Work Better, Not Harder

You don’t build a reputation by churning out facts or putting on a suit. A reputation is built through walking the talk. The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear. - Socrates If building your reputation is one of your goals for your newsletter (blog, social media), here are some suggestions for content that will achieve that. Share success stories Use narratives, graphics, photos, videos. Give your readers a taste of what success feels like. Create showcases and galleries. Summarize case studies and research. Tell about lessons learned. Solve problems Apply your skill and experience to help people solve real problems. Give time-saving tips. Create how-to instructions and checklists. Answer questions. Give insight into your area of expertise Stay current with trends, news, and innovations. Curate and summarize information appropriately for your readers. Share your opinions. Get interviewed and republish the resulting article...

Think about the executive summary that prime ministers and presidents read every morning. That has to be a darn concise document. Up-to-the-minute information, well-curated, and accurate, with an appropriate level of detail. Doesn't that sound like a great newsletter? A newsletter has to be useful or interesting . Both is what you're aiming for. It won't be useful if it isn't interesting enough to read. It doesn't have to be long, full, or detailed. It doesn't need to be chock full of advice. It doesn't need fancy graphics and eye-catching colours. While any of those things may help achieve your goals, they aren't necessary. In fact, it doesn't have to be about the content at all. Think back to that top secret briefing. There's one attribute I left off the list above that makes it ultimately useful. In fact, it would be useless without it. Did you guess that it's the speed of delivery , or timeliness? Can you imagine the busy Whi...

A ‘read online’ link allows subscribers to click to view your campaign directly in their web browsers. There are two reasons that you want to include a ‘read online’ link in your newsletter. Most obviously, it’s helpful for subscribers who can't view the HTML version of your email or download images in their email programs. The ‘read online’ link provides a permanent url that you and your fans can use to share your newsletter, now and in the future. You can use this url to link back to your newsletter issue from your website and blog. This link is also a fallback option to social sharing links : readers can copy/paste the url to share on any social media platform regardless of what sharing buttons you include or don't. I receive a weekly newsletter from ColourLovers called Happy Huesday. It’s a wonderful newsletter filled with links to colourful, interesting articles. Every week I want to share it… and can’t. They don’t include social sharing buttons OR a rea...

I read this recent article quickly at first. Then I blinked and reread it. Sure enough, there it was... advice to add cute animal pictures to your newsletter. If you’re a vet or an animal groomer, this is definitely your strategy. The rest of us should stay far away from them, at least in our business-to-business newsletters. (And blogs, unless you're illustrating a point and have an excuse. I wonder how they got him in that mailbox anyway!) That article was all about how important it is to make your newsletter fun . Here are the other 3 tips: Surprises Jokes Puzzles and games Surprises are good, if they’re genuine. Made up surprises are just plain hokey and un-credible. Jokes? Unless you are a comedian, jokes can be a little tricky (especially dry humour) and socially risky. Anyway, do you really want to be remembered for your jokes? There may be legitimate uses for puzzles and games, depending on your business. Use them only if they really add value, never t...

Do you remember being single? Perhaps you are now. How do/did you find your soulmate? As business owners, I think we can use some of the same strategies to build strong work relationships, too. Hang out where they hang out If you’re looking for a buff guy, go to the gym. If you’re looking for a business owner, go to a networking event. Get involved and get to know people. Chat them up online Private chat rooms aren't usually appropriate for business, but tweeting and liking and sharing are great ways to get acquainted. Ask friends to fix you up Ah, the blind date. Or, the business equivalent, the referral. Both can be stressful and boring and a waste of time. But some will ignite sparks and if you don't go, you'll never know. Coffee shops work great for both! Make a proposition Take the bull by the horns, pick up the phone and ask that buff guy for a date. This taking-the-bull-by-the-horns thing works in business too. It’s often referred to as ‘cold calling...

During one of our January workshops in Regina, we had a discussion about our ‘ideal clients’ vs. our ‘favourite clients’. I look on them as being the same thing but I discovered that this isn’t true for everyone. It became evident during our chat that there was one very specific defining characteristic that made some clients ‘ideal’ but not ‘favourite’. Can you guess what that was? Money. Once we got past financial gain and started talking about our favourite clients, another word kept coming up over and over again. That word was TRUST. Almost everyone mentioned it… wanting their clients to trust them and being able to trust their clients. Do you have an important client that’s a real pain to work with but brings in half of your income? I’m not suggesting you should dump them. Not by a long shot. Some of those ideal client characteristics pull more weight than others and that will be different for each of us. Last summer I sat down and listed 10 characteristics of our ideal...

Whenever you or I read something that we like, often a “What’s next?” comes to mind. I’m frequently cautioning about using calls to action strategically and not having so many that they become distracting. The other end of the spectrum would be not having a call to action at all. When someone is done reading your newsletter, make sure to give them something that answers the “What’s next?” question. Our planning worksheet can help you prioritize your calls-to-action. Click to Tweet this Article

PHOOEY on that, I say! I’m tired of hearing that to use Twitter ‘properly’ you have to be there to have conversations. Apparently some people have no problem being there 16 hours a day. Those are the Twitter divas… the ones who look down their noses at the rest of us who can only spare a half hour a day from our busy schedules to have these deep conversations. They’re also the people who have found a way to make money by being on Twitter. Or they’re unemployed and have nothing better to do with their time? Anyone with a REAL job surely can’t spare all that time. These Twitter divas assume that the rest of us are there for the same reasons they are. And if we’re not, maybe we’re supposed to be somewhere else? See, not everyone I want to connect with is on Twitter during that specific half hour I can spend there every day. Even if I spend 2 half hours, I’m still not going to reach very many people. Let’s get real. How many people can you have deep conversations with in a half hour ...