Last Friday night I had the opportunity to host Chris Guillebeau’s book tour stop at Atlanta’s General Assembly. His fourth book is Born for This: How to Find the Work You Were Meant to Do.

For anyone wanting to step out and find their own path to making a living that matters, Chris is a must-read author and blogger. His books include:
• The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World
• The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future
• The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life [Read more…]

With WordCamp Atlanta just two days away, things are really starting to heat up. I have a great team and a strong community that helps to produce this event, and let me tell you, the third time is much easier than the first!

Usually, sponsorship chairman is an onerous job because you have to seek out and track down money.  Our sponsorship chair got off light, his biggest task we fielding all the calls from people who were lined up to sponsor WordCamp Atlanta.  We raised enough money in two weeks, and had to take down the sponsorship tab off our website.

This happened partly because WordCamp Atlanta has a good reputation, but also because there are so  many individuals and companies that want to give back to this amazing community. [Read more…]

Once you have an event planned such as a seminar or an open house, then what? You can use Eventbrite, but if you have a WordPress website, why not keep it all in house? There are a couple of moving parts. Let me go through them with you.

1) Invitation Page: Create an “Invitation Landing Page” for your event on your website, where people can find out the details and register. This is a page that only contains information about the offer without distractions such as sidebars. You will write compelling copy, describing why someone would want to take your seminar and offer testimonials and guarantees (example: https://newtricks.com/wordpress-with-the-big-dogs/ ). [Read more…]

I just returned from four days of awesome at the World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon, hosted by Chris Guillebeau. There were 3,000 people, two days of inspiring presentations, an opening party at the Portland zoo, a Bollywood dance party and so much more.

If you ask people what is the World Domination Summit you will find that each person has their own interpretation of what it means for them, but at its core the themes of WDS are community, adventure and service and it brings people together from all over the world who are passionate about leading remarkable lives in a conventional world – in all flavors that implies.

We had a line up of terrific speakers. I was glad to meet Darren Rouse who I have followed for years on his site,ProBlogger. In his presentation, Darren shared his childhood dream of being Superman as well as his journey from geeky entrepreneurial teenager to being one of the biggest authorities on blogging and content marketing in the world. [Read more…]

In a post last week, Seth Godin discussed three concepts – open, generous and connected- that he says people seek from co-workers, bosses or fellow conference attendees.

This week tickets went on sale for WordCamp Atlanta 2013 and, when I read this post, I immediately recognized those characteristics as being descriptive of attendees, speakers, volunteers and organizers of WordCamps.

Have you been thinking about using a Newsletter for your business but don’t know how to go about doing it?
If you have been stopped in your tracks, I did a free webinar about why you must use this great tool to grow your business.

• Learn about effective Calls to Actions for you website.
• Strategies for growing your list.
• Finding Your voice.

The Easy Peasy Email Newsletter Online Course is launching on August 20th for only $97.

It is available online with Instant access and includes five modules with three to six lessons in each and seven videos.

<span id=”hs_cos_wrapper_post_body” class=”hs_cos_wrapper hs_cos_wrapper_meta_field hs_cos_wrapper_type_rich_text” data-hs-cos-general-type=”meta_field” data-hs-cos-type=”rich_text”><img class=”alignleft wp-image-8908 size-full” src=”https://newtricks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/SPREADLOVE.png” alt=”SPREADLOVE” width=”320″ height=”350″ />According to HubSpot, “Customers who write just 3-4 blog posts per month get 20 more monthly lead submissions, 800 more monthly site visits, 60 more Twitter followers, and 50 more Facebook Likes than customers who only write 2 blog posts per month”. </span>I’d say that those are pretty impressive statistics.

This week the New York Times posted an article, <a href=”http://%20This%20is%20an%20opportunity%20to%20let%20your%20clients/prospects%20know%20you,%20build%20your%20authority%20and%20show%20you%20care” target=”_blank” data-cke-saved-href=”http:// This is an opportunity to let your clients/prospects know you, build your authority and show you care “>For Email Newsletters, a Death Greatly Exaggerated.</a>  As part of their premise that Email Newsletters are not actually dead, they went on to say that they can provide a sort of intimacy between a company and its clients.  I like how they put that since I think that is the best reason for a newsletter.<!–more–>

It seems that there are a lot of other people that would agree since <a href=”http://mailchimp.com” target=”_blank” data-cke-saved-href=”http://mailchimp.com”>MailChimp</a> is adding more than 10,000 users a day that are sending out over 400 million emails a day.

As it has been for eons, the secret to growing a business is to create amazing relationships with your prospects and customers.  These days you don’t have to go to every networking event in town, or buy a billboard ad. Instead, you must have a website that in the first few seconds, lets your right clients know that you provide a service that is just what they are looking for.

Then, the posts that you write must educate them on their issues in a way that shows your expertise, and gives them an idea of what it would be like to work with you and convert them into a subscriber on your list and eventually into a client or referral source.

Each of these posts can come up in Google searches on your subject, or your prospects and clients can bookmark your site and hopefully remember to go there again, but you may as well make it easy for them and let them know when you have content they would be interested in by offering them the opportunity to get your updates by email. If they don’t get email updates, they most likely will forget about you and your website.

My sister and brother-in-law lived on a sailboat and traveled to exotic places. They posted about their trips on a blog. One day when they were visiting, my brother-in-law was giving me and my other sisters a hard time that we didn’t read their blog. “Ha!”  I said, to him. “With everything competing for our immediate attention no one remembers to go to someone’s website to see if they have new posts.

You need to tell us you have new content by sending out a friendly personal email about your new content with a link back to your site. I guarantee we will not only go there and see what you’ve been up to but we will like you better because you took the time to interact with us and most likely we will write back to you too.”

Some people tell me they believe that people get way too much email and that most people hate newsletters.

I think that the real truth is that putting yourself out there is confronting. There is the fear that you have nothing important to say.  And then when people write they tend to water down their content for fear of how they may be perceived by others.  And then the next level of terror is what would they do with the attention once they got it.

Yes, It does takes time and a good bit of brain power to plan and write blog posts that your “right” clients will appreciate hearing about. But, I guarantee if you were in a room with clients who had invited you to share your ideas and your opinions with them you would have no problem chatting away about how what you do could be helpful to them.

You would find out what they were struggling with and try and make it easier for them. You would have stories that demonstrated useful content. Your expertise and willingness to share this information would be greatly appreciated and when they or someone they knew were ready for your services, you would get a call. Why? Because they appreciate your point of view and that you took the time to talk to them about something that was important to them.

I take the privilege of being invited into your inbox each week as a sacred trust. I made a commitment to show up on Wednesdays and bring you information that I have found helpful to growing your businesses. My content is a blend of teaching “what to do” as well as some posts designed to help you get off the dime and “do what you know.”

Some of this information comes from my degree in psychology, some from the school of hard knocks and I also read a great deal, try out a lot of what I read and pass along the best things to you. Blogging and newsletters are the top two things that have helped the most to build both my reputation and clientele.

If this would help you to grow your business, what is stopping you?

The Atlanta WordPress Meetup Group now has over 1100 members! We don’t have that many attend our monthly meetings, but we do get a solid 50-60 per month which is all the room we have at the Urban Oasis Bed and Breakfast and Event Space which is also New Tricks’ World Headquarters.

We have a double meeting format with a beginners’ meeting starting at 6:00 PM [Read more…]

Are You Ready to do WordPress but Want/Need a Kickstart ?

• You know you need  to do a website – and you heard WordPress was the way to go and that it was oh so easy. But. . .  you haven’t been able to get it together and are now at your wit’s end. Someone Help PLEASE!

• You want a website that will bring your business to the world. A site that is attractive and captures the attention of your people and turns them into loyal fans.
• You need a website that you can UPDATE yourself. But. . . it is harder than you thought, and you don’t have the money to shell out on a fancy pants designer – quite yet.

• You are ready to give it a go but it is harder than you thought to do it right. So you may do it yourself or . . . maybe you just want to learn enough about WordPress to work effectively with a web designer to create your site and then take over maintaining it yourself.

That’s why I created WordPress for Beginners! July 25,  1-4 PM

Sorry that workshop is over but be sure to get on my mailing list to find out about the next one!