Many things go in to creating a successful business. Whether it’s vision, marketing, message or audience, each has its importance in the growth of your business.

Yet each part of your business needs a plan and a structure to get accomplished. And how you get accomplish your plan is just as important as what you try to accomplish. That’s why productivity is so important.

So, thanks to Ben Yoskovitz’s efforts a short time ago, we have 137 ways to increase your productivity. [ continue reading & share your thoughts → ]

Boy do Liz and I have an interesting conversation going on about relationships.

My last question to her, if you recall, was how has your blog changed the way you think about relationships? She titled her response: I Knew Everything about Relationships Until an Audience Came. You’ve gotta take a read. Here’s an excerpt:

I don’t think about relationships anymore. I see the people I have relationships with and the incredible differences they make. I see the changes we make in each other.

Of course, she passed a great question right back to me when she asked:

Do you see a difference between your online relationships and those offline — beyond the obvious physical differences?

Without a doubt!

One of the most interesting differences, for me, has been how easy it’s been to get to know absolute strangers. Just from blogging I now have a number of people I’d call friends. People like Chris, Wendy, Char, Lorelle, Ed, Ben, Mike and Mike, David and David, Gayla, Phil, Kammie, Easton and Tony, to name a few. Most I’ve met in person. And all I stay in touch with by phone or email on some sort of regular basis (sorry I’ve been out of touch a bit lately, David).

What’s really neat is that they each live in different places. And I didn’t know any of them before I was blogging. Same with Liz…one day, some months back, I got an email message saying, “I’m calling you at 2pm today.” Then she did, we talked and we’ve not stopped since.

I’m pretty certain that without my blog I’d not know any of these folks. Yet we each have things in common that bring us together. Each one of them (and many of you) have enriched my life in different ways. I feel fortunate to call them all friends.

And that’s where the internet, and the blogosphere specifically, continues to amaze me. Through my blog, I’ve met such good, caring, interesting and quality people. We may live thousands of miles apart, but we’re neighbors in the blogosphere.

So what brings us together in the first place? In each relationship it’s a little different. Yet a common denominator is that we have similar interests. Those interests bring us together. It gives us a ground to share what we know and what we love with each other. Combine that with wanting to meet interesting people and you have a formula for building relationships that extend beyond the blogosphere.

Now that’s not to say that the people I’ve met blogging have replaced friends I’ve already had. Not at all. Rather, it’s just expanded my circle of friends. And that circle keeps getting larger.

And you know, you’re a part of that circle as well. Yeah, I do mean you. Without you, I’m not sure I’d still be blogging. I’m blogging to start conversations and build relationships. So without you, without your interest, your readership, your comments, your sticking around to get to know me, none of this would be possible. Okay, maybe it’s be possible, but it sure wouldn’t be worthwhile. So thank you.

So please, drop me a line some time and introduce yourself. And we’ve already met, don’t be a stranger. I love hearing from you.

And there you have the difference, as I see it, between online and offline relationships. How could I invite a bunch of people I don’t know to start a relationship without my blog? And then give you the time to respond whenever and however you like…if at all?

Of course you should know by now that my goal is to turn my online relationships into offline relationships. And that happens organically. So I have to ask you, how have your online relationships differed from your offline ones? Let’s talk about it in the comment box.

You know Liz and I keep going back-and-forth in this one2one conversation. Remember, you can join in the conversation on either of our blogs as well. So when I ask Liz this question, I’m also asking you:

What’s the oddest beginning to a relationship that you’ve developed through your blog?

You can look for Liz’s response on Thursday. But we don’t have to wait til then to talk about it…

You’ve probably seen this meme going around called the Ultimate Technorati Favorites Exchange. Dosh Dosh Gary Lee kicked it off as an experiment to “break into the Technorati Top 100 and determine the exposure and traffic benefits of being included in the Top 100 list.”

Now this ISN’T the Technorati Top 100 Blogs - which is a list of the 100 most linked to blogs. This meme was about breaking into the Top 100 Favorited blogs on Technorati. Very different.

Well, with a lot of work and a whole bunch of links from other bloggers (thank you, by the way), I got into the top 100 last Tuesday. “Pretty neat,” I thought, “Now let’s see how it increases my traffic.”

So giving it a week or so, I checked my traffic this morning and found no change in the past week for referrers coming from Technorati. I did have a massive spike that began on Friday and went through the weekend. But that came from StumbleUpon.

My conclusion - all the time I spent exchanging favorite links and commenting on blogs so they would favorite my blog was a complete waste of time. It was certainly a waste of time for me. And I know it was a wasted post for you. So I want to say I’m sorry for wasting your time with that post as well.

I’ve decided that I’m done with memes that are just about trying to generate more traffic. I don’t just want more traffic. What I’d like are more people who want to read and create conversation on my blog. So I’ll leave the traffic-building memes to the roadrunners. I’m tired of jumping off cliffs.

Now, I will continue to participate in memes that I find useful to you - such as Ben Yoskovitz’s Ultimate Guide to Productivity, Wendy Piersall’s What Does It Take to Write a Great Post (which I’ll get to tomorrow, Wendy) or Liz Strauss’ Why On Earth Do I Blog (which I’ll get to soon as well). These memes are about a lot more than just building traffic. And I know they add value to your life and blogging as well.

So what’s your opinion on traffic-generating memes? Have you found any success with them?