UpBeat Living: ProBlogger on Landing Speaking Gigs Through Your Blog

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Blog as marketing tool, Business blog, Effective living, Feeling energized, fulfilled, Getting public speaking gigs, Kebba, living beyond, Marcus Sheridan, profiting from blog, Public speaking, unstuck

© 2012 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved

Marcus Sheridan, The Sales Lion

The site, www.ProBlogger.net, contains a wealth of wisdom for anyone who is in business, or wants to be, using their blog as a key tool.  Today, my article is a summary re-blog of a great piece that appeared in ProBlogger’s e-news and also on the website, June 25, 2012.  The piece is called Blog Business Model 1:  Land Public Speaking Gigs Through Your Blog. The full article appears under that date, on the ProBlogger.net site.

Marcus Sheridan’s The Sales Lion blog has helped him springboard very successfully into the public speaking circuit.

Sheridan has owned an inground swimming pool company since 2001.  He credits a company called Hubspot with inspiring him to embrace inbound marketing and blogging, as a means of generating more leads and sales.  This was so successful that he now teaches others, through what is now TheSalesLion.com, one of the premier inbound- and content marketing information blogs on the web.

Sheridan wanted to build a platform for his overall brand awareness and influence, with The Sales Lion, to get a different level of speaking opportunities.  When people began to see his unique approach, he started getting more invitations to speak.  Making himself write about marketing, sales, business, and personal development, he says, resulted in his refining his messages.  It so embedded his key principles in his mind that he can now teach for hours without notes.  He credits his speaking success in part to his “wildly opinionated,” passionate style, and the fact that he is unafraid to say what is on his mind.

Sheridan says his biggest challenge is “continuing to plant the seeds while you’re reaping the harvest.”  It’s important for him to strike a balance between producing new content on his blog and continuing to network while also helping his current paying clients.

Asked what his best secrets are, Sheridan says:

1. I make people feel good when they stop by and leave a comment, because I care and I’m grateful.
2. I’m opinionated and not just regurgitating what everyone else is saying.
3. I’m dang good at storytelling.
4. I teach/write in such a way that anyone can understand what I’m saying. In other words, my goal isn’t to try to impress myself or sound intelligent.
5. I haven’t let off the gas in three years.

For online tools, Sheridan recommends HubSpot, for lead tracking and behavior software.  He does use WordPress, and his blog’s theme is Thesis.  He also uses a virtual assistant for editing.

His bottom-line advice to those who want to leverage their blog in business?  He says:

1. Answer every single question in your field. Be the wiki of whatever it is you do.
2. Be bold and gutsy.
3. Make your readers feel good about themselves.
4. Stand up to the “big boys” when necessary.
5. Be great at networking.

For more on Marcus’s business model, visit his site at The Sales Lion and read his story in From Small-time Blogger to Professional Paid Speaker: My Journey. 

And huge thanks to ProBlogger for the always-great advice.  ProBlogger is one of the few blogs to which this author actually subscribes.  To make the most of your blog, do something… and do it now!

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UpBeat Living: Energy of Your Gates and Gateways

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at choice, choices, Effective living, energy, friendships, fulfilled, goals, grateful, Gratitude, Kebba, Mental equivalents

© 2012 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Photo from Travel-Spot.com

Where is the most beautiful gate you’ve ever seen?  Was it modern or ancient?  What was it made of?  Was it the gate to a home, or a hotel entry gate?  Was it a vintage City entry gate?  What purposes did it serve?  How did you feel as you gazed at that gate?  There are a number of ways in which gates can serve us.

Gates are used mainly for security, to impress, or to commemorate something.  Most gates are designed to filter something, such as entrance gates for movie theaters, or the gate to a yard.  Paris has one of the world’s most famous gates, the Arc de Triomphe, a commemorative monument to those who served and/or died in the defense of France, in the French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic War.

The most distinctive gate I have ever seen is the Stargate from the movie and TV show of the same name.  An ornate circle of “nahquadah” perhaps 20 feet across, the Stargate filters people and other living beings who want to be transferred quickly between planets.  People jump into its circumference, and they are conveyed instantly.  When the Stargate is switched off, no one can come in through it.  It conveys the good guys and prevents the enemy from arriving.

Now consider the gate to your yard.  It allows you ingress and egress for people and packages, and it keeps out some people and dogs you might not want straying into your yard.  In Feng Shui, your gate has energetics, which vary by its placement and its appearance.  It is important to keep your gate in good repair, and to keep it lovely, if possible.  Look at the next two pictures, which show the pieces of an old gate and then the gate after repair.

Photo by Kebba Buckley Button

Which gate would you rather have?  Which is more pleasing?  Which one has better energy?  Obviously, the “after” gate is more pleasing and has better energy.  That one will help energize your yard.  It will draw in great energy, perhaps vitality, great relationships, and prosperity.

One more level: what about your mental gateways?  How effectively do they protect your Inner Peace?  What are your mental gateways allowing in?  Are they welcoming vitality, great relationships, and prosperity?  Over time, you have learned to filter negative thoughts and not allow negative people to disturb your mental/emotional/spiritual peace. No doubt you are always learning better how to do this.  So on the flip side, what are you attracting?  Would you like to learn a simple exercise to attract more?

Photo by Kebba Buckley Button

Today, design your Lifegate and install it in your mind.  Imagine a beautiful gate, perhaps surrounded by lush plantings, or attached to a lovely wall made of stone.  Make your gate of any material you like.  Look in magazines, in Google Images, and in photo calendars for ideas.  You can always adjust your gate later, in materials, height, width, thickness and color(s).  When you have settled on your intial Lifegate, sit quietly for a few minutes, twice per day, and picture the energies you want flowing into your life through your gateway.  Picture vitality entering.  Picture your vitality arriving, then your prosperity, then any other qualities or energies you would like to have flowing in.  Be in touch with your gratitude, which will strongly support the good conditions flowing in…and staying.  Call up the mental image of your Lifegate often, see it in vivid detail, and see the flow you want coming in through it.  See the gate shut to negativity and takers.

It’s your Lifegate.  You are in charge.  Maintain all the gates of your life for the Highest and Best.  What will give you the best energy and the most of the life you want?  It’s up to you.

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● Your comments are welcome!

 

● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .