Sheri McConnell is a successful entrepreneur I admire greatly. Here I share with you her latest article:
Create a Timeless and Focused Marketing Plan for Your Business
As you probably have heard by now—you aren’t in the business of (fill in the blank here). You are in the business of marketing. Your marketing must be automated and systemized. Period.
Create Passive, Income Generating Information Products
Create your own advances and get paid to create information products. Many, many target markets are considered “information hungry”.
Build Your Most Important Asset… Your List
Success on the Internet is about providing high-quality information, solving problems AND the list.
Use Social Networking Sites Such As Facebook, Linked In, My Space, and Twitter
Used strategically, social networks extend your brand and funnel thousands of new leads into your business funnel each and every quarter.
Create A Very Profitable Internet Launch for Your Information Product or Book
Set up correctly, these launches generate thousands and tens of thousands dollars of income, new leads for you, and all your partners.
Create Your Own Certification Program
Certification programs aren’t just for large companies. Solo online entrepreneurs can also benefit from building and creating a certification program within their company.
Build Your Own Virtual Team
Learn how to find, build, and manage a virtual team. The key to “leverage” is the team. We all have weaknesses. Don’t make the most common entrepreneurial mistake: thinking you can do it all.
Approach, Create, and Solidify Long-Lasting Joint Ventures
All successful businesses are built on thriving relationships–on and off the Internet. And with all relationships, you should focus on who and how you attract partners.
Know Which Publishing Options Are Right for YOU
Learn what your publishing options are and make a choice based on the path that is right for you based on your personality, strengths, and weaknesses.
Double Your List Size With A Virtual Event
One of the best strategies for growing the list is an online virtual event with multiple partners or joint ventures. Give customers free access and structure the event correctly and it is a huge list builder.
Develop Your Intuition
Most entrepreneurs spend so much time focusing on all the “outside” stuff that they forget to get help on learning how to “think” like a CEO. Your success and ability to run a profitable company depends on your leaning how to develop your CEO intuition.
Use Visual Tools To Set Goals and Stay On Track
All successful entrepreneurs incorporate visual components into their strategy planning. They spend as much time planning as they do in the marketing, operations, finance parts of their business.
Sheri McConnell is the CEO of Sheri McConnell Companies, Inc. and the president and founder of two national organizations, the National Association of Women Writers-NAWW and the International Association of Web Entrepreneurs-AWE. Under the same corporate umbrella she is also the owner of two high-level product and consulting companies: Create Your Group and My Millionaire Friends. You can visit Sheri, access her free article archive, and find out more about all four of her companies at www.sherimcconnell.com. Sheri lives in San Antonio, Texas with her husband, their four children, a weenie dog, and two cats.
Why Small Business Can Use Social Media?
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This article is by our team member, Eleanor Marks Prior:
No business man would stop thinking about great innovations for their business. Whether you are in a small business or a big one, you are looking for advice on how to make more profits, or you’ve never stopped researching how other successful businesses are taking advantage of their success. We could never deny that the new online marketing techniques have a great role. There has been a lot of craze and hype in the media recently about the impact of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. While some of it is overstated much of what is going on could be called a revolution in the way people do business around the world.
Many people are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, for example, and are opening up accounts, but few have any real idea of what to do once they get into the Twitter world–and the same with Facebook. Especially when it comes to business many business owners simply get an online presence and hope for the best. Even fewer take any real advantage of YouTube as a free advertising vehicle, or even know about what article marketing is.
All these social media sites can help you drive masses of traffic to your website. This is much like people coming in off the street in a busy business district to browse in your store. Once they are in the door the chances that they will buy something are pretty good. The same thing can be done to attract people to your small business online. You just have to learn the ways of the social media and social networking world.
Many small business owners think social media is only useful for large brands, like Dell or Southwest Airlines. The truth is any small business that effectively invests time in social media marketing can improve customer loyalty and increase the best kind of marketing there is: word of mouth.
Social media makes businesses more accessible and personable to customers and potential customers. It enables small businesses to maintain long term relationships and connections, increase referrals and increase trust. Used correctly, social media is extremely powerful for establishing and growing an online reputation.
Advantages of Online Reputation Management for Companies
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Constantly maintaining online reputations is one of the reasons why Online Reputation Management exists. In real sense, Online Reputation Management (ORM) was created to help business owners and professionals deal with bad press.
Even a large company or a small one could not get rid of the receiving end of negative publicity. Remember that the internet never fails to forget. Everything we do online leaves a digital mark that will never go away. This gives a reason why Online Reputation Management serves as a necessity in the field of business today.
See the advantages of Online Reputation Management for companies:
- It improves customer satisfaction by gaining insights from consumers about what is good and bad about their product or services. This increases perceptions of brand/ product by creating opportunities to listen to and engage consumers.
- It helps on gaining insights about their competitors and their customers’ perceptions about their products and services. This helps in the understanding of the relationship between user generated content and traditional forms of online media, e.g. news, print, etc.
- It maintains shareholder value by mitigating risk by having ears close to the ground where opinions about a business are being formed and propagated.
- They’re likely to be engaged in more effective Public Relations by understanding who the real influencers are.
- ORM takes a role in providing early warning systems for reactive and defensive PR.
- This may also help in reducing marketing dollars by learning how to reach out to customers more cheaply.
- May reduce internal costs by employing services which save time and effort, as well as money.
- ORM helps to identify gaps for products and services which can be developed for profitable niche markets.
- It gains insight into online networks and keywords and key phrases found in user-generated content, which can help to bolster natural search results about the person, product, or business.
Tips for maximizing the efficiency of your online reputation management endeavors:
1. Set up your social networking sites with your own name.
In other words, you need to create an interlinked “web” of these powerful social networks – that all point to you. This is profoundly important because it establishes your presence in the major search engines like Google. Using aliases, pen names or otherwise will not help establish your branding effectiveness.
2. Try to get the same username set up for all of your social media engagement profiles.
3. When you add any type of content to your social networking sites, keep your online reputation management plan in mind. You should add relevant materials.
Seeing the advantages of Online Management training, I can say that it’s a mistake for companies to launch an online reputation management campaign after the damage of bad press has already spread which is a mistake. Everyone must take a preventative approach to protect business.
This great post was contributed by Eleanor Marks Prior, Wordpress Whiz and Social Media maven.
What the BLOG???
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I just read this great article in Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero’s Ezine, Copywriting TNT. As a graduate of Lorrie’s Shefactor Bootcamp I’m a great fan of hers and wanted to share this post with you:
Blogs Are the NEW Secret Weapon for Reaching Your Tarket. Just like you, I hate being marketed to. Every day we’re bombarded with over 3,500 marketing messages. And frankly I’m sick of it! But blogs are different. Blogs are a two-way conversation between blogger and bloggee (plus all the readers in between). Through commenting and cross-linking, you can share feedback. You can build your network. You can become, dare I say it, an Internet celebrity!
See, blogs add humanity and instantaneous expression to the web. Like ezines, blogs are a way for your customer to get to know you.
However, unlike ezines, blogs help you with search engine rankings. Did you hear me? I said, unlike ezines, blogs help you with search engine rankings. That’s a big one.
Entrepreneur Magazine, Business Week, even the FCC (Federal Trade Commission) all believe blogs are here to stay. Recently Michael Powell, chairman of the FCC, started one. His initial post drew over 30,000 readers. A Microsoft spokesperson says Bill Gates is considering starting a blog. And filmmaker Michael Moore built a blog to promote his controversial movie, Fahrenheit 9/11.
But who has time to read a blog anyway? Exactly! The job of a blog is to cut through the information overload and deliver searchable, relevant and current content. BlogAds.com recently conducted a survey of over 17,000 blog readers. Here’s what they report:
- Blog readers are older and more affluent. 61% of blog readers are over 30, and 75% make more than $45,000 a year.
- Blog readers are more cyber-active. 54% of their news consumption is online. 21% are themselves bloggers and 46% describe themselves as opinion makers.
- Blog readers are media-mavens. 21% subscribe to the New Yorker magazine, 15% to the Economist, 15% to Newsweek and 14% to the Atlantic Monthly.
- Whether on the left or right, blog readers have traits in common that often are absent in today’s public spaces: passion and initiative.
- Blog readers have apathy towards traditional news sources. 82% say that television is worthless. 55% percent say the same about print newspapers. 54% say the same about print magazines.
- Meanwhile, 86% say that blogs are either useful or extremely useful as sources of news or opinion. 80% say they read blogs for news they can’t find elsewhere. 78% read because the perspective is better. 66% value the faster news. 61% say that blogs are more honest.
- Blog readers appear united in their dissatisfaction with conventional media and their rabid love of blogs.
Don’t you want to be a blogger too? How about looking at some samples of the good, the bad and the bizarre?
Model citizen blogs: http://www.marketingsecrets.com/blog/ – John Reese’s blog. Hey, the guy just made $1,080,496.37 online in a single day. Here’s a good rule of thumb. If Reese is doing it, you should be too.
http://www.talkbiz.net/ramblings/weblog.php – Copywriter Paul Myers keeps us up-to-date on SPAM and other Internet marketing nightmares.
http://www.bookedsolidu.com – Michael Port’s new streamlined and simplified community helps you get booked solid. His old site, Booked Solid Referral Network, was just too big. This one is amazing! You’ll love it.
My Blog: http://www.redhotblogging.com – my blog today.
Bizarro Blog: Jeff Bridges’ site is considered a “blog.” He uses “hand-written” graphics that make it a unique and clever site! (Yes, really.) http://www.jeffbridges.com
I dipped my toe into the blogging pool a few years ago. Now I’ve decided it’s time to really learn how to do this stuff with an expert who will take me by the hand through the scary forest of the blog-world. I’m going back to school!
Christina Hills has opened another world to me using WordPress. I just attended her amazing, content-filled “Website Creation Workshop” studying her detailed webinars. Even though I have my own Blog, I’ve learned a ton since meeting this bright and intelligent guru woman!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Award-winning marketer, world-renowned copywriter and creator of “The She Factor®“, Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero of Red Hot Copy has a reputation as the top female copywriter in the info-marketing industry. She has written award-winning home study courses, conducts a world-famous virtual copywriting training, holds live workshops, and is authoring the original book, The She Factor based on her own She Factor Marketing System. Lorrie is dedicated to teaching the world it is possible to shift from the hype-filled sales to a more modern version…marketing written with authenticity, trust, and rapport. Check out Lorrie’s websites: http://www.redhotcopy.com and http://www.redhotcopy.com/shefactorbootcamp1.html and http://www.redhotblogging.com.
Fan Pages on Facebook
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Eleanor Marks Prior writes about Fan Pages on Facebook:
Fan Pages on Facebook can be very beneficial to any website or company. According to “Mashable.com”, post’s growth figures of roughly 20% monthly, totalling a 200% in size annually. This would mean that this is a good place to build good networks, making a name and endorsing your services and products. And the process is easy, simple and free. In fact,
you can really become a fan of anything, whether it’s for someone famous or you may become a fan to something that you find interesting. Whenever you update fan pages, all of your fans see what’s new and they may comment, or they may engage in conversations, ask questions, and visit your website all at one central place. These features give any businesses a great advantage, it may be a small or a big time company, products or websites.
Advantages of Fan Page on Facebook?
- Search engines can index the page.
- Pages are public, you can get some nice facebook.com link credit for free.
- You can send “updates” to fans whenever you want. This is one of the greatest features It’s a nice way of building a database of interested users. You may send messages about new products, updated website, etc.
- You control the page especially from those competitors who would like to use your page. You are able to send messages, edit or remove sections, and control the information to an extent. You can also easily invite your target audience to your page. Facebook makes it easier to distinguish who exactly is in your target demographic.
- When someone joins your Fan page, It publishes on their News feed “Jane Doe became a fan of”. This gives you a chance to connect to more people from other networks.
- With your fan page, You establish a strong fan base during these initial stages of Facebooks growth and more importantly the development stages of Facebooks attempt to monetize their efforts, will provide you with a solid standpoint to operate from in the years to come.
- This lets you see exactly where your fans are coming from, their age, there language and so on. You can monitor the growth of your site and see exactly how many page hits your page is getting It’s safe to be said this is still really in the beta stages of production and in the nearby future there will be many more options that will help your develop your marketing strategies and advertising campaigns.
Your Facebook fan page is an extension of your brand and must reflect that. Remember that people are spending more and more of their time online today. Many businesses create their fan pages with great branding and content; but if you do not make any effort to connect and engage the fans, this may be gone to waste. It is really important that you give importance.
All of these will work well if you have a main goal or purpose to your fan page that keeps you focused. It will be easier to decide what to include as content on your fan page if you have set goals in place.
Want a Facebook fanpage now. Can’t do it? No time? Not getting the results from the venture that you wanted? Contact me for evident fan page success.
Why SEO Is Important To Small Business?
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This article is by Eleanor Marks Prior: The success of the each company depends on the investments of time, money and efforts. In the world of business valuable sales need good marketing. In a manufacturing business for instance, the distribution plays a great role. So how may we distribute if there’s no demand for distribution. Marketing plays a great role in this case. This is why even the small business needs to be known for the business to grow.
One must not forget to try discovering great things to strengthen the business. In this generation, It is not possible to reach a wide variety of individuals even if marketing of the product is done conventionally. You may find an efficient and effective means. Search Engine Optimization plays a vital role nowadays to make even a small business to get a name and reach its target market.
Advantages of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Small businesses?
- Easiest way of distributing the information.
- Information can be disseminated to a large variety of population.
- Cost effective way to market the product.
- Helps you grow the business from a small to a bigger one
- One can market the products and the services throughout target clients or even throughout the globe.
SEO doesn’t give a limit whether you have a small business or a large one. In fact, great SEO for small businesses gives greater revenue which allows these small businesses to grow. Most business men have just heard about SEO but don’t know how it works. A lot of specialists may help you in setting up your SEO, but it is important that you work hand and hand to attain your set goals.
Eleanor is a Social Media expert, Wordpress guru and is currently getting ready to attend the Traffic Geyser Summit in San Diego next month. After finishing her training in supporting clients with their Traffic Geyser video and social media tools, she is set to meet the Traffic Geyser team and fellow Traffic Geyser Virtual Assistants.
A guest post from our Social Media and Wordpress guru, Eleanor Marks Prior:
We usually ask ourselves “how do we make our company, product or services more popular”? Without the right exposure, nothing will come out of a potential business opportunity since we could reach our right audience. There are many ways to market your product but only few ways to make a name, one of the easiest ways do this is through the help of social media marketing strategies. A social media marketing strategy will always be easier to Social Media Marketing Specialists. So most people prefer them to do the work in finding the strategies.
See the advantages of Having a Social Media Specialist:
- A Social Media Specialist will help you find the right strategies on the basis of your goals and objectives. (Since they know what to focus on, their focus will be to the appropriate social sites to reach your business objectives. No irrelevant work will be done)
- They will make sure that the social marketing sites they have set up for your company are all connected, this will help brand awareness.
- Provide reports showing Return On Influence and Return On Investment showing you the results of your social media efforts.
- Give you assurance that goals will be achieved since they’re aware of your primary objectives.
- Allow you to have more time to improve on the other aspects of your business since someone does your work
- Gives great source to divert loads of traffic to your website which will make it popular and your services will be recognized easily. This can be controlled through strategic planning which will be easier if you’ll work hand and hand with a specialist.
- It is cost and time effective . It is known to be one of the most low cost methods of promoting your business.
As Internet usage continues to grow in other parts of the world and social networks, there will be no reason why you should be hesitant in doing what’s best for your company. Any business owner will think what’s more efficient and what’s best for their company to be reached by their target clients. Moreover, every business needs a successful and effective social media marketing strategy.
A social marketing specialist may help you in understanding the subject and find available tools, organize a well thought-out plan, and their experience in driving traffic through the use of the content. If all of these are achieved, your business is bound to succeed.
Eleanor is a Social Media expert, Wordpress guru and is currently getting ready to attend the Traffic Geyser Summit in San Diego next month. After finishing her training in supporting clients with their Traffic Geyser video and social media tools, she is set to meet the Traffic Geyser team and fellow Traffic Geyser Virtual Assistants.
Virtual Event specialist certification
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Heike Miller has successfully completed the Virtual Event Specialist Certification Program, a 4-week training program that equips Virtual Assistants and Online Professionals with the key skills and tools necessary to offer their clients important Virtual Event Management services.
In these tough economic times, more and more companies and small businesses are choosing to hold Virtual Events rather than the more expensive offline events and conferences. In fact, “Virtual Meetings and Events [will] replace 2.1 million airline seats by 2012” (Gartner, Feb. 2009).
76% of businesses say they have already begun using or plan to start using Virtual Events in 2009, while 70% of Corporate Event Organizers predict a reduction in live events in 2010 and forecast significant growth in virtual conferences and webinars. Consequently, it is vital that Virtual Assistants and Online Professionals offer skills in Virtual Event Management to fulfill their clients’ needs.
That is why Heike Miller is excited to be adding Virtual Event Specialist Services to their business, including the setting up and delivering of Tele-events featuring one or many speakers, Webinars and Webcasts, Online Radio Shows, Live Weekly Podcasts and Live Streaming TV Shows.
In VAClassroom’s Virtual Event Specialist Certification Program, Heike learned strategies, best practices, tips and techniques for efficiently and effectively creating great events for her clients using the leading technologies like Instant Teleseminar, GoToWebinar, Camtasia, Ustream and more.
Heike is pleased to announce that several of her team members have also finished the course and received the certification.
In the Christmas spirit: Tell me why
By · CommentsThe Braveheart Women Community sent this video and I thought I don’t want you to miss this amazing kid: Declan Galbraith with Tell me why.
Ali’s newest blog post talks about our childhood hobbies, what we were good at as a kid and how that could actually help us today in our business life. I have to agree. I used to be the child that was sitting till late through the night writing stories and drawing pictures. I had a collection of about 200 horse postcards and used to sit down to plan out my equestrian center where people could learn to ride. I had maps and drawings of the whole equestrian complex with riding arena areas, wash bays, stables, guest accommodation units and paddocks. Every day I would add or change something about the big masterplan.
When I was about 10, I also sent a lot of inquiry letters to hotels and farms catering to horse riders to receive in return a brochure of their business. I would wait every day at the mail box to see if more brochures had arrived. It made my day when one arrived and I would sit there for hours analyzing the brochure, seeing what they offered that I didn’t (in my fictional equestrian center) and what ideas I could incorporate in my business planning process. I was totally absorbed in this.
I also wrote ‘books’ on horses and my mum used to hide them somewhere to safe keep, unfortunately often never finding them again as they were so well hidden. As my parents still live in the same house I guess that one day we may find them. 
Ali says:
“When you reflect on your childhood hobbies, you probably feel a bit of nostalgia for those carefree days spent putting on plays, kicking around a soccer ball, or creating fridge-worthy
artwork. But have you ever considered how those hobbies now impact your business success? Even if you’re no longer involved in those hobbies, the skills you learned on the softball field or the stage helped mold you into the professional you are today. And if you’re still figuring out what direction to take your business, your hobbies also offer insights into the types of activities that you’re truly passionate about. Read on to see what your hobby says about you.
1. Sports team.
Whether you were involved in swimming, soccer, softball, or some other sport, being part of a team taught you how to work with different personalities towards a common goal. You also learned how to challenge yourself and developed a healthy sense of competition, which translates nicely from the basketball court to the boardroom. Your ideal business model probably involves collaborating with others. If you’ve lost touch with this skill, go back in your mind to your old school days.
2. Arts and crafts.
If you were one of those artistic types who spent hours painting, sculpting, or drawing, then you probably still have a strong aesthetic sense. This can help you create an interesting and eye-catching visual identity for your business, whether through a website, display window, brochure, PowerPoint presentation, or other means. Because you had creative control over your art as a kid, you may be the type of businesswoman who prefers to work independently. And if you’re still figuring out where to take your business, consider creative fields like interior design, visual merchandising, or web design.
3. Debate team or drama club.
Debate teaches kids how to craft a compelling argument and deliver it with confidence, while drama lowers inhibitions and encourages teamwork and creativity. Women who were involved in debate team or drama club tend to be confident in front of a crowd, which can help them network and market themselves effectively. If that’s you, then consider adding speaking engagements or instructional videos to your business model, as these can generate revenue and create buzz.
4. Music group.
Practice makes perfect, and few people know this better than former choir, band, or orchestra members. Participating in a music group teaches teamwork and self-discipline. Several studies show that studying music increases cognitive function, particularly in math and spatial learning. Playing music has also been found to reduce stress and boost memory in adults, which offers plenty of incentive to pick it up again. It may be time to rediscover your love of music.
5. Collecting.
Most kids have some kind collection, whether it includes Barbie dolls, stickers, stamps, coins, or some other item. If you were a collector as a kid, then you probably developed a strong sense of organization, which benefits all types of businesses. If you’re still deciding on a business model, then you might consider something that allows you to buy or sell goods to help recapture the joy of collecting you felt as a kid.
Rediscovering the activities you enjoyed as a child can help you find joy in your adult life – and succeed in your business, too.”
Self-made multimillionaire entrepreneur and Inc. 500 CEO Ali Brown is devoted to creating financial freedom for women globally through the power of entrepreneurship. To learn how to create wealth and live an extraordinary life now, register for her free weekly articles at www.AliBrown.com Ali Brown’s blog
