Welcome to Spark an Idea Thursday. Each week we’ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers. We invite you to grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog! If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you were inspired! Today’s topic?

Spark an Idea About Something You Want So Bad You Can Taste It.

You can apply this to marketing, your business or your personal life. Want new clients? More money? A new car? Kids to get along? Whatever it is, you can achieve it. Believe me, I’m far from Miss Motivation, but I’ve seen that I’m often the only thing standing in my way when it comes to what I want.

What do I want?

Right now I want a Nikon D90 camera. I’ve been promising myself a good camera for, oh, about 10 years. I’m tired of that time never coming, so I’m saving every week toward my goal.

I also want to spend next summer in France. I always have excuses about why my family can’t go abroad. Max is too little, it costs too much, where would we put our stuff? Done. No more excuses. We’re saving with this goal in mind.

I’ve done a little reading about the power of positive thinking. I read The Secret. But it’s only been recently that I see that when I ask for things, they come. I needed some extra money to attend a conference. It appeared out of the blue.

So my advice when you want something so bad you taste it is: Get it.

Don’t make excuses. Make a plan and stick to it. You’ll soon achieve your goals and get what you want!

Welcome to Spark an Idea Thursday. Each week we’ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers. We invite you to grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog! If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you were inspired! Today’s topic? Spark an Idea About Being a Lifetime Learner.

The truly great thing about the Internet is the availability of abounding information. Websites, blogs, social media sites, ebooks…there is no possible way I will ever read all I want to. Topics that interest me?

• Marketing
• Social media
• Entrepreneurship
• Photography
• Writing
• Technology (just a little)

I find that the more I read the more I know (just like that old library commercial). If I’m too busy to read, I have less to share. I can’t find anything to blog about. But give me a good book and I start dog-earing it with topic ideas.

I’m old fashioned. I still love books. And blogging in now 3 spots gives me the ability to get a ton of books that interest me (then I come write about them to my readers). I always have at least 2 business or marketing books waiting in the wings. And I love to switch the books I’m reading. I read a chapter of a non-fiction chic lit book then switch to something like Chris Brogan’s Trust Agents. It’s how I balance my interests.

I will never stop learning or reading. It’s what makes me better.

What about you? What’s on your real or virtual bookshelf?

I laugh at how people perceive me working from home. As if I have time to bake cookies and hang out with Max as well as go for a 10 mile jog (not that I even have the desire to do that!). Working from home means you’re probably less likely to do the things you make yourself do when you work outside the home, exercise being one.

If you work from home, what’s your exercise routine?

For me, it’s sporadic, especially this summer. I’ve always loved yoga and try to bring it in to my schedule in some way. Recently I started doing it first thing, just for 10 minutes. As I get older I find that I’m creakier when I wake up, so stretching and doing a few Sun Salutations first thing makes me feel great. I even feel so awake I don’t need coffee. Doesn’t keep me from drinking it anyway!

When it’s cooler, I like to walk around the neighborhood. Now that we moved back to Arkansas, that will be more of a workout since there are hill here (something Florida is void of). I also love to swim, and Max and I have been enjoying swimming all summer.

Whatever you do, do it. Don’t get stuck at your computer all day and avoid exercise! Even if it’s just stretching every hour or so, do it. Get up and walk around the house. Walk to the store. Dance. Whatever it takes. We work-from-homers have to take extra measures to make sure we exercise and take care of our health! After all, we don’t get sick days!

I read a lot of blogs, mostly about marketing. I love Chris Brogan, and quote him often. I also read Small Business Trends religiously, as well as Drew McClellan’s The Marketing Minute.While I get tons just from reading these blogs, sometimes I want more.

I’ve met Chris in person a few times. We’ve chatted (when he’s not super busy, which is always), and he even gave a great testimonial for my new book, Internet Marketing for Entrepreneurs. I’ve found a way for us to mutually help one another. I ask him for small favors and I pump what he says on my blog and Twitter.

Anita Campbell, who runs Small Business Trends, is another great resource. I keep an eye out for her announcements when she’s looking for marketing pros to offer advice on social media and I get great book read ideas from her blog.

Other bloggers can be great resources to partner with, get ideas from, or learn from. Make a list of the bloggers you love and think about ways to expand what you’re already doing on your blog:

• Offer to guest post for them
• Ask them to guest post on your blog
• Connect with them on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with them
• Ask for case studies if you’re writing a book or ebook
• Share their blog posts with your audience

It’s also fun to meet bloggers in person, so attend blogging conferences like BlogWorld to network in person.

No matter what your field, you want to impress your customers. Am I right? It may get harder to do that the longer you’re in business, just because it’s hard to step out of the daily grind and get creative. However, it’s well worth the effort, as wowing your customers can bring you repeat sales and referrals.

If you work one-on-one with clients, take some time to clear your head and really think about their needs. If you have mass customers with the same basic needs (if you have a retail store this would be you), think about how you can improve your product offering. I find that taking a walk helps clear my head and I get great ideas I can implement for my customers.

Try to come up with something that improves what you already offer your customers. That might be:

• An extra service to add to what you already provide (I came up with a unique video idea for a client).
• An added treat in the purchase, such as candy, coupons, or bonus products
• A customized birthday card
• Holiday gifts

What makes you say WOW when you spend your money? What keeps you coming back to the same businesses?

Welcome to Spark an Idea Thursday. Each week we’ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers. We invite you to grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog! If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you were inspired! Today’s topic? Spark an Idea for Motivating Others.

As entrepreneurs, it can be hard to keep your motivation up. If you work from home, it’s even harder, as there are so many distractions (cookies, laundry, children, cookies).  Keeping yourself motivated is one thing, but what about motivating someone else? Maybe your partner, or a friend or family member? How do you keep them going?

Here are my tips. Use them for yourself or others.

• Use inspiring words. We all feel like failures at times, so let your friends know they’re doing a great job and you’re proud of them. Let them know this obstacle is only temporary, and, as Po from Kung Fu Panda says, “There is no secret ingredient.”
• Take a break. If it’s you you’re motivating, stop what you’re doing and have a coffee. If it’s a friend in need, pick up an iced coffee and force them to take a moment to unwind.
• Help. If your friend has a task that seems daunting to her, give her a hand. Nothing’s as hard with twice as many hands!

Here are some tips I got from Twitter and Facebook. When asked how they motivate people, my contacts said:

from @brianmoran: Sometimes with a carrot; sometimes with a good swift kick in the arse.

from @septer: keep a list of ideas…simple low-hanging fruit that you can knock off easily for those times when progress is hard to come by

from @roaddoggz: I prefer to inspire someone to do what they love and should be doing. Then they don’t need motivation.

from @kevinmannion: Tell the truth, point out the downside and well as the upside, and say why you ‘believe’ in the upside (but only if you do)

from @webfugitive: rolling stones, sympathy for the devil gets me amped up

from Doug Haslam: Asking others for help in getting, well, motivated. Actually, that was a serious answer…

from Robert Adler: Cake. And cookies! And money.

from Chuck Welch: Make sure my environment is conducive to what I need. Plenty of sunlight, music, and fresh air.

Do you have other suggestions for maintaining motivation? Let’s hear them!

So, I have a confession to make. I’m a closet workaholic. Despite me talking about work/life balance and how I have time to spend with my son, I find myself sneaking in to my office on the weekends to check email. Why? I don’t know, honestly. I guess I’m afraid something exciting will come in while I’m relaxing. But I honestly enjoy what I do, so it’s not a stretch for me to want to work all the time.

So I’d like to make a pact with you other work-from-homers. This Fourth of July, we shall not work. We shall shut down our laptops and close our office doors. Are you with me?

I know it’s not easy to just turn off the entrepreneur side of you, so here are some tips to help.

• Look at your workload for the next week and divide it out so that you finish everything pressing before the holiday.
• Don’t be afraid to put things off until after the holiday. No one else is doing work around a holiday, so no one will expect it of you.
• If it makes you feel better, set up an autoresponder saying you’ll be out of the office for the holiday. Not that anyone will be emailing you, but if it makes you happy, do it.
• Mentally prepare to not think about work for a few days. I know it’s hard, but disconnecting yourself from the computer and your work can help you rediscover something special: your family!

Welcome to Spark an Idea Thursday.  Each week we’ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers.  We invite you to grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog!  If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you were inspired!

Regular readers of my blog know I love email marketing as a way to establish yourself as an expert and stay on top of the minds of your future customers. I wanted to give you some quick tips to help you get the most out of email marketing for your business.

1. Send out a newsletter once a month, then a promotional (or announcement) email 15 days later.

2. Send your email Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, after 10 am if you’re sending to people’s work addresses. Any day in the evenings is fine if you’re sending to consumers. You’ll get the best open rate during these times.

3. Offer free articles and advice relating to what you do. If you have a cleaning service, offer quick tips for cleaning carpets, getting out wine stains, etc.

4. Include a special offer that only your email subscribers get.

5. Anywhere you encounter an email address (your inbox, business card, trade show), put it in your database. Send an initial email to new contacts asking if they are ok with receiving emails from you.

6. Mark your calendar with the days you put out your emails each month to be consistent.

7. Use a program like Constant Contact to send professional looking emails, NOT your Outlook (screams unprofessional).

8. Organize your contacts into groups, like Past Clients, Present Customers, Met at XYZ Conference. You can customize the emails you send out to each group.

9. Pay attention to your stats. What emails got a really high open rate and clickthrough rate? Can you put out similar ones in the future? Which ones had a lower rate?

10. Offer a signup box on your website.

11. Offer a freebie, like a whitepaper or ebook if people sign up to get your emails.

Do you have any tips to share?

We all have those projects that never got finished. Maybe it was a quilt, or in my mom’s case, a crochet project she bought before I was born…31 years ago! As a business owner, it might be your business plan, a book, or a revamp to your website.

Last week I wrote about achieving your goals, which goes a long way to this week’s objective: finishing what you start.

But let’s face it, goals or not, sometimes you’re just not motivated to get the job done. Here are a few tips to help you.

• Think of the end result. If you complete that web design project, your website will look sleeker and bring more business. Cha ching!
• Take a break. When I wrote my books, I had to take breaks. After all, a writer has certain times when creativity flows better. Step back from the project, get coffee, then come back.
• Get feedback. Talk to employees and co-workers about the project to get new perspective.
• Delegate. You don’t have to get this done on your own. Break up the project into smaller tasks and assign them to others.
• Eat chocolate. This works for just about anything!

Have ideas for getting the job done? Leave a comment!

Whether it’s personal or professional, we all have goals. And I’m willing to bet that some seem insurmountable to you. Impossible. You’ll never achieve that one. You should just give up now.

Or not.

What I do (or tell myself that I do, even if I don’t always) is break it down. Make the overall goal. The big one. The Mecca of goals.

Then I figure out how to get there. What can I do today, right now (or stop doing) to get closer to the goal? It might just be opening a website so I can read it when I have time. Or contacting someone. Or getting my hair cut. Whatever. It has to be digestible and doable.

Then I find the next step. Maybe it’s just thinking and planning what’s next.

You get my point. Take tiny steps until you achieve your goal.

• It may help to write down your goals. If you blog, blog about the goal so others can hold you to it.
• There are websites where you can post your goals and others will help you stick to them.
• Review your goals just as you would a business plan. Make sure you’re still moving toward them.

How do you achieve your goals?

I’m a big believer in showing my customers I appreciate them. I can’t always afford to send them lavish gift baskets, but I try to do so at the least for the Christmas season.

Why should you send your customers a token of appreciation?

It’s important to remember that your customers have a choice. They can buy from anyone, but they choose you. That might be because you have a superior product, or amazing customer service, or are convenient. Whatever the reason, be grateful.

Sending a little something can actually bring you more business! While it shouldn’t be your goal, often just by sending a gift or thank you card, your customers are impressed at your thoughtfulness, and are ready to give you even more business.

What should you do?

It all depends on your budget. Let’s start with a budget of $0 and go up from there.

No money

If you don’t have any money, you can still impress. Send a handwritten thank you card, or if you find a website or news article you think your customer would be interested in, send it with a note in an email. This lets them know you’re thinking of them.

A little money

You can get a bar of chocolate, candle or other small gift and send it to a customer as a small thank you. A Starbucks gift card (even for $5) is a great way to make someone smile.

More money

I like to send gift baskets of chocolate. Probably because I like to eat chocolate. Flowers or cheese baskets work too. Before you buy, search for coupon codes online to save money, especially if you’re placing a big order for multiple clients.

What about you? What do you do to show customers appreciation?

For work-at-homers (and non-work-at-homers), the summer can be a slow time for business. If you’ve got kids at home, it’s easy to get distracted from working on your business. I know it’s hard for me to stay focused. Here are some tips for avoiding that summer slump.

Start New Projects

Make a list now of things you’ve been putting off. For me, it’s writing a white paper. Good project for the summer. Maybe you need to brush the dust off your marketing and business plan and update it. Or clean your office. Schedule one project every month, and break down the tasks into weekly chunks.

Hold a Promotion

If business is slow, hold a promotion to boost sales. Maybe it’s a Summer Slump Sale! Send out an email to your contacts announcing the promotion, as well as a link on Twitter and Facebook.

Work on Change

We can all stand to grow our businesses, but during the rest of the year, who has time to work on change? Use the summer to decide where you want your business to be and how to get there.

Get Out of the House

Even a change of pace can make you more productive. Work from the coffee shop around the corner for a day or even just shut off for the day and hang out with your kids. You’d be surprised how that will get the creative juices flowing!

I’d love to hear your ideas for avoiding the summer slump! Share your tips in the comments.

Welcome to Spark an Idea Thursday’.  Each week we’ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers.  We invite you to grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog!  If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you were inspired!

Today’s post is written by one of the Sparkplugging interns, Cindy Bidar. Cindy (@cindybidar) is a 42 year-old writer, blogger, and small business owner. She enjoys learning and writing about most things, but is particularly fond of topics related to entrepreneurship, gardening, and health and fitness. She bakes her own bread, cans her own salsa, and is learning PHP in her spare time.

James P. “Sulley” Sullivan has a problem. Sulley is the top scarer at Monsters Inc, and his job is to scare kids and collect their screams to provide power to the city. The problem is, kids are not as innocent as they used to be, and it’s getting harder and harder to scare them. Sulley and his coworkers are having to work harder than ever just to get the same results.

Humans (and monsters, too, I suppose) tend to dislike change. We find something that works and we stick with it, often long beyond the time we should let it go. In fact, just when we begin to figure out that something is not working, we escalate our efforts even more. That’s what happens to Sulley and crew. Their tactics stop being as effective as they once were, so they increase their efforts by doing more of the exact same thing.

We’ve all been guilty of this at one time or another. What if cold calling isn’t working for you anymore? Do you change your tactic, or just work harder? Like Sulley and his coworkers, most of us would just work harder. In fact, we probably don’t even notice we’re doing it.

But what if by doing something completely different, you could get better results? What if you turned your marketing campaign inside out, and instead of collecting screams, started collecting giggles?

Change is good. We need change to grow. Remember that.

So tell me, what things have you been doing for a while that just aren’t working any more? What can you do differently to improve your results?

So you probably already know who your competitors are, right? You probably feel a little animosity toward them. Am I right?

But what if I asked you to change your thinking? Instead of seeing them as a threat, what if they could be valuable allies?

Let me tell you a story. I attended a huge networking event three years ago, and saw another marketing professional on stage. My immediate thought was, this room isn’t big enough for the two of us.

A few days later, I saw an ad she posted looking for someone to take on some of her overflow work. My perception shifted. Rather than see her as a threat, what if we could work together and get more business as a result?

And so I called her, and she brought me on to a client project that Egg eventually took over, and which was the longest running client relationship I’ve had to date. All because I shifted my thinking.

So I ask you: could you stand to gain something by befriending someone in your industry? Maybe they’ve been in it longer and could give you some free advice. Maybe they have extra work you could take on. Or maybe you have extra work you could trust with someone else in your industry.

Here are a few tips:

• Search for your industry’s keywords in Google and see who pops up.
  
• Review their sites and brainstorm how you could mutually help one another.
• Search Twitter and Facebook for professionals in your niche. Follow or friend them.
• When you meet others at a networking event, put your heads together to see if you offer complementary services.

I’ve met several PR/marketing people who don’t offer some of the services I do. And they trust me. So when they have a client requesting those services, they’ll feel completely comfortable passing them on to me!

Sparkplugging is starting a new tradition called ‘Spark an Idea Thursday’.  Each week we’ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers.  We invite you to grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog!  If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you were inspired!

Many of you work out of your homes, like me. And I’m sure you have distractions. But have you ever stopped to think that you might not be the only one getting distracted?

If you have children at home or pets, people calling your office may be able to hear them. Above all, you need to maintain your professionality, so here are some tips to keep your office quiet.

• Please the pets. If pets are the noisemaker, put the dog outside and cover the birdcage when you plan to be on the phone.
• Give the kids something to do. Kids want your attention, and it’s inevitably when you’re on the phone with a client. Explain to your child that you have certain times to spend with them (try for their crankiest hours) and certain times you have to work in your office. Alone. With the door closed.
• Create a balance. Do spend some dedicated time with your child, and do work alone. But also allow for some time where your child can quietly work in your office, perhaps coloring on the floor. Let them know that if they get noisy they have to leave.
• Involve your kids. A lot of times, kids just want to know what Mom or Dad are doing. Put them in your lap and let them type on a Word document or explain what you’re working on. If they’re young enough (like mine) their eyes will glaze over and they’ll soon leave you in peace!
• Pick a better time. If there’s no way around a screaming baby, choose to work off hours, like when your spouse is home or after bedtime. You’ll get more done if you can concentrate.