ChampionshipSportsTraining.com Case Study – WordPress Membership Site Startup
October 29, 2009 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
We have been working with Doug Whipple at ChampionshipSportsTraining.com for a while now. Doug came to CWM a while ago and had about 8 different possible business models that he was thinking about. However the foundations for what Doug wanted to accomplish were the same. createWOWmedia needed to:
- Build a membership based site using wordpress that give Doug a platform to offer archived video content for sale.
- Build a site that would allow Doug to offer live video streams privately to members.
- Build a site that would allow organic PR efforts through blogging and email marketing to happen with ease.
We build Doug’s site using WordPress and a group of other plugins and software solutions. Total software investment for this powerful site? About $200. CST just had some GREAT press coverage today in the Des Moines Register as well. This article really highlights that Doug has hit on something. Why shouldn’t grandma and uncle Joe see their boy play ball in the next city, state, or county…when for the price of a ticket they can watch it LIVE on their computer? Doug has only begun and this model is really about take off and we’re proud to be driving the technology for his solution.
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Blogging Slow Down – Kool Aid Shortage
February 25, 2009 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Now that blogging is more “mainstream” are you noticing a slow down in blogging by those blogging to grow business versus those blogging for profit? I have. I’d say 2-3 years ago there was almost a “Drink the Kool Aid” type feel about blogging with 3-5 posts a day being the norm. Of course, the economy and business had yet to reveal its true dysfunction so maybe business leaders had more time then.
Now, I get the feeling that “People are too busy trying to make sales and grow business” to spend time blogging so much. I’m not in anyway discounting the power and purpose of blogging. I am commenting on the pace.
I know my personal blogging pace (commentary on life, general business, and Iowa) has slowed dramatically. I haven’t had the brain bandwidth to be thinking about anything but growing my business and much of that growth is coming from human interaction, (aka face to face meetings…eeek!).
Even here on the CWM site, blogging volume has been steady but no where near what I coach my own students to do. Are we experiencing some of that “I’m too busy to blog” syndrome that we preach is an excuse for not marketing strategically online?
Blogging seems to follow a bit of a cyclical nature in my world. When I’ve recovered some time to think and “Work on the business instead of in the business” I blog more. When I’m running from 6am-9pm 14 days in a row, I blog less. You know I’m cool with that. Put down the Kool Aid and let’s have a group blogging hug.
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Do your presentations create WOW! or ho hum?
December 18, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Abhay Parekh has a nice short list of presentation attention getters on the Manage Smarter website. I must say we’ve come a long way in this area at create WOW media but we’re always looking to get better.
We’re most enthused by number one on the list and that’s:
Show, rather than tell.
By leveraging graphics/imagery to assist your tale you allow the audience to follow YOU and YOUR MESSAGE vs. try and read something on a slide. Still, today, I cannot understand how people can simply get up and read me what’s on their slides. That’s when I hope for a technology failure and could get some “from the heart” talk.
Another favorite was number 5:
Know when to stop
In my blogging for business class, I prepared about double the amount of slides/information I actually got through because of the unbelievably valuable QA sprinkled throughout the class. That was most valuable to the class according to surveys. Lesson learned. Cut back on slides…more real world examples.
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Hey so does this blogging and social media thing really drive new business?
December 15, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · 1 Comment
If you dive into blogging and social media with a pure “get more riches quickly” plan you’ll quickly burn out and give up.
If you refuse to keep up your end of the bargain, you will rot on the blog vine.
But if you have a good plan and a great site as a foundation and you simply share yourself and your excellent brand with the world, bring value to others, and provide open a two-way dialog with you market…great things happen.
Our client Ryan Irwin at Nutrisport – Full Potential training just told me today that another client contacted him after finding his web site and videos through google searches (the way most things are found these days right?) Well get this…his new client is a few states away so Ryan has gone regional with his nutritional and training guidance in his super niche training people for natural fitness and bodybuilding shows.
So by sharing knowledge, providing value to a world of people you’ve never met, connecting through blogs and social media tools like twitter, and following through on a good online findability strategy…Ryan Irwin IS GROWING his business in our current economy.
That’s some serious mojo and we’re proud to be associated with him. Right on team!
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15 tips on improving your Findability from Louis Gray
December 12, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
I discovered Louis Gray via shared items in google reader, shared by our good friends at 48Web. There’s a piece there written by Mike Fruchter of MichaelFruchter.com (Twitter/FriendFeed) called 15 Tips On Improving Your Search Engine Visibility. Michael admits freely (as we do) he’s not an “SEO guru”. We ALWAYS say upfront that we’re not the kind of firm that you can “Pay $1500 to get to the top of search results”. Michael’s list is great and our only modification is that we’d put #6 (start a blog) into the number one slot since our opinion is that a blog built on WordPress with some appropriate plugins can take care of many of the other points on the list.
Again, in the SMB context, we’d like to kill many findability birds with one online stone.
We prefer to take measured and practical steps toward long lived and powerful findability online. We call our approach generating “Organic PR”. Ultimately, these concepts are what formed the basis of our upcoming free report called, “Increasing Your Internet Findability Factor” (due out early January and feel free to subscribe to our email updates in the box at the bottom of this post to get your shiny new copy when it comes out).
Bottom line here is that as a small business who likely does NOT have a cadre of tech nerds at your disposal, you need to be choosey who you work with and what you figure out on your own (vs. what you pay for).
Some of our strategies are DIY and some are best worried about by others.
But we’re here inform, distill, and highlight for you so you can make the smart small business choices about the opportunity costs of tech tinkering!
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Is an overloaded email inbox any worse than an overloaded social media stream?
October 9, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Sometimes I wonder if the concept of moving “away from the email inbox” as a organizational and informational repository is a good idea. What happens when we really shift gears towards a larger social media stream to execute our communications and community building?
In many cases, we build a very large and bloated social media infrastructure that resides in many different places. Each place requires updating and servicing. Like many of you out there, I have blogs on Typepad…and WordPress now. I am subscribed to about 235 RSS feeds and leverage CentralDesktop to manage projects, store documents, and keep track of tasks/milestones for specific projects. The list goes on.
I use ONE email program to manage the email stream. I use about 15 different social media applications/services to manage the social media torrent.
I’m not complaining and we are out there daily coaching clients and potential clients to take advantage of what social media has to offer. But we advise being careful and selective about what one takes on in the socialmediasphere because it can lead to overload well beyond “Maxed out inbox syndrome.”
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Blogging For Business Class – West Des Moines and Des Moines
September 10, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Our passion for leveraging blogs as “home bases for small business social media content and experiments” knows no bounds. The nice folks at the continuing education departments of both Des Moines and West Des Moines loved my idea for a “Blogging for Business” class. We’re proud to announce that Blogging for Business will be offered in the following venues:
West Des Moines
- Sept. 24-October 15 (Wednesday evenings, one day per week)
- 6:30PM-8:30PM
- Indian Hills Junior High
- 4 weeks for only $39
- Registration form
Des Moines
- October 21-November 11 (Tuesday evenings, one day per week)
- 6:30-8:30PM
- Roosevelt High – 102
- 4 weeks only $50
- Register ONLINE
If you’re not in the greatest metro area in the universe (that’s Des Moines FYI 
, we WILL be offering an online version of this course via our Interactive Learning Environment starting in January. We’ll announce more about that shortly.
If you have questions about the class or need more information, please email me doug (AT) mitchgroup.com
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