Excerpts From The Lifestyle CEO Book!

From the Introduction

One sunny summer day in 1995, I gave two weeks notice to a very stunned vice president and set off to create a life I could enjoy from the inside out. Now, 11 years later, I am fulfilling my highest calling for this time in my life. I am a wife and mother of two beautiful children ages 2 and 4. Day after day, hour after hour, I enjoy earning a living without really having a job. Instead, I do what I love to do, in a home office that allows me to respond quickly when my husband and children need me. I participate in field trips to pumpkin patches and strawberry farms without having to ask for time off. I enjoy picnic lunches during the week now and then, and perhaps best of all, I do my grocery shopping when no one else is in the store.

Instead of working for corporate America, I actually own a tiny piece of it. I have broken the chains of 9 to 5 bondage. I am free. I make my own job security because I own the job. I do not look to an employer to define my worth, my day or my life! I do what I love to do, and I do it on my own terms, meeting the challenges of entrepreneurship while also enjoying meaningful and life affirming family time as I create a legacy for my children. I am a Lifestyle CEO and one of my greatest joys is equipping others to become one too, for we all can.

From What To Do When You Don't Know What To Do

I am going to tell you a secret now that will give you a huge head start on turning your passion into a successful business. In fact, if you only remember one thing from this entire book, remember this and put it to work for you. It’s great to have a superior product. It’s great to use the highest quality ingredients to make what you sell, wrap it up pretty and sell it at your website. It’s great to have a memorable business name and an easy to find website address with a user-friendly shopping cart. And it’s certainly great if you have a lot of money! But you can have all of those things and more, and still be doomed to failure from the start if you don’t do one thing. Above all else, as you start your new business, you absolutely MUST adjust and renew your mindset to live and enjoy life as a Lifestyle CEO.

This means you have to do more than just think outside the box. You have to demolish the box and create your own rules for success. Be more aware of who you are, where you are in your life and what you want out of life. It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Just focus on your business, get up a little earlier in the morning, organize your office, be true to yourself and you’ve adjusted your mindset, right? Well those things are certainly great things to do, but they’re not what I’m talking about here. (We’ll get to some of them in later chapters.) What I’m talking about now, from the outset, is literally rebirthing your mind by forgetting for a moment about how great your product or service is. Forget about how lovely your website is. Forget about everything you have ever thought about starting a successful business and focus on building your entire business around a single thought

From Family, Inc.

Lifestyle CEOs enjoy extraordinary lives. They expose their children to exciting lifestyle choices and instill in them a sense of self-reliance and confidence. They set their own schedules and consequently are able to enjoy their time together on their own terms. They do not greet the start of a new workweek with a wish that it would end and family time is not limited to the 24 waking hours between Friday night and Monday morning. They work hard, far harder, than they ever worked for other people. But the pay off is big. Everyone rolls up their sleeves to accomplish the shared goals that propel both individual and family unit forward to their next appointed task. Each couple starts with a similar goal: to create a lifestyle that could be enjoyed from the inside out and which is dictated not by societal norms and expectations, but by the still small voices inside of them that told them.

From Wrap Technology Around Your Finger

An opt in online newsletter is a great way to increase traffic to your website because it gives you a periodic reason to contact people who have specifically asked to receive news about your business. Despite its benefits, an email newsletter should not be launched on a whim. In many ways, if you have a newsletter, you will have to also become a part of another industry – the publishing industry. Rest assured that it is a lot of work and can easily eat up time that you could otherwise spend growing your business by generating sales in other ways.

If you think that developing articles and other content for a newsletter it too much for you, consider a periodic “email blast,” which will send customers a colorful reminder about your products. Email blasts can be done around holiday occasions and can incorporate complementary products or services provided by others. For example, Carol’s Daughter issues four email blasts a month, each one displaying beautifully photographed products and a message corresponding to a particular holiday or theme. Because Carol’s Daughter’s owner Lisa Price is a music fan and her customers tend to enjoy music, her email blasts sometimes include an offers to get a popular artist’s CD with a minimum purchase.

As a publisher, you will create and edit content (or perhaps pay others to do so), purchase or take high quality photographs, create publication layouts, manage subscriptions and a whole host of things that have nothing to do with making and selling your products. In order to manage these things, I recommend launching a newsletter only if you feel you have the time to publish a professional publication. As a rule of thumb, to be effective a newsletter needs to be published at least monthly and with regularity (i.e., on the first Sunday of the month and so forth). Set aside a minimum of 3 full days to learn how your newsletter hosting service works, another 5 hours a month to produce and publish a monthly newsletter, and another few hours each month to manage and maintain your subscriber list. If you think you have the time to invest, or if you can hire someone to manage your newsletter for you, here's how to produce a topnotch publication.

From Intellectual Property: Branding and Trademarking

It’s easy to see how brand establishment can mean nothing without the accompanying trademark rights to protect it. In the cosmetics industry, Mary Kay touts itself as “America’s most trusted brand.” Revlon is the brand of choice for the “Most unforgettable woman in the world – you.” Avon is “The company for women.” Ford says “Quality is job 1.” Ryan homes are “Built for life.” Beautyrest gives you “Better sleep through science.” Each of these slogans is also a registered trademark used to brand the company associated with it. These companies are successful not only because their products are reliable and fun to use but also because they have a particularly unique brand, and they own legal rights to that brand, and they rely on the brand at least as much as the products to generate sales. Whatever your brand name is, it will stand for the type of emotional experience your customer will come to expect from you. To “brand” your products is to choose your most significant strengths and communicate them in the most compelling ways possible to your customers, using a name that is uniquely yours in the marketplace.

When choosing what name you will use to brand your products, choose one that will allow you the greatest possible degree of control. Choose a name that will separate you from a sea of nameless, faceless competitors and give you the power to label yourself and your products the way you want to. If you have the money, you may wish to consider hiring a marketing or “naming” form to help you choose a name for your company. The price for such services can be as much as $20,000 on the low end, but if the resources are there, investing them in the selection of a company name is worth considering. Most small businesses do not have the funds to hire a naming firm but many of the same tactics they use are available to help you do it yourself.

The importance of selecting optimal brand names for your company and the products or services you sell cannot be understated. I have read estimates that consumers are exposed to over 30,000 commercial messages each day and this number will no doubt continue to rise as more and more people spend time on the Internet. But your brand is so much more than the sum of what you sell. It also encompasses the people who work with you, the colors you choose for your brochure, the look of your website and even the car you drive and the clothes you wear. All of these things collectively combine to form the foundation for your customers’ future buying decisions.

From Schmooze or Lose

For Internet-based business, there are two types of “physical” face time. One is physical on the telephone and the other is physical in body. Sure, email and online discussions are fun and convenient, but the convenience of email will never be a substitute for one-on-one conversation between human beings. Let's face it, if all you need to do is confirm an order, send "form" information, or ask a simple question or two, email is great. But by now, everyone in business, both large and small, knows that with all its efficiencies, email can be an extremely impersonal and sometimes wholly ineffective communications tool depending on the circumstances. Supplementing online face time with personal follow up extends the reach of the Internet, making an online presence remarkable and distinctive.

When I was in the "corporate job," I represented my company in a legal capacity as its attorney. At the time, we were trained (some would say brainwashed) to resent our corporate competitors. So, I did what I was told, doing my level best to thwart competitors' efforts to in any way undermine my company's strivings in the industry. One day, I learned that the president of my company played golf regularly with the president of our fiercest competitor, and that their sons attended the same school. It suddenly dawned on me that, though they headed competing companies, they saw the value of personal relationship building ... something that cannot be done online. If you want your business to be a significant part of the life you love, you will have to build relationships that can enhance both your business and professional lives. To do this, you have to actually show up personally now and then.

From Telling Stories That Make Your Cash Register Ring

When you use the media as a way to market your business, you tap into a powerful medium that has far more potential than paid advertising and even your own website or brochure. Advertisements are useful, but they are paid for. You wrote them yourself and everyone knows that. On the other hand, when an objective member of the media makes you a part of a legitimate news feature, you enjoy a priceless addition to your marketing strategy, and it can be used time and time again to make a “first impression,” generate buzz and increase sales. I have heard it said that news coverage is 6 to 10 times more effective than advertising simply because of the editorial screening process it goes through before it’s disseminated.

If you tap into the power of the media from a public relations perspective, you will enjoy a huge head start in terms of differentiating your company from the competition. Just initiating and developing strategic relationships with the media will make a big difference in how your company is perceived and in how you perceive yourself and your company. Creating “buzz” about your products is absolutely necessary to be successful in any industry. It is nearly impossible to do this without getting at least some media coverage that you do not pay for. To tap into the power of the media, you need to do 3 things, and do them well: (1) define your message; (2) deliver your message; and (3) multiply your message.

Want to learn more?! Do more?! Live more?! The Lifestyle CEO book is shipping now! Get your copy today!