Becky Robinson's Blog, page 80

It’s Just Hard.

On the center of my bulletin board above my desk, I’ve posted a print out of “The Small Business Success Attitude” by Jim Blasingame.

It’s secured, smack dab in the middle of the board, with a red push pin.

During the moments when I find running my small business to be a difficult and daunting prospect, I read Jim’s wise words, like these:

I accept that my small business will face challenges every day.

Today: Day #3 this week that school is cancelled for extreme cold temperatures. It’s also the 10th school day this month that school has been cancelled.

When school is cancelled, I juggle motherhood + business. I love having my kids around. And. When we can’t leave the house, when they can’t play outside, when school cancellations also mean that my office helper can’t work regular hours without bringing her kids along (she has four!), I feel challenged. I feel edgy. I long for a return to the routine of our lives.

If my business is to survive, I must face each challenge.

Since this is my business, any issue, problem, or concern is my responsibility, ultimately. It doesn’t matter that some of the work that must happen is outside my comfort zone. I can outsource and delegate tasks and details, but I am ultimately responsible. If I am going to thrive and continue to succeed, I must face each challenge. Today, the challenges are relatively easy: a disrupted routine and schedule. Other days, the challenges are significantly more difficult.

The only thing in question is how well I will respond to challenges. The future of my business will depend on the answer to that question.

In the scheme of things, distractions at home are small challenges. My kids are playing happily. Tinker Toys are littering the floor outside my office, but they are old enough to pick up after themselves. They will go back to school soon enough and I will miss their smiles and mid-day hugs.

Yet, the reality today is that I work with their happy noise, and I strive to be as productive as possible.

I have chosen this life: chosen to work at home,  and chosen to work with a virtual, distributed team. When my office helper and her kids stop by to work, we welcome them and share our lunch. I can’t control the weather, but I can control my response.

It’s just hard sometimes. I am choosing to respond in positive proactive ways.

Jim Blasingame wrote his new book,  The Age of the Customer, to help small business owners like me find success and relevance. I am honored to support the launch of his book this week. I encourage you to buy a copy (or several) this week for small business owners in your life. 

Training for LinkedIn Success: Who Is Watching You?

If you want to be successful in leveraging LinkedIn, you need to create and execute a plan to increase your connections, every week. If you travel, for business or pleasure, you can use LinkedIn to connect meaningfully with people who live and work in the city to which you are traveling.

I’ve been relating LinkedIn Tips to my marathon training, so here’s a quick update in case you’re interested: I am keeping my commitment to training with four runs each week. (Confession: I packed but did not use my running shoes in Atlanta, since my LinkedIn network resulted in a booked schedule and no free time. So, last week I missed one run.) With 88 days until race day, I feel that I am right on schedule.

Want to know the secret to my consistent running?

I know who’s watching me.

My husband tracks my training; he’s training, also. My team is paying attention and cheering me on — Rachael, who works with me in the office daily, asks about my runs and helps me in blocking time to complete them. Sharon, a friend who I see regularly, has decided to train with me. If I plan 13 miles on the weekend, she commits to run the same distance. When weather allows, we run together.

Knowing others are paying attention motivates me to keep my commitment to train.

This analogy is a bit of a stretch, so be patient. Knowing that people are looking at your LinkedIn profile — knowing people are watching — can be a motivation to you in keeping your commitment to train for LinkedIn success. At the most basic level, if you realize that people are actually looking at your profile, perhaps you will be motivated to keep your profile up to date.

Who is watching you?

You can use a free tool on LinkedIn to see who is looking at your profile.  On your home screen on LinkedIn, you can see how many people have recently viewed your profile by looking on the right sidebar. While some data may only be available to premium LinkedIn members, you can gather some important information by regularly checking to see who is watching you.

On a weekly basis, click the section from your home screen on LinkedIn to see who has been viewing your profile.

Are you already connected? If yes, perhaps you can take the opportunity to send the person viewing your profile a friendly note, if even to just say hi and check in.

If you are not already connected, is the person viewing your profile someone you know? If the person is someone you know, you can take the opportunity to request a connection. If the person is not someone you fo not know, take a few minutes to review their profile. Is there a logical benefit to making a connection? Is there some value you can add for that person? Is there an opportunity for collaboration? If so, perhaps you want to send a connection request.

This simple step of a weekly review of anyone who has been viewing your profile may ignite a new connection or may spur a creative idea for future collaboration.

Who is watching you? When you find out, you may be able to use your knowledge to create opportunities — for yourself and others.

Tell me something! How are you doing in training for success on LinkedIn? What questions do you have that I can address in future blog posts?

Featured on Friday: Jim Blasingame

January started as a very busy book season for our team at Weaving Influence. Just three and a half weeks into 2014, and we’re already gearing up for our third book launch of the year! Although most of our clients books have a common thread – leadership – no two books are exactly alike. Last week, we worked to build the buzz for Leading Valiantly in Healthcare by Catherine Robinson-Walker. This week, we were gathering buzz about the 5th edition of Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans. Next week, we’ll be utilizing our team of buzz builders to help spread the word for The Age of the Customer®, the new book from today’s Featured on Friday focus…

Meet Jim Blasingame

You may know him better as the Small Business Advocate®, sharing his wisdom on a weekday radio talk show dedicated to small business and syndicated since 1997. He’s also the author of Small Business Is Like a Bunch of Bananas and Three Minutes to Success, and is very excited about next weeks launch of The Age of the Customer®, which promises to make you think differently about the relationship between businesses and customers, which is currently in shift-mode. In addition to writing books and being an award-winning radio show host, Jim is also the president and founder of Small Business Network, Inc., a media company dedicated to serving small business, and gives high-energy keynote speeches. Yes, you could say that he is a very busy man!

Connect with Jim Online

Find Jim on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter. And don’t forget to bookmark his blog for additional reading!

What’s Coming Next…

Next week is the big launch (January 27 – 31), and there are plenty of ways that you can get involved if you want to promote a man who has done so much to help those working in small business.

You can start by reading the free sample chapter – and if you like it, there are share buttons scattered through the sample so you can quickly and easily tell your friends. If you like what you read, go ahead and pre-order your book this weekend, or make plans to place your order next week – this helps with the numbers on Amazon and is an easy way to participate in any launch.

If you want to help build the buzz for Jim during the launch week, check out the page of ready-made tweets and graphics that you can share on social media. Like them all? Use them all – we love to see a lot of chatter during a launch!

Finally, in the week following the launch Becky Robinson will be hosting Jim for an hour long webinar (FREE – as all our webinars are!) to talk about the ideas in The Age of the Customer®. Register to join them on February 4th at 12 pm (ET), and bring a friend!

Is Your Way The Only Way?

Or do you tend to yield? Do you give power away to your talented people?

Veronika, a manager in a global drug research and development company, woke up one morning and recognized that 20 percent of her employees were doing 80 percent of the thinking. She was concerned for a number of reasons:

The 80 percent of her employees who weren’t really using their creative and intellectual abilities also seemed to be disengaged or just going through the motions at work.
The competition would gain an edge if her company didn’t use talent better, get more creative, and stay on the cutting edge.
She and a handful of thinking employees were overstretched and spent much of their time answering questions and meeting with others to solve their problems.
She had lost some talented employees and learned in the exit interviews that they were not being challenged enough and had grown bored.

Veronika knew she needed to do something and do it soon.  So she hung this sign on her door:

What? That’s it? Well, yes, basically.

Veronika explained to her employees that she had been underserving and undervaluing them by answering all of their questions and giving them step-by-step direction. So when people came through her open door and asked their questions as they always had, she pointed to the sign and asked them powerful, thought-provoking questions like these:

What do you think the problem is?
Who do you think should be involved in solving this issue?
What are the choices we have?

These questions empowered people to solve problems creatively, to lean on each other instead of on the boss, and to come up with multiple options.

She gave encouragement and praise as people struggled to produce outstanding, creative solutions and new approaches. Her team’s productivity and retention rates surpassed all others in the organization.

There is more to Veronika’s approach than meets the eye. The “No Answers” sign could be an annoyance if the follow-through did not include key elements:

Trust your employees to come up with the answers. Even if you would have done it another way, consider the approaches they create and support them all the way.
Manage your reactions when you yield and they crash! Collaborate with your empowered employees to learn from the mistake.
Stop micromanaging.  Let go.  Stop looking over their shoulders.
Give the spotlight away. Share the stage and the applause with your team members.

Yielding will increase the odds of retaining your best people. As you give people more power to create, make decisions, and truly affect the success of the team, their job satisfaction (and your odds of keeping them) will go up. At the same time, your ability to compete successfully and accomplish your business goals will increase.

You have phenomenal power to yield. Try it and see what happens.

 

Beverly Kaye is the Founder of Career Systems International. Sharon Jordan-Evans is the President of the Jordan Evans Group. This blog post is based on concepts from Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em: Getting Good People to Stay by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans. This bestselling book provides twenty-six strategies to keep talented employees happy and productive. In addition to updating and revising all information for the fifth edition, the authors have included more international stories and statistics. Available January 2014 on Amazon and in bookstores everywhere!

Training for LinkedIn Success: Consider Your Location

Due to the extreme cold, I am completing most of my training runs on the treadmill these days. When the temperature rises above 30, I look for opportunities to run outside, and my favorite spots include our local parks, where I encounter friendly faces, both human and animal.

Staying local (with running or networking) can be limiting. Just as running in new locales energizes my training, to find new ways to grow your influence, consider your location.

To grow your online influence through leveraging LinkedIn, consider how travel, for business (or pleasure) can present opportunities to deepen and renew connections.

Depending on how many connections you have made on Twitter, you likely have connections in many major US cities.

Consider Your Location

Plan Ahead In advance of planning a trip, consider whether you might have extra time to fit in meetings with your online connections. If possible, intentionally build extra time into your trip to allow for in-person networking. On a recent trip to Charlotte, I enjoyed the chance to spend part of my afternoon with longtime online friend Wally Bock.

Use LinkedIn’s Search Capabilities Search your LinkedIn connections to see who might live in the area to which you are traveling. Thoughtfully consider what value you might bring to those connections. Set aside any particular agenda and focus on relationships. How can you strengthen them? Face to face time is powerful!

Tag and Message Your Connections. Once you have searched, tag your connections in the city/region to which you are traveling. Craft a warm, personal message. Include the dates of your trip and windows of availability for meeting with people. Be specific about what you are hoping to accomplish. Sending a note to your connections will also have the added benefit of strengthening your ties and helping you be memorable, even if you are unable to meet people in person. Your note may be a reminder to the person to connect later by phone for collaboration.

Look for Connections Among Your Connections. It is possible that some of your connections in a particular city would benefit from knowing one another. If your time for in-person networking is limited, perhaps you can meet with several friends and once and introduce them to one another. If your budget allows, you may even want to host a happy hour or dinner for several connections in a city. Or, to meet many people at once, you can invite a group of people to join you for a coffee hour (Hat Tip to Jason Womack, who hosts #coffeechats wherever he goes!)

I am looking forward to travel later this week to Atlanta to consult with a long-term client and meet a team member for the first time (!) and I followed the steps outlined above: I booked an early flight to free up a half day for meetings; I sent a note to my Atlanta connections. I made plans to meet with several connections while I am in Atlanta: one long-time online collaborator, one client, a person from a non-profit I’ve done some pro-bono consulting for, and a potential client. I also, as a result of my LinkedIn location based outreach, spoke to one connection for the first time, and renewed conversation with two others.

Tell me something! How do you leverage LinkedIn while traveling?

Featured on Friday: Meet Team Member Christy Vaupel

In the past, I have used this Featured on Friday segment to introduce you to various members of the Weaving Influence team, including Megan, Amy, and Rachel. It’s as fun for me to do these posts as it is (I hope!) for you to read them. As I’ve mentioned before, while we work as a team, we are scattered far and wide and few of us have actually met in person. When we do talk, it’s usually about work-related stuff and we’re on the clock, not leaving much room for personal anecdotes.

As I read through the answers I received to my questions this week, I was reminded that I should stop talking so much and ask more questions – you can learn a lot about a person if you will simply listen. With that being said, it’s my honor to introduce you to one of our newer implementers…

Meet Christy Vaupel
Tell me a little bit about yourself, Christy.


I live in Sylvania, OH but grew up in Cleveland, OH. I moved here last year to be with my then fiancé, now husband :). We met in College at Bowling Green State University where I got my degree in Public Relations and made many wonderful memories. I am the oldest of five children and I LOVE having a big family. 


How long have you been doing work for WI?


I started working for WI the day after I returned from my honeymoon! It has been an absolute blessing and I love everything I have learned and been able to contribute in the short time I have been there. I look forward to being a part of this company for many years to come!


What’s your favorite aspect of your work?


Because I also work part time nannying, I love how flexible this job has been. I love that I look forward getting to work every day and that i’m able to do the majority of it from home. I live about twenty minutes from our CEO, Becky Robinson, so it has also been nice to get personal direct training from her!


What’s your favorite pastime?


I love exploring new things. Whether it be a new restaurant, city, book, movie – whatever, I enjoy learning and discovering new things!


How did you meet Becky Robinson?


As I stated previously, I also work part time nannying. The family I nanny for goes to the same church as Becky and they knew each other that way. Tricia, knowing I was looking for a job in my field, got me in contact with Becky which led me to my current position. I am so thankful for the opportunity and it just goes to show how God truly does work in mysterious ways. 


Tell us something unusual about yourself…


I got married about 3 months ago. I met my husband in college where we shared a marketing class together. I had mistaken him for a friend and embarrassingly ran up to him with a joyful, “Hi! HOW ARE YOU?!” He answered with a puzzled, “Good, how are you?” Needless to say it was awkward, but a few years later, ultimately led us to MARRIAGE!

Thanks for helping us get to know you a bit more, Christy! 

Training for LinkedIn Success: Increase Every Week

If you want to grow your online influence, you need to build a network of relationships and connections. The more relationships you build, and the more significant those relationships become, the more possibility you will be creating — for yourself and others.

My most basic advice to anyone wanting to grow their online influence is to grow all your online outposts (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc) as big as possible as fast as possible.

It’s similar to the advice my husband is giving me for my marathon training. My mileage must increase every week. Between now and my big day (103 days and counting!), I need to increase my mileage weekly to increase my endurance and fitness. Last week, I ran 23 miles. This week, I plan to increase my mileage to 25 miles. Week by week, as I add distance, I will move closer to my goal of running the marathon.

To train for success on LinkedIn, you need to increase your number of connections every week. Week by week, as you find and cultivate meaningful connections, you will move nearer to your goal of increased influence. In the same way that I block time on my calendar for training (4 runs per week: 3 weekday runs + Saturday long runs), you will be most successful if you block time weekly to focus on your LinkedIn presence. Even a fifteen minute appointment with yourself to work on LinkedIn, scheduled and kept, will help you increase success because even one added LinkedIn connection exponentially increases your network.

Here are some ways to find and increase your connections weekly:

Browse “People You May Know.” The easiest, fastest way to find potential connections is to browse the recommendations LinkedIn curates. I find them to be consistently accurate, returning a few results each time of people I actually know in person. Choose people you know well and take an extra minute to write a personal note when you send the request to connect. Remind the person how you met or share a reason you think connecting to you will be valuable to them.
Look for people you’ve met in person recently. Have you recently met clients or prospects in person? Or have you attended a networking event or conference? Use your stack of collected business cards and search for people you’ve recently met. Again, take the time to write a personal note.
Look for people you interact with daily. In writing this post, I found several clients who I had not previously connected to on LinkedIn. You may not have taken the time to connect to obvious people: coworkers, clients, and vendors. Look to add a few of these obvious people every week.
Find connections from other social channels. If you regularly chat with someone on Twitter, look for them on LinkedIn. Each week, seek to deepen a connection with a Twitter or Facebook friend by finding them and interacting on LinkedIn.
Respond to recent requests. It’s easy to glaze over LinkedIn invitations when they come into your email inbox. During your weekly LinkedIn time, take a moment to thoughtfully consider the requests. While I don’t recommend accepting every request, I do recommend accepting every request that comes from someone you know. When I receive requests from people I don’t know, I carefully consider what value I might be able to bring the person and whether I can see a logical reason it would be helpful to connect. If you have extra time, send a personal note to thank the person who requested the connection.

These five steps, implemented every week, will help you increase every week. Focused, consistent execution over time will help you reach your goals.

Tell me something! What steps do you follow to increase your LinkedIn network every week? What other methods for finding connections would you recommend?

Featured on Friday: The Best of the Web

The internet is full of information – some of it helpful, and some of it a complete waste of time. This week, we’re sharing a few of the links that have been helpful or interesting to various members of the Weaving Influence team. Some of them contain information that will help you on social media, others are simply good links from clients and friends, but all are worth clicking through and reading.

Social Media Help

Twitter Help : This one comes from Becky Robinson via Charlotte Ashlock (thanks, Charlotte!). If you’ve ever wondered how to help people get the most out of Twitter, then this is one article you will want to bookmark. Great resource on how to use the search function of Twitter, as well as ideas on how to break outside of your following to boost engagement.
Social Media Sizes : If you’ve ever wondered what size a profile picture is supposed to be, or scratched your head over a Facebook cover image, then you will want to pin/save/download this image for future reference. One thing to note: created a year ago, the size of the Google+ cover image has changed, but everything else should be the same.
Group Coaching Opportunity : Want to ramp up your online presence, but can’t afford to hire a social media team? Becky is offering something that could help you in 2014. Starting on January 28th, she’ll be running a six month group coaching course for a maximum of 10 people. Over the next few months, you’ll get training, encouragement, and tips on how to be more efficient and effective with your online time.

New Years Resolutions

This is the time of year when everyone is talking about what they want to change in the new year. If you’d like to think about your goals and resolutions a little differently, then I recommend reading these three posts for inspiration.

Deb Mills-Scofield – New Years is an Artificial Constraint (loved this post on Switch & Shift)
Susan Mazza – Make Room for Your Dreams (exactly what I’ve been thinking in 2014, so this one rang true for me)
Don Maruska & Jay Perry – 7 New Year’s Resolutions for Career Success in 2014 (because professional goals are important)

You Tell Me! What great links have you found? Please share them with us!

Grow Your Influence Like You’re Training For a Race

I’m training for a marathon.

As a result, I’ve added new activities to my calendar, both mentally and in writing. Each weekend, I need to fit in a long run. I typically run outdoors with my friend Laura on Saturdays. This Saturday, we braved snow cover roads to gut out 6 sloppy miles.

During the week, I need to fit in several more training runs. My plan is to run on the treadmill as soon as I return from taking my girls to school (typically 7:30 am.) Adding these commitments to my calendar increases the likelihood that I will follow through on my plans.

Focused, consistent effort makes a difference. If I run consistently, I will prepare effectively.

If you have goals for the new year of to grow your business, market a book, or increase your visibility online, you must apply the same principles I’m applying to my marathon training. Focused, consistent effort is critical.

Here are five tips to help you create and implement a plan for growing your influence this year by treating your online activities like fitness training.

Identify your big picture goal. What do you want to accomplish this year? How will you know when you’ve achieved it? Take some time to clearly identify what you hope to achieve, then write it down.
Find your why. A friend told me recently that she cannot understand my desire to run a marathon. That’s okay — she’s not the one who has to train. Decide why your goals are important to you and use that why to compel you to action. Your why is YOUR motivation and inspiration. Make sure your why is motivating enough to you help you overcome resistance. Then, write it down.
Craft a plan. Once you’ve identified your goal and found your why, you need to identify the steps and tasks needed to achieve your goal. Write those down, as well. Add individual tasks to your calendar and make a commitment to completing those tasks in the same way that you would keep a meeting with a client or business partner. Block off the time on your calendar.
Make sure you have the right equipment/tools. I started my training year with my new running shoes from Topo Athletic (I am sporting the ST for my treadmill runs) and a Garmin Forerunner (follow me on Garmin Connect?). Without the proper shoes, I might experience injury. If you plan to grow your influence in 2014, you may need to invest in technology (I couldn’t tweet without BufferApp) or training. If any of the e-book resources I’ve written would help you, you can download them for free at 12minutemedia.com by using the coupon code 600FREE.
Gather a support crew. My husband is also training for a marathon, so I have his encouragement (and nagging) to complete my training. My training partner, Laura, helps me keep my commitment to weekend long runs. If you want to grow your online influence in 2014, you’ll be more effective if you have other friends, both in person and online, to encourage you. Who do you know who would understand your why and provide accountability to you as you seek to achieve your big picture goals? I’m excited to announce a new group coaching opportunity for online influence building. If you’re interested in learning more, send me an email and I’ll share details.

When Laura and I run across snow covered streets, I tell her we’re hard core. To me, being hard core is doing what’s needed, day after day, to get where I want to be. In order to fulfill my dream of running a marathon, I know I will need to be hard core in my training. Growing online influence takes similar dedication and consistency. I encourage you to view your online influence building activities in a new way, executing your plans like you’re training for a race.

Tell me something! How do you treat online influence building like fitness training? What big picture goals do you have this year? What motivates you?

P.S. Starting soon, I’ll be sharing LinkedIn Tips to help you grow your influence in 2014. 

You Wouldn’t Know, Unless I Told You

We all have our stories. Some are obvious and observable, evident and easy to read — others are hidden or plastered in, buried, stuffed, or glossed over.

We all carry around those things people wouldn’t know, unless we told them.

When people share their stories, it’s a gift.

I’m always surprised, although I shouldn’t be, when I hear the stories of a casual acquaintance or close friend, unraveled over coffee.

Wow, I think. You lived through that.

There are times those stories resonate, mirroring my life. Other times, I hear something completely foreign to my experience and my reaction mixes wonder and curiosity with gratefulness. I am grateful that you shared. I’m curious to hear more. I am in wonder of how strong and resilient you are.

It takes courage to share stories, but the courage is rewarded with relationships brought closer. When we share our stories with others, sharing is a bridge that brings us together. As I communicate with vulnerability, I walk closer to you. As you listen with empathy, you move closer to me.

Sharing decimates isolation; when we share, we connect. When we share, we create the possibility for encouragement and support.

But knowing how much to share, how to share, when to share, with whom to share? That can be tricky.

I’ve seen friends going through a difficult time completely drop offline; they stop blogging and updating Facebook. They slip away, disappear. I see others, and I know they are going through a difficult time, but their online presence reflects business as usual. You would never know they were experiencing difficulty, unless they told you. Or, there are others who share everything, all the time, in real time, as it happens. Others share intermittently or after-the-fact.

The decision to share is completely individual. My personal preference has always been to selectively share. I don’t want to create an illusion online that I have a perfect life, nor do I want to share every struggle and setback.

Last week, my father died. When he had a stroke this July, I shared with my Facebook friends. When he died, I sent an email to my team and to our clients. I sent private notes to a few friends and called a couple of others. But I didn’t share on Facebook. I don’t really know why, except that I wanted space and time to process the news and I wanted to spend time offline.

Now that I am back online, I am choosing to share here. My sharing is an invitation to move closer, to connect.

I am sharing because I want you to know.

And because you wouldn’t know, unless I told you.

P.S. The picture is my world this morning. Snow, cold temperatures, and kids/husband home from school/work.