Business Mastermind

November 5, 2009

• Marketing Ideas – 50 Simple Marketing Ideas You Can Use To Grow Your Business

  

  Grow Your Business Online And From Home

  Work-at-home entrepreneurs have many choices when it comes to marketing. Below you'll find 50 simple ideas that you can adapt to your own needs.

  Some ideas are geared toward online audiences while some target your neighborhood and involve getting to know local businesspeople.

  It's a good idea to choose a few methods from each category and make them work for your own business. Give each one a try to see which works best for you and your business.

  Online Marketing Ideas

  1. Start a Blog and write 2 – 3 times a week. Start simply at WordPress.com or Blogger.com.

  2. Post articles online that others can use with your byline and signature information – visit EzineArticles.com.

  3. Regularly comment on blogs that relate to your business – you can find some great examples at AllTop.com (which list the top blogs in the world and divides them into categories for easy searching). (In fact, look for my RaisingGreatFamilies.com blog there! We're proud to have it listed.)

  4. Visit Meetup.com and instigate a gathering relevant to your line of work OR join an existing group.

  5. Check out Podcamp.org or Barcamp.org to see if they work well for your business.

  6. Create your own Facebook profile.

  7. Join groups on Facebook that relate to your business and post regularly.

  8. Create your own Facebook PAGE and use it like a mini website to promote your business.

  9. Become a source on HelpAReporterOut.com.

  10. Suggest a story about work-at-home entrepreneurs to a blogger or offer a post for other people’s website by joining BloggerLinkUp.com.

  11. Write an ebook and offer it for free on your own website or Facebook Page.

  12. Send a press release about your business to PRWeb.com or PRLeap.com.

  13. Reply to questions on Wiki.Answers.com and similar sites.

  14. Open a Twitter account and send 2-3 tweets a day about what you are doing in your business.

  15. Distribute monthly eNewsletters to your clients (having captured their names on your website or Facebook Page).

  16. Put your business in both online and print directories.

  17. Use Google to search for forums that are in your niche (use your keyword followed by the work “forum” to find these) and become involved with the chatter on the forum (NEVER “sell” on these – participate and leave your name with your contact information below it).

  18. Write pieces for other companies' eNewsletters.

  19. Keep in touch with classmates through Facebook.

  20. Search Twitter for people who tweet about your type business and begin to tweet back and forth with them (find them using keywords at Search.Twitter.com).

  21. Optimize your blog by using keywords in the titles of your posts.

  22. Videotape short weekly talks and publish them online.

  23. See if Affiliate Marketing is right for you – search Clickbank.com.

  24. Trade blog ads with other work-at-home entrepreneurs.

  Neighborhood Marketing Ideas

  Read more on Marketing Ideas – 50 Simple Marketing Ideas You Can Use To Grow Your Business…

October 29, 2009

• Work At Home: 10 Tips To Create Your Business and Save Your Sanity!

  

  How To Set Up Your Business From Home

  So you're thinking of leaving the security and comfort of your day job and voyaging into the world of the self-employed OR you recently started working at home and aren’t sure what steps to take first.

  Congratulations! Nothing beats the feeling of accomplishment you get from growing your own business from scratch, from taking on the world with nothing but wits and a lot of hard work. I've been working at home since 1983 and haven't regretted it for a moment.

  Here are ten tips I've learned along the way to help make your journey a little easier.

  Tip Number One: Set a schedule.

  Time management can be problematic when you're self-employed.

  It's easy to get sidetracked when you're working from home and before you know it, the morning is gone. You probably had to be at your old job at a certain time so do the same thing with your business. Resolve to be at the computer, on the jobsite, or with a client by 7:30 AM (or earlier) and stick to it.

  For me, no matter what time I go to sleep the night before, I’m “at it” by 7:30 the next day. Some days I’m walking with my voice recorder creating WalkAbout Marketing podcasts and some days I’m at my desk. But it’s important to get started as soon as you can.

  And turn off your email: don’t let it beep every time you get a new message. I literally average 837 emails every day. Most should never see the light of day, though some are important. But nothing is so important that I have to be interrupted twelve times an hour to reply to it. In fact, I only download emails to my computer ever half hour and only look at them a few times each day (when I can reply to several emails in one short stretch of time, and then back to finishing my goals for the day).

  Tip Number Two: Tailor your workspace to your personality.

  How do you work best? Do you like to work with music in the background or do you like it perfectly quiet? Do you like pictures of family to remind you of your goals (and the reasons you work so hard), or do you prefer motivational posters and superhero action figures to spur you on to greatness? Find out how you work best and set up your space around your preferences.

  And speaking of space, I use a spare bedroom for my home office. When we bought this house in 1998, I picked out this space for my office. I can see the driveway when FedEx and UPS show up and it’s at the other end of the hallway from our bedroom. OK, so a 20-foot walk to work isn’t bad, I admit it!

  However, when the door is closed, the office is closed and I don't think about work (well, usually – I admit that I work at the kitchen table when Pam and I “watch” TV together. I can always look up for the replay or when a news report catches my ear).

  If you aren't able to have a separate space for an office, a room divider or curtains could do the trick. Just find some way to separate your space from the rest of the house and family and to hide your workspace from view so you don't have to look at it all the time (and be reminded of all the work you should be doing).

  And let your phone go to messages rather than letting every caller interrupt your work when they have the whim to call you. Batch the messages together, find time twice a day to return calls and make all of them then. AND, better yet, if someone wants to chat with you by phone, SET AN APPOINTMENT – I don’t take phone calls that aren’t prearranged – believe me, your clients will get used to it when you help them see the importance.

  Tip Number Three: Market yourself.

  Now I don't mean paying for advertising, creating glossy brochures, or doing weekly direct-mail piece.

  This website is FILLED with ideas for you so read my blog!

  Also, do you have a Facebook account? Keep it up to date and post often. (You can friend me at http://facebook.com/CharlesSeymourJr – be sure to send a note when you friend me: you should ALWAYS send a note, and this way I’ll know why you are asking to friend me.)

  Start a blog and use it like a diary. Think of all the things you are doing that clients and customers might be interested in. I post lots of videos to my blog (and to my Facebook profile, which acts like a mini blog for me).

  Keep friends and family informed of what you're doing. Word of mouth can be the best advertising and it's free (but you have to give them something to talk about!).

  Tip Number Four: Show that professionalism counts.
  Read more on Work At Home: 10 Tips To Create Your Business and Save Your Sanity!…

October 5, 2009

• Marketing Lessons From Podcamp Philly 3 (#PCPhilly3)

  

  Share Ideas With Like-Minded People And You Always Get More Than You Started With

  I have to hand it to Whitney Hoffman and her group of organizers – they know how to put on a really good "show" when it comes to Social Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Link Strategies, Podcasting (audio and video), and much more.

  Podcamps started in Boston 4 years ago and they bill themselves as UnConferences dedicated to podcasting, blogging, vlogging, and new media. And they had seminars for the newbie all the way to the most experienced. (I'm one of those experienced ones, but learned a ton from each "class" no matter what level it was aimed for.)

  First they find a location (Temple University's Tuttleman Learning Center), then get some of the best speakers around (people volunteer to speak and everything said is shared with everyone), and then they have to make sure we spend some time getting to know each other so that the "social" aspect of what we do will lead to our doing more of it even after the "big day" is over.

  I hadn't spent much time on the Temple University campus in North Philadelphia before, but I sure was impressed with the Tuttleman Learning Center and all the electronic gadgets and computers it has.

  Where Else Can You Get So Much For Free?

  The Podcamp was free… well, we paid a small fee to guarantee we'd show up and then the organizers turned around and donated the entrance fee to Covenant House which serves mostly 17 – 21 year old homeless youth: and the success stories we were told were very impressive.

  How could all this be free? Because Sponsors stepped up to help.

  I had a good chat in the hallway with AWeber Founder and CEO Tom Kulzer and Director of Education Marketing Justin Premick. I was telling them about some of the difficulties I had had with some of their competition and how impressed I was when I installed AWeber for one of my clients. These folks are from the Philadelphia area and they support Social Marketing events throughout the area and deserve our support back (even if they weren't the number one email marketing service in the world).

  Tom had already spoken to our local GKIC-Philly chapter and I have to tell you he's as nice as he is sharp. What a special treat it is to talk with industry leaders just like they're normal, regular folks (which, of course, they are!).

  You can learn more about Tom, Justin, and their services by clicking on the small notice below. I am now a proud supporter and affiliate of theirs (and you might just see me in my T-Shirt that says "I Love AWeber" on it).

  

  Try AWeber Email Marketing Risk-Free

  Other sponsors included:
  Read more on Marketing Lessons From Podcamp Philly 3 (#PCPhilly3)…

August 13, 2009

• Marketing Guru Bill Glazer Coming To Philly September 9, 2009

  

  Dan Kennedy's partner in Glazer-Kennedy Insiders Circle To Speak To Entrepreneurs

  Delay and you will miss out on one of the most important nights you will ever experience (if you are an entrepreneur or have your own business).

  Read more on Marketing Guru Bill Glazer Coming To Philly September 9, 2009…

June 29, 2009

• Business Marketing: 5-Step Formula to Add 6 Figures to Your Business THIS YEAR & Re-Ignite Your Passion While You Do It

  

  Create A Side Business To Produce 6-Figures Annually

  I’m a marketer and have been marketing ever since I left Wharton Graduate (of the University of Pennsylvania) in 1975 with my MBA in marketing, management, arts administration.

  Hundreds of millions of dollars in personal sales. A billion or more dollars through my marketing skills. And a life-style that allows me to select the type work I want to concentrate on.

  And since earning my formal degrees, I’ve been a student every day – learning from the best people I can find.

  Two of them are Dave Dee and Alexis Martin Neely. Learn About Dave & Alexis Newest Information – Click Here!

  I am mentioned in more of Dave’s products than any of single individual. I was just listening to another of his very helpful products about email marketing and he mentioned me quite prominently and read some of my materials. He has done that on other occasions too.

  Why is that?

  Dave and I share a love of learning: learning from success, and then sharing those successes with others.

  And I pay him when I learn from him. And he pays me when I help get people to learn from him. We know that what we pay for, we appreciate even more, and we work hard to use the information we learn.

  Like me, Dave & Alexis help business owners, like you, who've already figured out how to bring revenue into your core business; leverage your business SYSTEMS, processes, and intellectual property; and then take what you’ve learned to help other people.

  And if you learn how to do it and work at it, you can turn your “sideline” business into a 6 figure (or more) profit center within your business (by packaging the way you do things in your own business and licensing your way of doing things to non-competitors in your industry).

  In this season of Independence Day, this could be the start of REAL independence in your life.

  Here’s what I’ve learned through Dave & Alexis:
  Read more on Business Marketing: 5-Step Formula to Add 6 Figures to Your Business THIS YEAR & Re-Ignite Your Passion While You Do It…

April 24, 2009

• Marketing Power of Bit.ly – Use Bit.ly To Shorten And Track Your Links

  

  Sharing With My Mastermind Group, I Want To Be Sure To Share With You Too

  Thought I'd follow up about Bit.ly since I'm using it extensively and it has taken me a while to figure it out.

  1. Did you see that TweetLater is now using Bit.ly? Nice endorsement for this sweet F*R*E*E product that shortens your links AND lets you track the results!

  2. I was confused about HOW I could FIND the metrics once I shortened a link and used it in Tweets, blog posts, etc. Then I discovered the SEARCH capabilities – if you put your Bit.ly link in the Search box and press Enter, you get the graphs of how well you've done. HOWEVER, that is only what has been done on TWITTER. Still good info, but not all the info I want.

  3. THEN… probing further, I found out how to find ALL the results. Just add a "+" after the link and you get all the info. Really sweet.

  For instance, if you click http://bit.ly/me7q, you go to my Lead Generation Video on Lead Generation. (It's a Lead Gen free giveaway magnet designed to show people some of my knowledge and trade this 68 minutes of jammed-packed info for their name and email address.)

  HOWEVER if you click http://bit.ly/me7q+ (notice the "+" at the end), you go to the page of all the metrics. And they can be VERY helpful.

  I used to use Ad Trackers in 1ShoppingCart all the time so that I could see how well my campaigns were doing. HOWEVER, when 1SC would screw up, not work properly, fight with Comcast (my ISP) and blacklist a whole section of the US (which I used to discover even when even they didn't know it had happened), I couldn't find any metrics AND my site would shut down because my links wouldn't work. I'm hoping that Bit.ly (without the possibility of email blacklisting since it doesn't send emails for people) will be much more reliable.

  Now… how do you know what your Bit.ly link is when you have HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS (as I now do)?
  Read more on Marketing Power of Bit.ly – Use Bit.ly To Shorten And Track Your Links…

March 25, 2009

• Facing The Bad Economy – Opportunities Abound!

  

  Opportunities Abound For Work At Home Dads, Even In THIS Economy!

  How often do we have to hear it from or read it in the news? The economy is the worst since our parents (and for some of us it's our parents' parents) were young. It's really awful.

  All indicators are down. My personal retirement fund has shrunk by about 50%. Unemployment is rising (about 6.5% in my county), and if it hasn't touched your family, you KNOW a family it has struck.

  What do they say: it's a Recession when your neighbor loses his job: it's a DEPRESSION with YOU lose your job! It sure feels that way! (Seems to me the only time you feel worse is when everyone tells you that the economy is GREAT but you just lost your job – that happened to me once and that feeling is burned into my brain and heart, still searing my insides.)

  And the effect ripples through our town, county, state, country, and world. You can't escape that we're part of a SYSTEM, not a series of individuals. Someone losing a job in Maine doesn't buy as many groceries so the farmer in Texas doesn't plant as man crops and the family in California has to pay more. And on and on and on.

  And Bernie Madoff can only account for about $67 Billion of this, so there are many other factors at work.

  And when I was a kid, I remember my Dad talking about the economy (he later ran a major real estate firm and was on the Board of the Philadelphia Fed… so he had learned a thing or two).

  And if there was one major lesson I learned from him it's that OPPORTUNITY is just as great in any part of the cycle (for indeed, economies are cyclical).

  So… that means that there are opportunities abounding right now.

  And if you follow Internet Marketing (especially Information Product Marketing), perhaps you just witnessed Frank Kern (one of the really good guys) sell more than $4,000,000 worth of CDs and booklets, teaching people how to succeed in today's economy. And this was in about 26 hours.

  But For Many, Where Did The Dream Go?

  But for people watching their 401(k)s being drained or their IRAs tumble, it certainly must feel like the sky has fallen. And if you're sitting at home instead of going into that job in an office, store, warehouse, or factory, the pain can be intense.

  Or Perhaps You've Been Saying, Take Me From The Rat Race

  Read more on Facing The Bad Economy – Opportunities Abound!…