Work Better, Not Harder

If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’ve probably been a member of a mastermind group (although you might not have called it that). If you’re new to self-employment, start or find a mastermind group... fast! I’ve written about mastermind groups before as a way to get your own ‘board of directors’. They can take many forms. I’ve been fortunate to have been a member of several during my years as a small business owner. I’ve started and ended groups, joined and left groups. Some groups have been short term with a specific purpose. A few years ago I studied an internet marketing course with a small group over a 6 month period. It was fun and educational to learn together. Some groups have been more long-term and general purpose . I currently meet with two other women business owners monthly to discuss ideas, learn from and motivate each other. Whether short term or long term, specific or general, big or small, I’ve learned a few things from my experiences. The

Let’s face it: some businesses are in a better position to provide valuable information through newsletters (blogs, social media) than others. Take our own newsletter as an example. We could easily publish a newsletter about publishing newsletters. (Stay with me here.) It would have lots of tips and suggestions and advice. We could really show off our expertise and share our opinions. Now, who would that appeal to? People who are publishing their own newsletters. Perhaps even people who are publishing newsletters for others. These people aren’t our target market - not even close. Our newsletter has nothing to do with our area of specialty. But of course we have to have one. What’s an 'enewsletter boutique' without its own newsletter ? So we found something else of use to our target market:  ideas and tips for small business owners shared by other small business owners. And (big bonus here) members of our target market are the authors of our newsletter! Giving va

Aesop's Fables have a clear moral lesson backed up by a little story. The story makes it more interesting than just passing out advice. It demonstrates the results of heeding or not heeding the advice. Advice delivered as a 'fable' appeals to both our emotions and our intellect. Fast-forward 2600 years to the present. Technology has made it easier than ever before to tell fables and share advice. We don't even have to know each other. Our fables today are perhaps more fleeting than Aesop's, but are made more real by the use of photos and videos. A photo can tell a whole story, including the moral, sometimes without words at all. Social media, blogs and newsletters are excellent venues for sharing fables. If you're looking for some 'content creation' inspiration, try this long list of morals for stories. The moral of this story? "Lessons are not given, they are taken." Click to Tweet this Article Originally published in Work B

Tasting Table ( www.tastingtable.com ) grew its contact list to 1,000,000 subscribers in just 3 years. That’s pretty amazing on its own but here’s the kicker - it’s a daily newsletter. (I only have to get 998,000 more subscribers to catch up.) Would I want a mailing list of 1,000,000 subscribers? Most definitely ... if I owned a marketing company that sells advertising. I don’t, and most of you don’t either. (If you do, you know this stuff better than I do.) If Daley Progress had 1,000,000 subscribers, we’d never keep up with all the work generated. Because our capacity is limited, the time and effort spent to get that many subscribers would be wasted. We try to match our efforts to our desired results. As small business owners, our email marketing goals can be quite different and distinct. Not all of us want 1,000,000 subscribers. But we do need to continually get new subscribers because, over time, our lists can drop by as much as 30% over a year through attrition (calle

Just because you say it's so, doesn't make it true. Take this email disclaimer below as an example. Please, read the small print. The first line sounds pretty good... ethical and all that. And hey, they respect me. I might believe it if I had actually subscribed. I know I didn't because I never subscribe to anything using the particular email address this came to. I'm already questioning their sincerity. Next they tell me that removal is automatic and "enforced" (whatever that means). Apparently "automatic" means 2-3 business days in this case. The link to click to start the "process for email deletion" opens an email with their address filled in, nothing else. Decidedly NOT automatic. The other way I know I didn't subscribe to this email list is that I would never sign up for anything that "may be a newsletter, press release, solicitation or advertisement." The "best practices in responsible email marketing