Christine Buske.com

A little while ago I wrote an article on Self Promotion, but basically promotion yourself in our modern world stands equal with promoting a blog. Blogs are used by everyone, from stay-at-home-moms to top CEOs. Obviously, with milions of blogs out there, one must be pretty decent at promoting it to get a decent readership.

A first step to promoting a blog is actually writing something worth reading. It’s easier said than done, but once you become a “recognized expert” in your own little cozy niche, you can count on developing a solid blog subscriber base.

Moving on to our next strategy is linking. Yes, be generous and be rewarded is the universal blogging rule. You link to someone, and by sending a backtrack they will (usually) link back to you. Some bloggers disable the trackback function, and I’m sure they have their reasons, even though the web can only be a true web if people link to other people. Blogging makes exactly this so tremendously easy and convenient. This is not a guarantee for page ranking though. Recently “no follow” has stopped bloggers from “spreading the love” as they have in the past.

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When I saw smarter writing on a “store brand” bottle of kitchen cleaner and noticed the bottle design was anything but “generic” it hit me: generics don’t work anymore!

Being, or looking generic in the way you present your business will not work any better than it does for products. I think of it this way: people don’t want to welcome guests to a home where the liquid soap in the powder room comes in a hideous white bottle with large neon green letters spelling out CHEAP-BRAND splashed on the surface.

People don’t want to appear “common”, but many businesses still do. While individuals spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on exclusive and designer wedding invitations, the average small business or entrepreneur does not want to part with any of his marketing dollars to make the message unique, and make the business stand out in an often saturated market. Brainstorming on Market Positioning is an important first step towards a successful marketing campaign.

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What sets apart a person who comes up with great ideas, seemingly effortlessly, from a person who breaks his head and just cannot seem to be struck by any ideas? Who knows how many factors are involved, creativity for one, but there is a factor you can control.

Instead of sitting down and trying to ‘force’ good ideas to flow out of you, rather concentrate on grabbing onto great business ideas when they do strike. Ever thought of something only to forget it before you could write it down? It’s perhaps a more common problem for writers than in general business, as our ideas usually do not just revolve around concepts but are rather more specific formulations. Nevertheless, a successful business person always carries around a small notebook and pen.

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I cannot stress enough how important it is to be organized in business. I cut the time it takes to take care of my marketing strategies in half by implementing a system that works for me.

I’ve helped a lot of real estate agents formulate effective direct mail campaigns. Real estate agents are a great example of professionals who deal with a great number of clients at the same time. Keeping their records straight and organized can make of break a (direct mail) marketing campaign. Recently I came across great Real Estate Software. While it was developed with real estate agents in mind, I personally believe more professionals can put it to good use in their business.

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A new site for freelance writers is on the radar. The aim of the site is to bring all relevant resources for writers together in one place. This includes tools, books, news, freelance markets and of course… freelance writing job listings!

This site is so fresh it literally started out today and there is already a list of Freelance Writing Jobs posted.

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On occasion I agree to coach a fellow writer and nudge them into the right direction, whether writing a novel or trying to break into the freelance market. The most common question is the obvious “where do I start?”. I’m going to state the obvious here, but the best starting point is really a blog. Don’t just start a blog that describes every minute of your mildly interesting existence, but rather a blog covering a topic in a niche you, as a writer, want to break into.

Two reasons:

1: Exposure, you make a name for yourself.

2: Clips, your chances are slim to none to get an assignment without writing samples.

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I’m always a sucker for new money advice resouces. A new find is The Thrifty Scot, a UK based site with information on how to save money with credit cards, secured loans, mortgages, savings accounts and home insurance. Their home page states they are the “The no nonsense, plain speaking-money saving advice site”. The site is obviously still growing but it will be interesting to see where it goes. Each section has several articles related to common questions, such as “cut the cost of existing loans”. The site also publishes the latest financial news, although the news seems to be mostly focused on the UK market.

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When building a business operating costs can become a serious headache, especially when your profits are still a little unstable. Being creative about cutting costs can make a huge difference at the end of the fiscal year. My personal strategy is to look at services that are offered elsewhere for less. As such I don’t have an office fax or phone, but instead I use internet faxing.

As most of my clients are far away, I rarely use my business line to make long distance phone calls. Instead I save overhead by using prepaid calling card service. Pingo offers a great service and allows you to keep track of all your spending.

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As Anthony Davis says in his “E-tip No. 67 Why do everything yourself?” , really…. Why do you do everything yourself? In many small businesses there is simply a cash flow problem, but even in large corporations there are trends where some members of a team pick up all the responsibility for a job and are the first to be home with serious burn-out.

Remember when you were in college and you were assigned to do a project with five other students? Didn’t only two or maybe even three of you do all the work while the rest sat back and enjoyed the good grade you received? All too often it is the same in business, but not always are unproductive employees called on it. After all, we think we can do it faster/better/different anyways, so why bother asking someone repeatedly to do something? You should ask because you want to stay sane, and if you are running around doing other people’s job you cannot do it faster/better/different.

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Regardless of what you do for a living, whether you are a writer, a scientist or a lawyer, it is not enough to be great at what you do. You also have to be great at marketing,… yourself! That is perhaps the most challenging part once you have acquired the skills you need to actually do your job. There are great professionals who are underpaid because they are not landing the “big jobs” (whether full time or freelance). They may not have any networking skills, or not know how to start networking. They may not be good at “self promotion” when they do network. Whatever the case, in today’s day and age we all need to be excellent marketers before we even get a job.

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