Communities are never born.  They are built. Usually deliberately.  Someone has set out to create something and has an idea, anything from politics to marketing…and builds it.  The best brands on the internet have communities powering them.  From Apple, to Lifehacker, to Copyblogger…to Active Rain…brands large and small have a cadre of followers, a set of promises and people both advancing the brand and holding it accountable to keep its promises.

When it’s time to take your business online, a community of people that are invested in you (and vice versa) is the difference between a leader and an also ran.   Your community is your primary audience: important customers, vendors and peers that have something to offer you.  But, making a community is hard.  Many communities fail, and the difference in failing and success isn’t in effort, it’s in direction.  Directing your efforts into something smarter is the difference between success and failure.

Does this work?  Watch me do it.  In six months, come back, see where we’re at.

Build an Online Community Step 1: Pick Out Your Core Group & Commit To Helping

The first thing is this: pick out your own crowd.  The people that are currently peers, vendors, and clients that you really enjoy working with–and enjoy working with you!  Write people’s names  down, in 24pt font.  In most cases, no more than 12-14 people, and at least 5.  I’d pick at least one person that you don’t yet know well.  You are recruiting and selecting folks you think you can add value.  This can change later, but be committed to the people you are picking out.

Remember: your community and your tribe are never about you.  You have to respect your network.  You have to on purpose determine what they’re going to get from you, and a minimum amount of time you’re going to spend on it.  You’ve got to build a community and do much or most of the work.  What do people get when they work with you?  What happens next?  Be specific, write it down.  Give real value.  For me, I’ m always happy to read and comment on work in progress, I’m happy to help out and even do some “water-carrying” unglorious labor for my network.  Gratis.

Send them an email, offer to help & be aware of what they are trying to accomplish, and be a resource for them. 5-12 people is plenty.

Now, other people may want access to your time and energy and effort for free.  Don’t sweat it.  You’re not under obligation to give yourself to anyone other than those you chose to find & recruit.

The goal is to communicate with this crowd about once a week.

Caveat: you must have no drama here.  If someone is overly dramatic, they can’t stay.  Note: If you don’t know 5+ people that will help… you have bigger issues to address, and probably should hit those first.

Step 2 To Building an Online Community: Find 12-50 more people that you admire & Offer to help.

Again, this takes time….and real personal engagement.  And this is a spot where some people may be nonresponsive.  They may ignore you or not have a fit.  Since this isn’t about you, it’s not a big deal: you’re offering people something that we hope that they need.  If they don’t need it, drop it.  Figure out what you have that they need.  Some businesses will be able to re-use workproduct, like Hugh does at Gaping Void.  Other businesses will have to offer something non related: contacts, referrals, or anything.

When you add value, make sure you have it to give and keep it real.

You can find this part of your community in past blog comments, Twitter followers, peers you admire, Facebook friends, linkedIn friends and elsewhere.  These folks are folks you want to pay attention to, help when you can and be aware of.  I track mine in a spreadsheet.  I want to talk to these folks (to help them) once a month or two. Simple hellos, emails and relevant articles are some of the value.  Look at their websites, offer improvement.

My rule of thumb is to pick 10-15% of people “below” your level, 60-70% of people “At” your level and 20-30% of people above your level.  Don’t be cocky about this, and realize that you’re here for them not you.

Now–when you write a blog post, this crowd is who you are writing it to.   This is your best audience. These people will do business with you, and these people will get value from you.  You’ll get much from this crowd.  Stay on top of it, look at their social networks, make notes.  This is good for you as it is for them because it’s a deliberate listening skill.

You want to have these people feel like VIPs and you want to know who they are and what projects they are on.  Talk to them once or twice a quarter and learn that.  This can take a while, so don’t worry if you get bogged down.

I have a  spreadsheet that has who they are, their email, their goals.  It’s separate from auto-responders/CRM.  You have to keep track, and you have to stick with this to make it work.  You’re here to help, and you have to divorce your brain from the expectation of a return.  And yes, sometimes people in this list can go into the “first/best” crowd and vice versa.  Still: that there are 50 people that you’re committed to helping in the form of referrals, and everything else is the important first step.

I have a whole sheet of these folks that I’m committed to helping every single week.  Starting next week, I’m giving up my Fridays to help folks in my network get what they want.

Notes: don’t feel entitled to anything.  You aren’t owed anything by this crowd and if you feel that way, this project will turn rancid and poison you.

Step 3: Ask your crowd to bring their crowd.

This is your big step, and you take it after having demonstrated helpfulness to your “broader” crowd.  You’re asking them to trust you with business contacts.  And some of these people will inevitably make it into your “12″ or “50″ and that’s fine.  Once you can demonstrate that you add value in your profession, you have earned the right to ask people to bring their crowd.  You don’t need to have high expectations regarding this–if they aren’t convinced…

…you haven’t been convincing enough.  They are right: you can’t force trust.  You are hoping that “their crowd” is in the systems you have in place: the RSS readers, the autoresponders and everything else.  These folks will occasionally move into your ‘known’ folks, and my suggestion is this: once you get 100 or so in your excel spreadsheet, you can simply remove the “non-responders” from your list.  Managing intimate relationships with 200 people isn’t really a relationship, but delivering value to strangers…

…is the highest paying job there is.

I’ll share what I’m doing to benefit each list as time passes.

I’ll share the results and how everything worked, and what traffic converted into buyers and sellers.

500 people that know, like, trust and pay you.  And that you serve.  That’s a tribe, and that’s enough for you to make a good living.

Doing business online is a multi step process. It’s not something that normally you can expect overnight success in. The learning curve isn’t bad, but it doesn’t come without work and effort. You hire us to help you determine where you put your time, energy and effort. You hire us to let us help you make everything more focused and linaer. Enthusiasm that doesn’t produce results is worthless.

The first thing that you need to do is put your business basics online. Don’t worry about having well crafted perfect, pithy and punchy prose. Getting the basic information up there is step one. That basic information will include:

• Where you’re at (bonus if you use a google map)
• How to reach you
  • Name
  • Email
  • Address
  • Phone
  • Fax
  • Cell
• Hours you are available- for yoursake & to set expectations
  • Call anytime but I return calls between X and Y
• What services you offer.
• What products you sell.
• A basic contact form: hint if you’re doing under 7 figures, you put your # on there.
• How to hire you/buy from you.
• What benefits and features you have
• Who your customers are
• What problems you solve.
• What statutory disclosures you have to make. (i.e license numbers and such)

This basic first step doesn’t require a lot of original thought, yet I’d guess 75% of small business owners never get this done.  The basic information on a website should be easy to find and easy to find.  We don’t need to worry about SEO, Social Marketing or anything else just yet, this task is job one–yet I see good sized companies not doing this…making it hard to do business, and trying to force feed contact forms on folks.

What works for pure internet business isn’t always appropriate for a good Realtor, Lawyer, Dentist, CPA.  There is a ubiquitous amount of those professions, but first you declare who you are, then you show how you have your cusotmer’s backs.

That’s the next post.

Promote your Blog Posts and…Protect your investment.  We hear that by marketers at Best Buy trying to get us to purchase an extended warranty.  We hear it when we’re buying a leather couch, and we’re given the opportunity to protect our investment with some type of treatment.  Most of the time, it’s a ploy to get you to spend more money.  It’s not really something that’s in your best interest to do.

When we’re blogging, we have to protect the time we spend crafting a post and communicating an idea.  Yes, some things become ideaviruses but most ideas don’t get the cance to gain critical mass.  Most blog posts wither and die on the vine because they didn’t get the discussion going.  My blog is no different: most of what I write is not getting a big audience because I break my own rules.  Here’s what I’m doing to fix it.

Promoting your blog (without being sleazy) is as important as crafting it.   You have to follow Johnson’s 60-40 rule: 60% of your energy either promoting or creating content and 40% of your energy doing the other thing.   Most small business bloggers aren’t yet Seth, Brian, Chris, Darren or even Johnny.   They don’t need to be, and they shouldn’t even attempt it.

They should attempt being the best resource for the local customer base that is around.  They should become a directory of all that’s best in their area, and focus on making things correct.  Curating resources of good  content providers is what we need to do.

Still, when we write a blog post, we have to make sure it matters.  Writing a blog post is step 1 of many.  It’s not the endgame for content creation.  Writing it doesn’t guarantee that people will come.  I am sure that there are many timely, relevant, helpful sites that are totally unheard of because the investment (great content) was never protected.

Some of my best work languishes in obscurity because I paid no attention to post content creation.  That won’t happen anymore.  Each post I do on any property is going to get promoted now and promoted later such that it’s got the ability to have legs. I’ve devised a system–still experimental–that should increase traffic here on Flat Rate.

Step 1:  Create post & Headline. This is the very first thing that we have to do to make sure that what we’re doing matters.  The post content has to have a headline that matters to other people, and it has to be crafted deliberately for that purpose.   Finishing the post, making it relevant is important.  AN irrelevant post is sunk from the beginning.

Step 2:  Use Title Tags & Meta Descriptions: Scribe SEO can help with this as will many a other tools.  Promoting blog posts for the long tail needs some attention spent on the custom title tag and metadescription–so you can call to action what happens in the serps.

Step 3: Make a list of 100 people that are fans/advocates-or people you want. Send to 10 per post and rotate.  THis is a Gdoc/excel problem.  Find a list of 100 people that are in your niche and tangential members of your target audience.  Each post that you do, send to ten.  Make sure that it kind of matters to them, and ask them to re-tweet-, link or facebook it.  Doing this on every post, and curating a list once  will allow you to grow and get more of what you want.  [Note: Make sure we're not going to the well too often, and that we're willing and happy to reciprocate with good posts].

Step 4: Rewrite the headline 5 different ways  & Bit.ly it. You need to write different headlines for your post to see what people react to, and to see what things are done in general.  Write down 5 headlines and use the link shortener.  These will all get tweeted.

Step 5: Tweet & Facebook each headline over the next 2 days. You can even include these headlines when you’re doing step 3: asking people to help.   You want to use a tool like Tweetspinner, Twuffer or Social Oomph to set this once and forget this.  Taking this step has meant that traffic really increases.

Step 6: Google the keywords you are hoping for with “BLOG” appended. The first 3 blog items that come up get a comment with this post as a permalink.  Read the post, make the blog comment relevant, but do this part of it.  This will help you rank for some of those keywords, especially when the blogs are Dofollow.  Even if not Doofollow, the traffic/click-throughswill help you.  Make your comment relevant and feel free to reference or revise your post.

Step 7:  Link out to industry (above-your-level) blogs on and aroudn this topic.  Linking out to other blogs on blogging can get you on the radar of good bloggers, and it can also help you rise because Google knows that if you’re confident enough to link to authoritative sites, your blog is probably pretty OK.

Step 8:  Make an Image, title it with your keywords. More SEO, but this is a helpful way of getting clickthroughs.

Step 9: posterous it. Make an excerpt and a posterous that is wired everywhere.   Have it propagate to Blogger, Livejournal and have it link back to yourself.  I generally excerpt it, send to posterous and forget it.

Step 10: Send to your Aweber list either as part of “blog broadcast” or separately.  This should test–in addition to other things–how much your list is paying attention to you.

All of the above tasks take time, but it protects what you’ve done on your blog.  I’d also make sure that I promoted parallel people on a regular basis. This would make sure that your blog would have a basic list of promotion items.  I’ll test this for 90 days and see what’s working.  I’ll eliminate the lowest 2 performers and add 2-3 more performers.  This will mean that I’m going to be able to have a self healing system.  If you’ve found this post in the search engines, it’ll get better.

One of the concepts that I’ve been in love with is the idea of anti-marketing. That is the little, cringe-inducing details that cause people to abandon your shopping cart, wander off mystified or confused.

Anti-marketing kills conversions, and it’s anything that makes the buyer lose trust in you that is completely under your control. It’s the glaring errors in copy, the cobbler’s unshodden shoes.

And let me admit this: Flat Rate Web Jobs had more than its share of anti marketing.

Our copy was all over the place. In an effort to help the sales team, we added products irresponsibly, undercutting the sales team by diffusing the message of “what you get” when you work with us. There were pages that went nowhere, that are public facing. I was in a hurry to build out, and part of that instinct is right.

But then, I started getting orders and referrals.

I never took down the half done.

The pressure to get stuff out was acute, and weeks went by and I lost focus with my message. It wasn’t clear because I was making money. But I could have been making more and doing better with more clarity. And so it’s time to do exactly that.

We’re now culling our offerings down to 2 products: sites & site boosters. We’e going to have 3 levels of a site and one site booster. That’s it. Nothing else. And yes, a website is what we used to call a “blog”.

You might see that things are a little sparse around here till we get it all done. That’s OK with us. We’ll get it done in about a week, and we’ll be and stay on message.

In the mean time, we’re open for business. Call me up at 877-FLATTIE and I’ll deliver a website that rocks.

I don’t know how long I’m going to do this this way but, I’m doing it this way for now.  I’m focusing on my website product, and being the best there is at it.  Like I said in the last post, we have to stick to what we are good at.  80% of our revenue is from the site product, only 10% of the problems.  We’re delivering websites with blogs built in and getting responses like this from Wendy McSteen:

Chris my site is so fabulous!!!!!  I just sent a reply to support, but wanted to make sure you know I saw it.  I opened it and I was SPEECHLESS–which never happens:)  Thank you all for all of your hard work.  I only hope my content is as good as it looks!!!!!

So we’re canceling all the rest of our products.  No lie.  We’re canning everything but WordPress powered websites.  And we’re going to get really, really good at WP powered websites.

No more “one off consults.”

No more “custom work/favor” sites.

No more “broadcast tower,” autoresponder writing, or anything else.  Just custom WP Thesis sites.

We’re sticking to website delivery, and we’re just getting warmed up.  We’re going to be the best in the world at delivering WordPress websites.  We start with the best software, the best theme and the best business practices.

Our basic package comes as follows:

All Flat Rate Sites ($629 & $15/month) include:

• Full featured website + blog that you can update as easy as email.
• Unlimited POSTS & Pages!
• Delivery in 3-5 calendar days (from your design submission)
• YOUR look YOUR way to YOUR specifications
• FTP Access
• Photoshop files (so you have control)
• Hosting on our speedy servers
• Copyright release (don’t get jerked around)
• Powered by WordPress the secure, opensource content system
• Powered by Thesis, the web’s #1 SEO & speed framework.
• EXCLUSIVE: get custom page templates out of the box.
• Weekly Training: LIVE training & coaching available every Monday & Friday
• Training sessions on Tuesday –Wednesday- Thursday
• 15 Video lessons to learn what your site can do
  • SEO lessons
  • Content Lessons
  • Uploading Videos
  • Linking Lessons
  • Support?  1 year’s worth of email support our customers say is “Simply Great”.

All this for $629& $15/monthly hosting, support and ongoing training.

When I created Flat Rate Web Jobs, I wanted to be a boutique, full service shop that offered websites, some copy-writing services, some SEO and some other things to my customers.  I had a vision of being a partner shop, a one stop shop for all of small business.  I thought the small business vertical was niche enough.  Turns out, it’s not.

Turns out there are people that do all sorts of things better than I do.  To learn to do–and manage–stuff like social media propagation and other things requires a diffusion of my focus to the point where my standards erode, and I don’t get better at what we do.  Turns out my customers are LOVING the value of my websites (and the genius that is the Thesis framework).   Turns out the training and speed is something I can do well.

So, I’m going to stick to what’s working–I’ll do a website-that-includes-a-blog powered by WP.

I’ll consolidate down to the basics:

• Basic BlogSite Pacakge @ $797.
• Mid priced package @$1197  (details TBD, but we’ll have an aweber/cc box, and we’ll have some more visuals and more custom pages).
• Upgraded site package @ $1597 (twice the fun, includes aweber opt in work, a rotator & some offers).
• Blog Boost (SEO+some images) @$497
• Blog upgrade (to thesis & current batch of plugins) $397

At some point I’ll do some more work in that area.  I’ll add better descriptions to my intentions, but know this: all of it is based around designing a blog, and most of our work will be done on the thesis framework.

This way I can deliver the best stuff in one vertical.  This way I can get better processes.  I can help more customers.  I can do more.

At some point, I may re-add more services.  I will probably also offer more things in a “one off”type of way.  But in the mean time, I’m sticking to the knitting, and I’m going to do a single product.

Existing orders will be filled. Training will focus on the blogs we do.

IF you were “About to buy” call me and I’ll try and make this happen.  614-432-8758

The Mushy Middle sucks.  It’s a site that doesn’t quite do the job that it’s supposed to do: persuade your customers to take the next step.  You are in the mushy middle if you’re trying to be all things to all people and don’t have a disciplined Internet strategy.  You’re in the mushy middle if you’re trying to be a General Store with no reason to exist.  And your marketing or operational excellence is likely to be a frustrating experience: if people don’t see the need for you to exist, they won’t.

“Tweeners” are destined to fail.  General Motors didn’t cut Cadillac or Chevy from its lineup, it cut the other brands: Saturn, Pontiac, Oldsmobile. In internet marketing it’s the same way.

Small business marketing means that you have to stand for one thing.  WordPress makes it possible to build a website in a matter of hours.  You don’t have to labor over anything, you can use Fantastico to deploy your website, Thesis or Headway or Woo Themes or Genesis to get launched, and be ready to advertise fast.  And each website is taking advantage of the way to communicate to one group.  So if you’re an attorney with some business in Criminal, DWI and Bankruptcy, make a site for each discipline, like Attorney Damon Chetson did.

If he tried to go after everyone on the same site with the same landing page, he’d fail.  If he tried to go after everyone with an approach that suggested that he was doing everything all at once, that would lose.  Instead, he’s in pursuit of each vertical on each website.  And he avoids the mushy middle, he has credibility in those verticals.

Another part of the equation is limiting yourself geographically and having Trust in Google.  Why?  Consider: if you’re a home searcher, and you’re looking for property in one area, like Houston Texas, the more ultra local you get, the better.  Think: subdivision.  Because if people search on Google for a subdivision, you can come up, and you have the opportunity to demonstrate the standards you uphold and the virtues you have.  And, it’s quite simply more easy to rank for a small area than a large one, and you’ll get more traffic.

Plus, if people start a search in one neighborhood, don’t you think they’ll be open to suggestions?  Don’t you think they may look at other areas?

Pursuing a single idea on each website is the way to go.  You can deploy your ideas on rapidly, and if it doesn’t work, you’ve spent a couple of hours and $7 bucks for a domain.  That’s not a major risk to avoiding the mushy middle.

Now: how do you market these “satelite sites” and what is the overall goal?

The goal is the lead.  It could be a phonecall it could be an “opt in”  But you have to focus the site on generating leads, however it may be.  One goal.  You fail if you try several goals.   Pursue a goal at the exclusion of others because other things will happen at the same time.  When your page converts phone call requests, you’ll also get more e-mail opt ins.

Steps to take:

• Create a site with a single focus, narrow demographic.  Your goal isn’t branding, its results.
• Create a site that seeks people coming in through one channel. (one email form, one phone call)
• Create a site that gives people just enough information that gets more.
• use Website Optimizer/Analytics to test & Tweak.

This isn’t the instructions to make a flagship blog, it’s the instructions to get started with internet marketing to the point of success.

My friend and sometimes team mate Blog Consultant Michael Martine had a nifty discussion on where your business would be without a blog.  It’s an interesting question, and his crowd is primarily pro blog.    He had a couple of dissenters, but the conversation was great (if not a little long winded). Many felt you had to have a blog to have a business that does anything on the web.

Fact is, you don’t.

Fact is, if your business isn’t working right, you must solve that problem before you buy a blog from me.

Fact is, if you are struggling to keep the lights on, it’s time to figure out why. 

Maybe a blog will change that, but a blog sure as heck isn’t a ‘Hail Mary’ pass that’s going to rejuvenate an obsolete business and sagging career.   It’s not a magic bullet, and you’re not going to suddenly be able to “trick” people into patronizing your business.  It’s a style and skill that you need to learn.  It’s a discipline that takes work before you see great results.

If you don’t have business in your normal business, then let’s get that fixed:

1. How do you treat people that want to do business with you?
2. How clear are your expectations when dealing with a customer?
3. How fast do you respond to new inquiries?
4. How easy is it to get a hold of you?
5. How are you following up on leads?
6. Do you have an e-mail newsletter that goes out?
7. What do you do every month to get new business in?

Executing those 7 ideas is a higher priority than running a blog.  Having good answers to those questions, and having a service-mindset is the important part of your business. 

If you’re not doing that stuff right, then a blog will just add to the confusion and fall behind that you have.  It won’t help you get out of your funk.  If you ARE answering those questions right, a blog will help you double down on your winners. 

If not, then the core reason for your business to exist must be something that you think about and deal with first.

Webinar from today… turned out OKAY.

Make sure you get a “blog booster” package for your blog.

If your blog is like most, you are getting a fair amount of “search” traffic.  But what happens next?  Are people coming, seeing what they want and then wandering off?  If that’s the case, you’re missing out on one of the primary advantages that comes with creating a blog.  On Monday’s webinar, we will change all of that, and you will learn:

• Why Your Blog Might Be a Total Waste Of Time (And How To Fix It)
• The Big Traffic-Wasting Mistake That 70% of Good Blogs Make
• How To Turn Search Traffic Tire Kickers Into Leads
• Why You Should Trash Other People’s Offers (Including Google’s)
• How Social Proof Will Build Trust and Clients
• The Price of Losing 10% of Your Potential Leads
• Where You Should Spend 70% of Your Blog Time.

You’re probably making a lot of mistakes that are wasting the effort you’ve put in to writing your blog.  In fact, your sidebars might be so bad that you’re making blogging a total waste of time.  We want to help you prevent that with our webinar.  

Join now and learn the secrets that are holding your blog back. And how to fix it right away.

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/953163107

Flat Rate Web Jobs offers free business blogging bootcamp-style webinars that have effective action items.  When possible, we rebroadcast on our own blog, Flat Rate Web Jobs.

Please share this with other people and help us help small businesses continue to recover.

What is a Flat Rate Webinar? It’s a Webinar that doesn’t suck.  We’re here to give away as much valuable content as possible, so you’ll know exactly what to do next. 

Join us & Rule your neighborhood.