As you’re taking down the tree and visiting relatives are checking the status of their flights back home, it is clear that another holiday season is winding down. Like it or not, another year has passed and it is time to think about how to make your next year the best one you’ve had, so far.

You work hard every day to build your business but, if you don’t feel your business is where it ought to be, it may be due to the fact that you’ve been so swept up with tactical matters that you haven’t really stopped to consider what it is that you really want. With that list in front of you, you are ready to set some goals.

Goal setting for your small business owners requires both imagination and foresight. Here are some great questions you can use to organize your thinking for a goal setting exercise:

1. What do you want to change?
2. Where will this change take your business?
3. Why do you want to change now?
4. What do you need to do to make the change?
5. When do you want the change to take effect?
6. How will this change improve your business?
7. What happens after you’re there?

This sort of brainstorming can help you whether your goals are business or personal and envisioning goals in this way guides you to think strategically. Putting things in a list can actually help you find related goals, or goals that need to be done in sequence, so you can economize on the resources needed to accomplish them too.

Setting goals may seem like a daunting task but it is a necessary step in setting the course for advancing progress. As John F. Kennedy said:

“Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”

So think SMART when you think of goal setting.

S is for Specific

If your goals are specific, you have a much better chance of achieving them. So, for each of your items on the list, answer these questions:

Who: Who is involved?

What: What will be accomplished?

Where: Identify the location where work will take place.

When: Establish a time frame.

Which: Identify essential and constraining factors.

Why: Specific reasons and benefits of the accomplished goals.

M is for Measurable

Establish tangible criteria for measuring progress toward the goal’s attainment. Each milestone is a point of potential exhilaration that motivates you to continue. When verifying that you have set measurable criteria, ask yourself questions like:

How much?

How many?

How will I know when it is done?

A is for Attainable

This is where the priorities or the “why do it at all” questions help. If you have items on your list that really matter, you can find ways to accomplish them. Your dedication to accomplishing these goals will drive you to develop attitudes, abilities, skills, and the financial resources necessary to reach them.

If your goals seem far from reach, remember that you have the ability to make them attainable by growing and expanding to match them. Each time you do what you previously believed could not be accomplished, you are improving your self-image, which allows you to feel worthy of the rewards that reaching your goals can give.

R is for Realistic

Choose goals that are representative of substantial progress and include objectives toward which you are both willing and able to work. It isn’t necessarily true that your goals must be set low in order for them to be realistic. You are at the helm of your own ship, after all.

T is for Tangible

Your goals ought to be something you can experience with one of the five senses. If you must have an intangible goal, like one that is tied to self-improvement, relate it to a tangible one through offering yourself a reward that you can experience.

Remember that none of your goals are cast in stone. If you are persistently evaluating outcomes while working toward them, you may find adjacent goals that actually will bring greater improvements for your lifestyle or business. When this happens, go back to your list and adjust it accordingly.

While it is important to work toward things that you need, if these things are not what you want, you’re far less likely to accomplish your goals. Ultimately, you must WANT something in order to take ACTION to acquire it. This is where my favorite mindset philosophy comes in: DREAM – DO – HAVE.

Dare to DREAM so you will DO what is necessary to HAVE your dreams come true!

Thank you for your readership, always, and here’s wishing each of you a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

We’ve all been taught to avoid the truth if we fear that our news has potential to upset someone whom we like and respect, but being honest about your feelings doesn’t mean that you have to be tactless. If we understand and appreciate that everyone has varying degrees of skill with regard to handling feedback, and that they aren’t always in control of their emotional responses, there’s always a way to talk over any issue and reach a reasonable compromise.

Honesty is the best policy and, in my humble opinion, a lie by omission causes the most harm. The world would be a much better place if everyone was capable of directly confronting differences of opinion and, if these cannot be reconciled, choosing to disagree without the having the discussion escalate to an argument or parting of ways. Over time, I’ve decided that the culprit impeding this outcome is ego … and egos can be so demanding of respect!

So what can you do if you know you’re onto something and your ideas are repeatedly ignored by your business associates? Do you give up and become resentful or do you try to find another way to get your point across to them?

You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don’t let yourself indulge in vain wishes. ~ Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941)

In any business, risk is necessary but risks should always be meticulously researched and measured against your assumptions before making a change. Consider carefully whether or not your idea is too great of a leap to be considered at this time but, by all means, don’t give it up if you strongly feel it can work better than the track you are currently on. With just a little more thought, you may find a way to redesign your proposal that seems less risky to your associates. 

Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet. ~ African Proverb

Because the river moves around it, a rock appears to be stronger but physics have proven that moving water will prevail and keep its own course over time. After many attempts to dictate the route of the Mississippi River, The Army Corps of Engineers have learned that the river knows its own way and serves no man.

In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins – not through strength, but through persistence.- Anonymous

Although the process that makes water stronger than a rock is erosion, we aren’t disempowering anyone by gently persisting about something that we know, in our hearts, is a better way to go. There are people who will not pursue any idea that they don’t feel is their own. With theses sorts of personalities, planting the seed of your idea and waiting for them to embrace it as their own usually does the trick, however, it does require that you don’t have a need to be recognized for it. Giving the idea to your business associates from the onset with phrasing like, “Have you considered …”, is an extremely non-confrontational assertion and somewhat of a subliminal command to for them to at least think about your recommendation.

Bodies of water also give us another metaphor for our business relationships. Many rivers open up to the sea but the sea is its own force and returns tides to the rivers. The mixture of salt and fresh water produces a brackish habitat where creatures from both worlds can adapt and thrive. Using this metaphor, when your original idea is improved upon through your business colleagues’ consideration, blending thoughts can result in a better plan and those who are capable of adapting can prosper more.

So it all seems to come down to being open and honest to learning and not being attached to the outcomes of your suggestions, doesn’t it? If we can keep our demanding egos out of the way, forward progress is always an option. Whether the progress is a business idea or a shift in how you interact with your associates, a positive change of direction is normally a sign of growth.

We all know there are times when it is necessary to have a conversation that has potential to become awkward. If you are a good communicator, you can usually find a way to avoid arguments but there are times when the only option available is to agree to disagree. If you are capable of speaking your mind, in spite of any fears, and managing your emotional response to having your ideas rejected, you’ve risen above the constraints that your ego can create.

If you are using Wordpress as a basis for your business website, you’ll expose yourself as a newbie, possibly open yourself to online security risks, and lose potential SEO benefits the software provides if you don’t take time to learn how it works. While it is true that installing Wordpress is simple, setting it up correctly contributes to your website’s success, which also has an impact on your business success.

We’re talking business here, right? I do acknowledge that there are many extremely successful bloggers who established blogs on free sites, like Blogger, before Wordpress came of age. These days, sites like that are most useful in your SEO linking strategy and should NOT be the base for your primary website. This is also true of Wordpress.com, another free blogging platform.

For starters, free blogging sites offer limited theme and plugin options. The most important for you to understand about them, however, is that they own your content and can arbitrarily take your website down at any time. While “free” may sound good to you, building SEO for a website is actual time spent, whether you outsource the work or not. Why in the world would you choose to invest that much energy on a domain and content that you do not have complete control over? It boggles my mind…

Hire an Expert Wordpress Developer

So here you are. You have a great business idea and you know you need a website to make it happen.  Everyone is saying that Wordpress is what you should use too. You’ve found a lot of helpful and free articles on the internet explaining how to install and set it up so why would you want to hire someone to do this for you?

Based on stories I’ve heard from my clients and some of the projects that I’ve been asked to finish, I can think of several reasons. Primarily, they come under the heading of insufficient technical skills or a lack of understanding about how computers and database applications work. If you don’t understand the underlying technologies of your Wordpress software, you can get into trouble which can affect your business plans.

Other things that make it easy to spot a newbie include:

Lack of Focus
Have you ever visited a site with frequent and unrelated posts designed to bring in affiliate sales? Offering too many different things or choosing too broad a niche can make your website invisible. Up-front keyword research, to isolate low competition keywords with adequate search volumes, is essential to your website’s success, whether your products are affiliate offerings or your own content, like an eBook.

Having Too Many Pages
While every place you go on the internet is considered a web page, Wordpress uses the term pages differently. When I wind up at a site where the majority of the content is pages, I know that the site was created by an inexperienced Wordpress user. The beauty of Wordpress is that it notifies search engines automatically when post content is updated.

Default Installation Content on the Site
Another dead giveaway is seeing the default installation content, like the blogroll or the standard meta login. Worse yet is spotting the “Hello World” post or the default about page on the site.

Categories
Visiting a Wordpress site with nothing categorized is a tell-tale sign of a newbie blog. So far as I’m concerned, no content should exist in the “uncategorized” category.

Cross-Browser Inconsistencies
Although I’ve been tempted, I’ve never published a site with a “best viewed in …” message on it. Without inflaming the debate about which browser is better, and taking the high road, assume that you should not enforce the use of one browser over another. Over the past several years, I have learned that not all themes are created equal and solid CSS skills, as well as knowing what to look for in the theme, are necessary to resolve browser incompatibility.

After a free consultation, people often say that they can put up their own sites. After weeks of trying, some have come back to retain my Wordpress website development services.

Our blogs are intended to present us as professionals. The best advice that I can offer to you is that, if you are not technically adept, hire a professional who can deliver the website you want and help you learn what you need to know so you can build your online reputation and add value to your bottom line.

Recently, a newsletter arrived from a self growth website which explained dysfunctional personal productivity personalities.  Because productivity styles can mean the difference between entrepreneurial success and failure, I’ve taken some time to analyze this topic and provided some tips and techniques that have worked for me in overcoming some of these productivity inhibitors.

Scrappers are people whose offices and desktops look like modern art with a collage of post-its and paper scraps. While conventional wisdom accepts that a cluttered desk is an indication of a cluttered mind, disorganization can result in missed deliverables and over-commitment.

If this is your style, whether you are working solo or in a partnership, adopting a method that serves to remind you of what you have to get done can be useful. If you have a partner, ask them to send you email reminders prior to important deadlines. Using a website like Airset allows you to set up a system that will allow you to put your projects online with automated reminders about deliverables sent to your email. Face it, a little up-front planning is needed for any endeavor.

Personal Styles and Business Productivity

Pilers don’t throw anything away and file nothing. They can sometimes find what they’re looking for quickly but watching them sift through their piles of books and papers can be unnerving. Many years ago, I adopted the tactic of dating a hard copy document if I decided I needed to keep it after reading it. These days, most of my files are kept on my hard drives and I still tend to precede the document name with a date, year first, if I’ve taken notes using notepad.

My work entails writing business proposals, marketing plans, project plans, website code, creating website artwork, and researching business niches for good keywords. For obvious reasons, these sorts of files must be saved for a period of time, even if the project has ended.

At the end of 2008, after a cross country move, I spent several hours moving client folders off of removable storage and onto a secure location within my network. Using a standard folder hierarchy allows me to go directly to a client folder to locate content related to those projects immediately. My clients seem grateful for my organizational skills when they call to ask for a password that they’ve lost!

At the beginning of each month, I set aside a few hours to sift through file folders in my inbox and in the folders related to my clients. It takes time but the time is well spent.

Multi-taskers have millions of things they hope to get done simultaneously and seem to take great pride in talking about their long lists. A downside for some can be that a lot of things get started but none get finished.

If you are an entrepreneur with clients or own multiple websites multi-tasking is essential, but if you’ve begun to notice that you are feeling frazzled or overwhelmed by your work, it is time to take a serious look at your short and long-term goals. Document all the things you have committed to do and organize it into do-able chunks that are prioritized by relevance. Aside from family commitments, your most important things to do ought to be money making activities.

Interrupters are people who do not respect the fact that, just because they have time to talk about something now doesn’t mean that you do. Because I am sensitive to this myself, I’ve always allowed the person whom I think I need to talk with know why I’d like to talk with them right away and never fail to ask if it is a good time for them.  If not, I negotiate a more agreeable time for them.

When someone unexpectedly requests my time, I’ve found that my best defense is to be honest with them and, if I don’t have time for the interruption, I force myself to refuse and also let them know when I’ll be free. If I feel that I can take a few minutes at the time of their request, I inform them up-front about my time constraints and hold to that schedule by curtailing the conversation or text chat when the boundary is reached.

Procrastinators claim to work well under pressure and use this an excuse for putting things off to the last minute.  Their real crime is that they work on things that they would prefer to work on, which pushes the less desirable, and often more complicated tasks, back and puts them at risk.  Sure, we all are guilty of this sometimes but the pursuit of business success doesn’t guarantee that everything you will work on will be easy to do or fun.

Unmanaged, a procrastinator on a project can create havoc for other members of that group. While their creativity and talents might be welcomed, they require firm guidance and follow-up from a more focused team member.

Socializers waste incredible amounts of time communicating in frivolous ways. With the advent of social networking, people I was fascinated by and lost a lot of time on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook profile updates and responses. In an effort to recover my productivity, I established an hour or so at the end of each day to research topics that I wanted to post to Twitter and set up those transmissions using one of the many tools available for timing them. Many of these sites allow you to update multiple social networking profiles at once, and always include the highest quality sites.

I use a very similar tactic with both phones and Skype. Turning off the ringer during times of the day that I need to focus avoids phone interruptions. Similarly, putting Skype on “do not disturb” allows me to see when someone is trying to contact me and choose whether or not an immediate response is required.

Meeting addicts are obsessed with convening to talk about what needs to be done. So much time can be spent talking about such things that forward progress is hindered, however. If you’re invited to attend a meeting, ensure that the organizer has a clear purpose and that an agenda is issued in advance. If the topics on the agenda do not mesh with what is critical to your immediate needs, take care of yourself and decline the meeting.

If you are in a meeting and have something to say, make sure to apply the “So What?” rule before opening your mouth. This may sound like a statement from a belligerent child but it does force you to evaluate, in advance, whether what you have to say is relevant or useful to the group at the meeting.

E-mailers never use the phone to deliver a short update and love to broadcast their news to everyone on their list. It’s easy to ignore superfluous emails but, IM broadcasting software has opened up a new arena for pointless intrusions. Without exception, everyone who uses a Skype broadcast tool to communicate useless BizOp updates has been blocked from my list.

Although it is “polite” to acknowledge communications, not all emails or IMs require a response, especially if it is an uninvited solicitation.

Crisis creators dwell in a state of anxiety and everything is critical to them. The slightest problems can be exaggerated and their alarmist mentality can draw you in, if you are close to them.

Fire-fighting is a part of my business, at times, but keeping a cool head is what my clients seem to appreciate. If I cannot see an immediate way to help them with their problem, I will get offline with them and decide or do what needs to be done.  If I am able to resolve the issue without another conversation, I will provide a real-time or email update apprising them of the cause and the solution.  If not, I get back to them with a strategy, at the very least.

Packrats have never thrown away anything in their lives. This obsession has become a matter of public interest but not all packrats are obsessive. Like clearing your desk on a regular basis, making sure that you are eliminating clutter from your office or household is important. If you are looking over stored items and realize you haven’t opened the box or envelope in years, then you might want to honestly evaluate whether or not you need to hang onto it.  Heirlooms and sentimental keepsakes are excluded from this, of course.

As a funny aside, I once dated a fellow like this. The first time I visited his apartment, the ancient computer equipment and stacks of printouts astounded me. There was but a narrow path between spaces to a chair in the living room, his bedroom, and the kitchen. When he moved to a new place, all of these things wound up in his garage too.

Perfectionists are so interested in doing things perfectly that they often neglect to get them done. Impressively long lists and generous offers to contribute are part of their style. I have known people whose lists were so lengthy that their lack of completion caused them distress. I recommended that they write shorter so things could be checked off quicker.

This actually could related to the multi-tasker style and the suggestions that were made there are certainly applicable here. Organizing and prioritizing “to-do” items into chunks that are easily accomplished not only gives a sense of personal satisfaction but also demonstrates to your clients that you are capable of getting things done.

Workaholics can’t seem to think of anything but work and also can’t seem to avoid reminding people about how much they work. As an entrepreneur working from my home, it has sometimes been difficult for me to separate my work and personal life but assuming dual expenses for internet, phones, utilities, and rent is not desirable to me.

I’ve learned to schedule “free time” for family, play, and personal projects figuring that, as human beings, we were given life so we could experience pleasure and fun too. I like to call these things mini-vacations, for all work and no play can make one dull and this is the last thing any of us wants.

This is a fairly complete list of things that could be hindering your entrepreneurial output but I’m sure that those of you reading this post can think of others. Any thoughts that you have and want to leave as comments are welcomed.

During the holiday season, when stress levels are higher, make sure to take care of yourself. Business success is critical to your survival but so is your emotional health.

Wordpress was awarded the 2009 Open Source CMS Award last month. Not only is this a great honor for the software, it validates a decision I made to specialize with this CMS years ago and all of the recommendations that I’ve made to website clients for the past several years. Wordpress is a powerful CMS and, with the improvements introduced during the past year and this award, it is crystal clear that the software has stepped up to the plate for consideration as the basis for any website project.

Wordpress Wins 2009 Open Source CMS Award

Many of you who know me understand my deep appreciation for Wordpress. I began using the software as a blogger in late 2004 when I set up my first self-hosted blog. Since that time, my interest in blogging has become a way of life for me.  My Wordpress development skills have been a good source of income for me and I love being a self-employed entrepreneur.

In fact, entrepreneurship is a frequent topic on my blog. An important attribute of being an entrepreneur is having a willingness to take measured risks but crucial to entrepreneurial survival, regardless of one’s niche, is resilience. Ideas bloom, excitement builds, partnerships are formed, and there are many ups and downs along the way.

This amazing interview with Matt Mullenweg, the father of Wordpress, really gives a lot of great insights into a smart way to start and grow a company. Other participants in this show are Jason Calacanis and Joel Spolsky. All are visionaries and well respected in the internet arena. The interview is nearly 2 hours long but it is well worth your time to listen, at the very least. I must caution you that Jason uses some colorful language while telling some of his stories.

It is too bad that most Internet Marketers don’t understand the mechanics of a human-to-human sales relationship. If they actually had to talk to their prospects and customers, rather than dwelling in a two-dimensional world, would this improve their income potential or diminish it?

Building relationships takes time and attention, no matter which way you spin things. Developing rapport and gaining an understanding of each other ought to be a mutual effort or the equity of the relationship becomes uneven. Just as an expert should not condescend to a customer who doesn’t know all the ins and outs of their area of expertise, a customer should not condescend to the expert and treat them as a servant.

It is quite satisfying when there is cooperation and mutual respect in a business relationship. In this scenario, the customer appreciates the expertise that the professional is bringing to the table and respects the fact that such expertise has a value for which they are being paid. The professional appreciates the fact that the customer has chosen to work with them, in spite of the fact that they had other choices, and values their customer through responsiveness and, most importantly, through listening to the customer’s concerns and ideas. To that end, the most important tool that any entrepreneur has at their disposal is their ability to listen.

Listen, Learn and Earn

Listening is an active skill. People who are communicating with you need to know that they have been heard so it is important to acknowledge them, whether or not you agree with what they’ve said. In addition, if you are not clear about what you’ve heard, asking questions that explore the issue in such a way that no conclusions are assumed can lead your customers to telling you much more about their needs. This has potential to grant you further sales, if your products and services are aligned with those needs. If not, you may be able to refer them to a colleague of yours who specializes in that niche.

Today, while conferring with a new client, they were expressing discontent about another person in my same field who came to her expecting a retainer payment to commence work. When the prospect informed this website designer that they had questions, the designer’s response was: “I know all your questions and I have all the answers.” It didn’t surprise me that this prospect has continued to look for a website designer. That sort of reply totally invalidated this nice lady, making her feel as if her feelings and questions were completely irrelevant.

Communication is an art, and the most important aspect of communicating with anyone is listening to what they are saying. While a college degree isn’t required to enter any entrepreneurial arena, effective business people will educate themselves in the things that will further their business and increase their referrals.

James Arthur Ray was featured on Nightline this week. It seems that some of the participants of his Spiritual Warrior Retreat, held in Sedona in early October, died in a sweat lodge exercise at the end of a grueling week of motivational activities. The sweat lodge exercise was mandated after the people had spent days in the beautiful canyons of Sedona, without food or adequate rest, to connect with their inner truth … supposedly.

Human physiology is fragile. It didn’t seem at all odd that some people might have been dehydrated and unfit to go into a sweat lodge for hours on the heels of their Sedona experience. I’ve wandered through the trails of Sedona. The trails to the vortexes are not paved and most of them involve a climb. As I listened to the statements on Nightline, made by survivors of this experience, as well as from family members whose loved ones had died, I pondered the huge industry that has grown around The Law of Attraction and The Secret over the past couple of years. If you are operating in this niche, you are well advised to monitor the progress of this story!

Don’t get me wrong, I watched The Secret, in the fall of 2007, and the movie was nothing other than inspirational. The underlying message of this movie, and others like it, is that you have the ability to change your viewpoint, and in so doing, have an opportunity to change your life’s course. If you are under the tutelage of a charismatic leader, like James Arthur Ray must be, it’s probably easy to get swept into a belief system that causes you to want the success he says is so easily attainable. And, to his credit, he has a large following.

The fact that our mental approach to a problem can either resolve it or lead us further astray isn’t new information. In the United States, this was discovered by a couple of drunks as they commiserated with each other over a cup of coffee, so the story goes. The relief these two men felt led them to start a movement called Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) that has helped millions of people all over the world for nearly a century. AA text suggests “stinking thinking” is the source of emotional problems that lead people to make bad decisions, in this case, drinking. In fact, AA could possibly be the very first Law of Attraction program!

The big difference between AA and programs like James Arthur Ray’s is that AA doesn’t define its membership by the amount of money they have to spend to join. This is written into their 12 Traditions at article six, which is a spiritual tradition recognizing that money, property and prestige can distract an AA group from its primary purpose … to help people.

James Arthur Ray’s Spiritual Warrior Retreat was selling for a whopping fee of $9,695! This adventure built on a previous product offering called Practical Mysticism which sold for $5,295. The funny thing about reading Ray’s promotional materials is that they are merely sales letters, no different in psychology than the sales letters that compel one to purchase anything they’ve never heard about before. Personally, I doubt that Ray is any different than any other person who knows the truth about mindset; he’s just used his connection to The Secret to create a multi-million dollar enterprise.

One person might say this is clever. Another might say it is opportunistic. In the end, only James Arthur Ray knows his motivations and, in light of civil suits already filed against his organization after the Spiritual Warrior debacle, with the strong possibility of forthcoming criminal charges, the law will intervene to make judgment. This judgment could lead to a need to regulate the industry which will wash out a lot of self-help charlatans.

What disturbs me most about Law of Attraction practitioners-for-profit is the disparity of their words against their self-serving style. Last year, I observed this in a “joint venture” where the time I spent developing technology wasn’t recognized as having value and my “partner” asked me to pay for an EFT session. Without exception, every client that I’ve worked with who practices a “wealth attraction” coaching or information business has seemed to be the most tight-fisted and demanding client on my list for, when it comes to completing a project paying the final bill, they will always manufacture excuse after excuse for not producing a final payment when the terms of our contract have been fulfilled.

Is this indicative of the industry at large? One can only hope it isn’t…

Have you ever been repelled by communication with people or stopped reading content due to the overuse of acronyms which mean nothing to you? In a former life, when I took a position in a Honeywell division that had a lot of specialized language, I was impressed, and will never forget, the pamphlet that they gave me at employee orientation to help me expand their frequently used acronyms. It wasn’t like I was going on vacation in a foreign country or anything!

It is true that instant messaging and technology have introduced a lot of new words and acronyms into our vocabularies over the course of the last few decades. When email was new, I recall how spell checkers challenged my usage of the word messaging. (Their suggested revision was massaging, which always caused me to chuckle and think of a Pink Panther movie skit with Peter Sellers.) Being at the forefront of early email adoption, I was involved with think-tank groups who explored the casual nature of email communications in business. People like me, who are moderately obsessed with proper language, railed at the prevelence of shorthand that seemed to be “dumbing down” written communications but, in a recent National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast, a panelist remarked that language shorthand used in written communication was centuries old and provided several examples.

We Help You using Value In Partnership allowing you to Focus On Vision | Way Totally Fun!

In this instance, the business person and prospective client are communicating well but the point is that your written and spoken communications should not leave your audience struggling to understand. I’ve learned that NOT understanding something can cause people to stop listening or reading because their minds wander off as they try to imagine what what they don’t know. That isn’t the effect you want to create, is it?

I’d like to provide an example for you. If you are writing an atricle about online marketing and use the abbreviation CPA, you should immediately expand the acronym by either putting the phrase Cost Per Action in parentheses or vice-versa. This will keep their attention from getting stuck on what they may not know.

During these days of short-attention span, information overload, and constrained time, isn’t it important that you make things easier for your followers to understand? Statistically, you have less than 30 seconds for them to make up their mind whether or not they are interested enough to stay on your website. Thus, there is no sense in communicating in a way that might be frustrating for them because you are speaking in a foreign language. As the communicator, you know what the acronym means. If you don’t, you really ought to.

And while I’m pondering one of my favorite subjects, launguage and words, I have another question. Why in the world would anyone feel compelled to abbreviate the word June to Jun? Sheesh!

Personally, I find it enjoyable when something occurs that seems synchronous to events in present time. The other night, such an event occurred. While rifling through papers in my desk drawer, an old fortune from a fortune cookie surfaced. It read:

One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

Not only is this synchronous, it also is quite profound in its simple truth. Once we are introduced to a something new, and the idea takes root in our minds and inspires us, it is virtually impossible to operate as we did before we made our important discovery. Our eager minds pursue the idea and follow it through permutations and twists in the road. Through every turn, the core substance of the idea remains solid and the starting point to which you always will return, should you find a need to adjust your strategy.

Take Internet Marketing, for example. A few years ago, I decided that I would get income through online means. In pursuit of that vision, I began subscribing to newsletters and purchasing products that would teach me more about what people were doing online. Some of the methods that I evaluated are not ones that I use or would recommend but knowing what not to do is almost as important as knowing what to do, isn’t it? Due to my interest and attention, I am able to spot trends and, when it comes to opportunity offers, I have a pretty good system for separating the wheat from the chaff.

As I put my own business plan into motion, it became obvious that my time spent learning about internet marketing was extremely helpful to people who retained my services for Online Branding and wanted to get income online. Although my primary source of income is still from my consulting services, the fact that I am personally involved with my customers doesn’t imply that I am not an internet marketer. I source all of my business through Web 2.0 methods and enjoy working with people.  And, the best part is that my business is totally portable!

My mind was stretched by this self-induced learning. When I approach a potential business liaison or client, it is nearly impossible for me to talk merely about traditional means of sourcing new business. When I set up ecommerce websites, for instance, I make recommendations beyond layout, technology, and graphics. My degree is in business and that knowledge, coupled with the education I’ve received through personal learning, are assets to any project that I undertake and I’ve heard this repeatedly from my customers.

All things being equal, anyone who has a business website is an internet marketer. Here is the caveat; The prettiest site in the world cannot manufacture new business and cash flow. If you haven’t done so already, it would serve you well to either learn about, or retain the services of someone who knows about techniques that will improve your website’s visibility through Web 2.0 techniques that drive targeted traffic, as well as performing the time-consuming SEO methods that will get it listed and ranked by search engines. If you are in business and have no website, you are missing an incredible opportunity. Personally, I feel that it is sheer folly to be in business without a website. It is statistically proven that people look online prior to making any purchase decision.

Even though this is not business related, our minds can also be stretched by ideas that present themselves in everyday life. The ingenuity of a child who is working out a difficult “engineering” problem related to the sand castle they are building at the beach is a good example. It is not an unimportant side note to remind you to take time to relax your mind so as to re-charge your creative juices.  If we are fortunate, we retain our sense of awe about things that are remarkable and have nothing to do with making money, like watching swallows soaring high above us or witnessing the oceans that undulate through forces unseen. At times when you need to restore yourself, it is good to have easy access to those things that opened your mind as a child.

At a recent networking meeting, the presenter included bullet items of methods they used to enhance their business lead generation on their slide presentation. One of the items on the list was to watch TV. This is a tactic they use to become part of the social conversation.

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, watching television during prime time hours is not strictly a waste of productive time. Your prospects and customers watch TV. While they are going about their daily lives, they chat with others about what they’ve seen. Some even look up information on the internet during or following a program. Why not leverage these facts to build your business?

Established companies in all vertical markets are able to invest in television advertising and those ads can give budding entrepreneurs great information about consumer interests, and possibly new ideas for how they might create a product for their own business. Most of us are aware that prime time advertising comes at a premium price. If you have already identified your niche market, tune in when those programs are airing to find out what is being advertised and how those campaigns are structured. If you haven’t identified your niche, sample prime time programs on various stations to gain an understanding about what is being marketed to various segments.

Let’s take some obvious examples. Identity theft is perceived as a huge problem with the expansion of the internet for shopping and record keeping. Banks and credit unions advertise their security while also promoting their ease of use. Credit repair affects younger people. The clever ads with the minstrels at the Renaissance Fair, on a roller coaster, or leaving the car lot in a clunker make this crystal clear. With the growing population of Baby Boomers in their 50s, who are trying to avoid aging or pain, advertisements for potions and pills which answer these concerns are prevalent during dramas and documentaries.

To become part of “the conversation” for your market niche, your content could leverage titles for popular television shows, either in your product name or articles you are publishing. About a year ago, this theory was validated by writing an article about Big Foot when the creature was a hot topic in the news. It works.

Maybe you really hate the thought of watching television. If so, you can visit your local magazine rack and buy periodicals targeting various niches to see what is advertised within. From inserts to smaller text ads, clues about the interests of that niche will come clearer. You can also take a stab at finding websites which target market segments but the relevance of Google Ads is based upon on page content and not actually a good predictor of visitor interests, especially if the content is free.

The upshot of this post is no revelation to some but it may be the missing puzzle piece the causes things to come together for another. As always, I conclude with a friendly remainder to perform due diligence on any business decision you make and, if this bears out, have some sort of market plan to guide your movement forward into the fast lane.