Get More Business Podcast - Nancy Marmelejo - Viva Visability

My guest on March 28, 2008 was Nancy Marmolejo. Nancy is an award winning business owner and recognized expert in business and creativity. Her specialty is raising the visibility level of entrepreneurs so they can market themselves as recognized, credible experts.

Listen to our interview by clicking here. VivaVisability - Nancy Marmolejo - Quick and Simple Tips to Stand Out and Sizzle as a Sought After, Recognized Expert.

Nancy gives some great information for strategically using social networking to create visibility for your product or service. She shares some tips for what to put on your social networking profile and what NOT to put on your profile. When you listen you’ll hear what Nancy says are the best places to start social networking for businesses to strategically network.

Nancy has a great website at Viva Visability where you can find her ebook called “Make MySpace YOUR Space ” quick easy step by step guide for setting up a MySpace presence. MySpace is the 2nd most visited website on the Internet. You don’t want to miss out on the visibility that MySpace has the potential to bring you.

New Edition “Coaching to Play Big and Win Big” Blog Carnival

Calling all Coaches!

Join me in a Blog Carnival. Generate some traffic and tell the world about your Mission in Coaching.

Deadline for Submissions Mar 29, 2008 at 9 pm Pacific
Publishing Scheduled for Mar 31, 2008

Blog Sumission Form Here

Write on a topic that describes

• a relentless need for Coaching
• being in a Coaching experience
• share why someone would want to be Coached
• how having a Coach has made all the difference

Let’s have some fun! Posts can be humorous, serious, spiritual, or just down-to-earth practical.

First Ever “Coaching to Play Big and Win Big” Blog Carnival

I just discovered blog carnivals (Thank you Terry Dean). Blog Carnivals are a terriffic way to:

• Interact with the blogging community and other professionals
• Generate and exchange traffic
• Entertain new and creative ideas
• Create a virtual “master mind” on a particular topic

Today’s participants and subjects are diverse - mostly business related with a sprinkling of personal development.

Let’s begin!

Welcome to the March 17, 2008 edition of coaching to play big and win big.

Thank you to everyone that participated!

Steven Chang presents 100 Ways To Explode Your Info-Product Income! posted at Passive Income Online.

Mike King presents Being Humble: Action Steps to be More Humble posted at Learn This, saying, “A good coach does so not by forcing others, but by being a humble leader while providing the communication needed to coach others. This articles outlines what it takes to be more humble.”

Steve Oliphant presents Stop Gambling with Your Future and Start Making Money posted at Steve Oliphant’s Musings.

Covert Hypnotist presents What Exactly Is Hypnosis? posted at Conversational & Covert Hypnosis Blog, saying, “Hypnosis entails more than just the trance-like state you see depicted in many movies and television shows, it is a deep and complicated relationship held between the hypnotist and the subject that comes complete with a desired set of goals to achieve.”

Steven Lohrenz presents Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Badly posted at Steven Lohrenz, saying, “Being bad at something is where everyone starts. It’s perfectly ok to be bad at something.”

Brad Trnavsky presents Managing Underperformers to Sales Success - Sales Management 2.0 posted at Sales Management 2.0 - Featured Blog Posts.

Brad Trnavsky presents What Monkeys Teach us… - Sales Management 2.0 posted at Sales Management 2.0 - Featured Blog Posts.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Coaching to Play Big and Win Big using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Productivity Follows Order

Photo by Paul Worthington

Have you ever known someone who always seems out of time, out of energy and basically overwhelmed by life? You know the type that has a perfectly good excuse for being late, not keeping appointments or someone who is generally unprepared for just about everything.

Maybe in your own life you’ve even felt that way. It’s like your life is a juggling act and it’s up to you to keep all those colored balls in the air. Don’t drop a ball or someone who’s counting on you will suffer because of your mistake.

These feelings of overwhelm, lack of energy, not enough time and too much to do are symptoms of a life “out of integrity.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines integrity as “the quality or state of being complete or undivided.”

A life that is out of integrity is a life that is somehow incomplete or divided. Let me illustrate what I mean.

Picture yourself blowing air into a balloon. If the ballon is complete, then the air collecdts inside until the ballon is fully inflated or you stop blowing into the balloon. Now picture the balloon with little tiny holes. What will happen when you begin to blow the air into the balloon? It never fully inflates. All of the air that you’re blowing into the balloon leaks out the tiny holes.

Our lives can be just like the balloon. We have leaks of energy riddled throughout our lives rendering us ineffective.We create these holes or energy leaks by violating the natural laws that were designed to secure our abundant life.

Some of the things which cause us to get out of integrity or produce energy leaks:

• living or working in a cluttered environment
• working at a job we dislike
• not being allowed to use our God-given talents and gifts
• feeling as if we underpaid for the work we peform
• being with people we dislike
• procrastination
• not knowing where we stand financially
• feeling unproductive
• feeling unappreciated
• not eating healthy
• neglecting to follow up on important tasks

This list could actually be much longer. There’s quite a number of things which we do because we perceive that there is no immediate consequence. However, when we surround ourselves with an environgment of multiple energy leaks we have major life changing consequences. And still, there are many individual who never make the connection between their poor habits and their falling apart life.

A life that is whole, integris, without energy leaks is a life that is in order - it’s a life that is operating in harmoney with the natural laws of an abundant life. When our life or should I say our lifestyle is in order we then are naturally more productive.

I want to invite you to explore this with me further. Here are some of the topics that we’ll explore here on this blog:

• The five areas of our life that most often contain disorder or energy leaks.
• What does a(n) disorderly /  orderly life look like?
• Simple tasks to begin your journey to wholeness

These are just a few of the topics for future posts. I’d love to receive comments on this topic as you join me in this journey to a life with Integrity (wholeness - no energy leaks).

Coaches - Build Practice using Article Marketing

I’m joining Coach Dave Buck of Coachville (virtually, of course) in his quest to create a “relentless demand for coaching.” My message is to the Coaches that provide powerful, and provacative inspiration for “playing big” in the game of Life.

One of the tools that I recommend to Coaches is Article Marketing.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Article marketing is a type of advertising by writing short articles related to business’ respective industry. Once written, the business makes these articles freely available for distribution and publication in the marketplace. Each article contains a ‘bio box’ and ‘by-line’ which include references and contact information for the author’s business. Well written content articles released for free distribution have the potential of gaining the author business credibility within his or her market, as well as new clients.

Article marketing has been used by professionals for nearly as long as mass print has been available. In paper-print form (as opposed to online forms) it is commonly utilized by business owners as a means of obtaining free press space. The local business provides useful content to the newspaper free of charge and in return the newspaper prints the business’ contact information with the article. Since newspapers and other traditional media are expected to present content on limited budgets, this arrangement is generally advantageous for all parties involved.

For example, an accounting firm may market itself by writing an article titled “The Top 10 ways to Avoid Getting Audited” and offering it to the local newspapers 2-3 weeks prior to tax season. Similarly, a roofing company could offer radio stations a concise article on “How to avoid ice damage to your roof this winter” shortly before the winter season.

With the rise of ecommerce and online marketing, article marketing has made a move to the online world as well. As in traditional forms of media, online article marketing has served the dual role of providing publishers with essentially free content and advertisers with essentially free advertising. However unlike the off-line version, there are additional dimensions to article marketing online. Most notable among the differences is the use of articles for search engine optimization.

Articles are written to target particular keyword niches, and distributed to content publishers that cater to those markets. Authors are able to target their audience with informative content, sent to an already interested group of readers.

There’s a plethora of information available on the Internet on the topic of Article Marketing. I may even recommend products to help you get started in a future post. It does help to have someone guide you through the process and develop your strategy. Believe me there’s a lot of behind the scenes strategy that goes into each article - however, much of it can be automated so that background work is eventually minimized in comparison to initial learning experience.

Anyway - I’m jumping ahead in the process today by providing a list of where to submit your articles. The reason I’m jumping to that is so that you can go look at what others are doing with articles. Read the busiest article posters to see what / how they are doing it. You can be sure if they’ve posted a lot of articles  - it’s probably at least creating traffic to their website - if they’re doing it right.

There are new article directories coming online all the time. Here are a few of the ones that I’ve read are pretty reliable and or have been online for awhile.

http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.goarticles.com
http://searchwarp.com
http://www.articledashboard.com
http://www.articleclick.com
http://www.articlecity.com
http://www.advisor.com
http://www.ideamarketers.com
http://www.articlecube.com
http://www.articletrader.com

In a future post I’ll describe a strategy that a coach could use to build their practice with Article Marketing.

Another similar idea is to build lenses at Squidoo. This is a very interactive tool and would work well with an article marketing campaign by providing a referral center for additional tools and resources that can be used with the topic of the article. (Lensmaster who like this idea please comment here!)

I love comments to my blog posts - please join in the conversation!

Related topics:

What do you Squidoo?

What do you Squidoo?

Squidoo is the world’s most popular site for building free, single pages about your passions.

Highlight books, blogs, vids, online shops, or just spread the word about stuff you love. Bonus: you raise money (for you or charity) at the same time. It’s fast, free, and supereasy.

Squidoo is a network of user created lenses or single pages that highlight one person’s point of view, recommendations, or expertise. Lenses can be about anything, such as ideas, people or places, hobbies and sports, pets or products, philosophy, and politics. Lenses aren’t created to hold content, but rather they are created to recommend and point to content elsewhere on the web.

So, maybe by now you’ve heard of Squidoo and maybe you even have a lens or two. Today I interviewed a man that has over 300 lenses and expects to be earning about $2000 per month in passive revenue by year end.

Joe Dillon, also known as, “Captain Squid” is a Giant Squid on Squidoo. This means he is recognized as one of the best lensmasters around. Joe was on “The Small Business Guru & Gadget Guy” Podcast today, as our guest and expert on Squidoo.

<side note>A Giant Squid, by the way, as the story goes is a lensmaster that has published 100 quality lenses. Geez, these guys must have a lot of time on their hands or there must be a financial strategy to all this lens making.

Today Captain Squid - uh, Joe, gave us the basics on Squidoo. You can download the show here. We had a couple of short conversations prior to the show and let me tell you there is some serious strategy behind every lens this guy builds.

Over at the Captain Squid website there’s a gold mind of information. The basics are free. You can find video tutuorials in the Captain’s Training section.

It’s a facinatingly interactive alternative to Article Marketing - well maybe not an alternative because as Joe pointed out on the call it’s actually works the same as article marketing in creating a viral spread of your links but it’s more because it’s so interactive.

Oh, and there are angel Squids that give blessings - blessings boost lens ranking. Why is that important? The more popular the ranking the better the payout is from the revenue share. Oh, didn’t I tell you? Not only is it free to create a lens, and create as many as your heart desires, but Squid Inc shares the revenue from Google Adsense, Amazon, Ebay and the like.

I must confess, I too have become addicted to Squidoo. I’ve just begun, with 6 lenses now published and two more as WIP (works in progress). I’ve been reading the Captain’s “Lens Publishing Checklist” (you’ll have to subscribe to get your own copy). I’ve got much to learn but you can be sure I’ll be posting again on Squidoo.

Come take a look at my lenses and join as a favorite so you can see what I am up to on Squidoo.

First is my Lens for The Small Business Guru, and then…

• Press Releases on the Internet - about how the Internet has changed Press Release submission; along with how and where to submit.
• (of course) Get More Business Podcast - contains all my show listings
• Referral Marketing Best Practices - many resources on how to build a business by referral
• SmBizGuru Favorite Lenses - I had to have a lens where I saved and shared my favorite lenses that I really liked.
• and just for fun I created a “SquidWho” page for Beth Moore - one of my favorite people. I have YouTube Video’s up on the lens for Beth.
• Next I’ll begin creating a lens for each of my guests that I’ve had or will have on my Get More Business Podcast. This is going to be fun!

I’ve got more ideas than I can type fast enough! Gee I wonder if Squid Inc is still awarding Giant Squid Status?

Many lensmasters use their lenses as a tool for affiliate marketing. Not a bad idea!

Tune in to our next show - date, time and guest will be posted at the TalkShoe page soon. Check it out here.

The Two Things You MUST do Before You Post Your Press Release Online

First, before you write your first press release - you must begin to capture your visitors name and email address at your website! You’ll lose momentum if you bring lots of traffic with your press release or other publicity without preparing to capture the traffic for further conversation.You need to offer some information of value in exchange for your website visitor‘s name and email address. Offer a report, white paper, a “cheat sheet” or previously recorded audio that delivers a portion of the information your customer or website visitor has come to your website to discover.

Second, many experts also recommend that you create specific landing pages where visitors will “land” as they click through from your press release to your website. Let’s say your press release is announcing a new product, the link in your press release should take the traffic from the press release directly to a landing page regarding the new product, rather than the home page of your website. You don’t want to make the site visitor that discovered your press release have to search your website for the new product being announced.

Related Entries:

New Generation Press Release

“Does my small business need a budget?”

“I only have a small business, I don’t need a budget.”

“I don’t have enough money to budget.”

For many small business owners, the word “budget” is something for the bigger company - maybe they’ll have one when their business “grows up.”

What is a Budget?

The simple explanation is a budget is a plan for how you will manage all financial resources and all expenses for your business. The basic equation that you want to demonstrate in a budget is as follows:

(estimated )Sales minus (estimated) Expenses = Profit (or loss)

How to create a Budget

If this is your first time to work on a budget for your small business, you might work from the perspective of having to list cost of goods or services plus all of your operating expenses to start the process.

*How much does it take to operate your phone line?

*What is the cost of other utilities?

*How about the cost of a company vehicle, or what is the cost of transportation if you’re using your personal vehicle to also serve as a company vehicle?

*Do you need any supplies or inventory to operate your business?

*How about any employee payroll, payroll taxes or independent product or service providers?

Remember to include everything you spend money on to operate your business even if you allocate some of the expenses to “petty cash” expenses, such as parking or bridge tolls while traveling to see clients.

I recommend that you create annual budget, in addition to a monthly budget, so you can identify any expenses that you may have that come up only once or twice a year such as insurance and include them in your list of expenses. This allows you to amortize or spread the cost of this out over several months so that you can plan ahead for the expense.

As you work on your list of expenses keep in mind that these are the expenses that are necessary to operate your business. These should not be items from your “wish list” unless you want to budget in some expansion or growth. You may want to create a budget with just the necessities and another version of your budget with expansion expenses listed so that you can see the cost of both separately. With a dollar figure to work with of your total expenses you are able to set the standard for or evaluate your sales figures. If you are new to your business you may need to use the dollar amount of your expenses to help you determine what your sales need to be in order to cover all costs and show a profit. If you have been in business for a while you can evaluate whether or not you are producing a profit by looking at historical sales figures.

As you conduct business during your budget year you should compare your actual income and spending with what you estimated. This will allow you to manage your spending so that you don’t over spend and cut into or eliminate your profits. You will also be able to see if sales have met expectations in order to cover expenses and still remain profitable.

Who should Budget?

Every small business owner should budget, no matter the size of business. I have heard some small business owners say their business is too small to budget, but that is not true. If you don’t have a written plan for what your financial obligations are and how your revenue will cover those obligations and leave some money unspent, then your business will never grow. In fact, you may out-spend your revenue and put yourself out of business.

Why Budget?

Budgeting for your small business gives you control over your finances. By looking ahead to what you know or can reasonably estimate what your expenses will be, you can then make financial decisions that will keep you from over-spending, or give you the freedom to invest in the growth of your business.

When Budget?

Every small business owner should have a budget to start their business and then review it annually. I recommend that small business owners review their budget several months before the end of their fiscal year. When I say review the budget I’m talking about comparing projected budget with actual. In the comparison you can see if your estimates were realistic. You and your CPA can also plan for last minute tax strategies, or plan to implement strategies in the up coming year’s budget.

The Goal in Budgeting Remember, the goal of having a budget is to stay in control of your finances in advance. Setting the standard for your spending and revenue and having a tool to compare with actual will give you the control that you need to stay profitable. At the very least it will give you an indication of whether or not your business is actually profitable and not just busy.

Melody Campbell, Business Coach invites Small Business Owners to do an “Extreme Marketing Make-Over.” Receive her Special Report “5 Strategies that Any Business Owner can do for an Extreme Marketing Make-Over” along with having access to her blog and weekly show “Get More Business Podcast at: http://www.TheSmallBusinessGuru.com