Life moves fast. Achieving a successful work-life balance can be especially difficult for remote professionals, consultants, freelancers and small business owners. A professional coach can offer effective tools to help you manage your time and your business more effectively so you can enjoy your life more.
Tags: business building, get organized, news
Today marks the fifth birthday for WickedWordCraft.com. In honor of this landmark, I’ve given WWC a much-needed facelift. I’m also now running on the WordPress platform. It looks a bit cleaner and fresher. I’ve also imported my background from WickedBlog.com to have a bit of continuity between the two sites.
I’ll be tweaking and adjusting things over the next few days (maybe even weeks), but the look should stay mostly stable now. If you have any suggestions or comments, I’d love to hear them. Thanks for stopping by!
Angela
(Note: Image taken from Morguefile.com courtesy of photographer earl53.)
Tags: business building, outsourcing
The energy and enthusiasm of youth is amazing. It utilizes the leverage, strength, and sheer “force of will” to grow, mature and eventually to become self-sufficient. The same is true of your small business.
You watched in awe as your business grew. (Never mind the lack of sleep and the volume of work you endured to make it happen). Every tiny success made you work harder and kept you moving forward.
Then you were breaking even (or maybe even making a small profit) but the business needed your constant, careful guidance. Later, you were forced to endure a stretch of “business adolescence” complete with the inevitable identity crisis.
You were forced to make difficult decisions about the direction your business should take. You knew benign neglect wouldn’t work and even your focused diligence didn’t prevent some small details from wiggling out of your grasp. There was so much to juggle!
Now the business isn’t quite so needy. Finally, it has matured enough that you don’t have to tend it 24/7 and you are officially playing with the “big boys.” A mature business obtains the power of experience, professionalism and polish.
Showcasing these traits makes your business more appealing to the best clients and helps you to secure your place in your industry. It’s time your business “dress” for success… I’ll show you how in five easy steps! Continue reading »
Tags: business building, marketing, online imageIf you read my articles, you know I think you should be blogging. You should. Period.
But if you read my stuff, you also know that I don’t advocate ghost bloggers, nor do I ghost blog for others. But, I have run into a writer who has a firm handle on the ethical side of helping business people blog — and her name is JJ Murphy.
She offers blogging assistance to the shy would-be blogger to help you get your ideas — your OWN ideas — down in print and published on your blog. So if you know the articles you should be writing, but never have the time to finish up the ideas, she may be your first-class ticket into the blogosphere. Continue reading »
Tags: blogging, business buildingThe real estate industry has experienced an amazing boom cycle during the past 11 years. Most of today’s agents have experienced only a raging market in the midst of incredible growth.
In 2005, according to recently published survey by NAR, 24% of all Realtors® have been in business one year or less and fewer than one third were in business last time the market took a dip.
Since the housing market has been a bit bumpy, some real estate agents have become alarmed. Newer agents, in particular, hesitate to spend any money to build their business. Even some “old hands” have cut or eliminated their marketing and advertising budgets and are running their offices with a “bare bones” approach.
Normally, I’m all for simplification. Usually, I would agree that if you aren’t making money, you should be wary of spending it. But in the current housing climate, I’d like to offer a few thoughts. Continue reading »
Tags: business building, marketing, marketing youReal Estate Articles Being a real estate agent is challenging especially considering the industry’s technological intensity and the current climate of economic uncertainty. It’s especially taxing for successful agents and Realtors® who are considering redefining their business. If you plan to hone only one skill this year, select the one that will make a huge positive difference in your business, your success, and your quality of life. Become an expert decision maker.
Let me explain… Continue reading »
Tags: business building, get organizedLast month we covered how to select an excellent URL to help build your brand. Since April 26th is World Intellectual Property Day, I wanted to cover a few pointers on how to protect your own intellectual property, your brand, your current projects and even your future endeavors. Here is how you do it …What is Cybersquatting?
Cybersquatters are individuals or companies that buy registration rights for popular, trademarked and established business names with the purpose of reselling to the rightful owner or diverting traffic from the rightful brand-owner to other sites. A few years ago, this was only a problem for large, national and international companies… think “McDonalds and Wal-Mart” – but as the importance of local search increases, cybersquatting for smaller company names and typosquatting (purchasing variations and misspellings of popular names) will be on the rise. This means there is an increasing threat to smaller companies like yours. Brands like yours. Names like yours. Continue reading »
Tags: branding, business building, marketing, technologyThe term “marketing” has acquired a bad rep. People equate “marketing” people with “salesmen” and that alarms me. It alarms me so much that I nearly dropped the term from my own business altogether.
Marketing, or at least my form of it, is (and always will be) about communication. Marketing isn’t about selling, it’s about serving.
It isn’t about what’s in it for the company, it’s about conveying — communicating — what’s in it for the client. Continue reading »
Tags: business building, marketing youIt’s not easy to cut through the financial red tape of running a small business or your own real estate business. On January 19, with the help of a teleseminar from www.RemoteProfessionals.com, it might get just a bit easier.(Jupiter, FL – December 19, 2005) One of the most difficult aspects of running a small business is often managing the books. The financial and tax implications of the entrepreneurial and small business endeavors can be overwhelming. On January 19, 2005, a 15-year veteran bookkeeper will offer tips to help make preparations for April 15, and the rest of 2006, a little easier for small business owners. Continue reading »
Tags: business building, news, real estate industryBusinesses on the web are blogging their way to marketing success. Blogging has become increasingly popular from corporate CEO to sole proprietors. How does this form of online writing help a company’s bottom line and who should consider writing a blog? More importantly, who shouldn’t?
A blog (short for web log) is a dynamic, regularly updated journal entry created in “real time” and uploaded to your website or blog server. For real estate professionals, it can be a fantastic marketing tool. It’s now hit the mainstream and if you have ever considered a blog for your Real Estate website, it’s time to move forward with your plans!
Tags: blogging, business building, marketing, marketing you