(Photo by Taro Yamamoto)
We’ve all seen blogs that have made us shake our heads. The design is outrageous, you can’t find contact information to save your life, there are broken links, pages don’t render, or (here’s a comical one) they have keywords listed over and over again in attempt to fool the search engines.
As bad as those are, they aren’t the worst things you can do. The worst thing you can do with your blog is pretend to be something (or someone) you aren’t. This is especially critical for services professionals, as you are essentially selling yourselves. You are providing the services your prospects seek. They need to trust you and believe in you. And that can’t happen if you are a phony.
Unfortunately this misrepresentation happens all too often, professional blogger Chris Garrett told me in a recent interview. In his preview to his upcoming webinar, Attract Clients and Grow Your Business Using Blogs, Garrett said he sees people taking other people’s blog posts, changing the name and posting them as their own. Sometimes they don’t even change the name and republish the work in its entirety without permission. He also sees people making outrageous claims about what they can do.
People—your prospects—want to connect with real human beings, Garrett said.
Chris Garrett presents "Attract Clients and Build Your Business Using Blogs" on Aug. 26
“The power of being yourself means you do create a bond with your prospects. People do feel like they have a connection with you. And they feel like they’d rather work with you than somebody else,” he said. “Whenever I write about a mistake I’ve made so people don’t make the same mistake, I get more inquiries because people see me as someone not trying to be this perfect robot. I’m a real human being.”
Blogs, when done correctly, allow you to establish trust and build relationships. Both of those are critical when selling professional services.
“Given the choice, we’d rather work with people we know, like and trust. And blogs help you do that because you’re communicating over a period of time. You’re not trying to get the sale in 10 minutes on the first visit. You’re actually building up a relationship, and that is really powerful stuff providing you’re open and authentic rather than trying to be a fake,” Garrett said.
Want to Hear More?
Listen to the full interview with Garrett to learn more about mistakes people make when blogging, features that work well on blogs, and techniques to get people to notice and comment on your blog:
And for even more information about the business benefits of blogging, watch Garrett’s webinar (available on-demand), Attract Clients and Grow Your Business Using Blogs.
