Your prospective clients are hungry…are you feeding them good stuff?

Whether we like it or not you have to have a presence on the internet…if I hear about you from a friend, if I meet you at a networking event and get your card or if I stumble across you on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook the first thing I’m likely to do if I find you interesting is to find your website and check you out.

I’m looking for a better understanding of who you are, what you do and why I should care.  I’m hungry for information and if you want me to do something beyond a quick glance, you need to feed me something tasty and nutritious.

Sure your website has all of the basics…you do have a website that’s up to date, clean and professional don’t you?  If not, don’t pass go until you get that figured out!!!

Assuming you do have a real website, you’ve likely got the the typical stuff (about, services, contact, why us, etc.)  All of that’s fine, but unless it’s unusually thorough, interesting and professionally done, it’s not likely to tell me much other than marketing speak.

What you really want to do is feed me something tasty…some content that I can’t resist digging into!  Ideally it’s something healthy (good for me) and adds value in the long run, but a sweet treat…something light and funny would be alright as well…as long as you don’t over do it.

Only after getting a few bites of what you’re serving up will I start to understand who you are and what makes you tick. 

There are a few ways to differentiate your business, but the easiest (and certainly the one everyone should be doing) is to authentically be yourself…by definition you’re the only one who can do that.  

And if I like you, the person, then I’m a lot more likely to buy from you or suggest you to other people…which is what you really want.

But I can’t get to like you until I get to know you…and I can’t get to know you without some tasty content that you are serving up fresh!

There are other reasons to generate content…as an example, here are 5 reasons why a business blog is smart, but at the core it’s so I can start understanding who you really are, how you think, what’s important to you and how you help people based on the stories you tell.

So what tasty treats are you serving up to your visitors?  Are you getting stuck in the kitchen with no time to cook?  Don’t think you can cook?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on how important fresh content is and how you’re approaching it – share your thoughts in the comments below.

Great apple photo by Selma90

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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I’ve been really busy the last few months (which is a great problem to have these days), but it’s been challenging to keep up with all of the great stuff that’s out on the internet.

I pick up a lot of ideas for articles and blog posts from Social Media (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) when I get the time to surf a bit – or if I’m doing research.  I also have a lot of blogs set up on various RSS readers, on my Yahoo home page, my Google home page and even some just tucked into odd corners.

I also follow blogs from a variety of local folks that I see around Kansas City that I think are very good – here’s a few – Sarah at Dog Eared Pages of course.  Although I haven’t met him personally, I like Sam Meers at Smoke and Meers and a couple that  new to blogging,  Tara Renze at Prospects to Partners and Jason Terry (of the upcoming Blue Gurus) are going to be good reading.

On a national level, there are just a few blogs that I value enough that I sign up for their email feed – several of them because they have good content, but more importantly because I just enjoy reading them.  These are the kinds of emails that you look forward to reading – a treat to look forward to.

Here are 4 of them that add a real splash of color to my inbox!

Naomi On IttyBiz

In the professional world, sometimes it’s easy to forget that the world is a colorful place and that not only is it okay to be  yourself, but sometimes being  yourself can make all the difference – of course it helps if you are genuinely funny, demonstrate that you care about the people you are writing to, give valuable advice and ideas and…have a mouth like a truck driver.

Here’s a recent post from Naomi on How to Become Rich and Famous on the Internet that will give you a pretty good idea of her style and substance.  She makes great points, but she’s also consistently very funny!

The Wealthy Freelancer

I haven’t been following this blog quite as long as the others, but I have found myself reading, saving and occasionally forwarding several of his posts (which is fairly rare for me).  There’s a lot of great information here for any business owner (not just freelancers) and he has a good voice / writing style.

This post on using an effective pick-up line is very good.  I love the simplicity and the practicality of the approach, well worth the time.

Jonathan Fields – Awake at the Wheel

I’ve never met Jonathan, but he has a fascinating story behind how he got to where he is today – the typical former power lawyer in New York that burns out, starts a Yoga clinic, figures out how to make it insanely popular, sells it for a lot of money and becomes an author and respected thought leader / blogger all in a few years.  It happens all the time…!   

Seriously – I would challenge you to read his blog for a couple of weeks and not be totally impressed by how much he’s just himself.  He’s a huge success story and he’s more concerned with family, friends and posting interesting and insight articles.

This is an older post from last year on Slogan Train Wrecks – very funny, insightful and overall a good read.  Jonathan has a lot of variety in his posts (which is hard to do) and he shares my joy of finding the right image to lead with.  Check him out.

Brian Clark and the rest of Copyblogger

There may very well be better blogs out there than Copyblogger – but if so, I don’t think I’ve found them yet.  Copyblogger started with Brian Clark recognizing a need to instruct all of the would be bloggers on how to bring copywriting skills to their blog.   Of course he writes about much more than copywriting, but most of the topics tie into that theme in some way.

Brian also has other Copyblogger writers – and all of them are excellent (I especially like a lot of the stuff that Sonia Simone at Remarkable Communications writes).

Here’s a post that I think will give you an idea of what you’ll find at Copyblogger – Ernest Hemingway’s top 5 tips for writing well – maybe it’s because I’m not a writer, but I find almost every post I read on this site (and there are a lot of posts) to be really helpful, extremely thoughtful and generally very entertaining – it’s the best of the web as far as I’m concerned.

What are your favorite blogs?  The best of the best?  Share your ideas here – I’d love to hear them and add some more color to my inbox!

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business CoachSimilar Posts:

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photo by extranoise 

Blogging is a great way to promote your business.

There are a lot of great reasons why you should Blog for your business but the catch-22 is that blogging without any readers doesn’t make any noise in the forest (you know what I mean).

As I’ve discovered over time, although it’s pretty straightforward (not easy mind you, but straightforward) to blog consistently and with good intent.  However, getting people to find you and check out your blog (and subscribe) is a whole different ball o’ wax.

I would argue that quality (of readers and of postings) is way more important than quantity, but still everyone wants to grow their readership and more importantly become part of a blogging ‘community’ of similar interests.

That’s why I think Michael Martine at Remarkablogger came up with a great opportunity to Get Web Traffic. 

• Check out the aspiring bloggers on the comments list
• Sign up for their feeds if it’s something cool that you would enjoy
• Leave a comment and let ‘em know someone is reading them

But definitely make sure you check out Remarkablogger because he almost always has something worthwhile to say!  (also don’t forget to comment here!!!) 

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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• Just Get Started…

For those that don’t know, Twitter is a ‘micro-blogging’ platform that limits you to 140 characters per post (or Tweet).

What’s the point?

Well that’s the interesting thing – I have no idea how planned this product was and there are a lot of opinions out there, but I think the forced brevity encourages more of a true conversation format.  You can leave short posts on what you’re doing, you can share sites that you found interesting or you can engage people.

There are a lot of ways to participate in Twitter – here’s a few that I’ve noticed so far:

1.  Follow ‘thought leaders’, industry lights, movers and shakers.

If they’re active posters, you can get a real sense of what they do, how they think, how they interact and how genuine (or not) they are.  It’s kind of like being behind someone on the escalator as they’re talking to who ever they’re walking with.

2.  Meet people, participate, mix it up.

Twitter is about as democratic platform as you’re going to find.  People are generally interested in activity and I get the sense that you could build up a respectable ‘following’ in a short period of time.  I have a friend that has really leveraged Twitter and Brightkite to meet a lot of new people and solidify existing relationships.

3.  Solidify existing relationships

The way the tool is set up, it’s easy to reinforce activities and ties with people that you like or work with.  With minimal time, you can reach out and share ideas, things you find on the web or just reminders in a real time, non-obtrusive way.  It’s actually pretty cool.

4.  Promote yourself

Like most Social Networking applications, you have the potential to get in front of people and share what you’re doing, what’s important to you and give people an opportunity to Know, Like and Trust you (which is the precursor to doing business or partnering with you…).  It’s easy to set up an announcement of blog posts or to highlight other things you might be up to.

A couple of resources:

A couple of weeks ago, John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing put together and shared a great getting started resource in his blog post on Twitter for Business.  Easy to read and will give you some background and ideas.

You might have noticed the stylish avatar picture above (it’s supposed to be me, but I’m not sure I succeeded).  A few days ago I ran across the Twitting Point post on Mashable about an application that lets you create your own Manga style avatar – it’s a lot like the Mii editor on the Wii – a lot of fun to play with.

You can find me on Twitter at Twitter.com/Aspire_Shawn – when you sign up, let me know and I can follow you.

Share your thoughts on twitter here!

Shawn Kinkade Kansas City Business CoachSimilar Posts:

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Delano, Jack,, 1914-, photographer.  find it here

Retiring a locomotive driver wheel in the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railway locomotive shops, Shopton, near Fort Madison, Iowa. The tire is heated by means of gas until it can be slipped over the wheel. Contraction on cooling will hold it firmly in place. Santa Fe R.R.

1943 – March

If you’ve seen much of my blog, you might have noticed that I’m using pictures for most of my posts these days.  I’m a visual person and really drawn to photography – hopefully it’s something that other people enjoy.

What’s really cool is that I’ve found a couple of resources to use as a free and legal source for great images.

The first resource is a great article from Skelliewag (a blogger from Australia that does a great job on blogging in general).  Her article: Guide to finding and using incredible Flickr Images gives a step by step process on how to find Creative Commons (i.e. not copyrighted) photos that you can legally use by attributing the photographer.  Copyright infringement is a big deal and she gives a very clear explanation on how to avoid it.

The second resource I just discovered today on Wisebread in this article:  Help Yourself to Amazing Photos from the Library of Congress.  Earlier this month, the Library of Congress announced that they were working with Flickr to make thousands of their most popular photographs available to the public without any copyright restrictions!

Not only is that a great resource for blogging, publishing, etc, but the pictures themselves are fascinating.  I haven’t had a chance to go through in any detail yet but there are some really amazing historical images on there.  I have a feeling you’ll be seeing quite a few more of these in future posts.

You can find the primary page Here.  Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Shawn Kinkade   www.aspirekc.comSimilar Posts:

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