99 Blogs and 3 Big Lessons

This week marks my 100^th blog post. Whew. That is a lot of blood, sweat, tears and dedication to writing to and for our core audience of entrepreneurs, sales pros and leaders.

Sharing insights, experiences and perspectives has been the best and most important strategy I have implemented in my business. Committing my thoughts and voice to a blog and the internet in an indelible way has built a permanent platform that we stand on for everyone to see.

Through this blog and thus, the internet and social media, I have met thousands of amazing colleagues, who like me, are passionate about shifting the paradigm of business and selling profession. I’ve engaged in conversations with hundreds of new connections from around the world that have lead to collaboration, partnerships and some have become clients.

I will tell you that creating new and original content every week is really hard. It’s most challenging to keep sharing relevant insights and stories in a consistent manner—it’s the consistency that gets you.

• I do it because it brings my clients and advocates and cheerleaders closer to me.
• I do it to be visible, vocal and valuable—so that when my future clients need me, they already understand what we offer, they know where our expertise lies and they have a really good idea of what it would be like to work with me and our team.

In these pass 99 blog posts {and that’s not counting the ones that are in development or the ones that just didn’t make the cut}, I’ve learned a few lessons about how to really use your blog, your content and all your audience development efforts to connect with your interested audience and convert them to customers.

Here are My Top 3 Lessons from 99 Blogs

1. Be you. Show up as you, sound like you, share you in your writing and perspectives. My writing is pretty direct and sometimes cheeky or irreverent. I like to use metaphors and analogies to put abstracts or ideas into context that is personal or humorous. I am the same online as I am offline.

Don’t hide behind words or jargon you wouldn’t use if you were having a conversation with someone in person. The more you that shows up in your blog or communication, the more authentic people find you.

2. Be consistent. This is so hard sometimes but when you publish the same day every week and drop newsletter or emails the same day every week, people view you with more credibility and reliability. The trusted expert doesn’t work without trust.

Don’t miss your own deadlines. Make yourself the client. You wouldn’t miss an important meeting or client deadline so keep the promises you make to yourself—you’ll work for you for the rest of your life, so keep up that accountability—no matter what! Put this time on the calendar, commit to the deadlines and build processes and systems around making sure that you can consistently be visible, vocal and valuable.

3. Be strategic. Have a strategy for your content and audience. This may evolve a bit slightly over time, but if you are here and writing to attract customers, connect with donors or promote yourself, you need to clearly understand and define 3 things. Who do you want to reach, what matters to them and why is what you’re saying valuable.

We’ve shared this in our brand content strategy and even shared with you how we define our audience and the filters we use to share information. This is a critical key in successfully converting audience to customers. We created this process for our clients and use it ourselves as it’s not just for blogging and writing – what you’ve created is the foundation for all your sales and marketing communication.

Let’s sum this up with yet another analogy: Creating your brand content is sort of like exercise. You know you need to do it to be healthy. It’s tough to be consistent and get in to a routine. You have to find what works for you. Once you start, your build up endurance and muscle tone. You feel great and reap benefits in everything else you do.

On To The Next 99 Blogs...

So, if you need a personal trainer to help your create your strategy and systems for your sales and marketing messages (blogs, email, social media, proposals and presentations), we can help you through that . . . now drop and give me 10 (kidding...sorta)! 

PS – I’d like to personally Thank YOU for all your comments, shares and encouragement!