If you read these sites for a break in your day or to be entertained I think that’s great. But often these sites become time dumps for people. Sure the stories and the drama are interesting but rarely do these stories have any bearing on the success for you or your business.

But we all want to be in the know. We want to be the first to hear the latest news, gadget, or moves by our favorite tech company. Does knowing the latest news make us better at what we do? Does it help you deliver a better service or product? Does it improve your marketing and your awareness?

These Stories and Sites Ultimately Become Time Dumps

I’ve stopped reading those stories of IPO’s, acquisitions, Twitter’s latest hires, or why Facebook is scared of Google+. They became time dumps and ultimately have little bearing on the success of my business. Sure these platforms play a role in what I do and the changes they make do change how I communicate or work but ultimately it’s up to me how to employ these to maximum benefit. Knowing the inside scoop or knowing 2 months in advance about a feature rarely helps us plan accordingly.

Another thing I’ve noticed is half the time the commentary is completely wrong, is PR spin, or the source is from someone who talked to someone who talked to someone else—it’s just rumor upon rumor.

Here’s My Suggestions on Reading

I still occasionally read these tech news sites but I focus on stories and commentary that help me and my business. These are stories that give solid advice or offer a unique perspective on business development, new media and marketing. You can see some examples of these stories on the curation platform Scoop.it at Defining New Media. I also curate 2 other topics History and All Out Massive Action (relatively new topic for me).

So I’d suggest you do the same. Only read the stories that will make help you understand a problem or help you reach your become even more of an expert in your industry or field. But I’d take it a step further…

Create Your Own Knowledge Documents

What are knowledge documents? I like to think of these as living and breathing documents of the knowledge that you find and curate around specific subjects.

We’ve become very adept at creating these documents and they become full of the top advice, tips, and thoughts on particular topics.

We do all this in Google Docs. For instance, we have a LinkedIn document where we copy information and links when we find good advice, tips, and secrets about unlocking the power of LinkedIn.

But it’s not just social media… we have documents on video marketing, copywriting, marketing, branding, sales, and a host of other subjects that we use in our business and to help our clients.

The documents we don’t have… “latest Google acquisitions” document or a “Twitter VS Google+ VS Facebook is dead” document. All our curated knowledge documents are focused on archiving the best of the best and helping us become better at what we do. I believe that’s a good thing.

Final Thoughts

When I started this post I wasn’t sure if this would come off as I’m against visiting these websites or even reading these stories. I hope it didn’t come across that way– I wanted to share a practice we use internally that keeps our team highly focused and productive.

Am I off base or is there a happy medium I haven’t found?

Would someone in Pompeii use a cell phone?

Have you asked yourself how do I keep up with technology and new media when it is moving so fast? Just yesterday it was all about Myspace, then YouTube, then Facebook, then Twitter…

Soon the IPad is going to released and then you will see copycat devices follow slowly…

A secret I use to keep focused on the technology that I should follow comes down to always asking myself one question (or watch video below):

Does it Solve a Basic Need?

Does this technology solve a basic human want or need that goes back thousands of years? I thoroughly enjoy history. I remember that on a recent trip to Pompeii one thing that struck me was how we haven’t changed in all those years since that volcanic eruption. It might sound odd but I do ask myself sometimes if I can see someone from ancient Rome using technology we have today.

Think about most of the technologies that are successful, the cellphone and social networks are great examples. They solve the basic human need for communication. Our needs to be more connected and group ourselves. I bet you could take someone from ancient Rome and give them a cell phone, and once explained they would love it.

There is another thing I do that I think helps keep the focus. I try to bring down the new technology to one person and create a mental picture of it’s use. Take something that Google has released recently for local search…

Is it in stock locally? From Google.

In stock nearby? check the blue dot. Essentially what this service (platform) does is tell you whether or not something is in stock at a local retailer. So if you happen to be looking for the latest version of Rock Bank you can tell whether or not Best Buy has it in stock or it is in short demand. If not then expand your search. While not a new concept the platform and implementation is. It pulls from all retailers and is GEO focused. This is a platform any local business can take advantage of, two steps you should take are here and here.

How Would One Person Use This?

Let’s take someone looking for a book. They are out at their favorite coffee shop and when talking on the phone with a friend they were recommended to read a great book. So on the way home she wants to pick up this book. So she does a search. She’ll find Barnes and Noble, Borders and maybe a local book shop (if one still exists). Not only will she be able to see if it is in stock but whether or not it has “limited availability”.

Or another example of a guy fixing his car. He does a search for an part for his car and see’s that one local store has it in stock. This saves him a phone call or even a trip to multiple stores. Or what if it pulled in a database at the local junk yard?

The great thing about this platform is it isn’t just available to the big brands. If your a local retailer you can plug into this system, see here.

Does This Pass The Check?

I believe the technology I mentioned above passes the check. It solves the basic need of saving time and getting what we really want. Also I believe that if you used this type of service once you would be more likely to use it again and again. Take Ebay, this is another service that once you experienced you most likely came back for more. It solves the basic need of a trust of commerce between two individuals.

This is the key to keeping up with technology.

• First, bring the technology down to it’s core use, make it as simple as possible. (example above, search local retailers for stuff I want right now)
• Second, does it solve a basic need? Yes, I hate wasting time and would like to know how I can get my stuff now.

Now the next phase might be to deliver my stuff now, but that technology has not been developed quite yet.

Really, how do you get all this stuff done when you possibly have a job, clients, a business to run, or live a busy life with family and friends?

If blogging and promoting your content is not your primary job then how do you get all this stuff done?

First, let’s start with an overview of the best way to promote yourself given the current marketing landscape…

You need to create content, (it’s all about content marketing). Then you need to promote your content (while some promotes itself). You need to engage social media. You have to be authentic, be part of the conversation (more on that in an upcoming post).  You have to engage people, on your blog, social media, and in real life. I could go on but you I hope you get the idea…

I’m not arguing this isn’t the best strategy for marketing today. In fact, it’s one of the most effective ways to market today.  Let’s move onto getting this done…

Step 1 – Decide What You Are Trying to Accomplish

This is critical, here you need to decide why you are doing these daily activities. Are they increasing  your business?

Are you getting results for you efforts or do you expect results? If you expect results, how do you know this– did someone tell you or are you mimicking what others are doing?

Just a few questions to make sure your focused on results. Here are some specific examples:

If you’re a small business with regional or local based customers is the content you creating and engagement of social media driving sales or retaining customers?

If you are a real estate agent, is creating local content for your city going to get you more listings, more leads, and more buyers?

If you’re in a home based business, is this going to provide more prospects, more people purchasing your funded proposal, and more opportunities?

Step 2 – Document Your Steps

Yes, I know more work. I hate this step. In fact, I hate it so much it used to be the last thing I did. I’ve since turned the corner on this and learned that this is the key to building successful business and the key to the next step.

When you document your process you immediately start seeing ways to improve. When I documented how I create free training for instance, I figured out the true order I should be creating things. This made me much more proficient when I sat down and actually created our free training. See the process below:

Description

The procedures for releasing free training on You Brand.

Resources Required

• Finished TRAINING CONTENT (video, text, or documents)
• S3 Account
• YouBrandBlueprint.com
• Base Training post Template
• Base Email Template
• Aweber

Directions

1. Upload TRAINING CONTENT to S3, under FREE.
   1. Create or choose the appropriate bucket for training to be located (example: if the training is on facebook, put the training in FREE/TRAINING-SUBNAME/NEW BUCKET NAME)
2. Edit ACL, to Everyone, READ, apply to subfolders
3. Open up Base Post template, CREATE and RELEASE post on DOMAIN.
   1. Category (Free-Training)
   2. Tag (items supplied)
   3. Test VIDEO and any supporting LINKS and DOCUMENTS for TRAINING CONTENT
4. Open up base email template, create email message
5. Proof read email message
6. Go to Aweber 1, schedule Email in appropriate campaigns for TRAINING
7. Put in CONTENT Re-Purpose Schedule
8. Notify Creator of Content

Another tip here, document everything you do. This will help you decide what is critical that you take do and what you can move to Step 3.

Step 3 – Give to Someone Else

Yes, I’m talking about outsourcing. You are the one with the vision, your time is valuable.

Your end goal is here. You want to create an effective process and document it so someone can begin doing these things for you.

You’re goal should be to get to this step as fast as possible. When you get here the things you can accomplish become greater.

Without Step 1 and Step 2 you cannot outsource, otherwise you will waste money, time, and become frustrated.

I’ve been outsourcing for a number of years and I am looking to expand even more.

Here are places I’ve had success finding good people for outsourcing:

• http://www.taskseveryday.com/
• http://www.getafreelancer.com
• http://www.Odesk.com

Even if you hire someone local without documentation you end up creating another job for yourself when you hire.

This post could easily go on and on about how to outsource but I’ll leave you with these tips:

• Start slow (if I didn’t have experience in outsourcing I’d start with JUST the above procedure)
• Focus on results
• If it doesn’t feel right with the person you are outsourcing too, stop immediately, figure out why you aren’t comfortable and find someone else based on what you’ve learned.
• As a good start get the book 4 Hour Work Week from Tim Ferris (this changed my thoughts years ago)

Feel free to contact me if you have questions about outsourcing.

If You ARE or Aren’t Outsourcing Leave a COMMENT below on WHY…

So What, Justifying each step or word of communication. (photo by Paolo Mazzo click to link)

I learned a great concept in copy-writing that I call justification. The person who really seared this in my mind is Jeff Walker the renowned copywriter.

I remember in one of the video trainings he was talking about how to write great headlines. He said that after you write your headline you want to go through it word by word and make each word justify itself. Take out words, if it read the same or had the same impact keep it out. Each word has to beg, borrow, and steal to literally be included in your headline.

When you put this into practice you end up with a very concise and hard hitting headline. A headline where each and every word has proven it deserves to be there.

I believe this concept can be used for more than just headline writing. I’ve used it time and time again. This is even more important in this fast changing and every time crunching world we live in. Where capturing peoples attention or keeping people interested is getting tougher and tougher.

A process

We all have processes to the way we do our business. Take a process on the way you sell what you do or sell your product. What are the steps? Have you gone through each and every step and justified its purpose. How about the way you bid out a new job to a client or a prospect? Have you justified each and every step and method to doing that?

Your Website

I come from the less is more approach to web development. Go through each one of your menu items and justify why it has to be there. Is it in the best benefit of your visitor? Or how about other elements of your website. We are doing this for our website now and over the next few weeks you will start seeing some changes.

One is our logo, when we rolled out this design we wanted to showcase our logo. But as I went through this exercise myself I realized that I couldn’t justify the size or placement in our logo for you our reader.

Even Your Content

These days people are busy. The way people consume and read content is changing. Some would argue that there needs to be an updated version of how we classify quality (great read, I agree with most of what is written there). Justify each section and level of your content. Does it serve a purpose.? Does it add to a point you are trying to make?

Added Question – So What?

If you haven’t read the book So What? by Mark Magnacca I would suggest you pick it up. It’s a quick read and really gets right ot the point. In each thing you do ask yourself So What… why should I care?

Now think about your audience. I recently started doing more presenetations and presenttaions in front of groups. On my powerpoint slides I have asked myself for each and every slide… So what, why should I care? Keeping in mind my audience. What started as a bloated presentation was reduced down to a very concise and focused presentation.

This one powerful question once put into practice can make tons of difference in all your communications and marketing efforts. I suggest you put it in your arsenal as well.

Are you doing something today that is going to have an effect in your business 60 days from now?

If you’re in sales this is one of those questions you ask yourself often (but aren’t we all in sales?). Of course this depends on the timeframe of your sales cycle… but nailing that down is another post.

Even if you run a small business or a home based business you should ask yourself if what you are doing today is going to pay off 60 days from now… or 30, or 10.

If not it might be time to for a slight change to the path you are on.

For a while now I have been using the Firefox addon (now for Chrome extension called WiseStamp.

WiseStamp is an addon that lets you have rich email signatures like the one you see below:

It supports Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Aol, Hotmail, Google Apps… plus much more.

Wisestamp allows you  to create a very good looking signature and supports the following features:

• Customize your signature with font, size, color
• Easy image placement
• RSS Feed pull to show your latest blog post (great for getting traffic when you least expect it)
• Social connectors that link right to your profile on places such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube
• Use multiple signatures

I highly suggest you check it out, especially if you use Firefox (they just added support for Chrome Extensions).