Palatable Insight Concepts

Toot Your Horn to Get Ahead

Successful professionals, business owners, and entrepreneurs have a lot in common. One of those commonalities is an artful approach to letting others know about what they do, how they do it, and why customers, clients, and prospects will find value in doing business with them.

It's not about boastful, chest-thumping self-promotion. It's about crafting a thoughtful and effective way to share information or create awareness about your business, profession, or organization. It also is an essential part of your overarching marketing and communications strategy.

One of the most effective and credible ways to tell people about your success is to let other people do the talking. Basic human nature and cultural sensitivities make us skeptical about over-the-top self promotion, so it's advisable to seek other ways to "tell your story." One effective method is the use of testimonials by satisfied customers or clients.

In our hype-filled world, the use of testimonials is a great way to be heard through the "noise" and to build credibility. It’s like having loyal customers serve as your unpaid sales force. To make this work, go to satisfied customers and ask them to include their thoughts in your communications strategy. You will be pleasantly surprised at how interested your customers will be in letting others know about the value they find in doing business with you. Once you have captured customers’ testimonials, use the testimonials to support your marketing and communications messages in your company brochure, website, and formal proposals or sales presentations.

You can also tell people about your success by supplementing your marketing and communication strategy through the use of newsletters, blogs, and e-mail contact lists.

Because of the huge amount of information most of us receive every day, it’s easy for messages to customers to get quickly overrun by the next message, and soon the customer has relegated your inquiry to the bottom of the pile of messages that are vying for attention.

Our Internet-wired world makes it easy to stay in touch with our customers via an electronic newsletter. That provides an excellent way to keep our success in front of our current and prospective customers.

The best way we keep our message at the “top of mind” is to communicate consistently and often, not to the point of annoyance, but to keep a steady “drip” of information about ourselves, our company, and importantly, our value proposition.

The thoughtful use of a regularly-produced newsletter or an up-to-date and well-maintained blog will serve you well as a way to tell others about your success and, importantly, keep your message in the minds of your current, and prospective, customers and clients.

Don’t be afraid to "toot your own horn"--carefully and professionally--and let others know about your success and how they will benefit from doing business with you!

DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO GET RICH THE PIC WAY?
WITHIN 30 DAYS OF CONSISTENT FOCUS, YOU CAN MAKE IT. GIVE IT A TRY.

Posted by Palatable Insight Corporation at 5:12:00 pm | Permalink | Comments

Time Waits for No

Very few people are perpetually positive or take the time to reflect on their past actions and future goals. Much of daily life is routine, functional, and plain unexciting. Because everyday life is short on peak moments and startling revelations, it is difficult to work up the enthusiasm required to truly embrace life and get the most from every day. Sometimes we need a jolt of some kind, whether an epiphany, a trauma, or some other external event, that serves as a wake-up call.

In the industrialized world, comforts abound and some of the more grueling tasks of daily of life have been all but eliminated. On some levels, though, life is more demanding than ever before, and we still want to perform at our best every day. Juggling a career, family, and friends can leave people feeling stressed and exhausted. Work, money, and family can be major sources of stress. How can we get the most from every day so that we really can have it all?
Being the best you can be is about enhancing what you already have, which means getting the most out of your mind and body. This can be achieved through a deliberate effort. It is difficult, but possible, and the consequences are, well, life and death, professionally, spiritually, even physically.

The death of a loved one or a protracted illness mean suffering, a diminished quality of life, a feeling of loss. Yet such pain also gives people something that may have been lacking before: a genuine appreciation of the here and now. It is not uncommon to hear mourners at a funeral say things like, "A positive attitude is what he passed on to me" or “Her death touched us all and made us really appreciate the things we have.” To derive inspiration in a moment of grief is often a life-changing experience. Some people have learned how important it is to get the most from every day after watching someone close to them die.

Terminal illness is another condition that often transforms attitudes about the self and one's duty in life. Both the medical literature and anecdotal evidence suggest that defeatism is relatively rare. Surprisingly, many terminally ill patients were determined to live as long as possible and with a quality that would ensure their remaining time was meaningful. These people made a choice to get the most from every day by staying positive, balanced.

It's not necessary to come close to death or experience debilitating illness to appreciate that what it means to be completely alive and wanting the most from every day. Yet, extreme circumstances often compel a strong response.

The intense emotions unleashed by these experiences can be a catalyst in the often difficult, time consuming process of changing one’s attitude and behavior.Time waits for no one. Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery, today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.

DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO GET RICH THE PIC WAY?
WITHIN 30 DAYS OF CONSISTENT FOCUS, YOU CAN MAKE IT. GIVE IT A TRY.

Posted by Palatable Insight Corporation at 5:06:00 pm | Permalink | Comments

Does Your Business Need Glasses?

Nearsightedness (a.k.a. myopia) affects about one-third of the population. The nearsighted eye is not able to focus on distant objects. People who are nearsighted can see things up-close just fine, but have difficulty performing tasks like driving and reading street signs. As an entrepreneur, regardless of the condition of your eyes, if you’re not careful, your business can very easily suffer from a form of nearsightedness as well.

In the daily grind to get things done, both seasoned corporate players and new entrepreneurs alike can sometimes lose sight of why they got into the game in the first place. Without a sharp view of the horizon, they lose their way on the path to long-term success because they get caught up in one cycle of minutiae after another, or they waste precious time by taking detours misread as opportunities.

Nobody likes getting lost, especially entrepreneurs with a lot at stake. When you embark upon a new business venture, it’s easy to forget how nonlinear the road to success can be. But those with a clear vision of where they’re going and how they’re going to get there are more capable of handling any potential twists and turns along the way. On the other hand, entrepreneurs without that sense of context and purpose, often find themselves confused about what to do next.

Why? They’re not able to clearly see where they are at any given moment.

When it comes to eyes, nearsightedness can be corrected with glasses, contact lenses, or refractive surgery. In business, having a well thought-out mission statement written down (and always nearby) can help correct your company’s myopia.

Companies use mission statements as a navigation tool to help prevent getting lost. A mission statement for a business can be like a minus lens for a nearsighted eye; it alleviates the stress to allow objects in the distance to come into full focus.When presented with multiple paths and daily challenges, long-lasting companies often refer back to a mission statement to help guide their decision-making process. This brief, but powerful, declaration of your company’s purpose and values can provide a strong sense of confidence and comfort as you deal with emergencies and explore new territory.

Consider Starbucks. As big and diverse as the coffee giant’s business is, the organization spends more on employee benefits than they do on coffee beans. In the book Pour Your Heart into It, Starbucks chairman Howard Shultz wrote, “I tried to make Starbucks the kind of company I wish my dad had worked for.”

Shultz envisioned a company with good health benefits, stock options, and an overall culture of openness, responsiveness, and respect. And if you were to refer to the company’s mission statement, you would see their main guiding principle: “Provide a great work environment.”

Knowing where you are in the grand scheme of things and understanding how what you’re doing right now fits into and supports the big picture of your business can be the difference between knowing how to proceed and feeling lost.

When day-to-day tasks bog you down, a clear mission statement can give you the confidence to make tough decisions as well as reassure you when you’re on the right path.

Sometimes you can lose sight of the big picture, especially as you grow and expand your business. But living up to the goals and values that you spell out when you first get started can help you manage overloads and stay focused.

Ultimately, a clear big picture gives an entrepreneur the context for what he or she does and does not do. And without a strong context, your business is like a nearsighted person driving in the rain without his or her glasses on.

DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO GET RICH THE PIC WAY?
WITHIN 30 DAYS OF CONSISTENT FOCUS, YOU CAN MAKE IT. GIVE IT A TRY.

Posted by Palatable Insight Corporation at 4:55:00 pm | Permalink | Comments

Make Your Networking Work

When it comes to big pictures, networking is the way you link your vision for your business and career to those of the rest of the world.

If you are on track in your business and professional life, you network every day, forging and enhancing connections that will reap future rewards.

Networking is a numbers game. Just as you don’t get an airline upgrade without the mileage, you don’t have a network to call on unless you put in the time to develop it. You have to do your time in the air before you make it to first class. You have to invest time and energy making connections in order to build a first-class network.

As any career counselor will tell you, once you’ve reached the required level of technical expertise in your field, career advancement depends on the relationships you establish. Make sure you’re doing this important work well by networking effectively. Here’s how:

Networking is about contact. It’s eye contact, face-to-face contact, phone contact, e-mail contact. It’s contact with people you can help and who can help you. Make these contacts with grace: have good posture, relax, and smile. (Yes, even when you’re on the telephone or at the computer.)

Be the one to initiate. Keep your eyes and ears open to prospects. Learn to recognize a potential business friend. That person may be at a professional seminar, at a community event, in the airplane seat next to you, at the health club, a friend of a friend, a friend of a vendor, even someone you read about in newspapers or magazines. Be human and humorous in your contact.

Be bold. Put your fears aside or at least get them out of the way, and approach the scariest person first. The rest will be a lot easier.

Anticipate discomfort. What is new is frequently uncomfortable. Trust me, though, eventually you will be more at ease, especially when it starts paying off. Ease the pain by keeping the contact simple and specific.

Expect acceptance. Believe that you are adequate in this potential relationship. If you don’t receive acceptance, don’t feel rejected. Remember that the person you’re approaching probably also has a list of prospective business friends he or she hopes to develop. You may not be on that list at this time. Be patient. Things change for everyone.

Pass it on. When you seek opportunities to help someone else by referring them, you become known as a center of influence. People will come to you.

Always respond. Answer every telephone call, e-mail message, and letter. They might be someone’s attempt at networking with you and you never know where it might lead.

How do you know when your networking is working? Things happen. People invite you into business meetings or conversations when they don’t have to.

They seek you out because they’ve heard of you and your capabilities. Your name gets passed upwards and outwards. You receive calls from people you’ve never heard of inside and outside the company.

Networking may not seem all that important in the crush of the daily to-do list, until you need a network to call on. Then, it may well be too late. The day-to-day work of networking is a solid way to stay connected with your big picture plans even as you take smaller steps toward realizing them. A network of contacts helps you extend and grow your business and career and allows you to help others in the same endeavor. A solid network also provides a hedge against the future. In times of challenge, these are the people you’ll call.

A network is a safety net. Work to keep yours tight and strong by tending to it every day.



DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO GET RICH THE PIC WAY?
WITHIN 30 DAYS OF CONSISTENT FOCUS, YOU CAN MAKE IT. GIVE IT A TRY.

Posted by Palatable Insight Corporation at 4:51:00 pm | Permalink | Comments

Men are born to succeed, not fail.
-- Thoreau

Sometimes people spend too much time focusing on problems instead of focusing on opportunities. You have to keep the big picture in mind even when minding the details, or your vision could become micromanaged in an unnecessary way. I always try to keep two wavelengths going at once, which prevents brain cramps and reminds me that I’m destined for success. How do I know this is my destiny? Because like Thoreau, I believe we are born to succeed, not to fail. If I can believe it, you can believe it too.

Here’s how. First of all, dispel all negativity. Zap negative thoughts and people the moment they appear. Remember, problems are bound to crop up, but that's not a reason to get discouraged. Even problems can be turned around to your advantage, and sometimes surprising events can happen.

Second, you have to remain determined. If you have a big picture in mind, you will need big determination to go with it. The old saying “ Rome wasn’t built in a day” is an apt one. There is no easy way, much as I’d like to tell you otherwise. But if you are doing something you love doing, that should not present too much hardship. In previous articles I discussed the tremendous difficulties faced by people like Michelangelo and Beethoven. Despite their obstacles they prevailed, and they’re still with us centuries later. It helps to know what other people have faced in accomplishing their goals. Often we don’t know how much work is required until we get into something, no matter how much research we’ve done. So, fortitude is absolutely necessary.

Then we come to the unexpected, events that happen that can thoroughly alter our plans, such as earthquakes, wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and so forth. Here’s when the theory of adaptability comes in. Are you able to remain flexible enough to handle catastrophes? Disasters happen, and aren’t always foreseen. Suddenly our big picture has a new script attached to it! Well, believe me, you can handle it if you go with the flow and remain determined at the same time. The best thing to remember here is Winston Churchill’s advice on the subject: “Never, never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” We may not be experiencing the Blitz as England did during WWII, but sometimes when problems start up, they can seem much worse than they really are. Prepare yourself with strength of character to withstand discouragements as well as disasters.

People who have endured great hardship often say they survived because they kept some sort of hope going, a vision of the future, despite horrible immediate circumstances. They may not have had a big picture in mind at the time, but they had a semblance of one. Try to emulate their example. It is obviously an effective thought process for survival. Sometimes a dead end can be a new beginning.

My father used to tell us this story he thought was really funny, although I never thought it was that funny. I think he was trying to tell us something about remaining determined. Anyway, it went like this: A guy just loved soda, so he decided to go into the business, and he named his product 3-Up. It was a failure, so he started over again and named his new product 4-Up. It too failed. So he started again and named his soda 5-Up. Once again, it failed. He tried again and named his soda 6-Up, and it too failed. Well, he decided he’d had it with the soda business, and he gave up. That was the end of my father’s story! As we all knew, 7-Up became a very successful and famous brand of soda. My father's message to us: the soda guy simply gave up too soon!

We’ve had some good examples, from Thoreau to Churchill to my father, so let’s pay attention to them and keep them in mind in the years to come. I think it will do all of us some good.


DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO GET RICH THE PIC WAY?
WITHIN 30 DAYS OF CONSISTENT FOCUS, YOU CAN MAKE IT. GIVE IT A TRY.

Posted by Palatable Insight Corporation at 4:40:00 pm | Permalink | Comments