This post is a bit off topic for me but I hope you’ll bear with me. Recently, I received an email that has had me thinking ever since. The email was about The 90/10 Principle by Steven Covey. Hopefully it will get you thinking too.

What is this principle?

10% of life is made up of what happens to you. 90% of life is determined by how you react.

What does this mean?

We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us. You cannot control a red light but you can control your reaction. Do not let people fool you. You can control how you react.

Following is the author’s example:

You are having breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto your business shirt. You have no control over what just happened. What happens next will be determined by how you react.

You curse. You harshly scold your daughter for knocking the cup over. She breaks down in tears. After scolding her, you turn to your wife and you criticize her for placing the cup to close to the edge of the table. A short battle follows.

You storm upstairs and change your shirt. Back downstairs, you find your daughter has been too busy crying to finish her breakfast and get ready for school. She misses the bus.

Your wife must leave immediately for work. You rush to the car to drive your daughter to school. Because you are late, you drive 40 in a 30 mph speed limit zone. After a 15 minute delay and throwing a $60 traffic fine away, you arrive at school. Your daughter runs into the building without saying goodbye.

You arrive at the office 20 minutes late. You realize you forgot your briefcase. Your day has started terrible. As it continues, it seems to get worse and worse. You look forward to getting home.

When you arrive home, you find a small wedge in your relationship with your wife and daughter. Why? Because of how you reacted in the morning.

Why did you have a bad day?

1. Did the coffee cause it?
2. Did your daughter cause it?
3. Did the policeman cause it?
4. Did you cause it?

The answer is “4”. You have no control over what happened with the coffee. How you reacted in those 5 seconds is what caused your bad day.

Here is what could have happened. Coffee splashes over you. Your daughter is about to cry. You gently say “it’s ok honey, you just need to be more careful next time. Grabbing a towel, you go upstairs to change your shirt. You grab your briefcase and go back down in time to look through the window to see your daughter getting on the bus. She turns and waves. You arrive at the office 5 minutes early and cheerfully greet the staff.

Notice the difference? Two different scenarios. Both started the same. Both ended very differently.

Why? Because of how you reacted. You really have no control over 10% of what happens in life. The other 90% was determined by your reaction.

Having had a boss that was very much like this, I can really relate. He would have a bad morning at home and would bring that bad mood to work. It actually got to the point of being funny but everyone knew to stay away from him the rest of the day.

That’s no way to run a business, is it. Trying to apply the 90/10 principle when we react to situations in our businesses may have an incredible affect on the success of our businesses.

What are your thoughts?

Photo credit: Ben Ootjers

The other day, as I often do, I was on twitter looking to see what people were talking about. I read a tweet written by a small business asking if having an RSS feed on your site was enough to get the word out about new products. This person is an events photographer and after each event posts his photos on his website to sell.

Having an RSS feed on your site is very important but it’s purpose should not and really cannot be to sell. It’s purpose is only for informing subscribers of new articles or posts on the site. They see the title to the article or post and decide whether or not to click over to your site to read it. If the article title is not enticing to them, they will not click over. If they do not visit the site, you cannot make a sale.

There is also a limited number of RSS feeds that the average person will stay subscribed to at any given time. If they find another site that interests them more than your site, they will unsubscribe to your RSS feed to follow another. This customer is gone and you have no way of contacting them.

It is also important to understand that customers have a limited amount of spare time. If they visit your site, will they see the offer you are presenting immediately? If not, they will click over to the next site they want to look at. You literally only have seconds to get their attention.

Now, lets consider an email list. I’ve written before about the power of the list and I really cannot stress enough the importance of having a list. If you do not have an email list you ARE leaving money on the table.

An email message delivered directly to your customers inbox is far more personal than RSS. The likelihood of them opening a personal message from you is so much greater than them clicking on an article title to come to your site. You have their undivided attention and time to inform them of your offer and convince them to click over to your website. With a mailing list, you also have the ability to offer specials on what may not be today’s product. RSS is only getting the word out about today’s message.

So, no RSS is not enough to get your message out to your customers. It is of utmost importance that you start an email list and start it now. It takes time to build a list and the longer you wait, the more money you are “leaving on the table.”

If you are looking for an email list service, we recommend using AWeber. They are without question the best.

Photo credit: Osvaldo_Zoom