Franklin Taggart's Blog

I did it again. I optimistically said yes to too many things, and now I've got a calendar full of responsibilities and three deadlines among them. In this Coffee Break, I reveal my age-old habit of only looking at the day and time that's being requested without looking at the adjoining days and times.  They're all good things, and I'll make it through, but I may need to take some time off after next week.  Some things I'm excited about... The Boost Your Business Bundle registration has opened, and my two contributions are nearing completion.  Elevator Pitches That Don't Suck is my long-awaited course that will help you craft memorable and compelling, offer-laden elevator pitches that will start to open doors for you immediately. That course is available as a part of the FREE Standard Bundle. The Premium Bundle, which you can still get for only $47, will include an updated version of one of my favorite workshops, Clients Everywhere! The last time I offered this w

We've all heard the ancient secret advice to fake it until you make it. I first heard it about thirty years ago in a twelve-step meeting. I remember then thinking it was brilliant. Now, not so much. The creative process doesn't give wiggle room for fakery. It requires real time, dedication, attention, and effort. That can't be faked. In this Coffee Break, Franklin Taggart tells a story of a particular FITYMI moment that lives on in his short list of public embarrassments almost thirty years after it happened. Also in the chat: ** Courage first ** Confidence later ** commitment, learning, and mastering in between #creativity #creativeprocess #well-meaningbadadvice

I've had a couple of clients recently who've asked for help learning how to edit videos for their social media. It's their first time using this kind of software and the processes and language are completely new to them. It all sounds foreign. It called to mind the time when I decided to add digital recording to my skill set. I bought state-of-the-art equipment and joined a few online bulletin boards about home recording and started one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. In this Coffee Break, I tell the rest of the story. There is a good reason sometimes to pay people who already have a skill instead of learning it for yourself. I don't usually work that way because I want to know how things work, but I think about how some folks might better spend their time on more profitable activities while someone else handles the production. I also mention my belief that frustration is a good sign because it usually peaks right before the breakthrough happens. I'v

It's been an exciting year! At the beginning, I made two commitments. The first is to upload one new idea a day to my YouTube channel, a commitment I've kept. It's been fun to see the numbers grow! The second commitment was to devote more time to production than to consumption. I've stuck with that one, too and one culmination is about to be released. I've been working on finishing three online courses and all three will be done in the next two weeks. A big part of this accomplishment has been the awareness of production time and consumption time, but I've also streamlined my creative process. I go into more detail in the video, but I've let go of some of my old ways of doing things in favor of simplification and eliminating redundancy from the steps I take.  ** I use fewer tools ** I work with topics I'm already most familiar with ** I find ways to do large chunks of repetitive steps at the same time so I can get into flow ** I get more done, quickly so

I've been making a 2-page form this morning that has over 700 form fields, mostly checkboxes that have to be aligned and distributed evenly on the pages. It's work that requires attention to detail, but overall it's not something that requires my imagination. The good news for my imagination is that building the form gives it a chance to roam where it wants to (sorry, just watched a B-52s video). It occurred to me as I was working that the rare times when I have creative blocks, they're pretty easy to get through because I've learned the value of mundane tasks. Washing dishes, shaving, showering, driving, walking, exercising, cleaning...all these kinds of activities are great for my creative process because they relieve my mind and body from having to concentrate on what I'm making, doing, or solving and my imagination is available to work as it needs to. You'll hear more in the video. Keep in mind that I enjoy creating things like forms, assessments, worksh

▼Watch and Listen Below!▼ If you are a digital business owner and you're looking for information, training, and support in growing your company, Lynne Neville has an offer you can't refuse. The Boost Your Business Bundle brings together 140 contributors with over 200 products, services, and events designed to help you reach more customers, deliver more value, and make more sales. And the price is too good to be true. The Standard Bundle is completely FREE. It includes over $4000 of products and services all just for the asking. If you want to upgrade to the Premium Bundle, act quickly when you register and it will be yours for less than half the $100 full price. Get it before June 12th and save $25. The value of the Premium Bundle is over $20,000. It's an exceptional deal that you'll want to get now. Registration is open now and the Bundles will be released on June 13th and will only be available until June 17th, so don't wait. And if you are looking for a great aff

Thanks to Linda Eskridge of https://couturegifting.com for the wonderful coffee, mug, and treats! Made this morning's Coffee Break extra special. Thanks, Linda! https://couturegifting.com In the Break today, I am talking about my habit of buying books and courses and getting about halfway through with them then getting distracted or bored and moving on to other things while never actually doing anything the book or course was teaching. This extraordinarily long sentence describes a process that I used to put off taking creative risks, a habit that hasn't served me well. Other tidbits here are feeling vulnerable on video, impostor synplex comdrome, and the deep satisfaction coming from learning as I go.  The overarching message as always? Don't let learning delay your action. Use the courses and books as the important supports they are, but don't put off your creativity until you've "learned enough" to be ready. You'll never be ready! #procrastination

I'm excited to be a contributor to the Boost Your Business Bundle this year!  The driving force behind this amazing collection of tools is Lynn Neville, a content and marketing strategist who helps coaches and mentors increase their online visibility and engagement with eye-catching and compelling media content. The Bundle this year comes in a couple of sizes. The Standard Bundle includes over 100 tools and offers, and get this, it's free! But in addition to the free standard bundle, there is an additional Premium Bundle with over $20,000 worth of offers for the low price of $47 if you upgrade when you register for the Standard Bundle, $75 if you upgrade before the release on June 13, and $100 if you upgrade between June 13-17. The only catch? And make sure to download the offers you want between June 13 and 24. Some of my favorite people are contributing offers to this event. Andrea Hubbert is an exceptional content creator who will be offering a storytelling course. Jess Kotz

We're down to one car in our family, at least for a little while. My 2000 Ford Windstar van costs more to fix than it's worth and it will be going to a good cause in the next few days. The pandemic revealed a few fallacies about how much we can get done at home and now I find myself evaluating invitations to leave home much more carefully. And I also am looking much more critically at every item on my calendar and asking myself if this is how I really want to spend my time. It's a new way of life for someone who has owned his own car for the past 43 years. With a kid getting a driver's license in the next few months, I don't know how long this resolution will last, but the temporary change has been instructive.  I am a homebody, that's nothing new, but charges of being anti-social may be forthcoming and merited. Will leave home for poetry, some music, and dinner. #onecarfamily #twocargarage #imhome

If you struggle with energy fluctuations as you're working, here is a simple system I use to make decisions about how I spend my time. Many of the people who hire me have challenges with physical stamina, as I do. Dealing with an autoimmune thyroid disorder is a daily crapshoot when it comes to predicting energy levels. I have to do this on a moment-by-moment basis. As far as I'm concerned energy and focus are the same thing. I can't focus without energy. So throughout the day I'm checking in with my body and rating my energy level on a scale of one to ten. The video will tell you more about what I do from there. This all came on because last night I had a burst of ideas at bedtime that I couldn't risk losing, so I worked until 1:30 when my body said it was finished. So it goes with creativity. When the wave comes, you ride it or you watch it come and go. #creativity #inspiration #energymanagement

Your "About Me" page is the second most visited page on your website. For the longest time, I made the mistake of thinking that it needed to be about me. That's only partially true. The About Me page is the place where people are learning whether or not they want to work with you and your business. If it's not moving in that direction, there's a problem. In this Coffee Break, Franklin Taggart talks about the three most common problems people have with their About Me pages. This isn't an exhaustive list, but that would be for a much longer video. Correct the three in this video and you'll see it make a positive difference. Mentioned in this video: Karen Fournier at StarStream Productions https://starstreamproductions.com Laura Belgray at https://talkingshrimp.com (join the email list) And for Memorial Day, Brad Hoopes from Remember and Honor. Check out his interviews with US veterans at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH2mmWSgMHA5wXxHxWOFtmw Be sure to s

What do you want to do? I don't know what do you want to do? I'm hungry. Do you want to go out for breakfast? I don't know, do you? Three phones come out to look for options, but we all get distracted. Then the conversation starts again. We all end up frustrated, hungry, and unable to find a choice that works for all three of us. I'm the last person you'd want as a cruise director. Saturdays are my least favorite day of the week because of this. You'd think it would be the other way around. But working is always the easiest choice to make because there's always something to do, and that something is more interesting than the options we find as a family. And yet, we don't want to disappoint each other. Rock, meet hard place. #featuresofworkoholism #negotiationwearsmeout #notacruisedirector

▼Watch and Listen Below!▼ Most solopreneurs and freelancers don't start businesses with the idea that they might one day sell them. They usually just want to build something they enjoy doing that generates the income they want. But Stephen Krausse suggests there may be value being created that will someday be worth passing on. Stephen Krausse helps entrepreneurs buy and sell businesses. In this visit with Your Own Bst Company, Stephen gives host Franklin Taggart a quick view of what makes a #business sellable, mistakes to avoid when buying and selling, and protecting intellectual property, and shares a simple way to know when a business might be ready for a buyer. Be sure to listen for his advice about writing down your "no-go" situation before starting your negotiations. For more information about Stephen and his business services, visit https://beyond50percent.com He is also on social media: @beyond50percent #buyingabusiness #sellingabusiness #entrepreneurship

Bodhi got out of school today for the Summer. Sophomore year is over! Now, what are we going to do? I'm not good at leisure time. So this Coffee Break is all about trying some new things that aren't work. The good thing about all this is my work feels like leisure. It's rejuvenating, fun, and always interesting. I haven't found any hobbies that I like as much. This Stanley Tucci series, Searching for Italy makes me want to go there for several months. But I don't want to be a tourist. I want to meet the locals. And we've found that planning things as a family isn't something we do often or well. This is a cliffhanger. Stay tuned... #summervacation #timeoff #planningasafamily

  We've been watching Stanley Tucci - Searching for Italy on CNN and loving it. My Italian Sweetie is inspired by the show and we're both blown away by the quality and variety of the food he's finding. He's visiting 20 regions and revealing the unique menu in each. I'm amazed to see the difference, even in regions that are connected to each other geographically. Every one of them has a different food repertoire based on several factors - available ingredients, customs, cultural identity, culinary traditions, and even political influence all play a part in the food a locale is known for. If you've ever tried to cook from someone else's recipe, you may have found that you followed every instruction exactly and still found that you weren't pleased with the result. So the next time you cooked it, you made changes according to your own preferences and ideas. And this time it came out much more to your liking. And at some point, you started from scratch and ma

  We spend thousands of dollars on workshops and workbooks and courses and worksheets that don't deliver the results we'd hoped for. Why? I think a big part of it is our habit of shifting into a manner of communicating that seems more businessy. That sounds like the stuff we learned in our writing class about writing business letters - formal, stuffy, boring. I'm on a mission to change that. I want the formulas and avatar worksheets to take a backseat to actual talking and writing with each other. We need real people to give us feedback and to tell us how they are reacting to what we write and say. We've got to get out of our heads and into the real world. There are so many ways we can improve our communication. And we won't ever be finished unless we just stop trying. We can always be better connectors. Mentioned in this spew is the upcoming Boost Your Business Bundle. It'll be released June 13-17 but you'll want to pay attention before then for some big an

I'd like to have a word with you. What I'd like to say is... Listen to this idea! I want to feel more optimistic. The way we speak and write about life and people and work and everything else really matter. Words are conduits of energy and they create our experiences. We do need to consider what we say. You are a gift to me and I am blessed by your presence. Thank you. #wordsmatter #wordsshapeexperiences #wordsbringworldstogether

It's been an exciting weekend with birthday celebrations, Dr. Strange, and a Sunday afternoon band rehearsal. My voice is scratchy and my heart is full, and I don't have much in the way of focus, so I'm going to turn on the camera and see what happens. First, a thank you for the kind birthday wishes! I'm delighted to still be alive and in possession of some of my better faculties. It meant a lot to receive so many kind notes yesterday. I've been working a lot on low-cost marketing courses. I hear from people every week who are thrown by the expense of marketing their businesses, finding the expenditure of time, energy, and money to be more than they'd anticipated, and in some cases more than they can handle. I teach simple systems that rely on low-cost tools. The main point I want to talk about in this video is that it's difficult to pay your way out of the aspects of marketing you don't want to do for yourself. Yes, you can hire people to do things for

I'm not sure how I got here but here I am. 60 today. I didn't expect to make it this far but I'm glad I have.  So many memories and so much more to look forward to. Life has been, is, and will be good! Thanks for your friendship, time, and attention. Those are the greatest gifts! As I've heard many people say, another day above ground is a bonus! #happybirthdaytome #celebrating #somuchmorelivingtodo

▼Watch and Listen Below!▼ As an Executive Assistant and a Virtual Assistant, Linda Eskridge realized that much of her responsibility was finding unique and meaningful gifts for the people she worked for to give to prospects, customers, and clients. They wanted more of a personal touch than sending the common branded notepads, pens, and t-shirts. Through these experiences, she had the idea that offering her services as a gifting consultant might actually have a place and Couture Business Gifting was born. Linda is hired by busy entrepreneurs, executives, and yes, their assistants in the process of research, acquisition, packaging, and delivery of gifts that build strong relationships between her clients and their customers. In this episode, she lets us know: ** The importance of building good relationships with customers. ** Research to find the interests and passions of the gift recipients. ** Creating a progressive gifting strategy. ** Remembering to include the gatekeepers. And more.

We're getting ready to celebrate my friend, Lynn Kincanon who has been named Loveland Poet Laureate for 2022-2024. Lynn is an amazing poet and this award is well deserved. One of the things I admire about Lynn is her commitment to practicing her poetry craft daily. And to take it a step further, she posts these daily poems on her Facebook page for all the world to see. It's one of the few things that make Facebook worth the time. One of the things I love about reading her daily poems is that we get to see her process of development. Her abilities are gaining both subtlety and strength as she stays true to her practice. There is something to be said for writing no matter what, or playing, or throwing, or making videos... When we practice something every day, we have a chance to become more proficient, and sometimes the activity itself can become a transcendent experience, where we lose the sense of who we are as the creating just happens. You can follow Loveland Poet Laureate on