When the economy is down and your target market seems to be holding their dollars tighter than usual, what can solopreneurs do to keep business flowing?

Status Check Your Marketing Funnel.

Make sure that you’re doing all that you can to reach as much of your target market as possible.  I’ve actually seen some entreprenuers pulling back from their usual marketing activities becuase they perceive that their market is cash poor and unlikely to respond.   That’s a mistake.

Yes, your market may be cash poor today – but that can change in a heart beat and who will they spend their dollars with but the person who has remained on their radar most consistently?

When there are fewer fish, the answer is not to cast a smaller net.

Widen the top of your marketing funnel.  Seek more ways to share your knowledge and expertise.  Step up your blogging activities, do more guest blogging, seek out podcast interviews and let folks know that you are open to creative joint ventures.

Do You Have To Lower Prices?

My experience with pricing over the last year has been interesting.  I tripled my rates for blog design and continued to book new clients on a regular basis even as other talented designers complained that they have had to drop prices to keep busy.

If I could ask marketing experts I bet I would get a wide range of answers to price question.  Lower prices can motivate someone on a tight budget but you’ll work harder for every dollar.  (And that just might be the way it is for awhile…)  Before you decide to lower prices, you could invest some time into sharpening your sales message to better convince your customer of their need for your products and services in the first place.

And Wait, There’s More!

One great idea is to add something to your package rather than reduce the price of your package.   Think about all of those great ‘free gift with purchase’ offers that have grabbed your attention in the past.   You could create a special time limited ‘bundle pack’ or offer a ‘buy one, get one’ deal.

I’ve been influenced by dozens of special deals over the years.  I’ve bought products so0ner than planned and hired service providers without a lot of advance planning – all because they presented me with a no brainer situation.

I know there are lots of other great strategies… what tips do you have for overcoming tough times?

Did you know that it’s possible to see what people are saying about you on the internet?  There are a number of automated tools that will allow you to monitor your name, your company, and other words related to your brand.

If you are in sales or you own a business, monitoring your reputation is crucial.  People are talking about you online, whether you like it or not.  You need to be aware of what’s being said.

There are a few things you can do to set up an automatic monitor that lets you know whenever anyone talks about you online.

iGoogle – Awesome free monitoring dashboard

my iGoogle dashboard for Netbiz

iGoogle is a property that doesn’t get quite the love that it deserves.  While a personalized dashboard is something that the average consumer doesn’t really care about, a customized dashboard that allows you to easily drag & drop tools is extremely useful as a free tool.

We’re going to use this as your reputation monitoring home page.  If you don’t have one yet, go to iGoogle.com and create an account (it will link to any existing Google Account you have like Gmail or Google Calendar).  The default dashboard comes with a bunch of junk that you don’t want, like games & a calendar.  Delete the items that you don’t want by clicking on the little down arrow on the top right of each little biz.

Adding reputation feeds.  On the right side of the page, click on ‘Add Stuff.’  On the next page you’ll be given a bunch of pre-made widgets to add.  Ignore those.  On the left side of the page, below the categories, there’s a link that says ‘Add Feed or Gadget.’

Remember where that is.  We’re going to come back to it.

Next, I’ll go over some automated tools that will track your information.

Google Alerts

Google has a service that monitors news sites, blogs, and a host of other websites and will notify you when anyone mentions whatever words you have set up the monitoring service to listen to.  Go to Google.com/alerts and put your name in for the search terms.  If you have a really common name like John Smith, you might want to add an identifier, like the city you live in or what you do (ex. John Smith Realtor Crossville).  Make sure you put the name in quotes when you do the search so that it doesn’t return people with similar names.  It should look something like this:

“Cor Huff”

“Cory Huff” Blogger

“Cory Huff” Portland

The next screen is where you manage your alerts.  Next to your newly created alert, click ‘Edit’ and change the ‘Deliver To’ column from email to feed.  After that’s done, right click on the little orange icon and copy the link.  Paste that link into the Add Feed or Gadget space in your iGoogle page.

Go back to the iGoogle page home. You should see a little box showing the most recent three notifications.  You can mouse over them to get the full text.

Repeat this same process with the name of your company, the name of key executives, trademarks, and anything else you want to monitor.  Tip: Do the same thing with your competitors.  Knowing what the Interweb has to say about your competitors is enlightening.  You can also do it with important customers, vendors, suppliers, etc, etc….

Tweetbeep

There are several different Twitter monitoring services.  I choose to use Tweetbeep.

Tweetbeep can be set up to send you a daily email with a list of all the mentions of your defined brand on Twitter.  Using the same search terms that you defined above, set up a Tweetbeep alert.

You can also set up Tweetbeep as an RSS feed and add it to your iGoogle homepage just like we did with Google Alerts.  That way you have all of them set up in one place.

Why monitor Twitter?

Twitter is a real time conversation between thousands of people in a public forum.  Even if YOU don’t use Twitter, your customers do.  If you don’t monitor these conversations, it can become a huge headache.  Just ask Johnson & Johnson about the Motrin Moms fiasco.

On the other hand, you can also be proactively grateful when people say appreciative things about you.  If someone says that you rock, you can give them a very public virtual high five – which lets them and everybody else watching know that you are participating in the digital community and that you care what happens.

]]> http://www.sparkplugging.com/sparkplug-ceo/how-to-find-out-what-people-saying-about-you-online/feed/ 6 http://www.sparkplugging.com/sparkplug-ceo/stretch-with-me-anyone/ http://www.sparkplugging.com/sparkplug-ceo/stretch-with-me-anyone/#comments Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:38:14 +0000 Kelly McCausey http://www.sparkplugging.com/sparkplug-ceo/?p=2002 I’ll admit it. I feel so stretched right now.

When Wendy first spoke with me about Sparkplugging I felt both a thrill of excitement and a stab of fear. The idea of stepping up to the role of General Editor was appealing on so many levels but one small part of me was really freaked out about it.

Why? Why did something so wonderful seem so scary to me?

An issue of Peer Comparison.

I admire Wendy so much and I had a hard time imagining myself in a position she has filled in such a unique way. I think about everything Wendy has accomplished in such a short time and I wonder if I have what it takes to boost Sparkplugging to the next level?

Finally, I resolved my hesitancy by realizing I don’t have to try to be like Wendy to do well in this position – I only have to be ME.

Of course this is also an issue of Self Confidence.

Do I believe that I can do this? For a little while, I just wasn’t sure and that’s scary! If I don’t believe in myself, who else will?

This isn’t the first time I’ve felt stretched in my business. It is a very familiar feeling.

• I felt stretched when I launched Work at Home Moms Talk Radio in 2003.
• I felt stretched when I partnered with Alice Seba on Mom Masterminds in 2004.
• I felt stretched when I quit my day job in 2006 and relied 100% on my business income.
• I felt stretched when I took over Mom’s Talk Network (and took on significant short term debt in the process) in 2007.

Every time I reached out to a new level I felt the same bubbly combination of excitement and fear – and did it anyways.  The results were great!  My business has grown and prospered.

This won’t be any different.

I’m a little unsteady on my feet. I feel awkward and out of my comfort zone. But I’m doing it anyways.

Would you like to join me?

Surely there’s a next level waiting for you right now

Wendy, thank you again for this awesome opportunity to work with you and the other incredible Sparkplugging Authors. I hope this season of transition will see both of us growing in amazing ways both personally and professionally.

Quick details:

Show airing on NBC, Tuesday March 10th 2009.

I really don’t know what time I will be on, but it will be between 7am and 9am EST.

I will be speaking with someone from AvenueA/Razorfish of the (really fascinating) study put out them and CafeMom on Digital Moms. We’ll chat about creating online businesses based on social media and blogging, and how advertisers are in hot pursuit of us so-called “Digital Moms”.

Also, since I’ll be in NYC Monday and Tuesday, I’m hoping to do a impromptu Tweetup while I am there, so let me know if you are there!

It’s all a little ironic and funny – while simultaneously restoring my faith in the fact that God/the Universe/Whatever-you-want-to-call-it always has everything under control.

For those of you who didn’t see this post, then you wouldn’t know that just about one month ago, I almost gave up on Sparkplugging. I had a Very Big Business Deal completely fall to pieces due to the economy. I admit I was devastated, crying myself to sleep for several nights in a row. I quite honestly wanted to simply walk away from all of this, but I really didn’t feel I could be that hypocritical. I’ve spent nearly 3 years blogging about being an entrepreneur and one of my most stuffed categories is “Overcoming Obstacles” – how could I face all of you if I couldn’t follow my own advice on bouncing back from disappointments?

So the funny thing is that in the last 30 days, besides landing the best publicity of my career with the Today Show, I’ve also started working on a HUGE project with Rockfish Interactive. They are the brains behind the hugely successful 11Moms Walmart campaign. And the whole reason that this happened was because when I was at SeaWorld with GeekMommy, I told her about the deal debacle and she put me in touch with them.

To say the least, the last month has been a little overwhelming – I’ve lost a Deal, landed a Deal, and also landed an appearance on the biggest morning show on the planet. Gulp.

I kind of want to shake my fist at the sky and say something like, “You could have let me know you had this all covered when I was crying myself to sleep last month!” But I don’t want to sound ungrateful, because I feel totally blessed right now.

So you know that saying that goes “No door closes without another one opening?“.

Um… YEAH.

By the way, now that the cat is out of the bag, there are several other moms being featured on the Monday installment of the Digital Moms series, Alli from AlwaysAlli, Shannon from CouponPrincess, and Melissa the ConsumerQueen will be there, and Lisa from Crazy Adventures in Parenting is getting her vlog featured as well. Congrats to these fine mommies too!

So, there’s been this Deal. The Deal I’ve been working on for 3 months.

It was going to be a ‘Really Big Deal’ kind of Deal. A ‘Putting My Name on the Big Time Map’ kind of Deal. The kind of Deal that I can’t talk about because you don’t talk about this kind of Deal unless the Deal is Done.

And thanks to a few factors, mostly the economy, there is now No Deal. Suffice it to say, I cried myself to sleep about three times over the last week.

And now, I’m picking myself back up from the hardest fall I’ve ever taken as an entrepreneur.

I almost couldn’t do it. But then I thought of you. And I couldn’t face you if I gave up.

So, thanks. You readers have saved my ass. And now I’m back.

And I’m even able to think about finding a New Deal.

*HUGS*

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!

Now, I’m no newbie to being transparent – and I’m also no newbie to getting attacked – but Heather’s level of attack-ness eclipses anything I have ever experienced by a longshot. And I honestly have felt myself holding back as this site gets bigger – thinking that maybe I should be a little less ‘out there’ and maybe everyone doesn’t need to know ‘everything’ I am dealing with behind the scenes – because you know what? It’s getting harder and harder to be public with my flaws.

Heather answered with a story about her skin cancer diagnosis – and knew full well that some people would accuse her of being a drama queen for writing about it, no matter how she brought it up. And they did. But because she blogged about her skin cancer diagnosis, she had a reader mail in and say that she went and got a cancer screening to. And because of Heather’s post, they caught her cancer in time to save her life.

Listening to her answer I had one of those awkward, uncomfortable moments in which I realized that I had been holding out on you. And that even though I knew from experience that blogging transparently is important and really changes people’s lives, I really didn’t want to talk about this past winter. And in that moment, I knew I had to. *Cue skin crawling feeling*

Depression and Working at Home

It took me much longer than usual this winter to break out of my winter funk – I’ve shared that I get pretty bad S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder) in the past – but this year was really freaking BAD. I feel like I haven’t been able to truly open up since last November on this blog like I always have in the past. And I’ve missed making this connection with all of you.

The real reason I started this blog almost 2 years ago was to share my story from years ago of how being clinically depressed while running a home business really messed with my head (points for understatement of the year, perhaps?). It guess it is fitting and appropriate that it comes full circle to talk about it again – though I’m not sure that S.A.D. is the same as clinical depression, for a few months there, it sure felt like it, and I was way outside of my comfort zone.

I really felt like I had to hide it from you. I wanted you to continue to think I was this strong woman who had conquered her demons and that they remained far behind her. What was really happening was that I was wondering every damn day how I was going to continue to grow this business when I didn’t feel like I could take care of myself, let alone 3 children, a home, a blog network, and 8 authors that were counting on me to make this work.

The truth of the matter is that I was shortchanging both of us on a critically important learning opportunity. But I couldn’t share the story with you until I climbed back out of that hole again. I couldn’t talk about the problem until I could find the lesson in it.

I saw a comment in January – I can’t even remember who or where it was said, but someone said something to the effect of, “It’s hard to believe that someone like Wendy would ever have to deal with these kinds of struggles”. I cried when I read that, because I just wanted to reach through this computer screen and scream that “YES, I HAVE F-ING PROBLEMS TOO!! I’M NOT PERFECT!” And I wanted to say to her that if you wait until you think you can “handle” a big business and that you have all the “experience” and “answers”, guess what? It will never freaking happen!!

Thanks, Dooce

So, quite honestly, I hated writing this post. And I’m second guessing publishing it. I hate telling you I don’t have it all together, and I hate the thought that you might think I’m some lame ass lazy poser. But Heather was right.
I loved that some of you thought that I don’t have to deal with struggles, that I am some kind of super-human being. But if I continue to let you believe that about me then I have failed you as a leader, a colleague and as a friend. I mess up, I fall down, I cry (as in right now…), I doubt, and I get scared.

While all this was going on, the site has still grown, I still showed up every day, and I refused to give in and believe in my shortcomings. And I can assure you, while in the midst of the snowiest, coldest, and darkest winter we have had in decades, I felt like I was drowning in shortcomings. But if I can run a business, a blog network, and a family from my basement office while struggling with S.A.D./depression, then perhaps I can also serve as an example to you that maybe you can do more than you think you can do with your own business.

I’m not saying it’s easy. But I am going to say that if I am going to show up here and teach you what it is like to become a business owner, I’m going to be brutally honest with you about it.

This might sound like it’s all stress and misery. It can feel that way at times, but I honestly wouldn’t trade this life for anything on this planet. I get to touch lives, I get to inspire people, I get to make a difference, and I get to help people like you create a business that allows you to follow your dreams while getting more time with your families.

I’m living my mission. For some people its about making money from home. For me, I’m touching God through writing these words. I’m honored to be here, even when I show up with mascara all over my face.

So please, no matter how inadequate you might feel, go out and change the world today. I know you can.

I think we can all agree that even though we work at home, we can still have “bad days at the office”. Some days we just get discouraged. Others we wonder what the hell we are doing. And on the really bad days, we question whether we are really doing the right thing and how the heck we will ever turn it around.

There are times when calling it quits is the right decision – just like there are times when it’s the right decision to leave a job and move onto something else. Other times, we just need to overcome some bad emotions or limiting beliefs so that we can keep going until the light at the end of the tunnel starts to appear. This post is for those of you who want to keep going when you just can’t seem to get past a certain hurdle or obstacle.

I believe very strongly in the following two presuppositions about people:

1. The resources you need to succeed are already within you
2. There are no unresourceful people, only unresourceful states of mind

How do we access unresourceful states of mind? It’s simple – we ask ourselves unresourceful questions.

Allow me to give you some examples of unresourceful questions:

1. What am I doing wrong?
2. Why do I keep messing up?
3. Why can’t I get the results I want to achieve?
4. What am I missing?

Think about the answers you would give yourself to such questions. You are telling your mind to go looking for answers that will continue to reinforce your doubt, frustration, and generally crappy state of mind.

The power to access better resources is found by asking questions that force us to look for great, empowering answers.

So, without further ado, here are 10 resourceful questions to ask of yourself:

1. What would I have to believe about myself in order to know with 100% certainty that this business is the right path for me?
   ~
2. What would I have to believe about myself and my business in order to feel excited about the challenge of overcoming the current obstacle in front of me?
   ~
3. What am I faced with right now that is actually a great opportunity for growth?
   ~
4. What would I have to believe about this opportunity in order to take on this challenge with excitement and gratitude for the chance to make a change?
   ~
5. If I were to tackle this day [week, month!] with my most creative resources available to me, what would I do, think and believe differently than I am doing in this moment?
   ~
6. What would have to happen in order for me to feel as though my business is a success no matter what? What can I do now in order to make that happen?
   ~
7. What resources are available to me that I haven’t tapped into yet to build my business – are there friends, business acquaintances, or books that I know for certain can help me take my business to the next level?
   ~
8. What things do I already know about my business that will make me successful that I haven’t done yet – and what would make me feel excited about implementing a plan of action to do them immediately?
   ~
9. What accomplishments have I already achieved in my business – and what lessons can I take from those past successes that will enable me to repeat them?
   ~
10. If my future self could travel back in time to this moment and give me some advice, what would she/he say that would completely energize and motivate me to succeed?

Remember – the power of a great question lies in a very, very key component – you have to go searching for the great answer within yourself.

Having your own business means being scared…every single day

Usually, I give you a portion of her article over here and make you go read the rest over there. So here’s that little portion:

“What I’ve learned from my six-month stint as a full-time, no security blanket entrepreneur is that mostly, it’s freakin’ scary.”

Now go read the rest, because if you liked this scary post, or this uncomfortable post, you’ll LOVE her post!

When I launched 6 new blogs on this site and changed the format from a one-blog-show to a magazine-style site, I was taking a huge risk and leap of faith. Not only has the experience really shown me what I do really well, it also has totally exaggerated my weaknesses. I’ve learned that I know a lot about blogging – but a lot less than I thought about running a “media empire”.

Here’s what I’ve learned.

Some challenges are impossible to predict.

Although I have written about all of the subjects that are covered by the six new blogs, I obviously never had written exclusively in these niches. These new blogs are growing in rapidly different directions and the strategy to grow each one is getting more and more different every day.

I had no idea that contest and sweepstakes sites would pick up Parent Product Reviews and send more traffic than we could handle. I’m actually having to rebrand the channel and even ask Erika to write less posts until I have a better monetization plan in place.

I also had no idea that the crafting community had such a need for solid and entertaining craft business advice. They have really embraced Lisa’s new blog and she’s kicking some serious butt over there. Had I known this, I would have started it SO LONG AGO.

Balancing Promotion & Traffic on One Domain is Harder Than I Thought

One of the authors was a little concerned at first because it seemed like traffic was getting pulled away from her own blog to our site. This was the last thing I wanted to happen – but thankfully, we found that it has reversed.

But as things have settled down for her, I’m finding that the same is happening with this blog – I had a very diverse group of regular readers who are now spread out over the entire site. Traffic, conversation and incoming links are way up on the site, but actually going down on this blog.

Talk about taking one for the team – my ego doesn’t really like this one.

Also, the social bookmarking sites (especially on SU) tend to only like to send a certain amount of traffic to one domain, and it’s getting harder and harder to get attention to great articles on this site because we seem to be hitting some kind of invisible social media ‘quota’. Some really great content is getting lots of votes , but no traffic. I don’t get it.

On the flip side, I’m really glad I kept it all on one domain, saving me from the big G-slap yesterday.

Growing to the Next Level Will Require a Different Skill Set

What has grown this blog to the level that it is at today will not grow it to a million page views a month. I see that more clearly now than ever before. I can’t count on text link advertising at all anymore. Social Media won’t cut it. Advertisers want more quality traffic than that. And I’ve networked the hell out of the blogosphere – there’s only so many ways to grow a blog inside of a relatively finite community.

I taught myself everything I know in order to grow eMoms at Home – but even if I could teach myself international PR and had a big advertising budget, I would never have the time to do all that it would take to bring it to the next level.

In other words, I have resigned myself to the fact that I can’t do this alone anymore. This was truly the inspiration behind the post Ten Signs That You are WAY Outside of Your Comfort Zone, because I am. Big Time. And whether I take on a partner, a loan, or equity financing, there is no doubt that I have to move into entrepreneurial territory that once seemed like the big kids playground.

Motivation, Balance and Positive Thinking Were Once Nice to Have.

They are Now Mandatory.

I’ve always written about empowerment and overcoming obstacles – most of the time I did it for both you and to keep myself going. I’ve always known it was important – but every now and then, I’d fall off the wagon and have a few bad days or even bad weeks and it was OK.

It’s not so ‘OK’ anymore. And honestly, this is the hardest part of all.

Honestly, I’m not so sure how this will play out – but I do know that I can use my fears as a security blanket as I push myself forward sometimes. But it’s getting to the point that I might just have to deal with my “separation anxiety”, and find new “inner fuel” for growth.

I feel like it’s time for me to put up or shut up. With tens of thousands of people watching… failure isn’t exactly an option, eh?

So perhaps I’ll just shut up then and get back to work.

But I do miss you regular readers who have new BFF’s on the rest of my site. Could you come back for a visit every now and then?

So for this weekend question, let’s dream a little.

We all come across challenges – there are some of those challenges that are, well, more challenging than others. I don’t want to call them problems – honestly, they may frustrate the heck out of you, but really, they are great learning and growth opportunities. But being on this side of the coin isn’t always easy.

If there was one challenge that you could magically make go away, what would you pick? Or if there was one thing you would add to your business, what would it be?

Would you want more time, more cash flow, more life balance? Would you want less work, less client interaction, or fewer things to focus on?

What would I change about my business?

That’s a really tough question for me to answer. I’m always wanting more traffic, more publicity, and gawd do I always wish there were more hours in a day. But I’ll be a little transparent here and say that I wish the site’s cash flow was a little stronger. For the first 9 months I didn’t make very much at all. For the second 9 months I have poured most of my revenue back into the business. I miss the days of a steady, healthy paycheck.

So if you could change one thing about your business, what would it be?

Thanks to Chris, Naomi Dunford, Laura, Kelly, Linette, Courtney Turtle, Jenni Hunt, Suzie Cheel, Alisha, Gaida, Neena, Melissa Moog, Melissa Garrett, Mother Earth, Dmarie, Char, Holli Jo, Stephanie, and Karen Putz for sharing your work at home challenges last week!

This worked for a while, but I found that I was a little lot outside of my comfort zone to delegate work – especially work that had “my name on it”. I wanted to run the show – wanted to maintain control. At the time, I knew I was dealing with an internal struggle – and deducted that I was just afraid of failing :: that if I didn’t control all of the pieces of the puzzle, something would go terribly wrong.

So I eventually stopped trying. 

It wasn’t until few years later that I realized that perhaps it wasn’t fear of failure at all. In fact, I was damn good at failing :: I failed to follow up on a ton of leads, failed to grow my business to the level I wanted, failed to manage my time efficiently, and in the end the burnout got to me and I ended up closing my doors (which may or may not be considered a failure – for me, it truly was the right time to move on).

It was a dear friend who helped me to see that failing was indeed comfortable for me. What I was actually afraid of was becoming a success. Megan over at eBay Selling for eParents wrote a heartfelt post about this yesterday. And instead of buttoning up her article, she left it open ended and asked for some input from others.

So here’s what I have found. Becoming successful has a whole slew of perceived baggage that comes with it: I feared that if I became hugely successful…

• Friendships and relationships would change because I would become more successful than the people I loved
• That success would go to my head and I would become a raving bi*ch (hahaha)
• That I would become materialistic and spend a lot of money on things that I didn’t need
• That I would teach my children that success is more important than relationships
• That once I became successful I was going to have to be perfect all of the time, because that’s what people would expect of me

When it came right down to it, being super-successful was so darn foreign to me that the uncertainty that it caused was more frightening than just staying in my ho-hum business and never getting anywhere.

At least I knew what to expect with “ho-hum”.

Now, by some standards, this site is hugely successful – compare it to iVillage or even TechCrunch, and we’re still an internet peon.

I won’t kid you by saying that busting through these fears was easy. Honestly, I’d have to say that they were the hardest challenge of all – pushing me to the limits of what I felt I was capable of (and well beyond it, at times).

In short, the internal walls to success are far more difficult to conquer than any external challenge you will ever face as a business owner.  

And I hate to sound negative, but no matter how successful I get, there still seems to be more internal roadblocks to overcome. The good news is that once you get a little practice at facing your fears and moving past them, it does get easier to do it again.

And again, … and again.

I mentioned last week that I am reading The Girl’s Guide to Building a Million Dollar Business by Susan Solovic. I expected great business strategy, networking advice, and an inspirational guide to getting big. Yes, the book has all that – but honestly, do you want to know what this book is really about?

Face your fears. Do it anyway.

It’s not an easy pill to swallow.

And honestly, it’s times like this that I rely on the personal lessons learned in the darkest moments of my life. I tell people over and over again when bad things happen, they will be thankful for the experience at some point in their lives. And this is how I get through times like this – by taking the $hit I have been through and using it as fuel to get me through:

If I can get through bulimia, homelessness, being single and pregnant, and an alcoholic marriage… well, building a super-successful business has GOT to be a piece of cake.

But as Wendy H pointed out earlier, there tends to be some romanticism about working at home – and I think we all know full well that sometimes running a home business isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In fact, I’ll reiterate that if you can’t balance work and home life well and keep yourself motivated and productive, working at home can put you out of business.

I get questions about challenges people are facing all of the time. Things like having a skeptical or unsupportive spouse, time management challenges, childcare issues (not unique to us entrepreneurs, of course), and many other things.

What’s my biggest challenge while working at home?

Well, there are quite a few challenges I have had in the past. After 7 years of experience in a home office, thankfully they don’t bother me as much as they used to. But today I still wish it was harder to walk away from work – both physically and mentally. Even when I’m off taking down time, my mind is still working on ideas, site optimization, and ten other random strategic business decisions.

I really only get a break when I’m either on our boat with the family or reading Harry Potter. It’s an area I’m constantly working to improve.

So what do you think is the worst part about working at home?

Thanks to 45n5, Randa, Jordan, Stephanie, Windyridge, Melissa, Kelly, Katie, Holli Jo, Aruni, Laura, Steph, Suzie, Mother Earth, Susan, Mark, Alex, Nathania, Hoto, SpokaneMama, and Miss Lingerie for sharing the best parts of working at home last week!

And are you depressed?

According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health, all these things may be linked. If you experience high work-related stress, the study suggests that you are at a higher risk for depression.

So is starting your own business the answer?

• If you’re an entrepreneur, you certainly have all of the decision making authority you could ever want (and some you may not want).
• You can either work solo or be darn sure that the people you hire are supportive of your business.
• And I guarantee you that independence is not an issue when you are running the show.

My $.02?

If you are a wannabe entrepreneur and you are staying in a job for security reasons, you aren’t being true to your real purpose. 

And yes, denying a part of who you are can be damn depressing. 

But several years ago, I experienced a long-term depression while I was running a business. While it definitely was linked to some post-partum factors, working for myself while in that state of mind was excruciating and very detrimental to my health, my happiness, and it was really detrimental to my business (points for stating the obvious?).

Yet today, I can also say that if I wasn’t pursuing my dream as I am right now, I would be even more depressed. I’ve come too far and life is too short to waste it on comfort and security at the expense of giving up on a dream.

What do you think?

Are you an entrepreneur who was miserable in a job in the past?

Or are you employed and is the stress affecting you more than you would like it to?

How much does running your own business contribute to your happiness?

“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”

But once you’re already outside of your comfort zone, what does it feel like? How do you know you’re stretching yourself?

I’ll tell you from first hand experience – a lot of the time it feels like $hit. Since I have spent a good amount of time outside of my own comfort zone, let me help you to recognize when you’re outside of yours, just so you know why you feel like crap.

1. You second guess your decisions.
2. Your critics, once easily ignored, suddenly rent way more head space than they deserve.
3. Your old plan of action may now seem overly simplistic.
4. Formerly non-existent “What If’s” suddenly spring to mind. A lot.
5. Before you got outside of your comfort zone, all you could think about was getting your goal, but once outside of it, all you can think about is what will happen if you don’t reach your goal.
6. You become a textbook example of the infamous “Impostor Syndrome“.
7. Words start rearranging themselves in your head – for example, the phrase “I can do this!” somehow becomes “Can I do this?”
8. You sometimes wonder WTF to do next.
9. “Positive Thinking” suddenly doesn’t quite seem so, well, “realistic” as it used to
10. Digg Trolls magically appear to be more intelligent than they really are.

So what do you do now?

Here’s the most important thing to keep in mind (no matter what else you wish you weren’t keeping in mind):

If you were strong enough to push yourself outside of your comfort zone, you have to trust yourself to get through to the other side.

So here’s ten more tips to get you through what we could call “growing pains”:

1. Talk about your fears or concerns with someone out loud – the doubting voices in your head sound a lot more stupid when they come out of your mouth.
2. In the big picture, even if you really screw up, you’ll be grateful for it at some point.
3. Being outside of your comfort zone by nature doesn’t feel good, so feeling scared or crappy doesn’t necessarily mean that something is wrong.
4. NOW would be a really good time to recap your accomplishments to yourself. Yeah, as in, right now.
5. No matter how hard it is to think positive, you really gotta do it anyway, even if it doesn’t feel very encouraging.
6. If you really get off track, you’ll know. Really.
7. There’s a reason the saying “Fake it ‘Till You Make it” is still in use after all these years.
8. If you’ve gotten this far, you already know that listening to your fears is a dumb move. So don’t start now.
9. Nobody ever did anything great without taking a risk.
10. And of course, don’t forget that a strong alcoholic drink shared with your BFF will always knock some sense into your head.

There’s nothing like getting up in the morning and not having to rush into the shower, shave, get dressed, catch some grub and sit in traffic during a long commute. According to a recent Gallop Poll, the average American spends 46 minutes on their daily work commute. 46 minutes, that’s basically an hour.

Let’s see how much time we spend in our cars just getting to and from work:

If we round down to 45 minutes per day that’s 3/4 of an hour. 3/4 of an hour each day multiplied by 5 days per work week is 3 hours and 45 minutes each week we spend in the car. Over a month that’s 13 hours and 48 minutes. But the staggering number for me is the time the average American spends in the car over a year – it’s more than 158 hours. And that includes taking two weeks off.

158 hours each year spent in our cars driving to make living…wow! If you go a little further with the math and divide our 158 hour by a 40 hour work week, we’re nearly spending an entire month (4 weeks) of potential work or free time sitting in our cars.

Imagine if your job could give you a month of work time back each year. Or a month of vacation. Or you got that extra 158 hours with your family or doing a hobby. Heck, starting a hobby for that matter. What could you do with that time?

I know what I’d do…I’d start a home-based business. I’d start a business so I could stop wasting so much time driving back and forth to work. I’d start a business so I could have more of my time for what I want. Which is one of the main reasons I’m self-employed.

And if I couldn’t start a business for some reason, or didn’t want too what would I do? I’d spend some serious time thinking of how I can convince my boss that I need to work from home. How might I do that?

Well, if I go to my boss and say I want to work from home because it benefits me…well, we know that answer to that one already. But if I can come up with some really good reasons why working from home would make me more productive and help the company – now I have something to stand on.

Here’s one way to approach this with your boss:

• Start logging all the ways you waste time at work. You know, the ways your production is constantly interrupted by your work environment. And have that ready when you sit down to discuss working from home.
• Think through all the little details of why your need to be in the office and find solutions for how each of these can be met at home. Have them ready when you talk to your boss. Even offer some of them up before (s)he brings them up. There is almost nothing that can’t be communicated by phone, email, fax and the internet today.
• Talk about how working at home will let you focus on work in a quiet, uninterrupted environment where you can be far more productive for the company. Don’t mention that you can get up late, sit around in your pj’s while you’re on a morning conference call, sipping tea.
• Don’t approach your boss that you want to transition from working at home. Rather, bring up the idea as though you just you’d like to do it on a trial basis one day each week. Find someone who works at home part-time – a friend or a neighbor – or reference some book, magazine article or tv show you watched on the topic. Mention that you’re curious to try it as though it’s not your original thought.
• When you get your boss to agree to let you work from home one or two days each week, work like a dog. Really. Don’t just show you can be as productive or slightly more. Be incredibly more productive. And log it all. Then you can some raw data to your boss and show them it’s working out.

If you want to work at home the most important thing is to show your boss and your company how it will benefit them. You already know how it’s going to benefit you. They simply don’t need to know that.

One last point…I can see how all these suggestions sounding a bit like manipulation. Just so I’ve said it, I don’t hold it that way. The bottom line is in almost all circumstance you can get more work done at home than in the office. But your boss doesn’t necessarily believe that. And why would they. It’s a new concept. So give them an opportunity to see things differently without their own ideas getting in the way.

Hi, I’m Dawud Miracle. Professionally, I’m a blog and marketing consultant, business coach, educator and web developer who helps people use their websites to grow their business. I’m also a devoted husband and father to two, soon to be three, children. And I’m always interested in a good conversation.

Now everything was okay – no one was hurt and they weren’t late getting out of the house. It’s just there was a huge thunderstorm ready to unleash it’s fury. You could feel it in the air, the winds were high, the sky that dark, bluish gray you see just before the heavens open up and drench the earth. She wanted to get in the car before it rained began falling – which began only moments later.

But my wife’s reaction caused an interesting reaction from my three year-old. Usually, A’esha loves rain and thunderstorms. But as she came down behind mom, she was terrified. And as I scooped her up and carried her to the car, she was frantic – “Daddy, get me in the car. I scared. I don’t want to get wet.” She was almost in tears, shaking.

Of course, my wife and I got both kids in the car and buckled them in just as the first huge drops of rain were pelted my back. After getting my son in the car, my wife rushed back to the house to get her purse, snacks, diaper bag – you know, the usual. I, in turn, kissed my daughter and headed for the porch.

Then I felt a twinge in my heart. I immediately turned back around and headed for the car. I jumped in the passenger’s seat just as a deluge released from the sky. I got settled and looked back at both my kids. My son was sort of in shock, not knowing what was going on. And as the first flash of lightening and crackle of thunder hit, I looked to my daughter who was still quite unsettled and scared.

It took a few minutes of discussion, a few kisses and some nuzzling, but she came out it. No longer afraid, she began down her long series of questions about the rain, the lightening, thunder, etc. And the three of us sat together, watching the rain fall and the sky flash as we waited for mom’s return.

After they left, I started thinking…What happened that made my daughter so terrified? What was going on that made her forget how much she loves storms; loves playing in the rain?

Thinking about it, it was clear that it was my wife’s reaction. The way she expressed her hurriedness of wanting to get the kids in the car, safe and dry, at the very last minute before we would all be drenched, created panic in our little girl. And if I didn’t return to the car, she would have been sitting there, scared, alone with her brother as the feeling and sounds of the storm pounded down on her little psyche.

I know I went back because she needed me. She needed me to make everything okay. She needed someone to show her she was safe and that there was really nothing to be afraid of. She couldn’t do it on her own – nor should she have too at three years-old. And in the security of her daddy, she could let it all go.

Now I’m not sharing this story to make me into a hero – nor highlight my wife’s reaction. Rather, I share this story because it dawned on me that many of us run our businesses like this. We get spooked by something. And unless we get help, we often don’t recover.

That’s why I feel it’s important to get help with your business. Not just help with marketing or strategic planning. But with your personal process around developing a business as well.

Starting a business – running a business – can be scary. What I’ve seen over the years is it’s important to work with and through our fears, our insecurities and our feelings of lack just as much as on our marketing message.

If I hadn’t returned to the car and helped A’esha, she might have internalized her fears of storms. Those fears, if not overcome, would play out in her life – they would control her to some degree.

It’s no different with your business. If you have aspects of yourself that are holding on to limiting or negative beliefs and emotions, they will manifest. They will limit success, reduce opportunities and help create chaos in your business.

My advice, get some help. Work with someone who can help you through your fears, anxieties and insecurities. I’m not talking about finding a good therapist. Rather, find a coach of some sort who specializes in helping people overcome the issues that limit their success. It will make being successful that much easier.

Hi, I’m Dawud Miracle. Professionally, I’m a blog and marketing consultant, business coach, educator and web developer who helps people use their websites to grow their business. I’m also a devoted husband and father to two, soon to be three, children. Please let me know if I can help you in any way.

• I actively participated in the blogosphere, commenting frequently, linking generously and subscribing to way more feeds than one human should ever have to track
• I responded to as many of the comments on my own blog as I possibly could
• I found my voice and infused much of my own personality into my writing
• I put together great projects such as last month’s highly successful Group Research Project
• I networked like crazy with other bloggers and have a very close circle of friends all over the world now
• I found many ways to monetize my efforts and finally the rewards are not only coming, but on a steep incline every month

In short, I’m both proud and grateful for getting my blogging career to the point it is today.

So where’s my conundrum?!

I have found that business as-is not a very scalable business model.

• I cannot respond to the 30-50+ comments left every day anymore, which both saddens me and also decreases participation in the conversation on both sides
• I spend every Monday digging through 200-300 (or 400+!) emails from the previous week
• Writing for three blogs is very time consuming – and coming up with 3x more fresh ideas is at best a stretch and at worst downright stressful
• I have advertisers willing to pay for more impressions – but in my current business model, I do not have the time or resources to create more content

In short, everything I did to grow this blog also grows a blogger’s time commitment to the blog, and as the blog gets bigger than me, I have been really stretched lately as I try to accommodate the growth.

So how do you take a blog to the next level?

There are way more growth factors than I can touch on in this post, but it really has boiled down to this:

In order to grow, something must change.

I’ve been talking privately with a lot of brilliant blogger friends lately about this issue, including Dawud Miracle, Edward Mills, Easton Ellsworth, Char Polanosky, Gayla McCord, and Ari Garber and I talked about this for hours last night at Jeff Pulver’s Summer Party.

We talked about shifting focus and tightening up the niches on the blogs, taking on regular co-authors, and even spinning the site off into a larger magazine-style site. Ari and I started with the question:

How do I grow the blog without putting more of ME into the site?

It got a little scary when we realized that in order to really break outside of the box, we had to ask questions that we really didn’t want to ask, such as:

Is eMoms at Home really the right vehicle for my business goals? (I think it is, but I’m not sure I want to blog here until I am 90 years old)

What would this blog be really worth if I wanted to sell it tomorrow? (It’s worth practically nothing without me, and that’s both a blessing and a curse)

Do I even know where my time is going? (I don’t, because I haven’t tracked it)

Do I even know where my most profitable time is spent? (Generally speaking, I do, but at a detailed level this requires some scrutiny)

I bet you’re wondering again why I bring this up. It’s because at some point, EVERY entrepreneur will either outgrow their current business model or hit an income ceiling running business as-is IF their business model isn’t scalable. What’s a non-scalable business model?

Service professionals who bill on an hourly basis -OR- when business revenue is directly tied to hours.

In other words, it comes down to one thing: Time.

I’ve coached some of my service professional business clients through this process, but I haven’t had to take on this classic entrepreneurial challenge in the context of blogging. I have a lot of ideas and answers, but as Dawud gently put it to me on the phone yesterday, the growth path before me requires an inherent risk – as much of a risk as it is to start a business in the first place.

I’d love to hear what you think , especially regarding what is most important to you as you read a blog dedicated to helping you succeed in your own home business endeavors. You are all talented entrepreneurs and business managers in your own right, so I ask you -

• What else would add value to your site experience here on eMoms at Home?
• If I could clone myself 10 times over, what more would you want from me?!
• What kinds of things could this site provide to help you increase your own bottom line?
• What kinds of things could this site provide that would make you happier and more balanced parents, entrepreneurs, and people?

But just when I thought I had it bad, an email from an entrepreneurial friend today put it into perspective – and she’ s probably about to lose her home because of a business she sold more than a year ago.

And I’m whining because we can’t go boating – shut me up now, please.

I wrote about it all on Inspired Business Growth yesterday and today. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

What DO you say to someone who makes a racist comment – yet it is made by someone that you need to keep a moderately friendly working relationship with?!

Leave a comment over there with your thoughts, will you?