Christian

The Two Biggest Concerns New Bloggers Have

By Christian

This post is one of my longer ones. Stick with me til the end though, because I’m addressing two of the most common questions I get…

I get two primary questions from new bloggers. First, you may want to know how you can possibly come up with a constant stream of ideas for your blog. Understandable! I’m going to show you how. Second, you may want to know how you can possibly fit blogging into your already busy schedule. I’m going to answer that for you today also 🙂

The question I get MOST often is how to come up with ideas for what to publish to your blog, so I’ll start there. It can be intimidating to have to always come up with something to write about.

Til you know the trick!

The trick is, you’re already blogging. Did you know that?

I bet you didn’t know that 🙂

Well, you’re not blogging per se, but I guarantee you’re already doing 95% of the work it takes to have a profitable, lead generating blog. You’re just not publishing. Stick with me for a second, and I’m sure you’ll see what I mean…

Blogging is Way Easier than You Think

The idea of sharing ideas with your readers on a consistent basis can seem daunting when you haven’t done it. But here’s something weird…you never seem to struggle with what to say when you’re talking with a customer or client in your normal day-to-day business, right? Why not?

It’s because you just act like yourself. You talk casually. You have fun. You share ideas. You answer their questions. It’s just a normal human interaction. It’s all very natural.

What a lot of would-be bloggers don’t realize is that your blog is the same.

Blogging isn’t for stuffy, uptight professional writing. It’s the opposite actually. It’s very casual and honest way of communicating. It’s just a different format than you might be used to using.

Your Blog is Your New Cell Phone

If you’d grown up in the 1800′s, the idea of talking to someone on the phone would have been strange indeed. Some people probably would have even said it was from the devil.

If you grew up in one of the past few generations, having a cell phone you can carry around in your pocket…that’s some freaky weird alien technology shit right there. We don’t think twice about these things now. Your blog is no different.

Sure, it’ll take a minute for you to get used to using it as a communication tool. But rest assured, it’s not any more complicated than operating a smartphone.

Is there a learning curve? Of course. There are a few mechanics you’ll need to learn, but you can learn everything you need to know by simply browsing YouTube for some tutorials. We even give our clients an entire archive of training videos, showing them how to blog, how to create squeeze pages, how to build an email list, etc. It’s really as simple as that.

How to Fit Blogging into Your Already Insane Schedule

Remember when I mentioned you’re already doing 95% of what it takes to have a successful blog? In the section above, my intention is to demonstrate that blogging is not a technical, geek-o-licious nightmare. From a technical perspective, it’s actually quite simple.

But if you don’t have any time to do it, you will clearly not be able to benefit from it. So what I try to explain to clients (and today, to you…) is that there’s no reason blogging has to take up a huge chunk of your time.

Remember all those emails and phone calls you get from customers or clients of yours? They ask you questions. You have answers. Instead of just clicking “reply” and responding to that email, why not take a couple extra steps and publish your helpful answer to your blog?

Seriously. If someone had a question compelling enough to email or call you about it, there’s a good chance several other people may be looking for an answer to the same question.

When you start looking at your business in that way, all of a sudden you’ll start seeing that you already spend plenty of time producing content that is more than appropriate for your blog.

You’re literally…already doing it.

Examples:

Your interactions with your customers
The lessons you learned during that day in your business
Your comments about some recent changes in your industry
Changes in your business (new hires, promotions, expansions, etc)
Your thoughts about why you got into your business to start with
The toughest thing to deal with in your business
The most enjoyable thing for you in your business
Funny things that happened in the office that day
Employee birthdays
Community events, hobbies, etc …blog content doesn’t have to be strictly business.
Etc

All of this and much more are things you’re ALREADY DOING. You already have all this (or similar) going on. You’re already discussing these things with others in and around your business. You’re already having these interactions with your customers, etc.

You’re just not capturing it. You’re just not taking the extra step to share it, and that means you’re not leveraging it.

And that, my friend, means you’re not getting the maximum benefits from the work you do.

What Happens When You Choose to Write a Blog

Initially, you’ll go through the learning curve of getting comfortable using your blog. After you publish your first handful of posts, it’s pretty much a piece of cake from there from a technical perspective.

So you publish that first blog post. So what? Who cares, right?

Well consider this. You’ve decided to take a couple extra steps to publish something. Maybe your post only gets a handful of visitors. With a new blog, that’s to be expected. But here’s where the magic kicks in:

You publish that first post. Let’s say it’s an answer to a question you get from your customers all the time.
You were going to answer the question anyway, so might as well take a couple extra steps to publish as a blog post.
Now you have an asset. A page on the web. It’s not bringing in a lot of traffic, but it brings in a little. Let’s say 20-30 visitors a month or something like that.
Now that you’ve published an article, you now have a relevant, non-salesy reason to contact your customers. You get to email your prospect list (or contact your people however it is you usually do) with a helpful article. This initiates some awareness of the fact you have a blog.
Next, you’ll see that after some time has passed, that article continues to bring in a trickle of traffic each month. Again, maybe it’s not much, but it’s something.
In the meantime, you’ve published a handful of more articles. You’ve decided to stick with this “blogging thing” for a year and give it a fair shot. Others have built multimillion dollar businesses around their blogs, so surely you can reap at least some modest benefits from blogging yourself 🙂 What you notice at this point is that traffic is starting to increase. That first post is continuing to bring in a few visitors each month, but your others are too. So maybe that first couple weeks you only got 30-50 visitors. Well, now you’re getting 30-50 per day. Thinking more clearly now, it occurs to you that if you keep it up, you just might be able to continue seeing growth. You’re right about that by the way.
After a few months and some diligence on your part, you have a well-crafted blog with at least a dozen or more articles, all bringing in new visitors every day. A percentage of them are signing up for your email list, because you have a compelling call to action installed on your blog as well.
From there…your results start to snowball a bit, because you’re getting more traffic. But you’re also getting more signups to your email list. You’re also seeing that some of your visitors are sharing your content with their friends on Facebook and Twitter. This is when it starts to get fun 🙂

From this point, it’s just a matter of continuing with what you’re doing. Yeah, you’ll make tweaks to your approach along the way, but this is the essence of it. Carry on, fellow blogger. It’s really as simple as that 🙂

To help you get started blogging, I’ll even give you some topics that should keep you busy for the first few weeks or months…

Here’s a quick list of blog post ideas to get you started. Please take these and use them as you see fit:

Video or written review of the your favorite tools you use in your business.
Talk about a book you’ve read that relates to your industry and what you’ve learned.
Share your thoughts on an article or blog post you’ve read.
Predict where your industry is headed and share why you feel that way.
Describe something specific you do in your business that sets you apart, and share how you came to do it that way.
Share a problem with your industry or a concern you have about the market.
Share testimonials and case studies. Has a client taken your advice recently and had great results?
Give a step-by-step system for how to accomplish a specific result in a specific amount of time.
Video and/or pictures of your office, your team, your family, your town, your hangouts, etc.
Showcase a member of your team or one of your favorite clients.
Rave about your favorite blog, magazine or writer. Share what you love about them and thank them for helping you.
Share something you’ve learned lately? What are you doing differently now than you were this time last year?
Have you responded to an inquiry from one of your customers or clients lately? If one person has that question, it’s likely others do too.
Have you ever made a mistake? Share the details and what you’ve learned.
Do you consistently see clients or customers making the same type of mistakes? Identify a common mistake and educate your readers to save them a bit of heartache and hassle.
Share why you love your business. What motivates and excites you about doing what you do? What got you into your business to begin with?
Share your to-do list. What are your 5 biggest goals in your business in the next year? Where are you going? Get your readers involved.
Publish your reading list. What do you have on your list to read that will motivate, inspire or educate you?
Ask your Facebook friends a question, and share the feedback you get.
Interview someone in your industry. Post the audio or video as well as a transcribed version on your blog. This is a great way to educate your readers, yourself and meet awesome people all at the same time 🙂

Got questions or need help getting set up? Hit me up any time.

7 Tips On Writing An Effective About Page

By Christian

It’s not difficult to get great leads from your About page every day. But most people don’t. That’s what I call a missed opportunity. Why do most of us miss this opportunity? Let’s be honest, most About pages kinda suck.

I mean, really suck. That’s what I meant to say:)

Now, sitting down to craft an effective About page can be intimidating, so I wanted to share a few tips with you. Keep these in mind and it’ll be far easier to get the copy written for it.

Sure, have a short company bio, but that’s about 10% of the story here.
Tell a story…why did you start your business in the first place? What drives you to succeed? Don’t tell people you care. Tell them WHY you care. Be specific.
If you’re meeting someone new in person, it’s unlikely you’d say anything like “I’m the top person in my field. I care more than anyone else. No one works harder than me. Here, look at this list of my credentials.” But we say shit like that on our About pages all the time. When you think about it that way, it’s not too confusing why it doesn’t resonate with people. Real human conversation centers a lot more around what we like, what we think is funny or moving, what we care about. Not that we care…what we care about and why.
Your About page should be targeted. In other words, if it appeals to 99% of the human race, it’s crap. Your About page should pull at the heart strings of a few people. Just a few. The people you absolutely like working with the best.
Talk about THEM, not just you. The content should make it clear that you know where they’re coming from. They should feel like you understand their frustrations and what worries them. Meet them at their level. What problem do you solve better than anyone else? What does it feel like to be in the midst of that problem? How awesome does it feel when it gets fixed? The more you laser target this, the more your prospects will realize you’re the obvious person they want to work with. From there, signing up for your email list is compulsory. Their concerns are addressed, and there’s nothing left for them to think about.
Use your About page also to link up a lot of the best content on your site if possible. Demonstrate that however much they’ve read and enjoyed on their first visit, there’s a lot more where that came from.
Have a compelling call to action. If you want them to sign up for your list, ask them to do that. Don’t just have an opt in form off to the side. That’s fine, but spell it out for them. Tell them right in the copy of the page itself what you want them to do next.

Your About page is rarely the first page people visit. They will however, hit your About page after being on your site a while. People who are considering doing business with you definitely want an opportunity to “meet” you. They want to get a sense of who you are, what your company is about. The more your About page resonates with them, the more likely they’ll be to contact you or sign up for your list.

Consider including photos and video also. Photos and video of yourself, your office, your team, etc. Some people are just more visual than others, and this type of content resonates much more greatly with them.

Do you have any questions after reading this? Let me know what’s on your mind!

Blogging is Like Getting a Massage

By Christian

While I advocate blogging for marketing purposes, the truth is that it’s a lot more valuable than just that. I’ve found over the years that while I do indeed get a lot of benefits business-wise from blogging, the main benefits are personal.

Blogging is therapeutic. It really is.

I’d compare blogging to journaling, and this comparison is obvious in some ways. Blogging was originally born out of journaling. But the act of journaling has been a tried and true practice for building a successful life for generations. We seem to have forgotten that. We seem to have forgotten where blogging came from.

It’s not some damn new marketing tactic. It’s actually not new at all. It’s old. Really old. It’s been going on for as long as pen and paper have been readily accessible.

Success gurus like Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy…gosh I don’t know…everyone…have been talking about the value of journaling forever. This isn’t a coincidence. Bottom line: it makes you better at what you do. And that’s important.

Most people don’t do it. Most people don’t write and share their goals. Most people don’t take the time to record and develop their ideas. Most people also…don’t achieve their true aspirations in business and in life.

To paraphrase Jim Rohn’s take on it, “It’s easy to do. It’s also easy not to do.”

Blogging is introspective. You have to ask yourself what is worth sharing with others. You have to think about your customers in a human way. They have hopes and dreams, fears and worries just like you do. You have to think about how you can help them, legitimately…not just how they can help you. You have to take stock of what’s going on in your business.

Maybe that’s all just a big pain in the ass. Or maybe…just maybe, there’s a reason that journaling has been a pastime of many of the most successful business owners and thought leaders throughout history.

I’m probably waxing philosophical a bit. I do that late at night sometimes. Especially after two glasses of wine. Which is exactly where I’m at right now.

But I think it’s an important point. The benefits you get from blogging extend far beyond just making some sales. It’s way more important than building a list. Far more profound than just finding a cheaper way to market yourself.

It really will change how you look at your business.

But if you look at it in a purely utilitarian way, it’ll be a drag…pure and simple. I just used a fancy-ish word in that last sentence. I broke one of the small business blogging rules…keep it dumbed down. Sorry about that. I’m pretty sure you can handle it 🙂

When you go to get a massage, the point is not to get it done. It’s not the point to cross the massage off your to do list for the day. The point of the massage is not for it to be over. The point of the massage is the massage itself. The experience itself gets you straightened out. It energizes you. It focuses you. And doing it regularly forces you to keep your priorities straight.

Yeah, blogging can feel inconvenient sometimes. So does prospecting. So does exercising. So does eating an apple a day. Sometimes the things that make us successful don’t always feel fun. Sometimes we feel like we’re too busy. That’s exactly why it’s so important. It’s why I believe every small business owner should have a blog.

Why Email is Slowly Dying (for most people)

By Christian

Just a quick note for you today. I keep hearing about how email marketing is not working as well as it used to work. You know I’m an advocate of email marketing. I honestly feel that if you’re not building an email list, you’re missing the biggest opportunity you have to make your web marketing sing.

Various “experts” are talking about how social media is the new thing though. They’re saying that email doesn’t work nearly as well as it used to work. What gives?

OK here’s the deal. Millions of new businesses are using email marketing now. Not a bad thing. It’s a lot more popular than it used to be. But guess what. Most people suck at it.

That’s why open rates are down across the board. It’s due to suckage, not because email doesn’t work!

Here are a few basics to keep in mind when building an email list:

Use a serious email marketing service like Aweber – Go easy on yourself. Use an email service that is designed for small business owners. Aweber isn’t the only provider. I just have a rule. I only recommend services I personally use and can vouch for. Period. So I can speak intelligently about Aweber, as I’ve been a customer of theirs since ’06. It makes pretty much everything to do with building an email list and keeping in touch with your prospects a breeze.
Give people a legit, high value reason to subscribe – Don’t just put a box on your site that says “Sign up for our newsletter”. Why should they? Give them a compelling reason. Offer a free report, a free video, a discount…something you could legitimately charge for. Something that makes it a lock. Give them a reason, and you’ll get a lot more subscribers just because of that alone.
Make it visible – Put your opt in form in a prominent place on your site. Front and center, top right…somewhere it can’t be ignored.
Stay in touch like a human being – If you get a list going, but they only hear from you when you’re selling something, or if they only hear from you once per year, guess what will happen. Not much! You started the conversation off by offering em something cool, right? Follow up with more cool stuff. Blogging is the best way to do this. Publish an article or a video or whatever…something that answers a question, addresses a concern, helps them solve a problem.
Stay in touch like a human being 2.0 – When you send an email to your friends, do you use a professionally designed HTML email template? Of course not. You write a quick message in plain text. Then you click send. When you communicate like a human being, you tend to get responses from human beings. When you communicate like a robot, you tend to get robotic responses (“mark as spam”, ahem)

Questions? Need help with your email marketing? Hit me up with any of your concerns!

Blogs Don’t Work

By Christian

Yes…I’m publishing a blog post about how blogs don’t work. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone how silly that is 😉

Before I got into this internet business full time, I spent several years selling real estate. I never once heard a home builder say “hammers don’t work”. Why not?

I mean, you absolutely cannot build an entire home with a hammer. So clearly if you go around wielding a hammer, even if you do it with finesse and a level of Bruce Lee mastery the likes of which the world has never seen…you’re still never gonna wind up with a beautiful home from using just a hammer.

Also…imagine what would happen if you swung the hammer just half an inch to the left of where it was supposed to go, even once. Damn! You’ll end up with a big hole in the wall. The nail still isn’t driven in, and now you have a big hole in the wall. And here you are using this damn hammer left and right. Now you have a hole in the wall, and you STILL don’t have a completed home. Ridiculous.

Clearly, hammers don’t work.

Right?

Oh wait…maybe that’s a horribly dumb analogy 🙂

A hammer is a tool. It doesn’t work. YOU work. Or you don’t. That’s a decision you can make on your own. If you decide to build a home, you’ll likely put a hammer to work for you at some point. Or you’ll hire others to use them. Whatever.

The point is that a hammer is a tool. It enables you to do things that you couldn’t otherwise do. That’s what tools are for. What kind of results you get with them has very little to do with the tool itself. How well you use it is what will determine the results you get. It’s also very likely you’ll need more than one tool to reach your goals.

Your blog is a powerful tool

I’m an advocate of blogging to market your small business. I’ve been saying for years that blogs are the new smartphones. They enable you to engage and converse with a large number of people in a leveraged way. It’s a powerful communication tool. But simply having a blog is the same as having a hammer. No one is impressed. Now…if you put the work in and learn how to use it expertly, the results you can get are phenomenal.

What kind of results will you get with your small business blog? It depends on what you do with it.

My companies can pull in as many as 300-500 leads in a single day. Over 90% of that comes from blogs. I’ve literally built my entire business using blogs. Does that mean blogs work?

I know many who have had a blog for years and get luke warm results at best. Does that mean blogs don’t work?

If you view your marketing tools as something that should produce results on their own without reference to how well you use them, then you’ll find in most cases that your results are pretty dismal. Small business blogs are no different than any other tool. Some use their blogs to build multimillion dollar businesses. Others use them to talk about what Katy Perry did with her hair last week.

The principles we teach clients work. How do I know? Because I use the exact same principles and the exact same tools in my own business. My livelihood depends on these things being effective. Will you follow the systems and demand the results you’re seeking? I hope so. Will you follow 10% of what we recommend and then decide that “blogs don’t work”? Totally up to you 😉