Don’t you just love spring time when you get to shed winter clothes, put screens on your windows and air out the house to let the fresh air penetrate your home?

Every year we long for the first nice spring day to clean and organize our home and yard.

Just like a home a business needs the same TLC in order to function well and continue to grow.

The easiest way to spring clean your business is to organize it from the inside out.

I have a 2 step system that works like a charm.

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You want more money in the bank. You wish you had more clients. You wish you didn’t have to work so hard to make money. You would love your business to be able to run without you. You feel like you are flying by the seat of your pants. You have been doing everything on your own and you are scared to let go, and give someone else some responsibility. But deep down inside you really know you need to get some help.

You can have all of this. Even if you don’t know how. You can start from scratch. You just need to be aware of this thing called accountability. It’s all about taking responsibility for your decisions and actions. I’m talking 100% personal responsibility to get the things you want in the paragraph above.

How can I deal with accountability to myself if I don’t know how to get what I want?

People can teach you the how.

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Kindle publishing is a wonderful way to share your info-products on the web.

But formatting your material for Kindle has been notoriously difficult, leaving many on-line entrepreneurs stymied and stopped in their tracks.

Kindle Formatting Challenges

If you have attempted to format an e-book for Kindle, you know that, while not impossible, it can take quite a bit of time.  Not only that, but the formatting rules change, and keeping up with them is in itself a challenge.  And one thing that you absolutely DON’T want to do is to have a poorly-formatted book available on the Kindle!

Kindle Formatting Made Easy

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When you don’t work in the same office as your assistant, you may think it’s almost impossible to make things work. When your assistant has the ability to go to your computer to access your email, files, and calendar, it makes things a lot easier. Those things are not possible when your assistant doesn’t work in your office and it’s even more difficult when she doesn’t live in the same city or state as you do.

Most of the time, having someone work in your office will cost you more money than it would if you were to hire a Virtual Assistant. The reason for this is because you pay your in-office assistant for every minute she’s there, whether she’s working for you or sitting at the desk playing solitaire waiting for you to have work for her to do. That’s not good whether you have the budget for it or not. Who wants to waste their hard earned money on things that aren’t necessary? I’m sure you won’t find a single person out there willing to do that with their money.

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Having a super-duper follow-up system in place is a critical, if not the critical, system you need to grow and build your business.

Let me ask you…

When you have a client consultation and you ask the client to work with you, and they say something like:

I need to think about it;

Not yet;

Can I get back to you?

What system do you have in place to follow-up with them and turn them into a paying client?

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Do you ever find yourself working in multiple spots in your home? Like you kind of don’t have a place to set up so you move around all the time?

Most of my clients complain about not being organized and they freak out about how to get things done every day.

Ever since I invested in having a personal organizer come to my home and help me with my space I’ve been much better about being efficient in the home.

Let me share some of my best tips with you:

• Find one location to land – do your best to find one spot in your home. If you’ve got an office that’s great but if it means you carve out a nook in your bedroom, kitchen or dining room then do the best you can with the space you have.

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If you’ve been following me for a while you know that I was born into an entrepreneurial family.  We’ve built many successful businesses from the ground up.

One of my mentors is my Dad – and some of the best advice he gave me was to know whether I had a job or owned a business.

Here’s the difference…  Having a job means that you basically work for your business.  You can’t take vacations because things won’t get done in your absence.  Running a business means that the business can still function even if you are out of the picture for a while.

Running a service-based business vs. being a freelancer for hire is not an easy place to get to  — especially if you absolutely love what you do.   Recently, due to some life events (everything is fine!)  – I had to take a week off from my business.  No looking at the computer, no typing, no sending texts.   Would you survive if you had to unplug?

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As the saying goes, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail” and as business owners if you run your business without having a clear strategic business and marketing plan in place, then you’re destined to fail… sounds harsh, I know, but if you don’t know what the goal(s) are, how can you plan to get there?

And it is this lack of planning and being clear on your goals that causes so many small businesses to fail.

But today, I want to look at this from another angle, and share with you the very REAL cost of not having a business plan in place … and it’s probably something that you don’t even think about!

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Creating a business plan and having a specific marketing strategy is the foundation of building a thriving and profitable business, but how many of you are reading this article right now and wondering, “What’s that? What is a marketing strategy?”

You feel out of your depth when it comes to planning your business and really don’t know where to start with creating your marketing strategy. You maybe fiddle around on Facebook or write a couple of articles, but you really don’t have a concrete and specific marketing strategy in place. And consequently your business isn’t growing, you’re not connecting with new subscribers every day, and the profits just aren’t there.

So, if this is you, let me guide you today in creating your basic (read: foundational) marketing strategy. And it really doesn’t have to be complicated. Keep it as simple as possible but also have a firm plan in place. There are just two areas of your marketing strategy that you need to focus on:

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Confused about why your gross profit is high but your net profit is low?

When the ladies get them they look real. But when guys get spray tans they look like Magda’s twin brother from the movie “There’s Something About Mary.” Spray tans last about 7 to 12 days. So if you are into this stuff, you have to go every 1 to 2 weeks. That’s a lot of tanning, and that’s a recurring fixed expense for you. Maybe that’s where all of your money goes.

Do you ever ask yourself: Where does all of the money go? Why do I feel like I have no money?

You are killing it in your business, right? You are bringing in the biz. You think you are making good money. But every month when you look at your net profit then at your business bank account, there isn’t much cash in there.

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