Latest posts from Danny Brown

Enjoy the latest posts from Danny Brown, and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments after the post.

Revamps, Workshops and Telling Your Story

Though I try not to use this blog too much for self-promotional needs, I just wanted to give you a heads-up on some of the stuff that’s been happening behind the scenes.

Some you might be interested in, some not – and feel free to skip today’s post and come back tomorrow when normal scheduling has been resumed if you wish.

So, on with the heads-up.

Revamp of the Bonsai Interactive Website

Over at Bonsai Interactive Marketing, we’ve just unveiled the revamped design of our website. The previous one, while functional, didn’t really say who we are as a business. And, to be fair, it was a little too much show without there being a lot of tell.

So we got rid of the old and brought in with the new.

Now it’s a lot easier to navigate; you know exactly what we do; you can see examples of who we’ve helped; our calendar keeps you up-to-date with events and workshops you can attend; and our blog has also had a makeover. There’ll be a lot more focus on trends, analysis and case studies. This recent post about mobile marketing and loyalty is a good example of what to expect.

So please, feel free to check out the new site and subscribe to our blog if information is your bag. And if you’re looking for an integrated agency for your next project, hey, we might be able to help there too…

Upcoming Workshops and Webinars

As I mentioned above, one of the new additions to the website is our Events Calendar, to show you what workshops we have going on. For the most part, these have been with local or national businesses. But we’re opening these up a little bit further afield.

We’re in the process of putting together a series of webinars and online workshops (along with a very cool business resource that we’ll be sharing more details about soon – think For Bloggers By Bloggers, but for business). And we’d like your feedback.

While we already have set courses in place, what would you really like to get out of a webinar and training course? What topics do you feel are rarely covered, and what information would be really useful for you and/or your business? Leave your ideal topics in the comments below, and we’ll look at tailoring webinars around your suggestions.

Telling Your Entrepreneur’s Story

Over at my business partner Troy’s blog, he’s just launched a new series called The Entrepreneur’s Journey. It’s an ongoing series that looks at one of the hardest, yet often most rewarding, occupations – the entrepreneur.

It looks at the ups, the downs, the successes, the failures, the lessons and much, much more from some of the most tenacious people you’ll meet. It’s a great education in what it takes to be an entrepreneur, and offers pointers that you can take and use if you’ve ever thought about going into business for yourself.

The Entrepreneur’s Journey has already featured the likes of Marcus Sheridan, Mark Harai and Brandon Forder (disclosure: client), and, having seen some of the upcoming stories, it’s fast becoming one of my favourite blog series’ around (and that’s not due to any bias of Troy being my friend).

Check out The Entrepreneur’s Journey for yourself, and if you want to share your story, Troy has a form where you can let him know all about you.

So, these are the updates. Thanks for letting me share (and I really do recommend Troy’s new series if you have even the slightest interest in entrepreneurship) and hopefully we’ll see you over at the Bonsai blog or our next workshop.

Cheers!

Maxwell House and the Art of Great Business

Fact – 87% of consumers would switch brands to deal with companies associated with good causes. 87%.

That’s a whole lot of customers to lose if your business isn’t one that’s involved in good causes, either locally or nationally/internationally. Of course, making sure you support causes the right way is key too – no-one likes a bandwagon jumper, especially when it comes to helping people.

It’s something that coffee company Maxwell House clearly understands with their Brew Some Good initiative.

Waking Up the Senses

It’s not a new initiative, by any means. The Brew Some Good campaign has been around for about 2-3 years but, surprisingly, a lot of people still haven’t heard of it.

What the campaign aims to achieve is highlighting people that are doing good in the community, as well as share visions of optimism. Everyone knows about coffee and its ability to wake up your senses when you need a re-energizing hit; Maxwell House wants to highlight people that wake up your senses, by the good work that they do every day.

They do this by inviting nominations for people and organizations doing good in your community. Maxwell House then donates $10,000 to that person or organization, to use for their favourite cause.

It’s a great way of rewarding the amazing people that just go about their everyday work doing good without asking for anything in return, while involving the local community with a brand (in this case, Maxwell House).

Why It Works

There’s nothing flashy about the campaign. There’s no-one from Maxwell House screaming, “Look at how great we are for doing this.” They just view the nominations, encourage you to nominate your favourite causes, and help. Simple.

They also make sure that it’s clear how the help is being used. They have a bunch of videos on their micro-site that shows how a year’s ad campaign budget ($200,000) has helped 21 worthy causes. They even start their TV ads with the words, “Instead of watching a Maxwell House coffee ad, how about we all take an optimism break?”.

And then there’s the human angle.

As part of the campaign, Maxwell House uses videos of real people doing amazing things every day, like the one at the end of this post featuring father and son Dick and Rick Hoyt. It’s a touching story of overcoming adversity and the love a father has for his son.

There’s no Hollywood budget and special effects overkill – just a simple message with simple images. But it’s one that’s more emotional than most Hollywood efforts at emotion.

The Art of Great Business

A lot of businesses say they have (or aim to have) corporate responsibility, but don’t back up the goal with action. Or they make a token gesture to save on year-end tax and then nothing else.

Maxwell House shows that you can have an ongoing initiative, and one that seems so natural and obvious you wonder why others don’t run the same way.

And for that, I’d happily change my drinking habits. Which, as a coffee bean man, says a lot.

How about you – would you be more likely to support a brand that takes an approach like Maxwell House? What other companies are doing great things? Let’s highlight them.

This post contains a video. If you can’t see it displayed properly in your feed, you can view it directly here.

Making Time for Conversation

My friend and business partner Troy wrote a great piece yesterday about whether or not technology has improved or hindered our communication skills. It’s a timely topic with some awesome comments, and well worth the read.

It reminded me of something that happened a couple of years ago, that was a perfect example of the point Troy makes.

My wife had taken me to Niagara Falls for my 40th birthday, and it was truly amazing, awe-inspiring, majestic ? all these words and more that I would have thought were being over-expressive had I not seen the Falls for myself. So yeah, the Falls were simply amazing.

While we were there, we had some time to kill on the last day before catching our train, and so we did a bit of walking. After 2-3 hours, we thought it?d be nice to relax and have a break. So we found a food court with a bunch of empty tables and sat down. This is where I found myself wondering how we really are as communicators and conversationalists.

While my wife was at the ladies room, this elderly lady came in and bought herself an ice cream. She looked as if she may be about 70-80 years old, and she was by herself. She had a wedding ring on her wedding finger, yet as I say she was alone. And that got me thinking.

Was she alone because her husband was simply at home having a restful day? Or was she alone because her husband had already passed away, and she was simply whiling away her time? If that was the case, did she have any family? Did she have any friends that she could spend time with? And if so, why weren?t any of them with her now?

This led to another train of thought ? perhaps she had no-one to turn to. Perhaps she was at that age where all her friends had either passed away as time caught them up, or were infirm and in an old people?s home. This thought saddened me.

Friendly or “Friends”?

Every day, I talk to strangers that I?ve never met via the likes of Twitter, or Facebook, or via comment boxes on blogs. I discuss everything and anything with people on the other side of the world, and don?t think twice about starting a conversation with them, because I see them as “friends”.

Yet I couldn?t strike up a conversation with a lonely-looking old lady who may have really appreciated the company.

Have we really come so far as to only communicate via technology now? Has the art of real conversation died, or is it still there? Do we need the facade of technology to allow us to open up to people?

I couldn?t help but think of that lady on the way home, and of the missed opportunity to offer some company for even just a short while. I?m sure it would have been easy enough for my wife and I to ask if anyone was sitting beside her and strike up a conversation ? but we didn?t. And I feel bad about that.

So here?s?the thing. The next time I?m in a similar situation, I?m going to strike up that conversation. I?d rather be gently refused than to not speak at all. After all, it?s easy enough on Twitter ? surely real life should be the same?

image: JKonig

Why We Don’t Charge for Blog Topics

Over at For Bloggers By Bloggers, we offer free weekly blog topics every Saturday. A collection of various ideas, titles and niches, it’s to help bloggers get inspiration when they hit the blog topics wall.

As bloggers, we know how difficult it can be to come up with just the right idea sometimes. It could just be that your mind is a little empty on a given day, or you’re not quite sure how to make the next post seem a little bit different from your previous one.

So, the blog topics section was set up just for these times. So far, we’ve provided 30 specific ideas and topics for you to run with, although we’ve deliberately set it up so you can take the ideas we provide and use them regardless of the niche your blog covers.

It’s been really well-received, and we’ve started to see some of the blogs coming back that have taken our topics and run with them. So, great to see that the service is helpful.

One of the funny things, if you like, that has come about is the question why we don’t charge for our blog topics. There are other bloggers that are offering a similar service, but charging around ten bucks a month for it. So why don’t we charge as well, and are our blog topics less useful because they’re not being charged for?

Ideas Are Everywhere

The simple response to why our blog topics are free is that ideas are everywhere. I know I’ve gotten an idea for a blog post just walking down the street and seeing how a couple interacts. Or how a business responds to a query. Or how a child can teach us about blogging.

Additionally, ask any blogger where some of their post ideas have come from and they’ll probably reply, “From my comments.” See, the great thing about blogs is that they’re two-way. You write the post and start a conversation, but the comments are the gold where even more ideas can be born, including follow-up posts and new blog topics altogether.

So if bloggers get a lot of ideas from their community, then – in a sense – the blogger should be paying their commenters for their ideas, no? Same goes for other bloggers – if you write a blog post and I’m inspired to write my own based on that, you gave me the idea. So, should I pay you for that?

So, yeah, ideas are everywhere.

Ideas Aren’t Always Premium

Riffing on the above, most people pay for a product or service because it offers a premium advantage to something you can get for free. It’s the reason business and customers exist. For me, ideas aren’t premium.

As I mention above, ideas are everywhere – all you need do is look. But if you’re not sure where to look, then that’s where something like our blog topics come into play. But premium?

If we were to offer you steps and strategies on what to do with these topics, then that has the potential to become a premium service. For example, if we were to share how you can then promote these topics ; how it can be used to drive sales leads your way; or how you can measure how successful your post was and how many new readers you got – and kept – then that becomes a premium service.

Ideas are definitely useful, but it’s the strategies that drive the ideas where the real value (usually) lies.

Premium versus Free

Does this mean you shouldn’t pay for blog topics? That’s up to you. Like anything, you gauge the value from what’s free and what’s premium, and how much of a difference there is between the two.

Does the fact that something’s premium mean it’s better? Maybe, maybe not. Although I’m obviously biased, I think getting 10 free blog topics every week from a team of multiple award-winning bloggers offers great value. Again, though, it’s in the eye of the beholder, and the value received.

There’s definitely a need for premium blog services, and we’ll be offering some soon with the likes of blog auditing, blog mastermind classes and more launching soon. But sometimes there’s also a need just for straightforward help for bloggers who’ve helped you get to where you are, or want to be.

Making that help free is just a nice way to say thanks. It’s also another reason why our blog topics are free – it’s our way of saying thanks for your support.

Cheers!

image: jangelo