Successful Blog

Thanks to Week 276 SOBs

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Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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brandpilgrim
learn-web-writing
the-life-uncommon
marketing-mojo
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They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

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Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Negotiations: 3 Steps to a “YES” and a Great Relationship

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A Guest Post by
Zelko Kecman

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We’ve all heard this when buying a car – “let me check with the manager and see what I can do for you”. The interesting thing for me is this also happens a lot in business and almost the same type of conversations. Someone almost always has to go away and ask for approval either on price or a clause in a contract.

Here are some simple principles that have worked for me over the years that will get you to a mutual Yes and more importantly won’t harm your relationship for future business. Lastly this is a very high level view as what I’ve outlined is generic for both business or personal. There are some additional considerations when dealing with very large organizations and large values.

I see negotiations in 3 phases, Preparation, Discussions and Done Deal. The more time you spend on step 1, the less time you’ll spend in 2 and you will be more likely to get to a good deal.

1) Preparation (aka Do your homework)

– #1 item is listing specifically what is most important to you. What is absolutely not negotiable and what is and how far. WRITE it down and be specific with the details.
– Leverage your network of friends and colleagues (that’s what Facebook and LinkedIn are for)
– Google, Bing, your own internal databases: look for other similar cases, going prices, reviews, what are you worth, how the company is doing, etc
– What role does the person you are going to be talk with have? Think of this, someone in procurement is measured by how much they get from the other side financially in most cases. Also is it month/qtr/year end?

2) Discussions

First of all, before you even get into the hard discussions and start throwing contracts or wants around, try to understand who you are dealing with. If you meet someone who is good at what they do, it almost always starts with seemingly harmless questions and discussion. The reason for this is to get a better sense on who that person is or what is important to them. Also, have faith the other person is being honest, but do not trust. I know this sounds harsh, but being naive will not serve you well.

Here’s a simple checklist during the discussions:
– Keep a cool head all the time, be friendly and keep emotion out of it.
– Be open to heated debate. Just don’t make it personal, keep it factual.
– For each item being discussed, clarify your intent. I can’t stress this one enough. Especially in legal terms, legal is not as black and white as people believe.
– Take notes on actions and decisions and owners of each
– Don’t commit to something unless you are 100% sure. Take it away to verify. Again, with the car, “so if I were to drop $xxx off you would buy the car?” – you’re response should be “let’s take a look at the whole deal and decide then”
– At the end review all the actions and decisions

At this point, you’re either getting closure on the deal or steps 1 and 2 will need to be done a few more times as people take away action items or revisions. Remember this is negotiations and you should be able to give on items (look at your list you wrote down in #1 and push on others you want. Also, it is very important to know that if you truly have 1 item left that there is no mutually agreeable way forward you should be able to step away from the situation and wish the other person well. If you can not you better be ready to give on that item then.

3) Done Deal

Great job, both you and the other person have come to an agreement. Neither side should walk away from the situation feeling like they got taken advantage of, if it does happen, it’s almost guaranteed you’ll never to business again. Close the conversation like it started with a friendly conversation and a follow up once you’ve completed the transaction. You never know when you will be back at the table and having a supporter of you will be important.

Lastly, getting to a point where you are comfortable with negotiations is not something you get from a course or book alone. It really is something that you need to do regularly. It can be with simple negotiations with your kids, spouse, stores, banks, anyone, you just have to be conscious that you are practicing your skills or in participating with others who are seasoned at it.

There are hundreds of resources out there for learning negotiations, however one of the best that I have seen as a starting point is “Getting To Yes” .

I love debate, discussion and comments so please feel free to let me know what you think.

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This blog post began as a Twitter conversation with Zelko Kecman – @zelkoCA – You can find out more about him through his linked in profile.

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

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SpyFu: The Secret Weapon of the Savvy Internet Marketer

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A Guest Post by Lior Levin

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Like most people new to Internet marketing, when I first started out, I made the mistake of believing that the Google keyword tool was the only accurate source of information and whatever Google’s tools said had to be treated as gospel. Boy, was I wrong! Not only are there plenty of other tools out there, they are actually a lot more accurate with their numbers because they are impartial.

Google’s goal is to make money, which they do from advertisers, so they care little about Internet marketers trying to make a living and their tools tend to reflect this bias. However, I’m here to tell you about a secret weapon no Internet marketer worth his salt should be without and that is SpyFu.com.

Competitive Data and Keyword Research

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SpyFu is a comprehensive, online keyword research tool that also offers SEO and PPC tools to allow you to spy on your competition. This online tool will allow to uncover vast amounts of data on your competition, including their daily PPC budget, their keywords, bid prices, how many clicks they get per day and much more. All you have to do is enter the domain name of the site you want to analyze and you are then presented with a plethora of information.

SpyFu allows you to also view the top organic rankings, the best performing ads and the SEO rankings for any of your competitors. It also features a list of the Top 100 Adsense keywords in terms of CPC.

You can also work backwards, by analyzing a specific keyword. You will be offered such information as the number of advertisers bidding on that particular keyword, the price range being paid per click and even the ads and links to the landing pages of the advertisers in question.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

One of the things I like most about SpyFu is that the information they provide is straightforward, with no secret formulas. You can see the complete history of a keyword, from how often a certain domain used a keyword in their campaign, to the highest and lowest CPC. It also allows provides information on when the ad copy was changed, which I find extremely useful. If I’m targeting a similar keyword, then I can always analyze the ad copy to see which approach delivered the best results.

The competitive data SpyFu provides is invaluable and I use it for almost every project I work on. After all, to beat the competition you have to know the competition and you would be surprised how much facts and figures can reveal about a competitors marketing strategy. I also save a lot of time by analyzing my competitor’s landing pages and ad copy. For example, if a certain ad has been in use for a while and hasn’t been changed, you can be sure that it is performing well. You can then use the ad copy in question as inspiration when crafting your own PPC ads.

However, SpyFu does have its limitations and I have found it to be somewhat inaccurate when it comes to the daily PPC budget of a competitor. While this information might not be important to you if you don’t do PPC, it is critical to any PPC-based campaign. After all, the budget you set plays a critical role in the ranking of your ad.

Despite its few limitations, I still find SpyFu to be one of the most effective market research tools available online. It certainly delivers much more realistic figures in terms of CPC, search volume and number of advertisers, offering a more accurate overview of a certain market or niche.

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This outstanding review was written by Lior Levin who is a consultant to 123 neon signs, and also works with an online task management startup.
You can find Lior on Twitter as Liors

Thank you, Lior. You’re welcome back here anytime.

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

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Social Media Book List: The NOW Revolution and Smarter, Faster, Cheaper

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A Weekly Series by Teresa Morrow of Key Business Partners, LLC

I’m Teresa Morrow, Founder of Key Business Partners, LLC and I work with authors & writers to help them with their book promotion and marketing. As part of my job I read a lot of books (I love to read anyway!).

This week I will be highlighting two books; both are on the Amazon business marketing list and ones on my “reading list”.

The books I cover in the Social Media Book List Series will cover a range of topics such as social media, marketing, blogging, business, organization, career building, finance, networking, writing, self development, and inspiration.

‘The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter, and More Social’

by Jay Baer and Amber Naslund

“Action. I no longer read a business book like this seeking thoughts and ideas. I read them to get actionable bits I can employ immediately. ‘Now’ is staring all businesses in the face. It doesn’t matter whether you want to join the conversation. They’re already shouting for you (or AT you). Get this book and heed Baer and Naslund’s advice. Now.”
~ Chris Brogan, President Human Business Works

“Social media has caused a paradigm shift in how we function and do business on the planet, yet so many companies are still stuck in the old media world and are getting left behind. The Now Revolution is the missing handbook for exactly how to successfully navigate and integrate the new media paradigm. Packed with examples, tools, checklists, case studies and best practices, this book absolutely must be on the desk of every executive serious about thriving in the new social economy.”
~ Mari Smith, Facebook Business Coach

About the Book*:

The social web has changed the way we do business forever

The future of your company is not in measured, considered responses and carefully planned initiatives. Business today is about near-instantaneous response. About doing the best you can with extremely limited information. About every customer being a reporter, and every reporter being a customer. About winning and losing customers in real-time, every second of every day. About a monumental increase in the findable commentary about our companies.

Having the time and information required to make a considered business decision is a luxury – a luxury that’s quickly facing extinction. Yet business hasn’t adapted to this evolution. And adapt you must.

This book isn’t about how to “do” social media. Instead, The Now Revolution outlines how you must retool your organization to make real-time business work for you rather than against you.
Read about seven shifts that will help you make your company faster, smarter, and more social:

* Engineer a New Bedrock
* Find Talent You Can Trust
* Organize your Armies
* Answer the New Telephone
* Emphasize Response-Ability
* Build a Fire Extinguisher
* Make a Calculator

The Now Revolution is pushing you to adapt the way you do business, from the inside out. It impacts your organization culturally, operationally, and functionally. This book is your guide to making the changes you need, and to harnessing the potential of this new communication era.

Customers aren’t going to wait for your next polished press release to decide if they like you and your products or services. Instead, they’re choosing between you and your competition every second of every day—and talking about it online. Keeping up with them requires seven shifts that will make your business faster, smarter, and more social:

* Strip away silos and overgrown business processes
* Hire and empower a new type of employee
* Organize internal teams for maximum external impact
* Listen at the point of need
* Travel the Humanization Highway and respond effectively to customer inquiries
* Plan for, find, and manage real-time crises
* Redesign success metrics in a business world that’s increasingly instantaneous

Real-time communication and social media have changed the way we do business—forever. The Now Revolution shows you how to adapt your organization to meet the expectations of today’s always-on customer and harness the power of now.

About Jay*:
Jay Baer is a tequila-loving social media strategist and speaker, and President of social consultancy Convince & Convert.

Founder of five companies, he’s worked with over 700 brands since 1994, including 25 of the Fortune 1000.

His Convince & Convert blog is ranked among the world’s top marketing resources, and he’s the co-author of the much ballyhooed, forthcoming book The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter, and More Social.

Before becoming involved with digital marketing, he was a political consultant; a marketing director for an environmental services company (he knows more about landfills than you); and a spokesman for a state government agency (he knows more about juvenile prisons than you)!

He’s on Twitter as @jaybaer and for the record his favorite tequilas are: Tres Amigos Blanco, Corzo Reposado, Milagro Single Barrel Anejo, and Del Maguey Chicicapa Mezcal.

He lives in beautiful Bloomington, Indiana with his wife, two children, and assorted mammals and reptiles.

About Amber*

Amber Naslund is a communications and business strategist, and the VP of Social Strategy for Radian6, a social media listening and insights platform. In her professional role, she cultivates the Radian6 brand through speaking, content creation, and client strategy and support.

For the past 15 years, Amber has worked with businesses of all sizes, from the Fortune 50 to startups and local nonprofits, to lead branding, communications, and client experience initiatives. She’s enjoyed a diverse career as a fundraiser, client services professional, marketing and communications executive, and entrepreneur. Today, she focuses her work and writing on creating effective change, and solving business problems through better communication, online and off.

Amber is also a frequent speaker at conferences and private events, talking about the intersection of the web, communication, and business culture. Amber is an avid writer and passionate content creator, and her blog has been been recognized among Forbes’ 20 Best Social Media and Marketing Blogs By Women, as PostRank’s top community management blog of 2009, as one of the Top 10 Social Media Blogs of 2010, and among the AdAge Power 150. Amber lives in Chicago with her daughter and a four-footed menagerie of cats and dogs.

You can purchase a copy of ‘The NOW Revolution’ online from the author site or on Amazon. *this information came from the author’s website or Amazon.

Next, I would like to introduce you to another book on the business book list on Amazon and on my reading list: ‘Smarter, Faster, Cheaper’ by David Siteman Garland.

Smarter, Faster, Cheaper:Non-Boring, Fluff-Free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business

by David Siteman Garland.

“David brings to business marketing something that is essential to your success, motivation and passion. The stories and lessons shared here are rich with real advice wrapped in vitality and proven through experience. Take this book and go earn your success!”
—Brian Solis, author of Engage, the complete guide for businesses to build, cultivate, and measure success in the social Web

“In his smart and practical book, David Siteman Garland shows how to deploy your personality, passion, and knowledge to turbocharge your marketing. This no-nonsense guide will help entrepreneurs large and small spread their message and build their business.”
—Daniel H. Pink, author of DRIVE and A WHOLE NEW MIND

About the Book*
Save time and money in building, marketing and promoting your business

With huge recent shifts in the way enterprises are built, marketed, and monetized, these are “wild west” times for business. In this new landscape, entrepreneurs and small business owners actually have an edge in marketing without spinning their wheels or going broke.

Smarter, Faster, Cheaper gives you an innovative, approachable new guide on how to market, promote and improve your business drawing on real world examples and offering practical advice as opposed to fluffy theory. It presents a complete roadmap for marketing and promoting your business with the latest techniques.

* Draws from author David Siteman Garland’s extensive experiences as a successful entrepreneur
* Based on countless interviews with successful leaders, including conversations with entrepreneurs and owners of businesses large and small
* Strategies and ideas are easy to understand, digest, and immediately put to use

From learning when to skimp and when to splurge to mastering the art of online schmoozing, Smarter, Faster, Cheaper will save you time, money, and aggravation whether you’re building your tenth business or your first.

About David*:
Entrepreneur, mediapreneur, speaker and author David Siteman Garland is the Founder of The Rise To The Top, The #1 Non-Boring Resource For Building Your Business Smarter, Faster, Cheaper and upcoming author of Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business (Wiley Publishing). He writes/hosts RISE, a a web show for entrepreneurs, forward-thinkers, business owners and marketers, as well as The Rise To The Top TV show on ABC.

His philosophy is simple: Money follows passion and not the other way around.

After starting and stopping several unique entrepreneurial adventures and dabbling in everything from radio to hockey, David became frustrated that he could not find a great resource (that wasn’t a snoozefest) where forward-thinkers could learn more about building, marketing and promoting their own businesses by being smarter, faster, cheaper as opposed to dumber, slower and expensive. What was missing was a new kind of TV and web show, one that was entertaining and educational, and that was part of an online hub that resonated with forward-thinking entrepreneurs and others that struck out on their own without multi-million dollar budgets.

Since such a show and website didn’t exist, David decided to build it himself by investing all of his savings, time and energy to create from scratch a TV show, online resource and community of entrepreneurs and marketers.

Like many ventures, The Rise To The Top was born through brainstorming in a coffee shop. David shared his idea for the show with friends, successful business owners and creative types, all of whom thought it was a great concept. The Rise To The Top quickly attracted a wide and varied fan base, including not only the targeted demographic of those in their 20’s, 30’s and early 40’s, but also more “mature” viewers.

The show and web resource now has over 100,000 monthly viewers with a big focus on interviews and picking the brain of top entrepreneurs, forward-thinkers and authors including Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library), Chris Brogan (ChrisBrogan.com), Tony Hsieh (Zappos), The Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger, Seth Godin and many others.

He has been featured on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, City TV, My Network Television, as well as on KMOX and in Alive Magazine, The Riverfront Times, Ladue News, and St. Louis Magazine. He has no idea why he has become a media magnet so early in his career, but he’s certainly not turning down interviews and requests for videos.

David contributes as a writer and business/entrepreneurial commentator to CNN, CBS Bnet, Small Biz Trends, The St. Louis Business Journal, Personal Branding Blog, Speaker Magazine, Small Business Monthly and Great Day St. Louis. He was recently selected by Speaker Magazine as one of the Hot Speakers Of The Year.

He also has guest lectured at Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis University and Fontbonne University.

*courtesy of book website and Amazon

You can purchase a copy of ‘Smarter, Faster, Cheaper’ at Amazon.

I truly hope you will check out these books and please comment and let me know your thoughts on them.

Do You Blog Just Enough To Hate It?

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By Terez Howard

Someone once said, “Do you do it just enough to hate it?”

I recently thought about that question in reference to cooking. I try to cook healthy meals for my family. But if I cook too often or cook too many courses that take too much time, I don’t want to cook at all. I hate it. If I never cook (like when my kitchen was remodeled for a month), then I get used to not cooking and hate the idea of restarting.

Then there’s blogging. Do you blog just enough to hate it? Are you writing so much, so frequently that you dread the next time you have to concoct some witty, informative post? Or, do you write so rarely that you cannot produce anything worth reading?

Strike a balance

When you blog, you first have to have a clear objective in mind. What is your purpose?

Reasons for blogging include:

  • Showing yourself to be an authority in your niche, thus directing potential customers to your business
  • Helping people by explaining what you have learned in your niche
  • Sharing personal experiences for the fun of it
  • All of the above

Next, you have to take an honest look at your schedule.How much time per day or per week can you realistically devote to blogging?

You can devote:

  • One to two hours per week
  • One to two hours per day
  • One hour every other day
  • You get the idea!

Third, figure out how long it takes for you to create a high quality blog post. Some can whip up a post in a half hour, while it takes others a few hours to do the research, make links and write well.

Don’t forget about promotion

Too often, bloggers hear the saying, “Content is king.” And while beneficial content is a key ingredient to a great blog, promotion should be queen. It takes time to promote your blog.

Ways to promote your blog include:

  • Guest posting. Write for blogs related to your niche, so readers will naturally be drawn to read more at your own blog.
  • Blog commenting. Blogs you choose to comment on should be related to your niche, but even more importantly, should interest you. If you don’t care about the topic, then your comment will reflect your attitude.
  • Social media. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube are other avenues that can direct people back to your blog.
  • E-mail marketing and newsletters. Build a list of devoted followers to inform of the newest developments on your blog and with your business.
  • Free reports. Who doesn’t love freebies? Your audience will eat these up, especially when you tailor them to truly benefit your readers.
  • SEO and LSI. When you write your blog posts, good content is definitely on top. But you should consider SEO and LSI to direct search engine results to your pertinent posts.

All of this promotion takes time. So, you have to decide what you’re going to do and how long this is going to take you.

Planning makes perfect

If you plan what you’re going to do, how much time you will take and follow your plan, you will see results. It might take longer for some that do not have much time to devote than others. But it WILL pay off. You can blog just enough to love it.

How do blog just enough to love it?

—
Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She has written informative pieces for newspapers, online magazines and blogs, both big and small. 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!!

Are You the Company Who Will Sell to Anybody?

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Her name was Darcy. Well actually, I’m not sure. She wasn’t all that memorable. What I remember most was that every day she would come to work sad, disappointed, and almost depressed that they she didn’t have the slighted prospect for a date. Darcy, or whatever her name was, seemed certain that the problem was outside of her. When I looked at her situation I was as sure. I’ll let you come to your own conclusion on the facts that I knew.

  • The kind of guy she was looking for was any guy who would take her out to buy her dinner.
  • She didn’t care where they went, where they ate, or what he had to say.
  • It was about the transaction not the relationship.
  • She thought she shouldn’t to try too hard to predict what such a guy might find attractive. When he showed up she’d adjust and be what he was looking for.
  • Every night after work she went home to watch television. She didn’t think much about what sort of guy might be the right one or where the right sort of guys might hang out. She was content to wait for anyone who came her way.
  • When I asked her about updating her wardrobe and getting involved in things that might be fun for her, she would say, “I like a lot of things and I like a look of fashion. I don’t want to alienate some guy who might be interested by choosing something that might not be his taste.”

And so I listened daily to the stories of her boring evenings or the awful dates that her family set up for her that never worked out. I never was sure what she was expecting. Did she think the perfect guy was going to figure out she was in the third house from the end waiting to be everything he desired?

I wonder now 20 years later whether she’s still waiting or whether that guy just came up and knocked on her door one day. Darcy was more than willing to go out with any guy who came her way.

Does your business work this way?

Do You Really Want to Attract Customers Who Don’t Value You?

So what kind of woman (or man) wants to date anyone who will make the invitation? And what kind of person wants to date the kind of person who has standards that include everyone?

Let’s just say I don’t want to spend my time with someone who wants to date cheaters, liars, theives, bullies, and serial killers. I don’t care if they’re willing to dress up and pay for dinner. After all the folks we hang with define us in so many ways.

That girl who will go out with anybody is going to attract just anybody. If you’re doing business the way she’s dating, you might consider all that’s wrong with that.

  • Anybody can decide what to value about your offer. It’s our values that attract the people we want to work with. If we don’t put our values out there, other folks get to decide what to value. She didn’t care why someone might want to take her to dinner. We have to care why folks want to be our customer. Great, loyal relationships are built on that.
  • Those “anybodys” define our network. The people with whom we spend invite their friends to meet us and become part of our circle. That girl who dates anybody, soon meets other anybody sorts of people who value her for the same reasons the first anybody did. Was it because she was willing to give herself away so easily? Has she become a magnet for folks who don’t have any standards? Do people who want to be somebody start thinking that she’s like the folks around her? That network of “anybodys” becomes part of her value proposition. Go out with her and you get all of them as your friends.
  • We slowly become what we look at most. If we don’t establish our values and pick our friends and customer based on the values we choose, then we tend to take on the values the friends and customers we choose bring with them. A group around us all doing and believing the same things tends to become our basis for judging reality. For business that means if they we start to take on their world as our own.

The same is true for businesses who don’t choose their values and decide who they want for customers.

This week I had consultations with two businesses that reminded me of Darcy. Both were passionate about connecting with customers, both were uncommitted about who their customers should be. They wanted lasting relationships but they were waiting to define their offer because they didn’t want to alienate anybody who might otherwise come their way.

How do you define the right customer so that you’re not working with “anybody”?

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

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