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Tired of being pitched to all the time?

I just posted an audio file over at my SEO website about a new absolutely free report about the state of Internet Marketing.  Sylvie Fortin has written a pretty scathing book about online marketers which is a very eye-opening read.

Visit http://slingbrain.com/blog/some-marketers-are-pretty-ticked-off-right-now/.

Zemanta Pixie

It’s Time to Turn the Tables on Article Marketing

There are about a gazillion article directories online.  And they all stifle your ability to add your affiliate links within your own content.  Except for one…in one fell swoop you can earn income 8 different ways just by submitting your article content to this new service. I highly recommend this for anyone from newbie to seasoned marketer…

Register Now

www.AffiliateClassroom.com/affiliate.php

28 secrets for extraordinary business success

Probably one of my top loved resources is that of Clayton Makepeace’s site.  Various copywriter’s give information and tips on how to better your copy which we all know is incredibly important…especially in this day and age of lagging attention spans.

A post today made by Troy called 28 Money-Making Secrets of Entrepreneurs Crunched for Time can be found here:

http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/troy-white/easy-business-building-lessons.html

Enjoy!  And make use of the other very valuable free resources on this site.  You’ll be glad you did.

Why YOU Should be using an hCard on Your Network Marketing Site

When you have your own network marketing business, regardless of what that may be, it’s important that you are found by folks.  Especially those that are within your local area.

A very easy way to do this is to put a free hCard on each page of your site.  This little hCard is a simple business card that you can add to your website.  This is important because Yahoo! Local will use this information to find your local business whenever someone searches on a term related to the business that you’re in.

As with any business card, you enter your address, phone number, etc. so that people know how to contact you.

Also, because it’s an online card, you’ll want to add in words and phrases that relate to your business.  You can place these within the “tags” area of the form at the hCard Creator.

I highly suggest that you use this for your business to help get yourself found more often in local searches.

Working Moms Look Back With Mixed Emotions

Today I came across a great article that I believe all Mom’s who either currently work from home, or want to, should read.  I’d love to hear your comments on this one.

Originally Posted: http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/07/14/working.moms.look.back/

When Christine Durst, 45, had her first child in 1987, she received a package from her boss while recuperating in the hospital. But instead of a baby gift, she found something else: year-end tax forms to complete.

“My son lay sleeping in his bed next to mine while I toiled away in the middle of the night,” Durst recalls. “I was the business manager. If I didn’t do the work, it wouldn’t get done.”

She worked at that job until 1993, two years after the birth of her second child, a girl. Today, her children grown, Durst works from home. But she regrets missing those early years with the kids. “I felt tremendous guilt about being away from home, and I felt terrible about the stress I brought home from the job.”

While Durst, of Woodstock, Connecticut, looks back with regrets, Karol Rose, 64, of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, doesn’t. Rose, an executive with FlexPaths, a women-owned consulting business specializing in workplace flexibility, raised two boys while working full time, taking off only a few months when they were born. “I think my sons liked that I had a job,” Rose says. “You know, too much focus isn’t great for children, either.”

Motherhood brings many difficult decisions, but perhaps the most fiercely debated is whether women should work outside the home, especially when their children are small. Whatever their decision, the choice is rarely easy.

Mixed messages

Both mothers who go back to work and those who care for children at home agree on one thing: A woman’s decision to work outside the home is scrutinized by her peers and society in general. Even experts are divided on the benefits or risks of mothers working full time.

Debra Condren, author of “Ambition is Not a Dirty Word: A Woman’s Guide to Earning Her Worth and Achieving Her Dreams,” says women face an impossible double standard.

“[Society says] we’re bad mothers if we go back to work and that we’re pampered or foolish if we stay home,” says Condren, a psychologist and founding president of Business Psychology Solutions, a business coaching firm.

These mixed messages women receive can be unhealthy. “We end up being our own worst enemies,” she says. Moreover, Condren adds, mothers who work and those who stay home often end up judging one another.

But Dr. Scott Haltzman, a clinical psychiatrist and an assistant professor at Brown University, says it’s important that mothers focus on their children. “It’s very clear to me, from what I’ve seen in my clients, that children who are put in day care, not raised by their mothers at home, feel a real loss,” he says. “They feel the absence of those parents and it affects how they want to parent their own children.”

Haltzman, who wrote the book “Happily Married Women: How to Get More Out of Your Relationship by Doing Less,” says women suffer when they try to juggle career and parenthood. “If you have a conversation with women who have their pedal to the metal in the workplace and trying to excel at motherhood, you’ll find that these women are juggling and they are exhausted,” he says.

Besides his own research into marriage and motherhood, Haltzman also cites a study — “What’s Love Got To Do With It? Equality, Equity, Commitment and Women’s Marital Quality,” released last year by University of Virginia sociologists W. Bradford Wilcox and Steven L. Nock — that found women are happiest in clearly defined and traditional marital roles.

Condren disagrees. She says women can balance career and motherhood, despite what she sees as media bias against working moms. “Each time the media reports an interview with yet another professional woman who has seen the light and taken time out for motherhood, everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief. Finally, this woman has figured out what’s really important,” says Condren. “But keeping yourself from your own ambitions, dreams and career goals can be soul destroying.”

Can you have it both ways?

Barbara Curtis, 60, of Washington and a mother of 12, believes a mother’s foremost responsibility is raising her children.

“I’ve been a single mom and I know there are circumstances where women need to work, but there are a lot of women who choose to work when they don’t have to,” she says. “They crave that attention and status a job gives them.”

Curtis, whose blog, Mommylife.net, is about her experiences as a mother, teacher and writer, thinks more women should stay home. “You have to cultivate those early years. The most important work in the world is raising children,” she says. Moreover, “it takes a certain kind of maturity and self-awareness to be comfortable, because you don’t get your ego stroked or awarded like you do on a job.”

But other women say they wouldn’t be happy or feel healthy if they spent every second with their offspring. Their solution is a mix of work and caring for their children.

“My brain would turn to mush, and I love being with my children,” says Jennifer Cooper, 32, of Lawrence, Massachusetts, who quit her job as a scientist to raise her children, now 3 and 4. Cooper says she found the perfect solution: She turned her love for wine into a work-from-home job with the Traveling Vineyard.

She works a few evenings a week when her husband is home and spends days with her children. Cooper plans to continue her wine business when the kids start school, but she’ll never go back full time. “Some of my friends have their kids in day care and they only get to see their children for a couple of hours a day,” she says. “Looking back, I don’t want to have missed a moment of their lives.

“My parents had to work to make ends meet and I missed having them at home. I don’t want to have regrets.”

Any marketer worth his salt should be on this list.

No matter how many tasks I have on my plate, none of them matter one iota if I can’t write effectively for my audience.  The person I give the most credit to for pushing my success into the realms of where it is today is Clayton Makepeace.  He offers a free copywriting blog that you can join here:

http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/

Additionally, Clayton is not a self-absorbed person however.  He also offers links to other places that he believes would be beneficial to those interested in copywriting and direct-response marketing (fantastic for those in Network Marketing).  Below is one of those recommendations and I highly suggest you get on the list.

Below is the free sign up page which gives you 51 direct marketing tips.  The main title of these tips are shown below the link.  Enjoy!

http://www.draytonbird.com/node/43

1. Communicate more than your competitors.

2. Do what a salesman would do.

3. Try running longer copy.

4. Try an editorial style.

5. Put more effort into enquiry responses.

6. Who is your customer? An individual – not a type.

7. Try an incentive.

8. Use emotional appeal.

9. Write from me to you – never from a ‘team’.

10. Talk about what you can do for your customers.

11. The obvious is always overlooked.

12. Ask for a reply or action – repeatedly.

13. “Use simple words everyone knows …”

14. Online marketing is just accelerated offline marketing.

15. A quick creative checklist.

16. Use ‘reason why’ copy.

17. Good creative costs no more to run than bad creative…

18. Make sure your pictures are relevant.

19. The X factor – words that paint a picture.

20. Study! Recommended reading list.

21. Always make it easy to respond.

22. Don’t take your customer for an idiot.

23. Always differentiate yourself.

24. Make sure your database people talk to your creative people.

25. Times change. People don’t.

26. Read your copy out aloud.

27. Use research for illumination. Not support.

28. If language is used incorrectly…

29. Leave well alone if tests prove something new won’t do better.

30. Try exclusivity. Make it a privilege to buy.

31. Why powerpoint speeches don’t work.

32. Search the world and steal the best.

33. Once you have a good idea – try and make it surprising

34. Never put your slogan before the thinking

35. How much is a customer worth to you?

36. Playing on people’s inadequacies is a smart thing to do.

37. Don’t be fooled by digital drivel.

38. Spend 90% of your time thinking about how to single out your prospect.

40. Start with the truth, not what you wish it to be.

41. Look beyond the numbers.

42. Never forget why you are here: “To get more people to buy more stuff more often at a higher price so the company makes more money”.

43. Where to get good ideas …

44. Understand brands – or find out the hard way …

45. Get a consistent look – but don’t be rigid.

46. Want results? Give people the time and money to get them.

47. Until you know how to do better, copy.

48. Why are you advertising? To familiarise? Overcome inertia? Add value? Spread news? To remind?

49. Do a better job before doing anything else.

50. Find a real life comparison to what you are trying to do.

51. Don’t think! Act!

Don’t Jump The Gun Quite Yet…

With gas prices going up and nearly everything else from food to clothing heading skyward as well, many people will choose this year to open up their own home based business.  Whether this be an online business, using eBay, or getting into a network marketing business, there are things to consider first.

Take it from someone who has worked from home exclusively since the year 2000.  Regardless of what people tell you, you will not make thousands of dollars overnight and no one is going to out-and-out hand over to you a money-making business.

Like any J.O.B. it takes work and dedication; even more so if you work from home.

Here are some things to consider first before taking the plunge into a home business:

  • Can you afford to quit your job and live off of your spouse’s or significant other’s salary while you build your business?  If not, do you have the time to build your business in your off hours?
  • Do you have money set aside to advertise?  Quite often many people who work from home seek out the ways that will cost them the least amount of money which often won’t bring significant results;
  • Do you have a viable business idea?  In other words have you researched the idea and know that there’s a market for your idea?
  • If there is a market is it one that people will willingly give you money for?
  • Do you have the self-motivation to continue to work on your business day-after-day until you create the income you’re after?

These are just a few questions you need to ask yourself before you jump the gun and start your own home-based business.

Nothing happens overnight, but believe me, if you stick with your passion, follow-through and continually work to grow your business, you’ll have a successful business on your hands.

Tips for Working From Home During Summer Break

Working from home is a wonderful thing - I think all of us who do would attest to that.  But there does come that time of year when the kids are home ’round the clock and classes cease for the summertime break.  How do you balance working from home and taking care of the kids so that your business doesn’t suffer?

  1. Let the kids stay up a little longer.  With summer upon us, it’s all right to let the kids stay up and play a little longer.  The added benefit to you, as a work at home Mom, is that you’ll then have the ability to get up earlier in the morning while the kids sleep in.
  2. Enroll Your Children in Activities.  While this is harder for a Mom to do when her children are very young, if you have older kids that are comfortable being away from you during the day, why not enroll them in a fun summertime activity that you don’t need to be present for?
  3. Trade with another Mom.  If there’s another Mom in your neighborhood whom you trust and who also stays home during the day, why not take some time and “trade kids” so that each of you can get the work done you need to.  Alternate days so that you can get in some solid hours of work time while your children are having fun at the neighbors house.
  4. Set Your Hours.  Be sure that the kids know you have very specific hours that you work during the day.  Of course, you want to spend as much time with them as possible, but you still need your work time too.  Have lots of activities at hand for them to do while you work.
  5. Work wherever you can.  Visiting the pool is a summertime activity we personally take part in quite often - especially on those hot summer days.  While at the pool, take along some reading material you need to catch up on that you normally wouldn’t get a chance to do while at home.

These are just a few tips for keeping your business active during the summer months.

Do you have any ideas?  We’d love to hear them!  Feel free to post your comments below.

Aweber’s New Pricing Now in Effect

If you’ve used Aweber in the past, you know that if you had up to 10,000 subscribers you only paid $19.95 a month.

They’ve now changed the pricing but before you get all up in arms about this, here’s how it breaks down…

  1. If you were an Aweber customer PRIOR to the new pricing going into effect, you can either choose to upgrade to the new system or keep your pricing “as is”.
  2. If you’re a new Aweber customer, that is if you signed up today, you’d pay the new prices and get the new system.

So what is the “new system”?

Aweber has really gone the extra mile in providing their users with one of the ultimate ways to track what your visitor does.

Here are some of the benefits:

  • You’ll know exactly when your subscribers click on the links within your message.  This is important because you’ll then know when the right time is to send them messages.
  • You can send a broadcast only to those subscribers who didn’t open or click on your previous message.
  • You can send an email to only those subscribers who did in fact click on your order page, but didn’t order.
  • You can see which subscribers are responding to your campaigns; which links they visit, where on your site they’re going after they click through and which message they’re opening.
  • You can target subscribers by sending emails to ONLY those who have responded (or who didn’t respond) by clicking or opening a specific message or link.
  • Track revenue generated by your campaigns and see which subscribers and campaigns are making you money.
  • They’ve even removed the default “clicks.aweber.com” when you’re trying to track a link within your email.

All in all, it is a very intuitive and much-needed upgrade.  If your list remains 500 people or less, you still only pay the $19.95 but as your list grows, so does the amount you will be charged.

For more information, visit Aweber.  Or take a test drive of the system yourself.

- Kristine

I’ve got coupons!

Did you know that there is a section of the ConnectingWAHMs.com website that strictly caters to coupons by various companies?

Check it out here —>  http://www.connectingwahms.com/deal-of-the-day.html

It’s updated quite frequently so be sure you check back to check out more deals.