Month: May 2009

Categories
Home-Based Business

Juggling Work and Family When You Work at Home

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Q: I have been having my home based business for three years now and I still am struggling with how to juggle business and being a mom, wife and housekeeper. How do you juggle these? I want to make this a success, but so far it’s only been frustration.

My children are four and two years old and they are more challenging than most (not as in spoiled, but as in needing more time than the average kid). Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

A: GREAT question. My kids are now seven and four, so I now have a little bit of help in my seven-year-old. But, I found something that I had written a few years ago. In it, I listed my kids’ ages as four and one. I could tell when reading it that I had been very frazzled. I think I lived in a state of frazzled during those years when they were both so small.

My main advice would be to cut yourself some slack. Things will get easier and more manageable as your kids get older.

My practical advice is this:

1. Plan out menus each week.
I literally spend about two minutes on this. I have a small magnetic dry-erase board that I keep on my refrigerator. Each Sunday, I write out the days of the week and what we’ll have for supper that day. (Lunches almost always consist of sandwiches or something easy like that since it’s just me and the kids.)

This makes grocery shopping a breeze because I know just what ingredients I need. It also alleviates the nagging thoughts of “what are we going to eat tonight?” If possible, have one or both of your kids help you decide what to put. You’ll be surprised at how much they like having a say in what goes on that board!

2. Set a day for everything.
My days look something like this:

* Mondays – Housework and laundry (and business tasks as time allows)
* Tuesdays – Grocery shopping and business tasks (this used to be during naptime, but is now during preschool time)
* Wednesdays – Bible study and lunch with hubby (and business tasks as time allows)
* Thursdays – Business tasks as much as possible with playtime in between
* Friday – Take it Easy Day (and business tasks as time allows)
* Saturdays – Laundry
* Sunday – Church and a good, long nap

It seems a little boring on paper, but I can’t tell you how much this little schedule has saved my sanity. I know when I get up in the morning what I have ahead of me and it is broken into manageable segments. You’ll find that scheduling things amongst these “main” schedule items will get easier and easier as you get used to the schedule.

Categories
Work Life

Training People To Learn

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Common sense seems to be in very short supply. Perhaps it always was.
Even allowing for the creative and often hysterical reporting of the news media it is hard to avoid the conclusion that those making and executing laws and regulations in many parts of the world have taken leave of their senses. A previous culture of personal responsibility seems to have changed into a culture of dependence and blame.
Not, of course, entirely, but significantly.
This is wholly understandable. Those societies that reward the feckless and punish the responsible must expect the message to be understood and acted upon. Perhaps some rulers have forgotten that true compassion – indeed, true love – involves helping people to achieve and maintain their independence. Taking away independence is theft of the most precious possession we have.
So far this reads more like a political address on behalf of a Fascist Party than a basis for discussing what people need to learn. I make these points, however, because unless our training system starts with the right premise, everything else that it does will at best be ineffective and at worst be damaging.
I don’t need to explain the difference between education and training, between knowledge and reflection, between information and thought. So I’ll skip the bit about facts, passing exams, exam marking and the roulette wheel of teachers who can (and those who cannot) forecast the likely questions with reasonable accuracy. I’ll omit the scathing references I would have made about people who decry the Arts subjects. I’ll nod only briefly towards the words of George Santayana (1863-1952) ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’.
I’ll concentrate on to why ‘what we need to learn’ has changed so much and so recently.
First, in the past few years we have come to understand better the relationship between body and brain. If there is a work / life balance to be struck there is also a body / brain balance in need of attention. Today we are at the threshold of understanding the mind. We have not got there yet but we will, and probably reasonably soon. We now appreciate that the mental prisons we feel trapped in are largely of our own making. We are all capable of much more than we thought.
Such potential brings with it the responsibility to use well the resources we manipulate and to learn a new view of the time over which we manipulate them. Strangely, our forebears had a better sense of this aspect of time than we do. They invested for what they saw as the future; we invest for the next annual – or half-yearly, or quarterly – sometimes even monthly – profit results.
Proper planning has never been so important and never so neglected.
Second, we need to learn the basic skills of interpersonal communication – or social intercourse, if you like. Whether you were in favour of invading Iraq or against it I think we can all agree that in the 21st Century settling disagreements by thuggery is an admission of failure on a breathtaking scale. But that failure doesn’t originate in the White House or Downing Street, it originates in your local town, the nearby neighbourhood, in the way we speak to a traffic officer, in the way officials deal with us.
Have you noticed how people seldom ask questions of each other these days?
Maybe they think it’s intrusive or not very polite. At a time when many of us are going to spend more time in front of our computers we need to improve our social intercourse and change it from the coffee party to intelligent, informed discussion laced with that unique ability human beings have to be amusing about serious matters. Some races have always been rather inhibited about asking questions. We cannot afford such inhibitions any more. It leads to a collection of floating islands, not to a society.
Third, we need to re-learn the joy of work. We’ve separated work and leisure to the point where work is seen as bad and leisure is seen as good. But everyone knows that too much of either is wrong. To do this we must make work joyful, not always easy when rough conditions, noisy machinery, inconsiderate bosses, rapacious shareholders demand effort and forbearance that is above and beyond normal duty. For all that, work must become a time and place of joy.
We seem to have failed to learn that the true satisfaction of a job well done is not in dollars but in the heart of the person doing it. In my mentoring the simple and true story of Alf Tuck, the man who came to thatch the cottage roof, has transformed the attitudes of hundreds of people towards their work. If you want to read it, please ask me by email, and I will send it to you.
Fourth, we need to reconsider the facts we must know. Five years ago it was important to know quite a lot of facts. Today we need to know different facts:
* how to access and store information on the Internet
* how to discriminate between right and wrong information and good and bad sources
* how to reflect on the facts we learn; facts by themselves are like random numbers; they only
* become useful when we interpret them and make decisions based on them.
Fifth, our civilisation is based on trust. That trust is based on truth, a commodity in very short supply at present. No truth, no trust. No trust, no society. There will never be perfect truth and we have to learn to distinguish between truth, lies and hyperbole. But if we do not understand and accept the relevance of truth for our very existence, our society will increasingly fail.
There are many other things we have to learn, of course. These are, to my way of thinking, the five essentials. At present they are being neglected in favour of doubtful academic awards. If you agree with my very brief summary of what people need to learn today there is one remaining question: where do we get the teachers to do it?
That’s my question to you.
JohnBittlestonPhoto.jpgJohn Bittleston blogs at TerrificMentors.com, a site that provides mentoring for those who wish a change in career or job, wanting to start a business or looking to improve their handling of people (including themselves).

Categories
Online Business Sales & Marketing

Forums Benefit Search Engine Optimization and Marketing Plans

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There are thousands of forums on the web ranging from any subject imaginable. Forums are a collection of people interested in specific subject collaboration with one another. Forums even have top experts in those fields answering questions and offering advice at no cost. Forums allow for user interaction through question and answer boards. These boards have moderators to prevent spammers from ruining the forums goals.
Forums are becoming more popular every day as people want to communicate with one another via the web. Forums are a great place to find an answer to technical questions or get some expert advice. Larger forums receive thousands of visitors a day, bringing together a community of experts in a specific field or industry. Besides helping you find answers, forums can be a valuable tool for site promotion (search engine optimization), increasing traffic (search engine marketing), and proving that you really are an expert in a specific field (building credibility).
The more exposure you and your business receives, the better off your company will be in the long run. As more and more web users see your company they will be inclined to view your website and learn what you have to offer. This can ultimately lead to increased sales for your business and higher search engine rankings. You must remember that every customer has the potential to negatively impact your business with a negative rating or feedback, so be sure to treat each customer with the upmost respect and courtesy so they will recommend you to others.
Search Engine Optimization Benefits
Forums are a great way to get a new site indexed by the major search engines. Since the search engines require a listing fee and have extremely long waiting periods to be indexed in their results, forums make a great alternative. Forums can get a new site indexed in the search engines at no cost and in as little as 3 days. All you need to do is find a high traffic forum that is indexed frequently and place a link of your new site in a post or signature. Signatures are a place at the bottom of every post you make that is reserved for customized note, saying, or link. If you want to utilize the signature for Search Engine Optimization purposes then you want to find forums that do not have the No Follow tag and place a link to your website in the signature. You will get a one-way link to your site, which is very good. To make the link even more valuable, make sure you are posting in a forum related to your website and you have keyword rich anchor text in your signature.
I have compiled a list of some of the top forums that currently do not use the No Follow Tag. Posting in these forums will get you a back link to your website, which is very helpful for search engine optimization.
techsupportforum.com/
v7n.com/forums
webproworld.com/
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/
webhostingtalk.com
forum.mambo-foundation.org
simplemachines.org
Search Engine Marketing Benefits
Forums benefit Search Engine Marketing plans as you can easily market your company and build up positive feedback for yourself. There are hundreds of forums you can post in. You want to look for forums that are relevant to your industry. Do not sign up for comic book forums, when your company is selling medical equipment. Sign up for the comic book forum on your own time with another user name. You want to build up your company’s reputation through forums that are related to your line of business.
When you post frequently in forums you begin to build up a reputation for yourself. Building up a positive relationship with your fellow forums members can establish a positive feedback towards you and your business. As we all know in this Web 2.0 world where users can interact with one another it is imperative to have positive feedback. Even one bad complaint can have irreversible negative ramifications upon your business. To avoid this be respectful to each customer and treat them as you would expect to be treated.
Posting new threads and responding to questions posted by members can build up your reputation and make you an authoritative figure, assisting with your search engine marketing. Make sure your posts are relevant to the thread. Do not spam every thread trying to build up your reputation.
Forums display the number of posts a member made next to the user name and avatar. The more posts shown by you, the more respected you become. Members with certain amounts of posts receive badges given out by the forums. Basically, the more you post in the forum the higher badge, deemed as credibility, you will be awarded.
In essence, forums are a strong marketing place. Not only do forums benefit search engine optimization, but they also help with search engine marketing. Any webmaster should take place in some sort of forum posting, whether it be for building links or obtaining a positive reputation for your company, forums are imperative to a websites success.
About the Author:
Brandon Leibowitz is an expert search engine optimization and marketing consultant. For a complete list of do follow forums visit his website at http://www.SeoOptimizers.com. Read his SEO and SEM Blog at http://blog.seooptimizers.com

Categories
Planning & Management Sales & Marketing

Five Steps to Use Knowledge of Lost Trades

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Get BACK IN BLACK (BI-B) and back in business by gathering- and using knowledge of your lost business – lost trades. The 5 step program for sales managers and directors shows you exactly how. And you’ll see what a difference it could make to your profits if you start to convert lost trades to future actual trades. For more information on Business Intelligence Systems handling lost business visit: http://www.lost-trade-systems.com or you might want to read a newly published book: The Lost-Trade System.
Step 1 – Decide on strategic use of using knowledge of lost trades to improve future performance. Making a smart strategic decision to change your workflow and your daily sales work starting by converting your lost trades to future won trades is now critical to the success of an organization; however the management of sales leads is often very haphazard. If you’re spending a great deal of time and money acquiring sales leads only to fail to maximize on their potential. If you are losing countless deals and money you need to make a strategic decision and act now. And some of the most successful sales organizations in the financial sector have been doing exactly this for years.
Step 2 – Capture your lost trades (leads) effectively. Registering lost trades should be as natural as capturing an actual customer trade. Start capturing your lost trades in an Excel spreadsheet posted on the company intranet or by using a relational database and a web interface. About 75% of sales managers are using Excel spreadsheets – So Excel could be a core base for lost trades or enquiries that did not result in margin and revenue. Although using Excel spreadsheets should be a popular method for handling lost enquiries and storing this information, 68% of those who use it on a daily basis are unhappy with its performance. In order to move business forward, sales organizations should – on sight – find a solution to modernize and streamline their daily processes in a way. Believe me; the value of this lost trade database will only grow over time.
Step 3 – Start benchmarking your looses versus your actual trades. To drive business forward, retain customers and create sales, it is essential to understand what business you did not have – your lost trades – and compare it the business you did had, and visualizing long run loosing trends, using appropriate metrics. Using this ‘two ledger’ approach will give sales reports detailed analysis of what needs to be done, this will allow you a detailed insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your teams performance, and to make informed business decisions. Ex: You will spot leaving customers before it happens
Step 4 – Create knowledge of lost business data to create new business. Use the information supplied by the graphs of long run losing trends to create knowledge about which of your customers are about to leave, which product are underperforming and which competitors are stealing your business to identify future areas to improve upon. Use this knowledge to take action to get back in black in step 5.
Step 5 – Take action daily based on your new knowledge to maximize your sales revenue and even reach for higher sales targets. It’s easier to maximize existing opportunities if you have an accurate record of all enquiries from customers – Both your actual trades and your lost trades – You will in light the ‘dark side of the sales moon ‘and use these as sales leads that have reached a positive conclusion, retaining customers and cross-selling or up-selling. Manage these opportunities effectively using the right methodology and technology in your daily work in sales, and you’ll see what a difference it could make to your profits.
About the Author:
Jesper Thorlund is an economist, BI advisor and systems developer. He has been working with business intelligence and data warehouse solutions for more than 12 years as a consultant in major financial and govermental institutions. He publishes and lectures on the strategic use of business intelligence and founded Lost Trade Systems – A BI Research Company, which specializes in bringing new insights and value to businesses by working methodically with lost trades. He co-authored the bestselling book Business Intelligence, From Strategy to Data Sources (2008), available as Business Analytics in English in the SAS Press Business Series, August 2009.

Categories
Online Business

YouTube Video Optimization For Your Business

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YouTube has become a dominant force in on the web. According to comScore, in March of 2008 over 11.5 billion videos were watched by 139 million Unites States viewers. YouTube has become one of the top viewed websites in quite a short time. Google’s purchase of YouTube shows us how valuable of a tool YouTube is and the potential it has. YouTube videos are starting to show up on Google natural search engine results, surpassing the top spots. A YouTube video properly optimized can outrank sites such as Amazon and EBay. This is an internet marketer’s dream tool and it is so simple to use. This is why you must properly optimize your YouTube videos.
A good starting point for YouTube optimization is to make videos that are short, sweet, and straight to the point. People want instant gratification, not wanting to sit around watching a 30 minute video on how to use a cell phone headset. Videos should be kept to a few minutes to reduce production time, upload time, and download times. Have a script prepared so you do not mutter or stumble upon your words. Film the video in the highest quality format you can. Crisp, clean videos will receive more attention than grainy, hard to see videos. Do not make videos private and always allow for comments. This user interaction can help increase video views and move you up the YouTube video rankings. Using Annotations, text boxes in your video, can help deliver your message or promote your website or company. Make sure not too over use annotations as they can become annoying and distracting from your videos main purpose.
Since the search engine spiders cannot read or comprehend videos you must use the text fields to optimize your videos appropriately. This means doing keyword research and making sure your keywords appear in the title, description, and tags of your video is imperative to a successful YouTube marketing campaign. Maximize on the amount of text you can have in these fields. More text means a better chance of someone finding and clicking into your video. Make sure you use original titles and descriptions otherwise your video will get lost in the millions of videos with similar names. Original content is what YouTube wants to see. The more originality you add the better off you will be. You also want to have a user name with your brand or website name so it is easily remembered.
You have to put everything into perspective to increase views, as the average video only receives one hundred views annually. According to YouTube guidelines there are many factors that influence rankings and can help optimize your videos. These include the video title, the description, tags, incoming links, comments, subscribers, ratings, playlist additions, flagging, embeds, shares, age of video, channel views, subscribers, views, and the number and quality of sites that host or point to your video. You want to interact on YouTube by watching other videos, commenting, subscribing, creating channels, and making friends. Interaction helps with the viral marketing, where one person tells another person about the video. This person tells five others and so on. Doing this will increase your video network and views. All these factor into ranking high for YouTube optimization.
If your video appears on an outside website you want to make sure that it is relevant and appropriate for your video. Each time your video is viewed from an outside source it still counts as a view, so keep posting your videos on blogs and other sites. Basically, you need links from outside pages leading to your YouTube videos. You want the links to have strong anchor text, meaning that the link leading to the video contains keywords related to your video.
To increase your videos views, subscriptions, and favorites you can send out an email blasts, place your video on your website and other websites, engage in the community, build a following, connect with other members, provide valuable content, participate in social networking sites. Basically the Web 2.0 created a heaven place for video sharing. Your ultimate goal should be to reach YouTube’s homepage under Spotlight, Most Viewed, Most Discussed, and Top Favorite Videos.
You can submit your video to the major video sites at once using programs such as Tube Mogul and Traffic Geyser. These software programs submit your video to all the major video sharing sites for you, saving time and energy. Simply enter the tile, description, and tags for your video and it will appear on all the major video sharing sites. They offer analytics and tracking for your videos in one place making it easy to analyze and tweak your videos.
The best analytics would have to be the one given to you for free, YouTube Insight. This will give you all the stats and detailed information you could ever ask for. With Insight you can see how many page views you have, how popular it is, where people found your video, what country people watching your video are from, what sections of your video are most watched and least watched, and so much more. This statistical data should help optimize your current video and plan for future videos. There are many articles written about YouTube Insight and how to take advantage of it. I suggest reading up on these.
There is a program called video tube automators, which is designed to build hundreds of YouTube accounts so you can view, comment, subscribe, and vote on your own videos. This run into the black hat area of marketing and is seen as spam. This is unethical and can get your account permanently banned from YouTube.
Monetizing your YouTube videos is quite easy. You can easily set up your Ad Sense account in accordance with YouTube so you can start receiving money every time an ad is clicked next to your video. The main source of income from YouTube comes from the fact that you can show product reviews and sell features that could not be described in words. Electronic gadgets are a perfect match for YouTube video reviews.
About the Author:
Brandon Leibowitz is an expert search engine optimization and marketing consultant. For a complete list of do follow forums visit his website at http://www.SeoOptimizers.com. Read his SEO and SEM Blog at http://blog.seooptimizers.com