Not Everyone is Telling the Truth, and People I Trust for Coaching and Consulting

June 27, 2011

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Every time I open my email, go to Facebook, or check out Twitter, someone is telling me I can “make 6 figures” or “get all the clients I need.”
You know what I’m talking about. And while a lot of it is really well written (and I love to read good copywriting that pulls me [...]

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Promote Your Value (Even If You Lack Experience)

June 20, 2011

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I’ve got a guest post running today on Parse, the blog for designers created by Jennifer and Ken Visocky O’Grady and presented by HOW magazine.
Mosey on over and take a look at “Promote Your Value (Even If You Lack Experience).” It’s about not having to rely on your years of experience to gain [...]

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Make Business Easy (and Un-scary)

June 14, 2011

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Business Conundrum #27
Q. “I know I should be working ‘on’ my business instead of only working ‘in’ it, but I’m not quite sure exactly what I should be working on. Do I need an MBA? Should I be learning accounting? I’m actually afraid of and overwhelmed by that end of the business, truthfully, so [...]

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The Power of Words + Images

June 14, 2011

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I know this story is a few years old because I looked it up, but it just came into my email box from my sister and really struck me. I couldn’t stop looking at the photo, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the whale, and I couldn’t stop being in awe of the amazing [...]

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How Much Should You Make?

June 1, 2011

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Business Conundrum #26
Q. “I have an online business and keep hearing I should make ‘six figures.’ I also keep hearing about people who double their income from year to year. This is frustrating for me because I’m just barely managing to keep my head above water in my business. Can you give me any [...]

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How to Persuade: A Short Reminder

May 6, 2011

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Every once in awhile I find it useful to remind myself that clients must decide for themselves if a product or service is right for them — we can’t do this for them. Clients — and all of us, really — trust their own opinions more than they do anyone else’s.
Therefore, the best way [...]

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How to Get Better at Anything: My Mom Conquers Her New iPad

April 28, 2011

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I just spent eight days with my 86-year-old mother, who is trying like heck to get the hang of her new iPad. There are many things that flummox her about it, and when she gets too frustrated, she just turns it off. But in a few hours she’s back at it again, sending email, [...]

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How to Sell or Save Your Soul on the Internet: What it Really Means to “Market” Online

April 18, 2011

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Four years ago, when I first started poking around into information marketing, one of the things I was told was that
“marketing is marketing. And it’s the same no matter where you do it, online or off.”
I was willing to take that statement at face value, having dipped my toe into the mysteries of marketing [...]

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Supercharge Your Notes with Visual Note Taking

April 13, 2011
Visual note taking at SXSW 2011 by Ogilvy

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I think I’m in love. Through a wandering route* on my blog-reading journey this morning, I came across this post on Mashable featuring the visual note-taking done by Ogilvy artists at SXSW this year. WOW WOW WOW!

I started out life as an illustrator. Well, maybe I wasn’t actually born as an illustrator, but I [...]

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A Monday Rant on “Marketing”

April 11, 2011

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**Caution. A Monday afternoon rant is coming up.**
I’m getting just a bit weary of all the people promising the moon these days, aren’t you?
Every time I open my email, go to Facebook, or check Twitter, someone is telling me I can “make 6 figures” or “get all the clients I need.”

It’s just getting so [...]

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You Are Different

April 9, 2011

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Not everyone is willing to put their neck on the line and start a business. The fact that you are, makes you different. Special.
Look around you — you’ll see lots of people with ideas who never do anything with them. But you took your ideas, and you did something. Even when people were telling [...]

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The Three Phases of a Small Business Person: Which Phase are You In?

April 8, 2011

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You know that in life, you go through phases.
You start out as an infant, totally dependent on others for what you need. You’re not aware, you don’t have a sense of what’s going on around you, and you scream loudly to get your selfish needs met. It’s all about you — and you don’t [...]

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How to Write a Book: Get Yourself a Calendar

April 5, 2011

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I came across this post thanks to Terry Matlen’s ADHD Newsletter, where my interview with Jacqueline Sinfield and Stephanie Calahan on productivity for entrepreneurs with ADHD was featured.
Even though this post is kinda old (October 2008), I love what it says and I love the visual even more. This guy is speaking my language!

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I’m Fessing Up about My ADHD Tendencies

March 31, 2011

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I think it may be time for me to come clean with you guys. I’m a little nervous because I haven’t really talked about  this in a big way and it’s kind of personal.
But I made a commitment this year to be as authentic as I can be, and it’s becoming more and more [...]

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Ya Gotta Love Your Clients

March 21, 2011

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I think it’s a privilege and an honor to have clients. To have people put their trust in you, to have them give their time and money to you when there are so many other options available to them, is so amazing. Because of this, and because I also think you should love the [...]

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How to Create Time

March 9, 2011

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Now, this is the ultimate time management system: becoming the source of your own time and making as much of it as you want. It’s something I’m working on, right now.
I’m actually creating time as I write this, and you’re creating time — or creating time pressure — as you read this. And yesterday, [...]

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How to Find Balance

March 7, 2011

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I love to work. I really do. I find my work compelling, and I’m constantly drawn to it. There are always so many fascinating people I want to work with, so many interesting things I want to follow up on, so much reading I want to do, so many things I want to write [...]

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How to Get Stuff Done

March 2, 2011

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I know. You’ve probably heard all the productivity and time management tips. You’ve tried a bunch of different types of planners and techniques for organizing yourself. It’s not that you don’t know the methods to get stuff done —
— it’s that they just don’t work for you.

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Why Kevin Nations Wears Fancy Shoes, or How Even Big Names Sometimes Lack Confidence

February 25, 2011

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If you’re thinking it might be really easy to be one of the “gurus” out there — because once you make the big money and everyone knows who you are, all your worries are gone — think again. Gurus are people too, though it isn’t often one of the big names will get down [...]

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How to Capture Attention | Build Strong Relationships

February 21, 2011

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My two most recent guest posts:

On Copyblogger: How to Capture Your Reader’s Attention

On Parse: Build Strong Client Relationships: Three Simple Rules
Go there and read! And don’t forget to leave a comment! :)
Thanks so much,
Marcia

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There is No Magic Store: Growing a Business Takes Work

February 19, 2011

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I’m sorry to be the one to have to say this, but hey, really now — growing a business is, always has been, and always will be, work.
There are no magic beans
You’ve got to put in the hours, the brain power, and the elbow grease.
I guess there will always be people who really believe [...]

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Women in Business Radio January 31 — Internet Radio

January 29, 2011

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I had a terrific time on Michele Price’s Women in Business Radio on Monday, talking about my business journey — how and why I’m where I am, my bumps along the road, and what I’ve learned that might help other women.
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Listen to the interview recording through my very own Women in Business Radio page!

Women [...]

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Be More Productive: Twitterview with Stephanie LH Calahan

January 27, 2011

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On Wednesday, I interviewed productivity expert Stephanie LH Calahan of Calahan Solutions via Twitter. It was a hoot! What goes on behind the scenes when you’re Tweeting an interview in real time — trying to get your questions and answers out quickly, giving valuable information within the 140-character limit, following the conversation yourself on [...]

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Creating Your Business Vision is Like Using Your GPS

January 26, 2011

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Here’s the analogy I like to use: If you just go out and sit in your car, it’s not going to take you anywhere, is it? But if you know where you are now and you put that information into your GPS, along with the information about where you want to go, and you [...]

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