Successful Blog

Find Your Ideal Peer Group

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You are the company you keep, online and offline

Finding a peer group that inspires and supports you is very important to the success of just about anything you do. If you find yourself frustrated or unmotivated, and can’t seem to make an internal change to remedy the situation, look around you.

Who are you spending time with? What blogs do you read? What books, magazines? Who do you go to the gym with?

If you want to take everything up several notches, seek out people who are successful doing what you aspire to do, and connect with them.

Action steps for today

Overhaul your blog reading.

Unsubscribe to the “debbie downer” blogger who is spinning wheels complaining about things, and find new writers who fill your brain with useful and inspiring content. Take a spin through Technorati or just Google “blog” and “keyword.” Better yet, just decrease the number of blogs you’re reading every day and start writing more!

Overhaul your offline friends.

It’s admirable that you want to help others, but make sure your mix of friends includes people who are taking action, going places, full of energy and happiness. Minimize your time with the “takers.” Be proactive about finding live events and local meetups that get you going. Check out Meetup.com for some possibilities.

Overhaul your online friends.

First, recognize who is a friend and who is a distant connection, just looking for a “like.” Find groups of connections who are helping each other, who aren’t looking over your virtual shoulder for someone more important to come along. Keep an eye out for up-and-comers you can grow with. Why not start a Triberr group among folks you admire and want to support?

Consider aligning yourself with a built-in peer support group like SOBCon. It’s just one example of an event that is also a year-round community. By taking the leap and extending yourself, you get a launching pad for your dreams. And who knows, someone out there may need YOU as a peer! Heck, you’re amazing.

Are you taking steps to surround yourself with the right peer group?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

3 Tips for More Customer Referrals

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By Jennifer Dunn

You need more clients, but what’s the easiest way to get them? Simple – through clients you’ve already done business with! However, what isn’t simple is obtaining customer referrals when you don’t know how to go about it. Here are three things you can do to ensure you’ll get a great referral at the end of a job.

1. Knock Their Socks Off

There’s absolutely no way you will get a referral from your client if you don’t do the job they wanted correctly. Would you give a carpenter a referral if they only fixed 3/4 of your floor? Of course not – it would severely hurt your reputation as a business owner and as someone to be trusted.

Make sure you’re doing absolutely everything your client wanted you to do. You may think you’ve completed a job but later discover you forgot a few things. These “few things” can be disastrous – not only to your chances of a referral but also to the client ever knocking on your door again.

2. Follow Up

Most jobs end when the client pays and you go your separate ways. The work is done and the client goes to see if what you’ve done will improve their business, life, or both. You go and try to find someone else to hire you so you can keep paying the bills.

However, that’s not really the end of it all, is it? The client doesn’t really know if what you’ve done has worked until it’s been road-tested. If you’ve created a new front page for their website, they could experience severe backlash to it even though it’s amazing. Their customers might rail against it for a myriad of reasons and you don’t know until it’s out there.

If you follow up with your client, it shows you’re actively invested in their business and not just a passing face in the crowd. Ask them how things are going and if they need any further help. If you see some interesting news they could use, send it along. It shows you care about them and your relationship with them, which can lead to good things down the road.

3. Ask and Offer Incentives

Your client probably has no clue you would like a referral. You can’t just assume they can read your mind no matter how heavily you hint. You just need to come out and ask.

Timing is key, though. If you haven’t completed the above two steps don’t even think about asking your client to refer you to his or her colleagues. On the other hand, waiting too long can be just as bad. The client may not even remember you if you wait half a year to contact them about it!

Sometimes incentives can do the trick. For example, offer your client a discount for the next job they need done if they refer a friend or two. If they’re a repeat client and they regularly bring in more work you can up the ante even more. Rewarding them for maintaining a good relationship with your company is never a bad thing!

Do you regularly ask for client referrals? How do you do it?

Author’s Bio: Jennifer Escalona Dunn is the owner of Social Street Media where she writes about small business, tech and finance for sites like WePay and Outright. You can find her on Twitter @jennescalona.

Top Threats to Your Online Reputation

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By Mike Zammuto

The Internet has long been likened to the Wild West—and not without reason. On the Web, a certain kind of lawlessness seems to prevail; people can say pretty much whatever they like, about whatever subject they like, and they can do so with impunity. It matters little whether their comments are truthful, or whether they are outright defamatory. On the Internet, it seems, anything goes.

This kind of freedom may be nice for consumers, but it can be dangerous for businesses and brands—and for small companies, in particular. There is, in the end, nothing to prevent online consumers from posting negative (and fallacious) reviews about your brand; there is nothing to prevent rival companies from smearing your name, and there is no way to completely stop the spread of Internet rumors or negative news stories about your brand. Again, on the Internet, anything goes.

This is not meant to sound alarmist. The good news is that small businesses that know about these common reputational threats can do much to defend themselves. Some of the gravest reputational threats are rounded up below, along with some strategies for preventing them.

Doppelganger Domains

If you haven’t heard anyone talking about doppelganger domains just yet, you will soon; this is an increasingly prevalent tactic that large, duplicitous companies use against their smaller competitors. Basically, a rival company might sign up for an online domain that corresponds with your company’s name—and then, your rival will use that site to parody you, to lampoon you, and ultimately to run your company into the ground.

There is an incredibly easy fix here, however, and it’s as simple as taking a few moments to buy the rights to all of the domains associated with your brand. These include YourBrandName.com, .net, and .org; you may also wish to sign up for the domains associated with your key executives, and with your branded products. Go through GoDaddy.com and none of these domains ought cost much more than $20 apiece. This is a simple and cost-effective way to protect your brand’s online integrity.

User-Generated Reviews

A much pricklier and more complicated subject is that of user-generated reviews. Review sites like Yelp.com, Urban Spoon, TripAdvisor, and Foursquare are gaining in prominence and influence all the time. It is not hard to understand why: simply put, more and more consumers are using these sites to base their purchasing decisions. What this means, however, is that online review sites can either make or break your small business, and even a lone bad review can lead to a drop-off in sales.

Sadly, though, responding to negative reviews is rather difficult. Certainly, small businesses should make it a habit to monitor their reviews and to post grateful responses to the positive ones, and even to instances of genuinely constructive feedback. Responding to negative reviews—outright unreasonable and defamatory ones—is less advisable. That’s because small businesses are threatened not just by reviews from real consumers, but also by fake reviews, planted by rival companies—and, in some cases, by disgruntled employees!

So what’s the best response to negative reviews? Really, the best response is no response at all. Rather than draw further attention to those nasty reviews, companies are encouraged to work on building up plenty of positive reviews from their faithful customers. Simply ask for those reviews, and rest assured that padding the ballot with these positive notices will significantly dampen the blow of negative ones.

Internal PR Errors

Several months ago, there was an instance of an American Red Cross worker logging into the charity’s Twitter account, thinking it was her private, personal Twitter feed. She proceeded to post about getting drunk, which is not exactly the kind of thing supporters hope to see on the Red Cross Twitter feed. The whole incident was an honest mistake, yet it reveals one of the biggest threats that companies face in the Age of Social Media—namely, their own employees!

Any ill-advised or poorly-worded social media post can threaten your company’s online reputation. One solution is to make sure that your social media posts are handled only by members of your team who really understand the corporate vision—and not by, say, an intern or a part-time employee. Additionally, password-protecting your accounts—and changing those passwords with regularity—is essential.

Online Reputation Management for SMBs

The bottom line is that the reputational threats that loom on the horizon for small businesses are truly numerous—but that doesn’t mean SMBs are powerless to defend themselves. These reputational meltdowns are far from inevitable; on the contrary, they can be protected against through the implementation of these online reputation management strategies.

Author’s Bio: Mike Zammuto is the President and COO of Reputation Changer (reputationchanger.com). The company offers online reputation repair and other reputation management services.

Our Top 15 Posts Ever

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By Andy Crestodina

Since the beginning, this blog has helped more than a million visitors learn hundreds of important lessons. You, the readers and writers, have shared your experiences and techniques through more than 1000 posts and nearly 100,000 comments.

In this post, we’ll look back the 1000+ posts on Successful Blog and review. All of these, of course, were written by our beloved Liz. Some of these were instant classics. Others were their own mini-viral events. Each is an example of great writing on relevant topics.

So here they are, the top 15 posts in the history of this website…

1. The How to Happiness – Top 10 Ways to Start Living Your Life

“You don’t need to get a life, you’ve already got one.“

2. 10 Reasons Readers Don’t Leave Comments

“It seems that we have the same secret reasons for not leaving our calling card. We want to leave our thoughts, but things get between us and that comment box.”

3. How To Make Your Dream Come True – Through Thought, Strategy and Action

“Wonders, wishes, and waiting without commitment are a whole lot of nothing happening.“

4. 5 Reasons People Don’t Get Hired and the Only 3 Questions that Count

“An interview or a client presentation is a test. It’s like an oral exam in which the subject is you.”

5. Ideas? 20 Questions to Kickstart New Thoughts

“Imagine you just landed on this planet. You’d have a passel of questions and a totally beginner’s view. The key is not to fix things, but to find new reactions to what you encounter.”

6. Are You a Writer? 7 Traits that Writers Have in Common

“Every person is struggling to find a meaning that makes sense. It’s not about money. It’s not about volume of work. It’s about meeting a self-defined goal of becoming a writer.”

7. How to Receive a Compliment Without Being a Self-Centered Idiot

“Focus on the speaker and the value of the speaker’s words. That guarantees your response will be graceful, respectful, and not about you.”

8. 25 Outstanding Links to Help You Write a Compelling Tagline

“How do you pack all of that promise into four or five simple words that will resonate with the folks you want to reach?”

9. Conan’s Good-bye: 10 of 10 in Leadership, Reputation, and Community

“Corporations, small businesses, every one of us could learn a lot from how Conan said good-bye. His words were the careful words of a leader delivered from the heart in a difficult situation.”

10. What Is Humility?

“The funny thing about humility is the second you think you have it, you don’t.”

11. The Problem with Writing… 25 Things to Know BEFORE You Write for a Living

“Writing communicates through across the world, through time, to people I have never met. It captures ideas, inventions, and information. It’s worth it to be even a tiny part of that.”

12. What Is a Social Community

“An online community isn’t built or befriended, it’s connected by offering and accepting. Community is affinity, identity, and kinship that make room for ideas, thoughts, and solutions.“

13. 10 Reasons Creative Folks Make Us Crazy

“What are the traits that creative folks have in common? Are we all creative? Is there anyone who’s not? Can I boost my creativity? Am I a creative freak?”

14. 27 Things to Know Before You Work in Social Media

“This is not a rant, simply a set of observations which are quite similar to the challenges of any communication-based, people-centered endeavor.“

15. 10 Ways to Live In the Moment Every Moment of Your Life

“Ever talked with a guy who’s passionate about his life? He doesn’t give one kind of energy during the hours of 8 to 5 and another when play time arrives. His moments are filled with enthusiasm and determination for being part of everything that he does.”

We hope you enjoyed this round-up. Hopefully, this was a discovery of some of the great posts you missed. Or perhaps it was a rediscovery of posts you read and loved. So many classics.

Feel free to reshare the greats. Better yet, leave a comment and tell us which of these you loved most …or perhaps which of your favorites we left out!

Author’s Bio: This list was compiled by Andy Crestodina, the Strategic Director of Orbit Media. Andy is on and Twitter.

3 Things I Discovered About Marketing From My Customers

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By Chris Nosal

Over the years, going through various systems, methods, and education on marketing, I’ve come across a lot of information on the topic; much of it subject to debate, criticism, and even being completely contradictory (which made it hard for me to decide what to do, and what not to do).

However, one of the biggest things I’ve learned in marketing and working with people, is that successful marketing often comes down to just a few basic principles that, while often overlooked, make perfect sense when you think about them, but you can only learn them by listening to the people you’re serving.

But if you’re like me (and so many other marketers out there), you’ve gotten so wrapped up in trying to learn all the latest, greatest, and best “techniques” and tactics” that you were never able to see the basic reality of marketing itself.

And in this post I’d like to share with you 3 simple strategies that transformed my entire business:

1. Focus On Creating Great Products.

We know that our products and services are, ultimately, the only reason we make money, and they’re what we get paid for, yet I’m forever amazed at how many marketers take the element that is at the CORE of the success of their business, give very little time or attention to making it great for their customers, and are often content to sell mediocre products, as long as their marketing is good.

We live in the social media age, and if you want to get a good reputation, and to have a thriving business, your first priority needs to be on focusing on the core moneymaker in your business, which is your products; plain and simple, if you put great products in front of people, they will pull out their wallets.

2. Start By Building Trust.

Everywhere I look, I see hype and sensationalist claims; people shamelessly bragging and throwing hype in your face about how great their products are, and while this worked at one time, before the rise of the internet, when 4 or 5 people were doing it, and you had time to listen, now we hear this propaganda so many times a day that we just tune it out, and all these claims just blend into one big pile of noise.

If you want to stand out with your readers, start by talking about why you created your products, educating readers on the features of your product, and teaching readers how your product is going to benefit them. If you really want to stand out, build a loyal following, and get noticed, start by focusing on creating an intimate relationship with your customers.

3. Be Passionate About What You Do.

Whether it’s Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or Steve Jobs, people get behind someone who has a VISION, because they see how that vision will benefit them, and the world, and want to see that vision fulfilled. That’s the real secret to building a lasting business that works.

When you inspire people with a vision, you give them something they can get behind and support, and instead of just pitching a product, you’re building an emotional bond with people, and connecting with them on an intimate one-on-one level, which is a THOUSAND times more powerful than just trying to convince someone to buy something they don’t already want so you can make money.

No matter what you do, you need to make sure that you’re doing something great, because once you’re gone, no matter how much money you’ve made, you can’t take the money with you, and you can’t get back the time you’ve lost once it’s gone.

Remember what I said at the beginning of this post; the people you’re SERVING.

Your job and focus in marketing is not to make money, it’s to serve people, and if you follow this formula, the money will come naturally as a result of the service you provide.

So make sure you don’t become a slave to money, and that you use your life doing something you’re passionate about that helps people.

When you follow this formula, you’ll find that not only does it make you successful, but it also provides the added benefit of helping others, giving your life real meaning, and enabling you to make the most of every moment of your life.

Remember that if you truly want to be successful in marketing or business, it starts with focusing on making the biggest possible difference you can in lives of the people you help, doing what you love with your life, and you’ll find that everything else falls into place naturally.

Author’s Bio: Chris Nosal writes about various self-help, personal development, and learn some interesting new marketing strategies at his personal blog. You can also read his blog to get more free advice, connect with Chris, or download his free marketing eBook.

To Publish or Not to Publish? That is the Question…

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By Tiffany Matthews

To be or not to be: that is the question…

One of the most well-known lines in literature, this phrase opens a young man’s soliloquy in Hamlet, the tragic play by William Shakespeare. The young man in question, who happens to be titular character, ponders on the meaning of life–whether it is worth it or not to stay alive when your life is filled with one hardship after another.

“To be or not to be” remains a timeless question that will drive you into introspection if you are still unsure of your writing path–to be or not to be a writer? If you’ve decided to follow your heart and become a wordsmith, you then ponder on the next big question, “To publish or not to publish?”

The Publishing Dream

For many writers, the dream of publishing their own book is an elusive one. Becoming an author doesn’t happen overnight. Just like when you become a writer, you need to read a lot and write a lot before you can become a competent writer. To be an author, it’s gonna take courage, tenacity, hard work, self-confidence and optimism. If you’re determined to get published, the next question to consider is which type would you choose–traditional publishing or self-publishing?

Traditional Publishing

The path to getting published is riddled with grammar, thousands of words, many rewrites, and brutal rejections, especially when you opt for the traditional route. It can take years before manuscripts are turned into books and some don’t even get to see the light of publishing day. You will have to send multiple pitches to not just one but to several publishing houses and even that isn’t a guarantee it will be picked up. If you can afford to wait a few years, use that time to work on your writing, hone your submissions and learn more about the publishing business.

Don’t be discouraged by rejections. Author Stephen King went through many rejection slips before he got published. But he didn’t let that stop him. He remained optimistic and continued writing. As time went by, the rejection letters became a little more encouraging, with one telling him he had talent and that he should submit again. A decade or so later, he finally published his first novel, Carrie, and the rest is history.

Self-Publishing

If your attempts at publishing traditionally take you to a dead end, you can consider your second option, self-publishing. While this choice can narrow the time it takes to get published, it means more work than when you publish traditionally. First of all, you need to have considerable knowledge of what publishing entails like designing the book, editing, illustrating and even the marketing, promotional and sales aspects. You’ll also need a good dose of self-confidence, hammered by years of experience in the writing industry. You should also set a reasonable time frame to accomplish everything, like one year.

One thing you should remember is that when you self-publish, you are considered to be the publisher of your book and thus, must embrace whatever legal responsibilities that come with it. If you are on a budget, you can get affordable prepaid legal services to help you whenever you encounter legal issues during publishing.

Books Don’t Appear By Magic…

Another thing you must keep in mind is that books aren’t made overnight. Your first manuscript will go through several edits, rewrites and fine-tuning before you can pitch it to traditional publishing houses. If you decide to self-publish, you will have to do the brunt of the work, including tirelessly promoting your book online and local bookstores in your area. But if your story is worth sharing, word-of-mouth recommendations and glowing book reviews might just land you a deal with traditional publishing house.

If you haven’t started writing that book you want to publish, today is a good day to start. Don’t let fear of failure stop you from accomplishing your publishing dream. You can make your dream come true if you try. Be empowered by what Stephen King said in his book, On Writing,

“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”

Author’s Bio: Based in San Diego, California, Tiffany Matthews writes about travel, fashion and anything under sun at wordbaristas.com. You can find her on Twitter as
@TiffyCat87.