Becky Robinson's Blog, page 74

Featured on Friday: Ken Blanchard & Mark Miller

Late in 2013, a large box arrived on the doorsteps of several Weaving Influence team members, myself included. Within the box we found a thank you note, a gift card, and a giant cow. Once pictures were taken and the laughter subsided in our respective homes around the country, we all compared gifts on the team Facebook page.

While I don’t know what the others did with their unexpected family addition, my cow became a mascot in my home office. A daily reminder of why we work so hard as a virtual team to launch books and support leaders, and how blessed I am to be able to be able to do work I enjoy, from home… with an enormous stuffed cow close at hand.

If you’re wondering, “Why the cow story?” Well, half of today’s featured team cannot be talked about without associating that cow with him.

Meet Ken Blanchard & Mark Miller

Do those names ring any bells? You might have heard of them. If you asked them what they do, one would probably say he’s written a few books over the years, while the other would quip that he sells chicken.

Ken Blanchard has written more than “a few” books – at last count it was more than 30! Ken is the “Chief Spiritual Officer” at The Ken Blanchard Companies. In 1979, Ken and his wife Margie started their own management consulting business, which eventually grew to employ more than 300 people, with offices around the world. In 1982, Ken co-wrote The One Minute Manager which sold over 13 million copies and has appeared on business best seller lists for more than 2 decades.

In 2004, Ken teamed up with Mark Miller to co-author The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do.

Mark Miller began working as an hourly team member with Chick-fil-A in 1977. He joined the corporate staff a year later, starting in the warehouse and mailroom, then working his way up through the leadership levels in Corporate Communications, Field Operations, Quality and Customer Satisfaction, and Training and Development. Today he serves as the Vice President for Organizational Effectiveness, and has written three more books based off of the characters found in The Secret.

Connect with Ken & Mark Online

Ken on Social: Facebook, Twitter,  (company page), Google+, Website

Mark on Social: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Website

Join the 10 Year Celebration – September 1-5!

Our team is joining with Ken and Mark to celebrate the September 2nd release of the 10th Anniversary Edition of The Secret, and we’d love for you to join us! There are lots of ways to be involved in the launch of this book, including joining Ken and Mark for a FREE webinar, hosted by Becky Robinson. If you don’t have plans, join them on September 29 at 2 pm (ET) to learn more from these two great leaders. Sign up today! 

Also, take a moment to check out the resources found on the book’s NEW website, and start spreading the word through your social media channels. Do you have a Pinterest account? You can pin images directly from the website, which means anyone who clicks through to them will also be able to learn more about the book. It’s a win-win!

You Tell Me! What’s your favorite book by Ken Blanchard? What’s your favorite book by Mark Miller?

 

Featured on Friday: Bill Bliss

We have the opportunity to get to know a lot of amazing leaders, coaches, and authors through our work at Weaving Influence. Since I started with Becky in 2012, I’ve learned a lot – not just about the business, but about myself. No matter what the project or who we are serving, I have walked away with some new piece of knowledge to use again in the future.

My role with Weaving Influence has shifted many times over the last 27 months, but has most recently landed me in more of an oversight and training position. At times I feel like I’m just trying to stay afloat, which is usually when I recall some piece of wisdom from a client’s book. Though I will never have “CEO” after my name (I know my own limitations), I found that reading through Success in the C-Suite provided a number of encouraging ideas, which is one of the many reasons why I am so thrilled to introduce today’s focus of Featured on Friday.

Meet Bill Bliss

Bill is an executive coach who founded Bliss & Associates Inc. in 1996. He and his firm coach business owners and leaders to become BETTER leaders with greater influence and impact. He has worked with CEOs, presidents, vice presidents, and Directors at a variety of companies, and recently completed the e-book that I mentioned earlier, Success in the C-Suite, in which he pulls from his years of experience and provides steps to take to promote positive leadership change.

Bill is also a founding partner of the John Maxwell Team, and a John Maxwell Certified Coach, Trainer, and Speaker. In 2004 he wrote Your Journey to Success: 10 Steps to a Success Transition, and in 2009 he published Leadership Lessons from THE BOOK (available on Amazon).

Find Bill Online

First thing you’ll want to do is connect with Bill on LinkedIn and Twitter. Then bookmark his blog, look around his website, and learn more about his newest e-book.

A Special Offer

As you will have caught by now, Bill has a new e-book out (Success in the C-Suite), but he’s offering a condensed whitepaper version of his book for free to anyone who is interested. All you have to do is click HERE and then share your name and email address to receive the free download. Having read both the book and the whitepaper, I can assure you that you will walk away encouraged and excited to move forward on your leadership journey.

You Tell Me! What’s the most important leadership lesson you have learned? What is one piece of leadership advice you think others could benefit from knowing?

How Do You Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be? (Four Career Transition Tips)

Daily, unrelenting headaches. Doctor visits. Medication. Exercise. Chiropractic care

My husband experimented with every reasonable treatment offered for the headaches that plagued him for months. With no cause determined except stress, he made a big decision to make a major career change.

Everyone who hears his story of transitioning from full-time ministry as a pastor and church planter to “what he does now” laughs and wonders.

How did that happen? How did my husband go from ministry to _____ ?

What he does now is so far removed, on the surface, from what he did before, that people shake their heads, widen their eyes, and listen intently.

If you knew my husband, the similarities of what he does now to ministry would become clearer. He likes to right-wrongs. He wants to make a difference.

How do any of us land in the careers we have? Behind every career, there is a story.

Carrie’s career changed with one good morning tweet. Mine changed with a Facebook post. Alexandra Watkins found an unconventonal path to success. My husband’s career changed with a decision to “do something, anything, different.”

If you want to make a change, how does it start? How do you get from where you are now to where you want to be?

Be open to the unexpected. I didn’t expect to become a business owner and entrepreneur. My husband didn’t expect or plan for his current career. But we both stayed open to possibilities and ideas and we both ended up in jobs that we love (usually). Whitney Johnson calls this dating your dreams — you may need to try out several paths before you find the right one.

Show up every day. You will not get where you want to go without working very hard, with disciplined, focused, consistent effort. To get where you want to go, keep moving forward. To land his current career, my husband persevered through two years of interviews, a hiring freeze, and extensive digging into his personal background. In each phase of the process, he had to show up with his very best, which required personal fitness and readiness, both physical and mental.

Expect challenges. There is not a day in my business that I don’t face challenges. Some are larger than others. I have wanted to quit — more than once. Nothing about starting and growing a business is easy. Quitting is not an option. Instead, I daily choose to believe that what I am doing is absolutely worth it.

Stay focused on what truly matters. If you are transitioning to a new career, you may feel discouraged and wonder what’s ahead. Even after you are settled, you may face setbacks. The only way around them is to remember what matters most.

Apart from my faith,  people motivate me most. My husband. My three precious daughters. Our life now. Our life in the future. The talented people who choose to work with me in this business. Our amazing clients and the good work they are doing in the world. All the people our work touches. If you are reading this, you are among them. It is for each of you that I do what I do. You are the reason I am here. You are the reason I persevere.

How do you get from where you are to where you want to be? Keep walking. Keep trusting. Don’t give up.

Tell me something! Which of these four tips resonates most with you? What will you do, today, to move closer to your desired future?

 

A Wake-Up Call: Thoughts from Day 2 of a Water Usage Ban

Few of us care about issues that don’t impact us directly, at least not in sustained or action-producing ways.

In fact, I brushed off a family member’s concerns about the drought in California when I visited her last  year. She didn’t want help with the dishes from the “midwesterners.” She thought me far too free with the flow of water.

Honestly, I felt irritated. I just didn’t get it.

After only two days of a water usage ban in my hometown, I understand more fully her care in conserving water. Southeastern Michigan, where I live, gets water from Toledo, Ohio. In our area, more than 500,000 people are affected by a water usage ban (do not drink, do not boil) as the result of an algal bloom in Lake Erie.

For our family, it doesn’t feel like a crisis — yet. We have plenty of bottled water to drink; we have friends with wells who have shared gallons of water for washing dishes and who have welcomed us into their homes to take showers. We can do laundry with cold water. If we were brave enough, we could shower (but not the kids!)

Necessity being the mother of invention, I figured out how to wash our family’s dishes with very little water. When washing dishes has a real and felt price tag ($1 per gallon of distilled water), it would be crazy NOT to conserve.

We are also using lots of paper plates and plastic cups, not an earth-friendly choice, but one that helps offset the inconvenience of living without running water.

When clean water is available in abundance, it is far too easy for us to take it for granted.

Yes, I have been careless in using water. I have not ever considered the source of our water supply or its sustainability. I like to take long showers and fill the bathtub extra full. I am not strict with my kids when they change clothes multiple times and I do countless loads of laundry each week as a result.

Unlike my family member in California who is in tuned with the water crisis in her area and mindful of its source, I will admit — I was happily oblivious before this.

As those in my area await the results of another round of results from tests to our water supply, as we wonder and wait to see how long this ban will continue, we have more questions than answers.

How long will this crisis last? What can be done to create a safe sustainable water source for our community? Who will lead this effort? What can individuals do to help?

I am more awake to these issues than before, but for how long? When we get the all-clear on our water, will I go back to carelessness? (I hope not.) Will everyone else in our area?

My plan for now is to stay mindful and grateful for the water we have, to help others as I can, and to stay informed so I can get involved in appropriate ways.

Tell me something!  Are you happily oblivious to water issues, or mindfully conserving? If you are affected by the water ban, how are you faring? How will you be different after the crisis passes?

 Here’s a blog post with instructions about how to contact Ohio politicians — a great way to get involved.

Of Course I Blog

Talking to some collaborators, they expressed surprise that I blog regularly. Really?

My business involves consulting with people about strategies to grow their influence online. The core of my message is that the most important part of anyone’s online presence is their own domain.

Your own domain is the only place you own and control. Regularly creating fresh, relevant, value-adding content on your own domain is the most important way you can build your online influence.

If I didn’t blog regularly, how could I encourage others to do so? If I didn’t regularly show up on social channels to make true relational connections, I would have absolutely no credibility to tell others to do so. If I didn’t practice what I preach, would anyone be listening?

I have had some people tell me that they can’t do what I do because they are busy running a business, serving clients. I am doing the very same thing. It would be easy for me to coast, but integrity demands that I do the very things I encourage my clients to do. I blog regularly. I tweet regularly.

My online presence is far from perfect (please don’t look at my neglected LinkedIn profile), but showing up online consistently and helpfully is an important part of every work day for me.

I have created efficiency – scheduling content in the early morning and spending brief moments checking on channels in real time to interact. I also have support – a team who manages our company channels and helps in marketing our company in the exact ways that I would recommend to my clients.

But, of course! Of course I blog.

To write this post, I set my timer for 12-minutes. I typed furiously, clicking away from the edit screen to distractedly send some tweets. I finished a first draft with two minutes to spare.

I will spend 5-10 minutes adding a photo, meta data, adding links and copy editing the draft. I will publish. I will spend 10 minutes scheduling a few tweets. I will move onto the business of running my business.

What about you? Do you blog? If not, do you have 10-minutes to start a draft?

What We Choose

One of the most significant aspects of leading a virtual subcontractor team is the tremendous choice each person has in participating in our work.

Each person has chosen to be a part of our team, and chooses in what ways they will participate in the work we do in the world.

I recently sent an email to my team with the subject line “Choose.” I was astounded by the response and grateful for the insights my team shared about what they are choosing.

Here is the email:

We can each choose how, when, and where we work. We choose what energy or passion to bring to our work. We choose which projects we tackle first and what level of urgency we give to projects and tasks.

My greatest hope as it relates to your work with Weaving Influence is that you will choose to bring the best of what you have, in each moment, to your work: your focus, intensity, desire, and talent. If you choose to do that, we will be the best company possible and consistently satisfy our clients.

I also hope you will choose to put boundaries around your work so that when you are off, your best focus and attention is on other areas of your life.

I hope you will choose to keep learning and growing, every day.

I hope you will choose to celebrate wins and let frustrations slide away with each new day.

I hope you will choose to be a help and encouragement to others on the team.

I hope you will choose to ask for help when you need it.

Hit reply and let me know what you are choosing today!

You can choose!

Here are some responses:

I choose to make a difference each day by treating Weaving Influence as if it were my own company, pouring myself into it so that our clients recognize the value we bring to their ideas.

I choose to invest the best focus, energy and attention to Weaving Influence when I am working, and to give that same focus, energy and attention to the other areas of my life when I am not, and to seek balance.

I am choosing to put family first today, and realize that I cannot do everything all the time. I am also choosing to embrace the flexibility of this job as I try to do a little of both today.

I choose to keep progressing as a father, a husband, a partner, a co-worker and a human. I choose to learn from my failures and shortcomings and turn them into my strengths. I choose to live by this quote by Einstein, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” Let’s go ride a bike!

I am choosing to be intentional. Whether I am working, parenting, doing housework or eating.

Today as everyday, I choose to give life in general my all. When I am working, I am WORKING only. I choose to be available and supportive to my co-workers. I choose continue to think about the company as a whole because it is our baby together.

I choose to slow down and pay attention to the needs of those around me today- close-by and virtually- instead of buzzing through my day.

I am choosing to think cheerful thoughts today. I am choosing to do what I can as I’m able, and choosing to NOT stress about the rest!

I choose to focus on the positive today and ignore the fears that keep trying to bubble up.

I’m choosing to keep a positive attitude! 

I’m choosing to believe in the power of creativity to bring our clients’ messages to the world with nuanced understanding and fresh perspective.

I’m choosing to trust in the world’s turning and not overwhelm myself trying to think 10 steps ahead. Everything will work out. The present is enough, the present is just as it should be. And the future will turn out the same.

I am choosing to be fully present to the people that matter most, putting away the distractions like my phone, my books, my ipad – the things that lure me in and away from human interaction. I am choosing to find ways to work less and take much better care of my body and soul.  I am choosing to give the best of what I have to offer to the people I serve.

 I choose to be intentional about my interactions with every individual I encounter… to be present in that moment with them… to commit to giving my very best in both professional and personal settings… whether in person, over the phone, via email, etc. 

I choose to wake up today (and everyday) and be the best team member I can be, as well as the best service I can be for our clients. I choose to do all of this because of YOU. You are what motivates me to strive to be the best I can be, what makes me realize how thankful I am for the opportunity I have to work with each and every one of you, and what pushes me to produce work that our leader, colleagues, and clients can be proud of and represent Weaving Influence with a smiling face! I choose YOU.

These choices are powerful. I am inspired by and grateful for the people who choose to work with me.

Tell me something! What do you choose?

 

If Ryan is Asking, You Might Need This Advice, Also

I got an email in my inbox this week from Ryan, a new friend who listened to me present at last week’s Berrett-Koehler Book Marketing Event.

He followed up on some advice I gave at the conference regarding NOT posting the same update to all your social channels at once.

He sent this statement/question:

Currently, whenever I post a new a blog entry, I programmed WordPress to send the title of the blog and the link to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and Tumblr. Should I not be doing this?

I followed up with more questions:

Is that automated blast the only promo you are doing for each post? If so, I would encourage you to stop. If not, I would encourage you make sure that the other times you promote the content through your channels are highly customized and creative.

Ryan is looking for advice about how to promote his blog content most effectively.

Do you want to know, also?

Effective blog promotion is a topic I have written about many times over the past few years. You can find some of the advice gathered in my Website Basics and Blogging Handbook (free download).

I typically recommend that you invest as much time promoting your post as you spent writing it. If you spend a lot of time writing, this advice could be hard. As I try to write posts in under an hour, an hour of promotion seems reasonable! (You can even try writing a blog post in 12 minutes!)

Regardless of the time you spend writing a blog post, you need to promote the post, creatively, in multiple ways over several days, and then intermittently over time. (Sending your post out as an automated blast when you publish is not nearly enough.)

I recommend that you send a minimum of 6 (varied, creative) tweets over the first day, and 10 over the week that you release the post. These tweets can pull in excerpts of the post to entice people to read more.

It is important to tweet your post multiple times because Twitter is so ephemeral. The chances of people seeing the 1 tweet you send as an auto when the post is released AND clicking through is almost nil.

To get insight on the effectiveness of your promotion, be sure to regularly review Google Analytics. Where does the traffic to your site come from? Which social channels are driving traffic to you?

You may find that the traffic to your site from social channels is minimal. If so, that is a sign that you need to increase or diversify your social channels. When you notice a pattern of success in driving traffic to your site from a particular channel, you’ll want to maximize your social sharing and interaction on those sites. For me, Twitter is the most consistent driver. If yours is LinkedIn, then you will want to give more attention to your sharing there.

If you are going to invest the time to write, you must invest the time to promote.

Tell me something! What are your best practices for promoting your blog posts? What other questions do you have on this topic?

Featured on Friday: @JohnRStoker

I  come from an extremely honest (and opinionated) family who grades my mother on her meals. Anything below an “A” and the recipe goes out because Mom doesn’t want to spend her time fixing mediocre food. Growing up this way I thought it was normal to provide such honest reviews, so you can imagine the wake up call I got when I finally learned that not everyone was as willing to receive that kind of feedback.

Separating the general critique from a feeling of being attacked can be difficult, especially if you don’t have a relationship with the critic. To avoid hurt feelings, people can fall  into the habit of sugar coating their feedback, hoping that the person on the receiving end will somehow pick up on the changes that need to be made without being offended. This has led to a culture of Fake Talk – both in the workplace and at home.

In sharing feedback there is a fine line, but when done right, sharing the truth in kindness can be the beginning of positive change for your company and your relationships – both business and personal. Overcoming Fake Talk could be the missing piece you’ve been looking for to help in this area, which is why I’m excited to introduce you to our featured author of the week…

Meet John Stoker

John is a communications expert with more than 20 years of experience in speaking to audiences, assisting them in improving their communication skills, and showing them how to achieve astonishing results through their ability to interact with others. John and his wife have five children, so on a home level they are able to practice their communication skills every day!

In 2013, John published Overcoming Fake Talk. In it, he focuses on developing the eight principles that influence every conversation: awareness, knowledge, reflection, perception, preparation, expressiveness, discovery and connection. This September, our team is excited to be a part of a second Buzz week for John and his book, and we would love for you to get involved! Continue reading to learn how to sign up and where you can find John online.

Connect with John Online

Find John’s company, DialogueWORKS, on Facebook, follow John on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, and check out his author page on Goodreads. You should also spend some time clicking around his website, and don’t forget to stop by the new book site to learn more about Overcoming Fake Talk! If you’re interested in ordering a copy, it’s available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Get Involved in the Buzz!

Think you’d like to be involved in the re-launch of Overcoming Fake Talk? We would love to have you join our team and help us communicate effectively through social media channels, blog book reviews, interviews, and more! Click HERE to sign up. We will also be hosting a free webinar with John and Becky on September 11, 2014, so go ahead and save that date on your calendar, then check our sidebar for registration information as we get closer to the date.

You Tell Me! Have you had an experience with “fake talk” that you would care to share?

Learning, Growing, and Sharing in Small Bursts

Do you stack books on your nightstand and leave them to silently collect dust?

I keep my stack on the floor by my bed, on my desk, and in piles around my office, until Sharon, my assistant, carefully shelves books, asking which ones I want to keep on the stacks.

None of us read ever read our whole stacks or piles at once; instead, we pick up one book at a time. If we are deliberate, we read one word at a time. If we are skimmers, we scan entire pages at a time.

I am a skimmer and scanner typically, though I daydream about wide open hours to sit quietly with a book and notepad like I might have done during college.

The truth is, scanning books does not result in the learning I really want.

Instead, my greatest learning comes in bursts and snippets.

I learn from the wise words of a friend, as I did yesterday when my friend Mike Henry asked me a very challenging question.

Or I learn from a phrase that jumps of the pages of a book to imprint in my memory.

Or from a powerful tweet that I gold star.

Lately, I’ve been finding some very powerful ideas on a platform called the Aha Amplifier.

The small bursts of content on the Aha Amplifier are created to be shared with others. When you activate a book, you see three thoughts at a time from the book.

Seeing the ideas in groups of three creates potential for deeper growth and impact. Reading in threes slows down the skimmer in me. I can take each thought into my mind as I would sip a fine wine, turning it over to see how it tastes. When I find a taste I like, I can share.

This morning, I’m excited about two of our clients who have new books on the platform, Linda Freeman and Bill Treasurer. Both books are free and both can be sampled in small bites and shared to create greater impact.

If you are hungry for learning that will stick to your ribs, visit the Aha Amplifier today and activate Linda and Bill’s books. While you’re there, sample one of my two books also (Insights from Top Leadership Authors, Influence). Savor each bite, one at a time, to create the biggest possibility for growth.

And be sure to bookmark the site and return regularly, because new books publish nearly every day.

You Are Rich… Yes…You!

If you have been creating and sharing valuable content and knowledge, you are rich.

You have a portfolio of value, waiting to be effectively leveraged for greater returns, for yourself… and more importantly, for the world.

Many of the clients we serve have been creating content for years, decades even. Their content portfolios include multiple books, articles, blog posts, interviews, videos, white papers, newsletters, and more. In fact, some of our clients have been creating content so long that some of it has never appeared online, but was instead sent through print mailings (!), via fax newsletter, or in some other pre-internet form.

The first step to effectively leveraging your content portfolio is to create a content library.

What content have you created? In what forms? Where is it located? What are the key themes? Capture a list of all the content you’ve created in the past into a content library. Gathering this list could require an extreme amount of time and effort. If you feel overwhelmed by the task, consider breaking the task into manageable, short time bursts or consider delegating to a trusted member of your team who is familiar with your body of work.

Your list is likely pages long and represents years of effort. (Note: I have only been creating content online for 5 1/2 years and my list is long!) No matter the current balance in your bank account, no matter your net worth… you are rich with content and the value you can bring to the world.

Once you have cataloged your content, the next step is to consider how you can repurpose, reuse, and amplify your content to make the biggest difference in the world. 

What new content can you create by reviving parts of the work you’ve done in the past? Into what new forms can you reshape your previous work? Which thoughts and themes represent the most value for your current audience? What are the most important thoughts you’d like to contribute to others? What is the most effectively platform you have for sharing them? What will you share first? Next?

The key to optimized influence and impact is to effectively leverage the wealth of your content portfolio.

You will never realize the return on an investment you don’t make. In order to effectively leverage the content you’ve previously created, you need a plan to consistently share content online in a way that reinforces your differentiating value while adding extreme benefit to others. How often, where, and in what formats will you contribute your valuable content to the world? Write a plan and stick to it. Once you have created the plan and are consistently sharing your content, you must create and follow an effective marketing strategy to make sure your content reaches the largest audience possible.

When you bring the best of what you know to the world, you are rich — and you enrich others.

Tell me something! What content do you have in your portfolio? How will you leverage it to make a bigger difference in the world?