Successful Blog

WordCampDallas Business Panel

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An Exceptional Experience

I’m not a fan of panels as presentation format. I’ve been on them and attended them, and in both roles, I’ve found that the experience is often less than it might have been with a well-prepared speaker. Still I was honored when I was invited to join the business blogging panel at WordCampDallas 2008.

Had I know John Pozadzides before that event, I might have known this panel would be an exception.

The original panel was to be Aaron Brazell, Mark Ghosh, and Liz Strauss — that’s me. What fun when the panel started and Matt Mullenweg came up to sit down along with us in the big chairs at the Frisco City Hall.

The rest is history. John moderated the panel as well as any television host. He played devil’s advocate to get the discussion going. He was sure to connect the thoughts from one question to the next so that the discussion went well beyond the surface chat of most panel discussions.

Watch the video. Even if you don’t blog for business, seeing a panel this well done is an exceptional experience.

Thank you, John P.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Careful Credit Card Management for Small Businesses

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Tisha Kulak works with a credit card service, Creditorweb. Recently she asked if she might put together something about small business and spending as a guest post for this blog. I encouraged her to do just that.

START UPS NEED SUPER CONTROL OVER SPENDING
by Tisha Kulak

Small, start up business owners need to be conscious of spending.

Just because a credit card is in the name of your business, you can’t go on spending sprees and expect to be in the clear. Credit cards designed for small businesses can help you get through some rough patches in the beginning. You may need to finance some equipment to get you started or perhaps charge some marketing expenses to a company card.

The reality is your business finances still remain firmly on your shoulders. Unless you start out with a multi-million dollar contract, your income from a start up business may be more variable than you can imagine. Many entrepreneurs spent time as an employee before venturing out on their own. That employee job came with a steady paycheck. Owning your own business full time does not necessarily make the same promise. Often it takes months to seek out qualified job prospects and more months to seal a deal. Even if you manage to score a few deals right from the start, they may not be so lucrative because you might make financial sacrifices to snag the job.

Small business credit cards do have advantages such as reward programs that offer discounts of office supplies or cash back incentives. However, it’s wise to monitor spending constantly and not simply go wild with purchases to get the rewards. Expense tracking is essential — to maintain a realistic view of your income and expenses and to charge what you can afford to pay off each month. It is important when you contemplate credit card offers and credit companies that you always read the fine print. Make sure you have an understanding of what the rewards programs are and what it takes to accumulate them. If you need to spend thousands of dollars each month to get a couple of bucks back, move along to another offer.

Itemize your credit card statements each month and note which expenses to which part of the business. Make it a point to not mix business with personal, even though you are responsible for both. At the end of the year when you are analyzing your records for tax purposes, the one thing you don’t want is more work to do, sorting through 12 months of expenses.

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Tisha Kulak is a writer for Creditorweb.com, where she writes about business credit cards and responsible credit card use.

Thanks, Tisha, for the quick seminar!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Stuck with administrative overload? Work with Liz!!

SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Where Are You in the Blogging Gold Rush?

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History Has a Way of Repeating Itself

relationships button

A recent article in the NY Times went on in detail about the digital sweatshop — bloggers who work at home paid to write by the post. It held up the deaths of two bloggers and the heart attack of a third. Then it followed that with quotes by big-name bloggers to underscore the point that blogging isn’t good for our health.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

It distressed me to read this, because I see the reality behind it.
But it distressed me more, because I see the misperceptions glaring back.

We need to see reality to make healthy choices about stress.

Though it uses the word, emerging the article makes blogging sound like a fully grown industry. It’s not.

Business Pioneers — A Blogging Gold Rush

Blogging is not an industry no matter how we dress it up or talk about it. An industry has a structure that has established itself with conventions and models that prove themselves time. We’re still living in “carve a path” pioneer times. The business of blogging is still trying to prove viability.

Lately it seems I meet three sorts — blogging gold rushers, business pioneers, and those who watch.

During the gold rush, some folks went with dreams of striking it rich by panning the water and having luck. Some folks chronicled the adventure. Some folks watched. Business pioneers — folks with plans and business models — built places for people to eat, sleep, buy goods, and get entertained. Fewer folks, business pioneers with determination and long vision, built railroads, communication systems, dams, and business empires. Some folks worked for companies who were doing those things. Some of those workers got paid well. Some did not. In between them all were shysters who came to make fast cash and run.

Some folks won. Some folks cheated. Some folks reported events. Some folks lost. Some folks didn’t participate at all.

Where are you in this blogging gold rush?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Have a plan! Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Missed Opportunities and High Returns of Attending a Conference

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With a Little Help From Friends — Old and New Ones!

SOBCon08 Logo50

Deciding to go to SxSW was easy. Well it was easy last summer when Sheila Scarborough and I had this master plan. I would go down to Austin and stay at her house. We’ve known each other since two days before forever . . . it seemed a logical next step — everyone says it’s the show for bloggers. Everyone seems to go there. It seemed that I should too.

Sometime in January, I started to wonder, why was I making this significant investment? Would it really help my business? Adding friends to my Twitter account didn’t seem like enough reason to melt my credit card for a trip to Austin. At best, my answer was nebulous.

I was torn. I saw serious potential, but I’ve also gone to conferences where no business happened.

Missed Opportunities and High Returns of Attending a Conference

I had to be sure before I registered that serious business conversations would happen. I needed a high return on my investment. The registration would be more than worth it, if I could grow my business and add more value to SOBCon08.

I realized the only way to ensure a high return was to plan one. Here’s how you might do the same when you come to SOBCon08 or any upcoming conference you’re considering.

  • Know what you’re investing in. Ask yourself these questions:
    • Is the value for me in the speakers? the workshops?
      the chance to meet other folks there?
      How can I make the most of those opportunities?
    • What do I want folks to know about me and my business?
    • What do I want to learn from the people there?

    I knew I was going to SxSW to let people know about my business and SOBCon08. Just being clear on that made a difference. It affected what I put on my name tag and which business cards I took.

  • Touch base with people you want to meet and let them know why you want to meet them.
    • Most conferences have blog or a wiki where you can do that.
    • Or write a blog post inviting folks to let you know that they are going.

    I contacted certain folks that I wanted to see — Ian Kennedy, Chris Brogan, Fraser Kelton, Alex Iskold. We made plans.

  • Know which sessions you want to attend. Every conference offers different value in content and session format. I knew that SxSW panels would be podcast later. So I carefully chose the few I really thought were important to see in person.
  • Don’t overschedule. Leave some room for folks you don’t know will be there . . . I got to meet Jason Falls, J.C. Hutchins, David Beaudouin, and Beth Kanter.

Simple enough suggestions, but I asked — lots of folks came without a plan.

Frankly I’ve had my share useless, no-return conference experiences. They make it easy enough to convince myself that I can’t afford the time and cost of any conference. One thing they have in common is that I was a passive attendee — not invested in my own attendance.

It’s the plan that ensures the return. Now I pick the conferences most relevant to my business. Sometimes I suffer a pinch of cash flow, but I make a plan to ensure a return on my investment. My business grows, my network gets richer, and my blog gets more traffic. The plan keeps me focused, organized, and feeling in control of capturing what I’m after.

SxSW was a high return investment experience. I had fewer than 50 conversations, but they were the right ones with the right people. I came home with two new clients, another sponsor for SOBCon08, and a new project that I’m working on. That would have been a lot of missed opportunities had I not made the commitment.

Getting a return on our investment is the core of business. Key to investing is identifying true opportunities. Without investing we’re just going, moving forward not growing.

No one can attend every conference. But when one offers real potential, it’s worth thoughtful consideration. With a plan, we can ensure a high return on our investment. Missed opportunities are expensive too.

How do you decide between the high returns or missed opportunities of attending a conference?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!! SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. All that expertise in one room! Register now!

Your Personal Tale of Survival — and Success

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Yesterday J.C. Hutchins told his personal tale of survival. Today I asked him to say a few words how we might use his model in our own lives.

So J.C.’s brought us this.

Your Personal Tale of Survival — and Success

by J.C. Hutchins

Now to your personal tale of survival and success. We all have had a creative idea, or business model, or blog concept that we’re ferociously passionate about. Often, we don’t pursue that passion because it is untested — in fact, it probably appears to be doomed before launch, when viewed through the filter of conventional wisdom. After all, if it doesn’t already exist, how could it possibly be profitable?

My suggestion: If you are soul-certain that your idea is a great and sustainable one, tell the world to bugger off. Ignore the “no” noise. Say Damn It All and make the leap of faith in yourself and your work. And if you make it to that point — the edge of the precipice, the moment before you take that leap — remember these things:

  • You’re going to work harder for this than you’ve worked for damned-near anything else in your life: In the beginning, this passion project will be yours, from soup to nuts. You’re the one-man band: the boss, the employee, the cheerleader, the bookkeeper. It’ll suck more time than you’ll anticipate, it’ll be in your capillaries, and it’ll be exhausting.
  • You’re going to doubt yourself, your idea, and the commitment you’ve made: It’s okay to slip into “what am I doing?” mode. That’s human nature, particularly if your project’s success hinges on the long tail (as so many online businesses do). But as Journey once famously sang, “Don’t stop believing.” You’ve got a killer product, and you’re soul-certain of it. Which leads us to …
  • Do everything you can to evangelize your work: You’re a one-man band — a frickin’ maestro! — but what good is that if you’re playing to an empty room? Reach out to friends and family to spread the word. Invite online influencers to either blog/podcast about — or participate in — your endeavor. Find creative ways to engage your audience and these influencers. Answer every email. Make yourself available on platforms such as AIM, Twitter and Skype, should it be appropriate for your project. Promote your availability.
  • Empower your audience to become participants: If you do indeed have a killer product, and you’re funneling your energies into promotion and making yourself available to consumers, you will indeed find an audience. They’ll be supportive, emotive and hungry to contribute. So let them! Welcome them into your sandbox, beyond mere blog comments. Liz does this with great effect with her Open Comment Tuesdays, in which she’s there, interacting with you, during the experience. For “7th Son,” I solicit fan-created fiction, artwork, music and voice mail recordings that are inspired by the story, and post them on my site. This builds a community that defies the geography and ones and zeros that separate you from your consumer.
  • Ask your audience to evangelize on your behalf: There is no shame in questing for success, and there’s no shame in asking your consumers (who are now hopefully “fans”) to spread the word. Doing all of the promotional on your own will likely burn you out … and worse still, denies another opportunity for your audience to contribute. If appropriate, create an online street team and offer fun incentives for your community to participate. (I have a “Ministry of Propaganda” that offers branded swag to helpful evangelists.) If you’re audience is engaged, they won’t be spreading the word for the prizes. They’ll be doing it because they believe in you, and what you’re doing.
  • Don’t be afraid to experiment: Be wily with your promotion, your content and your relationship with your audience. Find what techniques work best to further your influence in the space, and enhance your relationship with your consumers. If you’re a blogger, try releasing a pod- or vidcast post, just to shake things up. Be daring. Never sit still. Solicit feedback. See what sticks.
  • Finally: Don’t be afraid to shift your goals: If your project is more (or less) successful than you originally anticipated, don’t be a bonehead and squander an opportunity to ramp-up (or scale back) your ambitions. Too often, we commit to a course of action and — through either stubbornness or inertia — forget that we are empowered and can control the direction of our endeavor. When I launched my podcast novel in 2006, I did it as a lark, to see if I could find an audience for my work. When that goal had been attained, I shifted priorities and began questing again for publication. I heard more than 100 more “no’s” from literary agents my second time around, but I persisted and eventually found an agent, and a publisher. You can similarly find opportunities to change your own course when needed, while remaining faithful to your original concept.

Remember that you already are a walking, talking survival story, and that you claim victories every day in your life. But if you have an idea for a great business, service or blog — that untested thing inside your mind that just won’t shut up — and have the gumption to pursue it, do it. Let your passion drive you, and know that you’re doing a brave thing, one that may be filled with risk.

But bravery, risk and beating the odds are the best part of every story of survival — and success.

What’s your great idea? What other suggestions do you have for saying Damn It All, making the leap of faith, cultivating communities and evangelism, and realizing your goals? I’d love to hear them in the comments.

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Thanks, J.C.! This is just what we need to do to invest in our ideas.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Invest in Yourself! Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Personal Survival Stories: Saying "damn it all" and tuning out the "no" noise

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I met J.C. Hutchins at SxSW, but I’d heard of him weeks before that. His is a powerful story. So I was delighted to meet him and to have a chance to talk with him about how he made his success happen on his own.

J.C. choose a path that the big publishers said wouldn’t work. He took it anyway and won. I’ve asked him to tell his story. This is Part 1 in a two part series.

The power of survival stories, saying “damn it all” and tuning out the “no” noise

by J.C. Hutchins

Stories of survival capture our imaginations like no other.

We’re awestruck by the life-and-death struggles seen in man versus nature tales (such as “Into Thin Air”). We’re smitten by the stories of underdogs overcoming insurmountable odds (“Star Wars”). Equally captivating are tales of forbidden romances that thrive, despite the establishment’s protests (“Romeo and Juliet”). A great many of us are fascinated by nature documentaries, too: primal survival, right there on your TV screen.

Why do we love these stories? It makes for great drama, no doubt. But I have my own pet theory: Survival equals success. And in a world where the odds are often stacked against us in nearly every endeavor we pursue — be it in business, love, parenting or personal relationships — we hunger for that, for victories. (“To Do” lists rock for this very reason.) The world is programmed to tell us “no.” Every day, we scrap and scratch to make it say “yes.” Even with our creature comforts, we are all walking, talking tales of survival.

Since you’re a reader of this blog, you know that Liz regularly provides insights on how to transform your blog or business into a more successful one — how to turn little “yeses” into bigger ones. But I’d like to share a lesson I’ve learned during my two years as a podcaster and blogger. It’s the lesson of “Damn It All,” of tuning out the noise of “no,” and taking the greatest gamble in your personal tale of survival: making the leap of faith in yourself, and your work.

In 2005, I completed a thriller novel of epic length titled “7th Son.” It took me three years to write and edit the 1,300-page manuscript … and a year of hearing dozens of no’s from literary agents to realize that my novel, as clever as I thought it may be, wasn’t going to get published. It was too long. Its mashup of genres (present-day thriller, science-fiction, human cloning, government conspiracies) wasn’t marketable. My aspirations of being on bookshelves was DOA, baby. “7th Son” was deader than disco.

And yet, I’d seen podcasting blossom that year, and keenly observed the word of mouth success of three novelists (most notably Scott Sigler, http://scottsigler.com whose novel “Infected” will be in bookstores everywhere this April). These writers were releasing their independent books as free serialized audio podcasts. In 2006, I realized that if I couldn’t sell my novel, I could share it in a similar way. I’d let people — not the publishing establishment — decide if the work was a good read or not.

I wanted my book to survive.

Thanks to that decision and a great deal of zero-budget social media marketing, my free “7th Son” podcast audiobook now has nearly 40,000 listeners worldwide. Next year, the first book in the “7th Son” trilogy (I chopped my monstrously-long manuscript into thirds for podcast release) will be published by St. Martin’s Press. I’m currently writing the debut novel in a new thriller series, which will also debut next year from St. Martin’s Press.

I’m no braggart, and I don’t intend my story to be a shill-fest for my work. Rather, view it the recollection of a guy who got so sick of hearing the word “no” — and was so convinced that his work deserved a chance to be enjoyed — that he said Damn It All and did whatever he could so see it soar.

Which brings us to back to your personal tale of survival and success. What are your great ideas? I’d love to hear them in the comments.

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Thanks, J.C.! Your story still inspires me. Tomorrow, in Part 2, “Your Personal Tale of Survival — and Success,” J.C. offers a few words on how to do what he did.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Be Inspired. Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!