Getting Ready to Get Ready

For some the best way to get a project done is to dive in and just start. Sometimes that may be the best policy. But typically, before one charges into any time management strategy it is essential to step back and to review the situation. Then after review, a series of deliberate steps should be taken. We will discuss that in more detail, but first we need to step back and deal with a totally different topic first.

That topic is about you. Realize your situation is different than that of most other people. You are self employed. You have primary responsibility for all aspects of your business as well as your personal responsibility to your family and society as a whole. Not only that, you have a personal responsibility to yourself, your body, mind and spirit.

You already know that all those roles are placing significant stress on your life. Unless you are very unusual, you are probably dropping a few balls here and there. Some people talk about multi-tasking meaning they may have two or three projects going for a period of time. When you talk about multi-tasking, you mean managing a myriad of projects on an ongoing basis.

Another thing about you that I suspect is true, is that you have tried other time management programs in the past. Perhaps you still do. Perhaps you did for a while and then fell off the wagon. I know I have and still do. I am a sinner in that regard, and while such mishaps have hurt my progress, I cannot beat myself up about them. You shouldn’t either.

For some people a strict and orderly process and approach to life comes natural. They can readily fall into a routine and maintain that routine for decades on end. Some such people seek out situations that permit them to maintain such a personal order to their lives. By and large they are not entrepreneurs. For anyone who is in a business serving customers knows that customers and opportunities as well as disasters will occur when they choose and not according to a schedule.

Those of us in contact with the world need to devise systems that are flexible. A day planner with hours marked from 8 AM to 5 PM isn’t going to suffice for most of us. So when we devise our own best fit time management system, we need to insure it has some flexibility built into it. Or it will quickly fail.

And the one item we need to be most flexible with is ourselves. Before we start, let me advise you that you will fail in terms of finding a perfect time management process. Accept that. Plan for it. You will fail because of external situations. You will fail because of your own personal weaknesses. You will fail because you picked a rigid planner or system and it didn’t fully account for your peculiar circumstances.

It took me over 100 attempts before I finally was able to quit cigarettes. But through persistence I was ultimately able to succeed. Hopefully you won’t require a 100 attempts to make progress on your time management skills. But even if it takes multiple efforts, and repeated failings, just keep on keeping on. Time management skills are learned incrementally. By doing. Your sole responsibility is to keep trying.

What works for one person may not work for you. As I mentioned in my last post, if you are a lone eagle, you just won’t need the chapters on delegation unless “I” wants to delegate “me” to help “my” get their work done.

That said, we will still talk about delegation down the road.

The purpose of this post is the let you know that you have a responsibility to try. To persist. Not to adapt in an instance a whole new way of doing things. Further, you need to realize that a lot of time management books and programs that may be excellent for others may have little value for you in your situation.

Unfortunately, just like everything else in your life, it’s going to be up to you to design your own system to meet your own needs. I will do my best to illuminate the considerations you need to take into account.

In my next post we will get into some nitty gritty. Till then.

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Technorati Tags: Time Management

It’s been a beautiful fall day today. The sun is shining and the temps are a very acceptable mid 40’s to lower 50’s. I managed to leave the computer and tend to my garden. I dug up the Dahlia Bulbs, now that we have had our first hard frost. I spent a moment enjoying frosty leaved somethings, ornamental endive and maroon mums that serve as the front corner of my garden on the street side. This is their time of year.

Today started out great for me despite it’s sad underpinnings. A friend of mine is dying, in all likelihood, from gall bladder cancel. I said in all likelihood, but he hasn’t succumbed and if anyone can beat it he will. He’s in his mid 40’s and a stalwart member of my Toastmaster’s Group

He is our club’s star, having won many a local contest and usually being a top performer at our weekly meetings. Ours is what you might call a mature club, we have people who have been there 30 and 40 + years. He was clearly one of the younger members and a major contributor in every way. We roasted him this morning, and I rose to the occasion and did a particularly good job, if I say so myself.

In my brief, less than 3 minute presentation, I indicted my friend for being a Trophy Hog, a Trouble Maker and a Rabble Rouser. A trophy hog because he always managed to rise to the occasion and give a great performance no matter what role he played in our weekly meetings or contests.  He won a lot of trophies. A trouble maker, because he always took the trouble to use our training manuals and to actually try to do better every week. And finally, I called him a Rabble Rouser because he was an excellent critic in a constructive sense.

One role at our meetings is to evaluate speakers, to praise them, give them a suggestion or two, and then to once again stress the positive.  We call it a sandwich. I accused him of preparing Hoagies stuffed with meat rather than the typical pettifore offered up by many, with cutoff crusts and chicken salad for filling.

In my conclusion I observed that Mike understood that the world does not reward average people very well, and that he just decided to be extraordinary. He is, and a model I can strive to emulate.

I understand that you don’t know Mike, and perhaps I shouldn’t post this on the blog, but at the same time, I’m up on my ability to poke fun and yet tell a story about Mike today. And I’m up on the idea of how much I appreciated having had a chance to learn and compete with him.

While he was in his wheel chair today, I fully count on seeing him again in an upcoming speech contest. I know I will have my work cut out for me. But next time, I’ll beat him.

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Technorati Tags: Friends

In a recent survey of Professional Home Stagers conducted in the Summer of 2008, business owners were asked a lengthy series of questions surrounding their business practices. Most Home Staging firms are very small micro businesses most often with three or fewer people and a goodly number of one person shops.

As such they fit my definition of a Micro Business is that the person in charge needs to rely on Me, My or I for almost all their activities. And while seemingly facetious, it’s a very real situation for perhaps hundreds of thousands of very small entrepreneurs.

In the survey’s many essay questions, a common refrain revolved around the difficulty in finding time to do all the things required. Not only were these people responsible for the bulk if not all the production work, they needed to do the marketing, the procurement, the accounting, and a myriad of other tasks.

That doesn’t mention the need to maintain family relationships, find some personal time and engage in other social activities. It is difficult to apportion a lot of time to these non work roles when struggling to keep a business alive or to grow it.

Within the analysis of the survey results a section of respondents were identified as being the “Top Dogs.” These were the Home Stagers who made the most money and did the most home stagings. Of this Group of Top Dogs, only one was able to get by on less than a 40 hour week and most reported spending from 50 to 60 hours a week and more.

This is the dirty little secret of most home based businesses. While time flexibility and freedom are often the motivation for seeking self employment, the fact is many if not most work micro business people work incredibly long hours. There is just too much to do.

And thus time management is a critical topic for the micro business person to study up on in their spare time. Despite the catch 22 aspects, the need for time management is as self evident as the term time management is a misnomer. Time clearly cannot be managed. Instead we need to manage what we do with our time.

And that’s were the idea of Creative Procrastination comes into play.

For most of our lives we’ve been taught to fight procrastination. Instead we need to learn how to champion it. For most of us, we are simply trying to do too much. We need to learn to selectively and creatively procrastinate on some of our tasks to permit ourselves time to deal with the items that are most important.

Within larger organizations the rallying cry is to delegate. And that would be our answer too, but as micro businesses we sometimes have no one to whom to delegate. Instead we need to come up with other tactics to cope with our day to day tasks and the demands upon us.

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Technorati Tags: Time Managment

My internet friend Nicole Dean and her friend Christine Steendahl have prepared a nice 40 page e-book with a lot of Halloween treats and ideas just in a nick of time for Friday. In the Halloween spirit I offer it to you as my treat. All you have to do is click on the following link to download it from my web site.

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Would you like to earn auto-pilot commissions every time you post to your blog? And at the same time use the Power of Twitter to drive traffic to your blog.

I know it sounds like a fairy tale, but it just became reality, with the launch of John Merrick and Soren Jordansen’s new “Tweet My Blog”.

Just by using the powerful free plugin, you will be promoting your affiliate link on auto-pilot. In other words, you can earn commissions just for posting to your blog.

But that’s just one of the many benefits of using TweetMyBlog, visit the page to learn more – and grab your free copy today.

And… Even though they are giving this plugin away for free, you should take a close look at the special offer they have in store for you when join. I instantly grabbed my own copy, and I know it will skyrocket my marketing power when using Twitter and WordPress.

Just click on the image below to access this powerful new tool. -etn

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Twitter

The internet is no longer a new idea for business. Many businesses once enjoyed a first mover advantage by entering the online arena earlier than their competitors. Today, there are few fields left where just being online is providing a significant competitive advantage.

The internet has opened the market place to customers from around the world. And it has opened the marketplace to competitors from around the world. It is no longer enough to be online, a business to succeed must be able to drive traffic to their websites. In order to dominate a field it is increasingly important that businesses establish a blogging presence online.

While anyone can set up a blog easily and inexpensively, so can your competitors. But there is a lot more to blogging than first meets the eye.

Here are some useful tips that you can incorporate in your internet business:

• You must research and then use keywords effectively – your blog’s contents should reflect appropriate keywords. Effective keyword research can also place your blog and thus your business toward the top of the search engines.

• You want to stimulate Back Links to your blog. These are valuable – you have to give importance to back links. Your blog posts should be able to incorporate appropriate back links.

• More important than the frequency of your blog posts is their regularity. You must be able to post regularly if you want to be effective. If you forget to make posts, you will loose regular readers and possibly leave viewers with an impression that you are not truly up to speed in today’s internet world.

• While regularity is the key, your blogging efforts will be rewarded most if you post frequently and if the contents are interesting. With effective blogging, you can establish your online business reputation and, you can demonstrate to the world your business expertise. To gain a positive reputation, make sure that you post interesting and relevant blog posts.

These are the basic tips you must follow to be effective blogging. As you can see, blogging requires more than a slap dash approach. Most advisors online will tell you that blogs are not that hard to compose. They are right. However, according to expert bloggers, you need to consider the interests of the readers and online researchers.
Try to understand why they are coming to your blog in the first place.
Think more in terms of what they want to discover, and less about what you want to tell them. But be sure you do get your licks in. It’s all about how you frame your blogs attitude and conversational style.

Remember that once you start posting blogs on your business’ website, you have to post frequently (ideally at least once or twice a week) so that your customers and readers will not forget you or your business.

Blogging for business is one of the most effective means of making your business a success. Set up your blog now, you will profit in the future.

If you learn to become an effective blogger, your business will benefit. If you want to learn more about effective business blogging, you can easily conduct researches online because you can find a wealth of information there.

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Technorati Tags: blogging

Is your blog collecting dust and not getting enough traffic? It’s a common problem for bloggers. Their blogs are good, but no one is coming to visit. They want to know how to increase traffic. Increasing traffic is actually easier than it seems–provided you know how. In this newsletter, we will go over 7 specific methods of increasing traffic. These are guaranteed methods to draw more visitors to your blog.

Tip #1: Sign up for pinging services
It seems pretty obvious, but most bloggers, even those who are more experienced, don’t sign up for pinging services. If you’re new to blogging and don’t know what pinging means, pinging basically means that when your blog is updated, a “ping” is sent out by the service to let pinging sites know that your blog has been updated. People who are visiting sites with pinging services will then see your blog flash across the side of the screen as “newly updated”. Pinging services include Yahoo’s blo.gs, weblogs.com, Google Blog search, and ZingFast.

Tip #2: Sign up for Technorati

If you go to technorati.com, you’ll see an option on the left side of the screen to “Claim Your Blog”. Doing so allows you to get updated link counts, add your photo or branding to Technorati, and see your Technorati link. Having your blog claimed on Technorati helps to increase traffic because the
millions of people who go to that site will have a chance to see your blog on there.

Tip #3: Sign up for FeedBurner, a RSS service

What FeedBurner basically does for your blog is it helps you to promote your blog’s content, build your audience and measure your audience. In other words, it helps you increase your blog’s traffic.

Tip #4: Bookmark your blogs at places like del.icio.us

You can set up an account and profile at del.icio.us. Then, using that, you can add links to your blog along with excerpts from your blog. Anytime someone visits your profile on del.icio.us, they will see a link to your blog and excerpts.

There are other social bookmarking sites that you can use in much the same way. The bottom line is, using these social bookmarking sites can help you increase traffic.

Tip #5: Post comments at other blogs

No, this doesn’t mean you should go and spam other blogs with comments that are only there to promote a site. It means that you should visit similar blogs to your own, post legitimate comments and then sign your name(along with a link to your blog). This way, people know you aren’t there just to promote your site–you’re there to post a good piece of feedback and also say where you’re from.

Tip #6: Ask owners of other blogs to post a link to yours

Find other blogs that are similar to yours. If they seem to be decently popular(that is, they have a good amount of comments for each post), you can try to contact the owner of the blog to add a link to your blog if they have a links section. To make them really want to do this, you can offer to link back to their blog on your blog. People do this reciprocal blog linking all the time and it does help to increase traffic.

Tip #7: Use keywords in your blog

Like regular web pages, having a good keyword density on a blog is a terrific way of getting search engine spiders to notice your page. (FYI: Search engine spiders are programs from search engines that browse sites and report back their findings to the search engine database, which then lists that site. The more keywords on your site, the more likely it is for a search engine spider to pay a visit)

If your average blog posting is around 200 words, try to use 2-6 keywords per blog post. 2-6 keywords in a blog posting of 200 words is a keyword density of between 1 and 3 percent, a respectable number. Remember that you don’t want to use too many keywords, as that will make your blog look bad. Also be sure that the keywords used are relevant to your blog. Before even making a blog posting, decide what the post will be about and then select a keyword or two to use in your post. Then do it.

It’s a surefire way of getting more traffic to your site!

To your success,

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

This time of year is a great one to build you internet marketing library. It’s a good time as well with the economy in rough shape. Because for a limited time you can pick up a tremendous amount of internet knowledge for free. Authors and publishers are giving away tens of thousands of dollars worth of product as part of the Big Annual Halloween Giveaway.

More and more people are flocking to the internet in the hopes of finding some solution to their personal fiscal meltdown. And since the biggest and Baddest of the free give aways is underway, I recommend that you get over there as well.

While many of the offerings may be for things you don’t need or want, you are bound to find something you can put to use in your business today. You will find items on Blogging, Article writing and basic information to help you find you way around on the internet. For example I am offering for a limited time my HTML report that I normally sell.

Check it out its at: Halloween-Giveaway

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Technorati Tags: GiveAways

You’re a blogger and are constantly hearing about pinging. The
thing is, you don’t know what it is and what it can do for your
blog. Well that’s fine because a lot of bloggers don’t quite
understand pinging. In this newsletter, we will explain what
pinging is, how it helps your blog, and what the best pinging
services are. After you’ve read this newsletter, you’ll know
exactly how to use pinging to make your blog popular.

What is pinging?

When a blog is pinged, it essentially tells a web blog tracking
system that the blog has been updated. Thus, pinging is the
process of telling tracking services that a site has been
updated.

So how does pinging work? Well, a ping service scans regularly
blogs for updates. Whenever there is a new update for a
particular blog, that is reported back to the pinging service’s
site. You can almost think of ping services being just like
search engine spiders–both scan sites looking for information,
and both report that information back to their specific site.
The difference is, a ping service only reports back new blog
posts.

Why is pinging useful for my blog?

Pinging, in effect, tells people that there is a new blog
posting available. Those who are loyal followers of your blog
will see the ping and want to visit your blog. Those who haven’t
read your blog before will see the ping and perhaps think “hey,
there’s a new blog I haven’t been to before, I think I’ll check
it out”. Pinging helps to increase your traffic because it tells
people when your blog is updated. Those who visit sites with
pinging services will see this information in the form of a
scroll on the left or right side, or top of the page. The scroll
is usually in XML format and typically includes the title and
URL of your blog, as well as the date and time of the update.

OK, so now I know what pinging is. Who offers pinging?

The answer is, there are several pinging services available
which you can use to have your blog pinged. We’ll go over some
of them right now.

Weblogs.com
Weblogs.com is probably the most well-known pinging service.
Weblogs.com monitors sites for updates and then pings whenever
there is an update to report. Virtually every blog software is
available to use Weblogs.

Yahoo’s Blo.gs
Another popular pinging service. This one is offered by Yahoo
and has a built-in integration with movable type and other
tools. One cool thing about this service is that it offers the
ability to give out updates via Instant Messenging services like
AOL and ICQ. It is a direct pinging service, so those who sign
up for subscriptions to your blog will be sent an email anytime
your blog is updated.

Blogrolling.com
Blogrolling allows its bloggers to manage their
blogrolls(updates) through a web-based interface. Recently
updated blogs are also highlighted on Blogrolling’s web site.
Data is automatically retrieved from other sites like
blogger.com and weblogs.com every 5 minutes. Often times your
blog is already being pinged by Blogrolling, so you might not
have to sign up for it. Search on the site first for your URL
before signing it up.

Technorati

Available at http://technorati.com/ping, Technorati is
another service that pings blogs. It gets its data from a
variety of places and is definitely a site you should go to for
blog pinging.

These are just 4 of the many different blog pinging services
available. A quick search on Yahoo or Google will reveal many
other possible blog pinging services to use for your blog. It is
best to sign up for as many as you possibly can to ensure that
your blog is well-pinged. A well-pinged blog will definitely
help your blog attract more visitors. So sign up for as many as
possible and watch your blog traffic increase.

To your success,

Earl Netwal
Micro Business Specialist

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Technorati Tags: blogging

Opening soon is the Halloween Giveaway, an internet marketing free for all that is literally free for all.

I just donated three items to the giveaway, a HTML Primer, the one I use to look up stuff when I need to play with more complicated HTML, 7 Questions you didn’t know to ask about web hosting, and my super affiliate marketing wizard.  These and many more products and software items will be made available for free.

Why, the donors like me are looking to build out lists of people interested in internet marketing tools and related topics. You will undoubtedly get follow on emails, read the ones you like, store them in a special folder, and if some bore you, just cut them off. Each of them will have an unsubscribe link at the bottom.

Check it out you may find more than one item worth checking out.  Halloween Giveaway

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.