Becky Robinson's Blog, page 79

Living Our Core Values: Partnership

As a company, we’re a toddler: I’ve been working this new business full time not-quite-two years.

I remember my daughters at not-quite-two. They didn’t sleep through the night yet; they weren’t potty trained completely; they spoke in single words and short phrases, with lots of gestures. We had a lot of whining in the house.

When I remember that we are young and new as a company, I feel less worried about the fact that we don’t (or didn’t, until now) have an established vision, purpose, and values to hang on our virtual walls.

That changes now. Or starts to.

I have been working at defining our core values as a company and have identified six. I sent them off to some trusted advisers and shared with my team. There is (at least) one missing and I will likely refine over time.

Before I share the first value, I will share our mission statement:

As a company, Weaving Influence exists to make a positive difference by creating and optimizing opportunities:

For our clients, by sharing their ideas effectively to grow their influence and accomplish their big picture goals through the use of online tools.
For our team members, by offering meaningful, flexible work.
For our online communities, by sharing and promoting helpful, inspirational, educational, and life-changing content.

The mission is also a work in progress but encapsulates our mission as succinctly as I can, for now.

Our Core Values 

Our values guide our behavior, decisions, and choices. They highlight our differentiation from others. They are both actual and aspirational, describing how we operate as well as how we most aspire to operate.

One of our values is to partnership.

We relate to our clients as partners. To work with our clients effectively, we must develop strong relationships based in mutual trust and respect as well as effective collaboration every step of the way.  In most cases, we operate as an extension of our client’s internal teams, not as true vendors/suppliers.

Operating as partners, we are committed to our clients’ success and satisfaction.  We focus on staying in communication, anticipating needs and opportunities. We work to fix breakdowns quickly, by communicating openly about what is working and what is not as well as challenging each other’s thinking and expectations.

One of the most gratifying experiences for me so far in this business has been developing long-term partnerships with our clients. We have several clients that we have been serving for longer than 18 months. Most clients who work with us beyond an initial book launch will continue their contracts with no clear plan for ending our work together because of our strong partnership and commitment to their success.

We relate to our subcontractors as partners. Since we are a non-traditional, virtual company, and because we are moving fast, our team relationships are essential. We relate to one another as partners, committed to each other’s success and the success of our company as a whole. We relate to each other with kindness, respect, concern, understanding, and patience. We welcome newcomers warmly.

We develop strategic relationships/partnerships with our blogger community (Team Buzz Builder) and beyond. We would not be successful without the bloggers and other influencers who join us in sharing our authors’ work. As often as possible, we seek to forge new collaborative possibilities with the press, radio hosts, conference organizers, communities (Lead Change, Linked2Leadership, Lead With Giants), publishing companies, and more. We are grateful for opportunities to collaborate with these partners.

Tell me something! If you have worked with us as a client, subcontractor, or other partner, how do you see us living out the value of partnership? What could we do to improve in living out this value?

Featured on Friday: Book Launch Specials

Spring and fall tend to be some of our busiest book launch seasons, and we love  working together as a team to create a positive and successful outcome for our clients. As the company has grown, we have extended our services to include webinars and special book launch-centered opportunities, like bulk buy and pre-order offers.

If you are a part of Team Buzz Builder (and if you’re not – why not sign up today?), you’ve  been receiving emails about upcoming events and special opportunities to be involved in our spring launches. I hope you scan each email when it comes in because there’s always exciting news, notice of events, and book launch information contained within. So just in case you’ve missed it, here are a few dates to mark on your calendar, and some great opportunities to take advantage of in the coming weeks.

Get Ready to Lead Positive!

March 12 @ 1 pm (ET): Join us for a FREE webinar with special guest Dr. Kathy Cramer, author of Lead Positive and founder of Asset-Based Thinking. It should be a really interesting hour of discussion surrounding the ideas found within her newest book, as well as learning from the examples from real life leaders. Sign Up Now!

March 17 – 21: Dr. Kathy Cramer will be celebrating the official launch of her new book, Lead Positive: What Highly Effective Leaders See, Say, and Do. Use these social media tools for sharing about the book with your online communities.

If you are interested in  ordering larger numbers of Lead Positive for your team, we recommend checking out some of the special offers that Dr. Cramer is offering, including free coaching sessions and seminars. 

And finally, as a free gift to you for ordering a copy of Lead Positive, Dr. Cramer would like to send you an iBook code, good for a copy of her bestseller, Change the Way You See Everything. If you pre-ordered the book or plan on ordering during the launch week, don’t forget to take advantage of this special offer. Click HERE to find out how to claim your free iBook offer code!

It’s Time for an Idea-Driven Organization!

March 31 – April 4: Get ready to build the buzz for one of the best business books of 2014 and second co-authored book by Dean Schroeder and Alan Robinson, The Idea-Driven Organization. Read a sample chapter now – Click Here.

April 2 @ 1 pm (ET): Join the FREE webinar with Dean and Alan as they discuss the ideas and research that went into The Idea-Driven Organization. Learn how to avoid some major pitfalls and collect and implement employee ideas. Sign Up Today!

If you enjoy what you read from the sample and learn on the webinar, you might be interested in bulk buy options that Dean and Alan have made available to those who would like to use The Idea-Driven Organization with their team. Based on the number of books purchased, you have the opportunity to take advantage of the expertise of Dean and/or Alan for webinars, conference calls, workshops and more. Click through to learn more.

Thank YOU!

It’s so much fun to learn from these amazing authors and leaders as we support their work. Thank you for joining with us in the promotion and helping us spread the word. It amazes all of us what incredible people we have in our base at Team Buzz Builder and beyond, and we love hearing from each and every one of you. Thanks for being a part of our team!

What Threatens to Derail Your Dreams?

I just laced up my shoes for 2 mile run, my first run in two weeks.

I had to stop running for nearly two weeks even though I’m training for a marathon because I pulled a muscle and it hurt to walk . Today I am nearly pain free so it’s time to run.

The marathon is in less than two months and I’ve nearly allowed the injury to the derail my dream of a marathon this year.

What do you allowed to derail your dreams?

I recently shared my book idea with a few friends, including my friends who work at a publisher. One friend recommended that she connect me to her agent. Then she wrote back and mentioned that he related that many of the mainstream publishers have plenty of social media box in the pipeline.

And discouragement. I feel deflated. And I could let that comment, in passing, derail my dream. (Note: my friend believes in my idea and is encouraging me to move forward.)

About a year ago, filled with excitement, I wanted to create a new service offering for my company. And I remember: well-meaning subcontractors encouraged me to simplify and abandon the idea. They felt strongly that last year was not the right time to embark on something new.

In retrospect, their advice was good. But saying not now is not the same as saying not ever. I don’t want to let that “not now derail” my dream forever.

What does it take to derail a dream? Can an injury derail a dream? It could. I could decide to give up after missing two weeks of training. Or, I could rest. I could take time to heal. And I can try again.

Is hearing that there are others are writing books enough to derail my dreams? No way! I have an idea that can make a difference. It’s my idea. I’m only one who can write my book.

Is bad timing a good reason to talk a dream a side forever? No way! A dream deferred is a dream ready to be reborn.

Though there may be pain in running after an injury, I never expected training for a marathon to be pain-free.

Though I may have to advocate for my book to find the right publisher, I will persevere.

And though now may not be the perfect time to execute my dream related to creating a service that can scale, I can keep thinking, keep planning, and wait until it’s clear that the time is right.

My dreams will not be derailed. I may be running more slowly but I am still running.

Tell me something! What threatens to derail your dreams?

Note: I dictated this blog post via voice to text while running one mile. After a mile, I could feel the twinge returning, so I stopped, hoping that tomorrow I may be strong enough to run two instead of one. 

Book Marketing: Why Blogger Reviews are Essential

Marketing in the 21st century is evolving fast. The digital revolution has changed the way people consume the news, pick up on new ideas and purchase goods.

This is great news for smaller organizations (and authors) as, whilst a big budget is still helpful to purchase advertising space, it is no longer a requirement. The age of “interruption marketing” is past. Consumers want to be fed relevant, contextual information when it suits them. And it is possible to do this without a big budget using the World Wide Web, as every organization, no matter what size, can be a publisher.

The latest buzz-word in marketing is influencer marketing.

Tapping into the people that have reach into your target audience to talk about your product. And it is only going to grow as the move to researching every purchase on the Web grows. To the younger generation – “digital natives” – it is all they know.

So, as an author, how do you tap into this huge opportunity?

Well, you need great content in the first place (your book and associated promotional material), and if you are growing your own social media presence (Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) that can get you so far, but you need to reach a broader audience.

Which is where blogs come in. But why blogs?

Consumers trust bloggers – they are seen as independent, reliable commentators;
Bloggers are the experts in their field and you can laser target the relevant ones;
The blogosphere is growing in importance with over 2 million new blog posts every day; and
Google loves blogs for their changing content and active engagement.

Nowhere is this a more obvious opportunity than in the arts world, where a fragmented industry can now reach its target audience directly.

The film world has picked up on it with an exploding number of online reviewers and clever software apps like Distrify enabling immediate viewing and purchasing of films. And the book industry is following suit as reviewing, purchasing and reading are all digitized. Having your book reviewed on the Web has never been more important.

If you are unfamiliar with “blogger outreach” as a concept, it’s worth checking out this best practice guide. It’s a valuable strategy that requires a commitment, not an overnight win; but done right, it pays back in spades; and you’ve got a great starting point – a book to send to your bloggers!

So if you are ready to get going, how do you find the bloggers in your niche? Blog databases like Technorati are out-dated and Google blog search is a time-consuming minefield.

Which is why Inkybee was created.

Inkybee finds relevant bloggers using sophisticated keyword and tag-based searches. It then tells you which blogs are the most important by displaying a selection of key metrics, for instance:

You can search by any particular genre, niche or subject matter and filter by various criteria including location. And once you’ve got your bloggers sorted out, Inkybee also tracks your relationships with them and measures the impact of your outreach.

Is it time to get some rubber on your digital outreach road?

You can get started below:

Simple, smart blogger outreach

Find relevant blogs, rate them and manage your outreach.

Click below to create a free account and take Inkybee for a test run.

Start free trial

Hugh Anderson is a web entrepreneur and the Co-founder of Inkybee , a tool for smarter blogger outreach and influencer identification. He can be found on Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

 

 Photo Credit: Bastografie / photocase.com

 

Training for LinkedIn Success: Contribute to Groups

My good friend Maria has a fail-safe support system for her fitness training: The Running Buds. This group of women (numbering 127 in a secret Facebook group), regularly plans and meets for long runs, even in the worst weather. They provide accountability for each other and encouragement for the journey. They share helpful articles, post inspiring quotes, and cheer each other on, daily. Though I am a member of the group, I don’t benefit because I don’t participate or contribute. I have yet to join even one of their runs.

When you join a group for marathon training, you increase your likelihood for success. I have not joined a group, but have a defacto one including my friend Maria, my husband, my running partner, Laura, and my friend Sharon. All are encouraging me in my training.

If you hope to use LinkedIn to increase your influence, groups can help. However, joining several groups will not benefit you at all, unless you devote time to participating in the groups. What will benefit you is choosing one or two groups that are relevant to the ways you want to make a difference in the world. Once you have determined that a group is a good fit, you can begin to connect with others and contribute to the group.

Here are 5 ways you can contribute to LinkedIn groups to grow your connections and influence:

Answer questions. Often people will use LinkedIn groups as a place to find mentoring and advice. If you are able to help and add value, don’t hesitate to answer questions posted in your LinkedIn groups.
Offer help. Always seek to add value before you extract value. If there are ways you can help someone in a group, do it! One of the most powerful connections I’ve made online started in a LinkedIn group. Jesse Lyn Stoner was planning to launch a blog. Our friendship began when I offered to help.
Comment on others’ content. If you want others to read and interact with your content, you need to go first! Read and interact with the content others are posting. Be encouraging. Share thoughtful comments.
Share your own content, when appropriate . Instead of using LinkedIn groups as just one more place to drop your links, consider whether your content will be useful to your group. If so, share and invite interaction.
As you have meaningful conversations, send connection request to members of the group. A LinkedIn group can be a great place to find and cultivate new relationships. If you see potential for a deeper relationship, send a connection request. Give a specific reason why you’d like to connect and follow-up as appropriate.

As with any initiative, the most important factor is consistent participation. To find success in networking through LinkedIn groups, you must show up consistently. That’s when the magic happens.

Tell me something! How have you found valuable and meaningful connections through LinkedIn groups?

 

 

Training for LinkedIn Success: Focus

My best training runs are typically ones in which I am focused on what I most want to achieve. What I want is to run strong, to train effectively for my upcoming marathon (75 days.)

My best focus comes when I have a great song and rhythm in my head. If I repeat the lyrics of a song in my mind, I breath evenly and run steadily.

You will be most successful on LinkedIn if you maintain focus on what you most hope to achieve.

If you are hoping to develop business opportunities or see a new position through your LinkedIn profile, you need to make sure that your profile is rich with the keywords people would use to search for someone like you.

Here are five steps to follow to bring (and maintain) focus to your LinkedIn profile:

Consider these questions. What differentiates you? What unique value do you bring to the marketplace? What do you specialize in? What do you want to be hired to do?
Choose a few focus words. As you ask yourself the questions, distill your answers into a few focused key words that correspond to terms you think people might use to search for people like you.
Edit your profile. Once you have identified your focus, edit your profile to contain your keywords. If possible, make sure your keywords are included in every section of your profile, including your headline, summary, and experience. Add your keywords as often as you can and in as many places as you can, but do so subtly and in context, not in a forced or obvious way. If possible, request recommendations from satisfied employers or clients and ask them to include your keywords. Including your keywords frequently will increase the chances that the right people will find you — and will ensure that anyone browsing your profile will be able to quickly determine whether you are a fit for their needs.
Add new relevant experience regularly. A LinkedIn profile should be a living document. Regularly review your profile to be sure it contains your most up-to-date experience. When you do so, include your keywords as often as you can.
Whenever your focus changes, update your profile in include your new keywords. In the event that you change your career focus, be sure to change your keywords to reflect your new focus. Be as thorough as you can! If you change jobs, add your new position and any relevant, keyword rich details to help people understand your differentiating value.

When your LinkedIn profile is focused, you will position yourself to be successful in reaching your goals.

Tell me something! How often do you update your LinkedIn profile? Are the right people finding you through LinkedIn?

Featured on Friday: Meet Team Member Elizabeth Johnson

Today’s Featured on Friday is a fun one for me. The blogging world is an interesting way to build community. It was through my own personal blog that I first met Elizabeth. She had been kind enough to leave a comment, which I then clicked through to discover her blog and we started commenting back and forth.

Over a few months of blog hopping, I eventually discovered that she was about to release her first book and was looking for ways to promote it. It’s a long story, but the end result was that I got to help her launch Touching the Hem last spring, and through the process, she ended up coming on board the Weaving Influence team. That’s what I like to call a WIN-WIN!

Meet Elizabeth Johnson

Tell me a little bit about yourself, Elizabeth. 


I am a disciple of Christ and wife to my college sweetheart, James. I’m a fighter of chronic illness, a writer, and a lover of theology… all of which led to getting my first book published last spring! I also blog regularly at DogFur and Dandelions, read voraciously, and love connecting with new friends. My husband & I are currently living in South Carolina, where we’re preparing for a dual ministry in church planting and the Army chaplaincy.



How long have you been doing work for Weaving Influence?



I started working regularly with Weaving Influence in April 2013 – right around the time my book was published. It was exciting to me, as an author, to be a part of promoting other authors across the web, and I’m constantly amazed at how God brought it all together.



What’s your favorite aspect of your work?



That’s a hard one to answer – not because there’s no favorite aspect, but because there’s too many! I love our team – we have some amazing people who teach me so much, not just about the job but personally too, as we struggle and grow together and cheer each other on. I love that I get paid to do what I was already doing for fun, for myself – but now I get to help others with it, too. I love that it’s helping me overcome the effects of a serious illness, by allowing me to add structure to my days and stretching my capacity (in a good way), while offering enough flexibility that I can still adequately care for my physical needs.



What’s your favorite pastime?



Reading! I joke that I was born with a book in my hand. The truth is, I taught myself to read when I was three, and haven’t stopped since.



How did you meet Becky Robinson?



Short answer: on Twitter (fitting, isn’t it?). Longer answer: somehow I came across Carrie Koens’ blog, and started reading it and getting to know her on Twitter. Through her, I was introduced to Becky (and the other team members of Weaving Influence). Becky had just released  31 Days of Twitter Tips , which I found tremendously helpful, and we began interacting on Twitter as a result. I quickly grew to admire her passion and ideas that became Weaving Influence, and am thrilled that I now get to work under her leadership and expertise.



Tell us something unusual about yourself.



We love visiting state parks and national parks – for both the national history and the mountain trails. We enjoy learning firsthand about our nation’s greatest moments and heroes, and exploring God’s beautiful creation together. In fact, that mutual enjoyment stems back to the beginning of our relationship… when we were hiking in a local state park, and I tripped and fell (quite literally) at his feet. We started dating seriously just a few weeks later, and the rest is history! How’s that for a love story? 

Thanks for telling us about your Weaving Influence story, Elizabeth! We’re glad to have you on the team!

Training for LinkedIn Success: Collect Praise

Along the route, at nearly ever mile, we saw the signs.

Someone wanted Monica to be encouraged during her half-marathon. At each mile, they placed encouraging, inspirational posters, calling her out by name, reminding her of her own inner strength and perseverance.

Even though the signs were not intended for me, I felt buoyed by them.

Whenever I am working hard to achieve something big, I appreciate encouragement and support from others. In my marathon training, I must constantly remind myself that I am strong enough. Part of what fuels me is the mental file I’ve created of what others say about me and my running, including the words of my running partner, Laura, who consistently reminds me that I have endurance to run distance.

As you work hard to achieve something big with your career, recognition and praise from others will contribute to your success. To be successful on LinkedIn, you need to collect praise — recommendations from people who know, recognize, and call out your strengths.

Here are a few tips about gathering LinkedIn recommendations:

Request LinkedIn recommendations from people who know you well. The best recommendations on LinkedIn will provide specific, concrete examples about your strengths and abilities. In order to provide details, people must know you well.

Give direction as to what you’d like your recommendation to include. The words someone uses to write your recommendations matter. When possible, provide key words to those writing recommendations. The more key words contained in your profile (and recommendations are part of your profile), the more likely you will be to be found by people searching for the unique value you offer.

Make the process as easy as possible; be alert to opportunities. When working with a client or colleague, you may hear them say words of praise that would be a great LinkedIn recommendation. Be alert to those opportunities and ask for a recommendation! In those cases or others, your friends or colleagues may appreciate you drafting a recommendation for them. While it may feel strange, this is a gift because it gives you the chance to be sure you include the important details that will help showcase your abilities.

Ask for new recommendations regularly and find ways to share positive feedback about your work with others. Make “collecting praise” a regular part of your influence-building regimen. Ask for recommendations when you’ve completed a project or engagement. Don’t be afraid to ask former clients for recommendations, even months after the fact. Once you have great recommendations, you can repurpose them on your website or for use in social media updates to reinforce your brand value.

Be generous in recommending others. As often as you are able to do so enthusiastically, write genuine, specific recommendations for others. When you give without asking for anything in return, you may be surprised and pleased with the results.

In training for LinkedIn success, gathering recommendations is a critical activity. Who will you gather praise from today?

Tell me something! What tactics have you used to gather LinkedIn recommendations?

 

 

Featured on Friday: Dr. Kathy Cramer

If someone asked you what your biggest “WIN” was for the week, what would you say? Becky likes the Weaving Influence team to regularly share our wins, no matter how big or small. During book promotion weeks, my wins usually revolve around Amazon numbers or new book reviews or the number of tweets that have been sent out. It’s certainly been a week of wins for Jim Blasingame, and we love celebrating each one of them.

As the project manager for our book launches, I don’t have quite as much direct interaction with clients as Becky or the lead project managers do. As an introvert (INTJ, if you want the whole truth), I’m usually okay with that, and it’s one of the reasons this job works for me. But sometimes, picking up the phone is the only way to quickly and clearly come up with a solution, and even I, introvert that I am, get tired of miscommunicating through emails. This week, my WIN was getting to spend a few minutes talking with the subject of today’s post, and discovering what a delightful person she is.

Meet Dr. Kathy Cramer

Where to begin? Kathy is a psychologist, author of nine books, creator of Asset-Based Thinking (ABT), and won an Emmy for her film Stress: A Personal Challenge. She’s a business consultant who has worked with companies like Starbucks and Microsoft, but who also assists many educational and non-profit organizations. If you want to see her in action, I encourage you to watch her TEDx talk (you’ll learn more about ABT too!).

Her new book, Lead Positive: What Highly Effective Leaders See, Say, and Do, is scheduled for a big launch March 17 – 21; in preparation for that I found myself on the phone with Kathy, discussing details about several pages we’re creating for her. What took me by surprise was that despite her impressive credentials, she could not have been more down to earth. She’s charming and gracious, funny and engaging – just five minutes of speaking with her and you’d want to rush out and buy all of her books to see what she has to say. Since she’s a little busy writing books and sharing her wisdom around the country, the next best thing is to…

Connect with Kathy Online!

You will absolutely want to visit (and bookmark) Kathy’s beautiful website (drkathycramer.com). Find her on Facebook, follow on Twitter, add her to your Google+ circles, and connect on LinkedIn.

February Special Offer

As previously mentioned, Dr. Cramer is the author of nine books, including the best-seller, Change the Way You See Everything. During the month of February, Kathy will be giving a code for a FREE iBook version of her best-seller to everyone who pre-orders Lead Positive. I’ve mentioned before that I am a lifelong bookworm, so free books always make me a little giddy. If you want to take advantage of this special offer, click through to the Pre-Order page for specific details on how to claim your free iBook. Interested in reading a sample from her new book? Click here.

 

Sprint Day

Thursday is speedwork day for me in my marathon training.

I run a shorter distance, faster, in hopes that I will improve my cardiovascular endurance overall, resulting in an ability to run longer distances faster.

I have never been a super-fast runner, but I have certainly been much faster than I am now. What is encouraging to me is to see how consistency in running over the past 5 weeks has resulted in marked growth and improved fitness. With just 86 days until the marathon, I must stay focused on training effectively.

On sprint days, I run fast. On long run days, I run significantly slower. On tempo run days, my pace is somewhere in between.

In running my business, I have sprint days, also: all out, full speed, pushing ahead with everything I have. Like running sprints, sprinting in my business requires full focus. Almost everything else fades as I focus on the tasks at hand.

Those sprint days set me up for greater success on the other days because I get used to the momentum of moving faster — so my overall pace is quicker. It doesn’t matter if my sprint at work is as fast as yours — I just choose a pace for my sprint days that is faster than my usual days. The only person I am racing is myself.

What does a sprint day in business look like for you?

For me, a sprint day includes identifying needs in my organization and identifying people who can fill them. For example, I just got off the phone with a subcontractor who is willing to take responsibility for some details related to keeping our website up-to-date. Assigning tasks, delegating, and training are sprint-activities which will allow our company to be more successful long-term.

A sprint day also includes moving more quickly toward the future by evaluating current leads and potential work in the pipeline, completing and sending proposals, and projecting income expectations for the next quarter and beyond. I am sprinting when I am able to know where I am in this moment and can set my eyes at where I’d like to be in the future, all while taking quick steps forward.

Consistency in adding sprint-days to each work week, going faster for short periods of focus and productivity, will help me move toward my desired future.

Tell me something! Do you add sprint days to your work week?