All of these I already knew to some extent, but something Lisa said, or a part of my own experiences in the last few weeks, has really crystallized these ideas for me.

So today I want to share four of the most powerful ones with you…

1)    Just do it!

Most things are better done than perfect.  Really. Here’s why… Money likes action. And taking massive action—even though it might be imperfect—is critical to growing a successful small business. I’ve seen this work in my own business as well as other people’s more than once. And you can’t take action if you’re always waiting for something to be just perfect.

Lisa took it one step further with an analogy that made so much sense I just had to share it with you…

“It’s impossible to correct your course if you’re standing still.”

Much like a ship, there’s no way to change course if you haven’t even left the dock. In other words, you need to take some kind of action now. And don’t worry so much about whether or not it’s the be-all-end-all thing that’s going to get you where you want to go.

Just get your ship out of port. Then if later you decide you’re not headed in the quite the right direction you can always make a change. But you’d never know that if you didn’t start the journey.

2) You have to invest in yourself, or no one is going to invest with you.

Sure, you can get a lot of terrific info at no charge on the Internet. This weekly e-newsletter is a prime example. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But at some point you need to step up to the plate and make a serious investment in yourself and your business…Whether that means buying a product, taking a teleclass, attending a seminar or conference, hiring a consultant or coach, or something else.

If you find lots of your prospects just want to pick your brain for free, this could be your own freebie mindset coming back to haunt you. Plus, I know from my own experience that every time I’ve bit the bullet and invested in myself I’ve made that money back almost immediately—even when it seemed like something I couldn’t afford at the time.

Now you can’t just start spending money willy-nilly, or buying all kinds of products and not taking action, and expect to have it come back to you. But if it’s something you clearly can’t afford NOT to do, then find a way to do it.

3) Decide and commit.

Again on the subject of action…Don’t spend forever debating whether or not to do, buy or try something new. Make a decision. Then commit and either do it with gusto, or don’t.
The thing you don’t want to do is sit on the fence waffling and wavering. That just adds more to your mental plate and doesn’t get you anywhere.

I learned this lesson in my first year of kayaking. We were standing on the river scouting what was to me a big, scary rapid. I wasn’t sure whether to run it or walk around it. So I just stood there staring at the whitewater rushing by as all the saliva dried up in mouth and I developed an abnormally urgent need for a bathroom break.

My friend, seeing I was stuck in analysis paralysis mode, shared these sage words of advice, “It doesn’t matter whether you walk the rapid or run it. The key is to make a decision then commit to and go.” Turns out these words of advice are just as useful in life and business as they are on the river.

4) Set specific goals.

This is one I’ve long known and preached (and it’s how I’ve built my business and bought all my real estate), but Lisa shared a perfect example of why this is so important…

You’ve probably heard people talk about things like the Law of Attraction, or how you  tend to get more of whatever you’re focused on. Bearing that in mind, it makes perfect sense that if you’re not focused on anything in particular you probably won’t get it.

As Lisa put it, you wouldn’t call a clothing company’s catalog sales department and say, “Send me a couple shirts and a pair of pants.” Because who knows what you’d get. Instead you’d know the exact sizes and colors of every item you wanted when you picked up the phone.

That’s what you need to do in your business and your life. Only then can you make decisions and take advantage of opportunities that will lead you closer to your goals. So if you don’t have a detailed vision of what you want your business—and life—to look like 1, 2 and even 10 years down the road there’s no time like the present to figure that out and write it down.

Do have other lessons for creating the small business you really want? Please share by leaving a comment below…

Instead, he said it’s more like getting a puppy…You have to make a commitment to feed it, and play with it, and take it out for walks every day. And I couldn’t agree more.

Social networking is not at all like placing an ad then sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring or people to walk in the door. It’s about creating conversations, establishing deeper relationships, and building a community of like-minded folks.

Yet every time you turn around it seems someone is shouting about all the wonders of social networking and how easy it is to use it market your business…Especially if you pay them hundreds or thousands of dollars to show you how.

On the flip side, a quick online search will turn up plenty of articles wondering how, or if, you can actually make any money from Twitter or Facebook.

I know for a fact that you can grow your business using social networking because I’ve done it with mine. But it takes time and a well-thought out strategy to get great results.

If you’ve already started using social networking to market your small business, or are even just thinking about it, here are a few things you really ought to know.

1) All the marketing basics still apply.

If you don’t know your target market, you can’t define your USP (Unique Selling Proposition), and you don’t have an offer they can’t refuse and a way to build your list, all your social networking efforts won’t do you any good.

2) Nobody makes money off of Twitter alone.

You have to use it, and most other social networking tools, as part of a bigger strategy. Think of all these social networking tools as your front porch. They’re a place where you can step outside and invite others in. But then you need somewhere to invite them to, and a reason for them to stick around. This is where your Website or blog comes into play.

3) It’s not about what happens now, it’s about what happens next.

Most people are not going to whip out their credit card just because you sent them a message about your latest product, service or event. So stop worrying about whether each specific action you take generates a sale or client and instead worry about driving traffic to your site.

4) You gotta build your list.

People have been saying “The money is in the list” since long before the Internet existed. Yet most small business owners ignore this truth completely, both online and off. The thing is, once someone arrives on your site they may still not be ready to buy. So offer them something useful in exchange for their name and email address. Then stay in touch regularly via email so they can get to know, like and trust you.

5) An e-newsletter is key.

Once you get their contact info you have to stay in touch. That means sending regular e-newsletters. These can be long or short. You can write them yourself, have them written, or use other people’s articles for content. But you absolutely have to send them out a minimum of once a month. Bi-weekly is better. Weekly is best.

6) You’ve got to participate actively and regularly.

Even if you have all the various backend pieces in place, social networking won’t work if you don’t work at it. Much like in-person networking, you need to show up regularly, reach out to others, and offer value (whatever you do, don’t just sell). Back to the earlier dog analogy, you’ve got to play with it and feed it regularly…At least a few times a week at a minimum.

7) Most social networking experts, aren’t.

While there are some very good people out there, a lot of the so-called experts are just folks who know how to set up and use the tools. They aren’t marketers and don’t know how to develop a large marketing strategy. So if you want to hire one, ask about specific results (like increased Website traffic, leads or sales) and check references.

Keep these seven truths in mind, and you’re likely to find social networking is one of the best, and least expensive, small business marketing options out there today!

I know I have, and I’ve found a simple solution.

At the end of each day, make a list of the things you need to do tomorrow. Then, first thing in the morning, tackle the top priorities on your list. And when I say first thing, I mean it.

Do NOT check emails. Do NOT make phone calls, or even answer phone. Just take care of your top 1-3 tasks right away. Chances are good that with no interruption you can get a ton accomplished in 30 minutes to an hour.

Otherwise, if you start checking emails and answering the phone your day will be taken up doing what everyone else wants you to do, instead of what really needs to be done. And trust me, most emails and phone calls can wait an hour.

If you do this, I promise you will be at least 50% more productive than you were before. Best of all, you’ll be making sure the most important tasks really do get done.

So, rather than just hear this from me, I’m excited to share an article on the subject from another top marketer—Bernadette Doyle. Enjoy!

Heard About ‘Free Days’? By Bernadette Doyle

Imagine the following scenario. It’s Wednesday afternoon. You and a friend are having lunch at your favorite restaurant. After lunch you might go for a stroll, visit a local attraction, or just go home and read. It doesn’t matter which. Your phone and email are switched off, work is the farthest thing from your mind, and you’re committed to nothing more than simply relaxing. You return to the office the next morning, guilt-free and feeling rather energetic.

This is what Strategic Coach Dan Sullivan describes as a Free Day, a 24-hour period completely free from work-related problem-solving, communication, and action.

It’s not so easy to imagine, is it? For most business owners, the whole notion of free time, particularly midweek, is nothing less than far-fetched. How can you possibly take free time when there’s so much work to be done, money to make, commitments to be kept?

Most people think of Free Days as a reward for hard work. I don’t. Now I see Free Days as an essential precondition for achieving success and optimum productivity. The key to free days is recognizing that it means booking time to rejuvenate before — not after — your productive periods. Several years ago I started to notice that many of the successful business owners I admired talked about the importance of ‘downtime’ and blocking out periods of time where they did absolutely nothing.

Because I was interested in replicating their results, I paid attention and started to wonder how I could incorporate ‘free days’ into my own schedule. It wasn’t easy at first. On any given day, most business owners would consider themselves extraordinarily lucky (or seriously pressured) to be able to squeeze in a bit of free time, let alone a whole day. It happens only IF they can first get “a few things” done, IF there are no unexpected crises, and IF they can just clean up a few “little messes” around the office. Not surprisingly, this seldom, if ever, happens.

But if you want to improve the quality of both your work and personal life, you need ‘Free Days’. So how can you incorporate free days into YOUR schedule?

Right now, most of us figure out how much time we need to work and make money. Then, if there’s anything left over, we devote it to free time. But this concept doesn’t work for time any more than it works for money.

Successful savers know that you have to work out what you want to save, take it off the top of your income, and live on the rest. If you don’t, you’ll get to the end of the month and find there is nothing left. Free time is just like savings: it has to come off the top. So you need to plan your Free Days first, and then work everything else around them.

It won’t come easy at first. You’re not used to it. Like anything else, Free Days take time and practice. But it gets easier when you see free days as a necessity, rather than a luxury. When you’re running a business YOU are the most important asset. In the words of Coachville founder Thomas Leonard ‘Without you, there is nothing.’ So you need to make taking time out for relaxation, rejuvenation and what Stephen Covey calls ’sharpening the saw’ a priority.

How should you use a Free Day? Well that all depends upon YOU. Some people are rejuvenated by engaging in highly energetic activities. They need to be out and about, on the go all the time. Others (like me) are just the opposite. They just want to relax, curl up with a book, listen to music, get a massage, lie on a beach, or have a good conversation. Whatever you choose, your Free Day should allow you to be in a different world, away from responsibilities, concerns, worries, and goals.

Start NOW. Don’t let this be a ‘good idea’ that you’ll get around to ‘when you have time’. Take out your calendar and mark out your next ‘free day’. Keep it sacred! If a whole day seems like too much to start with, then start with an afternoon. I promise that when you make a habit of ‘free days’ and you notice your creativity and productivity soar as a result, you’ll be hooked. So start TODAY.

© Bernadette Doyle, 2009

Bernadette Doyle publishes her weekly Client Magnets newsletter for trainers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, then get your free tips now at www.clientmagnets.com

All too often people either don’t understand keywords, or don’t really know what people would use to search for them. Thankfully, there are a few no-cost keyword tools you can use to find out.

One of my favorites is Spacky.com.

Just type in whatever keywords you think are key, and see how often they get searched. Ideally you want keyword phrases that get about 100,000 searches a month, but have less than 500,000 competitors already using them.

Once you know your keywords, be sure to use them in your page title, url, headlines and subheads whenever possible (without making your content sound like it was written by a 6 yr old).

Or maybe you even started a blog, but couldn’t find the time to write regular posts.

If so, believe me, you are not alone. Given that you need to write at least 2 posts a week—at a minimum—to make a blog effective, generating enough content can seem like a herculean task.

Yet having an active blog is a terrific way to get the word out about your business. So if you don’t already have one, or you haven’t been updating yours, you’re missing out.

Blogs are designed to be incredibly well optimized for the search engines. That means the search engines notice you, and you’ll tend to rank higher for your keywords than you would with a traditional Website. Plus there a boatload of cool plug-ins and widgets that let you link your blog with your social networking sites, Website and more.

Thanks to my blog, my content is now syndicated by two companies and republished around the world! That means WAY more people are getting a taste of my marketing wisdom. And ideally, they’re finding their way back to my Website, getting on my email list and becoming more successful entrepreneurs as a result. Plus I’m getting loads of back links from all this syndication so my sites rank even higher in the search engines.

So if you’ve coming up with loads of content has been your stopping block, take heart. Below are 7 easy ways around this problem.

1) Repurpose your other articles

If you’re already writing a regular newsletter, or have written a book, then you have a source of content at your fingertips. There’s absolutely no reason why you can’t reuse that same content on your blog—either with or without editing.

If you do public speaking, record your talks on a simple digital recorder then have them transcribed. Edit the transcripts into a series of articles (or have someone do it for you) and you’ve got reams of content.

2) Online article submission sites

These days you can find reams of content on almost any topic under the sun, ripe and ready for the picking, on article submission sites like ideamarketers.com and ezinearticles.com (though there are hundreds more). Typically, all you have to do is include the author’s byline and links and you can post their content anywhere you want.

3) BloggerLinkUp

Another, similar option to HARO is BloggerLinkUp. But this email service is strictly devoted to people who need blog content or would like to provide blog content. Sign up for their no-cost email subscription at bloggerlinkup.com

5) Subscribe to other newsletters that let you repost

Oftentimes, people will let you repost the articles from their email newsletters. And it never hurts to read what other folks are saying anyway. So subscribe to a few newsletters from other experts in your field with complimentary specialties. Then look at the bottom of their emails to see if they have a blurb giving permission to repost their article. Again, typically they just ask that you keep their name, byline and links at the end of the article.

6) Write a short intro with a link to another post

Anytime you run across a blog post on someone else’s blog you enjoy and feel would be of value or interest to your community, simply write a short blurb about it then include the link back to the original. Your intro can be as short as a 100 words, or longer. And it can include an excerpt from the original post, or not. As long as you don’t repost their article in its entirety without permission, and you include the link back, it’s fair game.

7) Trade with others

Know other small business owners who write great articles? Talk to them and see if they’d like to set up a regular article trade. You can write one a month for their blog and vice versa. This can be a nice way to establish new relationships while getting your blog content written for you.

Or how ‘bout systems for running your business that let you consistently make more money—without running yourself ragged?

Who wouldn’t, right?!?

For most small business owners, the two hardest jobs are:

1)      Getting new clients in the door

2)      Finding time to get everything done

The thing is, once you know how to attract your ideal client, you really don’t have to do much selling. In fact I’ve found it’s easier to target my ideal client, and get paid what I’m worth, by using “Pull” style marketing focused on helping and building relationships instead of “Push” style marketing that’s focused on making sales.

Pull marketing draws your idea clients to you like bees to honey, instead of forcing you to chase them like a lion on the hunt. And it’s especially easy to do these days thanks to the Internet.

You don’t even have to do all the work yourself (nor should you)! That’s one of the beauties of attracting clients instead of going after them—especially on the Web. You can automate or outsource a lot of it.

While I’ve learned a good bit about all this by doing it myself over the past few years, I’ve found someone else who’s actually developed an entire “Client Attraction” system—Fabienne Frederickson. This month I’m going to be interviewing her on my regular Small Business Success Teleseminar!

Join us for FREE by going here to reserve your spot on the call:

http://www.success-stream.com/teleseminar-17.htm

Fabienne has promised to share her secrets and system for:

• How to break down the marketing process into easy steps

• Using the secrets of PULL (versus push) marketing to get clients effortlessly

• Getting clients who happily pay you what you’re worth

• Delegating, automating and systemizing every aspect of your business (so it runs without you!)

• Your chance to ask Fabienne your own Client Attraction questions live!

Fabienne has a reputation for turning her clients on to resources they’d never even heard of in their fields. And those solo-entrepreneurs that follow her advice end up standing out in even overcrowded marketplaces and snagging the best clients and customers.

The teleseminar calls are no-charge, but phone lines are limited. So be sure to reserve your spot right now while you’re thinking about it:

http://www.success-stream.com/teleseminar-17.htm

Got any specific questions about client attraction you’d like Fabienne to answer? Leave your question as a comment below and I’ll make sure we cover it on the call.

• Comment on a blog post, online article or forum question
• Call a past or current client to check in
• Send a thank you or greeting card to someone who deserves it
• Twitter something useful or inspiring

If they wanted a 20 page term paper by February 15th, that’s what I gave them. If it was a 5 page essay by end of class Friday, I turned in a 5 page essay on Friday. Even if my work wasn’t stellar, at least I knew I wasn’t going to get an F because I’d followed the instructions.

When I got to college I was amazed at how many students didn’t follow the professors’ instructions to a tee. Instead they turned in something other than what was asked for, or were late turning in assignments, and their grades immediately tanked. Now I realize that behavior has carried over into adult life for many people.

These days if you actually do what you promised, when you promised it, you’re already miles ahead of your competition. This holds true in your business, your life, and just about everything else.

It also holds true when it comes to getting great PR.

Here’s a perfect example…

Recently, I posted a query on the online PR resource newsletter HARO looking for new guest experts for my monthly teleseminar series. Because HARO goes out to more than 60,000 readers, I knew I’d be slammed with responses.

So I asked for very specific information in the responses knowing this would cull out folks who were unprofessional or unprepared. And make it easier for me to wade through them all.

Here’s the query I placed:
—–
Seeking small business experts on a variety of subjects for monthlyeducational teleseminar series. The focus is on small business success, and the moderator is a Practical Marketing Expert. So any topic related to growing/running a successful small business will be considered. Past topics have included social networking, blogs, branding, virtual assistants, online video, teleseminars, and more. Please send the following: Name,Website address, contact info, Short bio, Title of topic along with short description and 3-5 bullet points addressing what folks will learn.

Testimonials are welcome but not required.

BE SURE TO PUT – HARO SPEAKER QUERY in the subject line.
—–

I got 131 responses.

Of these…

>  6 were nothing but a sales pitch and info about a company…

>  41 didn’t provide the requested topic title with short
descriptions and bullets…

>  37 didn’t include HARO SPEAKER QUERY in the subject line (I found these in my trash box)…

>  17 provided a topic title or idea and maybe bits of an author bio, but no other info…

>  5 offered a topic that had nothing to do with small business (How to stay employed, how to find a new job, etc.), to be presented by people who don’t work with small businesses…

>  16 didn’t include a bio…

>  And one didn’t even mention what they were emailing about!

That means only 26 people followed directions. Most of the otherresponses were deleted because I didn’t have time to guess about their topic or credentials.

What’s truly mind blowing is that most of these came from PR firms pitching on behalf of their clients. I can maybe understand how someone who isn’t a PR professional could make these mistakes…But these people are hired to do this!

So today I want to show you the right way to respond to PR queries so you can get more press with less effort.

#1 – Only respond to queries that truly relate to you and your expertise. No off target pitching.

#2 – Follow the guidelines in the query exactly. If they ask for a 200 word tip, that’s what you give them. If they want a bio and some info on your expertise, give them that. If they just want you to get in touch, that’s all you do.

#3 – Reporters and editors are looking for experts and content that will be of interest to their readers. Do your best to show them you are indeed the best resource to address their questions or speak on their topic by referring to it specifically and giving a little info or specific examples to support that.

#4 – Keep it on the shorter side, but include enough info to make them want to follow up with you.

I typically use this formula when crafting my query responses:

+ One line intro specifically referencing their topic and query on HARO or PitchRate or wherever

+ A short paragraph speaking directly to their topic and giving them a sense of why I’m the right expert for their needs

+ A couple tips, examples or any other info they’ve specifically asked for

+ A short bio with links to my Website, blog and online press kit where they can learn more

+ My contact info (even though it’s in my email signature too)

Tip: It helps to keep a doc with your bio, contact info, and a few versions of your query responses so you can quickly cut and paste in the future.

Ready to harness the power of free PR to grow your business?

Sign up to be notified of PR opportunities at no charge at:

http://www.helpareporter.com and http://www.pitchrate.com

Then start pitching.