Big claim, right?

Yep, it is. And it’s absolutely true. 

I was reading a book this morning (The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur) and the author, Mike Michalowicz, wrote something that reminded of those old V8 commercials… you know the ones, where someone hits themselves in the head and says “I coulda had a V8”!  Well, the part of his book that made me think about hitting myself in the head was his thoughts on List Posts and Books that have titles like “The 7 Irrefutable Laws, The Top 10, The 3 Most, etc….”.

He actually went to Amazon and started adding up all the business books that had these types of titles in them and gave up after 16 thousand! When you think of it that way, it makes them seem completely ridiculous, right?

BUT… they work.

The titles I mean, I can’t speak for the tips or lists themselves.

But that’s not what this post is about. It was my long roundabout way of calling attention to the fact that I used  “The SINGLE Best” in this post title. If you’ve been following me for any length of time you know I don’t write controversial posts or challenge opinions. Not because I don’t have them, but WordPress doesn’t tend to push my buttons that way. 😉

For the most part, I like list posts.

I haven’t come across a list post that is completely unique, but that’s fine. Different authors, different views. But none of these lists come close to this SINGLE thing that will change your business and life faster than any combination of these lists (save the item I’m going to share with you, because it’s included in many lists).

I’ve implemented this in a much more significant manner this year and it has TOTALLY changed my business.

So what is the SINGLE best thing I’ve done for my business this year?

Drumroll please….

I Decided to Focus on building relationships and engagement.

I know, nothing new here, right?

This is totally one of those things that you hear over and over and over again, but somehow it doesn’t seem like “work” (or maybe it does and that’s why you haven’t done it?) and it’s much easier to be “busy” with the things that do feel like work.

And by easier I mean safer.

I was having a conversation with a client about a month ago and we were talking about her site and her brand. She’s one of those people that you talk to and think “more people should know about you” and so you start asking how they do things. Eventually our conversation turned to social media and sharing other people’s stuff (content, videos, podcast, pictures… whatever). Mind you, I’m hardly saying I do this as consistently as I should or with the best strategy in place (I’m working on that), but you have to do it. O.k., back to my client. She asked me one question that let me know right away what was blocking her and why more people didn’t know who she was.

“What if my efforts aren’t reciprocated?”

Now before you get all judgy here, let’s agree on one thing. It’s a natural thought to want something in return for your efforts, even if it’s just a “Thanks for Sharing”. The problem is that when you operate from a place of fear then you’ll pay a much bigger price than lack of reciprocation for sharing someone’s content.

Think about it this way.

When you go out to eat or go to a movie and then share that information with someone you think could benefit (family, friends, whoever), are you expecting the restaurant or movie studio to do something for you?

Of course not! You’re sharing because you think it will help the person you’re sharing it with.

Which is what I’m asking YOU to start doing.

Share other people’s stuff.

Which will absolutely have a HUGE impact on the relationships you NEED (notice I didn’t say “want”) to build to grow your business!

Queue storytime…

So in the past few months I’ve joined two communities:

[icon name=icon-group]Fizzle

[icon name=icon-group]How to Connect With Anyone

(I can’t decide if those icons look like a group or one person with a bad attempt at a Princess Leia hairdo. It’s supposed to be a group)

How to Connect With Anyone

I literally just joined Connect With Anyone last week. This is a course by Scott Dinsmore and his team over at LiveYourLegend.net. I had wanted to sign up for this course the last time it was offered (and for the life of me can’t remember why I didn’t now) so the second I saw it was opening up and he was giving early access to his list I hopped on the webinar, credit card in hand (literally).

One of the things that attracted me to this course (besides the content and the fact that the people behind “Live Your Legend” are just fantastic) was that they put you in a Mastermind group! I don’t mean randomly selecting people based on one criteria or another, I mean you fill out a form and Liz Seda (part of the team) goes through EVERY entry and personally puts you in a Mastermind group of like minded people. HELLO! I’m wrapping up Module 1 and hope to get the Mastermind assignment SOON! (which is funny because life is REALLY busy right now, but there is truth to busy people getting things done, for what that’s worth).

Here’s what has occurred in ONE week in Connect With Anyone:

• Tons of welcome messages (and not just a standard, ‘welcome to the community’. Comments on personal notes and goals I shared!)
• Potential opportunity to apply to speak at a conference in Sydney next year
• Connection with a fellow community member who also has a cartoon voice he speaks in (honestly don’t know if there is a recording of me doing my cartoon voice here?)
• Challenge to post a recording of my cartoon voice (challenge accepted)
• Potential in person meetup at NMX in January in Vegas (I am absolutely going this year)

That may not seem like a lot to some people, but that is ONE WEEK IN! And I’ve not been as active in the forum as I’d like to be (I’m always figuring the time thing out, it is what it is). Can you imagine what type of results I can end up with after three months of participating in this course? I KNOW! (you have to say that like “Monica” from “Friends”). I’ll keep you updated throughout the course, but needless to say I’m super excited.

Onto Fizzle

I’ve been in Fizzle for three months now and have been a little more active in the community (again, not as active as I’d like to be, but with both groups I’m certainly putting more in than I used to). I’ve talked a bit about Fizzle in a previous post, but if you’re not sure what Fizzle is it’s an online community with training and forums created by the team over at ThinkTraffic.net. And it’s an AWESOME community! Besides tons of valuable content (two of my favorite courses so far are: Essentials of Web Design for Business Builders and Defining Your Audience, and no, it’s not just because I think Chase Reeves is hysterical, which he is), here’s a few things that have occurred in my short time in Fizzle:

• 2 New website clients- both amazing people with awesome things to share and offer the world
• A Mastermind group of people who want to go “ALL In” in their businesses
• I’m organizing a Meetup in Edinburgh Scotland for Oct. 5th to connect with some Fizzlers in PERSON! (How freakin’ cool is THAT?)
• A couple potential Podcast interviews! (I’ll do the interviewing)

Not too shabby if I do say so myself!

In my Fizzle Mastermind one of the members said, “You seem a little further along than most of us, how can we help you?”

My answer?

“Just share my stuff”.

I’m not worried about it. I trust that the right people show up at the right time and usually when I do this it comes back to me tenfold.

Here’s my simple, easy challenge to you… TODAY!

When you come across something valuable (any type of content, ie, blog post, video, podcast, image, etc.) SHARE it with your audience! Tag the creator and use appropriate hashtags. Focus on sharing valuable content on your social sites that isn’t created by you and watch and see what shows up. I can guarantee you’ll start building relationships before you know it.