What's Your "Honest Slogan"?

If you had to be real honest with yourself about your business, you'd probably admit that there are areas in your business that you see differently than they see. They don't have the same complete image in mind that you have of yourself.

This gap between intended image and actual image is what makes sites like honestslogans.com
succeed.

Giant national businesses have just as much trouble managing the divide between intended image and actual image as much as small business.

Understanding that there is a divide is the first step to recovery. You can admit you have a problem, this is a safe place!

Lifewall has had a few image adjustments since opening our doors in May 2012 and the result, sometimes, has been confusion. If we were on the honest slogans website we might have things like "Aren't you guys only an online business?" or "They print big stuff." Even worse, some people might has such a mixed up image of us they might use the slogan "Not really sure what they do." But understanding where our image weak spots were enabled us to make corrections and fix our image problems.

As a small business it's extremely important to control your image. If you're a part of a small community, this is more difficult because your business is most likely attached to who you are personally. So if you feel a certain way about politics or religion, people might attach that to your business.

There is good news! You have an upper hand on big business! Everyone knows it takes a lot longer to turn a large boat than a small one, You may not be able to change your image over night, but you won't need to spend millions of dollars on a 30 sec super bowl ad hoping it will turn everything around either! ("turn everything around"; it's a boat joke..)

So be honest with yourself! What is your honest slogan?

Once you figure it out, work to repair the places you're weak.

Lifewall for Business is all about finding that intended image and communicating it to your customers.

Let us know if you need help closing the divide in your image, we'll be with you every step of the way!

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Authored by Maxx Raths. Interested in more of what's happening at Lifewall? Follow us on Facebook. , Google+, and at yourlifewall.com.

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"Always [don't] be the smartest person in the room." Developing effective business leadership.

Lifewall for Business supports leaders with vision, but why limit that to prints on your wall?

Some interesting thoughts on developing effective business leadership...

Have you ever heard the phrase “Always be the smartest person in the room”?

I heard this the other day, and it sounds pretty compelling, especially for leaders.

But if you really look at that statement and then compare it to how great leaders actually function, I think we see the opposite is true.

In my experience, great leaders surround themselves with people who are smarter, better and faster at different things than themselves.

We each have rooms or areas that we are in the position of leadership; let's call it “my room.”

Being the leader in “my room” means that I don’t do everything the best, I’ve hired people and gathered people who are better than me at everything so that, as a team, we can be the best.

Being young means I need to put myself in a place where I am always the dumbest person in the room. I need “my room” to be filled with people who know things I don’t know and who want to invest into other people their knowledge.

One day I might be asked to be in someone else’s room.

I might be like Daniel invited into King Nebuchadnezzar's chamber and be asked for my advice or, expertise, or my perspective.

But to even be qualified to give advice, we need to spend many years as the dumbest person in the room, and the longer you leave yourself as the dumbest person in the room, the greater impact you’ll have in those times when you're asked to be the smartest person in the room.

There are times that you may need to be the smartest person in the room, but a truly wise leader with clear vision knows that being the leader is often a position of service before a position of power.

How do you lead your business?

Always being the smartest person in the room? I hope not…

For more insight into this, read Jack Welch’s blog post "Are you the smartest person in the room? Let's hope not."

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Interested in more of what's happening at Lifewall for Business? Like us on Facebook. 

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Authored by Maxx Raths. Interested in more of what's happening at Lifewall? Follow us on Facebook. , Google+, and at yourlifewall.com.

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