Do you consider your coaching business or healing practice successful? Or is your small business causing your duress?

If it’s the latter, there are steps you can take to help you go from business duress to business success.

Last week I introduced 4 simple questions to help you start and grow your business. They are the same 4 questions I use with my clients every day. They’re purposefully simple. Yet behind their simplicity lies all the depth and detail you need to create a successful business. Answer these questions fully and you’ll be on your way.

So let’s review what the four questions are:

[ continue reading & share your thoughts → ]

So, you want to start working with clients – great!

Depending on who you listen to, there’s so much you need to do in order to successfully launch your business. It doesn’t seem to matter whether you’re a life coach, business consultant or holistic healer, launching a successful business takes time, energy and even a little bit of money.

More than anything, you need a plan. You need to know what you’re about and how your service will help other people. That’s the first step. Some would say you next need a business plan, a marketing plan and a clear revenue model (you do need to know how you’re going to make money, after all).

But I think it’s much simpler than all that.

[ continue reading & share your thoughts → ]

Poke around the web and you’ll find numerous opinions on why, as a small business owner, you should be blogging.

Some say you should blog to increase your reach. Blogs can certainly help you reach a larger audience faster, and often cheaper, than your usual website. Toss in social media and you can gain a large following quickly. So it’s gotta be reach, right?

It could be. But increasing the reach of your website doesn’t mean you’ll land more clients or get more customers. The blogosphere is full of bloggers who have tons of traffic and are making pennies.

Another oft-quoted reason for blogging is search engine optimization. And it’s true, there are some pretty major SEO benefits to blogging. Blog posts tend to be more keyword centric since often they’re on a specific topic. Then there’s the backlinking opportunities that can come with a well-written blog post. So it’s gotta be the SEO factor, doesn’t it?

[ continue reading & share your thoughts → ]

Are you doing what you want with your life?

I know it’s a big question. And I know it’s a question that you can break down into categories.

However, for just these next few moments, don’t think about the parts of your life that you can answer yes about. And, don’t consider that you’re sort of doing what you want with your life or that you’re close. For the next few moments just answer the question – honestly: Are you doing what you want with your life? – yes or no?

For me, personally, the answer is no. May sound odd since I have pretty rich life. But I’m not doing exactly what I want with my life. Sure, I’m successfully self-employed with a business that continue to grow each year – even in this crazy economy. Yep, I’ve been blessed with four phenomenal children and the most lovely of women a man could ever dream of as my wife. What else could I want? [ continue reading & share your thoughts → ]

I’m constantly amazed at the amount of content that gets published to the web every single day.

If I just count myself, I probably published a total of 100 website pages from 1997 to the end of 2006. Since then, however, I’ve published more than 2000 articles/posts on the web between my 3 websites, articles I’ve submitted, guest blog posts and content I’ve written for the membership sites I’m a resident expert in.

That’s remarkable. And if you consider that I wrote daily from the beginning of 2007 until some time late 2008, it’s even more remarkable that I’ve produced that much content. Interesting thing is I’m not close to being as prolific as many of the bloggers out there.

But what’s happening with all this content? How are people using it once it’s published? Or two weeks later? Or a year later? Is there something more we can all do with our content then just publish it online and move on to the next post? Perhaps there’s something more we can do with all this content – something that generates income.

[ continue reading & share your thoughts → ]