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Meeting and talking with Brian Clark of Copyblogger and Teaching Sells was one of the highlights of SOBCon 08 for me. Brian is one of the nicest dudes you could ever meet. He answers a question I had for him after he had just delivered his presentation: what was the most important take-away point from his presentation. He didn’t have just one, he had two (like I was gonna argue about it):

1. Attention by itself is worthless if it can’t be transformed into authority in a real business
2. Build an asset, not a job–in other words, don’t build a blog, build a media property

I don’t think I’m exaggerating at all when I said that this is the most important blogging strategy you will ever hear. If you’re new to blogging, it may not even make any sense, but the more I dwell on it, the more nuances of what this really means become apparent to me.

What may be hard to take is that it’s not really about blogging at all. A blog is a tool. Just one tool, at that. That notion isn’t hypocritical or sacrilegious to me at all. I mostly write about business blogging, where the blog is a tool designed to further the goals of the business.

If you really want to understand what Brian’s talking about, check out Teaching Sells. Teaching Sells is the only program of its kind I have ever suggested to my readers that they sign up for. Teaching Sells teaches you how to do these very things that Brian talks about in the video: transform authority into a business and build a media property asset instead of a job. I have been a member of Teaching Sells since it first began, and the experience has been transformational.

Teaching Sells introduces you to strategies, methods, and an arsenal of other tools you can use to build an asset, instead of slaving away at your blog, one hand clapping into infinity. If you’re curious about what Teaching Sells is all about, and you want to learn more, head on over and check it out or download the free report.

Wendy is giving a very heartfelt speech about how she got where she is going from eMoms at home to the new Sparkplugging.

The hardest thing to do give up control in order to grow and scale up.

Getting outside your comfort zone is not pretty but it’s really critical.

Transparency, authenticity, and passion only matter to people because of what’s in it for them. Otherwise, you’re just splatting onto the screen.

In order for her blog to grow, she had to grow with with it, and it was really challenging and scary.

Every day, she would be faced with the internal question of “Who are you to do this? No! Who are you NOT to!”

You’re getting through chapters of a book, but the book never ends.

You only have so much time, you can’t give more time. But you can give more of your SELF.

How to get comments on your blog:

Don’t write for your 8th grade teacher she’s not reading your blog.

You never give a complete top ten list (put 7, the audience will think of the other 3).

Blog your experience.

Most important sentence in a blog post is the last one: ask a question (and know your own answer).

Liz made several more great points as well, but I didn’t have a chance to capture them while I was taking pictures. Anyone else care to add some of the other items she mentioned?

• Speak/Write the Process
• Determine Outcome of every step
• Set the Sequence
• do the Process
• Refine the Process
• Rinse, Repeat

Flowcharting tools:

flowchart.com
simpleflowchart.com
gliffy.com

Your Major Marketing Channels

Your customers
Your List
Your Identity (offline, online, speaking, podcasts)
Your Successes
Internet
Offline

What Are They Saying…

About You
About your company
About your service

Your audience will educate you with feedback – positive or negative will teach you.

Repeat yourself, reiterate, people learn through repetition.

It’s difficult to be brief, do your best, put real thoughts out there, pose questions.

A really good question is often better than a good statement

Generating Content

Keep notes
Mind maps are useful

Business Process

You can get content out of how you do what you do — that’s a story
Source “Bits” > Put Bits Together > Deliver Stuff > Happy Customer

Managing the Editorial

Use an editorial calendar

Invent ideas, wherever you are

Break out your creativity – deliberately engage in activities to stretch and strengthen your creativity

Panic Posts

Post that are nearly complete but not published, in draft status ready to be published.

You’re only as good as your last post.

Source people before you need them so when something breaks or there’s a problem, you will know who to turn to.

How to do a 5-minute Post
Start with the end point: the point of this post is…

Questions to ask

Who for?
What?
So what?

Rubber Ducking

Use a rubber duck as an imaginary listener to clarify your thoughts about a post (fun idea!)

Recommends ScribeFire as a blogging tool for multiple blogs