The following are 50 tips to help you succeed as an expert communicator:

1. Great posture, heads up look, smile, direct gaze

2. Don’t smile immediately. Pause, look into the other person, then smile.

3. With ladies: eyes on them. With guys: eyes slightly sticky.

4. Posture: door frame

5. Talk with people as with an old friend.

6. Don’t fidget.

7. Track listener’s reaction and plan what to say (tapping horse).

8. Visualize yourself before you act.

9. Match people’s moods for a moment

10. Meeting people? Wear a “whatz that?!”

11. Want to meet someone? Ask “who’s that” to someone you know.

12. Want to get into a conversation? Eavesdrop.

13. When asked “Where are you from?” provide facts or cool things about you.

14. Asked about job? Don’t give bare answers.

15. Revive a conversation by being a word detective.

16. Have the spotlight on the other person.

17. Parroting: repeat what the person said.

18. Talk about positive things in your life.

19. The latest news: don’t leave without it.

20. Don’t say: “What do you do?” Instead: “How do you spend most of your time?”

21. Don’t say: “I’m a web designer” Instead: “I help people create successful websites to promote their business.”

22. Nutshell Resume – different oral resume to different types of people.

23. Find synonyms for ordinary words: smart, nice, pretty, good

24. Instead of wonderful, say splendid, superb, extraordinary

25. When you have something in common with someone, the longer you don’t tell them that, the more moved they’ll be when you reveal it.

26. CommYOUnication: use “Can you”, “You’ll see”, “You look great”…focus on you, not me or I.

27. Don’t use the same smile to every person you come across; distinguish them.

28. Never make a joke at someone else’s expense.

29. When someone wants to persist on an unwelcome subject, simply repeat the same answer every time.

30. Don’t slobber over celebrities. If complimenting, complement very recent work.

31. Never say just “thank you”. Elaborate.

32. If you want to speak the language of a certain profession, ask a friend who speaks the lingo.

33. Before jumping into a conversation, find out that industry’s latest buzz.

34. Get deals made by talking like an insider.

35. Watch how people move. Copy them and you’ll be of the “same class”.

36. Echo nouns, verbs, adjectives to act like “an old friend”.

37. Evoke listener’s interests and weave images around it. With footballers, talk in “football lingo”.

38. Employ emphasizers : don’t say “uhuh”, instead use complete statements.

39. Anatomically correct empathizers: speak in the sense the person understands best. If they’re visual, use “visuary” words.

40. Use “we” instead of “you and me”

41. Have an “inside joke” – a special moment between you and the other person. Use it in conversations with that person.

42. Compliment people through the “grapevine” rather than directly.

43. Be a carrier pigeon (carry on good news).

44. Give a few comments in a conversation that praise the person subtly.

45. Echo the other persons words; how they say things.

46. Put in a few comments that pre-assure something positive about a person.

47. Sneak in a praise into your sentence.

48. Killer compliments: unique, quality. Say in private, be credible, say only 1-2 times a year.

49. Praise people the moment they do something good.

50. Boomerang comments you receive.

1. Be Consistent: Personally, this has been a biggie for me. Being inconsistent with my development strategy has been a downfall that lingered my potential for some time until I sat down and created a consistent plan for developing my empire. I consider consistency the number one factor in terms of failure and success and I GUARANTEE if you are not consistent, you WILL NOT succeed.
2. Success Does Not Happen Overnight: Too many spammers and shady con artists have created an impression that the internet is a ‘get rich
3. Determination: Always have a goal for your business. One important thing I learned is to define a mission and vision for your company. This does not have to be a long paragraph of what you wish to accomplish in life, but simply something that describes what you wish to achieve for both yourself, your company, and your clients. This, I believe, will be a great motivator and reduce your chances of dropping out of whatever business you are in.
4. Finish what you start! Another issue for me has been getting excited about an opportunity, starting it, and then after a while that excitement died down and I was left with no results, time and money gone to waste, and no ROI. Don’t let this happen to you!

These four short points are what I see in the web development business as the keys to being successful. Perhaps I haven not listed every single aspect of being a winner as a web developer; however, I do believe being consistent, determined, and punctual in addressing your goals and wants will give you an edge over the other 90% of developers who struggle yet fail (sadly).

Unfortunately, I had to learn the hard way, that not everyone can be trusted. For a while, I had a trust-all mentality which is probably why I have been burned several times along the way. Now, I’m not saying don’t trust your clients; I think it’s a perfectly good idea to embed some form of trust in that person, but BE CAREFUL!! Not everyone seems to be who they are!

Let me give a brief example. Not more than a year ago, I was looking for dedicated web hosting and came across an individual that seemed to provide some fairly decent service.  I talked with him and everything seemed to check out so I sent him half of the payment so that he could set up the server and then we’d continue with the deal. Had I simply Googled his email, I would have found out this guy was a scammer who told various stories in order to get the most out of people. Luckily I only gave this guy a small payment and did research him before giving the entire payment.

Researching clients is also a good way to get a feel of who they are and how they act and talk. Some people tend to be very formal, while others not so formal. Knowing this has helped me set my tone correctly when working with them.

There’s a lot to be said on this topic, but I think that’s enough for now. I apologize for my posting frequency, I know it’s been pretty lame, but I’ll be working to improve it.

Now I’ll make a confession to everyone. I used to do this every single day and it was tough because I would sit till midnight “working” on a design that should have been finished by the time my work day was over. I saw my productivity levels drop to very low rates and my designs were not as thought out as I would have liked. I knew I had to end this habit and I did by eliminating things that distract me from work:

• Email: I run Windows Live Mail and about every 2-10 minutes a new email comes in which I just had to read. I got around this by changing my email settings and getting WLM to check for new messages every 30 minutes (instead of every 1 minute).
• Feeds: RSS feeds may take up hours of your day and at times they did take up that much when I had an unspecified large number of subscriptions. Especially if you’re reading something like Engadget that brings in100+ new posts a day, then this is definitely a time waster. I have removed feeds that don’t really improve my knowledge and productivity and now I only have 34 essential feeds that I watch (although at times even this is too many). So remove feeds that:
  1. You don’t really need: Sure, Engadget was interesting, but is it that important?
  2. Too big: Reading a feed that has 100+ new posts a day is not only distractive, but unhealthy. It’s better off to sign up somewhere that brings in about 5-10 new posts each day because the fewer information you read, the more you can analyze it, think about it, and apply it.
     Note: Don’t unsubscribe from this site though
  3. Outdated : We’re after unique and new information, not the same boring stuff!
• Chat: More often than not, I get friends that have a “quick and urgent question” that they need solved. Their quick question often becomes a time waster that leads to other things resulting in less production time. I now like to set my status to “Busy” or “Working” depending on which IM clients I have running.
• Twitter: All the cool people use it right? I guess this is one time where its best to not be part of the cool crowd. The Twitter Tweets are fun, but they are very distracting, so the best bet is to just shut them off.
• Multiple Project At Once: Several years ago, this has been a major deal for me when I tried to work at different projects at once. This brought me to a point where almost every time I would sit and try to decide which one to do first. Since then, I have organized myself on working on projects on a first-come-first-serve basis and tell clients how much time to expect before they see any first hand results.
• StumbleUpon: StumbleUpon is great. Especially for wasting time. Honestly, I still find it hard at times to stop clicking the Stumble! button, but disabling it for a while has been helpful.
• Other Distractions: TV, Kids, (Wife), Various internet browsing activities, can all be part of your distractions. The above 5 things were my personal time-wasters which I now overcome with ease. Freelancers especially may have a hard time with these, but one thing I can say is this: Getting rid of these time-wasting activities will boost your productivity, career, and client base by at least 150%!
  

Let’s take a sample logo design…

…And:

1. Add Your Company Name and/or Website

Adding your company name or website puts more credibility into your design showing that you are a professional who is serious about what they do.

2. Add a Project Description

Adding a description of your project is not only handy for your client because it re-emphasizes the design terms and what the client is getting, but it is also helpful in the organization of your own portfolio. Imagine trying to remember who you designed a logo for a year after you’ve created it.

3. Create a Negative of your Logo

This is a quick 30 second task that is simple, yet very effective. It shows you and the client whether your design will work in a setting other than a blank white space. This is especially great for beginning designers who enjoy creating a logo full of lighting effects, lens flares, and other shadows which look good only on white or black and look terrible in other situations. A negative look of your design will reassure both you and your client that it is a worthy design.

4. Add a Border

Remember, we want the client to focus on the actual logo, not how creative your background, description, or company name is. A border is perfect and easy to add.

5. Add some variation

This is an absolute killer. Adding several variations of the same design is especially crucial for clients you do not know because the variations will help you determine what kind of taste the client has and where to proceed. This is a great time saver when it comes to communication.

6. Add some web 2.0

Sometimes the only thing we need is a subtle gradient to make your design feel at home. Very classic, very effective.

7. Leave the white space

Wait…what? Yep, sometimes it may be better to leave it the way it is and keep all the fancy tweaks out. If adding a gradient, border, name, or anything else unrelated to the logo looks distracting, its better to not include it.

Using a combination of the above things you can do to your design will eventually lead you to create your own style that represents your designing and will act sort of like your branding which is very useful if you’re participating in contests, having your design featured (ie Extreme Designs of the Week), or if you’re designing for a major company.

The previous posts I discussed were involved in monetizing your blog directly, i.e. placing ads, banners, etc. In this post, though, I’ll explain the power of making money as a result of your blogging. When you blog, you become the expert in your area, meaning you blog about one market that you know well about (or want to become an expert in) and after some time has passed people will see you as the expert in this area and will want your services.

Services

I’ve already discussed the Essential Pages you need for your blog, but the Services Page is the real catcher. This is where you advertise yourself. Sure, you might not have much, but there’s certainly one thing you can add…that you’re a blogger. Being a blogger means you have good grammar, professional tone, expertese, etc. It won’t matter whether you have little or much education, readers will see your writing skills for themeselves.

Here are a few things you can add to your list of services:

• Paid reviews – Enjoy an opportunity to review someone or something
• Writing Services – business blogging, newspapers, and other various gigs
• Consultation – If you’re the expert in your niche then say so
• Online Resources - If you have an online product such as a script, ebook, video series, etc. include that in your services page as well
• Speaking Opportunities – This doesn’t work on all blogs, but if its a topic that can be talked about, and if you have the

As an example, here’s what I would add to my services page:

1. Corporate Web Design
2. Blog and Website Design
3. Coding Services – XHTML/CSS/Wordpress/PHP
4. Professional Writing Services
5. Content Management System Setup and Management
6. Secure Hosting Provider

The list can go on and on, but I’m here to explain a point not brag about myself. Your blog will greatly increase you customer database as long as you take the time to be the expert in your niche.

Why?

Because I guarantee you’ll love it.

For those that have clicked on this post, what made you want to read more? It was that guarantee that I offered. That irresistible urge to receive something that will truly make you feel that you’ve got your ‘clicks worth’.

So how does this apply to our course?

When writing content for readers, put yourself in the position of authority. This not only gets a better response out of them, but it also makes you look like you know what you’re talking about. Take for example this post. I titled it “This is One Post You’ll Love”. I did not hint that you would like it; I did not ask if you were like it. I told you that you would like it. Speaking with authority will bring more results out of your writing because people trust what you say and will believe it more.

The second part this whole authority idea is ‘guarantee’. I not only titled this post, “This is One Post You’ll Love”, but I also added ” – Guaranteed!”. You probably realize by now that my guarantee was worth probably nothing by now, but that’s not the point. The point is if the first part of the title did not catch you, the second part did. When people see a guarantee, they get the feeling that they have nothing to lose. Guarantee is a great combination of satisfying curiosity and keeping a promise to your readers.

While this post is not as long as the others, it is certainly important because writing with authority and guarantee are key to success in any situation. Just like public speakers speak with authority, you should blog with authority.

1. I know I’m using a secure site.
2. I’m buying from a company that is willing to invest in the security of its clients.

That being said, if you’re running an eCommerce platform and selling goods or products online, then VeriSign(tm) is something to look forward to. VeriSign offers not only secure transactions for your clients, but also:

• Full business authentication
• $250,000 warranty
• VeriSign Secured® Seal
• Express delivery
• Installation Checker

I will say that just the VeriSign Secured® Seal is enough to buy one of their SSL packages because of the great service VeriSign has provided. In case you didn’t know, VeriSign provides their security services to 465 of the Fortune 500 companies as well as to 40 banks in the United States.

If you’re a small time eCommerce business owner, then VeriSign is probably not in your budget as the cost of having a 168px x 47px seal starts at $399 per year. However, if you’ve been doing business for a number of years, and you’ve reached a plateau where you’re receiving the same number of sales every month, then this could be that catalyst that will get you over the top and open up a whole new level of opportunity.

On a side note: Many anti-virus, firewall, and web security software companies as well as checkout platforms are also using VeriSign’s technology to show visitors that you’re website is secure and safe.

Here are some ways to change your thinking and cut those spendings which will do you little good anyways.

1. Always Saying Yes – Most often than not, for web developers, every new ebook, every new piece of software, or anything else is just like the latest fashionable pair of jeans for the girls at the mall. You just have to have it. This action will and does spin your budget out of control and before you know it, you’re up to the limit on your credit cards, you’re borrowing money from your savings account, and so on. To avoid this, simply stop buying new junk! You probably don’t need it anyways but if you do, wait for a bit before buying it. Truth be told, the price on whatever you’ve been eyeing will probably drop and make it more affordable. There are however some things that we all must get as soon as they get out on the market which we see potential in and an urge we can’t resist. If that’s the case, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
2. Planning to Stop Spending Once Projects Go Live – This is another big misconception about handling your budget. Every single one of us, to a degree, plans a return on some project, sale, or development in the future. This is where it gets dangerous. We set in our minds that we will have a certain monetary return on a certain project and we begin to believe in it. Spending goes up, and thinking goes down. Plans don’t often become a perfect reality, and projects can fail. So keeping spending to a limit until you reach that point where your project went live and gave you a good ROI.
3. Know Who to Hire – I myself, contrary to popular belief, do not know every programming language that exists, nor do I try to which leads me to some points where I must hire someone for a project. This was a difficult thing for some of my fewer projects, but now with more knowledge, I know who to work with and how to proceed with keeping costs oriented in these situations. When hiring someone to work, it is better to research your project. Consult with coworkers, friends, Facebook buddies, etc on what you might need. Perhaps if you’re building a backbone for a website, you might have heard that ASP is really great to use. However, things are not what they seem. Hiring a .NET developer may be the usual price as hiring a PHP developer, but if you’re hosting your sites on Linux servers, you’ll run into an additional $40+/mo costs if you were to create your site backbone in ASP.
4. Outsource - The term outsource usually gets people to thinking “cheaper”. In reality, it may not always be so. In my experience of working with one coder (ASP coder from the above example), I wanted to hire him to do some XUL coding for a Firefox plugin I had wanted to develop. This was something close to a nightmare. I’m not saying the guy isn’t bad, in fact he’s very nice and talented in his field. But sometimes we would have a hard time communicating with each other on what I wanted. This not only cost me time, but put my project on hold because we couldn’t agree on a price for developing what I needed. The key here is that outsourcing can hurt you or it can help you, so refer to #3 on this list and do your research first.
5. Plan Before You Act – This is the trouble with many people these days. I once read a quote once that went: “I think when I speak, but I do not think what I speak.” We can apply this to the internet world. We spend money while we’re thinking, but we’re not thinking about what we’re spending. Often times, I have clients who want the perfect design from me, but they have no idea what they want forcing myself and them to go through a guess-and-check routine of finding what they want. If you’re that person, get a piece of paper, write out what you want, and then contact your developer. It will save both you and them a lot of time, money, and frustration.