Last year Chris Brogan put up a list of 100 topics he hoped someone would write about. I put it on my list of things to blog about and, well to be honest forgot about it.

Let’s see how Chris’ list can spark my brain. One of his items is ‘Turning Media into a Business Card’. And what did I find? 3d business cards at snapily.com. Twenty cards for about 8 bucks. They’re holographic and heavy weight paper. I also love moo.com, a printing company that creates unusual products like a sticker book and a nifty set of mini cards for promoting your photos. Creativebits.org has a great list of ideas for business cards.

Email is impossible to get away from. What’s your email address frequently replaces asking for someone’s phone number. The problem is, you’re always thinking you’ll miss something important. So, you check your email constantly.

Found an interesting site – Awayfind

The painless escape from piles of email is their claim. What it does is provide a form via your email signature that enables someone to get hold of you quickly without restoring to using your email. If you’re elsewhere, you receive a text message that lets you know there is something important to deal with. Its configurable, so you can even delegate emails to others.

It was a phenomenal win. If only we could run marketing campaigns as effectively as the campaign engine that put Obama into office. I’m hopeful that he will surround himself with the same kind of intelligent, capable and effective people when he begins his presidency. But I’m not happy. Happy means that I’m confident that he will lead this country to change that it so desperately needs. I’m not confident that he knows what needs changing and that he will be allowed to make the changes he will try to implement.

There hasn’t been an effective, capable Democrat in office for many years, but I will be hopeful and will wish for the very best.

One of the ways you can be on your way to improving your blog is to read other’s blogs. Don’t just concentrate on your own area of interest though. Branch out and discover a few new blogs:

Lisnews gives us a list of 10 blogs to read that we may not have discovered otherwise.

Marketing Nirvana gives us a list of Technorati Top 10 CEO Blogs.

Copy Blogger has a list of the Top 10 Blogs for Writers.

Pick three new blogs to

Can I do it? Who knows. I’m going to give it a shot, post every day for 1 month – November.

What’s the best way for me to start this new habit?

1. I need to identify the new habit that I want to establish
2. I need to really want to have the new habit
3. I need to learn how to establish the new habit by researching it
4. I need to eliminate my negative beliefs about the new habit and replace them with positive ones
5. I need to have a plan for establishing the new habit
6. I need to take responsibility for establishing the new habit
7. I need to reinforce the new habit by giving rewards to myself with my successes
8. I need to establish a support and accountability method
9. I need a way to kick myself into gear if I’m not being successful
10. I need to accept that I may not always be successful, but not to give up

Obviously, this applies to starting a good habit or kicking a bad one. I’m giving up the habit of not posting with the habit of posting regularly. Anyone have a good cattle prod lying around? I need to rig it up to my chair – bzzz – post already.

A frightened customer is supposed to be an opportunity, possibly even a golden opportunity. But it also presents a problem for getting leads to contact you on a webpage, leaving their contact info.

Let’s say you sell a product or service that puts a potential customer on edge. They know they need your service, yet they’re not so sure about contacting an unknown entity on the web. How do you get them to feel at ease?

Since they won’t buy from someone until they can trust you, and they don’t know you, how can you introduce yourself?

1. Make sure your website text is at a ‘readable’ level. It should be at a comfortable level of education for most, say high school level. Aiming lower makes you sound like a second grade teacher, aiming higher makes you sound like a professor.

2. Your site should have a description of you, your staff and your company. If they’re looking at your site, one of the first questions they’ll be asking is ‘Who the heck is this?’

3. You should have a phone number and an email address. I can hear the complaints already. ‘But, I don’t want them to call me at all hours of the night and day.’ Then get a phone number they can call and leave a message.

4. This one goes back to #3 – if you have a phone number and an email address, make sure you respond in a timely manner. Timely manner means 24-72 hours, according to the level of emergency that your customer is at. The shorter the time frame the better. Put an autoresponder on the email address that tells them when they can expect to hear from you. Do the same for the voicemail system that answers the phone number. Then stick to it.

5. Get a picture on your site of you and your staff. It makes a huge difference if someone can see that you’re a real person.

6. Your contact form should require only a name and email address. If you require a phone number, you’ll find they enter bogus phone numbers. Let them decide how much info to give you.

7. Give them something for giving you an email address. A white paper, an ebook, a tip sheet, a checklist, a pdf copy of your catalog. Don’t let it be something they can get elsewhere on the site, this is not a freebie – its a valuable piece of you and your company that they are exchanging their email address for.

8. Follow up every contact. Every phone call or email that comes in should go into a customer relationship management system. There are systems available for every budget and level of complexity. You can start with a simple spreadsheet and advance to using Salesforce or SugarCRM. But every contact you make should receive several follow ups. Notify them on the form that they’ll be contacted.

9. Let them know you care about the problem they’re experiencing and you want to help. Throughout your site you should have information available about the problems your customer experiences. Don’t give away the store. Give enough info for the ‘looky loos’ and curiosity hounds, but don’t give away your trade secrets and methods. Leave a bit to the imagination.

10. Be friendly, courteous and attentive. On a website? If your website isn’t readable, the links don’t work, it has missing images, the page is broken, your payment page isn’t secure or any other ways you can discourage them from continuing – they may not continue, and they won’t be coming back.

11. Take a look at your website analytics. If your bounce rate is high for your homepage, you’re losing customers. How long do they stick on the site – a couple of seconds or do they continue on the site and browse the pages? Which pages are more popular? What’s working and what isn’t? Is your contact page getting missed altogether?

We’re all guilty of procrastinating at one time or another. If you’re a ‘scary’ business, evaluate how your website is working to encourage a frightened or procrastinating client.

Press Release Analysis for Free | Press Release Grader: “HubSpot Press Release Grader

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(Via Web Inc Now.)

We American’s frequently take our holiday’s for granted. Let’s remember today as a day of gratitude for those who have died for our country and our liberty. Let’s remember those who fought our early battles to secure our independence and those who have continued to fight against our enemies who would take it from us.

Let’s remember and thank our Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy and Coast Guard members who continue to serve our country here and overseas. Some of them will be able to have a great 4th, even though they are far away, but others will have to make due with a ration meal instead of a steak and corn on the cob. Some will see fireworks, others will see bombs going off a little to close. Thank you to all who have served and continue to serve.