1 Thing That Will Improve Your Website This Year

I was reminded yesterday whilst reading Seth Godin’s “Small is the New Big“, that even with bag load of online strategies to grow your business, that there is really one 1 key to having a successful website.

You should be focusing your website efforts on …
turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers.

It is both as simple and as focused as that …

Now remember the goal isn’t to turn strangers to customers (that is too much hard sell).  You want people to get to know you and you to know them.  When they become friends before becoming customers then you have a much better chance of understanding and meeting their key needs.

So my challenge to you is to come up with just 2 things you can do this week that will achieve to goal of turning strangers to friends and friends to customers.  If you want you can share what 2 things you plan to do below.

Sometimes You’ve Gotta Stop

I’ve been meaning to stop and take some time to work on my business rather than in it … great intention so far but that’s about where things stayed. Until this week that is.

It’s May in less than 2 weeks; the year has flown by, I’ve been really busy and there has always been one more piece of client work that has stopped me from getting to the planning, systems and administration that I know needs to be done so I can better serve my clients.

Have you ever been in the situation where your clients love what you do so much that they keep sending work and referrals your way, but in order to best serve them you have to say no for a little while so you can get things together?

It is frustrating but for any growing business it is a wonderful and essential place to be.

So this week I’m stopping … stopping working on other people’s business and spending the week on creating a business that is better able to handle the work that I want to do for the clients that I love.

If you have any suggestions or requests then this week I’m all ears ….

The Carnival of Entrepreneurship is re-born

Thanks to the hard work and vision of the multi-talented [tag]Ben Yoskovitz[/tag] (Instigator blog, Startup Spark and Where Is Basil? -now missing-in-action) a blog carnival that had disappeared from the horizon is now back. Ben has added another feather to his cap and taken on the hosting of Carnival of Entrepreneurs – the first edition was earlier today.
If you are new to Blog Carnivals they are a great way to :

• get to know some of the many blogs that are written in a particular area, which in turn can lead to some outstanding online connections (a carnival is how I came across Ben).
• get you and your blog known by people who are interested in the area that you write about. (again the kick-on effect of growing a network is ever-present).

If you are interested in knowing about the many blog carnivals currently making their way around the online world you can get more details at Blog Carnival.

If you are interested contributing to the [tag]Carnival of Entrepreneurs[/tag] then here are the details.

[Read more]

My Sort of Networking

It is time to fess up – I am NOT a fan of networking. In fact it could be said that I hate it. The people who know me best have seen the cynical look on my face at “networking events” (I go whole hog at times – rolling eyes, sarcastic comments, looking for an opportunity to make a bee-line for the door.

I’m not saying that I can’t do it. In fact if you caught me on a good day and I was in a group of people that I found interesting you wouldn’t know the difference.

[Read more]

Heads Up on PayPal Subscriptions

Just a quick reminder today about what to do when you cancel a service that has been paid for via PayPal’s subscription service.

This was a recent lesson for me when I cancelled my subscription to MyBlogLog. The instructions on their site about cancelling the service said the usual click here to cancel, etc and so I did. What I wasn’t aware of (and neither were the guys at MyBlogLog until I flagged this issue with them) was the automatic subscription payments were still coming out of my account. So there was obviously something missing.

What had to happen was that I needed to go into PayPal and manually cancel the subscription myself.

So here are the steps you need to follow to cancel the subscription in your PayPal account.

1. Click the My Account tab.
2. Click the History subtab
3. Choose the Subscriptions field from the Show drop-down menu.
4. Tick the From box and change the date back two years.
5. Click Search.
6. To view the details of a specific Subscription Creation, click Details in the Details column.
7. At the bottom of this page, click Cancel Subscription.
8. On the confirmation page, click Cancel Subscription again.

So now you will need to provide some type of notice of cancellation to the service provider and then go in and cancel the payment in PayPal.

(BTW – The guys at MyBlogLog have now amended their cancellation instructions to highlight the fact that it’s a 2-step process).

Now I am $3 lighter this month I might go out and splurge on a coffee

[tags]Paypal, subscription, MyBlogLog[/tags]

Are Your Clients Listening?

Seth Godin … those of you that have been long-term readers you will know that his wisdom forms a regular part of my morning blog reading.  But I haven’t quoted him for a while, haven’t seen much of a neeed, that is until this morning.

In a post called “The Zen of Venn” the last paragraph conveyed a point (very directly and articulately) that I have been having many conversations with clients and colleagues about over the past couple of years.

Before you embrace your wonderful solution to the marketplace’s problem, first decide how many of consumers are choosing to listen to messages like yours. Are they listening in a medium you can afford?

All Products are Conversations

Hugh McLeod has nailed it again!

What more can I say? Well maybe :

Technology and the Power of Influence
10 Ways to Become More Fluent in Technology
100 Keys to Solo Success – #26 Give Away Your Wisdom

Pam Slim’s Favourite Things

Pamela Slim, of Escape From Cubicle Nation fame, is having some end of year fun. She is putting a twist on Oprah’s annual “Favourite Things” show and having her own version called, of course, “Pam’s Favourite Things 2006“.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens (oops, sorry I digress).

Pam is inviting all creative small business owners (and you must be genuinely small – not big masquerading as small) to email her with the details of your product. She is looking for products (and I suppose services if they were suitable) that would be an outstanding edition to everyone’s Christmas list.

You’ve got until November 30 to get your email to her. She will post her list on December 1.

Pop over and read more about the details of this project and how to contact Pam.

Well done Pam on finding another way to support our fellow cubicle escapees! This is such a good idea that I might just have to do a “Leah’s Christmas Wishlist” as well.

Want An Online Video? but only know how to use PowerPoint

Unless you have been living in a bit of a hole lately you would know that online video is becoming a very popular online tool. Everyone from your teenager, to your neighbours are getting their 15 minutes of fame online.

The business world is also getting online with video … the recent Dove Real Beauty Workshop video has, according to Unilever (the manufacturers of Dove) been effective than a $5m SuperBowl advertisement.

So you think that it might be time for your small business to get some of this video action. After all once it is made then it is just a matter of sticking it up on the web.

But there are a couple of small sticking points – you don’t have a video camera, and even if you could get one you’re not quite sure how to get the images onto the computer, let alone edit it into something resembling a short, memorable piece of business promotion. So you think that you’ll wait until the kids get it sorted out and then you will use them.

But wait! I might just have an idea that might get you most of the way there. As a business person you have probably at some stage had to tackle the demon called PowerPoint. If you have a reasonable level of skill in slinging a few PowerPoint slides together in a way that is professional and can get you message across then there’s a new service that might just help you get what looks like a video (just a series of moving PowerPoint slides but you don’t have to tell).

SlideShare (still in beta) bills itself as

“a place to share and discover slideshows. Upload your slides! Share with a link, or embed in a blog.”

I haven’t had a chance to play with it myself yet but the brain has already been ticking over with all the possible uses I could come up with for clients (and me).

[tags] SlideShare, Powerpoint, online video, small business marketing[/tags]

Some Blogs and Podcasts Worthy of Your Attention

There are so many blogs, podcasts and other information sources and so little time. If you are new to the world of blogging and want a shortcut you might want to check out the recipients of the 2006 Marketing Sherpa Readers Choice Blog & Podcast Awards.

Best B-to-B Marketing Blog
B2B Lead Generation Blog by Brian Carroll

Best Blog on Email Marketing
Chris Baggott’s Email Marketing Best Practices

Best Blog on Search Marketing
Search Engine Roundtable

Best Blog on Advertising
Adrants by Steve Hall

Best Blog on Marketing to a Specific Consumer Demographic
Andy Wibbels, the Original Blogging Evangelist by Andy Wibbels

Best blog on Affiliate Marketing
ReveNews

Best Blog on the Topic of PR
Active Voice by Matt “PodBoy”

Best Podcast on the topic of Marketing
Across the Sound by Joseph Jaffe

Best Blog on Small Business Marketing
Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch

Best Foreign-Language Blog
Marketing-Blog Biz — Besserwerberblog * Marketing für Besserwerber

Best Blog on General Marketing Topics
Seth Godin’s Blog by Seth Godin

Honorable Mentions:

• Adland
• Future Now: A Day in the Life of a Persuasion Architect
• StartupNation
• The WebMarketCentral Blog
• Ypulse

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