7 Top Personal Branding Goals To Develop Your Social Brand Strategy

Would you like to have customers come to you organically because they know for a fact you can help them achieve their business and/or life goals? It's a wonderful thing when you don't have to sell to your customers, instead they contact you and are excited to business with you! They aren't thinking “should I do business with this person or brand.” Instead they are thinking “HOW can I do business with this person?”

Would you like to increase brand awareness, generate more leads? Even better, let's help you get more sales and even decrease the sales cycle and the time it takes you to close business or that big deal you have been working on for months!

It's not a new phenomenon that people buy from people. Long before Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and even blogs, people have been buying from people.

Yet, why do people still hide behind social media logos and contact forms? It seems they either don't understand or are afraid to come out from behind the social media corporate wall and show their true human side. They fear they must share what they ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner to build their personal brand. This couldn't be further from the truth.

Have you thought about your personal branding strategy? If not, you should.

Regardless if you have taken time to plan your personal brand or not, you have a personal brand.

Your personal brand is defined not only by what you want it to be, but also by perceptions. Your personal brand is impacted by what people think of you. It's what people say about you behind closed doors. It's what they say about you when you leave the room, what they think about you after they watch your Periscope or Facebook Live video. It's even how they giggle with or at you after watching you and your funny filter selfies on Snapchat.

The truth is everything you say, do, post, like, comment on and share is a representation of your brand. Your actions speak far more louder than words. Download our 105 Factors Impacting Your Digital Brand white paper.

Building the best brand of YOU, requires understanding and defining your goals. What do you want to achieve as you become more known in your industry? How do you want people to perceive you? What are the goals that will drive your actions? Have you ever thought about these things?

Take a listen to the 227th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 7 Top Goals of Personal Branding. These will help you better define your personal branding goals and also develop your personal brand strategy.

Building a personal brand is not just about creating a shiny social profile, but presenting yourself in the most authentic way possible to your community and audiences in a way that will attract them to you organically. When done right, personal branding not only builds the brand of you, but also will help you achieve many personal, life and business goals.

Business and life are about human connection. The social web is really one big fat social conversation and relationship, made up of many micro-conversations and relationships. It's about humans connecting with other humans as humans, not robots.  You might as well define how you as a human want to fit into it and not only give the most that you can to help others but also be able to benefit from it as well.

This episode is part of the “You Are the Media” series in which we are digging deep into how you can build an integrated social and digital platform that works when you are not working. A platform that helps you inspire, connect with and delight your audiences. Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

• 7 Top Personal Branding Goals


• How to define your own personal branding goals


• Why personal branding matters


• Tips to become the “go to” thought leader in your industry and local market or niche


• How to increase brand awareness of your business with your own personal brand


• How to generate more leads and sales by building your personal brand


• How to decrease the sales cycle with personal branding strategies


• How to tap into the power of influencer marketing more easily when you build your personal brand

Supporting Resources:

• Digital Body Language: 105 Factors Impacting Your Brand (white paper)


• 10 Reasons Personal Branding is a Requirement Not an Option (white paper)


• Know Your Audience! Audience Analysis Worksheet


• 7 Foundational Steps to Build Your Personal Brand


• Personal Branding: Zoom Your Brand with the YOU Factor 


• Brand Storytelling in a Nutshell


• Brand Strategy in a Nutshell


• 10 Tips to Zoom Your Brand with Social Media


• You Are the Media: 10 Reasons You Need a Blog (episode 111)


• 15 Characteristics of Human Brands (episode 55)

Free webinars: We are also launching a series of webinars and training opportunities to dig even deeper. Sign up here-> You are the Media – Building Your Media Foundation

How to Subscribe to Social Zoom Factor Podcast 

•  iTunes


• Stitcher


• SoundCloud

       

Related Stories

• 10 Time Hacks to Design Your Dream Life and Business


• 10 Ways Small Business Can Use Facebook Live Video Streaming


• 7 Steps to Build a Pinterest for Business Plan to Ignite Sales and ROI

 

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5 Growth Hacking Case Studies From Amazing Startups

Startup marketing can be a challenging journey, especially if you are starting from scratch. With so many digital channels to invest in and thousands of experts offering you multiple strategies, it is hard to make an informed decision.

The difference between startups and established businesses is the fact that the former is highly concerned with customer acquisition and retention more than anything else.

An established business might have the budget to burn cash for awareness and branding, whereas a startup's major concern is more likely paying customers that can be generated without that cash burn.

A popular article in Huffington Post reads:

A lot of entrepreneurs get too excited or maybe they just don't have clarity of direction yet. On the other hand business owners that do have an overall plan and get all of their strategies pulling the same way, are thriving.

I couldn't agree more with the above statement.

Sean Ellis, the first marketer at Dropbox coined the term growth hacking, with an entire science behind it focused towards technical startup marketing.

This post talks about how popular startups understood the startup marketing funnel and applied successful hacks at every level to reach where they are today.

Understanding the startup marketing funnel

The marketing funnel for startups is based on the AARRR model. Here is what it stands for:

Image Source: Growth Rocks

Let's dive into them with some more details:

1. Acquisition: For startups, this would mean how you can gain the necessary awareness in order to see results from your marketing efforts.


2. Activation: Once people know about your business, why should they convert? This step talks about how to move people further from the awareness stage.


3. Retention: Why should someone keep using your product or service when there are multiple options available in the market? Retention explains how to keep your customers for life.


4. Referral: Nothing is better than word of mouth marketing. This stage talks about how to get more customers out of your existing customers.


5. Revenue: Finally, after executing all the above steps, understanding how your business will maintain a positive cash flow and growing profits is the key here.

Now that we are clear with the different steps of the startup marketing funnel, I am going to illustrate all these stages with examples from popular startups.

1. Acquisition: How Airbnb generated the right awareness for their product

After raising some initial funds for their business, the founders of Airbnb Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, started to analyze better ways of scaling their business other than paid acquisition.

They narrowed down their market research to one question.

Where does the target audience that looks for something other than a standard hotel experience hang out digitally?

The answer was Craigslist.

In order to get more traction for their listings, Airbnb decided to give an option to their site visitors for sharing their listing on Craigslist as well.

With a smooth marketing message, they encouraged people to share listings on Craigslist as well.

The results?

Using this hack, Airbnb received the attention of thousands of users from Craigslist, and since their listings were much more attractive with better descriptions and photographs than Craigslist, this led to a viral growth cycle.

Image Source: Growth Hackers

2. Activation: How PayPal activated users

Paypal was one of the most successful startups of the late 90's.

Their phenomenal growth story involves going from 1 million users in March 2000 to 5 million users in summer 2000.

They started activating users by paying them to sign up. With every sign up, Paypal paid you $20 to sign up (and also $20 for a referral). As the value of their network grew, they reduced the bonus to $10, $5 and eventually nothing.

This was a classic example of activating users by giving an incentive.

Paypal tried a lot of advertising but this method achieved them the lowest CAC.

Image Source: Quora

3. Retention: How Groove reduced their churn rate by 71%

A major problem SaaS companies face is high churn rates.

Churn rate is the percentage of people exiting out of your subscription based business.

One such company that was struggling with churn rate was Groove.

Groove is a simple help desk software for businesses which comes at $15 per user.

Despite a healthy flow of new users, Groove's 4.5% churn rate was making the business model unsustainable.

The folks at Groove analyzed the difference between users who stayed for more than 30 days and the ones who quit before that.

They divided people in the following categories:

After a lot of analysis, Groove decided to send targeted emails to people who spent less time on the platform and were likely to opt out after 30 days.

People with sessions under 2 minutes were sent this message:

Image Source: Kissmetrics

Someone who logged in fewer than 2 times in the first 10 days was sent the following message:

Image Source: Kissmetrics

The results?

Using this conversion optimization strategy, Groove was able to reduce churn rate by 71%.

Key Takeaways

Understanding where people might be struggling with your product/service and addressing the same could get amazing results.

4. Referral: How Dropbox fueled their growth with referral marketing

Dropbox is probably one of the most popular tech startups. The success behind it's viral growth is referral marketing.

With paid marketing, Dropbox was spending $250 per customer for a product that was priced at $99.

“Dropbox went from 100,000 to 4,000,000 users in 15 months”

Here are the steps Dropbox used to boost their growth…

Every friend you referred to Dropbox will earn you 500 MB more storage. You can earn up to 16GB of free space using the strategy.

Image Source : Referral Candy

They also made sure that inviting friends was easy to do .

Image Source : Referral Candy

The key takeaway from this story is that word of mouth marketing is one of the most powerful strategies.

If you can incorporate referral signups/purchases in your business model with a valuable incentive for customers, it can be a strong driver for growth.

5. Revenue: The growth engine of PicMonkey

PicMonkey is a startup in one of the most competitive spaces – photo editing.

However, building a great product with a freemium model has done really well for them.

Millions of users join every month and billions of photos are edited.

People can access basic filters for free. For advanced filters and tools, people have to pay $4.99 on a monthly basis.

And hundreds of thousands of users pay that subscription price.

Image Source: Fortune

The company makes millions and the CEO mentioned that the growth is 40% year over year.

The major takeaway from this is about building freemium models.

If you offer a part of your service as free, users will learn how good your product is.

This will help them understand the value they could get once they purchased your product or service.

Going freemium with your products or services can do well for business growth.

Wrap

As a startup, you need to understand which part of the AARRR funnel does your business lie in.

Maybe you are at the initial stages and awareness is most important to you.

Maybe you need to improve customer retention and focus your energy there.

Whatever be the case, evaluation of your current scenario and taking action based on that is something that will drive substantial growth

Guest Author: Shivankit Arora is a growth hacker and the founder of a startup marketing agency, MarketingMasala.com. You can connect with him on Twitter  to know more about growth hacking and startup marketing.

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Top Strategies for Taking Your Online Community Offline with Marketing Events – Stefanie Grieser [SSM019]

How do you go from having no conference - from almost having no marketing team, just you being the 9th employee and one of the very first marketers - to a marketing conference of 1,000 attendees, acclaimed in your industry, a must-attend destination on the annual events calendar?

How do you do all of that in just four years?

We had the pleasure of speaking with Stefanie Grieser, International Marketing Manager at Unbounce, about the multifaceted strategies that go into marketing and growing one of the most successful marketing conferences in the industry. And how marketing events help to engage your audience and create delighted customers for life.

A huge thank you to Stefanie for jam-packing this episode with actionable wisdom and takeaways for social media managers and marketers looking for the best ways to start, grow, and nurture successful marketing and social media events.

How to listen: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | RSS

This episode is available on:

• iTunes


• Google Play


• Stitcher


• Sound Cloud

In this episode, here's what you'll learn:

Stefanie Grieser shares the fascinating story and strategy of how Unbounce went from small meetups to hosting one of the largest marketing events in the industry. You'll also learn other great things like:

• How social media can help you market and grow your offline community


• Why measuring the ROI of events is challenging, but important


• Key factors and strategies in promoting marketing events and conferences


• Where sales and acquiring new customers fits into the event marketing cycle

2 Key Takeaways for Successful Event Marketing from Stefanie

In Stefanie's words…

1.Keep in mind the backbone of any great event is great content

“Keep in mind the backbone of any great event is great content: deliver great value for your audience and an audience. If you keep those two things top of the priority list I think you'll succeed in event marketing. Again, I said this throughout the interview, you can have all the bells and whistles and you could be worried and stressed about catering, but at the end of the day that's lower on the priority list to make a great event.”

2. Keep it simple at the start

“I would also advise people that are thinking about doing event marketing, whether it's a conference or a smaller meetup, to keep it simple at the start. You don't need to over-complicate things. Again, keep those two things top of mind, an audience and great content. Really keep it simple. I think the first year you can get sidelined. We're going to have all these different tracks and all these people and it can get complicated really quickly.”

I think if you simplify things, especially if you're a one person team. I was by myself. I was doing this. I was spearheading things from the ground up and there's a lot of people around me would be like, “Oh, what about this? What about this?” I had to … It's so great to think about all these extras and think about all these different tracks or what we could do here, but at the end of the day I think keeping it simple and keeping those two things top of mind will really serve you well.”

 Mentionable Quotes and Shareable Snippets

In Stefanie's words…

“Really, event marketing is an extension of your content marketing. That's the backbone to a really successful event. You can have all the bells and whistles, and events oftentimes get overshadowed by all these bells and whistles and great AV and balloons and swag. But really the backbone of a great event is an audience, the people there. That makes an event: a community and great content, valuable content that people can learn from.”

Show Notes and Other Memorable Moments

Thanks a million for checking out this episode! Below are the websites and other tidbits that were mentioned in today's podcast about creating incredible Facebook communities using groups. If you have any questions for us, feel free to drop us a line in the comments and we'll respond right away!

Companies and Events Mentioned by Stefanie

• Unbounce


• Unbounce CTA Conference


• Buffer

Great Quotes

• “It's a very big word, but really like any project or startup or even marketing channel, you should think of it as an MVP. Start small. We didn't start by saying, 'We're going to do a conference. We're going to pull off a conference.' Yes, we kind of had the endgame in mind: It would be nice to do a conference. But why don't we take little steps to get there?”


• “These communities could really be strengthened through in-person encounters. Unbounce is a software company. We provide marketing and conversion software to marketers, and all of our interactions are done online. Building an in-person marketing strategy really actually strengthens some of the ties that we have to our community, to our customers, to people that could be customers - future customers I call them.”


• “It showed us that people want in-person experiences and events. They want in-person connections. That was one little thing on the road to a bigger event. We did five or six meetups in different cities, and we found that it was really valuable. People were learning a lot. They were a high touch opportunity.”


• “If you think of an event as a marketing campaign you are driving and you're using different levers to promote your event to get people to come. Social is one of those, social is something that we integrate into a marketing campaign. It's always an aspect. Okay, we have this campaign, you have this event. How are we going to tell people about it? We have an audience on social. We have a community on social so we'll tell them through social media.”

How to Say Hello to Stefanie (and us)

Stefanie “Stef” Grieser is a must-follow marketer on Twitter and she would love to say “Hello” at smgrieser.

Thanks for listening! We'd love to connect with you at @buffer on Twitter or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It'd mean the world to us if you'd be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

-

About the Show

The Science of Social Media is a podcast for marketers and social media managers looking for inspiration, ideas, and results for their social media strategies. Each week, we interview one of the very best in social media marketing from brands in every industry. You will learn the latest tactics on social media, the best tools to use, the smartest workflows, and the best goal-setting advice. It is our hope that each episode you'll find one or two gems to use with your social media marketing!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

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Facebook Ad Types: When to Use Each Objective

Facebook Ads can be confusing.  There are so many different options when you go beyond just Boosting Posts – which I really recommend to optimize your ads correctly.

Not only are they confusing when you first start with the Facebook Ads Manager, they are changing almost daily.

And different people see different things when you get to the Ad Objectives.  Some people might see this simpler set of choices such as this:

 

 

Others might see a more complex set of choices like this:

 

 

You can see some similarity in the language of the choices but in some cases the language is different.  For example, “Reach people near your business” is also known as “Local awareness”.

Here is a brief explanation of each type of ad

• Boost Your Posts – Optimized for Likes, Comments, and Shares on that post. This type of ad is NOT recommended when you really would rather get traffic to your website.  Choose the “Traffic” option or “Send people to your website”.


• Promote Your Page – Optimized for Page Likes (this option is under the “Engagement” selection for those that have that selection).


• Reach People Near Your Business aka Local Awareness Ads – Your ads are shown to Local people you select based on zip code or city.  This also includes people who are traveling through that area based on their mobile phone location.  You also have different calls to action buttons such as “Get Directions” or “Call Now”.


• Increase your Reach – Optimized for maximum impressions.


• Brand Awareness Ads – Optimized for “Awareness”.  This is shown to people who are more likely to recall your brand after seeing an ad.


• Send People to Your Website (or Traffic) – Optimized for clicks to the website.


• Get Installs of Your App – Use only for Facebook Apps.


• Raise Attendance at Your Event – Promoting a Facebook Event.


• Get Video Views – Optimizes for higher views (can have videos in other types of ads).


• Collect Leads For Your Business – Lead Generation Ads (leads are collected within Facebook).  Two taps optins that are geared for mobile users.


• Increase Conversions on Your Website aka Conversions – The ad is shown to people who are more likely to purchase or opt in to your free offer on your website – You MUST use the Facebook Pixel to choose this option.


• Increase Engagement in your App – Use only if you have a true Facebook App (such as a game played on Facebook).


• Get People to Claim Your Offer – Create a Facebook Offer where the call to action is Claim the Offer (you do not get a list of who claims them).


• Promote a Product Catalog – recommended for larger Ecommerce sites only – you must have uploaded a product catalog in the Business Manager.


• Get people to visit your stores – If you have multiple stores and have set up a multi-location Page, you can use this objective.


• Engagement – This is in the “simpler” selections but combines Page Likes, Boosted Posts, Offer Claims, and Event Responses into one selection – you then make a secondary selection to choose which objective you have.

Newer Engagement Ads have some secondary choices as shown:

So after all of that explanation, you may still feel like your choice is as clear as mud.  Here are a few tips to help you make your choice:

Tip #1 – Your ad is optimized around the Facebook Ad Objective you select

When you select the fact that you want Video Views, your ad will be shown to people who like to watch videos on Facebook.  Remember that Facebook is tracking everything we do and they know who likes to click on links, Like Pages, opt in to Facebook Offers, etc.

The targeting you select for you ad also is in effect as well as the optimization.  So your ad is shown to your target audience but it's really a “subset” of that audience based on the objective.

Always focus on what your true objective is – if you really want to get people over to your website, but you have a video as the creative, then make sure you select “Traffic” or the “Send people to a destination off Facebook” option (depending on which one is available to you).  You can then use a Video in the creative part of the ad.

 

Tip #2 – Sending people to your website  or using website Conversions allows for Retargeting later

I typically advise people to choose the Traffic or Conversions option as must as possible because when you have the Facebook Pixel installed, you can then retarget your ads to people who were interested enough to click over but may not have opted in or purchased.

In order to make that strategy work, you do need to have the Facebook Pixel installed on your website.  And you do need to have a good landing page to send them to – one where they are going to opt in to your offer or purchase something on your site.

Once you have the Pixel installed, you do also need to have a Custom Audience created for retargeting.  And one caveat also is that you have to have enough traffic built up to that site to retarget – at least 1000 visitors.  So the strategy takes time.

Tip #3 – Choosing between Lead Generation, Facebook Offers, and Conversions

These three options can be confusing so let me break them down a little:

Lead Generation:

Benefits: Allows for a quick opt in to your offer with 2 clicks where the user never has to leave Facebook.  You don't have to create a “landing page” for someone to opt in to but that also means you have to describe the benefits of what you are offering within a short amount of text.  People opt in using their Facebook information so you know that you are getting good data.

Drawbacks:  You get access to the leads in the back end of your Facebook Page and you have to manually download the names and emails or pay for a service that will connect it to your email system.

Learn more about Lead Generation Ads

Facebook Offers:

Benefits:  People “Claim” an offer and get an email notification about how to claim it.  You can also automatically direct people to your website after clicking the “Get offer” button.  They will also get a reminder notification.  You can set up time limits and quantity limits on the offer.

Drawbacks:  You don't get any information on who has claimed your offer.  They are not automatically opted in if it's something free, they still have to complete the 2nd step to actually optin.  If it's something for sale, they may or may not complete the purchase.

Conversions:

This is the type of ad I would recommend most often between these 3 options.  I've tested them all and I most often get the best cost per conversion.  You do have to set up either a Standard Event pixel on the Thank You page or a Custom Conversion (see my post on Facebook Pixels) in order to use this type of ad but you can then track what the cost is to opt in or purchase your product.

 

So I hope that helped clear a few things up about Facebook Ad Objectives. Facebook Ads are a fantastic place to reach your ideal customer, but if you aren't optimizing them correctly, you could waste a lot of money!  And that's why I created my course, Facebook Advertising Secrets.  And it's on a special CYBER Monday sale today only!

CYBER Monday Special:  Facebook Advertising Secrets $100 OFF

I could spend a lot of time telling you about all the fantastic training, the 4 modules, lifetime access, the bonuses you get.  But the biggest benefit you get with the course is access to the Facebook Group where you can get all your Facebook Ad questions answered.  We give feedback on ads, troubleshoot reports, and give advice on how to make your Facebook ads shine!

If you really want to grow your business quickly, Facebook Ads is the best vehicle to do that on the internet right now.  Today only, Monday November 28th, the course is $100 off and you get everything for the crazy-good price of $197.  Join me at http://ift.tt/2bW4iCD

 

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This One Habit Transformed My Life

Financial security can be paid for two ways. Get a job or become an entrepreneur.

Starting a business is often seen as a big bang approach. High risk and a big financial commitment. Find a bricks and mortar premises, commit to an expensive lease, hire staff and start marketing and selling your products and services.

Today all you need is a laptop, an Internet connection and just one idea.

Which one do I prefer?

I have done both. One trapped me and the other gave me the financial and mental freedom I had been seeking for decades.

It came out of one habit that I committed to every day.

False security

Finding “that” job often provides a false sense of security.

“That” craved for career can be destroyed by a corporate takeover or the cruel game of office politics. A job for life is being replaced by a 12 month contract or the freelancer.

But in a world that is in the majority a knowledge economy, the opportunities to reach the world that is thirsting for your experience and expertise and get paid for it is now needed. Becoming a freelancer or entrepreneur is becoming a solution.

Now I can hear you saying……“I have a day job and don't have the time”. A day job is just 8 hours…..the raw reality? There are another sixteen hours available.

Arnold Bennett highlighted this in a small 33-page book “How to Live on 24 Hours a Day” (written over a hundred years ago). He encouraged us to live a day within a day that can take us from ordinary to extraordinary.

Many of us go to work and come home and engage in trivial activities. This includes television, reading a glossy magazine, sending text messages or even playing with Snapchat.

Investing in your own creation and production and distribution of your experience, expertise and passion while holding down a day job can transform your life.

Work that makes a difference

In his book “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” Cal Newport dives into the difference between deep work and shallow work. Any of us that are trapped in the never-ending cycles of responding to emails and attending meetings know the feeling.

At the end of the day you are asking that question. “What have I done or created today that is of any consequence.”

But there is a solution to that nagging question.

It doesn't matter if you are a knowledge worker within the corporate machine, an entrepreneur or a creative.

An approach

According to Cal Newport there are several options to doing “Deep Work”. It is not one size fits all. It depends on how you like working and living and also depends on your particular life circumstance.

Monastic Approach: Cutting yourself off from the world to focus and remove distraction

Bi-Modal Approach: This is where you may work and perform the day-to-day work in one location and do your deep work at another. You then dive in and out of each space.

Journalist Approach: This is an approach that you seize the opportunity at random as time and your schedule allows.

Rhythmic Approach: This where you set apart a certain time of day to do your deep work and block it out every day and commit to that ritual.

These are not the only approaches but they provide some ideas for a habit that could change your life.

The habit

In 2009 I started my blog and my approach was more like a journalist. I often created late at night but also on weekends. But as the journey continued the ritual changed to a rhythmic habit.

I rose early at 4.30am for 5 days a week and turned off all email, social networks and other distractions. The ritual included making a coffee, a mug of lemon and ginger tea and sitting down and strapping myself in.

I researched, wrote and published. The last step was pushing that content out to the waiting world.

When you do that one day at a time for years then things start to happen. A passion project became a serious business. Done part time before most people were awake.

That habit was an investment in me. But when I started I didn't understand it's far reaching consequences.

The power of validation

In 1998 a journalist David Isay decided to capture the stories of ordinary people. He visited the flop houses of New York and sat down with men that had been living and surviving for decades in run down buildings.

After publishing their interviews he went back and showed them their one page stories in print. One man on seeing his name in black and white, seized the book out of David's hand and ran down the corridor and shouted “I exist…..I exist……I exist!”

These men had to wait for someone else to discover them……to share their story with the world. The visibility had also provided a validation. It is something we as humans crave.

To be acknowledged is a powerful thing.

Choose to be discovered

But on today's social and mobile web we don't have to wait for discovery or for permission.

We can create, publish and showcase our own existence without waiting for permission or to be “discovered”

We can choose to start something of consequence. We can choose to create.  When you start sharing that with the planet, the magic of that distillation of your thoughts and genius is a place to grow and to be validated.

The social web with its platforms and networks is a feedback loop that will give you the feedback you need to evolve and grow.

I pose a new mantra. “I create, I publish, I exist”

Block out your time for “your” creation

So plan your day for making sure you have focused creative space. Block out time for “deep work”. Don't make success an accident. Design your life, share your expertise, experience and passion.

We all have the opportunity to be craftsmen. To be creators and producers of content and media that belongs to you and not the corporation.

The habit of doing the “deep work” is not just about productivity. It goes much deeper than that.

It is a place where your learning goes to a new level one day at a time. Blocking out some hours for you. For your work. But……don't keep your creation hidden from the world. Share it. That is where the magic happens.

It will fill the hole that gnaws at you every day if the opportunity to create in concentration is ignored.

Soul food

You will feel a sense of accomplishment as a work that started as raw and rough becomes a piece of art that is yours. It will feed your soul.

That's  your life, your work and your creation.

You will look back in a year and wonder why you didn't start the habit earlier.

But you must commit to making it happen and to investing in yourself. Responding to other people's emails and attending meetings is not investing in your work.

It is just busyness.

One of the biggest challenges can be the habits that trap us in mediocrity or stop us growing and moving forward. It's your choice.

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