Successful Blog

7 Real Ways a Blog Raises Influence and Increases Expertise

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How to blog series

140 Ch Can’t Say It All Intelligently from the Heart

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Every day I greet the Internet with my coffee and a clear purpose and I find lots of opportunity — information, ideas, and input — offering itself. Never a question about finding that.

If I’m not focused my head is filled with thoughts and energy sparking and flaring in directions that look something like this …

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Unfortunately without focus so much can stay dispersed in that beautiful, but disintegrating way. I can end up responding to and considering bits of data like swatting gnats. Not much progress is made in a world of randomness.

Twitter, in particular, offers ideas I can encounter and pass along, but if I do that, most of what I think vanishes into past thoughts considered and soon forgot as unconnected bits.

If we want folks to know us we also need longer conversations in stronger venues. Telephones help. Personal conversations at meetings are great. If only we could stretch and scale our resources to share that way. So we write.

It’s why I keep my blog. In fact, that fact makes me passionate about why I write every day. But it’s not just the connections that keep me writing.

7 Real Ways a Blog Raises Influence and Increases Expertise

Writing is one way to share our thoughts with more folks more efficiently. Publishing makes the connection more natural and accessible. The words stay present and available through time for anyone who wants to access them. We get visibility and benefit others when we write, but we benefit ourselves as well. By recording our thoughts we make them more in so many ways.

  1. Writing gets us to clarify our thoughts. We have to find words to communicate ideas. We think the ideas through for ourselves. In that process we make them more concrete.
  2. Writing teaches how to see what we think. We have to find words to articulate what’s on our mind. We think the ideas through for ourselves. In that process we make our ideas more concrete, more transportable, and more memorable.
  3. Writing teaches us how words communicate meaning. Every time we write we choose the words we need to express a thought or idea. The more we practice the more we learn how to make choices that help people connect to what we mean.
  4. Writing helps us develop a voice that is natural and consistent, strong and confident. Even when we write for ourselves, we go back to read, listening to what we wrote. We question. We consider. We critique our choices.
  5. Writing teaches to manage our internal editor — to value our own thoughts and to be quiet until feedback is useful. Too often when we just think ideas we can shut them down before we’ve fully considered their possibilities. Trying to put them into words keeps us going to a longer process.
  6. Writing is an opportunity to share our expertise. Everything we write has an audience. Every time someone shares something that we write they add value to our ideas — when they change them and when they don’t.
  7. Writing makes us more thoughtful readers and responders. We bring the insights and appreciation of a writer to what we read. It gives us a venue to ask questions and solve problems with help from the world.

As efficient as Twitter is for conversation, it’s not enough for working out ideas. 140 characters can’t express a full-on deep thought. A soundbyte might get attention, but it doesn’t show depth of knowledge.

Writing is clear thinking made visible. — Bill Wheeler

 

I heard that quote a long time ago and I hold it close every day on the Internet. It keep as a reminder that writing raises my game.

We meet more people in print than we can ever possibly meet face to face. Many people will know our written voice as well as they know our names. Writing is a huge opportunity in a noisy world to teach what we know and to learn from the best of the people we meet.

What sort of thinking have you shared today?

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

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14 Keys to a Community that Builds Your Business for You

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Last summer at AdTech, a VP at huge corporate brand extended her arms completely — way out in front her — and used her hands to gesture as she said something close to this about her goal for building a community:

I want to build a community in which peers are talking to peers openly.

I’m sure she didn’t mean it the way it looked … Her hands were so far away from her. — or sounded … peers talking to peers?

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I couldn’t help thinking … Where will YOU be? Studying me? Is that what you think of me? I’m not a peer. I’m a person. I only do well in places where people “get” me.

Users. Consumers. Buyers. Customers. Leads. Eyeballs. Peers. Those are faceless, flattening labels. They come from the time of one-size-fits-all.

People are individual human beings complete with aspirations, intentions, ideas, opinions, habits, behaviors, thoughts, and emotions.

Which community would you join?

More Communities and More Time for Them

Online social communities aren’t a new thing. People have been linking and sharing via blogs since the 20th century. Organized social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn have become a part of our lives.

Our communities are becoming more about communicating and being creative about what interests us. It’s all about making it relevant to the people we want to attract.
We’re participating more. We’re spending more time in communities. We’re building more of them. How do attract people to the communities we’re building that are perfect for them?

14 Keys to a Community that Builds Your Business for You

A building is not a business. A community is not a collection of profiles or a page on Facebook. People won’t visit our community because it’s pretty. People come because it offers them something they value.

If they value what you offer enough, those same customers will lend their heads, hearts, and hands to helping your business grow. They’ll not only help you build your business, but they’ll also protect it.

What attracts and creates a community that will do that?

From two people to more than plenty, a community is a social structure that shares personal values, cultural values, business goals, attitudes, or a world view. What binds it is a culture of social rules and group dynamics that identify members. In the most concise terms, an online social community is a group of like-minded individuals connected by relevant interactions and protected by a high-trust environment.

A high-trust community is an agreement, a pact or contract, like love or friendship. We can’t order, build, or wish our way to one. What we can do is attract people who want to join what we’re doing. The only way to do that is clear passionate commitment, obvious generosity, trustworthiness, and a touch of intentional serendipity … which looks something like this.

  1. Be a person (or people) who likes people. People work with, talk with, and relate to other people not a business.
  2. Articulate a clear and passionate vision worth investing in. Live your commitment. Get your hands dirty.
  3. Seek out people who would love what you’re doing. Find them where they are already gathering and talking. Join THEIR conversations. Get to know them.
  4. Be a beginner, but keep the vision. Learn from everyone who’s been anywhere near where you’re going. Learn to sort wrong from unexpected or different. Ideas that jar you could be the best ones.
  5. Invite everyone who “gets” the vision to help build this new thing. Look for ways to include their skills and their passions.
  6. Keep participation efficient and easy. Curb the urge to add cool things that get in the way of conversation and sharing.
  7. Let trust sort things. Model the standards of behavior. Keep rules to a minimum.
  8. Be visible authenticity. Lean toward full disclosure, but avoid over-exposure. Most of us look better with our clothes on.
  9. Protect everyone’s investment. Forgive mistakes. Ignore little missteps. Eradicate what is destructive. Know the difference by holding thing up to trust, values, and the community vision.
  10. Stop doing what isn’t working. Be lethal about keeping things easy, efficient, and meaningful.
  11. Promote your members … and honor your competition! Secure communities need both to thrive and get new ideas.
  12. Encourage mutation. Let the environment change to meet the changing needs of the people it serves.
  13. Celebrate contagion. Make it heroic to share what’s going on!
  14. Be grateful and always about the people. The community wouldn’t be a community without them.

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. What Is a Social Community?

It’s not “If You Build It, …”

We create vibrant, high trust community by letting other folks raise the barn with us, by being their first offering trust and a passionate vision, and valuing the trust and energy they give us.

It’s not if you build it, they will come. It’s if they build it, they’ll bring their friends.”

What attracts you to a community? What keeps you coming back again?

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

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Does Knowing the People Raise the Prize?

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Staying Close to the People We Serve

When we developed an international strategy, I made an agreement with my boss about the relationships we would forge, We agreed that the people we choose to work with would be partners bi o matter their role, no matter their location around the world. It involved three basic points.

  • People at our own company would call the people we worked with “partners,” not vendors, not licensees, not other clients, customers, or any other.
  • We would adjust our process to meet theirs as well and as often as we could.
  • I would visit their companies at least as often as they visited ours.

Could we have completed our business by not doing any or all of the three? Most certainly we might have. Information can be shared without being in the same room. We all know that so well.

However, by keeping to these three “rules of conduct,” our company became the first partner of choice. We enjoyed special access to content, and special access to files — we participated in decisions that lowered everyone’s costs and made the work more fun in the process.

True relationships formed around and through the work. Those relationships and the access they afforded us, allowed us to save $1000s and to be involved in the process of our partnered product launch. And those people talked about how easy our business was to do business with us. Soon we had partners in more countries than ever.

Companies are buildings with people inside.

We keep saying people like to do business with people.
What’s your story that shows how knowing the people raised the prize?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Stop Thinking Poor – Start Irresistibly Growing Your Business

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No one does it on purpose. Who would? Why would they? Yet I’ve seen it. I see it now. Something negative happens. People hit a wall with their business. They pull back, retreat to safer ground to protect what they have. They question their commitment, their strategy, their decisions. This sort of risk mitigation can be a good thing

The problem happens when we start thinking poor.

Is Thinking Poor Managing Your Business Down the Drain?

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Whenever an unexpected life event, the economy, or kismet puts a hitch in our giddyup, it’s a natural response to question how we got where we are. Panic or just sheer exhausted frustration can lead us to believe our thinking was wrong from the start, that it’s time to change direction and save what we’ve got before we lose it all.

That’s thinking poor. Thinking poor leads us to throw away the good things without seeing them and to increase our chances of following them down into that hole. Some great examples of poor thinking include:

  • slashing the marketing budget across the board … reaching fewer customers won’t grow the business
  • discounting prices for unlimited periods … customers who value us only for discounts will leave when they’re gone
  • reducing services … just tells customers we don’t value them at the time we need them most
  • raising prices … passing on our pain to our customers doesn’t win their loyalty

We’ve seen plenty of examples of ways businesses think poor. Thinking poor is a reaction based in fear and weakness.

Great businesses work from strength, strategy, and commitment. We evaluate where we are, what got us here, and how we might adapt to keep moving forward. To do that we go back to the original strategy and check every premise to see which are still vibrant and which no longer work in the new environment. Here are some questions to help you do that.

  • Which parts of our old strategy still truly brings us closer to our customers? Which parts no longer work in the current market?
  • Which are our most robust markets? Who are our most reachable customers? How can we celebrate them and make them heroes?
  • What do those customers value about our products? How can we find out what they wish we would leave out of our offer? How can we invite them to help make our business stronger?
  • What small, high-value enticements might we add to our current offer that would get new customers to try us and entice old customers to try us again?
  • How might we repackage what we’ve offered before so that it becomes a new and vibrant offer for a market of customers that has already shown interest in what we are doing?
  • How can we invest more in skills, services, and learning how to get closer to what our customers want?

Each of these questions is centered in becoming more intimate with the people, the customers, who grow our business.

Delivering service, product, and value to customers by listening to those who are nearest to us is the fastest way to grow a thriving, stable business.

And it’s more fun than thinking poor …

What are you going to do today to start growing your business?

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

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Going It Alone as an Entrepreneur

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Guest Post by Debba Haupert

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It’s somewhat ironic, I know. But I write a write a blog and run a business about female friendship — all by myself. In theory, I should have started Girlfriendology LLC with a girlfriend (or two) and collaborated in building the brand and company. I should have women who share the work load and assist me in creating a business around women supporting each other. However, the reality is that I’m a passionate entrepreneur and I didn’t know anyone else crazy enough to start it with me, so I jumped in the entrepreneurial pool alone!

As entrepreneurs, we’re often alone. We typically work long and strange hours from home or finally get dressed to have occasional meetings in coffee shops. We wake up with ideas and do the research to explore them. We create and market products and solutions, and we generally are accountable to only ourselves. That’s a great scenario if you’re self-motivated and prefer not to deal with group decisions. It’s also a wonderful arrangement if you’re creative and dedicated to seeing your dreams become reality.

Self-motivated, creative and dedicated I am, and I’m very thankful to be that way. But that doesn’t mean I HAVE to go it alone. I have received amazing support from other entrepreneurs in several groups that I’ve started or joined. For example, I’m working on eCommerce for Girlfriendology.com (to sell girlfriend gifts). I knew of several other women in town (Cincinnati) who sell products online. I also tweeted about it. Two weeks ago seven of us met to talk about our online stores, what worked/didn’t, technologies, trends and prep for the coming holidays. We plan to do this on a monthly basis as well as feature each other on our websites. I’m also part of an entrepreneurial group, LegacyConnection (www.legacyconnection.com) that shares resources for entrepreneurs as well as keeps us accountable in weekly group calls.

In addition to these groups, I am blessed with great girlfriends, supportive guy friends and a wonderful husband. My girlfriends share feedback, connections and ideas; my guy friends often look out for opportunities for me and my husband, who is a writer, has edited copy, helped with events and had many brainstorming conversations where we strategize on my business as well as his.

So, I don’t feel so bad that I “should have” started Girlfriendology with a girlfriend. I have the support and assistance of a “village” of friends who care about me and my business. As I share on Girlfriendology, if you need a friend, you to need to be a friend. The same goes for us entrepreneurs. Reach out to others, get to know their businesses and collaborate. Life (and business) really is better together with the support of friends and family.

How do you go it alone, but do it together as an entrepreneur?

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Debba Haupert is founder of Girlfriendology . She considers herself a ‘marketing mutt’ based on her 20 years of corporate marketing (from designing consumer products, studying trends in Europe, to writing an award-winning book, selling products on QVC and being a bank VP). She founded Girlfriendology LLC in January 2006 as a way to support and inspire women. She is a passionate entrepreneur and student of social media with over 850 blogs, 150 podcasts/BlogTalkRadio shows, 15000 Twitter followers (primarily ‘girlfriends’), and 1000 LinkedIn connections. And she loves Liz Strauss and is honored to call her a girlfriend! (-;

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Thanks, Debba. The respect, admiration, and friendship is mutual. I’m grateful to have met you.

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

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How Do You Capture Your Irresistible Ideas?

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Be Irresistible Instead

Every great movie star did a movie or two for the cash until he or she could do the movies he or she really wanted to do. That’s one thing. It’s fine to do if we know that’s what we’re doing. It’s a skill-building, bill-paying short-term strategy that works to keep us solvent.

But, if we’re not careful, we can get so busy doing, that we lose sight of the end game — the strategic goal out there on the horizon. While we’re busy making money to pay the rent, we can have outstanding ideas and let them get away while we work at things that don’t inspire us.

Work without inspiration steals energy. It keeps us in the same place or moving in the wrong direction.

What powers and fuels a career or a business is irresistible, value-added, real WOW ideas — what folks need, wish, and dream for — can’t live without ideas. Even if you’re working on something that’s boring, are looking for your own irresistible ideas that will head you to your own horizon? Here’s how to know one …

  1. An irresistible idea addresses the practical and the emotional simultaneously. Think of a great car that makes you feel something when you drive it. Irresistible ideas appeal to the child and the adult in us.

    2. I bought my Toyota MR-2 Spyder for many reasons. It had great performance specs — practical. It has its flaws — 1.9 cubic feet of storage space. The WOW is the faux titanium door handles — emotional. No other car has them, not any Porsche, Ferrari, BMW two-seater. I know. I look inside them all. They all look boring to me. Those door handles make my car look like it cost 3 times what it cost. It will also allow me to resell it much higher. And the dealer was willing to sell and service it at a great price — it fit into my life.

    An irresistible idea fits easily into our lives. We don’t have to work to buy that product, to learn a lot use it, or to explain it when we share it with our friends. Irresitible save us time, saves us money, or gives us a sense of ease and comfort.

  2. Irresistible ideas are in the details, not in giant bells and whistles.

    3. Every car has an engine and four wheels. Trying to improve on those gets you into trying to be original. Original is risky and expensive. Why not piggyback on what has been tested and perfected. Irresistible ideas come in the back and the side doors. They approach things from the inside out. They make things work better, feel softer, stop being a pain. Irresistible takes one part and makes it elegantly simpler.

    Irresistible ideas are joyfully unexpected. I still love the person who invented the wireless mouse.

  3. Irresistible ideas are authentic. Spectacular ideas can’t be knocked off with the same effect, because they came from customer-centered thinking. Gotta be Apple to make the iPod. Gotta be Iain Dodsworth to make TweetDeck. I can’t build your event or product your way, because you are the special sauce that makes it just right.

The most irresistible ideas come from where your passion and your intelligence cross with the places you spend the most time. We have more ideas than we might actually realize and when we’re busy working on something tiring it’s easy to forget them.

How do you capture your irresistible ideas?

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

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.