http://www.greatsmallbusinessadvice.com: When marketing (meant for adults) works on a 7yr old, you know it must be effective. Find out more in this week’s video… Encore – It Works! http://tinyurl.com/yz6tqrq

When I first heard of blogging, I said to myself –that looks silly and time consuming and how the heck could it help my business?  And I buried my head in the sand for a couple of years.  And then, one of my coaches started nudging me and showed me some practical reasons to blog.  And now I’m hooked.  Today I ‘m going to share with you the top reasons to blog and how to get started.

1.  Internet interaction is here in a big way and is here to stay.  With the advent of social media (linked in, facebook, twitter) and smart phones, people now expect to be able to interact with you online.  Your website is a one way street.  You give out content. Your readers receive it.  With a blog, people can comment on what you post and a dialogue occurs.

This is great because it builds relationships AND it’s great for driving traffic.  Search engines and blog directories are notified of your updates and they love that!

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Your business needs clients to survive and thrive. There are several steps you must take to attract and to make your business grow.

Getting clients needs to be part of your daily business routine. You need to feed your business like you feed your body, with fresh clients. Neglect this for too long and your business grows weak. Schedule business development on a daily basis and attracting clients becomes a healthy habit.

It’s important to know what motivates you in your business. This is your WHO, as in “Who am I”. It’s very hard to build a successful business if it is not in line with your values. Think about what is important to you. Clients will gravitate to you when your business, values and priorities line up.

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http://www.greatsmallbusinessadvice.com/: For a lot of small business owners, this is an overlooked factor that sells our products and services 10x better than we ever could. In this video, find out about the SP factor and how you can apply it. http://tinyurl.com/yjvsl5x

What the heck do I mean by “repurpose?”  Well it’s when you do one thing and then spin that one thing into many.  Let’s take a look at how this might work.

1.  Write a top ten tip sheet.  My first one was called “Top Ten Ways to Live Authentically.”  I wrote it 10 years ago and put it online and I still get feedback from it!

2.  Flesh out each of your top ten tips into a few paragraphs and now you have an article.  Write a 400-600 word article expanding on your top ten tips.  You put a “call to action” resource box at the end of the article.  A resource box is the jargon term that online article databases use…kind of like a byline, only it’s much more.

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Here are three cool tools to fire up your business…

I take pride in sharing my latest web discoveries and online resources with my friends and close colleagues.  Disclosure: When I become a fan of these new finds, I usually sign up as an affiliate and receive a small commission on referrals.  I never promote stuff that I don’t test and use myself…

Still, with sooooo much stuff coming at us from every direction, it’s tough to separate the crap from the really useful marketing tools.  With that in mind, here are the web resources I’m most enthusiastic about recommending:

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Have you noticed that a lot of people are talking about celebrity lately? Maybe it’s just my reticular activating system (RAS) sparking up ever since I recently started talking about how to “raise your celebrity profile.” (No, I didn’t make up the “RAS” – it just means that I’m just hyper-aware of this particular language right now.) My use of the word “celebrity” is sparking some interesting and juicy conversations with people lately.

For me, raising your celebrity profile is NOT about:

• A huge ego

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In order to PULL clients to your business you need to speak specifically to your target market and tell them how your service will work for them. In other words, let them know the results they will get.

One way to tout the benefits of working with you is to turn your business features into business benefits.

Every business offers features to clients.

Features are nice, but they are more about you and your process than about your clients.
Offering a feature such as a “one hour start up consultation” is great, but it doesn’t let the potential client envision how your business will work for them. Creating benefits from features shows clients what’s in it for them. When you let your clients know the BENEFITS of working with you, it’s easy to PULL them to you.

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While enjoying yet another fabulous breakfast at Binky’s Restaurant in Middleborough, Mass this weekend, I sat back and took a good look around at what makes Binky’s so unforgettable:

1. The atmosphere — Kim (daughter of Binky) and her staff have created an atmosphere where everyone is treated like family…from those of us who go all the time to those who walk through her doors for the first time.
2. While they make an incredible breakfast and also serve lunch, they’re “known” for their pancakes.  First off, there’s one of them and it’s the largest I’ve ever seen.  I still remember betting my (then) 10-year-old nephews that they couldn’t each finish one (yep, I won!).
3. Almost all of the customers are long term repeats or coming based on word of mouth referrals.

This simple breakfast led me to ask myself (and now you) a few questions…

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This is a great question. And here’s where I want you to start — by assessing your current situation.

Even before you put together a plan, you need to do this. Because if you don’t have a good handle on your current situation, you’re not going to be able to put together a plan that emphasizes your strengths and minimizes your weaknesses.

So here are some things you should look at:

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