I received an email from a Mastery client whose mortgage business was a year old.  She was almost in a panic:

“I have a question about Marketing.  Right now, I’m doing direct marketing by buying leads and hiring a telemarketing company to make cold calls.  I also bought a yellow page ad that cost me close to $500 a month, which I think now was a big mistake.  I’ve been approached by a company that wants me to purchase an 8-foot billboard for $350 a month.  This will entitle me to 5 billboards for 10 months.  I have not done my research, and really don’t know where to start researching billboard advertising.  I also have an email company that’s offering me bulk mail on the net…  Please help me…”

The best help I could offer was to elevate her thinking from a reactive, Technician standpoint to a higher-level strategic point of view.  Her decisions were driven by outside influencers who wanted something from her, and not from an internal understanding of what she actually needed.   It was important that she appreciate that there were two main components to Lead Generation:  Channels and Messages.  She was trying to make a decision based on Channels alone without balancing it with the other half of the equation.

You’ve Got to Know What You Want to Know

On our call that week, she reiterated her concern that she didn’t know what to expect in a return on her investment.

“If you want to track and quantify a return on your lead generation investment, you first need to be clear of your expectations.  Exactly what do you want to measure?” I asked.

There is no limit to the quantifiable metrics that can be captured, measured and analyzed. Cost per click, cost per sale, cost per lead, and average order value. But these are merely numbers that have little intrinsic value outside the context of what you are actually trying to achieve with your lead generation strategy. It is that underlying intent that will dictate your ultimate ROI.  The most relevant measure of a successful marketing strategy is its ability to deliver qualified leads to your door and sustain long-term brand awareness in the right markets.

You’ve Got to Know Who Needs to Know

So her first challenge was to define and identify her markets. To maximize her ROI (whatever she ultimately determined to be her standards), she needed to achieve a laser-like focus on her target market.

“Push all those offers aside, and think about whom you’re trying to reach and what their lives are like.  What do they love?  What do they hate?  What do they read?  What do they believe?  What do they really need?  And is that what you are promising them? Then you can think more strategically about what form of messenger would be the most credible and trustworthy to them and how you’ll measure the outcome in a meaningful way.”

When she began to slow down and really think about the demographics and psychographics of her past and current customers, a profile began to emerge and she found herself looking at a model persona that reflected her ideal customer. Over the ensuing weeks, we worked on taking that profile and developing a series of guidelines to help her shape and focus her lead generation message. Finally, armed with a clear focus and intent she was able to pare down her list of possible lead generating channels to those that would most efficiently and effectively attract credible attention within her target market.

One breakthrough that came from this research and analysis was the understanding that her target market did not respond well to traditional forms of mass advertising. In fact, her research revealed that relationship, trust, and word-of mouth played significant roles in her customer’s purchasing decisions.  This was powerful since she had already squandered precious cash reserves on various types of print advertising, with no apparent results, and was poised to drop more hard-earned money on a telemarketing effort. Instead, she would be able to take her refined message and choose the most appropriate channels for broadcasting that message.

Taking It to the Next Level

So she began to re-think her overall approach to “marketing” and lead generation in particular. We worked together to determine which activities would lend themselves to quantifiable and useful information and created a channel-selecting tracking sheet for that purpose. Further, my client was able to better clarify and articulate her objectives for creating and widening awareness in her target market, for generating new leads, and for building and strengthening relationships with her past and current customers.

Determining the Right Medium for Your Message

As she increased her understanding of her target market, she was able to narrow her channel choices by using the following criteria.  The first four are clearly tangible, objective and measurable:

1.    Reach:  You want a channel that will offer you maximum exposure.  A referral from a satisfied customer is a reach of one.  A 30-second radio ad at rush hour can reach thousands.

2.    Market Coverage:  How much of her Target Market will be exposed to this channel?  Reach divided by what you know to be your trading area will yield a “percentage of market coverage.”

3.    Cost:  Obviously this is important, but don’t reject any channels solely on cost before considering its ability to deliver your goals for highly qualified leads. Keep in mind what you may have spent in previous lead generation efforts that yielded nothing.

4.    Frequency and Exposure:  It usually takes more than one exposure for a new potential lead to “know” you.  Consider your channel’s ability to provide regular and on-going exposure.

Besides the objective criteria above, your growing intelligence about your target market’s lives and preferences are crucial in making your channel decisions.  Here are some important subjective criteria:

5.    The Channel’s Fit with your Market:  All the frequency, exposure, coverage, and reach that money can buy is lost if the channel is not part of your target market’s life.

6.    Fit with your Company:  Does the channel itself fit the image you want to convey about your business?  A café may be well served in the weekly free advertiser.  Would it present the best image for a title company or financial advisor?

7.    Impact:  Is your target market likely to respond positively to telemarketing calls?  Does their profile fit with discount coupons?

8.    Credibility:  Here, it’s not the message, but the credibility of the channel itself.  Would your ad for self-hypnosis cd’s be more credible to your target market if found in “The New Yorker” or “National Inquirer”?

9.    Intimacy:  Is this channel really speaking to your customer?  Does “friending” your Facebook page strengthen the bond with your prospect or does such a suggestion make them feel overexposed?

Marketing is strategy. It is about understanding who your customers are, how they think and make decisions, and how to position and differentiate your business from the competition.  Lead Generation is activity. It is about selecting channels and messaging to reach those customers in a way that is consistent with your marketing strategy. Business owners who don’t understand the difference between Marketing and Lead Generation tend not to do either very well.

Actually, it’s a science. It’s based on some of the latest findings on the brain. It involves using the brain’s power of imagination to “rehearse” optimal performance outcomes, your goals, dreams and future.

It works. Sports psychologists use this approach, for example, to train top athletes and champions to achieve optimal performance.

What does this have to do with your personal life and relationship? You can use this same power to achieve your goals, start a new healthy habit, or let go of an unwanted one.

Let’s be clear. This does not mean to walk around pretending your life is changed. That would be denial, not helpful at all. The idea is to capitalize on the mental imagery your mind is capable of producing, to visualize your future, the way you want it, and to make it an optimal sensory experience, one that involves all five of your senses. It’s sometimes called a “mind movie.”

It works for several reasons:

1. It can clear some old limiting beliefs.

Your thoughts are a powerful energy linked to your beliefs. They produce imagery in your mind that shape and direct the chemical reactions in every cell in your body. When a positive emotional energy state displaces a negative one, it has the power to permanently transform limiting beliefs. This process directs your subconscious mind, the part of the brain that controls the autonomic functions of the body, to create new neural pathways, ones that will be open to support you in the future that you want to create.

2. It can clear negative thinking.

Your thoughts are an inner dialogue. Scientists speculate an average of about sixty thousand thoughts cross your mind a day, most of which you habitually repeat to yourself. In many cases, you have been repeating them from childhood! These thoughts, or “self-talk,” are what cause emotions. While events may trigger painful emotions, they never cause them. The real cause of your emotions is what you tell yourself. “Rehearsal” is a process that can put you, rather than your emotions, in charge of what you think, and do, and how events unfold.

3.  It can eliminate negative emotional associations.

Negative associations block change. When you think about realizing a satisfying career, a great relationship or a trim, fit body, what emotions do you feel inside? Many persons react with painful feelings, such as disappointment, guilt or anxiety. Why? These images can be reminders of what is not yet achieved, past mistakes, or even failures. This then produces negative associations. Thus, each time you see someone with a fit, healthy body, for example, you feel disgust or unhappy inside. The result? Your subconscious mind interprets this as something you want to avoid – a clear miscommunication! It’s just the way the brain works. Its operating system is hardwired this way. With “rehearsals” you can correct limiting associations, and be in charge of the process.

The bottom line? Painful feelings can really get in the way of your dreams. You need to know how to protect your goals and dreams from any “interfering” emotional states. One way is to energize your behaviors and chart your momentum in a certain direction by “rehearsing” your future.

If this sounds interesting to you, here are a few suggestions to get started.

• Set aside at least 5 minutes once each day to visualize, in a relaxed state, your desired future in detail, as if it already exists.
• When limiting thoughts surface at any time, breathe into them and let them go — and smile confidently.
• As you “watch,” envision the vibrant colors, hear the sounds, feel the emotions and sensations in your body, even smell fragrances with your nose, and tastes in your mouth.
• This is your “mind movie” and you get to live it in these moments as if you are there, completely and fully present in body and mind and emotion.
• The key is to make sure this elicits pleasurable feelings of joy, happiness—gratitude—inside you as you do. Smile. Feel grateful.
• Think of this time as a fun and delightful retreat, a transformational exercise you look forward to jumping into to rehearse the life and relationships that you are consciously taking action to create in your life – speedily coming your way.

When you feel pleasure “rehearsing” your future in the present moment, what you are doing is telling your subconscious mind—the part of the mind that runs the entire body—that this is the reality you desire.

Just believe it, feel it, and be open to prompts for what actions to take toward it, small or big. A few moments each day will add power to your dream.

Oringinal post: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships/2011/01/your-brain-and-the-power-of-rehearsing-your-future/

1. The Cooks Source Revenge: Editor uses someone else’s recipe/article, writer takes exception, editor sends condescending reply, citing that all the internet tubes are “public domain” and she should charge her for using the article. UNLEASH THE GEEKALANCHE! If you Google “Cooks Source” you can see this turned into a worldwide story. Advertisers were bombarded with calls and emails to pull their support from the magazine.

“ON MY COMMAND, UNLEASH TWITTER”

2. Amazon Pedophile Guide: Somebody discovered Amazon was selling a guide to being a pedophile and thankfully the online world collectively lost their mind on them. Within 18 hours, the call to boycott Amazon was so strong, they pulled the title. Sadly, this also generated sales of the ebook before it was removed.

3. #IAmSparticus: Man gets to airport, is cheesed his flight isn’t going anywhere and tweets “Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!” And is promptly arrested. During his trial, a horde of online folks, mostly in the UK, tweet the exact thing and add “#IAmSparticus” to the end, in an act of awesomeness and solidarity.

Here’s what I love: everything is immediate and everybody is relevant. it no longer depends on press releases, contacts and a huge budget to get the world to take notice, it just has to be an awesome outrage. Us geeks have nothing better to do than to gang-up and stand-up for what’s right. We live rent-free in wicked basements and don’t have to do our own laundry (at least I wish this was still true for me).

Here’s where I take issue: We’ve lost the benefit of the doubt. I have no problem with the examples above but people now default to complaining on social media instead of going directly to the business first. I try to treat screw-ups as if they happened with my business, meaning I’d want to know to have a chance to make it right.

With my last post I could have simply tweeted that the food sucked, and walked away, but I never would have gotten it resolved and realized the chef cared about my experience.

I’ve seen people post on Facebook and Twitter about a terrible meal or a bad service experience but have never actually asked for it to be resolved, like the social media smurf unicorns would run off in the night and fix it all, due to brands fearing the social media geek-tsunami that was impending.

My mom brought UnJunior to get his haircut last week and wasn’t pleased with the attitude when she was refused service due to the time of day (20 minutes away from closing). She asked me if I could “Twitter” it. That’s when I started to sob gently. Social media should not be a megaphone of anger if we haven’t tried for a resolution. I’m guilty as the next person. So with this situation, I sent a DM to the hair place, and she explained what happened, overbooked, only stylist there had to leave to get her daughter at daycare before it closed. I could have jumped on Twitter and called them out with the old “DO YOU KNOW WHO I THINK I AM?? HAVE YOU SEEN MY KLOUT SCORE!!??”  Amazingly being human here worked and we talked about UnJunior coming in at another time.

It’s gotten so bad I’ve heard of people threatening places that if they don’t comp them rooms, meals or swag at events, they will tweet, post or give negative Yelp/TripAdvisor reviews. THESE are the people that need to be outed and have a social media beat down. THEY are the ones that make the social media sphere bad for the rest of us.

So next time you’re about to rage, make sure you give the business a chance to make it right first. If they fail to make it right, then on my command, unleash social media hell. 

Have you had good/bad experience with this as a consumer or biz owner? I’d love to hear your comments below.

Make sure you check out @unmarketing Scott Stratten the author and hero of this blog

With these 25 email tips, you can improve the quality and consistency of your emails for your subscribers.  To make it easy to read, I’ve broken it up into five different sections.

If you have a tip you’d like to add, post it in the comments at the bottom.

• Always get permission – Without having permission (meaning every subscriber asked for you to email them), spam complaints will increase and people will ignore your emails — even worse, they may opt out altogether. Aside from upsetting your “newfound” subscribers, you will probably also get the boot from your email service provider for violating their policies.
• Set expectations at the opt-in – Tell your potential subscribers what you will send them and how often. It shouldn’t be a shock that nobody wants an inbox full of email from you.
• Confirm with double opt-ins – While it’s a slight barrier to get your emails, double-opt-in protects you and your email provider from incurring spam complaints. Also, it’s smart since you will be confirming that someone actually wants your emails and is willing to click a link to do it.
• Utilize email marketing campaigns instead of ‘newsletters’ – Newsletters are so 2001. With an email campaign, you can attract specific prospects and send them emails related to a particular topic.
• Make the offer at the right time – Nothing annoys email subscribers more than getting an offer at the wrong time in their inbox. Strategically and calmly earn the opportunity to make a sale by providing the helpful and relevant content that they originally signed up for.

• Match your email to your brand – Include your company logo and colors on all your emails for consistency. Doing this will make your emails familiar and expected.
• Look professional with a consistent color scheme – Colors are a major component of your brand. If you need help finding a good color scheme, check out kuler or COLOURlovers for inspiration.
• Design the email and landing pages so it’s easy for mobile users – Realize that the popular iPhone has a viewable space of 320 x 356 pixels. That’s not much compared to the real estate of your computer (probably above 1024 x 768). This means you should condense the width so they can read the email without resizing the message.
• Make your email readable without images enabled – For privacy reasons, most email clients disable images unless the user allows it. Because of this, any images you include in the email should have descriptive text set for the Alternative attribute.
• Use fonts that reflect the style and tone of the email message – Choosing the right font size and family is a big deal. You wouldn’t take a business proposal seriously if they emailed you with Comic Sans. Choose a font that everyone has instead of one that looks good on your computer (e.g., Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman or Tahoma)

• Reinforce expectations of the email campaign – This doesn’t mean using the original IP address and convincing people your email isn’t spam. Rather, tactfully explain the basis of your email message and inform them if there are future emails they can expect from you.
• Personalize the emails and include more than their name – Make your emails personal and include more than their name. You’ll hopefully know why they signed up to your list and you can presume that in your copy by making it relevant.
• Economize your message to maintain focus – People are pressed for time. They don’t want to read more than a few paragraphs to decipher what you’re trying to say. Write what you need in the most efficient way possible. A tip I learned from an esteemed copyeditor is to write what you want, then cut the length by half. It’s remarkably helpful.
• Write for people, not robots – If you use “F.R.E.E.” in your email and it’s not an acronym for “Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment,” you’re doing it wrong. Just write for people and the spam filters will let it slide.
• Make your emails engaging and solicit feedback – As a reader, I like it when the sender asks a provoking question and solicits a response on their Facebook or simply via reply. This is good not only for the social interaction, but it will also educate you on what people think about your emails.

• Test your email messages on different email clients – Once you have the perfect-looking email, test how it looks on many different email readers. There are a few affordable services available that let you preview how it looks or you can simply try it yourself by setting up free email accounts on AOL, Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail and downloading a copy of Mozilla Thunderbird.
• Make it easy to unsubscribe – When users don’t want to receive your emails, don’t bury the unsubscribe link. Make it visible because receiving an unsubscribe is much better than a spam complaint.
• Send emails in multipart for maximum readability – Combine the best of plain-text and HTML email by sending in Multipart. For devices that don’t support HTML, they will show the message in plain-text. Conversely, if a device supports HTML, they will show it in HTML.
• Use a pre-header to take advantage of email previews – Pre-headers are simply the first line of text in an email located at the top. Email services like Gmail display the pre-header directly after the subject line, and it’s a good idea to summarize the email right there.
• Try a plain-text format if you use HTML – Mix up your email routine once in a while and use a plain-text email if you typically send in HTML. People frequently perceive plain-text emails are more intimate and personal from the sender, so use it sparingly.

• Respect your subscribers’ time and interests – Don’t hammer their inbox with useless emails. Plan out your emails and respect subscribers’ interests so they don’t receive more than a couple messages per month.
• Let people re-confirm their interest after nine months – Getting permission is half the battle; retaining it is the other half. Permission typically expires after nine months, so it’s a good idea to ask people to confirm their interest in receiving your emails and offers. The best part is, you will discover the most loyal subscribers.
• Send emails to smaller, more targeted groups in your list – With advanced email marketing, you are able to track which links and emails intrigue your audience. Leverage this data to identify different sub-groups to send tailored messages. You will be surprised at the increase in response rates when you do this.
• Use more than email to stay in touch – Email is the holy grail of marketing for small businesses, but it doesn’t end there. As the relationship with email matures, get more information on your contacts by asking for their address and even mobile number. Consider these additional means to stay in touch with your audience.
• Ask for and use subscribers’ feedback – There are two types of feedback: passive and active. Passive feedback is looking at which links people click on, which is an indicator of the aggregate interest in your email messages. Active feedback is when people ask you a question, suggest an idea or make a comment. Leverage this feedback to improve your email campaigns.

What email marketing tips do you have to share with other business owners? Share it in the comments below!

Small businesses tend to focus most, if not all, of their marketing and sales resources on closing hot leads — which means the not-ready-to-buy-yet leads end up getting thrown out with yesterday’s garbage.

This “get more customers now” mentality, combined with a lack of time and resources, hurts small businesses and often causes some serious inefficiency in the marketing and sales funnel.

Are you suffering from this problem in your small business? There are five signs your marketing and sales funnel is leaking leads and losing customers.

1.       You don’t use a lead magnet or Web form. You spend money and time driving traffic to your website, but then you bury your opt-in form. Or worse, you don’t offer a compelling lead magnet (e-book, webinar, demo, etc.) that people can opt in for at all. If you don’t have their contact information, you can’t follow up, and your conversions will be lower.

2.       You don’t segment your prospect and customer list. I suggest you segment your contact list three ways: by lead source, by demographics and behaviors (links they clicked on in an email, webinars they attended, etc.) and by selected interests (what information they’ve opted to receive).

3.       You don’t have a lead nurturing system in place. Without a system in place for nurturing and qualifying cold leads, your sales team waste hours on the phone educating prospects about the benefits your product or service provides. It helps to have an automated follow-up system in place so no lead gets lost in the cracks.

4.       You batch and blast. Your lack of time forces you to send the same message at the same time to your entire contact list. While your prospects and customers may share similarities, this one-size-fits-all approach will train them to ignore you or opt out of your messages all together. Track what actions they’ve taken, what information they’ve opted in to receive and their buying history. Then send only relevant, highly targeted messages that you know they will want to receive. This strategy will result in better open rates, higher click-through rates and more lead-to-sale conversions.

5.       Any nurturing ends after the sale. Once you get the customer, you get too busy to keep them happy, to upsell additional products or to ask for referrals. Automated follow-up can help satisfied customers remember to send their friends your way. Also be strategic about the products you upsell. If you have a system in place for tracking customer behavior, you can easily market your upsells to their needs. I know one small business that sends a pre-recorded voicemail automatically to new customers, thanking them for their recent purchase. That same business sends cookies when customers spend a certain amount of money (this is done automatically when the sale is processed). It’s about wowing your new customers so they don’t leave you for the competition.

Don’t fret if you find your marketing and sales funnel has some serious leaks. Just about every small business will experience and overcome these growing pains. In today’s world of technology, there are many marketing and sales tools available to help small businesses attract, nurture and convert leads.

Since then I have been reading and listening to nearly everything that Michael and E-Myth do.

I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did.

Stop, Ask and Listen: Exploring the Linkages between Marketing and Client Fulfillment

Harvard Business School professor and acclaimed author, Clayton M. Christenson, recently detailed in a co-authored article that nearly 90% of new products sent to market fail. This is an astoundingly high number considering the amount of time, money, and energy that goes into researching, designing, and marketing most of these products, and it highlights the fact that no amount of creative advertising or demographic information can ensure the success of a product.

From the E-Myth Point of View, this staggering statistic demonstrates a clear failure in understanding the relationship between client fulfillment and marketing strategies. Let’s explore some of the key linkages between these two important disciplines and outline a different perspective that will ensure your efforts put your product in the 10% that thrive.

Fulfilling intentions, meeting expectations

A simple and basic truth is that products must fulfill the primary intention that your customers have for using them. Just because you find the product endlessly useful and fascinating, doesn’t mean customers will. You may think that people will love your idea for disposable paper shoes, but if the buying public isn’t interested, no matter how much you spend on marketing, your product will fail.

So the product must be designed from the customer’s perspective, and your marketing must clearly demonstrate how the product will achieve the specific result they seek. The marketing plan and advertising channels should work to position the product as the essential resource for meeting potential customers’ expectations and interests.

Knowing what’s most important

Let’s look at an example. Your company designs and installs high-end media systems in people’s homes. The products utilize the most up-to-date audio, video, and home networking technology. But in feedback surveys and during presentations your potential customers tell you that while high performance is important, what’s most important is having a system simple enough to use that they won’t need to consult the user’s manual every time they want to watch a movie.

Therefore, no amount of technological sophistication will matter to them if their basic need “ease of use” is not met. As you develop the positioning and advertising strategy for your newly designed home theater package, you must resist the urge to emphasize the advanced technology, and remember that in the customers’ minds they are not buying technology per se, they are buying an easy way to view movies and listen to music in a high quality system with good performance.

A successful strategy

The successful company links their marketing and client fulfillment processes and systems in the most beneficial way for the customer; therefore you should ask and answer the following questions:

1. What is the basic functional need that your product must fulfill for customers?
2. What is the primary emotional need that your product must satisfy for customers?
3. What are the best feature configurations to meet those needs?
4. How will you most effectively highlight those attributes for your customers?
5. What other value-added benefits are associated with your product (convenience, availability, security, warranties and so on)?

Marketing and client fulfillment are best done by listening to your customers, knowing what they want, and letting their needs guide your actions. Business leaders who chart their direction by paying attention to what customers actually say they need and want, rather than by what they themselves believe that customers should need and want, will always have a higher chance of success.

In fact, the difference between success and failure can be answered by a simple question: Are you talking, or are you listening?

It could be an advertising campaign, it could be a successful Blog, it could be meeting more interesting people on Twitter or Facebook and it could even mean getting a promotion at the office or making a personal relationship work more effectively. I reflect on this often. Not just for myself. In fact, when I think of “what it takes” I’m often doing it by analyzing those that I consider to be successful (rough translation: individuals I appreciate, and if my life should somehow become similar to theirs, it would not disappoint me in the least).

It seems like there are two primary factors that need to be working for something to gain acceptance:

1. Self-discipline. It’s hard. Very, very hard to get motivated without external forces at play (a looming deadline, a demanding boss, a nagging spouse, etc…). It turns out that when we’re left to our own devices, human beings are amazingly good at avoiding the act of “getting things done.” If you don’t believe me, check out the work of David Allen(he wrote the best-selling business book, Getting Things Done). Millions of dollars (maybe billions) have been made in the business of selling books, seminars, programs, etc… on how to stop procrastinating and how to start acting on the things that are important to you. The experts will tell you that, “all it takes is a little self-discipline,” but the truth is that it takes a lot of self-discipline (and it needs to be consistent and ongoing). Getting something to a point where many people will embrace it and share it requires that the creator has the self-discipline to work at it, to chisel away at it and to tweak it. It may seem obvious, but when people ask me why they’re not accomplishing the many things that they would like to do in the Digital Marketing spheres, the main issue holding back the majority of people that I meet is their lack of self-discipline (and it’s something that I grapple with on an ongoing basis as well). They don’t commit (time, effort, energy, output, etc…) in a consistent and self-disciplined way. If you’re doing anything with creativity, trySteven Pressfield‘s latest book, Do The Work! for a kick in the pants.
2. Secret Sauce. If you thought that self-discipline is difficult (and it is… it’s very difficult), the notion of secret sauce is going to be a true mind-bender for you, because there nothing I (or anyone) can say or do to help you find your “secret sauce.” In fact, to push that thought just a little bit further: There are no individuals that can define their own secret sauce or the recipe for it, either.John Lennon may be able to tell us what he was thinking when he wrote, ‘Imagine’, but he could never define how or why that song came to him. Over the length of his life there were many mitigating factors that acted as partial ingredients for what is his secret sauce for writing a song that transcends time and culture. The good news is that we all have a secret sauce for something – a skill or trait that is uniquely ours – that when we’re outputting our best efforts, it’s truly reflected in the result of the work. Where do great ideas come from? That is the secret sauce.

Don’t stress (too much) about figuring out what it takes.

It’s fascinating to see how few people spend any significant amount of time nurturing their secret sauce by actually having the self-discipline to keep at it. If you have a thing for writing, but haven’t written in a long while, you know what I am talking about. Have the self-discipline to write – every day – even if it’s just for a handful of minutes. Keeping those muscles (the physical and mental ones) warm is better and will lead to tone faster than creating a myriad of excuses as to why the writing is not taking place. The interesting part of this exercise is that the secret sauce really starts flowing when you apply the self-discipline in a rigid and consistent manner.

For me, it’s the self-discipline and secret sauce that makes stuff happens. What’s it all about for you?

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