What do you believe are the “secrets” to success? Do your circumstances dictate your destiny? How about your intelligence? The family you were born into? An excellent public education? An expensive college degree? Government-provided social programs? Plenty of capital? Great credit?

Or do the successful have something afforded to all of us, but practiced by few?

Millionaire Richard St. John was sitting on an airplane one day when a teenager in the seat next to him asked, “What leads to success?” Born into a poor family, and struggling in school, she needed desperately to believe that her circumstances didn’t define or limit her destiny. As Richard shares, “She wanted to make something of her life.”

Having barely passed high school himself, and having been a self-described lazy underachiever, St. John had “somehow” gone on to great success. As he pondered the teenager’s question, he wondered what exactly had set him apart from his peers, especially since so many of them had appeared to have all the advantages.

His curiosity piqued by the girl’s sincere question, over the next decade Mr. St. John interviewed 500 successful people and studied thousands more, both famous and unknown, seeking to uncover the “secrets” to success. As he accumulated and organized the data, he noticed the same 8 themes repeated over and over again. The most interesting discovery? Not one of the common traits shared by all who rose to success in their fields can be inherited, purchased, or given to anyone. The government can’t give them to you. Your family can’t give them to you. The bank can’t give them to you. Your boss can’t give them to you. The best education in the world can’t give them to you.

Indeed, each of these character traits, delved into more deeply in Richard St. John’s book “The 8 Traits Successful People Have in Common: 8 to Be Great,” are ultimately the responsibility of the individual. He shared them all in this inspiring 3-minute speech delivered at a TED conference:

I want to flip the question: Since we can’t blame unequal circumstances for a life of mediocrity, what do you think are the character traits that KEEP individuals from success?

I just read an article called “When Your Customers Are Deadbeats,” by Donna Fuscaldo for FOXBusiness.

Donna writes, “Delinquent customers may not seem like a big deal, but the impact can be crippling to a small business both from an operations perspective and from the ability for the business to get credit.”

The article’s title grabbed my attention because Christa Quillin, an artist and graphic designer who’s brand new to the business world, has had a couple of issues with not being paid for work she completed and delivered. Making the situation more difficult, one of the customers is an “online friend.” 

We’ve never encountered an issue with a customer or client who didn’t pay for work completed, but we’ve definitely learned some important lessons over the years that have helped make the often-uncomfortable issue of the financial exchange less anxiety-producing.

First thing: you’ve got to get over your anxiety about talking about money and pricing with your potential customer, no matter how well you know them, or how close you are (or think you are).

After a couple of sticky problems early on that made for some sleepless nights, we’ve learned to always, always, always “draft a contract that outlines the billing procedure, whether it’s paying a percentage up front or paying the entire amount 30 days after the work is complete,” as Charley Moore, founder and chairman of Rocket Lawyer, advises.

Brian Liu, co-founder and chairman of LegalZoom, suggests offering incentives for clients to pay sooner, rather than later: “Provide a 2% discount if the bill is paid within ten business days or a bigger discount if the bill is paid up front.”

While doing business on a handshake makes everyone feel all warm and fuzzy inside, there’s a lot of truth to “good fences make good neighbors,” especially in the business world. Having the details mapped out and agreed to ahead of time, including how and when payment will be made, with all parties signing and dating the agreement, provides a foundation that you’ll both appreciate later, and will protect your relationships. 

What have you learned over the years that you can advise a young freelancer or entrepreneur, especially when it comes to billing and payment? What about doing “business on a handshake”?

10 Tips For Handling Negative Blog Comments

How can you handle conflict while keeping your cool?

Michelle Quillin invited me to share how I manage negative blog comments because she believes I do it differently than others. She ought to know, as I’ve never met a woman other than Michelle who reads and supports so many bloggers. She hears voice, knows style, understands professionalism, and is thoughtful in her own blog comments always bringing different insight on a topic.

Apparently, I stick my neck out when I write. I push the envelope of what’s tried and true and thought to be consensus. I like to poke a hole in someone’s opinion and rabble rouse a bit. I think they call me a bit of rebel.

I shoot from the hip more often than not; my opinions are validated from many sources that gel into the writing. I don’t take valuable time to fact find ad nauseum to write the best, most accurate blog post. If I was publishing a daily newspaper, I would take that approach, don’t get me wrong!

So…I’m getting to my point, promise…when you write as I do explained a bit as above, there are bound to be contrary comments. When I’ve been published on a national level, those comments come fast and furious from people who are total strangers to me and usually writing anonymously. I dread those retorts and experience a range of emotion as a result. Regardless, I have to respond for the benefit of others reading and to also defend myself!

Handling Negative Comments

These tips I offer on how to handle negative comments in your community are true and tried. I’ve been in the hot seat (not always) enough to have developed something that works. It took time, mind you! The first time I fielded a negative comment, I nearly collapsed with angst and ended up letting that anonymous person dictate my control in my house. No more! Perhaps these will help you when (because it will happen) you experience a detraction:

1. Never respond immediately. Let that comment sit there until you catch your breath.

2. Be calm because that emotion will direct your writing.

3. Accept all comments regardless of how they’re written. Thank the writer anyway in spite of the tone of his/her comment.

4. Direct people to your blog’s comment policy. If you don’t have one, you should reference the unspoken rule every blogger has calling for collegiality.

5. From your dashboard, locate the url/email from where the commenter wrote. While that may not be the true identity of the writer, you can tap that information and use it in your reply.

6. There are other ways to check identity of commenters and you can do that by the internet protocol or IP address. You can also Google the exact comment to see if it’s spam. Whois provides identity for domain owners, too.

7. When replying, never address the negative points. Skirt them at all costs. If the comment is so highly offensive, delete it! It’s your house, after all!

8. Invite the commenter to write a guest post and express his/her views.

9. Ask your community for support or send a direct message on the Interwebz calling for people to come to your rescue.

10. Most of all learn from the comment. If you’ve done it really well, ahem, you may get more disagreement than just one comment. Rather than being defensive, stop and think how your post was written and regarded by the readers. In your responses, be appreciative, courteous and take something away from the entire experience.

Have you ever been the target of a negative attack online? What did you do?

Jayme Soulati owns Soulati Media, Inc. and she delivers B-to-B social media marketing with PR to all businesses small and large. She’s all over the interwebz, and you can find her via @Soulati for starters, not to mention her blog at Soulati-‘TUDE!

Has writing for your blog become a dreaded chore? Feeling left behind while your blogging competitors are passing you in the SEO race to the top of the search results? Are your old blog posts gathering dust while you sweat over what to write about next?

What you need is a new way of looking at a well-traveled road! 

Recently, Arment Dietrich, Inc.’s Gini Dietrich shared 10 Content Ideas that Generate Comments and Shares that got my creative juices flowing again.

I’ll add a few more blog post ideas to Gini’s list:

1) Interviews with people your target audience would like to hear from.

Our target audience is brands, nonprofits, and businesses who want to use blogging and social media to get their message out to their own audiences online, so we’ve been publishing an interview series with brands using social media for marketing. So far, we’ve interviewed Cedar Poirier of Newport Naked, Becky DiStefano of Haute Tags, and Jon Buscall of Jontus Media, with more on the way.

Who would your audience want to hear from?

2) Reviews of books, products, or tools that would help your target audience.

Editor and copywriter Suzanne McDonald (Newport Interactive Marketers) was doing video book reviews at one time, and inviting a new co-host for each one. To see her video review of Rawn Shah’s “Social Networking for Business,” this one with co-host and travel blogger Priscilla Pilon (Weekend in Paris), check out 6 Great Tips for Using Book Reviews to Get More Traffic.

What can you review for your audience?

3) A roundup of voices on some topic of interest to your audience.

A tip of the hat to Adam Toporek and Kaarina Dillabough for this idea! See Adam’s “What Is Customer Service?” and Kaarina’s “Money, Marketing and Monkey Business – The Alphabet Series Continues”. Adam and Kaarina put a call out to their audience members asking for input on specific topics, and put together blog posts featuring their favorites. What a great way to get others sharing your content!

What fun topic can you gather a crowd around?

4) A Twitter Chat summary about a topic of interest to your audience.

Copywriters Shakirah Dawud (Deliberate Ink) and Michelle Baker (Corporate Writing Pro) hosted a Twitter Chat for people who write for business audiences. Each wrote a follow-up blog post about the Twitter Chat: Shakirah wrote “Who To Write To When Everyone’s Reading,” and Michelle wrote “Tough Crowd? How to Write Straight to Your Reader.” Each post rounded up remarks from Chat participants, naming names and including links. Guess who drove traffic to Shakirah’s and Michelle’s blogs?

What relevant-to-your-audience topic can you host a Twitter Chat around? Or, what relevant-to-your-audience Twitter Chat can you attend and then write about?

Brainstorm! Share your own ideas for interesting twists on the old-fashioned blog post in the comments!

March 21, 2012 Update: Jon Buscall just discovered that he’s won the UK National Award for the Best Business Podcast 2011 at the European Podcast Awards, for a podcast he co-presents and produces. Congratulations, Jon!

Interviews with Social Media Pros

Thanks for joining us again for our series of Interviews with Social Media and Blogging Pros! We want to give you a peek at the people behind the businesses, show you how they got started using social media and blogging to market their brands, and let you learn from and be encouraged by what they have to share.

Today we share the final part of our interview with Jon Buscall, owner of Jontus Media, a full-service online marketing and communications agency in Stockholm, Sweden. In Part 1, Jon revealed his surprising academic and writing background, his very first experiences with the mediums of blogging and social media, and what sparked him to found Jontus Media. In Part 2, Jon taught our readers all about his social media and podcasting schedule and recording process, and shared the one social media platform he’s given up.

Jon Buscall, Owner of Jontus Media in Stockholm, Sweden

In Part 3 of our interview today, we learn the secrets behind Jon’s success, how he manages his time so well, and which social media and blogging professionals he most admires.

Social Media and Blogging Interview With Jon Buscall, Jontus Media

 Jon, How many blog posts do you write each week?

Jon Buscall:At the moment I’m publishing 3-4 posts a week. I used to write five per week but I’ve found that leaving a post up for couple of days is a better ROI. For example, if I publish a podcast episode on Friday and don’t update the site until Tuesday, I get many more new subscribers to the show. This is important to me because the podcast is a really important source of lead generation.

Are there any social media tools or apps that you can’t live without right now?

Jon Buscall: Hootsuite is brilliant! I really like it for posting, scheduling and monitoring Twitter and Facebook Pages. I think Echfon is better on the iPhone and iPad for Twitter. PostRank is great for data tracking.

Do you plan out your social media posts ahead of time?

Jon Buscall: At the start of the week I schedule a number of key tweets to hit certain times in North America. Because I’m based in Scandinavia I would have to be up all night to tweet live with North America.

How important are keywords in your social media and blog posts? Do you pay much attention to SEO?

Jon Buscall: SEO is a fundamental part of marketing my own company and that of clients. Ninety percent of the posts I write for my site go through the Scribe SEO  tool to ensure that the traffic I get from Google is as targeted as possible. I would never put SEO before readability, but it’s something I’m very much aware of.

Every three months I completely audit our keyword strategy and tweak where necessary.

Do you take any time off from social media during the week or year?

Jon Buscall: I try not to work on the weekend but when it’s your own business it’s hard not to work.

Do you use an editorial calendar for blogging, social media, or podcasts? Can you explain your process?

Jon Buscall: I use an editorial calendar for both blogging and podcasting. There’s a really comprehensive overview of my process here: Jon Buscall’s Editorial Calendar.

I plan and schedule some tweets but not very many. Say 5-10 a week.

What would you say is your greatest strength when it comes to social media and blogging?

Jon Buscall: I think I’m quite dogged; I stick at things and that’s necessary if you’re going to get results with blogging and social media. It’s very much a slow burn. If you’re new to online marketing you need a good dose of patience. You can see results quite quickly but in really competitive markets it’s getting harder and harder to get your content and social media posts noticed.

I’m also very open to new challenges. Starting a podcast was an incredibly challenge but one I’m glad I took on. It’s really made a difference to my business.

What would you say is your biggest weakness when it comes to social media and blogging?

Jon Buscall: Sometimes I get lost reading lots of posts, tweets, etc. I have to use Time-Tracker, an app on my phone, to make sure I’m not watching Hootsuite too much.

If you had all the time in the world, or could hire all the social media managers and bloggers you needed, what would your brand’s social media and blogging strategy look like?

Jon Buscall: Spontaneously I think I’d want a full-time content marketer to work alongside me to create a blog post each day and the weekly podcast. With less pressure to create all the content myself, I could put more of my own resources into researching better posts and working on other aspects of the business.

I’d also want someone onboard who could specialize in video content creation. Although we’ve done that for clients, right now I’ve not had as much time to do this for Jontus Media as I would like. I’ve focused on audio, instead.

Even if I had the resources at hand I certainly wouldn’t move up to multiple blog posts a day; I don’t think that would really prove a better ROI for us. I’d rather put the resources into other things like sales.

Is there anyone whose social media and blogging prowess you admire? Why?

Jon Buscall: There are a number of people I always look out for: I’ll listen to any podcast with Joseph Jaffe talking. He’s provocative, insightful and erudite and seems one step ahead of the curve. Mitch Joel is also someone I’ve learned an enormous amount listening to; not just because he’s such a great thought leader but also because he is so generous in sharing and promoting the great work of others.

Mark Schaefer inspires me with his community engagement and intellect and I love the way Gini Dietrich seems to be the friendliest person in social media. I wish I could tweet like her!  I learn a lot from these guys.

What do you wish you knew more about when it comes to social media and/or blogging?

Jon Buscall: Data analysis. I’m really trying to become better at Math! Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics 2.0 blew me away and I learned an incredible amount from that but I guess if I could blow a stack of cash on some one-on-one consulting and training it would be on this.

If you could only choose ONE social media platform to use for your brand (in tandem with blogging), which would you choose?

Jon Buscall: Podcasting. Although Twitter (and to a lesser extent Facebook) bring traffic to my site and help grow our network, podcasting, along with blogging, is the most successful form of social media as far as Jontus Media is concerned.

Since starting a podcast I’ve been regularly invited to speak to businesses in the Nordic region; it’s been instrumental in getting clients to hire us to build websites, provide content or marketing strategy.

I wouldn’t have thought audio could do this, but 42 episodes of the Online Marketing & Communications podcast on I definitely don’t have plans to stop now.

Are there any social media platforms you wish you had more time for?

Jon Buscall: I recently killed the Jontus Media Facebook Page because it wasn’t working. I wasn’t putting enough time or effort into it because I’d realised that the blog, podcast and Twitter were the best ROI for me. Actually, I don’t think I’d put more effort into it even if I had more time as I think LinkedIn would actually be more beneficial for the kind of clients we target. That’s not to say Facebook isn’t important: one of my clients couldn’t survive without it, I suspect. So if I had more time I’d put more into LinkedIn. I’m not active there enough yet, but I think there’s a lot of work to do be done in that direction.

If you could create the perfect social media manager for your brand, how would you describe them?

Jon Buscall: She would be bilingual in English and Swedish with experience in PR, journalism and business and digital marketing. She would possess outstanding writing and video editing skills and would be the face and driving force behind a weekly video podcast. Oh, and love basset hounds ! www.bassethounds.nu

This wraps up our interview with Jon Buscall! To check out his brand new training program “Launch a Podcast and Grow Your Business,” click the graphic below. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from an expert.

What did you learn from our interview with Jon Buscall? What can you apply?