Today my long-time friend Ron Sukenick (Business Advisor / Relationship Strategist / Author / Connector) contributes a guest blog post about ways to create impact when meeting people through networking. In Wednesday’s post I’ll comment on how each of these tips relates to business blogging.

Contribute – Always share ideas, information and your resources when with others.
Make it a small world – Everyone you meet has something in common with you. Your job is to find out what that is.  In helping you to make it a small world, always mention the names of people, places, and things.  You’ll be amazed on how people will respond when they find that you have experienced something or know someone in common.

Take interest in others – By investing a little time in research prior to your following up of a contact you made, you’d be amazed at the impact upon your follow-up phone call.  Go to any of your favorite search engines and be amazed at what might come up for you to read.  The person you’re following up with will love that you took the time to learn more about who they are.  In exchange, they will be more open to learning more about who you are.

Link one relationship to another – The power has been, and always will be, in making the connection for others.  Do what you can to link one relationship to another.

Shorten learning curves – Learn to provide information to someone in need at that very moment the request is made.

Listen three times as much – When you speak, you learn what you know.  When you listen, you learn what they know.  Need I say anything more?

Look & comment about their business card – Quite often, people exchange business cards without even looking at them.  Comment on something you see on the card – the person in front of you will love the attention.

Be passionate about your work – Having a passion for the work you do is contagious. Learn to express yourself as if your life depended on it.

Find your reason for being – If you want to build relationships with others, it’s important that you self-reflect and strengthen the relationship with yourself.

Connect their goals to people you know – Once you determine what they’re looking to accomplish, simply make the connection with others you know who might be able to move their goals forward.  Think of this as an act of kindness.

Connect the dots – This refers to your ability to recall information that helps clarify your intention to move forward.

Take the moment and dance with it – Being in the present will always create impact with others.  Eliminate any thoughts going through your mind that do not directly relate to the conversation and to the person you’re with.

Follow up – Know that just being there is not enough.  You must have a solid system for creating a persistent presence.

The follow-up is where most people fall down.  They meet people, then do nothing with the information.  You must follow up within 48 hours or less.  With you being one of the only people following up after the recent event you attended, you’ll surely gain attention for future opportunities.

Learn more about Ron Sukenick’s work by clicking here.

Continuing the challenge I issued earlier this week to have business owners come up with new blog post content based on song titles, here are four more to fit my own business (which provides blog content to promote corporations’ and professional practitioners’ business). Whether they’re beginners or veterans, business bloggers often confide in me (in my capacity as either their blogging trainer or their professional ghost blogger) that they have trouble coming up with new ideas for posts.)

Since in Monday’s blog post, I selected song titles to illustrate blogging “Do’s”, positive good practices, today I’d like to focus on titles that illustrate some business blogging “don’ts.

 

• “Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song” (B.J. Thomas)

One possible approach to a business blog is to point out deficiencies in competitors’ services or products, showing what “they” do wrong and you, of course, do “right”. As a trainer who is part of each client’s online marketing team, I recommend taking the higher road, using the power of We . At _____ (your company name), we offer….we believe that….we value… we are always careful to…..  Accentuate the positives about YOU, rather than focusing on others’ “mistakes”.

• “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” (Elton John)

Too many business owners shy away from blogging for fear of receiving negative comments
from readers or having customer complaints on the blog site. True, if you don’t blog frequently, you won’t receive negative comments or complaints, but neither will you attract the attention of search engines or of readers! In fact, “getting in front” of complaints by demonstrating how you remedied a negative customer situation is probably the most positive kind of publicity you can ask for!  Don’t be afraid of showing your err-is-human side.  In fact, your blog gives you a chance to turn a “failure” into a success story.

• “Where Do We Go From Here?” (Alicia Keys)

Calls to Action, or CTA’s, are a vital component of blogging for business. A clear, easy-to-execute “next step” enables readers to learn more, ask questions, price products and services, sign up for an RSS feed of your blog, look at your website, or even proceed immediately to your shopping cart. In an attempt to avoid being too “pushy” or too “sales-ey”, many business bloggers make the mistake of being unclear about the “So, how do I…..” readers need to know.

• “Testify to Love” (Wynonna Judd)

Testimonials in your blog can definitely make the different between a visit and a conversion. When surveyed, as Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware often relates, consumers confessed they want to buy from people “just like them”. Stories of satisfied customers speak louder than any ad.  However (and here’s the Don’t in the equation) unlike the usual testimonial  list of sentence fragments (…excellent product, …very high quality …etc.) use your blog post to tell the whole story – what the issue or problem was, how you worked to solve it, and why your solution worked better than what the customer had tried before.

Now, it’s your turn again.  Select song titles that illustrate important facets of your business. Or, find another unifying theme around which you can center several blog posts.  Remember, “The more frequently your content mentions the keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business, the better your chances of your site being found for those keywords or phrases.”