We decided to do some bird photography and used the holidays for a photo expedition. The first thing I learned was how important it is to invest in self-improvement. Being from the “film age” dealing with a digital camera was not as easy as i thought, especially the automated focus part. I got some magazines to help me with that and this week I’m heading to a photo club to be able to update myself. Same applies to having a business, self-improvement is crucial and no, we don’t have all the answers and we have to adapt to new times.Also good is to create relationships with people that can help you get to the next level.

Right on the first day we saw a bald eagle. It was my first bald eagle in the wild. How thrilling that moment was!  The impressive bird was far and I messed up the focus again so the pictures were not too good, but the excitement was still there. We decided to come back the next day to try again. Persistence in life and in business is crucial. We can never forget that.

The next day the eagle was there and the pictures came out a lot nicer. I noticed a funny thing. Nashlah would take a picture, get excited about it and would keep looking for the pictures in the camera, while the bird was there, waiting for her. She got excited with the result and chose to pass the real moment in order to focus on her achievement. Well, it is a good thing to praise ourselves but you cannot let a shiny thing take you away from the real moment and the real work that needs to be done. That moment will never come back again. It is so precious and cannot be wasted with things that can be done later.

We then decided to focus on finding more eagles and big birds and that is what we did for the next 3 days.

We saw on the map that there were some bird refuges close by and some water fowl management areas so we headed there.

It was a holiday and when we got to the first water fowl area, the place was empty. We had no idea what a water fowl management area was and it looked a little scary riding our brand new car in a very small strip of land surrounded by water on both sides, plus the silence and the fact you could not see an end on the road.

My heart started racing and I was a bit scared. The situation was new to me, with a lot of unanswered questions and I a feeling that I could not control the outcome. Then I realized I had made the commitment to try something new everyday in order to face my own fear and limitations and to show myself there are new possibilities, opportunities and I don’t have to be in control of every outcome. At that moment I really started enjoying the experience. Yes, same thing should be done in our businesses.

We didn’t see many birds there, since it was a very cold day in winter, not the best time to start bird photography. We shot pictures of some birds we didn’t know and some flying hawks. That night before heading to the hotel we got some western bird’s books. We needed some self-improvement in that area as well. We also had a little talk about the fact that we started taking the pictures not in the best time of the year and with little planning and preparation. Isn’t this typical of entrepreneurs? It was good but it could have been better. The fact is, we would go on no matter what but next weekend, believe me we will be better prepared.

The next day was just fantastic! We spotted a bald eagle right at the beginning. Well, now we knew what to look for, we had learned to see and due to the books, we knew a little about their habits.

She was on a tree not too far. We stopped the car and started walking with the equipment. We were really close when she flew away. We learned a few things. Disappointment happens no matter how excited you are and some “thinking through the end” before acting helps. Why we though that the eagle would stand still seeing two voluptuous girls walking with big equipment, very colorful clothes and chatting at full lungs is beyond me. That lesson sank in really fast. This week we are out to buy some camouflaged clothes and we are training in keeping our mouth shut.

Entrepreneurs should live by the motto “fall seven times, stand up eight”, so we decided to go after that eagle and find her again. Using our best judgement we started going around until we finally saw her again. Standing on a tree on a farm ground.  There we went. Almost quiet this time. It was so exciting! We had to do a minor trespassing, but we could not loose that opportunity.

We got a lot closer this time. The lens could be a little longer, the light a little better I kept thinking but my finger could not stop taking the pictures. Then I noticed that I should take care of composition, different exposure times etc. Things I should take care in order to get a good picture. So I remember one thing my photography professor taught me many years ago. He would say every time we were shooting. “Cut your anxiety in half and go closer”. I finally took a deep breadth, corrected what needed to be corrected and took another step, and another one.

The eagle was looking at us the whole time and at some point decided to fly away, but this time it flew towards us. I kept shooting, it is so much easier to shoot several pictures now than before! It flew right above our heads, really close. I don’t know if eagles attack humans but I couldn’t care less. We were jumping up and down for at least half an hour.  I got a very good picture and Nash got several.

Now we went looking for more bald eagles, we felt unstoppable. Not a big deal that there are not that many bald eagles flying around, we knew we could do it. After a few hours we spotted another one. She flew, we chased and we got a few more pictures. We were able to fulfill our challenge and the feeling was great. That night we were exhausted but had a hard time falling asleep. That feeling was so exciting! Knowing that you are able to reach your goals and go after challenges is great. I made a side note to start doing some exercise. If I need to keep doing this, I need to be in good shape. Changes are necessary and good.

Next day we headed to some other bird refugees and water fowl management areas. Now we decided to get as many western birds documented as possible. We like challenges just like most entrepreneurs. Last year we took a geocaching challenge of finding one cache in each page of the Utah atlas and we did it. We covered the whole state of Utah. Could tell you a lot more about planning ahead before venturing into deserts with that story. (We thought deserts would have gas stations and restaurants).

I had to deal with another little problem in the water fowl management area. These places have a lot of hunters. I respect their right they have to kill but have a very hard time with this, especially with the sound of fire arms. My brother was killed some years ago and every shot would bring that memory back. I had to keep telling myself that this was another thing I needed to be able to face and force to think that instead of his death, each shot would remind me that he loved life and his hobbies too. Need to work more on this one.

We were reminded again that planning ahead of time would have been a good strategy, since we were freezing in the low temperatures. Funny thing is that when you are shooting the pictures, you don’t feel cold at all, but waiting for the birds can be painful. We got some interesting pictures of cool birds, a lot of birds butts flying away. There are many more bad pictures than good ones but the good ones make up for all others. Can’t refrain from saying that in business we all have more failures than successes but the few successes make up for all the work and frustration.

Besides all things we learned with this experience, one was clear: It is really necessary to take a break every now and then. Not only to release stress but also because with trying new things not related to business gives you the opportunity to find another side of yourself and see different ways to deal with different challenges and to challenge yourself is to find in you a strength you probably didn’t know you had.

Hawk Flying

Enjoy!

See the How to have a remarkable business presentation here.

The top benefit of social media marketing: The number-one advantage is
generating exposure for the business, indicated 81% of all marketers, followed
by increasing traffic and building new business partnerships.

Business owners were more likely to use
social media marketing (90+%) than
employees working for a business (81%).

About one in two
marketers found social media generated qualified leads

61.62% of marketers
who have been using social media
for years report it has helped them
close business. More than half
who spend 16 or more hours per
week find the same results.

Improved search engine rankings
were most prevalent among those
who’ve been using social media for
years, with nearly 80% reporting a
rise (and most reporting a strong
improvement).

Source: White paper source

Mindmaps are visual diagrams to represent concepts or tasks that could be connected.

Its unique unstructured but connected nature makes it a great tool for any kind of brainstorming.
It can also be used for product creation, problem solving, site creation, marketing maps. identify audiences and ideal clients, product launches, sales funnels.
Helps you organize ideas. If you study consumer behavior, you can use this tool to see what is their connection (this would help you find other markets to the same product or service). You may also use it to find new opportunities for content development.

Mind maps are guarantee to improve effectiveness and efficiency in any small business. It can be one of the most valuable tools for small business marketing.

Here are some Mindmaps tools you can check:

Mindjet: Available for MAC and PC

Mindomo

Mindmeister

Much better is to invest in reaching them at least 3 times.

1. Seeding- you need to be prospecting regularly without being too much in your face. On this stage is where you can benefit a lot from social media. Beware not to make the number one mistake: water too much and ruin the seeds- or spend the whole day on Facebook, give too many tips or provide too much access to you.

2. Picking. There is a right moment to pick the flowers before they loose their momentum. Same thing here, there is a right moment to close the sale. Flowers won’t pick themselves and put themselves in a vase, clients won’t take action either without your help.

3. Keep them blooming. You want your plants to bloom again just like you want existing clients to keep buying. Long lasting prosperity is achieved by selling over and over again to existing clients. Too many times we invest to make a prospect become a client, so our first sale does not bring profits. By selling other solutions to them at different price points is where profit is made.

Jon Jantsch

I had the privilege of interviewing Jason Mars and he shared some great insights on how to work price in different business models.

Here is the interview for you, just click on the link:

Listen to Price Strategies Now

Here are some third party social media marketing applications that can make your life a lot easier.

1. Tweetdeck: Easy to manage YouTube, Facebook and Twitter in one view. You can manage people you follow in lists.

2. Ping.fm and Hellotxt; Update your status in several platforms. About 50 of social networks. Post can be made online or mobile.

3. Seesmic: similar to Tweetdeck but allows you to manage multiple profile accounts

4. SocialOimph: Allows you to postdate posts on Twitter and Facebook fan pages. Has many other cool features too.

5. 8hands: This is an aggregator that streams notifications in real time and where you get summaries and statistics on your social networking activities. It covers content from multiple accounts.

6. Chi.mp centralizes content and contacts. Good for people without a website.

See? Small business marketing online just became a lot easier.

1. To host mobile meetings: Campfirenow.com.
You can chat with a group through your devices, share files and view YouTube videos.

2. to keep track of expenses on the go.
i need this one. It is proongo.com
You can even take photos of receipts to track expenses. you can also view expenses by employees and approve or deny.

3. Travel plans: Tripit.com
The app uses info from confirmation e-mails with maps and directions.

4. Access your secure network
roverapps.com
Lets you access secure file and offer several tasks.

5. Manage your connections
addieu.com
Exchange contact details and follow them.

1888PressRelease.com
24-7 Press Release
AddPR.com
BizEurope.com
eCommWire.com
Express-Press-Release.com
Free-News-Release.com
Free-Press-Release.com
Free-Press-Release-Center.info
FreePressIndex.com
FreePressRelease.co.cc
FreePressReleases.co.uk
i-Newswire.com
IndiaPRWire.com
MediaSyndicate.com
MyFreePR.com
NewswireToday.com
PageRelease.com
PR.com
PR9.net
PR-Inside.com
PRCompass.com
PRlog.com
PRurgent.com
PRzoom.com
PressAbout.com
PressBox.co.uk
PressFlow.co.uk
PressMethod.com
PressRelease.com
PressReleasePoint.com
TechPRSpider.com
TheOpenPress.com

77% goes to Youtube while 3.1% goes to Hulu

Did I mentioned all businesses should be using online videos in their social media marketing efforts. Let me say that in different words: Small business marketing needs to contain online videos.

We have a new intro and format and I would really appreciate your comments here.

Watch BuzzBoooster TV right now.

It is incredible how many people stop right at this step. Excuses, lack of time, postponing,  are just a few reasons why they don’t do it.

But it comes down to taking action and making it happen.  Especially when it comes to small business marketing. Nothing else.  Just do it.

We watched this video during the meeting and I thought you might enjoy it as well.

The sure-fire recipe for business success

Wait, I was confused. There’s a sure-fire recipe for delicious chocolate chip cookies. There is in fact a magic formula.

For businesses, not so much. There isn’t one secret, one process, one solution. Instead, there are a thousand or maybe a million.

It’s not a jigsaw puzzle, it’s a strand of DNA, easily rearranged and sometimes it even works. For a while.

Now why is this important to your business? Because here lies a huge opportunity to market to all Kindle owners for free.

See the paragraph above where I mentioned I can carry in my Kindle books, magazines and blogs? Yes, blogs.

If you have one, you can submit to Amazon and have it available for Kindle owners.

People will be able to subscribe to your blog, free for 14 days and after that pay a monthly subscription to read your content. Amazon will share this subscription with you. Here is a revenue opportunity for your blog, but I think the best part is the possibility to reach an audience you couldn’t reach before.

In order to have your blog available for Kindle owners you need to go to Amazon, Kindle Store and then click on Blogs and set up a publishing account. After that you will need to provide some basic information about your blog like the RSS feed, how often you publish, what is the blog about etc.

Submit and after a couple of days Amazon will review and approve your blog.

You will be able to check later how many people subscribe to your blog. Note that the real reason you are doing this is because your blog will be on the search engine in the Kindle store and on Amazon. This is great in itself because is giving you visibility.

Don’t forget that your blog needs to be updated consistently.

Every offline business wants more customers. That s why you hang signs in your window and outside your door, to attract people s attention and entice them to come in.

But if you are focusing solely on the people who walk past every day, you re missing out on the huge market that constantly looks for services online. There are 300 million internet searches performed every day and a whopping 3 billion of them are performed on a monthly basis! About half of these people are looking for local businesses to buy from. The question is whether or not they can find YOU.

This is why it s worth spending some time making sure you are listed in as many online local directories as possible. Don t restrict yourself to the people who are already walking down your street. Get yourself listed online in some of these directories and you can reel in people from further afield as well. Just imagine there are people out there who are driving around trying to find a business just like yours. If you re listed online they have the ability to find you immediately. And, if you have more than one location you can list them all so they can find the one nearest to where they are.

An offline business can list all the important information quite easily online. Your business name, address, phone number and location can all be listed. If someone searches for your kind of business online, they ll find you on search engines, online directories and local directories of all kinds. You can also make it easy for them to find you on social networking sites, which means you don t even have to have a website. Simply link to your Facebook or LinkedIn profile or whatever other social network you belong to.

In this way people can find you by using their computers or even their cell phones. Once they ve got your details they can find you with their mobile or GPS navigation devices. Could you imagine how many more customers you might get as a result of listing your business in these local directories?

You won t have to worry about customers finding incorrect information if you happen to change phone numbers or locations for some reason either. Quick changes are easy to make in order to keep your listing accurate. When you consider that most of these directories are free to use as well, you d be missing a trick if you didn t use them. The only reason you would pay to use some of them is if you wanted to have an enhanced listing to gain more visibility.

The majority of offline business owners know how important advertising is to keep their business going. But you don t want to spend more than necessary to get the results you want. These directories not only reduce PPC costs, they also reduce your overall advertising costs. So not only can you increase your revenue from being more visible to more customers, you can also do it for less cash.

What kind of savings are we talking about here? Well, think about the amount you spend on your print advertising every month. Whatever that amount might be, you ll be spending a lot less getting listed in hundreds of local directories online. These listings not only bring you direct traffic, they can also provide you with a way to brand your business on a consistent basis.

Having a website isn t necessary to enjoy all these benefits. But if you do have one you can get a one-way link back to that site further strengthening your position and credibility, especially with Google, with the search engines.

The best thing about being listed in every appropriate directory is that your customers can review your business online too. Monitor the feedback and respond to it quickly, making changes for the better as you do. As you gain more feedback and reviews you ll find you get ranked more highly in Google Places as well, so you ll be found even more often.

The only question that s left is why you haven t already started listing your business with all the online local directories?

© 2010 Davis Virtual Assistance. Publication rights granted so long as article and byline are reprinted intact, with all links made live.

Bonnie Jo Davis submits and manages offline business listings to local internet directories. She is a published author, expert in article marketing, and feels comfortable working in a virtual environment. If you need help getting your business into local directories visit http://local-map-listings.com/services-2/local-directory-submission for more information.

This year thousand of biking professionals and aficionados watched with heart ache how Lance Armstrong started losing time daily through out the Tour of France stages. Weeks before the Tour I read several articles where Armstrong positively explained the superiority of his team, the coaching staff and his personal readiness to make a new attempt for the title.

There is quite a story behind the stunning results. Armstrong was disheartened to realize to what extent the younger cyclist participating in the 2010 Tour de France were capable of. The fans, the critics and the world witnessed also the defeat of the champion. Many of them heavily criticized Lance for the foolish decision to attempt to conquer the yellow jersey one more time

Now that is all over I look back and try to put myself on Lance’s position attempting to discover the WHY he decided to do it and what I come out with is that in order to do what he did takes a lot of courage, dedication, toughness and a huge desire to reach success. I truly believe that he was not so much interested on the yellow jersey at the end but rather test his ability to fulfill the expectation to succeed.

As a biker that loves the sport I can see the evolution of the bicycle and how the industry has created the sleekest and fastest bicycles in the world. Without a champion who could provide the resources, passion, design facilities and expertise, the great biking athletes would never have realized their dream.

7. Increase Trust.( if the other ones above are done right, the level of trust will increase naturally. Testimonials here help a lot).

You can listen to a full hour audio here: Irresistible business audio

• Yellow Pages are difficult to track and have limited tracking options. Online marketing offers extensive tracking options.
• Yellow Pages reach can only go so far and if you advertise in more than one directory it can get very expensive. Online marketing has an unlimited reach and is very cost effective.
• You can only change your advertising message on a yearly basis with Yellow Pages. You can change your message online at any time.
• There are over 13 billion searches on the web/month and growing. Yellow Pages receive an approximate 1 billion references/month and is losing more and more customers that advertise in the Yellow Pages every year.

Don’t forget we can help you with local marketing.

Outsourcing allows a company to put more focus on product development and overall operations. Many marketing agencies can often provide the same service as an in-house marketing department, but at half the cost.

By outsourcing you gain the following:

• Specialized skills and expertise
• More time- your most valuable asset
• More implementation
• Fast results

Every time you hear outsourcing marketing you think about how expensive marketing agencies are. Don’t forget that there are some Marketing companies that specialize in small businesses, just like BuzzBooster.  They are not in the business of selling you on expensive advertising, they focus on other strategies like internet marketing, direct response marketing and social media marketing to bring you more exposure and more results.

Here are a few  questions that should assist you in finding a marketing agency that is right for you.

• Area of ExpertiseFind out what their expertise is in.  What do they focus on? Here are common areas of expertise:
  • Search Engine Marketing and Optimization
  • Branding
  • Positioning
  • Affiliate Marketing Development and Management
  • Marketing Strategy and Plan Development
  • Internet Marketing Strategy and Plan Development
  • Lead Generation
  • Sales and Marketing Campaign Development
  • Marketing Classes, Seminars, and Workshops

  Figure out what areas you need help in and look for consultants with expertise in those areas.

Usually, getting the first person to help is the challenging decision. Fear comes to stop you and you will need to overcome that in order to grow. You might have to give a leap of faith. After the first one, this will not be an issue anymore.

Remember that you don’t have to hire an employee. You can start just outsourcing.

I for one, don’t like to micro manage or to be stuck inside an office when I don’t have to. So far, we have a great team that is outsourced.

Now, about the part where you are not clear on how to delegate tasks and how to outsource what to whom, a simple way to deal with that is to use a simple spreadsheet.

It can be really frustrating if a virtual assistant comes to work for you and you just don’t know what tasks to do.

First understand that you will have to delegate, even if you think only you can do it well. This is a trap that won’t allow your business to grow.

Now, back to the spread sheet.

Use 3 columns.

On the first column add areas that you could use advice or help like accountant, lawyers, marketing.

On the second column put all the things you could outsource or teach someone how to do it.

The third column, add things that only you could do. Remember that tasks can always be outsourced, strategies not so much, so you should focus on strategies.

For column one, you should find the expert to help you with those tasks or teach you how to do it fast. Focus on the things that you are good at and outsource the rest. For example, I am not good with numbers, so the first thing we outsourced was accounting. It also makes no sense to spend time in something that I could pay $45 an hour to someone when my time is a lot more valuable than that.

On column 1, you have all the tasks that could be easily delegated to a freelancer, a virtual assistant or a part-time employee.

The third column is for high-profit activities, where you should focus. These are tasks that you get paid a premium and that you enjoy doing. If you free time with the other 2 columns you will be able to increase profits, grow your business and do things you love.

Now, here at BuzzBooster Marketing we use an open source software to manage our products and the people we outsource to. Since we have more than one business and people are not inside our office, the software helps keep things a lot more organized and we can access anytime, anywhere, even from our phones. There are many project management softwares out there, from free to very expensive for you to use.

In order to find people to outsource to, there are also many options. Guru.com and Elance.com are two of them.

Prices in these places tend to be very interesting but don’t forget to check the person’s portfolio and past projects.

Mechanical Turk.com is a new option that seems to work really well. Check that one too.

You can pay people per project or by the hour.

Again, don’t waste time with tasks that are not worth your time or that you are not good at. Focus on becoming even better on the things that you already excel. Outsource all the rest.

Things have changed a lot, the way people buy has changed and the way we sell has changed and the sooner you understand that and change the way you have been marketing, the better. This is especially true if you are still using the same channels to market your business and see decreasing results every time. They will not go back to what used to be normal and most likely they will adapt to the new economy or they will just cease to exist.

There is a reason why last year there were 273 magazines going out of business and you hear all the time that newspapers are dying.

Here are a few things about the new economy and the way you should be marketing to prospects and clients:

1. You need to focus on your prospects problems and not only on your company and products like before. Remember, people search for a solution to a problem.
2. Define the top emotional reasons people purchase your products.
3. Start a dialogue with prospects and clients. This is crucial today and not at all like before where you would just broadcast a message to them using TV, Radio etc.
4. Look for quality of prospects other than the quantity. Everybody is not a prospect and some can bring a lot of headaches. Don’t forget that the gold mine lies in existing clients.
5. Try ideas, fail fast and come back. You don’t need a business plan, you need an action plan.
6. Master business storytelling and tell true stories that are compelling.
7. Provide valuable information using social media tools. That is a lot more effective than spending a lot of money with advertising.
8. The more education you provide, the more profit coming your way.
9. Use an ethical bribe or a compelling offer to build a list of people interested in what you are talking about.
10. Position yourself as the to-go expert.
11. Use tools like teleseminars or online videos to get the word out and position yourself in the market.
12. Make a sale to get a client. Don’t focus only on the first sale and create upsells.
13. You need several products or different services. There is a lot of money in the back-end offers. Give buyers more chances to buy and they will spend more. Repeat sales can increase profits by 22%
14. Create a continuity program
15. Leverage technology. Stop giving excuses that you were not born in front of a computer, or you are too old and start using technology not only to attract prospects but to follow-up in an automated way. For example, using auto-responders.

The Popcorn effect gives several tips on social media marketing for small business and is a great guide for beginners.

Just sign up for it on any page at the right side box.