Karen Skidmore's Kick-Ass Blog | CanDoCanBe

If you were a washing powder which would you be and why?

No, this is not an audition for Blind Date (been there, done that!!) but actually a great question to ask yourself to help you market your products or services.

I am re-reading Michael Gerber's "E-Myth Revisited" again - something I recommend everyone who runs their own business to do at least once every 18 months - and I have just read the chapter where he introduces the Entrepreneurial Model.

He writes: "The Entrepreneurial Model looks at a business as if it were a product, sitting on a shelf and competing for the customer's attention against a whole shelf of competing products (or businesses)."

What he means by this is that it isn't your actual product or service that is critical to your business success, but the way that you offer it to your market.  If we go back to my question "If you were a washing powder, which would you be and why?", you soon realise that the only difference between all the washing powders out there are the way that they are marketed.

They all wash clothes, but to compete on a shelf at Tescos or Waitrose, a washing powder has to stand out from all the rest.  Tough, when you think about the brand loyalties that most consumers have, often passed on from their mothers (or fathers if they did the washing!)

So, stop focusing on your product's/service's features and start thinking in terms of the benefit you offer and how you get this message across to your customers.

Thinking of going on yet another training course?

How much have you spent on training programmes over the past year?

Coaches, trainers and other personal development experts are very good at spending their money on learning new skills and techniques.  Nutritional therapists, complementary therapists and hypnotherapists too.  And NLP courses are a perfect example of how many consultants spend their money.

But why do you spend your money on these training courses?  Is it because that by having another skill or technique (or even initials to put after your name on your business card) means that you will be able to attract more clients and customers to your business?

Well, I hate to break it to you, but investing in hundreds (and sometimes thousands!) of pounds on learning new skills and techniques will NOT cause the client flood gates to suddenly open. 

If you want to learn a new skill because you are geniuenly interested in it, then go for it by all means.

But if you want to learn a new skill so that you can attract new clients, then stop before you hand over your credit card. 

Offering new skills and techniques may just cause confusion as you end up with a huge menu of services, trying to be everything to everyone.  Investing in your marketing strategies, techniques and systems could  just have a far higher return on your investment. 

So, next time you find yourself looking at a new training programme, just make sure you are doing it for the right reasons.  You may find that investing that money in to market research, understanding your customer better and developing more effective and efficient marketing systems will go a lot further!

What else can you do when your .com domain name is already taken?

A question came in to my inbox today, which I thought I would share on my blog:

“How important do you think it is to have a .com domain name? My favoured .com domain names appear to be taken. I know I need to find out more about 'search engine optimisation', but if I were to by an equivalent .co.uk domain name, and worked hard at SEO, do you think that the potential for customer confusion with a .com company via a google search is significant? Would you recommend that I persevere to find a name that it available as a .com?”

Great question and here are some of my thoughts.

First of all, it really depends on the market place you are going after.  .com addresses are used more by businesses who are going “global” and are wanting to attract the US market. .co.uk addresses are “better” for your search ranking if you are focusing on the UK market, as Google apparently ranks .co.uk sites higher in a UK search than a .com address (but that obviously is dependent on how well your site is optimised overall and where you host your site, too!).

If your .com name has gone already, and you are focusing on the UK market only, the think about using the .co.uk address.  But it is worth checking out the other website and making sure you are not in direct competition.  For example, if your website address is AppleConsulting.co.uk and you offer training and development programmes for customer services teams, you don’t want the AppleConsulting.com to be doing the same.  You will lose prospective customers who click on the .com web address.  If AppleConsulting.com is a consulting business specialising in apple tree growing, then your prospect customers should realise that they have come to the wrong site and should keep searching for you.

As more and more web addresses are taken, it is getting harder and harder to be unique in your own domain name.  I would always recommend you own both the .com and the .co.uk addresses to save any problems as mentioned above.  You don’t need to go overboard and buy all the others, such as .biz or .org.

If you want to keep looking here are a few more suggestions:

• Use a hyphen in the name, for example Apple-Consulting.com
• Use your product instead of the name, for example TrainingForCustomerServices.com
• Use your personal name instead of the business name
• Use initials (although do make sure the initials you use is used in your overall branding, too)
• Come up with a different business name!

You are right to be concerned about which web address to take on because too many times, people start up a new business and come up with a name, before checking whether they can own the url.

Hope this offers some useful tips for you to consider. If you are interested in finding out more about SEO and what you can to do to get your website found on Google, then do check out my audio “SEO Made Simple”.

My thank you gift for more than 300 comments!

Thank you to everyone who has been commenting, especially over the past few weeks, to get this blog up to 300 comments.  There are now officially 314 comments, and when we hit 300, I promised you all a little something out of my audio recording collection.

As networking is such an important topic and one that I know that many people always love to learn more and discover ways of improving their networking, I thought I would share with you this one:  Confident Networking for Women. 

Just right click on your mouse and choose the Save As option to download and save on to your computer.  Then listen at your desk, whilst running in the gym or out walking the dog (I know which one I prefer!)

Download confident_networking_for_women.mp3

Happy networking :)

Why is it that British women can be so down on themselves?

It’s summer time and I am back doing my weekly tennis lessons on a Wednesday morning.  Great workout and great fun hanging out with some mums from school.

But one thing I really noticed this morning, more so than weeks gone by, is how down some women can get about themselves.  We got on to serving today and I know this is probably the hardest bit of tennis (can’t serve, can’t get a rally going!!)

But all I heard from the group was “Oh, no, I can’t do this”, “I’m so cr*p at serving” and more phrases to this extent.  Now I remember some of the mums from last year and they are great tennis players.  Not Wimbledon standards by any means, but they held their own on the court.

It was almost as if there was the social pressure to make negative comments about themselves because they didn’t want to appear to be “good” tennis players.

What effect do you think the negative words of “can’t do” and “cr*p” had on their serves?  You betcha!  Not much in the way of aces going on.  But once we got more and more practice in, there were several strong serves going on by the end of the session.

So, don’t beat yourself up before you have even tried and don’t put yourself down as a way of trying to fit in. Negative talk can be so damaging, especially when said out loud in a group situation, and can a real affect on the way you run your businesses, too.

What do you think? Do you think it’s a British Woman thing?  Or do you disagree?

Launch of Surrey Women's Enterprise

If you run your own business and often feel that exhibiting at various events could be a great way of reaching customers – but are then put off by the costs of hiring exhibition space then you may be interested in a new venture co-founded by a good business buddy of mine, Ida Horner.

Ida and 3 other ladies have founded Surrey Women’s Enterprise and they are planning on co-ordinating and running events which allow women who run retail, complementary therapy or in deed any business which would benefit from exhibiting and selling their wares direct to customers.

They have an event running in Farnham on June 28^th and if you would like to be involved, then contact Ida through their website www.SurreyWomensEnterprise.co.uk

To Blog or Not to Blog?

Blogging has hit the business world by storm over the past few years.  Most people have come across the term now and when you consider that there are on average 200,000 blogs created every day, that is one almighty online growth.

But as blogging is getting talked about more and more, lots of people running their own business are quite rightly asking themselves "Is blogging something that I should be doing?"

From personal experience, blogging has had a huge impact on my business and brand.  I have been blogging for almost 2 years now and it has created an amazing platform to share ideas, showcase my expertise and start communicating with people who I wouldn't normally attract through traditional methods of marketing.

But blogging is not for everyone and I thought I would share some pros and cons to blogging to help those of you who are considering getting started, to make sure they are making the right decision.

As I am so positive about blogging and know how powerful a marketing tool it can be, let's start with the pros:

Cheap!  When you are self-employed or run your own business, budget is very important.  So low cost marketing tools such as blogging should be seriously considered, especially if you are the initial stages of creating a website.  Blogger is free to use, but I would recommend using systems such as Typepad, Square Space and Wordpress.  For as little as $15 a month, you get a lot more useful tools and widgets as well as support for times that you get stuck.

Versatility.  Blogs are so versatile, that you can create anything from a typical blog site through to an online magazine or even traditional style website. Using templates, there is no programming skills required - just time, a little curiosity and imagination.  I would even go as far as recommending you blog first before creating a static website, especially when you start looking at the styles you can create using Wordpress Opensource which you host yourself (wordpress.org not the wordpress.com)

Google-Juice.  Blogs which are regularly updated are a natural haven for the search engines.  New content with new links, means more visits to update and index.  Articles can be written with your key word focuses in the article titles, as well as using them in the simple to use tags.

RSS links to multiple sites.  Your blog is fed to your subscribers using RSS technology. Think of it as your virtual newspaper delivery boy every time you publish an article.  Most profiles on online networking sites such as facebook, myspace and Ecademy all have the capabilities to accept your RSS feed.  Publish your article and you can instantly update your news feed or profile in all your social networking sites (as well as your main website if add to your home page, too).

Builds conversations with potential customers.  Blogging may feel lonely when you first begin, but once your subscribers start to increase and people start to comment, your articles can create amazing conversations - both online and offline.  Many businesses have taken to asking their blog subscribers about new products before official launches and asking for help to create programmes.

OK, I could go on but let's flip the coin and give you the cons.

Time.  Blogging is not an activity that you dip in and out of.  Posting new articles needs to happen at least 3 times a week if you want to see your subscribers grow and your business develop.  There is nothing worse than a blog with articles weeks out of date appearing at the top of the page.  It just looks like you have shut up shop.

The skill of writing.  If you hate writing articles, then stay away from blogging.  There are so many other ways to promote and grow your business, that you don't need to force yourself to do something that you hate. If you prefer to speak, then consider podcasting as a fantastic alternative.

Creativity and inspiration.  What if you run out of things to write about? This is a big concern that many people seem to have.  Personally I don't think anyone can ever run out of ideas, but starting from a blank screen every day is hard.  If creativity is not your strong point, it is worth taking the time out to plan the topics of your articles a month ahead.

Giving up too early.  Blogging is a long term marketing strategy.  It is not a quick fix to attracting clients (although there is no reason why you shouldn't see some positives early on).  It can take 5 or 6 months to build up your articles and start to attracting subscribers.  It may take a year before you find people are regularly adding comments to your blog.  But when it does start to happen, the buzz and the rewards are fantastic. 

Keep it slow and steady and know that, like all good marketing, you are in it for the long term.  Doing something little and often is far more powerful than blasting it for 2 weeks and moving on to the next thing on your list.

So there you have it.  I am sure there are other pros and cons that some of you may wish to add. It would be great to read your thoughts so add a comment below.

Want to discover more about blogging?

If you want a quick and easy introduction to blogging as well as having all the terminology and techy bits explained in plain, simple English, then check out my Blogging Guide for Beginners.

As a special offer to the first 20 ordered, you will also receive the latest report that I have just finished: "7 Steps to Promoting Your New Blog"

Click here for more information and remember, if you are one of the first 20 orders, you will also recieve this special report included in the regular price.

Email Newsletters - do you invite subscriptions or business card dump?

I have been posting quite a bit last week about the sins of business card dumping on to email newsletter mailing lists.  And I know that many of you offer and publish your own email newsletters.

But do you go round and collect business cards to “dump” on to your mailing list or do you invite people to subscribe themselves?

I don’t know about you but I am getting rather frustrated about going to networking meetings, having an enjoyable conversation with someone and exchanging business cards to keep in touch only to find myself receiving their email newsletter that I didn’t ask to be part of.  This happened yet again last week!

If you “dump” business cards on to your newsletter database, perhaps you had better check out the postings on my new email newsletter blog www.HowtodoEmailNewsletters.com. 

I have posted an interesting article “Do your newsletters subscribers have to opt-in or do they have to opt-out?” and the facts about the legalities of email address dumping too – “The UK Opt-In Rules Explained”.

Another great gadget - Xobni for your outlook

For those of you who use MS Outlook, like I do, then you will love this little widget you can download for free.

If you are anything like me, you rarely take the time to keep emails filed neatly.  I find I have got in the habit of dumping emails that I want to keep in to a folder called “KOF” which has just expanded to enormous proportions over the past year.  I also find it difficult to track previous email communications with people, finding the search facility on Outlook just too slow and cumbersome.

I was a bit nervous about downloading some software to work along side my Outlook, to be honest.  But Xobni is worth its little weight in gold.  It has saved me hours of frustrated email searching, finding attachments, phone numbers and tracking. Go check it out now.

Video that is "flip"ping easy to do

I was speaking at the CanDoCanBe guildford business network last night about blogging and we got on to mentioning podcasting and video blogs. 

I have been recommended a little gadget called Flip, which is available here in the UK in the next few weeks, I believe.  It is an “idiot-proof” digital camcorder which automatically converts your video footage in to files ready for use on UTube, your video blog or just about any online application.

Just insert the USB stick in to your computer (no matter whether you have PC or Mac) and hey presto, instant videos to upload. 

And I thought I would blog about it as Anne Crotty emailed me a link on the Telegraph today who have just been reviewing it.  But get in line – I’m first!!