Get the answer to your question from Coach John G. Agno. What we all want is interaction with others to clarify our thoughts before taking action and to allow our perceptions to evolve over time.
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Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, once said, "If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete."
The sole purpose of strategic thinking is to enable a company to gain, as efficiently as possible, a sustainable edge over its competition. This implies an attempt to alter the company's strengths relative to that of its competitors.
The corporate leader must isolate strategic technical and marketing strengths (absolute versus relative strengths) to determine how to compete wisely in gaining significant ground on its competitors at an acceptable cost to itself.
As we approach Veterans Day, many young and older veterans are flocking to career fairs, causing long lines and exhausting hiring managers whose booths are overflowing with candidates.
More veterans stand in line, even though the caliber of jobs and companies represented at the fairs often isn't appealing to this group. These unguided out-of-work men and women don't have a clue how to go about landing on their feet by engineering the right job offer. Still, even senior-level veteran fair attendees are just hoping to make a connection in a marketplace crowded with more people just like them.
“The top line figure of 200,000 jobs is a lot better than in past months, but that number masks the loss of another 700,000 adults from the labor force,” says Hicks, director of Ball State’s Center for Business and Economic Research. “When three people quit looking for work for every adult who finds a job, we are in a very bad economic environment.
“Even more disheartening than the continued slide in the civilian labor force, more than six out of every 10 new jobs created was involuntary part-time employment. Moreover, two of the three biggest job gainers were the sectors of retail stores and restaurants.”
The U.S. Labor Department reported today a net 204,000 new jobs created for the month, though the unemployment rate rose to 7.3 percent, reflecting an increase in the number of people who quit looking for work and the impact of the recent shutdown of the federal government. Economists had anticipated about 120,000 jobs being created last month.
Hicks points out that the only bright spot was the continued recovery of manufacturing employment, which grew by 35,000 new jobs last month.
Getting ready for the next career transition should be part of your workday schedule today. Be smart about how you approach looking for a new job because you could very easily shoot yourself in the foot by not implementing an effective job hunting strategy.
Michigan's University Research Corridor (URC) is proving to be a powerful business incubator for students and alumni, playing a dramatically increased role in nurturing start-up efforts and providing a boost to aspiring entrepreneurs, a new report shows.
Graduates of the three universities that make up the URC – Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University -- have started or acquired businesses at double the national average rate among college graduates since 1996. URC alumni were 1.5 times as successful as the average U.S. business owner at keeping those start-ups and acquisitions alive in the past five years, according to the Embracing Entrepreneurship report released today at the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference.
The survey included responses from more than 40,000 of the three schools’ 1.2 million alumni. The responses revealed that more than 19 percent of the URC alumni surveyed have started a company, and some have created more than one.
That entrepreneurial activity reached to every state and more than 100 countries, with nearly half the new enterprises started or acquired in Michigan. URC alumni are making an impact far and wide, as can be seen by the careers of venture capitalist and University of Michigan graduate Peter Farner in Kalamazoo, Mich., Michigan State University graduate Nzimiro Oputa and his New York City fashion design business, and Howard Birndorf, a Wayne State University graduate who started a biotechnology company in California that he eventually sold to Eli Lilly and Co.
The report was prepared by East Lansing, Mich.-based Anderson Economic Group (AEG) using alumni survey data collected by Survey Sciences Group LLC (SSG). It showed that URC alumni were more likely to have started a business if they held a degree in business, the arts, communications, computer and information sciences, architecture or law. Most URC entrepreneurs started a business in an area outside their major area of study, suggesting that the URC universities are preparing graduates with a broad base of skills useful in launching a business.
“We often think entrepreneurs are people with an engineering or scientific background, but the survey shows that Michigan’s entrepreneurs come from many fields of study,” said University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman. “In many cases, you’re just as likely to start a business if you studied architecture or the arts.”
The three URC universities have revamped their curriculum in recent years and taken other steps to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit in their students and graduates. They now offer more than 40 programs and resources for students, alumni and faculty, including classes and degrees in entrepreneurship, business incubators, special advisers and gap funding to help start-ups get off the ground.
“Every year the URC institutions are graduating more than 30,000 students. The study suggests that a significant number of these alumni are starting their own businesses, and more than 50 percent of those businesses are here in Michigan, contributing to our state’s economic prosperity,” said URC executive director Jeff Mason. “The URC is committed to supplying the tools that can lead to new companies and more jobs.”
That increased effort is one reason 70 percent of URC alumni entrepreneurs who graduated in the past decade are starting their businesses at an earlier age–between 23 and 31 years old, the survey showed, although alumni of every age are involved in entrepreneurial activity. Some, such as southeast Michigan Emagine Entertainment founder and Wayne State graduate Paul Glantz, started their own business as a hedge in an uncertain economy. Baby Einstein founder Julie Aigner Clark drew on her Michigan State University education degree to offer parents educational videos once she became a stay-at-home mom. Kalyan Handique started Handylabs while a graduate student, taking advantage of entrepreneur programs at the University of Michigan.
Michigan State University President Lou Anna K. Simon pointed out that the three URC universities conferred the most graduate and undergraduate degrees and the second-highest number of high-demand degrees among seven university innovation clusters nationwide in 2011. “Michigan’s three premier research universities are doing more every year to promote an entrepreneurial mindset while helping Michigan’s businesses grow by providing the talent they need,” she said. “By focusing on entrepreneurship at all three universities, we’re creating a deep pool of talented graduates who can help start-up companies succeed.”
A total of 589,840 URC alumni live in Michigan. Some bring their talents to businesses statewide, while others tap their talents to start their own enterprises. “The three URC universities see themselves as the leading engine for innovation in Michigan and the Great Lakes region, with a focus on increasing economic prosperity and connecting Michigan to the world,” said Wayne State University President Allan Gilmour. “Our coordinated efforts should encourage even more entrepreneurs and start-ups in the future.”
At the behest of the URC, Anderson Economic Group studied the contributions URC alumni entrepreneurs have made, their economic footprint, and the steps that the three universities have taken to encourage entrepreneurship. Surveys went to nearly half a million living alumni, and more than 40,000 responded.
“The careful steps taken by our research team, the URC and other partners, accompanied by the very large number of responses, mean we can be confident in the findings,” said Patrick Anderson, principal and founder of AEG, and a URC alumnus. “Companies of the future are being started by URC graduates, and this study shows that the universities are preparing students in Michigan to take on roles as business owners.”
Successful commercialization combines the "science" of formulating a winning physical product/process with the "art" of marketing strategy and implementation. In a way, this combination of product science and marketing art emulates the craftsmen of yesteryear who applied crude tools with a system of methods and principles into a skillful performance that could not be learned solely by study.
In today's high-tech world, most technically-oriented product developers would be well advised to seek out a marketing artist to work with — rather than trying to become the all-in-one craftsman.
For more self-coaching tips on commercializing your start-up, get a copy of the new "Ask the Coach" ebook or paperback at your online bookseller.
Self-coaching is about coaching yourself. As powerful and effective as professional coaching can be, it is only affordable to less than one percent of the workforce.
Coach John G. Agno shares his decades of professional coaching and consulting knowledge to create a better life for many through proprietary self-coaching guides; delivered to your smart phone, tablet, eReader, and computer or via low-cost paperback books.
Self-coaching invites and encourages people to reflect through learning by reading and listening to themselves, asking questions and empowering themselves to facilitate their own development and improvement in performance.
"Ask the Coach," provides free and low-cost self-coaching resources. These human resource (HR) coaching tools include online self assessments to provide more self-awareness.
Being unaware, we unconsciously engage our default behavior. Only when we become aware of something, are we able to make choices as to the action we wish to take. Sometimes, just being aware, allows the problem to solve us--rather than requiring us to solve the problem.
Self-coaching tools are about designing and using the information in a way most appropriate for its purpose. Often, coaching tools are labeled with the prefix "coaching" because they are more sophisticated, flexible, adaptable or customized than other standardized, off-the-shelf solutions. Please note that the term "self-coaching" may apply to specific as well as general tools. Terms like "leadership coaching tips," "career women coaching tips," and "baby boomer life coaching tips" may emphasize that these areas are understood and done in a coaching way.
Frequent self-coaching keeps you abreast of what's effective in your area of interest. Also, people learn better and are positively motivated when supported by regular coaching.
This new self-coaching (via Internet access) using mobile smartphones, tablets, eReaders and laptop computers can be seen as more eclectic, proactive, pluralistic, dynamic, inclusive, differentiating, sophisticated and integrating than previous approaches.
Here is a list of free and low-cost self-coaching and access sources:
In today’s business environment, conventional wisdom has it that the release of new communications technology and online tools has made workers more efficient.
According to a survey conducted by Charlotte-based Apex Performance, workers are almost constantly bombarded with distractions that interfere with their ability to concentrate on a single task. Yet they are not taught any techniques or given any tools to help them cope with the daily interruptions – and disruptions – from emails, phone calls and text messages.
In this survey titled, “Attention in the 21st Century,” conducted November, 2012, of more than 300 full time American workers, 70% reported receiving 21 or more emails a day. More than half said they check their email more than 11 times a day, and one-third said they check it every time they receive notification of an incoming message.
“That equates to opening your inbox once every 20 minutes,” explains Louis S. Csoka, PhD, Apex Performance President and Founder. “Prolonged focus on one thing at a time is required to efficiently accomplish a task. However, two-thirds of respondents are distracted at least every 20 minutes – and sometimes as little as 10 – by an email,” he adds.
A survey done a few years ago by Eric Horvitz, an internal research scientist at Microsoft explored how people dealt with everyday distractions such as email notifications. He found that it took the average Microsoft employee 15 minutes to return to their previous task after being distracted by an email, phone call, or instant message.
Thus by viewing the results of the Apex survey through the lens of Horvitz’s findings, it appears that the typical 21st century employee seems to only be focusing on any one task for approximately 15 minutes an hour, at most.
“No one has taught them how to stay focused, so they don’t realize what they are sacrificing. Employees need to learn how to get back on task and stay productive despite the inevitable bell, pop-up window or phone call,” says Dr. Csoka.
The beginning of the New Year is a good time to identify the future that has already happened, but whose real impact has yet to be felt, and adjust our business strategies to be in attune with what’s happening.
Here are three questions to answer in evaluating your strategies to manage customer relationships, productivity and profits in 2013:
1. What unexpected events -- surprises, whether good or bad – occurred in 2012 that could make or break your business?
We're talking here about really big surprises -- like discovering that one of your products is selling much better than expected -- and you don't know why ...or... discovering that you are selling to the wrong customers ...or... your product or service needs to be revamped from top to bottom ...or... even discovering you are in the wrong business.
For example, you may have started your company to be in the software product business, but month after month your computer consulting service revenue far outpaces your software sales. This is a clue that you should rethink your business strategy.
You may not need to switch businesses, but, clearly, you should change your resource allocation and operations in recognition that the company is now consulting-services driven. With this altered strategy, your software development efforts might better be redirected toward providing a stronger competitive edge for securing and maintaining consulting-service customers.
2.How can you protect your customer franchise?
We know that it costs 8 to 10 times more to get a new customer as it does to keep a current customer. Yet, the average business loses 10% to 30% of their customers every year. The reason for this is customer satisfaction does not equal customer loyalty. Of the customers who defect, 80% are actually satisfied with the company's service.
So, how does a company build customer loyalty?
Single out your best customers and create a strategy to serve them better in the New Year. The old "80/20 Rule" applies: In an established business, 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers. These are the customers to focus on. If you don't know who they are -- if you can't list them in order of decreasing sales -- find out. Analyze your sales and make a list -- and hang that list where you can see it every day. And every day, ask yourself, "How can I build my sales with these customers? How can I strengthen my relationship with them?"
3. What ways build customer loyalty and expand your reach?
Gone are the days of the geographically captive customer when merchants and service providers had the advantage of being the only place within driving distance.
With the impact of the Internet, there is now a shift of choice and power to customers. Think about how you can use the Internet to more effectively communicate with your niche markets and special interest groups. How can you refocus your efforts on being the best company competing within these well-defined market segments—to become a dominant factor in 2013?
Here are some suggestions:
Look for ways of maintaining an on-going flow of information with customers through on-site visits, websites, email newsletters and personal telephone calls. Think of them -- and try to get them to think of you -- as a "business partner."
Make the effort to learn their business so thoroughly that you can initiate new areas of business activity between you and them to generate more profit for both of you.
Add additional services – preferably focused on your customer's needs -- that demonstrate your attention to the small but important details.
Think about adding "loyalty" programs where you can reward your customers' loyalty in ways that your competitors can't easily copy.
Local businesses are expanding their market presence and reach by connecting with customers through the Internet. Even in cyberspace, the velvet-glove treatment is what your customers expect...or...they will shop elsewhere. Consider shifting your limited resources to spend 70% devoted to creating greater customer loyalty and only 30% on marketing expenses.
Q: After over 20 years working for a global corporation, I accepted a buyout plan. Since I went to work right after college, I don’t have an up-to-date resume and don’t know what to be looking for in a new job. I have two high school kids that will be going to college soon and need to work supporting my family. What should I be doing to get back on my feet vocationally?
A: You are not alone. “Over-the-hill” in Corporate America is getting a lot younger. There are many more Americans turning 55 in recent years than turning 25. Many of the 78 million Baby Boomers, like you, are asking the question, “What am I going to do with the rest of my life?”
These later-in-life career changers don’t care about taking it easier and often will work as hard or harder than they did in the jobs they left behind. A Merrill Lynch & Co. retirement survey of more than 3,000 Baby Boomers reported that 83 percent intend to keep working and 56 percent of them hope to do so in a new profession. Second careers are like second marriages---you are prepared to make better choices on what you want to do and whom you want to do it with.
More employers are recognizing that older adults bring skills and experiences to the table that can help the bottom line.
For example, in the world of consulting, "it can be a plus to have experience," says Ms. Jackie Greaner, North American practice leader for talent management at Towers Watson. "There's not really a stigma about being older."
The same is true for other knowledge-worker jobs. For example, "the nuclear-power industry is an industry that is very hard to get people that are fully developed in terms of skill sets and capabilities," Ms. Greaner says. For employers, "it's very difficult to get that expertise."
Aon Hewitt's senior vice president for talent administration Ms. Erin Peterson says talented recruiters can be hard to find. "I find people who have a lot of life experience and professional experience make the best recruiters."
You should seriously consider taking stock of yourself and your life during this mid-course career correction before jumping into a new job or thinking about an early retirement. As Bernard Baruch once said, “Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can’t retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time.” Knowing who you are and what you want to achieve in your second career matters.
Thinking about a job search begins with knowing who you are, assessing your unique signature talents and understanding what you do best. Starting or buying your own business may be an option if you have the required skills, cash and attitude to make a go of it.
Even though you may have spent your career at a large company, your new search may lead you to small or medium-sized companies where less age discrimination and lower salaries exist. By identifying your transferable skills and packaging yourself for a new job function or new industry, you can greatly increase your chances of success.
For mature workers, the most common way to find a new job is by using one's social networks (51%) versus ads (12%), search firms (8%), mailing/direct approach (5%) and Internet (2%). However, don't make the mistake of networking too soon. If your goals are vague, the contacts you make can't help you much and your contacts may even be put off by your lack of direction.
Successful networkers never ask their network contacts for a job because they know that such a request generally doesn't produce the desired result. Just ask for an appointment with the avowed intention of seeking advice regarding how to advance your search or to seek new contacts. Such requests are harder to deny. If the person sitting across the table likes what she hears, she'll make a point of mentioning potential opportunities to you.
Here are some resume building and interviewing tips to keep you focused in your job-search makeover:
1. Narrow job goals to emphasize your strongest assets. Don't expect prospective employers will read your resume 5 or 6 times to figure out what you can and want to do. Have a focused direction--not a potpourri of "I can tolerate these other things, too."
2. Widen your list of potential employers. Don't let your personal perceptions limit your job-hunting success. Being uncomfortable with different industries or work roles can prevent you from getting to where you want to be.
3. Clarify and polish your resume. Highlight your most valuable and specific skills and competencies. Remember the summary is the most important part of the resume because most hiring managers only assess a resume for 10 seconds.
4. Hone your interviewing and follow-up tactics. Be sure to review your weaknesses, as well as your strengths, in both the interview and thank you letters to interviewers. By knowing who you are and what you do best, you will set yourself above most job hunters.
Q: It’s New Year Resolution time again. Please give us some reasons why it is so hard to make our resolution goals.
A: First of all, we must understand that change hurts and that is why we all have a strong immunity to change. Powerful countervailing forces appear when we attempt to engineer positive change. We discover our competing commitments pull us in opposite directions causing us to spend a great deal of energy attempting to satisfy each: "I'm going to lose 20lbs but I really love to eat and drink." or “I am going to start a business of my own but I really like the security of the paycheck I get from my job today.”
Most people don't respect their strong immunity to change and, therefore, don't develop the rituals and support systems necessary to overcome this powerful equilibrium to stay the same. However, there is untapped energy to be found if we can become less embedded in this immune system that protects us from change. Understanding how our brain works helps us to recognize what we must do to make changes in our lives.
Our emotional brain trumps our analytical brain
Given the high-energy cost of running the prefrontal cortex or analytical brain, the control center of the brain prefers to run off its emotional brain that has much larger storage capacity and sips, not gulps, fuel in the form of glucose or blood sugar. This part of the brain stores the hardwired memories and habits that dominate our daily lives.
"Most of the time the basal ganglia (the emotional brain's limbic system) are more or less running the show," says Jeffrey M. Schwartz, research psychiatrist at the School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles. "It controls habit-based behavior that we don't have to think about doing."
The way to get past the analytical brain's defenses is to come to our own resolution regarding the concepts causing our analytical brain to bristle. These moments of self-awareness or insight (in coaching, we call them epiphanies) appear to be as soothing to the analytical brain as the unfamiliar is threatening.
Once you have had that initial insight or epiphany that change is necessary, you need to repeat the experience in order to reinforce it and to experience the potential pleasure that can be derived from it. The complex brain connections that are formed during the epiphany phase need to be supported to begin the process of hard-wiring the emotional brain.
"The epiphany is the catalyst and stimulus, but it's not the whole deal," says Michael Wakefield, senior enterprise associate at the Center for Creative Leadership. "You have pathways in place, and they're simply too strong to be changed in a single moment. You need to be able to integrate it into your psychological behavior for it to become part of a new pattern."
"Learning is the antidote to change resistance," says Wakefield. "Learning lets you reframe the change from being something bad for you to something that can have value for you. You have to give people the sense that feeling uncomfortable is a normal part of change and address their concerns about losing face because of their lack of confidence and competence."
Self-directed learning helps you to discover an ideal vision of yourself and feel motivated in developing the abilities necessary to get you where you want to be. That is, you see the person you want to be---living with the capability necessary to create and sustain the new you. This personal makeover becomes the source of the energy required to work at the difficult and often frustrating process of change.
Now that you know where you want to be, the next step is to look in the mirror to discover where you really are today---how habits are making you act, how others view you and what comprises your deep assumptions and beliefs. Some of this reflection will represent gaps between where you are and where you want to be.
The realization of the gap prepares you for developing a plan of action needed for the detailed guidance on what new rituals to try each day to make the new habit sticky while you build your strengths and move closer to your ideal self.
Q: Our company has never given gifts to customers during the holiday season. Is this something we should be doing?
A: In another Ask the Coach, we responded to a question about how to increase a company’s sales with another question: If you could do just one thing to help your customers and your business, what would that be? Our answer to both questions was to consider giving more of what you have away. One of the most potent laws of influence is the law of reciprocity (http://www.lawofreciprocity.com/).
The law is that people want to repay, in kind, what another person has given to them. Reciprocity flows from the law of love (www.LawofLove.com) that is “the gift of giving” without the “hope of reward or pay,” or serving others. Remind yourself that reciprocity is not about what you need but what the other person needs and how you can give that to them.
Finding ways to make your gift stand out takes some thought about what would make the recipient happy.
Ask a Las Vegas cab driver, What's the best show in town? He will probably reply with something like this, “Oh, Jay Leno! My wife and I just went to see him. He gives a special show for taxi drivers at two in the morning. Otherwise, we could never afford to go. Kenny Rogers does the same thing when he's in town.”
You wouldn't think that anyone as big in the entertainment field as Jay Leno and Kenny Rogers needs to give away their performances, but they do. Both realize that some of the best word-of-mouth advertising they could have would be taxi drivers raving about their shows. Why not consider giving something of value in your profession away to your company’s best referral sources, too?
For your best customers, consider abandoning the usual baskets of fruit and cheese or imprinted coffee mugs at special times of the year. Also, avoid those silly end-of-the-year gifts of refrigerator magnet calendars given in mass by real estate and insurance agents. Many recipients would rather see the money you spend on calendars or fruit baskets go to a worthwhile cause.... like a charity or to help someone get to where they want to be.
How can you be of help while showing appreciation for those you serve?
Determine who your best customers are (like the 20% who represent 80% of your revenues) and then send each a gift that keys into their interests or select a gift certificate that can be used to improve their personal or corporate capability.
Choose gift certificates of value, based upon the unique strengths of your business that can be passed on to others---for the personal development of an employee or to reward a key player. Such gift giving can be accomplished by both a product or service business that wishes to give more away in its business operations.
For example, in my coaching practice, I offer people the opportunity to sign up for free leadership coaching tips at: http://www.coachingtip.com/. The gift recipient receives periodic self-coaching insights in digestible bites for on-the-job application while fitting easily into his or her action-packed schedule. Research and self-coaching tip recipients tell me that people learn better, retain more and are positively motivated when supported by regular and frequent coaching.
All businesses are ultimately people serving people and our life’s work should come from the heart. Long after your thoughtful gift has been delivered, the feelings and knowledge shared during the business relationship remain.
Gary Chapman in his book, The Five Love Languages, tells us that there is five ways people speak and understand emotional love. One of those is in receiving gifts: A gift is something you can hold in your hand and say "Look, he was thinking of me," or "She remembered me." The gift is a symbol of thought and the thought remains not only in the mind but is expressed in actually securing the gift and giving it as an expression of love.
Q: Can you provide any information on what small businesses are doing today to sell more product or services?
A: Too many businesses make the mistake of focusing on generating more sales to first-time buyers -- rather than working harder to build sales with the customers they already have. Making the first sale to a customer is very expensive. It takes a lot of advertising and promotion dollars--and a lot of time, energy and money chasing dead ends--to land a customer. Yet, subsequent sales to that customer are relatively inexpensive and very profitable.
Cultivating broad and deep relationships with your existing customers allows you to focus your limited resources wisely -- building as great a share of their business as possible -- while your competition fights tooth and nail just to get their foot in the door.
The Internet has become deeply embedded in our daily lives.
Today, most American households have Internet access. A blended marketing approach for your business can maintain a high frequency of touches and provide enough content to keep customers engaged. Most customers choose to engage with you online because they are increasingly reliant on the Internet. Your company’s customized landing page provides a complete message but is slanted in favor of the topic most relevant to the arriving customer. The Internet has made it possible to reach out to an almost limitless market, at any time, and usually for little cost.
Anecdotal evidence shows that websites using both search engine optimization of organic listings and paid searchstrategies increase conversion rates because traffic goes up dramatically with links in multiple positions. Users choose to click more frequently on an organic listing when they also see a sponsored listing. "The Role of Search in Consumer Buying," a study by comScore (sponsored by Google) found that 63 percent of search-related purchases occur in offline retail stores. The results also indicate that 25 percent of searchers purchased an item directly related to their search query—and of those buyers, just 37 percent completed their purchase online.
Blogs offer a personal touch on the Internet
There's also growing anecdotal evidence about the grassroots impact blogs can have on sales for companies, especially small businesses. Business owners are discovering the best way to keep customers happy and coming back is by directly communicating with them utilizing Weblogs or 'blogs' over the Internet.
Blogs humanize the Internet and keep you in touch with what’s going on with customers. Blogging allows you to create an interactive customer conversation on subjects of mutual interest. People feel they can really have a conversation with someone who has a blog.
Communicating well doesn't have to drain your energy and creativity by spending extended hours engaging in community and regional meetings, telephone conferences or exchanging many email messages. Using blogging technology can allow you to connect with both colleagues and customers across the country to tell them what you are working on without having to be present.
Personally, I maintain four blogs to connect with present and future clients using low-cost service provider. The Leadership Blog at www.coachingtip.com blogfocuses on leadership tips, the www.sobabyboomer.com blog delivers life tips to the Baby Boomer Generation, the www.CareerWomenCoaching.com blog provides tips for career women and the www.Ask-Know-Do.com blog provides answers to frequently asked questions.
Here are a few coaching tips for creating effective blogs:
Focus on what is of interest your customers.
Set up your blog so each post gets its own permanent URL/permalink and heading.
Think of your blog as a database so your customers can search for content in past posts.
Blog frequently and regularly.
Use striking images in your posts to gain favorable attention.
