The Best Article Submission Service!
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 Everyone knows that doing business these days requires some degree of writing skill. You either have to know how to put your thoughts into words yourself, or you have to hire it done or rely on a spouse or friend. Most everyone I know does his own writing.
Just think – there’s web content, blog content, newsletters, business letters, emails…and the list goes on. I’ve been working online for the past year and I’ve seen a lot of writing, AND I’ve read a lot of what other people have written. Especially blog posts, auto-responder messages and sales page copy.
What I have found amazing is the lack of attention to the details of educated writing. I find that many folks must have zoned out of English class early on, and never got reconnected. Some people don’t even bother to use a capital letter at the beginning of a Subject Line or a sentence. They don’t know the difference in “it’s” and “its.” They don’t know the difference in the meaning of fewer or less (Hint: If you can count it, use the word fewer, if you can’t count it, say less. Think: Fewer people, Less sugar.)
I still believe good writing matters. And just like anything else, if you take it one little bite at a time, your writing can improve. To that end, I did a webinar entitled, “Taming the Top 10 Grammar Monsters.” I received a lot of positive response to this training and it’s still one of the most downloaded training videos on our Business Training Team website.
As a lot of us are participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge, I’d like to offer this training to you at no cost. It’s my New Year’s gift to you, my fellow blogger.
Please share with me your thoughts on good writing and how you rate yourself. Also, let me know how the video has helped you. Did you learn anything new, or was it old hat for you?
I look forward to visiting many of your blogs, and I hope you come back here often. I wish you much success in your businesses this year!
When you sign up for the video, you’ll receive an email asking you to confirm your request. You should receive the link to the video in just a few minutes.
 Happy New Year, everyone! It’s been a wonderful day for me; I spent the day with friends, making homemade soap (enough for the year for all 3 of us), cooking collards, black-eyed peas, sweet potatoes, ham, cornbread…you get the picture. As we sat sipping our coffee overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, watching bonfires on the other side of the water, and observing yachts on the way to Florida, we talked of our lives, our families and our businesses — all that we experienced in 2010 and all our hopes for 2011!
It was a marvelous, relaxed time of reflection, dreaming and planning. What did you do today? Do you feel energized and ready for the New Year? We’ve got one more day before Monday morning rolls around and things crank into high gear. What last minute things to you need to get in place before the new year officially begins? How will you spend tomorrow?
I’ll be rolling out some important things for you, my highly valued readers and followers as this week progresses. I’ve committed to another 31 day blog challenge — see the banner on the side: Ultimate Blog Challenge. This is my first post in that challenge. I look forward to meeting new people and reconnecting with folks I met in the 3 challenges I did in 2010. Some of these friendships are priceless and have even led to joint ventures that you’ll be seeing more about.
Today, I just want you to answer this question: “Who will you surround yourself with who will cheer you on, encourage you when you are discouraged, and give you wise advice when asked?” If you don’t know the answer to this, I suggest you make that tomorrow’s priority. Without a close intimate team, life will be harder than it needs to be. We need advocates, cheerleaders, mentors and friends. Do you know the different roles each of these play in your life and business?
Think about it and leave a comment to tell me about your “team.”
We’ll talk more later. Again, Happy New Year and I’m SO excited to connect with as many of you as possible.
I want to get to know you and have you know me. We’ll all come out ahead!
Click on this link for your gift:
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As I reflect over this past year and get ready for a great 2011, I am reminded of how grateful I am for my customers and my friends. I would love to have the opportunity to hand-deliver a gift to each of you. After all, it’s way more fun to give than to receive. Since I can’t do that, I’m posting something special here for you.
My daughter, Melissa, is a well-known musician and she has just released a new CD called “Symphony of Joy.” This piece wasn’t completed in time, and it didn’t make it to the CD, but it’s a wonderful instrumental production and she has given me permission to share it freely with you.
You can right-click on the link and save the mp3 to rip to your Ipod or other mp3 player, save it to your hard drive, or you can just click and listen to it here from my site.
You are also free to share it with friends and family.
So, I hope you are “decking your halls” and getting ready for a wonderful holiday weekend.
I pray that the joy of the season will be foremost in your hearts and your minds.
Christmas Blessings!
Jeanne
PS…Melissa’s site is: http://MelissaJonesMusic.com
 Article Submission is Easy Now! I started writing articles in January 2010. Connie Ragen Green, whom I had just met earlier that month, told me to write my first article and it would change my life. My first article was published on eZineArticles.com the day I arrived in Las Vegas to meet with Connie and Jeanette Cates for an Online Revenue Builders workshop.
Connie was right – things took off and after just 15 articles, I was awarded Platinum Author status. I participated in the Hundred Articles in a Hundred Days marathon later in the year and I completed 3 blog challenges. I learned to repurpose my content, and was able to create eCourses and short reports for the building of my online business, http://BusinessTrainingTeam.com. It was a winning strategy. How could this get any better? Well, it did!
Last month, when I googled my name with quotation marks, I had about 750 listings on Google. My blog was indexed, many of my eZine articles, blog comments I had made on many of your blogs…my LinkedIn profile was there, my Facebook page. But, then I learned about a service that would distribute my articles much more widely with just one submission. It was an investment, and I put it off, not wanting to add more to my monthly expense. After all, things were going well.
Last month, I bit the bullet, signed up for the article submission service ($47/mo) and set up my account and submitted my first article. This submission service uses a “drip” method for the best SEO results. Over the next week, my article was distributed far and wide and ended up in places I had never even heard of.
Last night, I googled my name again (in quotation marks) and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had over 4500 listings on Google — pages and pages worth. I looked at the first ten pages, just to be sure it was all me. It was. There is one more Jeanne Kolenda in Michigan but she only had about 3 listings that I could see. I can hardly wait to get busy taking all the articles I have previously had published on eZine and resubmit them to this submission service. The only site that I asked to continue submitting for myself, in fact, is eZineArticles.com.
I am so pleasantly surprised and pleased with the results, I signed up to be an affiliate and here’s my affiliate link: http://SuccessfulArticleSubmission.com.
Connie has taught me to only recommend what I have used and what I love to be a successful affiliate. Well, I’ve used it, and I LOVE it! So, I urge you to give it a go. You can always cancel if you find it’s not for you. You can click on the link the above paragraph, or look over to the top left at the “Massive Traffic Banner.” It will all go to the same place.
Are you using an automatic submission service? Tell me about it…
 Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to you! I don’t know about you, but at this time of the year I start to zero in on all the things for which am I am grateful, and all the people, too.
I was talking to one of my clients today. They pay me a large sum of money each month, and have for the past 15 years. They basically pay my mortgage each month. At the end of our conversation, I said, “Have I told you lately how very much I appreciate your loyalty to me over these past 15 years?” She was almost embarrassed, but I could tell it meant a lot to her. I take the managers to lunch a couple times a year and they always get a gift at Christmas, and sometimes random cards throughout the year.
I’m not making it up – I really DO appreciate these people and I would be remiss if I didn’t tell them. I never want to take it for granted that there are people who trust me enough to actually give me big checks every month. But let me say here that I also appreciate the smaller customers, because they all add up to a nice income that has weathered even a bad economy. They could probably find an alternative to the service I provide, but they wouldn’t have ME to give them super-duper customer service, send gifts and take them to lunch.
How are you showing your clients you appreciate them? Join me for a free webinar on Friday, Dec. 10 at 10am Eastern time and we’re going to explore this subject of appreciation marketing in depth. You really can’t afford to ignore this.
Register here: http://budurl.com/AppreciationMkt
 If you’ve been in the business arena for any length of time at all, you’ve heard the words Sales, Marketing, Advertising, and Promotion. They’re all related, but they’re individual as well. Today, I want to talk about promoting your business, and this will encompass many things, including some marketing efforts and public relation functions.
The reason we promote our business is to establish name recognition in a positive light. You certainly don’t want your name recognized for a negative reason. It’s like the difference in famous and infamous. Both are widely known, but only one is positive. You want people to say, “Oh Yeah! I’ve heard of them,” when your company name is brought up in conversation. In order to build this name recognition, we have to find ways to get people to “know us, like us and trust us.”
One very important ingredient in good promotion is to present yourself, your services and your products in the best possible way. This means avoiding poor quality in promotional material. If you’re going to have a brochure, have a good one – well-written and free of grammatical and spelling errors. Have it in a professional, easy-to-read font and use colors that are easy on the eye. Certain colors work much better than others. Do your homework.
If you need signage, consider the same – font, color and accuracy. I have lived in my city for over 20 years. There is a favorite wallpaper store that I absolutely adore. But I’ve never understood why they would leave a huge sign up for all these years that has a grammatical error in it. They put an apostrophe before the “S” at the end of a word that is simply a plural. And to think – they paid for that extra character from the sign company. When they opened a new showroom across town, I thought surely the apostrophe would go away. But no, it traveled with them to their new sign. Don’t let this be you. If writing, spelling and grammar are your weaknesses, hire it done.
There are so many ways to promote your business, they are too numerous to mention. Some ideas will be more appropriate for some businesses than another. Many companies specialize in helping you select just the right promotional pieces. Find someone you can trust to help you. For instance, if your market is local, and you have a fairly high-dollar product, have coffee mugs made with your logo. It’s easily worth the few dollars to keep your name before your clients every morning. One of the nicest promotional gifts I ever received was a great ice cream scoop. It was from an insurance company, which has nothing to do with ice cream. But every time I enjoy a scoop or two of my favorite (Haagen Dazs) ice cream, I think of that company and the nice man who gave it to me. Should I ever want to rethink my insurance needs, I’ll look for my scoop and get his name and phone number.
If you have an online business, your methods of promoting will be much different than for a brick and mortar business. The main thing is to realize how important promoting your business is, and get started with a plan. You can always change your plan, but you’ll accomplish nothing without a plan to start with.
 Be a High-Tech Bean Counter - Learn Excel! Spreadsheets are one of the most useful tools in your business tool bag. Even if you never become an expert, just learning to use the raw, simple power of the basics of a software program such as Microsoft Excel will make a huge difference in your efficiency as a business owner or manager. There are other spreadsheet programs on the market, but Microsoft Excel or the Open Office equivalent is far and away the proverbial 800 lb. gorilla. Kind of like Google is when you talk about search engines.
Here are some common uses of a spreadsheet for your business:
- Tracking expenses
- Recording new sales
- A record of prices
- Cash flow projections
- Keeping track of job times
- Tracking commissions due and paid
The Uses Are Limited Only By Your Imagination
As you read this list, I’m sure your wheels are turning, and you’re already thinking of many other ways you could use a spreadsheet. I own a voice messaging company and my “inventory” is phone numbers. My accounting software had no good way for me to tie a list of phone numbers to a particular client, especially when they added numbers, deleted numbers, etc., as the employees changed. One of the first spreadsheets I ever learned to make was to keep track of what numbers were assigned to which customer. That was 17 years ago, and I still use that same spreadsheet. I cannot imagine running my business without it. I have another useful spreadsheet that tracks my recurring revenue. There is a certain element involved in this rather complex business that just isn’t handled the way I prefer in my accounting software, so a spreadsheet does the trick for me.
Text can be added to a spreadsheet as well as charts, graphs and even pictures. Microsoft Excel is probably one of my most heavily used programs, next to Word, of course!
Once you have entered your data, then the fun starts by making formulas with the basic mathematical functions such as addition, substraction, multiplication and division. To see what would happen if…just change the number in one cell and watch the magic take place. It’s a great way to dream of “what if…” and actually see the numbers come to life.
If you have been wanting to learn the basics or even go beyond the basics that you may already have and add some intermediate and advanced skills, I invite you to visit Make Excel Work and watch the intro video. I think you’ll really like what you see.
Leave me a comment and tell me how you’re using Excel, if at all.
 I’ve never actually thought about this, but one of my clients is a well-known attorney in the southeast region of the US who has agreed to do a free webinar on Tuesday, Oct 5 at 3pm on the subject. Of course, you can’t be fired if you’re the boss…but what if you have employees who are using social media in the name of your company?
I have never seen this subject addressed, and I’m looking forward to learning and getting up to speed on some of the responsibilities of using social media for business, whether I have employees or not.
I invite you to put this on your calendars and join us on Tuesday. There is no cost, but is a gift to my social media community. Here is part of a press release about the webinar:
Because of the popularity of internet sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn, employee blogging, tweeting, and friending has become an everyday occurrence. Online social networking sites and blogs can be used for many purposes, including communication with friends and business colleagues, marketing, uploading photos and videos, among other activities. Unfortunately for employers, as this technology continues to progress, develop, and grow, so do related employment law issues. Join Molly Cherry as she discusses some of the benefits and legal pitfalls behind the use of social networking in the workplace, using real world examples and making some practical suggestions for employers.
Molly Cherry is a member at Nexsen Pruet, LLC, where she practices general business litigation and employment and labor law. She is a Certified Specialist in Employment and Labor Law by the South Carolina Supreme Court and has been named for four consecutive years in the list of Best Lawyers® and Super Lawyers® in South Carolina. Ms. Cherry serves on the Board of Directors for the South Carolina Women Lawyers’ Association, the Trident Literacy Association, and the Tri-County Human Resources Management Association.
Look over on the left of the page and you will see a link to sign up. Hope to “see” you there!
The link is: www.budurl.com/SocialMediaLegal
I hope everyone has had a great weekend. I did!
 Get Into the Writing Habit – It Will Change Your Business and Your Life
Our daily lives are made up of automatic tasks and routine. That really sounds boring, doesn’t it? But when I think about it, here’s what I become aware of – I get up in the morning, go to the bathroom, go to the kitchen, put the coffee on and feed the dog and let him out while the coffee’s brewing. Then, the dog comes back in and he goes back to bed for awhile while I enjoy my coffee while checking email. Then, while it’s still quiet, I do a little reading, usually a devotional or my Bible. Then, I review my list of things for the day and get things ready to fire away at my list. That’s my morning routine – almost every day unless I’m not at home. Do I have to think about these things? No. I just do them.
How about driving your car? Are you really thinking about the moves you’re making. It’s scary, but the answer is no.
Establishing habits and routines are important in order for us to quickly get things done without too much time thinking about it. For a professional marketer, writing is one of those things that we simply MUST do. No question about it; you can’t market, especially online without writing being an integral part of your daily routine. Notice I said daily, not weekly or frequently – DAILY!
Every day I must write articles, blog posts, emails, work on short reports, write eCourses, scripts for Ads On Hold for my telecommunications business, and write outlines and prepare slides for my webinars. If I had not made writing a part of my daily life, I couldn’t do my job for myself or for my clients.
So you want to be more successful as a marketer, or as a writer, or as any kind of professional? Start writing every day. And you may ask yourself where to start. For me, I purchased my name – jeannekolenda.com from GoDaddy, figured out how to host it and build a blog, and I began to blog everyday. I then began to tweet out those blog posts on Twitter, and my traffic began to grow. Then I began writing articles for ezinearticles.com and as my traffic grew to my blog, I started to write eCourses and produce training webinars.
The next thing I did was to participate in a 30-day blogging challenge. There were about 100 people who signed up to write a blog post every day for 30 days. About half of us finished it. Then, just 8 weeks later, another online guru hosted another 30-day challenge. I signed up again. This time, more than 250 people signed up and I think 84 finished it. During these blog challenges, I also met many new friends online and I wrote comments on their blogs. So I felt like a writing and reading machine. Over the summer I completed an eZineArticle.com challenge and wrote and published 100 articles in 100 days.
What I’ve found is that I do my best writing late at night when nothing can interrupt me. I find that when I sit down at my computer, I instantly relax and find that my fingers literally fly across the keyboard and this makes me very happy.
I believe the first step really is to get your blog going. Even if you know nothing, my business partner and I have put together a course that will walk you through every step of it. Check it out here: Make Blogs Work. Get started today to be the writer you need to be for professional success! Let me hear from you. I’ll be glad to help in any way I can.
Leave a comment and tell me about your writing habit!
 http://MakeEmailWork.com In today’s marketing world, it’s becoming more common to use email campaigns for marketing purposes. In fact, many companies pay large sums of money to advertising agencies to manage email campaigns. If you don’t have big bucks to send the way of ad agencies, you can actually accomplish on your own if you pay attention to some instruction. I’ve written a series of articles on this subject, and I encourage you to find them for some great tips and information. This is just one more in the series.
If you’ve been in the marketing world at all, you’ve heard that “The money’s in the list.”
Or, maybe “Your list is golden.” Well, that’s true – you’ve got to have somebody to market to, but just having a list won’t guarantee money in the bank. I want to discuss some simple but important strategies for make your email campaigns and marketing a success.
Target Your Audience
First of all, you don’t need a huge list to make money – you just need a responsive list.
So you must not only work on building a list, but on building trust with those on your list. Make sure you are building a targeted list. By that I mean you have found a way to attract people who are interested in what you have to offer. For instance, I live in Myrtle Beach and when I work with clients here who are in the hotel or vacation rental business, we don’t target people who live in Alaska. Or even people on the West coast. Statistics tell us that most of the 14.5 million visitors to Myrtle Beach are coming from the Northeast, and the Midwest of the United States, and from the Eastern Canadian provinces. So that’s where the marketing focus has to be.
When You Write, Make It Personal
As you write your marketing emails, imagine that you are writing to one person, not a group. Write to an individual; it’s much more powerful and persuasive. Here’s an example:
When you plan your vacation, I know you will be looking for luxury at an affordable rate…
When planning a vacation, most people want luxury at a discount price…
Which is more powerful? The first one, of course, because it says, I know YOU will be looking… Not the group, but YOU!
You may be sending 1000′s of emails, but they will be read one-by-one by individuals. It will not be a group reading it.
To kick off your Email Marketing Success, here’s something you don’t want to miss:
http://MakeEmailWork.com
Leave a comment and tell me if you are successfully marketing with email and autoresponders.
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Everyone knows that doing business these days requires some degree of writing skill. You either have to know how to put your thoughts into words yourself, or you have to hire it done or rely on a spouse or friend. Most everyone I know does his own writing.
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