The other day, I heard someone on a mainstream pop radio station referring to the information in his newly revised book as “content”. “More content than ever before!” I gasped, “‘Content’ has reached the masses!” and my husband stared at me.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about content a lot lately. We talk about it, complain about it, strive to produce more of it. Because that’s what brings the shiny new people and helps them to love us. And we love love.

A lot of the questions that I get revolve around content. People complaining, “But I don’t want to blog, I just want people to love me and buy from me. How much does that cost?”

Errrm. It costs whatever it costs to hire someone to produce amazing content for you. Information is the pony on this carousel. People don’t want to hear all about you, you, you. “We have been in business for 400 years! We sell cheese fries that are delicious!” Who cares? But man, I bet they’d love your cheese fry recipe. And your hilarious video entitled “How to eat cheese fries while standing on your head”.

That’s content. That’s why I emphatically recommend a content-driven website strategy. For anyone, everyone, and yes, even you.

But uggggh…I don’t want to BLOG!

It’s not about blogging. That’s why I don’t use the term. It’s content. Think about all the different types of content that you encounter on a daily basis. Actually, why don’t you step on over to my chalkboard so I can show you a few of the types of written content that there are in the world. (This isn’t even including other types of media…just written for now).

Yowza, right? So forget blogging. If you don’t want to blog, don’t blog, ever. Brainstorm what kind of amazing content fits in with your business…whether you’re a retailer, a service provider, a public speaker, or part of a juggling circus. And then publish it consistently.

And bloggers who are thinking “Umm…yeah. Obviously content is the main thing. I knew that in 2005.” I challenge you (and me) to reach outside of how you’ve previously defined your content. “Content” does not have to equal “blog post”. Or, more clearly, “blog post” does not have to equal “list of things I think everyone should do because I’m doing it” or “[fill in the blank with some sort of technology that we love] is dead” or “rant about my mother-in-law’s cooking” (although you know how I love food analogies).

P.S. You know I gotsta remind you that the early-bird pricing for our Gold-Digging Excursion is ending soon. Don’t forget to put your registration pants on and sign up before the deadline!

I love old people. There’s a lot of freedom that comes with the experience of living for a long, long time. It’s fascinating how time changes us.

Web design is notorious for changing every 5 minutes. But there are some principles of effective web strategy that I’m still going to be rallying around when I’m 92 (unless we’re using pure telepathy by then; in that case I would hand my mic over to the dude with the shiny purple turban).

1. Effective web design is not nearly as much about aesthetics as it is about achieving a desired result. Design for design’s sake does not work on the web. If your goal is to impress the ten people who end up somehow finding your award-winning site, bravo. You did it.

   But I’m betting you had different reasons for wanting a fabulous-looking site. Things like building up a list of people who adore you. Getting email inquiries by the bucketful. Selling your incredible creations to people who appreciate them deeply. Remember: A pretty site does not a successful online venture make. (Although ugly is definitely worse.)

2. The most effective web strategies are the result of a first creation. Back in the day when Stephen Covey was the only productivity guru I’d ever heard of, I used to mull over his idea of the first creation — this idea that everything involves not one, but two creations. The first being the intentional in-your-brain/on-paper creation that determines the second actual/in-real-life creation. Remember: A lack of the first always leads to a lack in the second.
3. Today’s never-fail attention-grabbing strategy is tomorrow’s invisible dog. My childhood best friend (whose name was/is also Sarah, resulting in me being called “Sarah Joy” for the second six years of my life) used to have one of those leashes that had an invisible dog on the end of it. I thought that was the coolest thing. And that’s what your web strategy looks like if you’re doing the same things you were doing a year or two ago. Except not as cool. Remember: Keeping people’s attention requires constant innovation. No laurel-resting allowed.
4. If you’re noticing that everybody’s using a particular strategy, it’s probably on the down-swing. Web strategy needs to be constantly applied in new ways that run against-the-current. They must be tailored to you and your particular brand of awesome. Most busy online entrepreneurs simply adapt what others are doing and call that their strategy. And while that may work for a while, the results will be a watered-down version of what you could be achieving. Remember: While there are tricks and principles to tattoo in your brain, there are no cookie-cutter solutions.
5. The most successful and enterprising people online make themselves their own best client and customer. Hat tip to Men With Pens for talking about this yesterday. When your business explodes, it’s really hard to keep this in the forefront of your business practice. If anyone knows this, it’s me. But it’s got to be said…hiring strong people to help you is better than crippling your growth. Remember: If you put your business’ oxygen mask on first, you will be better able to serve the world. And oh yeah, define life on your own terms.

These are the reasons I’m launching the Gold-Digging Excursion today. Because there’s something missing in our web presence — it’s the first creation, the strategy. It’s the know-how to actually make our dreams come true. I want you to be equipped throughout your online adventure to make stuff happen in a big way. (And also…gold mining! How fun is that?!)

So I’m betting you’re wondering where I was yesterday, right? Oh, it didn’t even cross your mind? Well, I’m going to pretend that it did.

The morning started off bad, got worse, and then spit in my face at the end of the day. I keep telling myself that it’s only February, and even pirate queens get cranky this time of year. What more can I expect?

So to make myself feel better, I’m going to show you a glimpse of my under-the-sheets project. That I’ve been working on since September. And then give you an opportunity to get on the pre-launch daisychain so that you’ll be the first to know when I’m opening the doors (because that’s what the pre-launch daisychain is for, y’know? That and seeing more sneaky-peeks before it’s unveiled to the public).

Just a glimpse, okay? I haven’t even shown this to my dad, and that’s saying something.

Oh yes. And here’s the link to the daisychain (or you can click on the image itself). If you’re already subscribed for yummies, you’re not already on the daisychain. It’s a separate thing.

I feel better already.

This is the first part of a series on rocking your audience at whatever stage you’re at. As we go through each stage, I’d love to discuss it like crazy and do some q&a before moving on to the next one. So got comments? Leave ‘em. I’ll be adding everyone who participates to the Twitter list so that we can keep up with each other.

Everyone wants a community to be built right into their website. Because what’s a stage without an audience? Community = more content and more usefulness to your users. It also means credibility, which leads to more sales and/or opportunities to work with really cool people. Community also makes your site stickier so that your audience will grow even faster. In a nutshell, yay community!

But building a community takes a lot of work. And t-i-m-e. It doesn’t hurt to have a good dose of luck thrown in either.

We all want this growth to happen super-fast. Some of us don’t have the time, money, or patience to burn while we wait for our audience to gather strength. But every healthy site goes through growth stages of community, so we might as well be prepared for them.

The Peanut Stage: My site looks more like a ghost town than a party

If your site is strategically well-developed, it will only be a matter of time before this stage is a thing of the past. But while you’re in it, it seems like forever. When will people start leaving comments? When will I get past 25 subscribers? Le sigh.

Stuff to do while you’re in this stage

• Make the most of the credibility that you do have. While you may not have a force of people proving to others that you are awesome, you ARE awesome. Let that awesomeness shine through your amazing content, packages, and samples of work that you’ve done in the past. (Haven’t done any work yet? Kelly Parkinson’s got some ideas for rocking out case studies when you don’t have results yet.)

  Show your work to its best advantage. Write stuff that doesn’t need others vouching for it for people to realize that it’s golden. Stick to your publishing schedule. In other words, do your thang as if 10,000 people were watching.

• Offer your services. Surely you can do something for people, even if your long-term goal is to sell products. You need lots of bodies in the door before your products start to sell enough to support you, your family, and your three dogs. You need a much smaller audience to successfully make a living selling your services.
• Tweet it up. Even if you’re a local business and people in your scene haven’t caught onto Twitter yet, start now. You’ve got the time after all. And when you’re way too busy to worry about things like getting followers, you’ll thank your savvy self.

  Even if you’re not set up to offer products or services to the people on Twitter, their comments and sharing of your amazing stuff will be invaluable for your credibility and future reach. I do not care what industry you are in. Social proof is a powerful thing. Much of the time, it is the thing that makes the difference.

• If you ever plan on writing a book or developing products, start now. Once you’ve amassed your audience, it will be harder and harder to find time to work on long-term, non-urgent goals. Not just setting them, but putting the practical legwork in to reach them. Work a little on these goals each day in your gallons of free time.

What NOT to do in this stage

• Don’t advertise yourself as part of the lonely hearts club. If no one comments, stop mentioning the fact. It’s quite likely that people won’t even be looking at your comment numbers if you aren’t constantly saying “Please, PLEASE comment so that I don’t look like such a loser!” Or “To all of my wonderful readers (who, at last count, totaled 3)”. Self-deprecatingly funny, sure. But not worth mentioning. (Don’t ask me how I know this.)
• Don’t build a forum or social-networking functionality. Forums and social networking features work best when they naturally extend from the desires and goals of a thriving community. If you build it when your community is small, it will earn the reputation of sucking before it even has a chance to thrive.
• Don’t do giveaways or contests. Yes, the point of a giveaway is to attract more readers. But you need at least an inkling of a community before a giveaway or contest will be successful. The last thing you want to do is offer up a fantastic prize and only receive 10 entries. Don’t do this to yourself unless some A-list blogger has written a pact in blood to promote your contest for you.
• Don’t despair. If your goal is to work for yourself full time, you probably need less of an audience than you think. As I mentioned before, service-based businesses do not need an audience of thousands to thrive. If you’re selling products, start brainstorming how you could supplement them with a service until you’ve got a large enough audience to support your e-commerce endeavors.

If you’re in the peanut stage (or have…ahem…a “friend” who is), what are you struggling with right now? If you’re past that stage, what helped you get where you are? Questions? Comments? Pie? (Mmm…pie.)

During the time that I like to call “the week of the dead” — when comments were broken, posts could not be uploaded, and everyone thought I dropped off the food chain — I got a bunch of emails. A bunch bunch. Lots of questions about some of the stuff I’ve written recently.

Havana was one of the people who tried to leave a comment, but was thwarted (sorry, Havana). Referring to this post, she said:

Found you through the fabulous Danielle Porte. Good points about going global! I wondered if you could expand on how you made the transition from local business, though. How did you go from marketing locally to reaching out in the super competitive world market? How did you get your first few non-local customers?

Good question.

Clearing the air about our super competitive planet

Once upon a time, there was an ant named Sophie. She was born into a really dysfunctional ant family. She didn’t get to choose her family, and it sucked. And then one day, she went to school.

At school, there were all sorts of people to choose from — maybe a hundred. Out of those hundred people, two of them were her kind of people. That was really cool. But she had a passion for dancing while wearing hats. Nobody in her school had that same passion. It looked like her hat-dancing days were numbered.

Then she found the internet. She started a website for people who liked to dance while wearing hats. And HOLY COW, there were hundreds of them! What the heck? So she started a business selling dance-worthy hats and music that hat-dancers like to groove to. Happily ever after, the end.

The point

Really, this super competitive global market is not all that competitive. The difference is the way you approach it. In the local scene, you set up your shop on the corner, hoping to draw a crowd with your fancy balloon-man in the sky. The people that come to your store are vastly different, so you do your best to appeal to a broad demographic.

Online, you set up your website and make it awesome and sticky. Then you go out and make friends with people who you’d pick to be in your family if you could choose. (Emma Alvarez Gibson has a really good post on that). And amazingly, people who are exactly right for you start to come and hang out and let you serve them. It’s the coolest thing.

How I made the transition

Back in the early days of business, I thought that I needed to do traditional market-y things to get business. Flyers, direct mail, Google ads, things like that. It worked okay. I got some clients. But they were clients that did not get me at all.

They were “Buy this now!” and “Last chance!” kind of people. I am a “Is this going to help reach your goals?” and “Would we work well together?” kind of person. They were Steve Jobs, McDonalds, and QVC. I am Apple, Craigslist, and HARO.

So I added a blog to my website [envision "traditional portfolio site with a blog attached"] and tried to attract people that way. You know, by posting studio updates and stuff like that. Business-related stuff. Because I was a professional ferpetesake.

And wow! 10 subscribers after six months of blogging! Was it this hard for everybody or just me? I was commenting on other people’s sites and everything. I was even hilarious! I repeatedly felt like a loser.

And then I started getting on Twitter (hoo-rah!). I got my head out of the sand and realized that traditional marketing doesn’t work for the rest of us. That small- to medium-sized organizations (whether in thought or deed) don’t play the same game that McDonalds does. It was a revelation. And I dug in with all my might.

I ditched my old marketing efforts and started over. I branded myself how I wanted to be branded, and not with what I thought would appeal to “professionals”. (Did you know that professional organizations are made up of real people? Yep, it’s true.) I did things that would appeal to those real people. And it freaking worked.

How to get your first non-local customer

Take your web presence seriously. Immerse yourself in the online culture so that you don’t stick out like an alien in a foreign land. Listen to what people need and want before you try to solve problems that you think exist. Solve problems that actually exist instead. Don’t do sleazy stuff that makes you feel wrong on the inside. More specifically:

• Publish your prices. I don’t care what industry you are in, people are the same. One of the first things they want to know is how much it costs. Whether or not you think you’re a bargain at any price. Whether or not you think it will drive people away. It will drive your wrong people away. But it will attract your right people, saving you a TON of time writing proposals and giving quotes.
• Make your site content-driven. That means that the information on your homepage is constantly fresh and updated with useful stuff. And by useful, I mean useful to them. Them trumps you any day of the week. The sweet spot is where it’s useful to the both of you at the same time.
• Stick to a publishing schedule. I’ve written about this before. When you don’t publish on a regular basis, you lose credibility. It’s like not coming to the office…people think you’re not working. They secretly think you suck.
• Ditch Google Adwords. As targeted as people think these ads are, they are not. Unless you’re selling something very specific (costumes for Little Orphan Annie, perhaps), you are going to be paying to bring people to your site who are not your right people. And at $1-$5 per click, it is not worth it. Instead, get involved in places where your customers live online. If it’s Twitter, use Twitter. If it’s Facebook, use Facebook (but please don’t annoy the heck out of your friends on there…they are not your target customer).
• Keep a lookout for testimonials in-the-making. I am so bad at this. I’m finally starting to keep a list of nice things people say about me. Don’t make people write stuff for you — most of the time it sounds like “Sarah Bray delivers exceptional world-class website design with very exceptional customer service!” Does that persuade you at all? Of course not. Watch out for those natural moments when people compliment you on your service or style.
• Always have stuff on the books. Busy people get work, simple as that. Make it abundantly clear that you’re a busy person.
• If you’re really struggling to get your first client, hold a contest. You’re not working anyway, right? Give away something awesome for absolutely nothing. Don’t make them tweet or facebook something like “You too can win a session with Joe Brown!” in order to enter. First of all, that makes a lot of people feel icky and they won’t do it. Second of all, it makes you look like a chump. Come up with something original that your customer would benefit from just as much as you.

Sadly, the same thing doesn’t work for everyone

That’s why a lot of marketing advice sounds so general. It’s like asking your grandmother who you never see which outfit to wear to the party next weekend — What party? Who’s going? What message do you want to send? (A ‘hey baby’ message will require quite a different outfit than a ‘losers, stay away’ message.)

But if you’re doing this yourself, looking for patterns and understanding the overall culture will help you land that first customer and send you on your way to having an international reach. There will be some trial and error on the way, but at least you won’t be headed to Alaska when you meant to go to Detroit.

I love local biz. But I remain steadfast in my belief that a website that is accessible to the world has the potential to serve the world. Why not? I rarely even take local clients anymore…I find a much more solid fit when someone works with me outside of the basis that “I live close to them”. I even un-search-engine-ified my site so that local people have trouble finding me. Rude, right?

Don’t do that. (Unless you’re weird like me.) But taking on clients that are not local have surprising benefits. No icky networking events! No pointless meetings that you’re expected to be at just because you are in a 15-minute driving distance. (The wonderful locals that I do end up working with would never want me to attend stupid networking events or meetings of time-wastage, so I haven’t entirely abandoned the local scene. Just mostly.)

Anyway, back to the practical stuff. (We love practical around here.)

Some questions to ask yourself if you are considering expanding your local biz to reach people all over the world

• Can you replicate the face-to-face experience using existing technology? (Better yet, can you improve upon it?)

  We’ve got phone and video conferencing. Live event streaming. Audio and video recordings. Screencasts. Collaboration software. Interactive learning environments. Many local businesses can scale globally simply by learning and using new technology, opening themselves up to new clients and a higher freedom of mobility.

• Can you offer a lower-priced DIY service that takes advantage of the lack of face-to-face time?

  Human one-on-one service is expensive. My mechanic charges almost as much per hour as I do, because time is finite. You can’t get back or re-sell the hours that you spend one-on-one with someone. Your hourly rate has to account for 20-30% in taxes. It has to account for your business’ overhead. It has to account for all of those hours that you can’t bill for, but you still need to be compensated for. (If you own your own business, you probably can’t spend more than 50-60% of your time on billable work. Your salary needs to include the other 40-50%.) Side note: If you currently charge less than $75 per hour for one-on-one time, you are probably not going to make an average full-time salary this year.

  There’s a whole market of people who don’t like to do it themselves. (People who are busy. People who are in a healthy stage of business.) But there is another market that does. They want the cake (your wonderful expertise) and they want to eat it, too (at a yummy lower price). If you can give them truly customized service with clear, detailed instructions on how to implement it, you’ve gained yourself an entirely new crowd of people to serve.

• Can you create a product that is accessible from anywhere?

  Maybe you can’t exactly reproduce your work online. But you can create a killer brand for yourself so that people want whatever you’re selling. Classes. Books. Membership. Physical products. Make it awesome, make it unique, and there’s yet another group of people you can serve.

As a local business owner, you have a huge opportunity to come up with something that is totally different than anything currently being offered in your industry. Get on board with it now, and you won’t be playing catch-up in a few years when everybody’s doing it.

]]> http://www.sjoystudios.com/2009/10/scaling-mount-local-how-to-start-expanding-your-borders-to-reach-a-global-audience/feed/ 3 http://www.sjoystudios.com/2009/10/self-promotion-for-rockstars/ http://www.sjoystudios.com/2009/10/self-promotion-for-rockstars/#comments Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:54:32 +0000 admin http://www.sjoystudios.com/?p=819



* Hat tip to Alison and Rob Heittman for getting my gears churning on this topic.

I’ve noticed a severe divide between business owners as they’re attempting to increase their online influence. On the one side, you’ve got the people who blast their trumpets, fly their own flags, and toss confetti on themselves. They’re hoping to create enough fanfare that we’ll think they’re someone worth listening to.

I feel for these people. They play the buffoon without knowing it, thinking that self-promotion actually does what it says it does. It doesn’t. At best, self-promotion is actively ignored. At worst, scorned.

Then you’ve got the people on the other side of the fence. They’ve made the “noble” decision not to self-promote, and the growth isn’t happening. They may get along well with everyone, but nobody knows about their rockstar abilities. They don’t get to help the people they were meant to help.

Get back! There’s a snake in the money!

My pastor was talking about money this week — a topic he doesn’t like to talk about often because of the mistrust people have about that whole issue. He talked about how he often treats money like it’s in a big jar with a snake inside of it.

As business owners, we often do the same thing. We see the money, but we’re afraid to grab at it because we think there’s a snake in the jar. It shows up in all of our marketing efforts, and especially in our attempts to directly promote our work.

How to promote without playing the buffoon

• Be up front and real-time about your successes. Create a system that showcases your successes as they happen. You can be creative about it, but it also needs to be sustainable (if it’s too complicated, you won’t keep up with it.)

  You could create a trophy shelf, giving yourself some sort of tongue-in-cheek badge of honor every time you do something praiseworthy. You could print out cool emails you receive, literally cut out a snippet, scan it, and have an ongoing wall of praise. It’s systematic, so you’re not running around going “I’m in a meeting with Fabio!” And people like to know you’re constantly doing things with your superpowers.

• When you do nice things for people, leave a bit of your legacy behind. Again, be creative. This could be a graphic that says “S.Joy Studios is a huge fan of <insert person you love here>”. Something that brings them awesomeness while leaving your footprint behind.
• Consistently produce awesome stuff. This is not news, but I can’t exactly leave it out — it’s too important. Don’t re-spout everyone else’s ideas and content. Think of your own. Get outside of the internet for your inspiration.
• Collaborate with people who can benefit from working with you. A surprising amount of people spend way too much time trying to schmooze the supposed A-listers. Forget it. They’re overwhelmed with that crap. And do you really want to be that guy?

  Instead, work on creating great stuff with people who have complementary skills and audiences. People like yourself who would love to expand their reach and show off their fabulosity.

• Get away from in-breeding. Do you always talk to the same people? That’s great. It means you’ve got some great relationships in your circle. But step outside your circle. Meet new people who you connect with in a different way.
• Stop being so afraid. Most people end up getting on the self-promo bandwagon out of fear. They’re afraid that if they don’t pitch themselves at every opportunity, they will miss out. They’ll stagnate in a pit of “no one likes me” and will never get out. Even people who put the “blatant self-promotion” disclaimer on their stuff are suffering in the same way. Except they have the added fear of coming off as a fraud.
• Know the difference between being honest about your awesomeness and being on the self-promotion train. Honesty is refreshing. I love it when someone can confidently say “I’m awesome at that.” I feel comfortable being with someone who is comfortable with themselves.

  Self-promotion is born out of fear, not confidence. It’s needing to look bigger than it actually is. It’s an overindulgent focus on the self, and most of the time is hiding a feeling of low self-worth.

I’m glad we’re not playing the buffoon. But I also don’t want us to miss out on standing up straight and confident, looking the world in the eye to say “Yep. I’m awesome at this.”

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