If you’re a regular reader of BAR (bless you ), you’ll notice the blog has undergone some plastic surgery. A face lift to be exact.

Of course all the same great articles and blog posts are here, but the overall appearance is somewhat more contemporary…a more youthful appearance if you will.

At nearly 52, I’m all for looking a bit more youthful…even online.

I’m using the Headway theme

Headway is an extremely versatile and flexible theme. It allows you to change the layout of any page at any time.

And, if you’re not exactly a code-monkey, there’s literally no CSS or PHP to deal with.  Right up my alley.

If you’re looking for a new WordPress theme and you’re tired of the limitations that free themes offer, then I’d urge you to check out Headway.

Click here for more information on Headway Themes (my aff link).

Likewise, Chevrolet recently reissued an updated version of my first car, the Camaro. It has all the original lines and a very classic look.  It’s sure to become an instant success as well.

Never Ask For Referrals…Ever! – New Title & New Content

Like Ford and Chevy, bloggers and authors need to redesign and update their own works to keep up with changing technology and the needs of their market.  Sean D’Souza’s recent update of The Brain Audit is one example.

I’ve been revising and rewriting my book on referrals and I’m happy to reintroduce it today under a new title: Never Ask For Referrals…Ever! – How To Generate a Flood of Referrals for both You & Your Clients Using Case Studies.

Whats New?

The Title The title of the previous version always bothered me for some reason.  When I embarked on the rewrite, I knew it would ultimately change.

Throughout the revision process one theme kept coming to me and it became the new title – after all, never asking for referrals is the main idea of the book.

The Subtitle The subtitle explains the benefit of using the book. In the book, I take you step-by-step through the process of approaching your client, selling them on the benefits of participating in a case study, and finally, how to complete one.

The Content I’ve revised and rewritten most of the content to reflect the advent of the blogosphere and its impact on Internet marketing. I’ve also enhanced the tutorial about how to approach clients with the case study-referral conversation and included a script for follow-up conversations.

New Audio Version I’m going to add an audio version to accompany a ‘Premium version’ of the book and it will be priced a bit higher at $24.95.  Still, a bargain in my opinion.

What Hasn’t Changed?

The price. Even though the content has changed and it’s become more focused and -well, quite frankly- a heck of a lot better than the old version, I’m keeping the price the same at $19.95.

A Special Re-Issue Offer

Because I’ve not finished the audio version of the book, my Premium package isn’t ready.  As I said above, the Premium version will be priced at $24.95.

Here’s my Special Offer

Purchase the new version of the eBook within the next five days and I’ll give you the audio version for free*.

*In order to get this deal, you must purchase the book (an instant download eBook) by Saturday, April 18th.

When you purchase the eBook before April 18, I’ll send you a special download link by week’s end and you can download the audio version of the book as well.

Want To Take Advantage of This Special Offer?

Click here to take advantage of this Special Offer or just read about the book in more detail.

• Baz Brief # 5: Got Gravatar?
  Posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 in Podcast – Comments: (0)
  Today’s Brief: ‘Why You Should Get a Free Gravatar’Gravatars help you brand yourself and your blog.  They’re free and easy to create using the Gravatar.com site.Get your Gravatar (FREE) today!
• Baz Brief #6: Finding Your Great Work
  Posted on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 in Fun Stuff – Comments: (0)
  Today’s Brief: Finding Your Great Work! Michael Bungay Stanier of BoxOfCrayons has released a book called Finding Your Great Work.I downloaded the first three chapters today.  Michael does it the right way unlike the other example of a few days ago.He’s even got this great 8-minute mini-film that you can view right now for free. It’s thought provoking and it made me wonder about the value of right livelihood and doing great work.
• Blog Religion Case Study – Entrepreneurs-Journey.com
  Posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 in Blog Religion 101 – Comments: (1)
  Yaro Starak is one of the most influential bloggers out on the scene today.  For a few years now, he’s been dominating the blog how-to market with his Entrepreneur’s-Journey.com site.Yaro’s posts and thorough and loaded with gems of advice and recommendations for up and coming bloggers.  He built his business on perseverance, testing and soaking up as much knowledge as he could along the way.
• Brief #4 – The 10 Commandments of Brand Religions
  Posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 in Marketing – Comments: (0)
  Today’s Brief: ‘The 10 Commandments of Brand Religions’Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro, a search engine marketing firm, posted this regarding brand religions.  Interesting reading.Read the post here!
• Evangelists: Why They’re the Driving Force Behind Your Blog’s Success
  Posted on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 in Core Belief Articles – Comments: (5)
  God love ‘em, they’re crazy about you and your blog!They’d walk up to a perfect stranger and tell them to walk, no…RUN..RIGHT NOW…to a WiFi spot and surf over to your blog.They comment on every post.They can’t wait for your next product or service to be released and often are the first to buy when you put up a pre-relase sales page.
• How Not to Create a Mailing List of Guaranteed Customers
  Posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 in Marketing – Comments: (4)
  Let’s say you and I meet in a bar. We make small talk and I learn you’re a cartoonist. Ultra-cool, man!Now, I’m mad about good cartoons.  I especially love the cartoons I see each day in my daily desk calendar from The New Yorker magazine. But I digress.We talk about classic cartoons…Calvin and Hobbes…The Far Side….you get the picture.
• New Forum for Newsletter Subscribers
  Posted on Thursday, March 19th, 2009 in Announcements – Comments: (0)
  It’s tough out there…Blogging isn’t all glamour and riches…as you’ve found out.Building a blog-religion is even tougher.In fact, it can be downright impossible at times what with the responsibilities for… creating fresh content updating blog design and related infrastructure issues responding to comments tracking newsletter subscriptions, RSS, email subs brainstorming your next product or service offer lining up and editing guest posts both inbound and outboud .
• The Charismatic Leader: Expert or Friend?
  Posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 in Blog Religion 101 – Comments: (2)
  Let’s play some word association, shall we?I say “Expert.”  You say: ___________?I say “Friend.”  You say: ___________?Here’s how I completed this exercise.Expert: AuthorityFriend: TrustWhat’s the point?I was reading Mark Silver’s Heart of Business Blog this morning.  (Check it out here.) In this post on the expert v. friend role of the the blogger/business owner, he says the following: “When someone is hurting, it’s easy to go into “expert” mode to try to fix them, because *you* are uncomfortable with their struggle.
• What’s the ‘One Thing’ Behind Your Blog-Religion?
  Posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 in Strategy – Comments: (2)
  Here’s proof that you can approach anything from a religious point of view.Jeff Lubell loves wearing jeans. He eats, sleeps and breathes denim. But not just any denim as he explains on the TrueReligionBrandJeans.com website:”Jeffrey Lubell founded True Religion in 2002 with the intention of redefining premium denim. His vision was to make quality, American-made, authentic, timeless, great fitting, 1970’s inspired jeans wear, with a trendsetting appeal for today’s consumer.
• Your Blog’s Bible – 3 Reasons for Having One
  Posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 in Blog Religion 101 – Comments: (0)
  For Christians, it’s the Bible. For Jews, it’s their Torah. For Muslims, the Koran; Taoists, the Tao Te Ching. It’s their source of comfort, their tangible talisman linking them to the greater good.It their ultimate resourceAll popular religions have one.  It serves as the ultimate resource for their followers. A place to turn for answers or at least the promise of answers.

• Baz Brief #2 – Getting More Comments
  Posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 in Writing – Comments: (0)
  Today’s Brief: ‘More Comments.’Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net has another set of suggestions designed to generate more reader comments.Worth checking out by clicking here.
• Baz Brief #3 – Groundhog Day Resolutions
  Posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 in Uncategorized – Comments: (0)
  Today’s Brief: ‘Groundhog Day Resolutions.’Fellow blogger and design guru, David Seah, has a system of using (what he calls Groundhog Day Resolutions) to check his progress on various goals. Sounds like it could be an excellent way to check the progress of your blogging goals, yes?Check out David’s post on Groundhog Day Resolutions here.
• Blog-Religion Case Study – ProBlogger.net
  Posted on Sunday, February 8th, 2009 in Strategy – Comments: (0)
  Ask a blogger who they think is one the most authoritative blogging influences and the response you’re likely to hear is “Darren Rowse.” Darren’s ProBlogger.net has become the definitive resource for authoritative yet practical information for bloggers both professional and part-time. The case study below presents a view of ProBlogger as a blog-religion. In it, I’ll look at what supports ProBlogger’s religion status and what doesn’t.

• Got Evangelists?
  Posted on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 in Announcements – Comments: (0)
  Blog As Religion – Why build simply a blog when you can create a religion and inspire an army of zealous evangelists!Click here for more info!
• The Blog Post Garden – A Look at Mine
  Posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 in Writing – Comments: (0)
  As you know, I offer a Free eBook on this site that teaches you how to plant and maintain a ‘blog-post-garden.’binoIt’s the method most successful bloggers use to guarantee fresh content for their blogs on a consistently frequent basis.A Snapshot of My GardenEven though it’s totally free (with no-up-sell), some wonder if this is right for them.
• The Holy Trinity of Blog Religions
  Posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 in Blog Religion 101 – Comments: (2)
  OK, while Carrie Ann Moss might be my idea of a futuristic goddess, she’s not part of the Holy Trinity I’m talking about. 8-)What I’m talking about forms the crucial foundations for truly successful blog-religions.In this post, we’ll examine the three elements every blog-religion must incorporate into it’s structure in order to attract followers, convert them into believers and ultimately produce an army of evangelists.
• Why Blog-Religions Shatter the Traffic Myth
  Posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 in Blog Religion 101 – Comments: (1)
  A common myth about blogging is that you need massive amounts of traffic and RSS readers to realize any significant return on investment.More visitors, more money, right?If you have a thousand hits per day to your blog, you’re bound to benefit.  That’s the conventional wisdom and it’s true in most cases.But what happens to your blog income when traffic dies?

A ‘Baz Brief’ is a brief post to refer you to wise voice in the blogosphere who crystallizes a thought or principle so succinctly, that it would be redundant to write a post on it.

Today’s Brief: “Forget fast.”

Ever wonder how to get traffic fast? I mean really fast? 

Darren Rowse (of ProBlogger fame) says it all and I couldn’t agree more.  Read this post for the skinny on fast traffic.