budget.  So, do you know of anyone who might be hiring?”

The point of the workshop was to talk about the value you offer in a way that promotes more conversation.  My friend, networking expert Jeff Klein, calls it coming up with benefit statements rather than product statements.  Because the reality is, there are very few professions other than circus clown that people want to hear more about in more than a polite way.

So, we had a marketing product manager in the group.  We worked about five minutes on how he could say what he does for clients in a way that’s more interesting.  His was something along the lines of “I create innovative new products that make the iPhone well… the iPhone.”

When he got up to give his new answer to the question “What do you do?” his answer went something like this:  “I’m a Marketing Product Manager, but not really like the ones you normally think of.  I’m more like an engineer, but not really.  One of my products was to create a new microchip that… [imagine it going on for about another minute].”

Someone asked me why I didn’t provide any feedback.  Well, I did provide feedback, about 5 minutes of it in the workshop.  I didn’t see how more feedback would help…. Uncoachable.

So, back the economy that isn’t working for you.  Think of a time that someone has looked at your marketing materials and provided some feedback.

If they said, “Hey that looks great” while trying to change the subject and leave…. you might be Uncoachable.

If they offered you a suggestion and you said, “I already tried that, and it didn’t work” or “that would never work” or “that’s stupid”… you might be Uncoachable.

Really, if anything came out of your mouth other than, “Thank you very much for that feedback.  What else do you see?”… you might be Uncoachable.

Remember, it is completely up to you whether you want to act on that feedback or not.  It’s your chicken to douse or not.

Discouraging someone who genuinely wants to help you and wants you to succeed makes you Uncoachable (and probably unsuccessful).  No one has all the answers.

With that, go out there and get ‘em!

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

p.s. – If you recognize yourself in anything above and have no intention of doing anything about it, please don’t call me for a complimentary session.  You are welcome to disagree in the comments.

One of the things that we did at the conference was to each give a 30 minute talk.  I was exceptionally nervous because I had completely overhauled my talk based on what I’d learned in the previous 5 hours and because the quality in the room was outstanding.  It’s tough getting up in front of a group of your peers who you know are going to be critiquing your talk.  I haven’t been that nervous in front of a group in a while.

The best part was that we spent the next 45 minutes to an hour focused on that person’s talk and how it could be more effective.  While Michael Charest, who led the conference, was the resident expert, we coached each other how to be better and more effective.  There were times that I was so engaged in the talk that I forgot to be looking at the mechanics. It never got boring, and we each learned a lot from the individual attention provided for each participant.  It was amazing.

This highlights the distinction between individual and group coaching.  With individual coaching, the experience is tailored exactly to meet the exact needs of the client.  It’s more personalized.  With group coaching, the experience is tailored towards the needs of the group, which tend to be similar in my groups because we connect around a purpose or theme.  While it isn’t individualized, what it does offer is the collective wisdom of the group.  That’s powerful stuff.

I want to say again how grateful I am to have Michael, Judy, Rick, Katherine, Madelyn, Joyce, Karen, Geri, Sundi, Sydney, and Carole in my life.  You guys rock!

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

Photo by Nicholas Laughlin

Many of you know that I just got back from Business Growth Solutions’ Speaking Mastery Conference in Kansas City because I was pinging about it periodically through the weekend.  There was so much great information and energy, I though my cranium couldn’t hold it.  For those solopreneurs and small business owners who use public speaking to promote their business, I highly recommend both the Grow Your Business Live! event and the Speaking Mastery.

As a small business owner myself, I speak as a way to get my name out there.  One of my challenges has been that while people love my talks, they aren’t really sure at the end how to continue the business relationship.  One of my many “vivid epiphanies” at this conference was that for people who want to take their work and life to the next level, I wasn’t offering them that opportunity in a clear way.

This was my hang up.  I didn’t want to be “that girl,” the one who didn’t provide anything of value and then became the “used car salesman” at the end hawking my services.  So, I tended to go ridiculously overboard on the value proposition part.  I mean, you couldn’t write fast enough, even with one word fill in the blanks on my accompanying worksheet because I wanted to be sure that I’d packed as much into my talk as would fit.  Then, when my time was up, my offer became the afterthought that came after the close.  It was a muddled jumble, because I still couldn’t “own” the message.  It felt too salesy, too icky, even after providing all that value.  After all those “run to the back now,” closes at many seminars, I really didn’t want to be “that girl.”

This does a disservice to both myself and the people who need my coaching services.  Who’s attracted to discomfort?

Besides, there is a distinction to be made about how one makes one’s offer.  Making that offer isn’t what’s sleazy.  What’s sleazy is doing it in a way that’s outside of my integrity.

This conference taught me how to provide value and how to invite people into my business in a dignified, comfortable way.  The other nuggets – how to gain attention, how to speak powerfully, how to outline my talk so that it is effective, how to best use my style to entertain – were icing on the cake.

I love learning new things.   This past weekend felt like a leap in my forward progress, and I felt like I was my best me all weekend.  Gotta love it!

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

p.s. – for more information about upcoming conference dates, I’m happy to hook you up.  Send me an email!

Photo by Seth Anderson

I came across an excellent article on Entrepreneur.com about some of the best free tools to help small business owners.   I had been looking for things like this for my business a few months ago, and I wish I’d found some of these.

Here are my top 10 picks:

1. Dimdim.com: Open source web conferencing applicaiton.
2. Adrive.com:  50GB of online storage and backup.  If you are still using an external hard drive to store and backup your business files [Carolann is cringing], your business data isn’t protected from fire, flood or power surge.
3. Audacity.com:  Open source software for audio recording.  I *love* this and use my Skype headset to record guided visualizations.  You can edit your mp3 files, which means DANCE MIXES and KARAOKE!  Sorry, I got carried away.  There are tutorials on YouTube which make this free and easy.
4. Feedburner.com:  One way to get your blog traveling to other sites and more traffic back to yours.  Google just bought this, so I only expect it to get better.
5. Econnect.Entreprenuer.com:  Social networking for entrepreneurs.  I plan to be chatting out here more in 2009.  Will I see you there?
6. Project2Manage.com:  Collaborative project management solution.  Who really wants the pain of Microsoft Project and have to  pay for it, too?
7. BlogTalkRadio.com: Radio network for users to host their own shows.  I haven’t hosted my own show, yet, but I’ve found some excellent content out here.
8. Slideshare.net:  Turns Powerpoints and PDF’s into webpages.
9. Freshbooks.com:  Invoicing, time tracking and expense service.  This was easy.  I wish I could have all those hours back that I spent trying to figure out how to pay myself with Quick Books.
10. Google Alerts:  google.com/alerts sends you an email digest every time your search term or query comes up.  I use this to keep an eye on my name and Vivid Epiphany (in other words, to manage my digital footprint).

Peace and Prosperity,

Carolann

Photo by Lennart Huizing

A funny thing is happening at some of the networking events I’ve attended recently. Many of the stock brokers and real estate agents are complaining about the market (one realtor even said she was bored). Every time I tell them that I don’t get it, they look at me like I’ve lost my mind.

I don’t get it. Last year on this day, Microsoft stock closed at $33.25. All month, they’ve been hovering around the $17.50-$18. That’s 50% off. I like buying things at a discount. That’s a total deal, depending on your time horizon of course.

Hey, stockbrokers and financial advisors! Do you think there might be several someone’s out there who’s interested participating in a half price sale Microsoft or Google or Flowserve? What are you doing to reach them?

Hello Real estate agents outside of Texas. Think back to clients you had who couldn’t afford their dream home. In some markets, prices have dropped substantially. It’s a buyer’s market.

No money to loan, you say? FHA has money, and they’ve added very few restrictions. There are mortgage brokers and bankers who are hungry for the business. Are you partnered with one? What about investors? Millionaires are made in recessions. Are there services you could be offering that would get you a piece of the action?

For those of you who are small business owners outside of these professions, what possibilities does this downturn open up for you? What opportunities are you missing?

Whatever your business or profession, I encourage you to look at what’s possible. Check things out from a different angle. Get an objective option. What are you going to do differently from last year that will ensure your success?

And you can also get your complimentary consultation solve a challenge for you in that hour just by registering here.

Peace & Prosperity,
Carolann