There’s a book that’s getting quite a bit of attention at the moment – it’s called Clout: The Art and Science of Influential Web Content by Colleen Jones.

It’s about attracting the right people and changing what they think or do at the right time with influential content.

Content is what people want – not just any content mind, it has to be good content! People spend a lot of time reading, listening, viewing and sharing great content with their networks on Facebook or Twitter etc – surely you’d want it to be your content?

According to Jones, if you can create online content that literally changes people’s behaviour, you have achieved clout.

But this is by no means the easy road (but then no one ever said it would be easy did they?) Jones does openly refer to this marketing technique as the ‘hard road’ but in the same breath she stands by the fact that this is the right road to go down if you want to build lasting relationships with customers who keep in touch and come back again and again to do business with you.

So, how’s your clout? Take a look at the last 3 blog posts, articles, videos or other content you put out there and be honest with yourself. Is it going to give your customers food for thought and get them to change their behaviour? Does it give value? If not, it might be time to get some clout in your marketing mix!

It’s been quite a week for the history books this week hasn’t it! What with a Royal Wedding, a ban on herbal medicine and the death of Osama Bin Laden it’s been a real rollercoaster of highs, lows and ‘not quite sures’ all packed into a matter of days…

It seems that everywhere you turn there are groups of passionate people focusing all their energies on something or another – whether it’s the billions that tuned in to watch William and Kate tie the knot last week, the millions protesting against the ban of various herbal medicines or the folk who are rejoicing over the reported death of Bin Laden.

So I just wanted to check in and see how you’re feeling? There’s a lot of ‘noise’ going on in the background right now and it can be a challenge to stay focused on our goals and what’s happening in our own world at the best of times but, stay focused we must!

In case you need a little help to get back on the right track I wanted to share this article with you. I was interviewed by Business Today and I’m quite pleased with the resulting article – I feel it makes a really positive statement for us Entrepreneurs and we can never have too much of that eh!

If you are feeling a bit overwhelmed today or you’re finding it tricky getting back into the swing of things after the long weekends, I’d encourage you to spend a bit of time remembering what you’re in business to achieve and keeping focused on whatever it is that drives you forwards.

Remember – If you behave in a way that is not congruent with the goals you want to achieve then you will not achieve them. Ever.

So stay focused folks, and hold on tight because there are no signs of this roller coaster ride getting any smoother any time soon!