I’m so excited to share this with you!

You’ve read the funny tweets and wedding wisdom of @planningforever; we’ve looked forward to the {Sales 411} of @saundrahadley – now get both personas together and improve your sales practices for your small business. A Regal Affair presents:

Saundra Hadley’s {GET REAL} Sales Workshop – Tuesday, March 16, 2010 in Houston, Texas!

What’s in it for You:
This one-day workshop will be chock full of applicable sales techniques that will let you leave the door and immediately implement positive changes. It is comprehensive, fast-paced, blunt, collaborative, profound, humorous and will take you to the next level of Closing the Sale with your prospective clients.

You ALREADY know that selling your services to clients is getting more challenging than ever before. An increase of competition compelled with a decrease of consumer spending and a difficult economy has left all of our small businesses in an unsettled state of mind. It’s time to analyze what we can do to be more effective and closing more sales is a definite step in the right direction.

Who should attend?
Photographers, wedding planners, stationers, bakers, hotel coordinators, videographers, newbie’s to the industry, and more. If you are in the wedding industry and a professional who is selling to the consumer; this workshop will help you.

What’s so different about this workshop?
To be sure that the topics covered are geared towards “you” and “your needs”, a questionnaire will be sent out prior to the workshop date for you to fill out. From the feedback, your concerns and challenges will be incorporated and addressed in the workshop curriculum.

CAUTION: Only concrete principles and specific examples of sales tactics will be taught to increase your sales closure rate. Fluffy talk, abstract theories that only nuclear engineers can apply or empty promises of you increasing your revenue by hundreds of thousands of dollars will NOT happen. But what will happen is for you to hit the ground running and make some serious changes that will affect your bottom line.

Another workshop for our industry? Really?
There are only about a hundred new workshops for our industry, right? At first glance it appears to be a little saturated. But take a closer look. Years ago you would have to wait for a monthly professional meeting or worse, a once a year, large event conference that would cover every topic from A to Z. Small workshops that focus specifically on an area of business that you need assistance with is a much better use of your time and investment dollars.

Schedule
9 – 10am Networking (continental breakfast)
10 – 12pm Workshop with Breakout Sessions
12 – 1pm Lunch (provided)
1 – 3pm Workshop with Breakout Sessions

Curriculum
Face the Fear
The Process of the Sale
Getting the Inquiry to Consult
Pre-qualifying
Marketing “Sales Words”
Top Sales Mistakes
Overcoming Objections
Never, Ever ….
The Consult Magic
Winning Proposals
Closing the Sale
Tracking your Sales Cycle
Selling in a Recession (Sucks)

Limited seating available. Hosted at the Christine Tremoulet studio, the future home of the Delight Wedding Collective.

AND!!! Join us Monday evening, March 15th, for networking fun at the Get Real Sales Tweetup!

So? Who is in???

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1. A New Adventure…
2. Over and Over Again…
3. They Like Me! They Really Like Me!

Whew! January ended up being a much more whirlwind of a month than I anticipated. Lots of boudoir sessions leading up to Valentine’s Day – there are going to be some very nice gifts received this year by people! And then I ended up sick this past week, fever, aches, major sinus congestion, coughing – the works. To put it mildly – it sucked. I’m finally on the mend now though, fortunately!

But the big excitement around here has been our Weight Watchers results for the month! Whoo hoo! I lost *drumroll* 7.4 pounds this month! YAY!!! That works out to a 3.206% weight loss overall. Sweet!

Mike joined me on my “5 in 10″ goal, and has become even more fanatical about tracking his WW Points than I am – so awesome! It also makes it easier to do if I’m not doing it alone.

So now January is over, and I get a clean slate fresh start for February. Another 5 pound goal. Having done it for one month, I know I can do it!

How did you do this month? Did you make the 5lb goal for January? If you didn’t, that is ok! February is a whole new month. 5 pounds – you can do it!

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1. Five At a Time…
2. 5 in 10 – My Weight Loss Goal…
3. Snow Day!

I learned how to use the Wii today! I made my Mii, and then I discovered that the EA Sports Active game uses a different avatar. Oh well – it helped me figure out how to use the Wii remote!

My review of EA Sports Active:
- It is nice that they have a trainer video clip to show you how to do the moves if you don’t know how to do them.
- When selecting the 30 Day Challenge, you can choose what intensity you want to go with; this way, you can keep doing 30 Day Challenges if you want at different levels. I started off at the low intensity for my first round.
- The leg pouch slides off your leg if you have yoga or running pants on. Sort of annoying – I ended up kicking it off before doing the boxing round.
- I thought there was no way that it could tell if my form was correct – but it can! It knows if you’re not lunging far enough and things like that.
- You can cheat the system. I pulled my hamstring months ago, and it is still sore so I can’t run fast. I tried to run, but it kept telling me I was too slow. I switched to walking (even slower) and it said I was perfect. Uhm, ok? But overall, it was great – that was the only time I noticed the flaw.
- You don’t have to have a balance board – I didn’t know this when we bought it. If you do have one, and choose to use it, you can for some of the activities like boxing and inline skating.
- I love that the 30 Day Challenge changes things up for you – this is awesome for me since I’m just starting out! It will alternate for you what you are doing each day of your program so you’re not working out the same parts daily. It even sets my “off” days for me. If you’re more advanced, you can set up your own program – making this great no matter what level you’re at!
- Rating: 9 out of 10

All in all, it was a great workout! I can do this! 22 minutes today, and I burned 165 calories.

After my workout this morning, I went to pick up new cross-training shoes — I’ve needed them for the treadmill and for walking workouts as well. I think this will help with cushioning my hamstring and my bad knee as well. Next week, I’ll also be making my MRI appointment that I should have made this fall so I can figure out if I have a torn meniscus (I don’t think I do) or what it is that is wrong with my right knee. Hopefully we’ll be able to figure it out and get me cleared to work out even more!

I did my first day of Weight Watchers food tracking today as well. Lets just say it was bad. Very bad. But that is ok — it is all a learning experience. I’m like a marathon runner – this isn’t a sprint, I’m in it for the long haul. But it is still a good thing my new week starts tomorrow!

I realized tonight that I can’t think of this as a diet. I have a long road ahead of me to meet my final goal. Diets are short things that end. This is a lifestyle change, plain & simple. Today is just the first step.

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Inspired by 6 Changes & the suggest of accountability, I’m sharing here what I’ve only shared in private over on the Fast Track Photographer Forums up until now. Oh goodness, it is always scary going public!

I don’t like to set up resolutions at the start of the new year. I like to set up GOALS. Goals that I can achieve. Sometimes they are short goals, sometimes they are long goals. I add to them quarterly or even monthly, because it is impossible to start 10 new habits all at once. Goals made 2009 a pretty awesome year, so I’m kicking off 2010 with a new one. Or rather repeating an old one.

Back in 2005, I started up a movement. I wanted to lose 5 pounds a month. A good, healthy rate to lose weight, one proven to keep the weight off. And if you say “I’m going to lose 5 pounds this month” it is a LOT easier then saying something like “I am going to lose 40 pounds” (or whatever your big number goal is overall). A lot of people joined in the movement at first, and we were all motivated and amped up and ready to GO! Well, for awhile. But then it fell aside. I’ve always regretted that – so I’m doing it all over again. Starting … NOW.

So I’m making myself publicly accountable. My goal for 2010 is to lose 5 pounds a month. 5 in 10. I’m going to blog about it at least once a week, sharing what I’ve been up to. I would LOVE it if you want to join me. I know that zillions of people decide to kick off their New Year with weight loss plans — so if we do it together, we can get there.

I need you. I need you to cheer me on, check in with me if you don’t hear me talking about it, and just be supportive.

Things I’m kicking off over the weekend to meet my goal for January:
- I joined Wedding WW Buddies (you can follow us on Twitter at #weddingwwbuddies. I’m looking forward to our weekly support chats!
- Of course, that means I’ll be counting points with Weight Watchers Online again – and I’m so excited that they have an iPhone App too!
- I’ll be doing the 30 Day Challenge starting tomorrow using EA Sports Active, with the Wii and the Balance Board.
- The treadmill is all set up now so I can use it to walk and read my RSS feeds at the same time. Mike built me a treadmill desk using a board and PVC pipe.

I spent December planning things out so that I could kick this off — I’m ready to succeed at this goal! So, who is in with me?!?

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1. Five At a Time…
2. January’s Final Weigh-In…
3. The One, Lone Resolution…

I logged in to WordPress to write a post, and then I saw the number. This blog has 29,330 comments. 670 comments shy of 30,000 comments. Real comments, not counting the spam ones Akismet has caught.

Whoa.

Granted, it has been around since 2000, but there have been a few starts & stops along the way. Just 670 away. 670 seems like a huge number, but then you look at it in the context of 30,000, and it becomes pretty small. I should do something special when I reach that mark, don’t you think? What should I do? Give me some ideas – lets have some fun with this!

Meanwhile, sorry for the silence. I’m wrapping up SEO & Better Blogging Site Reviews, and helping with a ShootQ set-up. Meanwhile, Mike & I did a pretty big blog move for Tasra of Tasra365 (I know the new site’s name, but I can’t share!), although to be honest Mike did most of the heavy lifting on that. It involved a WP migration along with a TypePad export & migration. The TypePad one was a bit tricky, as an export through their system doesn’t bring over all the image files. Mike sorted that all out though, and the new site looks fabulous with the tweaks Tasra has made! Now that we’ve worked out all the kinks on TypePad to WordPress migrations, we’re ready to help others with theirs as well! Sound like something you need? Let me know!

On the photography front, I have a lot of 2009 weddings, engagement sessions, and more to blog about over on the wedding photography site. Later this week, I’m going to start with the recaps. It has been an AMAZING year, and I can’t wait to share! The year isn’t over though — I have two more boudoir sessions and two more weddings, with one of the weddings being on New Year’s Eve!

I always wonder if people think the silence means I’m not doing anything — when, in fact, it usually means the opposite! It feels like 2009 has just blown right past. I can’t believe it is almost over!

Leave me a comment – it would be kind of awesome to wrap up 2009 by hitting that 30,000 mark!

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I saw this today and I was very amused — Canon Boy Meets Nikon Girl. How can they possibly survive together?

PS – It is rap style. There are a few words in there that your 3 year old shouldn’t hear. Consider yourself warned.

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3. Two Words…

So you’re a professional photographer, right? And if someone shows up to your wedding, portrait session, whatever and whips out the fancy camera they just bought at Best Buy or Amazon and starts firing away, you’re probably going to be thinking to your self something along the lines of, “Awww… how cute. But my photos will be much better because I’ve got mad skillz at photography, YO!”

(What? You don’t talk to yourself like some bad-ass photo rapper? Well, whatever. I do. Run with it.)

The point is, you know what you’re doing. You know your skill set, and the long hard hours that it took of practice to get to where you are at. And 99% of the time, your photos will be better because of it. Sure, there is always the one person that is just kind of a natural that will show you up, but they won’t know how to deal with a tricky lighting situation or how to balance flash with ambient light, so whatever. YOU are the SUPERSTAR!!!

So why the heck are you designing your own logo? Your own business material? Trying to create your own website or blog from the ground up from scratch?

How is that any different then the person that dropped $1500-3000 to have a camera as fancy as yours? They are not an expert.

Yes, you’re artistic and creative. But that doesn’t mean you know all the ins and outs of what makes a graphic design truly sing, or that you should spend hours and hours learning CSS and how to code HTML, PHP and smoosh it all into a awesome blog.

You’re a photographer (or a wedding planner, a cake artist, a caterer – whatever you are) — not a graphic designer or a website developer. Know what you’re good at. Hire someone else to do the rest. Leave it to the experts.

It is the same thing you expect of your clients every single day.

Oh, In case you were wondering – Uncle Bob: Definition, and what you usually get. Don’t do that to your business.

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3. Update…

I can’t tell you how often I’m reading a blog or a website, and I glance up at the title bar on my web browser only to see a completely pointless title like “Home” or “Blog” even worse, the name of the company that mad the template you’re using for your portfolio.

Stop what you’re doing right now and go look at your sites. What is your title? What is it saying to people?

Titles are used in countless ways — first and foremost, it is the information that Google pulls when it is displaying your site among their lists. It is also what the people that read your site, your potential clients, see if they are using tabs in their browsers, when they bookmark your page, and so much more!

If your title isn’t clear, how will they ever find you again? If your title says something like Bl*d*main or Templates for Photographers, does that help you? Or the company that made your template?

To change your blog’s title in WordPress, log in and go to Settings (it is the last item on the column on the left). Under General Settings, right there, you will see “Blog Title” as an option – make it something that helps people and computers! Start with your business name, and then maybe include where you are located at. People always want to know that!

Be sure to change the Tagline as well while you’re there. I noticed yesterday that even if you don’t have that showing up on your blog’s template, it does get pulled by Facebook. Looks a little silly if it still says something about you being just another WordPress blog, because we know you’re not just another anything. You’re FABULOUS! Now help the world see that!

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2. Pressing for Words…
3. Testing Out Wordpress?

If you follow me over on Twitter, you may have seen my post earlier today about the fact that it is the two year anniversary of me having major – nearly life-saving – emergency surgery today. Some of you may know the back story already. For those of you that don’t, feel free to check out the November 2007 archives. Oh, and that photo above? It is from 2007. Not today. I’m all healthy now!

As a wedding vendor, you have to take care of yourself. It is absolutely essential. Most of us are running a one person show, and if we’re not we’re still in a position where our client booked us and expect us to be there. You don’t really have an out. Especially as the photographer.

Have you spent some time thinking about what you will do if something happens and you can’t be there?

The fall of 2007, I was sick. I knew I was anemic, I had no idea how badly. I was seeing a doctor, but in hindsight he was doing a horrible job of taking care of me. When you’re sick and you’re scared, and super anemic on top of that, you might not be thinking so clearly, so I didn’t fire him and seek out other care when I should have. By the way, if you’ve never been anemic, the best way I can describe it is 1 margarita drunk. You can function, but things are a little swirly and just not right with the world. It isn’t that fun though – I don’t recommend it.

So here I am, super sick, and the only way to fix it was to give me three blood transfusions and do emergency surgery. The emergency surgery had a 6-8 week recovery time; I wasn’t even allowed to drive for 4 weeks. And I had a wedding scheduled for exactly ONE week after the surgery.

Fortunately, I used to work with the IT department of one of the big three law firms in Houston, and I also worked for two web design companies. For places like this, disaster recovery is essential, and worrying about the “what ifs” has always been a part of my business plan.

When I got sick, I already had a network of other photographers in Houston. I only had to make two calls, and I had found a replacement. I was also fortunate because I had a clause already in place in my contract that in the case of extreme medical emergency and if time allowed, would allow them the opportunity to approve the replacement, and if they did not, I would give them a complete refund of all monies paid. (Obviously this won’t work if it hours before a wedding and you need someone to step in for you, but I had a week.)

Going in to surgery knowing that all of my shoots were covered was a HUGE load of weight lifted off of me. My clients still were taken care of. Something like this can be business killer if you don’t have a plan in place to take care of your clients.

ShootQ is also now a big part of my business because of my “what if” planning. If something was to ever happen to me on the day of a wedding – lets say I was in an accident and in a coma – my husband could log in to ShootQ and find out all the information needed about the wedding. He has a phone list of other Houston photographers to call. He could get on Twitter and start posting on my behalf. He could do whatever was needed to make sure the wedding was covered. Of course I would want him to rush to my side, but I would want to know that those calls were made first. Elaine & Brittany have this power as well.

An emergency like this can – and often will – happen to ANY of us. Matter of fact, I’ve stepped in two times as the primary photographer and two times as the second photographer in an emergency situation to help out other people. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

What is your emergency plan? Do you have a list of people who could step in in your place and take care of your clients if anything happened to you? Do you have an emergency clause in your contracts with your clients in case you ever found yourself in a bind?

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RSS Feeds can make your life so much easier when it comes to reading blogs, but sometimes I don’t want to open mine because I know I’ll end up following breadcrumbs around the internet trail for hours on end. Yes, I’m definitely prone to the “Oh, Shiny! Sparkly!” distractions. So I don’t tempt fate if it is a busy production day – I just keep NetNewsWire closed.

But there are a small handful of blogs whose posts I absolutely do NOT want to miss. Some are industry trendsetters. One or two may be friends that I know will mention their latest post when we talk so I want to make sure I get it, and some are just things I want to keep a close eye on. I want to get those select feeds in my inbox, even when I don’t read all my other RSS subscriptions. I use FeedBurner, which offers this service (you can sign up to get my posts via email over in the far right column there … hint, hint). But not everyone uses FeedBurner, so this isn’t always an option.

I needed something else.

Then I found Feed My Inbox! Just like the name says, it will feed your inbox for you. All you have to do is give it the URL for the feed you want to subscribe to and your email address, click the link in the confirmation email, and then magically once a day you’ll get your most important RSS feeds right in your inbox.

The once a day is key – if someone writes 20 posts in a day, you’ll still only get one email.

Seriously, how cool is that? LOVE it! Hope you do too!

PS – Sorry about the site being down. We’re now on a zippy fast server, and the site shouldn’t fall over anymore like it has been the past week or so. Let me know if you see anything unusual, ok? We think we’ve got everything back where it belongs, but it is always possible to miss something!

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I figure I just posted it to my other blog, so I should include it here as well — I’m looking for a studiomate for my space in the Heights here in Houston.

You: A creative type. Most likely a freelancer. Photographer, Graphic Artist, Wedding Planner, Web Designer, Invitation Designer, or something most likely along those lines.

Me: A wedding & boudoir photographer, who does geeky stuff as well like blog & SEO consulting.

The space: Adorable. Too awesome to keep it all to myself.

Let me know if you’re interested! The best way to reach me about it is my contact form here.

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A few weeks ago, a friend of mine went through what might just be my worst nightmare — her hosting company’s servers were hacked. They told her that she needed to download all of her stuff, but by the time she got the message and got online, her site was GONE.

GONE. Every last single bit of her work, sites she paid for, a custom designed blog, her blog posts, all of it – GONE.

Needless to say, she was in a bit of a panic at first. Me? I was FURIOUS at her hosting company. Livid. Stunned that in this day and age, a hosting company could be run so poorly.

I ran the front end of a hosting company for over 4 years. I’m pretty darn picky when it comes to my hosting. When I got out of the hosting business, I sold my company to Hosting Matters, who had been running the back end for me all along, because I trusted them 100 zillion percent. When you’re putting your business website into someone’s hands, you need to have that much faith in them. (Want an unmetered hosting account with them for $10/month? Click here.)

Some companies cost $2.95 a month for a good reason — they aren’t running a proper business. And if you’re putting your online image in their hands, is shopping for the cheapest deal you can find a good idea? No, it isn’t. You need to make sure your host is the best, that they will keep your site up and running no matter what. Because in the end, that is all that matters to your clients. And you don’t want to be like my friend and out hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars because your hosting company isn’t running their business on the up & up.

Some things to look for:
- Where is their data center at? What are they set up to withstand? HostingMatters is in Florida. My site has been on their servers through countless hurricanes. BIG storms. It has never once gone down due to natural disaster. You can learn all about their facility here – and I love that they are transparent about this information. Is your hosting company?

- What is their backup policy for their servers? How often are they backed up? HostingMatters does daily, weekly & monthly backups. I’ve had to have them pull daily backups before for clients, and weekly backups as well. Only once in 7 years have they pulled a monthly backup, and it was due to a site being overwritten by a client on just the right day and time so that the daily & weekly backups had the new data, not the old. Definitely not the norm.

- Do they charge you to pull a backup? I learned a few weeks ago that GoDaddy charges $150 to pull a daily backup. I’ve never paid to have a backup pulled, and I think $150 is a rather high price.

- What happens if your server gets slammed with traffic? Can they handle the load? Yesterday I saw someone’s site go down because the traffic that they got was overwhelming to the server. They couldn’t recover fast enough. If your business is online, you’re dead in the water. You want to get traffic. They need to be able to monitor the load hitting the box and recover – it is a scramble for them (and you should let them know you appreciate their hard work!), but make sure you won’t be shut down just because you got discovered on Digg.com or you blogged about a celebrity wedding.

- How can you reach them if your site is down? Do they have a helpdesk? Is it hosted with the rest of their servers? Do they have a phone number you can call? I’ve always contacted HostingMatters through their Helpdesk, and their responses are always timely. They have a status page that isn’t hosted with all of their other sites. They have ways that you can contact them if everything else is down.

You are trusting your hosting company with a lot of responsibility. Make sure they deserve your trust. And no matter what, find out what you can do to do a FULL site backup – including Flash sites, MySQL databases, your entire blog including your blog theme, comments and posts – so that if your hosting company lets you down, you’re prepared.

Wondering who I think you should use? Obviously, I recommend Hosting Matters. I’ve also heard many great things about Bluehost. (Not to be confused with BluDomain – they are two different companies!)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go back up my site…

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I was talking yesterday with a client about setting up a blog for her, and she was asking how what I was going to do was different then the theme she was looking at. I was going to install WordPress. She was looking at a WordPress Theme.

For those of us that have been blogging for a long time, these things are two very different things. But you may have just started blogging. Or maybe you’ve always used Blogger or TypePad. Either way, it is unchartered territory. I want to help you out. Really, it is ok to have questions — matter of fact, please ask them in the comments, because I’m sure other people would love to know the answers too!

So when you decide that you want to kick your rankings up higher in Google, or you’re just tired of not having control over your blog (a whole post is coming on why you should host your own blog), you will want to move on to a self-hosted blog. As you might have already guessed, I’m pretty biased and I highly recommend WordPress. (I wish I got royalties every time that word was uttered. Do you realize how rich I would be?!?) WordPress is all kinds of awesome because it is open source, which basically means everyone can have access to the code and create things to improve upon the code, like plugins. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Lets focus on the basics. So the other perk? WordPress is *free*.

But before you can set up WordPress, you need a hosting account. I’ve been with Hosting Matters since 2002 and they make my heart sing. They are among the very, very best. Personalized service that just can’t be beat. More importantly, they pay attention to what their clients need. Photographers? Well, we need a LOT of storage space, especially if we host our own image galleries for client photos. So Hosting Matters has come up with the perfect solution … but you have to know the right people to get in on the deal. Lucky you, I’m one of those people! Click here to learn all about their “Unmetered for $10/month” plan.

You may already have a hosting account if you have a Flash portfolio for your website. Some, but not all, of the portfolio hosting companies can host your blog as well. Last I checked, BigFolio and BluDomain can. Livebooks can’t. I don’t know about ShowIt. This is why some people have separate URLs for their blog then for their portfolio. From the whole Google love perspective, I don’t recommend that. You want people going to one URL. It will help you in the long run as far as Google, and it will make things easier for your clients too.

You’ll also most likely need a domain name. I use GoDaddy for most of my domains. I don’t buy them through a hosting company because I want to make sure I own it – not them.

Once you have hosting, you can then download a copy of WordPress and set it all up. It isn’t that hard, but it isn’t everyone’s thing. There are lots of instructions out there on how to do it. Don’t want to do it yourself? Does the thought of MySQL databases make your head spin? Let me know by using the contact form — we can hook you up.

Then, once you have WordPress up and running, you can start to think about themes to use to make your site all pretty, or plugins to add to make it all cool and fancy. The hard part is over and the fun has just begun!

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2. Bloghosts, Closed for Business…
3. It Starts at the Top…

You want Google to just give your site all the love and attention that you think it deserves. You want to be at the top of all the search results. You want your site to be usable, something that has everything that your clients need so that when they find you through Google or any of the other search engines they can figure out how to book you. But you’re lost. You have no idea where to start. You’re a photographer, wedding planner, florist, cake artist, caterer or (fill in the blank) — not a website designer or Search Engine Optimization specialist. How on earth are you supposed to do it all?

That is ok! The time has come – I’m here to help! (I feel like I should have a superhero cape on as I type that.)

For over 10 years, I’ve helped people build better websites. (Garden Ridge, Canyon Ranch and even Jewel (the singer) are on my list of companies I’ve worked with.) I’ve studied, researched, attended conferences, and learned so much over the years. Now it is your turn. I want to share my knowledge with you. This is your chance for your very own SEO, Better Blogging & Site Review! YAY!!!

SEO, Blog & Site Reviews will consist of an initial conversation to discuss what your target market is and who your primary competition is, and any goals you might have for your website. I will then review your site from top to bottom and behind the scenes for SEO, usability, and overall things that can be improved.

When all that is done, I’ll prepare a CUSTOM report of my findings, going over different specific things that you can do to improve your site immediately, and boost your Search Rankings for the long haul. Full of tips to make your blog and your website better, from best practices to things that will make your business rock. We will then set up a 1 hour call (or meeting if you’re local) to discuss the report and any questions that they might have. It is all about you and what you need!

SEO Site Reviews will be $500 through the end of 2009. Want to sign up right now? Just can’t wait? Want a special deal? The first 10 clients to sign up and pay for their review will get a special rate of $250!

If you set up a One-on-One Workshop with me, even after those first 10 spots are gone, you’ll be able to add on the SEO Site Review for $250 through the end of 2009. All sorts of business goodness in one package!

Ready to have your site reviewed? Don’t want to sit in a workshop or read books and learn about things that have nothing to do with what you specifically need? Feel like you need more support along the way? I can’t wait to work with you! You can use this form to contact me. You can click here to learn more about me and click here to read about other things I can do for you. Want one of those 10 half-price spots? Hurry up before they are GONE!

Update: THREE of the first ten spots remain! (as of 10/9/09 at 3pm)

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1. SEO Goodness Coming Directly to You SOON!
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It has been a long time coming – after lots of planning and preparation, I’ll soon be announcing custom blog & site reviews for SEO* and just general savory goodness. A top to bottom review of YOUR site, focused on what YOU need to do. You won’t be hearing the same thing that 20 other people in the same room hear, none of which is targeted to your exact needs and your way of doing business.

I’m finalizing the last of the details, so stay tuned for more details by the end of this week and a SPECIAL for the first 10 people to sign up! Photographers, wedding planners, florists, bakers, or anyone that owns a creative business – this is something that will definitely help you! It is something I’ve been doing for over 10 years, and I’m so excited to be helping my peers with this.

Let me know if you want to know more! You can always add this to your One-on-One Workshop if you’re interested as well!

Before you hire anyone to help you with SEO – whether it is an SEO expert that does the placement work for you, a workshop, or anything else – do yourself a favor and read this article on the 7 best things good SEOs should do.

* In case you were wondering, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization – it is all the yummy goodness that brings people to your website. It is more than your Google Page Rank – there is a whole planning process behind it. To help your business grow, you should know as much as possible about SEO.

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