Changing Brand Positioning
Personal Branding

Knowing How to Change Your Positioning

Don’t look, I’m changing my positioning! Weird!  Some people don’t think of themselves as a ‘brand’… but really we are talking of ‘brand positioning’. When I was setting up Power of Words for copywriting and content marketing, I did a lot of SWOT research on what my service should do and what level I should play at. It is similar to what I do now, whenever I launch a new book or membership. Sometimes though, the level we play at is dictated by the people we can feasibly reach. Who can you reach? It makes sense to align with what people in your circles are looking for… this often comes down to your own content, pitches, and talks. I’ve found, people in my circles are not often looking for ‘executive level’ info; far more often, they are looking for how to…
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Amplify book review
Book reviews

Amplify Book Review

Amplify is a book where you start reading and nodding along and soon find yourself down a rabbit hole. But a good one. You’ll be podcast listening — and perhaps hosting one — in no time. Having become intrigued, I listened to Bond Appetit and the interview with Dent’s Glen Carlson on finding your internal values. I later downloaded the worksheets. All good stuff to get you thinking. Ronsley Vaz is Australia’s largest proponent of podcasting and he has certainly done it the right way. His written voice is still oozing amazement at this runaway success and the gift of conversation. We might learn from Ronsley’s early mistakes in podcasting, but can we all follow in these giant footsteps and bring in 5 million listeners in 2/3 of the globe? Although not too sure, I started to warm to the fact…
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measure website visitors
Book Marketing

How to Make a WordPress Website Measure Visitors

WordPress has now become the most popular self-hosted CMS, beating out Drupal, Expression Engine and Blogger.  (A CMS is a Content Management System). Here, we’ll discuss how to log in once to WordPress and measure website visitors, quickly and easily. Along with bloggers, millions of small business people have gotten a WordPress website customised and then scratched their head. They ask: “how do I use a website to measure visitors and understand all the metrics?” Install an Analytics Dashboard to Measure Website Visitors As a business owner or consultant, you’re flat out already – with little time to check your Google Analytics tool.  Welcome to a handy Plugin: Google Analytics Dashboard. (Select “Add new” and search “analytics dashboard”, select the one with four stars). Once installed, you’ve got a great time saver – scroll down to the bottom of your…
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Write copy - copywriting tips
Book Marketing

Learning to write copy without the cringe factor

You may be an author, a blogger, or a copywriter, whichever, we all need to learn to write copy that doesn’t make a reader wince with distaste and that’s persuasive. It doesn’t just apply to book blurbs, but on the book sales page, it becomes super-important to write for the reader. One type of poorly-written copy that will kill a book’s chances is a rambling, self-focussed blurb about why the author felt the need to write the book. I know that the CEO just wrote a 400-page super book and has the best interests of his audience at heart, but they forgot the WIIFM: Always keep the What’s In It For Me in mind. Appeal to what your target audience is going to get out of the book as a whole. This takes really looking into your audience and their media. If appropriate,…
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freelancers what to charge

What to Charge: Pricing Strategies for Freelancers and Consultants – Book Review

by Laurie Lewis Outskirts Press, 2011, 2nd edition. In What to Charge: Pricing Strategies for Freelancers & Consultants, there is ample advice which will stop your flight into lassez-faire freelancing (or consulting) in its tracks.  By the end of chapter 1, you’ll already be challenging your assumptions about pricing on a simple client brief. I find the way Laurie uses an actual example of the advice in practice 10 times better than a simple model or explanation. Sometimes it’s hers, and sometimes it’s another consultant’s unfortunate experience. It’s really hard to obey the first rule of pricing and that is why this information is so valuable to me. So many clients just want to know the end price up-front based on some sketchy details about a project, but if you stick your neck out and price right away, you know…
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POD print on demand

A Tale of the Printing Press and POD

In 1450, in the town of Pearlessence, Sir Rupert was talking to his lightly-paid servant, Eric. It seemed the world of technology had moved on without Sir Rupert, which young Eric was only too happy to point out. (Bear with it, this parable does have a point). “Sir, it is a futile effort that you make, copying your manuscripts by hand. Even by woodblock, it takes a week to set up for one book!  Have you not heard that in Mulberry city they have a new Gutenberg press, a POD 400*. Its metal, moveable type and mechanized process makes it very fast!” “I don’t care, Eric, I am good with my hands and have all day long to make my books.” “Aye my Lord, but the POD 400 means you could not just copy out a book a fortnight and charge 10 guineas,…
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