Information Filled Under ‘Business’ Category
A colleague sent me this email last year, and I wanted to share it with you, because it affects all small business owners: “I’ve purchased some of your material and taken a course on masterminding and still haven’t moved forward with creating a mastermind group. I’ve recognized that part of my problem is moving past my desire for perfectionism and subsequent embarrasement for not “being more busy and effective.” In other words I don’t know how to build a team of people (such as yourself) that can help me till I get into a rhythm. I am often afraid to ask for help because as a Life Coach who has been building a business for over 2 years, I should have done this by now
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Releasing Judgement and Asking For Help
In my previous post , I talked about pitfalls that await someone who leaves a crummy job for an ill-fated business venture. For me, the crummy job was in the publications and publicity office of a fundraising organization. This organization lavished all sorts of loving kindness on its donors, but couldn’t extend the same courtesy to its staff.
About 20 years ago, I set out to make a Vision Board for myself about my perfect business and my perfect life. At the time I was working a corporate 9-5 job, plus running a photography studio in the evenings, and photographing weddings every weekend. My corporate job was safe but a little boring, and working most evenings and weekends left me no time for dating.
Congratulations to Helga Matzko! Last year we designed a new website for her, and last month Helga asked us to create a matching blog, which she launched yesterday: http://www.gestaltri.com/blog/ Helga has a great take on the blend of Gestalt psychotherapy and life coaching…it’s worth reading the past issues of her newsletter and blog! Helga understood that in order to create a lasting brand for The Gestalt Institute of Rhode Island , she needed her website, logo, and blog to deliver the same visual message. Check out her home page and the natural “spiral” theme from the photographs. Next, look closely at her new logo that was created from the website spiral photos we used
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A Matching Blog for Helga
In this issue of Ask FreelanceSwitch, Travis King and Thursday Bram look at what to do when a client goes AWOL and when they drag their feet during a project. Ask FreelanceSwitch is a new regular column here that allows us to help beginners get a grip on freelancing. If you have a question about freelancing that you want answered, send an email to askfreelanceswitch@gmail.com
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Ask FreelanceSwitch #3
Getting a Top 10 listing on Google take a bit of doing…getting a Top 3 listing is a real accomplishment! So we offer huge congratulations to Kate Nasser, who implemented our SEO suggestions on her website after we did an SEO Review of her site, and now lists as #3 on Google for the keyword phrase Professional Soft Skills , and #9 on Google for Professional Soft Skills Training ! Aly reviewed Kate’s sight and found lots of SEO ideas that could boost Kate’s search engine rankings. After producing a written report for her, we got on the phone with Kate and her web designer and brainstormed an implementation plan, which they undertook immediately. (I just love Kate’s “can do” attitude…she jumped in and made the changes even though the holidays were upon us!) That phone call was on December 21, and by January 10 Kate had emailed us with the good news – she was on Page 1 of the search results for her chosen keywords! If you ever doubt that you can achieve high search engine rankings, or think it’s going to take six months for your site to crawl to the top of the listings, Kate’s success shows you that you can do it, too
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Kate Nasser’s SEO Success Story – Getting Seen on Search Engines
Quick Reminder : the teleclass series, “Designing Effective Workshops and Teleclasses” begins tomorrow (January 19). If you want to create classes that students will LOVE, and earn increased revenue for your business at the same time, then this class is for you. For more info: www.DesigningEffectiveWorkshops.com I hope to see you in class! Related posts: Designing Effective Workshops – begins January 16 Designing Effective Workshops – begins Tuesday! Designing Effective Workshops and Teleclasses
Whether you are fresh out of design school or a professional with twenty years of experience you have collaborated. And if you are anything like me, half of those endeavors failed miserably. The good ones produce the best work of your career, and the bad ones…oh, the bad ones
Heard a great quote from CopyBlogger for all of us who speak and teach and write: “We’re valuable precisely because we can cut through the noise and give them only what’s useful and relevant to them.” Sometimes I think, “Everyone knows what I know!” There is so much free information on the internet, it can get disheartening when you’re trying to create a profitable business. Then I remember: it’s BECAUSE there’s so much free information that people can’t cope with the quantity of it…and they NEED us to synthesize it, distill it, and give it back to them in practical, simple terms. A friend and colleague said to me, “I often say I offer a shortcut and I’m able to share what works and more importantly what doesn’t.” It used to be that people couldn’t get access to all this information easily, so they needed us
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Why People Need Us
Heard a great quote from CopyBlogger for all of us who speak and teach and write: “We’re valuable precisely because we can cut through the noise and give them only what’s useful and relevant to them.” Sometimes I think, “Everyone knows what I know!” There is so much free information on the internet, it can get disheartening when you’re trying to create a profitable business. Then I remember: it’s BECAUSE there’s so much free information that people can’t cope with the quantity of it…and they NEED us to synthesize it, distill it, and give it back to them in practical, simple terms. A friend and colleague said to me, “I often say I offer a shortcut and I’m able to share what works and more importantly what doesn’t.” It used to be that people couldn’t get access to all this information easily, so they needed us
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Why People Need You
Quick reminder: the One Action Now teleclass is tomorrow, January 14, from 1:00 – 2:30 PM eastern. Need to figure out how to do Action Planning for your business? Join us! Class will be recorded, so if you can’t attend live, you can download the recording and listen to it at your convenience.
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One Action Now Teleclass is Tomorrow
In December, I had lunch with David Newman and grilled him (no pun intended!) about creating information products . Lots of great strategy ideas and tips! You can listen to the interview in MP3 format here: Karyn Greenstreet interviews David Newman about Information Products (MP3) Related posts: Are Ebooks and Downloadable MP3s a Good Strategy for Information Product Marketing
Before we get into the topic of New Year’s Resolutions, I’d like to wish you a happy New Year from myself and everyone else on the FreelanceSwitch team. Here’s to another year of growing our freelance businesses and our knowledge of freelancing! Occasionally I’d like to ask the readership for their thoughts on a subject, and today that is the topic of New Year’s resolutions for freelancers. What are some good ones?
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Your Thoughts: Freelancer New Year Resolutions
Yesterday I talked about the importance of setting goals and walked through the successes and failures of the goals I set for 2009 . I promised I’d give you a look into the goals I’m setting for 2010 and I’d also like to add some more thoughts about breaking down large projects into smaller tasks so you keep moving forward and complete those projects photo credit: garromeister Thoughts on Completing Goals Large project can seem daunting when everything is in front of you and nothing has been done
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Do You Have Goals For Your Business? Part II
This post is a guest post from Allan Branch, a one time freelancer who created LessAccounting for freelancers who need to keep track of money or send invoices. If you’re reading this you’re probably not an accountant so bookkeeping is painful, boring and no one likes it.
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Preparing for End-of-Year Accounting
Are you about to go on a holiday break? Chances are good that your elected representatives are going to do the same thing. In the United States, the Congress (our version of the Parliament) adjourns shortly before Christmas, and reconvenes just after New Year’s Day
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Using the Holidays to Work with Legislators
This is the season of giving, whether it is for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, or just to exchange gifts. So, with so many people here self-employed and thus lacking a company to give out those turkey dinners, terrific bonuses, and whatnot; I thought it would be a great idea to provide a list of real and fantasy gifts that would be perfect for the freelancer in your family, even if it is yourself. The Perfect Gift For Every Freelancer A Matched Set of Angel and Devil ‘lancers: Set the “Devil ‘lancer” on one shoulder to tell you what you should be saying to that client that wants five more changes in two days and then doesn’t give you the materials until the day they want the job done
I love to learn new ideas and new skills. The phrase Lifelong Learning truly defines the way I live my life. Last week I wrote my “learning plan” for 2010, in terms of business topics I want to study … I also plan to learn to play the guitar! By asking a series of questions, I came up with a plan for what I want to study next year, which helps me to keep focused on specific topics and not go running around trying to learn everything at the same time , which leads to poor absorption and implementation of what I learned.
Most freelancers are so accustomed to scraping for work and have all the time in the world to network and market their businesses. So when you gain momentum and start to get swamped on a regular basis, how do you make time to continue promoting yourself? Just that— make time and be efficient about it.
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Keeping Up Your Marketing Momentum
Make your business look more polished and established with the power of great design. Pamela Wilson of Big Brand System will be our guest, and will share four easy-to-learn design tips that will make your marketing materials more effective and save you money by keeping some of your marketing duties in house.
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Free Teleclass: Four Design Tips to Grow Your Brand