OK - time for a ‘comical’ interlude.
I was just over at the ProBlogger Book page at Amazon and scanned down the page to see this:
OK - so what ProBlogger reader is searching for ‘no show briefs’?
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I think that maybe we’ve done some serious harm to the concept of friends with all this social media stuff.
Seriously.
On Facebook, how many of your friends are really friends?
I have over 2000 followers on Twitter. How many of them know my real name without looking?
How many events do people with significant online personal brand go to where people know who they really are?
Or is brand all that really matters in friendship?
Is it more important to have presence? Or relationship?
What do we do off camera, and who really knows?
If a tree falls in the middle of the woods, and everyone sees the tree online, did it really happen?
Do you find more value in spending time with four people or forty?
What does technosailor mean to you? Aaron Brazell?
Food for thought. Questions to be answered. Have we hurt our human experience or helped?
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We have reached the end of our Business Plan series with this final entry on “Appendicies”. Our next series will dive into the marketing plan for your business so be on the lookout for that next week.
In short, it is the kitchen sink of things that are relevant to your business plan that add value for the reader. Here is a short list:
Here you want to include scanned photos of your physical products (if you have them), equipment you have that is important to the function of the business and the facilities you have your company. Facilities include production plants, corporate headquarters and any branch offices.
In your business plan you discuss the value of your IP and this is where you include supporting documentation including patent applications and any copyright/trademark filings that support your statements in the business plan.
There are many legal documents you have for the business, but the most important would be your operating agreements, shareholder agreements, stock option plans and critical contracts that you mention in the business plan.
This is essentially your collateral materials that you use to sell your products/services. It should also include screenshots of your web site.
Here you can include any white papers you have written to cover research you have conducted, grant studies you have completed and any additional marketing research you have completed to support the case for your business.
Whatever you are creating there must be a schedule behind it to complete the product and/or roadmap it out. If you are building hard goods there are facilities operation schedules to meet production forecasts. If you are building software products you will have development schedules to bring the product from prototype to beta to production. That will be critical to match the forecasts in your business plan that you have projected for launch and subsequent customers coming online with the system.
You might have put a small chart in the management section of the plan but this is where you can expand on the entire corporate structure including identification of key hires throughout your business plan’s timeline.
Linking to your organization chart, you will need to write job descriptions for all of the staff, current and future, in your company. This will help you identify any overlap that might be there but it will also show the reader that you have thoroughly thought out who needs to be working for the company and what they will be doing for your business.
Since you put smaller bios of your management team in the management section, this is the place to put the full resumes of the team to back up their bios and allow readers to get the full background of the team to feel confident in their inclusion in the business.
Beyond the standard documents in the financial section (cash flow, balance sheet, income statement) you might want to include tax returns for the business for the last three years (if you have them). This should also include key elements in your financial model like the revenue sheet to show how you will met the projections you set out. You should also include expenses and salary costs so that readers know you are market competitive but not going crazy (as in too high or too low) to support the numbers you have projected.
Our next series will dive into a good supporting document for your business plan but it is much more internal. This is a critical document that will guide your sales and marketing function to create the right materials and identify the best campaigns for maximum customer acquisition. We will also discuss setting up your sales processes and sales organization to be the most effective.
If any of you out there have written a marketing plan I would love your thoughts, opinions and war stories to help our readers looking for advice and guidance in this area. Please e-mail me at steven_fisher at yahoo dot com.
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In this post Gala Darling from iCiNG shares some of her experiences of growing her blog and getting readers involved with comments.
“When you started iCiNG, how did you make it known? And goodness I’m gonna sound pretentious but how long did it take for you to start having constant readers and comments? I started my blog just because I wanted to write, but it can be a little unmotivating to write something really inspired or enthusiastic and don’t get really any response. I know it’s just a matter of time and to keep writing with my heart, but I’m still wondering how it all works.”
“How do I make my blog more interesting/get more comments (minus the hateful ones haha)? I made a resolution to post everyday but I don’t know :( I know you wrote something before like, ‘get your readers more involved’ but I don’t have a huge following like you.”
Well, I didn’t have a huge following when I started, either! The same goes for every blog, regardless of how popular it might be these days. We all start from the same place — just someone in a room, churning out content, hoping people like it.
What you need to do is work out the best way to find the people who you think will dig what you’re doing. That might mean finding a forum of people with similar interests, or leaving comments on a blog that has the same kind of readership. It’s a bit of a tricky balance doing this sometimes. Remember, you’re there to add value, not to spam & tarnish your blog’s name!
In my case, I’ve been journalling online in some form or another since about 1998, & I had a fairly considerable number of people following my Livejournal. So, when I’d written my first article, I made a post on Livejournal saying so. I asked what people would like to see, & encouraged them to ask me questions that I could use as the basis for articles. It grew from there.
The growth was really organic, & soon I saw that people on my friend’s list were recommending my blog to other people. It was an amazing thing to see, & it made me really happy! I also made an effort to connect with other people in my area — mostly fashion blogs — & we helped to promote one another.
It’s important to remember that in order for people to keep coming back & reading, you need to be providing them with something! Making someone laugh, providing them with information, inspiring or distracting them are all excellent reasons for someone to subscribe to your blog. If you think about the most popular sites on the web, most of them fall into one of those categories. Why else are people fanatical about XKCD, Darren Rowse, Martha Stewart, Perez Hilton? They all fit into at least one of those areas. Consider what you’re providing, & if you’re not exactly sure, you might want to redefine what you’re doing.
I think a lot of people aren’t sure what to write about, so they start blogs which consist of their opinions on various subjects (life, shoes, Apple products). That’s okay, but unless you are exceptionally knowledgeable, funny, successful or interesting, it’s probably never going to be a huge hit. Why? Because everyone has an opinion. They’re just not very valuable!
It can be hard to know, however, whether your low traffic is because you’re just starting out, or because you’re not providing something that people want. Sometimes it can be hard for us to realistically assess what we’re doing. We’re so attached to our work & our creativity that we’re quick to proclaim ourselves dunces or geniuses — & we’re probably not either of those things. In situations like this, it can be really useful to seek the input of someone whose opinion you respect (& who is, ideally, known for being honest but kind!). Of course, you probably need to act on their advice, too!
Don’t be afraid to evolve in a new direction. Most of the biggest companies now make the bulk of their money from doing something completely different to what it was they started out with. You may not be into blogging for money, but it’s an example of the fact that being open & flexible & trying new things is important! Find a niche & fill it — just like that cool glue that expands to fill gaps!
In terms of motivation, I always think that if something’s a drag, you shouldn’t do it. It’s your life, live it how you want to! If you’re writing out of obligation, it’s never going to have the same spark that it will if you’re writing because you love it.
Ideally, you want to be doing something you enjoy which also provides value to people. When you stumble upon that magical combination, you’re totally golden.
The best writing always comes about when you’re doing it for the right reasons. I guess we all have different ideas of what the “right reasons” might be, but I tend to think it’s based around writing that makes you joyful, writing you’ve enjoyed, & words you’ve pieced together with a real sense of fun & excitement. I tend to think that when you write with the intention of making money or netting praise, it doesn’t come across very well. This might be a bit weird & supernatural of me, but I think people can sense that in your words — & the more writing I do, the more true & obvious that becomes.
Be enthusiastic about your work, promote yourself, learn to take criticism & make adjustments without major ego damage, embrace the writing you do, share, set a good example. Make people happy with what you do. Uplift & educate & inspire. Do what you love & the money will follow. It just requires a little faith.
So you want to be a writer
Charles Bukowski
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
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This past few days have seen me experimenting with a new type of post here at ProBlogger - Speed Posting.
I set myself the challenge to answer 20 or so questions from my Twitter followers in no more than 3 minutes per post. I then handed each post over to readers for them to continue to posts.
The Results? Well I had a lot of fun, got some good feedback from those Twitter followers who asked the questions, and there were a lot of great comments left.
Lastly - I wrote the following 19 posts. I hope you enjoyed them and will stop by those you feel you’ve got something to say on and add your thoughts.
Thanks to those on Twitter who asked the questions. Follow me on Twitter for next time I run something like this.
update: The winners of the three ProBlogger Books who win a copy from leaving a comment one one of the posts over the weekend are:
1. Kelvin Kao
2. Zopito DiGiovanni
3. DB Ferguson
I’ll be sending an email out now to each of you to get your mailing details to send you the book.
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LeftTheBox asks “Hey Darren I know you post daily but do you try to post at a certain time each day?”
I certainly do! I not only set myself minimum post numbers each day but I’ve taken it a little further and narrowed down some daily posting windows that I aim for.
Really it comes down to a bit of research and experimentation to work out when the best time to post is (and I suspect it’ll vary from blog to blog depending upon where their audience is situation and even depending upon topic).
For me I attempt to have a fresh post go up on my blog in the morning US time. Here at ProBlogger my audience is fairly global but the majority of readers are in the Americas so I attempt to have something fresh for them for when they get to work, check their feeds over a morning coffee etc. I then also attempt to post something for the end of the day (US time). Then on days that I post a 3rd post per day (it’s usually more of a ‘newsy’ post) I attempt to put that up about 8 hours after the 2nd one just so that posts are evenly spread through the day.
This the frequency that seems to work best for ProBlogger in my testing however it wouldn’t work for everyone. For example I have one friend who runs a sporting blog who posts once per day (around midday for his main audience) during the week but up to 5-6 times a day over the weekend as that’s a time his readers are thinking sports.
I find that posts that go up on weekdays during the day in the US get more traffic and comments than other posts…. however….
Disclaimer - let me finish by saying that while I have obviously given this a little thought (or a little too much thought) that it’s not one of those major things that I’d suggest you invest a lot of time into thinking through. It can have an impact but in a time where a lot of blog readers are accessing blogs via RSS or email subscriptions the time you post may have less impact than you think.
That’s my posting schedule - what’s yours? Do you find that the time you post impacts traffic and comment levels?
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I have seen my share of networking events. Back during the dotcom era it was full of open bars and crazy companies with the latest software to change your life in some way. Then it was all about buying stuff on the web or a portal for something or another.
After the bubble burst most people were just trying to hold on and all that you had a choice between in the DC area were NVTC (Northern VA Tech Council) and Potomac Officer Club events. NVTC was very government focused and who mostly showed up were service providers (I have the 100’s of insurance and lawyer business cards to prove it). POC events were big events with well known people but not alot of good networking.
One good networking event I liked was the Tech Prayer breakfast but that was only once a year. What most of us were left with was going to conferences, usually not here, to get our networking on and find fellow entrepreneurs and real innovative thinkers.
Lately, there has been a change in the winds here in the DC area. With events like PodCampDC and Social Media Club’s events we are starting to see our cutting edge tech scene finally re-emerge. Last Thursday night it was totally confirmed with the TECH Cocktail DC event. It was held at MCCXXIII (1223) in DC. A swanky place that is over-priced for my usual weekend partying but this event had cheap drinks (thank you drink tickets) and about 300 people.
Below is a picture of the scene at the height of the evening.
While there have been many events that have drawn 400 people, this was different. Almost everyone was doing something startup related that was really cutting edge. There were social media people there (Technosailor and me included), innovative startups and actual investors looking to network.
There were also a great group of sponsors with great products to demo. Here is a great list from Jimmy over at EastCoastBlogging:
AwayFind - a product aimed at helping combat the email problem by letting your contacts get in touch with you via an online form.
iGala - a digital photo frame with a touchscreen interface that connects directly to Flickr and Gmail to stream photos to the frame like a slideshow.
Loladex - offers local recommendations from your trusted network of Facebook friends.
Odeo - launched a new beta verision which offers both search and personalized content (audio and video) recommendations.
Voxant - a free licensed content offering for publishers which offers a pageview based revenue share to anyone that embeds the content on a their site.
WhyGoSolo - a new social networking site aimed at helping you to create spontaneous new connections so, as its name implies, you won’t go solo any longer.
A huge amount of thanks go out to Frank Gruber and Eric Olson who do the TECH Cocktails around the country and they need to do it more than once a year here.
The vibe around this region is changing and since we will never will be Silicon Valley and never want to be, it is fantastic to see that there is a refreshed ecosystem of entrepreneurship here in the region.
Photo courtesy of jgarber
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I have seen my share of networking events. Back during the dotcom era it was full of open bars and crazy companies with the latest software to change your life in some way. Then it was all about buying stuff on the web or a portal for something or another.
After the bubble burst most people were just trying to hold on and all that you had a choice between in the DC area were NVTC (Northern VA Tech Council) and Potomac Officer Club events. NVTC was very government focused and who mostly showed up were service providers (I have the 100’s of insurance and lawyer business cards to prove it). POC events were big events with well known people but not alot of good networking.
One good networking event I liked was the Tech Prayer breakfast but that was only once a year. What most of us were left with was going to conferences, usually not here, to get our networking on and find fellow entrepreneurs and real innovative thinkers.
Lately, there has been a change in the winds here in the DC area. With events like PodCampDC and Social Media Club’s events we are starting to see our cutting edge tech scene finally re-emerge. Last Thursday night it was totally confirmed with the TECH Cocktail DC event. It was held at MCCXXIII (1223) in DC. A swanky place that is over-priced for my usual weekend partying but this event had cheap drinks (thank you drink tickets) and about 300 people.
Below is a picture of the scene at the height of the evening.
While there have been many events that have drawn 400 people, this was different. Almost everyone was doing something startup related that was really cutting edge. There were social media people there (Technosailor and me included), innovative startups and actual investors looking to network.
There were also a great group of sponsors with great products to demo. Here is a great list from Jimmy over at EastCoastBlogging:
AwayFind - a product aimed at helping combat the email problem by letting your contacts get in touch with you via an online form.
iGala - a digital photo frame with a touchscreen interface that connects directly to Flickr and Gmail to stream photos to the frame like a slideshow.
Loladex - offers local recommendations from your trusted network of Facebook friends.
Odeo - launched a new beta verision which offers both search and personalized content (audio and video) recommendations.
Voxant - a free licensed content offering for publishers which offers a pageview based revenue share to anyone that embeds the content on a their site.
WhyGoSolo - a new social networking site aimed at helping you to create spontaneous new connections so, as its name implies, you won’t go solo any longer.
A huge amount of thanks go out to Frank Gruber and Eric Olson who do the TECH Cocktails around the country and they need to do it more than once a year here.
The vibe around this region is changing and since we will never will be Silicon Valley and never want to be, it is fantastic to see that there is a refreshed ecosystem of entrepreneurship here in the region.
Photo courtesy of jgarber
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iamluc asks “How much traffic should you have to offer advertisements on your blog?”
“When should you put advertising on your blog?”
Funnily enough I’ve been asked this question four times in the last 24 hours so it’s probably a good time to answer it.
Before I answer the question though - let me say that there are numerous approaches to this question and if you ask a variety of ‘pros’ you’ll get a similar variety of responses. Here’s how I do it:
I put ads on my blog from the day it launches (actually they go in before it launches). My reasons for doing this largely come down to two reasons:
It’ll earn you a little bit from day 1 - even if it’s a dollar or two a day that does add up to a few hundred dollars a year and I don’t know about you but I don’t mind a few extra hundred in my mortgage at the end of the year.
It gets readers used to ads - most people who don’t put ads on their blog early on tell me that they make this decision because they want to build readership and community first and add ads later.
I understand this on some levels, they don’t want to put off new readers with advertising, however I’m a little skeptical how many people are put off by websites with advertising and wonder if there could actually be more problems when you change the rules later on and introduce ads onto a site that people have become used to being ad free.
Further Reading:
I expand upon this topic a little in a previous post - How Quickly After Starting a Blog Should I put Ads On it?
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HaraldJohnsen asks “As a quality control, what are the most important questions to ask before hitting ’submit’ / posting a blog post?”
Great question Harald - I actually think that most of us as bloggers could improve many of our posts by pausing before hitting ’submit/publish’ and asking a few basic questions about the post. Here are a few questions that I ask myself:
I only had 3 minutes to write this post as part of my SpeedPosting sereis - so I’m interested to hear what questions you’d add to the list?
Update: Just before publishing this post I thought I’d take my own advice and search my archives to see what I’ve written on the topic before and found 13 Questions to Ask Before Publishing a Post on Your Blog which has even more questions to ask.
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