December 7, 2009
- Are You Accomplishing the Most Important Things?
I was coaching a small business owner the other day in the area of online marketing. We were talking about creating systems for being efficient at all the stages of marketing her business online, including creating strong offers, building her email database, writing articles, blogging, and effective content syndication.
As we continued to discuss all the elements she would need to put in place, she got somewhat overwhelmed. She asked me, "Rachna- how can I possibly do all these things when I'm already so busy?"
And I laughed, but then asked, "But are you busy accomplishing the most important things?"
October 14, 2009
- Time to Prune Back?
I know the concept of pruning is probably more appropriate to Spring than Fall (as we have entered the Fall season here in Maryland), but I've been considering this idea of pruning back for a few weeks now and wanted to share the idea with you.
If you, like me, have been in business for any length of time, you probably have begun numerous projects, added numerous offerings, and, perhaps, have a lot of ideas and half-completed ventures which are taking up space.
September 18, 2009
- Getting More From Your Social Media Efforts
As you may know, I've been very focused on launching a new arm of my business- one focused on social media marketing. I've been lucky enough to work with some top level clients (who have been keeping me very busy), and the results they have been getting have been just wonderful- including better search engine rank, more recognition, and greater opportunities.
I've been taking steps to promote myself more fully (as I continually recommend for each of you), and one way I'm doing this is through webinars.
December 19, 2008
- Growing Your Business in the New Year
I've been thinking about trends and suggestions for sales and marketing your small business in the New Year. Based on the current state of the economy, some of the "old" advertising and marketing methods are not going to work. This list of 10 suggestions will help you remain viable and profitable in the New Year. If you have any others to add to the list, please share them.
March 25, 2008
- Focused Clarity Without Clutter
I have been spending the past two weeks *seriously* cleaning out the clutter. I mean *seriously*. I've gotten off multiple mailing lists, unsubscribed from as many email lists, cancelled out of multiple memberships, and done a lot of "clearing the decks" for this next quarter.
What I have noticed, so far, is that I feel better- it's great to work at my desk without being threatened by an avalanche of papers. Even better, though, has been this feeling that I'm "starting from scratch" or getting a chance to "start over." I realized that many of the memberships and communities I had been part of where not really serving me well (my fault.) I wasn't logging in often enough, wasn't using the services, and, generally, was just paying each month for services I wasn't benefiting from.
February 25, 2008
- Small problem? Big solutions.
It's always interesting to me when small problems start to arise in my business. Now, I'm talking small problems like a misplaced phone message for a potential client, or a messed up website script that isn't functioning like it should. While neither of these is life or business threatening, both experiences offer an opportunity to further refine your business processes and figure out is working well, and what needs to be tweaked.
February 14, 2008
- Women and Money Free Ebook Download Today Only
Happy Valentine's Day! I wanted to share a resource that Sandy, my VA, sent to me. You may already know about this, but in case not. Today (Valentine's Day) you can download Suze Orman's Women and Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny book in ebook form. It's available in English and Spanish. You need to download it before 8pm Eastern/US, so please hurry.
February 6, 2008
- Is Perfectionism Strangling Your Business?
Perfectionism, simply defined, is the belief that more is always better, and that doing more will always return a better result. While it's true that you should make a good and solid effort; there is such a thing as too much effort for too little reward.
In fact, the number one reason people procrastinate on sales and marketing and all the other things they know they must do is because they put too much effort in, where it's not really needed, and then feel stressed out over the lack of reward for all that effort. This creates a vicious negative cycle where you work harder, and receive less, work even harder, and so on.
October 21, 2007
- Expectation vs. Experimenting
One of them has been easing back into creating more content and some new products, both of which I absolutely adore. With this newfound space/time/energy; I've also realized that we need to make distinctions between our expectations and our experiments.
Sometimes, we let our expectations for our business get in the way of our experiments in our business. We overthink new ideas, instead of just putting them into practice- and seeing what happens. We want to be really careful not to "rock the boat"– at the expense of making our businesses truly how we want them to be.
July 26, 2007
- A New Kind of ToDo List
As a busy entrepreneur, you've probably (like me), found yourself wishing for more hours in the day. Do you find yourself thinking, "hmm… if I just had another 10 or 12 hours a day, I could finally ! get my business and life where I want it to be?" I know I have. Though, despite all my wishing, I'm still working with the same 24 hours as everyone else.
July 16, 2007
- How to Get More Traffic To Your Site in One Weekend
This year, our theme is Publishing! People! Profits! which means we focus on providing good content, building relationships, and profiting from our expertise. The techniques I learned last year have been responsible for a more than ten-fold growth in my website traffic, across all of my websites. This system is unlike anything I've ever seen as far as gaining targeted website traffic.
April 22, 2007
- How Fear Impacts Your Marketing
Lately, I've been thinking about the power of fear and how fear impacts your marketing efforts. I attended a continuing education program last week which reminded me that the greatest human need is to be connected to other people, and that the greatest human fear is that of rejection and abandonment.
February 7, 2007
- Making Profitable Connections
Part of being successful in business is being able to make profitable connections. I think about this as being related to deliberately crafting opportunities to meet new people, and, also, taking the opportunities as they arise.
Building profitable connections means that you meet people who enrich your life and your business (remember, these are connected!) as you do the same for them. Building profitable connections allows you to find people who can help you reach your goals, as you help them reach theirs.
March 10, 2005
- When should you work with a business coach?
First, why work with a coach? What can a coach do for you? A coach can help you reach your business goals more quickly and more easily- so you can become profitable more quickly or MORE profitable MORE quickly. Working with a coach provides structure, support, and accountability- it's always amazing how you suddenly "find time" to work on your business when you're paying someone to hold you accountable.
