I am not one to rub crystals, but I do believe in the concept that has been overly branded as the “law of attraction”.  We attract what we put out to the universe.  Where some of us may be ignorant to this attraction law and “try to manifest sexy significant others and convertibles” I take this to mean more that we can attract ideal personal/professional contacts, life experiences and support ONCE WE KNOW WHAT OUR VALUES ARE.

When I launched Web Marketing Therapy, I struggled in writing the business plan (mostly because I felt I was doing a bunch of work for a document that nobody would read, except for a bank and they go right to the financials) **Translation – it lacked values!*** so instead of sniveling, I took action and also wrote a belief plan as an addendum to my business plan that included beliefs.  Beliefs like:

“I will not compromise my health and fitness for work.   I will not sacrifice spending time with my friends and family, eating well, enjoying the beauty in life.  I want to create an income stream that gives me and my team flexibility, catapults our expertise and personalities to help more people.  We want to make enough money so we can work less, play more and give back.  We want to be able to help people, inspire people, motivate people and contribute to less privileged people and make a positive impact on the planet.  We want to serve the people who we work for and support our team mates to help them create the lives that they want (personally and professionally).  We want to take our expertise to more people via speaking and training.  We value our health, wellness, team work, self-improvement, brilliant work, learning, growing, giving back, building life-long meaningful relationships and making a difference.

We will not settle for a so-so job.  We put our passion into our work to deliver great results.  No gossip, drama, lack of thinking, obscene work hours, unethical partners, too much work and no play. tacky marketing, cheap work, lack of thinking, lack of strategy, lack of positioning, lack of respect, lack of value for our expertise, bad relationships, negative energy, unethical behavior and most importantly, we will not sacrifice FUN.”

VALUE YOUR VALUES

RESPECT IS RECIPROCAL

PROFESSIONALS ACT PROFESSIONALLY

When my time/expertise is not respected, I will not tolerate that in my sphere of influence.  Game over.  If I allow my values to be devalued, then I am inviting a valueless relationship.  I have had prospective new clients ask if I would take free calls on the weekends.  If you read the beliefs above, that just doesn’t fit in the equation as it cuts into my family time.

I make a living learning what makes organizations and entrepreneurs valuable, then communicating it via a melange of wonderful channels to support their credibility, visibility and sellability.  What I also like to help clients do is get clear on their values, so they have the fuel to be professional rockstars.  We are no good when we are burnt out!

To fully own our value, we have to stick to our values and we have to voice it to make sure we draw a professional line in the sand in our sales/marketing efforts, as that will set the tone for a healthy long term relationship.

DON’T SETTLE FOR CRUMBS WHEN YOU CAN HAVE THE WHOLE LOAF!

Do what you like, like what do do, don’t take poo

Take action today.  Write down your values.  Value your values and voice them.  No need to growl them, but be prepared to purr them and make them a part of your professional lifestyle.

As a woman in business who oozes sass and does not take crapola, I may get stamped as a bitch by non-valuers.  And for the record, yes, I am a bitch as in Being In Total Control Of Herself so I will value my bitchiness thank you very much   I hope you embrace yours.  Your business will thank you.

Lorrie was asked to prepare 10 educational webinars for the Scheinfeld Center to support their goals by educating Entrepreneurs on what else, WEB MARKETING.   She covers a wide array of topics and we’ll share the video’s over the next couple of weeks!

One of my favorite topics is blogging!  It’s an easy, fun way to talk about your business and demonstrate your expertise!   Join Lorrie as she shares “The Six Secrets to Successful Blogging to Boost Business”!

Want to learn more about blogging!  The Wild Web Women can customize training to fit YOUR business and teach YOU how to do it!

JWT illustrates 12 Steps for an effective Social Media Strategy-so sit back, watch the video and get ready to take notes.  You’ll be ready to hit the Wild Web (or at the very least start formulating your strategy) with your new knowledge to increase YOUR brand awareness online!

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Need help putting together your plan or making it a reality?   The Wild Web Women would love to help out – we can train YOU how to do it OR you can let us take the reins! Just hop on The Marketing Therapist’s couch and she’ll have you drinking the social media kool-aid in no time!

He begins the article “6 Reasons to Rethink Your Website” by explaining that websites need to be an experience (social, mobile and interactive!)  He then outlines brilliantly why you should take a close look at your website design and online presence and ensure that you are reaching your target market through all available means that make sense for YOUR business and target market, while you engage your customers/clients online, reward their loyalty and control what is being said about your business on the web.

Frank’s article is an excellent example of WHY the Wild Web Women® of Web Marketing Therapy® believe there are no SHOULDS only COULDS!  What works for one business may not work for another – there are no cookie cutter marketing plans that work for every single business.  As strategists one needs to look at the whole marketing puzzle and only implement items that make sense for YOU!

Is it time for you to rethink YOUR website?

We would love to help you put together all the pieces of your marketing puzzle!

The study was making a correlation to our “busy” culture, where we tend “to do less to do more” hiring professionals to do more and more work for us.  The article was saying the less we did, the more likely we were to experience unhappiness.

The article (and I wish I could cite the source, it was one of those days where I was blazing through in-flight magazines and stuff I had in my travel bag) said that the less we did, the unhappier we were.  There is a level of self-worth and pride in being able to be productive and make a contribution, even down to accomplishing simple tasks.

And the same goes with web marketing execution.

I find that some of the happiest professionals are ones that are able to participate in their web marketing in some way, shape or form.  This does not mean that I suggest you learn web programming languages, or become your own web designer, but I do encourage you to take the reins and become a proud participant in cyberspace.  Being proactive (vs. reactive) and taking an active management role with your web marketing will give you a sense of pride, accomplishment and worth.  Here are some ideas:

-Writing blog posts
-Posting blog posts
-Updating Facebook pages
-Tweeting
-Identifying website optimizations
-Taking a private training to learn more about an aspect of web marketing to improve your job skills
-Self-educating online by reading free eBooks or watching free webinars

You do not need a degree in web marketing to do web work on your own.  There are great free tools on www.webmarketingtherapy.com/shop (eBooks, Online Tutorials, Inspiring Podcasts) that can point you in the right direction.  Personally, I love emailing my web designers website updates and seeing my ideas become a reality.  When I hit “Publish” on this blog post I will feel a little warm-fuzzy by being able to share a little webdom with you.

Success comes in CANs and failure comes in CAN’Ts.  What we CAN do is what makes us go WOOHOO!!!

Adults learn by DOING  It’s ok to be a healthy skeptic, ask a lot of questions, but get in the ring.  The great news with web work is that it’s really difficult to mess up.  With most web applications, you can edit, erase or expand.

Sense of accomplishment comes from taking a proactive role in life and work.  Roll up your sleeves, stop fearing the web, ask for clarification about things you don’t understand and get ready to get some happy juice by doing a little more work.

I never thought doing more work would equal happiness, but I can absolutely see the connection between action and accomplishment.  Personally, I love doing dishes and laundry because they are tasks that I can actually complete!   I had a little dose of comic relief when I realized that the same mojo from doing simple chores could come from proactively managing web marketing work!

Make it a meaningful marketing year.  Learn, try, grow and love the wonders of web work!

One of my favorite things to do in the morning before getting out of bed (and while my son watches Little Einsteins after having crawled into bed with my husband and I WAAAAAAAYYYYYYY before we are ready to get up) is to read AP News on my crackberry.  I always hit the top news stories, then entertainment (yes, I’m a sucker for following all the gossip) and then if I have time, I’ll check out the “Wacky” tab.  It typically showcases stories of people getting arrested for stupid things-like the woman in Alliance, Ohio that called 911 FIVE times demanding that the cops find her a husband-not HER husband, mind you,-A husband!

Earlier this week I was surprised to see one of the stories hits a little closer to home for some!  It demonstrates a valuable lesson about retaining ownership of your domains and being in control of your name and brand!

A Tennessee police department allowed their domain to expire (apparently due to an employee being on leave) and a disgruntled recipient of a speeding citation took the opportunity to snap up the domain from GoDaddy.com and has since been using the site to voice his dismay with traffic camera’s that are used to issue speeding tickets.

This is a HUGE – UH OH!  There is very little the police department can do to regain the domain and the current owner actually uses it to tell people how to get out of paying the issued tickets!

Yesterday I wrote a little about our new Web Marketing Records Worksheet and one of the items on the sheet asks you to record all of your domains as well as when they expire.  Don’t let anyone else ruin what you have built through blood, sweat and tears!  Be sure that YOU have knowledge about all aspects of your business so that you remain in control!  The easiest way to be sure to renew your domains is to set the most important ones up for auto-renewal and be sure to mark your calendar to double check that the purchase went through!

This is one of those dates you CAN’T forget -right up there with birthdays and anniversaries!

I’m Kate or Katelyn (depending on what mood I’m in), University of California Santa Barbara’s very own Wild Web Woman!  Recently, I embarked on a life-changing journey through the wonderful world of web marketing.  Thanks to the help of fellow web women at Web Marketing Therapy, it has already been an invaluable learning experience—one I’d like to share with you.  I am here to offer advice through the eyes of a beginner who’s been WOWED by the world of web marketing. I assume many of you are embarking on this journey with me, and I want you to know—you’re not alone.

I’d like to introduce you to an exciting web tool called FlippingBook-Page Flip Software.  FlippingBook allows you to create and share life-like manuals, books, magazines, and reports via the internet. This tool provides a unique and impressive way to publish your documents to the web.  Even major companies like Gucci and BBC are using it to market their products and relay information to people who visit their websites.

After viewing the demos of the software, you will see why it is a great alternative for print documents. We live in a world where information is easily accessible by the click of a button, so it’s no surprise that print documents are becoming digital.

Trust me, it’s VERY chic, and what’s better is that it can be used an unlimited number of times for FREE for documents under 10 pages. This is a creative and fun way for all web marketing enthusiasts to post online documents that are bound to impress the reader. Overall, it is a great method of distribution and a useful alternative for print media documents, so I highly advise you to check it out.

Just Say No to Extracurricular Clicking!

Before I delve into a simple (and often, overlooked) way of how you can enhance your user experience on your website, let’s practice a bit of marketing meditation (I’ve just re-introduced yoga into my weekly workout routine so humor me on this! Thanks!).

Sit up straight in front of your computer.  Close your eyes.  (Inhale, exhale.)  Open your eyes.  Repeat after me, “Ommmmmmmmm”. 

Release any tension in your wrists and type in your website address.  Begin to navigate through your website as if this is the first time you have ever been to this website. 

FOCUS on what a new user would have to do to get to the page of information that was of their interest.  Repeat after me, “Ommmmmmmmm”.

As you move through the website, you begin to develop an AWARENESS of what a user of your website may be experiencing.  Repeat after me, “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”. 

Through this experience ask yourself:

• Is the information I am offering easy to find?
• Do the text links on my website take the user to where they expect to be, or where I want them to be?
• Am I giving the user a roundabout or straightforward experience on my website?

Seriously now, reviewing your website objectively – as if it wasn’t yours – is a great thing to do from time to time.  In this fast-moving internet world, you want the user to be able to find what they are looking for, without adding in any “extracurricular clicking”. 

A simplified example is something that I encountered recently on a website I was reviewing.  First I had to navigate from the homepage to the list of services page.  One click.  The list of services page was nicely laid out.  Each service was hyperlinked.  Great!  I click on the hyperlinked service of my choice and was brought to a one-paragraph description that was anchored text, below the list of services (i.e. I could’ve just kept scrolling and there it was, on the same page).  Two clicks.  After reading that paragraph, I clicked on the “click here for more information. . .”.  Three clicks.  And then I was brought to the robust page full of information about the service which included the FAQs and had pictures and video too.  Voila!  This is where I want to be! 

Eliminating that second click, and taking your users directly to the robust information page, may possibly make or break whether or not you get the sale (or capture your audience, whatever the case may be).  We made these changes on the abovementioned example and it took less than an hour.  And it made the website user experience an easier experience.

How does that ol’ quote go?  “It’s the small things that make a big difference”.  You get it!

Now repeat after me, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh”. (And exhale)

You need to create space to have success

At the time Misty was guest-lecturing, I was space-less.  Between teaching, running www.lorriethomas.com, finishing grad school, doing web marketing speaking and just incubating on the idea of starting a virtual team called called Web Marketing Therapy (I obviously followed through!) and I remembered thinking “wow, space would be nice, BUT….”

That BUT kicked by butt bigtime! 

I can honestly reflect back on my work in this wild web world and say that the times I worked on web marketing and business when I had space was when I made my most intelligent decisions.  Working sans-space created chaotic decisions and backwords work and was not helping support success.

I made a commitment this year to make it a WORTHwhile marketing year and to start that, I started doing feng-shui on my personal and professional life, carving out more space to BREATHE, THINK, be CREATIVE and OPTIMIZE what I built in 2009.

Success comes in cans…failure comes in can’ts…you CAN create space to think about how to use the web in a meaningful way to make your marketing matter and support success

Are you taking time out to work ON your business and not just IN it?

If not, block out some time, make time.  Example: I neglected my first website www.lorriethomas.com so severely that it took me almost a week last year to update the copy, make search engine optimizations, move things around and make that site up-to-date.  Had I taken smaller amounts of time over the year to make space to invest in my marketing (I do it for clients, but stopped working on my business!) I would have saved a lot of time, energy and money.

You can start small and snowball.  Don’t feel like you need days of space or gobs of money.  You need space, a brain, an open mind and great people to advise you.  Do allow yourself time to look critically at what success means to you then APPLY the web in a way that will support you to get there.

Make your marketing matter.  Make space for success!

-Confucius

I just returned from Dallas, Texas, where I completed my first 1/2 marathon!  I had never been a runner before, but a high school friend was putting together a girls weekend around the Dallas Rock n’ Roll 1/2 marathon.  She invited me saying “You can just come and hang out-you don’t have to run!”  BUT, I was NOT going to be a spectator-watching my high school friends run while I lounged on the sidelines, so I bought a pair of running shoes, convinced my husband to train with me and we started running last August.  At first, I couldn’t even run a full mile without stopping to take a break and I couldn’t even begin to imagine how I would ever make it the full 13.1 miles.  BUT, amazingly enough, with the training schedule displayed on the fridge ( I used Hal Higdon’s novice program), a daily commitment and certain sacrifices to allow for time to run, I was able to finish the 1/2 in a respectable 2 hours and 3 minutes-much better than I could have ever imagined!  It was such an amazing feeling of accomplishment and awe at what I was able to achieve through my own determination and the support of family and friends!

So why am I sharing this on the Web Marketing Therapy blog?  Web Marketing is a lot like training for a 1/2 marathon (or marathon for those over-achievers)!  Web Marketing takes training, daily dedication and support from business partners, professionals, friends and family.  You don’t improve your online success or optimize your search rankings without putting in the work!  There is NEVER an overnight improvement!  Whether you hire a professional to improve your website, help with social media marketing and improve your online presence OR you decide to get training so YOU can do the work yourself-you need to set yourself up for success!

You need the following combination to reach your goals:

• TIME – for tweeting, Facebook status updates, writing blog posts, email marketing, press releases, training, networking, etc.
• FINANCES – for website improvements, search engine optimizations, hiring a winning web marketing team, training, etc.
• FULL COMMITMENT – to achieve the goals you have set, without letting anything stand in your way

When things seem impossible, make a smart plan, stick to it (or make slight adjustments if it improves the outcome) and just put one foot in front of the other…you will eventually get to your final destination!

Book a therapy session with the Marketing Therapist to outline your web marketing plan and put it in action!