ProBlogger: Better Questions Than “Do I Need a Mentor?” and “How do I get one?”

A Guest post by Josh Hanagarne – World's Strongest Librarian

In my Problogger post about how to land big interviews when your blog
is small, I mentioned that I had a mentor. A lot of commenters asked
me about that process and if I could write more about it. Send your
thanks to Darren if you enjoy the post.

How to find a mentor is the easy part. First we need to talk about why.

Ask yourself this question:

Do I need a mentor?

The answer is yes—ta da!

Sorry, wrong question. If you didn't think you needed a mentor, you
wouldn't be reading Problogger. No offense to Darren, but Problogger
is a how-to, nuts and bolts blog—written by a mentor and businessman.

If you're here for pleasure reading or entertainment, you're really
not here to be mentored and could probably use some other outlets.

Here are some useful questions behind the question:

Do I already know everything?
Am I teachable?
What teaching methods do I respond to best?
What are my goals?
Can a mentor realistically help me reach these goals?
How quickly do I want (or need) to reach my goals?
Am I just lonely? (This happens more than you might think)
Am I looking for a coach, or am I just hoping that this will be less
work for me?

Take some time to answer these questions. Don't waste anyone's time by
approaching him or her before you've done some thinking.

Two types of mentors: which would you prefer?

Kill Bill

There's what I think of as the Kill Bill style mentor: the master
martial artist who strokes his beard and laughs while beating you into
submission. A drill sergeant who teaches through "tough love" and
cruel tutelage and says things like, "Before me, your strength is that
of the earthworm compared to the eagle, yes?"

There's nothing wrong with this approach: but be honest—is that what
you will respond to? Are you a person who wants to learn with a foot
on your neck and a militant "Or else" teaching style?

Problogger Style

How often does Darren Rowse step on your neck or make you scream in
pain? It hasn't happened to me yet, but I'm safe in the United States.
Darren encourages, coaches, and gently pulls us along, but you may
choose to fail if you wish.

He answers questions, presents information, and how we use it is on
us. The vast majority of Darren's writing is backed up by empirical
evidence, case studies, et cetera…in other words, it makes sense to do
what he says, but he doesn't have the time or the kung fu grip to
force us. (I think).

Know your own skills

Here are some things I could mentor you on

Exercising with kettlebells
Getting 150 RSS subscribers in 3 weeks
Writing a novel and getting rejected by publishers until the end of days
Writing guest posts for Problogger
Shopping for pants when you're 6'8": hint, move somewhere warm and buy
more shorts
Fingerstyle guitar
Coping with an extreme case of Tourette's Syndrome

Here's the point: now that you know my skills, you can ask yourself
the right question—it's not "Do I need a mentor?" The answer is yes.

Rather, ask yourself: do I need this person as a mentor? Are my goals
more achievable with this person than on my own?

Some qualities to look for in your mentor:

Humility: they admit mistakes
Imperfection: they've made mistakes so you don't have to
Knowledge: they must know things that you want to know and may not be
able to learn on your own
Patience: they have to be willing to answer questions. Lots of them.
If someone enters into a formal mentoring relationship with you, don't
hang around for too long if it turns out they don't have the time or
temperament to spend time teaching you.

Some qualities you must have as the mentored:

Humility: you don't know everything. Ask questions, but don't second
guess until you must.
Direction: don't ask someone to help you reach a destination that you
can't describe. No, "I'll recognize success when I see it, just help
me get there." Have a plan. If it's the wrong plan for what you want,
a good mentor will tell you.
Work ethic: don't ask for help, receive direction, and discard the
advice. Be patient and try what they say.
Realism: mentors aren't miracle workers. Don't expect perfection.
Mentors are usually people who have gone through enough failures to
recognize a losing hand quickly enough to fold.

But why would a mentor agree to help me?

I currently have two official mentors. One (no name—he'd be
embarrassed to know I was calling him an official "mentor") is my
blogging compadre who helps me build traffic, polish my content, and
market myself.

The other is a professional strongman, "Unbreakable" Adam T. Glass.
He's helping me get stronger. That's it, because those are my goals
right now: blogging and strength.

But when I asked them what they get out of our relationship, both said
honestly, "Part of it is because it's fun to help others. And part of
it is hoping that when you get famous that our names will always be
linked." In other words, we may each be more successful later than
either of us may be alone.

That's the beauty of the Internet. Reciprocity is king. It's easy to
do favors. It's simple to give someone a boost. Show someone who's
already successful what you can do for them. Chances are, they won't
say, "Oh, I'm already successful enough. Pass."

And if they pass, so what? Life goes on. Find someone else.

How to find a mentor

And now, the moment you've been waiting for: how to find a mentor:

Find someone who has done what you want to do and ask them if they
will mentor you. That's all.

As Darth Vader said to young Luke Skywalker when he threw open the
paternity test curtain, "Search your feelings…you know it to be true."

It is that simple: ask. Dumb luck may play a part, but mostly it's
just asking being willing to ask. Same thing with landing interviews.
Same thing with asking for that date.

Same thing about being happy—fulfillment of dreams comes from action.
Nobody owes us a favor and nobody is going to show up in tears begging
to help us with our goals.

That doesn't mean they aren't willing. It just means they don't know
what we want.

But where do you find people like that? If you've read any of Darren's
writing, you know where: Problogger, Technorati, trade shows,
magazines, social networking groups, Twitter…good grief, there are
even more ways than I thought there were.

Make a list of choices and go find someone. Tell them how you can help
each other. Do it today. The sun will set either way. You can wake up
tomorrow with a mentor lined up, or regretting that another day went
by without action.

It won't make any difference to the person who hasn't heard of you yet.

Josh Hanagarne writes World's Strongest Librarian, a blog to help you
get stronger, get smarter, and live better…every day. For bonus
articles, videos, and original music, please subscribe to the
Stronger, Smarter, Better Newsletter. If you know someone with
Tourette's Syndrome, please let them know about the blog. They need to
know that someone out there "gets it."

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger: Get 30% off the Ninja Affiliate Plugin for WordPress - Limited Time Offer

Get 30% off the Ninja Affiliate Plugin for WordPress - Limited Time Offer

The following is a ProBloggerDeal - exclusively for readers of this
blog. For notification on Twitter of other deals, discounts and
competitions for bloggers follow @ProBloggerDeals.

A few mont Ninja Affiliate Plugin for WordPress. The promotion was so
popular and I've had so much positive feedback from readers about the
plugin that I asked MaxBlogPress if we could run it again.

This time they've set it up so ProBloger readers can get the $30
discount (around 30% off) until 3rd July.

The best way to learn about what the plugin does is to visit the sales
page and view the videos there which outline its features.

Effectively it's a tool that manages all of the affiliate links on
your blog from one central location. Here's a list of features:

Easy Affiliate Link Management - You can easily give each affiliate
link an easy-to-remember name.
Flexible Link Management - Accepts every affiliate link format out
there, so you don't have to waste time with various affiliate
marketing tools..
Create Professional Redirect Links - Use professional looking redirect
links that let your prospects know you're a pro marketer..
Manage Links by Groups - Too many affiliate links? Ninja Affiliate
allows you to easily create different groups to manage your links..
Prevent "Affiliate Theft" - Cloak your affiliate links to prevent link
theft and affiliate sabotage. No one will ever steal your hard-earned
commissions again..
Insert Affiliate Links Directly - Add your affiliate links directly
for your Wordpress blog editor - you'll never have to hunt for links
again..
Transform Keywords to Links - Automatically turn keywords in your blog
to affiliate links. You can set a limit too, so your posts don't look
like a spam blog!
Advanced Display Options - Ninja Affiliate allows you to display any
text you want in your web browser's status bar..
Use "No-Follow" Links - Control your link juice and escape punishment
from Big Daddy Google with ninja precision. In fact, you can control
your links any way you want to.

All in all - if you're doing affiliate marketing on your blog this is
a plugin you'll want to consider investing into.

This has been a ProBloggerDeal - for notification on Twitter of other
deals, discounts and competitions for bloggers follow
@ProBloggerDeals.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger: Aweber Introduces More Sophisticated Timing Options to Autoresponder Messages

One of the tools that has become central in my own blogging is Aweber.
I won't rehash all of the reasons that I use Aweber but essentially
it's a tool that enables you to allow readers of your blog subscribe
to it via email. I use it mainly as a tool to deliver weekly
newsletters on my photography blog (I outline some of the benefits of
newsletters for blogs here).

Aweber allows you to deliver three kinds of email updates to readers:

1. Broadcasts - this is the tool I use to deliver my newsletters. They
require you to manually write up a newsletter and then select a time
for it to be delivered.

2. Blog Broadcasts - I don't use this but it's a handy tool for
allowing you to send automated emails to subscribers based upon your
latest posts. Essentially it takes your RSS feed and turns it into
email. You can set it to go off automatically at certain times of the
week or when a certain number of posts tick over.

3. Follow Up Messages - these are essentially autoresponders or
sequences of messages that you send out at predetermined intervals
after a subscriber signs up. This is what I used to deliver the
free/beta version of 31 Days to Build a Better blog. People signed up
and then I set up a sequence of 31 emails to go off every day after
they subscribed until they got to the end of the 31 days. I also use
this on my photography site to send out periodic special newsletters
(see this post on how these drive a lot of traffic to my blog).

A New Feature for Follow Up Messages

Over the weekend Aweber announced an update to their Follow Up message
service that makes it a heap more useful.

Previously with Follow Up messages you could only set them to go off
at daily intervals. You could choose to send emails at any interval
you had no control over the times that they went or over whether they
went on certain days of the week. That's now all changed.

Now you can set daily intervals but you can also set other conditions
including times and days of the week.

For example - you can choose that emails will be delivered between 9am
- 3pm but only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays. There are quite a
few ways that this can be handy. Aweber list a few examples:

Look at when subscribers are opening your emails and/or clicking your
links (the Opens over Time and Clicks Over Time reports will show you
this) and adjust your send windows so your messages stand out at the
top of the inbox during those times!
Run a weekend sale - schedule one of your follow ups to only send on
Friday mornings!
Are there certain days and/or times that you know are bad for your
subscribers? Use send windows to avoid sending during those
days/times!

Another one that I am loving is that when you send two types of emails
to readers (ie a weekly newsletter and some autoresponder messages)
you ideally don't want them to hit your subscribers inbox on the same
day of the week. Now I can make sure that the autoresponder messages
only go out on Monday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and leave Thursdays and
Fridays for the newsletters.
This extra feature won't be useful for those of you not using
auto-responders but for those that do it's a very handy feature from
Aweber.

from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Simple Changes Doubled My Adsense Revenue

New post on ProBlogger newsletters [19 Jun 2009]:

In this post Todd Fratzel from Home Construction Improvement and
Today's Green Construction shares how he doubled the AdSense revenue
on his blog with a few simple changes.

Several simple changes in my Adsense approach and layout have almost
doubled my blog's revenue. The results were so drastic and eye opening
that I convinced a friend (www.oneprojectcloser.com) to make the same
changes to his blog with even better results. The changes involve two
simple ideas that can be easily incorporated into any Adsense
monetized website or blog.

I've been blogging for over two years now and growing traffic,
authority and readership slow and steady. Along with the steady
increase in traffic the site has continued to increase it's Adsense
revenue at a similar pace with no sudden increases regardless of all
the changes and adjustments I've made. That was true until I took the
time to study many different published Adsense approaches. As I read
all of these different approaches three distinct ideas came to the
forefront.

Three Important Adsense Approaches

Less is More – This concept is really simple yet I hadn't really given
it much thought before. First off the top ad is the highest paying ad
and you want that in the best possible position.

Secondly, if you're using all three of the allotted Adsense units on a
given page then there are quite a few ads all competing for attention
or a click through. However, if you only use one Adsense unit then
you're limiting the number of ads served and improving the likelihood
that one of those ads will get clicked. Therefore, the theory is that
an advertiser will be willing to pay a higher rate for less
competition.

Size Matters – If you read enough Adsense guides you'll find that the
336 x 280 Large Rectangle is the most effective Adsense unit. It
typically offers four ads and they are likely to be very related to
the topic based on the position between the post title and body.
Position, Position, Position – Placing your Adsense unit above the
fold is imperative for success. This makes sense to me for one reason.
Every day my site (and I assume most sites) gets a majority of it's
traffic from search engines. This traffic is generated from people
searching for something. So when they land on my page and they decide
that it's not the content they were looking for then I want them to
see the Adsense unit right where they land so that becomes an
"outclick" option.

How I Doubled My Adsense Revenue

In order to understand the approach I used to double my Adsense
revenue I'll use two graphics that show the same post before the
changes and after the changes. First - the before shot:

And here's the after shot:

My Old Adsense Layout Included:

468 x 60 Text Only Unit located in the header area of my page.
468 x 60 Text Only Unit located between the post title and the body of the post.
468 x 60 Text Only Unit located at the end of the post before the
comment section.

Revised Adsense Layout Includes:

Remove the old 468 x 60 Text Only Unit completely and replaced with an
affiliate banner. The idea here is to remove some of the units in
order to address concept #1 of Less is More.
Replace the old 468 x 60 Text Only Unit with the 336 x 280 large
rectangle unit. This unit is above the fold between the post title and
body which makes it a very prominent position. This change addresses
both of concept #2 and #3 for Size Matters and Position.
Remove the old 468 x 60 Text Only Unit completely. I actually replaced
this with the new Chitika Jumbo unit which is also performing quite
well. Again the removal helps address the Less is More concept.

Immediate Results

If you look at the graph of my Adsense revenue over the last two
months you'll see that the increased revenue was immediate. The
changes were made as indicated by the Red Circle #1. As you can see my
revenue went from under $150 per week to almost $300 per week.
Immediate should be taken with a grain of salt, the increase happened
over several days and it's likely to take some time for Adsense to
incorporate the reduced number of ads being served on your site.

Summary Of Improved Adsense Layout

While I'd be naive to think that this will double any and all Adsense
revenue for any site I think the principal is worth evaluating on all
sites. The concept is really simple; make one large, well positioned
ad do all the work. This will make your page look cleaner and it's
likely to improve your revenue immediately. It's also important that
you follow some of the basic suggestions of blended ads that match the
color and fonts of your site. So far I've done this on two of my sites
and a friend's site with the same result, improved Adsense revenue.

Note from Darren: I think that the key with optimizing a blog for
AdSense (or other ad networks) is to experiment. The best thing that
Todd did here was to try something new and to track the results. What
he's done has worked for him but it might not work for everyone - the
key is to keep trying different combinations of numbers of ads, ad
sizes, ad positions, ad design (color, fonts etc) and to try different
ad types until you find what works best for your blog.

@Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

why PPC Bully is selling out fast

PPC Bully 2.0 just went live and is on pace
to sell out in record time mostly because

I mean, it's a PayPerClick marketer's Dream:

If you were trying to make money using
Adwords, wouldn't you want a tool that:

- Study other marketer's campaigns to see
FIRST HAND what's working (and what isn't)

- Helps you find HOT offers in super profitable
 niches you didn't even know existed

- Investigates day parting and add position

The best part is you get all of this information
BEFORE you launch your campaign, resulting in
you saving hundreds or thousands of dollars and
hours of research.

Keep in mind that they are only letting
the first 1,000 people get access to this.

So if you want to save time, money and
frustration and finally have a tool that
goes out and gets you the data you need
to launch a profitable Pay Per Click campaign
in 60 minutes or less, then get this now:

http://PPCBully.com-review.us

Thanks,

Mike Filsaime

ProBlogger: 13 Lessons (& Tips) Learned Launching an eBook

It's been 10 days since I excitedly launched the 31 Days to Build a
Better Blog workbook. When it launched I wasn't quite sure what to
expect but I was sure I'd learn a lot by doing it - I was right.

Today I thought I'd share a few of the lessons and tips that I've learned:

But first an Update - 31DBBB now has an affiliate program

If you're interested in promoting the workbook to your network and
making a 40% commission from it you can get more information and sign
up here. There's no pressure to be a part of this and if you'd rather
not then I totally understand - but I was asked so many times in the
lead up to launching this product whether there'd be an affiliate
program that I thought it'd be worth doing to see how it took off.

13 Lessons Learned from Launching an eBook

Now onto some of the lessons I've learned over the last 10 days:

1. It is Possible to Launch a Product that You've published the
majority of for free

This was the only real doubt about this project for me. Would people
buy something that I'd been blogging a lot of publicly?

The answer was yes - people were willing to pay for all the content to
be collected together, updated with some extra material and put into a
format that they could have forever and keep dipping into over time.

Ultimately people will buy something that is valuable to them - the
feedback I've been getting has been incredibly positive. People
reporting renewed energy for their blogging, that they're coming up
with create ideas to reinvent their blogs, that they're seeing
upswings in traffic, discovering new ways to engage readers and more.
It's no wonder sales have been so good and the feedback has been
remarkably positive - it comes down to producing something that is
useful.

2. Partnerships are Important

I've relied upon a few people to get this workbook up and running. The
team at SitePoint were particularly helpful and very generous with
offering to bundle this workbook with every copy sold of their new
book Online Marketing. By the way - this offer has only got 7 days yet
to run so if you wanted to get the bundle you need to do so soon. You
can place your order for the two books here.

3. Reese from Design by Reese rocks

Reese did a lot of the layout and despite some limitations that I put
on her that didn't release her to do what she'd normally do with an
ebook she did a great job. Thanks to Albert Hallado for helping me
with some of the affiliate banners/graphics.

4. Don't Launch on the Week of a Major US Public Holiday

While I waited a few days after Memorial Day to launch the workbook I
suspect things were a little slower sales wise as a result.

5. Email promotions out performed blog post promotions for affiliates

My initial findings in watching affiliates promote the workbook is
that those who have promoted it to their email lists seem to have
driven more sales than those who blogged about it.

Those who blogged about it seem to have driven more sales than those
who Tweeted about it. While I don't have enough information on how big
people's lists and readerships are the anecdotal info that I do have
is that email won the day for this product.

6. Facebook…. Not so Good

One of the promotions I ran for the workbook was on Facebook by
sending a message to all my 'fans' on my page there. As far as I can
tell that didn't really convert to more than a couple of sales.

Considering there were 14,500 people who received that message it
probably wasn't the most successful of promotions.

7. E-junkie is a solid performer

I've no doubt I'll write a more extensive review of e-junkie in the
coming weeks but I've been reasonably happy with my choice to use it
to deliver my product. While I'm sure there are other products
available with more features and flexibility - E-junkie is cheap yet
solid as a delivery system.

I've had one hour of downtime with them in the week which was
unfortunate but have not had any other problems apart from having a
bit of a learning curve to discover all of its features.

8. Building a Network Before You Need it

This has been my catch cry of late when talking to people about social
media. If you're launching a product and decide to get on LinkedIn,
Twitter, Facebook and start a blog a week before to help you launch
that product - you're too late.

I'm very grateful for the time that I've put into building my network
over the last 7 years because this week when I needed it it's
certainly paid off.

9. My Mortgage isn't Paid off Yet

Releasing this ebook has definitely been worthwhile on many fronts -
one of which is the financial reward. It's more than broken even
already - but it's not something that's paid off the mortgage by any
means.

The great thing about doing it is that it has added another income
stream to my business - one that should continue to tick over for
months and even years to come.

10. Selling a Product is a lot of Fun

I had a suspicion that it'd be a fun process - but I didn't realize
just how fun it'd be.

I'll admit that this week I've slept less than normal, particularly on
the first two nights when I launched (I did major pushes just after
midnight my time to coincide with the US waking up) and waited up to
see how it went - it is very exciting to see the first few hours of
sales of something you've worked hard to produce.

11. Pricing is Confusing

Setting a price on this workbook was one of the hardest parts of the
process. In coming up with the price of $19.95 I did a number of
things:

I surveyed a group of participants in the initial 31DBBB challenge. On
average they told me it was worth around $30…. or $1 a day of the
challenge
I asked a variety of internet marketer friends - their advice was to
charge closer to $50 (in fact the range was quite astounding - some
suggested closer to $100).
I asked a few readers of ProBlogger who hadn't done the 31DBBB course
and they all suggested around $15.

In the end I was just confused and decided $19.95 was fairer than some
of the higher rates (although a few of them think I'm crazy).

12. Be Confident

Some people are surprised when I tell them this - but I'm a shy guy.
In fact on Myers Briggs personality tests I always come up as one of
the most extreme introverts that you can get. While I like people I'm
usually pretty reserved and always wondering about how I'm coming
across. This transfers to how I interact online and many times my
natural instincts are to undersell myself and what I do.

Over the years I've learned to be more confident in my blogging (to a
point where some have critiqued me for having too big an ego) however
when I launched this product I found myself going back to some of my
old ways of going into my shell. Fortunately a couple of my blogging
buddies pulled me up on this pretty quickly and told me not to sell
myself short and to tweak what I was doing. As a result I tweaked a
few of the things on my sales page (thanks Brian at CopyBlogger for
that advice) and snapped myself out of my old shy ways.

While I'm not someone to be into hype or trickery in my online
promotions there is a time to step up and sell yourself a little.

13. Keep Working on your Core Business

The last thing I've learned is that while it is an exciting thing and
a lot of work to launch a product - you shouldn't forget your core
business. I've worked hard this week to get the book launched and to
do a little extra marketing (interviews, promotion etc) - but I've
also worked hard to keep my blogs producing content that meets the
needs of my readers.

I've seen a few bloggers over the years become so sidetracked by the
launches of products that they've become distracted from the thing
that enabled them to launch the product and that will help sustain
them over the long haul - their blogs.

Has It Been Worth It?

All in all the experience of putting together and releasing 31 Days to
Build a Better Blog has been well worth the effort. While it took a
month to write the initial material and then another 2-3 weeks of work
to get the workbook together I've learned a lot through the exercise
and it's been a rewarding experience.

Thanks to everyone who has picked up a copy already. I'm looking
forward to offering some extra bonuses for those who have picked up a
copy in the coming weeks (everyone who has already got one will get
them too) so if you're looking for a little extra inspiration and
motivation to get your blog back on track - grab yourself a copy.

source: ProBlogger:

How Listening to a Waiter can Jack your Profits up 33%

Guest Post by Michael Alex Wasylik from perpetualbeta.com.

A Persuasive Profession
When you think of people who know you to use words to persuade, you
might think of salesmen, writers, lawyers, or politicians. Few people
realize that good waiters (and of course, waitresses) also know how to
use the power of words to influence the buying behavior of their
customers. After all, the bigger the check and the happier the
customer, the larger the tip. So take a look at some of the things
this waiter did to juice up his persuasiveness and boost his bottom
line.

Invocation of a Higher Power
Our waiter did not, of course, come out and try to convert us to any
particular faith. But he did invoke a higher power than himself before
rolling out the list of lunch specials. Remember the last time you
heard about the daily specials? Odds are, it started something like
this: "And today's specials are…"

Flat. Boring. Weak. Not working, unless the specials themselves are
made to sounds tantalizing with vivid language. But our server did
something different - he opened up with:

Our chef recommends…

See why that's different? These aren't just specials… these are
entrées the chef himself would eat if he were at our table. Before
he's even finished his sentence, he's opened us up psychologically to
whatever follows - because what he's about to say doesn't come from
him, but from an authority. And research shows, humans respond more
frequently to requests from a figure of authority. Your readers will,
too.

Everyone Else Is Doing It

So let's say you didn't want to get the special. Or were torn between
two. If you asked this waiter for his suggestion, what's he likely to
say? Another waiter might say, "The fried scallops are my favorite."
Again, weak. Who cares what the waiter thinks? My waiter would have
said:

Everyone who orders the glazed grouper loves it.

Why is this better? It invokes the power of "social proof" - the
deep-down human need to be part of the herd, to seek safety in
numbers. After all, if "everyone" else liked it, odds are pretty good
you'll like it too. Sold!

The Feel-Good Event of the Year

Everyone who's ever waited table or been waited on knows that the
server will check on the table a couple of times to make sure everyone
at the table has what they need. When they do, they'll often use the
language of deprivation: "Can I get anything else for you?" In other
words… what's missing? What did I forget?

A better approach, but still not the best one, is the server who comes
up to you and says, "How is everything?" The hope is, of course, that
you'll respond positively. But why hope? Why not just come right out
and demand a positive response? Here's what our waiter asked:

So, gentlemen… is everything delicious?

Well, heck yes! Most people, unless specifically unhappy about some
aspect of their meal, will answer that question with one word: "Yes!"
There are two main reasons for this, and two main effects. First, the
reasons.

We want to be liked and likable. Most of us don't like to go stirring
up conflict. So was it delicious? If it's even close, we're prone to
agree rather than disagree, and then have to explain why - that would
be a huge hassle. (Especially if we ordered the "chef's
recommendation!") But also, if we picked the restaurant, and picked
the menu item, and it was delicious, well, that makes us geniuses,
right? We pick delicious food at outstanding restaurants with chefs
who give the best recommendations. And our friend across the table can
go out and say, "Hey, you should go to lunch with Mike! He picks the
best lunch places."

So we're inclined to agree that our meal was not just edible, not
merely good, but delicious. And by extension, so are we. Now that
we're geniuses of selecting lunch cuisine, what impact does that have
on this waiter's bottom line?

When we get the check, and we're calculating the tip, we're more
likely to tip 20% instead of just 15% because, hey, the meal was
delicious. That's a 33% jump in pure profit.

And before we ask for the check, maybe we want to look over a dessert
menu, because that cheesecake is almost certainly going to be even
more delicious than the grouper. (Much to the chagrin of my waistline
- cheesecake almost always beats out grouper in the "delicious"
category.) So the total bill, the one we use to start calculating a
tip, will be bigger as well. And that means the tip is bigger.

But there's one other important effect. We've committed ourselves, in
public, and in front of our friends, that the meal was delicious. They
probably did the same. And when we feel good about the dining
experience, we're more likely to come back, and bring our friends. And
our friends are more likely to do that, too. And for restaurants as
well as most businesses, repeat customers are the best kind of
customers to have… just like repeat vistors are the ones that will
sustain your blog over time. Everyone prospers.

What's In the Doggy Bag?

"Well, Mike…" you're thinking "That's all great, but I'm not a waiter.
How do I bring this home to my site?"

Simple. Next time you're trying to persuade your audience to do
something - subscribe to your feed, download a report, even buy a
product, try at least one of these three things:

1. Invoke the power of a higher authority to influence decisions. Get
a testimonial from someone famous. Quote a rating from an industry
watchdog. Earn and use the Better Business Bureau logo on your
website. Partner with someone well-known in your niche. Or become the
authority yourself: write a book, set a record, win a contest. Get
creative and you'll see opportunities to invoke authority in every
post.

2. Promote safety in numbers. What's your best-read article? Your most
popular post? Your most-downloaded report? Get specific - offer
numbers, names, references, or testimonials. If someone else likes
what you do, then the next reader is more willing to take the chance
on you.

3. Make your readers feel fantastic about their decision tospend their
time with you. If you've provided legitimate value to your readers,
they should feel fantastic. Gently remind them of this in your follow
up: "Thanks for subscribing to my email feed! I hope you find every
post as exciting as the one that madeyou subscribe."

Our chef recommends that you try all three, and watch how they impact
your bottom line.

About the Author
Michael Alex Wasylik is a Florida lawyer who first started blogging in
1999. He currently writes for the Florida Foreclosure Fraud weblog and
his personal site, perpetualbeta.com - which he's sure you'll find
absolutely delicious.

from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.