So when you find out you’re marketing isn’t working like you thought or that your great idea isn’t seen as such a great idea by the people in your market – what do you do?

When the sales slow down and the bills aren’t getting paid – what do you do?

And on those days that you have no motivation, no real desire to grind away at making your business work – what do you?

In other words, what keeps you going?

For me, personally, it’s my vision. Certainly it’s the goals I want to achieve, that’s part of it. But it’s not all of it.

What keeps me going is wanting to live the lifestyle I want. Not just talk about it or dream about it – and not just touch it from time-to-time. But to actually live the lifestyle I want.

For me that means putting time with my wife and kids before anything. It means taking a day off when my wife’s sick or needs some rest. It means making 4 day weekends so my family can enjoy a camping trip. It means being incredibly active and highly available to my kids. It means living a life that’s balanced with some freedom.

You see, I don’t want a life where I’m bogged down by my work. If I did, I could go out and work for any corporation, put in less effort and allow someone else to dictate my lifestyle. Sure, I want – and do – make a nice living. But I don’t want my pursuit of money to become more important than what’s more important to me – quality time with my family, hiking, my spiritual practice, etc. All these things I put above making money.

BUT, I still focus on making money – as a means to the ends I wish to live by. So I work in my business to make money solely so I can have the lifestyle I want. And that’s what keeps me going on the days when it’s just not so easy or comfortable to work for myself.

So that’s me. How about you, what keeps you going when it’s less than easy?

Think about it for a minute. How many of us have become better writers because of Copyblogger or blogging from Problogger?

Then there’s SEO. There are so many really good SEO blogs that you could learn the trade and become a professional SEO specialist without any other resources that what you learn in the SEO blogs. At the very least, you can avert hiring an SEO specialist by reading the most popular SEO blog posts and applying their advice.

Should this great content always be free? I don’t think so, myself. I think free can dimish the value of excellent information and effective advice.

I ran into this problem just this past week as I was working on a blog post that was titled 97 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website.

I had spent hours coming up with all these great ideas of how to drive more traffic to your website. Some of them were obvious such as engaging in social networks and publishing articles. Others were not so well know like…

And there begins our crux. You see, if I give away some of best secrets of how I’ve driven traffic to my own website over the years, doesn’t it diminish its value? You may think differently, but I think it does. I think it cheapens the information when there’s not some sort of exchange.

What I ended up doing is taking my list of website traffic generating ideas and moved it offline. I deleted the blog post and figured I just use the resource with my clients. But the list kept growing. Soon I was over 130 than 150 and now I’ve listed more than 180 viable ways to drive traffic to your website.

Obviously there’s tons of value in what I’ve put together. So much that I didn’t want to reserve it only for my clients. Yet publishing it on my blog openly just makes it another in a huge pile of lists that is quickly forgottten for the next set of lists that front page Digg.

So I decided a different route. I created a teleclass around the my traffic generating ideas called 97 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website. And I’m doing the first one next Tuesday for a limited audience of 60 people. And to add value, I’ve created a booklet that not only lists each of the more than 180 techniques for driving traffic to your site, but I’ve addd my commentary to each one with tips so you can use any of them.

To go further, I’m spending 90 minutes in a dialogue with the people on the call so that we can go even deeper into the issues of getting more traffic to your website. Recording the call and offering it to the participants as a download completes the package (there is some space left for you, by the way).

So now I have something that’s taken a good amount of my time and has immense value to me that I can offer as a value proposition to others. The teleclass participants get the value of all my work and the dialogue with me so that they can find the traffic generation methods that best fit them and their business.

In turn, everyone wins. I gain from my efforts. The content wins because it’s valued for the work put into it. And each participant wins by getting the help they need in driving traffic to their site.

This has been a tricky post to write. Sure, I’m promoting a course I’ve designed – no doubt, won’t deny it. And if you’d like to take the teleclass, register before the spots fill up.

At the same time, I’ve wanted to use my experience as the beginning of a discussion around the value of free content. That’s the bottomline point of this post. Are we wasting some of our best content, best ideas and best advice by publishing it free on our blogs all the time? Or is some content valuable enough that it needs to be exchanged for? That’s all a sale is – an exchange.

What do you think?

I don’t buy that this election or anything that happens in Washington is really don’t have that much effect on my daily life. Sure, taxes will go up then things will cost more. And I think that’s going to happen regardless. You see, no one is really talking about are inflated dollar, are inflated home prices, and are inflated markets. Since our dollar and our prices are all inflated I expected a correction. And that’s what I think we are seeing with our current economic crisis.

So I’ll watch the larger markets. But truthfully they’re my secondary concern. The market that most matters to me — the market that I’m most focused on — is my niche market.

For me, it’s more important to focus on what I can do to increase my quality of life, pay my bills, and put food on the table for my family. In all reality, I have little control over whether my corporate tax is 36% or 39%. Either one of these is way too high. As Brad Shorr suggests our corporate tax rates are “already uncompetitive on a global basis, and it’s costing us growth and jobs now.”

So I’m not looking for the political process to help my business. Instead, I’m looking for me to help my business; doing so by refining my efforts to position myself effectively within my niche market. Regardless of the economy, solo business owners, service providers and the most small businesses need many of the services we provide. And even an economic downturn many businesses will still continue to do well. So my goal as a business owner and a marketer is to position myself in those business sectors that are still doing well and help them solve the problems they still face within the business.

In other words, I’m being responsible for the health of my business. I’m planning for tight economic times by being even more focused with my marketing. And I’m advising that all of my clients who run service-based companies do the same thing. Not out of fear but out of opportunity. Because it’s in an economic downturn that competition wanes due to the large number of small businesses who will shut down.

Knowing this you can position a business not only to survive but thrive during such times. And even if I’m wrong and we are not heading toward an economic downturn, a recession, or as some are saying even a depression, it is still a good exercise to refine your businesses purpose, positioning and marketing.

So, in a nutshell, I’m looking at myself to solve any financial problems in my life and in my business rather than waiting for a politicians in Washington or investors in New York to solve them for me. What will you do?

For many, the answer to this question isn’t easy. That’s why I insist that there’s not one answer. Truly there are as many answers as their are business models. So let’s look at an example (and my opinion) and then have a chat about what’s effective for you.

First, for me, the key to strategy in promoting a business lies in clarity. Yeah, I know…you’ve heard enough about clarity. Yet, for me, it’s the foundational stones to creating, promoting and growing your business.

What’s always worked in my business is first to have as much clarity as you can around three points: who you are, what you do, and who you do it for. I’ve seen all my own success stem from clearly defining myself in these first three questions.

It’s taken some time, but I’ve learned not to slouch on these questions. Who I am is very important because I’m, personally, the foundation around my business so I need to know, clearly, what I bring to the table. What I do is far more than what I provide. It’s a look at what problem(s) can I solve for people. And who I do it for considers who are the people who have the problems that I can help them with.

Next I ask myself (and my clients) how: how do you do what you do. I can’t even begin to express how much my business changed when I took a long look at not just what it is I do, but how I do it. My eyes opened to things about my business that I never had considered. And I’ve watched this in many of my clients over the years.

Finally, I ask one final question: where can I find the people whose problems I have the solution too? Since I need to know where to promote my business I have to know where the people I can help are looking for help.

My goal is to get as much clarity around each of these questions as possible. And since I know I’m constantly learning, changing and growing I forget about getting it perfect and just get it clear.

From the clarity I gain through answering these five questions, I now have a light-weight strategy for promoting my business. A little polish on the message and a few decisions around how to reach my target audience, and I’m off to the races.

The key, is to keep everything clear. If I find something that isn’t clear, I stop and track back where it may have become unclear. Then I take the time to clarify that bit of cloudiness.

It’s an interesting thing to contemplate. Am I just running my business to make money or am I running my business to make other people’s lives better.

It’s a question, actually, I ask myself often. As a business advisor and web developer, I have plenty of opportunity to make money. That’s never an issue. Prospective clients contact me constantly asking how I can help them.

And there lies the purpose – helping the coaches, consultants, therapists, healers and other small business owners who contact me. That’s where my business makes a difference.

I understand that when people contact me it’s because they need help solving the problems that get in the way of their business making more money and running more smoothly. They call me because they know or they’ve heard that I can make a difference in how they reach their business goals. And that’s, truly, why I’m in business – not just to make money, but to make a difference in the lives and businesses of other small business professionals.

Author David Maister once wrote that making a difference means sometimes struggling “to do what’s meaningful and not just what’s pragmatic.” This means not always doing what’s easy to turn a quick buck. Rather it’s about choosing the path that’s not only going to make you successful, but fill that need inside you to do good for others.

Whatever you do in your business it’s likely you’re changing lives. The question is, are you honoring that process? Do you consider how what you do is of personal and professional benefit to the people you work with?

Are you making a difference with your business or just making a living?

Both of these focus on driving traffic to your website. And both get a ton of press. Just search SEO and you’ll find millions upon millions of articles, blog posts, courses and books all about how to get some little advantage out of the search engines.

But while SEO is certainly important, getting search engine rankings can sometimes cloud the issues of marketing a business and selling products or services. Often, we put our time, effort and resources into SEO and forget that it’s not the most important part of the online business equation.

So I’m sure I’ve got ya wondering – what’s more important than SEO? Why would I need to focus on something other getting higher search rankings?

Well, what’s more important is what your traffic actually does on your website. What’s ultimately important is conversion – the rate of purchase among all your visitors. Normal conversion rates on highly targeted traffic usually range between .05% and 6.0%. Six percent is pretty high, but it’s reachable. It’s even possible to get above 6%, it’s just tougher for most small businesses.

The thing that’s important to know when considering SEO and conversion is that most of the time, the more traffic you draw from search, the lower your conversion rate. Now ads click throughs are different than product purchases or service signups, but the variables remain the same – how do you motivate qualified visitors to convert?

And that’s the key point to consider on your site. What if you put as much effort into writing top-notch sales copy with great headlines and copy that highlights benefits and solves problems for your audience? Could you imagine your conversion rates going up? They will.

So focus not only on getting to the front page of Google. Also consider how qualified your search traffic is and what they’re doing once they arrive on your page. Then make adjustments and test to increase your converstion rate.

Remember, the goal of having a business isn’t getting to the front page of Google – it’s to generate revenue and make a profit.

I’ve done it. Wendy’s done it. And it’s likely, if you have a home office, that you’ve done it as well.

Yeah, I know how the lyrics to this song goes: “I’m just eating so I can get a little work done while I’m feeding my face. That way I can get even more done in the day.” Ever hear yourself thinking that one?

So, is the reason you work from home so that you could sit at your desk and eat your lunch – alone…while sun warms the earth and the birds sing their little songs? Do you really think you’re more productive because you spend your lunch in front of the computer?

The truth is, it’s likely you’re not more productive, but less so, when you spend your lunch time at your desk. How could this be so? Well, first, you never work as effectively or efficiently when  you’re doing more than one task at a time. Eating is one task. Checking email, browsing the web, blogging, catching up on social media, building a spreadsheet, writing a proposal, designing a logo – all these are separate, individual tasks. you wouldn’t write a proposal while you’re checking email – so why would you combine eating with any of these?

Yet, efficiency isn’t the key. I’ve worked over some lunches, lightly snacking on my food while I focus greatly on finishing some project for a deadline. I’ve gotten work done doing it that way. But I do know that I’m simply not as effective as when I am only focused on the project.

The key is quality of life. More directly – quality of your business life.

If you’re working from home, it’s because you want too. Whether you’re a entrepreneur, a small business owner or working remote, you’re working from your home office because you can be. If this is true, stop and ask  yourself, “Why did I want to work from home?”

I’m going to guess that you’re not going to site reasons like, “so I could work at eat lunch at the same time.”

For most of us, working from home has something to do with the quality of our life. We think of working at home, we think of freedom, space, relaxed work environment, flexibility and things like that. Yet, are we living those qualities in the work we do? That’s the real question.

So I suggest eating your lunch away from your desk – and if you can, away from your office. Go outside and enjoy the seasons. Eat lunch in the sun or under a tree. Sit, taste your food, chew it slowly and think about something other than work. Doesn’t matter what it is, just get your mind out of work. Feel the warmth of the sun, breathe the air – take deep, belly-full breaths and even close your eyes for a few moments and just relax (don’t fall asleep, though). Feel your feet or buttocks on the ground and just be present. Don’t worry about work – it’ll all the there when you return.

I do this almost daily. Yeah, the work-at-my-desk bug still gets me from time to time. But it’s seldom these days. I make my lunch a time to recharge and focus on living, rather than working. I take time to taste my food and feel my feet. All this helps me remember why I work so hard in the first place.

And if I want the biggest dose of why I work, I have lunch with my wife and kids. I get out of the office, sit down with my family and we all eat lunch together. In the warm months, we might make a picnic in the backyard under a tree for half an hour. Or we might sit under the porch while it’s raining and listen to the rain and talk and laugh. These times are special to me and to the kids. They remember daddy eating lunch with them – and I them. And I remember that they won’t be little forever (my oldest is 4) so I should cherish these times while I can.

Because I work from home, I can.

Where do you eat your lunch?

When I read Wendy’s recent post Zen & the Art of Being an Entrepreneur, which highlights some of the works of Lao-Tzu, I knew I had to share some of my favorite quotes from Confucius and how they might apply to being a business owner.

Perhaps one of Confucius’ most famous quotes is: I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

Think about how that applies to your business. All day long I can give you advice about how to better your business, how to clarify your marketing message, how to generate more leads or how to close more sales. And you can spend all sorts of time watching what others are doing. But it’s not until you do it for yourself that it becomes yours. And it’s not until you take action that you can truly say you understand. Understanding comes through doing.

Another great and famous quote is: It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.

So many small business owners start out running. They get an idea for their business, and go full-forward at it. Soon, however, they fizzle out. The sprinter can never outrun the marathoner – and business is a marathon. There’s no need to be in a rush. Solid houses aren’t built in weeks or months but in years and decades. Give yourself the chance to be in business for five years or more by working as though you want a business to last 50.

One of my favorite Confucius quotes is: Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.

Look, as a business owner, you’re going to stumble, you’re going to have setbacks and you’re going to fail. Plan on that being the case. Successful businesses aren’t built by always being successful. Quite the contrary actually; successful businesses are built on the backbone of what’s learned in making mistakes. So when you make them, don’t allow them to be lessons in how to move forward and not nooses in which you hang yourself with.

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

This one stands on its own. As a small business owner, it’s important to learn. It’s also important to think about what you learn and how it applies to your business. Most small business owners simply take advice or watch what others are doing and try to implement it. Often, they end up gaining little or no success and figure that either they missed something or that they’re just not as smart as the other guy. But when you learn something about your business, you need to consider how (think about) it fits into your business. How does it enhance your business? How does it alter what you’ve been doing? And what sort of response to you expect to see by trying it. Not everything done by others should be done in your business. Rather, find what compliments your business model and integrate what you learn.

Truthfully, I could go on and on with Confucius and his wisdom all day long. These are a few of my favorite quotes from Confucius – from amongst the tens of thousands of quotes I’ve collected over the years. We can learn so much about ourselves and our futures by looking to the past.

Who, in history, has inspired you and your business? And where have you found critical advice in those who came before us?

I can recall many moments like that with my grandfather. My grandfather loved birds. He used to sit for hours watching finches fly in and out of the five story bird house he built. The bird house was on the end of a pole about 30 feet above the ground. We’d lay back in lawn chairs and just watch the birds.

Every fall I’d help my grandfather take down the bird house for cleaning, repair and storage. It was huge and so high up that he’d developed a rather elaborate pulley system to bring it down.

One such day, when I was 8, we were lowering the bird house. I was holding one of the main pulley ropes. Under the weight of the bird house, my hands became strained and began to hurt. I told my grandfather, “My hands hurt, I can’t hold it.”

His response, “Don’t focus on your hands hurting. What you focus is on expands. So if you think about the pain in your hands, it’ll get bigger. Instead, focus on getting the bird house down.”

You know he was right, of course. I stopped focusing on how much my hands hurt and the pain got less. I held the rope until the bird house was safely down.

I’ve never forgotten that phrase: what you focus on expands. Through the next three decades I found it very useful. But not only useful, I’ve found it to be truth. Every time I focus on things that are negative or painful, that thing increases. And when I focus on beauty or love that’s what increases.

So how does this relate to business?

Simple, really. When you run a business you’re faced with problems and decisions all the time. Some problems can get so large that they can stop us from not only making good decisions, but making decisions at all. That’s why I consider the problem but I don’t focus on it. Rather, I focus on the solution.

It’s easy to focus on the problem – especially the large ones. They get in your line of sight and seem to become like a wall that won’t let you look through it.

But there’s always a way to look beyond the problem; to alter your focus so that you can find the space outside the problem. I focus there. Then, I focus on finding the solution from outside the constraints of the problem. I don’t let the limits of the problem hem me in to one way of thinking. Rather, I let my focus expand to the point that it contains the problem and more. And it’s in the more that I most often find the solution.

What you focus on really does matter. Give it a try and see what you think.

Have you had any experiences of an unexpected wisdom? How have they changed your life? Your business?

Think about how much time – and possibly money – you’ve spent on your marketing message. You’ve written and rewritten it. You’ve probably either taken a course or at least purchased a product or book. And what about the endless editing just to get it right…how many hours has that taken?

Yet most small business marketing messages miss the target – that is, the target audience. Oh they may get looked at or even read, but often your prospects breeze over them like the stock quotes in Sunday’s newspaper. And like with those stock quotes, those really into what you do will stop, read and perhaps take action. But most people don’t even begin to try to understand what’s written.

Don’t believe me, think about all the websites you’ve visited this week. Of those you’ve found, how much time have you spent reading the content in full? And if the website was a blog, how many of the static pages have your even looked at, let alone read over the entire time you’ve been reading the blog (and the about page doesn’t count).

You see, what your prospects are looking for in your marketing message is what they see, what they think, what they experience – and most importantly – what they need. In other words, people want to be met where they are. They don’t want to learn something or be have to understand the great philosophy of your life. They don’t really care about the history of why you do what you do (at least not yet). And they aren’t interested in figuring out your jargon so they can decide whether your business fits their needs.

What they are interested in is the fastest way to figure out whether you can help them solve their problems.

This means, you need to write for your where your audience is. The best marketing copy helps the reader immediately identify whether they’re in your targeted market (and no, not everyone should be). Next it begins to describe to them their situation, what they face and how it ‘feels.’ Then, and only then, does it talk about how to solve their need.

When you write from this perspective, you allow your audience to define your business. Not entirely, of course. But you begin the process of aligning what you do with what they need. But more importantly you’re presenting it in a way they understand and are looking for.

And that makes all the difference.

But all these things lead to one thing – relationships. Business is about relationships. Doesn’t matter whether you’re selling products or pitching services, ultimately people buy because they trust you. And trust comes from developing a relationship – even if that relationship is built from content on your website.

Whenever I think about my business, I try to remember that people do business with people, not businesses. It’s people who buy and they buy from people. Hence, business is all about relationships.

No where is this better illustrated than in the Cluetrain Manifesto. Yeah, I know it’s been around a while but it’s the benchmark for understanding business as relationships. Here’s a clip:

…After hearing (about ‘markets are conversations’), he acknowledged that our observations were astute, but also incomplete. Something more was going on in markets than just transactions and conversations, he said. What was it?

I said I didn’t know. Here is the dialogue that followed, as close to verbatim as I can recall it…

“Pretend this is a garment”, Sayo said, picking up one of those blue airplane pillows. “Let’s say you see it for sale in a public market in my country, and you are interested in buying it. What is your first question to the seller?”

“What does it cost?” I said.

“Yes”, he answered. “You would ask that. Let’s say he says, ‘Fifty dollars’. What happens next?”

“If I want the garment, I bargain with him until we reach an agreeable price.”

“Good. Now let’s say you know something about textiles. And the two of you get into a long conversation where both of you learn much from each other. You learn about the origin of the garment, the yarn used, the dyes, the name of the artist, and so on. He learns about how fabric is made in your country, how distribution works, and so on. In the course of this you get to know each other. What happens to the price?”

“Maybe I want to pay him more and he wants to charge me less”.

“Yes. And why is that?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You now have a relationship”.

Their conversation goes on to talk about the importance of relationship in public markets. “Transaction still matters, of course. So does conversation. But the biggest wedge in the social pie of the public marketplace is relationship. Price is less set than found, and the context for finding prices is both conversation and relationship. In many cases, relationship is the primary concern, not price.”

So in creating your business, in running your business and in marketing your business, you want to make room for relationships. You want to remember that it’s people who buy. And it’s through building long-term, mutually beneficial relationships that you can build long-term business success.

Sure, they read your content and your blog posts and find out about your business or your perspective on things. They can likely find your upcoming events and how to contact you. But where do they learn about you?

It might seem an odd question. But it’s one that’s overlooked often. Sure, we put up our bio page and add a little photo and that’s all fine. But where are you on your bio page? In other words, when someone reads the page do they learn about who you are? Or are they left with a laundry list of what you’ve done?

The other day I was working with a client, Cindy, on a website. She had written some great copy. As I looked over her homepage, her services pages, and her pages describing her services and how they could help someone, they were really good. Her writing was clear and easy to understand.

Cindy had done a great job writing engaging, alive and caring copy. As the audience, I could see myself in what she had written. It wasn’t hard to figure out, right from the homepage, whether or not she could help me. I felt heard and seen in how she wrote. It made me want to find out more – more about her services, and more about her.

Just as I do with many of the clients I work with, I read her bio page almost last. I like to get a tone for how someone is writing to their audience and about their services before I read how they speak about themselves. Many times the style of writing changes when I get to the bio page.

My client, like most others, was no different. She wrote in the all-too-familiar style of reporting about herself in the third person. Gone was the feeling of personal relationship and aliveness I had felt with her other pages. And while her bio was technically well written, I felt like I couldn’t find her in it.

Having known Cindy for months, I’ve grown to know her well – her humor, he passion, her warmth. But I saw and felt none of that in her bio page. Gone was the person and in place was the report about the person.

Don’t make this mistake. Everyone on the planet knows that it’s highly likely you’ve written your own bio. So talk about yourself in the first person. Use I, me and we. Share your life. It doesn’t mean you have to get into personal details if you don’t want. But it should mean that when I read your bio page, it’s clear that you’ve written it. But more importantly that it’s about you and not some version of you.

Few of us know we can write about ourselves in a warm, honest, conversational style. Yet the best bios are often the ones written as though you are telling your own story, complete with your ups and downs.

A good bio shows that you’re human – that you’ve made mistakes and learned lessons. It meets the audience where they are in language they can understand. Ultimately, your audience should identify with you in your bio. They should see themselves in some part of it.

Cindy got this quickly and rewrote her bio adding those personal touches only she can. She also felt better about it. She really liked thinking about her bio page as her narrating her own story. And the people she’s shown it too have been very receptive to bio.

Remember, people are looking for a person to do business with – not a business to do business with. They want to know the person behind the business. And they want to be able to identify with you – as a real, breathing, honest-to-God, living being. So meet them there.

So as you write – or rewrite – your bio page, keep one thing in mind… your audience will become your clients when they feel they identify with you and can trust you. They’re hiring a person, regardless of your service, who they’ll be in relationship with. Hence, a bio describing you as a person, just like them, can go a long way to building that trust.

Most of the time the answers I get have to do with traffic to my website, lead development or revenue generation.

Sure, we all need more leads and we could all make more money. But is that really the most pressing problem in your business? Often, it’s not.

The most pressing problem can sometimes be elusive. Most of us could benefit from generating more leads, for instance, but that may not be the most pressing problem we face in our business. You see, often the most pressing problem in business has nothing to do with  your marketing or the traffic generation on your website. Rather it has to do with how you actually ‘do’ your business.

For instance, if we could generate 200% more leads for your business this month, what would happen? Could you manage having that many more people wanting to engage in your business? How effectively could you convert those new leads with that sort of increase in volume? Or would you end up dropping the ball on a whole bunch of potential clients?

We’re always thinking that more people means more business. That’s not always the case. Often, we need to prepare ourselves and our business for growth. It means we need to know how to deal with a large influx of new potential clients. We need to have systems in place to manage these situations.

How do you know, then, what is your most pressing business problem? Reverse engineering. Start with the end result. Consider what challenges you’re facing having 200% more leads flow into your business, for instance. Find the holes in your business and fill them. And to fill them, start thinking in reverse until you get to where your business is today. Consider all the steps along the way. Write it all down, turn it upside down and now you’ve got the outline for a plan. Focus on the issue closest to where you are now, and you likely have, at least one of, your most pressing business problem.

We hear it all the time – plan for success. Why couldn’t that mean imagine the success you want and work backward to where you are today? A little secret – it works!

Why are you in business? Why do you offer your customers what you offer? Why do you structure your business the way you do? Why are you successful? Why are you not successful?

I could go on and on with the question. The point is to always be asking yourself why. Why comes before how and after what. It’s the question that gives meaning to your business. You have to know ‘why’ in order to do what you do well.

The other day I was working with a client who has a fairly successful business. She’s making $70k per year as a life coach and enjoying her success. Yet she lives in Southern California and $70K isn’t getting what it might in other parts of the country. So we’re working on increasing her revenue in the next 18 months to $100K.

She definitely knows what she does. And she understands clearly how she does it. But when I asked her why she does what she does she was a bit stuck. Sure, she could tell me she wants to help people or the like. But when I asked her to explain from inside herself why she was in business doing what she was doing, she couldn’t find it.

This isn’t rare. Many small business owners haven’t taken the time to ask ‘why.’ They’re often too busy with what, how and who – what they do, how they do it and who they do it for. These questions are very important to having a successful business. I certainly talk about them all the time.

Yet ‘why’ is the question that gives meaning, that gives life, to your work. Why is the motivating factor that makes us consider our impact in the world. Moreover, it makes us look at ourselves, how we value our work and what we truly think about our business. Why is one of the secret keys to business growth.

My client is now in the process of digging in to ‘why.’ Why is she in business for herself? Why has she chosen to be a life coach? Why does she market to the audience she does? And why do they respond (or not respond) to her offers?

Again, why goes on and on. Asking it can open a pandora’s box. Yet asking it is necessarily if you want to take your business to the next level. So ask youself….why? Find the meaning in your business. I encourage you, however, to dig below the surface and ask why again and again. Don’t settle for what you know – find something out about yourself and your business that you don’t know. You might be surprised.

So if ‘why’ is the second most powerful question in business, what’s the first??? How! How is the most important question because it generates action, which creates movement and change in your business. How creates the growth from why and what.

So let me ask you, how are you going to ask yourself why?

Think about it. With a home office, there’s no commuting – which saves time, stress and money. Working from home means you can have lunch with your kids every day. It means you can take a half-hour and roll around with them in the yard. And if you’ve had a late night, no worries. You can roll out of bed minutes before your first appointment and still make it on time. The advantages go on and on.

But, there’s also some major challenges with working from home.

For instance, if you were working in an office building, it probably wouldn’t take your 15 minutes to use the bathroom because your kids are jumping all over you the minute you leave your office. Or, in our case with my wife being a stay-at-home-mom, your spouse thinking that it’s all right to interrupt you 67 times a day. Okay, it’s actually closer to 68.

Before my wife and I married and had kids, I’d worked from my home office for seven years. When we got married, I had no idea the challenges I would face. I figured she just understood that when I closed the door to my office I was unavailable. Nope. Same with the kids.

Now, 6 years later, we’ve worked out a pretty good system for making sure everyone’s needs get met in the family and in my business. All we had to do was create a few boundaries and establish a few rhythms:

• Set office hours – AND KEEP THEM.
  When your office is just down the hall, it can be difficult to set work aside and have ‘off time.’ Yet, it’s really unfair to both you and your family if you’re bouncing in and out of your office at all hours. Establish specific hours on specific days where you’re working. Make this time as though you’re out of house. This is foundational to effectively working at home so I can’t stress it enough.
• Remember your family has rhythms & schedules – AND HONOR THEM.
  One issue we had in our family is that I would need a breather a few times in the middle of the day and so I’d come out of my office and spend time with the wife and kids. This was always on my terms because I decided when I came out and when I went back. And since there was no specific time set each day for me to take these little breaks, my wife and kids would never know when I was coming out of my office. Such, this would interrupt their daily flow and their rhythms. So while fun for me, it wasn’t fun for my wife to deal with after I’d go back to work. So talk to your spouse, if they stay at home, and ask them how your mid-day breaks affect the family.
• Set specific break times – AND KEEP THEM.
  One thing all of us look forward too is eating lunch together. I used to just come out for lunch when I could, which just created chaos. Now, we schedule lunch – as well as those mid-day breaks – so that all of know what to expect. My wife can plan her day and the kids know what to expect – both when the break begins and ends. It’s made our lives much easier.
• Communicate your needs with your spouse – OFTEN.
  It’s highly unlikely your work’s exactly the same every day. Deadlines and problems can lead to all sorts of business turmoil. Or maybe you’re taking on large project that may require extra time. This may change your work rhythms – maybe you need to work a bit more, or maybe there’s going to be more stress. Talk with your spouse about this BEFORE it becomes an issue. If you’re going to take away from family time, be sure that your spouse agrees it’s a good idea, is supportive and has an idea how it’s going to change their life. Sometimes not taking a project that interrupts your life and hurts your family can be the best choice.
• Put a lock on your door – AND USE IT.
  Seems elementary, but it’s wholly necessary. Sure, it’s cute when you’re on the phone with a prospect and your 3 year-old waddles into your office for a kiss. But it’s not so cute when they come running into your office crying while you’re on a conference call with decision makers at a company you’re doing business for. Lock your door and keep it locked when you’re ‘in your office.’ Make it habit.
• Don’t unlock or open  your door during business hours – UNLESS YOU NEED TOO.
  The point of putting a lock on your office door – and using it – is so that your inaccessible just as you’d be if you were working out of the home. That means when your kids or spouse see your door locked, they don’t bother you. If the kids come knocking – and they do – you simply don’t answer. You resist the temptation to open the door. In short order, they’ll get it that when your door’s closed, you’re unavailable. Addendum: You’re also at home and always a parent. So, if you hear your 4 year-old telling your 2 year-old not to touch the hot stove, you quickly go out and deal with it – then return to your office and lock your door.
• Have family meetings before work – DO THIS!
  Inevitably you and your spouse will need to talk about things throughout the day. Of course, if your spouse believes (s)he should interrupt you at every moment there’s a question – just because you’re at home – you’re productivity will suffer – as well as your patience. So create a time in the morning or in the evening – off from work – where you can talk about daily family business. This is the time to make plans, talk about money, pay bills, make decisions on kid’s classes, schedule doctor’s appointments, talk about dinner, remind you to get a hair cut, etc, etc, etc. Then, whatever needs to be talked about has a space and time so that it doesn’t have to be talked about during business hours.
• Use the telephone to communicate during business hours.
  Just as if you were working 30 miles away, ask your spouse – and kids – to use the telephone to reach you if there’s something pressing. My wife and I do this and it works great – even though sometimes I can hear her voice through the door. And the kids can talk to me this way as well. It honors all of our needs while I’m working while allowing her a chance to get questions answered – or to just say ‘I love you.’ (okay, I’m a sap). BTW, IM and email works fine too.

There certainly are other things you can do to establish a home/work environment. The most important things is that you and your family set boundaries that work for everyone. Boundaries that allow you to get your work done while honoring your family’s needs and your responsibilities to them.

Just remember that it’s not all about you getting your work done. You have an impact on them as well. So honor their needs, their rhythm and the ‘work’ they’re doing in and for the family.

As I always say, a peaceful home provides a peaceful home office.

There is.

Yet many of the bloggers I see don’t seem to know that. And if they do, they’re not utilizing other forms of potential passive income. I see this as a bit of a tragedy since most bloggers are looking to generate revenue from their blogs.

This is one of the reasons I advocate creating informational products. Doesn’t matter whether it’s ebooks, e-courses, video tutorials or audio programs, informational products can generate massive revenues. For instance, I know a number of online marketers who are making mid-to-high five-figure incomes each month off of a handful of electronic products they’ve developed. That’s every month. That’s a lot of text-link ad click-throughs.

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not in any way dismissing ads and affiliate programs as being ineffective or useless. Quite to contrary. I think it’s obvious they can generate tons of passive income. It’s just that there’s other methods of passive income that get covered much less often in the blogosphere. Informational products are one such method.

Yet there are many reasons you may want to consider creating an info product. Here’s five:

1. You may already have the content for an info product. If your blog content is niche focused, it’s likely you already have content to create an info product from. All you’d need to do is compile your posts, organize them and do some edits and you’ve got an ebook that you can sell – just like Liz did.
2. You’re going to be writing content for your blog. Maybe you have some content for an info product, may not. But your future blog posts (podcasts and vcasts too) can be crafted to be the content that makes up the core of an info product.
3. People want what you know. If you have people finding and reading your blog, and if you’re number of feed subscribers continues to increase, this one should be obvious. They’re all reading because they like and want what you’re writing.
4. Your readers want to support you. Contrary to popular belief, people want to support you. Give them a way too. If you put up a ‘donate’ button, they may click it and make an offering – but how much. Instead, offer them more value by producing a product and they’ll support you even more by not only buying but possibly spreading the word as well.
5. Info products can increase your readership. Create a product – whether free or for sale – and bloggers will likely write about it. If they have it, they may review it. If they enjoy your blog, they may promote your products. Either way, an info products gives people something of great substance to share with their readers.

There are other reasons, for certain. For instance, your info product will always pay you on time – something I know some ad services don’t do. Or that your info product offers very long-term passive income potential regardless of pageviews. Not to mention, the info product is yours and once it’s created you get all the revenue generated.

And if you’re wondering how to get an info product developed, published and distributed, I happened to have written about that for you already.

So what’s stopping you from using your blog to create an informational product?

In the post, she asks a number of questions that can be boiled down to – what’s next? From the post:

…what can you say about making money blogging that Darren hasn’t already said? Or on WordPress that Lorelle hasn’t already said? Or on social media that Chris Brogan hasn’t already said? Or on community that Liz Strauss hasn’t already said?

Well, I’ve been making money with my blog since I launched it. Yet I don’t sell ad space, use Google AdWords and seldom promote any affiliate products.

Since the beginning, I’ve been using my blog to promote what I can do for small business owners. Whether it’s website design, blog consulting, product development, business coaching, business growth or running email campaigns (yes, I do all that and more), I’ve been using my blog to generate leads, create conversations, make contacts and build relationships. All this has lead me to rapid growth of my own business over the past 2 years, and greater opportunities for the future (more coming soon).

What I’ve learned in the past two years is that a blog can become a powerful marketing tool for building any service-based business. Notice I said ‘tool.’ And just like any tool in a carpenter’s toolbox, you simply have to know how to use your blog to build the business you want.

Here are five ways:

1. Be seen as an expert – Publishing on a blog can very quickly establish your expertise. Your prospective clients want to work with an expert. You can easily display your expertise through the posts you write.
2. Engage in conversation – I say it all the time…conversation leads to relationships and relationships lead to business. Use your blog to create engaging conversations with your readers. Give them great value and they can’t help but want to come back.
3. Build relationships – Relationships are the absolute key to building a service-based business through social media. You don’t have to know a lot of people. Just know the people who you’re comfortable with and who know people who need what you offer. And remember, be the first to give in your relationships.
4. Convert your readers – Bloggers tend to not focus enough on conversion. Don’t be afraid to promote yourself. Ask your readers to buy something you’ve produced, to take a course you’re doing or to contact you for a consultation. Remember, not all, but many people are reading your content for the advise you’re giving. Some will want to pay you for more of it.
5. Have a plan – It’s very important to know how you want people to move through your business. When someone contacts you, what do you do next? What do you offer them? And if they’re interested in what you do, how do you close the sale?

I could go on to mention business clarity, positioning, target audience need, creating a sales funnel, negotiation, pricing, and on and on. But don’t get overwhelmed by all the details. Start thinking about your blog as a marketing tool. Then consider how you can leverage your blog to promote and grow your business.

And that’s the question…how are you using your blog to promote and grow your service-based business? And if you’re not, then what are two things you can do immediately that would enhance your business growth through your blog – not blog growth, mind you – business growth?

I know it’s a big question. And I know it’s a question that you can break down into categories.

However, for just these next few moments, don’t think about the parts of your life that you can answer yes about. Nor, don’t consider that you’re sort of doing what you want with your life or that you’re close. For the next few moments just answer the question – honestly – yes or no. Don’t qualifiy, justify or clarify it at all – just yes or no.

For me, personally, the answer is no. May sound odd since I have pretty rich life. But I’m not doing exactly what I want with my life. I’m successfully self-employed, with a mountian of business opportunities in front of me that should keep us very comfortable in our crazy economy. I’ve been blessed with three phenomenal children, each who have their own way of turning my rainy days into sunny ones. And my wife… beautiful – I love the way her eyes soften when she smiles, loving, articulate, intelligent, amazing cook, and an incredible mom. Wouldn’t ask for anything different in my family.

Yet there’s things I’m not settled on in my life. For instance, neither my wife nor I are even remotely interested in living in Michigan any longer. We want to raise our kids in the outdoors, close to mountains, streams, forests and the ocean. We both love the outdoors and want it to be our kid’s playground. So we’re looking for the right place to settle down. Seems like a small thing, but it’s pretty important to us.

My business is another story. We could live a comfortable life for years to come with doing what I’m doing right now – consulting and coaching small business owners on how to use the web to develop and grow their business. But I’m not fully tapping my potential. There’s so much more that I want to do – and can do – with my business. But it means changing things. It means getting out of my comfort zone and trying something new. It means being willing to take a risk.

By risk, I don’t mean destory my business so I can go after some new endeavor. That’s not risk – that’s stupidity. The risk I’m talking about isn’t about putting your life, your lifestyle or your family in danger. Rather, I’m talking about the risk that puts your comforts in danger. It’s your comforts that keep you where you are. And while they’re not bad or good, they are what keeps you from growing your business (and your life) into what you really want.

Look at what Wendy’s done in the past year. First, eMoms took on me – which is risky enough. But Wendy didn’t stop there. She created channels of bloggers to write on different topics under eMoms. This was a huge risk for her in a number of ways – but it worked. And now she’s gone from being a single blogger with periodic guest posters to being a blog network.

But Wendy didn’t stop there. She soon realized that eMoms at Home just didn’t cover all her site was about any longer. So she took an even larger risk – she changed the name of her site, her URL and her brand. And born was Sparkplugging.

Now I’m fortunate to know Wendy well. She’s a visionary. But none of these changes came without her feeling like she was risking all her safety and hard work against possible ruin. Really, she was doing what we all do – making the risk bigger than it is. And because Wendy is who she is and has done the work she’s done internally, she could recognize that fact and not let it stop her.

What’s happening is Sparkplugging is quickly gaining on, and will sometime soon pass, the success of eMoms. But none of this would have been possible without her taking risks – risks with her inner self – with her emotions and her beliefs.

So where is your business along the cliffs of risk? What beliefs are holding you back from developing the business, and the life, you really want? What risks do you need to take?

But click here is seldom the best option for linked text. Take a look at these two examples:

To find out more about how I can help you grow your business, click here.

or

Find out more about how I can help you grow your business.

Which link tells you, as the site’s visitor, where you’ll go when you click the link? Isn’t it clearer in the second example that the link will lead you to how I can help you grow your business?

This may seem like splitting hairs a bit. But really, it’s not. There are a number of reasons to use descriptive linked text rather than click here. Here’s a few:

• Clarity – Descriptive linked text makes it much clearer where the link will you while click here basically just offers the command – click here. There’s no real clarity of why you’d click here or where you’ll end up.
• Scannable – If you scan most website pages, the links will stand out. They’re usually colored and styled differently than the text around them. So when you use descriptive linked text your visitors can scan your page for where they’d like to go next. Click here simply doesn’t offer the same advantage.
• SEO – If you care the least bit about search engine optimization, and you should, adding keywords in the links is one method of optimizing your text for search engines. Think about the 1.7 billion instances on websites that are using click here. Is that really what they’re hoping to rank for?
• Usability – As a big fan of the ‘don’t make me think’ principle of website design, I don’t want my users to have to interpret, guess or consider where my links will lead them. And that’s exactly what click here does – forces my visitors to think.
• Accessibility – Remember, not all your visitors will be using beautiful, graphics browsers to view your site. Some will use braille, aural or text browsers. Think about how visitors that are blind or have reading disabilities will use your site. Asking them to ‘click here’ gives them no idea where they’re going to end up.
• Readability – Isn’t it simply nicer to read content where the links have been crafted into the content rather than breaking it up with the old click here?
• Printability - More people print out your web pages than you might realize. Click here just doesn’t mean anything on a printed page and often breaks up the flow of text.

That said, you can use whatever linking strategies you like. Sometimes you can get higher response rates by directing people to click on a link. I suggest, however, not making a habit out of it. Use terms like ‘click to continue’ or ‘read on’ sparingly and only when you really need too. Otherwise, let your visitors know where they’re heading when then select a link.

So, how are you using click here. And what’s your overall in content link strategy?

So which one positions your business best?

Well, if you’re like most small business owners, you’re going to say the second one, what your target audience knows they need, of course. It only makes sense, after all. You find out what they need, create it, communicate it (market) and they’ll buy. Simple enough, right?

Yet as clear as the answer to this question is, few small business owners actually positioned their business this way. Most small businesses first figure out what they do. Then they go about marketing what they can do for the people in their target market in hopes that they’ll buy.

This certainly is one way to go. And sometimes you can get lucky in communicating what you do to just the right people in just the right way that your business finds some success.

But the less trodden, yet more successful path is to find out what your target audience knows they need. Notice, I said ‘knows’ they need. Not what they need. But what they know they need. This is an important distinction because people will most often only respond to what they know they need.

(from Gavin Bell on flickr)

For instance, let’s say you found a way to produce the best curry powder in the world. It was grown in the perfect climate, with the right nutrients. It was organically and biodynamically grown and was dried and powered better than any other.

Well, you could broadcast your new curry powder up and down the hillsides of the world and you’ll get some response. Yet you’ll spend a lot of time, effort and money talking in the direction of whole bunch of people who have no need for a better curry powder.

But what if you targeted a specific need inside your market? An example might be chefs at fine restaurants. They would have a need and desire to find ingredients that would make their food that much better. They’d also need less convincing other than taste. Or maybe, since your curry powder was grown biodynamically, you market it to people who eat mostly organic foods. They’d appreciate the specialness of your curry powder.

Either way, you can put your efforts into specific markets where people are looking for a better a better curry powder or healthier foods rather than broadcasting your message to a mass of people, most of which don’t regularly cook.

The point here is that you want to talk to the people who are actively looking to solve a need. Identify who they are and then market your solution directly to them. If others buy, no worry. If you miss you target market but gain business from other group, no worry. The key, though, is to select a target group that identifies that they have a problem to be solved. To do this, simply:

1. Know, clearly, who you are and what you do. The clearer you are, the easier it is for others to be clear about it too – including your target audience.
2. Know your market – Who are the people that make up your target market?
3. Know their need – What do the people in your target market need. Again, not what you think they need, but what they know they need. How do you find out…ask.
4. Create a message that solves their problem – If you know what you do and understand the need of the people you do it for, all you have to do is clearly communicate the two to the people who need what you do. It’s really that simple.
5. Keep asking, keep learning – Once your message is out there, track the responses. Do so with statistics, surveys and by speaking to people directly. Tracking is vital to success.
6. Reposition – Take what you learn and adjust your offering and your message to better meet your audience’s need.

Really, this is how you grow a business. It’s how the big boys do it. And this is how almost all successful little folks do it. So what’s holding you back?