Your Ego Gets In The Way Of Your Business...

The word happiness is defined in most cases as a feeling of contentment, or as a feeling ranging from contentment to intense joy. If we focus on people, activities, even things that we love, or positive outcomes that we desire, we will draw them to us because our thoughts are a form of energy that act upon the workings of the universe.

This seems simple enough, right? Why is it that so many of us are unhappy, discontent, even depressed? Because ego gets in the way. That voice in your head, that one that talks incessantly, the one you listen to because you think it’s actually your voice, is actually the voice of your ego.

When we listen to the ego voice as if it is our own we remain unaware of our power and lose track of our purpose. We begin to focus on what we don’t want, what we don’t like. The ego has, at that point, succeeded in side tracking our happiness.

#1 Guilt is incredibly effective at paralyzing our forward momentum. The ego knows this. It knows just what to say to us to stir up our guilt. The triggers are different for each of us, ego knows our subconscious better than we do; it knows our past history, it knows everything. When you get the impulse to make a change, to do something that you’ve never done before, or something that you used to do that brought you joy, listen to what comes up in response to that impulse. If it’s negative it’s more than likely your ego talking.

#2 Insecurity – we all have more than enough of it and ego not only creates it, but uses it against us. When the impulse comes to you to pursue an interest, and is accompanied by a pleasant sensation and a compelling energy, you must follow it no matter what that ego voice tells you, because it’s the universe talking to you, assisting you to your path and your purpose and thus, happiness.

#3 Self-Deprecation is the handmaiden to insecurity. Many people use self-deprecating humor in an attempt to hide their insecurities. Self-deprecating comments are one of the ego’s mainstays for keeping us small and we listen to them all day long. They start when we look in the mirror in the morning and continue all the livelong day. Even when we try to not engage, we still do. For example, one of my goals for the day is to be more aware of negative thoughts towards myself. At the end of the day what do I hear myself saying? You have such a short attention span you can’t even remember to listen to yourself! Oops. I could remind myself with compassion, instead. You were so busy that you forgot to listen for the ego voice today.

#4 Anger takes us away from ourselves. It balls up our energy and hurls it at another in a defensive response that is most often intended as a form of protection. Or, those of us who avoid conflict stuff that ball of energy deep down where it sours and burns us from the inside. Our ego creates our fear of losing, our need to protect. It is sometimes difficult to identify the fear underneath the anger, but frequently the issue at stake is power itself, or said another way, control. When confronted by the anger of another allowing that person some control will diffuse the anger. On the other hand, when you feel anger flare up inside, you must ask yourself what you are fearful of losing. Anger is just another mask that ego wears to usurp your power and your happiness.

#5 Judgment Engaging in the act of judging others – their beliefs, behaviors, lifestyles, clothing, how they earn their money, or don’t earn it, or how they spend it – keeps us from our own lives. It distracts us from focusing on the intent of staying on our path and our purpose.

Happiness can’t co-exist with fear. In order to create more happiness in your life you must learn to identify the voice of ego and its manipulations. Ego has a lot at stake, which is why it is so determined to keep us off-balance. If in fact we become aware of our power, accept the connectedness of all life, learn to live with self-compassion and compassion for each other; if we trust the Mystery, however we choose to name it, to reveal to us our path and our true purpose for being here in this life; if we were to divest ourselves of ego – well, it would cease to exist.

Why Not Using Social Media Can Hurt Your Business

It’s hard to believe, but some businesses are still slow to embrace social media for marketing and brand-building purposes. These businesses cling to outmoded methods of marketing without taking into account just how influential and far-reaching social media has become for consumers in B2C and B2B.

“Not having the right social media channels for your customers to reach out to you is the 1985 equivalent of not having a phone line,”
In case you’re not yet fully on board with social media, here are compelling reasons why not using it can harm your business:

1. People won’t know how great your business is.

Let’s assume you do things right and you’ve built a small, but loyal customer base. Wouldn’t it help to let more people know about your satisfied customers? On social media, businesses routinely share customer testimonials with their followers, while customers are happy to share their buying experiences all on their own.

2. You’re unaware of what customers are saying about you online.

Whether you like it or not, customers unhappy with your product or service won’t hesitate to share their experiences on Facebook and other platforms. Without a social media presence, how can you monitor negative reviews or attempt to answer them and demonstrate a policy of responsiveness?

3. You lack a method for engaging with your target audience.

Social media is interactive. Small businesses build communities around their brands and instill customer loyalty. Engagement may include sharing product updates, conducting customer surveys, sponsoring contests, etc. A small business that lacks a social media presence must work much harder to engage its customer base.

4. Traditional advertising is more expensive than marketing on social media.

Not only does creating and distributing advertisements add up to significant costs, the level of customer trust in traditional advertising is fairly low. Start-ups in particular enjoy a much higher success rate using social media to promote their products or services.

5. It’s much harder to build a reputation as a thought leader.

It’s likely you’re an expert in your particular field of business. But without a social media presence, who will ever know? Small businesses regularly create and promote content of value to their followers, in the process building a reputation as an industry thought-leader — which adds credibility when they reach out to prospective customers.

6. You can’t easily spread the word about new products or upgrades.

Businesses use Facebook and other channels to launch a new product or announce a major upgrade. Customers are sometimes invited via social media to “test-drive” the new product and offer helpful feedback. This kind of customer input increases the odds of a successful launch or upgrade, because a business knows in advance what works (and what doesn’t work) with their target audiences.

7. You’re less likely to know what your competitors are up to.

Never assume that just because you don’t have a social media presence, the competition is abstaining as well. They’re not! Monitoring the social media activity of competitors enables you to stay informed about their marketing efforts and who their customers are — information that could prove essential for your own marketing campaigns.

8. It’s harder to recruit quality employees.
Businesses use social media as an active employee-recruitment tool — and job candidates do the same when it comes to checking out potential employers. Having a vibrant online presence (not just your business website) makes your company more attractive to talented candidates, the very individuals you most want to apply for your open positions.

9. In a crisis, the lack of a social media presence can be devastating.

Sooner or later, almost every business experiences some type of public relations or product-related crisis. Companies that successfully “bounce back” usually integrate crisis management with social media in the planning stages. They use Twitter and other channels to beat back unfounded rumors and speculation, while ensuring a continuous flow of customer-friendly information. A business with no social media presence can be badly harmed by a tsunami of angry voices online.

Late to the show? Look at social media platforms your customers follow and start building your own community of fans and friends alike.

2 Things Every Employee Should Know View Report Campaign Preview HTML Source Plain-Text Email Details

Customer experience” is a term we use when we’re trying to capture each individual customer’s perspective on what it’s like to deal with a business. When we say “customer experience” the implication is that we’re looking at the business from an outside-in point of view, because this is how the customer experiences the business. But the company’s own point of view is inside-out, it often crosses different, departments, products, and personalities within the company.

At many companies it’s easy to point fingers at the service people, or the sales people, or the account handlers. Customer experience is their job, it’s not my job. But I think delivering a better customer experience should be considered everyone’s job, and everyone needs to know something about what that means.
A colleague of mine used to do consulting work for restaurant chains. He said in evaluating any sit-down restaurant he visited, there were two things he absolutely insisted that every single employee should know, from maitre d’ to the kitchen clean-up crew:

1. What was on the menu,
2. How to seat a guest.

This is a great analogy for the way most businesses should train their people. Everyone, no matter what their function – HR, accounting, sales, service, engineering – everyone should know what the business offers customers, and how to serve these customers, as well.

The thing is, customers don’t know who does what at a company they deal with, and for the most part they don’t really care. If a customer happens to be talking with an accountant at the company they’re buying from, they’re not really interested in that person’s department or job function. They’re focused on the problem they have. But if the accountant – or the administrative assistant, or the product engineer – doesn’t know anything about how the firm wants to serve customers, then it's likely to generate a bad experience. And the customer won’t ascribe this bad experience to having dealt with the wrong person at the company, either. They’ll ascribe it to having dealt with the wrong company.
A significant side benefit of this whole idea is that when everyone at a company knows not just what’s on offer but also the right way to treat customers, the culture at the firm will cohere around building the business. Workers who are united by a common vision of what the company’s mission is are more likely to make the right decision in difficult or problematic circumstances. And they’re more likely to enjoy working for you, as well.
So ask yourself whether everyone at your business knows what’s on your company's menu, and how to seat a guest.