Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

I do that exact thing with my blog at http://jeffruley.typepad.com. I know I'm not a leading voice on Online Marketing, but the goal is to just present different ideas, tools and strategies to my customers and potential clients. They look for us to be the expert and I think this helps.

Small business blogging is a must when it comes to internet marketting. Besides the traffic, you gain the people's trust because you're giving them something useful for free.

When I provide valuable information blogging, I think of it as empowering my clients to make better decisions; I'm sure they appreciate it and will remember me.

A friend of mine, a really accomplished salesperson, just published "The Complete Guide to Successful Selling" and I've been nudging him to start a blog, so I'll put his web address here (http://salestrainerplus.com/) to give him a heads-up that blogging and commenting are great tools!

Well I like to think i educate my potential prospects about ecommerce on my blog. Self plug over :)
F.

A blog like that might be liked, but it would never be WELL liked.

Surely help to improve their business.
My blog is at
http://www.freetechbooksonthenet.blogspot.com

Lars

A blog like what? Any blog, no matter the topic or author that helps someone better understand what they want to understand or know, will be well liked by someone.

I was making an inside joke about the play. I thought all the Arthur Miller fans or Death of a Salesman fans would catch it.

In the play, Willy Lowman constantly obsesses about the fact that he is liked, but not WELL liked, and thinks that is the source of his problems.

So a Willy Lowman style blog might be liked, but it would never be WELL liked.

If you have to explain the joke, then it wasn't funny. Oh well, I tried.

Doublecheck your Willy spelling, by the way! I'm not sure, but I think it's with a Y.

I was a liberal arts major before I started my own business and got an mba at night, so maybe I'm too literary for my own good.

As long as I'm overexplaining myself, I'd like to point out that Gil, the recurring loser salesman on The Simpsons who can never make a sale and always gets fired is based on Willy Lowman and the Jack Lemmon character from Glengarry Glen Rose, the David Mamet movie from 1992, which was also inspired by Death of a Salesman.

I was taught Death of a Salesman in high school, and I think it really gave me the impression that salesman and businessmen were unhappy, empty losers in general.

It wasn't until my mid to late 20s that I realized that I was born to be an entrepreneur and that business is fun, and cool, and creative. I think business and entrepreneurship get a bad rap in school, to the detriment of a lot of potential entrepreneurs!

Lars,

You can never overexplain yourself!

This wasn't meant to be a literary discussion, most people don't remember high school. However, I relate to Willie Lohman, not for the obvious way he gets played, but for the spirit that lay trapped inside him that was, in my opinion aching to get out.

I couldn't agree more that sometimes owning a business gets a bad wrap - I think it happens to be one of the most noble callings on the planet and I tell that to anyone who will listen.

As for the deeper meaning in Miller's plays, that's better debated over a pint of Guinness!

I have been blogging for my sales staff for the last 2 months. Our sales staff is spread across the South East and it has been a great tool for education and inter-company dialog. We have seen immediate results from the training and conversations that have taken place on our sales blog. It has also heightened the communication level between our sales staff and our tech guys just due to the technical staff being able to communicate on a platform that they feel comfortable with.

I agree with your summation John. I also have felt like willy too many times in my career where I didn't have as much in my pipeline and could have used a few more suspects, which is why I started willyloman.com. It is a free site for sales reps and business owners to exchange business contacts. We are self funding it through a couple of other businesses I own. To date over a million business contacts have been exchanged. It's not as pretty as Jigsaw.com, but it doesn't cost you anything either. The ultimate goal is get to a stage where we can add more sales related content. The naysayers say I would never exchange information, but my belief has been and will continue to be that there are times when I have changed industries and my engineering contacts were useless. I would have happily exchanged those for the marketing contacts I needed for my new role. In today's environment with voicemail and anti-spam email it is more and more difficult to reach the true decision makers so I have always felt if there is a way to broaden the contact base at a potential client it improves my odds - hence the idea behind a contact exchange for sales reps and business owners.

Somehow I don't think Willie would have blogged. Had the technology arisen BEFORE he hit the skids, maybe... As the book opens, he has given up. He seemingly hasn't kept up with the industry, he's burned out. He is a long way from having an entrepreneurial spirit. Like may "old time" salesmen, he relies on glad-handing to generate business. While it is obviously true that people need to trust you and "like" you before they will do business with you, Willie's trust factor has evaporated - along with his customer base.

There are a lot of "Willies" in the marketplace today.

Bill - love the site, great work.

Okay, next time I blog about sales I won't use a guy that killed himself in the end - maybe that's sends a mixed message, but it's been fun. Heed the warning, blog or end up alone and miserable.

Lars,

Does it count if now I think the joke is really funny?

I think you hit the nail on the head John. In my opinion, that's what blogs are all about. You build trust with your readers over time by giving them a great, free education.

Readers of your blog will naturally consider your service if and when they are "in the market."

Tony

<trackback>Why Do I Blog?
My friend and a brilliant business growth strategist, best-selling author and award-winning speaker, JP Maroney just “Tagged” me on his blog.
When I saw Michel Fortin get tagged a few days ago, I figured my time was coming.
So here it is...</trackback>

I serve two roles, Sales and Operations. Part of selling consists of influencing the criteria for decision making. I use my blog, as an individual, to help: (1) inform and influence my prospect/client base (2) differentiate myself and our product in the marketplace (3) position myself (our company) as the experts in our particular field. A byproduct of blogging is: it galvanizes core objectives and purifies product offerings through rumination and the written word. www.bobbylehew.com

<trackback>The Power of Small Business Blogging
John Jantsch asks about the viability of blogging if you are a salesperson. Sure, small business marketing is proven to gain credibility and improve your media position and online profile, but what about the salesperson just trying to smile and</trackback>

It's especially interesting to think that Willie would have blogged about meeting the mayor of Providence, RI, and watching his son Biff score touchdowns.

The professional-level conversation starters are great, but another feature of a blog is the chance to get a nice humanizing look at someone with whom you may previously only had a strict professional relationship.

It's on the blogger to maintain decorum, but showing that genuine side would be great for building relationships. Which is, in turn, great for sales. Dontchathink?

John - I had this conversation with an electronics salesman and a sales manager in Men's Furnishings at Nordstroms. Salespeople could create a tremendous presence and sense of authority through blogging, but few get it yet. Proving that my fellow real estate agents aren't alone

John, I am in sales and I have been brought into the "blogging" world kicking and screaming. I just started my blog a month and a half ago, and you know what? I'm actually enjoying it. I believe it will help my writing skills over time and hopefully it will have an impact on my 2 businesses (One is a coaching/consulting/monthly newsletter business for Christians in business -www.free.bleedership.com - and the other is selling a patented marketing tool - sticknsave.com). My blog is http://jim-lange.blogspot.com/.

The guy who started the blog realestatetomato.com (Jim Cronin - a friend of mine) was a salesman for a company that sold websites to Realtors. He started the blog with exactly the intention JJ has in mind - to build cred, trust and sales.

In six months the blog EXPLODED, such that he's quit his (well-paying) job, has started a company of his own selling blogging training, and is turning away business becuase he can't hire fast enough. He's asked to speak at national events on his subject (blogging for Realtors) and, well, I could go on and on..

Suffice to say that, yes - blogging works for salespeople.