21 Classic Principles That Lead to Success

The beginning of a new year is a time when people resolve to improve their personal relationships, to achieve success in their business careers and to enhance the quality of their personal lives. Lofty goals all, but not easy to achieve.

A good place to start is to follow some proven principles that have been around for over 70 years. In his landmark book "How to Win Friends and Influence People," Dale Carnegie (@dalecarnegie) detailed 21 common sense principles that have stood the test of time. Over 15 million copies of the classic publication have been sold since it first appeared in 1937.

Nearly 25 years ago I attended the Carnegie Course in Effective Speaking and Human Relations and then returned as a volunteer graduate assistant.  I can personally attest that the principles outlined in that course changed me dramatically and still form the core of my personal and professional life.

I can't think of a better way to start the year than to review those principles with you.

1. Don't criticize, condemn or complain

2. Give honest, sincere appreciation

3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

4. Become genuinely interested in other people.

5. Smile

6. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language

7. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves

8. Talk in terms of the other person's interests

9. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely

10. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it

11. Show respect for the other person's opinion. Never say, "you're wrong."

12. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically

13. Begin in a friendly way

14. Get the other person saying "yes, yes," immediately

15. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking

16. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers

17. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.

18. Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires

19. Appeal to the nobler motives

20. Dramatize your ideas

21. Throw down a challenge.

What do you think? Do they make sense to you? Can they help you to achieve your goals?

5 Resolutions for You and Your Business

It's that time of year. Everyone feels the need to start anew and begins penning resolutions for the New Year.

So I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon with a simple list of five suggestions that don't involve the words exercise or diet.

1. Create your own economy. We've all been inundated with talks about the sputtering economy and imminent dangers of the looming fiscal cliff. Do yourself a favor and don't be distracted by the noise. You are in command of your own economy. Yes, overall things don't look good, but an individual can make an impact for him or herself in any economic environment. The worst think you can do is give in to the gloom. find new domain As Henry Ford once said, "Whether you think you can or you can't, you are usually right."
2. Improve your skill set. If you are not moving forward, growing and learning, you are falling behind. This is a good time to commit to honing your skills. Take an online course. Read a good book in your area of interest. Attend a seminar or log in to a webinar. Go to a workshop. Anthony D'Angelo, Chief Visionary Officer of Collegiate Empowerment has said, "Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow."
3. Break out of your comfort zone. One of my favorite quotes on breaking out and committing comes from Goethe. "Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. The moment that one definitely commits oneself then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred." Time to go for it.
4. Anticipate your customers' needs. Yes we need to listen to customers and have them tell us what they want. But the most successful businesses have been able to figure out what their customers need. The list of successful products and services that consumers didn't even know they wanted but now can't live without is long and storied. The iPhone. FedX overnight express. Email. No one was asking for those, but once they became available, they quickly became indispensable. Find out what your customers need and give it to them.
5. Join the conversation. The world is buzzing with two way conversations. If you don't join in, you'll be left behind. Twitter and Linked-in are becoming essential business tools. Blogs are valuable vehicles to share your thoughts and ideas. And it won't end there. Before the new year is over, there'll be new ways to facilitate the critical back and forth communication between customers and providers. Stay up to date. It's not an option if you want to make it in the increasingly wired world.

What are your resolutions for the new year? How are you going to improve yourself?

10 Keys To A Boring, Unread White Paper

Have you read a White Paper lately? Did you get all the way through it?

Of course you didn’t. It was boring right? They’re supposed to be that way, aren’t they?

So to make sure you follow the crowd and make your White Paper just as dull as everyone else’s, here are the 10 surefire things you need to

1. Craft a Deadly Title – Nothing will compel someone to toss your White Paper into the trash faster than a title like: “Analyzing Best-in-Class Practices for Benchmarking Key Marginalization of Widget Effectiveness.”
2. Make it a Sales Pitch – Your customers don’t want to be educated or informed. They want to be sold!
3. Lighten Up on the Research – Don’t spend your valuable time poring over multiple industry sources to provide a well-balanced view. One or two quick resources should be enough to make your White Paper shallow enough.
4. Go Long – Pack your document with lots of words. Go on and on. find new domain . 40 or 50 pages should be enough to put the most tenacious reader into a slumber. This is also a good way to make it tough to read on a computer screen or mobile device.
5. Present Just the Facts – Drown the White Paper with dry facts. Don’t try to tell a story that may illuminate the issue at hand and provide more relevance.
6. Use Jargon – Nothing will make your document more lifeless than the liberal use of industry jargon and acronyms.  Don’t try to explain or define those terms. Everyone should know what they mean, right?
7. Employ Dull Writing – You want to strive for long, academic sounding sentences that drone on and on. Use passive verbs and a pedantic voice. You don’t want short, action packed sentences that would liven up your White Paper.
8. Make it Deadly Serious – Don’t try to inject any humor or a lighter tone anywhere in the document. That might make it easier to read and get some of your points across more clearly. Strive for the somber touch.
9. Don’t Provide Specifics – Make sure your White Paper offers generic advice. Don’t give your audience specific ideas that they can action immediately.
10. Cram It All In- Stuff all your information into paragraphs of deadly prose. Don’t break it up with interesting sidebars of key points or visually pleasing graphs and charts that support the

So how have your White Papers been received? Have they been effective? Can they be improved?

The 8 P’s of a Powerful Case Study

At a recent workshop I attended, J. T. O'Donnell (@jtodonnell) founder of Careerealism.com, noted that most customers are looking for aspirin, not vitamins. In other words, they are in pain and want relief.

The best way of showing rather than telling your prospect how you can eliminate that aching is through a well-crafted Case Study.

Here are the eight P’s to guide you in developing a Case Study that delivers.

Problem – What was the problem your client faced? The situation must be specific enough to be understood but generic enough to be relevant to your target audience.

Plan – How did you approach solving the problem? This should show the depth of thinking in your organization, the effectiveness of your product or service as well as your creative problem solving ability.

Product – What was the outcome of implementing your plan? This should clearly contrast the “before and after” of your involvement.

Profit – What was the tangible result of executing your program? This is the most important point of the Case Study. This needs to show in hard metrics the results of using your solution – increased profit, reduced costs, improved time to market, enhanced customer satisfaction. Pick the appropriate category and attach an empirical data point to it.

Plain – Use clear, concise language. Avoid industry jargon and buzzwords. Your Case Study should highlight your product or service, your process and your strategic thinking ability and should be written in a compelling and understandable style.

Pictures – Add artwork. Regardless of how you plan to use the Case Study, an appropriate photo or illustration will dramatically enhance the look of your piece.

Promote – Get an executive in the company to provide a quote. If your solution was as effective as you claim, someone senior in the organization should be willing to go on the record to corroborate its value.  This will help shift the piece from one of self-promotion to one of credible problem-solving example.

Publish – Now that you have your Case Study, you should publish it widely. You will have to rework your copy for length and style depending on the venue, but the core case – problem/plan/profit - remains intact. Plan to broadcast your Case Study in a variety of vehicles including standalone handout, blog post, brochure, power point presentation, press release or news article.

Have you used Case Studies to attract new clients? Have they been successful?

Content is Still King: 5 SEO Experts Speak

In 1992, James Carville, a key advisor to presidential candidate Bill Clinton, came up with a memorable slogan for the campaign: It’s the economy, stupid. As the battle rages over how best to incorporate Search Engine Optimization (SEO) into website copywriting, more and more SEO experts are returning to a basic idea that can be similarly summed up: It’s the content, stupid.

The “stupid,” is probably harsh, but there is no doubt that the SEO discussion is shifting from a focus on “technology” to an emphasis on “content.”

Here is what five SEO experts have to say on the subject.

Paul Boag (@boagworld) co-founder of Headscape from his Smashing Magazine article,  “The Inconvenient Truth about SEO.”

- “We shouldn’t be optimizing for search engines at all. We should be optimizing content for people.”

- “Your primary objective should be better content, not higher rankings.”

- “In short, write useful content.”

He suggests you do this through white papers, blogs, research findings, case studies, user generated content and interviews among other things.

Gisele Navarro Mendez (@giselenmendez), Upstream Connections’ Social Community Manager in her In Social We Trust post  “The SEO Way of Thinking Needs to Go.”

- “Instead of building links, try building relationships.”

- “People don’t care about SERPs or the way Google works. They will click on the links they want, but if you have failed at delivering good content /products /services /support, they will leave your site and never look back.”

- “People will find your site if there’s a network of happy customers supporting your business.”

Jonathan Gebauer (@jobebauer), founder Explore B2B in B2B’s article, “Debunking SEO: Jonathan Gebauer.”

- “Good SEO is natural SEO.”

- “Provide strong, engaging content that people are interested to read.”

- “Focus on being an entertaining and reliable content provider.”

Lisa Barone (@LisaBarone), VP of Strategy at Overit in B2B’s article  “Debunking SEO: Lisa Barone”

- “Shift away from creating ‘unique content’ to ‘purposeful content.”

- “Content has always had the crown, but now it’s got the respect to go with it.”

- “Focus on the right party – customers, not the search engines.”

Melissa Fach (@SEOAware), CEO of SEO Aware and Managing Editor of Search Engine Journal in B2B’s article “Debunking SEO: Melissa Fach.”

“You cannot be successful without content and SEO combined. I know there are those that get a site at the top of page one with crappy content, but they have nothing in place for conversion and/or maintaining a solid audience. So even if you get to #1, without the right content, you fail anyway.”

What do you think? Technology or Content? How best to reach your prospect base?

7 Traits of a Valuable Freelance Copywriter

You’ve decided to hire a freelance copywriter. There are many reasons you’ve come to that decision:

• Your internal staff is swamped.

• You lack an in-house resource with experience on the topic.

• You're simply looking for a fresh voice and perspective.

What should you consider as you seek the person that is going to solve your problem quickly and effectively?

Here are seven key traits to look for as you conduct your search:

1. Writing Skill – This one seems obvious but you’d be surprised at the wide variety of writing skills that are out there. The person you hire needs to deliver compelling, consistent, and coherent copy that hits the mark with limited intervention from you.

2. Reliability and Dependability – Woody Allen once said that 80% of success is showing up.  No matter how good your writer is, if the copy isn't delivered on time, it's not going to be worth much to you. The person you hire will be a crucial member of your team. You have to be able to rely on him or her to be there when needed.

3. Flexibility – Your writer needs to be able to roll with the punches that inevitably come in the dynamic day to day business environment. That could take the form of last minute scheduling changes or requests for edits in the copy. You have enough problems without fighting your writer on changes you want to make or on deadlines that may shift.

4. Versatility – You likely have various writing needs ranging from editorial to technical to promotional. One writer may not have the background or experience to handle all of your requirements, but the more projects one writer can handle the easier your life will be. Once you develop a solid relationship, you'll be much more productive using that writer for as many of your needs as possible.

5. Strategic Thinking – You should be looking for more than a writer. You need someone with a broad business background who can understand the underlying issues you face and can offer ideas on how best to address them in your copy. You want someone with whom you can discuss ideas and concepts and who can help you develop the appropriate strategy to achieve the goals of each piece.

6. Natural Curiosity – Your writer should be genuinely interested in learning more about your business, product, and the project at hand without having to be led every step of the way. This trait becomes even more crucial if the project requires research or interviewing of an SME.

7. The Ability to Get “It” – You want a writer who is a quick study, knows who the target audience is, understands the goal for each piece, and delivers copy in the style and tone you require. And someone who can get it to you quickly without much hand holding on your part.

Do the copywriters you've been using match up?  What traits do you value most?