Ryan Renfrew

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Written by Ryan Renfrew | Follow me on twitter / facebook

What uuuuup? What’s crack-a-lacking?

Last week I was drawing some comparisons between my offline business (personal training) and my online business. And I found some really great, and easy to implement ideas.

I started this blog little over three –very short – months ago and back then my phase 1 objective was to create awesome content, phase two was to generate some traffic, not a lot, just some super awesome people with similar goals, attitudes and dreams to my mine. And phase 3 – make it sticky – build a core group of commentators.

What I noticed is that commentators come and go. I’ve put in the hard yards, writing quality posts and finding awesome people – like your fine self – that comment on my posts. But alas many are never to be seen again. This is as annoying as trying to fill up a bucket with water that has a bunch of holes in it.

So I decided to plug up the holes. But how?

Hmmmm, this pattern seems familiar. I had noticed the leaky bucket syndrome happening in my personal training business. I would put a lot of effort and money into marketing campaigns which attracted new clients (the hard part) but after their pre paid sessions had ran out I would lose them forever. I had done all the hard work only to let qualified paying customers slip through my fingers.

Sick and tired of this happening again and again I decided to drill my loyal long-term clients and ask why they were still training with me. And I came up with a list of 10 core reasons.

I have taken these 10 principles and made them blogger friendly.

#1 Connect With Your Readers.

Try your best to really get to understand your readers. Visit their blogs, read their about page and really try to uncover their “hot buttons” , their driving force and what their core values are.

#2 Bring The ENERGY.

When I write I imagine I’m talking to a bunch of excited 8 year olds, I try to be as animated, as fun and as different as possible. Its my aim to hold attention and be interesting. The biggest turn off on a blog is being boring and dull!! Every sentence should be rocking it’s A game.

Let me tell you where I get my energy from.

I don’t write with the sole intention of maximising comments, subscribers, likes and retweets.  I write every blog post with the thought  “I am taking another step towards achieving my life dream”. I believe it’s because of this attitude that my readers pick up the ENERGY of my dream and have a much better experience than if I was writing to impress them.

If you want insane amounts of energy check out Mars Doraian and locationless.

#3. Shower Your Readers With Appreciation.

I love you guys, you guys rock! Its you guys that motivate me, encourage me and inspire me. If I didn’t have you guys around I would find it very hard to keep blogging.

#4 Respond To Your Readers Personally.

You can appreciate your readers by personally emailing them and thanking them for hanging around. Reply to every comment. Thank them individually for their RTs.

#5 Be An Eternal Student.

You don’t have to go to official seminars or get fancy certifications. You can get great ideas watching what your peers do – the good ones, there are some crap ones out there too, don’t learn from them – watching videos at ted.com or mycomeup.com or by reading industry magazines or books.

By reading success books and taking action on their teachings you can inspire, motivate and improve your readers experience.

Plus the more you teach the better your understanding of what you learn, which is a great help in positioning yourself as an authority figure within your niche

#6 Be Fun

Don’t take your self too seriously. Being “professional” is not mutually exclusive to being super fun.

Blogging is all about creating an experience. You can read this material on thousands of other blogs. What readers remember is how you make them feel, so having some fun along the way will leave a positive association in your readers mind.

#7 Make Your Readers Feel Important.

Two of the best books you could ever read are “How To Win Friends And Influence People” by Dale Carnegie and “Influence” by Robert Calandi.

Both of these spellbinding must reads explain that one of the most powerful human desires is the need to feel important.

If you can figure out your readers most powerful desires then they will keep returning to hear your wisdom.

#8 Mix It Up.

Never stick to one topic. I understand you may have specific niches and that’s great – and too be encouraged in most cases – but don’t be too rigid, you will find that you will sound repetitive and like a broken record and will sound repetitive like a broken record!!

Write from different angles and different viewpoints, try and find comparisons and differences between your niche and others, sometimes the more extreme the niche the better the insight. I wrote this post by comparing client retention strategies from my offline personal training business to my blog.

#9 Build Your Brand.

Be yourself, leave your mark. I write in a way and use phrases that are recognisable and are identifiable with my self. Just look at the beginning of every one of my posts “What uuuuuuup?” and bLAZE yOUR tRAIL. I often use these phrases on tweets, facebook comments and blog comments, after a while it becomes recognisable and gets noticed amongst the hustle and bustle of social media. Another great example you might recognise is Traffic Coleman – with his “Black SEO guy “signing off” tagline. Traffic Coleman also has that green border around his avatar which catches the eye. You always know when the Black SEO guy is around – well played sir.

#10 Be Cool.

Be cool to people.

Its not about how much you can get from people and what they can do for you.

“ The more people you can help to get what they want in life, the more you will get out of life”

- Zig Ziglar.

And this blog is proof. I have found that helping others get what they want has come back to me X ten.

Help mend the holes in my leaky bucket and drop me a comment.

bLAZE yOUR tRAIL