Jim Connolly Marketing

6 great marketing posts and the chance to win an iPad2

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After 3 years of blogging, I have finally written my first ever guest post!

As regular readers will know, I love what John Jantch and the team over at Duct Tape Marketing are doing.  This means it was a great privilege to guest on John’s site today, as part of Duct Tape’s iPad give-away competition, to celebrate small business week.

Your chance to win an iPad2

If you want the chance to win an iPad2, simply read these 6 great posts.  They are all about how to convert leads into clients, even if you hate selling!  Then, see if you can match the 6 authors to the correct post!   The 6 authors are: Jill Konrath, Mahan Khalsa, Michael Port, Michael Schultz, Wendy Weiss (and me!)

The posts are worth checking out purely for the value they contain, but with the added bonus of potentially winning an iPad 2, you really have to check them out.

 

Give your business an immediate boost with these 3 great questions

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Here are 3 things you can do right now, to help you attract more great clients.  Simply ask yourself the following 3 questions and put the answers into action:

  1. What was the last service you recommended to someone and what motivated you to recommend it?  When you uncover why you recommend other people’s services, you can incorporate that into your own business, to attract more word of mouth referrals.
  2. Who was the last person to leave an extremely positive impression on you, and what was it that impressed you?  By learning from those who left a great impression on us, we can improve our own professional impact.
  3. What was the last website or blog you shared with your social network, and why did you share it?  Think about what it was that motivated you to share that site.  Look for ways to use a similar approach, to encourage more people to share your site.

Those 3 questions are typical of the kind of questions we need to be asking ourselves all the time.

What would you add as a 4th question?

Why the hostility? I don’t understand it!

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Why are people so hostile, to bloggers who write books, which include subjects covered in their blog posts?  That’s not a rhetorical question, I am genuinely looking for an answer and would appreciate your feedback.

The typical complaint I hear, is that some bloggers books contain a lot of the material, which is freely available on the author’s blog.

Here’s how I see it

A blog with hundreds or maybe thousands of posts, can take someone many hours, before they search through all the content to find the key parts they are interested in.  Time is money. On this blog, I offer a categories section, a month by month archive and a search box and even I find it hard to quickly locate particular posts!

A site like copyblogger, which has no archives, no dates on any posts and where posts are not fully categorised, would take someone days to mine for all the key information they need. That said, those guys sell inexpensive information products based on much of their cornerstone content, which is an effective solution, in my opinion.

Of course, even after someone trawled their way through hundreds or thousands of posts, it’s probable they will miss key content out, if they haven’t already gone blind from eye strain!  Then they need somewhere to put that information, so it can be indexed and easily read.

Now, given that all of the blogger books I have seen, retail at below the hourly income of their intended readership, are they really so wrong to charge for it?  It’s also worth mentioning that with a few well-known exceptions, these books offer a lot of new material and fresh insights, not simply rehashes of the authors blog posts.

I would love to know what you think about this, so please share your thoughts.

How come I do it so often?

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content marketing

It seems that some readers have noticed that many of their favourite blogs didn’t publish anything, over the recent public holidays.  I’ve had a few people on Twitter and several emails, asking why I thought it was, that many of the bloggers who say they schedule weeks worth of content in advance, always seem to miss the days when they are away from the office.

I can only guess why they didn’t publish on those days.  Maybe they simply didn’t have anything finished in advance and were spending some time away from work.  Good for them! Others may have had some posts pre written and ready to go, but maybe wanted to save them for higher traffic days.  Lots of business bloggers have told me they see no value posting on public holidays.  They find they get little engagement with so many people away from the office, so it makes more sense for them to hold onto their posts for regular work days.

Those are just educated guesses.  I can, however, explain how come I was able to post each day.

Here’s how I do it

It’s actually extremely simple:  I prepare my posts well in advance.  I write 3 or 4 blog posts, twice a week.  Plus, I occasionally dedicate a whole day to writing posts.  This means I am always at least a month ahead of myself with content.

These posts are about 95% written, so once a week I grab a handful of them and complete them, before scheduling them to be published.  It works.  It means I can show up here without having to write during the holidays.  It means I only need to write a couple of times a week, so it never gets in the way of my family time or my fee-paying work.  It also means I don’t have to rely on “guest” bloggers to provide me with content, as I always have far more content than I actually need.

Sometimes, like over the past few weeks, I publish something every day; occasionally, like today, I publish twice in a day.  For example, the post I published this morning was written weeks ago, then I decided to write and publish this post today, because of the time sensitive nature of it. (Today is a public holiday in the UK.)  So, if it’s a time sensitive post, I will often publish the post the same day it’s written, otherwise it’s a scheduled post.

From a content marketing perspective, there’s no real need for me to publish as often as I do.  I’m driven to share ideas with you here on the blog, because I know many people find these posts as enjoyable to read, as I do to write them.  A genuine win-win!

I’d like to know what you think about blogging on a regular basis.

Do you enjoy reading certain blogs regularly?  Do you find it challenging to produce posts as often as you would like?  Do you think it’s better for bloggers to write less often?  Please take a moment to share your feedback!

Blogging, giving and receiving!

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I wrote last week about the power of giving.  In that post, I said; By helping other people, we begin the process of giving and open the channel for receiving.

One of the ways this manifests itself to me, is through the feedback I get from readers here on the blog.

As well as the comments you see, I also receive emails almost every day, from people who want to thank me for something I have shared here, which has helped them.  These range from a quick “thank you,” to detailed information on how they used an idea from one of my posts, to achieve a business breakthrough.  I love to receive them.

Readers also send me gifts to show their thanks for the fee information I provide here.  These are usually business books, which is great as I am a ferocious reader.  I get 1 or 2 books sent to me every week.

However, I also get gifts from readers, which are completely unrelated to business.  For example, Irene Koehler from almostsavvy.com sent me a Winnie The Pooh storybook, all the way from California.  She did that after reading a post, where I mentioned how I love reading with my young son.

I’ve also been sent cards, flowers, balloons and fruit baskets etc – An extremely diverse range, from great people who simply wanted to show their thanks.

Picture this

I was prompted to write this post today, after Robin Dickinson from Sydney, Australia sent me the amazing charcoal picture you see in this post.  As well as being a gifted artist, Robin is also a business consultant and trainer.  The picture is Robin’s interpretation of my new Twitter avatar image.

What makes this picture even more amazing, is that Robin has managed to produce a very close likeness, working from just a low quality photo I shot with my camera phone.  I believe Robin’s picture is actually closer to the “real” me than the original photo!

Thank you!

Many people only see the blogger giving away his or her expertise, however, that’s just half the story! By working hard to help as many people as possible with this blog, I am repaid every day for what I do and in many different ways.

To everyone who has contributed to this blog in any way, either through; sharing the posts on their social networks, commenting, emailing or sending tokens of appreciation, I’m extremely thankful.

Picture: Robin Dickinson

Reliable?

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How reliable do your prospective clients think you are?

  • If you use social networking sites, can they rely on you to show up regularly and contribute?
  • If you write a newsletter, can they rely on you to get each edition out on time?
  • If you write a blog, can they rely on you to publish posts on a regular basis?

Until they have the opportunity to work with you and discover how wonderful you are, prospective clients only have your marketplace facing activities, like those I just mentioned, with which to assess how reliable you are.

Building a reputation for reliability is extremely valuable, as it helps you earn the confidence of your marketplace.  Use your most visible marketing efforts, to show them that no matter how busy you are, you can be relied upon to show up.