I so like this quote by Christopher Morley, it represents the Never Give Up attitude and keeps me going to reach my eventual Goals.  Publish your thoughts on it, I would love to hear them!

Ready for it?  Well here it is! "The Big Shots are ONLY Little Shots who Keep Shooting"

So Keep Shooting and Go For Your Goals!!!

The most important thing to remember about being a good communicator is actually the opposite to what a lot of people think, it is not talking – you must listen! This applies to all aspects of your business, whether you are talking to a client, an employee, or a sponsor and it is equally important in casual, social situations because you never know when you might meet someone who can become a valuable connection for your social-business network. Making a positive impression is paramount, because you are the face and voice of your business. It helps to know who you are talking to and what sort of conversation is appropriate for the situation. If you are speaking to a new associate you should ask questions which cannot be answered by a simple yes or no. Encourage longer answers that will allow you to get to know the person better and offer a bit of background information about yourself in the process. If the relationship is business-related be friendly, but do not venture into personal subjects or topics that can be controversial (like politics, unless of course your business is politics).  However, if you have developed a good business relationship with someone, it may not be inappropriate to acknowledge personal interests that you may share. For example, if you are visiting the office of a long-term business associate and notice golf clubs, you may bring up the topic and ask them about that particular brand or where they play, to let them know it is a common interest between you. Whether or not you invite them to golf with you or wait for them to invite you might also depend on the nature and time period of your association. No matter who it is you are talking to and regardless of the nature of your relationship, listening is essential because you are better able to formulate a relevant response when you listen to whomever you are speaking with. Isn’t it annoying when you are having a conversation with someone and they look at you blankly and say “what”? Or when you are saying something that you feel is important and the person you are talking to continues typing, or reading, or (aargh!) even watching the television?  “Do unto others as you’d have done to you” is just as meaningful when it comes to communication as it is in everything else. If you are too busy to listen when an employee or associate comes to you with an issue or idea, does that really encourage them to listen to your concerns or suggestions in the future?

Want to Get your customers attention? Then do it by talking to them one on one. When a person is looking at your web site, usually it is just them in front of the computer screen, so this is your opportunity to talk directly to them. Video can be a little technical and time consuming and even difficult to get the lighting right, but with audio, it is quick and easy and simple to repeat. If you simply upload a photo of yourself and them add audio with a play buttom your potential customer can listen exactly what YOU have to say to them. Remember this is you talking directly to you prospective client in their time, so make good use of it. I have located a simple and cheap Audio Generator program, one that is simple to send links to audio postcards to your clients or add audio to you site. Always be honest with your customers or potential clients, they will pick it if you are not and you will loose them as customers and it is much easier to get a person to buy from you again than it is to continually try to get new clients. On by the way, have fun with this, get excited and show it in your tone, your prospective clients will pick up on your positive energy.

When you begin your personal path to operating your own small business, one of the first things that you realize is just how stressful it can be. Without a doubt, your small business will add a number of new responsibilities and concerns which can begin to dominate your life. While it is important and worthwhile to commit and devote yourself to your personal projects, spending too much time stressing about your work and meeting all of your goals can have some very negative effects on your health and well-being!

It is so important to take time for yourself each day and do what you can to relax, get those worries off your mind, relieve all the pressure that can build up more and more each day and weigh you down. When you feel good and think positive it can have an incredible effect on your productivity, especially if you have contact with clients during the course of your day, because rest assured those clients can perceive when you are under a lot of stress.

There are innumerable possibilities when it comes to relaxing and lowering your overall level of stress and it is certainly a very personal matter, techniques range considerably among individuals. Some people find listening to their favorite music relaxing enough, others like to practice meditation, tai chi, or yoga, and still others find jogging the most beneficial exercise for clearing their mind of stresses. You may also like to try taking a long, hot bubble bath at the end of the day, or just putting on some comfy pajamas and settling into your favorite chair to read a novel. The options really are endless!

Just remember that while you may be a dedicated small-business owner, you are still an individual whose mind, body and spirit also need nurturing and nourishment. You may indeed be capable of taking the world on your shoulders, but remember mind over matter… if your mind is full of worry and stress, all the work you can do may not matter. Would you rather have a large quantity of work to show for your stress, or experience a quality of life and work which you can both enjoy and take pride in?

According to the Mayo Clinic, by allowing your self time to completely relax on a daily basis, you can reduce muscle tension, increase blood flow throughout your body, and even lower your blood pressure. The valuable effects of relaxation are numerous. In general, it can help to improve how you physically respond to stress. You can experience fewer headaches and less back pain, as well as less anger and frustration in response to stressful situations.

Not only that, but relaxation can also enhance your productivity and efficiency by improving your concentration and increasing your capacity to handle unforeseen problems during your workday. So really, sacrificing a little bit of time everyday to draw your attention away from your work to focus on your self, may in fact be one of the best things you can do for your business!

Get your customers attention by talking to them one on one. Remember when a person is looking at your web site, usually it is just them in front of the computer screen, so this is your opportunity to talk directly to them. Video can be a little technical and time consuming and even difficult to get the lighting right etc, but with audio, it is quick and easy and simple to repeat. If you simply upload a photo of yourself and them add audio with a play buttom your potential customer can listen exactly what YOU have to say to them. Remember this is you talking directly to you prospective client in their time, so make good use of it. I have located a simple and cheap Audio Generator program, one that is simple to send links to audio postcards to your clients or add audio to you site. Always be honest with your customers or potential clients, they will pick it if you are not and you will loose them as customers and it is much easier to get a person to buy from you again than it is to continually try to get new clients. On by the way, have fun with this, get excited and show it in your tone.

I used to wonder why I would use outbound links from my blog (unless the people were very good friends) and how that would help me.

Now I know why and how I benefit, it really is quite simple once you understand it.

Once you have written your blog and before you post it, go over it and select a few relevant keywords that suit your blog.  What you do next is take those keywords and head to one of the major search engines and perform searches on those keywords.  

Check out the top few sites that come up for that search in the organic listings and them hyperlink your blog post to that site. Why? I hear you ask, pretty simple really. The search engines have already given that site a high ranking in there natural or organic listing, which means the search engines like that site and will visit it regularly, when the search engine robots or spiders pass through your site, they will see that your site has links to these high ranking sites, your site will then be rewarded for this link, of course the more you have the better it will be.

You in turn will be ranked higher u the natural listing and other sites will then begin to link with you.

There is a New Media Revolution happening right now and you should ensure you take part in it, for the sake of your business. If you have a web site that does not have a blog on it, then make some enquiries and alterations right now. Why? I here you ask, I don't want to share any of my trade secrets! Well the answer is really quite simple. If you have an active blog and ideally you should make an entry every day, Google and the other search engines recognise that. The spiders or robots the go out notice that your web site is having new content added to it on a regular basis.

What that does for your web site is that it helps to gain the respect of the search engines and what that does is gives your site a higher ranking in the unpaid or natural listing, so in the long run it can work out to very cheap advertising for you to gain quality internet traffic to your site.

Make sure you make the content of your blog relevant to your subject. What you can do with the blogs is post date them, so you don't have to sit down and make an entry every day, you can actually write all your blog post on one day for the whole week or the entire month if you like, then you only have to schedule this task into your daily activities once a week or once a month.

If you are a woman in business or interested in venturing into your own business, please know you are welcome to visit my site for information or interact on this blog, as I have been in business for myself for over 25 years, I am sure to have some knowledge that could assist you, so please post your questions and I will answer them to the best of my ability or point you in the right direction to obtain the answer you need.

Thank you for spending the time reading my post, I look forward to interacting with you.

Article written and post by Heather Richards