college wesleyan church Archives - The Sales Experiment

November 20, 2014 by Brett Leave a Comment

Any Favor We Receive Should Spark Generosity

Today, I spent what felt like 18 hours in the car. I have the list of listened-to podcasts to prove it.

The first podcast was from College Wesleyan Church. The sermon was called “Better Lucky than Good.” Rev. Steven Neff’s premise is that regardless of how faithful and how hard we work, sometimes it takes an act of God’s favor to catalyze that work to create success (he uses Naseem Taleb’s books Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan to back it up).

When we receive that favor, the proper response isn’t gratitude only. It’s generosity. When we receive favor or even the fruits of our hard work and labor, we should be moved toward generosity.

It was a convicting idea. What will I do with any success I achieve? Will I be a giver? Will I be a person full of grace and humility and generosity?

Should We Give Everything Away?

I don’t believe that is what we should do.

But I do believe that favor and outright, hard-fought success demands increased responsibility.

Therefore, while I continue on this Dan Miller 6-Month Content Consumption Challenge, I pray that I also develop a better eye for opportunities for generosity.

This generosity doesn’t mean that I give all my cash money away. It does mean that I seek opportunities to serve, give where I can, and speak encouragement and life into situations and individuals when I can.

It also means that much of the good that happens to me isn’t because I’m any better than anybody else. I might have done better at putting myself in a position to have better chances. It might mean that I’ve had plans and executed them. It might mean that my mom and dad did a decent job.

But even some of those things represent opportunities I’ve had that others don’t. I must steward those opportunities well.

When favor comes – when those ‘Black Swan moments’ come – I pray I’m ready to receive and ready to give.

Until tomorrow…

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Reading and Listening Today

I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t read too much today. l listened to 6 podcasts, but I didn’t read so much. I’m starting to wonder if I need to commit more time to reading vs. simply listening to content.

In addition to the sermon referenced above, I listened to episodes 101-105 of the Social Media Marketing Podcast with Michael Stelzner. I plan to write about these podcasts (in general) tomorrow, so I won’t go into detail.

Those podcasts are crammed full of incredible social media marketing strategies (I did a couple today). That’s what I want to talk about: the difference between strategy, tactics, and goals.

October 6, 2014 by Brett Leave a Comment

Exceed Expectations

I had a problem in high school. I was smart. But I was also dumb.

I focused on one thing: Getting A’s. I got so many A’s that I ended up as the valedictorian of my class. I beat out the Yang sisters. They are probably beating me out right now in their careers. How do I know? Because they aren’t on Facebook. Anybody who has resisted that time-sucking website has to be doing well for themselves. (Just Googled them. They are doctors. Doctors who do a lot of research. They win.).

Anyway, I had a very simple, but narrow goal: win a trophy. My plan included taking as many Advanced Placement classes as possible to get the additional point on my GPA for each class.

AP Calculus, English, History, German, etc. German was my ace in the hole. I succeeded. If it weren’t for my B’s in typing/computer class in the 10th grade, it would have been no question.

I met my expectation because I knew how to game the system.

I Did Not Exceed Expectations

I made no connection between this goal of valedictorian to understanding what it means to create value for people. I sincerely believe that every high school student should take a class in sales and the idea of creating value. I don’t know what that class would be called, but it should be imperative. New home construction and remodeling should also be a required class given my recent struggles. But I digress.

Average or Exceeding Expectations?

Today, I listened to a sermon that was all about living above mediocrity and exceeding expectations.

The preacher’s point was that we all tend to try to find what the expectations are and meet them. We don’t go any further. We punch the time clock, put in our hours, try to politic and do damage control if someone complains about us, and then we punch the clock and head on home.

We become average by working that way. Meeting expectations or bumping up against them is where most of us live.

The challenge of the sermon was to exceed expectations. Can we actually do more than what is expected? Can those of us who work, get such good, high quality and effective work done in a shorter period of time that we wow our clients and managers and still can get home to serve our families and spend more time with our kids?

Can we anticipate needs before they happen?
Can we offer to help the obviously struggling coworker?
Can we send a hand-written note?
Can we finish a project a week ahead of time (this one, admittedly, is a struggle for me)?
Can we smile more, make more phone calls, listen more closely, offer more good ideas?
Can we get to work earlier? Stay later? Or get home earlier and help out?
How can we exceed what is expected of us?

When I was in high school, I knew what I could do. I did enough to do well on tests. Heck, sometimes teachers can be overly generous to students who are supposed to excel. I’m sure I benefited from a bit of bias here and there.

We will never train ourselves to exceed expectations by setting and achieving and manipulating goals.

Exceeding Expectations isn’t about numeric goals, it’s about creating value

Exceeding expectations isn’t about arbitrary measurements. It’s all about creating value for people. Period.

More than likely, it also means shedding some commitments. We can’t exceed expectations when we try to do too much for too many people.

How can I create so much value for people that even buying insurance becomes a pleasure? (Now that is a goal that would definitely exceed any and all expectations).

What can you do to exceed expectations today?

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Today’s Action Item: I know this isn’t very sales-y, but given a major home repair situation, I wanted to make sure I got home in time to spend time with the family and then do some work on my bathroom project. The expectations are that I will only work on it during the weekend or when I have a seasoned DIYer to help. I measured and cut a bunch of stuff.

It might not sound like much, but in my world, that’s ridiculous value addition to this home.

Today’s Listening

What Are You Waiting For? – College Wesleyan Church, Rev. Steve Deneff – When we are going through the muck of life, do we just sit around and take it passively or do we over-aggressively fight… or do we wait actively? Do we allow the muck of life to change and refine us while we pray and hope for changes for the better?

Comfort Zone, Part 6 – In the Meantime, Andy Stanley (North Point Community Church) – Strangely dovetailing with the Deneff sermon referenced above. In this sermon, Stanley implores us to allow our ‘waiting room’ experiences – those times when we needed God’s comfort – to comfort others

Exceeding Average, Part 1 – Anything but Average, Joel Thomas (North Point Community Church) – You need to click that link and just watch the opening video prior to the sermon. This video itself will give some great ideas about how to exceed average.

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This blog is a response to Dan Miller’s unintentional challenge from his podcast on August 15, 2014: If you read or listen to 30 minutes of quality content a day, you’ll double your income.

From September 1, 2014 through March 1, 2015, I will be doing the following:

Listening or reading to 30 minutes of success, growth, business, spiritual, or other mindset-shifting, skill-sharpening content.
Selecting one action item from that content (with some leeway to select an action from a previous day’s content).
Doing that one action.
Writing about the action or some other idea from the reading and listening of the day.

September 1, 2014 by Brett Leave a Comment

Using LinkedIn Publishing Platform to Serve My Clients

I’m so happy I made this commitment to 6 months of taking action on positive, skill-sharpening, mindset shifting content.

If I hadn’t, I would have listened to this great podcast on using LinkedIn’s new Publishing Platform, taken some notes, but not taken action.

As I type this, my first LinkedIn Publishing Platform post went live. And it was super easy.

Today’s Content and Action Item

Content Consumed: LinkedIn Publishing Platform: What Marketers Need to Know, Social Media Marketing Podcast with Michael Stelzner

Action Item: Select one post from my blog and publish it on LinkedIn Publishing Platform

How the Action Helps: Hopefully, it will contribute to greater thought leadership and grab some feedback to help me better understand how to serve my clients and prospective clients.

Here is how I plan on acting on what I learned today (including publishing the post I just published.

Why the LinkedIn Publishing Platform is a Godsend for Current Business Bloggers

If you’ve been creating content for a while already, you have a backlog of content at your fingertips. As far as I can tell, you don’t have to publish brand new original content. You can simply repurpose. It’s an easy ramp-up. If you have 30-40 posts already, you could easily fill a year if you publish every other week or even every week.

How I Approached the Platform.

Step 1: Decide which of my current posts to publish

I went to the blog that is tied to my day job and reviewed the most popular posts. The post rankings shake out as follows:

Top posts on the not-so-highly-trafficked nonprofitinsuranceblog.com

I chose the top post: Workers Compensation Insurance for Nonprofits. Everyday, my blog gets a few visits to that post. Apparently, workers compensation is a conundrum and a thorn in the side of nonprofits (especially small ones).

Step 2: Figure out how to access the LinkedIn Publishing Platform

I looked all over LinkedIn, trying to find where to use the ‘Publishing Platform’. In the end, it’s so easy that it’s easy to miss.

Go to the top of the main LinkedIn newsfeed when you login to LinkedIn.

Find where you post an update. Instead of typing an update, you simply hit the little ‘pencil’ icon in the right side of the update field. Click it and a whole new world of LinkedIn scribing opens up to you.

Step 3: Cut and paste the post I selected

I simply cut and paste my whole article into the Publishing Platform editor. It was simple. The editor is a bit easier than WordPress, but most everything pulled over. I didn’t have to reformat any of the text and all of the links transferred unscathed.

The only thing I had to do was to replace the image. The image didn’t pull, so I popped into Dropbox and pulled the same image and inserted it in the appropriate place.

Step 4: Edit, edit, edit for the LinkedIn audience

I reviewed the post and found a few word choice and other issues. It’s important to note that LinkedIn is focused on professionals, so I tried to make sure I dotted i’s and crossed t’s.

Step 5: Sharpen the headline.

Headlines are so important on all the platforms. Honestly, I don’t often assume folks will need my headlines to sing because people who find me are searching specifically for my content. They’re desperate for info and as long as I deliver, I’m golden.

But to stand out in LinkedIn, I sense I need to work on my headlines. I made a very simple change. Who knows if it’ll be more effective: From “Workers Compensation Insurance for Nonprofits” to “Why Workers Compensation is Essential for Nonprofits.”

Step 6: Post and share

The next obvious step is to publish. LinkedIn will give you a ‘are you sure?’, but then you’re good to go. The post can go live.

Apparently, the posts don’t automatically show up in your newsfeed. I scheduled the post to be shared across all social platforms, including LinkedIn, via Buffer.

A great thing about the LinkedIn Publishing Platform is that it includes all the social share options. And you also get real-time analytics. You can go to the post and find out how many people have seen and shared it.

Step 7: Create an editorial calendar

Since it’s pretty easy to pop a post up, I’ve decided to dole out my posts once a week on Mondays. I’ll just go through the posts in order of popularity.

Another thing that might be fun is to test long-form content in LinkedIn before publishing on my blog. If a 300-400 word post connects with a LinkedIn audience, maybe I should flesh it out on my blog.

We’ll See How It Works

I have no clue if this will be a helpful discipline, but what I’m happy about is that it’s an action I took when before, my notes from the podcast might have languished. Thank you Mr. Miller!

Another bit of content I listened to

Word Up – How our words are powerful – College Wesleyan Church, sermon by Lenny Luchetti

The application from this sermon (a powerful message for believers or those are who are not quite sure): Learn to speak words of life and encouragement to those we know and love and come across in daily life. If an idea to speak something that is encouraging pops into our brains, it’s probably a good idea to follow through. Who doesn’t need a word or three of encouragement? We all have our issues.

I’ll be on the lookout to call out the good I see. But this will just be a happy bonus. 🙂

Some Other Notes Regarding the Dan Miller Challenge…

I don’t plan on going so in-depth every day. I got carried away. My main purpose is not to build another blog, but to create revenue (and grow as a person in other ways as not all the content I consume will focus on sales, marketing, and other aspects of building a business) by applying insights and action items.

Until tomorrow….