Your profitable tune: Mark Knopfler on vision and imagination

For today's profitable quote, I suggest that you listen to a tune by one of my favorite artists, Mark Knopfler (here with James Taylor) with "Sailing to Philadelphia".

The words describe the mindset of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, two English surveyors who established the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland, Delaware and Virginia in the 1760s. (from Wikipedia)

Sit back, put on the headphones, close your eyes and imagine yourself as a young man escaping the constraints of 18th century England to make a new life in an unfamiliar and uncharted land...




(watch on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrLdKYRBOEE )

The lyrics (and the guitars) give me the chills every time I listen to them...

Have a great day!

Special Video Webinar: Book Yourself Solid - You've Got Leads! Now What?

Great! So you have people showing interest in what you offer. But how do you convert prospects into customers?

Watch Coach Davender as he interacts with a Mastermind group of Book Yourself Solid students to explore this topic.

Join the streaming live video and audio at http://www.ustream.tv/coachdavender starting at 3pm Eastern.

This session is set up as streaming only - only the Book Yourself Solid students can ask questions. You will definitely get some great ideas from this informative and entertaining discussion!

Explore how to convert someone who shows some interest into a paying and happy customer

Date: Friday, October 16, 2009
Time: 3:00pm - 4:00pm EASTERN
Location: http://www.ustream.tv/coachdavender
Facebook Event Listing: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=308613860533

(Update Oct 16)

Here is the video recording, also available at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2364551

Your profitable quote: T.E. Lawrence on vision and action

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible."

— T.E. Lawrence

Your profitable quote: Erik Weihenmayer on overcoming adversity

"You don't just deal with adversity. You use it to propel you forward."

-- Erik Weihenmayer (1968 – )
First blind person to summit Mt. Everest

Your profitable quote: Napoleon Hill on self-discipline

"Self-discipline begins with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don't control what you think, you can't control what you do. Simply, self-discipline enables you to think first and act afterward."

-- Napoleon Hill

Your profitable quote: Napoleon Hill on commitment

"Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to cut all sources of retreat. Only by doing so can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a burning desire to win which is one of the essentials to success."

-- Napoleon Hill

Your profitable quote: Robert Kiyosaki on success

"The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire, the size of your dream, and how you handle disappointment along the way."

- Robert Kiyosaki

Your profitable quote: Lucille Ball on luck

"Luck? I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it, and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work -- and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't."

-- Lucille Ball

Your profitable quote: George Eastman on reputation

"A good reputation is measured by how much you can improve the lives of others - customers, employees, community."

-- George Eastman

Your profitable quote: Og Mandino on the urgency of now

"Live this day as if it will be your last. Remember that you will only find 'tomorrow' on the calendars of fools. Forget yesterday's defeats and ignore the problems of tomorrow. This is it. Doomsday. All you have. Make it the best day of your year. The saddest words you can ever utter are, ''If I had my life to live over again.''

Take the baton, now. Run with it! This is your day! Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight. Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again."

-- Og Mandino

Dreams Are Not Enough

Gail Collins, in an recent column in the New York Times, wrote: "As a nation we seem to be overstocked on dreams involving fame and fortune, particularly the ones that come untethered to any plans for actual achievement."

I can't stand to watch television anymore. It seems to be wall-to-wall talent contests, whether it be singing, dancing, decorating, cooking, or whatever is the trendy "Idol" of the moment. Even the "pitch" shows such as CBC's "Dragons Den" or ABC's "Shark Tank" reinforce the notion that all you need to do is to stroke a venture capitalist the right way and you're a winner.

Now of course, no one would watch a TV program that shows the true experience of the vision-driven entrepreneur: the exhausting pace of investing twelve, fourteen, eighteen hours a day on the project, moving from energy-sapping disappointment to confidence-destroying setback, living with the constant, corrosive fear of being within seven to ten days of functional insolvency, all while keeping positive, energized and enthusiastic. This kind of reality show doesn't sell candy bars and toilet paper.

Powering your dream from idea to reality takes everything you have to give, and more. You cannot keep anything in reserve, nor hold anything back. Your commitment to action must be absolute and binding. For the result of your dream to be of any value whatsoever, the effort must bankrupt you, physically, emotionally, financially. And if it doesn't, your dream is not big enough. Because it is only when you have burned all the links to your past that you can focus on building the bridge to the future.

That's the true secret to turning your dream into reality: total commitment to massive action, using every last atom of your resources, physical and virtual, so you can reinvent yourself in alignment with the promise of your dream.

As a society, we are addicted to the lottery mentality, the illusion that if we want something bad enough, someone will give it to us, whether it is the bank, the government, an investor or a reality show. The true reality is that no one will hand you what you want, desire or need on a silver platter, and even if they did, the moment you accept it, its value is negated.

To succeed takes discipline and resolve, two elements in woefully short supply in our North American society. You need to be the sole champion of your dream and its primary promoter. The size of the reward is proportional to the effort that you invest.

Dreams are not enough. Dreams plus all-out effort is what it takes.

Have you Googled yourself lately?

When was the last time you searched for your name on Google? I did so recently and discovered another person whose last name is my first name. There were a number of entries about him mixed in with references to my blog posts, my articles and my activities on various sites. Which would not be too much of a worry, except that my namesake was in the news, and not for something good...

The first place many people will go to find out about you is NOT your website, but Google. This is why it is very important to keep an eye on your Google name search. They may Bing you (the Microsoft search engine), but for the sake of this discussion I will assume Google and Bing work the same way.

Whether you have a website or not, your professional activities leave a trail on the search engines. I have a habit that when I hear a name, I go straight to my favorite engine and search them. When I search on a person's name, I look for three things:

a. Is this person who they say they are: Checking addresses, phone numbers, company name (You would be surprised that sometimes I find people who are fraudulently presenting themselves)

b. Is this person professionally active: Quality of content, frequency, do they have a personal site, their LinkedIn connections, Facebook friends.

c. What do others say about him/her: Does the name appear on other people's sites, in other events, newspapers, articles and other media.

Here are some tips to improve the impression a person will get when they Google or Bing your name:

1. Have an account on Big Three social media sites:

Most of the time, on Google, you will find that it is not your web site or your blog that comes up first, but rather your social media pages such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Search engine ranking algorithms seems to give significant weight to these sites. Whether you use social media or not, open an account on these systems and include your contact info and a short description of yourself. This has the added advantage of "reserving" your name on these sites so that a namesake doesn't take it over.

2. Make sure your website and blog tags and keywords are current:

Your META tag provides the short description that appears in Google or any search engine, after the title of your site or blog. In most cases this is easy to update (check the parameters or settings of your web site or blog system). Use this space to include the short form of your positioning or "who and do what" statement as well as your phone number. Update the keywords to include your full name, short name and combinations, including initials. With a clear tag and quality keywords in the header of your site or blog (which you can update yourself), you will already have a jump on your namesakes.

3. If you are buried lower down on the search page results, focus on creating frequent and relevant content:

Most search engines take into account how often you update your sites and blogs to determine where they appear in the search order. If your name is getting buried by your namesakes, start updating your blogs more often (ideally every day or two) with content focused on your area of expertise. Post your articles on aggregation sites (like EzineArticles.com) The search engines will pick up on your content relatively quickly and move you up the page.

4. Don't sweat the "SEO" (Search Engine Optimization):

Remember, we're talking here about people who search your name because they've heard of you through word-of-mouth or referral, which will account for a big percentage of searches about you at this stage of your business. This is why I'm not a believer in hiring people to "search engine optimize" your site unless you are doing big volumes (thousands of dollars) through the internet already.



As a solopreneur, most people will hear about you through word of mouth or referral before they find you on the search engines, which is why most people will want to Google or Bing your name to see if you're for real. By following these simple tips, it will be you that comes up at the top of their search, which will reinforce your credibility and help you get more and better clients.

Your profitable quote: T. Alan Armstrong on Passion

If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived? Find your passion, whatever it may be. Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen FOR you, TO you and BECAUSE of you.

-- T. Alan Armstrong

Your profitable quote: Bob Parsons on focus

"Take things a day at a time. No matter how difficult your situation is, you can get through it if you don’t look too far into the future, and focus on the present moment. You can get through anything one day at a time."

-- Bob Parsons (founder of GoDaddy.com)