Dayle's Blog . . .

Do you own your own business?

Do you own a hobby?

Or, do you own a job?

Owning your own business means that even if you are not there, the business still makes you money.

Owning a hobby means that you don’t make any money and sometimes you even lose money at what you are doing…a hobby does not pay the bills.

When most people think that they own their own business, they really only own a job. Sure, they’ve created a lifestyle that they are the boss (or at least they think they are — when in reality their customers are the boss) and they write their own paycheck, but many times if they leave the business….even to go on vacation, no money comes in.

Being a true business owner really allows you the freedom of leaving town knowing that your business is still making money.

One way to ensure that your business continues with or without you is to make sure you have the proper marketing strategies in place.

Do you have a blog, a social media following, an advertising budget and campaign?

Are you promoting affiliate products through your current businesses website (no matter whether it’s an “online business” or a traditional brick and mortar business)?

Do you want to control your business? Or do you want your business to control you?

Think about it — and to your success!

Dayle

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Engineers, doctors, nurses, accountants, and lawyers:
They are what we call as professionals.  They are individuals with recognized knowledge and expertise on a certain field of endeavor.  They are entitled by law and existing policies to practice their respective professions.  They are worthy of the standards of their profession, giving them legal licenses to practice their respective professions.  Thus, they are the “authorities” in their respective field of endeavors.

Along with their tag as professionals, these individuals are bound by proper etiquette with regard to their actions and behaviors.  As professionals, they are expected to deliver required services to the public and at the same time deal with other individuals and professionals in an appropriate manner.  They are looked upon as leaders; thus they are expected to act as real professionals when dealing with their work and other people.

Professionals are everywhere—in various construction sites, real estate markets, hospitals, county courts, and other places.  Even the internet marketing industry is surrounded by various professionals—internet business consultants, web content writers, software developers, web designers, and others.

Thus, the internet marketing world is a pool of web-based professionals who are working not just for their personal interest but for the development of the industry as well.  But, what does it take to be considered as one of the internet marketing professionals?

As I previously mentioned, the definition of a professional revolves around the concept of “an individual who has recognized knowledge and expertise on a certain field of endeavor”.  As a professional, you are considered to be worthy of the standards of your profession.  You need to show to the world that you are really worth to be considered as a professional through creating a professional image.

However, building a professional image is not as easy as you think.  In fact, it entails a great deal of time and effort.  Your knowledge and expertise is not just the working factor here.  You must also consider the conduct of your business in a professional manner, especially on the internet where you are dealing with clients whom you do not know and you do not see.

Now, how will you start building your professional image?  Consider the following aspects in creating your image on the internet marketing industry:

• Your attitude is among the most essential aspects in creating your professional image on the internet.  It can either make you or kill your career in an instant.  The manner you deal with your fellow internet marketers, clients, and the concerns they want you to answer such as questions, comments, and compliments will reflect on your professionalism as a reputable internet marketer.

• Courtesy is also an important factor.  As previously mentioned, you are dealing with people whom you are not seeing and you do not know.  Despite this, make your “unseen” clients feel that they are very much appreciated.  You must be respectful and warm in accommodating their queries and concern.  Even in words, always express your gratitude to them.

• Honesty is the best policy.  Do not mislead your web-based clients or else you will lose them.  Remember that you have to earn their trust for you to build long-term relationships with them.

• When dealing with your clients, always go above and beyond their expectations.  Always listen to the concerns of your clients.  As a professional, you are expected to hear from your clients even if you know and understand most of the aspects of your internet marketing business.

• Unsatisfied clients always complain about poor technical support.  You need to make yourself personally available to assist your clients with their needs.  If possible, respond to their emails and return their call as fast as possible.

• Although it is a loss if you will refund the money of unsatisfied clients, you need to.  Do not argue with the issue or blast nasty things unto them.  Always be apologetic, courteous, and know why they are unsatisfied.  Remember the rule that “customers are always right”, even if you feel that they are wrong.

• Your website is the reflection of YOU and your internet marketing business.  It must be professional-looking, complete with product and contact information, and easy ordering protocol.

• Be respectful to your fellow internet marketers.  Keep in mind that you must build a friendly competition on the business and not on personal preferences.

Internet marketing professionals possess those aforementioned aspects.  Thus, before getting respect from the internet community, show to them that you are worthy of their respect and build a professional image on the internet.

To your success!
Dayle

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Have you set goals for yourself?  Do you know where you are going with your business?   If you can visualize your goals and believe in them, things will be much clearer and easier to accomplish.   Belief is stronger than you think and can help you shift your mindset.

I hear others say all the time, “I can’t do that, I don’t know where to begin”, or “I just don’t think I’m cut out for this”. Why limit yourself?   We all have fear, but successful people choose NOT to believe in their fears, and instead take them on and overcome them.

If you can condition yourself to focus on the more positive actions in your business and stop dwelling on being overwhelmed, things will get done and you will be shocked at how efficient you can become!

Just remember that successful people, especially in this industry, work very hard, remain consistent, and earn their success.   It doesn’t happen overnight. Mentors and Coaches can only help guide the way, but the positive action must come from within you.  Step out of your comfort zone and act on your goals.   If you’re putting in minimal effort and are not consistent, your results will reflect this effort, and you will start to feel discouraged.

Don’t waste your time, but instead put together a very clear list of goals — act on them in steps, and monitor your progress.   You will want to list out your most important goals in order of priority, and the activities necessary to make them happen.   This will help you organize your thoughts. Remember these goals and activities should be the ones that will help you achieve the best results. Make sure you split your time and use a percentage of it for personal development/learning, and the remainder for action activities.   Remember that your list of goals and activities will grow as you move on, you will have daily activities that are required to maintain a level of success, in addition to those that you start from scratch and add to your task lists.

Being consistent doesn’t mean you have to devote time every day to your business.   Take some time and go over your available time schedule.   Devote a certain amount of hours per day or weekly to your business, and stick to the schedule.  Know how to value your time, and evaluate where you’re spending most of it.   Are you spending your energies where you can achieve these results?   Or are you spinning your wheels on activities that can be outsourced or aren’t necessary?  We tend to spend time on activities that are fun, but not necessarily beneficial to achieving our goals.  Be sure to focus on your strengths!   Put your energy into your passions — research them, learn them, practice them, and THEN share them.  Overcome the tasks that you dread and master them.

Be realistic when setting your goals — and remember that it is a combination of all the small steps together that create momentum.  Learn from your mistakes, and reward yourself for correcting them or for completing tasks!

Pay attention to those that are successful around you — keep company with those that are positive in nature — their positive outlook will rub off on you, and you will begin to believe in your own success.

There are always going to be difficulties and challenges — embrace them and learn from them — understand what has caused them and move on. Whatever you do, do NOT play the “blame game” and blame someone or something for your failures. It’s nearly impossible to create success in life if you constantly blame others or other situations — take responsibility and learn from your failures –NOBODY is perfect!

Remember that every successful entrepreneur was once a beginner.  How committed are you?   Can you face difficulties and challenges by learning new things from them?   Take action and remain consistent in your dedicated activities/actions for your business.  Don’t resist, but instead accept that you will never stop learning and embrace the thought.  You will always be able to gain inspiration from ideas of others.   Remember to be yourself, and look for the positive inside of you!

To your success!
Dayle

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The term “content” when used by internet marketers refers to videos, audios or written word articles.  Do you use valuable content to drive traffic to your website?  I believe by using valuable content, you can generate more traffic in a number of ways:

Search engines love websites that offer valuable content.   It doesn’t matter what type of site you have, you can leverage this to increase the traffic to your website (i.e., an online store, a forum, or a blog).

Don’t forget your visitors LOVE sites that offer free content, especially valuable content.  This allows them to come in and click around a bit and get to know more about you and your products — and may motivate them to purchase from you instead of someone else.  Leveraging valuable content on your website makes it “sticky”, meaning that if a visitor comes to your website and finds good information (regardless of the format), they are more likely to return than if they just landed on a sales page.

Here are some examples of valuable content you can include on your website:

• Articles: Include valuable articles on your website.  You can use your own unique content along with a mixture of free “reprint” articles and PLR (Private Label Rights) articles.

• Blog: Add a Blog to your website — especially if you don’t want to add articles directly to your site.  Creating a blog with content about your products, services and special offers allows you to showcase specials and explain uses for your products and services.  Establish yourself as an export on these subjects and people will return in the future for more information.  You can do this by adding articles to the blog or chatting about the subject matter.

• Product Descriptions: Adjust your product descriptions.  Be more descriptive and add more text information to your product descriptions in your storefront.  This will be providing increased valuable content and is another easy way to attract traffic and potentially customers.

• Comments and Feedback: Make sure you ask for comments and feedback, regardless of the type of website you have.  By incorporating comments from others, you are helping make your site more valuable.

• Testimonials: By adding testimonials, it helps your site appear trustworthy, and additionally adds content for search engines — another simple, yet effective way to drive traffic.

• Newsletters: If you publish newsletters, whether they’re daily, weekly, or monthly — make sure you archive them and allow easy access to them to create another form of valuable content on your website.

• Audio: If you’ve never thought about adding audio features to your website, it’s very simple and easy to record and publish audio online with services that do practically everything for you.  Maybe you’d like to interview someone, or have someone interview you?  Include these interviews as valuable content to add to the credibility of yourself and your website.  This is another form of information that your visitors will enjoy.

• FAQ’s: If you receive questions and comments or customer service related questions on your website, you’ll want to keep track of them and incorporate a FAQ page for future visitors.  This adds valuable content for the new visitor if they have the same questions that has already been answered, and in return saves you time by not having to answer repeat questions from potential customers.

To your success!

Dayle

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Many people I meet begin their home business wanting a professional level income while only putting forth a hobby level of effort.  Not only is this unrealistic, but it’s downright insane to expect something with little to no effort.  If you are only going to do something for your business in your spare time, or when everything else around you is already done for the day or week or month….then 1.) You’re fooling yourself if you think you have a business, and 2.) You’re probably not ever going to make a decent income with it.

What would you consider a professional level of income?  I believe it’s relative, depending on your situation, but you could say…from $30,000 a year and up.  People in a full-time JOB are required to work a minimum of 40 hours a week plus their commute to be compensated with what we call a professional level of income. What if you wanted to earn $50,000 a year?  You would probably have to work more hours, right?  And $100,000 a year?  Well, in the corporate world, this means you are “married” to your job and you could possibly work 60+ hours each week away from your home, not including travel time.  Sure, it’s great money — but how does it measure up to what you’re missing out on when you’re away from home?

So how are people making money in their home business?  They treat their business with respect and devote time on a daily basis growing themselves and their enterprise.  It’s simple…they want professional income, so they put in a professional effort. . . nothing less.  It means committing a consistent amount of time daily or on a structured schedule, and sticking to it, if you aren’t able to do it daily.

Here’s a tip:  start with writing down everything you do for your business in a day, and then form it into some sort of an organized format that you can follow over and over again.  Keep it somewhere posted so that you can access it easily to follow.  Add to it as you develop new skills and learn new tools.  Don’t forget to include reports and measurements of success so that you can monitor your progress and understand which tasks work better than others.  Always remember that you are in “income generating” mode, and don’t do anything that can’t ultimately end up in creating or adding to your income.

Some people will spend more time than others — but, the best thing about this business is that a professional effort can be made in 15 or 20 hours a week, if you organize yourself properly and maintain discipline.  What can be better than working in the comfort of your home?!  You are afforded the leisure of being able to stop and have fun with the kids whenever you want, and blending your life with your work on your terms.  So, I ask you . . . . Professional?  or Hobby?

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Google Buzz Surpasses 9 Million Posts and Comments http://ow.ly/16BIS

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You may have noticed, many people today are trying to do some sort of social media marketing online.   There are a number of different methods that are used to market, some work much better than others.   Some methods even make you FEEL better than others.   Rather than ruin your own reputation or creating a bad experience for your contacts on social media sites, try taking some time and understand the definition of marketing vs. the definition of social media.

By aggressively marketing or spamming your business or opportunity, you might get lucky and successfully attract some good connections to network and partner with, but chances are that one of the following will happen:

1. You’ll gain attention that won’t leave a lasting impression — thus, if someone does join your business or purchase your product, they’re not likely to be a repeat customer or a committed team member;
2. You’ll offend people that will turn the other way and not communicate with you at all anymore, even if you do reach out to build a relationship; or
3. You’ll be completely ignored because so many others are doing the same exact thing and you drown in the vast numbers of opportunity and product pitches.

YES, it takes time to build relationships, but I think that you’ll find that once you build them and engage with your new friends regularly, you will enjoy the communication you do have in a more pleasant and genuine way.

I am guilty of aggressively marketing in the past myself, and I can tell you from true experience that it is much more gratifying to work with someone in a business opportunity or on a team that I have built a relationship with first. Have you ever had a job and dreaded working with certain people that were employed with you?  I sure have.  Isn’t it much nicer to be able to hand pick those that you’d like to keep close and on your team?  Imagine how pleasant the work environment would be if you were able to hand-select those employees that surrounded you.  Sure, you’re able to hire your own personnel at times, but I’m referring to those that are across the organizational chart from you or in another department — those that you had no choice but to work with.   It’s difficult to remain positive and motivated in an environment that you don’t like being in.   I have spent almost 30 years in the workforce and in the corporate world and only have a handful of coworkers that I would have truly hand-picked to be on my team.

Here are a couple of tips I have found helpful for me:

All About Building Relationships:
Whenever possible, try and forget about your business and the desire to make money.   Remember you are on social media to make friends and you need to focus on building relationships with people.   I believe relationships should be all about giving 80% of the time and only asking for something in return 20% of the time.  Giving helps to create a feeling of pride and accomplishment and often times begins a cycle of receiving.  I believe it is true that the more you give to others, the more you will receive in return.

When Giving, Make Sure You Are Giving or Adding Value:
Giving and adding value is key in social media.   Always try to publish good and interesting content which empowers and helps other people in their business or life.   It doesn’t have to be your own content, you can simply share other people’s content that you might find online.   Sharing a good blog or an interesting or funny video are examples of that.  When people are interested in your content and find your posts valuable, they will follow you in anticipation of what you’ll bring next.

Who Do You Network With?
Try and be conscious with your time and decide who you’d like to network with.   It is important to network with people of influence.   This doesn’t mean that you have to ignore everyone else, because bringing people together is also key in networking.  Prioritize your time and decide what types of people you’d like to connect with (i.e. influencial people, people with large number of followers on social sites, people with good blogs and people who have a strong online reputation).  You might want to start writing out a list of people you’d like to build a relationship with and find ways you can offer value to them.   For example, on Twitter, you can retweet their tweets, share their blog posts and start conversations.

Deciding What Your Brand Is:
Remember your business opportunity or product is NOT your brand.  You should not brand yourself as “The ABC Guy” or “The ABC Leader”.   Instead, be unique and define your brand as what your niche is — what are you good at?  For example, my brand is internet marketing methods and personal development.   You can go into more specific areas like social media, pay per click, health, beauty, etc.   Again, it should be about YOU and what YOU are good at — what is your passion?

Now go find your niche and start building relationships!

To your success!
Dayle

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This might sound familiar to you.  One day you feel motivated and the next day you’re feeling the complete opposite.  Staying motivated, no matter what the circumstances are, is not easy.  Let’s face it — if it were that easy, everyone would do it.  It is possible though!

Usually at the beginning of a project or job, you tend to feel good about it and are filled with enthusiasm and motivation.  Throughout the duration of the project, you might experience unexpected failures or problems, and your motivation fades.  Some people even become depressed and consider giving up.  All of their once positive and enthusiastic thoughts have turned completely negative.  Dreams in the beginning of the project become reality and tend to cause one to lose confidence.  These emotions can lead to us giving up completely before the project can be completed.

If you can learn to understand and analyze your emotions, and what caused them — you can turn these negative emotions around. When we lose our motivation, we tend to lose our focus, our confidence and our direction, so try this:

In summary . . . if you have no direction or focus, you won’t find motivation.  Creating a day-to-day strategy and a to-do-list and doing it provide a sense of accomplishment.  Mark off each item on your to-do-list once you have completed it.  By making this list or outline of what needs to be done, you will find ways to accomplish them.  You will start believing that you deserve success — don’t waste time worrying about the future.  Start now — change your future for the better!

Finally, if you experience a loss of motivation or start feeling depressed — don’t be surprised.  Try and take this opportunity to look back and analyze what you are doing right, and what you are doing wrong.  Discover your faults and correct them — you just might find that when you re-evaluate your plans and goals, you will experience new found enthusiasm and motivation!

To your success!

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