Have you ever felt like you have reached your limits? Whether it shows in your writing, business creation or time management – you are not alone! Below, learn how to develop strategies that will make you feel more productive, take your adventure to the next level and keep you in line – we’ll even tackle the stuff that keeps you up at night. Let Karen Post and the Oddpodz team lead the way.

1 – Does branding countries, government programs and leaders really matter? 3 part series that includes insight, strategy and recommendations.
2 – How to quickly sway opinion, sell product & make a point – with wordplay Metaphors can make a difference.
3 – Energize your entrepreneurial engine. Attend 3-day conference in Tampa. Engage in networking opportunities with students from all over the country as well as business professionals.
4 – Entrepreneur essentials – Bandwidth limits, saying no and time off. There are only so many hours in a day, what will you do with them?

For last weeks wrap up, click here.

Also, don’t forget to check out:
Slimy scam, smart business model or insightful day?
3 smart chicks, 10 ideas to breed more loyal blog readers
Greenwashing and other recycled business sins

Karen Post and the Oddpodz team are back on American soil, had a great time and took away many lessons learned. To view last weeks wrap up, click here.

1 – An airport restaurant so good, you will beg for a longer layover. Great food in Atlanta, only a plane ride away.
2 – Last minute gigs, Nigeria, branding adventures in Africa. Part 1 of a global branding adventure.
3 – Paparazzi, plantains and petrol. Part 2 is packed with lessons learned.
4 – Do you hate computerized customer service as much as I do? Make sure your phone system isn’t annoying your customers.

Also, be sure to check out:
our Get publicity Ta-Do list
I’m going to Saudi, join me!
Creative warrior goes to Memphis

I understand running a business is about managing productivity and being efficient, but there needs to be a balance somewhere so that in the process of being productive and profitable, you are not totally annoying the heck out of your callers.

Most phone trees should be burnt down. Having to listen to 40 department options that don’t even come close to solving your problem, or screaming your reply to a question four times and then some idiot computer says: “I’m sorry I did not understand your answer” and then you get discounted and get to start all over again, is really aggravating! This turns me and most others into a extremely emotionally disturbed consumers.

If I’m going to be subjected to this craziness, at least let me sound off to a real person. If you share this frustration, try these services.

Dialahuman.com or gethuman.com- they list companies and how to avoid the robot operators. Or another free service is Lucyphone.com, here you enter the company’s name or number, hit start. Lucyphone.com connects you to a company line where you pick an option to get a live rep. You then hang up and get a quick call back.

These services are not perfect, after all they are run by humans, but may be worth the call. Also, check your own phone system, is it easy and joyful or is it just as bad these I’ve described?

Don’t forget to check out: Have an AT&T iPhone? Don’t expect service in NYC. You’ll be disappointed.

These writing tips should help you write more, better and faster. This will work for blogs, letters, proposals and, I’m happy to report, in dumping your notes too.

1) Find a very cool pen. Write your outline of top key points to want to end with on paper. Not the computer.
When your pens are inkless and old, but you still love them, create a cool piece of art like Pen guy does.
2) Research those points, look at other points of view concerning them.
3) Jot down any random words and thoughts.
4) Pick up a good magazine, spend an hour just looking at headlines and titles.
5) Create a starter list of headlines and titles for your work.
6) Expand your key points into some bullets.
7) Start writing, don’t worry about perfection.
8)  Scribble or doodle your big idea into an illustration. This will force your full brain to join in.
9) Crank up the music. Print out what you’ve done and edit the printout.
10) Make your changes in the computer. Print it out again.
11)  Do something else for a couple hours.
12) Edit the printout again, this time try to improve your adjectives with fresher, more compelling words, eliminate duplicate words and add another sprinkle of your unique personality.
13) Revisit your first key points, confirm they are in your body of work, are clear and memorable.
14) Do a shot of something, wheat grass, super-food, tequila or chocolate milk, then write some more.
15) Be the tough critic, anything lame, overdone or said that sounds like a rambling, confused soul, delete.
16) If you are a bad speller and a lightweight on grammar like I am, find an editor or proofer to look at your work too.
17) Print out and reread their comments. Do a final read when you are not tired, exceeded your drink quota or when you just took an Ambien.
18) Celebrate your achievement. Go get some fat free frozen yogurt.

For more writing tips, check out: 10-steps to making writing your blog easier.

The importance of branding and the reason it must be done was the focus for this week’s blogs. To view last weeks wrap up, click here.

1 – Is morning marketing more meaningful? Or do night owls rule? Don’t fight your waves of brilliance, do what works for you.
2 – Less stress. More life. Tighter brand. How the small things in life can minimize your travel nightmares.
3 – Nightline, girl power and baba ghanooge. Adventures and inspiration from 8,000 miles away.
4 – Lights, camera, Saudi action countdown. The creation of a lasting customer experience and why brands are critical for success.
5 – Can a strong brand make a visit to the dentist less painful? Why a Nazi commando or a pushy used car salesman never win the fight.

For more branding ideas, view:
The #1 strategy that is giving me more money, influence and balance.
How I earned the #1 spot on Google.
Does your business card scream “I’m broke, clueless or stuck in 1980″?

This week, Oddpodz took advantage of the simpler things in life and learned how fulfilling they really are. Here are some ways you can look at your business half full too:

1 – Fox TV calls for a 30-minute live interview. Will you be ready? Learn how to interview like a pro, here.
2 – How reincarnating an old idea can be a BORN AGAIN HIT. Check out word-smithing at its best.
3 – Birthdays, gifts and marketing – an interesting trio. Do you have a way to remember your customers’ special days?
4 – Can being happier change your entrepreneurial success? It’s true! Identify the small things in life and make them happen.
5 – Don’t forget to Celebrate loving being an entrepreneur everyday. And start making your own life choices.

If you missed last weeks wrap up, click here.

For more ways to fulfill your life, check out these posts:
Why creatures of habit are champions in sports, business and life.
Work less, accomplish more!
Money, money, money!

Juggling. I don’t remember ever taking a class on this in high school or college. Yet, as an entrepreneur and small business owner, you must master the skill like a professional circus star. Here are two methods that work well for me that I’ve just figured out through experience.

1) The 90-day strict focus juggling act.
This week and for the next couple months, I’m in serious lock down mode. This means other than sleeping, eating,  an hour or so of daily tennis or some cardio and cranking out quality work and I’m not doing anything else. PERIOD. I don’t recommend this approach often, it’s intense and most of your friends will think you are very weird and may even refer to you as a cave person, but sometimes, this style of juggling is just plain required.

This is a choice I’ve made because the current list of balls in the air that are directly tied to my big life goals. I am very intentional and know clearly what I want based on my core values.

My #1 life goal is: to ensure freedom and independence which are derived from financial, creative and high happy factor success.

My current list of responsibilities: my consulting work, my new book, Brand Turnaround: How Brands Gone Bad  Return to Glory, McGraw-Hill (complete manuscript due by May 1st), my Oddpodz blogging, my speech and trip Saudi Arabia all require big time, deep problem solving and creative thinking. For me, this is what I call the highly-focused juggle act. You keep your eyes and thoughts on specific projects and nothing else. You say no to social stuff, volunteer duties and anything that needs brain cells or attention, unless it’s part of your focused juggling act or really an emergency. Fortunately, I have the luxury of being single and having no dependents, so I can pull this off, this may not be so easy for everyone.

From here, I map out a very clear working plan.
This includes: daily objectives and needed tasks, support team and a detailed time line to accomplish all.  From here, I schedule daily blocks of time (the night before) to work on each of the four balls, (sometimes I even use a food timer to limit how much I spend on any given ball) stay very discipline so I don’t break my train of focus with non emergency distractions – like taking non urgent calls, checking email etc. – and I make sure I give clear instructions and expectations to any team members who is supporting me. Plus, when I do this highly-focused juggle I also do my rituals, read my affirmation as I eat right, don’t drink too much and visit my master goal list daily, so I’m so clear on where I’m headed.

When time is not such a critical factor, I use this more balanced juggling act formula, which produces great results.

2) The 365-day juggling act.
Stay calm.
Be happy you have balls to juggle. It’s much better than the alternative. Don’t view the balls that you are juggling as scary time bombs, but as great opportunities. Try to limit the number you juggle to 7 to 10 max or you are headed for the loony house soon.

Embrace balance.
Mix up your work load with non work stuff. Enjoy life, since it’s not a dress rehearsal.

Work from plan.
Write out daily objectives and needed tasks, identify who you need to support you and a develop a detailed time line to accomplish all.

Celebrate your achievements and be grateful.
Hourly, daily  and often.

Have fun, juggling is not a root canal.

Don’t forget to check out: Torn between two lovers, no different than business priorities.

Need to know something important? And get some feedback on a critical project?
Getting the best advice on anything is always a tricky task. Many of us gravitate to asking our friends. This is generally not wise and a big waste of time.

• Your friends hopefully like you, so they will say nice things about you.
• Your friends are also often not experts in what you are asking them for advice on.
• And free advice is also often aligned with quality (you get what you pay for).

A couple of weeks ago I was wrapping up a very important book proposal. This was a second chance to score with a big publisher. My first submission was kicked back (with important publisher/editor suggestions) that I needed to add or change. I knew it was now or never. While I felt good about my revised draft, I was not willing to risk the result (or my investment to date over 100 hours) without running it by a proven expert.

I remembered a coach I had worked with in the past who had written some books with this same publisher that I was having dialogue with through my agent. I shot him an email, explained the situation. He agreed to provide a read through and some counsel for $1000. In making my decision, I looked at what this book deal was worth to me, certainly that figure times at least a 100 times, and I knew this consultant/expert had the experience I needed with this publisher and many publishers.

So I fired off my draft with an email summarizing many things that I thought were important for the consultant to know. He fired back a short email. “Karen, you need to be more concise in your emails, I don’t need all of that. And your first draft gets a C”. He also provided very concise bullet points on what I needed to improve.

Our subsequent conversations were also very direct, no sweet candy coating, in fact, they were Sergeant-like blunt.

I got to work. I didn’t get emotional about him not blowing sunshine up my skirt or feeding my ego, which my friends would have done if I asked them for feedback.

After 8 intense days of focus and reworking my proposal, following my consultants advice, I sent him back the new draft.

This time he responded, “Excellent! Well written. Fascinating chapter angles. This is ready to send to the publisher”. The consultant also offered to write my forward and any testimonials. WOW! This consultant has written 30 titles in 9 languages. That said a lot.

Was it a joy and pleasure working with this very smart dude? NO. It was not like paling with my buddies.

Did his contribution significantly increase my work product value and the likelihood of me winning a great contract. Oh YES!

For more advice, check out: Mind freeze, is there a fast way to thaw your thoughts?

KEY STRATEGY- Better align all several companies, passions and goals.
Last year, I hosted a planning meeting with some of my top advisers to figure out how to make Oddpodz a profitable and sustainable venture.

Oddpodz has been a work in progress:
If we had a theme song, it would sound something like this.

Try, learn, fail.
Get clearer on who we are. Do it. Adjust.
Try more, learn, fail.
Try again, learn, make small progress forward.
Try again, learn, get clearer on what we need to be to. Do it.

(Repeat chorus) Try more, learn, fail. Keep at it. Improve everyday.

Like Seth Godin proclaims, Try stuff. Fail. Repeat. This is the fuel for success.

That day of planning lots of great ideas were generated. And we’ve implemented many of them, which have made us better, stronger and smarter.

However, the number one recommendation that day was to better align my core competencies (as the leader of the company and the Branding Diva®) with all of my interests, my speaking, my consulting and Oddpodz. I’ve done that this past year and it is working. I have more balance, peace and influence, and made more money in two of my other businesses, which is allowing me to fund Oddpodz long tail. Long tail is a term that was coined by Chris Anderson, founder of Wired. Long tail means: the distribution and inventory costs of businesses successfully applying this long tail strategy allows them to realize significant profit out of selling small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items.

Oddpodz, the site, will remain a content rich series of blogs to help creative-minded entrepreneurs. Under the corporate entity we will are developing niche tools specific to segmented industries. This will be our long tail. The first one is for restaurants. I’ll be sharing more on this soon.

So what does alignment look like?

• Doing what you do best. For me, it’s writing. Oddpodz is a publishing model.
• Be a clear brand voice. Not watered down with a distractions. Oddpodz is an extension of ME.
• Help people with your expertise. Mine is branding, marketing, entrepreneurial expertise. Oddpodz focus is just that.
• Laser focus on highest margin revenue and brand opportunities first. Oddpodz is a long tail company, my other companies are not. That’s OK.
  
• Strategically leverage and streamline everything. As Oddpodz is getting older, we are simpler and a cross-promoted company with a known brand, MOI!

Are you an entrepreneur with several ventures, some doing well, and others challenged? Can better alignment with your core, your brand, be the answer?

It’s an idea.

For more on strategies, check out: 12 questions to ask yourself while planning your 2011 marketing strategies.

2010 was an amazing year for me. I had a killer year – revenues rocked, I grew my mental capacity, along with my waistline, and I learned a bunch of new skills.

All were positive as they added and challenged my adventure, bottom line and awareness journey. Here’s my recap and what I took away.

Most meaningful moments
1) When I witnessed the BP explosion flying to Baton Rouge, LA for a meeting.
Takeaway-Life is short and at any given moment it can change.

2) When my mom watched me play tennis for the first time and I won. I’ve been playing for ten years.
Takeaway-Even when you are 50, parent’s involvement still matter.

Proudest moments
1) When I discovered I was the #1 Google search for branding speaker.
Takeaway- Content writing has value.

2) When I lead the launch of a global green brand called Earthwise.
Takeaway-Branding, Twitter and hard work payoff.

3) The progress we made on Oddpodz.
Takeaway-If something is a long tail venture, do the best you can, keep pushing, keep learning and don’t give up.

4) I scored over 25 major media new stories (FOX over 10 times, NY Times, Forbes, Miami Herald).
Takeaway-You must be assertive, reach out to the media often, with newsworthy ideas, and then do an awesome job adding to their show, whether it’s print, TV, radio or online.

Best business changes
1) Hired my sister to manage my books.
Takeaway- How did I ever do it without her? This business relationship has strengthened our bond and drastically reduced my tax challenges.

2) Invested in expert coaching.
Takeaway-When you fly a company with a small, virtual team, you need professional, high-level paid sounding boards. Asking friends and business colleagues who like you will slow down your progress.

3) Getting rid of my big office.
Takeaway-I’m not an office girl. I’m most productive when I work in my cave, on the street and by my rules.

Biggest lessons
1) Email is not the best way to communicate.
Takeaway- If you put it in writing it can live on and bit you back.

2) Hiring great people takes time, testing and more testing.
Takeaway-Hiring great people takes time, testing and more testing.

Things I still don’t understand
1) How the Gap could have launched such as ugly, new logo.
Takeaway- Even big companies do really stupid things.

2) Why Brett Farve took so long to retire and is such a public cry baby.
Takeaway-There’s a lot I don’t know, especially about guys.

2) Why Tony Robbin’s Show got canceled and The Jersey Shore is breaking rating records.
Takeaway-A lot of people will buy things I would not.

Coolest things
1) Toking oxygen and drinking champagne at the St Regis Spa in Aspen.
Takeaway- Money is not the end all, but sure pays for some crazy fun.

2) Going to see Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in NYC and Second City in Chicago.
Takeaway-Comedy is as important as food, my bed and black shoes.

3)  Hanging out with a hot former Russian hockey player & slamming shots of horseradish-infused vodka  while enjoying crepes and caviar was quite the fun night. And best part of it is – I’m here and he’s way over there.
Takeaway-Simple, random and kind of crazy encounters with no expectations are pretty amazing moments in life. I’m keeping my eyes open for more.

NEXT YEAR I’ve got my eyes on a few new adventures too.

I’d like to attend the American Music Awards, Saturday Night Live or Fashion Week in NY.

I like to have a major new book under my belt.

And meet any of these inspiring folks and have a coffee, like Lady GaGA, Tony Robbins, Michael Phelps or Richard Branson.

I’d also like to be featured in the Wall Street Journal.

How was your year? And what’s next for you to step up your success?!

Don’t forget to check out: Leadership = the quality of your presence.