Be Creative in Your Communications, Or Else!
May 18, 2010
creativity counts
creativity counts
Or else what?
Or else be left behind in the dust. These days we can no longer afford to poo-poo creativity. Time is ticking and creativity is the wave of the present and the future.
Those who are still thinking in the past will be left behind in the un-creative dust.
So you do want to be on the wave of the future, don’t you? I’m sure you do.
Being creative in your communications requires thinking outside of the box. Communications is a wide field of expression – everything from print media to video, to public speaking, to billboards.
It is everywhere we go and in today’s fast paced world, we need to use our creative brains to keep up with the pace.
It can at first seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have, because using your creative brain is actually enjoyable and energy saving. It’s your old, stuck-in-the-rut left brain that’s getting in the way.
your lizard brain
So who is this old brain that keeps you doing the same old same old? I affectionately call him Mr. Lizard and he loves doing the same things over and over again.
Mr. Lizard is the master of repetition, but needs to learn some creativity.
Why? Because he HATES change. He hates being original and he does not want to stand out in the crowd. He enjoys being one of the boring pack.
But do you?
Do you really enjoy expressing yourself like everyone else? I doubt it. You might be used to doing that but it’s probably not what you really want.
Try this test – if you’re tired or bored with what you’re putting out in your communications, then it’s a likelihood that you’re relying to much on your old lizard brain (cousin to your left brain).
Mr. Lizard doesn’t mean to but he enjoys keeping you stuck. So you’ve got to override his ideas and try something different. That’s what creativity really is – it’s the art and science of doing things differently.
Originality is creativity’s middle name.
Thinking outside the box means trying things that you haven’t tried before. And often, those that are most successful, come up with something that at first seems totally ridiculous!
Think of Se
think outside the box
th Godin’s purple cow. Silly right?
Silly but effective. Imagine yourself putting a big purple cow on your website, business card or brochure. You’re probably cringing right?
Well I’m not suggesting that YOU put a purple cow on anything. That was Seth’s original idea. But I am suggesting that you take risks like he does and think outside of the routine.
Here are some ideas to get you started, but feel free to improvise:
- Think in color, that was part of the purple cow’s effectiveness, it catches our eye and is interesting and different.
- Think ‘difference’ – take a look at something that you’ve done and ask yourself, “What could be different about this?” One small change often makes a big difference.
- If you really want to go out on an edge, and I suggest you do, then ask yourself, “What is the last thing that I’d want to do?” You can decide whether you want to do that or not, to do that or not but at least you’ve gotten yourself to think way outside of your usual box.
That’s the idea. Stirring up your creativity is good for you and good for the world, because no one wants to read or engage in your boring, ordinary communications. They just don’t, so don’t kid yourself about it.
be creative
People today, especially the younger generation like things snappy, quick and interesting and so do you if you’re honest with yourself.
Sometimes we’re afraid to make change, try something different and live outside the box. But that is old Mr. Lizard again asserting himself when he should be off taking a nap.
Today wake up Mr. Lizard and try something new. You will be glad you did.
Creativity in communications is everything. It is the wave of the future and I know you want to be on that wave.
Don’t you?
Thanks to my friend Jeannette Paladino of Write, Speak, Sell for inspiring this post!
A Story About Joe – a great way to do business
May 7, 2010
Today I walked into a frame shop in my local town of Chestnut Hill. I have to be honest – my initial urge was to go somewhere else because I really wanted to save money. I was initially going to go to one of those cheap-o framing places but I decided that I wanted to support my local businesses.
That was a big deal for me. I could feel my hesitation on the way in the door. Should I save money or buy local?
Sometimes it’s a dilemma, especially in this day and age. Do we match our values or our wallets? It can be a hard choice.
But let me tell you why I’m very glad that I chose Joe’s shop. It’s because Joe sold himself on me in the first 15 minutes. Here’s what he did.
When I walked in, he gave me a very cheery hello. He immediately jumped up from his desk and asked how he could help. First impression very good!
Joe passed the first test. He made me feel glad that I walked in the door - that he was happy to see me and happy to help me.
I told him I wanted to frame a piece of hand done artwork in a cost effective manner. Joe gave me several options without being pushy. He was honest and gave me his real opinion, but there was very little selling there.
Point number 2 for Joe – he made my experience relaxed and easy. I needed that. When someone is too pushy in a small space, I want to run.
I was still working through my wish to save money but Joe was gently winning me over even without knowing it. He wasn’t trying to do anything, he was just being himself – a natural salesman.
Then came the clincher – the price. Was it more than I had originally intended? Yes it was, but I took a breath and said, “Let’s do it!”
So why did I bank on Joe and the Chestnut Hill Gallery and Frame Shoppe? Well honestly because of Joe himself. He made me want to buy something from him and support his business.
After we decided on the price and while I was putting down a deposit, Joe mentioned that he is a musician – very cool. I asked him what kind of music he plays and he told me about his band called, “Fify-Six Men.“ I love the name!
So now, not only was I supporting a local business but I was getting to meet a local artist – two things that matter to me.
While Joe was writing up my receipt, he reached into his desk drawer and gave me a CD of his band! What a bonus – just for shopping at his gallery.
Now I loved him even more. He was easy-going, generous and a true artist. Joe is a great example of how art and business can be done well together.
But here’s the best part – after I got my receipt and was heading out the door Joe shook my hand and said, “Thanks for doing business with me.”
Wow! Little did he know that that was the whole reason that I chose him and not a price tag. Joe made the entire deal worthwhile and valuable.
I know we think this is the way that business should be, but it rarely is anymore. In this modern world where price really matters – it is genuine friendly service that can win out over anything.
Price is not the bottom line. We think it is but it’s not. This was a great reminder for me, that what I care about more than saving money is being treated with care and respect.
If everyone could make their customers feel as tended as Joe did, it would be the single best thing we can do to ensure the future of our small businesses.
Congratulations Joe! You are a real winner. Can’t wait to get my framed artwork photo and listen to my CD.
Stories From the Next World: Swimming Against the Tide
February 15, 2010
I must be doing it all wrong. Everyone else is doing it one way and I am doing it the total opposite. I must be a total failure. That’s what I told myself for many years in the area of marketing my business.
Recently I had a conversation with a colleague who is great at marketing, in fact he has a background in corporate sales. He and I have similar training in NLP and Hypnosis and some years ago he went out on his own and created his own business. He’s doing fine but he’s not really thriving. His struggle is to get repeated clients.
But if you ask me (and no one did!), that’s not the real issue. The real issue is that in all he’s doing he is missing a certain level of fulfillment. We all get into the ‘people business’ because we want to help people. Then we are given the dreaded mandate that we need to market ourselves. Eeek! Every creative caring person hates this part.
We didn’t get into business to be in business, we just happened to pick something which required it.
The irony is that even though he is the one with the marketing background and knows all the right ways to do things, I am in fact the one that is thriving. Better than that though is that I am very fulfilled in what I do. The money that keeps me afloat is wonderful but more vital than that is the happiness that I have.
I have nearly total fulfillment in my work. That is the biggest value that my business provides me. I love my clients, love what I do and am working with amazing people from all over the world. How the hell did that happen? Me who didn’t have a clue about marketing myself and never wanted to do it either.
I have been swimming against the tide.
When the experts told me to:
- Have a clear marketing and business plan - I couldn’t.
- Create an exact target market of who I am selling my services to - Uh no, couldn’t do that either. Isn’t it the whole world?
- Get out and network myself with schmaltzy print materials and business cards – Nope, hated that. I went to Starbucks instead.
- Create a one line description of what I do that would totally grab people’s attention in under 10 seconds – Call me old-fashioned but I stuck with regular old human conversation.
- Package my work in a formulaic way that I could sell to businesses – I’d rather have Chinese water torture than do this.
- yada
- yada
- yada
- yada
- yada
Anyway you get the idea. I did it all wrong. I did absolutely everything backwards from what the experts said I should do and much to my surprise - it worked!
Who are these experts anyway? Hmm, good question! Well they are might be people who have tried to find a kind of generic formula so that everyone can win the game. Not a bad idea by any means, many people do succeed this way.
But are they happy? The big question is – can we make money and have personal fulfillment too? The answer is – we must. This is just one of the values of the future - a “we can have it all” paradigm.
In the series that I am writing called, Stories From the Next World, I will be talking about the values of the next world – those values, traits and characteristics of greatness and bravery, that if we embody them now, we will be ahead of our time.
So trait number one is this – swim, swim, swim against the tide little fishes. If the experts tell you to X, Y, Z but you feel in your gut to Q, S and LL then you must. You need to have the courage to swim against the current of the world that says that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things.
Swimming upstream is definitely hazardous. You have to be able to tolerate feeling alone, thinking you’re a failure, have people point out what you’re certainly doing wrong and feeling utterly confused.
But for me I just did it from instinct because I could never tolerate having business ‘success’ at the expense of my personal freedom or fulfillment. No go Joe! At the end of the day, I want to be happy AND peaceful.
The world of the future will not be a world of either or – either I am rich or I am happy. The value of the next world is that it has to be both!
Stay tuned for more in the series of Stories From the Next World and please tune in to my weekly Radio 42 Show where I’ll be sharing more of these stories and secrets of the Universe as well. You wouldn’t want to miss those!
Yours in swimming against the tide that was going in the wrong direction anyway,
Annie
If You Need To Kick Some A_s, You Need the Right Shoes
November 15, 2009
Here’s the deal that no one ever told you, well no one ever told me anyway – if you need to kick some ass in this world, you need the right shoes.
Years ago I was doing some consulting work for a small family trucking business. Boy that was tough! It was a predominantly male environment and as you can imagine, my more female style of doing business didn’t really fit in. I a fish out of water! But I am feisty, fiery and oh did I mention hard headed? So I persisted.
One day I was running a meeting for the major players in the business which consisted of about eight men and two women. We were having a meeting, which I was supposedly leading, when all of a sudden a shouting match erupted between the CEO and his head salesman.
Like two bull walruses, they stood up and started tusking each other full force with their words. They were shouting and screaming and I thought, “Oh my god, what am I supposed to do about this?” I had never encountered this before in my work.
One thing you should know behind the scenes is that before this fight had broken out, I had taken off my shoes under the table. I am 4 ft, 11 inches small and in order to look more like an adult than a child when I sit in a chair, I usually take off my shoes and sit with my feet up. Most of the time no one knows about this. It’s my own personal secret to success. But this day being shoeless was not to my advantage.
When the fight broke out I was furious. I thought to myself, “How dare these two idiots interrupt my meeting!” Who do they think they are? One of them was the owner of the company, but I didn’t care. I was pissed.
Before my logical brain could give me advice, I jumped up and screamed at the top of my lungs, “Shuuuutt Up!” There was dead silence in the room and then everyone turned to look at me. The CEO and the salesman stopped fighting for a minute, then the meeting went on. But less than five minutes later, the fighting broke out again.
Now I was beyond fury, I was in the kick-butt zone. I jumped up out of my seat and ran towards the two fighting men. I put my tiny frame body right in front of Mr. CEO and faced off with Mr. Salesman and shouted at the top of my lungs, “If you don’t stop fighting right now, I’m leaving.”
The only problem was that if I left, I would be walking out without my shoes. I had left them under the table! Thank god they stopped fighting and I was able to go back to my seat and continue the meeting. Later someone in the group that had noticed that I was shoeless said to me, “Were you really going to leave without your shoes?” Yes I was gonna walk out, but boy would my feet have been cold!
So here’s the learning particularly for women – If you’re out there working in the world and times get tough….when you know you need to cut the crap and kick some you know what….then you really need to have the right shoes.
Later several of the men sidled up to me on their own and said, “Wow, you’re tough.” I knew that was my sign that as a small but feisty woman, I had proved my metal. But next time I need to break up a fight, I’m going to be prepared. I’m going to wear a nice spike heel, just in case. If you need to kick some “you-know-what” in this world, you definitely need the right pair of shoes!
Let me know what you think about these. :>)
I’m Annie Hart and I tell stories that change the world and I tell them raw and real because that’s not only what the world needs, but what the world is ready to hear.
Tackling Technology: Tips From A Former Technophobe
October 28, 2009
From Annie:
This week I wrote an article for my local paper in which I shared the story of my business success using blogging and social media. Wow, I would never have predicted that I would be a person to to overcome my fears of technology and go so far. But thanks to Bea Fields and her wonderful blogging course, I am more than happy to share this story.
From Bea Fields:
Less than 10 months ago, Annie Hart dug her heels in and told her friend Jeff Simpkins …”No way will I ever want to blog…I can’t do that.”
She then caved into peer pressure from Jeff (Jeff is a super salesman!) and signed up for the Become a Blogging Maniac program.
Not only has she become a a blogging maniac, she is now actually speaking to and teaching others in her local community about blogging and the use of technology as tools to reach a wider audience. And, she is being sought out by others for her storytelling expertise and is in the early stages of writing a book…wow…what a transformation!
So, Annie is now being sought out by the media for her story on being a former technophobe who is now a techno-wonder kid! Here you go…an article in the Chestnut Hill Local in Philadelphia, PA by the title of Tackling Technology: Tips from A Former Technophobe by Annie Hart. Congrats Annie!
If Annie can do this, so can you!
From Annie: My success was so surprising and unexpected and I feel committed to helping others overcome their fears of technology as well. I plan to write several more articles for my local paper and even launch an initiative to help my community work together for our collective business success. I hope my story inspires you to know what’s possible in your business. Feel free to contact me.
Lead the Way With Story: Creating Trust & Credibility
October 25, 2009
Storytelling, definition by Annie Hart
An effective and congruent communication that embodies your commitment, your beliefs, your values and your vision.
This is part of a series on the use of storytelling in leadership. Leaders need to inspire and motivate others. They need to help people get along, collaborate and go where they haven’t been before. Nothing does this more effectively than the power of story.
Although the word story means many things to me, for the purposes of leadership, I’m going to give it the above definition, so that it will show you exactly how you create connection through story. To illustrate this effectively, I need to tell you a story.
Several years ago I was giving a presentation to a small family business that was not my typical client. One of the owners was a private client of mine who really benefited from my work and she wanted me to do some consulting for them. But I was pretty sure that the rest of the company wouldn’t see me as a natural fit and might not want to hire me.
So what did I do? The first step to building a connection is to get inside someone else’s story to find out how they think, believe and act. To do this I asked myself the question, What goes on inside of their world? This is how you discover the daily problems, frustrations and mindsets of whomever you want to communicate with.
The key to this is to do it from the mindset of sharing and the intention to build connection. When you begin by relating to our common human problems, then we start on the same page.
In business the number one priority is often the famous ‘bottom line’. But the key to a sustainable business is actually not the bottom line at all. People are the most important commodity of any successful venture.
As a leader, relationships should be of prime importance. If not then everything else will go downhill. The bottom line of is not and can never be number one,. Taking care of people comes first.
So by the time I went to give my presentation, I had already put myself in the mindset of the people that I was speaking to. I walked into a group of people that looked harried, distracted and uninterested, but I was prepared for this. So I started by telling them their own story.
I introduced myself briefly and then told them that I would be right back, and I walked out of the room. I returned minutes later, rushing in with a briefcase spilling papers and frantically talking on a cell phone.
I began my presentation all over again, but this time I was speaking at breakneck speed. “Hi I’m Annie Hart and I’m here to….” But imagine this with words flying at 500 miles an hour!
When I looked up they were speechless. Maybe dumbfounded is a better word. I paused and looked at them carefully. I asked, “What was that like for you?’
“That’s exactly like our daily lives!” they said. They couldn’t believe that I got them. I said, “How did it feel to experience me that way?” They unanimously said, “It was awful, very stressful and anxiety producing.” Exactly. Exactly like their daily lives.
This dramatic enactment of their everyday way of being, opened up a discussion of trust and openness, whereas just moments before they had considered me a complete stranger. So how did they accept me so quickly?
I used the power of story, THEIR STORY, to speak their language.
The key to rapport and building connection is to think about others. Ask yourself, what do they need? What are they going through? What are their daily lives like?
It’s not how can I get them to do what I want? It’s how can I understand who they are? This is one of the key skills a leader can have.
Each of you in your own way is a leader. Start today to think how you can get inside the story of others, so that people will want to follow you where ever you go.
And if you’re wondering if I got hired? The answer is yes, and continued to tell stories and build rapport for an entire year. Storytelling is a key to building trust and credibility through creating connection.
From My Guest Blogger Greg: “Humanizing Twitter”
October 16, 2009
I posted a blog post this week about having fun on Twitter and made a new friend instantly through the post! That is one of the things that I love most about Twitter is that neat and interesting people show up. I met web developer Greg Falken who uses Twitter a lot and liked my approach, so I asked him to share a little bit about his philosophy of Twitter. I especially love his metaphor about thinking about Twitter like being at a party. Thanks Greg for the useful tips and being part of the Twitter flock!
Twitter is pretty darned geeky. It’s full of symbols and jargon and half the time you can’t even tell if you’re being tweeted by a human or a robot. People wonder, with good reason, how they can possibly get anything useful, let alone humane, out of the untold number of tweets that pass through the system every day.
The first thing that I tell new Twitter users (after, “you won’t know if it’s a stupid idea or not until you try it”) is that they don’t have to read every tweet that comes through their account. Everything prior to a few minutes ago is water under the bridge. Unless it mentions you or is a direct message to you, in which case you need to keep track of and respond to it. Every Twitter client and the web site makes this easy to do.
Next, you need to follow a group of people who you find interesting or with whom you have common interests; people who you would like to talk to. Think of Twitter like a crowded party. The conversations flow around you and you can choose which ones to focus on and where to join in. If you’ve chosen your party (the people you’re following) well, this can be both entertaining and informative. If you’re at a party with a lot of obnoxious drunks…well, that can be less pleasant. Remember, you get to choose who you follow. If someone follows you and you don’t follow them back, it’s like they don’t exist. If you follow someone who you later decide to un-follow, they’ll get over it.
When you do decide to join a conversation, knowing some of Twitter’s somewhat quirky conventions will help you be better understood.
- The @ symbol. Including @username anywhere in your tweet will cause it to show up in that person’s list of “mentions”. If @username is the first thing in the tweet (i.e. @ is the first character), the tweet will only be visible to the recipient and anyone who follows both of you. So, when you want your tweet to go into the general Twitter stream and be noticed by an individual, include @username somewhere after the first character of the tweet.
- Hash tags. Hash tags were not a part of Twitter’s original release. People using the service found that they needed a way of identifying words to search on and settled on prefixing them with a hash (#) symbol. When you include a hash tag in a tweet, you are inviting people to search for that tag. For example, if I tweet about health care reform and include the hash tag #hcr, I can be sure that my tweet will show up in a lot of search results, in addition to my followers seeing it. Use the search box on Twitter.com to find commonly used hash tags. Brand names are also commonly used. If a company is paying attention, they should be monitoring for any usage of their name in a hash tag and respond to you. Sadly, this is not often the case.
- Retweets. Another instance of the users of Twitter coming up with a convention, in this case the letters “RT” followed by the @username of the original sender (so they will know that they’ve been retweeted). You can either retweet verbatim or edit it a bit and add your own comments. I like to put comments at the end, prefixed with <–.
- Links. If you use Twitter’s web site, URLs are automatically made clickable but they are not shortened, eating into your 140 character limit. Most of the 3rd party Twitter clients, either desktop or web-based, will shorten URLs using a service (4th party?) like bit.ly or tr.im.
Once you do start talking on Twitter, be a good conversationalist. You want people’s response to your tweets to be either, that was helpful or that was interesting or both. It’s not always easy to write stories in 140 characters or less but it can be done with practice. Here are some good examples:
Rain in DC this morning is mean to all who pass. The bones in my feet will be cold all day.
@jdickersonFish communicate through farts http://bit.ly/2ybLKD
@slateDidn’t realize I flew in on the same flight as @tmonhollon from Oklahoma. Okies represent! #bwe09
@BeckyMcCrayBreaking: Tipped off by Stockholm that he was about to be branded euro-wimp peacenik, Obama ordered NASA to bomb moon.
@Roland_Hedley
Be nice, give credit where credit is due and remember, more than 20 tweets a day and people will think you have way to much time on your hands.
Greg Falken is a web developer living and working in the Central Sierras of California and is a partner in webdancers. His focus is on the intersection of computers, the Internet and communications, especially social media. He blogs at GregFalken.com.
Photo by: Eileen Maher
You Don’t Have To Do It Alone
October 6, 2009
FREE TELESEMINAR:
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When you are self-employed, it is very easy to get isolated and try to do everything yourself. Being part of a Mastermind group is one way to get support for succeeding in your business. There is synergy of energy, commitment, and excitement that participants bring to a Mastermind Group. The beauty of Mastermind Groups is that participants raise the bar by challenging each other to create and implement goals, brainstorm ideas, and support each other with total honesty, respect and compassion. Mastermind participants act as catalysts for growth, devil’s advocates and supportive colleagues.
The topic for this week’s teleseminar is “You Don’t Have to Do It Alone: Mastermind Groups and Other Forms of Support” with Annie Hart, Amy Franko and David Jehlen. These members of my Mastermind group will join me to talk about how we support each other to be more successful. In addition, we will talk about other ways that you can get support.
Annie Hart, Amy Franko and David Jehlen are all Certified Book Yourself Solid Coaches. Annie Hart, NLP Trainer, Ericksonian Hypnotherapist and Storyteller Extraordinaire helps individuals and businesses to create positive and lasting change through story.
Amy Franko, owner, small business coach, and principal learning designer of Amy Franko Consulting, works with solo service professional women (for whom she uses the term “entrepreneuse”) to break through to new levels of success through effective marketing and selling – in ways that complement their strengths and allow them to be who they are.
David Jehlen, owner of Dream Life Strategies, says that his purpose is to help holistic entrepreneurs, those passionate about serving people, the entire being, body, mind and spirit to enrich this world.
To register, go to http://getbookedsolidnow.com/teleseminar_registration.
This teleclass is free.
Want To Be Effective? Harness the Power of The Team
October 5, 2009
We live in the societal model of the “Lone Hero” but in our ancient memory we come from the law of the tribe, meaning that we have togetherness in our bones. But unfortunately we’ve forgotten this and very often we suffer from a kind of societal aloneness disease.
This particularly shows up in the life of solo business owners. If you work for yourself or by yourself, it’s guaranteed that you suffer from this aloneness disease.
Here are it’s symptoms:
- you often wonder what you’re doing wrong or why you aren’t as successful as you’d want to be
- you have dreams and goals that you never seem to realize
- you wonder why it’s so hard
- you find yourself going into a slump and blame yourself
Here’s what I’ve been fortunate to learn from wonderful mentors over the years – that one of the secrets to success in any venture of life, is to harness the power of the team. When you can tap the power of teamwork, then you can go much further than you ever would alone.
As I watched and studied successful people, I realized that this was one of their secrets to success. So many years ago I started garnering allies and buddies and formed wonderful partnerships that have really kept me going, especially in hard times.
One of my current collaborations is with my business coaching group. We call ourselves the “DreamBuilders” and we support each other every single Friday by showing up on a call and sharing our breakthroughs and breakdowns. We continue to support each other, offer feedback, give ideas and encouragement, so that no matter how hard it gets, we know that we’re not alone.
If you ask me this is the key factor to success in life. I have regular coaching buddies every week, plus my team, all of whom keep my spirits up, and support me when I fall down in a hole and can’t get up! Because of these allies and and partners, I’ve been able to do things which would otherwise feel impossible.
This week for the first time, my wonderful DreamBuilders Team is going to do a public Teleseminar, hosted by Ted Behr, one of our team members. We are going to be sharing some stories and the secrets of success. This model has definitely worked for us and I know it can work for you too.
No matter what endeavor you want to achieve, harnessing the power of a supportive team, can be key to your success. If you want to know more about the how to create a team or what to do once you have one, please feel free to email me.
Tune into our Teleseminar, Wednesday October 7th at 12pm, for 1 hour. To register go to: http://getbookedsolidnow.com/teleseminar_registration.
Annie’s Business Bursting Success Story, Get Blogging & Tweeting Folks
August 5, 2009
I published a story earlier this week about my top 5 tips for success in blogging. But I thought that I should back up a bit and tell you the full story. Because I, a former technophobe, would have been the least likely person to succeed in this area.
I hated marketing. I never did any of it, not one thing. Ok year’s ago I made a few brochures and I had a business card. Big deal. But I never wanted to market myself. I never wanted to run a business. I just wanted to help people. If you’re in a service field like mine, you can probably relate.
If someone had told me back at the beginning, what I would need to do to make a living at this, I would have probably given up right then. I had no idea it would be so hard. But strangely I was able to make a living at it and for that I was thankful. I made a living but I was not going beyond that and last year as I looked into my future, I had to face the scary facts. If I didn’t do something, something drastic, then my business was not going to be sustainable in the future. And I didn’t want that. I love my business.
I knew I had to do something, but I had no idea what. As you will learn about me, the first thing I always do is pray! Not in that silly way of begging some big daddy in the sky to rescue me, but of aligning myself with the bigger powers of the universe. I consider myself an equal partner. So my prayer was this, “Please help me find the way. I’m willing to do whatever it takes.” That was my committment and I knew that I had to mean it for the prayer to work.
So what did doing what it takes mean for me? It meant facing my fears of marketing and technology head on. The LAST thing that I ever wanted to do was to use the internet to market my business. Hours spent on the computer sounded like a fate worse then death. I am a people person and a nature girl. No technology for me! Or at least as little as possible.
But what ended up happening is that I took a HUGE leap of faith. I took a course in marketing for service professionals, led by the handsome and savvy Michael Port of Book Yourself Solid. Michael is really expert in this area.
During the course, I kept telling my wonderful new colleagues that I was not tech savvy like they were and don’t even talk to me about dumb things like Twitter! I did not even want to hear it. I specifically remember a conversation with my new buddy Jeff Simpkins, in which I told him I didn’t think I could do any of this stuff. And he gave me the single best recommendation that I’ve ever had. He told me to take a course by Bea Fields called “Become A Blogging Maniac.” I loved the name.
I liked Jeff and trusted him and the course was only $97 so how could I lose. Even though I still totally doubted myself and my abilities, I decided to go for it. I wasn’t even sure if I had the desire,but I was sure that I didn’t want to fail. I knew that I could fail at this very easily if I wasn’t careful. Technology was not my forte.
I took my NLP background and carefully thought through all the challenges that could stop me. And I figured out how to navigate around them and keep going. This is how I set myself up for success. I carved out a mental path in advance that would allow me to sidestep the obstacles and keep on towards my goal, no matter what. And I did it!
I am so proud to say that I not only finished course, but I produced a beautiful amazing website/blog that I truly love. And most amazing of all is I have had more business success in the past 3 months than I’ve had in all my years of working. Me, a former technophobe, now a shining success in the blogging world. Wow.
If I can do it, so can you. And by the way Twitter has been one of the single most attention generating media for my site. I’ve had notice from people all over the world. And as you’ll see from my results below, this Twitter and blogging thing is neither irrelvant, nor stupid. They and other social media tools, ARE the way of the future. We can pretend they aren’t there, but then we will be the ones left behind.
If you want to succeed in your business and stand out in the crowd like I have, then feel free to follow me. Take Bea’s course. She is an expert in this area. It wasn’t easy but it is possible. Here are my tangible results:
- I had several new clients just in the first 2 months
- I was featured as one of only 40 Story Experts in an ebook online.
- A business man from Japan used several of my stories to create business success with his team.
- I’ve been on the radio twice…..
And that was only in the first three months. So this is just the beginning. My advice to you is to get out and start blogging, get Tweeting and get yourself up to speed. This is all possible. That way, you’ll be on the wave of tomorrow, rather than the back seat of yesterday.
And if you want to know more about Bea Fields or her course: www.becomeabloggingmaniac.com. Or my collegue Jeff Simpkins who is using blogging for bankers at: http://www.bloggingforbankers.com/
Good luck! And let me know how you’re doing in the wonderful wide world of the bloggersphere.
Connect With Annie Hart
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