Entrepreneur Geek

Daily ripples of excellence – over time – become a tsunami of success. The space shuttle uses more fuel during its first three minutes after liftoff than during its entire voyage around the earth.

The first step truly is always the hardest. Because you are fighting the forces of gravity of your old thinking and habits. No human being likes change. We do love predictability. So anything new scares us and sets our internal systems into varying degrees of confusion and chaos. But you can’t reach mastery unless you are always willing to take action to move things forward.

A practical tool to use is “The Daily 5″. Imagine doing five little yet important focused acts every day to get you closer to your most important goals.

(From Robin Sharma’s The Leader Who Had No Title)

Got an email this morning from HubSpot about The Influencer Project – 60 Ways to Increase Your Online Influence – In 60 Minutes. HubSpot generally comes up with good content, so I went ahead and downloaded the report.

The Influencer Project got 60 thought leaders together, gave them one minute each to speak about what you can do to increase your online influence in the next sixty days. You can download the audio recording and transcript from here, but here are my notes (and what I found most valuable).

• People are not interested in your product / service. They are passionate about solving their problem.
• Use targeted Facebook ads to reach your audience. You can even target people from a specific company!
• Grow your circle. Look outside.
• Talk to people. Social media is about interaction.
• Give good information on how people can solve their problems.
• Be consistent.
• Get offline. Call and meet people in physical world!
• Create 2 minute videos with insights / solutions. (and invite them to subscribe to your list)
• Defy conventions.
• Talk about people you want to influence.
• Set up a Facebook fan page.
• Create a video interview of yourself – either by a professional reporter or a friend.
• Share your expertize. Share whatever you know.
• Be clear about your online persona from the beginning.
• Repeat your tweets / blog posts.
• Answer people’s questions on your landing page before selling them something.
• Use large buttons before the fold on your landing page.
• Get out of your head and get into other people’s spaces.
• Share about your different businesses / passions. It’s not necessary to talk only about one thing. Make more connections.
• What are the challenges your influencers have? Provide some solution for that. And then you influence your influencers.
• Stories – Human Psychology – Great Content
• Product value of your content gets you attention.
• Ask questions that start a conversation on social media
• Follow 5/10 people that you admire over next 60 days. Comment on their blog, retweet them. Then ask them for a 15 minute interview with you.
• And finally, the most important: Don’t just feel good about this advice, get into action!

What would you do to increase your online influence?

If you are coming here after my talk at Prerna – Entrepreneurship Seminar at SFIMAR today, welcome to a budding entrepreneur! What follows is a collection of my best articles on entrepreneurship from last 4 years.

My Best Blogs Posts for Entrepreneurs and Startups

• How to pick a co-founder?
• Are you a ‘scale-first’ or ‘money-first’ entrepreneur?
• Entrepreneur’s Lesson: Be Frugal, Avoid Temptations
• 5 Things That Changed My Life, and Could Change Yours
• Avoid these customers – five warning signs to say no to customers, plus three signs to die for
• 8 Traits To Be Great
• What’s the formula for Genius?
• Apple’s Marketing Secrets
• Life is about personal leadership
• Startup School 2008: Key Takeaways, from OnStartups
• The Art of Speed
• 10 Resolutions to boost your business
• Seven ways to avoid the growth traps
• Personal Brand – steps in creating a powerful personal brand
• Deliver Authentic Leadership – Robin Sharma
• HP’s Rules of Garage

Remember, there is equal risk in jobs and business

You will be concerned about four things when you consider starting on your own:

• Entrepreneurship is too risky
• It takes too much time
• Business requires significant skills and confidence
• (and best of all) Starting your own business needs lot of money

Consider that first three concerns apply to doing a job as well. As for money, it’s really about cashflows – both for individuals and businesses. If you have an urge, don’t wait, start something of your own. You can do it over weekends, you can do it on a small scale, but just do it!

And yes, you don’t need to be the poster boy of entrepreneurs, you don’t need huge successes

Most people talk about dreaming big and huge successes and the glamor around entrepreneurship. The truth is, you don’t need to be hugely successful. What matters is whether you are happier being on your own and making more than what you would have made in a job. You don’t need to grow to be the biggest company. You just need to follow your passion.

Go out, start something!

If you are the guy who uses<div> tag for everything, this post is for you. It focuses on how you can write clean HTML code by using semantic markups and minimize the use of <div> tag. Have you ever edited someone’s templates, don’t those messy tags drive you crazy? Not only writing clean templates can benefit yourself, but your team as well. It will save you time when you have to debug and edit (particularly the large projects).

This post is a collection of some simple yet effective techniques. Read all tips over on Web Designer Wall.

Zig Ziglar is best known for his sales training programs and books. But I am loving this podcast of Inspiring Words of Encouragement from Zig Ziglar (iTunes).

I have listened to only 3 episodes so far, but they are full of practical wisdom and ideas you can implement right away. If you have read self-help books and heard other leaders, you will realize that not everything is new. Truth is that nobody can come up with something completely new on self-help anyway.

Here are some points that touched me.

• On dining table, talk only positive things from the day with your family
• Take small incremental steps regularly
• You are always in control of your life, your attitudes and your moods
• Smile when you meet someone, they will smile in return

If you listen to this podcast everyday, I can bet your confidence, relationships and performance will jump.