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Can you believe the nerve of this guy?

While Jonathan’s lazily propping his feet in a hammock, we’re here slaving away for him. He’s sipping drinks with tiny umbrellas and playing with his family while we’re grunting away at our own jobs. I mean, it’s bad enough that he keeps rubbing it in that he’s in a tropical paradise, but what really chaps me is that he’s taking a vacation and asking others (like myself) to do his work for him.

It’s easy to be a little really jealous of Jonathan, but the truth is that we’d all be in Bali right now if we could. Vacations and breaking out of our normal routines are like espresso shots for our creativity. I expect some high-caliber stuff out of Mr. Fields once he returns.

It takes a lot of work to be able to relocate for a month to a somewhat-remote place, and the fact that Jonathan is pulling it off is pretty impressive. What’s most interesting about Jonathan’s trip is that he was able to effectively use “peersourcing” to help him get away.

This is a fantastic example of how community is pivotal to the success of an entrepreneur.

Or in Jonathan’s case, how to slack off more. (Ok, seriously… I love Jonathan. I’d gladly drop everything to help him out, as he’s helped me out so many times before. Just don’t tell him, ok? I’d never hear the end of it.)

I was fortunate enough to co-found the blog network LifeRemix a few years back. The network has some amazing people, with serious skills in many different fields. Bestselling authors, awesome programmers, marketing geniuses, financial wizards… we’ve got it all. (I’m quite lucky that I was a founder, otherwise I wouldn’t have made the cut!)

We’ve managed to help each other out with our writing and other pursuits of life. In fact, we’re a pretty close little community. We all have unique skills and knowledge about different topics, so really the network is like a massive pool of knowledge. Someone will ask a question in our email list, and usually four to five really smart people will chime in, offering help and advice. So it’s no surprise that when Jonathan told the network he was going on vacation and needed a hand with guest posts, we gladly answered the call.

Here’s the secret to being a successful entrepreneur: You need community.

You need help from other people. People who will challenge you and lend you a hand when needed. People who will expand your horizons with their expertise or particular walks of life. Thanks to this thing called The Internet, you can find people and groups to help you in almost any field and variety.

Forums, Google groups, open source projects… there are literally limitless options for finding a community.

Or maybe it makes more sense to find a local, offline community. There are plenty of options for finding groups of people in your area. Churches, business organizations and memberships, neighbors, etc. Just because someone isn’t in your exact niche–or even know the definition of the term “niche”–doesn’t mean they can’t provide you with valuable support and feedback.

Community helps us fill in those little cracks in our life that we can’t fill ourselves.

I’ll often ask our crew for marketing ideas or feedback. I’m a designer by trade, but my marketing chops are “meh” at best. Guys like Jonathan or Chris have saved my bacon many a-time.

Community also gives us a chance to give back.

I love this. I love the fact that I’ve got a chance to help Jonathan because he’s helped me so many times before. There’s nothing better than receiving and giving. It’s important to note that asking for help is just as important as giving. Oftentimes people feel like they’re being a burden by asking for help. But other people need a way to give back their talents and resources too.

At LifeRemix we’ll ask each other for help all the time. In fact, it’s encouraged. I dare you to find a successful person that did it “all on their own”. Everyone (yes, even Steve Jobs) has had people in their lives that bring the best out of them, both professionally and personally. Finding and surrounding yourself with these people is going to be critical to your success.

So if you really want to skyrocket your career, find a community to be a part of.

If you can’t find one, then start one within your niche. (All you have to do is ask.) There’s always something you can provide. If anything, you can be encouraging and supportive. (Sometimes the thing a community needs most is more cheerleaders.) The important thing is to just get involved. No man is an island. (Though certain renegades do go and live on one for a month or so…)

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Glen Stansberry writes about helping creative people create at LifeDev. You can also find him ribbing Mr. Fields from time to time on his Twitter account.

This week she shares some great insights on getting unstuck in business…

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If you are reading this blog, it means you are a pretty smart cookie.  You love to read, think, critique, improve.  Me too.

Reading at three.  High school and college, a breeze.  Graduated first in my law school class (more to do with over-studying as a result of massive fear that I was the dumbest person in the room than to innate smartness).

A smarty-pants.

With all this smarts, I was baffled by how hard it seemed to get ahead in business.  I saw people who were clearly not as smart making way more money, serving more people and making a bigger difference.

What was I missing?

It took me a few years to learn a reality that may be hurting your business success … in business, smart often translates to stuck.

As a business strategist to lawyers and other very smart people, I see it all the time – the smarter we are, the harder it can be to experience business success.

When we make every decision from our intellect, we tend to overcomplicate.  We see all the options, have a million big ideas, and either want to improve upon everything or convince ourselves of what won’t work.

Quite often, we get stopped in our tracks.  Sound familiar?

If you find your business not experiencing the kind of success or forward movement you think it should based on your previous track record of being the smartest one around, let’s take a look at what you can do to get a little more stupid and finally experience business growth worthy of someone with your innate intelligence.

1. Make a list of all your ideas and partially completed projects.

If you are like most smarties, you’ve got a million and one ideas and not a single one of them actually making any money yet.

It’s time to get realistic about what you really can accomplish and stop dreaming about all the possibilities.

Create a someday/maybe file and put all of your ideas and partially completed projects into it now, trusting that when the time is right, you’ll come back to them.  I know it can be difficult to put aside all the greatness, but if you don’t do it now, none of the ideas will never be completed.

2. Pick one idea that has the most promise to result in a financial reward within the next 6 months and commit to focusing on it no matter what, with no excuses.

Self-discipline is one of the most important success secrets of business.  Without a boss, it’s easy to get distracted by the next bright, shiny object and to give up on that idea or project that would have been successful, if you had stuck with it.

Block 2-hours of intense focus time each day (or a few times a week) and focus your energy, attention and action entirely on moving the one project you chose to focus on forward.  If you blow your focus time one day, don’t give up.  Get back on the calendar the next day and congratulate yourself for not giving up.

3. Get a clear vision of what success looks like for this project.

Create a series of celebration points for this project, the mini-successes that will lead up to the big one. Often, we are so busy looking ahead at the BIG success, that we miss celebrating the many successes that have to occur along the way before we can make it all the way there.

Celebrating your mini-successes will keep you motivated and moving forward.

4. Find a mentor who has done what you want to do and do what they did without deviation.

This can be one of the most difficult steps for the true smarty-pants because it means first asking for help, then doing exactly what you are told to do without making any improvements.

Now, be clear here – I’m not suggesting you never improve on what you learn.  Far from it. That’s not possible for a true smarty.  What I’m saying is that before you improve, discover what works and what doesn’t.  Don’t make assumptions based on what you think without having actually tried it out for yourself.

If possible, see if you can find a “salesy” as a mentor, instead of another smarty.  (Best would be to find a smarty who has embraced her/his inner salesy fully and without shame.)

This will very likely require you to seriously step out of your comfort zone because you’ll probably judge the salesy as not as smart as you and as missing important things that you can see because you are so smart.

But remember, it’s these smarts that have held you back.

So long as you have chosen the right mentor who has truly done what you want to do, do not let your judgment sway you from following your mentor’s advice to the letter.

Do not deviate or try to improve upon the guidance – do it exactly as you are told to do it the first time.  If you make mistakes, it’s okay.  If things could have been better, that’s fine. You’ll learn from these mistakes, make improvements and have a wealth of knowledge for the next time you do it.

Each time I’ve put aside some of my smarts and done what I’ve told you to do here, it’s been hard.  Very hard.  But, I’ve been rewarded every time.

Some of what resulted:

Stopped trying to be smart and serve every person in Los Angeles who needed a Will & Trust and instead hired a marketing consultant who helped me narrowed my focus to serving just families with young children in the South Bay area of Los Angeles.  Result: broke a million bucks of revenue in both 2006 and 2007 and sold the law firm in 2008.

Stopped trying to write a book that would show how smart I was by changing the world on a global level and becoming an instant New York Times bestseller and instead wrote a book about legal planning for parents.  Result: got the book published and in May of 2008 with the help of a book marketing mentor made it to #8 overall on BN.com and #1 in all its categories on Amazon.com.

Stopped trying to launch 3 different information products and coaching programs to serve 3 different markets and hired an information-marketing coach who helped me create and launch one specific program to teach lawyers how to engage more clients.  Result: sold over $117,000 in a 60-minute teleseminar and launched a business that broke a million dollars within 18 months.

And don’t think it ever stops.

Up until a couple of months ago, my inner smarty-pants had me hard at work on three different businesses, a television show, two different books and a few other projects.  But, I’m taking my own advice and narrowing my focus for the next 6 months on finishing one book and I’ve hired the right people to focus on each of the businesses so I can focus on making the television show a reality.

So now I ask you to consider:

How is your inner smarty-pants over-complicating, holding you back, keeping you from focusing and asking for help to do that one thing that will most move your business ahead?  
What is the project you are going to focus on, find a mentor to guide you with, and finish within the next 6 months?

I can’t wait to hear!

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Learn more about Alexis Neely on her blog and follow her on Twitter @alexisneely.

Kicking off this new “every Friday” feature is my friend, Chris Guillebeau. Many of you know Chris already, but if you don’t, he’s the guy who travels the world and writes for a small army of remarkable people at The Art of Non-Conformity. He is also the Chief Troublemaker of UnconventionalGuides.com.

And, he’s also about to become an author with the release of the forthcoming book, The Art of Nonconformity. I’ve seen an advance copy and it’s fantastic, reserve your copy today at amazon.

So, without further ado, I’ll turn it over to Chris…

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There goes that Jonathan Fields again… heading out to beautiful Bali while the rest of us hold down the fort with guest posts. What a lucky guy. I’m guessing his schedule today looks something like this:

10am: Wake up in the hammock

11am: Eat banana pancakes, Jack Johnson style

1145am: Quick email check

12pm-6pm: “Brainstorming time”

6pm: Post a TwitPic of the hammock

615pm: Quick email check

630pm: Begin drinking beer

8pm: Bonfire and barbeque prepared by the local Career Renegade staff

That’s how the “work from anywhere” life goes, right? Yep, that’s the life… of pretty much no one I know.

Plenty of people will tell you about the benefits of the work anywhere / location independent / off-the-grid lifestyle. Fine. But most of them will leave out the hard parts. (Most of them haven’t actually done it either, but that’s another story.)

Before you join Jonathan and co. in the Indonesian treehouse, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Misconception #1: Work Anywhere, Make Money.

I’ve been location independent for nearly ten years, but I could actually make more money (a lot more) by staying in one place instead of roaming around all the time. Working in North American time zones is more profitable than Indonesian time zones. Despite the welcome presence of the banana pancakes, money and working from Southeast Asia are not correlated.

Misconception #2: Passive Income = Cha-Ching!

Wake up to the inflow of funds before heading back to the hammock—what a life. Actually, Jonathan’s already been over this before… better take that post down quickly, man! (Unfortunately, he’s right. The reality is that most of us work pretty hard for that “passive” income. We have to feed the funnel, keep prospects coming in, and be available for clients or customers no matter where we are in the world.)

Misconception #3: If You Build It, They Will Come.

All you need to do is open a storefront and put out your shingle. W00t! Except not. Viral marketing means “spend a lot of time talking to everyone you know and hope they’ll do the same.” Building your project is 50% of the task; spreading the word is the other 50%—and that’s hard to do when you’re working from the road.

Misconception #4: The Whole World Is Wired.

Alas, “wired” means different things in different places. True, I had a surprisingly fast WiFi signal in Erbil, Iraq—but I’ve also been at a loss to get online in Tokyo, supposedly one of the world’s most wired places. I also spend a lot of time worrying about internet connections, especially when doing video interviews or uploading large files. If you need to rely on a constant, consistent pipeline to the world, you’re better off at home.

Misconception #5: You’ll Spend Your Days Chillaxin’ in the Hammock!

OK, this one is real… sort of. Here’s where we get into the reality of working from anywhere. By far the main benefit of establishing your plan of freedom is the ability to go anywhere, sometimes more than the actual going.

Remember the words of the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” With that in mind, here are a few things to think about before you book your Thai Airways flight and head out across the Pacific:

• What are you really after? What’s the goal?
• How will your business bring joy to your customers?
• What does freedom look like to you?
• How will you build sustainable practices into the biz, so you can actually book that flight… or do whatever else you want?

Don’t get me wrong…

Location independence is awesome! Sign me up. But the best part of a freedom business is the freedom itself. You can be free wherever you are, or you can be stressed wherever you are. Better to solve that problem first…. then, start picking out your dream hammock.

When this post goes up, Jonathan will be in Bali, and I’ll be working from the road in West Africa. Sign me up for some banana pancakes! That’s no misconception.

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Chris Guillebeau travels the world (without a hammock) and writes for a small army of remarkable people at The Art of Non-Conformity. He is also the Chief Troublemaker of UnconventionalGuides.com. Reserve your copy of Chris’ forthcoming book, The Art of Nonconformity, at amazon now.

Translation—for the most part, people don’t care a whole lot about the vehicle that gets them the benefit they want…they’re simply looking for the faster, easier, most enjoyable way to their desired end.

So, if you were selling drills, you could focus in on the features of the drill or you could focus on the fact that this bad-boy will let you bore a monster hole through concrete in 8.2 seconds. If you were a golfer, it’s not so much the graphite shaft, carborundum head and Corinthian leather grip you’re selling, it’s the 300 yard drive.

Except…that it’s not…in either case.

The hole and the drive are the benefits. They sell better than the features.

But there’s something that sells 10 times better than both…driving emotions.

If you can ferret out, then sell to the driving emotions, you make a beeline to the part of the brain that says, “OMFG, if I don’t have that NOW, I just might die!”

In the drill example, the driving emotion isn’t the hole, that the benefit. The driving emotions might be the pride or ego fulfillment that comes from all your other workers and supervisors seeing you banging out massive amounts of work in less time. It might be the sense of empowerment that comes from a bigger, badder tool. Maybe it’s the fact that it lets you get home to your family faster and be less wiped out at the end of the day. Or, oddly enough, it might even be a proxy for a lack of power in other parts of your life.

In the golf example, the driving emotion isn’t the 300 yard drive, it’s the feeling of glory you get when you stand at the tee on the first hole, the one right in front of the clubhouse where everyone’s watching, and bang the ball straight to the green while everyone around you says, “whoaaaahhhh!!!” It’s the respect that comes from being known as the guy with the 300 yard drive. And, yes, just like the drill, it may even be a proxy for a lack of respect and connection in other parts of your life.

So, if you really want to sell, don’t sell the feature, don’t even sell the benefit…sell the driving emotion.

BUT, there’s a big caveat…you’d also better be able to deliver on your promise.

Because if you don’t, you’ll end up with a whole lot of clients and customers with buyers remorse, anger, returns and bad will.

Sell to the soul, then deliver…

The conversation around corporate responsibility over the last few decades has been, almost entirely, from the mouths of two warring factions. Those who believe in maximizing shareholder wealth by any means necessary and those who believe in corporate citizenship, which until recent years has almost always been viewed in the context of people, with a smallish bit of lip service to the environment.

Then came Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, followed this year by The Big Spill.

Longtime readers of this blog know I don’t get political here (at least rarely). Not that I don’t have opinions, this just isn’t my outlet for them. But, I do talk about business, and our responsibilities, dreams and quests as creators, problem-solvers, leaders and builders of legacy.

As a securities attorney, first at the SEC, then at a private firm in NYC, I was duty-bound by the law. And, so were board’s, officers and decision-makers of every public corporation. All were under a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder wealth. Without fail, the measure of shareholder wealth was stock price, profitability and dividend. In all but the rarest of circumstance, the notion of corporate citizenship was considered only as a “stunt” to create a perception that might engender a big enough bump in feel good vibes to generate more revenue than the stunt consumed.

I get the need to be profitable. You can’t have an impact without a voice. And, you can’t have a voice if you don’t have a viable means to sustain your efforts. Money matters.

But, I’m increasingly drawn to what Brian Clark might call the corporate responsibility third tribe.

A growing movement of C-suite executives who strive to build powerful, impactful organizations that profit and maximize shareholder wealth not as the result of the more traditional crush, dominate, slash and burn approach, but rather as a byproduct of a fierce sense of corporate citizenship. And, I am stunned at how profitable some have become.

Interface is an interesting example of this. After years in traditional carpet manufacturing, Interface founder, Ray Anderson refocused the company on sustainability, retooling nearly every process, shifting resources and vendors in the name of what he calls Mission Zero: “our promise to eliminate any negative impact our company may have on the environment by the year 2020.” And, in the process, the company created FLOR, a sustainable flooring product, lowered net greenhouse gas emissions by 82%, dropped fossil fuel usage 60% per unit of production, decreased water usage 75%…and decreased costs by $400 million, increased sales by 67% and doubled profits.

Similarly, Chouinard’s Patagonia continues to build on it’s legendary footprint as a leader in corporate citizenship with it’s “birth to birth” initiative:

So, as I look at what’s unfolding on our planet, when I look at the impact the “by any means necessary” approach to corporate growth has had on the world, when I meditate on my entirely selfish hopes and dreams for the world my daughter will inherit…these are the people and the companies I look to learn from. And, to emulate.

And, I wonder…

What might the world look like 20 years from now if a growing number of freshly-minted and not so minty-fresh entrepreneurs and corporate leaders did the same?

Just thinking…and hoping.

How about you?

1. Failure to evolve.

Markets change over time. People’s needs change over time. One of the biggest problems that I see with entrepreneurs and small businesses is that they start the business based on a single solution, or set of solutions, products or services, that satisfy one particular need or pain point in a market, and they may be doing it very well at that point in time.

But over time, markets evolve, needs evolve, pain points evolve and everything changes. All too often, the people who are providing solutions for those markets don’t continue to evolve with the markets and are left with a bigger and bigger gap between the need and the pain point of the market and the product, service or solution that they’re providing. Add a drastic change in the bigger economy and the speed at which these gaps open grows exponentially, as does the width and depth of the gaps.

The answer here is to keep your finger very much on the pulse of where the pain points currently are in the market and how they’ve changed from when you started your business. Create regular check-in mechanisms to see whether your current solutions are driven more by ego or the desire not to endure the anxiety of change or a continuing need in the market.  Then use that information to change the nature of the solutions that you’re providing, if needed, to keep them as relevant and powerful as humanly possible.

2. Perceiving R&D and marketing as separate functions.

Very often people start a business by creating some sort of product, service or solution and then turning around and asking the question, “How do I market this?” Truth is – product creation and marketing are two points along the same continuum. The more remarkable, the more powerful, the more effective you can make your solution, the less you then have to turn around and say “What do I have to do to market this?”

Building around remarkability and delight is the single most powerful way to market a product.

Because, when you get those down, people can’t shut up about how what you’ve created is blowing their minds on a daily basis. Thing is, these elements are cultivated at the moment of creation, not as some afterthought for the product. Focus your energies on how to make something remarkable and delight potential purchasers at the moment of creation and it will make your marketing much, much easier. In fact, it may even turn it into an afterthought.

3. Failure to understand the importance of culture.

A lot of companies roll along thinking, “If I create a solution which completely kicks ass, which solves a problem in the market, that’s really all I need to do.” If your solution is capable of being provided just through one person or completely commoditized and made as an online, downloadable business, that may in fact, be true.

But if you plan on growing a business – a company with people – the interrelationships between you and those people and between them, becomes paramount. You’ve got to focus on what type of culture you want to build within your organization. Same way Tony Hsieh focused on culture as a driving force in building Zappos.  The culture becomes a core driver of your business’ success and if its not built right – failure.

4. Over-working and under-thinking.

Very often there’s an ethic in business that says you’ve got to put in a ton of hours to get the job done. In fact, working hard is pretty much an important part of any major business accomplishment, especially in the very early days around launch time and the first couple of years.

But a lot of times the biggest solutions, the greatest breakthroughs, the most relevant and impactful innovation comes not when you’re working, but when you work hard and then step away and allow time for contemplation, and for breakthroughs. When you’re building a business, rather than focusing on how many hours you can put in, step back and really encourage – not only in the way you behave but in the way your employees carry themselves – time for pure thought, time for contemplation, time to remove yourself from the setting and the nature of the work and allow for the greatest revelations to simply bubble up.

5. Going it on sheer will for too long.

Very often a company starts based on the sheer willpower and the sheer drive and energy of one particular person or a small team of people. As long as all of the tasks that need be accomplished can be handled by that person or team, the company continues to move forward. But inevitably, as you scale, you reach a point where those people can’t humanly work anymore.

And if the company will continue to grow in the way that its capable of growing, it will need to be based on a bigger, more systematic set of guidelines that other people can then be exposed to, adopt, and then tap, in order to grow the business more systematically. Once you reach that critical tipping-point where sheer willpower will no longer drive the business, it becomes massively important to have well thought-out systems to build your business from that point forward.

6. Playing prevent offense.

One of the biggest things that tends to happen in business is that they start out led in a sort of visionary, aggressive outreach, innovation manner and then once business starts coming in, the mindset shifts to thinking about how to preserve the wins or the gains that have already been accomplished, rather than focusing on constantly innovating and delighting existing and new clients on the level that they never expected.

This is called “playing the game with a prevent offense.” Instead of trying to consistently win and delight, you’re consistently trying not to give up what you’ve already gained. And, in the world of business and entrepreneurship, it’s pretty much the fast track to failure.

Entrepreneurial businesses can’t survive with a focus largely on keeping what you’ve got. The focus has got to be consistently on continuing to delight and surprise the clients that you’ve already retained while also aggressively moving forward, innovating and pushing to take that level of service to the next level and continue to lead the market. Sometimes that means it’s an uncomfortable place to be in, but it’s a far better place to be in than sitting back and just hoping and praying that you don’t lose a client.

7. Hoarding control.

This one hits close to home for me because I am admittedly a bit of a control freak. As an entrepreneur, and most entrepreneurs I know are control freaks, we have a lot of trouble giving away control and power. But, when you hoard control you not only limit your business’ ability to scale, you inadvertently demean the people that you’ve brought into your organization because even if its not overt, what you’re telling them is “I brought you in here, I told you I trust you.  I told you I’m going to hold you accountable to my vision and my growth goals, but I do not trust you to think, to create, to innovate, and to execute.”

When you send that message to the people who work around you and with you, you kill their will and you create a culture of dislike and distrust. Therefore, it becomes really important to take a regular check and take some risks. Allow yourself to feel uncomfortable as a leader in a small business. Hire amazing people and give them control.  Hold them accountable to a particular result, but give them the ability to take action, to execute, to create, and show you what they’re capable of.

8. Incentivizing innovation with a carrot and stick.

In Dan Pink’s recent book, Drive, he reveals some fascinating research which showed that for very simple, rogue, mechanical tasks, the traditional carrot and stick – meaning, if you do X, I’ll give you Y and if you do X even better I’ll give you even more Y – tended to work fairly well as a motivational system.

But as soon as you bring in tasks that are more complex, more creative, or innovation oriented, the traditional carrot and stick type of motivation not only doesn’t work, but it literally disincentivizes behavior that naturally would have been incentivized simply by the opportunity to do something very cool. So, when it comes time to figure out how to motivate those types of activities in your organization, take a step back and instead of offering money or particular tangible things as motivation, think about how you can facilitate mastery. How you can allow people the opportunity to move more aggressively toward mastery of something that they’re already intrinsically drawn to and that becomes about the most powerful motivating factor that you can have for people within your organization.

9. Focusing on hours over results.

One of the biggest gripes of a lot of people that I know who work for bosses, is a focus on what used to be called “face time.” You had to be in a place for a particular amount of time, you had to attend meetings because that’s just the way it was. You had to push a certain amount of documents, because that’s the way it was – these were the processes. Meanwhile, all these actions were being taken, meetings were being had, and clocks were being punched, but results weren’t being accomplished.

A much more effective way to grow an organization is to allow people a certain amount of freedom.  Allow flex-time.  Being at the office for a particular number of hours, being seen at an office, really isn’t relevant if the results aren’t coming. Focus on results. Task people with goals that are meaningful to them.  Give them the resources needed to meet those goals and then, step back and like we talked about in #4 above, tell people “I trust you to get this done by this particular date. How and when you do it is up to you.”

Not only will people feel empowered by that level of freedom and trust, but you’ll find them working on it in different parts of the day in different ways that accommodate their lives much better.  And they’ll become much happier employees because they have a work situation they can wrap more effectively around their lives and their lifestyles.  In the end, we don’t really care if something is within particular hours.  What we really care about is that it’s done well and on time.

10. Underestimating the delight margin.

People are creatures of habit. It takes a near seismic shift to make them change routine.  Even if the routine they’re in or the solution they’re currently using is sub-par. Even if they gripe about it every time they use it.  “Better the devil they know,” they figure. That means, if you hope to move someone from a competitor to you, your product, service or solution must not be 5% or 10% better, but 5 to 10 times better.

It takes that much energy, that much of a difference for you to move somebody to actually take action.  Fact is, if they’ve already taken action and committed to a competitive solution, you probably need to ramp that 5 to 10 times up to somewhere between 20 and 30 times better to move them away from a long-term competitive solution.

11. Forgetting the fun.

Most small businesses are launched, at least in part, in a quest to discover then mine the sweet spot between a viable economic niche and some product, service, activity or solution that in some way engenders joy in the founder. So, people like Tony Hawk build a business empire around the joy of the activity they love. In the beginning, it’s fun. There’s an energy to launching that keeps everyone feeling up. But, all to often, over time, that sense of fun begins to evaporate and the focus turns to efficiency, production, systematization, scaling and growth.

These are all critical elements. But, a funny thing happens when instead of being “added to” a sense of fun, purpose and joy, they “replace” those things…the energy of the company begins to tank, mood crashes, productivity falls, morale craters and along with that goes growth and success.

In business and in life, fun matters!

Genuine joy in what you’re doing matters. It infuses and impacts every aspect of your business. Maybe it can’t be there every moment of every working hour. I didn’t particularly love cleaning the toilets in the early days of owning a yoga studio. But, it was a minor blip on a bigger, more joyous radar screen. Do what you can to preserve as much sense of joy and delight as possible for those who help build your business. When you do, not only will you have a better time, your employees will, too. And, that will spill over into every touchpoint with your customers as well.

12. Bailing on your body and mind. Even if you love what you do, starting and growing a business includes a whole lot of stress and uncertainty. There is no way to eliminate them. But, it is mission critical that you develop practices that allow you to move through them without losing your mind and watching your body decompose. That means, like it or not, some kind of daily movement or exercise and some form of attentional/mindset training are not only important in your quest to stay focused, fit and capable of enduring the stress of entrepreneurship, they’re mandatory.

My question to you is…why? Why did I include the video of Stevie?

Because, as I mentioned to Charlie, if you get what’s really happening in it, you don’t need to get or do anything else. It has every lesson on business and especially marketing all wrapped up into one 8 minute and 32 second teaching moment of bliss. Actually, my email to Charlie was a bit more blunt, what I said to him was, “Do this, screw everything else.”

So, I’ll circle back to you…what’s the “this” I’m talking about?

• Why does this short video capture nearly everything you ever needed to know about succeeding in business beyond your wildest dreams?
• What does it teach you about product development, marketing, positioning, branding, mission, culture, passion, teambuilding, problem-solving, differentiation, ideation, innovation, communication, process, impact, responsiveness, storytelling, service and all those other buzz words?
• And, how does it slice past the buzz and get to the core of what matters and what works?

Share your thoughts in the comments…

Sounds like a fantasy, right?

Well, that’s the promise that’s been made by many who operate in the internet marketing waters known as article marketing. I’ve heard so much about this approach to driving traffic, both good and bad.

Bloggers, internet and affiliate marketers and real-live brick and mortar businesses I’ve known have tried it in one form or another. Some successfully, others flat out fail. Clients ask me about article marketing all the time and, frankly, I’ve never had a great answer.

So, I decided to turn to article marketing expert and founder of Pajama Team, Elysia Brooker, to try to unpack the truth about article marketing as a way to drive traffic.

I learned a lot from our conversation, and, as you’ll see at the end of this in-depth interview, issued a public challenge to her to “prove” article marketing works…and she said YES! This is gonna be fun!

JF – Article marketing first came onto my radar as a way to drive serious organic traffic bunch of years ago. What exactly IS article marketing?

EB – Article Marketing (in my world) involves creating keyword-targeted content and submitting them to a variety of high-powered directory websites to gain links, search engine exposure and consequent traffic to your blog or website.

JF – Okay, so let’s go a bit deeper. How, exactly, does it work as a source of traffic, both directly and organically?

EB – The stand out feature of article marketing for me is the dual-purpose results you can achieve with minimal time and effort. The way I see it, there are four major sources of traffic to be found in article marketing.

1)     Organically… as your article becomes syndicated, as more links are pointing back to your site, as more people are utilizing your content on their own directory or website, the links pointing back to your blog become more and more powerful – helping the overall authority of your site.

2)     Search engines ranking the articles for the high volume terms (a surprisingly regular occurence) and then people being able to follow through your author bio links back to your website.

3)     You can receive traffic from people who go to the directory website itself to seek out information on a particular topic. Most of the major directories have a search bar (similar to Google, Yahoo etc) but instead of bringing up a variety of different website results, it will find you related articles – one of which could be yours!

4)     Content providers (generally other blog owners) may use your article as content on their own site, keeping the author bio intact and spreading your content out throughout the web for more link power.

JF – But, here’s the thing, if you’re going to write articles, why not just put them on your blog instead?

EB – Posting to your blog is obviously a crucial and irreplaceable aspect of any online business, but your efforts can be in vain if noone is getting to your blog to see the posts in the first place.

If your blog/website is new then you’re going to need a helping hand to start getting the page rank and SE authority you need to have your blog drawing in the traffic (and getting the Google tick of approval) you need to make it a standalone success.

You need to think of it like spreading seeds, seeds that will create a trail for people to follow, all the way back to your website. The way I see it is, the more trails that are leading people back to my site – the better.

To put it another way, article marketing is like advertising… Posting solely to your blog, would be like creating a product (your blog, website, opt-in page) and doing zero advertising. You’ve got a killer product ready, waiting to be found, but without advertising noone will know its there!

And it’s not akin to just plain old advertising either, it’s advertising that (assuming your content is good) is engaging with your reader, giving them a taste of what you know and how valuable it can be to them… beginning the process of having them love you and your product/website.

Posting solely to your blog is putting a LOT of hope behind people being able to find you in that one very specific location – something that is less and less likely the newer your website.

JF – Got it, so what types of articles tend to do well and why?

EB – Interesting question! There are lots of different schools of thought with this but the following are the major points I consider important..

• WORD LENGTH: 300-400 words is fine. Some people may disagree but I have experienced fantastic results from 300 word articles and have seen no proof that longer articles produce better results. This is especially important if you on a tight budget or have little time to commit to your article marketing activities, I’d much rather see you put 10 x 300 word articles out there than 5 x 500 word’ers.

• TONE: Keep it casual. The tone of the article will greatly influence your reader’s perceived connection with you and most importantly, the click through rate. I like to go with what I call a “blog-like” tone. Informal, personal and friendly while still informational at its core. Don’t write like you’re preparing for a Harvard examination, keep your language simple and conversational – your readers will pay you back in visits.

• NEUTRALITY: Be careful to not talk at your reader.  Obviously you will need to be casting a positive light on the product/strategy/website but be sure to do that from a seemingly neutral standpoint. Avoid shoving the idea down their throats, you want to appear as a neutral third party who is providing helpful information and not as a “seller” which can deter people VERY fast.

In terms of a “style” of article, there are quite a few that seem to work well:

• The “How To” – These are great to give readers a taste of your product/service by providing useful tips to help them solve their issue or fulfil their need. When you provide helpful tips people are more inclined to want to find out more and thus click through to your website.

• The “Review” – This has to be one of the highest-converting article styles around – when it is done well! Providing a neutral/unbiased review on a product or service with pros and cons, previous customer testimonials, a first person angle and an overall positive tone can convert big time.

• The “FAQ” – This style follows along the same lines as the “how to” article. Providing info while solving your readers unanswered questions about the product/service can quash any remaning fears and encourage a click-through, and maybe even a purchase!

• The “Story” – A little trickier, but great when its done right… a “story” article weaves your product/service subtly into a story about a person’s problem or experience. Readers can relate to the emotion conveyed and feel connected to the writer and thus be more inclined to trust their recommendation.

JF – How often do you need to create articles to make a real dent, and for how long?

EB – I would argue that this depends almost entirely on the keywords you are targeting. The more competiting sites targeting your keyword, the more articles you will need to make the headway you need for killer rankings.

If you’ve done your keyword research well and narrowed in on some great low competition keywords then you can start to see traffic results from as little as 15-20 submissions. And the traffic flowing in from these 15-20 articles will continue to grow as the articles age and the content is syndicated further throughout the web.

Article marketing is definitely a long term investment when done right!

JF – So, I get that article marketing is a long-term commitment and most people bail long before they’ve done enough to see real results. But, one of the big complaints I’ve heard recently about article marketing is that (a) even though the biggest article directory sites have good PR, google’s algorythm doesn’t pass that much juice from the links that appear on the directory sites anymore, and (b) most of the sites that pick up/syndicate your articles and publish them on their websites have little or no authority, making the links worth very little in google’s eyes and adding little to your search ranking.

So, let’s talk about these criticisms head on. What’s been your experience with these two claims? True, false, somewhere in the middle?

EB – Some answers…

1. Google not giving as much weight to the links from article directories

This claim would fall into the category of “somewhere in the middle” that you mentioned. Certain article directories may have lost authority, but others have certainly gained authority and are bigger and more authoritative than ever. That’s why that whole phenomenon started of people trying to make money by ONLY submitting content to directories with no site of their own. It was possible because certain directories had so much authority that just publishing a piece of content there was enough to generate a front page ranking for low to mid range competition keywords. That’s not a strategy we recommend at all but this point is evidence in the case for certain article directories growing rather than diminishing in authority.

2. The sites that publish your articles not having alot of authority…

The question contains the assumption that the sites that pick up your content to publish are lower quality, less authoritative sites. This of course CAN be the case, but its not ALWAYS the case. Some sites that publish your articles will be higher quality and some will be lower quality. In any case, as long as they’re relevant and not spam sites, they’re all links to your site that have value.

Again, I refer to a point we made earlier that yes, Article Marketing isn’t shooting fish in a barrel like it used to be, it’s just changed in such a way that it takes a little more skill, a little more know how, and a little more focused effort to generate great results. It’s the same for virtually every method of traffic generation online: search engine optimization, pay per click, social bookmarking, heck, banner advertising… they all had their hey-day but none of them have stopped working. It’s only become harder for the people doing it badly to make them work.

JF – Got it. Now, a lot of my tribe are entrepreneurs, not bloggers, does this make sense for a more traditional entrepreneur or solopreneur who’s trying to drive prospects to a more commercial type of website. Or even for affiliate sites?

EB – Definitely! In fact, in markets that some entrepreneurs are in, that are less popular online and amongst content creators (bloggers) article marketing may well prove to be MORE effective than otherwise. The thing about article marketing, is that it isn’t just about the articles themselves, its about improving your site’s authority and allowing your site to climb in the Google ranks – something any online business requires.

PR and consequent Google rankings are heavily influenced by the number of links leading back to your website… Article marketing is the perfect opportunity to build powerful, multi-purpose links without trawling the web and handing out big money for paid ads or links on high PR sites – many of which have a limited lifetime unlike lifelong article directory links.

At the end of the day, if you have a website/blog and you want traffic, then in my opinion you can benefit from article marketing in some capacity.

JF – The big question I get asked on article marketing (and I’m guessing you get asked all the time, too) is, “how long do you need to wait before you see real, sustained search-driven traffic coming to your site from article marketing?”

EB - Again, it really does depend on the nature of the keywords you are targeting as to how fast you will see results.   I’ve seen results within 2 weeks for low competition keywords, but generally speaking I would say 3-4 weeks to start to notice traffic trickling in and it will grow exponentially from there.

And don’t forget that its not just the traffic from the articles themselves that you can expect, its the improved rankings of your website/blog in the search engines that you will start to see and enjoy benefits from.

JF – So, let’s get this out there, you’re in the business of helping people not only create articles, but pretty much overseeing entire campaigns. But, I’ve seen a bunch of websites out there promising article marketing help and content creation…and heard horror stories. How to you know who’s for real and who’s not?

Yep, I’ve heard a ton of horror stories too. Unfortunately in the veil of anonymity that the internet often provides, it can be tricky finding the right provider.

Major things to look out for:

1)     SEO and content creation experience… These are not mutually exclusive skills, you need someone who is in touch with both worlds.

2)     A clear guide of the tasks they are actually performing… You want to know exactly how much content is being produced and where it is being submitted.

3)     Don’t be swayed by big numbers… Don’t be tempted by big numbers of articles submitted AND big numbers of directories submitted to… Submitting 100 crappy, badly written articles to 1000 article directories, might not have the same effect as 20 well written perfectly styled ones submitted to a select group of the very best article directories.

JF – Last question, I know some people who used to swear by article marketing 3 or 4 years ago, but they’ve moved away from it, because they say it just doesn’t work the way it used to. True or false? And, if false…what gives? These are smart people. Put another way, got any proof, case-studies, evidence that this stuff still works in the massively content-clogged world of social media?

EB - We can be honest and say that it may not work as well as it used to years ago when there were so few publishers and each article was given so much authority – but that’s not to say that it doesn’t work, and shouldn’t still feature in your traffic generation efforts.  I don’t advocate making article marketing your only traffic generation method, but I think its an easy and affordable means of achieving multi-faceted traffic results.

The great thing about article marketing too is that the articles (and the links) don’t just have an immediate benefit, they continue to bring in traffic for months if not years after submission. Many of the current traffic generation techniques come with a very specific lifetime such as monthly ads or high PR links that are only valid for 12 months or if you’re really daring – the length of time it takes for your spammy Twitter account or excessive forum posts to get taken down.

Obviously in my line of work, my client’s confidentiality is of utmost importance so I can’t disclose any url’s or keywords but below are 3 different case studies…

Case Study #1 – My partner and I had a weight loss site we set up back in late 2007 and we did a targeted article marketing campaign over a few months, solely to one directory. We eventually stopped working on the site (both posting and article marketing) back in mid-2008 and I just checked the stats today and we’re still hitting 400-500 unique visits a day, a third of which is coming solely from one directory – 2 years later. The quality of the links has improved over time to the point where despite the site being 100% inactive, it is still receiving traffic daily!

Case Study #2 – Another client of mine, has an article ranked on page 1 of Google for a term with 35.5 million results – just 5 weeks after submitting it. A second article we submitted, is ranked in the top half of page 2 for the same term. This is an example of the power of article marketing, because publishing the content where we did was able to receive a page 1 ranking whereas publishing to his website (which is thus far less authoritative and less established) wouldn’t have had these same results in as little time.

Case Study #3 -  More recently, a client of mine got his site ranked to page 1 of Google for his two major keywords (and brought in new sales from these keywords) within 2 weeks of beginning our promotion. Obviously these were low competition keywords, but that’s the point I’ve been trying to make about the ability to receive traffic and Google ranks FAST when narrowing in on a very select type of keyword.

———————

One last thing, I want to believe, really I do…

And, I think many in community want to believe this thing called article marketing is a viable channel for long-term traffic, authority-building and, for businesses, lead generation.

So, I asked Elysia if she’d be up for a public article marketing challenge…

On one of my other websites, I am already ranking on the front page of google for my top keyword, but I’m ranked #9. And, for another keyword, I’m nowhere near the front page. I asked Elysia if she’d be willing to take on the challenge of running an article marketing campaign designed to move my #9 ranking to #3 and put me on the front page for my second choice keyword.

I gave her 60 days to make it happen, with me not involved in any substantial way.

She said…YES!

Over the next 60 days, I’ll be updating you on the progress of that campaign, then I’ll do a wrap-up post and de-briefing interview with Elysia once the challenge is over to find out what she did and why. So, be sure to stay tuned (and make sure you subscribe, so you can follow along).

Last thing, if you guys have more questions, I’ve asked Elysia to check-in on the comments over the next few days and answer whatever she can.

So feel free to not only share your experience with article marketing, but ask more questions below…

The answer is no. It taught me how to analyze scenarios, options and organize thoughts and deal with tremendous amounts of stress. What it didn’t teach me a whole lot about, though, was the actual practice of being a lawyer.

I’ve heard a similar theme from many MBAs. Truth is, the great value in most MBA and JD programs can be boiled down to 5 to 10 talks, presentations, classes and conversations that changed the way you experienced the world. So, I figured, why go through 2 years of B-school, drop $100,000 (that’s $70k on school, $20k on booze and $10k on Red Bull) and give up two years of income, when you can experience your…

7 extraordinary moments with 7 true visionaries…right here, right now…

Guy Kawasaki‘s “10 things” list crushes a bunch of start-up myths, shows you where to spend your time, money and energy when starting and growing a business.

Malcolm Gladwell draws a stunning lesson about business, observation, problem-solving and refusing to be bound by the assumptions of others…from spaghetti sauce

Gary Vaynerchuck shares what it really takes to “make it,” beyond money, goals, plans and whiz-bang technology

Annie Leonard reveals the mindblowing and often horrifyingly inadvertent impact what you create has on the world, the people and the environment around you.

Jim Valvano, legendary former NC basketball coach shares how to keep perspective in trying and, for him, life-threatening, times (you’ll want a few tissues for this one, but don’t you dare skip it).

Seth Godin challenges you to rise to the call to lead, to tap the growing opportunity to organize others and rally them around a powerful cause.

Tony Hsieh reveals the driving importance of a company’s culture as the critical factor in lasting growth and success for any business.

There, now, go forth and conquer, dominate, win, succeed…

Serve!

When I work with a new marketing client, one of the first things I do is go deep into their business model.

This intrigues some…and pisses off others.

“Listen up,” I’ll hear, “we’re not paying you to fix our business, we just need more people coming through the door.”

To which I reply:

Let me ask you a question. In my car, I have a box. Actually, it’s a very sophisticated machine. Downright visionary. It took a boatload of money to create and a few years of work by me and my team. I believe in it wholeheartedly.

Now, this machine, it’s got a slot on the top with a printed label next to the slot that reads ‘Insert $100.’ And, here’s the fascinating thing, every time you insert a $100 bill, it gives you back $90. Now, didn’t we know this machine would end up doing this until we’d actually finished creating it. It was supposed to give us back $120 for each $100 we put in.

The first time we tested it with a $100 bill, we thought it was just a calibration error. So, we dropped in another…same result. So, here’s my question, knowing what you now know about this machine, would you keep feeding it $100s?

For some people, it clicks right away. Sometimes, it takes a few beats.

Many businesses think they have a marketing problem, but what they really have is a business model problem. They’ve created what I call a greedy beast. It may be based on a fundamental solution or idea that was sound, but somewhere in the execution, things went astray.

And, left unchanged, their greedy beast eats money for lunch, leaving them losing money with each sale.

If that was your business, would you want to drive MORE traffic, MORE prospects and MORE sales?

The obvious answer is…HELL NO!

Because the faster you feed a greedy beast, the faster it eats itself and you alive.

The less apparent answer, though, is…maybe.

If the reason you’re losing money on each sale is because you can’t bring your cost structure down to a level where each sale is profitable until you scale to a certain volume, and your capable of hitting that tipping point, you might be well served by sucking up the losses in the name of a viable longer-term equation.

Problem is, many businesses never do this analysis.

They assume they need to feed the beast more aggressively, without understanding when and why the beast either giveth…or taketh.

So, what’s the takeaway?

Before you go running to ramp up or fix your marketing, take a bigger step back and ask whether your problem is really a business model problem. This is especially important if you’re in a business that did well for years, but has seen a recent decline.

Demand changes over time, the need for solutions evolves, pain points move and even established businesses need to move with them.

Make sure you fix the beast before you end up feeding it its own limbs.