Yet if you run a small, independent business, the economy has far less impact on your business than you think. So you’re likely not facing the doomsday that’s being talked about with every newscast and editorial.

Unless you believe you are. But remember, as a service provider, you have much more opportunity in these times than corporations do.

You see, all this talk about financial meltdowns, depressions, and layoffs are mostly affecting corporations – at least at this point. Sure, job losses and home foreclosures are bad things. I, for one, don’t want to see my friends and their families suffer. But there are millions of us out out here who aren’t working for corporations. And most of us aren’t serving corporations either. Our clients are other small business owners, other service providers and the like.

What this means is that you’re much less affected by what you’re hearing about on the news than the guy working for Ford or GM. As an independent business owner, your job is secure if you make it that way. Even if you’re, say, a corporate coach who’s working with large companies, you can still have a great deal of control over how successful your business is – and especially in troubled economic times like these.

The key is to first not get scared. Turn off the TV, stop listening to analysis on the radio and just pass by those articles in the newspaper. In other words – stop buying into all the titillating stories about how we’re heading for a depression worse than the 30′s. We may be – and I’m not saying don’t pay attention to what’s happening. Just stop listening to all the scare tactics that keep you from focusing on the growth of your business.

Everyone with half a business sense knows that it’s during an economic downturn that you have great potential to increase revenue and grow your business. But you have to have a strategy for doing so. And the strategy often means looking at your business, your customers and clients and your revenue model with fresh eyes. See the changing market for its benefits. For instance, there’s less money being loaned right now by banks – so don’t rely on borrowed money. And remember that a good portion of your competition does. Tighten your own belt a bit to stay out of debt – but don’t tighten your spending to the point of loosing business.

I ranting now, I know. But the thing to realize is that during a repressed economy like the one we’re facing now there are tons of opportunities – if you choose to see them. Be bold in looking for them. Be bold in taking them on. And be bold in knowing that you have a chance to grow your business while many others are shrinking.

Just be smart. This is not a time to overextend your business. And it’s not a time to take risks that bet the farm like you may have in the past when a loan could bail you out. Be smart – meaning evaluate everything you’re doing in your business. Look for places your can be more productive and more efficient. Look at your costs and make sure you’re getting a return on what you’re spending.

And more than anything, evaluate your market. Not only yours, but others as well. Begin thinking of your business from the point of view of your audience. What are they likely dealing with in these times? How can your business help them get through? Look for opportunities inside the problems people are facing. And attach your business solutions to those problems. Then get out there and let people know that you can help them solve the problems they face.

In other words…define and refine your niche market and how you’re positioned to the people in your niche market. Be bold, yet be smart. Find the new opportunities and be bold in claiming them. Yet be smart in how you go about it. Think it, plan it, do it and measure your results. Then do it again. And you’ll find your business growing – while others fade.

How are you dealing with this economic crisis? What will you do if it gets worse? Are you positioning your business to take advantage of the downturn? How?

Let’s talk about it…

And if you need help clarifying your niche, positioning yourself effectively, or figuring out how to grow your business right now, then you’re welcome to a free consultation with me where we can talk about how to solve the problems you’re facing in your business.

(note: image from fabiogis50 AWAY TILL 2/11 on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Let’s talk about it

So many people I know sit down at their desks and mess around for an hour or two – reading news or catching up on email. Others grab a cup of joe and jump right into the project they left on Friday.

If you’re in business for yourself, mornings are often crucial to your workday. A well-spent morning can often mean the difference between a productive workday and not.

But what about Mondays?

Over the years I’ve tried lots of ways to get the most out of Mondays. I’ve tried to do first things first or focused on getting done that one thing that’s most important. I’ve taken a relaxed approach to Monday and have jumped right into working. I’ve even used techniques like visualization or meditation to try to set the tone for my week.

Many of the things I tried were helpful. Sometimes I’d jump right into the most important project of the week and try to get as much done as I could. This would be great because it would set up the week for me to make lots of headway on a project.

But nothing I tried was really setting me up for success – either for Mondays or for my week. So I sat down one Monday morning and forgot about getting things done. Instead, I decided to focus on how I wanted my days and my weeks to look. How did I want to manage my client’s needs, their projects, their communications with my needs to continue to develop and grow my business?

I looked in many directions. What I realized was that I’m most effective when I’m clear about what I need to get done. I keep a pretty good log of where I am on each project and where my client’s are in their process so that’s seldom been a problem.

What was a problem was decerning when to do what.

So I decide that every Monday morning I would take the first 60-90 minutes of the day and lay out my week. I started by looking at deadlines and comparing the progress on each client’s work I was doing. Then I started placing what needed to get done for the week into which days I needed or wanted to accomplish the next pieces for my clients. Then I leave those project parts attached to those days – and move on (I organize the day for 15-30 minutes each morning).

After I have a rough roadmap of my week, I then turn to Monday in general. Monday’s I seldom schedule calls with clients. I use Mondays to do various task that are important to my business – like accounting. I also use Mondays to working directly on my own business – where my business is my client. While I do work on my business throughout the week, I often don’t have as much time to work in blocks as I make on Mondays. This way, I make time for my business to grow and develop.

So for me, Monday mornings are all about setting some organization for the week. This has been so effective for me that I’m wasting less time and getting more done each week – which means more client work getting done – which overall means generating more revenue.

So how do you make your Monday mornings most effective?

(note: image from Teo on Flickr)

There are so many ways that coaches and holistic healers can get a website today.

You can go the ‘old fashioned’ route and have a website designer build a pages in HTML. You can use some of the pre-made services you’ll find on any number of hosts (though most of the designs look like they’re 10 years old). Or you can have your website created on one of the myriad of publishing platforms available today.

Of course my favorite publishing platform for coaches, healers and the other service providers I work with is WordPress. There’s others, of course. But having use other platforms I find WordPress to be the right combination of ease-of-use, expandability and power for my clients with their coaching and healing practices.

And since I’m constantly getting asked why I like WordPress so much as a platform and content management system for coaches and healers, let me offer a bunch of my reasons:

1. WordPress is free!
   That’s right, WordPress itself costs nothing. It’s open source code and protected under GPL licensing so that no one can directly sell WordPress (keep that in mind when you speak with your website designer). Now that doesn’t mean your designer shouldn’t get paid for their time – they should. And it should be clear that what you’re paying for isn’t WordPress, but the skills, time and support from your website designer.
2. Easy Editing
   Adding and editing your content in WordPress is a snap. Click a single button and WordPress creates a new page or blog post for your site. And the editor works in very similar way to Microsoft Word – take a look at this video. So with your coaching website on WordPress there’s no need to pay your web designer to do simple updates to you copy or even add new pages to your site. Huge time and cost savings.
3. Easily Add Audio/Video
   So many coaches and healers I work with today are using video and audio to promote their businesses. Well, WordPress makes incredibly easy to add either (or both) to your website. No more sweating through code trying to get that YouTube video on your site (if you even dare).
4. Easily Change Your Navigation Bar
   Your navigation bar is one of the most important parts of your website. Being able to add new links, change their names or reorder them has long time been reserved to coders. But with the most recent versions of WordPress you – the coach, healer or service professional – can have complete control over your navigation bar with a simple drag-and-drop feature. This is yet another way to that you have control over your site and can save tons of money in updating your site.
5. Small Learning Curve
   I keep talking about how easy using WordPress is to use. One of the reasons is because the learning curve is so small. Now I’m not talking about using all of WordPress. I’m simply speaking as a publishing platform and content management system. I usually teach my coaching clients how to create, publish and edit their first page in about 10 minutes. Pretty small learning curve for a huge capability.
6. Integrated website and Blog
   As I write this I keep watching myself want to write ‘the most important thing’ about WordPress. But you can’t really have more than one ‘most important’ thing. That said, having your website and your blog on the same domain name is vital. Not only does WordPress allow you to do so, it allows you to completely manage both the pages and the blog posts of your coaching website from one place.
7. No Limits on Size of Your Website
   Your coaching website on WordPress can be as small or large as you need it. There’s no limit to the number of pages or to blog posts. This site, for instance, has more than 500 posts and over 130 pages – and I haven’t written that much in the past couple of years. So your coaching website on WordPress can scale to handle whatever size site you need.
8. Integrates Easily with Social Media Sites
   People offering a service build their business on relationships. Nowhere on the web are relationships more accessible than social media. There are so many ways to get WordPress to work well with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +1 and a whole slew of social media sites that it would take many posts to explain even a bit of what the possibilities are. Just assume that your WordPress website will be able to do anything you’ve seen done already on the web – often very easily.
9. Plugins
   Plugins are add-ons to WordPress that give it expanded functionality. While at this moment I don’t know how many plugins there are, there must be thousands. Think of anything you want to do on your website – anything to better promote your coaching or healing practice – and there’s a really good chance there’s a plugin (or ten) already created to do it. Nearly all are plugins are free as well.
10. Themes
    Themes are basically designs in WordPress (though they can do more). The great news is there are thousands of free and paid themes available from a massive source of designers. Want something custom? That can be done too. Basically, if you see a design you like it can be built as a WordPress theme. As a matter of fact, I often rebuild existing coaching and healing websites as WordPress themes.
11. Security
    No system on the internet is hack proof. And WordPress has gone through some growing pains when it comes to security. Yet security in WordPress is excellent. You can even go the extra mile and make it even more secure through specific plugins and coding. I have a package I call the WordPress Security Protocol which  you’re welcome to ask me about.
12. Google Loves WordPress
    Google loves content and WordPress allows you easily publish what you want when you want it. Combine that with the clean code, a number of SEO features both built in and through plugins, and easy content submission through sitemaps and RSS and you have a powerful system for getting your coaching website found in search results.
13. Forever Expandable
    The same way there’s no limit to how many pages and posts your site can have, WordPress makes expanding your site incredibly easy. Want to add a membership or shopping cart to your coaching site? No need to a full redesign or even another ‘part’ to your website. WordPress, with a bit of coding and some choice plugins, can grow to whatever you need your site to do.
14. Lots and Lots of People Are Using WordPress
    If your coaching or healing site isn’t on WordPress chance are you know quite a few people whose are. Not only can they tell you about how great and easy WordPress is to use, but they can also show you around a little bit. And because WordPress is so widely used now, there’s very little chance of it ever going away.
15. Support
    Of course I support all my clients through one-on-one training and access to my large catalog of short, topic-specific video tutorials. But beyond me there’s tens of thousands of active WordPress users that you can likely find an answer to just about any question you have around your WordPress website.
16. BONUS: WordPress.tv
    This is a great site that has all sorts of professionally recorded video relating to WordPress. There’s even a great ‘How-to’ section that covers a number of topics.
17. BONUS #2: Autonomy
    Before I ever became a WordPress fanatic I had two question – how much control can I give non-techie users over their sites and how easy would it be to learn? Well, WordPress is so easy to use I often teach my clients how to blog, add and edit pages, change what’s in their sidebar and change their navigation bar in as little as 20 minutes. Seems odd, but my goal is to make myself unnecessary to my clients. And WordPress does a great job at that.

Oh yeah, and let me clear one more thing out of the way – your WordPress website DOES NOT need to look like a blog. As I said above, anything that can be done in web design can be done on a WordPress website.

WordPress rocks! It really does. And here’s my bottom line statement on how it can serve you: If you can’t currently edit your own website’s content, then you should move your website to WordPress. There are many options for doing so – each of which we can discuss in a short, no-pressure phone call. Remember, in moving your site to WordPress you can:

• Keep your existing design the way it is – we just make it a WordPress theme and show you how to use it.
• Keep part of your existing design and make those updates you’ve been wanting to make as we turn your site into a WordPress theme.
• Get a completely different website design with features and functions you never had before.
• Any other combination you can think of.

Just get in touch with me to talk about how WordPress can help you specifically. I take calls from people everyday who pick my brain and get their questions answered. As I said, no pressure – just help, advice and guidance.

The list of why you should be using WordPress for your coaching, holistic healing or professional service website could go on. But WordPress only matters if you’re using it. So find out how you – and your business – can benefit from this amazing publishing platform.

And if you’re using WordPress already for your site, tell me what you love (and don’t love) in the comment box.

(note: image from Lincolnian (Brian) on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Really, that’s it.

Why?

It’s the most important question to ask yourself about your business. It’s also the most important question to answer.

Why?

Simple – you have to know the reasons…the motivations…the rationelle for everything you do.

Nothing you do, say, create, experience, generate, design, produce, promote, develop or decide upon should go without you asking, “why!

So…why are you in business? Why do you market to the people you do? Why is your business not as successful as you want?

And…the next most important question…

What? What are you going to do about it?

Do you ask…and how do you answer these questions about your business?

(note: image from Yves* on Flickr)

Are you ready? Okay…

No matter how well developed your business is; no matter how many years you’ve been doing it, how many customers you’ve served, how much money you’re making – your business will forever be a work in progress.

I heard this years ago from a colleague and fluffed it off with the usual, “yeah, of course!” But I was missing the juice of it. Only recently have I gotten a clear understanding of what it means. And only recently have I taken a close look at how having an unfinished business is the secret to success.

Thomas J Watson, the one-time President of IBM, once said, “Whenever an individual or business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.” In other words, progress is necessary for a business to attain success.

And what does progress mean? According to The New Oxford Dictionary progress is the, “advancement or development toward a better, more complete condition.”

From these ideas, it’s easy to see that successful business are always in progress. And how could they not be?

If you run a business, you likely know more today about who you are, what you do, who you serve and how you serve them then you did when you began. Hopefully, you’ve taken what you’ve learned and applied it to your business – changing what doesn’t work, or what’s incomplete, for methods that are.

You see, a business will always be in progress because everything always is. It’s simple, really. So the real question isn’t whether your business is in progress – because it is. The real question is whether you are honoring the progress in your business. Are you making changes and adjustments as you learn more? If not, why not?

Is your business a work in progress? How?

What’s one thing, today, you can do to advance your business toward a better, more complete condition?

How do you define success in your business? It’s a question I ask every client – and most of the prospects I ever speak with.

The interesting thing for me is how often the people I speak with don’t have a specific answer. Sure, we can come up with just about anything on the fly. Yet it’s not difficult to tell the difference between established, well-thought-through business goals and those that we sort of find when we need to talk about such things.

Having a way to measure the success of your business, however, is one of the most vital parts of running a business.

It doesn’t matter whether your business is selling products, providing services or selling ad space on your blog – it does you good to have a clear idea of your goals. And, hence, a clear definition of what success looks like for your business.

All my clients use the web in some form these days. So often I hear success measured in visits to their website or page rank in Google. Sure, those are measurable results. But I, as a business advisor, would never consider those to be metrics used to define success of your business.

Let’s think about it for a minute…

You can have a page rank of 6 in Google and get 1000 unique visitors a day to your website or blog. That’s good, right? And most of us would be happy with numbers like this, right? Heck, the way Google’s playing around with page rank these days, I’d be happy to get back to a 6.

Yet, your page rank doesn’t equal income. Nor do any of those visitors guarantee a dime of revenue. Sure, if your website is selling ad space, you might get bits of cash for impressions. And you may be able to get a little higher ad rates with traffic and page rank higher. But you’re certainly not going to make a living on that alone.

And so these aren’t very solid metrics to use for defining your business success. Don’t believe me, ask around and see. Personally, I know more than a dozen bloggers who have highly successful blogs – more successful than mine in terms of traffic, page rank, back links and Technorati rating – who aren’t making enough money to cover their monthly expenses, let alone turn a profit. A couple are good friends that I’m trying to help out.

The point is you want to define the success of your business based on what you’ve set it up to do – make money. That doesn’t mean that you only measure by your bank statement at month’s end or by your bottom line accounts receivable versus accounts payable. There’s more to it than that.

For instance, take whatever you’re doing currently to market your business and track responses from your marketing efforts. Let’s say that one of your goals is to spend some time commenting in forums to drive targeted traffic back to your site that you can convert into leads. It’s a clear goal and something that can be easily measured using basic website statistics. Measuring your success might look something like this:

You posted 50 times in the forum last month. From those posts, you got 41 referring links from the forum to your website. From those visitors 11 commented on a blog post (leaving their email address with you), 6 subscribed to your newsletter and 1 contacted you directly with a question. You can then decide whether those 50 forum posts were worth the effort (I’d say yes, depending on what the commenters and newsletter subscribers do over the next few months).

You see, the idea here is that you set metrics that relate to your business goals. The month of forum posts may or may not directly result in revenue that month. But it’s not always about revenue. To make money you need leads and so the work you did in the forum could have been about generating leads – which you did. Now you just have to create the next metric for converting those leads into paying clients.

Measuring your success isn’t difficult. It just takes a little strategy, planning and forethought. And on the web, tracking results is incredibly easy. You just have to know what you’re tracking – and why. Then you can adjust your efforts for the next round of lead generating activities. That’s how successful business owners use the web.

How are you measuring your business success on the web? Are you at all? If not, why not? Would it change if you had someone to help you (I know someone, personally)?

All-in-all, how do you know if you’re successful with your marketing efforts?

(note: image from victor_nuno on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

I’ve always been a do-it-yourselfer. I’ve taught myself a great many things by taking this attitude.

When I bought my first house, I completely gutted it – down to the timbers in most rooms. In other places, we removed and moved walls. For instance, I created a large, walk-in closet in our huge bedroom where there was once a little coat room.

When it came to moving plumbing, rerouting and adding electrical, drywall, replacing subfloor, moving my toilets and bathtub drains – I basically did it all. And in most cases, I took to each project never having done it before.

But at some point, you have to live in  your house. And that means it has to get done – as my wife might say, “be livable.”

For us that time came as we neared the birth of our first child. As the first trimester of my wife’s pregnancy led to the second, we had to make some choices. We’d remodel the kitchen later, for instance.

Well, two kids and four years later, the kitchen hadn’t been finished. Yet we wanted to redo the kitchen. It had been one of the main reasons we moved in the house – a huge dinning room adjacent to a tiny kitchen. The remodel was a no-brainer. So, as my wife was pregnant with our third, we made a strict timeline and went ahead with the remodel.

This time, the do-it-yourself Dawud gave way to the asking for help. I called in favors when it came to moving the plumbing and installing the cabinets and countertops. And I hired a contractor to do the electrical and new lighting. The demo (remove a wall, tear out old kitchen), drywall, flooring and painting I’d do myself. And in less than 8 weeks, we completed our kitchen – for the most part (there’s some odds and ends left to do).

What I learned in the process was something that I’ve seen many small business owners struggle with in their business – they don’t ask for help. They don’t seek people to help them with tasks in their business. Rather, they try to do everything themselves. This usually means one of a number of things happens: They either don’t grow very fast because they can only do so much work or their business goes backward because – well – they can’t do so much work.

But when you outsource tasks in your business, it supports your business in a number of ways. One, it frees up some of your time so that you can focus on the tasks in your business that need your specific attention – such as referral marketing or creating new products and services to sell. Two, it creates space for you to take on new projects because you have more time on your hands. Three, it allows you time to clean up the things that have gotten neglected in your business. Four, it starts the process of handing off even more tasks because once you can trust one person with managing a part of your business, you can trust others. And five, outsourcing lets you share your success with another person – helping them become more successful.

If you’re stuggling with the idea, or if it seems that it’ll cost too much, don’t let that stop you. You can manage how someone else completes tasks in your business. And managing takes far less time than doing. And consider the costs not on what you’re paying out versus your revenues. Rather, consider the costs in relation to how much more productive you can be in creating more revenues streams in your business. Paying someone $20 an hour to manage your email, for instance, is nothing when you can generate $50 or $80, $350 or more with that same hour.

Outsourcing is one of the keys to growing your business. So allow yourself a chance to ask for help. There are plenty of virtual assistants out there, for instance, that do all sorts of things – from general office work to executive resources to web and graphic design to marketing. Just find the one that best fits your needs.

And be sure you know when to ask for help.

As a small business owner, are you outsourcing in your business? If so, how’s it working out. And if not, why not…what stops you from asking for help?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from jen_maiser on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

I’m not just talking about time. Of course you’re investing time, right? If you’re not, then you’re likely not very successful.

But what about money? Are you investing money into your business?

Over the past decade, I’ve worked with hundreds of small and medium-size business owners. Some have been startups with funding while others have had large marketing and PR budgets.

But I’m not talking about those businesses. I’m talking about small business owners. I’m talking about corporate trainers, business and marketing coaches, personal development experts and other service providers. I’m talking about clients whose businesses are generating less than $150,000 per year. In other words – small businesses.

It’s been amazing to me how often small business clients aren’t willing to invest in their own business. Sure, they might buy productivity or marketing products or hire out projects like website design. But they seldom have a longer-term plan beyond the project scope. And seldom do they consider an ongoing marketing or promotion budget for the growth of their business.

What gives? How can you grow a business if you’re unwilling to promote it? How can you increase your revenue if you don’t invest some dollars into marketing? I’m not talking about thousands upon thousands of dollars each month. I’m talking a few hundred or thousand or whatever fits your budget.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s this – if you’re unwilling to invest in your own business, then why should anyone else? In other words, if you don’t spend money to promote your products or services, why should anyone spend money on them – if they can find you?

So, are you investing in your business? How? What’s your budget and how are you using it? And if you’re not, why not. Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from sash / slash on Flickr)

I was reading from Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching last night when I ran across an interesting quote:

He who knows others is wise;
He who knows himself is enlightened.

The passage made me stop and contemplate my own life. How well do I know myself? I went down that path for a bit of time; looking at my aspects and considering what I might be blind about.

Naturally, I soon turned to business. I thought about how much of marketing is focused on the consumer or the client. I wondered what I might learn about my business if I applied Lao-tzu’s words to marketing. So I rewrote the passage to say:

He who knows his customer is wise;
But he who knows his business is enlightened.

Then I started thinking about my clients, my colleagues, my friends, etc. How many of them really know what they do? I don’t mean can they explain their business in some marketing lingo that drives sales. I’m talking about do they understand what they REALLY do for their clients? What impact do they make?

For instance, I’m a web developer, a marketing coach, a business advisor and a strategist. I help my clients understand how to use the internet to reach their business goals. Pretty simple.

But if I think about the client’s I’ve worked with over the past year, it’s evident that I have a much broader and deeper impact on my client’s life than I first think about. While I certainly help them build their website, clarify their marketing message or build a campaign, I also help them create space in their lives for their business. As well, I help them overcome their fears and uncertainties about using the web, and I educate them in how to measure their success. What’s more, I teach them anything they really need or want to know about using the web to grow their business.

But it doesn’t stop there. Most of my clients and I also develop a strong bond; a working relationship that seems to increase their trust in themselves. They know, for instance, they’re not doing this alone in their process. I also freely share my idea, concepts, vision and excitement about their business – something that often motivates them to get the next bit of work done.

When I think about it, I do far more than just develop web-based businesses. I have an impact on my client’s lives. And I need to remember that in my business. Perhaps even explore that more and understand how I can express more of what I offer my clients. And maybe, just maybe, I can find more of the light in my business.

So what about you? How well do you know what you do? How much do you understand the impact you have on your clients or customers? How enlightened are you in your business?

The question: How do I know it’s time to redesign my website?

There’s many, many answers to this question. Yet, I’m going to share with you five of the biggies. And as you listen to this short audio clip (~8 minutes) see if your website has any of these symptoms.

So, does your website have some of (or many all of) these symptoms? If so, let’s do something about it. As I said in the recording I don’t use hard selling methods. What I do is tell you exactly what to do to solve your website and online business problems. If after that you want me to be the guy implements the solutions, I’m happy to talk about it. But what you’ll find with me is no hard selling techniques. So contact me right now and let’s setup a time to chat about how you can have a website that really can grow your business.

Or, you can check out my Group Web Design and Business Coaching Program (click now)

One note, I only work with people whose business is providing a service. I seldom work with bloggers who sell advertising or retailers who want an online store. My focus is helping coaches, consultants, alternative healers and such get more clients. So if you’re not in that category I may or may not be able to help you. 

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note: image from Esther Gibbons on Flickr,  some rights reserved)