Home-Growing Enthusiasm Through Blogging

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You cannot be a top producer, says corporate trainer Roger Dawson, without getting enthusiastic about your product or service. What Dawson doesn’t mean by enthusiasm, he’s quick to point out, is frantic jump-up-and-down behavior.  No, real enthusiasm, he explains, means believing in your industry, your company, your product, and your ability to serve your customers.

Since business owners’ enthusiasm is exactly what blogs are designed to convey – as well as to engage online searchers, I thought Dawson’s tips on growing your own enthusiasm would prove useful in successful blogging for business.

Get feedback from your customers.

The more you hear from your customers that they were delighted with their purchase, advises Dawson, the better you will feel about what you do.

Use testimonials in blog posts, capture customer success stories, and welcome comments to your blog.

Improve the quality of customers’ feedback by promising less and delivering more.

Blogs, as contrasted with brochures and traditional websites, are there to show first and foremost how much you care, and only then how much you know. Blogs are designed to be advertorials rather than advertisements, information sharing rather than billboards, sharing more than selling.

Learn about your competition and their shortcomings, says Dawson, not for the purpose of "knocking" them, but so increase your own enthusiasm for your unique products or your unique approach.  

Two of the four P’s of business blogging are Passion and Personality.  Blog posts are ideal for communicating the unique personality and core beliefs of the business owner.

No doubt about it – enthusiasm sells. And, when it comes to blogging for business, enthusiasm spreads – to searchers, search engines, and right back home to YOU!

 

 

 

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Knowing Your Size In Your Business Blog

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When Success Magazine talks about healthy eating, it’s in terms of "knowing your size".

Since the average restaurant’s serving size of pasta, for example, is enough for five people, the advice Success offers is to order a to-go box with your meal, consuming just one serving’s worth of food on the spot. Then (based on the old forewarned-is-forearmed idea), Success cuts other portions down to size:

  • 1 ounce of cheese is the size of a pair of dice
  • 3 ounces of meat is the size of a deck of playing cards
  • One 12 ounce potato is the size of a baseball
  • 1 cup of rice or pasta is the size of your fist

 
When it comes to effective blogging for business, we need to "know our size" as well, exercising "portion control" in the length of paragraphs, of blog titles and of entire blog posts. That’s a hefty order in itself (pun intended), because blogs need to be conversational rather than billboard-style, and be sprinkled with enough keyword phrase use to attract targeted online traffic. Blogging, like food, is about content, and finding the right spot on the less-is-more continuum is the trick.

The professional ghost blogger rule I try to keep in mind and one I teach to business owners is this:
 

"Make each blog post as short as possible, but no shorter."

(Stick to one central idea, and then say it until it’s said.)

Using the Success Magazine notion (if only we realized how much more than our share we’ve been eating at the restaurant, we’d have the strength to shovel the remainder into the box!) here is some measured food for thought about blogs:

  • 1 snappy blog post title containing 1 keyword phrase should be no more than 6-7 words long
  • 1 350-word blog post might consist of 4 to 5 short paragraphs. Vary the size of your paragraphs.
  • Each blog post might contain 4 or 5 keyword phrases.
  • Each post might contain 1 – 3 links to other sites or to former posts.
  • Beginning sentence should be strong and concise, under 20 words, introducing the topic.
  • Ending sentence should leave a "parting thought", and, ideally, be under 20 words.

To produce healthy business blogging results, get to know your size!

 

 

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Being First In Your Business Blog

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Marketing maven and fellow blogger Michel Fortin learned an interesting lesson about blogging from the book 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.  Very simply, the lesson is this:

IT’S BETTER TO BE FIRST THAN BEST

What Fortin pulled from that statement is that it’s more effective to be perceived as superior than to state outright that you are superior. So how, Fortin asks, can you create the perception of superiority?  The interesting truth is, he observes, that if you’re perceived as first in some category, people have the natural tendency to think you’re the best in that category! That tends to work, Fortin points out, is that, even when your competitors are better than you. (Since you are the first, their marketing efforts only help remind people of…you!)

Look at your own life, Fortin says.  You remember your first kiss (but most likely not your second one), your first car, your first job, etc. The conclusion this leads to about marketing is simple, Fortin says.  If you market your company as "better", all you’re really doing is reminding others of your competition.  On the other hand, there can be only one "first".

If there’s no category in which you can be first, manufacture one, advises Fortin. You can be, for example:

  • first to cater to a specific market
  • first to offer additional services to your core service
  • first to offer a certain kind of bonus or reward
  • first to package your service or product in a certain way
  • first to offer a particular guarantee

As a blogging trainer and business ghost blogger, I like Fortin’s concept of creating "firsts". Here’s why: In blog posts, you can explain the whole thought process that led you to be the first at….(whatever), showing you’re sensitive to the needs and concerns of searchers (after all, why hadn’t your competitors thought of that way to make the product or service more customer-friendly?)

In fact, the reason blogging for business trumps traditional advertising in general is that, in blog posts, you get to share your thoughts in a conversational way.  In fact, you might say most advertising is all about being best.  With your business blog, on the other hand, you can keep reinventing your image, creating ways to make your business seem first.

Beauty may be in the eyes of the beholder, but, through your business blog, you can be "first" in the eyes of those online searchers who need what you have to offer!

 

 

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Your Business Is Your Past And Future Self

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After hearing Max Siegel’s motivational speech at Ron Sukenick’s "At the Top" networking event, I just had to have my autographed copy of Siegel’s book Know What Makes Them Tick.

I loved the whole book, but the chapter called "Balance Your Past Self and Your Future Self" really resonated with me. That’s because, when I’m in the planning stages of a business blog for a Say It For You client, as I meet with the business owner or professional practitioner, what I’m doing is trying to draw out that individual’s "self".

I often begin by questioning the blogging client: "If you had only 8-10 words to describe why you’re passionate about what you do, what you know, and what you sell, what would those words be?"

For business blogs to be truly effective, I believe, they need to be the "voice" of a company or of a professional practice. And, you know, that "voice" can change over time; it tends to become richer and deeper. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I or one of my Say It For You writers is actually composing the blog posts, or whether the entrepreneur’s doing the writing and I’m just playing the role of coach and editor. A blog, of course, is no one-time effort, but something that develops over months and years.  And what I’m finding is this: the very process of creating content to "put out there" in your blog forces you, over and over again, to answer the question of "What-do-I-want-my- business/practice-to-be-as-it-grows-up?"

The thing Siegel stresses in his book is that, while "the secret to reaching success is to see where you want to be, the secret to keeping success… is to stay grounded in where you came from."

I’ve always thought Toys ‘R Us was a genius choice of corporate name, and I guess what I’m trying to express here about business blogs is that your blog ‘r you, but not a static "you".  A successful business blog showcases your past – all that experience and knowhow you’ve acquired – and at the same time hints of your hopes and plans for the future. You might say your blog helps your online readers know what makes you tick!

 

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Business Blogging To Put Fears To Rest

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"The idea that people love to buy is one of the biggest myths in sales," observes Grant Leboff of Marketing Donut.  The actual buying process, he says, is hindered by fears and doubts.

As a ghost blogger and blogging trainer, I fear (pun intended) Leboff’s right.  In fact, for business blogging to work, bloggers (business owners and professional practitioners) and "bloggees" (online searchers) each have certain fears to overcome.

The main two fears I uncover on the part of business bloggers are these:

  • If, in their blog, they "give away" information about their field, including tips and "how to’s", they’ll lose, rather than gain customers – the customers won’t need them!.  .
  • They’re not comfortable "tooting their own horn".

I reassure bloggers that both these fears are unfounded.  First of all, I explain, the only people who are likely to find your blog are those who need your product, service, or expertise – they don’t want to do it themselves!.  Sharing advice and information serves to showcase your know-how and build the kind of trust it takes for searchers to become buyers.

As far as "bragging" in your blog is concerned, I explain that modesty won’t help searchers get the help they’re looking for. As sales trainer Steve Wamsley explains in his book Stop Selling and Do Something Valuableputs it, "In your role as an advocate for good service and quality product, you need to persuade people to act." 

By contrast, blog readers (the "bloggees") are fearful about the same things all buyers fear, only (because they’re meeting you online rather than in person) more so:

  • Paying too much for your product or service
  • Being disappointed in the quality they receive

Short, personal, and conversational, business blog posts (to a much greater extent than brochures, billboards, flyers, and even, I’d venture to say, face-to-face sales presentations) are ideal for showing how much you believe – in your industry, your cause, your products – and how much you care – about your clients and customers!

Blogs, by nature, are the perfect vehicle for putting buyers’ fears to rest!

 

 

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