January 5, 2012
Guest post by Sheila Viers
As an entrepreneur myself, I know what it takes to build a business from the ground up. It’s often a challenge that takes on new meaning the moment you set foot down that path—stretching you to grow, learn, and do things that you never would have imagined that you would or even could do.
Being an entrepreneur takes a level of commitment and focus that is hard to understand until you have actually experienced it for yourself. And once you get into that groove of laser focus on achieving your vision, it’s easy to let areas such as health and fitness go a bit to the wayside.
You may feel like there’s no way you could possible fit one more thing into your day.
You may feel a bit guilty for taking any of your precious attention away from your business, because you are afraid that any brainpower spent on frivolous things like planning and making healthy meals or exercise would be a distraction from achieving your big goals.
You may feel that, in all honesty, the value just isn’t there. Your health is okay, and yeah maybe you aren’t feeling your best physically, but all in all, you feel good enough to keep pressing forward.
Am I ringing any bells yet?
I’m here to tell you that creating a lifestyle of health and fitness is far more important to the ultimate success of your business and the quality of your life than you might think. In fact, it’s detrimental.
What’s the point of having a successful business if you’ve paid the price of your long-term health in order to achieve it?
And I’m not just talking about physical health here either, your mental health is also extremely important to the future of your business.
Creativity, clarity, focus, stamina—these are all very necessary for a CEO to have and I’m going to show you exactly how you can not only bring physical health into your life, but mental health too, just by making 3 fairly simple (once I explain them) adjustments to your routine.
Here are my top 3 tips for the learning how to shift yourself from the “overwhelmed and overworked entrepreneur” to the “living well in every way, enjoying her business and life in general, and oh by the way, very successful entrepreneur”.
1) Schedule your workouts like an appointment with a VIP
And then KEEP that appointment! Because that’s what you are, ya know… very important.
In order to make fitness a priority, you have to treat it like one and, like any other really important appointment, you have to be willing to make space for it in your schedule.
Most people that say they don’t have time for exercise, actually could find time… they just dislike the idea of working out and/or don’t see the immediate value, so they choose not to make it a priority.
Exercise doesn’t have to be grueling, it can actually be something that you look forward to doing. My motto is that fitness should be something that you “get” to do, rather than something that you “have” to do. Thank goodness that you have this amazing body, right? This body that allows you to workout… these lungs, this strong heart, these arms and legs… this body that is so easy to take for granted!
When you shift the way you choose to look at exercise, it can become a really special, life-giving part of your day. It’s that much needed time to stretch, blow off steam, and regroup.
Taking 30 minutes to an hour away from work to go move your body and get the endorphins going can allow you to return to your to-do list with renewed clarity, energy, and focus.
2) Plan, batch, and no-big-deal-atize your healthy eating
Healthy eating really doesn’t have to be difficult. I can throw together a bright colorful salad in 5 minutes or less… which is a lot less time than it takes to go get carry-out or heat up a frozen dinner.
The trick is to multitask food prep into your routine. For example, on Sundays and Wednesdays, when you are making dinner, make 3-4 times as much protein so that you will have enough cooked for the next few days—protein meaning chicken breasts, turkey burgers or meatballs, legumes, sirloin burgers, etc.
While your protein is cooking, chop veggies for salads not only for dinner that night, but for the next few days as well.
Then, when it’s time for lunch during the week, all you have to do is pull your prepped ingredients out of the frig, throw them in a bowl and eat. This works for on the go meals as well.
If you tend to travel and eat at restaurants often, you’ll typically be able to find some sort of grilled fish or chicken and salad or steamed veggies on most menus (if you don’t see it, just ask).
Eating healthy is really no big deal… if you can convince yourself that it’s no big deal. It’s a baby step process, changing one small thing at a time, until suddenly those small changes add up to a lifestyle of long-term, sustainable healthy eating.
There’s no magic switch-flipping secret that’s going to make you a healthy eater overnight, so do be patient with yourself and know that every healthier-than-before choice is moving you in the right direction.
3) Never underestimate the power of “me-time”
Me-time is the key to unlocking the door of creativity. Many entrepreneurs don’t realize the power of me-time, or time away from your business where you do something that you love to do… unrelated to business. This can be a hobby, exercise, or both or it can be an appointment to do something special to treat yourself, like a massage, girls night, or family day.
Taking time to fill your cup up, so to speak, is so crucial to being healthy and to having a successful business because you need that time to recharge.
Have you ever noticed that you get your best ideas in the shower, on a long run, or when you are doing something where you are not taking in information? Sometimes it’s tough to tap into the creative part of yourself when you are in action/getting things done mode.
Gary Vaynerchuk would tell you that in the first few years of business you have to work so hard you bleed through your eyeballs, and while he makes a good point that dedication and will to succeed are important and obviously he has succeeded through these sorts of efforts, I’d like to add that a little less action for the sake of a little more self-care can prove not only the same or better results, but also a better quality of life.
A really great question to stop and ask yourself often is, “Why am I doing this?”
Yes, it’s because you have a vision and want to be successful, to make your mark on the world, or maybe even to change the world, but at the bottom of all that, there’s an underlying truth to your desire for success.
You’re doing this because you think that the achievement of this goal or a certain level of success will make you happy (feel free to insert other similar words here like validated, worthy, important, fulfilled, etc).
And sometimes entrepreneurs and people in general think that they need to put off present happiness for long-term gain. I say, you can have both.
You can choose to be happy right now, while building your business, and the simplest way that you can do that is to give yourself the time to recharge your batteries. The important thing is that whatever you choose for your me-time, it should be time spend doing something for you. Many people look at taking time for themselves as being selfish when really it’s not. You have nothing to give to others and your business if your tank is empty.
Me-time is the comfort food of all comfort foods, and oh by the way, when you give yourself the gift of a little me-time, you’ll actually find yourself looking to food for comfort a lot less because you’ll already be full of comfort!
Don’t get me wrong, you wouldn’t be an entrepreneur if you didn’t love the thrill of molding the clay of your business. The growth that you experience in this time of building is certainly fulfilling, exciting, and awesome, but it’s important to make sure that the growth and focus in one area of your life isn’t to the determent of other equally important areas.
So, which of these 3 tips resonates most for you and how are you going to bring it into your routine so you can fully live well in every way starting today?
Sheila Viers is the author of The Eat Well 360 (for the Rest of Your Life) Diet and Co-founder of Live Well 360, whose mission is to inspire you to see health and fitness as something you get to do, rather than something you have to do.
Best known for her uplifting perspective on healthy living, Sheila and many of her articles have been featured on health and fitness publications including Yahoo! Shine, Glo MSN, FITNESS Magazine, LiveStrong, FitSugar, Under30CEO, and FigureAthlete.
To learn more about how Sheila transformed her life and her relationship with food, visit eatwell360.com.
To check out the Live Well 360 line of premium fitness and yoga bags, go to livewell360.com.
You can also say hello to Sheila on Twitter at @sheilaviers.
January 2, 2012
Guest post by Prime Sarmiento
I believe it is safe to assume that if you are reading this blog, you are an entrepreneur (or an aspiring entrepreneur) who is using the website to sell products and services, promote relationship with your customers and establish your expertise.
But whatever your business is - personal chef, acupuncturist or digital marketer - you know good design alone won’t keep you in business. You also need well-written content to attract your target readers to your site and convert them into clients.
So unless you’re prepared to hire a copy writer who will charge at least 1,000 U.S. dollars to produce a sales page (and that’s just a one time fee), you’ll be ahead of the game if you have strong writing skills. To develop and polish this valuable skill, look into finding a writing coach.
Here are some pointers to help you in looking for a writing coach:
1. Determine what kind of writing project you want to complete.
List just one writing project that you wanted to finish for the longest time but for some reason have not done it. It could be an e-book, a script for a video tutorial, a press release or a series of pillar posts for your blog.
You have to stick to one project as writing coaches have different specialization. A writing coach who usually coaches memoirist and novelist may not be the coach that you want to hire if your priority project is to write a high-converting sales page.
2. Read first, decide later
I’m not talking about testimonials here or even their profile page. But instead, read the creative products of that prospective writing coach. Does he or she have a blog or have they published a novel? Perhaps they have articles in print publications that you can find online. Read them and see if you like his or her writing style.
3. Find out if you and the writing coach share the same “vibe”
Choosing a coach is deeply personal. You won’t like being mentored by someone who you neither respect nor admire.
You and your writing coach will work together to finish an important project. So it’s better to know beforehand if the prospective coach is the right fit for you. Invite the coach for coffee and see if the two of you share the same vibe.
Take note: if you both live in the same place and the coach refused to meet you, drop her from your list of prospects. If she can’t spare an hour to meet a client then it’s doubtful he or she will give you the time and attention you need to critique your work or motivate you to complete your project.
If it’s not possible to meet the coach in person due to proximity, then you can talk over Skype, read and comment on his/her blogs or follow his or her tweets. Bottomline: in today’s work environment, you need not live close to your writing coach. With skype, email, blogs, even Twitter, you can check out their vibe and find a connection.
4. Set parameters and writing goals
Once you chose “the one”, both of you need to set the rules on how the two of you will work. What are the goals that you want to accomplish and how will the coach help you in attaining that goal?
Are you looking for a detailed critique or do you need someone to motivate you because you are insecure about your skills?
You also need to work on a schedule that suits both of you. Do you have to contact her every day or is a monthly update enough? Does she have to be in every step of the project (highly recommended for people who tend to procrastinate)? If you’re quite disciplined, you can just contact her if you need to attain a certain milestone.
You also have to determine the mode of communication. Do you meet up in a café once a week, chat over the webcam, or send e-mails with each other? Choose what is the most convenient for both of you. My coach and I chose to communicate with each other via e-mail because of the huge difference in our time zones (she is in Europe and I live in Asia so skyping isn’t feasible ).
5. Be accountable
Learning something is useless if you don’t act on it. Your coach is there so you can be accountable to someone, gently pushing you to apply what you learned. So let’s say you are writing an e-book with ten chapters, you need to write and finish each chapter, and have each chapter critiqued. After getting a critique, be sure to apply what you learned in rewriting that chapter and writing a new chapter. Then let the coach look at both the revised and new chapters. You will then see if you improved as a writer.
As Laura Roeder teaches, when it comes to getting things done in your business, you have two choices, hire someone or learn how to do them yourself. Finding a writing coach early in your business will help tremendously with your long term growth.
Have you worked with a writing coach? How was your experience?
Prime is a journalist and freelance business blogger. She writes on learning and the craft of writing for online tutorial company AHEAD Interactive. You can follow her writing tips and tweets at @prime_sarmiento
December 22, 2011
As you are getting ready and doing all of that planning for the New Year, remember one very important step…be consistent.
Check out the video below to learn:
- How to stay at the forefront of your customer’s minds
- How serious commitment leads to serious success
- How systems can help you achieve consistency
Read the Transcript ▼
Hey, I’m Laura Roeder of getthedash.com, and I want to propose an idea to you today for your small business and that is he who is the most consistent wins. I think consistency is incredibly important in building a successful small business especially over time and here is what I mean.
I see a lot of businesses that publicly kind of fall off the map. They have been blogging for a while and then you look at their blog and they haven’t updated it for two months. They’ve stopped sending out emails. You haven’t heard from them in six months.
Sometimes these businesses actually have a lot going on behind the scenes, but from the customer’s perspective, that relationship really decays. All the time that you’re not communicating with your customers, you’re losing that relationship with them, right? It’s just like a friend that you used to talk to every day and all of a sudden you haven’t heard from them for six months and you’re not as close to them as people that you stay in touch with all the time.
I think sometimes people think, “Oh, it’s just a blog. It’s just sending out emails. There’s no big deal.” But then it builds up and builds up, and then before you know it, three months have gone by and no one has heard from you.
The businesses that I see winning are businesses that make a very serious commitment to their consistency. This is something that I’ve done in my business and I think it’s a huge factor in my success.
But you don’t have to do it all at once. So what I did is I started with a newsletter. I decided to make a commitment that I would publish a newsletter every week, and if you’re on my list, you know that we publish that newsletter every week, week in and week out for the last three years. It’s a non-negotiable no matter what, the newsletter goes out. Of course we have systems that help us do that like writing the newsletter in advance. Amazing idea, right? This really can help you get it up every week instead of scrambling to do it that morning.
So first, we started with a newsletter and then we added on a blog. When I launched this business, I actually didn’t even have a blog for it because you have to be realistic about you and what you can achieve, right? So we started with a newsletter. We got the newsletter happen, we got it down, and then we added a blog. So we started blogging I don’t know how often it was. Let’s say we even just started blogging monthly and then we moved that weekly, and now we have a twice a week blog schedule. We blog pretty much every week, twice a week, at least once a week.
And then after that we added on webinars. Now, we usually do a webinar every two weeks, sometimes once a month. We have a regular schedule. So all those things add up, first the newsletter and then the blog and then the webinars.
But we don’t do things one off. We look at how can we make this consistent so that we’re communicating and adding value and making promotional offers to customers over and over again. And of course the more you can communicate with your customers, the more you can make offers to your customers, the more your business is going to grow, the better the relationship with your customers and the more chances you have for new people to come in the funnel. If you’re releasing a newsletter and a blog post and a webinar regularly, you’re giving people a lot of opportunities to hear about your business. So as you’re doing your planning, I would just ask you to really at not what can you do one off but how can you make a serious commitment to be consistent in your marketing activities.
What systems and consistent marketing do you do to keep your customers engaged? Share in the comments below.
December 19, 2011
Guest post by Martina Iring
More and more small business owners are blogging these days. Which makes sense because it’s such a great tool for your business.
Blogging allows you to do so much more than just sharing news and promoting events. You can use blogging to boost your credibility, create a personal connection with your audience, and answer customer questions and queries more efficiently.
As a small business owner, I love blogging and recommend it for so many reasons.
But, the number one reason I would suggest jumping on the blogging bandwagon is . . . ‘drum roll please’
Search Engine Marketing.
Many small business owners are aware that blogging is good for search engines (and if you didn’t, well, at least you learned something new today). But just publish posts, and go on their merry way, without understanding all the bits and bobs you can use to making your content search friendly.
If you’re not a techie or Internet whiz, no problem. Optimizing your blog isn’t that hard. Keep reading and I’ll teach you all the areas in your blog that you can use to serve juicy bits of content to Google and other search engines.
Categories
Blog categories allow you to organize your posts by topic and let your readers easily find the areas that are the most interesting to them. But category names should not be chosen randomly. Whenever possible use relevant keywords to name your categories.
Keyword Tags
Each blog post can be associated with keywords. Choose keywords that are related to the topic at hand. And, remember to use the same keywords in the content itself.
If you’re using WordPress and your theme does not automatically include an area for keywords and other optimization areas (we’ll be getting in a bit), Laura and I both recommend the free plugin All in One SEO Pack.
Meta Description
This area allows you to include a description of your post. Create the description, using your keywords of course. Are we sensing a theme here, yet?
Title Tag
The title tag area gives you some flexibility to be creative. I often like to create post titles that are fun and interesting. It makes people want to read on, right?
For example, I titled one of my posts – The greedy email collector. What would be the practical, search friendly title for that post? Common email marketing mistakes or something along those lines would do. I can keep my more interesting title on my blog and use the more practical one in the title tag.
For more tips on naming your blog posts and how to blend creativity with practicality, check out this post on writing titles for your blog posts.
Photos
Did you know that search engines can read the file names of your photos? If you’re using a photo or two in a post, use a relevant keyword for the file name when you save it to your computer.
Text Links
Within your each blog post, you have the opportunity to include links to other content in your blog. Whether you’re referencing your product, service, or a topic that you discussed in another blog post, use keyword rich anchor text to create the link. This gives search engines even more information about the content of that page.
Instead of saying: Read more about my services here try a keyword focused text link, such as Read more about my small business accounting services.
Can you see the difference?
Having a blog is an important way to get your business moving up on search rankings. And now you know how to make the most out of search engine optimization.
Martina Iring is an online marketing consultant who works with small business owners and entrepreneurs overwhelmed with all that web stuff. She’s on a mission to help the little guys make sense of Internet marketing, teaching small biz owners how being online is not only profitable, but enjoyable! Her blog, Small Business Bliss, offers up gobs of free marketing info and doses of inspiration just for little biz owners. Get your free website improvement guide here.
December 1, 2011
Guest post by Amanda Aitken
Tell me if this sounds familiar.
You’re in the shower, lathering up with your fave shampoo, when suddenly, it hits you like a lightning bolt. A brilliant idea. An idea for a business that’s sure to change the world as we know it (or at least your little corner of it), and that you know you must act on NOW, or it will never happen.
Lit up like a Christmas tree, you jump out of the shower with your hair full of suds so you can scrawl down your genius thought before it vanishes into the ether.
As you skid back into the bathroom, your mind goes into overdrive dreaming up your branding for the new pursuit. You can’t remember the last time you were so excited. Fame, fortune, and that splashy trip to Paris are surely just around the corner!
But then you have another thought: “Crap. I’m going to need a website.”
The smile fades from your lips as the water goes cold.
Yep – you’ve got a tall order on your hands. This ain’t your first rodeo, and you know from experience how hard it is to find a talented designer who a) “gets” your vision, b) actually returns your emails, and c) is available sometime before 2014. Oh yeah – and you also need to come up with $2,000 for the project. Stat.
And just like that, the bubble bursts. You can already see the finished site in your mind’s eye (it’s gorgeous! flawless! primed to reel in the clients!), but you’re painfully aware that getting there is going to be a real struggle.
I know you’re trying to outsource the stuff that’s outside your zone of genius. That’s a smart strategy. But if you’re a creative solopreneur (especially one who’s a bit of a design snob), hiring out your website can be a massive mistake.
Let’s get very real here: after months of back-and-forth by email, costs that balloon with every revision you ask for, and a low-level migraine you can’t seem to shake, you could STILL end up with a site you don’t adore.
Does outsourcing still seem like the way to go?
—
So what’s a girl (or guy) to do? Why, DIY, of course!
That’s right – I said it! For visually picky solopreneurs, learning to create your own website – coding and all – is the smartest choice you will make this year.
Here’s why:
- Learning to code is easier than you think. There’s this perception that it’s scary and weird, but this is just what “web people” want you to believe. The end result? You end up paying them money to do something they get a real kick out of. Actually, learning HTML and CSS is no different from leaning any other new skill. I taught myself HTML when I was 13, and I’m not even a supernerd.
- Building your own sites saves you serious cash. You know the old proverb: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. If you have ten ideas for new businesses or online projects over the next few years, you could be forking out as much as $50,000 for web design and web development work. That’s $50,000 you could be using to start a bold new movement, a charity, or an impressive shoe collection.
- Coding is what lets you create amazing, non-template-y visual effects. Putting up a basic WordPress site has its place, but if you care deeply about your branding, you need to know how to code. Paired with graphics (which you can make yourself online, for free), HTML and CSS knowledge is a must-have for getting a gorgeous, customized look for your site. “Cookie-cutter” won’t know what hit it.
- Knowing this stuff makes you super business-nimble. Came up with a great new opt-in offer? If you know HTML and CSS, you can throw it up on your site within minutes of envisioning it. No matter how you slice it, that’s pretty darn awesome.
- If you’re taught the right way, code and web stuff can be fun. Like, not going out on Friday night because you want to stay in with your computer fun.
- Total empowerment. Imagine the feeling of freedom you’d have if you finally knew how to get the ideas out of your head and onto a computer screen – so that your ideal clients and customers can bask in their beauty.
As an entrepreneur, I can’t tell you how valuable it is for me to be able to get a new site online, exactly the way I want it to look, within hours of it popping into my head. You can have that feeling too!
Amanda Aitken is the incurable entrepreneur and longtime web designer behind The Girl’s Guide to Web Design: the online course that teaches design-minded women to create gorgeous, totally unique WordPress blogs and sites – coding, graphics, and all – in a fun, whimsical video format. Find out which learning track would fit you best (First Class or Jetsetter) at http://girlsguidetowebdesign.com, or follow her on Twitter at @amandaaitken.
Hillary Rubin, spiritual lifestyle design coach, entrepreneur, and wellness pioneer who coaches women around the world to shed fear and become undeniable in their life and business. Check out her newest program, Your Souls University, HERE. She has been featured on Fit TV, in The Los Angeles Times, The Independent, Yoga Journal and contributes to the Huffington Post and Origin magazine. Hillary is also writing her first book with the forward by Agape Founder Michael Bernard Beckwith.
Andreea Ayers works with product-based entrepreneurs to help them grow their product line. She provides game-changing tips and strategies for wholesale, retail, publicity and marketing at 
Matt Smith is the co-founder of 
