Building Your Blogging Skill Set (outsourcing isn’t everything)

August 14, 2010 By 22 Comments

(Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes)

You’re a publisher. Did you know that? Likely, you’re also a product developer, a marketer, a promoter (is there a difference?), a writer, an editor, a technical genius (compared to your mother-in-law at least), and a social media maven. You can sling some HTML and CSS, and on a good day, maybe even a little PHP.

You probably wear a large number of other hats, as necessary.

Such is blogging.

Now, scaling up to the Big Time requires outsourcing as much work of this work as you possibly can.

But you’re probably not in the Big Time, yet.

(Note to Big Timers lurking around here keeping an eye on the competition upcoming talent: I know you’re out there. I have evidence! No, I’m not digging around in server logs for IP addresses (snore), but all the same, I know you’re out there. And for you little timers (includes me), don’t assume you do or do not know who’s lurking.)

On your way to Fortune and Glory, you’re going to learn far more – about far more – than you ever expected. Which is probably a good thing. The not expecting part, that is. Who knew this was so much work?

Consider Darren Rowse. He’s been at blogging for years. Daily, for years. In all other fields, this is normal: it requires a lot of experience to be successful. Darren recommends bloggers personally acquire as much of the experience as they can, by building specific skill sets.

Take product launches for example, where Darren tells you the story behind product launches:

You know sometimes we hear about these six and seven figure launches and think there’s no way we could ever do that, but the reality is that you can but, but you need to look it at as a journey, and there’s a whole heap of things that you can do every day to take you a little bit closer to some of these bigger launches that you might want to do one day.

One of the (many) things in the “heap of things that you can do every day” is building your skill set.

It turns out…

…all launches are hard work.

Even a crappy launch that doesn’t go anywhere requires a metric boatload of work.

Take your email list for example.

You already know you need a mailing list. But you might need another for your affiliates. And yet a third for customers! How fast can you set up an effective mailing list? An hour? A day? A week? What does “effective” mean, anyway? In short, getting a mailing list done right requires at least the following:

  1. Logging in and setting up the initial list.
  2. Creating the necessary list support web pages (3 for Aweber).
  3. Writing the first autoresponder sequence (3-5 emails).
  4. Building and emplacing the signup forms.
  5. Testing. Testing testing testing. Then more testing.

How fast can you do all that work? Do you feel comfortable outsourcing it all? How much would you be willing to pay? How would you know if it’s done right?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m a huge fan of outsourcing. I’ve outsourced 6 figures worth of work in the past (and hope to in the future). But as Darren notes, until you can outsource, don’t be afraid of putting in the work to learn the skills for yourself.

Your turn

What skillsets are you building, right now?

Why did you choose these particular skills to build?

If you’re a VA or a similar specialist in fields related to blogging, please share your experience. I believe well-educated customers are the best customers (on average), and this a great opportunity to help people understand your service and the benefits your service provides.

Filed Under: Blogging business Tagged With: , , , , ,

Aweber Promotion and Cool Email Trick

March 17, 2010 By 16 Comments

(Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes)

Ok, this is a pure-dee sales letter promoting AWeber, but you’ll learn something and I have an ulterior motive which benefits us both.

Here’s a quick summary:

  • First, I’m going to show you a really cool email trick.
  • Then I’m putting out my offer.
  • Finally, I’ll explain a bit about my ulterior motive, and how that benefits the first three people jumping on my offer before Midnight Pacific Daylight time Thursday March 18, 2010.

Let’s get going!

Very cool email trick

This little trick has saved me loads of time in the past, and it’s so cool I send it out on my Insider newsletter. Since it’s now making the rounds in Blogistan, you might as well see it here.

It turns out that when you put a plus (“+”) sign at the end of your name in your email address, it will get delivered just the same. For example: yourname+wiaw@example.com gets delivered to yourname@example.com.

Yeah, big deal, right?

The trick comes when you’re testing your own autoresponders, because AWeber indexes both yourname+wiaw@example.com and yourname@example.com as different email addresses.

This will save you great gobs of time compared to coordinating emails forwarded from different domains, or handling multiple accounts in an email client such as Thunderbird. I know, I’ve done it both ways in the past.

Now, I just use this trick and route everything into my Gmail account.

Easy peasy.

You should try this out for yourself with your own email account. Or send me an email (put “Email trick” in the subject), and I’ll reply with yourname+wiaw@youremailaddress.com. Seriously, go test it out. You can read the rest of this sales letter afterwards. Taking action now is a hallmark of success.

Now the offer…

You have already decided on AWeber

I’m looking for exactly 3 people who already know they are going with AWeber, but haven’t yet pulled the trigger.

You know who you are.

You’ve read about AWeber on John Chow, on Shoemoney, on a bazillion other blogs, but you haven’t committed.

You are NOT worried about spending a few dollars to make even more dollars, cost is a non-issue.

But…

You aren’t familiar with the technology, and you are (rightly) concerned about your time.

Excellent! You are exactly who I am looking for.

Here’s my offer.

I will help the first three (3!) people using my AWeber affiliate link to purchase autoresponder services before Midnight Pacific Daylight time Thursday March 18, 2010 to:

  1. Set up two required pages on your blog for directing AWeber subscription traffic. (I’ll be rewriting mine at the same time, you’ll get a peek into my thought process.)
  2. Create a 3 email autoresponder series. (I need to redo mine for Website In A Weekend too.)
  3. Set up email test accounts, necessary for rapid testing. (Per cool email trick.)
  4. Create a list just for testing, which I will subscribe to… and help you test.
  5. Record a screencast or two if necessary. (You’ll get a link and a shoutout on Youtube.)
  6. You’ll get a copy of the Whitepaper when it’s done (my ulterior motive).

However, I do need a commitment from you: you have to be willing to put in the necessary time to get this handled. It’s going to be at least 2, maybe 3 hours, and you need to have that as one unbroken chunk of time.

Spreading it out over several days won’t lock in the knowledge you need. It will waste my time and yours. I’m looking for just three (3) people who want to get this AWeber business handled right now.

If you want to sign up anyway and not worry about getting some starter help, that’s cool too. But helping you succeed helps me succeed, so I’m game if you’re game.

Wait wait… here’s an update… I’m just went through my task list: I need to run 2 new campaigns very soon, and give the Weekenders a gentle prod (translation: give away stuff). Heather is already in (see comment #13), she’ll be watching over my shoulder. She will see what works, what doesn’t work, as it’s happening. Specifically, I’ll be adding her to my collaborative spreadsheet, where I’ll help her plan her first set of emails. I’ll add you too.

Did I mention an ulterior motive?

Ulterior motive

I have at least a Whitepaper worth of AWeber material that I have never seen collected in one place. I’d like to get this into your hands.

But these Whitepapers are nitpicky and tedious for me to write. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing them. But it does take some time to ensure it’s both accurate and precise. That is, useful for you.

The first three people signing on get to leverage my drive for accuracy. I can set up an AWeber autoresponder in minutes, a result of practice spread over years. My next goal is distilling what I know into something you can use to set up an autoresponder in minutes. As I help you, I’ll be distilling my knowledge into useful notes for you to use later.

Let’s recap: We’re going to 1. set up required pages on your blog, 2. start your first autoresponder sequence, 3. create email accounts just for testing, 4. create a test list, 5. write up a Whitepaper, and probably 6. a screencast or two. What a deal!

Who’s in?

Filed Under: Building Traffic Tagged With: , ,
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