This is a guest post by Jonathan Wondrusch from ByBloggers

I’ve known from the day I first hit “Publish” on a blog that I had a lot to learn, so I spend a lot of time looking up as a blogger. Besides sometimes being a pain in the neck, I end up asking questions such as: what separates the folks like of Brian Clark, Sonia Simone, Darren Rowse, and Chris Brogan from the rest of the mere mortals that aspire to achieve what they have?

What I’ve realized is that these supposed, “A-List Bloggers”, aren’t bloggers at all, they are really A-List business people. Sure, they run blogs. They write and produce incredible content constantly. That’s what we get to see on a day to day basis because we don’t get to peek behind the curtain of their operations.

If we had the opportunity to see what their operations really looked like, here’s what we would see:

• Smart, long-term strategies for products, content and community building.
• Coordinated efforts across all areas of the business and content creation, marketing, product development, networking and the rest.
• And chances are, you’d see a team of passionate people working together to turn their visions into reality through a business.

That’s a hell of a lot more going on than what I normally think of when I picture a blog in my mind. When we think of the A-Listers, we don’t often think of everything else that they are doing. Blogging is a single facet and an important one, no doubt ñ of the entire operation.

Get Paid to Do What You Love To Do

Before you sigh at the cliché of the thought of, “Get paid to do what you love” hear me out.

If you are serving an audience through your blog or social media, I’d put money on the fact that you do it day in and day out because you love it. The fact that you get to help people – to solve challenges by sharing your experience and know-how in the niche that you can’t stop thinking about – probably excites the hell out of you.

Why else would you consistently produce content about a topic that you weren’t passionate about?

Pause.

Let yourself Dream for a moment.

What if you could get paid to do that? Screw the “American Dream” ñ this is The Dream: supporting the life you want by doing the work you love, and maybe, from wherever you want to do it.

If you can find that in a job, you need to thank whatever lucky stars are in your life, because those opportunities are one in a million. The rest of us have to consciously create that dream for ourselves.

Making the Leap from Blog to Business

Every blogger that I have had the opportunity to connect with has an entrepreneurial drive. In some, it is less pronounced, and in others, it is bright and sizzling – but it is always there.

And we can use that drive to create whatever we dream our lives to be.

The entrepreneurial spirit is what inspires us to create something incredible, and then share it with an audience. The difference between a blog and a business is that a business leverages (yes, that does translate as “sells”) the best of those creations to enable you to serve your audience even more.

Bridging that gap is 100% mental. You have to realize that to sustain the work that you are passionate about doing and to bring more of that into your life, you need to build a business around your passion that serves others.a

Once you’ve cleared that hurdle, you can begin the process of launching products and offering services to build a business around. It doesn’t have to be business as usual though.

The Customer Love Factor

Three months ago, I stumbled upon a movement in it’s infancy: Customer Love. Inspired by a post by Naomi Dunford on IttyBiz, a few enthusiastic bloggers created a Challenge: spend 28 days loving and serving their customers, and then launch a product so that they can keep doing the work that they are inspired by.

The concept clicked with people.

Bloggers united and devoted themselves to delivering as much value to their potential customers as humanly possible in 28 days. Where business had previously been foreign and inhuman, the concept of focusing on loving your audience and your customers inspired people to take action that they had been holding off on for months (or years).

What could be better than doing what you love, surrounded by an astounding group of peers, serving people you cared about and at the end of it, getting paid to deliver value that people desired, so that you could keep doing it?

Customer Love was the spark that lit the fire and intensified the entrepreneurial drive within. It gave people the permission to really do what they loved doing and start to think about doing business in a way that was authentic and personally meaningful.

On Day 29 of the first challenge, the stage was set and only a few people launched.

Yet still passionate about serving their audiences, many of the participants came back for a second challenge ñ more interaction, more customer love, more personal growth and transformation.

Challenge #2, Day 29 rolled around, and again a surprisingly small number of the participants launched.

Hurdles & Missing Pieces

When I was invited to help co-lead the third Customer Love Challenge, I knew that there was so much potential in the concept of customer love.† Imagine ñ an ecosystem of artists and entrepreneurs that operate their businesses based on the principle of loving and serving their customers to the best of their abilities.

Call me a Utopian, but it’s hard not to make that leap when you see so many people excited about the movement.

And there’s another part to all of this: it works. There have been participants that did launch, and were able to make their mortgage payment. Other participants have completely shifted their online presence around the principle of customer love. One community at a time, it is changing lives.

My burning question became: how can I help more people take the steps to evolve from a blog into a thriving customer-love oriented entrepreneur?

What kept people from launching a product, even though they were so dedicated to loving their customers? It came down to a few extremely common factors:

• Fear of failure No one wants launch a product that flops or to fail publicly.
• Lack of know-how Many people don’t know where to start when creating a product.
• Fear of selling There are many prejudices and misconceptions regarding what online marketing and selling looks like.

The more I thought about it, the more I knew there was a way to genuinely help people.

The Customer Love Machine

I pitched an idea to LaVonne Ellis, my co-leader for the next Customer Love Challenge:

What if we can create a course for people that will teach them exactly how to create a product that their customers will love and that will allow them to take the first steps toward building an online business?

The idea stuck, and we began working in earnest. This week, to coincide with the beginning of the next Customer Love Challenge on February 1^st, LaVonne and I are launching The Customer Love Machine, a 29 day course that teaches everything you need to know to create and launch a product that your customers will love. It’s got:

• 29 Daily Emails filled with Product Creation guidance and tasks
• An exclusive membership forum where you can collaborate, get feedback, and network with other participants.
• Weekly Webinars where you get to ask questions, receive guidance and discuss the lessons of that week’s module.
• Weekly action worksheets that help you map out exactly what you need to do to move forward with your product creation and launch process
• Over 10 interviews with successful entrepreneurs that are living the lives they want, doing the work they love and loving their customers.
• And for a few more people (there are only 15 slots in the premium offering of the course, and they’re already selling pretty quick) one-on-one coaching with LaVonne and I to really kickstart the process.

And it comes with a pretty insane guarantee: it pays for itself. If you do the work, launch a product and the product doesn’t pay for the course, then we work with you one-on-one to improve your product, help you re-launch it, and if it still doesn’t pay for the course, then you get your money back. No risk, all reward.

LaVonne and I are passionate about this new business paradigm of building a business around loving your customers. We know that if you can build a business around doing what you love, you’re more than a few steps closer to living the life you want.

That process begins by having a product to launch, and we want to help you take that first step successfully.

Are you ready to take that first step? Then join the Customer Love Machine, and let us teach you the best way to do it.

What do you think?

What business would you build around loving your customers? If you haven’t already, what’s the hurdle that is keeping you from making the mental jump from blogger to entrepreneur?

* Disclaimer: Some of the links on this posts are affiliate links.

This is a guest post by Jonathan Wondrusch – Jonathan is the Head of Awesome at ByBloggers.net, author of Epic E-Book Creation and the brain and soul behind the ByBloggers Bootstrapper program. You can also find him hanging out on Twitter or Facebook.

In previous posts and polls we have discussed the issues of maintaining a blog, that is of course, if you blog for your business and the goal is to make it part of your marketing approach.

Today, entrepreneurs are known for being great at delegating and outsourcing segments of their business to be able to focus on the essentials but, would you consider outsourcing your blog? or at least aspects of the work load it represents?

What would you be willing to outsource?

Also, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments sections. Maybe you think it should not be outsourced at all…

Thanks for participating!

Are you feeling like you are the only one that doesn’t get any results from social media? Are you getting nothing but frustration while everybody else and their grandmas are talking about monetizing, getting prospects and all kinds of success stories?

Questioning your strategy is a good start. Here is a list of items that might be damaging your personal brand or preventing you from achieving those hard to get goals…

1. Your Content Is Self Centered

I said it before and it doesn’t sound very nice but nobody cares about you or your product. People care about how your product can provide a benefit or cover their needs. Turn it around and think about others. How you can be of help and provide value to your potential prospect. A good exercise to get started is to not allow yourself to write in first person.

2. You Don’t Come Out To Play

You are so focused on creating content and making your blog better that you forget about getting out and interacting with people in other platforms. If you don’t come out and play, when you finally decide to go to the park the other kids don’t even know who you are. A great way is to visit other blogs and comment, but don’t just say “Good Job”, have an opinion. Stay in your field, after all, you know what you’re talking about.

3. You Are All Strategy

If you are so attached to a strategy that you’re not even allowing yourself to experiment a little, you need to let go. I don’t care if you read it from a Social Media superstar. Test different things, allow yourself to make mistakes. When Gary Vaynerchuck was asked (on CNN) what was his strategy, he responded that there is no strategy but to follow your heart. I’m not against having one but leave enough room to be spontaneous. You don’t want to be a robot…

4. You Are Only Promoting Yourself

You’re suffering from the “me me me” syndrome. Nothing wrong with promoting yourself, the problem is when you become a broadcaster of your own message. This is different than any other media, in traditional media you wouldn’t run an ad promoting somebody else. Find content that you thing would be useful or interesting to your prospects and share it with them, I don’t care if it’s your own competitor. If you haven’t noticed, competition has a whole new meaning today, but that’s another post.

5. You Are In The Wrong Place

You might be hanging out in the wrong network. Most likely you know your target market, all you need to do is identify where the hangout is. I’ll use myself as an example (sorry…), I get no love from Linkedin members. Why? Because I’m talking to people, entrepreneurs and independents, not to companies. When I used to own a skateshop, my hangout was MySpace. Eliminate any networks that you feel are not right for your kind of product or service and focus on fewer ones.

6. You Are Not Engaging

I’m sure you heard this a lot and I’m sorry to tell you that if you don’t start conversations with real human beings, nobody is going to notice you’re there. Engage everywhere, not just when people comment on your blog. You can also engage in existing conversations, provide help or answer questions every chance you get. Also, make sure you always interact with the intention to help others, not yourself.

7. Your Content Is Not Being Shared

Make sure your blog is providing visitors with the necessary tools to share your content. Use tools such as Tweetmeme or Digg buttons or sharing systems like ShareThis. Make it easy for them, some people will share your content anyways if it’s worth it but don’t expect anybody to go the extra mile for you.

8. Your Blog Is Not Converting

If you are driving traffic to your site but you are not converting, you should probably take a hard look at it. In my previous post “12 Things To Consider Before Launching Your Blog“, I talk about different aspects you need to consider to have your blog work for you and help you reach your objectives. Are your messages clear? Are you using calls to action? Do you have too much clutter? Take some time to question everything about it and pay attention to successful people in your niche.

9. You Are Focused On Closing Sales

There are no direct sales here, you better forget about it. “Cold-Calling” is dead. You need to focus on building relationships instead and have the patience to let your prospects come to you. If you are used to pushing sales, think of a new concept: PULL instead of PUSH. A hardcore salesman gets no love on social media.

Be generous with your knowledge, people are going to ask you questions and you need to see this as the perfect opportunity to knock their socks off. Now they’ll remember you!

10. You Are Not Familiar With The Etiquette

I’m not saying you need to become a pro but at least get the basics to make sure you’re using the different networks properly. Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter are not the same thing. There are different ways to communicate, to approach people or to share content. Making mistakes is only human and asking is also allowed, making the same mistakes over and over again will damage your personal brand.

A good example is when you’re sharing content, learn how to properly credit the source or how to use short URL’s.

Final Thought…

Question everything. Test new things. Do your homework. The Internet is like putting things on paper, so make sure you represent yourself honestly.

Feel free to add your thoughts to this post…

Photo Credit: len-k-a

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I have been thinking lately on finding better ways to explain what I do since I don’t really claim to be a designer, a developer or a writer. I have a couple of ideas I’m doing this week, the first one is offering FREE 1-Hour consultation calls to have one-on-one interactions and have people ask whatever they want with no strings attached. I already posted that to my Facebook Profile. The second idea was to redo the About Me page so the message can provide more clarity…

And lastly, since the{naked}elephant was just massively re-designed and re-launched, I thought it would be cool to show people what’s behind it and that way show what the hell is it that I do. So here it is:

Chasing Simplicity

While the information provided in the original site was valuable, the site had too many sections that were mostly readable with no interaction needed on the user’s side, which makes it a one-way channel.

This time we wanted simplicity to be one of the main ingredients, clean the clutter and get the whole site naked to its key messages. Besides the blog, which is now the homepage of the site, there are only 3 sections: Get To Know Me, What I Do and Hire Me, of course there is the Contact page with a lot less visibility…  What else do you need to know, right? The rest of what you have to say comes through your postings.

Clarity in your Key Messages

I always tell people not to focus on the sections the website is going to have, focus on your key messages instead and then worry about how they are going to be displayed. Question everything, if you don’t, how are you going to provide answers to your visitor. Think about what your business is, why did you start it? for what? the benefits you offer or how you are different. These answers are going to provide answers that will help identify what you want to put out there.

I think the{naked}elephant is honestly representing who Andrea is, even in little details, if you know her then you know she does get distracted by shiny objects.

Call To Action

Tell your visitor what you want them to do, make it very obvious. If you sell products, want people to sign-up for your e-book or whatever you do, that end-user visiting your site needs to know what to do or he/she will look around and surf away…

You have 3 things to do here, get to know Andrea, what she does and hire one of her services. If you want to discuss things contact her, and when you go to the contact page, she tells you that the best way to do so is email. Don’t be afraid to be upfront and informal, this is not a financial document.

Brand Consistency

It has always been there. It’s very tempting to change your Facebook profile pictures every 2 weeks because you get bored, people should remember your face and when they visit another network, know it’s you…

You should be recognizable everywhere I go, from one network to another, if a person goes from your site to your Twitter. Sometimes I don’t even know if I’m still with the same person.

When I did the photo shoot (I admire and respect photographers and in no way I intend to consider myself one) I took different variations thinking of the future, I have pictures in different places and wearing different stuff so I can spice things up a little from time to time without going too far from the brand.

Spreading Awesomeness and getting some traffic back to the site

As I mentioned on my previous post 5 Social Tools To Help You Spread Your Awesomeness Outside Your Site, it is important to come out and play, spread you content out there and bring some traffic back to your site. Hold on! while you might be tempted to go to as many places as possible, most of those efforts are going to be wasted, first, analyze your traffic, test a few places and compare results, then do it again. This a test, test, test game…

After trying different things, Andrea now focuses on Facebook, Twitter, Digg (I’m writing a post about it…), a little StumbleUpon and then making direct connections with people offline. Is it time to stop to testing? Of course not, you’re always testing, even if everything is running smoothly. I just started a Flickr profile… let’s see what happens.

Technology makes a better user experience (and makes you look good…)

I added a couple of things to create a better experience for the visitor:

• We implemented the Disqus commenting system which takes the conversation to whole new level, now the site has Facebook Connect or you can also comment as a guest only.
• I integrated LinkWithin that recommends related posts within the site and it helps you increase readership, average time on site and lower your bounce rate.
• The site is now running on Thesis Framework 1.6, only the most robust WordPress theme available.
• I added the blog to NetworkedBlogs and integarted the application to the Facebook Fan Page and now you can see the blog feed in one of the tabs. Of course her Twitter feed was there already.

To recap what I did for this t{n}e makeover…

• Design (including all graphics and layout).
• I took the photos.
• Site development.
• Created and deployed the personal brand.
• Created all social media accounts, profiles, channels, etc.
• Analytics and all that stuff in the back-end that you don’t get to see.

The Key: Partnership

This whole process is a co-creation, when you have a very clear concept of your business core values, it is very easy to communicate, to lead and to build something that really represents you. In this case, that is exactly what Andrea does and it is clearly translated into the site. This makes the whole thing easier on my side. I have to admit that sometimes she sees things that I don’t but then again… creative development is her middle name!

So feel free to make comments or suggestions… this is not over yet.

When I write posts I always have in mind that I’m writing for people that, more than entrepreneurs, are following their passion and somehow working on a life’s project, putting their work out there. I also assume that I’m able to provide a little help with advice on something that is not their expertise, for example, I think that a life coach, an artist or a web designer should focus on enriching his/her career and that there is little time to learn about other aspects of the business like marketing or accounting. I’m hoping to provide a little value to those people.

Now, talking about how to market your business, I think it should be pretty clear by now that there is no other tool with such potential as the internet. Having a website or a blog is not even a discussion anymore, but that is just the first step. I have said before that you can’t just throw a website out there, you need to promote it.

One of the books I read recently is “Change The Way You See Everything”. Following the whole concept of Asset-Based Thinking, I found this quote which I have made a principle of how I conduct my marketing efforts. The funny thing is that it no longer feels like an effort…

“You always have something of value to add. Always. Identify your assets, never doubt them, put them out there for the right people to see and watch what happens.“

So this is a list of 5 things I recommend you consider using around your site or blog to promote your work outside. Your site will always be the final destination for your visitor, but these tools allow you to come out and play:

1. Tumblelogs

You can consider Tumblelogs to be in the middle of blogging and microblogging. The beauty of this platform is that you can share different media formats like text, quotes, audio files, photos or video while in microblogging you can only post a link to the actual file making it a 2-step process.

Also, platforms like Tumblr and Posterous are known for making the whole process very simple, so posting a YouTube video for example is as easy as just posting text. My suggestion is that you use this platform to add and share other people’s content that you wouldn’t post on your blog and sharing other resources that are relevant to your followers. It is a way of adding value to what you’re already creating as original content.

While I prefer Tumblr, I have to admit that Posterous has a much easier process for posting by using email, you can send a link to a video or attach a bunch of pictures in an email and Posterous will turn it into a post. Here is my Tumblr and my Posterous if want to take a look at them.

2. Microblogging

You might be more familiar with the concept of Microblogging because of Twitter‘s popularity. Text posts of a max of 140 characters are a great way to share your content and drive some traffic to your site. If you are a Twitter rookie or your thinking of giving it a try, there are things you should know, especially regarding etiquette. A great place to start is my post “Best ‘How To Use Twitter’ Resources For The Overwhelmed Beginner” where you’ll find all kinds of resources.

Besides Facebook, Twitter is probably the place where you’ll get the most exposure and if I have to give one advice to go on to a good start, it will be to really interact with others, or it will feel like your performing a monologue at an empty stadium… Seriously. Here’s my Twitter if you care to exchange tweets with me.

3. Social Bookmarking

That famous quote from Field Of Dreams “If you build it, they will come” will not do the trick here. Social Bookmarking sites such as Digg, Mixx or StumbleUpon are great traffic generators but you need to do your share of work. Now, if you are working on your passion and building your life’s work whatever that is, wouldn’t you want people to see it? If you don’t hustle promoting your work, your site or blog will feel like… exactly, an empty stadium.

Social bookmarking is not just a way of throwing a backlink out there and hoping that people will follow it, did you notice the word “Social” on social bookmarking? Yes, you can also build a community of friends just as if you were on Facebook, as a matter of fact, sites like Digg can connect to your Facebook profile as a seamless sharing tool. You can join me on Digg too by the way.

4. Social Networking

No, of course I’m not going to explain social networking, but I will say that If you are not using this platform to promote your work, business, project or whatever you are working on, then you are wasting the number one marketing tool out there. It is important to mention a couple of things:

• You don’t need to be on every single network to increase your visibility, you will only be successful at one or two of them and the rest will become a royal waste of time and energy…
• Understand your target market, MySpace and Linkedin are not hangouts for the same crowds.
• If you really think Facebook is only to connect to your ant on the other side of the planet, you need to take another look at it.

5. Other Media

Other media such as video or photography are proven tools to engage your visitor, they make your site or blog more attractive and give the end-user an alternative to text. Believe me, a word count of 1,500 in front of you feels like forever after a long day of work…

But what I’m suggesting is that you centralize these content formats in alternative properties, in other words, if you post a lot of your own photography, consider having a Flickr account that you can link to your site. If you produce video, start a Vimeo or a YouTube channel.

Just to be crystal clear on this one, I’m not saying you should not post your videos on your blog, but have an alternative channel where your visitor can get them all at once, of course linking back to your site… Here’s an example of what I did with my Mini-Tutorials, you can watch them here on my blog or you can go visit my Vimeo Channel and get all the juice in one place.

So what I’m saying is…

Find simple ways to spread your awesomeness around. Create a web marketing portfolio with these tools, just remember that that’s all they are… tools.

The product is the king, and that my friend, is YOU.

If you are using other social media tools, share them with us…

Welcome. Our first post is to introduce ourselves and announce the launch of our services. SocialMouths started operations yesterday (4/27/09) in Los Angeles, California.

Get to know a little bit of who we are and what we do and feel free to interact with any comments, questions or suggestions. We are a “Social Company”. We intend to communicate and enforce truth and simplicity in our message as well as in every campaign we design for our clients.

What we do

Very simple. SocialMouths helps entrepreneurs, small businesses and professionals in different industries leverage from social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and others. Whether you are looking to brand a company or yourself on the web, our team can help you establish and deploy the right strategies depending on your products or services and target market.

The format? SocialMouths can consult, coach or develop those strategies to raise awareness and ultimately generate traffic so you can turn into customers. We also provide free content through our blog in order to give you the basics of social media, in plain English.

Is Social Media for you?

Of course it is! Did you know that social media is free? Did you know that businesses and entrepreneurs like you are attracting new customers through it? Are you still focusing on conventional media campaigns to market your products/services?

Social media changed the way we communicate, not only in our personal lives but also how businesses interact with their clients.

Our Opening Promo

As our opening promo, we will offer a free 1-hour phone session to the first 5 people that contact us through the comments of this post. Just claim it! It doesn’t matter where you are.

Get in Contact

Ask for our services or just say hi on:

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Social media is no longer a way to connect with your friends and family. It also means serious business. Find out how.