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      How to Feed the Ducks
      by Crystal Collins on March 21, 2011

      How to Feed the Ducks

      I went to sit on the beach to clear my mind and just enjoy the warm sun against my skin. Who would have thought that so much inspiration would come from so simple an act? I watched as two young girls tried their best to get closer and closer to some ducks that were floating in the water. The girls had snacks of a sort in their hands, though I never did figure out what these were. The ducks seemed mildly interested in what was being offered. Then the girls’ Dad came over and joined them to see what they were trying to do. Their response: they wanted the ducks to eat out of their hands.

      Being a little wiser, which only comes with age, the Dad gave the girls some bread that the ducks took to even better than what was being offered before. Dad also coaxed the girls to gently feed the ducks, and hide part of their hands and arms under the water while offering the bread. It took several minutes, but to my amazement the ducks actually ate out of these little girls’ hands; much to their delight and the father’s praise.

      This is so applicable, not only to ducks, but to life and business when we are working towards success.

      Success comes with time.

      When building influence and growing your brand, it takes time to build up a reputation. Patience goes hand in hand, because time cannot be rushed.

      Success comes with consistency.

      The more that you consistently behave in a certain manner, people and ducks will learn how you work and in which ways they are able to work with you.

      Success takes using the right tools and having an effective delivery.

      It’s hard to accomplish hand-feeding a duck when all you have is tomato sauce. Using good tools and consistently delivering quality content or products is not only the key to initially grabbing attention, but is also how you will continue to maintain a customer or readership base for your brand.

      Success takes trust.

      I believe that this is the most important factor to success. In fact, go back and replace the word “success” with “trust” on all the previous points, and you will see what I mean. Building trust will help increase your influence and grow your brand by leaps and bounds. Without trust, you will be limited with how far you can go, and more than likely, find yourself facing many struggles in your endeavors to grow your business.

      During the last few minutes of watching the little girls and the ducks, I momentarily closed my eyes to just enjoy the tranquility of the moment.  Suddenly, two boys ran splashing into the water while throwing food and the moment was gone. The ducks immediately swam away while being chased by these boys. Trust is easily broken, so it is important to make intentional decisions with your business. Instead of chasing success, take time, consistency, effective tools, delivery and most importantly trust and you can be well on your way to success with your business.

      What do you think is important for building success in your business?

: Leave a Comment

  • Mimi on March 21, 2011 at 10:52 am
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    What a great post! I love this. I just made the decision in September to quit my “safe” job of 7 years and finally become an entrepreneur. Best decision of my life! I think building sucess takes a lot of things but in particular belief in yourself. If you don’t believe in what you are doing, nobody else will.
  • Steve Jones on March 21, 2011 at 11:55 am
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    Nice piece. Especially the idea that trust must be built before anything can happen. Brands that I trust get my business. There are a million choices out there for almost anything, all just a click away. It is great to be the top-result on a Google search, but if I don’t trust your brand it won’t matter. I won’t click. Trust goes far beyond simple SEO.
  • Angela on March 21, 2011 at 9:09 pm
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    You hit the nail on the head with trust!! This can’t be more so when deciding how to monetize your site. When I first started out, I put some campaigns and banners up that I now regret. At the time I thought they’d earn me money. They didn’t. And not only that, they potentially hurt what some of my readers may have thought of me. I believe in the long term health & success of my blog and try to make my day-to-day decisions based on that.

    I am curious about those bloggers that DO seem to have rapid success. We have all seen them. Overnight some post puts them in the limelight or their innovation causes them to go viral much sooner. How would this factor into your post above? Is this luck, or something else? A couple days ago, Facebook was discussed on this blog. Zuckerberg believes you should “move fast and break things.”

    Is there room for this as well as “slow and steady wins the race?” I’m often conflicted because social media is rapidly evolving. Thoughts?

    Thanks for another excellent post, Crystal!!

    • Crystal Collins on March 21, 2011 at 11:38 pm
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      That’s a big question, that I’m not sure anyone can answer completely. But I do know one thing: Most of those situations ’cause them to grow overnight because something happened to enchant people. Sometimes it stems from luck, other times it stems from a fabulous idea. I definitely think you should check out Guy Kawasaki’s new Enchantment book. I’m reading it right now and it is fabulous!
      • Angela on March 22, 2011 at 1:12 am
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        Thanks, Crystal. I’ve been pondering this because I’ve been working at my blog day in and day out for a year…waiting and wondering when all the work will pay off, or if it will.

        I also do sometimes wonder for those who achieve the success too quickly – are they able to sustain it? Were they prepared? (Was Facebook?) Hmmm.

        I’ve heard about that book before – so now I think I really need to pick it up! Thanks for the recommendation. I just finished my book club book, so it will give me something to read until they make their next pic. ;)

        • Crystal Collins on March 22, 2011 at 10:51 am
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          Some of them aren’t ready. I think you have recently started doing a fabulous job with your blog. You’ve been branching out and writing some great content. People are getting tired of all the same coupon sites that keep popping up, so being individual is what will make you stand out!
          • Angela on March 22, 2011 at 1:02 pm
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            Wow! Thank you for the kind compliment!
          • Andrea @ Savings Lifestyle on March 22, 2011 at 6:39 pm
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            I agree with Crystal on your site, Angela!!

            And to your question on the rapid success, I remember J.D. Roth’s comment last year. He mentioned his rapid growth thanks to getting linked to a large media site. He wasn’t ready and suggested we all be prepared to capitalize on the traffic influx like that. Not by a hosting/bandwidth point of view but being ready out of the gate to take advantage of the opportunity and show the new readers what we are about. I think that looks different for everyone and sometimes it takes a few years to figure it out.

  • Karrie on March 22, 2011 at 5:45 pm
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    What a fantastic article. Building trust does take time and patience I agree. When I first started blogging I too like the young girls just wanted everything all at once exactly how I wanted it to be. I thought that everyone would just come to see what I had written or discovered. But, nope! I found out pretty quickly that it does take time, great content and building relationships with other people. I am always trying to find something different or that stands out in my crowded niche – its like there are 30 kids with bread out there trying to get the ducks to come and my bread needs to be bright blue or something. :)
  • Stephanie's Mommy Brain on March 23, 2011 at 10:06 am
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    Your word picture is fabulous! Equating children feeding ducks to bloggers working with readers and sponsors will stick with me for a long time. I especially like the way you presented building trust. True trust takes time and consistency. As for “slow and steady wins the race,” that’s my approach. Keep plodding along and the hard work will eventually pay off. I have no desire to be a “flash in the pan.” So I’ll take hard earned success.