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Trust is being who you are

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There we were at my dining room table, discussing the future of GeniusShared — it was a conversation that was one part ideation and another part candid truth. While I absolutely excelled at the ideation part of the conversation, I failed miserably at the candid truth part.

Liz said “You don’t trust me!”

To which I replied “Yes I do — I just don’t trust myself.”

Liz said “You don’t trust me enough to hear yourself argue with me.”

Liz saw me hiding my truth and she called me on it. Kindly. Gently. And firmly. After all, trust is the hard truth spoken gently.

I just wasn’t getting it — so I asked Liz “What is trust?”

She took a deep breath and summoned her patience to say – “Trust is when I don’t need to think about who I am with you. And you don’t need to think about who you are with me.”

You see — it was the part of the conversation that required me to trust beyond Liz. Yet for a million reasons, that today no longer seem to matter, I chose to hide. The reality was that I needed to trust myself too. To trust that my ideas were good enough, that I was smart enough and to believe that my voice was an integral ingredient when it came to the partnership we were building. And because I did that —  my voice couldn’t emerge.

It sounds so easy — but it wasn’t. At least not for me. The simple reality is that it took me months to see it. And to understand the power that comes from trusting myself enough to share my own truth.

Today, we have lots of different conversations related to GeniusShared, life, friends and the world. There’s never a shortage of areas for us to cover — and we have some of the most amazing discussions. Guess what? I no longer hide my thoughts during our conversations. I share them — without thinking about who I am. I just share myself. I do this because I know the difference it makes. And I’ve found my own way of saying what trust is — You need to be who you are and know that I’m not going to walk away because of it.

Jane Boyd is a Partner in GeniusShared. She is also the CEO of 45 Conversations Media & Education Ltd, a Canadian education and training company based just outside of Vancouver Canada. She works with educators, business, community and government in the areas of early learning, work-life, community development and employee engagement.

3 Things I Discovered About Marketing From My Customers

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By Chris Nosal

Over the years, going through various systems, methods, and education on marketing, I’ve come across a lot of information on the topic; much of it subject to debate, criticism, and even being completely contradictory (which made it hard for me to decide what to do, and what not to do).

However, one of the biggest things I’ve learned in marketing and working with people, is that successful marketing often comes down to just a few basic principles that, while often overlooked, make perfect sense when you think about them, but you can only learn them by listening to the people you’re serving.

But if you’re like me (and so many other marketers out there), you’ve gotten so wrapped up in trying to learn all the latest, greatest, and best “techniques” and tactics” that you were never able to see the basic reality of marketing itself.

And in this post I’d like to share with you 3 simple strategies that transformed my entire business:

1. Focus On Creating Great Products.

We know that our products and services are, ultimately, the only reason we make money, and they’re what we get paid for, yet I’m forever amazed at how many marketers take the element that is at the CORE of the success of their business, give very little time or attention to making it great for their customers, and are often content to sell mediocre products, as long as their marketing is good.

We live in the social media age, and if you want to get a good reputation, and to have a thriving business, your first priority needs to be on focusing on the core moneymaker in your business, which is your products; plain and simple, if you put great products in front of people, they will pull out their wallets.

2. Start By Building Trust.

Everywhere I look, I see hype and sensationalist claims; people shamelessly bragging and throwing hype in your face about how great their products are, and while this worked at one time, before the rise of the internet, when 4 or 5 people were doing it, and you had time to listen, now we hear this propaganda so many times a day that we just tune it out, and all these claims just blend into one big pile of noise.

If you want to stand out with your readers, start by talking about why you created your products, educating readers on the features of your product, and teaching readers how your product is going to benefit them. If you really want to stand out, build a loyal following, and get noticed, start by focusing on creating an intimate relationship with your customers.

3. Be Passionate About What You Do.

Whether it’s Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or Steve Jobs, people get behind someone who has a VISION, because they see how that vision will benefit them, and the world, and want to see that vision fulfilled. That’s the real secret to building a lasting business that works.

When you inspire people with a vision, you give them something they can get behind and support, and instead of just pitching a product, you’re building an emotional bond with people, and connecting with them on an intimate one-on-one level, which is a THOUSAND times more powerful than just trying to convince someone to buy something they don’t already want so you can make money.

No matter what you do, you need to make sure that you’re doing something great, because once you’re gone, no matter how much money you’ve made, you can’t take the money with you, and you can’t get back the time you’ve lost once it’s gone.

Remember what I said at the beginning of this post; the people you’re SERVING.

Your job and focus in marketing is not to make money, it’s to serve people, and if you follow this formula, the money will come naturally as a result of the service you provide.

So make sure you don’t become a slave to money, and that you use your life doing something you’re passionate about that helps people.

When you follow this formula, you’ll find that not only does it make you successful, but it also provides the added benefit of helping others, giving your life real meaning, and enabling you to make the most of every moment of your life.

Remember that if you truly want to be successful in marketing or business, it starts with focusing on making the biggest possible difference you can in lives of the people you help, doing what you love with your life, and you’ll find that everything else falls into place naturally.

Author’s Bio: Chris Nosal writes about various self-help, personal development, and learn some interesting new marketing strategies at his personal blog. You can also read his blog to get more free advice, connect with Chris, or download his free marketing eBook.

How to Attract and Influence Real Fans, Friends, and Followers

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by
Buddy Hodges

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Friendship and Influence

The inestimable value of friendship and influence is taken as a given here. This post assumes that you already know the “why.” It addresses the “how” in terms of timeless psychological principles which are fundamental to building personal relationships. Of course, commerce and business alliances are also based on personal relationships. We are talking about how to get people to know, like and trust you.

You may have heard these principles in some form before, but they are so important, in my opinion as a social psychologist, that they are worth repeating until we remember to act on them.

Attract Others Like You

Meeting the people you want to connect with involves exposure. If you want to be in the right place at the right time, be in a lot of places. However, it is wise to choose which places are most likely to put you in front of the kind of people you want to know. “Stack the deck” to improve the odds that synchronicity and serendipity will work in your favor. In addition to finding the “right” people, you will be seen in the right context. The mere fact that you belong to a group or a specific social network causes you to be perceived as “one of us.”

Friendship begins with being seen and being noticed. Psychologists know that the old myth, “familiarity breeds contempt,” is false. In fact just the opposite is true. Why do you think politicians invest so much on yard signs? On the internet your personal brand is enhanced by repeated exposure. Post, comment, tweet, like, link, etc. Get your name out there for starters.

Attract and Influence by Investing Attention

To win friends it is more effective to be interested than to be interesting. The best way to motivate people is to find out what they already want and give it to them. Among the things people want most (and don’t already have) is attention. They crave recognition and respect. I suggest that you consider paying, or rather investing, attention.

In a free market economy good listeners are in big demand and short supply. Listening is a technique that is more easily said than done, because we also want to be heard. On social media we “listen” by reading with comprehension and commenting appropriately to show our understanding and interest. We invest attention by re-tweeting and linking.

Recommending or endorsing people (or their content) makes them like you. Sincere compliments are always appreciated, and your recommendation is valuable to them as well. Be authentic. Sincerity is one of the most likeable traits.

Influence Starts with Trust in Them and in You

Trust
BigStock: Trust

Stephen M.R. Covey wrote a book called, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything in which he calls trust the very basis of the new global economy and the essential ingredient for any high–performance, successful organization.

Greg Ferenstein wrote a post on the Mashable.com blog called, The Science of Building Trust with Social Media. Ferenstein quotes Professor Judith Olson of U.C. Irvine, who conducted research on internet trust. Professor Olson notes that “lacking traditional markers of trust, such as voice intonation and body language, when only text is available, participants judge trustworthiness based on how quickly others respond.”

Consider how you feel when someone fails to reply to your email or return your phone call after you leave a voicemail message. You build trust when you reply quickly to comments on your Facebook posts or on your blog. Commentators get frustrated when their comment is “awaiting moderation” for too long. It is risky to leave a “Drive-by” comment on another blog without waiting for a reply to engage in conversation. Although it is essential to be authentic, showing respect for another’s point of view in an online dialog helps create trust.

—-

Author’s Bio:
Buddy Hodges writes about Social Media Relationships and Social Media for Business at RelatingOnline.com and SocialMediaForBusiness.US Buddy’s Social Media Management business website is at: ProActionTeam You can find him on Twitter as @internetworker

Thank you, Buddy! Great insights on how fuels attraction and influence.

— ME “Liz” Strauss

Good, Great, and Irresistible Marketing Businesses

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When I pay attention to your message… when I watch your commercial, read your ad, listen to your presentation, can you assume that you’ve reached me?

Only if you define reach in the most literal sense.

And trust me, you’re reaching to believe if you believe that attention is synonymous with trust.

Trust isn’t a numbers game. Trust takes time to be established — it always did.

Good, Great, and Irresistible Marketing Businesses

We talk with thousands of people throughout our lives. Now that the social web has amplified the speed and reach of communication, it could be argued that some social folks online “talk with” thousands of people in a week. Certainly many businesses talk with thousands of people in a day. Some corporations easily talk with millions in a day. Still the fact remains that the ability to reach millions with our message means hardly anything if those millions don’t trust the people or place the message is coming from. Communication only helps a business when people trust what we’re saying.

  • Good marketing businesses know how to reach customers. The marketer shows how the product offers will solve a customer’s problems, how the offers will take care of the customer needs and desires at the right price in satisfying ways. Satisfying solutions at a good price will get people to buy in. Price is an important part of this mix.
  • Great marketing businesses know how to reach ideal customers and build values-based relationships. They find the people who share the marketers’ values and never make an offer larger than the trust they’ve built. The shared values make it easy for new customers to trust what the marketer says, to see the value in what the business makes, to value products and services that incorporate those values in everything. What we value is always worth more than the price.
  • Irresistible marketing businesses know how to reach ideal customers, build a values-based relationships and show customers that it is always easy and safe to work with that business. They invite ideal customers into a relationship bigger and better than simply a customer-fan. The business trusts and values customers by involving them in future plans — customers participate in having ideas, building content, sharing products, access to feedback loops that value bad news — and and holding customers in the highest esteem because they help the business thrive. That’s where the deep trust and irresistible attraction comes in.

The best form of attraction is built on trust — consistently proving that your business does business even better than any customer might think business would be! Business moves faster and with fewer micro-decisions when we can depend on people we trust. With trust like that customers tell your best true story for you.

Reach out to meet needs is not nearly as powerful building values-based relationships. Values-based relationships aren’t nearly as irresistible as the attraction of being a first trusted resource who consistently surpasses the standard.

Have you found your irresistible offer yet?

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Klout, My Story, and Why Opting Out Was My Only Choice

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It’s My Story

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When I was growing up, what we knew about each other wasn’t called data. It was called interaction, stories, and information. It came in the form of experience and shared events, gossip and oral history, and reports and report cards. Not every story told about us was unbiased, accurate, or even true.

In my youngest years, my dad taught me three guiding principles about such stories:

  1. Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.
  2. Consider the reliability of the source and what the source’s purpose might be.
  3. People can see what you do, not why you did it. Stick to your values and your actions will prove them true.

This Saturday those three guiding principles loudly came back to me. And they came with advice I give every day, “Own your own story. Never give power to tell your story to someone you don’t trust.”

Why Opting Out Was My Only Choice

I had high hopes for Klout when it started, though I thought they were taking something close to impossible in trying to quantify influence. I was interested to see how they would approach it, hoping they might identify something useful toward sorting the gamers and spambots from the people who were making the social web work. Did I think they would identify true influence? Not really. But I thought they might find a stone of solid respect around engagement activity that was worth looking at. It seemed a big quest, but possible.

As months passed, I grew leery. The algorithm that seemed to make sense, started changing violently. The first change rated inactive accounts higher and people I respected lost ground. The second or third major change came with an explanation using the word transparency, but what it transparently said was “We’re changing this to something better and we’re not telling what that is.”

People who had started using their measure, who had trusted it enough to include it in their client work, woke up one morning to find Klout had changed the algorithm without notice and with abandon.

It was at best a naive decision to move without thought to the people who were building on what Klout offered. Those people who were putting Klout scores in their marketing plans and on their resumes were building Klout’s credibility.

Still I stuck with them, because who hasn’t made a bad decision, especially when starting something new? But I watched with new interest in what they would do.

I became more aware that my data, your data, our stories are their product and they seemed to become less aware of the responsibility that might come with a offering product like that.

The Klout perks I was offered — especially the invitation to audition for the X-Factor — were all about my number not me. The additional unannounced tweaks to the algorithm that made it unpredictable and unstable did more damage to a sense of credibility.

Over the past few months, as changes have occurred, I’ve worked with folks at Klout via email, sending screenshots and describing problems that included:

  • Some pages never have loaded completely.
  • Notifications numbers and the notification report page varied widely from click to click and at times dropped out a whole month — skipping from 8 hours ago to 53 days with nothing in between.
  • My Facebook connections still never linked.

The service response was that of begrudgingly tolerant, but helpful people who lost interest when they couldn’t find a fast fix to their problem — which they saw as my problem. And in each case, the problem was never resolved and my last screenshot went into the ether, even though they had asked me to send it to them.

Saturday’s algorithm change brought this all back to me.
All this, my dad’s guiding principles, and my own words were staring me in the face.

Why I Opted Out of Klout – Three Guiding Principles

Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to align my goals and share my data with people who share my values and care for my story. I see the value in marketing data to brands who want more information and to brands who want to identify appropriate outreach partners. But when I considered a partnership with Klout and my dad’s three principles this is what I realized.

  1. Principle 1: In the last month, I played with Klout giving out +Ks like they were candy. I didn’t broadcast them. I was checking how the tool worked.
    • I compared my list of people I influence and people under my profile pix to the people who actually gave me +K — thereby saying that I’d influenced them — only 1 person was on both lists. I have never exchanged conversation with the people on the Klout list.
    • I received several achievements for “Raining Klout.” My last badge was for Raining 800 +K.
    • The more +K I gave and the more profiles I visited, the more +K I got for “doing something awesome.” One day I couldn’t get the amount of +K I had to give down to zero for over an hour.
    • As I looked to give only 1 +K to each person, I found that many of the people I admire had already opted out. The puppy on the 404 page and I became good friends. I also found that about half of the profiles I visited who still have a Klout presence have few to no +Ks on them.

    Even at their best, numbers flatten the data. They tell the what but not the why. In Klout’s case, we don’t even know the what and the what keeps changing.

    As my dad said, “Don’t believe anything you hear and believe only half of what you see.”

  2. Principle 2: The business model seems to be collecting data, identifying influencers in topical areas, and selling access to them via Klout perks. That model is like selling real estate where you and I are the houses. In their model, we aren’t the customers because we “get” the product for free. The people who pay the bills are the brands who read our profiles and “buy our stories” based on what they see. To make the model work well and be profitable, Klout needs “influencers” across verticals (real or make believe) that attract brands who want to reach them.

    When I looked at the story that my profile was telling, I found this.

    • Like most of us, my topic list included things I only mentioned once
    • My topic list didn’t include the name of my own event — SOBCon — though I tweet about it often and had it as a Klout list, a Twitter list, and admin a Facebook page by that name.
    • Others are considered experts about SOBCon, but my partner and I who founded the event are not.
    • All but one of the people listed as those I influence have never exchanged a word with me.
    • The latest label they gave me was Broadcaster.

    It sure seems the concern was not about telling a reliably true story. Consider the reliability of the source and what the source’s purpose might be.

  3. Principle 3: My values are these:
    • Loyalty — an honor for trust relationships with all of the people who help our businesses growth. Trust means that I can believe that you hold my best interests high.
    • Brilliant decisiveness — the ability to see a solid business decision and to understand how decision we make impact the people who help our businesses thrive.
    • Generosity of Spirit — the humanity to find solutions that serve all of the people who help us thrive as well as our own business growth.
    • A Playfully Responsible Sense of Humor — the room for fun and meaning in aligning our goals to build something bigger than ourselves.
    • Creativity — the expansive approach that allows everyone who helps our businesses thrive to have a “Wow! I wish I’d thought of that!” idea.

    All of my work has these values. All of the people I work with — employees, customers, partners, vendors, clients, and sponsors are the outstanding examples of the same values in business and in life. As a friend who works for an international PR firm said recently, “Klout has become the outreach for lazy companies — those who don’t want to build relationships.”
    I’ve always been about relationships.
    People can see what you do but not why you did it. Stick to your values and your actions will prove them true.

In the process of opting out, I was faced with a list of options that asked why. I was looking for one that said “Changes in the algorithm” or “Too many changes.” I found it telling that the only choice I found that might describe my reason was “I don’t like my Klout Score.” That, of course, implies something that could be all about my ego and not in the least about their product.

The disclaimers went on to tell me that it might take a few days to totally remove my data and to be sure I should go to every network and revoke access myself. They also said should I decide to opt back in I needed to know it would 90 days for me to get my influence back.

I suppose the lawyers wrote those, but they read like softly worded threats. … which sealed the deal for me. I don’t recall seeing a statement of regret … something that said, “we’re sorry to see you opt out.”

Never give power to tell your story to someone you don’t trust.
If I listen to my dad, my values, and my own advice, opting out was my only choice.

I hope Klout becomes what they want to be and if, one future day, our values align, I’ll be back.

Be irresistible … to yourself first.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Teams: How to Make Quality the Signal above the Time and Money Noise

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(Updated in 2020)

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

10-Point Plan: Train Self-Managing Teams with an Outstanding Bias Toward Quality

Show Me in the Contract Where It Assures the Work Will Be Good

Spend enough time in business you hear the saying, “Fast, Quick, and Good, Can’t have all three!” or some version of it. In my business it was Quality, Schedule, Budget, Pick Two!”

I watched and wondered for years what made this algorithm work. Observation proves that without constant surveillance it consistently comes out the same.

Schedule and Budget win out over Quality.

Quality is hard to define, protect, and keep. It’s high touch, high concept, by it’s very nature qualitative and subject to discussion. Schedule and budget are right there, out loud, down on paper easy for everyone to measure and see.

In a business endeavor, every member of a team knows exactly how late, how much over budget some effort might be, but few can agree how much it has slipped on quality.

If we’re talking about products, it’s hard enough judge the quality gap — that’s the job of the product team.
But suppose we’re talking about quality leadership, quality thinking, quality communication, quality relationships, or living out a quality social media strategy?

How Do You Keep the Noise of Time and Money from Killing Quality?

Quality leadership does the quality thinking that forms the quality decisions. It’s quality communication that builds long-term quality relationships. That kind of quality is at the foundation of any team endeavor that succeeds. It’s also the at the core of any quality social media strategy.

Whether we’re talking to employees, customers, or volunteers, it’s important that we telegraph with every nuance of our brand that quality will always be the signal above the noise of time and money. Because quality is about them.

How do we build an outstanding bias toward quality into the fabric of our organization and our teams? Use the same steps we used to build a brand-values baseline and if you can, invite help from that same core team.

  • Start with the heroes and champions from the core team. Whenever change is the goal, look for the folks most predisposition to embrace the change and invite them first.
  • Put the problem before the change makers — about 12 people in three teams. When they have gathered first challenge the teams to define quality as a definition of thinking, leadership, communication, relationships, and process. Have them come to one definition for their team.
  • Ask that core group of change makers how to tackle the problem Ask them how to bring quality to be the highest signal above the noise on their team.
  • Listen and record their answers. Think of it as a list of possibilities, not necessarily a brainstorm, but more like an offer of possible tactics to try in their natural habitat.
  • Review the list and ask the group to sort it. Choose three categories. Possible categories might be leadership-based ideas, communication-based ideas and process-based ideas.
  • Ask each team to discuss one of the three lists they’ve made. Suggest that they discuss how well the idea might work over time with their coworkers, how it might need to be changed, and whether it needs outside input. Allow teams to add or remove ideas. Explain that they’re looking for one or more ideas that have merit — enough power and value that the team believes they could persuade others to put the idea into action.
  • Invite the teams back to the group to present the ideas that they believe have merit. Challenge the teams to persuade the rest of the room to take on their call to action.
  • Allow the listening teams to give their response and to offer their opinion on how easily they might be able to persuade others to join in to the proposed quality challenge. Work together to help reword and rework any that have value, but need a more powerful argument.
  • Decide on the most effective quality-enhancing changes that are most natural to the organization.
  • Build a strategy on how to introduce them to the larger group. Will it be peer-to-peer training? Will it be a meeting? Will it be a proof of concept that the small group tries and then demonstrates success?
  • Then, choose a way that everyone can measure the success of the attempt to change behavior to a more quality-based way of work. Set a date to meet again to report back, consider how things worked, and adjust the call to action or the process.

Research has proven we go where we look and we change what we measure. If we want our bias toward quality in thinking, leadership, communication, and relationships to grow, we have to look at, measure and talk about them in the same ways we do schedule and budget. If we want quality to be the signal above the noise, we have to invest our schedule and budget in making it so.

People look at what we do — not what we say — to know what we believe.

How do you prove to your employees, customers, and volunteers that quality is above the noise of time or money?

READ the Whole 10-Point Plan Series: On the Successful Series Page.

Be Irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss