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download Hands Across the Table dvd Frankly, Seth Godin is one of my idols. He’s the author of my favorite business book, The Purple Cow

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, and he’s considered by many to be the BEST branding strategist impacting business today. Seth’s a prolific author, a dynamic speaker and has himself helped companies he’s worked for and others change the way they interact with and understand their customers. If you’ve never read anything by him, I highly encourage you to try the above, The Dip

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In 1998, Yoyodyne, a direct marketing company Seth founded was purchased by Yahoo, who kept him on as VP of “Permission Marketing” (cool title, right?). Every type of currently popular online marketing technique was influenced by Seth’s work: blogging, newsletter marketing buy The Girl Next Door

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is consistently in the top 100, his new social network Tribes has a huge by-invitation-only following and he offers generous free coaching through these venues and a variety of videos on TED.com and YouTube. Enjoy the video below as Seth teaches you how to STAND OUT from your competition!

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I think it’s fair to say that sometimes being an entrepreneur is hard and lonely. You have a different mindset than many of your friends and family members, you are always having to hustle, the business is always in your thoughts…you have clients who won’t (or can’t) pay, you wonder if you are doing everything you can to grow your business and you often work from home at really weird hours. It is normal to feel discouraged or in a slump occasionally. Everyone gets motivated differently but here are a few resources to help get you up and excited again.

1. Get out. We talked about this earlier

but it sometimes helps to get out and actually be with people. Even if it is dragging the laptop to your local coffee shop. Or, because you may not have real co-workers, find a freelance group that works together. Most major cities have these opportunities. Try Meetup.com under Freelance to see if there’s a group for you. It’s nice to be with people who speak the same “entrepreneurial” language as you.

2. Read The Dip by Seth Godin

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. Seth will remind you that slogging through the tough times is what differentiates successful businesses and people from the others. Pushing through “the dip” is crucial and he’ll walk you through the how and why.

3. Add these blogs to your blog reader (like Google): Steve Pavlina, Good Vibe Coach

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, Genius Catalyst (be sure to sign up for Michael’s newsletter-killer content), Jonathan Fields The Salton Sea

, and Escape from Cubicle Nation. Trust me. At least one of these blogs will offer you a gentle boost each day.

4. Visualize yourself as powerful, successful, motivated and happy. Get to what that FEELS like. Hey! You can call it new-agey hocus pocus but professional athletes do it! They spend time working with their coaches visualizing sinking that putt, slam-dunking that ball, winning that gold medal. Why shouldn’t you?

5. Take a day off. It is soooo easy to think and do for your business 24/7. Don’t. I find the fastest way to do this is to absolutely not open the computer at least one day per week. I don’t check email. Period. And I spend that day however I want. Our brains and hearts need a break. Give them one!

Now c’mon readers. We need more than these five ways! Share your favorite books, blogs, tips on putting a bit more pep in our entrepreneurial step!  

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Listen to experts… Learn from the best! One of the key strategies for being considered an expert in your field is continual learning but there is so much stuff on the Internet. How in the heck do you decide where to go to learn about your business and personal needs?  There are amazing free resources on video and podcast that will help you eliminate or reduce your need for reading business books or referring to your (expensive) business coach. Here are TVLAI’s Top Five:  

YouTube Little Voice

. Yes, we love the silly cat videos too, but if you aren’t lucky enough to work at Google, you can still see the authors they bring in to speak to their employees when you subscribe to Talks@Google. Or you can listen to Daniel Pink discuss what to do when your resume has too many jobs on it on YouTube’s BetterLife Coaches  network.  

AuthorTeleseminars

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, Lyda Resnick

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, and PR expert to the stars Howard Bragman

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discuss a variety of business topics. A couple of things make Author Teleseminars a cut above the rest. Elizabeth is a stand out, knowledgeable host who keeps speakers on task and she takes caller questions in advance. You can access recordings of the live calls later.    

TED. Technology. Education. Design. That’s TED. Affiliated with the prestigious conference, the TED site is the next best thing to being there. And if you don’t know about it yet, you will. With high quality video recordings of speeches by Bill Gates, Elizabeth Gilbert, Malcolm Gladwell, Jeff Bezos, and Jane Goodall, you get a broad perspective of knowledge from some of today’s most creative minds. TED is hypnotizing and soulfully enriching and should not be missed.    

NPR. Go to their podcast directory and select “Business” and you get 25 varied offerings from very general (Business World

) to very specific (Real Life Real Estate Investing ). Download to your mp3 player and use that commute time to expand your learning…  

Misc podcasts. The Small Business Administration

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has them. Hit up Podcast Alley and do a search for literally thousands of podcasts like Online Marketing 101 or PowerPoint Survivor.  Individuals like Gary Vanyerchuk and Jonathan Fields have shows on their sites.  

 In Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Outliers Shadowboxer The Invisible Boy trailer download The Young Victoria dvd Final Exam download , he essentially points out in one section that various studies have shown that anyone can become an expert-after they’ve spent 10,000 hours of study and practice on a subject. We’ve offered you the info…go get started!  

Any other great sites you love? Please let us know…

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There is so much juicy goodness in the form of free training and motivational videos on the Web! You can listen to top speakers who charge hundreds or thousands of dollars, all for FREE. Here are some of the best I’ve found:

1. Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 Rule

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2. Seth Godin’s Sliced Bread

(all about standing out in the marketplace)

3. Richard St. John’s Success is a Continuous Journey

4. Richard Branson (Need I say more?)

5. David Allen on Getting Things Done

6. Tom Peters (founder of personal branding) on Gain Respect by Giving It

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7. Lisa Irby’s Creating a Wordpress Blog (ALL of Lisa’s YouTube videos about online marketing are excellent)

8. Gary Vaynerchuk’s Enormous Talent is Not Enough

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10. Keith Ferrazi’s How to Turn a Contact into an Ally

Personal branding is a catch phrase founded by Tom Peters over 10 years ago in a Fast Company article entitled The Brand Called You. (I urge each and every one of you to read this not once, but to bookmark and read it at least quarterly-we always need to be reminded of this message). He went on to write a fantastic book by the same title, but the original intent was personal branding of yourself as an employee within a corporate setting. The concept of personal branding has changed since then and is used regarding solo practitioners most frequently. What is a personal brand?

Your word is your brand.
Your loyalty is your brand.
Your product and services are your brand.
Your personality is your brand.
Your style of dress is your brand.
Your innovation and ideas are your brand.
WHO you ARE is your personal brand.

So is your brand saying what it should-or more importantly, what you want it to? Have you identified what you want people saying about you in the marketplace? Do you want to be known as a change-agent, an innovator, a thought-leader, and an expert? Or is your line of work respected for honesty, timeliness, attention to detail and dependability? Do you provide product or services? Are you a public speaker whose charisma is key? Understanding the best way to present yourself is key to a well-developed brand.

Personal branding is a topic with an inexhaustible amount of Web content. Keep in mind: any thought-leader/expert that you know by name only (not affiliated with a company) is really a personal brand: Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan,  Arianna Huffington, Seth Godin, and Oprah (perhaps the biggest!).

Here are some consistently strong choices of content on PB for you to check out:

Personal Branding Magazine, founded by Dan Schawbel, personal branding expert and author of his own blog at Personal Branding. He is considered the current leader in personal branding and he’s only 23.
Tim O’Brien
Personal Branding Summit
Tom Peters
The Personal Branding Blog (different than above).

How are you building YOUR brand? Tell us below!  

Elizabeth Marshall has hit a home-run with Author Teleseminars ! If you’ve ever wanted the opportunity to hear one of your business heroes speak, this free teleseminar is well worth your time. There is a glut of free teleseminar content available to you in cyberspace, but much of it nothing but shameless self-promotion. Most of us don’t have time to register and listen in for 20 minutes before realizing it is a waste of time. I can assure you this is not the case with Author Teleseminars. The speakers involved are some of the top names in business: Seth Godin

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Though the Web site is not exciting or updated frequently, the programs are. (Once you register on the site, you get emails updating you on what’s going on and how to register…this is the best way to stay on top of things). The streaming technology is smooth and sound quality is good. No need to upload Real Player…it plays automatically in Windows Media. Generally there is one main guest and then a “business celebrity” panel who interact, adding input and asking questions. This sounds like it could get messy, but there is a nice organized feel to the presentations…little trampling over each other to speak. Elizabeth herself asks great insightful questions and the hour spent will cause you to continually want to reach for a pen to make notes. If you miss the live broadcast, you’ll get a link to listen later.  

The current program is built around Seth Godin’s new book Tribes. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend. The celebrity panel rotates so, even though Seth will bring up some of the same points, every call is different. You can register for it here

or by signing up on Author Teleseminars. Listen in and let me know what you think!

On many people’s best business reads list, Purple Cow is one of Seth Godin’s earlier marketing masterpieces. It is one of my favorites, certainly, and though it was written 5 years ago (light years in current marketing technology), it incorporates many ideas found in The Tipping Point and Blink about having great ideas that inspire early adopters. Purple Cow has now become a business term, coined to mean an unexpected and unique idea. At its core, Purple Cow is about really finding a remarkable product or service and the niche you want to sell this to. But there’s much more to this slim volume as well and much of it is about authenticity: “If you’re remarkable, it’s likely some people won’t like you. That’s part of the definition of the remarkable. Nobody gets unanimous praise-ever. The best the timid can hope for is to be unnoticed. Criticism comes to those who stand out.” The book, though it never really says so, is a great deal about living life fearlessly. There’s a lot of discussion about taking risks and how only the true risk takers, who are willing to face criticism and failure, rise to the top. How do you know if you’ve found your Purple Cow? You don’t! You don’t until you’ve tried and failed or tried and succeeded, but following others and not trying at all will never lead you there. Like Michael Port’s red velvet rope policy on attracting new customers, Seth says this: “Your ads (and products [services]) should cater to the customers you’d choose if you could choose your customers.” Who do you WANT to work with, who gets you excited, and who is draining your energy? Start tailoring your services to the people you want to work with. Life is short. Spending time working with people we don’t like is draining and less profitable. It happens without knowing it many times, but when able, it’s ok to cut those clients loose. Seth advocates spending much less on advertising and much more on developing remarkable services or products. But, if you are going to read the book, don’t buy it just for it’s awesome business message. It’s a message about life and well worth the time and cost to read.