Successful Blog

Images & Words: 5 Ways to Attract People and Opportunity

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When I started blogging in summer 2005, I wanted to keep the writer’s discipline of writing every day. No one could have predicted, that it would lead me to several blogs, an outstanding business partner, a strategy summit, a consulting business, and a place in a fabulous community. When I started photographing the sunrise in spring 2011, I wanted to keep a writer’s discipline of remembering to look out my window every day. The photos are starting to write stories with me. Now I’m starting to wonder where that will lead …

Once …
I’d start the day worrying.
I’d start the day revisiting anything that might need fixing.
I’d start the day thinking of what might go wrong or what could go missing.
That sort of thinking attracted more people with problems to me.

Then I noticed that I find what I go looking for.
When I looked for problems, I found problems.

Now …
I start the day is by fueling up with good things.
Instead of problems I find opportunities.
and the result has been that this thinking attracts people who represent opportunities.

Here are

5 Ways to Attract People with Opportunities

Don’t miss the colors of this morning dawning – it’s a chance for refueling.

We need fuel to bring our best to what we’re seeing.

Be still and catch the light to gather your owned wisdom.

We need to be whole to connect what we know to the opportunity in any situation.

Take in the long view to understand your position.

The longer view allows us to get some idea of what other folks are seeing.

Keep an eye to the sky as it frames YOUR future.

Big dreams are tempting, but knowing which you’ll be owning is irresistibly attractive.

Light up and inspire everyone around you with your aspirations.

Sharing light is magnetic. It gives people energy.

People are the opportunity. They have ideas and networks that could move you to the next place where you need to be. Fill up each morning with positive energy so that you can bring yourself to them. You’ll be amazed at the people who start noticing.

Aren’t you better when you’re smiling?

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Thanks to Week 333 SOBs

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Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

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Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

6 NICE Marketing Tricks to Boost Your Small Business

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If you are the owner of any small business, the most serious problem that you face is to arrange the required finances. This is very important since you require fixed as well as working capital to run your business. Here, it is to be noted that you have a wide variety of financing options too. You can take out a commercial mortgage loan or you can opt for a commercial mortgage refinance. But, anyways, you need to ensure that you can repay the mortgages. Besides this, another thing that you must look into very seriously is the marketing. Through proper and intelligent marketing you can open the various channels to sell your products. This in turn helps you raise your business revenues. Here we discuss about some successful marketing strategies that you must take into consideration.

Use free classifieds

One excellent marketing strategy to promote your small would be to use free classified ad services. You can explore various online classified ads to prop up your business. Apart from these, there are some other free offline classified ads options in your local area. Even options are there for free inclusions of ads in local print media. Through these routes, you can indeed boost your business. In order to know more about these options, you can conduct online searches.

Tread social media routes

In modern times, social media platform has opened up excellent opportunities to promote your business. Various social media websites offer you wonderful and free way to market your products and services. This platform can be gainfully utilized to enhance business connection, gain leads and to bring in more customers. You can also participate in various online forums to enhance your knowledge.

Resort to mutually beneficial advertising

One smart way to market your products and services is to engage in reciprocity advertising. You can look for cross promotion of the products and services with other business owners located in your area. You can easily find out some business owners who are also willing to do this. The aim of this marketing strategy is to raise the customer base of your business.

Marketing through writing or blogging

If you have knack of writing, you can take the help of different article writing and blogging websites and can write articles about the products and services that you sell. This way you can surely bring in some customers for your products and services.

Advertise through press releases

You need to regularly write press releases and need to send those releases to appropriate routes. After going through those press releases, many buyers may become interested to the products and services that you offer.

Explore networking options

You need to keep yourself updated about various networking events that are taking place in your locality. These events and meet ups are like mini-marketing campaign. Moreover, these help you keep yourself updated about different developments related to your business.

These are only few marketing strategies which help you raise your sales volume. Apart from these, there are various other marketing strategies that you can follow for your small business.

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Author’s Bio:
Samantha Taylor is the Community Mentor of MortgageFit and has been contributing her suggestions to the Community since 2005. She has made notable contributions through the articles written on subjects related to the mortgage industry for the MortgageFit community.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Five Timeless Tactics Link Builders Could Learn from Spammers

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Finding the Lessons

Note: of course, this post is not meant to idolize spammers; however one should never shy away from learning a thing of two, even if it is coming from the devil itself.

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Internet and spammers are inseparable. If you are online, you’re bound to come across some spam every now and then, be it your inbox; forums, blogs, website, or social network, no place is out of spam’s way, just a little opening or negligence on your part can result in a flood of spam emails, posts, or comments … but no matter what form it takes, the spam continues to be a nuisance, especially if it is carrying Trojans or malware with it.

But this post is not about the evils of spam; instead it is an earnest attempt to wheedle out some invaluable lessons out of the adventures (rather misadventures) of these spammers. When we look at it, there’s a lot to learn for link builders in the shenanigans of spammers, let’s take a look at some of these lessons.

1. Tireless approach:

It’ll be interesting to try and find out the first spam message that was generated over the Internet and the first lucky recipient. But whoever it was, the spam has continued to exist for ages. One of the most impressive things about these spammers is that they never get tired of sending spam, then following it up with more spam, and then following up the “follow-up” with even more spam. That’s dedication for you, and that’s what you need to learn. Please remember that I am not directing you to start spamming the hell out of the website owner with a request to link to your website, I am just telling you to take inspiration from the dedication and apply it on your link building strategies.

2. Lack of remorse:

A good salesman is never shy of marketing its product or services at whatever platform or opening it gets. If you are a blog owner, you must have got some of those spam and promotional articles that make you wonder if the sender really thinks that you are going to publish this crap on your blog or website? But a spammer doesn’t think that way; they will give it a try without bothering much about the receiver’s reaction. Again, the lesson is not being indifferent to other’s feelings or thoughts, but to be a little bolder in your proposals and link building efforts.

3. Opportunism:

Spammers have this tremendous ability to sense the opportunity, as soon as they find a little opening, they’ll fill in the inbox with dozens of spam messages. When they look at a certain platform like social media websites, blogs, or forums, all they have in mind is to see if there’s an opportunity to spam. That’s the kind of “eye” you need to have, only difference is that you will be looking for a way to acquire link and not spamming.

4. Reach:

Spammers are good at reaching out and finding new platforms all the time, they can crawl the internet with the ferocity of Google’s crawler. They won’t spare a website in a foreign language, they won’t shy away from spamming an abandoned blog, and they won’t think twice before promoting a link building service to a link building agency. That’s the kind of reach or coverage a link builder needs to have to keep finding new domains and opportunities for getting a link.

5. Flexibility:

One of the most admirable qualities of spammers is to quickly adapt to all new technologies and shifts in trends. No matter how complex is a system, and no matter how many checks are in place, they will still find a way to spam. And even if they can’t find a way to spam, they will keep trying to find one. They are also the fastest in adopting to new changing trends, from email to social networks, and from forums to blogs, they have managed to leave their marks on each and everything which has exist on Internet. What a link builder needs to take out from all that is the flexibility to adopt with the new technologies and trends taking place, and finding a way to build their link building goals around these trends.

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Author’s Bio:

Rahil is an online entrepreneur. At his website Weight Loss Triumph you will find a 6pm promotion and you can redeem a discount for Shoe Buy. In addition to current deals and discounts, you will find many different coupons to help you save big on your shopping.

Be Prepared

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A Guest Post by
Rosemary O’Neill

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Within the last year, I lost a cyber-friend unexpectedly. I use the “cyber” qualifier only because I never met him in person, and I never even spoke with him on the phone. However, we frequently connected on several different social platforms, and he was a long-time customer as well. Imad Naffa was an intelligent, energetic, and prolific person, and I miss him still.

Even though he passed several months ago, I still see his face or his name pop up from time to time in notifications, buddy lists, and my old content. Each time this happens, I take a moment and offer a little prayer for his family.

But it really started me thinking about the consequences of our digital lifestyles. I don’t use pre-scheduled content very often, so when I pass, my voice will stop rather abruptly. However, my hope is that I’ve built a legacy of relationships, useful content, and a company that endures. Imad built an amazing, valuable company and community for those who deal with building codes and permits (http://www.naffainc.com/).

I also want to ensure that those I leave behind can pick up the ball gracefully.

Here are some ideas and resources that can support your digital legacy planning.

Great blog post about digital wills
http://socialimprove.com/blog/can-you-profit-from-a-digital-will

Four steps to manage your digital afterlife, from CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505146_162-57368367/4-steps-to-manage-your-digital-afterlife/

How to notify Facebook of death & account memorials
http://blog.entrustet.com/digital-executor-toolbox/how-to-delete-and-memorialize-facebook-accounts/

Can your heirs inherit your digital downloads?
(Note the response from the anonymous iTunes support employee in the comments)
http://conversation.which.co.uk/technology/digital-download-legal-rights-after-death-amazon-itunes-apple/

How to notify Twitter of death
https://support.twitter.com/groups/33-report-a-violation/topics/122-reporting-violations/articles/87894-how-to-contact-twitter-about-a-deceased-user

Mega-resource list of digital death, memorial or afterlife services
http://www.thedigitalbeyond.com/online-services-list/

Have you created a plan to ensure your digital legacy endures?

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Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out their blog. You can find her on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee
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Is Layoff a Precursor to Running Your Own Business?

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With the endless string of layoffs that hit American businesses the last few years, many workers were left to fend for themselves, wondering how long it may be in between jobs. For some, however, a job lost is an opportunity gained.

Whether it was a lifelong dream or born out of necessity, countless individuals have taken those layoffs and turned them into the opportunity to start and run their own small businesses. In doing so, however, they are oftentimes left with myriad of questions, both from themselves and from family and friends.

Prior to striking out on your own with what could be your dream of a lifetime, keep several things in mind about how to start a business.

On the positive side:

  • Individuals find themselves with the opportunity to make their own decisions for a change, something that can prove very refreshing;
  • Individuals are able to set their own hours. It should be noted, however, that run one’s own business oftentimes involves a lot more time and energy, especially if there is a family involved. The days of the 9 to 5 routine may very well be gone in such a situation;
  • Individuals can earn more money running their own business as opposed to working for someone else, but keep in mind that there are also more expenditures when being self-employed;
  • Individuals will likely have to find their own health insurance coverage since they are no longer under a company’s employ. There are also things to consider like employing others, providing workers comp coverage, having business insurance and more.

On the negative side:

  • Individuals are required to make all their own decisions, meaning more time and effort must go into planning things out not only today, tomorrow, next week and next month, but the next year or two;
  • Individuals may be scraping the barrel when it comes to finding all the necessary funds to not only start the business, but keep it afloat early on. We all know that many small businesses fail within the first year to three years, so make sure you have a financial lifeline available if you need it;
  • Individuals should they choose to hire employees essentially become psychologists. No two employees are alike, so expect to have to oversee an array of personalities. Running a small business is hard enough, don’t let those under you become a major distraction;
  • Individuals will have a ton of paperwork to deal with. While a small business owner can and likely will hire someone to do their books and may even have legal counsel at their disposal, there is still a paper trail that leads back to them. You need to make sure you’re an organized individual who can respond rather quickly to any customer issues, financial audits, potential lawsuits and more.

The downtrodden economy of the last few years has in turn opened up a number of doors for people who otherwise would likely still be with their employer or another one.

If your dreams of opening a small business still remain important to you, take the time to weigh the pros and cons of such a move.

Remember, it is your business to get it right the first time around.

Dave Thomas, who covers among other items obtaining phone systems, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.