Did You Make A Mistake?
July 15, 2008
Isn’t it great when people share their mistakes? I don’t know anyone who has been successful in business without making plenty of mistakes. And it’s really useful when they share them with others, especially when they share what they should have done, or what they did to put things right.
Michael Martine did just that in an amazing post. He explains why his first business failed and how blogging saved his bacon. If you’re a business owner, or you want to start a business, you can’t afford to miss reading his amazing story: How I Brought My Business Back From The Dead With Blogging.
While it’s nice to read a great business success story, it’s even better to hear about how someone went wrong and managed to pull things round isn’t it?
Now, I’m not suggesting that you share every single mistake you made with the whole world. I was once told I’d gone overboard on this blog. I had too many posts about mistakes - I even used the word “mistakes” in my tagline.
But sharing some of your mistakes with those around you, including your customers, or your readers - if you’re a blogger or a writer can really help you to connect with them. Nobody’s perfect - and those around you will be able to identify with you more, if you share your mistakes, as well as your successes.
Have you ever made a mistake in business or life? What did you learn from it? Were you able to use the experience to turn things round, or did you learn a valuable lesson that will be useful to you in future?
If you’re a blogger, you might want to try writing about a mistake you’ve made in a post. And if you write about a mistake you’ve made before Tuesday 22nd July and link the word “mistake” to this post, I’ll include a link to your article in a post about a mistake that I’ve made.
Toxic Relationships - Does Blood Matter?
July 13, 2008
If you’ve ever been in a toxic relationship, you’ll understand the damage it can cause to your life and your business. Fortunately, you can escape from most toxic relationships. If you have a friend who constantly puts you down, you can slam the door in their face. And if you have a marital partner who abuses you, or puts you down - it may be difficult - but you can and should get rid of them.
But what happens when you’re in a toxic relationship with a close family member? Do you cut them out of your life too, or do you maintain the relationship for the sake of everyone else in the family? I used to think the latter was the case but I realise now that I was wrong.
In this post, Brett Legree mentions the importance of patching things up with a family member. But, RL David points out that if that family member is abusive, it’s not always a smart idea to attempt to patch things up.
And I think they’re both right. If you’ve had an argument or a fall out with a relative, it’s often best to patch things up. But, if a relative has mentally, or physically abused you for years, or put you down continuously, you would be doing yourself a huge favour if you cut them out of your life.
It’s difficult to build the lifestyle and business you want, if this type of relationship continues. For a start if someone is putting down everything you do - it erodes your confidence, no matter how much you try to fight against it.
You’ve probably heard that the more you tell yourself you’re good at something, the more you’ll believe it. Unfortunately, the same is true when someone puts you down. You only need to be told you’re useless at something a few times before you believe it’s true.
And believe me, no matter how great, or real your achievement is, it’s easy for your mind to be deceived. For example, over the last few years, I’ve worked really hard, often putting in far too many hours. And financially, this hard work paid off, well, I made enough to live comfortably - even though the rest of my life was lacking.
Then a toxic relative began to tell me that I was lazy and I hadn’t worked for years. I found this a bit odd to say the least and I did wonder if it was some kind of joke, as I was running my own business and putting in more than 80 hours a week. But they continued to make this comment. And I was used to being put down by this particular person, so I did my best to ignore it.
A little while later I discovered that they’d obviously passed this lie on to another relative as they said exactly the same thing to me. I shrugged it off - how are you supposed to respond when someone makes such a ridiculous and untrue comment about you? But the final straw came when I overheard two neighbours talking and one of them was saying that they’d heard I was lazy and I hadn’t worked for years. I have no idea what they think I’ve been living on for all this time - maybe they think I’m a drug dealer or something?
Now - at this time, I was still putting in ridiculous hours. And even though this rumour my toxic relative started was completely untrue - the opposite of the truth in fact, I began to start questioning myself. Had I imagined all this hard work I’d been doing? Had it all been a dream? Luckily, I have worked with my husband for the past few years and when I confided in him, he quickly confirmed that I had indeed worked extremely hard.
But this really emphasises the power of the information that your subconscious hears. I was beginning to believe something that I knew to be untrue - just because I’d heard it several times. If you’re in a toxic relationship, I hope this will give you some idea of the damage it can cause you.
The Warning Signs
1. Do you feel as though you’re walking on eggshells whenever you’re around that person?
2. Do you dread christmas and other family get togethers as you know your toxic relative will do their best to make you feel bad and you simply won’t enjoy yourself?
3. Have you begun questioning your own abilities - for example, is there an area of your life where you’ve done well, but your relative has put you down and told you you’re useless at it? Has this affected your belief in yourself?
4. If you try to defend yourself does your toxic relative put you down further - insinuating that there’s something wrong with you because of the way you’ve reacted? (think Sue Ellen in Dallas, when JR deliberately put her down because he knew it would make her drink more - or something similar).
5. Has your toxic relative gone as far as to put you down while you’re not there and tell lies about you to those around you?
6. When you know you have to be around that person, do you find yourself hoping they’ll be nice to you for a change?
7. Are you afraid that your toxic relative will physically abuse you, if you try to defend yourself, or disagree with something they’ve said?
8. Do you feel as though you’re unable to express your own point of view in front of that person?
9. Does your toxic relative constantly say untrue things about you? Are you afraid to correct them because it might cause trouble?
Some toxic relatives will do or say certain things, because that’s what they’ve learned from others. And if they realised that their behaviour was upsetting you - they’d do something about it. Sadly, this probably isn’t the case if they’ve been doing some of the things listed above and especially if this behaviour has been going on for years.
And I could give you a heap of claptrap and bullshit about ways you could respond and how to protect yourself against your toxic relative. But I’m not going to, because I don’t believe it’s true. If someone constantly abuses you and puts you down, they have a big problem. It’s not your responsibility to fix them and you certainly shouldn’t allow them to carry on harming you.
Bullies usually know exactly what they’re doing and they continue because they derive a great deal of satisfaction from making the other person feel bad. And if you continue to allow them to treat you that way, it will affect your self-esteem, you’ll lose confidence in yourself and it will affect your relationships with others around you.
If you feel safe doing so by all means, confront the bully and ask them why they feel the need to do this to you. If this doesn’t work out, you could try writing to them and explaining how their behaviour has made you feel. But I have to tell you that if you reach this point, your letter is unlikely to make much difference to your toxic relative. The chances are, they probably don’t care how much they’ve harmed you, as that was their intention to begin with. However, writing things down will probably make you feel a whole heap better - even if you decide not to send the letter.
Lastly, make it clear that you want no more contact with your toxic relative, if they’re not willing to change their behaviour towards you. That may seem a little harsh, but whilst you’re in a relationship that is causing you harm, you’re unlikely to achieve the lifestyle you want, or realise your goals and dreams.
Do you have a toxic relative? Or do you know others who have a relative who abuses them emotionally or physically, and/or is always putting them down?
Do you think it is healthy to stay in that type of relationship to please other family members? Or, if the abuser is unwilling to change, do you think it’s best to cut them out of your life, no matter how closely related you are? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.
Image Credits
Warning sign by Oskay.
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Credit Fraud & The Business That Throws Cash At Junkies
July 7, 2008
Have you ever experienced credit fraud? Is your business at risk? Are you literally throwing money at fraudsters? Obviously, it’s smart never to offer credit, unless you’ve run the appropriate checks, but you’ve got to ensure they’re done properly.
Recently I heard an amazing story about an international company that was being constantly ripped off. Basically, they were allowing junkies to open credit accounts and although they took bank details etc, they didn’t run credit checks. In fact they didn’t run any checks at all - Mickey Mouse could have opened an account with them. So the fraudsters were able to obtain a heap of goods on account without paying for any of it.
The shocking thing is, the company didn’t even chase up the debts when they didn’t come in. Eventually, they would apply for winding up orders, wasting even more money. And it was only then that they’d discover that the account holder didn’t exist.
Apparently, the company still carries on allowing people to open accounts without carrying out checks. They say that their staff are just too busy opening new accounts to take a few minutes to carry out the checks.
This means easy money for the drug dealers. They often give huge shopping lists to junkies and tell them how to open these accounts and obtain the goods.
This company must lose a heap of money. The checks they need to run would take a few minutes. Surely it would be cheaper to employ additional staff to do this, rather than lose thousands of pounds on each bogus account?
I’m not going to mention this company by name, as putting this info online would attract even more scammers to their door.
Have you heard any scary credit fraud stories? Have you been a victim of credit fraud yourself? What measures could this company take to protect themselves?
4 Amazingly Stupid Ways To Lose Customers
June 6, 2008
Some companies lose customers through bad service, some through carelessness - eg they don’t bother to keep in touch with them. But some companies alienate perfectly happy customers through sheer stupidity. Here’s a few acts of stupidity you want to avoid at all costs:
Discriminating Against Customers From Particular Countries: One of the great things about the Internet is that we can shop worldwide without getting ripped off if we’re from a particular country. Or at least we could.
I’ve used both expedia.com and expedia.co.uk for quite a few years and I’ve always been happy with them. But this week, when I tried to visit expedia.com, a message popped up saying that folk from the UK would now be restricted to their UK site. And when you see the difference in price, you realise why. It costs several hundred pounds more to book the exact same “deals” on the UK site.
This is a foolish move on Expedia’s part. Telling your customers that they can’t use your main site because you want to charge them more is the same as telling them you want to rip them off. After all, Expedia.com were happy enough to take my money when the pound was weak against the dollar. And most people are going to do what I did - check out Orbitz instead, discover that flights are a whole lot cheaper and become an ex Expedia customer.
Spying On Customers:
I don’t know if you’ve experienced this before, but many companies now have the capability of knowing what potential customers have been browsing before they visit their site. And some of them have a little pop up box allowing you to speak to an advisor who knows all about: “INSERT PRODUCT NAME YOU’VE BEEN BROWSING HERE.”
I’m guessing most people will be highly offended by this. I certainly was when it happened to me. Why on earth would anyone want to buy something from a company who spies on them?
The Good Old Promotional Code: Have you ever been in the middle of purchasing something online before, when you notice a box saying, “Insert Promotional Code Here”?
Lots of companies do this, which is great, as we all like a nice discount. But what a customer sees when they see that little box is that someone else is getting the same product for less money. And most of them will go off and try to find a promotional code. Trouble is, they might also find some better codes offered by one of your competitors whilst their browsing. Be smart, if your going to offer codes like this that are available to everyone, offer a link to them on your website. Or your customer might just leave and not come back at all.
It’s A Good Deal But You Can’t Have It: Few things are more irritating than the words, “Offer Not Available To Exisiting Customers.” Banks are notorious for coming up with this type of thing. And even if it was a deal you weren’t interested in taking advantage of, it’s still annoying, because basically the company is saying that they don’t give a toss about their regular customers.
Have you came across these acts of stupidity online that lose customers online? Did you continue with your purchase? Can you think of anymore idiotic online practises you’ve seen that would put you off buying?
