Litmos is a training system that for many of you will be a warm, happy relief.  It is funny that no one has done a good job of this in the past, considering how many people are out there trying to build training and learning programs. I have used Moodle and other options to build training systems, and they just have too many options and take forever to customize and make your own.

Here are the key reasons I really like Litmos, and the things I would like to see them add as well.

1. I love simplicity.  You will be building a course in minutes.
2. I love low cost of entry.  Because they are charging $3 per user, you know how much it will cost whether you are doing small audience or large.
3. They charge per ACTIVE user.  So having users in there that never log in do not cost you anything.
4. Litmus has a great, easy interface.
5. Litmus has the option to host big video files (small $ amount more per month)
6. Nice assessments.
7. Incredible support and involvement – they have been emailing me to ask how I like it, what I would like to see added, etc.  They have even made a couple of changes based on my recommendations.

My Litmos Wishlist

Of course, there is a fine line between simple and having everything I would like to see.  Here is my wish list for things that would take it from good to perfect (for me.)

1. API to log in from another location.  Right now user management has to be done from the Litmos system and users must log in there.  I find it hard to build a community of users if they have a bunch of different logins.
2. Messages – It would be great if they built in a message board or at least messaging on each learning module.  Currently it is a one way street.  I think something as simple as leaving comments on modules would work – and it can be turned on or off based on the module setting.
3. Audio Uploads – I know this will be there soon, but currently you can upload Powerpoint, Flash, Video but not an audio as a module.  They did say it will be there soon.  You can currently upload audio as a resource, but not as a module in the course.
4. Ability to sell my course directly via Litmos – It would be wonderful if they would let me set the price of my course and sell it within their catalog.  Then I could create couses and promote them, and they would get $3 from each person that takes the course, and I would get the difference on what I am charging.  That would save a huge amount of work for me.

Long ago I accepted the fact that one application is not going to appear and integrate everything that I could ever want.  Instead, if you find a tool that is simple and takes minimal effort to add users into, then you have a winner.  Litmos is a winner, and I am confident that it will continue to get better.

Content Rich

by Jon Wuebben

I just received a copy of Content Rich by Jon Wuebben in the mail.  I read it nealy cover to cover the first day.

It is important to keep in mind that I also produce a bit on content on the web, so some of this stuff I already know.

But I believe that this is mandatory reading for anyone that wants to get more results from the interent.  I really wish that all of my clients would read this before I started working with them.  Then they would have a clearer idea of why we spend less time on blinking graphics and more time on killer content.

Jon does a great job of hitting all the key areas chapter by chapter.  He includes clear examples and it is fun to see how he works.  Personally, I think the one chapter he spends on blogging should have been a bit more comprehensive.  I strongly believe that there is a limited need to even have a traditional website.  A well designed blog will do everything he is mentioning, but he is still talking about blogs and websites like there is a big difference.

Content Rich boils down to this:  How do you write content that is good for people and for search engines, and what places should you publish the content.   If you are already a search engine guru, you will most likely not get a great deal more out of this.  But if your full time job is anything other than writing on the web in seo friendly ways, then you really must get this book and learn more about it.

Achieving Unlimited Success

by Dennis Kelley.

Dennis Kelly has written an excellent book on achieving succeess, and I have to say that I am a bit worried for him.  He has a successful business coaching practice, and his book seems to give it all away.  I guess the one thing that the book cannot give you is the accountability of a coach.

My only fault with the book is that it is mostly about attitude.  Yes, Attitude is almost everything, but because he is talking vaguely about success, he is forced to keep it fairly general and leave it up to the individual reader to apply the changes to their particular situation.  I guess I am just greedy and want books to address my particular issues in a step by step method.  Darn.

I really love the focus on life long learning, barrier breaking and taking action.  This is a full coaching program for under $15 and you would be silly not to buy it if you are not interested in changing your behaviors to be more successful.

He also covers the 10 most self limiting beliefs in depth.  This is the real eye-opening part of the book that later helps you commit to take action.

I was recently at an event where I heard someone fairly high up in a discount airline credit a regional airport marketing person with transforming their airlines.  It was her boundless energy and enthusiasm – and absolute confidence – that made what should have been a small partnership into one that changed the way the bigger player operated.

Not just because the regional marketing person was enthusiastic, but because her advocacy, enthusiasm and focus on building better relationships with the community showed amazing numbers.  While other airports were losing passengers, a small airport was growing at a fantastic rate.

Instead of quoting the speech, I want to give you my impression.   This success was built on the shoulders of one powerful advocate.  Certainly she has a great team, but that is probably more a product of her infectious attitude.

What are the properties of a super advocate?

• No Doubt – 100% commitment that what they advocate is incredible.
• No Hours – They will do whatever it takes, at whatever hour, to help more people discover the product.
• Infectious – People that work with them have no choice but to get excited too.
• Problems don’t exist – A super advocate knows there will be challenges, but they are to be overcome and they never doubt the outcome.
• Transformational – They become bigger than a person because they transform the people around them.
• Wacky – They will do some crazy stuff for the cause.
• Ask the Impossible – They believe so much in the product or service that they will not set false limits.  Why not world-wide?

People like this are rare.  You first have to work for something you are passionate about.  Then you have to be an optimist to the extreme.  And you have to be immune any negativity you may experience in the work environment.

If you have someone truly like this, they are probably worth as much as your CEO and you should give them the power and focus to be your #1 super advocate.

OK, getting on this great list may not qualify as really making the team.  I think it is more of a metaphor.

I feel especially honors to be part of this list because of the comment from Buzz Canuck:

Unlike some of the social media- and tech dedicated marketing and media bloggers, these broad-minded bloggers and company heads (below) have distinguished themselves by helping visitors understand how ideas spread, online and offline, through a range of different strategies and tactics and each recognizes the importance of having brands getting noticed, talked about and advocated in a 2.0 world.

In my opinion, they are much closer to explaining the purpose and benefits of a range of new media, web 2.0, co-creation, social networks and other web, cultural and social phenomenon.

He gets it.  It is not just about the cool tools, its about getting people to care enough to talk about you.  Thanks Sean.

CMS stands for Content Management System.  It is what us tech oriented people say when we are talking about software that allows non-tech people to manage their website effectively.

WordPress is the industry standard software for running a blog.  It is also a CMS.

Blogs are not different from websites.  They are just a certain publishing philosophy.  Many CMS’s have built blogs into their cms.  And now, I would argue that WordPress has become a top cms itself.

I released a new site last week, Marketing Mastery Advisory Board.  It uses wordpress and looks less like a blog than many other sites.  There are a lot of great themes out there that you only have to customize.

Even when I talk now, I tell peoople not to call them blogs.  It has a certain connotation that it is less serious (to the unblogeducated).

If you are setting up a website for anything, you have to look at what you want to accomplish.  WordPress is not the easiest, but it is not bad to use for non-tech.  And it gets great search engine results if configured properly and you know how to write with search engines in mind.

The reasons I would not use WordPress is to create an online community or as an ecommerce site where I was going to have a lot of products.  Otherwise, it is an excellent, cheap cms for you that gets great results.

No, this is not about co-dependency and relationships.

I have had the experience recently of several situations where people kept paying money because they were afraid of losing what they had, even though they were not using it to the full extent.  This is interesting if you think about it.  Can you offer some kind of preferred membership that keeps a reoccuring revenue coming in that people will not want to lose?

Example #1

Cell Phones  – I found that I was not using all my minutes every month and I’d banked many thousands of minutes.  I could change plans, but I would lose most of my banked minutes.  Even though I was never using those minutes, I was also afraid to give them up – I’d already paid for them.  Finally I did make the switch – but many months after I should have.

Example #2

New Pricing – I just got off the phone with a guy that has an aWeber account.  He is still on their old pricing plan even though they have increased the price.  He will probably never change the plan or cancel it because he now feels like he has a fantastic deal.

Example #3

I was in a blog publishing network where I could publish articles to thousands of blogs.  I liked the service and I thought some of my clients might find it useful, but to pay what I was paying just for me was not worth it.  So I thought about it for months and finally did cancel it.  But I was afraid of losing it because I kept thinking that a client might want it, and the group was closed for new members.

In all of those cases, you can see that people were paying for something that they did not want to stop having but could also not really justify as an expense.   It is just food for thought.  Is there a way to make people afraid of losing your service?

I have talked about the importance of providing value to people before.  If you are not providing remarkable value, why would you expect people to buzz about you?

If you are providing life-changing value, you get into the realm of Debt and the Law of Reciprocation.

Basically, it states that if you provide exceptional value to someone, they will feel in debt to you and be happy to spend money with you.  This has roots in general networking strategies (helping other people is the best way to network) and in sales (free trial).

There is a broader impact I would like to talk about here.  The Law of Reciprocation works very well, often with a simple email.  And the buzz it creates can be big.

I sent a private email to my list about a month ago.  It was the very personal story of how I have lost over 50 lb and the amazingly easy way I did it.  (No diets, no pills, no cutting and minimal working out.)

In the email I did not sell.  I used it as a marketing lesson on how one simple blog post by someone else changed my life and how they most likely extended my life, and how I would be deeply in debt to that person forever.

A Big Risk?

It was a risky email.  Very personal and no gain for me.  I was not selling anything.  A few people wrote back and said they were confused about the personal email and the lack of a marketing goal.  One even seemed offended.  3 People unsubscribed.

But I also got a huge number of supportive emails.  My personal relationships with some people deepened.  People started sharing their stories with me.  And several said they were inspired and tried out the same thing.

The Big Reward

Before today I felt like it was a success.  However, it became an even bigger success today because I was invited to lunch by a longtime friend that I only see rarely.  She read the email that came at the right time for her and she used it to make big changes.  She is making great progress.

Let me recap.  I had nothing to sell and nothing to gain.  But I knew if I wrote it with sensitivity, I could inspire some people to make similar changes.

That happened.  And the Law of Reciprocity for those people kicked in, not by anything clever but by human nature.  Today that friend not only bought me a thank you lunch, but she also really wanted to give me something in return and she is referring a huge account our way.  I am sure she would not if she did not think we could do a great job with them, but I might not have been the only choice.

Kindness and Giving Great Value are your best Buzz tools.

I have been in technology for longer than I care to discuss.  Long enough to see the entire evolution of Internet Marketing.  And also to see the evolution of me.

When I started in the 90′s, it was all about the technology.  We were really excited to offer eMagazine Publishing tools that cost us a fortune to build and were very cutting edge at the time.  We were doing Internet Marketing, but it was mostly about the technology.  Now technology is a footnote to marketing results.

Today, Internet Marketing is only about the technology if you are choosing to work with the wrong people.  You have to work with people that are marketing savvy first, and technology savvy second.  Otherwise, they will keep adding technology features thinking the next bell or whistle will get results.  It will not.

Internet Marketing should not have a big technology budget in 99% of the cases.

Instead, it is about publishing, aggregating, mashing and building relationships in your open source web real estate.

I have clients that build their first website with six figure budgets (not paid to us, we were never that high-end).  Today that just seems so silly.

Maybe they thought the big up front investment would mean they would stay ahead of everyone else.

But since the Internet and Search Engines keep evolving so fast, the investment did not stand the test of time.  Usually this kind of investment was for lots of fancy design and eCommerce.  They would have been better off keeping it simple and creating more content.

What does the evolution of Internet Marketing mean to you?

• Don’t spend a lot on technology
• Look for specialized tools already built that you can integrate
• Get everyone involved in Internet Marketing – Employee Evangelists
• Create more great information, but outsource your writing
• Don’t invest one time, invest in continual improvement
• Build relationships first – They will stand the test of time if you treat them well.

Internet Marketing will be very different in two years.  Marketing is going through a huge disruption as everyone tries to figure out what 10% of internet marketing will return 90% of the results.  You should bet on creating quality content and great relationships.  That is your best Internet Marketing long term strategy.

Where are the majority of your new hires coming from? They should be coming from your employees. If not then this is one of your first signs that your employees aren’t happy. They aren’t spreading the word to their friends and family about how great it is to work for your company.

I’ve read that 60% to 75% of new hires are from referrals. I believe that the actual number might be slightly higher, but it all depends on the industry.

If your employees aren’t talking well about your company then you are losing out on the opportunity to create a culture that retains the best employees. And these are the employees who will treat your customers like superstars.  You want to take advantage of employee referrals because good IT people tend to hang out with each other as well as good sales people, accountants, and every other industry. We congregate with like-minded people.

I read an awesome interview of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh over at Stephan Spencer’s blog. He was asked to share a bit of background about Zappos. His response was what I wish to hear from every CEO:

“Our #1 priority as a company is our company culture. We believe that if we get the culture right, most of the other stuff, including great customer service, will fall into place on its own. Long term, we want the Zappos brand to be about the very best customer service and the very best customer experience.”

Your company can create a culture that makes your employees want to tell everyone how great it truly is to work there. How do you do this?

1. Make the atmosphere so much fun that they want to tell their friends, spouses, children, grandparents, and their neighbor.

2. Create a design friendly atmosphere. We are visual creatures and all of us like to work in a physically pleasing atmosphere. So try adding new artwork or a new piece of furniture that’s a little weird to get employees talking to each other. When employees have common ground that spurs conversation they will find reasons to help each other succeed.

3. Give your employees leisure time. Create a room where employees can hang out, not a lunch room, but a fun room. It can be filled with board games, healthy snacks and drinks, and don’t forget the music.

4. Put in a slide from your second floor to your first. That’s if you have a 1^st and 2^nd floor and 15,000 extra dollars to make it happen. Okay, you probably don’t, but how about buying a Wii so the employees can do something else besides watching TV during their breaks. By getting employees to interact together you’ll help encourage friendships.

5. When all else fails just ask your employees how to improve the work environment, then implement the best idea for the next two months. See how it goes then try the next best ideas. You’ll have to be open and honest with all of your employees, making sure they understand what you are trying to accomplish.

It’s up to your company to figure out a way to bring more fun, engagement, pride, and productivity to your work place. Now that you have some ideas, it’s time to create some employee buzz that gets around.

This is a guest post by Karl Staib

Karl Staib writes about unlocking and kicking open the door to working happy at his own blog: Work Happy Now!  If you enjoyed this article, you may like to subscribe to his feed or read one of his most popular articles, Why Every Company Should Appoint a Work Happy Manager.