Viral Marketing: Can You Help Find Bride 2.0?

My friend & mastermind colleague Ciara Daykin has launched an amazing campaign to find “Bride 2.0″ — this is a great example of viral marketing at its best.  Be sure to follow this campaign so you can learn about how to launch your own program to change the world (and up level yourself in the process).

Here’s the annoucement, their amazing video, and how you can get involved in the movement!  

The search for Bride 2.0 has begun. Can Web 2.0 and social networking stimulate a struggling economy, make 3 brides social media super stars and prove that by simply asking for help the internet and wedding related communities will step up and lend a helping hand? Check out this cool video to learn more about this concept:

 

This concept is the brainchild of wedding planner Ciara Daykin. Visit her website at http://www.planetplanswedding.com to sign up for her free report “10 Individuals Who Changed The World With One Idea” (and it’s not the regular crowd you might think of at first).

Don’t forget to join the facebook page Planet Plans Wedding to get involved in this social experiment.

 

How Much Money Are You Leaving on the Table?

Guest post by Sandra P. Martini, The Automatic Business Coach

The majority of small business owners work their tail off. They spend thousands of dollars attending workshops and seminars convinced that the latest one will solve their problems or they’ll meet *the* client they’ve dreamed of; they spend hours upon hours working in their business wondering why the phone’s not ringing and they’ve produced information products and now wonder why they’re not “waking up to find they’ve made money”.

Do any, or all, of the above describe you?

If so, you are working hard, but not smart. You don’t have a consistent system in place to determine which of your activities are worthwhile and productive as opposed simply keeping you busy and wasting your money.

The following is just a few of the business statistics you MUST track in order to succeed:

1. Your sales — both number and amount.

How much money did you bring in this month, this week, today and what did they purchase?

How many items IN TOTAL were purchased?

For example, I offer coaching services and also sell information products for home study. It’s important to know what percentage of sales comes from the different products or services you offer.

2. Your UNIQUE website visitors.

How many unique visitors came to your website this week or month?

Note that this is not the number of “hits” which is a much greater figure. You want to know specifically how many UNIQUE people came and visited your site and any website tracker can tell you this.

3. Your new ezine/email newsletter subscribers.

How many people signed up for your ezine or email newsletter this week?

4. Your conversion rates.

Here’s where we bring a little math into the picture:

* Sales Conversion Rate: Divide your total sales number by the number of unique website visitors. 

For example: if you had 100 unique people visit your website and you sold 70 items, your sales conversion rate is 70% (70 sales/100 unique visitors).

* Ezine Conversion Rate: Divide your total new ezine subscribers by the number of unique website visitors. 

This will tell you how effective your website or opt-in box is with respect to getting new subscribers.

* Value Per Visitor: Divide the total money you made in a given week (or month) by the number of unique website visitors for that same period.

You now know how much each unique visitor is worth you.

5. Your expenses.

Not only do you need to track how much money is coming in, but how much is going out.

What percentage of your gross income goes out in fixed overhead expenses each month? Is there anything you can do to reduce this number without sacrificing service?

The above are just a few of the key metrics you must know in order to gauge what is/is not working in your business. Without tracking, you can’t improve your methods AND your income!

I’ve combined all of the above (and a few more) into a “Strategic Marketing Report” which my team prepares and sends to me each Monday morning - I never have to think about it and getting it on a consistent schedule allows me to make the best decisions for my business on an ongoing basis.

My Request to You

I ask that you know, at a minimum, your website statistics and, if you don’t currently know how to get this information, to contact your webmaster as most hosting sites include this as part of the package.

Once you know HOW to get these numbers, it’s time to put a system in place (whether you or a virtual assistant) to track these numbers on a regular basis so you can continuously improve everything you’re doing.

And if you’re feeling too overwhelmed to begin? You’ll want to learn more about “Strategic Marketing - Sandy Style” and having a customized strategic marketing action plan complete with systems for you to implement “done 4 you”.

©2008 Sandra P. Martini, The Automatic Business Coach & Mentor. Get Sandra Martini’s FREE “5 Simple Steps to Putting Your Marketing on Autopilot” e-course/audio mini-workshop and her FREE small business success how-to tips at www.SandraMartini.com

Photo courtesy of emdot on flickr.  

 

Ep. 9: Don’t Chicken Out! (What’s holding you back from success?)

The Wealth Spa Video Show Episode 9: “Don’t Chicken Out!”

Are you doing everything right, implementing all over the place, but success is just not “clicking” for you?  Do you have a huge vision and wonder if it’s even possible to achieve (or if you are setting yourself up for disappointment)?  Learn the one thing that may be holding you back from wealth & success.

 

This episode comes from my comments on stage at Ali Brown’s Online Success Blueprint Workshop in November 2008.

First Step in Making Money: Send the Paperwork to Your Worker Bees

What’s the #1 concern of small business owners?  

How to manage up’s and down’s in business income each month.  

What’s the #1 concern of individuals? 

How to save more money & have more money available to spend on improving their lifestyle.

Either way, it’s all about managing cash flow.  

Whether you put it under the category of budgeting, cash flow management, pro forma’s, financial planning, or balancing your checkbook, it all comes down to creating a system to achieve your goals by managing and strategizing the cash coming in and going out each month.  On The Wealth Spa I’ve talked about the 4 Step System to Manage Cash Flow.  You can use this system for your household finances, your home business, or a multi-million dollar corporation — the same universal principals apply.  

The first step in managing your cash flow is to get the details out of your way.  One of the details is all the paperwork and records we are required to maintain for tax purposes.  I’m talking about all the documentation to support tax income and tax deductions.  On the personal side, it’s salary information, investment records (both purchases and sales), and deduction records (i.e., property tax, mortgage interest, charitable deductions).  On the business side, it’s income records (invoices and deposit slips) and expense receipts and cancelled checks.  

Whether or not you use this original data to prepare your tax returns (we’ll discuss that next week), you do need to keep all of it in case you get audited.  But you must not get bogged down in these details, because it dose not help you manage you cash flow. 

How to Keep Records:  Personal records may be kept in files by year, along with the tax return for that year.  Business records may be kept in 4 monthly expanding files — one for income, one for deposit slips, one for cancelled checks, and one for receipts.  You may combine travel, automobile expenses, entertainment, and dining records with the receipts (just write notes directly on the back of the receipt), or keep logs in a separate file or journal - whatever is easier for you.

You can keep these documents as electronic files.  But, I find that scanning the documents takes more time then throwing them into files.  And who cares about having a pdf of a Starbucks’ receipt from 1998 on your computer?  

How to Maintain Records:  If at all possible, delegate to your Worker Bees!  Have your Virtual Assistant, Personal Assistant, Professional Organizer, spouse, responsible teenager, stay-at-home-mom neighbor, or babysitter take over this job.  (And yes, not only rich people have VA’s and PA’s - you can get someone for just 2 hours a week.)  All they need to do is sort the paper by year or month, label the files, and stick the documents into the files.  There is no reason for you to do it, except to manage that it gets done regularly (at least monthly).  

The Wealth Spa Minute

Do you have a pile of receipts?  Cancelled checks?  Notes and logs?  Stop dealing with this paper and get it off your desk into a simple expandable file.  Even better - delegate this task to your Virtual Assistant or Personal Assistant.  

 

Ep #66 Finding Your Why

Elizabeth speaks to The Barefoot Executive, Carrie Wilkerson about Finding Your Why.

Elizabeth and Carrie talk about how they made their transitions into working from home, how working from home brings to you so many changes and how there really is no balance…it’s life happening! 

Elizabeth then answers a listener question about avoiding networking overwhelm from your attendance at conferences or seminars and how to get the most out of the information, ideas and acquaintances you’ve made. Elizabeth then shares her Entrepreneur’s Success Tip of the Week: Listening to Your Intuition within Your Business. 

To learn about Carrie and to receive her free downloadable presentation on Finding Your Why visit The Barefoot Executive. 

 

Click Here to Download the Show!

 

 

Shameless Self-Promotion Post for November

Here’s my theory — this Online Magazine is not the place to constantly ping you with everything going on in my life and business. But, since I’m giving you tons of great free content here (and some of you do care about my stuff), each month I’m going to post one big self-promotion feast of a post. So here’s your November self-promotion fix.

Just Launched

The Money Tree System: How to Attract More Money in Just 15 Minutes per Week

The Money Tree System is a step-by-step method to get over your fears about your small business finances, manage the income and expenses of your business, and effortlessly attract more money to you — in just 15 minutes per week. In this program you will learn how to:

• Let go of your story that your are “not a numbers person” or “not good with money.”
• Let go of fear and anxiety that keeps you from getting started on managing your financials.
• Get in the right frame of mind to conduct your weekly Money Meetings, so you don’t freeze up before you start.
• Balance the Law of Attraction and Universal Principles with practical, action-based money management and business planning.
• Know what you should be doing when you sit down to review your finances, so you’re not there just staring at the screen.
• Troubleshoot your income so you know when you will have income “busts” BEFORE they start, and how to do something about any problems that may arise.
• Find “hidden treasures” in your business — income that’s just waiting for you to simply cash it in.

**Special sale price until Friday November 14th at Midnight**

Watch the video (and see me after losing 15 lbs) and get more info at http://TheWealthSpa.com/MoneyTree

What’s Upcoming

The Wealth Spa Radio Show is moving to BlogTalkRadio, with our first new show on Thursday, November 20th (my birthday!) at 11:00 AM Pacific. For those of you who listen to the podcast, nothing will change. I’d love for you to call in on the first show (even if it’s just to wish me happy birthday!).

The Wealth Spa Affiliate Program will re-launch in late November, to promote affiliates for The Money Tree System as well as the upcoming campaign for Grow Up! Strategies. FYI - we pay 30% commission and 5% downline, plus higher commissions for joint ventures and strategic partners. More information coming soon.

Grow Up! Strategies book campaign will go live in December (target date Tuesday December 6th). Yes, a weird time to launch a book but perhaps, in a contrarian way of thinking, no one else will be launching a big campaign that week so it will be the perfect time. In late November I’ll be approaching interested partners in joining for this amazon.com-type campaign.

The Wealth Spa Video Show will be re-launching in November, mostly because I finally bought real professional lighting and backgrounds. We will now be posting new shows on a regular schedule — I may even create a production calendar, imagine that!

How-To Clear the Decks to Prepare for Success

Guest post by Liz Pabon, The Branding Maven 

Let’s face it running a small business has its challenges.

Don’t get me wrong, I would NEVER dream of trading my small business experience for a corporate position. Having now spent ample time as an employee and as an entrepreneur, I’ve definitely found my niche.

However, without some solid business strategies in place, the business of entrepreneurship can overwhelm, disappoint and frustrate.

During a recent coaching session with a small group of entrepreneurs, one consistent obstacle presented itself … lack of time.

The time issue, after the layers are peeled back, is nothing more than an organization and prioritization issue.

Feel like you don’t have time to market your brand? No time to follow-up with clients, customers or prospective new business? No time to workout, spend time with your loved ones, etc? If you answered yes, what you are faced with is a disorganized calendar.

There are 24 hours in a day and it doesn’t matter what line of work you’re in, what market you serve, what challenges you are facing in your business, you get the same 24 hours as the very successful. The only difference between them and you is how you use that time.

You see, before you can market your brand, get going with that exercise program, or plan that vacation, you must first identify how you’re spending your time so you can create the time for what you want to accomplish.

And, here’s how…

1. Before you add one more thing to your schedule, slow down, and take a look at how you are spending your time today. You’ll have greater success re-prioritizing your time when you can identify how you are spending it.

What often happens when you don’t know how your time is being spent, you try to squeeze in marketing your brand, following up with clients, and finding new clients and customers. Wouldn’t you agree that these are vital to the success of a business? Of course they are.

2. The most effective time management strategy is called scheduling. Make no doubt about it, moving from time clutter to scheduling takes patience and discipline but is a necessity if you want significant growth.

Once you’ve identified how you spend your time, you’ll want to clear the decks of all non-productive activity like:

• Gabbing with friends 
• Surfing the web 
• Checking and reading email 
• Answering your phone 
• Emptying the dishwasher 
• Organizing your desk 
• Checking web stats 
• Cleaning your office 
• Fudging with flyers 
• Doing the laundry 
• Data entry 

3. As a soon-to-be scheduler, you’ll be scheduling your activity on a calendar each week by blocking segments of time for specific tasks.

For example, emails are addressed M-F from 4-5:00pm only. Phone calls are returned within 24 business hours. Marketing is scheduled for Thursdays from 1-3:00pm. All follow-ups are made (phone, email or regular mail) on Friday’s.

Begin by identifying the day of the week you’ll devote to this task, then the amount of time you’ll dedicate for each task. The amount of time you assign to each task is not as important - at least not initially - as carving out time for the task itself.

By clearing the decks of those things that are blocking you from achieving all that you can, you’ll find that lack of time is not the enemy. You’ll also discover that your capacity to achieve more, be more and have more is just a schedule away.

ACTION STEP: Purchase a large desk or wall calendar. On it, begin to block out days and times that you will realistically devote to the most important tasks/activity in your business; marketing, sales, networking, follow-ups, etc. I encourage you to use the same method for work out time, family time, and self-care time. You may find that you’ll need to modify this schedule several times until you get just the right rhythm for you and your business.

©2007-2008 Liz Pabon. All rights reserved.

About the Author:  Brand Strategist and Wild Success Coach Liz Pabon, “The Branding Maven,” publishes the playful, insightful and motivating, “Keys 2 Wild Success!” Ezine. If you’re ready to create the business and life of your dreams, and have LOTS more fun getting there, get your FREE tips now at www.thebrandingmaven.com

 

Ep #65 Turn Your Ideas Into a Money Making Brand

Elizabeth invites Kim Castle, Co-Creator of BrandU and Co-Author of Why BrandU; Big Business Success No Matter Your Size, who speaks about turning your business ideas into a marketable, money making brand. 

Kim shares what branding means to a small business owner, how branding applies to solo entrepreneurs and when to begin the process as well as where to draw the line between your personal and business brands. 

Elizabeth answers a listener question about the different business entities you could choose for your business, then shares her Entrepreneur’s Success Tip of the Week: Should you Participate in the Recession?

For more information about Kim and to receive her free reports including 15 Mistakes That Kill Business Success visit BrandU.

Click Here to Download the Show!

The Delegation Dilemma: Do I Have to Learn it Before I Outsource it?

 

Guest post by Melanie Benson Strick, The Million Dollar Lifestyle Business Coach

With so many tasks and so little time, we all get the value of delegating to other people to get more done. The ability to leverage other people’s strengths can not only bring more joy and excitement back into your life (cause you aren’t doing tasks you hate) but the revenue potential is unlimited.

So why then is James spending so much time and energy learning how to do the shopping cart so he can outsource it to someone else? Why is Amy investing $2000 on a “learning to blog system” when there are other’s who can do it better, faster and cheaper than her?

Maybe it’s the compelling feeling that many of us have to learn. The quest for knowledge that somehow validates a deep need to know it all. And I think for some, it provides a sense of security or control to know how everything is supposed to work. But is it really serving you to spend your valuable time, money and energy learning all the ins & outs of your business?

I remember the feeling I had when I graduated from San Diego State with my Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management. After getting past the culture shock of not having piles of assignments and the constant pressure of assignments due, I felt like there was a big gaping hole in my life. I missed learning.

So what did I do? I of course took on more learning…taking every class that Motorola offered on leadership, team building, project management, and soon found my way to my Master’s program in Organizational Management. Not too long after graduating again…there was that old “void” again. I needed my learning fix…and I started taking spiritual classes at my church (which 8 years later resulted in my spiritual counselor license) and at the same time I decided to get trained as a coach. Then it was on to marketing, online traffic generation, blogs, social networking…you get the point I think.

As I got serious about my business I had to reflect on how much time and energy I was spending learning new things. What was my time worth and did it really make sense to keep investing in all this learning? What was it getting me? I began to ask myself the tough question with every learning opportunity “Is this going to make me more money?”.

The truth is I was just feeding a little gremlin inside of me. For me, learning gave me a sense of control and power. If I knew what to do and when to do it, then maybe I’d be good enough to have my dream lifestyle and business. What I realized is that learning kept me from doing what would actually make me successful. It was like a big cozy comfortable blanket that kept me safe…and kept my worst fear in front of me…a real lack of financial results.

At some point I had one of the “I should have had a V-8 moments”. It hit me that no matter how much I learned it was not helping me get there any faster. It was much more cost effective to hire someone who knew how to do it so it would get done faster and hence, make a lot more money. If I had to learn it first, then I became the bottleneck!

The key to mastering delegation is adopting this CEO Mindset:

“Know enough to set the vision, goals and desired results. Delegate the tactics to people who can do it faster, cheaper or better than you.”

Here is an example. I have absolutely no idea how to update my website. I know what I want it to look like, what should happen when a visitor is on the site and even what experience I want them to have. But I made it a point to not learn how to update it.

Same thing with most of our marketing efforts. I know what I want done and I hire talented people who already know how to do it. I have a vague idea of what steps my team goes through each month to publish this ezine but I have no idea how to publish one myself. Set up a bridge line? Nope. I’m talented enough that I could probably figure it out (and I know my team has the system published in our online procedures guide) but why bother?

My job as CEO is to stay focused on my top 5 – 10 high payoff activities like writing, mentoring entrepreneurs on how to create their ideal business, designing powerful programs that serve my clients, and planning out where I want to be in 90 days to 5 years from now!

My challenge to you is to look at where you are holding yourself back by being the bottleneck. Where is your need to learn and be in control getting in the way of what you delegate? What are your false beliefs about what can be delegated well costing you playing the bigger game?

If you haven’t yet downloaded our free report on the 101 Ways to Triple Your Income by Outsourcing Your High Payoff Activities, I highly encourage you to do it now. This process will help you get clear on your highest payoff activities and bust this delegation dilemma for good!

About the Author:

Most entrepreneurs are continually battling overwhelm with too many things to do, opportunities to capture and money to make! Melanie Benson Strick, Million Dollar Lifestyle Business Coach & Virtual Team Building Expert, teaches entrepreneurs how to stop feeling overwhelmed so they can create more money, more freedom and more prestige.

Get the Entrepreneur’s Secret Weapon to revolutionize your results and get on the fast-track to a freedom based business. Take this free chapter from my book, The Power of The Virtual Team, as a gift from me at http://www.thepowerofthevirtualteam.com

Copyright 2007 Melanie Benson Strick and Success Connections Inc.

 

Do You Need Life Insurance?

Maybe not.  But if you do need life insurance, you probably need more.

I don’t use a rule of thumb, like you need x dollars times your income, or a rule of situation, like if you have a spouse or kids you need life insurance, but if you are single, you don’t.  

Here’s my rule:  If you died yesterday, would all your goals be paid for with the money you left behind?  Or would your goals be moot?

Here’s how it works.  

If you died yesterday and you are single with no dependents, many of your goals — retirement, buying a house — are moot.  But, you may have some goals that need funding, like college savings for your niece, donations to your favorite charity, or an orderly transition for your small business.  If those goals are paid for with the money left over in your estate (after your debts and final expenses are paid), then you don’t need life insurance.

If you have a spouse/partner and/or kids, then you have some goals that outlive you.  You probably want your family to continue their current lifestyle, the kids to go to college, and your spouse/partner to be able to retire.  So the question is, would they be able to do those things with the money you leave behind?  If not, then you need life insurance to make up for the difference.

If you are the stay-at-home spouse, you may think you don’t need life insurance because you don’t have income to replace.  Wrong!  You are providing help and services for your family that would need to be done, and your spouse may need to hire a nanny, a personal assistant, and/or a housekeeper to help keep things moving.  Also, the spouse-left-behind may need to take time off work to grieve and spend time with kids — and without a huge Emergency Fund, you may need life insurance to pay for these additional expenses.   

But there is one time in life where you may no longer need life insurance — the day you are living off your passive investments.  If your living expenses are paid for by income from your life savings, retirement accounts, and passive rental income, then you may not need life insurance … since if you died yesterday, the income would still be there for your spouse & dependents.

The Wealth Spa Minute:  Review your goals.  Would they still exist if you were gone?  Would they be paid for if you were gone?  Review your current life insurance policies to see if you need less insurance, or more. 

Photo courtesy of SuziJane on Flickr.  

 

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