You also might end up with sub-par content, because the interviewee is only answering your questions instead of volunteering more information.

In any case, you won’t be inspiring your expert’s imagination, or revealing anything that people can’t get in his latest book. That will likely result in a higher proportion of refunds from people who buy your product because they like that expert, and want something new.

A poorly-conducted interview will also make your guest reluctant to recommend you to any of her peers, or provide a testimonial, so you’ll have to work harder to convince the next person to be interviewed.

Luckily, by following a few simple rules, you can make sure that you get the best content out of your interview. That in turn leads to more expert interviews, more sales, and fewer refunds.

Here are my 6 Rules for Asking Great Interview Questions:

1. Don’t Ask Limiting Questions

Beginning interviewers almost always seem to fall back on asking limiting questions, which take the form of a multiple choice (either/or) or closed-ended (yes/no) question. These encourage your guest to give short answers, and to focus simply on the parameters you’ve set rather than thinking “outside the box” of your question.

As a result, he’ll feel stifled, or that you’re on a cold fact-finding mission instead of in an engaging discussion. The content will suffer, and so will your profitability.

To avoid limiting questions, make sure the first word out of your mouth is not Is, Are, Were, Do, or Does.

2. Ask Open-Ended Questions

When you avoid limiting questions, you’ll be able to ask the best types of questions: open-ended. These inspire your guests to think and use their imaginations, which result in unique, thoughtful answers that are chock-full of valuable information.

The easiest way to know that your questions are open-ended is to start them with Who, What, Where, When, Why, or How.

3. Don’t Ask Loaded Questions

Another common mistake is putting too much into a question, resulting in an overloaded, long-winded, or double-barreled question. If you do that, your guests will be forced to put less into their answers.

To avoid loaded questions, make sure you only ask one thing at a time, and don’t tack on rambling information or commentary before or after you ask the question.

4. Ask Simple Questions

When your questions aren’t loaded, they can be simple. And you know what they say: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid… or, if you prefer, Keep It Short and Simple).

Remember, an interview isn’t about you showing off how much you know; it’s about inspiring your guest to reveal how much they know, so your audience can benefit.

5. Don’t Ask Leading Questions

Leading questions are those that try to get someone to give a specific answer rather than the true answer. They’re manipulative, and they greatly impact your ability to uncover gold in an interview.

If you find yourself making assumptions, trying to get a guest to agree with your opinion or observation, or using emotionally-charged words that are biased or could trigger a reaction, then you’re asking a leading question. There’s nothing wrong with an interview that’s full of emotion, but it should come from the thoughtful answers, not from a poorly-worded question.

6. Ask Neutral Questions

When you avoid leading questions, you can ask neutral questions instead. There will be times when you can express your opinion, or ask about something you’ve noticed — even something that doesn’t necessarily agree with what your guest has just said — but it shouldn’t take the forefront.

Remember, the person in the spotlight is your guest, not you. Let his personality and knowledge shine, and not only will he want to share more, but you’ll be creating a compelling and attractive piece for your audience.

Summary

In case you’re wondering, yes, I do break all these rules sometimes in my interviews. However, after asking questions for years to hundreds of interviewees, I know when I’m doing it, and it’s always for a specific reason.

If you’re just starting out, it’s all too easy to break the rules, and many beginners do so on almost every question without even realizing it. That’s why I recommend you follow these rules as closely as possible at all times until they become the new habit; this will give your interviews better, higher-quality content right away, and you’ll see your bottom line increase as a result.

The Netsetter

An Effective Marketing Plan: Getting Started

Neil Tortorella: A well-conceived and properly implemented marketing plan is the foundation for your business’ success. You might be the best at what you do, but if nobody knows about you and your offerings, and why they’re of value, then that shingle you hung up is going to come tumbling down.

Just How Popular are List Posts?

Collis Ta’eed: Magazines have always known the power of a good list. Look at the covers on your local newsstand and you’ll see plenty of “5 tips to shed your winter pounds” or “10 ways to save on your home loan” type headlines. This style of content just works, and if you’re a blogger, you’d be wise to pay attention.

Does More Posts = More Traffic?

Collis Ta’eed: Yesterday in a post discussing the popularity of list-style posts in blogging, a commenter asked me to look at the frequency of post types in relation to the traffic they bring. Following this comment I put together some statistics and ended up wondering a slightly different question, does having more blog posts mean you end up with more traffic?

How to Search Engine Optimize WordPress

Abhijeet Mukherjee: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to making your website easily accessible to search engines, and helping them understand and read the content so that they can rank it high up in their index.

How to Get Started as a Web Entrepreneur

Collis Ta’eed: In the last four years of building up Envato I’ve had the opportunity to learn a lot about growing and building web companies. So I decided to put some of my learnings into a presentation I gave at WebDU 2010 earlier this year.

WorkAwesome

Making Ideas Happen with Scott Belsky: Book Review and Interview

Scott Belsky has been making ideas happen for some time now, whether it be at Behance, through the annual 99% Conference or with the creation of tools like the Action Method. He’s now made a book happen as well.  Peter North not only does a review, but conducts an interview with the author in this article.

Why I Stick to Pen and Paper for Goals and Tasks

While some people are right at home electronic organizers and smartphone apps, others find technology either daunting – or even inconvenient – resulting in a slowdown in productivity. Ana Da Silva discusses why she sticks to the tried, tested and true productivity tools known as pen and paper.

Should You Switch to a Health Savings Account?

Health care has been one of the hot-button issues in the United States over the past year, and there’s a lot to consider when choosing how to manage your (and your family’s) health. Bob Bessette offers his own insights as to whether or not you should go with a Health Savings Account – and why he did just that.

28 Creative PowerPoint and Keynote Presentation Designs

Powerpoint and Keynotes can be boring. In fact, they often turn out that way. We’ve collected some of the best presentations on the web to help you make sure that yours don’t.

7 Reasons to Switch to the Dvorak Keyboard Layout

Ever wished you could increase your typing speed? Wondering why you end up pecking at the keyboard instead of churning out words at a decent pace? It might not be you that’s the issue – it could be the QWERTY keyboard layout that’s holding you back.  Red Tani offers seven reasons why you should switch to the Dvorak layout in this piece that has drawn a lot of comments…both for and against the notion.

FreelanceSwitch

What to Do When a Client Kills a Project

So, there you are, working away on a project, and oh, is it a good one. You’re having fun, the client’s loving your work, and then…

…the whole thing comes to a screeching halt

How I Learned to Stop Worrying, Love My Job — And Leave It

Ever wonder how your fellow freelancers ended up where they are today? What goes through your head when you realize you’re not happy in your traditional career? Cassie McDaniel tells her own inspirational and surprising story on how she made the jump from full-time employee to freelancer.

Real Home Offices from FreelanceSwitch Readers

Forget the pristine glass surfaces and spotless, useless office set-ups. We take a look at home office photos submitted by fellow FreelanceSwitch readers–find some real world inspiration for your own home office!

14 Resources for Free and Premium Fonts

You can’t deny that typography is important in design. You could have the most beautiful illustrations in the world, but if you use a font like Jokerman, your entire design will look iffy. Use these tools and resources below to help you find the perfect font for your next project.

When to NOT Invest in Your Freelance Career

There’s no shortage of opportunities to invest in freelancing, whether it’s in coaching, e-courses, college courses, books and e-books, or even retreats for entrepreneurs. But not all freelancers are good candidates for these products and opportunities, and not all times are the right time to invest. Here’s when not to spend your hard-earned cash on career development.

When I think of “traditional” project management tools, thoughts of Gantt charts and highly detailed project schedules come to mind. But today’s web-based project management software tools are capable of offering much more than these traditional methods of monitoring projects.

Web-based project management software means that members of your team can access the tools and interact with other project members online. They are often a “software as a service,” which includes hosting of the project management tool for your business. I recently reviewed a slew of web-based project management tools in search of one that would meet my business requirements. The tools reviewed consisted of both paid and open source options.

Purposes

If you are searching for a suitable project management option, I would recommend firstly identifying your business requirements, as each tool offers features that are suitable for different purposes. Some common uses for project management software include:

• Managing Resources - If your company hires staff, freelancers, or virtual assistants, a project management tool will help your business to manage its resources more efficiently. If your business has multiple staff performing similar tasks, a web-based tool can effectively distribute the same message to a group. It can remove the need to repeat the same messages to your staff multiple times by email. And with the ability to view each other’s comments, staff can learn from one another.
• Project Task Management – These tools should help your business to manage different projects and to track the tasks and time spent on individual projects.
• Collaboration - These tools often have a collaborative element and therefore team members can interact and communicate easily with each other. This approach is useful for generating ideas and brainstorming, for problem solving, and to communicate the status of projects so that the handover of tasks between members can be completed. Collaboration through project management tools can also extend to dealing with clients and suppliers.

Other Issues

Other issues to consider when selecting an appropriate project management tool:

• Initial costs – Both paid and open source options are available. Find a solution that fits your budget.
• Ongoing costs – Some options have an initial outlay to purchase the software, followed by a regular monthly fee.
• Scaling - As your business grows in terms of team members and possibly the number of projects being undertaken, it may need to upgrade its project management software tool to increase data storage, and allow access to more features.
• Other “Nice to Have” Tools - Your business may have a feature in mind that it would like in a project management software tool. For example, an online whiteboard would be useful for brainstorming ideas with others or to work together to solve a problem.
• Support - Assess the technical support provided. This may be via a forum or help desk facility. Having access to an active forum run by the developers is useful for solving technical issues as you learn the new project management software tool.

Project Management Tools

Here is a run-down on some popular project management software tools for managing online projects and for coordinating virtual teams.

Basecamp

Basecamp by 37signals is one of the most popular tools for managing projects online. Projects can be managed through a shared dashboard, complete with the ability to upload and share files, send messages, document milestones, create to-do lists, and track time spent on projects.

One of the benefits of Basecamp is its friendly user interface. It can also be synced with other 37signals tools like Highrise (for managing your contacts), Backpack (for organizing your business), or Campfire (for chatting with group members).

Basecamp is a good option for those looking for a friendly project management interface and collaborative elements.

RescueTime

Rescue Time has the ability to track your time and that of other team members, with no data entry (a time saving in itself!) through a tracking application installed onto your computers.

It’s well suited for those with a focus on time management and for companies who want to improve the productivity of staff and help reduce distractions. It provides detailed graphs to show trends in work productivity.

Due to its automatic tracking, Rescue Time is especially good for managing outsourced staff without being overtly intrusive.

Clocking IT

Clocking IT is an open source project management software tool. It has a moderately friendly interface and is useful for creating to-do lists, for creating multiple projects, and for assigning different levels of access to users. It offers collaboration features like Wiki, chat, and forums, and is available in multiple languages.

Clocking IT is a good option for those on a budget and who need the usual project management functions.

Vtiger

Vtiger is an open source solution focused on customer relationship management (CRM). It can help your business to manage the activities of your sales team (e.g., management of accounts, leads, and sales). Users can also opt for the paid Vtiger CRM on Demand, which stores your data on Amazon secure servers.

Vtiger is suited to those who need a CRM to manage their customer sales function and team.

ActiveCollab

ActiveCollab is another popular project management and collaboration tool suited to both small businesses and corporates. One feature of ActiveCollab that appeals is the ability to set up the software on your own server. This feature will allow your business to have greater control over its activities.

ActiveCollab provides good documentation on using the software from the perspective of a user, administrator, or developer. It also has an Invoice module as part of its tool.

ActiveCollab is a solid solution for those who want to have greater control over their project management software.

CentralDesktop

Central Desktop has all the essential features of a web-based project management tool – the ability to manage projects, share online documents, and tools for team work (e.g., create Wikis, blogs, and forums).

For an additional monthly fee, it also provides a service to host online web meetings and conferences.

Plans range from a free option up to an enterprise solution. Date storage is limited for the free plan or low monthly plans.

CentralDesktop would be a good project management choice for businesses who want extra features like online web meetings.

Summary

There is an extensive range of project management software tools available on the market, each with its own particular range of benefits and features. Work out the requirements for your online business first, and you will be better placed to decide on which particular software suits your own needs. Keep in mind that as your business grows, it can always upgrade your project management software to suit its changing business requirements.

Nowadays not much has changed except perhaps the medium by which press releases are distributed. They continue to appear in newspapers, but they are also making big headlines online.

As the competition heats up to get your message out, there are a few things to consider before you begin writing your release.

What’s the story morning glory?

Do you have an angle you can use? What’s the unique selling proposition (USP) of your piece? Editors get hundreds of press releases on their desks each day. Your job is to ensure the one you send stands out from the rest. Even a simple announcement like a new product launch can be made to sound BIG if you have the right words and angle you can apply to it.

No USP? How about trying to use some emotional selling points (ESP)? Perhaps the product was created after a lot of trial and error, poor funding, and innumerable obstacles which had to be overcome. Craft your story around these points. What will get more publicity – news about the launch of a new funeral home or about the story of the owner who died while trying to build it? Be daring and different, but never fake or false.  Don’t create a story where none exists.

How to write a press release

Your headline needs to be compelling. It’s what draws the reader in and makes him read on. Go through your competitors’ headlines. How can you be different? Study headlines that have received a lot of publicity. How can you emulate them? Just remember to keep all headlines short and tight.

Subheadings are great in that they give you space to add to your heading and build up drama without giving away the actual content.

Your content also needs to start with a strong lead paragraph. Forget the conventional – XYZ announced today – unless the business you are writing for is in fact extremely conventional. Always include the 5 Ws within the first two paragraphs: who, what, when, why, where. Make it so that if the editor/journalist was reading only the first paragraph, he’ll have the entire gist of the story.

Get quotes. People love to hear what others have said about a product or service they are interested in. A good quote can capture audience interest – a great quote can make it memorable. A quote can be from an expert in the industry, from the company management, or even from a customer, depending on the direction you want your press release to take.

How to format a press release

It’s one thing to know how to write a press release. Now that you’ve written your draft, it’s time to format it. The first rule to remember for press releases is to keep them short – one page is great, two pages are okay, but three pages are just too long.

Start by using the title “For Immediate Release” at the top of your page. Include the date and your complete contact details. If you are unsure of a format, MS Word has plenty to select from. If your company has a letterhead, you can type it on that.

If you are attaching documents or a photograph to substantiate your news, be sure to mention that.

Also be certain to clearly indicate the person you’ll be sending it to – often excellent releases can be mislaid just because they were addressed to the wrong person.

End with a couple of sentences about the company, business, person, or service the press release is about. This paragraph is referred to as the “boilerplate” and is usually standard text that can be used over and over again in all your related press releases. It is usually placed before you add “# # #,” which signifies the end of the release.

You can also place a single line to say: “if you’d like more information, please call Ms Smith at 555-12-124 or visit us online at www.site.com” before the boilerplate or after the “# # #.”

Before you email or fax your release, review it once again and ensure you have done the following:

• Avoided using hyped-up, over inflated phrases like: breaking news, the best, most unique, one and only etc.
• Avoided writing in first person singular (I) or plural (We). Always stick to a neutral third party voice.
• Used plain English, not technical jargon.
• Not exceeded one and a half pages, even if you feel you have much more to say.
• Stuck to one main point and one or two sub-points if necessary, but no more than that.
• Kept the most important information right at the beginning.
• Included a live contact whom the journalist can get in touch with for more information.
• Proofread your release and edited any mistakes.

Press release distribution

And finally, don’t shy away from sending it out to the right sources. Online, there are a number of free and paid press release distribution sites such as PR Web , 24-7, and PR.com to name a few. Offline, try to source those contacts who will help you get your release to the right desk. A few persistent phone calls might be in order. And then sit back and enjoy the publicity your releases get for you.

There are many ways to build backlinks but in terms of ease and efficiency, they are not equal. What is more, some of the link building approaches applied by many people are just wrong because they can get you into trouble. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to see how often people make costly link building mistakes. These mistakes can cost you good rankings (and in some cases they can get you banned from search engines) in addition to the fact that you are wasting your time and money. Here are seven very common link building mistakes:

1. Linking to sites with bad reputations. Linking to sites with bad reputations isn’t a costly link building mistake – it is a deadly one! Since linking to a site is considered a form of “voting” for it, when you link to all kinds of illegal sites, this means you support them and search engines certainly won’t love it.

Even if you don’t deliberately link to sites with bad reputations, sometimes such links somehow manage to sneak in behind your back – for instance in comments, so you need to be really careful. My advice is that if you have enabled comments and they are dofollow, always check the site of the comment poster before you approve the comment.

[Note: There may not be much concrete evidence that linking to bad sites is bad, but common wisdom still says not to.]

2. Buying and selling links. Paying for links is another deadly sin and it can get you banned from search engines. There are many paid link sites and if you are tempted to buy links there, this can have an adverse effect.

3. Getting nofollow links. It is true that it is hard to get free quality one-way dofollow backlinks, but unfortunately nofollow links aren’t good. Nofollow links can bring you traffic but for SEO (at least for the major search engines) they are totally useless and in a sense the time you have spent building nofollow links is pure waste.

4. Wasting your time with many low PageRank (PR) sites. Similar to nofollow links, links from low PageRank sites aren’t your best bet. Links from low PR sites aren’t totally useless but it is much better to get a few higher PR backlinks than a ton of low quality ones. If you manage to get a low PR link, this is fine but it is pointless to aim at thousands of low PR links. Links with PR of 0 and 1 are basically very low, PR of 2 and 3 is more or less acceptable, and PR of 4 and above is just fine.

5. Getting backlinks from irrelevant sites. A quality backlink is a dofollow link from a high PR site within your niche. Sure, nobody will object against a dofollow PR8 backlink from any site no matter if the site is relevant or not, but all things being equal, backlinks are valuable only when they come from sites within the same niche. Sites from similar niches are also an option, though it certainly depends a lot on how you define what a similar niche is. For instance, if you have a dating site, it is obvious that you can’t consider links from politics sites, for example, as relevant, while links from teen sites could be considered more acceptable because more or less teens are interested in dating and many teen sites cover dating as well.

6. Getting links without your keywords as anchor text. The anchor text of the backlink is also very important. The best case is when the backlink has your keywords as anchor text. This isn’t always possible to achieve but when you are negotiating link exchanges, for example, you can say what anchor text to use, so pick a good keyword and use it as anchor text. Anchor texts, such as “click here,” “check this,” and the like lower the value of your link a lot and you should avoid them.

7. Backlink spamming. Backlink spamming is also another practice, which might not you get banned from search engines but in any case it is an inefficient use of your time and money. In your desperate attempts to get backlinks, you might be tempted to post short meaningless comments on any blog you encounter or to get links from sites that look like link farms. All this activity takes a lot of time and it leads nowhere. The links you obtain via spamming might be completely ignored by search engines and again you end up without a backlink that counts.

Additionally, no matter how reliable your sources of backlinks are, you should always do some link tracking to make sure that your links are still there. Manually tracking thousands of backlinks is hardly the best way to use your time but fortunately there are some great link trackers you can use to monitor the status of your backlinks without any effort.

Backlink building is a very tricky activity. You can’t afford to skip backlink building because otherwise you won’t have good rankings. On the other hand, when many of the link building steps you have at your disposal require so much time and effort, you might be asking yourself if there isn’t a better way to use your time. No doubt, link building isn’t the greatest earner per hour but if you are serious about SEO, you just can’t skip link building. The time you have spent on link building isn’t a complete waste for sure and if you want to increase your efficiency further, you just need to sort out the link building strategies that work from the costly link building mistakes.

SEO is a huge topic and I won’t go deep into it. This article is primarily targeted to people who own and operate a WordPress blog. Some of the tips mentioned are of course general SEO methods used on all kinds of sites. Other tips and tools focus on WordPress, which has become the preferred blogging tool in the past few years.

Let me know if I’ve missed something by adding your comments. These tips primarily focus on how to search engine optimize WordPress installations, as opposed to off-site SEO (getting and building backlinks).

SEO Factors

1. Title tag

Title tag or the article title is one of the most important SEO parameters. That is what appears as the title of the post in search engine result pages (SERPs) and hence you should make sure that it’s relevant, has keywords, is neither too long nor too short, and accurately conveys what the content is all about.

2. Meta description

The meta description for your blog or a blog post is a short description that appears below the content title in SERPs. If the description is precise and informative, a user is more likely to click on the post title and hence end up on your site.

3. Content

Content, obviously, is the heart and soul of SEO. Great content can attract attention and links, and hence search engines would prefer showcasing it too. Plus, it is what your readers would like to read, isn’t it?

4. Keywords

Having a general understanding of keywords (words, sentences, or phrases) relevant to the content on your site and how to use them properly always helps.

5. Web host

The web host is what your site calls home and where the Googlebot comes knocking on the door whenever you publish articles. Hence, be careful while choosing a host for your site.

6. Site loading speed

Site loading speed is something bloggers recently started focusing on when Google announced that it would be treated as one of the ranking factors. The faster your site loads, the better.

7. Robots.txt

Robots.txt is a text file on your server that tells search engine bots what to index and what to skip. It’s better to create one and place it in your root directory. Here’s a guide to create a simple robots.txt file.

8. Sitemaps

A sitemap is basically a list of pages or URLs that the search engine’s crawler can access. Ideally, you should have both XML and HTML sitemaps on your site. WordPress users can use Google XML Sitemaps plugin to create an XML one.

9. Permalinks

The default permalink structure in WordPress isn’t that good. You can customize permalinks according to your preferences and for better search engine optimization.

10. Headings and Post Slugs

Headings and sub-headings in an article are important for readers as well as for search engines. Use them wisely. Regarding post slugs, you should make them short and keyword-rich (don’t overdo it though).

SEO Tools

1. Plugins

WordPress bloggers have this advantage when it comes to SEO. They can select from a wide range of SEO plugins that are built for WordPress. Some of the popular ones are All in one SEO, Platinum SEO, and Robots Meta. There are many more.

2. Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools let you know if Google is able to successfully crawl your blog, and about other issues it might encounter with your site. Upload your sitemap in the webmaster dashboard to get started. It is recommended though that you do it only after your site has some content.

3. Browser Extensions

There are a lot of browser extensions that help you to analyze your WordPress blog and optimize it better for search engines. SEO Site tools for Chrome and SeoQuake for Firefox are two of them that I use myself.

4. Google Adwords Keywords Tool

The Google Adwords Keywords Tool can show you the keywords relevant to your article along with the number of times they are searched for every month.

5. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a must-use tool for WordPress bloggers. Apart from showing general traffic stats, it’ll tell you what search engine keywords are driving traffic to your site, which you could further capitalize on.

Other SEO Tips

1. Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs refer to a chain of links that directs a visitor back to the main page. You could install Yoast Breadcrumbs for WordPress to get them on your blog.

2. 404 pages

404 or “Not Found” pages shouldn’t be ignored. Use them to lead the visitor to other parts of your blog. Here’s a guide to creating great 404 pages for WordPress.

3. Images

When it comes to images, you need to keep in mind mainly the alt and title tags (apart from relevancy of course). Descriptive alt tags are recommended by Google.

4. Linking

Linking to your own blog posts as well to other blogs not only provides more information to your readers, but is a good SEO step too. Do it as often as possible.

5. Anchor text

Anchor text refers to the text on the page which is being linked to a different page. The more connected the text is to the link, the better it is for your blog and the other page.

How Much Should You Focus on Search Engine Optimizing?

If you are newbie when it comes to WordPress and SEO, you might find all this a bit overwhelming. Well, SEO is a time-consuming process so I won’t say that you could get it done quickly. But here’s the thing: Don’t consume your days tweaking your site just for the search engines. You should instead focus on producing great content and building relationships.

While SEO is important, it depends on the content and not vice-versa. If the content is good and you can promote it well, it will attract links automatically.

Hope you found the above on-site optimization tips for WordPress useful. Do share your SEO tips in the comments.

Avoid stumbling out of the starting gate. Here’s how to hire your first employee.

Create a compelling job description

Before dwelling on how to hire an employee, think about where your business is today and where you want it to be tomorrow, and a year from now, says Bryan Janeczko, founder of Wicked Start, an online portal for budding entrepreneurs. Even if you’re not consciously thinking of “tomorrow,” you expect to go somewhere, or you wouldn’t be hiring someone. Determine how you expect this first hire will fit into your strategy. Whether the role is an administrative assistant, an operations director, or a sales manager, this person will be your partner in building your business.

Give some serious thought to the kind of talents needed for the open position. Will the person need to create order out of chaos? Remain calm and cheerful when faced with angry clients or customers? Be able to analyze situations quickly and turn on a dime? Write down a few of the necessities for the position, remembering that if you can find the person with the talent, the training you provide will produce a much more valuable employee, explains Sue Thompson, a business consultant and coach with Set Free Life Seminars.

To stand out from other ads and attract top talent, start your description with why your business is so amazing, why you started it, and why you need to make this critical hire. Then, write the job duties and responsibilities followed by requirements, such as educational experience.

Turn to trusted hiring sources

Posting your job is an important part of the hiring process. Casting too wide a net will yield lots of noise and wasted energy. Reach out to trusted friends and business associates first. Consider paid postings in industry journals, resumes from Monster.com, Yahoo!Hot Jobs, advertising on craigslist.org, among others. If you still haven’t found your gem, you can hire a recruiter, though it won’t be cheap (25 percent or more of the first year’s salary!), it can help you your first time around.

Avoid legal minefields

Once you’ve rounded up promising candidates and are ready to start the interviewing process, legal issues abound. Ideally, the employment application form has been reviewed by your legal counsel to assure it passes legal muster, says Philip Mortensen, a partner with the law firm of Barton Barton & Plotkin. Whether on the application itself or during the interview, a general rule of thumb is that the employer (you!) may not ask any questions the answer to which might reveal the protected class (age, religion, sexuality, etc.) of the applicant.

For example, consider possible age discrimination. The employer cannot ask the applicant’s age, but the employer is also forbidden to ask questions that might reveal the applicant’s age. Tread lightly; asking what years someone attended various schools could reveal an age range.

If a candidate starts talking about things like ethnicity, religion, age, and disabilities, don’t ask specific questions about those elements, says Catherine LeBlanc, a recruiter with Spherion Staffing Services.

It’s probably a good idea to consult legal counsel to develop a series of standardized questions. See what resources your state has. For example, the New York Pre-Employment Inquiry Guide published by the New York State Division of Human Rights spells out what an employer can review with a candidate, as well as permissible and impermissible forms of questions.

You don’t have to be shy about asking certain things. LeBlanc says,

You do want to be sure the applicant is eligible to work legally in the United States. You can ask about their last position, reasons for leaving, reliable transportation, salary expectations … have they ever been convicted of a felony? …Say that the position requires X, are you able to perform the duties?

Make sure the person is a “fit”

Although some people focus on whether or not they “connect” with a candidate, it’s imperative to remember this person is here to do the job you outlined in your description, and ultimately help build your business. You are not seeking a new best friend. Stay objective. Have an advisor or mentor interview the candidate as well, suggests Janeczko.

Craft some questions for your interviewees that require a specific answer to the kind of talent you need. For instance, if you need a receptionist who is unflappable, professional, and smart, ask candidates to describe a time when they had to deal with an irate visitor, suggests Thompson. If you need an assistant who you want to manage your entire life, ask candidates to explain a previous position or situation where they did the type of tasks you describe.

“They should respond immediately with an example that satisfies you. Don’t let answers such as ‘Oh, I do that all the time,’ or ‘I did that frequently at XYZ Company.’ The folks with the talent love to tell you how they worked things out, and they’ll provide you with information. Choose from these candidates,” says Thompson.

She adds, “Know that a candidate doesn’t necessarily have to have the perfect resume and background – seek the talent. All the other stuff will come with training and on-the-job training.”

Your action plan

Once you SWOT analyze your marketing objectives, the marketing action plan picks up where the objectives leave off. For example, let’s use the objective, “Increase market awareness by 15% by December, 31 2010,” from my previous post. How can you attain that? Here are a couple of action plans to get things rolling:

Article marketing

• Ongoing: Develop topics list [Ralph and Jane]
• July 1–5: Identify publications and sites and pitch articles [Ralph and Jane]
• July 7–8: Draft first article [Ralph]
• July 9: Proofread [Jane]
• July 10: Revisions and corrections [Ralph]
• July 11: Submit article [Ralph]

Presentations/Speaking

• August 1–3: Develop topics [George, Ralph, Karen, and Kim]
• Ongoing: Identify possible venues, make contacts, and pitch [Mary and Chris]
• August 4–25: Write content and develop presentations [George, Ralph, Karen, and Kim]
• August 25–31: Proofread [Jane and Mary]
• September 1–3: Corrections and revisions [George, Ralph, Karen, and Kim]
• September 4–10: Rehearse presentations [George, Ralph, Karen, and Kim]

Your marketing calendar

You’ve looked at where you’re at and how you managed to get yourself there, got a take on your competition, defined your audience, defined your product and/or service offerings and pricing, set your objectives, and created your action plans. Good job! Give yourself a pat on the back.

Now you’ve got to create a way to implement your plan and keep moving forward. Trust me, it’s really easy to put all this stuff on the back burner when things get busy. But the time to do your most aggressive marketing is when you’re at your busiest. It ensures that you stay that way and that you can start to pick and choose those clients and projects that interest you. In other words, do what you enjoy, rather than do whatever comes in the door because you need to pay the rent.

Enter the Marketing Calendar. Although you can use a printed calendar for this, I highly recommend using a software calendar. Windows Outlook has a nifty one. Macs come equipped with iCal. Other options are ACT!, a very robust full contact manager, and of course there’s Google Calendar.

Wrapping up

When all’s said and done, going through this exercise will not only help you run a tighter ship, it will take your marketing efforts out of the “mysterious and overwhelming” arena and put it in the “doable” one. With a well-thought-out plan, you know what needs to be done, when, and how much it’s going to cost. It will put you in a much better competitive position, especially against the guy or gal who didn’t take the time to plan.

Beyond this, marketing becomes loads easier and over time you’ll learn what works for you and what doesn’t. When that happens, you can easily duplicate your efforts and kiss the feast-or-famine monster away forever. And that, dear reader, is a wonderful feeling.

An elevator speech introduces you in the short span of an elevator ride. The theory behind this is that the introduction you make to a stranger, and potential client, needs to be short and concise, and an elevator ride is simply the best example of the time one should spend delivering this kind of speech.

What it is

An elevator pitch should give your audience immediate knowledge of who you are and what you do so that they don’t get off at the next floor, but rather hit the stop button to hear more about what you have to say.

Ideally, you would memorize not one but several variations of your speech, so that depending on the situation you are ready to launch into it at a moment’s notice. This comes from carefully crafting what you have to say and practicing it in front of a few people, preferably not family and friends who would applaud you anyway.

The one place you probably won’t use speech this is in an elevator, but being prepared allows you to meet people under various circumstances and capitalize on the moment; something we often fail to take advantage of because we’re unsure of what to say. So if a person asks you what you do, rather than say “I’m a freelance writer/editor,”  you can launch straight into your short yet captivating speech.

Obviously, the more you practice your speech, the better it will get. You can weed out any weaknesses and hone it to perfection. And always be prepared to modify it as your business expands and your areas of expertise widen.

How to write it

Don’t worry about implementing all the elevator speech tips you find. Begin by finding a core message. This is what you’ll work everything around. Once you’ve figured out what your message is, such as “health and wellness writer” or “corporate communications consultant” or “ezine specialist,” you can build your speech around it using this formula:

• Introduce yourself.
• State your type of business (freelance writer, novelist, editor, etc.).
• Describe your niche client (small business owners, online web owners, dental associations and dentists, etc.).
• Explain how you differ from the rest? What is your “Unique Selling Proposition”  (USP)?

Your speech…

• Includes the above mentioned points.
• Is not a hard sales pitch.
• Is concise and on track: a 30-second elevator speech is ideal, but definitely shoot for under 60 seconds.
• Is memorable, leaving your audience with something valuable to take away from your conversation.
• Has a hook to entice your listeners to hear more.
• Needs to be practiced so your delivery doesn’t sound forced.
• Feels friendly and enthusiastic, and sincere.
• Must be delivered slowly, so it doesn’t sound rehearsed.

You should…

• Breath, pause, and smile where appropriate.
• Maintain eye contact.
• Speak clearly, even when nervous.
• Act confidently, no matter the circumstances.
• Stop, if you feel you’ve lost audience interest.

While those of us in the writing business can be very confident when it comes to writing complicated documents, we can be equally nervous when it comes to talking. The words that flow out of our minds and onto our computer screen seem to dry up when faced with an opportunity to brag about our skills.

If this is the case, a public speaking class might help. Once such organization is the Toastmasters, with chapters in most large cities and towns. Another excellent public speaking site to browse is Art of Great Speaking, which offers plenty of tips and hints to get you started.

And once you’ve got your speech down pat and have begun practicing it on potential clients, don’t forget to ask for their business in the end. You could do this by exchanging cards, offering to do a full presentation, or asking for a referral. Everything about an elevator speech has to be subtle, without losing sight of the end game: to get more clients and expand your business.

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