Learning How To Build A Business Blog From The Houston Astros
By Cheval John
November 3rd, 2017
On a normal day, going to downtown houston from the northline train station would be a breeze.
Today was not one of those days because the city of houston hosted a parade for their hometown team, Astros, who won their first World Series (WS) championship on Wednesday night.
The celebration after the final out which helped the @astros win the #WorldSeries @LindseyFOX26 #VallanoMedia #video pic.twitter.com/jitcRDtyBO
— Cheval John (@chevd80) November 2, 2017
The people of houston were very excited to celebrate with their team.
By all accounts, an estimated one million people lined up along the parade route leading to city hall.
Half of those traveled by train into downtown to be a part of history.
Many are traveling by @METROHouston train to @DowntownHouston @LindseyFOX26 #VallanoMedia #video pic.twitter.com/99y6JdhDjO
— Cheval John (@chevd80) November 3, 2017
The Astros brought hope to those who were still recovering from hurricane harvey.
The road to victory began in 2011 when Jim Crane bought the team from Drayton McClane.
The condition to get the sale approved by Major League Baseball (MLB) was moving the team to the American League from the National League the following year.
At the time of the sale, the Astros were on the decline after their previous appearance in the 2005 World Series.
Crane knew they had to rebuild the team from scratch.
The first step in the master plan was hiring Jeff Luhnow, who was the architect behind the St.Louis Cardinals 2006 and 2011 championship teams, as the Astros general manager.
Luhnow used sports analytics to figure out who would be the right fit for the Astros.
In the early stages of the rebuild, the Astros lost 100 games in three straight seasons.
Fans were wondering what was going on with the team.
Many sports pundits thought the whole system of analytics were a joke because they believed Luhnow did not play the sport of baseball.
The criticism intensified in 2014 when Sports Illustrated (SI) declared on their cover the Astros as the 2017 World Series Champions.
Many thought it was a marketing ploy to get more readers.
The folks from S.I. knew they were heading in the right direction.
Signs of the rebuild began to show when they made the 2015 playoffs, where they lost to the eventual World Series champion, Kansas City Royals in the American League Divisional Round.
Though the 2016 season was a failure, the Astros fans were very optimistic for 2017.
The team did not disappoint as they clinched their very first regular season championship in the American League West, went through the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees to win the American League pennant.
Then they went on to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games to complete their dream season.
You might be wondering how the Astros winning the World Series got to do with growing your business or personal blog?
Glad you ask.
Growing a blog takes a whole lot of time and patience.
In the same manner of how the Astros’ general manager had a long term goal to make the team a success, you must look at the long game in building a tribe for your blog and not go after the home run.
No one can build a blog to 500,000 views in six months unless they had learned lessons from their first blog or if they are a celebrity.
You also must stay the course and ignore the outside noise from those who might be telling you to give up.
If you think you do not have the time to put together the words from scratch, here are some business blogs who uses twitter chats to put together weekly posts.
Note: This is not a quick fix at all because it takes a lot of work to host a twitter chat and even more work to put together the recap for the blog.
#ContentWritingChat, hosted by Express Writers
#TwitterSmarter, hosted by Madalyn Sklar
#SproutChat, hosted by Sprout Social
#VCBuzz, hosted by Viral Content Bee
#ContentChat, hosted by Erika Heald
What are more ways you can build your blog from scratch?
Maria Ross Shares About Building Momentum In Your Business
By Cheval John
A brand is about building it’s reputation.
This was the quote shared by Maria Ross, founder of Red Slice, when she made her seventh appearance on What’s The Word?
In this episode, you will hear:
-How To Streamline Your Marketing
-How To Align Your Target Audience With The Work You Are Good At
-Why Some Businesses Might Not Need To Be Active On Social Media
-Figuring Out Your Goals Before Starting On Any Social Media Platform
Snippet of The Interview on Vallano Media TV
Full Episode on BlogTalkRadio
Here is the backstory to why Maria has been on the show seven times.
I found out about Maria through Twitter three years ago when Amy Schmittauer Landino mentioned about being featured in her second edition of her book, Branding Basics For Small Business.
I knew she would be a great fit for the show.
So we scheduled the show to air live on BlogTalkRadio.
Maria shared value to my audience on how she founded her company and the health scare which led to her self-published memoir.
I did not know she would become one of the most valuable mentors indirectly.
I also would not have known she would be the only person to have made seven appearances on the show.
Maria is an example of how to grow a business the right way.
She understood the power of the press when starting out with her business.
Maria did not go after the big name media in the early stages of her company.
Instead, she went for the niche media for the first few years of her business before the mass media discovered her.
She has shown her humility and giving spirit which has allowed her to get clients regularly.
You can find out more about Mrs. Ross’ company and her social media accounts at
Website: www.red-slice.com
Facebook: Red Slice
Twitter: @RedSlice
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Cynthia Bazin’s Transition To Founding “The Smart Chic”
By Cheval John
Live video has changed the way how we interact on social media.
Before, we would chat with many people via social media platforms like Facebook (Instagram), Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube to keep up with what is happening in the world.
With Twitter, it made communication much easier in “real time” because of the instantaneous response.
When live streaming arrived in 2015, interaction on social media went to the next level with no signs of slowing down.
According to Cisco, 82% of all internet traffic will be drived by video by 2021.
Which means if you are not using video for your business, it will become much harder to reach your ideal audience in the future.
Another reason why you should be using live video is to meet people you would not have met before even with social.
I was very fortunate to have met Cynthia Bazin two years ago via live streaming.
She was among the early adopters of Periscope and also made some guest appearances on shows which was hosted on the now defuncted video platform called blab.
Cynthia have the drive of helping business owners to be laser focused and her company “The Smart Chic” is centered on her values.
I had the opportunity to interview Cynthia on this week’s episode of What’s The Word?
The show was recorded on Facebook Live via Blue Jeans Network
In this episode, you will hear:
How she transitioned from a private investigator to running her company
Why she did not dive immediately into entrepreneurship
How to run a business on the side while you working in a toxic company
How she overcame doubts to become successful with her company
How live streaming help take her business to the next level
The importance of having a mentor
Why video should be part of the business’ marketing strategy
Snippet of the interview on Vallano Media TV
Full episode on BlogTalkRadio
Cynthia Bazin’s Business Website: www.smartchic.me
Facebook: The Smart Chic
Twitter: @thesmartchic
Did you enjoy this post and who would you want to make a guest appearance on the show?
Give Your Audience Access To Your Creative Process
By Cheval John
Today’s post is a case study of former ABBA member, Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s, “Frida”, solo album, “Something Going On” and what we as entrepreneurs can learn.
ABBA was on top of the charts consistently during their time together (Agnetha Faltskog was married to Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson was married to Frida prior to the group forming of course).
Many were drawn to their acapella sound.
The success of the band led to the strain on their marriages.
Frida wanted to do a solo English album which would have a different sound from ABBA.
So she choose Phil Collins, who is a drummer as well, to produce her first solo english album.
She listened to Collins’ first solo album “Face Value” for eight months.
The record label, Polar Music, sent out messages to major publishers around the world about Frida’s solo project.
In an overwhelming answer, they got 500 songs.
They then listened to all of them and choose the eleven songs for her album.
Collins and the session players flew into Stockholm and recorded the album tracks.
They added the trumpets from Earth, Wind and Fire’s Phenix Horns to some of the tracks.
They also added the orchestra sound recorded at Air Studios in London, England.
It took them a month and a half to put the album together.
As a result, “Something Going On” was a huge hit worldwide.
The single,”I Know There’s Something Going On” hit number one in Switzerland, Belgium, Costa Rica and France.
It was also number fourteen on the Billboard 100 and became one of the best selling singles in the United States in 1983.
Before the advent of social media, publicists would book musicians on major media leading up to the launch of their album because those outlets have the largest audience.
What made Frida’s success different?
She gave Sveriges Television (SVT), a national Swedish broadcaster, access to the making from start to finish of the album, “Something Going On.”
SVT edited the recordings to make it into a one-hour television special.
It is safe to say Frida understood her audience very well.
She knew it was history in the making because she was venturing into the unknown from her association with ABBA.
That is why it is important to showcase the behind the scenes of your business and share the “secrets” to your success.
It is not like someone will go and knock you out of business due to sharing your secrets.
Your audience will appreciate you because of your willingness to take them on your journey to success with your business.
They will even go out of their way to share your finished product with their friends and family.
For example, you can allow your listeners to see the entire recording process of your podcast via live streaming.
In the same manner of television shows which records in front of a live studio audience, you can be that business or person which live streams your recordings to your audience.
You can let them know in advance that this live stream recording will last about 30 minutes while encouraging them to leave comments.
Once the live stream part of the recording is over, you can answer their questions as part of the post-production show.
If your podcast is interview based, this can allow your audience exclusive access to ask your guest questions in the comments section during the post-production.
This strategy can help you boost your podcast which is part of your business.
With third party applications like Blue Jeans Network, Zoom, and Crowdcast.io, you can simulcast your podcast recordings to either facebook live, periscope or YouTube Live.
So go out and allow your audience access to your creative process in the same manner as Frida did 35 years ago.
What are your thoughts on the case study?
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