1. Take the time to assess your stress levels. 
2. Learn relaxation methods, including Emotional Freedom Techniques, meditation, yoga, biofeedback, or other ways of reducing cortisol, your body’s stress hormone.
3. Make a gratitude list.

You may be thinking that’s easy to say, but not so easy to do.  What you may find, however, is that it’s easier than you think.

Start with a stress assessment.  On a scale of 1 to 10:

• How well are you sleeping?  Are you sleeping 6 to 8 hours every night?  Are you waking up often, or waking up with a pounding heart, or not able to fall asleep?  Sleep helps your body repair itself.  When you don’t get rest, you’re tense, you don’t think as well, and your heart beats faster.  These are probably facts you already know, but are you ready to do something about it? A few tips: don’t work out, watch a scary movie, or have an alcoholic beverage right before you go to bed.
• How often do you exercise? One of the best forms of exercise is walking.  No need to pay big bucks for a gym membership, when both outdoors and indoors will provide you all of the benefits without adding financial stress.  Walk in your work space, during your breaks and at lunch. Walk your dog, walk with your significant other and your family members.  Use it as a way to reconnect.
• How well are you eating?  I have a simple rule that’s helped me a lot.  Vegetables first, then fruits, grains, and finally meats three or four times a week.  Give yourself a big stress reducer by losing or reducing the sugar and the alcohol.

Find effective ways to help yourself reduce stress. One of the best ways I have found for reducing stress is through the use of Emotional Freedom Techniques, or EFT.  It’s been called acupuncture without the needles.  Although EFT is still considered an experimental modality in some scientific circles,  clinical studies conducted through the ACEP and other research groups clearly demonstrate its ability to significantly reduce cortisol levels in the body, even to a greater extent than cognitive behavior treatment or other common psychotherapy techniques. 

Remember, also, to start cultivating the habit of being grateful, even for small things.  A sense of gratitude leads to a greater sense of emotional well-being.  If it’s not a habit you’ve already started, when you “hear” yourself grumbling about something in your relationship or at work, try to think of something positive.  You may surprise yourself with how many positives you actually find.

Measure your stress levels. Challenge yourself.  Help yourself or get professional help to reduce your stress, improve your performance and your life.

What is the one thing, or the many things, you can demonstrate through social media, that most effectively markets your wares and/or skills?

Are your business strategies transparent throughout your organization, including, and most particularly in your social media content?

Let’s take a look at what you are saying…on your website and on all of your social network sites…consistently.

1. Do you speak with courage?  Having a belief and conviction that what you are offering, whether goods or services, is relevant for your clients and prospects today.   It  must come through in your message, regardless of where it is published, or how long or short it is.  Speak from the heart, conveying the benefit, and the value your product or service has for the reader, along with your faith in yourself in bringing it to them.  Let people know that what you say can be relied on.
2. Is your message intelligent?  Much of today’s social media content is seen as junk, and discarded before it’s even opened.  Quite frankly, with good cause.  Outsourcing can have benefits, but social media requires a special communication skill.  It must be done intelligently.  If you have a social media manager, director, or other outside party who speaks in your behalf, make sure they understand you, your organization and what you stand for.  Clear, concise, detailed messages that don’t overwhelm or throw the reader into confusion are what is called for.  Today’s readers are very savvy.  Your message must respect that and respond to it.
3. Are you kind?  Price-gouging in today’s market will earn you few points, nor will despairing remarks about your competition.  Use your social media to share positive messages and best value (not bargain basement out-of-date throw aways) deals that benefit your client or prospect as well as you.  Share your knowledge and your prosperity in ways that benefit anyone who needs or seeks your help through any of your social media portals.
4. Are you trustworthy?  Do you do what you say you will do?  If you promise to deliver a product within two days, is it there within two days…or two weeks, or whatever commitment you have made.  Does your social media reflect all the ways in which you demonstrate trustworthiness…testimonials, guarantees, samples or demonstrations prior to purchase?
5. Are you loyal?  The only way to build loyalty amongst your clients and prospects is to be loyal to them…first.  Always let them know you appreciate their business. Send tokens of appreciation. A simple thank you note is often just as appreciated as a bonus or a gift.  Let those who support you know that they are important.  Use your social media outlets to convey that fact…often.

If you wonder about how you are perceived by your social media audience, why not try a survey tool such as Survey Monkey, found at www.surveymonkey.com/; or  Zoomerang On Line Surveys at: www.zoomerang.com/online-surveys/.

Knowing how others see you can move your social media messages in a direction that markets to the heart of what specific need is not being met in the marketplace today that you, and you alone, can best provide.

Who else has figured out that it is the sensationalizing that has created all the fear and panic, not the events themselves?  Absent all the media attention, weather-related events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and fires…which have been occurring since time began…would be covered factually and as a natural life event rather than an epic catastrophe.

I take nothing away from the individual pain and suffering that is felt when a major drama plays itself out. The sensationalizing of it, however, does in fact remind me of the story of  “Chicken Little.”  If you recall the story, one young chick had a seed that fell on its tail, then he went around to all the the birds, Henny Penny, Turkey Lurkey, (OK by how surely you remember), and others around him telling them the sky had fallen, because “a piece of it had landed on his tail” , until ultimately he had gathered a crowd, who then ran into the wily fox, who convinced them to run into his den, from whence none of them,  except of course, the fox returned.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get economic news, reported as news rather than as the latest killer/thrill novel?

So…what can you and I do to change all this?

Here are a few rules that world-wide entrepreneurs, and all their friends and families,  can adopt that I believe will make a difference, and get the world headed toward a more peaceful existence, and out of the mind-set that the sky is falling.

• Quit worrying.  If you’re struggling with this, think of this quite: “Troubles are a lot like people.  They grow bigger if you nurse them.” Author unknown.
• Show compassion and kindness.  There is misery around us, and denying it or avoiding it won’t make it go away.  That doesn’t mean taking on others’ burdens, but even a smile or a positive thought can brighten their outlook. Someone shared with me a story recently of a teenage boy who befriended a very shy newcomer, and many years later was told by that person that he had saved a life, as at that point he had felt so bereft he was planning to commit suicide.  Kindness counts.
• Work smarter, not harder.  Spend your time on what matters to those you serve.  Nearly everyone’s heard of  Pareto’s 80/20 Rule…only 20 percent of what you do in a day is really worthwhile.  So it’s important to know which 20 percent to focus on.  As you go through how you spend your day, if it’s not obvious, or doesn’t readily become obvious, ask.  Use surveys, make phone calls, see people face to face, and ask them, “Of the service or products that I provide, what is most helpful and important for you?  From that you will be able to develop your  marketing, email and social media strategies to do what’s important, and worry less about the things that aren’t important that don’t get done.

Choose not to get caught up in group hysteria, and to know that the sky is, in fact, not falling, even though there are seeds dropping everywhere.  We can see beyond the wily fox, who waits to find the advantage of every catastrophe, and individually and collectively use those seeds to plant and grow better world in which to live.

One of our greatest catastrophes in recent history was the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001.  In this case, it truly did appear the sky was falling.  And from that catastrophe, the strength, determination, and tenacity of humans to heal and go beyond (finding and planting the seeds from despair if you will), is clearly shown in what has come since.

Also more apparent is our increasing ability to identify the wily fox.  There may be times in your life when you feel very much like Chicken Little.  However, you also now know to ask the right questions, take appropriate action, and be confident that you know how to keep the sky from falling.

Stop listening to the news reports.  Stop buying into gloom and doom.  Stop putting on your “worried face.”

Instead, start looking for new opportunities.  In your business niche, how can you lead a revolution of expansion that will help put our country on firm financial ground?

To begin, you can do the following:

• Lead with your heart.  Find ways, such as volunteering your services in your community programs.  What skills do you have that might be useful?  For instance, if you’re a webmaster, now might be a great time to help community service programs build websites to announce program needs and how they can be filled.  Solicit your friends and neighbors. Help others find ways they can make a contribution…and remember…everything helps.
• Commit to optimism.  Yes, the global economy looks pretty shaky right now.  The US economy isn’t bright.  Getting sucked into “the sky is falling” mentality would be easy, and has certainly captured the pessimists.  But that’s not you, right?  Now is the time to know that you can make a difference, and that the more people who believe that, the greater the potential for creating a recovery program.
• Smile more, not less.  When we get worried, we tend to smile less.  What about you?  If there is one gift that everyone can give that is truly free, it’s your smile.  People can be  encouraged and lifted with a smile…people who are your customers and prospects.
• Act from faith.  If the economy is to improve, it will be because the strong of heart knew that it would, and acted accordingly.  When you think a thing and truly believe it can happen, it builds upon itself.  Be a collaborator and an instigator of good stuff happening.
• Use your social networks to communicate good news.  Hey, it doesn’t have to be an announcement that you have the instant answer to the global crisis…although if you do, please, please share.  If you found a great bargain at your grocery store, or you know someone who has extra garden produce they’d like to share, or someone in your company has had an amazingly good sales month…whatever good news you have, now is the time to shout it out.

Revolutionize your thinking.  Act, don’t react.  In this way, you will become part of the solution, rather than adding to the problem.  There’s plenty of evidence to show that small business entrepreneurs have made huge contributions to recovering economies.  Now is not the time to put your heads under the barrel, but rather the time to shine your lights in the darkest corners of this economy.

We may falter, but we need not fall.  Rather than following the herd mentality to financial slaughter, start your own herd, and lead them to the greener pastures that really are just on the other side of the fence.  So let’s open the gate.

When everyone reaches the same conclusion…this is nothing more than a momentary lapse of reason…everyone will relax and business will return to normal.  Those of you who subscribe to the philosophy in this post can relax now, because you know that it’s already there.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love the  media, and I believe it has the power to help shape the world. Unfortunately, it’s nearly always used to spread “doom and gloom.”  Gloom and doom sells.  It has for centuries.

Why?  Well, there’s lots of research that says we humans are far more attracted to negative news than positive news.  In the instinctive part of our brain, we haven’t evolved beyond the constant scan for danger, and when we immerse ourselves in signs of danger, we feel less safe in the world.  We disengage our creative brain and prepare for fight or flight. Sometimes that’s the right reaction.  Sometimes we are in danger and we need to react…immediately.  When we simply react to bad news, however, that doesn’t constitute an imminent personal threat, we begin to withdraw our engagement with society in the ways the contribute even more to a downward spiral.

Presently.  But maybe it’s time to change all of this…and change the future.  And you, yes you, can help deliver this change.  As an entrepreneur, you can use your social media and networking tools to be a positive force.  You can be the Superman,  Superwoman or Mighty Mouse of Social Media and swoop in to save the day.  Rather than succumbing to the “gloom and doom” mentality, create a “feed the need”  mentality.  Nurture your clients and prospects with positive, uplifting messages.  Provide products and services that surpass their expectations and help them see great value in their lives. Help them create the vision of the good life, the life we all want and deserve. Help them change their perspective while you’re changing yours.

It’s really easy to buy into the bad news.  It’s all around us, and it’s hard to evade.  It takes an entrepreneurial spirit and determination to not only keep yourself headed in the right direction, but to help guide others in that direction.

You can be the calm in an economic storm by keeping a positive perspective.   When you use every social media tool you have in your toolkit to reach out to everyone in your circle of influence, and ask them to do the same, you’re making a difference.  A big difference.

The sooner (and better)  we feed the need and create a balanced, positive forward economic movement through what we say and do, the sooner to end the power of the gloom and doom to overtake us.  Let’s quit buying into what we’re being fed through the news media, and create our own Power of the Positive with social media.  Calm, clear and convincing…belief in the human spirit and ingenuity.  Belief in our ability to create the lives we want in the world we want.

It is if it’s important.  Newsworthy…good or bad.  For example, a friend at a birthday party I attended recently mesmerized all those standing within earshot with her description of why she wasn’t going back to a certain restaurant…and was very specific about why everyone listening should pay attention about what she had to say.  “Bad service, high prices, limited menu.”

My friend detailed what she had ordered, what she got, when she got it, and the manner in which she (and her husband) were treated while they were there.  This is a fairly well-known upscale restaurant that nearly everyone at the gathering either knew about or had eaten at sometime in the past.

She went on to compare it to the various other restaurants of similar class and price where she and her husband, or a group have eaten recently.  Then, back with a vengeance, she pounced on the restaurant that had so earned her snub…”and we’re never, ever going there again.  Wouldn’t recommend it to my worst enemy, let alone a friend.”

And…you’ve probably guessed it by now…not only did she blast this restaurant to her friends at the birthday party, her minus zero rating also went out in a Facebook post, and all her friends got a tweet.  Ouch.  In times like these, (or any other time really) that kind of communication — or should we call it ex-communication — can really hurt.

Moral of this story: Networking is networking.  A friend telling a friend, who tells and acquaintance. Only today word gets around as the links are a lot faster, closer and further spread.  So don’t let this happen to you.  Maybe you’re not in the restaurant business, but whatever business you’re in, quality, service, and delivery are even more critical.

My friend, copywriter Ray Edwards, says in a recent post, that it’s important not to look or feel desperate while attracting customers…although many look on these as desperate times.  He recommends setting the stage to attract only to the customers you really want, and discouraging the rest.

And he’s right.  My friend at the birthday party is also right.  If you want to attract the dream customer, you have to be the dream host…today more than ever.

Mark Joyner nails this wisdom  in his book The Irresistible Offer when he’s talking about getting…and keeping…customers.

• Give the customer exactly what they want… the best value available…not available elsewhere
• Convey, in whatever way and setting is appropriate for your business, why they should trust you and why they’d be crazy to not to do business with you
• Be totally believable

Birthday parties are great fun.  People mingle, they talk about what’s going on in their families and in their neighborhoods.  They roast and toast.  In today’s world of social networking, what goes on at the birthday party may well appear on Facebook,  Twitter, My Space, Foursquare, or elsewhere.  So if you want your business to be toasted, not roasted, in any networking set, make sure your business face has a great social face.

Whatever you do; whoever (or is that whomever?)  you decide to attract to your business, make your customers deliriously happy.  That way, they may toast you at their birthday party…and even ask you to join in on the celebration!

Take your 50 best customers who love what you’re doing, and ask them if they would like to, and are willing to  share your new product or service with at least 10 of their associates, or people they know who could benefit as much from your product as they have. Let them know that you value their assistance and that you insist on showing  your appreciation in some way, either through an affiliate program if they care to participate, or in some other way that allows you to show how much their support means to you.

Think of Amway, Avon, Fuller Brush.  How have they done so well for so long?  They’ve helped other people succeed through sharing.  They have found ways to show their gratitude in a business relationship that creates a win-win for everyone.  How many times do you get 3, 4, 5…or more…emails, tweets, or facebook posts in a single day that are touting the product of a friend?  A friend or business associate of yours telling about what another friend has or does that you might find interesting or beneficial?  And don’t the majority of those postings acknowledge their affiliate relationship? 

While there are tons of new products and new services, the best marketing still comes from the oldest ideas…the more you do to help others succeed, the more successful you are.

Let’s take a look at your product.  Perhaps you have a small online business.  Your website has a home page that describes what you have to offer…a flea collar for cats and dogs that uses only natural products and no man-made chemicals, for example.  You have around 100 customers that you sell products to regularly, and they all love the collars you’re making for their pets.

However, because the collars aren’t mass-produced, and the natural products used to create the flea collars are hand-picked and processed herbs, the collars aren’t inexpensive to make.  You want to kick off a big marketing push, but your profit margin isn’t big enough to support the kind of money a large marketing company wants to charge you for a full-force campaign.

What you can do, however, is set up social networking sites and partner with some of your best customers to help you advertise.  Make sure you let them know you insist on rewarding them, not only for being loyal customers, but for helping you bring new prospects to a product they know, love, and believe in.

One of the best ways to allow your customers to assist you is to ask them if they’d like to make short video clips that demonstrate how your product works for their benefit.  Then post them on your website, and on YouTube, or other media network.  Real people giving real demonstrations of product uses and successes, especially when combined with a touch of humor, can help kick off a social networking revolution that can skyrocket your business overnight.

Sharing your success with the person who was willing to put in the extra effort to help support you not only makes good business sense, it makes good relationship sense.  A sense of celebration emerges.  Everyone knows that celebration, joy, and happiness are contagious, and pretty soon, even those good customers who seemed reluctant to engage in a real marketing effort are caught up in the wave and swept away in their efforts to help you…and then them…succeed.

People helping people.  One person helping another, one by one, spreading the word and creating a huge wave of success.  It’s a revolution.

Today’s marketing revolution is not a battlefield, where there are dead bodies strewn everywhere as one person steps over another in the competition to get to the top.  Today’s marketing revolution is a cooperative; a social network success where all who choose to participate are rewarded. There is the  intrinsic reward of  sharing  something you have found to be beneficial with others, and there is often the monetary reward you receive that allows the person whose information you share to show appreciation.

Who is it that really matters in what you do? It is the customer who determines your future…your fate in business, so who better could you engage as a business partner.  When your passion is to please your customer, it easily becomes a shared passion when your product or service is truly valued.  And who doesn’t like to hear “Thank you” in a way that prompts you, and those you share with to keep on sharing.

If any of that is you, then this post is dedicated specifically to that one part of you that wants something different…a better way of living, a better way of being…a happier way to wake up in the morning.

First, I can say with a great deal of authority that I am an expert in this area.  That is…the area of knowing what it’s like to wake up crabby, cranky and depressed.  It took a lot to move myself out of this space and into a new arena where I create my future and then live it.  I’ve invested time, money, and effort.   There were some major roadblocks that you may recognize:

• I’m not worth it. For years, I held a subconscious belief that I wasn’t entitled to be happy.  In fact, I didn’t really think anyone was entitled to be happy.  For those few people I had met who really did look happy, I thought it was very temporary thing.  And that it had nothing to do with me.
• I can’t change. Amazingly, despite having made various career changes, moving in new directions, living in different locations and making new friends, I had this strong belief that I was not in control of my life.  I believed that outside circumstances totally controlled what happened, and that all I could do was hunker down and deal with what happened.
• My life is predestined. I don’t know if someone told me this when I was little, or if I just came to this conclusion based on something that happened to me along the way.  Like the time when I was 10 and my older cousin convinced me that we should walk home from the park where our parents were enjoying a picnic with family and friends.  Of course, we got into significant trouble with our parents, who somehow talked the police into searching for us after we’d been gone for several hours.  After all, we were 12 miles from home, but we hadn’t considered that at the time.  Afterward, I remember thinking that I was “destined to take that walk, destined to get into trouble, and that I would spend my whole life on some road trying to figure out where I was and why I was there.”

Now, many years later, I can tell you that I’ve changed all of those beliefs.   I have discovered that it’s possible to find happiness every day.  Using various energy psychology or energy medicine techniques, I now build my own road, and a destiny that I choose, and change when I need to.

One of the tools I use is really quite simple:  I start each and every day now by remembering one moment…just one is really all it takes…when I was very happy.  Some mornings, I remember being a little girl making mud pies with my sister.  We had fun doing that.  Sometimes I think about when my #1 son was born, and how precious a bundle of life he was then, and still is.  There are mornings when I remember the joy I had buying a new car with money I had saved, not borrowed.

Focusing on that moment of joy, and remembering it again and again throughout the day helps me surround myself with positive energy, with like attracting like.  And, even when outside circumstances intervene in a way I hadn’t anticipated, I am now able to react so much differently.  Holding on to a happy thought helps me see how very many different possibilities there are to change the outcome to what is happening.

Knowing I can, in fact, change the outcome makes me very happy indeed.  Happiness isn’t hard…but recognizing it certainly can be.  Until you’re willing to see it…moment by moment.

Sharing with your community what your customers like…and dislike…about your business, as well as your competitors’ businesses, makes you real.  After all, if you’re in business, it’s because you have customers.  And they all want to have input, as well as know what everyone else in your neighborhood thinks.

Business today…especially on the Internet…is a bit like having the whole family together for a holiday.  The ability to share thoughts, ideas, and feedback has reached an entirely new level.  So how do you offset Uncle Fred’s “It’s not the turkey dressing that your grandmother made” with Cousin Louisa’s ” I love the fact that the turkey dressing was not only delicious but made with organic, healthy products”?

Soft sell, not hard sell, helps you make the genuine connection.  When your company’s employees, along with everyone in your community, are in collaboration…problem solutions, in addition to new products and services arise easily and effortlessly.  Maybe you can’t please Uncle Fred…or maybe he’ll agree when he really sees what benefits he gets from a delicious, but different, healthy turkey dressing.

So…how do you use social media in your business to work with Uncle Fred, Cousin Louisa as well as your whole community, using their feedback and perspective productively?  Let’s look at the components:

• What knowledge do you and/or your company possess that brings customers and prospects to you? How can you build on that knowledge with employee and customer interaction?
• What do you do with the information you get from feedback? How do you evaluate it and determine its overall customer value? What criteria helps you sort out and understand how to use social media to accomplish your goals and objectives?
• How do you interact with the people who provide the information? Is it interactive, fun and rewarding for those in your community who are willing to participate?

Social media is word-of-mouth advertising.   Word-of-mouth advertising can take a service or product viral, or it can send it to a quick and premature death.  Before you decide on social media as a marketing strategy, make sure all of your company’s players are on board.  You’ll need a  full and interactive play-book, and rules of engagement to encourage everyone who participates to make the best better.

Social media is also a market research tool.  Customer ratings, reviews, and discussion can help foster growth and development in any business.   You may not be able to analyze exactly what comment from which customer…or employee…helped you see where your company or industry is headed, but you can find trends that show you how knowledge fits together.

Social media analytics can give you real insight into what your customers and prospects want now, as well as what they want you or your company to provide for the future.  The products and strategies you develop from analyzing customer behavior and preferences can not only set you apart from your competition, they can catapult you into a market position you’d only previously dreamed about.

What makes this moment…this day…special is that you can set a path to differentiate you and/or your company. Use social media to gain followers who are active and participative, and help you create your future, rather than setting a criteria for immediate return on investment.  Today…is different…and special because there are so many more opportunities to create successful and  infinite possible futures.

The one thing I find missing, though, in many “how to” books, articles, blog posts, and videos, is the lack of humor…the thing that not only keeps you engaged, but helps you find ways to engage your prospective market.

I read an email this morning about the joys of motherhood.  A great post, timed perfectly to coincide with the upcoming celebration of Mother’s Day.  The email described the scramble for sanity in a 3 small-child household with everyone getting ready to take Mom out for breakfast.  The middle-child, a 2 1/2 year-old was “missing” in the house, and discovered in the bathroom, putting chapstick on the cat’s butt.

His mother had previously given the child permission to use her chapstick on his own lips, and had shown him where she kept it in the bathroom.  When Mom entered the bathroom and observed what he was doing, he simply said “Chapped.”

The picture formed immediately in my mind, and I burst out laughing.  Mom, undoubtedly along with the rest of the family, was thinking about how many times in the past that chapstick had gone from the cat’s butt to their lips.  Owwww…makes you pucker, doesn’t it?

The point of this message is remind writers, whatever your product or niche, is to remember to use humor.  Marketing is relationship.  I know it’s a theme oft repeated, in fact for decades.  There are books galore on how to build relationship in order to capture and keep paying clientele.  In my last post,  I talked about the criteria for who I follow…who I have business relationships with, and what I look for.

The critical factors, I believe,  are integrity, likability, and business sense.  One of the aspects of likability is a sense of humor. Human follibilities are limitless.  We all have had those priceless moments when we can see the humor in a given situation.

Those priceless moments are a perfect opportunity to build a stronger emotional bond with your audience.  The shared stories that bring humor; that make you more human, more connected, and in tune with those you serve make you more likable.

If you are an internet or brick-and-mortar marketer, or a writer of any kind who wants to build better relationship with your clients and prospective clients, think about the various ways you can add humor to your dialogue.

Here are a few guidelines to keep you on the right track:

• Keep your humor ethical and businesslike. Off-color stories are definitely not appropriate in a business setting.
• Laugh with people, not at them.  When you’re telling stories about others  foibles  get their permission first.  Some people may share with you, but would be mortified if they thought their stories were otherwise being shared.
• Find the connection between your particular story and your audience. For instance, I think most mothers could relate to the “Chapstick” story I received in an email this morning.  But…if your prospective audience is a group of mechanical engineers, they may relate more to a story about a valve that blew water into an inspector’s face when he opened it before asking what the valve did.

Keep humor in your toolbox of making sure your audience finds you likable.  Use it well to build your likability and relationship.  And for your humorous quote today, what about:  “the road to success is always under construction.”