Business owners tend to be busy people. If your business is small, and even if you have a team (smart you!), you’re probably still pretty darn busy.
There’s always more to do. Another networking meeting to attend. Another prospective client to call. Another program to design. Another ... Views: 773
Every year I’ve done somewhat of a review of my business for the last year. Usually, it’s revolved around revenue, including my most profitable service or program revenue streams and my highest grossing clients. I also plan what programs I’m going to offer in the next 6-12 months, and plan my ... Views: 1591
As a business owner, your job is to meet the need of your target market. The problem comes into play when you have to deal with what your target market wants. And what your market wants and what they need may not be the same.
To be a smart business owner, what you want to do is to ... Views: 902
Entrepreneurs and business owners often go through cycles. We can be all spitfire and balls o’ energy, and then we go into downtime, replenish, and retreat mode. We can’t be at high productivity and creativity all the time; we need the rest part of the creativity cycle.
At the same time, we ... Views: 784
Owning your own business is a gift and sometimes a challenge. Well, maybe more often a challenge than not. There are plenty of things that you have to work around, take into account, plan for, and adapt to.
And… there are many things for which entrepreneurs have to be grateful. Here are a ... Views: 804
If you are a true entrepreneur (meaning that you have a vision for your business that is beyond just the day-to-day work that you do), then you want that business to move forward. You need to plan. You need to strategize.
But before you get to all that left-brained, nitty gritty stuff, you ... Views: 768
Michael Gerber in The E-Myth Revisited, talks about the importance of working ON your business, as opposed to working IN your business. The working in is the delivering of your business’s services or products: providing the service, fulfilling the product, writing the proposal, giving the class, ... Views: 745
We all have those times where we can just chug along in our businesses and lives…. la la la la. We’re good. We’re happy. It’s status quo at its best.
And then that all changes. We want more. We’re ready. Status quo is not good enough.
So, then we have a decision to make.
I call this a ... Views: 1010
One characteristic that seems to be universal for entrepreneurs is that we have ideas. Not just an idea here or there, but a TON of ideas. Ideas every day. Multiple ideas in a day.
You probably understand that you can’t act upon and bring to fruition every single idea. You have to be ... Views: 840
We all have those times when we are in the zone, when it’s all going well. We score the big client. We fill our programs. We get amazing feedback from an article we wrote that tells us we’re on the right path. The kids are good, the team won, the tea shop has your favorite tea in, and all the ... Views: 1007
One of the biggest problems I see with entrepreneurs is what to do with all the ideas they have swirling around in their brains. We entrepreneurs love ideas and possibilities! But if we spin mentally with those ideas and never engage with them, we can get frustrated and overwhelmed.
The trick ... Views: 798
I’ve had several coaching calls lately where my sweet little clients want everything to be perfect before they hit the “Go” button. They want “it” to be perfect. They want everything figured out. They want assurance that it’s all going to go to plan.
Yeah….. that whole planning thing…. see, ... Views: 1047
If you work virtually or market your business online at all, your website is a crucial part of your business. It’s one of the first things online people will see about you. Even offline people might go “check you out” after they’ve met you in person.
Recently, most of my coaching calls and ... Views: 817
Your message – your brand, if you will – is crucial to your business. This message encapsulates who you are, what you do, and who you do it for… along with housing your uniqueness. Everything follows from that core statement. This message is woven through your elevator speech, your website copy, ... Views: 822
According to an article in Forbes in 2013, there were almost 28 million small businesses in the United States, and over 22 million of those were self-employed with no additional payroll or employees. Over 50% of the working population (that’s about 120 million people) works in a small business. ... Views: 913
Probably one of the biggest complaints I hear from my clients and other entrepreneurs is that they don't know what to write when it comes to creating content for their businesses.
They know they NEED to be writing (blog posts, articles, press releases, social media updates, even video ... Views: 856
As a lifelong writer, former English teacher, and writing coach and communication consultant for the last ten years, most people think that I write perfectly, no mistakes in grammar, structure, punctuation... it's all perfect.
Nope! I don't write perfectly at all. Actually, I don't know that ... Views: 823
As a small business owner, mother, and wife, I'm a busy gal. And as a creative entrepreneur, I have enough ideas to keep me going 24/7 for years to come. And I like to paint, draw, quilt, cross-stitch, write, run, hike...
Unfortunately in some ways, though, I seem to be wired to work, work, ... Views: 848
I recently had some issues with a business who was providing a service for me. I couldn't get my messages through: no one responded to my emails or my voice mails. What I found out later was that a former employee had done some damage as she left the company, and the staff was dealing with ... Views: 913
A crucial component of writing from your soul is having the sacred space in which to do it. You can't just whip up something powerful, compelling, and from the heart in the five minutes between the conference call with Client A and the weekly meeting with your VA.
When you're in sacred space, ... Views: 1134
As a business owner who works with other business owners, I see a lot of dreams. Sometimes these dreams take the form of little goals... I want to offer a new coaching program. Sometimes they take the form of medium goals... I want to facilitate a writing retreat. And then sometimes they take ... Views: 923
When I created my Writing From Your Soul process several years ago, what came to mind was a spiral. Not just as a symbol for what we're doing when we try to connect with ourselves and the our community (go deeper, deeper, deeper, and deeper still), but the process itself fits within that ... Views: 878
I've been studying the chakra system for years, and recently I just knew that was a way to incorporate the philosophy, the interconnectedness of the system, and the system itself into writing.
Recently, I had one of the biggest business epiphanies of my life where I could see how writing and ... Views: 1077
Content creation is being bandied about nowadays, especially in the online marketing world. Each of us may have an idea of what "content" is, but you might be surprised at how many different things it is. It's about every single day when you sit down at your desk and put your fingers on the ... Views: 725
As a writer, you might find yourself stuck - at the beginning (can't even get started), in the middle (where the heck do I go now), or at the end (is this really a good ending) of whatever you're writing.
You might find as you're writing and creating content that everything seems as if it's ... Views: 839
I have a cool memorabilia board, and I switch it out every now and then. Through February, it still had Christmas cards and the like hung on it. As it came to my consciousness that it was time to change it out, it occurred to me that I was freshening up the energy.
There's a difference ... Views: 1130
You have just designed and published your first e-zine. You are so proud of it. It looks great and it has wonderful content. You know the information you have to share is of great value to many readers out there in cyber space. There is only one problem. You have all of one (1) subscriber, you! ... Views: 826
Writing an E-zine is more than just a pretty packaging for words. Those words are the meat of your E-zine and your message. You have to think about content and your audience and writing it well and getting your readers' attention and keeping your readers' attention and.... The list goes on and ... Views: 843
Consistency is the key to a well designed e-zine. Aside from the format (look and feel) of the e-zine, the layout and order of your e-zine must be consistent.
When you pick up a book to read, you expect the book to run in a certain order: the title page, copyright information page, possibly a ... Views: 1058
When was the last time you sat at your desk, having to write up a report on your department's progress? A memo explaining corporate policy? An article? A difficult e-mail?
What do you do when you have to write something, and you're stuck?
Sometimes you just brainstorm. For me, today, ... Views: 843
At some point in your career as an employee or a business owner, you're required to write something. Whether it be the endless stream of e-mails that come into and out of your computer, the proposal, or the occasional, old-fashioned letter, your words need to convey the meaning you intend. You ... Views: 898
You want to appeal to your audience and deliver your message in a way that rouses them to action, or makes them think, or laugh, or cry; you want to make an impact. That's where style and voice come in. Style covers things like word choice, the types of sentences you write, how you introduce a ... Views: 745
Communication. When you talk with people on the phone, there's tone, pitch, speed, and volume to convey meaning. When you talk with people face to face, add in body language, eye contact, and gestures. Just your words, though, account for only 7% of the meaning you're trying to convey. That ... Views: 816
E-mail has changed the way we do business and made us more efficient. Instead of endless memos and phone calls, we can e-mail a quick question, an invitation to a meeting, or a request.
As helpful as e-mail is, however, we need to follow certain rules:
1. Don't use all caps when writing. ... Views: 750
Last week, I hosted the Writing Hour where I talked to writers at all various stages of the writing and publishing process.
One writer was frustrated with her progress (or lack of progress as it were) in her fiction story. She felt she'd been spending too much time on the character ... Views: 757
I find as I'm working with people on their writing projects that they have trouble with all the ideas tumbling around in their heads. "I have this idea up there, but it just doesn't go anywhere!" they say, frustrated.
"Have you started jotting down ideas, planning the structure, the story ... Views: 851
What exactly is writing well? Is it writing with perfect grammar? Not necessarily.
Is it writing that's worthy of The New York Times bestseller list? Maybe, but I'm not sure how practical that is. Could it be as simple as writing so that your readers understand the meaning you're trying to ... Views: 728
As I work with people at different stages of the writing process, I find that they're often surprised that there IS a writing process. Most often, we imagine how a "real" writer works. He sits down at his lovely, mahogany desk and gets out his pad of paper or his antiquated typewriter. He flexes ... Views: 782
You're passionate about your message. Whether it's about frogs, women business owners, or creating financial stability, you have this burning desire to get your message out and help people (or frog lovers). The best way to do that is to write a book, right? Reach more people (and frog lovers) ... Views: 1049
"Writing time? Sure! I have a ton of stuff to write! Blog posts, Tuesday's ezine article, promotional copy for my upcoming program.... I could just write and write and write... But I'll get to it after these client calls. Oh, and preparing for my workshop. And let's not forget checking email and ... Views: 1199
So you've decided that you'll set aside time to write every day, and maybe you've even scheduled a particular time to write.
You know you want to write from your soul.... it's the only way to truly to connect to your community and potential customers and get your message across.... Your deep ... Views: 709
You have a business to run, bills to pay, a team to manage, services to deliver, new products and programs to create.... and that doesn't include all the writing tasks you *should* do:
• A newsletter
• Blog posts
• Status updates on social media sites
• Marketing copy
• Web copy
• Your ... Views: 782
I was recently reading a science fiction story from the 1960s, and parts of the story just draaaaaaaaaaag. There's this old writing saying that if your character is going to open the door, then you, the writer, need to be able to see the doorknob. It doesn't mean that the readers need to see the ... Views: 809
As a business owner, you're writing all the time, even if you don't think you are. Think about it: you're writing all the time... emails, responses to potential clients, ezine articles, blog posts, social media status updates, sales pages, campaign emails, product materials.
Business owner = ... Views: 725
We've all read the piece of writing, whether it's a sales page or an email, that lies flat, that seems as if an intelligent monkey in a room with a typewriter could have randomly come up with that particular combination of words - words that make sense, but no soul to the writing. It's that ... Views: 837
No matter how much we want and love to write, unless we're terribly disciplined or have deadlines (or an editor/agent looming over us), our default activity is not writing. In other words, if we have a spare minute, a break between activities, the rare gift of an unplanned hour, do we write? Or ... Views: 757
Writing isn't as easy as it seems. The perfect word doesn't just flow seamlessly out your fingers and onto the paper or keyboard. At least not 100% of the time. We struggle. It takes longer than we thought to finish a project. We get stuck. We spend dozens, even hundreds of hours on research, ... Views: 751
A Real Writer sits down at his beautiful desk, and magic flies from his fingers. Beautiful words appear on the page or the screen, with very little effort from him.
And then WE sit down to write, hoping for the same magic to flow - to somehow make instant sense of the concept in our brains ... Views: 782
As a writer, I find I'm always looking for new ways to flesh out my ideas. Not because I'm looking for an excuse to not delve into the words themselves, but because I don't want to get stuck in a rut. Outline only. Or mindmap only. Or writing down questions only ad nauseam.
But at some point ... Views: 707
The most important consideration when writing anything, whether an article, sales page, press release, etc., is who your audience is. What you write, including your message, your style, the language you use, the concepts you mention or explain, is all determined by who your audience is. Writing ... Views: 780