Heather Villa » People

Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 7/9/10

Heather Villa, CMA, MBA, MSM — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:48:06 +0000

Want To Learn Faster? Stand Next To The Master – Learn the most, the best, and the fastest from others around you. Within this personal story are great insights on how to excel your knowledge by placing yourself next to those that are great leaders. “Think about it: what does mastery mean to you? Who are your masters? What’s stopping you from standing more closely to them?”

5 Favorite Link Building Tools – Having the right tools will save time, return better results in terms of both likelihood to acquire a link and its quality. This post offers some tools that will not only save you time but also improve your link building abilities.

Magalog – A sales tool with untapped potential – I had not heard of a magalog before reading Aaron’s post. He gives a clear picture of what it is and the beneficial uses. “One way to make sure your sales material gets into the hands of the people it’s supposed to get to, and to make sure it gets read, is to use a magalog”.

Understanding why Social Media works, in less than 3 minutes – Well put comparison with a video clip and social media that shows exactly why social media works for companies. “Just as Pixar makes inanimate objects more real, social media is making companies of all sizes more human.”

Google Caffeine – What It Means To YOU – This post discusses Old Google vs. New Google. It lists some of the advantages we will see in the upcoming future and how it will affect us. “In short, Google may have gotten faster and bigger – but did they really change THAT much?”

The Secret of Today Versus Todo – Most folks use a todo list on a daily basis. I know I do. This post goes over why keeping the todo list simple will benefit you more. Designate your top tasks that must get done that day and keep them on the top of your list but, always remember it should be as simple a possible.

No, You Can’t Automate Social Media! – There are disadvantages to automating too much of your social media. Even though one might have x followers on twitter, it’s not going to be beneficial if all the tweets are wholly automated. Don’t forget to be human too. It’s that easy!

These People Will Destroy Your Business

Heather Villa, CMA, MBA, MSM — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:03:32 +0000

Over the years I’ve observed successful businesses owners and entrepreneurs helplessly fail as their businesses are driven into the ground by someone else. It’s rarely a malicious act, since people tend to spend time with people they want to be with. Frequently, business destruction occurs because friends, colleagues, clients or some other well-meaning person in a positive relationship with the entrepreneur tanked the business accidentally. If you have these people in your life, beware!

High maintenance clients who are focused on your rate. If you have clients who require a lot of hand-holding, who constantly ask for free services, and who call you back to go over invoices in detail, you’ve got a business-destroying problem on your hands. They may be the nicest people in the world but they can take away from other customers who cost less to manage and are therefore more profitable. If a clients gets too demanding (even if their demands are disguised as requests), revisit how much you do for them for free.

Vendors with whom you are too closely tied for critical situations. As a business owner, you probably have vendors who provide you with any number of services. And it’s often nice to work with just a few people who know what they are doing rather than spread yourself too thin by trying to manage a whole bunch of people. But you need to watch your vendors carefully: If you are extremely reliant on them to come through (because they provide you with several critical services) make sure their own business is in good shape. You don’t want them dropping the ball for too long simply because they can’t keep their own house in order).

Employees who just warm desks. The world somehow has balance: There are entrepreneurs who dream of living a life of unfettered freedom and there are employees who like the consistency of employment. We need each other in order to coexist in perfect harmony. But sometimes you get an employee who likes the consistency of employment without the hassle and sweat of actually doing work. They are a drain on your revenue without contributing to your business. Unfortunately, if you run a small office, it can be extremely difficult to do anything about them.

Decision makers who have a different view than you. Decision makers could include majority shareholders, partners, COOs or CFOs (if you’re the CEO), or other key people on your management team. You need everyone moving in the same direction but if they feel that the business should go somewhere else, you’ve got a potentially bad situation if they start making decisions that run counter to how you feel the business needs to go.

Businesses frequently fail from these people because these business-destroyers are cloaked in good relationships. They get close to entrepreneurs and usually have the best intentions and positive feelings toward the business owner and the business. But, as you can see by reading descriptions of them; their views are just not aligned.

One of the most difficult things you’ll have to do as an entrepreneur is identify and remove these people from a position of influence in your business.

Good luck!

How to Re-Use Old Coaching Sessions

Heather Villa, CMA, MBA, MSM — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:34:53 +0000

In a previous blog post I mentioned that you should record your calls with your clients (get their permission first, of course), and transcribe those calls. Here’s what you should do with those recordings and transcriptions:

1.   Send the recordings and transcriptions to your clients as a free, value-added service so they can refer to them again and again. If you’re really conscientious, you’ll make notes on them yourself so you can refer back to them again. Use them as tools to follow up with the client.
2.   Pull out anything from the transcription that could be used to identify a specific client and repost the edited content as a blog. Post these from time to time as “my best advice for… [situation]” so people can see what you think. If you’re concerned that people will read your free blog instead of paying you then don’t post the whole call and add the disclaimer that each situation is different and what works for one client might not work for another client.
3.   Pull out anything from the transcription that could be used to identify a specific client and provide a copy of that edited transcript to someone who is thinking about becoming a client and wants to know how you work.
4.   Or, collect it together with transcriptions of calls from other clients with similar situations and turn it into an ebook. There are many times I’ve seen this as both a free bonus for an digital download product… or even as the product itself.

And here’s a bonus idea, inspired from #3: Sometimes you get prospective clients who want to know how you work before they hire you. That’s fine; perfectly understandable. Giving them a recorded call to listen to is a helpful way to do that (without taking up a lot of your time with a free call or whatever). However, not many clients want you to share their information publicly if they are coming to you for coaching. So, to get around that, try some of these ideas:

Ask your client first if you can record the call for these purposes and tell them that you are not going to use their name. Give them the option to review the call first and highlight anything they are not comfortable with. Perhaps even give them the coaching hour for free or for a discount. (It will be worth it to you in how successful you’ll be at winning new clients).

Ask a friend (one who could be a client if they weren’t a friend) to be the “client” on the call. Choose someone who really can use your help or else the call will sound made-up. This is sometimes an easier thing to do than to ask your clients if you can record a call with them.

Once you’ve recorded (and possibly edited) this call, either keep it handy to send to prospective clients or post it on your website so people can listen to it there.

Your calls are valuable and you should use them as much as possible (without compromising client confidentiality). Does anyone have any other suggestions or ideas to reuse calls? Post them in the comments!

Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 6/4/10

Heather Villa, CMA, MBA, MSM — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 19:24:01 +0000

You Can Learn A Lot From Your Customers – Do you sell a product or services to your customers? Have you ever made the time to reach out to them individually by way of a phone-survey, or email survey, or heck even an old fashioned snail mailed survey? Michael Fleischner reminds us of the importance of doing so. He also provides some tips on how to (creatively) get your customers interested in taking a survey or learning about survey’s in which they can be rewarded for taking!

What the Lost Series Finale Taught Me About Personal Branding – Flash sideways is apparently a concept introduced through Lost. It is somewhat confusing but take a look at what David Trahan thinks of it. And don’t forget to look at the tips he includes!

How to Create Guest Post Guidelines for Your Blog- This is a really great and highly informative blog that discusses the hows and whys of writing a guest blog. Sometimes bloggers forget about the simpler ways of going about marketing themselves. Why not get your name out there – everywhere – and use other people’s influence and audience to your advantage.

Why BP Should Embrace the Fake BP Twitter Account – We all know about it; it’s the talk of every media outlet imaginable! This environmental disaster involving BP also made it onto twitter via a fake account @BPGlobalPR Outspoken Media came up with a compelling and well thought out list of reasons for BP to embrace the falsies out there!

Beware: Baby Lambs Cause Computer Viruses – The internet is an amazing thing and I can hardly remember life before www. This is a really great blog from one of my favorite bloggers. She wrote how she received an email from a friend of her who described how she got a virus from a website about baby lambs. Seriously – baby lambs! Take a look at this article and make sure you read the comments.

Rubber boots and sales copy – Poor Aaron. Working in his living room because his office is full of water. Poor guy! Take a look at what he had to face and then the awesome advice he gives about writing amazing sales copy at the end. Great advice from his temporary office on Hoos Island!

A Beginner’s Guide to Trail Running – Literally, this is a blog that gives you instruction, guidance, and tips an what is required to begin making a habit of Trail Running. I will admit, I am not an avid Trail Blazer but it is something that I have thought about doing. This is the most thorough articles I have found on the topic!

Check out HeatherVilla StumbleUpon to see more of my favorites.

Have a great weekend!

“What Should I Do?” – Social Communities

Heather Villa, CMA, MBA, MSM — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:00:43 +0000

From time to time I’ve been posting a series called “What Should I Do?” about a particular aspect of social media marketing based on the Social Media Framework mindmap in MindMeister.

The social communities topic in the Social Media Framework mindmap seems somewhat empty, especially if you compare it to the immense pile of social networks I am invited to on any given day (by people I barely know). But the basic ones are here – Bebo, Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace – so there aren’t any surprises. And, I’ll give the author this to his or her credit: it’s a tough category anyway because most social media has some kind of community surrounding it (Twitter users have followers, for example).

If your market is primarily a B2C market, it is understandable if you want to use several communities (Bebo, Facebook, Myspace). If your market is B2B, it’s likely that you’ll stick with LinkedIn (increasingly, though, Facebook is a place for business colleagues to connect). Pick one or two and really build them out and get active on them. If you try to do all of them, you’ll still end up focusing on a couple and doing a half-baked job on the others.

Once you’ve selected the one or two that you are going to be active on, build your profiles fully and be active there. Make it your network. Build relationships with your connections. Ask them how they are doing. Engage with them. Share with them.

Ning is also mentioned. Ning is a way to create niche communities around a specific topic. The idea here is to create a social network around something of your own focus – sort of like a Facebook for people who are only interested in the one thing you’re interested in. I haven’t used Ning very much but I do like the idea. (The only reason I haven’t used it much is because I have lots of other things taking up my attention right now). Ning as a concept is great and if you have a target market who will participate in a social network like that, you’ve got a captive audience who will also be highly engaged and more likely to buy. But if you’re thinking of trying Ning, you’d better weigh the ROI because they are moving away from free networks towards paid networks later this year. (Still, it might be a good thing for your business and worth the cost).

The last item mentioned in the mindmap is Cliqset. Cliqset is a way to pull together all of your content and participation from around the web into one place in a sort-of Lifestream. I like the idea of a Lifestream: People can view your Lifestream as a single repository where all of your links and status updates and bookmarks and published content is gathered. It can position you and it keeps everything altogether.

If you’re looking for a fast start to get a Lifestream going, Cliqset could be for you. But if you don’t mind a couple of extra steps, consider adding a Lifestream to an existing site you own instead. For example, convert a page of your site to a Lifestream (as I have done) or use Twitter as your Lifestream. The reason is, this can end up being an extra thing to pay attention to if it exists outside of your current network of sites, and it doesn’t offer as much value to you because of that: As an example, consider a prospective customer. When they search for you, they might look at your site and your Twitter account but it’s unlikely that they will continue on to look at your Lifestream on Cliqset (or elsewhere). However, if your Lifestream is integrated into an existing network (like your website) they will see it and it will further position you.

I have a lot more to say about social networks, but I’ve given you enough to think about for now! Find a few, succeed with them, and add a Lifestream to one of your existing identities.

Happy Blogging!

How to Take Your Business to the Next Level

Heather Villa, CMA, MBA, MSM — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 10:45:43 +0000

There is an invisible set of stairs that entrepreneurs perceive in the life of their business and every business owner has the desire to move their business up these stairs toward some (possibly unknown or unstated) level of success. They know that each level requires new efforts and techniques and ideas and comes with its own challenges and rewards.

But the problem is, what the heck are the levels? There’s no manual anywhere suggesting what the levels are. Yet, every entrepreneur knows that they are at one level and they want to get to a higher level. I have people asking me all the time to help them move to a higher level.

In case you’re reading this and wondering if I have somehow divined what the levels are, I haven’t. But I have discovered something else: Moving from one level to another is often preceded by dissatisfaction at the current level as well as an increasing amount of chaos and sometimes an unsettled feeling. I compare it to a child’s top that is spinning smoothly for a while and then starts to wobble. The business starts to wobble, unbalanced, just like that top. That “wobble” is often the time when a business owner wants to move to the next level. But here’s what I recommend first:

Instead of focusing on the next level (which is difficult to do anyway because it’s hard to know exactly what it is for each business), focus on making your current level perfect. Address that unsettled feeling and that chaos. Get it under control.

You can do this by:

Creating or revising your business’ systems.
Revisiting your business plan.
Hiring someone to take care of your details (or extending the responsibilities of someone you’ve already hired).
Taking a vacation to clear your head.
Perfecting your current operation.
Looking at your expenses and reducing them.
Revisiting your business model to see if there are additional revenue opportunities.
Strengthening your customer service.
Increasing the consistency and quality of your marketing.
Increasing the quality of your deliverables.

“But Heather,” you say, “I want to get to the next level. What you are telling me is how to make my current level better.”

Indeed that is exactly what I am doing. And the reason is: Your current business, which is probably running well enough (after all, you are looking at moving forward) needs to be tightened up a bit in order to more effectively move forward anyway. And, as you move forward, you want to maintain as much control as you can (and as much profit as you can) and cleaning house will help with that. You will also gain a fair amount of insight into how your business is running (and that could reveal for you exactly how you can move forward).

If your business is starting to feel like it’s becoming unbalanced and you’re wondering if you’re ready to move to the next level, make your first step a house-cleaning effort to strengthen your current business and that will help you get to the next level faster and more profitably.

On to the next level!

“What Should I Do?” – Social bookmarking

Heather Villa, CMA, MBA, MSM — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:07:21 +0000

I’ve been writing a semi-regular “What Should I Do?” series on social media marketing based on this excellent MindMeister mindmap.

In this post, I will talk about social bookmarking.

I love social bookmarking for a couple of reasons. I like it because it makes my bookmarks computer-independent so I can access them from anywhere. I also like social bookmarking because they turn my bookmarks into positioning tools – when people see what I’m bookmarking, they read it and understand who I am and what I think about. And I like social bookmarking because of the social aspect – I like to see what other people are linking to because I always uncover good gems.

The Social Media Framework mindmap (MindMeister mindmap) lists a few different branches within the social bookmarking category. This category doesn’t look at clean and well organized as some of the other categories in the map but all the good stuff is there.

There are bookmark sites (like Delicious and StumbleUpon), article submission sites (like Reddit, Mixx, and Digg), and tools you can use to empower your social bookmarking (like OnlyWire). So, where to start?

BOOKMARKS: I recommend that you pick one social bookmark site as your main site. That’s not to say that you can’t use and thrive on more than one but there is only so much benefit that you can get out of these sites and if you expend a lot of energy in these places making sure they are all synched up, I think you’ll lose benefits elsewhere. Just try to find something that works for you. I like StumbleUpon. I know someone else who is a big Delicious user. Find a bookmark site and go with it. Make it useful to you as your primary bookmarking site.

ARTICLE SUBMISSION SITES: These sites have mixed value to the business owner. I know that’s probably shocking for me to say because other people swear by them, but here’s why I say that: It’s not really in good taste (and, in some cases, it’s forbidden) to post your own content on these article submission sites. So you can post other people’s stuff (and that’s okay) but the point is to get your own content listed there. The other problem with these sites is that some of them can be somewhat restrictive in terms of who reads the content. Make sure that your niche reads the content before posting there! If you want a best practice, here’s my advice: Write great content that could be listed on these sites and use one of the tools below to help get your content posted there.

TOOLS: Retweet and AddThis are good tools to add to your site. These make it easy for people to share your content with their networks or on their bookmarking sites. Another tool I really like but have only started to explore is OnlyWire. For just a couple of bucks a month, you can auto-distribute your content to various bookmarking sites at the click of a button. The idea is great but the jury is still out on whether or not it is really as valuable as it claims to be.

Your bookmarks have a few roles to play: First, being useful to you but also positioning you. But I think the payback is limited (compared to other kinds of marketing efforts). My advice is to pick one and make it useful to you and focus your social marketing energy on something else. Although you can market your business with social bookmarks, I’ve never heard of someone getting a lot of business out of it.

Save time and effort. Make your bookmarks useful to you in one channel and move on to something else.

Happy Monday and have a great week!

“What Should I Do?” – Livecasting

Heather Villa, CMA, MBA, MSM — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:48:39 +0000

In this “What should I do?” series, I’ve been writing about the Social Media Framework mindmap at MindMeister.com. In each post, I’ve been looking at one of the subtopics of the framework and giving you tips on how to make it work for you.

In this post I’ll be talking about livecasting.

Livecasting is one of those funny things that seem normal offline (live radio, live TV) but online there’s still a “gee whiz” factor. Livecasting is basically your average broadcasting (via voice, video, or chat). And it’s live. Duh. As the mobile web becomes more popular and access broadens and connection speeds increase, livecasting will become even more useful. It’s big and getting bigger, but it still feels like it’s in its infancy.

The social media framework mindmap offers several different livecasting tools, which are broken down into audio, video, and chat. The subdivisions in video (“live video”, “seesmic” and “TubeMogul” are a little unclear to me so I’m just lumping them altogether as “video”.

What should I livecast?
I imagine that the first thing most businesses are wondering is “what should I livecast?” I’ve heard of people livecasting themselves just sitting there while they work, but I think that’s about as useful as tweeting that you’re going to the bathroom. There are many ways to livecast with value. For example, you might want to have a show at a regular time. Or you might to do on-the-street interviews. Or product reviews. Or host a talk show. Or teach a virtual lecture. Or hold a meeting. Or vlog.

Twitter is a form of livecasting, too, so you might consider how you could extend the value you provide on Twitter to a large market through a different livecasting medium.

My confession
Although livecasting is an engaging idea, PLUS I’m an avid Twitter user, I admit that I’m not 100% sold on a full adoption of livecasting as a superior alternative to prepared content. (Quick definition: “Livecasting” is live-to-the-web while “prepared content” is something created, reviewed, edited, and posted. It’s like the difference between a tweet and a short ezine – one is live and in real time, the other is pre-created).

The first reason that I prefer prepared content to livecasting is that the web is 24/7 and your target market may want to listen to your great livecast but they want to do it on their own terms. Mix in timezone differences and you’ve got a potential problem if your market is at work or asleep while you want them to be viewing your livecast. The other reason that I haven’t fully adopted livecasting is that sometimes I say things that I shouldn’t say and it’s nice to have an edit function handy.

On the other hand, where you have a scheduled meeting and want to deliver live over-the-web instruction or in a collaborative meeting scenario, livecasting can be pretty helpful.

More to come
In spite of the fact that I’m just not “there” yet when it comes to fully adopting livecasting as a marketing tool, I do see the benefits. If you want to make livecasting your primary medium, good for you; run with it! I think the future of livecasting is exciting with more possibilities still to come. But until there’s an edit button, I’d better stick with prepared content!

“What Should I Do?” – Blog Commenting

Heather Villa, CMA, MBA, MSM — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:32:09 +0000

In a previous blog post I wrote about a really helpful MindMeister mind map about social media marketing. Each week (or so) I’ll be writing about one of the techniques described in the map and giving you additional details and tips.

In today’s blog post I want to talk about blog commenting.

Blog commenting is exactly what the name implies. There are a couple of reasons why I leaving blog comments are good:

Blog comments give you a nice, happy backlink to your blog. (That’s why spammer use it). Who doesn’t love backlinks? They’re awesome.

Blog commenting gets traffic to your own blog when people see your insightful comment and follow you to your own site. (More on this in a moment).

Additionally – and I would say “more importantly” – blogs are conversations. They’re social. If the blogger offers comment functionality on their blog, it’s because they want to have comments.

Commenting on other people’s blogs can build traffic to your own… under certain circumstances. Here’s what I mean: There are three kinds of blog commenters and I’m going to lay them out right here (but before you get offended by what I write, be sure to read the whole post first!).

Type 1: Adders.
Type 2: Agreers.
Type 2: Spammers.

Blogs are social media conversations. The blogger starts the conversation on his or her blog with an insightful, compelling, and perhaps witty post about their subject matter. And the commenters are the other folks in the same conversation, and they’re not that different than in a real life conversation:

The adders. You have some people who contribute to the conversation with something like: “You make some good points, Heather. Another thing to consider is…” This is Type 1 comments. They add to the conversation. These are often the people who keep a conversation going and make it an enjoyable dialogue.

The agreers. You also have some people in a conversation who simply nod in agreement. And they appear in blog posts, too: “Great post, Heather!”. This is the Type 2 comment. They don’t necessarily add something to the conversation. (By the way: I called them “Agreers” but I am aware that “agreers” is just a made up word).

The spammers. You know what I’m talking about. They can range from ones who pretend to be agreers (“I read with such interest” – but they link to a generic drugs site) to ones who offer “Hot Russian Wifes!” or something even less appropriate.

As a blogger, just like in real life, you want lots of Type 1 comments if you want a conversation. That’s because blogs are part of the social media realm – a big, online conversation. (Having said that, let me say that Type 2 comments – the agreers – are welcome and if you tend to be an agreer on my site, I’m not complaining. I’m just pointing out that in every conversation, whether online or offline, you’ve got the people who participate in the conversation, you’ve got those who agree, and then you’ve got one or two losers who talk about hot Russian “wifes” and generic drugs.) You can build up traffic to your site by going to other blogs and adding insightful comments there.

Here are some additional tips to help you:

Make sure you are going to blogs that connect with a target audience who are similar to your own.
Don’t sell! If you want to be a Type 1 commenter, add insight, experience, and ideas.
Use Disqus, and Gravatar to help create a better experience for you as you comment, and for those who might read your comments and link to your site.

Happy Commenting!

Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 2/19/10

Heather Villa, CMA, MBA, MSM — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:45:50 +0000

Why You Should Embrace Public Criticism – There is something to be gained by good constructive criticism. My favorite line, “People who are happy all the time are liars. And possible serial killers.” Go read more so you’ll get the context.

Tweeting Dog Collar Posts Your Dog’s Movements to Twitter – I love my dogs, but really??

Wordpress SEO – The Only Guide You Need – This is a great tool for everyone who has a Wordpress Blog. I thought I knew all the SEO tricks, but after reading this, I found a few new things to implement.

The ROI of giving a damn – Social Media is such a big part of businesses today. I think we all need a reminder of why we use it and what we expect to gain from it. Some companies are looking for a quick return, but social media is about building relationships. If you focus on building the relationship the revenue will take care of itself. I love this blog for reminding us of the purpose.

Who Pushes You to Achieve More? – The drill sergeant analogy in this is spot on. How much more productive would you be if someone was pushing you to your limits everyday?

The 7 Blog Posts You Write But Shouldn’t Publish – This one really hit home with me. At the moment I can’t think of a blog that I posted and later regretted doing so, however I know there are a ton that have ‘almost’ been published. This post has some great guidelines to consider before hitting that ‘publish’ button.

Calculate the Cost of Wasteful Meetings With MEETorDIE – I have not checked out this application yet seeing how I just read this one today. However, I think it’s a wonderful idea and love the whimsical logo and site design.

I decided to go with a new format for my weekend reading blog. Hope you enjoy. Let me know your thoughts and don’t hesitate to criticize.

Of course more of my favorites are list on HeatherVilla StumbleUpon.

Have a great weekend and happy reading!