Times to work / blogging

Hi guys,

I met with a very interesting lady today, who also works for herself although not in the field that we work in, and among the many interesting things we discussed was when is the best time to work.

Like me, she likes working at night ... I thought, sometimes, that I'm the only one driven nuts by the entire 8 - 5 thing ... sometimes, I just find those hours so hard to work in because the phone is ringing, (usually clients), email is going mad, skype going mad, or the school decides to shut at an odd hour, ...

ONe of the toughest things is working until 3am when you KNOW the phone is going to go mental from 08:00 onwards or you need to be up to let the maid or gardener in at 07:30 ... but often I still find I get a lot more done at night than I do during the day.

Your thoughts?

We also discussed the importance of the discipline of marketing and having a marketing plan. This doesn't just mean okay Friday I'll write a blog post. It means that for a month before hand, know the different subject blog posts you're going to write about and sit down and prepare them. Know where your target market is going to be, know what type of marketing approaches you want to take.

Times to work / blogging

Hi guys,

I met with a very interesting lady today, who also works for herself although not in the field that we work in, and among the many interesting things we discussed was when is the best time to work.

Like me, she likes working at night ... I thought, sometimes, that I'm the only one driven nuts by the entire 8 - 5 thing ... sometimes, I just find those hours so hard to work in because the phone is ringing, (usually clients), email is going mad, skype going mad, or the school decides to shut at an odd hour, ...

ONe of the toughest things is working until 3am when you KNOW the phone is going to go mental from 08:00 onwards or you need to be up to let the maid or gardener in at 07:30 ... but often I still find I get a lot more done at night than I do during the day.

Your thoughts?

We also discussed the importance of the discipline of marketing and having a marketing plan. This doesn't just mean okay Friday I'll write a blog post. It means that for a month before hand, know the different subject blog posts you're going to write about and sit down and prepare them. Know where your target market is going to be, know what type of marketing approaches you want to take.

Commenting on blog posts

Hi everyone,

Today I wanted to draw attention to something that I feel is an important part of a small business' marketing strategy today.
Commenting on blog posts.
There is an art to this, in my opinion. It's no good just picking up on a blog and going on there and saying something inane and then posting a link to your website. You have to say something intelligent, lucid, and relevant to the post. Otherwise, you just irritate. So, make sure that your comments add something to the article and are informative. If you don't do this, there is a good chance that your comment will simply be deleted, anyway, and then you will just have wasted your own time and the blog owner's time.

What I'd suggest is the following:
- Pick interesting blogs to follow, blogs that are relevant to your industry or your interests.
- Check back on them on a relatively regular basis.
- Read the posts.
- Think of something valuable to add - maybe something from your personal experience, or add your expertise.

If, for example, the post is about switching from using a tape recorder to using a digital recorder, don't just go there and say "I transcribe, send your recordings to me". Chances are that the person has been doing their own transcription for some years anyway. But if you go on there and say something to the effect of "yes, you've made a good choice with regards to your choice of digital recorder, and this is why", and use your link in your identity, then you'll have planted the seed in the mind of the author and anyone else who happens to see the post that you are an expert in this field - and that maybe they should consider approaching you to save themselves some time - by giving you their transcription. Intelligent, informative comments are appreciated by bloggers, simply because they bring a variety of phrases that may well be picked up by search engines - in other words, they bring traffic to the person's blog. So be careful and think about what your comments are - don't be an irritation, be an asset.