Bourn Creative

Tips on Using Stock Photography for Your Blog

Jennifer Bourn — Mon, 21 May 2012 15:41:32 +0000

Photography is an important part of your website. Visual imagery and interesting photos capture the attention of your visitors and potential visitors. Photos also help people remember the content they are reading or viewing. Humans love visual imagery. That’s why Pinterest got so popular so fast!

So do yourself a favor and incorporate photos and imagery throughout your website and in every blog post.

While big businesses will invest in hiring a photographer to shoot custom photographs for their websites and marketing materials, that approach isn’t so budget friendly for most small businesses.

That’s where stock photography comes in. Stock photography or royalty-free photography is the perfect solution for businesses owners like you! With stock photography you can acquire high quality photos, illustrations, video, and even audio at a relatively low cost.

“But wait! Can’t I just find images for my website and blog for free on Google Images?”

Yes, you can find images on Google images, but I do not recommend you use them on your website or blog without written permission from the owner of the photo or the copyright holder.

Many of the images found on Google Images are copyrighted or trademarked. There have been several documented cases of website owners being sued (and having to pay hefty sums of money) because they used images on their site they didn’t have permission to use.

Using stock, rights-managed photography, and/or royalty-free photography and illustrations ensures that you have permission to use the images you purchase (according to their terms and conditions), saving you a potential big legal headache.

If you want to leverage eye-catching stock photos to add visual interest to your website and blog, here’s what you need to do:

Head over to www.istockphoto.com
Create an account – it’s free
Search for photos using keywords in alignment with your brand
Look for photos that would fit well with your content, message, blog articles, etc.
Add all the images you find to a lightbox
Buy iStockPhoto Credits or a Subscription and download the images you want to use as you need them

Here are a couple things to remember:

Put more images than you think you need into your lightbox. This will give us more choices and flexibility during the design and layout of your content.
If you are going to blog, we highly recommend that you buy a package of credits or a subscription package from iStockPhoto (That’s what we have). This way you can refer back to your lightbox and download the other images you picked out as you need them. You’ll also be able to create themed lightboxes for specific topics.
Pretty much every image at the smallest (web resolution) size is perfect for use on your website.
If you’re not sure what keywords to use for your image search, try starting with descriptions of your ideal client, descriptions of what you do, or even the names of your blog categories or article topics.

Note: While we love iStockPhoto – their quality and variety is great), there are a lot of stock photography sites online that can be resources for you, including Photos.com, GettyImages.com, and more.

I hope this helps! We love using photos on our site and believe it makes a big difference in the success of our blog and the click-throughs from visual sites like Facebook and more and more … Pinterest.

Are you missing opportunities to improve and create success?

Jennifer Bourn — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:01:02 +0000

As coach and team parent for our kids’ sports teams, we learn quite a bit about parents and politics — If you have kids in youth sports, you know what I mean!

This week some parents’ behavior (not showing up at all or showing up really late to practice) got me thinking about business and all the opportunities for learning, success, and sales that get missed.

Why do you miss these opportunities?

You don’t take action
You don’t show up

Often, an opportunity to create success is right in front of you and you miss out simply because you don’t take action — or you think, “I’ll do it or follow up on that later” and then forget all about it.

Or you choose not to attend a networking event, seminar, conference, webinar, or teleclass because you’re too busy — but then you miss opportunities to learn new strategies for success and meet others who could help catapult your business forward.

This week I want you to keep your eyes open for new opportunities, or even those that have been there for a while and take some action! Register for an event, follow up with a lead, reach out to a JV partner, or buy that product that could improve your marketing results.

How to Add the Facebook Like Box to Your WordPress Site

Brian Bourn — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:45:40 +0000

After my post on how to add the official Twitter Widget to your WordPress site without a plugin, several readers emailed me and asked me to explain how to add the Facebook Like Box to their WordPress site.

Now, Facebook doesn’t give you too many customizing options … They wan to make sure that no matter what it is always obvious it is a Facebook widget and that their brand is promoted.

With that said, there are a few options for adding a Like Box to a website, and the method below is probably the easiest and the one we choose to use for our clients.

For the record, we don’t use the like box, we prefer to just use the like button.

Here’s step-by-step instructions (with screen shots) on how to add the Facebook Like Box to your WordPress website or blog:

Head over to the developers like box page on Facebook.
Type in your Facebook Page URL (has to be a business page and not a personal profile)
Select your options.
Click the “Get Code” button.
Select iFrame, copy and paste the code it outputs into a text file.
Log in to your WordPress site and add a new text widget (or use an existing one) to your sidebar, paste in the code and save it.

Take a look at your site and adjust the width and height properties of the pasted code until it looks right.

Now your website visitors can click the like box on your site and become fans without having to directly go to your Facebook page.

How to Create an Endless Supply of Content

Jennifer Bourn — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:32:57 +0000

Entrepreneurs of the Information Age have had to adapt their marketing strategies to suit the times.

It used to be that advertising was the bulwark of marketing, but that has changed with the lightning fast development of the king of all Information Age technologies, the internet. Now, one of the staples of your marketing strategy is the development, sharing, and selling of content.

You may have heard or experienced firsthand that generating quality content in blog posts, articles, videos, reports, ebooks, audio files, DVDs, teleseminars, webinars, and so on can revitalize your marketing by helping you.

Expand brand visibility
Establish expert status
Build backlinks
Increase website traffic

And if you’ve been doing any of that for any length of time, you may have run into a common problem of content marketing — the problem of supply.

It is inevitable that you will run out of new, fresh, never-before-published content, and then what? What happens when you have nothing new to say or write about?

Is it possible to tap into a virtually endless supply of content? Yes! The solution to the problem of content supply is to follow the 4 steps to creating an endless supply of content for your website or blog: recycling, rewriting, redirecting, and repurposing.

These 4 words are the secret behind online copywriting that can amp up your content. Now’s your chance to learn how to use them to create an endless supply of content for your marketing:

Recycle

Step one is to do a little digging to find the material you want to revamp. Identify your oldest blog posts, or the posts that have gotten little or no website traffic (you can see this in your website analytics), but that contain information that would still be valuable to your readers and group them together by topic.

Rewrite

Next, select two or three blog articles on the same topic, find the overlaps and differences in their content, and combine them. Add any new developments or lessons you’ve learned about that topic, and package the revised piece into one super post with a killer, keyword-rich headline.

Special highlight: This post will contain more “juice” for search engine optimization because it will expand your keyword cloud of related keywords and serve up more content to be indexed.

Redirect

Once you have your new super post, you have to do some back-end tidying up. Redirect the old URLs for the old blog posts to point to the new super blog post. This will prevent broken links anywhere on your website that pointed to the old article.

Technical tip: Make sure the redirects are set to either “301? or “Permanent” (they mean the same thing). Beginners can use the WordPress Simple Redirects plug-in. Advanced users can write the redirects directly in your .htaccess file. Once the redirects have been completed, you can delete the old posts from your website.

Repurpose

Still need more content? Welcome to the wonderful world of full-blown repurposing.

If you need to make changes to your old posts that are significant enough for those old posts to be considered truly new again, you can pull off a complete repurpose. And the great thing about repurposing is that the ways you can go about making the changes are just about as endless as the amount of new content you can create.

Here are just a few of the bazillion options:

Make a short article longer by developing ideas, adding new examples, demonstrating with anecdotes, and showing your readers how. Then, turn that new, longer piece into a how-to ebook.
Summarize the key points of a longer article to make it shorter, and include it as a bonus feature “quick tip” in your ezine or newsletter.
Recycle those new super blog posts you created by combining them into a single document, writing new transitions for seamless flow, adding an alluring headline and satisfying, uplifting conclusion, and voila! You have a value-added free report.
Script and record that free report and use it as an audio gift or teleseminar.
Turn your article into a PowerPoint, Keynote, or Prezi presentation and deliver it at your next speaking engagement or offer it as a visually rich online download.

Is your mind sparking with the possibilities? Good! Now get out there and revamp your content to keep that conversion-creating content marketing flowing on and on and on…

Where Start-Ups Fail: Visual Social Media Brand Design

Jennifer Bourn — Fri, 04 May 2012 18:28:19 +0000

Presenting your brand consistently across all marketing platforms is a critical part of transforming your business into an extraordinary brand, and social media branding is becoming more important every day.

As social media sites continue to grow in popularity, often the very first interaction a person has with your brand is through a site like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Pinterest.

With social media you present your brand in different ways – the two most common are in the written word and the visual design.

The written word encompasses everything you write on and post to social media sites, including your profile information and bio, your status updates, and your comments, replies, retweets, likes, etc. It is imperative that the written voice of your brand be “on message” and consistent throughout all of the social media sites you are active in.

The visual design encompasses the visual look of your brand on social media sites. Some social sites, like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube primarily, let you customize elements of your profile, page, or channel with your brand color palette, graphics, and message, helping you create a consistent, powerful, extraordinary brand that is remembered, respected, and referred.

The visual social media brand design is where I see many start-up businesses fail. They aren’t yet making money (or making the money they want), so they cut corners to save a few bucks and skip investing in their social media brand design.

But that’s a problem! As I mentioned before, often the very first interaction a person has with your brand is through a social media site. If you do not have a branded presence on these sites, you’re instantly making it harder for new people to do business with you! Why? Because you’re making them work to recognize, remember, or figure out who you are!

With a custom, branded social media design strategy, you create a consistent look and feel for your brand that matches your website, email marketing, and print marketing materials. This enhances your professionalism, reinforces your expert status, and builds your credibility and trust.

Your social media brand design should include at minimum:

A custom branded Twitter Background
A custom branded YouTube Background
A custom Branded Facebook Timeline Cover Image and coordinating avatar

To really knock it out of the park, your social media brand design strategy should also include:

Custom designed Facebook Milestone images
Custom designed Facebook pages with custom application images
A single Avatar image that is used on all social media sites and is registered at Gravatar.com to accelerate the recognition/know factor

Here’s what you’ll need to do get started:

Confirm whether or not you want to include your logo. I know it sounds like a crazy question to ask (we include our logo), but occasionally we have a client who doesn’t want to include it in their social media designs.
Decide what photo you want to use for your social media backgrounds and images. While some will use different photos on each social media site, we recommend you use the same photo on all of them – and the same photo should be found on your website too.
Finalize the content you want to include in the backgrounds / images. Remember, less is more! Remember, you don’t have much space and people don’t have time to read a bunch of content. Just make sure you include your website address. Hint: The URL doesn’t have to be your homepage. I could be a URL for a special offer or a special landing page tailored to those who click-through from a specific social media site.
It is against Facebook’s rules to include any specific calls to action in your timeline cover image, but Twitter and YouTube have no such rules. So think about whether or not you want to include a short call to action in your background designs.
Not quite sure what to use for a milestone image? Some ideas include the day you started your business, the launch of your website, the launch of a product, a live event, a virtual event, the hire of an employee, a special award or recognition, or a major accomplishment.

Creating a consistent brand for your business through social media will reinforce your credibility, your dependability, and your expert status. It will also make your prospects take notice, and your brand stand out from the crowd.

WordPress Resources No Website Owner Should Be Without

Jennifer Bourn — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:18:31 +0000

Brian and I LOVE WordPress, so much so that we only build WordPress websites … more specifically custom child themes for the Genesis framework.

Needless to say and we spend a lot of time researching, training, reading, testing, watching, asking, tweaking, and learning all about it so we can answer your questions and provide you with all the information we find!

While we’re here to answer your questions, we also know the crazy-smart guys and gals at Automattic who created (and continue to create) WordPress know way more than we do — well, because they created it!

So here’s a list of some awesome WordPress resources you may want to check out by the creators WordPress:

We know these resources are great to help you learn more about WordPress — And if you have a WordPress website, they should give you even more confidence in your website, because you know that an entire community of talented people are out there working to improve your website platform everyday.

Stand Out From The Inbox Crowd of Boring, Free Templates

Jennifer Bourn — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:13:06 +0000

With a custom email newsletter and/or announcement template design, you will stand out from inbox crowd of boring free templates.

One of the worst marketing decisions a business owner can make is to go with the free, unbranded, lame, ezine templates provided by your email marketing service provider with a smaller version of your website header slapped on it.

Why? The majority of all account holders also use the free templates, meaning it’s highly likely that another person who does exactly the same thing you do is using the exact same ezine template … and that’s really bad for branding and brand recognition.

If you approach your ezine the right way, your ezine will create profits, credibility, and opportunity for you and your business.

Your email newsletter will help position you as an expert in your industry. It will also help you establish credibility and trust in your market, build relationships with your audience, and stay top of mind with your prospects and referral sources.

I know some people – even some marketing experts – will tell you that email marketing is dead and that it no longer works. But email is still the #1 communication tool for thousands of businesses around the globe.

In fact, according to MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Factbook – Spring 2010, “Email far outpaces other online communication tools. Eighty-seven percent of consumers in North America rely on email as their primary communication tool as compared to just 6% for instant messaging and 4% for social networks.”

And according for Forrester Research, “Investments made in email marketing will grow from $1.3 billion in 2010 to $2 billion by 2014.”

Using the free, boring templates provided by your email marketing service provider is so “start-up” … with a custom email newsletter template design, not only will you reinforce your visual brand with a consistent look and feel, but you’ll stand out, and elevate your professionalism and expert status.

Are you adding an email newsletter to your marketing mix? Here are some things you should remember:

An ezine is a lot of work! If you’re new to publishing an ezine don’t bite off more than you can chew. Start off simple with just a few sections. Then when you’re used to publishing your ezine and it becomes habit, add more sections as appropriate for your business and your readers.
Decide if your ezine will have it’s own name or if you’re sticking to your brand.
Know what ezine sections you want to include now and later. Often ezine section headers are designed JPG images. While your designer is creating the images for the section titles you will be using right away, also have them create the titles for sections you may want to add at a later date.
Decide on a publishing schedule and stick to it! It’s better to publish less frequently and publish consistently, than to promise a weekly ezine and skip weeks.
Know what style or format you want your ezine to use. Do you want a single column ezine, a two column ezine, or one that uses a combination of both. Are you modeling your coach or mentor’s ezine? If so, send your designer a few issues for reference. Note: If you’re not HTML savvy, and your assistant isn’t a code expert either, think about keeping your ezine design simple so it is faster and easier for all of you to get it done and get it out!
When deciding how often to publish, take your marketing calendar into account. If you launch new classes, programs, events, or products frequently, consider publishing your ezine every other week so you can use the off weeks to promote your launches and support your marketing efforts with solo emails.
Write the content for any content that will be in every issue of the email newsletter before hiring a designer to design and code your custom ezine template. Sometimes the content will impact the design.
Periodically survey your subscribers to ask them what they like and don’t like about your ezine. Ask them what they want to see in your ezine and what topics they want to hear about.

With a well-planned, custom designed ezine template that perfectly represents and reinforces your brand, you’ll wow your subscribers and enhance your credibility … then it’s just up to you to fill it with valuable, relevant, personal content.

Get Out From Behind Your Computer!

Jennifer Bourn — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 21:30:01 +0000

You can do some networking while sitting behind your computer or hiding behind your smart phone, and you can build strong relationships over time in the digital world of social media … but no online medium beats meeting someone face-to-face, in-person and making a genuine connection.

To accelerate your connections, your relationship development, and your networking results, you’ve got to put your smart phone down and get out from behind your computer!

You need to get out and meet people. You’ve got to let people know who you are, what you do, how you’re different, and who you serve. No one will hire you, buy from you, or refer others to you if they don’t even know you exist!

Online, the key is to build links back to your site around the web and achieve the best search engine rankings possible so people can find you.

Offline, they key is to attend networking events, meetup groups, luncheons, conferences, seminars, workshops, mixers, and other events where you can meet and connect with other people.

Attending events changed the face of our business

I’ll never forget the first networking event I attended as a new business owner. I was scared to death!

But I went in, the attendees were gracious, and some of the business owners I met that day are still clients today, are fabulous referral sources, and are some of my best friends. I began networking locally quite a bit after that.

Soon I began attending large-scale conferences and multi-day live events that targeted my ideal clients, and eventually I completely cut back on local networking events and focused on conferences. Why? Easy. At a local networking events, I maybe met one or two ideal clients, but at large-scale conferences, I am in ballrooms full of ideal clients — Then it’s just up to me to meet them, start a conversation, and build a relationship.

Brian and I recently returned from two back-to-back live events

Usually Brian and I attend events separately, because one of us always stays with the kids. For the first time, Brian and I traveled to two events back-to-back — Be The Change and Infusioncon — together, and it was awesome! Over the next couple issues, I will share some more about each event and the ideas and strategies we took away from each one.

Experiencing the events, training, learning, and inspiring moments together allowed is to have dialogue about our business on the spot as we were inspired, and as new ideas presented themselves. We were able to quickly weed out the “bright shiny object” ideas and narrow our focus on the really good ones. That way we could create a list of priorities and action steps before we ever got home.

One great idea that my friend Cathy Alessandra of Today’s Innovative Woman magazine had was to attend Infusioncon with her virtual assistant who manages Infusionsoft for her. This way they were both on the same page when it came to all the new technical tricks and techniques taught at the event, and it meant Cathy didn’t have to worry about remembering everything and trying to communicate it to her team later.

Several business owners we met at Infusioncon had another great strategy. They bought the event videos. This way, they can pick and choose the key sessions that impact their business the most, and have their team watch the sessions so they can all dialogue with the same foundation of information.

Get re-charged, re-energized, re-inspired, and get really great clients

Live events and conferences are definitely a great place to make new connections, build new relationships, and get new clients. But you need to make sure you don’t aggressively promote yourself, focus on making a sale, or get too pushy with other attendees. No one likes feeling pressured on the spot or having an order form shoved in their face from someone they just met (that has actually happened to me)!

They key to our event success has been to look at each event as a place to start a conversation, focus on the people we meet, and get to know them!

Sometimes I start a conversation with another attendee by asking them about their business, but more often than not my conversations start out by talking about personal things like shoes, handbags, food, where someone is from, or even kids. Then once we have established common ground, I’ll ask about their business and I’ll listen. Never be the person that asks a question and instead of listening to the answer, scans the room for their next target — you may think you’re being sly, but the person you’re semi-speaking with, knows exactly what you’re doing.

Live events are also a place to get re-charged, re-energized, and re-inspired about your business. At the event, you’re in a new environment away from your normal day-to-day distractions and stresses. If you can room alone and use the time to reflect on where you are right now, where you want to be, and what needs to happen to get there faster. Not only can you relax and spend time focusing ON your business, but you can rev up your close-to-burn-out engine and refuel your tanks. Live events are a great place to be reminded why you do what you do and to rediscover your passion for your business.

Attend an event! I dare you …

From airfare and the hotel, to food, drinks, and registration, live events have been and continue to be one of the best investments we make in our business.

I dare you to commit to attending more live events.

That may mean more local networking events, or it may mean adding another conference to your travel schedule, or it may mean making the decision to attend your first live event far from home.

If you’re not sure where to start, here’s a suggestion — The SUCCESS! Summit hosted by Today’s Innovative Woman magazine. This year the Los Angeles event has expanded and added a Dallas, Texas location, and I’m speaking at both events!

Register today for only $67 with the discount code: WOMAN2012

In Dallas on Friday, May 18, Join us for a day of networking and learning. As one of the featured speakers, I’m excited to present: How to Create a Website That Works When You’re Not Working.

In Los Angeles on Friday, October 5, Join us for the 5th annual SUCCESS! Summit. I’ve attended this event twice in the past few years and each time I was blown away by the women in the room and new strategies I learned. At this event I’ll be presenting: Branding Beyond The Logo: 5 Steps to Transforming Your Business into an Extraordinary and Lucrative Brand.

**Upgrade your ticket for the Dallas Event event and receive a special bonus day! Spend Saturday in a small group setting and get an on site, live marketing makeover with Women’s Success Coach Joy Chudacoff and I!

No matter what event you choose to attend next, Good Luck! And remember, all you have to do is start a conversation, listen to the person you’re speaking with, and let the relationship grow from there.

Are Your Marketing Materials Drivel or Driven?

Jennifer Bourn — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:41:06 +0000

Whether you are a small business owner, an entrepreneur, or a service professional, I bet that when it comes to marketing, you’re feeling more than a bit overwhelmed.

I’ll also bet that even though you may be an expert in your niche, you probably don’t feel like an expert in keeping your marketing pipeline full of new customers.

And being overwhelmed and insecure about your marketing can be dangerous if you don’t learn and plan.

I have seen it over an over. One person or business devises a marketing piece, such as an advertisement, that breaks new ground. People are going, “Wow,” that ad or strategy is converting leads into sales like gangbusters, and everyone else in that market is scrambling to catch up.

Unfortunately, the next thing that usually happens is that others try to copy the successful ad for their businesses, but they don’t adjust the ad to fit their marketing or their focus. Naturally, placed in the wrong context, the ad or strategy fails. Driven by panic rather than purpose, by uncertainty rather than an understanding of one’s audience, and by ignorance rather than expertise, the imitation of the original ad or strategy will just look like drivel.

The result is failure–money and time wasted, and prospects lost–all for a marketing piece that was copied instead of thought out, planned, and targeted.

That is why I want to put you in the driver’s seat of your marketing by sharing 3 things you need to think about before you turn the key on your next campaign…

Purpose-Driven Marketing

The most effective marketing materials are effective because they are planned. The business person who plans their marketing ahead of time is compelled to ask: What is the purpose of this particular piece of marketing? In other words, what is the result I want to achieve?

Knowing in advance what you want a marketing piece to do will help you write copy that is focused and clear and that guides the reader toward your goal.

For example, if you want to educate your readers about a skill they should develop, your copy will be focused on showing them how they can. If you want to persuade them to take an action, your copy will be focused on telling them why they should.

The purpose, result, goal, or aim of any given marketing piece or campaign can be varied–to educate and inform, to persuade or call to action, to inspire and motivate–but you must know what you want to do before you jump in and start writing copy, and before deciding which medium will be the best to deliver your message.

To ensure that your marketing copy is purpose-driven, write the purpose of each marketing piece as a statement, for example, “The goal of this marketing campaign is to persuade my audience that they can’t live without this product or service another day.”

Audience-Driven Marketing

Having a purpose, you know exactly what you want your marketing piece to do. Next, you need to get clear about who you’re directing it at–you need to know our audience.

To be truly audience-driven, your marketing needs to do 3 things:

Speak directly and clearly to your target market:
After all, what may look and seem great to you may not look or seem great to your audience. If you know your target market, you will tailor your message to them–using their preferred styles of communication and design.
Answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” (WIFM):
In other words, communicate benefits: how will this product, information, or service help them? How exactly will their lives change as a result of reading your information, taking the action you say they should, or changing their ideas about something? Why should they care?
Appeal to your mom:
Your mother represents a great cross-section of your audience. So ask yourself, would she understand the message? Would she understand the action that you are asking her to take? Write the content and design the piece with your mother in mind, and it will be clear enough for your audience, too.

Expertise-Driven Marketing

Third, you need to establish your expert status and build your credibility. You need to let your prospects know why they should listen to you and what qualifies you as an expert.

Your audience needs to trust you and believe you before they will take the action you are requesting.

“Drive thy business or it will drive thee.” — Benjamin Franklin

Writing good marketing copy can be daunting, but don’t let that stop you.

Once you know that your marketing needs to be driven by purpose, audience, and expertise, you won’t have to beg, borrow, and steal to put together just a mediocre marketing piece. With marketing made magnetic because it’s driven by the right things, the only problem you might have to deal with, is people copying you.

Infusionsoft Delivers The Goods, Content That Is, at Infusioncon 2012

Jennifer Bourn — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:32:26 +0000

A HUGE thank you and thunderous applause goes out to Nicole Shoots, Kathy Sacks, Jeff Mask, Jordan Hatch, and the whole Infusionsoft team for an amazing event. Infusioncon 2012 was definitely an event to remember with juicy content, coding tricks, marketing strategies explained, and pure inspiration for a sold out crowd of business owners and entrepreneurs.

Another HUGE thank you goes out to those awesome business owners I was fortunate enough to meet, and to all those who attended my breakout session on How to Create a Website That Works When You’re Not Working. I had so much fun sharing my insights with you and I have LOVED getting all of your feedback!

While personal relationships, integrity, customer services, and customer care were strong themes throughout the event, so were marketing automation, email marketing, and leverage. I learned from the speakers, from the vendors, and from the other attendees. But there was one thing I that I got the most clarity on, and that is …

We’re on the right track. We’re doing the right things. We’re moving in the right direction. And now we just need to put our heads down and implement.

I left the event not only more confident in the software we use to power our business and our marketing, but more confident in the actions we are taking with our business. I also left more focused, more motivated, and more inspired to take action.

As I wrap up all of my posts recapping the event … I know, I know, there have been a lot … I’ll leave you with the rest of the quick bites of wisdom from Chris Brogam, Loral Langemeier, and Infusioncon in general. See You Next Year!

Chris Brogan, Author of Trust Agents

The first thing Chris Brogan did during his Infusioncon 2012 keynote was throw out his slides. Then he switched over to a basic flip chart on an easel. He was totally approachable in style, went off on a few insightful, relevant, and worthy tangents … and expertly circled back to the topic of his keynote Google+ for Business and delivered some interesting facts.

One thing to remember is that Google is the number one search engine and they own Google+, so by default, you should be there. Plus, now your search results are reflective of your Google+ circles and in the future, it will only blend more.

Here are some other quick bites from Chris Brogan’s keynote:

Infographics are like porn you can leave on when people show up.
More than 60% of traffic is now coming from mobile devices
If you put people in the hands of “do not reply,” you’re just telling tell them you don’t care about them
Infographic: Google+ for Business
Stop using QR Codes on Social Media or a website … they are already online
Over 70% of people who use QR codes send visitors to non mobile-friendly websites
Make your buyer the hero
Consider what to automate and what to do personally
69% of people looking for your biz start on search and most start on Google

“Millionaire Maker” Loral Langemeier

Loral Langemeier is from my neck of the woods in Northern California and while I’ve heard her speak before a few times, her presentation at Infusioncon hit on some new topics and had a couple awesome tips woven in!

In particular, I loved the way she broke down business numbers ito simple, easy to understand formulas – Like her 12/4/5 formula. With that formula, you identify how much you want to make. Divide by 12 (months), then by 4 (weeks), then by 5 (days). That total equals the amount you need to make per day to reach your goal.

Here are some other great nuggets of wisdom from Loral:

The degree to which the recession affected you = how good you are at making money
Say yes, then figure out how. Only surround yourself with yes people
So busy working in biz that you launch poor … It’s time to launch Rich
Stop working on stuff and start making money
Strengthen your strengths, hire your weaknesses

More Nuggets of Wisdom From Infusioncon 2012

While I’ve been recapping my tweets and notes from the keynotes and breakout sessions, the beauty of Infusioncon isn’t just in the speakers, but in the killer networking that goes on in the vendor areas, lunch areas, and throughout the hotel.

Here are some of my favorite tidbits I picked up while wandering the vendor area:

Do not automate everything. Automation is delightful until it’s not human
If you’re not generating leads and you’re just creating content, you’re not producing value for your business
Web analytics can be used to determine which blog posts generate leads that convert to sales
You have to remember your why
Businesses don’t fail because their dreams are too big. Businesses fail because their dreams are too small
When people aren’t having any fun, that’s called churn
Trap of small biz = time for money … Most really successful entrepreneurs sell product not services
If its not obvious, you’re losing money
Recurring revenue model is key to escaping time for money and making money without you living in the doing
Pay attention to acquisition, engagement, monetization, enlistment
Your brand aesthetic needs to match YOU and be irresistible to your audience

If you’re an entrepreneur, I highly recommend looking into Infusionsoft for your business, and mark Infusioncon on your calendar for 2013!