Ning is quite possibly the easiest social networking system you’re going to find. If you know you want to create a social network and you’d like it done today, as in now, actually, you could absolutely achieve that with Ning.

I’ve used other tools - CollectiveX, Dolphin, MODx, and played around with Joomla and Drupal, too. But they don’t come close to the ease, or as in software development speak - user-friendliness, that Ning has.

If you can set up a Facebook profile you can create a social network with Ning. I’ve configured them for clients who actively use it for business. There are hundreds and hundreds of them that are use for parenting, cancer survival, and everything else in between. It really is a fantastic tool.

If you’re like me, with a technical background, you won’t need to worry about pulling your hair out because you can’t configure it to your liking. It’s completely customizable. You can get access to the source code and hack away, if you like. And there are even Ning networks just for Ning developers to get advice and tutorials.

(Can you tell I love it?)

So if you’re looking for a social network tool that works, Ning is the one. And if you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask me!

But I read an article today that just blew my mind - the way the contributor links wellness and hunger to desperation for clients. Are you desperate for clients? How does your hunger show?

Anyway, it’s a worthy read - have a look at it. Hopefully you’ll come away with a desire to have a true wellness plan for business that will keep you well-fed and therefore a stronger magnet for prosperity.

Article: http://biznik.com/articles/are-you-too-hungry-to-go-shopping-for-clients

Warmly,

Tia

Each tool you employ as part of your marketing strategy should have a job - something to DO. Otherwise it will just sit and “be” and that is not good.

Here are example “jobs” you could give each marketing tool. Try to limit each tool to one or two primary purposes:

• Encourage people to sign up for your newsletter
• Drive people to your website
• Sell your service
• Drive people to download your audio recording

Each job has an intended result, and that’s how you know whether or not it’s working.

• Job: Encourage people to sign up for the newsletter –> Result: Increased signups AS A RESULT of that specific tool
• Job: Drive people to the website –> Result: Increased hits to your website AS A RESULT of that specific tool
• Job: Sell your service –> Result: Increased sales AS A RESULT of that specific tool
• Job: Drive people to download audio recording –> Result: Increased downloads of the recording AS A RESULT of that specific tool

Metrics

So now that your tools have a job, you need a way to determine if they’re doing that job, and that means you need to use marketing metrics. Metrics are the measurements you use to determine what results you’re really getting.

If you currently have no way of tracking hits to your website, then you are starting at ground zero. You can’t even begin to determine whether or not your website copy, action words, tone of voice, functionality, is effective becuase you dont’ even know if people are coming to your site at all!

You could say, “My site gets no action” (meaning, no leads) but does your site even get any traffic? If so, what are your ratio expectations? Set this upfront: how many visitors to your website do you expect to actually contact you? If you say 100% then you and I need to talk! (And you need to do some market research)

Utilize Metrics to determine how well your tools are working. Here are some suggestions:

• Analytics can determine how much traffic your website is getting
• ASK people how they came to know about you
• Track clickthroughs of your email marketing campaigns
• For each marketing tool, use a different sales page with a unique URL to determine where sales are coming from

Yet the business isn’t coming in. Your thoughts: my marketing isn’t working!

Is it not?

Have you ever employed someone? Or, have you ever worked for someone? You were given a task - or a set of tasks - and you called that…your job.

What are your marketing method’s jobs? What’s Facebook supposed to be doing for you?

The universal answer is “make me more money” or “bring in clients” or “spread awareness,” but unfortunately, it’s just simply not specific enough.

It’s no surprise that the number of clients I have has increased dramatically - people looking to really maximize their presence on the web. But the trend with many of them is the same - they’re frustrated because “nothing is working,” when in fact, they can’t know if it’s working because they never gave it a job.

Here’s an exercise:

1. Ask yourself, “What’s my overall goal for my marketing methods?”
2. Ask yourself, “How will I know that I’ve reached that goal?”

Your ability to really answer those questions will directly impact your marketing’s ability to work for you. You can’t employ vague marketing techniques and then expect specific results. If you want a bigger list, determine how much bigger is big. Does one additional name count? Does five? What about five hundred?

Example: Heidi’s overall goal is to make more money (problem A). Her marketing methods are a newsletter, a blog and some social networking - she can hardly remember which ones she has (problem B). She also wants to increase hits to her website (problem C) and build her list (problem D).

Over the past year, Heidi’s business has stagnated. She doesn’t ever go on her social networking sites because she doesn’t have time. She gets little to no leads from her website. She posts a blog once or twice per month.

“My marketing isn’t working!” she said.

“Isn’t it, though?” I ask calmly.

“What do you mean? I am getting no business!” Heidi exclaimed.

“Oh. I think it’s because your marketing methods didn’t know that was the point.”

Do you see where I’m going with this? Her marketing methods have no focus. They don’t have a job to do. People without jobs are considered unemployed. Marketing tools without jobs are considered unfocused. They don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing.

Part of focused marketing is deciding what you want your marketing to do and then specifically determining how it should go about doing that.

In Part 2, I’ll talk about how to give your marketing a job along with how to give it a performance evaluation, so you can know whether or not it is really working for you.

My son, Aidan, and I took a nice, breezy stroll to Starbucks, where he flirted with the associate and I drank an iced white chocolate mocha and sipped ice water (to feel “healthier”).

Then we came back. Since then, I’ve been cleaning up a client’s website, cleaning up my own new website, going back and forth between Biznik and email, and contemplating my work for this week. I somehow also found time to clean out Aidan’s dresser of all of his baby clothes and fold them and pack them away.

I also made a lovely Tilapia lunch and just put chicken and dumplings in the oven for dinner.

And I’ve already decided that I’m going to play catch-up “in advance” and finish up some work for existing clients tonight, so I have time for new clients that I expect to land this week.

Still, I find rest in this. I find this Sunday, even though it is busy, somehow peaceful and restful. How can that be?

If it makes you feel uncomfortable calling yourself “the expert” in your particular field or industry, try writing it down, reading it a few times over and then possibly even saying it out loud.

With internet marketing, it’s crucial to be an expert and equally as crucial to let people know that you are an expert.

The truth is that the day you began charging for your work is the day you considered yourself an expert. In my opinion, there are novices and experts. Novices don’t usually charge for what they do, so if you’re charging, you are an expert by default.

Experts haven’t necessarily “arrived.” There’s no solemn law that says that if you’re an expert, you have learned all there is to know about your work. You are continually growing, learning, and improving so don’t let the feeling that you don’t know all there is to know hold you back from calling yourself the expert.

Once you’ve gotten comfortable with the fact that you’re an expert, do what experts do:

• Submit articles - free and paid. Seek out those who will pay you for your writing but don’t limit yourself only to those experiences.
• Participate in forums by offering your advice. No one likes it when they ask a question in a forum and an “expert” replies saying only, “I have the answer you need. Contact me.” That’s not active participation! Be proactive and involved and offer your advice.
• Put a LOT of good content on your website that you can link to later. Be thinking ahead. I’ve posted all sorts of Wordpress-related content on my website that I can now refer to in forums, blogs and articles. Instead of just linking to random, “salesy” pages on my website, I can now link to good, solid, informative content that helps people. This is a great way to increase the quality links coming into your website.

Going through challenges is the quickest and most effective way to reinvent yourself to become the new and improved you. — Kurek Ashley, How Would Love Respond?

Have you ever encountered a challenge in business? Perhaps you tried something that you thought would work. You gave it a bit of time and then gave up. Instead of making money, you lost money! In your eyes, you wasted previous dollars doing something that could have been spent on something else…something that would work.

I’ve faced business challenges before - financial, marketing, organization, etc. Challenges of all kinds, actually.

Recently, I was faced with a business challenge on a personal level that was really trying for me. Looking back, my perception of the situation is entirely different than it was at that moment, but I will whole-heartedly admit that my initial thoughts were completely negative. I thought, “What in the world? Why me!? Why am I being picked on? What’s so wrong with what I’m doing?”

The problem with thinking those kinds of thoughts is that I was focusing on the problem, rather than the solution. Instead of asking myself, “What’s great about this?” I was telling myself, “This isn’t good. I don’t deserve this. I should pack up and go home.”

Fortunately, I consulted mentors and I picked up a book that quite literally changed my entire way of thinking, and I was able to see the light in the perceived darkness. I started asking, “What’s great about this? How am I going to grow from this experience?”

And grow I did.

I titled this post “The Reinvention” because that’s exactly what I decided to go through - a reinvention. I put away old ways of thinking about challenges. Instead, I reinvented myself and created a new reality for me.

I decided that I wanted to change my world, my reality, my situations and my results. I realized that I didn’t like the things I was going through and that if I didn’t want to go through them anymore, I would have to change my patterns. In order to change my patterns, I needed to change my thoughts.

The you that you are now is the one who is doing what you’re doing now, and that’s why you have what you have now. — Kurek Ashley

Next time you face a challenge - and you will face challenges - consider your thoughts, because thoughts are so powerful.

When I changed my thinking, what was happening actually changed - really! Remember that events are just events and it’s our perception of those events that creates our reality. We are 100% in control of our reality. I decided to stop being the victim and reinvented myself as the creator - the creator of my own reality.