To Speak With The Voice Of Your Soul

“If you want to speak with the voice of your soul, you have to quiet the voices in your head.” – Me

I was talking to some friends after the Sacramento Speakers Network meeting tonight (the greatest networking group ever!), and I heard the phrase above come out of my mouth.  I was stunned.  It was a big “A-ha!” moment for me.  I’ve been trying to figure out how to succinctly describe what a Blog Whisperer does, and suddenly there it was: what I’ve learned to do, and what I’m enjoying helping other people to do, is to quiet the voices in their heads; when they learn to do that, they can start to find and speak with their true voices.

I know from my own experience how debilitating those voices can be.  Have a look at some of the early posts on this blog; they sound like they were written by a robot, and, in some respects, they were.  The stuff I wrote was aimed at…no one in particular.  I was writing to appeal to as wide an audience as I could manage, and no one cared.

And yet, I was convinced it was the correct way to write.  Don’t offend, don’t alienate, don’t polarize…those were my mantras.  When I finally started to quiet my mind, though, I started to hear a different voice.  The new voice was vaguely familiar, but it had been a long time since I’d heard it.

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Speaking of Transparency

Since I’ve been advocating the spirit of transparency, I have a confession to make: I have absolutely no idea how to launch a product.  And before you start sending me tips for doing it right, I should also add that I’m not sure I want to know.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on a project for a new program I’m going to offer starting in September.  The site for the program is MyBlogWhisperer.com, and it’s designed to help bloggers get out of their own way and start writing or recoding and sharing what’s in their heart.  I’m really excited about the program, and I can’t wait to take my first registration.

Here’s the thing, though: I feel weird promoting my own stuff.  I know I’ve got something valuable to share, but I don’t feel inclined to make a huge deal out of it.  And I definitely don’t want to be a cheeseball internet marketer pitching the product of the week.  I just want folks to know what I’m up to and, if they like the sound of it, to join me in the class.

So, wise readers, how do I do it?  How do I balance the desire to build some positive buzz and get the signups coming in without resorting to “yellow highlighter” tactics?  What do you all think of the page and the program?  Please let me know your thoughts, and thanks for reading!

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Are You Still Branding? – Guest Post by Todd Pillars

I’m part of a discussion over at LinkedIn Groups (I didn’t link to it to protect my their identity)  about branding and whether or not it’s still relevant. They’re tossing around terms like media channels and marketing equations. They are confusing brand equity with market share. The marketing insiders just don’t get it. Granted they are talking to other marketing professionals. However, if they are true to their own brand then it is bound to leak through – ask any I.T. marketer about verticals, optimization, and integration.

I’m of the belief that, while the spirit of branding is still applicable (only it’s called promotion), the term branding is WAY over used. And because of the communication platform of the Internet (I tried really, really hard not say Social Media) branding has given way, thankfully, to “having a conversation”.

I used this example:

You have a company of 500 people. 400 people manufacture, package, and ship your super-duper baby spit-up remover. 50 of them are out there selling it. 10 are marketing folks. 40 provide support services and management. What’s the chance of all 500 employees living the brand? A snowball’s survival comes to mind.

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Calling All Members of the Choir: It’s My Un-Bio

Great: they asked me to write a bio for a new collaboration project I’m working on. I hate writing bios. No matter how hard I try, they always come out sounding plastic and fake and manufactured. So instead of writing a bio, I just wrote a bunch of stuff about me.  I know that sounds like a bio, but it’s not.  In fact, you could call it my Un-Bio.

And since I’ve been railing on in the last several posts about sharing who you are and what you believe in and why you do what you do, I decided to post my Un-Bio here, too.  Let me know what you think.  Or, better still, share your Un-Bio (or a link to it) in the comments.

1. I’m pretty opinionated. I don’t think that’s a bad thing; in fact, I embrace it. Really. I even include it in my bio sometimes, usually preceded by the word “outrageously”. And if you don’t believe me, just ask my friends what I think of James Cameron’s “movies”, or anyone who’s ever met me what I think of Bob Dylan’s “music” (I don’t know how, but it always seems to come up in conversation…genius my ass).

2. I love ideas. I think ideas are what make life fun. I love having ideas, and I love sharing them even more (see #1). I love hearing other people’s ideas, too, especially the brilliant ones. I love it when my ideas have sex with other people’s ideas (you can blame Matt Ridley for giving me that phrase to play with), and my ideas are pretty promiscuous. They also refuse to practice safe sex, so don’t be surprised if our ideas get together, have loads of idea sex, and spawn lots of tiny new baby ideas.

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Preaching to Your Choir

“The first follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader.” – Derek Sivers

I have a confession: I’m pretty much addicted to TED Talks.  I find them inspiring…mostly because I respect the level of insight, information and intelligence the presenters share in their allotted 18 minutes.  Here’s what usually happens, though:  I never can watch just one.  I can never resist the temptation to watch another…and another…and sometimes, another.

The problem is that, like YouTube, TED.com always has a suggestion for what to watch next based on what you’re watching now.  That’s how I ended up seeing the two geniuses above speak, one after the other, and where I garnered the two quotes above.

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What Can Small Businesses Learn From Mobius Technologies?

I love the moxie of a small company in a small town in Northern California who looks at a giant oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and says “Yeah…we can fix that.”

That’s exactly what Mobius Technologies, of Lincoln, CA, has done, and they didn’t stop there.  When Mobius realized that it was going to take too long to get through the bureaucracy and red tape required to get their product approved for use in the cleanup, they set about using social media tools like YouTube and Facebook to recruit a volunteer army and encouraged them to spread the message.

And while I think the powers that be at Mobius Technologies are making a huge mistake by not engaging with bloggers to help them spread their message (it seems they don’t consider bloggers to be “true” media outlets), I can’t argue with the results they’re getting.  Have a look at this video from the local ABC affiliate in Sacramento.

Mobius is starting to get some traction, and I applaud the work they’re doing.  More than that, though, I applaud the way they’re going about it.  Here are some valuable lessons other small business owners and entrepreneurs can learn from the example of Mobius Technologies:

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Sleep Is Overrated, Especially for Entrepreneurs

I was having a conversation via Skype with my cousin Ed, an entrepreneur who runs Natural Merchants, an importer of organic foods and wines from Europe to the USA.  He lives in Spain.  It was 1:00 AM for me on a day that had started at 6:00 AM, and 10:00 AM for him on a day that had started at 5:00 AM and would end around midnight.

Ed is just getting into using social media to expand his customer base (if you like organic European wine and foods, you should become a fan of their page on Facebook), and we were chatting about some of the tools he could use to make his life a little easier as a social media newbie.  The conversation came around to the same question it always does: where am I going to find the time?

And we agreed on the answer: if you want to add to the mix of what you’re doing, something else is going to suffer.  This goes back to the discussion about work/life balance from a couple of weeks ago.  Remember: there is no such thing.  Building or growing a business means extra work, and extra work means you won’t have time for something else.

That’s not a bad thing; it just is.  Accept it as a fact and move on to deciding what you’re willing to sacrifice to squeeze in that extra work.  If you’re not willing to sacrifice anything, forget about committing to the additional work.  You can’t do both, at least not with our current understanding of space/time.

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Why Being a Non-Conformist Is Great for Your Business

This past week, I’ve been re-reading Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau and contemplating why I’m so drawn to Thoreau’s message of non-conformity.  It all began to make sense to me when I got this Copyblogger article by Sonia Simone in my email last Thursday.

The post basically said that in order to be a successful entrepreneur you have to be a little nuts.  You have to be willing to step outside the realm of what others, particularly your “normal” friends and family, consider to be right for you.  Taking the plunge and trying to create a great business that supports your lifestyle is risky, and it’s hard to conform to what the herd is doing and take risks at the same time.

Sonia’s article was a big deal for me; I had a pretty strong emotional reaction to it.  You see, I’ve been struggling for the past several years to create what I consider to be my dream business, and I haven’t had the kind of success I’ve wanted so far.  As you can imagine, that’s been pretty frustrating.  I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out what it is that I’m doing wrong and why things aren’t working the way I think they should be.

As I was reading the article, I realized what I’ve been doing wrong: I’ve been trying to build my business based on other people’s ideas of what was “normal”.  I’ve been taking the advice of well-meaning friends and family and putting it into practice in my business.  I’ve been obsessed with the idea of “credibility” and whether or not I have it.  I’ve worried about what other people might be think of the things I write here and elsewhere.

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Stick to What You Love

I missed posting last night because I fell victim to one of the classic blunders.  The most famous, of course, is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.”  The second, only slightly less well known, is “Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.”

The third, and the one I learned the hard way last night, is this: “Never trust your brother when he says something will ‘only take five minutes.’”

I should have known better, too.  After all, he’d already been working on the project for a good hour, banging on pipes and sawing things and tossing out the occasional curse.  I also should have known better because, even though he’s a year younger than me, I’ve been following him into harm’s way for 35 years.  It’s amazing how our memories fail us at such critical moments in our lives.

“Jerry,” he said.  ”Can you give me a hand?  I’m almost done with this and just need a hand pulling this line through.  It should only take five minutes.”  I ventured into the work zone, and was astonished by what I saw.  It looked like every tool in the garage was being used.  There were three different kinds of Makita devices, drills, grinders, lights, wrenches of various shapes and sizes…I think there was even a hammer, just in case.  It seemed a little excessive.  Worse, it seemed like plumbing.

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Don’t Be Afraid of Your Own Opinion

My friend Joel D Canfield, author of The Commonsense Entrepreneur (seriously one of the best business books I’ve ever read, and he doesn’t even pay me to say that), made an interesting comment to me today.  He said that he never wants to go to his book’s page on Amazon and see 3s in the ratings; he only wants to see 1s and 5s.  That might at first seem a little strange: after all, why would he prefer 1s to 3s in his book’s ratings?  Wouldn’t it be better if people thought his book was just okay instead of hating it?

Not in Joel’s mind.  Why?  Because Joel is a polarizer.  Love him or hate him; just don’t say he’s “okay”.  In fact, Joel says that if someone disagrees with an opinion he states, he’s likely to lean even further into that opinion.  He never aims for the middle ground.

We could all learn a lesson from that.  Far too often, businesspeople try to pander to the middle of the road.  We think that if we can make everybody happy, we’ve done our job, but that’s just not reasonable.  It’s also not possible, because what makes some people happy is sure to piss others off (if you have any trouble believing that, just ask the man in the White House).  Your goal should not be to make everyone happy; it should be to make your ideal customers happy.

“Hold on a minute, though,” I hear you say.  ”Isn’t everyone a potential customer and therefore deserving of my efforts to make them happy?”

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