Are you looking to build your business online but tired of spending countless hours on Google and in Forums?

Do you keep telling yourself you are so close? Just one more website, one more forum, you know the answer is just around the corner. It’s time to get off the endless Google search merry-go-round and start taking action in your business.

In this webinar, we will show you how to get started online with the Core 4 essentials tools to getting setup, found, connected and paid.

Click Here To Claim Your Spot Now!

Meet your coaches!

Sandy Sidhu is the founder of SidekickPM where she uses her 12 years experience working in the tech industry to support entrepreneurs with the techy aspects of starting and running an online business.

Tennille Hopper is the founder and creative director of  Pretty Little Pixels. She works with solo to small businesses to design and develop beautiful brands and custom WordPress websites.

Sign-up if you are ready to say goodbye to countless hours of searching and frustration and learn which tools are an absolute must to get your online business started right.

When: It’s happening Friday May 31st

• 9:30 AM Pacific

• 12:30 PM Eastern

Make sure to register and then show up at least 15 minutes early, spaces are limited.

Click Here To Claim Your Spot Now!

If you blog regularly, you’ll soon come to realize that there are things that you do repeatedly. In this video, I go over the Duplicate post plugin that lets you-as the name indicates, easily duplicate a post and its content so you don’t have to start from scratch each time. This is especially useful if you have certain types of posts that you post regularly.

Guest post By Natasha Vorompiova

MYTH—Systems are only for big established businesses.

FACT—Small businesses also need systems.

One of the main reasons we start our own businesses is to experience more freedom—freedom to be in charge of our schedule, go at our own pace and not have anyone boss us around.  However, we often become slaves to our mounting to-do list, which seem impossible to manage.

Systems allow us to reclaim that freedom.  They take the guesswork out of what needs to be done and how to go about doing it.  Overwhelm and burnout become things of the past.  A flawless flow becomes your reality.

MYTH—Systems constrain creativity.
FACT—Systems nurture creativity.

So many of us mistakenly believe that systems force us into small boxes, prevent our creative juices from flowing, or block our ability to perform in innovative ways.

The reality is that there’s very little room for creativity when you’re constantly interrupted by incoming email, panicking about missing a deadline, or freaking out when you forget key details about a proposal you sent to a client.

Systems give us the mental and physical space we need in order to get into our “zone of genius” and create.  They bring us sanity.  They allow us to breath.  They free up our time.

MYTH—Systems are a waste of time.
FACT—Systems eliminate waste.

Creating systems is an art more than a science.  It takes time to design ones that work best for our own business.  Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs think it’s a waste of time to concentrate on developing them because they don’t see a direct correlation between systems and business revenues.

When we start a business, all our efforts go towards generating profits, so we tend to concentrate exclusively on bringing in more clients and servicing them.

What is not visible to the naked eye is how much we waste by not having systems in place.  Spending 30 minutes looking for misplaced passwords, website addresses or old client proposals adds up to 3 hours at the end of the week, 168 hours by the end of the year and nearly $17,000 if your hourly rate is $100/hour.

You can also lose customers due to missed messages in piles of unread e-mails, unsuccessful product offerings due to neglected testimonials, or failed launches due to poor planning.

 Your turn:

Leave a comment below and share what type of system you can implement in your business right now to help you save time and money.

Natasha was the winner of the Thrive Hive Operation: Opt-in Challenge. If you haven’t already be sure to check out and opt-in to her offering over at SystemsRock.

About Natasha aka SystemsChick

Natasha Vorompiova is the founder of Systems Rock where she breaks the stereotype that systems are just for big enterprises and put damaging constraints on creative spirits. Her unique approach nourishes the creativity of entrepreneurs while helping them establish the essential foundational systems that will enable their businesses to truly flourish. Grab your FREE copy of ‘Systems Chick’s Guide to Transforming Busyness Into Business’ at SystemsRock.

An important part of being an entrepreneur is learning from your peers. “Unstoppable Entrepreneur” profiles entrepreneurs who have taken the leap to follow their passion and create their own work & lifestyle. They share their expertise: tips for success, tools they use and valuable insights they have learned along the way.

This week I had the pleasure of speaking to entrepreneur Carissa Dunphy of Small Businesses Do It Better. She shared how she got started with her show, the importance of building credibility and leading by example for your customers.

Watch/Listen to the video below and share your feedback in the comments!

Key Takeaways:

• No matter what type of service or product you are offering, it is important to show results that you have achieved and lead by example. Whether that is incorporating a video marketing strategy or social media strategy- you will get buy-in when you show how you achieved positive results.
• Video lets you build a relationship with your potential customers when they visit your site
• When you reach out to big names to feature on your blog or show make sure to master your craft, feel comfortable and confident

Resources Mentioned:

About Carissa Dunphy:

Carissa Dunphy, host of the weekly show Small Businesses Do It Better, where she interviews small business owners, entrepreneurs and industry experts. She is often coined as a geek, and doesn’t mind one bit. Carissa is very passionate about supporting small businesses,  providing valuable resources and sharing her knowledge about entrepreneurship. Connect with Carissa at Small Businesses Do It Better.

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In this short video, I go over an important setting that is often overlooked when setting up a sharing plugin like Shareaholic or Add This on your blog. Too often it is left at the default setting so when people do tweet your post it ends up showing via @addthis or @shareaholic. The downside? You’re missing out on a huge opportunity to attract new followers as well as interact with people who do share your post.
Watch the video and see what big name publication isn’t even using their Twitter handle in their tweets..it’s surprising!!

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An important part of being an entrepreneur is learning from your peers. “Unstoppable Entrepreneur” profiles entrepreneurs who have taken the leap to follow their passion and create their own work & lifestyle. They share their expertise: tips for success, tools they use and valuable insights they have learned along the way.

This week I had the pleasure of speaking to entrepreneur Nicole Longstreath, a Wardrobe Strategist and founder of The Wardrobe Code. She shared how she got started as a wardrobe strategist, found her business sweet-spot and took her business global.

Watch/Listen to the video below and share your feedback in the comments!

Key Takeaways:

• Really get clear on your service offerings and what makes you different
• Get clear on who your potential customer is- what keeps them up at night?
• Beta-testing your product is critical especially if you are creating something unique
• Listen to your customers- they will help guide your product creation process and provide insights for new products

Resources Mentioned:

About Nicole Longstreath:

As a wardrobe strategist, Nicole helps her clients uncover their unique style and build wardrobes they love at a sensible cost. She believes that having a strong personal brand is within reach for anyone who wants it. It doesn’t require starting over or spending a fortune – just a commitment to yourself. Find her online at The Wardrobe Code, on Twitter and Facebook.

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Back when I first started my freelancing business, I remember all I could think of was landing my first customers and I was always on the lookout for how I could offer my services.

I’ve liked to think I’ve since improved my techniques but did learn some valuable lessons:

Three things to keep in mind when looking for potential customers

1. Patience needs to be your new BFF

Not everyone operates on your schedule. Do you find yourself constantly checking your email? Or second-guessing yourself and whether they will pick you? I know the feeling. Trust me, that was me. But you have to just let it go once you’ve put it out there and realize that not everyone will respond to their email 5 minutes after you sent it. Chill out.

2. LISTEN with BIG EARS.

Identify problems and then talk about solutions. Don’t just offer your services. Often people don’t speak the same ‘technical’ language as you do. You might be talking about social media and they may not realize that blogging is one aspect of it. Start listening and see how what you offer can help solve a problem.

3. Hang out in different watering holes.

And put yourself out there. Are you constantly talking to the people who already know about what you do and offer a similar type of service?  You’re getting caught in the echo chamber! And that ain’t going to put food on the table. It makes you feel good about what you do but people in your existing industry are probably not the people you are going after as customers.

Put yourself out there and think of areas that could use your type of service. For example, talking to other social media enthusiasts about social media is most likely not going to get you any work. But maybe heading over to a yoga forum or another industry where they are just dying for your expertise, you will get noticed. Try different things. In my case, I experimented with giving some of my time away for free on a network for entrepreneurial women and not necessarily a place where I was competing with hundreds of other people offering services like mine.

What have you tried? What worked or could use improvement? Let me know in the comments below!

Do you feel like you are always creating new content to spread the word about your work?

And once you finish something it’s time to start the process all over and it feels like a never-ending hamster wheel of content creation?

Madness, right?

This came up in one of my entrepreneur groups recently and a lively discussion was had about all the various ways we can do more with our existing content and not have to start from scratch each time. Hat tip to Colleen from ClericalPlusVA for summarizing it with:

“Repurpose, Baby!”

Sometimes we think we have to start from scratch each time and let’s face it, most of us are not in the business of content creation but use it as a method to share our ideas, spread the word about the awesomeness that we do and connect with more awesome people. Right?

So before you jump back on to the content creation hamster wheel take a brief step off and see how you can easily turn your existing content into different formats. This also gives you an opportunity to explore other platforms that you normally may not spend time on.

So I bring you:

13 Ways To Create Spin-Off Content From Existing Content

Webinars/Powerpoints

Do you do webinars or give in person talks?

Why not take that webinar and create the resulting “spin-off” content:

1. opt-in product

2. Turn each slide into a blog post and create a blog series

2. share the slides on Slideshare and

3. share the recording on YouTube.

If you do video interviews: 

Try the following spin-off content:

5. Turn the video into an audio mp3

6. Video Specific Pinterest board: Create a specific board on Pinterest to share your video interviews

7. Create Image Quotes

Create image quotes from key points in your interview which you could then share on Facebook and Pinterest!  Not to worry if you aren’t a graphic designer. Watch this short video where I show you how to easily create image quotes for Pinterest and Facebook.

and create a board on Pinterest to share these quotes:

9. Create Tweetables: from Blog Posts, Interviews

Click to Tweet: Opportunities for relationship building are all around us: http://bit.ly/12YC6bt @womengamechange via @SandySidhu

10. Create a specific category on your blog for a series of posts making it easy to find. Take it a step further and create an image that you can showcase in a sidebar widget. Hat tip to Nicole Longstreath of The Wardrobe Code for this gem!

11. Create a downloadable pdf of a blog post/cheat-sheet or worksheet like the one provided by Kickstart Kitchen about participating in Twitter Chats using an existing how-to post.

12. Get on camera! Turn a blog post into a short video series.

13. Create an audio-post: Turn a blog post into a short audio-clip.

And there you have it! As you can see it’s not always about creating new content but looking at what you already have and doing something new with it.

Your turn:

1. In the comments below share what type of spin-off content you plan on creating!

2. Share this post with someone who you think would benefit from these ideas! Thanks!

In this short video we look at how to use If This Then That (IFTTT) and put the power of the internet to work for you. Using IFTTT you can automate tasks that you do often such as having your Instagram photos tagged with a specific keyword posted to your Facebook page. In this example, I look at how you can create a recipe to have your videos uploaded to Youtube automatically shared to your Facebook page with a specific URL and description. What a time-saver and great way to be more productive!

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In this short video we look at how to bulk schedule tweets in Hootsuite using the bulk uploader. This is especially useful if you are planning a product launch and want to schedule out a whole bunch of posts. It takes some time to setup the file but sure beats having to do it manually!

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