Here’s a list of the 10 most common website mistakes, the ones that will repel visitors and lead you to your online death:

1. “Under construction”
This is probably the worst sign you could have on your website. Websites are supposed to be active, they should lead somewhere, and they should change and evolve. This sign shows you are not a serious website owner. If your site is not ready, don’t put it out there.

2. Visitor counters
People normally don’t care how many people have been to your website. In fact, it may be counterproductive because if the number is low, you will be perceived as a novice, and if the number is high, visitors will think you falsified it. Use website analytics to measure accurately how many people visit your site, and get rid of that counter.

3. No copyright statements
Protect your assets! The entire content of your website should be copyrighted. Put copyright statements on every page and update the year appropriately. It’s counterproductive to find a copyright statement from 1995 on a website.

4. Technology overuse
Technology is awesome, and there are many cool things you can program into your website; however, if these distract your visitor from your website’s main purpose, or if they take too long to load, then you are better without them. Visitors like simplicity and websites that are easy and fast to navigate.

5. Passive verbs
Active verbs and sentences denote power and energy, and this will be felt in your site. Passive verbs do exactly the opposite, so don’t use them.

6. Long sentences
People hate reading long sentences simply because they have to remember too much in order to understand what you’re saying. Visitors get distracted easily; so help them stay focused by writing short and confident sentences.

7. Long pages
Most people won’t read a long page on their screen; they will print it or scan it in search for the main information. The wise thing is to keep pages short; if you have lots of material, create several easy to navigate pages, and always put your contact information at the bottom of each page.

8. Failing to mention how your product or service benefits your prospects
People buy a product or service either to get rid of something negative or unwanted, or to obtain something that presents a positive advantage, and they want to know directly and exactly how your product or service will help them do just that.

9. Not telling the visitor what to do
This is known as a ‘call to action’ in marketing. Let your visitors know what you want them to do: sign up for your newsletter, call you, order online, answer a survey, etc.

10. Believing that people will visit the website as if by magic
Magic tricks are neat; however, in the Internet marketing field nothing happens out of the blue. If you want visitors, you have to create a website and then market it. You have to let people know you are out there.

In any case, here’s what you need to consider when contacting web designers in search for the best one for your business:

* Observe how much they ask you about your business. A good web designer will want to know everything and more about your company, because this is the only way in which they can design a website that mirrors you and your business to perfection.

* Check out the websites he has designed to confirm that you like them. Notice if all the sites look alike or if they vary according to the client.

* Ask if the designer created the graphic and layout design of the sites or if he just took care of the programming.

* If he doesn’t do graphic work, ask if he can recommend someone.

*Confirm he has an organized planning process to guide you through the design phase, and that every discussion and decision will be documented. The more you can participate in the planning, the better.

* Investigate the designer’s knowledge about Internet marketing and search engine optimization. Be sure the site he will create meets your marketing and business goals. Just “pretty” doesn’t cut it; your website must be easily found by your clients and prospects so as to generate sales.

* Ask about his fees and the cost of the website you desire. In order for him to give you a good estimate, he will have to know about the content and features you want in the site.

* Ask how he will charge you and if you have to make deposits or pay him directly. The web designer could bill you monthly, or as he finishes phases.

* Notice if he aims to stay within budget or is always suggesting new features that elevate the price. The budget is your responsibility, not his.

* Talk to several of his current clients to see what their experience is like. The web designer must possess good project management and communication skills, and he must be a good listener.

* Ask if he does maintenance work after the website is up and running and how much it will cost. Some designers are only interested in creating websites, not maintaining them; in this case, you have to find an assistant to help you run your website.

* If you are going to do the maintenance yourself, ask the designer if he can keep the design simple and easy to maintain by the owner.

* Ensure the contract says that you own the copyright to the whole website. Everything you hired someone to do for you should be owned by you.

* Make sure you own the domain name, even if the designer registered it for you.

* Ask the designer to give you original and editable source files, otherwise, you or another designer, won’t be able to edit the website.

* You have to enjoy talking and working with the designer. You have to like him, trust him, and enjoy his conversation.

* You shouldn’t feel he is wasting your time. There should be business chemistry between you, and he must offer valuable feedback about your website’s design.

* Make sure the designer can meet your deadline. The best web designers are very busy, thus, you may have to wait in line. If you can be flexible, work with him to create a schedule that works for you both.

It is important to research and interview several professionals to ensure you hire the one that is really capable of giving your business, and you, what you need.

If you liked this article, tell all your friends about it. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention www.OneCoach.com as the original source).

1. Focus
Being distracted when you are trying to absorb new information is a sure-fire way to never remember what is being said. Pay attention when people are speaking and really focus on what they’re saying.

2. Ask
A good way to remember facts or information that is being relayed to you is to ask questions about it. The more details you gather, the larger the pool of information you’ll have to draw on in your memory.

3. Repeat
If it’s something as simple as a name or date that you want to remember; try repeating to yourself several times. This will help the facts stick in your mind.

4. Convert
Try turning information into a pattern or picture that gives the plain data more impact. For example, maybe you want to remember that your friend Alan’s birthday is on the 8th of the month. You could tell yourself that the A in Alan can be turned into an 8 by adding a few lines. Now you’ve converted the information to something you can remember.

5. Connect
Try to find a connection between new information that you want to remember with something personal.

6. Expand
Learning more about a subject is a good way to make details stick. Just do a quick Internet search of the new information you’ve received to help clarify and define the data in your memory.

7. Visualize
Create a picture in your mind of the thing that you want to remember. Often, the more exaggerated the picture the better. For example, to remember the name Dave you might rhyme it with wave and then picture that person riding a surf board to the office. The next time you pass his desk, you might have a funny smile on your face, but you will probably remember his name!

8. Write
Whenever you can, take a moment to write down information you want to remember. The act of writing it down helps commit it to memory. If you’ve been introduced to several people at a social function, for example, it is sometimes a good idea to step away from the group for a moment and jot down bits of pertinent information.

9. Act
If you want to remember how to do something from what someone has shown you, or from instructions you’ve read, the best way is to try and do it yourself. It’s like trying to remember the rules to a game. You read through them but you don’t often understand them until you actually play a round.

10. Speak
When trying to absorb written information, it is often helpful to read it aloud. Your brain not only sees but hears the information and as a result may retain it better.

Apply these techniques and you’ll be on your way to a better memory!

Playing on the teeter-totter in kindergarten, we probably learned what “leverage” is. But what does the term mean in business?

Simply put, “leverage” is the ability to accomplish more by use of a tool than you could through your own direct effort. The most obvious use is in investing, when (for example) you borrow money to buy more shares than you could otherwise obtain.

When it comes to sales, finding a job, or whatever other business goal you are trying to achieve, your success is driven in large part by your ability to leverage the community you build around you. By positioning yourself appropriately, you can call upon not only your own knowledge, skills, and contacts, but also those of the people you know, with relatively little effort. Online networking tools in particular, can dramatically increase your leverage: more results with less effort.

Let’s look at a few specific ways you can apply the concept of leverage, particularly online:

Crossing the Action Threshold

Many people will respond if you ask them for a favor. But it’s far better if they proactively market you and seek out clients for you. It takes a certain degree of trust and relationship strength for them to act proactively — that’s when you have leverage. If your relationships aren’t above that “action threshold”, they’re not really serving you at full capacity. To achieve this goal, you first and most obviously need a high credibility level in what you’re selling. Assuming you have that, you can also motivate that proactive behavior in others by being proactive yourself in your service to them. A finder’s fee is another way to motivate more people to look out for your interests.

The Power of Many

Any time you interact in a public venue rather than one-on-one, that’s leverage. For example, public speaking is a powerful way to reach more potential customers of what you’re selling. The same conversation exposes you to, and connects you with, a large number of other people, all for the same amount of effort — plus you get the added benefit of the other people in the community sharing their experiences. When our readers write to us about issues we discuss at TheVirtualHandshake.com, rather than replying vie e-mail, we typically reply with a blog post… which hundreds or thousands of people will read. When people send you a private message in a social networking site, you can suggest taking it to a public channel (where appropriate.) That’s leverage.

Content Recycling

You can leverage your writing by repurposing it for multiple venues. Let’s say you write something in a discussion forum. (Consider composing your replies to web forums in a word processor or HTML editor. That way you’ll have it saved for later revision or expansion, plus you get the benefit of spell-checking your web postings.) You can use your initial text as a discussion starter in another forum, then post it to your blog, include it in your company’s newsletter, and expand it into an article for publication elsewhere. You get dramatically more value from your initial investment of effort.

Don’t Spread Yourself too Thin

Something to keep in mind: with leverage comes risk — the risk of becoming over-extended. Only a very foolish investor would have all of his investments on leverage; you have to keep your debt levels under control.

Similarly, with your community of support, you have to invest the one-on-one time with the most important people, who are typically the people with the greatest buying power and likelihood to buy. You can’t do this en masse. If you spend too much time doing “bulk networking” (also known as spam), you won’t have enough time to spend developing those stronger relationships that you need to actually get your business done. If you become so over-extended that you can no longer service your relationships, don’t expect them to provide any returns when you need them.

Online, it’s very easy to become over-extended with your relationships because some of the tools make it so easy to make trivial connections with large numbers of people. Also, talking with people about business is, for many people, a lot more fun than actually working on your business. We’ve heard many anecdotes of people spending time on discussion forums and networking sites when, by their own admission, they should be pursuing existing leads, putting out proposals, or developing new products.

In Chapter 2 of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, we suggest a three-step process to help you keep your focus on high-return relationships. (For this example, we’re focused on the sales process.)

1. Review everyone in your contact database to create a list of hot leads: These are potential customers, employers, or whatever sort of person you are pursuing). This target list also includes people who are not themselves leads, but can introduce you to leads. The head of the local synagogue or church knows many people — it could be worthwhile to ask him if he might know customers for your business.

2. Approach all of your leads over the next few weeks: Work on building your relationship with them. Over time, and depending on context, either try to sell to them or else ask for referrals.

3. Focus on meeting new people only after pursuing the majority of the existing leads: Serving your current customers should be your highest priority, followed by pursuing your hottest leads. Let’s say that you sell your consulting services successfully to 50 percent of your leads (which would be a very impressive close ratio!) In a new, closed-entry chat room, there is only perhaps a 25 percent chance that you will meet someone with that 50 percent chance of revenues — so you only have a 12.5 percent chance of earning revenues from participating in the chat room. A bird in the hand is worth far more than a bird flitting through cyberspace.

Leverage is a powerful concept. Maintain your focus, don’t get over-extended, and you can expect a great return on your investment of time and energy.

Scott “Social Media” Allen is a social media strategist who’s been helping individuals and businesses transform virtual relationships into real business since 2002. He’s coauthor of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online and The Emergence of The Relationship Economy, as well as a resident expert at American Express OPEN Forum and Business.com. In partnership with OneCoach, Scott will be presenting a six-part course on “Social Media for Business Growth” starting on August 18. Click here for more information.

You’re also invited to join OneCoach CEO John Assaraf and thought leader Scott Allen on Wednesday, Aug. 18 at 11:00 a.m. PDT for a complimentary webinar on “High-ROI Social Media”. Click here to register.

Contrary to popular opinion, effective marketing in forums and discussion lists is not about volume, it’s about presence and positioning.

If you want to be perceived as an expert, act like a true expert.

Seems like a simple enough concept, right? If you want to be thought of as an expert in your field, besides just knowing your stuff, if you could figure out how experts — not wanna-be experts, but true “A-list” experts that people respect, quote, hire and buy from — act, then acting like them, rather than acting like a wanna-be, should boost your credibility even more.

You know the wanna-be experts… you’ve seen them. They always have an opinion about everything posted in the group. They’ll ramble on for paragraph after paragraph, making their case ad nauseam. And it seems that whenever there’s a flame war, they’re right in the middle of it, even if it doesn’t look like they started it.

Over the past five years I’ve studied how “real” experts behave in online groups. And when I say “real” experts, I mean the ones who earn significant revenues from their business, have published books, speak at conferences, have peer-reviewed papers in trade journals, and so on. Are they necessarily the most knowledgeable on the topic? No. But they have the best reputations and are generally far more financially successful than the wanna-bes.

If you want to be perceived as a real expert, not a wanna-be, you need to act like one.

So how do real experts act?

In order to understand how real experts act, let’s look first at two key attributes of experts:

1. They’re busy: They’re working — writing, traveling, speaking, consulting for a client, whatever… Point is, they have better things to do with their time than spend all day in a discussion forum.

2. They’re extremely careful about what they say: They know that people are paying attention to them, and that has two consequences. First of all, they know that their reputation is on the line every time they open their mouth — that everything they say will be subject to scrutiny. Secondly, they also know that people will put a lot of weight into what they say and probably act upon it, so they feel a strong sense of responsibility to provide good information.

When you understand those things, it’s easy to see why experts behave as they do in this context:

Experts post less frequently: They aren’t usually heavily, heavily engaged in the group unless it’s their own group or they have some kind of leadership role. Depending on the overall posting volume, anywhere from a 2 posts a week to a few per month is sufficient to keep their name out there.

Experts aren’t quick to reply: They usually aren’t the first ones to join in the conversation. Remember, they’re not sitting there watching for posts as they come in — they may only even read the group posts once or twice a week. Also, they read and reflect on the reactions of others before posting their own thoughts.

Experts consolidate the conversation, not fragment it: There’s a tendency in active groups for conversations to “fragment”, i.e., multiple people reply to the original post, then people create replies to the replies, and so on. Experts don’t typically reply to people individually, but rather create a single, longer post that addresses what several people have said all at once.

Experts substantiate what they say: Experts are researchers. Sure, they have opinions, but most of them didn’t earn their reputations based purely on their opinions. So when they make statements in these groups, they often back these up by citing sources, whether it’s something they’ve written themselves or that someone else wrote. It’s especially helpful if you link to the sources you’re citing. And if it’s yourself, that’s a great promotional tool at the same time.

Experts keep it professional: They don’t participate in flame wars, and they rarely bring their personal issues into the group. They don’t put people down — they may correct, but they don’t insult in doing so. Why? Because they’re not threatened.

Experts don’t “act” smart — they are smart: True experts don’t talk down to people, but they also don’t use jargon or complex language in order to sound impressive. In fact, they are generally more able than most to put the concepts into plain, simple language that everyone can understand, and are patient and willing to do so.

Let’s be clear… this isn’t about gaming the system to pretend to be an expert when you’re really not. This is about making some smart decisions about how you use your time and how you engage people in online communities. You’ll find, as you put these into practice, that not only will they slowly but surely enhance your reputation, they’ll also give you more time than random, unfocused participation does. You can use that time to go do the same thing in another group or site, or to go do other things to enhance your expert reputation, like write a blog or better yet, a book.

Act like a real expert, not a wanna-be, and you will attract more business.

Scott “Social Media” Allen is a social media strategist who’s been helping individuals and businesses transform virtual relationships into real business since 2002. He’s coauthor of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online and The Emergence of The Relationship Economy, as well as a resident expert at American Express OPEN Forum and Business.com. In partnership with OneCoach, Scott will be presenting a six-part course on “Social Media for Business Growth” starting on August 18. Click here for more information.

You’re also invited to join OneCoach CEO John Assaraf and thought leader Scott Allen on Wednesday, Aug. 18 at 11:00 a.m. PDT for a complimentary webinar on “High-ROI Social Media”. Click here to register.

The other part of it is your character. Are you someone that people in your network not only know, but also like and trust? Do your friends and associates trust you to treat the people they refer to you well? Show and grow your character, and you’ll receive more referrals.

Character isn’t just what you are, it’s what you do. There is little that rings more hollow than for someone to say, in one form or another, that they are a person of “high character” — honest, a hard worker, helpful, easy-going, etc. — and then have their actions be inconsistent with that. Furthermore, one of the best ways to build stronger relationships is by helping people actually accomplish their goals.

In The Virtual Handshake, we introduced the idea of “Seven Keys to a Powerful Network”, one of which is your character:

Character: Your integrity, clarity of motives, consistency of behavior, openness, discretion, and trustworthiness. This is driven by the reality and the appearance: the real content of your Character, and what each Acquaintance thinks of your Character.

We also point out that:

As an absolute rule, credibility – your Character and your Competence – must underlie your network. A massive network will not aid you if you are selling an inferior product or trying to get a job for which you are unqualified. In fact, a big network will rapidly become a liability, as too many people will be aware of the inferior goods you are peddling. No matter how much your friends like you, they will not recommend you for a job if they see that you are consistently unethical, tardy, sloppy, or otherwise unprofessional.

There’s a line from an old church song that I remember from my childhood: “If your light’s under a bushel, it’s lost something kind of crucial.” If you are a person of character, you need to show that, and LinkedIn is a great opportunity to do that. Here are seven ways that you can actually demonstrate your character on LinkedIn, rather than just talk about it.

1. Answer questions well. Don’t just rattle off a quick opinion – put some thought into it. Provide some additional resources. Refer people to an appropriate expert from within your network. Most of the questions on LinkedIn Answers are from people actually trying to solve a problem or accomplish something, not just looking for something to talk about. What better way to be of service than to actually help someone accomplish something?

2. Add value to introduction requests. If you buy into the idea that LinkedIn is designed for “trusted referrals”, then you need to participate in that. A trusted referral isn’t just, “Joe meet Sally, Sally meet Joe.” A trusted referral adds context to the introduction which will help the two people get off to a good start. How do you know this person? How can you recommend them in the context of their request?

3. Make good recommendations. Don’t just wait for people to recommend you and then reciprocate – be proactive. Go through your network. Who among them do you feel strongly about that you could give a good recommendation to for their profile? When you add someone new, do you know them well enough to go ahead and recommend them? Also, recommendations on your own profile are a great way to show your own reputation, and the best way to ask for an endorsement is to give one. And don’t write empty, generic recommendations; write good ones.

4. Respond in a timely manner. Forward introduction requests right away. The rest, get to as quickly as you can. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m pretty slow in responding to invitations and to introduction requests for me if they are just general “I’d like to meet you” requests. It’s not that I think they aren’t important — I’m just plain busy, and I place my existing clients, business associates and family in front of new networking contacts. But forwarding requests I almost always handle within 24 hours, 2 days at the most.

5. Help your contacts learn how to use LinkedIn effectively. Most people don’t have a clue how to get beyond the basics of a simple profile with their last couple of jobs and connecting with a few colleagues they keep up with. Help them! Go through your contacts list and see which people have less than 10 connections. Drop them an e-mail asking them if there’s anything you can do to help them make better use of the system. Refer them to this blog and the LinkedIn-related Yahoo Groups. Doing so not only helps them, it also helps you and all of your network if more people become actively engaged.

6. Be proactive. One of the most important elements of networking is proactively introducing two people that you know. It’s not readily obviously how to do this with LinkedIn, but you can: from the profile of one of the people, choose “Forward this profile to a connection.” Address it to the other person, but also address it to the first person whose profile you’re sending. By default, recipients will be able to see each other’s names and email addresses, and they’ll both see the same message.

Now take it one step further and use LinkedIn to set up multiple introductions. For example, let’s say you meet somebody new and they’re looking to meet people with an interest in, say, process management. Now, even though you know your contacts fairly well, you may not be able to remember (or even know) which of them have a background in process management, and I’m betting that’s not in your contact management system either. But it is in LinkedIn. Search your network. Find the matches. Copy their profile URLs and send them to the new person you met and tell them you’d be happy to make an introduction. Or say someone you know posts on a mailing list or forum that they’re looking for someone to fill a certain position. Search your LinkedIn network and send them the list of people in your first and second degree and tell them you’d be glad to introduce the ones they’re interested in talking to. Great networking is proactive, not just reactive.

7. Use LinkedIn to enhance face-to-face networking. You can use LinkedIn to fill out a business trip, meet fellow travelers in your network, help you break the ice at a meeting or research a prospective client so you can communicate with them more effectively. Every one of these things helps show that you have a genuine interest in other people and are willing to make the time to develop those relationships.

Think of your character as being like a muscle — if it doesn’t get enough exercise, it will atrophy. So go give your character a workout at the LinkedIn gym!

Scott “Social Media” Allen is a social media strategist who’s been helping individuals and businesses transform virtual relationships into real business since 2002. He’s coauthor of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online and The Emergence of The Relationship Economy, as well as a resident expert at American Express OPEN Forum and Business.com. In partnership with OneCoach, Scott will be presenting a six-part course on “Social Media for Business Growth” starting on August 18. Click here for more information.

And yet he’s always broke. He drinks water at every event, not because it’s healthy, but to save money. He’ll spend hours on Twitter doing essentially nothing, but won’t spend $50 for a tool that will actually help his business. There’s always a hint of desperation hidden in his voice (or his blog posts) because his business really isn’t doing that well.

He’s drunk the networking & social media Kool-Aid. It’s a poison, and if you’re not careful, you might easily fall victim to it too.

Networking is fun. Furthermore, there’s rarely any rejection in networking. People can succeed at networking even if they’re not succeeding in their business. And if you’re any good at it at all, occasionally it will work and actually generate you some business. “See? Networking works!” That becomes a validation of whatever you’ve been doing. It doesn’t matter that if you did things a little differently, you could have had ten times the results with the same amount of effort – what you’re doing “works”.

It’s an addiction. And it’s an insidious one at that. Why? Because…

More networking is not necessarily a good thing.

First off, it can pull your attention and financial resources away from other, more important things. Secondly, more networking means more exposure of anything in your business or your relationship management practices that’s not absolutely rock solid.

Now I know you’ve all heard that “givers gain” – that you should give first in a networking context, without thinking about what’s in it for you.

I agree. I also think it’s often misinterpreted. Let’s qualify it and say that…

It’s OK to be selfish sometimes when it comes to networking, or at least to appear that way.

Let’s consider a few facts:

In order to take care of others, you must take care of yourself. On a plane, they tell you to put your mask on first – you can’t help your child if you’re unconscious. The more resources you have at your disposal – money, time, connections, etc. – the better you can be of service to the people you know. “Love your neighbor as yourself” requires you to first love yourself. Perhaps spend less time networking and more time becoming someone that people would want to network with.

Time is a zero-sum game. 24 hours, 7 days…that’s it…same as everybody else. An hour you’re spending networking is an hour you’re not spending with your current clients, your employees, your close friends, your family, or personal development. Sure, networking is rewarding, but really think about this when you consider attending a particular event or whether to spend an hour on Facebook – is it more rewarding in the long run than all of the other things you could be doing with your time? You can’t help everybody, and you shouldn’t feel guilty, or be made to feel guilty by anyone else, for saying “no”.

Your networking contacts are not the most important people in your life or your business, even for referrals. Who really gives you the most referrals (or at least the best ones)? New networking contacts? Or your current happy customers? If it’s not your current customers, “you’re doing it wrong.” The single most important thing you can do to drive referrals is to make sure your current customers are not just satisfied, but RAVING FANS. And your employees are what make your business possible. In most cases, clients are more easily replaced than good employees. And your family and close friends? They’re what make it all worthwhile. Don’t ever sacrifice those relationships on the altar of networking.

If your business isn’t solid, your network is a house of cards. More exposure means exposing the weaknesses as well as the strengths. If you’re stretched so thin that you can’t even begin to keep up with all the little commitments you make — “Sure , I’ll get that over to you” or that stack of “let’s talk next month” people – then why are you spending your time meeting a lot of new people? Do you really think all those new people will create value for you (or that you’ll be able to create value for them) greater than those opportunities that are already in front of you?

People who don’t understand the items above are not your friends. If a networking contact can’t understand that, in the event of a commitment conflict, you’re going to take care of your customer over them, do you really even want them as a customer? If they’re demanding now, how do you think they’ll act when they’ve paid you money?

Now I’m not suggesting that people start thinking “what’s in it for me” about every interaction. What I am saying is that you need to be selective with your time. You are going to have to make some choices. And sometimes the choices stink.

Once I was scheduled to do a teleclass and cancelled the day of the event. There were a couple of hundred people registered and a very good networking contact of mine had arranged for the event. I knew it would damage my reputation to cancel and put a dent in my relationship with the friend who set it up.

Why did I cancel? Because a client of mine had a meeting for a $2 million funding deal the next day, and we weren’t done with the presentation and prospectus. Taking even a couple of hours out for the teleclass could have meant a botched meeting for him. Or maybe not, but I also had to be able to give reasonable notice to the teleclass organizer and attendees, so I made the call.

Sure…in hindsight, I didn’t plan it all well. But as of the morning of the event, I had to make a very difficult decision. If I had it to do over again, I’d make the same decision. I’d risk my reputation with a couple of hundred people I don’t know and have never worked with to make sure that my current client knew I would do whatever it takes to keep the commitment I made to them.

So go ahead…put yourself first. Take care of your business. Develop yourself. Stay healthy. Sleep. Meditate. Spend time with your friends and family. Put your customers and employees ahead of your networking contacts.

Don’t be afraid to ask yourself, “What’s in it for me?” about your overall networking activities. If you’re not getting the returns you want, maybe it’s time to push away from the networking buffet table, spend more time getting your business into shape, and develop a focused networking strategy that is aligned with your current business objectives, so you’ll achieve more results with less effort.

Scott “Social Media” Allen is a social media strategist who’s been helping individuals and businesses transform virtual relationships into real business since 2002. He’s coauthor of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online and The Emergence of The Relationship Economy, as well as a resident expert at American Express OPEN Forum and Business.com. In partnership with OneCoach, Scott will be presenting a six-part course on “Social Media for Business Growth” starting on August 18. Click here for more information.

Business leaders and management trainers have given this process several names. Whether it is called mind mapping, brainstorming, critical thinking or creative thinking, it is the same fundamental process. Creating a visual map of your problem solving process is unique to your and your business. Here are 5 tips on getting the most out of your visual map:

Organization
Putting your thoughts down in a systematized fashion will help you organize random thoughts into meaningful patterns. Use a large clean surface such as a whiteboard, flip chart, chalkboard or just a large piece of paper. Not only do you want to have room to write down all your thoughts, but you also want to be able to add to your map to the drawing board. Once you have written your problem in the center of the page, simply start writing every solution you can think of relating to that problem. You can write the ideas in any fashion you wish as long as they connect to the central issue.

Key Ideas
Once you have written down all potential ideas in the first step, study what you have written and look for the key words that most relate to the problem solving path you want to explore. Highlight these phrases.

Association
Now you want to focus on your key words and phrases and write down more ideas that you associate with them. Draw lines connecting the new ideas to the key words you have associated them with. Each time you associate a key word with a new idea, a door is opened to even more possibilities. Continue connecting ideas until you can no longer think of anything further.

Grouping
Looking at your diagram now, you should begin to see idea words and phrases that naturally go together. Draw a colored circle around these similar ideas and group them together. Once your ideas are grouped together you will be able to see where most of your information is leading you and should help you determine a path to follow. You will be able to pinpoint areas that need further research or more information.

Action
The simple task of writing your thoughts down creates a starting point for your problem solving process. The visual diagram you have created from random thoughts and ideas can now provide you with a way to see where your attention needs to be focused and what your best course of action should be. Rather than acting on impulse or just barging ahead without thought, you will be approaching your problem with an organized plan of action.

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We’ve all been there. This type of networking is frustrating and ineffective. Networking is not about meeting people and exchanging business cards. Networking is about making a true connection with people. It can be described as the difference between “met” and “net”. Many entrepreneurs avoid networking events because it has been associated with bad chicken wings — and even worse, self-serving sales pitches.

There is a much better way to network. Networking should be about meeting someone and positioning yourself in their mind as a solution. You are their answer to a problem, a source of pleasure or progress in some way. The goal is not meeting people. The goal is building a priceless business relationship. When networking is approached from an attitude of serving others needs you will find that you make real connections that serve as the building blocks for a relationship. The following tips will help you go from “met” to “net!”

1. Define your networking goals in advance.
Networking is about making connections. This is not confined to networking events. Once you have identified what you are trying to accomplish, who you need to meet and why, then you will find the best place to accomplish that objective. A networking event may have 1,000 attendees but you do not necessarily need to meet those 1,000 people. Know your target and then seek out the best place for open, face to face relationships.

2. Do not undervalue personal curb appeal.
Personal curb appeal is more than wearing nice clothes and having a great smile. Of course you should wear clothing that makes you feel confident, and make sure that your breath is minty fresh. The real value of personal curb appeal begins with believing that your product or service represents progress to people. You have to believe in yourself before you can communicate that belief to others. When you have self-belief you are happy to tell others how you can help them. Why wouldn’t they be thrilled to have the answer to a problem? Believe in yourself and share liberally with others!

3. Be interested in others.
Many people mistakenly focus their efforts on being interesting rather than being interested. People respond favorably to those that show a genuine interest in them. Creating relationships is not a one way dialogue but a genuine intent to create a give and take. Ask questions, listen intently, and consider ways that you can help the other person. Develop a “how can I help you” attitude rather than “what can you do for me” attitude and you will position yourself for a real relationship. Your interest will also uncover information about the person that can provide a true reason for follow-up. This is much more effective than calling someone after an event and having absolutely nothing to share!

4. Earn trust.
The first time you meet someone is an opportunity to make a progress-based impression. But it takes a series of progress-based impressions to go from “met” to “net.” A series of progress-based impressions will earn trust and build that priceless business relationship.

When you begin to approach networking from a helper’s perspective you reap immediate benefits. You will not only create a world class, solid network but you will also experience business growth. Having somebody truly in your network, not just somebody you met… well that is truly priceless!

Unfortunately, there are some obstacles that we encounter from time to time that hinder our passion. In order to live our life with passion, we must recognize these barriers and break them down. Here are some passion blockers to watch out for:

Fear is possibly the biggest passion blocker of all. Regardless of how passionate we may be about doing something, there is always that fear that we’ll fail. The funny thing is, if we don’t try we can’t ever succeed! Ignore that fearful voice inside your head and listen instead to that quiet voice of passion in the background.

Over thinking. If we were to act on something straight away without thinking about it, we would be acting out of passion. But rarely do we act without thinking, and that’s a good thing. But over thinking a situation to the point where we ultimately do nothing at all, is a bad thing. We need to include both passion and thought in our day to day decisions.

Conditioning. Having passion means being able to express our innermost feelings. It means being able to demonstrate, and act upon, our enthusiasm. Far too many individuals have been conditioned to believe that showing emotion or enthusiasm is a bad thing. The classic example? Boys don’t cry. Never be afraid to express how you really feel!

Pessimism. Passion breeds on success. Far too often we focus on the negative rather than the positive things in our lives, emphasizing what we haven’t done rather than applauding our accomplishments. If we focus on negative events, we’re bound to get negative results. Too much negativity will eventually squash any and all of the passion within us.

Our business coaching program teaches you that passion is there inside all of us, and there are simple ways to let it shine. Give yourself permission to feel. Be brave enough to take a risk or two without fearing failure. Surround yourself with passionate people. Cultivate optimism and a positive attitude. Be focused, but not obsessive. Celebrate every accomplishment no matter how small, and share it with others. Keep a sense of humor and develop the ability to laugh at yourself and at life. Be happy!

If this article has helped you think about driving passion in your business and your life, share it with your friends with one of the links above. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention www.OneCoach.com as the original source).

Adam Armbruster was looking for opportunities to grow his business. Once he found OneCoach, he took action. He realized that the old model of business, sales, and calling more customers sometimes isn’t necessarily the right thing to do. He changed his way of thinking and applied the strategies taught by OneCoach.  Here is the rest of Adam’s story.

Adam Armbruster is a partner of Eckstein, Summers, Armbruster & Company, a retail advertising and media sales consultant business in Redbank, New Jersey, where local businesses experience their high performance advertising. For more information on Eckstein, Summers, Armbruster & Company, you can visit www.ESACompany.com.

Problem

The business wasn’t at the level he thought it could be. He was pushing himself to work harder everyday, but he wasn’t seeing any growth.

Some of the challenges he faced:

• Wanted to do more with his business, but didn’t know how to do more
• Tried to force what he wanted to happen

Solution

Since becoming a OneCoach client, Adam has seen incredible growth. Despite the recession, Adam has:

• Experienced a 30% increase in growth after the first year with OneCoach
• Experienced a 40% increase in growth after the second year with OneCoach—doubled his results in 24 months

How OneCoach helped

“I have a bigger sense of opportunity now. I really enjoy the recorded calls with the OneCoach experts, who I like to call “super achievers.” I’ve learned so much from them. There is no other place where you can sit down and listen to a conversation between millionaires and billionaires talking about how to become one. It’s information that you can’t find anywhere else,” said Adam.

The “aha” moment

“The thing that hit me between the eyes is John Assaraf’s philosophy, which I practice now. It’s about controlling your surroundings. I don’t let the world set my mood for me in the morning. I’ve learned a deep sense of gratitude for everything in life including the little things and have been building a list in the morning. The momentum of controlling your mindset was huge for me,” said Adam.

Why OneCoach?

“The content is authentic and it’s relevant in the real world. There is no fluff. You can’t get this info anywhere else. I’m in sales and marketing and John is the only one who can teach me,” said Adam. “There are others out there, but it’s all about zen stuff and you don’t really learn anything. Feeling good is great, but you also need to learn. I’m completely turned around times 10.”

Learn more about what we do at OneCoach…check out these 7 FREE videos!

There are certain strategies that should be taken into account when trying to effectively use the upselling technique. One of them is to look more closely at consumer purchasing patterns. Purchasing patterns will give you a better idea of what the best additional items to pitch to a customer are, and what items haven’t been very successful. By keeping track of customers’ different ordering patterns, you will see what items they may be purchasing in concert with others, and what items you can offer as an additional item to boost sales. An important factor in upselling is preparation and flexibility. Be prepared to know what the best items to offer together are for maximum upselling capability, but also be flexible enough to change your plan around if it’s not working.

Another effective strategy when using the upselling technique is to create incentives for extra purchases. This can be done in a multitude of ways. You can offer rebates and discounts for future purchases, or you can even create a “Buy this item, get this item 30% off” kind of deal. This can be effective, if you have done the necessary purchasing pattern research. You will know what items are usually sold in association with another and what items to offer incentive deals with. If you know that 40% of the people who buy iPods also buy a car adapter to go along with it, it may be a good idea to create a discount on car adapters as long as it’s sold along with the iPod, to create an incentive for sales of both items.

When using the upselling technique, it is important to keep all things in perspective. If you are not making money you’re losing money, so be sure to try different product combinations often, and adapt your selling strategies. Be flexible. Upselling does not take a lot of effort, and can be very profitable to a company over the long haul of the sales year. If you have constructed your upselling strategy correctly, by understanding the needs and concerns of each customer, then you are, in a way, making the decision of the upsell for them, before it has even crossed their mind.

For more insights on boosting revenue through sales and marketing, check out the OneCoach Business Momentum Club.

Gandhi said, “Action expresses priorities.” Don’t we all make time for those things that are most important to us? What my colleague was really telling me is that he didn’t see the importance of the task. Let me give you an example: As a working mom I put my kids in daycare. One day I got a call from the daycare telling me my daughter had fallen out of her highchair and bumped her head. I dropped everything I was doing to go pick her up. She turned out to be okay by the way, but I decided that I had to take control of my time and my priorities. I sat down with my calendar and cleared it out. There wasn’t anything more important in my life than my child. She was going to receive all of my time and attention.

Think of your business as your child. If it’s screaming for your attention and you say, “I just don’t have the time” then you are fooling yourself and hurting your business. At OneCoach, we recognize the importance of spending time wisely. We get our clients focused in on their highest impact and income-producing activities (HIPA). Maximizing your ability to focus in on those valuable activities will increase your revenue, your cash flow and your profit.

Juggling too many day-to-day tasks will force you to become reactive instead of proactive. Being reactive — putting out fires all day — long reduces the effectiveness of your performance and ultimately your bottom line. Stop trying to be a “one-horse show”, wearing so many hats that you will start to feel like what one of my clients told me recently… “one of those plate spinners at the carnival.” You can’t run a business by barely keeping everything together!

You may be so overwhelmed that you don’t know where to begin each day. Here’s how to eliminate all the time wasters and time bandits in your life and maximize your performance by focusing on the best use of your time.

Start by keeping track of your time.
You should be very, very clear on everything in your day that is taking up your time. Take a good hard look at all the activities you are doing, all your processes, procedures, and commitments. Are you a serial procrastinator? Do you spend time reading junk emails, daydreaming, making personal phone calls and surfing the web? Or are you on-task and laser-focused on your goals for the future? Accountants and attorneys usually bill by 15-minute increments. If they don’t track their time, if they aren’t performing activities that are billable, they don’t get paid. How are you spending your 15-minute increments of time? Wisely or foolishly?

Take a minute to figure out what your time is actually worth.
Divide your annual salary by 2080 (which is 52 weeks at 40 hours per week). This will give you an hourly rate for your time. For instance, if you are making $100,000 per year, your hourly rate is $48 per hour. Are you doing activities that could easily be delegated to someone at a much lower hourly rate? Are there some tasks that you should be eliminating, delegating, and outsourcing? Wouldn’t it be more productive to spend your time generating leads vs. doing menial work? Why not pay someone $10 per hour to run your personal errands so you can spend your time closing deals and generating more revenue?

Prioritize your activities by how much revenue they bring.
After you’ve looked at everything you are doing on a daily basis then pick out the activities that will bring you the most revenue. But keep your list short. What is the most valuable task on your list? Establish a ranking value for each task. Decide whether it is a first, second or third priority.

Organize your activities.
Remember the “touch it once” rule. If you touch it…take action. Don’t reread, revisit or re-file. The whole idea is to be efficient. Get your workspace under control. De-clutter and get rid of things that you don’t need. I use four paper trays each labeled as follows, “To Do, To Read, To Pay, To File.” This helps me keep things under control.

Plan ahead.
Before the end of the day, review your schedule and plan what you intend to accomplish the next day. I always pick the hardest task to accomplish first. That way everything else seems easy by comparison.

You have a clear choice. You can either stay in overwhelm or you can take control of your life. Remember, you are exchanging your life and your time for your business. Make sure that you choose the way you are investing your time as well.

If you need help with managing your day-to-day overwhelm, I recommend you check out OneCoach’s Business Momentum Club to learn proven strategies to growing your business.

A need is something you have to have, something you can’t do without. A good example is food. If you don’t eat, you won’t survive for long. You might not need a whole lot of food, but you do need to eat.

A want is something you would like to have. It is not absolutely necessary, but it would be a good thing to have. A good example is music. Now, some people might argue that music is a need but you don’t actually need music to survive.

It may sound completely counter-intuitive, but the fact is, wants are much more powerful than needs. Even though their needs must be fulfilled for survival, most people make their purchasing decisions based on their wants, rather than their needs. For example, people need to lose weight for health reasons. A weight-loss clinic might assume that clients would respond to a weight-loss program that is positioned to help them feel better and improve their health. But what most people want from a weight-loss program is not health, but to look better, attract more romance into their lives, to receive compliments from people and gain confidence. You may need a car to commute to work, but you want to do it in a BMW. Those are all emotional wants versus objective needs.

When marketing your product or service, stay away from focusing on promoting the need for it, because until you identify why clients want your product, you will never be successful selling to them.

What differentiates the entrepreneurs that break through these challenges and capture success from the entrepreneurs who allow challenges to overwhelm them, cloud their mindset, and detrimentally impact their performance to lead their company?

The difference is the successful entrepreneurs have redefined their definition of what a challenge is. The successful entrepreneur embraces challenges and understands there is no escaping them in any business. A challenge shifts from a disastrous negative experience to a positive golden opportunity to receive feedback and iterate, make improvements and optimizations to systems, processes, products and services, management style, etc., to offer better service and more value to employees and clients.

Readjusting your definition of a challenge can significantly impact your company culture and create a relentless, persistent, and progressive environment for which challenges are the norm, and looked upon in a positive and constructive light.

Other tips to dealing with and breaking through challenges in business:

1) Stay focused on the “Why”

What is the deep-rooted reason for getting up everyday and doing what you do? What is your deep-rooted motivation? What are you really trying to accomplish and what is your personal reasoning behind that? Thinking about your “why” can empower and motivate you to persist, even through tough times.

2) Visualize the desired outcome

Painting a clear mental picture of your ideal outcome, like a beautiful work of art, can motivate and inspire you to overcome roadblocks in your business. You can also create a mental movie where you visualize yourself living in your accomplishments as if they were happening in present time. Visualization can also help keep you on target and focused on the positives.

3) Change the physiology to adjust the psychology

When challenges arise, if you feel any bit of stress or overwhelm, adjust your physiology – get up, take deep breaths, go for a walk outside, go to the gym, jump in the hot tub – do something immediately that will help create mental clarity and keep your mind from “thinking” yourself to death.

4) Ask a business coach or a mentor

If you are experiencing challenges in your business, there’s a great chance that somebody has helped those who have experienced these similar challenges before. Consult with a business coach who has helped grow a successful business and ask them how they helped their clients overcome their challenges and roadblocks.

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Big mistake.

Your plan is the key to focusing on the right things at the right time, and it helps measure progress toward your goals. Creating a sales and marketing plan as a subset of the overall business plan is critical for accelerating your business growth.

The fundamental function of marketing is to generate qualified sales leads. There are any number of tools that can be used to do that–but how do you know which tools to use if you don’t have a plan? And how do you know if you are investing in productive marketing activities if you don’t know have a budget or know what results you are trying to produce?

A marketing plan doesn’t need to be an extensive document. First, start with your business objectives for the next 6 months or year. You should already have these, in terms of target revenues if nothing else. Now, what marketing objectives align with those business objectives? For example, how many leads need to be generated in order to give sales sufficient numbers to close the deals necessary to reach the revenue objective? What strategies are going to meet those objectives? Will you need to get more publicity? Expand into a new market? Reach more people in your current market?

At this point, you know what you are aiming for, and you know how you need to hit the target. Now, determine what specific activities will achieve your strategies and objectives. This is where you choose from the enormous pool of marketing options–and you choose the activities that will work best for the audiences you want to reach and the results you want to produce. You might need to have a tradeshow program where you get face to face with your market, you might need to launch or improve your web site, you might need to implement a campaign for current customers. The list goes on and on.

Whatever the right activities are, put them together into an integrated program and create target metrics (e.g., number of click throughs, number of lead cards collected). There’s your marketing plan. The next step, the sales plan, focuses on the leads generated by marketing, how they will be converted to customers, and how follow on sales will be made to those customers. Articulate sales metrics in terms such as conversion rates, overall revenues, and revenues per customer.

Now you have something to measure against and you can review things periodically to see if you are on track in terms of the results you need to get or if something needs to be adjusted.

This whole process doesn’t need to take a lot of time. And having a sales and marketing plan will give you a lot more insight into how well this part of your company is working, and will let you make changes quickly if things are off course.

Need help in creating a plan? Check out the Business Momentum Club to learn the fundamentals of creating a successful sales and marketing plan.

Top Performers are Customer Centered

Top performers develop the ability to look at things from the customer’s point of view. They try to walk in the customer’s shoes to get a feel for their needs, wants, preferences, buying cycles and agendas. They have a genuine desire to understand each customer as an individual as well as an integral part of the company they represent. Another important focus for the top performer is identifying both the present objectives and long term goals of the customer. To do this they also keep up-to-date with industry trends.

Top Performers Don’t Assume

People who excel at sales never assume that they have been given rights to a sale. They believe that every transaction must be earned and that with every encounter they must earn the customer’s respect, trust and loyalty. They work hard with every negotiation to pace the progress of the deal to suit their client and avoid the temptation to push ahead before the customer is ready. Most important of all, the top performer understands that the quality of the service given, combined with appropriate follow up, is what earns him or her the right for subsequent business.

Top Performers are Involved

Top performers have evolved a long way from the “give them a pitch” mentality, and view their customers as valuable contributors to the sales transaction. Rather than a one-sided presentation, they view their interaction with the customer as a conversation. Customers are encouraged to offer opinions and suggestions and top performers listen and learn. The end result of this two-way communication is a customer who feels he has purchased what he needs, not what he has been told to buy.

Top Performers Use Resources

Top performers understand and accept that they cannot be a one-man show and still be successful. They make good use of all resources both technical and personal that are at their disposal. Though outsourcing some tasks may be necessary, top performers still remain as the key contact to the customer and often served as team leaders within their organization.

Top Performers Think Long Term

Top performers see every customer as a long term asset and work to cultivate the relationship accordingly. Gone are the days of simply delivering a sales pitch and then disappearing from sight. A top performer wants to be in it for the long haul, even if sometimes it means investing more time in the client and possibly losing out on some short term opportunities. The top performer always puts the needs and best interests of the customer first.

Is your business a “top performer” for your clients? Share your comments below and feel free to send this article to your friends and colleagues.

First let’s look at the why. Most of us procrastinate for two reasons; either we believe that the task at hand is too large for us to tackle, or it’s simply something we find unpleasant to do. You have to understand why you have a procrastination issue before you can figure out how to overcome it.

Here are some ways you can tame this time-sucking monster:

Shrink the task. When a task seems too large or overwhelming, it often helps to break it down into smaller pieces. There’s an old proverb that’s always good to remember. “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!” Sometimes once we’ve started on a small piece of the project, we build a momentum that takes over and we continue on to the finish.

Know it. Make sure you have all the information relevant to the task. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed because of the way something sounds to us, when in fact, it isn’t actually that way at all. For example, you feel overwhelmed if you think you have to take inventory and wait on customers at the same time, when in fact, extra help has been brought in to handle the customers so you can focus on getting the task completed.

Plan. Once you have all the information, draw up a plan of action for getting the task completed. This way you can see the steps you need to take and check them off to monitor your progress.

Set a goal. Some past procrastinators say that setting a deadline helps them to beat procrastination. Getting focused on the deadline drives them to complete the task.

Visualize. Some people are motivated to get the job done by visualizing all the benefits that will come from completing the project.

Grit your teeth. Try to do those things that you least like right away. Chances are you have to do them eventually anyway so why not get them done and out of the way.

Reward yourself. Promise yourself some type of reward for completing the project. For a large project, write breaks into your plan and give yourself something special each time you reach one of those breaks.

Understand consequences. Identify the disadvantages of not completing the task at hand and ask yourself if you are willing to live with them.

The first real step in conquering procrastination is recognizing it as a part of your personality. Try to determine what your procrastination triggers are and work to avoid them. It will undoubtedly take effort to change a habit as strong as procrastination can be, but stay determined! Your life will be all the better for it!

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Watch the video below of Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, and hear him explain why everyone needs a coach.

Business coaching is a powerful support system that will optimize your performance and guide you to where you ultimately want to be. A fresh perspective from the right business coach is a valuable resource that you can’t get from your family, friends or even the people you work with.

The small business owners that work with our certified business coaches have discovered breakthroughs in running their business. Is this the type of change that you have been looking for?

- Whatever you give energy to, will grow.
- Kill the monster while it’s tiny.

The less energy you give toward objections, the less likely they are to come up. When objections do make an appearance, though, try these seven steps to kill the monster while it’s tiny:

1. Ignore and then listen. If the prospect says something like, “This seems too expensive,” or “I really don’t have the time to do that,” just ignore it. Instead of trying to convince them based on your wealth of information, let those objections go right over your head. Then listen to what they say next.

2. Repeat (nicely) and then listen. If they don’t continue talking, repeat their statement back to them in a friendly manner and then listen. For example, if they say, “It costs too much,” and then stop talking, say, “It costs too much?” In many instances, the prospect will respond by giving you more detailed information that will help you overcome the objection.

3. Question. If they continue to repeat their objection without explaining further, simply question them. For example: “I’m curious. You must have some reason for saying that. Do you mind my asking what it is?” Now they’ll give you more information.

4. Isolate and test-close. When you find out the root of the objection, say, “Just suppose we handled that. In your opinion, would you be willing to proceed?” You will find out if this is the only objection. If it isn’t, this gives you the chance to smoke out any other hidden objections that might come up. If we get an objection, many of us try to handle it on the spot. But it may not be the only objection, and it may not be the most important one. So don’t actually handle the objection. Again, simply say, “Just suppose we handle this. In your opinion, would you be willing to proceed?”

5. Restate as a question. If they say “no” to the question you have asked in step four, say, “I’m curious–why not?” or something similar. This will help you elicit what other potential objection, challenge, or hesitation they have.

6. Answer the question. If you’ve done your homework, you know what the solution or the potential answer to that question is, and if you know your product or your service, you’re going to be able to answer it easily as well. If you don’t know the answer this time, at least now you’ll be able to prepare for your future conversations when these same objections come up.

7. Congratulate and future pace. This step is very important. What most people do after a sale is thank the prospect, which implies that they have done the salesperson a favor. It’s actually the other way around: You have done them a favor by providing something of value to them. Instead of saying “thank you,” congratulate them. Then ask them something like, “How is your life going to be better? How is your business going to be more productive? How is your family or your health going to change in six months, in 12 months in 24 months, as a result of applying this product or using this service?” Then shut up and listen at that point and allow them to tell you.

People buy for emotional reasons and justify with logic. When we congratulate them and ask them how this will make a difference, we let them create that logical justification on the spot. This cuts down on “buyer’s remorse” and reinforces their satisfaction with their purchase. They’re much less likely to come back to you and say, “I don’t need it any more” or “I shouldn’t have bought it.”

Diana Garroway realized that her revenues would not grow unless she was committed to her business and the help that OneCoach provides. She has been applying what she learned and has revamped her business from top to bottom. Not only is she seeing the rewards of her efforts, she now knows how to map out and accomplish her goals for this year. Here is more of Diana Garroway’s story.

Problem
Diana Garroway owns The Swiss Village, a rustic resort in Quebec, Canada, where adventurous travelers can rent unique Swiss-style cottages (chalets) for a country vacation. Diana was following her passion but was scared that she would have to sell the business or go bankrupt. She was digging deeper into debt each day and was focusing too much on her problems.

Some of the challenges she faced:

• Didn’t know how to run a business
• Treating the business as a hobby
• Had trouble getting financing

Solution
Since becoming a OneCoach client, Diana has been seeing her business grow. Despite facing bankruptcy, Diana has:

• Committed to the business 100% and has completely changed the business model
• Experienced a 40% increase in sales for 2009 after joining OneCoach

How OneCoach Helped
“Before OneCoach, I thought my cap possibility for sales was about $140,000. Now I know I can easily obtain $300,000–$400,000. I listen to the Expert Interviews everyday. I think of new ways to sell and expand, and am considering franchising the concept once I have employees in place. I thought I was at my cap, but now I realize I was just on the tip of things to come,” said Diana.

The “aha” moment
“Making the huge decision to quit my job and sell our house was the toughest point and I don’t think I could have done it if I wasn’t a part of the program. It helped me say, “Go for it and just dive in.” It made me believe in myself and believe in what my product can do. I followed the system. It made me take action everyday,” said Diana.

Why OneCoach?
“I love how practical it is. It’s very straightforward and it’s not just theory,” said Diana. “OneCoach really has the information that I can apply in my business today. The biggest thing that I can recommend is that it gives you action items that you can implement today to make a difference within a measurable period of time.”

Continuing to grow
Diana expects to see a 77% increase in sales for 2010.

Learn more about what we do at OneCoach… check out these 7 FREE videos!

A shopkeeper was dismayed when a brand new business much like his own opened up next door and erected a huge sign which read ‘BEST DEALS.’

He was horrified when another competitor opened up on his right, and announced its arrival with an even larger sign, reading ‘LOWEST PRICES.’

The shopkeeper panicked, until he got an idea. He put the biggest sign of all over his own shop. It read: ‘MAIN ENTRANCE.’

Not only is this anecdote funny, it is also a great reminder that there will always be competition in business…always.

Your success in business is not contingent upon a lack of competition, but, rather, your ability to separate yourself from those competitors. Innovate, differentiate your business from others in the marketplace, continue to be the best at what you do and communicate it effectively, and your competition will become irrelevant.

Note: the joke mentioned in this post was originally found on http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com.

Companies from all over the world have Twitter accounts and thousands of people following them. Some of these companies are Apple, Intel, H&R Block, and Zappos. Barrack Obama has over 8,000 followers!

To leverage the Twitter potential you need to have people following you. That is, people that want to be updated on what you are up to.

Step 1: Importing Contacts
When you sign up for Twitter you will have a chance to import contacts from Gmail, Hotmail, and your own address book. Do it.

Step 2: Complete Your Profile
Make sure all your profile is complete and include a link to your website. Add “http” at the beginning of it to make it clickable. Personalize the colors and the sidebar on your profile page. Use keywords in your profile so others can find you.

Step 3: Understand the Dynamics of Twitter
Twitter is not a marketing tool; it’s a social tool. That means:

• Don’t spam
• Follow other users
• Be active in the community (comment and post frequently)
• Post useful information
• Don’t post every 10 minutes
• Engage in conversations. Retweet (reply to other tweets) often
• Don’t promote yourself. Share cool stuff. To give your company exposure, do it the smart way. Direct your followers to a blog post with useful information and have that post invite users to take action. Don’t try to take people from Twitter to your checkout page directly.

Step 4: Build Your Audience
There are several things that you can do to build your audience:

• Put a link to “Follow Me on Twitter” in your email signature, forums signature, website, and maybe even your business cards
• Invite people to follow you on Twitter at the end of each blog post you create
• Find Twitter users that you really look up to and see who is following them. Follow these people. Once they see you are following them, they will follow you.
• See who is following your friends and follow them. They will follow you too.
• Use Twitter directories to find members who are likely to follow you. My favorites are Just Tweet It and Twellow.
• Use the search feature to find profiles that you want to follow. You can use Twitter’s RSS feed to be notified every time a tweet is made containing a certain keyword.

Step 5: Watch Your Following/Followers Ratio
Try to have a balance between people you follow and people that follow you. If 1,000 people follow you and you only follow 10 folks, you will be seen as selfish and snob. If 10 people follow you and you follow 1,000, you will be seen as a spammer.

Some tips that will help you keep both numbers balanced:

• Grow slow. Instead of adding 500 new friends in one day, add maybe 50 and wait for them to follow you. Then do another 50.
• Use a tool like Friend or Follow to see who is following you that you are not following and who you are following that is not following you. This tool is very useful to balance the number of following/followers.
• Avoid the “follow/no follow” tactic. Some people follow others so they follow them and then they stop following those folks. Avoid this practice if you don’t want to look like a spammer.

Step 6: Post Useful Tweets
Make it worthwhile to follow you. If you’ve found something that your audience might find useful, tweet it. You can use Twitter tools to automatically tweet your blog posts.

Share what you do but avoid “selling”. For example, if you are a web developer you can tweet “we just finished designing the website for ABC Widgets” but avoid something like “Custom Web Design from $899”.

Step 7: Learn from the Experts
Find 10-20 users with over 300 followers and see what they are doing right. Get ideas and implement them.

Do you have any more ideas on how to use Twitter for your small business? Please share them with us by commenting below!

If you want to spend your time and money wisely, come up with an irresistible offer, and of course, have a list of the right people to present it to. (for tips on building your prospect list, read this!)

Here we offer you six pointers to make your offer absolutely irresistible to your potential clients:

1. First of all, define your target market
   This is so key that having clarity on who you are targeting with your offer will put you 90% ahead of the competition. The majority of business people design an offer, and only then, they start thinking who to present it to. By working through this process the right way, you ensure that your offer is 100% designed to meet your target market’s needs or desires.
2. Second, make the offer’s value easy to see
   Today, everyone is swamped with all kinds of sale offers, thus, people are always on guard and not very patient.  An irresistible offer is grasped in seconds, without any explanation.
3. Third, the offer should include a discount or gift, or both
   People take action when they know they will receive something of value for free or at a much lower price, thus, as you ask them to do something for you, give something back, as a sign of appreciation.  This simple gesture can increase the response rate to your offer by as much as 30%. Remember, people don’t make the decision to buy based on price, they make it based on value.
4. Fourth, the offer must have a valid reason, and it should be communicated clearly
   Any irresistible offer that doesn’t have a valid reason is suspicious; it is just “too good to be true.” You must have a reason to offer such an amazing deal; it can be your business’ anniversary, Christmas, customer appreciation week, opening week, end of the quarter, etc.  Think out the box, but always with a good reason.
5. Fifth, generate urgency
   Prompt your clients to act immediately by setting an expiration date, an extra bonus, a limited quantity or any other mechanism that will make people buy right away. Open-ended offers rarely yield great results.
6. Sixth, make the call to action easy to understand
   Just as its value, the offer’s call to action must not leave a single doubt on the customer’s mind. Tell them exactly and clearly what you want them to do, make it easy to do, and give as much detail as necessary. Keep it simple…

Analyze these pointers with your business coach and give them a try the next time you think about creating a direct marketing campaign…then be sure to track the results and response from your clients and prospects.

An absolutely irresistible offer will give you absolutely remarkable results, and now you know how to do it!

Do you have tips for creating an incredible offer? Please share by leaving a comment below!

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me” he said.  “I can make the money but it’s almost as if I feel like I don’t deserve it and I have to blow it somehow.”

As a Business Advisor for OneCoach I talk to multiple business owners daily who are stuck, struggling or overwhelmed because they are awash with chaos and confusion. They have what we at OneCoach “mindset issues.” All those fears, anxiety and doubts, (which I have tagged “life’s little FAD’s”) those self-limiting beliefs that hold us back and prevent us from living the life of our dreams and achieving the business success that we are capable of reaching.

Robert and I talked for a while and uncovered the fact that he was given up for adoption at the age of three, which was extremely heartbreaking and devastating for him. I told him “If you have a value or belief system about yourself, or if you were conditioned to believe something, whether it is right or wrong doesn’t matter because if you believe it – then it’s true to you.” Robert had so many doubts and fears.  He didn’t believe he was capable and qualified of reaching beyond his goal of $1 million per year.

“I think you have an upper limit issue. You know, you get to the million-dollar mark and then you question your value and don’t believe that you deserve it so you sabotage your efforts. It’s like knowing that you could climb Mount Everest but settling for Pikes Peak. You could probably come up with a thousand reasons why you can’t do something. And you are probably, like most of the business owners I talk to, so deeply entrenched in your old stories that you are never able to get out of the loop. The pattern just keeps repeating itself.”

An upper limit problem becomes evident when you work diligently to put your revenue plan in place in January, determined to have a stellar year, but by the third quarter you are scrambling to make at least as much as you did last year. You are stuck at producing the same amount of revenue year after year.

The best way to deal with an upper limit issue is to first get focused on the self-destructive patterns and thought processes that have been a part of your life for many years. You must realize that these negative, self-limiting beliefs (fears, anxiety and doubts) no longer serve you and are preventing you from evolving to the next level. They are what keep you in your comfort zone. We all know that as small business owners we need to take risks, push the envelope and stand out as a leader among the competition.  Otherwise, we become stagnant and our business growth continues to be flat, or even worse, starts to decline.

William Arthur Ward one of America’s most quoted writers of our times said, “The four steps to achievement are to plan purposefully, prepare prayerfully, proceed positively and pursue persistently.”

So set your sights on taking yourself and your business to the next level, reach the next peak….

Plan purposefully:  Start out with the right tools, resources and support that are available from people you aspire to be. Get focused on where you are and where you need to be.

Prepare prayerfully:  Meditate and/or practice focusing on your breathing.  Be actively aware of what’s going on in your head and then remove any attachment to the situation.  Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now and A New Earth, says it brilliantly, “What you resist, shall persist.”

Proceed positively:  Develop positive self-talk.  Visualize your goals and read your written affirmations out loud daily. What you focus on expands.  If you focus on what you don’t want, versus what you do want, well, you get what you focus on.

Pursue persistently: With the right foundation in place you can reach your summit. But remember when you get there don’t just pitch a tent and hang out. You are only limited by your own imagination and determination and if you are like most of the business owner’s I talk to, you are your own worst enemy. Reaching the next peak, evolving to the next level, takes hard work and conviction.

And next, do what any expert mountain climber would do. Find your own personal Sherpa, a mentor, a coach, someone to guide you along your way.  Someone that will hold you accountable and help you stay on track while measuring your progress.

So get psyched to get vertical!  There are eight months left in 2010.  Are you ready to be committed to doing what it takes to take your business to the next level?