Month: July 2010

Linky

Blogging with 6-step plan to attract clients to your business

Blogging will attract potential clients

For your Business Blog you can create a 6-step plan that will turn your blog into an effective tool that will drive potential clients to your business 24/7.

1.Define goals for your blog

Your goal for a business blog could be to become more known to your target market and attract clients to your business. To assist with goal setting, here are a few questions to answer about your business blog:

a) What is your blog’s purpose?

b) What are the goals for your blog?

c) Who is your ideal audience?

d) What is your core message?

2. Pick good blogging software

Blogging software starts with choosing blogging software that’s right for you. There are several choices out there like Typepad, Blogger and WordPress.org, but I prefer to use WordPress on my own domain for its ease of use.

3. Find topics that your target market wants to read about

Do research through online social networks and search engines to find topics. Also check out Technorati.com to find blogs on topics related to your niche market.

4. Always write blog posts that are of interest to your target market.

Once you know who your audience is and what their needs and interests are, it becomes easier to write content that is relevant for your readers. However, it is important to keep your content topical, informative and non-promotional. A blog post should be 400-600 words. Interactive media like images, videos or even polls and surveys will enrich your content.

5. Bring traffic to your blog

To get benefits from blogging, you need to create a strategy to bring traffic to your blog. One traffic strategy that works well for me is to use social media. My blog posts are syndicated to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as to other Social Bookmarking sites by using a WordPress plugin called OnlyWire. See a post I did about using Social Bookmarking for generating traffic and how to automate the process.

6. Convert blog traffic into clients

In addition to bringing traffic to your blog you need to have a procedure in place for turning your blog readers into clients. Remember that you want readers to return to your blog. Make it easy for them by providing RSS or email subscription on your blog. Also use opt-in forms to capture leads (name and email) in order to continue communicating with potential clients. Once they get to know, like and trust you, they won’t think twice to become your clients when you have something good to offer.

Please comment on what else works for your blog and why…

Linky

Project Management Lessons From FIFA World Cup

After all the Soccer excitement from the FIFA World Cup passed and things were returning to normal again in South Africa, I came across this very interesting article by Romin Irani where he shared his views about what the FIFA World Cup 2010 teaches us about Project Management.

For those of you who are soccer supporters and who can appreciate the art of project management, will certainly enjoy his interesting perspectives and comparisons.  Here are some highlights:

  • do not depend on a star performer in your team
  • an effective technical person does not necessarily make a great (project) manager
  • there is no substitute for planning
  • to err is human
  • address the root cause of the problems and not the symptoms
  • every-one needs to perform and know their role
  • past performance is no guarantee of future performance
  • you need to have luck on your side sometimes
  • early setbacks can be a blessing in disguise
  • respect your opponent (competitors)
  • you need support from all levels
  • play to your strengths

When I started the series of project management posts relating to the Soccer World Cup in South Africa, I didn’t realise that there would be so many lessons to learn from one of the biggest sport tournaments in existence.

Click here to read the full article on What the FIFA World Cup 2010 teaches us about project management.

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Linky

I Want To Be A Project Manager When I Grow Up Part 2

Take Project Management Out-of-the-box

project manager

This post is aimed at existing project managers. There is a growing trend worldwide, where children are encouraged to take their parents in to school to talk about their jobs. I have never been asked to go in to my children’s school!

They have had a policeman in who no doubt talked about road safety and not talking to strangers, they have had a nurse in who talked about healthcare issues and how to look after yourself, and they have had a fireman in to explain about the dangers of fires and what to do if you are in such danger. These are all important and seemingly (to children) exciting jobs. But project management is neither apparently exciting nor does it have a uniform (something I note that the people who have gone in to school have in common).

How do we make some-one with authority, accountability and responsibility for managing a project to achieve specific objectives, sound exciting?

Should we perhaps design a uniform for project managers? We know we are exciting already. We can easily state that “doctors make people better”, that “policemen catch bad people”, but we can’t say: “project managers manage projects” because that doesn’t tell people anything. We all know what it means but my children don’t and my friends don’t know either.

The current situation of project managers

Project managers can be summarised as follows:

  • We are generally good at what we do
  • We are generally successful in our endeavours
  • We are getting better all the time
  • We do deliver “exciting things”
  • (We are mostly nice people I‟m sure)

So how can we get “out of that box” and be exciting to the world in general so that they can understand us and appreciate what we do?

Be proud and be happy

All in all we have a lot to be both proud and happy about. The role of a project manager is a great job, whether you intend on pursuing a project management career or whether you intend to move in to a business role within a project based business. Projects should never bore you, they are all different and each day will bring new challenges and interests. You will never stop learning those lessons and building those relationships.

Finally reach out with what you do

Consider doing some or all of the following in order to help yourself (and project management in general) out of the box:

  • Tell people you are a project manager. Don’t be shy; be brave and come clean about your job, that you should be loud and proud of.
  • Have that ’elevator’ speech ready when people ask you what you do. But don’t say “I’m a project manager, I manage projects”. I recently asked the question “How would you explain project management to an Alien from outer space” and one of my favourite answers came from Penny Pullman “Getting something new and exciting done with a group of people!”
  • Speak at non-Project Management events. People like what they hear about projects, project management and project managers.
  • Network with a broad group of people, again outside project management.
  • Start some LinkedIn discussions and get some great interaction with people from all over the world.
  • Twitter and Blog and Facebook and any and every social networking mechanism that works for you.
  • Offer your services outside of your work, you will find that many volunteer organisations are crying out for your projects skills – even if they don’t know what they are.
  • And finally why not scare your kids and go to that school or college day and talk about your exciting role of being a project manager. Make sure children know what project management is by the time that they leave school and that they had some exposure to projects being done.

“Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I’ll understand” Chinese Proverb

Source: “Getting Project Management ‘Out of the Box’” by Peter Taylor, Author of ‘The Lazy Project Manager’.

About the author: Linky Van Der Merwe is a Project Management Consultant and an IT Project Manager with 15 years IT industry experience and 12 years Project Management experience. She consults with small-medium business owners and service professionals about project management processes and tools, best practices and successful delivery through projects. She can be reached at linky@virtualprojectconsulting.com

Linky

I Want To Be A Project Manager When I Grow Up

Recently I came across a good presentation about taking project management ‘out of the box’. What this means, is to spread the word outside our project management community about what a great bunch of people we are and how project management is a valuable skill to pretty much everybody. It is about telling people what you do and what the typical working day of a project manager looks like.

Thinking back at how I ended up becoming a project manager, I remember landing in project management by accident, but staying here on purpose. It is because it is such a good fit for my personal strengths and skills. But I never grew up thinking that I wanted to become a project manager. I didn’t know of the existence of such a career choice and much less of what was expected of such a person.  So it is to this day. How many young people, school leavers, know what are the duties and qualities of a good project manager?

Also, project management is not a typical career choice. It is usually part of many advanced management courses that are offered at universities and colleges all over the world.  Typically, you would study to become something else. Then by portraying the qualities that would make you fit for an effective and efficient project manager in your industry, often project opportunities would come your way. Before you know it, you would have transformed to become a professional project manager. Read about my journey to project management in my blog: About Project Management Passion.

How important is project management in today’s world?

With one-fifth of the world’s GDP being spent on projects this year clearly business isn’t just about operations anymore. Competitiveness and innovation is what drives projects in this world.

We are part of a dynamic, resourceful and ever evolving world that demands change as part of its survival. And change demands projects and projects demand project managers. So it seems we, the project managers of the world, are pretty important in the scheme of things. Mostly not “life or death” important but still important enough.

Now is the time that it is even more critical to succeed, and succeed with a higher level of certainty than seen before since those projects that will be commissioned in the future, as well as the ones that are allowed to continue in the current climate, will be expected to deliver higher business impact, be under closer scrutiny from senior management and be under far more pressure to succeed.

And guess what, who will be the one that is under the most pressure, the project manager!

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Source: “Getting Project Management ‘Out of the Box'” by Peter Taylor, Author of ‘The Lazy Project Manager’.

About the author: Linky Van Der Merwe is a Project Management Consultant and an IT Project Manager with 15 years IT industry experience and 12 years Project Management experience. She consults with small-medium business owners and service professionals about project management processes and tools, best practices and successful delivery through projects. She can be reached at linky@virtualprojectconsulting.com