Becky Robinson's Blog, page 64

Scenes From A Hat

In a popular comedy show, the improvisational (improv) performers are challenged with acting out a scene to the best of their ability, on the spot (i.e. “at the drop of a hat”). If you think about it, life can sometimes feel like a series of improv skits. Not just because of the ridiculous events that occasionally occur in our lives, but because we form opinions, make decisions, and react based on past experiences that happen during the course of everyday events.

For example: you know what time to set the alarm in order to get to work on time. You know that the freeway is congested at a certain time of day, so you use surface streets. Or you remember that you should have tea bags on hand for your morning meeting because the client doesn’t drink coffee. Superficial as they may seem, these behaviors are shaped by past experience and built over time by positive, and sometimes negative, results.

Whether you realize it or not, you lead others by gathering data from your past experiences, and by witnessing the good and bad examples of those around you. I am a firm believer in leading by example, and I often share anecdotes about my first boss when mentoring young professionals. I tell them stories of his bad behaviors and how I learned how not to conduct myself in the world of business.

Leading by example is not only important when coaching young team members, but many times “old dogs” can benefit from your “new tricks.” I am fortunate to be reminded of this in different ways, through varying leadership models offered by the many talented thought leaders that Weaving Influence represents. Oftentimes, their books are targeted at professionals on many different levels, but they also speak to individuals who are willing to continue to grow their personal knowledge and who are willing to learn how to best use their skills for success, regardless of age or experience. Putting these tools to work allows a leader to draw from new experiences and realize different (hopefully better) outcomes than in the past.

When you are next in a challenging business situation, how will you role play your scene? Will you draw on past experience and simply react – or will you take a moment to rally your skills, gather your thoughts, and guide the situation toward a positive result?

Either way, your audience (subordinates and co-workers) is watching. Will you rise as a shining star, or bomb miserably?

The stage is set: finish on a high note. You’ll be remembered and valued for it.

 

Image credit: Arpad Nagy-Bagoly

 

Getting Traction for a New Blog Site

There’s no quick fix that I’ve found to create fast traction for a blog site.

Most of the successful bloggers I know have been consistently blogging and promoting their blogs for years; we’ve never seen anyone achieve overnight success in blogging.

Take this list curated recently by Charles Specht. Though I cannot say without question that all of the bloggers have been blogging for years, I am fairly certain most of them have been.

This is bad news for anyone starting fresh with a new blog site. We support several dynamite leadership thought leaders who regularly share powerful content and resources. Despite consistent promotion, growth is slow.

My own new blog site is an example of the difficulty in getting traction. Despite the fact that I’ve been blogging for 6 years on various domains, and despite the fact that I have a robust social following, I’m not seeing regular visitors to my domain.

If you want to create regular, steady traffic to a new blog, the best advice I have is to settle in for the long haul. Longevity in blogging creates traction with repeat readers, who find value in what you’re writing — and in organic search traffic because the more content your site contains, the more likely people are to find you when they search for terms relevant to your site.

Here are a few other ideas:

Spend as much time promoting your content as you spent writing it. If this seems crazy, consider the alternative. You may invest a lot of time writing something that few people will read. If you want people to read what you’re writing, you will need to strategically publicize the content in ways that are more about the value the reader can receive than about you as the writer. In the event that you don’t have time to publicize your content, consider partnering with a company or assistant who can help you.

Pay attention to keywords and metadata. If you want to generate relevant traffic, you need to consider what words are relevant to the work you most want to do in the world. Think about what words people might use to search for the resources you’re providing and incorporate them in your writing (and in the meta data you craft for each post).

Write consistently, at least once per week. Once per week is a minimum if you want to gain traction for your blog. If you blog less frequently, you may lose readers’ interest.

Partner with other, more established bloggers or blog sites. Veteran bloggers, who likely have established traffic and networks, can be of great help to newer bloggers by including links or introducing new voices. Dan McCarthy and others helped me when I started. As more established bloggers mention you, you will reach more potential readers. Contributing content to a multi-author site, like Lead Change Group, can also be helpful, as you will reach more people and your bio will point people back to your individual site.

Tell me something! What other ideas do you have for gaining traction for a new blog site?

Featured on Friday: Links for Your Weekend Reading!

From time to time on these Friday posts, I like to share a collection of online articles from the last month that I think you might like. This time I decided to get a few of my Weaving Influence co-workers involved in sharing some of their favorite links.

A big thanks to Kylah, Paula, Christy, John, Max, and Elizabeth for their help in suggesting links that you might enjoy. If you’re looking for something to read this weekend, this is a great starting point!

We have to start with our very own, Becky Robinson. Check out her post on training for a marathon and running a business – in both cases, Committed People Do Crazy Things !
As an introvert, I loved this post which includes Jennifer Kahnweiler and her new book (launching this week), The Genius of Opposites! Every Introvert Must Read This – great title, true statement.
Going right along with the introvert/extrovert discussion, this doesn’t involve a client or a team member, but one of my (few) fellow introverts on the Weaving Influence team recommended this post – which I loved – The 4 Types of Productivity Styles .
I’ve mentioned before that Whitney Johnson was part of our beginning, and now she’s back. This is a great (guest) post on her blog that ties in her first book, Dare, Dream, Do, and ends with her new book, Disrupt Yourself. From a Carousel to a Roller Coaster was written by Tiffany Sowby.
We got a couple of recommendations for Chip Bell that you’ll want to check out, Roundabout Leadership for Innovation is found on LinkedIn, and How to Catapult Your Customer Partnerships to New Heights on Switch & Shift.
This one isn’t a post, but it’s a great new blog from Erin Schreyer – be sure to bookmark this one!  erinschreyer.com
Not one, but TWO of our team members recommended reading  The Invisible Force Behind Amazing Teams by Mark Miller.
Melissa Lamson, President & CEO of Lamson Consulting, references Rick Springfield in Reversing Rick: DO Talk to Strangers on LinkedIn.
Did you catch Part 1 of Is My Feedback Motivating from Susan Fowler? Then you’ll definitely want to catch Part 2 !
Rounding out the list are two posts from the Lead Change Group, A Critical Team Building Mistake to Avoid At All Costs by David Dye, and Is Your Leadership Soul Getting Its Wings? by Jon Mertz.

Now – we’ve shared our links, what would make YOUR list?

My Piece of Peace

During my recent trip to the USA, my husband and I took a drive to visit Becky and the other local team members in their fabulous new space in Lambertville, Michigan. Besides meeting with team members face-to-face (they are just as amazing and talented in person as in our virtual communications!), my favorite part of the trip was perusing the shipment room, a space filled with copies of many of the books our company has supported over the years.

One of the titles Becky thought I would enjoy was The Anatomy of Peace by the Arbinger Institute. On my long journey home (Indiana>Florida>Rome>Israel) I read through the entire book. Though I am still a bit jet lagged and admittedly quite uncomfortable as temperatures push towards 100◦ F (no air conditioning, but I do have two fans blowing straight on me), I am still pondering one particular lesson from the book, a lesson about taking action to fix relationships.

The Anatomy of Peace follows a story line that includes a father wrestling with his complicated and contentious relationship with his troubled son. After spending some time in a group-therapy style program, the father realizes that he must not only cease the battle in his heart and transform his negative feelings, but that he must also DO something to restore the peace.

The book lists this action as the step in peace-making called “Staying Out of the Box,” and encourages readers to “Act upon what I have discovered; do what I am feeling I should do.”

This message has stayed with me since putting the book down, particularly since this week marks the beginning of the Hebrew month of Elul, a time characterized by introspection, evaluating one’s character and deeds, and beginning the end-of-the-year (the Jewish new year falls on Sept. 15th this year) process of making amends with those you may have hurt and forgiving those who have hurt you.

So as I gear up for a meaningful Elul, I am striving to focus on making amends and rectifying two aspects of my life: personal and professional. The Anatomy of Peace encourages its readers to not only gain an understanding of the heart of their conflicts, but also to take the necessary concrete steps to ameliorate those conflicts.

For my personal life, I take this to mean swallowing my pride and apologizing to those I have hurt, stepping outside my comfort zone by reaching out to those who may have hurt me, being honest with myself about my negative habits and making concrete plans of how I will rectify them.

Professionally, I think that this means owning up to my weaknesses, learning to ask for help when I need it, admitting mistakes I have made, and speaking with my leaders and team members to try to understand ways in which I can improve.

Though I may not reside in the most peaceful region in the world (praying that changes soon), I hope to use the tools I am learning from The Anatomy of Peace to recognize how I may be contributing to conflict. My goal is to humble myself enough to learn how I can serve as a source of improvement and, ultimately, peace.

Visiting the Weaving Influence Office in Michigan!

Featured on Friday: #UnseenTears Author @beausides

The Weaving Influence team isn’t huge. We’re growing – to be sure – but we still number in the double digits as a whole. However, for such a small team, there are a surprising number of us who have a personal interest in adoption. It’s not something we planned, but as we began working on getting Unseen Tears out to the world, we started to share our stories.

Much like the children represented in Unseen Tears, each #witeam member story is unique. Some have adopted internationally, while others have discussed domestic adoption. Some have a heart to help special needs children, and others have focused on keeping siblings together. Our passion for children without families has united us in support of this book.

Whether you have been personally involved with an adoption, or have felt an emotional pull to help those who cannot speak for themselves, I think you’re going to be moved by what you find in Unseen Tears, a book based on the 48 trips to China made by this author…

Meet Beau Sides

Beau Sides is the founder and president of Global Partners in Life (GPiL), a non-profit organization that helps orphaned children, special needs orphans, and disadvantaged youth with educational, humanitarian and medical needs in China. Since 2004, GPiL has been giving for the purpose of enabling young lives to prosper. Please visit GlobalPartnersinLife.org to learn more.

As a businessman, teacher, humanitarian, and husband, Beau enjoys the business of making life better for those around him. It’s no secret, he enjoys people. Formerly, he served in the tech world successfully as a manager for IBM. As his interest in Chinese culture grew, he earned the title of teacher after serving on numerous teaching tours as an English language instructor at a Chinese university and other business and language schools in China. In China, teacher is a lifelong title of honor of which he will always appreciate and cherish.

Beau’s passion is to serve others, and doing so as the president of Global Partners in Life has been his focus and a joy. He has given the intellectual property rights for his books to GPiL, with all proceeds going to GPiL to help support their work with young people in China. Beau and his wife, Leah, reside near Atlanta, Georgia.

Connect with Beau Online

Find Beau on: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Learn more about Beau’s trips to China by visiting his website.

Unseen Tears is Launching August 24-28!

Needless to say, our team is very excited about building support for the launch of Unseen Tears (as you can see by our model, Amy), and I hope that you are ready to join us! With all proceeds going to GPiL, we would love to see this launch bring in some major buzz, not only for the book, but for the work being done by Global Partners in Life. There are a number of ways for you to get involved in the launch, including:

Requesting an Interview with Beau (contact our PR Team for details)
Write a review of Unseen Tears on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads (yes, all three – spread the love!)
All proceeds go to support the work of GPiL, so consider purchasing copies of the book from the CreateSpace e-store
If you know someone who is interested in international or special needs adoption, tell them about the book, and feel free to point them to unseentears.com for more information
Tweet about the book and tag any adoption-friendly Twitterer you can find! Agencies, bloggers, authors – help us spread the word and build the buzz! In fact, you can start by tweeting this right now…

Interested in #adoption, orphan care, or China? Don’t miss reading #UnseenTears by @beausides! www.unseentears.com {Tweet Now}

Thanks for helping us build the buzz… see you on August 24th!

Why You Should Tap Into Trending Conversations on Social Media

Are you doing everything right on social but still experiencing slow growth? You’re not alone.

Organic growth, which means attracting fans and followers through non-paid avenues, can be a slow process. It takes time and consistent effort to build a tribe on social media.

There is, however, a free and easy way to reach more people — and hopefully, pump up your fan base a little faster: start posting content around trending topics.

TacoBell, Oreo, DiGiorno Pizza and many, many other brands do this every day. It’s part of their regular content strategy. Here’s why it should be part of yours, too:

1.  Trending topics show you what a large group of people are talking about, and the topics are searchable on both Facebook and Twitter by hashtags. Someone who decides to post about #sharkweek will likely search to see what others are saying. If you have a tweet or post that relates #sharkweek to your area of interest and influence in a clever way, you’ll be in front of a brand new audience that you couldn’t have reached otherwise.

2. Many of these people who see your comment and how clever and interesting you are, will start following and engaging with you, which helps further expose you to new audiences of potential fans/followers. Your world keeps expanding all because of that one #sharkweek tweet.

3. Do this regularly and you’ll be putting your work before new and different audiences all of the time. You’ll be able to expand your reach and influence and create a larger tribe just a bit quicker than you could without tapping into these conversations.

So if it’s this easy, why isn’t everyone doing it? Nearly everyone is doing it, but there are only a few who do it well. We want you to be part of that select group and here’s what it takes:

1. Carefully choose which conversations to join. You’re building a professional tribe around your area of expertise, so you want to comment only on topics that reflect well and positively on your work. Avoid controversial topics and never comment on something until you’ve read some other posts or tweets, so you fully understand the topic.

2. This is content marketing, so content is king. Don’t just jam out a quick tweet on a trending topic. Take your time. Write something really excellent and run it by a few people to make sure it’s the best it can be. Remember those all-star brands? They have teams ready to collaborate on their trending posts. While you probably don’t have teams as large as theirs, you do have friends and co-workers who can help you craft your idea into something that will stand out positively in the conversation.

3. Use images. Humans are hard-wired to be drawn to visual content. You probably aren’t a graphic designer, but there are terrific free image-creation tools that can help you play one on social media (Pablo by Buffer and WordSwag are two favorites). Use them and make some meme magic.

Building your tribe on social media is about showing up regularly and consistently with interesting content. Jumping into trending topics conversations helps you show up in front of a larger audience. It’s just one more tactic to help you expand your influence in the digital space.

Tell me something! Are you ready to try a trending topic tweet?

 

Image source: Rosaura Ochoa

Featured on Friday: Disrupt Yourself Author @johnsonwhitney

In the spring of 2012, I met a woman on Twitter named Becky Robinson. It was a tale of entrepreneur meets soon-to-be out-of-work English-major-turned-pharmacy-tech, and before I knew what was happening, I was in Becky’s email account, reaching out to Barnes & Noble store managers about getting table placement for Whitney Johnson’s first book, Dare, Dream, Do.

My first “complimentary copy” of a client book was Dare, Dream, Do (read my first WI blog post if you dare!), which launched just 4 days after my first day with the company. When I started working with Weaving Influence, there were four other women contracting with Becky.  About a month after I joined the team, the first of the four moved on, followed by the second one later that year, and the final two in 2013.

Three years later I’m having major déjà vu as we prepare to launch Whitney’s second book, and my second co-worker to leave, Margy, is now back with the company! She and her husband recently visited their families in the States (they reside in Israel), and she stopped by the Weaving Influence office in Michigan to say hello. Since the first #witeam photo included Becky, Margy, and Dare, Dream, Do – a little photo déjà vu happened this week as well.

It’s a long way to get to the point, but if you want to know more about this author who has come full-circle with our team, I invite you to…

Meet Whitney Johnson

From her official bio…

Whitney Johnson is an investor, speaker, author, and leading thinker on driving innovation through personal disruption. Johnson is a Founder and Managing Director of Springboard Fund, and co-founder of Rose Park Advisors along with Clayton Christensen where they led the seed round for Korea’s Coupang, currently valued at $2.2 billion.  Having served as president from 2007-2012, Johnson was involved in fund formation, capital raising, and the development of the fund’s strategy.

Whitney is a frequent contributor and writer, including to the Harvard Business Review, as a LinkedINfluencer, and through other channels. She is the author of two books, Dare, Dream, Do (2012), and the forthcoming Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work, out October 6, 2015. She is also a prolific speaker and has spoken to audiences of more than 25,000 on her ideas and vision. Johnson is represented by the New Leaf Speakers bureau, along with other thought leaders in innovation like Steve Wozniak.

Johnson has received widespread recognition for her work and ideas and was named one of Fortune’s 55 Most Influential Women On Twitter in 2014. She was named a finalist in the Future Thinker Award for Management Thinkers50, as well as fellow at the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards. She co-founded the popular Forty Women Over Forty to Watch (a list which Becky made this year). Johnson and her work have been covered in The Atlantic, BBC, CNN, Fast Company, the Guardian,Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, and more.

Connect with Whitney Online

Find Whitney on: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Learn more about Jennifer’s work by visiting her website.

Thinkers50

Launched in 2001, the Thinkers50 ranking is now the definitive list of global management thinkers. Help us help Whitney make the 2015 list and vote for her today using the information below!

Disrupt Yourself is Launching October 5-9!

If you’ve been involved in any of our launches, you know that our normal practice is to gear up for a lot of promotion and guest post hosting during the week of a book’s release. This time around, we’re doing things a little bit differently. Are you ready to join us?

You may have seen the guest posts popping up on some of our Buzz Builders blogs over the last few weeks, including:

Chantal Bechervaise
Bonnie Marcus
Paul LaRue
Dan Forbes
Martina McGowan
Jane Perdue

If you would like to join this team of Buzz Builders by hosting guest post content from Whitney on your blog, I invite you to fill out our form and you’ll be hearing from me between now and October 5th with more information. You can also contact me directly via email – either way, I hope to hear from you soon!

Want to learn more about Disrupt Yourself? Visit disruptyourselfbook.com (and don’t forget to check out the pre-order incentives)

Focusing on Focus

Two years ago, I left my job to study in Israel where I still live today. Since moving, I have worked in a high-caliber sales position, served as a counselor for a summer program, and performed other odd jobs. I have enjoyed being active, doing different things, learning a new language, and feeling unrestrained. But when the time came to settle down and find a more serious position that would suit my role as a new wife and, G-d willing, a mother, I knew that I would most enjoy something that offered a flexible schedule while still giving me the opportunity to challenge myself to grow professionally.

Weaving Influence gives me the ability to prioritize my family while being part of a successful and growing company. But, I am learning, with the amazing opportunity to work according to my own schedule comes an increased need to be focused and responsible with my time.

Sometimes I can confuse having multiple responsibilities with multi-tasking. If there are too many tasks on my list or a big meal to cook for the Sabbath, I feel distracted when trying to accomplish anything else.

As part of my spiritual and religious life, I try to take time each day to focus on developing or improving upon specific character traits. The current trait: focus.

Since getting married, moving to a new apartment in the city, and starting a new job (a lot of new responsibilities to juggle), I have been experimenting with different ways to fine-tune my focus.

Here are a couple tools I am working with:

Hold myself accountable. Speech is a powerful creative tool. If I say I will do something, then I need to do it. If I don’t think I can manage, I try not to say I will.
Schedule my time. Everyone has been saying this one for years, but I was always the “go with the flow” type, right? WRONG. Scheduling my time, including leisure and household chores, helps me to use my time more efficiently and remember things I would have forgotten otherwise.
Stay busy. Everyone is different, but I thrive best when I am busy with a healthy amount of responsibilities and activities (for me, too much free time is dangerous).
One thing at a time. This one is really hard for me, especially when I am home and laundry, dishes, and other quick tasks beckon. Though still a struggle, by having this in writing (a sticky note by my computer), I can remind myself that other tasks can, and should, wait until I can devote proper attention to them.

Although, thankfully, I have been learning to stay fairly focused during work time, I still find myself wasting precious minutes. But life is a gift and I want to cherish each moment! Before venturing into marketing, I dreamed (still dreaming) of being a poet. In university, I was extremely involved in the writing world, travelling to conferences, working as editor of our literary journal, and even publishing a few poems in journals.

But for some reason, scheduling in my own personal “creative” time has proved to be the most difficult task yet. As I continue to work to improve my focus, I hope to learn to focus on more than just work and home responsibilities, but also my own creative outlets and dreams.

Tell me, how do you work to improve your focus?

 

Image source: morguefile

Featured on Friday: “Best of” Links!

Whatever happened to the “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer”? Crazy, yes, but lazy and hazy, not so much! With 19 book launches on the schedule this year (so far), we haven’t experienced our normal summer slow-down, and there’s always another task on the to do list that we’re trying to take care of before calling it a day.

If you do happen to find yourself with some “lazy” time on your hands this weekend, then I highly encourage you to bookmark this post and come click through some of these great links from clients, team members, and more.

I just finished reading an advanced copy of Women & Transition: Reinventing Work and Life by Linda Rossetti, a book that we’re looking forward to launching later this fall. If you want to learn more about Linda and her work, I recommend reading her most recent post, Choice or Compromise?
The next (quickly approaching) launch on the books is The Genius of Opposites by Jennifer Kahnweiler. This week you can find her post, Becoming Extraordinary , on the SkillSoft blog. Don’t forget to pre-order your copy today, and make plans to join the launch week fun August 17-21!
DATE CHANGE! If you signed up for the launch of Unseen Tears by Beau Sides, please note that the dates of the launch are now August 24-28. In other news, it is now available to purchase through the CS e-store, and coming soon in paperback and Kindle on Amazon. All proceeds go to support Global Partners in Life, a non-profit working to enhance the lives of young people in China.
Whitney Johnson’s new book, Disrupt Yourself , will be launching this October, but the buzz is already starting to build thanks to TBB folks like:

Martina McGowan ( read post )
Dan Forbes ( read post )
Paul LaRue ( read post )
Chantal Bechervaise ( read post )
and fellow author, Bonnie Marcus ( read post )


Did you catch Becky’s post earlier this week? The Flaw of Relationship Building on Social Platforms clearly struck a chord with readers, so if you missed it, be sure to check it out this weekend.
While we’re talking about social platforms, although they shouldn’t be your only source of relationship building, we’re certainly not against them! If you haven’t visited our Weaving Influence page on Facebook in a while, we invite you to come on back and engage with our team. We look forward to seeing you around!

TGIF and enjoy your weekend reading!

The Flaw of Relationship Building on Social Platforms

Building online influence through amassing connections on social media platforms (alone) is a flawed plan. I’ve often compared relating to people on social media platforms to meeting friends in a coffee shop or bar.

When you go to a coffee shop, you can meet someone you already know or you can strike up a conversation with a total stranger.

You can meet several new friends during the course of an hour. You can learn from them, laugh, and then walk away and never see them again.

Coffee shops are comfortable, and bars are a fun place to talk, but you are unlikely to build sustainable relationships unless you take the relationship farther and exchange contact information with a plan to meet again.

I’ve had many prospective clients tell me they don’t have an email list but they have hundreds (or thousands) of connections on LinkedIn. While a connection on LinkedIn is more lasting than a casual encounter in a coffee shop,there’s still a step missing.

Being connected on LinkedIn is a powerful way to access influencers while growing valuable relationships and a strong network,  but sharing content or sending a message on LinkedIn is still far inferior to sending someone an email message directly, sending a text message, or calling on the phone.

And last week’s news that LinkedIn initiated changes to how users could download data (changes that could take up to 72 hours) and this week’s news that they’re reverting that change, bolstered my conviction that any significant work anyone wants to do online MUST be on their own domain.

Check out  the headline on Fortune: LinkedIn brought back this popular feature.

Why is it popular? Because people see value in their connections. They want a way to contact connections easily — outside of LinkedIn, the same way that you’d want to exchange business cards with a kindred spirit before leaving a great coffee-shop conversation.

The only data you own and control online is the data you create or collect on your own domain. The only contacts you can reliably count on are the ones who have opted-in to your email subscriber list or the one whose contact information you can easily access.

Go ahead and find/form as many relationships on LinkedIn as you can. It’s a powerful platform. Adding connections on LinkedIn will exponentially increase the reach of your network.

And don’t stop meeting people in coffee shops, airport bars, or conference happy hours.

But don’t make those casual encounters the end of your relationship building and don’t grow your connections on LinkedIn as the primary focus of your influence building strategy. Doing so will put you at risk of loss of data or the ability to connect, if (when) LinkedIn changes their platform again. Instead, use LinkedIn as a place to connect and focus instead on providing content of value that will inspire people to subscribe to your email list so they can stay connected to you

Social media platforms are a convenient place to find and form relationships, but if you want to have a deeper, more connected relationship, you have to take the relationship out of the coffee shop, finding a way to stay in touch with a real-life friend who matters.