Archive for December, 2007
We close out each week with our Who Said That?, where we give some link love to other blogs and posts that have really caught our attention.
But before we get started: be sure to submit your best post of 2007 for our ˜Best Posts of 2007′ eBook. These final few days of December are the last chance to submit a post and a great way to get some additional exposure and linkage! Space is filling up fast so be sure to get yours in while we’re still accepting posts!
Wow… Shane asked the first billionaire he ever met what it was like to have that much money. His answer is amazing…
With the New Year right around the corner, I assume that many of you have a goal to lose some weight collected this year. There is so much diet rhetoric out there… I pretty much tune it out. Unless it’s a heartfelt story from a real person who had record success with their own personal improvement. This post from Conrad Hees about how he lost 35 pounds in 90 days is candid, passionate, and eye-opening.
Do you suffer from this disease? Roger of The Happy and Prosperous Blog says this disease could be killing your business and your personal life. I’m currently listening to Donald Trump’s latest audio book where he makes the point several times that people in this world are out to bring you down. The more successful you become, the more they want to keep you down. Purposefully or not, people often have their best interests in mind in a business or personal relationship – not yours. Trying to please everyone else while not spending enough energy working on your own goals can lead you straight to failure.
Mason and Natalie at Smart Fuel Marketing offer 15 unique ideas for writing sales letters – fifteen! Surely in this list of 15 great ideas you can find a way to stand apart from the crowd.
Everyone’s heard of the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Henrik takes a unique perspective on this list and tells you what not to do!
Here’s to your success in the New Year!
**who**
December 28 2007 | Marketing and Who Said That? | 2 Comments »
This is your last chance to submit your “Powerful Post” for inclusion in our e-Book. Take a few minutes to find your most powerful post of 2007 and submit it to Your Best Post Published
Thanks!
December 27 2007 | Announcements and Marketing | No Comments »
Those of us who spend all of our tine online tend to forget that most of the world doesn’t. Think about the family and friends you know in your personal life outside of work. The majority of people that I know all have computers, but use them for web surfing, making online purchases, and email.
The majority of these people don’t use RSS feed reader and in most cases, don’t even know what an RSS feed is. They don’t have a Stumble or Digg profile. They don’t participate in forums. They don’t have a blog.
Are you spending a disproportionate amount of time marketing in places where only a small potion of people are likely to find you?
Are You Suffering from New Media Marketing Syndrome?
While many traditional businesses such as real estate agencies are just beginning to leverage the web, there exists a whole group of ‘new media’ business owners who grew up in the internet era. These folks, (myself included) have a handle on how to reach web audiences but are most likely missing a vast number of customers by not focusing on some ‘offline’ marketing.
Whether you are the author of an eBook, have created an audio series, or an ecommerce retailer, you could drastically increase your customer base by reaching people offline.
Here are a Few Ideas for Marketing Your Online Products Offline:
eBook Author:
- Get an ISBN, hire an artist to create a great print-ready cover, and self publish a handful of books, and get some signed copies of your books on a ‘local authors’ display at your local Barnes and Noble, Borders, or community bookstore.
- Create some inexpensive post cards marketing your book, buy a mailing list, and send them out to your target audience. Create a website targeted to traditional book buyers (not eBook downloaders) where they can buy your book.
Audio Product:
- Audio and video information is plentiful online, but people will pay big bucks for audio CD on topics they are interested in! Turn those audio files into retail ready CDs, find a graphic artist to create CD covers, and get your CDs positioned in local bookstores and niche specialty stores.
- Create some inexpensive post cards marketing your CD series, buy a mailing list, and send them out to your target audience. Create a website targeted to traditional media buyers (not downloaders) where they can buy your CDs.
eCommerce Retailers:
Consumers who receive catalogs are more likely to become multibuyers online, accounting for 15% more transactions, and will spend on average 16% more than customers who did not receive catalogs.
- Exhibit your products at trade shows, farmers market, or at a local fair.
- Choose one of your best products and produce a 30 second infomercial that heavily promotes all the features, benefits, and uses of the product. TV is extremely influential. If the Elvis Silver Half Dollar Collector Coin sells successfully on TV, won’t your product?
December 26 2007 | Business Building and Marketing | No Comments »
We close out each week with our Who Said That?, where we give some link love to other blogs and posts that have really caught our attention.
But before we get started: be sure to submit your best post of 2007 for our ‘Best Posts of 2007′ eBook. This is a great way to get some additional exposure and linkage! Space is filling up fast so be sure to get yours in while we’re still accepting posts!
Daylle Deanna Schwartz from the blog “Lessons from a Recovering Doormat” (Love that title!) offers an important lesson for freelancers for retraining their mindset about income and security. It’s constantly amazed at how one little change in our self-talk vocabulary can often make such a big impact on our lives!
Jay White of Dumb Little Man shows an example of some true outside the box thinking… or actually inside the box thinking… that reminds us that any problem is solvable if we just apply creativity. When faced with a logistical and profitability dilemma, a group of creative people came up with a strange and highly effective solution – you’ll understand when you read the post! Thanks the ever inspirational Stephen Hopson, for posting this in his Weekly Gratitude Post.
Dave Navarro is a master of writing posts that will kick your butt into gear. In part one of his multi-part December Challenge series, Dave challenges us all to eradicate the ‘victim’ mentality that most of us have about time. I know that this month has been a real challenge for me time-wise, and I’m expecting 2008 to be even more hectic. If I’m going to achieve my goals, I need to get rid of anything that is taking away from the time I have to achieve them, including any victim mentality! I’m already gearing up for the higher productivity in 2008, which is exactly why I and am gearing up to start Dave’s 30 Hour Day program!
I think that I was about 24 when I finally realized that the wisdom of people with more years that I was something to be coveted. Jenny from ‘Jenny and Erin – A Tongue in Cheek Quest for Understanding’ lays out 5 things she wishes she would have known when she was younger. Just think… one day you’ll be wishing you knew something right now that you won’t learn until years later… Maybe in these lessons learned you’ll save yourself some time that you may have spent in trial and error.
I just found Dave Walker’s We Blog Cartoons and am loving it! Dave creates all kinds of humorous, computer-techno-blogger-funny cartoons that everyone can post on their blog. Here’s one of my favorites:
Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.
Have a great weekend and a wonderful holiday!!
**who**
December 21 2007 | Who Said That? | 3 Comments »
If you want BIG ROI from Paid Search, YES!
This is a common question with almost every small business or individual that runs their own web based business asks and a very common question for medium and large businesses. There are a LOT of key things to consider when making the decision to do in-house or outsource.
PPC Budget
Your companies budget is always a concern. We all have one. And have to stick to it if we want to stay in business. If your a start up with low funds you DON’T need to be gambling with your capital by outsourcing from the start. A quality campaign does not happen over night.
My experience is 3 to 6 months till the performance is in top gear with enough data to be predictable. If cash flow is tight educate your self and do it for a while on your own. This way you will know how to communicate with your paid search manager down the road when you do outsource or have a consultation.
The more data you have and build the better. Even if there is a fair amount of waste and low results it can be refined upon by a full time professional Paid Search Manager.
Keeping PPC in House
A close friend of mine who is cleaning up with SEO and paid search says, “those that are good do it for themselves.”
If you have an in house sales or marketing person that is getting incredible results with PPC for your company, be willing to risk them leaving if you aren’t going to reward appropriately. If that person is money motivated, you will have to pay to keep their attention.
Make sure you invest in the proper education for paid search if it is done in house. Training, books, CD’s, and networking events are all great resources in gaining the necessary knowledge for top performing Pay Per Click Advertising.
If you have an individual that can focus time, energy, and passion to PPC marketing that will stay with you long-term that’s good as gold. I would still suggest an occasional audit from an outside source just to make sure that nothing is being overlooked that could increase ROI even more.
Outsourcing PPC
When you take the plunge and make the decision to have a full time pro take over your paid search accounts, do your home work before you hire someone. Certified Professionals have proven skills. The most common search engine stamps of approval are:
- The “Certified Google Advertising Professional (or Company)”
- The “Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador”
- The “Microsoft adExcellence Member”
Make sure you get quality referrals from current or past customers. However, just because an individual is certified at a big company doesn’t mean they are quality. If a big company or even a small company with current clientele wants to get an individual certified quickly with out proven success it’s very very easy to do.
Unlike a company who may put a rookie on your PPC campaign, an individual that has built their own clientele over time has earned and worked for their reputation. They can’t get the referrals and new clients if they don’t. Make sure that there is a real individual reviewing and overseeing your account. There are great robots that can manage things but a truly effective PPC strategy requires a human touch!
In closing, I do believe that there are times when you shouldn’t outsource PPC and times when you should. Use this post as a thought card in your considerations. It is always great to consult an outside expert periodically – and for serious ROI, almost necessary to fully outsource.
Noah @ LookToTheRight
December 18 2007 | Pay Per Click Advertising | 5 Comments »
2007 has been a huge year for the David Williams Online internet marketing team. Over 2007, David and Fred have tripled their business and helped their clients grow at even greater volumes by increased internet exposure.
However, all of this success has come with some growing pains! Growing pains that I hope to experience more of in 2008 and that I hope you will as well!
Overcoming the obstacles of small business or freelance business growth is not a challenge easily tackled. This post could easily cover a multi-part series (and will) but today I’m going to focus on my specific challenges with growth as the person in charge of the creative aspect of copywriting.
As David and Fred continued to bring in more clients it became increasingly more difficult for me to keep up with their client’s demands for creative copy. As a result, I had to figure out a way to scale up quickly without losing the creative aspect. I still have a lot to fine-tune before I can jump to the next level of growth, but these are things that have helped me handle a tripling in business growth:
#1 Be Willing to Relinquish Some Control
One of the biggest problems that small business owners and freelancers face is the fact that they feel the need to control everything. Even if we think we are doing fairly well at delegating, there are probably some time-wasting tasks that we are holding onto that could be delegated. Can you think of any?
#2 Define Which Creative Pieces Set You Apart from Your Competition
There are probably hundreds – or even thousands of business that offer the same thing that you do. What is it about your business that attracts clients to you and keeps them coming back again and again?
If you’re a designer and people come to you because they love your design style, it’s not so easy just to bring on another designer to take on extra work. They are expecting a design from you! The same goes for writing and consulting and many other creative services.
Ask yourself… what is at the HEART of what makes your creativity so unique? You may find that your creative output is 10% vision and 90% execution. What if you could be responsible for only the 10% vision piece task out the 90% that is execution?
#3 Multiplying Your Output Without Sacrificing Your Creativity
If you operate a creative services business, such as consulting, design, writing, etc, you may be wondering the same thing I did… how can I possibly increase the amount of creative services I provide without spending MORE time working?
After exploring this question in great detail, I realized that many of the elements of a ‘creative’ task include tasks that are quite routine. If you’re developed some creative processes, you may not have ever really analyzed the exact steps you take to bring a project together – you just do them.
If you outsource all your creative pieces, you risk losing quality and continuity. What I’ve learned is that if I define exactly what the creative pieces are in the tasks, create a creative framework, and assign out all of the other tasks needed to bring the task to completion, I can get the same quality of results in far less time.
For example, there are certain things that I do whenever I start develop a topic for a page of content or sales copy for the web. Before I analyzed my process, I didn’t spend too much time thinking about the techniques I used to create pages, I just did them and I knew that they worked.
What I’m doing now is creating outlines and templates based on my own creative process and then outsourcing the tasks needed to bring the pieces together. This might take the shape of researching, putting notes in a finalized format, giving a direction for the next person to add their own creativity to the process.
This system can work with design (create a base design and then outsource the process of breaking apart and testing the design), consulting (put your notes together and then outsource the writing of the finalized document for the client), and just about any other creative process.
#4 Have a Damn Good System of Communication
If you’re working with multiple people to bring multiple pieces of a project together, you absolutely must have an effective way to communicate. Some of the things I am using are:
- Basecamp (for communication with multiple people on a single project)
- Backpack (to house information about a client so that when I need to bring another person in on the project, I don’t have to spend hours explaining every detail about the client),
- Google shared calendar (so that everyone is on the same page about when things are supposed to get done.)
#5 Find Great People and Treat them Well
It’s hard to find good people that have a similar vision and mission as you do. I’ve found that referrals and blogs are some of the best ways to find good people. Blogs are a great way to find out if someone shares a common vision and work ethic as you because the signs of this are written all over their online presence.
Once you do find great people to work with, you’ve got to hold onto them tightly. If you treat people as if they are disposable, you’ll effectively grow a disposable business. People are what make a business great.
Even if you don’t have the resources to pay them tons of cash right now, there are small things you can do like thanking them for a job well done, and remembering them on birthdays and holidays with a gift basket or a Starbucks gift card or other token of appreciation. Share your growth goals with them and let them know how you want them to factor into the equation as the business grows. These kinds of appreciative gestures go a long way.
What Challenges Do You Face With Growing Your Small Business or Freelance Business?
Turning down business because you don’t have enough time is a shame. Giving less that your best to your clients because you don’t have the bandwidth is a recipe for disaster. How can you grow your business next year without sacrificing quality? What challenges do you face with growing your business?
December 17 2007 | Business Building | 2 Comments »
We close out each week with our Who Said That?, where we give some link love to other blogs and posts that have really caught our attention.
But before we get started: be sure to submit your best post of 2007 for our ˜Most Powerful Posts of 2007″ eBook. This is a great way to get some additional exposure and linkage! Space is filling up fast so be sure to get yours in while we’re still accepting posts!
When NOT to Blog
One blogger that I used to read regularly wrote posts while he was admittedly drunk. Unless being drunk part of your M.O. Patrick Schaber of the Lonely Marketer lists this among his list of 10 times that you need to step away from your keyboard and refrain from writing a blog post!
How to Avoid Fool’s Gold and Create Value-packed Content
In case you haven’t heard of Skelliewag, she has quickly built up a readership of more than 2000, has guest blogged on Pro Blogger, ProBlogger, Daily Blog Tips, Daily Bits and (soon) Freelance Switch. (Anke at Blog Clout just published a great interview with Skellie). So when Skellie writes a post about How to Avoid Fool’s Gold and Create Value-packed Content, it’s a smart idea to listen and learn!
Do You Own a Business or a Job?
Did you go into business for yourself to own a business, but instead find yourself owning your own JOB? I know that I did that! It only makes sense considering that most of us came from the mindset of working for someone else. But it’s a new year and it’s time to change all of that. James, a guest poster or Shane and Peter’s blog, tells his story about owning a job, and what you can do to avoid this ill fated existence.
11 Tricks Brian Gardener Can Teach you to Attract New Clients
The great thing about this post, is that is written from the perspective of the person that was won over, and became a new client! James breaks down his reasoning behind why he chose one particular web designer amidst all the possible choices.
How to Pitch the Media – An Interview with Award-Winning Business Reporter Betsy Cummings
If you want to get media publicity, you’ve got to learn the art of pitching to the media. The Shop Floor interviewed award winning business reporter Betsy Cummings to get the inside scoop on how to pitch stories, a reporter’s biggest peeves, and much more.
Have a great weekend!
December 14 2007 | Who Said That? | 1 Comment »
After achieving success with his own personal blog Smart Wealth Rich, Jonathan Phillips decided to launch a collaborative blog for freelancers. Launched just 6 months ago in July of 2007, Freelance Folder proved an instant success.
Contributors at Freelance Folder include Dave Navarro, Amrit Hallan, Naomi Dunford, Jonathan Bostrom, and many others with a wide range of talents and experiences.
Have you ever thought about taking your blog from a solo project to a multi-author project? If so, here’s an exclusive look into why Jonathan decided to start a multi-author blog and what it’s like to manage one.
Why Did You Decide to Start a Second Blog?
The main reason I wanted to start a second blog was because I realized my goals and interests changed a lot since I started blogging, SmartWealthyRich is my first blog, and I did a lot of experiments with that blog. I’m really happy with the results I got with SWR, but my interests changed so much over the past 4-5 months, starting another blog in a different niche seemed like the thing to do, and I’m pretty happy with the results so far.
Why Did you Decide on a Multi-Author Collaborative Approach for Freelance Folder?
I wanted to start a multi-author blog for 2 reasons, first because I thought it would be less work than running a blog all by myself (not quite 
), and I like to work with small teams, share ideas and all and also because I know I would not be able to write 4-5 posts about freelancing per week. So having writers and people to help me out is great. And of course this blog can be used to launch other projects and get some nice exposure. For instance the 30 Hours A Day program that Dave Navarro is working on.
What are the Challenges of Running a Multi-Author Blog?
3- There are some differences and challenges, but it’s pretty much the same as running your own blog. Though I really like to ask questions and start conversations with my readers, I find it’s a little more difficult on a multi-author blog, readers go there for the content, not necessarily to ‘chat with you‘ as they would on a personal blog. In other words, you have to share the ‘spotlight‘ with other writers, and that’s what’s fun
How Did Your Grow Your RSS Subscriber Base So Quickly?
I just checked and right now on FreelanceFolder we have 1900 rss subscribers. We started this blog in July 07, and within the first week we got posts featured on LifeHack, and other authority blogs, and recently we got linked to from LifeHacker, ABC News, and other high profile sites and blogs. Of course making the Digg front page a couple of times definitely helped, I’m really into social media sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, etc.. so that helped a lot.
What Advice Would You Give to Others Who are Thinking of Starting a Multi-Author Blog?
I could probably write a mile long answer to that question, but I’m still learning, every week I learn something new, I’m no expert as this is my first multi-author blog, but I think the best piece of advice I could give would be to network with people in the same niche. And that’s for single author blogs too, not only for multi-author blogs, but if you’re thinking of starting a multi-author blog, networking with other bloggers is crucial, this is how you get writers, links, guest posts. Even better if you already have your own blog, you can then use this one to kick start your new one
How Did You Attract Authors to Write for Freelance Folder?
I simply wrote a post on my other blog, SmartWealthyRich, told my readers I was planning on starting a new blog and I was looking for writers, and I got a really good response, 8-10 e-mails, some were interested in writing 1-2 posts, others wanted get more involved and write on a regular basis, and others wanted to write only 1 post as guest bloggers. I don’t really have any requirements when selecting writers/bloggers, I simply ask for some writing samples; it’s even better if the person already has a blog. It’s not like it’s a job
December 10 2007 | Interviews | 1 Comment »
We close out each week with our Who Said That?, where we give some link love to other blogs and posts that have really caught our attention.
But before we get started: be sure to submit your best post of 2007 for our ˜Most Powerful Posts of 2007″ eBook. This is a great way to get some additional exposure and linkage! Space is filling up fast so be sure to get yours in while we’re still accepting posts!
Now on to this week’s notable posts!
Why You Shouldn’t Be a Perfectionist
Maki at Dosh Dosh writes and excellent article about how perfectionism in blogging can lead to procrastination, fatigue, and become a mental burden. Overall, he says act more and worry less about being perfect.
When it comes to generating income online or marketing your business, the strive for perfection can cripple your ability to achieve objectives. The desire to create the best product, website or content in your niche is a worthy goal to hold in mind but sometimes, the need to be perfect leads to a lot of unnecessary obstacles.
Why You Shouldn’t be a Perfectionsist
2008 Goals: Scare Yourself
If you’re an entreprenuer and you haven’t subscribed to the Shane and Peter blog, do yourself a favor and subscribe now! These guys have gone from professional technicians to building a strong, successful business in record time.
the way I pick goals for our company (being the CEO I get the prerogative) is to keep pushing the bar mentally until I feel myself getting unconformable, then nervous then afraid.
2008 Goals: Scare Yourself
What do You Do When a Client Won’t Pay?
If you work with clients, you’ve no doubt been stiffed. Collis shares some humorous examples of clients who tried to dodge payment for design and provoked a long list of stories from other freelancers and how they handled the situation!
[We had] One client who micromanaged us to the point of detailing how many pixels text should be spaced apart, called us up one day to say that they didn’t think we’d done any real design and they hadn’t expected to have to do the work themselves.
What do You Do When a Client Won’t Pay?
Go Big or Suck
When Naomi at Itty Biz writes a post about how to get noticed, listen! Naomi has made a name for herself in the blogoshpere in a short amount of time. It seems everyone is talking about Naomi or linking to Naomi. Even her story about how she started this blog (which she tells in this post) is a ‘go big or suck’ story.
Think about what you can do to blow people’s minds. Yes, I know you have no budget, so don’t whine about it. I don’t care. Within your budget, I’d be willing to bet I could think of 100 things you can do.
Go Big or Suck
Have You Ever Ripped Your Pants At Work?
Get ready for some laughs! Day Job Nuker talks about an embarrassing situation where he realized that his pants were ripped while on visit to a client’s office!
Sitting in a room full of desks and workers who I did not know at all, I got up to go to the bathroom and something didn’t feel right. I sat back down to survey the problem and to my horror I realized my pants were split in the middle. With some more exploring, I discovered my pants had a good 5 inch or so rip all the way around to the back! There was no way I was going be able to wear these pants and I needed a plan just to get to the car!
Have You Ever Ripped Your Pants At Work?
December 09 2007 | Who Said That? | 1 Comment »
As you can see, Create Business Growth has a brand spankin’ new look! We’d like to thank reader, fellow blogger, and friend Jonathan Phillips of Freelance Folder whole-heartedly for creating this new design. Thanks Jonathan!
Most of you probably know Jonathan; he and his team of writers at Freelance Folder are practically rock stars in the Blogosphere. (Not to mention in real life Jonathan plays guitar in a band that is currently cutting an album and the very awesome regular guest poster Dave Navarro shares his name with one of the worlds most infamous rock stars!)
I also contracted Jonathan to make some tweaks on my personal blog Self Made Chick wow! I saw measurable results as soon as he worked his magic. More readers are clicking more article titles thanks to the most popular posts plugin and the related posts plugin. My subscribers also jumped from 144 to 316 in 6 days. You can read more about exactly what he did in the post How I Drastically Improved My Blog Stats with a Few Tweaks .
What Are the Pros and Cons of a Complete Image Overhaul?
I have a few clients that (I think) are in need of a new look, but they are hesitant to make a change for fear that they may lose some of their readers/clients. The reason is usually because they think readers will believe they ˜disappeared” and that a new company has taken its place.
I see their point, but I wonder what would happen if companies never updated their images? If Mountain Dew still had a picture of a drunken moonshiner and the slogan “ll Tickle Your Innards” on a glass bottle, would it be the pop hero of action sports today?
There are several bloggers who have recently changed their looks and even their names, yet it hasn’t deterred me from reading their blogs one bit.
Michael Martine changed his blog’s name from Michael Martine to Remarkablogger and received a very favorable response. In his post announcing the name change, he explains why he made the switch. He’s also working with Moshin of Blogging Bits to create an entirely new look and logo which his readers are excited about!
Bunk at LifeJotter (formerly Lifestyle Maverick) changed not only the name of his blog, but also gave it a complete design overhaul pretty much all at once. I love the new look and the new theme and it hasn’t deterred me from reading it whatsoever. In fact, I’m pretty excited about the changes. In this post, he gives his reason for the blog’s rebirth.
Maybe if guys like this would have changed their look when the times changed, they may not have died out with the hair bands.
Share Your Thoughts and Experiences
What do you think of our new look? Have you been contemplating giving your website or blog an update, but been hesitant? Do you think that giving a website or blog a complete image update is necessary? Is it risky? Have you had a personal experience with a redesign that worked out well or went wrong?
December 03 2007 | Announcements | 10 Comments »
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