VIP

What’s Up This Week?

It’s been quite a week here in Bremerton, WA.  I decided I’m just not close enough to my family.  They all live in Minnesota and I’m nearly 2000 miles away.  I see all of them once a year and only for one week.  That’s not enough time to spend quality time with everyone—it’s barely enough time to see everyone and there are years when I don’t see them all.  I have my mother, father, two sisters, two step-sisters, one step-brother, and, most importantly, my daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters within 100 miles of one another.

So, why do I live here when they all live there?  The weather.  Yes, I know it sounds lame.  I probably is but if you’ve ever lived in north-central U.S. you know it’s not just weather, it’s WEATHER! 

It frequently drops below zero in the winter—there are times when the temperature doesn’t get above zero for days.  If you haven’t experienced this kind of cold, there is absolutely no way I can adequately describe it.  If you have experienced it, there’s no reason to describe it.

Then there’s the summer.   Temperatures up into the 90s, humidity to match, and mosquitoes big enough to gang up on small animals and carry them off to suck their blood in the comfort of their watery home.  My sister tells me the humidity was 100% the other day and it wasn’t raining.  Again, if you’ve been there (or somewhere like it), you know what it’s like—if not, think about what your bathroom is like when you get out of a nice, long, hot shower.  It’s warm and steamy and you can’t get dry until some of that moisture dissipates.  That’s not quite what it’s like but you get the general drift.

I’ve spent far more time and space on this than it deserves but it illustrates how I feel about something that sounds as insignificant as the weather. 

Here I am, realizing that I’ve missed watching one granddaughter grow up and the younger one is almost a teenager and we hardly know one another.  It’s time to get over the weather and head to Minnesota.  Since I’m not one to take weeks or months to mull things over and things are quiet enough with my business right now to allow me more time than usual for things like packing and planning, I’m doing this nearly immediately.  Five weeks from today I’ll be on the first leg of my trip, in Spokane, spending the night with a friend.  Six weeks from now I will be surrounded by boxes, wondering why in the world I thought this was a good idea.

Of course the thing that really ends up taking a backseat if the website.  I’m going to be doing what I can to keep working on it, to post semi-regularly, and work on some of the other things I need to do to get the online part of this adventure up and running.  I know you’ll understand when I get behind on things.

Bottom line—I’m busier than I imagined possible, a little stressed out, and loving every minute of it.  I’ll keep giving you great information to help you make your business run smoother, more efficiently, and most importantly, more effectively.

Have a great week!

All Things Seth Godin

I think it's appropriate that my first blog post that makes a recommendation be Seth Godin: his blog, his website, his books, his whole philosophy of business and life.

No, I'm not really a groupy but possibly only because I'm far to old for that sort of thing.

You may think you haven't heard of Seth Godin before (I sincerely doubt it but just in case), but you've undoubtedly heard about stuff he pretty much started or, if he didn't actually start it, he's the one who brought it to the attention of tons of folks on the web.  Think about:

• The Long Tail
• The Idea Virus
• Tribes
• Squidoo

He's one of the most popular bloggers out there, he's written lots of books (many of which he has just given to us rather than selling them), and has very strong opinions.  He doesn't care if you like what he has to say or not. If you don't like it, don't read it.

How do you find Seth?  Easy--do a quick Google search and you can't miss him but you can also click on the links I put in up above and see what you find.  From there, you're on your way.

I'll look forward to hearing what you think of him

Article Marketing and SEO

I know you've heard me talk about article marketing before but I'm going to hit on it one more time for those of you who weren't paying close attention or just started reading the blog.

There are two big reasons to submit articles.  The first is to get people directly to your site and the second is to get better search engine rankings.  Search engines love links to your site and every single article you publish has at least one link to your site (and if it only has one you need to find a way to add another).  If you're submitting your article to more than one site, each one gives you a better rating at Google and all the other search engines.

I'm going to share a little story that has to do with linking and search engines even though it has nothing to do with an article.  I have an article-writing story as well but let's save that one for another time because this one is just a whole lot more fun.

Way back when, back when buffalo roamed the plains--

What's Up This Week?

This is a busy week for me and for Virtual Internet Professionals.  To say I have a lot to do is an understatement of the magnitude not seen in my world for a while. 

What's on my plate this week? I have to start practicing what I preach.  I've been sliding along, waiting for my website to get done.  I mean, after all, how can I be expected to write articles when I don't have a website to direct people to?  How can I do much with Twitter and Facebook without a web URL? What am I supposed to give my friends who have offered to promote my business if I have no site to send them to? There's more but you get the idea.

Well, the website is about a minute-and-a-half away from being completed.  I get to:

• Finish writing copy for it
• Set up my Amazon page(s)
• Write a few articles (yes, I could have been doing that all along and just waited for the launch of the website before submitting them but I didn't--I'm really not all that different than you)
• Get my act together with Facebook and Twitter
• Start leaving cogent comments on the blogs I've been reading for months, sometimes years, including the link to my site
• Start creating my newsletter
• Write one heck of a lot more here, on this blog
• Start looking for JVs (Joint Ventures)
• Create teleseminars and record them to create products
• Oh, and let's not forget to write that eBook

I feel like I'm missing something but it escapes me right now and I don't have a clue how I'm going to do 1/4th of what I've listed here already. It won't be hard to see how I'm doing. If you don't hear about some of this stuff in the next few weeks you'll know I haven't done very well.

It would be so much easier to do all this if I had a really great VA but for the time being I'm on my own. (Well, me and the rest of my team but I told them they don't have to do any of this stuff--what was I thinking?!!)

Independence

Tomorrow is Independence Day in the U.S.  This is when we celebrate the anniversary of going from being a colony to an independent nation made up of many smaller states.  We declared our freedom from England. 

We didn't just tell England we wanted to be free--we had to work for that independence.  The way we worked for it was to physically fight British troops.  We won that fight and began the process of learning what freedom and independence were going to cost us.

What does independence mean to you?  Is it a public display of fireworks, do you go see a parade and have a picnic, or do you actually think about what it's like to have independence?  It's been so long since we gained our freedom that few of us can fully appreciate what that meant back in the late 1700s. 

As a child I thought it meant we didn't have to pay taxes on tea and we had a president instead of a king or queen.  As an adult it means so much more.  There is a depth of feeling about freedom and independence that I couldn't have imagined as a little girl.  Back then freedom meant getting to decide my own bedtime, how late I could watch television, and not having to go to school anymore.  It meant turning 18.

Today I get to have all of that and so much more.  I'm free to choose where and how I live, how I get the money I need to pay my bills, who I choose to invite into my circle of friends, how I spend my time, and just about every other aspect of my life. 

I was also free to step out on my own and start a business where I didn't know what my income would be from one month to the next.  I was free to learn how to succeed or fail based on my marketing ability.  Yes, I said "marketing" rather than "skills."  I already had the skills I needed to get started in my business.  What I needed was to be able to find people who needed those skills and wanted to pay me to provide them.

Whether you already own your own business or are thinking about starting one, this is one of the more important things to remember.  If you're not good at marketing, be prepared to find someone who is.  You can choose how much to invest in both money and time but you have to know what resources are best for you. 

I'd love to give you a half hour of my time to get you started on your journey to find the marketing help you need.  My company might be able to provide some services you want or could use but   what I offer is just one option on a very large menu of opportunities.  There is so much more out there for you to explore and I want to help you discover what will be best for you.

Utilize the resources that support your independence.  You're free to make that choice.

How to Know When To Use “It’s” Instead of “Its”

This is one of the easiest mistakes to make and also one of the easiest to remember.

“It’s” is the contraction of “it is.”

“It is a lovely day” turns into “it’s a lovely day.”

“Do you know what its temperature is?” can’t ever be “do you know what it is temperature is?”

I still have to double check myself on this one every once in a while. It’s so simple and yet it’s so easy to goof it up every once in a while.

Thanks for popping in and taking a look at what I write. I love to see how many people are stopping by. Comments are welcomed and encouraged.

What Do You Do When You Think No One Is Watching?

Seth Godin is my marketing hero.  He says what we wish we had said.  When I read a blog post of his from last month (OK, so I don't read all my RSS feeds every day) I was blown over by what he said. It's definitely worth a read.

Now that you've gone to read it, I'll tell you that for some reason it had never occurred to me that if I knew who they were, they knew who I was.  Ninety nine percent of the time that was good but my confession, and I suspect yours as well, is that there were times when those who knew who I was may not have been inspired.

I'm just glad that's behind me.  Now that I have my own business it's all very different.  This isn't somewhere I can afford to be anything but totally transparent.  I must have integrity at all times. It's fortunate for me that I want to have that when it's my business.  Why was it a bit more difficult when it was someone else's?

What do you think?

Do You Google?

Of course you do!  Who in the world would be reading this who doesn't Google?  The question then becomes, not what do you Google so much as whom?  And that leads, very naturally, to who is Googling you and what are they finding?

I love reading Seth Godin's blog and today, while valiantly trying to catch up on my feed reader, I ran across on I considered to be particularly important to every one of us (and our children, grandchildren, neighbors.....) called Personal branding in the age of Google .

Did you go read it?  No?  Please go do that before we move on.  Yes?  Good, let's talk about it just a little, particularly from the point of view of the home-based business owner.  What do people find when they go look for you.  As a Virtual Assistant I've started Googling my potential clients.  After all, I don't want to work with a client who doesn't pay bills or talks about a former VA in a less-than-kind way. 

Two things to think about when you read this: do a little more research when you're going to be working with someone AND be sure to know exactly what you're putting out there on the Internet.  It could come back to bit you.

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About…

I’m starting a new category today: “How To.” It’s the little stuff I see and learn that I think you might like to see or learn.  It might be a spelling error I see from even the top sites, a bit of punctuation that will make your site look more professional, a little trick I learned on a program most of us use, or a little tool I found that makes my life easier and might do the same for you.  In other words, the kind of stuff I do for my clients.

Since you know how I am—I can talk faster and longer than your average person, I’ll put the How To at the beginning and follow it with the amazingly witty bits and pieces you know you can count on from me.   

Some of this stuff may look silly and unnecessary but trust me when I tell you that the spelling and punctuation stuff is very important.  When I look at a site for someone who gives the appearance that they have someone proofread their work for them and then I count one error per paragraph—or sometimes even one or more per line, I pretty well know they’re trying to do something themselves that they don’t know how to do and if they don’t know how to do that, do they really know how to do what they say they can?  Unfair?  Sure!  I mean, really, do I know how to take care of my (or your) tax accounting?  No.  I leave that to a fabulous tax accountant.  This is what I do best.  If that’s the case, wouldn’t the converse apply?  If you’re a tax accountant, why should you need to know all the ins and outs of spelling and punctuation?  Well, life’s not always fair, is it?  Rats!  

Virtual Internet Professionals to the rescue.  I’ll give you little bits and pieces you need to help you on your way.

Look for these little tidbits coming your way.  Actually, there may be a flurry of them since I want to keep one per post and I have quite a few right off the top of my head.

One more note: I use a lot of little memory hints when I’m trying to remember something.  It’s a bit like the way I recently saw someone helping a child learn which was his left hand.  She told him that the hand that could make a capital “L” was his left hand.  I still use some of these old memory and mnemonic devices today, even if it’s just to double check myself.  For instance, I still remind myself that the school principal is our “pal.”  Not the greatest image when I was still in school but it was how I used to remember the difference between principle and principal.  I’ll give you little memory ticklers for as many of these as I can, just so you can have them if you find them helpful.

Right now I’m going to get back to site building and taking care of my clients.

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To My Blog Post

There was a movie by the name of A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum from nearly the dark ages (well, not that far back but it was a long time ago).  I don't even remember what it was about, or, for that matter, if I even saw it.  I tell you all of this simply because I've been gone for well over a year and when I got ready to start this post, what came to mind was, "A funny thing happened on the way to my blog post."  And, so, here I am.

What happened was business.  My team and I had so much business we hardly had time to come up for breath.  What is it I tell my clients?  It's critical to keep your blog current--it only takes a few minutes to write a blog post--when you come across something interesting that your clients might like, just drop it in a post with a few words of explanation--how hard is that?  Uh, yeah, right.  How hard is it?  None of them ever said, "If it's so darned easy why haven't you posted anything to your blog recently?"  Chances are they either weren't reading it anyway or they were signed up on the RSS feed and when the feed reader didn't show any blogs they just forgot about it.  Bottom line--I'm back and I plan to be here for the duration--if I'm not, feel free to email me and smack me on the back of my head!