Category Archives: Consultancy

Consultancy, Networking, Starting your business

The Institute of Directors Recommends Blogging

The Institute of Directors Recommends Blogging –

The Institute of Directors has just recommend blogging as way of connecting with your customers in an interesting article they explain:

“If you want to compete, you must pursue your customer’s loyalty and pay them attention; they have many options and will move on without a second thought.”

“A blog will also enable you to build relationships with customers. Many will appreciate the chance to ask questions; others will be influenced by the feedback they read and how you respond to it. A positive comment or a problem sorted promptly can establish you as a trustworthy seller.

Sometimes you can turn a negative into a positive – by offering a prompt return for a customer who’s made the wrong choice, for example. But you’ve got to make sure you’re able to deliver what you promise, otherwise it could do you more harm than good.”

The full article can be read here. This is just the sort of thing we have been waiting for at www.Wcx.me

business, Consultancy, E-Commerce, Relationship

The Institute of Directors Recommends Blogging

1 Comment

The Institute of Directors has just recommend blogging as way of connecting with your customers in an interesting article they explain:

“If you want to compete, you must pursue your customer’s loyalty and pay them attention; they have many options and will move on without a second thought.”

“A blog will also enable you to build relationships with customers. Many will appreciate the chance to ask questions; others will be influenced by the feedback they read and how you respond to it. A positive comment or a problem sorted promptly can establish you as a trustworthy seller.

Sometimes you can turn a negative into a positive – by offering a prompt return for a customer who’s made the wrong choice, for example. But you’ve got to make sure you’re able to deliver what you promise, otherwise it could do you more harm than good.”

The full article can be read here. This is just the sort of thing we have been waiting for at www.Wcx.me

Consultancy, development

It Started With An Idea

I was travelling recently and it sprung into my mind that all dreams or goals we may have, start life as an idea. If we like it, we develop it. Slowly at first and just in our minds. At a certain point we may tell some friends. If they like it too it grows a bit more. If it is really good the sky is the limit.

We are constantly creating our own lives, businesses, and enjoyment.
If you can dream it you can do it and more to the point probably should be doing it.

Consultancy, Websites

Why Are So Many Bloggers Selling Their Blogs?

We have seen some fairly high profile blog sales, at least in the make money online niche, including – BloggingFingers.com ($6,000) CashQuests.com ($15,000) OneMansGoal.com ($8,500) Blogtrepreneur.com (Not Sold Yet – Predicted low five figures)

If I had the writing resources available to me I would have loved to have snapped up all these blogs to create quite a nice make money online network, but that would simple be beyond my capabilities to manage at this time.

Blogging Fingers was the first to tip the scale, gathering attention from plenty of other blogs about the sale. This in turn led to the other sales, which haven’t quite garnered as much attention but that certainly hasn’t harmed the final selling price and I think therein lies one of the main motivations for this spurt of blog sales – the money is good.

I’ve been in personal contact with a few of the people behind these sales and I think it’s safe to say for every blog listed above, the main reason for selling is “personal reasons” of some kind, which to me means there are other projects they would like to move on to, they have grown tired of writing to their blog or something a bit more serious has forced them into the sale.

Does This Indicate The Start Of A Mass Exodus?

I expect we haven’t seen the last of high profile blog sales – we never will as long as there are buyers and sellers – however I think the last few weeks occurred purely because a few bloggers found themselves in a situation where they were thinking about selling, for whatever reason, and then when they noticed the amount of money they could get, that tipped the scales.

The final selling price for these blog sales was above average based on recent history. I still think they were fair deals given the readership and potential for revenue, but compared to the prices you can get for other website purchases, these outgoing bloggers made very good money for what they sold. Price is always a subjective matter and it depends ultimately on how the new owner can leverage the asset to whether they got a good deal or not.

What I think is sad about these sales is the lost potential. These bloggers were on the tipping point of big success. If they just continued what they were doing they would have possibly grown into leaders in the industry – which is very hard to do – and when you get there, the perks are fantastic. Sometimes the lure of a nice cash exit is tempting, but you really want to be clear about what you are letting go of. It’s going to be harder and harder to stand out from the crowd and these blogs were well on their way to doing that.

Building an authority blog is a challenge, and frankly, there are much easier ways to generate a few thousand dollars online, so if you want the money, selling your asset should be the last resort. That being said, I think for many of the bloggers in question for these recent sales, there was a need for urgency or a clear desire to leave the market, so the sales are justified.

Will The Market Sustain These Prices?

The World Wide Web is MASSIVE. That means there is and always will be bargains to be found if you are looking to buy websites. Usually the best way to find sites and pick them at cheaper rates is to approach websites that represent value to you (they target the market you target and you see a way to get a return on your investment) and then make a casual approach. If you find sites that are clearly being neglected (look for blogs with recent inactivity), chances are you can pick them up for much lower rates than what these blogs recently sold for.

On the flipside, if you want to increase the value of a website for sale, focus on the core metrics like traffic, RSS, revenue, content and incoming links, and then go out and drum up some buzz for your sale. I think with the growth of the Web and the strong interest in successful blogs, they will continue to attract higher and higher prices. Expect more of what we are experiencing now in the future.

Currently, the make money online and blogging niches have enough buyers that blogs like those listed at the start of this article enjoy high demand. I’m not entirely sure why that is, but I suspect it’s because people see that there is money to be made about talking about making money.

Buying a blog instead of starting one from scratch is definitely a quick entry strategy, although there are risks involved since you may lose a lot of the value you paid for as soon as the blog changes owner. Some readers are only readers because of the person who was writing the blog. As soon as they leave, the readers leave too.

If you want further advice about buying and selling websites, try these articles –

Yaro Starak
Not Selling His Blog at http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

Consultancy, Social Media Sites, Work Connexions SMO

Blogging to Assess an Employees Performance

A couple of years ago I was applying for a job by a company in the UK. After the usual first get to know you meeting. They asked me to write a report about their website and what I thought about it.

I knew that this was a part of the job interview process so I wrote as honestly and as diplomatically as I could. Back then, I did not blog at all. Writing is not an obvious choice for me, I am much better orally speaking. I know why that is so, having kept a blog for over a year now. I am beginning to understand why writing is entirely different from speaking. It uses different parts of the brain. Which parts I am not entirely sure, but the more you activate a brain center the better it will perform. It is not as easy as it looks, but then again neither is it that hard. Without doubt, it does wonders for any plan to be able to take the effort to set it out on paper before you take any steps to put a plan into action. In fact I would even go so far to say that if we to do that with all important decisions in our life we would probably have a very different view point and live very different and probably richer lives, qualitatively speaking. If you are going to assess your employees on their writing skills you will have to create the right atmosphere. A free mind can develop very quickly (in children) unfortunately somewhat slower as an adult. So it is important that the employees do not feel that they have to write in certain way. Indeed that would be against the very essence of blogging. Forget having brain storming sessions, ask each employee to write something for you instead, that is a least the ones that cannot justify a better use of there of time than picking their nose. You will be amazed what you find…. this of course assuming that you have the more or less total confidence of your staff.

business, Consultancy

Republish and Publishing

One of the great things with online media and publishing is that you can change it at any moment you would like to. You can go back and update it, give it a revamp. If the blog post you wrote a year go seems out of date, go back and change it.

Revamping is not just limited to wanting to update your blog posts. It can be used also when inspiration does not strike as a filler while you are preparing a new blog post.

Here some tips you can look at when updating material: 

  • New perspectives: If the blog post is over a year old. Think about new angles that you can bring to the content.
  • Check your links: Make sure that pages you have linked to are still there.
  • Add internal links: What better way to build traffic. Link and link to your other blog posts.
  • Keywords: As time has passed hopefully your understanding of keywords and meta tags and the relevance it has with search engines has increased. Make sure your blog post is optimally balanced.
  • Blog about your updates: If you have updated an old blog post make sure that you publish it on the front page of your website and let people know through twitter etc. This will probably also mean updating the date.
  • Blog post series: A series is a really good way to keep your visitors coming back. It generates interest and allows you to write about more complex subjects.
  • Past the sale by date: Sometimes a blog post  is not possible to fix and pruning it will not help either. For a number reason you might  feel the material is not relevant. Maybe you have changed your views, maybe the company is no longer selling the product. That is when the time has come to delete that blog post.

 

That is this byte seize post. Any others you would add?

Consultancy, Uncategorized

10 Ways To Make Work Fun

We can make work fun, enjoyable and emotionally satisfying. Don’t dread certain tasks, use these 10 ways to turn even the most challenging tasks into a game. Find the psychological rewards of doing good work.

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. -Mark Twain

With all due respect to Mark Twain, I think there is a better way. Work can be fun. Any work can be turned into a game.

Here are a few ideas to help you find the fun in any job:

Play music. Turn on your CD player, MP3 player or even the radio. Music has the ability to draw our minds away from the more disheartening aspects of any job.

Make your work a competition. If you are working with someone else, make it a race to see who can get it done soonest. Or who can complete the most of each task.

Just dive in. Most of our feelings of dread disappear once we become immersed in a project. Whatever it was that made us put it off or want to avoid it, just goes away once we get started.

Ask yourself, what can I find to enjoy about this? Few jobs are totally devoid of any feelings of satisfaction that comes from just doing it. Psychologically, we need work in order to be happy. Work itself is often its own reward. Make an effort to find what gives you satisfaction in the job at hand.

Keep score. If your job is to make cold calls all day, keep records of how many calls you make. Break down how many you make before noon, how many you make each hour and how many you make for the entire day. Then on subsequent days, see if you can beat your previous day’s numbers. This builds a challenge into the job instead of it being one huge objective.

Can you make your job a team effort? Involve a friend or work side by side with someone whose company you enjoy. Companionship can make most experiences more enjoyable.

Take breaks. Don’t let fatigue rob you of any joy that comes from doing good, honest work. Stop occasionally and stretch or walk around. Come back to the job when you feel refreshed.

Break the job down into more manageable tasks. Big jobs tend to overwhelm us and demoralize our will. By making a big job several smaller jobs, you can enjoy that feeling of satisfaction sooner and more often as you cross each small job off your list.

Do quality work. Sloppy, get it done work feeds no one’s ego. There are tremendous psychological rewards that come when we know we just produced good work. This sounds silly, but I have gone back into a clean garage, after spending my entire Saturday morning straightening it out, just to look at and appreciate my own workmanship.

Change the setting. Can you take the job outside? If you have a back deck on your house, take some jobs outside and enjoy a beautiful day while you work. Do you remember those beautiful Spring days when a teacher might have occasionally taken the entire class outside to teach outdoors? Try to do that with your own work.

Work is what you make it. Few jobs are as boring or agonizing as we sometimes make them. If you can turn work into fun, how much more enjoyable would your entire life be?

COPYRIGHT(C) 2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.

Download your free copy of 99 Ideas For Writing Irresistible Web Content, written by Charles Brown, a Dallas, Texas based freelance copywriter who writes web copy, advertisements, white papers and direct mail. Subscribe to his “Freelance Copywriter Secrets” at http://dynamiccopywriting.blogspot.com or contact him at 817.715.3852 or **charbrow@gmail.com**.