I’ve heard it said that failure equals growth. Well, if that is truly the case, then a lot of growing’s been going on in 2009! How do you handle failure in your life? What is your attitude when the bottom is dropping out of your industry, your project, your business, your life?
Here are The Five Rules of Life
1. You will learn lessons
2. There are no mistakes, just lessons
3. A lesson is repeated until it is learned
4. If you don’t learn the easy lessons they get harder
5. You’ll know you’ve learned a lesson when your actions change
My wife and I saw this video this morning and were reminded again how failure is part of life and a stepping stone to success if handled properly. So let’s all learn our lessons and fail as achievers!
We live in a world where interruption marketing continues to slide into oblivion. Our lives are busier than ever and the clutter around us is deafening. How do we reach our target audience in this changing marketplace without interrupting them? Are Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and social bookmarking just a fad?
I challenge you to watch this video and consider if social media has a place in your marketing budget. Yes, it’s time-consuming, takes a big commitment to stick with it, and it’s hard to track ROI, but the fact is, social media is here to stay and it’s changing the way we market all products and services to consumers and to other businesses.
We’d love to talk with you about your social media marketing challenges. Give us a call if you’d like to discuss the possibilities for your business.
This is a great video to open your mind to this exploding thing called Social Media. It will affect every area of your lives, especially your marketing and communications!
Fireworx Digital just launched a new online store for GuyHarveySportswear.com This innovative line of fish art clothing and accessories with over 7,000 styles and sizes has seen incredible sales growth not only among it’s loyal salt water fishing fans, but also among university students at campuses across the country.
The site was designed with a primary focus on extending and promoting the Guy Harvey brand. It provides one online location where Guy Harvey fans can see the entire line of Guy Harvey clothing items. A dealer locator makes it easy to find retail locations within a given zip code.
Fireworx selected SearchFit as the shopping cart platform for client AFTCO Bluewater, master license holder for Guy Harvey Sportswear, based largely on the fact that it was built from the ground up for maximum search engine optimization. Together with SearchFit, Fireworx was able to deliver a cost-effective, turnkey eCommerce solution for the new consumer direct site. The shopping cart was fully integrated into AFTCO’s existing ERP system, provided by Innovative Systems, LLC.
One of the biggest challenges for businesses in this current market is to avoid the temptation to figuratively curl up in a ball under our desk and wish it was 2005. Sure the market is soft and customers are tentative but instead of taking a reactive position we need to be active. There are upsides to the recession- there is less noise in the market and an incredible assortment of digital tools for you to better engage your prospects in a one-on-one conversation. Seth Godin is spot-on in his recent blog post Death spiral!
As Tom Peters says, “You can’t shrink your way to greatness,” and yet that’s what so many dying businesses try to do. They hunker down and wait for things to get better, but they don’t. This isn’t a dip, it’s a cul de sac. It’s over.
Right this minute, you still have some cash, some customers, some momentum… Instead of squandering it in a long, slow, death spiral, do something else. Buy a new platform. Move. Find new products for the customers that still trust you.
Change is a bear, but it’s better than death.”
2010 is just around the corner- let’s make something of ‘09 while we still can- cause times may not be optimal but this is the only time we have.
At Fireworx Digital one of the ways we give back is through an organization called Y-Malawi. Y-Malawi is a groundbreaking model for partnership between churches in the US and frontline organizations in Malawi, Africa, providing community-wide sustainable development and transformation in the areas of water and food security, healthcare, education, evangelism & discipleship, youth programs, and economic development, including micro-finance.
What I love about Y-Malawi is the organic nature of its growth. Unlike many 501-c3 non-profts, it doesn’t have a big top down organizational staff. It’s largely run by volunteers. I’ve been active in Y-Malawi since its inception and together with my team developed their website www.y-malawi.org, marketing materials, an extensive 30-page “Giving Catalog”, and an online giving store. What’s really exciting though is I recently started a Ning community for Y-Malawi, which now has over 350 active members. What’s amazing is to see how these members are interacting with each other, posting their trips to Malawi, discussing new sustainability ideas, sharing stories and basically doing what you might expect a vibrant community to do. My daughter Jennifer was our third member, didn’t really know much about the organization at all at the time, and now she is leaving tonight with some of her friends for a 15 day trip to Malawi! Does that show the power of a social community?
I know I’m somewhat biased as a major social media proponent and consultant, but I don’t believe Y-Malawi would be seeing this organic growth without the interconnectivity that comes with the social networking technology of a site like Ning. It has taken Y-Malawi’s static web presence and put a real, live, transparent, personal face on it. This organization is in its infancy and we’re excited to see where it will go as we are adding all the other aspects of social marketing to further spark its momentum.
I hope no one takes offense to this video but I had to laugh at the similarities to many real world situations in business. I have to admit I’ve been on both sides of this scenario myself and it helps me keep perspective and treat my vendors as I expect to be treated by my clients. A picture truly can be worth a thousand words!
I admit I’m a total iPhone Geek. In fact I’ve been an “Anything-Remotely-Related-to-Apple-in-any-Way-Fanatic-Geek”, ever since falling in love with my Mac Plus 23 years ago.
So it should come as no surprise that I have about 60 apps on “my precious” iPhone, some of them fun, several of them totally useless, and a few downright revolutionary.
I’d be happy to tell you about some of my favorite third-party apps in upcoming posts, apps like Things, Evernote, Facebook, Pandora, Amazon, Solebon, Remote, etc., but the most powerful app I’m talking about here is native to the iPhone so no extra cost is involved and I bet it will increase your productivity like no other app available for any cost. So without further ado, I present to you the iPhone Timer! Yes the lowly Timer. I’ve discovered the power of my little iPhone timer app in getting more things done in less time.
For me it all started with my wife Nancy, who is a big FlyLady fan. Through FlyLady, she learned how seemingly big time consuming tasks could be accomplished in little 15 minute increments. She came to really appreciate her little $5 dollar kitchen timer and really became efficient with household chores and little accomplishments. Actually Nancy discovered her timer while raising our 3 children. The timer brought order to chaos, using it to settle disputes over sharing, establishing quiet times, countdown to bedtime, etc. For us, it was miraculous how our kids would argue with us about bedtime, but not with the timer. It in essence became a third party authority figure that was not to be challenged.
It took me a while to catch on to how that power could be transferred to my business life, but now I have seen the light and it’s truly empowering and liberating! Need to post a blog? Set the timer. It’s incredible what you can post in 15 minutes. In fact I’m now considering a 15 minute blog. Instead of 140 characters counting down like Twitter, the post entry box would count down 15 minutes. Great for keeping your flow of great thoughts going without getting bogged down or discouraged over the time commitment. (See if I follow through on that idea…) Need to follow up on a call you’ve been putting off? Set the timer and tell the person you are calling you only have 15 minutes. (Hint) Set your timer buzzer to your phone ring for a few more than 15 minutes, when it goes off, you can say you have to jump and they will understand. I also recommend the timer for tasks you really enjoy like checking in on Twitter. It can save you from blowing 2 hours before realizing it!
Well, you get the idea. Why don’t you take up my challenge and see what you can do in 15 minute increments. BTW, I’m sure Blackberry’s and all other phones and PDA’s have a timer function built in, although the iPhone timer just looks amazing as it ticks off the seconds!
Feel free to comment back and let me know what you are doing in 15 minutes! (Keep it clean:)
