Yet I’m always surprised how many small business owners miss this. Somewhere in all their efforts to develop their business plan and marketing strategy they seem to forget that it’s about the people.

Maybe it’s using terms like target audience or niche market that somehow dehumanizes their thoughts, I’m unsure. Or perhaps it’s the way we think about business in general as being a cold, cut-throat world where business owners are always trying to gain an upper hand on the competition. I know it’s hard to see people when we’re thinking like that.

Yet successful businesses have something in common – people; people buying their products and services. It’s people who make the decision to buy. It’s people who use what we sell. It’s people who give us valuable feedback on how to do it better. And we shouldn’t forget that it’s people who are our best marketers.

All of this being true, why are more business owners not putting the people they sell too first? Why are they not spending time getting to know what the people they can serve want? And perhaps more importantly, why don’t small business owners spend more time learning how to communicate with the people who make up their target market?

Is it fear? Or is it that we never learned solid people skills in the first place?

Or could it be that we enter into a mindset around business that tells us that we can’t be ourselves; that being human makes us unprofessional?

One thing’s for certainly, it’s healthy relationships that lead to healthy business. So why don’t more small businesses get it?

You can guess by all the questions that I’d love to hear what you have to say on this one. I have my own theories that I’ll bring out in the conversation in the comment box.

(note: image from RyanDianna on Flickr)

According to James from Audio Mecca, it’s necessary to accept “that the other fellow is not a moron.”

I keep saying again and again that conversation leads to relationship and relationship leads to business. No matter whether we’re talking about clients and customers, referrals and affiliates, partnerships or friends – it all begins with building relationships.

That’s why I find James’ comment so interesting. It’s true! We need to believe that the people we get into conversations with, and ultimately building relationships with, are not idiots. Don’t they have a point? Aren’t their comments, perceptions and ideas important in some way?

If they’re not, why are we in the conversation with them in the first place?

When I think about all of you who have commented on my blog, for instance, I can’t think of any instances when I thought someone was an idiot or a moron. Really, I’m not just saying that. But that doesn’t mean every comment I’ve seen has been a highly intelligent one.

Yet I know that people (read: me) sometimes say things that are off-beat a little bit with how they feel or what they think. I know that sometimes in trying to explain something we can just get way off track and start sounding like an idiot. But does that make us one?

Maybe it does…What do you have to say?

Let’s be honest…do you think the readers of your blog are morons?

How about the people your customers and clients? Why/why not?

(note: image from judemat on Flickr)

But did you know that word of mouth marketing can be illegal?

According to Andy Sernovitz there’s a new bill (pdf) being introduced in the U.K. which will make some marketing practices illegal. The bill is meant to stop false and misleading marketing practices. Of course, word of mouth marketing could easily fit into that category if marketers were deceptive about their campaigns.

So what makes word of mouth marketing illegal?

In Andy’s post he lists a few examples where the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has made this clear. And from what I read in the U.K.’s new bill (pdf), it seems to agree.

• Asking buzzers to recommend your product with disclosing that they are part of a campaign or are receiving an incentive.
• Falsely representing your employees as consumers.
• Asking buzzers to claim they like your product when they don’t or have never tried it.

Now I, personally, don’t know anyone who’s doing these things purposely to promote their business through word of mouth. Yet to me it seems like there might be a gray area here. Gray in the sense of what we, as business owners feel is deceptive versus what consumers would feel is deceptive.

Please hear me clearly, I’m not talking about lying to yourself so you can scam the public. I’m talking about places where we might not realize we’re bending the truth in order to gain an advantage. When we talk about blogging, one of the things that comes to mind where this could happen is with being paid for posts.

Think about it, if someone wants to pay you either to write a post on a topic or to review a product, couldn’t that skew your judgement a bit? I’d like to think it wouldn’t skew mine. Yet it’s because I know it’s possible that I post very few ads on my blog. And you’ve never seen a product review that I’ve been paid for. It’s likely you won’t – at least not on this site (though I have a secondary blog in development where you may see my wife and I do product reviews, etc).

Do I think that we shouldn’t be paid for our writing? Of course not. I just think it’s important to keep the blogging crede in the forefront of our minds whenever we are paid for writing posts or reviews – be authentic, be transparent.

In Andy’s post he lists a few points from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s Ethics Codes that can help us stay honest without ourselves and our consumers:

• Honesty of Relationship: You say who you’re speaking for
• Honesty of Opinion: You say what you believe
• Honesty of Identity: You never obscure your identity

And if you have any questions about the ethics of a campaign you’re either wanting to begin or are being pitched, use the WOMMA’s 20 questions to identify any potential trouble spots.

So what are your thoughts? When do you feel word of mouth marketing crosses into the gray areas of deception?

Have you ever been on the receiving end of a deceptive campaign? What was that like?

(note: image from macmiester on Flickr)

The answer I give almost always revolves around creating relationships. If you’ve been reading a while, you know one of my favorite statements is people don’t do business with businesses, they do business with people. So relationships become key to business success.

Before the internet, before social media, much of the business world seemed to focus on producing and selling. You’d produce a product or create a service and do everything you could to get people to buy. In other words, marketing was about peddling what you had.

Today, however, and especially with the explosion of social media, the business world is changing. No longer is business just about producing something and selling it. Now, business is more about communication, relationship, community and innovation. And all this is being driven by the conversations happening all over the blogosphere.

As business owners, this means we need to rethink how we go about doing business. We need to consider and engage in the conversation with people who need what we offer. It means we need to be more concerned with customer service – even before the person becomes a customer. It means that what you share in your business is just as important as what you do.

I found this great little video on YouTube that illustrates just that. It was put together by Charles Leadbeater who’s a leading authority on innovation and creativity. Charles’s website says he’s currently involved in research which “focuses on how mass, user driven innovation is reshaping organisations.” If you’re in the UK, you may want to check out Charles book, We Think, The Power of Mass Creativity.

One of the quotes from the video that I found so interesting was this:

Communities don’t just want to make money, they want to socialize and gain recognition for the work they do.

Would you agree?

Take a look at the video. It’s about four minutes long. And at the end, I’d love to hear what you think.

[youtube qiP79vYsfbo]

So, are you what you produce or are you what you share? Or both? What are your thoughts?

(note: image from Marcio Ruiz on Flickr)

Then came talk radio. Now people could call in and add their two cents to the topic discussed by the host. I often think of social media as being like talk radio.

For instance, now people can interact with the ‘hosts’ of blogs; engaging in interesting, lively and informative conversations. Or they can meet each other in Facebook or on StumbleUpon. Yet it goes further than that. Now, rather than just commenting on topics, social sharing and networking sites allow users to have control over what content gets seen – which stories get pushed to the top. It’s really an amazing time.

Yet, whether we’re talking about blogs, Facebook or new social sharing sites like Mixx, one thing remains constant – the relationship. Social media has made the internet about relationships.

Knowing I see the internet now almost solely through the eyes of social media, Liz Strauss asked me:

What do you find is the key to great relationships with social media friends?

I can answer in one word - connect!

The key is to make contact. When anyone comes your way, send them a thank you by email. Or give them a phone call. Bloggers love to meet each other. Find out what you have in common…and share.

For instance, I don’t go into the relationship looking for anything. Sure, I may see some potential for business or business partnerships or so on. But I don’t let that be the motivating factor. Rather, I just want to connect with the person on the other end of the keyboard. Then, I let the relationship evolve organically.

What holds the key for me has been to be real, authentic and honest. I’m simply who I am and I try to make space for people to just be who they are. So I think you have to make room for the relationship to develop in its own, organic way. Some people I’ve met have remained acquaintances. Some have become friends. While others have become clients or business partners. Yet each developed in its own way, without any manipulation or prodding. And I’ve loved it.

Of course I say this knowing that the past few months haven’t afforded me the time I had previously to make those connections. I’ve been a bit busy with a major house remodel and the birth of our third child. So I have less time these days. Yet I still reach out. And if you haven’t heard from you me yet, don’t think you’re not on my list. Just give me a little time and we’ll meet.

So in a phrase, the key to great social media relationships is to connect. Reach out and make a new acquaintance, a new friend or a new business opportunity. You never know where the relationship is going to go.

Which is why I’m chomping at the bit to continue our one2one conversation by asking Liz:

How do you find the time to be so engaged with your readers in the comment box, keep up your thousands of connections, write on yours and a number of other blogs, while taking care of your clients? Where do you find the time?

I’d love to know how you keep it all going. Not just Liz, but you too. How do find the time, with family, work and personal time to keep up with your social media relationships?

We spent the better part of an hour talking about how a blog, when used well, can become a hub for creating buzz about her business. But as we talked, I could sense there was something I wasn’t communicating clearly enough for her to understand.

She was focusing on how her blog would get her in front of so many more people than her static website and how those people would “just convert to clients.”

Of course it doesn’t just work like that. People don’t just become clients for no reason. And just because we’re blogging doesn’t mean our business will grow.

So I asked her to describe how she’d write a blog post to me. She said she’d simply write about what she does, how she helps people and what problems she can solve. She knew from our previous conversations that she wanted to use her blog to build conversation with her readers. And she was clear that she needed to followup with her commenters.

It all sounds pretty good, right? But something was missing for me. Then I asked her what the point of having the conversation in the comment box with her readers. She told me to convert them to clients. So I asked her, “do you see your readers and commenters as prospects?” Her answer was, “Certainly!”

So I asked her, “What about you, your family, your life…are you planning to share any of that through your blog?”

“Why would I,” she responded? “I don’t want them to focus on my life, I want them to do business with me.”

Ah, now my fog was lifted. I knew what she meant – that she wants to use her blog to draw perspective clients that she can then interact with and convert them into clients. But she was unknowingly leaving something out…the relationship.

Sure, there’s lots of ways to market your business using your blog. How I use mine is to build relationships with people. I don’t see you, someone reading my blog, as a reader (though I’ve used the term) nor a prospect. Rather, I see you as a person; someone who has some interest in what I have to say. Hence, I have interest in getting to know who you are. That’s fertile soil for a relationship.

So I share with my client how I’ve found relationships to be the key to growing my business successfully over the years. I’ve learned that when I let the relationship lead the way, the business end of things takes care of itself. I’m not talking about relationships over business. I’m talking about the relationship part of business leading the way.

That’s one way I’ve found conversational blogging to be so powerful. The comment box creates a space for us to have a conversation. Over time, that conversation can lead to a relationship. Some of those relationships can be acquaintances, some friendships, and some business relationships. And each on different levels that grow organically.

When I shared all this with my client (we went over our hour), she got it. Not only did she get it, she was invigorated by the potential to touch people. And while she wasn’t, yet, completely clear how to ‘lead with the relationship,’ she had a sense of how it worked.

So how has blogging helped you create conversations that have led to relationships? What type of relationships have you built? And how have those relationships benefitted your business?Â

In the past ten years, I’ve seen everything: web designers who take the money and run, have ever-increasing project costs, outrageous pricing for simple projects, horrible design (and over design), and just plain rudeness.

With marketing coaches it’s a little better. At least they’re usually nice to their clients. But usually clients call me because they feel ‘boxed in’ by a marketing program. They don’t feel heard, they’re not really getting it, or their coach simply doesn’t get how to effectively translate a marketing message to the internet.

All-in-all, I end up bailing people out.

Now, I’m not complaining. I love the business. And I love helping people who really need my help in using their websites to grow their business. Yet, I’m not happy that they’ve gotten such poor service before they found me. And I’m definitely not pleased that sometimes they’ve been down right taken advantage of.

That’s why I think it’s important that you’re careful about who your hire to help you with your business. Remember, you’re entering into a relationship; one that should help you with your business needs. So to be sure the relationship has a foundation, here’s a few questions you can ask yourself in deciding whether a marketing coach or web designer is a good fit for you:

• Do I like the person?
  Sure, we’re not always a good judge of character. But most of the time you’ll have a sense as to whether you’ll get along with someone. Even the best marketing coaches have personality ticks (as we all do). And sometimes those ticks don’t jive with our own. So don’t work with someone who you’re not sure you can get along with – regardless of how successful they are or what your friends say.
• Can we communicate clearly with each other?
  Don’t overlook this one. Relationships are built on communication. If you and your web designer or marketing coach don’t communicate well, don’t even consider working together. The frustration and misunderstandings you’ll have will just cost you headache and time. You need to find someone who you understand…and who understands you.
• Do they care about my business?
  Okay, seems trite. But there’s a difference between the web designer who’s just designing another website and the one who takes a real interest in what you do. The former is just doing their job to make a buck – which isn’t wrong by any means. The latter is certainly interested in making a buck. Yet they also take a sincere interest in your success. And you want to work with someone who wants you to succeed.
• Do we share a common vision about how my business growth?
  You know your business. You may not have crystal clarity around it, but you do know what you do. Your coach needs to clearly understand your vision. They should listen and clearly understand what it is you do and then help you refine your branding, your approach, your message, etc. They need to add to your already developed vision, not take from it.
• Am I just a number?
  There’s a lot of programs out there – both for web design and for marketing and business development – that sort of cookie cut the process. Often, these materials or courses can be highly helpful. But some miss the point of really helping your individual needs. Know yourself and what you need. If you thrive by reading a book or working in a group environment, buy the book or take the course. But if you’re someone that benefits most from one-on-one help, spend your time and money getting one-on-one help from a coach, consultant or web designer
• Can I learn what they have to teach me?
  We all have things to teach each other. The question is whether we can learn from each other? Take the time to find out if you can learn what they have to teach. Your web designer may know code up the yin-yang. But do you really need to learn it? And your marketing coach may be an amazing copywriter. But can they teach what they know in a way you can learn? Whoever you work with, make sure you can learn what they have to teach in the way they teach it.
• Can I afford to work with them?
  The old adage is true – you need to spend money to make money. I’ve found that to be true. So the question you want to ask yourself isn’t whether to spend money – if you’re building a business you need to spend money. Just be sure you have a budget. And also try to get clear what sort of return you can get on your investment. Spending money that doesn’t return is one thing. But your budget might be a little different if you consider that what you spend is an investment that can be returned on. Don’t be afraid to spend, just be sure not to overextend yourself.
• Can they really help me?
  This is really the bottom-line question. You want to know inside yourself that the people you hire to help you with your business really can help you with your business. It doesn’t matter so much what they can do. What matters is can they do it for you? And can you mesh together to create a successful relationship that will help you solve your business needs.

Someone once told me that a teacher isn’t just someone who knows some things. A teacher, to deserve that title, needs to be able to teach you in a way that you can gain from their knowledge. Otherwise, they’re not a teacher at all; they’re just someone who knows some stuff.

I feel the same way about the people who you work with on your business. Be sure that you can really gain from your web designer or marketing coach. Ask questions and get to know the person, even if it requires a few conversations. If they’re not willing to meet your needs before you hire them, what makes you think that’s going to change once you do?

I’d love to hear about your experiences with a web designer or your coach. And if you have a good one, feel free to link to them in the comment box.Â

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…

A few business owners seem to get this. But don’t seem to get it, though. It makes me wonder how business owners see themselves relating to their target audience.

Perhaps that’s the first mistake…target audience. What image do you create when you hear the term target audience? For me, I’m looking off the deck of a boat at an expansive sea whose swells ebb and flow. What I don’t see are the individual drops of water that make up the sea. In other words, I don’t see the individual people in the term target audience. I can’t imagine I’m alone.

Most marketing copy I read today does one of two things: It either tells me all about what ‘you can do for me;’ or it tries to make me identify the problems I face. Both work to some degree. The former by being straight forward in what we offer. The latter perhaps more so by getting me to feel that you understand me and my problems and, thus, can help me solve them. Yet I think they both miss the boat.

Why? Well, neither are really about having a conversation. When you just tell me about your business, there’s no room for me because it’s all about you. And when you make it about me and the problems I face, it’s still from your perspective. You’re not there, in it, with me. And if you were once where I am, it’s difficult to recapture the difficulties I face when you’re no longer in them.

I think that’s what Colleen Wainwright, the Communicatrix (gosh, I can’t help by love that name), was getting too when she wrote this comment on a recent blog post of mine around having the conversation with your niche.

Most of the time, people are thinking about what they want to say, rather than the people they’re going to say it to. You can’t possibly have a conversation with your customers (or anyone else, for that matter) over the sound of the projector running, if you catch my drift.

And that seems to be the crux of most marketing content I see today. Not all, but most. Business owners seem to spend more time being concerned about what they want to get across to people than they do considering what people want to hear. Yet giving them what they want and need is the key to being successful.

So how do you do that? Make it a conversation. Instead of being so concerned with getting all the right content so gingerly placed so perfectly on the page, engage in a conversation. When you write copy, think about it like you’re sitting down with someone referred to you from a friend. First, listen to them. Figure out what they need. Then speak (or write). But do so as you would in a verbal conversation by adding to it, not trying to turn it into something you want.

You may be the expert on your topic and the referral may be coming to you. But they want to feel honored, cared for and listened too. They want their opinions to matter. And they want to know that what they know has value and merit.

Just remember, your target audience is made up of individuals. Engage them as such and you’ll be doing business with people instead of a trying to reach a marketing buzzword.

What do you do to engage individuals in your business? How does your blog serve the conversation and how has it helped build relationships?

P.S. …I just found out that today is Colleen’s Birthday. Stop by and shoot her a b-day wish.Â

That’s the question I asked the other day which led to an interesting, and in some cases spirited, conversation. I love that we have the space and freedom to openly share our opinions. And I’m grateful that you feel comfortable enough to be open and honest here, in our comment box.

One statement that was made a few times in our conversation is how your newsletter content shouldn’t be separate from your blog content. So should your newsletter articles be different from your blog content?

This is a question that I get asked often. And my answer has evolved over time. At first I thought, “yes, they should be separate.” But now I feel the opposite. Your newsletter subscribers should be able to find your newsletter content on your blog…AND, before they get your newsletter.

Why?

Let’s think about the purpose of an e-newsletter. While it serves many, the main reasons you have a newsletter is to keep in contact with people who have some interest in your business. In doing so you want to give them valuable articles that can help them, build trust and pitch products and services. In other words, your newsletter is about building a relationship.

Yet a newsletter is quite limited in how it does this. Basically, you send it out and it arrives in subscriber’s inbox. They decide to read it or not. And if they do read it, they decide whether they’re going to select one of your offers. That’s pretty much it. The relationship and trust are built through multiple editions and by giving them great content.

But your newsletter can be so much more in building trust and relationship.

Imagine if your newsletter article was only the beginning of a conversation. With it, you simply kicked off an interesting topic that could be discussed, debated and shared easily. You would gain and your readers would as well. And, the conversation would go much further toward building trust with your subscribers.

Well, isn’t that was a blog does?

So forget exclusive content for your newsletter. Your readers likely don’t care if your content is exclusive or not. What they care about is whether the content adds to their life or their business. And if you help them, they’re going to want to get to know you better. And that’s what your blog can do.

Use your newsletter to direct them to the comment box on your blog. Create conversation…build relationships. Let your newsletter become the beginning of an interactive exchange between you and people who are interested in what you offer.

If you’re doing this already, I’d love to hear your experiences. If not, let’s talk about why? And if you’re opposed to publishing all your newsletter content on your blog, I’d love to hear more. So let’s talk…

When you go around the Internet, what mistake do you see most often?

That’s her question. Think about it for a second. Do you see what I mean? I could answer this from so many different levels and perspectives that I’ve actually been stuck on how I wanted to answer it.

Since Liz is asking me for one mistake, I’m going to need your help. So let’s have a discussion in the comment box. I’ll start it off…

Having been a web designer for so many years, you’d think the mistake I’d see most often would have something to with visual design, site architecture, or layout. Sure, there’s plenty of poorly designed sites out there. And we all know plenty of blogs that are poorly organized and cluttered.

But the mistake I see most often isn’t in the way a site looks. The mistake I see most often is how a site owner uses their site to communicate with their audience.

I’m bias, that’s certain. And my bias leans heavily in the direction of conversation and relationship. Yet, I know from experience, that it’s conversations that lead to relationships that lead to business. People want to do business with people – not with businesses. In other words, they want conversation and relationships.

Most website owners, most business owners and a lot of marketing coaches simply don’t get this. They focus on slick or carefully crafted marketing copy that’s meant to evoke an emotional response to create action. I’m not saying that’s bad – not at all. I just think that there’s more.

So what I often see are business owners trying to fit themselves into a method of copy writing that’s not so much about building relationship and which I feel is unnatural. Pick a handful of business websites and read the copy. Tell me if you feel like the business owners want a relationship with you or do they just want your business?

I advise all my clients – even those working with copy writing and marketing gurus – to consider their websites as the beginning of a dialogue with a person in their target audience. Don’t just meet them where they are, engage them in conversation. Write as though you’re sitting with them over coffee, listening closely to the problems they face. And respond with an open, conversational tone.

This is easier to do on a blog because of the chance for conversation in the comment box. The blog has the advantage as well in that you continue to engage in that conversation with your audience each time your write a post. But you can do this on a static website as well. As you write, just picture yourself having a conversation about where they are.

Remember, people want to do business with people. So don’t be afraid to show who you are as a person. You can be a marketing professional and still be person. Anyway, you know from your own business interactions that connection, personality and temperament play an enormous role in successful business relationships. So why not build your personality into your marketing materials. Let people know who you are right out front. Let them see you as a person. Then invite them to sit at your table with their cup of coffee. Who knows what can happen next.

So I think not actively engaging people in a conversation that can build a relationship is the most common mistake I see in websites.

There are many others – certainly – even around content. So I turn my site over to you to share what mistakes you often see was you’re perusing the web.

And I have to be sure to continue our one2one conversation by asking Liz…

What’s helped you go from just being a writer on a blog to becoming a conversational dynamo?

I can’t wait to see Liz’s answers. She is truly a master at writing conversational copy, if you ask me. But until she answers, let’s talk…

What’s the the part of business, besides relationships, that you look forward to doing more of?

Okay, so here’s how I read your question…”what other part of business, besides building relationships.” I hope this is what you meant, because my entire business is about relationships. From how I market to how I work with my clients, what I see in my business IS relationships.

But I can look through building more and stronger relationships at aspects of my business. So that’s what I’m going to run with.

I’ve been building websites for more than a decade at this point. So it’s mostly what I’m known for. It’s also the easiest way people can describe what I do to their friends, clients and colleagues. So more often than not, I get calls about website design.

What ends up happening, however, is that the people soon find out that I do so much more than most web designers. They learn that I understand business development, marketing, product development, copy editing, etc. And often, they hire me to consult and coach them while we’re working on their website.

So really, I’m really a born teacher. I know that sounds like a vast, presumptuous statement. Yet at every point in my life this fact has been mirrored back to me. In elementary school I used to show my classmates how to do math problems when they didn’t get it. As a baseball player I could spot mistakes in a teammate’s swing and help them feel the correction. Even when I had a private healing practice I would somehow find a way to explain complex spiritual concepts in a way that people just understood.

Even as a web designer, I’ve been very successful at making the technical easy to understand – even a neophyte. This gives clients the power to make their own, informed decisions about their business.

So like you, Liz, I am a teacher. I’m a teacher and I love to solve problems. And this has led me to doing more consulting/coaching/educating-type work. I love it. And it’s opened up a whole new part of my business.

Now people don’t have to need a new website to work with me. They can hire me to help them with any number of projects or aspects of their business: from service and product development to marketing, increasing traffic and building relationships to branding, utilizing a newsletter to just plain problem solving.

And best of all, they can hire me to help them learn how to use social media – blogging, social networking, etc, – more effectively, to grow their business or to increase the visibility of their blog. That I’m doing already with a handful of clients.

So that’s what I want to do more of…coach people to a more rewarding and successful business, consult with people to solve their business problems and educate people on how to do anything they need without being dependent on me. Does that make me a coaching strategist? Maybe.

So Liz (and you, reading this, too), speaking of strategy:

What do you feel is necessary to create an effective strategy to promote a business?

If you got this far, I’d love to hear your answers to either question. Join our one2one conversation in the comment box below.

And if you need some help with your business, let’s talk about it.

We dream of the day that we get that massive wave from Digg or StumbleUpon. And when we do, it’s a rush, right? We watch our stats climb by the minute – 500….1,000….5,000….10,000 visitors – “oh God, don’t let it end!”

But it does end. It ends as an ocean wave ends: breaking on the shore, splashing its wake up the sands and retreating once more to whence it came. Such it is with our blog traffic.

These social content sites are great, don’t get me wrong. And I’m not suggesting not to use them. I use them and will continue too. But the deluge of traffic they bring can often give us a false sense of our blog’s health.

Essential Keystrokes’ Char wrote about this recently in her Web Traffic – I’ll Take Quality Over Quantity. In her post, she explained how the traffic she got from Digg in a recent post was matched, and in quality perhaps surpassed, by a link in a post from a prominent blogger like Darren Rowse.

Now, don’t run out and link to Darren or Brian Clark thinking that’s the way to get traffic. Though it could be if you’re doing what Char does – write great content. Which is why Darren picked up her link.

But how did Darren find Char to link too? The relationship, of course. Darren had to know Char exists in order to find a link to her. That begins with the relationship.

Same is true of another good friend, Adam Kayce at Monk at Work. Recently, he had a post picked up by lifehack.org. Adam’s blog is fairly new, yet growing at a nice rate. However, when he got picked up by lifehacker, he got a nice, large traffic blip with a number of first-time commenters. His traffic has increased by a nice rate since. But most interesting is that his feed subscribers almost doubled in the few days after.

So even though social content sites are certainly useful, it seems that writing great content and building relationships is the key to building traffic.

What’s been your experiences? Am I right….wrong….short-sighted….somewhere in between?

In my personal life, I don’t often rest on good enough. Instead, I strive to be a better man, a better husband, a better parent, a better son, a better friend, and a better neighbor. And in my spirituality, I constantly find myself working through issues that limit me from the deepest understandings of my soul and its relationship to my Creator.

In business, it’s much the same way. While I know quite a bit about business websites development, marketing strategy and copywriting, I still strive to learn more – always pushing my envelope.

It was just about a year ago that I decide to find out what blogging is all about. So I found out how to use RSS, got a reader and started watching blogs – learning as much as I could from the bloggers I enjoyed.

Now, I didn’t ‘need’ to blog. My business was doing great and I had more still to share with my clients. Yet, I wanted to know what blogging was all about. And soon, I discovered that blogging was, perhaps, the most powerful (or at least accessible) method for building interest in your business then anything yet created. And…you could do it on the cheap.

So I pushed. And now, I have a pretty successful blog myself, my business is thriving, and doors are opening all around me for expansion. To top it off, I’ve also made some amazing friendships and partnerships with bloggers that four or five months ago I didn’t know. Incredible, really.

So when my dear friend Adam Kayce tagged me a little while back asking me about my learning edge, it gave me a chance to think a bit about where I’ve been and where I’m heading.

In the meantime, I checked out the other folks that have been tagged on this meme like, Edward Mills, Ben Yoskovitz, Jean Browman, Daily Triathlete, Eve, Evelyn Rodriguez, Sue Melone, and the dear Colleen Wainwright from Communicatrix. They each wrote some great posts on where they’re stretching.

For me, I’ve read a fair amount. Though less than I used to with two kids under 4 years old. I read lots of blogs daily and manage a number of great phone conversations each week; constantly exploring how to better build my business (and my client’s) through blogging and social media.

I’ve learned a ton about using social media in the past year since watching blogs – and even more in the past six months since I’ve been blogging. And so now it’s time to push the envelope even wider.

Now I want to bring together the parts of social media – social bookmarking (e.g. del.icio.us, ma.ganolia), social networking (e.g. Linkedin, MyBlogLog, Facebook), social recommendation (e.g. Digg, StumbleUpon, Netscape) and social content (YouTube, Flickr) – together into a program that will help service-based business owners grow their businesses sustainably and with authenticity.

I’m using social networks more and more – learning everything I can about how they work and how they can aid business growth. I’ve read 15 books on blogging. Most were pretty useless – though I got something out of Clear Blogging, Publish & Prosper, and What No One Ever Tells you About Blogging and Podcasting and Naked Conversations. And, as I’ve written about, I absolutely loved Lorelle’s Blogging Tips.

I’ve also read a few books on on social media and social marketing such as Andy Sernovitz’s Word of Mouth Marketing, Mark Hughes’ Buzz Marketing, and, of course, Seth Godin’s books and the Cluetrain Manifesto. And I’ve got Ben McConnell’s books, Citizen Marketers & Creating Customer Evangelists, along with Paul Gillin’s The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media coming from Amazon.

As for blogs I regularly read ProBlogger, Copyblogger, David Armano, Lee Odden, Chris Garrett, Andy Beard and the guys at Pronet Advertising – along with a search responses I find daily in my reader.

In thinking about using social media – social bookmarketing, social networking, etc – who do you read and how has it helped you utilize these services to grow your business?Â

And to David, Char, Gayla, Stuart, Dave, Dylan, Randa and Chris I’d like to know what you’re current learning edge is. Find out more about this meme at Adam’s site.

Why?

Well, people want to be in relationships. They want to feel connected to the people they work with. In some way, at least, the business owner wants to trust that the marketing coach really cares about them, their business and helping them solve their problems.

Sure there are other things business owners look for before they sign a check – like competence, professionalism, knowledge, previous results, etc. But ultimately, the relationship will be one of trust.

The New Oxford American Dictionary lists trust as: firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone.

Think about it…aren’t these the qualities you want in your business relationships? So do your clients. So how can you build greater trust with your target audience?

• David Airey’s 5 Easy Steps to Building Trust Online
• Naive by Design’s How to Build Trust Online
• Susan West’s Building Trust is Key to Business Success
• Greg Balanko-Dickson’s Business Blogging Strategy: Build Trust and Rapport
• Marius Wlassak’s Earning Customer Trust Online
• Paul Sarvadi’s Building Profitability by Building Trust
• Shonnie Lavender’s Building Trust With Your Business Blog
• Beautify’s Building Trust in Your Business Relationships – 10 Steps
• Michelle Howe’s Earning Customer Trust Online

Here’s some examples of how others are building greater trust with their audience. How do you?

Are you blogging to build relationships? I sure am. And so are many other bloggers.

Sure, if we’re blogging, we probably like to write. We also probably enjoy playing on the internet to some degree. And for many of us, we’ve got businesses to promote. Yet the reason many of us blog is to create conversations. And those conversations lead to relationships with people from all over the world.

Just imagine how disappointing it’d be to have your posts generate conversations that lead bloggers to contact you only to have you drop the ball by not responding. This is like inviting someone to a lunch where you spend the whole time talking to someone else on your cell phone. Not the way to build a relationship.

Bloggers want to reach out. They want to get a viceral feeling for who you are. Doing so takes a little courage on their part. And not following through sends the message that you just don’t care.

So, here are five quick-and-easy ways to be sure you don’t make the biggest mistake in your blogging relationships:

1. Reply Immediately by Email
   Sending a two sentence email right away that thanks them for contact you is can send more of a positive message than a well crafted longer message two days later. The immediate response makes the other person feel like they’re important to you.
2. Send an Instant Message
   If they publish their IM Screen Name, use it to contact them as soon as you can. Sometimes this can lead to a brief virtual conversation that can be picked up later.
3. Set an Appointment
   Even if you’re busy, take a few moments and respond to their message by inviting a time to talk later. Scheduling an appointment time for a brief (or lenghthy) conversation can be an effective way to meet them without stopping your current work flow.
4. Call Them Out of the Blue
   If you have the time, respond with a phone call instead of an email. This can create quite the impression. I once had a well-known blogger send me an email saying that she was going to phone me at ’1 pm today.’ She did and we had a great talk.
5. Be Honest About How Busy You Are
   If you’re really busy and can’t get a bit of time away, let them know. People understand. A polite message letting them know that you’d love to meet them soon, but you’re currently under a deadline crunch can easily get the point across without seeming like a blow-off.

If you’re blogging to build relationships be sure to respond to people who contact you. Not doing so will send the wrong message.

Have you made the biggest mistake in your blogging relationships? How have you made up for it? What do you do to not make the biggest mistake?

There are, of course, plenty of other mistakes you can make with your blog. Here’s a few other posts where people have offered up the wisdom of their own experiences…

• The Top Ten Blogging Mistakes I Made In My First Year – eMomsatHome
• Missed Opportunities Are Worse Then Making Mistakes – ProBlogger
  
• 10 Blog Mistakes / Why Your Blog Struggles – Seach-This
  
• 3 Blog Mistakes You Can Avoid – Lee Odden
• 10 Mistakes That Will Kill A Forum…or A Blog – ProBlogger
• 10 Common Blog Writing Mistakes and How To Fix Them – Rich Minx
• Top 5 Mistakes Made When Naming Your Website Or Company – Chitika’s Blog
• 10 Blogging Mistakes I’ve Made – Webomatica
• Top 10 SEO Mistakes – PhoenixRealm
• Twenty Usability Tips For Your Blog – Condensed From Dozens of Bloggers’ Experiences – I’d Rather Be Writing

They each had some great suggestions of writing more conversationally and more often, asking direct questions of your readers, and having realistic expectations. Also, consider creating a comment policy, and removing no-follow. All these are really great suggestions.

But I was thinking…what do we want from our blogs? If we want comments we probably want conversation. And if we want conversation, we likely want to create relationships. And through relationships, there’s even the chance we could create community.

So if we want conversation, relationship and, eventually, community through our blogs, why not just jump right in?

How? Find other new or newish bloggers whose content you enjoy. Sure, leave some comments on their blogs. You know they’ll come a visit. If they jive with your content, they’ll likely leave a comment or two also. If so, email them and start a dialogue.

That parts all pretty straight-forward, huh? You’ve probably heard that before.

But let’s go one step further…create an agreement where you comment on each other’s posts. That way the conversation can get started on both your blogs. And there’s no need to fake comments.

The beautiful thing is that your agreement has the potential of developing into a relationship that could help you both grow your blogs – and perhaps your business. And if nothing else, you’ll make more friends in the blogosphere.

So, have you tried this? If so, what have been the results?

Of course, marketing isn’t about one thing in particular. Yet marketing tends to focus on one, specific outcome – often the transaction. But what happens if we only focus on marketing as, say, a transaction? Who benefits?

Here’s a great story a friend of mine shared with me. It’s a conversation between Doc Searls and a Nigerian Pastor named Sayo. It begins with Doc explaining the chapter he and David Weinberger wrote in the Cluetrain Manifesto called Markets are Conversations…

…After hearing (about ‘markets are conversations’), he acknowledged that our observations were astute, but also incomplete. Something more was going on in markets than just transactions and conversations, he said. What was it?

I said I didn’t know. Here is the dialogue that followed, as close to verbatim as I can recall it…

“Pretend this is a garment”, Sayo said, picking up one of those blue airplane pillows. “Let’s say you see it for sale in a public market in my country, and you are interested in buying it. What is your first question to the seller?”

“What does it cost?” I said.

“Yes”, he answered. “You would ask that. Let’s say he says, ‘Fifty dollars’. What happens next?”

“If I want the garment, I bargain with him until we reach an agreeable price.”

“Good. Now let’s say you know something about textiles. And the two of you get into a long conversation where both of you learn much from each other. You learn about the origin of the garment, the yarn used, the dyes, the name of the artist, and so on. He learns about how fabric is made in your country, how distribution works, and so on. In the course of this you get to know each other. What happens to the price?”

“Maybe I want to pay him more and he wants to charge me less”.

“Yes. And why is that?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You now have a relationship”.

Their conversation goes on to talk about the importance of relationship in public markets. “Transaction still matters, of course. So does conversation. But the biggest wedge in the social pie of the public marketplace is relationship. Price is less set than found, and the context for finding prices is both conversation and relationship. In many cases, relationship is the primary concern, not price.”

What do you think? What’s the reason behind your marketing? Is it just to land business? Or is your marketing about something else? Or both? I’d love to talk about this…

So Doug Karr helped me out yesterday when he posted about the book, The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz & Don Jose Luis Ruiz.

From the book’s back cover: The Four Agreements…“reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, the Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom: true happiness and love”

Sounds pretty powerful, huh? So, then, what are the Four Agreements?

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
3. Don’t Make Assumptions
4. Always Do Your Best

Of course, this is great advice for life in general. It’s great advice for marriage, parenting and all relationships.

Which is why I immediately thought about it as a conversational blogger publisher. For me, each are essential for creating conversation and building relationships with you…

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
   Simple, mean what you say. Don’t lie, cheat or steal. And above all, be honest – even when it hurts a little.
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
   I do my best to share myself through my blog. But truly you’ll only really know me when we build a personal, long-term friendship.
3. Don’t Make Assumptions
   I try not to make assumptions about anyone who comments on my blog. Rather, I look at each comment as a chance to get to know a person a little better.
4. Always Do Your Best
   I don’t always write absolutely killer posts – I know that. But even the ones that aren’t interesting, I still tried to do the best I could in the moment – and I’m happy with the effort.

Aren’t these great? Simple, yet powerful concepts.

I’ve not (yet) read the book. I may. Though there’s many books already on my reading list. If you’re interested in the book, here are some reviews I found:

• Book Review – The Four Agreements – Your Key To Inner Transformation! at Matrimony Express
  
• The Four Agreements – Don Miquel Ruiz at Erica’s Reviews
  
• Book Review: The Four Agreements (links to another site for review)
• The Four Agreements by Don Miquel Ruiz at Gather
  
• The Four Agreements at Pencil Pushin’
  
• The Four Agreements at Dwell On These Things
• The Four Agreements at The Clinton Review
• The Four Agreements at Viva Las Vegas

So you know a bit of what I think. What I’d really like to know is what you think. How do you see each/any of the four agreements as essential (or nonessential) to being a conversational blogger?