So…

You’re loving your followers on Twitter…

You’re building friends on your Facebook fan page…

You’re working your Linked In groups…

You’re visiting relevant niche focused influencers’ blogs and commenting with keyword rich verbiage that links back to a specific page to continue the conversation…

You have an opt-in on your website and you’re building a database list for backend promotion…

You’ve monetized your expert subject matter information into downloadable digital products…

Your authority building promotional articles are being published to other people’s blogs monthly…

You are publishing your own reputation building blog daily….

You’re seeing increases in your conversions and sales (list building and revenue results) and you even got a write up in a national online magazine…

To say you are an online marketing goddess doesn’t even come close! Life online is GOOD!

Oh, wait – excuse me…am I not describing you?

Oh, how embarrassing…um, maybe to keep all that happening (or get it happening if it’s not), you could create an online communication schedule. You won’t always necessarily follow it, but it’ll be a guide for you in creating your goddess quality online content.

Here are some tips on how to do it:

Pick 50 keywords to focus on

Start with just 10 if you wish, but choose ones that describe your services/product, your values and character, your clients’ needs, your niche or industry, and your unique value and focus in the marketplace. You’ll be concentrating on these words in your blog posts, your social media blurbs, your headlines, your entire marketing funnel. If the words are the ones your niche uses to find stuff on Google, then you’re going in the right direction.

For me, as an example – I would use marketing, online, women entrepreneurs, social media, philanthropy, pro bono, internet marketing, Austin, TX, business, beginning entrepreneurs, global, literacy, sharing, empowerment…you get the picture.

Decide your publishing timeline

I’d suggest daily or at least 3 times per week for your blogging, at least once daily for all of your social media homes (probably more on Twitter), at least once a week for commenting on other people’s blogs or forums, and at least monthly for new promotional articles.

If you aren’t able to do this on the fly real time day to day, create a bunch of material at one time when you’re feeling uber creative and schedule it out to launch automatically. If you are “too busy”, hire someone to help you, either a ghostwriter, a VA, or an intern – heck, go for the gold and do all three! Just commit to no excuses on this. If your clients can’t find you and if what they find isn’t compelling, you won’t be in business to be busy for very long any way. No excuses!

Keep going!

Even if you fall off schedule, keep going. Bootstrap online promotion techniques work really well, but frequency matters and regularly updating your content will make the Google spiders visit you more often. You deserve visibility and you can go from the world’s best kept secret to a promotional diva in a relatively short time if you show up and keep at it. The world needs you – please let us have you!

Still stuck? Try listening to this free, no opt-in preview call I did on how to turn 10 hrs of time into one month of online content. It will get your creativity going: Click here to listen to The Efficient Entrepreneur preview call

Final note: If I am coming off a bit harsh, please forgive me. It’s just that every day I see so many amazing, fantastic women with so much to share who are hiding from success. I have to swallow my own medicine too – none of us are immune from letting the urgent get in the way of the important, so I will crawl down off my soapbox now and go write a promotional article. *wink*

Together, we are stronger!
Vicki Flaugher, CEO SmartWoman Guides

I have had the pleasure recently to join a mastermind group and intend to join another. It has been a great experience so far and has already helped my focus, determination, and work output. I thought you might appreciate some resources to review this idea, to get you thinking about how you can benefit from joining in with others to build your business.

The articles are short and designed to give you a taste. It won’t take much time for you to plant the seed in your mind and let it grow. When you allow others in to help, the creativity and power grows exponentially. I regret that I have waited so long to do it, and encourage you to take action. I mean it when I  say – Together, we are stronger!

Passion For Business: What Is a Master Mind Group and How to Create?:

MasterMind Group Planning Guide ebook

Some Thoughts and Different Approches to Running a Mastermind Group

Evan Carmichael’s Mastermind Resources Blogsite

Tips by Wendy Maynard at Kinetic Ideas

Meet and Grow Rich: How to Easily Create and Operate Your Own “Mastermind” Group for Health, Wealth, and More Book by Joe Vitale and Bill Hibbler

By Vicki Flaugher, CEO of SmartWoman Guides

Many modern entrepreneurs brag about their ability to “multi-task”. They see themselves as expert jugglers, constantly on the go, with their attention here, there, and everywhere. Somehow they think that speed applied to as many different channels as they can muster will skyrocket their success forward.

For awhile, it seems to work, this hyperactive and quite delicate balance of spinning so many plates at a time. Like a circus act doing magic tricks, it seems entertaining and perhaps even the right thing to do. But eventually, something happens to nudge the balancing act – sometimes even just one small thing -  and it all comes crashing down. The havoc wreaked by an even larger nudge, such as a major illness or loss of a family member, not only stops the spinning, but breaks the china plates to the point of no return.

I want to be perfectly clear – mult-tasking is a myth, a fabricated concept that isn’t even true in reality, and, more importantly, is probably hurting your business. It might even be threatening your health and safety.

From an article entitled The Myth of Multitasking by Christine Rosen, in the New Atlantis, here’s some information for you to ponder:

“In 2005, the BBC reported on a research study, funded by Hewlett-Packard and conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London, that found, ‘Workers distracted by e-mail and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers.’ “

“One study by researchers at the University of California at Irvine monitored interruptions among office workers; they found that workers took an average of twenty-five minutes to recover from interruptions such as phone calls or answering e-mail and return to their original task.”

“Discussing multitasking with the New York Times in 2007, Jonathan B. Spira, an analyst at the business research firm Basex, estimated that extreme multitasking—information overload—costs the U.S. economy $650 billion a year in lost productivity.”

What we perceive as multitasking is actually a very, very fast switching between singular events, not doing multiple events at one time. If you change back and forth quickly enough, you may interpret those events to be simultaneous, but your brain does not. It’s having to move it’s attention and its firing neurons in a rapid fire, shallow manner to keep up. Like a form of chosen ADD,  we order our brain to keep up with so many points of information that we get fatigued, drained, and we greatly hamper our memory capacity.

And if we multi-task while we are trying to learn? Ms. Rosen cites another source here:

“In one recent study, Russell Poldrack, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that ‘multitasking adversely affects how you learn. Even if you learn while multitasking, that learning is less flexible and more specialized, so you cannot retrieve the information as easily.’ “

So , what are you doing right now? Is the bell of a new incoming email sounding, is your phone vibrating, is the TV on, or maybe you’re also listening to a training audio? Do you become panic stricken as you contemplate a life doing one thing at a time, with deep attention and focus? Do you have a million and one reasons why multitasking is good for you? Research isn’t on your side promoting that view, so perhaps an adult  “time out” is in order? It’s something to think about,  one thought at a time…

Together, we are stronger!
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman

follow me on Twitter: SmartWoman

Part of what keeps any entrepreneur going is their vision. Too often, though, it’s easy to get distracted by the day to day concerns of building and running a business. So, how do you really create a solid vision for your business? Below are a few ideas you can embrace to get you moving in the right direction.

1.  Get help

The value of coaches and mentors and heroes cannot be underestimated. Prideful stubborness, where you confuse doing it “your way” with a closed minded unwillingness to entertain a variety of opinions, is a mistake. Yes, you are the decider. That is your job and your responsibility. But, every great leader surrounds themselves with high level advisors, specialists in each field that is needed to succeed. The idea is not to do it alone but rather to be the singular visionary who coordinates the expert activities of amazingly talented people toward completion of the mission.

Another way to get help, if you’re not interested in including a group of real life individuals in your business, is to do your research. Sites like EvanCarmichael.com offer you profiles and interviews of some of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time. Entrepreneur focused magazines share the views of experts on how they run their businesses in this modern time, if you want a contemporary rather than historical view. Scientific business journals that study the science of networking, sales technique research studies, and more give you a greater view than you could possibly have on your own.

What it gets down to is, whether you choose physical helpers or virtual ones, you need helpers. Do not reinvent the wheel and don’t be afraid to share information with others. It will magnify your efforts tremendously if you simply widen your peripheral vision and deepen your knowledge base.

2.  Brainstorming is an art that leads to brilliant ideas

The hardest part of brainstorming is keeping the phases of idea creation and idea editing apart from each other. It’s too easy, as you are creatively throwing out wild ideas, to stop the creative flow and pick apart how it will or won’t work. Don’t do this. It kills the creative process. How to make your ideas happen is for after the creative process is done.

Once you start the brainstorming process, put your critic on hold and let the ideas flow. Crazy ideas on top of crazy ideas lead to new, brilliant ideas that are outside the box. Especially if you are brainstorming with other people (highly recommended), you will find that power plays interrupt you, critical analysis interrupts you, and “logical realism” will intrude. Have a white board ready to park those ideas so they don’t get forgotten to discuss another time, but actively insist that the practical does not intrude on the whimsical.

3.  Pen and paper are your friends

Some of your best thinking will solidify when you write your ideas down. There’s something inexplicable that happens when you put your ideas down in black and white. They become real. If you are a fan of the Law of Attraction, you already know this. If you are a list maker with a practical streak, you know this too. It’s a simple concept, and many very successful entrepreneurs do it, so I would suggest that you try it. Something magical happens when your logical brain is focused on the mechanics of writing that allows your imaginative spirit to run free. I do it and it works.

When you write down your goals or your ideas, write them down from a present tense, positive point of view. For example, instead of saying “Someday I will not be fat” (using a personal example) but rather “I am slim and healthy”. It feels a little weird at first, but it will help. Shifting your focus from being against something (I am not poor, I do not have debt, my business does not fail), move instead toward concentrating on the positive result (I am wealthy, I have a positive net cash flow, my business continues profitably and successfully).

4.  Last but not least, time is golden

Hard working entrepreneurs sometimes mistakenly interpret spending time thinking and imagining as wasting time. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. The time you spend thinking about your business, envisioning your future, and solidifying your dream is time that will magnify your success.You must schedule time to reflect and keep that appointment as religiously as you would any client appointment.

It’s very challenging to manage the detailed day to day issues and also use what I call your “big thinking”. I recommend that you spend at least one day each week- that’s right, one full day – working on your business instead of it in. Examine how you can improve your processes, examine where you are doing repetitive tasks that you could outsource, spend time thinking about the next big idea you are going to implement. Get outside your grind and think bigger, think more, and imagine sensational success.

Would your current sales process even work if you were to be wildly successful? What would happen if a million visitors came to your website today? Would it net you any profits or would it just crash your server? Spending time thinking of the mechanics of success not just hedging against disaster is a profitable endeavor. You are the visionary of your business and anything less than that is not stepping up. Every week you need to commit to and act upon that job of being the leader.

This is a subject that I feel sometimes gets overlooked and ignored. I am a strong supporter of clarity, so grab yourself a cup of coffee, find a quiet place without distractions and think bigger. Know that you are worth this time and that it is bringing you success. Be sure to have a notepad and pen with you and get it out and get it down on paper. Then, go do it.

Together, we are stronger!
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman

Are You Ready for a Challenge?
 
There’s nothing like quite like a good old fashioned challenge to see what we are made of, to push the boundaries and test the limits as its only when we overcome these type of trials and challenges that we reap the sweetest rewards in life.
 
September 22nd is an important date as it marks the 100 day countdown of 2008. With that in mind, I wanted to share with you a unique opportunity called the 100 Day Finish Strong Challenge.
 
Gary Ryan Blair, otherwise know as The Goals Guy has put together what I believe to be the most comprehensive approach to goal setting and performance enhancement.

The 100 Day Finish Strong Challenge is a structured performance improvement program where challengers compete against themselves to achieve a number of challenging goals and finish the year strong. I’ve signed up for it and am inviting all aspiring entrepreneurs who need an end of year kick in the pants to accept the challenge and get going. It’s only up from here, baby!
 
To get on the priority notification list for the challenge, go to this website right now and watch a really inspiring video as well:

SmartWoman Recommends The Goals Guy – 100 Day Challenge!

I wish you a great home stretch during these last 100 days and encourage you to dream big dreams and take the necessary actions to make them reality!

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman

P.S. You can also sign up for this program to promote it as an affiliate here.

Today, I am launching a new fun project for myself. We talk about leveraging our time, being gutsy, building momentum and taking one small step here at SmartWomanGuides, so today it begins.

I will be adding a new revenue stream to my life (on this website or others) every day for the next 30 days. I will keep you posted on my progress.

The rules I will follow are simple:

Must be leveraged, passive, or residual in nature.
Must be something I believe in and can recommend with integrity.
Must be in keeping with my audience’s needs.
Must be fun, easy, and now.

I am open to your suggestions on what you’d like to see available here, so feel free to add your input in the comment section. And, if you’re inspired, do the same month of products for yourself and let us know about what you’re doing.

Wish me luck!

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman

P.S. If you want to keep posted on the monthly progress, be sure to sign up for my RSS feed or follow me on twitter @SmartWoman

Deciding feels empowering.  When you finally make up your mind that you are going to achieve a particular goal, you are filled with a calmness. It’s only when I sit on the fence that I feel trepidation. A dear mentor of mine used to joke “Do you know what sitting on the fence will get you? (answer = splinters in your butt)”. There’s just something about making up your mind that helps.

Too often, though, the next stage is “but how do I do that?” and all kinds of personal doubt and fear begin seeping into your decision. The “who, what, where, when, how?”, creeps into your rosy decidedness and your calmness flies out the window.

When this happens, I do several things. First, I mentally stand firm – get determined – to take whatever actions it will require to accomplish the goal I decided on achieving. I commit to myself that I will go the distance. I act like a coach, telling myself I can do it, that I have what it takes, and that I’m “in it to win it”. Mentally, it sounds like a high school track meet rally. A little cheesy perhaps, but I would recommend you try it for yourself before you knock it. It works for me.

Next, I make a list of what I think it will take to accomplish my goal. I do this lightly and creatively, capturing all I can (see the project management 101 post to get more detail.) I include in this listing an honest recognition of my abilities. Just like the children’s story about the little engine that could, I tell myself “I think I can”. I don’t count on mantras or positive self talk to make me a gold medal gymnast if I can’t even do a cartwheel, but if I’ve done tasks before (or know someone who can do it for me), I mentally check off that part of it. By mentally setting it aside, the weight of the challenge lessens. I only really have to evaluate the difficulty of the unknown, of what I haven’t done before or don’t have a resource to do it. Usually about 75% or more is already a controllable and managable known item, so really it’s only the balance of the issue that needs to be investigated or resolved.

Secondly, I develop the habit of always returning to my decision. Not to reevaluate it, or question its validity, but rather to commit to it, again and again. Declaring your faith in yourself, in your abilities, and in your decision is valuable. It gives you and your ideas energy.

To declare my faith, I take some deep breaths and I say that I embrace and respect my decision. I claim my devotion to seeing my decision manifest. I reiterate that I stand willing and ready to be shown how my decision can come to be. I restate that I believe this can be. I use my spirituality here too, but you don’t necessarily have to do that if it’s not what you believe. It takes faith in yourself first and foremost but any help you can receive is good to get if it helps you.

Faith is the evidence of things not seen. It can get tricky when you have to take action before you have the evidence or proof that it will work. And, faith won’t necessarily make it all work out how you think it will. But, it’s the engine of change. It’s the start button for new stuff. And, it helps reinforce your determination of action. So, start with faith in your decisions, have determination in your actions, and I have no doubt that it will work for you. Chime in here with any experiences where your faith and determination has helped you in your business. It always helps to hear how others do it.

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman

Good project management is essential to staying organized. I’m not a fan of jargon and industry specific nomenclature, so here is a basic guide as to what it takes to really manage a project.

To start, what is a “project”? Simply put, it’s a grouping of activities that result in an end result. Getting your kids out the door to school can be a project, as can shopping, or building a website. Planning a wedding is a great real life example of a project (a REALLY big one!) so let’s use that for our case study. Here’s what you need to know:

First, make a complete task list: List everything, and I mean everything, you can think of that needs to be done, small and big. The minister, the church, the reception, the honeymoon flight arrangements, the shoes, the flowers, the dress, your attendants, buying your lacey negligee, etc., etc., etc.

Once you have the list, you can then group the smaller items under bigger ones. For example, the honeymoon would be the main topic and tasks like make flight arrangements, get passports, book the hotel, pack your suitcase would be sub tasks underneath it. By grouping you can not only see it all and be complete, but it also helps you see what you could delegate off. Delegating big chunks of your work is a way to get more done faster. Hiring a wedding planner is a great example of doing this. You hire someone to manage all the task groupings.

Set a proposed budget: This can be a money budget, a time budget, a resource budget, or all of the above. You need to be as accurate as you can. If a caterer normally charges $50 a plate for what you want to have, budgeting $5 per plate is just silly. Sure you might expect some discount, but don’t build your budget based on getting screaming deals that would make your grandmother blush in embarassment. Relationships need to be honored. Your partners are people who are feeding their familes and sending their kids to college just like anyone else. An honest pay for honest work is fair. Violating this will come back to bite you later on. I am not suggesting that you let yourself be taken advantage of, but if you’ve pushed so hard on the front end, you will have no goodwill left on the back end when you need it.

Next, set the preferred desired date for completion: This would be the day of the wedding, when everything needs to be completed. Much like catching a train, once you set the steps in motion for such a big event it’s relatively difficult (and expensive) to adjust the date, so either things get done on time or they don’t get done. You will be able to readily see, once you do the next step, if this desired date is reasonable. If it is, you can set the final date. If not, you either change the date, or alter the list of tasks you expect to have completed by that date. There’s no getting around this and it’s important to be realistic. Being late to the chapel just simply isn’t an option.

From this first proposed desired date, we back out all of the needed tasks: What I mean by that is, if it takes 10 weeks for your custom designer dress to be made, fitted, and ready, then you have to have that dress decision made no later than 10 weeks from the wedding date. If it takes 3 week to schedule the cake tasting and 3 more weeks for the cake to be ready, then you have to allow a minimum of 6 weeks from the wedding date for that task to be done.

Add some slack: When a task is crucial, it’s foolish to play things to the wire. Don’t overpad, but allowing 10-15% time allowance for the unexpected to happen is a good idea, because the unexpected will. No amount of diva bridezilla behavior is going to change anything when a hurricane shuts down the dress factory that is making your dress. Even if you’re accustomed to pushing to get your way, time is stubborn and has a way of pushing back. Adding some slack to your plan helps out.

Set priorities: Now, you take the task list and identify the drop dead, must have items. You are not getting married if the groom and minister doesn’t show or if you don’t get the marriage license. Those are must haves. The bubble machine with matching clown is not. Identifying must haves vs. nice to haves helps if you have to go to plan B or if you have to make an unexpected adjustment. It also keeps you focused and on time and on track. And, no, everything is not priority one. Give up that idea. It’s simply not true.

Setting priorities also includes identifying items that depend on another. For example, you can’t expect your bouquets to show up on wedding day if you never visited the florist (well, unless you were smart enough to tell someone else to handle it…). These dependencies are crucial, because if the first thing doesn’t get done on time, it cascades down the schedule to everything that depends on it. Be sure you are aware of these relationships so you can make adjustments as needed.

Implement, Adjust, and Enjoy: As you go through your plan, joyfully check off your completes. As you have schedule pushout in your completions, make the needed adjustments, always looking to see if something high in priority is in jeopardy of not getting done. Even though in this example it might be hard to stay flexible, in most cases, you can do that. Keeping your eyes on the true purpose of the project in the first place – in this case to marry the person you love – is the way to not only enjoy the result but also to enjoy the journey. You might only get married once but most projects will include people you want to work with again. Respect, realistic expectations, kind yet firm actions, and a sense of humor will go a long way to making this project and all the future ones successful.

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman

Recently, I had the pleasure of winning a complimentary business coaching session. I loved the experience and I learned something very valuable: Do what you love in business.

But is it really that easy to know what that is? I don’t think so. We all get wrapped up in shoulds, and goals, and to-do lists, and expectations that are more rooted in fantasy than action. I am a strong proponent of big ideas, so it’s not that part of it that worries me really. More the part about the “shoulds”.

How much happiness comes from living a life of “should”?  Not much, really. Sure, you’re going to pay your bills and there is happiness in that. It’s much easier to be happy with a roof over your head and a meal in your belly. But, is that the point you’re at? Are you at that edge or are you closer to the middle where you do have the financial room to reevaluate your path?

If you are on the edge, get help (If you don’t know how, email me and I’ll do what I can to get you resources). Many a triumph has come from rags to riches. But, if you’re in the middle and would like to live a more passionate life, I would like to share the trick my coach asked of me:

Make a list of what you LOVE to do.

Put aside what you think is the logical plan. Put aside what you had lined up, what you had planned to do. Put the fast track plan you’ve imagined since college down. Step away from your presuppositions. Grab a soda or a glass of wine, find some private space, and write down the things that thrill you.

Don’t worry about how you’ll make money, not yet.  Just let the ideas flow. Connect with your heart and find out what makes you gasp with joy. Be creative. Get to the center of what it is about the things that feel good to you and really hone in on what it is about those things that work so well for you. If you like helping people, define why. Is it because you enjoy facilitating the transition, the a-ha moment? Or, do you pride yourself on teaching? Maybe you like helping people simply for a sense of service. Maybe you look to defeat ignorance. Maybe you enjoy helping people to help themselves. All of these points of view can take you in a different direction.

This process may take a few days, even weeks. Take the time to do it. Getting to know yourself will give you a laser focused awareness of your needs as a business person. It will awaken your own appreciation for your skills and desires. All of this will feed into a true passion driven vision and business plan. Don’t spend time figuring out how you’re going to turn your ideas into a job. Just savor the process of getting in touch with your wow factor.

We will discuss later this week about what to do next with your list. It’s an easier process than it may seem at first. The first step is to get to know yourself and what you love. Then, we will figure out how to transform those thoughts into opportunities.

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman

Today is my scheduled catch up day for the month. I take a look at the goal to-do list I made at the beginning of the month, see what is in process and take steps to finish it all up before the official last day of June. It’s a two step process that includes clean up and celebration that I allow for every month. Since I have implemented it, I have achieved more, so I thought I would share it with you.

Step 1 is Cleaning Up The Loose Ends.

Loose ends can include pending email responses, technical updates, follow up phone calls, cleaning up my desk, filing, etc. It’s any bits and pieces of almost done projects and activities that are dangling. I find that this gives me a very good sense of what I still can reasonably accomplish and helps me to feel more relaxed once it’s done.

The other part of Step 1, though, is just as important. It’s time to make my confession to my self about what I am not going to realistically finish, including projects I never started. If you’re like me, sometimes you overschedule or over expect. You set up big goals that are just too much. And, surprise, surprise, you don’t get it done. That’s actually pretty understandable.

But, it’s important to acknowledge the unfinished parts of your to-do list. If you know why you didn’t get it done, admit it. Be willing to put fewer to-do items on your list for the next month. There is no shame in not getting an overly ambitious list completed. You didn’t break the law, you know! But make adjustments. Forgive yourself for not doing it and refresh. You will get more done if you pull back a little. You can always add more to your list if you have left over time, but not being able to check off something that you told yourself you’d do can be discouraging. Quit doing that to yourself.

Part 2 is Celebrating Your Victories

You are required to celebrate what you did get done. Dance around, respect your efforts, buy yourself some flowers, shout yoohoo! What did you learn? How did you improve? Who did you network with that can help your future? What system did you put in place? What steps did you take to be a success? Even if the result of these actions aren’t evident yet, celebrate that you took the steps. Steps are what lead to results.

You are not allowed to make next month’s to-do list until you celebrate your accomplishments. Sure it feels silly to cheer for yourself alone in your home office. Who cares? Do it anyway. It will raise your personal vibration, flood your brain with endorphins, and put a smile on your face. That’s the state of mind you need to be in to create your next set of goals. A winning state of mind.

Try this approach and let me know how it works for you. I bet it will!

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman