Thought Talk

I recently renewed my long time passion for horseback riding and met today's guest — Barbra Schulte — at the C Lazy U dude ranch in Granby, Colorado where she was teaching peak performance on and off a horse.

Barbra is a Professional Cutting Horse Trainer, personal peak performance coach, and Equine Consultant. She is a Cowgirl Hall of Fame inductee and, this January, Barbra will be awarded the prestigious Women of the West Award given by Western Horseman Magazine.

Barbra joins me on the podcast to discuss how she became interested in optimal human performance and to share some of her tips on finding your path to peak performance.

Listen in to learn the connection between positive and negative emotions and their impact on performance and to gain some serious tips on how to move past your hurdles and get yourself to your highest peak performance level.

The 3 biggest hurdles to peak performance and how to move past them

• Blame — even self-blame — is a way to trick your mind into taking the pressure off of yourself in a situation — "who cares, I'm not putting any more energy into this". It is the most difficult emotion to get past to achieve high performance.

• Anger — unlike blame, anger has some measure of energy and so you can propel yourself towards peak performance with it; make sure to watch the direction of this energy, steer it away from blame.

• Nerves/anxiety/fear — nerves are the closest emotion to shifting into that positive emotional mindset and peak performance.

• How to shift away from negative emotions and find your calmness:
• • Recognize your current state and name it
  • Get calm — conscious breathing (inhale for four, exhale for four) — take the time you need to lower your heart rate; it takes practice.
  • Direct your energy and move forward.
  • Over time, you can work to condition the calmness by adding a physical trigger.

About Karen Tiber Leland

Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.

Karen has spoken for Harvard, The AMA, Direct Marketing Association, and Stanford, among others. She has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, and Oprah.

Get in touch with Karen on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

About Our Guest

Barbra Schulte is a Professional Cutting Horse Trainer, Personal Performance Coach, Author, Clinician, and Equine Consultant. Barbra has been involved with horses her entire life. Beginning in early childhood and continuing through college, she helped market and show many of her family's 500 head of horses. She competed in western pleasure, reining, horsemanship, and cutting.

After high school, Barbra went on to gain a Master's degree in Speech Pathology and Audiology. In a few short years, she became an administrator at the Arizona State School for the Deaf and taught at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.

In 1983, Barbra's love of horses led her back to the competitive arena where she embarked on a career as a Professional Horse Trainer. In 1986, after reading Mental Toughness for Sports, by Dr. James Loehr of LGE Sports Science, Inc., she began to incorporate his training techniques into her regimen.

You can learn more about Barbra Schulte on her Website

Mentioned

Dr. Jim Loehr

Human Performance Institute

Cowgirl Hall of Fame and Museum

Women of the West Award

Resources

We are almost at the end of 2020 and one of the things you want to think about is the kind of brand you want to be building for 2021. Because of COVID-19 and where we are technologically, there are more eyeballs than ever looking at people online. How you look and how your brand looks online really makes a difference in how you get and convert clients.

If you feel like you might want some help planning your 2021 personal or business brand, you should consider a Rent My Brain session. That's a one-hour session I do with you to take a look at where you are with your brand, where you want to be, and how to get there.

If you're interested, just reach out to me at [email protected].

A lot of us are still spending quite a bit of time on Zoom and other video conferencing platforms— a trend that does not look like it will go away any time soon. As a virtual facilitator and webinar leader I've found several things that help foster audience engagement so that participants are attentive and interactive while on video conferences.

In today's podcast, I'll share some tips and tools you can use to immediately start engaging your audience more interactively on video conferencing. While we all know that the foundation of a great video conference or webinar is content, other things such as keeping all channels open and getting audience feedback make the difference.

Tips

• Keep all communication channels open — different people like to work on different platforms, and building flexibility into your communication channels will enable this for them and ensure optimal attendance and participation.

• Keep your audience engaged — keeping people's attention for long periods on video isn't easy, but one good way is to keep them interacting with you on your virtual activity. Every five minutes or so, try asking them to answer a question verbally or put up something in chat, raise their hands, or to do a thumbs up/down virtually.

• Encourage feedback — one really important thing in virtual facilitation is to use information from the participants. You can use a poll right before or after the event (mentee.com is a good tool) and I like to ask people to put comments and questions in chat. People like feeling heard and useful, it will keep them coming back.

• Make it personal — use people's names. I know that sounds incredibly simple, but just saying the person's name in a session is important because it makes them feel like they're recognized as individuals, rather than you're speaking into this sea of meaningless people.

• Content is queen; it always was — if your content is strong and designed engagingly, it will transcend any technological issues you or others may have.

About Karen Tiber Leland

Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.

Karen has spoken for Harvard, The AMA, Direct Marketing Association, and Stanford, among others. She has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, and Oprah.

Get in touch with Karen on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

Resources

If you are interested in a complimentary consultation on either your CEO brand or your business brand, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or go to KarenLeland.com.

I will be delighted to schedule an appointment with you to take a look at how and what you're doing and give you some advice on how you can convert your social following to customers a bit better.

Today on Thought Talk, I welcome Mark Herschberg, author of The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. Mark has spent his career identifying and studying the skill gap that exists for what he calls firm skills, including networking, negotiating, communicating, leading, and career planning. We tend to think of many of these as situational skills, but Herschberg says they are really life skills — none of which are formally taught in school.

Join me for an interesting discussion on how leveling up your firm skills can lead to higher ROI than you ever expected and how a little bit of training goes a long way to creating a killer career.

Getting Your Skills Up to Par

• Networking is about building relationships and not just exchanging business cards.

• Negotiation is all around us everyday — not just with vendors and employees.

• Leadership isn't just a title — it's about influencing others, having a vision, and convincing others to go along. You can lead from whatever chair you sit in.

About Karen Tiber Leland

Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.

Karen has spoken for Harvard, The AMA, Direct Marketing Association, and Stanford, among others. She has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, and Oprah.

Get in touch with Karen on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

About Our Guest

Mark Herschberg is the author of The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. From tracking criminals and terrorists on the dark web to creating marketplaces and new authentication systems, Mark has spent his career launching and developing new ventures at startups and Fortune 500s and in academia. He helped to start the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program, dubbed MIT's "career success accelerator," where he teaches annually. At MIT, he received a B.S. in physics, a B.S. in electrical engineering & computer science, and an M.Eng. in electrical engineering & computer science, focusing on cryptography. At Harvard Business School, Mark helped create a platform used to teach finance at prominent business schools.

You can learn more about Mark Herschberg on his LinkedIn|Website

Mentioned

The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You, by Mark A. Herschberg

Negotiation Masterclass with Chris Voss

Resources

Do you need a LinkedIn or online presence upgrade? One of the easiest ways to do that is to book a Rent My Brain session.

During this one-hour, high-impact consulting call we get to the heart of your social media and LinkedIn issues and you'll come away with very specific recommendations for how you can upgrade and improve your online presence.

For more information or to book a session, contact me directly at [email protected] or visit KarenLeland.com.

Tweetables and Quotes to Share

"If you have a company of very good negotiators, you're going to do better with your vendors, with your customers, with your partners and even intra-team dynamics in your company." — Mark A. Herschberg PODCAST: bit.ly/39o0yer @KarenFLeland

We think of these [negotiation, networking, leadership, communications] as situational skills, but they're really life skills, and that's a really interesting way to think about it. — PODCAST: bit.ly/39o0yer @KarenFLeland

"You can lead every day from whatever chair you're in." — Mark A. Herschberg PODCAST: bit.ly/39o0yer @KarenFLeland

"Most people have never had any formal training on how to interview others. But if you talk to a manager they will tell you that people are the hardest part of the job, hiring the right people is a key part of the job and your primary tool for hiring is interviewing." — Mark A. Herschberg PODCAST: bit.ly/39o0yer @KarenFLeland

Video content has exploded in recent years and shows no signs of slowing down as a major marketing medium. But making watchable, engaging videos that are on-brand requires training and practice.

I'm pleased to be joined today by Michael Dutcher, CEO and co-founder of bspoketv — a streaming TV channel that creates 30-minute episodes from proven YouTube influencer content.

With Michael's help, we'll explore watchability. What it is, why it's important, and how to increase it on your own videos. We'll also discuss why you need outside eyes to give you feedback on your videos, how to stay consistent in your video brand, and which platforms will best suit your video needs.

Video can be daunting in the beginning, but Dutcher believes that you don't need to be newscaster-perfect and that no one is great right out of the box.

Tips to produce better videos

• Consistency is key — create a recognizable style and keep it. Publish at the same time every time, even if you only make videos at two-week or one month intervals.

• Start small — bite-sized content works fine and allows you to practice.

• For longer videos, have a script — no one can speak extemporaneously for 10, 20, or 30 minutes.

• The frame is two-thirds empty and one-third you — don't center yourself in the frame and be intentional about your background.

• Watch yourself — or have a friend watch you and work on reducing your ticks (tugging your shirt, fixing your hair); they can become distracting for viewers.

• Subtitle your videos — it might make the difference between someone watching or not.

• Understand your objective — What do you want people to do after watching your video?

About Karen Tiber Leland

Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.

Karen has spoken for Harvard, The AMA, Direct Marketing Association, and Stanford, among others. She has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, and Oprah.

Get in touch with Karen on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

About Our Guest

Michael Dutcher is CEO and co-founder of bspoketv, a streaming television channel that creates 30-minute episodes from proven YouTube influencer content. Prior to bspoketv, Mr. Dutcher was the Executive VP in charge of content acquisitions at WhereverTV where he is still a Strategic Advisor.

You can learn more about Michael Dutcher on his LinkedIn|Twitter

Find bspoketv on Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|YouTube

Mentioned

Crowdfunding bspoketv

Resources

Do you feel you need some help figuring out your CEO or business brand for 2021? Are you thinking about writing a book or redoing your website for 2021? Basically if you want to take a serious look at your branding and marketing in the coming year, you might want to consider booking a Rent My Brain session.

During this one-hour, jam-packed, and intense consulting call, we get to the heart of your branding and marketing questions.

For more information or to book a session, contact me directly at [email protected] or visit Sterling Marketing Group.

On today's Thought Talk, I speak with my good friend Dewitt Jones about the power of virtual presentations. Jones is an international Keynote speaker, former National Geographic photographer, and the founder of Celebrate What's Right With the World.

Dewitt went from speaking at dozens of in-person events with thousands of attendees pre-COVID to pivoting to virtual keynotes. He is currently gearing up for his first 130,000 person talk.

We will discuss the keys to a great virtual presentation, what type of backgrounds work (and don't), how to address the camera in a way that feels like you are speaking to an audience, and how best to keep your audience's attention.

Tips for a better virtual presentation:

• Mind your space — there is such a thing as too far and too close on the camera. Find your ideal space for connection.

• The camera picks up on the smallest facial expressions so it's critical to train and practice your presentation.

• Keep your talking portion below 30 minutes and add visual support to remain engaging — images get to the heart and gut of the audience in a way that words can't.

• There is more than one right answer — look for solutions, and remember that the key to creativity is embracing change.

About Karen Tiber Leland

Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.

Karen has spoken for Harvard, The AMA, Direct Marketing Association, and Stanford, among others. She has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, and Oprah.

Get in touch with Karen on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

About Our Guest

Dewitt Jones is one of America's top professional photographers. Twenty years with National Geographic photographing stories around the globe has earned him the reputation as a world-class photojournalist. As a motion picture director, he had two documentary films nominated for Academy Awards before he was thirty.

Speaking to audiences across the country, Dewitt is recognized as a renowned lecturer. His genuine style and ability to communicate with audiences make his presentations truly outstanding. Dewitt's inspirational messages are further discussed in his best-selling training programs.

In the business community, Dewitt's work is also well known. He has produced seven best-selling video training programs, distributed by Star Thrower Distribution. These films are used every day by corporations, schools, churches, hospitals, and consultants — inspiring thousands to find their "next right answer" and to "celebrate what's right with the world"!

Dewitt has published nine books including California! and John Muir's High Sierra. His most recent book, The Nature of Leadership, was created in collaboration with Stephen R. Covey.

Dewitt graduated from Dartmouth College with a B.A. in drama and holds a Master's Degree in filmmaking from the University of California at Los Angeles.

You can learn more about Dewitt Jones on his LinkedIn|Facebook|Twitter

To book him for a keynote visit his Website

Mentioned

Celebrate What's Right With The World

Resources

Do you think you might benefit from one-on-one personal, CEO of business branding and marketing consulting? If so, you might want to consider booking a Rent My Brain session.

During this one-hour, high-impact consulting call we get to the heart of your branding and marketing questions.

For more information or to book a session, contact me directly at [email protected] or visit Sterling Marketing Group.

Tweetables and Quotes to Share

In my experience, background appearance does make a difference. If you've got all these boxes behind you and you're talking about serious issues, those boxes are going to be a distraction. @KarenFLeland PODCAST: https://bit.ly/36t9LyW

"I'm okay with the occasional cat that walks through the frame, but some of the backgrounds people have chosen are just awful: so distracting you can't even watch the person." - Dewitt Jones PODCAST: https://bit.ly/36t9LyW

"My basic message about seeing things differently hasn't changed [since COVID-19], it's just that people need it more." - Dewitt Jones PODCAST: https://bit.ly/36t9LyW

"I want to give people four to five things they can hang onto, to switch their lens just enough to start celebrating what's right. As we come back to a new workplace environment, people need that." - Dewitt Jones PODCAST: https://bit.ly/36t9LyW

Dr. Ellen Reed is the co-author of Relentless Solution Focus; she's worked side-by-side with Dr. Jason Selk for 15 years and has extensive experience in mental training for consistency, accountability, and execution in business, athletics, academics, and the performing arts.

She joins the show today for an in-depth discussion on achievement and how to stay consistent. We touch on how heart rate affects performance and how our brains are wired for seeing problems (problem-centric thought), and share tips on how to cultivate mental toughness, which is abnormal.

Tips

• Interrupt problem-centric thought patterns with the 60-second technique — give yourself 60 seconds before moving on from a problem to a potential solution (use the RSF tool described below).

• Use the Relentless Solution Focus (RSF) tool — a 'living' question to ask yourself in the face of any problem: what is one thing I can do that could help make this better?

• Build mental toughness — follow the three-step process:

1. Recognize when your mind is focused on a problem — anytime you experience a negative emotion is a clue that you are focusing on a problem.
2. Replace — use the RSF tool to find one thing you can do to make it better.
3. Retrain — use the two following tools every day:

1. The centering breath, breathe in for six, hold for two and out for seven.
2. The daily success log, write down:

• Three things you did well in the last 24 hours
• One thing you want to improve in the next 24 hours
• One thing you can do to help make that improvement

About Karen Tiber Leland

Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.

Karen has spoken for Harvard, The AMA, Direct Marketing Association, and Stanford, among others. She has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, and Oprah.

Get in touch with Karen on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

About Our Guest

Dr. Ellen Reed has worked side by side with Dr. Jason Selk for over 10 years, and she has extensive experience in mental training for consistency, accountability, and execution in business, athletics, academics, and the performing arts. Dr. Reed helps numerous athletes, students, and business leaders reach their peak performance through developing the mental toughness necessary for success.

Dr. Reed utilizes her in-depth knowledge and experience in athletics and the performing arts to help athletes and teams from the student to the professional level overcome obstacles and outperform the competition. Dr. Reed also has substantial teaching experience in the University setting, and her background in both academia and the performing arts allows her to apply mental training techniques to success in business and academics.

You can learn more about Dr. Ellen Reed on her Website|LinkedIn|Facebook

Mentioned

Relentless Solution Focus

Resources

Do you think you might benefit from one-on-one branding and marketing consulting? If so, you might want to consider booking a Rent My Brain session.

During this one-hour, no-holds-barred consulting call you can bring up any marketing, social media, PR branding, business development, or content marketing issue you have that you might want some insight on.

You will walk away with actionable items and very specific information about your branding or marketing issue.

For more information or to book a session, contact me directly at [email protected] or visit Sterling Marketing Group.

On this episode of Thought Talk I am joined by Helen Lee Bouygues the Founder of the Reboot Foundation an organization that funds and publishes research on improving critical thinking.

Helen is joining us from Paris where she lives for a conversation on the importance of critical thinking in a world where search algorithms and social media are designed to feed us more of the same of what we already believe to be true.

Tune in for a fascinating discussion on why critical thinking has become one of the top three traits employers look for as well as how you can practice and hone this important tool for success and how scenario planning can and will make you a better leader for the future.

Tips to improve your critical thinking

• Overcoming online misinformation — these are tips to make sure your information and opinions are well-researched:
• • Keep your sources varied, combat the algorithms.
  • Triangulate your information by finding it at multiple sources.
  • Verify who the authors are and what institution the information originates from so you are aware of the interests they serve.

• Follow the S.H.A.R.P. scenario planning method — be more aware and better prepared for the future.
• • S — slow down, give yourself time to think.
  • H — hone and practice your critical thinking skills.
  • A — accumulate information.
  • R — reason and cross-check.
  • P — 'perspectivise', try to see things through to their logical conclusions.

Tips to improve critical thinking in your children

• Critical thinking can become second nature when we start it young — find the critical thinking guide for parents on the Reboot Foundation website.

• Foster free expression and open-mindedness.
• Encourage children to think out loud.
• Ask why — a lot — probe their thoughts.
• Teach emotional management — the part of the brain responsible for emotional management is the same as that for critical thinking, give it room.
• Teach your kids the right way to do internet searches.

About Karen Tiber Leland

Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.

Karen has spoken for Harvard, The AMA, Direct Marketing Association, and Stanford, among others. She has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, and Oprah.

Get in touch with Karen on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

About Our Guest

Helen Lee Bouygues is one of the most successful women in business transformation. She has served as interim CEO, CFO, or COO for more than a dozen companies. She is the founder of the Reboot Foundation, a columnist at Forbes, and working on a book on critical thinking.

A former partner at McKinsey & Company, Bouygues has helped transform more than 25 firms. Over the course of a twenty-year career, she has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in capital, renegotiated billions of dollars in debt, and brought dozens of companies into the black.

Bouygues has lectured around the world. She sits on multiple boards, including those of companies in the retail, manufacturing, oil and gas, renewable energy, and automotive-parts sectors. She graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University and earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

You can learn more about Helen Lee Bouygues on her Twitter|Website

Mentioned

Reboot Foundation

The Social Dilemma

Resources

My 10th book — No Nonsense: Time Management: 50 Tips to Hack Your Time and Get Everything Done — will be out on December 31st through Career Press.

This book contains the results of decades of studies I've done on time management and applies it to today's environment: working from home, video conferencing, and time, productivity, and energy management.

Pre-order a copy on Amazon right now.

"I have a big social media following but it does not seem to be translating into new customers/clients." I hear this comment all the time from potential clients who call me up wondering how to make their social media a more effective business development tool.

The first step in gaining a greater conversion from your social media is understanding that social media is just one out of a necessary six to eight touchpoints to convert a potential customer, and so expecting social media alone to close a client is not reliable.

To increase the chances of you converting someone who likes your social media into a paying customer or client, there are four things you need to ensure are happening as part of your sales funnel:

Tips on improving your conversion rate

• Have a direct call to action — put up a direct link in the social post that leads to a dedicated landing page, white page, or download (special offers, promo codes and limited time offers work well).

• Show, don't tell, your trustworthiness — too many businesses speak generally about why they're trustworthy. For example:

• Saying "we are professionals with a great deal of experience" is a general "tell" description. Instead say "we have worked with more than a hundred companies in 20 countries around the world including American Express, AT&T, Apple, and more", as it is a lot more tangible and "show" oriented.

• Focus on thought leadership and high-quality content. Social media will get people interested in you but it's the quality of your content that will close the deal. Blog posts, LinkedIn articles, white papers, podcasts, ebooks, etc.: these all provide additional touchpoints for potential customers and help make you the provider of choice.

• Put a lead-nurturing campaign in place. A prospect who clicks through your social media or dedicated landing page enters into your sales funnel but they're not necessarily ready to make the purchase yet so keep them engaged, interested, and on the path to being a customer. Try setting up what's called "gated content": this is free, high-value content the visitor to your website gets in exchange for providing their contact information.

About Karen Tiber Leland

Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.

Karen has spoken for Harvard, The AMA, Direct Marketing Association, and Stanford, among others. She has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, and Oprah.

Get in touch with Karen on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

Resources

If you are interested in a complimentary consultation on either your CEO brand or your business brand, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or go to KarenLeland.com.

I will be delighted to schedule an appointment with you to take a look at how and what you're doing and give you some advice on how you can convert your social following to customers a bit better.

Sharing (Tweetables and Quotes)

In today's crowded market, credibility and trust are the core of converting visitors to your social media into customers. @KarenFLeland

You have to start thinking of social media as one touchpoint, not the only touchpoint. @KarenFLeland

The bottom line is that trust comes from social proof such as links to testimonials, media mentions, influencers and endorsements. @KarenFLeland

The more you can quantify that you are a trustworthy choice for your customer, the better. @KarenFLeland

Studies show that it takes an average of six to eight touchpoints to create a viable sales lead. @KarenFLeland

Don't spam people with offers. I think we all know that less is more and value is what's key. @KarenFLeland

Today I want to talk about something that universally impacts our productivity: self-interruption.

If you work in an office, it's obvious that other people are sources of interruption. While those may be less of a productivity problem when working from home – kids, friends, partners, and even pets can easily provide sources of distraction – interruptions by others are only a part of the story. A great deal of the interruptions we experience are self-interruptions.

Here are a few of the most common ways this happens.

• You are working on a project and suddenly remember an item to add to your to-do list. You stop what you are doing to write it down - or worse, you stop to do it.
• An idea pops into your head and you start exploring it on the Internet - stop what you were doing and shift your attention to the thoughts circling your brain.
• You get a ping on your social media and go down the rabbit hole of reading recent posts - an immediate productivity killer.

According to one study, 40% of the time when we're interrupted we don't return to the original task and instead wander off in a new direction. For the sake of productivity in these challenging times, here are four easy tips to greater productivity and avoiding self-interruption.

Four tips to enjoy greater productivity by staying focused and on task, and by avoiding Self-Interruption

• Block out your calendar to focus on a particular project — 20 to 45 minutes is optimal. Make a commitment to ONLY work on that project during that time.
• Time yourself — if your ability to focus has diminished, timer apps can help keep you focused on one thing at a time. I usually set mine for 15 minutes at a time and commit to doing nothing else but what I have planned for that period.
• Keep pen and paper at the ready — this way when an idea pops in, you won't have to remember it, but you can also steer clear of putting it into an electronic device, which can lead to more distractions.
• Do your hardest task later in the day — a recent study showed that contrary to popular belief, self-interruptions tend to diminish as the day progresses.

Tweetables and Quotes on Productivity

Self-interruption involves stopping a task before it's finished because you've switched your focus to a different task or you've gotten distracted by something. @KarenFLeland

According to a study by Gloria Mark, 40% of the time when we're interrupted we don't return to the original task and instead wander off in a new direction. @KarenFLeland

To stop interrupting yourself, try blocking out a defined window of time on your planner to focus on a particular project. @KarenFLeland

If your ability to focus has diminished in direct proportion to the way you use social media, timing apps can really help strengthen your attention span. @KarenFLeland

My 10th book — No Nonsense: Time Management: 50 Tips to Hack Your Time and Get Everything Done — will be out on December 31st, pre-order it today. @KarenFLeland

Always keep pen and paper at the ready, it'll help you be quick about jotting down notes and it'll keep you away from electronic distractions. @KarenFLeland

About Karen Tiber Leland

Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.

Karen has spoken for Harvard, The AMA, Direct Marketing Association, and Stanford, among others. She has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, and Oprah.

Get in touch with Karen on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

Resources

My 10th book — No Nonsense: Time Management: 50 Tips to Hack Your Time and Get Everything Done — will be out on December 31st through Career Press. It's a practical book about being more productive and achieving better time management in an age where many of us are working from home.

I lead a webinar called How to Look Better, Feel More Comfortable and Be More Productive When Video Conferencing and something that's brought up by a lot of executives, salespeople, and entrepreneurs I'm talking to is Zoom fatigue.

Today I want to talk about why and how Zoom fatigue happens as well as five easy ways to nip it in the bud.

5 Tips to avoid video call fatigue

• Stop staring at yourself — You look fine, you sound fine, use the app's functionality to only see others in the call

• Take a break between calls — schedule a 10-15-minute break between calls, get up, and walk around.

• Go audio-only, try the Walk-N-Talk and really try to stick to the timing of the call.

About Karen Tiber Leland

Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build, and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.

Karen has spoken for Harvard, The AMA, Direct Marketing Association, and Stanford, among others. She has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, and Oprah.

Get in touch with Karen on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

Resources

Do you feel you or your team could benefit from some training to look better, feel more comfortable, and be more productive when video conferencing?

I have a great hour or hour-and-a-half video webinar to help you hack your video conferencing calls. In this webinar, we not only cover how to avoid Zoom fatigue but also lighting, camera placement, colors, and clothes to wear as well as how to create more engagement.

Feel free to reach out at [email protected] or go to my website and fill out the contact form at KarenLeland.com.