Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

Marketing Concept: Your home page is your calling card. 

Question: Are you communicating everything that you need to on that all-important home page to get people engaged with you and your products and services? 

Let's back up one step. Before you can answer that question, a better marketing concept to explore is the key question: 

What IS the main purpose of your home page? 

Multiple choice answers for you to choose from: 

a. To create a cosmetically appealing "cover page" for the rest of your site

b. To concisely summarize all your product and service offerings

c. To showcase your primary offering that you want to highlight (your flagship product, current promotion, etc.)

d. To create an easy-to-navigate roadmap with multiple ways to access the key pages of your site

e. None of the above

And the answer is... 

Wait for it...

Hang on... 

Alright, you win - it's e. None of the above.

Why? Because the main purpose of your home page is to convey two (and only two) key marketing concepts:

1. We know what you (the prospect, reader, website visitor) are going through.

2. We can help.

Here are 12 home page must-haves according to our partners over at Hubspot: 

What do you think? Please share your insights in the COMMENTS section below and..

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As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, I read roughly 100 marketing, sales and business development books per year. My company is 10 years old, so that makes about 1,000 books so far, give or take a few dozen. 

And in almost every one - you'll hear something similar to these bits of advice about sales follow-up:

• "The fortune is in the follow-up"
• "If you don't follow up 5-7 times, you'll lose the sale"
• "Nobody ever EVER buys on the first, second, or third appointment"
• "Most sales are made after the 8th contact, but most salespeople stop after the 3rd contact"

I have good news: This advice is horse doo-doo. (And it's probably making you needlessly tired, frustrated and depressed.) 

I also have bad news: This advice is STINKY horse doo-doo that is costing you face time with REAL decision-makers.

Here are 7 reasons you're wasting your time with follow-up: 

1. If you're exclusively focused on prospects who are actively SEEKING to solve the problem you're positioned to solve, you'll get their attention on the first or second attempt. If you don't - then you need more targeted and relevant prospects.

2. We're marketing in an era where everyone - including (and especially) your prospects - are lazy, busy, and befuddled. Life moves too fast for follow-up. You're either an immediate priority or you're invisible.

3. Leave non-prospects the hell alone. Continuing to "check in" for no good reason when you're in the invisible column gets real annoying real fast. You may even damage your chances at future sales when you're a current pest.

4. Decision makers make decisions. If you're stuck in follow-up hell, you weren't dealing with a real decision maker in the first place. Following up with someone with no check-writing authority is like trying to teach a Labrador Retriever to drive. It may be fun for a short time, but then someone is going to get bitten.

5. "Short attention span theater" rules the day. If you follow up with today's "hot prospect" next month, chances are excellent that your prospect will say, "Who are you again? We talked about what? When? I'm sorry - I'm just running to a meeting... Bye!"

6. Alpha dogs BUY - Sheep dogs BARK. Chances are that no matter what your product or service, if you're selling to a decision maker, that person has an "alpha dog" personality. They are a Driver (D on the DISC profile) and they make fast decisions with a very low threshold of patience for dickering, bureaucracy or delay. If you want to make a fast sale, the REAL buyer is your best ally to make that happen. Or not. But "following up" to drag out the process will simply turn them off. 

7. If you relentlessly focus on the right prospects at the right time for the right reasons, you'll spend a whole lot less time "convincing" and "persuading" fence-sitters and a whole lot more time focusing like a laser beam on the buyers who are ready, willing, and eager to do business with you. No followup needed. 

Two quick examples for you: 

Dave - The No-Followup Sales Champ

When I was working for a large enterprise software firm, I sat across from one of our top inside salespeople on the days that he and I were both in the office. Those days were a rare treat because I could overhear Dave's sales calls in between my own work and meetings. Talk about free sales training - Dave was masterful. 

Dave would call hand-selected leads who were, more often than not, Fortune 1000 Chief Information Officers (CIOs). His opening question after a 7-second introduction of his name and company went something like this: 

"I don't know if you're currently evaluating options for enterprise software but if you are, I can offer you some insights and recommendations in less than 15 minutes to help you make a better decision, whether that's with us or not. Is ERP software on your agenda for this year?"

Yes. No. Boom. He opened conversations with about 70% of these prospects. The other 30% politely disqualified themselves and he never called them again. If you're not looking to invest in this category of software BEFORE Dave called you, nothing he said by way of "follow up" would make you dig into the corporate budget and come up with an extra 1-2 million dollars, which was our average sale.

Dave made a note in his CRM database to call them next year. Sometimes he would get the same CIO. And sometimes he would connect with the new CIO because the previous guy botched the ERP installation they bought from someone else. In any case, each annual call was a qualification call - a yes/no filter and NOT a "follow up."

Colleen - The Superachiever Coach with the No-Follow-Up Sales Letter

My pal Colleen Bracken and I started our speaking and coaching businesses within a few months of each other back in 2001. In her early days, Colleen specialized in what she called "Superachiever" coaching - working with CEOs, government leaders, and other top dogs in the corporate and non-profit world. 

We worked together on crafting a "no-follow-up" sales letter. Why? Because Colleen had ZERO interest in chasing prospects and she wanted to make this clear in her sales process because she also knew that the alpha dogs she was selling to felt the same way. (See points 1-7 above!)

Here is a portion of the letter we put together: 

=====

If you know someone [perhaps someone sitting in your chair?] who is ready to embark on the short, fast, exhilarating ride to the next level of success, STRAP IN and call me at XXX-XXX-XXXX or email colleen@superachiever.net. We’ll set up your no-risk no-obligation 15-minute SuperAchiever coaching call. You’ll be amazed at what we can do in a quarter of an hour.

Finally, I need to answer your unasked question: Why should you work with me? After all, we’ve both been doing just fine without each other so far, right?

1. I’ve handpicked you as someone I specifically want to work with.  

2. I’m a REAL professional coach. I’ve received my PCC certification which means that I’ve studied 250 hrs, coached for 1000 hrs and have been designated by the International Coach Federation (the world governing body of the coaching profession). Only 275 other coaches (out of 35,000 coaches worldwide) in the world have met this standard.  

3. Clients I’ve worked with have had this to say about our professional relationship:  

[Three of Colleen's most powerful 2-3 line testimonials from other Alpha Dogs the recipient would respect.]

Invest 15 minutes with me – no-risk, no obligation -- then decide for yourself. What’s the worst that could happen? You spend 15 minutes getting my best ideas, questions, and tools around what you’re working on right now, and we part ways.  

Or... throw this letter straight into the recycling. Only you know if you’re ready for this personal, powerful, unique stuff and the breakthrough successes that come with it.  

-- Colleen

[Signature block]

p.s. You're working at 100mph and so am I. For this reason, I won't bother to follow up with you. In my experience, SuperAchievers make fast decisions. So I figure I’ll be hearing from you in the next 3-5 days. Or not at all.

p.p.s. It's your move. 

=====

Between this approach in her letters, emails, and personal networking, Colleen built her extremely successful leadership coaching, training and speaking business. 

The moral of the story? Screw follow-up. You hate doing it. They hate receiving it. 

Instead, do everything in your power to market, sell, and profit from people who are eager to open the door for you when you knock!

p.s. If you'd like some personalized help - and your very own customized marketing and sales toolkit PLUS an easy-to-implement small business marketing game plan with 1-on-1 guidance for 90 days, get all the details here.

Buyer persona marketing is not about knowing your customers or what they like to buy. 

It's much more than that. It's about getting inside their heads to deeply understand their emotional drives.  

Many of my small business owner and solopreneur clients claim to know their customer, yet they haven't really tapped into the potential of buyer persona marketing.

Once you finish this article, you'll own the 5 keys to unlock your very own pair of X-Ray goggles to connect with your best prospects so you can sell more, more easily and more often. 

As far as small business marketing goes, you'll be stuck in the minor leagues until you realize that in order to know your customer, you must first create an archetypical buyer, based upon all the information you can glean from your past clients, prospects, and previous conversations you've had with folks who bought - and perhaps more importantly, folks who didn't buy. 

What you need to figure out is the entire person, the whole picture.  Once you begin to understand the psychological motivations and emotional triggers that make your customers buy a certain product or service, you can much more effectively market to them in a way that will put you miles ahead of your competition.

Understanding your buyers is a bit like taking apart a mechanical apparatus to see what makes it tick. 

First, you need to know what problems your buyers are experiencing on a daily basis, or how they prioritize their time and the solutions to these problems.  Your product needs to offer an emotional relief from one or more of these problems.  In short, the buyer needs to NEED your product from an emotional standpoint, and they will then justify the purchase rationally after the fact.  Humans are capable of rationalizing just about any behavior if it triggers an emotional reward.  Bank on that with your product and let your marketing follow.

Secondly, work to identify the rewards your customers gain from purchasing your product.  This ties back into the emotional reward, but try to understand exactly what the buyer gains from your product, on a very basic level.  This will help you market to that reward and toward filling your prospect's emotional gap. 

Just as you consider the rewards, also look at what the perceived barriers to success or reaching that reward are, from the customer's standpoint.  This is the part of the process where you need to understand the thought process that each customer uses to either justify their emotional reactions or to justify not buying your product. 

When you begin to build a model to break down these barriers, your product or service literally sells itself with little to no resistance from your customer.  

Third, it is crucial to understand the buying process that your typical customer goes through.  This is to say that you need to better understand each step of their emotional and rational justification for having your product in their lives.  Do they compare other products to yours in an effort to sort out which one will offer the best reward?  If so, you need to understand the other products they are comparing yours to.  It is important to align your product and marketing solutions to their process for vetting information along with the emotional connection to the problem your product is solving for them on a day to day basis.

This leads to your fourth key - your competitive analysis. Which boils down to a simple answer to a simple question: Exactly how does your product compare against others from the standpoint of the criteria that your customers develop to help them make a decision? 

These are questions that can be answered if you truly LISTEN to your customers and understand what they are telling you. 

The fifth key is personal conversations. The fastest, easiest and most enjoyable way to figure all of this out is to ENGAGE your customer base in face-to-face real time dialogue. Yes, I'm talking about personal conversations, either on the phone or in person. Think about sitting down - at least monthly - with your clients and prospects over breakfasts, lunches, coffees. Can't make it in person? Use the phone or Skype and take them to a "virtual lunch" or "virtual coffee." Shouldn't take more than 30 minutes and you'll both benefit hugely.

Why? Because you'll learn firsthand the direct path to their own interests and emotional triggers - and you'll hear it in their OWN WORDS. Use THAT language in your marketing, and it's much more likely to resonate with others just like them!

When you begin to "sync" with your buyers at the deepest and most personal level -- and how they make buying decisions -- you're on your way to effective, attractive marketing that will draw clients and customers to you like a magnet.

What do you think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your experiences with buyer persona marketing...

The ad above first appeared in Business Week in 1958 – yes that’s right over 50 years ago! The moral of the ad’s story was relevant then and it is even more relevant today: build relationships before you sell.

The bad news is that we live in far more cynical times than the sellers of the 1950’s; the good news is that YOU have so many more tools available to help you address the problem.

If you're investing in "Trusted Advisor Marketing" (it goes by several other names like inbound marketing, thought leadership marketing, and content marketing)... then you've probably asked yourself: 

How (and when) will this generate a sale?

And that is the completely WRONG question to ask.

By the time you're done reading this article/ rant/ manifesto, you'll see exactly why - AND you'll be able to ask (and answer) much better questions for your business right away. 

We interrupt with a brief metaphor... Asking when trusted advisor marketing will lead to a sale is like filling up your car's gas tank and asking, "Why aren't we there yet?" 

Answer: Because filling your car with gas is a NECESSARY but NOT SUFFICIENT step to getting you to your destination (a new customer or client).

Do you have a chance of arriving now that your gas tank is full? You bet.

Did you have a chance of getting there with your tank on empty? No way. 

Let's move on... 

Insight #1 You need to sell the same way that YOU buy.

Look at your email spam or bulk email folder. Yes, you. Yes, right now. I'll wait... 

tap... tap... tap... tap... You're back. Excellent.

Did you see that spam email from the toner cartridge company? Did you catch the pitch from the SEO firm that filled out your website's "contact us" form? Did you respond to that great deal on vacation cruises? NO? 

OK now pop over to your paper mail pile on your desk. Did you check out the latest "triple play" offer from Comcast (or whatever hellacious Cable Satan runs in your neck of the woods)? How about that compelling cell phone offer from Verizon? The Wall Street Journal subscription offer under that postcard? Or how about that postcard - you know, the one from the home heating oil company? NO? 

When's the last time you gave your credit card number over to a cold caller who interrupted your family dinner? NEVER??

I'm shocked...

Because you seem pretty excited about YOUR cold calls - and sending out YOUR spam - YOUR offers - YOUR postcards - YOUR sales messages.

The problem with doing it this way? In four words...

Zero. Value. For. Prospects.

And hello? YOU don't BUY this way. What in the world makes you think your prospects DO?

Look once more at the ad above - and answer one simple question: 

Question #1: What VALUE have I ADDED to my prospect's world in order to EARN the RIGHT to INVITE them to a conversation and OFFER my solutions to their urgent, pervasive, expensive problems?

Insight #2 Referrals are great - but they are neither deaf, dumb, nor blind

The next thing you're going to tell me is that you don't NEED "trusted advisor marketing" because 99% of your business is repeat and referral business and it's always been that way and you don't see how this "newfangled marketing" is going to move the needle in closing more sales.

Do you seriously think that referrals don't check you out online before picking up the phone?

What messages are you sending to your valued referrals with...

a. Your outdated website (articles from 2008 are outdated, friends. And from 2003 even more so. And design aesthetic from 1997 most of all.)

b. Your sporadically updated blog that you leave dormant for 2 (or 4 or 6) months at a clip.

c. Your abandoned Twitter account you set up because someone said "you had to" and that now has 17 followers while your competitors have 3,000 (or a whole lot more.) 

d. Your sketchy, bare bones LinkedIn profile that has 300 connections but only 2 recommendations (From 2005. From people with the same last name as you.)

e. Your "glory days" articles and TV clips and PR placements from 20 (yes I'm serious), 10, or even 5 years ago. Nothing screams "has-been" like old media.  

Make no mistake: Getting repeat and referral business is great. But don't kid yourself that this absolves you from having a top-notch web presence, social media platform, and body of knowledge that is ultra-current, super-relevant, and obviously abundant.

In fact, you are leaving yourself open for EMBARRASSMENT if your advocates hear back from their referrals and find themselves in the awkward position of having to DEFEND you to them because your web presence has fallen behind and now casts your professional expertise into doubt.

Question #2: Does my overall web presence REASSURE and REINFORCE the referrals I earn with the most current, credible and relevant marketing messages, positioning, content, resources, and value that will make my advocates LOOK BETTER - not worse - for referring me? 

Insight #3 Trusted Advisor Marketing is a 4-layer enchilada (aka You don't get to eat the delicious golden-brown cheese without first layering on the meat!!)

The first layer - at the core of the matter - is your Reputation. Your work. Your track record. If you stop there, you'll have a VERY hard time attracting NEW leads and prospects to your doorstep. "My work should speak for itself" is what a lot of very smart people say - smart people who have a hard time making their mortgage payments.  

The second layer is Amplification. Ways to make your "signal" stronger. Enter social media marketing, niche PR, article marketing, blogging, keyword research and search engine optimization. This is the key to spreading your ideas and broadcasting your expertise.

The third layer is Leverage. This is where you begin to capitalize on your "trusted advisor" assets such as articles, blogs, videos, podcasts, interviews, white papers, special reports, book excerpts, and other value-first marketing tools. You can now reach out to high-probability prospects both individually (on LinkedIn for example) and collectively (on your blog for example). This is where your job becomes putting the right bait on the right hooks in the right lakes to catch the right fish.  

The fourth layer is Gravity. Just like Jim Collins talks about the "flywheel" concept in Good to Great (it takes a long time to get it spinning but then is very hard to stop because of the power of momentum) - this is where you start to see payoffs. More leads, better prospects, bigger opportunities, more conversations, higher profile alliances, more invitations to speak, publish, guest post, contribute, teach, and (drum roll please...) more invitations to do great work at premium fees for great clients who NOW know you, like you, and trust you enough to hand over 5- and 6-figure checks because their level of confidence in your expertise is pretty damn close to 100%.

Question #3: Do you want to make more sales to strangers? (Good luck with that). Or do you really want more people to recognize, respect, and request YOU by name when they have a need, project, or problem that they instantly see has "your name written all over it"? If that's your goal, then trusted advisor marketing is for you. 

Re-read the McGraw-Hill ad above and let's do a 21st century spin on it together...

• I don't know who you are.
• I don't read your blog. 
• I don't subscribe to your newsletter.
• I don't see your name in my industry's publications.
• I don't hear my peers spreading your ideas.
• I don't come across your content in Google searches.
• I don't connect your solutions to my problems. 
• I don't feel the gravity of your credibility or credentials.
• I don't have any tangible way to gauge your expertise or experience.
• Now -- what was it you wanted to sell me? 

So here's the ultimate (and most important) question for YOU: 

How can you realistically expect to SELL anything by NOT setting the necessary pre-conditions for ANY sale with Trusted Advisor Marketing?

The answer is as simple as it is obvious: you can't. Just like you can't drive your car from Denver to Sheboygan just by filling up your gas tank. You need to get behind the wheel, plan your route, use your GPS, add more fuel along the way (and probably some beef jerky and Sno-Balls and root beer) AND put in the hours and the miles to get you to your destination.  

Nobody -- and I mean N-O-B-O-D-Y -- hires speakers, consultants or professional services firms sight unseen. You wouldn't. I wouldn't either.

And the facts prove out that today's buyers are just like YOU and ME. 

Trusted Advisor marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. And as any marathoner will tell you - the best (and only) way to run a marathon is one mile at a time. 

What do you think? Please post YOUR COMMENTS below and... 

Guest post by Diana Urban

Some of the benefits of having a business blog is that you can generate leads from qualified prospects who visit, establish yourself as an industry thought-leader, and build business relationships in the blogosphere. This is most effectively done if you identify the persona(s) you're targeting and establish your voice when launching your blog.

The first things to consider are:

• Who are you writing for?
• What are you writing about?

Know your audience
Think about the type of person, on average, who you want to attract to your blog. Is it a 40-year-old head of manufacturing? Does he have a family? What are the pressures he faces? What is he interested in? What kinds of things does he do and read? Or perhaps your target audience is a 24 year-old professional who lives in a major city. What does he look like? What motivates him? What interests him? You should develop marketing personas for the types of prospects you want to attract to your blog so you have a mental picture of who you are writing for, and you can easily communicate this to others.

Brainstorm articles
Considering your marketing personas, brainstorm some articles you might write to appeal to your readers. Come up with 5 or 10 topics you could write about.

Keep tabs on related blogs
Find related blogs on the web; these can serve as an inspiration and to connect with fellow industry experts. Engaging with related blogs to understand:

• What are the current hot topics in your industry
• Common topics that personas in your industry enjoy reading
• Gaps in topics that you can cover in your blog

As you find blogs that are interesting, subscribe to them via RSS or email. 

Comment on related blogs
As you skim the articles, try to think of interesting and insightful comments you might be able to leave. Note that "nice article" and "I agree" are NOT interesting or insightful. If you can think of a good comment, leave it. If you can't, just move on. The goals of commenting on articles are:

• Develop a reputation in the blogosphere as a thought leader
• Generate some site traffic through any link to your website that you can leave in the comment
• Get the blogger's attention, which is useful later when you are initially promoting your blog and building links
• Get comfortable projecting your voice and joining the conversation happening on the web
• Over the course of a week or two, as you continue to read blog articles and leave comments, you should start to get a pretty good sense of what other bloggers are saying, the kind of content people in your industry like to read, current hot topics, etc.

Based on all the work you've done, you should now be able to articulate the "who" and "what" of your blog. Congratulations!!

Need help blogging? Contact us and we can help you get going and keep going with a prospect-magnet business blog.

Here is special treat for you: A 45-minute content-packed interview with marketing coach and professional services marketing expert Stacey Hylen of Business Optimizer Coach.

Simply right-click the link below and select "Save File As..." "Save Target As..." or "Download Linked File..." and save the digital audio file to your Desktop:

Download Interview Now

Stacey and I share some rock-solid ideas to help you profit from "Low-Hanging Fruit Strategies to Rapidly Increase Your Sales" 

Stacey helps 6- and 7-figure entrepreneurs and professionals get more business, more profits, and more time off. 

NOTE: Don't forget to grab your Listening Guide and Resources that Stacey mentions during our interview. Grab your copy now at...

http://businessoptimizercoach.com/dnewman/ 

Listen in, grab your free resources and then please leave a comment below so you can...

This week's Marketing Jackass Award goes to... me.

Why? Because I just conducted one of the WORST sales calls of my life. Yes, it was that bad.

Let's count the ways so that YOU can apply these 7 lessons to YOUR sales process. And so you never have to blow it like I just did.

1. Wrong prospect. I knew it in my bones even before we got on the phone. He doesn't fit, he's missing a lot of the DNA markers of our most successful clients, he's sort of "out there."

2. Wrong process. Did he read the material I sent ahead of time? No. Did he know what business we are in? No. Did he understand how we work and what we do - and WHY? No. Is this my prospect's fault? HELL NO - it's my fault for not following my own process (and not making SURE the prospect followed it too). The only thing worse than "wrong process" is NO PROCESS. And as a marketing coach, I've been guilty of that in the past as well, but this time it was all on me that I had a process that my prospect did not follow. I should have rescheduled the moment I found this out. But I didn't.

3. Wrong budget. Why, why, WHY do I keep having sales conversations with people whose initial inquiries start with the phrase "money is tight" or "I don't have two nickels to rub together." (I've gotten both of these - verbatim - in the last 5 days). If they claim poverty on the approach, they will not suddenly become millionaires on the call. Bring up money FAST and EARLY. Not your fees but THEIR own pricing, their ROI, their average sale, their customer lifetime value. Do that and you'll set the context for your fees as an investment and you'll be able to avoid the sticker shock when you drop a number on someone before you've established commensurate VALUE for them. 

4. Wrong words. Do you listen (TRULY listen) to what your prospects say in the first few minutes of your sales conversations? Can you identify when they are using the "right words" vs. the "wrong words" to indicate their readiness to move ahead, their understanding of the value that your products and services bring, and their level of sophistication as an educated consumer? If you did, you'd make more sales faster - and you'd stop wasting precious selling time with price shoppers, tire kickers and broke-ass losers. 

5. Wrong questions. Do you listen just as carefully - maybe more so - to the kinds of questions your prospect asks YOU during the sales call? Can you tell from THEIR questions if they are tracking with your best clients and customers? Can you identify their underlying urgencies and priorities based on the questions that they ask? Have you ever gently redirected a "bad" question with the phrase, "The real question I'm hearing you ask is... And the answer to that question is..." Examples of bad questions include fear-based questions that fixate on guarantees, warrantees, all that could go wrong, insignificant details and irrelevant metrics. 

6. Wrong bravado. When a prospect spends any significant amount of time telling me how successful they are, how financially lucrative their business is, how much money they make, and what kind of car they drive, I know we're not a fit. Here's the truth, folks: Successful people ARE successful. They don't TALK about being successful. Someone who brags like this suffers from low self-esteem - or even worse, he is a mental child who is still psychologically trying to impress their Mommy and Daddy who never loved them enough in the first place. Move on - and quick! 

7. Wrong fit. Put your current prospect in an imaginary lineup with your very favorite clients and very best customers - both past and present. Does this prospect fit? Do they belong there? Are they a natural extension of your business family? If not, that should be enough to get you to hang up the phone right then and there. Like attracts like. If your prospect would stick out like a sore thumb in your lineup of current clients, that means there is something seriously wrong and you should NOT allow that prospect into the circle of the clients whom you love working with - and who love you. 

Fail to heed these 7 warning signs and the best case scenario is that you'll waste a lot of precious time, energy and effort on the wrong prospects who won't do business with you anyway. And the worst case scenario is that you'll end up with a goofball client - or at the very worst, a "nightmare client from hell." 

Friends don't let friends blow up their sales process.

You're welcome.

I love you. 

Thoughts? Insights? Reactions? Please use the COMMENTS section below to share... 

Avish Parashar has just released a new book titled, "Say Yes, And!" and he has a great special offer for people who buy the book by midnight tonight, Feb. 28.  

The book takes a fundamental principle from improv comedy - saying "yes, and" instead of "yes, but" - and shows you how that one simple idea can help you improve your career, your business, your relationships, and your life.  

As a special promotion, if you buy the book today, February 28th, you'll get access to over $200 in free gifts, including PDF versions of two of Avish's other books and over 8 hours of MP3 recordings of some of Avish's most popular audio programs. That's over $200 in gifts in return for buying a $12.95 book.  

To get the book and the free gifts, visit http://www.SayYesAnd.com

p.s. Here's my review from amazon.com:

First I have to tell you - I'm a business book junkie. I read 'em all. Big ones, little ones, famous ones, and hidden gems. All topics including sales, marketing, leadership, strategy, the how-to, the what-to, and the why-to kind.

And this books stands out.

Plain and simple, Avish Parashar packages essential wisdom, insights, and practical advice into a small concentrated form factor.

But don't be fooled - this is life-changing stuff.

One small turn in what you think and what you say CAN and WILL make a huge impact. Example after example pours out of this book and will soon spark ideas and memories in your own mind of times you took charge and created success - and other times when you chose the "Yes but" path and created your own obstacles, limits, and barriers.

Whether you are a business owner, corporate executive, sales professional, association executive, or non-profit leader, this book is for YOU. Filled with immediately actionable insights and concrete take-aways, this little book may trigger the biggest and best changes your team, your organization, and your results will ever experience.

Tell you what - STOP reading Amazon reviews of this great little book, say "YES AND I'll buy it right now." In fact, you may want to buy three - one for yourself, one for your boss, and one for the significant other in your life. Yes (and) the ideas in this book work as powerfully at home as they do at work!!

Want to Grow Your Business With Blogging? Here’s Your Quick-Start Guide

Guest post by Claudia Somerfield

One of the easiest and most powerful tools for growing your business is the business blog. Most marketing advisers suggest including a business blog as a sales tool. If you are a business owner, entrepreneur, or thought-leading professional and want to expand your influence with blogging, here is a quick-start guide that will have you up and running in no time at all.

Start with a clear plan

A common mistake that many businesses make when they start a blog is not having a long term plan in place. This applies to various aspects of the blog.

Consider these questions:

• What is the core purpose of your blog?
• How do you want it to look?
• What should be the writing style and tone of your blog posts?
• How openly do you want to position your blog as a sales tool?
• What kind of interface do you want to offer your blog readers to contact you?
• How do you want people to find your blog on a web search?

Having a clear cut strategy makes your blog much more focused, consistent and professional.

The web is often referred to as a fickle medium. If your blog readers do not find your blog of value, they will not return, they will not click through to your products or services, and they will not promote it by sharing it on their social networks.

At the end of the day, your reader looks for value, and your long term plan can help determine the specific nature and scope of the value you will offer.

Select your tool

The interface that you will use to upload and publish content on your blog is known as your blogging platform. There are several popular blogging platforms that you can choose from such as Blogger, Wordpress, and TypePad. While your web developer may provide you with a "home-made" interface on your website to create and add content to your blog, it is much easier and more efficient to integrate one of the more popular platforms. Take a look at what these platforms offer, and choose the one that appeals to you the most.

Create classy content

If you want your business blog to attract readers, and if you want the blog to become an integral part of your business strategy, you will have generate high quality content. You may want to employ the services of a professional blogger or content writer for this or you can do it yourself.

In the context of a business, there is no one who knows the nuances of the business better than you. However, you will want to keep in mind that it takes consistent posting of good content on a regular basis on your blog for it to grow in value.

Many business blogs make the mistake of compromising quality of content for quantity, over-using techniques like link building and search engine optimization to get more traffic to their blogs, but across time, they fail to engage the readers or to get them to respond to their call to action.

Promote

The key to popularizing your blog is to promote it. This can be as simple as sending out email announcements every time you update your blog, sharing it on your social networks, and notifying what are known as pinging services that will update web directories with your new content.

Social bookmarking sites are another commonly used promotion tool. The most popular social bookmarking platforms that are worth your time are Delicious, Digg, and StumbleUpon.

Network

Start building relationships with other business bloggers. Promote their work on your networks. This may seem counterproductive especially if they are your competitors, but it will establish you as a fair and open networker. This will also help you study other business blogs and learn the tricks of the trade. Study how they use interesting content to get their readers attention and how they convert it either into return visits or a click through to products and services.

Visit other blogs and leave your opinions in the comments section. As people take note of your opinion, you will find them wanting to network with you and your blog. As with everything in life, blogging for business has a certain amount of give and take involved. The more you give, the greater your chances of taking something back.

Business blogging is proven strategy that will help your business grow. However, for a blog to be noticed and acquire a reputation among readers and clients, it takes time and dedicated effort.

Study the basics of search engine optimization and keyword research so that you are able to bolster your content with the technical strength it needs to reach the top of search results. Make your content interesting and useful.

Remember that your blog posts are not direct sales messages, but rather high-value assets with which to build a community of interested readers who are your potential customers.

As you grow your dedicated readership, you will find that your blog has become a significant source of web traffic, leads, referrals, and new business.

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About the author: Claudia is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on luxury and technology. She recently read an article on a t-rex car that attracted her attention. Her next writing project involves a flying car.