New Business Ideas Added: Santa Letters, Face Painting & Blogs

We’ve added some new business ideas to the Business Idea Library, so if you’re hunting for an idea, check it out. These ideas aren’t earth-shattering or revolutionary. In fact, they’ve been around for a while, but they might get the creative juices flowing.

- Santa Letter Business: It’s never too early to start planning for the busy holiday season and this fun business. Plus, there are plenty of ideas to take this business idea year-round.

- Face Painting Business: Another business founded in bringing smile’s to children’s faces. This business will take you out of the home to serve your pint-sized clients, but the Internet can play a big part in generating clients.

- Start a Blog: If you haven’t gone one started yet, what are you waiting for? This is one of the easiest, cheapest businesses you can start.

There will be more ideas coming soon!

PLR Update: Natural Baby & Breastfeeding Packs

My Natural Mama Marketer friends at Natural Mom PLR have added two new PLR packs you can snatch up for your content marketing. Check these out:

1. Natural Baby Mini-Pack: 5 articles, 5 product reviews and affiliate program suggestions for parents wanting raise their eco-friendly natural baby.

2. Breastfeeding Pack: 10 well-researched and written articles on the topic of breastfeeding. These ladies know their stuff!

But My Market Doesn’t Like it When I XXXXX!

This is something that came up recently when I was interviewed for a recent Mom Masterminds interview on Email Marketing. And although it’s a very common complaint I hear from online business owners when it comes to email, I think it applies to online business as whole.

Here are the complaints I hear:

“I always get a ton of unsubscribes when I try to sell something.”

“My readers won’t buy expensive products.”

“My target market doesn’t have a lot of money to spend.”

“I get angry emails when I promote products.”

Now, most people looking at this situation would immediately say - It looks like you chose the wrong target market. If your market doesn’t have the money or isn’t willing to spend it, perhaps you made a mistake in planning your business.

But you know what? I think it goes way deeper than that.

The fact is, we are responsible for who we ATTRACT to our marketing. If we harbor these fears of selling, suffer some degree of scarcity mindedness, we absolutely attract the type of person who doesn’t like to be sold to and is offended when you suggest they might open their wallet to buy something.

In the Mom Masterminds interview, I used my own target market as an example. That market being the market of marketing to other marketers (that’s a mouthful!).

You’ll see some people working in this market that have all those complaints I listed above. They say their market doesn’t have money and aren’t willing to invest in their businesses.

HUH?

Then how is it that we can look at all the big shot gurus and they’re selling $2000+ products left and right?

People in this market ARE spending money and spending lots of it. Problem is, when we project our own self-limiting ideas out to our readers, those are the type of readers we’ll attract. No, you don’t have to go out and sell $2000 products, but you need to stop feeling apologetic for recommending good products that can help people. Being apologetic is no way to build a business.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a life coach, a scrapbook instructor, a baby website owner or a bookkeeper. This applies to you. How you communicate effects how your market reacts.

So, if you’re stuck in the my market doesn’t like it rut, get out of it!

You can start by changing the way you communicate.

Stop trying to find your readers free solutions to everything (yes, provide them with good free content…but recommend paid products where appropriate).

Start promoting more and don’t be shy about it.

But What if You Offend People with This Change?

I say GOOD! Some of your readers will come around and join you in your newfound abundant thinking. Others will get annoyed, drop off and find other places to complain. You’ll also start attracting the RIGHT type of people who are going to make it possible for you to build your business.

I’ve Been There

When I share this with you, I speak from experience. I started with the same approach to my marketing. I was the owner of InternetBasedMoms.com and my target market was the WAHM (and the WAHM still makes up a large chunk of my market even though I’ve moved on from the IBMoms website).

I decided that all work at home moms were on a limited budget and because they had children they were responsible for, they couldn’t afford to invest in their businesses. So, I marketed to them this way. I legitimized their excuses for not taking their businesses seriously and made it okay for them not to invest in their businesses either.

Then one day, a light bulb came on and I realized that I wasn’t doing myself or my market any favors. So, I changed. I changed the way I communicated with my market. I showed them how important it was to think big with their businesses and to invest wisely.

In the process, some moms left me and they continued doing what they always did. At the same time, some of the moms who were stuck in the same trap as me, came along with me for the ride of BIG THINKING. I also started to attract new big thinking moms to my readership.

What do you think? Is there anything about the way you communicate with your readers that could be limiting your success?

Before & After: Silly Sunday

Before Internet Marketing Spring Cleaning Coaching…

After Internet Marketing Spring Cleaning Coaching…

Get your spring cleaning here.

Guess What? “Internet Marketing Sweetie” is FREE!

This is a Sweetie Saturday FREEBIE that I’ve been super excited about since the decision was made. I hope you’ll join me in that excitement!

Here’s the big news:

The original Internet Marketing Sweetie Course is now free!

Yep, just by leaving your first name and email address, you’ll get access to:

The 65-minute interview and full transcripts that show you how to get ahead in this sometimes cut throat online business world…all by being nice to people.

The 70-page action-oriented workbook to help you apply all the action steps covered in the interview.

The 10 Commandments of Being an Internet Marketing Sweetie that will remind you to stay on course and with your goals for a better and more profitable online business.

How to Claim Yours: Click here to sign up for instant access

Now, I know there may be a few questions (and if you have more, feel free to leave a comment below), so I’ll answer them now:

Why is it Free?: This Sweetie thing is really important to me and it’s an approach to online business that I hope more people will follow. And uh…no…it’s really not a cult! I promise.

The Sweetie concept also is something that is ingrained in all my information products and I consider this particular course to be something like a pre-requisite for the others. This will help ensure more of my students do take advantage of this opportunity.

Is The Course Out-of-Date?: The course was first released in 2004, but it was based on timeless marketing concepts, so it remains just as relevant today. But just to be sure, we’ve reviewed all the content and updated any necessary little details so it’s ready to roll for 2008.

How to Learn More & Get Instant Access: Click here for all you need.

(NOTE: If you are already a subscriber to my Internet Marketing Prescriptions newsletter, this download link went out to subscribers yesterday. Please search your inbox…and geez…maybe your junk folder to see if it’s hiding there. If not, you should be able to sign up again at the above link.)

Seth Godin Asked for It: Here Ya Go

Danny Sullivan of Daggle.com and SearchEngineLand.com (interestingly enough!) posted about a Seth Godin blog entry about the dangers of using generic company names like “Jewelry Central”, “Party Land”, “Computer World”, etc. He said it was a bad branding strategy, likely limited your success and made trademarking a nightmare.

Mr. Godin ended his blog entry with a challenge to name companies who have been successful with this type of branding. Mr. Sullivan brought up Disneyland as a good example (yes, I realize “Disney” is the unique part of this name, but it is a “land” name, regardless). I’d like to add Disney World, Sea World to the mix (VERY generic). Let’s also consider Circuit City and a Canadian counterpart of Future Shop that’s doing okay for itself. I’m sure there are many more, but that’ll do for now. Post your own below.
More:

- The Pannekoek House (a local franchise)
- House of Blues
- Electronic Boutique
- Playland (a local long-time amusement park)
- Fitness World (local fitness chain)
- XXXX Zoo - Add your city to that name.

Disclaimer:

Although, I agree with the general sentiments of Seth’s post…I don’t think he can make the blanket statement that companies just don’t succeed with this naming strategy.

Free Affiliate Commotion Handbook

If you have an affiliate program or are thinking about starting one…here’s a cool freebie. Angela Wills has put together a handbook called Affiliate Commotion and it shows you step-by-step how to set up a profitable affiliate program.

Angela is a VA specializing in affiliate management and makes it her business to pay attention to those little details that we sometimes miss.

In addition  to the handbook, you get instant access to 4 free interviews with affiliate managers (including yours truly). Grab yours for free here.

Three Thoughts on Making Your Vacation Work

As you know by now, I’m not really here. I’m actually on Spring Vacation with the family. I’m pretty sure we’re having a good time, but I’m actually writing this before I go on vacation and I don’t have a crystal ball.
I remember when I first started my online business, I would get pretty frazzled just being away from the computer for a whole day. One particular overnight trip nearly sent me into a tizzy.

That was a long time ago. After that first overnight trip, I realized that things couldn’t be this way. I needed to be able to get away from it all and not worry about a thing. I wanted a way to make sure it was business as usual while I was gone.

I think as online business owners we deserve a break now and then, don’t you?

So here are your three thoughts on making your vacation work:

1. Put together your plan: Write down everything that you need to do before leaving, what should be done while you’re gone and what you’ll need to do right after you get back. Complete the tasks that should be done before going, give an itemized list to your VA and other helpers of what they should do when you’re gone and start digging into the stuff that you’ll have to do on your return.

TIP: Planning for what you have to do right after you get back helps reduce that “after vacation stress” that is common upon returning to work. If you can, try to get some of these tasks ready…so you can go easy on yourself when you’re back in the office.

2. Outsource the day-to-day and administrative tasks: Yeah, you knew I was going to mention this one… but sorry, but if you want a break now and then, you’re gonna have to do it! Have your assistant(s) ready, trained and already handling your customer support and general inquiries. Don’t wait until it’s vacation time and scramble to find help. Start training and working with someone now, so they’ll know all the ropes by the time you need time off.

3. Schedule blogs posts and emails in advance: Obviously, these blog posts have been scheduled in WordPress. I wrote them over the past few weeks and just set them to publish this week. I also wrote my mailing list emails prior to leaving and gave instructions to my VA on sending out the emails.

How do you plan for your vacations away from the biz?

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