1. They are hard working. There is no such thing as easy money. Success takes hard work and people who are willing to do it.
2. They are honest. Those who are successful long-term are the honest ones. Dishonest people may get the first sale, but honest people will get all the rest!
3. They persevere. How many success stories will go untold because they never happened? And all because someone quit. Successful people outlast everybody else.
4. They are friendly. Have you noticed that most successful people are friendly and people oriented? This endears them to others and enables them to lead others to accomplish the task.
5. They are lifelong learners. Successful people are people who stretch themselves and grow continually, learning from all areas of life, including from their mistakes.
6. They over-deliver. The old statement of under-promise and over-deliver became famous because it made a lot of people successful, including the richest man in the world – Bill Gates
7. They seek solutions in the face of problems. Problems are opportunities to do the impossible, not just complain. Successful people are the ones who find solutions.
ChrisKilber.com
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Are You Ready to Be Called Up to the Majors?
Baseball and Marketing
Well most of you know I’m a baseball fan. I’ve been a Minnesota Twins fan all my life. There are a lot of clichés out there about America’s game. I’ve also written about one of the Minnesota’s players, Justin Morneau. Justin was a player with high potential who was called up to the big show and demonstrated flashes of potential. However, he struck out a lot. He eventually played a whole season but only managed a low batting average. The next year, he hit .321 with 34 home runs, 97 runs scored and 130 RBIs. That won him the American League’s Most Valuable Player honors. See “Can Your Marketing Have an MVP Season”. I explain what he did and how you can too.
Psychology of Personal Branding
Personal Branding
We’ve all heard about Personal Branding. It is your unique selling proposition that will differentiate you from all others. The great thing about Personal Branding is that you don’t have to pretend to be someone your not. In fact, it doesn’t have to perfect either. You will attract people as long as you are genuine in your message.
Psychology
There are a lot of psychological factors in play that cause people to be “Attracted” to you. I don’t mean strictly physical appearance here, though that can have a factor. If you can figure out what these psychological factors are and feature or accent your strong points and identify where you can improve in the others, you will be able to separate yourself from all the others. This may take a bit of introspection on your part. The number one reason people are attracted to someone else is that they feel that they are just like them for a host of reasons. They are looking to try to identify themselves with others.
Characteristics
What makes people identify themselves with others is different for everyone. It can be a combination of many things. It can be, and not limited to, age, gender, physical characteristics, experience, vocabulary, exuberance, and presence. It can differ from day to day as well. It depends on each person’s frame of mind. So no matter what your brand or what your strengths or weakness are, there will be someone who will connect with you, start following you, and start studying what you are doing. In a nutshell, you can’t be everything to everybody, nor should you try. You just need to be YOU. However, there are things that you should try to do though that will attract more than just a narrow band of people.
Your Voice
In your writing, your video, and communications you need to sound confident and sure of yourself. People are attracted to confidence, plain and simple. You need to be honest. If you need to write about a concept that you are not totally unsure of, let your readers know. By being honest and admitting some of your shortcomings people will feel an attraction because they know they are not perfect as well. You can divulge these with a pact to learn more about them and a promise then to write about what you learned. This will provide your readers with a sense of belonging while you discover together.
Where To Go From Here
Personal branding isn’t something that occurs right from the get go. It is something that evolves. You will need to take the time to learn to write better. We all do. What’s the best way? By writing of course. You also will need to read the writing of others, especially successful writers and bloggers. Try and see how they frame their ideas and concepts. Try and isolate how they involve their readers and try to start incorporating those concepts into your own writing. I know I tend to write more in an expository manner and it can become a little dry at times. So these little tips, which actually aren’t so little, will provide you with the means to create a Personal Brand that will shine above the rest.
Git Er Done – Stopping Stress In Your Life
I’m going through a list of things that will help make your life less stressful. By New Year’s Evening you should be prepared to have a much more relaxed and successful 2010. So let’s get started. You know the old cartoons that depict good and evil standing on your shoulder having a conversation with your conscience? I have a third entity that hides behind my head and coaches one of those. He is known as Mr. Procrastinator. You can only guess which one he is helping. He is making sure that you can find all 101 reasons not to finish something you start. Yes Mr. Procrastination is robbing you of your sense of accomplishment, your success, and giving you lots of unneeded stress!
The number one best way to rid yourself of stress is to get things done. Have Mr. Accomplishment battling Mr. Procrastinator. Any tasks you have to do typically can be broken down into smaller sub-tasks. Then just do them, one after another. It is usually harder just thinking about tackling your task list than it is to actually just start doing it. What works for me is using index cards to create the lists. Once they are written down, this will free up much of the mental space required and you can concentrate at the task at hand.
What you will really get out of it, is a lot more done, a sense of accomplishment, and a LOT less stress. Tomorrow, I’ll tackle number 2.
Have a great stress free Holiday!
*I used cows because I live in the dairy state of Wisconsin. 
Can Your Marketing Have a MVP Season?
I’m a fan
I’ve been a fan of baseball for all of my life. I can also proudly say that I’ve been a Twins fan all my life as well. This year has been an interesting year for the Twins. The manager has thrown over 20 different pitchers on the mound this year and for the most of the year they have had a .500 record.
But…
But as many pitchers as the Twins have used, we are at the end of the season, the Twins have won 9 out of the last 10 games, and they are only 2 games out of first place with only 8 games left to play. And 4 of those games are with the first place Tigers! It is the classic definition of a pennant race. While I don’t watch as much as I once did, I do get to watch one game a week.
Remembering my Grandparents
As I stated above, I’ve been a Twins fan as far back as I can remember. I remember as a kid listening to Halsey Hall and later Herb Carneal to the game with my grandfather, Adam. That’s one of the things I remember most about my grandfather. He seemed to know everything about baseball and especially the Twins. He not only influenced me as his grandson, but my grandmother, Grace, who will be 98 this year. She still watches the Twins and is very opinionated about them. I think she would have made a great baseball manager. I remember asking my grandfather how a team could be 1 ½ games out of first place. Did they play only ½ a game and it counted? He just answered that if a team was 3-0 and a team was 2-0 which one should be in first place and by how much. The formula works this way; Games Behind = ((difference in wins) + (difference in losses)) / 2. Well at that time I didn’t even know what a fraction was but learned the importance of math at an early age.
I played too…
I did play a lot of baseball as a kid and never was stellar at it. I wasn’t bad either. I did learn it took a lot of skill hitting. I was good at hitting when I was hitting against the neighborhood kids in the local sandlots but going against pitchers at the higher levels, that ball came mighty fast. Hitting a baseball thrown at 85 mph is not easy.
Justin Morneau became an MVP
So why all the nostalgia with baseball and my grandfather? Well the skill needed to play at a Major League level is not easy, even for the ones playing there. The Twins have as a first baseman, Justin Morneau. Justin has played for 7 seasons for the Twins. He first came up with the Twins in 2003 toward the end of the year and the next year was slated to play first base for the Twins. But in 2004 he struggled during the year and only after 74 games was sent back down to the minors. He did manage to play the whole year with the Twins the following year, 2005, but only hit .239 with 22 home runs. So he did show some potential but nothing phenomenal or something to write home about. The next year, 2006, the first baseman hit .321 with 34 home runs, 97 runs scored and 130 RBIs. That won him the American League’s Most Valuable Player honors.
How did he do it?
So what happened between 2005 and 2006? Well it’s not so much about what happened between those years as what has happened over the years. Baseball players are not simply handed a baseball glove and a bat and told to go out on the field. Major league teams have batting coaches, pitching coaches, fielding coaches, dieticians, doctors, psychologists, physical therapists, physiologists, coaches, and many people with a lot of baseball experience. It was the combination of the organizations support staff, some experience, and some talent that earned Justin his MVP honors only 2 years after being sent down to the minors.
Did you pay your dues?
So it is with online marketing. There is no way anyone can just simply decide to start online marketing and be successful with it right from the get go. You are going to need a plan, hopefully from someone who has already had success. You are going to need some training, some coaches, a mentor, and hopefully an organization or team that can help you learn the ropes. Without any of this, the odds of success are not very high. I can’t say it won’t happen, just that the odds are against it.
What you need to do!
If you don’t have a coach or mentor, get one. Follow and study those who have proven track records. Don’t fall for the flashy promises of a Lamborghini and Lear jets. Take action. Track what you are doing. Refine. Seek insight if you don’t understand something. Practice. Split Test. Training is tax deductible. Take advantage of it. Learning online marketing is a process. Staying on top of new trends in marketing is a process. You are going to have to take batting practice every day if you want to be able to keep up with the pitches thrown your way. By keeping at it with the major leagues as a goal, there is no reason you can’t have your own MVP season. Play ball.
You Have To Love What You Do
If you haven’t seen or researched Gary Vaynerchuk and his work and life, you’ve missed out on a lot. You can find him at @garyvee on twitter. He has 857,184 followers. Here’s a video on the importance of building a personal brand.
I would love to hear your comments.
I’ve pre-ordered his book and will soon be released. I recommend buying it now.
Are They Liars?
A soothsayer is a person who claims to speak sooth: specifically one who predicts the future based upon personal, political, spiritual, mental, or religious beliefs rather than scientific facts. If your an online marketer or an online marketer wanna-be, you are certainly aware of product offering after product offering that inundate you via ads and emails. Now there are a lot of claims they all make and that’s not what this post is going to be about. I am specifically going to talk about one of them.
One of the claims I see everywhere is the term ‘Turn Key’. Really? A turn key system? If there were such a thing wouldn’t you think they would have gone viral by now? If they really were why would you have to sell them? Firstly, the one thing that I don’t like about ‘turn-key’ systems is that they all tend to have the same front page. You may be able to add a small picture to make it different than others but basically they are the same. And aren’t they typically online brochures mainly dealing with products not you? If you are in business with a company that offers them, do not make them the focus of your opportunity. You need to sell yourself first. You need to use personal branding to differentiate yourself from the other 20,000 selling the same products or opportunities. How can you do that with a ‘turn-key’ system? So the sites look the same, what else is the same? More than likely you’ll find the capture pages and ad copy the same. You’ll also find the emails from the auto-responders the same as well. You can have em. The modern and more effective way to attract customers is not to sell at all. Build relationships. Provide value. Then give them more. Once you’ve earned their respect and trust then they maybe open to a product or opportunity. Even then, you need to make it their decision to explore it.
True there may be ‘turn-key’ systems so they may not really be lying, but where the rubber this the road will be in how effective they are. I don’t think they’re effective at all. When they then make claims of making lots of money on auto-pilot don’t believe them. If you get the feeling that something is to good to be true it’s because it probably is. They may as well be liars.
Write From the Heart
Over the last few weeks I’ve been working with some folks who are just starting out blogging. A part of their the training has been to go into the Word Press interface and actually do a lot of the setup themselves. For some, this has probably been the most technical thing they’ve ever done with their computers. I know that I’ve wrangled a bit with setting up blogs over the years and even this one took much much longer than I would have liked. I still do have a few things to iron out, but I’ll get there. I have enjoyed seeing a lot of these people grow tremendously in a very short time. I especially enjoy everyone’s first posts.
One of the common threads I see is that people are realizing that they need to and want to reach beyond their capabilities and learn about different ways of doing things. Others are sharing their passions in very graphic detail and taking risks at exposing their feelings. Now I know this may be harder for the guys, but I’m amazed at the quality of writing I see. I sometimes tend to approach it in too clinical a fashion and don’t pour enough of ME into them as much as I would like, or should. I had commented over on another site about some new people wanting everything to be perfect. There are a lot who dread having to create content everyday. In a previous post I spoke that no matter the topic, people are interested in YOUR perspective. They want to know what YOU think and why. They want to know how YOU arrived at that perspective. They are looking for someone like themselves. So if your looking at creating content that is perfect just remember, when you write from the heart, it is perfect and if your writing is from the heart, then you will not disappoint.
Photo credit
Linda Cronin
I made a wrong mistake
Good evening everyone. Well I have a dilemma that I have to deal with over at Facebook. Well over on Facebook you have the option of not hiding your birthday. Well I have quite a few Facebook friends, 3000+ and I had quite a few people wish me happy birthday. I was given virtual flowers, chocolate, gifts, and even had some people make videos. It was quite overwhelming. This morning I wrote a note thanking around 200 people and I still had some to go. This evening I decided to respond to the messages I received. I wrote up a standardized thank you and commenced answering what I would figure 50 messages. A few minutes into doing that I got a warning message that I was doing something against their terms and to stop. OK. I stopped. Well I also had over 25 friend requests so as I usually do, I accept and put a welcome message on their page. I was into about 10 of them when I got a message saying I was suspended. No account, a lot of hard work over the last year, and I hear Facebook is hard to deal with.
I guess I could panic and be mad, but their system has no way of knowing whether something is legitimate or spam. I kind of wish they had that policy instituted on Twitter. I grumbled a bit and then crafted a letter simply explaining what I was doing. I’ve heard that they will re-instate after a while but it could range between a few days to a few weeks. That’s all I really can do. Now I’ll have more time to spend on this blog. This is a lesson we all can learn from. When you rely on other internet sites to carry your message you need to be prepared in case they simply suspend you or drop off the earth, whether for a valid reason or not. You need to try and get in a position where you host all your own content or as much as possible yourself. You also have to be looking for the next social medium that will replace some of the old and be able to easily adapt.
So as Yogi Berra once said “I made a wrong mistake.”
