This blog has been written by my friend, Csaba Toth for this year’s International Women’s Day #IWD celebration.  Csaba is an intercultural expert.  You can see more of his work at www.ICQConsulting.com

Which of these women do you find the most beautiful?

No stress, you cannot get it wrong, every answer is correct and that is the beauty of it.

The concept of beauty and the roles of women greatly depend on cultural background.  What we consider good, normal, attractive or feminine is based on our values and beliefs we are not even aware of.  We cannot explain why, we just feel it and we know it. How is that possible?

This is what Romanian photographer, Mihaela Noroc, has decided to explore.  She visited 37 countries in two years and took pictures of hundreds of natural women surrounded by their culture.

Her project is called “The Atlas of Beauty”, and it showcases our planet’s diversity through portraits of women.

Global trends make us look and behave the same, but we are all beautiful because we are different.  In the end, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder is always somebody else.

Mihaela wanted to capture that feeling of warmth and serenity which is so specific to women and comes to balance all the negativity we see in the media.  People should be more aware about other cultures and beauty can teach us to be more tolerant.

This is what cultural intelligence (ICQ) is about.  It is the basis of personal development and it opens up a whole new world to us.  Our reality is only ours and others’ can be completely different, yet, equally interesting and valuable.

We tend to trust what is familiar and predictable to us, that is exactly what culture is for.  It is a set of unwritten rules, habits, values and beliefs shared by its members.  That is what we consider normal and right, everything else is suspicious and potentially wrong until we understand the underlying logic and intention.

Stereotypes do exist and sometimes we are affected by several of them at the same time, either by suffering its consequences or punishing others.  They are one of many unconscious biases and they affect the way we perceive, evaluate, or interact with people from the groups that our biases “target” such as gender, ethnicity, profession, etc.  It is in our nature, we want to belong to a group, it feels safe, comfortable and we need to protect it.  How?  Often by putting other groups and their members down so we can stand out.

As learning is emotional, when something goes against what we consider normal, we get surprised,  suddenly we pay attention.  This is what Nike has capitalised on. Their empowering ad  has been shared 75k times and watched by over 2 million people, some of which were really angry while others felt it was liberating.  The commercial showing Arab women fencing, boxing and spinning on ice-skates has stirred controversy over its attempt to smash stereotypes about women leading home-bound lives in the conservative region.

It begins with a woman nervously peering out of her doorway and adjusting her veil before going for a run in the street, while a female voice narrates in a Saudi dialect: “What will they say about you? Maybe they’ll say you exceeded all expectations.”

Amal Mourad,  a 24-year old Emirati athlete said her father at first forbade her from training in a gym where men were present.

“Convincing my father was the toughest part… if you want something bad enough you stick to it, and you can get it done.”

Change is difficult.  You must be bold and determined to accomplish your goals and fulfil your potential.  These women are fighting for being able to be who they really want to be.  Not only do they have to face challenges within their own cultural group, but they have to gain the trust and respect of people outside of it.

Being a woman, fighting for gender equality in our individualistic society is hard enough, imagine that in a collectivist one where the pressure to keep up harmony, comply with strict, interpersonal rules is daunting.

It takes a lot of courage to make a change and remember, when you do that, people around you might not like it and they try to pull you back as you being different makes them feel uncomfortable.

Culture is dynamic even though many people refuse to realise the world is changing, we cannot turn back time. As long as it means improvement, inspiration and fulfilment, just do it, go for it and break down the barriers between people.

Beauty is subjective, but strength is not, so let’s celebrate all the strong and beautiful women today and every day.

Let’s embrace International Women’s Day 2017 slogan and #BeBoldForChange.  We all have a role to play in creating a kinder, fairer and more equitable world, don’t you think?

ACTION:  I hope you enjoy Csaba’s blog this week.  Is it ‘food for thought’ for you?  I hope so.  I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment below for me.  I read them all.

‘LOVE is in the air, everywhere I look around… love is in the air, every sight and every sound….’ – remember the John Paul Young song? It’s an oldie but a goodie.

If you’re as ‘old’ as me you’ll dance every time you hear this song being played (totally irrelevant side note – while writing this, I played it on You Tube – so I’ve had a little boogeying going on in my office today.  :)).  I hope you enjoy it too.

Now back to the point…..firstly, Happy Valentine’s Day, and thank you so much for your support and participation in my work.  I am VERY grateful to have you as part of my community.  I truly hope that in some way my business growth and personal development work serves you.

A lifetime of love

Are you a bit like me and think that celebrating loooovvvvveeeee on one day of the year is a bit too commercial?

Go-on call me a killjoy.  I can take it.  🙂

Yes, we buy cards for each other and acknowledge the day, but we don’t go overboard – no romantic dinners and flowers for us today.  Besides, it’s the day after our daughter’s birthday – yesterday she was 15 years old – so we’ve already had a dinner out this week to celebrate Gemma’s special day.

David and I like to think we demonstrate our love for each other every day – not always in that lovey dovey, smoochy kind of way  – sorry if that’s sounding a bit icky.  🙂 But in a calm, constant, happy, respectful loving way.

For me it’s about ‘feeling’ loved and important to David at all times, rather than being ‘told’ I’m loved on a particular day.  He feels the same.

LOVE marketing

I believe it’s the same for your existing and potential customers.

They need to feel the LOVE in every encounter with you and not just when you ‘smell’ or ‘sense’ a sale coming up – that’s fake love.  They must feel that they’re important to you all the time.  You just never know when they might want what you sell or refer you.  If they’re not feeling the love, they can easily go elsewhere…..

To thrive in business, you must put the LOVE into your marketing. For me it’s about LOVE Marketing Mastery™.  Your marketing must be:

L – Lucid – It explains vivdly to your potential and existing customers who you are, what you do, why you do it, and what makes you different.  You’re different from the rest, and you demonstrate that you’re the expert and can be trusted.

O – Outstanding – It’s engaging and educating, and you stand out from the crowd.  You share stories that help your community to connect with you in a meaningful way – so they want to know more about you and hear from you, time and again. They welcome your presence in their lives. Even better, they look forward to you being in their lives.

V – Veracious – It’s truthful, real – authentic.  Always!  If it’s not, you’ll soon be found out!

E – Effective – It achieves your intended results – your funnel of potential customers is full of raving fans who over time convert into paying customers.  Plus you have systems in place to measure your ROI.

LOVE Marketing is the ANSWER

Get your LOVE Marketing Mastery™ strategies right and you’ll have the ANSWER to the biggest question in business, which is ‘How do I get more paying customers?’.

A  – Attract – you’ll attract the right type of potential customers to your business.

N – Nurture – you’ll nurture them with your marketing, enabling you to demonstrate your expertise in your niche.

S – Sell – by nurturing them, over time, you’ll start selling your products and services when they want to buy.

W – Wow – give them the wow factor – be alluring, be contagious, at all times, and they’ll want to buy more….

E – Extend – they’ll extend their relationship with you – they’ll buy more and perhaps more often – you’ll be able to up/down and cross sell to them too.

R – Retain and Refer – they’ll stay with you – they’ll be repeat customers, and if you ask, they may refer you to others too.

And in doing all that, you’ll sustainably grow your business so you can enjoy more of the life you’d like.  Now, that’s what business and life is all about, right?

Next Steps

What are your next steps?  How good is your marketing?  Is it LOVE?  You have the ANSWER.  It’s now time to take action.  Today.  Your business growth, profitability and success depend on it.

ACTION:  I’d love to hear your thoughts on my LOVE Marketing Mastery™. What do you think of it?  Please leave a comment below.

With much love

Adèle

PS:  If you know of other business owners/entrepreneurs who are struggling with growing their businesses, how about sharing this blog with them? It may help them in their journey.

PPS:  If you’d like to talk about how I might support you to achieve the business growth and success you’re seeking in 2017, then let’s have an initial conversation this week to see where it takes us. Please click here to access my diary and we’ll schedule a Skype call.

What’s the biggest question you’re asking yourself in business?

Go on, be honest with yourself.  What is it?

I’d place a bet (not that I’m a gambler) that the biggest, most important and most frequent question you’re asking yourself is this one…..

How do I get more customers?

I talk about this question all the time with my clients.

The reality is that we’re all wanting to grow our businesses, either modestly or massively, and that’s a good thing!

In growing our business it allows us to live more of the dream – we get to create a bigger, hopefully more profitably successful business, pay ourselves more, employ more team members, and enjoy more of the life we desire.

It’s good to want to grow our business – to get more customers. We MUST continue to ask this question at all times.

The gruesome facts

Our world is changing very fast.  Daryl Woodhouse, Founder of Advantage Business Partnerships, shared some challenging statistics during the recent Business Growth Online Bootcamp regarding business failures.  According to a study done by the Federation of Small Businesses, only one in 10 businesses are still trading after 10 years, and one in two businesses fail after one year.

That’s dreadful, saddening and those statistics must alter, as our global world depends on the success of small businesses.  I’m on a mission re supporting small business success around the world – but more on that at another time. 🙂

Importantly, here are the nine key reasons why businesses are failing:

1. Ineffective business planning
2. Ineffective branding and marketing
3. No clear objectives
4. Undercapitalised/not enough finance
5. Management challenges
6. Poor cashflow management
7. Staffing challenges
8. Wrong location(s)
9. Not keeping up with new tools/ways of doing business

The ANSWER

I have the ANSWER in relation to how we brand and market our businesses.

As business owners we must get better at delivering the ANSWER within our businesses to grow them.

A – Attract

We must attract the right customers to our businesses (that means being really clear on our market niche and our desired customer profile or avatar) and go after them with laser-like precision.

We need to be looking for them in all the places they hang out – both online and offline.  Where are our perfect customers?  On LinkedIn?  Facebook?  Instagram?  At conferences/ tradeshows?  At networking events?

Wherever they are, our business must be seen there too – and we must stand out from the crowd (in the right way) to get noticed as an expert in our niche.

In short, we must have a clear and future focused business model in place, supported by excellence in our business planning and objective/goal setting processes.

N – Nurture our potential customers

We MUST nurture our potential customers.  Nurturing our customers in the digital age means being present online!  We must capture their email addresses so we can communicate with them to demonstrate our expertise at what we do… and to stand apart from our competitors.  We must continue to teach our potential customers about what we do and how well we do it.  In the digital age it’s all about consistently educating and informing.

We must find ways to have person to person connections with our potential customers too.  For some of us that’s easy, we can wine, dine or pick up the telephone and talk to our potential customers.

For others of us, it’s not that easy.  So, we must build trust through being real with them in other ways.  Story telling is the new way to build trust and relationships, and we must share our own stories – the good, bad, sad and ugly – yep, they want that too as they want to see that we’re human and we make mistakes too.  Our potential customers must see and feel the ‘real’ us, and not the ‘plastic fantastic’ version that some people show of themselves.

They must meet our team too – we’re all in this together.  Let your team shine in the eyes of your potential customers.  You’ll reap the rewards.

S –Sell

After we’ve attracted the right potential customers, so long as we’ve continued to demonstrate that we’re the experts at what we do, then we’re increasing the chances of them buying from us.

We must be really good at selling to them.  Selling isn’t ‘icky’ as many business owners believe.  When we sell, we’re solving a problem for a customer, and that’s a good thing.  So sell with pride and excellence.  Learn how to sell properly.  It’s a learned skill whichever way you do it – face to face or online.  Get expert help in to coach you.

W – Wow

Business is competitive.  At all times in their journey with us, we must WOW our potential customers.  Everything about their interaction with our business must be excellent.  If it’s not, they’ll surely go elsewhere next time.  We don’t want to be continually finding new customers – often they are the most ‘expensive’ to receive.

How can you and your team and business constantly WOW your current and potential customers?

E – Expand

When we consistently achieve the WOW with our customers, trust continues to build and as a result the relationship deepens and expands.  We’re more likely to be able to sell more to them – that means up/down-selling and cross-selling when they buy from us – we get the privilege of better serving their needs and solving their problems.

This is important as by expanding our business relationship with our existing customers, we get to grow our business turnover and hopefully profitability.

R – Retain

The ‘cheapest’ customer to serve is a repeat customer and they are the VERY best customers to have.  As we continue to WOW them, they will continue to buy from us, and if we’re lucky they’ll become our cheerleaders… they’ll shout out for us, and provide referrals to us.  Now that’s a good (and easy) way to grow our business, don’t you think?

Next Steps

What are your next steps to grow your business?  You have the ANSWER. It’s now time to take action.  Today.  Your business growth, profitability and success depend on it.

ACTION:  I’d love to hear your thoughts on my ANSWER.  Please leave a comment below about what action you’re taking to grow your business.