She let me drive this beast for the first time two weeks ago, and I had so much trouble paying attention!  I mean, every other second some automated system was starting up, a light was flashing, or a sound came on alerting you to something.  It was so distracting that I had trouble driving!  Who knew a seat massager could cause an accident!

I especially had trouble paying attention to Jenny.  While every one of the “loaded” options was doing its thing, Jenny was also trying to carry on a conversation with me, and for the life of me, I barely heard what she was saying.

That’s when I remembered that I had to get present.  I couldn’t just live in the distractions that were around in the car, or survive only with the thoughts in my head.  I had to get present with every word that was coming out of Jenny’s mouth in order to inspire and connect with her.

Life can be one big distraction.  You have so many conflicting priorities and “shoulds” that you want to get done.  Life can be so distracting that we forget to be present with the people who run our businesses, with the strangers we meet, and with the families who love us so dearly.

Be present.  Feel everything your body is touching.  Listen to every sound in your environment.  Connect with your energy and focus your attention on the human beings who are around you.

If you truly want to be an inspiration to your environment, and connect with other people, be present.

Jamar Cobb-Dennard is the Vice-President of Business Development for reachmore, which teaches small business owners how to build a business that runs without them.  For more resources on business leadership, please visit http://blog.goreachmore.com.

I don’t know if you have ever been to a funeral for someone over 90 years old, but there typically aren’t that many people there.  Most of that person’s friends and extended family members have passed away, and all who are left are close family members and a few scattered community members.

This wasn’t the case for Aunt Mae Mae.  Every single seat was taken, the balcony was full, and there were over 15 personal tributes spoken for my Aunt’s life.  Most of those tributes mentioned something of her ability to love wholly, unconditionally, and without respect of person.  She had over 60 kids, grandkids, great grand kids, and great-great grand kids, and a handful of others who considered her their “adopted” mother.  Not only were those family members at the funeral, but also the friends of those family members who may have not even met my Aunt.  People who didn’t even know Aunt Mae Mae were recipients of her love through those that surrounded her.

That is a powerful love; a love that is so deep and stretches so wide that it impacts an entire community for generations.

Aunt Mae Mae did not just love.  Nor was she just a caring soul.  Aunt Mae Mae was love.  Love permeated and drove every decision and interaction she had with people.

I learned the power of being love last Thursday.  Love is what draws people, influences them, and holds them close to you for a life time.  Be love and emote that energy to your family, to your employees, and to every stranger you meet.  You will see a magnificent difference in how your life’s dreams manifest themselves.

Be love.

Thank you for the lesson, Aunt Mae Mae.  I love and miss you.

Jamar Cobb-Dennard

The book was average (If you want a good summary go and Google the Zappos core values, you don’t need to read it). However, I do believe that Tony is truly a revolutionary CEO and can teach us all a lesson.

In an age where your competitive advantage can disappear overnight (think MySpace), we all need to focus on something that can separate us from everyone else.

That something is people.

Tony clearly demonstrates that by focusing on creating an amazing environment that is filled with passionate people you can achieve just about anything.

It doesn’t matter what you sell (he chose shoes), the key to building a great business has everything to do with how well you treat your people.

I couldn’t agree more.

In a hyper-competitive environment our prospects are trying to commoditize our products/services every day. We have to get different.

I would first look at your people.  What if they were truly passionate about your company?  Would your customers see the difference? Would your prospects?

CJ McClanahan is the Founder of reachmore, which provides leadership coaching for small business and executives.  Email CJ at cjm@goreachmore.com for the latest on reachmore’s revolutionary executive coaching program, Summit.

The first few response were great.  I had responses like, “For the first time in my life I have a clear direction for my business” and “one of the best investments I have made as a business owner”.  I felt great!

Then it happened.

I was sitting in my office and heard the familiar hum of the fax machine indicating that a message was on the way.  I looked over and noticed that it was coming from a current client who had recently received the customer satisfaction survey.  I was seconds away from reading another glowing testimonial about how my coaching had transformed another business owner.

Unfortunately, that’s not what I read.

Instead, this feedback form was filled with comments like “this isn’t what I expected” and “I am receiving very little value from this program”.

My heart sank.  I literally felt like I was going to cry.

But guess what?  I am a much better coach today because of feedback from that very honest business owner (who remained my client for more than 3 years).

There is no better teacher than a very honest assessment of your performance.

I realize that sometimes the feedback might be negative.  That’s OK.  This feedback is by far the most valuable of all.

CJ McClanahan is the Founder of reachmore, which provides leadership coaching for small business and executives.  Email CJ at cjm@goreachmore.com for the latest on reachmore’s revolutionary executive coaching program, Summit.

Colvin argues (persuasively, I might add) that the difference between the remarkable achievers in the world and everyone else comes down to one thing – practice.

If you want to be the great musician you need to practice several hours a day seven days a week.  You want to be the next Tiger Woods (let’s focus on his record in golf, not with the ladies)? It would be helpful for you to have a dad who is an actual drill sergeant start you playing the game when you are 2 years old.

That got me thinking – how does this apply to my work with executives and business owners?

There are a handful of behaviors that will almost always lead to success in business.  They include – always exceeding expectations, making more prospecting calls, setting clear expectations for your staff, etc.  Unfortunately, most of the clients and prospects I work with always want to focus on something new instead of mastering any of the fundamentals.

For example, I have met tons of salespeople who are in a non-stop quest for a “silver bullet” lead generation strategy that will allow them to eliminate prospecting from their daily schedule. Guess what?  It doesn’t exist. If you want to increase your sales you have to prospect – period.

Steven Covey has a great quote – “To know and not to do is really not to know.” In other words, just because you understand the basics for improving your business it doesn’t mean a thing unless you implement these simple tactics.

Before you make an investment in a new marketing, operations or leadership strategy ask yourself the following question – “How am I doing with the basics?”  Maybe it’s time for you to practice, practice, practice.

CJ McClanahan is the Founder of reachmore, which provides leadership coaching for small business and executives.  Email CJ at cjm@goreachmore.com for the latest on reachmore’s revolutionary executive coaching program, Summit.

I would suggest that you first decide which online marketing tools you will use. Here are the tools we use at SpinWeb:

Tools: Website, Blog, Email newsletter, E-book download, HootSuite, TweetDeck.

Networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.

Next, you will want to set up a schedule and a process for utilizing these tools. Try something like this:

1. Update general content on your website once a month. Your website should remain up-to-date and should show activity. At least once a month, publish a new press release, post a new case study, or post a new event. Show activity and demonstrate that it’s an active organization.

2. Post one new blog entry per week. Your blog should be educational and should teach your readers something useful. Blog to share advice, tips, trade “secrets”, or anything else that will benefit your constituents. Self-promotional blogs get ignored. Useful blogs develop a following. See the tutorial “Blogging for Business“for more tips. When you post a new blog, it should automatically post out to your company Twitter account, your company Facebook fan page, and your LinkedIn profile. The service we use for this is called Ping.fm. Your website should automatically integrate with Ping.fm. Once you post it, use HootSuite to schedule three Twitter posts for this same blog over the next few days: one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening. This helps cover the different times of day that people check Twitter. View this tutorial on using HootSuite to learn how.

3. Send out your most recent/best blog entry every other Wednesday morning as your email newsletter. Don’t re-invent the wheel. Re-use your content by turning your best blogs into your email newsletters. This ensures that your newsletters are useful and educational, as well, which will encourage people to stay subscribed.

4. Write an e-book or a white paper that teaches your constituents something about your industry. Make it a high-value “how to” document. Make it available for download but only after the visitor fills out a form with an email address. Clearly state that by downloading the e-book (or white paper), that the recipient will be added to your email list. Make sure your database imports into your email newsletter list so that anyone who downloads the e-book will start receiving your newsletter. Consider requesting a phone number when someone downloads and then call them up in a few days to see if they want to learn more about what you do. Here’s our e-book.

5. Run a pay-per-click Facebook ad campaign that targets your target market and leads to the landing page for your e-book (or whitepaper). Your can learn how to do this in our Learning Center with this tutorial(sign up for a free account if you don’t have one). Start with $10/day and tweak from there.

6. Write one recommendation for someone else on LinkedIn every week. The more recommendations you write, the more you will receive and it’s good karma to show appreciation and endorsement for others who have helped you or influenced you.

7. Open up Facebook and TweetDeck every day and play around. Yes, I said “play around”. Don’t over-think it… just have fun. Talk to people socially. Follow new people who interest you. Comment on things your friends are posting. Share articles. Just have fun. This is sometimes the most important part of your system. It builds rapport and strengthens your connections. It also keeps you from being boring. To improve your experience on Twitter, check out this TweetDeck tutorial.

This is certainly not the only system you could use, but it is one example of how you might approach your online marketing. If you follow these steps systematically and consistently, I can almost guarantee you will start to see more leads over time. It may take a few months but it will happen once you start to build a network of subscribers and constituents.

Have some other tips? Please feel free to comment below and share them!

“Michael Reynolds is the CEO of SpinWeb, a web design firm that specializes in creating and marketing transaction-ready websites for associations, small business, and corporations.”

I have been searching for a downtown loft.  Last Friday, I ended my workday 2 hours early, so I could view apartments while the leasing offices were still open.  To my dismay, 3 out of the 4 places I went to had no one attending their offices! I went back to my first stop, and a leasing agent finally came back to greet me.  I called the numbers on the door of another building, only to get two disconnected numbers, and left a voice message on the third, which has yet to be returned.

Here is a second example.  We sell business coaching to business owners of companies with an average of 1-5 employees.  Most of the time, the business owner of a company that size is the point-person for business development.  It amazes me how many times I have to call a client before they pick up the phone.  They have no clue who I am (I typically don’t leave messages), so one would think, “Hey, if I want more business, I should probably pick up the phone – this could be a prospective client calling!”

How easy do you make it for clients to contact and initiate the sales process with you?

Do they have to figure out, work, and guess at how to buy from you?

Are you available and quickly respond to office phone calls, cell phone calls, email, web inquiries, twitter, facebook, tungle?  If you don’t have the capacity to instantly respond to each of these methods of engaging you as a provider (or at BARE minimum, give them a same day response), then you need to create a new system to do so; immediately.

If you don’t, your business stands no chance of ever running without you.

Jamar Cobb-Dennard is the Vice-President of Business Development for reachmore, which teaches small business owners how to build a business that runs without them.  For more resources on business leadership, please visit http://blog.goreachmore.com.

Your view of the action probably had a great deal to do with how much you enjoyed the game.

It is the same with every single aspect of your life. By that I mean,  your ability to be successful and enjoy your existence is directly related to your viewpoint or your perspective.

Consider the following examples.

Brian is a 7 year old boy who lives with his family in Fishers, IN. His dad is a doctor and his mother is an attorney who has decided to stay at home with Brian and his 4 year old sister until they are both in grade school.  Throughout his school years Brian is provided with encouragement from his family, friends, and teachers . During the summers he has the opportunity to travel and attend many camps that provide him with great learning opportunities. As he nears the end of his senior year in high school, he has a choice of many different colleges to attend because he has maintained good grades and his parents have the financial means to pay for wherever he selects.  In addition, virtually all of his friends will be attending college.

Tyler is a 7 year old boy who lives in a rundown neighborhood in Indianapolis. His mother works 2 jobs to pay the bills and he has never met his father. As a result, Tyler has very little supervision after school and spends this time getting into trouble. Throughout his school years, Tyler receives very little encouragement from anyone. His is constantly fed a message that has convinced him that the most he can ever hope for in life is a job at McDonalds. As he nears the end of high school, he realizes that he doesn’t have the grades to graduate and is considering just dropping out. Very few of Tyler’s friends will graduate High School and none will attend college.

Now imagine that you get a chance to meet both of these individuals the summer after their senior year. Can you imagine how different their perspectives on life will be?

Every time you are tempted to complain about a challenge in your life, I urge you to remember this example. A change in perspective can help turn any obstacle into an opportunity.

In addition, if you would like to learn more about how you can help kids like Tyler right here in Indianapolis please visit The Reach Foundation.
CJ McClanahan is the Founder of reachmore, which provides leadership coaching for small business and executives.  Email CJ at cjm@goreachmore.com for the latest on reachmore’s revolutionary executive coaching program, Summit.

I remember thinking “Surely no one is stupid enough to buy this idiotic gadget, then stand in their living room and shake themselves silly until they get ripped muscles.”

But, then I saw the magic phrase that convinced me that this product would be a hit – “instant results”. The maker of this silly tool claimed that in just 6 minutes a day you too could look like the guys in the video.

We are a nation full of people that are absolutely addicted to immediate gratification. We want to put in as little effort as possible to achieve amazing results in every aspect of our lives.

I have some bad news for you. That’s not the way it works.

If you want great relationships, a healthy body, a solid personal financial statement and smarter kids it’s going to take a lot of work.

There is no such thing as a short cut or a quick fix.

I just finished a great book called Talent is Overrated, by Geoff Colvin who argued that the most successful and talented people in the world were not born that way. Tiger Woods wasn’t born with innate golf skills. Nor did he buy a magical instructional golf video after watching an infomercial that turned his game around. Colvin argues (persuasively) that like all great achievers Tiger Woods became the best golfer in the world because he outworked everyone else.

So, then next time you are tempted to buy a product or service that guarantees immediate results, resist the urge.

Remember, success comes from a handful of behaviors practiced over time until they become a habit.

There are no short cuts.

CJ McClanahan is the Founder of reachmore, which provides leadership coaching for small business and executives.  Email CJ at cjm@goreachmore.com for the latest on reachmore’s revolutionary executive coaching program, Summit.

After years of market domination, Blockbuster got fat, drunk, and happy with profits, as they were able to gouge American entertainment lovers with $5 overnight movie rental fees.

Ridiculous.

America and the “market” said, “No more”.

First, Netflix came with their nifty movies by mail platform.  Blockbuster returned the gesture by offering movies by mail AND instant in-store exchanges.

Blockbuster = 1
Competitors = 0

Netflix then hit Blockbuster hard with internet-based movie downloads.  The movie download feature was lame at first, but now it’s pretty sweet.  Blockbuster had no answer.

Blockbuster = 1
Competitors = 1

Next, here comes Redbox with $1 overnight movie rentals, minimal overhead, 24-hour availability, and seemingly limitless brick and mortar distribution channels.

How can ANY big box video store compete with that?

Blockbuster = 1
Competitors = 2

So, not only is Blockbuster getting slammed by competition whose pricing is 80% lower than theirs, they’re available 24-hours a day, in hundreds of thousands of convenient locations, are down-loadable over the internet, and receivable by mail.

Competitors = Innovative champions
Blockbuster = Dead

Here is a news flash that I am certain you have already realized, and probably haven’t done anything about:  Every product is going online or being offered in a CRAZY convenient format.  Yes, even you with your snazzy B2B product offering, need to find a way to innovate how your long-successful product is delivered.

Find a way to digitize your product offering, make it scalable, make it Über-convenient, and price it so it is easily accessible by your audience.  Otherwise, you will die, just like “Goliath” Blockbuster.

Jamar Cobb-Dennard is the Vice-President of Business Development for reachmore, which provides leadership coaching for small business and executives.  For more resources on business leadership, please visit http://blog.goreachmore.com.