Dan Blank, Author at WeGrowMedia - Dan Blank

How to Create a Blog

Today, I want to review how I setup a new blog from a technical perspective. Just the basic steps that you need to think about to get things rolling from a tactical standpoint. Here we go…

Domain Name
Go to GoDaddy.com or one of the many other domain registrar services, and start searching for a domain name. A domain will cost you about $11 a year.Clearly, many obvious domain name choices are already taken. I’ve found that three word combinations are WAY more likely to be available than two word combinations. Single words are long gone unless you are making up the word.

In the end, you will likely end up with something less than ideal, but not horrible. If you are especially dedicated, you can try to buy an existing domain – but that’s not a process I’m getting into at the moment.

Even if you are in the experimental phase, I strongly recommend buying a domain name and paying for web hosting. This, as opposed to using a free blog tool using a subdomain – something like danblank.wordpress.com. You want www.danblank.com instead.

A blog is a big commitment. Own it.

You can map your own domain to the free blog services on WordPress.com, and that can be a viable option for many. Personally, I take things a different route in terms of hosting.
Web Hosting
I host my blogs on Media Temple. They offer robust services at a fair price. The reason I go with full web hosting is that I can create email addresses on my domain, and have detailed control over the services and content I’m hosting there.There’s also that odd situation that many people are dealing with: when you leverage free tools online, the service providers really can’t offer any promises of service or support. I am always shocked to learn how many people stake their entire business life on the Google environment – phone, email, calendar, documents – all hosted with Google’s free services. Even if these services go down for 2 hours, that could be crippling for a business if their entire team is relying on it.

Here’s the trick with Media Temple hosting for people just starting out with a blog: they offer a great inexpensive service called Grid Service Lite, but only via gift card. It allows you to host up to five domain names, and at $95 a year, works out to being cheaper than many other economy web hosting services.

So you buy the gift card, then gift it to yourself. I did this all over the phone, it took 10 minutes.

Once you have your domain name and your web hosting, you need to tell the domain name to point to your web servers. I won’t get into that process – it’s a pretty simple one of logging into Godaddy (or wherever you registered your domain name) and changing the nameservers to those of Media Temple (or whoever is hosting your blog.) It’s WAY more easy than it sounds.
WordPress Install
I use Worpress as my blog software. It’s free, it’s powerful, and it has a great community around it.Many web hosting companies, including Media Temple, offer a 1-click install for WordPress. In my experience, it can take more than 1-click to get it all setup, but nothing too complicated.

The point is: these web hosts know that people like you just want a website to run WordPress, and have setup their services to be able to do this without you calling their support line. It’s a win-win for both sides.
WordPress Theme
When you install WordPress, from a design standpoint, you get the basic look and feel. WordPress calls this a ‘theme.’ One of the really cool things about WordPress is that there are thousands of free themes that you can install for your blog. Just do a simple search on “Free WordPress Themes” in Google, and you’ll see what I mean.Personally, I ended up buying a paid theme called Thesis. It offers a bunch of features, but there are two main reasons I opened up my wallet for it: many of the customizations are visual and super-simple to understand. Do you want a 3 column layout? Click. Do you want the third column to be 138 pixels wide? Click. You get the idea.

The second thing I liked about it was that there is a great forum you get access to, where other Thesis users help answer questions and offer tips on customizations. It was so helpful.

The downside is the cost. Not that it’s very expensive, but when most people start out with a blog, they are unsure of the commitment they want to make, so they are looking for as little investment as possible. Thesis costs $87 to buy. I actually bought the ‘developers license’ for $164, which allows me to use this Theme on as many blogs as I create for myself.

For me, Thesis made sense, but I had already been blogging for a few years. It might make more sense for you to start out with a free theme, and see if blogging ‘takes’ before you shell out the money.
Customizations
You can really go to town with this one. You can add “Tweet This” buttons, Facebook “Like” buttons – all kinds of share buttons. You can add the Disqus commenting system, and a bazillion other sidebar options.There are also a ton of cool plug-ins available for WordPress that offer additional functionality. Again, a simple Google search on “WordPress plugins” will open up a universe of options.

Some of these are very powerful, I use both Disqus and the Tweet This buttons, but be careful about spending too much time on this up front. Too many people get sidetracked designing their ‘perfect’ blog, only to get burned out before they create any great content. Remember, you can already iterate.
Google Analytics
This might seem too nerdy up front, but install Google Analytics on your blog before you launch. I am a huge believer in analytics, and signing up for and installing Google Analytics is really easy. Google has some easy instructions and there are tons of other walkthrough’s online.This will allow you to track the growth of your blog and see what is working and what isn’t. An incredibly powerful tool.

I think that covers the basics. Let me know if I can help you: @DanBlank.

Thanks!

-Dan

How to Turn Your Services into Products

Today I want to share the story of someone who is building a successful business online by turning her services into products. As writers, journalists & publishers move their business models online, I can’t help but feel there are important lessons here.

Sarah Bray started her website strategy & design business three years ago and now has more clients than she can handle. We were able to chat last week, and she had some compelling advice for those building their personal or professional brands online. Here are the main takeaways:

Turn your services into products.
Test ideas before you launch.
Listen to your existing customers to identify new product ideas.
Social media is a critical marketing channel.
Be yourself.

Okay, let’s dig in.

Turn Your Services into Products.

Sarah offers website strategy and design services that she has packaged into products for potential clients:

She also just completed a “Gold-Digging Excursion” – a month-long course for 50 people.

Sarah openly prints her prices on the website, so potential clients know exactly what they get for their money. Compare this to many consultants who list off the many things they do, then say “email me to discuss how we can help you.” That email address or phone number is a huge barrier. Sarah has removed it.

She explains the decision:

“[The packages] came early on, out of connecting the dots from what retail businesses do and what other types of businesses do. I thought: ‘Well, why don’t web designers do this?'”

“It’s really intimidating for a lot of people to go on a web designers site who is really good. They don’t want to get in touch with them because they aren’t really sure how much it’s going to cost or what it includes. Then I realized there are basic things that you do for everybody and just start your packages from that. At least it gives people an idea that ‘I can hire this person and it will cost me this much.’ People have a fear of getting into something, then having it add up. Or if people give you an hourly rate and an estimate of how long it will take, what if it doesn’t take that long. I was trying to solve some of those fears and get people talking about what they need, instead of looking around and wishing & wondering and being scared to open the door.”

Another challenge she had to get past was clients wanting just website design services, without the overall online strategy that goes behind building an online presence. She was concerned that delivering tactics without a strategy would leave clients disappointed:

“I started out offering a list of everything I do, because I really wanted people to ‘get’ the strategy. Then if you just want a website and none of the strategy that goes along with it, you can subtract this much.”

“Now, there is a base price, and if you want me to work on the strategy, it’s like a different product. I’m getting ready to launch a whole new set of packages that will solve the problem of some people not ordering the strategy part, which is what I’m best at. I don’t want to NOT do that for someone. Everyone has this idea of me, and if they don’t get that, they will leave disapointed. They will have a beautiful website, but not know what to do with it.”

Test Ideas Before You Launch Them

Last year, Sarah began developing an idea for an online class – a four week course for about 50 people. She called it an ‘Excursion.’ The actual class – the Gold-Digging Excursion – ran in April and was a big success. But she learned a lot during the early process of choosing the topic.

At first, she was going with a different topic entirely. After developing the idea, she began prepping for launch, only to be shocked at the lack of interest:

“I was going to do a whole ‘branding’ excursion about ‘how to get people to change their minds about you. ‘I starting writing a blog series about it, and it just completely flopped. I was getting no interaction.”

“So I abandoned ship right before I was getting ready to launch this thing and I totally recreated it based on what I knew people needed, rather than what I was interested in at the moment. Then I became interested and passionate about it when I came up with the ‘gold-digging’ analogy.”

“I think metaphors inspire me and a lot of people to connect the dots about what this is going to do for you. When they can relate it to something else, like the gold rush. It’s a very similar thing, the gold rush to the internet rush. People are running out here to try to stake their claim in it, and find ways to actually make it work.”

This reminds me of the teachings of Eric Ries with his Lean Startup theory, and Steve Blank with his Customer Development theory. Both center on working with customers to develop products, instead of developing products before you are sure there will be customers.

Need New Product Ideas? Listen to Your Existing Customers

I asked Sarah about the difference between what clients initially ask for (website design) and what they need (an overarching online business strategy.) She describes what she has learned from clients, and how it has shaped her product offering. Listening and observing their real needs – often hidden needs – is crucial here.

“The only real gauge I have is my own clients’ experience who come to me after years of trying and not being able to make anything out of [succeeding online.] I think the economy has spurred that – the realization that ‘my local stuff is not working anymore, how can I get in on this whole online thing. It seems to be the only thing left to try.'”

“Most people are looking for the design part of it initially, and they think that will solve all of their problems – just having a prettier web presence. I encourage them to get into my site before we think about working together. People then realize that it’s not the design itself, its the whole strategy that goes behind it – a strategy that is moving forward, not a “set it and forget it” type of thing. This has to become a different paradigm for you.”

“Maybe they’ve noticed what other people are doing, or have thrown up Twitter or Facebook buttons on their website, or put the blog on the homepage, and that’s not working. And they just though “Why?! I thought that was the magic bullet.”

This is why giving clients ONLY what they ask for can lead them and you to failure. So Sarah read between the lines to find the goals that her clients weren’t specifically asking for, and then worked to give them something that would produce real results.

Sarah recently discovered a potential new product offering during her Gold-Digging Excursion. She had a bonus section where she would evaluate her students’ websites, and it was very popular:

“The most popular part of it was the bonus points section, where I went and actually evualated websites for volunteers within the group publicly. So people could see exactly what I was talking about when I talked about content strategy or the mailing list thing, the web copy, or when I talked about packaging your services. They could actually see the real-life examples of what that looked like. That got a whole lot of excitement, and got me thinking, ‘Wow, this is really neat, I can spin off of that.'”

In fact, she created much of the course as it was in progress for similar reasons:

“I was creating content throughout this course, I didn’t just have this set content, and that is what was going to be taught. I decided to get feedback as we were going as to what people needed. When new things were posted, I would email the group.”

Social Media is a Critical Marketing Channel

When Sarah first launched her business, she spent time and money on traditional marketing channels that she thought she HAD to do:

“I think everybody does this when they start their business, they think: “I have to do postcards and mail marketing; I’ve got to maybe get on some forum and Craigslist.”

“All these things that do not work, but we do them. I tried everything. I thought I had to have the perfect business card – all that crap that does not work.”

So what worked for her?

“Then, I found Twitter. It’s not just Twitter as a tool, it was that I could find people to work with that really embrace my values, and not just working with people because they are local or they live near me. I can work with people because they have a similar thinking, and my services are the exact fit for what they want.”

“At that point, I was scrambling to de-search engine optimize my site for local search. I was like “I don’t want to work with local people anymore.” I went the complete 180 opposite direction. Now, I am trying to get back into the local scene because people are embracing social media more, it’s not so hard to connect with people on that level.”

Be Yourself.

Another thing Sarah learned when she launched is that you can just be yourself.

“At first, I was really afraid of being a freelancer, of being a one-person show, so I did what a lot of new entrepreneurs do, I pretended I was bigger than I actually was. Not by directly saying it, but giving the impression by saying things like “we do this for you” and “we do that for you.”

“Then the world just kind of opened up. I decided it was okay that I was doing this as one person. I can just be one person online, and it’s okay, and be celebrated actually. Then I realized nobody cared about my homepage where you say how awesome you are, they just go to the blog. So why don’t I center it all around the blog. It just spiraled from there.”

She has also been incredibly honest about the challenges of managing her own business, with a blog post like this one: “The Year of the Breakdowns,” where she writes:

“I think I’m going to call this the year of the breakdowns. I feel like this has been a recurring theme in my life and in my writing lately — breaking down. And it’s embarrassing, really. But I have to write about it. Because I can’t write “Top 10 Ways to Fix Your Blog Posts” when I’ve just gotten down off of a two-hour crying jag.”

From all indicators, this level of honesty has really brought her closer to her community and allowed people to relate to her more easily. I think when you are honest like that, people root for you, they join your team to help.

Overall, Sarah has an incredible energy to push things forward for her and her clients:

“I am always launching. I like to always do new things, and always be improving on everything. In the traditional business world, I was not able to do that as I would have liked.”

Thanks to Sarah for sharing her story and the lessons she has learned in growing her business.

Thanks.

-Dan

How to Maximize Your Most Precious Resource: Motivation

I’d bet you have lots of ideas on how to move your business & career forward, but feel you have too few resources to pull it off. Maybe you have a small team (or no team), too many existing responsibilities, not enough money, corporate red tape, and the like.

Dan Blank But the thing standing in your way is not lack of money, lack of people, lack of technology, or lack of any physical resource.

If you had 10 more people, 20 more iPads, a promotion and a box of donuts, you still might not achieve your goals or be happy. STUFF is not the thing standing in your way.

Your most precious resources are what drives your inspiration and desire to realize your goals. MOTIVATION is the single biggest factor determining whether your dreams will become reality. Preserving this – growing this – is the key to your future.

So how do to you maximize this resources? I’ll tell you how I try to do it:

Be Inspired Every Day.
Even on the busiest of days, I try to take time to be inspired – to learn something new that will fuel my motivation, and push me closer to my goals. One way I do this is by watching interviews on Mixergy.com. Each day, Andrew Warner interviews an entrepreneur about how they built their business. He does a live interview at 2pm each day, which gives me a schedule as to when and where I can be inspired. Make it a priority to schedule something like this into your day.
Look at Your Goals and Processes with Fresh Eyes.
Analyze what you are doing that works, and what doesn’t. If you continue doing the same thing in the same way, then you can expect the same results. How can you improve yourself? How can you remove something you are doing that is standing in the way of your goals?Don’t be so quick to blame others, look inward.I try to be goal driven, even though my nature, I focus very much on relationships and process. To strike a balance, I creating to-do lists each day, and thinking about what I need to accomplish by the end of the week or month. This forces me to be more accountable, and harder to justify activities that don’t produce results.
Talk About Your Ideas.
So many people feel that they can’t share their ‘great big idea’ because someone else will steal it. NO ONE WILL STEAL YOUR IDEA. NO ONE WILL PUT THE PASSION AND DRIVE BEHIND IT THAT YOU WILL.Maybe you did think of the idea for Craigslist back in 1994. And maybe you’re a bit upset that Craig Newmark made millions with that idea just a few years later. The difference though, was not who had the IDEA, it is who DID it. Craig put more resources behind it than you – he had more inspiration and motivation to realize the idea.The idea alone is nothing compared to that. So share your ideas. Often. To everyone. People’s feedback will be helpful. Talking about it out loud will help you move forward and find inspiration and insight. It will also make you accountable – you are setting an expectation in the world that you might actually do it.

Personally, I try to do that via Twitter, this blog, newsletters, and lots of conversations. It’s not easy to put yourself ‘out there’ each day, but I feel it is essential to the type of creative work I want to do.
Step Outside of Your Traditional Role to HELP Others.
Everything about your day attempts to define you into a very specific role. When you can step outside of that, even for a moment, a world of possibilities opens up.The best way to realize this is to help others. Are you an accountant who really wants to be a professional photographer? Then offer to your neighbor to photograph his kid’s school play. Offer your realtor friend to photograph the houses she is listing.The goal here is not just the photos, but to create an identity. When someone changes their view of who you are and what you can do, that can be a very powerful motivator to evolve that identity further.

I’ve heard Jason Fried mention the value of motivation, and I know Daniel Pink has written about it too. Check them both out.

Thanks.

-Dan

4 Simple Steps to Create an Email Newsletter

Dan Blank One question I get asked frequently is how to setup an email newsletter. So today, I want to share some very basic strategies and tactics I use:

Choose an Email Management Service.
I use Aweber to create, manage and deploy my newsletters. They offer a robust service at a low cost. If you are just starting out, I believe it costs $19 a month, and you can send emails as often as you like – they charge by the size of the list you are sending to.Create an account, setup a new list, and then create a sign-up form that you can embed on your website. Aweber provides a cool form creation tool, so you can make it as simple or complex as you want, design it easily to suit your style, and then they give you a little bit of code that you add to your blog or website.

The service gives you all the tools you need to create an attractive template, manage your list, and deploy the newsletter each week, plus metrics to see how well it’s doing.
Create Useful Content.
Clearly, the newsletter content depends partly on your area of focus, your goals and your audience, but I recommend keeping it somewhat more personal than the rest of your online content. Email is personal – give people something special.The number one rule, of course, is that your content must be USEFUL or entertaining. The newsletter should give a behind the scenes look at you or the topic you are an expert in. It should also be content original to the newsletter – even if it’s just a short intro. You need to give people a compelling reason to sign up. If you are just repurposing content they can get elsewhere, that limits the value of the newsletter.

Personally, I try to share a mix of original content, as well as content that will be published elsewhere. If you can, make it fun.
Set a Schedule.
I am a huge believer in the weekly schedule. More than once a week is fine too, but at least once a week is a requirement.You want to build expectation with your audience, but not overwhelm them with too much connection. Depending on your goals, your content and your audience, you will have to start somewhere, and adjust as you go. Some newsletters work best weekly, others daily, and some do well with multiple sends a day, such as HARO.

Jump In.
I won’t get much into promotion at the moment, but I will say this: jump in. The biggest challenge to launching a newsletter is not the technology, it is your own willingness to get started. Tell your Facebook friends about it, your Twitter followers, post the sign-up form on your blog.Consider who your intended audience is, and what they desperately need most. Then, try to deliver that in small ways each week. You don’t have to create something that will ‘go viral,’ you just need to provide one useful or entertaining nugget.

Please consider signing up for the WeGrowMedia email newsletter, where I share exclusive content, plus a recap of WeGrowMedia blog posts.
Thanks!

-Dan

How HELPING Sets You Apart from the Competition

Several weeks back I talked about how the secret to social media success was CARING. Today, I want to share a story that illustrates this point. It comes from a successful entrepreneur who used it in the offline world, and it’s all so simple that it’s genius…

Todd Smith was recently interviewed on Mixergy.com, explaining his career. One story that really stuck out was how he succeeded in selling real estate.

Todd was a licensed realtor working at a well-established real estate agency. He was young, and needed to find houses to sell. To get listings, he focused his efforts on people who were determined to sell their own homes. These are called “For Sale By Owner” or FSBO homes.

Now, many realtors target FSBOs, cold calling again and again, trying to convince the owners to list their home with a realtor, instead of going off on their own.

But Todd did something different.

On the first day a homeowner listed their own house for sale without a realtor, Todd would give them a call. But instead of pounding them with a sales pitch, he offered to help. He would tell them that he wants to help them with their goal of selling their house without a realtor.

He offered them a thick ‘sales kit,’ which included a ton of information on how a homeowner can sell their own home. There were marketing tips, negotiation tips, sample contracts, etc.

But that wasn’t all. He told them that if they did receive an offer, he would gladly come over and write up the contract for free. To top it off – he would even give them “for sale by owner” signs to put out in their yard.

So what was in it for Todd? Three things:

He was competing with other realtors to woo homeowners to list their houses with an agency. By helping homeowners with their goals, he stood out from the crowd.
He didn’t pitch homeowners to list their houses with him, he instead asked for a referral if anyone they knew ever wanted to list their house with a realtor.
Many homeowners fail at seller their own homes, and when they consider listing with a realtor – Todd would be their first choice since he was so familiar and so helpful.

You can listen to Todd tell this story in his own words at around minute 21:45 of this interview. What was the result of his efforts? He was voted into RE/MAX’s Hall of Fame at age 28.

So what can we learn from Todd’s experience? A few things:

He was different because he helped.
He put the needs and desires of others first.
He offered to help before anyone else, uncovering opportunity.
He built trust that might not pay off until much later, if ever.

Most people are not willing to do what it takes to be successful. They take the quickest line to their goal, and disregard anyone who doesn’t serve THEIR needs at the moment they want them to.

Todd took a different route. One that helped.

Thanks!

-Dan