Ann Sieg and Mike Klingler Host the First Annual Renegade Professional Live Event

Here’s an inside peek at the first ever Renegade Professional Live Event hosted by Ann Sieg and Mike Klingler. This video was put together by Deborah Tutnauer from ItsAllSuccess.TV. Thank you, Deborah! (P.S. Deborah, when are you going to do a tutorial on how to create a video like this? It’s awesome!)

Click PLAY to watch the antics

Get more insider details about the Renegade Professional Live Event in Lisa’s article, “Ann Sieg and Mike Klingler are REAL!”

Please share your thoughts (we know you have LOTS!) in the Speak Your Mind section below.

Warm regards,

Alicia Bausley and Lisa Hanfileti

What Do 31 Billion Searches on Google Every Month Mean to Your Business?

“Did You Know?” is an eye opening video of statistics that demonstrate how our world is changing. If you plan on being in business over the course of the next couple of years (not to mention 10 or 20 years!), then pay close attention to how quickly our lives, behavior, needs, jobs, and the world economy are changing with technology.

Click on the Video to Play

When you’re finished watching this video, scroll down to the Speak Your Mind box below and let us know what made you gasp!

Here’s what sent us into a tailspin:

• There are over 200 million registered users on MySpace. That’s more people than the population of most counties!
• In 2006 there were 2.7 billion searches per month on Google. Now there are 31 billion searches per month on Google. WHAT?!
• The total number of text messages sent and received everyday exceeds the total population of the planet. I think those are just from my niece!

Out of those 31 billion searches on Google every month, how many of them do you think might be looking for what you have to offer?  Even if one tenth of one percent wanted to buy a product from you, that’s still a whopping 31 million searches every month and well over 300 million searches every year looking for you and your business.

What you need to do is use the same technology Google uses so one tenth of one percent of those 31 billion people searching the Internet every month can find you! 

One of the best small business resources to get your business active on the Internet is Renegade Professional.  This exclusive site has an active membership with hundreds of video tutorials to help small businesses get located by Google and other search engines.  There are powerful tutorials to show beginners everything about marketing their business on the Internet, including click-by-click training on:

• Twitter for Business
• Facebook Networking
• Social Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Video Marketing with YouTube
• Blogging with WordPress
• Site Build It for Small Business
• Plus more are being added every day

So when you ask yourself, what do 31 billion searches on Google every month mean to me and my business? , make sure your answer includes visitors to your Internet marketing sites, customers for your business, and cash in your bank account!

Learn more about Renegade Professional now.

Warm regards,

Alicia Bausley and Lisa Hanfileti
Empowered Business Entrepreneurs . com

Mindset Over Matter: How to Approach Online Network Marketing to Achieve the Best and Fastest Results

If you are reading our 2010 network marketing book, “The Lead Conversion Kit” (formerly titled, “Rich Network Marketer, Poor Network Marketer”), it is because you are looking for a solution.  You know there is a better way to use the Internet to build an online network marketing business, but you just cannot seem to put all the pieces together to make it work.

Most likely you fit into one of these 3 categories:

A)    An enthusiastic Site Built It! owner who is investigating the best way to incorporate a MLM into your website’s monetization model.

B)    A Network Marketer who is trying to attract qualified leads and build a global downline using the Internet and you want to how SBI! will provide the answer

C)    A potential SBI!er and a potential network marketer who is wondering how these puzzle pieces fit together to create the perfect home business

Whichever category you are in, we can guarantee your success (and failure) based on one single factor… Your Mindset.

Let us explain.

The SBI! approach and the traditional network marketing mindset are at odds. (Don’t worry, there is a fantastic solution waiting for you up ahead.)  For now, determine which mindset is driving you so you can begin to make any necessary adjustments to ensure your success.

The SBI! Mindset

The mascot of SBI! is the Tortoise for a very good reason. Not because working fast is bad, or because we NEED to be slow.

The reason is because being methodical and doing proper research simply takes time.

When you try to save time by skipping such steps as researching your niche, planning your site concept, and developing a monetization model, then the result is not the high performing, income-generating website you envisioned, but rather a lonely, desolate website that just sits on the web without attracting visitors or producing income.

The time you spend in the initial stages of planning your website and doing keyword research, pays off (literally and figuratively) down the road.

Site Build It! is unique among website software companies. Most companies will show you the flashy templates and designs first, knowing that is what drives most people to make a purchase.  SBI! won’t even let you look at their hundreds of free design templates until you have developed a site concept that passes the profitability test.

Why would they do that?  Let’s face it, SBI! could sell a lot more sites if they let people see templates first and didn’t bother with a rigorous step-by-step guide.  Why on earth would SBI! force you to plan out your website as if you were starting a business?

It’s simple.  SBI! wants you to succeed in building a profitable business through your website. They are MORE interested in helping you build a sustainable and successful business with your website than they in selling a large volume of sites to people who do not stand a chance of making it on the web.

Building a business takes planning and hard work. SBI! hands you the “10-Day Action Guide” to walk you step-by-step  through the process of researching and planning not only your website, but your entire business.  They teach the proven “Content>Traffic>Presell>Monetize” process.  With the SBI! Mindset, your website IS your business.

Now, let’s compare the SBI! Mindset, where the emphasis is on research, planning, and testing, to the traditional network marketer’s mindset.

The Network Marketer’s Mindset

If the SBI! mascot is the Tortoise, the network marketer’s mascot is the Hare.

Network marketers lack identity and purpose; they do not know if they are business owners trying to sell, or product-enthusiasts trying to share.

They are driven by trying to meet monthly product volume requirements and trying to desperately get more people interested in their business so they can make enough money to pay for their monthly products.

Sadly, many network marketers jump from one scheme to another trying to get their ‘business’ to take off, without ever sitting down and planning out a marketing strategy.  Most uplines, even if they are successful, do not develop a proven marketing process to teach their downline to help them succeed.  It gets worse for the network marketer when the Internet is added to the mix.   Because the hectic pace and speed on the Internet adds a false sense of time pressure that heightens the frantic Hare Mentality.

All too many network marketers turning to the Internet for help get attracted to one Get Rich Quick scheme after another.  It is a recipe for disaster.

You cannot build a successful SBI! website and online network marketing business with a Hare Mindset!.

There’s hope.

Shift your thinking.

Become a Renegade.

The Renegade Mindset

Thanks to Ann Sieg, author of,  The Renegade Network Marketer, network marketers have another option.  They can rid themselves of the Hare Mentality by adopting the Renegade Mindset.

In a nutshell, the Renegade Mindset is a marketing-centered mindset.  What that means practically speaking is that as a network marketer, you should no longer think of yourself as an employee of your MLM, but rather as an independent business owner.

You are your own boss and as such you must take responsibility for the identity (branding) and marketing of your business.

The Renegade Network Marketer teaches you how to shift your thinking so that you use the power of the Internet, to build YOUR credibility as an independent business owner. In this way you focus on teaching others valuable information, instead of leading with facts about your MLM products or compensation plan.

With this new approach, your MLM becomes one part of a very broad monetization plan.  You are not dependent solely on your MLM for revenue.  The Renegade marketing model expands your income sources to include an unlimited number of proven affiliate programs, joint ventures, and even your own products.

The key is, you are approaching your leads, prospects, customers, and clients as a credible expert and provide valuable information, resources, and leadership.  (Don’t worry, it is not as difficult as it sounds!)

In this marketing-centered approach, if you learn the fundamentals of marketing, you can apply them to building any successful business on the Internet.

The Powerhouse Combination of SBI! and The Renegade

The Renegade approach is very consistent and compatible with SBI!.  When you combine the two and add a dash of a little something we call the consultative selling process, then you have a powerhouse online network marketing business on your hands.

In “The Lead Conversion Kit” we even give you the secret formula in Chapter 12 and it goes like this:

Traffic + Solving Problem Live + Asking for the Sale = Cash Flow

You see, the part of the formula that most online marketers are missing right now is the part that happens after you attract the leads.  It’s called ‘lead conversion’ and if you do not know how to convert a lead into a buying customer, well, we hate to break it to you, but you don’t have a business.

How To Go From the Hare to the SBI!ing Renegade – And Become an Empowered Network Marketer”!

Here’s the deal…

If you bring your old network marketing mindset to SBI! and expect to succeed, you are in for a rude awakening.  Save yourself the anguish and start today with learning the mindset of the Empowered Network Marketer.

Rid yourself of the hare mentality and become a strong and steady tortoise walking the proven path of success.  This is a process and it will take some time to make the ‘shift’.  But you can do it!  Here are some real life practical tips to get you started:

• Get out a calendar. Write down your goals for 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year.  It is very do-able to have your website up and 30-pages of keyword focused content written in 3 months.  Depending on your current knowledge of the web and how much time you have to devote to your SBI! website, you may be able to have your 30 pages up sooner.

• Set a Schedule. Consistent action is the most important component of your schedule.  Working on your website one day a week is not enough.  It is better to work for an hour a day than 7 hours one day a week.  Ideally you can work a couple of hours every day or every other day.  Whatever you decide, schedule the exact days and the hours of the day you will be working on your SBI! website and stick to it.  Example:

• Lisa: When I started, I got up at 5 a.m., worked for 2 hours before work and then limited watching television in the evenings so I could use an hour of that time too.
• Alicia: I took a 10-day chunk of my Christmas vacation time and worked for 4 hours every morning, determined to get the framework of my SBI! site “up”.

• Do not get distracted: Turn off your IM, email alerts, phone.  Unsubscribe from mailing lists, especially affiliate marketing lists.  Any email that says “act now!”, “only 24 hours left”, etc are marketing techniques that are extremely effective at grabbing the “hares”.  These will waste your time and money.  You can always file these emails away and come back to them in a few months.

• Learn effective ways to deal with frustration and overwhelm. Exercise routines, healthy eating, regular breaks, fresh air, and laughter.

• Be accountable: Use the SBI! 10-Day Action Guide checklist, find a study buddy, participate in regular training tutorials, and write out your goals and the timeframe (even the date!) within which you want to accomplish each.

• Make it FUN! This is your business!  Celebrate milestones, Selecting a domain name, putting up your homepage, submitting your sitemap, 10 pages of content, 30 pages of content, adding RSS, each step is getting you closer to your ultimate goal of building a successful business.

To learn more and stay focused on building your successful online network marketing business, be sure to read our introduction in “The Lead Conversion Kit” where we outline the “7 Proven Steps To Turning Online Leads Into Paying Customers And Downline Members”.  We even recommend printing out the graphic and hanging it where you can see it every day.

It is your road map to building a successful independent business on the Internet.  And it is also what separates the desperate network marketer from the empowered network Marketer.

Keep up the great work!

Alicia and Lisa

P.S. Here are the 3 essential tools you need to start building your online business today:

1. Site Built It! (SBI! 2.0) – your internet marketing platform, or home base.  (Yes, you can still apply ALL the techniques we teach you by using a different website or blogging platform.  But if you do not already have a preference or you are new to online business, then we highly recommend SBI! 2.0.
2. The Renegade Network Marketer – your guidebook and resource guide.
3. The Lead Conversion Kit – the marketing, sales, and lead conversion training manual for you and your team.

Go get ‘em!

Alicia Bausley and Lisa Hanfileti

Call Us Braggers! Site Build It Gives Our Business a Stellar Alexa Ranking

We are bragging about our Site Build It website, EmpoweredBusinessEntrepreneurs.com, and the stellar Alexa Ranking we have achieved in a very short period of time.

Let us explain… and tell you why this is important to YOU.

A little over two years ago, neither of us (Alicia Bausley and Lisa Hanfileti) could have told you what an Alexa ranking was, let alone brag about it.  We didn’t even know each other way back then and could not have predicted that we would become sought after trainers for online marketing.

“What’s an Alexa Ranking?”

Here’s what we have learned through Site Build It about the relevance of a website’s Alexa ranking.  An Alexa ranking is simply a way to see how your website or blog compares to the 100 million or so other active sites on the Internet.

In Alexa’s words,

“It’s a measure of a website’s popularity.  The rank is calculated using a combination of average daily visitors and pageviews over the past three months.  The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews is ranked #1.”

Take a look at SiteBuildIt’s explanation here and see how you can take the Alexa ranking test to uncover how your website or blog ranks.

Take the Alexa Ranking Test – http://traffic-test.sitesell.com/

Fast forward two years to when we started our Empowered Business Entrepreneurs Site Build It website.  We each had previous experience with Site Build It and hoped we could combine our talents to create something really special.

We had no idea what we were in for!  To give you an idea, let us just tell you that we closely track a number of parameters to determine where we are making progress with our EmpoweredBusinessEntrepreneurs.com website and our EBE blog.  We know the power of SBI and have  jumped in and are making the proper moves to create full time incomes.

Our Site Build It site is our central hub or online marketing platform that we use to attract people from all over the world.  And to make sure that we continue to attract visitors, we remain extremely focused on providing quality content that is so valuable that they keep coming back for more.

We took the Alexa test ourselves and quite honestly do so almost every day (out of pure excitement and thrill about how well we continue to improve!).

Today (June 22, 2009) this is where we (our EmpoweredBusinessEntrepreneurs.com website AND our blog) are ranked out of 100 million active websites in the world:

That places us in the top 2% of all active websites on the web in the whole world.  In less than 4 months!!

We believe we are only weeks away from being in the top 1%.

Go ahead and put some big names of other online marketing trainers in this test and see if they are making the right moves to explode their site in the Alexa rankings!  Come on… brag with us because we wouldn’t be here without YOU!

We wish we could take more credit but quite honestly all we did was implement the strategies taught by  Site Build It.  (Oh, we added in a few little tricks of our own, but that’s another story… and training program!)

This was our Alexa ranking on May 4, 2009 (just 7 weeks ago):

Building a website that attracts leads is the one challenge that almost all new online marketers face.  And getting it to rank within the top 1% of all websites in the world?  Well, now that’s a downright challenge (and quite intimidating to say the least).

What’s our point here?

We are here to help you do the things that will get YOU noticed!  We’re a team that works to help you

• Focus on your own skills and use them to build your credibility
• Take effective action steps in the right sequence to set up your marketing system
• Resist the temptation to jump from one marketing method to another
• Implement the proven strategies taught by Site Build It and our EBE Mentorship Program

To learn more about our Site Build It journey and how YOU can benefit from what we are doing at Empowered Business Entrepreneurs, join us on a special training Webinar that we are opening up to everyone.  We will answer the two biggest questions we hear from attraction marketers and our very own team members:

1. What’s the Big Deal With  Site Build It?
2. Should I Build a Website or Should I Build a Blog?

One of the most important things you can do for your business is to get your central platform.  Nothing else matters at this point.  You need content up on the Internet and a central place to post it.  More importantly, you need a hub to lead all your friends, followers, and admirers from such social media sites, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, among many others.

You are invited to attend our live Site Build It training Webinar on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 6:00 PM PST.

HERE’S THE SITE BUILD IT WEBINAR REGISTRATION LINK:
http://www.empoweredbusinessentrepreneurs.com/sitebuildit-free-webinar

We’re going to spell it out in black and white and give you the information you need to know about how to decide if you should create a website or a blog.  Then we’ll show you the REAL support that we provide to further train, teach, support and help you.

You won’t want to miss our live Webinar.  We attract hundreds of people to our training calls and for good reason.  We give away insane value!

See you there!  Remember, REGISTER FOR THE FREE LIVE WEBINAR NOW:
http://www.empoweredbusinessentrepreneurs.com/sitebuildit-free-webinar

We’ll also be making some incredible announcements.  If you know us, Alicia Bausley and Lisa Hanfileti of Empowered Business Entrepreneurs, then you know we don’t just deliver.  We over-deliver.

Who do you think taught us to do that?

The Renegade Professional Forum

Our Empowered Business Entrepreneurs (EBE) Renegade Professional Forum is a friendly place where real network marketing renegades can team up, share tips and marketing ideas, showcase (and get instructive feedback on) their online marketing materials, provide valuable resources, give support, receive inspiration, share with their team members, and pay it all forward so the cycle continues.

We created the EBE Renegade Professional Forum to give network marketers (many of whom have already failed at the old school method of network marketing) a safe place to ask questions, learn, and develop as successful online business entrepreneurs.  However, our Renegade Professional Forum would not exist if were not for a little thing that we like to call, Renegade Rage!

““Renegade Rage”“

Ann Sieg started the Renegade Rage by releasing her ebook, The Renegade Network Marketer in June 2007.  She totally set our network marketing industry on its ear, and it’s been a blast ever since!  Really… she made a lot of people mad – but the majority of people saw the light.  Renegades now number in the hundreds of thousands and the number is growing everyday.

If you are confused by the growing number of “Renegades” out there, you are not the only one.  It seems there is Renegade-itis all over the Internet!  Let’s see if we can clear up the confusion.

• The Renegade Network Marketer – Ann Sieg’s EBOOK that teaches the philosophy of attraction marketing and earning multiple streams of income and quite honestly, dumping the old network marketing ways.  It’s 144 pages that can change your life (that is, IF you read through to the last chapter… see below!)

• The Renegade System – A FREE MEMBERSHIP WEBSITE included with your purchase of The Renegade Network Marketer ebook. Get this… 80% of the people who buy Ann’s ebook never even log into the free Renegade System that is included with her ebook!  That’s because it is explained in the last chapter and it’s only for people who are ready, willing, and able to take the necessary steps to succeed on the Internet.  The Renegade System is a very special website that has training and marketing tools, but it is also shows you how to sign up with approximately 40 other affiliate companies, embed them in your own version of the ebook and start making multiple streams of income and generating your own qualified leads.  It’s brilliant!  Too bad so few network marketers know about it.  Or maybe it’s a good thing!

• Ann Sieg’s Renegade Marketing Team – A PRIVATE TEAM SITE created by Ann Sieg just for her Associates to teach and train them the most useful techniques in online network marketing.

• Renegade University – FREE ONLINE TRAINING founded by Mike Klingler and developed by Ann Sieg herself.  Ren U (as we affectionately refer to our alma mater) is a place to receive free online training that teaches network marketers (in particular us baby boomers!) how to become visible on the Internet and attract prospects.  All of the tutorials are in written, video, or live webinar format and are designed for the Internet beginner.  More advanced training is available when you are ready to graduate from Ren U and enter Renegade Professional.

• Renegade Professional – PAID MEMBERSHIP ONLINE TRAINING also offered by Mike Klingler and Ann Sieg.  It is a website that offers a huge array of video tutorials teaching everything from blogging, writing for the web, YouTube video marketing, creating lead capture pages, Site Build It website development, the consultative approach to sales, and lots more.

• Renegade Breakthrough Mentoring Program (RBMP) – the OFFICIAL MENTORING PROGRAM OFFERED BY ANN SIEG.  This progam is for those individuals who really want professional marketing instruction and guidance.  Ann offers a series of twelve live 90-minute webinars in addition to other training.  There is a 30-Day money back guarantee, so be sure to check it out if you want personal instruction from Ann Sieg!  Click on the link to read all thedetails and to see the course curriculum.

Go ahead and print this page out so you can keep the different ‘Renegades’ straight.

Becoming a Renegade has been a life changing experience for us.  We know it will be for you too.

Writing For the Web: Courses and Training That Show You How to Easily Write Valuable Content

Up until recently, writing for the web courses used to be costly, time consuming, and confusing.  But if you are a home based entrepreneur interested in developing an online business, there’s good news!

A brand new training that includes “Writing for the Web” courses as well as classes on “How to be a Content Factory” has just been released by Internet marketer and teacher, Mike Klingler.  Mike is a dedicated trainer of baby boomers and Internet newbies and has released these valuable classes to help anyone trying to find FREE step-by-step writing for the web classes.

In this series of detailed video tutorials, Mike teaches you:

• A “Formula” to easily write quality material for the web
• How to attract targeted visitors to your web content
• Why communication on the web is different than anywhere else
• Where to post your content to get the maximum response
• And much more…

This is such a powerful course that we recommend it to all of the members of our Empowered Business Entrepreneurs Mentorship Program.  Learning how to effectively attract targeted visitors and communicate with them so that they take the next step (e.g. opt-in to your newsletter, download your free report, or buy your product) is essential if you want to build a successful online business.

Of all the “Writing For the Web” courses out there, Mike Klingler’s “Writing With Pull” and “How to Become a Content Factory” are the best.  Now that they are available for free, you can learn the steps you can start taking today to write quality content for your web visitors.

You can access his course right here:
http://www.empoweredbusinessentrepreneurs.com/how-to-create-content

We look forward to seeing your quality content on the web!

Ann Sieg and Six Attraction Marketer’s Reveal their Best Internet Marketing Tips

Ann Sieg is a remarkable marketer and mentor. So when six successful attraction marketer’s decided to get together to give away some of their best Internet marketing tips (and worst marketing blunders!), the one thing they all had in common was Ann Sieg.

In various ways they were all students, colleagues, or team mates of Ann’s, and each has been developing her independent businesses using Ann Sieg’s Renegade System and Renegade Professional Training. And their efforts have paid off considerably! Now you can learn firsthand from these six women when they present their best Internet marketing tips and worst marketing blunders.

Not only are they joining forces on a live webinar, but they have put together a free training manual called, “Attraction Marketers: Six Successful Women Share Their Best Internet Marketing Tips and Warn Against Common Marketing Blunders” by Alica Bausley, Lisa Hanfileti, Wendy Mills, Didi Alcheva, Cammy Stubbs, & Barbara Silva.

You can register for the Live event, hosted by Ann Sieg and featuring all of these successful women attraction marketers and reserve your copy of the free ebook by going now to the Six Successful Attraction Marketer’s Live Webinar Registration.

To learn more about the upcoming event with Ann Sieg, listen to super-successful attraction marketer, Diyana Alcheva fill in all the details.

CLICK HERE NOW to download the free Ebook and access the Video recording

How to Get the Most Out of Renegade Professional

Renegade Professional is the only membership training site dedicated to teaching baby boomers (e.g.  highly motivated but technologically-challenged men and women) how to build a thriving online business using the best resources on the Internet today.

But in order to get the most out of Renegade Professional and all their training tutorials, you have to get IN to Renegade Professional.

Mike Klingler and Ann Sieg are opening the doors to Renegade Professional on Thursday April 2nd and will keep the membership site open until they are filled to capacity.  No one knows exactly when they will fill up, but given the early responses and masses of posts on the Renegade Professional Blog, you can bet that they will reach capacity within a few days, if not a few hours.

We have been receiving many questions about what tricks we have up our sleeves to sign into Renegade Professional before everyone else.  After all, you would think that since we are top performers on Ann Sieg’s team as well as trainers and coaches in Renegade Professional, that we would have an inside edge, right?

Well, we can’t promise anything, but let’s just say that we have a few suggestions for you that just might make your entry into Renegade Professional go more smoothly.

Make sure you have a Renegade Professional Guide that you are working with.  Your Guide should be in touch with you and giving you information about the details of Renegade Professional.

If You do NOT have a Guide, and want to work with us (Alicia Bausley and Lisa Hanfileti of Empowered Business Entrepreneurs), then the best thing to do to get on our “team” is to download the Attraction Marketer’s Manifesto using our Renegade Professional “EBE” team link here:  http://ebe.attractionmarketingmanifesto.com/

Once you download the ebook, you will be linked to EBE and on our list of subscribers. We will be in touch shortly to help you get your membership into Renegade Professional.

We will also make sure that you get the very latest updates from Ann Sieg herself so that you get notified as soon as the gates are open. Again, we cannot promise anything, but we are confident that we can help you get a foot in the door. In the meantime, be sure to check out our latest ebook and webinar recording available for free download on “How to Get the Most Out of Renegade Professional”.

Enjoy!

Alicia and Lisa

7 Steps to Market your Small Business Online: How to Simplify Information Overload

The steps to market your small business online is an overwhelming task  (information overload) unless you have some guidance and resources to help you along the way.  Reading The Attraction Marketer’s Manifesto will start you on your journey to learn how to use the power of the Internet to attract customers who are interested in YOU and your small business.

In our free ebook and video,  “The Inside Scoop on The Attraction Marketer’s Manifesto”, we highlight three of Ann Sieg’s key principles for successfully marketing your small business online:

1. Simplify information overload
2. Master the basics of online recruiting and selling
3. Move past lead generation

Before you can do steps 2 and 3, you must deal with step 1.  In fact, if you cannot simplify information overload you will end up like most beginner online marketers.  Overwhelmed, burned out, and broke!

The best thing to do to address information overload is to make a commitment to learning the skills you need to succeed, and then get into a training program that will teach you those skills.  It all sounds simple enough.  Especially when there is an excellent all-in-one training site just for Internet marketers.  (Look at this training video on how to create a Squidoo Lens to attract people to you.)

But there is still confusion about how and where to start.  Andrea Beadle sums it up when shes states,

I’m so excited about all of this that my head is spinning and I am struggling to work out what to implement first… there just aren’t enough hours in the day and I’m not up to getting up at 4am like you guys!

I’m currently re-writing my site, changing keywords etc and wanting to implement some more of what Ann and Mike talk about but there are just so many things I want to do that I don’t know which to focus on first!! Twitter, squidoo, articles, my website or a blog, writing my own ebook….

Are you able to give me any advice about where we should focus first?

One of the big mistakes we see small business owners make when learning how to market a small business online is to dive into different trainings without understanding the basics of online marketing.  For example, we urge you to understand the term attraction marketing (learning to attract buyers to you), learn the importance of providing valuable information first and foremost in your marketing content and become a solutions provider to others.

A perfect example of helping others and ultimately landing a sale is Lowes website.  Lowes is a home improvement store.  Take a look at how they educate their buyers who are searching for a home improvement solution.   They make no mention of the fact that they want people to buy from them!

The sale ultimately happens because they are teaching and earning credibility through their website.  Thus, they drive real traffic (the kind who have to get in their cars!) to their store where they select and purchase their supplies for their home improvement project.

As a student in online marketing, it’s great to learn how to put up a YouTube video, but if you do not have a website, blog , or lead capture page to drive your viewers to, then you have skipped crucial parts of your marketing plan.  You need to create a platform where you will be visible.  All the training in the world without the proper kind of action will get you nowhere.

The second big mistake we see is that people jump all over the place in their training and refuse to stay on one course of study until they complete the training session (for example if you are studying blogging  – stick with it for several weeks or months before moving to the next category such as building a website or YouTube).

In Andrea’s case (above) where she is excited about all the options, but unsure about where to begin, we recommend doing some planning and following these steps.

1.    Understand the basics of marketing online(attraction marketing, provide value first, not trying to sell in your content).

2.   Get the proper training for online marketing.

3.   Study one to two categories that you are most interested in.  Some examples include blogging, YouTube video, ezine articles.

4.   Establish the primary platform (website, blog, Facebook, Twitter) through which you want to communicate to your audience and set it up.

5.   Set your calendar (by actually writing in your weekly hours) and remain accountable to yourself to study and get into action.

6.   Find a study partner (more on this very soon!) that matches your personal profile, goals and desire.

7.  Write a daily to do list and prioritize what needs to be done first.  At the end of the day take the things you did not accomplish and put them on the next day’s to-do list.  Prioritize again.

The biggest challenge we face as we teach other small business owners how to simplify information overload, is that training is just one step.   If all you do is sit in on training class after training class without ever putting your new knowledge into action (such as consistently adding new content to your blog to provide value and attract prospects), then you are missing a critical part of the business building equation.

It may be helpful to write a list of all the things you want to accomplish (e.g. Twitter, Squidoo, Articles, Website, Blog, Write an ebook, etc.,) and next to each item and prioritize which ones you want to do first.  Please don’t try to do them all at once.  That will be information overload.  Here are some of the strategies you will want to implement into your business plan of things to accomplish:

• Attract prospects to you and your business
• Provide valuable content to them to build teach and build credibility
• Create sales and cash flow
• Bring more customers through the door and make repeat sales
• Position yourself as an expert in your field

These 7 steps to market your small business online can start today.  Get into consistent action.  Plan out your training schedule and then implement what you’ve learned by creating valuable, sought-after, needed content.  When you provide information that solves other people’s problems, they will keep coming back for more.

Also, you will minimize your feelings of overwhelm and frustration if you map out your schedule and stick to it.

We have some exciting resources to give you that will make your training and action steps easier to accomplish.  So stay tuned!  Be sure to register for our next Webinar on March 28, 2009.

Warm regards,

Lisa and Alicia