But I’d say one question is asked more than any other – “how do I get (more) traffic to my website?”

So last fall I began mindmapping all the ways I could come up with to get more website traffic. My first goal was to reach 100 ways to get more visitors. I quickly, however, crossed that boundary into 147 ways. Then I stopped listing them and taught a couple of teleclasses from my list.

Some time in January, I picked the list back up and started adding to it. Soon, I was past 200 ways to get more traffic. And I settled on more than 220 different ways to get more website traffic. I’m sure the list will continue to grow, and I’ll definitely continue updating the materials I have.

So now I had this list of all these ways to get more website traffic – the next thought, “what should I do with it?”

Of course, being a blogger I know a list like this would make incredible link bait. I even began a post on the topic. But the more I thought about posting it, the more I felt that just giving it away for free would dilute it’s value. I thought about how many lists you can find in the blogosphere and how often those lists get hot for a couple of days, then dropped.

My business is about helping business owners find hidden profits in their business and exploit them. So I didn’t want something of such value that could help so many people, go to waste.

So I’ve decided to, once again, offer my traffic driving booklet as a teleclass – 220 Ways to Get More Traffic to Your Website.

What’s great about this format is that I can provide a booklet listing all my website traffic generating ideas AND make myself available to answer questions about how to use them. So that’s what we’re going to do.

Next Wednesday, July 1 I’ll lead a 60 minute teleclass for you that covers (some of) the materials in my booklet, 220 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website. Half the call I’ll speak on some of my most successful tips in the booklet and briefly on topics like qualifying traffic and tracking traffic sources. Then, the second half of the call is yours to ask me any questions you like about any of the methods I list in the booklet.

UPDATE: I have 60 8 copies of the entire course materials, including the 53-page booklet, my series of mindmaps and the 60-minute audio recording available right now for purchase. Click here to buy now for only $69.

Let me be clear here, the 220 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website booklet is not just a list. I’ve included some tips in the beginning and have tips and commentary on every single traffic generation technique I cover. And you get to keep the booklet.

What’s more, I’ve also decided to include the mindmaps that helped me initially create, organize and structure the more than 50 pages that make up the booklet. So you’ll get the booklet and the mindmaps together.

Also, I’ll be recording the call and forwarding the a link to the recording so you can download it. So if you can’t make the live teleclass order right now and you’ll receive the booklet, the mindmaps and the full 60-minute audio.

One last thing – since I want to give ample time for you to ask your questions about driving traffic to your site, I’m limiting the number of copies for sale to 60 8. After 60, I’ll won’t have any more for sale.

Here’s what’s included:

• My 53 page booklet 220 Ways to Get More Traffic to Your Website & Increase Your Business, with tips and commentary for each method.
• A Series of Mindmaps summarizing each of the traffic driving methods – use as a resource when deciding which methods to use. I used these mindmaps in developing the course materials.
• A 60-minute LIVE teleclass with me, talking about how to find the right traffic for your business.
• Time for you to get your specific questions answered. There will be ample time to take your specific questions. And since conversation often leads to the most interesting teaching, the more questions, the merrier.
• I’ll record the teleclass and send you a link to download it in full.
• Click here to ORDER NOW!

There was so much in the booklet that when I got it before the class, I was overwhelmed. But your calm voice and simple explanations took me from overwhelm to excitement. Can’t wait to launch my website.
- Gillian McDowell: Vancouver, BC

What’s inside?

This isn’t just some random list I’ve come up with that I’m tossing at you. Rather, I painstakingly put together the booklet and the mindmaps over a number of months to give you the most complete resource I know of. Then, I divided the booklet into 13 different categories for building your traffic. Here’s those categories:

• 7 ways to drive website traffic using General Office ideas
• 8 ways to drive website traffic by getting Published Offline
• 22 ways to drive website traffic through Direct Marketing Offline
• 16 ways to drive website traffic through Networking Offline
• 12 ways to drive website traffic through Email Marketing
• 59 ways to drive website traffic through Marketing Online
• 7 ways to drive website traffic through Backlinking
• 28 waysto drive website traffic through Blogging
• 14 ways to drive website traffic through Social Bookmarking
• 22 ways to drive website traffic through Social Media
• 11 ways to drive website traffic through Online Paid Advertising
• 13 ways to drive website traffic through Offline Paid Advertising
• 21 more ways to drive website, my Final Brain Dump

There it is. You can see the breakdown of how many ideas come from which sort of categories. And there’s something there for everyone – offline marketers, social marketers, paid advertising, even email. And if you add up all the ways, there’s actually 240. I just got tired of changing the name of the program.

Here’s the details:

• Teleclass will be Wednesday, July 1 at 1pm eastern / 10am pacific U.S. time I’m making this available for a limited time
  
• There are ONLY 60 8 COPIES of this course available
• The cost is $97 SPECIAL SUMMER PRICE $69!
  
• Click here to ORDER NOW!

Dawud, why haven’t you been teaching more often. I love your way of explaining complex ideas with simple language. The course and your enthusiasm helped me believe I could actually get more people to see my website. Thank you.
Karen Loveland: Seattle, WA

I’ve had more 300 people take this course. All have told me that they would have paid more knowing what they know now. And many are now using my suggestions to actually get more clients.

So if that’s the case, why would I lower the cost to $69? Just like the hundreds of others who have these materials, I know that you’ll get a huge benefit from taking this course. My clients constantly ask me for information about driving traffic to their website. So I’m simply making it easier for more people to get access to this all-important information. After all, no website traffic, no business.

Now, let’s get you registered before you lose your slot.

Now there’s two things left to do:

1. First, order your copy right now.
2. Second, tell 5 people who need to get more traffic to their websites. Send them an email, make a phone call, text message them, Tweet about it on Twitter, Write a blog post – however you can reach the people you want to help.

(note: image from lynac on Flickr, some rights reserved)

You’d probably agree with me that it’s certainly not wise to hurt your customers or potential customers. That seems pretty clear, doesn’t it?

But what about the people you work with or who work for you? Is it okay – is it appropriate – to hurt, abuse or cause your staff, peers or partners to suffer simply because they work with you?

Hopefully we all know the answer to this question as well. That’s why I’m a bit perplexed this morning from an email I got yesterday. The email as interesting in that I was being blamed for giving someone’s former boss ‘carte blanche’ to be abusive. The writer of the email referred to my post Why Being Unreasonable Can Lead To Success.

In the article I propose that to build a successful business you need to be willing to drop conformity and strike out on your own path with your business. I compare running a business to my many backpacking trips where I’d hike on trail until I got a feel for where I was. Then, I’d get off trail and explore sights unseen by most. Here’s an excerpt:

…Be willing to cut your own path. At the very least, explore off trail. Don’t just be a follower who adapts his or her self to the conditions that already exist. Rather find your independence, become your own leader and make the conditions that surround you work for you and your business.

What I’m saying is own your business. What that means is be the person who makes the decisions. Use the knowledge you gather from any source – coaches, books, seminars, teleclasses, trainings, etc. Learning it. Then use it to cut your own path in business rather than just following along with what you’re taught.

So nowhere in the article am I referring to being abusive, unkind or impolite with anyone. If you’re not kind to the people you work with and for (clients & customers included) then you’re making a terrible mistake. Successful businesses are built on the foundation of sound, caring, mutually beneficial relationships. Relationships that are nurtured for the benefit of both people. From what I’ve witnessed again and again not nurturing relationships is business suicide.

Whenever I’m in a relationship with anyone, regardless of their position, I’m trying to remember that what comes out of them is from them. For the most part, the circumstances that cause any sort of reaction are irrelevant. What IS relevant is how we respond to the circumstances. Whenever someone does something we don’t like, we have a choice. The choice is to respond to them with cruelty or with kindness. And the is true in every situation in our business … and our lives.

So have you had these sort of experiences where a boss, a partner or a colleague is unkind or abusive? Or have you had clients like this? What have you done about it?

More over, what importance do you put on nurturing relationships in  your business? How is that importance viewed by others?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from Bhernandez on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Think about it…you put up a few pages of text on a website and you have the potential for a business. People can view your site, read your copy and decide if they want to work with you. And blogs make it even more magical. You can easily write more content and your visitors can engage you and create conversation – increasing the possibilities that they might work with you.

Yet while the internet is magical, for many it provides false hope. So many business owners and service providers believe that simply having a website or blog alone will generate more clients. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Launching a blog or website – on its own – may not change your business at all.

This might seem odd to say, but it’s true. For your website to successfully promote your business, generate leads and help you get more clients, you need people to find it. You need people to use, to read the content and to engage you through it. Ultimately, you need people to visit your website that you have designed your services to help.

But before you roll your eyes with the usual, ‘of course,’ consider something – consider how! How will people find your website? More importantly, how will the ‘right’ people – the people you’re in business to serve – find your website? 

The simple answer is to reach beyond your website. What I mean is don’t rest on just having a website or publishing to a blog. Use them. Use them by thinking of website not as a destination that everyone should visit. Instead think of your website (and blog) as a hub for your business.

As a hub, you website should be thought of as a central part of your business marketing strategy. And just like the hub of a wheel needs spokes to work effectively, you need spokes off your business hub to make your website work effectively. The spokes? Your efforts. Your spokes are the things that you’re doing on the internet that lead back to your hub.

In other words, for your website hub, to be successful in promoting your business, you have to reach out beyond the hub with spokes out into the internet. And this can happen in any number of ways. You can utilize social media like Twitter or Facebook, publish articles to article banks like EzineArticles or interact with people in forums. Really, there are hundreds of ways to reach out beyond your website. I’m even doing a teleclass on the subject - 220 Ways to Reach Out With Your Website to Get More Traffic & Build Your Business.

What’s important, however, isn’t so much how you reach out beyond your website. What’s important is that you actually do it. In other words, for your website to produce more clients, you need to be doing things that engage people on the internet and bring them back to your hub. That’s what the spokes do – they lead back to the hub.

So what are the spokes to your business hub website? What are you doing each day to actively lead people back to your website?

Just as interesting, how are you using your website or blog as the hub for your business?

Let’s talk about it!

note: image from ***Karen on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Yet if you run a small, independent business, the economy has far less impact on your business than you think. So you’re likely not facing the doomsday that’s being talked about with every newscast and editorial.

Unless you believe you are. But remember, as a service provider, you have much more opportunity in these times than corporations do.

You see, all this talk about financial meltdowns, depressions, and layoffs are mostly affecting corporations – at least at this point. Sure, job losses and home foreclosures are bad things. I, for one, don’t want to see my friends and their families suffer. But there are millions of us out out here who aren’t working for corporations. And most of us aren’t serving corporations either. Our clients are other small business owners, other service providers and the like.

What this means is that you’re much less affected by what you’re hearing about on the news than the guy working for Ford or GM. As an independent business owner, your job is secure if you make it that way. Even if you’re, say, a corporate coach who’s working with large companies, you can still have a great deal of control over how successful your business is – and especially in troubled economic times like these.

The key is to first not get scared. Turn off the TV, stop listening to analysis on the radio and just pass by those articles in the newspaper. In other words – stop buying into all the titillating stories about how we’re heading for a depression worse than the 30’s. We may be – and I’m not saying don’t pay attention to what’s happening. Just stop listening to all the scare tactics that keep you from focusing on the growth of your business.

Everyone with half a business sense knows that it’s during an economic downturn that you have great potential to increase revenue and grow your business. But you have to have a strategy for doing so. And the strategy often means looking at your business, your customers and clients and your revenue model with fresh eyes. See the changing market for its benefits. For instance, there’s less money being loaned right now by banks – so don’t rely on borrowed money. And remember that a good portion of your competition does. Tighten your own belt a bit to stay out of debt – but don’t tighten your spending to the point of loosing business.

I ranting now, I know. But the thing to realize is that during a repressed economy like the one we’re facing now there are tons of opportunities – if you choose to see them. Be bold in looking for them. Be bold in taking them on. And be bold in knowing that you have a chance to grow your business while many others are shrinking.

Just be smart. This is not a time to overextend your business. And it’s not a time to take risks that bet the farm like you may have in the past when a loan could bail you out. Be smart – meaning evaluate everything you’re doing in your business. Look for places your can be more productive and more efficient. Look at your costs and make sure you’re getting a return on what you’re spending.

And more than anything, evaluate your market. Not only yours, but others as well. Begin thinking of your business from the point of view of your audience. What are they likely dealing with in these times? How can your business help them get through? Look for opportunities inside the problems people are facing. And attach your business solutions to those problems. Then get out there and let people know that you can help them solve the problems they face.

In other words…define and refine your niche market and how you’re positioned to the people in your niche market. Be bold, yet be smart. Find the new opportunities and be bold in claiming them. Yet be smart in how you go about it. Think it, plan it, do it and measure your results. Then do it again. And you’ll find your business growing – while others fade.

How are you dealing with this economic crisis? What will you do if it gets worse? Are you positioning your business to take advantage of the downturn? How?

Let’s talk about it…

And if you need help clarifying your niche, positioning yourself effectively, or figuring out how to grow your business right now, then you’re welcome to a free consultation with me where we can talk about how to solve the problems you’re facing in your business.

(note: image from fabiogis50 AWAY TILL 2/11 on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Let’s talk about it

I work with business owners all the time who aren’t sure about what they want, what they’re doing or where they’re going. Nothing wrong with that at all. After all, unless your expertise is in small business development or marketing, there’s little reason to think you’d have a solid understanding of how to structure and grow a business.

Yet one thing that thatseems to set successful small business owners apart from those who aren’t is their mindset.

Business is all about creating your space in the market place – in your niche market, that is – and working hard to inform people how what you sell can help them. The thing is, if you’re wishy-washy you’ll get wishy-washy responses. Just as if you’re pointed, certain and clear in what you offer your clients, your clients will often be clear and pointed in what they want from you.

That’s why being uncertain about how you’re positioned within your niche market leads to uncertain, and often lackluster, results. Little focus means little results. And what other positioning in your niche market is there than being considered the best in your market space? Do you hear any of your clients say, “I’m working with Dawud because he’s the 12th best business advisor in his field?” Of course not. People always want to feel they’re working with the best. And usually they are – the best for them.

So I’ve never understood having a business unless your intent was to be the best in a market space. And that means that you set out from the beginning to dominate the market. It doesn’t always mean you reach your goal, of course, of being the top-dog in a niche market. But that’s not the point.

The point is your mindset. Do you go after the people who can serve in your niche market or do you sit back and let them come to you? Do you work hard to develop relationships that help establish your expertise and grow your business or do you sort of stay within your comfortable group of peers who will never be clients? And do you set out to be the best in your highly specific, targeted niche market or do you reserve yourself to having a business that doesn’t create the lifestyle you want?

It’s all in the mindset. Set out to be seen as the best in your niche market and you will be – at least by those who you bring into your business. And that means you have to dominate your niche. How else can you grow and maintain a successful business?

As Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” So what we believe is what we end up creating.

Love to hear your thoughts on how you’re dominating your niche market? Or are you at all trying to dominate your niche? And if not, why not?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from Danius! on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

How do you define success in your business? It’s a question I ask every client – and most of the prospects I ever speak with.

The interesting thing for me is how often the people I speak with don’t have a specific answer. Sure, we can come up with just about anything on the fly. Yet it’s not difficult to tell the difference between established, well-thought-through business goals and those that we sort of find when we need to talk about such things.

Having a way to measure the success of your business, however, is one of the most vital parts of running a business.

It doesn’t matter whether your business is selling products, providing services or selling ad space on your blog – it does you good to have a clear idea of your goals. And, hence, a clear definition of what success looks like for your business.

All my clients use the web in some form these days. So often I hear success measured in visits to their website or page rank in Google. Sure, those are measurable results. But I, as a business advisor, would never consider those to be metrics used to define success of your business.

Let’s think about it for a minute…

You can have a page rank of 6 in Google and get 1000 unique visitors a day to your website or blog. That’s good, right? And most of us would be happy with numbers like this, right? Heck, the way Google’s playing around with page rank these days, I’d be happy to get back to a 6.

Yet, your page rank doesn’t equal income. Nor do any of those visitors guarantee a dime of revenue. Sure, if your website is selling ad space, you might get bits of cash for impressions. And you may be able to get a little higher ad rates with traffic and page rank higher. But you’re certainly not going to make a living on that alone.

And so these aren’t very solid metrics to use for defining your business success. Don’t believe me, ask around and see. Personally, I know more than a dozen bloggers who have highly successful blogs – more successful than mine in terms of traffic, page rank, back links and Technorati rating – who aren’t making enough money to cover their monthly expenses, let alone turn a profit. A couple are good friends that I’m trying to help out.

The point is you want to define the success of your business based on what you’ve set it up to do – make money. That doesn’t mean that you only measure by your bank statement at month’s end or by your bottom line accounts receivable versus accounts payable. There’s more to it than that.

For instance, take whatever you’re doing currently to market your business and track responses from your marketing efforts. Let’s say that one of your goals is to spend some time commenting in forums to drive targeted traffic back to your site that you can convert into leads. It’s a clear goal and something that can be easily measured using basic website statistics. Measuring your success might look something like this:

You posted 50 times in the forum last month. From those posts, you got 41 referring links from the forum to your website. From those visitors 11 commented on a blog post (leaving their email address with you), 6 subscribed to your newsletter and 1 contacted you directly with a question. You can then decide whether those 50 forum posts were worth the effort (I’d say yes, depending on what the commenters and newsletter subscribers do over the next few months).

You see, the idea here is that you set metrics that relate to your business goals. The month of forum posts may or may not directly result in revenue that month. But it’s not always about revenue. To make money you need leads and so the work you did in the forum could have been about generating leads – which you did. Now you just have to create the next metric for converting those leads into paying clients.

Measuring your success isn’t difficult. It just takes a little strategy, planning and forethought. And on the web, tracking results is incredibly easy. You just have to know what you’re tracking – and why. Then you can adjust your efforts for the next round of lead generating activities. That’s how successful business owners use the web.

How are you measuring your business success on the web? Are you at all? If not, why not? Would it change if you had someone to help you (I know someone, personally)?

All-in-all, how do you know if you’re successful with your marketing efforts?

(note: image from victor_nuno on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Just the idea of it makes your stomach turn a bit. It seems dishonest and dirty. And you’ve convinced yourself that it’s pretty much unnecessary to sell. Somehow you can get more clients and customers without having to deal with all that selling stuff.

But how? How do you encourage more clients and customers to buy your products and services without selling to them? How can you grow your practice, increase your revenue and grow your small business and be apprehensive to selling what you produce and offer in your small business?

Perhaps you don’t have to be apprehensive to selling. After all, you’re selling all the time.

That’s right. You’re selling all the time. As a matter of fact selling is second nature to you. How do I know this? Because you’re a person. You’re a person with ideas, thoughts and opinions. And this is what you sell all the time without even realizing it.

Think about it. Why do you share your knowledge? Why do you offer your opinions? Isn’t it because you have something to share or add to a situation or conversation? And when you do so you’re selling. You’re selling your ideas, your opinions, your perspectives. And you’re doing it all the time. I’m doing it right now.

So if that’s the case, why do you think it’s so easy to sell your ideas in a conversation while it’s difficult to sell your offerings to your prospects?

I think it has to do with money. Often, when you’re engaged in a conversation and you’re sharing your perspective on a topic there’s no money involved. Now there may be other currencies such as what people think of you, but something changes when money is involved. Why do you think that is?

So do you think selling would be easier if money wasn’t a part of it?

If so, I say, then, don’t make it a part of how you engage with your prospects. Make the conversations about them – their problems and how you can help them solve them. Make money the just part of the agreement if they’re a good fit for you.

In other words, take the pressure off to feel as though you need to justify what you charge for your offer. The price only really matters if you’ve illustrated to them that your products and services can help them. Otherwise, price is moot.

Don’t you think?

How do you feel about selling in your business? What have you done to overcome it?

And what else do you think stops the natural flow of selling other than money?

I’d love to hear about it.

(note: image from Lorna87 on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Yet, as business owners, we spend so much of our time focusing on how to do what we do better. We read, we blog, we train, we attend workshops and conferences, go to events, network and so on. All under the guise that we can gain some edge in how we do what we do.

But what if the edge isn’t in what we do for our clients and customers?

My grandmother buys a new car every four years. And for the past three decades, she’s been buying her cars from the same guy at the same dealership. Is it because the Buicks they sell are somehow better than the Buicks at other dealerships? Or maybe it’s that this specific salesman does his job better than the other salesmen do.

Certainly he does, to some degree. But I’ve spoken with him, he’s not the most knowledgeable salesman on the lot. He’s not the best dressed or most polished either.

Yet my grandmother keeps coming back. She won’t even consider buying from another salesman, let alone look at a different make of car.

I’ve asked my grandmother about why she keeps buying from him. Her answer is a simple, “I like him.” Now she doesn’t mean that in any flirty way. I’ve been with her when she’s bought a new car and there’s no weird flirting going back and forth. It’s just that she likes him.

And in their interactions is a little known secret to business success and customer loyalty – feeling. It’s not what you do that’s important with your clients and customers, it’s how they feel about what you do that’s important.

Let’s say that again:

What you do isn’t nearly as important as how it makes your clients and customers feel.

Would you say that’s true in your business?

If it is, why do you think most small business owners spend much of their time on the other?

(note: image from Storeyland on Flickr)

That only makes sense, right? They’re paying you fees, sometimes large fees, to help them either change something or accomplish something that they just can’t manage on their own. It doesn’t matter whether you’re hired to give advice, as a consultant might do, or be more hands-on in helping with change as a coach might – the desired outcome is still the same.

This sometimes leads to pressure to help our clients get results. A little pressure on the client to change is good. After all, change is seldom easy and often requires a little push to get started (okay, and sometimes a big push).

Yet any good coach or consultant knows that we have to manage our clients and how they progress with a bit of skill. Sometimes we can put it all out there and people get it. Other times we have to pull back a bit and offer change in small steps. So we give each client what they can handle in the way they can implement it best. As I’ve seen it, this is the art to being an effective coach or consultant – and even to being an effective teacher, parent, spouse, or friend really.

In the years I’ve been a coach / consultant / advisor (I’m still uncertain what to call myself) one piece of advice has stood out from the rest. It came from the most interesting of sources.

Hannah Whitall Smith was a Christian speaker, author and women’s rights activist in the late 19th century. She was an active speaker in the Holiness Movement of the 1800’s and was active in Women’s Suffrage and the Temperance Movement in the U.S.

Years ago I found a quote which she wrote and tucked it away with thousands of others I have. Then a few years back, I ran across it again. Now as a website designer who was also coaching and advising my clients on how to use their websites to grow their business, it made me stop and consider how I approached my coaching work.

The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right.

- Hannah Whitall Smith

Stop and think about it for a minute. How would your coaching practice or your consulting business change if you took this approach? How could it change the relationships you have with� your clients? And moreover, how could it enhance the results your client’s are getting?

What changed in me was the understanding that it’s not my responsibility to create change. It’s only my responsibility to offer the opportunity. So rather than feeling like I had to create change in someone’s business, for instance, I could be more effective by meeting my clients where they are and giving them the space and time to come to change themselves.

Someone once told me that it’s not in our nature as human beings to want to share what we know and not see it utilized. It was suggested that it shakes us up inside a bit when people don’t do what we advise them. Whether that’s true or not is an interesting debate of its own.

Yet what I’d like to know is how this quote might change the way you do business? How might it affect your conversations, relationships and approaches with your clients – even if you’re not a consultant or coach?

And maybe the more interesting question of all, if you so choose to consider it, is how could Hannah’s advice change your relationships with your loved ones?

Let’s talk about it…

(note: image from ambergris on Flickr)

This is one of the questions that every business owner needs to be asking themselves all the time.

Too often, we focus so much on developing our business that we forget why we’re developing our business in first place. Sure, we want to make a profit – that goes without saying. Yet the most likely reason any of us got into business is because we believe we have a unique and better approach to solving a people’s problems.

Take a moment and think about all the products you see advertised in mass media. Each one tries to solve a problem. Think about Gatorade, IcyHot or Midol and I’m sure you can tell me what problems each can solve for me – even if you haven’t used the product yourself.

Sure, each of these products have massive marketing budgets, catchy slogans and world-wide mass appeal (what women doesn’t want relief from her symptoms around her period). Yet they’ve also clearly communicated the problems each can solve. And they do it so well that you’d have no problem explaining to someone else that IcyHot can relieve muscle pain.

But what would your clients and customers say about your business? Is it clear what problems you can help them solve? Not just clear to you, but clear to them. And clear enough so they’d have no problem explaining what you do to someone else?

If they don’t know, why would they work with you in the first place? And if your clients can’t explain how you’ve helped them, how can they tell their friends?

That’s right. If you’re the business owner – it’s not about you. So, then, who is it about?

It’s about me – the client, the customer, the patron, the prospect – whatever term we want to use to mean, “who you’re in business for.” If you’re blogging, it’s who you’re writing for. You know, the people who read and comment on your blog posts.

Yet, so much of the copy I see on the web isn’t focused on me and my needs at all. Rather it’s focused on the business and, truthfully, their needs.

Think about the sites you’ve seen. More often than not they say things like, “We can do this,” or “Our services blah, blah,” or “We have 50 years of experience.” Then there’s my favorite – “our mission is…”

As a consumer, I don’t care about your mission. I don’t care what about what you do, your services or your decades of experience. I care about me. I want to know what’s in it for me. How can knowing you benefit me? What can you do to help me?

If I’m ‘in the market’ for something, it’s likely because I have a problem. What I need is a solution to my problem. And if I’m visiting your website, I need to know first that you understand my problem and, then, second that you can help me solve my problem. But I can’t know you can solve my problems unless you tell me so.

I was going to write some tips about how to create a more customer-focused marketing message. But I’d rather have that conversation in the comment box because I really want to hear your ideas. So…let’s talk.

Andy Sernovitz, author of Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, states that around 80% of online shopping time is spent researching products (and services) rather than buying. And 77% of online shoppers will read reviews before making a purchase.

So obviously what people think about you and your business is very important to your success. And with blast and interruption marketing being less and less effective, what people are saying about you becomes even more important.

In Andy’s book he says, “Traditional marketing is no longer the safe way to go. It may make you more comfortable, but it is becoming gradually less and less effective… It’s time to focus on making customers happy – earning their trust and respect and getting them talking about your stuff.”

So how do you get your customers and clients to talk about you and promote your business? Well, first, “Happy customers are your best advertisers.” (from Andy’s book).

But I go a step further…I say get your clients to fall in love with you.

Think about what happens to you when you fall in love. You’re giddy and excited. Your face carries a perpetual smile and your stride has a bit more bounce to it. And when you’re in love, you can’t help but telling people about it. Especially your friends.

That’s exactly how you want your clients and customers to feel from their work with you. You want them to leave your meetings excited, hopeful and with a bit of bounce in their stride. Then you’ll be the topic of conversation when your client talks to their friends.

So how do you get your clients and customers to fall in love with you? Here’s 7, rather easy, ways to begin:

1. Be nice
   Above all things, if you’re kind, polite and compassionate, they will feel it. And they’ll internally compare how they feel interacting with you with how they feel with others. It’s subtle, but it makes a huge difference.
2. Be fully attentive
   Whenever you’re interacting with a client or customer, put everything else on hold. If things come up during a meeting, write them down so they don’t get in the way of your being fully present. You know when someone isn’t fully there with you – and your clients do too.
3. Exceed their expectations
   Whenever the opportunity presents itself, take the extra step. Doing small tasks that have little impact on your time can pay huge dividends in how your clients see you. Going above and beyond creates a ‘wow’ affect. It makes them feel like they’re the most important client to you. And that’s what they’ll talk about with others.
4. Listen to what they’re really telling you
   People don’t always do a great job saying what they really mean. Listen to their words, AND listen to what they’re saying between the words. When you answer the unspoken questions and concerns your clients will trust you even more because they’ll feel like you really ‘get them.’
5. Help them understand how
   People have hired you or bought your products to help them solve some problem in their business. So make sure it does. If they don’t understand how to use it, they won’t and, in turn, you won’t succeed either. They have to be successful for you to be successful.
6. Always follow up
   If you say you’re going to do something by a certain time, do it. Do it earlier, if you can to exceed their expectations. And if you can’t do it on time, let them know as soon as you do. If you keep your clients well informed, it will go a long way to building respect and trust.
7. Stay in touch
   Even after you’re finished working directly with them, stay in touch. Give them a call or send an email that specifically asks them how they’re doing after working together or buying your product. Trust me, this will be a very pleasant surprise. And, it can give you valuable feedback as well.

Here are but a few ways to make your clients fall in love with you. Put them in action and you’ll have raving fans who want to tell everyone they know about you.

I know I haven’t covered all the ways to make your clients fall in love with you. So let’s talk about it. What’s worked for you? What hasn’t? And what have I left out?

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.

By some odd combination of keystrokes, I deleted my client calendar within Apple’s iCal.

iCal is neat in that I can have multiple calendars that can service different puposes. I have different calendars for family, home, personal appointments, holidays, birthdays, etc…and, of course, my work calendar where I keep detailed track of all my client work.

But not any more. The client calendar is gone. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking…just select ‘undo.’ Tried it, it was grayed out. Next I spent two hours on the phone with Apple trying to get the calendar back – only to be told that once it’s deleted it’s deleted. Not in Trash. Not in cache. Gone. This I found odd that the file wouldn’t end up in Trash or that it couldn’t be rebuilt.

Funny thing, I wasn’t asked to confirm if I wanted it deleted. It just got wiped away. And I still have no idea what keys I hit that made it happen. Could this be rare? Do I feel safe using iCal for business anymore? Not sure yet.

Yes, there is a backup feature. But it’s manual and I’ve never bothered with it. That will change.

In the meantime, I’m looking for a new calendar program for the Mac. I do like iCal, but am thinking maybe it’s time for a change.

I’ve been running all my client work through iCal, Address Book and Merlin (project management software) because they all easily integrate. I do have Filemaker Pro and use it to store client passwords, etc. I’ve been thinking of moving my address book and calendar to it, but I’m not fond of the learning curve nor the time it’ll take to create the database layout I’ll want.

Any suggestions on other calendar systems for the Mac? And remember, back up your calendar.

While branding was fresh on my mind the other day, I stumbled across a video on Phil Gerbysak’s site. The video, put together by ZeFrank, brings branding down to a simple concept:

A brand is an emotional aftertaste that’s conjured up by, but not necessarily dependent on, a series of experiences.

…Everything has an emotional aftertaste. And everything’s a potential brand.

The short video is definitely worth the watch. Just be ware that ZeFrank does use a few expletives in getting his point across.

Thoughts?

“May I help you?”

… is almost a useless thing to say.

If you want to end a conversation with a teenager, just ask, “How was school today?”

If you want to end a conversation with a customer, just ask if you can help. Instead, ask, “can I get you a hot drink?” or “what’s the worst thing about your insurance company?” or “one slice or two?”

I couldn’t agree more. You see, your clients/customers/patrons don’t often know what they need. They only know something isn’t working – which is why they’re searching for you in the first place.

If you ask them what they need, they’ll likely give you answer. But that answer will be pointed directly into the problem their facing. It’s highly unlikely it will lead them to a solution. Otherwise, they wouldn’t need you.

It’s much more effective to first listen to their story a bit and then ask specific and pointed questions that will help you identify further their need. The best questions can even get them thinking about the solution as though they thought of it themselves.

I find this the most effective method, when it works. Why? It puts the client back in power over their business. And ultimately as a coach or consultant that’s what you want.

How do you engage your clients/customers that unveil the solution?�

1. Lorelle on Wordpress – If I need anything related to WP, I go to Lorelle’s site first. It is such a comprehensive resource. (Bookmark it NOW)
2. WordPress Codex – The second place I go when I need a question answered.
3. Problogger’s WordPress Resources
4. Alex King – I’m loving the Most Popular plugin (I have it running at CasualKeystrokes and it will be here soon)
5. cre8d design
6. Lisa Sabin-Wilson – her upcoming book Wordpress for Dummies is sure to be a must have resource
7. WASABI WP Plugins
8. Themes.wordpress.net – the huge sortable database of free WP themes
9. WP Designer – themes and support forums
10. Brian Gardner – more beautiful themes
11. Kaushel Sheth – and more great themes
12. ThemesBase – more themes and support forum
13. WordPress Station – a WP blog about WP

I used 1-3 regularly. And Alex King is a great resource for anything WordPress.

There are a few other resources I either use regularly or have found to be helpful for my clients:

1. WordPress.org – Home to everything WordPress.
2. WordPress Plugins – Finally a plugin directory on WordPress.org. Good initial place to search for plugins – growing quickly.
3. Weblog Tools Collection – Daily updates of new themes and plugins. I read feed daily.
4. BloggingPro – Up-to-Date news about many things WordPress.
5. The WordPress Podcast – WordPress Community Podcast. Nice listens. Most recent podcast covers WordPress 2.2 delay and how tagging figures into future updates.
6. 7 Essential WordPress Hacks – Tubetorial’s 7-part video how-to series. Well-done, easy to follow.
7. WordPress on YouTube – Over 11,000 More than 500 video clips related to using WordPress. Need to know how to do something, likely find it there. (updated)
8. UPDATE: www.wordpressthemes.com

So there’s a few more helpful WordPress Resources. You can find a ton of WordPress sites so if you have anything to add, please let me know.

Well, I never did go to medical school. The awakening to alternative medicine when I was a freshmen at Purdue made sure of that. By the end of my second year I left college to pursue studies in alternative healing.

The next ten years or so was an amazing adventure. I studied various forms of healing, supporting myself as a website designer along the way. I eventually opened a healing practice and saw clients regularly. Sometimes the results clients got were nothing short of miraculous. Other times, the healing caused them turmoil – as though they didn’t want to accept change in their lives. Either way, within a few years, I was burned out.

One thing my healing work and my studies gave me was the sense of constantly looking inside myself for the meaning in things. It gave me the tools of self-reflection; tools I could use to look back at my life and see that I’d always wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. I know I didn’t want a private healing practice any longer. What I did know was I wanted my work to have meaning – to me and to my clients.

So back into website development I went. But this time with a whole new approach. Now, rather than just building ‘pretty’ websites, I would focus on helping my clients build their businesses. Furthermore, I sought out projects where people were wanting to make a difference in the world; whose work is to make meaning in people’s lives.

Very quickly I discovered that my footprint was much larger helping people who wanted to do good in the world. When I had a healing practice, I worked with one client at a time. Helping them might ripple out into the greater good of the planet. But now I work with web-based business clients who want to do good work for others. Helping others get their good message out means I’m reaching far more people in doing good work.

Today, I continue to build websites and blogs. I focus on helping my clients understand how to use the internet to reach their business goals, while meeting the needs of their audience.

And, I continue to evolve how I contribute to the world. Blogging has me interested in the conversation. The conversation between people and between businesses and their prospective clients. We’ll see where that leads me. I can tell you that wherever I end up, it will be to make a difference in the world.

So, how are you contributing to…the world? the blogosphere? your clients? other’s lives? I’d love to hear.

A few days ago, Randa Clay had the great idea of creating a badge. Great idea, I thought. Why didn’t I think of that? Well, the great thing is, she has.

What does nofollow do?
What it was supposed to do is greatly reduce comment spam. We all know that didn’t work. What it does do is tell Google bots, and other search engines bots, not to follow links in your comments. That means, when someone posts a comment, they get no Google Juice. I don’t feel that’s right. It’s sort of like thanking your clients by cutting off their hand (okay, maybe not that extreme).

Why should we remove it?
First, it doesn’t work to reduce comment spam. Or if it does, it’s quite minimal. Second, by removing it, you reward your commenters with link love. And link love is good. I’m all for spreading as much link love as I can.

Why the U Comment, I Follow Badge?
It’s one way to let your readers know that when they leave comments, they’re going to get link love. Sure, you can write a few post about it and even remind readers from time to time. But many will not see it. But the badge, that stays and your readers can see it.

More and more bloggers are removing nofollow every day. So what are you waiting for? Hop on over to Randa’s blog and get yourself a nofollow badge.

And if you still have nofollow on your comments, take it off, learn how. Using WordPress plugins, it’s easy. I’ve even found how to do it in TypePad – it’s just a bit complicated and would one long post. You can also remove it Blogger and Movable Type.

Let me know when you’ve removed nofollow from your comments. If you need help, let me know. And please, keep spreading the word.

But why? Why do we think that we need to tell our readers to click here?

I guess we believe that click here will make it clear to our readers that this is a link and that behind the click here link is something they want to read. But does it? Really?

Consider this:

To find out more about my web development services, click here.

versus

Find out more about my web development services.

Which link has more clarity about where the link will take you? In the second example, is there any question that when you click web development services you’re going to end up reading about web development services?

But click here – where does that lead? How can I be certain that if I click click here I’m going to end up reading about web development services? I guess I can assume that click here relates to the text just before it. But obviously I can’t be as certain about where click here will take me as I can with the second example. This is bad for your readers and worse for your business.

Perhaps seeing one example doesn’t make it clear enough. But consider seeing click here 2-3 times on every page of content on a website. This isn’t rare. So after a while, what does click here mean to your reader? Heck, what does click here mean on this post?

The better approach is to use contextual link text to clearly tell your readers where they’re going to end up when they click your links.

So is this only about your readers? Of course not. Everyone wants better search engine rankings, right? Well consider that Google gives a little more weight to linked text than to nonlinked text. That means you have an opportunity with your text links to be use keywords (there’s my free SEO tip of the week).

Taking that a step further, when I searched Google for click here this morning, I got back 1.04 billion (with a ‘b’) search results. Every one of those instances are likely sites using click here links.

One other consideration for not using click here is accessibility. Accessibility looks at how the web can be easier to use for people who are impaired in some way. Click here in a braille or aural web browser means very little to the site reader.
The bottom line is you want to link with words that best describe the content you’re linking too.

By the way, to illustrate the point further, every ‘click here‘ link on this post goes to a different location. So feel free to click here.

I’d love to hear what you think.