Adam Kreitman Is Now The Rise To The Top’s Internet Marketing Expert

An exciting day for me and my company, Words That Click.

I’ve teamed up with David Siteman Garland of The Rise To The Top to become a sponsor of, and Internet Marketing Expert for, his emerging new media empire!

David and I both come from a long line of entrepreneurs and have a passion for entrepreneurism coursing through our veins. I’m thrilled that I’ll be working with him to develop the web presence for TRTTT which is “THE source for entrepreneurial education and lifestyle design for young, emerging, and established entrepreneurs and business professionals.”

A major component of The Rise To The Top is a TV show which airs in St. Louis at 5 PM on WRBU-my46 TV every Saturday and at 1 AM on KDNL-ABC30 every Wednesday night after Jimmy Kimmel Live. Shows are also available 24/7 at www.therisetothetop.com.

David’s assembled an impressive list of experts and guests that will be sharing their passion and experience with aspiring and accomplished entrepreneurs. And people are already paying attention – the show’s second episode was seen by 100,000 on TV in St. Louis.

As The Rise To The Top’s Internet Marketing Expert, I’ll be on each show starting in January on a segment called “Build Your Business Online.” In the segment I’ll be providing viewers with a tip, strategy and/or other interesting tidbit about how to market their business on the Internet. Additional material will be provided online in the educational packet that accompanies each show.

I’ll also be helping David in promoting and growing the company’s popular website and blog. There are already lots of exciting plans in the works – be sure to check the TRTTT website often in the weeks and months ahead!

Thomas Edison’s Key To Creating a Successful Business

I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others…
I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”
Thomas Edison

He’s one of the most prolific inventors the world has ever seen.

He gave us the light bulb, phonograph, kinetoscope (motion picture projector), stock ticker, and fluoroscope – just to name a few of his 1000+ inventions.

But the quote above is perhaps the greatest display of Edison’s true genius.

Many entrepreneurs get this backward. We think about what we like, what we’re good at, and what kind of product, service, company we want to invent. It’s only after spending a lot of sweat and equity in developing the concept that we discover the market isn’t there to support it.

Start with the prospect.

How can you make their lives better?
How can you help them achieve their goals?
How can you help them avoid a pain?
How can you serve a market in a way that no one else is serving it?

Want to significantly improve the odds of your success? Start with the prospect and keep them at the forefront of your mind as you develop, refine and market your business idea.

It takes research.
It takes hard work.
It takes thinking about others first (which is contrary to our nature).

But if you want to launch a winning business, take the advice of one of the greatest minds of our time – find out what the world needs, then give it to them!

Why Entrepreneurs and Parents Need Big Bank Accounts (But Not the Kind You Think)

Think a big balance in the bank will help you run a successful business and raise a family?

There’s no doubt having a lot of money in the bank can help in both cases. But it’s not a requirement. I’d even argue that depending on your definition of success, you can be very successful in business and especially parenthood with not much money at all.

But I’m not talking about money here. There’s another type of bank account that I think is extremely important to being successful as an entrepreneur and a parent.

An Emotional Bank Account.

Let me explain.

A few years ago I attended a lecture by a prominent child psychologist at a local high school. During the talk he explained how he’s come to think of parenting as having a bank account. He said “Early on you need to make as many deposits as you can because come the teenage years, you’re going to be making a lot of withdrawals.”

That got big laughs from the audience. And while funny, there’s a lot of truth to it.

I have not yet experienced sharing a home with a teenager. My daughters still have a way to go (though I know sure that time will arrive much quicker than I’d like!). However, I remember my teenage years. I can say with a high degree of certainty that they were not the most enjoyable years for my parents to have me living under their roof.

But it could have been a lot worse.

While we clashed from time to time, my parents had made a lot of deposits into the emotional bank account when I was younger. As a results, there was a lot of love, respect, and trust between us. And while there were definitely withdrawals made along the way (on both sides), the balance remained high enough to get all of us through those years in very good shape.

When it comes to your business, you need to build an emotional bank account with your customers. Starting with their very first contact as a prospect, it’s critical to start building that balance by nurturing that relationship.

How?

Be reliable.
Be approachable.
Be trustworthy.
Make them feel special.
Underpromise and overdeliver.
Be honest – always!
Make it About You – your customer.

Why is this so important? Because one day, no matter how hard you try to avoid it, something will go wrong.

A server will crash.
A payment will be mishandled.
A miscommunication will occur.
A deadline will be missed.
A campaign will not go as planned.

If you take the time to build up a big emotional bank account with your customers, chances are good they will remain your customers. The emotional account balance you build will not be drained by an occassional withdrawal.

If you fail to grow that balance early and often, then even a little withdrawal can bankrupt your account. And that can have a very real impact on the balance of your actual bank account!

Do you have an example of how building a big emotional bank account has helped you in business or pareting? Please share it below in the comment section.

3 Things Entrepreneurs Can Learn From a Screaming Baby

It’s 2 A.M. You’re sleeping soundly in bed. All of a sudden the peace and quiet of the early morning is shattered by the head-splitting cries of your little pride and joy. You go try to calm her down but two hours later she’s still screaming as loud as ever.

You’re beyond exhausted. You have a headache. You’re near tears. You’re desperately grasping for anything you can think of to get that baby to stop screaming and go back to sleep.

You’ve tried the usual mix of bouncing, swaying, rocking, coddling, dancing, singing, feeding, and changing diapers.

You’ve resorted to more desperate measures like holding her on the dryer while it’s running and taking a drive in the car, hoping the vibrations will do the trick.

Back at home, rattled to your very core, you head to the bathroom to get a drink of water. Your hand misses the light switch and instead turns on the vent. And then . . . silence! The quiet hum of the fan did the trick!

Relieved, but still a bit frazzled by the ordeal, you put the baby back in her crib and go to sleep. Success!

So what can you learn about marketing from this torture that 1000s of parents of infants go through on a nightly basis?

1. Get it wrong . . . quickly! If you’re rocking that baby and she doesn’t stop crying, you’re not going to keep rocking her for very long. You’re going to move on to something else that will hopefully yield better results – and fast!

The same principle applies to your marketing efforts. If you’ve launched a new marketing campaign and are not getting the results you want – don’t go down with the ship. Bail quickly and move onto something new.

Test out new marketing ideas on a small scale. If it works – build on it. If it doesn’t – try something else. The quicker you go through this process, the quicker you will find the marketing ideas that will fuel your company’s success.

2. Make mistakes. In my little story, the usual tricks didn’t work. It was missing the light switch and turning on the fan instead that was the life saver that rescued our desperate parent.

A lot of business owners are afraid of making mistakes. That’s a, well, mistake. Being afraid of making mistakes hampers creativity, makes it difficult to stand out from the competition, and won’t doesn’t lead to any big breakthroughs for your company.

Mistakes have led to some monumental breakthroughs in the course of human history. For more on mistakes, read Scott Ginsberg’s blog post “10 Mistakes That Changed The World.“

Now go make some mistakes of your own!

3. It’s not about you – the business owner, it’s about you – your customer. If you tried some of the things that calm you down (ie. a glass of wine, meditation, deep breaths, spa treatments) on a baby, you wouldn’t be too successful (and depending on which of those you tried, you could end up in jail!).

In business, it doesn’t matter what works for you, what you respond to, what you like. As we talked about the other week, it only matters what your customers want. Give them what they want and they’ll respond by giving you what you want – their business.

Can you think of some other lessons entrepreneurs can learn from a screaming baby? If so, please share them in the comment section below.

And please join me as the “What You Can Learn About Business From a Baby” series continues. Next we’ll explore why in business and parenthood it’s important to have a big bank account. But not the kind you think.

What You Can Learn About Business From a Baby

Remember the “When I Grow Up” Monster.com commercial from a few years back? It featured kids talking about how they want to do things like “work their way up to middle management,” “be a ‘yes’ man,” and “file all day” when they grow up.

It’s a great commercial, though I think the kids in it are too old to be dispensing any sort of career advice. Just listen to them. At 11 or 12 years old the entrepreneurial spirit has already been beaten out of them and they’re content settling for the Dilbert Cube!

If you really want to get some sound lessons in business, you should be looking to the infant and toddler set. Seriously!

I became a father for the first time and started my first business within a 14 month stretch. These are two enormous undertakings by themselves. Taking them on at about the same time was quite an overwhelming task. One thing that helped me however, is that I found I could learn a lot about business by observing and interacting with my daughter. In fact, I think babies can teach you more about the critical skills needed to start and run a successful business than most business courses at prestigious universities.

Now that I’m home for about 6 weeks playing Mr. Mom to our second child, I’ve got baby on the brain again. It seems like the ideal time to share some of the business lessons my kids have taught me (and continue to teach me) because . . . you really can learn a lot about business from a baby.

Join me later this week (baby permitting) to learn the essential business lessons you can learn from trying to get a fussy baby to stop crying.