Sue

Having two boys who play baseball (as a pitcher and a catcher respectively) and then recently visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, has put baseball on my mind.  Add to that the fact that I am a lifelong fan of the Philadelphia Phillies and you have someone who has learned a thing or two about baseball. So on this Opening Day of the 2015 season, I want to combine my over 25 years of business experience with my baseball knowledge and talk about the first of nine business lessons you can learn from the game of baseball.

Lesson 1: It is a Long Season

The Major League Baseball season stretches from early April to October, and includes over 160 regular league games; not including the playoffs. With each game lasting an approximate 2.5 hours, that's a lot of playtime in a season!

What happens in the first inning of the first game in the pre-season has little bearing on who the pennant winner will be. The season lasts a long, long (and some say TOO long) time. By the time the season wraps up, the average batter has been in the box over 500 times. Sometimes they get a hit, but more often, they get out. Their first at-bat doesn't set the tone for their season – unless they let it.

Business is the same way

While any one customer interaction, sales conversation or opportunity to connect with your ideal client may seem to always be of the utmost importance (and it certainly is, at that moment) — in the overall scheme of things, it is only one piece of a larger puzzle. Yes, great players play hard every moment, but they also know how to pace themselves and shake off a missed play and move ahead.

In your business, you need that perspective. Yes, you want to hit a home run each and every time you are connect with an ideal client, and you want to make a play every time an opportunity comes your way, but chances are you are going to flub a few easy conversations, and miss a few hits. That is just the nature of the game.

Sometimes, your perfectly crafted sales page does not convert. Sometimes, an unhappy customer remains unhappy no matter how hard you try to fix the situation. Sometimes, a great product doesn't sell well. Sometimes you can figure out what is wrong and make the corrections, while other times you just have to let it go and move forward, realizing that you will have hundreds of other interactions and opportunities to make your season a winning one.

It’s a game of averages

To put things in perspective, many of best hitters in baseball that we saw featured in the Hall of Fame typically have a batting average of around .300. That means every ten times they get up to bat, they fail to get on base seven times. And these are the best of the best! Even the venerable Babe Ruth had a lifetime batting average of only .342.  (So for every ten conversations you have, you may only convert three of them into paying clients!) However, by practicing and honing your message and understanding the needs of your clients, you will get on base more often and your average can be even better than Babe’s.

On a team level, most clubs are striving for a winning season — meaning they win more than they lose. That should be your goal, too — to win more than you lose. And when you do lose – an opportunity — dust your cleats off, put into play your winning attitude and try again.

On Tuesday, April 7th, we will explore all nine lessons on the Thriving Revolution Call. You can join sign up for the call (or get the link for the replay) at  https://thrivingentrepreneur.iedev.net/thriving-revolution

It is Move Forward Friday and here is your tip for the day: 

“Saying hello doesn't have an ROI.”   Gary Vaynerchuck

What he meant is that the value of relationship building can't be measured so easily.     This is why it is so hard to measure success on social media.

Engagement on Social Media

The goal of social media isn't to sell directly. It's to create engagement and build a relationship. For this reason, you should start measuring success by how much your content is engaging your audience.

Engagement can be measured by things like:

• Clicks on links in your social media posts (this can be measured through your website analytics)
• Comments on your social media posts
• Shares and, on Twitter, favorites and retweets
• Ratings and comments on your YouTube videos
• Comments and shares on your blog posts
• Mentions of your company or brand on social media (you can set up alerts on Google to find these)

While number of followers can be a measure that you're doing something right, it's not a very good metric to measure. You can grow your followers a great deal without it necessarily translating to any kind of results. The goal is engagement and conversions, not simply numbers.

Taking Action – Measuring Conversions

An even more important way to measure the effectiveness of your social media marketing is to look at what actual results came from social media. If the end goal is to lead people to your website where they make a purchase, ask your customers directly or with a survey what referred them to your site. See how many of them are referred through social media.

Sales aren't the only measurement. Whatever action it is you'd like this traffic to take can also be measured. You may want them to sign-up from your list, for example. In that case, again, you'd measure how many of the subscribers came to your list through social media.  Whatever, you chose as your measurement of success, make sure you interview your audience through survey or personal conversation to ensure you are creating a strong relationship with your audience.

Connection, Conversations and Conversion go hand in hand.  This week, I will sharing more ideas on how to engage your audience through your social media efforts.  Feel free to leave me a comment or question and I will respond to them here.

Are you the type of person who has a lot of willpower to see a project through to its completion or do you feel your willpower is lacking? While many people think that some people have more willpower than others this is not true. Everyone has the same amount of willpower, what is different is the way you choose to use your willpower.

Now that we are almost two weeks into the new year, resolutions are falling by the wayside.  It is easy to blame a lack of willpower for the choices you make and for giving up.  Have you ever heard yourself say, “I just don't have the willpower to follow through?”

The real question is: Are you willing to apply that way of thinking to your own New Year's resolutions this year? Or are you willing to take more decisive action and make your resolutions become a reality?

To make your New Year's resolutions successful, you must have the right mindset and belief that you can actually achieve your resolution. This is one reason why it is so important to set resolutions that are attainable. Wanting to run a marathon in a year may not be possible if the last time you exercised was 5 years or more ago.

Instead you want to set a resolution you can envision in your mind and actually see yourself doing by the end of the year. Mind you, no one says your New Year's resolution has to take you the entire year. Your resolution may be to lose 10 pounds which could be done in two or three months!  And no one has ever said that resolutions can only be set when the calendar reads the 1st of January.

Try sitting down, closing your eyes and seeing yourself having accomplished your goal. If you want to lose weight, picture how you will feel when you see a healthier, slimmer you in the mirror.

Use this tactic each time you feel your motivation lacking so it can help you refocus and stay on track. You may also want to create a physical picture board as well, this is great for resolutions involving lifestyle changes. A picture or story board allows you to see how far you have come, instead of focusing on how far you still have to go.

Learning how to increase your willpower is going to be a huge step in helping you successfully reach your resolution this year. To do this you want to start learning to think in a more positive way. Try to look at the bright side of things instead of the downside.

Surround yourself with positive thinking people.  I am sure you have heard about how good things always seem to happen to successful people. Success breeds success so celebrate your mini-wins and create even more success.

Shifting your mindset is not going to happen overnight, it will take a little time and effort on your part to achieve. Just always remember that nothing is impossible if you truly want something to happen. Work at it and you will see the success and reap the rewards.

Remember that goals may change over the course of time and you can adapt as necessary. Nothing is written in stone so you can make adjustments as you go along. At the end of the year, you will feel proud that you stuck to your New Year's resolution and accomplished your goal.