The other day, I was at Houlihan’s eating dinner with my wife and my dad.  We stayed there for several hours chatting, and I started think about how a restaurant is a lot like a blog.

First Impressions Can Make Or Break You

When we walked through the door to look at the menu and eventually eat, it was like someone visiting your blog.  You’ve got the lead, but if you want them to come back, you need to make it worth their time.  If the restaurant looks dirty or trashy, the guest will turn around and walk right out.  The same holds true of blogs and their appearance.  People do just books by their cover.

Fast Service Won’t Get You More Guests, But Slow Service Will Lose Guests

My wife and I arrived before my dad.  We were quickly greeted and taken to our table to wait for my dad.  Nothing is a bigger turn off to a hungry guest than not being greeted quickly and slow service.  No matter how nice the place looks, if service isn’t timely, you might leave right away, and you definitely won’t come back (unless the content is unbeatable).  Your blog will also lose repeat visitors if it takes too long to load no matter how fancy it is.

A Strong Brand Lets Visitors Know They Came To The Right Place

It turns out my dad actually ended up next door.  He said that the place didn’t look like Houlihan’s which is how we figured out he went to the wrong place.  It was all about branding.  He knew what to expect from Houlihan’s.  The same should be true of your blog. Even if you change your logo or theme, people should recognize your blog.

Your Menu Should Be Easy To Follow

After my dad found us, we started checking out the menu.  We were able to quickly find the type of food we wanted.  Appetizers, Salads, and other entrees were categorized in a logical easy to find way.  Being able to find the food you want makes the visit infinitely more enjoyable.  How much would it suck if you had to guess what was on the menu?  How much would it suck if you couldn’t find the content on a blog?  Make sure your articles are easy to locate and categorized in a logical, easy to follow way.

Make The Meat The Star

When the food finally came it was excellent.  Regardless of all the other variable, the main reason anyone goes to a restaurant is for the food.  The content of your blog is the meat of it.  Amazing content can overcome deficiencies in other areas because when it is all said and done, the content is what makes people keep coming back.

Don’t Stop Following Up

The three of us ended up camping out and chatting for about 4 hours (we left a very healthy (additional) tip at the end of the night to make up for taking the table all night).  The funny thing was, after we paid for our food, our server quit refilling our drinks and didn’t bother coming back to see if she could sell us more food, drinks, or desert.

My dad, being the assertive communicator he is, politely pulled our server aside and proceeded to explain to her that we were still paying customers, and she needed to refill out drinks, get us desert, and whatever else we wanted.

“Get her a double shot of Benchmade.”

“You mean Marker’s Mark, dad?”

“Oh yeah, Benchmade is what we use for cutting people… Yeah, get her a double shot of Maker’s Mark.”

The server was frightened.  She should have been.  Her customer service sucked because she dropped the ball and left money on the table.

For the sake of this example, we’ll call leaving a comment your visitor’s form of payment (ideally, your visitor would buy your product or the product you might be marketing, but that doesn’t apply in nearly as many cases).

You’re newsletter is what you use to follow up with people after they “pay out.”  Not everyone will want more food, drinks, and desert, and not everyone will want to subscribe to your newsletter.  Not having the option is dropping the ball.

You never know when someone is going to want a double shot of Marker’s Mark

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It is rant time here at Props Blog.  A lot of people think that being successful and “trying” just means showing up.  Part of being successful is just showing up, but that’s only a tiny percent of it.  If you don’t show up to play, why bother?

Sending A Lousy E-mail Is Not Trying

After reading the responses to John Chow’s e-mail of the week, I can’t believe how lazy and scandalous people are.  If you think for 1 second that Dan actually tried to be successful, you are out of your damn mind.  Stop trying to be so nice and give people sympathy (especially when they don’t deserve it).

As I mentioned in my comments on John’s page, this guy didn’t actually put any effort into getting his book promoted.  He was begging, not trying.

Trying is: Frequently visiting the site, reading and learning how to promote, building a relationship with both John and the readers via commenting (at a minimum, and probably sending an introduction e-mail to John before even considering a request), writing a guest post, blogging longer than 6 months (or being wildly successful in your first few months), Reading John’s ebook, Reading ANY ebook about how to get a guest post, ebook recommendation, etc..

This request is like a slap in the face to John and every other hard working blogger out there.  Dan showed no understanding or respect of community, and he asked to put John’s good reputation on the line at no benefit to himself (and no benefit to John).  If that books sucks (which is probably does, given his lack of experience), John would lose all credibility promoting it.

False Endorsements of Lousy Products Caused the FTC Laws On Bloggers

As readers of John’s blog, they should be outraged that some schmuck thinks he should get his overpriced (not free) ebook about something he has almost no experience doing a free recommendation (not honest review) on John’s page.  I would be pissed if John recommended (not honestly reviewed) a lousy ebook that I had to pay for.

Guys like this are scammers.  They are the people who put out Acai weight loss programs.  They are the ones that steal hard working people’s money.  They are the reason the FTC had to create the endorsement laws and require “typical results.”

And instead of defending quality endorsements, many people said “at least he tried” or “you should have taught him how he should have done it” or “you could teach him ……”  Please gag me.  This is garbage.

Help People Who Actually Try

It isn’t John’s place to tutor the guy on how to do things right.  There are hundreds of free resources available.  The fact this guy has the audacity to ask for money for an ebook about things he knows NOTHING about is absurd (I know he knows nothing about internet marketing based on how he approached John in the first place).  People pay thousands for consulting from successful marketers like John Chow, Brian Clark, and Chris Brogan.  Why should John waste his time helping a scam artist?

This all goes back to the fact that the guy isn’t a part of the community, he doesn’t have any relationship with John, and he obviously didn’t do any research.  If he had show that he had tried, maybe John would have reacted differently.

Finally, some people said “Its better than The Arbitrager – Sex, Drugs and Lazy Internet Millionaires crap.”  Is the person who wrote this capable of linking two related things together?  I wouldn’t trust the person who wrote that with my money, my kids, or even my time. The information in The Arbitrager reports is exposing scam artist.

I would say sorry to rant, but I’m not.  RAWR!!!! ;-)

p.s. I love all of you who read this to end.  I’m glad you agree.

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Today, John Chow wrote a post about the Union Gospel Mission which helps to feed several thousand families in need of a Thanksgiving Dinner.  I know a lot of you don’t read John Chow dot Com, but this is something that I think anyone could support.

The Union Gospel Mission is a worthy cause that helps thousands of people get back on their feet with a variety of services including food, shelter, and training.  Apparently they do Thanksgiving earilier in Canada than in the United States, so this dinner will be on October 12th.

John Chow has offered to match donations by his readers up to $1000.  All you have to do is make a donation to the UGM and e-mail John the receipt.

To make the offer even more appealing, John is going to post a list of all readers who donated on Friday giving you a free backlink to your site.  Links from John Chow are a vaulable commodity and will get you traffic!  All it took for me was one ReTweet from John Chow to almost double my traffic.  I imagine anyone who donates will see some amount of traffic from this link.

For those considering an purchasing a review from John, you might consider donating $1000 or more instead.  John will write a free review on his site (a $750 value) not to mention all the people you’d be helping!

I think this is going to help a lot of people.  I really look forward to seeing how successful this donation drive for a worthy Mission can be.

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2. Props to John Chow for his Free eBook