Self Employed Success

If you’ve been anywhere around the Internet in the past five years or so, you would have heard about the internet equivalent to word-of-mouth advertising: viral marketing.

Lots of people love the idea of word-of-mouth and viral marketing because it doesn’t require a lot of work. Just ask people to talk about you, right?

Wrong.

Word-of-mouth marketing and viral marketing take work. You have to give them something to talk about. In fact, you have to give them something SO SPECTACULAR that they can’t help talking about it.

People are busy. They’re distracted and stressed. They rarely have small talk with others where they say, “Golly, I got this great free ebook the other day! Here’s the website. Go get a copy for yourself.” (When was the last time YOU were chatting with your best friend and told her about an ebook you just downloaded?)

If you want to use word-of-mouth and viral marketing in your marketing campaign, then plan for it in a big way. Do something really cool. Do something that stands out in the crowd. Better yet, do something that draws a crowd, like this magician levitating in front of a building.

I use a blog reader to look at the blogs I’ve subscribed to. The blog reader not only shows me the most recent blog entries for each blog but also shows me how long it’s been since the blog has been updated. I was amazed to notice that some big-name internet marketing folks hadn’t updated their blog in a month or more!

It seems to me that when you start a blog, you’re creating a silent agreement with your readers: you’ll post regular entries. If you let your blog fizzle out, you lose all momentum and soon your readers will stop paying attention to what you’ve written.

So how often should you update your blog with new posts? There are no hard and fast rules here. After all, it IS your blog; you get to decide. Some blogging gurus will say that you must blog daily — or even twice a day. I say that it depends on your audience. Do they have time to be reading multiple entries from you each day? Do you have enough to say to them that you can sustain that kind of output?

The number of posts per day or week isn’t what’s important. What is important is that your posts are regular. For instance, I try to post at least 3-4 times a month, and in some months I’ll post closer to 10-15 times if there are good posts to write. The quality of the post, and the fact that you post regularly, are more important factors than some arbitrary number of posts per week. If you’re going to fill your blog with fluff in order to hit your daily posting requirement, don’t bother. That’s worse than not posting at all.

But please (please, please, please) — if you’re going to have a blog, commit to posting regularly and don’t make us wonder, “Whatever happened to Joe? Isn’t he writing anymore?”

Teleclass begins October 25, 2007

Increase your income teaching what you know.

A good workshop design allows students to learn with ease, and offers a holistic approach to learning by using students’ intellect, their bodies and their heart in an integrative experience. It allows us, the presenter and facilitator, to speak with comfort and centeredness.

It also gives us an opportunity to build a trusting relationship between ourselves and our students, who may be current or future clients.

For many years, I was the International Director of Education for a software company and creating new educational class was what my team did, day in and day out. I have studied the structure, process, and psychology of good adult educational design and am happy to share my knowledge with you and to help you create an outstanding class for your own students!

What You’ll Learn

In this 5-week teleclass, you’ll learn:

• the psychology of how adults learn
• how to design a structured, multidimensional workshop or teleclass
• how to construct lessons, lesson plans and exercises for optimum student learning
• how to analyze the needs of your students
• how to conduct post-class evaluations to give you feedback
• how to price and market your workshop or teleclass

Come with your ideas and questions, and walk out with a class design of your own, ready to teach and ready for students to learn!

A copy of my 86-page book, Designing Effective Workshops and Teleclasses: 7 Proven Steps to Creating Classes Students Will Love, is included with this class as your student guide.

To learn more about this class, and to register:
http://www.passionforbusinesslearning.com/calendar.html

*** What Students Say ***

Thanks for presenting a fantastic class. You shared all of the pieces required for creating a class or workshop, and you role-modeled by giving us such a valuable and well-designed class. I feel I now have the tools and greater confidence to complete the classes I’ve been wanting to offer to my network. Thanks also for being so available to support us during the class. It was great to have your personal input with our homework!
–Julie Cohen, PCCCareer & Personal Coach

Karyn, this is one of the best tele-classes I have taken. Your material is extremely well organized and presented. I found the needs assessment very helpful and appreciated the resources that can simplify the process. Conducting an assessment is a great pre-marketing tool, as well as making sure the workshop is targeted to a need. I also benefited from the easy-to-use format for putting together a lesson plan.
–DiAnne Arbour, The Leaders Studio

After taking a few free teleclasses with Karyn, I took her Designing Effective Workshop and Teleclasses course. What an outstanding course! The time flew by and Karyn was a great role model, a teacher who gave constant feedback, guidance, resources and support. Our class was at varying levels of familiarity with Instructional Design. Karyn was able to create a positive learning environment, and her own dynamic, energetic sense of humor made the learning feel effortless and fun! I’d recommend this course to anyone serious about effective teaching where your students are receptive and truly value your knowledge!
–Marcia Merrill,Career Coach

When and Where and How Much

Begins October 25, 2007 and runs for five weeks. There is no class the week of Thanksgiving Holiday.

Oct. 25

Nov. 1

Nov. 8

Nov. 15

Nov. 29

All teleclasses are 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM eastern

Fee: $159

Instructor: Karyn Greenstreet

A copy of my book, Designing Effective Workshops and Teleclasses, is included in the class fee, and will be shipped to you a week beforeclass begins.

Can’t make these sessions?

We record each class, then put it up on a students-only website the next day for you to download and listen to. You can listen to it either on your computer, or an MP3 player (if you have one). You can either choose to listen each week and follow along with us, or simply keep the MP3 files and use them for self-study whenever you’re ready.

To learn more about this class, and to register:
http://www.passionforbusinesslearning.com/calendar.html

What would happen if your revenues decreased by 44% in one year and looked like they would continue to fall in the next 12 months?

Or increased by 30% rapidly and because of an unpredictable series of events?

The recent downturn in the mortgage market reminds us how quickly things can go sour. Countrywide, a mortgage lender, reported this week that the number of mortgage applications have decreased 44%. While the real estate slump and sub-prime mortgage mess might have been predictable, businesses were too busy raking in the money to create a contingency plan.

Read the full article.

According to a Comscore press release this week, 60% of all searches worldwide, both at home and at work, are done using Google and Google-owned YouTube. Yahoo sites came in at 14% and Microsoft site searches came in at about 4%. Note that these are worldwide numbers.

Nielson NetRatings released it’s August “Search Share Rankings” report with the following statistics for United States users:

• 53.6% use Google
• 19.9% use Yahoo
• 12.9% use MSN

Comscore also reports that the average North American conducts 77.4 searches per month based on August numbers.

When planning your SEO and Search Engine Marketing strategy, it’s important to pay close attention to Google. While no one knows for sure how Google exactly ranks sites, there are many SEO items that are surely in the mix: sites that have relevancy, content, and are updated frequently.

There must be something in the air. Three of my clients called me this week to talk about firing an employee or subcontractor. One client asked me, “Can you please write an article about this so I know what to do?” And thus this article was born.

We hire people to help us grown and run our small business: assistants and virtual assistants, website designers and graphic artists, copywriters, coaches and consultants, and bookkeepers. But what do you do when their work isn’t up to par or they are constantly missing their deadlines?

These issues can lead to other problems, so even if they seem small they can blow up on you in the future. Your reputation relies on the quality of the work you do and all the people who you hire need to have the same level of excellence. If you demand it of yourself, demand it of your employees and subcontractors.

Read full article.

• Understand the importance of your voice and how it affects every level of your communication.
• Tap into the real source of your power and reflect that power in your voice.
• Learn how to be effective on the phone with no facial expression or body language.
• Recognize why your emotions affect your voice and how to work with them, not against them.
• Use all your senses to create a memorable picture of your powerful voice so you can command it in any situation.

Bonus!

• Vocal Warm-up audio with specific voice exercises to strengthen and balance your voice.
• 50 page e-book The Sound of Your Voice is the Sound of Your SELF.
• Resources/Workbook to accompany classes.
• Voice assignments and evaluation after each class.

The instructor for this teleclass is Katherine Scott. She is a professional voice coach who helps both singers and speakers evolve their voice in order to enhance and further their careers, creative potential and life purpose. Her clients include authors, media personalities, sales people, toastmaster champions, voiceover artists, teachers, singers, songwriters, coaches, and speakers.

This five-week teleclass begins October 9 at 1:00 PM eastern. The class registration fee is $159.
Sign up today!

http://www.passionforbusinesslearning.com/sounding-authentic-class.html

Listen to a free teleclass with Katherine Scott, “Your Voice Tells Your Story”:

http://www.passionforbusiness.com/teleclass/katherine-scott.htm

In a collaborative effort from several groups, including The James J. Hill Reference Library, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Edward Lowe Foundation, a new and free resource is now available to entrepreneurs:

Biz Info Library