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When I first started providing business coaching services, I followed the time for money model that all coaches at that time were trained to use. I charged a monthly fee for two hours of time with me every month.

That worked well while I was in start-up mode. But, it stopped working so well when I reached a full practice. I ran out of the time and energy I needed to add more new clients and additional income. I started to realize there was a cap on my profits.

I could see only three options: either work harder and longer hours to increase my income, or raise my rates, or settle for a less than satisfactory income level.

I chose to raise my rates. I was too timid to go back to my current clients and tell them I wanted more money, so I just increased my fee for new clients. That worked all right for quite a while, and I was content with a decent hourly rate and a full roster of clients.

It wasn’t until I started learning about different business models that I realized I had been in my own little world of not knowing there were other options for me to have a much more profitable business.

It wasn’t until I implemented a new business model and leveraging strategies that I was able to bring in the kind of income I wanted to make. The knowledge of new business models and ways to leverage my time and energy was the foundation for my being able to even imagine making six figures or more.

I made the shift from professional practitioner to business owner first by branching out into multiple streams of income – such as group coaching programs, workshops, training and speaking, and then creating a line of information products. Over time, I discovered additional leveraging models, such as the membership or association model.

Now I know that there are many ways to structure your business so you can move away from trading all your time for money and enjoy much more income and freedom in your business. If you’re not bringing in the kind of money you want, your business model and service delivery systems are the first places to look.

The business models and systems ideas are almost endless so you can attract more clients and make more money without working so hard. I teach those newer models to all my clients. I love showing women how to shift away from trading all their time for money and implementing systems to leverage what they know into multiple streams of income.

Is your business model set up so you can bring in more money with less effort? If not, here’s what to do. First, look for ways you could deliver your services to multiple people at one time. Or, consider raising your rates by packaging your service delivery in different ways that provide more value without taking more of your time. Or, if you have a proven program or signature system, licensing or selling your home-study system might be another option for you to consider to increase your income to the level you want.

Think out of the box with creative, innovative ways to deliver and leverage your existing services, and watch your income start to soar!

Is your business model set up so you can bring in more money with less effort? I love showing women how to shift away from trading all their time for money and implementing systems to leverage what they know into multiple streams of income.

Join me for a Special FREE one hour Teleseminar
Monday May 7th at 8pm Eastern / 5pm Pacific

“How to Attract A Steady Stream of Clients and Sales: The Path to Profit Formula for Solo Professionals”

You’ll learn the steps you need to take to redesign your business around your expertise and shift into a six-figure business model.

Find out more and sign up here

Are you looking for proven business growth strategies that REALLY work? Get all the details here for my new coaching program “The Path to Profit Business Blueprint – Teleseminar Training for Solo Professionals” that starts May 13th and start kicking your business into high gear today!

Find out more and sign up here

Copyright © Jan Marie Dore ~ www.femalepreneurs.com ~ All rights reserved.

Jan Marie Dore, ‘The Professional Women’s Success Coach’, Master Certified Coach, Speaker, and Author, publishes valuable ideas to grow a professional service business and increase profitability in her newsletter ‘Success Secrets for Solo-Professional Women’.Jan Marie teaches self-employed female professionals to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com and read the Blog Prosperous Professional Women

RETURN TO DIRECTORY TO READ MORE SMALL BUSINESS MARKETING ARTICLES FOR SOLO-PROFESSIONAL WOMEN

Technorati Tags: small business marketing, small business coaching, small business success, passive income

I have been enjoying attending more women’s networking groups recently and finding out what women business owners are up to and are thinking about. There are so many inspirational women out there providing amazing services and products. I really love supporting women in solving their most pressing business challenges.

Click the arrow to listen to Jan Marie Dore reading this article.

I’m a big believer in mastermind programs and success teams. A business mastermind success team is a group of entrepreneurs who get together to support each other in growing their business, in moving through stuck places, and in brainstorming ideas for new opportunities.

I’m excited to be starting some new mastermind groups and a new teleseminar training program in May to support more women in being successful in their business. Details and the link to sign up are at the end of this article.

If you’re a business owner you may notice how easy it is to get stuck in the details of running your business and how hard it is to stay focused on the big picture of where you want your business to go. If we don’t get support and feedback from other people who know us and our business well, it’s almost impossible for us to see how and where we’re getting stuck. We don’t often take the opportunity to step outside our business, take an objective viewpoint, and reconnect with our vision.

The benefits of participating in a mastermind team are many. You benefit from the creative ideas of many people instead of just your own limited thoughts. The group will help you problem solve your biggest challenges. The synergy of the group helps you to step out of your comfort zone into the place of new possibilities. The group will also hold you accountable so that you’re more likely to take action to reach your goals.

If you want to pull together you’re own success team, here are some tips to get you started:

Create a vision of the outcome you want
The first step is to get clear on what you want to create. What do you want your business and life to look like five years from now? How do you define success? The clearer you are on your vision and the outcomes you want, the more likely you are to achieve them.

Write out your goals and objectives
Less than five percent of people write out their goals, but those who do are much more likely to achieve them than those who don’t. Writing out your goals and objectives to achieve your vision will give you and your group a clear roadmap to your success.

Decide who you want on your success team
Think about who you’d like to invite. Who would be the right partners for you? It’s been said that our business will be as successful as the five business people we spend the most time with. Our income and success tends to stay in the same range as the group we’re connected to.

Take responsibility for your experience
Decide what you’d want to get out of being a part of a mastermind team. What would be the best outcome you could achieve? If these people were your ‘virtual board of directors’, how would you want to interact with them? Establish guidelines for trust, honesty, confidentiality, commitment, timeliness, and accountability.

Rotate leadership
The group doesn’t need one leader, but it’s good for each member to rotate through the leadership role. This may mean the person who hosts the meeting reminds people of the day and time, sets the tone, facilitates the discussion, and keeps time so that everyone gets air time. Or, you may set roles for each member, such as meeting scheduler, host, note taker, and time keeper.

A mastermind team can be a powerful support for your business success. Commit to taking action to create your own personal success team, and watch your results multiply.

P.S. If there’s no one on your success team yet, why not consider joining us for
one of my In-person Coaching Mastermind Success Teams? These exclusive, private, small groups for committed women entrepreneurs and service professionals meet once a month in person for closed-door mastermind sessions and personalized attention. You’ll also receive tailored, one-on-one private coaching calls with Jan – a Master Certified Coach, Certified Business Consultant, and an authority on entrepreneurial success for women. This very affordable program is designed to support you in stepping up to a bigger stage and higher profits in your business quickly. Find out more and schedule a free strategy session.

P.P.S. The ”No Limits Path to Profit” Group Coaching & Training Program starts May 12th. Over the next two months I will personally take you through my proven “No Limits Path to Profit Formula” and mentor you in my step-by-step business blueprint to leverage your and expertise and passion into highly lucrative profit centers so you can attract all the clients, income and freedom you really want from your service business.
Take a look here at all that’s included in this very affordable mentoring program that starts May 12th.

Copyright © Jan Marie Dore ~ www.femalepreneurs.com ~ All rights reserved.

Jan Marie Dore, ‘The Professional Women’s Success Coach’, Master Certified Coach, Speaker, and Author, publishes valuable ideas to grow a professional service business and increase profitability in her newsletter ‘Success Secrets for Solo-Professional Women’.Jan Marie teaches self-employed female professionals to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com and read the Blog The Femalepreneurs Way

Technorati Tags: small business marketing, small business marketing articles

Join me Tuesday, April 27, 2010 as I’m interviewed by Scott Cluthe on his show “Positively Incorrect” on Blog Talk Radio along with Sandy Vilas, CEO of CoachInc.com / Coach U.

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO REPLAY HERE.
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Here’s the description:

Jan Marie Dore with Sandy Vilas on Scott Cluthe’s Positively Incorrect!

Scott talks with two master coaches as Sandy Vilas, CEO of CoachInc.com is joined by author and Master Certified Coach Jan Marie Dore Tuesday night!

Since Jan is an expert on supporting women in finding and fulfilling their business and entrepenurial passion, we’ll hear much of what Jan shares with her clients every day. A great chance to call in and be coached on your issues and challenges, successes and desire for being the best you can be in your field.

Jan Marie Dore is a small business coaching expert and Master Certified Coach (MCC) who mentors creative, entrepreneurial women to design highly profitable businesses around their passion, purpose and expertise and live a great life. She teaches women easy marketing strategies and business systems so they can attract more clients, work fewer hours and make more money. Jan is passionate about empowering women entrepreneurs to get their message out to wider audiences and reach new levels of success, fulfillment and profits in their business. Her clients are women around the world who have a talent, passion, service or expertise they want to share to make a difference in people’s lives.

Jan founded The Learning Center for Women Entrepreneurs to deliver training and support in effective marketing and sales strategies through coaching, training and mentoring programs, seminars, retreats, teleseminars and information products.

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There has never been better time to write an eBook.

Ebooks and other “How-To” Manuals are the hottest thing selling on the internet right now. There is a phenomenal global potential to distribute information products using the Internet.

Writing about what you know and publishing it in eBooks is one of the most effective ways to grow your professional service business. Publishing information products can help you become a recognized authority in your area of expertise as well as substantially increase your income.

Writing an eBook or other information product will help you to:

• market and grow your business
• focus your energy and business efforts
• develop a strong reputation
• establish yourself as a recognized expert in your field
• stand out in a crowded marketplace
• attract traffic to your web site
• gain you new clients with less effort
• get you noticed by the media
• expand your business globally
• command much higher fees
• earn passive income

With all those advantages, writing an eBook or information product would seem like a great thing to do. And it is.

Here are some tips to get you off to great start:

• Choose a Subject for Your eBook or How-To Manual
• Research the needs of your target market
• Get feedback from your current clients and customers
• Decide on a topic and research it well
• Get clear on the benefits of your solution for your target audience

Create an Outline
An outline is a roadmap for the subjects you plan to cover as you write – the steps to the solution you have for the problem your target market has.

• Brainstorm ideas about everything you want to share on your subject.
• Write ten points you want your readers to know about your topic.
• Define the problem your target market has, and the solutions you have for each of their specific challenges. This becomes the outline for your book.
• Transfer this list to a table of contents.
• Expand on each point.
• Create a new directory folder on your computer for your eBook project.

Define Your Book Topic
Define your book topic in a one or two sentence description to bring your entire project into focus. Define the core of your message and build everything around that. Create a ‘book hook’ to position yourself as an expert.

Guidelines for Focused Productivity While Writing Your eBook
You will have to have to commit a certain amount of time and take focused, consistent action to achieve results.

• Set an intention and make the commitment to make this project your number one priority
• Focus your writing time: commit to writing in large blocks of time, or at least 2 hours a day, or 3 to 5 pages a day.
• Begin each day with your number one priority – writing your eBook.
• Enroll the support of a writing partner, a group, or a coach.
• You Can Position Yourself As An Expert by Writing An eBook

One of the great advantages of creating a product is that you can position yourself as an expert or specialist in your field by writing an eBook, workbook or program for your niche market.

As an expert, you will be able to charge much higher fees for your services because specialized knowledge and services are much more highly valued than general information.

Positioning yourself as the go-to person in your field is a smart marketing strategy. It takes work, a good plan, and support to achieve expert status, but it’s well worth the effort to take this approach as part of your long-term business development strategy.

The media will call you, associations will ask you to speak at their events, and you will start to stand out, get noticed, and get hired.

Take action today to commit your words to paper – or computer. Start by believing in your own expertise. Then, step-by-step start to position yourself as a credible authority by writing ebooks and other information products. Over time, you can declare expert status.

If you would like to see my valuable resource guide on Publishing ebooks and other information products, go to Publish eBooks for Profit:The Complete Guide to Selling Information Products Online.

Online Profits with Information Products – New 3 Month Program starts March 16th

The teleseminar is a preview of my new 90 Day Coaching Program “Online Profits with Information Products” that starts Tuesday, March 16th. You can complete an information product or two over the next few months and add additional revenue streams to you business. That’s a great strategy in this economy!

Join me to learn how to create and sell ebooks and other information products, how to get through resistance to writing, and how to package, promote, price and sell your products online at your website. You can start earning passive income from your own information products and gain authority status.

Publish eBooks for Profit

I walk you through you my easy step-by-step system, tips and shortcuts that I’ve shared with hundreds of my clients for growing your professional service business and income with information products.

As a bonus, you’ll receive my comprehensive workbook and audio program chock full of tips and ideas to get you writing ebooks – one of the best ways to establish you as an authority in your niche.

Details on the Online Profits Program are here

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Typically, at the start of a new year, many of us feel the urge to set new goals. The slate feels as if it has been wiped clean with the sweep of the clock into a new year, and we are inspired to imagine we can accomplish great things.

This year, why not try a new way of ‘going goalless’. Focus on who you are becoming rather than any tangible, specific goals. Make a plan to develop qualities of your SELF that will shift you into a new space and direction in your life and your business.

Stop chasing your purpose in life. Instead, become fully engaged in your present and let your purpose find you. It will come, I promise, most likely as something that just feels right to do next.

This is the perfect time of year to clarify your values and what you want your life and business to be about. You are a different person than you were a year ago. Bring yourself up to date with where you are now. Nothing is more interesting than your own life. Take the time to re-evaluate where you are and where you’re going.

Here’s a writing exercise that can change the direction of your life and business this coming year. Answer the following questions with your focus totally on the present moment and without reference to the past or future:

1. Who am I now? Instead of asking yourself the general question, ‘Who am I’, narrow it down to ‘Who am I now’. Bring yourself up to date, into the present moment.
2. How will I live my life this coming year? Aristotle asked, “How shall I live my life”. This is too broad a question for our minds to handle at times, too general and abstract. Focus only on the next year. Don’t worry for this exercise about the past or the future beyond that; this is irrelevant right now.
3. What am I doing right now, and why am I doing what I’m doing right now? Ask yourself this question instead of the general question ‘What is my purpose in life?’ Your answers will give you clues as to your purpose and the direction you could take this coming year to fulfill that purpose. Look at your life in the present (again, without regard to past or future) and take an inventory.
4. What am I doing currently that I do not want to be doing? Evaluate all of the things you need to let go of: for example, actions that don’t support your success, too many commitments, procrastinating, habits that sabotage reaching your goals, thoughts that hold you back, thinking small.
5. Who do I want to be by the end of the coming year? This is an important question to ponder. Who do you want to be, rather than the typical, ‘what do I want to do.’ This is the time to think bigger about what’s possible for you and how you can make a bigger difference in people’s lives.
6. What do I often dream about doing that I’ve never, ever done? What do you desire that is not in your life or work right now? Go back to childhood and adolescence for clues to this one. The answers may seem impossible to you. Act as if there were no limits. These questions may help you clarify your values.
7. How will I structure my life and business this year to enhance the direction I want to go? Consider support or resources you will need to be all that you can be. What kind of structure do you need to stay focused on your vision and start thinking bigger?

Once you have your answers to these questions, make a list of the actions you would need to take to make these shifts. Practice listening deeply to yourself, listening to the still small voice of your intuition. What gentle urgings is it communicating to you?

Set an intention for what you want to happen, and be on the lookout for coincidences and synchronicities that will help you manifest your intention for who you want to be and what difference you know you can make in the world.

Start each day with a commitment to achieving the positive shifts you want in your life and your work, and watch for magic to happen to help you step into your greatness!

Wishing you much love and prosperity,
Jan

P.S. My gift to you is the audio program “The 3 Keys to a Thriving Business in 2010 for Women Entrepreneurs“. My colleague Carolyn Ellis and I share our top tips to thrive in 2010. You can listen here. If you like what you hear, consider joining us for our Brilliance Mastermind Coaching Intensive Jan 22-23,

P.P.S. There’s still time to join a great group of talented women in my new *Purpose Into Profit Group Coaching Program* to get off to a great start in 2010. I’m teaching women how to use the internet and information marketing to simplify their marketing, increase their income, and build their business around their life purpose. The next call is Jan 6th. We’ll send you the first 2 audios and learning guides right away if you sign up now for the Purpose Into Profit Program

Copyright © Jan Marie Dore ~ www.janmariedore.com ~ All rights reserved.

Jan Marie teaches self-employed women professionals to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com and read the Blog FemalePreneurs Success Secrets.

Technorati Tags: small business coaching, life purpose, goal setting

“Six Surefire Strategies to Build Your Brand Online for More Impact and Income in 2010 “

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In this age of new media and new marketing, the rules for marketing professional service businesses have changed dramatically. Yet, many women in service-based businesses are not keeping up with the times and may fall behind the leaders in their marketplace who are embracing the new media models to build their brand online.

Having a strong brand reputation is the key to making sales in the new economy. It’s never been so important for your brand to be highly relevant. Your brand is the one competitive edge you can offer that no one else can copy or duplicate.

Brand marketing trends for 2010 indicate that you need to have something highly interesting and relevant to say to build a brand that people will notice. You need to engage your community, build your platform, and include social media in your marketing mix.

Here are my six surefire strategies to build your brand online for more impact and income in 2010:

1. Publish a Blog That Positions You as a Leader in Your Niche
Publishing a blog is a great way to expand your visibility and attract a community of followers. And, it’s very easy and low cost to publish a blog. Starting a blog is a great way to find your voice as well as start to cultivate an audience base. Put the focus on your readers instead of on you. Offer solutions to your audiences’ biggest challenges and you’ll never be at a loss for content. Writing valuable and relevant information at your blog can position you as the go-to person in your area of expertise. You will be easily referable and people will line up to buy from you. To remain relevant, your message must be interesting and timely, communicate authority and an authentic personality, and indicate that you are connected and in the know.

2. Brand Your Brilliance and Your Purpose
Personality and purpose-driven marketing can be highly effective these days when it has become so hard to get people’s attention. The most effective personal brands are built around your strengths, expertise, passion, personality, and life purpose. A strong brand based on your unique brilliance can differentiate your offerings and create value-added client relationships which lead to sustainable client loyalty. What people want now is relevance, simplicity, authentic personality, honesty, imagination and inspiration. If you’ve been holding back on following your true purpose or heart’s desire in your business, or not saying what you really think and feel, now’s the time to get real.

3. Leverage Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is one of the easiest ways to effectively expand your reputation. You can use social media to position yourself as an expert, build your credibility, build relationships, and extend your reach. Social media can be a very powerful tool for business growth if you know how to use it wisely to build relationships and not just to promote yourself. To successfully leverage social media, become highly active at a few sites like Facebook and Twitter, or LinkedIn, rather than trying to keep up with multiple networks. Get to know and get known by your online community and virtual neighbors. Become a superstar, must read resource and source of inspiration on Twitter.

4. Build a Purposeful Platform to Amplify Your Brand and Your Message
Your brand platform is the image or impression you make in the marketplace. It’s the set of associations that clients make when they think of you and your services. It’s both what you stand for and what your marketplace perceives as valuable. It’s how you create distinctive value through the unique combination of your expertise, values, vision, passion, purpose and message. By following your passion and purpose, you can build a purposeful platform that feeds both your pocketbook and your soul. A powerful online presence is one that builds and extends your platform and positions you to become well know for your message. There are many ways you can do this: article and blog marketing, social media marketing, signature presentations and programs, press releases, and developing a line of information products, to name a few. The first important step of course is to choose a highly targeted niche market that is looking for solutions to problems that you have answers to.

5. Take Your Brand Viral with Video Marketing
Video marketing is hot. It’s the big key secret method to extending your reach globally and attracting more interested, pre-qualified leads quickly. A picture really is worth a thousand words! You can easily create short two minute video tips for your target audience to post at your blog, or a video of you outlining the benefits of your new program at your sales page, or record testimonials from satisfied clients. Upload your videos to a free video-sharing site such as YouTube. Video can quickly raise your visibility and exposure and spread your message virally across the internet.

6. Create Raving Brand Fans
People have so many complex brand choices today that they get overwhelmed and confused. You need to get a community of people really engaged to build a loyal following. Develop a marketing strategy that will give your target audience exactly what they want so you can attract a community of followers and “raving brand fans”. Find out where your community is. Find out what they like to read and who they follow. Build your connections, strategic alliances and audience base. Over time, people will start to trust your expertise and enjoy your style and will buy your services and products without you having to put a lot of effort into selling.

Times have changed in the web 2.0 world. The internet has leveled the playing field in vying for people’s attention. Online branding will give you an edge in the marketplace that will cause clients to think of you first when they need your type of services.

Copyright © Jan Marie Dore ~ www.femalepreneurs.com ~ All rights reserved.

Jan Marie Dore, ‘The Professional Women’s Success Coach’, Master Certified Coach, Speaker, and Author, publishes valuable ideas to grow a professional service business and increase profitability in her newsletter ‘Success Secrets for Solo-Professional Women’. Jan Marie teaches self-employed female professionals to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com and read the Blog Success Secrets for Solo-Professional Women

“Shifting From Ideas Into Action: Seven Tips to Nurture Your Creative Ideas Into Reality”

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Can you relate to this?

Do you ever get thinking about new ideas for your business, then get so caught up in talking about those new ideas and researching them that you get totally overwhelmed and never take action?

Analysis paralysis!

I have often suffered from this. Started my day feeling energetic and creative and full of vitality, and got so mired in detail that all of the joy and enthusiasm leaves me.

Then, nothing happens.

The article doesn’t get written, the phone calls don’t get made, the new workshop content doesn’t get written. The list goes on.

I lose the energy and focus I need to keep going and do the things that my business needs for me to thrive.

I feel like giving up and going to watch Oprah!

Have you ever experienced that feeling? What has gone wrong?

There are seven things you need to do. These are my tips on how to nurture your creative ideas into reality.

1. Develop a Compelling Vision
If you don’t have a clear vision for where you’re going and a strategy to get there, you’ll end up spinning your wheels for months and even years. A strong, compelling vision statement about something you’re passionate about is the starting place to give you a road map to guide your actions.

2. Get Clear on Your Top Priorities
Prioritize each day either at the end or beginning of your day. Keep it simple. Make a list of two, or no more than three, things you can accomplish that day. And do them! Keep that commitment to yourself of limiting your priorities for three weeks and you’ll have a high productivity habit for life.

3. Start an Idea File
Don’t get attached to every creative idea that pops into your head. Start an idea file as a way to capture your creative ideas without feeling the urge to act on them. Your idea file can be either on your computer or an actual physical folder where you keep clippings and lists of ideas.

4. Take Action Consistently
Decide what actions you are going to take each day based on your priorities and vision. Commit to taking those actions as your first priority each day. Focus only on those high payoff activities that will give you the results you want. I don’t know about you, but it helps me to commit to someone else about the actions I intend to take. For me, my mastermind team, my coach, and my virtual assistants all help me stay accountable and committed to the actions I want to take.

5. Give Yourself a Deadline
Our actions have a way of filling all the time we have available. If you allow yourself four hours to write your next article or plan your next workshop or whatever activity you need to accomplish, it will take you four or more hours. If you give yourself a tight deadline of only two hours, it will have the effect of making you super focused and productive so that you’ll accomplish what you want to achieve in the time you set.

6. Ask Yourself a Focusing Question
Every hour throughout the day, stop and ask yourself: “Is what I’m doing right now getting me closer to my goals?” If it is, great. If it’s not, this gives you a chance to course correct and get back on track.

7. Celebrate . . Go Play!
With those extra two hours you just gained, do something fun. Reward yourself for doing your best work. Spending time with friends and family, or doing some activity you enjoy will re-energize you and clear your mind so that you can be focused and productive the next day. This is a step that many people overlook, and I believe is the number one reason why they don’t move their ideas into action.

Being inconsistent in putting your priorities into action delays your results. If you implement any one of these ideas,  you’ll feel more empowered and have a real sense of accomplishment and productivity. This will lead to much better results for your business.

……………………………………………………….

Jan Marie teaches self-employed female professionals to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com and read the Blog Success Secrets.

Technorati Tags: small business success, business vision

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Is passive income in your success plan? If not, it should be.

Smart professional women develop multiple streams of income in their business. They know that financial freedom begins with passive income. They sell their ideas, not just their time.

You can turn your passion and what you love into profitable income streams. Coaching, consulting, speaking and delivering workshops are examples of active sources of income. Selling products, assessments, licensing your programs, and affiliate marketing are examples of passive sources of income. To be really profitable and free up more of your time, you want to shift the mix so that most of your income comes from passive sources.

You can redesign your business around your ideal lifestyle and free yourself from feeling trapped in your business. You can design your business so you work less, make more and live life on your own terms.

To build a very successful business in the new Web 2.0 marketplace you must learn how to create information products. You can leverage your expertise into a very profitable business by turning what you know into products and programs.

You can use the internet to create instant passive income. You can automate some of your income so that you can sleep on it and let the money roll in. Automate your marketing and sales to make it a no-brainer that happens independently of your time. What you need are technology, automation, systems and support.

I have learned a very good strategy to build a highly profitable business: position yourself as an expert in a profitable micro-niche and create information products. Teach people what you know, and solve their problems with your information and how-to expertise.

There are seven specific steps you can take to redesign your business around your strengths and turn your expertise into lucrative profit centers.

1. The first step is to establish your reputation
Create a national or international reputation and a brand in your segment of a profitable niche. Why is it important to have a strong personal brand in your area of expertise? Because the more people who know of you the more who will buy passive revenue products from you.

You can still earn active revenue from delivering your services and offering workshops and seminars, but if you’re like me, the passive sources are a lot more appealing because you can maintain your ideal lifestyle without working so many hours one-on-one or traveling all the time.

2. Map out your passive income marketing funnel
The marketing funnel is a basic marketing concept that can have a huge impact on your profitability. First, you get lots of prospects in your funnel, then you guide them through the funnel. You need a plan for bringing people from your free talks or your free newsletter to your lowest priced offerings and then on to your highest paid services. The mistake many professionals make is to try to sell people directly into their high end services. That rarely works.

Instead, your information products will allow potential clients to get to know you with less work on your part and little risk or cost to them before they try your higher priced services. Your clients move down through your funnel so when they are ready to work one-on-one with you, you have already developed trust with them and you don’t have to sell them.

3. Learn passive income skills and info-preneur strategies
You can multiply your profits by turning what you know into info-products and using the internet to create instant passive income. Learn the many ways to package your information and sell it online. Learn about content development to leverage the content you already have from your talks, articles and workshops. Learn general information about article marketing, web 2.0 marketing, affiliate marketing, blogging and pay per click advertising to determine which tactics are right for your business. Then, delegate those tasks to the specialists who can support you in growing your business.

4. Nurture your creativity
If you’re so busy all the time that you don’t have the energy to come up with new ideas or to spend writing or creating programs, you may not be able to earn passive income. Creativity and innovation are key to coming up with new ideas. You need to carve out blocks of time out in your week for creative right-brain, intuitive thinking.

I encourage my clients to take time for what I call ‘creative silence’. It’s in these moments of silence – when we are in the flow and a ‘non-doing’ state of mind – that inspiration comes to us. Get into the habit of capturing your ideas and writing regularly to develop information products to position yourself as a credible expert.

5. Create systems
Systems are the key to leveraging your time and expertise. You can create a system for every function in your business so that you do something one time, and then it is either delegated or automated to be done in future. You don’t want to be doing all the work yourself and reinventing the wheel each time. You can have systems for getting client referrals, for contact management, for delivering your newsletter, for your recordkeeping, and for product development.

In fact, everything you do in your business can be made into a system. Leverage the power of technology and the internet to reduce the mundane tasks that take your time and energy.

6. Delegate and automate
It’s impossible to build a highly profitable business by doing it all yourself. Learn to delegate. Build your team to help you create your ‘information empire’. You can start small with delegating the tasks you don’t like to do to one person a few hours a week, then build from there. To know what to delegate, make a list of all the things you don’t like to do or are putting off doing. I call this my ‘not to-do’ list. These become the first tasks that you delegate.

Automation is also important to free up your time. You can automate your follow-up messages using autoresponders, such as AWeber and Get Response. Automate your sales using a shopping cart system, such as the 1 Shopping Cart system through Practice Pay Solutions. Automate your article marketing using a paid service like Article Marketer. Have your teleseminars recorded automatically using one of the many free services, such as Free Audio Conferencing

7. Play a bigger game
Do you have a big vision for what you see as possible for people and for the world? What’s your contribution going to be? To play bigger and make more money, you need to enroll other people in your vision and create accountability and support for yourself by joining a coaching program or mastermind team. You need to take a leadership role in your industry to make a bigger impact. You can leverage your expertise through joint ventures and collaboration with others. If you have a purpose and passion for your work, you can develop a base of lifetime followers that will sustain your success for years to come.

We’re in the information economy. Are you taking advantage of it to earn passive income and up-level your business profits?

……………………………………………………….
Are you looking for proven business growth and internet marketing strategies that REALLY work? Get all the details here for our brand new Marketing Mastery 101 and Inner Circle Advanced Mentoring Programs and start kicking your business into high gear today.

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Copyright © Jan Marie Dore ~ www.femalepreneurs.com ~ All rights reserved.

Jan Marie Dore, ‘The Professional Women’s Success Coach’, Master Certified Coach, Speaker, and Author, publishes valuable ideas to grow a professional service business and increase profitability in her newsletter ‘Success Secrets for Solo-Professional Women’.Jan Marie teaches self-employed female professionals to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com and read the Blog Prosperous Professional Women

RETURN TO DIRECTORY TO READ MORE SMALL BUSINESS MARKETING ARTICLES FOR SOLO-PROFESSIONAL WOMEN

Technorati Tags: small business marketing, small business coaching, small business success, passive income

In this Teleseminar, Kate Sanner of VivacityMedia.com interviews Jan Marie Dore on “The Formula for Making More Money and Having More Freedom in Your Business”.

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO REPLAY HERE.
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Teleseminar Interview Description
Too many women entrepreneurs struggle with growing their business. Often it’s because they were not taught the right way to market themselves or to build a sustainable business that doesn’t drain all their time and energy.

In this teleseminar, Jan Marie Dore will share with you the twelve most important business success principles she has learned about being financially successful in any professional service or ’special knowledge’ business. She calls it her formula for simplicity & prosperity that when followed leads to more success, more time off, and more money.
You’ll learn the steps you need to take to redesign your business around your expertise and build a professional service business that is financially rewarding, gives you the lifestyle you really want, and makes a big difference in the world. It’s a step-by-step process any service professionals or ‘expert entrepreneur’ can use to simplify and streamline your business so you can work less, have more freedom, and make more money.

You’ll learn how to:

• simplify and streamline your business so you can work less, have more freedom, and make more money
• shift your business model from one to one service delivery to one to many and multiple streams of income.
• redesign your business step-by-step around your expertise
• rise to the top of your field and become the leader of a micro-niche market
• grow a financially successful professional service business that gives you the lifestyle you really want and makes a difference
• implement the formula for making more money and having more freedom in your business

As a result of this teleseminar, you’ll be on your way to breaking through the “time for money” income ceiling and increasing your financial success!

About Jan Marie Dore
Jan Marie Dore,`The Professional Women’s Success Coach’, is a business coach who mentors women entrepreneurs and independent service professionals to attract more clients, make more money, have more freedom, and take more time off. She is known internationally as a mentor to professional women, a speaker, author, workshop facilitator, and retreat leader. Jan Marie has been interviewed or quoted as an expert on small business coaching and women’s small business issues in the media, including radio, magazines, and professional journals and has written numerous articles that have reached audience across the globe.

Jan Marie is the founder of Femalepreneurs.com, a business coaching and training company that provides professional mentoring for women entrepreneurs and service professionals worldwide. She speaks frequently to women in small business who wish to connect passion with profits. She publishes the ezine and blog “Success Secrets for Professional Women”. Visit her online at www.FemalePreneurs.com for free resources and tips to grow your business and income and live a great life.

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Is your website bringing you all the sales and opportunities you want?

Over the years as I have studied marketing best practices and mentored thousands of women entrepreneurs in marketing and growing their business, I have observed what works and what doesn’t work in creating effective websites that sell.

All too often I have seen entrepreneurs and professionals spend thousands of dollars on pretty but ineffective websites. They pay someone for a lovely design but that person may not know the basics of how your website needs to be designed so that you get more leads and more sales.

Here are the mistakes I see and the steps to fix them:

Mistake 1: No Way to Capture Leads
The number one goal of your website should be to capture names and email addresses of prospects so you can get your message in front of them over and over. You’ll want to automate this system with one of the many services that will do this for you.

Mistake 2: Opt-In Box and Call to Action Not Visible
Your opt-in box for your free offer and to subscribe to your list needs to be at the top of every page of your website. Top left is ideal, or in the header or top right are excellent too. All too often, these boxes are hidden far down the page. Make it very easy for people to find it as soon as they come to your site. A call to action is what tells people what to do next. Don’t assume they will know. Say “click here now to get your free report” or “enter your name to receive your free gift instantly”.

Mistake 3: No Compelling Offer to a Specific Target Audience
This is the biggest mistake I see. There are two aspects to this. First, the target market is too broad or general. Second, there is nothing offered that is compelling enough for these ideal prospects to exchange their name and email address for. It’s not enough now to say “sign up for my newsletter”. You need to make it much more enticing. Offer something that will solve a problem for your marketplace. Offer something they’ll get instantly – such as a special report, tips lists, audio class or e-course, a quiz or assessment, a CD or a video – and let them know they’ll also receive your ezine or weekly tips.

Mistake 4: A Homepage That Is All About You
When someone visits your website, the first thing they want to know is “what’s in it for me?” They want to know that you understand them and their challenges before they want to know about you. The mistake I see too often is the website owner’s mission statement or vision or credentials first thing on the homepage. Make the beginning paragraphs about your prospects, not about you. Show them that you identify with them and understand their frustrations, and only then let them know how you can help them.

Mistake 5: No Compelling Headline on Each Page
A headline serves two purposes: to capture people’s attention so they will want to read more, and to tell the search engines what your site is all about. Search engines look for key words or phrases in your headlines and first two paragraphs of text, and so do people. When prospects see that you understand them and you’re talking to them, they’ll want to read more.

Mistake 6: No Clear Path for Prospects to Follow
Keep your navigation at your site very simple and guide people through so they aren’t overwhelmed at your home page by too many options. The main goal of your website should be to get people on your list. Once they are on your list, you will have multiple opportunities to sell to them. Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of trying to sell high-end services too soon before prospects get a chance to know you and appreciate your expertise. Get them on your list first, and then as they come to appreciate you as a resource and trusted advisor through your articles and tips, start telling them gradually about your services and products.

Here are six steps you can take right now to shift your website from ineffective to a continual sales generator:

1. Have a way to automatically capture prospects names and email addresses. There are many excellent services that can automate this for you such as 1 Shopping Cart, A Weber, or Get Response.


2. Make sure your opt-in box and call to action to capture leads are at the top of every page.


3. Create an enticing offer that prospects will clamor to get and will gladly give you their name and email address to receive.


4. Review your homepage to ensure that it’s mainly about your prospects and their challenges and not all about you.


5. Write a compelling headline using your keywords for each page of your website.


6. Develop a clear path for prospects to follow from the initial subscription to your list to something free or low-cost, then on up to medium and higher priced products and services. This is often called your “marketing funnel”.

Do all these things, and you should start seeing more subscribers added to your list and more sales at your website.

Copyright © Jan Marie Dore ~ www.femalepreneurs.com ~ All rights reserved.

Jan Marie Dore, ‘The Professional Women’s Success Coach’, Master Certified Coach, Speaker, and Author, publishes valuable ideas to grow a professional service business and increase profitability in her newsletter ‘Success Secrets for Solo-Professional Women’.Jan Marie teaches self-employed female professionals to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com and read the Blog Prosperous Professional Women

Technorati Tags: small business marketing, website tips, women entrepreneur

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Marketing in this day and age needs to be a two-way communication. In a professional service business, it may make more sense to focus on the four C’s of marketing rather than the more traditional four P’s. They are much more customer oriented – and you need to think like your clients to do your best marketing.

Originally coined by Robert F. Lauterborn, co-author of “The New Marketing Paradigm: Integrated Marketing Communications”, the four C’s are more client centered and encourage us to view our business from the client’s perspective. They represent a fundamental shift in the marketing paradigm in response to the dramatic changes in the way people now make their buying decisions.

• Instead of Product – you have Customer Value
• Instead of Place – Convenience
• For Price – Cost
• For Promotion – Communication

Here are some guidelines on these concepts and why they are important to consider in your marketing plan.

Customer Value
You can no longer sell whatever you want to. You can only sell what people specifically want to buy. Understand your client’s needs and wants through ongoing survey and feedback so that you can provide massive value back to them.

Convenience
With the Internet and increased competition, the availability of similar services is infinite. Think convenience to buy. Make it very convenient for consumers to acquire your products and services. Many websites are set up to sell online 24/7 so that when the client is ready to buy, they don’t have to wait.

Cost
Understand consumer’s costs to satisfy their wants and needs. Determine how customers will respond to paying your sales prices by doing some market research. Are your price points set at the level where customers are willing to buy?

Communication
Forget Promotion; the new word is Communication. Mass marketing no longer works. Two-way conversation is essential. Your marketing communication may need to be more of a relationship-based process.

In today’s economy, it’s very easy for consumers to take their dollars elsewhere. If you can understand your client’s needs and wants through ongoing survey and feedback, you will be able to provide lots of value back to them.

To promote yourself effectively, you need to stand in your clients and shoes, and look at things from their perspective. If you practice these four C’s you’ll have a better chance of connecting with your potential clients.

Take Action

Review your marketing practices in the following four areas:

Customer Value
Survey your client’s needs and wants on an ongoing basis so that you can provide massive value back to them.

Convenience
How convenient do you make it for consumers to acquire your products and services? Can they purchase from you 24/7 through your website?

Cost
How are customers responding to paying your sales prices? Will they buy at the price points you have set?

Communication
Take a look at your marketing communication. Is it one-way or two-way? Do you encourage comments and feedback? Can you say it’s a relationship-based process?

© Copyright Jan Marie Dore www.janmariedore.com All rights reserved.

Jan Marie teaches women how to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com .

Technorati Tags: small business marketing, small business coaching, women entrepreneur

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For your marketing message to be really powerful and effective, it needs to be very targeted and specific. You’ll want to define who the ideal prospects are who could most benefit from your products and services, and include that in your message. You’ll also want to really understand their most pressing issues and challenges so that you can demonstrate that you provide targeted solutions to their problems.

Here are three steps you can take to target your marketing message more specifically:

1. Define your target market
When you started your business and wrote your business plan, you spent some time defining your target market. Now is the time to be really clear about who this target group is that you want to attract. Define who they are, where they work, where they live, what they read, how old they are, what groups they belong to, what magazines they read, and how much they earn. Be as specific as possible.

2. Create a profile of your ideal client
It’s helpful to imagine your message will attract one specific person. Be clear on their specific characteristics, key challenges, problems, frustrations, desires and needs. For example, a professional service provider specializing in career transition might market directly to a female executive age 45 who lives in New York, earns $150,000 or more a year, is on the verge of burnout, wants out of her job, and is looking for solutions to manage stress or leave her job, belongs to the local executive women’s network, and reads Executive Women Magazine. You get the idea. You need to be very clear and specific about who your ideal prospect is. Have this profile handy whenever you write a talk, an article or a blog post so that you can write or speak directly to that person using words that will appeal specifically to them.

3. Understand the problems and challenges in your niche market
Get to know the people in your defined market. Attend networking events, workshops and conferences. Go online to social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, go to blogs, forums, and groups like Google groups or Yahoo groups that have interactive mailing lists. Do some market research. Find out about their greatest needs and challenges, their most pressing problems, and their biggest frustrations. If you don’t know, ask them for feedback by email or phone, take them to lunch, or conduct a survey.

Do these three things so that your message will carry more impact and will resonate with the specific clients you most want to attract. Incorporate your research into all of your marketing messages so that they will be more targeted and powerful.

Copyright © Jan Marie Dore ~ www.femalepreneurs.com ~ All rights reserved.

Jan Marie Dore, ‘The Professional Women’s Success Coach’, Master Certified Coach, Speaker, and Author, publishes valuable ideas to grow a professional service business and increase profitability in her newsletter ‘Success Secrets for Solo-Professional Women’.Jan Marie teaches self-employed female professionals to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com and read the Blog Prosperous Professional Women

Technorati Tags: small business marketing, niche marketing, small business marketing articles

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SWOT Analysis: Clarifying Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats

One of the planning tools I use for my business is the SWOT analysis. It’s a great tool to be familiar with, and it has many applications. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Here are some tips on how you might use it for your small business.

The SWOT analysis is a tool for auditing your small business and its environment – both internal and external. It forms an important part of your strategic planning process.

SWOT analysis is a framework for analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of your business, and the opportunities and threats you face. It is an important component of long term planning that takes into consideration many different internal and external factors, maximizing the potential of the strengths and opportunities while minimizing the impact of the weaknesses and threats to your business. It’s generally a good idea to carry out a SWOT analysis once a year as part of your strategic planning process.

This analysis that takes into account not only your own business, but also your competitor’s activities and current industry and marketplace trends.

The strengths and weaknesses are internally focused – they are about you, your company, and your services. The opportunities & threats are externally focused – they are about key opportunities or threats that are external to your company or that your services face. You can use this analysis as a very effective ways to identify different internal and external factors that will affect your business.

Why use this tool?

Carrying out an analysis using the SWOT framework helps you focus on your strengths, minimize weaknesses, take the greatest possible advantage of opportunities available, and anticipate any threats to your business.

How to create your SWOT analysis

To begin the analysis, create a four-cell grid or four lists, one for each component:

Strengths | Weaknesses | Opportunities | Threats. Then, begin filling in the lists.

• Internal Analysis: Examine the capabilities of your business by analyzing your company and services strengths and weaknesses.
• External Analysis: Do an ‘environmental analysis’. Identify opportunities for your business, and any threats or obstacles to performance.
• Enter the information you have collected into a table.

You can use this information to help you develop a strategy that uses the strengths and opportunities, reduces the weaknesses and threats, and achieves the long term objectives of your business.

Some examples:

Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors. For example:

A strength could be:

• your specialist expertise
• a new, innovative product or service
• the location of your business
• top quality products, processes, and procedures

A weakness could be:

• lack of marketing expertise
• undifferentiated products and service (i.e. in relation to your competitors)
• location of your business
• damaged reputation

Opportunities and threats are external factors. For example:

An opportunity could be:

• a new developing or international market
• a market vacated by an ineffective competitor
• new market segments that offer improved profits
• mergers, joint ventures, or strategic alliances

A threat could be:

• a new competitor in your market
• price wars with competitors
• a competitor with a new, innovative product or service
• competitors with superior access to channels of distribution

Guidelines for successful SWOT analysis

A word of caution, SWOT analysis can be very subjective. Do not rely on it too much. Two people rarely come-up with the same final version of SWOT.

• be realistic about the strengths and weaknesses of your business
• be specific; avoid grey areas
• always analyze in context to your competition i.e. better than or worse than your competition
• keep your SWOT short and simple; avoid complexity and over analysis
• analysis should distinguish between where your business is today and where it actually could be in the future based on your current situation

In Summary

Completing a SWOT analysis helps you identify ways to maximize the strengths in your business while minimizing the effect of the weaknesses. Ideally, you will match your strengths against market opportunities that result from voids in your competitors’ products and services.

You can also learn more about your own as well as competitor’s businesses and expand the reach of your SWOT analysis through the use of surveys.

With a thorough SWOT analysis, you are sure to come away with newfound insights. Use these insights to increase your company’s effectiveness and as input to your strategic business and marketing plans.

Take Action

Start by listing all your small business strengths and weaknesses – the internal analysis. Focus on the strengths that can be leveraged in your marketplace to gain a competitive advantage.

Identify the weaknesses of your small business and services that you can manage or overcome.

The external analysis begins with a list of opportunities and threats – sometimes called issues. Identify key opportunities that you can capitalize on in your marketplace. Then, list the external threats or issues that could significantly impact your company or service.

Here are some questions you can answer to determine your SWOT:

Strengths

• What advantages do you have over other businesses?
• What do you do well that your competition can’t?
• What makes you stand out from your competitors?
• What do other people see as your strengths?

In looking at your strengths, think about them in relation to your competitors – for example, if all of your competitors provide a certain type of service, this would not be a strength in your market, but rather, a necessity.

Consider this from both your point of view and that of your clients. Don’t be modest. Be realistic. If you are having any difficulty with this, try writing down a list of your characteristics. Some of these will hopefully be strengths!

Weaknesses

• What do you do badly?
• What do your customers complain about?
• What could you improve?
• Are your reputation and market presence as strong as they could be?
• What are the areas of struggle for your company?
• Do you have the staff and technology to provide top notch customer service?

Do other people perceive weaknesses that you do not see? Are your competitors doing better than you? It is best to be realistic now, and face any unpleasant truths as soon as possible.

Opportunities

• Where are the opportunities for your business or services?
• What are the trends in your area of specialty?
• Will changes in demographics, social patterns, or lifestyle changes affect your business?
• Is your business sector expanding?
• Are there emerging trends that fit with your company’s strengths? Is there a product/service area that others have not yet covered?

A useful approach to looking at opportunities is to look at your strengths and ask yourself whether these open up any opportunities. Try to uncover areas where your strengths are not being fully utilized. Also, look at your weaknesses and ask yourself whether you could open up opportunities by eliminating them.

Threats

• What obstacles do you face?
• What is your competition doing?
• Are your competitors becoming stronger?
• Are the required specifications for your products or services changing?
• Do you see other external threats to your company’s success?

Examine your weaknesses and ask yourself whether any of them could seriously threaten your business. Are there emerging trends that amplify one of your weaknesses? Internally, do you have financial, development, or other problems? Look both inside and outside of your company for things that could damage your business to see the big picture.

Create a four-square grid to develop a preliminary SWOT analysis for your small business. List your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and strengths. If you have different niches or specialty areas, you might want to create separate lists. This information can then be included in your overall strategic plan.

Carrying out this analysis will often be illuminating – both in terms of pointing out what needs to be done, and in putting problems into perspective.

© Copyright Jan Marie Dore www.janmariedore.com All rights reserved.

Jan Marie teaches women how to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com .

Technorati Tags: small business marketing, small business planning

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The environments we surround ourselves with are often overlooked as a potential nurturance for both our work and our daily lives. Our surroundings shape the way we think and feel. Exceptional achievers make sure their surroundings reflect their commitment to perform at their best.

Your office space can reflect your intention to do great work that makes a contribution to the world. It can provide aesthetic nourishment where the colors and textures of the interior space nourish your creativity and inspire you, or it can leave you feeling exhausted and unfocused.

We need only to step into different offices to notice how they affect us.

Close your eyes and picture this. It is morning, and you are walking into your office to start your work day. You step onto a lovely patterned carpet, and walk over to your beautiful, functional wooden desk. You sit in a very comfortable chair that supports your back, and gaze out the window at the sunny day. A fresh breeze blows in from the open window. You hear the sounds of birds singing and leaves rustling in the wind. A large green plant is in the corner and a vase of fresh flowers is on your desk. A beautiful lamp infuses warmth and soft light throughout the room. Your eyes are drawn to a lovely piece of art on the wall, then to an artifact you bought on your latest trip, and then to an array of family photos.

Would this type of space uplift your spirit and inspire you to do your best work?

You bet it would!

Yet, very few people take the time to create for themselves an office that is truly nourishing and uplifting.

If our offices are beautiful and inspiring, then what is produced in those offices will have a sense of purpose and integrity. The challenge is to seek a way to occupy your office space in a way that harmonizes with your personality, energy, and purpose.

Take Action

Look closely at your workspace. What is the message that your office area currently communicates to you and others? What do you see that stimulates your creativity and inspires you to do your best work?

If your workspace doesn’t currently nourish your creativity and effectiveness, take a moment to mentally create the perfect space for you to do your best work. Think about changes you could make, even if you’re on a limited budget, to create a more inspiring work environment.

Could it be by moving your desk so that the view is more inspiring? Or by adding fresh flowers, a plant, or music? What about adding a water fountain, a wind chime, a poster, or a beautiful piece of art to your workspace? Or, choosing to write with pens in a rainbow of colors?

Are your office and desk areas visually stimulating with lots of pictures, photographs, quotes, and memorabilia? Or, you may prefer a clean, uncluttered state for working.

Only you know the type of surroundings you will thrive in. Determine what you need in your environment to inspire your best work. Decide how to change your space so you feel more inspired and creative – and watch your productivity and satisfaction levels soar!

Copyright © Jan Marie Dore ~ www.janmariedore.com ~ All rights reserved.

Jan Marie teaches self-employed female professionals to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com and read the Blog Success Secrets.

Technorati Tags: mindset & success, spirituality in business

I was recently interviewed by marketing coach Jody Gabourie on “My Formula for Making More Money and Having More Freedom in Your Business”.

In this teleseminar, I shared my twelve step formula that when followed leads to more success, more time and more money. I call it my formula for Simplicity + Prosperity.
Click the arrow to listen to the interview

I see too many women entrepreneurs struggle with growing their business. Often it’s because they were not taught the right way to market themselves or to build a sustainable business that doesn’t drain all their time and energy.

In this audio program, you’ll learn how to:

• simplify and streamline your business so you can work less, have more freedom, and make more money


• shift your business model from one to one service delivery to one to many and multiple streams of income


• redesign your business step-by-step around your expertise


• rise to the top of your field and become the leader of a micro-niche market


• grow a financially successful professional service business that gives you the lifestyle you really want and makes a difference


• implement the formula for making more money and having more freedom in your business

In this interview, I share with you the twelve most important principles that I have learned about being financially successful in any ’special knowledge’ industry, such as coaching, consulting, speaking, training, etc. It really is possible to build a professional service business that is financially rewarding, gives you the lifestyle you really want, and makes a big difference in the world.

Jody Gabourie who interviewed me is a marketing coach in Vancouver, BC. Find out more about Jody here.

I hope you enjoy the interview!
Jan Marie

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In these times of tight budgets, many of my clients are looking for low cost and no cost marketing strategies to promote their services and make more money. We still need to get the word out about our business and continue to be visible, and there are many ways to do this even on a limited budget. All they cost you is your time.

Here are four ‘no cost’ ideas to promote your services and increase your income:

1. Write and submit articles
Article publishing has been one of the most effective strategies I have used to get more visitors to my website and grow my business and income. Whether you like to write or not, you can either write or record your tips. You always have some good tips and ideas to share with your clients. You can speak an article into a voice recorder, and then have it transcribed. Or, use speech recognition software like I do to dictate your articles and have them automatically typed up. I use ‘Dragon Naturally Speaking’ by Nuance. Submit your articles to online article directories, print publications, and specific online sites that your target audience would go to. My favorite online article directory is EzineArticles.com.

2. Contact former clients
Previous clients can be one of your best sources of repeat business. It costs much less time and money to market to someone who already knows you well than it does to try to continually find new prospects. Yet, many business owners fail to pay attention to the potential gold mine of former clients. They continue to look for new prospects rather than keep in touch with previous satisfied clients. Designing a ‘keep-in-touch’ strategy is crucial to your business growth. Regularly sending out tips and resources to prospects and clients will keep your services top of mind. Survey your former clients using a free tool like SurveyMonkey.com and entice them back by making them an irresistible offer. Provide exceptional customer service to keep them satisfied and buying more. Get creative in thinking about what clients would really like from you and over-deliver on value.

3. Get more visible on blogs, forums and social networking sites
There are lots of places online where you can be more visible, express your opinion, and let others know who you are and what you do … and how you can help them. Posting helpful comments to other people’s blogs in your area of specialty with a link back to your website can be a very effective strategy for attracting new visitors to your site. Posting or answering questions in forums is also worth doing. And – social networking is one of the latest ways to get connected and visible online. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.com can be very effective to develop relationships and joint ventures. Be strategic and limit your time on these sites so they don’t consume all your time. Writing testimonials, comments and book reviews are also ways to get noticed for r fr.ee.

4. Send out press releases
Press releases are often overlooked as a low cost marketing tool. There are paid services of course, but there are also many fr.ee press release sites – such as 24-7PressRelease.com or Free-Press-Release.com. You can send a press release about a new service offering, or a workshop or teleseminar or a new product. To make your release newsworthy, connect it to a current news item or a current event or holiday. Create a list of media contacts, and send the information directly to specific editors or contact people in your area.

Don’t let not having a budget for marketing stop you from promoting yourself and increasing your visibility and income. All it takes is some time and a little creativity!

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~ Melodie Beattie

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The practice of gratitude is a powerful tool for recreating your life so that you regularly experience happiness, joy, and contentment. Gratitude is simply a feeling of thankfulness and appreciation for all that is. Grateful thoughts align your heart, mind, and soul.

Opportunities are given to you in every moment to be grateful for what you have and what you experience. Beauty, richness, and love already exist in your life. There are gifts and opportunities in every situation.

The core of gratefulness is having an awareness of these opportunities inherent in life events and circumstances, and then thoughtfully choosing your response.

Gratefulness is about enjoying the sights, sounds, smells and abundance all around you, appreciating all of your emotions and feelings, and celebrating the blessings of family and community.

We all have the ability to make our lives even richer and more positive by noticing daily events, appreciating the benefits we receive, and being mindful of surprises. You have the power to control whether your thoughts will be positive and focused on what’s going well in your life or negative and focused on what is not going well.

You can be an example of happiness and gratefulness by expressing appreciation to people on a regular basis. Let the people you care about know that you are grateful they are in your lives – and why.

Having much to be thankful for does not diminish the reality of sadness, disappointment, or discouragement, or the need to feel those feelings at times. You can, though, intentionally reframe painful or disappointing events as opportunities for growth and learning, and deliberately look for the silver linings.

“Whatever you are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of Simple Abundance – it will surely come, but only when you are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.” ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

Here are five intentional practices to feel more peace and contentment and to make your life richer and more positive:

1) Gratitude Journal
Create your own personal gratitude journal – a place to list your blessings on a regular basis. Record the small and large gifts and moments that are enriching your life every day. You can also create a family gratitude journal where everyone makes entries.

2) Gratitude Ritual
Create a gratitude ritual. Before going to bed at night, glance back over your day and reflect on moments of grace, abundance, joy, friendship, and contentment – the things that you enjoyed or felt blessed by that day. Nightly, record three things that went well each day and why they went well.

3) Evening Meal Blessing
Pause before your evening meal to acknowledge the things that make your life abundant and meaningful.

4) The Gratitude Alphabet
This exercise works like magic when you need a change in attitude. Either aloud or in writing, beginning with “A”, think of the first thing that comes to mind that you are grateful for that starts with that letter and say (or write) ‘I am grateful for ______.’ Do this quickly without too much thought. Continue until you have reached “Z”. You might also share this exercise with your loved ones, speaking aloud alternate letters.

• I am grateful for Apples


• I am grateful for Beauty


• I am grateful for Chocolate


• I am grateful for DVD’s


• I am grateful for Email


• I am grateful for Friends


• I am grateful for Grass


• I am grateful for Hugs


• …. . you get the idea

5) Gratitude Affirmation
Practice gratitude by reading this affirmation on contentment:

This day, I am content.

• I am grateful for what I have and for what I do not have.


• I learn from both joys and disappointments.


• I refrain from criticism and fault-finding.


• I don’t try to change others.


• I accept myself as I am and as I change.

Begin to notice if your words and thoughts are full of complaints about what is lacking in your life. You can begin right now to start to see the perfection and beauty in everything and everyone.

By applying gratitude daily in your life, it’s possible to achieve peace and contentment in a demanding, overwhelming, and sometimes disappointing world. It’s a habit of mind!

“If the only prayer you ever said was ‘Thank You’, that would be enough.” ~ Meister Eckhart

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Over the past thirteen years, I have worked with hundreds of women entrepreneurs as their business coach. I’ve noticed that many women small business owners experience the same challenges in growing and running their businesses, such as feeling overwhelmed and isolated, having difficulty keeping focused, not enrolling enough support, and not planning for growth.

Here’s a summary of my best advice for any woman running a small business – my top seven tips for women entrepreneurs:

1) Focus on your strengths
There’s an old saying – ‘Do what you do best and delegate the rest.’ Know what your top strengths are. Delegate or drop anything that you’re not exceptionally skilled at, and focus at least 80% of your time using your key talents that bring you income.

2) Put yourself first
Your growing business needs a lot of time and attention. Many women in business put themselves third or fourth on their list of priorities. Put you and your business first and everything else will fall into place.

3) Learn to say ‘no’
I ask women who have started a business to drop anywhere from 25% to 50% of their time commitments when we start working together. Most women are too over-committed with non-business related activities. Be strategic about what you say yes to, especially in the first few years of your business. Guard your precious time as the valuable asset that it is.

4) Plan for success
Lack of planning causes more businesses to fail than anything else. Planning is very valuable because it causes you to think ahead to your vision and next steps to reach your goals. You can create a simple one page marketing plan that outlines your business objectives and how you will achieve them.

5) Ask for support
Don’t try to figure it all out by yourself. Notice where you are stuck and could use some help, and ask for it. Ask colleagues or others who have been in business and could mentor you, hire a business coach, or form your own mastermind support team.

6) Delegate or drop your weaknesses
Get clear on what you don’t enjoy doing or don’t do very well. Either stop trying to do it, or find someone who will do it for you. A perfect example is bookkeeping. If you dislike it, give it to someone else to do, and free up your time to earn money doing what you do well.

7) Keep an eye on the bottom line
You don’t need to have complex financial statements, but setting targets and tracking some key indicators every month will help you understand how you are doing. You’ll know sooner what’s working and what’s not working so that you can make strategic adjustments.

Implement at least three of these tips, and watch your business flourish!

Copyright © Jan Marie Dore ~ www.janmariedore.com ~ All rights reserved.

Jan Marie teaches self-employed female professionals to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com and read the Blog Success Secrets.

Technorati Tags: small business marketing, small business coaching, small business success

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It’s a fact that experts can command higher fees in their field than generalists. Specialized knowledge or services are more highly valued than general information.

It takes time and planning to position yourself as an expert or specialist in your field, but it’s well worth the effort to make this approach a part of your long-term marketing strategy. The media will call you, associations will ask you to speak at their events, and you will start to stand out, get noticed, and get hired.

Here are seven advantages of declaring expert status in your micro-niche:

1. You will attract more business with less effort.
As a specialist you can attract more qualified prospects and clients with much less effort than a generalist. This is a big advantage of being perceived as an expert in your in niche.

2. People call you rather than you having to call them.
Experts are sought after by clients, organizations, associations, and even the media. Wouldn’t it be nice to have all your calls incoming rather than outgoing?

3. You are more easily referable.
When people know exactly what you do and who you do it for, they’re happy to pass that information on to people they know who could use your services.

4. The media will be interested in interviewing you.
People in the media are looking for experts to interview or write about. Do something to stand out or be newsworthy so you’ll get noticed. You can develop a media kit to make it easy for them to contact you.

5. You can virtually eliminate competition.
You can stand out as the top person in your field by positioning yourself as the best at what you uniquely do in your particular micro-niche. This approach has the effect of removing any threat from competition.

6. No need to sell your services.
Rather than trying to sell yourself, you get to provide information and offer solutions to problems. Over time, people come to know, like and trust you and are then ready to hire you without you having to sell them.

7. You can command much higher fees.
One of the biggest advantages of positioning yourself as an authority in your field is that you can charge much higher fees for your specialized knowledge than you could for more general services.

Some things you can do to start to position yourself as an expert include:

• Writing articles in your area of specialty
• Publishing a newsletter or ezine
• Speaking on your topic everywhere you can
• Gathering client testimonials and success stories
• Starting a blog or podcast
• Sending press releases to local media
• Giving radio interviews
• Writing a book

Positioning yourself as the go-to person in your field is a smart marketing strategy.
It takes work, a good plan, and support to achieve expert status, but it’s well worth the effort.

Start by believing in your own expertise. Then, step-by-step start to position yourself as a credible authority. Over time, you can declare expert status.

Copyright © Jan Marie Dore ~ www.janmariedore.com ~ All rights reserved.Jan Marie Dore, ‘The Women Entrepreneurs’ Success Coach’, Master Certified Coach, Speaker, and Author, publishes valuable ideas to grow a professional service business and increase profitability in her newsletter ‘Success Secrets for Women Entrepreneurs’.

Jan Marie teaches self-employed female professionals to attract more clients and financial success, and as a result, live extraordinary lives. For free resources and programs on marketing a professional practice please visit Femalepreneurs.com and read the Blog Success Secrets.

Technorati Tags: small business marketing, six figure business tips

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“My Top Twelve Recommendations to Make 2009 Your Best Year Ever”

Are you ready to learn ideas and strategies to redesign your business around your expertise so you have more time and more freedom in 2009? Are you taking advantage of the information economy to earn multiple streams of income and up-level your business profits?

On this call, I’ll reveal:

* the 3 keys to practically guaranteeing that next year is going to be YOUR year!

* the invisible income barrier that most solo-preneurs unknowingly hit, and how to break through them beginning in January 2009

* my top 12 personal recommendations to help you make 2009 your highest income year ever, including…

* my best marketing strategies that have been proven to multiply my clients’ revenues

* my top business strategies that will immediately free up your time to focus on your big vision and high profit activities

* the best additional revenue streams that I see skyrocketing my clients’ bank accounts once they add them to their business

This is your chance to get the same proven advice I only give my private, one-on-one coaching clients, on this one-time teleseminar.

If you’ve already got a handle on the marketing basics, and you’re really ready to “kick things up” for 2009, this FREE call is for you!

In this teleclass that’s a one hour preview of my new “Online Marketing Mastery Teleseminar Program” I want to share with you what I have learned about being successful in any ’special knowledge’ industry, such as coaching, consulting, speaking, training, etc. You’ll learn my top business and marketing strategies that will practically guarantee you’ll have your best year yet!