by Tara Joyce | May 12, 2009 | Featured, Personal Branding
Do you have trouble understanding what the heck the difference is between Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations? I know I certainly do. Here’s a quick analogy to help you differentiate:
If a young man tells his date she’s intelligent, looks lovely, and is a great conversationalist, he’s saying the right things to the right person — that’s marketing. If the young man tells his date how handsome, smart and successful he is — that’s advertising. If someone else tells the young woman how handsome, smart and successful her date is — that’s public relations.
Also, here’s some fun, dating-related graphics that’ll also help you differentiate.
by Tara Joyce | May 9, 2009 | Cultural Creativity, Personal Branding, Self/Business Growth
photo credit: Brittany Linder
If you’re thinking of building a website, consider:
1. Are you sure you really want one?
A website is like a pet, you need to make sure you want one before you get one. A site needs to be taken care of, so if you don’t have time or aren’t really committed, don’t bother. You can’t build it and leave it.
2. What makes your business unique?
I know this is a tough question but it is important. Your website strategy should be focused around this.
3. How will you measure the site’s success?
What do you want out of the website? How will you determine that it was worth the cost and energy to create?
4. Does the site need to be completed by a certain date?
It is never a good idea to begin developing a website under tight timelines. It will take longer than you think. There is no reason to rush a project that is so important to the growth of your business.
by Tara Joyce | May 4, 2009 | Innerpreneurship
photo credit: David Sifry
“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” – The Beatles
We never can seem to get there fast enough. Starting a business, growing a business, it can never happen fast enough. We want our dreams to be realized today. We are impatient for the bright future we see in front of us. And each step forward we take is soon forgotten as the endless road of ‘everything that isn’t’ stretches before us.
We work so hard to achieve a goal and when we hit it, it falls away and is forgotten. All the time spent worrying about its completion, all the energy and love poured into its creation is left behind. What was once the greatest goal becomes one tiny achievement in many.
The Current State
Working towards something that is so personal is god damn scary. And damn, it isn’t easy either. Our wins and losses are ours alone. The pressure we put on our Self can often be crippling and abusive.
We worry about wasted hours, of being wrong, of being not good enough. We call our Self a loser and failure. We chastise our Self not achieving more each day. And the worst of it, we don’t stop and celebrate when we do achieve, we just move on to the next.
What’s the point when we treat our Self like this? Why is it so easy to be caught up the daily picture, rather than the greater one? Why can’t we see that every moment that passes takes us one step closer to our dream?
by Tara Joyce | Apr 21, 2009 | Cultural Creativity, Innerpreneurship, Self/Business Growth
photo credit: jacky_oh_yeah
In 1986, when Russell Ackoff, a pioneer of management education, retired as Professor at the Wharton Business School, he was asked what were the benefits of a business education. With savage irony he replied that there were three.
- To equip students with a vocabulary that enabled them to talk with authority about subjects they did not understand.
- To give students principles that would demonstrate their ability to withstand any amount of dis-confirming evidence.
- To give students a ticket of admission to a job where they could learn something about management.
by Tara Joyce | Apr 21, 2009 | Self/Business Growth
We all do it. It’s almost ingrained in us. We focus on the bad things people have said about us. The bad things we have thought about our self. In those words we see areas for improvement. Areas we can work on to be a better and happier person. We have been taught that the key to achieving our goals is improving on our weaknesses.
Why do we believe the bad things about our self more easily than the good?
We go to therapy to focus on improving our weaknesses. We do it so we can be happy.
But here’s the thing…the good stuff – your talents and strengths, what makes you, you, your ‘je ne sais quoi’ – it’s the key to your happiness. Because it’s what’s right with you that matters. It’s in exploring what’s right with you that you’ll find the joy you seek.
