When I was at BlogWorld, I moderated a really excellent panel with Dave Taylor of AskDaveTaylor.com along with Steve Hall of AdRants,  David Peralty of Xfep and Lynn Truong of Wise Bread on how to sell advertising directly to advertisers on your blog. At one point I had a somewhat embarrassing ‘ah-ha’ moment in which I heard nearly every panelist talk about their site demographics gathered from a survey - and I realized I had never done that on Sparkplugging.

I had lots of great excuses as to why I hadn’t done it yet. ‘Time’ was the convenient one, but my perfectionistic tendencies were the real roadblock. I have friends that have made their careers in market research. I know how important it is to ask the right question in just the right way - but I now had to admit it was more important to ask the questions at all instead of waiting for the money to hire someone with 30 years of agency experience to write my questions for me.

Please Do a Demographic Survey!

Whatever my (or your) excuse is for not collecting demographics, it is just that - an excuse. Immediately when I got back from BlogWorld, I set about getting my survey up and running. All perfectionistic tendencies aside, I found the cheapest (free!) solution and went with it: 10 questions on Survey Monkey.

As data started coming in I had a OMFG moment. I had NO IDEA of the gold mine I was sitting on - and I already thought I was sitting on a gold mine.

Here’s what I found. Sparkplugging readers are:

70% Female

63% 26-45 Years old

69% Married

80% Parents

78% Business owners

88% College educated

69% Come to us for home business/lifestyle advice or to read our opinion articles

98% Shop online

71% Read other blogs

–> and 90% of our readers create content online.

So why is this important to a web publishing business?

While some of these stats I already knew (I was spot on with gender and parenting percentages of our readers), some of these things I didn’t know. This kind of information is critical as I create future plans for content expansion. But most of all, this is my bargaining chip with direct advertisers.

Sometimes I get down on myself for not having the traffic numbers I wish we had - and to be fair, I will probably feel that way no matter what our traffic numbers are. But when I can tell advertisers that our readers are some of the most vocal people on the internet and we are influencing the influencers, suddenly every one visitor could be worth hundreds of visitors. And I’m in a much sweeter position as a business owner than I thought I was before I did this survey.

So here is where I beg you as a fellow web publisher to go out and do a survey. I don’t care if you have 10 visitors a day - those ten people could be the exact ten people that ‘Advertiser X’ wants to know. And this data can drastically change your advertising strategy and impact your bottom line.

I chose to write a post in honor of Customer Service week. As a customer yourself, there are certain things you expect from other businesses. For you, as a business owner, you must be knowledgeable about what your customers are looking for from your business.

1) Ask questions. Always think about the Customer. Think about what they need. Listen to the customer. Ask questions of their needs and wants. And then deliver on what they tell you. Ask your clients what services/products they are looking for. Find a way to make this a part of your business. Don’t be afraid to gain more knowledge in those areas your clients are requesting information about regarding your industry. If they are asking you, this means this is in area of interest and they are coming to you to find the answer. If you have the answer or solution, they are more likely to stay with you then go and search for a new service provider. (*if the service in question is something you don’t like to do or isn’t your strength, it is a good opportunity to form a strategic alliance with someone who can accommodate your clients).

2) Become Your Customer. Take the time to go through your own purchasing or service cycle. This will give you first hand account of those places where you can tweak, adjust and make the customer experience better and thus make your customer happier. Another good thing to do is (which I read about in The Soccer Mom Myth by Michele Miller and Holly Buchanan) is to form customer scenarios/micro focus groups. Ask others to go through your purchasing cycle (starting with looking on your website through to receiving the invoice) and give you feedback.

3) Celebrate your Clients. Take a sincere interest in your customers. Show interest in what they are doing and be there to support them. Also, take the time to show your customers you appreciate their business. When you gain a new client, find your own special way to say thank you (not just a card). Once a project or service is completed, find a way to say thank you for doing business with you. Show your appreciation to your client for doing business with you.

4) Deliver the Extras. Provide the “something more” no one else is doing. Take the time to think about what the “something more” (without breaking the bank) could be for your business and do it! You will reap the rewards in the end. Donna Cutting, author of The Celebrity Experience, Insider Secrets to Delivering Red Carpet Customer Service, writes about how you should treat your clients like stars. What does your red carpet service look like for your clients? Perhaps it means making a 5 minute phone call as a reminder? Or maybe it means sending a small thank you bouquet with a note personally written by you?

5) Execute Consistent (Delightful) Customer Service. Don’t do a great job for one client and then an ok job for another. Keep the standard of customer services at a high level for every client. You have heard it before but it deserves to be repeated—Customers do talk with other people when they receive bad AND good service. So be sure that your clients are saying great things about your business.

Be mindful of your customers. Take the time to investigate ways you can enhance the customer service and experience in your business for your clients. By providing these customer service pieces for your clients, you will have an increased rate of happy clients, which equates to more new clients.

What do you feel is necessary to create an effective strategy to promote a business?

For many, the answer to this question isn’t easy. That’s why I insist that there’s not one answer. Truly there are as many answers as their are business models. So let’s look at an example (and my opinion) and then have a chat about what’s effective for you.

First, for me, the key to strategy in promoting a business lies in clarity. Yeah, I know…you’ve heard enough about clarity. Yet, for me, it’s the foundational stones to creating, promoting and growing your business.

What’s always worked in my business is first to have as much clarity as you can around three points: who you are, what you do, and who you do it for. I’ve seen all my own success stem from clearly defining myself in these first three questions.

It’s taken some time, but I’ve learned not to slouch on these questions. Who I am is very important because I’m, personally, the foundation around my business so I need to know, clearly, what I bring to the table. What I do is far more than what I provide. It’s a look at what problem(s) can I solve for people. And who I do it for considers who are the people who have the problems that I can help them with.

Next I ask myself (and my clients) how: how do you do what you do. I can’t even begin to express how much my business changed when I took a long look at not just what it is I do, but how I do it. My eyes opened to things about my business that I never had considered. And I’ve watched this in many of my clients over the years.

Finally, I ask one final question: where can I find the people whose problems I have the solution too? Since I need to know where to promote my business I have to know where the people I can help are looking for help.

My goal is to get as much clarity around each of these questions as possible. And since I know I’m constantly learning, changing and growing I forget about getting it perfect and just get it clear.

From the clarity I gain through answering these five questions, I now have a light-weight strategy for promoting my business. A little polish on the message and a few decisions around how to reach my target audience, and I’m off to the races.

The key, is to keep everything clear. If I find something that isn’t clear, I stop and track back where it may have become unclear. Then I take the time to clarify that bit of cloudiness.

I’ve been having a lot of people ask me lately what it is like to hire and manage a team of 18, 13, 15 writers. To put it bluntly, it is a Big. Challenge. Not only does every blog require a unique strategy to build, but each blogger takes a unique strategy to motivate & compensate. Sometimes, everything I do and they do click together, and their presence on my team and on my network becomes something greater than the sum of its parts. Sometimes…. not so much so.

After losing and gaining several key people along the way, I can say that the hardest thing isn’t losing a blogger. The hardest thing is when the commitment level of a blogger changes - and something I thought I could count on isn’t there anymore. It’s not anyone’s fault per se; life and business change, and their role in my company needs to change along with it. I get that. But it doesn’t make it any easier to go through the process of rebuilding something that you thought you had already built.

It’s not just ‘life and business’ that is changing, too - the online advertising world is very nervous right now about where our economy is headed. We really don’t know if there will be ads to run in 2009. And I am watching with interest as I see a lot of other blog networks reorganize and refocus under the pressure of our current economy. Know More Media went out of business. Gawker cut pay three times this year and now just laid off 19 people. b5media just restructured their payment model and has lost writers in the process.

What I find most interesting of all, is that even though each of these networks are structured quite differently from my own and from each other, all seem to be facing the same challenge that I am = quality content creation costs are leaving little room for profit. And worst of all, we don’t know if there will be a profit at all 6 months from now.

Which brings me back to my bloggers, who I would pay 3 times the amount I am paying them if it were up to me. But I can’t. Even so, most of them are not only sticking with me, but are recommitting to writing for Sparkplugging for longer periods of time, even if they sometimes aren’t making as much as either of us would like them to make.

So how can you motivate and compensate your staff when the budget is tight?

Understand what makes them tick

Money isn’t the only reason people work. Good god, I didn’t make a cent off of this site in my first year, and I never stopped moving forward. When I’ve hired people, I have long conversations with them about what they want to get out of writing for Sparkplugging. I’ll even try to talk them out of it, just to ensure they are in for reasons that support their own businesses as well as my own.

Hire the ones that want it the most

I’ve turned down more writers than I have hired on. Having 50 people writing for me would be great, but what I don’t want is to have to replace 10 of them every 2 months. Do things like probationary periods to test the waters with writers. And I can absolutely guarantee you that if they drop the ball in the hiring process, they will drop the ball when they are working for you. Be ruthless in who you eliminate, and also be quick to hire the people that make it clear they want the job more than anyone else.

Show off their rock-stardom

Show off your writers as rock stars

It’s likely that if you have hired a writer, you probably think pretty highly of their work. I think all of my writers were rock stars before they ever started writing for me. But I don’t think that a lot of other people knew that my writers were rock stars. Darren Rowse says that it is important to make your blog readers rock stars - it is doubly true for your writers. Make sure you are showing the world the ‘rock-stardom’ of your team, and make sure people are considering hiring know that you will pimp the heck out of them every chance you get.

Open doors for them

One of the best things I’ve ever been able to do for my team was to find a sponsor, Epson, to bring all of us to BlogWorld. Most of them had never been to a tech conference before, and all of them were able to meet some incredible contacts they would have never met without being there. Another great example is that Marla Tabaka from the Ask the Coach blog recently landed a gig writing for Inc.com because of her work on Sparkplugging. Since she’s being featured on the flipping front page of Inc today, I’d say that’s a nice door to have opened!

Tie compensation to performance

If you pay people on a per-post basis, you will be on the losing end of the equation most of the time. Some posts will never give you a ROI, some will do well. But if the writer thinks their job is done once the post is published, you are doomed. It is critical in blogging that the writers develop a relationship with their readers, and promote their own content. It’s crucial that you pay on some kind of tiered basis so that your writers have a vested interest in their blog being successful.

Ultimately, I can’t guarantee that anyone on my team will be around 5 years from now. But I’m very focused on doing everything within my power to keep my team around, especially knowing there could be hard times ahead. I’ve been very proactive lately in being creative and innovative in finding ways to give my team incentives to be involved with Sparkplugging. We’ve tossed around ideas about giving them shares of the company, me giving them business consulting, and expanding their roles in the development and promotion of SparkplugU.

It all comes back to one of the most important lessons I’ve learned while (accidentally) becoming a professional blogger: take whatever you’ve got and leverage it into bigger opportunities. And once you hire writers, you have to do it for everyone on your team, not just for yourself.

Tracy Johnson for Business.gov

A little while ago, we explored Federal Resources for Disabled Entrepreneurs for individuals with disabilities that want to start their own business.  What if you are a small business owner considering hiring a disabled person?  What things do you need to know?  What risks must you consider?  And what advantages may you be eligible for because of this hiring choice?

Regulations

The U.S. Department of Justice has a Guide to Disability Rights Law which provides a nice overview of Federal civil rights laws for people with disabilities.  Business owners should be especially familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act.  The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission outlines frequently asked questions and gives do’s and don’ts for what to do before and after giving a job offer.  The EEOC also defines what qualifies as “reasonable accommodation” and helps the small business owner determine what measures need to be taken to meet this requirement.  Similarly, the Department of Labor has their version of Myth Busters regarding employee persons with disabilities.

HR Tools

After you have hired a person with a disability, there are government resources you can lean on for ongoing human resource assistance such as:

U.S. Department of Labor Office of Disability Employment Policy

This office also has the JAN- Job Accommodation Network

Cornell Employment and Disability Institute

DisabilityInfo.gov Employer Resources

U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs Vocational Rehabilitation & Employment Program

Incentives

So, we’ve provided a lot of resources for how to stay in compliance, how to hire and manage people with disabilities, and where business owners can go for help, but now for one of the benefits of hiring individuals with disabilities- tax incentives!

There are tax incentives available to help employers cover accommodation costs for employees and/or customers with disabilities, making your business accessible for everyone.  The IRS also has disability-related provisions and even tax incentives for complying with the ADA-Wow! A tax incentive for complying with the law? Aren’t we supposed to do that anyway?  Don’t complain.  Know the rules and make sure you get the credits and incentives your business is eligible for!

Additional Resources

Business.gov

EarnWorks

Last weekend, I watched the news on this nebulous ‘bailout package’ nearly 24/7. It seemed so big, so important, yet I just didn’t get it. HOW could pumping this amount of money into Wall Street have ANYTHING to do with me, or you, our Sparkplugging readers.

I started to understand when one of the Representatives being interviewed said, “I got a call today from the owner of the largest car dealership in my district. He told me that he didn’t have enough cash to make payroll this week, and that this was the first time in his life that he was unable to get a credit line to cover his cash flow shortage.”

I hadn’t realized that the trickle effect of these banking problems were flowing so far ‘down the pipeline’, so to speak. I’d heard the phrase ‘banks hoarding cash’ for as long as I can remember in relation to the Great Depression, but I never stopped to think about what something like this could do to my life or my business today. I’m no economic or finance wizard - I’d go so far to say it’s one of my weaker traits as a business owner. But this credit crisis has forced me to take a crash course in understanding just what all of these economic factors mean to me.

I decided to ask a few people I really respect for their thoughts on the issue, and their answers were both varied and extremely helpful:

Anita Campbell is the Founder & Editor in Chief of SmallBusinessTrends and host of Small Business Trends Radio, and is @smallbiztrends on Twitter.

How is the bailout affecting ‘real’ small businesses?

Present Wall Street crisis aside (I’ll get to that in a moment), the U.S. economy during 2008 has been weak, and growth has slowed.  But although the ‘R’ word has been thrown around a lot, not everyone agrees we are in a recession.

Some sectors have done poorly but others hardly seem to have been touched - so far.  I’ve lived through several recessions and the current times are not as bad as others were.  Still, I’d hardly call this a robust economy.

Small businesses in real estate-related sectors seem to have been hit the most:  realtors; home builders; construction companies; mortgage originators.  And of course there’s a ripple effect among small businesses:  lawyers who do real estate work; suppliers to new home builders; and so.  But again, other sectors of the economy have not been hit hard.  For instance, some technology companies report  doing better than ever.

How do you think this bailout plan will affect us in the future?

The bailout is something that would have a much much bigger impact on us if it were NOT done.

The bailout for the current Wall Street crisis looks to be necessary to protect our entire financial and banking system.  The system needs liquidity — banks and corporations need money to operate.  If we don’t have that, then the entire financial system collapses - we could have bank runs, a tremendous tightening of credit leading to job losses, and other actions that put a chokehold on business expansion and the economy. And there are dire predictions that the stock market would crash.  If any of that were to occur, then everyone gets hurt.  For instance, small business owners and staff who have retirement funds invested in IRAs, SEPs, 401Ks could see their retirement funds disappear.  Also, credit card companies may start pulling back, REDUCING credit limits.  I don’t know about you, but I rely heavily on credit cards as a kind of credit line for my business.  So I would hate to be rudely surprised by having my credit limit cut drastically.

Jamila White runs eCommerce Diva and her firm Jamila White and Associates, Inc., as well as an online bath products site jblossom.com, and is @EcommerceDiva on Twitter.

How is this bailout/economy already affecting small businesses?

The current financial crisis is already affecting small business owners’ access to capital. A few months ago, the US Small Business Administration put a freeze on backing SOHO loans (”Small Office Home Office”) — loans aimed at the smallest of the small businesses, which usually are less than $20,000.

When you look at the big picture, the hypocrisy is unbelievable. Here you have small businesses, which are *creating* jobs in this bad ecomony when big businesses are not, getting shut down on access to capital, and then you have the SBA essentially out of money to back loans for small businesses. You have Congress drafting legislation, the FDA Globalization Act of 2008, that would shut down thousands of small, honest, hardworking, mom and pop beauty businesses by levying annual fees of $12,000 per year. If passed, this would have a huge negative impact on my business, j.blossom, which makes natural bath and body products for young girls. Tiny one- and two-person businesses are fighting for their right to exist, yet our government can find $700 Billion to bail out corporate behemoths whose own greed is the primary cause of their downfall? It’s not right, and it makes me angry.

How do you see the bailout changing things for us in the future?

I think people underestimate the cutbacks that will come as a result of the $700 billion bailout. Budgets are going to get slashed when citizens need services the most. I think the SBA is going to have further cutbacks on services to small businesses, and access to capital is going to continue to get even tighter, both SBA-backed loans and other financial resources.

Donna Maria Coles Johnson founder and CEO of the Indie Beauty Network and host of The Indie Business Radio Show, and is @indiebusiness on Twitter.

How is the bailout affecting ‘real’ small businesses? (Donna has defined them mostly as solo businesses that are doing less than $1M a year in revenue).

Credit is already nearly impossible to come by for small businesses. Members of the Indie trade organization I lead (700+ members) are telling me, for example, that their attempts to purchase manufacturing supplies using their Wachovia credit cards are being declined even though they have credit on the card, are not even close to maxing it out and have not missed any payments. I’m sure that will continue. How can they run their businesses if they can’t purchase supplies?

How do you think this bailout plan will affect us in the future?

The biggest problems are not that my and your business will be affected, but that our children’s businesses will be affected. It’s hard enough to start a business even with adequate assets and good credit. My children and theirs will be saddled with this one way or another, but I find it inexcusable that the rush to “solve” the problem is going to send my descendants the message that, no matter how hard they work to build a lasting business legacy, it will constantly be at risk of being demolished at worst and undercut at best, by the very government that is assigned the task of promoting it.

Donna has written more on of her thoughts on the “Bad Bailout” on her Indie Business Blog.

While all of these small business experts have sometimes highly contrasting opinions, I see that all of them make some very valid points. In the end, I honestly think we won’t know the real truth about what this bailout plan will do for Americans and American businesses until after we do it, or don’t do it [scratch that, it just passed]. It will be interesting to see what happens both in the upcoming days as this legislation moves through Congress, and in the months down the road, as we have time to see the plan in action.

But being the ‘glass half full’ person that I tend to be, even if the worst happened, at some point, we will recover. The Great Depression ended - so will this recession someday.

In these crazy unpredictable economical times, are you letting fear lead your business? If you are stuck and seem to just be shaking your head and do not know where to go in your business. You may be allowing fear to lead your business. In order for your business to move forward, you need to take action and stay positive. It can be hard, however, you have to realize you won’t move forward if you are sitting and not doing anything.

One thing many people will say is, “I don’t have enough money to do anything for my business”. Well, sorry, in this digital and web based age, there are many things you can do for your business that do not alot of money. You can set up a website through Wordpress or Typepad for no money. Now, in order to customize it and get proper search engine optimization done, that will take some money, but you can do it a little at a time. And at least you are taking action.

Don’t allow the fact of not having alot of money stop you from moving your business forward. You can take the time to write content or articles on your areas of expertise to your target market. You can submit these articles to submission sites such as ezine articles.com or go articles.com.

Research your target market and then go out and meet them. Ask those in your target market or industry experts if you can offer guest posts on their blogs. Also, you can create an online newsletter or ezine for little money as well. For instance, iContact has a free trail to get you started.

Another thing that people seem to have difficulty with and allows to keep them from moving forward in their business is the fear of competition. Have you ever found yourself thinking, “Well, all of what needs to be said about my field is already out there”. Or perhaps, you have thought, “I don’t want to team up with anyone else on a project because they are in the same industry and they will steal my ideas”.

Another way to think about the subject of competition; there are more than enough possible customers to go around for everyone. Don’t keep focusing on your competition and what they are doing. You can be mindful of their actions but don’t fear them.

Another fear that could be leading your business is success. I know that seems to be a backwards statement. However, it happens more times than you might think. Just when you start seeing some people become customers and others wish to connect with you, your inner voice or ego, may say, “But what if this works, can I do this?” Now you already know the answer to this…YES! You can do this. Don’t allow success to deter you. Success is a good thing. Now is the time to need to think about some possible outsourcing or creating systems within your business due to the success of the business. Celebrate your success and don’t allow fear to defeat your success.

I have met others who are “scared” to approach other people even though they really wish to connect with them. Well, the “secret” is…most likely, the person you wish to connect with, wants to connect with you too. You know the saying, You don’t know, if you don’t try. It is the same here. If you don’t try to connect, you won’t ever know the outcome. But not trying, you are leaving yourself with this result–nothing.

If you spend your time allowing fear to lead your business, you will stay stagnant in the place where you are right now. The time you are putting energy into these fears, utilize that time to take action steps to get to move your business in a positive motion.

You are allowing fear to control your business….is that what you want for your business? If not, take the control back and lead your business onto the path you want to grow and build.

Here are two things to leave you with. You will attract into your life what you tend to project. When things are slow or not going the way you want, have you ever noticed that by worrying about it, it doesn’t make it any better. So you might as well, work towards action and continue to lift up optimistic point of views.

It takes courage to be different. These times are not great—you know this. But don’t allow this fear and other fears to keep you frozen and not moving towards your goals. Work on creating systems, work on creating connections with others, add value to your discussions, and believe in your business to break through these barriers of fear keeping you back from your highest potential.

Teresa Morrow is on the Florida Board of Advisors with The WECAI Network ™ (http://www.wecai.org) and one of the Editors at Large at WE Magazine for Women ™ (http://www.wemagazineforwomen). Teresa has combined her passions; writing, reading and connecting with others. She began Key Business Partners, an online promotional company for authors, coaches, and speakers. She cares about her clients and is available for 20 minute free consultation. You can contact her via email at keybusinesspartners@verizon.net or visit her website at http://www.keybusinesspartners.com .