Three benefits of having your own blog

I’ve been blogging for five years.

In those five years, here are the stages of acceptance / awareness that blogging has had in culture:

  • What’s a blog?
  • So it’s a website and you write it?
  • Blogs are sooo over.

At the same time blogging was really gaining traction a few years ago, Facebook and Twitter were growing explosively, so those two platforms may have killed some of the momentum.

All that said, I’m still passionate about blogging. It’s an amazing way to share ideas and connect with other people.

And I’m passionate about non-bloggers getting started blogging. If you don’t already have a blog of your own, here are three reasons why I think you should have a blog:

1. Blogging is fun.

When you have your own blog, you’re in charge 100%. You’re your own publisher. You pick what gets posted. There’s excitement that comes when you press the “Publish” button and it’s fun to see how many visits your blog gets. And when a total stranger makes a nice comment or shares one of your posts, I guarantee you’ll be hooked. This stuff is fun.

2. Blogging helps you establish your personal brand.

Your blog can be a reflection of who you are and what it’s like to know you. It can show off your personality and the way you think. And you can do that by design or you can just let it flow through the things you post.

For more ideas on how blogging can help you establish your personal brand, check out these posts:

Why You Must Have a Blog to Increase Your Online Personal Brand

Launching a New Year With a Great Personal Brand

3. Blogging helps you organize and clarify your thoughts.

It doesn’t matter what your day looks like – whether you’re a nurse practitioner or a toll booth attendant – you take in a lot of information every day. And if you’re like me, sometimes my head feels a little messy after a while. Sitting down at a computer to put thoughts into a blog post brings order to the mess.

Blogging is fun, helps other people know who you are, and will help you organize your thoughts. I can’t recommend it enough.

If you could start a new blog today, what would your first post be about?

Five things your customers want from you right now

Want to try something that will open your eyes?

Think for a minute about how many brands or companies you interact with before you ever get to your office in the morning.

I interact with a host of coffee-related companies, then a handful of soap, shave and shampoo-related companies. I interact with the cable company, Twitter, WordPress and the Today Show. I interact with my kids’ school. I interact with the dry cleaner. I interact with the gas station. And every now and then if I think I need a treat I interact with Dunkin Donuts or Chick-fil-a.

That’s all before 8:15 a.m.

We interact with tons of brands. Tons of companies. Every day.

And while most of those interactions are unremarkable, the broader relationships can be transformed by knowing what customers want. It’s when we know what customers want and when we deliver it well that we make a real impact in a customer’s life.

What do customers want right now? Five things:

1) Customers want connection.

Feeling unconnected is difficult. People want to be connected to you. Tell them how they can contact you. Tell them when they can contact you. In some cases, people want to be connected with other customers of yours. Help them make those links. Initiate connection by calling, emailing, sending a newsletter, texting or DM’ing. Just don’t spam. People want to feel personally connected to a place they send their money.

2) Customers want information.

If feeling unconnected is difficult, feeling ignorant is worse. Who likes being out of the loop? Who likes having a product they don’t know how to use? Who wants to pull into the drive-through at the bank and find that the name has changed? Who likes having the channel lineup change but no guide to go with it? Feed your customers information, maybe more than they want. They don’t want to feel ignorant.

3) Customers want value.

A friend bought a $700 computer for $500 at Sam’s Club the other day. He was attracted to the price, but was he shopping for a $500 computer and the stuff that comes loaded on a $500 computer? No. He was shopping for a $700 computer and the chips and processors and the 1.21 jigowatts that come loaded on it, but got a great price by paying $500.

People will beat you up over price. They’ll burn $50 in gas driving around town to save $2 on AA batteries. But what they want is value. They want to know that what they have is worth something. They want to know that what they have is worth what they paid for it or more than what they paid for it. That’s value.

Always show customers that what they’re getting is worth what they’re paying for it, or maybe even more.

4) Customers want purpose.

You can read a lot into who your customers think they are or who they want to be from the purchases they make. Our spending is often a few steps ahead of us in terms of who we’re becoming.

If your paper goods shop starts selling more calendars and organizers, you can bet some folks are resolved to become more organized and focused. If you sell juicers and vitamins, your customers have made some choices about what they’re putting in their bodies.

But here’s the thing: customers don’t always have purpose. Sometimes they’re waiting for someone else to give it to them.

Tell them they can run a half marathon. Tell them they can write a book. Tell them they can research and build a family tree that goes back nine generations. Tell them they can change a broken system.

And then watch the money flow.

Not to get in their pocket, but because connecting people with purpose is one of the most powerful things anyone can do.

5) Customers want a path.

You want 100% of your customer’s wallet.

Your customer may or may not be willing to do that, but they’re probably not willing to do it all at once.

Show your customers the path. Show your customers what it’s going to be like to take the next couple of steps with you.

We can make a difference in the lives of our customers when we give them connection, information, value, purpose and a path.

Think about some of the brands you use. What do you want more of from them?

Saturday notes

Saturday is a good day to share some stuff about what’s been going on in our family life during the week, or in general.

The boy has a basketball game this morning. Early in the season, we struggled to get him engaged in the game. He’s so used to playing nicely with his sisters, asking for things, sharing, etc. that the idea of trying to snatch a ball from someone was a little new. Then he got the ball snatched from him a few times. Last week, less than a minute into the game, he got called for a foul because he was playing aggressive defense, reaching in an trying to slap the ball out of another boy’s hand. That’s development.

We’ve been watching Downton Abbey. It’s a great show. I like it enough that I’m looking at having an elaborate bell system installed in our house. The only trouble is that, out of the entire first season and a few episodes of the second season, I’ve only seen about 45 minutes. The theme song is like Ambien to me, folks. I hear the music and I’m gone.

Speaking of TV, you know what we got back into this week? Some good ol’ fashioned CSI.  After watching a few seasons of Dexter it was refreshing to watch something that had a nice twisty story but that didn’t leave you with that “This kinda freaks me out about humanity” feeling.

We took the baby (she’s two – why do I call her “the baby?”) to get a passport this week. We’re not going anywhere abroad, but if we ever want to go somewhere and have her with us, the kid needs a passport. Passport people are very serious. You know who’s not very serious? A two year old. Fortunately, what could have been very stuffy, bureaucratic and time-consuming ended up being very painless, thanks in large part to the nice passport man at the post office. I like to think the baby won him over with her charms.

That’s got to be it for today. I’ve got to go meet some friends and work on a thing we’re doing for some high school kids this summer. I hope you’ve had a good week.

What’s one thing you’ve got going on this weekend?

 

Friday Linking for Thinking

It’s Friday again, so that means it’s time for me to share with you some interesting stuff I found in my reading this week. Here goes:

Can introverts succeed in business? by Laura Vanderkam on the CNN Money blog caught my eye. I think I just wanted to see if I’m wasting my time trying to make it in the business world or if – as an introvert – the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against me.

Have you ever played “Phone Stack?” by Eric Dye at ChurchCrunch. Ever been with someone who answers texts and takes calls while you’re eating lunch? What did you do? Grab your phone and kill time? Stare straight at their eyeballs? Ever been the person texting and taking calls? This is the answer.

“They” do not decide your success by Greg Darley. This post from Greg and an email from a helpful friend this week reminded me of this: comparison is a trap. Play your game, play it as well as you can, and strive to grow.

And in case you missed it (gasp – how could you?!?) we had two posts up here this week:

Three reasons your customers are leaving you (and how to get them to stay)

Three reasons to find a mentor now

What has been the best part of your week?

Three reasons to find a mentor now

I had a job once that ended up not being a great fit. I was a round peg trying to fit into a square hole, so it just wasn’t going to work.

Even though I didn’t leave there with a pension and a gold watch, I still count my time there as very valuable because I learned a ton. Most of what I learned came because I had a great mentor.

In many places, the benefits of having a mentor get overlooked. You can transform the next year by finding someone with more experience to latch on to and learn from.

Here are three reasons to find a mentor:

1) You can learn from your mentor’s mistakes.

Your mentor has been been around the block. He’s tried new things and some of them haven’t worked out. He’s said the wrong thing at the wrong time. He’s invested in the wrong stuff. He’s let the wrong people influence him.

Your mentor has made all the mistakes that, without guidance, you and I will make. Take advantage of someone who has already made those mistakes and save yourself the trouble.

2) Your mentor can see stuff in you that you can’t see.

I’m lousy at seeing my gifts and abilities. And I’m lousy at seeing my faults and idiosyncrasies.

A mentor will be able to spot potential in you that you don’t have a clue is there. And she’ll also be able to spot the baggage.

Having a mentor will broaden your understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses by showing you things that you can’t see.

3) You’ll play at your mentor’s level faster.

Having a mentor is going to mean you’ll have a regular stream of information, wisdom, accountability and hopefully friendship.

It won’t be long before your mentor begins to view you and treat you like a peer rather than someone to be trained. And eventually you’ll view yourself that way, too.

When you view yourself as a peer to your mentor, you’ll start to act like a peer to your mentor. All of a sudden you find yourself doing all the same things a person whose success and wisdom you wanted to capture in the first place would do. You’re playing at your mentor’s level.

Mentoring can be useful in many dimensions of life. It’s not just a business thing. This year, for instance, I’m making it a goal to reach out to some friends with older daughters to start preparing for what the teenage years are going to be like around our house. I want to learn about the parenting decisions these friends have made.

Ron Edmondson has a great series on mentoring on his blog. If finding a mentor is something you want to do, here’s Ron’s post How Do I Find a Mentor?

Once you find a mentor, Jon Acuff has a great post called Three Things You Should Never Say to a Mentor which is very insightful.

Who’s one person in your life who you would consider a mentor?

Three reasons your customers are leaving you (and how to get them to stay)

The past three years have made an already-crowded marketplace even more competitive.

From the perspective of a business owner or salesperson, has it felt to you like everyone has been fighting over the few jobs or contracts that are out there?

Getting new customers is always the name of the game. But in today’s environment, keeping customers is absolutely critical.

And with that said, I need to share some news with you that you might find hard to swallow. I know it’s hard for me to hear about my own business. Here it is:

Your customers are leaving you.

That’s right. The people you fought for, wined and dined, explained features and benefits to, negotiated terms with – all those things – some of them are leaving you right now.

Now, I’m not happy about saying that. Like I said, it’s happening to you and it’s happening to me, too. So let’s take a look at three reasons why it’s happening and I’ll suggest three corresponding ways to get them to stay. Here we go:

1) Your customers are leaving because you don’t date them anymore.

Generally speaking, if you’re out in public and you see a couple doing something awesome, they’re dating. And if you’re out in public and you see a couple buying paper towels at Target, they’re something other than dating.

Likewise, usually the big awesome stuff that companies do is for the people they want to attract as customers. They throw out teaser subscription rates, loss leader pricing, give amazing service to prospects, etc. And then, once you tie the knot, that’s the end of the romance. You get an 800 number or a website to use if you need help.

Your customers and my customers are leaving because we don’t date them anymore. To get them to stay, we should try to be as easy and fun to be with as we were to get with.

2) Your customers are leaving because you’ve changed.

I’ve got a ton of vendors who call on me wanting mental shelf space so I’ll use their product with my customers. They’ll tell you their products are all different, but at the core they’re fundamentally the same.

I got lost listening to these vendors pitch their bells and whistles and found that the guy who earned most of my business was the guy with the simplest product. I could understand it, and I could easily explain it to my customers.

And then his company started changing things. They mucked it up with complex features to make it look like all they other guy’s products.

Our customers are leaving us because we’ve changed, but we can keep them by re-selling them the thing they bought in the first place. If you sold your customer simplicity, go show ‘em your product is still simple. If you sold your customer low price, go show ‘em you’re the cheapest guy around.

3) Your customers are leaving because they’ve changed.

Sometimes people leave because they change and what you have isn’t what they want or need anymore.

The New Year is a great time to see this play out. If a family makes a commitment to healthier food choices or spending decisions, there are some restaurants and retail spots that are going to lose some customers.

Circumstances are always changing, so to expect that people won’t change is silly. We have to expect that the preferences and wants of our customers will change. The key for us is learning what those changes are and figuring out if those changes fit our business or not.

If you’ve ever had to earn a customer, you know how valuable each one is to your business. Let’s remember while we’re out there earning new ones to take great care of the people we’ve got!

If a customer was walking out the door of your business, what would you say to encourage them to stay?

How do I keep my kids when mommy is away? A secret dad’s guide

This post has some insider information for the guys, so ladies – you may either want to click away – or – share this with the men in your life depending on your take on all this.

I want to help you with something that I think will transform your marriage.

A day is coming that will present a defining moment for you. When this moment arrives, I want you to not only recognize it, but make it your moment to shine.

If you have kids, the time is coming when your wife is going to say:

I’m going away for the weekend.

Now she may not say it exactly that way. She may spin it to sound like she has a church retreat or reunion or girls weekend or grandparent’s funeral to go to, but the underlying message is going to be the same.

I’m going away for the weekend. And you’re keeping the kids.

The reason this is a defining moment for you is because how you handle this will speak volumes to your wife. How you handle this may become the basis for many future discussions.

If you want to make this your moment to shine, when she tells you that she’s going away and that you’re keeping the kids, you say one thing and one thing only:

I think that’s great. You deserve a break.

And don’t you dare flinch when you say it. LIke bees and dogs, women can smell fear when it comes to their kids’ caregivers. (I don’t think that’s actually true, but it serves the purpose of this post, so I’m going with it.)

The confidence you show in that moment will be a gift to her while she’s gone. If you’re timid or half-hearted about keeping your own kids for a weekend, she’s going to be preoccupied while she’s away and won’t get to fully experience whatever it is she’s doing.

Once you’ve got your wife out the door, here’s how you survive the weekend when mommy’s away:

Relax. You can’t undo in two days what the two of you have worked together to accomplish as parents in the preceding years. You’re going to be fine.

Take charge. You’re not the babysitter. You’re the dad. You’re not 50% of the parenting equation, you’re 100% of the equation. Expect that your kids treat you like kids should treat a parent.

Keep routines. You’d think that throwing caution to the wind and being spontaneous and crazy would be the best recipe for a mom-free weekend. And it might be. My experience has been that with little ones, keeping up routines and rhythms (mealtimes, naps, snack times, etc.) is a great way to know where you stand. There’s value in having some milestones during the day for you – and the kids – to look forward to.

Have fun. I realize I just wrote about the value of keeping routines, but try to do some things you wouldn’t do on a typical weekend. If you normally play in your neighborhood, drive across town to the park with the new play structure. Stay up late and catch fireflies. Amp up the fun a little bit.

Accept help. Like it or not, people think dads are idiots. So when you’re alone with your kids you’re going to get all kinds of offers for help. Your wife’s friends are going to offer playdates. Your in-laws are going to offer to feed all of you. If you want, take the help.

Solo parenting isn’t easy. You’ll work your tail off for the whole weekend your wife is away. But when Monday rolls around and you head back to work, I guarantee you miss those kids in a way you never have before.

When your wife comes to you with the magic words that she wants to get away for a weekend, give her the gift of a worry-free break. And seize the opportunity to connect with your kids while you’ve still got ‘em under your roof.