Here’s a test to see whether this post from my iPhone will work.
Test from iPhone
February 3rd, 2010A Wordpress Upgrade For My Blog!
February 3rd, 2010It’s been a long time, but I have finally upgraded my Wordpress implementation.
Now to work through the lengthy list of checking images, videos and audios!
Then we’ll move to giving it a bit of a facelift with a new theme!
Video Masterclass – Ask Alun About Video
August 13th, 2009As a curtain raiser to my presentation at the Eurocoach Conference in September, I’m running a Video Masterclass.
I’ll be covering your most burning questions about using one of the most dynamic technologies around today.
Why has video become so important? Why is every internet marketer worth his salt using it?
You can find out on Tuesday 18th August at 7pm BST (2pm EST, 11am PST).
Just go here: http://www.AskAlunAboutVideo.com
Hope to see you there!
What do you most want to know about Twitter?
April 21st, 2009I’m conducting a quick survey to see what you most want to know about Twitter. Both the poll and its current results are displayed below.
Alun Speaking At Top Gun SuperConference
March 23rd, 2009I wanted to let you know as soon as I heard.
I’m presenting at Dan Bradbury’s “Top Gun” SuperConference on 24th-26th April in London.
I’ll be talking on how to use social media to build your business. And I’ll be focusing on how you can use Twitter more effectively.
It’s not just me, clearly. There are a whole wealth of presenters that you can learn key internet marketing strategies from.
And for the first time there are two tracks – one for advanced internet marketers and one for beginners.
Dan’s allowed me to offer you some significant earlybird discounts. These are worth checking out – and these prices are only available until Wednesday 23rd March.
So just click on this link to see what it’s all about.
http://www.dansuperconference.com
Note that I would suggest going for the Gold membership price – look, if you find you don’t like the Gold membership you can always cancel.
And remember, you get to bring a friend – so if you do, you’re effectively halving the amount you pay.
I’d love to meet you there.
Alun Richards
A Process For Effective Delegation – From Paul Lemberg, Stompernet Faculty
March 7th, 2009Paul Lemberg shared this delegation process with Stompernet attendees in Atlanta earlier this afternoon.
There are five steps for effective delegation, all of them necessary.
1. What is being promised – get really clear on this.
2. The Conditions for Satisfaction – ie the acceptance criteria
3. Milestones, if the task is more than about a month in duration.
4. When will it be complete – get agreement.
5. How will we communicate on progress, and how often?
He also suggested guidelines for feedback for the delegation. Paul suggested you ask the following questions to the person to whom you delegate, each time you communicate.
1. What is working?
2. What’s not working?
3. What’s missing – what do you need?
4. What’s next?
Adding The EzineArticles Widget To Your Wordpress Blog
March 3rd, 2009Sign in to your Ezine Articles account – http://www.ezinearticles.com and go to Create a Widget, which is under the Author Tools drop-down menu.
Select your choice of Widget Content from the tab of the same name, and click on Widget Theme, where you can change the colour, width, height and number of articles.
To fit my Kubrick theme, I needed a width of 195 and I selected the light blue theme. You can also customise your theme’s colours by using the Custom Theme tab.
Then just click on the link to get your html code for your website.
If you’re using Wordpress, add a new Text widget in the Design/Widgets menu. Paste in the html code, save, and your EzineArticles widget should appear!
Eight Reasons To Run From Your Coach…
March 3rd, 2009
1. Their business card says “Financial Advisor, Trainer, Consultant, Plumber, Coach and Streetsweeper”
2. They answer the phone with: “WAAAaaaasssssuuuuu
3. When you phone them up they ask you what colour panties you’re wearing.
4. Their call waiting message says “Your call is important to us, but not so important that I actually need answer your phone call, so just leave your name and number, your problem and your bank account details…”
5. When you say you don’t think you can do something, they ask if you need a conversation with Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson.
6. In your first session you ask how long they’ve been a coach, they say “Coach? Smoach! Here, have a puff on this…”
7. Their website says “Three months ago I couldn’t spell “coach” and now I are one.”
8. They unzip their fly and ask you if you want some coaching from Mr. Winky.
Getting The Twitter Widget To Work With Wordpress
February 19th, 2009If you, like me, use Wordpress, there’s a nice little widget that fits (just) into the standard Kubrick sidebar. You can see an example on the right there.
It’s an official Twitter-produced piece of code, and works via Flash.
I had (in fact, still have) the Wordpress TwitterTools plugin, but after a while I found all the short Twitter messages cluttering up my blog was a pain.
But this widget is rather good, as it keeps all your Tweets in a sidebar widget. So people can read them if they want, scroll down for more, or ignore them if they don’t.
You can get the code here: http://twitter.com/widgets . Or just click on the link in my widget on the right there.
The same site allows you to create specific widgets for Facebook, MySpace, Blogger and Typepad, or even a normal webpage.
If you’re using Wordpress, like me, you click on “Other“. Then follow the menu, ensuring you actually click on “Flash Widget” and then click again on “Interactive Widget“.
Once you copy the code, you’ll need to use the Wordpress Widget editor on your Wordpress blog (easy to use) that’s under the “Design” menu, and paste the code into a “Text” widget that you need to add. And I had to reduce the width parameters in the code to make it fit (196 pixels in my case).
But it works very well, I think. Have a look at my recent Tweets over on the right.
Is Your Chosen Niche Really Viable?
February 9th, 2009You want to know if your chosen coaching niche is viable?
Here are a few of the key indicators:
a) Are they a homogenous group (same type of issues, concerns, problems, outlook etc)
b) Are they reachable – do you know where exactly to go both online and offline to reach them?
c) Is there enough activity in the niche – (money being spent, newsletters, magazines, press coverage, books, seminars, trade shows etc)
d) Are they hungry - do they have a VERY small number of key problems that they really want help with – and do you know what these are?
Remember, to coach them, you do not have to be the world expert in their problems, at least initially! But if you pick your niche wisely, you’ll soon see patterns emerging about their needs, wants, desires and problems.
And the more you interact with them, the clearer these will become. You’ll get to the point where you can predict what their issues will be before you meet them. That’s when you gain a lot of credibility.
Then when you’re able to resolve their problems – or show them how to, you are REALLY adding value.
The key thing initlally is can you get to them – get in front of them – in person and online easily?
If you can, great. If not, or if it will take a great deal of research work just to find them, I’d select a narrower subset of your market, at least to start with.