I try to keep my personal politics and my faith out of my business. I think these topics are just too… personal, so more often than not, unless there’s something that I simply can’t help speaking out about, you won’t find me talking politics or religion. Make no mistake about it, I love politics. I find it fascinating…but this post is not about politics.

This past Sunday, while watching political commentary, I had a realization: Mitt Romney is teaching us a heck of a lot about business and personal branding right now. In fact, every entrepreneur and small business owner should be watching this guy and looking at exactly what happens when you can’t connect to your target market.

Again, this isn’t about politics. This is about what happens when you, as an entrepreneur, miss the mark with your target audience- when you speak to them in a language they can’t connect with, when they can’t see any way that you can possibly relate to them and their problems, and when, ultimately, you fundamentally fail to help them to build that all-important “KLT Factor.”

What’s the “KLT Factor?” Most entrepreneurs by now have heard that one of the golden rules of doing business is that “people do business with those they know, like, and trust.” Working to build relationships with people so that they can know, like, and trust you is what I call “building your KLT Factor.”

Now, starting with the “K” in the KLT Factor, it’s fundamentally important that your audience knows you. How do you let them know you? By sharing, wisely and strategically, parts of your life and yourself in an authentic way. And as you share more and more with your audience, they develop a mental picture of who you are, a picture that they add detail and color to, the more they get to know you.

Politicians, as a rule, are fairly scripted and calculating about trying to create a picture of who they are for the voters. And while they’re creating these images, their opponents create alternative pictures. Getting to know any candidate in an authentic way is increasingly difficult. Some politicians are able to appear less scripted and more authentic, but as most analysts agree, this is an advantage that Mitt Romney doesn’t really have. And as it’s become more and more apparent, Republicans are increasingly concerned that Romney doesn’t appear to be connecting with the people or letting them in so they can get to know him.

So if we can’t know him very well, what about liking him? This is the “L” in the KLT Factor, and getting your target market to like you means creating a brand that people look at and say, “I’m like the person that brand represents,” “I want to be like the person that brand represents,” or  ”I want to hang out with the person that brand represents.”

Mitt Romney fails to connect with his audience in large part because his net worth has afforded him a certain lifestyle that makes his life experience vastly different from the majority of voting Americans. As a result, few people are likely to look at Mitt Romney and say, “I’m like that guy.” And since much of his wealth was inherited, and Americans generally dislike those they think received their wealth without putting any hard work into it, it’s also unlikely that most people will think, “I want to be like that guy,” when they look at Mitt.

That leaves us with “I want to hang out with that guy” as the only reasonable alternative for Mitt Romney to build the “L” part of his KLT Factor, getting people to like him. One thing that George W. Bush did pretty well was that he seemed like a guy you could go have a beer with. Even if you hated his politics, “W” seemed like he had a sense of humor and like he’d be a little goofy if you were just hanging out with him, shooting the breeze.

Now ask yourself…can you imaging hanging out with Mitt Romney? Or do you get the vibe that he’d be pretty stuffy, perched uncomfortably on his barstool, adjusting his tie, politely waiting for you to finish your beer while he eyed his mug suspiciously, worrying that the glass wasn’t clean?

Finally, how about the “T” in the KLT Factor? Do people trust Mitt Romney? Probably not, now that he’s been portrayed as a “flip flopper” on the major issues.

So, unless I’m misreading virtually everything that’s being said about Mitt Romney, from both the left and the right, his chief failure is to connect and relate to his target market…the one thing every entrepreneur should know is at the very heart of the success of any business.

Lest you think I’m showing my political colors here, let’s look at a brand that handles the KLT Factor brilliantly, Nike.

Do you know what Nike stands for? You sure do. It’s in every single ad and every single commercial. You see those driven, intense, sweaty athletes and you know exactly who those people are.

How about liking them? If you’re one of those athletes, you look at a Nike ad and you think, “Heck, yeah, that’s me!” If you’re not one of those athletes, you most likely look at a Nike ad and you think, “That could be me, if I just got my butt up off the sofa!” And as for trust, well, somehow, you trust that Nike gear is good enough to get your feet on the street, running, sweating, and getting you closer to the goal of being that athlete.

That is what we want to create as entrepreneurs. That’s the kind of connection we want our audiences to feel to our brand, to our products, to us. That’s what draws more people in, makes them want to know more, makes them choose us, choose to buy our products and become our brand ambassadors. It’s always about the connection and the engagement.

Granted, a brand like Nike isn’t exactly the same as the brand of a politician, but they’re not as different as you’d think. And thus far, politics aside, Mitt Romney is giving us a great example to learn from…of exactly how not to build a brand.

I recently posted a series on Pinterest and how to use it for small business marketing. A couple of days ago, one of my readers, Joan, posted this comment:

Thanks for two great articles on Pinterest Susan. There is a lot of controversy around the re-pinning of third party content from around the web and Pinterest TOS. Photographers and Artists appear to be perturbed about Pinterest taking ownership, and being able to use their works without requiring permission.

Personally I like the ease of use Pinterest has introduced, sharing of information is global. [The] majority online love for their content to be shared. Any idea on copy right for the above mentioned, to protect their work?

I thought this was a great question and as I started writing my response, I realized that I had enough to say on this topic that it warranted a full blog post.

I, too, have followed the controversy on Pinterest, copyright, ownership, etc. It’s the same debate we’ve had for years about other sites, and I imagine the debate will continue. But because Pinterest is the newest platform to be engaged in the debate, I thought it worth mentioning today.

Of course, there are benefits to artists and photographers when people share their content on Pinterest. In the big picture, you generally do want people to share your stuff, because the wider dissemination of your materials, whether your “stuff” is art, photography, writing, products, or services, builds visibility for your brand, which should lead to more business. On the other hand, if people are sharing anyone’s content without attribution or permission, there’s no business benefit and obviously, that’s a problem that must be addressed.

(Side note: This isn’t an issue that affects only artists and photographers. I recently discovered that a stock photo I bought to use on the Business in Blue Jeans web site was pinned as an inspiration image for how someone wants to look in their blue jeans! The image was pinned directly from my site, so I received credit, but it surprised me a lot to see how that image was showing up.)

Unfortunately, we’ve had this problem since the early days of the internet. There are far too many ways to take content, no matter what kind of content it is. With writing, there are ways to find out if people are using your content without permission. For example, Copyscape is a fantastic site that searches the web to help you find out if your content’s been stolen. Their Copysentry tool will even track your site and content and notify you if and when anyone ever uses your content.

As an artist or photographer, it’s more difficult to locate if your images are being used inappropriately. There are, however, several strategies you can use to protect yourself, each coming with its own pros and cons (and most of these apply across the board, regardless of which social media or other site you’re worried about, with regard to infringement):

• You can check http://pinterest.com/source/businessinbluejeans.com (replacing “businessinbluejeans.com” with your own domain name) to see what’s been pinned from your site. However, if someone has downloaded and posted/pinned your images, you won’t see it there.
• You can embed your images with Digimarcs, allowing you to convey copyright information in the image, but this option comes with an annual fee.
• You can use text to put a copyright and your business name on the image itself, though with the right skills and technology (read: Photoshop or similar), that can be stripped away.
• You can use coding on your web site to prevent downloads, but I’m not sure that would prevent people from pinning images, and I’m certain it doesn’t prevent people from using screen captures to take those images anyway.
• You can use TinEye, which is a reverse image search tool, but reviews indicate it’s not fully reliable.
• You can hire a company like ImageRights to track down images being used without your permission and to get paid for their use (ImageRights takes a portion of the money they help you collect).
• You can also use Flash, which can’t be pinned, to display your portfolio (just don’t use it for your entire web site or your SEO can suffer).

Pinterest does care about your copyright. In the terms and conditions of the site, they explicitly say,

You agree not to do any of the following:

Post, upload, publish, submit, provide access to or transmit any Content that: (i) infringes, misappropriates or violates a third party’s patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral rights or other intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy;…

Also, they have a listing in the About menu specifically for Copyright specifically intended to tell you what to do if you find out someone has been taking your content without your permission. Here’s what they say:

Pinterest (“Pinterest”) respects the intellectual property rights of others and expects its users to do the same. It is Pinterest’s policy, in appropriate circumstances and at its discretion, to disable and/or terminate the accounts of users who repeatedly infringe or are repeatedly charged with infringing the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of others.

Then they go on to tell you what to do if you discover a copyright infringement on their web site.

As for Pinterest claiming ownership, they don’t:

By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services. Cold Brew Labs does not claim any ownership rights in any such Member Content and nothing in these Terms will be deemed to restrict any rights that you may have to use and exploit any such Member Content.

I always find this kind of “We want to exploit your content” legal language somewhat distasteful, but frankly, it’s not uncommon to have this kind of language in a site where members contribute the bulk of the content. The company wants to use your content to market their site and they want to be able to distribute your content socially, which is the entire purpose of the site- they just need your permission to do so, and if you want to use the site, you have to give them that permission. That’s how all social media works, pretty much. You’ll find similar language on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and CafePress, for example.

I’m not sure what else Pinterest could do. CafePress has super-secret digital scanning algorithms that scan every image uploaded to ensure that you’re not using copyrighted materials to create products for sale. But Pinterest isn’t selling anything, thus the sharing of links and copyrighted content is and should be encouraged. The issue is in using the content inappropriately or illegally.

Philosophically, it’s difficult to know where the responsibility lies, if members of a site are engaging in copyright infringement. Is it the job of the social media platform to police its members, or is it the job of the artist and photographer to adequately protect his or her work? In this day and age, when it’s so easy to steal an image here and bootleg a DVD there, I imagine this debate is far from over.

Welcome back! Last week we covered the basics of Pinterest, a new social media bookmarking site that’s taking the online world by storm. This week, I’ll cover ways to use Pinterest in your marketing, what to pin, and how to get your stuff into Pinterest without being obnoxious about it.

The first thing I want to address is the issue of how to use Pinterest for business marketing. Marketers have gotten a bad reputation on social media. Plain and simple, there are folks out there who get it wrong and blanket social media with advertisements that feel a lot more like demands than the conversation that social media is intended to be. And that group of marketers have given marketing in general a bad name, because their advertisements and “in your face” commercialism have, at least according to some, ruined sites that others found to be pretty enjoyable on a personal level.

So let’s talk about how to avoid that with Pinterest, because Pinterest is one of the coolest, most enjoyable sites out there right now. Let’s not ruin Pinterest with a bunch of marketing junk! Instead, let’s join together to bring quality content and a higher level conversation to Pinterest that enriches the community, instead of transforming it into a much less-appealing, commercialized marketplace.

1. Don’t be all business. Create boards that are business-oriented, but also create boards that are personal and let people get to know you. Also, bear in mind that Pinterest does not want you using the site for self-promotion, as they tell you in the rules.
2. Don’t be spammy. Whatever you post, post it only once. Don’t repeat-post on Pinterest. See Rule #1.
3. Be a part of the community. Don’t use Pinterest just for marketing and SEO. It’s great for those things, but if that’s the only reason you’re there, you’re missing the point. This holds true for every other social media site, by the way. Join in the conversation. Use the comments field on pins to engage in dialogue with other users.
4. Contribute in multiple ways. Maintain a new pin to old pin ratio of anywhere from 5:1 to 10:1, just make sure you’re both repinning and adding new content.
5. Don’t be the only one pinning from your own site. Make your blog more “pin-worthy” by creating fantastic content, using amazing images in your blog posts, and adding a “Pin It” button on your site (in WordPress, you can use the “Pinterest “Pin It” Button” plug-in, or the “Social Discussions” plug-in, which includes Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.). The “Pin It” buttons make it easier for people to pin your stuff and the quality content makes it more likely they’ll do so.
6. Use the Pinterest-provided “goodies” to let people know you’re on Pinterest. Pinterest provides “follow me” buttons and all kinds of other cool stuff for free here. You can also use plug-ins in WordPress to display your latest pins, which makes it more likely you’ll build a following on Pinterest.
7. Display your pins. You can install the “Super-Simple Pinterest Widget” plug-in in your blog to let people see what you’ve been pinning. This also helps to build your Pinterest following. You can also connect your Facebook presence to Pinterest. Connecting all these social media platforms really helps you to build a tribe. I’ve gotten to know people on Pinterest in a way that I haven’t known them on Facebook or Twitter, and vice versa.
8. Pin first, tweet second. Pin cool stuff to your Pinterest boards, then tweet about the pin. This serves the purpose of expanding your Pinterest following while also delivering your web site or blog content to both social media platforms.
9. Check your web analytics. Pinterest will give you great data. Facebook, not so much, because clicks go through a script filter before heading to your site. On Pinterest, you’ll know exactly what pins sent people to your site. That’s great information!

That’s it for now on the Pinterest front. More next week. Got more ideas about how to use Pinterest? Share ‘em!

Yesterday, on Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, Rick Santorum’s main supporter, Foster Friess, had this to say about Bayer aspirin:

(if you don’t feel like watching the video, Friess said, “This contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s so inexpensive. Back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.”)

Regardless of where you stand politically, one can imagine that Bayer Aspirin can’t be too thrilled with these comments (unless you think “gals” are going to run out to buy Bayer now). Just last May, Time Magazine reported that Bayer is really only well-known among a particular demographic- older Americans with heart conditions. The reason? Due to some pretty outstanding marketing strategies in the late ’80s, Bayer aspirin became known as the go-to preventative for heart attacks and strokes in older adults, and people pretty much forgot that originally, Bayer was intended to be a pain medication.

That article inTime Magazine pointed to a new marketing strategy by Bayer to expand their 14.6% market share with faster-acting aspirin and brightly-colored packaging that might appear to a younger demographic in their 40s. But now, a 71 year-old man has made what even Rick Santorum is calling a “bad joke” and tied Bayer to archaic notions of contraception and angry mobs. What would you do if you were Bayer? Well, Bayer is an old company formed in the 1800s in Germany, and they’ve certainly weathered worse storms in their lifetime as a company. So they might be tempted to ride this one out.

But if I was in charge of handling this problem at Bayer, I’d have a few suggestions as to what Bayer could do to turn the tide of this one:

• Put out an entertaining, “old school style” educational video on YouTube, featuring the President or CEO of Bayer, or at least a high-ranking executive, preferably a woman, talking about responsible birth control and emphasizing that there are many, more effective options than holding a Bayer aspirin between your knees.
• Create a marketing campaign around the fact that Bayer actually helps create a need for effectively responsible birth control options, as with Bayer, the “Honey, I have a headache,” excuse won’t work anymore, because Bayer relieves headaches so darned well.
• Start partnering with groups like the National Organization for Women and Planned Parenthood to develop programs to educate young women and men about birth control options.

Those are just three of the ways that Bayer could take this potentially damaging and awkward connection to an inappropriate (at the least) remark by Foster Friess and turn it into an opportunity.

The question is…will Bayer ignore Friess’ comments and hide their collective heads under their pillows or take their own medicine, as it were, man up, and leverage this moment?

What would you recommend Bayer do?

Happy Valentine’s Day! In honor of today, the day of love, I thought I’d share a few insights into what I’ve learned about business from the one who knows more about love than anyone else: Cupid. Why Cupid? Well, first of all, he’s build an extremely successful personal brand for himself and has been around forever. Second, he’s a cute little baby…and who doesn’t like babies? So here goes…

1. Do what you love, but don’t let passion get the better of you.

Love matters in business, believe it or not. In fact, it’s so important that I made it the first lesson of Mega-Successful Entrepreneurs: Find Your Fervor – find what you love and what you’re really fervent about and that’s the first step to finding success. It’s not the only thing that matters, but if you don’t love what you do, you’ll wake up dreading every day. In contrast, when you do what you love, you wake up excited about what you get to do every day.

However, you don’t want to let passion get the better of you, which is why I try to avoid using that word, “passion,” when I talk about business. I reserve passion for things like my family and personal life, so that I can keep a cool head in business and make decisions from a place of calm.

2. Age is irrelevant to success.

Cupid is a baby and he’s mega-successful. So…why should age matter? It doesn’t matter if you’re young and it doesn’t matter if you’re a senior. You’re not too young and you’re never done. Take a cue from the baby with the arrow and follow your dreams, no matter what your age.

3. Good PR can overcome an ugly history.

Before Geoffrey Chaucer, St. Valentine was a name that actually referred to a few different guys, all of whom were martyred. The head of one of the Valentine’s was even preserved. Seriously, I read it on Wikipedia. Point is, as soon as Chaucer showed up in the High Middle Ages and he and his friends started giving each other candy and flowers, nobody remembered the bloody history of Valentine. Even if you make a few mistakes or don’t get things right at first, history can be pretty forgiving with the right PR.

4. Success in business requires good aim.

If Cupid misses with his bow and arrow, people don’t fall in love. What a sad, lonely, loveless world we’d live in if Cupid had bad aim, right? Likewise, if you have bad aim, you’ll miss your target market and no one will find your products or services or know you exist. Success in business requires good aim- there’s a reason they call it a target market.

5. Sometimes a good thing needs a little nudge.

Love isn’t always easy- sometimes a little help is required to move things along. That’s what Cupid is for. Likewise, business isn’t always easy- sometimes a little help is required to move things along. That’s what coaches and consultants are for. Sometimes you need a little help to create a structured plan for your business growth, to learn new marketing strategies, to gain insight into the ways that mega-successful entrepreneurs become so mega-successful.

Believe it or not, even though I help entrepreneurs to create and grow mega-successful businesses, I have a business coach/consultant of my own who can see the forest of my business when all I can see is the trees. Lovers turn to Cupid when they need a nudge…you can turn to a trusted business coach or consultant.

There are lots more business lessons you can learn from Cupid, I’m sure, but these are the first five I learned. And stay tuned…next month, I’ve heard St. Patrick will be stopping by! Until then, have a very happy Valentine’s Day! May you receive many bouquets of roses and chocolate hearts!!!

Lately there’s been a ton of blog posts, conversations, and more about Pinterest, the social bookmarking site that’s growing crazy fast. I’ve been using Pinterest for several months and knew right away I wanted to leverage Pinterest as a business-building tool…but before I shared my ideas with you, I did what I usually do when I want to come up with a new marketing strategy for you- I studied how big brands re using Pinterest to build and market their brands so I could translate their big business ideas into small business strategies.

As we’ve been working on the new Business in Blue Jeans web site, I’ve given quite a bit of thought to how I can make the site and the blog more Pinterest-friendly. But maybe you’re not yet familiar with Pinterest or maybe you’re still trying to figure out how a site like Pinterest can benefit your business…or maybe you think that the recent proliferation of Pinterest-related posts are really just awesome justifications for Pinterest addicts to justify all the time we’re spending pinning spectacularly beautiful images to imaginary boards.

Well, let’s break it all down, shall we? We’ll start with the basics this week, then move on to more advanced “how to’s” of marketing next time.

What Is Pinterest?

They’re calling Pinterest a social bookmarking web site, but it’s far more than that. Imagine a cork bulletin board where you use pushpins to hang all kinds of things you love- beautiful images that inspire you, photos of places you want to go, ticket stubs from events you enjoyed, hairstyles you ripped out of magazines, home improvement projects and recipes you want to try, articles with diet tips or social media how-tos, etc. Pinterest is pretty much just like that, only in a digital, web-based medium.

Why do I want to use Pinterest for business?

On the surface, let’s be honest, Pinterest seems like an enormous time-suck. But once you dive into the research, you’ll be amazed at what Pinterest is doing for businesses. First, Pinterest is growing. Massively. In fact, it’s the fastest-growing site ever. Ever.

With well over 10 million members and more signing on every minute, Pinterst is The Place To Be. So your audience is probably already there.

Pinterest is also driving a lot of clicks, so if your content is good and your images are pretty, your stuff will get shared, re-shared, and every share will deliver referrals to your web site.

And, if you’re a micro-entrepreneur and building a personal brand, Pinterest is a great way to get a little more personal with your audience. I spend most of my time writing about business, but all you have to do is hang out with me on Facebook for a few minutes to find out that I have a lot more going on in my life than just business. But there’s a lot in my life that I don’t get to share in a meaningful way with my audience, simply because it doesn’t come up. Pinterest is a wonderful way for me to connect with people in a new, more intimate way that allows people to get to know me and my style a little better than they would otherwise.

Pinterest also offers a lot of creative, interesting ways to connect with other professionals and reach your target audience in entirely new ways. You can hold contests, offer special promotions, do a giveaway to reward users who repin and share your content, and much more.

Plus, Pinterest offers an entirely new way to get to know your audience, what their interests are, and what they find appealing. Looking at the number of repins you receive should give you a good way to gauge what content your audience likes…so that you can create more of it.

How do I get an account on Pinterest?

Pinterest is invitation-only, which means you can go to Pinterest.com and request an invitation, or you can find somebody who has an account and request an invitation from them, which is usually the faster route.

What do I do, once I have an account?

First, I suggest the same thing I recommend for all social media sites- take some time to look around. Click on the Pinterest logo in the middle of the top of your screen, then roll over “Everything” and just start looking around. Find some people whose pins and boards you like and connect with them by following them. Get a sense for how things work in this social medium.

Note that, just as with other social media platforms, the brands that are building the strongest visibility on Pinterest aren’t just pinning their own stuff. The goal is to build community- just as with Twitter, where you build relationships by retweeting and commenting on others’ tweets, build relationships on Pinterest by commenting on others’ pins and repinning them.

Once you get a sense of how things work, set up your profile. Some marketers have been suggesting that you use your business name as your Pinterest username. I strongly disagree with that idea. Definitely include your business name in your profile (see below) and link to your web site. But unless you’re a larger-scale business with staff contributors/pinners or a magazine, use your own name.

People want to connect with you on social media. For example, I have a business page on Facebook, but I find that more people want to know me than my brand. And especially if you’re in a service industry, people do business with people. Remember that old, “Know, Like, and Trust Factor?” Well, if you hide behind a brand and don’t give people the chance to know you, it’ll be hard for them to build that KLT Factor with you.

Just as on Twitter, my user ID on Pinterest is SueBMoe.

Once you’ve set up your profile, start setting up your “pinboards,” which are like those cork boards I was talking about earlier. You can create as many as you want. Topic-based boards work best. For example, I keep recipes I like in my “Nom Nom Nom” board and business tips in my “Business Tips” board. Then start pinning stuff you like.

How do I pin stuff on Pinterest?

To pin stuff that you find outside of Pinterest, I highly recommend the Pin It bookmarklet. You’ll find that in your “About” menu under “Pin It Button.” The bookmarklet allows you to pin anything from a web site (except Facebook, unfortunately) by just clicking “Pin It.”

*Pinterest Secret Tip*
If you highlight text on the page before you click “Pin It”
then the text appears in the description field of your pin.

You can also upload your own stuff by clicking “Add +” from the top right corner of your screen. This link allows you to enter a web site address or upload your own images from your computer.

Finally, you can look through the overall feed or, once you’re following people, your own feed, and re-pin others’ pins to your own boards by rolling over the top of the image and selecting “Repin.” You can also Like pins and Comment on pins, and all of your activity will show up in your feed so every single one of your followers will see all of your activity (so don’t pin anything you don’t want everyone to see- currently there’s no way to create private boards).

(For more details on how to use Pinterest, especially if you’re a techie newbie and need more help than I’ve provided here, make sure to check out Neil Patel’s post. He’s got some great step-by-steps and also has a list of how several companies are using Pinterest in their marketing and branding strategies.)

Next time, I’ll cover some more advanced strategies- ways to use Pinterest in your marketing, what to pin, and how to get your stuff into Pinterest without being obnoxious about it.

Normally I post blogs on Tuesdays. In fact, I actually like to have quite a few blog posts in the queue…but it just so happens that this week I had no posts scheduled and had planned most of yesterday as a writing day.

Our nephew, Franco, is visiting from Uruguay for the first time, so my hubby, Leo, took him to see the Indy 500 track and museum, and I settled in to catch up on some work and write my blog posts.

A half hour later, I heard our alarm system say, “Fault, back door,” and realized Leo and Franco had returned. I figured they’d forgotten something- a camera, perhaps? – until I discovered that they’d come home because poor Franco had slammed the car door on his thumb, which was quickly turning purple.

A few hours later, after an X-ray showed no fracture and the doctor said Franco was okay, we returned home with just a few minutes to spare before heading to the Pacers game.

When I got home that night, I realized…I never got around to writing all those blog posts, never mind my regular Tuesday post. Oops.

Well, heck…life happens. Stuff comes up, right? We can’t always predict what’s going to happen in our personal lives. It doesn’t have to be a medical emergency that can create inconsistency in your business, either. It could be anything. Your basement could flood. You could wake up with the flu. Your kid might need help with homework. Or heck, let’s get really real here: today you might just feel like watching a movie , reading a good book, or playing a round of golf instead of writing.

And isn’t that one of the benefits of being self-employed and working from home? Being able to be there for your family when they need you, and having the luxury of opting to relax for a day when you need to create a little balance in your life? It sure is for me.

Now, I’m all for self-discipline and keeping your family and friends apprised of your schedule. But like I said, sometimes life just happens.

So plan ahead:

1. Keep your blog queue supplied with posts you can use any time. You can always write a new post if something amazing happens in current events.
2. Write e-mail newsletters a few months in advance. Again, if you need to swap something new in, you can do it easily, but if an emergency comes up, you already have everything in place.
3. Write when you’re in the mood to write, so that when you don’t feel like writing, you don’t have to. Take advantage of inspiration when it hits you.
4. When you see your post queue getting low, replenish it before you run out. That was my big mistake. I saw the queue was running low a few weeks ago. I ignored it and paid the price yesterday.
5. Forgive yourself when you make a mistake. I always include this one when I talk about mistakes. Why? Because in all my years of working with clients, I’ve never come across one who hasn’t beaten themselves up, at least a little bit, for a mistake. And I’ll admit it: sometimes I beat myself up a little, too, but I’m getting better about forgiving myself when I make mistakes. Listen, give yourself a break. We’re all human.