Cameron Test Bootstrap: September 2015

4 Tips to Make Sure You Don't Waste Already Wasted Time

On Monday, I talked a little bit about wasting time and procrastinating, along with my favorite ways to do so. Today, I'll talk about my favorite time to not waste: wait time. The picture on the left is the line that was in front of me at Chipotle yesterday for lunch. As you can see, there are at least twenty-five people that like their burritos or burrito bowls as much as I do and who arrived before I did. This meant a solid fifteen minutes of waiting in line before I could haul my fifteen pound burrito back to the office. So I took advantage of the situation and made it productive time. I managed to catch up on email, engage with some people on Twitter, take a photo and make notes about today's post all before I had to make the vital decision between chicken and carnitas.

Take Your Phone With You

I just needed to run in and get a burrito, so I could have left my phone in the car and run in, only to find I had a wait that would have been wasted. If you take your phone with you at all times (assuming you have a smart phone), you have a connection to the internet that can help you get something done. Equally important, though, you need to have the right apps on your phone to accomplish something. Aside from apps for all of my social networks and email, I also have Evernote, Chrome that synchs with my desktop, my blogging app, Buffer, Amazon Kindle app loaded up with books, and more. So while there are activities that I can do from a laptop or desktop faster (mostly due to mouse precision and faster typing on a full keyboard), my phone does enable me to do almost everything online that I could on a PC. If I had been smart enough to bring some headphones as well, I could have finished the second half of that webinar video that I've had bookmarked for a few days.

Keep a Backlog

I have a backlog of items to get done that I often don't have time to complete (replace "don't have time" with "choose other activities instead" to make that sentence more accurate). I have blog posts tagged to read, articles to evaluate for sharing, topics to brainstorm, images to search, writing to do, outlining of larger projects, books to read, and the email backlog always looms in the background. You may have a similar list or completely different ones, but knowing the items on the list and how to access them quickly will help you churn through them. For me, I have flagged emails, Evernote items, and tweets marked as Favorites as a starting list (not to mention my actual backlog in Any.do).

Know Your Go To Item

If you have kept a backlog for some time, you have an idea already of which one needs more attention. And which one you like doing the most. And which one you are most likely to procrastinate. Select one area, one "go to" item that you can always jump into if you have a spare minute. For me, it's usually going through Twitter, either finding new people to follow, reading links that I added to my Favorites, buffering some additional content tweets, or replying to mentions or DMs. If that fails to pique my interest, I always have email to go through and clear out. Having and knowing your go to item eliminates the indecision you might face when you find yourself waiting on something. Start with your go to, and you might end up drifting to another task if your wait time is long enough.

Don't Be a Jerk

These tips should help you maximize time that would otherwise be wasted, whether standing in line at Chipotle, waiting on the dogs to do their business, or sitting in the waiting room of the doctor's office. Please, however, don't become that jerk on your phone tweeting away in a meeting, at dinner, or whenever actual face-to-face communication could and should be occurring. I'll admit, I often get sucked into the allure of the beautiful little wireless pocket computer, but I try to have some level of phone etiquette and I recommend you try that, too.

Waiting can frustrate even the most patient person. I have found, though, that much of that frustration stems from a feeling that the time could be put to better use. If you manage to put a little effort into utilizing that time to clear some items off your backlog, you might find that not only are you being more productive, but you get a little less frustrated with lines and wait times. Car in front of you placed a special order on twenty-seven burgers at McDonald's? No problem. Read that next chapter of the book you've been working on. I hope this helps you think of wait time in a slightly different way. If you've got some more ideas, though, feel free to contact me and let me know. If you get these posts in email, you can just reply to me. If you don't, sign up today and you can get the blog posts fresh off the presses (if there were presses)!

Recruiting For The Team You Have

At some point, every manager has a hole in their team that they need to fill. Hiring great candidates challenges even the most tenured manager, and several situations necessitate making sure that the new hire fits perfectly with the team that you already have in place. Here's how you can ensure that your new hire complements your established team.

Know The Situation

Several situations require extra special care to make sure that your new hire fits in with the existing team like a glove. As you find yourself with a spot to fill, you need to know how important your existing team's compatibility with the new addition need to be. Look for these key indicators:

Established Team - The longer your team has been together, the tighter their bonds and abilities to work together will be.
Small Team - The fewer people on the team, the more group dynamic will affect their performance.
Extremely High Performers - High performance across the board will suffer more from a talent drain if you hire the wrong person.
Social Interactions - If your team frequently goes out for happy hours and social events (with or without you), they likely need a team member to join in the camaraderie.
Loss of Leader - If the new person replaces someone who left a vacancy in leadership, either formal or informal, the team will be looking for someone to fill that vacuum. If you are not hiring another lead, help them find leadership within their own ranks, but recognize the need for a new person to gel.

If your team has one or more of these characteristics, you definitely need to hire the right addition. If you are looking at multiples, you should be even more careful in how you could impact the team dynamic.

Focus on personality as well as skills

Obviously, if you have lost a skill position, you need to fill that gap. Football teams cannot recruit linebackers to fill an empty wide receiver spot. A law firm would not recruit someone without a law degree to fill an open attorney spot. Your next CFO did not likely come from marketing, though your CMO might have.

That said, when you have a team dynamic at risk, you must interview for personality as well as skills. How the person will fit in with the existing team members and their performance may hold as much weight in your interview as questions around their fitness to perform the actual job duties.

Let the team interview the final candidates

One option that I have seen work effectively in some organizations is allowing the team to interview the final candidates and provide feedback into the process. You as the manager obviously make the final decision around hiring, but taking your team's feedback into account will give you a sense of their feelings and reactions toward the new individual. I would recommend you limit the number of candidates that cycle through the team interview, so the team does not get fatigued of interviewing candidates. Likewise, I would recommend either a team interview or a limited number of small group interviews so that you are not putting the candidates through too much of a gauntlet, particularly for those that won't get the job.

If your team has a high need to gel together, you as the manager have a responsibility to help find the right candidate to join the team, either as a new addition or replacement. You don't have to hold that responsibility by yourself, though. If you can recognize your team's need for a tight relationship with their new member, you can leverage your insight into their personalities and their own feedback on candidates to be able to identify the right fit for the puzzle.

How else can you ensure a key fit? Let me know on Twitter by filling in this tweet.

Image credit: skeeze via Pixabay

What's Your Favorite Way to Waste Time?

The Fall television schedule has started up, with new shows like Blindspot and The Muppets now rapidly filling up my DVR to capacity. In these first few weeks of the season, we try out several new shows and get hooked on a few. While there are several we won't like after a couple of episodes and several that will get cancelled, for these first few weeks, we watch those as well, sucking up a bit more time than we would normally give to the television.

Luckily, television can be a background white noise to writing sometimes, and it does not have to dramatically get in the way of work or productivity (though it can also be an excellent time waster and procrastination engine). Still, sometimes, I imagine what all I could get done if I never watched any television at all. Then I realize that I would just find another time waster to get in the way.

So my answer? Moderation. Ah, the old trope of "everything in moderation" may cause you to chuckle, but when it comes to time wasting devices, you will find one that fits your need. So my advice is to accept it, but keep it in check. Make sure you do your work first, or tune it out while you focus on your laptop. Whatever it is, control it and don't let it control you.

What go-to waste of time do you have when you procrastinate? How do you work around it?

Image credit: Unsplash via Pixabay

7 Ways Scott Sigler Has Earned Rabid Fans

Everyone in the marketing game wants a following. You need more than just an audience, though. You need an army. You need customers and fans of your work that are hungry and eager for every single product you sell, and who evangelize your products to other potential customers. Everyone wants and needs this type of a following, but how do you actually get one?

Scott Sigler - Courtesy Empty Set Entertainment
Photo credit: Joan Allen Photography

One person who has successfully built a pretty devoted following is New York Times best-selling novelist Scott Sigler. His fans, whom he identifies and who self-identify as "junkies," are in a sense just that: addicts for his writing and stories. I know, because even though I don't generally read horror or science fiction, I find myself telling others about Sigler more often than I recommend any other product by any other producer (so there's your caveat, I'm a junkie, too). Timing-wise, Scott struck a perfect storm with the launch of his podcast years and years ago, which you would find impossible to reproduce in today's podcast-saturated market. Still, there are several traits to the way that he and his business partner A Kovacs operate their company that transcend the world of fiction-writing and could be beneficial to other marketers in search of such devoted customers.

Quality

Scott dedicates substantial effort and discussion to the idea that he must deliver a quality product. At times, this dedication has affected production schedules, caused 50,000 word novellas to balloon out to 80,000 words, and resulted in rewrites substantially changing the plot from earlier versions. But in the end, all of the actions Scott takes towards the product come from a concern for the quality delivered to the customer. His fanbase depends on him to deliver quality at least as high as the last product they purchased from him, and he makes it a point to deliver on that, at times trying to exceed his own high standards. When you focus on the quality of the product, no one can complain that you cut corners just to make a buck, and the customers respect that.

Consistency

Beyond seeking the consistent quality, Sigler has managed to consistently deliver to his fans. For over ten years now, he has released a podcast every Sunday containing his fiction stories. On a weekly basis, fans have come to build expectations and he has delivered. Beyond the regular podcasting, though, Scott has written prolifically, bringing several properties to market both through traditional publishing and under his own imprint, creating a consistent delivery of product to market with which to have more available for his customers to buy. If you are in the market with one or two products, you can be successful, but a consistent approach to add products and improve or revise the products you have continually opens up new market opportunities.

Innovation

Scott launched his podcast in 2005, as a vanguard in audio fiction, leading the way for other aspiring novelists to begin releasing their own free downloadable audio. But outside of the marketing innovations that Scott employed, he has also innovated in his product and career as well. Blending traditional publishing with independent publishing, creating genre-bending sci-fi sports novels alongside his traditional hard-science horror, and continuing to give his product away for free in audio format all challenge the established norms in his industry.

Engagement

This is where the personal brand strikes out beyond just the product to really hook his customers. Scott heavily utilizes social media to engage with his fans, but he also makes a point to be available to them at conventions, hangs out with them after readings on book tours, and even hosts an event in Vegas annually for connecting with his customers. Marketing your product unilaterally can get your product known, but to develop a following, take a page from Sigler's book and utilize multiple channels and means to create true engagement and dialogue with your customers.

Transparency

Throughout his career, Sigler has provided behind-the-scenes looks at the production process through "five minutes of fury" at the front of his podcasts. In addition, he and A Kovacs provide even deeper insight into the inner workings of their operation in bonus Friday episodes. Opening the curtains a bit to allow the fans to see how the company and process works helps to create an even stronger sense of engagement with the fans as they feel "let in on" the secret of the operation and even part of the action. Sigler and Kovacs take it a step forward at times, even enlisting armies of fans to assist with shipping parties for new products or other projects.

Gratitude

Through it all, as Sigler pushes forward, he has remained extremely gracious. The humble recognition that he owes much of his accomplishments to the fans and their desire for his product makes him human to the customers, more so than many mega-brand authors. The outpouring of thanks to those that support the company by purchasing products causes them to just want more products.

Collaboration

Where most industries find the competitors fighting and scrapping over a percentage of market-share, Scott Sigler has found collaboration with other writers a strategy to improve his own throughput of product. In return, collaborative products with writers such as Mur Lafferty, Matt Wallace, and Paul E. Cooley offer a cross-pollination marketing effort that all can benefit from as their fans become exposed to other authors. The craft brewing industry has utilized collaboration beers to create a similar effect, but few other industries have capitalized on this same disruption trend. It flips the combative nature of marketing in locked industries (think cola wars) on its head, saying the pie is large enough for all to have a fair slice.

Conclusion

I'm a fan of Sigler's, a fact I am sure has come across in this post. But I am also intrigued by his success so far and the amazing methods he has used to engage fans.

Unless you write novels and have an uncanny knack for timing, you may not be able to duplicate Sigler's path or fanbase. You can, however, utilize the methods he and his business partner use to drive incredible customer engagement. Create quality products and focus on delivering high levels of value to the customers. Put the customers ahead of yourself. And, if you are part of the brand of your company, recognize that may mean making yourself accessible as part of the marketing effort.

If you're interested in learning more about Scott Sigler or reading and listening to his novels, visit his website at http://www.scottsigler.com . If you have ideas for other ways to create a strong fan base full of engaged evangelists, then let me know in the comments or drop me an email. I'd love hearing from you.

3 Questions to Ask Your Consultants

Consultants often get a bad rap. Some offer true value, experience, and expertise, while others charge you to provide feedback that you could have obtained yourself with some diligence and effort within your own organization. A friend of mine refers to that as "borrowing your watch to tell you what time it is." I've also seen output of some consulting organizations that amounts to little more than a wish list of the few people that could be spared from the team to talk to the consultants. So how do you avoid receiving this kind of output? Here are a few questions that can guide your discussions in the right direction.

What are our competitors doing?

Most consultants won't specifically name what competitors they have worked with, but they can give you a general sense of where the market trends point and what the competitive landscape looks like. You'll want to do your research to make sure that you believe that they actually worked with these competitors, but even a small firm forced to do that research for you will provide more benefit than you can squeeze out of your own employees. You can also use this question to challenge your goals and metrics. Are you trying to squeeze an extra ten percent improvement in performance in an area where you already compete or exceed your competitors, while ignoring other areas where you are clearly deficient?

What are the broad themes that we need to change?

This question forces a summary view, and it can be particularly beneficial when you receive a list of what appears to be minutiae. Not only does it require additional analytical thought on the part of the consultants, but you also get a broader view of the problem that an outsider can help to provide. When faced with specific change requests, some groups may have a tendency to be defensive, but broadening the themes can make them generic enough to avoid finger-pointing. Not only that, but the thematic elements also provide guidance that can be used across other areas of the business.

What part of this will be outdated in eighteen months?

Asking for forward-looking projections may only be slightly more or less accurate than the fortune cookie that came with my lunch, but asking this question may drive a few beneficial responses. First, a good consultant should be able to present you with overall technology and climate changes that may affect your future, even if some of it is totally speculative (and he or she should be able to differentiate their speculation from likely fact). This question also forces a second-guessing of their own analysis to identify what parts of their analysis might become outdated and explain why you should act anyway.

Conclusion

You want to pay consultants for analysis and insight. Many consultants will come in with a standard engagement to learn about your business and how it currently operates. That's nothing to be scared of, but you should take proactive steps to make sure that descriptive outputs of the status quo or pure regurgitation of solutions from your own staff should be taken with a grain of salt. Asking probing questions can drive higher performance out of your consultants and better results.

5 Tips To Be A Smoother Speaker

At some point in your career, there's a chance you will be called upon to speak to a group. Whether the audience consists of fifteen coworkers or a group of three thousand, you want to appear professional and smooth when you speak. Beyond that, even after you have had some good experience, speaking as a skill can always be improved. Here are a few tips on how you can do exactly that.

Don't write your speech - When I grew up doing speaking events, I had verbatim prepared speeches, complete with anecdotes and jokes alongside the content. Then I would memorize the speech word for word. That said, those were competition-style speeches that maxed out at about five to seven minutes, and I would have months to prepare, memorize, edit, and practice the speech to get the right pacing, etc. Instead, I recommend jotting a quick outline down of all of the points that you need to cover and work off of the outline. If you have a presentation to accompany you, keep the slides to the main points and fill in all the color verbally.
Talk at slower than normal speed - This one causes me fits as I have a tendency to speak quickly anyway, but whether or not you realize it, when speaking to a crowd, you will accelerate. My recommendation here is to try to talk slower than your normal speed. Recognize that conversational speed is interrupted by the other person talking, so one-way speeches need to accommodate with pauses and a slow enough pace for the audience to absorb the content. My super-speedy presentation style has come in handy when my time window has been overly compressed, but I don't recommend it for normal presentations.
Use a timer - If you have a fixed time limit, you should be aware of how much time you have available to talk so that you don't go over. Fortunately, there are several free presentation timer apps available for your phone, so in a pinch, you can grab one of those and run it on the podium. Some even have vibration settings so you can run it from your pocket. Make sure the phone is muted, though, so you don't get a rogue phone call in the middle of your speech.
Make eye contact - Obviously if you are presenting on a conference call, this one cannot happen, but when in front of a crowd, you should attempt to focus and make eye contact with several individuals in the crowd. I recommend finding at least one person on each side of the audience, and perhaps at different depths in the crowd, to focus on as you present. Don't stare them down, but look them in the eye and move back to scanning. If you are presenting to a smaller group, direct your comments from person to person.
Get a buddy - If you know that you have certain speaking problems, sometimes you can enlist the help of a buddy. I had a tendency to go too quickly through number-heavy material on conference calls (primarily because I tended to allow myself to slip into reading the content and I couldn't connect with the audience via eye contact), so I enlisted a few friends to send me IMs if I moved too quickly. My PC screen would light up like fireworks if my clip got too fast, and I would be able to pause and make a concerted effort to slow the pace after that.

I've got a few more tips and tricks for speaking that I will put in a future post for you, but for now, this list should get you started to smooth out that next presentation.

What tips do you have for speaking smoothly? I'd love to know if they match up with mine.

Image credit:allanfernancato via Pixabay

Rewind: My Top Ten Blog Posts

Last week I hit 125 posts on the blog, which made it halfway to my original concept goal of 250 posts (about 5 a week for a year with a few days off). As an additional retrospective today, I thought I'd share the top ten most popular posts out of that first 125 in case you missed any of them. So, in no particular order, here are the ten most read posts on this site so far:

The best part about making this list is that now you will click on some of those links, making them even more read and solidifying their place even more as the most read articles on the site.

So maybe you want to be unique and read stuff that everyone else isn't reading. If that's the case, here's a couple of posts for you:

Either way, enjoy some popular or less-than-popular posts today on a trip through memory lane. Let me know what you find.

Hey Millennials, what are you doing with your money?

I've written before on personal finance and investing, and why you should have money invested as early as possible. Here's something you should read if you haven't on seeking employer matches and here's something else on timing of those investments. Yet despite all of this wisdom (and charts! I created charts!), I read over the weekend that only 26% of millennials invest. So almost three-fourths of our young people are not investing. (Here's the full article if you are interested). Three-fourths!

I know my blog posts won't change behavior overnight, but people are missing out in a huge way.

Now, I won't blame those that fall in the first category that this author brought up - lack of money. If you truly are struggling to find shelter and food, then investing likely is (and should be) one of the last things on your mind. But otherwise, put some money in the market. And do it soon. But do it right. Here's a couple of more tips to add on to that Forbes article:

Spend more than 15 minutes on this - Even if you are only investing the same amount you would drop on a few lattes at Starbucks this month, it is still money, and you want it to grow and flourish, not wither. Set aside some time to figure out what you are doing.
Read some Wikipedia or Motley Fool - Honestly, it doesn't matter what you read, but take some time to learn how the stock market works and how mutual funds work. If you can understand those two things, you'll understand better what you are buying.
Then read some mutual fund overview material - What I basically look for is a mutual fund that has existed for ten or more years, and has averaged about ten percent or better return a year. That means one dollar today is $1.10 next year. Over time, that will add up. Most of your mutual funds will have a prospectus or other guide that will contain the detailed numbers.
Look out for fees - When you're reading that prospectus, you may find a bunch of attorney's fees, accountants fees, etc. Your job is to look to minimize whatever fees they are charging, whether that means picking "no load" funds or switching investments.
Contribute frequently - Automatic is best, but if you can't do that, find a way to invest every other Friday if that works for you. Finding a regular investment schedule helps you to plan.

This list is quick, but I am sure there's a bunch of other advice that I am sure people could use (the internet is full of it). What's your best advice to get people into investing?

Blogger's Toolkit: Prepopulated Tweets

So, partially because I like building things and partially since I am always in need of something to make my own life easier, I built this. What is it? It's a form that lets you auto-generate your own "Tweet This" links with pre-populated Tweets. I may get a little fancier with it over time, but for now, it does exactly what it is asked. You put what you want that prepopulated Tweet to be in the first box, and you can generate code and a test link that you can use for you blog or wherever else you have HTML in need of prepopulated Tweets. Enjoy!

Test the Link:

Tweet This!

If you like this tool, please bookmark the page and come back. And feel free to share with your friends using (you guessed it) this handy prepopulated tweet.

Halfway Point: 25 Things Writing 125 Blog Posts Has Taught Me

If you have been reading the blog for a while, you know that the plan has been for me to attempt 250 blog posts, posting relatively close to daily. The idea initially was that it would roughly equate to a year's worth of posts, and give a huge backlog of writing material from which to draw to develop additional enhanced material. As this post marks the halfway point of 125 posts, I thought I would do a halfway retrospective list of things I have learned along this journey so far.

It is really hard to write every day. I know from listening to years of writing podcasts and reading blog posts that "write every day" is a mantra of various successful writers, but even on my limited Monday through Friday schedule, sometimes things get in the way.
Blogs don't automatically generate comments. This isn't Field of Dreams where "If you build it they will come." I honestly don't have a ton of comments on the blog at all. There's certainly a PR element to that, but from a feedback perspective, I have found it doesn't matter. The number of emails, tweets, and Facebook comments I have received lets me know people are reading. Still, I likely have lost several people's interest with a bad post or three. That's OK. It's all for learning.
This isn't really the halfway point. I say that for two reasons. First, let's be honest. This is the 125th published post here, but a few of those are obligatory holiday posts, and there are several what I would consider non-post-posts as well. That said, the bigger picture is that 250 is not the actual finish line. It's just a mark at which I will likely reevaluate the daily posting schedule and switch to something more reasonable, perhaps once or twice a week.
Twitter is fun. I have managed to grow my Twitter following in this short period by about six hundred percent or more. Turns out Twitter has quite a large market for entrepreneurial discussion, and I've found at least 1300 of those individuals out there. Still, even that has not come easy. I've had to learn a few things along the way.
Automation is your friend. I still honestly need even more automation set up, but having my blog posts auto-populate to Twitter and having the ability to utilize Buffer to schedule additional updates has been great when I've been able to maximize its utilization. While I generally do reply genuinely, I'll admit many of my tweets are scheduled. But that's OK, because I still typed it and I'm just trying to space out my content to hit all different time zones.
You are never ahead. Sometimes (like this week, in fact), I will write several posts ahead and schedule them out. It makes me feel great. It makes me feel like I'm ahead of schedule. And then I get lazy and take three days off. At which point I am back to scrambling for daily content once again. If only I could be twenty days ahead, I could postpone the scramble for four weeks.
Talking to people is valuable. This is a hard one for a writer, but the honest truth is that I have received more subscribers from actually, physically talking to people than I have from posting random thoughts on the internet in a vacuum.
I am overambitious. I know this one already. It's even baked into the productivity challenge concepts. That said, when I started this journey, I had intentions of working to write a book alongside this blog experiment. In reality, I spend a good chunk of my writing energy on the blog and leave little for writing outside of that. I have read through some of Nina Amir's information on blogging a book and I have done some additional planning and writing as well, but I think honestly to get a book done I will have to take a less aggressive schedule with the blog.
Brainstorming makes writing easier. When I sit down and come up with topics for the entire week ahead of time in a brainstorming session, I have a much easier time writing that week. When I am flying by the seat of my pants every single night, I waste time that I could be writing trying to come up with a new idea.
Repetition is not the enemy. At first, I thought I needed a new topic every day. But in reality, every post I write has been a different viewpoint and a different take on a topic, allowing me to retwist the same topics into different deep dives. It also creates categories and threads that will eventually let me build a suite.
I had bad writing habits. This one showed up in obvious fashion after sixty or seventy posts. I started noticing verb usage, patterns in my writing, and other habits that I eventually started breaking. The best part of this discovery was that my writing could take a shift during the drafting and required less editing.
I will make mistakes. I had a few posts go out with typos. I have had a few that were not the edited version I intended. And I had one that contained a whole pile of gibberish before I was able to clean it up. Mistakes happen. But I was able to clean most of them up as quickly as I noticed them.
I make more mistakes when I am tired. I used to write late into the evening, but would find myself on the verge of dozing off sometimes. When that happened, mistakes multiplied. Now I write early in the evening, get it done, and move on to relax for the remainder. Seems to be working much better. Especially when I am a few days ahead.
My friends are pretty supportive. I've had several friends reading the posts and emailing, tweeting, or commenting on Facebook about the content. I appreciate all of them.
Posting daily also hurts my ability to work on the site. I have some cool additional ideas for the site (including some exclusive content, better sign-up forms, etc.), but posting daily takes up most of the time that I have available to work on those types of things. Maybe in free time.
I need breaks. Maybe scheduled breaks. Sure, I've taken breaks for vacations. That's to be expected. I'm not working at the office, and I'm not working on the blog at home. But with the blog, I have also taken a few extra days off. Sometimes it is lack of ideas, sometimes it is work or personal commitments taking some of the free time that I normally use to blog, and sometimes it is just fatigue. There were several posts about needing recharges, but in reality, I often needed to just take those days and schedule them. I might even need to take a day off of daily posting to work on the site or write double posts to get two to three days ahead. Taking a break to work more, there's a concept.
Everyone is willing to sell you an ad. Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. all have advertising space for sale. And they're very willing to sell it to me. I just haven't bought any yet. It's hard to justify spending advertising dollars when there's no product here on the site to monetize yet.
I have more favorites than I will be able to read. I flag articles, emails, and videos all of the time with great ideas on how to improve the blog, great ideas that tie in with topics I write about, and help growing and getting subscribers. At this point, the influx of ideas overwhelms my available time to process and read them all, and I will likely remain backlogged for some time until I decide to purge out that backlog.
Blog titles can be magic. I have definitely noted a difference in readership for posts based on the title, but it has not been as predictable as I would have thought. At some point during the posting, I tried out a few more "click bait" type headlines, and I definitely use some of those naming techniques, but I also notice that certain key words have also triggered high response rates.
All posts don't generate the same response types. Posts with high numbers of favorites on Twitter don't necessarily translate to posts with high readership on the site and vice versa. Different titles and content trigger different behaviors in people.
People like when you make it easy to share things. Keep an eye out - I have an experiment to try to post some code tomorrow that will let you generate Twitter links. But those prepopulated links make it much easier for people to share, and they have.
There are all kinds of secret HTML tags you need to optimize a blog. I will likely give the site another HTML makeover at some point and make it much more HTML5 friendly, but I have learned a ton on how to show my name as an author on Facebook shares, how to have unique descriptions and titles on pages, and what value that adds to my SEO and social sharing.
Sometimes short posts are good. As I have written more and more, my posts have started getting longer and longer. This one is a good example. That said, sometimes people seem to prefer a quick hitter: a short post with maybe a paragraph or two. This one might be something good to remember in the next 125 posts.
At some point, I'll be switching email systems. Right now, if you subscribe, you get a nice Feedburner update every morning in your inbox with a copy of the day's post. It does limit me, though, if I just want to send exclusive content to my subscribers. Right now, I could just email most of them directly in a few chunks, but it would be nice to have it all integrated in a better system. There are a few out there (looking at you MailChimp or aWeber), but might require some investment. Again, when I'm not selling anything or making money off the blog, investing doesn't seem too wise yet.
I love writing. But I like other things, too. I didn't learn this through the first 125 posts. I already knew it. In fact, it's likely why I started this little experiment in the first place. I enjoy writing and research and sharing opinions. Often, I write about topics that I really would like to learn more about and through the research process I am able to learn myself before sharing (that's an insider tip, I guess). I have learned a ton about many topics throughout this adventure, but I've also learned about other things I like to do. I like engaging in discussion and dialogue with people about business. I like learning about how other people are succeeding in their business. I like coaching and working to help people that are insecure about their own abilities to achieve more. And I love learning how I might could build something out of this that's bigger than just me and a computer, writing thoughts down for everyone to read.

I've learned quite a bit more than 25 things in this half of the experiment, but this post is definitely long enough. Perhaps some of the other lessons will be expanded into posts of their own in the next six months. And I am certain I will learn quite a bit more along the way.

No call to action today, no "please tweet this or email me" or anything like that. Just a thank you for reading so far and sticking with me on this. I appreciate it. If there's anything you need or anything you'd like my help with, let me know and I will see what I can do. After all, the blog only has value if it helps you with your business and your problems. Thanks.

Did You Earn That Media?

Did you earn that media? Do you even know what I am talking about?

The term "earned media" describes press about a company, product, or service as a result of actual newsworthiness. A company that donates half of its profits to the homeless or a new building complex being built to support a headquarters relocation. Earned media does not always have to require some sort of charitable offering, but rather that a company or person did something that the general public may want to know. Earned media plays an important role in a marketing strategy for a few reasons:

It's Free - Hard to argue with exposure that you do not have to pay for
It's Positive - Hopefully you are earning only good press
It Hits A Target - Earned media often exposes you only to those who care about what you're doing

Paid media, of course, has a part to play as well, as that allows your company to have an avenue to dictate how it is portrayed.

But in the social world, how does earned media fit in? Even better, it seems. Facebook Likes, Shares, Retweets, or Mentions all are forms of earned media. Your performance on a given social network earns you the exposure that you gain when others share your content. And, simplest of all, you earn exposure through the quality of your content. This social form of earned media comes with a bonus, though, in social proof: the idea that others are on the bandwagon with your ideas encourages their friends and peers more effectively than five articles in the local paper might.

What do you think about earned media in the digital age? How can it play a strong part in marketing strategy?

A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action

This past weekend, I found myself at Chuy's (great food if you've never been there) eating an order of Elvis Green Chile Fried Chicken. For the uninitiated, this is a chicken breast breaded in Lay's potato chips and fried, then slathered in a green chile paste that at times burns your tongue. Sounds good, eh? But this post really isn't about dinner. After dinner, when walking to the car, I heard the speakers playing to those waiting in line with a little classic Elvis singing "A little less conversation, a little more action please." It got me thinking about work and how often we get wrapped up in conversation and continued analysis rather than action. We even have phrases for it. Whether you call it "Analysis Paralysis" or "Talking about work instead of doing work" the result is the same: endless conversations discussing work but without any real output. Have you found yourself in this trap? If so, here are a few tips to move past it:

Determine What's Good Enough

Often progress stalls when you (or someone in your group) chases down every answer to every question before letting the project or real work start. Some call this "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good." To avoid this, figure out what's really "good enough" before you start. Make sure everyone agrees to the definition and facilitate discussion away from anything "more perfect" than that good enough effort. Of course, some efforts will actually chase or require perfection (I'd hate to think about doctors deciding "good enough" on terminal illness treatment), but for most of us business is not life and death decisions, so "good enough" usually is.

Kill The Neverending Email

Remember in The Neverending Story when Atreyu had to kill that big wolf thing? No? OK, then I'm substantially older than you. But that's OK. I'll ask you to take a big knife and stab something else instead: the neverending email. Have you ever been on an email chain that goes back and forth with one-line comments for twenty or thirty iterations? Kill them. After emails go back and forth between two or more parties four or five times, a quick thirty minute call might be a more effective way to resolve the problem. Email has a place, and allowing us to communicate asynchronously and offer quick commentary certainly has its benefits. But resolving disputed points or complex descriptions? Those are generally resolved faster real time with discussion.

Resolve to Do Something

Often groups keep discussing work end over end because it feels like work. It is work, in a way, but it is not the most productive work. To be productive, we must commit to accomplish and produce something, to generate an output of our work. That commitment hits all the clichés: "Moving the ball forward" or "Moving the needle" or whatever else you call actual progress at your office. Commit yourself to accomplish something real and you will. (Tweet this with a single click)

How else can you break the paralysis analysis or endless conversation? Leave a comment or reply to me via email. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Image credit: skeeze/Public Domain via Pixabay

Managing Larger To Do Lists

So if you have stopped by the blog, you may have already stumbled across my productivity challenge, where I show you how to work up to a consistent and planned five items a day to knock off of your backlog. But what happens if you need to get more done than just five items? Here's a couple of tricks to still get you by.

Limit The Commitment

My guide to limit your daily to do list down to five key items does not assume that you will only accomplish five items in a day. Rather, the concept is to limit your commitment to only five items, since we tend to overestimate what we can get done. In this instance, you know you need to get more done, but don't make the mistake of thinking that you can accomplish everything on your whole backlog list.

Make a "May versus Must" List

One of my favorite ways to prioritize larger to do lists is to make what I call the "May versus Must" list. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On one side, write the word "Must" and on the other side write the word "May." On the "Must" side, write down everything you must get done that day. Be ruthless. You should only include items you have to get done that day. Time pressured items, things that can't be done the next day, or things with severe penalties if you don't get them done should be on the "Must" list. Everything else goes on the "May" side, because you may do it if you have time. Feel free to prioritize the "May" side. Then do the items you must do first. Get all of those done and then start in on the "May" side as you have time. It helps if you keep the "Must" side to close to five, to keep within your normal rhythm.

Move Unfinished Items to the Backlog

Ideally, you finish everything you must do, but likely you will have some items on a large to do list that are left incomplete. Resist the temptation to keep the list for the next day. Rather, move those items into your normal backlog. If you have time the next day to tackle a bigger list - go back and make another "May versus Must" list for the next day. Occasionally, I will do this on the weekends to try to get more done. This will make your second-day list intentional and prioritized, rather than just a carryover list that might not be the most important items. It also gives you a full day's perspective which may alter priorities, rather than depending on your wisdom of the past. Finally, you might have new time pressures that might get overlooked if you are just continuing to work off the prior day's list.

What other tips do you have for managing larger to do lists? I'd love to hear them if you want to drop me a line on social media.

Image credit: StartupStockPhotos on Pixabay

Remembering

Fourteen years ago, life in the United States changed in a way that may ripple through the rest of our lives. Take some time today to think about those that lost everything that day.

Photo of the World Trade Center Memorial by Ronile

What The Heck is Content Marketing?

Content Marketing World 2015 kicked off this week. It's a huge conference around the concept of content marketing and how to optimize it, improve its quality, and improve the results from it. If you want to keep up with live updates from the conference, I recommend you check out the Twitter hashtag for the event, #CMWorld. I have to admit I was a little disappointed to find out that #CMWorld did not mean "Cameron Mathews' World" where my legions of fans were tweeting about me. But all ego bruises aside, if you are like me in that you are not currently in Cleveland, Ohio, you might be wondering what content marketing even means.

Have no fear, I will explain it as best I can.

In a nutshell, content marketing is a broad moniker for a strategy of developing content relevant to an audience in an attempt to develop trust and a relationship that may eventually lead to a sale or other transaction. I'm essentially using this blog as a sort of content marketing, to be transparent, in that I share (for free) what I hope to be valuable content for you in exchange for your readership. I don't have anything to sell you, though (yet?), so for now, we'll just consider it free content instead of some sort of marketing strategy. In order to be successful, though, content marketing has a few requirements.

It must be free

Firms don't charge you to watch their commercials. Likewise, content marketing also carries no price tag. Remember, content marketing intends to develop a conversation with the audience. The relationship stands paramount over the idea of the conversion.

It should be valuable

Regurgitated junk has no value. Only valuable content can attract and retain audiences over time. So, when developing content marketing as an actual strategy, you have to seek ways to provide the most valuable content to the target audience. Find what your audience seeks, and provide it, at the best quality level you can provide.

It needs to be repetitive

Writing that one blog post won't gain you a following of millions, unless you hit some magic viral thread (and that might not be the audience you were seeking). Exceptions always exist, but your best strategy is to continue to push strong valuable content in a timely manner. You might not want to write every day, and that is perfectly fine. But you should have a someone regular or at least consistent schedule to push content out to your audience.

It has to be related

You might find it difficult writing tons of intriguing content articles on pet training, only to turn around and try to sell plasma televisions to your audience. The content should circle your product and enhance it. Every article does not have to be directly a plug for your product (if it was, it would most likely be traditional interrupting marketing as opposed to relationship building), but it should tie together with your product offering in a complementary way.

Content marketing works for any industry. I have seen attempts to build audiences using content marketing in fiction novel sales, telecommunications, veterinary supplies, yardwork, self-help services, and more. If you own a small business, think about how it could work for you. If you work at a large firm, what type of content would be valuable to your potential customers? How can you distribute that content most effectively? Feel free to bounce your ideas off of me on Twitter or email if you are looking for some help.

Word cloud courtesy of narciso1 via Pixabay

Short Week

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. I managed to catch a few football games and get perhaps that last bit of summer squeezed in, and I hope you did, too.

The holiday left us with a short week. Sometimes you might find it difficult to get motivated on short weeks, and sometimes you cram five days into four and make them extra productive. Which week is this turning out to be for you? I'm finding myself somewhere in the middle.

Anyway, I will be back to regular posting shortly, but in the meantime, have a great day!

Image credit: geralt via Pixabay

Evolution of a Brand

If you do not have your home page set to Google search like I do, you might have missed that Google changed their logo yesterday. It isn't the first update to Google's logo since their inception, but it does represent an evolution in the company. If you want to read the official Google news about it, they have it all here on this blog post.

Their statements represent their recognition of a changing marketplace and an adaptation to tie their brand to the different methods by which their customers utilize their services. Most will ignore it as a blip on the radar screen, but underneath that lies the brilliance in this marketing scheme.

It's familiar - Anyone that doesn't pay attention to fonts might not even notice the logo has changed. The color scheme appears to be the same since 1998. What has changed, though, is the use of the single G and the colored microphone to indicate people are interacting with Google. The preservation of the color scheme means to most people they will recognize this intuitively, without even realizing the little blue "g" was replaced by a four-color "G."
It's adaptable - The intent, according to Google, was creating a unified experience across the multitude of devices that people utilize to access Google and their services. Cross-platform universal recognition allows Google to expand the brand and still create an expectation with their customers of a standard of quality and service.
It's different - Even though it may appear the same to many or only slightly changed, the new logo represents enough of a change that it creates buzz and free earned media. See, I'm even blogging about it.

What other rebranding efforts can you name that redefined the company from a philosophical perspective but had such subtlety in the change? I'd love to hear more examples.

Tweet me or leave a comment below (or on the Facebook page) and let me know if you have any ideas.

A Quick Note On Perspective

The problem with big picture people is that they often have trouble understanding how the details conflict with their desires and finding ways around that.

The problem with hyper-detail-oriented people is they have difficulty lifting their heads up to see the broader scope of the problem. The adage "can't see the forest for the trees" comes to mind.

If you live somewhere in the middle, you may be doomed to be a translator, and succumb to your own myopic view from one to the next.

The key is to learn how not to operate positioned in between the worlds, but to move interchangeably between them, speaking both languages so fluently, each group thinks of you as a kindred, native speaker, no matter the language.

Like this kind of quick stuff? Well, here's an easy pre-populated tweet that you can use to say thanks!

Take Your Phone With You

Keep a Backlog

Know Your Go To Item

Don't Be a Jerk

Know The Situation

Focus on personality as well as skills

Let the team interview the final candidates

Quality

Consistency

Innovation

Engagement

Transparency

Gratitude

Collaboration

Conclusion

What are our competitors doing?

What are the broad themes that we need to change?

What part of this will be outdated in eighteen months?

Conclusion

Determine What's Good Enough

Kill The Neverending Email

Resolve to Do Something

Limit The Commitment

Make a "May versus Must" List

Move Unfinished Items to the Backlog

It must be free

It should be valuable

It needs to be repetitive

It has to be related

test

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