For the first time ever, I’m running a contest, and there are just a few days left to enter! I’m running a one-week-only contest and giving away free Power-Up sessions to three lucky small business owners. Entry is easy and the pay-off is huge!
What You Win: An hour-long, one-on-one Power-Up Session with me, Susan Baroncini-Moe, CEO of Business in Blue Jeans, also known as “The Micro-Entrepreneur’s Mentor.” In this session, I’ll determine the three biggest mistakes you’re making in your business and provide personalized strategies for powering up your business to grow profitability and achieve success.
How To Win: Write one paragraph. Topic: “If I Could Wave A Magic Wand and Change Something About My Small Business, It Would Be…..” Post it on your blog or Facebook page with link back to http://www.businessinbluejeans.com/contest.html (or to this blog entry…makes no difference to me).
Then, e-mail contest@businessinbluejeans.com with a link to your entry (or just e-mail your entry to contest@businessinbluejeans.com) before February 22, 2010. It’s that simple!
Contest Rules: Three winners will be chosen at random on February 22, 2010. You’ll be contacted by me right away.
So…go write your paragraphs! It shouldn’t take too long and you just might win a freebie Power-Up Session with me!
For the first time ever, I’m running a contest! I’m running a one-week-only contest and giving away free Power-Up sessions to three lucky small business owners. Entry is easy and the pay-off is huge!
What You Win: An hour-long, one-on-one Power-Up Session with me, Susan Baroncini-Moe, CEO of Business in Blue Jeans, also known as “The Micro-Entrepreneur’s Mentor.” In this session, I’ll determine the three biggest mistakes you’re making in your business and provide personalized strategies for powering up your business to grow profitability and achieve success.
How To Win: Write one paragraph. Topic: “If I Could Wave A Magic Wand and Change Something About My Small Business, It Would Be…..” Post it on your blog or Facebook page with link back to http://www.businessinbluejeans.com/contest.html (or to this blog entry…makes no difference to me).
Then, e-mail contest@businessinbluejeans.com with a link to your entry (or just e-mail your entry to contest@businessinbluejeans.com). It’s that simple!
Contest Rules: Three winners will be chosen at random on February 22, 2010. You’ll be contacted by me right away.
So…go write your paragraphs! It shouldn’t take too long and you just might win a freebie Power-Up Session with me!
The other day, I received a wonderful little package from EzineArticles.com. Inside was a leather coaster marked “Expert Author,” a large coffee mug, and a little bag of coffee, along with a note thanking me for submitting high-quality content to their site. Now, I’m not sharing this to brag, because frankly, this company has literally hundreds of Expert Authors. The reason I’m sharing this is because there’s an interesting business lesson in here.
Frankly, in small business, little things count. I never expected this company to send me a gift. And when I received it, even though I know they’ve sent that package to hundreds of people, it brightened my day and made me feel special. I liked it. It was nice to be acknowledged.
Whenever someone signs on as a client of mine, at some point during the first couple of months of our relationship, I send them a little gift. It lets them know I value them as a client and I’ve taken the time to welcome them.
Spend some time looking at your business and asking yourself, “What can I do to brighten my customer’s day?” The little gift you send to express your appreciation just may forge a stronger bond between you and your customer, encouraging repeat business and long-term loyalty.
In 2010, my “Year of Making It ALL Work,” I’m committed to taking a long, hard look at my own business each month, relative to that month’s theme. Last month was all about getting organized, so I attacked my organization and planning. This month is about finding your purpose and getting authentic. So today I’m musing about the first part of that — finding your purpose.
Finding my own purpose took me down sort of a roundabout path. As I sought my true purpose, I tried lots of things. I was a social psychologist, a web developer, a success coach, a Reiki master…I took courses on project management, and even on how to be a travel agent. I tried many things. But no matter what I did, there were always two constants: I have always been a teacher and I have always been a writer. And no matter what I do, somehow I always come back to that. Are there things in your life that have been constants? If so, these might be connected to your purpose.
Now, I don’t know if I buy into the numerology thing, but my birthdate adds up to 33, which I’m told is the number of the Master Teacher or Healer. As a 33, my life path number is 6. According to what I’ve heard and read (and again, I’m still on the fence about this stuff), the 33/6 life path calls one to leadership and responsibility. Numerology or not, I’ve always felt that calling, and I’ve walked that path my entire life, with some ventures more successful than others.
How does this life purpose translate into my business? First, I write. Prolifically. I’m always working on a book, a blog post, an e-zine article, or content for one of the several sites I post on. Second, I teach through my writing, but I also teach my clients. Virtually everything I write is written with the intent of teaching something, whether it’s a technical piece on how to use social media or an article about finding inspiration for doing something tiresome. I teach my clients about authentic business, including marketing and sales, as well as “nuts and bolts” logistic stuff. I’m always teaching. I teach when I speak publicly so that people walk away going, “Wow, I really learned something today.”
How will this translate into future business? I’ll continue writing and teaching, of course, but in a bigger arena. Part of my Year of Making It ALL Work is growing my brand awareness so I can reach more people and share my own unique voice with a bigger audience. Once thing I’ve learned for sure is that once you find your purpose and get grounded in your path, you know where you’re going and everything starts to fall into place.
For me, that means reaching out to more people, talking more about what I’ve learned, offering more, and giving more. It also means knowing it’s okay not to be perfect and remembering that if I learn from my mistakes, surely I can help you to learn from them, too, so you don’t have to go through everything I did and make the same mistakes I did. I’ll be talking a bit more about that in my next post on authenticity.
This afternoon I had a pleasant chat with none other than Jack Trout, the man, the legend. And I’m pretty sure I’m dreaming, because he agreed to do the interview for the series, and he’ll be featured in March.
I have to say that it is just weird to see e-mails in my inbox from these guys. I mean, I see their names on my bookshelf all day long — these are the guys whose books sit next to me for easy reference. So it’s fairly surreal to see my Inbox with an e-mail from Jay Conrad Levinson (telling me he’s a notoriously late sleeper, so please don’t call him too early) sitting next to an e-mail from my dad, asking if we’re coming by for Sunday dinner.
Anyway, I wanted to tell you a bit more about how this series is going to work. You can sign up to join in for a month, or you can sign up for all 11 months. I recommend that you participate in all of the months, because you’ll only get access to the calls you pay for. So, if you join in June, you won’t get access to any of the calls before June.
As a member of The Experts Series, you’ll also get access to a second call during that month, which will be a Q&A teleseminar call with me. We’ll operate the call a first-come, first-serve basis, and I’ll answer your business questions one by one and get to as many as I can during the call. It’s a great way to get access to my advice in a very affordable way.
I’d planned a really fun series for you guys called the Wednesday Wine & Business Series, in which I planned to interview some of my favorite experts and mentors…I’d thought it would be fun to talk a bit about our favorite wines and then discuss business.
Then something BIG happened. I happened to be wishing my Facebook buddy, Bob Burg, a happy birthday, when I just decided to invite Bob to come and talk to you guys about his new book, called Go-Givers Sell More. Well, knock me over with a feather, Bob said yes!
So I took another leap and e-mailed my buddy Larry Winget, author of You’re Broke Because You Want to Be, and asked him if he’d like to come and talk to you, and…he said, “Sure…glad to do it.”
Then I started thinking…”I can’t have Bob Burg and Larry Winget come and talk to a Wine and Business Series. I can’t be sipping wine while I’m interviewing dudes of this caliber!”
And that’s when a new idea, a bigger and better idea, started forming in my head. What if this was something much bigger? What if this series became a lot more substantial and meaningful?
So I started contacting more of my favorite authors and mentors, and…guys, this is big. It’s bigger than big. Now, I’ve still got a few folks reporting back in, so I don’t have the full lineup yet, but…here’s what I can tell you:
Bob Burg, author of Endless Referrals and The Go-Giver
Larry Winget, author of You’re Broke Because You Want to Be and It’s Called Work For A Reason
Jay Conrad Levinson, author of Guerilla Marketing and Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green
John Rowley, author of Climb Your Ladder of Success Without Running Out of Gas
David Meerman Scott,author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR and World Wide Rave
I’ve got several more on the list but I can’t mention their names until we get the dates solidified. Suffice to say, though, it’s going to be absolute freaking extraordinary.
You will want to be there. Period. And, you will definitely want to tell your friends.
I have five cats. And no, I’m not a crazy cat lady. Here’s the deal: My oldest cat is Kate. Kate came to me about 18 years ago, and had been fully declawed — not my thing. The other four cats were feral, born in my dad’s garage about four years ago. I brought them home to socialize them for adoption and of course, I fell in love with all of them and they’ve been here ever since. They’ve still got all 72 claws (18 claws per cat) and a tendency to rile Kate up, which doesn’t do too much for her “old lady” heart condition. So while all five cats pretty much have full run of the house during the day, at nighttime and when we’re not around, we keep the four rambunctious “kids” confined to a spacious sunroom. Now that you have the background, I can tell you how four of my fur babies taught me a little business lesson recently.
Sometimes in the morning, I sit down with my coffee and breakfast and forget to open the door to the sunroom right away. Scooter, of course, is quick to remind me to open the door. He pads at the door until I come over and let him in. Scooter runs right in, looks up and makes eye contact with me, and he’s quick to hop up on my lap for a morning cuddle. The rest of the cats, Lance, Agnes, and Grandpaw, are slower to emerge, and take their time connecting with Leo and me throughout the day.
The other morning, as I was letting Scooter in, it hit me: by being at that door when I’m ready to open it in the morning, by letting me know he’s there, and even scratching on the door to remind me, Scooter is just using smart marketing. Basically, if you translate this into micro-entrepreneur terms, Scooter’s connecting with his target market (me), letting his target market know what he’s up to, and putting it out there that he’s got something to offer me when I’m ready to open the door and let him in. And as soon as he’s in the door, he’s already working with me, connecting with me, and showing me he’s glad I let him in.
In contrast, the other three cats laze about on the sunroom sofa and chairs. They gaze out the window, watching leaves blow around, watching the snow fall. Occasionally they come up to the door and look in, and it seems like they wish they were inside. But they only take action when I open the door and coax them inside, and then it takes them awhile to mosey by for a quick scratch under the chin. Translate this into people terms, and you’ve got all the micro-entrepreneurs who say they want clients and customers, but who actually don’t put themselves out there or market themselves properly.
Here’s the lesson: You have to market wisely and once you’re in the door, you have to deliver everything you’ve got. It’s about relationships and putting in the effort to get in front of your audience and make yourself known, then when you get your foot in the door, deliver, deliver, deliver.
Welcome to 2010, a brand new year and a brand new decade! In the last part of 2009, I made some plans for 2010, and I’d like to tell you more about what those plans are. The most important thing you should know is that I’ve made 2010 My Year of Making It ALL Work.
What does that mean? It means I’m taking it all down to the bare bones — everything in my life, from my business to my health and everything else, and I’m looking at everything, analyzing what works and throwing out what doesn’t. I’m focusing on getting back to basics and taking a good hard look at where Business in Blue Jeans is going and how we’re going to get there.
As such, I’ve planned out the entire year, with a theme for each month. I’ll focus on that theme in my No Suits Allowed! e-zine and in my Wednesday Wine & Business Chats Teleseminar Series, and bring in experts when needed so I can interview them and get the lowdown. I don’t want to show all my cards just yet, but so far, here’s how the first part of the year looks:
January: Getting Organized and Planning Ahead
February: Finding Your Purpose
March: Branding and Positioning
The first call in the Wednesday Wine & Business Chats will be in February and we’ll be rolling from there. I’m pulling in some big names for bonus calls, too, and you really won’t want to miss this.
I’ll be sharing my insights as I get down to the bare bones with my business. There are quite a few lessons I’ve learned in the past year that I want to share with you — things I’ve discovered about the folks I thought were my mentors and things I’ve discovered about myself. So stay tuned. Things are about to get lively and interesting around here.
