3 Sources of Grammar Inspiration

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

About once a week I amuse the grammar troops by torturing some aspect of the language in my writing. Hey, I don’t do it on purpose and I love that I’m able to provide an otherwise cuddly group of individuals with a steady flow of chuckles.

I’ve had this post in the back of my mind for some time, but I was prompted to write it today by a LinkedIn status update I saw yesterday. (Name of victim withheld) – “Excited to attend my first titter conference today.” In the always on, say what’s on your mind, send it, but you can’t take it back world we live in, we could all take a moment from LOLing. (This is not me throwing stones, I am definitely guilty.)

It’s funny how minor mistakes can slow down and even alter the meaning of something we write.

Here’s my A team, all-world, really bad typo story. I was working on an annual report for a very large non-profit agency. In the report there was a sentence that was to refer to the organization’s work and gifts on behalf of underserved families. However, the sentence actually spoke glowingly about their work and gifts given to undeserved families. Kind of different, oops.

I would love to hear your grammar and type horror stories. Seems like a good Friday outlet. Share them in the comments.

Here’s the list of resources I turn to whenever I get the urge to keep the grammar police at bay for a day.

Grammar Girl’s – Quick and Dirty Tips – Mignon Fogerty’s awesome podcast

Elements of Style – William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White – I like this illustrated version with Maira Kalman

Eats, Shoots & Leaves – The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss

Image credit: Loopzilla

Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing podcast with Nick Morgan (Click to listen, right click and Save As to download – subscribe now via iTunes

Trust – can’t get enough of that as a brand, business, or person these days. Everyone knows that, but what they may not know is that there are things each of is doing that may be unintentionally eroding trust – particularly when it comes to the topic of speaking and presenting.

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast Nick Morgan, author of Trust Me, talks about trust, authenticity and charisma and how anyone can use it to their advantage as a public speaker.

Charisma is a tricky thing, but I love his definition: The expression of emotion. It’s a tool that can be learned and practiced.

Pay close attention to his thoughts on using or not using PowerPoint.

Check out a recent blog post from Nick: 10 Commandments of Public Speaking

Nick Morgan shows how anyone can be an effective speaker by presenting an image of authenticity and respect for their audience, whether in a group presentation or a one-on-one conversation. He presents a four-step process, perfected in his teaching at Harvard, that enables the reader to use their own personal speaking style while becoming a more persuasive and charismatic communicator and leader.

The four steps of Nick’s system
1) Openness
2) Connection
3) Passion
4) Listening

Social Media Training Course Beta Testers Needed

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

This whole social media thing for small business can be confusing, I know, I speak to groups of small business owner routinely and hear things like – “I’m overwhelmed, I’m tired of the hype, what do I do first, how do I find the time.”

Update: The good news is a lot of people really want to beta test this program – over 125 left comments for the 10 spots, but I guess that’s the bad news too. Here’s what I’ve decided to do – I will choose 20 beta testers based on comments and offer a smokin hot deal to the other 105 who took the time to participate. (comments are now closed) This course is one of the ways I put my kids through college so please appreciate the it’s worth way more than I’m going to charge.

If you’ve ever found yourself saying something along those lines, I would like to let you know that I’ve taken the practical strategies and tactics I use and teach to help people create a social media system and turned them into a five session course I call – Social Media Pro.

The course is not really ready to go yet. I mean, it’s ready, but I’m not sure I’m ready. I would first like to recruit 10 beta testers to go through the entire online program and give me feedback and reviews to help me understand if the course delivers the results I’m hoping for - a small business owner building an entire social media system that allows them to effectively market their business without going crazy.

The program consists of five online tutorials backed with 38 videos that show you step by step how to do every action described in the lessons. The course is delivered sequentially over a five week period so you can focus on one lesson and set of action steps per week without becoming overwhelmed.

The course breaks down like this

• Session One – Creating a Social Media Strategy
• Session Two – Optimizing Brand Assets
• Session Three – Blogging for Business
• Session Four – Social Networking and Networks
• Session Five – Managing the Beast

You can check out the full course details here, but there’s noting to buy, so come back and read the rest of this post if you are interested in the program.

If you would like to be a beta tester I need you to leave a comment in this post describing a) your greatest frustration with implementing social media or b) the single most important thing you would hope to get from a course like this.

In addition, if chosen you will need to pay $1 and agree to complete the action steps at the end of each lesson and provide feedback on what works or what’s missing and report on the tactics you’ve implemented as a result of the course. (Thoughtful, passionate, and creative responses will be most rewarded.)

Deal? Leave your comment.

Image credit: Damien Basile

Biznik Blends High Tech with High Touch

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Fortunately, it’s starting to feel like the wave of social media hype has crested and small businesses can turn their attention to understanding social media “best practices” rather than obsessing over next week’s new tool.

Today’s greatest small business opportunity awaits those who learn to skillfully blend the awareness creating, automating, and filtering aspects of social media platforms with the trust and customer building aspects of education based, face-to-face networking.

Seattle based social media upstart Biznik (well, compared to the likes of Facebook or LinkedIn) has positioned itself as this new breed of network tool. Biznik’s primary target is small business owners and, while they have plenty of real estate to tap, it’s primary objective is to build a social network that combines the best of an online platform with localized community events and human contact.

On a the platform side the tool allows you to effectively build a profile (here’s mine), post articles, invite members to become a part of your network, join and create groups around community or themes, and create and promote local events. (More on this)

On the harder to quantify side, the quality of engagement in this network far outstrips anything I’ve seen and been a part of in other networks. This comes through loud and clear in things like article comments and messages to new members. In some ways, this would be enough to make Biznik a winner for the small business, but it’s the tip of the iceberg, I think, for people who drill down into this a bit.

The fact that Biznik has also created an event platform that is geographically driven presents an unique opportunity. So, now if you want to create a Feed Your Mind Networking Breakfast, like Jesse Wolfram in Mill Creek Washington does, you’ve got a targeted network and a ready made platform. I think it might be one of the best way to optimize social networking and traditional business building

I visited with Biznik co-founder Dan McComb for an upcoming episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast (Dan acts as the online editor while his spouse and co-founder, Lara Feltin, acts as CEO) and Dan confessed that the organization’s West Coast roots led to lots of natural growth in communities like Seattle and Portland, but that there is tremendous opportunity for growth elsewhere. To me this is a platform ripe for community leaders.

While Facebook and LinkedIn are grabbing headlines and remain great places to build business, I think small business folks should join Biznik and start building there as well.

Weekend Favs October Thirty-One

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

I’ve added a weekend post routine that I hope you enjoy. Each weekend I write a post that features 3-4 things I read during the week that I found interesting. Generally speaking it doesn’t involve much analysis and may range widely in topic. (Flickr image included here is also fav image of the week)

Enjoy!

Good stuff I ran across this week:
Twitter Gallery - Nice collection of free twitter backgrounds. This is an asset that should be branded, but at least dress it up a bit.

KnowEm – Search over 340 popular social media networks to instantly secure your brand across the social web. Recently added some features, including a paid option to register you.

Reel Director (warning iTunes link) – Fairly robust video editing app for the iPhone 3Gs

Image credit: katjung

Blogging Plugin Adds Rich Mutli-Media Content

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

There are a few plugins and services out there for blogs that automatically create links to content on the web. Some of these tools, such as Chitika are simply ways to monetize content and traffic by showing pop-up ads related to contextual text and others, such as Snap show popups when readers hover over certain types of linked content.

Personally, while I like the idea of adding content that makes posts richer, I find both of these solutions annoying and self-serving – the added content in really just advertising that benefits the blogger and not the reader. Now, I have nothing against the bloggers out there making a living, but the main content area is a bit sacred and annoying popups don’t do much to keep it that way.

Recently, I came across what I think is a great solution that offers something I can only refer to as “useful popups”. Apture is a tool that installs inside of WordPress as a plugin (there are other versions too) and gives you an incredible library of videos, audios, images and text to draw from by hand to create pop-up links or embeds right into the post. So now when you write about a topic you can offer a multi-media smorgasbord of related content that helps tells the story – all from within WordPress.

The Apture interface is very slick and gives the blogger the ability to bring content like YouTube videos, NPR interviews, Wikipedia entries and Slideshare presentations right into each post. You can resize embeds by dragging them to the proper size and even create multiple links for a given phrase.

Here are a couple examples of Apture in action. (Click or hover on the links to see the added content)

Recently, I had David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, as a guest on my podcast. In the show notes I was also able to offer a useful popup of a video of David demonstrating some of what we discussed. Of course I could also offer David presenting at a conference or an overview of his latest book – Making It All Work.

None of this content is ad supported, it contributes, I believe, to the reader experience, and it takes about two seconds to find and embed. A win for all.

Here’s an example of multiple links using the Duct Tape Marketing book as the search term.

The idea of popups being useful might take some people time to get their head around, but the possibilities to enhance content with Apture are pretty intriguing.

5 Tips for Getting More Leads from Speaking

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

A lot of folks dream of being a sought after, highly paid speaker (some people wet themselves at the thought of it as well.) But, in this education based marketing environment we find ourselves in today, speaking for leads may be the best approach ever.

Getting up in front of a highly targeted, interested group of prospects and demonstrating for 45 minutes or so that, you’re not only a very likable chap, you know a heck of a lot about something they need, is today’s most effective form of lead generation and conversion all rolled into one.

So forget the paid speaking career for now and start speaking for leads. Let’s say you sell a pretty standard $4,000 web design package. Would you be better off charging a sponsor group $2,500 to share your brilliance or speaking for free and walking away with 20 hot prospects that eventually convert to 6 immediate design engagements? (I’ll do the math – that’s $24,000) Any business, regardless of industry, can benefit from this approach.

Here are 5 tips to keep in mind to make your free speaking career pay off big.

1) Get referred

You can create your own workshop events, but one of my favorite strategies is to approach two potential groups and offer to present great information to their clients and networks. The key here is that you have a topic that is very hot and seen as very valuable. This is not a sales presentation, it’s an education and value add tool. Approach your two partners with the idea that you’ll present a great topic, they offer it to their customers, and they get to cross promote to each others attendees as part of the deal. You simply get referred in as the expert. (Every time you do this you will get asked to speak at an event one of the attendees is involved with as well.)

2) Make a deal with the sponsor

You are a highly sought after speaker willing to waive your fee only if they permit your to elegantly reveal that there is a way for attendees to acquire your products and services and that you will also be offering some free stuff in exchange for contact information of those interested in the free stuff. Make it known that you have no intention of selling, merely informing. This approach raises the value of your presentation and gets you what you need as a lead generation opportunity. This can be a deal breaker for you or the sponsor. If you over promote, don’t expect to get asked back, if they won’t allow you to acquire leads, don’t bother.

3) Educate like crazy

Don’t be afraid to give away all of your secrets. Some folks suggest you should just tell them what they need, but not how to get it done. I don’t agree. If you tell them how, some may think they can do it themselves, but those who really want what you have will realize through your specific details, how tos, and examples that you do indeed possess the knowledge and tools to help them get what they want. Educate and you won’t have to sell!

4) Collect those addresses

In some cases people will rush up to you after a thought provoking presentation and ask how they can buy, but, in case they don’t, make sure you give all attendees a valuable reason to share their contact information for the purpose of follow-up. You can offer them the slides to your presentation, a free resource guide related to your topic, or a more detailed report based on the topic, in exchange for business cards. If you don’t have this preplanned you’ll find you won’t get a second chance to wow these folks. Of course, I hope it goes without saying that you should also have a follow-up process. Write a hand-written note, add them into a pre-written drip email campaign on the topic, or call them up after the event to measure their engagement.

5) Simple call to action

When I first starting speaking in the manner I’ve described here, I would pour my heart out, mindful of not selling, and then come to the end and there would be this awkward moment when I knew people wanted to buy something, but I didn’t have an offer. Well, I quickly learned that didn’t serve either of us very well. If you provide great information and a clear road map to solve someone’s problems, you’ll often find them wanting you to reveal how they could take the next step. But here’s the key – in that environment, they want a deal for acting right now. Not every audience or speaking engagement will present this opportunity, but I’ve found that in a straight free speaking gig, where I’ve been given permission to introduce my products and services, this 3-step approach is well received.

a)tell your audience right up front you’re going to give them great information and tell them at the end about what you do

b) about half way through, after you’ve built some trust, take a quick minute to reveal, for instance, a paid workshop or program you have coming up, tell them the price and go on

c) at the end answer questions, make free offers, and, almost as an afterthought, agree to let them also bring a friend to the event you mentioned at the same price if they sign-up today. (You’ve just made the event half price in their mind, turned them into a recruiter, and given your potential attendee a valuable tool to offer to a friend or colleague) So, all of a sudden, anyone considering the offer is now highly motivated by this compelling change of events. Don’t hard sell this, simply put it out there and let people do the math. Don’t risk tainting your wonderful information with a sales pitch, but don’t leave those who want to buy without an option either.

Make sure you also read Cliff Atkinson’s awesome book – Beyond Bullet Points. It’s one of best on helping structure and create presentations that keep people interested and engaged.

Image credit: jwyg

David Allen on Getting It All Done

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing podcast with David Allen (Click to listen, right click and Save As to download – subscribe now via iTunes

Getting all the stuff you’ve got to manage done as a business owner, might be the greatest challenge of all. Then of course all the new social media stuff comes along and the job of managing it all just got tougher. It seems, to some at least, that monitoring, managing, engaging and following is a full time job.

I’ve always been a big fan of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD), but I think we may need his simple system for collecting, doing, delegating and deferring more than ever.

I spent a few minutes chatting with David for this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast and if you’re one of those feeling a little overwhelmed these days I suggest you start with by grabbing Getting Things Done and then work your way up to his latest – Making It All Work. You can get David’s products and books at his Davidco site

There are so many layers to David’s work that I have found people who have changed their lives by adhering to the “2 minutes or less” principle while others have developed a deep sense of vision for their business because they’ve cleared the clutter for the first time.

In this podcast we cover:

• Components of the GTD system
• Tools for GTD
• Using the GTD system in an organization
• De-cluttering to move forward
• About Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life
• How to get involved with GTD