How to Live Your Passion and Wildly Succeed

"Anything insane has a price. If you're serious about building your personal brand, there will be no time for Wii. There will be no time for Scrabble or book club or hockey. There will be time for meals, and catching up with your significant other, and playing with the kids,  and otherwise you will be in front of the computer until 3:00AM every night. If you're unemployed or retired and have all day to work, maybe you knock off at midnight instead. Expect this to be all consuming."

- Gary Vaynerchuk, Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion

Gary also mentions you are going to enjoy it, as you'll be living your passion. He should know, he's living his passion, getting quite wealthy, and obviously having a blast.

His book is HIGHLY recommended!

5 Reasons Not to Blog

In a recent teleclass with Dianna Huff called "Is a Blog Right for You" we discussed 5 reasons NOT to blog. We went over a lot more info too, available on the recording and in the transcript, but these 5 reasons are pretty important!

The teleclass is focused on B2B (business to business) blogging, but 95+% applies to all blogs.

Drum roll please . . .

1) You just want to dive in.

If you're not familiar with blogs -- you shouldn't just "dive it! Take at LEAST a couple of weeks to read blogs in your area and get a feeling for them.

You can find blogs in your area with the blog search engines like Technorati.

2) You are not passionate on the topic.

If you don't care a lot, why should anyone else? If you have passion, it's going to show in your writing. If you don't, you can only fake it so long,and you'll probably get bored anyways, which doesn't help make an exciting and successful blog.

3) No one is willing to commit!

Most blogs are written primarily by one person, and that one person (you?) needs to commit to blogging long term. Sure you might quit after a few months saying it's not for me,  but you need to give it a serious attempt for at least a few months.

I also see more and more multi-author blogs where no one has taken or assumed ownership. Multi-author blogs can be great, but someone needs to be in charge and champion the blog.

4) It’s impossible to write the blog yourself without interference from others.

This is primarily a problem in organizations. Imagine if every post needed to be approved by legal and marketing!

I have a friend, an independent consultant, who had the same problem -- his biggest client wanted to see his posts before they were published.

Sorry folks, this doesn't work. You may end up with a smooth and polished marketing piece, but not a conversation blog, and it WILL show and experience shows time and time again that this just doesn't cut it!

An example was the Captain Morgan blog based on Captain Morgan Rum. Captain Morgan doesn’t exist, but I guess that’s okay. The blog was a sort of fun, lighthearted thing. They had the -- I think they called them the “Morganettes” -- which are essentially college-age scantily clad women, supposedly all submitting blog posts. All the posts were written as though the Morganettes were literary scholars, and perhaps some of them, were but the blog got a lot of ridicule and essentially didn’t work. A lot of people noticed and made fun of it and it had a negative effect.

5) It's a checklist item -- perhaps "The boss said we need to start a blog" or we think we "need to add it to the marketing mix."

This always fails -- no surprise!

Much more in my teleclass with Internet Hall of Famer Dianna Huff "Is a Blog Right for You"

Reporter vs Expert - Why Most Bloggers Are Stuck Reporting

There are basically two types of bloggers in the world - reporters and experts - and some people perform both roles (usually the experts, it’s hard for reporters to become experts, but it’s easy for experts to report).

If you have ever taken an Internet marketing course or attended a seminar specifically for beginners, you have probably heard about the two different methodologies. Whenever the business model is based on content, and if you blog for money then the model is based on content, people are taught to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.

I’ll be frank; you want to be the expert.

Reporters leverage the content of the experts and in most cases people start off as reporters because they haven’t established expertise. Experts enjoy the perks of preeminence, higher conversion rates because of perceived value, it’s easier to get publicity, people are more likely to seek you out rather than you having to seek others out, joint ventures come easier, etc… experts in most cases simply make more money and attract more attention.

Most Bloggers Are Reporters

The thing with expertise is that it requires something - experience. No person becomes an expert without doing things and learning. Bloggers usually start out without expertise and as a result begin their blogging journey by talking about everything going on in their niche (reporting) and by interviewing and talking about other experts (reporting again).

There’s nothing wrong with reporting of course and for many people it’s a necessity at first until you build up some expertise. Unfortunately the ratios are pretty skewed when it comes to reporters and experts - there are a lot more reporters than there are experts, hence reporters tend to struggle to gain attention and when they do, they often just enhance the reputation of the expert they are reporting on.

Don’t Replicate Your Teacher

If you have ever spent some time browsing products in the learn Internet marketing niche you will notice a pattern. Many people first study Internet marketing from a “guru” (for lack of a better term). The guru teaches how he or she is able to make money online, and very often the view that the student gleams is that in order to make money online you have to teach others how to make money online.

The end result of this process is a huge army of amateurs attempting to replicate what their teacher does in the same industry - the Internet marketing industry - not realizing that without expert status based on a proven record and all the perks that come with it, it’s next to impossible to succeed.

Even people, who enjoy marginal success, say for example growing an email list of 1,000 people, then go out and launch a product about how to grow an email list of 1,000 people. Now I have no problems with that, I think it’s fine to teach beginners and leverage whatever achievements you have, the problem is that people gravitate to the same niche - Internet marketing - and rarely have any key points of differentiation.

How many products out there do you know of that all claim to teach the same things - email marketing, SEO, pay per click, affiliate marketing, and all the sub-niches that fall under the category of Internet marketing. It’s a saturated market, yet when you see your teachers and other gurus making money teaching others how to make money (and let’s face it - making money as a subject is one of the most compelling) - your natural inclination is to follow in their footsteps.

If the key is to become an expert and you haven’t spent the last 5-10 years making money online, I suggest you look for another niche to establish expertise in.

Report on Your Process, Not Others

The secret to progress from reporter to expert is not to focus on other experts and instead report on your own journey. When you are learning how to do something and implementing things day by day, or studying other people’s work, you need to take your process and what you do as a result of what you learn, and use it as content for your blog.

It’s okay to talk about experts when you learn something from them, but always relate it to what you are doing. If you learn a technique from an expert it’s fine to state you learned it from them (and affiliate link to their product too!) but you should then take that technique, apply it to what you are doing and then report back YOUR results, not there’s. Frame things using your opinion - your stories - and don’t regurgitate what the expert said. The key is differentiation and personality, not replication.

Expertise comes from doing things most people don’t do and then talking about it. If you do this often enough you wake up one day as an expert, possibly without even realizing how it happened, simply because you were so good at reporting what you did.

You Are Already An Expert

Most people fail to become experts (or perceived as experts) because they don’t leverage what they already know. Every person who lives a life learns things as they go, takes action every day and knows something about something. The reason why they never become an expert is because they choose not to (which is fine for some, not everyone wants to be an expert), but if your goal is to blog your way to expertise and leave the world of reporting behind you have to start teaching and doing so by leveraging real experience.

Experience can come from what you do today and what you have done previously; you just need to take enough steps to demonstrate what you already know and what you are presently learning along your journey. I know so many people in my life, who are experts simply by virtue of the life they have lived, yet they are so insecure about what they know, they never commit their knowledge to words for fear of…well fear.

Blogs and the Web in general, are amazing resources when you leverage them as a communication tool to spread your expertise because of the sheer scope of people they can reach. If all you ever do is talk to people in person and share your experience using limited communication mediums, you haven’t much hope of becoming an expert. Take what you know and show other people through blogging, and you might be surprised how people change their perception of you in time.

Reporting Is A Stepping Stone

If your previous experience and expertise is from an area you want to leave behind or you are starting from “scratch”, then reporting is the path you must walk, at least for the short term.

Reporting is a lot of fun. Interviewing experts, talking about what other people are doing and just being part of a community is not a bad way to blog. In many cases people make a career of reporting (journalism is about just that), but if you truly want success and exponential results, at some point you will have to stand up and proclaim yourself as someone unusually good at something and then proceed to demonstrate it over and over again.

Have patience and focus on what you do to learn and then translate that experience into lessons for others, and remember, it’s okay to be a big fish in a small pond, that’s all most experts really are.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:

www.BlogMastermind.com

How to Sell Blogging to your CEO and Clients

How to Sell Blogging to your CEO and Clients, my slides from my talk for Search Engine Marketing New England are now online.

It was a lot of fun with a great group who keep me there until the end asking some very good questions.
I'll be attending more SEMNE events, assuming I've ever home! The talk was the only week out of the recent six I've been home. Traveling, speaking, and consulting on information lately (and having a blast, although I miss my 3 kids, wife, and dog too).

Topics included:
    * What are the characteristics of the most successful blogs?
    * What distinguishes the successful from unsuccessful blogs?
    * How to present the case for blogs and other social media to management.
    * How to handle the Return On Investment (ROI) issue.
    * How to present ‘baby steps’ to management; simple measures that show results.

Click to Download Here

Is Your Blog a Failure?

I always recommend planning before starting a blog, and that planning includes (written) goals.

What if you don't reach your goals, not even remotely? Is your blog and your blogging a failure?

With my first blog, The Ted Rap, I had two goals: experimenting with the medium, and repositioning myself as a consultant who understood both technology and business instead of just a techie. Now I suceeded, but what if I failed at reaching those goals?

Well, I did get a book contract due to my first blog, it definitely helped sell speeches and consulting, increased my client base, was very effectively with networking, increased my Internet footprint, and more.

A blog can be an ENORMOUS success even if it doesn't read it goals!

Buzzoodle Ron has a great list of things a blog will help the probably of happening:

• Write a book - Eventually you get used to writing and have a lot of material to draw from, so writing a book becomes a no-brainer.
• Sell products - As you build an audience, it is easy to recommend products you know they will like and earn a commission.
• Speaking - Before hiring a speaker, many event planners read the blog of a potential speaker to make sure they fit the need.
• Add clients - No matter what you are doing, you can add clients via blogging because your blog increased search engine results and it increases relationships.
• Build Community - Depending on your topic, your blog can become the center of a community on a particular topic.
• Advertising Income - As a blog becomes a respected resource, you will get offers from people that want to advertise on the site.
• Interviews - Your blogging increases your visibility, and you become an attractive person for interviews.
• Reviews - Writing reviews means you will get free stuff - like books, sent to you regularly.
• Moral Support - Blogger’s are great at helping each other out and offering moral support.  It is a strong community of people that really care.
• Improved Communication - You may just want to be a better communicator and blogging is a great way to organize your thoughts and improve your writing skills.

Click to read Ron's complete post

Hmmm, success on all ten for me!

Can Blogging get you Press?

Can Blogging get you Press? Can it get you attention from the mainstream media? How do you do it?

The answer of course is yes, absolutely, you can get press, and you don't need to be an uber-blogger or even blog daily/weekly/etc.

Now I get press, but sometimes it's unclear whether I'm contacted because of my blog or my books, however plenty of bloggers ARE contacted by the mainstream media because of what they write on their blogs.

Stephen Turcotte, who only blogs every month or so, has quite a bit of success getting media coverage as he writes in How Blogging Can Get You Press Coverage.

His tips for success? Simple. In his words, He takes:

questions that I was hearing over and over again from my target audience and tried to offer my own insight and perspective on the matter. I laid it out there and cited a few related posts that helped make my point. Days, months or years later a journalist does a search in Google, finds my post and says here’s a person that will give me a good quote or two. I made their job very easy.

Journalists are overloaded and always under deadlines. They use search engines a lot for research. Make their jobs simple, and they'll love to quite you and give you visibility.

And if no one notices? Well, you can still claim, as I do, to have been quoted by USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe and even Pizza Marketplace Today :)

Who cares? Well, people considering hiring me or buying my products.

Press helps creates expert status and makes you more credible -- it's that simple.

Blogging My Way Through A Plateau

Another great guest post by Shawn Chambers, a passionate plastics blogger who is having great success, and fun, blogging. In his own words:

Thanks to Ted Demopoulos' coaching, I've achieved the #1 traffic position in our industry in 16 weeks with about 16,000 articles read. But, numbers don't mean as much as they used to. In fact, they don't mean much at all, anymore. It seems I've hit my peak. I've hit the stride. I've found the pace. 300-400 articles read a day with a ratio of articles-available to articles-read of about 1:1.  There's no noticeable anomaly whether I add 1 article or 10.

It's to the point where I go out looking for new material and I trip over my own blog entries.
Reader Comments? 5 in 10,000 articles read and 3 of those were people berating me for copying their content without their consent. But, I have accumulated over 1,500 spam comments. Do they count as traffic?

I met with our Yellow Pages rep this week and she couldn't fathom how a blog is generating more traffic than their website referral program for which we pay a considerable monthly sum. In fact, she didn't really know what a blog is nor how it can benefit a firm - and here's a person in the business of corporate communications!

We've used SurveyMonkey.com to try and build a demographic. Most readers are in the business. Most are researching a topic. Most rate us as interesting. Many think the blog is a website and criticize us for not having more specific web pages like other websites. It's a business blog.

At the end of the day are we seeing a conversion of interest into sales? Still don't know. There's no question that we are
benefiting in both hard and soft profits but measuring return on the investment is still a challenge.

What is the continual investment? On 300 articles it takes about an hour a day to keep the thing looking and feeling fresh - so, it's not really a lot of work anymore. The challenge now appears to be maintaining my own excitement in making the blog exciting for other people. There's still lots of great content ideas out there but I'm supposed to be generating $ALE$ along with awareness. One has to pay for the other.

But, enough whining... when the blogging gets boring the bored get blogging, right...
Blog on!

What Are You Trying to Accomplish Today?

So, what did you accomplish today? Anything towards achieving your goals?

Or were you stupidly busy with email, the telephone, maybe a blog post, some research nearly aimless surfing, etc? Some days are bound to be that way, but . . .

To reach your goals in blogging, business, life, anything, you need to concentrate on tasks that lead to success. Not vague tasks, but more like "what are you going to accomplish today."

Rich Schefren says in much better in his post What Are You Trying to Accomplish Today?

Small Business: Blog it and they may come

The Wall Street Journal online has a great article called Blog It And They May Come aimed at small businesses.

It's a very problog article which basically states that blogging works, it's not quick or fast, and it takes time.

• Now I had some very quick wins when I started blogging, but no one can count on that. Like with any other guerrilla marketing, it takes time -- give it at least 6 months to  year.
• Blogging does take time. Yes, for a professional much of the time spent would be spent anyways keeping up with their profession, but the writing does take time.

So, it works, although not overnight, and it takes time. If you enjoy blogging as a great many do, and you'll never know if you don't try, it can be a no-brainer.

The article mentions my SANS Institute colleague Jonathan Ham, who has just started blogging -- on his terms. He blogs when and if he wants, and has some great posts in his subject area, information security. Congrats Jonathan. Great example of a new small biz blog!

Biz Blogs: Feed the hunger for the uncertain

Shawn Chambers is a passionate plastics blogger having great success, and fun, blogging. Here is his 7 week blogging report. This dude is inspiring!

I'm about to hit 3,000 visitors able to draw from a pool of over 100 blog articles - and all in only 7 weeks.

For a newbie at all this I'm pretty thrilled with the results, especially with such a narrow scope of content - plastic sheet, rod, & tube. There's no question that our website refers a handful of people to the blog and that there is a lot of random stumblings - but facts are facts, I've impressed our brand onto a reader 3,000 times. With enough content for even a seasoned industry veteran to keep busy with, I'm in a unique position to experiment with fishing lures I might not have otherwise tried out. 

Using the analytics which tell me where people are coming from and what keywords they're using to find me, I'm now broadening the scope of my content focusing on the popular words and phrases that may not have necessarily been my first choice -- sometimes it's just cool to see just how many fish you can land on your boat (kind of like a catch-and-release sport).