I did a presentation recently and people asked me how to meet people through email. They did not know how to find emails and did not want to SPAM the person with a success story. I thought it would be useful to address it here.

I am a bigger fan of talking with someone first, but emails are a good way to ping.

It is easy to find an email address.

• Read a blog – email usually listed.
• Visit a website with a valuable resource – visit contact page
• Go through old collection of business cards from people you have met once, but do not have a close relationship with.
• If you read about someone in the paper, call their company and ask for their email address.

The best way to approach someone you do not know via email is to make it about them. “I read your blog post and I thought it was brilliant. It tied in so well with what we do here at the Red Monkey Inn where I work. I think my tips will go up once I put your advice into action. Keep up the great blogging.”

Why are metaphors an important element in your SEO toolbag?

First: Why am I talking about SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? Because when you blog and publish article online, you are hoping to create some buzz. The more people find your articles and blog posts, the more they will spread what you are doing, if it is good stuff.

You can always come up with new approaches to your area of expertise. However, you will probably write with much the same language and that will not help you reach a wider audience as much. Writing a blog post or article that uses metaphors to illustrate your point expands the vocabulary of your site and will attract some additional visitors over time. They may not be the optimum keyword visitors, but just because they are looking for pudding recipes does not mean they may not be interested in Buzz Marketing.

I do not mean search engine spamming here. (Using keywords falsely to attract unwitting web surfers.) I mean being creative with your articles and expanding your vocabulary to create more roads to your website and also create a more artistic and emotional response to your writing.

Isn’t the web itself just a metaphor for a bunch of computers that are connected?

So how is buzz and word of mouth marketing like pudding? You take quality products like milk and pudding mix and you get an advocate (known as the beater) and you mix it up until the loose stuff becomes more substantial and tasty.

Weak, I know. But you get the idea.

PS: Google search Buzz Marketing Pudding Recipe in a few weeks. I will own that one!

I made the top 10 podcasts for January at SMB Trendwire.

I beat Andy Birol, but he has still published more books than me. I have to work harder.

We all have heard the stories of people being fired because of an email they sent, or a blog post complaining about their job or boss. It just makes sense, from the business perspective, that you are either supportive of the company paying you or you should not work there.

Consider that Word of Mouth is the most persuasive form of marketing and if you tell something to the right person, you run the risk of igniting a fire of negative buzz. With that in mind, you may consider adding a clause to your employment contract such as:

Positive Word of Mouth is import to any company. Anyone found complaining or speaking poorly about the company to people outside of the company’s management team may be terminated.

This is going to seem harsh. We all complain at times. But think about it from this perspective. If I placed an ad in a local paper that stated that the company was bad, it would be obvious that I must go. If I blog about the buffoons in our office (mostly me) I would be a bad employee that is damaging the business.

Telling stories is the same. The juicier they are, the more they will spread. One friendly spouse of an employee could tell a few people that could set your sales off for the year.

The best thing to do is create an environment where there is just nothing bad to say. Employees should also feel free to express complaints to the management team. That said, let them know there are consequences to creating negative buzz to the company and for them.