Month: September 2010

Start-Up Advice

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I spoke with a new internet marketing student the other day. During the conversation, I gave some advice that I think is pretty doggone profound.

Here’s what I said:

“Just take it one step at a time, and keep moving forward.”

Deep, huh?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not minimizing how difficult it can be to get a business endeavor off the ground. That grind that comes at the beginning can wear down the toughest guys and gals out there. A lot of the time it does.

Studies show that as many as 9 out of 10 of business start-ups fail within the first 5 years. Ugly odds. So I’m not saying this is easy.

What I am saying is that success doesn’t happen by accident. You have to figure out the steps it will take to get you where you want to go. That in itself can be really difficult. How do you know what needs to happen? Who should you listen to?

I won’t go into depth on that here, except to say that you should be cautious taking advice from people that are not successful themselves. That success should be in your chosen field or one where the lessons are translatable.

Next, take one step at a time. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Put one foot ahead of the other, and get steady before you start to make your next move.

Then, keep stepping forward. Concentrate your efforts and conquer each step along your path to the promise land. One step after the other.

Sometimes you can make leaps rather than little steps. But don’t get over-anxious. Once you’re fully focused on what you’re doing, you’ll recognize your opportunities when they come.

If you follow the basic formula (determine needed steps — take one step at a time — keep moving forward) success becomes easier and more predictable.

Two Fatal Flaws: Fix These or Fail

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Real quick,

Let me mention 2 dispositions that will KILL your ability to succeed in any area of your life, from relationships to football (go Bears!) to business.

1. Lack of motion. If you’re not willing to get off your butt and do something, you will fail. Period. We humans are so stuck in our comfort zones. Gary Halbert told Joe Polish that he’s convinced that people will work harder to stay in their comfort zones more than they will to save their own lives. Although I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that (although I’m a huge fan of  this kind of exaggeration), you get the idea.

There’s nothing to fear but fear itself. We certainly let that baseless fear hold us back, don’t we? Time to shake that off your shoulder pads. You have to take action. Gary Halbert also told Joe Polish that the difference between losers and winners is motion.

2. Unwillingness to learn. There’s plenty to learn in every part of life. Get the foundational knowledge you need to get where you want to go. Find a map, if you will. As you move forward, you have to be willing to learn even more.

Always be teachable. Learn from your experiences, both victories and failures. Learn from the experience of others.

If you won’t take action of if you refuse to be a continual learner, don’t count on achieving your loftiest goals, My money is on the other guy.

 

5 Ways Twitter Improves Your Writing Skills

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People keep telling me that the internet is making people dumber. To be honest, I don’t know whether or not that’s true. But did you know that Twitter can make you better writer?

If you are purposeful in your how you approach your use of any microblogging platform, there are 5 ways that you can they can skyrocket your writing ability.

1. You learn the value of every word — no, of every character. In writing, especially for marketing and sales, the tighter your message is, the better. When you have only 150 characters to work with, each letter has to earn it’s place. It has to pull it’s weight. This forces you to think carefully about your choice of words.

If you’ve ever gone over the character limit and had to edit your tweet, you know what I’m talking about. “How can I say what I need to say in the allotted space?” You have to be ruthless. If that comma isn’t serving a purpose, it’s gotta go!

2. You begin to break free from some of the “rule” forced on you by your English teachers.  The best writing is the plainest.  How many people do you know that speak with perfect grammar 100% of the time? In my neighborhood (Calumet City, IL, in south suburban Chicago), it’s probably less than 10%.

When you are communicating via the written word, sometimes there’s a desire to be super-formal.  Believe me, that’s not the best way to get your message across to the average audience. Unless you’re talking to English professors…

George Orwell’s sixth rule for good writing is to break any of  his other five rules before ”saying anything outright barbarous.”

Writers need to have the freedom to say what they mean, forsaking the rules when necessary.

3.  You have to learn to communicate in such a way that your reader will understand exactly what you mean. How many people do you know who don’t quite understand this principle? I see plenty of tweets that have no clear meaning, or that can be understood in multiple ways. Thoughtful writers will take the restricted amount of communication space to heighten their concentration. ”How can I eliminate any ambiguity and say what needs to be said so that the message is plainly understood?“

This is great focus training for any writer.

4. You are forced to choose exactly what you want to say.  In an age where noisy chatter is constant, a Twitter message makes you strip your message down to the core. The way it should be. There’s no room to go off on tangents or talk about about non-essentials.

When brevity is required, you see who really knows how to communicate, and who’s just talkin’.

5. Twitter can give you extra writing practice. Tweeting is writing on a small scale. More practice is always a good thing. A high percentage of Twitter users access the social network with their cell phones. So even if you don’t have a pen and paper, you can practice crafting clear, compelling messages.