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5 Blog Writing Mistakes That Will Ruin Your Rep

If you are a blogger and you want to do the best you can then this article will help you avoid five costly mistakes. No one is perfect but everyone should be able to cut down on the mistakes below. These are not accidents, they are willful transgressions that will hurt your bottom line. Clean up these five mistakes and you will already be far ahead of the pack.1. Not proof reading: A simple mistake but it can definitely make you look bad. Spell checking is great, but you can’t rely on just that. You have to read your blog post 2 or 3 times to make sure you catch all your grammar mistakes. It might not seem like a big deal but here is one example of a mistake I have made. I wanted to write “now four styles to choose from” and I wrote “no four styles to choose from.” Spell check didn’t catch anything, but that one sentence means a big difference to the reader. If you want to take it to the next level, get someone else to proof read your blog post. They will catch things you miss every time.2. Plagiarism: If you care about your personal brand and your blog, then at all costs avoid this type of content. Creating content can be a pain in the butt, but stealing someone else’s’ can hurt you dearly in the end. If you get caught (and you will) you lose all credibility instantly. It isn’t conducive to building your personal brand. Keep it off your personal blog. It just looks tacky and people will notice.3. Not being consistent: This might be the biggest mistake. If you are committing to running a blog then it is a commitment. Treat it as such. Don’t fire out 5 articles your first week then sit back and relax. You have to constantly create content in order to engage your visitors. Fresh content is also good in the eyes of Google. We don’t want to make the Google Gods angry do we?4. Not marketing: I was guilty of this mistake. When I first started blogging I hid it from people! What the heck is the point of that? I posted away and hoped people came, but never worked at marketing it. I didn’t start to see success until I sent it out to my Facebook and Twitter lists. I began using Digg and StumbleUpon. I talked about it at social gatherings. I even got some business cards made up that had nothing but the URL of my blog. It began to work and I finally got to see some significant traffic. You can post all you want, but what use is it if no one sees it?5. Not responding to comments: If you are lucky enough to get comments on your blog posts, then you should reply. For one it is the polite thing to do. Secondly it will engage web visitors and make them more likely to come back. Also people who haven’t commented will be more likely to comment if they see people getting responses. A blog full of active commenters is the start of a potential money making machine!Cut out these five mistakes and you will definitely notice a traffic increase to your blog. You will also notice you have more interaction with your visitors and in the long run it will offer you more chances to monetize your site. If you have to only choose a couple from the list above, please post consistently and market yourself. Curing these two mistakes alone, will mean great things for your site.

Unsecured Small Business Loans – Good News – Stimulus Bill Allows SBA 90 Percent Guarantee For Loans

Anyone remotely involved with small businesses, whether as a consultant, lender, supplier, leasing specialist, trade association, or simply as a consumer who is tired of driving by sections of town and wondering why your favorite business unceremoniously threw in the towel, would very much like to hear some good news. Not to mention the small business owner itself. After all, there are 27 million small businesses that deserve to be thriving in this nation, but too often were ignored by the Bush administration. Classically non-complainers by nature, they just want a scrap of hope thrown their way. And I’m not talking about wide-eyed idealists looking for handouts-in all due respect to Emily Dickinson, they’re not looking for the”thing with feathers that perches in the soul”. Just give us a few bucks and we will run with it. This is a continuing article (20 in all) on the subject: Help. Is anyone out there loaning to small businesses anymore?Fortunately there is a loan program out there and SBA lenders are actually making loans currently: the Community Express Loan Program. This gives unsecured small business loans between $5,000 and $50,000 with very little paperwork, answers typically in two days, interest rates presently at 7.75%, funding and two weeks, and monies wired directly to your business account. There are still lenders participating in this program, although Congress has failed to make the program permanent and still has a 10% cap on the number of loans.Enter the Obama stimulus bill. Let us look how it affects this program and small business lending as a whole.If you have tried to wade through the 1,100 or so pages of the new stimulus bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009), you know its like chipping through granite. But let me pull out a little gem. It now allows the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA to you) to guarantee up to 90% of loans made by private lenders under their program. Let me explain. This is great for Community Express.When the Small Business Act was enacted in 1958, it had a very simple mission. Find a way to get loans to small businesses that couldn’t get them through traditional channels. It did this in an ingenious way. They knew banks where reluctant to loan to small businesses, especially startups, because of fear of failure. So the SBA collected a fee on each loan and used this as a fund to pay banks if there was a default. Bingo, there was invented the SBA guarantee fee. It doesn’t take a degree in rocket science from MIT and an MBA from Harvard to know this gives incentives to the banks to make more loans.SBA loan programs have guarantees from 50% to 85%. Specifically, the SBA currently has an 85% guarantee on loans up to $150,000 and up to 75% on loans above $150,000. On the other hand, there are some programs that only go as high as 50%, including the Express Loan program (for those types of loans the new guarantee will not change). With the new stimulus bill, the SBA has the right to increase these fees to 90%.Think about this for a moment. Simple math tells us more guarantee, the greater the likelihood of the bank making the loan. For goodness sakes, 90% is tapping on the door of a 100% guarantee! Also note the guaranteed portion is typically sold on the secondary market (which has recently shut down to almost nothing) so there is more chance for loans to be sold and more money to go back into the coffers of the banks for further lending.Notice I said the SBA has the right to increase it to 90%. It can pick which program. And it has not occurred yet. But if I was a betting person, I would say they would be seriously looking at most of the programs because everyone is scraping for ideas to revive the economy.For those addicted to primary source documents, this is what the new statute, in relevant part (my attorney wanted me to add that) says:SEC. 502. ECONOMIC STIMULUS LENDING PROGRAM FOR SMALL BUSINESSES. (a) PURPOSE- The purpose of this section is to permit the Small Business Administration to guarantee up to 90 percent of qualifying small business loans made by eligible lenders.
(b) DEFINITIONS- For purposes of this section:
(1) The term ‘Administrator’ means the Administrator of the Small Business Administration.
(2) The term ‘qualifying small business loan’ means any loan to a small business concern pursuant to section 7(a) of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 636) or title V of the Small Business Investment Act of 1958 (15 U.S.C. 695 and following) except for such loans made under section 7(a)(31).There is also a sunset provision under Subparagraph (f) that the guarantees are only good for one year after enactment of the bill, unless extended by Congress.So what does it do for me now as a small business owner? Well now the not so good news. I predict the SBA will be increasing many of its programs to 90%. But to get the banks in the lending mood again, there has to be a secondary market. There is also new legislation on that, which we will discuss in another article. But once we have a secondary market, I predict that they banks will not only loan, but do so in a big way. For three reasons:First, history tells us when there is economic inactivity due primarily to depressed conditions, when the cycle changes for the better, like a sling shot affect, it changes dramatically. Remember when people were unable to refinance or purchase their homes because of tight markets and high interest rates? The rates went down and many jumped at the chance to refinance, improve their homes, and purchase (some say too precipitously) with abundance. Although this is an overstatement and also depends upon other factors such as employment, standards of living, etc., the analogy holds that when things loosen up, there will be a substantial number of business loans.Secondly, banks are in large part in the business of making loans and they have not been doing so for some time. They will be anxious to make profits again.Lastly, simple economics tells us when there is a vacuum in the market; capital will rush in and take advantage of that open market and initial lack of competition. Large banks are not making business loans so small community banks are starting to rush in to take over the arena. Give them a secondary market and they will explode.So for the small business owner, I think this news of 90 % guarantees is favorable. Why did it take them so long?

Generating Revenue With Account-Based Marketing

Before getting into Account-based Marketing (ABM), let’s see how sales personnel get business without it. Imagine that you want to make a sale for your company. You can either do cold calls or do direct walk-ins and hope the person you talk to is a decision maker in the company, which can end up as a disappointment if he’s not. Then you will have to ask for a call or a meeting with his manager, which may or may not get approved and if it’s approved you will have to wait for the scheduled time which may change again at the last moment.The sales person will have to patiently go through the whole process until the final call to make the closing. Those who have worked in sales knows how time consuming the whole process is and I bet that sales people will do anything for solid leads which can make their work easier. And this is the sole reason that marketers all over the world are embracing ABM techniques for simplifying their work.Sales made easy through Account-based MarketingABM can be referred to as a blend of a company’s sales and marketing functions, which is a strategic approach to B2B marketing based on goals for specific target accounts. In the current business world, Key-Account Marketing is considered as a more strategic way to do outbound. With the help of ABM, the sales team can directly approach the key-decision makers of targeted companies without going through the entire process of random cold-calling, unnecessary meetings etc. The key advantage is that the sales process which takes several months for closing can be accomplished in a much lesser time.The Need for Account-Based MarketingThe phrase coined by ITSMA in 2004 has its roots in the 1990s when companies began to realize the importance of personalized marketing. However, it wasn’t until recent years that Key Account marketing has really begun to catch on in the B2B industry due to the increase in the importance of inbound marketing and in the rise of vendors who offer the ABM services. With the help of ABM, companies started to expand their knowledge of potential customers, which in turn, helped them in acquiring more sales and profit. This technique also applies the psychological factor that customers respond more when approached in a personal manner rather than being approached as just another sales lead. Moreover, if you are linking Account-Based Marketing with the CRM of your company there will be additional benefits of maintaining critical information like the client’s role in the company, the status of the account, company industry type, company size etc.Account-Based marketing & it’s workingPresently, there are different Account-Based Marketing technologies in the market. Productive key account marketing involves a multichannel approach and requires close alignment between an organization’s sales, marketing, and customer success teams. To reach target accounts, digital targeting is used by Account-based advertising to fit an organization’s ideal customer profile. CRM or marketing automation tools are integrated with ABM platforms to run campaigns targeting the company’s target accounts. This provides an ability to run multichannel campaigns for ads across different channels like mobile, display, video and social media. By doing this you can understand which message resonates the most, through which medium and get the exact data to back it up – with A/B testing in near real-time.One of the reasons that Account-based technologies have seen great success is that they engage customers on their terms using digital channels other than e-mail and phone calls. Key Account Marketing can be done on a larger scale rather than traditional methods because it engages the entire account as well as the targeted leads.Benefits seen after using Account-Based Marketing· Faster DealsWith the help of ABM, leads are funneled to the most targeted ones, the chances of getting rejected narrows down to a minimum and deals get closed much faster.· Higher returnsSince sales people are targeting on the best accounts for business with the help of Key-Account Marketing rather than typical demand generation, the returns are higher.· Reduced Time ConsumptionWith ABM, the sales team will focus only on the accounts that have high conversion rates. It means they don’t waste their time on leads that don’t matter or are unqualified.· Alignment of marketing and salesThere are chances that the marketing and sales teams of the same organization are focusing on separate accounts. Key-Account Marketing requires cooperation between the two teams so that they work together to target key decision makers within the same accounts.Account-Based Marketing – The FutureAbove all, ABM is finally about the customer. A fact that business professionals should focus on is that buyers are not looking for a cold call or a random marketing email, rather they want to explore the solutions for their pain points on their own terms and only receive communications from vendors that are meaningful and relevant. ABM makes it easy to deliver on this need across the buyer’s journey.

The Human Side of Branding

There is a lot more to branding than identity, advertising and public relations. Brands also need to get in touch with their human face.”I want to build my brand.”I have lost count of the number of times I have heard this statement in the 11 years since we started brand-comm, a consulting company dedicated to building brands. And yet, as is to be expected, people have different expectations from branding and the entire process of branding. The next steps to these statements usually follow one of the following courses of action. ‘I think our identity is dated and today’s consumers are young, so let’s change it, and shouldn’t we be thinking global?’ This is good news for international brand consultants and design experts as they instantly see (million) $$$ signs. The identity change is announced with great fanfare and it usually goes down like the Indian team went down in Zimbabwe – with scarcely a whimper – as nothing except the identity has changed and the brand is still the same boring brand.Another alternative is to try to build corporate image through a high-profile TV commercial, probably shot in New Zealand, but without the benefit of a core idea that defines the essence of the brand. “The execution will be clutter-breaking” says the agency Creative Director. The brand promise is not delivered, after all “Yuvarajs” exist in corporate life too!Another way forward is to hire a public relations firm which goes hammer and tongs at the media – organises one-on-ones, speaker and photo opportunities – all of which generate intense interest about the MD in cocktail parties and amidst head-hunting firms but nothing much happens to the brand. And today there is another option as well.Sponsor some high-profile IPL team and even if the team does not win a single match, the players dutifully land up at post-IPL parties wearing your brand on their sleeves (if not their hearts) on them.I know that I am perhaps sounding cynical, a not unexpected reaction from someone my age, but that is hardly the impression I wish to convey or the point I wish to make. There is a whole lot more to branding than identity, colours, TV advertising, sponsorship, events and public relations. While I am not denying the importance or value of these, I think there is something more basic, more obvious and yet, perhaps, more difficult to manage, which is why companies seem to spend so little time on this and that is what I would call the “human side of branding”. Here are a few examples of how companies, however big, get this important aspect of their functioning woefully wrong.The first impression…… has the potential of being the worst impression. You enter an impressive building, exquisitely designed, wonderfully architected with a façade that could make you stop in your tracks. You cross the manicured gardens and enter the plush reception. And whom do you meet? A security guard in place of the young, efficient, smiling, helpful receptionists that people of my age were used to seeing earlier, but then this is perhaps the order of the day in most companies.Of course, some of these security guards are smart, even speak good English and can be courteous enough, as was the security guard at the Oberoi in Bangalore last week. He welcomed me in the traditional Indian way. But many are not the way they ought to be and you can easily imagine the impact on the brand when they are found wanting. Of course, I am fond of repeating my experiences of having been welcomed in a company by a security guard whose company name tag read “Doberman”. Obviously, you can understand my nervousness! Did the Chairman of the company ever walk past this, I wonder, or does he have his own private elevator that enables him to bypass this welcoming committee?You don’t call me,I will call youAnother quick reality check for a brand is the way the company answers, or should I say does not answer, the phone. How often do we get the impression that the phone is ringing and the operators are having a good time, when the phone is actually busy?Let’s assume that you have achieved the holy grail of actually getting through to the company and to an operator who puts you on hold. Of course, you may be calling the company not because you are in love with it, but probably because it has goofed and you want to give it a piece of your mind.What happens then? You are put on hold and the company’s jingle of how it is God’s gift to the human race goes on endlessly like the maiden overs that Nadkarni used to reel off and you are seething. So what is your view of the brand at that particular point in time? Top-of-mind for all the wrong reasons is probably your reaction.Let’s move on to a slightly more sensitive topic of company or brand culture. Have you ever tried getting in touch with the CEO of a large company? Life seems to be one long meeting; senior people are constantly in meetings, unreachable despite being online 24 x 7. They never take calls, respond to text messages or answer mails. After all, they are busy. I remember my first boss telling me “you are paid to be busy”.But are these captains of industry so busy as to be completely unresponsive, sometimes to calls even from their friends and former colleagues? But what happens then? The company takes its cue from the CEO and soon you have a company that is completely, totally inaccessible, at times even to the media.If, for whatever reason, the company needs you, it will call you a few hundred times! Do these companies ever bother to assess what the rest of the world has to say about them? Do they even care?And this is precisely how the brand comes across to the rest of the world and I cannot imagine the ignored parties being quiet about the company and its total lack of response. Surely there has to be a better, more sensitive, more humane way of doing business that can impact the brand and the corporate image positively?A better way to recruit?Bangalore is the software capital of India, if not the world, and if you were to believe everything that you read about these companies then you would be convinced they are the greatest places to work in. They probably are.Make no mistake about this, I am a great admirer of Indian software companies and yet here is an incident that made a profound impression on me, even if it had me a bit concerned about how the brand was getting it wrong.I am going to talk about one of the top software companies in India if not the world. They needed a director for their brand and I had with great difficulty organised one of my juniors from IIM for this; she was the head of a large advertising agency and went for the meeting at my insistence.There were many calls reminding her of the meeting. She went to the complex and found herself with hundreds of engineers looking for a job. She also found herself at the venue much earlier because the company wanted her to fill up a form! She was hopping mad, and to add insult to injury, it was not the HR head that she met but her lackey.Clearly, the company was better suited to recruit thousands of engineer trainees but was probably not geared to deal with a senior employee, particularly someone who needed to be wooed. Luckily the lady in question did not have a blog or she could have told the world about the company and its manner of recruitment.There is nothing wrong with the company, its financial results or even its image. It is still admired and will continue to be admired but such incidents can and will hurt the brand. But then someone has to be aware of the implications of the acts of commission and omission of each and every one of its employees and we are not talking of CEOs here.Let me end this piece with a quote by Lee Clow: “Managing brands is going to be more about trying to manage everything that your company does.” Yes, everything that your company does! Every action that every employee or your outsourced partner does or does not do continues to impact your brand.Let’s continue this discussion next fortnight. But in the meanwhile can you think about how good your brand’s human side is? Let us discuss it in my blog: Third Umpire On Branding(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of Googly: Branding on Indian Turf.)