When we encounter change or challenge in our everyday life, it can be so easy to refer to the past and use it as the primary tool for decision making. But is it always the best tool?

We use tradition as our guide. “It worked then, why shouldn’t it work now?” “We always do things this way.” “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” We use tradition as a source of pride. “like those before us who began this great movement/business/organization/family/church…” “… the RICH traditions of our past…”

BUT, we also use tradition as a crutch. “I know it’s an antiquated system, but we don’t have time to reinvent the wheel, just keep doing what you’re doing.” Instead of making decisions based on tradition, why not make them on intention? our intentions grow and change with the current needs of whatever movement we’re a part of. every day has an intention, a goal, a step towards the grander intention or goal. traditions are the oposite. they stay put. they are the result of achieving an old goal. although this is something worth celebrating and considering when encountering the future, it isn’t necessarily the best decision making tool, and yet it seems to be used in a disproportionate way.

When we come to the point of making a decision, our mindset shouldn’t be “what has worked in the past?” but “what will propel us into the future?” or “What will help us best fulfill our intentions/goals?”

[guest blog: Jason Shafer]

You want to be extremely productive with your day?
Turn off your phone.
Turn off your internet connection.
* You can still use your computer, it does still function very well without being connected to the web.
NOW, go to work and focus on your 2 biggest projects.
Try this for 2 whole hours… straight!

EXTREMELY PRODUCTIVE time can be found in dis-connectivity.

Ask any working person who flies regularly. They will tell you how great their time on an airplane is for getting caught up and also getting way ahead. The world continues to function. Earth and all of it’s joys and heartaches will still be here when you plug back in. There was an era where we were highly functional human beings without the drugs of facebook, twitter, email, text and calls… there really was.

It’s as simple as it sounds OR you become addicted to the internet.

We have been working with Jim on a few various projects of his, and his clients. Here is what he thinks about factor1.

Matt Adams and Factor 1 Studios has been our “go to” partner from the beginning of our firm and has significantly made the difference in our impact and growth.  Matt has the successful combination of listening deeply while guiding the conversation to realize better ways of communicating our vision and services.  The results has created an offer that has the “wow” factor to draw in the client and engage them in our services.  We have been pleasantly surprised at the added reach of our services through the media that Matt created.  Clients from coast-to-coast contact us purely from what they read and see on our web site.

I highly recommend Matt Adams and Factor 1 Studios for their cutting edge understanding of global communication, the timely delivery of quality designs, professional guidance to keep the edge on our offer, and the integrity of their entire operations.

Matt’s work and care are so highly valued that I recently entrusted to him the presentation of Technology for Small Business to a group of entrepreneurs that I was leading through a ten week session.  His presentation and valuable offer was the highlight of the entire ten week series!

Jim Rives
President & CEO
Executive Leadership Institute Inc.

This is a simple concept, yet I see so many companies fail at this.

Make it easy for customers to move around in your company.

What do I mean by that? When navigating from one part of your site to another, don’t make them log back in. If you ask callers to enter their phone number, find a way for the operator to NOT need to ask for the number again.

There may be more frustrating things in life—sure, but this is such a simple issue that can be fixed. Log in once, and they are in. Ask for their account number once, and they are in.

Connect the dots. Streamline your systems for your customers, and they will thank you for it.

Before we began, $60 per month seemed a little steep for a 6 year old’s karate lessons. My wife took him to the first few sessions and came back with such glowing reports about the instructor that I had to go check it out for myself. Turns out the dude is very good… and not just at the butt kicking part. He smiles with the kids, learns people’s real names, places jokes in the middle of sessions for the parents, stays firm but friendly and gently employs an “evil pickle’” (a padded green baton) to test the children on their acquired techniques. It isn’t easy to maintain the attention, interest and respect of both 6yr. olds and also adults all while delivering REALLY good karate instruction.

There are defects in his business model to be sure but, I was reminded how personal, high quality and friendly leadership goes a really long way when setting value. Once I experienced the karate lessons I was happy to only be paying $60/mo.

*** Oh, and just so you don’t write this guy off as a fun, groovy kid teacher, I want to mention that his dojo wall is line with his world class accomplishments and articles from every major media source highlighting his personal accomplishments.

[Ryan writes on leadership development at www.RedBikeLeader.com]

“Salesman” has somehow gotten a bad reputation. Perhaps it was converted into a disparaging term by men who pawn worthless used autos with cheap new paint jobs. My own made up history of the word envisions a young leader and entrepreneur alive with excitement about a new revolutionary product that has radically transformed his life. He so appreciates what difference that this new discovery has made for himself that he now can’t possibly contain his enthusiasm. He must tell others. It’s natural. It really is a part of who he is.

Being great at sales takes nothing more than confidence in your product and pride in your delivery and service. If you have personal ownership and belief in what you have to offer, then every conversation ought to be natural, easy and fun. I have a good friend who can’t but help talk about what he does for a living. Not because he needs your money, but because he really believes in what he does. In turn, he is one of the most profitable and successful ’salesmen’ in know.

So, if you aren’t leading at bringing others along on your journey and in your business…
You aren’t proud of what you do OR you need to make your product better.
The leadership choices seem rather simple.

Dont get me wrong, I’ll be the first to look at a new idea and ask if we can make money from it. Where are the expenses, and where is the profit. But I need to remind myself and others often, to have value first.

Try not to become a person of success but a person of value. ~Albert Einstein

Lets take a look at twitter’s newly announced plans of advertising in twitter for a great example. This week twitter announced how it will be selling ads within twitter. Its a pretty unique method. But lets step back for a second.

Twitter was free of ads, and free to users for a few years. They built up a customer base, and refined their systems. They kept it lean and mean by only offering one core service—updates. No photos, elaborate profiles, member pages, or other things that have hurt others in the past. Just updates, and a way to follow others. This added a large value to its base, and probably one key factor to its growth.

So back to present day. Twitter built value, and a customer base as its first goal, income streams came later. Did they always have plans for a revenue stream, I hope so! Sure it may have been a rough outline or a few sketchy ideas, but I am sure they did, and their investors saw it too.

Here are some simple questions to answer as you launch a new business, new product, service, or idea.

1. Who is my customer for this product & what is their need?
2. How will this address their needs?
3. Where is my competition on this new product?
4. Where can this under promise, and over deliver?
5. What is the opportunity for growth after we launch it?
6. Where do we see this product in 1, 2, and 5 years?
7. How are we going to make sure we keep up on the times
   (value now, with outdated needs in a year is no value!)
8. What if we fail to offer value now, can we innovate and change? or is the product dead?
9. How will we gauge & measure the value created?
   (It’s not always sales numbers, especially early on)

We at factor1 are always coming up with new things to help our clients. We clearly outline the goals, benefits, costs, target customer, and where the money is. We often will beta test and give out some freebies to make sure the value is where we expect it.

What tools do you use to measure your value?
Who do you turn to for advice on your new products, service, or ideas?

This was a really exciting project to work on here at factor1. Ace Hardware Phoenix is a regional site to represent the collective marketing efforts of all Phoenix metro valley stores. A total of just over 50 stores.

The new website features a Do-it-yourself video archive, news, sales & promotions, seasonal tips, and a Google Map™ store locations page. The new site is built on the cutting edge software Expression Engine—which also powers many large government and retail sites around the world. Factor 1 Studios worked with local Ace Hardware Phoenix staff to develop this beautiful, easy to navigate website. Visit the new Ace Hardware Phoenix website at http://www.acehardwarephoenix.com and see more work from Factor 1 Studios at http://www.factor1studios.com.

The Core design was planned around the focus of our unique location. Phoenix Ace Hardware stores have a different season of marketing than other states. They sell grass seed while other stores in the US sell snow salt. We had to make sure that the visitor knew they were local to Arizona. So We have a cycle of quarterly images to rotate into the background of the site, all with very clear Arizona landscapes.

The home is very short and to the point. We know the audience is not here to shop online, but to find a store, or watch video DIY tips and messages.

The locations page was built using Google Maps API for a dynamic store browsing experience. A user can pan and zoom to a location near them, or select a store from the list to see it pinpointed on the map.

Videos were a must. Ace Hardware Phoenix has several media relationships that keep the content rolling in on a routine basis. We built a system where Ace can simple add a new video, add the YouTube code, notes and any associated files, and our tools would sort them, newest up top, and rolling archives below. This makes management of the videos a breeze.

News operates similar to the videos page. Simply add a new news article title, description and content.

There—I said it. Your product or service is boring. Most are. You are a business coach, home inspector, retailer, printer; the list goes on. Very few people in any industry make it out of the boring box, and into the fun, exciting, interesting box. I’m not talking just in marketing, although that’s an easy place to start.

How can you find ways to make your product or service NON-boring?

First, know your audience. If you are too silly, less people will want to buy car insurance from you.
Second, keep it clean. Fun doesn’t mean you can get away with spiteful, crude, racist, demeaning or demoralizing. Ever.
Third, experiment. Watch the results, and change if needed.

Fun Case study.

I found this great application for my mac, that is like a super utility. It can search local files, the web, launch applications, run math, and more. All at a click of a keystroke. A super utility tool sounds boring right. It is. I mean, it’s great that it can do so much, but that doesn’t excite normal people. Just geeks. So The company behind the application made it fun. They named it Alfred and gave it a butler look and feel. Now it has personality on top of style and function.

Check this out. they even gave the preferences some nice fun.

Notice the last button.

Special: Do Not Press This Button

You know I had to click it. The result? A fun little video called The Marshmallow test. Nothing elaborate or cheesy, just a splash of fun.

So take your product or service, and think about your customer. In what ways can you add some fun to it? Make it unique, interesting, engaging, bold, or even silly if it works. Try something and report back what happens. I’d love to hear what you did.

yes, today is Shannon Noack’s birthday. If you have worked with Shannon on any of your projects, you need to wish her a happy birthday!

or I think she said she wants this classic shirt from veer.

I draw pictures all day

Also noteworthy today, Shannon has been on staff with Factor1 for 2 years now. She has put up with all kinds of projects, shenanigans and sometimes chaos for 2 years. That deserves some sort of merit badge!