Happy Monday! Mondays always seem to be the toughest day to get started for the week, huh? Focus is all you need! That’s right, and to focus requires a lot of dedication.
“Focus – the single-mindedness and the mental strength of an entrepreneur. Focus keeps one on-track. Focus shuts out distractions. Focus sets things into motion. With focus come quantified plans, objectives and goals. With focus come an increase in productivity, accomplishments of plans, objectives and goals. Focus gives a clear head and helps in decision making. Focus also helps in identifying good business plans. Focus plans with a purpose. Focus allows calculated risks. Focus knows when to move on. Focus leads people. Without focus, an entrepreneur may end up taking a long detour to the intended success… that is if he/she even makes it there.”
Interestingly enough, I’ve heard from many that entrepreneurs in general, lacks focus. Why? It is said that entrepreneurs have so many ideas and at times, don’t know how to or which to first execute. Focus goes beyond just entrepreneurs – everyone needs focus, especially when there are so many distractions around us these days.
Think about it – emails, phone calls, Facebook games and the list goes on. How many of these can actually be put on hold? How much can be accomplished if those were cut down?
It’s time to get rid of distractions and move towards your goal. Do you have a focus? What is your focus?
Good morning! How was 10-10-10 for you? For me, it’s a reminder that we are already in October, just about 2 months more before 2010 ends. How time flies and how have we kept up to it? How many of us are keeping up with our new year’s resolution for 2010? How many have already gave up in achieving them?
For one, it is never an easy task to achieve goals – especially big ones. The higher the goal is, chances are, the greater the challenge is; and what makes an entrepreneur differ from another is perseverance.
Perseverance?
Thats right! Perseverance is the shield, the willpower, the spirit and the first line-of-defense of an entrepreneur. Perseverance keeps an entrepreneur in-the-game. Perseverance often is the key difference between a winner and a loser. Perseverance accepts defeat only to become stronger. To persevere takes courage. Persevering opens opportunities to strike-back. Perseverance makes success sweeter. Without perseverance, an entrepreneur accepts defeat only to be fully defeated without finishing the race.
However, perseverance does not mean that one should just sit still and accept failure over and over again. It has a goal, a desire to improve, to perform, and to succeed.
Persevere!
Each entrepreneur has a different measure of perseverance and can only be developed / trained through experience, guided with his / her own passion. One can also start training their level of perseverance by setting goals with a DATELINE and make sure it is accomplished by then. Track your progress throughout and celebrate when a milestone is achieved! It takes a great deal of discipline to develop perseverance but it pays off in the end especially for an entrepreneur.
Interestingly enough, the Chinese character for ‘perseverance’ or ‘patience’ portrays the very essence of perseverance in an entrepreneur – to persevere even when the heart is under the blade / knife – to keep pressing forward despite the circumstances to obtain success.
“Perseverance helps you to keep your focus and not be distracted by failures, effectively learn from mistakes, a better team player and helps you maintain your composure even during time of crisis.”
Already have a passion? Want to make it a reality? It’s time for some perseverance and action today!
Good morning! The weekend came and went so quickly – and a new week has just begun! There’ll be new challenges and new obstacles but this also means opportunity for more learning and greater winnings; and only you can determine how your week will be. One can choose to do all the right things, do it well, but yet find no joy in what they are doing. Some may be doing what they thought they’d like doing but it fizzled along the way.
How is that so? Something is lacking within them – Passion; and passion is one of the key components that makes an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur.
What is Passion?
Passion is the sword, the constant drive and the offense of an entrepreneur. Passion differentiates an entrepreneur from a business owner. Passion can be seen and felt by others. It is also contagious. Passion drives situations, people, and success. Passion motivates, instills confidence and enthusiasm. Passion picks one up and propels another further. With passion come a desire, a vision and actions for a better future even when the odds are against you. Without passion, an entrepreneur loses its main weapon of offense, the double-edged sword to succeed.
“One cannot fake passion. A leader can never ask his followers to be passionate about something he / herself isn’t passionate about.”
However, having passion alone isn’t enough – especially as an entrepreneur. Sure, passion is the primary weapon of offense but it will be useless if you don’t swing it towards the enemy. Merely holding it in your hands, bragging to your friends on how sharp your sword is doesn’t make it what it is. Action – to put your passion to the field – that’s where and when you’ll begin to see results.
“Passion without Action is dead.”
Get Started with your Passion!
Don’t let that passion get away! Pen down where your passion lies and do something this week about it! If your passion is in design, start working on your very first masterpiece! If you passion is to be your own boss, it’s about time to put together a business plan! Do you really want to go through life having that passion but not doing anything about it?
The trick to pursue your passion is simple – get it started!
What do you enjoy doing? What do you want to achieve? What’s your passion? Have you put it to action?
Now that the festive holidays are over, most of us would already be back at work, projects, meetings, assignments, classes, school.. you get the gist of it – we’re back playing the life game. It is interesting to note that while most of us are in the game to win, we also spend a lot of effort in merely trying not to fail.
Does failure get into the way of your growth?
We often hear people describing failures as an integral part of learning and growing, especially as an entrepreneur – and that’s true! A simple act of accepting failure as a part of the process of our very own skill development will be able to bring us a long way ahead and this, is the first step in developing a winning mindset, a mindset that will get you ahead of any game you play in life!
Not easy? True. That’s just positive thinking? Not true.
Think about it, how far do you REALLY want to go in what you’re doing? People with a winning mindset takes on every game, every opportunity with a learning motive, a goal, vision or a direction in mind. They feel smart when they are learning something and not just when they are winning. To do that, you’ll often find the top players setting goals BEYOND their capabilities, talents and resources – goals that they themselves aren’t sure if they can achieve. They consistently challenge themselves and does not fear failing.
The reason is simple: If you make it, that’s something worth celebrating as you’ve set a new record for yourself – you won! Else, you should have managed to pick up a whole lot of new skills and experiences while at it – your tool to a greater win in your next game! Now this, is a win-win situation!
Remember:
“Your mindset determines the size of the life game you play”
With this winning mindset, failing is definitely better than not progressing.
How often have you wanted to harness the potential of social media but been too unwilling to commit to the changes required (i.e. still holding on to your previous mindset)? I managed to come across this Dilbert comic strip that somewhat resembles what we looked at previously about the mindset of today’s business owners and entrepreneurs in Malaysia regarding social media:
Although the comic strip may seem to have exaggerated things a little (especially when we now know most people associate social media with Facebook and Twitter) but it does carry some truth in it. Perhaps it may happen like this instead in Malaysia (adapted from above):
True, isn’t it? Most traditional businesses sees social media as merely a trend that they wish to participate in but yet unwilling to accept it fully. Little did they know that social media has grown beyond just a trend or a technology – but a lifestyle, an integral part in consumer engagement, extension of networks, and it is here to stay.
Still skeptical? Apart from just pumping you up with the potential reach of people you can be connected with, here are 5 simple reasons on why you should get started with social media for your business if you haven’t already:
1. Public Engagement
Now before you turn around click away saying that you’ve heard of this a million times already, listen to this once more: engagement builds trust, a bridge towards your brand, it creates a perception and an emotion towards it. This can become your brand’s distinguishing factor against your competitors. Like it or not, people already have perceptions towards your brand regardless.
If they’ve never heard of you before, chances are, you have to give it double the effort to convince them as compared to a brand that is already well engaged with the public and this is something traditional marketing (or advertising) can’t do.
“Traditional advertising is a 1-to-many, one-way relationship while social media is a 1-to-[1]-to-many, two-way relationship. It takes two hands for a brand to clap and that [1] makes a difference. That [1] is your tie to the mass, and also your brand advocate, your key for an applause.”
2. Earned Media vs Paid Media
Which do you prefer? People talking about you or paid to talk about you. Don’t get me wrong, paid media isn’t wrong by all means as advertorials, reviews and the likes DO WORK, even better if you have a strong influencer on your side but some business owners or entrepreneurs do have their hands tied when it comes to budgets, especially for a startup and earned media is well, free!
A little bit of time and effort will get you a long way. Think about it, where else do you have the opportunity to share your knowledge, thoughts and expertise in articles or in any other media form at no cost, with a huge base of potential non-geographically constrained readers? That’s the World Wide Web for you and all you need is just a little dedication to maintain and to promote your masterpieces!
“It is beyond just a ‘following’ online, but the credibility you build for yourself / brand / business along with it.”
3. Social Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Apart from just communicating with consumers, receiving feedbacks, support, sales and promotions, social media can also be used as an avenue for your customers to tell their story i.e. testimonials. Nothing beats a first-hand story, whether good or bad that comes from your existing customers as it will be able to attract new customers along the way!
Yes, this also means that your existing customers will be ‘selling’ your brand to their networks on your behalf, without having you to spend extra time and money to try convince everyone on the street on how good you are. It will now be customer-get-customer rather than brand-get-customer. Sharing – that’s how information travel on the social media, and it happens with just a click.
“They say sharing is caring. On social media, sharing is business.”
[PAUSE:] If at this point you’ve still been wondering:
1. On how this social media ‘thingy’ can actually do ALL of the above, or
2. Is the social media ‘idea’ too confusing? or
3. You find that I’m no longer speaking in English, then:
Check out this video I found on YouTube – explaining social media in plain, simple English and how social media can benefit you, your brand, your customers AND your prospects!
Hopefully that cleared things up better!
Okay, back to business: On to the fourth!
4. Measurable
Unlike traditional advertising, results can easily be measured on social media. With the availability and free access to various tools such as Google Analytics, Feed Burner, number of fans / followers / friends / likes and more, one can generate a detailed report about their reach as compared to traditional means.
For example, Google Analytics (to the left) will be able to indicate the amount of page views, average time spent on your site, where they are from, how did they managed to land on your site and other information that helps you understand your readers more. This is definitely one thing you’ll never be able to obtain out of traditional means. In other words, ‘success’ is now determined based on your influence rather than reach, quality over quantity (but then again, quantity is also achievable on social media).
5. It Works
Yes. It works! Businesses all over the world have implemented and integrated social media into their business modal do have results to show! Whether it is sales, higher traffic, enquiries or feedback, it worked for them. No reason for it to fail, if you’re committed in making it happen. And no, they did not pump cash to make it work. Social media made it work for them.
Want to know how others implemented social media in their business? Hang in there as I’ll be revealing some of them right here, at janwong.my in the coming days! You may be surprised to see how these brands and businesses used social media to drive results up their doorstep – powerful yet simple. Chances are, you may just be able to replicate their success in your business!
Conclusion..
There you go, 5 simple reasons on why social media should be implemented in business operations and marketing efforts. There are of course, even more reasons on implementing social media but in the end, the key is your mindset, perception and how far a brand is willing to go with it.
Remember, only you can determine whether social media makes or breaks your business… why go with the latter? :)
… many have made it, what say you?
How else do you see social media impacting your business / life?
As you may already know, the Online Social Media or the infamous Web 2.0 / 3.0 is the marketing trend of today’s business environment. Marketeers are using it to their advantage world wide and social media does not seem to be putting on brakes anytime soon as in continues to evolve.. rapidly!
Malaysia is definitely not out of the picture. This Online Social Media‘concept’ is also seen to be the IN thing for businesses and many have been (or at least, trying to) implementing this concept in their corporate strategies. As per every business execution, some made it and some didn’t.
Why, you ask? Let’s first explore the mindset of the business owners and entrepreneurs towards social media – I recently came across many business owners and entrepreneurs lately that seem to have their own interpretation of this ‘concept’ that has been reaping great results globally.
Here’s a summary of responses I manage to gather from the conversations I had with them regarding Online Social Media:
Although none of the above is entirely wrong, but as expected, terms such as ‘Facebook’, ‘Blog’ and ‘Bloggers’ came out most often and is found to be their very first reply e.g. “usage of Facebook and blogs…”. It would also seem that to some of them, social media means inviting bloggers to write about a certain happening / product / advertorial. Some says it is an additional avenue for promotion and sales, a tool to target the younger generation and the list goes on..
It is sad to see that many business owners today still have their own interpretation and mindsets, and has yet to come to realize and see the importance of Online Social Media in Malaysia, seeing it as merely a tool or an extension of their business instead of integrating social media as PARTof their business. Hence, they see it as a only a ‘concept’, a ‘good to have’ but not a ‘must have’, a ‘trend’ but not ‘real business’.
How about you? What is your interpretation of the Online Social Media?
True, isn’t it? Most traditional businesses sees social media as merely a trend that they wish to participate in but yet unwilling to accept it fully. Little did they know that social media has 
[PAUSE:] If at this point you’ve still been wondering:
Hopefully that cleared things up better!
Conclusion..