One of the biggest myths in blogging is that if you write great content audiences will flock to you. Wrong. Remember the old adage, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it…” That’s precisely what happens to a great blog without some promotion or visibility.

Now you could hope on Twitter and blast out your latest post everyday. You could confuse all your friends and family on Facebook with business posts, when they were looking for new pictures of little Bobby. However, let me tell you a little secret about growing a huge (relevant) audience for your own blog.

Go where the eyeballs already are and impress the heck out of them.

That’s right, guest posting is one of the leading ways top bloggers get there. Do you doubt the formula? Check out what used to get Chris Brogan excited. Here is the subtle irony—guess who is the big dog now—the host or the guest?

Okay, so I’ve made my case for what you should be doing as a business blogger to grow and maybe even one day make some money with all that blogging. But, there is one thing I failed to mention—sometime getting a shot at guest blogging is hard. The blog publisher is taking a risk on you with their readership.

Today is your lucky day!

My friends over at Bloggertone.com in partnership with BizSugar.com are giving you a shot at the big time. They are going to let you post on Bloggertone.com and promote on BizSugar.com—tens of thousands of eyeballs are going to focus on your best. All that for FREE.

Not to sound like an Infomercial, but I’ve got to say it…”Wait there’s more!”

They’re going to give tons of prizes to the best. $6921 in prizes to be exact! The best part is that even the prizes will help your business grow. Check these out:

• Lead Page Machine – a software to automatically generate squeeze pages so that you can use this to tailor your squeeze pages to specific audiences, to build your email subscribers and increase your sales conversions. Valued at: $5200
• Animoto – a year’s membership to this easy tool which creates videos from photos.  Valued at: $249
• Traction Call – a 45 minute call with the Traction Coach Gary Barnes to help you to quickly get some “sand under your wheels” so you can move forward toward the life you want to live. Valued at $175
• ClickMillionaires – 2 x 6-month membership to Scott Fox’s social network helping business owners upgrade their marketing to make more money online. Valued at $174
• 5 Critical Tactics for Business Blog Success – this CD and report by Denise Wakeman reveals how you can easily make your blog a winner. Valued at $97
• Start.Grow.Run – 8 x a software package with 45 essential tools and services for the 3 different phases of your business. Valued at $49.95 each
• Plus there are 2 books for both the winners of the Top 10 Titles and the Top 10 Commenters. And the books include:
• Wordtracker Masterclass: Blogging For Business – 50 Steps to Building Traffic and Sales by Chris Garrett. 5 books valued at $39 each
• Sociable by Shane Gibson & Stephan Jagger. 5 books valued at $25 each
• New Community Rules by Tamar Weinberg. 5 books valued at $16.49 each
• Guest Posting by Chris Garrett. 5 ebooks valued at $10 each

So, are you in? It’s easy to win…even if you don’t have the time to whip up a guest post you can do the next best thing—leave a pity comment and win too!

There’s really nothing more to think about. Not putting this on today’s TODO list is going to cost you money one way or another. Find out more and get started now—>Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest.

P.S., You didn’t think I was going to sit on the sidelines did you? Check out my entry: 5 Ways Small is Beating Big for Flagship Clients.

Vote it up on BizSugar: http://www.bizsugar.com/sugartone/5-ways-small-is-beating-big-for-flagship-clients-|-sales/

Give me a ReTweet (copy & paste): RT @billrice 5 Ways Small is Beating Big for Flagship Clients | Sales http://bit.ly/9t2atg

P.S.S., I wouldn’t ask you to do something I wouldn’t do. Leave me a link to your article entry and I will do the same. That gives you another 6500+ eyeballs on Twitter. Why are you still here? Go submit your article!

I think all the self-help books have a fundamental flaw. Most ask people to look in the wrong direction for success. In fact, they may even have us looking in a dangerous direction.

How often have you heard:

“Look deep inside,” “Start with the Man in the Mirror,” “Look to yourself.”

I submit that the real key to success, the true magic in rising to higher levels is looking beyond yourself.

Sure you have to drive yourself to take action and get a little uncomfortable. However, the best way to do that is to do it for someone else.

Take today and find someone else to help. You will be more successful for it.

Probably some of the biggest deals you will ever close in sales are jobs. These important sales calls can yield enormous opportunities, to make more money and reach bigger goals. However, chances are you never even considered job hunting and landing part of your sales training.

Here is a short guide to closing the big deal–a job!

1. Ideas are More Important than Resumes (hat tip: WWD). The resume seems to be going the way of the dinosaur. It is still showing up as a standard format in online social networking sites, like LinkedIn. However, it seems to be less and less useful in conveying relevant experience and current projects.

Notice I used the term projects versus job. This is the trend I see evolving. More and more highly qualified and talented people are managing their careers on a project basis, not one serial corporate employer at a time. The economy and businesses are way to fluid to support this more industrial paradigm of work.

2. Employers Want to See Portfolios (hat tip: WWD). The fluidity of employment and the prevalence of online publishing is prompting employers to ask for portfolios. They want to see the work and the results, not your resume spin on you accomplishments.

Learning to organize and package this portfolio is critical. Do you have a nicely organized personal brand, work samples, and links to relevant social profiles? Maybe you should this is one of the first things a prospective employer will hunt for–Google must be able to efficiently find your pitch.

3. It’s a Freelance Economy. I have to say this is my pick for the mega-trend emerging from the latest global recession–everyone is a freelancer. To one degree or another the instability of employment and the sharp rise in unemployment has shaken the confidence of employees. The natural result has been for people to diversify.

Even those employees still working for corporate America are likely to be seen building the personal brand on social networks or working on a side project or two in the evenings.

4. You’d Better have a Personal Brand. If you are relying on your resume, printed on heavy stock with a nice cover letter to make you competitive for a job in this market then you are sadly mistaken. Given the choice between a resume (your word) and a candidate where I can go online vet their work and their network–the resume-only candidate is going to lose.

Start branding your expertise and the social network to validate it, before you need a job. Ideally when that employer goes out into the market to ask, “Who is the best enterprise software salesperson, designer, copywriter?” Everyone links to you.

5. Don’t Wait to Get Recruited. Finally, waiting around for the recruiter to find you for that dream job is foolish. First, it is a great big world of unemployed, under-employed, and unhappily employed people. Second, most recruiters are trying to fill jobs people are not as interested in taking (i.e., poor compensation, uninteresting work, nondescript employers, clogs in the wheel).

The best jobs/projects are the ones you go after or even better to create in an exciting company. If you have a great idea or see an exciting opportunity–pitch it to good companies. Think entrepreneurial and find someone that will pay you to execute your plan or create you dream position.

If you liked this post please sign-up to the RSS feed or get them via email and avoid missing the next Better Closer sales best practice.

I really haven’t used Facebook all that much for business development or sales, but when I launched my campaign for Flat Rock, MI School Board I thought it was time to give it a try.

Here are a few things I learned, which might be useful in future sales and business development efforts with Facebook:

1. Make it a resource, not a sales pitch. I preach this all the time in using online marketing, but I will reiterate it again. People come to the Internet in overwhelming majority to research or find something out. They are more than likely not trying to immediately buy something or find select the candidate they will vote for in the election.

Therefore, avoid the hard sell. Help them find what they are looking for–a little information. In my case it may be to help them find when the next Flat Rock Board of Education meeting is, or when the Flat Rock Football home opener is, how much a Flat Rock Sports season pass is, or maybe find out if the Bobcean Elementary School construction is going to be finished for the first day of school.

2. Never miss an opportunity to be helpful. I found out how valuable this could be right off the bat. I’m not a current sitting Board member, but I was immediately getting questions like I was–powerful way to demonstrate how you are going to serve when your elected.

I am tenacious about being responsive and getting answers for people. Everyone values a sense of urgency in help them with their issue or question. Don’t miss that opportunity to build that trust.

3. Let people know how they can get involved. It is always tough to ask for things, but I found that people (especially those joining a Facebook Fan Page) are usually willing to do small and specific things for you. I think asking your fans to help you accomplish a big goal, i.e., winning an election or getting more fans is exciting and energizes your whole community.

4. Leverage other websites or social media. Don’t forget all the other social profiles, blogs, or other online resources that you have and can leverage in your campaign to promote your Facebook Fan Page. These other sources can help drive traffic and interest to your page and generate more community members.

5. Don’t get too local, the world is smaller than you think. When you are select who you are going to promote your fan page to, don’t narrow your target audience too far.

Example: I sent it out to all my old (Lexington, KY) high school friends. Turns out one of them married someone from Flat Rock, MI and they are telling all their friends and family now. I feel victory!

Take a look at how I set-up my Bill Rice for Flat Rock, MI School Board Facebook Fan Page.

Feel free to join. You can see how I learn and use the page along the way and who knows you might know a voter or two in Flat Rock, MI.

Anyone out there with more experience at building and promoting Facebook Fan pages? I would love to hear your ideas and feedback.

This is a rare, but probably more frequent rant on Better Closer. Sure this is a blog about sales, but the crisis of trust and integrity that surrounds us is directly affecting yours and my sales.

If you can’t trust mortgage brokers, investment bankers, Governors, former NASDAQ Chairman, how are consumers going to trust the average bag toting sales chap? They’re not.

What is the answer? I’m not so sure I have a great one, but I know where I am going to start–try harder, be more transparent, and give value in as many places as possible. Social media is helping with this type of objective.

You need to get a strategy to enforce and verify your integrity to customers. Here are my thoughts:

• Associate yourself with good neighborhoods (on Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn)

• Participate actively in the conversation–remember the Cluetrain Manifesto

• Build Your Personal Brand Online

• Regain Trust and Credibility Online

Obviously, this theme has been on my mind for some time. It seems to me that managing your online identity is the most effective way to help consumers quickly check you out, verify your credentials, and develop some opinion of your trustworthiness.

What is your best advice for rebuilding trust and integrity in sales?

(photo credit: gruntzooki)

The Internet is quickly becoming the de facto authoritative source of record. It is your resume, your reputation, your credibility, and your performance. If you are interested in future success you had better own your namespace. That begins with personal branding and I am going to show you how to get a solid foundation with a 5 day roadmap.

Day 1: Build a Website (This is NOT hard)

This is your home–it is where people can find the authentic you. This is your safe place and all personal branding roads should lead back to this safe place.

I recommend this be your personal domain name. Hopefully, it can simply be your name. Start with .com, .org, .net. If necessary you can drift into .name and .me, but I suggest those only as reinforcing redirected domains if possible.

You can also effectively use a clever brand name you make up, but they may take a little longer and more creativity to build personal brand around.

My second recommendation for the home base is that it be a blog. It is fast, simple, versatile, and Google loves them. Remember our objectives are immediate search results.

Day 2:  Build Your PR Engine

There are lots of ways to do this, but my recommendation is keep it simple and focused. Sign-up and complete your profile for the following services:

• Gmail
• LinkedIN
• Twitter
• MyBlogLog
• StumbleUpon
• eZineArticles

I will tell you how to use each in a moment. All you need to do now is sign-up and have your Web URL in each pointed at your home base.

Day 3: Brainstorm Your Brand

This is a critical step and where most stumble. I am going to break it into small concepts.

You are building a personal brand for a reason. Let’s write them down:

• Defining who you are and what you are good at
• Defining who you want to meet
• Defining who you want to meet you
• Make connecting as frictionless as possible

Turn each of these headings into 4-5 core brand concepts. Here are some examples:

• Writer: copywriting, ghostwriting, speech writing, web content
• Affiliate Marketer: ppc, seo, article marketing, affiliate programs
• Mortgage Broker: mortgage rates, mortgage refinance, reverse mortgage, loan modification leads

From each of these personal brand concepts craft 10 long tail topics. More examples:

• Writer: Copywriting-10 Secrets to Make Your Copy Sell
• Affiliate Marketer: Article Marketing-Driving Niche Traffic to Your eBay Affiliate Store
• Mortgage Broker: Reverse Mortgages-Helping Your Retired Parents Get the Right Mortgage

Day 4: Write–A Lot

A good personal brand only works if it has depth.

This 5 day process is going to immediately drive people to you. Make sure you look like you are open for business and it is clear who you are and why you are valuable.

So now it is time to open up the word processor. Write each of your list of articles. The list should have between 40-50 article topics. Yes, this is going to be a long day. Here are a few tips:

• Each article should only be 300-450 words
• Each should be informative or how-to oriented
• Create a standard format that is easy to read: italicized introduction, sub-headings, and lists
• Use keyword(s) in sub-headings and body of article, but no more than 2-3 times
• Include a consistent “resource box” at the end of each–brief who you are, what you do, and website link

Look at this post as an example.

Day 5: Start Promoting

Okay. I know you are tired, but we are to the fun part–self-promotion!

Expect another long day. Do the following steps. Since we are compressing this into 5 days it is important to do this in order:

1. Post 10 articles to your blog (website): This should simply be a cut and paste exercise. One important trick to add a little apparent depth. Post date each but the final article when posting. I recommend spacing the post dating to reflect 3 posts per week, or whatever frequency you intend to post in the future. This isn’t intended to be a deceptive trick, but rather helps set expectations for your readers for the frequency of future posts.
2. Post 10 more articles to your blog (website): These are going to be posted with future dates. This will help make you ongoing personal brand maintenance less intimidating. You now have a good queue–keep it full.
3. Post 10 articles to eZineArticles: There are others, but this is the best. They have good rules, reputation, and traffic.
4. Hold on to remaining 10-20 articles: Chances are you didn’t write 40-50 anyway–I know you got lazy, didn’t you? I am your coach– I am going to push you harder than you think you can go. If you met my goal you have some extra juice in the tank to deploy or reserve your call. If you didn’t make it you need to work harder–this is important. It is your personal brand. It will make you more money!
5. Gmail: Add a signature block. Make it much like your article resource box, but add telephone number, LinkedIN profile and Twitter URLs. Announce your new website and expertise to 10 friends. Ask them to promote and link to you.
6. Twitter: Go to http://search.twitter.com. Search for your keywords. Reply–intelligently–to 10 tweets on things of interest and relevant to you brand. Follow 10 other people in your brand area that you did not reply to tweets from.
7. LinkedIN: Connect with 10 people you already know (load in address book). Ask them to endorse you.
8. MyBlogLog: Add widget to blog (website). Search for your keywords. Join 10 communities of people in your brand area.
9. Stumbleupon: Search for your keywords. Connect with 10 people in your brand area. Stumble each of the websites of the people you connected with on Twitter, LinkedIN, MyBlogLog. Stumble your most recent blog (website) post.
10. eZineArticles: Add widget to blog (website).

Take the weekend off. Rest. Then…

Repeat Weekly.

Good luck! Happy personal brand building.

If you have any questions–contact me: http://twitter.com/billrice

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Bill Rice is the founder of Kaleidico, a leader in contact management sales software. He is a frequent writer, speaker, and consultant on marketing and sales. He is passionate about helping organizations execute more profitable sale management strategies.