There is all manner of noise in the world of marketing and advertising. We all see if. Everyday brings junk mail that is never opened. Commercials on television programs, with the exception of the Super Bowl, are a time to get something to eat or take a bio break, not something to watch. Radio ad spots? Time to surf the presents. With all that noise, how to get people’s attention?

Be Outrageous! See what your competition is doing and develop a way to be Outrageous. Watch the likes of Donald Trump or Frank Kern. Outrageous indeed. Make valid, but outlandish claims about your product and how it will help the customer.

But, won’t being so outrageous offend someone? Won’t people complain?

Yes, but who cares? Unless you are being socially disgusting, the person offended would not have been a customer anyway. Otherwise, they might laugh a bit, but they will buy. You got their attention by being Outrageous and they bought because you convinced they needed what you had to sell.

Also add Boldness to being Outrageous. Stand out. Make your message attention grabbing. Highlight the relevance of your product. Push the customer to a call to action.

You have a business opportunity and a website and you want to make it more search engine optimized. You live in Auckland and want to try to take locals the most. You figure long tail key words like the following are best:

• home based business in Auckland
• best home business in Auckland
• finding your financial freedom Auckland
• flush your job in Auckland
• welcome to your home based business in Auckland

Perhaps you hire a company to help you with SEO; perhaps you do it your self. You make many pages, blogs and articles that use the key phrases. You really drive the point home about “best home business in Auckland” and “finding your financial freedom in Auckland”. You pages are beautiful and your articles we research. You tweet your blog postings to get them into the major search engines quickly and for free. You buy products to help you build followers. You know the leads are just going to pour in.

You wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Nothing but crickets. What went wrong.

You use the Google adword tool and discover something. No one is searching on “best home business in Auckland,” but they are searching on “best home business”. The competition for this shorter tail is fierce. You look at the sites that are on the top of the first page. There’s no way you can beat that. Is SEO for real or is it just a way for others to make money from you?

The reality is, many of the best key words are already well in use in many industries. The pain of this discovery is made worse when you have hired a company to do SEO for you. Sure, you are at the top of the first page for “best home business in Auckland,” but no one is searching. Well, except you to see where you rank in Google and Bing. That isn’t going to get the job done. What should you do?

Continue your blog and article marking for your long tail key words. After all, this is the market you want, but don’t bother with expensive SEO services for phrases that no one uses. Instead, visit the sites that come up for the shorter phrases that are in your niche. Do they allow advertising? Make note of those that do and pursue advertising there. Let them spend their money on SEO while you use them to market. Now you can use your phrases such as “best home business in Auckland” and the like as your headlines. Now you will see hits to your site and leads in your inbox. Now you are moving toward results.

In his book “The Prayer of Jabez,” Bruce Wilkinson explores the short prayer of Jabez and how it was answered. Bruce uses it as a guide for leading people to pray to have their spiritual territory expanded. Jabez’ prayer was short and comes during a line of kings given in 1 Chronicles 4.

Given that the author of 1 Chronicles breaks from the line of kings to mention Jabez shows that he was held in high regard. He cried out to God for his territory to be expanded and God granted his request. No details are given as to how much the territory was expanded nor what the original limits were, so there is no way to measure God’s providence. But were there any conditions?

Flip over to Matthew 25 to the Parable of the talents. Seems like a break in flow from Jabez, but it isn’t. In the parable, a master gives three of his servants portions of his property measured in talents. To one he gave 5, another 2 and the last 1. The first two immediately put the talents to work and both doubled what they were given. The last however, buried the talent given him.

Upon returning, the master rewarded the first two servants and punished the third. But why? The third servant was not a good steward of what he had been given, so it was taken from him. The other two, just like Jabez, were good stewards and their territory was expanded. And there is a key to expanding your territory.

If you are not responsible with what little you have already been given, you will not be given any more. If fact, what you have may be taken from you. It doesn’t matter if what you were given is a job making $10,000 a year or a business returning over a million, not taking care of what you have will lead to you loosing it.

Are you placing all manner of ads and getting nothing? Getting leads, but none are converting? Take stock with what you have. Are you using it properly? Getting the most of it? Be honest and thorough. If not, start there. Unless you are not using what you have effectively, why would you want more? Burning through money and credit now? Getting more sales will only lead you to dig a deeper hole.

Most people want more, but few take stock of what they have now. Use your current resources to their highest potential before trying to reach for more. Are you taking stock of your activities? Are they leading you to make more money or costing? Why would you want more activities that cost?

Don’t get ahead of blessings to come. Use what you have from the start and then look to expand your territory. Remember Jabez and user your talents effectively. Your territory will expand and lead you to success only when you expand from full use, not from full waste.

You get to choose the next candidate with whom to build a business. There are two left. One is very talented and has the skills to do well. Their lack is in caring if they succeed. If they are successful, good, if not, that’s ok. The second has ok to mediocre talent, but they are ambitious to succeed. They want it. They can taste it. They are driven.

Which will you choose? Why?

The talented candidate will move forward quickly. They will take quickly to training and your time will be well spent. As they apply, they will turn results. Why not pick this one? What drives them? When the going starts to get a little tough, will they continue or stop? They have no ambition so they have no drive. You will have to keep poking them off the couch to do what needs to be done. The talent is great, but without focus it will accomplish very little.

The ambitious candidate is going to take great amounts of energy. They will require repeated training to get the skills required. They will have to try everything more than once to make what is required second nature. They will have to spend long hours and late nights. They will drive you crazy with questions, many times the same ones. They have drive though. They know what they want and believe you know how to teach them to get it. They will never stop, never quit and if they are on the couch, they are dead, not resting. They are teachable and they have a goal. They will succeed.

The Entrepreneur will choose ambition over talent.

Having problems in your business? Cannot seem to get the time of your sponsor? Wondering about too much? Stop complaining and start leading.

Ok, but why? What? How? Take a moment and write the problems you see down. Think about each. Which one seems to be the biggest issue? Second? Third? Now place the rest aside. Time to concentrate on these three.

Research each in turn. What is the root of the problem? What resources do you have to solve each? Where is the gap? Need training? Need knowledge? Need guidance? Time to plan. Time to build a map. Start with what you know.

Now that you’ve taken stock of where you are and what you have discovered, develop a plan to put that knowledge into action. This is the beginning of the solution and starts to create leadership via example.

Have people in turn you need to mentor? Show them how to get to their goals by example. Find other sources of ideas and guidance. Do your homework and get working to put that information to the problems. Pushing yourself will allow answers and solutions to be found.

Take the responsibility for yourself and your business. Don’t let anyone else dictate your success. Be the leader. Show by example. Show by doing.

Or you can just sit down and complain you don’t have a leader who will listen. You can wallow in your own sorrow and blame everyone else for your issues. The problems will then become larger and harder to overcome. And you will have nothing.

It seems that Hollywood is a buzz with 3D movies these days. It is a bit of a hard sell to the public. Many are the interviews stating this is not the 3D tech of yesterday, this is better. Yeah, maybe. Makers of televisions are also starting to make 3D sets using various schemes, all of them expensive. Nintendo also makes a 3D DS. It seems all the world has gone crazy for 3D!

Your business should also be conducted in 3D. Yes, we do see in 3 dimensions, but here the D’s do not stand for dimensions. They stand for Drive, Desire and Determination. Some might call the the 3D’s of success. Perhaps others would label them as the 3D’s of sustainability. Whichever the label, they are three D’s that are necessary.

Drive
This is what gets you up you going. This is “thing” that pushes you, no matter what happens. Without drive, your business will stale, lose steam, lose power. It is the motivating factor. It is how you are in business.

Desire
Without desire, you have no why. You have no reason to be in business. You will be without direction and purpose. Without desire, there is no meaning to open your doors. There is no lasting value.

Determination
Feeling down? Very large obstacles in your way? Nothing but gloom and doom on the horizon? It is determination that applies the drive to the task; applies desire to results. Without determination, problems cannot be overcome as they will be seen as too large. It is determination that sees things through to the end. It uses the other two to keep going, to get results, to get success. It puts you back on course. It levels yours thoughts. It allows yourself to be moved.

The three D’s of business are all important and necessary. Together, they lead you to success. Miss just one and your journey will not be complete. They are intertwined and essential. They feed off one another. They make a whole. They blend to form a more complete result, steadfast and wrong. They are one.

Look up ahead on the road. See what is there? The road bends. The future has decided to head in a different direction. Are you ready? Will you make the turn or go off the road? A bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you fail to make the turn.

The road to the future does not always travel in a straight line. There are times when the road leaves a direct path. One stimulus might cause a bump, another a turn. Be aware and know that these changes bring other opportunities.

“Ah,” you say, “I am moving at full speed! I’ll ride the turn out!” No, you will not. If you are not able to make the turn, you will run off the road. You will be out in a field somewhere, praying the road comes back. “Silly!” you say? Look again.

Although several companies had introduced computers for the home and personal use, in 1981 IBM introduced the IBM 5150. Like other machines at the time, it used an open architecture. Based on the Intel 8088, it was one of the first to finally get into the business environment and be taken seriously. Over the next few years, the standard was IBM and clone makers strove to be compatible. Then in the late 80’s, IBM introduced MCA and changed the royalty structure. Suddenly, making a clone was no longer profitable. IBM was expecting to grab more control of the market, but the road turned. Clone makers discovered how to have VGA compatible without MCA. They also pushed the limits of ISA, created VLB and eventually PCI. And IBM? Sure, they are still around, but they have long closed their PC business.

The road to the future is littered with the remains of many businesses that failed to make the turn. KMart. Circuit City. Biggs. Never assume all is known and travel my proceed without care. Ever be vigilant. Ever understand your customer, the market and the road. When it turns, be ready to turn with it.

Do you know who you are? Really? Down deep? Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? To go where few have trod? Are you fully aware of yourself?

This is more than just a simple question. As humans, there are many times when we will have everyone fooled, but underneath, we know the truth. Fully one’s self show the lack of one trait: Integrity.

A pastor once told me that Integrity is what we do when no one else is watching. This can easily be extended to include where no one else can see or know, that is, inside your heart and mind. This is where Integrity starts. If you start by kidding yourself, no true Integrity can follow. There is nowhere else to go. If you lie that deeply, you will lie to everyone else. Start with truth and honesty and it will flow out and others will notice.

Be aware of what you lead yourself to believe. If you are caught up in who you are now and not move toward who need to be, you will not have results. Fool yourself into thinking you are, and failure will follow you in spades. Starting with Integrity leads to good character, which leads to results. Grow through the changes, do not fear them.

Being in business is one thing, but it tends to focus on the owner. After all, it is the owner who takes all the risk. It is the owner who does all the hard work until the business can support itself. It is the owner’s name of the door and the owner who is responsible when it fails. Why shouldn’t the focus be on the owner?

What of others? What are you doing for them? In the world of business, what you do for others, without regard to payment, speaks more loudly about you and your motivations than any sales record your business may break. It shows your integrity. It shows your commitment. It shows who you are.

A pastor once told me that Integrity is what you do when no one is looking. I would expand that to include what you do when no reward is expected. Learning what others need, where their weaknesses are, that is where you should spend time. Leaders are not just born from some factory, they are forged over time, through hardships, through good, through fire. Leaders think of others before themselves. They train. They learn. They listen. And they act, for others. What of you? Are you a leader or are you looking at just yourself?

Change your focus and start becoming the leader YOU need to be. The one YOU need to see. Understand your weaknesses and train your strengths to overcome them. Lead by example. Stop the complaining and the excuses and get growing. If you are not growing, you are dieing. Leaders grow.