Small business
links:
The art of bootstrapping by Guy Kawasaki
Zero Dollar Conversational marketing: An interview with John Bettelle by Jeremiah Owyang
Draw the line between free and paid by Small Biz Survival
Why Your Supplier isn’t Performing: Pitfalls in Supplier Relationship Management in a Small Business
Ever wondered why your supplier isn’t performing? If you had a great relationship with a service provider, she goes out of her 
You must also learn how NOT to spoil a relationship first.
Forgetting the individual behind the vendor
If you forget that there is an individual behind the vendor, you are mistaken. This gets manifested in several ways. You don’t greet them or wait for them to greet you. You wait for opportunities to yell at people. And when you get, you yell to your heart’s content. You don’t think what is ‘fair.’ You just think that you are the buyer so the service provider has to service you anyway.
Mistake. Big mistake. Look at the individual. Connect with them.
Squeeze too much
Some people want to squeeze as much as possible. If you ‘squeeze all,’ where is the incentive to delight you? Because, at the next opportune moment, they will look at replace you with more reasonable client. Always, aim to pay a little above average so more people want to work for you. The more they want to earn from you, the more they will
want to delight you.
Use ‘take it or leave it’ tactic too often
This is the bullet that many employers think will solve all problems. “Do this. Or I will give this work to someone else.” Don’t get me wrong. It is YOUR prerogative to get the kind of work you want done. But don’t use it too often. If you do that, your provider will lose interest in you. He/she thinks that it’s just a matter of time that you will go away and so, it’s better to focus on getting some other client who doesn’t threaten pulling off often. After all, a service provider works for you because he/she thinks you are going to give more work. Not because you can pull off any moment.
Asking for the moon
If something is not possible, or it costs too much money to the provider, don’t press for it. I guess the touchstone here is, is what you are asking reasonable? Once again, don’t get me wrong. You are absolutely entitled to high standards of work. You can demand that. But, is that reasonable given time, and the price you’ve promised to pay? These are questions you have to answer yourself.
Ego
Ego comes in big time. “I am the buyer. He/she is just the service provider. SHE must agree with ME!” How crude! You forget that both you and your service provider are partners in achieving the same goal. YOUR goal. Make sure you further your goal. Not just your ego.
If you remove these value drenchers, you are set for the positive factors of your relationship to kick in.
If you employ professionals on P2W2.com, the world’s best marketplace for freelancer professionals (which will go live soon), you will realize that there are wonderful tools to work together. In addition to those, you will be able to get more value out of your supplier relationships if you manage them well. From time to time, we will bring to you all the knowledge and insights you need to get your vendor relationship work for you.
Hire a ghostwriter. Drive traffic to your blog.
Setting up a blog is a five-minute job. It takes nothing from you… and gives you nothing. It’s like buying gym. It does
not matter if you have it. But it does if you work out. Updating your blog is like working out. It does not matter if you have a blog. It does if you update it.
Updating your blog is important because it lets you talk to people often and on topics relevant to you and your business. The other reason is because search engines drive more traffic to blogs that are frequently updated. Not to stale blogs. You tell search engines that your material is fresh by updating it regularly.
I wish updating a blog is as easy as writing this. (sigh) It’s not. If you want to keep your blog updated, you have to have discipline… to publish regularly. If you don’t have time to write, you could hire a ghostwriter. (Huh! Let me rephrase that…”delegate.”) Delegate to those who have competence and time.
I will write more about how to hire a ghostwriter, dos and don’ts etc. But for now, if you decide to hire a ghostwriter, p2w2 is a great place to begin. Because we help you make it easy to find the right ghostwriter for you and we give you tools that will help you collaborate with your ghostwriter.
Have a successful blog and a successful business.
How to Become a Ghostwriter?
Ghostwriting is a great opportunity. You can research and
learn what you like and earn as you do that! How cool is THAT!
I have been ghostwriting for about a year now. I had fun and learnt about internet marketing, electronics and real estate. Strangely, ALL the topics helped me in my career and life and of course in earning a living!
If you want to ghostwrite,
you can. Do you want to know how to become a ghostwriter?
It’s easier than becoming a ghost and then becoming a writer! You can find a lot of projects on P2W2 (when we go live). But before that, you must understand buyers’ (potential employers’) decision-making process when they hire a ghostwriter and acquire the skills that they look for. That’s all you need.
Most buyers apply the following criteria to hire a ghostwriter. The ghostwriter must:
1. Be able to express their message in their preferred tone and style
2. Have the ability to research the Internet to figure out the content that must be written
3. Have the domain knowledge (i.e. understand their business/topic)
4. Be able to write good English
5. Be affordable (not necessarily a low price tag)
The most important criterion is that you must be able to write in the style and tone that they would like to convey the message. If you want to have multiple clients, you must be able to write in various styles. At the least, you must be able to write well in the style that you are comfortable with. (Check out this video). The good part is, if you have decent English, you will be able to change your tone to suit buyers’ needs.
Second, buyers hire ghostwriters either because they don’t have the time and/or the writing skill. Using your skill and time, they want to achieve their goals – like writing a book, market their company etc. You must convince them that you can provide what they want. And the best way to do that is to provide appropriate samples. Not a rant about your skills but good samples. So, pick the best of your work and display it in the samples section of your profile. Make sure you don’t violate intellectual property rights of your past clients.
Third, have patience to develop ‘domain competence.’ If someone asks you to write on a medical topic, can you do a good job? If you can’t, don’t bid on such projects because the buyer anyway won’t select you because you don’t understand the topic. As a result, your project win-ratio will fall and buyers filter out your bid. So, have the patience to develop the competence and bid on the project that you understand and can deliver.
Next, you must be able to write good English. Most people forget basic grammar and punctuation. If your writing has grammatical and punctuation errors, buyers won’t accept your material. Thankfully, you can learn good English at Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab. Check it out.
I will talk more about pricing and bidding techniques so you can have a successful career as a P2W2 professional. so those are all the criteria buyers look at.
If you want to become a ghostwriter, you must have what it takes. If you don’t, even if you land a project, that won’t help you in the long run because it is just a matter of time that the buyer will give you negative feedback and others will know about it. So it’s better to get what it takes and be the ghostwriter that you want to be!
Links to Blog Directories
This post is
meant only to create links to these blog directories. This may not be useful to you.
1. Submit url
2. Blogging Fusion Blog Directory
3. Quick blog directory
4. Spill Bean
5. All-Blogs.net directory