Reconnect with your purpose - Howard Mann

I was at Howard’s talk this morning where spoke of key topics he wrote about in the Business Brickyard, a book that I think any business should keep.

After reading his book a few months ago it hit me that we had lost the fun we initially when we started. In all the things we build as a company, after all has been said and done, the basics that make any business succeed should be in place.

In reconnecting with your purpose you are then able to reject the work you shouldn’t be doing and focus on what makes you succeed.

Some significant questions he raised are:

- What is your purpose? (as a company)
- Why do you do what you do?

You can read his blog here or get the book.

It’s refreshing to find entrepreneurs that aren’t stiff and have me yawning as they speak.

Making your own "Big Break"

If you wait for the "big break" then you're one of many people who haven't reaized that we buy the experience.

When developing a product which is a service offered, then you're selling the experience of what you've designed. In most instances the business I've lost was due to over-defining my offering without letting the experience speak for itself.

The product you offer:
- should be an experience your client wants use.
- must be the solution and do what it's meant to.

Once your prospects understand the solution you provide them, then their more likely to deal with you. We all link things with other similar services and products we know, which makes yours fall within the same category.

Are being the solution or only telling your prospects you will be?

Howard Mann (who'll be South Africa soon) described this as : Reaching the Top 3% of your Industry.

Speaking your mind: Personal power

It is almost unimaginable for me to live in a world where I can't speak my thoughts without fear of imprisonment or punishment by the law. If such laws were still in existence, as it is, some countries then I'd have a long record.

Young people aged between 16 and 40 are the very ones that freed most parts of the world so that we now have human rights. The era we live in requires us to be more vigilant in preserving the rights of less fortunate people around the world.

With the web being a powerful tool, blogging against human the abuse of human rights, it can be utilized to speak out and spread the word.

Can you imagine a world where you cannot speak your mind without the fear of imprisonment? Some people live in it. . . .

Web-design and the content

There are a lot more people lately, who much more than average, want to have websites or just plague the web with useless content. Websites have to achieve certain preset objectives.

When designing a website one has to know :
- what the site is meant to do.
- what you’d like to achieve with it
- what the end user receives there or cares about in relation to your website.

The days of being one of few companies online are long gone, now anyone can have a website. And frankly no one cares about websites only the content there.

Is it more important then that a website is user-friendly and content driven as opposed to making it more eye-catching ?

People to my opinion care more about the content than how your website looks, though it shouldn't feel like sand behind the eyelids.

You are the change

We very often try to do things that seem to be outside ourselves in developing a business, product or any other personal area.

In realizing and knowing that you are the needed change then your work becomes a personal activity. Everyone has their own story, which increases the fluidity of what you do and by this attract the relevant people to your cause.

Instead of going toward either the extreme of fitting-in or differentiating yourself completely from everyone else, which in turn makes you a recluse. Find your the magic in your yourself. . . . That is what differentiates you.

Package yourself effectively

Everyone of us has a personality that operates exactly as a brand does. The perceptions you create daily in the world establish you and if we do this knowingly, with intention, then we're bound to be more effective.

I'm not a firm believer in branding as, has been endorsed by popular jargon, but what I do encourage is that we create a need through product offering.

This ensures :

- that your client realizes and knows the value you add from the onset.
- a personalized service for an individual.
- you become partners with your client.

In my conversation with Mnqobi Nyembe, who has been in youth development and has done awesome work thus far, we reached a point where it had to be concluded where self starts and business ends. He's the kind of person whose experiences have contributed in fueling passion and his work is exactly that.

In packaging yourself you have to realize the services you'll render as a brand/individual, which don't need to have conventional elements fused into them.

That conversation was eye-opener and got me thinking of all the things that can aligned with my personality/brand/service.

Overcome your discouraging voices

Whenever we start something new something within us always gives reason why it wouldn't work. Or is it just me?

If it happens I always consider the facts of why it would and act on them, as inaction is the primary cause for the new death of new, potentially, life changing ideas. It is a given that at times we become own worst critic and can be our own raving fans also.

So whenever there seems to be negative self talk consider acting on that new idea. . . . The world needs it.