Last week I was facilitating my monthly entrepreneur group. This is an impressive group of bright, inspired business folk who truly are committed to making their business a success. They apply what they learn, they continuously work on honing their skills, and they are generous and supportive with each other as they collectively move through the typical challenges all growing business owners face. They’re pretty much doing things right. What struck me however, in this particular session, was regardless of how committed and willing each owner is to learn and grow, each owner seems to have their own personal obstacle to success. An obstacle that could ultimately be their undoing!
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The other day I was coaching Emily, a bright and self aware woman who’s recently stepped up to a very big plate - she wants to take her business to the next level. Her decision holds the potential for many rich and fulfilling rewards, but also contains a rather steep learning curve, an increase in pressure and of course much higher stakes. Interestingly enough, as she meets her days with passion and excitement, she also notices an increase in how easily she gets triggered and upset by seemingly mundane events that throw her off and make her constantly question her ability to succeed.
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It bothers me that most conversations I have at this time of year contain some level of stress and anxiety about the upcoming holiday season. I’m not immune myself - every year I swing on a pendulum between being caught up in a frenzy of materialism or feeling the urge to back away and becoming […]
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I’ve seen it over and over - small business owners who get nervous and uncomfortable when it’s time to assume the role of salesperson. Sales are the backbone of your company’s health, and most entrepreneurs are not trained sales professionals. In fact, most business owners are reluctant, resistant sales people, worried about being perceived as pushy, or worse yet, sleazy. As a result, they don’t get out and sell.
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Whether you consider yourself an occasional procrastinator or a terminal one, getting stuck in the mud - paralyzing your ability to act - sometimes happens. While it’s certainly useful to explore the reasons behind persistent procrastination patterns and resolve them, this article is intended to offer you 8 smart reminders to free you up and get you moving again. Here they are:
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Business owners are trained to gauge the success of their business according to the health of their “bottom line” - that is - the last line on a profit and loss statement that tells you what remains (if anything) after all your costs of doing business … But, I’m interested in what - beyond the traditional bottom line - keeps you motivated and creates that deeper and more sustaining measure of success I believe we are all seeking?
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Recently, two popular WordPress-related sites took a stand against ad-sponsored WordPress themes. Mark Ghosh, publisher of Weblog Tools Collection declared that he would no longer promote sponsored WordPress themes on his site. Shortly thereafter, WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg stated that all sponsored themes “should” be removed from the Wordpres Theme Viewer site.
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Michael Chaffin was kind enough to tag me with the 5 things meme, so without further adieu, here goes.
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I’m going to resist the temptation to jump on the New Years resolution bandwagon. Frankly, I don’t believe resolutions endure and I’d venture a guess you are saturated with messages, to tempt you to make the changes you want to make for this coming year. Instead of dangling a stale carrot in front of you, making it sound easy to succeed by resolution, I’m going to offer you something juicy. Forget resolutions. This year, LEARN to change your life.
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I learned a very difficult life lesson this month. Me, the eternal optimist and consummate positive thinker was blinded by my own medicine. It’s a powerful personal story and it dawned on me in the midst of recounting it to my entrepreneur group that its lesson is incredibly applicable to business. Here goes.
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In part 1 of this series, we talked a little bit about database driven publishing platforms, such as WordPress. The key point of that discussion was that your blog data is separate from your blog design (the look and layout of your site). The data - such as blog posts, blog comments, blog categories, etc. - reside in a database on your web server/web host (you establish your database during the WordPress install process).
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There are probably over 1000 free WordPress blog themes/templates out there. Yet, I still get people who write and ask me to help them design their own. And that’s cool. After all, it’s a great way to express one’s creativity. This post marks the first in a series to help you do just that: create your own WordPress blog theme. Before we get into WordPress blog/theme design, however, we need to talk a little bit about WordPress itself.
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Stress is high, your energy is low. Sound familiar? This is the common experience of most small business owners I know. Owning a business can be like running a marathon. You know you’re in it for the long haul, there’s not much time to catch your breath, yet you push on. You can easily see how this scenario can lead quickly to an out of balance life.
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First of all, I have to say, Tubetorial is hot. Tubetorial is the latest videoblogging project by Chris Pearson (a fellow blog designer and a damn good one at that) and Brian Clark of Copyblogger fame.
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We design powerful, easy-to-use web publishing platforms - sometimes known as blogs or content management systems - that make it easier for small business owners to connect with their customers, make a name for themselves and earn more money.
