Idea2actions Formerly Rhythm Of Profitability | I2a Creative Marketing Strategies

Are you hoping for the success you want or are you working towards it?  This week is a short episode as I'm very under the weather, but it didn't stop me from talking to you about this important issue.  Often, we lean on hope for better things when the power is in ourselves.  You can be as successful as you want to be or fail as much as you can handle, but that's up to you.  If you're waiting on hope to save the day, you're focused on the wrong dreams and goals.  

We all have a place we want to be, but sometimes we aren't looking honestly at the requirements we need to get there.  Now, that may sound like an invitation to be self-critical, it's not.  Sometimes we need a license to compete and we just don't have it.  How would you rate yourself?  If you see the people at the level you want to be at as 9 or 10, how do you rank against them?  Again, don't criticize yourself, assess yourself.  If you are honest with yourself about what you need to achieve success, you'll go out there and get it!  If you think you're above it, you think you'll reinvent the wheel, you'll create a much harder road for yourself.  Get your license to compete where you want to thrive!

Pokemon Go is an amazing story of successful trends. John Hanke, the creator of the game has already driven over $2B in revenue.  The game only took about 4 months to develop.  What an amazing overnight success.  Well, not really.  The truth is, tJohn Hanke started his career 20 years ago and piece by piece helped to develop technology that resulted in Pokemon Go. Where are you in your journey to achieve your dreams?  Are you expecting an overnight success, or do you recognize how many years you're putting into your overnight success story?

This week's episode is inspired by one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes featuring Ed Wynn.  Do you have that one thing, that one really big thing in your life you want to accomplish that would be one for the ages?  If so, are you doing the things you need to do to get there or are you completely on the wrong track?  Sometimes, we don't go after what we're supposed to be going after because we don't want to do the necessary things it takes to accomplish that dream.  We all have amazing accomplishments at one phase of our life or another, but do we all get to achieve our "one for the ages" accomplishment?  This week, think about how you're pursuing your one for the ages and identify if you're pursuing it properly.

How successful you believe you'll be has so much to do with the level of success you'll have.  Not only do you need to set the bar high, but you need to know you have a clear path of things you know you need to do to get there.  Sometimes, we create our path based on what we know how to do, not on what we need to do.  There can be a big difference between the two and you have to figure that out.  The sooner you do, the better your mentality for success becomes.

It can take 6 to 9 months for your goals to start taking shape in the way of meaningful results.  If you set your goals for 2016 and haven't reached them yet, what are you doing to make the needed changes?  You have less than six months left to turn your year around, you can do it!  How are you getting started?

Do you find joy in the work you do?  If not, where is it?  For those of you with the ability to find joy day in and day out, what are you doing to help others find that same joy?  For those of you without it, where can you find it?  Is it what you're doing?  Is it where you're doing you work?  What can you do now to start finding more joy at work?

Why do you really do what you do?  Is it your desire for fame?  Your desire to be wealthy?  Do you have something or someone bigger than yourself that motivates you to focus on picking yourself up each and everyday to strive for your success?  This week, we discuss how you'll find the answer to why you do what you do.

Making a purchase is an emotional decision.  It seems the more zeros that are behind the product or service's price, the more emotional it becomes.  How well do you concentrate on those emotions?  Do you have the next emotion (objection) thought through?  

Do you ever have an opportunity or invitation in front of you and your gut is making you second guess it, but you’re not sure why?  Sometimes, our gut is cheering along with our dreams and telling us to go for it.  Other times, our gut is trying to warn us to keep us safe.  Can you tell the difference? http://www.idea2actions.com. 

Have you ever been told you're nuts for what you are trying to accomplish?  I'm sure you have at least once in your life.  If you're a creative person, then you've probably heard it several times. The truth is, we're all nuts in our own way, right?  Some of us pursue rational, safe paths and others choose unchartered, risky paths.  Either one offers its own form of insanity. Creative insanity can sometimes be the worst.  I know, I love to encourage people to pursue their passions, and their creativity but to be honest, it is insane.  The burden of putting yourself out there on a tight rope every day where you have no idea if you'll make it across safely is insane and it can break you if you let it.  http://www.idea2actions.com.  

My son recently cleaned out his school desk and brought home work from the year.  Amongst all of the work was a short story book about a memorable experience.  He drew a story book about our family trip to Legoland in Orlando.  It brought back warm memories of this past year because his outline of this single day had so much in it that he loved.  It got me thinking, what if I drew a picture of memorable moments for this year?  Could I?  What would I draw?  What if I drew a picture of what I want to be memorable moments of the year ahead of me?  What does that look like?  How about you?  Can you draw what your year will look like?  Do you have enough clarity to be able to see that picture?  Hopefully you do.  If not, take out a pencil, a pen or some crayons and get started.  http://www.idea2actions.com

There’s a quote I heard years ago that I’m crediting Robert DeNiro “the next project you do doesn’t have to be bigger and better than your last project.”  Years ago, I was leaving a role working in the music industry.  I was miserable, burned out, not really sure what to do next.  I took a job at a warehouse where I was flinging boxes on and off trucks, picking and packing orders and driving a forklift (which I had never done before).  The most stressful part of my job was going a few stories straight up in the air on a forklift, stepping off the lift onto a pallet where I had to grab the boxes I needed.  For someone partially afraid of heights, that was a bit of a daily worry.  That job was not bigger or better in my preconceived ladder of success.  Outside looking in, it was several steps down based on my skills, talents and passion.  However, it was absolutely the right place for me to be to get where I wanted to go.  This step down gave me better footing and it’s been a foundation I’ve been building on fo

Emailing marketing is hands down still the most effective return on investment (ROI) for how you nurture your customers and drive sales.  I know, I know, SEO, Social, PPC, Retargeting, Affiliate, they're all important and effective in their own way but for investment of time, investment of money = email will continue to win in 2016.  Sometimes it's hard to get your head wrapped around email marketing.  You're worried about annoying your customers, but you need to change that perspective.  Are you trying to help someone?  If the answer is yes, then you should be emailing them to tell them how you can solve their problems.  This week, we review ways to start off your email campaigns, how to build a list, and how to nurture that list.  http://www.idea2actions.com.  

Sometimes you just can't seem to find the new ways or new opportunities for how to grow your business.  Innovation typically happens when you're painted into a corner and are forced to find new ways of doing things.  However, it doesn't always need to be so desperate.  Sometimes you just need friendly people who care about your success to challenge you.  This week, we discuss ways to find your innovation regardless of how good or bad things are for your business.

Sometimes you're just stuck and even if you had someone waiting to help, you just don't even know how to explain your problem.  Sometimes you feel like things are crashing in around you and all that inspiration, passion is turning into heavy bricks falling down on you.  That's a horrible feeling to have and you need to do something about it, but what?  Well, you need to create a hope list.  No, that's not hopeless, hope LIST.  Start writing down ideas big and small of how would you like things to be.  What are some names of people you might call for advice?  Where can you find things to do differently than you did before?  When you're stuck, not just in mud, but in quicksand, you need to have the ability to create your hope-list to turn things around.  Once you start the process, the ideas begin to turn into actions.

When marketing your business you want to be able to identify metrics to measure success, but they differ.  When you're launching a new business or product, you want to be able to identify a run rate, meaning, the average revenue expectations for your product or service.  When you're marketing, you need to identify a run rate for your multiple marketing channels.  In marketing, not all things have the same rate of impact.  Knowing that upfront will save you a lot of frustration. If you're operating a blog for SEO or affiliate revenue, it's going to take longer to recognize the revenue from those efforts compared to if you were doing a direct response email promotion.  In short, the crops of what you sew don't all harvest at the same time. It's important that when you're setting up multiple marketing channels you don't delay for the sake of waiting for all of them to be "perfect" and ready to go.  For the marketing channels that will take longer to mature and recognize revenue, get started ASAP and improve as y

The best way to find out where you're needed is to ask.  After a year of hosting Rhythm of Profitability podcast and coaching clients in various industries, I asked my clients where am I needed?  What have I done to help you?  The answer I received was amazing because everyone said that same thing.  You help me turn my idea into actions.  Running a business sometimes you forget why people need you and where they need you.  You can get distracted, dilute your brand promise in a way that alienates people from understanding how to do business with you and at the same time pursuing work that is a shiny new object.  This week, I discuss this discovery for myself as I begin the process of rebranding my business to Idea2Actions.

One of the best things about being an entrepreneur is that you don't need to close up shop if things are going wrong as much as you can pivot to an area of business you might better excel at.  But when do you make that change?  How long do you test your ideas to see if they'll take off or if you need to make a change?  I recently heard a podcast from Andy Stanley and he asked a great question: If before you die, you could have people walk in the door and thank you for something you did for them, what would you want them to thank you for?  Is the dream you're chasing something that would be part of that answer?  What would you sacrifice to see that come true?  How can you change to make that come true?

Have you ever observed a person you see as more successful in life than you are and ask yourself, or maybe even ask them, "what's your secret?"  "What's the one thing that makes you so special in your success?"  If you're feeling discouraged.  If you feel somethings not right, you're probably looking for that one thing that could change everything.  I'm here to tell you, it's not going to come in one thing, but it will come in ten things you do.