January 2, 2016 | 31 Comments Lead Generation – Are you a business owner or a consultant currently blogging? Ask yourself this, how is your blog working for you? Today I will share my blogging story and the slap-in-the-face realisation I’ve experienced recently. This is blog entry Day 16 of my 30 day blog Challenge On November 10th, 2015 I decided that I wanted to improve my writing skills because I planned to publish a book soon. I was on a mission to practice writing and the best way I could think of doing this was to start a blog and create content regularly. One thing I know about my past blogging experiences is that I’d start writing and then gradually over time the frequency of my blog posts would drop until eventually I stop posting altogether. My blog would be like a sad neglected once loved toy, story sound familiar? This time I knew I needed to do something different. I needed to keep myself accountable and committed to blogging regularly. I had heard of those 21 day blog challenges but I never took part in them because deep down didn’t believe that I could blog every single day. I didn’t want to fail. Blame Well this time it was different. I had a ‘why’. You know, to improve on my writing skills so I can publish my book. That’s when I joined my very first 21 day blog challenge but guess what happened. I didn’t take part in it daily. See, I expected the motivation to participate and blog daily to come externally. What I mean is I expected to be prompted by email or via their facebook group to post daily. And when that didn’t happen I stopped blogging – blame. Shame I was annoyed at myself because yet again, even with my ‘why’ I still felt like I failed – shame. But that’s when I remembered a couple of success principles from the Future of Business workshop. Make the learning bigger than the experience Be responsible and play above the line My 30 Day Blog Challenge On December 18th, 2015 I bit the bullet and decided to start my own 30 Day Blog Challenge. I told my friends about it. By doing this I hoped to achieve a couple of things. It would force myself to stay accountable because deep down I knew that if I stopped blogging this time then my personal integrity was at stake. Inspire my friends to start blogging too. Within days of starting the blog challenge five friends had committed to posting regularly. We all shared our daily entries on facebook and it was great. But something was missing… Lead Generation After a chat with my friend Jelena Ostrovska about lead generation and sales I realised that I had missed the real purpose of my blog. See, if you are a business owner / consultant like me, and you have a blog then your blog exists to generate leads to your business or whatever you’re offering your clients and customers. That is it. Let me break down the 4 steps Leaders Give, Givers Get Attract Interested Prospects to you instead of pitching and chasing them How? By adding Value that solves their problems. Why? Because in exchange for giving them Value they give you their email address, and you start building your list of interested prospects which is what your business really is all about. Then what? You develop a relationship with your prospects as you continually give them more value. Now I realise what my friend Christine, from Gecko Gully meant when she said: … build something that will bring visitors, encourage them to subscribe, and promote yourself in your field of expertise. Too often I see blog-a-day challenge participants write about the weather, or their kids, or what they ate for dinner, or (ugh) post funny cat videos, all just to get SOMETHING on their blogs every day. If they are finding it tedious and boring to do, of course their readers will find it super boring to read. If the only person who will enjoy reading your posts is your mother, think again about posting it. Source Blog a Day Challenge What is Value? This depends on your business niche and target market. If you’re a health coach then you might blog on things like, how to stop getting sick and feeling tired. If you’re a business strategist then you might blog about, how to prevent costly business mistakes. If you’re a human rights activist then you might blog about, tips to effectively make a positive change in your world. Think about it for a moment. This is exactly what the 7 and 8 figure income brands in our business have done. They Create Missionaries For example: Oprah Winfrey, built trusting relationship by giving life changing value with her audience through her TV shows. She created missionaries who in turn spend thousands of dollars on various products and programs. Heck, Oprah’s missionaries went to see her in “concert” when she went on a worldwide tour! Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, Eckhart Tolle, Tim Ferris, Jesus you name it, they all gave something of value to their followers first and then created missionaries. These missionaries in turn happily gave back by buying their training programs, books, products, their message, their “why”. Attraction Marketing Attraction Marketing is a structured process of creating win-win success for you and your customers and clients. It is not some coveted illuminati secret or highly complicated rocket science. Anyone can learn it. It’s nothing new, it’s been around for years. I’ve been learning all about it over the past few days. Get this, it is a step by step process, that if done in the right sequence, at the right time, with the right tools, can also create missionaries and generate sales for you. So your blog becomes this non stop income generating machine. Aside from generating profit, other side effects of attraction marketing are things like: building and increasing your brand awareness getting quality interaction and comments on your blog. increasing your newsletter and podcast subscribers Ask yourself this, what would it be worth to you to experience these types of effects in your business this new year? For me it’s being able to take care of my family. To go to my kids’ school activities during business hours. To have more choices in life. To travel and empower business leaders through workshops and consulting. To write and publish my book. To give back to my community. So over the coming days I will share what I’ve learned. I’ll write on topics like: How to perform Keyword Analysis like a pro How to ethically steal traffic from the hottest websites to increase your blog traffic Tweaks for your blog to suck in an extra 5 or more leads per day 7 simple steaps to building your facebook marketing plan SEO for rookies 3 simple steps to get any website to the top of search results How to turn the internet into your own massive warm market Copywriting mastery There is so much more. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned for the next value packed post. Previous 30 day blog Challenge Posts: High value content coming soon! Goodbye 2015 – Welcome 2016 Leaders Predict – Success Principle for this week Did you enjoy this post? If so, I would greatly appreciate if you commented and shared Peter Reginald Skype: peter.reginald.com.au Email: peter@reginald.com.au “For business owners who have hit a glass ceiling, I deliver predictable transformation by improving and managing its processes.” P.S. If you’re struggling to attract highly targeted leads & clients for your business, then you’re missing this 5 step blueprint. Click Here For Instant Access Sources Vlog on Youtube Header Photograph By Eutah Mizushima Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)Like this:Like Loading... Related
My blogging history is like yours, and it’s clearly evident that withdrawing from ‘blog life’ reduced my exposure. An interesting piece, thanks. Reply
Wow, what a powerful post. You’ve pointed out so many truths about blogging for business and I’m glad to have read it. Thank you! Reply
What a great post Peter…. love doing 30 day challenges…. so much growth and learning… thanks for sharing this with everyone Reply
I used to be the same – just couldn’t make myself stick to a challenge. But once you have a group of people that are committed to blogging daily for 30 days, everyone keeps each other accountable! And it’s also a lot more fun! Attraction marketing is such a powerful concept! Reply
Enjoyed the post. I have neglected blogging too and wasn’t pleased but…… I am now on the challenge and ready and willing. Reply
You have a great point about setting your own goals, especially the blog challenge.. i have just set myself a 60 day one.. thanks for sharing Reply
Hi Reginald, I love that you just started on 10 November, a lot op people would wait until the beginning fo the month, or the next year!! Looking forward to seeing you value posts. Reply
Hey Louisa, that’s an interesting observation. I just couldn’t wait till the start of next month. I needed to take action immediately. Lol Reply
Hi Peter, Excellent post! I can totally relate to each and every one of your tips thank you for sharing 🙂 As a blogger myself, it is so important to attract those people who want want you offer, and what better way to do so then with your blog, sharing value daily and consistently 🙂 Taking action is so important to achieving your goals in your business! Reply
Excellent Post Peter, keeping yourself accountable with your friends was a fantastic idea! My mentor told me that the best thing I could do was find an accountability partner and I did it definitely helped keep me on track. I hope to see a lot more of your blog posts. Reply
Thank you Liz! I’m glad that you took the time to comment. I’m currently drafting a new blog post right now. Reply