people Archives - Macaulay Gidado

Four Ways to Keep Your Content Marketing Blog Up-to-Date

August 22, 2018April 13, 2018 by Macaulay Gidado

4 ways to keep your content marketing blog up-to-date

Every serious content marketer knows this truth. It’s getting harder to conceptualize original ideas pertaining to content marketing. This makes regular blog updates a Herculean Task.

The truth is: there are still a lot of untapped compelling ideas. It’s not just about using your imagination and putting more creativity into your posts. No. It’s also about your passion for content marketing and the reason behind your content marketing strategies.

Here are four ways you can maintain frequent updates of your content marketing blog without succumbing to despair.

Rediscover Your Passion for Content Marketing

Lack of passion. That’s where the problem lies.

They say content marketing generates leads and drives sales, but this isn’t true for most people in the business. Many are struggling unavailingly to come up with new ideas to talk about on their blogs.

A question you should ask yourself is: if you lack the passion to write a compelling post, how do you expect you audience to find the passion to read and enjoy it?

How do you find your passion?

The phrase, content marketing, alone suggests we are all in it for the money. That’s true. But there has to be a supporting reason, one that pulls you through the bad times when the money isn’t coming. It could be your need to get heard. It could also be your desire to help people.

Rediscover that reason. Perhaps it can help you restart your passion for content marketing.

Help People

If your passion is to help people, then leverage it. If not, learn to care about more than what you get out of content marketing. Why? Because focusing on just your gains can quickly turn into despair when your content marketing efforts aren’t yielding your expected results—this can hamper your zeal.

Content marketing concerns helping people. You help them acquaint themselves with certain subjects in the hope that the knowledge you pass on spurs them to make a decision about your product or service.

If you have knowledge or experience about a certain subject, share them. Use them as post ideas. If your expertise is beneficial, people will always show their appreciation, perhaps, by purchasing what you are selling.

Also, helping people comes with fulfillment, which can serve as inspiration for conceptualizing more post ideas.

Outsource Your Content

A lot of content marketers outsource their content. It’s just reasonable. Sometimes you may be overwhelmed or too busy with work to write. Forcing it can lead to further stress and frustration, and even when you manage to produce some content in that condition, the quality may be in question and would only jeopardise your readership.

This is why it is ideal to have another content writer on speed dial for emergencies.

Also, by hiring another content writer, you take advantage of other people’s expertise and introduce a new voice to your blog.

However, be sure to properly vet whoever you hire to ascertain they are passionate about your niche and are professional enough to follow your guidelines.

Do you need help with your content marketing, Macaulay Gidado is here for you.

Welcome Guest Posts

Publishing guest posts from other bloggers in your niche is another way of keeping your blog up to date even when you feel uninspired to write.

In addition, welcoming guest posts will not only help you introduce your readers to new voices and views. It will improve your site’s authority through link building too, since the guest writers will obviously link from their blogs to their guest posts on yours. This in turn channels more traffic to your website.

Still, you ought to have a ‘submission guideline’ page detailing the requirements you want guest posts on your blog to fulfil. That way you maintain a certain level of control over what appears on your blog and ensure they don’t go against your niche as well as your blogs goals and objectives.

Whatever you do, never fall below standards. Always aim to offer value, for it’s mostly with content that is valuable to your readers that your content marketing can yield the desired result.

Ten Business Lessons Every New Entrepreneur Should Never Forget

September 28, 2018February 24, 2018 by Macaulay Gidado

10 business lesson every new entrepreneur needs to learn - Macaulay Gidado

No-one goes into a business knowing everything to expect. Business has a learning curve. There are things you learn through research or mentorship and there are things you only learn through experience. However prepared a new entrepreneur is, there comes a time early in their business life when they say, “I wish someone had mentioned that.”

This is why learning from the experience of other business people is paramount to the survival of any start-up. Although that certainly will not equip you for every single arduous and unbidden hurdle along the road to becoming a successful entrepreneur, it will guide you through most of the challenges.

Here are Ten important lessons to get you started.

Don’t Abandon Your Mission

A core mission, a prime objective, is the bedrock of every business. It’s what gets you started, and it will be what guides you through the darkest hours in your business life. It’s what nudges you in the right direction when you misstep.

Never forget why you started your business.

It’s Okay to Be Unconventional

The business world has its apparent ‘status quo’. But then making a difference in the world is about diverging from the norm to create something new.

As a CEO, you have your personal beliefs, some of which don’t agree with the perceived business norm. While following the norm can yield good results for your company, the role of a CEO, in this modern age, has gone beyond the results.

It now entails leaving your own mark on the world. It’s now also about the ‘how’—your actions, reactions, influence, and so on. It’s about the legacy you leave behind, about how you impact the world as a CEO.

Become an Expert in Every Aspect of Your Business

A good CEO leads by example. Apart from that, you should be able to temporarily fill up any role in your company if the need arises—for instance, if an employee acts up or misses work, or if extra hands are needed for a task.

Acquaint yourself with the technology used in your company, become conversant with sales, legalese, data entry, and even the manual works. The knowledge will give you more control over your employees and your company as a whole.

Employ Smarter People

You may dread that employing people smarter than you would hurt your ego, but the truth is that if this were a competition, you had already won. As the employer; you were resourceful enough to start a company—something the smarter folk couldn’t do.

If they are truly smart, they would understand you have worked harder than them, and they will respect your decisions.

Never hire people that are ineffective, even if it’s not to save your ego. Either they lead to your company’s downfall or you end up doing most of the work for which you hired them.

Maintain a Backup Plan for Your Employees

As a new company, your resources are probably limited and you want to maintain a lean team. That is okay. However, be mindful of the specialised positions. You need a backup plan for them, as you do not want your operation to decelerate or halt if you lose a team member.

Hire smartly. Hire for growth.

Consider Everything an Experiment

Nothing is perfect in business—neither an idea nor a product. While it’s okay to trust your instincts or make assumptions, you can never really understand the potentials of a product or service until you take it on a field test with real customers.

The first batch may not live up to expectation. With time, however, your products get better, but only if you experiment and learn from the flaws.

Listen to Customers

Every business person knows this. You are in business because of your customers. You cannot convince them to trade more of their hard-earned cash for your product when you can’t even listen and tailor the product to meet their need.

Customer will always leave feedback. Be open-minded. Take suggestions. Implement the viable ones. And produce better products.

Criticism Will Always Come

Whether from customers, rivals, or employees, criticisms are here to stay. Don’t take them so hard. Instead, fish for the gold inside them, and learn to ignore the ones targeting your company’s success.

Also, hold a regular company meeting where your employees can voice their improvement opinions. You may discern a gem that will help your company expand.

Leverage People Who Believe in You

Before establishing your company, you obviously researched your market, and you possibly already had people who loved what you do or make—or perhaps like minds in a network that has an affinity with your niche.

What location are these people in? How did you meet them? What did they love about you, your product, or service? Are there more of them whom you haven’t met? If they are in City A, then that’s where you need to start. Reach out to them first. Then grow from there.

Know When to Say No

With many opportunities out there, this is a discipline every businessperson ought to master. What you need to keep in mind is that opportunities, while enticing, always come with costs, some of which can cripple your company.

Learn to take only what you need. Don’t get greedy simply because opportunities are everywhere. Master focus and discipline.

Learn when and how to say no.

Keep these tips with you all the time, scour the internet for more, and reach out to successful business people for advice, and you may yet scale through any hurdle on your road to becoming a successful businessperson.

People Are What Matters Most in Business

September 28, 2018December 26, 2017 by Macaulay Gidado

What’s the most important aspect of a business?

No doubt, some people might say the product. Some others might say money. And there are even those that might say the manufacturing process.

Granted. These are all important aspects of doing business, but then they would all crumble without people.

People, in this case, means two things:

Your Customers Matter in Business

Sam Walton once said, “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” Michael LeBoeuf reinforced that quote by saying that a satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.

The quality of your product, the number of social media followers you have, or the amount of money you spend on your brand means nothing if no one buys what you are selling.

Therefore, every aspect of your business should be focused on two things:

Bringing people (customers) on-board.
Retaining those customers.

To do this:

Your product or service must be something of value to people.
How you balance quality and price should be dependent on what your customers value and how much they are willing to put down for it.
The packaging and features of your product should appeal to the people you are targeting.
Your staff ought to be nice and professional towards your customers. Otherwise, you might end up losing those customers.

Simply put, people should find your product or service affordable, valuable, and satisfying.

Therefore, to run a successful business, you must build your product or service around people. If you are changing a product feature, relocating your office, or partnering with a new marketing agency, the main reason behind such an action should be customer orientated.

Businesses thrive on value. People buy what they value. Focus on people.

The People You Work With

These include you, your staff, your business partners, vendors you outsource tasks to, and so on. As Steve Jobs said, “Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.”

No single man or woman has all it takes to build and run a business. This is why entrepreneurs:

Seek investors.
Hire staff
Outsource some tasks
Partner with other businesses

The point here is simple. Appreciate people and the value they can bring to your brand. Your employees are involved in most aspects of your business, from production to delivery. They are typically the ones that interact directly with your customers. This is why successful entrepreneurs value people and go to reasonable lengths to keep valuable employees satisfied.

What Does This All Mean?

Humans are not just the ultimate consumers of products and services. They are also the ultimate producers of products and services. A successful business revolves around both the needs of its customers and staff.

Of course, numbers are important. So are technology and efficiency. However, they aren’t as important as people. Focus on people, on meeting their needs and delivering value, and every other aspect of your business will stand firm.

Find out how Macaulay Gidado can help your brand.