We have those times… it seems like even though we know there are a thousand things we can write about, NOTHING comes to mind.  We stare at the computer like the whole concept of writing something is completely foreign.  I know that I have been there.

Brain (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But there are a few things you can do to get you through…

• Keep a “Post Idea Notebook” at hand.  Write down those cool ideas as you get them.  They will be gone in a few minutes…
• Along the same lines, leave yourself a voice mail with your idea.  This is a MUCH better solution while driving, and I get a lot of ideas while driving.
• Subscribe to a variety of RSS feeds, both inside your industry and in general news.  Often, the items in the news will be of interest to your readers, but they might want it brought to their level, or translated to how it affects them.

We’ve all seen the list above.  I think that every post on blog ideas came from the same source.  But there are more things that you can do to fill that bank…

1. Brainstorm.  Sit down with a piece of paper, a tablet, your phone… whatever… and write as many ideas as you can.  Don’t worry about the quality… just write them down.
2. Build an “Idea Council”.  Put together, or join, a group of bloggers with different niches.  If you blog about real estate, find people that blog about ANYTHING else.  What they blog about is not important, and what you blog about shouldn’t be important to them.  In fact, it isn’t even important that they blog…  What is important is that they are creative and willing to speak up.  What you are going to do is listen to THEIR ideas about what they want to know about your blogging niche.

About an hour after this post goes live, I will be taking part in exactly that kind of group as part of Social Media Breakfast – Atlanta.  The topic for this month’s breakfast will be “Crowd-Sourcing Blog Topics” and we will be using a round-table format to help each person come up with topics for their own blogs.  We’ll see if we can kick out at least 5 actionable post ideas for each person…

BTW, Social Media Breakfast – Atlanta meets on the 3rd Thursday of the month in Cobb/Marietta and on the 4th Thursday in Gwinnett/Suwanee.  Check out our FaceBook page for details.

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We just got back from a week at Walt Disney World.  As a family, Disney is one of our favorite vacation destinations, each time delivering more than we expected.  And that isn’t easy…

Image via Wikipedia

The tough part of exceeding a customer or client’s expectations is that the next time their expectations will be higher… and they will be looking for you to exceed those higher expectations.  In effect, you raise your own bar higher and higher until it becomes VERY difficult to jump over your newly raised bar.

One might think that after more than 10 years for my wife and I, 2 cruises and at least half a dozen trips to WDW, they would have a hard time going above and beyond what we expect.

But they seem to be continually looking for new ways to surprise us.

Do you do that for your clients?  Do you look for new technologies and new presentations to wow your clients?  What about new ways to showcase your listings?

One this most recent trip, we stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  Officially, since we were renting points from a Disney Vacation Club member, and so we were staying in the Villas.  As we drove up to the gate, they asked for ID (as they always do) and pulled out a pre-printed parking pass.  When my wife went into the lobby to finish the check-in process (which had been started online before we left on the trip… meaning most of the paperwork was already done), she was greeted at the door by name, and welcomed.  She was ushered to a comfortable chair and everything was ready for review.  In just a few minutes, we were unloading the van onto a cart to give to Bell Services.  Our room wasn’t ready yet (it was still only 10:30 in the morning), so Bell Services was going to store our luggage.  We hopped on a bus to the Magic Kingdom and began our day.

Image via Wikipedia

At the end of the day, with two tired little boys in tow, we arrived back at the resort.  We told Bell Services we were ready to have our luggage sent up.  The Bellman said he was right behind us… and he almost beat us to the room.  My wife’s fear that we would have to wait for the luggage before being able to put the boys in bed were gone.

That isn’t the most magical portion of the stay there… but it shows the attention to detail that Disney gives their guests.  There were “towel creatures” in the room, super-fun activities for the kids and immaculate appointments all around, as well.

Disney actually has classes that they offer to businesses about how to do business the “Disney Way”.  Many large companies pay HUGE amounts of money to learn how Disney treats people.

As a contrast, there is a retail store nearby that is closing soon.  The chain isn’t going away, but the location is.  It is LONG overdue.  Walking through the store, it is evident that the staff and management gave up long ago.  The merchandise isn’t orderly.  The floors are dirty.  The aisles are blocked with poorly placed display.

Image via Wikipedia

When I go to that store (rarely), I have VERY low expectations, and I am still always disappointed.  At Disney, I have very HIGH expectations, and they always find a way to surpass them.

That doesn’t mean they are perfect… I think they need to hire me as a consultant to teach their PhotoPass Photographers some basic composition… but if they WERE perfect, there would be no room for growth.

Whether it is looking for better ways to showcase a client’s property, or looking for better solutions to help clients search for a new home, maybe WE need to grab a little Disney Magic to exceed our client’s expectations… every time.

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Image by Brian Sawyer via Flickr

Did you get any cool new tech for Christmas?  I didn’t…  But, one family member got a new Kindle Fire.  I had the opportunity to play with it a bit and do the set-up.  But this isn’t a review.

It is a two part post.

Part I… I’d love to hear what sort of cool tech you got, and what you think of it so far. 

Part II… Let’s talk about getting to know that new tech so that it does more for you than just provide entertainment or hold down piles of paper on the desk.

Part I is easy…  Post up here or over on our FaceBook Page and we can talk about your cool toys productivity enhancement tools.

Part II is a little more complicated.  But, if we break it down a little more, we can make it manageable.

First, don’t go nuts.  I know a lot of folks that want to get every new device that comes down the pike.  It just isn’t feasible.  Aside from the fact that it is terribly expensive, you’d end up being too scattered.  By the time you approach comfort with a device, there are three more to get.  In the end, you have only succeeded in making the store in which you buy your technology quite happy. Don’t be too reluctant to get new technology, but don’t be too eager, either.  Instead, see if you have a valid business use, and then don’t move on to the next thing until the current thing is getting the attention it deserves.

Image via Wikipedia

Next, spend a little time with the User’s Guide.  Most of the devices out there are easy enough for us to power up and start playing with in just a few minutes.  It’s entirely too easy to just dive in and forget that there is probably a LOT of hidden potential waiting to be unlocked.  A great example is that my 7 year old figured out that he could zoom on my tablet by double tapping.  I missed that while speeding through the User Guide.  If I took my own advice, I would have known that…

Third, Google is your friend.  It is hard to find an even semi-popular piece of technology that doesn’t have a bunch of user generated tips and tricks published somewhere.  Some of the tutorials and videos out there are almost as good as taking a class.  There are some serious nerds (using that term with loads of respect) that are VERY good at figuring out how to squeak the last bit of utility from a device.  And they love to share.

Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help.  Maybe it is your tech-savvy friend, maybe your teenager or even a class.  Reaching out for help can be a really good option.  Instead of wasting 40 unpaid hours trying to figure out a piece of technology or letting a $500 device sit unused, spending $50 on a class might be WAY more efficient.

So… whad’ja get?

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I actually like writing this blog, but there are times when it is REALLY tough to come up with topics.  Not that there is a shortage of topics… new ones make themselves known every day.  No, the problem is time and having a topic at the top og my mind when I need to write one.

Image via Wikipedia

There are a couple of ways to deal with those issues… to begin with, using a tool like WP Editorial Calendar (If it weren’t free, I’d have an affiliate link… but you can find it through your Add New Plug-in Menu on your WordPress Control Panel.  Using the editorial calendar makes scheduling future posts a snap.  When I’m on top of my game, I have a few weeks of posts scheduled.  That also means that as I run across an idea for a post, I can write it and schedule it for the future… on MY schedule, instead of on the blog’s schedule.

Another way I have thought of to do this is a little more radical…

Posterous makes it REALLY easy to be an editor rather than a writer.  Instead of writing and researching to create blog posts, Posterous (through browser plug-ins) makes it a snap to share articles from the web.  After running across an appropriate article, just click the share button in the browser and write a few notes. Of course, you still have the ability to knock out a more traditional post, as well.

Image via Wikipedia

While it is REALLY easy to do, maintaining a schedule like I do on all of my blogs is pretty tough.  This blog, for example, should be updated every 4 days… at 8:00am (when I am keeping up).  Posterous doesn’t have an editorial calendar built in, nor the ability (yet) to plug one in.

If you are wondering what that looks like, here is my CoolCaroftheDay.mobi site.  It is a companion site to CoolCaroftheDay.com (which is a WordPress based site).

The bottom line is that there are a few ways to keep the blog flowing…  And honestly, I’m seriously considering porting this blog over to Posterous and becoming more of an editor rather than an author.

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This is an idea I’ve been toying with for a while, and then I ran across a post on ProBlogger about self-publishing.  With the rise of the Kindle and the more widespread adoption of tablets like the iPad and the Android based units (I love my Toshiba Thrive), it has become easier than ever to distribute a book.

In the last few years, there has been a MAJOR change in the way that consumers get, and authors deliver books.  Back in the day, an author floated his ideas to as many publishing houses as it took to get accepted… or accepted the rejection and quit.  The publishing house spent a bunch of money printing the books, and then used their influence to push the book into book stores.  Because of all of the costs involved, the author would be lucky to see more than a few pennies on the dollar of the cover price.

A few years ago, ebooks started gaining popularity.  The cost of production and distribution for them started approaching $0, but there were few consumers there to get them.  Now, with Amazon’s Kindle options, Apple’s iTunes store and the Android App Market, a book can be distributed to a format that is gaining in popularity rapidly.

As bloggers, we are uniquely positions to create book-worthy content.  In fact if you’ve been blogging a while, you might already have enough content for a book.  But, if you are going to charge for the book, it needs to be differentiated from your blog in some manner…

Enter the idea that I picked up from ProBlogger… revisit your best content and expand upon the ideas.  While a blog post HAS to be concise and quick (or risk not getting read), book consumers are looking for more in-depth analysis and information.  And what is even better is that if you are going to go strictly digital (not even planning a print version), the book could be VERY multimedia… audio, video, active links and other embedded content.  And another advantage is that the book could be updated as information changes… and we all know that the world is rapidly changing every day.

Among the primary reasons to create a book is that it helps establish you as an expert in the field.  Imagine saying to a client, “I answered that question indepth in Chapter 3 of my book… here.”  It is also a useful give-away to use to promote your website and help build a mailing list.  Finally (although there are certainly more ideas), it may be a useful tool to promote yourself… for example getting a segment on a local TV or radio show talking about your area of expertise.

Next year I will try to create a non-fiction book…  How about you?

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