Client Case Study: Advertiser Partner Training

Many of our clients are facing the same challenge right now – regardless of the industry, geographic location, or economy. Hiring qualified people to fill the growing list of open positions.

Over the course of the last year, I have been working with many businesses to expand their recruitment efforts in innovative and unexpected ways. Testing platforms, messages, landing pages, and copy to become more competitive in their recruitment efforts and land better qualified applicants. While it has not been a fast, or easy process, we have gleaned a few nuggets that have improved the overall success.

Understand Your Workforce

1. Talk to your colleagues and employees and find out what they love most about the job.
2. Go to Glassdoor’s reviews and look at what people in the position you’re hiring for are complaining about in the “Cons” section. When I did this for a position I often have difficulty filling, I was able to see that culture and opportunities for growth were the biggest areas in recruiting talent to KeyMedia Solutions.
3. Do they have common interests (outside of the job) such as NASCAR or KNITTING? Are they in a similar life stage; young and single, or married with children? Do they have a shared passion for craft beer? Use Survey Monkey to poll your team and analyze the results.
4. What motivates them? Money? Opportunity to advance? Respect? While this information may not come out in a typical survey, try using assessments such as a DISC type of assessment upon hire. Not only will this give you insights to the individual motivation, but how to best communicate with each team member.
5. Take everything you’ve learned and make that the focus of your recruiting campaign. Include facts, benefits, and opportunities that will grab their attention and appeal to their interests. For us, leading with culture and professional development are key motivators on why a candidate should choose us over the other offers. That is the lead statement in our job posts.

Be Where They Are

1. If your potential employees are active SnapChat users, then you need to engage with them on SnapChat. Likewise, if they spend a lot of time watching sports, extend your AdWords Display campaign to include ads for your openings on ESPN.com.
2. If you are recruiting young men, a YouTube promoted video campaign will net more applicants than a post on a job board.
3. If you are looking to hire women with an artistic flare, Pinterest is the place to interact and share your job openings.

Use Video

1. Imagery in social media, on websites, and even your careers page will create a much greater impact than posts that only include text. While static images are better than straight text, video is best.
2. Use Facebook live. Walk around the office or shop, interview current employees (have this pre-scripted so you know what they are going to say), or chat with the President.
3. Show a behind the scenes look at your organization; feature key employees that have been with the company for a while and let them share why they chose your company. Highlight a day in the life for the position that is difficult to fill; allow the candidate to get comfortable with the requirements of the job.

Your Culture Matters

1. You must talk about more than the job requirements and standard benefits. What does your company do for its employees? What opportunities for growth (personal and professional) are available for your staff? How do you give back to the community?
2. Your careers page should sell your organization first, and list open positions second.
3. Most job searches occur on mobile devices. Keep this in mind when developing your Careers page, choosing content, and deciding on the mandatory fields for each form. Keep the content light, entertaining, and clean. Forms should be minimal, with only the required information at the beginning. Consider offering a TEXT to APPLY option if you are trying to recruit younger, less professional positions.

Communicate In Ways That They Natively Communicate

1. If you are looking for employees that are younger than 30, expand you communication to include text messaging. Allow them to text you for additional information. Use texts to schedule the interview and follow up. While this may feel unprofessional to any of us over the age of 30, it is the norm for our younger counterparts.
2. Likewise, if you are recruiting for a professional position on an executive team, email and LinkedIn messages are the expectation. Ensure your messages are polished and reflect the position you are hiring for.
3. Phone calls seem to have become a lost art, but personal communication is extremely valuable. Expand this to include Skype calls and interviews when in-person interviews are challenging. Listening to their tone, inflection, and reading body language will help you make the best decision on hiring.

After reading through the list, choose one or two new ideas and test them with your next employee recruitment campaign. I’d love your feedback on how they work for you!

It seems like every week our favorite social media platforms force us to change something — adapt to a new layout, update settings, or agree to new terms & services. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s take a look at how the social scene in 2017 shook things up in big ways.

• Facebook Stories happened and, in October, we learned Facebook was rolling out an option to cross post Instagram Stories to Facebook Stories.
• LinkedIn stepped up its game for B2B brands by adding lead generation forms to the LinkedIn Advertising platform, letting users claim an offer with one click.
• One of influencer marketing’s favorite platforms, Instagram, incorporated a “paid partnership” tag with the intention to enhance transparency for users to easily distinguish sponsored content.
• LinkedIn, again making waves, included its own native video abilities answering the prayers of B2B marketers everywhere.
• Twitter dominated social media headlines in November 2017 by doubling its character limit from 140 to 280.

As we’ve officially put one full month of 2018 under our belt, it’s time to take another look at our resolutions we set coming into this year. Let’s start by reviewing our 2018 Social Media promises to ourselves to see what progress we made in our first month of the new year.

Getting Organized

Committing to organization with your social media means being intentional. Don’t post just for the sport of posting something. Think quality over quantity to give your followers a reason to keep coming back each time you share.

Planning out social media content requires thinking through content that drives results. Ask yourself:

• Why is my business on social media and what am I aiming to achieve by being there?
• What value does this content bring to the person reading it?
• Is this content relevant to the goals of my business?
• What has driven engagement and results in the past?

Using monthly or quarterly content calendars are great ways to plot out a timeline of content to ensure a consistent presence and timely messaging. Calendars can help you organize how to share the same content on multiple platforms with strategy instead of generic copy and pasting. Calendars can also include deadlines to ensure timely creation of valuable and engaging content. In the end, a little upfront time and effort can smooth the social media processes.

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Be Authentic

In an age where the general population’s trust in businesses and media have declined, authenticity is a driving force behind the success of any social media presence. It’s a common saying to have “one consistent voice” for your brand, and while brand standards and consistency are important to overall best business practices, one voice can make social media feel a bit stale.

Done correctly, being active on social media is an opportunity to show your followers who you are and what you’re doing instead of talking at them. Edelman’s Trust Barometer Global Annual Study measures employee voices on social media to be trusted by 16 more points than the voice of a CEO. What does this mean for your business’s social media? Empower your employees to be built-in brand ambassadors for your business. Take it a step further and encourage your customers to join the conversation. Sharing genuine stories online not only displays your company culture, but reassures consumers in the early stages of the awareness funnel that you’re a real and reliable company.

Remembering that at its core, social media is a conversation—not a billboard. Meaning, participate in conversations and respond to people who call you out, don’t believe you, or just don’t have anything super nice to say.

Carmen Collins, Social Media Lead at Cisco shares a LinkedIn example:

“We posted a link on LinkedIn to a blog authored by an employee with a powerful story and a powerful photo to go with it. It was one of our most commented-on blogs of the past year because she poured her heart out. One of the comments on the LinkedIn post was something to the effect of, ‘I hope this person isn’t a model. I see so many companies doing that.’

As the brand, I was ready to jump in and comment (because that’s what we do)—but I didn’t have to. The employee popped in and said ‘Nope, I’m real!’ Then her network popped in and said ‘Yes and she’s awesome.’ And we earned trust in ways we never really planned for.”

Collins’s example is a great reminder that it’s the conversation that happens after the post is published that develops relationships and trust for a brand. Instead of using social media with a solo voice, empower your tribe of followers, employees, and customers to be a chorus of voices sharing a consistent message: you’re real and you care.

*This post originally appeared on Forbes. To read the original, visit Forbes.com. 

Have you experienced a social media troll or seen unwanted solicitations appear on your Facebook page? Chances are good that if this has not yet happened to you, it will. Soon. So what do you do about it?

Today, it is critical to be prepared with a plan to respond when a social media crisis occurs – because it will likely happen sooner or later.

Prepare For The Worst, Hope For The Best

Next week, lock your key stakeholders in a conference room and don’t let them out until they have completed this exercise. While that may seem extreme, it is that important! Developing a clear plan of action – identifying all possible negative events and writing out the company response will save you time, stress and unneeded negativity in the event that something happens. While this sounds daunting, it can be pretty simple, and maybe even a little fun with the right attitude.

1. Create a social media crisis management document.

Brainstorm all possible events that could negatively impact your business. Your plan should include the various potential crisis scenarios; the complaint origin and its reach, who is impacted in each situation (individuals, current customers, potential customers, general public, staff), the classification of the complaint (more on this later), who is responsible for responding (marketing, public relations, agency, management), and the recommended response, including the verbiage, tone and location of the response. As for potential scenarios, include everything from company embezzlement to negative press to an angry customer or sabotaging competitor.

Last February, my agency was were working with a very popular wedding planner. Just before Valentine’s Day, she posted a lighthearted blog post on why she doesn’t like Valentine’s Day – commercialization, overpriced flowers, forced gifts in schools. It took about 10 minutes for the outcry of texts, Facebook messages and comments to begin. While this was an unforeseen response, it caused immediate chaos. She elected to remove the blog from her website and social pages and issue private apologies to those offended.

2. Identify the origin of the complaint.

Is it really a crisis? Where did the crisis initiate? Which channels are fueling the crisis? For our wedding planner, a full-on crisis was averted by taking quick action: The negative attention died as soon as the post was removed. If you are facing a potential event, gauge the depth and breadth. Is it one person on one network? Or has the conversation (awareness) spread into the mainstream media?

3. Identify who it could impact.

There are two primary audiences during a crisis: those directly affected and those whose attitudes about the company could be influenced. Determine which group is being impacted the most and what that impact could possibly be for each situation.

To see this in action, monitor Twitter when a local cable provider has an outage; you will see who was directly impacted by a situation. How the cable provider responds will determine if there will be a lasting impact on the brand.

4. Categorize the commenter.

In general, there are five types of posts (widespread criticism, individual solution-seekers, trolls, solicitors and fan-to-fan interaction) that could cause problems on your social profiles, which Rodney Hess outlines in a “Practical Ecommerce” article.

I recently came across a fan-to-fan interaction that influenced my buying decision: I was interested in a swimwear brand until I read through the comments on a sponsored post. There were about 50 comments of frustrated customers (no refunds, slow shipping, poor quality products, unresponsive customer service). This lack of customer service was reinforced when the company had elected to ignore all comments; not one of the 50-plus comments came from the company.

5. Formulate your response to each situation.

Provide honest and straightforward answers that reflect your brand’s voice, beliefs and culture. Avoid pointing the blame. You will gain respect if you talk about how you plan to fix the issue before going into what, how and why it happened.

Once this is completed, share the document with your legal counsel, public relations, marketing and management teams. Gain buy-in across all departments. The more rapid the response, the lower the risk of the crisis getting out of hand. A quick, appropriate response can turn a dissatisfied customer into a brand advocate.

Beyond this crisis management document, there are a few additional actions that you can put in place to prevent some issues from ever arising:

• Post a public commenting policy on your social media accounts and blog to provide guidelines for others wanting to comment on your posts. (Here is a good example of one on Travel Oregon’s Facebook page.)
• Have a social media policy within your company handbook that clearly states the expectations of employees on what they can and cannot say on corporate pages and personal pages.
• Assign at least one person to monitor your social media accounts, reviews and web mentions. Having a trusted individual (or team) that understands your brand values, products, and the appropriate response to situations will mitigate issues quickly. Empower them to respond quickly.

While I hope you never experience a crisis, you will sleep better at night knowing you are prepared.

Let me start by saying, no this is not a collection of recipes, so you can relax. For those of you who grew up watching the Twilight Zone, you probably got that reference and for those who didn’t, you should really watch the show. The Twilight Zone was the best TV series ever!

The word “serve” has three forms – two verb forms and a noun. “To perform duties or services for” and “to present (food or drink) to someone.” The noun form refers to an act of hitting a ball like in tennis or volleyball.  For this article, I’ll be focusing on the first verb form and how we can serve others with a cheerful intent.

What Is It

The phrase “to serve” brings to mind many different forms of serving. When I mention “to serve” you may have thought of military service or community service or serving in a religious sense. We often think of service in terms of a big act or long-term commitment, but I also think of what a lot of people call “Random Acts of Kindness.”

We call them random acts of kindness, but what if we stopped making them so random and tried to incorporate some form of service in our daily lives. They don’t have to be grand gestures or monitory gifts, but they should be done with the intention help others in some way. What if the acts were of cheer or the giving of time, or a helping hand? I know we think we never have spare time, but if we look, I bet we can find some.

As a husband, father, son, friend, and colleague, I have a lot of opportunities to serve my fellow man. I have opportunities through my place of employment. Our CEO Korena Keys also believes that service to others is an important part of life and we have opportunities to express that value.

Finding Opportunities

 So where should you begin? First, be open to the idea that serving can take on many forms. As a company, we have delivered supplies to the Humane Society and visited a local retirement center, we even did a food drive. In the rest of this article, I want to point out a couple examples of little situations where I was able to spread cheer in a simple way.

As I mentioned earlier, service can be anything. There are two instances I still reflect on because of the reaction of the individuals I encountered. Both were at a local grocery store. As we all know, waiting in line can test a person’s patience, but don’t forget there’s a person on the other side of that conveyor belt trying to do their job.

In my first story, I noticed a young man having a rather tough time checking items out. The line was long and he was doing everything he could to keep things moving. I thought it might be nice to try and cheer him up by having a little fun.

If you’ve seen Super Troopers you know the “Meow” skit and it was hilarious! As the young man was finishing up checking out the items in my cart he asked, “did you find everything you needed today?”

I replied, “Yea, I think I found everything MEOW.”

The young man stopped what he was doing and with a perplexed look asks, “Did you just ‘meow’ at me?”

To which I replied, “I may have MEOW.”

Between the laughs and with a smile on his face the said, “Dude, I can’t wait to get home and tell my girlfriend that someone ‘meowed’ at me today!” Obviously, he was a fan of Supper Troopers as well.

My second story takes place yet again at a grocery store. I noticed that another young man behind the register was obviously having a typical Monday. I saw this as another opportunity to spread some cheer and have a little fun.

I noticed that while he was checking out he had some coupons that he was trying to get rid of. The young man asked me, “Would you like a coupon for dish soap?”

“No thanks,” I said politely.

As if rehearsed, he asked again, “Would you like a coupon for some Banana milk?”

With a smirk on my face I replied, “No thanks, milking a banana is hard.”

The young man stopped scanning and his look on his faced told me that my last answered needed more explaining, so I elaborated, “You know because they have such small teats.”

I think his eyes were watering by the time he finished laughing. He then thanked me for making his day and that he really needed that today.

These are examples of small things making a big difference. Being a big guy with a large beard, people tend to be stand offish and not sure how to interact with me. Those of you who know me know I am more like a teddy bear than some big scary biker dude. This is exactly why I enjoy these little moments of cheer. Catching people off guard and having a little fun can brighten someone’s day. You never know who may need it.

Just Do It

As I mentioned “service” can be expressed many ways. I shared a few of my favorites and encourage you to find yours. Life is complicated sometimes, serving others doesn’t have to be. Go out and have some fun, make someone smile, or share a laugh with a new friend.

So, remember “To Serve Man,” it’s more than just a cook book.

As a business owner or leader within an organization, growth projections, goals, and sales are often high on the priority list. Numbers and statics are among the usual suspects in determining success and the common denominators in finding areas of improvement. However, within those dollar figures and customer counts are the people who make the everyday operations possible.

Creating a Team

A lot of moving parts have to come together just right to meet revenue goals and make a company successful. From the sales manager who contracts a client or the accounts department that runs billing and makes sure the electricity bill gets paid, all the way to the janitor who sweeps the floors and shines the sink. Each of these positions come together to create a team.

While an effective team consists of all the necessary positions to accomplish the day-to-day operations, it all comes down to the people chosen to fill those positions that determine the success of your team. This is why employers will talk about their need to hire “go-getters’, “self-motivators”, and even “do-it-your-self-ers”. A lot of thought goes into the hiring process. Increasingly, the personality and culture compatibility are in just as high regard next to experience and knowledge.

The question then isn’t if business leaders are customizing their hiring process to attract the movers and shakers, but rather what are they doing to keep these people once they’ve got them.

Evolving your Culture

In the words of my friend Vaney Hariri, Co-Founder of Think 3D – The Culture Consultants, business owners and leaders need to customize their business. Find what works for the people within your organization and do it.

In various speaking events, workshops, and direct business consulting, Vaney and Think 3D work to change a business’s culture to create environments that foster leadership and engagement. People demand to be a part of a culture. A long time ago we as humans decided life as a community was better than on our own. We decided that our individual quality of life should go beyond our own abilities, and we therefore care about what others might be able to provide for us.

One of my favorite examples of how leaders in an organization can customize their business to optimize for the individuals they value is from HubSpot’s Direct of Marketing Operations. Featured on Medium.com, Melissa shares her story of balancing life and how HubSpot helped her make the most of where she was in life while at the same time sending an overwhelming message of support and encouragement to the rest of the team.

Establishing a work culture isn’t a new concept, in fact, Entreprenuer.com continues to post lists of how to create a winning or strong company culture. The 8 Essential Steps to Building a Winning Company Culture and 6 Steps for Creating a Strong Company Culture are among the most popular even with publication dates going back a couple years.

When living and working with others demands a culture, we have the opportunity to customize that culture, to make it one in which to thrive in or allow it to be acidic and destructive. One might argue that work cultures should establish themselves or that leaders within an organization don’t have enough time to worry about the atmosphere in which their employees function. But with 51% of U.S. workforce admitting to feeling disengaged in their job, and another 51% looking to leave their current position, decision makers may want to reevaluate their priority list.

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Your business is unique, right? You have your own culture, personality, and quirks. You feel like you articulate and display that message to your followers. But, do you?

It’s hard to do so in the world of algorithms and constant updates. It is important to clearly present your message to the people you want to see it. You have beautiful videos and content that you created for your company, but do they accurately represent your cultural?

To test this, apply the Logo Test. The Logo Test is simply a process of replacing your logo on a piece of content with a competitor. Could the video still be used for a competing company’s promotion? If so, you may need to reevaluate your messaging to better represent who you are as a business.

To help illustrate this concept, we would like to provide the below talk by Erica Hanna of Puke Rainbow from this year’s WistiaFest. In it, she explains the use of the Logo Test (starts at minute 10) and ways to improve your representation of your company. Enjoy.

WistiaFest | Wistia Events

You’ve seen the notifications, maybe even watched a Live video. Have you ever wondered if it could help you reach your company goals? Increase leads or generate brand engagements?

I’ve had a lot of questions lately about what Facebook Live is, how it works, and if it is good for the company. Hopefully, I will answer those questions for you today.

What is Facebook Live?

It’s really quite simple; this is a live feed via a smart phone or camera, through a Facebook Profile, to your followers and connections. This allows you to interact and share with your connections in real time. They can ask questions, post comments, and share your feed while you are broadcasting.

How Does It Work?

According to Facebook, it only takes two simple steps to start broadcasting to your network from your business page. It is recommended that you use your mobile app or Google Chrome extension.

 

 

First, in the Status Update bar, click on Live Video.

Second, write a brief description of your video then hit the “Go Live.” You’ll see a three-second countdown before your broadcast begins.

From experience, I can tell you that it will take roughly a minute before the first person joins your broadcast, so don’t lead with the most important content. This is due to the fact that Facebook will alert your connections once the live stream begins, and it will take some time for people to click over to you.

How Can I Use It For Business?

Now that you know how to use it, let’s get started!

1. Make an announcement!

Share new and exciting news with your friends and acquaintances. Launch a new product or service or introduce new staff. This option can be short and sweet; less than 3 minutes and from any location that is relevant to the announcement.

2. Go behind the scenes.

Is there an aspect of your business that your clients, prospects, or potential employees may find interesting? A process that can seem complex when written on paper? Use this opportunity to explain it in person.

3. Promote events.

Planning an open house? Conference? Or kicking off a new class? FB Live is a great way to generate interest. Don’t forget to share the easy-to-remember URL and then follow up by posting it in the comments.

4. Answer commonly asked questions.

If your sale team – or customer service counter – have a list of frequently asked questions, start a weekly Live series that goes through each one. Share the answers with your customers in a fun, personable, engaging format. This is way more fun than ready a bulleted list on a website.

5. Educate or train.

Use the tools to share tips or tricks. Showcase seasonal products. Create a runway for the latest fashion for a boutique. I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.

If you’d like some examples, feel free to check out our Facebook page and YouTube page; we have announcements and offer a weekly 10-minute Live segment covering the latest trends, changes, and topics within our industry.

Happy broadcasting!

Simply put, there isn’t one. Every leader is different, and leadership is required in a lot of different situations. There’s no perfect formula for leadership because becoming a good leader depends on a lot of different factors. The qualities of a leader depend on the group you’re leading, what goal that group is trying to achieve, and the expectations of that group.

In my life, I have many different leadership roles and each one of them is very different from the other. As the Digital Media Supervisor, the group that I lead is very different than workout classes I’m an instructor for. Each position requires leadership, but the group, their goal, and their expectations are very different.

As a workout instructor, my students come to class expecting me to be direct and motivating. They’ll follow my directions without hesitation because they have the expectation that I’m going to give them a good workout. As a supervisor in the office I can’t shout out directions the same way I do in the gym because the expectations are different. I’d get confused stink eyes from my coworkers if I yelled, “ANSWER THAT EMAIL!” with upbeat techno music bumping from my computer.

No matter what type of situation you’re in, the toughest part about any leadership role is trying to understand the group’s goals and expectations and how you can lead the group to achieve them both. This is why it’s important to continuously strive to be a better leader and why our CEO, Korena Keys, and I attended Leadercast a few weeks ago. Leadercast is a one day conference where people come together to listen to a wide range of entrepreneurs, coaches, and celebrities talk about their own experience about becoming a successful leader.

During a day full of inspirational speakers, a few nuggets of wisdom stick with you for the days and weeks after the event. They stir your brain and really push you to evaluate your lifestyle. Today, I’m sharing the nuggets that stuck with me and the reasons why I think each and every leader can learn from them.

“Be the guide, not the hero.”

 – Donald Miller

This quote stuck with me the most throughout the entire day. Most people’s first instinct is to look out for themselves. We also have the tendency to hold back from leadership roles until we feel comfortable or until they’re an expert in that industry. But holding back and waiting like this can prevent us from taking the first step to become a leader.

Leadership is about guiding others to success. We don’t need all the answers, we just have to help find those answers when the questions come about. We help guide others to the answers that lead the group to success.

“Those that devote themselves to themselves will ultimately

have nothing but themselves to show for themselves.”

– Andy Stanley

Read the quote again and let it sink in for a second.

And if that didn’t ruffle a few feathers think about it again. Think about how the quote questions our lifestyle. If we focus on nothing but ourselves, we limit our capabilities to help others. As a leader, our first thought should be about the people who are relying on us. What can we do to push ourselves out of the “myself” way of thinking and instead start helping others achieve their goals?

“Don’t seek for opportunities, seek for solutions.”

– Jim Mckelvey

What are the pain points in your life? How can you fix them? Seek for those answers. Don’t go out looking to create the next million-dollar product. Look inside your daily life and think about how you can enhance or elevate it to be better for yourself and others.

We’re going to tell ourselves a new story.

– Molly Fletcher

I’m a huge fan of the Law of Attraction. The energy you put out into the world is the energy you attract.

Molly gave a quick story during her presentation about an Olympic track star who wanted to decrease his time in the 100-meter sprint. His coach told him to write down “I love the 100m” and write down the time he wanted to hit. The track star replied saying, “But I don’t love the 100, I hate it!” To which his coach responded, “We’re going to start to tell ourselves a new story.”

Changing your mindset might not seem like it will make a huge impact on your goals at first, but you could be surprised how a positive attitude can affect your life. If you tell yourself that you’re going to get a promotion, your subconscious immediately starts to work toward that goal. If you’re going into an interview thinking “I’m not going to get this job,” then your actions will follow suit and you’ll perform worse during the interview. If you start off each Monday thinking “I hate Mondays” then your day is going to be worse than if you had the mindset “New week, new opportunities!”

Your mindset creates the tone for your life. We all know that are lives are not going to go exactly the way we expect them to, but forming our mindset to see the positive in every situation will ultimately propel us into greater joy and happiness.

So, if you’re working towards a goal, then start focusing on the outcome you WANT and not the challenges that might stand in your way while you’re working for that goal.

“Lean into the moments each and every day.”

– Molly Fletcher

Similar to “Live every day to the fullest.”  And why not? How about we challenge ourselves to take every opportunity that comes our way that’s going to improve our life, happiness, and wellbeing and just say “heck yes!” to it.

Fear and failure hold us back, but what’s worse is having the regret of not living your life to its fullest potential.

Now Start Leading

Implementing these five quotes into your daily life will not only affect the overall quality of your life, but the lives of those around you. And that is what we want as leaders; to impact the lives of others and improve their quality of life. So, choose to be optimistic, choose to take full advantage of the opportunities life gives us. Choose to be the guide and start leading.

With this year coming to an end, many people are starting to think about New Year’s resolutions. Let’s be honest – that whole weight loss thing usually ends about noon on January 1^st. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to be one of those people on American Ninja Warrior, but I’m enough of a realist to know that a New Year’s resolution is not going to motivate me. Knowing this has made me approach this whole idea of resolutions differently.

Setting Yourself Up For Success

There are many different ways to look at resolutions. You can create to-do lists, goals, or even an Oprah-inspired dream board. The first step, in my opinion, is to stop calling them resolutions. Think of them more as aspirations for how you want your life to look.

I was watching a news segment a couple years ago that suggested you pick a word to reflect your year. I thought this was an interesting idea, so my word for the year was love. At the time, I was working in a very difficult environment and I needed a way to turn a negative into a positive. Focusing on love helped me realize what I wanted out of my career, and what was, and wasn’t, acceptable in a working environment.

Focusing on a single word had a huge impact on my personal life as well. I’m naturally quite introverted, but that year I discovered how much of an impact sharing the love can have on you. It’s amazing how much a smile and a hello can change a person’s day.

Last year, I made a to-do list of things I wanted to get done or learn about. I’m a lover of lists, so this one worked out pretty well. I had a personal list and a professional list that included two certifications I wanted. I wrote everything out on the chalkboard in my kitchen so I would have to look at my list every day. Looking at my list today, I can see that I accomplished most of what I set out to do, and then some. This has been a crazy year, and until I looked at that list I hadn’t realized how much I kicked butt this year.

There are a couple things on my list that I didn’t even touch, but you know what, I’m not going to beat myself up over that. I know I need to celebrate my successes and anything that still applies will get added to the list for 2017. A year is just dates on a calendar, so the things you want to accomplish don’t have to live within just one year.

Think About Your Impact

My biggest lesson from the last few years is that things won’t always go as planned, but the best thing to do is to learn from what didn’t work and move on. Not everything is a failure, sometimes it’s just a bend in the road. I think it’s also important to remember that the same life lessons can pop up multiple times, but they may not always have the same answer.

I’m working on my list for 2017. There are some big things on this list, and I’m really excited to get started. There are only a few days left in 2016 to really think about what kind of impact you want to have on the world. So, get those notebooks, marker boards, or chalkboards ready and get started on those 2017 “resolutions.”