A Path to Success

Some musical levity to lighten the mood...

So I was trying out uploading some content in MP3 format to the blog and experimenting with an easy to use in-browser player. Let me know what you think by adding a comment. Hope it works well for you. Click the little blue play icon to the left of the MP3 file below to play it. Hope the response time is reasonable.

That's my son, Aaron, singing the famous little holiday ditty.

Aaron Singing Santa Clause is Coming to Town.mp3

A timely meeting -- Blog for Fun & Profit

Hello friends,

Our next meeting on April 25 is now taking registrations. We will have a panel of known bloggers in Toronto talking about why they blog and why you could start a blog for your business or help a non profit start a conversation online.

Notice I said 'could' rather then should. There are very many perspectives on blogging -- blogging has a different purpose for everyone. And it gives each person a voice -- it appears that blogging is humanizing the Internet, which I think is great.

We'll see what our bloggers think. Please come out on April 25 and tell your colleagues who have been thinking about blogging to come out. It should be a good time.

Strategy #1 From the Trenches - Tell the "story"

Our NewPath Network meeting on March 28th was a stellar success. Tamara Eberle from Track led the discussion, and her able assistants Jen and Shawna took pictures and notes throughout the meeting. Thank you to Tamara and her team for assembling these Strategies from the Trenches.

From L to R, Jeff Chow, Victoria White, Misha Rybalov, Emmanuel Lopez, Kathleen McBride, Dmitry Brusilovsky

The panel was asked:
What does it really take to build and sustain a successful consulting business?

The result is that we received a plethora (40!) fabulous strategies and tactics from the trenches... Here's our first strategy:

It is important to be creative and “tell the story” when writing proposals.

Don't just put the specs and a rate card. Tell a story of how you will work with the client. Be a human being when describing your services, your approach to support, how to get in touch and how you will bill. People remember the memorable, not the commonplace.

An example:

Not a story: "We bill our clients 50% up front, 25% on delivery and 25% at the end of the project."

A story: "We want to to good work. Most of our clients pay 50% of the total project cost at the start of a project. When we deliver on time we get the next 25% and when you are 100% satisfied, we are sure you will decide to pay the rest. If you don't we'll send our henchmen after you. Or at least give you a call to remind you. Either way, we want to make you happy so there is never a reason to fret about billing and invoicing."