Prosper Newsletter: June 2007 > Entrepreneurship

You understand that the following information is educational in nature and is not intended to be legal, accounting, or tax advice. You are responsible for your own financial decisions and should consult your own legal, accounting, and tax advisors before making your financial decisions.

Become an Authority

There are ten basic actions that help you become a recognized authority in your chosen field. They are as follows:

We will highlight the first three in this section and cover the remaining topics in the months to come.

Writing Articles

One of the first things you can do as you begin to establish yourself as an authority in a field is to write articles and having them published in a trade magazine or another publication. The article becomes a good way to self promote. It is one of the easiest and quickest things to do to establish yourself as an authority on any given topic. Get in contact with the trade publication, get good ideas from research, write a good query letter, and get it published.

Editors of trade publications usually already have ideas of what they would like to see written. For example, by May they usually have already planned out their June, July, and August editions. Write a good query letter to an editor explaining that you would like to write and submit a proposal article for their magazine, then ask if there is anything that they would particularly like to see covered in their upcoming editions. They may be able to provide you with their upcoming topics and you can try to get something published for each category. The idea is not to write an article and try to find someone to publish it, but to ask the editor which article they want written and then you will know exactly who will want to publish it.

You don't necessarily have to publish your article in The Harvard Business Review. You could have your article published in an online newsletter. Jot down five different keyword phrases that describe what it is that you do. Then take those five keyword phrases and do a search on Google. It should yield thousands of publications online that cater to that specific idea, then just click on the page and email the editor. The older the website, the more people you will reach with your article. Most online publications will even let you put in a little byline that gives your web address. You could have ten or more articles published online and solidify your reputation of being a guru in your field.

Write a Book

Another way for you to establish yourself is to write a book. Although we use the term book, this category includes books, e-books, DVD's, online information kits, interviews, and doing online downloadable audio. Self-publishing and e-publishing are the best options because the margins are better, and there are zero shipping and delivery costs.

Sell Informational Products

The third thing is selling informational products. Things like e-books and downloadable items should be considered, but something that is often overlooked is software. For example, take the topic of turning people into management material. Say that there is an assessment test of fifty questions that you need to give, and then the candidates are ranked by their answers. You can take that survey and make that into a software program, so all that they have to do to take the test is pop a CD into their computer, type the answers and then print it out. A CD that gives the test and computes the results is much more impressive than a paper survey.

Testimonial

Irresistible Offer

This past week I used the concept of making an irresistible offer. This was with a client who was on the fence on purchasing a new web site and my services that went with the site. Price was his only real issue. To close the deal I went back and offered him a year of free hosting, a cost savings to him of $360.00, and my cost is $240.00. This is all it took for him to finally sign and move on the project worth $3400.00 to my business. I intend to do this more often to close deals where the same objection exists.

Patrick M.

Tip of the Month

Tips for Bloggers

One of the many difficult tasks about blogging is finding enough to write about. Sometimes it may be the time, or it may be the quality of the post. In my opinion, blogging requires both quality and quantity. It is for this reason that many people start out with multiple posts per week, but soon find themselves tapering off, only to find themselves with a blog that has become more of a chore than a passion.

A blog can be one of the best ways to market a site or business through social media optimization and search engine optimization, however, it still requires time, energy, effort, and some affinity for writing. Here are some tips for getting both quality and quantity out of your postings:

  1. Summarize and give commentary (for or against) on news and rss feeds from other well-known sources. This will tends to give a flare for you keeping up with the current news, as well as staking some ground of your own as an authority.
  2. Make sure that your postings are at least 400 words long. A lot of time you can save a post as a draft if you don't have the time in one session to sit down and finish a post to the right length. Fight the tendency to just write a post for the time you have available in between answering emails. Take more time if you need it.
  3. I would suggest reading 2-3 articles on a subject before putting together a post of your own. It is nice to get different perspectives, and also cite these opinions in your post. Having a very eclectic post, taking the best in class of ideas is always a good way to go.
  4. Take from your own experience. Using real life examples and stories in your posts will not only humanize the reading, but will also make it easier for the ideas to flow. People naturally like to talk about themselves and their lives. People also really enjoy reading about others and their experiences. Just remember to keep the stories relevant and have some "moral" or lesson that a reader can takeaway to help them.
  5. Write what you're passion about. Everyone is looking for the 'ultimate' job. What is the ultimate job you ask? It is a job where you wake up and you are happy to go to work and you are happy with what you are doing. Now, taking that same insight into your blog, you would argue that writing and maintaining a blog can also be a job. Do you want it to be fun and enjoyable like the "ultimate" job, or is it going to be a tedious, gut-wrenching task you force yourself to do? Make your life easier and find some way to incorporate what you want to write about, something you're passionate about.
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