You may recall your Myers-Briggs type. Now, via Typealyzer, discover your blog’s personality type.  Find out in seconds – complete with a description and diagam of your blog’s type. As an  

 INTJ (if I remember right) I somehow write an ISTJ (Duty Fulfiller) blog  - just like Mark Cuban.  Those results may surprise my friends and the SEC. My other  blog is typed as an INTJ (Scientist). 

I don’t know about the accuracy of the underlying ”uClassify” technology created by the Swedes at PRfekt but it sure is captivating. Since many of us are tempted to see how others’ blogs get categorized after we check our own – Typealyzer may go viral.  It is free after all. In true Me2We fashion the inventors are asking for our ideas about other ways to use this technology.

Don’t stop now.  GenderAnalyzer also uses uClassify to determine whether a blog is written by a man or a woman.  (How will you feel if they get it wrong?)   There’s more.  If I compared your writing to a well-known writer – who would that author be?

In tr 

For nine years Jake ran a lively, lucrative downtown wine bar. From movie-themed “Nights of Flights” wine tastings to cash flow-by-month analysis he knew his business inside out. But he got tired of managing people.  He wanted a change. One that would leverage all that he’d learned.  Sound familiar?  So he did a very smart thing. 

He launched a business teaching people how to start a successful wine bar. 

In this shaky economy, you, like Jake and Susan Page, may be thinking of fresh ways to make money from what you know.

If so, you may find Jake’s approach helpful. 

To keep overhead low and to appeal to prospective customers who may be working full-time, he designed a program where they could learn by signing up for a six month service of evening and weekend tele-classes and access to a members-only blog. 

He hired various clients from his wine bar (you learn a lot about people in convivial, casual settings) to:

• Create his members-only blog and taught him how to use it.

• Interviewed him to turn his expertise into a very specific step-by-step program, complete with examples, templates, checklists, real life success stories, points to be covered in each tele-class and inclusion of experts (from accounting to marketing) in blog posts and “in conversation” interviews that were turned into podcasts that his clients could listen to any time.

• Create his by-invitation-only online social network for all graduates of his program.  There they could ask each other for advice, share the cost of promotional designs that were then customized for each wine bar, collective approach vintners for special service or prices or ability to buy rare wines.

 After the first year, Jake hosted quarterly contests for best tips, with prizes provided by vendors who wanted access to his “market’ of wine bar owners. Members could contribute and vote on five best tips each quarter. 

These methods build closeness, value, trust and loyalty among the members of his Wine Bar Network. Bolstering his expertise, their content built equity in his business.

As Jake made the above preparations he offered his longtime manager the opportunity to become a minority owner if she met certain sales and other goals over the next two years. That offer became an element of his teaching program.  It also enabled him to devote time to starting his new business while working with his partner to grow into the new role.

Jake maintained partial ownership of the bar for four reasons. Co-ownership:

•  Kept him credible as a wine bar expert.

•  Provided a lab for trying out new ideas.

•  Kept his name on the bar, as a place for prospective clients to experience the business.

•  He loved keeping his hand in the business.

As you migrate from running your successful business to teaching others how to grow one like yours, go slow to go fast as Jake did. 

Take the time to create your “how to” program, get experts to help you edit and design it, create the online lessons, tele-classes and other tools you’ll need when you start.  Find allies with related experience (from accountants to marketers) who can augment your teaching in ways that highlight theirs and help them grow their business.

Recruit and lead your first group, leave time to hone your methods and tools before you teach the second group.  Then you can savor your start-up, make fewer mistakes and keep your overhead low.   By the way, after six wildly-successful years running his new business Jake took a bigger leap into an entirely new kind of business – and he loves it.  Next month I’ll tell you about it.

Now, how do you recruit your classes of clients?  Read persuasive promotional copy written by the Wizard of Ads, Roy H. Williams that primes people to buy.  Then read the steps he took in that email to turn readers into customers:

1. Open with a story that pulls in the reader.

2. Evoke both mystery (crystal table) and a “this applies to you” feeling.

3. Build interest in the service before attempting to sell it.

4. Positively label the people who buy your service (“stars”)  - and the company they will keep (at “the table”) in the group.

5. Vividly describe the multiplying power of a group, in this case in dollar value.

6. In concrete terms infer that the value of the service is huge.

7. Allude to a high cost for the service, then take them through steps that make them feel that the actual, rather substantial cost is more than worth it.

8.  Reinforce the credibility of the service provider by referring to his relevant book, one that your organization published.  Add a positive book review by the leader the service company.

9. Keep overhead costs extremely low by providing the service virtually, either by phone and/or online.

 10. To cement group loyalty and warm up the group to offer fervent, credible referrals for building future groups, host an in-person gathering of them.  You provide the “content” or program plus the design of the get-together. 

They pay for the costs of attending. You garner fresh prospects from them while they are on a high together. As one person in a gathering suggests a referral it evokes a “me too” instinct among others to also make referrals.

A final note. Be generous.  Offer more value than people expect. Build a community amongst your clients. Provide simple, explicit ways they can improve your service and help each other succeed.  Reward them for that participation. That’s truly a way to make money and to savor your work. 

At the Canne Film Festival Peter Broderick described new online opportunities for indy filmmakers to create, promote and distribute their work. He’s not alone.  “Independents” of all kinds are making their own media, leaving how-to-templates in their wake for others to modify for their own use. Ever dream of hosting a community radio show, co-creating an ezine for your club or writing a column about your community or hobby?

But you are daunted by the details. You don’t want to get engulfed in the technology. And you’d like the camaraderie of creating your media with others.

Well, musicians, teachers, city council members, cause advocates and others are enjoying low-cost ways to attract audiences, supporters and customers.  How?  By making their own media – and so can you. For us non-geeks who need a techy translater to describe exactly how to use the new media tools let me introduce David Mathison. By the way, Broderick’s story is in Mathison’s new book.)

This veteran community media activist describes the “me” tools for getting your message out (podcasts, blogs, videoblogs, etc). Then hear about the “we” tools to join forces with others to share information and news (social networks, community radio, TV and newspapers, creative commons, wikis, community media centers).

His book, Be the Media, “is a text and bible on how modern methods permit every person and organization to reach an audience that only a few years ago was reserved for the multi-billion dollar media conglomerates” according to Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Ben H. Bagdikian.

If you want to be heard on behalf of your community, cause or group, here are other helpful resources I recommend: Media Alliance, Beth’s Blog, Creative Commons and The Nonprofit Technology Network.

Become a top-of-mind expert in your market by following small business trends guru, Anita Campbell’s successful formula for success. Yes, she’s worked hard to reach the place where others seek to emulate her. A key was her approach to getting “custom sponsorships. She also has a plan in mind that helped her set priorities, each day and over time. Designing my life, my day, my choice of what to do next is often difficult. Too often I avoid doing “first things first” so Anita’s approach has helped me.

Here’s a bare bones summary of her business model.

1. Choose a niche, then

2. Multiply the ways you involve others in helping your kind of “customers,” then

3. Host profitable places where they – and other experts – can share ideas and resources. One example: Anita recruits volunteer moderators who benefit from having links to their site from her busy forum. She’s discovered that, “There was more power in hearing from multiple voices.” Suggest Anita, “One of the paths to creating a vibrant community and in the process increasing your own visibility, is to highlight others and their knowledge. That’s been the secret behind my radio show. And it’s increasingly the direction in my main site, smallbiztrends.com.”

Here are four more tips from Anita:

1. What’s a formula for collaborating with others online?“

Several models for multi-author blogs and sites on the Internet today: anyone/anything goes; hand-selected choices; and a few options in between.”

2. How can you benefit from the “power of us” in hosting podcasts?

“The obvious model is to interview others. The trick is having a format and sticking with it. And letting the guests talk. But keeping it informational, not advertorial.”

3. Is having guest authors on your blog really “collaboration”?

“Yes. Think of the product of the collaboration as an “online community.” It’s not the same as having an article submission site such as EzineArticles.com. On Small Business Trends, it’s about welcoming others as conversation leaders. It’s as if we are creating a central place where the reader knows he or she can go to find solid information, from real-life entrepreneurs and those who deal daily with entrepreneurs. We’re all stronger (as “we” than “me.”)

4. Has a group collaboration led to more opportunities?“

Absolutely! It’s more opportunities for all. More for guest contributors, because it gives them more of a platform for their ideas than many can get on their own. Quite a number have gotten clients, big media interviews, traffic to their websites and other visibility as a result of being a leading voice in the “Small Business Trends community.” More for me as the editor, too, because it makes the site a go-to source of reliable information.

To get concrete ideas about how to become sought-after, make money – and enjoy your work with others along the way, listen to the interview with this modest, generous trendsetter.

Perhaps the fastest way to find the latest blog news items on the web (that most matter to you) was launched today by former Apple evangelist, Guy Kawasaki.

It is called Alltop and it was inspired by popurls. I love the elegantly simply display of condensed subjects – and the way featured items are chosen.
Says Kawasaki, “As a news aggregation site that provides all the top stories for forty of the most popular topics on the Web. The headlines and first paragraph of the five most recent stories from forty to eighty sources for each topic are displayed. Alltop stories are refreshed approximately every ten minutes.” This also serves as a new way to see if you are a celebrity online right now anyway. Consider it a way to avoid RSS feeds

Major topics (with sub-topics under them) are Work, Living, People, Culture, Geekery, Interests, News and Good. He calls it describes it, “aggregation without the aggravation.” Yet some aren’t fans.

Owners of small businesses are usually time-starved. They crave practical methods that have proven success. They want to get news-you-can-use tips quickly, anytime they have a spare moment. That’s what small business expert, Anita Campbell has discovered.

To increase your profits, offer
1. to your chosen niche market
2. the most valuable mix of products and services
3. in the “formats” they find most convenient

For example, Campbell provides
1. the owners of small businesses …
2. with practical methods to grow their businesses …
3. provided almost entirely in online formats that include an Internet radio interview show, calender of small business-related events, several web sites and blogs, newsletter, free subscriptions to others’ magazines and online forums with “over 21,700 small business folks from around the world who support and encourage each other as we grow our businesses.”

As you may have noticed, Campbell succeeds by choosing others’ best advice to share with her niche. Her expertise is in identifying the experts who will interest her clients and the ways the content will be most convenient for entrepreneurs to find and share. Plus she taps the collective intelligence by enabling entrepreneurs (and those who sell to them) to benefit by sharing advice in the forum, as blog comments and elsewhere. This all sounds obvious yet surprisingly few people get specific about these three steps to becoming the top-of-mind choice for their kind of clients (or supporters, members etc.)

If you own a business, are thinking of starting one or are a member of an organization then you could adapt this three-part “Me2We” approach. Also, like Campbell adopt these tools to differentiate your organization in your niche. That’s how she’s been able to make money via advertising from companies she respects.

Even if you chose “only” one or two of these online tools you are likely to become more credible, valued and visible than competitors who do not.

In this interview Campbell describes how she’s collaborated with others to become top-of-mind in her niche market.