Archive for November, 2008

Take a moment and be thankful for your business. If you are not thankful, why not? What do you need to be doing differently?

I’m thankful for:

• the ability to be available to my girls when needed. (and homeschool them)
• the ability to work when I want. (early in the morning, while watching tv, while visiting inlaws)
• being successful without necessarily being profitable. (helping others just because)
• the constant challenge.
• always learning and increasing knowledge in several areas.
• new friendships and mentors.
• doing what I love and getting paid for it!

Please share your comments on how you are thankful for your business.

Building relationships with your customers provides familiarity and trust.? Today I would like to share an article with you by Vera Raposo from Small Business Branding.

Recently at my site I put out a question to my readers, Are You A Twitter Snob? It was something I’ve been thinking about for some time. It really started to annoy me when people would join Twitter, have all these followers and then never follow people back. It also was bothering me that people are just not taking the time to reply back to others. The post really turned more into a rant than anything but I think it got a good point across. After my rant was done I figured, now I really need to take the time to come up with some positive ways we can connect with others on Twitter.

Here are five of the more common ways we can build relationships with others via the use of Twitter.

1. Connect with Friends & Family

Whether you’re a stay at home mom, small business owner, or just looking for some friendly conversation, Twitter is a great place to forge new friendships. You can easily begin following those with similar interests and before you know it, you’ve made friends from all over the world.

If you have a craft business, you may have taken a traditional route in your marketing efforts, such as selling your items at craft shows. If you haven’t tried marketing your craft business online, you should give it some thought.

The following are just a few of the benefits to marketing your craft business over the internet:

First and foremost, marketing your craft business online will allow you to reach new customers, from all around the globe. If you’ve been marketing your business in a traditional manner, your customers may be limited to our own location.

In order to reach new customers traditionally, a craft business owner would participate in the craft fair circuit, sometimes traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

Marketing your crafts over the internet will allow you to get your business in front of many new people, all from the comfort of your own home. Even if you happen to enjoy traveling to various craft shows, you can still use the internet to market your crafts between events.

For years Jimmy D. Brown has been creating and fine-tuning what and how he teaches when it comes to Internet Marketing. Now you can benefit from those years of experience and also get full PLR rights to many of his best-selling products. He’s even got some FREE PLR that you can grab. Run, don’t walk to this website –> http://www.scrapventurepro.com/JimmyDplr.html

Even though you probably aren’t interested in the PLR rights for your scrapbook business, the information included in the reports are invaluable to your business. Here is what he is offering:

Bronze:(free)

• Super Affiliate Strategies-expand your income stream by recommending other products related to your target market

Silver:

• Subject Line Secrets-Do you want your mailing list subscribers to actually open your email messages?
• Get Messages Read-Did you know that less than 10% of your subscribers might actually receive and be reading your email messages?

Gold:

• How to Get FREE Traffic-who doesn’t want more traffic to their scrapbook business website?
• The 31 Day Guide to GROWING Your List-build your list and increase sales
• The Beginners Guide to Overnight Traffic-using Google Adwords to bring more traffic to your site

So you want to sell your products or service online and make some decent money; but you ultimately fail because you don’t take the time to sell the right “thing”. If you are looking to be a success selling online, you should start by selling yourself!

Why Do I Need To Sell Myself?

It’s a difficult idea to grasp, isn’t it? Actually it’s not, when you think about it this way: People tend to buy from others they trust. The internet is full of internet marketers from all walks of life. They come from so many different corners of the world. Some are true to their word and will sell the best products possible; while others are only in it for the money.

Customers are well informed of internet scams and how to look out for them. The horror stories that cycle the net are plentiful from people who have been scammed and lost a lot of money on deals or products. So, when it comes time to buy something, they usually look to those whom they know or they feel is an expert in a particular field.

Why Do They Do That?

I have two great $1.00 deals for you today.

The first is for an upcoming teleseminar “Marketing Your Craft Business Online…Without Going Broke!” Crissy offers several free and low cost ideas. And don’t worry if you can’t make the teleseminar because she is recording it and making the mp3 available to all who sign up for the call. You can even ask questions beforehand. Click here for more information.

The second is another teleseminar on how to win great products. Courtney Chowning, owner of Mom’s Giveways is holding a special web seminar that will teach you her ultimate tips and tricks about entering and winning giveaways, contests, and sweepstakes. Can you imagine winning free scrapbook stuff?
Click here to view more details.

Online Shopping Carts De-Mystified

We all need technology and new programs to make our online businesses run more smoothly. Afterall, computer technology is what allows us to sell our products online to our audiences. But sorting out all the details of new programs and determining what programs best suit our businesses and budgets can be very time consuming.

As an online product seller, one thing is true across the board: you need a shopping cart program. However, not all shopping carts include the same features nor are they priced the same. At one extreme you have free carts that may not be secure and offer no extra business features but the other extreme is the shopping cart that has many features but costs well over $100 per month.

With such disparities, it is important to do your research and price comparisons but if too much time is spent on research, then you are not able to focus on the money-making aspect of your business. Or, if you commit to a certain program and then determine it’s not right for you, you will have lost some hard earned money.

Ever wondered how you could harness the power of Twitter to drive massive amounts of traffic to your sites - and how to convert that traffic into cash?  John Merrick and Soren Jordansen have just come up with the perfect solution for you, with their new product called Tweet My Blog.

It’s a Wordpress plugin that makes it super easy to combine the powers of Wordpress and Twitter - driving massive amounts of traffic to your blog.  And the best part… It’s 100% free!

TweetMyBlog will automatically:

• Post a tweet whenever you update you blog. The tweet will link back to your blog, driving a ton of interested readers your way.
• Highlight your latest Tweets on your blogs sidebar - increasing your Twitter following.
• Promote your affiliate link on auto-pilot, whenever you use the plugin and sidebar widget. Earn commissions just for posting to your blog.

This is far more than just another Wordpress plugin - This is a fully fleshed out marketing plan that will put the power of Twitter at your finger tips.

Social Networking. Its what’s hot on the web right now. For those of you wanting to get your feet wet with web 2.0, but don’t have the time it takes to set up lenses on Squidoo, profiles and bulletins on MySpace, or other extensive content on social networks, Twitter may be just what you’re looking for.

The question posed by Twitter, “What are you doing?” has become almost as popular as AOL’s “You’ve got mail.” So much so that it has even caught the eye of offline news mediums such as USA Today, CNN, and ABC. This helps to make the application popular all on its own. Those who think Twitter is just a place for computer or Internet geeks can rest assured it’s nothing of the sort.

For many, Twitter is a way to interact with like-minded individuals. Whether you are a stay at home mom who craves adult conversation, an at home worker who misses the breaktime chats from past jobs, or the business owner who wants to reach more of their target market, this form of social media fills a need. It makes it easier to connect with and put your business in front of others in a way you might not have previously been able to.

With the economy the way it is, higher prices and the mortgage industry failing, we are feeling the effects of an economic recession. How can you keep your scrapbook business afloat during this time?

I have written an article entitled “Scrapbook Business Survival in a Recession”. It is too long to include in this post. However, I have it available as a free download for you.

Free Report

Here is a brief summary of the report:

• Understand your Customer-Answer an important question about consumer buying habits, and you’ll be ahead of the game.
• Focus or generalize-The more focused you are the better chance you have of hitting your target. But what if you want to offer more?
• Time for Change-what was working may not be any more. Get creative, while maintaining integrity, with increasing your profits. (5 ideas)
• Step it Up-it is time to step up your marketing efforts not reduce them. There are plenty of inexpensive and free ways to market your business.(23 ideas)
• Expectations-What do you expect? You have to be realistic.

Learn more about Scrapbook Business Survival in a Recession with our free report.