In pootling around the internet looking for the latest news on women as entrepreneurs, I came across this report from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor on Women entrepreneurs for 2012. I hope you find it useful as a resource and it inspires you to keep going if you are struggling with being a new business owner or makes you think about taking action and starting the business you have been thinking about for too long…
The Female Entrepreneur Interviews
An interesting set of interviews with women business owners and female entrepreneurs from the Small Business Pod , I wanted to share. It’s from 2007, but I think some of the experiences of the women still hold true. Enjoy…
Who’s Afraid Of The Female Entrepreneur
Brand Marketing Everywhere Does Not Make It Right For Your Business!
The God of Brand Marketing
‘Brand Marketing’ is a slightly nauseating phrase that gets bandied about by marketing agency types as the primary goal of any business marketing strategy. Nevertheless I confess that even I have ambivalent feelings about this, as I am always conscious to a lesser or greater degree of my client’s branding as I make recommendations for their next priorities, but know that for the small businesses I work with, branding is secondary to other types of marketing.
Nevertheless, this marketing agency fixation means that small business owners can get quite anxious about getting their brand “out there”, or generating the right “feel” about their brand. They can invest a lot of time, energy and money in the pursuit of “building brand awareness” and get hung up on issues that are not as relevant to them as immediate sales growth and cash-flow.
As a strategy for increasing sales for small businesses, brand marketing is not really very effective.
The purpose of branding is to have people in your market recognise your brand. But let’s think about this for a minute… Even if someone is familiar with your logo or company slogan, does that mean that your potential customers or clients really understand what you do, or that they you are the best person to go to in order to buy?
Sorting out your logo might give you some warm fuzzies, but of itself, this is not ‘revenue producing activity’ i.e. it does not generate cash-flow. If you are a small businesses owner, you want to prioritise your marketing spend where you will get results. Don’t sweat the small stuff…
Of course brand marketing is significant, but this is more about protecting an well-established strong-selling brand. Think of the bigger companies who already have huge sales and want to protect their ‘territory’. They want to stay abreast of their competitors in the mind of their target markets; simple logos and catch phrases serve these purposes.
Where To Start Marketing As A Small Business
“The general rule of thumb is that unless you have $1,000,000 per year to spend on marketing, you should be marketing for response, not recognition.” — Eben Pagan
For the purposes of achieving return on investment in marketing, it is crucial for small and medium sized businesses to focus their budget, time and effort in the right place: brand follows sales. Think of any of the big boys in business out there; their logo and tag line would be meaningless to people in the market if millions of people were not already buying their products.
When people see the Nike logo, for instance, they recognise it immediately and know what it represents because so many people own Nike footwear and probably have owned their products at some point.
Direct Response Marketing and Direct Sales
Rather than focussing on brand marketing, I recommend direct response marketing, be that through website copy, blogs, social media, or other marketing materials. The difference between ‘Direct Response Marketing’ and ‘Brand Marketing’ is that a direct response marketing campaigns are geared specifically to elicit a response from your ideal audience.
The results, be they from offline or online efforts will be measurable. Direct response marketing is designed to increase sales, be they from increased enquiries over the phone, visitors to your website or orders.
The beauty of direct response marketing is that you can test different offers and track your response, perhaps through ‘discount codes’, coupons or asking how the buyer came to you. Being able to measure your results is important if you want to get the most from your investment in your business.
The irony here is that you will automatically build your brand identity and awareness as you sell more products.
How To Generate Greater Response Rates And Sales
You need to be always focussed on how you solve others’ problems with your products and services. Secondly, think about where you will find the people who want to buy what you have to sell. From here, you can begin to craft your marketing messages to catch the attention of your ideal customer and compel them to take action, i.e. visit your business online or on the high street before your competition.
As more people buy from you, awareness of your brand will increase naturally as they share their buying stories with others. Then you can start to employ brand marketing techniques to consolidate your already influential position in your market niche. Meantime, exposure can be everything… Making the connections with those who would be your advocates… trade magazines, business networks, interest group forums, etc.
It is natural to be concerned with copying what the big guys are doing in terms of their marketing campaigns, but one size does not fit all. Protecting niche sales via fostering “brand loyalty” is not the same as growing sales amongst your buying market.
One step at a time… Different strokes for different folks. For the small business owner and medium sized businesses, cashflow is king, which comes from direct response marketing.
Selling Might Always Be A Dirty Word But I Am Proud To Market For My Customers
It never ceases to disappoint me that people I care about still have negative attitudes and opinions about sales and marketing. (No more is this so than in the niche of telemarketing, which is seriously under-rated and indeed sales people are seen as second class citizens.)
Unfortunately, selling can still be dominated by overtly aggressive, pushy, manipulative and even dishonest practitioners, who are so concerned with the fast buck, it is at the expense of earning long term loyal customers. It is not really surprising that marketing and sales has such a bad reputation.
The reality is that competitive business environments create a pressured backdrop where salespeople are systematically encouraged to believe that they have to behave in ways that they would not ordinarily do in order to ‘close the deal’. In fact there is a tenet of sales which says: “Always be closing”. It is no surprise then that ‘sales opportunity’ is treated as some kind of mental combat, or adversarial contest between the seller and the customer, where there can only be one winner.
Pressurised selling, emotional blackmail and manipulation or even tripping prospects into signing on the dotted line is common where commissions make all the difference to the monthly salary of the sales person. There is a conflict of interest to some degree here. Whilst honing one’s sales skills mean the product or service is more likely to get sold, the question is whether the deal really does suit the customer and even if they will feel ‘buyer’s remorse’ later when they have time to think through their buying decision.
Who really wins from this deal? Last night I watched some of the film ‘The Holy Man’, with Jeff Goldblum. I switched off at the point where he got the holy man to sign away his integrity through subterfuge… (Hey I was not really up for schmaltzy rom com at that moment anyway!) But it was significant how uncomfortable Jeff Goldblum’s character was in tricking the Holy Man and I was also left feeling somewhat disgusted…
It is a real pity that sales is such a dirty word because of the shameful shenanigans that can go on on the sales floor. In the best sales and marketing transactions none of that high pressure, sales focussed quibbling is necessary. In fact the beauty of the best kind of sales is that both sides go away really happy. The buyer feels like they got more than what they paid for and the seller knows they have a returning customer in the making.
The truth about successful salesmanship is beautifully simple that makes the professional marketers who understand the essence of the relationship and practise ethical marketing values often wealthy and leaves those they serve happy.
The ‘Trick’ is to know that if you know how to find out what your prospect wants and can help them to get it, everyone wins.
Marketing is Relationship Building.
I spend a good hour or two every day merely seeking to understand what my prospects need when they approach me for help with their marketing. This building up of a mutually beneficial relationship takes time. In order to know what is appropriate to offer your prospect, you have to discover your prospect’s motivation and appeal to this by showing them how you can help solve their problem.
A sales person’s job is not to ‘convince’ people, but to help people realise that you can help them get their needs met. Your job as a professional marketer is to match up your profit motives with products and services that your audience needs. But here is a lesser understood secret of sales:
The sales person cannot profit unless they make it possible for the buyer to profit too i.e. this has to be a win-win relationship.
A common misunderstanding about effective sales is that the salesman needs to control the transaction. In reality, the relationship is dual control. In fact the buyer makes the decision and so ultimately, the buyer controls the outcome. The seller merely seeks to influence the outcome by making sure that what is being offered is beneficial or valuable to the prospective buyer.
Questions Maketh The Cashflow
The beauty of good marketing is that the only way you can find out what a prospect needs is by getting to understand what their problem is by asking them. I often ask my prospects what it is they think they need, even if they are not entirely clear. It is my job to give them clarity and options.
Assuming you know what motivates someone to come to you to buy is a big mistake and even when they think they know what will help them, it is worth taking the time to really explore their issues and challenges, because marketing solutions can be a complex business and if you sell the wrong thing, then later they will regret money possibly wasted. This will make them wary of coming to you for repeat business and remember repeat business is the best kind of business there is.
Second guessing what another person wants can only lead to your buyer being put off and going cool on you. This is often where the less experienced sales person resorts to ‘tricks of the trade’ which are not necessarily geared towards ethical and mutually satisfying outcomes.
It is this simple. Grow your compassion to grow your commission! This is not a competition between you and your customer; this is about co-operation too, which means you do not have to focus on the goal of the eventual sale. Being present and authentic with your customer or client will bring you success in marketing and sales. You need to cultivate a genuine interest in your prospect’s needs and their motivations for buying in order to secure the deal.
Sales Is Two Way Communication and Mutual Benefits
Listen to what prospects have to say, then you will be able to match up the benefits of your products to their specific ‘hot buttons’. Your prospect is only interested in what benefits them, no matter how great you think your gadget is and how wonderful your business is. They don’t care too much about what you think of your product or service.
This way of working is refreshingly simple. It is about being genuine, honest and ethical and learning to let go of the outcome at the point of ‘your pitch’. If you are a solo-preneur and service provider, this is even more crucial, because this is also about spending your time with the kind of customers you seek.
Being yourself and allowing your prospect to be themselves is the secret to selling anything to anyone. This way, selling is not a dirty word… It is the beginning of a lasting and beautiful relationship. I am proud of my marketing efforts, because I am confident that I will always get the sale with the right kind of customer for me and they will tell their friends…
Social Bookmarking 101
Online marketers have been using social bookmarking to increase traffic to their website for several years, some without not fully understanding what they are doing, how it works, or even whether it works. Increasingly aware of the option to help some of my clients boost their online marketing, I thought it was time I brushed up again and offer my own 101 to re-teach myself… So with no further ado…
WHAT IS SOCIAL BOOKMARKING?
Social bookmarks are similar to the bookmarks we save on our personal computer, perhaps in folders on our browser. They are ways to keep our information in places we can find them again. The difference with social bookmarks is that these are saved to the web where they can be shared by other people.
So social bookmarking is an easy way for us to remember webpages we find useful on the internet. It is like favouriting them, but also adding some additional information to describe the content there. It helps in finding content that we are looking for faster either next time around or even new content; we already know the place where our favourite material is located.
Social bookmarking also enables us to collaborate with other internet users across the web. We can share our bookmarks of websites with people we want to help share information about a subject we are both interested in pursuing.
It also allows us to save numerous bookmarks to any website by tagging them with keywords that are descriptive and meaningful to us and other people.
HOW IT WORKS
Tagging a blog or web page that has useful, fun or interesting content helps the person doing the tagging and other internet users who are looking online for pages on that subject. The tags indicate what the page is about, so help it get indexed and found more easily, which is good for publishers and readers alike. It helps the publisher, as more people are able to easily find a tagged website or webpage with the help of good descriptive keywords that have SEO value.
One link to an article can quickly multiply as one user shares it with others, so bookmarking helps your content go viral. As those users do the same, online content can quickly spread around the net. Because social bookmarks can be passed on virally, they not only potentially reach a much wider audience, they generate significantly more traffic than other online marketing methods.
To employ social bookmarking for your SEO strategy, you will generally have to register an account. Signing up with sites with higher PR is recommended. The process is generally simple; just provide your email address and an email will be sent to you for you to verify you are who you say you are by clicking a link in the confirmation email before you can sign in.
Sign up with as many of them as possible for Social Bookmarking SEO purposes. It is after all one of the easiest ways to promote your web pages with content that you of value for others to read. It just takes time to submit content and assess which bookmarks are going to be helpful to other users. (Checkout Socialmarker to make this process easier.)
Stick to giving value and avoid over-marketing your content. Creating social bookmarks for every single page on your website is a mistake and can be counterproductive, especially on social bookmarking sites which allow for content to be voted down. Your aim is to have your content shared to the max, so make it valuable for people.
Target the right niche or group for your particular content; this helps ease of indexing and being found. Social bookmarking contain any content on any subject you can think of, so categorizing content is vital. From a marketing standpoint, you want to promote your article, blog or page to the types of people who are the most likely to engage with and even respond to it.
Always check the rules of any site you sign up with. Be sure to follow the rules of a site or you risk losing your account. Spamming for instance can get you kicked off, so it’s pointless trying to cheat the system. Take care too to describe your links and categorise them appropriately.
Lastly, but by no means least, choosing the best keywords to describe any website or article that you bookmark on these social bookmarking sites is crucial to getting the most from social sharing. Social bookmarking newbies often overlook this vital SEO step, but it can mean the difference between people actually finding your bookmarks and their being lost in the wilderness.
Use quality keywords that are relevant to the content you are posting and your website as a whole, but keep them varied. Search engines can identify repetitive keywords and phrases which can result in your links being classed as spam.
WHAT DOES SOCIAL BOOKMARKING DO?
Social bookmarking enables users to search for websites by using keywords that will show websites ranking well for any given keyword. It can also help people stay updated on the latest trends and news.
Some social bookmarking websites generate links to sites and articles and also allow their users or visitors to post their comments on the articles.
WHY USE SOCIAL BOOKMARKING?
Social bookmarking helps you drive traffic to your webpages when your site is optimised and your links well tagged. When you submit your site to some social bookmarking sites, people can vote on your page quality; the more people voting on it, the more visitors you will have to your website.
Social bookmarking also helps people store webpages or websites that contain topics of interest to them which potentially enriches one’s knowledge of a subject. We can therefore, arrange, search and present any information easily.
OK, so now I have told you all why it is a good idea to get stuck in, I am going to make an effort this year to use social bookmarking again, after a few years lapsed activity and perhaps write about my results.
Watch out for my post of links and information… Meantime, here is a few of the best bookmarking sites to sign up to:
| Google Bookmarks |
| Facebook.com |
| Delicious.com |
| Digg.com |
| Slashdot.org |
| Technorati.com |
| Stumbleupon.com |
| Pinterest.com |
| Reddit.com |
| Citeulike.org |
| Plurk.com |
| Fark.com |
| Bibsonomy.org |
| Newsvine.com |
| Diigo.com |
| Buzznet.com |
| Blinklist.com |
| Folkd.com |
Finding Our Entrepreneurial Story in the Stories of Our Leaders
We all love a good story and most of all, we all love a triumph over adversity type story, or a tale of our heroine or hero who beats the odds to make the big time. I have lots of heroines and heroes… But as it is easy to get side-tracked into so many great stories, these days I tend to look out for the women who have pushed through against the odds for inspiration, because I can relate more to their situations as a rule.
We all do this: look for ourselves in others to light our way and so maybe we can follow behind. We all need a helping hand or a winning team and so it is natural that we follow the stories of those who have achieved the things we would like to.
Dan Kennedy, one of my favourite marketers says that everyone is “searching for a wizard“. There is truth in these words. As leaders make up only a small minority of people, maybe as little as five per cent, that means 95% are looking for leaders that they can trust and look up to for inspiration.
This means that as an entrepreneur, the secret to success is to give people what they want; a quality product or service AND leadership. THIS is the foundation to business success, as leaders are those people who have developed expertise and a reputation for their breadth of knowledge. In order for us as business owners, this means we too must step up to the plate and continually develop ourselves and make the necessary sacrifices to be able to offer to others the gifts we have honed as we pursue our craft.
It is so easy to see those we admire as way beyond our league and to believe it impossible to ever make it to that kind of status. However, the only difference between a leader’s story and our own is that they have put the time and effort in consistently, perhaps to the tune of the magical ten thousand hours formula. Well any thousand or ten thousand mile journey begins with the first step.
In the life of the entrepreneur, the first step and a step they must remember daily is finding your reason why. Knowing our ‘why’ we are putting ourselves through our paces is a must. Your reason means digging deep to discover and follow one’s passion, be that: physical, emotional, psychological, relational, spiritual or any combination of these.
We have to ask ourselves: ”Who do you want to be?” Then commit to doing what we have to in order to become the person we aspire to be. For many people this can be difficult if we do not come from a family of entrepreneurs with stories to light our way and offer guidance.
Story marketing is one of the greatest skills of industry leaders. It means that they can tell their personal story in a way which we can relate to, which makes us warm to them as people, as well as admiring them as professionals. It is really easy, therefore, to do your own market research on top earners. Check out YouTube and play videos of interviews with them whilst you are busy doing something humdrum, which requires no thinking. But don’t stop there…
Write out their characteristics. You have to KNOW and UNDERSTAND why they do what they do, how they do it and how you might begin to emulate them. Choose ten leaders you admire and take time to identify what it is that shines out to you. Think about what you have in common and where the differences lie. Therein lies your path…
For the past several years, I have pottered about online, writing a blog for several years, gradually honing my abilities and learning new skills. Now I am starting to see some results from my efforts, I am spurred on to achieve even more… Each month I am exceeding my own earnings limits and moving up in rankings on the site where I offer my copy-writing skills and marketing expertise. Now it is time to up my game, so I am retracing some of my steps that brought me here, some of which have been trodden by the business gurus I spent time following and learning from since 2009, when I began my entrepreneurial story.
As a writer, I thought I would share some of my analysis of my heroes in order to review my own story and compare where I am now to where I need to be moving if I am to achieve greater success and I recommend you do the same.
Here’s My Top Ten Professional Icons and what I appreciate about them (in no particular order):
- Dan Kennedy – a funny, irreverent, cheeky, smart writer and successful marketer and teacher, published
- Mike Dillard – a serious man with a mission; student of psychology, marketing expert, prolific entrepreneur and teacher, published
- Mike Koenig: CEO of Traffic Geyser, video marketing expert, teacher, fun
- Craig Garber – ‘King of Copy’: Funny, down to earth, copywriter, entrepreneur, teacher, published
- Katie Freiling: smart social media marketer, teacher, writer
- Ellie Drake – Inspirational founder of BraveHeartWomen.com to empower visionary, entrepreneurial women
- JK Rowling – children’s writer, novelist, philanthropist and first ever UK female billionaire and first ever UK billionaire writer
- Eban Pagan and Tony Robbins: Inspirational speakers business and life coaches – also two very hot guys!
- Alessio Rastani – Independent trader, entrepreneur and teacher, all round good guy.
- PeoplePerHour.com Copywriters in the Top Ten – more research to follow on these, as I have committed to joining them by the end of this year if at all possible, at least in terms of earnings, if not in PPH Top Ten Freelancer status!
Now take some time to pick ten of your own successful entrepreneurs and think about what it is they do that you admire… That’s your own compelling entrepreneurial story in the making… Then get out there and share your story in your marketing activities to illuminate the path for others following behind you and attract those people with whom you resonate.
Freelancing Good Practice
Since deciding to go alone, working for myself, I have tried a few different businesses, with greater or lesser success, but none have given me the personal satisfaction that copy-writing for businesses has given me. Not only that, since cottoning onto the idea that I have to keep growing what I do and trying new things, I have seen my earnings grow steadily, alongside my ranking on the main site I still use to find new clients, whilst I am not generating traffic here on my blog and do not have my email list and machine hooked together.
Copy-writing as my main source of income continues to be a learning experience for me, which I am increasingly taking an entrepreneurial approach to. Learning new tools and how to apply them for the range of businesses I work with is both rewarding and challenging.
Whilst no two days are the same most weeks, consistent efforts at good practice are essential in order to continue to be commissioned for marketing projects and more importantly, have customers trust in you, so that they come back and even make referrals.
I thought I would share some of the issues common to all freelancers in terms of achieving greater success and increasing earnings.
1. Be Transparent: Any client likes to be clear what they can expect from you, how you intend to approach their marketing and what they are getting for their money. Before beginning any new project, agree on what outcomes are needed or desirable. Where there is any lack of clarity, allow for some flexibility and offer potential options, then advise that you may test alternatives to see what fits best. Over time, objectives may evolve as a project progresses or as budget becomes available.
Freelancers who are new to their industry often tell a client what they think the client wants to hear in order to get the contract. It is worth remembering that any smarty-pants can make a first sale, but the real art is in keeping a client longer term.
A lack of experience or juggling too many contracts can mean you may not be able to deliver on time. Business owners and clients prefer honesty, because they have their own timetables to juggle in which you may be playing a significant part. We each have potentially linked schedules and activities and as freelancers, we have an obligation to manage expectations accordingly. Setting unrealistic delivarables can lead to disappointment; this runs the risk of your reputation being damaged by bad reviews which impacts your earnings and undermines a reputation you may have worked many months or years to build.
2. Good Communication: Try to keep in regular communication with your clients, making them aware of milestones achieved or checking you are on track. When a client is aware of where you are up to in their project, it can generate good will and also allows for any last minute changes if needed. Timely communication smooths the process of collaboration, builds a trusting relationship and helps you produce the best possible results for your client and you.
3. Meeting Deadlines: Marketing deadlines can be crucial in terms of sales cycles in a business, something you may not fully appreciate when the products or services are not ones you fully understand. Negotiating deadlines and meeting them is crucial for your client’s sales processes, as well as building confidence in your reliability. Remember, your work may be part of a wider picture on which others depend. Late delivery can have a knock-on effect.
Happy clients may not always be singing your praises immediately to other business partners or colleagues, but you can be sure that if you let a customer down, they will tell others, because business owners have high standards of themselves and if you do not perform, that can make them look bad. Keeping to deadlines generates trust in your competence and professionalism and when the opportunity arises, they will be more likely to recommend you to other businesses.
4. Update Your Public Profiles: Set aside time for marketing yourself; schedule this into your operations, either daily, weekly or monthly, as appropriate. If you need prompting, note review periods in your calendar for updating information about achievements on your website or social media. Freelancers are often registered in directories or with agencies, this information will need bringing up to date too in order to reflect your current portfolio.
5. Selectivity and Specialising: When you start a new freelancing business, it is so tempting to accept all requests for work, even lower paid contracts. Businesses will whittle down your prices regularly, citing cheaper prices of other freelancers. When you start out, a lack of confidence can mean that you still want to build a portfolio to prove your value, so will compromise yourself financially. Many business coaches will tell you that you need to set out your stall as a quality service and charge accordingly. This argument has its merit, but your primary purpose is cash-flow when starting. Whilst it can be difficult to up your prices, if you set out explicitly telling clients that your prices are low whilst you gain experience, this can act as an incentive for them to grab you whilst you are cheap and you have warned them of your intentions to review, paving the way for incremental price rises.
You can afford to get more selective if you implement bulked packages for specific sectors with which you have more experience. This allows you to also offer discounts, making juicy offers they cannot resist.
Just be aware that low paid projects can undermine your confidence in your own ability to earn more. Worse still, whilst you are pre-occupied on a low budget contract, the juicier job is passing you by… Figure out where you want to build experience, what your niche interests are and build your profile accordingly. Being a specialist means you can ask a premium. By the same token, decide what compromises you are prepared to make at the outset, whilst remaining clear about the direction you are seeking. Ask yourself if you can dedicate yourself totally and if the answer is “no”, then focus on a quality service to the niche clients you want to work with.
6. Your USP: Offering completely unique services or products to potential clients alongside the general offers of your competitors gives you an edge in the market. For instance, demonstrating expertise and advice along with services delivered means that you will be recognised as a professional and your efforts will be appreciated. This not only adds value for your clients, getting their feedback about how this works for them builds your expertise further.
Time limited incentives, freebies and bonus services or products are another way to sweeten a deal. I am a huge fan of Eban Pagan, the business development coach who refers to this as ‘Pushing the Free Line’. Businesses like to feel they are getting a good deal and great deals are absolutely good business practice.
The more you learn about your industry and develop your expertise, you are building your own value. There is a principle – the Pareto Principle – which says that 20% of your time spent improving yourself, boosts your earning capacity by 80%. Having been keeping a record for the last several months of my own development of services, I can absolutely say I have proof that this works, as I see my freelancing earnings continue to break new records and my ranking on PeoplePerHour get consistently higher month on month.
Ranking of 244/600,000 on People Per Hour For Copywriting
Finding Your Writer’s Voice
Writing does not come naturally, nor is everybody comfortable sitting down to write their guts out. For me, as an avid bookworm, whilst growing up, it is like second nature to me. For the most part it is fairly easy to express myself, even with topics I am still learning about, because I have the confidence to write as I speak. In adulthood, I have spent a good number of years as a community leader and an activist, which has helped me hone my ability to speak succinctly and clearly; it is only the odd bout of ADHD, that makes me stray off the point and rattle on beyond others’ attention spans.
When I was suddenly approached for help with writing, what was amazing that these were intelligent and gifted people, one of whom was a retired English teacher! As I had lost all my original material on the subject, with the hacking of my blog, I had to go back to basics once more to work out what people needed to do, to set their keypads rattling into action.
BE YOURSELF
So what do you need to do when you are trying to find your writing voice? First of all get in your comfort zone if writing is not that place. Begin with writing down your thoughts as if you were talking to family or a trusted friend, who has no idea what you are talking about. This does two things: it removes any voices in your head saying that you are ‘doing it wrong’, or that what you have to say is not good enough. You then will feel relaxed enough to be yourself and speak your mind and take the time necessary to fully explain what you mean.
READ ALOUD
Next read aloud what you have written. Take your time doing this; it is the most important part of any writing exercise. The reason why is that you hear where you have either chosen words that do not make sense, where words are missing or even whole parts of your argument have been skipped, meaning you are jumping ahead and will not take your listener with you in your line of thinking.
If you have somebody you trust to read out aloud to, even better, because they will ask you WHY you say so-and-so means ‘such and such’. The thing is not to be offended or overly sensitive to questions, but to view their feedback as a gift which will improve your work. The chances are if they have spotted a hole in your argument, so will somebody else.
The other benefit of reading aloud, is that it helps show where you need to take natural breaths when talking; this is why you need to take your time. If you have long-sentences, with no grammar, or missing grammar, being short of breath is a sure sign, this needs to be considered.
BITE SIZED CHUNKS
This is another benefit of reading aloud. When you need to take breaths and write in your grammar and punctuation, you will be breaking down longer threads of argument or lines of thinking into steps which take you to your ultimate goal. If somebody is hearing what you have to say for the first time, it helps them digest what you are feeding them.
There are lots of tricks and tips and hints to creating ‘digestible’ writing, which I will write about elsewhere. Meantime, if grammar is not your strong point, take a look here and sign up for Jane Strauss’s enewsletter offering help on grammar and punctuation. This website has some great information on the difference between : and ; – nope it isn’t to do with smiley faces whatsoever, albeit they do help you express yourself better!
PROOF-READ
This brings me to my own personal area of challenge… I have ADHD and am arrogant about my writing abilities sometimes; it is a dangerous combination as a professional copywriter, because it means that no sooner have I written something, I am bored already and itching to move to the next subject or task. This means that I occasionally do not proof-read before I submit drafts to clients.
It doesn’t matter how brilliant your writing, if there is a mistake, be sure someone will zoom in on that. I have a client who is perfectionist about what he does and aside from that, measurement in millimetres is what he does everyday for a living as a designer. I swear, I produced an otherwise perfect piece of work for his website one day, only for him to ask me to remove a space between two sentences, as he had spotted that the gap was just a few pixels bigger than it should have been i.e. ONE character space!
I have no doubt that even as I therefore, advise you all to proof-read, I am also reminding myself to always do the same too. There is no substitute for going over a piece of written work more than once, to iron out the wrinkles. The first proof-read will generally pick up the glaring mistakes and gaps, the second, will be just ‘dotting the ‘i‘s and crossing the ‘t‘s’.
(If somebody can tell me the exact grammatical writing of that last statement, I will be much obliged, as on this rare occasion, I too am having an apostrophe crisis of confidence).
PRACTICE
This brings me nicely to the final element of finding your voice in your writing efforts. The more you write, the more confident you become; the more confident, the easier to write it becomes. You will find yourself ‘writing as you speak’, which is ultimately your goal. Whilst your written words may be you at your most polished, it will still be your voice in the words and arguments. You are merely learning to write in such a way as to make yourself understood to the widest audience of readers, or listeners, if you intend ultimately to deliver any kind of speech.
Practice does make perfect and also helps you pick up speed. It is natural for anybody to begin any new ‘art’ haltingly, but as you learn the basic requirements to string your words together coherently, you will remember how you bridged gaps before, making the journey second time round much simpler.
GET HELP
If you intend to earn from your craft, then at some point, every professional requires help and support. There are many experts online, but you want to really go with the best and get the best bang for your book with any online creative writing courses .
Joining a local creative writing group will also help you hone your skills. These groups are established as supportive forum for you to share what you write and get positive criticism of your work, to help you get the most out of it. Do a search online and see what is happening locally with fellow writers. They will help you raise the bar and up your earning capacity as a result of writing a higher quality of material.
If you are stalling, the best thing you can do is make yourself accountable. My favourite trick here is to have that chat with a friend who is driving you nuts because they are not doing something to help themselves. Phone them up and make a deal with them. Agree that if they finally do that thing they are avoiding, you will stop putting off sitting down and writing what you have been intending to write for too long already.
JUST DO IT!
Wherever you are at in your writing career, be you a first timer, or a regular hack, the two biggest obstacles to getting anything down on paper, or onto a computer are fear of failure and fear of success. Both of these things will make you procrastinate, until another day passes and you still have not got going. So it is only yourself you have to conquer… so stop tidying your office, making another cup of coffee, calling a friend who needs you, or tinkering with the car… and just DO IT.
Too many people spend too much time getting ready to get ready or thinking they have to get it perfect… This is a process, but ultimately, it requires you to set the time aside and value the work enough to get stuck in… So, now you know some of the main stumbling blocks to finding your voice online or anywhere else, you are better equipped to get on with the job.
If you are writing a book, allocate the time and remove the obstacles in your head… if you do not use your voice, you may ‘lose it’. Those flashes of inspiration could be lost forever.
ENJOY!
Finally, for those of you who are freaking out the most at finally doing the deed and speaking your mind, know this: writing is like any other job… When you have finished, you will wonder why you did not do the job sooner. During the process, you may even find yourself feeling better and even enjoy the task. In all liklihood the whole reason this has been built up as such a huge mountain to climb in your mind is because the task is important enough for you to consider doing something that you might not ordinarily do, i.e. write! The sheer fact you are finally getting it done will be an immense relief of pressure and once you are in your flow, you will even find yourself enjoying the process, no matter how tough the subject matter.
REWARD
When you are finally done, remember to reward yourself, even if it is only patting yourself on the back. If you are likely to be rewarded financially for finding your voice, then why not treat yourself accordingly..?
Cash Flow Concerns
I attended my first Robert Kiyosaki event a little while back. It was a taster evening for those looking to get out of the rat race and learn how to invest in real estate and property like the professionals in order to generate residual earnings and steady, predictable cash-flow.
It was enlightening, exciting and great to have the confirmation that I am on the right road in at least stepping out of the 9-5 world to work for myself, even if I was not walking out of that event having made the very reasonable down payment on Rich Dad’s weekend training weekend intensive on how to generate wealth via this vehicle.
If I had have had the cash ready, I may well have invested, just for some of the priceless information regarding raising capital that would have been part of the deal. However, I chose another option… Focus on goals already crystallising in my mind and heart to study investing in trading the Forex markets. Macro-economics and politics is a passion, so it makes sense for me to go with my strengths and interests.
Nevertheless, it was fascinating to hear just how effectively you can turn around your cash-flow with the buying and selling property game, unlike my mother, that game does in fact scare me… Not least in finding the right building works co-ordinators… That might just be a ‘master-minding’ / ‘net-working issue’ to be ironed out later. Perhaps it is even an excuse not to act, but I don’t think so.
I have been rediscovering old passions for understanding how the bigger system works. How governments and markets interact and more importantly, how market speculators interact with those market behaviours.
At the end of the meeting a penny, or perhaps a golden coin dropped. As I sat there working out how I could afford it, I realised that my conclusion of selling the car, which I never use, would also fund my training in Forex sooner than I had been anticipating…
I was so distracted by all the cash-flow thought process, that I got off the train one stop too early late last night and walked in the rain for over half an hour with only a packet of onion rings and a few biscuits and an apple in my bag to fortify me… having foregone my evening meal to get to this Kiyosaki conference in time.
But as there was only a fine rain and my head was crammed with problem-solving by then, I was grateful for the excuse to walk and think. I came to the conclusion that at some time I may have to move on from the freelancing to make a living. Self-employment just means you are ruled by your job, having to do everything from licking stamps to accounts and operations…
I am not complaining for working hard since being a freelancer, as here I am in productive time sacking off from commitments to the guy I contract for to write this blog! I certainly could not get that freedom in a job!!!
But it’s time to get back on track in planning towards making money work for me instead of me for it!!! So I am moving over to the “investment quadrant” from the self-employed quadrant at the earliest opportunity. Whereas property investment will not be my thing for cash flow, forex trading will be and that is the goal that keeps me focussed these days.
So for any of you out there feeling the same way, like the hamster in the wheel, this is your wake up call… Learn from the wake up call indirectly from Robert Kiyosaki, the original Rich Dad! What are you thinking will get you leveraged earning? Do you work for someone else and are thinking it is not helping you get the kind of lifestyle you want? Check out Kiyosaki’s Cash Flow Quadrant on You Tube then have a think about how you might break the cycle of working for someone else by checking out my article on One Chic Mom on working for yourself as your first step to boosting your cash flow.
Taking the Mystery Out of Making Money
“Money to money”, is what my mother always said. History lessons on the “Making of the English Working Class” and books like “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” confirmed her Millionaire Money reality in my mind. It was not possible to become rich unless you were born to money, or became a celebrity.
I came from a relatively poor family where money was a huge issue daily; albeit, we had become wealthy enough for the annual holiday to Wales through my parents’ sheer hard work! I live there now, possibly because it was the only time of the year I felt like I was surrounded by riches – although not of a monetary sort, but definitely natural riches!
I have also spent much of my adult life, carrying the mindset of my father – “get a good education and you will be made for life”. Well that was only partly true; trouble is we worry about the formal education of children and forget that we are meant to be ‘Lifelong Learners’. Truth is, Bellamy’s lessons in nature on TV were as valuable as any education which got me a paid job. My formal education never earned me the riches wildlife gave me that’s for sure!
But I digress…the point is, that for twenty years of my adult life, I have got up at a fixed time every day, worked like a dog and drove home, often too exhausted or still too broke to enjoy the fruits of my labour…. All of that time, out of the corner of my eye, I watched the rich who had all the money and the fun…….and whose lives were a mix of intrigue and, I confess, jealousy to me.
So I did what many poor people do to cope with going without. I counted my blessings instead of my pennies and got on with keeping the house and garden, which I now ploughed all of my energy and limited finances into….growing fruit, to keep down my shopping bills and fighting off slugs and snails competing for my veg, staying on top of the latest house-owner calamity!
Not So Small Change
After a life-changing car accident, it seemed almost overnight my perspective started to change. I started to read different books whilst I was recovering. … OK, reader, I feel the need to say for the record at this point, that I am a caring humanitarian at heart; I believe in the greater good, shared humanity, justice and equality as far as it can go. Yet here was I starting to read about the “entrepreneurial mindset” from the likes of T. Harv Eker, and listening to those I had always considered selfish, materialistic, tax evading, thieves of the public purse to the detriment of those in need. How come I was starting to agree with some of their views of the world?
For months as I continued to improve my financial literacy , I discovered that so many rich women whom I investigated in order to find possible role models are actually just people with a passion, who were driven and persistent in making their dream a reality. When the market was ready for what they had to offer and their passion for what they promoted came together, they made a killing. This is the point at which my mother was right… when they had spare investment finance , they put their money to work for them, ‘leveraging’ even more wealth. That makes good sense practically it seems to me…
Will I Be Wealthy? Will I Be Rich?
Now that I too was ready to find a new way to make a living for myself, I had to consider new options, because the old ways had not been working out. As I now became increasingly committed to being a wealthy woman in retirement, there was only one option, I had to BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR! Yep, little ‘dyed in the wool socialist’ me wanted to make money and make the best of the capitalist economy I was part of! Survival money was no longer enough. My dreams had got bigger…
I hope you are wondering how such an otherwise non-material person can apparently change direction so dramatically. Hell, even I have had to wonder if I had just sold out? Well, here’s how I see this: not only did I not want a retirement in poverty, I also wanted to make more money to SHARE MORE OF IT AROUND. I want to help causes I care about and I cannot do that broke… Of course I also want buy myself some well-earned time freedom to enjoy my good fortune too… An entrepreneurial mindset does not just mean making money for money making’s sake. It is not money that is intrinsically evil… Wealth can be a tool for good as well as bad.
Becoming Wealthy Is a Long Haul
But, Rome is not built in a day, right? And I am pretty used to set-backs, so I have definitely got one of the crucial entrepreneurial mindset traits and that is tenacity…that dogged determination to persevere in order to get what I want once my mind is made up…against the odds if necessary.
So, then…how does someone starting from zero make millionaire money and create my own wealth, despite lack of hereditary wealth or family support to count on, let alone any capital?
I started with spending what little money I had on the education in financial literacy that I never got in school. I bought books by: T. Harv Eker , Robert T. Kiyosaki, Stephen R. Covey and then Stuart Lichtman…..
Learning from those who have inspired other entrepreneurs is where believe my ‘change’ in my mindset really started…I had thought that how to become wealthy was a mystery that I would never understand… Now I know different. Even whilst the rich continue to get rich and the poor continue to get poorer and I risk being in the latter category, I am determined I am not going to resign myself to poverty for the rest of my life and continue to say that “money doesn’t matter”, because that would be lying to myself. It is just all relative…
Stuart Lichtman proved this to me in one single exercise from his book… Picture this: It is my brother and sister’s birthday one week before the magic materialised for me. I was determined to stay positive that day for them, making mental efforts not to let the fact that I was nearly a month into my business and had not made one single sale yet put a downer on my enthusiasm on their day.
The Thousand Mile Journey
That morning, I got stuck into what seemed at first like a ridiculous and humiliating materialisation exercise in the first of a series of Stuart Lichtman’s mindset training ebooks I bought. 12 sides of A4 later, with the same few sentences written 100 times repeatedly, I focussed on being positive for that day, even if I needed a little help to do it!
At the time of writing this, I have hardly really begun Lichtman’s mindset training but, I am so excited I want tell complete strangers about the things I am learning! So I am going to share with anyone reading this blog the truth contained in the first of the books that came with Stuart Lichtman’s series of e-book courses on how to get whatever you want FAST (not just money).
![Fast Money header]](http://deniseashurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Fast-Money-header-300x55.gif)
The truth is that making millionaire money is neither a mystery nor impossible; it is a science and Stuart Lichtman’s book series are just one way to learn to master its principles and how to practise making your desires become real through consistent manifestation exercises.
Now, if you are sitting there letting this wash over you, or are thinking “so what?” or “Yeah, right!” I am going to suggest that you to do just this one thing: remember when you were a child and the world was still full of magic ?…..Remember, when you got so engrossed in make believe, you forgot who you were and where you were and how good that felt? Maybe it even motivated you to take steps towards making it real the rest of the time…
Well, that is kind of how I feel about what has been happening in my world over the past few years. What’s more, I not only want more of it, I WANT TO SHARE IT WITH AS MANY OF YOU AS POSSIBLE who are also ready to learn to earn and work on your mindset!
What Is Mindset Training For Entrepreneurs?
So, if you are curious about what the “entrepreneurial mindset” means, or about how your life would be different if you had more of what you wanted out of life, or maybe you wonder sometimes about chance and coincidence, even as you wrestle with your scepticism … Well for the sake of that part of you inside you…or for that little person who still wants to go to the sweet shop / the safari / home of your dreams, but cannot afford it, today is as good a day as any for you to test the science of becoming wealthy financially and taking a step towards turning whatever it is that you really want materially into reality!
The process starts with taking off the dog tag saying who you think of yourself as and opening books to shift your poverty mindset. If you have questions about whether merely reading books will work, that’s understandable. I too question whether I can, but I am sure as hell not going to get in my own way with continuing in self-limiting beliefs.
If you have read this far, you have some reason why you are interested in what I am saying. So why not stack the odds in your favour and give yourself a 98% chance of getting what YOU want this one time? (This by the way, is Lichtman’s success rate with thousands of his clients so far!)
IF you are ready to exercise your mind and broaden your options in life generally, make a commitment to improving your mindset. Making money is only part of the equation, mindset is the trick to maintaining your goals. Nobody achieves anything alone for long; we need our reality to be supported and validated by others. Lichtman has done this for me.
Whatever you choose to do, decide to take some action towards achieving your financial goals. You only have one life. Achieving financial freedom by committing to developing your mindset and improving your financial literacy are huge steps towards immunising you to the impact of contemporary economic structures – which as time goes on may in all liklihood prevent you from ever achieving your dreams of real fulfillment for your future and your family.
The global economy is getting tougher for the majority to survive, but you can learn how make it easier on yourself to build your goals and make more money,or go and get what drives you. As time is your only real enemy, Stuart Lichtman offers a tool that can get you closer to where you want to go faster.
Anything Fast
Don’t be deceived by the title here; this is a series of ebooks covering one of the most important areas of anyone’s life – their financial well-being. Stuart Lichtman has changed THOUSANDS of peoples’ lives; he and other entrepreneurs who have developed the mindset for success have changing mine. If you’re ready to ramp up your efforts, this mindset training is for you.
Psychologically Unemployable Is No Shame
Each of us tend to be in our comfort zones daily; it seems that the human condition is as ‘creatures of habit’, adapting to change only as and when we are forced to. For some, however, perhaps through experiencing extra-ordinary circumstances, the opportunity to choose change and achieve material success is both a drive and incredibly satisfying… if a little uncomfortable or even scarey occasionally too as suddenly our world begins to change around us and options are less familiar.
After spending time moving around in voluntary work over a number of years, working with different agencies , I realised eventually that my passion for active involvement in social change had evolved into a love-hate relationship with politics. It frustrated the hell out of me, but the people I worked with and for inspired me and it seemed I could not leave the subject alone!
It seemed there were three choices for me: social work, lecturing or research. None of these options particularly appealed to me at the time; all too ‘institutional’. I was passionate and wanted to feel like I could make a difference; the only career of the three which held any appeal was social work, but even with this, I was aware that my impact might only be limited and I might have been irritated with the necessary constant compromises and constraints.
Meantime, I studied hypnotherapy and psychotherapy and even set up a business which failed miserably. If I am completely honest, working with peoples’ neuroses privately was maybe a risk too far for one so young.
I did actually begin to train in social work, until a family crisis meant I needed to focus on my immediate family’s needs, leaving no room for studying others’ problems on a 9-5 basis. This was a turning point for me which took me on a completely different life track.
When change came again, as it inevitably does, my home town seemed to be slowly dying, as traditional manufacturing industries were shut down and people were so hopeless it was depressing to be there. In the nineties, there were very few paid jobs in ‘social change’ – plenty for me to volunteer for, however, so I did. This stood me in good stead for when I moved to the nearest booming metropolis for several years, taking temporary contracts… but still I consistently kept feeling like there just was not a complete ‘fit’ for me.
I knew that I loved working with communities of people who were getting together to make changes happen in their neighbourhoods and I apparently had an aptitude for facilitating projects. Paid contracts in the field were rare however.
Growing tired of the chaos, frictions and endless familiar obstinancies of beaurocrats, after many years pinballing between project development work and admin jobs, I felt that relocating was a positive move to where I could get some psychological space and recoup myself.
I put my community participation to work again. Working together with people who are motivated by a passion to make their world a better place is not just about making a practical difference in people’s material circumstances, the real joy to be had in community development is also seeing the personal development of those involved as each learn to lean on each other and find mutual inspiration and motivation.
The Best Job In The World Still Involves Bosses
Nevertheless frustrations and sense of compromising principles from project devlopment work comes with the public relations management in the work. Every employer who funded my contracts had some sticky internal politics of their own which needed resolving. I, as facilitator, was the conduit between these larger agencies and the pockets of people these institutions needed to engage, but did not know how to. Whether my employers really believed in the centrality of community participation, or whether there was expedience and some lip service paid, the researchers at the likes of the Joseph Rowntree Trust still discuss to this day… Thirty years on after riots which tore up the rule-book in a number of British cities when my own participation first began.
I know that I am digressing from the theme of making money here, but I think it is important to share the experience of someone who has come from a world view where principles and quality of life come first, because those non-materialist values seem so diametrically opposed to where I am now… But actually, it is really just a logical extension.
My own ‘crisis of faith’ happened when I felt that the necessary relationships with those communities we were supposed to be serving became so compromised I was offering platitudes to ‘customers’ which I felt I could no longer satisfactorily justify. As I wrestled with my seniors on issues of practice and ethics, that ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ I was using to help people recreate new environments, I now believe we all possess was dying… A ‘mutual agreement’ was reached… I left my job, wondering what the Hell I would do from there onwards…
Perhaps the Universe sometimes has the first move, however. This was a big one, shoving my car from the rear into the back of another one! That car accident was ironically the best thing that had happened to me in a number of years! I was forced to take time out and rethink what I wanted. I went back to my books, not being able to move around a lot for a few months. I listened to personal development training CD’s, watched videos on YouTube and became hooked one day, by a video called ‘Inside Out’ in which Jay Kubassek talked about how he was “psychologically unemployable”. A switch went in my head at that moment which has since led me down a whole new path in ‘making a difference’.
Now I feel once more that my life is on track and my passion and drive to work for social change has returned… But now as a true entrepreneur. This time it will be with one person at a time via my new work as a newbie entrepreneur.
After years moving around different jobs, I am loving being self-employed, even when I want to hurl my lap top across the room when something stumps me, I feel like I have left a majorly self-destructive habit behind …my addiction to the apparent security of the pay-slip… Not only that, I know that whatever comes next, I am more in control of my professional development and more importantly, personal development is about achieving greater levels of freedom and integrity. Another really great part of my new life, is that my earnings will now reflect the true value of my contribution to making a difference with people and that is immensely challenging to me…
I am learning month by month consistently how to do what I do better and how to achieve more leverage… I still have a long way to go after a few years, but momentum has started and THAT is a kick that I cannot describe unless you have set up your own business and seen it move from strength to strength…
So… If you are still finding your feet or looking at a whole new direction in life, start with your mindset … Be clear about your values. Money, it is said, makes us more of what we really are. I do not accept every contract I am offered, sometimes I have to bear the discomfort and pain of financial uncertainty as a result, but this time I am in control of what I take on. If I can still make money from following my passions, then this is exactly what those who are already rich have done too… If I am even half as successful, I am going to be a very happy woman….