Left Brain Focus for Right Brain Creative Businesses

A roundup of must-read blogs that will help your blogging, improve your sales strategies, and build a community online.

Blogussion

Alex is a teenager, but don’t let that stop you from reading his blog.  He gets it.  He understands how to build a community, monetize your blog, and become a better blogger.  He also likes Macs (must be a good guy). Guest Posting Strategy

Robswebtips

Rob is also a teen who has figured out how to make money online.  He started out the hard way, made mistakes, and learned from them. A Hard Road to Making an Easy Living Online

Now for a few veterans:

Remarkablogger

Michael can  help you make your rank higher in search results, build more traffic with social media, and include audio or video on your blog. 10 Business Blog Tips

Bob Poole’s Water Cooler Hangout

Bob was a successful salesman for many years.  Unlike other salesmen, Bob would listen first, and sell later (in fact that’s the title of  his book) He’s now a business coach and speaker. Ten Secrets for Sales Failure

Got any great blogs to recommend?  Add them in the comments.

A tea but no e

(No cows were harmed in the writing of this post).

Yogi Berra, Hall of Fame baseball catcher, is famous for saying things that seem silly at first. When you think about them for a while, they make a lot of sense. Here are some marketing lessons we can all learn from him.

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it”

Pick your path, don’t try to go down two roads at once. Find your niche, and your passion, and pursue it. Yogi is passionate about baseball, and has enough World Series championship rings for each finger on both hands. When you love what you do (and focus your energies on doing it), you will succeed.

“If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.”

Make a marketing plan, and follow it. For example, write an ebook to build an audience, have them sign up for your newsletter, and then eventually purchase other products or services.

“It gets late early out there”

The Web has sped everything up. Wait too long to respond to a customer complaint or a service problem and the twitterers will let you know. If you don’t post on your blog for three weeks, or answer comments, readers will go elsewhere.

“That place is so popular, nobody goes there anymore”

When you lose your focus, you’ll lose your customers too. Starbucks built an image and a “tribe” by brewing coffee that was different from ordinary deli coffee, offering more ways to customize it, and a welcoming atmosphere. Then, they expanded too much, tried to overcome it with discounts, and now… well there are more interesting places to get coffee in New York (with beans that have been roasted in the last 10 days, or coffee ground to order).

What do you think? Is Yogi right?  Am I?

Photo compliments of orlandk

You know what happens.  A client comes to you and says, “it’s an easy project,” or “my project is ready to go” – I just need design or layout or final touches.

You quote a price.  You agree on the details and you start work.  Then, suddenly, the little, easy project starts growing.  It sends out shoots, leaves, branches, and pretty soon your simple project has turned into an invasive weed that strangles every native plant in sight.

You’re stuck in scope creep.

How to stop it

Your contracts should say what is and is not included in your work.  Spell out the number of design mock-ups, revisions, or tweaks that are included.

If they expand the project, or want revisions beyond the original agreement, politely tell them that more work will require an additional fee.

Be clear about your fees

Tell them your fee structure.  Spell out how you bill, and when payments are due.  Make it clear what the client’s deadlines are, as well as  your own.

Tweaks vs. Revisions vs. Rewrites

A tweak is a small thing, such as changing the word green to the word blue throughout the document.

A revision is changing the header size, number of columns or making alterations on several pages of the document.

Think of a tweak as changing your shoes.  A revision is putting on new shoes, different socks, and a fresh shirt.  A rewrite is a whole new outfit.

Tell the client, in advance, in  your contract, which is which and how you charge for each.

Extra work for an extra fee

My favorite advice stopping scope creep comes from Men with Pens: Sure, since we’ve already used up the revisions we agreed to in the original scope of the project, I’ll send a Paypal request for $___, which will cover those tweaks.  I’ll have the revision to you by next Tuesday.

You’ve killed the weeds.  Now the client has to decide if those last changes are really worth extra cash.  If they are, you earn a few extra dollars, and you won’t feel taken advantage of.  If they’re not, the client can decide it’s not worth it.

Everybody’s happy.  Nobody feels used.

Image thanks to: taberandrew

Your brain is bubbling with ideas, you’ve got a design project, two phone calls to return, and a big proposal to write. What do you do first? How do you keep focused keep yourself from wandering off to something new, bright, and shiny….ooohhh blog posts… Twitter….

Eat the frog first

I cheerfully stole this from Bolaji. He doesn’t mean an actual frog. He means if there’s a big, ugly thing you have to do (like your taxes, for instance), do that first. Get it out of the way. You’ll feel better and can go on to something more fun.

Turn off your email

My second favorite new trick. If I need to write or think, the new mail sound is a big distraction. I turn it off for an hour or two, first thing in the morning. It’s when I think best anyway.

Got five minutes?

If you can do something quickly, do it and get it out of the way. Got 3 quick emails to write? Write them, send them, and cross them off your list.

Announce a deadline

Make it public. Your friends, blog readers, and forum members will nag you.  Remember, what you do is ship.

Get a buddy

Another way to be accountable. Get someone whose “job” it is to nag you. Then, you return the favor for them.

What tricks do you use to get more done?  How do you stay focused?  Share your ideas in the comments.

Image compliments of: NoShoes

The other day, Rob (at Robs web tips) asked which is more important: 3,000 blog subscribers with a 10% open rate? Or 300 active subscribers who all click on your emails?

Is it more important to have high numbers? Or people who are really interested in what you’re saying?

A Little Secret

Internet marketing is really direct marketing. It’s just sped up really fast (and with less paper). When all we had was snail mail, we had a general sense of deliverability (how many letters reached their destination), based on whether any of them came back with wrong addresses.

There was no way to tell who looked at the envelope, who opened it, or who read the letter. All we had to go on to tell if the mailing was a success was the number of orders we got.

The Marketing Numbers That Matter

What really matters is not the raw numbers of subscribers, but the percentage of people who are actively interested in what you’re saying: the opens, the click through rate, and if you’re selling something, the conversion rate (percentage of sales you get).

Monitor your open rates and clicks. If they’re low, find out why.

Are you covering topics of interest to your readers? Set up a quick poll (with surveymonkey) and find out.

Do your subject lines and headlines need work?

If you’re selling something, look at the copy. Is it focused on you, or what your readers will get?

Which numbers have you been tracking on your blog or newsletter? Which ones do you think are important? Not sure? Ask in the comments.

UPDATE:  For another take on this, check out Bob Poole’s post: Wrong

Photo compliments of: lrargerich