February 2010

Friday Quick Hits: Hiding Faith, Relationship Paradoxes and LoveSounds

February 26, 2010 · 14 comments

Happy Friday everyone! We’ve arrived at the home-stretch. Very busy week for yours truly (and from talking to many of you – you were in the same boat). In the midst of it all, you guys did not disappoint in working up some outstanding reading material. And with that, deep breath…here we go!

Why Do We Have to Hide Faith?

I feel like every week I’m including a post by Emily Jasper – she is really on a roll with saying the things that need to be said (and that others aren’t saying). In this post she talks about faith, something rarely discussed in the blogosphere – hiding it and being proud of it. To be honest, I’ve had a very personal post on religion in my que of drafts for almost six months now – I think it’s time to finally let that one go public. Everyone doesn’t have to “agree” but when it comes to faith, there is no right or wrong and we should ALL appreciate and respect each other’s beliefs. There are many, many ways to walk down the path of enlightenment.

The Paradox of Building Stronger Online Relationships

Building relationships is something I talk about a lot here – and Jackie Adkins hits on (probably) the most important part of the relationship-building process. The “real” tangible face to face interaction with other human beings. I’ve seen a lot of negativity around the web lately, a lot of criticism and attacks – most of which is fueled by the medium. We can hide behind our computer screens and be much more bold because we’re not held as accountable. This only further proves Jackie’s point – that the online medium is a tool, ONE tool – a method of communication and interaction, a way for businesses to directly communicate with consumers and for us to chat with one another. But, there is much that can be misconstrued, and there will always be barriers when communicating online. In summation, and as Jackie so aptly puts, we all need to get offline more often, start getting real, and stop putting Social Media on this almighty pedestal.

Justin Timberlake and the Art of Presenting Well

I love this post – seriously – it is an extremely well thought out breakdown on the lyrics of JT’s “FutureSex/LoveSound and how it applies to presenting well. From defining the needs, clearly articulating the primary obstacles, and providing tangible solutions – It’s hilarious and brilliant and well worth your time to stop by and check out.

Quick(er) Hits (Crowd-sourced favorites from the community)

What were some of your favorite posts from this week?

8 Essential Business and Career Skills You Develop From Running a Blog

February 25, 2010 · 80 comments

The following is a guest post by Srinivas Rao. Srinivas is a personal development blogger at The Skool of Life where he writes about surfing, personal development and and has a dream to travel the world and surf as much as possible. He also runs a weekly podcast series over at BlogCastFM. Mega props to Srvinias for taking the time to put this together for Life Without Pants.

As I’ve started to prepare for my first speech to current students at the MBA program I recently graduated from, I started to brainstorm reasons for them to be open to the idea of starting a blog. As I looked back over the last several months and watched this great video by Matt, I realized that running blog gives you a great opportunity to develop certain essential skills for business success.

8 KEY SKILLS LEARNED FROM BLOGGING

Leadership: No matter how you look at it, if you are running a blog you are leading people. If you accept guest posts on your blog, this is a perfect example of developing leadership skills. You have to reach out to people, hold them accountable, and get them to deliver. To add to all this, they’re not even getting paid most of the time. The fact that you are developing an ability to get people who are not getting paid to help you is a tremendously valuable way to develop yourself as a leader.

Teamwork: I’ve said before that blogging is a team sport. The future of this business is collaboration. Even as an individual blogger you are running a team of people. Every time somebody writes a guest post on your blog, retweets one of your posts, or plugs you in any way, they have become a part of your team and you are a part of theirs. Gordie Rogers has done an excellent job turning his readers into a team by making them regular contributors to his site.

Marketing: If you can market yourself with little to no resources then you can easily go into a company that gives you a budget and market their products. The fact that you can build an audience and build a following is a strong demonstration of your marketing abilities and it will translate into so many areas in your career.

Time Management/Operations: Another great skill that running a blog teaches you is time management. I recently wrote a post called how to write a blog post in 20 minutes or less. Time management, efficiency and operations are going to be essential skills as your blog grows or your climb the ladder in the corporate world. Leaders are extremely proficient with time management and little time goes to waste.

Creativity: This is one of my personal favorite aspects of blogging. Creativity is really something you can’t put a price on. Too often in a typical corporate job, things become so routine that you don’t get a chance to think outside of the box. When you run a blog you are constantly being forced to come up with new ideas. This keeps the creative part of your brain going. That is why it doesn’t surprise me anymore that people figure out a way to get to what they want after the first year of blogging.

Strategic Planning/Decision Making: At the end of the day, you get to play CEO when you are a blogger. It’s your job to come up with strategic plans and make decisions. Again, this is a skill that will be essential in the working world.

Finance: Once you start making money off your blog and it truly does become a business, you are now the CEO and CFO of your blog. It’s likely you will keep financial records and keep track of everything you do. Pat Flynn from Smart Passive income does a great job of this in his monthly income report.

Networking: It’s known fact the network you have is tremendously powerful. You are as powerful as the people you surround yourself with. Fortunately blogging gives you an opportunity to surround yourself with some really smart people who can teach you quite a bit.

At the end of the day, even if you don’t have any desire to become a digital nomad or entrepreneur, starting a blog allows you to develop a wide set of essential business and career skills. So, START YOUR BLOG TODAY.

What has managing a blog taught you? What lessons have you been able to put into action in your professional lives?

Are You Running Your Blog Like a Business?

February 23, 2010 · 95 comments

This is a guest post is by Nicole Crimaldi, founder of MsCareerGirl.com: a career and self-improvement blog for ambitious young professionals. Nicole is seriously one of my favorite people (both online and off), and her passion for blogging, Social Media, and building relationships shines through in everything she does.

In a recent podcast interview I did for blogcastfm.com, I mentioned that successful bloggers often run their blog like a business. For many, this notion initially sounds unappealing. These passionate bloggers fear blogging won’t be fun anymore if they run it like a business. I beg to differ.

What makes blogging so much fun is growth.

Growth leads to a feeling of success, which leads to confidence. Confidence helps you be happy and settled in your life and career.

In order to experience the “highs” of blogging, you must experience growth. Growth occurs when bloggers are intentional and strategic.

The 3 Blogging Growth Benchmarks

Blog growth occurs in three ways: growing readership, growing opportunities and growing personally.

Growing relationships. Meeting new readers and growing your relationships with existing readers is probably the greatest reward as a blogger. Sometimes growing relationships involves tweaking your blog design and narrowing your focus. Other times it involves volleying emails back and forth with these people during a tough time. It is exhilarating to see what started as a little idea turn into a reality, and take on a life of its own and help others.

Growing opportunities. Some of you know that I’m big on “career insurance.” In other words, you need to have a back up plan if life throws you a curve ball. A blog is a great way to create a stage to launch other things. A great blog can introduce you to tons of great people, it can lead you to opportunities you never thought possible. It can help you generate income if you get laid off.

Growing personally. Matt and I always talk about how our blogs led us to immense personal growth. The benefits of blogging go way beyond meeting people and opportunities. Blogging helps you grow as a person-and this sentence deserves its own post, so we’ll leave it at that!

Ok, I get running your blog like a business is a good idea. How do I start?

First ask yourself, “What makes a great business?” Think about your favorite brand or your favorite local business. What makes them great?

4 Things that make a great business

Consistency: If your local grocery store says they are going to be open at 8, I bet they are open at 8. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t make your favorite list. If they always carry your favorite homemade muffins, you look forward to that and become a repeat customer because of consistency. Consistency also comes in terms of service, price, and quality.

Great customer service: customers come first and the company delivers what they promise.

Great Communication: a great business listens to its customers, is approachable and responsive. The business adapts to changing customer needs and engages in positive communication through branding/marketing.

Respect: from the business to the clients, from clients to the business, and from the business to its employees.

Now apply the four principles of a great business to your blog.

Are you a consistent blogger? Do you post a certain number of days per week? Do you post certain series on certain days? Can people come to your site knowing what to expect? Are people confident that they can find what they need on your site when they need it? Is your topic focused?

Great customer service. Do you put your readers first? Do you give them what you promise?

Great Communication. When your readers email you with a question, do you write back (and in a timely manner)? Do you actually care what they are saying? Do you go above and beyond to meet their individual needs? Do you read their comments and respond to them? Are you open to negative feedback and suggestions for improvement?

Respect.
- If you respect your readers, your readers respect you.
- When your readers respect you, they tell others about you.
- When they tell others about you, you experience growth.
- And when you experience growth, you experience a lot of personal satisfaction!

Your Turn

What do you think makes a great business?
What makes a great blog?
Do you see parallels between your favorite businesses and your favorite blogs?
What tips do you have for bloggers?
What do you do with your own blog to stay consistent and focused?

Friday Quick Hits: Becoming Unstoppable & Finding Inspiration (That’s What She Said)

February 19, 2010 · 34 comments

Wow, what a week what a week (and I don’t say that lightly). A lot of great things going on close to home, and an OUTSTANDING week for the RSS reader (more than I can recap here). Without further ado, here are some “cant miss reads” from the week.

How Listening to Your Bubble Costs you Money

Lisa Barone and the Outspoken Media crew do it again with a great post on why you need to think, network, and do business OUTSIDE your “bubble”. Constantly surrounding yourself with the same people can be extremely limiting to you and your business – Never be afraid to reach out an meet someone new!

A Valediction to Stillness: Becoming Unstoppable

Cali Harris writes a great piece on “becoming unstoppable”, but also presents a valediction of “stillness”. She hit it home for me when she said, “I’ve completed so much by setting out to not complete anything”. Sometimes, trying to be productive is the most counter-productive thing you can do.

I Miss Respect

So says Teresa Basich, and I couldn’t agree more. I wrote about competition (the pros and cons) last week and this post even further reiterates my point. We’d all be a lot better of if we cut out the negativity and simply respected one another, even if we don’t agree 100% with what everyone else is doing. Negativity never helps anyone. GO READ THIS POST (seriously) – Teresa lays it out much more eloquently than I can.

When it Hits the Brain, it Feel so Good (That’s What She Said)

Grace Boyle take a look at inspiration and presents a few tactics for making sure that when inspiration strikes, you’re ready for it, wherever you may be.

Love Me in the Morning (That’s What She Said)

There was an interesting pattern of posts sounding much dirtier than they actually ended up being. Melissa wrote a really wonderful post about things you can do in the morning for someone else that can really set the tone for the day. I’m a big believer that almost immediately after you wake up, you’ve made up your mind for how the day’s going to be. Take a few of Melissa’s points to heart.

Hi, My Name is Emily, and I’m Pro-Corporate

Well, my name’s not Emily – but Emily Jasper writes in this post how “Corporate America” and “The Man” may not be such a terrible thing after all. I agree – and while I personally see myself as an entrepreneur over the long haul, there is a LOT to be learned and valued from the “corporate” environment”. We need to hear more “realistic” perspectives like Emily’s.

Crunch Time. And Learning: Unfiltered

I keep wondering when Sydney will run out of post titles to add “Unfiltered” to, but so far, she’s kept the streak alive! I love posts like this that retrospect just how much has happened in a year – Sydney and I have very similar stories and while we’ve ended up in different places, we both clearly have no regrets and couldn’t be happier. Great advice for those approaching the “crunch time” of college graduation.

Copyblogger?

And last – I mentioned it was a great week for me – namely for announcing The Epiphany Moment (which goes live March 2nd) and on Tuesday I had a post featured on Copyblogger! Copyblogger is sort of the “it” when it comes to blogging, at least in my mind. It was extremely humbling and an honor to be included in their neck of the woods.

While you’re making the rounds, stop by and check out my Copyblogger post, “10 Pathways to Inspired Writing“.

What were some of your favorite moments from the week that was?

I Have Shit to Say

February 17, 2010 · 149 comments

Last week I spent 90 minutes on Skype with Ashley Ambirge – better known to most of you as the mastermind and ass-kicker behind The Middle Finger Project (which is truly one of the most amazingly mind-blowingly awesome blogs you’ll find out there…seriously). Amidst talking about our basement dwelling, foreign smuggling, philosophizing endeavors, we came to a common consensus on “why we do what we do” – and more importantly, what got us started as bloggers…

Long story short…We had “shit to say”.

That, in my opinion, is the best reason anyone can give for why they’re doing this – for why one day they decided to stop writing in a diary and start writing where everyone can see. We do this because we have shit to say, because we want to put our voice out there for other people to hear. We want other people to listen – we want other people to agree and disagree with us – we want to meet new people, network, and communicate – and above all, we want to learn.

And at the end of the day, we just have shit to say. It all starts with your voice, your ideas, before you ever start to worry about what everyone else thinks.

I’m seeing a very common consensus amongst friends in the blogging game – their blogs have absolutely, without a doubt, changed their lives. If you let it, if you aren’t afraid to say “shit” – even if sometimes it sounds ridiculous, or no one understands it, or no one reads it but you (and your mom) – a blog can be a game changer – it can be your gateway to opportunities you didn’t even know existed – it can lead you to new career opportunities, it can push you to start your own business, and it can be the best damn therapy out there. Through everything I have gone through, through every up and down that’s happened to me over the past year and a half – I’ve been able to count on three things, My family, my fiance, and my friends here – the supportive community that continues to evolve. My blog.

And it all started with a simple idea. It all goes back to Ms. Ambirge’s point – “I had shit to say”. One day I stopped worrying about what other people would think, I stopped worrying about whether or not I was a good writer, I didn’t focus on planning and numbers and metrics. I focused on the writing, and I focused on sharing that writing with as many people who would listen.

Here I am today, a little more than a year after setting out on this maiden voyage, and I can’t even begin to retrospect how much my life has changed BECAUSE of my blog.

Don’t worry about being the best, don’t even worry about being “good” (whatever that means). If you have shit to say, start saying it – and don’t let anyone hold you back.

And if you start to lose track of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Remember what went through your head on day one…

“I have shit to say”.

← Previous Entries