The headline reads, “Smiles Can Ease Stress at the Office.” The article was written by syndicated columnist, Michelle Singletary, and in it she mentioned the number of businesses that were laying off staff and closing locations leaving those employees who kept their jobs to shoulder more responsibility. She noted that this added more stress to the employees who remained.
In the article Michelle also reviewed a book that focused on the the need for levity in the workplace. The book highlighted the need for employers to create a fun and light atmosphere on the job and incorporate these in emails, memos, voice mails, meetings, and training sessions.
As I read the article I thought of how this article could be applied to entrepreneurs and small business owners. Do you work from home full-time? Are you alone in your home office day after day? Do you take time to smile or even laugh? If you are a small business owner with a brick and mortar store, like a boutique, do you find ways to inject humor into your interactions with your clients and prospects?
There are many types of small businesses where there is a lot of interaction with the public. For example, hair salons, spas, auto supply stores, hardware stores, fabric stores, etc. Because of this interaction there is no shortage of communication and opportunities to inject humor into your day; but taking or making opportunities to smile or laugh when you’re alone may not be something many of us think (more…)
The first part of your business plan takes into consideration your target audience, what they expect, and how the product or service you will be providing will meet or exceed their needs and expectations.
The following sections will apply across the board, but keep in mind that if your audience includes investors, venture firms, and or banks, your business plan would be much more detailed. These are ‘bare bones’ guidelines written with the entrepreneur, solo-professional, or small business owner who needs to have a written business plan to serve as a guide or track to run on.
When organizing a business plan, break it down into sections such as:-
1. Business summary – The product or service you will provide. What you will have to offer must be clearly defined. Imagine that a stranger is reading your document. By the end of the first paragraph your reader must clearly understand whether you will be (more…)
Providing superior customer service in your online business is essential to building lasting relationships with customers and clients. It is an integral part of doing business on the internet. Note that even if you do not have a product and are not yet providing a service other than writing a very informative blog, consider your visitors as your customers or clients.
Understand What the Customer Wants: It’s important to understand buying triggers and purchasing behavior. I love to share products that I’ve found valuable with others. These (more…)
February 25, 2011By: Yvonne A Jones Category: Uncategorized
Goal-setting is a process for personal planning. It could be regarded as a tool for narrowing your focus and segmenting your business so that you can evaluate where you need to give more attention for maximum results.
Goal-setting provides you with long-term vision, while providing you with short-term motivation.
Benefits of Goal-Setting for Entrepreneurs
Setting goals allows you to determine what you want to achieve in your business:
- Do you want to have a hobby that provides a small extra income?
- Do you want to have a serious business that generates a healthy cash flow? (more…)
Recently I read a quote by author Pearl Buck: “I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.”
Building a successful business online brings a lot of satisfaction, but it also brings its own challenges so I really appreciate the above quote. Because we are our own boss we can make excuses for ourselves why we cannot work in our business at any given time.
“It’s too cold and gloomy today.” Well, you’re working from home! Turn on or up the heater, turn on more lights and get to work. I found that while they cost more the “Daylight” or “Natural Light” compact fluorescent lightbulbs make a huge difference, whether I’m working at nights or on a cloudy day.
Compare that to trudging through snow or cold winds to get to a job and you’ll feel better. Building an online business (more…)
October 11, 2010By: Yvonne A Jones Category: Uncategorized
I recently decided to do some research on link building to make sure that I was using the most effective link building strategies in my online business, and especially as it relates to the hub of my business, my blog. During my research I discovered many link building strategies, but here are 10 basic tips to link building that even persons who are brand new to internet marketing can begin to implement. I will go into more detail on some of these in a future post.
1. Offer valuable, high-quality information on your blog. This will bring more ‘organic links’ to your blog. This means that you will naturally attract readers or traffic to your website by providing good content.
2. Make your visitors feel welcome to your website by sharing a little about you in a “Bio” or on an “About” page; and make it easy to navigate.
3. Ask and answer questions on Yahoo Answers. There are lots of Google groups that you can visit and ask or answer questions. Your comments will link back to your website or blog.
4. Visit forums in your niche. Spend short amounts of time getting a feel of the forum as a guest then when you decide to join, create a signature which will include your URL to your website or blog. When you ask questions or post comments you will link back to your blog.
5. Become an active part of the blogosphere. Bloggers are like a community online and when you visit other blogs and leave valuable comments you usually can post your website address. Many bloggers will visit your website and return the courtesy.
6. You can submit your site to web link directories. There are paid ones, but initially just submit to directories that allow free submissions.
7. Be a Guest Blogger on other blogs. These blogs can be in your niche or they may relate somehow. You’ll see examples of Guest Bloggers who have submitted posts on my blog. My most recent post as a Guest Blogger was “4 Effective Ways to Attract Traffic to Your Online Business” on http://kathryngriffiths.com.
8. Article submission. A good-quality article that has a keyword rich title and one that is optimized with keywords can be submitted to not just one but to many article directories. Once people are able to find your article and benefit from the content, you will get inbound links rather quickly.
9. Social Media is an effective way to get inbound links. The main sites that I’d encourage you to spend some time on if you are not already doing so are Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
10. Social Bookmarking. This is one area that I have not explored, but my research indicates that it’s an effective strategy. Social bookmarking sites like Digg, Technorati, StumbleUpon are great ways to get links to your site. You register and submit your site or articles for people to bookmark, which gives you popularity and more links.
If you were to read my recent guest post mentioned above, you’ll note that some of these strategies are mentioned. This is because many of the marketing strategies that attract traffic to our website or blog are the same that will give us back-links, one-way links and grow our link building strategies effectively.
Savvy internet marketers consider their blog their home on the internet and therefore seek to improve their writing skills to become a better blogger.
Here are two ways that we can implement in our blogging schedule to become a better blogger.
1. Write Keyword-Rich Posts
There are times you write an article about a topic that answers a question one of your readers asked. However, it’s recommended that you optimize at least post every week. A quick way to identify keywords and long-tail keyword phrases on your topic is to use Google keyword tool at https://adwords.google.com or wordtracker.com.
2. Create Variety in Your Posting Style
To create variety for your readers, you may want to write posts of different lengths – some long, some short. This post is an example that. Most of my posts are between 300 and 500 words so to have a post of less that 200 words took a lot of effort on my part to condense these points.
I’d love to get your opinion…and I promise not take it badly:) I want you to enjoy your visit to my website. Which type of post would you prefer to read on my blog?
1. Longer, ‘meaty’ posts as is my preferred writing style, or
2. Short, concise posts.
Please leave your comments in the ‘Comment’ section.
August 31, 2010By: Yvonne A Jones Category: Uncategorized
woman reading a gift card
How many times you’ve been out shopping and as you walk back through your door you recall that you should have bought some greeting cards? Have you ever suddenly remembered that it’s your best friend’s Anniversary in a week’s time and you have not mailed her a greeting card, or even purchased it yet? How many times have you thought of sending your clients a “thank you” card but the thought of writing 20, 30 or 50 cards is so daunting you never get started?
I know this happens because it used to happen to me. I’ve also had people tell me in March that they have unwritten cards they should have sent out in November or December of the previous year but it was such an overwhelming task that it got started but was not completed.
Send Out Cards is a unique greeting card system with a complete online service (more…)
August 25, 2010By: Yvonne A Jones Category: Uncategorized
A bumble bee…Is she asking me about my shape, you may be wondering? And, no, this has nothing to do with the brand of tuna. Let’s take a closer look at the bumble bee for a few minutes.
The bumble bee’s body is large and is supported in the air by two pairs of very thin wings connected together so that they look like just one pair. A statement attributed to scientists around the mid-19th century and again in the early 20th century concerning the ability of the bumble bee to fly has proven to be a myth. The view was held for many years that aerodynamically the bumble bee should not be able to fly, but it flies anyway. Although the original calculations proved to be faulty and we recognize that the bumblebee was created with the ability to fly, people still continue to quote the thought.
Ivars Peterson goes further to confirm that “on average, a bumblebee travels at a rate of 3 meters (almost 10 feet) per second, beating its wings 130 times per second. That’s quite respectable for the insect world.”
The bumblebee CAN fly: Women, more often than men, are told that that they cannot possibly achieve a particular goal. One that bothered me over the years was when a woman saw the flexibility and opportunity to start her own (more…)
The headline reads, “Smiles Can Ease Stress at the Office.” The article was written by syndicated columnist, Michelle Singletary, and in it she mentioned the number of businesses that were laying off staff and closing locations leaving those employees who kept their jobs to shoulder more responsibility. She noted that this added more stress to the employees who remained.
