“Unconfidence: The Essential Ingredient to Crazy Stupid Success” plus 1 more

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Unconfidence: The Essential Ingredient to Crazy Stupid Success Posted: 25 Aug 2012 01:07 PM PDT This guest post is by Steve of Thecodeofextraordinarychange.com Confidence is over-rated. At least, it’s over-rated in the homogenized, misused, self-help industry clap-trap kinds of ways. In today's world it’s both easy and tempting to start putting a confident veneer over things, because it seems as though the world expects that.  In relationships, friendships, career, blogging and business, there’s an expectation that you have to know what you’re doing, otherwise you just don’t stack up. So communicating the “I’m know where I’m at” position becomes something we busy ourselves with. We become focused on the portrayal of expertise or success in addition to building that same expertise and success, and sometimes that portrayal prohibits the very thing you’re looking to achieve. So I think it’s time to stop the BS and to halt the veneer of confidence.  It’s time for unconfidence. Here’s how it works. You don’t have to pretend I work two jobs because my coaching business doesn’t make enough money to support me. I don’t pretend that it does, because to do so requires that I see this fact as a negative and I don't want to lie to my clients.   I don’t pretend that I know exactly where my business is going, because I’m largely making it up as I go along. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, because that would make me an asshole. Pretending to be something you’re not or to know something you don’t is part of the old world. Online, people can now smell that kind of pretence and it’s only a matter of time before the offline world starts behaving similarly (if it hasn’t happened already). You have an incredible array of skills, experience, strengths and talents and an even more incredible capacity to learn, improve and grow.  Focus on that, not on pretending. Engagement with meaning is a pre-requisite If what you’re doing in your life and business doesn’t mean a whole lot to you, or amount to a hill o’ beans, you’re just treading water. If there’s nothing on the line, there’s no need for you to push at the boundaries of your capabilities. If there’s nothing at stake, you don’t need to step up to the plate or raise your head above the parapet. You can coast. The things that matter to you matter for a reason.  Ignoring them disconnects meaning from your life and work, and the net result is that you don’t really care what happens. It’s a place of limbo and increasing constraint, where you die a long, slow death wondering what might have been.  It’s a ghastly place to be (I learned this the hard way). Meaningful success can only ever be derived from engaging with the things that have meaning. That goes for life and business. Unconfidence is about listening and engaging with the things that matter to you, and requires that you make a choice to grow to the point where you feel ready, willing, and even compelled to get involved. You’re already worthy There are a lot of people out there hustling.  Pushing, doing, moving.  Trying to make something happen so they can prove to themselves that they’re good enough or that they’re worthy of their peers, friends, mentors, clients, and partners. I can’t imagine much worse than that. You don’t have to prove you’re worthy or deserving to anyone—yourself most of all. You don’t have to fit in with the cool kids or gain approval from others. You don't need to hide who you are to gain approval for who you think you ought to be. Unconfidence is allowing yourself to show up as who you are, warts and all.  It’s knowing—and feeling—that with all your imperfections you’re just right. And it requires that you stop judging yourself for who you are and start being yourself because of who you are. As Brene Brown put it in her book The Gifts of Imperfection, “Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It's about cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough." Shaking in your boots doesn’t mean you’re not confident There’s a common misunderstanding that confident people don’t get scared. That they don’t feel fear. That they’re fearless. More garbage. That fear response is deeply coded into your brain—when you’re feeling fear your amygdala fires up, giving you strong signals that you’re about to die and that you need to fight, fly, or freeze. The fear is just there to remind you that things might not go to plan and you might lose out, which is sometimes enough to stop you, right? But here’s the thing: you can be shaking in your boots in the face of a decision, and still be confident that you can make a choice and deal with whatever happens on the other side. Unconfidence is the quality that allows you to feel fear without judgment. You can’t control the whole world Plans are great.  Go ahead and make them.  Just remember that if you try to have your plans cater for every eventuality, you’ll be making plans for the rest of your days. You can exert some control over what you do and how you do it in an effort to get a particular outcome, but if you’re focused on outcome after outcome after outcome you’ll be driving yourself loopy trying to control every variable to increase the certainty of your results. Truth is, the world is uncertain.  You can’t control everything.  There’s always something that can throw you sideways and knock your plans off track.  So what if you knew that you could make a decision and deal with whatever happens?  What if you detached your decision making from a specific outcome or result? Do that and the focus becomes less about the outcome and more about engaging with your decisions and behaviour.  That’s unconfidence—being able to choose your behaviour with implicit trust in that behaviour, not in the outcome.  You always get to choose.  It’s liberating. The choice to trust yourself is sometimes the only choice you need Crazy stupid success isn’t a one-time thing.  It’s not something you hit and then settle back into and ride ’til retirement.  It’s a process. It’s a process that requires you to strip away the BS, show up as yourself, be vulnerable and start playing because it matters to you in ways that scare you.  I’ve called it unconfidence here in order to differentiate it from your normal assumptions and beliefs around what “confidence” is.  But it is confidence.  Simple, graceful, natural self-confidence. You have it.  You using it? Steve is a superstar confidence coach who helps you build an extraordinary life. He also makes a fantastic ragu, and while he can't promise you a batch he’ll promise to help you put your dent in the universe, which is probably a better deal.  Get more of him on Twitter and Facebook. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Unconfidence: The Essential Ingredient to Crazy Stupid Success

Who’s the Boss of Your Blog? Posted: 25 Aug 2012 07:02 AM PDT Who’s the boss of your blog? Image courtesy stock.xchng user furnishu Who calls the shots, makes the hard choices, and keeps things moving in the right direction? If you’re thinking, “me!” you might be falling prey to the kind of philosophy that prevents many bloggers from reaching their full potential. Readers rule What are your favorite blogs? Narrow the field to just two or three, and have a think about why you like them so much. I have a feeling that when you look closely, you’ll find that each of your top blogs is one that you can relate to in some deep or essential way. That doesn’t mean that the topics have to be serious. Maybe your favorite blog is a humour blog. If that’s the case, I’ll bet you see a sense of humour and the ability to see the funny side of things as an essential part of who you are. I can well imagine that you love to laugh. And I’ll also predict that your favorite blog delivers on that need every week. That it doesn’t just meet that need in tried and tested, proven ways, but that it edges off the expected path, too, to meet that need in even deeper ways you don’t anticipate, but find that you love. How do they do that? And how can you achieve that with your own audience? The answer isn’t just to get to know your readers. It’s not even to put readers first. The secret is to let your readers rule. Make readers the boss Making your readers the boss of your blog can take something of a mindshift. The easiest way to start is probably to think about what good bosses do in the workplace. I’ve had plenty of bosses in my time—some good, some not so great—but in this exercise, try to think about a boss you really enjoyed working with. Picture them, and remember why you liked them so much. The best bosses I had did several things. They set goals and targets I needed to meet. They helped me stay on track. They stretched and challenged me by setting standards and expectations. They gave me the help I needed to meet goals. They reviewed my performance and helped me identify areas where I could improve, while also recognizing my hard work. If you think about it, your readers can do the same things for you as a blogger. Let them set targets As well as looking at your blogging goals from a perspective of what you want for your blog, why not let your readers set targets for your blog, too? Let’s say you decide that this year, you want to launch your first paid blog product. Before you go any further, turn to your blogging bosses. What challeneges are they facing right now? What tasks do they need you to help out with? What thinking would they like to delegate to you to make their lives easier? If you look at your readers in this light, you’ll probably find more opportunities for product development than you ever expected. Not only will you identify the obvious needs but, just as with a real boss, you’ll be bale to intuit other, related areas where your help could benefit them—”If they need help with a, then they’ll probably be happy if I looked after b for them as well” thinking. Let them help you stay on track The more you spend time with your readers, the more real, and pressing, their needs will become for you. Like the boss who keeps walking past your desk with an eye on your monitor to see if you’ve finished that report she’s waiting on, your audience can be a major motivator driving you to get that product finished, get that blog post written, get that new idea launched, attract more readers for them to engage with, and so on. If you really want to make your readers the boss, tell them what you’re planning and working on. This way, you’ll be fully, publicly accountable to them as you would your boss at work. If you don’t deliver, you’ll have them to answer to—what a motivator! Let them challenge you with standards and expectations By making yourself accountable to readers, you automatically set expectations within them about their importance to you. That’s the most basic standard you need to meet—the expectation you’ve set through what you’ve promised them. But again, spending time with your readers—looking at what they like and don’t like, understanding their standards for what’s helpful, useful, high-quality, and relevant, for example—can help you understand where they’re coming from, and what you need to do to perform. It’s one thing to know that your boss needs you to report on something. But does he need that report in a spreadsheet or a slide presentation? Does he need multiple printed copies to circulate for discussion in a meeting? And what level of depth does he require in the reporting? Similarly, your readers have expectations about what’s good, and what’s outstanding; what you can deliver, and what they can get from you. At the very least, you should understand those expectations so that you can asses whether or not your actions are enough to meet them. But once you know readers’ expectations and standards, you’ll know exactly what you need to do to exceed them. Let them help you meet your blog’s goals A good boss will give you everything you need to get your work done. Whole the standard to which you do that work might be up to you, your boss should at least provide the essentials—and be around to give you advice and direction when you need it. Make readers the boss of your blog, and they can fulfil the same role. Need a designer? A translator? Opinions on something you’ve planned? Beta testers? Ask your readers first. Not only does this approach involve readers more deeply, giving them opportunities to “buy into” your blog, but it can produce some surprising results and act as a fast way to obtain information you’d never have found otherwise. If you’ve heard the term “crowdsourcing,” you’ll know that seeking help from an audience (or crowd) is an excellent way to innovate really smart solutions. You can apply that philosophy to your blog today by making your readers the boss, and seeking their help and direction when you need it. Let them help you identify areas where you’re doing well, and can improve If your readers are boss, they’re the best people to help you understand where you’re at, and how you can improve your work to suit them—and achieve greater success. Inviting feedback directly, after a sale or conversion, through a feedback form on your blog, or even through a specially designed, periodic survey, is a great way to get a clear picture of how your readers feel you’re tracking. But your ongoing involvement with them should give you an intuitive, gut feel for those kinds of answers, too. In the real world your boss will have a list of performance indicators she needs to meet, and similarly your readers will have real, felt needs that they’re conscious of. They’ll be able to see clearly whether you’ve met those or not. But on a deeper level, we want our bosses to find us good to work with, a great team player, and an asset to them. This isn’t the kind of information your readers are likely to give you outright—you’ll need to infer it from the way they treat you and your blog, by looking at stats and comments and social media and backlinks and a host of information that, when you boil it down, lets you know what you’re doing well, and where you can do better. Only by making your readers boss will you be able to approach that assessment with an open mind that’s not tainted by your own ideas about your performance. And the answers might just surprise you! Who’s the boss of your blog? Are you still thinking that you’re the boss of your blog? Or do you see merit in making your readers the boss? Do Have you already made your readers the boss? How has that changed the way you blog? I’d love to hear your take on this idea in the comments. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Who’s the Boss of Your Blog?

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ProBlogger: Work with Marketers to Improve Your Blog

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Work with Marketers to Improve Your Blog Posted: 24 Aug 2012 07:02 AM PDT You blog. You may blog successfully. You may have a readership that, in all probability, buys things related to the subjects you blog about. These three facts will alone mean, whether you like it or not, you may have a red dot trained on your forehead. It's only a matter of time before marketers invade your inbox like cliché-spouting terrorists with shiny shoes. If they aren't already, that is. Over the last few years, as marketers have realised that bloggers have audiences and SEO benefits that even outweigh those of some media outlets, unfortunately poor practise has seeped into what is now defined as “blogger engagement,” or “blogger relations.” I'm going to tell you how these marketers can be of benefit to you and your blog, how to attract marketers if you'd like to, and then, how to work with them to ensure the relationship is mutually beneficial. In my experience I've worked in PR for about five years now. I've blogged for longer, to varying degrees of success. Having maintained blogs related to video gaming, media, and marketing, and one site I think it's best I don't say much more about, I'd say I have a good deal of experience in this area. A couple of years ago, I built a relatively popular fitness blog, which is where I first saw some of the most incredibly poor pitching I've ever seen. I'd be contacted with products and services that were of no relevance, and spoken to like some sort of second-rate journalist, as marketers attempted either to cajole or batter me into writing about their clients. The worst thing was, I knew many of the agencies that were contacting me, and in some cases, I knew some of the PR or SEO “professionals” from Twitter or offline meet-ups. It was clear they hadn't made the connection. Aggressive emails chasing me for not responding soon enough, for declining review products or—in the rare instances pitches did hit the mark—trying to dictate to me what I should and shouldn't write filled my inbox. It wasn't just that most of the products, services or clients weren't relevant to fitness, it was that there was no desire to build any sort of relationship with me from the majority of marketers—despite the fact my readers could be their customers if and when they did have something that was right. As with many bloggers, I wrote because it was a passion; something I enjoyed doing. Marketers will contact bloggers for as long as bloggers have an engaged audience. A niche audience is a receptive audience. You might not like it, and many, many marketers might be terrible at it, but it's a fact that isn't going to change. Therefore, just as journalists have developed ways to deal with pushy PRs, bloggers can either ignore marketers or learn how to work with them in a way that's mutually beneficial. And this is where I think I can help. How can marketers help improve your blog? Marketers can help you make a success of your blog. Here are five things marketers can provide you with that can help to build your blog. I'll also give pros and cons for each, based on my own experiences. 1. Competition prizes Marketers can offer competition prizes in a way that promotes their clients or business, but also gives you and your readers something different. Competitions are great traffic draws, especially if the prizes or method particularly relate to your blog. I have run many competitions using prizes marketers have offered up for free in return for product publicity, and each did very well—some even drew thousands of additional unique visitors. If you're serious about blogging and building your audience, you'll probably know of other bloggers in your area of interest or expertise. You'll possibly keep an eye on their posts and you'll see them doing things that work and things that don't. One of the things that always worked for me and rival bloggers, in particular for the fitness blog, was competitions with prizes that interested our readerships. Pros: You don't have to put your hand in your pocket. It’s a great way to reward and pique the interest of current and potential readers, respectively. A good prize can draw a lot of traffic, especially where sharing is a requisite for entering the competition. They can provide good, regular content if you're sometimes stuck on what to write. Cons: You may attract the wrong sort of traffic, such as readers that only visit to enter competitions. Prizes that aren't relevant to your desired audience can dilute your blog and put off current readers. 2. Review products/services/experiences Receiving a product to review, or being asked to try a service or experience out because it relates to your blog audience is, or was for me, incredibly exciting. My main tip here is: don't allow marketers to dictate to you whether the review or write-up should be positive or not. Considering they likely contacted you, you should be giving your honest opinion and not writing something you think will ensure you receive similar offers in the future. When I was running my fitness blog, I thoroughly enjoyed trying out the newest video games and fitness gadgets. Marketers would offer them for free, and in some cases, asking marketers using services such as those mentioned in the “How to find marketers” section below resulted in some very relevant prize offers. In short, you will be offered the opportunity to review if the marketer thinks your readers are well suited to their client or business. Pros: Having a hands-on trial of a product, service, or experience is the only way to write knowledgeably about it. Your readers will appreciate this. You often get to keep the products, which, given you likely blog about something you're passionate in, is very cool. Cons: Some marketers want the products back! You may be expected to write positively, though I'd recommend against doing so just because you feel pressured to. Exclusive information Building a good relationship with marketers might mean invitations to events, shared information about businesses and individuals and importantly, good content for your blog that will keep readers coming back. I've personally managed to build some great relationships with marketers who are relevant to my blogs, ensuring I'm amongst the first to hear about stories. This is important because being the first with news or information means it's your blog that's likely to be shared and linked back to most. Pros: Knowing information first is what sets popular blogs like TMZ and The Next Web apart. Your blog might not be anywhere near the size of these yet, but everybody starts somewhere. If readers can rely on you for scoops, they'll come back and share your content time and again. You'll build a base of contacts that’ll be useful if and when you need to verify or research posts. Cons: Speaking on behalf of PR people everywhere, we're notoriously gossipy. And the problem with gossip is that it's not always 100% accurate. Unverified information masquerading as bona fide fact may come back to haunt you. Access to experts Experts within your sector can add credibility to your posts and blog as a whole. Marketers can give you access to their clients or people within their organisation that you otherwise wouldn't have a hope of reaching. They’ll do this either because they think the experts could be useful to you or, as mentioned, because you ask specifically for an introduction using one of the methods mentioned below. In my experience, these experts are also likely to promote the posts they're mentioned in. They often have good audiences in terms of social media, meaning your post could find its way into the streams of many potential readers. Pros: Quotes from experts can only strengthen your blog, adding credibility to posts. Access to other people in your areas of interest can help build a roster of people who are happy to guest post for you. This means you have a body of people generally willing to help with good content—if that's something you're happy to receive in return for them plugging their own businesses. These experts are likely to have their own audiences, too, which they'll likely promote their guest blog—and therefore, your blog—to. Cons: Not all “experts” put forward really are experts. Some may be simply touted by the marketer in a bid to achieve a plug on your blog. 5. Monetisation Given that many bloggers post in their own time about subjects they are interested in, the dream to make enough money blogging to do it full-time is an unsurprising one. Marketers can be the middlemen you need to make this happen. Some bloggers don't accept payment for posts; some only post for marketers when they're being paid. It's a personal choice, and one you're likely to consider the more prominent your blog becomes. There are a number of ways of monetisation in blogging, many of which Darren has already covered in his make money blogging section, such as advertising, affiliate marketing, and speaking fees. Some bloggers also choose to only post for brands if they're paid to do so, whilst others will post dependent on relevance. The key is to lay this out to marketers at the beginning of a relationship. Online payment services such as PayPal make accepting payment simple. Pros: The most obvious of all: you get paid! Cons: Accepting payment for links is a dangerous game that can have your blog fall off the face of Google quicker than you can say “black hat SEO.” I'd recommend you steer clear of any marketers, mainly SEO people in my experience, who ask that you give them a live “do follow” link in return for payment Your blog suddenly becomes a business and you are responsible for the administration and legalities that come with that. I list this as a con because many people don't consider it. How to find marketers If you're sold on the idea of working with marketers and they're not yet contacting you, there are ways to make yourself more visible. I'd always advise you to look at best-practise guidelines where possible, because naive requests for free products when your blog is just a day or two old with next to no audience are likely to be ignored. They could even hinder your chance of building relationships before you start. Here are a few ways you can find marketers (or allow them to find you): Use social media. In particular, Twitter is a great way to find and interact with marketing agencies and individuals. Peter Shankman's HARO is a great way to make queries that will be seen by PR people. In the UK, Response Source's request service gives you the chance to ask for everything from competition prizes to information for an article. Sign up to my very own service, bloggabase.com. Attend events related to your area of interest. I'm often at industry events where I get the chance to meet journalists and bloggers, trading contact details in a bid to provide them with information that's relevant to them. Ask fellow bloggers for introductions. Chances are they'll be only to happy to help. Whether you're being contacted now or hope to be speaking to marketers in the future, please do be aware that as with good, old-fashioned media relations, where there are good and bad PR people in the eyes of journalists, there are good and bad blog pitches. To help you make the best of it, here are a few things I've picked up by being on both sides of the fence. Top tips for fielding pitches Tell the truth: Lying about the number of unique visitors to your blog or the number of subscribers to a newsletter is not the way to build a mutually beneficial relationship. Looking at your Alexa rank, Google page rank, the number of Twitter followers, and the number of times your blog comes up in a Twitter search over the last week or so are some of the ways I'll validate a blog’s popularity, especially if quoted figures seem inordinate. Be upfront: If you aren't likely to post about something without being paid to do so, let the marketer know before speaking further. They may not mind, but they'll need to know because inevitably, it'll have to come out of their client's budget. Be friendly: I've worked with many bloggers who have, at least at first, treated me with very little respect no matter how targeted my approach. If you appreciate that marketers can be of benefit to you too, in all the ways I mentioned above and more, you'll hopefully appreciate that respect is a two-way street. The junior agency employee contacting you might one day soon be in charge of the marketing for a company you'd very much like to work with. Don't be a walkover: Some marketers will, conversely, treat you with little respect. If a pitch is irrelevant, you can either ignore it or politely tell the marketer so. Some will try to ensure you write positively about their clients. Again, you don't have to put up with that. The second they contact you or send you a product to review, I believe marketers relinquish the right to dictate what you can and can't say. For instance, I know certain bloggers or journalists wouldn't like some of my clients' products or services, so I just don't contact them with them. Ask questions: Ask the marketer if they have any other clients that are relevant to your blog. Ask them if there are any events coming up that might be of interest to your audience. Have you used marketers to help build your blog and meet the needs of your readers? Tell us how it went in the comments. Rich Leigh is a public relations professional, blogger and also co-founder of bloggabase.com, a service launched to help improve bloggers and marketers connect. Bloggers can sign up for free to receive targeted pitches, review products, guest blog offers and monetise their blogs. It's an opted-in way of inviting marketers to make contact based on relevance.   Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Work with Marketers to Improve Your Blog

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