Take Permission

The Right Tools & Mindset For Success

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2016 Reader Survey

What content does your audience want you to make?

What does your audience want to buy from you?

What are the needs of your audience?

Why do people listen to you?

How did people find you in the first place?

There’s only one way to find answers to these questions and that’s why I’m doing a reader survey. Over 240 people have already filled it out and I’d be grateful if you’d take 5 minutes to complete this anonymous survey.

I’ll be sharing where I got my questions for the survey and how you can do the same thing to learn from your audience.

Take the survey by clicking here.

Here’s an example of some of the data.

Survey questions 2016

Would you help me make better content for you?

Start here

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Does your business have an ultimate goal?

Make your life easier, get every post sent to your inbox by clicking here.

Your business can be part of a bigger story.

The primary goal of every business is to make money because without money the business can't continue to operate. Money is like water though, it's hard to hold on to very long and it won't satisfy all your needs.

There's a bridal store in my city that wants to do more than sell dresses. They want to be the first stop on the road to a healthy marriage. They're replacing the gossip magazines with marriage books. They're training their staff to help brides get the resources they need to start their marriages right. They're having conversations and asking questions that matter so they can offer help that matters. They still want to sell dresses and tuxes but that's not the ultimate goal anymore.

I'd rather buy a wedding dress (or a tux) from a store that cares as much about my marriage as my wedding day, wouldn't you?

What's the ultimate goal of your business? Find one soon for your sake and for your customers.

Make your life easier, get every post sent to your inbox by clicking here.

 

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8 ways to respond to criticism like Steve Jobs

When you take a stand people will run into you. There are people who disliked Mother Theresa? If that’s not proof that everyone will have a critic then I don’t know what is. The video below is of Steve Jobs getting ripped on by a member of the audience and his response to the criticism. Below the video are the # steps you should take when you get criticized or insulted. Apparently Jobs wasn’t always this kind to those around him but on this occasion the criticism was handled masterfully.

Here are Steve Jobs’ eight steps to respond to criticism…

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Three sales tools – motives, feelings, thoughts

Photo by Mariano Arriaga at http://www.sxc.hu/profile/elbrus5

“We don’t, for the most part, work with the invisible space of souls and thoughts and motives and feelings. They’re so abstract and immeasurable.”

– Jennie Allen, Anything

Businesses that have raving fans understand human emotion. How else does a company like Apple charge up to 3X as much for a machine with the same “specs” as a Windows based machine? How can Apple not have focus groups but still get customers to focus so much on their products even before their launched? How does an author make money by giving away his book? How do churches, ministries and non-profits in general get people to give them money?
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Can you be happy when you lose a deal?

Image by Big Foot at http://www.sxc.hu/profile/big_foot

I lost a BIG deal recently. It might be “tabled” or it might be gone forever but for now it’s not happening. I was confronted with a unique emotional decision when I “lost” this deal. There was something inside of me that was really happy for the “could have been mine” client. As it related to our working together I was disappointed, confused and actually quite discouraged. There is a history with them though and I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. My desire for them to find success was actually larger than my own self interest. That feeling actually surprised me. I was ready to be pissed for about a month. A week after losing the deal I was trying to help them move on to another project that I would make no money from.

I am not the answer to everyone’s marketing problem. Creating a podcast, an on-line show, or a physical audio product is not the only way for brands and individuals to find success. In light of that truth, I’m not the messiah. I’m not the answer, I’m one answer.

My family is something I hold tight.
My integrity is something I hold tight.
My reputation is something I hold tight.

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