* What was your education experience? Was it helpful?

I had an unorthodox and alternative education, for both high school and college and I think it influenced my attitude towards work and life in a significant way. I went to schools where there wasn’t a lot of structure or forced prerequisites, and students had a lot of choice. What this encouraged me to do was to identify what really interested me and learn that it was up to me to find internal motivation to pursue my interests. I graduated from Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington in 1976 with a BA in Humanities. The personal computer had yet not been invented, so I had no experience with software or design in college.

* What was your professional experience?

After I graduated college at age 21, I worked as a buyer in the gift industry. I opened my own store in 1978 when I was 23, and within a year opened a second store. I closed both stores as they were in debt during the recession of 1980, and got introduced into the film industry through some personal connections. I learned how to create special effects animation and photography, which was still all drawn by hand and shot on analog cameras back then. I got my first computer in 1982, and that was when I started teaching myself how to use software.

* When did you start your business?

I actually started my first business when I was 23, with the retail shops. The computer business started quite organically, first with co-workers asking me how to do desktop publishing, and later with the word spreading that I had good computer skills which caused a few clients to offer me freelance consulting projects. I left the film industry to pursue my own computer graphics animation company in 1986. I started teaching computer graphics in 1989 at Art Center College of Design, where I taught until 1996 when I moved away from Pasadena to Ojai after the success of my first book, Designing Web Graphics.

Lynda.com

* How did you spot the opportunity to start Lynda.com?

lynda.com started as a personal web site and a spot to host my student’s assignments. I was quite passionate about the web and its potential when I first discovered it in 1995. I wanted to teach my art students how to publish their portfolios to a web site, but there was no book on that topic at the time. I decided that someone had to write a book on this subject, and it might as well be me. My book was published in 1996, and became an international best seller. The success of my first book allowed me to start my own school, line of books, and online educational service.

* How did any outside advisors make a difference in your company?

It was truthfully my husband and daughter who had the biggest influence to start the company. They were tired of me traveling all the time, and believed that people would come to me rather than me going to people. My husband pushed the idea to start a school in Ojai, California, which is where we moved after the success of my book allowed us to buy our first home. in fact, we rented a local high school’s computer lab, and advertised classes on the front page of lynda.com when we first started. We were amazed that the class sold out, and people came from all over the US. In fact, one student flew in from Vienna Austria, which really drove home how powerful the web had become in its outreach.

* Did you have a business plan of any kind? Please tell us about it.

My husband did – I did not, and could not – my brain doesn’t work that way! I didn’t believe that we could make a business in a town of 7,000 people that was known for spas and yoga studios. But he believed that if people would fly and pay to see me speak and teach in other parts of the country, that they would come here too, and he showed me on paper how it could work. If anything, it worked better than he planned. He has an amazing ability to forecast sales. In fact, I found a piece of paper on his desk recently that showed what our sales were today, ten years later. I asked him when he’d made that chart, and he told me in 2002!

* Tell us about your businesses and the services you provide

We specialize in software education for the creative industry, with a focus in web, print, video, digital imaging and photography, motion graphics, interactive, 3D, and much more. Our subject matter range grows every year, and right now we work with 65+ instructors who create custom curriculum. We produce books, live events, training videos, and online training videos.

* What were/are the most demanding conflicts or trade-offs you face running your businesses and balancing life?

Being a mom has to top that list. My daughter was only six when I wrote my first book, and my success was tough on her as she had competition for my time and attention. I have said no to so many traveling and speaking opportunities over the years as a result, but it was all very challenging and continues to be so, even though she’s now a teenager. I’ve really tried to tailor my work so that I can in our home town, and succeed most of the time. It was a lot harder when I was starting out though, and building a name for myself. Sadly, that was a very tough time for her, and that has weighed heavily on me.

* What are your plans for the future?

We hope to continue to grow our training business. It’s my passion, and my gift, and there is nothing that I’d rather do with my life. Our business has grown just about every year we’ve been doing it (except for during the dot com bust), and we’ve never had an unprofitable year – even then. So, perhaps it sounds anti-climactic, but I love what we do, and feel lucky that there’s an audience and a business model that supports it. We have no plans to change, though we are growing and adding new staff and offices, and I see that trend continuing forward. If anything, there will be new ways to deliver the training we create, but we will always keep the quality and effectiveness as our core pursuit.

* How important is it for a business to establish and maintain business connections?

You know, our business is built on customers, not so much business connections or partnerships. Over the course of the past ten years, we’ve touched well over a million people worldwide with our training. It’s our goal to produce training that our customers find helpful and effective. We’ve kept our eye on their needs, and they’ve rewarded us by coming back again and again. I have always reached out to a large audience, not a few business partners, though our educational materials are respected by individuals, corporations and partners alike.

Rewards, Advice and Lessons Learned

* What things do you find personally rewarding and satisfying as an entrepreneur? What have been the rewards, risks, and trade-offs?

To build something that is so much bigger than me. To think that what I started feeds the mouths of so many employees, and royalties for so many trainers, and that customers get so much benefit from what we produce.

* What advice would you give an aspiring entrepreneur?

Stick to your core competencies – don’t just start a business to make money or leave a job you don’t like. Find your passion. Follow it, and the universe will open!

* Could you suggest the three most important lessons you have learned in order to run a successful technology and internet-based business?

1. Listen to your customers, and always keep their needs at the forefront of your goals.
2. The quality and effectiveness of your product is the most important asset you possess
3. Keep your attention on how technology is changing so you can stay current to meet the needs of your audience.

For more information about Lynda Weinman and her business please visit www.lynda.com.

Each business owner gets 15 minutes per meeting to share our ongoing goals, where we stand with them since the last meeting, and a chance to ask for support from the group with the things that are challenging us the most. Below are some of the myriad ways we’ve helped each other out over the last two years.

Client referrals
The group members often help one another get new clients, and — since we know each other so well — we are able to sell and promote each other with ease and confidence.

Finding new office space
One group member recently needed temporary office space for her photography studio. Another group member knew of an office that was looking for a third person to join them. As it turns out, the three businesses compliment each other very well and may lead to much more of an alliance than just sharing space.

Finding direction
One group member couldn’t figure out what direction to take her holistic business. After exploring a few different avenues with the group, she has recently committed to helping develop an organic produce company that delivers door-to-door. The opportunity uses all of her background and seems like an ideal fit.

Getting Unstuck
It has been said that women “listen each other into being” and the group members all do that for one another at different points. When someone is blocked — perhaps by a marketing challenge, or by not knowing how to pursue authentic work, or by an old childhood issue that just won’t go away — the other members support them in getting unstuck. Resources to business coaches, leadership programs and therapists are shared and the group serves as a safe and creative environment to work through the challenges and grow from them.

Baby Shower
Two of the group members are having babies this winter and so the next meeting is going to be a baby shower! The meeting/party will welcome these new lives (maybe new entrepreneurs?) into the world and celebrate all the growth that the group has seen both professionally and personally over the last two years.

Big Corporation just called and their event planner folded at the last minute. They want you to submit a proposal for their upcoming two-day conference in Hawaii. Yee-hah! And you’re just the event planner to do it: you’ve got experience and the know-how (the only good thing to come out of your dead-end job in Corporate America) and let’s face it, you certainly could use the capital infusion (ahem: moola).

There’s only one problem. Evelyn’s Events is submitting a proposal for the same project. Normally you wouldn’t worry about competition but last month, you did some some competitive intelligence work by attending an event organized by Evelyn. You know good work when you see it and you have to admit – the woman is on her game. This doesn’t just pique your attention, it puts you on edge.

But, how does she do it? Let’s take a peek:

When Evelyn gets the call from Big Corporation she’s not in the office to take the call but Big Corporation still reaches a live person, thanks to Evelyn’s virtual phone attendent. The phone attendant notifies her via her mobile phone and Evelyn returns the call to Big Corporation within 15 minutes. (Pretty smooth, eh? It gets better.)

They ask her to submit a proposal and shoot her an email outlining all the project specs. Thanks to her wireless Internet service, she gets the email a few minutes later on her PDA. She’s able to get their email so quickly because she’s previously researched wireless Internet hotspots in her local area and she knows that Carl’s Coffee Café is a tried and true hotspot.

She slides into a booth, orders a double-latte and uses her PDA’s month-at-a-glance feature to check her schedule. Pulling her wireless mini-keyboard out of her vintage Fendi clutch, she plugs in her portable memory stick and opens her proposal template. She changes the details on the proposal according to the specs for Big Corporation’s event, tacks on an extra $5,000 for good measure and then creates a PDF file online. She emails Big Corporation the proposal with a contract and blind carbon copies her virtual assistant.

Sipping on her double-latte, she dials Big Corporation from her mobile phone to ensure that they received her email. They did. They like what they see. She’s got the gig. They didn’t even blink at the extra $5,000. She logs onto her online project management tool, creates a new project area, sets up a log in ID for Big Corporation and sends them a thank you email with their log in ID and password.

Beep! That would be Evelyn’s PDA again. Who can it be? This time it’s her online fax program with a signed contract from Big Corporation attached. She logs onto her favorite Internet travel web site and in a few clicks, she’s booked her round-trip ticket to Hawaii for the conference- with a couple extra days tacked on at a local spa for a little R&R.

Oh, that’s right (insert exaggerated tone here)…you’re wondering what happened to you? You’re still leafing through your DayTimer to see if you’ll have any scheduling conflicts. It’s time to get with the program before Evelyn puts you out of business, no?

First, create a follow-up plan: How will you keep in touch for the next six months? What will you offer to your prospects, hot and cold? At which frequency will you get in touch with them? Write the answer to all those questions in a time line of the type:

Contact # Timeline Contact type Content

where “timeline” is the amount of time from first contact until present one, “contact type” the way of contact (phone, email, mail, etc.) and “content” the actual content of your contact. This allows you to have a plan for each and every contact you make, and avoid re-inventing the wheel each time. It also makes it easy, almost mechanical, to plan any individual contact.

The second step is to make sure that the follow-up contacts actually happen. From my experience with clients, I have seen only two systems really work: The tickler file and the contact management software.

The tickler file is made of a container, 4×5 or 5×6 index cards, 31 dividers labeled from 1 to 31 for the days of the month, and 12 dividers labeled by month. In front of the box are the current and remaining days of the month: Let’s say today is the 15th of October, so you’ll see dividers labeled 15 to 31 in front of you, followed by the month dividers November, December, January, etc. Each index card contains the contact information of a connection you made, along with the contacts made, and is moved through the system as you go.

Let’s say that you just sent an email to a contact, and will send them an email again in a week from now to make sure they have received the information. If today is the 15th of the month, your next contact is scheduled for the 22nd. You then place the card behind the divider marked “22”, and forget about it. On the 22nd of the month, you take all the cards behind the “22” divider and know exactly who you need to contact, and what for. Now, let’s say that, instead of October 22, the next contact should happen on November 22. In this case, you simply put the corresponding card behind the “November” divider. When November 1 rolls in, you take all the cards for November, and dispatch them through the days of the month. When you get to the 22nd, your card is waiting for you behind the “22” divider. This system is very low-tech, effective, and allows you to schedule contacts up to a year in advance. It can however take a lot of space, and some people are more comfortable with an electronic version.

Outlook can be enough to electronically accomplish this follow-up. However, dedicated contact management software such as ACT! or Goldmine will allow you more flexibility. In particular, you can set up contact series, so that you need to enter those only once, and the software will automatically schedule all of the contacts you have planned without any intervention on your part. They also allow you to enter more information, such as notes, tracking of opportunities, etc. In that sense, they are more powerful than both the tickler file and Outlook. They require some learning, but are worth the expense and effort. I personally use ACT! and it has transformed my ability to stay in touch with the people I meet.

Now that you have the foundation in place, you can and should begin to seek out other companies who you can partner with in some way; because strategic alliances are fast becoming one of the best, most cost-effective ways to organically grow your client base and your sales.

So – how do you begin?? Barbara Bruce-Ross, the owner of a fabulous custom bath products line and retail store called B.Witching Bath Company, says she met one woman she just partnered with through networking.

“I became acquainted with Laura Schultz (a new jewelry consultant) and Erica Soued (a local massage therapist) while networking. Knowing that both these ladies would need to grow their client base, I asked them to join me in a combined event. We discussed my idea and got the plan in place; B.Witching Bath Company would host an Enchanting Afternoon, featuring Kirks Folly Jewelry and free hand massages given by a professional massage therapist using our products,” says Bruce-Ross.

Like many outside-the-box thinkers Bruce-Ross recognizes that today’s marketing and retailing environment requires being CREATIVE in getting a customer’s attention. According to her people are “kinda been there, done that” – so new, unlikely partnerships grabs people’s attention (she mentions doing events that combined topics like Fashion & Finance.)

Laura Shultz, a new Kirks Folly jewelry consultant, agrees. “I believe we both benefited because we each were able to bring different customers to each other, as well a different ideas for each others businesses.”

So, what are you waiting for?? Put your thinking cap on, and imagine the possibilities – events, seminars, or business expos that you could be a part of with another firm. There’s bound to be other business owners you’ve met – either while networking or as a customer, that are open to mixing things up and NOT doing what everyone else is doing. Strategic alliances are out there just waiting to help you grow your businesses, to the advantage of both companies.

Says Schultz, a newly minted successful strategic partner – “I think women can be very successful when working together toward the same or similar goals. It almost doesn’t matter what each one has to offer. With a little creativity and enthusiasm, a joint effort can be very rewarding. Be yourself, be positive and exude your enthusiasm for your business. The rest will fall into place.”

Everyone has probably experienced a salesperson who tries to sell you what he wants you to buy rather than what you want to buy. This includes the shoe salesman who says to his customer, “We’re trying to clean out last year’s inventory, so if you buy one pair today, you get another pair free.” This presents the store’s goals, and doesn’t address the customer’s needs. The shoe salesman, however, who asks the customer what she is looking for, and listens to her goal, is uncovering the customer’s real issues and giving her a far more powerful incentive to buy. He can follow up this information by saying, “If you find the perfect pair of running shoes today, you might want to consider buying an extra pair, since we’re having a special two-for-one sale.”

The real issues include measurable goals, such as making a sale, projecting the return on an investment, restoring a patient to good health, or establishing a salary for a new staff position. The real issues may also be subjective and harder to measure, such as determining when your new venture will become profitable, how curable the patient’s disease might be, or how well a new employee will fit into your existing staff. The real issues are always substantive and they are always determined by the other person.

Focusing on the real issues moves the entrepreneurial conversation forward; any other subject stalls the conversation and reduces the chances of coming to an agreement to work together. Most people waste the opportunity to have an entrepreneurial conversation by not steering the discussion toward the other person’s real issues. They think about their own needs instead. Of course, your real issues are important as well, and you should be clear about what they are, but unless you focus on meeting the other person’s goals and objectives first, your own objectives will never be achieved.

A banker will not be interested in how rapidly your business will grow. She cares more about your ability to pay back your loan on time. In fact, she may worry that if you focus on growth, you will pour so much money into early expansion that your poor cash flow will prevent you from meeting your loan payments, which is her primary real issue. A scientist applying for a research position will not be that interested in touring the spectacular new administrative wing you recently added to your building. In fact, he might worry that more funds are being funneled into girders and windows than will wend their way into his laboratory, which is his real issue.

Let’s imagine two salespeople. Salesperson A strides into a meeting with every client by thinking to himself, “I’m going in there to make myself a sale and earn a commission.” Salesperson B says to herself, “I’m going to go in there and make myself a partner.”

If the client says, “I’m interested in your product to help reduce my manufacturing costs,” Salesperson A believes this is a buying signal and he tries to close the sale immediately by saying, “How about I write you up an order for a thousand of those to get you started?”

Salesperson B, however, doesn’t view this as a closing opportunity. She sees it as a chance to engage in an entrepreneurial conversation in which she can learn about the client’s manufacturing process and how they can work together for the long term. Salesperson B will be more able to build a partnership and find the best and longest lasting application for her products.

The difference in approach – and their ultimate success – comes from a clear focus on the real issues.

Here are three ways that your appreciation of others can be dramatically improved:

Reach Out

A voice mail message I received recently confirmed the value of saying “thank you.” The lovely message was from the CEO of a company I work with who said, “I want to thank you and to compliment you on the work you’ve been doing for us, and want to share with you some of the flattering remarks several of our senior people have given you….” That message impacted my work life so much that I still have it on my answering machine. To make such a phone call takes only 30 seconds.

Make Gifts More Personal

One year, my Christmas “thank you” gift to many of my clients and business friends was a glass shaped “light bulb” filled with mints. It had “A world of thanks,” imprinted on it and included my name, phone number, and website address. That gift showed others my appreciation while serving to promote my business. It is also something that people will use–I have seen it proudly displayed on people’s desks. Those kinds of gifts have a long shelf life because they can be refilled.

The Pen is Still Mighty

I am so dedicated to having a “thank you” strategy that I have created a highly publicized technique called the “thank you chain.” Here’s an example of how it works: After a motivation program I conducted at a major company, I sent “thank you” notes to all the participants. It’s worth the effort because it is an excellent way to stand out from other training professionals. I wrote about what I learned from the training session, and wrote a few personal words, letting them know how nice it was to meet them. The chain continued when two people from that session who received my thank you notes referred me to other people in the company, who then booked me for three other sessions.

Think about the moments you have available in your day when you can write a few notes, or call people to let them know how you appreciate the help they’ve given you. It will become an essential part of your life, and you’ll see the rewards.

Since you have made it this far, I want to “thank you” for reading, and your comments and thoughts are welcome. Please drop me an email.

* Why You Should Write the Business Plan Yourself: Issue I
* Motivation to Start Writing Today: Issue II
* Knowing Your Plan’s Purpose: Issue III
* Your Business Description: Issue IV
* Your Products & Services: Issue V

Let’s jump in!

After detailing the products and services you will provide, it’s now time to starting the Marketing Section of your business plan. “Market” is one of those tricky nouns that actually have a number of different meanings. The Compact Oxford English Dictionary outlines four definitions: “1. a regular gathering for the purchase and sale of food, livestock, or other commodities. 2. an outdoor space or large hall where vendors sell their goods. 3. a particular area of commercial or competitive activity. 4. demand for a particular commodity or service”.

You can see already that the Marketing Section of your business plan is going to have to cover a lot of ground!

I think the section should include information about the following “markets” for your business:

1. The group of consumers to whom you want to sell your product or service (“target market”), in other words, who are the people and/or businesses who will buy from you? Since there are now so many ways that a customer can learn about your business and purchase from you (online, telephone, fax, etc.), most of the time when someone asks “Who is your target market?” she is asking you to identify your customer base.

2. Your geographical environment (what is it like where your business is located/operates?) Traditionally, it refers to the geographical environment in which you operate your business. For example, if I have a clothing store on 80th Street and 3rd Avenue in New York City , I could say that my market is the “Upper East Side” neighborhood of Manhattan.

3. What is the state of your industry? Is there a flurry of business activity and growth, such as in nanotechnology or the healthcare sector? Has there been a decline or stagnation in growth, such as for many video rental businesses?

4. What is going on with your competition? Is there fierce competition or very little? Who is your competition?

In upcoming issues we will go into each of these subsections of the marketing plan in detail. In the interim, keep jotting down your observations and notes. Remember, writing a business plan is an organic process. You think of an idea, check out to see if your idea matches reality, and then tweak your plan accordingly.

In contrast to a typical static corporate web site on the internet, weblogs or blogs for short, are similar to an online version of your company newsletter or personal journal but with a decidedly conversational tone and a wider reach.

With blogs, you speak with people rather than at them. It is a two way conversation where readers can post comments and respond to your posts. Blogs are human, raw, and real. Public Relations speak need not apply.

Blogs, along with podcasts (where you can create audio/video content that users can download to a computer, iPod, or any other digital audio player), are part of Web 2.0, the growing phenomenon of user-generated content, online communities, and self publishing. While there are almost as many female bloggers as males, some studies have shown that podcast listeners are disproportionately male. LLarry Gerbrandt, an executive with Nielsen Analytics, speaking through the PodcastAcademy podcast, noted that this discrepancy in podcast audiences may be due to there being a lot fewer women podcasters (people who create podcasts). Women know what women want, and with supply/demand being what it is, now might be the perfect time to start a podcast focusing on women.
 

 In an interview with David Teten and Scott Allen, co-authors of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, Allen mentions, “if you use your blog as basically a publishing medium for company announcements, filling it with the same kind of content and tone of voice as your press releases, you’re missing the point. Blog readers are looking for a reminder that there are human beings behind all the ‘corporatalk’ and ‘marketese’ – languages that real people don’t speak. Blogs aren’t done by committee and they aren’t reviewed prior to publication by the PR, marketing and/or legal departments. They are one person sharing their personal experience of what goes on in their company, industry, etc.”

Some benefits of a blog include:

• Demonstrating thought leadership.· Demonstrating thought leadership. Blogs give you the ability to immediately publish content that can demonstrate your knowledge and insight. Your website can become the go-to site for information on your industry. Andy Warhol was famous for saying that everyone has 15 minutes of fame. Now “on the web, everyone is famous to 15 people.” David Weinberger. You can become slightly famous.
• Friendly user interface. With services like TypePad, Wordpress and Blogger, no IT person is needed to set up or maintain your blog. You can literally begin blogging for free and within minutes.
• Improving your “Google juice.” Among other variables, search engines look for text and links between sites to determine whether a site is authoritative enough to be placed on the first results page. Blog posts have modifiable, flexible, and current content, which in addition to readers’ comments and links from other sites, effectively increases your search engine page rankings naturally and for free. Click here for more on search engine optimization.
• Feedback. After each post in a blog, your readers can post comments (be they positive or negative). With the feedback feature you can pose questions and instantly receive customer opinions on future products, services, extensions, allowing you to get a better idea of how the broader market could react. Venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki does these kinds of tests frequently on his popular blog that gets 10,000+ hits a day.
• Reacting quickly. Without waiting for the help of computer experts, you can respond to negative comments about your postings, product, or service. It becomes another tool in your handling of crisis communications.
• Creating a human face for your business. What can seem like a cold and professional corporation with a blog can have personality, humor, and emotion. Executives who blog seem more accessible and that can help you with prospecting. Instead of sending unsolicited messages, having built a substantive reader-base with your blog, your readers may self-select and contact you about your service.
• Money. Blogging provides a source of advertising revenue from companies including Google’s AdWords and Amazon’s Associates. For example, if you search for “NetFlix” in Google, the DVD rental company, the first result is netflix.com, the second is hackingnetflix.com, a blog devoted exclusively writing on movie rentals. The owner of this website blogs full time on all the changes to NetFlix/Blockbuster Video. He makes tens of thousands of dollars a year from advertising from his site.
• Blogging is fun! You get to be creative and expressive while meeting new people.

It is important to keep your thinking cap on when blogging. While the design and content of your website may have gone through communications, PR, as well as legal experts, posts to your blog probably would not. You should be mindful of who in your company is blogging and what is being said. Most importantly, be honest or risk having negative PR in the blogosphere (community of blogs), as Edelman is now learning from.

In addition, David Teten says, “the dilemma of business blogs is that you cannot be too detailed about your business. E.g., if you talk about how fast you’re growing, that reduces your negotiating leverage with suppliers. If you mention that you’re targeting a particular sector, your competitors then know your strategy and can better fight you. Keep in mind that your entire universe of business relationships can read your blog for their own ends.” (Full disclosure: Teten is my former employer).

According to the Pew Research Center, women use their online writing for social reasons more than men. Women blog to break out of their isolation, help people in trouble or engage strangers on issues of the day. The Mercury News reports that, “while most of the 100 top-ranked bloggers in the world are men, the world’s No. 1 blogger, measured by how many bloggers link to the work, is a female Chinese pop star. The top 100 also includes Arianna Huffington, whose Huffington Post provides analysis and humor on the day’s political news.”

It is important to note that most blogs will never get the notoriety of The Huffington Post because they fail to get substantial readership outside of their friends, contacts, and family. There is a pronounced long tail in blogging.

BlogHer is a great resource and online community of 5,400+ female bloggers with topics ranging from everything from business to cooking and politics. Before you start your own blog, you should read at least a dozen blogs over the next month to see how other people blog before you take the plunge. BlogHer also organizes conferences for women bloggers where you can meet and learn from top bloggers including Arianna Huffington, who reportedly makes $50,000 a month in advertising revenue from her blog.

Promote your blog just as you would market your company’s products. Successful blog marketing takes time and effort, but can de done on the cheap by writing meaningful comments on the postings of popular bloggers along with a link back to your blog in your comment or profile. Other blog readers will read your comments and if your comment attracts their attention they could follow your link back to your blog.

With the help of RSS (Really Simple Syndication), a feature supported by all the major blogging software, your readers can automatically be sent the content of your blog, without having to manually go to your site in their web browser. I am a big fan of the RSS Subscriber in the google toolbar.

Links are currency in the blogosphere. As with most things, building relationships is vital. Having relationships with other bloggers and having them write about you and linking can bring a treasure trove of notoriety and traffic to your blog.

The ultimate secret to success in blogging is not new. It’s actually over 250 years old. In the words of Ben Franklin, to succeed you must, “either write something worth the reading, or do something worth the writing.”
 
 

Additional Resources

www.socialmediaclub.org – My friend Howard Greenstein is organizing an “unconference” for people interested in blogging, podcasting and other social media.

www.technorati.com – Top blog search engine with link statistics.

www.thevirtualhandshake.com – Download a free copy of The Virtual Handshake, the first mass-market book on blogs and social software.

www.sethgodin.com – Great blog and resource on how to become “remarkable.”

www.whatsnextblog.com – B.L. Ochman’s blogs on business blogging.
www.redcouch.typepad.com/ – A-list blogger Robert Scoble has a best-selling book on blogging.