Here’s what I love to do: speak to groups – any size will do. Just show me the front of the room, hand me a microphone, and I’m ready to go. Here’s what else I like to do: teach business owners things they need to know to help their companies.  The last 18 months I have done a lot of speaking and teaching. Hundreds of people have heard me talk about how to market their businesses using Social Media. It’s a hot topic everywhere, and it’s been fun to share ideas. There are always new things popping up since Facebook changes about every week. (Which I can appreciate from a technology standpoint, but it makes it hard for the average bear to keep their arms around!)

Here’s what I love about speaking to groups: people are pretty much the same everywhere. They are hard working, they have families that they want to spend more time with, they wish the economy was better, and they know they should be doing more marketing but aren’t sure how to go about it. They want to laugh at a joke, talk about themselves, and enjoy the company of others. What keeps them up at night varies, but something always keeps them up at night. There is some pain in his or her business and it is up to each entrepreneur with a product or service to offer to find out what that problem(s) is and help them find a solution.

If you aren’t speaking to audiences now, you might consider adding this to your giant list of to-do’s. Here are a couple of reasons why.

• Instead of one-to-one marketing this is one-to-many. Time well spent!
• This is a great way to be seen as an expert
• The questions participants ask will keep you on your toes and make you dig in deeper on your subject matter
• While you aren’t always “allowed” to sell, you do have the opportunity to talk about how you have helped other clients in your various programs, which gets the point across.
• You can build your contact list with people who have attended your presentations. I have a sign up sheet or do a giveaway for those interested.
• You make wonderful new business contacts who know a lot of people who need what you have to offer. Can you say “referral marketing?”

Every town has weekly or monthly networking meetings with various groups. Ask your friends which ones they belong to and ask if they will bring you as a guest.  You will have a chance to introduce yourself and that in itself could spark the interest.   Check in with your local SBA or SBDC and get a list of groups. They all need speakers regularly. Some will be free and some could be paid. To get started you will likely do a lot of free talks, but then your name starts to get around and the phones will start ringing. Meet the people in charge of putting on conferences, or volunteer to teach continuing education courses through your local University.

I’d love to hear where you are speaking. Leave me a comment, okay?

Small business owners are drowning. They have too much to do and too little time to do it. They wear all the hats in their companies and often things just don’t get done. A typical work day is much longer than 8 hours, and more than 5 days per week is the norm. Until…they discover and implement the ideas I am sharing here.

1. Systems

Picture this: You want to send out a newsletter to everyone on your contact list. This should happen once a month, but because it takes so much focused time and you can’t remember all the steps, you end up spending more time than necessary, and are probably forgetting some things. Enter “the system.” If you write down all the steps you have to take to create the newsletter and file it in an easy to find spot, then next month, you pull the sheet and quickly go down through each step. No more worry about forgetting something. No time wasted thinking and rethinking. And the best part? Now you are ready for step 2.

2. Delegating

Once you have a documented system you can hire someone to go through each step for you. Any decisions that need to be made are documented with the way to make the decision. Once a month that person pulls the list of to-do’s for the newsletter and does this for you. Voila! Now, you can spend that time doing something at which you are brilliant and are making more money than what you are paying for the person now sending out your newsletter.

Next week I am thrilled to have my good friend Jessica Maes joining me as a guest for this month’s call. She knows all about delegating and will sharing lots of great information so that you can go from overwhelmed to in control of your time. Your business and your family will thank you! If you aren’t already receiving invites to my complimentary teleseminars, you can register here. Bonus: you will have access to all the MP3 recordings of each previous call in 2010.

Join us to learn how you can finally get it all done.

My daughter is a blogger – a great blogger. And she writes just like she speaks, which is perfect for me because it’s just like talking to her on the phone. She still has that smart-alecky tone, and somehow manages to capture the interest of many people each day. So my blog post today is going to focus on what she is doing right that is capturing everyone’s attention.

1. She knows her target audience very well. Her blog is on Runner’s World.com, and since she is a runner, it talks a lot about running, training, and racing. She also talks about something else that runners like: food! What she talks about gets people commenting.

2. She is very personable and authentic. Her personality comes out loud and clear. She isn’t fake, and she let’s people see into her life just a little to let everyone know that she’s a real person. Your blog should reflect who you are. If you are inauthentic-that shows-and people will not be drawn to you.

3. She includes pictures whenever possible. Everyone loves to see photographs of what other people are seeing and doing. That makes the blog post much more compelling and entertaining.

4. She keeps the posts short. Most are only a few paragraphs. She says what needs to be said, throws in her “carrie-isms” and is done.

5. She gives comments on other blogs, and therefore, other bloggers comment on her posts. A normal day would have 15-20 comments on her post. That’s really great! You’ve gotta build that circle of blog support. Find blogs that have similar themes and/or audiences and become of part of their world. Comment (genuinely) and build relationships with other bloggers. They will reciprocate. That’s part of the cycle.

It makes me so proud to have a little blogger in the family!

Working from home is great. I’ve been doing it for 15 years. It gave me the wonderful opportunity to spend more time with my kids when they were growing up. My husband has worked from home for 20 years, so we have learned a very different life style than many couples. He’s the perfect work at home type. He gets up early and starts making calls and doing his paperwork, emails, etc. He does everything he needs to do in a very short time and then starts making calls if he is hitting the road. He makes great use of his time.

On the other hand, my day doesn’t go anything like that. I ease into my work day after breakfast, working out, Bible study and maybe some chores. I’m using a new Power Hour technique that seems to be going well. (As wife and mother it’s hard to not look around and be distracted by all the stuff that needs doing around the house.) So, I use my little timer set for 50 minutes and get to work fast on client work. As soon as the timer goes off I take a 10 minute break to walk in the yard and pull a weed or two, maybe knit a couple rows on my current project, or flip through a magazine. At the end of 10 minutes I go back to work again for another 50 minutes. I find that I am getting more done in a shorter time frame. Maybe it’s because I know I will get “me” time filled with activities that bring me joy. I do NOT use those 10 minutes to do chores, check email, or make phone calls. Only things that I consider fun. Now, if you consider chores fun, then by all means scrub a toilet or throw in some laundry!

One more thing that I started is my Gratitude Journal. Each night right before bed I take out a pretty journal book and nice pen and write a few sentences about what I am grateful for. It has really opened up my awareness and I am seeing the fruitage of this lovely new activity. During the day I find myself looking for good things and seeing how I can express gratitude for so much more happening, whether in my life, or the lives of others. You should try it!

What new things have you started lately that you want to share?

From Christmas Eve to today it has been one short streak of days running into each other. Okay, maybe it slowed down a couple weeks ago, but mostly for 90 days straight. During that time I’ve done lots of listening and exploring to learn more about myself and my business. There have also been things going on at home that required lots of energy, and frankly, my blog just had to take a little recess during all of that. Maybe you have experienced times like this? Thank you for humoring me during this time.

Yesterday I heard someone talking about recognizing the cycles in our businesses. She went on to say that it might take a couple of years to know when the peaks and valleys might occur for us. In my head I added: so adjust your marketing accordingly. This was an interesting revelation to me. I hadn’t considered that my own business might be cyclical. But it makes perfect sense to me and we all need to examine what is going on in our client’s lives that would cause this. No need for panic, just be prepared with different programs or things to do to keep moving ahead. Is it time for a teleseminar or a new product launch? Time to focus on social media marketing, creating videos or writing more articles?

In closing, here is a book recommendation that looks very promising: The Magic of Thinking Big, by David Schwartz. Gina Bell was telling me about it – it’s about creative thinking. One of the points is to believe “it” can be done. When you believe, your mind finds ways to do it. (Whatever “it” is for you.)  I love that!

This week is so exciting for me – in a stepping outside my comfort zone kind of way. My new 2010 series of free monthly teleseminars starts on Thursday, and I am so thrilled with the prospect of doing this that I’ve kind of got butterflies already! I am meeting a number of great people during this process, and I’ve gotten tons of welcome advice and assistance in putting it all together. Each month I’ll be sharing a lot of information about marketing your business, and often the topic will be related to social media. This link has all the details about the first call.

If you have questions about why you should be marketing with Facebook, I’d love to hear from you! Leave me a comment and I’ll address that on my call this week. Or if you have other marketing questions, let me know those, too.  That might wind up being a great idea for another month’s free call.

Now, back to the Olympics…

Have you been watching the Olympics? The sports I enjoy the most are Curling and Snowboard Cross, and I must admit I have the TV on during the day so that I can watch hockey and curling while sitting at my desk. Tonight they were doing some little snippets on some of the Olympians and there were a lot of scenes from training routines. What struck me was the variety of activities they all do that are NOT the sport they compete in. All of them are designed to improve some aspect of their ultimate performance. So that got me to thinking – what other activities am I doing that improve my actual job performance?

Here are some things that you and I need to practice so that we can perform our own personal best:

• Imagination – This is the “thinking outside the box” part of our job. Sometimes it helps to seek help from a marketing strategist in order to see the possibilities. You don’t want to have a copy cat business, and if brainstorming isn’t your strength, find someone to help you here.
• Tenacity – This is the “don’t quit” part of your job. You’ve heard it before – often people give up right before they would have won. Don’t stop pushing forward. Don’t stop moving. Always take action. Winners are always going in some direction. Even if your path seems wrong, keep on the path. The right way will open for you.
• Customer Service – Referrals are likely your best source of new clients, so take care of your contacts and your clients. As Kelly O’Neil says: have your clients turn into raving fans who build your business for you. Provide an excellent experience that sets you apart from your competition.
• Flexibility – While it probably helps to be able to bend over and touch your toes, what you may need more is the ability to “go with the flow.” Remain open to new ideas, seek out innovative products and processes, and choose things that stretch you.

What things would you add to this list?

I’m sure you’ve heard this before. And you may have heard it from me already. But it’s a great help to have business friends you can count on to keep focused and on target with what you need to be doing. I’m blessed to have a number of these women in my life. It’s like a big sigh in my day when I can talk to them on the phone or share ideas via email.

This week I had at least three occasions when I needed, and received support from these great gals. I’ve been kind of stuck on some projects, and now, I am UNstuck! The brainstorming sessions and pep talks got me moving forward. In fact, one of these life savers has teamed up with me to get a couple of big projects taken to completion over the next couple of months. She will be emailing me a lot to check on progress, and I will be doing the same for her. Whew!

If you need to get unstuck, grab a business friend who cares about your success, and ask them to help you. Trade expertise and emails. Take no excuses. (Guess who sometimes has a few excuses?) We are going to be there for each other when we need to breathe into that paper bag or want to hide under the bed. Big success takes big steps. Step Big!

Yesterday I was listening to a recorded teleseminar on my MP3 while at the gym. The speaker, Allison Babb, was saying that we should be listening to what our existing and target clients’ needs are. Write down everything they are saying, and don’t be thinking: “I don’t know how to do that.” That pointed up a good lesson. Often when I am talking to prospective clients they ask for something I don’t offer.  And granted, it’s okay that I may not want to provide that particular solution for the client. But I shouldn’t make that determination just because I currently don’t know how to do it. I am going to step into whatever is holding me back because that is often based on lack of information instead of not wanting to do a task.

For example, lots of clients want help with SEO. While that is not currently something I offer, I am learning that my reluctance has more to do with not understanding what is involved in good SEO practices, rather than not being interested in doing this for clients. It’s a little mind shift for me and will have the potential to open up more opportunities this year. So, I am keeping my list of things that my clients already tell me they need, and then investigate them to see if it is something I want to offer. By investing a few days (or more) deep diving through a topic I may discover that what I originally shied away from may now be a perfect match.

What new things should you be investigating?

This weekend I finally made my vision board. It really turned out more like one of my daughter’s collages from high school, but I am pleased with the results. Who knew you could find some of these things in a magazine. Since I have no magazine subscriptions my biggest challenge was coming up with some to cut up. Luckily, a neighbor brought a stack that were about to be trashed. And the jackpot was at the little used book store in my parent’s town. I knew they sold “used” magazines, but if the issues are more than a couple months old, they GIVE them away. She wanted me to take all they had (there were hundreds.) I took a couple dozen and got to work ripping and tearing.

Time passed. Life gets in the way. I finally bought the poster board and glue stick (!) and cut and pasted last night. It felt a little silly – got to admit. But the end result makes me smile every time I look at it. There are lots of cool things on it – in a vision board sort of way – but my favorite has the be this: The Edge Is Never Dull. I’m glad to say that is how I choose to live every day – on the edge. Sometimes it’s a little wacky and weird, and it’s usually a tad uncomfortable, but if I don’t push the envelope I don’t think I will grow into the person I want to become and the business I want to have.

Looking forward to a surprising 2010!