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"Superhero" Post – Response (Plus FeedBurner Mistake We All Made)


25 April 2008 10 Comments

How to become an underdog blogger’s Superhero?

You subscribe to her blog, leave helpful comments, and give her link love – just like Hare Krishna does.

This post is a response to comments left on my 3 Easy Steps To Become A Superhero.

@ Jason Rakowski

I am using Copyblogger template by Chris Pearson. It was long road to this one. Check on JD’s comprehensive research on templates – How To Choose an Effective Blog Template or Theme. Jason, I liked a lot your blog’s focus on customer service.

@ Vered – MomGrind

Vered, first off – thanks for warm words on writing. What is the hardest part for you? Seeing everybody as a customer or these:

    • Decide what you want. <- This one is hardest for me.
    • Discover what the customer wants and…
    • … deliver plus one.

Seeing everybody as a customer was for me a wake up call. Especially with my kids. It hit me when I yelled at my daughter “stop bothering me – I need to work!” Duh! Work for what purpose? Who’s the first and the best customer? My family. Would I yell at my customers at work? No. Then why I yell at my most important customer?

Same with my boss, co-workers, reports, and any other around me.

Me and my wife never fight – we do have tense situations though. Too often. We cope with this. Just like any unexpected situation with the customer. No one will benefit just accusing the other side. We all manage our business. Fighting never helps. Do you think these doctors see their patients as a customers? – Medical Mistakes Kill 100,000 Americans Each Year.

@ J.D.

No, JD. I won’t be wearing a cape when we meet – cape is so passé. I am trying something less common, how’s this one? ;)

image

Working hard to visit the US this summer and meet you once more. BTW, the “work” is totally based on Performance Frame.

@ Shilpan|successsoul.com 

Thanks for warm words. The main idea behind the post is not mine. I just digested what I read in the “Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service” book. Hard to believe but I was both laughing out loud (like LOL, you know…) and crying with tears in my eyes when reading it. It hit me with its simple and true content, content that resonated with so much. I truly believe it is all about value – a match of the value I offer and the value the customers seek. Your latest, 4 Fallacies of Myth about Wealth, resonates with it a lot. Here is another quote by Einstein that leads me “Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.” Another one is more recent from 10 Golden Google Design Principles : “Focus on the user and all else will follow.”

@ blogrdoc

Thanks for warm words, buddy. I like your way of unleashing a hero inside by sharing human errors and the way to avoid it at http://dohe.blogrlab.com/. BTW, I have a nomination in the end how not to set up FeedBurner feed on the blog. Read on.

@ Mike King

Thanks for warm words and for the Stumble. I liked your recent Sharing your opinion reinforces your beliefs. One of my blog goals is just about that. It is easier to believe in something that is written. Judaism is one of the oldest religions and it comes as written and oral (which is written too). It is ton of complex read. Although I am agnostic, my favorite is 82. Each male must write a Torah scroll. I saw another interpretation to this one, and it goes like this – “each one must write his own Bible” – which I like best.

We *All* Made This FeedBurner Mistake

  • How do you manage your subscribers? You use FeedBurner.
  • How do you set FeedBurner feed on your blog? You add fancy image linked to your feed burned on FeedBurner.
  • What you forgot to remove? Built-in feed that comes with WordPress or other blogging platform.
  • How your potential subscriber usually subscribes? She hits this button in Internet Explorer or FireFox

image

  • What it shows when your potential subscriber hits it? Built in WordPress feed. Ouch!!!!
  • What I’ve done to fix it? Found this line in Header.php:

<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml”

  • The I replaced <?php bloginfo(‘rss2_url’); ?> with hard coded URL of my FeedBurner feed.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/PracticeThis?format=xml

Got better solution? Share.

10 Comments »

  • Mike King said:

    Alik, we didn’t *All* make this mistake, hehe. Check out this plugin to take care of all this for you..

    http://www.google.com/support/feedburner/bin/answer.py?answer=78483&topic=13252

    # 26 April 2008 at 12:48 am
  • Shilpan | successsoul.com said:

    Alik -

    Awesome. You are enjoying, it seems, the book a great deal and that makes me cringe to buy and read it soon.

    Thanks for the link.

    Shilpan

    # 26 April 2008 at 3:49 am
  • blogrdoc said:

    Alik,

    THANKS!! I will try to implement that fix ASAP. You look like you are enjoying yourself in that pic, which is good to see.

    >It hit me when I yelled at my daughter “stop bothering >me – I need to work!” Duh! Work for what purpose? >Who’s the first and the best customer?

    I do this more often than I would like to admit. You are definitely not alone, buddy.

    # 26 April 2008 at 4:41 am
  • alik levin (author) said:

    @Mike
    Thanks for sharing this one!! This is realy helpful.

    @Shilpan
    Go for it – it is very easy and enjoying read from the guys who know what service is
    http://www.kenblanchard.com/workshops/public/legendary_service/

    @blogrdoc
    I admit – it never happens ever after it hit me. What also is of great help here is EI Core Skills
    http://practicethis.com/2008/04/03/emotional-intelligence-core-skills/
    When you feel like you are over the edge you just “Park”.

    # 26 April 2008 at 5:20 am
  • Vered - MomGrind said:

    Who are you calling an underdog blogger!!!

    :)

    Hardest part – definitely – deciding what I want.

    Thanks for the feed tip.

    # 28 April 2008 at 4:57 am
  • alik levin (author) said:

    Pay special attention to Mike’s solution he found for feedburner issue.

    # 28 April 2008 at 5:12 am
  • @Stephen said:

    What happens to the subscribers after you make that change? Are they still able to pull the feed, or will they need to come back and re-sub?

    # 29 April 2008 at 2:43 am
  • alik levin (author) said:

    Good point, Stephen!

    The built-in feed is still there, try it:
    http://practicethis.com/feed
    so that those who already subscribed are still fed with it.

    New subscribers have two options:
    1. Click on the FeedBurner’s feedflair that shows on the page.
    2. Click on IE’s or FF’s RSS button.

    Both will redirect to the FeedBurner’s URL

    You do not break those who already fed with the build in WordPress feed

    I did not implement Mike’s fix though but surely will be looking into it.

    # 29 April 2008 at 10:37 am
  • @Stephen said:

    Okay, question two: How can I replace the organic feed with the Feedburner feed, so as to replace the “original” feed, and count and track and monetize those subscribers?

    # 29 April 2008 at 11:52 am
  • alik levin (author) said:

    To replace the built-in feed with FeedBurner:

    1. Either do it quick and dirty like i did – this is what i wrote in this post
    2. Or use nice solution that Mike King suggests – see the first comment.

    I do not monetize this blog currently nor on the web site neither through feeds – so i am less in the know, but you might want to login into your FeedBurner account and check out their Monetize tab. I think they call FAN – feedburnere advertizing network or something like that. They can smoothly connect your adsense account to FAN’s one. If you will do it – share how was the experience.

    # 1 May 2008 at 5:33 am

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