Let’s start with the authors. As you regular readers know, I’m a big fan of Chris‘.  He truly is all about the human connection, and he teaches readers how to focus on the human element in this book. Julien, I’m less familiar with. Still he’s in good company, and from what I glean, he’s more about the technical side of connecting people. Combining these two elements makes this book perfect (and all the awards it’s won are a testament to that).

This is already starting to sound like a sponsored review. But it’s not. Let’s just clear that up. I’m just a big fan.

Trust Agents talks about how to really interact with people in an era where we’ve got thousands of connections through social media. I know I’ve had trouble connecting. I already blogged about the 150 concept they discuss (and I’m not attributing it to them solely; if it’s been talked about in previous books, great. I just read it here first).  Chris and Julien encourage you to develop stronger relationships with a select few of your network rather than shallow ones with thousands.

They talk about making connections, and how being a part of multiple groups and networks helps you become what they call a trust agent. A trust agent is a person who shares and connects, is helpful simply because he should be, and delivers value without asking for anything.  I like that. I like to think I do that with this blog, which is designed to help entrepreneurs navigate their way through marketing on their own.

There’s just so much good stuff in this book. You’ll have to read it yourself. Here are a few takeaways:

• Be human. People would rather buy from a person than a company.
• Ask questions. Get to know people.
• Bury your agenda. If people see you as a trust agent, the sales and business partnerships will come.
• Give. Give. Give.
• Connect other people that can provide value to one another.

Hmm. This sounds a bit like Buddhism. Do good because it’s the right thing to do, not to seek a reward. I like it!

Have you read the book? How can you apply the idea of being a trust agent to your business?

I also loved his approach. This is a great way to spread the world virally because of course each of us who were interviewed will be egotistical enough to share the video, helping him reach a wider audience!

At any rate, here’s the video. Go buy the book.

The key concept is that most people give presentations or pitches based on their own interests, not the audience. Guilty! I think we all are.  So it got me thinking more about answering that age-old question, “what’s in it for me?”

Here’s Mark talking about how to improve your elevator speech.

Mark gives some great advice in actionable steps. One part I particularly liked was the So What Positioning Generator.

Step 1: Determine the issues your clients and prospects face.

Step 2: What are the 3 things you do to address these concerns?

Step 3: Choose the most relevant of these 3 concerns and then the best answer from Step 2 that addresses it.

It’s an interesting exercise. So I’ve been thinking about how I can apply Mark’s techniques to my business.

If you’re looking for a way to close more deals and being indispensable to your existing clients, I recommend you read So What?.

My apologies. When I wrote the book review on Riches in Niches, I totally forgot that I was supposed to do a book giveaway! So here goes.

One lucky winner will receive a copy of Susan Friedmann’s book, Riches in Niches. All you’ve got to do is give us your best niche marketing idea.

Need some help getting the creative juices flowing? Here are a few ideas I’ll throw out there.

• Dog groomers could create flyers or email campaigns directed at veterinarians.
• Children’s clothing boutiques can work with local schools on fundraising projects.
• PR Consultants can offer free press release reviews.

How do you market to your niche? Or if you’re not marketing to a niche, just throw an idea out there. Susan and I (the 2 Susans, you may call us) will choose a winner on September 18, so get your entry in by then.

Welcome to Spark an Idea Thursday. Each week we’ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers. We invite you to grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog! If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you were inspired! Today’s topic? Spark an Idea About Being a Lifetime Learner.

The truly great thing about the Internet is the availability of abounding information. Websites, blogs, social media sites, ebooks…there is no possible way I will ever read all I want to. Topics that interest me?

• Marketing
• Social media
• Entrepreneurship
• Photography
• Writing
• Technology (just a little)

I find that the more I read the more I know (just like that old library commercial). If I’m too busy to read, I have less to share. I can’t find anything to blog about. But give me a good book and I start dog-earing it with topic ideas.

I’m old fashioned. I still love books. And blogging in now 3 spots gives me the ability to get a ton of books that interest me (then I come write about them to my readers). I always have at least 2 business or marketing books waiting in the wings. And I love to switch the books I’m reading. I read a chapter of a non-fiction chic lit book then switch to something like Chris Brogan’s Trust Agents. It’s how I balance my interests.

I will never stop learning or reading. It’s what makes me better.

What about you? What’s on your real or virtual bookshelf?

Despite me being the Marketing Eggspert,  I have yet to find my niche. Susan’s book gave me some great practical advice I want to share with you about finding your niche.

Now as you know (or maybe you don’t), becoming what Susan calls a Nichepreneur has many  benefits:

• People want an expert.
• More specialization=higher fees
• Nichepreneurs control their own destinies

But how do you find a niche to master? Here’s Susan’s advice:

1. Explore a growth industry.
2. Check where you can best use your past experience.
3. Decide what you’re passionate about.
4. Use Susan’s secret principle to find where your best opportunity to be an expert lies (not giving that away; buy the book to learn the secret principle).
5. Identify the needs, trends, and challenges of the industry you’ve chosen.
6. Figure out what solutions you can implement.
7. Figure out what groups can help market your services or products.

Her book has so much more good stuff in it, so I definitely recommend you buy your own copy.

And so I wrote another book. Go me!

If you are an entrepreneur (as many of you are) and want the quick and easy way to start marketing your business and seeing results soon, buy the book. I provide (just as I do on this blog) step by step instructions to make it brain-dead simple to do your own marketing.

Get your free sneak peek of the first chapter here. This is a cool tool called Book Buzz that lets you view pages of a book for free.

If, after you read Internet Marketing for Entrepreneurs, you have questions about any of the content, I’m happy to answer them for you.

And I’d love your feedback on the book!

Readers of the Small Business Trends blog were invited to submit their tips (through Twitter), and the results are in this ebook.

Some of the tips I already knew, but there were Twitter applications and concepts I wasn’t familiar with, so I definitely got something out of it.

The download is free, so I recommend you get it now. I plan to follow everyone in the ebook because they’re just so darn smart!

The book starts out pretty technical, but don’t get turned off by that if it’s not your language. The second and third parts are where it gets good. Shih walks you through how to use Facebook to grow your business, including step by step instructions on how to create profiles and pages (and why one would be better than another).

She also talks about why social networks are important, and how they’re growing exponentially and can’t be ignored. She gives great case studies of brands who are successfully using Facebook, including Victoria’s Secret, as well as a New Orleans school that uses Facebook to update students, parents, and alumni.

And if you haven’t tried Facebook ads, her book has a coupon for a free $25 credit to try it out. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize you had to be a first-time ad user to redeem the coupon, which I am not.

Not to toot my own horn, but it’s rare that I find a book on marketing or social media that actually teaches me. Shih succeeded in teaching me some new things, and got me curious about others. I made a list of things I want to learn more about, including using apps as an advertising mechanism.

So buy the book and become a fan of the book on Facebook.

It was really good; chock full of useful tips in easy-to-understand chunks. Witt uses examples from political leaders’ speeches as well as CEOs of corporations. Here are my takeaways on how to be a better speaker.

• Use storytelling to engage your audience
• Don’t rely on your PowerPoint. Use it as a launch pad to talk about more.
• Keep it short and simple.
• Don’t use fancy language.
• Speak to your audience.
• Research your audience.
• Practice, practice, practice!

I feel more able to take on my next speech (in English) after reading the book. Looking back, I realize several of the things I did wrong when I’ve spoken in the past!

This week I’m giving away 2 copies of Jon Wuebben’s Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web.

If you’ve heard of search engine optimization, or know your web copy could be better, this book is for you.

Copywriting is the key to marketing and sales. It’s as simple as that. Many companies overlook this simple fact and then just throw money after the problem, but at the core, you’ve got to have solid copywriting skills or hire someone who has them.

Wuebben breaks down SEO web copywriting for press releases, blogs, websites and newsletters and shows you how to write better copy. My issue with the book was he took far too many words to say it! As the owner of a degree in English, I certainly can relate with verbose writing, but when you’re writing a book about copywriting in an era of Twitter and blogs, which require getting to the point quickly, I couldn’t sink into his long chapters. But maybe that’s because I write copy for a living and you can’t teach me anything!

At any rate, you have the opportunity to win a copy of this book!

All I need you to do is leave a comment telling me why you need help with your copywriting, and Tweet about this blog post using #contentrich in your Tweet. I’ll pick 2 winners May 8.

I came across Elena Verlee’s ebook, “PR in Your Pajamas,” and just had to review it. It’s geared towards mothers with businesses, but the information applies to anyone doing his or her own PR.

This ebook is so simple and breaks down the public relations things I do every single day in a way that anyone can understand.

It breaks down the differences between publicity and advertising (free publicity = good; ads = not exactly bad, but people are tuning them out) as well as walks you through how to pitch an editor. I was glad to see that I’m doing the right things with Egg’s clients!

If you’re not already using PR as a means to get more sales, you need to be. Start with this ebook, reasonably priced at $29.

And guess what? One lucky reader will receive a copy of this ebook! Just tell me your PR disaster stories or why your business needs PR and this ebook. I’ll choose the story that amuses me the most. Contest ends 4/30.

So anyway, back to this book. You’ve heard of viral marketing. Scott rebrands it as a “world wide rave,” simply because so many people think they can guarantee viral marketing (and if someone promises a viral marketing campaign to you, run away. Fast.). But the concept is simple:  letting other people tell your story. Sharing your vision, your video, your blog post, your ad, simply because they love you and/ or your brand.

Check out this video. Truly amazing the power a world wide rave has.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F4KHmm566I[/youtube]

You absolutely HAVE to read this book, so it’s not necessary I teach you everything from it here, but here are some key points in what you need to know about creating a world wide rave, according to Scott:

1. Nobody cares about your products (except you).
2. No coercion required.
3. Lose control.
4. Put down roots.
5. Create triggers that encourage people to share.
6. Point the world to your (virtual) doorstep.

He elaborates a lot more than I’ve done here, so buy the book already!

Oh PS. When I did the David Meerman Scott book giveaway a few weeks ago, he sent me an extra signed copy of his first book. Well, I’m keeping the signed copy, but will give the first person to comment my old, unmarked copy. Hurry and comment!

Let me say, I’ve been meaning to get this review out a lot sooner, but it honestly took me about a month to get through this book. It’s thin and the chapters are only about 4 pages, but it is so chock full of goodness that I could only read a chapter or two before I had to put it down and mull on what I’d learned.

What did I learn?

• As I suspected, those companies that promise to get you to the #1 spot on Google are scammers.
• It takes hard work to move up the search engine results, and even then you can’t guarantee placement.
• The more links you have within your website or blog, the better you rank.
• The more websites or blogs that link to you, the better you rank.
• Metatags and keywords aren’t as important as they once were, but they help (and hey, any little thing you can do is worth doing)
• A good title is important for improving SEO

I learned a lot more, but this is a post, not a book about a book, right? Author Rebecca Lieb knows her stuff. As the cover says, she’s an “Internationally known Search Engine Optimization expert.” Great title.

I highly recommend this book if you don’t have a dedicated web and SEO expert on staff. It’s important for small business owners to have a full understanding of what goes on behind the scenes of their websites. Just having a site does not guarantee anyone will find you online.

A solid understanding of SEO is key for building traffic and as a result, new business. Buy the book. Do it. Do it.

PS I just found a cool video that explains SEO nicely:

Here’s a great post from Small Business Trends called Five Tips for Avoiding Deceptive SEO Companies. Check it out.

Since then, I’ve been following Mari’s actions. Her seminars, her ebooks, her programs. I even used some of her tips in my upcoming book. So let me tell you, this lady knows her stuff. A lot of the things I do for my clients using Facebook came from her resources.

So let me introduce you. Blog readers, Mari. Mari, blog readers.

I highly suggest you get her $27 e-course, Social Marketing Method. In it she teaches you how to use Facebook to start growing your business, and in this economy, who doesn’t want to do that?

If you’re ready for a bit more of a hands-on, interactive education, sign up for her 3-part webinar.

Not sure what you need? Download Mari’s FREE Facebook Tips ebook and see what she has in store for you!

You heard me right, folks. I have not one, but TWO David Meerman Scott books to give away to one lucky reader! Regular readers know that I quote David quite a lot in my posts on PR. I even interviewed him for my soon-to-be-published book.

A few years ago, David wrote The New Rules of Marketing & PR. This was cutting edge back before Twitter and Facebook took over, and he was pretty prophetic in what he said about how marketing and PR were changing. The winner will get a signed copy of The New Rules.

His newest book, World Wide Rave, talks about how to get people to visit your website, read your blog and talk about your brand just because they want to. I can’t wait to read this one! The winner will also get a signed copy of World Wide Rave!

Okay, so I only think it’s fair to make you work a little to win this prize package.

Leave a comment with your best suggestion as to how a business can create a World Wide Rave. How can you get people to talk about your brand? I’ll choose the best answer on March 13 (Friday the 13th. Oooh!).

Tweet the contest and get bonus points. Just copy and paste this into a tweet:

Win @dmscott’s books World Wide Rave & New Rules of Marketing & PR!  http://snipr.com/d0pd0 #eggspert

Good luck!

3/13 And we have a winner! I have chosen Navaneeth for a great answer on how to create a World Wide Rave. Here’s Navaneeth’s answer. Congrats!

1. Solve a real problem, extremely well

Your business needs to make somebody’s life better. Find that person. Solve her problem extremely well.

2. Help your customer talk about you.

Provide tools for your customer to talk about how great your product/service is.Help them blog about it. Help them share it with thier Myspace/Facebook/Twitter friends.

3. Network with your customers to find others who facing the same problem.

You don’t need to look very far to find other customers. Your existing customer already knows some people who are facing the problem. Ask her. Find somebody and goto step 1

Too often in marketing we focus on attaining a new customer. How can we get their attention? What will make them buy? But, as Steve points out in his book, equally important is building a relationship with that client once we’ve attained them.

There’s two ways your clients can think of you:

• Us and them: client thinks of you as having separate goals and needs than he does
• We: client considers you almost an extension of himself, and knows that your goals are aligned

So how do you create a “We relationship?” It’s all about listening. Rather than forcing your agenda down a client’s throat (X Product comes with this feature! This benefit!), listen to what they’re saying and what they need.

Also, be present. When you’re talking to a client, don’t think about your next appointment or the Red Sox game. Pay complete attention to the person you’re speaking to.

In order to create a memorable encounter with a client (or potential), Steve says you must:

• Engage in the Moment
• Create Conversation
• Make it Unique

This is a great book, and I highly recommend it, no matter what your role at your company.

• The marketplace is constantly evolving, which creates opportunities to create new niches.
• Companies do better NOT following in the footsteps of a predecessor, but rather to forge their own path. Create a need.
• Converging (car + airplane= flying car) is often a bad idea. Many businesses fail because of this.
• Diverging is usually smart. One brand can’t carry the weight of a diverse product mix.
• Sometimes you have to prune your brands. One bad apple can, well, you know what it can do.

The book gives some great case studies of ideas that succeeded (Apple’s Macs) and those that flopped (video phones). If nothing else, it’s an amusing walk through the history of brands. Expect to learn something from the successes and failures of others.

Stephanie Chandler, author of From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur, does a great job of helping you understand ways you can add new streams of revenue to what you’re currently doing by creating ebooks, books and information products. She simplifies the process of writing and promoting your product, and motivates you to get going on your next project.

As many of you know, I have several ebooks out (see end of post). I’d just hobbled along as best I could until I read this book. I cleaned up my websites, added instant download capability and saw a huge spike in sales.

Now, I know some of you are thinking, “She’s not talking to me. I have no business writing an ebook. What would I write about?”

I say to you skeptics: what are you an expert in? If you’re a dog groomer, you could write an ebook called “10 Tips on Keeping Your Dog Clean Between Groomings.” If you’re a real estate agent, you could write “Braving the Storm: What to Do When You Can’t Sell Your Home.” The list goes on and on. The point is, there are people who want what you know. It’s up to you to read this book and give them your knowledge (and make money doing it).

Here are my ebook links: Check them out.

DIY Press Releases

DIY Email Marketing

Eating Cereal with a Fork: Maximize Marketing in a Recession