I believe in living a balanced life. As an entrepreneur trying to achieve balance, your business goals need to support your life goals. I'm going to share with you a goal setting exercise that you can do. It will set you up to achieve your goals this year.

I'm sharing with you the five steps I'm taking right now to achieve even the smallest of my goals.

1. Write down these categories

Write each category on its own piece of paper so you have plenty of room for the next steps.

• Physical Environment
• Fun & Recreation
• Personal Growth
• Romance
• Career
• Money
• Health
• Friends and Family

2. Make a list

Now under each of these areas I want you to make a laundry list of all the things you can think of that you'd like to see happen. I don't want you to worry about whether it’s a long-term or short-term goal. We don't care if it’s a strategy or a tactic or a vision. Just write down anything you can think of that you'd like to see in your life and put it in the category for which it belongs.

Here's just a subset of my goals. The full list is 5 pages long and I haven't finished yet.

Physical Environment

(Warning: we have a LOT of unfinished house projects)

• landscaping and plants
• fix hot tub
• swap dishwashers
• build outdoor kitchen
• repair cars
• kids effortlessly helping with chores
• Hang up pictures
• Master suite addition to the house
• fix gutters

Fun and Recreation

• ski passes
• hiking
• mountain biking
• beach trip
• Cabin trip
• exercise 2x per week
• learn snowboarding at Erika's Burton board camp

Some of these are visions like the kids effortlessly helping with chores. Some are long term, like a second story master suite addition to the house. Some are specific like attending the Burton Board Camp. No matter.

You will also notice that many of these things I can budget for. Others I can book a timeslot in my calendar for. Some are easily achieved by budgeting and scheduling. Some will take some iterative and interactive work and perhaps some training (like having the kids effortlessly help with chores).

3. Prioritize and sort.

For each category of items, I want you to identify which items are most important to you. Which ones do you want to accomplish this year and which ones can wait? Which items have to be completed before you can do something else?

For example, beach trip is a priority for us. And, at least for us this year, we need to budget time and money for it to happen. My husband needs to take time off of work and I need to plan my client contact around that time so I can truly take off and unwind. To do this we are blocking out time now, 6 months in advance, to make sure that trip happens. We are also looking now at ways to make that trip affordable to us and to set aside money each month to make that trip happen.

4. Book a time slot.

Many of the things on my list are small tasks that can be completed with no additional resources. They just take time. Simply block out some time in your calendar.

We are blocking out 2 hour chunks of time on selected weekends so we can knock of projects on our list. Now we may not decide in advance which projects are to be completed, but by having the time set aside, we assure that some will get done. And, we have set up a weekly meeting where we sit down and review our plans for the week to prioritize and ensure that the important things do get done.

5. Identify a budget.

Know how much you are and aren’t willing to spend to achieve these goals. This will help you identify what financial goals are required to get the other goals on your list. And remember, its OK, that some carry over to the next year. Just make sure you identify which ones you are willing to let go to the future and which ones you aren’t.

Having just completed this exercise, I can't tell you how on top of it I feel. Like I am back in control of my destiny and I'm leaving nothing to chance.

That simple step just raised our energy level a few notches, at a time when it was very much needed.

These same techniques can be applied in your business too. It's just one way to take your business up a notch. Elite athletes know their schedule 6 months in advance. They know which competitions they are attending and how much it will cost. They know how many training sessions they have to prepare. They know the skills they need to win at each level. Nothing is left to chance and winging it.

Let's face it. Sometimes you get lucky. But most of the time success comes to those who aren't afraid to choose to create the planned out calculated road to success.

Can you use these skills to create your own elite program that puts you on your path to success?

What other techniques have you used?

If you would like help implementing these techniques with ongoing support and accountability, take a look at my Expert Emerald Marketing Mastermind Club.

Seriously. That's how powerful a motivator FEAR can be.

It's a testament to how we humans are by nature resistant to change. You see, my daughter is only 6.

And fearful of change she is. If she wanted to switch OFF the Olympic training track, she'd have to change teachers. And, the kids in her class would change. Or even worse, she'd have to change gyms!

Nope, she'll have none of that. Change? NO WAY!

So here she is. Training 3 hours a day, 3 days a week. Climbing the ropes hand over hand with her legs in a pike (and not touching the rope). Doing handstands on the balance beam with perfectly pointed toes and so on. All because she's afraid to change. While she really doesn't want to train that much, she hates change more. So there she goes, day in and day out, up and down the rope, picking up the skills and logging the hours to perfect her craft without knowing why or what or where she is going.

Thank god this fear is working in her favor, this time. But I ask you "How is it working for you?"

Unfortunately, as entrepreneurs most of us don't start out on the elite path to success. We don't have an experienced coach and team that lays out the strategy and the plan for us and just tells us what to do.

As entrepreneurs there is no structure, no one-size fits all program you can follow on the road to success. We can't just blindly start a business and have it take us where we want to go just because we show up each day.

Many of us don't start with a plan or a road map. We just start. And that's OK. It's better than never starting at all. But I'm asking you again, "How's it working for you?"

Are you ready to up the ante? Up-level your game? Are you ready to get on the Olympic track?

For my daughter, the goal has been set for her just by nature of the team she is choosing to be on. This team has one goal, to churn out champions. Period.

I have two questions for you:

1. Have you chosen your championship team?
2. Do you have a coach and team to support you in achieving your goals?

If you answered NO to either of these questions, I may be able to help. I have a mastermind team forming now. I'd love to be  a part of your championship team and help you put the plan and structures in place to achieve your vision. If this sounds intriguing, you can learn more here.

How have you seen this resistance to change play out in your life and the lives of those around you? Can you see it?

I'd love to hear your thoughts about how fear of change keeps you in a pattern that may or may not support you in achieving your goals.

LinkedIn has quietly been adding features to Company Pages. At first you could just get your company listed, as if in a big directory. Then they added the ability to create a company profile and add products. Then you could get those products reviewed. And now you can post status updates and engage with your clients.

So how is the best way to get started using these features to promote your business?

Well, as always, if you are a coach, consultant, trainer, healer, solopreneur or other helping professional, you will want to start building your brand with your profile. If you feel you've done that pretty well, you will want to branch out and add in the company pages.

Here's how to get started, step-by-step:

1. To start you will want to create your company profile.
2. Then add some products or services.
3. Ask some of your past or present clients to write a review for your products. This creates "social proof" and adds to your company credibility. The more positive reviews, the more evidence potential clients have that you are likely to satisfy their needs as well.
4. When you add a product or service, you can then share it to your status update, your groups or your connections. Here is a new piece of content that you can share with others to get some buzz going.
5. When you create the product or service, you can create a promotion to go with it. The promotion shows up in the bottom right side bar. Its a great opportunity to add photos or video to promote a program or launch.
6. The newest addition to the company page is the addition of the status update. This lets you get Facebook-like interactions with your LinkedIn followers. The downside right now is that the integration with automation tools like Hootsuite is not yet available. So you would have to manually post every update yourself or outsource your social media. Personally, I'm going to wait until the automation tools become available.
7. Optional: Run a paid advertisement. This will get you visibility amongst your target demographic fast.

So that's it. It's pretty easy to get started using Company Pages on LinkedIn.

Let me know below how it goes for you and if you have any tips to offer others starting out.

1. If you have used an existing 3rd party Facebook application, like an iframe app, chances are they are already hosting your custom page on a secure server. Check with them to be sure. Ask them if the server that hosts your Facebook Custom Fan Page has an SSL certificate. If the answer is yes, you're OK. If not, they will either have to get one, or you will have to move to a new server or hosting company that has one.
2. If you self host on your own web site, you will need to ensure you are on a secure server. There are a couple ways to do this. 
   • First, you can purchase a SSL certificate for your site. There are many places you can get one. Your hosting company may offer them. Or, you can order from GoDaddy.com. You will also need to have your developer follow the rule found here.
   • You can host the content in your iframe on a secure site like an Amazon S3 account. Another is to post files in Dropbox.
3. If you are using Facebook.com apps or tabs, you should be fine.

Don't you love these un-announced changes?

There were a lot of other changes that popped up at the same time, and this one got little press coverage. However, it is a BIG DEAL for celebrities, athletes, speakers, coaches and any individual one who is a public figure or wants to be one! Actually, this one little feature can be a game changer in the way a public figure uses Facebook.

Prior to Facebook Subscribe, as a public figure, you could only accept 5000 connections to your personal profile. Those connections include both friends and pages you like. So once you hit that limit, you had to create a fan page. The problem is that now you had to administer two things, a profile and a page. Often your clients would want to connect with you personally, and not with your page. It was harder to create relationships with your page likes than it was your friends.

That just changed.

Facebook just broke out a new feature. It's something you've gotten all along with your friends. You've always been subscribed to your friend's updates. Now you can click on the Subscribe button to filter what you see from each friend. Tired of their Farmville updates? You can filter that out but clicking on the subscribe button.

OK, so that's not so new. But what is new is that now you can subscribe to hear what celebrities, journalists, speakers and public figures have to say without becoming their friend. You simply click on the subscribe button on their profile and their public updates will appear in your news feed.

(If you don't want non-friends to subscribe to your public updates, then you can turn it off so the subscribe button disappears.) To turn on Subscribe follow these directions.

So why is this a game changer?

Well, you don't necessarily need a page anymore to break through the 5000 connection limit for your profile. More people can follow your public updates and feel intimately connected to you without you having to create and administer a page.

When is a page still valuable?

You want to move to a page when you need multiple people to administer it. Or for using custom tabs and applications. A page you can promote with ads and sponsored stories. And you get detailed metrics on demographics and fan activity with your page. So if its just you getting started, using your profile with the subscribe button is the best option. Once your business grows beyond you, you want to conduct advertising, or you want to start adding in fancy apps, then you will want a page.

Now, if you are afraid of having too much information in your news feed and thus are wary of subscribing to peoples updates, here's how to avoid that problem. You sort them into lists and save them to your favorites. Facebook created a great little guide for that. It's called Creating a Subscriptions List.

Lastly, you need to optimize your profile to get found by subscribers. Fortunately, Facebook has put together a short tutorial that shows us how to Optimize Your Profile for Subscribe.

If you are a public figure, coach, consultant, celebrity, author, or perhaps you want to be, then go ahead and turn on subscriptions and subscribe away!

http://ow.ly/6pgFZ

Provide compelling content. — Even though your Facebook page is up and running, you need to get people to like and trust you. According to Debra Zimmer, The Expert Marketing Coach, one way to increase that trust is to provide compelling content.

"Basically they need a reason to 'like' your page. They want to know what's in it for them. When they come to your page, they want to see that you consistently post something of value to them," Zimmer said.

Zimmer suggests one way to post compelling content is with a "tip of the day."

"You can sit down once a month and jot down 30 things that would help your customer transform their life. You then use a tool like Hootsuite to have those tips post for you automatically once a day. And you have created a reason for people to 'like' you. They do it to get those tips," Zimmer said.

And,

Build a chain of communication with your customers. — Facebook isn't all about business, so it's important to make sure that you're entertaining your customers. Zimmer said that you can do so by asking some questions.

For example, Zimmer asks her followers what tip topics they would most like to see from her.

"That starts getting people engaged. And when they comment on your post, it shows up in all their friends' news feeds. With the average Facebook user having 130 friends, that number of people who see your post multiplies quickly," Zimmer said.

You can read the rest of the article here…

I really find this infographic from klikki.com to be a great visual representation and summary of the Top 10 Link-building Techniques. It de-mystifies the actual steps you need to take to get those backlinks to increase your pagerank.

KliKKi is a leading search marketing agency in the Nordic region providing SEO services to numerous multinational brands both locally and globally.

In the book, 60 carefully selected business leaders share their personal experiences of what they have learned from the most recent recession. The chapters are a mix of success stories containing personal stories interwoven with detailed practical advice.

But as a taster I thought I would share my chapter with you here. I hope you enjoy it and it will inspire you to download and read the other 59 chapters.

The eBook is free to download but if you would like a discounted hard copy of the book, priced at £12.99, then enter BLC1004 at the checkout and you will pay 50% of the SRP.

Please share this blog and code with anyone who’d enjoy this book. Please leave your thoughts or comments  below!

Chapter 5: Retail Knows First

At the time the recession hit, I owned a multi-channel home furnishings business; I was the founder and CEO. The company had started as an internet business in 2001 and in the autumn of 2005 we expanded into a bricks-n-mortar retail storefront.

At first when we opened the storefront, our sales increased quickly as people discovered us. Soon we showed only modest growth that was below our targets. We were getting great feedback from the community and everyone who walked in to the store “loved it”, but no one was buying.

If at first you don’t succeed try and try again

To increase sales, we brought in new product lines and tried to move older merchandise. We found that when furniture was deeply discounted, it moved. But our lease had a clause saying that we could not operate a discount outlet.

So we tried EVERYTHING; we added design services, held classes, advertised, improved store signage, held promotions and events, did direct mail pieces to new home buyers, hired better trained sales people and so on. But nothing increased sales. We developed relationships with interior designers and estate agents but to no avail. I was racking my brain and couldn’t figure out for the life of me why no one was buying.

Strengthen what is NOT broken

The saving grace had been our internet store which produced a steady six figure revenue. Then in the summer of 2007, petrol prices doubled, our shipping costs skyrocketed and our margins dropped.

Not a good thing. Our primary internet supplier started to slip on delivery times from six weeks to 24. Our customers became angry (and sometimes hostile) and our supplier began lying to us. I looked into expanding our internet offerings to limit our vulnerability. The problem was that the bleeding at the retail store required more of my attention.

Look for and listen to the signs

My first clue that there was a more global issue came in early 2008 when one of my sales reps congratulated me on doing so well for opening my store during the worst two years the industry had ever seen. He said they were losing accounts everywhere; that stores were shutting down.

In the meantime, Colorado was leading the nation in foreclosure rates. I thought it was concentrated to low income areas. I didn’t know it was a national issue, let alone global. I wasn’t alone.

The 80/20 rule is wrong!

In business school I learned to analyse my business financials in three ways: best case, worst case and most likely scenario. In the worst case, you should calculate that 80% of the things can go wrong 20% of the time. Well, they were wrong! EVERYTHING can go wrong at once!

Do your research

The only thing we hadn’t tried was a different location. So that’s what we did. After talking with other independent furniture stores in the proposed new location AND hearing rave reviews about how
well they were doing – two out of three had just renewed their lease.

We switched locations in April 2008. We moved to a smaller space in THE most upscale shopping district in the state. We lowered our rent and reduced our payroll. These changes cut over 50% off our expenses but it was already too late.

Diversify while you are strong

In May of 2008, the month we opened in our new location, our supplier for our internet products raised prices by 15%. The result?

All sales CEASED! Our steady six figure sales dried up and we did not see another penny of revenue from the internet for the next six months.

Sometimes it’s beyond your control April 2008 was the first month of the recession in the US but it wasn’t official for months. By August the furniture shop across the street from us said their clients had stop signing contracts. In October the stock market crashed. Customers put their plans on hold. The streets of the shopping district were empty.

By November, top architectural firms around the city were slicing their staff by 50% or more. One even laid off all his staff and moved his business into his home. There were rumours of architects standing on the street corner holding a sign and begging for work to feed their family.

Life DOES go on

I remember sitting in the store and feeling completely overwhelmed; it was like the world was crashing in around me and I was losing everything. And then the light went on and for the first time in three years I felt hope. I went home and joyfully told my husband, who was unemployed at the time, “You know, the only people who died during the great depression are the ones who killed themselves. We still have each other. We have three beautiful, healthy, wonderful kids. I’ve got everything I need. I don’t care if we live in a tent. I have a great life.”

The new store never achieved any sales worthy of note. We closed at the end of December 2008. We could not even sell our inventory at clearance prices. There just weren’t any buyers in sight. Two out of the three stores we had talked with, who had claimed strong sales, closed shortly after us.

Watch the trending of the big guys

William Sonoma, owner of Pottery Barn, is one of the leading publicly traded companies in home furnishings. At the time I opened my store in August 2005, William Sonoma’s stock was trading at $40 per share. At the time I closed my store in December of 2008, their stock was trading at $7.85. Had I thought to track their revenues at the time, I may have shut down sooner. Needless to say, I didn’t have the deep pockets to weather the storm. Sometimes it’s best to stop.

Learn how to quit

Going into business I knew that I should put a floor as to how much time and money I was willing to invest before pulling the plug. But three things happened: firstly I was emotionally attached, this was my baby; secondly I was humiliated to fail and so I hung on; thirdly I didn’t know how to stop – no one had taught me how to shut down a failing business.

Watch the growth of the industry

Nine months after we closed the business, I had dinner with a friend, a successful venture capitalist, who made a comment which I will never forget. He said “the number one thing that determines how successful a business will be is the growth of the overall industry”.

Have a plan B

After shutting down the store, I regrouped. I looked at what had drawn me into the home furnishings business and what I had most enjoyed. Then I designed a new business that maximised my strengths and minimised my weaknesses. I began to share my internet marketing expertise with other entrepreneurs to help them grow their business.

The architects and designers I know weren’t so fortunate. Many are still unemployed, their skills not transferable beyond their industry. Those that do have jobs saw their pay checks slashed.

Develop a functional expertise that can transfer across industries. Have a skill you can fall back on.

Retail knows first

In closing, if you want to know what’s happening in the economy, ask a retailer. They know three to four MONTHS ahead of the government what’s happening at the consumer level. They are the pulse of the consumer. You want to know? Ask a retailer.
 

Again, to read the entire book and the contributions from 59 additional authors, go to www.theebooklibrary.co.uk. to get the free download. You can also order a hard copy at a 50% discount when you enter BLC1004 at the checkout.

I encourage you to read the fantastic tips and lessons shared by the other 59 authors.

What did you learn from the recession? Please share your own experiences and tips you would want others to know. Share with us below.

Here are some tips from Mona Elesseily, the VP of Online Marketing Strategy at Page Zero Media
and Jennifer Sheahan from FBadsLAB.

The three types of images that convert best on Facebook ads are:

1. Happy Women
2. Colorful Logos
3. Headshots

Happy Women

The best performing images to use in Facebook advertising are of happy women. Women who look overjoyed, free and are looking directly at the camera convert best. Also, try images of women who joyfully have their arms in the air.

Colorful Logos

Try logos that are colorful and engaging. If your company’s logo is boring or bland, make look colorful by adding a colorful border, background or text. Definitely avoid blue and white as the colors blend too much with Facebook’s colors (think contrast to capture attention).

Images with text on them (calls to action) convert better than images alone. In general, ads with a “reason” convert better than ads with no reason. So don’t just tell people about your accounting services but include a reason like: 1) end of tax year special or 2) an online promotion with savings available for 3 days only.

Note: product images do not convert as well as straight up colorful logos.

Headshots

Happy pictures where people are looking directly at the camera work best. Close up pictures work best.

Facebook Advertising Tips

In addition they shared some general tips to help you get the most of your Facebook advertising.

1. Use a sense of "urgency" with your Facebook ads. Don't run them too often or for too long. The reader should feel like they have to take action now or the opportunity will be gone.
2. Distract the user from other tasks.
3. Include a purpose or reason they need to take immediate action. Tie your ad to a a promotion, discount or compelling report.
4. Test images and call to actions.
5. Expect low conversion rates averaging in the 0.02% range. You’re doing well if you see conversions above 0.4%.

Do you have any tips to share? Is there anything you've experienced with your Facebook advertising that works really well?

(You can read more details at http://searchengineland.com/3-types-of-facebook-image-ads-that-work-80162.)