Sail the 7 Cs to Better Blogging – C#1 – Build Your CORE

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Sail the 7 Cs to Better Blogging – C#1 – Build Your CORE

C#1 - Build Your Core

Build Your Core

 

 

In a earlier post (featured in http://TheRenegadeBlog.com  and http://BetterNetworker.com  as well as my own blog Sail the 7 Cs Of Better Blogging) I listed seven aspects of blogging.  Today I’ll address the first one: Finding your CORE.

 

 

 

 

 

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C#1 – Finding Your CORE

Here is the text from the main post

“The first C is something you do BEFORE you start blogging.  The first thing you need to decide is: “What is my blog going to be about?” and “WHY am I blogging>”   If your WHY is to create an online diary, you may not care if you have any consumers.  If you want to share your passion or if you want to cash in on your passion then you do want consumers.   Assuming that you do want to talk to a growing list of consumers, the CORE is actually made up of two parts – your Center (passion) and a Crowd that is Starving for something related to your passion.   Discovering your CORE requires you to look in two directions at once (inward and outward).  Looking in two directions is a tricky task to say the least, so we will take them one at a time.   First, look inward, inside yourself.  Find something you love or have always been interested in and would really like to learn more about.   Then look outside and see if there is a crowd with a hunger for something related to your passion.   Once you have both parts, you have a CORE for your blog.  This step is critical to successful blogging.  You won’t last unless you are talking about something that really interests you AND there is a crowd starving for your material.”

Let’s look at Finding Your CORE in more Depth

Do This Before You Write a Word!

I’m not a great supporter of the Ready, Fire, Aim philosophy.   I strongly feel that you should have a direction before you start.

Next I feel that you MUST understand that your direction will change and you, your customers, and the industry grow. Still you need to have a thought out direction.Beached Sailboat

If you don’t have a direction in mind your efforts will be like a sailboat without a rudder.  You will either circle aimlessly or you will run aground.   One of my friends was talking to me about the changes he made after he took over a position I held at a large University.   He explained how he had taken the team of student developers I had assembled and put them into the support groups.  He said “We fought fires much better than we did when you were here.”  Then after a pause, he added “And one day I realized that there was no wake behind our boat.   We lost our national recognition as a leader because we totally concentrated on fighting fires.”

Make sure you have a wake behind your boat!  You MUST be going somewhere.

 

 

I wrote (with some help) an entire eBook on Finding Your Niche.   You can download it here.

The eBook goes over 25 different techniques you can use to brainstorm different niches that might fit you.  It also lists a number of questions you should answer about your niche to evaluate it once you find a candidate.  If you are really stuck, download the book.  You are sure to find something in there that sparks an idea.

Branding YOU Inc.

Regardless of the niche you pick as your core, you should focus on branding yourself as an expert, a “go-to” person, or a trusted adviser in your field.  There is tremendous truth and power in the statement “People don’t join companies, they join people.”  Your best brand is going to by YOU.  Trying to hide behind a product or a company is just going to make it difficult for your customers to find out if they “know, like and trust” you.

As I mentioned in the original article, you must find starving crowd and figure out how to feed them what they want.  There are a few common sense rules here.

  1. The crowd must truly be starving for what you have.  It really should be something that keeps them up at night.  Strangely enough it can be something that others don’t care about at all.  For example, knitters may fret about finding yarn that won’t fade and people who don’t knit won’t even know that this “problem” exists.  It doesn’t matter.  The TARGET audience knows and frets about the problem.
  2. You must a) have something, b) be able to create something or c) be able to find something that will solve the problem the starving crowd is fretting about.  This must be a real solution or at least a partial solution.  Snake oil will not suffice.
  3. The starving crowd must be able to afford to buy your solution.
  4. The competition must be reasonable.  Dealing with the niche “Photography” is probably unreasonable.  This is huge, with millions of sub-specialties.  Dealing with people “Photographing Birds” is better, but probably still too big.  Keyword research needs to be done to see whether your niche is reasonable.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Today, I’m going to take a slightly different tack and introduce SWOT analysis. SWOT is a technique very commonly used when evaluating brick and mortar business opportunities.   SWOT stands for S>trength, W>eakness, O>pportunity, T>hreats.

What are Your Strengths?

The S in SWOT stands for Strengths.  You really want to play to your strengths.  If you have a 25 year history in the construction field, it would probably be a good idea to find something related to construction.   If you really look at yourself, you will be able to find strengths in several different areas of your life.  It doesn’t have to be just your work experience.  You may have sung in the choir or taught Sunday School.  You may have a passion for gardening or baking or build radio controlled airplanes.  Only you know YOU.

What are Your Weaknesses?

The W in SWOT stands for Weaknesses.   If you hate numbers, then dealing accountants is probably a bad idea, even is you hired dozens of them over life.  I know as I developed software over the years, my weakness was marketing.  Most of my software didn’t sell, not because it wasn’t good, but because the buyers didn’t know it existed.  For a lot of us the main weakness is going to be “Internet Marketing”.  We know our field, but we don’t know how to monetize it.   The key here is that you MUST deal with your plan’s weaknesses.  If you don’t it’s like trying to drive a car that only has three tires.  Unless it was designed as a three wheeler, it just won’t work!   Part of the weakness evaluation should include your time, your finances and your computer access.   If you only have 2 hours a week to devote to your business, that is an insurmountable weakness.  You will need to give something up to make time.  If you can’t, you don’t have a business.

What are the Opportunities?

The O in SWOT stands for Opportunities.  This is your niche.  You need to look at all aspects of the opportunity.  Look at what the competition is doing.  Look for holes in what they are doing.  Places where their customers are saying:  “I understand it all except I’m really lost when it comes to…..”   Maybe that is your real niche.

What are the Threats?

The last letter in SWOT is T, which stands for Threats.  This is where many people fall down.  You should not only be looking at your competition,  but trends, legality, new technology, etc.   For example selling CDs right now would be foolish.  The trend is well established that CDs are being phased out in favor of downloads and MP3 players.

Google for SWOT

There are many good papers and videos on SWOT analysis.  Take a look at your proposed niche and evaluate carefully.

Developing your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

The second half of developing your CORE is to decide what makes you unique.  Why should people work with you?  What are you offering that no-one else can match.  Remember that you do NOT have to be ready to train the trainers.  You do NOT have to be THE World expert that EVERYONE turns to, you just have to be further along than your target market.  

I’ll talk more about your USP in an other post.

Finding Your Niche and Your USP – You Need Help

I talk in another post about finding a Mentor and a Coach.   Your really need someone to guide and critique what you are doing.

I also have a friend, Natasha Nassar, who has a course called Branded.   This course is especially geared to helping people find their niche and their USP so that they can brand themselves.  

Finding Your CORE – The First of the 7 C’s and the STEP You Take Before You Write One Word

 

 

Until next time, you have a Great Day!

Dr Hale

 

 

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Hale Pringle

Hale Pringle Ed. D.

 

Hale Pringle – Hale Yes!

Skype hale.pringle

Email: HaleYes@HalePringle.com

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P.S. If you are working to move your business online and it all seems overwhelming, I can help!  Take a look at http://HalePringle.com, or sign up for the free coaching call. You can email me or give me a Skype call. I’ll give you the benefit of my years of experience and many thousands of dollars in training and searching the rabbit hole called Internet Marketing and Network Marketing. I can help you with Lead Generation, the feeling of overwhelm, blogging, and even career change. Add that to the finest mentoring on the Internet (Ann Sieg’s Team and Inner Circle) and you have a Winner!

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About Hale Pringle

Dr. Hale is an Internet Entrepreneur and Network
Marketing expert. His greatest pleasure is
helping people and he does just that, drawing
upon the immense resources that he has gathered
over the years in his unquenchable thirst for
knowledge.

Dr. Hale lives in beautiful, sunny Florida with
his wife, two dogs and a cat. His four children
are grown and are scattered around the state.

An eternal optimist you will hear him say
regularly: “Is this a Great Day?” The answer is
always, “Hale Yes!”

If you need help with your online marketing or a
network marketing opportunity Dr. Hale is the go
to man. “Hale Yes!”

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