Business Blogging Pros

Credibility Upon Entry

I was reading a conversation on one of the better known sales forums today about the advisability of 'assuming the sale'. In other words, using language such as:

"what we're going to do for you is..."
"what colour would you like that in?"
"what address would you like that sent to"

Blogs, websites, Google, and the internet in general have fundamentally changed the nature of the traditional sales funnel.

Consider the traditional model:

1. Prospect responds to a print ad by calling/writing and asking for literature
2. Prospect contacts us for more information.
3. Prospect asks for a demo
4. Prospect asks for more information..
...
5. Prospect buys

We could track the prospect on his complete trip through the funnel. This is a double-edged sword. On one hand, we can capture great metrics on the conversion rates for each step, but it is also time consuming.

Things are (or can be) very different today. What if your first contact with the prospect was at Step 5?

We can use our websites, blogs, and other tools to provide the prospect with all the information he/she needs. The prospect LOVES it because he can proceed at his own pace without the perceived 'pressure' from a salesperson. (And there is a side benefit in that you are seen as a more open and friendly company that is easy to deal with.)

I am fond of quoting my friend and sales guru Michael Goodman who says that the three elements that must be present before the sale can be made are trust, credibility, and interest.

Consider the way we buy things today. The first step is usually a Google search. We probably locate a small number of likely candidate firms who appear to offer the product or service we want.

Then we perform some additional research to narrow those candidates down to a single selection. When I bought my Bosch dishwasher recently, by the time I visited the local dealer's showroom I had already decided upon the exact model and that I wanted to buy it from him.

Ideally, by the time you hear from the prospect for the first time, you want him to already know three things:

1. He has a problem/want/need
2. You are supremely qualified to solve his problem.
3. You are the kind of person he feels comfortable doing business with.

Done well, your blog can satisfy items 2 and 3. You can, through your blog, demonstrate your expertise and knowledge so well that you are perceived as an expert. (Of course, when someone refers to me as an expert, I usually reply that an expert is nothing but a former drip under pressure.)

And by sharing bits of your personal side, readers will come to know you as a genuine human being. For example, David Meerman Scott collects Apollo space program artifacts. I am an amateur gourmet chef. Our purpose is to help our readers get to know us. They then relate to us and form a connection. We become the kind of person they are comfortable doing business with. Remember:

"People don't do business with your company,
they to business with you."

ROI

Your blogging will have an ROI, even if you spend 10 minutes a week. Of course, the return will be proportional to the investment.

A client who has been blogging for about a year recently emailed me from the east coast. He is on his first very lucrative consulting gig that he can directly attribute to blogging. Tom writes about one blog post a week.

Another client, Mike, who has been blogging about 8 months just landed a consulting contract in Manhattan. He says that he would never have gotten the contact oif not for his blog. Mike writes a new blog post about every other week.

Two examples very close to home that blogging boosts your image, exposure and revenue without giving up your life.

Using MS-Word to Compose Blog Posts

This topic has come up three times in the past two weeks.

Almost everyone is comfortable using MS-Word. Spell-check and all the editing and formatting features make it seem like a great way to compose and format a blog post, right?

Wrong. Or Maybe.

It is easy to be fooled. You can copy and paste directly from MS-Word into the 'New Post' or 'edit Post' form and it looks like it will work just fine. The problem is that the code that MS-Word creates is not web-compatible.

The biggest offender is Word's ability to change straight quotes into curly quotes. (Look for "Replace straight quotes with Smart Quotes" on the AutoCorrect dialog box.) Those curly quotes are not web-compatible characters and will play havoc with your RSS feed, among other things.

It is possible though to use MS-Word as a blog composition tool.

Option 1: Use MS-Word to Compose, Format in Typepad

Use this option when you are mainly interested in using Word for spell-checking and getting your thoughts out of your brain and onto the screen.

Before you copy-and-past your entry from MS-Word into Typepad, locate the Display Options link on Typepad's 'New Post' or 'Edit Post' form. click on it and select 'Markdown'. (None of Word's formatting will be copied to Typepad.)

Then click on Display Options again and select 'Rich Text + HTML' instead of 'Markdown'. You can then use Typepad's controls to format your post.

Option 2: Office 2007

The Word Blogging Tool - included in the new Microsoft Word as part of Microsoft Office 2007 - lets you publish to your blog from inside the familiar Word environment with a single click. TypePad is a default option in Microsoft Word, which makes it simple and straightforward; all you'll need is your Typepad username and password. Better yet, the HTML the tool writes to your blog is in a simple, blog-friendly format.

To use Word 2007 to Compose your posts and publish them right within Word:

1. Open MS-Word 2007
2. Click File -> New -> New Blog Post
3. Enter the information about your blog
4. Write your post
5. Click 'Publish'

Option 3: Other Options

Microsoft has a great new free tool called Windows Live Writer that makes it easy to publish rich content to your blog. If you are familiar with MS-Word, you'll have no trouble with Windows Live Writer:

http://get.live.com/writer/overview

There are several other options and Typepad has a Knowledge Base article describing some of them:

http://kb.typepad.com/id/87

Mike Leeds' Global Microbrand

Mike Leeds is one of my clients. Mike works with companies, managers, teams, and individuals to increase their sales and profitability.

I helped Mike start his blog about eight months ago. Mike is living proof that you don't have to dedicate a lot of time to blogging in order for it to produce results. Mike writes a new post on his blog about every other week. He recently told me that he landed a new client in NYC as a direct result of blogging. He received a phone call from a consulting firm in New York, NY looking for assistance with developing a sales process for their team. They read his blog, checked out his website, and gave him a call.

I've known Mike for a long time and I will tell you that he is very good at his craft. The cold hard truth however is that the New York firm would never have known about Mike except for his blog. And consider as well that there are probably dozens of other firms in New York offering the same kind of service as Mike.

To Mike's credit, he is doing everything right:

• He makes his blog posts relevant.


• He makes his blog posts informative, educational, and insightful.


• He keeps a consistent schedule.


• He elicits comments from his readers (There is that conversation thing again)


• He makes sure that his expertise comes through in every post

Mike is building a great example of what Hugh MacLeod calls his Global Microbrand. It's a microbrand because it is what Mike wants to be known for. It's global because Mike can live in Phoenix Arizona and his market is not limited to the people that live here.

Way to Go Mike!

Merle Barnhart, 1923 - 2008

My father is now in a better place. I got a call from the nursing home yesterday saying that the time was near. I arrived at his bedside late yesterday afternoon to find his breathing shallow and labored. I spent several hours yesterday afternoon and evening just sitting there with him, holding his hand.

When I finally had to leave, I knelt over him, kissed him, and whispered in his hear, "Goodbye Dad, I Love You", knowing it would probably be the final goodbye. At 2:09am, the phone rang and he was gone.

The thing I hope everyone remembers about Dad was his sense of humor. He was always saying or doing something to make you laugh. My hope is that everyone will remember him for that.

Should I get an iPhone?

The new 3G iPhone was announced this week. Should I get one?

A couple of years ago, I was at a business blogging conference in San Francisco and I observed that the badge of Geekdom was an Apple PowerBook and a Palm Treo. Today it's the iPhone. My Verizon contract runs out at almost exactly the same time Apple's new second generation iPhone hits the stores. I've not been very happy with my Verizon/Treo 700W and have been thinking of finding something else anyway.

When I bought the Palm Treo, I envisioned that it would substitute for my Mac when I was out and about. Sadly that has not turned out to be the case. It doesn't sync well with my Mac, most websites are totally unusable on the Treo's itty bitty screen, and the audio quality is terrible.

As a social media guy, I'm really attracted to the iPhone. My sense is that the convergence of mobile, broadband, and video is going to bring us some really fun and interesting possibilities. For example, take a look at Qik. It allows you to stream video to the internet right from your phone - if you have the right kind of phone. (Now I know why Robert Scoble owns so many phones.)

I feel a sense of obligation to my clients to get my arms around new technologies, 'separate the wheat from the chaff' so to speak, and advise them knowledgeably.

On the other hand, the iPhone doesn't fit my needs very well at all. I carry my MacBookPro with me almost everywhere I go because I need to be able to show prospective clients work that I have done, and be able to solve problems for current clients on the spot. As a result, all of my 'mobile' internet activity takes place on my MacBookPro with a Verizon broadband card. The combination has worked out extremely well.

What I need from a phone is small size, excellent audio quality, the ability to connect to the hands-free unit in my car, and sync with my Mac.

The deal-killer for me is that the iPhone cannot be connected to my MacBookPro and act as a tethered modem. I can't see how I can do without broadband wireless on my laptop. And I certainly don't want to be paying for broadband for both my phone and my Verizon card.

The Healthy Cooking Coach

Business Blogging Pros welcomes The Healthy Cooking Coach as our newest client.

I met Rachel when I was speaking recently at a conference of the National Speakers Association. I'm a foodie myself so we hit it off right away. I think what interested Rachel the most was that her blog could serve as a website as well. When you look at her blog, you can see pages dedicated to a description of her services, press releases, her book, as well as her own Amazon store.

The initial cost of creating a site like this is higher that just a basic blog, but the big advantage to this approach is that you don't need to rely upon a webmaster. Once everything has been set up, you can update the content as frequently as you like all by yourself.

Coming Soon to a Monitor Near You

I my never-ending quest to provide you with more value, I am embarking upon a project to put most of the training content of my Blog Setup package into screencast/webcast form. I go over a lot of material on those 2-3 hours and I'm becoming more and more convinced that I need to provide a way so that you can listen to the training multiple times so that you can absorb it all.

My current plan is to make the webcasts available to new Blog Startup clients who will be able to view them an unlimited number of times for six months. AFter that, there will probably be a nominal charge. ANyone who is not a Blog Startup client would also be able to view them at a similar nominal charge.

I have already bought the domain name "BusinessBlogTraining.com"

What do you think?

Friendfeed

I'm looking for a nice little client app for Friendfeed. Something like Twhirl is for Twitter, but for Friendfeed.

Dave Barnhart in the Arizona Republic Business Section

A friend emailed me yesterday to let me know about a great article that appeared yesterday (Thursday, May 15) in the business section of the Arizona Republic.

It was some additional coverage of the Scottsdale CHamber of Commerce's First Friday Breakfast event for which I was a member of a panel on social media. The great thing about speaking engagements like that is that it is a room full of baby boomer business owners and they are my favorite people.

If you are a baby boomer business owner you know what I mean: You've escaped from cubical nation and had to decide what to do next. "What do I want to be when I grow up?" is the common refrain.

You looked around and chose something that you found interesting, exciting, and are passionate about. You make the best bloggers because that passion comes through.