Brent's CRM Blog

Four Good Minutes with David Meerman Scott

I'm working on a new site called FourGoodMinutes.com. I'm basically going through all the cool conversations I've had over the past 19 months on my show and taking four (or five) minute slices I think may be of interest to small business folks out there. Until I get that site set up I'll be throwing some of these "good minutes" up here.

I recently had a really interesting conversation with David Meerman Scott, author of the best selling New Rules of Marketing and PR. If you haven't read it you should at least check out the free e-book he put out. I've been asked a number of times lately about the effectiveness of creating e-books as a marketing tool. If you're curious about this, listen to how David's free e-book led to him getting signed with a literary agent in 20 minutes, a book deal with Wiley Publishing and a very successful speaking business. You'll definitely want to find out how why he had one million reasons to give away the New Rules of PR e-book:

David drops a whole lot more knowledge in the full conversation. You can check it out over at the show site by clicking here.

Technorati : david meerman scott, marketing, pr, web 2.0
Del.icio.us : david meerman scott, marketing, pr, web 2.0

Who Should Be The Country's First Blog Czar?

Tim Berry, founder of business plan software company Palo Alto Software and avid blogger, posted an interesting article over at SmallBizTrends.com questioning if powerblogging could really kill us. I added my 2 cents with the following comment:

Brent Leary Says:
April 10th, 2008 at 9:52 am

Cool post Tim. I'd hate to think we're all putting our lives at risk doing this. I think we need to get the AMA to do a study on the health risks associated with the affects of powerblogging. Maybe have congress hold congressional hearings and call some of the leading bloggers to testify. I might even suggest the next president create a new cabinet post - The Blog Czar or possibly the Blogger General - to look out for us.

Who would make a good Blog Czar? Up for the job Tim?

Anita Campbell seems to like the term Blog Czar, while Tim favored the term Blogger General. I think Tim may be a fan of C. Everett Koop or something.....just kidding Tim. Having made both names up I like them both, so if a cabinet level position were to be added to represent the interest of us bloggers, what should that person be called? Better yet, who should it be??? Who knows, if the first CRM president is elected in November this cabinet position may just actually get created.

I figure this person has to understand blogging and bloggers, be able to stand up for our rights in the face of potential congressional hearings, and have to look decent in a uniform... that is if we go with the term Blogger General. That's asking for a whole lot. I need help on this one.

Anyways thanks Tim for coming up with this one. Tim also had some interesting things to say about blogging when he was on Technology For Business Sake a few months back. Check it out below:

Technorati : anita campbell, blogger relationship management, blogging, tim berry
Del.icio.us : anita campbell, blogger relationship management, blogging, tim berry

Blogger Relationship Management - Oracle Steps Up

This past Friday I participated in what I think may have been the first "blogger call" - as opposed to an analyst call - set up in the CRM industry. Anthony Lye, Oracle's senior vice president of CRM, invited a select group of bloggers to discuss a few developments the company is working on. The call was a little late in getting started and lasted about 20 minutes. And I can't write or comment on what was talked about until March 11th when Oracle makes the information public, but it should be of interest to anyone following the space or who is serious about CRM. What I can comment on is the fact that Oracle held the call in the first place. It's a good sign that Oracle gets the importance the industry blogosphere has with respect to holding important, inclusive conversations with CRM enthusiasts, practitioners, users and customers. Even if I had not been invited I'd feel that way. Because it shows Oracle is paying attention to things that their customers and prospects are involved with - using social media to participate in the conversation. It also shows a great respect for the bloggers, but an even greater respect for the CRM community in which their customers (current and future) look for guidance, information, and to be heard.

So I thank Anthony for putting this together and for inviting me to participate. It puts Oracle ahead in terms of BRM, at least in the CRM industry. Hopefully there will be more questions from the bloggers on the next call (thank God Paul Greenberg was at the ready). Don't take it personal Anthony, we're just not used to being treated like real people....

Technorati : blogger relationship management, crm, oracle
Del.icio.us : blogger relationship management, crm, oracle

John Jantsch Gives Small Business a 3 on a Scale of 1 -10 for Online Marketing Efforts

We had a great conversation with small business marketing guru John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing for our next Technology For Business Sake show. He talks about why small business folks should be blogging, the importance of understanding RSS and why he only gives small business a 3 out of 10 when it comes to online marketing. Although this won't air officially until Sunday, you can check it out here.

Thanks!

Technorati : duct tape marketing, john jantsch, small business, social media

Blogger Relationship Management: Dan Perry, This Is YOUR Comment.....

Sorry for the lame reference to the old television show, but this "little ditty" does show the power of commenting. In one of my recent posts I talked about how Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends had a group of A-list marketers share one of their marketing secrets. She also invited anyone interested to add their secret in the comments section of the post. At last count there were 87 comments to that post.

Anyway I recently had Anita join me on Technology For Business $ake to talk about the impact of that post. While we were talking I had the post up and I was asking her questions about the responses from the A-listers. I also was checking out some of the comments and on the spur of the moment brought up one that I liked from Dan Perry on the importance of blogging. Anita and I both talked about the importance of blogging, and even had some fun at the expense of small business guru Gene Marks, who recently wrote a BusinessWeek article saying blogging was one of the ten tech things small businesses should avoid (check this post out to check out the conversation I had with Gene for our show).

So here's why you should take time to write good comments on popular blogs. Dan has Google Alerts set up on his name, and he received an email alert saying that his name was mentioned in a blog entry on SmallBizTrends.com. It turns out that Anita wrote an entry talking about the conversation she had with me on our show. In the post, Anita pointed out where we talked about Dan's one sentence comment, including a link to Dan's blog.

So Dan got pretty good mileage from that one sentence comment:

• it was seen by a lot of people checking out Anita's original post
• it was mentioned on the radio airwaves here in Atlanta
• it was a part of the radio show's podcast that has been downloaded a few hundred times since Saturday
• it was highlighted in Anita's follow up post, which included the actual conversation of us talking about it
• it spawned a post on Dan's blog about this being his first mention on a radio show/podcast
• it prompted a few people to congratulate him on both the Small Biz Trends site and his own blog
• probably a number of click throughs to his blog
• and it prompted me to post this

That's not too shabby for one timely, short, but nicely put sentence. Way to go Dan!

Technorati : blogging, commenting, small biz trends

Should You Really Avoid Blogging, RSS, SEO, CRM and Everything Else I Write About?

We recently had small business guru Gene Marks on our radio program. Many of you may be familiar with his Penny Pincher's Almanac column that appears regularly in American City Business Journals (www.bizjournals.com). He also writes pieces for BusinessWeek.com and Forbes.com. And his recent BusinessWeek.com article is why we were interested in having him join us, since the subject was on the technology solutions small business should avoid. Just to name a few of the things Gene says to avoid, they include:

• Blogging
• CRM
• Web 2.0
• RSS
• SEO

So basically all the stuff I talk about, speak on, read and write about. Needless to say we REALLY were interested in having a conversation with Gene. We actually ended up having a great time speaking with him as he was a lot of fun. But dude did use the term "dope" in the article, something I had to rag on him about even more than his choices of avoidable technologies. Anyway here it is below during the last segment, along with a great conversation with ZDNet's Phil Wainewright on why he feels SaaS will take of this year. Oh yeah also check out the first segment if you want to hear me rant about a jacked up email I received from some clown I met three years ago on a plane ride back from Miami.

Technorati : blogging, crm, saas, small business, web 2.0

Tales in Blogger Relationship Management: Advice from One Blogger to Another

My buddy and radio show co-host Michael Thomas recently entered the blogosphere with his blog Much To Do About CRM. I think he's off to a good start and ask people to check it out if you have an opportunity, and give him a little encouragement to keep at it. Anyone who has been blogging for any amount of time knows how discouraging it can be when you first start out, and can only count close family and friends among those who actually read what you put out there.

Because Michael is a good friend and has always been open to other people's advice, I thought I'd suggest some things to him that may be of use to other new bloggers as well. Michael wrote a good entry asking Is Diversity In Your Target Market. It was in response to a post on the 1to1 blog. So I clicked the link to the 1to1 post to check it out. It was interesting and it sparked a few responses in the comment section. Michael left the following:

Pointing folks to your blog in a comment is something that people do all the time. It can definitely be a good way to get people to check it out. And because Michael is established in the CRM industry and well known to people frequenting the 1to1 blog, he'll probably get folks to click and check out what he had to say. But there are a whole lot of people checking out the 1to1 blog who probably don't know Michael, and won't be tempted to click the link just by saying "go to my blog".

It's always better to share a little of your opinion right there in your comment. That way you're giving the folks who are not familiar with you a reason to want to read more of your take on the subject. And in some cases, someone may mistake your comment for a spammer who is just trying to get you to a site by hook or crook. Especially when you point someone to a domain and not a permalink to the specific blog entry.

Just a few things to think about as you try to win friends and influence people on the web. With all that said, keep up the good work Mr. Thomas!

Technorati : blogging, brm

I Don't Know It All, But That Didn't Stop Me From Doing This

One of the "reasons" I hear, way too much I might add, from those who say they want to blog but haven't done so as of yet, is that they don't think they have enough juice to be viewed as THE expert in their chosen field. All I have to say to that is GET OVER IT! And if you do step out there and put your stuff on the web, chances are somebody may call you on what you say. And you'll have to get past that to. Because unless you're Al Einstein reincarnate, or maybe Stanley Burrell in technology (I know...but I just couldn't resist), you will NEVER be viewed as the singular authority on any subject you end up blogging about. So if that really is the thing holding you back from taking the plunge, it's time to let it go. I mean LET IT GO!!!

Let it go and join the rest of us folks who settle for sharing what knowledge, experience and opinions we have in our chosen areas of "expertise", and attempt to do so in a way that makes a minuscule fraction of the web universe, the folks that make sense for us to reach, stop by our blogs from time to time. And hopefully when they do stop by and share some of their precious time reading our "stuff", they also share their knowledge, experience and opinions, not only with us (the blogger) but also with other readers who stop by. And let's also share our soapbox with those we like to read when we're not writing ourselves, because different voices with different views are a lot more interesting than hearing the same voice all the time, isn't it?

So just by sharing whatever it is you know, with whomever finds it interesting, your knowledge will increase and you'll get closer to the expert you wish to be viewed as, making you even more comfortable to blast out blog posts. But you'll still never be THE ONE. I know I'm not.

Technorati : blogging, small business, web 2.0

COLT 45: It Does A Blogger Good

Sorry all you Billy Dee fans out there, this isn't about the stuff we used to drink back in college in quantities of 40 ounces. And for those of you not old enough to know this, Billy Dee is short for Billy Dee Williams - THE Man back in the 70s all the ladies loved. Dude had the voice, the perm, and the ascot. He starred in classics like Brian's Song, Lady Sings The Blues, Mahogany and my favorite Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings. Many of you geeks don't know anything about that stuff, but you may remember him as Lando Calrissian in the Empire Strikes Black (pun intended as black folks were so proud to finally have a brother involved with those movies).

Anyway, he may have been a leading man and all that, but me and my buddies remember him most of all for being the spokesman for Colt 45 malt liquor. And if you ever so those commercials, he's the only brother I ever knew who could get the ladies all excited just by offering them a 40 of Colt. I remember trying it a few times back in the day, and I here to tell you it never worked for me.

But this is not about Billy Dee or his mustache. It's not even about the drink. It's actually about blogging and the importance of writing decent content. People are always trying to figure out how to get people to read their stuff, and when they ask me I tell it's all about COLT 45. And although some of you may think I write like I'm downing a 40, COLT 45 is just an acronym to help you remember a few goals when you're blogging. Try to remember you really need to write stuff that will move people to Comment On, and Link To it.... COLT, get it??

And where does the 45 come in to play? Well if you're just getting started, chances are you'll be the only one reading your posts. So do yourself a favor and ask some of your friends and colleagues to read your posts. In fact ask them to do some reading, commenting, digging, stumbling and any other form of web socialism you can think of. So maybe start out with 4 or 5 people and that you can depend on to regularly help you, and eventually that number will begin to grow. And there you have COLT 45. I know it's a stretch but I had to come up with something.

And the fact is this approach really can work, as I was reminded of today, when Ruth King over at ProfitabilityChannel.com emailed me today to tell me that my latest article for BlackEnterprise.com was included in the daily email she receives from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). I knew something was up as I noticed a much greater number of hits to my blog than I usually get when my columns hit the BE homepage.  Maybe a few of my friends who've "opted in" to my COLT 45 crew made that possible.  And you're invited to sign up to!

Technorati : blogging, web 2.0

Me, Diane D. and Anil Dash Talk Blogging

Webex community leader Diane Davidson and her folks have posted the third part of a series of podcasts on how small businesses and how they can use Web 2.0 and social media to be found by those looking for what they provide. This is the last in the series and we were fortunate to have Six Apart's VP of Evangelism Anil Dash join us. The conversation is about 15 minutes but it seemed more like 5. We had too much fun talking about this stuff!

Check it out and let me know what you think. And if you like it there's more content like this at http://community.webex.com/user. Thanks again Diane for allowing me to be apart of this, and thanks to Anil for joining us on this one.

Technorati : anil dash, blogging, six apart, small business, webex