Chris Garrett on New Media

Feel the Fear and Launch Anyway

Chris Garrett — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:51:06 +0000

I just got off a call with my NLP coach. We swap services, so I give him advice about internet stuff, and he helps me with my (many) “issues”.

One of the things he is helping me work through is my fear of moving my family thousands of miles away to live in Calgary, Canada.

He said something that made me smile.

“It will work out because you are an action-taker, you will %^&* make it work”.

Swearing is not a big habit of his, but in this instance it did add some force to what he was trying to say

Until a few years ago I wasn’t really an action-taker. I lived in fear a lot more than I do now, but even so, sometimes the anxiety does take hold. Being able to see the progress I have made from leaving my job 5 years ago to now gives me some comfort.

Making the leap was the best thing. I am thankful I found the courage, because daunting as it was, my family and I reap the benefits every day.

Are you thinking about launching your business, service, product or training program? Do you want to get moving but find yourself stuck and delaying?

See if the Mojo Marketing Action Plan self-study course is right for you.

Here is what you will learn:

How to Mind-Read Your Audience and Own Your Niche
Developing a Compelling Hook and Persuasive Pitches
Creating a Killer Solution and Making Magnetic Offers
Getting it Done With Flawless Planning and Project Management
Boosting Your Audience and Strengthening Relationships
How to Launch Your Project, Make Sales, and Grow Your Customer List

You may have had plenty of reasons to delay launching your products or services, but not knowing exactly what to do is no longer going to be one of them.

This program includes launching know-how and how to’s, actual case studies, and challenges to help you go from idea to delivery in 6-12 weeks.

As an added bonus to all the material you already get, the first 30 people to sign up to the full home study get to ask their questions on three Q&A calls.

Check out what the previous members had to say about the training, and get the full details here …

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This text has been taken from the article Feel the Fear and Launch Anyway. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

What the Soylent Green Secret Means for Your Business

Chris Garrett — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:20:04 +0000

“It’s the year 2022… People are still the same. They’ll do anything to get what they need. And they need SOYLENT GREEN.”

I was only small when I first saw the film Soylent Green. Perhaps that is why it had such an impact on me.

It’s an old film, it came out the year before I was born, and to be honest it’s not one of my favorites. The film itself is not important. There is a famous line from the film that has become more famous than the movie.

In the film Charlton Heston has to dash around the distopian New York of the future trying to discover what the secret is behind the mysterious soylent green. If you don’t want to watch the film then look away now because I am going to reveal the secret and what it means for your business. It’s a big spoiler for the film but hopefully you will forgive that lapse in geek protocol this one time.

What is the Soylent Green Secret?

The secret, worth killing to protect in the film but only slightly less significant in your business, is simple.

Soylent Green is people.

Yes, disgusting isn’t it? In the future, apparently, we will turn to eating each other in order to survive. Nasty.

What on earth can this have to do with your business?

People Are YOUR Secret Ingredient

If you want your business to be a success you need to prioritize the people in and outside your company. This goes for any company.

Determine your ideal customer and tailor your service and products to the intersection of what you have to offer and what they really want.
Continuously monitor, survey, communicate, and listen so that you are continuously in-tune with your market.
Show who you are, allow people to connect with you, be human.

When People Are Your Point of Difference

For some businesses, like my own for example, the people ARE the product. When I first left my marketing agency job and set up my company, I used the company name. People would make a point to ask if they could be guaranteed to work with me. They thought because of the “we”, “our”, “team” language that they would lose contact with me once projects were intiated. At the time I would explain who the freelancer team members were and how I was central to everything we did because I was the only full-time employee, but it was clear this was a distraction. I quickly changed all my communications so rather than from “the company” it was from “Chris”. Not long after my company site was closed and this blog became the focus of my content marketing. Rather than losing work because I didn’t look like a “proper business”, I gained clients who wanted that personal touch with someone with whom they felt trust and a connection. Win!

Now, don’t get me wrong. While we are all unique and special snow flakes, your people are not necessarily going to be the whole difference that makes the difference. Not enough to bank your mortgage on at any rate. But it will in many circumstances be the difference between making a sale or not. Given the choice, and all things being equal, people will always prefer to work with people they know, like and trust.

Product Versus the People

I know you might be thinking that this is obvious or common sense, and that might be true. But look around.

Social media bots and sock puppets spewing messages into Twitter instead of building relationships.
Blogs full of scraped, copied, plagiarised and regurgitated content.
Products created and sold with no thought to if there is even a market.
Companies putting dollars and their own brand before customers or communities.

By being people centric we can actually stand out in the market, have a clear concience, AND be more successful towards our goals.

Next time you take an action in your business, consider the other person. The recipient of your message, the customer of your product, the reader of your content. What result do you want? How can you make things better for them? How is what you are doing going to help them?

What better way to build your business?

While we are on the subject of getting business right …. If you want to be shown how to plan your business offering and launch it right, with experienced guidance all along the way, the Mojo Marketing Action Plan course just re-opened as a self-study program. A couple of months ago Melani and I ran the first live class full of great folks, and you can see some of them and their thoughts on the page. So if a launch is in your future you really should check this class out right now.

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This text has been taken from the article What the Soylent Green Secret Means for Your Business. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

Mitch Meyerson Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars Interview

Chris Garrett — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:07:12 +0000

Mitch Meyerson has put together a fantastic book about social media, “Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars”, but as important to me is the strategy he used to create the book. Anyone who has publishing aspirations should take a good look, not just at the product but the model.

I got a chance to interview Mitch yesterday about the book and his strategy behind it. Check it out here.

Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!

The book contains “the priceless secrets, strategies, tactics and insights of more than 20 of today’s social media elite.” (and me):

Contributions from 20+ top social media marketers
The biggest mistakes people make with social media and how to fix them
Actionable plans for all areas including social networks, blogs, web TV and mobile marketing
Real-world case studies, best practices and proven techniques from the experts

If you want to check out the book, the book site is:
http://www.SocialMediaMarketingSuperstars.com/

Thanks to Mitch for the interview and for including me in the book, and I hope everyone enjoys it

[Apparently I need some kind of disclaimer here. If you buy this book as far as I know I don't get any compensation at all. Look, not even an Amazon link! Hopefully someone will read my chapter and say "Hey, that Chris Garrett is the awesome, I need to look him up on the interwebs", but essentially I contributed for the Authority and just so I could say I was in the same book as those famous people.]

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This text has been taken from the article Mitch Meyerson Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars Interview. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

7 Ways Social Media Helps With Business Networking

Chris Garrett — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 02:00:44 +0000

I’m a firm believer in networking. In fact I credit my network with a great part of why I have achieved my goals in the last five years. My journey from intention through to completion just would not have been possible without my friends, mentors and contacts. Many of the people responsible for where I am I met through this site.

You and I both have unlimited access to humanities greatest networking tool. All you need to do is tap into it.

Of course I am talking about Social Media …

As I embark on the next phase of my journey, our long-planned and wished for move to Canada, I have been reflecting on what I need to establish a new geographically based network. The idea is both daunting and exciting, but I realized there are seven ways that social media is going to help me in my project.

I would be interested if you would agree or if you can add to this list …

How Social Media Helps Your Professional Networking

1#: Visibility

The most immediate piece that struck me when laying out my networking plans was that I can mingle with the Calgary folks from my current base here in the UK. This is super powerful when you think about it. I could have in fact have chosen where to move based on how receptive the locals were to me if I needed to!

As it turned out, Calgarians are lovely welcoming people, as most Canadians are, so a ton of people have been very kind when I have reached out already. Flip this around and you will see how visible the people you want to discover and meet become when they engage in social media.

How might I find a Realtor in a foreign city before the internet? I would have to go there and pick up a local newspaper I guess. Now I can just search blogs, Twitter and Facebook. In fact, that is exactly how I found my Calgary Realtor in around 10 minutes!

What this means to you is if you want to increase your visibility in a certain group, niche or tribe, start discovering them and introduce yourself before you make any physical moves!

#2: Pace

Real world networking is great for deepening relationships and forming close bonds. This is why I travel over 100,000 miles in flying metal boxes each year. Online networking is just faster and more efficient for making initial contact and increasing your reach.

The lesson here is to let the internet do the heavy lifting, then after making contact grow relationships in person where possible.

#3: Common Interests

Conversations start around common interests. People in social media congregate around common interests. We can find people in Twitter lists and Twitter chats, Facebook and LinkedIn groups, blogs and so on. Where there is an interest there is a social media gathering. This makes it perfect for finding people just like you!

Our big tip here is to work out what you are passionate about then discover the places other people with the same passion hang out. Make some friends!

Use social tools to people with common interests, goals - find your tribe!

#4: Shared Goals

OK, I get it, you do not have time to chat. Rather than interests, find people with the same goals. Join mastermind groups, training, workshops, partners, joint ventures … Again, LinkedIn, blogs and Twitter are all places where you can find potential partners, and be informed of training or workshops that are taking place.

There are also hashtags you can follow for almost every event now, so you can follow the topics and who is representing remotely.

Find people who are aligned with what you hope to achieve and you are more likely to achieve it.

#5: Sense of Connection

Once you have found the people who match your criteria, you can start having conversations without feeling like you have to do this big routine to break the ice. Once you are in conversation you can maintain the relationship with a light touch, knowing they are only a Tweet or status message away.

I’m one of those people who HATES the telephone, but finds it easy to have a gajillion textual conversations on the go each day! Maintain your connections by remembering to keep listening for your networks news, and let people know what is going on in your world too.

Update Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn with any changes and to let folks know you are still thinking about them!

#6: Self Disclosure

A big part of forming human relationships is “self disclosure” where you give people a little of yourself, your story, and your thoughts. Of course social media is full of self disclosure to the point of Too Much Information at times!

Through your blog, photographs, video and your updates you can give people a sense of who you are, your personality, and they can pick up as much or as little as they need.

What you need to take care of though is decide your boundaries, how much you are happy to share, and to ensure that you are not giving people a distorted or unhelpful impression.

#7: Community Cohesion

Once a part of a community social media helps you strengthen the bonds, through news, discussions, events, and help. Through social media you no longer have to wait to access the latest gossip!

Be careful that you are seen a positive influence and a genuinely helpful community member through what you say, your sharing and your actions.

Summary

I am an introvert so before the social media tools came around I often struggled to make progress with networking. Through social media I have been able to make great strides, at a distance, so now even this shy networker can develop a brilliant support network.

How has social media helped you with your networking? Please share in the comments …

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This text has been taken from the article 7 Ways Social Media Helps With Business Networking. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

Leveraging Authority for Creative Control, Freedom and Rewards

Chris Garrett — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 02:46:48 +0000

Ask a business owner what they want, why they are in business. You will certainly hear the following amongst the answers:

Rewards (financial or otherwise)
Freedom
Control

What you will find though, and I include myself in this, is business owners actually working COUNTER to those aspirations.

Rewards, freedom and control come from being at the top of the pile when it comes to business decision making and influence. We look for security by moving towards the bottom of the pyramid – taking a 9-5 job, freelancing, and generally working for others, but times have changed and those roles are anything but secure.

It has been my birthday this week. I have been spending time with Darren in Australia. These things combined have given me an opportunity to reflect on where I have been, where I am, and where I am going. The conclusion I have come to is that I have been steadily working up the ladder but I have a ways to go.

I am not saying that you can only be one thing. You might choose to invest and be creating at the ground level at the same time. Today I am shooting some video – this is doing, but I am also building an asset with terrific leverage potential, which is investing time and money.

My point is this. Ask yourself where you are in this spectrum, and ask yourself where you want to be. How well are you able to leverage your time and other resources to get multiples of return rather than close to 1:1. Are you creating and growing assets or are you swapping your commodity resources for money?

Something worth pondering on if you want to achieve control, freedom and rewards for yourself …

What do you think? Have I missed something important? How are you implementing these kinds of thoughts in your own business? Please share in the comments …

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This text has been taken from the article Leveraging Authority for Creative Control, Freedom and Rewards. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

How to Kill Your Brand in One Easy Step

Chris Garrett — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:50:57 +0000

Most times when a company kills their brand it is through a steady decline. The kind of loyalty to unloyalty that Scott talks about in his excellent post over there.

There are also those occasions where the brand goes from king of the world to “wouldn’t touch that in a hazmat suit” bad overnight, such as BP.

Despite the “overnight OMG” effect, brands are often resiliant things. People are making a big deal about the Apple iPhone 4 Antenna Issue as if this could be their downfall, but in my view Apple loyalty seems solid despite what the media would like us to believe, which shows how years of commitment to quality can be a powerful thing.

The customer nightmares that stick with us though are when we feel a personal impact. It might be an afront, an outrage, upset or just failing to live up to expectations.

I wanted to set up a hosting account for a throwaway project, keeping this new project isolated as much as possible from my other sites. At some point I might want to jettison or offload the whole thing, and I remember how tricky it was to extricate myself from my photography blog when I sold it (people still contact me about it thinking I own it). This needed to be reliable but not spectacular, it was not core to my business like chrisg.com is.

A $10 a month product for something you are not sure you will persue is not one you do much research over, so I went with friends and clients recommendations. It seemed a no-brainer, I had heard so many good things about this particular hosting company that I thought I would give them a try.

After a few attempts (seems Google Chrome is yet to become a browser developers test on) I finally thought I had the account set up.

Then I got an email asking for my passport or drivers license.

They needed me to prove who I was.

For a $10 a month account.

I had the option of calling their USA customer service line to prove my identity also. At the time I was traveling and didn’t think their service was worth making an international call on a hotel or cell phone for.

So I did what many a social media fan would do, I whined and stamped my feet on Twitter, and I got refunded.

Was I unreasonable? Possibly. I might agree if I wasn’t already SUPER happy with my current hosting company who are not only responsive and reliable but have never asked for any goverment issued ID. Their service is worth much more than $10 a month by the way.

Now if anyone asks me what I think about this particular cut-priced hosting company, I will tell them I have heard great things but my personal experience with them sucked and that it felt they treated me like a potential criminal. I would much rather be telling people how wonderful they were.

It makes me wonder what kind of background checks I would have required to endure if I wanted a dedicated server. I’m not sure the national health hospitals have the equipment to provide a full DNA analysis …

What lesson can we learn for our own business?

I think the main takeaways are:

Most people are honest, and your customers should not be treated otherwise unless there is a good reason.
When mitigating risks you should use appropriate, reasonable measures that do not put extra burden on brand new customers. This is a poor first impression.
A potential loss of a missed payment could be better option than a severley disapointed potential advocate telling anyone who will listen their story.

If you are in a commodity business, this kind of minor issue can become a major pain in the bottom … line. Becoming so unique and differentiated that you can not be compared as a commidity is one remedy that I would advise anyway, but do not use that as an excuse to see every transaction as a chance your customer might rip you off, otherwise those customers will find an alternative.

These events are good because it makes me think how I behave in my own business and where I could improve first impressions. We need to continually see things from our customers perspectives and treat them as they would like to be treated.

Have you had a customer experience where experience did not meet expectations? Please share in the comments …

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This text has been taken from the article How to Kill Your Brand in One Easy Step. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

5 Reasons to Love Webinars Explained

Chris Garrett — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:25:12 +0000

Webinars rock, but it seems my “webinars rock” illustration caused more confusion than it educated! To rectify the situation, I have cut up and explained my thinking in this article.

1. Awareness and Ideas

The first reason to love webinars is that you get the opportunity to create a sense of event around your ideas, value and information. This attracts attention and builds traffic and positive awareness. There is both a direct attraction to something “live” and newsworthy, but also the viral impact of people sharing their intention to attend, and a third party/affiliate promotion opportunity.

2. Products and Teaching

When you present your information live and interactive, the audience can question, clarify and drill down the parts that interest them most. Rather than guess at what your audience most wants, allow them to ask you! This means teaching is deeper and accelerated in comparison to other forms of presenting content online. In addition, you are creating products in real-time. Any recordings you make can be repurposed and redelivered in the form of video, audio, slides and transcripts. Presenting webinars is a perfect compliment to membership sites, and in fact most premium memberships include a webinar, Q&A or other “live” component.

3. Relationship Building

Because your audience gets to hear you and interact with you, your credibility and connection to your audience builds faster and deeper than through text, or even the same content presented as pre-built video. It’s the next best thing to meeting you in person, but with the advantage that webinars scale to allow you to present in front of hundreds and even thousands of people all at once without any travel involved. Not only this, but webinars have significant value versus articles or other kinds of audience retention content, so keep you top of mind as someone who is worth listening to longer term.

4. Profit and Income

There are obvious profit benefits just from what I have mentioned so far. People are happier to spend money with people they know, like and trust, so content delivered using webinars will build your business if there were no other benefits, but there is more! Review, promote, or discuss a product in a webinar and you will increase your sales. Either through demonstration or allowing the audience to question and dissolve objections clears resistance, and gives you vital marketing information for where you need to clarify your sales information in future. “Preview Webinars” where you present product information in a kind of pitch are proven to have greater conversion rates than sales letters or launches alone, either for your own products or those of a third party. I am not one to hard sell, but even with my laid back style I have seen conversion rates of 20% or more. Lewis and Sean have done even better. Finally, who could forget paid webinars where your content is presented as an online class or course.

5. List Building and Audience Creation

If none of the other benefits came into play, this fifth benefit of growing your audience and list would make the return on investment of webinars fantastically compelling. Lewis built his list of 30,000 names in considerably under two years almost entirely through webinars. My own webinars have grown and compounded lists, and allowed me entrance to niches where previously I had little presence by utilizing the natural event and attraction of webinars, combined with reasons to subscribe and stay informed. Through partnering with other people you can accelerate this growth even further.

Summary

Hopefully this explains all the reasons I love webinars and encourages you to find out more about how webinars can help grow your business too.

Of course after all I have said it would be silly for me to forget to invite you to our webinar about webinars.

On Wednesday, July 14th at 12:00 noon EDT we will be presenting our FREE “Webinar Marketing Strategies” class.

We look forward to talking to you live!

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This text has been taken from the article 5 Reasons to Love Webinars Explained. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

Why Webinars Rock

Chris Garrett — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:17:45 +0000

Check Out Magnetic Webinars

… or ask me any questions or let me know your thoughts in the comments …

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This text has been taken from the article Why Webinars Rock. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

Claiming Your Independence – 5 Years of Business Lessons

Chris Garrett — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 11:27:08 +0000

Five years ago I cut loose from my day job and launched myself into the adventure that is working for oneself. That was the start of my journey towards claiming my independence day, and I think there are lessons for you if you want to do something similar to what I have done.

I’m proud of where I am at but as well as talk about the successes, I am going to share with you the mistakes so you can avoid them.

If you just want the main lessons, skip to the end. Otherwise, see what you can learn from my journey …

I left my easy and relatively fairly paid job at a marketing agency to start a business. A real business, not the toy sidelines I had played with before. This one was going to be the sole income for our household. Knowing that your work has to pay all the bills concentrates the mind on what is really important.

State your intention.

The intention had been there for a while. You can see that I had been working up to the point for a little while in this image below. That image is taken from a site I used to frequent, I was defending blogging and saying why I did it.

This was April 2005. Shortly after I received a contract opportunity that allowed me to pull the trigger on my plans and finally leave. A few people have suggested that I achieved my goal because I wrote it out, I am not sure and I don’t think it matters if it was mystical or not. The opportunity arrived, I was prepared and well positioned for it, and I took that leap of faith.

Be prepared to grab the opportunity.

I see people get offered their ‘chance of a lifetime’ and not take it, only to live with the regret. It seems the sting of regret about something you did not do is worse than regretting something you tried. Our ‘what if’ fears tend to be overblown, and can cause us to not take risks that could be the trigger for wonderful outcomes.

Of course it was frightening. I had never been that classic “sold baseball cards in the playground” type entrepreneur. It’s still not a label I would associate with me, even though I am of course a business owner and investor. Crucial for us was that I was not putting the family at risk.

Like most decisions of this magnitude, you have to do a risk-reward analysis and crucially a game of ‘what is the worst that could happen? What is the best that could happen?’.

Know what you want to gain and what you want to escape.

As well as paying the bills, and preferably gain far greater financial rewards than that, I had certain goals that were not financially motivated. For a start, I wanted to avoid all the annoying day to day stuff I was very motivated to get away from. Listing everything out showed clearly that what I wanted to move towards and away from were very much in tune. See if any of these resonate with you:

Do work that got results, and see those results reflected in my rewards – In my old job, working smarter or harder did not get rewarded, plus it was rare I was dealing with a decision maker at the client.
Work with people I actually liked – A handful of my former colleagues are still friends, and even a couple of former clients, but now I get to choose who I work with or not, and that transforms your work day.
Direct my own work and schedule – Since working for myself I have never had to miss any of my daughters school events. We have had more vacation time, I have taken more breaks, and also worked longer hours when necessary. Contrast that with having to ask permission to take a vacation day for doctors appointments and even surgery a couple of times.
Travel to new places, see new people – There was a little travel in the old job, but I have many more opportunities for travel, to cooler places, and I have influence over the logistics. If I don’t want to go I can say no, which is probably the most important and most overlooked aspect. I find the people who dislike work travel are the ones who are forced or coerced into it. Much as I disliked being away from my family, and I take them along where possible, it is definitely a perk of my situation to be able to see parts of the world I have never visited before.
Have customers come to me without pitching, proposals or spec work – An annoying aspect of marketing consulting is the amount of potential clients who sting you for free ideas and advise via the pitch and proposal process. I made the decision I would never pitch or write proposals again. If a customer wanted me they wanted me. This has saved me countless hours and helped me avoid the worst of the abusive clients, while also taking a lot of the stress out of the work. Has this meant I haven’t won work that I could have? Sure, but if I have to ‘win’ it, then it probably wasn’t mine in the first place.

Only the other day I commented on a Facebook thread that I now get paid for stuff I would likely do anyway. That is awesome, but what is even more awesome is after five years I have finally categorically ticked all the above boxes.

It did take five years though …

Learn from your mistakes.

The first big mistake was that plum contract that arrived at just the right time. Don’t get me wrong, it was fantastic – it set me up, the work was challenging, I still have friends from those days who I value greatly.

I had made the mistake of agreeing to forgoe any other activity, to give 100% to the project. This is a huge mistake, do not EVER agree to that, and never expect someone else to do that either.

When the startup ended in a bit of a tangled mess, I had no ‘Plan B’.
My goals above were centered around me making my own decisions, being my own boss. Instead I went from one boss to another.
I had no freedom, having to constantly report in. My wife still reminds me of the time she threatened to throw my pocket pc into Lake Louise because I was trying to check in while on vaction.

That all said, even though I had clearly gone against goal #3, I was closer to my dream situation and the contacts I made were incredible.

Right around the time the startup folded and got bought out, I started this blog, scrambled around and got some more contracts. I also made a bunch of new mistakes.

Are they clients or bosses?

When a freelancer or consultant needs work there is a smell of desperation. That desperation can often be exploited. I went from one contract boss to a whole bunch.

Things did become much better and far easier. My blog took off, and thanks to my friends in the blogging world I managed to attract the attention that paid off in terms of contracts, speaking gigs, and other opportunities.

The downside to this was I started to coast out of complacency.

As I said above, I am not that Donald Trump driven entrepreneur type. So long as I was paying the bills and enjoying my work, I didn’t have the hunger to hustle.

My growth stalled, I withdrew while I juggled competing demands for my attention from my clutch of clients, and then withdrew even further when my daughter had a couple of major health panics, and some less major but still worrying ones.

When you have a predictable income from super supportive clients who stick with you even during some enormous personal life crises, it is hard to complain or see how things could be much better. But I should have been pushing ahead, I should have remembered what I had set out to do.

Another mistake I made was pulling back on the promotion.

Out there on the interwebs there are some harsh critics. I normally do a pretty good job of working out who to listen to and who to ignore, but there came a point where I was been repeatedly attacked for being over exposed. And I was, to a degree. But it meant that I pulled back from guest posting at Copyblogger, Problogger and other places that had been very good to me. Most of the people complaining did not have my best interests at heart, I should not have given them that level of influence.

You must grow a carapace of protection around your ego and not rely on other people for your self esteem.

Good news, bad news.

The best possible news was we got through the health issues as a family, and my awesome clients stuck by me, even offering support.

Really we were very happy once we got through it, but it did highlight major flaws in my business:

It only really ran when I was present.
My business was never designed to scale.
I was spreading myself very thin, my family was hardly getting to see me, and my own health was suffering.

Two business models.

At this point I had to choose my business model and re-engineer my processes around them.

Charge more with fewer clients.
Create products to serve a greater number of people for lower individual cost.

I started with #1 but there is a limit to what I was willing to charge. My financial thermostat kicked in and rebelled when I realized I could never get myself psychogically to a $22k day rate. Our plans to move to Canada also meant that my higher paying face to face clients would soon be having to look to alternative providers, and in fact that is what happened as our plans progressed.

Which brings us to #2, and the situation I am in now. You will notice I do not have a coaching and consulting page any longer and lately I have launched quite a few products.

Effort vs Reward.

In your business you can put your activities onto the Effort-Reward scale to see how they compare.

In my business, even though providing consulting is rewarding on a personal and financial level, over time the incremental effort of providing consulting stays level or increases. Contrast this with product creation where you do the effort once, then the incremental effort is far lower but the rewards keep coming in. This is scaling.

It’s not purely a monetary decision, reward also includes how enjoyable the work is and if you get to work with the people who you like to work with. I’m not going to cut off consulting entirely, but I am not going to take on any new coaching or consulting clients and will restrict that work to on-site workshop days teaching internet marketing, social media, copywriting, seo and so on. This will allow me to maintain the face to face client contact I enjoy without going back to all day every day that was unsustainable.

I’m glad to say this isn’t all theory, it has worked out in practice. It’s a great combination of more profit combined with more free time to enjoy it. Even better, I have a business that I can move to Canada without as much risk.

How I got from there to here – the big lessons.

I have learned far more in the short time I have had my own business than all the time I worked in other people’s businesses. Here is how you can learn from my last five years and what you need to build:

Content and Audience – Content is the core to attracting the attention you need, and to build the reputation that will gain you customers. I have been continiously writing online since 1994, but it took having no other choice for me to focus and develop a real asset, which is the blog you are reading and the associated email lists. Really I should have developed many more assets than this by now. Something I am going to correct.
Network – Without a strong network you will struggle to make progress and you will not gain the opportunities that take you further. Thanks to friends like Brian and Darren, back in 2007 when I thought my world had collapsed I was quickly put back on my feet. You need to know there are people out there who have got your back.
Promotion – As anyone with even a small audience will tell you, content alone will not get you where you want to go, you need to promote. Much of my promotion was done through Guest Posting like a mad man, appearing everywhere at once.
Partners – With partners you can create more compelling products, you will find it easier to build awareness, and you will have greater motivation to continue. All five of the books I have been involved in, most famously the Problogger Book, have been co-authored. Most of my products and courses are collaborations.
Systems – While working in your business, work on your business. These systems help you scale, and are also assets that can be turned into products. You need systems for attracting, retaining, converting customers, and fulfilling your promises to them. Over the last two years my systems have improved greatly, and so have my profits. I have systems for putting sales letters together through to delivering online courses quickly and effectively using membership sites and webinars. You might want to concentrate on ebooks or group coaching, but you must develop systems.

With these lessons in mind, it is hardly surprising that the free ebooks I give away on this blog are about creating killer content and developing partnerships. These two elements are the cornerstone to my business. If you haven’t read them yet, go grab them now, they are free.

Summary

I have been wanting to share this journey with you for a while, ever since I found that thread comment featured at the top of this page. At one point I was going to share it as a free webinar, but I realized there were many tangents it could go in and I wanted to make sure I kept my thoughts organized. Then I had an opportunity to sit down with Chris for coffee and during our discussion I realized how similar our thoughts, experiences and ideas are on what he calls Escape Velocity. This is how I achieved Escape Velocity, and I think it is appropriate to think about on Independence Day.

If you are looking forward to achieving your own Escape Velocity and Independence, start now. Put your content together, start promoting it, network, partner and develop your systems. You will get there, probably faster than I did.

Most of all, enjoy the ride!

Do you have any thoughts to share on creating your independence and achieving escape velocity? Please go ahead and comment below …

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This text has been taken from the article Claiming Your Independence – 5 Years of Business Lessons. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

5 Reasons You Should Invest Your Time in Networking

Chris Garrett — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:50:17 +0000

Networking has delivered more return on investment than any other tool in my business. Both financially and in non-monetary terms, my network has delivered so much value that I can not imagine what my situation would be like without it. If there is one thing that I could suggest that would be guaranteed to boost any business, networking would be it.

The problem is, everyone who believes in networking recommends it the same way.

“It works, try it!”.

But how does it deliver value exactly?

Lewis and I are about to run the training class for Shy Networking tomorrow. One of the most surprising questions I have seen over and over during our launch has been people asking how they might benefit.

You see, networking takes time. It is not an instant gratification thing very often. OK, so we have all experienced that chance meeting where everything clicks and we come away with a brilliant, but random contact. That’s not the norm. We are talking about human relationships, and they are not always fast burning things.

People are asking if they should devote time to networking over, say, SEO, blogging or social media.

I have to tell you, being so close to things it took me a while to articulate. It’s like explaining why we need to breathe, drink and eat – my network is like food, but the other tactics are like water and oxygen to my business. It’s not either-or, it’s and. So if you are crunched for time, why should you add networking to your mix?

Of course you wouldn’t be reading this article if I hadn’t managed to give you concrete reasons why you should invest your time in networking, so here they are.

Networking ROI

There are many benefits to networking but you have to remember that we are dealing with people. You have to keep that in mind. Going out with a “what can I get?” attitude is going to sink your efforts before you begin. But, of course you need to know what return you are going to get before you invest, so here is what you can expect:

1. Friendship Benefits

I wanted to start with a benefit that does not necessarily convert to Dollars, Pounds or Euros. Do not overlook the simple benefit of having friends in the business with no strings attached. We need to know someone has our back, that we have people who are there for us. It can be lonely when you work alone, with only a monitor light to keep you company.

Having someone who understands is extremely valuable on a psychological and emotional level. Your friends can chat to keep you motivated and cheery, are a sounding board for ideas, or will listen to you moan when you need it. When Sonia, Jon and I get together on Skype an hour can go by in a flash, I am not always sure if we actually do solve the world’s problems, but those conversations are something I look forward to each week.

When you are in a strange town it is nice to have company even just for meals. Deb NG, Becky McCray and Andy Hayes keep me safe on the mean streets of the USA, help me dodge my diet, and stop my ego getting out of control.

Now I am feeling guilty for not listing all the other people who have kept me company, fed me, or joined me in friendship and conversation over the years. Hopefully you will forgive me for not linking you up this once, I will buy you a drink next time we meet while you tell me what a horrible friend I am. Deal?

My point is people need people.

2. Opportunities

Now to contrast with the touch-feely first benefit, here is where the big bang of ROI kicks in. The most significant monetary benefit my network has brought me, and we are talking six figures from just one contact, is the opportunities they expose me to or introduce me to.

If you are not getting enough opportunities, then you need to build your network. Opportunities like joint ventures, client leads, partnerships, speaking and writing gigs, businesses or assets bought and sold … you name it.

All the best opportunities are shared person to person in back channels. Everything from prime domain sales through to employment opportunities. If two people are equally qualified then it goes to who you know, like and trust. A lot of the time even when the person you like is less qualified. Getting passed over for plum gigs? This is why.

This one networking benefit alone has to be worth an astronomical amount.

There are two problems that stop people thinking of this benefit, though:

People do not give credit to their network when opportunities arise. They either think “Of course I got this opportunity, I am awesome” or they think they were just lucky.
Bad networking leads to a lack of opportunity, and can actually damage your ability to attract the best opportunities. It is better for nobody to know who you are, rather than be known as a jerk. Sorry, it is a simple truth.

3. Advice

We all like to give friends advice, and sometimes they even ask for it!

There are some things The Google can’t tell you. If I had gotten all the free advice I have received over the years from paid consultants then … well, I would have a massive deficit in my bank account or wouldn’t be writing this to you now.

We rely on our networks to advise us and keep us on track, and we give back to our networks in return. Give a lot and you have credit in the bank when you need to make a withdrawal. The better your network the more knowledge you can tap into.

Just in the world of SEO, people like Aaron Wall, Dave Naylor, Doug Scott, Jason Duke, Michael Gray, Rae Hoffman, Joost DeValk, a certain Google employee, and numerous others have given me golden tips over the years. They have kept me from making dumb moves, and have put me right when I have been confused (ok, that happens more times than I like to admit). When people confuse me with being a search engine expert I tell them I am not but I know plenty who are the real deal. It would be impossible to get this much expertise on the payroll, the only way to have contact with this much awesome is to try to be worthy of their friendship.

There are informal advice channels like those, and there are formal arrangements such as consulting swaps or masterminds. I am doing a consulting swap with a self development expert, he is fixing my brain and I am helping him with online marketing. Masterminds are where a group of people with common goals and values get together to push, encourage and advise each other.

If you only get occasional advice from your network then you are in significant net profit from your efforts.

4. Assistance

Someone once told me the definition of a friend is someone who will help you move house with no notice and no expectation of payment. I’m not sure about that but I think mutual help is definitely part of the definition, and one of the ways you can benefit from networking. Not the house thing, the helping part.

Promotion – Giving you a boost in traffic, reputation, or sales
Community – Helping you build conversation and community
Links – Links in terms of Google juice, or sharing news and info from their networks
Introductions – Connecting you to people you would like to meet or who they think are awesome
Getting you out of a hole – Fixing dodgy code, giving you a heads up when you goof, or having your back when someone attacks

5. Positive Influence

You become who you associate with. This works in the negative, as any parent will have thought about while considering who their kids friends are or will be. It also works in the positive, if you surround yourself with the right people then the attitudes, habits, world view, and associations will rub off.

Apparently there is some scientific basis for this, but I have seen it enough in my own life to know it is true. I grew up in a place where success and wealth were considered wrong. If you had nice things then you must be a bad person. You can see all around you what that does to a community. So I gravitated towards people with a more positive mindset, who shared my goals and values. If nothing else I am happier for having motivating influences rather than depressing ones.

Modeling successful people is a proven way to improve your own performance, what better than to be able to model people up close and personal?

The tribe you select will have a profound impact on your work and life, so choose well.

Summary

One of the worries with an article like this is that people will focus on the “bragging” or “name dropping” rather than on the message. Thank you in advance for pointing out what a jerk I am, and you are welcome

The fact is I owe a great deal to my friends, contacts and extended network. If you get anything out of this article I want you to understand that every single new friend or contact you make is worth their weight in gold.

There is a danger that some people will take from this that they should go out with a gimme gimme frame of mind. That’s not what I am talking about. My hope is that you will see that while the impact might not be immediate, the compound effects of networking are significant and long lasting.

Want to know how you can get all these benefits and more?

You can sign up for Shy Networking now, get 90mins video, action guides and bonuses (to be revealed) all for a single payment of $67 if you get in now. Even the live calls are recorded and posted in the member area with no time limits, so don’t worry if you can’t make anything live, or miss something. The price goes up again after the Q&A, so get in now for the best price.

We look forward to seeing you in the Shy Networking training – Go ahead and sign up right now!

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This text has been taken from the article 5 Reasons You Should Invest Your Time in Networking. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

The #1 Habit of Effective Online Business Owners

Chris Garrett — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:37:24 +0000

What would you say is the main habit that is common to all successful online business owners?
Is there one thing that if you just applied it would make a massive difference to your own progress?

As an inquisitive student of internet marketing I talk to a lot of people involved in the online business world, friends, gurus, mentors. I’m also a big fan of business biographies and checking out interviews with the experts. In investigating these folks’ strategies, something comes up again and again. The more you look for it, the more it shows up clear as day.

It doesn’t matter who they are, what they do, how they made their profits, or even how they spent them … one approach is fundamental every single time.

From the outside though we get the wrong impression. People try to replicate their success and miss this vital factor, which hampers any progress they would ever make, or worse sets them up for massive failure.

What is this crucial thing?

All the successful online business people I know or have observed have all grown powerful business relationships and networks.

Who you know really is as important as what you know.

You Can’t Make it on Your Own!

Networking is vital for success. You have to get out and meet people.

Look at some of these people and you think they are entirely self-made, but behind the scenes there are always key contacts … not one of them could have gotten to where they are without someone making a significant impact.

Many actively seek out the person or people who can help them get to the next level: joint ventures, partnerships, teams, mentors, advisors …

Just consider your own projects for a moment. What would it mean to you if you could get advice, links and traffic, launch a joint product, guest articles on top blogs, get into the A-lister inner circle? Think you would make more progress if you had some friends in cool places?

From Richard Branson down to the blogging folks you see launching their latest ebooks, it takes a strong network to make strong progress. You think Richard Branson knows how to run an airline or get tourists into space?

You know why networks come into play during product launches too – we need the traffic and social proof that having multiple people recommend and discuss your product brings! Each one of those big email lists adds many potential buyers.

The downside is anyone with something to offer, be it expertise or a big list, is already going to be inundated with requests. How do you get the attention of the big players?

Build Your Network Now!

You know what they say; “Build your well before you are thirsty”. Get building your network now.

Of course if you need contacts right now then you need to move even faster!

This is all fair enough, but what holds people back?

Networking Self-Sabbotage

There are two key ways that people hamper thier own efforts, and I am going to share both with a little of my story.

As some people have guessed for a while, I am shy and introverted. This used to hold me back a great deal.

I was so nervous talking to people that I couldn’t order a Big Mac without breaking into a panic sweat.

Breaking into the programming geek world was difficult, but bit by bit I managed to grow a decent network almost entirely online. This was before the major social networking sites and services. The benefits were huge. Book deals, traffic, leads, and membership of insiders groups with direct access to top Microsoft employees. I credit my friends in the business for me getting the Microsoft MVP award. This was what made me realise how I had missed out trying to get by on my own merits.

Then I decided to quit and become an internet marketer.

Now I knew I really needed to make some great contacts if I was going to learn much about this business. I started online, using the same techniques and tactics I developed while networking the coder community.

Anyone who has tried to learn the real secrets of things like Search Engine Optimisation, or get support from key contacts at big companies, knows that there is a limit to what you can do via forums, free articles and submitting tickets in contact forms though.

At some point I was going to have to show my face!

My first networking event was a bit traumatic. I felt sick to my stomach, and was visibly shaking. At the time I felt I had done everything wrong. I talked to a few guys who were also quietly propping up the bar in the corner. After not long I felt the nerves were too much and excused myself, feeling like a failure.

I didn’t realize that I had actually got some things right. Far from being a miserable failure, that networking event has brought me some fantastic, priceless contacts and over six figures in revenue, and is still worth a great deal of profit to this day.

My next networking event, without knowing the first was going to pay off, I decided to employ some “tricks of the networking trade” that I had picked up from forums. Those tricks absolutely bombed. None of it suited me and the more I tried to get up the courage to use them, the more nervous I got. You see, these networking tricks only work for certain situations and personality types, if at all. The real nail in the coffin of those approaches was being on the receiving end of them and noticing how sucky an experience that was too!

So, in talking to people, relating my story and finding out I am not alone, it is clear what the biggest self-sabbotaging traits in networking are.

The two big mistakes networkers make are:

Believing we are too shy- Any social situation is difficult if you are shy and/or introverted, but especially when you feel you have more on the line than just pride alone. But we must make contacts and friends in the business if we are going to progress any more than in a limited way. We need other people!
Trying to be something we are not – Kind of like the people who try to get dates by using lame pickup lines and fake personas, we are given the impression that networking is all about having a rehearsed elevator pitch and a kick-ass business card. Sadly it is not so straightforward, as anyone who has been bombarded with business cards or cornered in an elevator by someone wanting to pitch will tell you!

You might be thinking the biggest mistake is “not trying”, but I find that all but the tiniest minority of people do try. At least once or twice. Many give up, many struggle on, but most try.

The one big lesson I want you to get from reading this is to get out there, practice but be yourself.

As I said above, even though I thought I had majorly fouled up on my first attempt at genuine networking, it actually worked out really well. It worked out because, despite my shyness and nerves, I was myself.

How Anyone Can Connect With Ease and Confidence

Discover how to connect with confidence with Shy Networking

If you want to quickly learn how to network effectively, without stretching your comfort zone too far or coming across as a fake, then I have good news!

Lewis Howes (the LinkedIn expert and sports networker) and I have put together an online class called Shy Networking that will show everything we have learned about growing effective networks the right way. As well as showing how to use all the modern tools to allow you connect with anyone by networking online, we have also got all the goods on how to make face to face networking not just profitable, but a pleasure, for even the most shy.

Go ahead and check out Shy Networking now, and I look forward to us connecting

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This text has been taken from the article The #1 Habit of Effective Online Business Owners. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

Why I Switched to the Headway Premium Theme for WordPress

Chris Garrett — Fri, 14 May 2010 11:34:22 +0000

The Headway blog theme is now powering chrisg.com and so many people asked me about it that I thought I would write up my thinking behind the decision.

Mostly people were either shocked or congratulated me.

Shock came from the fact a lot of people know me as an advocate for the Thesis Theme from Chris Pearson and Brian Clark. Why would I recommend this theme so much and so often, but then go with their main competitor for my signature blog?

Of course the congratulations came from all the people who are big fans of Headway and like to see people adopting it

What I think about Thesis

I am still a huge fan of the Thesis Theme and I am still using it, in my own projects (a whole bunch of existing and some new ones), and client projects.

The typography looks great, the best of the premium themes out there.
It’s fast, and speed is an important element.
As a framework to build upon, it is top-notch. Chris Pearson has put in a great deal of effort “under the hood” and it shows.
They have built a fantastic environment for affiliates – Chris Brogan pays his mortgage using it and every other big name out there recommends it.

So why not use it here on this blog?

Why Headway?

I had intented to for quite a while, in fact that was the plan right up until Grant demonstrated the Headway theme for me at SOBCon and blew me away. Had Grant not sat near me in Chicago this site would have been running Thesis right now.

Fact is, while the current incarnation could have been done with Thesis, what I have planned for this site would have required a significant amount of hacking and coding in the form of hooks, CSS and PHP. This site is not going to be a simple blog for much longer, which means I am going to be moving stuff around and testing different things. Tinkering and tweaking ability is a major plus for me.

This is geeky code stuff I could do, given time, but it brought home the feedback I had been getting from certain clients and readers.

You see there are people and businesses that Thesis is ideal for. If you have a designer or know enough CSS/PHP then you are going to completely rock your blog with Thesis, no question.

As Chris Brogan says on his blog Thesis is “a great template/starting point for designers to work from”.

If you don’t want to code or pay someone else to, then I recommend Headway.

What Headway offers is a great theme that you can customise visually. You don’t have to know any of the geek stuff if you don’t want to. Simply drag items around to move them, point and click to change colours, and so on. If you want different pages to have a different look, perhaps different items in the sidebar, you don’t need to add any plugins or know any programming talk.

Yes, it is a powerful system so is not the fastest theme on the block. It also does not look fantastic “out of the box” because the idea is you are buying a solid foundation. You make it yours.

I am going to recommend you try Headway, not just because I get an affiliate commission (I will, not enough to pay my mortgage, but I will) but because I already knew there was a need and now I know Headway is the solution to that need.

Summary

I love Thesis, I am still going to recommend it and use it. But, and it is only a small but (unlike Brogan and Mixalot I prefer small ones) I recommend Thesis to the people who can use it. Headway and Thesis will continue improving and competing, that has to be good news for customers like us, but for now they each fit certain markets better than others.

The combination of WordPress and Headway means anyone can build exactly the site or blog they want without having to know any programming or design code. That’s powerful.

Check out Headway right now and see if you could create something fantastic with it because I can recommend it.

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This text has been taken from the article Why I Switched to the Headway Premium Theme for WordPress. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

Problogger Book, Now in Second Edition!

Chris Garrett — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 12:13:55 +0000

I am proud to say the Problogger Book is now in a second edition

Well, apparently – Darren and I have yet to see it!

The previous edition was released back in 2008 and this second edition should start rolling out … now! Apparently it will be hitting stores as I write this, and in fact it’s already on Amazon with 34% off.

This is an update of the 1st edition and not a complete rewrite – however there are a few significant updates including:

Many many small updates and changes throughout the book. New examples, screenshots, updates of new tools, a few deletions of references to old tools, an update to our stories in the intro etc.
A whole chapter on social media and how it impacts and can be used by bloggers – one of the ways things have moved on in the last couple of years!
Darren has added a case study chapter that goes through the first 4 years of Digital Photography School (Darren’s main blog – yup, Problogger is NOT his main blog). He goes through how it was launched, how he makes money and how he has grown that massive audience.
Bonuses – we’re offering anyone who buys the book a series of bonuses (some interviews with successful bloggers, some extra teaching etc) over time on the Problogger Book site member’s area.

I will update you with news about ebook/Kindle and so on when I have it from Wiley, but the previous edition was available in both digital and print.

Check it out on Amazon, or get more information on the book site now

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10 Lessons Comic Books Can Teach Us About Blogging and Content Marketing

Chris Garrett — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 12:00:39 +0000

I nearly called this article “Everything I know about blogging I learned from comic books” but I was afraid too many people would take it literally, ha. In fact, there might be an element of truth to it. My formative reading material was dominated by muscly, spandex-clad guys and gals fighting crime and shooting laser beams out of their eyes. Like most geeks who grew up in the 1980s, I have been heavily influenced by Marvel, 2000AD/Judge Dredd, and to a lesser extend, DC comics.

Other than the odd graphic novel purchase, my interest was put to one side due to time, family, and so on. Recently though, due to the Marvel iPhone app, I have a renewed interest in buying comic books. This has made me look at them with a new perspective and I realised just how much content creators can learn from these publishers, writers and artists. As Stan Lee would say … excelsior!

Excitement & Anticipation – Comics are all about capturing interest, building and maintaining it. When you get to the end of each issue, what is there? That’s right … a cliff-hanger! Want to know what happens next? Look out for the next issue. Fans look forward to the next new comic, they devour it, discuss it, swap it, then look forward to the next. And on and on! Even when re-issuing older archive stuff, like on the iPhone app, they still serialize the content and make you wait. Why? It builds anticipation and means you will buy a piece at a time.
Lesson: Build anticipation, tell your audience the great stuff that is coming, drip-feed content, syndicate, and make sure you deliver on those promises.
Visual impact – Half or more of the joy of comics is in the visuals. In fact, you don’t actually need the words a lot of the time to follow the story. Comic book artists are masters at telling a story visually and making everything that much more compelling. Combined with the occasionally really great plot (Dark Knight, Watchmen), this makes the medium really engaging and addictive.
Lesson: Don’t rely on a wall of text. Spice up your content with visuals. Rather than try to describe everything, use illustrations and visual guides. This aids learning and consumption, which means your content will be far more successful.
Cross-selling – Comic books are experts at cross-selling. It’s not just in the comic book store or full page ads within the comics, it is actually in the content. One thing lots of people notice when getting more involved in reading comics is buying one series is not enough to get the full story. First there are usually years of back story, inside jokes, plot twists, but then while one plot line is taking place, the rest of the story is unfolding in sister comics, for example “* See Avengers #517″. That is a strong enough pull for many a fan to discover new characters, series, artists, and so-on, but for the truly addicted collector, it never ends.
Lesson: Where another piece of content or product is relevant, mention it. Keep adding and creating more relevant content or products while the demand is strong. Predict what people will want, need next and deliver it. Create an environment where a customer can discover more of your great stuff.
Human Drama – The stories in these comics never stay still, and while much of the action is crude (people fighting or spoiling for a fight), they also have the power to move you. We feel involved, we want to know what happens because we care. Although based in science fiction or fantasy, the drama is most importantly human. Peter Parker was a bullied school kid who, yes, got bitten by a radiactive spider, but also had relationship problems, career issues, and suffered loss. The Hulk is profoundly lonely. And so on. The web is now very much social, which is about people. People engage with people, they connect with the person over the brand. Especially important if you are a non-profit, the human-interest story is your key to making connections.
Lesson: Bring your content alive, show humanity, connect on a personal level. A lot of the time drama is actually something people in business distance from. We seem to relate drama with emotional instability. But people want and like drama when it is the right kind. Drama might not be your thing, but the point is about discovering ways to lift your content, from adding a simple joke with a surprising punchline through to colorful, lively, engrossing stories.
Longevity – How many characters and storylines can continue decades? Even in Television long-lived stories are rare, but in comics it is pretty much the norm. Superman has been around for generations, in print, radio, TV and film. All the ingredients mentioned here have counted towards that, but in addition they are always moving with the times, changing, evolving, testing, trying new things, but not breaking their core.
Lesson: Don’t be afraid to experiment but keep true to what your audience and customers love you for. You will be rewarded with loyalty.
Customer-focus – Following from the last point, these brands still exist because they have the customer in mind with every decision. Yes, there have been times when they have stepped out of line. The fans can be cruel in their vocal reactions sometimes. But these publishers and writers know how to correct their mistakes, know what the audience likes and they give it to them, and because of that are forgiven when their experiments fall flat. Most started out as fans before getting into the industry. They are still fans many of them. Conventions, workshops and meetups allow the industry and fans to get together, plus now more than ever the customers have a voice that can be heard loud and clear.
Lesson: Keep in tune with your audience and customers. Know what they are thinking. Let them know you are listening. Deliver what they really want, take chances, and don’t be afraid to surprise your audience (in a good way).
Brand management - I have mentioned a few times that the comic book publishers really know their audience, but are willing to experiment. A couple of times I also mentioned brands. The characters and series are brands, and they are much-loved (to the point of obsession occasionally) brands at that. This means there is a delicate balance between pushing the boundaries while also staying true.
Lesson: Knowing what the brand really means to people is vital, and making sure you stay consistent and do not betray the promises you set up.
Skimming and Sound bites - As well as visuals, these stories are told in sound bites. Unlike a novel, there are very few words used to convey the story, with most of it dialog (even internal dialog). Short, clipped sentences, speech bubbles and information boxes. This means the stories can move fast and get across the information required very briefly. Perfect for distracted, excited, readers. This format also means that it is very repeatable and quotable. Characters develop catch phrases, which means playground word of mouth. Consumption is increased because a reader can get through several comics in one sitting.
Lesson: If you want to get your point across quickly and not lose your reader’s interest, make your content into compact and easy to consume. Use lots of quotes, images and sound bites.
Multiple media – As mentioned above, once a character gets a following you can expect to see it everywhere from action figures all the way through to the big screen. The fans watch them, read them and wear them. You can even read the comics on computer, or on your phone.
Lesson: Be where your customers are and in the format your customers want. Try video, audio, print, ebooks, long and short formats.
Repurposing – As content owners we often create something then let it rot, even though a lot of what we produce is evergreen. Not so with comics. Initially comics are serialised weekly, fortnightly or monthly, but then there will be collected comics, specials, repeats, graphic novels, re-issues, and as mentioned above, storylines are recycled into other media. You can even subscribe for an all you can eat plan online for $60 a year over at Marvel.com (which I am tempted to do, although I can’t understand why they don’t extend that pricing to the iPhone …).
Lesson: Be on the look out for how you can repurpose your existing content in new ways. Perhaps republish an article, extract a bonus from a product and sell it, or bundle up content into an ebook?

As is traditional, I stopped at #10 Were or are you a comics fan? Which? What have I missed? Do you agree or disagree with any items? Does this give you any ideas? Please share your thoughts in the comments …

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This text has been taken from the article 10 Lessons Comic Books Can Teach Us About Blogging and Content Marketing. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

And the winner is …

Chris Garrett — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:42:00 +0000

It’s time to announce the winner of the Social Media Success Summit 2010 competition!

We had hundreds of people enter, and there was an enormous amount of excitement and buzz around the competition. I hope you enjoyed it. To everyone who did not win, well there is always next year!

(The competition was viewed 5,764 times via 171 sources, with 85 comments and, depending on which count you go by, over 1,300 Tweets or maybe more!)

Dave Thackeray wins the grand prize of two tickets because we agreed his challenge summed up a great social media challenge. A lot of the time we get caught up in worrying about the tool-du-jour without looking at the big picture, so the quote really stood out and was well put:

“My biggest social media challenge is dropping the megaphone and working with it to listen, to build incredible rapport and dynamite customer relationships.”

The random Twitter prize selected using Random.org and TwapperKeeper goes to @MatthewCooney.

Congratulations both and thank you to everyone who took part!

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What do you want to know?

Chris Garrett — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:17:23 +0000

I was interviewed late last night for an American radio show where I was asked where I get my product ideas from.

My answer was that I am not any kind of bright spark when it comes to this stuff, so I do the easiest thing, which is to ask. I ask my community what they need help with.

The Authority Blogger Course came from coaching clients struggling to get known and attract an engaged audience of people who wanted to buy from them.
My Guest Posting Guide ebook and videos came from clients wanting to know the quickest, easiest and most effective way to get quality links, traffic and exposure.
The Mojo Marketing Action Plan live online course came directly out of client’s pressing needs and frustrations, and our talking to clients about what would help them get unstuck.
A lot of my most recent social media thinking has come out of the work I have been doing with the GOSO folks and their world of auto dealerships.
We surveyed our audiences to build the Social Media Success Summit webinar lineup, plus you will see in my Social Media Success Summit competition I come straight out and ask what your biggest challenge is as your competition entry!

It’s as simple as that, if you want to know what you can help your community with, the simplest way is to ask them.

So … this is a long way of getting to the point … what do you need to know? Is there something I do that you would like to know?

Are there things you are struggling with in your business?

If I could write, build or present something that would help you get unstuck or boost your progress, what would that thing look like?

Please let me know, in the comments, email or contact form.

PS.

If you haven’t already entered the Social Media Success Summit competition you will want to get on that quick, plus remember if you buy a ticket before Thursday you get 50% off. Remember you can buy your ticket now and still enter the competition as prize winners can opt to either get their ticket refunded or give their spare to someone else, even as a their own competition prize.

Get the full details of the online event, all the stuff you are going to be shown, and the speaker lineup here.

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Defeating Business Performance Anxiety

Chris Garrett — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:45:08 +0000

Melani wrote a great post called “Happily Delusional or a Few Things to Make You Feel Better about Your Marketing Stats“. In it she talks about how people feel about their business numbers and it has some strong messages for any business.

A lot of my friends, clients and contacts look at their results and feel like frauds in business. If they don’t outright feel like a complete failure, they still stress and worry that their results are not “good enough”.

In the internet world especially, people seem to be constantly comparing. That guy made so many millions, or that lady has 1,000 more clients in her membership program than me.

That’s the problem, now here is the cure: don’t sweat what other people say or do.

OK, that is kind of like the doctor saying “If your foot hurts, don’t walk on it”, but the fact is while it is natural to compare our own results against the world, it is not useful feedback in most cases.

Focus on Your Results

What we really need to focus on are the following questions:

What are you actually achieving? – OK, so you are not a millionare, but did you make a sale? Are you managing to pay your bills? Is your profit going up? Are you reaching and helping more people?
Do you learn from your mistakes and successes? – It is more important to make progress than worry about achieving perfection. Test, learn, implement.
Are your processes improving? – If your experiments are getting you nearer to your goals then you have something to celebrate, even if you do feel impatient.

You probably realise by now that I am pretty open with my mistakes, gaffs and goofs. One of my goals with my blog is to share stuff that will make your online business a bit better, and my mistakes are often as educational (or more) than facts and tips. Well, here is another one of those “don’t do what I did” stories

It’s Not Just About Making Sales

Recently I started gearing up to launch a video product about creating WordPress based websites. I call it “Build Your WP Website“. Clever, huh?

The thirty or so people who are beta members have given me some great feedback. Success, right? Um, no. Not entirely.

I hadn’t done my research on what people really wanted.
My solution, while making complete sense to me, confused the heck out of some of the people who came to the videos without any prior knowledge at all.
Creating these videos was a lot more time intensive than I thought, right during a situation where my time got really crunched.
Underestimating the volume of questions my content would generate – If I pitch this wrong I will be creating a support log a mile long.

Essentially, I hadn’t followed my own product launch advice. If I had continued with the project as it was, while I would have made more sales, I would have also had to face potential returns, and definitely a great deal of 1:1 support, defeating the “home study video course” intent and nuking my profit.

Your sales figures are just one way of measuring success, you have to also look at the long term impact of any business project or decision. What you rarely hear about with the mega dollar launches is how many returns and complaints they get, I would much rather have a small group who are thrilled than a gajillion people angry with me

The good news is I could stop to think before I publicised it, I do have something real people want to buy (already demonstrated that), based on a real need (“sack my webmaster”, or “learn how to do this website building stuff myself”), and have learned some harsh but valuable lessons.

Launches as Experiments

It is experiences such as the one above that prove that you are better of working to a long term and well thought out plan, involving several stages, rather than trying to get that all-conquering instant success launch. I tested and found my assumptions wanting, what would have happened if I sold 1,000 seats? A nervous breakdown probably, at best, heh. Of course it also demonstrates that what you see on the outside of a launch might not be the full story.

Bottom Line

Focus on making your own progress and delivering the best possible outcome for your customers and yourself!

While we are talking about launches – If you want to be shown how to do your launches right, live, with experienced guidance all along the way, the Mojo Marketing Action Plan course starts today. There are still a couple of seats left if you are quick. Melani and I are very happy with this first class full of folks so we won’t be crying into our keyboards if we start with those last seats left, and it might be a few months before we run this 12 week course again, so if a launch is in your future you really should check this class out right now.

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Win a Ticket to Social Media Success Summit 2010

Chris Garrett — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 03:54:49 +0000

Want to win a free ticket to the biggest online social media event of the year? Of course you do!

After the success of last years competition, Mike Stelzner (the event founder) and I put our heads together to come up with something fun and interesting for you to get involved in. I think it is going to be great

FIRST, WHAT IS THIS EVENT?

If you haven’t heard already, Social Media Success Summit is a HUGE online conference dedicated to help businesses succeed with social media marketing. More than 1,000 folks have already signed up, including GE, Intel, Staples, Electronic Arts, Lowes, Eastman Kodak, NCR, Harvard Business School, Thomson Reuters, Liberty Mutual, American Express and hundreds of smaller businesses.

24 (!) social media speakers are giving away their best tips at this online conference. We’re talking bestselling authors, business leaders and mega popular bloggers. Guy Kawasaki is giving the keynote, then we have, Chris Brogan, Darren Rowse and Brian Clark, who are always awesome. A social media conference wouldn’t be the same without the Queen of Facebook, Mari Smith (Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day), Lewis Howes (LinkedWorking: Generating Success on LinkedIn) will be sharing his LinkedIn knowledge. So many names … Greg Jarboe (YouTube and Video Marketing), Kim Dushinski (Mobile Marketing Handbook), Home Depot, Best Buy, Whole Foods, Domino’s Pizza, Edelman PR, Foursquare, and Groupon.

Anyhoo, check out the full list and all the bios on these folks here.

The sessions will cover:

Effective ways to market your company with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, social bookmarking sites, mobile marketing and more
How to track and measure the return on investment for social media programs
A step-by-step method for creating a smart social media marketing plan
How to build a loyal social media following
How to bring more customers into your local business with social media techniques

Go here to see all the sessions.

Get the Flash Player to see this banner.

This is more than just an event. It’s also a way for people to come together, share their experiences, meet the experts and network – all online.

At last year’s summit, 97% of attendees said they’d recommend the event to a friend AND attend again! That’s some endorsement.

Excited? Want to see how you can win?

Read on …

The Prizes

Mike has generously agreed to give away three free tickets to the summit (remember, it’s an online conference – no travel required). The tickets are worth $597 each, so this is a very valuable prize.

Two Ways to Win

There are 3 tickets up for grabs, two ways to win!

The Twitter Entry: Simply click the button on the right or tweet for a chance to win one ticket:

I want to win a ticket to Social Media Success Summit http://bit.ly/dBdBR2 (via: @chrisgarrett ) #winSMSS

You can tweet up to two times per day. Each tweet is an entry to win. We’ll randomly draw the winner. All tweets must have the #winSMSS hashtag included.

The Written Entry: Two tickets will go to the person who best writes about their biggest social media challenge. You can write on your own blog and link back to this page (and/or link to your post in a comment below) OR you can simply add a comment to this page.

What You Need to Know

You can enter to win either or both prizes.
Tweets must contain #winSMSS.
The judges (myself and Mike Stelzner) will select the best written entry. Our decisions will be subjective and final .
Winners will be announced after Friday April 16th.
If you have already have a ticket, no worries, if you win we’ll either refund you or you can give your spare ticket to someone you really like

Good luck!

We look forward to seeing your blog posts, comments and lots of Twitter buzz

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This text has been taken from the article Win a Ticket to Social Media Success Summit 2010. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com

Shocking Statistic

Chris Garrett — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:10:36 +0000

During our free preview call for the Mojo Marketing Action Plan the other day, I asked the following question. Have a guess what the result turned out to be. I wonder if you will be as shocked as I was …

Have you ever had a successful launch?

There were only two possible answers, yes or no. We had a discussion about “success” being however they define it (profit, more customers, grow list, awareness, etc). The question was about how many people who were on the call had achieved their goals with their launches.

What kind of result do you expect? I know I was way off with my prediction.

89% of people who responded had NEVER achieved their product launch goals. Only 11% had ever had a launch that they considered a success.

Now, let us not get hung up on math and I know it is far from scientific, but that surprised me.

Melani and I work with people in our own businesses all the time who need help with launches. Most of them come to us after buying an ebook or DVD box set about product launch strategies, sometimes having spent thousands of dollars. We get that people struggle with this stuff. That said, I didn’t think so few had managed a successful launch.

Have you ever had a successful launch? Would love to know in the comments.

So, as I said above, how you define success plays into this, so let us look at the next result. I did another poll asking how the attendees defined success. What is their primary goal for doing a launch. There are obviously going to be many beneficial aspects of launches, there is a kind of “halo effect” from doing a launch, but if you had to pick just one benefit, what would it be?

Boost your profits - A launch is a great way to get a cash injection, because you need the money or because of a new capital expenditure. When I decided to go to SXSW off my own back, I knew I didn’t need to worry about the unbudgeted trip because my little $10 guest posting guide launch had brought in way more than enough to cover everything from flights, hotel and pass through to all my expenses. Certainly makes getting stuff past the purchasing committee (wife) much easier!
Grow your list – Every time I do a launch my overall audience grows, but also you can use a focused launch to build a specific, targeted, segmented email list.
More customers – If you do not have paying customers then you are not in business. Growing your customer base is key to long term business success. You can launch services, events, or small products, show your value, then nurture that customer into a long term relationship.
Raise awareness – Launches bring a great deal of buzz and publicity, and each one is a good excuse for some publicity and hoopla if that is what you want to achieve. If you are releasing a book or other information product in order to achieve expert status and authority, then the awareness building aspects will be key.
Other - There are many other reasons, too many to list. For example, many times I will do a joint venture launch just because I think it would be cool to work with a particular person. Melani is a good example, another is Darren, who has such a hypnotic hold over me could probably persuade me to wrestle crocodiles.

What do you guess the results were from this one?

The top two results were “Profit Boost” (38%) and “More Customers” (33%), which I guess are the classic reasons for doing a launch. What I find interesting is, though these are excellent goals, we tend to overlook “Grow List” and “Raise Awareness” (14% apiece), but these goals are very good reasons for choosing to launch rather than just make an offer …

Could your business benefit from a good launch? What kind of profit boost could you use? Do you want to grow your audience or need more people on your list? Could you use more people knowing who you are and what you can offer?

What do you think?

So there you have it, the results of these polls might surprise you or might be exactly what you expected.

Fact is, Melani and I want to do something about that tiny 11% of people who have had successful launches. My grand goal with my business has always been to transform as many small businesses and startups as I can so more people can have a lifestyle like I enjoy. Bit too “warm and fuzzy” for ya? Well, there is the fact that unless you are making money you are not really in business too!

We positioned this course as a fraction of the price of all those guru products partly to make sure it is affordable for any business, and also, just like when Brian launched Teaching Sells, the first people in get the best deal. Next time we run this course, with all the case studies and testimonials under our belts, expect the price to go up

If all the ebooks and big honkin’ boxes of DVDs haven’t helped your launches, then it is time to take some actual action, get some guidance, and most importantly, do some successful launches!

Join Melani and I for the Mojo Marketing Action Plan – and, hey – look forward to working together

Go ahead and join us right now

Because your business needs and deserves a good launch

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Why People Fail

Chris Garrett — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:02:34 +0000

I have been putting a lot of thought into why some people succeed and others fail. It’s easy to put success down to luck or natural talent, but while there will always be an element of that, it does not seem to be “the answer”.

There seem to be some ingredients that a lot of folks miss. Education is important, but not in the formal qualification sense but more in the continuously learning sense. We tend though to focus just on the knowledge, there is a gap there that needs to be filled and that is where I think the big gains are made.

This has been on my mind since I started talking to Melani about the Mojo Marketing Action Plan coaching and course we are about to run as the entire project came out of a desire to give our customers the best possible tools to make sure they make progress and achieve their goals.

While this is going over in my mind, my wife asked me to join her to watch the latest “The Biggest Loser” on the telly. Now, my wife loves reality TV, but I have to believe there is also a not-so-subtle hint whenever she gets me to watch something where people take exercise, eat healthily, and lose weight. Uh-huh, message received, loud and clear.

This is the third season of the show we are now enjoying. This current show is the Australian version from last year, and I am watching every day, and I am starting to see trends in the people who succeed and who fall behind. Each factor I believe is reflected in life outside of fitness and weight loss.

Here are some key reasons why people fail, learned from watching the Biggest Loser:

Willingness – If you want to do anything unfamiliar or where you have previously failed, you need to be willing to accept advice and do what it takes. There are no silver bullets, be they diet pills or magic “million dollar copy and paste formulae”. Instead you have to do hard graft and initially see very few positive results. Not many people are willing to hear this, let alone put it into action, but it is true.
Lack of self-belief – When you are constantly telling yourself you can’t, couldn’t, don’t deserve, or whatever, then you get what you think. You either have to believe you can, or at least suspend disbelief! Once you start making progress, no matter how small, you can start believing what you set out to do is possible for you, so the sooner you get started the sooner you get some momentum.
Blamestorming – Constantly the contestants find all kinds of reasons for the situation they are in, or get into, but it always seems that it is only towards the end, when they have lost massive amounts of weight and gotten really healthy that they accept they were in the driving seat all along. They put the weight on, they lost it. Now if you look at the business world and around social media, how many people are using similar excuses. It’s not me, it is … fill in the blanks. Only you can do the things that are required to change your situation.
Sheep versus Shepherd - So you need to take advice, and take advice from the right people, but all too often we see people get taken in by people who do not have your best interests at heart. Over and over the “bad guy” contestants get their team mates to ignore their coaches, take the fall, do stupid stuff, gang up, or get stabbed in the back. Part of taking responsibility is knowing when you should be lead, when you should lead, and when to say “no”. Evaluate, ask questions, weigh options, trust but verify. Another way people fail with this is friends and family who give you permission to give up, encourage you to do self destructive things, and lead you back to bad habits. Remember people resist change, even when that change is good for you.
Execute – All the competitors on the Biggest Loser get the same advice and knowledge, but when left to their own divices many fall back into old patterns. Knowing is not enough. Having ability is not enough. That extra press up is not going to kill you. Writing one more article is not that difficult. It’s not just about duration but what you do in the time. One of my friends told me he had been writing a screenplay for the last two years, but later he admitted he had only written the outline and the first 25% of the pages in draft. How many ideas do you have waiting to be put into action? Thinking about it doesn’t get it done, you have to execute, even when it is uncomfortable. Especially when it is uncomfortable!
Closed mind – One thing that guarantees failure before you try is to decide that an idea is unfamiliar so it can’t possibly work. Your existing approach has not worked but that is a familiar concept so we will hold on to it and reject anything else as foreign, see how that works.
Over-competitive – A bit of healthy competition is good, it can lift the game for everyone, but sometimes it is taken to silly extremes. Last night’s episode saw a guy stab his own brother in the back for a reward. When it comes to future challenges, do you think he will get the full trust of all the other players? There is a difference between determination to succeed and needing to win at all costs, especially when it comes to the long-term game rather than the immediate battles.

Look over your successes (or lack of) and consider if any apply. I know there are times when I have given up too soon, switched and changed, blamed outside influences rather than look at my own input, etc. But on the flip side, when I have achieved what I set out to do I have had the right mind set and kept with it. Funnily enough just before writing this article I was on a client call and we worked out I had been writing for the web daily for 16 years. I might not be the world’s best writer but I have certainly stuck at it!

Critical Success Factors

Decide now – Make the decision, KNOW what you are going to do. As Yoda says, “Do, or do not … There is no try.”
Gather resources – Once you know what you are going to do, find out how to achieve that and gather what you need.
Staying power – Stick with it, and know in advance that you are going to give it your best shot.
Suck it up – When it gets tough, keep going.
Be good enough – You don’t have to be the best, just do good. Perfection is not necessary.
Be good – Another aspect of being good is being awesome to other people. Even the people who feel diminished by your success or hate that you are reaping rewards. Rise above it.
Progress – It’s ok to compete with others, it is essential to compete with yourself. Motivate yourself, benchmark your own progress. Do better than your personal best, then beat that.
Get coaches and partners – Some people manage to achieve great things in isolation, but most of us do better when coached and they have the support of team mates or partners.

As I said earlier, Melani and I have put a lot of this thinking into designing our new course to contain all the elements you need to make sure your next business, service, product or program launch is a success, but these elements are important to any project that you have in mind.

What do you think? Anything I have missed? Agree, disagree? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments …

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Chris Garrett on New Media

Feel the Fear and Launch Anyway

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What the Soylent Green Secret Means for Your Business

What is the Soylent Green Secret?

People Are YOUR Secret Ingredient

When People Are Your Point of Difference

Product Versus the People

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Mitch Meyerson Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars Interview

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7 Ways Social Media Helps With Business Networking

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#2: Pace

#3: Common Interests

#4: Shared Goals

#5: Sense of Connection

#6: Self Disclosure

#7: Community Cohesion

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1. Awareness and Ideas

2. Products and Teaching

3. Relationship Building

4. Profit and Income

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Claiming Your Independence – 5 Years of Business Lessons

State your intention.

Be prepared to grab the opportunity.

Know what you want to gain and what you want to escape.

Learn from your mistakes.

Are they clients or bosses?

Good news, bad news.

Two business models.

Effort vs Reward.

How I got from there to here – the big lessons.

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5 Reasons You Should Invest Your Time in Networking

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1. Friendship Benefits

2. Opportunities

3. Advice

4. Assistance

5. Positive Influence

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The #1 Habit of Effective Online Business Owners

You Can’t Make it on Your Own!

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Why Headway?

If you don’t want to code or pay someone else to, then I recommend Headway.