TheCEOMamma Blog » Time Management

TheCEOMamma Top Tips for Social Media Marketers

CEOMamma — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:00:12 +0000

Building an online business using primarily Social Media, has been the most effective way for me to establish my brand, generate qualified leads and increase sales, all while investing next to nothing, excluding my time.

Although Social Media Marketing is an easy way to gain exposure for your business, there are still rules and procedures that need to be adopted to assure a productive marketing experience.

I have compiled a list of my top posts in 3 sections, to help you understand and grasp the concept of marketing your business online using social media.

Networking – Building Professional Relationships

Facebook – Establishing Connections & Leads

Twitter – Developing a Business Presence

With all this information, it can seem like a lot and be can be bit overwhelming to grasp but with discipline and a sound, structured system in place that works for you, you can manage it. Read my post: 5 Tips for Effective Time Management and Business Productivity for more tips to assist you with managing your online business and to see how I can help you!

CEOMamma

Tamyka Washington is a wife, mother to six, Founder/CEO of TheCEOMamma Network, marketing strategist, coach and mentor. Tamyka empowers new and seasoned women entrepreneurs to business breakthrough by blending powerful attraction marketing methods with effective social media strategies to establish a CREDIBLE brand and profitable freedom based business online. Visit here website below, to learn more:

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Women Entrepreneurs: Is Self-Sabotage Affecting Your Business?

CEOMamma — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:00:44 +0000

No matter how deep the desire is to be a successful woman entrepreneur, some of us may be far from that reality because of the unintentional self-sabotage we invite into our business each day.

If you have goals of being a successful woman in business but you are barely making any progress toward achieving those goals, it could very well be you are operating in a form of self-sabotage.

Lack of Focus

You may not realize it but you could possibly lack the focus needed to be an entrepreneur working for yourself. When you are not focused each day on getting the things done in your business that will earn you a profit, recognize you need to make a change.

You cannot continue to perform in the same manner wondering why nothing is changing. Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is defined as insanity. Don’t allow lack of focus to stunt your growth. Lose the insanity and learn to gain the focus and clarity you need to be a success.

Distractions

Sometimes, a lack of focus comes from external distractions, especially if you work from home with small children. Having the constant demand of managing a household, caring for kids all while running a business can be a challenge but can be overcome when you learn to manage your time more efficiently.

Working from home is not easy but it can be done productively if you take the steps to plan your work around the needs of your household to be more effective in your business. Time management skills must be a top priority for entrepreneurs.

Disorganization

If your office or workspace is cluttered with stacks of papers, files and notes all over and it appears as if a tornado his recently hit, you are permitting self-sabotage in your business by way of disorganization. Sure, you may know where everything is and claim the dysfunction on your desk is a “system”, but subconsciously, clutter will prevent you from getting any real work done.

If you are content with your surroundings being in disarray, you may not have yet developed a mindset for entrepreneurial success. Seriously, do you expect to work in a mess? What do you think Oprah or Donald Trump’s office space looks like? I bet it’s not disorganized.

Being an entrepreneur is one thing, but being a successful business woman making real money from home is not a joke. Take your business serious, learn and master the skills needed to eliminate self-sabotage in your business. You must be determined to stop making excuses and manage every aspect of your life AND business.

There are many powerful women entrepreneurs who have children, are single, work a full-time job outside of the home and have TONS of things going on but they know how to get it done because they took the time to learn how to effectively manage it all.

You can do it too!

The question is…

How serious are you about achieving success in your life and business?

When you are ready, download my free audio:

Lose the Insanity and Take Back Your Life as I share with you FIVE Steps designed to help you regain Life Balance. You will discover how to:

Eliminate stress and overwhelm from the constant demands of your day
How to manage and prioritize the important things in your life and on your “To-Do” list
How to overcome distraction and regain your focus and clarity at home and work

And most importantly, you will rediscover your passion, strengths, life purpose and learn to create balance.

If you truly want to be a women entrepreneur and realize your not reaching the level of success you want in your business, it’s time for you to take ACTION and make a change. Get my free audio today and start getting your life and business on the right track!

CEOMamma

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Free Must Have Online Tools Every Entrepreneur Should Use

CEOMamma — Wed, 18 May 2011 14:16:29 +0000

Determining how you will market your online business can be a challenge when your funds are limited or even, non-existent. It’s helpful when you have access to the necessary tools needed to run your business on a day-to-day basis and even better, when those tools are free!

When I first started my online business, I had no savings and no money to invest in marketing. I was however, determined to make my business work so I began to search for free alternatives. A few of the resources and tools I found are still tools that I use now in my business and allow me to keep more of my profit in my pocket.

Here are six of my favorite FREE tools I use to run my business:

Tungle Me – This is one of my favorites. Tungle Me is a scheduling application that syncs with your existing calendar. It saves me so much time by allowing me to schedule appointments and meetings without the hassle of trying to figure out convenient times due to time zone differences.

Since I can sync it with my blackberry calendar, whenever I have a request for a meeting, I can simply refer people to my Tungle Me calendar and they can easily choose a time that is convenient for both of us. We both receive a confirmation when a time has been chosen and it automatically updates my calendar.

HootSuite - Take back control over the time you spend on social media so you can focus on running your business. HootSuite is the social media dashboard that allows you to connect to multiple social networks from one website. It helps you manage your time by allowing you to schedule updates to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, WordPress and other social networks, check real time stats and more.

Skype - I’ve had Skype for a while but have been utilizing it a lot more lately. This is a software application that allows users to make voice and/or video calls over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a nominal fee.

This is a convenient way to conduct coaching or consulting calls with clients and conference calls with business partners because you can conduct visible presentations and share documents with each participant on the call.

Google Gmail Talk – This is a newer tool I recently discovered. If you have a free gmail account, you can make free phone calls to anyone in the United States – including landlines, mobile and toll free calls.

PayPal – The easiest way to accept payments online and customers don’t have to have a PayPal account to pay you either! There are no set up charges or monthly fees with easy copy and paste codes to add “Buy Now” buttons to your site. You can also send invoices to clients to request payment for services and other great features as well.

MailChimp – My favorite email marketing platform and yes, it is FREE! Mailchimp helps you design email newsletters, share them on social networks, integrate with services you already use, track your results and a ton of other great features. With a free account, you can have up to 2,000 subscribers and send up to 12,000 emails per month.

E-Junkie – Okay, so this one is not totally free but I love E-Junkie because it provides shopping cart and buy now buttons to let you sell your digital products, downloads and tangible goods online PLUS, you can even create and manage your own affiliate program. There are no setup or transaction fees, you get a free 1 week trial and you pay only $5 per month. It is so worth it and if you sell just one of your products a month, your monthly fee is paid!

So tell me, do you use any of these free tools in your business and if so, how do you like them? What are your other favorite must have’s? Share them in the comments below.

CEOMamma

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3 Reasons Why Twitter is Important for Business

Sylvia Browder — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:48:50 +0000

By: Sylvia Browder

Regularly, I travel to several rural counties in southern Alabama providing business counseling and training to local business owners. In discussing the importance of incorporating social media into their marketing plan, some clients are not sure if it is relevant for their businesses. In fact, a few give me that ‘deer in the headlights’ look when I introduce Twitter as a viable way to increase their client base. By educating them, I help them understand the benefits.

As I explain, Twitter is used by millions of people each day who share, connect, promote and brand their business image. If you, like them are still not convinced, here are 3 reasons why Twitter is important for your business.

Connect

Imagine having a captive audience waiting for your information every minute of the day. By positioning yourself as an industry expert, you can grow a small community of followers who will have a direct connection to you and who recognize your name and business brand! You can also barter, search for independent contractors or find employees. Twitter provides a great platform to connect with the right people to fit your business needs.

In addition, this is great way for existing customers to provide feedback.

By connecting with similar companies will enable the sharing of idea, best practices and opportunity to gain insight on improving your business.

Market

Most small businesses have a very small marketing budget which results in continuously looking for low cost and innovative ways to leverage their products or services. Twitter is a free social network that can be a rewarding marketing tool for your business. A few examples:

Your message will appear across the Twitter board over and over by your followers who will retweet your message to their followers. Can we say ‘viral?’
Stay abreast of industry trends to market effectively to potential customers.
Publish your Twitter handle on all email newsletters, direct mailings, on your Web site and all other marketing channels.
Promote your latest blog posts and newsletters

Still having doubts? Well, let’s say you manage an online specialty athletic shop. You can:

Track new trends your customers are talking about using Twitscoop or Trendistic
Share exclusive Twitter coupon codes using Coupon Tweet or TwtQupon
Promote special offers, promotions and events using Twitzu

Sales

Increasing your sales and profit margins are imperative for success and a matter of survival. By using twitter to announce upcoming sales or events, you will drive potential customers to your website or physical location. For example, I assisted a client who owns a Mexican Restaurant, with setting up her Twitter and Face book Fan page. Every day, she posts daily lunch specials. Last year, she reported a 9% increase in sales from travelers who used social media to find a local restaurant.

The point is, with little effort and signing up for Twitter’s free social network, you can drive prospects to you by sharing relevant information about your business.

Handy Tools to Manage Your Social Media

Every day, 365 days per year at 6:00 am Central Standard Time, my followers from Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Blog and Community, receive a daily inspirational quote. Do you really think that I get up every morning, log on to my computer and tweet? Absolutely not! Though I get a chuckle from people that think otherwise! To help manage my various social networks, I use a tool called Hootsuite, which enable me to schedule each message into the future to one or all of my social networks. That’s reaching thousands of my followers in a single message!

As Twitter surges toward an estimated 190 million visitors each month who generate over 65 million tweets per day, there are many tools available to help you manage your time and productivity. Here are a few of my favorites:

Desktop Managers

Hoot suite: a web-based tool that allows you to set up a number of social media profiles to manage. The free application offers basic analytics and five social media profiles including LinkedIn, Face book and Twitter. www.hootsuite.com
Market Me Suite: allows thousands of small businesses to manage their social media. It allows each of your individual tweets to say, www.yourwebsite.com or via your name. http://marketmesuite.com/
Seesmic: a powerful collection of social management tools that provide businesses and individuals with everything they need to build their brand online. With applications on every platform, Seesmic is the most comprehensive solution on the market. http://seesmic.com/
Tweet Deck: your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Face book, LinkedIn and more. www.tweetdeck.com

List Management

MyTweeple: a great way to manage your Twitter people in one place. You can easily see who you are following and who’s following you. With a simple click, you can follow, unfollow, or block people, and these changes instantly update Twitter. http://mytweeple.com
Tweeter Karma: a flash application that fetches your friends and followers from Twitter when you click the “Whack!” button, then displays them for you, letting you quickly paginate through them. http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/
Twit Cleaner: Analyses the profiles & tweets of your followers, looking for certain patterns of behavior, such as overly repetitive, common spam tactics, and posting the same links repeatedly, thus, allowing you to decide who to save & who to unfollow. www.twitcleaner.com
Twibs: Give twitter users a place to find businesses on twitter. www.twibs.com

Hash Tags

Hash Tags: You can find information pertaining to tags, users, trends and whatever else is available or site if you are lucky.http://hashtags.org
Twitter Search: Twitter Search helps you filter all the real-time information coursing through our service. http://search.twitter.com/
We Follow: view popular tags, the most popular people on Twitter by tag usage. http://wefollow.com/

Analytics and Tracking

Qwitter: a service for tracking the tweeps that unfollow you. http://useqwitter.com/
Tweet Stats: graph your twitter stats. http://tweetstats.com/
TwittUrlLy: tracks the URLs around the Twitter verse and provides a quick, real-time view of what people are talking about on Twitter. http://twitturly.com/

Applications or ‘Apps’

Social Oomph: a service that provides free and paid productivity enhancement services for social media users. A focus on productivity solutions for users of Twitter.com. http://www.socialoomph.com
Twitter Feed: tweet blog posts. http://twitterfeed.com/
Twit Dom: The Twitter Applications Directory with over 2000 apps. http://twitdom.com/
Klout: A tool used for an individual to measure and leverage their influence on twitter. www.klout.com/

In conclusion, by now you should see the value of using Twitter to help you market your business. Right? So what are you waiting for? Go register for Twitter now! By the way, feel free to follow me @sylviabrowder and retweet this post to your Twitter followers, Facebook Fans and fellow bloggers!

About the Author Sylvia Browder

Sylvia Browder is CEO of Browder Consulting Group, a virtual small business consulting firm and is founder of National Association Women on the Rise, a membership association for aspiring and established women entrepreneurs. Other posts by Sylvia Browder >

Sylvia Browder

Sylvia Browder is CEO of Browder Consulting Group, a virtual small business consulting firm. In her role, she helps women in business grow and succeed. She is founder of National Association Women on the Rise, a membership association for aspiring and established women entrepreneurs. In addition, she is publisher of the popular Sylvia Browder’s Blog for Women Entrepreneurs.

5 Ways to Lose the Cruise and Speed Your Business Through 2011

Sylvia Browder — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:00:50 +0000

By: Sylvia Browder

Are you ready for a successful 2011? What will it take to design a powerful plan and actually implement it? Business owners know all too well that planning is essential. The fact is, you really can’t determine where you’re going if you can’t put together a plan of action. So, instead of being stuck on cruise control, here are 5 ways to speed your business through a successful new year.

Write a book and get it published! Writing a book can be time consuming but a very critical step in your success as an entrepreneur. It’s a great way to position yourself as an expert, thus, allowing you to create additional income streams and charge higher fees for your services. As an author, you will expand your exposure and add credibility. According to a recent survey the New York Times reported, 81% of people feel that they have a book in them and should write it. To get started writing your book, it’s important to establish a clear vision, topic and purpose for your book.

Conduct a SWOT Analysis. A SWOT Analysis is a great way to access the state of your business. When conducting a SWOT, you are analyzing your businesses strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are the internal conditions of your business. According to experts, most small businesses are great at looking at the internal aspects but fail to look externally, which are the threats and opportunities. Taking a closer look, here are some key questions you must be able to answer when creating your SWOT:

Strength:

What do you do well? For example, review your sales, operations, marketing and management.
What are your core competencies?
What experience do you bring to the table?

Weaknesses:

Where do you lack resources? For example, evaluate areas such as customer service, marketing, accounting and business planning processes.
In what areas can you make improvements?
Where are you losing revenue?

Opportunities:

What new requests are your customers asking for? Can you fulfill their needs?
What are the technological advancements?
What are the economic trends that benefit you?

Threats:

What are the negative economic trends?
What are the negative political and social trends?
Where are your vulnerabilities?

If you aren’t sure how to get started, starting January 2011, National Association Women on the Rise (NAWR) will provide monthly tele-seminars and programs for women in business. Some topics include:

SWOT Analysis
Access to Capital
Certification
Public Relations
Personal Branding

Invest in a coach. It is important to align yourself with a professional coach to help you identify where you are NOW and where you want to be in areas of your life, such as; career, health and wellness, relationships, financial wealth and spiritually.

Working with a professional coach can help you in clarifying your vision, goals, values and purpose while supporting you in mapping out a strategy to achieve your dreams. For years, my focus has been on helping others rather than investing in a coach to help me overcome some weak areas of my life so that I can better serve my family and clients as well as develop and create a plan for my personal and professional goals.

One of the unique benefits of NAWR’s membership is access to professional group coaching. Having access to monthly group coaching is a phenomenal opportunity to gain increased confidence, goal achievement and increased awareness.

Each month a NAWR member can receive “hot seat” coaching during the group coaching session. A “hot seat” coaching opportunity is when a participant comes to the group session and brings an issue to the table that needs exploration, development and solutions.

Set SMART Goals. Goal setting is crucial if you want to remain successful and competitive. Once you identify what goals you want to implement for 2011, you will need to find a way to review and measure progress. Some goals will take time to achieve, so it is important to measure your progress regularly. Try implementing SMART Goals into your planning. SMART Goals is a simple tool used by businesses to formulate an actionable plan for results. SMART illustrates the 5 characteristics of an efficient objective:

S – specific

M – measurable

A – attainable

R – realistic

T – timely

A common reason for failure in completing goals is having too many on your plate. Determine what your priorities are and then focus on them. By prioritizing your goals, you are focusing on those that are important to the overall success of your company. The key to success in setting goals for your business is making sure they are attainable and measurable.

Create a stellar customer service strategy. Providing quality customer service is vital and should be an important part of your business model. What is quality customer service? It involves relationship building, establishing communication, building trust and resolving potential problems or conflicts.

Are you at the top of your customer service game? Do you have processes in place to handle customer complaints? How do you measure quality service? According to most consumer surveys, a typical business hears from about 4% of its unhappy customers; while 96% just go away and 91% will never come back.

Don’t sit on your morals! You should never get too comfortable, instead, regularly assess the strengths and weaknesses of the quality of your services, your processes and your customer approach. As a business owner, you should make it a practice to over deliver and under promise.

In conclusion, by incorporating these simple yet effective strategies into your plan, you can position your business for significant growth. Here’s looking at a great 2011!

About the Author: Sylvia Browder

Sylvia Browder

Getting Your Business in Order for Maximum Productivity

CEOMamma — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 18:15:13 +0000

The beginning of a new year is always the time of year when small business owners decide, they are going to “get it together”. All of those newly envisioned ideas and business plans flutter the minds of rejuvenated entrepreneurs ready to experience a boost in business revenue.

With all the dreaming however, structured planning must accompany your vision in order to move that vision in to action.

Here are a few tips to get you started with getting your business in order.

1. Write it Down – This should be a no-brainer but even though you have a goal and you know what you want to do, you still must write it down. Having your goals on paper, including deadlines and easily accessible for frequent viewing, will help you visualize what needs to be done and help you stay on track.

2. Create a Plan – Once you have your goals written down, you can now begin to create your plan…your Plan of Action! This will help you determine what needs to be done from start to finish in order to reach your goals. Your action plan is designed to assist you with time management and effective business building.

3. Implementation – Time to put your plan in to motion. It’s important to discipline yourself to work each step in your plan in order to get the results you desire. Staying on task and keeping your focus will give you the advantage of generating profits quicker and establishing a solid foundation for your business.

Step number three is usually the step many small business owners become challenged or overwhelmed with trying to figure out exactly how to begin this process.

Paying attention to the small details and having a step-by-step system to follow is how your implementation process will allow you to market and build your business effectively and with little mishap.

Your business marketing system, once properly set up, is what will help you stay organized and better able to manage your daily methods of business operation with little effort on your part – freeing up your time to focus more on the income producing activities of your business.

If you are unsure of how to set up your personal business marketing systems, I can help. From establishing your web presence to creating your follow-up system, I can show you how to design a marketing strategy that will help you effectively operate your business.

If you need help with this, see how I can help you.

Getting your business properly set up and organized (or re-organized) will surly help you increase your productivity, time management and income.

CEOMamma

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5 Tips for Effective Time Management and Business Productivity

CEOMamma — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:01:28 +0000

Recently, I had the privilege and honor of being the guest speaker for the Women on the Move Teleconference founded by Stylicia Bowden, in which I spoke on the topic of Time Management and Business Productivity. I received such great feedback that I decided to write this blog post to share on the topic.

Early on into building my first business, I quickly learned how important it was to be organized with managing my time and I started a system for myself based on how quickly and effectively I needed to get things done, not only in my business but with my family as well. Because for me, at the end of the day, I’m mom first and the reason I made the choice to start a business was so that I could always be available to my family and for my children.

So, I’m delighted to be able to share with you, how I have set up a system that helps me manage my time most efficiently so that I can get the most done during my days to build my businesses around my family without compromise.

The first thing I strongly encourage is that you first believe in yourself. No matter what your business is, no matter if you’re a brand new business owner, a seasoned business owner or whether you are just thinking about taking that initial step towards starting a business, you have to believe in you. In order for anything to manifest from your dreams, you have to first believe in your own vision. It’s important for you to connect with your subconscious and envision exactly where you want your business to go in order for you to take the necessary first steps to getting there.

So, that should be your first step, even if your not sure of HOW you will make it happen, write down your goals anyway. Over time, this can help you develop your own road map to success. But for now, just commit to getting started.

My favorite business motto is Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan this is something I use for every new project or idea I have with my business and it’s something I encourage you to adopt as well, Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan.

Here are my 5 tips to effective Time Management

Tip # 1 Develop your Daily Method of Operation This is when you will want to determine and write down each task you need to perform each of the days you work your business that are necessary, for the daily operation of your business. The first set of tasks should be your income producing activities. These are the things that bring money into your business, for example: sales/or follow up calls to clients, product/service inquires via email, product presentation activities, anything that you do in your business on a daily basis to generate income.

Your next set of tasks should be those that will build your business. These could be things like, blogging, article marketing and social networking. These will be the tasks that get your business in front of your audience and help you gain exposure. Write down everything, and don’t worry about when you will fit it all in yet, we’ll cover that next, this is just determining WHAT you have to do.

Tip #2 Design Your Schedule What I like to do is use a blank monthly calendar and fill it in for the month. You can also do this on a weekly basis, it’s all about what works best for you. I know some of you may work a regular job and have children so the first thing you will need to do is include that into your schedule. Mark down the days and times your work your regular job, when you go to school, mark down the kids appointments and extracurricular activities, include all your family and personal activities for the month as best as you can.

The goal here is to have a visual that will help you better carve out the time you can commit to working your business. You can even color code the different activities if you want. After you’ve done that, you can then go ahead and include the days and times you are available to work your business. This will give you a clear idea of how you can adjust your schedule to fit your lifestyle. You’ll know by a quick glance, on what days and times you are able to plan and execute certain tasks for your business. (You can download a free calendar at www.printablecalendar.ca )

Tip #3 Plan Your Tasks and Prioritize Your Activities The next thing you can do to ensure you have a productive business day is to work from a To Do List. You can use a regular sheet of notebook paper and simply write down the tasks you need to get done for that particular day. I suggest you prioritize your tasks, tackling the ones that are most time consuming and beneficial to your business and working down from there. For example, I write articles, blog posts and newsletters before I conduct any social networking or checking email.

I normally do my list for the next day at the end of my current business day so when I get to my desk the next morning, I’m ready to go. I know there are some of you who may work your business at night or only on weekends, so again, it’s all about what works for you. This is also the time you can revisit your daily method of operation list and begin to incorporate those activities onto your To Do List.

I also find it very helpful to designate a specific time frame for each task so that I’m not spending too much time on twitter or Facebook for instance, when I could be writing a post for my blog. As you complete your tasks, you can cross them off your list and move on to the next one. It is very important to prioritize and have a good understanding of which activities bring the most value and benefit to your business and your customers.

Tip #4 Goal Setting and Project Management One of the most important steps to managing your time and being productive is learning how to set goals. Setting long term and short term goals when working on a project can help you get more done while helping you stay organized and focused on completing small chunks at a time. That way it’s not so overwhelming and can curve procrastination.

When you are ready to start a new project, again, you will need to write down your idea, Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan. During my project planning, whether it is a marketing campaign or blog series I want to do, I usually work back words. I write down what my objective is, or what it is I’m going to accomplish, I will write down the steps it will take for me to complete my project and most important, a goal is never complete without a DEADLINE!!

When you set a deadline, you eliminate procrastination and put yourself in the mindset of completion. Now you can break it down into small tasks, spread that out over a period of time and complete your project in pieces. Setting goals helps you get important things done.

Tip #5 Achieving Business Productivity How to be productive is a huge concern with many entrepreneurs who understand the value of implementing social media into their business building. What applies to me also applies to each of you and that is we must be willing to be disciplined. When you take on the role of “being the boss” you have to live up to the title.

Think about this for a minute…What makes it okay, for you to get up, 5 days a week at 7am, to be at a JOB for 9am, work hard for 8 hours of your day, to put money in someone else’s pocket yet, you don’t dedicate that same drive and desire for your OWN business? As women in business, we have to step our game up and stop treating our business like a hobby. You have to be disciplined and it’s okay if you have to learn it, because it is a skill. That’s why I said in the beginning, you have to believe in yourself, trust your vision, go with your passion and MAKE IT HAPPEN!! We all have to start some where. If you don’t know how to implement a certain aspect in your business, LEARN IT. If you need advice or help, SEEK IT. You are the boss, be accountable to yourself.

There are great tools that can help you leverage your time online. One of my favorites is HootSuite for twitter. It allows me to manage multiple twitter accounts, my Facebook fan pages, my Facebook profile page and my RSS feeds. I can schedule updates across my networks and plug in my blog feeds for them to go out automatically.

WordPress also offers this option to schedule posts. Sometimes if I know I’m going to have a busy week, I will write 3 blog posts in one day for that particular week and schedule them to post on my blog on different days. Another great tool is using an auto responder, MailChimp is my favorite, it’s free and you can send out pre-scheduled messages to your entire mailing list. You can pretty much set it and forget it and have an email marketing campaign working for you on complete auto pilot. Each of these tools provide a way for you to track website traffic and statistics so you can better utilize the marketing strategies that are working great and tweak the ones that aren’t.

Another thing to help you stay productive in your business is to be aware of your habits that cause procrastination. One of my bad habits was having the need to keep checking my email and Facebook during my writing time. My plan would be to just skim through my messages and get down to work. But, before I knew it an hour would have went by and some how I ended up clicking a link somewhere and would be heavily involved in reading a blog post, then another and another.

So, to get the important work done, you need to learn how to eliminate your distractions while working. Close those social media tabs on your browser while you are working on something for your business, turn off the TV, the black berry, anything that can cause you to get distracted. Make a conscious effort, to do what is necessary to make the time you spend building your business most productive.

I teach women how to build a business with no-cost marketing because that’s how I built my business. I refused to let a limited income stop me from fulfilling my dreams and I want to tell you, that you can do the same thing. YES, you may have to work harder than your peers who may have a substantial marketing budget to start with. YES, you just might have to work longer hours then her, but that’s okay, because THIS is your business, your baby…make it happen! Be active in the growth of your business, always be willing to learn and be coachable. Find a mentor; connect with women who are where you want to be. Be a sponge, absorb everything they teach you.

You can not be afraid to ask for help, there are business women online who love to help other women reach their dreams and I just so happen to be one of them. You can only create greater opportunities for yourself and your business when you first learn how to align your vision with effective time management.

CEOMamma

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