And yes, these are all important, but don’t stop here. Branding goes much deeper.   It is also encompasses the culture of your business, it’s essence, the experience and interaction others have from dealing with you and your business.

Here are three questions to ask yourself as you work to build your powerful brand:

1. What is my core message (e.g. your belief statement about what it takes to get your ideal client from where they are to where they want to be)?

The reason why your core message is so essential is because it’s foundational to every business decision you make: what products you will develop, who you will pursue as jv partners, what services and programs you will offer.

Not to mention it will foster consistency in the topics you write or speak about.  In building your brand, it’s important that people draw the right kind of association with you and your business.  As a result you can attract the right clientele and jv and strategic partners as well.

2. What do I want to be known as? Your ultimately goal is to be THE go to person in your niche, the one to watch, AND someday even a household name!  Think of it – you already process in this way when thinking about big name companies and brands.

For example one of my favorite companies is Modells because they cater to families, and provide great athletic equipment, attire and the like, at affordable prices. Although they don’t always have the biggest selection of items, the fact that they are very competitive on price, keeps them top of mind when I need to purchase athletic gear for my boys.

Tilex is another example. Because it’s antibacterial and has bleach, I associate Tilex with getting my bathroom germ free, super clean and white. Catch my drift?  What do you want your solobusiness to be known for in your niche?

3. What do you want people to experience? When prospects interact with you and your business, what experience do you want them to have?  How do you always want to come across?  If someone were to sum up who you are or what your business represents, what words, phrases, descriptions, should come to mind?

Establishing a brand for your business takes time and will evolve overtime. Start today by answering the question, “Who am I, What am I, Why am I?” as a business, and build from there.

These three questions are baseline and fundamental to launching and growing your business.  Otherwise your efforts are lost before even getting started. If you are struggling to formulate your marketing message, get your business off the ground, and build your business, here’s a boost!

For a limited time, join me for a complimentary I Want to Launch & Grow My Business breakthrough session. This  session is designed to uncover the challenges that keep getting in the way, slowing you down or stopping you from reaching your most important goals. Marketing may be a big STUCK place; get unstuck now .

“If only I had more time…,” is a common thought that we’ve all had from time to time to being more productive.

But is lack of time the only that typically slows you down or gets in your way of achieving more? If I had to guess, probably not.

Share your STUCK place when it comes to being more productive.  What have you tried that worked and didn’t when it comes getting more things done,  feeling more of a sense of accomplishment, and making consistent, steady, forward progress without fail?

Please leave a comment!  I am looking forward to your thoughts & insights!

was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Anais Nin, author

express your power, and fulfill your potential.”

Suze Orman, financial advisor, author, motivational speaker, and television host

With the variety and different types of social media sites available to market your business along with the multitude of ads, dings, notifications, apps, discussions, new features to keep up to speed and adopt, the world of social media networking and marketing can be very overwhelming to say the least!

But it doesn’t have to be.

Here are three simple ways to avoid getting sucked in and wasting time on social media:

Create a plan – In other words, don’t just “show up;” be intentional.  Plan out how you will use social media to the letter — each day, each update, and what you’ll do with your time.  This way you can stay focused on the outcome and objective at hand.

Automate — Updating your social network about new posts, articles and information can be automated without any ill effects. This one act will save you hours each day (assuming you’re blogging and creating content like you should).  You can’t be on all sites all the time.   Smart automation is imperative to being able to get everything done that needs to be done.

Schedule — As a woman who launches while working you’ve got only a finite window of time to work on your business.   Staying highly optimized is key!   If social media marketing is an important aspect of getting clients and building your business, you must schedule and commit time doing it.

Use these tips to begin putting an end to overwhelm and wasting time on social media.  But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

If you are looking for more tactics and strategies to get better results using social media,  join me and my expert guest  Amber Lee Scott for Tuesday’s ( May 8 ) teleseminar:  Understanding Social Media: Customize Your Strategy, Stop Overwhelm, Get Better Results in Less Time.

Click register and receive program details and information.

- Do you spend countless hours posting on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn but never get a response?

- Are you confused which sites to use more readily & how to use them effectively?

- Do you feel like social media marketing is a complete waste of time?

Join me and my guest expert Ms. Amber Lee Scott, the Social Media Mentor & CEO of  TrueUvoice,  for our upcoming FREE teleseminar:  Understanding Social Media: How to Customize Your Marketing Strategy, Stop Overwhelm, Get Better Results in Less Time

You will discover:

- How to choose the social media sites that are exactly right for you and your business

- How to reach your target market on social media without fail

- Simple tools, strategies and techniques you can incorporate into your marketing game plan to grow your business faster

- The #1 thing you MUST ALWAYS do if you do nothing else

- The most important aspects of your social media strategy…even if you have very little time

- How to convert your social media tribe into list subscribers and paying clients and customers.

And More!

Click here to register and get more program details.

Tyra Banks, model, media personality, actress, entrepreneur

Attempting to be perfect ushers in lots of lost time, frustration, feelings of inadequacy and can even interfere with completing important projects.

The problem with perfection is that it can never be truly attained. So, in pursuing perfection, you are bound to end up with less to show for your efforts.

Think about it: A poorly written but complete book can still be published (and can still be bought or sold).

But a perfectly composed book that’s only half finished is essentially worthless!

Of course, there’s a middle ground between poor and perfect…and that terrain includes excellence.

Excellence in this context means more than good enough. It means that a task whether completed by you or outsourced is completed at a high enough level that there’s no cause for concern. Pursuit of excellence begins with deciding what level you wish to attain before getting started  on a project.

Everything you do should have standards that you strive for. Once you have set the bar, you now have a target – a goal that’s been chosen with some thought and intelligence.  Thereafter, simply perform the task to that level and stop. Consider it done and move on to something else.

By choosing excellence over perfection, you can be more productive, feel more of a sense of accomplishment, and maintain your sanity much more easily as you work hard to meet critical benchmarks and deadlines.

The choice is clear…strive for the pursuit of excellence and thrive!

Chances are pursuit of perfection isn’t the only thing that slows you down from achieving what you want for your business. If you are ready to get out of your own way, stop self sabotage and uncover other hidden barriers and challenges, click here for a complimentary, limited time offer, I Want to Launch & Grow My Business Breakthrough Session.

and don’t be afraid to hit the ball.”

Billie Jean King, former professional tennis player

I know you’re glad tax season is DONE!!  So often, it’s can be overwhelming and stressful.

But it doesn’t have to be — the key is year round tax planning!

As an entrepreneur, almost everything  you do in business has some sort of tax implication. So, why should you wait until the tax crunch time to start planning and preparing?

That is not the best use of your time and it could be costing you thousands of dollars in the long run!   It’s better to implement a tax plan that you can work all year!   The ideal situation is a tax plan set up and ready to go by December 31st of the year before the new tax year starts.

I know this may sound a little scary!  Now, take a deep breath in and exhale!  LOL!

Here’s a secret:  Your tax plan doesn’t have to be a complicated one, but it should be a plan that makes sense, compliments your business structure and operations, one that you can commit to, and one that is developed to keep as much net profit in your business as legally possible.

What Does It Mean to Have a Tax Plan for Your Business?

Simply put, it means to implement tactics and strategies throughout the year in an effort to minimize potential tax liability (the amount of taxes you owe to the IRS as a result of having a profitable business) and to increase your tax savings.  A tax plan can also help you in taking advantage of tax breaks that you may be legally entitled to.

Here are some daily habits you can adopt now that will get you started with your effective tax plan for 2013!

1.) Always have organized financial records.  Also develop a filing system or process of keeping track of your expenditures and invoices.

2.) Create a regular schedule for accounting and financial management responsibilities such as bookkeeping, filing receipts, and other financial documents. Commit to how often you will tend to these responsibilities – Weekly? Monthly?  Quarterly?

3.) Monitor your net income/net profit on at least a monthly basis.  This way you can assess whether you are on track to meeting your financial and revenue goals.

4.) Don’t comingle transactions – keep your business and personal financials separate.  Not only is this bad bookkeeping practice, it’s just too hard to effectively monitor cash flow from each account.  It’s even harder to remember to “pay this or that account” back.

5.) Schedule time in the middle or end of the tax year in which you make wise spending on “necessary” equipment, computers, software, etc.; contributing to a retirement plan or benefits plan; paying wages to family members or implementing growth strategies.

6.) Always meet with your CPA or other trusted financial consultant to determine what is the best tax plan for your business.

About our guest blogger: Antonina D. Geer, MBA, owner of Simplistic Financials, LLC is passionate about serving and inspiring people to experience abundance in business and in life. She is a wife, a mother, works alongside her husband in ministry, and an entrepreneur. As a finance consultant and strategist, Antonina empowers women entrepreneurs to develop more profitable and sustainable businesses by taking control of the money matters in business. Through proven customized finance strategies, money relationship improvement solutions, and simple financial literacy, Antonina inspires women to make more money and keep more of the money they earn so that they can genuinely serve and live from their overflow! http://www.simplisticfinancials.com