Men With Pens

APRIL 22, 2010

We’re not confident enough. We’re not confident in our writing, in our own products, and in our own value. So we do that half-punch thing …where it feels like it should be right but ends up pretty darn bad. The Secret Marketing Skill that Packs a Punch That’s the secret – confidence.

Confidence 40

Confidence 2010 AT&T Skills 40

Men With Pens

JANUARY 17, 2010

Someone’s going to come up with a brand new game changer. Competition makes you confident. Being able to say that you’re better for whatever reason gives you confidence in your business and in your product. Winning in a competition is not the same thing as being creative and innovative and coming up with new ideas.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Confidence UPS 40

Men With Pens

MARCH 3, 2010

A client emails you in a panic and the tone is so urgent that you feel the need like it’s your own. Henry Bingaman ( @henrybing ) March 4, 2010 at 3:05 am Saying no takes confidence… but the act of saying no also builds confidence. It makes you feel more confident and it makes you look more professional.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Policies Confidence 40

Men With Pens

MAY 16, 2010

It’s easy to fall into the trap of emailing off four, five, or more guest posts quickly and then expecting to see your work on the blog of your choice the very next day. If in doubt, a polite email to the site owner may be in order. It’s perfectly acceptable to email your contact and ask about the status of your post.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Email Resume 40

Men With Pens

DECEMBER 10, 2009

A project is not about checking your emails each day. You’ll be able to commit and complete in full confidence. I’ve spent the last couple months finishing up existing work commitments so I can begin a new project. Quite often projects overlap, in that you are winding one down, while starting one up.

Project Management 40

Project Management Management 2009 AT&T 40

Men With Pens

JULY 18, 2010

By the time you lift your head up, you might be mightily surprised to realize you need to check your speed or make a sharp turn – and you aren’t ready. That’s a good way to build confident success so that you’re always ready for what’s coming at you – before you get there. The result? Never look back.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Confidence Learning 40

Men With Pens

FEBRUARY 23, 2010

I thought I’d share my personal method for organizing much longer projects just in case one of you gets hit up tomorrow for a ghostwriting project. The Awesome Part Using the clothespins, hang up all the index cards in the best order you can think of. Up to now, how have you been organizing your big projects? Move again.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Confidence Agencies 40

Men With Pens

JULY 25, 2010

All sorts of people are cropping up with posts of deep, meaningful wisdom or challenging views on their blogs, profound personal philosophies delivered with grave sincerity of a Hindu guru scattered across the internet. We like authority and people who have conviction, who stand up and speak their mind with confidence.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Social Media UPS 40

Men With Pens

MAY 9, 2010

Sometimes we’d forget to ask a question and have to send a new email to confirm a detail – that wastes time. We added new questions that had been cropping up more often and we took out questions that weren’t really necessary. So ‘fess up. It ends up being a 2 or 3 step questionnaire. Except the times when we didn’t.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Interviewing Email 40

Men With Pens

MARCH 1, 2010

Taking on more work for less pay does bring in plenty of clients and referrals, but it also ends up bringing in the wrong kind of clients – the ones that expect a cheap workhorse. Speaking of quality, it’ll end up dropping if you load up your plate. Wasted time adds up to pretty big losses quickly. Time is money.

Self Esteem 40

Self Esteem 2010 AT&T Confidence 40

Men With Pens

JULY 21, 2010

Insightful contemplation on my part also pulled bravery up to be examined – I’m glad to report I pass the test with flying colors. Every single time you start your piece, you’re at ground level, gazing up at the words yet to be written. There’s a journey ahead, a challenge, and you’re up for it.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Email UPS 40

Men With Pens

APRIL 15, 2010

And I’ve been soaking up advice from sites like Copyblogger and Men with Pens as well as material from some other excellent writers in the blogosphere. No one assigns you experience points or notes when you’ve leveled up. Most writers aren’t brimming over with confidence, either. We stare at blank screens.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Keyboards Confidence 40

Men With Pens

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

It was narrow – too narrow for today’s modern buildings that took up more real estate. James pointed them out, sounding more confident than Kelly felt. When people type what they’re looking for into Google or another search engine, keywords may help your site show up in the returns for their search term. Confidence.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Phones Confidence 40

Men With Pens

MARCH 2, 2010

We live in a world of rising costs, and almost everyone expects prices to go up a little each year. After thinking about this client and the work he offers you, you’ll probably come up with your decision. Nobody else knows if you feel a bit lacking in confidence, nor should they. Go UP, people! No no no no no.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Skills Salary 40

Men With Pens

DECEMBER 20, 2009

Ask the client for enough time that you feel confident you can meet the new deadline. If you shortchange yourself and have ask for a second extension because you aren’t quite up to snuff yet, your clients aren’t going to be nearly as nice about it. Most of us take a day or two to recuperate. Err on the side of caution.

2009 40

2009 AT&T 2010 Holidays 40

Men With Pens

APRIL 11, 2010

Even if he never made one sale through his website, he still needed to have one up there. So the CEO toys with his pen, glances up from the contract and says, “What’s your website again?” A website like that conveys confidence, pride and prowess. He was doing just fine offline… was this online thing worth the money?

2010 40

2010 AT&T Expenses Social Media 40

Men With Pens

JUNE 27, 2010

Admitting that your sleep patterns are all screwed up and that you can’t hack it? Arianna Huffington of Huffington Post once passed out from exhaustion – she broke her cheekbone and ended up with five stitches. Are you up for it? If you’re like many freelancers, you’re probably not sleeping well at all.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Health Stress 40

Men With Pens

JULY 7, 2010

The fine line between great work and exceptional work often lies in the execution and feeling confident and relaxed. beating freelancers up says volumes about the client and their own feelings of business self-worth. Show up on sites and blogs and forums where your ideal target market hangs out. Let freelancers do their job.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Project Management Elance 40

Men With Pens

JUNE 6, 2010

I showed up for the job. I certainly had a good dose of it by now, knowing my blog posts weren’t up to snuff. I should close the blog, give up my career and walk away from it all. So I gave up. And truthfully, I didn’t really care anymore – I had enough blog posts banked up to cover my ass for a while.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Keyboards International 40

Men With Pens

MAY 30, 2010

This post is about why you need to use clear, tangible, emotional benefits to get your consumer to buy, join in, sign up or attend. Let’s use my teen as an example and see what we can come up with. Imagine their reaction when you say, “Come on, let’s hit up Roxy’s Pizza – my treat.&# They’re broke.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Cubicle UPS 40

Men With Pens

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

Just come up with 3 or 4 niches that you actually give a damn about. Email the owners and offer to guest post or to do an interview. One of the best benefits of spreading into other niches is how you’ll come up with out-of-the-box ideas on how to one-up the value you offer to your existing customers in your main niche.

2009 40

2009 AT&T Gifts Training 40

Men With Pens

DECEMBER 8, 2009

There are lots of other people out there getting seriously up in arms about it, though. How Relationships Work When you’re a tiny little kid and you don’t have any friends yet, the grown-ups around you explain what is and is not friendly behavior. Yes, I rather thought so myself. Friends share with each other.”

2009 40

2009 AT&T Purchasing Credit Card 40

Men With Pens

JANUARY 21, 2010

The fact that he is still slightly amazed about his fame makes his posts interesting, in that he brings up questions that I think we should all ask ourselves. I really can’t screw up too badly. People listen now…’ Definitely confidence issues for me. Which is pretty cool, if you ask me. Perhaps it was inevitable.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Interviewing Learning 40

Men With Pens

JUNE 20, 2010

You’ll hear if your introduction sounds weak or choppy, and you’ll discover whether your wrap-up encourages conversation or just stops it cold. You can rework it and nip all the awkwardness so that you create flow between paragraphs, clarify your ideas, expand on skimpy sections, and hone the perfect lead-in and wrap-up.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Keyboards Learning 40

Men With Pens

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

Once you fess up to that unspoken goal, everything changes. There are proven ways to get there, and if you’re just making it up as you go along – both in terms of novel and parenting – you probably won’t succeed well. It’s an opinion, but dare I say, Grisham isn’t quite up to brilliant. And take Dan Brown.

Goals 40

Goals 2009 AT&T Learning 40

Men With Pens

JANUARY 3, 2010

We need to listen to one another and see if those new ideas have merit, or if they open up any other possible courses of action. It’s up to us to stop allowing others to make decisions for our industry, our careers, and our lives, both as a group and as individuals. We Can Wake Up a Bit It’s not like we have a choice, you know.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Google Social Media 40

Men With Pens

JANUARY 10, 2010

The guy writes with confidence and authority. It didn’t work at all as described and I emailed him to ask “did you actually use this or are you just selling it for the affiliate income?&# On a bigger scale, over time I would think both James and Chris have it right-the statistics would pile up in favor of integrity.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Social Media Twitter 40

Brilliantly Better

JULY 17, 2010

The Set Up Warning : this is going to be a highly technical post, so if you’re unfamiliar with terms like compiling, backtrace or ViewControllers, you shouldn’t read it. I’m not up to this challenge. Each improvement was the result of hours of falling down and getting up again. What am I doing here? It looked enormous.

2010 40

2010 AT&T Learning Promotion 40