Home > Ahmed Bilal’s Blog

1.6.10 - How to make money from projects you’ll never have time for

Have you ever had one of your ideas ’stolen’ and used by someone else soon after you shared them in a public setting? If yes, you’ll know the frustration and anger that accompanies such a case. It could have been when you were in school and someone else stood up and took the credit for your work, or in a professional setting where a colleague took your idea and ran with it (and thus took the credit).

It’s always about ‘the credit’, isn’t it?

Experience tells us to keep our best ideas to ourselves – why give away the store when you can profit from it in the future, right?

The only problem with this approach – the hoarding approach – is that we don’t always have the time to work on all of our ideas. And that means that for every project that we work on, 20+ others go undone, because of a lack of time. So at this point, we’re at a cross-roads – you don’t want to share freely because those are your ideas but you also don’t have the time to work on them.

I don’t believe in giving it all away for free – sure, to some it may sound noble but in terms of value you know that your ideas are worth something, and in most cases, worth more than the goodwill that will be generated from giving them away for free.

An acceptable alternative may be to develop your ideas and then distribute them, for a price. For example, think of Private Label Rights (PLR) products. In theory, PLR products are components of a ready-made business that you can take, personalise and get started with almost immediately (a good example of this would be the PLR articles provided by PLRPro).

Depending on the time available to you, you could develop your ideas to the point of a short 10-page report ($7 value or even free), into a 50-100 page ebook ($19-$49 or again free), into full-fledged running blog (which you can then sell to make a nice profit) or anywhere in between.

Let’s say that I want to get into the self-help niche but don’t have time for it. So what do I do?

Ideally, I would take a weekend off, write a 20-40 page report on how to run the business, plus collect and provide research material that can help with providing content (it helps if you collected ebooks in college). The report will be specific to the self-help niche and therefore share ideas on how to promote in that niche, the different sources of revenue available, etc etc. I would also refer users, through that report, to my reports / books on blogging and SEO and even PPC – this information is easy to package once and then refer clients to on a regular basis.

If I had the time I could even setup a membership site for this, but the easy route would be to spend a couple of days creating the basics for a life-long business in the self-help niche, providing all resources needed to succeed and then putting it up for sale as a PLR package and advertising it (through mailing lists or PPC).

You’ll realise that for this to be ‘effective’, having ‘generic’ resources on topics like blogging, SEO, making money online, PPC and social media marketing can be very helpful. Write them once, and you can use them over and over again.

The bottom line is – in most cases, ideas are not unique to us. Someone else, somewhere in the world, will have the same idea as yours sooner or later and there’s a good chance that they or someone they know will work on it and get ahead while you keep waiting for the ‘right time’.

For most ideas, if you don’t have time today you won’t have time tomorrow either. Few things make you stand up and say that Yes, this is what I want to do more than anything else. If a project doesn’t appeal to you in that way and you’re ready to shelve it, take a couple of days out and work on it, maybe you’ll be able profit from it AND help others benefit from your ideas as well.

This article was originally written for 9 Oct 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Making Money Online - No Comments

1.6.10 - Bloggin Productivity Tip: Read only when you have time to act on it

The idea is simple – do not open your email, visit forums, hit your blog’s comments, open your rss reader, visit your favourite websites…in other words, do not ANY type of ‘input’ in your working hours until you have the time allocated to ‘ACT’ on that input.

For example, it’s common practice for bloggers to open up their email inbox several times a day to ’scan’ for important emails. Depending on the amount of emails one gets, this can mean a few quick responses and then leaving those emails that require a longer response lying in wait till late night. At night, you might not have the time / energy to write long responses and those emails get left on next day.

Or, when we hit up our RSS reader without scheduling time to blog about any news item we find interesting. What happens if we come across something worth blogging about? It goes in the bookmarks, and those bookmarks keep adding up until you have to do some spring cleaning or the load becomes so overwhelming that you have to dump them and start afresh.

Or…when we hit forums where we network frequently only to browse and not to comment / reply on threads.

All such activities take up time – valuable time – from our daily routine. Instead of checking your email 5 times in 4 minute segments, you could easily check it once a day in 20 minutes, and in that time you will respond to more emails and get more things done than in the 5 short breaks during the day. The same goes for blogging (you’ve already read an article once, and if you leave it for later, you’ll have to read it again. It maybe only a few minutes of time but once you add that time up you can build an amazing debt of time.

I get distracted easily, so it’s a continuous battle to avoid such time wasters, especially when I’m not going to ‘do anything about them’.

If you really need a 5-10 minute break, get off your butt and excercise – if you’re a blogger, you probably need it more than a quick trip to your inbox to check your mail for the 3rd time in the day.

This article was originally written on 9 Oct 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Productivity - No Comments

1.6.10 - How do you train new bloggers?

If you’ve ever hired a blogger (or 20), you’ll know that it’s not an easy task to get the type of blogging work that you want out of your new people. This is especially the case when you’re an experienced blogger yourself – the urge to micro-manage may be too great to allow you to train your blogger(s) properly.

So what methods / strategies do you use to train bloggers?

Currently I’m using a combination of strategies to bring bloggers up to speed. The first step is to help them find their blogging voice, their personality. To be blunt, it’s just like real life – if you’re an interesting person (a good story-teller), people will enjoy listening to what you have to say. On the other hand, if you’re boring, people will nod their heads politely.

As a blogger, the anonymity offered by the Internet allows our nasty sides to come out and people are far less charitable online when you’re boring (or anything other than a rock star). The key to be successful as a blogger is to develop a unique voice and style – and to polish and keep improving it.

The second step is to build consistency. Quite often you’ll bloggers who either have trouble coming up with stuff to write about day after day, get bored with blogging after a while or whatever reason, tend to take their foot off the pedal. I tend to give writers a lot of room here, because everyone’s blogging rhythm is different.

It’s best to start slow and then build things up, but only to a point where you think you can comfortably sustain it in the long run. I have a tendency of blogging in cycles – 10 posts per day for 2-3 days and 1-2 posts for the rest of the week. Encouraging the habit to a) write regularly and b) spread out your articles is an absolute must if you want someone to take over blogging for you.

The third step is to get bloggers to understand the marketing / promotional side of blogging – what is, what linkbait is, how to encourage conversations on your blog, how to write great headlines, how and when to focus on quality over quantity (and vice versa), how to use social media sites, why you should link back to your old articles, etc etc. There’s a lot of ground to cover here and this is perhaps a lifelong education.

The fourth step is to help them learn the technical aspect of things. At the start, all they’ll need to know is the basics – comment moderation, how to write / edit posts, using categories, future posting, uploading images, adding links / images into posts, etc. But as time goes on and when you want your bloggers to take over more aspects of your blog, it would also pay to get them interested in theme editing and plugin usage – so that theoretically speaking you can go off for a month-long break and you wouldn’t need to worry about your blog as your hired gun would be able to take care of any problems that pop up.

Why would someone stay if they learn all this? Because not everyone is driven enough to start a new business from scratch – to most people, if you give them excellent terms + plus profit sharing and the freedom to do what they want on the blog (within certain limits, of course), then they will stick with you for life. Bloggers, just like people, need room to grow, so you have to continuously train them and give them more space at the same time.

So, once again… what methods do you use to train your bloggers? Any specific strategies that you’d be interested in sharing?

Also Read:
10 Articles Every Blogger Should Read At Least Once
6 Ways Blogging Differs From Other Types Of Writing

These two articles (list of articles in one case) are a must-read for all my bloggers. Can you add anything to this list?

This article was originally written on 9 Oct 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Blogging - No Comments

1.6.10 - Public Service Announcement: No ‘short’ posts today

Bloggers Everywhere: If you can do one thing today, please do NOT write a ’short’ and ‘to the point’ post.

Just don’t. You’re probably doing it wrong (there’s nothing unique / interesting / useful / powerful / likeable / discussable about your post) and not only is it adding to the noise, it’s also turning potential readers away from your blog once they find you talking about the same thing you’re reading elsewhere.

In other cases, there’s no meat on the bones – instead of raising a question and leaving it fashionably open-ended to allow for interesting conversation, the blogger leaves the slate blank with only a few scribblings that pique interest but leave the reader disappointed and feeling empty.

Exceptions

In some situations, short posts work. If you’re a leading news blog, then short posts work wonders because you are the news breakers, not the ones regurgitating it. However, to reach this level requires a certain level of audience, which you’re not going to build by regurgitating news from other sources (who do you hit first in the day for your sports news – ESPN or a blogger you’ve never read before?).

Build Your Audience Through Quality

Quality does not mean quantity, so don’t think that I’m advocating 2400-word blog posts (those work, for sure, but there are less painful ways too).

Instead, quality means two things:

One, sending your readers away with something to remember and talk about later in the day (and if you’re lucky, tomorrow). In the sea of noise you must stand out and stick in the reader’s mind – your job’s a bit easier because they’re already reading what you’re writing, but you will be forgotten if you cannot produce something that they will remember.

Two, consistently pushing yourself to improve. Let’s face it, we’re not the best bloggers in the world, you and I. But we have the opportunity to observe those around us who ARE ‘great’, and push ourselves not only to match them but eventually to be better than them. It’s not a question of whether it’s possible or not (you can’t actually be Steve Pavlina) but it’s definitely a question of how much you want it and how hard (and smart) you’re willing to work on it.

So, please – if you’re going to blog today, don’t do the usual short post. Think of how you can best serve your readers, and give them something to remember for the weekend.

This article was originally written on 6 Oct 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Writing - No Comments

1.6.10 - Personal networking – Remember the forums

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN – there are many ‘new’ platforms through which we can now ‘network’ with our peers and colleagues. In theory, you can never have enough social networks, but there has to be some limiting criteria lest we get overwhelmed and end up ‘networking’ 24/7 with the work piling on our virtual desks.

If a platform:

  1. Keeps it simple
  2. Encourages time-saving
  3. Provides access to a group of like-minded people with similar interests

then it’s worth adopting.

There are very few platforms that check all 3 boxes. Instant messaging (IM) has it’s place (how would you get your business done without Skype?) but it’s neither time-saving (you could argue that it cuts down on the lag that emails introduce but IM doesn’t ‘encourage’ time-saving) nor does it give you instant access to a group of people (one-to-one communication).

Facebook and similar social apps have a similar problem with time. As bloggers and generally as people who have non-traditional jobs, time management is especially important. If you’re going to spend 2 hours playing with facebook apps, that time’s not coming back (and depending on how much you charge per hour, that’s anywhere between $50 to $1000 of consulting fees lost).

Don’t get me wrong – social apps are excellent networking (and marketing) tools, however if I had to drop something from my list in order to get work done those would be the first I’d drop.

I like LinkedIN a lot primarily because it keeps things simple and doesn’t require too much time to keep updated or network with others. I hired the designer for Soccerlens through LinkedIN and for that alone I’m grateful because he’s done an excellent job in the past year or so. I’ve also hired programmers and writers this way. Everyone’s experiences are different but if you’re getting work done in less time, why not?

Forums offer a balanced blend of all three options. You meet like-minded people, it’s easier to ’switch off’ and spend less time than you would IMing or Facebooking, and they’re extremely simple to use.

Earlier this week I talked about ‘giving more to get more‘ – and while that approach works great on blogs (you reach a much greater audience), the opportunity to build lasting professional relationships is a lot higher in forums. With fewer people involved, you can give each person more attention that you would be able to through a blog.

What do you think? Are forums better for networking than the newer breed of tools available to us?

This article was originally written on 29 Sep 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Blogging - No Comments

1.6.10 - People are trying to help you: Are you listening?

Yesterday I talked about how bloggers should be more generous; how they should learn to give more instead of just asking for favors.

Before you can be all ‘giving’ though, you need to know exactly what you’re going to ‘give’. Doing favors blindly doesn’t make any practical sense – ideally you want to make a meaningful contribution to someone else’s life, and to figure out what matters to people in your social circle, you have to listen first.

As bloggers our job is to talk – we talk to our readers, we talk to advertisers, we talk to our employees, we talk smack with competitors – it’s pretty much a full-time talking job, blogging.

However, in all this talking we need to find the time to shut up and listen to the people around us – to learn what they want, to learn from their suggestions, criticisms and support, and to spot ideas in what they do and say. Listening to others (and more importantly, to the right people) gives you the kind of knowledge few people can hope to attain, and with that comes the ability to do make a genuine difference in your own life and that of others.

So who should you listen to? Here are a few ideas:

Your Readers: Blogging is about relationships (we keep saying this over and over again), and if you’re not in tune with what your readers want, you won’t be able to serve them properly and you will, sooner or later, end up loosing them.

This is a tricky place because there are many people who, on the surface, lead their audiences instead of their readers leading them. This is an illusion, I assure you. While the person may be headstrong, seemingly independent or just plain controversial, the reality is that bloggers are successful BECAUSE they provide what people want, and to know what they want you have to listen to them.

When it comes to listening to your readers, pull out all the stops. Do your keyword and niche research, monitor industry trends, read all comments, take onboard all suggestions and most of all, discuss issues in public and get input from your community. You don’t have to listen to them – you probably shouldn’t allow mob voting to make your decisions anyway – but taking their views onboard gives you a chance to listen to all sides and it also integrates readers more into the community.

Your Advertisers: The next time you have someone contact you to advertise on your blog, watch how they approach you, what they offer, how they continue negotiations, etc. Everything they say or do is a clue that can help you make more money from your site, so you’d better be listening.

One of the key things I’ve learned from listening to advertisers is to make as much information as possible available on the site in a prominent position so that advertisers can get a clue quickly (you’d be surprised at how many bloggers do their ‘advertise here’ pages wrong). Another thing I’ve learned is to reduce the number of options available to advertisers – too many options confuse them and reduce their chances of making a buying decision on the spot. Yet another thing I’ve learned is that while US based advertisers are comfortable working over email, UK based advertisers prefer using the phone (or Skype) before concluding a deal. It’s a minor detail (and possibly an inaccurate interpretation) but it’s an example of the hundreds of little things you can learn about advertising, about what your blog is doing right / wrong, about your niche, etc.

Your Employees: If you’ve hired people to work for you, pay attention to their suggestions and more importantly give them the right nurturing environment to grow and network for themselves. It boils down to the principle of giving – the more you help the people that work for you, the better it will be for you in the long run.

Yes, there will be some people who will only look to take advantage of you. Weed these characters out in the beginning and move forward.
Your writers, your designer / programmer / marketer – anyone you hire could be the source of the next idea that could double your blog’s income. Underestimate the benefits at your own peril.

Your Competition: In a competitive environment the players find different ways to gain an edge on their peers. As an observer, you can learn a lot by simply examining what makes your competitors successful and adapting that to your benefit.

90% of your competition is too proud, too lazy or just too anal to learn from listening. Be the 10% that break the mold and observe their environment. Combined with what we talked about yesterday in ‘Going for Broke‘, intelligent observations (or just listening) can be your ticket to blogging success.

Network with your competition, as much as possible. The relationships you build here will be invaluable in the long run.

Your Mentors: Your mentor may be someone you turn to for guidance in times of need, or it may be someone whose work you follow regularly or a one-on-one relationship with someone who is guiding you in your business. You may have one mentor or several, you may change mentors or stick with one person for a long time.

Whatever your case, listen from your mentor(s), learn and for the love of whatever you believe in, apply it in your life.

Takeaway: Schedule some time out today to listen to your readers, to the people around you. Schedule some time in your daily routine to just listen, observe and learn.

Bottom line – in a career where it’s mostly one-way traffic, it pays to take a break from time to time and let the traffic flow the other way for a change.

This article was originally written on 27 Sep 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Help Yourself - No Comments

1.6.10 - Go for broke

I was going to title this one “The Secret to Earning $10k/month from blogging in just 6 months”, but that might have been a bit too much

If you want to make $10,000 / month from blogging in 6 months, here is a quick formula for you:

1) Figure out how you can make this a reality (freelance work, build a site to sell it, affiliate marketing, using PPC to sell your own ebook, blogging for hire, create your own site, etc) and create a detailed, step-by-step plan for it.

2) Go for it, now. Don’t stop for anything, even for this article to end – just start executing that plan right now.

They say that “good things come to those who wait” – and while I value patience, it has its place and it is often a convenient rationalization for people who are afraid to take risks. There are times when you have to grab the bull by the horns and attack an opportunity with full strength.

In simple terms… you can’t wait for opportunities to knock on your door. You have to put yourself out there, put your blog out there, and make sure that you’re first in line when any opportunity comes up. You’ll take risks. You’ll make mistakes. But you’ll be much better off at the end of it than when you started, which is where you would have stayed stuck if you hadn’t moved in the first place.

For your blog, this means positioning it to benefit from trends in your niche. For example, for my football blog, I tend to get plenty of search engine traffic for matches as well as for any key incident that happens (celebrity gossip, in-game violence, etc). There are two reasons for this – one, I’m covering these events (taking initiative) and two, my blog ranks high in search engines naturally so that helps individual pages rank highly as well.

If you think about it, all progress on your blog is a function of you taking initiative and going out seeking opportunities instead of sitting at home waiting for them.

That $10k isn’t going to come to you if you wait for it (unless your blog earns that much in a month, in which case add a couple of zeros at the end of the number and start over) – you have to get up, get out and work for it, and quite often that means being in the right place to take advantages of the opportunities that arise.

This article was originally written on 26 Sep 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Making Money Online - No Comments

1.6.10 - How bloggers can give more to get more

I’ve talked about this more in my “tips for building a kick-ass blog” article, but I’d like to expand on the idea a bit more.

The basic idea is that you cannot grow as fast by yourself as you can with the help of others (leverage other peoples’ resources). There are two ways you can get the help of others – ask them (nicely, of course), or get them to volunteer to help you. Asking (especially if you’re paying for it) works wonders, but right now I want to focus on the second option – having people help you of their own accord.

How do you do this as a blogger?

By helping other people – your readers, fellow bloggers, your contacts, your advertisers and your employees. In terms of your relationships, this means going out of your way to help others, doing them favors when asked, and being there for friends when they need your help. You’ll have to give first before you can expect anything and for someone who’s impatient for results (like me), it would help to remember that this isn’t just you giving the store away, it’s you investing your resources in your future. Investments, when done in the right place and the right time, can bring about fantastic returns down the line, and so it is with people.

In terms of your blog, this means giving first (providing value to your readers) and giving a lot (don’t assume that you can ‘ask’ them for something after just one week’s of good blogging). And what are you ‘asking them’? Their trust, their loyalty and their support. You won’t ask for it explicitly, but once you’ve given a lot to your readers you will notice that your readers will start giving back – in terms of comments, praise, feedback, mentions on other blogs and forums, respect, and if you’re selling something, money too.

If you’ve read “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini (highly recommended), you’ll know that ‘Reciprocity’ is one of the six key ways to influence people (the others are: Commitment / Consistency, Social Proof, Liking, Authority and Scarcity). When you give first, you create a subconscious debt on the other person’s conscience which they will feel the need to repay or risk suffering from guilt. It’s how we are socially wired.

What we’re NOT socially wired to do is to give first and ask later – in fact, we’re selfish (like it or not) and do exactly the opposite. If you want to succeed as a blogger, want to grow your blog and want to do both of these things super-fast, bite the bullet and invest in your future. The relationships you build as a result, with your readers and your friends, will be the foundation for your rapid growth in the future.

Personally, I don’t care whether you help people because you genuinely believe in helping others or because you’re looking for a quick return on your investment. I’ve had this tendency to go out of my way to help others as a kid and I’ve learned to harness that habit and use it intelligently. If you’re the same, then focus on making a smart use of your time and while you should still volunteer, make sure you don’t over-commit.

If you’re in it for the fast return, then remember that the whole act of doing others a favour in order to get a favor from them in return pisses people off. We don’t want to be used (even if in the long run that’s what’s happening) and in most cases a reciprocal exchange like this is rejected unless it is overwhelmingly in our favour. Take the short-term hits and settle in for the long-haul in such investments because if you play your cards right (and you will if you’re patient about it), the returns are HUGE.

This article was originally written on 26 Sep 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Blogging - No Comments

1.6.10 - How to improve your focus

If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.

You’ve heard many bloggers talk about how you should ‘focus’ on a few key projects. Trouble is, not everyone intuitively knows exactly how to turn that ‘focus’ knob up to 100%, and even if you know how to do that, what do you focus on?

The two keys to having a clear focus in your blogging are ‘priorities’ and ‘concentration’. If you have priorities but no concentration (like me), you’ll know what to do but never get anything done because you’ll get distracted all the time. On the other hand, if you have concentration but no clear grasp of your priorities, you will be excellent in something but won’t make much progress (because you’ll be focusing on the wrong things).

It’s clear then that we need a strategy for focusing our time and energy. I would recommend using the following model:

Focus 70% on Strengths

Take stock of your strengths as an entrepreneur and blogger (make sure you ask your friends and co-workers for input as well). Are you good at monetizing your blogs? Do you have a knack for creating social bait (linkbait)? Are you a good designer?

The first step is knowing what you’re good at. The second step is to ensure that a major portion of your working time is spent focusing on these activities – this is what you’re good at, so make sure you profit the most from it.

As a personal example – I gave up on trying to design my own themes or code my own software a long time ago. I had to choose between blogging and designing, and with writing being my strength, I chose to blog and outsource my designing / programming chores. You don’t have to become a specialist, but even as a ‘jack of all trades’, it makes sense to spend most of your time doing what you’re good at.

If there’s a situation where you have two equal strengths but you have to choose between them (management and writing, for example), you should always choose the one that is best aligned with your priorities. If your goal is to have fun, hire someone to manage and stick to the writing. If you want to make money and grow, then shift to management and hire a good writer. Put yourself where you can serve your own priorities the best.

Focus 25% on New Things

Yesterday we talked about taking risks and expanding your horizons by doing new things and moving out of the blogging comfort zone. The need to constantly take risks and learn new things can be explained in very simple terms:

Growth = Change.

If you want to get better, you have to keep changing and improving. This means taking risks and stepping out into new areas. This is also your chance to be the generalist and channel your creative efforts by taking out focused time for side projects that help you build new skills and expand your knowledge. If you’re the kind who likes to play it safe, this time is crucial for you – it will help you push forward and grow past your current limits.

If you dedicate time to new things that are closely related to your strengths, you’ll find yourself becoming a far better blogger and entrepreneur than you were before. For example, if you love writing but are average at writing link bait, it would pay if you focused 25% of your time on learning how to write great headlines and crack social bait.

In the online world where change is the only constant, you cannot afford to ‘rest’ on what you’ve learned and achieved as a blogger. In simple terms – grow (evolve) or fail (die).

Focus 5% on Areas of Weakness

You can’t get up one day and just avoid dealing with your weaknesses. The key is to minimize it as much as you can and delegate (tell / ask someone else to do it for you) or outsource (pay someone to do it) it whenever possible. I wouldn’t suggest avoiding areas that are closely related to your strengths or avoiding something that is a necessary component to your life goals, but when it comes to everything else, figure out a way to have someone else work on it.

3 Steps To Improve Your Focus

  1. Shift to Strengths: Make a list of three to four things you do well as a blogger. What percentage of your time do you spend doing them? What percentage of your resources is dedicated to these areas of strength? Devise a plan to make changes, allowing you to dedicate 70 percent of your time to your strengths.

    Staff your Weaknesses: Identify three or four activities necessary for your blog’s managment that you don’t do well. Determine how you can delegate the jobs to others. Will it require hiring / outsourcing? Can you partner with another blogger to share responsibilities? Develop a plan.

    Create an Edge: Now that you’ve looked at priorities, think about concentration. What would it take for you to go to the next level in your main area of strength (be it link baiting, design or programming)? What new tools do you need? Rethink how you do things, and be willing to make sacrifices. Time and money spent to take you to the next level are the best investment you can make of your resources as a blogger.

This article was originally written on 26 Sep 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Blogging - No Comments

1.6.10 - Learn to blow your horn

Self-Promotion is something most of us are uncomfortable with – and it’s not just the prospect of ’selling’ that turns us off, in reality its insecurity (cleverly dressed as modesty) that holds us back.

Whether by nature or by society, we are programmed to sell ourselves short. A few months back I was talking to an old college friend and we started talking about careers. In retrospect, his current job was nowhere near as interesting or lucrative as what I’m doing now as a blogger, but when we talked about it, he was confident to the point that I envied him at the spot and felt slightly foolish mumbling something about owning a football news blog and being a online marketing / blogging consultant.

That incident has stuck with me since then, and while I’ve stopped selling myself short I’ve realised that it not only does it pay to show initiative, it pays in spades to talk yourself up as the best thing since sliced bread. It’s not just an exercise in making your name known or speaking up – if you can do it with confidence without coming off as arrogant, it is the most powerful advertising technique directly available to you (referrals and endorsements are better, but first impressions and the actual sales pitch matter a lot).

As a blogger – whether you want to promote your own services or you’re promoting your blog – you have to learn to blow your own horn. No one else will be doing that for you, so celebrate your success (small or big), talk up your achievements and put yourself firmly in the minds of your readers (and anyone else who wants to listen).

This article was originally written on 26 Sep 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Promotion - No Comments

Page 3 of 161234510...Last »