Successful Blog

Is Your Blog An Engaging Blog?

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For me, everything has always been mathematical.   I always thought that if I followed the formula precisely, then I would automatically get the desired results; x plus y would always equal z. 

Does this consistently hold true?  The short answer is no.  For example, human beings need food, clothing, and shelter to be safe, grow, and prosper.  We can provide all of those things, but if we neglect the human element, the personal touch, then we do not produce the desired result, a well-rounded, productive adult. 

How does this relate to our blogs?  We may be putting in the required time and energy to produce a blog, but we may not be getting the results we want.  Perhaps we are missing the human element.  Maybe our blog isn’t engaging.

What does it mean to be engaging?

When we say that someone is engaging, we mean that we are interested in them.  We may use the adjective ‘charming’ to describe them.  We are engrossed with what they have to say because what they say has value and they seem knowledgeable.  They enjoy talking to us, so we enjoy listening.  It is a beautiful symbiotic relationship.

Cultivating this quality in the real-world will help our blogs immensely.  It only stands to reason that being sincerely engaging in person will carry over to our writing.  So, a great first step is to learn to be an engaging person in our every day life.

As noted earlier though, sometimes these things just don’t add up.  Perhaps the engaging person that we are in person doesn’t carry over in our writing.  It is time, then, to examine our blogs in order to see how we can make them more engaging.  Here we go:

  • Are you pleased with your blog?  This isn’t a matter of egotism.  If you don’t like what you are writing about and how you are writing, nobody else will either.
  • Does your blog reflect your personal code of beliefs?  This is related to the first point.  Readers can sense insincerity.  It is certainly off-putting when a writer seems to be portraying a false image.
  • Do you display an interest in your readers?  Do you welcome feedback, respond to comments, and write about topics that you feel will interest your audience?
  • Are you a learner? The only way to avoid recycling information is to research new points.  No, we don’t have to spend hours at the library.  We need to make learning a way of life, questioning new ideas and delving into happenings that interest us.  Then, we must pass that information along to our readers. 

 All of us have off days.  Not every post will be as engaging as the last.  What is important is that overall we are engaging writers.  This trait which attracts readers in the first place is sure to keep them in the long run.

Tell us, how do you make sure that your blog is engaging?

Jael Strong writes for TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility.  She has written both fiction and non-fiction pieces for print and online publications.  She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas .
Thanks, Jael

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

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How to Get Bean Counters and Kumbayers Serving Both the Company and the Customers

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(Updated in 2020)

Photo by Adeolu Eletu on Unsplash

10-Point Plan – Align Values with Value Proposition

The Clean and the Unpredictable

The core of any great business is the business model that drives it. A company without a viable, thriving business model — a process which consistently yields a growing profit — is a hobby not a business. The mathematics of the process — the return on investments — has to justify the decisions and directions of the business. Human relationships — intelligent, trust bonds with employees, customers, vendors, partners — are vital to the true and ethical execution of those decisions.

Mathematics and numbers are a comfort. They add up to clear, clean, predictable answers. We can reach the solution to a mathematical problem with the right algorithm, good data, and a trusty calculator. People are not so comfortable. Their behavior can be unintelligible, messy, and unpredictable. To reach the solution to a people problem requires experience, leadership, and gray matter decision making.

In any business, some employees are drawn to the bottom line clarity of the mathematics – the bottom line, the sales figures, the profit and loss statement. Other employees are taken with the less tangible, but equally important, human relationships – customer service, product experience, community building.

Some folks call the two groups the Bean Counters and the Kumbayers. Both terms discount that group’s value. In great businesses, every employee belongs to both groups. In not so great businesses, employees haven’t yet discovered the strength of getting those two groups together.

See the Values in the Value Proposition

So how do we get the bean counters and the kumbayers to come together?
The two groups aren’t so far apart if you consider their best intentions. One group wants to protect and grow the company; the other group wants to protect and grow the customer base. Without a company, neither group would be here. Without customers, the company wouldn’t be here either.

Serving the company serves customers and serving customers serves the company.

No business can thrive if every employee isn’t doing both. What if every employee could align customer values with the company’s value proposition. Here’s how to bring the two groups together.

  • Bring together a dozen leaders who represent both bean counters and kumbayers. Seat them at mixed team tables of four. Point out that: It’s no secret that our strengths are also our weaknesses. It’s human nature to be drawn to and value what we’re good at and to discount or overlook what isn’t our strong suit. Truth is, we think people who think as we do are smart and those that think differently are … well … either not so smart or being difficult.
  • As a group define the company’s reason for being in business. Write it large on a flip chart or white board. Ask them to record it at their tables.
  • Tell the teams, each individual has five minutes to write three words to represent the highest values their job role brings to executing that value proposition. Explain that they should focus on what they uniquely bring to their job role that adds value to the organization.
  • After five minutes, have the teams share their words and explain them to each other. Suggest that people listen for what others do of value that they themselves would never want to or could never do well.
  • Ask each team to choose rewrite the value proposition including three values words that represent the entire table. Explain that the new values proposition should reflect a focus on both growing the company and customer relationships.
  • Have the teams share and defend their new values-based value proposition. Challenge them to give examples of how their value proposition in action — decisions they might make — would support both growth of the company and customer relationships.

People who think differently than we do often care about things important to the business that don’t draw our personal interest. A discussion of company and customer goals can lead both groups to value every kind of contribution. Seeing how passionately one person cares about the profitability to maintain a stable business unit while another cares about totally satisfied customers opens the door to dialogue about how one can’t happen without the other. When that light goes on, people start to get interested in what they used to find difficult and the organization can develop and grow exponentially.

How do you get the bean counters and the kumbayers to serve both the company and customers?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

27 Things to Know Before You Work in Social Media

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Let’s Be Honest

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Every day, I’m immersed in social business. I spend as much time on my computer as some people spend in their shoes. I rarely talk about “social media” except with clients, because to me that’s like talking about “pencils.” I’d rather be using one than talking about what they do.

I use social media tools to work on SOBCon with @Starbucker, to build communities and brand visibility for clients, to write blog posts and to curate content for people with similar interests. Social tools are business development, customer service, marketing, pr, community building, change management, and leadership — all at the speed of the Internet.

So I guess you could say I work in social media. If that’s your reality, your goal, or even a possibility for you, I’d like to point out a few things about working in social media worth knowing. This is not a rant, simply a set of observations which are quite similar to the challenges of any communication-based, people-centered endeavor.

The purpose of this list is merely to share that most people who are in this new and quickly changing area of business are finding that the work often has more nuances and challenges than we expected.

The problem with working in social media is …

  1. that, when you start, no one will believe you know anything useful — and you might not.
  2. that you’ll have to be multi-lingual, speaking and translating between two vocabularies — that of the social media culture and that of the people who’ve little to no experience with it.
  3. that you’ll have to figure out how to measure something that traditionally hasn’t been measured and to explain why those measurements are valid — you’ll have to have goals, tools to match the goals and reasonable expectations — without history that’s hard to do.
  4. that some folks will believe that impressions, eyeballs, and broadcasts are the best use of the tools.
  5. that, though you were enlisted to bring about change, the very folks who enlisted you might be the most uncomfortable with changing — one friend advises you might take care if you’re hired to be the “heretic” because heretic stories don’t end well for the heretic.
  6. that some people won’t be able to see the value of making relationships to growing business and keeping satisfied customers — even though relationships have fueled the businesses based on decades of trade shows and sales calls.
  7. that, when you do social business well, it looks easy, but it’s not — and no one will care how hard it was.
  8. that some people will misread safe responses as dangerous ones and dangerous responses as safe ones — understanding the culture of social business online is a learning curve that most folks acquire incrementally.
  9. that you’ll find most folks have a different sense of urgency — their sense of urgency will change some as they experience the speed of the Internet.
  10. that social media work isn’t glamorous.
  11. that the pay for the hours worked is even less glamorous.
  12. that, if you build a strong public presence, your mistakes will be public too.
  13. that, if you build a strong public presence, some folks will think you are all about making yourself “internet famous” — and that could be true.
  14. that some folks will be confused when you promote what other folks are doing — you might accused of “going native.”
  15. that you’ll need to personally invest and be detached simultaneously.
  16. that you’ll be critiqued by people who don’t know how to say things nicely.
  17. that you’ll be critiqued by people who don’t know what they’re talking about.
  18. that you won’t have resources to bring all of your strongest ideas to life.
  19. that some of your ideas will be out-of-sync, out-of-reach, or out-of-date before you have them.
  20. that only other social media advocates will “get” what you do — you won’t be able to explain the thrill of a ReTweet from someone you admire.
  21. that your significant other may think you care more about your online friends than your offline friends — your significant other might be right.
  22. that being social online means you’ll have to be social offline too.
  23. that no one human is good at every aspect of social media interaction.
  24. that no matter where you sit, stand, listen, or talk, you’ll have to change your point of view to see and respond to the whole picture.
  25. that the second you forget that social media is about the people, the people will find a way to remind you — sometimes they’ll remind you even when you haven’t forgotten.
  26. that each day will require that you focus fiercely, that trust yourself so that people can trust you, and that you learn more things faster than ever before.
  27. that, if you’re the person introducing social media to a business, you face the challenge of getting people to imagine the possibilities of something they’ve never experienced.

So there you have 27 things to know before you work in social media and here’s the one that makes those 27 worth it.

Inside each frustration is a chance to be a leader, to reach out and invite people to help build something we can’t build alone. The effort, the explaining, the energy can transform a a business by enlisting and celebrating customers, employees, vendors, partners who help it thrive. The first connection occurs when we show folks how these new tools make what they do faster, easier, more efficient, and more meaningful.

Soon enough, I hope we lose the term “social media” in the same way that we no longer have classes in “computer” or people who teach “email.” In the meantime, I tell my family that I write spy novels. It’s easier.

Bet you could add to this list. What do you think people need to know about working in social media?

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

Beach Notes: Sand Crab Camouflage

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by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

We gently encouraged this little sand crab to go onto the rocky area for a photo shoot, because it blended in so well with the sand that it was not easily seen.

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Had this mad thought. If there were marketing consultants in the crab world, they surely would not get a good hearing if they told their clients to stand out from the crowd, would they?

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

Thanks to Week 274 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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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

5 Sure Fire Ways to Motivate Yourself

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A Guest Post by
Farouk Radwan

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We all have goals and tasks that we want to accomplish but unfortunately we don’t always find ourselves motivated to do our tasks or to pursue our goals.

One of the big differences between successful people and those who didn’t succeed yet is the ability of the first group to motivate themselves to work on their goals.

Certainly we all want to be successful and that’s why I decided to write this post to tell you about 5 surefire ways that can help you motivate yourself.

1) Know exactly what you don’t want: Sometimes knowing exactly what you don’t want can motivate you more than knowing what you want. Wanting to be rich will certainly motivate you but not wanting to be poor, miserable, broken, sad or helpless can sometimes motivate you more.

Visualize the worst scenarios that can happen If you didn’t work on your goals can give you a strong motivational boost.

2) Combine both positive and negative motivation: In order not to fall in the trap of negative thinking you must use both positive and negative motivation techniques. Just like you should remind yourself of the negative consequences you should use visualization and images to remind yourself of the amazing feelings you will get when you succeed.

For example if you want to get rich you can hang on the wall above your computer a picture of your dream house or dream car. Each time you will look at them you will get motivated.

3) Don’t wait for the right mood or the right time: Lots of people mistakenly believe that people who are highly motivated always feel good while pursing their goals while the truth is that those who are self motivated have learned how to work even if they feel really bad.

Its not about waiting for a good mood to start but its about learning how to start even if there is no good mood.

4) Use motivational media: No one can underestimate the effect of suggestions we receive from songs, movies, pictures ..etc. If you are getting these suggestions anyways then why not make some of them positive by filtering out the negative media you get subjected to and increasing the positive media you encounter?

5) Lack of knowledge results in lack of motivation: Why would a person who want to do something badly never become motivated to do it? For example I know many people who would die to lose weight but in the same time never try to do it. The reason some people lack motivation is that they don’t know what to do in order to solve their problems, had those people educated themselves about possible solutions they will become motivated to pursue their goals
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Farouk Radwan wrotes for The Ultimate Source for self understanding – 2knowmyself.com You can find him on Facebook as m.farouk.radwan and on Twitter as @2knowmyself

Thanks, Farouk for the motivation on a Friday morning!

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

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