In my recent article about Seven Mistakes To Avoid When Authoring Your Business Blog, mistake number three was not adding an about page to your business blog. The reasons I noted this as a reason were:

you might not realise it but your about page on your business blog or website is the second most likely page that people will click through to. It is important to have details about you and the team authoring your business blog as people want to check out who you are – they are genuinely interested in the authors of your business blog and they are also interested in assessing your professional credibility in the areas you are writing about.

Well the way I usually find my content has been posted to other peoples websites is through Google Alerts, a free service I subscribe to using the key words that are included in my articles and webcopy. You can access more information and the ten ways I use Google Alerts in a recent article I wrote.

Often there is nothing you can do if your article has been posted to these sites, but one thing I did when I saw the total copy of my newsletter, including information that I only provided for my newsletter readers, was to unsubscribe the person “farming” my content so they no longer received the newsletter. 

The other action you can take is to add a comment with your information about the article and the original source and copyright in the comments section of the “splog”.

I’m interested to hear what others do to overcome this issue - what actions do you take if you see someone has taken your content with out attribution?
 

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One of the key ways for professional services firms to position themselves as experts is to express their expertise in the written word – through articles.

Promoting your articles in your newsletter, your business blog and on your website is a great way to provide valuable resources for your clients and potential clients and will reinforce your credibility as an expert in your field.

You can also use your articles to drive more traffic to your website or business blog through article marketing.

However, less than 3 percent of professional services firms implement this no cost marketing strategy. So by taking action through writing articles you will certainly stand out from your immediate competition.

Writing articles and then submitting them to key online marketing sites or to sites who are looking for compelling and educational content extends your reach.

Article marketing is less difficult and time consuming than your might think and if properly executed can support you in attracting more of your ideal clients.

Authoring several articles, package them together and you are just a step away from having an information product or perhaps even your business book.

So why is it that many leaders in professional services seem to procrastinate in writing articles?

I usually get told by my clients that they do not know where to start or that they are afraid it will take them too much time to write an article.

So here are 5 tips to get you started in writing your first article – follow these tips and you will find you will write articles in less time than you ever thought possible:

1. Stuck for content? If you are not sure what to write about consider the questions that your clients most often ask you and want to know the answers to
2. Concerned about the style? Do not worry about winning a Pulitzer Prize. Write as you speak so you keep the style accessible and conversational
3. Not sure how much to write? Take your subject matter and write down seven things that your client or prospective client needs to know about the subject you are addressing. Then just write one or two sentences about each tip
4. Will it read well? When you have written your article, read it again and check your spelling and grammar. Make sure that you have a compelling introduction that outlines what your article is about and why it is important. Finish your article with information about how your reader can find out more about the strategies and tips you are sharing – of course with a reference to your services, solutions and products
5. Will it get read? You might have noticed with the newspapers that articles with a strong and captivating headline grab your attention and entice you to read on. Writing a magnetic headline will do the same for your article.

Now you have written your article you have effectively created for yourself a member of your sales team who can work for you 24/7 and 365 days of the year.

The key now is to continuing to write your articles and them marketing them wisely you will be sure to build your personal brand as the expert in your field.

YOUR ARTICLE WRITING AND MARKETING ACTION STEPS:

1. Set aside 60 minutes this week to write an article
2. Follow the 5 step process for writing your article
3. Put your article onto your website or blog and then look for other sites who would value your content and have your ideal clients amongst their readers.

NOTE: Every Monday on “Biz Growth News” I make available a full length branding and business development article.

If you enjoyed this article, you may be interested in accessing more articles about branding and business development strategies to grow your practice. If so you can register to join our weekly newsletter and weekly no-cost workshops at Biz Growth Live.

TERMS OF REPRINT: You are welcome to publish this article in your own online ezine or news letter, providing the article is printed in its entirety and is left unedited and you include the copyright notice and the following statement:

©Krishna De, Oneocean Ltd 2007. All rights reserved. Reprinted from ‘Biz Growth News’ (http://www.bizgrowthnews.com/), a Oneocean Ltd publication for leaders in professional services practices, featuring inspiration, strategies and tips to build your brand, attract your ideal clients and enjoy greater success with less stress.  Subscribe today at http://www.bizgrowthlive.com/.

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Positioning yourself and building your personal brand as a thought leader in your professional services firm through writing articles is one of the lowest cost marketing strategies you can use to build your brand and attract more clients.

You can publish and syndicate your articles through online and offline media and presents you as an expert in your field. And of course you can create your own valuable resource centre for clients in your own article directory on your business blog and website.

My articles, particularly in the area of personal branding, employer branding, corporate podcasting and business blogging, have attracted joint venture partnerships, enabled me to attract so many opportunities including being approached to speak at conferences and has resulted in the media contacting me to appear on radio shows or provide information for their feature articles.

However there is nothing more powerful in terms of building your personal credibility and your personal brand than authoring and publishing your business book.

If you join me each week for “Biz Growth Live“ you will know that we recently ran a series of interviews with experts about writing, publishing and marketing your book.

But perhaps this education was not sufficient to get you moving and you are looking for more assistance?

Well my good friend Andy Wibbels, is launching a programme next week - Write your book in 45 days. Andy actually re-wrote his e-book to create his first book ”Go Blogwild - a guide to small business blogging” in just 3 weeks, so he knows what it takes.

So if you are aiming at writing a book for-print book or a digital e-book, but no matter what you do you just have not been able to take action, take a look at the Write your book in 45 days book-writing group.

The programme starts on Wednesday 25 April 2007 and you will meet by phone at 8pm ET (1am on Thursday mornings if you are in Ireland or the UK).
 

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Last week when speaking with a client, I set out a strategy for them to leverage their time and become more productive in the area of creating their first information product.

In professional services, many business leaders are trading time for hours as they charge on an hourly billable rate.

Creating information products that can be sold for passive revenue or used to generate more leads and attract more clients is a strategy many professional services experts would like to implement but many fail to do.

So here is my quick start 7 step guide to building your brand online while at the same time creating your first information product in less than 30 days that I shared with my client:

1. Consider the biggest problems that your clients face
2. Create a 7-10 stage response to addressing these problems 
3. Over the course of the next two weeks, write an article each day of around 500 words addressing each steps - at the end of the time you will have one article per step
4. Submit your article to the leading article marketing site, Ezine Articles which will enhance your visibility online
5. In week three, take all the articles and record yourself reading each one out loud
6. During this week, brief a designer to create compelling packaging for your new audio product
7. In week four, have your audio edited then make it available on your website and as a physical product either as a lead generation tool or to sell to increase your profits.

In this example I am recommending you turn articles into an audio product. You might prefer to create a booklet bringing together your articles.

Either way, implement this seven step approach and within 30 days you will have a articles markeitng your expertise online 24/7 and have a new information product that you can use for lead and profit generation.

If you are looking for assistance in bringing your information product to life, you can post your questions about information product creation here and I will make sure that I answer them.

Can you afford not to turn what you know into cashflow through information products?

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As a busy professional services practice, it is likely that time is a premium resource.

One of the strategies I enjoy teaching my clients is how we can achieve so much more in terms of outcomes and results and attract more clients by leveraging our time and repurposing what we do.

There are three key strategies that will attract you more clients if implemented effectively and consistently - networking and referrals, speaking and presenting, writing and publishing.

All three strategies position you as the expert in your chosen field and can attract clients to you like a magnet.

For today let’s explore the strategy of writing articles.

Yet I often hear the complaint:

But I do not have time to write.

This is where the art of re-purposing comes into it’s own. As you think about writing articles consider the following tips:

Always write about your field of expertise - as an example I read an article on a compelling subject and one that I knew would be relevant and of interest to my clients. I contacted the author and invited them to be a guest expert on my Biz Growth Live programme where he would have exposure to a host of potential clients.

Consider my dismay when the author replied to say that that was not in fact his area of expertise. How much time had he put into writing an article of 1000 words researching a subject that he is not an expert in.

The article raised interest and was attracting new clients to him, but he was not in a position to deliver so lost out on attracting more clients to his practice.

That is not a smart investment of time and energy. It also impacted his reputation and credibility - I am not likely to pay much attention to his future articles given this experience.

Make sure that if you writie an article that attracts more clients to your practice that you are going to be able to provide information, products and services relating to that article.

Consider how else you can use the article - never write the article only to be used once.

How can you re-purpose the article perhaps for your newsletter, into a blog post, into an article for an article directory, into the core of a teleseminar or webinar programme, into an article for a journalist, into a short special report or even into a chapter for your business book?

I always recommend to my clients that before they write a single word in an article they have a vision and a strategy for how else it will be used.

Your goal is to get your words to work harder for you.

Be inspired by your clients - you probably get many questions each week from your clients on problems and challenges they are faced with.

Before you create an email in reply to them, think about writing the reply as an article that you could then send to your client, include in your news letter or add to your website.

The questions your clients ask you are great catalysts for articles and you can quickly create a resource bank of articles for your clients to refer to on your website which will be valuable to your current and future clients.

Writing articles is a very powerful strategy to grow your practice and attract more clients. Applying these three tips will ensure that you can attract even more clients in less time.

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