Your Farmer List

By “farmer list,” let’s call this the chores you’ve gotta do every day. They’ll be different for everyone, but let’s lay out some starters to get you thinking. Then, the real opportunity will be for you to lay out your own farmer list, inspired by what this one makes you think. And by the way, this might remind you of 19 presence management chores you could do every day. It’s not entirely unintentional that I’m revisiting this.

Daily Chores

• Get your blog post up. Make it helpful, worthy of comments, and unique.
• Comment on other people’s blog posts.
• Share other people’s blog posts.
• Comment back to people who’ve commented on your blog.
• Read something not related to your market.
• Connect with five people not in your vertical or your geography.
• Reconnect with people who matter. Drop an email or call. Don’t ask for anything.
• Look at the map of where you think things are going for your business. Anything change?
• Read the “weather” from the blogs you follow. Anything there?
• Think about what seeds you might plant for future projects.
• Share at the farmer’s market your best yields.

This is just a starting point to a much better list that you’ll write.

What goes on YOUR farmer’s list?

Photo credit mollypop

Instead, I prefer to compete with myself.

When I win business that other digital media groups were also trying for, I never think of it as winning from them. Instead, I just feel like I finally got a proposal to sound even a third as enthusiastic as I sound in person. When someone else gets a great big feature in a magazine, instead of feeling angry or sad or like I lost, I think to myself about how I can achieve more and deliver more results, so that it’s obvious next time that I be called for a story.

Competing with one’s self is far more fulfilling. You control more of the variables. If you want to find more success, throw yourself into your work, into doing big things that matter, into helping your clients succeed. That’s so much easier to conceptualize than thinking about racing against some other person or group.

If you’re trying to catch up to my numbers (and ask yourself why, because the numbers aren’t what matter as much as how you leverage them), you can’t control what I’m doing. So, every little variable I add messes up your effort to catch up or pass. Meanwhile, you’re not paying as much attention to you as you are to me, and are thus not focused on the part you can change the most.

No one ever won a race looking sideways.

Remind yourself of this often. Competition was given to us by our overlords. It was put in place because in situations where someone fabricates a competition, invariably, a third party benefits from BOTH parties’ efforts more than you. Most times, when you’re feeling competitive, you’re being played.

So instead, work within yourself. Work your variables. Work on those things you can change. Work to improve your skills, your thinking, your ability to serve, and your capacity to complete more than you could before. Execute. There are so many talkers that by just doing, you get the chance to win.

It’s much more fun this way. Believe me.

Photo credit peregrine blue

No, I don’t have time to chat, even though my tweets seem conversational. No, I’m not able to take a quick phone call.

I’m multithreading. I know it looks like I’m just tweeting to tweet, or adding comments or facebooking or any of the other things we do in social media, but I’m also doing my job.

Tweeting is part of my job.

I’ll always connect when I’ve a moment. You’re just as important as ever.

Please just understand that work looks a lot different from my desk than yours some days.

While answering questions for some behind-the-scenes work, I started writing down what my day today was like. Most of my days are different in small ways, but this is an example of the current pace. There’s no real lesson to learn here. I just wanted to show you what it takes to keep my part of the game in play.

What I did yesterday:

3:24AM Go to sleep after working 3 hours to fix a problem with SMC Kuala Lumpur’s video upload.
7:00AM Wake up
7:10AM Call with Nashville event. Run-through of my work with them.
7:12AM Food arrives at my room. Gets cold. I drink the smoothie, leave the eggs.
7:40AM Dip into emails and stuff. Answer a few tweets. Comment on some blogs.
8:00AM Call with Lynne D Johnson on new project for November.
8:21AM Shower and groom
8:30AM Downstairs to meet Tim Hayden (didn’t get the mail he’d be late)
9:00AM Meet Hayden and Paul Walker (UT), and Cierra Savatgy-King for breakfast (fruit and grits).
10:25AM Walker leaves. Hayden and I talk business (love this man).
10:30AM Hayden lets me go.
10:31AM Get into Simon Salt’s car with Julien and Tessa
10:35AM Pick off a few emails while carrying on chatter with humans
11:19AM Arrive at venue
11:25AM Deep in the humans (what I love most)
11:28AM Take 1 quick personal call. Back to the humans.
11:45AM Put together an impromptu slide deck because they demand slides and Julien and I were doing a chat
12:00PM Present to Austin AMA marketing
1:06PM Finish presenting. Start signing books and shaking hands, hugging, posing for photos.
1:40PM Podcast interview with Fred for Struggling Entrepreneur show (check email a bit during)
1:55PM Eat chicken and rice (pretty delicious).
2:15PM In the car to the airport (check email a bit, friend back some folks on facebook).
2:50PM Arrive at the airport and check in/security screen.
3:20PM Plug in for power and flip open the Verizon air card. Download all my email for the day to my laptop for offline mode. Process another 9 emails.
4:00PM Jump in the plane. Get out another 7 emails.
4:26PM Crack open the laptop. Listen to Jay-Z The Blueprint 3 (amazon link) and answer emails in offline mode.
6:05PM Write two blog posts (still listening to The Blueprint 3).

I’ll arrive in New York pretty late, and will try to get some sleep before tomorrow. I’m going to be at the Writer’s Digest conference, but because I’m in New York, I also have a lot of other people to check in with, lots of meetings, and as much opportunity as I can squeeze into this crazy tour.

Days are packed with interview requests, emails, project requests, new connections, and lots and lots and lots of people asking me to look at their new whatever. You’re all important. I’m doing everything I can to answer things in between planes.

From New York, it’s Vegas, then Nashville, then Atlanta, then Orange County, California.

I won’t be in my own bed until sometime in October. This is okay. It was part of the plan. Kat and the family are okay with this. We’ll see each other in Orange County for a few days, and my kids will see Disneyland (Thanks, Cheril). This is what I signed on for.

Most people have one business, or two. I haven’t operated that way since 2005, but this is a bit mental, even for me. With that all in mind, I’ll tell you what’s working well:

* Great team with me at New Marketing Labs (announcement coming soon of our new guys, too).
* Great professional assistant (Diane Brogan, aka my Mom, who joined me last month).
* Outsourcing help (from Chel Pixie on a project for an upcoming book).
* Friends (a few behind-the-scenes bits of help from friends I didn’t get permission to name).

And what am I doing next? I’m building armies (the last of the six tenets of being a Trust Agent). I’m working on developing more people, raising up more talent, and expanding what we’re all doing in this space. What I believe and what I do is something that many great people are doing. I want to bring more of them into our fold as we grow more and more opportunities. As New Marketing Labs is helping big companies get more human and connect with these new tools, I’m confident that I’ve got a good company running, and I’m grateful that I’ve got Stephen Saber and Nick Saber as partners to guide me during our growth.

Outside of New Marketing Labs, I’m developing some new projects. Readers of my newsletter are getting insight into one of these projects. It’s not marketing. It’s about how human business works, and goes beyond social media. The other projects? I’ll keep them in stealth mode until they’re ready to launch, but just know that things are moving here at a blur pace.

This post isn’t intended as a way to talk about myself. Instead, I’m illustrating what goes into running business, what goes into hustling (as the kids say), what goes into moving my chips from one game to the next game, and how to keep the plates in the air in the interim. I’m changing my own game. I’m making new ones.

You? If you’re wondering where your big success is, it’s in work like this. It’s in grinding it out. You don’t have to do this to get by in life. I’m not in the “getting by” game. I’m out to win. For me, I’m going to build something to help as many people as I can before the spotlight goes off.

What’s your story?

(Oh, and I’m still listening to Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3)

I’m on vacation and I’ve had at least one post a day the whole time. How? Simple: I scheduled them. I wrote the posts ahead of time, and had enough in reserve that I could have some days of bliss without worrying about things. This isn’t tricky. It just takes some prior planning.

In Chris Penn’s case, he built a project that’s pretty easy to research and put up. In my case, I just blogged like I normally do, but I wrote an extra 3 posts a day for five days, so that I had two weeks of content. (Yes, that’s a lot of work, but you can do it at whatever pace works for you).

The one thing I don’t recommend doing is stopping for your vacation. I mean, you can slow down, but don’t let your media slow down. Why? Because your community and/or your audience are quick to find replacements, because they come to rely on your media as part of their diet, because every post is an advertisement for what you do best.

This isn’t a how-to post; it’s a recommendation. Keep your media making alive. We notice the difference.

The following is a guest post from GL Hoffman, who wants to help you in this time of economic uncertainty.

No one wants to be anonymous. We all want recognition and appreciation for who we are, and what we do. Most of the surveys say that recognition is what we most crave from our workplace. And, it is the determining factor to why people stay at their job. How can you make sure you are not anonymous at work, how can you stand out amongst all the others? Here are some ideas for you to try:

1. See work. In most companies, jobs are almost always bigger than the person. You can make your job bigger and better by simply seeing work that needs to be done, and then do it. Most of us work in small companies…there is always work to do. Do not wait around for someone to point out work to you. Get a reputation as someone who can see work, especially un-assigned work. Chances are good that the baby boomers at your workplace are not using Facebook, Twitter or blog. Seek them out and offer to teach them. They won’t ask, but we all know they do need the help.

2. On time. Be on time in everything you do. Complete projects when you say you will. Show up on time in the morning or after lunch. This is a small thing, making this a workplace habit will pay off. There are tools in every email product that allows you to coordinate meeting spots and times, be the one in your office that uses it.

3. Be perfect. Understand that even though no one is perfect, your boss expects perfection. You never know when your poor grammar in an email will negatively affect your career. Learn to be your own worst critic. Always improve. Even though the business community is getting lax with abbreviations and LOL, you should be careful and consider the audience.

4. Can Do. Exhibit a “can do” attitude. Remember that the company can pay a lot of people a lower salary to NOT do your work.

5. Do the job no one else wants. Careers have been made on this reputation alone…do the toughest, the worst, or the jobs that have caused others to fail. Search out the toughest tasks.

6. Be sales minded. Most companies need revenue. What can you do in your job to add sales? Always be looking for ways that you can impact sales in your company.I guarantee you there is no faster way to move ahead in a company that being seen as someone who can meaningfully impact the sales. Chances are, your VP of Sales is behind the curve on social media tools. Show him how he can use them to stay in better contact with his customers and prospects.

7. Customer-focused. How does your job impact the company’s customers? If you don’t know how, find out. Every business needs customers. And every job touches the customer in some manner. Become an expert on how your job positively impacts the customer. Do your customers use Facebook? Is someone monitoring the blogs from competitors. Don’t assume that the ‘higher-ups’ have an in-depth understanding of new tools and media

8. Always improve. Improvements do not have to be gigantic to gain attention. Make sure that this month you are doing a specific task better than you did it last month. Small incremental improvements in your performance get noticed.

9. Don’t whine, gossip or complain. Save whining for after work and only to your partner, spouse and only if you absolutely need to. It is so common for people to get together and complain about work. The more you do, the worse you will do.

10. Become an evangelist. Most businesses have a leader or boss who is really-really-really good at presenting the business in an exciting, positive way. You can also do it, even if only to your co-workers, customers, family, friends. Think of it this way. You meet someone at a family reunion and they ask you what you do. What do you tell them? Does this person leave the conversation understanding more about your job and company? The goal should be to get THEM as excited about what you are doing and your company as what you are. Young people make think this is NOT cool, I understand. But in small companies, especially, your boss knows who are evangelists for the company. With the new, under-used social tools you can make a name for yourself, by becoming the in house evangelist that uses Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or even blogs about your business.

G.L. Hoffman is a serial entrepreneur and venture investor/operator/incubator/mentor. Two of his companies have traveled the entire success path from the garage to IPO. He has been featured in Forbes, Wall Street Journal and other local business publications and newspapers. Find out more at Dig Your Job

Cut Relentlessly

Gandhi was fond of saying that we all have the same 24 hours in our day; it’s all in how we use them. All of these things that I’ve cut are my choice. If YOU do them, that’s great. This is where I found some time.

• I don’t watch commercial TV (haven’t for years).

• I don’t play casual games online more than once in a blue moon. (Last night, I played Line Runner to test out MySpace’s recently launched games portal.)
• I cut several projects that I was doing that were fun, but weren’t meaningful to my larger goals.
• I cut participation in several online groups where I was only going through the motion.
• I cut how much time I spend on any particular social network. I spend time with people, but I don’t consume every scrap of content.
• I’ve chopped out real time social events that felt more like obligations, and limit my social media ones to 2x/week.

Through these efforts, I find back some of the time I need to work on projects that matter more to me, and to spend with my family, who are my supporters and the people I want to please most after myself.

Say No With Kindness MUCH More Often

This one is hard for me. I love participating. I love being part of things. But I have found that I have to say no to things a lot more often, so that I don’t accidentally set myself up to let others down. This still happens, because sometimes, I misjudge the project’s impact. But more often than not, I’m sending people polite no’s, and redirecting them to people who might be just as good at fulfilling a request. The more I can say no to projects that I can’t possibly keep up with, the more likely I am to do well at the ones I’ve already taken on.

Learn Triage and Loop Closing

Triage is the art of quickly looking at everything that needs doing and knowing what will either make the most impact or relieve the most stress. Often times, in business, we’re faced with relieving the stress (pressure of deadlines, complaints, squeaky wheels, low hanging fruit) before we can actually take on the parts that have the most impact. I try hard to balance those two targets, even though I often find myself more on the tactical side of the stick than I’d like.

Loop closing becomes important in communication. When it comes to the back and forth of business communication, I strive for closing the loop as fast as I can. Let me explain with an example:

• You email me asking me for a phone call to run something by me.
• I respond with my cell number, the days I’m best able to take a call, times that are best, and ask for some sense of the agenda of the call. (Note that I’ve given as much to close the back and forth as I can on that first pass.)
• You email back with a few dates and times. I pick whichever is first that matches my needs (no thinking, just doing), and if you’ve given me a summary, I try to offer my advice in email (which works faster than phone calls, and permits asynchronous conversation).
• I close the entire thread with no more than 1 or 2 more emails TOPS, and only then if I think I can resolve this without that meeting.

I do the same with all communication, as best as I can. When the boss points out a problem, I give him recommended next actions to take, and/or describe which ones I can handle without any input. Even if I have to have follow-up and re-positioning conversations, I’ve given my best shot at settling this on the first pass.

Decisiveness

I had a great conversation the other day where the key point that seemed to be missing from someone else’s action was decisiveness. I recognized at once that there are points in my day when I’m not just deciding on a path and taking action, that I’m shopping my idea around for advice before execution, even when it’s my task to solve. I’ve learned through this that however much I can fold into a decision, that’s more that won’t be a loose thread blowing in the wind for me later.

Templating and Shortcuts

Perhaps the most important thing I learned from Thomas L. Friedman’s THE WORLD IS FLAT is the notion of “value chain disaggregation.” Big words, but what they mostly mean is that if you look at some work process, there is almost always some way to break it down into a chain of processes, and that SOME of the processes need real thought and consideration, while other processes are more repetitive and/or simpler to replicate. Your goal (the goal of Creatives) is to focus on the part that adds value, and find ways to automate or outsource the parts that take the least creative effort.

I’m doing this with work, insofar as I’m working to build processes that others can execute, where my ideas are most useful up front and in the final execution, but not in the operational details. I call this templating.

On the side of shortcuts, I’m doing lots of things. On my computer, I’ve started using TextExpander and iClip extensively to speed up my use of repetitive text. Whenever I find a word or phrase or piece of information I use all the time, it goes into either of those applications (both Mac applications) for use.

I’ve also learned keyboard shortcuts for Firefox, Gmail, and Google Reader, such that my primary tool for communication and my tool for information processing is all keyboard-level fast for me. This cuts down the amount of time it takes to process things.

Finally, people ask how I’m always posting stuff daily and without much break in consistency of quality. WordPress has a simple, DIVINE tool that I use quite frequently: Edit Time Stamp. I can set a post to launch whenever I wish, so for the possibility of me having too much to do and not enough time to manage my blogging (which I consider to be an important part of my life’s work right now), I schedule a few posts to launch on days or times when I’m worried I might miss getting something out to you. This has proven very valuable on days when I’m too busy with other projects to get a post out, but when I know I’d rather you have something new to consider.

Tidbits

• I make use of two tools for my task and project management right now: Things (a project software for Macs loosely based on Getting Things Done), and Google Calendar. Between these two, I’ve found a flow that helps me move through my processes faster and with fewer drops.

• I don’t use instant messenger much because I find that the majority of people who contact me there are “bored” or “hanging out” and I am almost always neither bored nor hanging out. Though I do use Jabber IM to see Twitter.
• I think in multiple threads. Instead of fighting this habit of doing more than one thing at a time, I have a few things I try to do to keep focus: I open a notepad file with huge font and put the top most important things to do in a given day. I keep a ‘scratch pad’ or two running with strange sidebar thoughts or tasks.
• I allow lots of things to fall right out of my head after their impact has lessened. #1 on this list: directions. I have no idea where I’m going most of the time. I’ve surrendered to wanting to know. I use Google Maps. Some day, Garmin will take pity on me and just send me a GPS, but then, I haven’t launched that project.
• I have a little gate in my head that separates: “this would be cool” from “this relates to things I’m doing,” and I pass lots of things through it. Often, they fall into the “cool, but I can’t do it right now” category.

Where I Scale the Least

My biggest challenge continues to be in person, and/or in real time. This is where I fear being considered a snob or rude the most, too. They relate.

At events, it’s really difficult to give everyone the time they deserve. In some cases, someone I don’t know will vacuum up a lot of time telling me a vast biography when they’ve approached me to ask me a “quick question.” In other cases, I find that there are lots of great people and not enough time. For example, at any dinner, it’s almost immediately tricky to see everyone at a table without some level of shifting around. It gets tricky, and people feel left out. (I’m sensitive to that).

Further, I find that events are where I go to meet up with old friends and reconnect, but also where I go to meet new people with new challenges and inspirations. So I’m always trying to balance both, because I love my friends, and some of these folks I don’t see in person more than once a year. And yet, that makes it tough to meet new folks.

The phone is tricky that way. It’s a 1:1 relationship between my attention and my ability to do things, because I focus on the back and forth of the experience. It’s great when I want to reach out to people, but it’s tricky when I’ve got too much to do and people want to have long, drawn out meetings. (I’m learning some tricks from my boss on this one).

What About You?

Where are you learning how to scale? What areas do you need to improve? How much of this resonates with your busy life, and have you found ways over the hump where you might notice I’m still struggling? We can share, right? : )

Photo credit, Kevin Dooley