Archives for August 2009

Your Business Blog is a Massive Asset – And Not for the Reason You Think

By Christian

I wrote a piece recently about why I refuse to depend on Google for my internet business, and in that post, I said there’s a big difference between the traffic you get and the actual business you’re building. In other words, your traffic should be able to wax and wane a bit, and your business should not be fundamentally affected. I wanted to go into that just a little bit further, because so many of us are tied into and quite literally addicted to Google traffic.

Are You Sitting on a Time Bomb?

I argue that one of the most valuable things you can do to build your business is to start a business blog. And every blog needs traffic, correct? So how can traffic be such a bad thing? Well, I’m not saying traffic is a bad thing, but anything can cause damage if it’s misunderstood and/or abused.

If your new traffic disappeared tomorrow, where would your business stand? Would your business be over? If so, you’re sitting on a time bomb!

The fact is that without traffic, you’ll never be able to build a business, but traffic is not the problem. Too many of us think because we’re getting a lot of traffic and comments that our business is doing well. These are good things, but again I ask the all-important question: What would happen if all your new visitors went away tomorrow? What are you left with?

Your answer ought to be: I’m left with a very effective blog and a powerful, targeted list of customers that I can cultivate and grow for years to come!

A Lesson From the Real Estate Business

If you follow this blog at all, you know that I have experience in the real estate business. While real estate professionals are just now coming into the internet space in force, and are just now learning how to use internet marketing competently (and I applaud them for it!), they have LONG been masters of what it takes to work a client list, and I think all us internet marketers can learn a bit from them!

Let me tell you something that might surprise you: some of the top real estate professionals in my network…I’m talking about Realtors who sell several hundred homes a year…guess how many people are in their database. Thousands? Tens of thousands? The fact is that many of them have a database of only a few hundred. That’s right. Hundred.

And these are pros that have not always been online, pulling in new leads from the internet. Internet leads to these professionals are gravy. Icing on the cake. How the HECK can you sell 500 houses a year, when your customer base consists of only a few hundred people?

The fact is that each of those people, knows other people. And if you have only a few hundred people who are truly advocates of your business, they will tell their friends, won’t they? So these savvy salespeople spend their time talking to their advocates. And those advocates send them referral business. Just one person can often refer several transactions per year!

If you have 300 people who truly believe in you and think you are the best at what you do, do you see how massively powerful that is? Can’t you see how 300 people is all it takes to make you very, very wealthy? If each of those 300 people refer you just 2 people each year on average, you will sell 600 houses, right? The average Realtor, who doesn’t understand this, sells 8 per year. This is how powerful a client list can be.

So if 300 is all you need, why is it so important to pull in a constant stream of new traffic every single day? It ought to be gravy, not the lifeblood of your business!

The Real Reason Your Blog is a Huge Asset

So many of us think that a blog is such a great asset to your business because it’s such a great way to pull in traffic and sales into your business. No doubt this is true!

But the REAL value of your blog is as a conversational tool with the base of followers you already have. When operated competently, your blog will no doubt continue to bring in new traffic to you for years to come. Congratulations for using such an awesome promotional and business-building tool!

But don’t neglect the REAL value…what you already have right in front of you…your existing customer list. Your list is your business, and your traffic is simply one of many ways to build your list.

If I have to choose between building traffic and interacting with my existing readers, which do you think I choose? Which one do you choose?

Talking to People is More Important Than Anything Else You Do

By Christian

There is so much concern about getting traffic to your blog. This is how you get people to your blog: Talk to people!

When you talk to people and become a valuable part of the conversation in your space…wherever that is, you will get traffic to your site. Now, KEEPING that traffic, getting subscriptions and actually selling, monetizing and so on and so forth are all essential elements as well, but the point I want to make here as succinctly as possible is this: Talking to people is the number one most important thing you are going to do to build the success of your blog.

So Where Can I Find These People You Speak Of?

People are everywhere, aren’t they? They’re not hard to find! There are a lot of tips I’ve read about where to go, and the TRUTH is that they ALL work…if you’re talking to people, you’re doing it right. The better the quality of the conversation, the more valuable it is for all concerned, the better it is for your business. You are branding when you talk to people.

You Are a Salesperson

It might seem scary, but you are a salesperson. Yes, YOU. You are in sales, and you may never have wanted to be in sales, but the world has changed, and to make it in business, you have to be able to make it online, and to make it online, you have become a good salesperson.

Lucky for you, I’ve been a sales trainer for years, and I have a very important fact I’ve learned that I hope will help you with this:

Sales comes naturally to very few people, but ANYONE can learn it. And with practice, EVERYONE can benefit massively from learning sales skills.

This the essence of why I started Next Level Blogger. To teach sales skills. I’m not about big media, and I’m truly not a techy guy. I’m a salesman, and I’ve learned how to apply sales principles to internet marketing. And one of the first things you learn in sales is that if you’re not face to face with a prospect, you’re unemployed. If you want to make it, you have to engage people.

Talking with people is key. It is absolutely mandatory. It doesn’t matter if you’re on Yahoo Answers, some Facebook group or a forum you just joined…it’s all essentially the same. Ideally, do them all! There is not one place that’s better than any other. The point is that you’re getting out there, networking and engaging people on a personal level as much as you can.

What Are You Doing Right Now to Grow Your Business?

Do you spend more time tweaking your site than you do networking? Do you spend more time creating content than you do networking? Do you spend more time reading about how to blog than you do networking? If so, you are doing it backwards!

The fact is that tweaking your site is important. So is creating content and reading content. I recommend all of them, but if you want people coming to your site, the number one most important thing you can do is to simply talk with people. A lot of them. Every day.

Google is Gravy – Why I Refuse to Depend on Google

By Christian

Have you ever heard of the “Google dance“? When it comes to business, I don’t dance. Google is a beautiful thing, and it sends me good quality traffic. I’ll take it. I’ll even take reasonable measures to make sure I get plenty of traffic from Google and other search engines. The principles of SEO are fairly simple to learn, and you don’t need to get overly complicated with it. But I refuse to base my business around Google.

I Don’t Control Google. Neither Do You!

Why? I don’t own Google. I don’t control Google. Neither do you. And if we have no control over something, why would we base the success of our businesses on it? I encourage Next Level bloggers everywhere to take this stance. Blogging is essential for every business owner, and that is why I’m writing this blog. Let SEO be what it is…gravy. Traffic is a cool thing. It greases the wheels. But don’t build a business that is dependent upon something you cannot truly control.

Don’t get me wrong, you CAN build a powerful blog that gets tons of traffic from search. There is nothing wrong with that. Go ahead and get tons of traffic, make money from advertising. It’s a good thing! But let me ask you a question…what happens when Google drops you from their index…for whatever reason?

Do you think it won’t happen to you? It happens to the best of us. And when it happens, what is your back up plan? If your business is dependent on search traffic…you have no recourse but to sit and wait. Like I said, when it comes to business, I don’t dance!

Business the Traffic are Two Separate Things

All I’m saying is that my BUSINESS and my TRAFFIC are two separate things. I encourage you to think of them as separate as well. Your traffic is something that comes in on a daily basis from a number of different sources; I hope eanestly that you do the work to establish traffic streams from many sources, not just search.

Additionally, your BUSINESS is something else entirely. Your business is:

Your database of leads and past customers
Email subscribers
Contacts
Relationships

If all my traffic from Google went away, I would still have a business. A considerable one. I appreciate the traffic Google sends me, and I’m going to continue working to get traffic from Google, but I refuse to have my business depend on it.

What if Google disappeared tomorrow? What would you do? Would you still have a business?

Not One Single Thing You Do Will Make You Successful

By Christian

In my years in business so far, I’ve learned something simple that I have yet not been able to disprove. I have had the pleasure of meeting and staying in touch with some of the world’s most successful salespeople and small business owners. I’ve had dinner with them, hung out with them on boats, gone out drinking with them…to me this is the ultimate learning environment.

This is what I’ve learned:

Not One Single Thing You Do Will Make You Successful!

This is what I mean: big success is made up of thousands of tiny, almost imperceptible successes. Many new business owners and bloggers are looking for a quick way to get their blog to the top of Google. They want to find the “trick” to getting a lot of email subscribers. They want to learn the correct method of generating a lot of traffic quickly.

The Trick to Blogging Success!

The trick is that there is no trick. The cream rises to the top, period. And it takes a little time in most instances, period. I’m not saying it’s going to take years to reach your blogging goals. I’m saying there is no ONE thing that’s going to make any difference. Everything matters!

Creating valuable content on a consistent basis matters.
Moderating and responding to comments and interacting in a genuine way with your readers matters.
Maintaining clean SEO practices matters.
Commenting on other blogs matters.
Being active in forums matters.
Maintaining a clean and up to date email list matters.
Keeping your blog software up to date matters.

You see where I’m going…it all matters! I don’t mean this post to be discouraging. I mean it to be motivational…I’m trying to save you the heartache and lost productivity that comes from seeking a short cut. Just get to work! Hit it every single day! Hustle! Work hard! Isn’t this how successful businesses are built? Blogging is no different. The benefits are real. The benefits are substantial. But the benefits are mostly reserved for bloggers that build very valuable blogs. And value takes time.

There is no one single thing that will make your blog rock. It’s like getting your body in shape. There’s not really a diet program our supplement out there that will REALLY create magical results for you in no time. But if you eat clean and exercise, you WILL get great results, and it won’t really take very long. It is hard work, yes. But it works. In fact it’s a LOT quicker to simply buckle down, clean up your diet, and work hard in the gym than it is to search for some kind of magical diet plan that will get you results quickly. It’s actually QUICKER and takes LESS EFFORT to just do the work!

The Problem of Working for Money

By Christian

Most of us work for money, right? I’ve said it myself when asked…I don’t make it any secret that I expect to be paid for what I do professionally. So how could it possibly be a bad idea to work for money? Isn’t money absolutely necessary after all?

The Problem of Working for Money

Yes, money is indeed a necessity. We all have bills to pay. What I’m referring to here is your focus. If your focus is on the almighty dollar, you have your head in the wrong place. Contrary to popular belief, we are not multitaskers. We are capable possibly of juggling, but we can only truly focus on one thing at a time. What I’m getting at is this: since our focus can only be on one thing at a time, if we’re focusing on the close…on making a sale…on how we’re going to make money on our site…on how we’re going to get more traffic so we can make more money, etc…then our focus CANNOT be on our readers and customers.

Don’t let your focus be on “targeting your niche” or “making more money”. Focus on creating value for and interacting with your readers.

Blogging is a powerful promotional tool for your business. But the points of the game are interaction, engagement and value. Do these things, and money will come. Have faith 🙂

Have Faith. Have Focus.

It’s necessary to have faith that the money will come if you create value, because that is the only way to focus on value. If you focus on making money, you’re not using your blog in the optimum way, and you’re not creating a property that is truly valuable to others. It’s self-serving. And I’m not saying you can’t get anywhere by being self-serving, but in this completely connected market space…it’s not up to you whether you’re valuable or not…it’s up to your readers. And if you efforts are self-serving, how do you think your readers are ultimately going to vote?

Do you really think you can game this system? Maybe for a minute, but not forever, so why even try to play it that way? You’re just creating something that may or may not make you money in the short term. If that is your focus, you’re not creating anything of lasting value.

Create something of lasting value…THAT is how you make money online…long term. That is how you build wealth.