Whether you want to be found by a hiring manager, want to find a new client or simply want to put forth your knowledge and skills you need to have your online biographies completed filled out. We have 3 tips to writing a professional bio that will help you make a great impression before you even say a word or shake a hand!
A professional online bio and a great headshot are what potential connections will see first and will, honestly, judge you on. If you purport to be a professional, but you can’t find a professional headshot… there is a disconnect.
3 Tips To Writing A Professional Bio
What should go into your bio to make you stand out?
As mentioned, a professional photo. Don’t take a selfie. Don’t have a photo of you in your tuxedo from your wedding. Don’t cut your face out of a group photo. Call a professional photographer and get one taken.
Your name and title (don’t make up a title that is so obscure and clever that someone couldn’t figure out what you do). What do you do in your current role?
Add your branding statement. A branding statement is like your mission or vision statement. It helps someone who is reading your bio to know what you stand for and how you stand out from the competition.
Should you write your bio in first person or third person? The jury is still out on that. First-person point of view would be: I am an accountant who has worked for XYZ Company and I was responsible for… A third person bio would be: John has worked as an accountant with XYZ Company and he was responsible for…
Your bio should be updated and refreshed regularly. If you haven’t crafted your bio or don’t know what your branding statement is, reach out to Rex Richard of Peak Dynamics and talk with him.
Is your blog working for you? Is it being a slacker and just taking up space in your head and on your website? What can you do to make it earn its keep? Because blogs aren’t dead and because Google loves new, updated content we have come up with 5 jobs your blog should perform; if it isn’t you need to reach out to Rex Richard of Peak Dynamics and discuss a strategy.
Technology and analytics and what makes for “good” and “searchable” content is always changing, but great content on your website via your blog are not going away any time soon. In fact, an updated blog helps your site be found in a search.
5 Jobs Your Blog Should Perform
What should your blog be doing for you?
Helping with SEO. Using the correct key words and key phrases will help your content rise to the top of a search and help more ideal clients find you. Make sure you’re using H2 headers and subtopics, and key words and images with alt tags to up the searchability of the posts.
Authentically you. When you blog — or have a ghostwriter blog for you — you are able to be more real, more authentic and more conversational. Let your cilents get to know you. Show them a side of you they don’t see on a Zoom or a networking event.
New content rules. Google loves new content and when you post a blog you are upping the chances that you will be found in a search. It’s a win.
Your blog can act as a lead magnet. Offer a free download or other goodie to new clients through one of your blog posts. You can even use a blog post page to house/host a freebie aka lead magnet.
Cha-ching! You can monetize your blog either through affiliate links or by having ads placed on your site. You could also offer individuals guest spots on your blog and charge them for the placement. Keep in mind that it’s not easy to charge until you have the traffic to support someone wanting to advertise with you, but creating new and fresh content will surely help with that.
No matter how many new technologies come along, you are never going to replace your blog — nor should you. Don’t put all your eggs on a social media site you don’t own and that could shut you down and shut you out.
What is your goal as a new entrepreneur? To get clients, make money and stay afloat. If you have put time and effort into creating your product or service, the next step would be to get that first client – then more and more after that, right? We have tips on how to get and retain leads to help your business grow.
How do you get those initial clients and how to you keep them with you for the long haul? By staying in touch and raising awareness of all that you do and all the benefits you bring them.
For the attraction phase you need to:
Build trust
Raise awareness
How can you build value when a new client doesn’t know anything about you or your products or services?
Give value right out of the gate. Give them a freebie, great content, a reason to give you a test drive.
Give a free consultation, 15- or 30-minute.
Give access to free video content
How To Get And Retain Leads
You want to entice prospects with content or a product that highlights your expertise in a way that gets a reader to give you their email address – a highly coveted piece of information.
Once your potential client consumes your free lead magnet your hope is that they see your expertise and will hire you or buy your product.
Segment your leads. If your lead only wants to know about dogs, don’t send them content about cats and vice versa.
What can you give that will offer value?
Templates or guides
Free trial offers
Free consultation
Free webinars
Money off a first purchase
A quiz or survey that helps your prospect narrow down or hone in on his or her… XYZ – whatever your niche is
How do you get a prospect to your free offer?
Write an attention-grabbing headline in your email
Drive them to a beautifully-designed landing page
Create the opt-in form
Ask them to opt-in. Make the call to action clear and pointed
List out the features and benefits and how your product or service will address their pain points
Let’s get right to it, shall we? Grab your writing instrument of choice or pull op a document on the computer and get ready to sharpen this necessary skill.
Identify the problem. If you only have a vague understanding of what the problem is or might be, you won’t be able to solve it because you won’t have the information you need.
What different angle could you approach this problem from? Jack Welch said, “Continually expand your definition of the problem, and you expand your view of all the different ways that it can be solved.” Ask, “What else is the problem?” You may not be looking at the correct “problem” at all.
Consider the solutions you’ve tried. Look the problem over and under. Ask for help because you just might have a blind spot to the problem.
What caused the problem? Is it something that just popped up or has it been brewing for some time now? Know when and how it arose and you might be able to better address it.
Look for ALL possible solutions — don’t censor yourself. No matter how far-fetched a solution may seem, write it down because there could be a kernel of a solution.
Reward yourself because by now, you have thoroughly examined the problem, causes and some potential solutions. Given this hard work, you are ready to decide which tactic will work best, and to go for it. No more procrastinating!
Get your team around you and delegate
Set a deadline and metrics to measure the success moving toward it
Get the solution implemented BUT have a back up plan in case the original plan doesn’t fall into place.
Re-examine the success or failure or points that got missed and make a written note of them in case you’re faced with this same problem or a similar one
Rex Richard understands the importance of leading a balanced, orderly personal life as a way to help you be a better leader in your business role. Your personal satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, can color your business dealings.
Reinvention is something you should look at regularly in your personal and your professional lives. Make the time to achieve serenity and peace. On a daily basis, simply turn everything off for a time. Be quiet, calm and peaceful.
Savor the silence. Use your former TV-watching time to get in closer touch with your loved ones. Be considerate to them and to yourself.
As an entrepreneur, you need to stay on top of your projects. If you don’t you will drop the ball, miss deadlines, disappoint clients and potentially lose them. You need to stay focused and hearn how to effectively manage your projects.
What can you do to:
Stay focused
Hit your targets
If you’re ready to get a handle on your tasks and to get focused so you’re not feeling so overwhelmed and so you feel — and are — more accomplished, let’s go.
First things first:
Grab paper
Grab a pen or pencil
OR open a document on your computer — whatever your planning tool of choice your plan and ideas down on paper. I’ve found it can be helpful to use sticky notes to plan out your road map. I recommend writing with a marker you can easily read from afar, using multiple colors for sticky notes or markers for categorization, and writing on the top of the note so you can tear off the nonadhesive part to prevent curling.
If you don’t write down what you want to accomplish, you will miss deadlines, forget projects or miss steps. Also, writing items down makes them seem more doable and achievable because you’re taking them out of your head where they grow in power and looking at them on paper and you can see, they aren’t as overwhelming as you’d imagined.
How To Effectively Manage Your Projects
Let’s get planning.
As mentioned write down all the big goals you want to achieve
Write down the steps and resources you need to achieve them
Write down the deadlines
Write down all the other engagements that could potentially interfere with these projects (you need to plan for them, though)
Write down your outside of work responsibilities like family and friends
Make note of which items are high priority and which are time-sensitive and which have a loose deadline
Look at your calendar and make blocks of time for each of the projects
Stick to your plan. It doesn’t help you to do this exercise only to toss it aside a day or week later.
Before you leave your office at the end of the day, mark off the items you’ve completed, carry others forward and plan for your next day. Planning for your day before you leave the office means you will sit down to work and already have a plan — it is a great time saver. If the past year has taught us nothing it’s that you need to be flexible with your plans but you do need to have a plan!
Can you make money blogging? It’s a question that business coach Rex Richard gets asked all the time. The answer is a tentative yes. Making money only by blogging is rare (unless you have a major following and your pay per click game is strong)
Most people who “make money blogging” are doing so because they are blogging about their products or services. Blogging as a business means you have to put your efforts into building a website that will draw traffic and have advertisers clamoring for ad space – which you could sell to them and make money blogging. It’s semantics.
Can you make money blogging?
Generating income starts by generating content that people want to read and that Google and other search engines want to highlight because its so well-researched and written and optimized.
Here are things you can sell and promote through your blogging that could help you make money with your blog.
Online workshops or courses. Package and sell your knowledge through your website. Your blogging skills are what you will use to promote your courses and workshops to people who want to buy them.
Sell digital products like e-books or an online store with digital products. These could be templates, photos, worksheets, printables and more.
Affiliate marketing can be lucrative BUT you need to ensure that if you’re selling items that your blog posts and website are a constant litany of BUY these products! No reader wants to be bombarded with that. They come to your site for quality content, or to learn or to be enlightened. Use affiliate links sparingly and naturally. Make sure you have a notice on every post and on your site that you may make money from affiliate links.
Sell ad space. This will require you to show your traffic numbers to potential advertisers. The more traffic the more you can charge for space on your site. Again, this is a delicate balancing act – your readers won’t want to come to your site and have to wade through dozens of ads to get to the content they’re seeking – they won’t.
Write sponsored blog posts for money.
Accept guest bloggers who want to pay for the privilege to be on your site. Again, this, and number 5 require traffic numbers that will cause someone to want to pay.
Create a digital community based on your unique niche. You could charge a monthly membership fee – keep in mind that this recurring income needs to reward members with new and updated and free content regularly.
So, yes you can technically make money blogging, but it does require out-of-the-box thinking. If you need help coming up with a great idea to make money on your blog, contact Rex Richard.
