Successful Blog

Book Review: Born to Blog, by Mark W. Schaefer and Stanford A. Smith

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Were you “born to blog?”

Born to Blog came along at a critical point for me. Last week, I was seriously considering shuttering my own blog, weighed down by a perceived lack of traffic, unclear purpose, and minimal comments.

But then I picked up this book, and read:

“It takes time to find your voice, to connect with your audience, to learn how to appropriately build and promote your blog, and to write in a manner that connects with busy readers.”

It was the little bit of encouragement I needed to hear at that moment, and now instead of throwing in the towel, I’m going to refocus and keep going.

Born to Blog is a pithy little book co-written by two blogging powerhouses–Stanford Smith of Pushing Social and Mark Schaefer of {grow} blog. It’s written in a similar easy-to-grasp style as Schaefer’s previous hit, The Tao of Twitter.

You’ll find tips on the why and the how of blogging, both for business and pleasure. It’s a fun read, formatted with stories from both Mark and Stanford, and punctuated by “take action” highlights.

I strongly recommend it for blogging beginners as well as blogging veterans who want a quick refresher.

Key takeaways:

  • Let your business blog be an adventure story for your potential customers. Bring them along on your journey.
  • Start with the “minimum viable blog,” the content and platform that will get you to your goals the fastest.
  • Seek out the passionate learners to be your potential blog contributors.
  • “A blog’s strength flows from reader respect and trust.” Be honest and transparent if you’re planning to monetize the blog.
  • Invest time in analyzing and evaluating what is going right and what’s going wrong so that you can do course correction.
  • Personal blogs are different from business blogs; they need a different approach and strategy.
  • You never know when your words are having an impact!

Were you born to blog?

Note: I was not given a review copy of this book; my review is unsolicited and from the heart.

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

Don’t Take Credit if Your Business Only Accepts Cash

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The smart small business owner is the man or woman who gives their customers options.

With that being said, what options do you give the customers who buy goods and services from you? Is it a cash-only policy or do you also let customers charge, perhaps even using mobile payments?

As more customers look for the most affordable and convenient shopping experience, it behooves the small business owner to let consumers buy with more than just cash.

If you stop and think about it, look at what you are missing out on if you have been a cash-only business up to this point:

* Many customers do not like carrying sizable amounts of cash on their person, so they will typically spend less with you if they can’t charge via traditional means or mobile payments;

* Many customers will shop on impulse if they have the plastic option, meaning you stand to gain more sales. As many consumers battle through tough financial times, they are less apt to spend when you only accept cash, as it is more painful to part with the green stuff from their wallets or purses;

* Many customers like the ability to buy while on the go or do online shopping in the convenience of their homes. If you only accept cash payments, you limit the amount of sales you can register.

With those three reasons for accepting more than just cash payments, will 2013 be the year you expand your customer offerings.

When it comes to standard credit card transactions, don’t let the reports of customers cutting back on their plastic scare you.

Yes, a number of surveys do indicate that customers are slicing down their credit card debt, but that doesn’t mean they won’t charge for quality products and services.

According to The Fed, consumers have cut back on using credit cards since the 2008 credit crisis. Just over four years ago, Americans had compiled $1.03 trillion in credit card debt, an all-time high. In July of 2012, it was $850.7 billion — or 17% less. One financial expert pointed out that while many Americans continue to spend, they have instead turned to using pay-as-you-go-debit cards and cash as opposed to credit.

Despite that news, the smart business owner will make sure that credit cards are an option for his or her customers. Without them, one’s sales are likely to be impacted.

Mobility Matters Going Forward

Another area to focus in on in 2013 is mobile payments.

Portio Research recently reported that more than 81 million people around the globe used their mobile devices to make purchases (including in-app payments, mobile ticketing and mobile coupons) only three years ago. Prior to 2015, that figure is projected to hit some 400 million users worldwide.

If you have yet to delve into mobile payments for your business, think about the potential sales you could be missing out on by not offering them. With more mobile technology on the way, it only stands to reason that many consumers will want the speed and ease of making purchases with such payments.

In the event you have had a cash-only policy up until now, rethink the options available to you going forward.

With credit cards and mobile payments, your company could unlock the door to substantially more business.

Photo credit: bizplanhacks.com

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers small business topics for various websites, including gold prices.

Firing Employees: Small Business Edition

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By Stacey Thompson

For most monolithic corporations, letting go of an employee is something of a matter of course. All the necessary clearance forms, waivers, and all manner of other paperwork is just a print request away. An individual leaves the company, and barely anyone notices. Human resources arranges for a new hire within weeks. Life goes on.

This isn’t the case with smaller companies and startups. With a leaner workforce of multitasking members, having any one individual leaving the fold carries much more of an impact. Everybody knows everyone, and more often than not, there are bonds that transcend being just colleagues; people are actually friends with each other. They might even know each other’s spouse, parents and children. This is not an office of faceless people.

So, let’s say you are the commander-in-chief of a scruffy little startup that could. Utilizing your best judgement, and a considerable number of after-hours sessions deliberating with your company’s officers, you have come to the conclusion that you have to let go of one of the core members of your foundational posse. Another quandary looms over your head:

Just how are you going to go about it?

Honesty: Still the Best Policy?

In a word, yes. Still, given the potential of hurt feelings and severed ties, one must be able to deliver the truth in a less hurtful way. There is no room for public shaming or creating some dramatic Hollywood-esque scene here. Even if you think this person deserves a flogging in front of his would-be former colleagues, do hold back the urge and realize that you will be dealing them an already painful blow by showing them the door.

Meet with the person in private, lay down all the facts that led you into the decision of letting them go, and as a friend, offer some consolation, and an assurance that he or she will walk out of the company with positive feedback and recommendations. This assumes you are letting them go for unsatisfactory performance, of course. If they committed some grave offense (or insistently committed minor ones), you are under no obligation to soften the blow of getting fired.

Fired, or Encouraged to Resign?

As mentioned above, if this person simply failed to meet your standards of performance, and did not willingly take a course of action that harmed the company or its employees, you could go a little easy on him.

You could offer the opportunity to make a graceful exit by allowing them to voluntarily resign from their post. Resignation from the company would look infinitely better than being booted out, and it will not hurt their employability later on.

On Burning Bridges

The world is an awfully small place, thanks to technology. The person you are handing walking papers to might just be on the other side of the table in the future, you may never know. Don’t get me wrong, there are people that you absolutely should minimize contact with (be it at work or in your personal life), but consider all the facts and think things through before ever branding someone as a person not worth associating with.

Ideally, you would want your about-to-be ex-employee leaving with the knowledge of why he/she was let go, and consequently, what they should do to improve themselves so that they will not suffer the same fate in the future. You may have been the bringer of bad news on that day, but if you were sincere and made them realize that they needed improve themselves (as opposed to becoming vengeful and bitter without correcting their deficiencies), they will not lose respect for you.

I know it’s unlikely, but may you never, ever need to fire anyone. Onward, entrepreneurs!

Author’s Bio: Stacey Thompson (@RedHotStacey) is a professional writer, marketer, entrepreneur, and a lover of weird little animals. She is based in San Diego, California, and is definitely not beyond seeking expert advice from competent and highly professional consultancy firms like MyCorporation. Stacey and her gang have a blog, Word Baristas.

SOBCon Chicago 2013: What Kind of Leader Are You?

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From the beginning, leadership has been a cornerstone of SOBCon. And one of the best when it comes to demonstrating and promoting how to be a leader is Steve Farber. (Click here if you can’t see the above video.)

Last year when Steve joined us at SOBCon in Chicago, he demonstrated yet again why he’s one of our favorite speakers. And we’re thrilled he’s joining us again this year. We’re also happy to report that we’ve crossed the 70% mark. So if you haven’t claimed your seat, fair warning: they’re going fast.

How to Maximize Your Time at Networking Events

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By Jennifer Escalona Dunn

Networking events such as conferences and local business gatherings can often go from successful to stressful in a short period of time. You think you’re ready to tackle the evening, even arriving extra early to maximize your time, but in the end you leave empty handed, having only met a handful of people. Worse, nobody can really help you in any way.

Like everything else in business, it helps to have a plan. Use these tips to “profit” from your next networking trip.

Before the Trip

Having a successful trip to a networking event may depend on what you do before you even step through the door. It’s one thing to sign up for an event and hope for the best. It’s another thing entirely to have a battle plan at the ready in order to make the most out of the trip.

The first question you should ask yourself and any team members accompanying you is “what do I/we want out of this event?” In other words, instead of blindly going in with the attitude you’ll just see what happens and come what may, it’s better to have a focus. You’re much less likely to come away empty handed this way.

Be as specific as you want with your goals. Don’t just say “I want to talk to five good contacts,” make the goal “I want to make five new contacts that can help me spread my business to the Northwest region of the state.”

You should also contact the speakers beforehand. And if the event posts a pubic guest list, go ahead and look up the other attendees online. This way, instead of walking into a room full of strangers, you’ll have an immediate opening since you’re “Mary-who-emailed-you-last-week.”

During the Trip

While you’re actually at the networking event you want to cover the most ground possible. If you’re by yourself or the room is huge, this may not exactly be easy. This can be especially true if it’s one of those “cliquey” networking events – you know the type. It can be tough to break into a group that’s already established itself.

However, if you know what you’re there for, this becomes much easier. In fact, if you’ve really done your homework, you may already know who exactly you want to network with. Not everyone is great at these networking events and may hang back – the movers and shakers aren’t always in the big crowds, in other words.

Most of all, act interested in what they want to talk about. You can always pitch them ideas later when you have their email or Facebook page. Talking about something they like will get you in the door much quicker than berating them with business ideas.

Pro Networking Tip: Arrive early. You’ll be able to talk to more people, and it’s a lot easier to talk to the first few go-getters than it is to walk into a big crowd and break into an existing conversation.

Follow Up

Now is when all your hard work starts to pay off. You knew how to work the room, you knew who to talk to, and you made sure to have a pleasant conversation. Now all you have to do is work the follow up.

Of course make sure your message includes something regarding your conversation you had at the event. For instance, if you had a conversation about the best kind of golf clubs, mention you saw their favorite brand at the store the other day on sale. This can be the lead in you need for the rest of the conversation. From there, find your new connections on LinkedIn and then keep up with their news.

Pro Tip: People never forget the person who has done something for them. If you just bought a house and met someone who mentioned looking for a good real estate agent, make that connection. There will always be time later for your own business interests.

One a scale of 1 to 10, how much good did you get out of your last networking event? Why?

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.

Employee Rewards Programs: Work Smarter to Get Your Employees Working Harder

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By Christopher Wallace

As hard as it is to find good help these days, sometimes it’s even harder to keep it. Even with high unemployment rates, you are not guaranteed to hold on to valuable employees if you do not convey how much you appreciate them. One of the best ways to recognize the worth of your staff is through an employee rewards program. If your business has already instituted some sort of rewards system to incentivize excellence from your people, you are already ahead of the curve!

But creating the program is only as good as the degree to which employee motivation and productivity increases as a result. If only there was a way to quantify the success of your own employee rewards program. Well, you’re in luck, because someone else has already done the lion’s share of the heavy lifting for you.

Recently, Amsterdam Printing conducted a survey of 1,277 business customers. Fifty seven percent of them indicated they had some sort of employee recognition program in place. Amsterdam asked both employees and managers to comment and rank various aspects of the programs to determine what works and what doesn’t. Although many different facets were discussed, several overall themes emerged: employees wanted to be rewarded and managers noticed increased productivity when workers were recognized for their efforts.

Positive Work Environment Translates to Increased Productivity

Not surprisingly, the survey revealed that the highest positive correlation between recognition programs and increased productivity came through programs that improved an individual’s working environment. Think about it: it’s hard to get anything done when you’re absolutely miserable or in an environment that hinders progress throughout the day. Accordingly, when the company sponsors events or programs that aim to improve one’s working conditions, increased productivity naturally follows.

It’s effective because it’s a nice little circle: when your employees want to be there, they’ll invest more of themselves in their work and because of that. The company turns back around and rewards them for it, which only motivates your employees to continue their good work to keep their positions within your so obviously appreciative company, and well, you get the idea.

Morale Must Haves (and also some things to avoid!)

In the same way that effective employee rewards and incentive programs improve productivity, nothing will kill employee motivation faster than “rewards” that don’t work or impact the working environment in a negative way. Here are a few things to keep in mind when you are designing your employee rewards program.

Clarity

Make sure the scope of the program and the criteria for success are clearly defined and uncomplicated. When the rules and conditions are easy to understand and everyone is on the same page about which things earn them what, there is little room for confusion and hurt feelings when all is said and done.

Consistency

Not only should your program be clear, but it should also not change before it has concluded. For example, Amsterdam’s survey revealed that the number one thing people wanted to be recognized for was “Performance Excellence” (by a whopping 69.5%). If you have a program in place that has historically awarded prizes for performance excellence, you can’t switch mid-stream and suddenly decide to promote “Flexibility” (much lower on the list of preferences, receiving only 22.8% of the popular vote).

Equality

And speaking of popular votes, if it becomes clear that the program you have in place is really a front for the company “popularity contest” in which only the “cool kids” ever win anything, the majority of your employees will start to feel insecure about their own merit and worth to the organization. In addition, you are creating the perfect breeding ground for suspicion and resentment. This is easily avoided by making sure your team managers know to spread around the rewards and to switch gears if the same person is consistently earning the honors.

Variety

This is not to say that a person who is clearly superlative should not be rewarded for being amazing; rather, the trick is in developing a program designed to reward the superstar in us all: we all excel at different things and are important in different ways. If you include enough factors for consideration, you increase the likelihood that different people will win each time you award the honor, and you highlight their success due to the quality that makes them unique.

The Most Enticing Rewards

Now that you have determined that you do indeed need an employee rewards program, what should you offer as incentives? Without fail, Amsterdam’s survey revealed that people still respond to the classic monetary prize: cash, gift cards and bonuses always work. The employees also indicated that they value personalized gifts and employee perks, such as a desirable parking space or paid time off.

There are also priceless rewards that don’t cost a company anything other than a moment of time. For those businesses without the means to convey lavish gifts, a good old-fashioned pat on the back still goes a long way to let those around you know that you appreciate them.

For those of you with a program already in place, what are the most effective rewards for your employees? If you are going to develop a program now, what sorts of benefits do you plan to include?

Author’s Bio: Christopher Wallace is Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Amsterdam Printing, a leading provider of custom business pens and other promotional products such as imprinted clothing, mugs and customized calendars. Christopher regularly contributes to Promo & Marketing Wall blog.