Archives for December 2014

My Favorite Books of 2014

December 23, 2014 by Leave a Comment

My Favorite Books of 2014After reading so many wonderful books in 2013, I wasn’t sure how 2014 was going to be able to compete, but compete it did. 2014 provided a treasure trove of insight, information, and realizations. There are some stellar pieces of work out there.

Without further ado, here are my favorite books of 2014:
80/20 Sales and Marketing by Perry Marshall. One of the best books I’ve ever read on sales and marketing, period. This is not only an eye-opener, but a shock to the system. Marshall is a visionary and his ideas will change the way you see marketing and life. I’m not kidding when I say this book will literally blow your mind. He doesn’t talk theory, he talks realities, and he’s got real-life examples and proof that what he’s talking about works. If you want to achieve amazing results with your sales and marketing, read this book.
difference by Bernadette Jiwa. This book is a mere 95 pages, but don’t let that fool you. This book contains more wisdom on marketing than books three times the length. It provides some thought-provoking written exercises for you to complete. This book helps you strip away the unnecessary BS to get at the truth of what really matters. It’s a beautifully written work and a sheer delight to read. After reading difference, you’ll see marketing, and your role in it, in a different way.
QR Codes Kill Kittens by Scott Stratten. Stratten has compiled an entire book of terrible uses of QR codes and of inappropriate marketing decisions. Each example leaves you scratching your head and wondering, “what was that company thinking”. It’s a hilarious look at what’s wrong with marketing today, but it’s a great reminder of what not to do. Read it and save a kitten.
Show Your Work by Austin Kleon. Where his previous book Steal Like an Artist talked about creativity, this book delves into getting your creative work noticed. Kleon lays out how to go about this in 10 steps. Filled with examples from his own career, as well as those of other famous artists, the steps are well thought out, and best of all, do-able. Kleon writes in a way that makes you feel like the mystery behind achieving success has been lifted, which is a gift in itself.
The Promise of a Pencil by Adam Braun. An inspiring story of how a 24 year-old employed on Wall Street, found his true calling by giving. Braun was in India when he asked a young boy what he wanted more than anything in the world. He answered, “a pencil.” Braun was inspired to leave his job and work on a “purpose” instead. That purpose was the organization he started, Pencils of Promise, which has since built over 200 schools across the world. An inspiring read, and it makes you realize one person can make a difference.
Choose Yourself by James Altucher. A sometimes unconventional approach on how to live the life you want. Altucher is one person who moves to the beat of his own drum. He has wonderful insights on how to achieve what it is you want out of life and he does it with vulnerability, humility, and humor. If you want to take charge of your career, love life, and finances this is essential reading. After reading this you’ll want to get your hands on his other work, his blog, and podcast. He’s just simply one of the most fascinating people you’ll run across.
Body of Work by Pamela Slim. A great book to help you bring all the loose ties of your career together. After reading this and doing the exercises, you’ll have a greater handle on your career so you’re able to tell a compelling story of your work and your accomplishments. If you are transitioning careers or in between jobs, I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy of this as quickly as possible.
The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success by Wayne Breitbarth. There’s not many more people more knowledgeable about LinkedIn than Breitbarth. If you want to boost your visibility on LinkedIn and give yourself the advantage over everyone else, you’ll want to read this book and implement every Breitbarth suggests. It’s jam packed with helpful tips to get you to standout from the crowd and help you land your next job, win new clients, and make more sales.
Are any of these titles on your list? What were some of your favorites? Is there something you’re looking forward to reading in 2015?
Happy reading!

 

Filed Under: Books, Inspiration, Marketing Tagged With: , ,

The Reason to Explain the Obvious

December 16, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The Reason to Explain the ObviousHow often have you seen messages like these on packages:
To open, lift flap. (On a cereal box)
Caution. Contents hot. (On a coffee cup)
Harmful if swallowed. (On practically anything that’s not food)
Keep out of reach of children. (On insecticides and household cleaners)
We tend to think, “well, duh.” It seems so obvious, and in these cases this is probably done more for legal reasons than for anything else.
But, as marketers there’s a reason to explain the obvious. It’s to get people to do what you want them to do. What’s obvious to us, is not obvious to the casual observer.
How often do you go to a store (or a website) and have difficulty finding what you’re looking for? Out of frustration you’ll leave. How many others will do the same?
We want someone to lead us to what we want, without making it seem like we’re being led. That’s why marketers need to make things as simple as possible.
The customer needs to feel like they are in the right place, at the right time, looking for exactly what they want. Take them down a path they won’t regret.
You need to address questions as simple as: How do I buy this? Where do I find more information? What hours are you open? What is your address? What does your business do? Seems pretty basic, doesn’t it? Yet, it’s surprising how many times you can’t find this out. Answer the basic questions then go further.
Explain how the product works: This can be done with videos, testimonials, and product reviews.
Provide steps so the customer knows what to expect: If it’s online, show how many steps it takes to complete a transaction and where the customer is in the process. Let them know what information they’ll need to complete a transaction. That way they’re not rummaging through file cabinets looking for paperwork, which takes them away from completing their task.
Communicate with the customer: Provide information about the transaction, as well as contact information of who to reach for certain situations. Follow-up after the transaction to see how the customer is doing.
We all want to be assured that we’re being taken care of and explaining the obvious is a good way to do that. It doesn’t take much more than caring to take care of a customer.
Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: ,

Here’s to the 20 Year Anniversary I Didn’t Celebrate

December 9, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Here's to the 20 Year Anniversary I Didn't CelebrateI went to visit some friends who work at AT&T at the very building where I started my career with the company, back when they were known as Ameritech. 10 days earlier some of my former colleagues celebrated their 20 year anniversary with the company.

I was a little jealous. I wasn’t able to participate and celebrate with them because my job was downsized eight years ago. I felt I should be celebrating with them. The 20 year anniversary made me think about what might have been.
It was great to see so many people that I hadn’t seen in a while, 15 years in some cases! As I walked around the office, which hadn’t changed at all since I started there 20 years ago, I realized that what I wanted was the status that being someplace for 20 years earns you. It shows commitment, dedication, and a certain level of respect. It was an ego feeder.
I had no reason to be jealous. Although life has taken me in different directions, I am much better off now than if I had still been there. In the eight years since I’ve parted ways with AT&T I’ve found a new career in marketing, even earning an MBA along the way. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now. And I wouldn’t be as fulfilled. Life is much richer.
Instead of looking at what might have been, look at what is. Now is the only moment that matters. Yesterday is a story that can’t be re-written and the sooner we let go of what was, the sooner we get to appreciate everything that today holds. My visit was a good reminder of that.
Here’s to the 20 year anniversary I didn’t celebrate and here’s to today!
Filed Under: Life Lessons Tagged With:

7 Steps to Become a Learning Machine

December 2, 2014 by Leave a Comment
7 Steps to Become a Learning MachineIn my last post I wrote about finding the motivation to learn something new. Once you have the motivation, how do you do actually go about learning?
There are three different ways to go about it; some people learn by listening, some by watching, some by doing. This is how school is set up. A teacher stands in front of class and lectures about a subject, writes on the board, and then has you work on it. But, how do you go further than that? How do you go from memorizing something to becoming intimately familiar with it?
Here are 7 steps to become a learning machine:
1) Model someone successful – Who can you model yourself after? Find someone who has done it before, with the kind of success you admire. How did they start? How did they learn? What were their breakthroughs to improvement? If you can learn shortcuts that will help you avoid their mistakes it might save you some frustration.
When I was learning to write songs, I copied what my heroes did. I tried to write songs like them. Listening back now I can still hear the influences – The Beatles’ “She’s a Woman”, Fats Domino’s “Walking to New Orleans”, or Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely”. I was learning how to craft songs like they did, but eventually I developed my own style. This also leads us to number two.
2) Model everyone – When I was trying to be a better baseball player as a kid, I tried to model my swing after dozens of major league players. I knew how everyone on the Milwaukee Brewers batted, along with others from the Royals, Yankees, Angels, Red Sox, and anyone else whose swing I liked.
By trying to copy how others players stepped up to the plate, approached their at bat, and swung at pitches, I could find out what worked and what didn’t work for me. Eventually I settled on a cross between Paul Molitor and Dave Winfield. Not that I was trying to be them, but what they did worked for me.
Today, I golf instead of play baseball, but I use the same philosophy. I model my swing after Ernie Els (because we’re about the same body type) and Inbee Park (because she reminds me to be fluid and take my time). Two different swings, but I can take something from each to make it my own.
Try everything you can to find out what works for you.
3) Read – This goes without saying. Read all you can about a subject; everything from the masters to people who might not be famous but have found great hacks to become skillful.
Make sure you mark up the book, take notes, jot down reminders or ideas as you read. If what you read just blows you away, re-read it. There will be a lot you missed the first time around. The lessons that resonated with you the first time will get stuck deeper in your head and you may look at other points differently.
4) Learn the basics first – We often expect expert results when we haven’t even achieved beginner’s skills. You need to learn to crawl before you can walk. It’s the same principle.
If you look at anyone who goes through a slump or tries to re-energize what they’re doing they always go back to the fundamentals. You’ll hear this in sports a lot.
The basics are the foundation on which you can go off in different directions, maybe in places no one else has ever gone before. But, but before that happens you need to understand the fundamentals.
5)  Practice – It takes time to learn something. We’re not going to be good right away, yet we are devastated when we aren’t. Instant gratification cheats us out of proper development time. I think our ego gets in the way of this. We expect to be good and we want to show others we know what we’re doing. We want to do this before we’ve put our time in. That’s what “paying your dues” is all about.
When you first try to learn something you’ll probably suck at it. That’s okay. Everyone starts out the same way. Give yourself permission to try something without having to be perfect at it.
We look at professionals and think they burst onto the scene overnight or they have natural talent that they didn’t have to work on. It may even be portrayed that way in the media. That’s false advertising. Those people spent countless hours practicing their skills before they got any sort of notoriety.
Nobody sees the sacrifice that went into developing their craft. Nobody sees the musician practicing scales at all hours of the day and night, or the swimmer doing laps at 4:00 am, or the baseball player at the batting cage all winter long, but we do see the concert, the Olympic Medal, and the home run to win the game.
Without those private hours of practice those public moments of glory would never have happened. They couldn’t happen. So, don’t take practice lightly, it’s your building block to personal greatness.
6) Never think you’re done learning – No matter how good you are at something, you’re never an expert. This keeps your mind open to continuous learning. Once you think you’ve mastered something you are closed off to new ideas about it.
Think of yourself as an explorer. There’s always something new to discover. With all you know, there’s so much more you don’t know. You needn’t look any further than the library. There’s so much information that’s written that it’s physically impossible to read everything out there and know everything there is to know. You’ll never know it all, so keep your mind open.
7) Share your expertise – When you share what you know it keeps you on your toes. It reemphasizes what you know (or maybe don’t know – re-read point #6) but it also allows you to see it from the vantage point of the person who is just learning.
Teaching also takes us back to each of the other six points mentioned. It can re-introduce you to the fundamentals, it can bring back memories of the people you modeled, and you may find something new to read. Sharing what you know allows you to experience learning all over again.
What steps have you taken to become a learning machine? Are there any steps that you use that I didn’t mentioned? What are they and how do they work for you?
Here’s to becoming a learning machine!
Filed Under: Inspiration, Life Lessons Tagged With: , ,