FBO: Always Put Your Best Stuff in Your “Store Windows”
Email this article to a friend
[For “FBO: Ask Your Viewers to Take Action,” click here.]
This part of the “FBO” or “For Bloggers Only” series is actually NOT JUST for bloggers, but FOR ALL entrepreneurs, employees, and nonprofit organizations seeking to raise funds to support their goals.
If you want millions of viewers, readers, customers, clients, members, etc., then you’ll want to follow along as we go through, one by one, the rainmaking secrets provided by Jeffrey J. Fox in his book How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients
ALWAYS PUT YOUR BEST STUFF IN YOUR “STORE WINDOWS”
A. FOX’S TIP NO. 9 FOR ALL RAINMAKERS
Fox’s Tip No. 9 for how to become a great salesperson, or rainmaker, is the practical tip: “Always take the best seat in a restaurant.” As he explains in his book:
If you take a customer or prospective customer to breakfast, lunch, or dinner, always take the best seat. You take the seat with your back to the wall. You take the seat that looks out onto the golf course or marina or street. You don’t want your customer’s attention to wander. You don’t want your customer to check out who is coming and going.
You want your customer to focus on you. You want your customer as involved as possible in answering your questions and evaluating your recommendations. You do not want his concentration or his considerations interrupted by someone or something more interesting than your software package or office machine or mutual fund or design proposal or refridgeration equipment.
Your customer has invested some of his precious time to meet with you. It is only polite for you to optimize his time investment, and not let it be squandered by distractions.
If the customer takes you to breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you still take the best seat.
B. APPLYING FOX’S TIP NO. 9 TO BLOGGERS
If you want to become an A-list blogger, apply Fox’s Tip No. 9 above to your blogging business by always putting your stuff and your best stuff in your “store windows,” or the best spots to catch your viewers’ eyes on your blog and keep them there for a while. That’s the equivalent of the best seat in the restaurant.
Where is the prime real estate on your blog? Everything you see on the screen when you first go to a blog, without scrolling down at all, that partial page, is located “above the fold.” The lowest part of what you see there—actually where it cuts off—is the “fold.” That’s your primo Beverly Hills 90210 real estate location.
Then, within that area, again: “Location! Location! Location!” After decades of reading top to down, and left to right, most adults who read English automatically look at everything this way. So, these areas—the top and the left—are the crème de la crème locations above the fold. Use them for your very best stuff!
Study other blogs in your genre. How are the most successful ones using the prime real estate on their websites? Not just above the fold, but below it, too. Don’t be afraid to copy their layout, or mix and match, based on what makes sense to you. There’s no copyright or trademark issues related to where people put stuff on their blogs. Never reinvent the wheel! But, always improve upon them if you can.
CONCLUSION
Isn’t it amazing how even the most bizarre-sounding advice that you would never imagine would apply to blogging as a business still translates very nicely, indeed? Try a little exercise for the rest of this How to Become a Rainmaker
If you would like your own copy of Rainmaker someday, here’s what it looks like
[For “FBO: Minimize Distractions and Stay Focused,” click here.]
[For entire “FBO” or “For Bloggers Only” series, click here.]
Be sure to get the latest articles as soon as they’re posted by signing up here!
[For “Future Entrepreneurs Test,” click here.]
[For “The Courage to Be Rich,” click here.]
[For “How I Paid of $50,000 of Debt in One Year,” click here.]
[For “Why We Buy It Even If We Don’t Need It,” click here.]
[For “Test Your Spending Habits,” click here.]
[For “Change Your Mindset to Change Your Life,” click here.]
[For “What Would You Do If You Couldn’t Fail?,” click here.]
[For “Do You Want to Fly Like Superman?,” click here.]
[For “How to Set and Achieve Goals in 5 Simple Steps,” click here.]
[For “Money Lessons for Nice People,” click here.]
[For “Greed v. Desire,” click here.]
[For “Millionaires v. Billionaires,” click here.]
[For, “How to Be a Billionaire in 10 Steps,” click here.]
[For “How My Dad Turned $50 into $1.2 Million,” click here.]
[For “Think and Grow Rich,” click here.]
[For “200 Money Quotes,” click here.]
[For “200 Rich Quotes,” click here.]
[For “200 Poor Quotes,” click here.]
