The Contrarian Entrepreneur Show

013 - Awareness

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What do people who are AWARE spend their time doing?

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What do people who are AWARE spend their time doing?

People who are aware seek improvement. They are the creators, the innovators, the teachers, the helpers, the thinkers, the doers. They do not waste time on activities that do not foster improvement. They engage in purposeful activity.

People who are not aware seek MSG (Momentary Sensory Gratification). They spend their time on things that make them feel good in the moment, without regard for the possible future effects of their activities on themselves or others. They over-eat, over-drink, and watch too many mind-numbing TV shows, soap operas and football games. They are addicted to the PLR (Path of Least Resistance).

Ask yourself: Am I going to fill this minute that I am about to experience with an activity that will bring about improvement in myself or in someone else or in some condition or circumstances?

Continually asking this question = High Awareness.

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012 - 25 Possible Reasons You're Not Making Enough Money

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See which of these might be relevant to you.

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25 Possible Reasons You're Not Making Enough Money

You’re simply not sufficiently visible to your market.
You’re not meaningful to your market. You have not done a good job of defining exactly what you offer and the potential benefits of it.
You’re not making yourself memorable. The people who didn’t buy from you today, but might buy next month or next year, don’t remember you.
You have not clearly defined your sales process.
You don’t have a business plan, or any written goals.
You don’t have a well-thought-out business philosophy.
Your network (your sphere of influence) is not large enough and is not growing at a steady pace.
You’re paying too much attention to one marketing channel (social media, email, direct mail, networking), OR…
You’re trying to be active on too many different marketing channels all at once and are not doing a good job with any of them.
You’re not delegating or hiring part-time help to do the menial things that are not a good use of your own time.
You’re very good at producing and delivering your product or service but you’re not very good at marketing and sales.
Other than making money, you’re not sure why you started your business. Who is it that you’re trying to help? And how will you do that?
You’re a generalist rather than a specialist. You try to be too many things to too many different people or markets.
You believe that you don’t really need marketing and sales help because your product or service is so wonderful that it will sell itself.
You’re not connecting with prospects about their most urgent and relevant issues.
You’re trying to sell your product or service rather than the benefits of your product or service.
You have failed to differentiate yourself and your brand.
Your branding media does not present a professional image -- free business cards, poorly designed “free” website, etc.
You have expertise in your field, but your branding media does not reflect that.
You spend too much money on some things – fancy business cards, $20,000 website, a solid-mahogany desk, expensive generalized advertising that doesn’t produce results, etc.
You’re not getting enough (or any) outside help with marketing and/or sales.
You don’t spend enough (or any) money on things that could really help you, such as a coach or mentor.
You don’t have a coach or mentor because you believe you can’t afford it. But you somehow believe you can afford to fail?
You underestimate the amount of time and/or money it will take to reach your business goals. Not everything you try is going to work like you expect it will. Some things you try will never work. You need to experiment and find out what works for you. Remember that what has worked well for someone else will not work the same way or to the same degree for you.
You’re looking for, and expecting to find, ready-made, one-size-fits-all solutions. One size never fits all. You need to look for ideas that you can use to create your own solutions, because those are the solutions that will work best for you.

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011 - Creative Visualization vs Mental Contrasting

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Creative visualization does NOT work!

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Creative visualization—-in which we merely imagine our ideal outcome-—is NOT EFFECTIVE.

It doesn't work because it's only one side of the equation. We need to add the missing component. We need to mentally CONTRAST our ideal scenario with our current reality. We need to visualize the gap between them and be willing to look at the steps (the ACTIONS) we need to take to create our ideal. We also need to look at the inevitable obstacles we will face in the course of making that ideal a reality.

There are way too many self-help books out there telling people that if they just picture what they want in their minds, it will somehow amazingly turn into reality. Well, it doesn't. But visualization can be helpful if you imagine the steps (the ACTIONS) you will take in order to realize your goals. Mentally simulating the PROCESS of achieving the goal, rather than the hoped-for outcome, will generally result in a more optimistic outlook and more and better planning and preparation.

The process is NOT: Thoughts > New Reality

The process IS: Thoughts > Actions > New Reality

Just thinking about what you want will not make anything happen.

See your ideal outcome and your current reality CONTRASTED against each other.

Then figure out the ACTIONS it will take to get there.

And then, get to work!

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010 - Content vs Presentation

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What's more important - Content (words) or Presentation (images)?

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What's more important - Content (words) or Presentation (images)?

The primary reason people go to any website is to get information. That would argue that content (the words, the text) is most important. If users don't find the information they're looking for, it doesn't matter how well it's presented and how pretty the images are. At the same time, attractive visuals (the presentation, the "packaging" of the content) can make the content more interesting.

People respond in a positive way to attractive-looking media. Why don't magazine publishers make their covers just plain black text on a white background? The content is the same, right? Because nobody would even pick the magazine up and look at it. That's why "visual interest" is important. This applies to all of your media -- your website, brochures, business cards, social media posts, etc.

It's been said many times that "Content is King".

That's probably true, but it's also true that "Presentation is Queen".

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009 - Why Would Anyone Buy Anything From You?

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What’s the biggest single reason that anyone would want to buy anything from you?

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What’s the biggest single reason that anyone would want to buy anything from you? Get a piece of paper and write the reason down. Do it right now.

Wait a week or so and read it. Decide if it’s still true or not. If it’s not, then think some more and try to determine the real reason.

If you are unable to identify and describe the biggest reason why someone would buy something from you, then it’s obvious that you still need to create, or find, that reason.

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008 - Passion is Highly Overrated

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Find your passion! Follow your passion! Sorry, there's more to it than that.

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You Don't Need to Find Your Passion.

Too many people stop taking action because they're too caught up in finding their mission or meaning to gather any momentum.

Your ability to execute is the only thing you get rewarded for in business. Not your ideas, not being likable, not your passion or vision or mission or beliefs or dreams or attitudes or plans or intentions.

Execution -- getting it done -- is the thing that puts your product in front of your prospects, so they can decide to buy it.

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007 - Don't Go with the Flow

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Some people say, “Just go with the flow!” I say don’t go with the flow, because that’s where everybody else is going.

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Don't Go with the Flow

Some people say, “Just go with the flow!"

I say don’t go with the flow, because that’s where everybody else is going. Don’t get in that river. Make your own river, your own flow, and go with it. The process of making your own flow is called creativity, and we are all capable of some kind of creativity.

Creativity is taking “thought seeds” (ideas) that we have and turning them into reality. You have some thought seeds in you, though you may or may not be aware of them.

Many people sadly go through their entire lives without ever having had an original thought. That doesn’t mean there were no original thoughts in them; it just means that none of those seeds ever made it to the surface of consciousness and sprouted. Maybe no one ever told those people that they had seeds of original thoughts - the seeds of creativity - inside them, so they never bothered looking for them. They lived and died never having even thought about it.

Look for your seeds! They’re in there somewhere. Each of you has something inside of you that can create improvement - somehow, somewhere, for someone. Maybe the someone is yourself. Maybe it’s someone else. It’s probably both, because we’re all connected, and you cannot create improvement in someone else without realizing improvement in yourself. Likewise, you cannot improve yourself without having a positive effect and influence on those around you.

The creativity, the improvement, that you generate might not be world-changing. It might be kind of small. But small does not mean insignificant.

Don’t go with the flow, because that’s where everybody else is going. Don’t get in that river. Make your own river, your own flow, and go with it.

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006 - 4 Very Bad Website Fashion Trends

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We don't normally think of "fashion" when we think of website design. But over the years certain fashion trends have come and gone. Here are 4 new trends that really need to be gone. Soon.

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4 Very Bad Website Fashion Trends

We don't normally think of "fashion" when we think of website design. But over the years certain fashion trends have come and gone. Here are 4 new trends that really need to be gone. Soon.

1 – Huge Home page images with almost no information “above the fold”. This is a truly disturbing trend, and it’s become very popular. In fact, I believe that some developers would tell you that if you don’t use this design feature, your site will be considered “old-fashioned”. People visit business websites for one reason only, and that is to get information. They do not visit to view pretty pictures. Huge images that consume the entire screen are usually meaningless and contain very little actual information – maybe a single sentence or phrase. Thus the user has to scroll down to find any information about the business. It is critical to have meaningful information immediately visible upon the user’s arrival at the site, meaning that the information needs to be “above the fold”. Why would you want to make it difficult or inconvenient for users to find what they’re looking for?

2 – Too much wasted screen space. Some designers are very fond of having lots of “white space”, meaning that page content is presented in small pieces surrounded by… nothing. This accomplishes nothing other than requiring users to do a lot of scrolling. You should have the information on your web pages compacted so as to get the most information on the screen at one time. Yes, you need some amounts of white space to break things up and improve readability, but some designers are carrying white space to extremes. So-called “screen real estate” is valuable and its use should be maximized. Why would you want to give users a small amount of information and a large amount of nothing?

3 – Nearly unreadable text. I’m talking here about the color of the text being very close to the color of the background, providing too little contrast and making the text difficult to read. A common example is a white background with light gray text. Dark gray text on a white background is fine; in fact, it might be preferable to black, where there is arguably too much contrast.

Another aspect of this issue is the size of the text. It seems to have become fashionable to have very small font sizes. Too small, therefore hard to read. Why would you bother to put text on a page, then make it difficult for users to read?

4 – Hamburger menus. This refers to the three little horizontal bars that represent a menu, and actually display that menu when you click on the bars. This design technique is necessary on smartphone screens where there is very little available space, but it has now made its way to desktop screens. Maybe some designers consider it to be “cool” or “fashionable”. Sorry, it is ridiculous. Why would you want to have the main menu of your site hidden?

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005 - Why People Believe What They Believe

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Why do people believe things that others believe just because others believe it?

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People have certain beliefs because:

They read something in a book or other publication and believed it.
Someone they trusted told them that something was true and they believed it.
A person who was a perceived authority or expert said something and they believed it.
A complete stranger told them that something was true, and they believed it.
People close to them believe something, so it must be true.
Nearly everyone they know believes something, so it must be true.
Millions or billions of people believe something, so it must be true.
Something has been believed for a very long time, so it must be true.
They came up with a belief on their own; they don’t know where the idea came from, but it made sense and therefore became a belief.

When a group of people who have the same values and beliefs get together to form an institution or organization:

They feed on the strength of the shared values and beliefs.
They also become slaves to the shared values and beliefs.

Humans are capable of believing anything, and if they are capable of believing anything, then unfortunately they are also capable of justifying anything.

I leave it to you to digest what I've said here, and to believe it or not believe it. And to determine its usefulness to you.

But I must ask you this question: Would it not be better for you to think for yourself rather than accepting, by default, others' beliefs?

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004 - What is an Entrepreneur?

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There is not a single definition of the term entrepreneur. There are as many different definitions as there are individual human beings.

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There is not a single definition of the term entrepreneur.

There are as many different definitions as there are individual human beings.

With respect to business ventures, there are different kinds of entrepreneurs.

People are entrepreneurial to different degrees, and in different ways.

So what’s the definition of the term “entrepreneur”?

If you look it up, you might find something like this:

“An entrepreneur is a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.”

This sounds like an entrepreneur is just about anyone who owns and runs a business.

Until we get to these two words:

• Initiative

• Risk

To me, initiative has something to do with creating something.

Someone can own and operate a business without taking much initiative.

If it’s an established business, and things are just humming along, and every day is pretty much like the day before, then not much initiative is needed on an ongoing basis.

But that’s not very exciting.

And then the word Risk.

Scary word.

Associated with other scary words like endanger, imperil, jeopardize, hazard, gamble, chance.

If such words make you really nervous, then maybe you’re just not entrepreneur material.

Taking risks does not mean rushing headlong into the unknown.

Risk needs to be treated with due respect.

Smart entrepreneurs try their best to measure potential risk against potential rewards, not necessarily an easy thing to do.

Smart entrepreneurs do try to mitigate risk, but not to the point of not taking any risks.

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