Facilitator's Lounge

This page will be open to the general public until Fall 2008. At that time we will be introducing a public information centre and the facilitator's lounge will be for the exclusive use of those people delivering our workshops.

The public information centre will continue to feature useful articles and tips on facilitation and training and will also feature a blog.

The facilitator's lounge will be becoming fully interactive and allow facilitators around the world to communicate with each other and the Encore development team. The lounge will also feature special articles, tips, trends in business and additional materials and updates for Encore Workshops. We will also be featuring special offers on workshops, books and other items of interest to those involved with business education.

The January Article

Success with customers

Simply put, blogs can be an informal, effective and easy way for you to communicate with your potential and current customers. Blog posts allow you to position yourself as a trusted resource in your industry by addressing your customers' needs, desires, questions, or concerns in a relaxed way. It is interactive so you can respond directly to their comments right on the blog site and talk about how your offerings might solve their problems. It can also be a great way to collect testimonials as customers share their success stories about your product or service. Just make sure you ask for their permission though, before you use someone's comments for marketing purposes.

Success with employees

Blogs can be a vehicle through which your employees share and contribute information in an easily updateable web-based location. A blog might even replace your staff newsletter, help you communicate important business practices, or give your employees an opportunity to share their expertise with each other. A blog is also a good way for potential employees to get to know your company and determine if they might want to work on your team. As the business owner - it can also help you take the temperature of how things are going with the employees on your team.

Success with your web site

Blogs can be a great way to attract search engine attention and bring traffic to your web site. Your blog posts and any user-submitted comments are likely to contain keywords and phrases that will help you achieve better ranking in the search engines, and more traffic to your site means more potential business.

Success with your competition

Checking your competitor's websites and blogs can be a great way for you to see what important topics they're discussing. You may learn from their latest challenges and find great ideas to reinforce your own USP and set your business apart from the rest. There's no end to the things you can learn and adapt to suit your customer's needs and create a place for yourself as an industry leader.

Success with advertisers

You may be interested to know you can make money from your blog. Find complementary businesses that might benefit from your customer base and seek their advertising dollars. You'd be surprise how many people might be willing to advertise on your site to a ready-made audience of potential customers.

Getting Started . . .

Do some initial research - there are plenty of free blog sites online where it's as easy as typing in your info, adding photos and hitting the publish button. Try googling "free blog sites" or other similar terms and check out some of the blog hosting sites for yourself to see which one would be right for you. Most of them have a very simple sign-in process and you're off to the races quickly. Make sure your website has a link to your blog - draw some attention to the link by adding a catchy caption like "To learn more about . . . check out our blog at . . . ." Ensure the content is interesting but not self indulgent - while many personal blogs can go on and on about the individual's feelings on specific topics, you want your blog to be relevant to your audience. Perhaps your customer blog can offer a Q & A section, allowing them to ask questions about your product. Or you can offer a "Tips" or "How to" section of helpful information they can use every day. For your employee blog, communicate upcoming business news, job postings, financial information, events, etc. Give them opportunities to share information with each other. Update your blog regularly - blogs are only effective if they are constantly updated. The only reason people come back is to read new stuff. This doesn't mean you have to post something every day, but do it regularly. Twice a week if you can manage, or even once a week. Just make sure it's regular.

A business blog may or may not be for you, but don't assume it's not until you've checked it out for yourself. You may have the opportunity to become a leader in your industry by starting a blog when none of your competitors have one. It's not as much work as you might think, and the potential benefits may far exceed the small amount of effort you'll need to regularly post a few thoughts. To blog or not to blog for your business? Take the time to make an informed decision, or you may be left in the dust as this popular communication tool grows.