Think Before You Speak

John Quincy Adams had yet to become 6th president of the United States.  That would happen decades later.  He was a young man sent on a diplomatic mission to the Netherlands and wrote a love letter to his fiance, Louisa Catherine Johnson, waiting for him in England.

WHAT A DASHING YOUNG MAN JOHN WAS!

Listen in on how John woos Louisa:

“February 28, 1797
I have always believed and still believe you to possess a virtuous heart, an intelligent mind, an accomplished person and a gentle disposition, all of which qualities contributed to inspire the strong affection which I have for you: but I never seriously believed or pretended that I believed you exempt from the common and universal imperfections of humanity; or from occasional errors of the mind, and varieties of temper.”

She still married him. 

Would you?

When writing, we get the chance to reread what we wrote and improve it, making our meaning clear.  

Is this really how John thought he should write to the lady he asked to marry?

When speaking, we don't get the chance to go back and change what we say.

Often, the old saying is best:

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

Motivational speaker Sarita Maybin has a best selling book that guides us in our speaking in the workplace

Joining Toastmasters will help you be a better off-the-cuff speaker.  You will improve making your self clear in a courteous manner, through the practice of answering unexpected questions at each weekly meeting.  Plus, it's fun!

If you want to hear more about John and Catherine Adam's contentious marriage in the years before their presidency, I recommend Michael O'Brien's book Mrs. Adams in Winter:  A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon.

Three Ways to Benefit from a Business Referral Group

You meet with the same people each week.  How do you make the most out of your time in your networking group?

1. Attend consistently.  Some groups levy a fine if you miss.  Some groups ask you to leave.  Regular attendance is easy to quantify.  Actually being in attendance is different.  Is your mind in the meeting?  Or are you thinking through your to-do list?  Even worse, are you scanning your phone when you should be paying attention?

You may be important and essential, but you will benefit from putting your phone away during your referral group meeting.

2. Thirty seconds with specifics.  How many people stand up for their 30-second introduction and say the same thing week after week?  This is wasted opportunity!  If your business creates or sells something, describe a different thing each meeting.  If you are a consultant, give a different example of a specific type of person you help each week.

Instead of "I'm looking for someone who wants shoes", each week dwell on a different type of shoe and the type of person who wants them.

3. If you can't say something nice... Don't talk about other members behind their back, unless it is to speak highly of them or their business. Trash talk causes unease and discord. Trust comes over time; don't do anything to jeopardize that trust.  As the saying goes, we do business with people we know, like and trust.

Your local chamber of commerce is a great place for networking!

Here's some other great articles to help you get the most out of your networking group!

Tipsters Networking Group

Entrepreneur Magazine

Duct Tape Marketing Blog

Small Business Administration

How to Make a T-shirt Quilt

Where are your t-shirts?

You can easily make them into a t-shirt quilt!  Here's how!

A t-shirt quilt is so much better than a jumbled pile of t-shirts! And it's easy to make!

Five Reasons to Use Video for your Business

Why is video important for your business?  Video reveals personality.  Simple videos that show who you are can be an effective way to put a face and personality to your business name.

1. Every business should have video on it's website.  We do business with who we know, like, and trust.  Let your potential customer get to know you!

2.  Stand out with a Facebook Cover Video on your business Facebook page.  At the top of every business Facebook page is a square photo, usually used for a company logo, and a wide rectangle cover photo.  Put a cover video there!  Your page will be more engaging and create a richer experience for your audience by spotlighting your business in one of the most prominent spaces, your page cover. Video gets your brand remembered.

3.  Be shareable with a Facebook/Instagram ad.  88% of short videos (less than 1 minute) viewed on mobile devices are watched through to the end. The end is where you call to action is. People share video they find interesting or valuable or (especially) cute or funny.

4.  Take advantage of time-lapse, especially if your business creates or fixes something.  Search engines love video.  Time-lapse is eye-catching, especially if it enhances a more significant story.

5.  Promote your event with video.  Video conveys huge amounts of information in a short time through show and tell, and is more engaging to the senses.

Tonya Lehman, owner of Joy Lab, can help you with all your business and personal video needs!

Twice Baked Potatoes

Instead of getting tired of eating leftovers, change them into a freezer meal!

I ended up with lots of baked potatoes after a church lunch.  I like eating baked potatoes with melted butter, or with bacon and cheddar.  But I wanted to make something a bit more special.  Something that I didn’t have to eat right away.

Freezer meals are completely prepared dinners that you simply thaw and serve later.  Watch this video to learn how to change baked potatoes into fancy Twice Baked Potatoes for your freezer!

What would you put in your twice baked potatoes?

Restaurant #1: A Pleasant Surprise

We don’t have a map or a chart or a plan yet.  How will we dine at every restaurant in our town?

Although I am a planner, it was dinnertime and we decided to just jump into our cuisine quest at a nearby restaurant we had never tried before.

Tucked in a strip mall between a UPS store and vitamin market, this “Indian & Nepalese Food” restaurant used to be a Hawaiian shaved ice counter.  So, that is what we expected, just with more curry.

We can still get delicious Hawaiian shaved ice, but we have to drive a lot further.

I did not expect this new restaurant to have a fancy interior, with intimate lighting and red and gold accents.  I did not expect cloth napkins.  I did not expect the place to be triple the size of the previous shaved ice restaurant.

Lentil soup for everyone.

Homestyle Nepalese entrees.  Classic Indian dishes.  Great service.  Delicious, if a bit spicy, food.  Large quantities.

I should have written down what these dishes are called. Chicken with vegetables in a sauce. Served with naan bread or steamed rice. Yummy!

The best part, live performances!

Would we return?  Two forks up!

Are there any restaurants in your town that have been completely transformed (for the better, or for the worse)?

Do It Yourself with Animoto

Do what yourself?

Create professional video for your business advertising needs!

Animoto is a subscription site that has hundreds of templates for use in communicating through video.  

Follow along while I create a 60 second video for a leadership class outing.

As a first step, decide, "What kind of video do you want to create? Slideshow Video or Marketing Video?"

I chose Marketing.

Choose from a pre-built storyboard.  Animoto has the storyboard templates in categories.  The broad categories are "Popular", "Attract an audience", "Share a product or service", and "Tell your company's story."  I chose the last one.

Under "Tell your company's story" there are 10 more subcategories:  School Newsletter, Behind the Scenes, About Us, Product Story, Milestone Celebration, Non-profit Campaign, Social Fundraising Ad, Business Story, Company Overview, Agent Testimonial.

I chose School Newsletter.  Watch the sample storyboard:

The School Newsletter is a 20 second storyboard with three photos, two videos, text, royalty-free music, and no voiceover.

1. Opening photo with text

2. Video with text

3. Split screen photo with text

4. Photo with text

5. Text

6. Video with text

7. Closing text

It's pretty good, isn't it?!

My goal is to create a 60 second video about a field trip day for my chamber of commerce leadership class.  We visited four businesses in our town.  The video will be shown in class on a large TV.

Let's start modifying.  I'll work my way down the menu on the left side column.

Media

I upload 13 photos and 4 videos.  That is too many photos for a 60 second video about 4 businesses, but it is easier to play with my options with every good picture already uploaded.

Ratio

I can easily make a 1:1 Facebook video, and I may do that later.  But since the video will be shown in class on a large TV, I will choose 16:9.

Design

Here I can change the text box color and background color and font.  The chamber of commerce has set colors for their marketing.  I'm not doing this to market for them, but since it is a chamber activity, I will change the colors to their colors.  Easy!

Filters

Black & white, cool, warm, denim, fade, darken.  I don't use any of these filters.

Music

Animoto has over 2000 royalty-free songs for you to choose from.  I will do this at the end.

Add a Block

It is easy to add a new block for my content:  photo, text, video, collage, or logo.

It takes me about 1 hour to play around and get my video the way I want it.  The music that Animoto automatically put in place is fine, so I keep it.

Here is my final video!  Questions?  Ask me!

Who's on First?

At a recent weekly business meeting the speaker was explaining the confusing alphabet soup that is Medicare plans.  

Although I am not close to qualifying for Medicare, I listened politely, because that's what we do.

After one particularly convoluted explanation, someone in the audience muttered, "Who's on first?"

“Who’s on first?”

We all laughed.

Then I started wondering.... Does the younger generation get that reference?

It comes from a 1930 comedy routine in which Bud Abbott tells Lou Costello about a baseball team.  You have to watch it to understand.

"I don't know... Third Base!"

Funny!

• The point is that Medicare is as confusing as Abbott and Costello.

• The point is, do younger people know about this old black and white comedy routine?

Here's an updated version from 2012.

"Who? What? Yes?"

Funny!

Square Video Wins at Facebook

What shape of video should I use to advertise on Facebook?

The wise people at Buffer Social did research, and found that square videos outperformed landscape videos in engagement, views, and reach. 

For a video girl, this is hard to take.  I want widescreen!

Fortunately, widescreen is still good on YouTube.

For best engagement, here is what Facebook likes - square video.

But please, don't shoot video on your cell phone in portrait, like this!  It looks terrible, and cuts the action off!  It's bad enough the camera runs all over the place to begin with.  Let the audience see what is going on!

The Restaurant Rut

The Cuisine Quest begins......

My husband and I are in a restaurant rut.  We are trapped in a if/then feedback loop.

• If we want tacos, then we go to Rubios Fish Tacos.

• If we want salad, then we go to Souplantation.

• If we want a burger, then we go to Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

We do have our favorite independent restaurants.  But they are also part of the rut.

It’s time to make a change!

But how?  What will keep us from falling back into old habits?

We will eat once at every single restaurant in town!

Our suburban city is 9 square miles of rolling hills, population 57,100.  Two interstate freeway traverse the city, with one high school, one large shopping mall, many strip malls, an older revitalized downtown, 12 parks, a civic center, and an active parks and rec program.

How do we find all the restaurants in our town?  Our town borders other towns seamlessly, so that most residents don’t know where one city ends and the next one starts.

In the old days, I would have simply looked in the restaurant section of the Yellow Pages.  Every restaurant would have been listed by city.  Easy!  But what about now?

Restaurants are businesses.  So, each would have a business license on file with the city.  According to our city website, I could get a list of all the restaurants with business licence for 50 cents each.  So, if there are 100 restaurants, that would cost me $50.  No, thank you!

Google Maps has a search function.  I type in my city, then click NEARBY, then Restaurants.  It gives me 20 restaurants at a time, with a short description, and pins them on the map.  Total number of restaurants – 141!  But wait; some of those are nearby, and not in my town. I’ll have to cross check with the actual address.  Very tedious.

It turns out that the Yellow Pages has developed a partnership with Yelp, the online crowd-sourced reviews about local businesses.  In the search boxes, I can only find restaurants near my city, not only in my city.  But with Yelp, the address is in the search results, so I can easily pick out the correct restaurants.  At the top right, Yelp writes “Showing 1-10 of 1458”.  There cannot possibly be 1458 restaurants in my city! Or even near my city.

How do we refine our restaurant list?

A lot of chain restaurants are on the Google Maps and Yelp list.  For our quest, we will ignore chain restaurants.  But when is a restaurant a chain?  Here is a good discussion about what makes a restaurant a chain.  For our purposes, if there are 5 or more of the same restaurant, we will not count it.

What about bars and pubs?  I’m not interested in hanging out at some dingy bar that happens to serve tater tots.  Not that there are any dingy bars in my town.  But, just in case, we will not include anyplace that is only over 21.

And coffee shops?  I would not count Starbucks as a restaurant, but we have several independent coffee shops with breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus.  If the coffee shop has made to order items, not just reheat the stuff in the display case, then we will count it.

How do we rate the restaurants we visit?

We are going to be simple here.  Would we return?  Forks up, or forks down.

How do we keep track of the restaurants we have visited, and have yet to visit?

We are map people.  We are chart and list lovers.  Stay tuned for details on how we corral that Yelp and Google Maps list into something manageable.

Any advice?

Chemistry is Hard

Learn Something New with online video courses!  Share Your Passion by creating online video courses!

Passing chemistry is possible, but it is not easy!

• You take notes in class.

• You do the homework.

• You ask questions.

• You go to your professor's office hours.

It simply takes lots of time working many chemistry problems.  Here is a sample video tutorial.  Use this to help you with your next dimensional anaylysis problem.

How Often Should I Post Video on my Facebook Business Page?

How often should I post new video on my Facebook business page?

The bloggers say it depends.  On audience preferences, audience demographics, the size of your following, the type of your business.

The bloggers say to look at your data, look at your demographic.

The bloggers say to look at a business similar to yours, and to copy them. 

Let’s try that.

The directions by Sophia Dagnon in agora pulse are for your own business.  But let’s extend that to a type of business for which you don’t have Facebook Insights access.

Take Payment Processing.  Put Payment Processing Business in the search bar, and click Pages.  You want the business page to see how often they post video.  I’m comparing local companies, so I click that Category to the left.

How are they listed?  Who is listed first?  We won’t delve into the ever-changing mysteries of Facebook ranking here.

We have a range of number of likes, and star rating.  For brevity, let’s look at the first four on the ranking.

Total-Apps Advanced Payment Processing Solutions hasn’t posted anything for over 30 days for their 2K followers. Five videos, the most recent posted over 1 year ago.

Processing Point Inc hasn’t posted anything for over 3 months for their 311 followers.  No videos.

Elite Payment Processing hasn’t posted anything for over 2 months for their 1.5K followers.  No videos.

Central Payment Processing hasn’t posted anything for over 2 months for their 74 followers.  No videos.

Limited Conclusion:  Payment Processing businesses are not using video at all.

If you are a payment processor, should you invest in video for Facebook?

Yes.  The people who like these business pages are people who use their services already.  You want to drive new business to your company.  Invest in quality video, pay to boost it, and you will get people talking and sharing your video. 

We are still left with our first question:  How often should I post new video on my Facebook page?

Once a week.  We will have to do what the bloggers say, and rely on data.  Post one video, and see how many views and shares and likes and subscribers you get.  Next week, post another video and check results.  Third week, repost the first video.  By the fourth week, you will know if once a week works, or if it is annoying.  By the fourth week, you will know if any sales have happened, and can adjust accordingly.

Is that too much?  Is that overwhelming?  Then just post one quality video, and pay to boost the same video once a month.

Sometimes we just have to get our toes wet before jumping in.  Do one video.  Put one video out.  Don't worry if it isn't perfect.  If we wait for everything to be perfect, nothing will ever get done. 

“If we wait for everything to be perfect, nothing will ever get done.”

— Tonya Lehman, @JoyLabLearning