Fresh Ideas that Matter…Make Time to Read This!
When it comes to the future of the internet, most business owners and entrepreneurs have more questions than answers. If you are one of them and you would like to take your thinking to the next level, then you need to read John Reese’s new special report, The Rebirth of Internet Marketing.
Reese pulls no punches in looking at where we are most likely headed in the online world, making a compelling case for a future where competition is intense, where current business models cease to work as they have in the past, and where serving site visitors becomes a necessary condition for selling them anything. His insights regarding the impending death of the long form sales letter and the emerging power of the authority site are truly compelling.
Here’s your action plan:
1. Download your free copy of the report here: http://income.com/blog/?p=3
2. Block out an hour to devour it with a focus on what it means for your business today, and more important, tomorrow.
3. Set it aside, think about it for a couple of days, and read it again…this time making notes about specific actions you want to take now or in the future.
4. Return to it in a couple of weeks and read it one more time to make sure you really grasped what it means for your business.
BOTTOM LINE: Trust me on this one…it merits the time and it will yield a powerful payoff!
The Jeffrey Gitomer Collection
Few authors have the ability to focus your attention quickly on what matters most…Jeffrey Gitomer is a notable exception. He delivers valuable, actionable advice in a way that gets your attention. while showing you how to apply it to acheive results.
This compelling series of “little books’ offers specific ideas you can use to increase your sales, answer your customers questions, build a powerful network, improve your attitude, and achieve the results that you want. It’s hard to recommend just one of these because each of them has powerful insights that any entrepreneur, business owner/manager, or independent professional can use to improve their results.
My advice is to buy them all, read them through once and take note of the first steps you want to take in each area, then reread them and look for more action steps that fit for you, and so on and so on, until you’ve grasped every morsel of insight that you can and put it to work in your business. You’ll be glad you did!
Pick up your copies here:
- The Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness
- Little Red Book of Sales Answers: 99.5 Real World Answers That Make Sense, Make Sales, and Make Money
- Little Black Book of Connections: 6.5 Assets for Networking Your Way to Rich Relationships
- Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude: How to Find, Build and Keep a YES! Attitude for a Lifetime of SUCCESS
- Little Green Book of Getting Your Way: How to Speak, Write, Present, Persuade, Influence, and Sell Your Point of View to Others
Your Weekly Videos - Take XI
Here are this week’s clips… Enjoy!
What will you do when your computer dies?
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What do you know?
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What are your day-to-day challenges?
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The Irresistible Offer
Readable, practical, and on target. Joyner is a master at taking the complex and making it simple, and in this book he delivers as usual. The core concept of creating an irresistible offer, presenting it to a thirsty crowd, and selling them a second glass is a mantra that every marketer should keep front of mind at all times.
If you are ready to take your business to the next level, this is one book you want to read as soon as you can. You’ll gain new insights that will help you focus your efforts on the right customers, along with actionable advice for communicating your message to capture their interest quickly. Best of all, you’ll learn a step by step process for crafting your offer and implementing your campaign to create results.
Buy it, read it, and apply it…find your hungry crowd and figure out how you can give them what they want, then build your relationship with them so that the next time they are in need they return and buy from you again!
Pick up your copy here:
The Irresistible Offer: How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less
Your Weekly Videos–Take X
Here are this week’s clips… Enjoy!
Simply amazing…
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Truly talented…
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A Technique for Producing Ideas
Don’t let the brevity fool you...though this book is only 48 pages long, the message within those pages is powerful. Granted I may be a bit biased because the subject is one of my favorites, but its not often you come across such a useful treatment of such an important skill.
As the title suggests, Young outlines a simple, easy-to-use approach to coming up with ideas, but he doesn’t stop there. He goes an important step further by exploring the importance of making creative thinking and idea production a part of everything you do…a key to breaking through the barriers that get in the way when we seek to think in new ways.
Buy it, read it, and then read it again…you’ll not only become a better problem solver and a more creative thinker, you’ll also gain a valuable perspective that will enable you to unleash the power of ideas within your team!
Pick up your copy here:
A Technique for Producing Ideas
Your Weekly Videos–Take IX
Here are this week’s clips… Enjoy!
I am opting to lean toward humor this week…so these are a tad less serious than the usual group.
An interesting idea to illustrate your commitments…
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Ever heard of Laughter Yoga…
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And this one is just for laughs…
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Business Building Tip–Learn to Negotiate
Few skills are more fundamental to success than negotiation. Entrepreneurs, CEOs, business owners, and leaders at all levels encounter situations every day where they are required to negotiate…from closing complex deals to working out delivery terms to fixing customer problems to improving employee performance, negiatation is a very important part of growing your business.
Perhaps it is the regonition of this that leads so many of our readers to express and interest in learning more about it. I say that because as people receive idea #100 in our Daily Big Idea series many send me questions, such as…
- Where can I get more information on negotiation?
- Do you have any book recommendations on the subject of negotiation?
- Are there any specific courses available or plans for learning tools from BigIdeaGuru.com on the subject?
Let me quickly answer these questions and encourage everyone who is interested in growing a business, increasing sales, building more effective relationships, and maximing profits to become a student of negotiation…few things will yield a higher payoff!
Now to the questions…
1. For more information on negotiation…There is a wealth of information available online on the subject of negotiation, including seminars and workshops, e-books, and various online tools. But one of the best ways that I can recommend for you to learn more about negotiation is to become an avid observer…look around you at the negotiations that happen every day and learn from them, ask someone you respect as a negotiator to share their secrets with you, and test out the things you see that work in your day-to-day experience…that is the best way to gain expertise in this area, to learn by doing based on observing what works!
2. Here are my three of my favorite books on negotiation…Important subjects produce lots of books, and negotiation is no different. In fact, a simple search for books with the word negotiation in the title at Amazon.com yields 158,674 results. Here are three that I recommend everyone read:
Start with NO…The Negotiating Tools that the Pros Don’t Want You to Know
Done Deal: Insights from Interviews with the World’s Best Negotiators
Harvard Business Essentials Guide to Negotiation
These will get you started on your road to becoming a skilled negotiator and will reveal the gaps in your knowledge…which will help you define the next steps on your journey to mastery!
3. What lies ahead at BigIdeaGuru.com regarding negotiation…We are nearing completion of a learning package on Negotiation Basics…it will include an e-book, an audio program, and a teleseminar or two, and it should be available before the end of May…we’ll announce it here and in the members area of BigIdeaGuru.com…so make sure you have your membership in place to ensure that you will be informed (it’s completely free between now and the end of May!)
Instant Income
Finally, a book that delivers what its title promises. This book is literally packed with specific action-focused strategies every entrepreneur, CEO, and growing business leader/manager can use to create income from their current or future business.
Swizter brings a wealth of personal experiences and examples to bear on the pressing issues that face anyone seeking to build a business. The strategies she shares can be adapted to virtually any business, and they are all presented in a very accessible format that lends itself well to the kind of piecemeal reading that busy lifestyles demand.
One caution: Do not read this book without a pad of paper and a pen nearby…you’ll want to capture the thoughts that leap into your mind as you read about each of her strategies so that you can immediately define your action plan for creating instant income!
Bottom line…Buy it, read it, and use the strategies it reveals…they will help you to grow your business and increase your income rapidly!
Pick up your copy here:
An Interesting Idea About Dumb Questions
We’ve all heard it before, and many of us have said it: “There’s no such thing as a dumb question.”
But let’s face it, we’ve also heard some questions from time to time that would certainly qualify for the label. In fact, from time to time we have probably asked ourselves some that clearly fit the definition.
Leadership speaker Phil VanHooser shared this interesting perspective about dumb questions in Issue 97 of his newsletter Tips for Transformational Impact (sign up for your subscription at www.VanHooser.com.) SincePhil was my guest on my Speaking of Ideas podcast this month and is featured in this month’s issue of Profitable Ideas magazine in the members area of www.BigIdeaGuru.com, I asked him if I could share his insights here.
What follows is the verbatim article from Phil’s newsletter…enjoy and learn.
Put it in Perspective: “The Wisdom of Dumb Questions”
Back in 2005, I read an article in FORTUNE (June 25, 2005) by Geoffrey Colvin. It was entitled, “The Wisdom of Dumb Questions.” The title caught my attention. In the article, Mr. Colvin surmised that “dumb questions lead to smart decisions…” and that a dumb question can “…cut to the heart of the matter, posing a blunt challenge to someone or something—an authority, a policy, the established order. It can make people uncomfortable.”
That made sense to me and I started thinking: What dumb questions should I be asking that might lead me to smarter leadership decisions? I thought you might be interested in some of the “dumb” questions I now suggest proactive leaders consider asking with great regularity.
Dumb Question #1: How am I doing?
This question was made popular by former Mayor Ed Koch. During his term of service to the City of New York, Koch was renowned for stopping average New Yorkers on the street and asking them this, his favorite dumb question. Why would he do such a thing? I think he realized how easy it is for leaders to become isolated, even insulated from the very people they are entrusted to lead. If he didn’t ask the regular “Joes” and “Janes,” his only other alternative would be to trust the opinions of his advisors—most of whom were even farther removed from the man and woman on the street than he.
Dumb Question #2: What have we screwed up lately?
All of us enjoy having rose petals strewn before us. In other words, we like to hear people bragging and commenting on all the great things we have done and are doing. But what do those kinds of accolades really teach us? Not much, I’m afraid. Praise is great for ego boosting, but rather worthless when it comes to building a foundation for continual improvement. Mistakes, errors, miscalculations, screw ups—those are the things that can really teach us something. Admit it; haven’t you learned more from your mistakes over the years than you have from your successes? Well then, why not spend some focused time seeking out areas where we seem to be chronically screwing up, in order to shine a bright light on those areas as we begin to repair them.
Dumb Question #3: What should we be doing better?
Maybe you really are doing a great job and people are honestly struggling to find concrete answers to your Dumb Question #2. Congratulations! You must be doing something right as a leader. Keep it up. But never forget that some wise person once said that “good is the enemy of great.” And it is. There’s always room for improvement and improvement should be our never-ending quest—to be great at what we do and how we lead. Therefore go out and ask your constituencies — the employees, customers, colleagues, partners that make up your professional existence — what they would like to see done at a better, higher, more sophisticated level. Their answers may prove to shake the comfort zones you have allowed to form around you. But their answers may also serve as the catalysts and motivation to jumpstart heightened levels of performance.
Dumb Question #4: What would you like for me to do about that?
This may be the dumbest question of all and yet the smartest one you can ask. Everyone has opinion. And even the lowliest of employee is known to openly and freely share opinions with fellow workers, family members, neighbors, even innocent bystanders waiting patiently in the grocery store checkout line—everyone, that is, but you, their leader. Possibly the smartest thing a leader can do is to actively seek out the personal, specific opinions of others. Don’t be afraid to ask them Dumb Question #4, then shut up and listen. It’s nothing short of amazing what they might tell you—in startling detail. The chances are stacked in your favor that you will learn something from the conversation. And don’t worry; I know you’re thinking—what about the worst case scenario? What if they share suggestions that are unrealistic, unworkable and impossible? What then? M y advice is to tell them so. In an honest, open manner, tell them what won’t work AND why. Most of the people we work with are reasonable people. If it truly is unworkable, based on your complete explanation, they will understand. And for those who just refuse to understand, at least they can never say you didn’t make the effort to explain things to them.
Here’s How It’s Done
Now that we’ve covered four dumb questions any leader can ask, maybe I should tell you how it’s done best.
1. Don’t label your question as a dumb one before you ask it. The fact that you have the courage to ask the obvious questions may actually make you look brilliant in the eyes of others. It worked for Socrates: after all “What is virtue?”
2. Don’t apologize for asking the question. Don’t dilly-dally. Don’t tip-toe around the question until it has lost its power, its uumph. Just step up and ask it. And ask it with sincerity and an open mind.
3. Don’t worry about what the answer to the question might be. You can’t predict nor control the future—the answer will be what it is. You can begin to deal with it once it has shown itself.
4. Don’t be intimidated if people don’t immediately offer a response to your question. Be patient. Let them process the question appropriately. After all, this may be the very first time their leader ever asked a dumb question—on purpose, at least.
THANKS PHIL…Great advice, great perspective, and valuable ideas!
POSTSCRIPT: You’ll find a lot more great ideas on leadership at Phil’s website…check it out and don’t forget to set up your free membership at BigIdeaGuru.com to listen to Phil’s podcast and read his guest article in this month’s issue of Profitable Ideas!
