5 Ways to Take the Wind Out of Your Future Leaders' Sails...

I travel around the country every week facilitating leadership development programs. I find that companies of all sizes make significant mistakes when it comes to developing their leaders. If you want to make more money, increase morale and drive productivity, focus on your leadership team. After all, you can’t do it all yourself.

Here are five mistakes companies make that lead to less effective leaders and the solutions for each. 

7 Strategies This Loud Digital Marketer Used to Reach More Than 300,000 Subscribers...

If you follow digital marketing, Derek Halpern needs no introduction. The insightful, intelligent posts he publishes to his Social Triggers website are so widely recognized that he’s able to boast of more than 300,000 subscribers who anxiously await his updates.

But I wanted to know more about him than just the stats of his success, so I brought him in for an interview. Here are seven of the best lessons that came out of our conversation:

6 Crucial Characteristics of an Effective Tech CEO...

Every day, there seems to be a new article breaking down what makes a great CEO. Whether it’s a general piece or something related to Steve Jobs, the articles often focus on what makes these executives unique, not the winning characteristics they all share.

It’s no secret that being a CEO requires setting the overall vision of the company, hiring great talent and ensuring there’s money in the bank -- but without certain complementary traits, it would be difficult to run businesses that succeed. If you’re an aspiring leader in tech,

Here are the six characteristics I’ve noticed among the most effective CEOs in the industry:

4 Ways To Boost Your Social Media Presence...

You've taken the time to set up social-media accounts for your business on all the major sites. You're posting regularly, taking the time to interact with your customers and using your social-media platforms as an opportunity to share information about your products or services. Social media marketing, however, isn't just about regular posts; it's also about providing your customers with opportunities to interact with your business. Through that interaction, you'll be able to build relationships with your customers and increase their opinion of your business substantially. 

Here are four ways to boost your presence: 

Essential Information to Collect on Every Prospect and Customer...

Entrepreneurs running small businesses worry that if they don’t do this kind of expensive market research, they won’t know how to reach their prospects and will fail miserably. But for many small companies, the cost of even one study from one of the big market research companies would wipe out their entire marketing budget for the year.

Fortunately, there’s a low-cost alternative to focus groups and other formal market research studies: the BDF formula. BDF stands for Beliefs,Desires, and Feelings. The BDF formula says that you can understand your prospect by asking yourself three simple questions:

Cultivate These 11 Habits to Achieve Meaningful Success...

 Success, for many, doesn’t run deeper than the development of skills or talents. There are many forgettable people in the world who are skilled, talented and successful. Success is a great thing, but having an impact is another. To be successful and feel the fulfillment of your success, strive to have an impact. Strive to make a real difference in lives of others. Live for those opportunities to help. Deep life satisfaction comes from being a really good human being.

Winning Really Is the Only Thing in Business. Here Are 3 Ways to Get There.

What is the definition of failing over the long term? Losing.

I recently had to spell this out for an inexperienced entrepreneur who considered his string of failed ventures proof I should back him -- as if they were badges of honor. He believed failing is like earning a point. Accumulate enough, and you deserve success.

Below are the three ways to get there:

11 Tweaks to Your Daily Routine Will Make Your Day More Productive...

I don’t know anyone who couldn’t use a little boost in their energy and self-control.

 The researchers found that self-control and energy are not only intricately linked but also finite, daily resources that tire much like a muscle. Even though we don’t always realize it, as the day goes on, we have increased difficulty exerting self-control and focusing on our work. As self-control wears out, we feel tired and find tasks to be more difficult and our mood sours.

You Deserve to Be a Millionaire. Follow These 12 Tips to Get There...

I started with nothing and have been blessed with enough focus, commitment, follow through and the ability to not make excuses that I have done extremely well in my life.

Here are the takeaways from the show:

6 Things Successful Leaders Do Differently

Great leadership can be a difficult thing to pin down and understand. You know a great leader when you’re working for one, but even they can have a hard time articulating what it is that makes their leadership so effective.

 It’s through a leader’s actions—what he or she does and says on a daily basis—that the essence of great leadership becomes apparent.

10 Mistakes Intelligent People Never Make Twice..

Everybody makes mistakes—that’s a given—but not everyone learns from them. Some people make the same mistakes over and over again, fail to make any real progress, and can’t figure out why.

“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.” – Bruce Lee

When we make mistakes, it can be hard to admit them because doing so feels like an attack on our self-worth. This tendency poses a huge problem because new research proves something that commonsense has told us for a very long time—fully acknowledging and embracing errors is the only way to avoid repeating them.

How Successful People Stay Productive and In Control...

Unfortunately, self-control is a difficult skill to rely on. Self-control is so fleeting for most people that when Martin Seligman and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania surveyed two million people and asked them to rank order their strengths in 24 different skills, self-control ended up in the very bottom slot.

And when your self-control leaves something to be desired, so does your productivity.

7 Challenges Successful People Overcome...

It’s truly fascinating how successful people approach problems. Where others see impenetrable barriers, they see challenges to embrace and obstacles to overcome.

Their confidence in the face of hardship is driven by the ability to let go of the negativity that holds so many otherwise sensible people back.

5 Philosophies That Will Help You on Your Path to Success

The ability to create success is the product of a unique combination of skills, mindset and abilities that you can tap into again and again to achieve your biggest dreams. That’s an important thing to remember because each journey of success in your life will evolve. Many successes will be started, some will end, but more often they will morph along the way, because success is never a final destination.

The 7 Secrets Self-Motivated Entrepreneurs Know...

How do some entrepreneurs overcome obstacles, maintain intense focus, exemplify ironclad discipline and create companies out of thin air? Genius? Luck? Some secret sauce of success?

Much of the answer lies in motivation. How do we define that? Psychology Today defines motivation as “the desire to do things.” An even more detailed definition explains that motivation is “the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviors.”

These 7 Tools Run Our 7-Figure Business

In this vein, I pay close attention to the new tools being introduced that we can leverage here at BottleKeeper, even as we're scaling and remaining automated.

7 Strategies To Help Your Team Communicate

Any leader who is working on becoming a more effective communicator can tell you the one ingredient they need to focus on is themselves.

 
But ask those same leaders what the focus should be on to make their teams communicate better, and the answer is not so clear. While one can focus on others, there are many other factors to consider that enhance or disrupt communication and need attending.

The trick in communication is to get a group of people to not just work towards a common goal and mission, but to communicate along those same lines as well. When members of a team speak, email, and communicate in alignment with the direction of the team, an extra layer of synergy takes place that enhances the performance efforts of everyone. 


But when those points of contact are taken away for any reason, there is a drag factor that can hinder even the best aligned performance.

In creating a more effective means for communication among your various teams, here are some strategies to keep in mind:

5 Leadership Behaviors to Move up on Your Priority List...

Many leaders drive others harder than they need to. What results is a constant push for their team to achieve those goals. Meetings consist of checking the lists of things to be fixed and get done NOW.

5 Mindset Shifts to Promote Connection

I was recently at a social event and ran into a colleague who had recently retired. I had been at the event for awhile, and wanted to go home. My first instinct was to try to cut the conversation short as I thought about all the things I needed (wanted?) to get done. But because I have been trying to be more mindful of connecting, I caught myself and shifted my attitude in mid-conversation. 

My friend was sharing some very meaningful things about his transition into the next stage of his life and I realized that this was a precious moment to be present and connect. I slowed down internally and let the connection unfold. We talked for quite awhile. We both shared things we were going through and encouraged each other. I left the conversation feeling enriched and fulfilled.

We’re often so focused on “what’s next” that we miss the opportunity to connect with people in the here and now.
If we slow down to be physically and emotionally present, we create moments of meaning that build our well being and have the potential to develop deep friendships. For leaders, being present is crucial to create a culture in which people feel connected to each other and to the vision of the organization.

Notes that love, or what I would call connection, has three components:

9 Success Habits of Wealthy People That Cost Nothing

Have you ever you wondered how certain people have gotten so successful? Sure you have. A great idea, motivation, persistence, and a little luck helps, but most successful people share certain habits. 

Here are nine habits that have helped place them on the top:

The Truth About Entrepreneurship That Isn't Mentioned Nearly Enough

Truth is There are no shortcuts or magic formulas to make piles of cash appear in your bank account overnight, but Interestingly there is a better way at which Treu Leverage can be ascertained.. All you need is the wright Vehicle to Achieve those Dreams.

Entrepreneurship is a Long Part that can  actually be Compressed with Rogged  Consistency, Commitment, Smart Work, Discipline and Focus.. Always Start with the End in Mind.

Our society craves instant gratification -- we want things now and we want them fast. We are able to rent movies on demand, use our smartphones to have a personal driver waiting outside within minutes and Chipotle’s Twitter feed goes nuclear if someone has to

Stop Saying You Don't Have Time to Start a Business. Make Time With These 6 Tips.

 Think of how many amazing business ideas and Opportunity are left on the shelf to collect dust because they are not pursued. Dreams are left to die because their creators assumed that he or she didn’t have the time to start a business. What a horrible excuse.

 If you have an idea for a business, go for it. Why? Because if you don’t, you are going to regret it and you might be passing on a truly amazing experience.     

“I’ll start it next year.” 

What if there isn’t a next year?
 
“I’m not sure if now is the time.”  
If you don’t do it, someone else will.
 
“I don’t have the time now.”  
Make the time.
                        

Here are six tips to help you start a business, even if you have a full-time job or feel like you don’t have the time.

The Basics of How I Built a Seven-Figure Business Without Employees

 

There is a lot to be said for those rare few that possess the ability to create huge companies with hundreds or thousands of employees that are all just ecstatic to be at work. It is exceptionally difficult and equally as impressive, which is why they end up taking up space on the front page of a major magazine or journal.

5 Steps to Becoming a Recognized Leader in Your Field

 
As the old adage goes, “All other things being equal, people buy from people they know, like and trust.” This is where authority marketing comes into play.

Put simply, authority marketing is using your knowledge of the business world as a marketing technique to garner customers and sales.


As Dan S. Kennedy, known as he Godfather of direct marketing, succinctly put it: “If you aren't deliberately, systematically, methodically—or rapidly and dramatically—establishing yourself as a celebrity, at least to your clientele and target market, you’re asleep at the wheel, ignoring what is fueling the entire economy around you, neglecting development of a measurably valuable asset.”

By being considered a reputable, trustworthy expert within your industry, you can help simultaneously help bring awareness to your business – and hopefully more sales.

Here are five ways you can become a leader in your industry:

5 Steps to Becoming a Thought Leader in Your Industry

 

Becoming a thought leader, an individual who drives innovation and new ideas in a given industry, is an objectively valuable path for any professional. Thought leaders are popular, well respected and connected enough to drive real value to their respective businesses. They’re charismatic institutions, revered both by customers and workers within the industry. 

But getting there is neither easy nor straightforward.

If You're Practical Utterly Fantastic Dreams Can Come True

   Is anything possible?

You'd probably like to say yes... but what if I asked you if you could be elected president? Or go to space?

Why is it so hard to believe that the really good things that happen to other people can actually happen to you, too?

We love to indulge our own capacity for disbelief.

The 4 Pillars of Better Leadership...

According to the U.S. Small Business Association, nearly 540,000 new small businesses start each month. While half of these new ventures will celebrate a five-year anniversary, 70 percent of them will fail within 10 years.  

 

While much has been made about a difficult economy over the last eight years, the fact is most businesses fail not because of a poor business climate or complicated external market forces. They fail because of poor internal leadership.
That might seem harsh, but it’s also the reality of business. With over half a million new ventures starting up each month, it stands to reason that not all of them are going to have good leaders, much less great ones.

When entrepreneurs or CEOs turn to me for advice on concrete steps they can take to improve their leadership skills, I share with them these four leadership pillars:

5 Steps to Reach More People, Make More Money, and Create More Impact

If you’re like me, you’ve felt like this from time to time—maybe even right now. You’ve got something important to say or something useful to sell. You know you it could make a difference in people’s lives. But navigating the platform world can feel like driving without road signs.

Imagine if you had a guide—a roadmap that could help you get from here to there. Now you do, and it’s free.

Want Success? All You Have to Do Is the D.O.V.E. Technique (Dream, Organize, Validate and Execute)

The life of an entrepreneur is definitely full of ups and downs. Over the past 15 years, I have managed to start three businesses personally and one with a couple of friends. The fact that the four businesses were in four different industries gave me a significant amount of experience but also allowed me to see the common success principles were that existed in all of them.

5 Almost Effortless Ways to Become a Morning Person

The only problem is . . . you absolutely hate getting out of bed any earlier than you have to. Sound familiar?
 

  

If you love the idea of creating a success-propelling morning routine but hate the thought of facing the day once your alarm clock sounds, don’t worry. Here are simple strategies you can follow that will make climbing out from under the covers and starting your morning much easier . . . and even somewhat fun.

7 Ways to Create an Inspired Team...

Business leaders understand that employees are the greatest asset their company has, making attitude the greatest determinant of success. Wise business leaders focus on what is “right” in their company and in their employees. Using intimidation and uncertainty to spurn productivity yields limited, temporary results.

Know These 5 Realities Before You Take the Entrepreneurial Plunge

Do you have a great idea or something that will revolutionize the world? Or is it just a simple idea that will allow you to work for yourself and call the shots while providing for your family? Whatever your motivation is, if you elect to go at it alone, you are in for an adventure, to say the least.

I went into business for myself at the age of 29. Because I was treated unfairly I quit my job and, rather than going to work for someone else again, I did the very thing I was scarred to do -- I started my own business. That was nearly 30 years ago, and since then I have started several businesses.