You Must Have a Source of Motivation

There will be days when you feel like doing nothing. It is normal. It is part of the human experience. It is not beneficial though.

You are going to have to develop tricks to get yourself moving. Try a hot shower, get dressed including shoes, eat a healthy breakfast, drink peppermint tea, run around the block, do some jumping jacks, make a short to do list, promise yourself a reward. Who cares what motivates you, just find it.

While you are lazing around on the sofa, your competition is making connections with people, informing them, gaining their trust and getting their money. Move it or lose it.

Find what motivates you and do it until your are motivated. When working at home there is no time clock and no boss. Only the truly motivated and productive will succeed.

The boat in the image reminded me of a lazy day waiting to launch. Quit being lazy and just launch already.

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Pareto's Law

There is a short cut to work. It is called Pareto's law or more commonly the 80/20 rule.

Pareto was a philosopher that discovered that 80% of all results come from 20% of the effort. In life and especially business, you have to determine what 20% of your work is creating 80% of your results. If you can do this, then you will know how to send your business into overdrive.

It is so easy to get busy checking email and other activities that do not drive our businesses and are really more effort than they are worth. Focus on what is working and ditch the rest. Look for ways to free up time that can be better spent in your 20% activities.

A strong focus on the right work will bring in the money and success.

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Don't Kid Yourself- Everyone is Selfish

When running a business don't just assume that friends and family will automatically buy what you are selling. People are ultimately very selfish. If they are not in the market for your goods, then they will not be loyal supporters of your business. There are no free rides in life or business.

You may be one of the rare ones with a truly committed loved one who works tirelessly to help you reach you dreams. If you are, stop right now and go thank them. The rest of us though will not have a built in set of initial customers made up of friends and family. Do not count on your relationships substituting for demand for your product.

The good news is that you are free from having to push your products on family and friends who frankly just may not be that interested. Don't waste time convincing your personal network that they should support you in business. Focus your time on finding new people who are in the market for your product. You will save yourself a lot of time and frustration.

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Practical Email Tip

The more that you market on the web, the more emails you will receive. The best thing that you can do for yourself is to set up a system early to organize and prioritize. You will want one address for customer orders and another for customers support.

Also make sure that you have addresses to cover courses and ebooks that you will want to receive, ads from business resources and registrations for all the tools and websites for which you will be registering.

Don't get lost in the email. Read the important ones and then get to your daily work. At the end of the day if you have the time and inclination read through the many ads, offers and tips that you will inevitable receive.

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Goal Setting

In business as in life you have to set goals. It is imperative. Write those goals down! Did you know that writing goals down significantly increases the odds of actually meeting them?

Make sure that you set your goals in varying lengths. You need long term goals so that you stay focused on the grand prize at the end. You need intermediate goals to keep you moving forward at a good pace. You need short term goals to keep your from procrastination and so that you feel like each day something is accomplished.

The most successful people in our society all agree that proper goal setting is a must. Get your pen and paper and jot those goals down. Keep you paper handy so that you stay on track.

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Clear Website Message

Your website is not designed for you. It is designed for your customers. It is not a place to put all your favorite pictures and certainly not your music choices. The point of your website has to be clear to the internet surfer within about 4 seconds. Surfers are not patient people. With so many other choices out there, they will just pass you by without a second glance.

Your web design needs to be clear and easy to navigate. Your message should be unmistakable. You look needs to be professional. Do not use music, ugly images, or moving images.

If you don't have a website (or you are using a company replicated site,) I highly recommend that you have a website of your own. Google does not like replicated sites. By simply having your own webpage with original content you will gain an advantage over those that don't take the time to create one.

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What Do People Really Want?

Do you sell widgets and whatsits? Do you offer a service? What it is that you sell is not really what you sell. Huh?

People don't buy objects and services. They buy emotions and feelings. They buy the things that make them feel confident, smart, stylish, influential. They buy the things that bring them fame, compliments, a sense of accomplishments. They buy things that keep them from feeling discomfort, embarrassment and doubt. They buy things that save them work, time. They buy things that keep them safe and reduce risk.

As a business owner, you have to determine how to tap into what people really want. How is your widget or whatsit going to make people feel those strong, positive emotions? How is your service going to keep people from feeling the things that they are trying to avoid?

When you establish the real thing that you are selling beyond your product and you incorporate this into your advertising and marketing, your business will be on the fast track to success.

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Using Keywords- So Very Neccessary

The Internet is traveled by keywords that act as road signs. The very first thing you do when you get to Google is throw in the words that you think will bring you the information you need. If you are trying to get noticed on the web you have to use that keyword process to help searches find you.

The big boys on the web know this and they have dominated the major keywords. The trick for you, the little guy or girl, is to find the keywords that searches are using that other marketers are not using (or at least not as much.)

One good tool is Google AdWords keyword finder. It is very user friendly.

If you have skipped this step in creating your website. Stop and go back. Fill your website with the keywords you have chosen and you will have a much better shot at being found by the lost people wandering around on the Internet freeway.

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Can Google Find your Pictures?

Search engine optimization can be intense. I have found that the best method of improvement is to take small steps towards your goal of a high google rank.



One way to get an edge is to make sure that the search engines can find your pictures.

Here are 3 easy steps.



1. Make sure that your picture is labeled with a descriptive name instead of letters and numbers.



For example, green-check-mark.gif is a good name. Search Engines can not see images, so you have to describe it for them.



2. Make sure that the text around the picture is also descriptive. Example:

This is a green check mark.

3. If you know any HTML at all add in an "alt" tag right after the "img src" tag.

It would look like this:

< *img src="filename.gif" alt="create a description here"* >

Make sure you remove the spaces and * around the <> marks.

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Do you Squidoo?

Squidoo is a site that allows you to build a webpage, called a lens, for free. Squidoo is one of the hallmarks of free marketing. Google loves Squidoo, so if you create a lens and link back to your site you help your Google ranking, not to mention the potential customers that might follow that link.

There is a lot of competition to get a high rank for your lens. Make sure that you put some good content on you lens, fill out all sections completely and make it look attractive.

Here is the lens I just created. Click here. The red crown is the first image on my Squidoo lens.

Here's to your business,
Shelley Ewing Brownfield

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Copywriting Shortcuts

Copywriting is a skill that is developed over years. It is one of those things that we wish was not true. It would be so nice if we could just plop down words and without effort they would just draw people in.

Many of us can not stop what we are doing in our business to really study and build our skills in this area. Here are 2 shortcuts though that will help to improve your writing very easily without too much effort.

1. After you write something make sure it passes the "So What?" test. Read your copy and then ask yourself, "so what?" Do you have a good answer? If not, rewrite. You words should mean something to the reader. What you are saying should have some value and solve a problem for them.

2. Appeal to the pressure points that make people take action. Your words should appeal to a person's sense of fear, greed, guilt or anger offer them exclusivity, salvation or flattery. The list is not pretty, but it is effective.

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Exclusivity

It is so easy to water down your brand. You offer more and more free stuff, you lower your price and you practically beg to get yourself heard and to get customers.

Hey, I admit I have fallen into that trap. Quit it now, it is a method of doom. How cheap are you going to go? How many hoops will you jump through.

If you have a product worth something, then stand up for it. Be proud and wait for the right customers. It never hurts to give something away so that customers can test your product and test you as a business, but don't get caught giving away the keys to the city.

Think about creating a sense of exclusivity around your product. This is the reason high end products work. Don't market in the internet "dollar store." Make sure that what you are selling is worth being in an exclusive market and keep it there.


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Kaizen?

I just learned this great Japanese word, Kaizen. It means to continually improve in a gradual and orderly manner. What a great mission for business and for life. What are you doing to gradually improve?

Too often I find myself like the "hare." I run at full speed then take a nap. It is better to work on your business like the "tortoise." Make an improvement everyday. Set goals and systematically work toward them.

Prioritize your time and your resources and build upon previous work and achievements. Step by step gain customers, improve your service and product, and make more money.


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Creating Expert Status

No matter what your business, your customers what to know that you are an expert. Truly though, how many of us can claim to be an expert in our field? The vast majority people are way to humble to consider themselves and expert, but that is exactly what you need to do!

I am not telling you to lie or make things up, just know more that your customers. Anyone can be an expert relative to someone else. As a science teacher, I would never have compared my knowledge and abilites to those in the scientific community. I knew a whole lot more than my students though. In that situation, I was the expert.

For your business, make sure you know more than your customers and then project that confidence. There will always be people in your industry that know more than you. You just make sure that you know more about your product or service than those you are selling to.

Helping your business grow,
Shelley Brownfield

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Blog Blog and Blog some more

If you are struggling to get your business or website off the ground, or wanting to pick up traffic for free or just wondering about how all this internet marketing stuff works...then get thyself a blog.

I am already seeing web crawlers hitting my brand new blogs after just a day or so.

It is free. It is therapeutic. Don't worry about what to say....just talk or write what comes to mind. If you are true to your own conversational style then people will enjoy reading your work.

I wish I had started this up seriously months ago. I thought that it was going to be just another task on the "to do" list. I find it quite enjoyable though.

If you are going to do it, then do it right. Make sure that you use Feedburner and go through their optimization section. It is just a few clicks, but it is worth it.

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Free Websites? Top Domain Name too

In my previous post I spoke of the importance of having a web presence. It can be done so inexpensively. Notice though, I did not say for free. There are so many scams and crackpots out there that the average consumer wisely avoids anything that does not have the complete appearance of legitimacy. Do not use the free hosting sites for business use. They are great fun for personal reasons, but most people will never take your business seriously. You usually also have no control over the advertising placed on your site. I have found one notable exception, blogger.com. It can be a great addition to the site that you already own. My blogs are just part of proverbs31list.com

On that same note. Take the time to register your own top level domain name, like proverbs31list.com. It can easily be done for only 10$ or so a year and it is invaluable in helping customers find your website and consider using your services or buying your product.

Hoping your business grows today,
Shelley

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Building a Web Presence

You have to be on the web. Very few businesses survive, much less thrive without the vast resources and contacts that can be made though the internet.

The good news is that it is so easy for even the technologically resistant to get a website up and running. Like most products and services improvements are contstantly being made. No longer do you have to pay thousands of dollars for someone else to design a website for you. The big guys will still go this route, but for small businesses there are so many more options.

If you do not have a website yet, find a company that will host your site for a fair monthly fee and also will allow you to create your site using their premade designs. It is so simple that most people can have a professional quality website in 30 minutes.

Blogger.com is a perfect example of the variety of options out there.