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Bloggers Toolkit: Passing on Help with Gratitude

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We Are Experienced

Blogtool box with mouse hanging out

Who knows the real figures? Not every blog is indexed. Thousands of bloggers start blogging all over the world every minute. I’m sure that many could be like I was — thinking this stuff has got to be easy and finding it wasn’t as easy as I thought.

Drew McLellan has a project to help new bloggers who are feeling like that. He’s compiling a toolkit — a list of blogs that new bloggers can turn to when they start out — a bloggy version of the SOB NEW BLOGGER PAGE. He’s asking for our help. He said.

Anyone who is interested, create a post listing a few blog sites (and maybe give a word or two as to how you’d categorize them) that:
New Bloggers Toolbox

  1. Are chock full of practical tips
  2. Act as a living lab on how to write compelling blog posts
  3. Demonstrate how to build a community
  4. Teach marketing tools
  5. Are welcome wagons – bloggers who spotlight newbies

Drew’s Bloggers Toolkit
Converstations (chock full of practical tips)
CK’s blog (compelling blog post examples)
Viral Garden  (demonstrate how to build a community)
Lonely Marketer (teach marketing tools)
Successful & Outstanding Blogs (bloggers who spotlight newbies)

Additions to The Bloggers Toolkit

    DailyBlog Tips (chock full of practical tips)
    The Copywriting Maven (compelling blog post examples)
    Come Gather Round (demonstrate how to build a community)
    Blogopreneur (teach marketing tools
    The Good Blogs (bloggers who spotlight newbies)

There are so many more blogs that could be here. I know. I know. If you can, write a post like this one and link back to Drew, so he can find it when he needs to compile them.

Drew’s doing a generous thing with this project. He’s offered us a chance to participate. We can “give back with gratitude,” through the links we choose to pass on. Let’s build a list that will help new bloggers and serve our readers at the same time.

We were all new bloggers once, and someone helped us. It’s nice to have this chance to do the same.

Thank you, Drew, for this idea and for including my blog on your list.
–ME “Lis” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you make a plan to meet your goals, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Drew McLellan Has a Gift for Graduates

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No Wrapping Required

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If you’re a parent, you know . . . that the best advice your graduate will get could be your ideas and your experience expressed in someone else’s words.

If you’ve had experience beyond school, you know . . . that those share what they learned about where you’re ready to go can make the world a whole lot easier to navigate.

Back in March, Drew McLellan invited many people to share what they know about how to get that first job. Here’s what he said,

When you have a couple minutes, would you consider swinging by my place and adding your 2-cents? I don’t know about you — but I still remember how nervous I was and how desperately I wanted someone to give me a chance. I’d like to create a tool so the next generation can get over those nerves a little faster/easier with our help.

Drew’s request was generous. He was repaid in kind. The eBook that he made is complete and available now in two forms for you and your graduate.

In the pages you’ll find, words of wisdom from these professionals:

Take a minute to look at the names in that list.

Drew, that’s some list of friends you have!
Thanks for what it took to put this together.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

SOBCon 07 News: Drew’s Cool Idea!

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What We’ve Done So Far

It’s been only a month since we announced SOBCon 07 and so much has happened!

We’re letting folks know that this is a carefully-crafted, attendee centered, content-rich event. Folks are finding out that it’s going to be a quality experience in which the audience will have an active role as a partipicant.

That’s why when Drew McLellan suggested this idea, so in keeping with the conference, we just HAD to do it!

I’ll let Drew tell you about it.

Give Little Get A Little LOT

Guest Writer: Drew McLellan

Hey all,

Relationships are about give and take

You give a little. You get a little. That’s the balance of a good relationship.

It shouldn’t surprise you at all that this same balance would be adopted by a conference focused on taking your blog to the next level by building stronger and more valuable relationships.

SOBCon 07

Unlike a typical conference where the speakers are the only ones who get to share, at SOBCon we’re turning that notion upside down.

Each and every participant is invited to bring something they’ve created – a book, a white paper, a podcast series, a visual tool – you name it for every single attendee and speaker.
Imagine leaving the conference with a bag filled with knowledge, insights, laughter and inspiration.

And even better; imagine every SOBCon attendee learning more about your blog and passion, and being touched by your work.

There are only a few rules:

  • It has to be your original content.
  • You must bring enough for everyone.
  • You must be willing to give it away for free.
  • Do we need to say the material has to be appropriate?

Register today so you can get a little. And get a little LOT!!!
Drew,
Drew’s Marketing Minute

PS –Please pass this along. I have no pride of authorship on this. So feel free to completely re-write it, edit it or ask me to do either. Or just fall in love with it as it is and use it silly.

Thanks, Drew!
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Don’t forget to Persuade Me

Once Upon a Time: Five Things in a Story

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Oh Okay
I’m not a big believer in memes or tagging games. Most folks have plenty to do. Plenty of them want to keep their blogs focused on their blogging goal.

However, this one is short, and seems to fit almost any blog scenario — it offers more details about the blog writer. Our friend, Phil Gerbyshak passed it me, Troy Worman, Jodee Bock, Ted Demopoulos, and Kammie Kobyleski. That hero man, Troy, already has his up. AND it’s not just some list; it’s packed with his personality.

So here I sit with the gauntlet on the flat screen before me. I feel the beads of sweat beginning to form on my forehead. Where will I find five things about me that the committee of me will agree are interesting enough folks will want to read them? Perhaps if I pick five things and put them in story form. That will make the difference.

Once Upon a Time: Five Things in a Story
Once upon a time a little girl was born, and though today many people know her, details from those days aren’t well known. That’s what this story will share.

The little girl’s surname at birth is Italian. It’s long and musical. It means “star of the mountain.”

It could be that the star name ties to the branch in her family tree where she shows up. She’s the second daughter in three generations on one side of the family. On the other side, she’s part of the third generation that is made of two boys and a girl. Figure that one out.

She was a long-awaited daughter of an Italian father. So when she finally came, her proud papa rented a 40-acre farm and hired an accordion band for a party.

She was painfully shy as child, totally not a risk taker — even grass was suspect in her book. People, however, could win her over. That’s how she ended up with two childhood nicknames — Bashful and Mushy. They came at almost the same moment in time.

Her mother sent the three year old off to traditional dance training because she said the child was clumsy. The little gifl must been very clumsy because she was still training 14 years later.

The rest of the story is not nearly so interesting. . . .

Ah, to have the best life details of your story show up before you are four. I guess worse things can happen. 🙂

Now I tag Mike Sansone, Drew McLellan, Delaney Kirk, TechZ, and Ann Michael.to do the same. What are five things we don’t know about YOU?

Liz's Signature

PS. I’ve been tagged again.
Tag It Is, Then

Drew McLellan Is a B.A.D. Blogger

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Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Drew there?

I can’t really remember the first 5 or 10 minutes of our conversation, because Drew and I started with a lovely and quick-paced game of verbal volleyball. It started when I mentioned the Des Moines Blogger Mafia and went rolling quickly out of control from there. I remember laughing, replying, laughing, listening, and laughing some more. That’s my story. You’ll get no more details from me.

As we walked off the virtual verbal volleyball court, the conversation turned to the plight of the father of a 13-year-old daughter. I recalled the days of a son that age. We bemoaned parenthood together. Guess you could say it was bonding to share the “Don’t embarrass me” rule with another parent within the first 20 minutes of saying hello. We discussed how kids that age have the knack of reducing us to mere transportation. Yet despite that they still try to teach us the drop dead importance of fashion statements — complex math clearly beyond our comprehension. Life is rough for the parents of teenagers.

Knowing our limits, we moved on to branding and marketing. Einstein would have said that relatively we had gone from the nebulous to the far more predictable. This was a jungle we understood.

In no time at all we were off again. Drew was explaining career in marketing. A not so great boss who just by existing convinced him to go it alone. Now over a decade later, he’s got a thriving business teaching folks that a brand is more than a name and explaining that customers care about different things than companies do. We talked about how many companies find that information hard to hear — or even more surprising, how many find that news an epiphany.

Drew said that the moment when his clients “get some idea that they never got before” that’s what makes it all worth it. We spent some time talking about why some folks see things and some folks don’t. We both recognized that part of any management or consultant role is teaching. I think we both kind of gravitate to that part of it. We talked about how much we like helping people do things.

It was two bloggers talking about the elephant in the room again. Only this time we were discussing the idea that quality is a given, not a value any more — customers expected a certain level of quality and competitors already have it. Drew and I mentioned clients who want to build “quality,” that customers can’t see, don’t need, or don’t want to pay for. We were back at the Tony D. Clark discussion of letting go — this time from a slightly different perspective.

Drew and I kept talking around the idea of why it’s so hard to get some people to see the way other folks look at the world. . . . I was going to say “to walk in someone else’s shoes,” but I remembered Drew telling me how many pairs of shoes a 13-year-old daughter needs. That simple fact baffled both of us.

I guess there are some things that we can’t see too.

Hey, no one said bloggers are perfect people.

The one’s I’ve met are still remarkable.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

If you have a vision or a plan for your company sharing it with your employees is a great idea. —Drew McLellan

Stop by Drew’s Blog, Drew’s Marketing Minute, and say hi!

Thanks, Drew, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.