Tactical Execution

There’s a fantastic resource out there that few people are aware of.  It’s called blogcarnival.com and it can help you dramatically widen your audience in just 1 hour each month.  So, what’s a “carnival”?  Well, it’s like a magazine except online.  It’s a collection of articles (blog posts generally) that someone puts together and distributes to an audience who has expressed interest in that topic.

BlogCarnival.com lists all the carnivals that are being published in the coming weeks and months.  It lists the organization putting it together, the topic of the carnival, the date of the last issue and the date of the next issue (if known).  As a blogger, you can then submit your blog posts (via permalinks) to the carnivals that cover similar topics.  If selected, your post will be featured in the carnival and distributed to an audience of people who may have never heard of you before.

This strategy exemplifies the difference between Social Media Optimization and Social Media Marketing.  Social Media Optimization involves the things you can do to make your blog easier to share and distribute through social media platforms.  For example, adding the social bookmarking buttons for delicious, DIGG and StumbleUpon is a Social Media Optimization strategy.  Those buttons make it easier for your visitors to share your content with others.

Social Media Marketing involves more proactive strategies like going to blogcarnival.com yourself and submitting your blog posts to upcoming carnivals.  Another example is bookmarking your own content on the social bookmarking platforms, or even sharing your bookmarks with others to get more “votes” within those communitites.  Social Media Marketing involves all the blatant self-promotion activities you can do to get your content in front of the masses.

You may or may not feel comfortable with shameless self-promotion, but the benefits are clear.  Bottom line; if people don’t know you exist, they can’t endorse your content.  The idea is simply to help the world find you.  Once they have been exposed to your content, their endorsement is beyond your control.  And with that in mind, blogcarnival.com is a great place to share your truth with a broader audience.

On Tuesday evening, May 20th, I attended a workshop on the Stanford campus about the rise of crowdsourcing, collective intelligence and the wisdom of crowds.  The term crowdsourcing originated in an article written by Jeff Howe and published in Wired Magazine.  The workshop was a fascinating analysis of the different ways companies are leveraging user-generated content to help build their businesses.

The idea is simple.  If you align the incentives and give people a reason to contribute to their cause, they often will.  In fact, the average person and a remarkable amount of “spare capacity” that they can allocate to any number of activities; like hobbies.  The right business model can give people a vehicle to do what they love while benefiting your business and often delivering remarkable results.

With this in mind, I took a look at my own business: Tactical Execution.  We provide a variety of educational products, ranging from free resources to inexpensive CDs, intensive workshops and even one-to-one consulting.  How could we invite the public to participate in our business and contribute to our success?  How could we leverage the talents and skills of our own audience to help us spread the word?

Tactical Execution just launched the Level 7 SOI Corporate Training Program.  It’s a competitively priced, intensive workshop about internet market, designed specifically for a corporate audience.  And it’s in demand!  We’ve found that there’s a huge market of brick-and-mortar companies that see the opportunities available on the internet but have no idea how to capitalize on them.  The Level 7 SOI Corporate Training Program provides those answers.

Tactical Execution has already been offering the Level 6 SOI Boot Camp and has had overwhelmingly positive feedback.  But that program is designed for individuals.  The Level 7 Program has a flat fee and the client can bring as many attendees as they like.  If the audience is larger than 20, additional attendees can attend for just $50 each.  We believe there are literally thousands of companies who could benefit from the Level 7 SOI Corporate Training Program.

With crowdsourcing in mind, we decided to open the sales process up to the public at large.  We created our very own crowdsourcing sales program.  Rather than hire a sales staff, pay for office space, telephones and administration, we would instead offer a significant commission to those people who help us spread the word and sell the Level 7 Program on their own.  In fact, we offer a straight $1000 commission on every sale.  It’s that simple.

The only thing we need is a simple 1-page application form including your PayPal email address and a completed W-9 form.  Once received, we provide you with a customized PDF document describing the program and referencing you as the salesperson, and you’re ready to go.  As long as you represent our company in a professional way, you’re welcome to use your own imagination to help us spread the word and promote our new program.

Please visit the program description page as well as the sales program page if you’re interested in participating in our program.  Together, we can help move our economy into the internet age … and make a few dollars along the way!

Last night, I spoke at the May PATCA dinner in Santa Clara.  There I was, demonstrating my expertise to a group of self-employed consultants, ranging from independent software developers to human resources specialists to factory layout engineers.  All of these people spend their days adding value to their various customers and getting paid on a 1099 basis.  Refreshing.  That’s exactly what I do!

But there’s more to it then that.  All of these people can use my expertise to build their respective businesses but they can also resell my expertise to their clients.  So that means my presentation last night could lead to some immediate business but it might also lead to some partnership arrangements down the road.  In fact, a few of them already spoke to me about projects they’re working on that would benefit from some of the strategies I laid out.  Point is; my presentation helped me build credibility, gain exposure and grow my business.

Public speaking is one of the best ways to demonstrate your expertise.  It’s a highly leveraged activity.  You speak once but are heard by multiple people.  In the case of last night, I was probably heard by more people than were actually at the event!  And you always get some automatic credibility for being the person at front of the room.  All in all, it’s an ideal way to build your business quickly.

So let’s talk about how to get some of these speaking engagements.  Well, as it turns out, there are plenty of organizations that are looking for speakers all the time.  Think about community organizations like Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions.  And then there are all the associations like the one I spoke at last night.  You can also look at the tradeshows and conventions in your industry.  All of them have education days where speakers have an opportunity to share their expertise.

It all begins with a workshop proposal and you can browse a number of mine right here on this website.  You can follow the same basic format.  Think about a catchy title.  Think about a topic everyone’s talking about in your area of expertise.  Answer the top 10 questions or address the top 10 myths.  People love lists.  So think about a topic you could present and then develop a proposal around that topic.  Once you have that complete, it’s only a matter of contacting the organizations you’re interested in and emailing your proposal through.  You might be surprised how quickly you can start booking engagements.

Before I sign off, I’d like to address the common issue of being afraid of public speaking.  Some studies have found that public speaking is one of the most-feared activities most people have.  It’s true.  You have to get used to it.  But it all boils down to practice and I joined a Toastmasters club back in October 2006 and it was one of the best things I’ve done in years.  We have a great club and it’s a wonderful and supportive place to hone your speaking skills without risking a business project.

Entrepreneurs are very particular types of people.  They’re creative.  They’re ambitious.  And they see opportunities; not just their own but in every day situations all around them.  Predictably, those characteristics represent their greatest strength and also their greatest weakness.  Why?  Because they often can’t focus on one thing.

I just got off a conference call (organized by Edith Yeung with SF Entrepreneur) with Christine Comaford-Lynch (one of the original angel investors for Google) and she said the same thing.  She said most of the entrepreneurs she comes across spread themselves too thin.  They have a bunch of different ideas and try to pursue too many at one time.  The result is that no single idea ever gets traction because the efforts of the founding entrepreneur are diluted.

Of course, there’s something else to consider.  For many entrepreneurs, their original idea doesn’t get anywhere and they usually figure it out pretty quickly.  They do some initial business activities and recognize that their brilliant idea isn’t resonating with their audience.  The beauty of being an entrepreneur is that you can change your strategy on a dime and try a different approach.  So they try something else, and something else, and something else – until they find something that works.

I understand that process because I’ve gone through it myself.  I’ve tested dozens of different ideas and the vast majority of them fell flat.  But every now and again, you stumble on something that actually works.  So my point is that when that finally happens, you need to embrace the success and focus your efforts on that particular revenue model to see if you can scale the success or not.  If so, focus all your energy on that project and start building your business.  If not, move on to the next idea.

Once you’ve seen some success and are in the process of building the business, always look for ways to systemize the business model, allowing it to run itself eventually.  When you get to that point, you once again have the freedom to try other business models.  But if you do it too soon, you risk jeopardizing your first business by pursuing a second.  Stay focused.  Find one revenue model and focus on that until it runs itself.  Only at that point should you get back to the entrepreneurial instincts that you started with.

This is what everybody always asks me.  Well, it’s a process.  It’s a series of things you need to do on a regular basis and the most important part is to produce more and more relevant content on a regular basis.  That’s the first question I ask clients.  Do you have a content generation mechanism?  If you don’t, we have a problem.  If you do, the sky’s the limit.

The problem is that most people want to buy results, not a process.  They don’t want to do anything.  They just want it to happen.  I hate to say it but that just won’t work.  You see, the evolving blogosphere is full of intelligent people generating fresh new relevant unique content on a daily basis.  These blogs have hundreds or even thousands of pages, all about one particular topic.  How can a well-optimized but static website compete?  It can’t.

Having said that, let’s spend a little time talking about the primary SEO factors that do, in fact, help your cause.  Again, keep in mind that a static website with no new fresh content will almost certainly come in second place.  But the following tips will definitely put you in a better position to show up high on a Google search.  And if you do these things AND produce fresh relevant content, you’re in great shape to rise to the top for dozens or even hundreds of relevant keywords and phrases.

Keywords in Title Tags.

This is one of the most important things you can do.  Every page has a title tag and you should limit it to about 65 characters.  Make sure you put a title tag on every page and stack it full of relevant keywords.

Keywords in H1 Tags.

Your H1 tag is the title of your page.  It’s what comes up at the very top.  The search engines look at the words in your title as an indication of what your page is about.  So … get those keywords in there!

Keywords in the Text Copy

If you have a particular keyword or keyword phrase in your title tag and in your H1 tag, make sure you put it into your copy as well.  Keep in mind that Google likes sentences and paragraphs.  So write your content in that format and include the same keywords throughout your copy.

Keywords in Your URLs.

The nice thing about most modern websites is that the title of your page becomes part of the permalink for that post.  That’s good news because it puts the same keywords into the actual URL for that page.  Whenever possible, include keywords into the URL because it’ll help your cause from an SEO perspective.

Keywords in Your Domain.

Yes, it matters.  If Google finds the same string of characters in your search query and the domain for your website, it will give you some additional credit for it.  So if someone searches for “health insurance” and your domain name is health-insurance.com, you’ll benefit as a result.

Last but not least, pick a narrow topic and focus on that.  Don’t try to go too wide.  Pick 3 or 4 keyword phrases and focus your entire website around that.  It will make it easier for Google to understand what your website is all about and present it when people search for that topic.

I’ll finish with the same thing as I started with.  The most important thing is to produce new fresh content on a regular basis.  Google likes fresh content.  And – surprise, surprise – blogs are the best way to do it.  If you want to make a splash on today’s internet, I highly recommend putting a blog together and start feeding it with regular content additions.

A past client of mine had a business selling wine jelly.  Yes, that’s right.  Wine jelly.  Apparently, it tastes really good.  But that’s not the point.  Before we met, his website had products ranging in price from $4 to $28.  They included different sized jars and one package deal with 4 large jars.  Now, picture what you might think when you stumble upon his website.

If it were me, I would picture a retail shelf vendor and nothing more.  I would picture a few jars with a particular label sitting there on the shelf, beside dozens of competitive products.  There is absolutely nothing that would jump out at me.  And that’s precisely the problem.  He was a retail shelf vendor and nothing more.

After working together, we introduced a once-annual 3-day retreat up in Napa, including an extensive tour of a winery on one day, an afternoon workshop on a second day (teaching participants how to make wine jelly in their own homes) and three gourmet meals per day, each featuring wine jelly in one fashion or another.  The price for the retreat is $3995 and he featured it on his homepage.  Now, picture yourself once again as you discover this website.

In the first case, you have found a retail shelf vendor selling little jars of jelly.  In the second scenario, you have found a parallel universe that you never knew existed; a world full of romance, passion and good food.  You have discovered a world you have never seen, a potential hobby and a rich addition to your life.  It’s a totally different frame.  It’s a totally different experience.

Keep in mind, nobody needs to buy it!

Listen.  When someone clicks onto your website, they are in the submissive position.  They are in the receiving mode.  They have absolutely no control over what they are about to see.  You do.  You control everything they see.  That’s a huge opportunity that few businesses take advantage of.  You can present a small timid frame with your little product or service available for sale.  Or you can present a huge overwhelming presence full of opportunities to change people’s lives.  Your choice.

I’m not suggesting you be deceptive in any way.  I’m only suggesting you think bigger.  Expand the frame of your business.  Think about the personal objectives of your prospective customers.  They are people.  They have their own passions and goals.  Think of ways to let them pursue their own objectives within the context of your business.  Cater to their inner most desires.  Cater to their human side.  Cater to their emotions.

Don’t ever underestimate the passion of your customers.  They might not all buy what you’re offering and that’s okay.  But some will.  Trust me.  Some will.  You’ll see.  Some will engage and see your business as a way for them to improve their own lives.  Cater to them.  Build your business for them.  They have friends.  And if your business is improving their lives, you can bet they’ll be telling their friends.  And some of your other less-passionate customers might just get a bit jealous and engage more themselves.

Think bigger.  Redefine what you do.  Include your customers’ personal objectives into your business plans.  Present an overwhelming online identity and watch your customer interactions change forever!

As of December 2007, Technorati was following over 112 million blogs.  112 million!!  There’s no question that blogs are quickly dwarfing the rest of the internet and the search engines are consistently ranking them higher because of (1) their volume of relevant content, (2) their ongoing flow of new and fresh content and (3) the incredible link structure characteristic of the blogosphere.  But the fact remains that most people who blog don’t really do it “correctly” or at a minimum, could be blogging more effectively.  If you’re a blogger, here’s a process you can follow that will massively expand the reach of your posts.

First things first.  I highly recommend you find the top bloggers in your field and subscribe to their feed.  Select a reader (like Google Reader) and add all your subscriptions.  Technorati is a great place to find the top bloggers in any particular field.  Google is another.  Do some research and find about a dozen bloggers you like and respect.  Okay; having done that, let’s get to the process.

Obviously, it begins with your idea.  You’ve decided what you’d like to blog about.  That’s step number one.

Before you write your blog …

• Check your reader to see if the other bloggers you follow are talking about the same thing.
• Put a few keywords into Google to find other resources you can link to in your post.
• Put the same keywords into Technorati to see if anyone else is discussing the same topic.

Writing your post …

• In the blogosphere, outbound links = currency.
• Constantly link to other bloggers and valuable resources in your post.
• You want your blog to be a single portal to ALL the resources that exist on your topic.

After you publish your new post …

• Write an email to the bloggers you linked to, letting them know and giving them a link.
• Bookmark your new post on Delicious, DIGG and StumbleUpon (among others).
• Submit your blog post to any relevant carnival on Blog Carnival (do this once each month).

Taking these simple steps will ensure your blog post gets nicely integrated into the ongoing conversation that defines today’s blogosphere.  You want to engage in the conversation.  Conversations are markets.  If you want to access a market, participate in a conversation.  Blogging is one of the best ways to do that but you have to let the world know you exist.  The steps above will dramatically accelerate that process.

The last thing to keep in mind is that you can get far more traffic from referral websites (other blogs) than you can from search engines.  Once you’ve linked out to a lot of popular blogs and some of them have linked back to you, you can quickly grow your traffic as part of their audiences become aware of you.  That’s the game.  Find the bloggers in your field and engage in their conversation.  You might be surprised how quickly it can all take shape.

Edith Yeung is a good example of this.  She grew her blog from zero to over 1000 visitors per day in under 10 months by using some of the steps I’ve outlined above and the vast majority of her traffic comes from referral websites (other blogs) and social bookmarking platforms like StumbleUpon.  Give it a try.  Done properly, it can completely change your business in less than a year!

Today, I taught another course at the Pleasant Hill Adult Education center.  I teach courses like this often and always enjoy meeting the people who register for the courses I offer.  Today’s program was entitled “Modern Marketing in Action” and we took a broad top-level look at some of the exciting marketing options in our increasingly internet-driven world.  My group was full of entrepreneurs trying to grow their respective businesses.

I always spend a good deal of time discussing the differences between yesterday’s “interruption marketing” environment (a phrase coined by Seth Godin) and today’s “permission marketing” alternative.  In particular, I always like to point out how differently the young people view the internet when compared with older people.  Their respective perspectives are near opposite.  But after that, we looked at some of the tools available on today’s internet and there was one they really got excited about.

Many of you may know about the publicly accessible Google keyword tool on the Adwords platform.  If you’re not, you need only click on Resources above and then Useful Links and Keyword Research Tools to find it (or you can just click here).  On that platform, you can enter any keyword you’re interested in and the platform will spit out a long list of related keywords along with the PPC competition and the average search volume for each keyword.  This is an incredibly powerful utility we’re all well advised to take advantage of.

Before I explain the best way to use this platform, let me first explain how it functions.  When you enter a keyword into the input field, Google looks into its database to see what other words people used when searching for the keywords you entered.  In other words, the output is entirely dynamic and determined by the millions of people who use Google every day.  The words they use in their search queries give Google a ready supply of words related to the ones you’re interested in.

Anyway, once you have the output, you can sort the results by the PPC competition or the average search volume.  If you think about it, sorting the results by the average search volume tells you precisely what Google users are looking for most often.  For example, you can put “products” in and see that after “office products”, there are 5 or 6 keyword phrases that all have to do with skin care and beauty supplies – shows you what people are looking for.  Likewise, if you put “services” in, you’ll see that a lot of the searches have to do with dating services, phone services and internet services.  Lastly, if you put “free” (one of the most heavily searched terms on the internet) in, you’ll see that the top results are for free games and free downloads.

For an entrepreneur, this is an incredibly powerful utility.  You can simply put your keywords into the Google tool and immediately find out precisely what your audience is searching for.  Then, armed with that information, you can build out your website with sections that cater specifically to that subject.  Not only will that cater to those who stumble upon your website but it will likely increase the number of people find your site through the search engines.

Never before have we had such access.  Never before have we had a platform where you can immediately see what your audience is looking for.  And if you’re looking to refine your business and grow your revenue, I highly recommend looking here first.  Let your audience tell you where to go and then build exactly what it is that they’re looking for.  It saves time.  It saves money.

If you want your website to generate any sort of results, there are 3 questions a visitor must be able to answer within the first 5 seconds.  If they can’t, their interest will stall and they’ll probably leave your site.

1. Why am I here?

Visitors must have a clear idea of what you do as soon as they chance upon your site.  No delays.  No explanations necessary.  They need to take one look at your homepage and understand what you do.  In the case of blogs (where a visitor may first stumble upon your site on a page OTHER than the homepage), make sure your page header explains who you are and what you do.

This may seem like simple advice but you might be surprised how few companies have this initial step nailed down.  Not only are their sites unclear as to their purpose, but the executives within some of these companies can’t easily explain what they do either!  Major problem.  Successful businesses have many things in common but one of them is that they KNOW what they do and what they sell.  If you don’t have that figured out yet, stop everything and deal with that problem first.

2. Where do I look?

Your homepage is NOT a content page.  It’s a portal.  It’s only purpose is to explain what you do and direct visitors to something that will be of value to them.  Most homepages have 15 or 20 different options; links everywhere!  Don’t do it.  Your visitors won’t be able to navigate your site.  In fact, research has shown that internet browsers only look at simple 1 or 2-word buttons.  The longer explanations fail completely.  Check out this fascinating post on eye tracking to learn more about that.

Your homepage should have only a small handful of options.  The visitor should be given a basic choice right away, allowing them to navigate to something of direct value to them.  Think about a site with two large buttons reading “I am a man” and “I am a woman” on the homepage.  Yes, this is an extreme example but you get the point.  Immediately, the visitor can make a simple choice and navigate to an area of the site specifically designed for them.

3. What do I do?

This goes hand-in-hand with question #2.  Not only must people know where to look but they must also know what to do.  Always tell your website visitors what to do next.  Every single page on your website should link back to something else.  No page should be left hanging in the wind, all by itself.  Always give your visitors a few options of where to click next.

Bottom line; when people come across your website, they are in the submissive position.  They will receive whatever your website presents.  They have no control over what your website will present; only YOU do.  That’s a huge opportunity.  You can present a small timid online presence or you can present a huge overwhelming presence – your choice.  So project some confidence and give your visitors the direction they need to get the most out of your website.  Tell them what to do.  Make it easy and tell them where to go.  They will respond, in many cases, by doing exactly as you say!