At a recent conference hosted by information product guru Fred Gleeck, I was introduced to the Strengths Finder 2.0 book by one of the speakers at the event. The book goes hand-in-hand with an online evaluation program designed to determine your 5 core strengths.

The basic concept behind this is that it is far more productive and rewarding for people to engage in work/activities that mesh with their strengths rather than struggle to overcome weaknesses. Why dedicate your life to being the best basketball player if you are 4′10″ tall with asthma?

Wouldn’t it be better in the long run to place your efforts behind something you might excel in?

The whole thing makes sense to me. The results of the test speak to deep strengths like ‘learning as a motivator in your life’ and not simplified and overly determined things like ‘you should be a research scientist.’

My Strengths Finder 2.0 Test Results:

1. Learner
2. Ideation
3. Activator
4. Achiever
5. Input

Even more interesting to note are the things that are not on my list like: Strategic, Discipline, Analytical, and Consistency.

I still have a lot to digest from the results, but this has been a helpful exercise to locate some areas of strength to focus on as I plan out my work in the future and evaluate potential business partnerships and joint ventures in the future.

The Go-To Guy!

Technorati Tags: core strengths, personal development, self awareness, strengths finder

Blogger Steve Pavlina wrote an article recently stating that “everyone is essentially self-employed and that even if you’re an employee.”

I’ve long been a fan of this method of thinking and it has been a huge help in my business life. Ultimately, it involves taking responsibility for your work and career and making conscious choices in how you ‘operate your business.’

This whole notion fits in with another idea that empowers you by taking responsibility - ‘you always have a choice!’ When you work inside someone else’s business, you can often feel like you are out of control. Corporations make sweeping changes that can leave employees feeling like they have no choices and they must follow the whims of the executive. Difficult bosses can create the same feeling. But, when you take responsibility for your actions, it becomes possible to transcend the situations and decide how you wish to behave rather than react to someone else’s behavior.

People often have a lot more influence and choice than they realize. But, they give it away every time they claim that ‘their idiot boss’ is responsible for their behavior or throw their hands in the air and claim ‘what option do I have?’

In my work life I’ve experienced a lot of turmoil and questionable business decision making. More than once I’ve been told (only later to be un-told) that I would be relocated to another city. While these circumstances battered my colleagues, I knew that I work for myself and my family. Our business was not planning to relocate so we began to look for other customers in our location. In the end, my ‘customers’ re-thought their choices and decided to remain my customers and I never got overly anxious about the periods of indecision.

What are your thoughts on the subject? Who do you work for?

The Go-To Guy!

My wife and I have taken the baby and traveled to Michigan to spend the 4th of July holiday week with my family. A number of years ago, my parents bought a house in a little community on the Lake Michigan coast and for the past 12 or 13 years, we gather there in the middle of summer.

I’m sitting outside the public library here breathing in the fresh air and taking advantage of the free WIFI access they provide and it reminded me of one of my goals: create a online business that can be run from anywhere I have access to the Internet so I can spend my time where I want to!

So far this morning, I’ve run a quick check of my affiliate accounts, Adsense, and Amazon.com. I’ve also been able to look in on a PPC campaign I’ve got running over at Yahoo! The income isn’t big, but I’ve managed a few dollars while hanging out here at the cottage.

This time next year, it would be great to spend a month here visiting and enjoying the weather and the beautiful surroundings. All I need to do is build up my online business to an income level that supports our lifestyle and then run it from my laptop - anywhere.

Are you trying to build an online business? What does your dream life look like once you have succeeded? How will you spend your time (and where) once you have more control?

Knowing where you are going is an essential ingredient to getting to your destination. Spend a few of your casual summer hours daydreaming about what you want your life to be like - then write down the dream! The written dream is your roadmap!

The Go-To Guy!

Do you want to start your own business publishing information products? There is a mountain of information products out there promising to show you how to start your business. The dirty little secret is - most of these products are either incomplete or just plain garbage.

So, where do you turn for help? Well, I’ve spent the past year and a half exploring this market and building my business (this blog is one component that actually makes me a little money!) I discovered a person named Fred Gleeck, known as ‘The Product Guru’ and recently attended his One-Day Info Product Seminar.

I liked the seminar so much that I bought the rights to distribute a recorded version of the One-Day Info Product Seminar (and I also have a copy to listen to over and over!) Fred goes step-by-step through the process of creating and growing an info product business. There is no hype, he just lays out the details. Unlike most ‘gurus’, Fred doesn’t brag about million dollar product launches or hype the idea of becoming instantly wealthy. He focuses on the elements needed to create and run a lasting business.
To kick off my sales of these seminar audio recordings, I am offering a GIGANTIC DISCOUNT! My One-Day Info Product Seminar sales page is currently offering the package for $67 - 30% off the retail price of $97.

But, that is not good enough. I am distributing 10 copies at the ridiculously low price of only $37. But, when they are gone, I will never sell it for that low price again.

These specially priced copies are being sold through eBay. View the One-Day Info Product Seminar’s Auction page for details (and to see how many copies are left.)

I spent a long time looking for a mentor I could trust, and Fred is one of my mentors now. The sales/auction pages have a little more info how I discovered Fred and why I value his teaching.

If you want to build your own info product empire, don’t wait! Order your copy of the One-Day Info Product Seminar today!

Have a profitable day,

The Go-To Guy!

P.S. If this is not for you, but you know someone who would appreciate the information, please forward this page to them.

I had my most profitable online business month yet last month and decided to roll some of that back into my business by seeking out a little offline education.

Here in New York City almost every street corner has a few news boxes giving away course catalogs or free local papers. One of the course catalogs that is very popular is the Learning Annex catalog. This one is usually filled with everything from from the weird and wild like ‘How To Strip for Your Partner’ and ‘Making a Fortune In Real Estate’ to very practical computer classes and soap making classes. It’s an adult education free-for-all.

In the middle of all these classes is a half day seminar called ‘Market and Sell Your Own Information Products’ led by Fred Gleeck. He has been leading these classes a few times a year for many years. When I first read about him I did a little research and bought 2 of his books (it was cheaper than the seminar and I wanted to get a feel for what he was all about.)

The books are very good (you can download the full texts in PDF format If you join his mailing list at www.FredGleeck.com. He email infrequently and they are always worth reading.)

I’ve grown to appreciate Fred’s writing and really wanted to hear him speak and meet him. This Saturday, March 17, 2007, I’m going to finally do it - and I payed the course fee out of the PROFITS from my online business!!!

Another marketer recently encourage me to go to meetings like this in order to network with people and not just for the information I’ll learn. I’m hoping that happens too!

I’ll post about what happens next week. If you are in New York, sign-up at www.learningannex.com and we can meet up at the seminar.

The Go-To Guy!

‘5 Bucks A Day’, by Dennis Becker - It is better than ‘The Secret’, it’s the answer to your frustrations with your online marketing efforts.

Picture two people standing behind a row of expensive cars. They can have any one they choose if only they can push it 200 yards.

The first person picks a nice black Lexus and starts pushing. The car barely moves, but she just keeps at it.

The second person spots a good looking red Porsche. He digs in behind it and starts to push. When it doesn’t move very far he starts to wonder of the Mercedes down the line might roll a little better and runs over to try that one. When the Mercedes doesn’t roll any faster, he tries the Lincoln and then the Cadillac. He jumps back and forth from car to car hoping that one of them will just roll along effortlessly.

Before long he is exhausted and none of the cars have moved very far. He realizes that, at this pace, it will take weeks to get one of the cars to go 200 yards. He thinks about how much time and effort it has taken to get this far and decides to quit the whole thing.

As he begins to walk away, he notices the first person has moved her car almost 50 yards and it is rolling along pretty fast. She will likely have the car across the finish line within the hour.

Shaking his head in disgust the second person exclaims, “It figures she would get the light car, I never have any luck!” Then he walks away.

This little parable illustrates the problem that many online small business owners face. The first person’s car wasn’t any easier to push, she just continued to focus her energy on it. As the car began to roll it gained momentum until she didn’t have to push very hard to keep it going.

Many entrepreneurs start looking for a business opportunity and get seduced by a slick sales pitch. They buy a program or the latest moneymaking technique and then try it for a little while. When they don’t wake up to piles of cash, they try another and another until finally giving up and deciding they just can’t make a living online and quit.

The Internet makes it easy to get distracted. A world of information is at your fingertips. Your email inbox piles up with offers from the latest guru who promises to help you make mountains of cash. Many of the offers you find are actually good, but you have to stay with them long enough to get some momentum.

Pick a project you want to accomplish and focus your efforts. Break it down into smaller sub-projects that you can complete easily and then commit yourself to working on each one until it is completed.

When you complete the first project, come up with a second that builds on the work done for the first. Break it into manageable pieces and then focus on getting that done.

Complete and repeat! The power of focused effort will build momentum for your business and before long you won’t have to push anymore - you’ll have to run to keep up.

Dennis Becker teaches the power of focus. His ‘5 Bucks a Day‘ ebook and forum challenges people to focus on building thriving businesses by building a portfolio of profitable projects using whatever system fits their interests and skills.

Read my review of Dennis Becker’s ‘5 Bucks a Day’ ebook.

You can also visit Dennis’ blog and learn more about the latest news in the 5 Bucks world.

Today I decided to fire up my synchronicity engine and see what it would do for my online business efforts. I made a post on Russell Brunson’s Conquer Your Niche Forum in the Joint Ventures and Special Offers section. The gist of the message was this - I’ve got lots of skills and need to work with other people to create products and businesses using these skills.

Within 5 minutes of posting my message I had 3 people checking out my resume online and inside of 30 minutes 2 more. There may be some emails in my inbox when I get home too!

The point of this post isn’t the traffic that the forum post generated, but that the action of announcing my intentions in a public forum has begun a chain of events that has the potential to change my life. Every time you expose yourself to this type of public discussion a new branch of possibilities opens up in your life.

The prospect of people looking over my resume and work and judging me is a little un-nerving, but the possibilities of what ‘could happen’ far outweigh the fears of rejection.

I’m planning to do this again in other forums to try and find people I can work with. There is no telling where it might take me.

The Go-To Guy!

P.S. Have you started a similar chain of events in your life? Leave a comment and let us know what happened.

I was watching a video today called “Off the Grid”, by Warren Miller Films and heard a great quotation in the narration. I don’t know who was speaking and if they were quoting someone else, but it goes like this:

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity!”

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Warren Miller Films makes specialty movies about skiing. If you want to know more about what they do visit: www.WarrenMiller.com.

The Go-To Guy!

Craftsmanship and professionalism, at first glance, seem to go together. Being a professional means doing your job better than anyone else does it, right? Professional programmers spend as much time as they need making their programs perfect, and professional actors dedicate themselves 100 percent to portraying their character - or do they? I had a long talk with Mrs. Go-To Guy about this topic recently and came away with a different view of the relationship between craftsmanship and professionalism.

Mrs. Go-To Guy is an actress. She has a great deal of training in the craft of acting. She studied in college, at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in England, and with many different acting coaches in New York. She takes her craft very seriously and is very good at it (I first met her when she was performing in a show and was impressed with her talent.) She has honed her craft and prided herself on her acting craftsmanship. But, very recently she realized the enormous difference between being an excellent actress and being a professional actress.

The word craftsman often conjures up the image of a woodworker painstakingly fitting together the parts of a piece of fine furniture - taking care that doors and drawers open smoothly and the finish is perfect. People become nostalgic for this sort of ‘old world quality.’ The reality is this: if the carpenter spends 80 hours making a shelf that will only sell for $300, bankruptcy is just around the corner. A professional carpenter has to make enough money to run the business and earn a salary.

Professionals make money from their labor - that goes for acting, carpentry, or anything else. Mrs. Go-To Guy’s big realization was that a professional actress must focus as much on marketing and promotion as on breathing exercises and characterization. A professional actress knows how to promote herself and also works hard to promote the projects she is in. This means spending time thinking about the sorts of interesting stories you can tell on a radio interview that will be entertaining and also get people to buy tickets. The professional knows that their paycheck comes from full houses of happy patrons - great attention to craft doesn’t fill the seats by itself.

For the carpenter, web designer, painter, writer, programmer, and many other lines of work, professionalism is knowing how to balance your desire for excellence with your need to make a profit. It is spending time learning the marketplace where your work will be sold and understanding the needs of the customers who will buy it.

Is there a place for pure craftsmanship? Sure, it is the world of your hobbies and personal passions. There you can spend a lifetime writing one book, or painting one picture.

If you decide to become a professional, however, start looking at what the professionals in your industry are doing to improve their craft and their profits.

The Go-To Guy

Don’t give me the final say, leave a comment and tell us what you think.

How do you lead a group of people to make decisions?

This thought jumped into my head as I rode the subway home this evening. I came up with two answers that point to two very different results.

I work with a theater company that is part of the church I attend. There is a finite amount of space in the church that must be shared between the theater, a preschool, Sunday and mid-week services, and every other church activity (like weddings, choir rehearsals, etc.) that arises. As the church’s activities grow, it becomes more challenging to schedule use of the building.

On my subway ride I was imagining that one day we might have to start saying no to very good programs or projects because there isn’t room in the schedule. Decisions like that would require agreement from a group of people - some of whom would be choosing against a project they created or loved. I was imagining people making hard, and sometimes painful, decisions.

Churches and other non-profits are usually run by volunteers. They are involved because they believe in the mission and not because they need a paycheck. How do you make decisions and not drive away your volunteers?

The General and His Cadre of Wise Counselors

One school of thought about making tough choices declares the person in charge to be the ‘decision maker’ and the rest of the group to be advisers. The General leads the Counselors through a discussion and debate about the best course of action. The discussion may get heated and opposing viewpoints may be expressed, but at the end of the process, the General mulls it all over and declares a decision. The choice, ultimately, belongs to the General.

This is a seductive option (who doesn’t like the feeling of being the most important person in a room?) The line of authority is very clear. As long as the General is decisive, decisions can be made quickly. It also seems fair - particularly if the group ‘elects’ the General from their midst. But a subtle shift happens in the Counselors once the General is chosen.

Having a General absolves the Counselors of responsibility for the decisions made. Regardless of what was said during the discussion, they don’t own the choice. They are disconnected from it. They may even suppress their opposing opinions because ‘it’s not up to them to decide.’ This subtle removal of ownership undermines the whole process.

Another temptation for the General, in the name of decisiveness, is to bully the Counselors. If the General is the sort of person who forms opinions quickly, opposing viewpoints may never be heard - even if they are spoken. In extreme cases the General may act like a ‘little dictator’ and undermine the whole organization.

The Cat Herder

Cat Herder is a much less impressive title than General, but it is a much more impressive skill. The Cat Herder is given the task of guiding a group of people, who naturally want to wander off in different directions, and nudging them toward a decision.

The Cat Herder has the authority to direct the group’s discussion, but not to render a decision. The Cat Herder can call for a vote and announce the results, but not make the decision. The group owns the decision and each individual owns their opinion and vote.

Many people avoid this approach to group decision-making because it can be frustrating. When she can see what the ultimate decision is but the conversation just won’t end, a Cat Herder can long for the authority of a General. A skillful Cat Herder, though, can use personal accountability and social pressure to push, pull, and steer the group to a place of agreement.

I was witness to an expert Cat Herder. This woman was given the role of Chairperson at a corporate board sub-committee meeting. One purpose of the meeting was to finalize the language of a new document that re-defined the mission of the sub-committee. If you have spent any length of time in the corporate world you know that is a recipe for disaster - an eternal nudging and tweaking of words and phrases that would make even a lawyer cry.

This expert Cat Herder used a technique she called ‘fist or five’ to steer the discussion and keep everyone moving toward a decision. When debates arose and the group seemed about to wander off without finishing the work, she would ask for a ‘fist or five’ to take the ‘temperature of the room.’ Every member of the group would hold up a hand and rate their level of agreement with the decision at hand. If you held up a fist, you were signaling total disagreement and all five fingers extended signaled total agreement.

If everyone in the group had three or more fingers extended, then the issue at hand was sufficiently acceptable to the group and the discussion moved on. If someone tried to reopen the discussion she could use the group’s vote as leverage to hold the questioner accountable for using the available time to discuss an issue that was considered resolved. Because of the social pressure involved, only people with a strong objection would push the issue.

This expert Cat Herder’s motto was “we’re not looking for perfection, we’re trying to get a good job done!”

Which Method Is Best

I’m not willing to say that the General and Counselors model is never a good choice. I’m sure their are times where it is the best course of action. But, the best Generals I have ever seen use the methods of the Cat Herder whenever possible. These types of Generals use their authority like a Presidential Veto - an extreme measure only to be exercised when all other options have failed.

The best decisions are ones that the group feels ownership over (even if they don’t agree 100%.) They will work harder to support the decision and will let go of disappointments faster when they are meaningfully involved in the decision.

But, without question, it takes patience, humility, and commitment to herd cats!

The Go-To Guy!

Don’t let me have the last word! Leave a comment and let us know what you think.