Archive for the ‘business info’ Category

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Blogging for money

Friday, November 20th, 2009

I often come across people claiming to make their living from a blog or advocating others to start a blog for the purpose of making money. While I don’t doubt a blog CAN make money, I don’t think it is as easy as starting a blog nor do I think ‘everyone’ can do it.

Raivyn (who apparently does make money from her blogs) wrote a blog post about the realities of blogs and money. I like the fact she starts with suggesting the need to know why you are blogging and what you want to achieve. If you love writing online and want to make enough for a weekly cup of coffee, then blogs may be the income stream you need; if you hate your job and want a full time income, then blogging needs a lot of thought before believing it is the solution.

Which leads, of course, to why do I write this blog? There are a few reasons, but my aim has never been to make money directly or to be a pro-blogger.

Having a blog attached to my business website allows me to promote my business indirectly – it lets customers know who I am, it is an easy way to add content to my site frequently which gives people a reason to return and search engines a reason to find me, and it is related to my business anyway.

I also enjoy helping people and sharing knowledge which is what most of my blog posts are aimed at.

Of course, if anyone wants to pay me riches for reading my blog, I’m open to new ideas! But making money is not my priority from the blog.

So why do you have a blog ? Is your reason for continuing it the same reason you started it? Does blogging bring you an income? An income worth the time and effort it takes to run a blog?

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Posted in blog content, business info, web content | No Comments »

Climate Change is a business concern too

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Today is Blog Action Day, with over 6,000 bloggers writing about  climate change and its impact on our world, and on us.

Maybe climate change, and protecting our environment, is something you think of at home or when choosing to buy local or low packaging options. Many people act as if environmental concerns don’t apply at work or in business, but we all need to think and act sustainably all the time and in all sorts of situations.

As a small business owner, here are some of the things I take into account:

  • amongst other reasons, I work from home because it saves any energy or pollution from commuting to an office somewhere else AND I only have one set of base consumption (e.g. I don’t heat an office and somewhere for my baby; I only need one computer for business and personal use)
  • I choose to reuse paper by using the back of documents and envelopes instead of notepads
  • I buy recycled paper products for printing
  • I email invoices and statements to save paper and printing – the computer is already on so sending an email is close to environmentally neutral
  • I read news items and articles online rather than buying paper versions – and rarely print copies of them
  • I use email and phonecalls as much as possible for communicating with clients – again, this saves using a car or plane for meeting face to face
  • I turn off my computer, printer, etc when I finish for the day, and turn off my screen whenever I leave my desk for a while
  • I close the curtains as soon as it starts getting dark and cold – keep the heat inside saves heating
  • I choose practical promotional items rather than gimmicky things that use resources to make but provide no real value. So I would prefer a pen, notepad, water bottle or bookmark to a plastic bracelet, inflatable toy, flag or fan

I’m sure there’s more as I care about my environmental impact, but the list shows how easy it can be to include environmental ideas into everyday business. While we may not be able to reverse climate change, I think we can slow it down considerably by taking individual responsibility in the little things as well as the big things.

In Copenhagen next month, world leaders will be making some decisions and agreements about topics around climate change. I just hope that everyone starts working on those targets straight away rather than waiting until the deadlines.

What have you done/are you doing in your business to help our planet? What suggestions do you have for other businesses?

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Posted in bit off track, business info | 3 Comments »

Capitalising job titles

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

A few months ago someone asked me (as a comment in a blog post) about capitalising the words in a job title.

My response, in summary, was that job titles don’t need to be capitalised although it is not technically wrong to do so. The exceptions being a title as part of a name (e.g. Doctor Jones) and someone in a key national role (e.g. Prime Minister, Treasurer).

I also noted that some companies list capital letters for extra words as part of their corporate style guide. Thus, we get companies writing about their Managing Director, Marketing Manager and Company when managing director, marketing manager and company would be perfectly acceptable and easier to read.

While I respect that each company can set their own brand, what annoys me is the inconsistency of such capitalisation. That is, most (maybe all!) of those companies would quite happily write about Jack the receptionist, Simone the cleaner and Justine the forklift driver while referring to Craig the Chairman and Mary the Operations Manager.

It annoys me because it is inconsistent (and therefore distracting and harder to read) but also because I find it disrespectful. Using capital letters is usually done as a sign of respect to the person in the job – does a receptionist, cleaner or forklift driver not deserve respect as well? And for anyone who says a Marketing Manager is more important than a receptionist, I ask if you could manager a busy switchboard or how you view companies you call where the receptionist doesn’t do a good job.

So, while I prefer to not use capitals for titles, if you do capitalise titles please be sure to capitalise them all.

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Posted in bit off track, business info, grammar & details | No Comments »

Making an offer

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

A few days ago I wrote about a beautician sign offering 50% off clients, focussing on the poorly communicated message.

I have another issue with that sign, and their special offer for new clients.

Offering new clients a major discount (50% is big) may well bring in more customers and keep them busy, which is obviously a good thing for  business. However, there are some other parts to this offer:

  • how many of those clients will come back to pay twice as much for the same service? Does the business make enough profit from one half price service to warrant the discount if they never return?
  • are they cheapening their services with this offer? are they giving a message that their services are so over priced they can afford to take off 50%?
  • are they concentrating on new clients at the expense of existing, repeat customers?

There are other ways they could attract new clients through specials, such as:

  • new clients get a discount voucher for their second visit – even if it is the original 50% discount, at least they have paid full price once and you are teaching them to come back
  • customer rewards where they get a free {specific service} every five visits
  • new clients get a free {extra service} when booking over $x in services
  • new clients get a goodie bag on their first visit – include discount vouchers, relevant product samples, vouchers from complementary businesses, a chocolate, a branded pen/magnet/etc, and so on

What’s imortant to remember with special offers is that you continue to make a profit and that the offer won’t hurt you more than it helps.

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Ask before sharing emails

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

We all hate spam. Most of us get too many emails to deal with them all properly. We don’t have time to read every enewsletter, not even time to read all the good ones, so we can’t subscribe to them all and stay sane!

So why then do some business people think it’s ok to subscribe to you their lists without your permission?

Just because I am your friend or I have done some work for you does not mean I want to read your newsletter – rather, I may want to but I probably don’t have the time to read something I haven’t carefully selected.

A number of people have added me to their lists because they know me, or because I wrote for them or because I gave them a quote to write for them! None of these behaviours is acceptable to me – sure send me a copy and invite me to subscribe, but don’t just subscribe me.

A couple of specific recent examples that will hopefully help you avoid annoying potential (or actual) clients…

  • I attempted to watch an online seminar. I gave my email address purely for access to the seminar (there was no disclaimer I was signing to a newsletter) and she started sending me 3 or 4 emails a week. What’s worse is the seminar never worked so I have no reason to read even one of those emails
  • I responded to a newsletter which mentioned a particular offer; I asked for a few details so I could decide if I was interested. Next thing, I am getting emails from two totally unrelated people. What’s worse, both those people are including me in a cc field with a whole group of people! So not only am I getting unwanted emails from people I never gave my email to in the first place, they are sharing my email with other people! Not the way to impress me into using their services I assure you
  • someone who contacted me two years ago, and who has not maintained a relationship with me, recently added a new arm to her business and has subscribed me to that new arm’s newsletter. I have never contacted her or shown an interest in her services, so why can she assume I want her newsletter?

    • So to avoid annoying people and therefore potentially loosing clients and getting bad word of mouth, remember:

    • don’t subscribe people to your newsletter. EVER. Send a single copy and invite them, but do not subscribe them without their knowledge & permission
    • if sending a group email, use the bcc field not the cc field unless it a discussion and all parties are aware of each other. Especially as emails can be forwarded so who knows where my email address would end up…
    • don’t give someone else’s email address to others for their newsletter. It’s one thing to give it as a referral (e.g. “Email Tash on … as she’s a great writer”) but otherwise you should protect the emails you have been entrusted with. If in doubt, ask if it’s ok to pass on someone’s details

    Posted in Uncategorized, business info, newsletter content | 3 Comments »

    Clear and repeated communications

    Friday, July 24th, 2009

    Again, I am continuing on with a discussion of the Edelman Trust Barometer from February this year. (You can read the business trust and blog trust posts for background.)

    Their media release states “Swift and accountable communications: Respondents said they need to hear information 3-5 times before they believe it. Companies should inform conversations among the new influencers on blogs, in forums, and bulletin boards. Australians under 34 are twice as likely to share both positive and negative information about a company online as their older counterparts – this trend will only grow. ”

    The repetition of a clear message is important in getting people to trust you (your business) and accept that message. For example, any good presenter/teacher will summarise key points at the end of a topic as that helps others absorb that information.

    When planning some marketing, remembering that people like to hear a message 3 – 5 times (and many have long said 7 times) before buying it means:

    • you may not get great results from your first attempt at marketing
    • consider how you can present your message in multiple ways rather than spending your budget on one ad
    • use images and layout to enhance your message – a stronger message may need less repetition than a hidden or weak message
    • every interaction you have with people in your demographic (and beyond) can reinforce or damage that message so make sure all ads, blogs, your website, your business card and so on are consistent, professional and appropriate for the purpose

    Prompt communication is important in this information age – discussing an event well afterwards must be managed carefully so it doesn’t appear you are out of date. For instance, I could write that people affected by the February 7 bushfires are rebuilding and still need support all year but just writing ‘donate to the bushfires’ now looks very old.

    Blogs, emails and social media are obviously key ways to making communications immediate and relevant – which is why I find it hard to believe they aren’t trusted forms of communication.

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    Blogs and trust

    Monday, July 20th, 2009

    A few days I wrote about the Edelman Trust Barometer and the reduced trust in Australian business.

    One statement made by Edelman that I didn’t mention was “Digital communication such as blogs and social networking sites are not trusted sources of information. ” I left it for a separate post as I think it is worth more discussion.

    I think that statement is simplistic, especially as it is not backed up with statsitics or specifics. For instance, are no blogs trusted or just those run by big companies? Does the style of blog or age of the respondent make any difference to their answer?

    Instead of writing an essay on this topic, here are just a few of my thoughts, but I’d love to hear your thoughts, too:

    •  reading a blog gives you insights into the person behind the business, making it more personal and therefore more trustworthy
    • blogs doing things like overusing keywords, be ads trather than information, ignoring comments (especially negative comments) and not providing meaningful links are not going to build trust – but many others avoid these behaviours
    • blogs and social media are very different – and the perception is probably bigger for those who don’t use tweeter, FaceBook, and so on
    • regular blog posts show a commitment to the business and clients – much more than a website or promotional materials that are only updated once a year or less
    • blogs are a quick, easy way to communicate information quickly. I have a client whose customers requested more updates on the business and industry, and their web stats show the blog is attracting a lot more traffic. I believe it is building their trust as they know about changes well in advance of an annual report or quarterly newsletter

    Do you trust blogs in general? Do they help you trust the busienss providing the blog ?

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    Posted in blog content, business info | 1 Comment »

    Building trust

    Saturday, July 18th, 2009

    One of the reasons I give for writing promotional articles and blog posts is build trust in the community and your (potential) clients. By sharing relevant information, people can trust your expertise and learn about your personality and integrity.

    In the current global situation, building trust may be even more important.

    The Edelman Trust Barometer for Australiais a survey of consumers and how they feel about various institutions. In February this year, they noted a huge 74% decline in trust for business – only 34% of respondents trust a business to do what is right in a specific situation.

    What is critical to learn from this survey is the following:

    • 87% of Australians will  not buy from a company they don’t trust
    • 64% of Australians will pay extra to use a company they do trust
    • Australians prefer Australian-owned companies to foreign owned companies as a general rule (obviously that changes in specific situations if the Australian company isn’t trusted)
    • corporate advertising is trusted by only 6% of Australians – and corporate websites by only 13%

    Some other interesting notes:

    • people between 25 and 34 years are twice as likely to share experiences of a company than older respondents
    • treating employees well is important – even more important than an environmental commitment – in building trust

    As for the survey, it was based on “4,475 upper-income, highly-educated people in 20 countries, including 1,375 in Asia-Pacific countries.”

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    Posted in business info | 2 Comments »

    End of financial year

    Thursday, June 25th, 2009

    It’s getting very close to 30 June, but there’s still time to prepare your finances for it. Some things I have been thinking about (and doing in some instances) are

    • to get a tax deduction as a self -employed person, you need to make a personal contribution and submit a Deduction for personal super contributions form to your Fund
    • the super co-contribution only applies if you make a personal contribution by 30 June (and meet certain criteria like income levels)
    • the small business 50% tax break has been legislated, but it doesn’t run out til Dec 2009 so purchases don’t have to be made this week
    • individual tax rates are reducing from 1 July so increasing your deductions this year may decrease your tax more than making the same deductions next year
    • sending out invoices now rather than after 1 July may affect your income levels (depending on how your accounts are set up) and may help your customers with their tax preparation and budgeting
    • organising your invoices and receipts now could mean getting your tax return done sooner, which is great if you’re getting a refund!

    How much do you do to prepare for the end/start of financial years? Is this when you do budgets and analysis or do you base that on the calendar year instead?

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    New services…

    Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

    After a lot of thinking, planning and learning, I am pleased to say I will be introducing a new service in the new financial year. It is exciting to start something new, although I have been doing it quietly already, and I’m starting promotions this weekend at the Business Mums Conference.

    The question now is – do I build anticipation and wait for 1 July to announce my new service, or do I tell you now? Which would you prefer?

    My thoughts on such decisions:

    • building anticipation is a great way to develop curiosity and (for a blog) an effective way to encourage repeat visitors
    • there is no point in annoying people with part of a story so any ‘coming soon’ message needs to be intriguing and not mislead
    • what does a launch date signify? Is there a strong reason to delay something new? If there are legal or IP or technical reasons to not give details in advance, be very careful of how you present any teasers
    • don’t build up to a launch you aren’t sure of – it destroys your credibility and any excitement if your wesbite says “our new product will be in store on 10 June” and it’s now July.
    • building up to a launch can start the process of search engine optimisation  and getting some traffic and ranking for your webpages. This may be limited if you can’t use keywords in advance but it at least gives you a URL to use in preparing marketing and advertising

    Launching a new product or service also raises questions such as using the same brand and business name or not, pricing the new item, packaging the new with the old, and where to focus future marketing.

    As for my new service, I am not launching it until July because my website can’t be ready before then (preparing a conference presentation and client deadlines took priority.) And you’ll just have to wait a little longer to find out more…

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    Posted in About Word Constructions, business info | No Comments »

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