Have you ever wondered how you could make it easy to get a continuous and on ongoing stream of specific input, feedback, and direction from your clients? Input and opinion that can position you as a top leader in your industry, profession, or niche?

Well … with a specially designed business blog and a little internal marketing to your clients you can the same secret weapon top international corporations (like Proctor and Gamble, General Foods, Chrysler) use to dominate the market, and unleash it in your small business.

Having a client-centered approach for business development can shave years of trial-and-error off your product and service improvements. And when you stack the powerful strategies of Socratic Business Innovation (a proven innovation system that members of the Business Owner’s Coaching Club learn to apply with deft precision) — you’ll find yourself so far out in front of your competitors, they’ll be gasping for air trying to catch up.

External Input — Internal Application

This is a business blog application that does have a public side to its functionality, but its main purpose is to gather client feedback for your business innovation.

Let’s face it. Your clients are going to have comments and feedback on any and all of your products or services. Why not make it simple for both them to give input, and your team and to get it?

Direct them to a special business blog where they can voice suggestions, complaints, and kudos in a way that benefits your company.

Setting up and structuring a business blog for this purpose works very well because it’s non-threatening for clients. It helps open an immediate dialog with your clients as soon as they purchase. And it lets them know you value their contributions to the development of your products or services on an ongoing basis.

One word of warning though.

If you’re going to ask for comments and feedback – you’d better be prepared to act on that input. You must respond and actively incorporate it into your product/service upgrades. Nothing will tick a client off faster than you asking for feedback, them giving it, and then you not responding or applying anyone’s input.

To learn more about Socratic Business Innovation and how you can become a top leader in your industry or niche, visit the Business Owner’s Coaching Club to learn about membership.

Attention small business owners: Learn How to Harness the Number One Business Technology of 2005 and Put the Power of the World’s Most Effective Marketing Method to Work for You …

How To Master Business Blogging to Increase Traffic, Build Trust and Win More Clients With Your Own Business Blog

In just 37-days you’ll go from “blogging newbie” to “business blogging professional”.

During this five-week business blogging telecourse designed specifically for busy business owners you’ll get 10+ hours of interactive coaching, over 2 hours of easy to follow “how-to” videos, and two practical planning manuals. We’ll take you by the hand, and guide you step-by-step through a simple system that will help you unravel the world of blogging and put you on the fast track to online communication success.

• By the end of week one you’ll have not only one, but two business blogs up and running. And you’ll learn exactly why this second blog is critical for rapid search engine ranking.

  (With what you’ll learn in week one alone you’ll save enough money to pay for your entire course plus put another $100 in your pocket! And that’s with just one business blog!)

• By the end of week two, you’ll know the secrets of generating content that both human visitors and search engine spiders will slurp up like a thirsty dog on a hot summer day.
• During week three and four we’ll show you exactly how to start channeling an ever-increasing stream of highly targeted prospects to your site where you’ll educate and build rapport while positioning yourself as a trusted adviser.
• At the end of week five you’ll be fully equipped to begin converting content to cash as you transform your business blog into a major marketing arm of your business.

Don’t get crushed by the waves of change! Instead, grab your surfboard, and get ready to ride this wave of high touch interactive communication to attract, keep, and grow more clients.

With this business blogging TeleCourse specially designed for busy business owners, you’ll get the practical action steps you need to succeed with your business blog, dozens of immediate applications inside and outside your business, and most importantly — the coaching and motivation to put what you learn into action!

Through this exclusive series of …

Interactive coaching sessions,
Exclusive “how-to” videos, and
Step-by-step support

… you’ll be competent, confident, and ready to profit from the technology that Fortune magazine has called “the no. 1 business technology trend for 2005.”

Get the full story and all the guaranteed business boosting benefits waiting for you at the How To Master Business Blogging summary site.

Many of our business coaching clients have taken our advice and put together a small business advisory board for their company. This informal advisory board usually consists of (at a minimum):

• A corporate attorney
• An employment law attorney
• CPA (or an enrolled agent)
• Banker or money broker
• Spiritual advisor
• Business coach
• Personal mentor

A small business advisory board like this can give owners and entrepreneurs a tremendous competitive advantage, but it’s not without it’s challenges.

For one thing — getting six or seven professionals together in one room at one time in an advisory capacity is like herding cats. To be honest with you, it’s been one of the biggest stumbling blocks small business owners face in keeping their advisory board functional.

Often times people who are asked to be members of the advisory board sign on fully prepared to interact and share their advice. But when several meetings go by with only a couple of other board members showing up, the momentum gets lost and the board just kind of fades away.

But now … enter the business blog!

Three simple steps and you’ve created some incredible leverage for yourself, and convenience for your advisors.

1. First you create a business blog with special (private) access for all the members of your small business advisory board.

2. Next, provide each of your advisory board members with the FeedDemon news aggregator. ($29 bucks is the least you can do for what they’re contributing to your business, and a cheap or “free” news aggregator will only frustrate them.)

3. And then make sure they’re all subscribed to your RSS feed for this private small business advisory board blog.

Now they can all interact and provide professional advice at a time that’s most convenient for them. That means you’ll get more interaction, more advice, and more efficient board operation for all concerned – including you as the owner.

I’m these basic steps sure have spurred some innovative ideas for you. If you’re ready to take your business blogging to a whole new level, you can learn more about these and other easy to apply advanced business blogging strategies, applications, and techniques in the How To Master Business Blogging course.

How many times have you answered a question for an employee that seems like you’ve heard a dozen times before? Very often the reason you feel that way is because it’s true! An internal business blog can help you solve many of these situations once and for all.

It helps overcome three inconveniences when it comes to disseminating important company info internally:

1. Accessing your operations manual online through your intranet, which is not exactly user friendly.

2. Referring to an offline version in hardcopy form, which is cumbersome for your team members (and may be providing potentially outdated information too.)

3. Relying on you or your top managers to answer questions, which may not give your team the answers they need as quickly as they need.

A business blog set up to act internally as a centralized knowledge base is less intimidating and much more user friendly than any of these choices.

As your team becomes accustomed to accessing the knowledge they need from this internal blog, they win with nearly instant access to the info they need to perform. And you win with more free time because now you only have to answer questions and provide guiding knowledge once.

Have you been waiting to start a business blog because you’re skeptical of how a blog can help grow your business in a tangible way? If so, you’re not alone. It’s something I commonly hear from our coaching clients, especially those who have what they term a “real physical product.”

If that’s you, (or even if you have a service type business,) I’ve got good news for you! It’s some help in the form of a case study of a successful product-based business blog.

With the help of this business blog case study you’ll see how creating your own business blog can give a serious boost to your marketing, public relations, and media mentions – no matter what your product or service is.

In today’s case study we’re going to look at a business blog by Maytag. Yes, that’s right -Maytag. You know … the company with great washing machines and those under-worked repairmen who play tricks on each other in TV ads.

Well, now their development team for a new “men’s fridge” called the Skybox™ are blogging up a storm over at http://www.ka-thunk.com/.

It’s funny, informative, and it’s allowing enthusiastic sports fans to join in and do the selling for Maytag! Best of all — it’s creating a big-time buzz about this new product with a fraction of the cold hard cash that it would take with “old school” advertising.

(more…)

In an earlier application example we looked at how you can use your business blog externally as a product development tool. In that case you’d use the blog to organize your product creation into bite size pieces while you allow your prospects and clients to benefit from the content you’re creating as part of the development.

The internal application of this application would work basically the same way, only your posts and content would be password protected or for private/internal viewing only. In this capacity your business blog could act even more openly as a product content management tool.

This application works equally well for a team, as it would for you as a single developer. With the right set-up, the blog will provide the structure, content relationships, and linkage to reference materials – all in one place, and completely organized for easy access.

For many companies, industry and competitive research is essential for rapid growth and niche leadership. When multiple parties become involved in research (both directly and indirectly) things can start to get pretty confusing. Information is filed and archived, most of the time – never to be seen again.

With a private password protected business blog all that research can be categorized and made readily available for convenient access. You can provide one central location where information can be easily accessed for immediate use. No more double work, and no more “buried” files.

Creating a product (a book, a course, an audio series) is something that can supercharge the marketing of just about any small business. Many small business owners know this is true but yet they still struggle for months (and often for years) to finally wring that product out. It’s a challenge that many busy business owners face, but here’s where a specially designed business blog can come to your rescue.

One very practical way to use your business blog is to use it to create a product online in a “piece-meal” fashion. We’ve shown many of our coaching clients how to leverage this new technology and put it to use in creating their long delayed book or product.

With some forethought and focused planning you can use this type of business blog to simultaneously accomplish three marketing benefits too.

You’ll …

a. Feed a continuous stream of valuable relevant material to your target market

b. Create a captive audience of pre-qualified buyers ready to purchase when your product is done

c. Organically generate a ton of keyword rich content for search engine spiders

Best of all, you can keep yourself organized while you create your product bit-by-bit right in front of your competitor’s eyes. Since only you know how all your content will link together to form a product — they’ll never know what you’re doing. You can post most material for public view with confidence.

When you have content where it’s questionable that you’d want it open to public view, or if you have some proprietary data or research to be included in your product — you can still use your business blog to stay organized. With the better blog software programs (such as Word press,) you can keep that content password protected while still using the structure of your business blog to keep you focused and organized.

With the right approach, your business blog will be like a treasure map. A map that leads to a completed product over time and a map that no one else can decipher. With no clear beginning or end, it translates into a product “in-progress” cloaked to everyone but you.

You’ve probably heard the saying “and inch wide and a mile deep” to describe an area of specialty for your business. But that same principle can also be applied to the branding of your product or service.

It can take years to brand your company using an offline only approach. Even when you employ some serious online strategies and tactic, brand building can be a long drawn out process.

But with a business blog, you can often achieve the same focused impact in a matter of months! And the great thing is it doesn’t matter whether your clients buy primarily online or offline. Building a niche brand with your business blog is a remarkably effective approach.

Blogs leverage the power of word of mouth and kick your niche branding into high gear.

Put a business blog to work for you and you’ll witness the power of word of mouth. When you combine the publication of high impact articles in targeted publications with interactive events (both on-line and off-line) — you can create the buzz and branding you’re searching for in a fraction of the time, and for practically no cost what-so-ever. The press notices more quickly, and your target market responds more quickly.

Once again, your business blog is not “the” answer all on it’s own. But it’s a powerful multiplier for a solid click-and-mortar business branding strategy.

Successful marketing is no longer about being outrageous or screaming louder than your competitors. In the 21st Century marketplace people want a relationship with the person (or people) they’re buying from. That relationship is what makes the consumer feel confident that he or she will get the personalized service they’re looking for.

When you decide to create a business blog, with all it’s ease of use and built in interactivity, you’re taking advantage of the perfect medium for effective “new school” marketing. It’s marketing that’s based on building deeper levels of trust, understanding, and rapport.

Really when you think about it, this desire on the part of consumers should come as no surprise. It’s nothing new.

Most people have always wanted an interactive relationship with the provider of services or products they need. But during the last century the merchant has been in control. And unfortunately that “old school” business owner didn’t understand the important distinction between making a sale and building a relationship.

Successful marketing in the marketplace of the new millennium

The 21st Century Marketplace is a new and rapidly evolving environment. If you hope to be effective with your marketing in the future, now’s the time to wake up and ride the wave of change.

Technology, the Internet, and now blogs — they’ve all permenantly changed the expectations of the average consumer. No longer will obtrusive ads or other interruption marketing techniques create the results you once could count on.

Today’s consumer is bombarded with blatant marketing messages and overwhelmed with the shear volume of clutter in their lives. Joining in the frey and just trying to shout above all the other noise is not enough anymore. You need to stand out by stepping out of the traditional marketing paradigm.

People who are in your target audience want to be educated about your product or service. They want to feel comfortable with you and your company before making a commitment to purchase from you.

Using your business blog to share detailed information about the benefits, applications, and implications of your product or service can help you achieve all the goals you want and more. Educating through your business blog and speaking about other issues directly related to your niche or industry will transform you (in the eyes of your audience) into a trusted resource instead of a self-serving marketer.

Like it or not — interruption marketing is dead

Some business owners may feel like all this education, orientation, and interaction is way too much work. “I’ll just pump some more money into an ad campaign and get the same results I always have,” some owners may ignorantly say. But any business owner who thinks this way is in for a rude awakening.

I can assure you, the direction the 21st Century marketplace is moving is undeniable. The consumer is in control, and that will only be reinforced as time goes on. The unstoppable upswing in technological advances and integration of the internet more and more into our daily lives makes sticking with the old methods of interruption marketing a literal death wish.

Today’s consumer is well armed with convenient technology and she’s internet-savvy. She already knows she get information on just about anything she wants. The easier you make it for people in your target audience to find the information they’re already looking for — the more they’ll appreciate you and your willingness to educate them.

This is all GOOD NEWS for the average small business owner

All these changes in the marketplace have dramatically leveled the playing field. It’s no longer the big that eat the small. It’s now the fast that eat the slow! That means successful marketing is now more about getting the right information rapidly applied than it is about big bucks and complex campaigns.

A properly planned business blog is part of the answer. I can assure you there is no easier way to winning the trust of prospects and making them feel secure in making an initial purchase. It’s interactive, easy to integrate into your existing marketing strategy, and best of all — it’s ultra low cost.

Learning how to create your own business blog is not the complete answer all on it’s own. But as part of an overall click-and-mortar marketing strategy it’s an interactive tool that you and your business cannot survive without. Step into the marketplace of the new millennium with confidence and integrate a business blog into your marketing strategy today.