Three Success Tips That Have Increased My Energy & Productivity

A Credo For Making It Happen – Video by Danielle LaPorte

Today is the big day.  Danielle LaPorte’s book “The Fire Starter Sessions” is available at bookstores near you and online at every major online bookstore.

And this video is pretty smokin’. Light your fire:

Congrats, Danielle!

Motivational Monday – What Would Your Life Be Like? #FireSS

One of my favorite burning questions from “The Fire Starter Sessions” by Danielle LaPorte, has me thinking today.

If you want to get in on the pre-order for the Fire Starter Sessions, check out the bonuses here.   The bonuses are only available until the book hits the stores on April 17th.

Here’s the question for the day:  Should business be easy?

Are YOU a Fire Starter?: Book Review The Fire Starter Sessions by Danielle LaPorte #FireSS

 

We’re excited to announce that Danielle LaPorte’s book The Fire Starter Sessions is being released this month!

I was lucky enough to get a sneak peak and I LOVED every inch of it.  I love how it feels like I’m listening to her talk as I read the words.  She has a great way keeping her speaking voice in her written words (I’m jealous of that!).  It’s like she’s sitting there talking to me, I like chat with girl friends.  It’s honest, it’s authentic and it’s incredibly moving.

The first time I sat down to read it every sentence made me say, “I need to tweet that…and that…and that.”  Everything was so juicy.  And to make it even better, my favorite part is that her best bits of wisdom are huge.  Unmissable.  Though every phrase might be tweetable, there are things she wants to make sure that you GET.  Here’s one of my favorites:

The typography is phenomenal.  It’s not a boring read.  Danielle’s personality even comes through the layout and font.

This book can help anyone step up their success game and light the fire to be your own authentic, powerful and amazing self.   It’s geared towards entrepreneurs though anyone can glean juicy wisdom from each page.

What I love about this book goes well beyond the words on the pages.  We started working with Danielle at Startup Princess almost 4 years ago.  Before The Spark Kit came out, before Your Big Beautiful Book Plan, before this book hits bookstores to become a New York Times Bestseller (I can feel it in my bones…).  Before all that, she was a blog writer and was a candid fire starter herself – out to squeeze the real passion out of every human being.  Igniting corporate professional cube sitters into budding, inspiriting entrepreneurs.  Looking back on the last 4 years has been a treat to watch, and a blueprint that any aspiring speaker, author and changemaker can pattern for success.  Share your voice for free online, inspire others in one-on-one coaching, get out there and speak, create phenomenal products then in four years, you could have your own best seller ready to hit the book stores.

This book is the perfect mix of helping find out who you really ARE and what you want to BE with the added bonus of helping you take the steps necessary to live your own great life.

As Danielle says, “Mindfulness and contemplation is only half the equation. You’ve got to take some action, Jackson.”

And honestly, the message that I got for me, was “What are you waiting for?”  Some juicy stuff is coming down the pipe, all because I read this book and because I love Danielle so much.

If you want to get in on the pre-order for the Fire Starter Sessions, check out the bonuses here.   The bonuses are only available until the book hits the stores on April 17th.  You won’t regret it, and you’ll be on your way to making a movement of your own.

Happy reading and Happy Friday!

Let’s connect!  Follow me on twitter.  Follow me on Facebook.  Check out my free video e-course on Working Smarter Not Harder here.

Michelle McCullough is the Managing Director for Startup Princess.  Michelle became a partner in Startup Princess  in 2008.  She is responsible for event planning, marketing, affiliates, sponsorships and partnerships. Over the past 3 years she has coached women entrepreneurs and helped them grow their businesses from “dream in development” to established thriving businesses.  Michelle is a speaker, strategist, success expert and a serial entrepreneur. She started Doodads Promotional Products when she was 19. And has also spent the last 12 years working in marketing and advertising. She’s worked in all aspects of the industry from production to creative and sales to management. On top of her full-time jobs, Michelle has cultivated her love for entrepreneurship by running Doodads as a successful side business.  Today it continues to thrive.  This year Michelle launched a coaching program called “The Life Balance Myth” to help busy entrepreneurs build thriving businesses AND meaningful personal lives.  She believes that life balance is a myth, but she provides practical tools to achieve personal and professional success.  You can learn more about Michelle at SpeakMichelle.com.  Michelle has two children ages 4 and 2 and lives in Utah.

Making the Most of Your Blog Posts

Were you on pins and needles waiting for the 3rd installment of the “blogging for business” series?

Well, here is some late night wisdom:

Share your posts.

Yup, sounds like rocket science, doesn’t it?  But it’s surprising how many of my clients write posts and expect people to wake up one day and think, “Gee, I wonder what Michelle blogged about today.”

In my opinion, this is one of the greatest uses for social media.  There are a lot of misnomers about what social media is for and how it should be used, and we’ll save that topic for another day, but you should appropriately share your posts through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other places where you have a community.

There are a couple of tricks to it that I want to share.

Tip #1 Instead of saying, “I just wrote a blog post about….” (they’ll find that out when they click on your link.  Let’s let them be pleasantly surprised you have this in you.)  Share your title (It’s catchy, grabbing and on topic, right?) and a link and that’s it.  Hopefully your post and your title should have the goal to add value so people want to click on over and read what you have to share.

(Insider tip, there are sites that will automatically send  your posts to twitter even without you having to do anything else.  We have used twitterfeed.com before.  Now, here’s a note: if you set this up to feed to your facebook account, it will pull random pictures when it posts on facebook.  Sometimes you end up getting a 3rd party ad [if you have ads on your site like we do].  We stopped doing the facebook feed and now only do the twitter.)

I feel like I’m off on lots of tangents here, but it’s okay to post, “I wrote an article about…” on your personal facebook page.  However, I think a catchy title and a link is best for twitter and on business facebook pages.

Tip #2 Go the extra mile by asking an engaging question in your tweet or post.  For example:

Will Blog for Traffic – 7 Tips to Increase Your Posts For More Site Traffic http://bit.ly/HWSZYc How many times do you blog/month?

(Insider tip, bit.ly is a great site that will shorten your hugely long URLs to make them more user friendly for twitter so you can stay in your character count.  It’s also great for analytics to see how many people you were able to get to click over from your social media efforts.)

The goal is to get people to engage with you.  Some may not ever read the post, that’s okay, it’s still good for building a sense of community, and it also gets people personally invested in your article before they click over.  Having them personally invested is good.

Tip #3 Share your post AGAIN later in the day on Twitter, using all new verbiage.  I don’t suggest you share them again on Facebook, but since the landscape of twitter changes so frequently and since not everyone is on at the same time AND since some people will be drawn to different info try another point of view.  For example:

Did you know sites that blog 20 times per month have on average 5 times more traffic? http://bit.ly/HWSZYc Yes, really.

(Insider tip: I read that updates that have links in the middle are more likely to get clicked, that’s why I put something after the link.)

Tip #4 If your post is about a popular topic add a hashtag to your tweet (but not necessarily to your facebook post).  For example:

Did you know sites that blog 20 times per month have on average 5 times more traffic? http://bit.ly/HWSZYc Yes, really.  #blog (What are you writing about? #cooking #fashion #sales, #marketing, #statistics, etc)

Again, it needs to be relevant, but this will open you up to new networks and increase your chances it will be seen by people searching for posts in that hashtag.

Tip #5 Include pictures in your posts and have the “pin it” button on your site. (oopsy, no picture in this post…) You can pin your own posts, in my opinion, but some people say you shouldn’t pin your own stuff, so at least make the option available for others to do so for you.

Tip #6 Share blurbs to recent posts in your newsletters.  Just because they’re on your list, doesn’t mean they have seen your posts online.  Give your network your knowledge via email, but only a blurb with a link back to your site.  This will help you boost your traffic.

Tip #7 Finally, hopefully you have a way to capture emails when they DO get onto your home court.  Help them become part of your network with ease so that you can send them additional information via email.

Well, there you go.  Do you have any additional success tips for sharing your posts to grow your traffic?  Let’s share!

Let’s connect!  Follow me on twitter.  Follow me on Facebook.  Check out my free video e-course on Working Smarter Not Harder here.

Michelle McCullough is the Managing Director for Startup Princess.  Michelle became a partner in Startup Princess  in 2008.  She is responsible for event planning, marketing, affiliates, sponsorships and partnerships. Over the past 3 years she has coached women entrepreneurs and helped them grow their businesses from “dream in development” to established thriving businesses.  Michelle is a speaker, strategist, success expert and a serial entrepreneur. She started Doodads Promotional Products when she was 19. And has also spent the last 12 years working in marketing and advertising. She’s worked in all aspects of the industry from production to creative and sales to management. On top of her full-time jobs, Michelle has cultivated her love for entrepreneurship by running Doodads as a successful side business.  Today it continues to thrive.  This year Michelle launched a coaching program called “The Life Balance Myth” to help busy entrepreneurs build thriving businesses AND meaningful personal lives.  She believes that life balance is a myth, but she provides practical tools to achieve personal and professional success.  You can learn more about Michelle at SpeakMichelle.com.  Michelle has two children ages 4 and 2 and lives in Utah.

Stay the Course – S.M.A.R.T Goals for Navigation

All of us Startup Princesses have seen, read or at least heard of the Titanic right? The most awesomevessel of its time with a romance tucked in its core. After we have put away our tissues and, as I dowith many things, think about how it could have been different (I love happy endings), I try to relate it tobusiness. Historians and titanic enthusiast would say the ship was either going too fast and/or it steeredright into a ginormous iceberg. I would sum it up as sub-par steering and the stars aligning.
Everyone’s business is, in a way, a ship navigating through the treacherous seas of bookkeeping,management, product formulation, business planning, growth, quality, service and a thousand otherthings. Not to mention all of the balancing that most of us have to do on the tight rope of our chosen voyage.

EXCITING!!!

What tools do we need to successfully sail or fire up both engines to reach our sought horizon of up andto the right (growth)?
Too many to list in one blog or by one person but here is a baby step….

GOAL Setting!

Here is a quick hot sheet for a method that has been added to over time by so many people that it can’tbe accredited to any one captain and is taught in many institutions and 101 courses around the world. Always, my favorite reason to reference such things is that it gives a polished presentation to a real world,tried and true, results-driven tool.

It is called … S.M.A.R.T Goals (brilliant)

Specific. Setting a goal that is too broad (i.e. sell a lot of widgets) allows for too many unknowns. At what pointhave you sold ‘a lot’? What number constitutes ‘not enough’? Identifying a specific marker allows you torealistically gauge when you’re close to reaching your goal. This can applies to product development,marketing, and online presence.

Measurable. Be sure that your goal is something that can actually be measured. Quantify it. When are you going topass out the bonus checks? It will be difficult to set a specific goal if it is not measurable. Measurability aswell as specificity help you to identify progress and recognize milestones.

Attainable. Do not set yourself up for failure by setting a goal that is not attainable. Bringing in $1,000,000,000in revenue for the quarter is an exciting prospect but it may not be something that is realistic for yourcompany at this stage. By setting goals that you are unlikely to achieve, you set yourself (and youremployees) up for disappointment, ultimately destroying morale.

Relevant. Goal setting becomes an important part of business planning when the goals are relevant to theoverarching mission or vision of the company. Make sure that your goals align with the company’spolicies, overall direction and ability at your stage in the voyage.

Time bound. When you choose not to set time bound goals, action steps toward the achievement of goals do not rankhigh on the list of priorities. Setting a time frame for achieving your goals helps you to stay on track forrealizing your goals.

As you are taking the helm, reorganizing, or holding steady, setting S.M.A.R.T. goals and navigationpoints will help you evaluate and reach your desired destination.

Wishing you fair winds and calm seas!

Brooke & Megan are entrepreneurs who are passionate about the sales process, customer experiences and growth. They founded BreakOut Sales, a company that specializes in building dynamic sales teams for new technologies and bringing European products/services to the US market.

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