• Family- If you have family nearby, they’re often the easiest to turn to. After all, that’s what family is for, right? You help each other when you need it. If you’re new to asking for help (and many entrepreneurs suffer under the delusion that they can and have to do it all), then family is usually a great place to begin asking for help.  Ask them to watch your children during crunch times in your business, or to help you take care of errands and chores and remember to return the favor. Once you get accustomed to asking for help from family, taking the next step and turning to friends, neighbors and associates won’t be so difficult.

• Friends- Friends are the next easiest group of people to add to your support system. And based on experience, it’s often easier to offer help than it is to ask for help. So offer to help your friends – that way you’ll feel okay asking them for help when you need it. And help doesn’t just have to be in the form of, “hey can you watch my children?” Friends can be superior listeners when you need to vent, they can be the play portion of the “work hard play hard” equation, and they can just be good for a laugh.
• Neighbors- Neighbors can be wonderful members of your support system, because they’re generally excellent at trading help. For example, your neighbor can drive your children to school and you can pick them up. Your neighbor can provide you with references for people to mow your lawn, shovel your walk and all of the other chores that need to be done. Your neighbor can even step in and help you around the home when you need it most.
• Peers- People who belong to the same groups you do, Scouts, church groups and even sporting events can all be included in your support system.

When you take the time to build a community and connect with the people around you, a wonderful thing happens. Suddenly you no longer feel the need to do everything yourself. You realize the benefit of not only helping others but also letting them help you.

If you struggle with asking for help, start small. Turn to your family and closest friends first. Once you have realized the benefit, you can start building relationships with the people who are already in your day-to-day life. Reach out to them, help them and the process has begun.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, be sure to check back often for more updates. As always, we appreciate your feedback, comments and questions.

Until next time,

Godspeed

James
~+~

Along with the communication technology explosion, not to mention what’s happening in the web 2.0 world, came the ever increasing demand for information-based marketing content. Which, by the way, is one of the oldest and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers.

This is why we’ve seen an exponential, almost overwhelming, increase in demand for article writers, article submissions and publications.  Currently, there is a smorgasbord of tools and services from which to choose to make the process of distributing articles more easily. Though this is invaluable in getting the contents more exposure, it is only one half of the story.
Let us take a look first at the common mistakes that some people make before submitting their contents to article directories.  I have included 3 here for the purpose of this post:

1. Confusing the reason to promote the articles with the reason to write them.

In article writing, there are three key benefits why you are promoting them; branding, lead generation and promotion, which are all part of your optimization efforts.

But there is only one reason why you write an article, and that is to inform your audience. If the article is not focused on this primary and most important purpose, it will fail to achieve the three promotion benefits because no one will be interested in reading them. You must determine first how to get people to read what is in your article, then make them click on your resource box. You can achieve this by producing better contents.

2. Failing to maximize the promotional opportunities of article marketing.

You may know already that your articles can help you generate additional links back to your site. But do you know that you can get more visitors and better search engine results from those same articles?

This may appear obvious to some, but often times people fail to mention keywords at strategic places within their articles. Just be sure not to overdo them, or you’ll do more harm than good! Likewise, many writers use anchor texts which is also an effective method. But it is important to know, that even today many of the directories are not able to support this.

Remember that is not only about the links back to your site. Part of doing well in your article marketing is getting picked up by publishers with a large number of audiences and gaining the ability of leveraging other brands because of the quality of your work. Better search engine results also are great benefits.

But these things do not put much money in your pocket. There are other factors that can turn your article marketing efforts into an opportunity that can boost your earnings. Not just increase the number of visitors to your site. Start out with a plan and see to it that your article will serve the function that you intended it to have.  You’d be surprised how may writers get “caught up” in the process, and forget why they are writing the article to begin with.   Which reason is?

3. Publishing content that does not help your readers.

This may seem like a “no-brainer’ to some, but not to those who write articles simply for creating traffic.

Maybe in the process of writing articles, you are thinking that all you wanted is links back to your site. And any visitors it can generate are fine.  Guess what? Not all article banks and directories are going to accept your content automatically. More often than not, they have some guidelines and specifications on the articles that they are accepting.  If not, then they are more than likely not worth your time and effort to submit to!

Listen, you can double the number of sites you can submit to by writing articles that the directories want to share with other people. All it takes is one publisher with a hundred thousand readers to increase your potential audience overnight. Write the articles that publishers want in their publications if you want your article marketing to work the most effective way for you.  Look at your article writing from the directories perspective, and not just your own.

This also means you have to obey the standard guidelines, spell checks, researching on a good topic and even hiring a writer to produce a good content on your behalf.  In the end, it is all really a matter of choice on your part. You can start getting a little exposure from increased links back, but on a very basic level. Or enjoy massive exposure from a little extra time making quality contents. It will be your choice.

You may not be aware of the fact that, an article submitted on directories is not meant to have the same level of exposure as highly-targeted content ones geared on a narrow group of people.  Learn the difference between these two and it will surely help you know what kinds of articles to write and to submit.

And remember,

“Do What Works!”

James

Sounds a bit depressing, right? It can be. Being a work-from-home mom can be extremely isolating. The good news is that you’re an entrepreneur, which means you’re a go-getter. You don’t sit around and wait for things to change; you make changes to suit your needs.

Here are seven ideas to reduce the sense of isolation, and the stress and procrastination that may come along with it.

1. Join a gym. This may sound a bit strange; however, when you’re at a gym working out with other people, you’re actually accomplishing two things. You’re out and about with other people and you’re taking care of your health. Most gyms have daycare so you don’t have to worry about your children. And chances are you’re going to meet some people in class that are in the same boat you’re in.

2. Volunteer. Volunteering is one of the best ways to meet people. It also helps you give back to your community and if you work it right, you can integrate your volunteering into your business. For example, if you have a pet-related business you can volunteer for the humane society or a rescue organization. You can blog or write about your experiences and promote the organization on your website.

3. Join your local small business association or other networking group. A quick search in your community will likely result in a number of organizations you can join. Organizations that are created just for people like you, entrepreneurs who want to get out and meet other people.

4. Start or join a mastermind group. A mastermind group is a group that is formed for the sole purpose of supporting each member to grow and be the best business owner they can be. A mastermind group will inspire you to grow, motivate you to take risks and be a sounding board when you need advice.

5. Join a local group. Whether you join a mom’s group, the local PTA, a sports club or your HOA board, joining a group can help you reduce a sense of isolation that comes from working from home. Be careful about joining, though – you can end up taking on more work than you want or need.

6. Get a job. Silly, I know you work from home so you don’t have to work outside the home. However, some mompreneurs choose to work outside of the home one or two days a week just so they can get out into the world and connect with people.

7. Social networking. Social networking is an online activity, to be sure. But online, simply connecting with others can help cut some of the isolation and many communities have “Tweetups” where other Twitter members all meet once a month just to be social offline.

No one said being a mompreneur was easy, but it is certainly rewarding. And with a bit of planning and the willingness to take action, you can nip that dreaded isolation and the side effects of it right in the bud.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, be sure to check back often for more updates. As always, we appreciate your feedback, comments and questions.

Until next time,

Godspeed

James
~+~

It is profound, but yet simple to explain and implement in your life.

It helps you to understand that you can accelerate changes that you need to make and put yourself onto the right path toward the goals that you want to accomplish.

If you remember science classes for a moment, imagine water.  There are two hydrogen molecules, and they have potential to become water.  You need to add something else to them to make the water.

You need to add an oxygen molecule!

If you do this you have water, a living force.  Thus, with the right combination’s, in this case hydrogen and oxygen, you created something good.

However, if you take those same two hydrogen molecules and add the wrong third influence the outcome is different.

For example, if you add sulfur to the hydrogen molecules this would create a stinky rotten egg gas that is highly poisonous.

This shows that if you have the wrong third influence in your life, you can be completely off track from what you want to accomplish.

There are many examples of where this has happened in real life, such as with Mike Tyson, River Phoenix and Elvis Presley to name a few.  Unfortunately, this list of wrong influences seems to get bigger every day!

It is commonly seen with young people, for example, who are easily persuaded to get into drugs, premature sex, alcohol or all the above, and then some!

There are third influences in your life that impact your life and decisions you make.  Some of these things can be good such as certain movies or music, and others can be bad.

Stop and ponder for a second

“What bad third influences do I have in my life?”

and,

“What am I allowing myself to be exposed to, and influenced by that is not good for me?”

The Third Influence Chain Reaction …

There is often a chain reaction that takes place with the third influence. It can be seen with the young, in business and with scams.

What happens is this:

Something takes place to get your attention. In that process you accept that what got your attention may be probable or possible.

The third influence is extremely powerful. You have power and ability to control it.

However, after this thing gets your attention, you can enter the point of persuasion. You are persuaded by the concept or idea, and move towards the adoption process. You adopt the idea as something you want to accept and have as your own.

Then you have an outcome.

This can be seen with the young with something like smoking marijuana.

Something happens and it gets the kid’s attention. Perhaps the smoking is being done by the cool guys. This associates the cool factor with it. It becomes cool.

The young person accepts the act as being cool. At that point they’re being persuaded. They want to be cool so they adopt it as something that is cool and start doing it. Then there is the outcome, they can become hooked on drugs and bad things can start to happen in their lives.

Gaining a Better Understanding of the Third Influence …

We have to understand the third influence. We can control the things we’re influenced by and we can counteract them. We can’t control what’s being said around us, but we can control what we watch on TV and who we hang around with, what we listen to and what we read.

Contrary to how you and others may feel about you at the moment, your situation or circumstances, you are still in control of your influences.  And, therefore, your life’s outcome…

One of the best ways to gain control over your influences is to find a mentor, or someone who you can look up to who has accomplished what you want to.

Think, did you not get to where you are now in life by “modeling” someone else’s behavior?  Sure you did, just like everyone else has, me included!

So why can’t you do the same, but for all good purposes with good influences and omit the bad ones? You know the answer is, of course I can!

So consider what is your goal, what is your objective?

Are you aligned properly and congruently with this objective to accomplish these things?

Are you letting yourself be influenced by the right things?  By the right people?

For your mentor, make sure that you choose someone with a proven track record of success that you want to achieve as your third influence.

Think about who has accomplished what you want to achieve and how you can best be influenced.

You may not be able to go to that person’s house necessarily, but perhaps you can buy their books or CDs.

Ask yourself how you want to be in a certain area of your life, e.g. financially.  Say you want to make $100,000 per year. Say you’re now making $50,000 per year in sales, and you want to double your income.

Look for role models – what are people doing in other areas?

How can you look at and modify their ideas, how can you adjust and adapt that to improve your results in your area?

Find out who in your organization is already making that. What are they doing? Engage in conversations with them. Get hold of training material about it, get one on one coaching. Align yourself with this.

You need a time frame to hold yourself accountable. Look at how many more prospects you need to call on, how you can refine openings and closings.

Model yourself on who knows how to do it best in your industry. This third influence in your life aligns you with what you want to accomplish.

To learn more about the Third Influence as well as other secrets of creating wealth, please visit more about wealth creation secrets.

“Do What Works!”

James

Networking exposes you to other business leaders, entrepreneurs and motivated individuals. Even if you don’t have a single competitive bone in your body, when you network online and offline, you’re going to be inspired by the energy, ideas and productivity you see in those around you. It’s actually a great reality check.

It gives you the unique ability to mingle with like-minded individuals who may have a different perspective, a different experience or a different story than you do and have achieved success.

Networking also forces you to stay on your game. If you’re putting forth the effort to network, and it’s recommended that you do, you’re going to have to be at your best. When you communicate with people, you want to put your best foot forward and make a positive impression. When people ask you what you do, you want to be ready, willing and able to give them an informational and inspirational elevator pitch.

Because you just never know when you’re going to meet your next great business partner, a superior customer or one of those coveted Paul Revere types of individuals who spreads news faster than CNN. Meet a Paul Revere type of individual, get them excited about your business, and you’ve just launched your business into a whole new game.

Networking is usually a scheduled event, so it accomplishes two things. It motivates you to be prepared before you head to the website or event. And it makes you put some serious thought into how you present yourself both online and off. Networking forces you to think about your business, where it’s going, what your future plans are, and how you want to be perceived.

For most people, networking with other successful people inspires their competitive spirit. We see other successful people and think, “If they can do that, so can I.” We hear great ideas, product launches, marketing tactics and business strategies and we think, “I can do that better than they did!” or “I wonder if I can achieve more sales and profits than that?” Competition is very motivating!

Finally, networking both online and off (though online networking can be done in your pajamas with unruly hair and unbrushed teeth) makes us feel and act more professionally. Though there are some people who forget that and behave badly online and off. For the most part, the simple act of being a professional makes us feel more professional. We start to feel less like a person who works at home in their pajamas and more like a business person, an entrepreneur, a CEO.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, be sure to check back often for more updates. As always, we appreciate your feedback, comments and questions.

Until next time,

Godspeed

James
~+~

• Get a good education
• Find a good job, and then
• Work hard for 40-50 years of your life…

Is going to make you rich and financially secure is…

A BIG FAT LIE!

Don’t believe it? Then look at the ages of the people competing for the jobs at your local grocery or department store!

This should be proof positive that if you are not already doing so, you should take a serious look at making money online!  And, that the best way to do this is with a blog!

Here’s why…

First of all, with the Internet essentially at the center of the business universe nowadays, it is very easy to come up with ways to make money online with blogs. Blogs are one reason why so many online marketers have cashed-in on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and a myriad of other social media outlets.

There is such a massive amount of website traffic on the Internet each and every day, you can help but imagine the potential for making money online. And perhaps one of the easiest ways to earn money in your spare time is with blogging. Virtually anyone can make money blogging, and it does not require a degree, large capital investment, or even a huge time commitment!

Okay, let’s pretend for just a second that you have never posted a comment to a blog (or perhaps just getting started blogging) and that you’ve never tried to earn money from home; and have very little experience with an online business. The first thing you should know is this…

“You Do Not Have to Spend Any Cash in Order to Make Money Blogging!”

However, having said this, you will have to put forth extra effort when writing and posting to your blog if you choose to go the “free” route.  Just being honest with you here. Making money blogging is not as easy as all the ‘gurus’ may tell you, however, it is simple!  Keep this in mind and don’t over-think it.

Now, the most important step is to come up with a topic (niche) for your blog. For example, let’s say you wanted to discuss the latest topics or trends in online marketing; you should come up with a blog title that reflects this in as few words as possible. This will help your blog to get higher search engine rankings. And higher search engine rankings mean more web traffic, and more web traffic means make money blogging!

Additionally, you will want to offer some ‘exclusive’ information if you really want your blog to be different from the rest. Ask yourself this question:

“What can I offer the online community that is useful, helpful?”

If you have the inside story on the latest online marketing trends, you can address these in your blog posts, which will draw in people who are interested in…online marketing!  At this time your main goal is in updating your blog daily with fresh content, keeping your blog interesting, and relevant. Listen, you do not want to lose credibility with your audience because you just “didn’t have time to get to it” for several days, or weeks.  If you lose credibility, you’ve lost everything online!

Furthermore, if you really want to make money blogging, you need to focus on ways to do so. One tool in your blogging toolbox is Blogger.com. Blogger is owned by Google, and allows anyone to sign up for free and start blogging today! Once you create your blogger blog, you can then sign up for a free Google Adsense account also.

Adsense allows Google to place ads on your blogger blog relevant to the content you place on your blog; your posts, etc. Then, whenever someone clicks an ad on your blogger blog, you earn money with Google Adsense!  Is this simple or what?  Blogger is just one way many people make money blogging nowadays. And since Blogger already has the adsense feature built in, it is very simple to add it to your blog.

If you prefer to purchase a personal domain name for your blog, you can use Adsense there also; and you wouldn’t have to have use ‘blogspot’ as part of your domain name. Most bloggers prefer to use their own domain names. However, since Blogger is owned by Google, it can also be beneficial to use their site as part of your overall blog money making efforts. It’s not an ‘either or choice’ when it comes to making money blogging, but rather an ‘all the above!’

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, be sure to check back often for more updates. As always, we appreciate your feedback, comments and questions.

Until next time,

Godspeed

James
~+~

Tip #1: Write the best possible content each time you post, even if you post every day!

“Post to your blog often” is the first piece of advice most all bloggers see when learning to blog. The reason this advice is so popular, is due to the fact that it is based on the assumption that posting often demonstrates that you are committed to what you do.  The logic in this is simple, posting often results in visitors and readers coming back to your blog to see and read about what you’re up to (maybe even buy something- wink).

However, posting too often could have the opposite effect!

When visiting a blog for the second time, many readers might be looking for the same post to re-read or something similar.  However, forcing your readers to go through a several new posts, 1, 2, or sometimes even 3 a day, could be a definite “turn-off” for most readers.  The end result? Your reader will just use a search engine to find what they’re looking for (click, and goodbye reader).

Furthermore, posting 2, 3 or more times in a day usually leads to inferior content due to writers fatigue, and therefore less interesting. So instead of posting several times a day, simply post once a day or just whenever you think you have something interesting or useful to write about.

Put some thought into your posts, give your readers a reason to come back and always avoid bombarding them with clutter. Focus your effort on a few good topics. Remember, quality over quantity wins hands-down every time when blog posting.

Tip #2: Optimize your Blog for Search Engines

Most often, many bloggers start blogging the wrong way. Usually when a blogger starts blogging, they do so by relying primarily on social networks for traffic. Social network traffic is great but it rarely converts into money. The best traffic to make money is Search Engine Traffic.

A blogging tip every blogger should read and re-read is this…

Search engine traffic will be the most profitable kind. And although Social networking is an easy way to generate traffic, you should often always spend time to ensure your blog and posts are properly optimized to rank well in search engine result pages. Take a few hours a week and perform a few scheduled and simple search engine optimization tasks.

Tip #3: Blogging SEO In your blog

Make sure your titles are relevant to your topic, make sure you refer to your topic keywords throughout your posts, and make sure you tag your posts properly. Also make sure to interlink your posts with older relevant posts.  Always use keywords you are interested in ranking high for and keep these keywords concentrated around a specific topic.

Tip #4: Links from other sites

Get as many one way inbound links with anchor text as you can; by many I mean Thousands!

Think of your site or your blog as a property you acquired in a rural area. Once you begin building on this property, you’ll need to make a road, get it hooked up with power and so on, right? Creating backlinks is much like the road to your property, and is critical to your blog or sites ability to prosper.

Don’t rely only on other bloggers to link to you. Create backlinks to your blog by submitting articles in databases. Write a few 400-500 word articles on similar topics you write about in your blog, add back links with anchor text and start submitting. Ideally, you should submit a few articles to thousands of directories for every post you write. Software is available to help you do this, and be sure to do the same thing for each post.

You can easily create thousands of one way links to your blog and particular posts in less than a few hours. Social bookmarking also works great for this purpose. Make sure you get your posts bookmarked at as many bookmarking sites as possible.

Also, once a week or once every two weeks, use Google Webmaster Tools and see which posts of yours showed up in search engine result pages. Go back to them and optimize them. Add more keywords, make the title catchier, tag them better or even elaborate on certain things you wrote and think will help them rank better in searches.

These are just a few tips to help you on your way to becoming a top-notch blogger! I hope you’ve gotten something from them, and will put them to use…Now!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, be sure to check back often for more updates. As always, we appreciate your feedback, comments and questions.

Until next time,

Godspeed

James
~+~