Successful Blog

My Fear-Less Thank You to the Real Heroes of SOBCon

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It’s Only Started

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SOBCon2011 (April 28-May1, 2011) has started already started. Wow! Never too soon to get good things going toward the sky.

Sometimes I get things in the wrong order.

So many wonderful comments exchanged on Twitter, so many hugs and handshakes, so many requests for “When do we get to do this again?” that I didn’t breathe long enough to say a proper “thank you.”

I’m sorry.

I personally thank you.

As I stop to breathe and reflect, the overwhelming feeling is gratitude. Tears fill my eyes thinking of you and the barn we raised this year.

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Sending a peaceful beach and bottle of champagne to you.

You see, Terry and I both agree that it’s really you — all of you — sponsors, speakers, panelists, and participants who make it all work. It’s in the way you believe in us and believe in each other.

It’s in your eyes, your smiles, and in the way you refuse to let anyone fail.

Every year, we all find ourselves wondering, just a little stunned at how it all came together to be something bigger than all of us.

We learned, we lead, we inspired each other.

I wasn’t the same person before I started connecting with you. I marvel at the ways you all have improved me, bring the best out of me, and choose to see the best in me. … kind of like Terry, Lorelle, and my family.

You’ve softened my rougher edges to make me a little more like you.

I’m proud of what we’ve made.
But don’t think for a second that it could have been done without you.

You are the heroes.

Congratulations!
And thank you.

Please value you what you’ve made and make it even more now.

I love you,

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Your Blog Is Your Stage, But Who’s In The Audience?

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By Terez Howard

You’ve rehearsed your lines. You’ve completed the finishing touches on your costume. The curtain rises, and you see an audience anticipating a five-star performance. Do you recognize the faces looking back at you?

Bloggers have a reason for blogging. They blog to share what’s going on in their personal and professional lives. They blog to promote their products or a service. They blog to express their opinions. Most often, bloggers write in the hopes of creating a reaction.

Who has a ticket to your show?

Here are some general groups of people that take a ticket to blogs:

  • Relatives
  • Friends
  • Potential customers
  • Returning customers
  • Business associates
  • Yourself (You write for you)

Have you chosen a group to write for? I don’t care who holds the ticket, as long as someone is reading what I write. Getting readers to follow your blog can be challenging, and in a state of desperation, you might say that you’d be satisfied with any human being capable of discerning the English reading your blog. If you want a follower to stay for the duration of the show, then not any Tom, Dick or Harry will do.

Look at it this way. You blog for a reason. Let’s say that you blog in the hopes that visitors will click on a link to buy your book on potty training boys under 2. You might be happy to see a comment from your grandmother’s Bingo partner or your son’s 10-year-old buddy. Yes, they might spread the word, but these people are not going to buy your book.

You don’t hand out tax advice or Xbox cheat codes on your potty training blog, even though that Bingo player would love to know how she can get more money back and that pre-teen wants to defeat Tomb Raider. You must stick to topic.

Know your audience

You must establish who your audience is and what they want. Returning to the previous example, you are writing to parents, and not just any parents. You specifically write for parents who have boys under the age of 2 and want to start potty training them.

You blog potty training tips that may or may not be included in your book, how to handle temper tantrums, spirited toddler boys, how to raise a happy toddler boy and throw in your personal stories. These parents will be interested in what you have to say and possibly interested in purchasing your book.

Notice that not all the topics I listed are directly related to potty training. They would, however, be subjects of interests to your audience.

Hone in on a specific group. In my example, I used parents of boys under the age of 2. One blogging professional markets to females ages 21 to 45 looking to start a small business. Another blogger writes to relatives on her mother’s side to post updates on annual family reunions. The better you know exactly who you’re writing for, the better chance you will have at retaining readers.

Sit in the front row of your show

Take a moment to get off the stage and sit yourself in one of those cushy theater chairs. Think about what your audience wants to take away from your blog. What would you want to know if you were them?

You’re audience will applaud your blog if it fills a need, satisfies a want or just pleases curiosity. Who knows? Your words could merit a standing ovation.

Who sits in your blog’s audience?

—
Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

The 3 Most Compelling Strategies for Starting a Community

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When we discover new tools, new ideas, and new people, our first inclination is to notice the differences and look for patterns there. We notice the people who dress differently from us, but the same as each other and try to figure out what they have in common. That’s how we learn the difference between all of the shades of blue and green, it’s called constructivism. It’s about “constructing” our understanding of the world.

Each of us generates our own “rules” and “mental models,” which we use to make sense of our experiences. Learning, therefore, is simply the process of adjusting our mental models to accommodate new experiences. –Constructivism

We do it well as a child, because our brains are wired to be constantly constructing and reconstructing. Once we’ve accumulated a database of knowledge, though, we’re not as good. Too often we construct new models without reflecting on the models and experiences that already serve us.

Yet if we want to build on concrete and know what we know deeply, we can’t forget what we already know.

The 3 Most Compelling Strategies for Starting a Community

Recently I’ve stepped alongside my dad’s story to look at it from the outside as a business case. In doing that I’ve come to realize that everyone — even me — has been focusing on what’s different between the online and offline cultures. Yet, to build community, it’s what’s the same that counts.

Last Friday at SOBCon, I suggested that three strategies are important to start a community that will grow. And they’re all things I learned by looking at how my dad grew his business.

  1. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

    The little man behind the curtain didn’t fix Dorothy’s problem, but it wasn’t until the little man behind came out and talked to Dorothy that she started going in the right direction. A relationship happened.

    Solutions are what fuels the search engines. They’re what brings customers and keeps them. Solutions focus us and give us purpose. It used to be location, location, location, if you wanted to be found. Now it’s solution, solution, solution.

    The person who will build a thriving community online is the one who can do that offline too.

  2. Let your business have 27 surrogate parents.
    I used to say there were 27 people who thought they were my surrogate parents. When I was little, they would point to their photos on the wall in his saloon — next to mine and my brothers’ photos — and they’d tell me the stories of and the roles they played in events that happened in my father’s saloon. The walls were flickr in 3-D.

    Every dance recital and graduation, my dad would buy something like 27 tickets. After the event, those friends would meet my family at the saloon and we’d all walk over to the best restaurant in town.

    After dinner, my dad would write the name of every person who worked at the restaurant on a pad of paper and then he’s put a number by each one. When he paid, the bill he tipped all of them.

    When I got older I asked him why he did that. It had to be expensive to be so generous every time I got an A on my report card. He said, “Babydoll, they work hard. I want to acknowledge that. I’m their customer now. Some will tell their families. Some won’t. At 10pm when the restaurant closes a few will walk back over to the saloon to say “thank you” and buy a drink. That’s good too.”

    Never forget your core fans. Make them your heroes and let them see the hero in you.

  3. Raise a barn, don’t build a coliseum. Start small.

    Have you heard the story of WordPress?

    It started when Matt Mullenweg asked a simple question about a broken and neglected journaling system. He said something like, “I think we can do better than this. Does anyone want to help?”

    WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.

    Everything you see here, from the documentation to the code itself, was created by and for the community.

    The Word Press community has become hundreds people, hundreds of WordCamps where they meet yearly, thousands of lines of code that runs tens of millions of blogs. The enterprise version of WordPress serves 21 Popular Brands and every US government agency except the TSA.

    The community that helps build WordPress learns by doing that, feels ownership, and protects what they’ve built.

    If you let them build it, bring their friends pitch in.

    4. Starting a community is as easy as 1, 2, 3 — Choose the compelling strategies and the community will feel they belong. All three add up to investing in the people you want to serve. And as Steve Farber says,

    Do what you love in service to the people who love what you do.

    What attracts you to a community?

    –ME “Liz” Strauss
    Work with Liz on your business!!

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Work Hard, Play Slow, Make Business

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A Guest Post by Erno Hannink

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What I admire in the American culture is the quest for success. Most Americans I meet want to be number one and have an entrepreneurial spirit. Everyone can make it and be a success is standard in the US culture. It already starts with the competitions at school.

Let me show you some differences with the European cultures and what an entrepreneur might learn from this difference.

In Europe becoming No 1 is not everyone’s agenda. It is nice to have financial success but not necessary. Our rating for tests in school in the Netherlands, where I live, is mostly from 1-10 and 10 is the best and 1 is really bad. Most of the Europeans feel that 6 is good enough, no need to go for that 10. It’s similar for most countries in Europe. You can see that same attitude in the workplace at organizations and companies. We try to satisfy the customer, there is not really a need to surpass their expectations on delivery.

Entrepreneurship is in American DNA and that grows the nation. Europeans work less and therefore we can spend more time with our families and friends, cook and have dinner at home. This is the basis for less stress and healthier lives.

Where there is great success there is also great failure. The difference in rich and poor is huge. In our culture, you can become rich but the poor have a safety net. The government plays a large role in this. If a company needs to fire employees, the fired employees get money — first from the company and later from the government. This all needs to be paid with taxes. This makes the gap between rich and poor somewhat smaller. The poor do not have it easy, but will survive, have a roof over their head and are able to eat food, and use the health system.

In most of the European schools, English is part of our education. More and more Europeans use American social networks like Facebook and YouTube. This means that more and more people read and speak English. However, language is in the detail. Detail is where we can make mistakes and have misunderstandings.

There is also a difference in the home base. In the US there are 50 states and many cultures, but mostly people speak the same language: English. In Europe there are 44 countries that all have their own culture but more importantly, most have their own language. This makes the home base for a companies service or product already a lot smaller. Selling your products in several European countries is easier said than done. It involves language, cultural and national regulations.

I have worked for and with companies from the US and all over Europe. It is great to learn and enjoy all these cultural differences. If you want to expand you business outside the US it relatively easy these days. You can get in contact with local people via the social networks and get to know potential partners.

Once you start working with people from outside your culture it is great to see what you can learn from them. Take care not to force your way of working on to the other culture.

Have you been to Europe? Next time you come to Europe look at the differences and see what you might take home to use in your way of working. I would love to connect with you, I want to learn from you and maybe you can learn from me.

_____
Erno Hannink is a Social Media Specialist for Independent Professionals and Social Media Business Coach. Through the use of social media and a focus on online publishing of valuable information, Erno helps independent professionals attract and retain more clients. He is the author of the book ‘Attracting Clients – How Independent Professionals and solopreneurs can get new clients using the internet” (free download) and also blogs on enthousiasmeren.nl (Dutch). You can find Erno on Twitter as @ErnoHannink

Thanks, Erno. I’ve enjoyed knowing and learning from and with you. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Cool Tool Review: Expensify

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Todd Hoskins Reviews Tools for Small Business

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools and products that could belong in a small business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks who would be their customers in a form that’s consistent and relevant.

Cool Tool Review: Expensify
A Review by Todd Hoskins

I have a shoebox of receipts, and a file folder for business expenses. How often do I spend time rummaging through the box for lost receipts? I’m embarrassed to admit.

Pain and expense reporting go hand in hand. The scanning, the spreadsheets, the documentation, the mileage log . . . you get the idea. Expensify completely changes this experience from painful to painless (and paperless to boot).

Imagine this . . . you get an email receipt from a hotel or airline and you forward it to an address that automatically uploads a copy awaiting your categorization (think TripIt). Or, you take a client to dinner and while emptying your pocket the next morning you simply take a photo with your phone and send it on its way (think NeatReceipts). You can also log a cash expense via SMS (think taxicabs). Finally, directly import your business credit card account and your reporting is being updated as you incur expenses (think Mint). These are just a few of the many features and services offered by Expensify. The days of the shoebox are numbered.

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They have done their research. As someone who has submitted, approved, and paid expenses in the past, I can’t find any holes. Better yet, it’s free if you are having expenses submitted by two or less people. More than two, it’s $5/month per person.

The beancounters and procedural police are taken care of as well. Expensify also provides additional support for the entire expense reporting workflow on their site – after submitting a report, the boss can approve the expenses online and the finance person can provide reimbursement electronically via direct deposit. Additionally, Expensify offers tight integrations with QuickBooks™, FreshBooks, Google Apps, and Salesforce.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 5/5 – currency conversion + customized policy mgmt

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – saves money and time

Personal Value: 0/5 – do your mileage log elsewhere, use Mint

How To Be An Honest Blogger Without Being A Jerk

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Do You Like These Sandals?

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I ordered my daughter a new pair of Stride Rite sandals for the summer. We went to the store to pick them up, and I slipped an excited toddler (she loves fashion at the ripe age of 2) into a pair of brown and gold sandals.

“Do you like them?” I asked her, thinking I knew what her response would be.

My honest little Micah said, “No.”

To be honest or to be nice

What kind of blogger are you? Are you the honest blogger? You would have told me that you didn’t like those sandals point blank, like my daughter, without giving a care to the time, effort and money that went to making those sandals part of my kid’s wardrobe.On the other hand, do you consider yourself to be a nice blogger? You say what people want to hear. You would tell me that shiny footwear was the most adorable creation since ruffled dresses. You would also agree with the critic who hates the sandals. You want to be everybody’s friend.

There are pros and cons to each disposition.

If you’re always honest,

  • You get to be yourself, an easy assignment.
  • People will know exactly how you stand on an issue.
  • You could drum up business with your truthful outlook.
  • Your words might evoke anger, frustration or hurt feelings.
  • Your brutal honesty might scare people away from following you.
  • Your name could be destroyed if you come off as a jerk.
  • People will feel comfortable sharing their true colors. (Is this a pro or con? That depends on you).

If you’re always nice,

  • People will like you, and you always will have people to agree with you.
  • People will be drawn to your pleasant disposition.
  • You could create work for yourself with your kind demeanor.
  • You don’t get to always be yourself because you strictly want to be nice. It can be difficult to fake how you truly feel.
  • Readers might wonder what the deal is if they find you contradicting yourself for the sake of niceness.
  • People will wonder if you are human or an alien from “V” because you don’t show anger.

The solution: be both

Season your words with salt, the old adage goes. Be honest and be nice. It’s easy to express your opinion when you know the majority will agree with you. Perhaps your blog post reads, “Having a baby is a miracle.”What if a group will not like, possible hate, your opinion? It might be difficult to say, “A woman should never have an abortion.”

What do you do when you need to express yourself on a controversial topic?

  • Don’t use disrespectful speech, and mind your manners. That means you say how you feel without bashing the opposing party.
  • Back up your claims. Don’t make brazen remarks without listing your reasons why you feel the way you do. Your argument might be enough to make a person question his differing viewpoint if you give convincing evidence.
  • Be thorough. This goes along with the last point. Throw in some expert opinions and statistics to support your case.
  • Acknowledge the other side. Your post should include the opposing side’s perspective and why you disagree. This way, you say, “I’m willing to agree to disagree.”
  • Respond to feedback. Controversial posts get people talking, and that’s great. You should be sure to respond to feedback from people genuinely interested in the topic, whether they support you or disagree. Be careful with people only looking to argue, rather than discuss. You can choose to respond to the comment on the post, respond privately or ignore them completely.

Be specific

My daughter said she didn’t like the sandals. I later discovered she loved the sandals and didn’t like that they were a smidge too large for her.The most important way to be an honest, non-jerky blogger is to be specific when you write. Describe your opinion as thoroughly as possible. Make a series on your topic if you can’t fit it into one post.

Get out there and blog your heart out. It’s what people really want.

How do you manage to be an honest blogger without being a jerk?

—-
Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez!
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

I’m a proud affiliate of

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