When you’re starting an online business, you probably have no shortage of ideas, motivation, and grand plans for the future of your enterprise. But there is one notable area where you likely have a short supply: finances. Unless you have personal reserves or an already-set collection of investors, there’s a good chance that your ideas will have to initially be implemented with a tight budget in mind.

This budget extends to your marketing efforts. While it is important to advertise your business and work to gain exposure, it is impossible to take out large ad campaigns or to simply throw money at the situation. Instead, you need to find approaches that maximize the benefits while minimizing, as much as possible, the costs you need to occur for them to be realized.

Along those lines, here are a few tips for marketing your startup, working to gain some initial exposure, and for accomplishing this without paying a dime:

Use Social Media

This goes without saying, but social media can be an incredibly powerful tool for boosting your exposure without incurring any costs. To this end, create a Facebook page for your business and open a Twitter account. Post status updates and Facebook and try to accumulate “Likes” from among your colleagues, family members, and friends. Doing so will insure that a larger number of people see your business on their News Feeds.

Study The Competition

Even if you aren’t in a niche industry, your business likely has a specific focus that is closely matched by only a few internet competitors. Study these competitors to get an idea of how they market themselves –especially, how they market themselves for free. Do they post articles on forums or other sites? How do they utilize social media? Does it appear as though they have mailing lists and newsletters?

Communicate

A successful marketing campaign cannot simply be done behind a façade of internet anonymity. Instead, it is important to talk to people in the industry, whether on the phone, at conventions, or through email. Ask them advice but also ask them to spread the world. You may even get some helpful tips in the process.

Go Offline

While limitless, the internet still has its limits when it comes to marketing. This is especially true for a small startup that is looking to gain traction and exposure. If you operate in a niche industry or have a determinable customer base, you may have more success looking to reach this demographic offline in the early going. Does your target consumer group interact offline? Is there a place they go (ie a given retailer) or a way they communicate? If so, you may want to make yourself a part of that community.

These are just a few tips for increasing your exposure during the early days of a startup, when visibility is low and money is tight. The options available in this situation may not be as appealing as those you could find on a larger budget, but when done correctly they can return dividends nonetheless.

Author Bio: Sam Peters is a blogger who frequently writes for entrepreneurial and tech blogs covering topics from online marketing to the newest gadget and mobile web news.

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Free Marketing Tips For Internet Startups

Technorati Tags: budget, low cost, start-up

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Free is good

In consequence, any charity must look at any supports that are available to help them to do their work more effectively.  If the gift horse is free it’s very tempting to not check the teeth too carefully.  However any of these gift horses must be fed since it takes up the time of staff and volunteers.  You must always be careful to monitor the benefits received versus the human effort involved in achieving those benefits.

One of the most effective operational supports by far and on which Google is investing major effort is only now becoming more visible.  That’s Google Docs and many charities are finding it a real boon.

If It Ain’t Broke …

Adopting a new way of doing things involves change. It’s very natural reaction to wish to avoid change, particularly if something seems to be working fine.  Why take the risk that something may go wrong.  Even if the new approach will be slightly better, why invest all the effort in learning a new system.

In this case, the new approach is not just slightly better: it’s dramatically better.  Of course many of us have invested huge amounts of time and money to have Microsoft operating systems and Office programme suites sitting inside our computers.  In many cases we are skilled in using them to achieve remarkable results.  How can much simpler systems allow us to achieve those same remarkable results?

Even if you know this must be wrong, I encourage you to keep an open mind while you try the new approach.  Luckily you don’t have to go through some long training program to get up to speed.  You don’t need to read the instructions.  Just muddle through and you’ll surprise yourself.  Simpler can be better.

Google Docs is Cloud Computing

If you have not heard the term before, Google Docs is an example of Cloud Computing.   All that any user of such a system needs is a simple computer that has access to the Internet.  That can even be a smart phone like an iPhone.  All the hard work is done on servers owned by the provider of the Cloud Computing system.

If you find this somewhat daunting, then remember this same approach is being used in some of the most under-developed regions of the globe.  Cloud computing works well in India.  Farmers may use the cheapest of cell phones to check the best way of managing their crops through software that is installed on the central government computers.

Any review of what is happening in India will quickly show that we are dealing here with something that will dramatically change the way organizations operate. The article, How Cloud Computing is Changing Corporate Strategy, spells out the huge potential of this technology.

Cloud Computing is Software As A Service

Another term you may hear is Software As A Service, often shortened to SAAS.  No longer do you need to buy costly software and install this on your own hard drive in your laptop or desktop computer.  You connect via the Internet with a computer owned and operated by the SAAS provider which runs the software.  If there are any updates of the software, that is done automatically on those distant servers.  There is no additional cost to the user to be using the latest version at all times.  Any output files you create are held within your secure storage area on the SAAS provider’s server.

What Google Docs Offers

In effect Google Docs gives you an Open Source version of software equivalent to what you might normally buy under the brand name of Microsoft Office.  It allows you to handle documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, images, etc. and the capabilities of the software are growing all the time.

In addition, Google Docs can  hold all files created in what it calls collections, which are equivalent to folders.  There are excellent search facilities for all files in these collections, as you might expect.  You can also upload files if you wish.  This means that you can create on the storage space allotted to your Google account (up to 1 Gb for free) a repository of all the important files that you might normally have scattered around your computer hard disk.

The beauty of this is that you can access your Google Docs account and work on your files from any computer with a browser.  You are not limited to your own desktop or laptop computer.

When working on a file wherever you may be, the file is automatically and frequently saved as you make revisions.  This does not mean that you lose earlier versions of your file since the complete history of all revisions you (or your collaborators) have made is readily to hand.

Sharing Google Docs

There are several advantages in working in Google Docs, rather than working on files held on your own computer’s hard disk.  Here we will discuss the single most important of these: sharing files with collaborators.

Remember the traditional way of working on files where you wish to involve other collaborators.  You prepare a Word file or an Excel file and then send an e-mail with the Word or Excel file as an attachment to all your collaborators.  In rare cases, this may be designated as spam to certain recipients and their spam filters may mean they are unaware that a message and file was sent to them.  If the file is large and they are using Office Outlook or Outlook Express, then this may tie up their computer some time while the file is downloaded.

If all goes well, each collaborator must review what was sent and react without knowing what the other collaborators may be thinking. If each sends back their comments on what is proposed, then these must all be combined.  A combined file must then be resent to all collaborators.

The alternative approach with Google Docs is that you prepare a single file in Google Docs and you provide a web link to that single file in an e-mail message to all your collaborators.  The file can be any of the allowable formats including equivalent files to Word or Excel files.

Each collaborator can be given the right to edit it or to merely view the document.  If they have the right to edit, they can also just add a comment if they wish at some point in the document.  They could also add highlighting to a section of the document, where they feel further thought may be appropriate.

At any given point in time there is only one file ‘in play’.  If two collaborators open the file at the same time, then each will be aware of any amendments the other is doing as they occur.  Any other collaborator who comes along later will have the benefit of seeing what these suggested amendments are.

Next Steps

If this overview has whetted your appetite, then you may wish to read an upcoming article that describes in greater detail the advantages of using Google Docs.

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Google Docs and Charities

Technorati Tags: cloud computing, Google Docs, Open source, Software as a Service

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If you have missed out on cloud computing, then one application of this may be coming to a city near you. Perhaps without realizing it, you may be using a cloud computing application such as Google Docs. Many may also be using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system such as that provided by SalesForce.com which is also on the cloud.

Now you can see some further cloud computing applications when VMware Takes Virtualization on the Road With VMware Express.

VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud, today announced that VMware Express will hit the road this week. VMware Express is a state-of-the-art mobile datacenter, demo lab and briefing center designed to bring desktop virtualization and cloud computing solutions from VMware directly to customers and partners across the United States and Canada. VMware Express Virtualization Tour 2010 will stop in 150 cities and is sponsored by AMD, Cisco, Dell, EMC, MDS Micro, NetApp and Xsigo.

VMware desktop and server virtualization solutions decouple business-critical applications from the underlying hardware and provide unprecedented flexibility and reliability. VMware backup systems are available to ensure complete security and robustness.

The Vsphere brings you your own private cloud with datacenter virtualization. Through this, you can optimize IT service delivery and deliver the highest levels of application service agreements with the lowest total cost per application. You can get up to speed on this by following some of the Vmware vsphere training videos that are available.

To give you a full grounding in all these applications, Vmware training courses can expand your horizons on what is possible. As you might say, the sky’s the limit.

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Cloud Computing Takes To The Road

Technorati Tags: cloud computing, customer relationship management, Google Docs, VMware

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As we all catch our breath after the highly successful Vancouver Winter Olympics, it is natural to think of ways of remembering those exciting days. One way is to buy a memento that will make a lasting souvenir in the years to come.

Authentic souvenirs can be difficult to verify particularly if you are buying at a distance. Any help you can get is very welcome. You might do worse than check out these tips to insure you’re buying authentic Olympic souvenirs.

Thousands are scrambling to get a piece of Olympic history without going to Vancouver. From mittens to pins the race is on to snatch up a piece of the winter games. More than 1,700 Olympic collectibles are currently on eBay and Craigslist.

These range from the ordinary to the obscure. One Australian Olympian sold her luge suit on eBay to raise money for the family of the athlete from Georgia killed during a luge test run.

It is important to get authentication for such souvenirs often with documentation that carries a signature. You can also use a credit card so you can dispute the charge if you do get a fake.

When buying souvenirs from another country, it is always best to buy from sources that the locals use. That means that to buy Australian souvenir gifts, you will always be more confident if you know that you are dealing direct with an Australian souvenir gift store. Authentic souvenirs are the very best way to acquire gifts that will have lasting value. Buying where discriminating Aussies make their purchases is your very best assurance.

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Authentic Souvenirs For Sale

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Now Jon Carson, CEO of online auction platform cMarket, suggests that, as with so many other events, the Internet is changing the way things get done. He suggests that the time for Silent Auctions is over and that Online Auctions Provide Greater Convenience and Fundraising Potential.

Although he acknowledges that live auctions are alive and doing fine, he believes that silent auctions are broken. He cites a number of reasons for this but the biggest killer in his opinion is the lack of “competitive arousal,” a condition that Carson describes as “when things get silly before the auction closes.

Clearly, a live auction still has this last-minute frenzy built in, as bidders pay rapt attention and vie to get their bids in while in direct competition with one another. A silent auction, however, dilutes the frenzy; conversation, entertainment, and food compete for attention with the items up for bid. “The clipboard doesn’t exactly get up and follow you around the room,” Carson says.

The online auction changes this, allowing charities, colleges and universities to tap into their unique resources, target a wide range of bidders, and use tools that eliminate the need to lug items for bidding to and from the event venue.

The Internet removes the barriers of time and geography. This is particularly important for higher education, because alumni are dispersed. With the Internet a fund-raising auction can reach a much larger audience of alumni, including those who could not travel to a silent auction event and those who could not make it because of time constraints and/or scheduling difficulties.

Obviously, the fundraising potential of an event increases dramatically if one can target bidders in several different time zones and walks of life, rather than simply those who can attend an on-site event.

It seems quite clear that as with so many other events and processes, the online version of the auction brings many advantages over silent auctions and even over live auctions and all at a reduced cost. That’s an unbeatable combination.

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Silent Auctions Move Online

Technorati Tags: auction, charity, fundraising, silent auction

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Gab Goldenberg feels that Seth Is Wrong On Paid vs Free Journalism.  I am not clear on his reasons for saying that since I feel that Seth Godin would agree with much of what Gab has written.  For example Gab lists the reasons journalists used to get paid were that:

1. They didn’t mostly leverage the branding that broad distribution got you. Only syndicated columnists typically did well enough to have book deals and speaking gigs that made them any decent money. This was wasted branding, imho.
2. They covered stuff that most people would find it a chore to write up, like municipal politics (Oh no, they’re moving trash day to Sunday!) or that others were not vying to report and for which there was thus no competition (eg Watergate).

He goes on that nowadays, newspapers are mistakenly filling their pages with wire content. This commodifies them. As suggested previously, the path to saving newspapers is more journalism, not less! More research, less rehash!

It all sounds like the same hymn sheet to me.  Perhaps the title was to catch the eye just as that of Seth Godin’s was with Malcolm is wrong.  Seth Godin starts off as follows:

I’ve never written those three words before, but he’s never disagreed with Chris Anderson before, so there you go.  Free is the name of Chris’s new book, and it’s going to be wildly misunderstood and widely argued about.

The Malcolm referred to is Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink, and someone who is always worth listening to. Seth Godin too is a little wide ranging in his diatribe but his final paragraph is the real meat:

Neatness is for historians. For a long time, all the markets for attention-based goods are going to be messy, which means that there are going to be huge opportunities for people (like you?) able to get that most precious asset (our attention) for free. At least for a while.

Indeed I think messy will now describe the Information space for ever.  There is essentially zero cost and zero barriers for anyone who wishes to add to this Tower of Babel. Two factors will dictate whether anyone can make money out of this. 

1. Some (authors) will do it because they can stand out from the crowd and gain a following.
2. Others (search engines) will make money because they can highlight what others may wish to find. 

Unfortunately for so many others who cannot get anyone’s attention, they will waste their sweetness on the desert air.

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Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Buddy, Can You Spare A Dime Or A Minute

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If Phishing is a new term to you then please read this post. Wikipedia will tell you that “phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.” Often it may look like a message from your bank, or it could be Paypal or eBay. The phisher does not know whether you really have an account, but tries everyone in the hope that some may fall from it.

Here is one of the best phishing exploits I have seen. I have now twice received a message apparently from Google within the past three days that read as follows:

When you click on the link, then you see the familiar Google Gmail Welcome page. 

Except that this is not the regular Google page.  If you look up at the address field, you will find the URL is on the domain, .

Checking WhoIs for this page you will find that the administrative contact is the following person.

Undoubtedly if I had keyed in my Gmail username and password, that gentleman would have had access to my Gmail account and could do whatever he wished with it.  Needless to say I immediately changed the password, in case he had already been there.

This is a particularly difficult one to spot, so it is important to be extra vigilant.  Google has some good information about Messages asking for personal information.  It also provides more detailed information about Suspicious results and strange behavior: Phishing attacks in other words.

You can forward such phishing Gmail messages to phishing@google.com and can send the Phishing URL to the Google Phishing team using their Phishing Report.  Google also provides a link to Stopbadware.org, where you can learn more about malware that can infect your computer.

Some phishing attacks are not too difficult to spot, often including spelling mistakes and somewhat curious links.  This particular current Gmail phishing incident is highly professional and the only clue is that URL address when you click on the apparent Google link. 

Please spread the word rapidly.  If you are on Twitter, then please ReTweet the message below.

Undoubtedly many people will be taken in.

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Latest Gmail Phishing Very Tough To Spot – Watch Out

Technorati Tags: Gmail, password, Phishing, Twitter, Uniform Resource Locator, URL

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We are all used to “Sound Bites” – a short few seconds of words which are normally taken out of context to create sensational headlines. Few people realise that speech writers have for years worked on developing speeches to include a couple of perfect “sound bites” for use by others. Of course while some social media is audio based we are much more likely to rely on humble text to create a “social bite”.

What Is A Social Bite? – A social bite is a short piece of text to describe an article, post or idea which is easy to understand and easy to distribute through viral networks. A social bite must still carry the post’s message and goal but in a way that quickly impacts with users. The Perfect Social Bite has two parts, the hook and the line.

The hook are the words within the message – the thing to grab attention. This is doubly important as the hook will have no context once it has left the site. For example a hook is unlikely to reference the site so must be compelling, so that someone would visit the page without knowing where they were going.  The line is simply the url, sometimes this will be the page url but more likely to conserve space a url shortening service would be used. This compounds the need for a good hook as the only other potential reference to the site will be hidden.

Done well, social bites can be very effective, so the Twitter stream now seems to have more social bites than mere status messages as in  ( … off to feed the dog. )

If you are unaware of ReTweeting, then this is the next big buzz item in the Twitter world.

A ReTweet is based upon the word Tweet.  Tweet is slang used in Twitter that means whatever message you post up on Twitter is considered a Tweet.  Hence a ReTweet is a Tweet that is re-copied that begins with either a RT or ReTweet.

Techchrunch wrote a post on how ReTweets are viewed as a proxy for Authority in the Twitter world.  This means that the more Retweets you gain from other Twitter users based on the article you have written or have found and submitted to the Twitter world, will prove that you are an Authoritative expert in Twitter.

Your tweeting efforts therefore should be focused on creating social bites that will receive the maximum retreats.  That is where the choice of URL shortening can be important..  Lee Odden did a fine survey and review of URL shorteners and covered the following URL shorteners:

• cli.gs
• budurl.com
• tinyurl.com
• zi.ma
• bit.ly
• twurl.nl (aka tweetburner)
• is.gd
• snipurl.com (aka Snurl Snipr Sn.im)
• poprl.com
• ad.vu (aka adjix)
• tr.im

He found that cli.gs was the most used and certainly it has many fine features including powerful analytics.  One of its most useful features is that it can be used in a plugin by Joe Dolson (WP to Twitter) that automatically creates a tweet when a WordPress post is published.

One URL shortener that was not included was that created by Digg.  It has received some adverse reactions since it puts the original post within an iFrame that is part of the Digg online presence.

Another one that is just now in beta might appear to be similar in ‘framing’ the original post.  However I go along with Pallab in saying that su.pr from StumbleUpon is Awesome.

Like Digg, su.pr also frames the contents of the target webpage and displays floating toolbars which is what make su.pr so awesome. The sidebar automatically highlights other popular content from your website(s) and encourages the reader to further explore. Not only that, su.pr also provides the option to retweet your message, and share the link on Facebook. Other options include the standard thumbs up and thumbs down buttons and option to stumble through the URL submitter’s favourites.

That ReTweet (RT) option is highly visible in the top right corner and should maximize the chances of getting even more RTs.  If you want to see what it looks like just check out the URL in the following social bite.

StumbleUpon is one of the more effective social media in bringing website visitor traffic, so this URL shortener should be a most useful complement.

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Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

A URL Shortener For Maximum RTs (ReTweets)

Technorati Tags: cli.gs, StumbleUpon, su.pr, Twitter, URL redirection, URL shortener

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That’s not just for the Proud Canadians Top Ten but for everyone who is a Canadian and proud of it. 

You may wish to consult a good review of Zoomit, which gives more details. As it mentions this is a Canadian social bookmarking website that features Canada’s News chosen by patriotic Canadians

David Leonhardt, the founder of Zoomit.ca says, “We have created a free place where Canadians can have their say on Canadian stories about politics, sports, entertainment and other topics. Mr. Leonhardt saw a need for social bookmarking with “Canadian-only” content because Canadian stories can get somewhat buried in the  U.S.-based sites mentioned above.

David Leonhardt asked me via Twitter whether I had any Canadian suggestions, for those who might be made aware of this great review of Zoomit.

Some Twitter Contacts

Since the question came via Twitter, my mind turned naturally to Twitter for the answer since this service seems to be growing by leaps and bounds.  Increasingly people are using Twitter to inform their friends about interesting websites.  It seemed a natural fit.  How could I develop a list of Twitter members that could receive the good news.

Unfortunately Twitter is a very rudimentary service.  Although you can find your friends by name fairly easily, there is no easy way to identify which are Canadians. Some names came quickly to mind and here is a short list of their Twitter identities.

• http://twitter.com/acriley
• http://twitter.com/Brainstormist
• http://twitter.com/JohnChow
• http://twitter.com/jquipp
• http://twitter.com/KulpreetSingh
• http://twitter.com/melanienathan
• http://twitter.com/Miss604
• http://twitter.com/mperron
• http://twitter.com/mynameiskate
• http://twitter.com/RuudHein
• http://twitter.com/theGypsy
• http://twitter.com/XurxoVidal

I have undoubtedly offended many others who might assume that I would not forget them.  I will prepare a more complete list in another post and encourage any other proud Canadians who wish to be mentioned to follow the steps outlined at the end of this post.

Twitter Contacts Google Knows

Although Google seems to be having a difficult time indexing the Twitter output, I decided to use a Google search to try to find more proud Canadians.  The following seems to include more agencies than individuals, but who knows, perhaps they would wish to be using the Zoomit service too.

• http://twitter.com/BookNet_Canada
• http://twitter.com/canadareads
• http://twitter.com/conferenceboard
• http://twitter.com/ctccct
• http://twitter.com/CTVCanadaAM
• http://twitter.com/DellHomesalesCA
• http://twitter.com/EarthHourCanada
• http://twitter.com/farmersalmanac
• http://twitter.com/foodtvdotca
• http://twitter.com/GeanOliveira
• http://twitter.com/hmvcanada
• http://twitter.com/iTunesCanada
• http://twitter.com/itworldca
• http://twitter.com/JadeLive
• http://twitter.com/jeremywright
• http://twitter.com/KenChapman46
• http://twitter.com/markevans
• http://twitter.com/mathewi
• http://twitter.com/melanieMerkosky
• http://twitter.com/michaelgeist
• http://twitter.com/missrogue
• http://twitter.com/nsicanada
• http://twitter.com/StatCan_eng
• http://twitter.com/VancouverSun
• http://twitter.com/whiteribbon
• http://twitter.com/WoofCanada
• http://twitter.com/workcabin

How To Get On The List Of Proud Canadians

For those proud Canadians who would like to be included in the list, I would encourage them to do the following:

1. Make sure your Twitter profile identifies you as a Canadian in some way
2. Tweet the Zoomit Review Article
3. Add a comment to this post, including your Twitter identity.

I then undertake to cover the Twitter identities of at least the first 100 Proud Canadians in a subsequent post.  Even if you do not wish to be so identified, why not make Zoomit part of your world and help Canadian news get the visibility it deserves.

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Zoomit For Proud Canadians

Technorati Tags: diggit, Reddit, Social bookmarking, StumbleUpon, Twitter, zoomit

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This article is specifically written for my readers who call themselves life coaches or business coaches. It’s about the 7 major mistakes I see coaches making online.  Go through each of these and really examine your practice to see if each element is holding you back. In every coach I’ve consulted with at LEAST 2 of these roadblocks were holding them back. I expect the same is true for you if you aren’t at the six figure level at least.

His Road Blocks are:

1. You Are a Generalist
2. You’ve Never Defined Your System
3. Limited to Hour Based Income Only
4. Not Generating Enough Leads
5. Limited Selling Skills
6. Not Recognizing your True Value
7. Doing It All Yourself

His article expands on these topics and is well worth a read.

Checking Google for ‘business coach online’, there are clearly a great number of people who are offering such a service.  How many of them, I wonder, are running into those roadblocks that Terry Dean has identified..

Google’s current number one choice for a business coach blogger is Ken Troyer, an Online Business Coach & Mentor, who is Quietly Working Behind the Scenes.

He posts somewhat rarely so clearly Google must be aware of many of his grateful customers who presumably link to his website.  Since the start of the year he has only two posts, Lost Your Job? on February 16th, 2009 and Meet The Mentors Of The Niche Power Group on January 3rd, 2009.  He clearly is using his own recommendation: Set, and Forget…Get 250 One Way Links Automatically …with your keywords as anchor text. This is the how I got on page one of Google for my keywords.

What exactly does a local business coach do for you?  I believe strongly in the words of Peter Drucker, Help is defined by the recipient.  A good business coach is someone who can complement your own skills and experience.  It is someone with whom you have a mutual relationship of respect and confidence.  If the personal chemistry is good, then you will find that there is a synergy in working together.  The business coach provides a mirror in which you can better see exactly how you are running your business and how it can be strengthened.

A good example of such a business coach is Donna Fontenot, a fellow moderator at Cre8asite Forums. who is very well known in Internet Marketing circles, and who offers eBusiness Coaching & Consulting services   She provides expert assistance, as she says, for anyone wishing to transition from an office cubicle to a successful online ebusiness capable of generating substantial buzz and profit.

Team action with your local business coach is essential. Google’s new enthusiasm for local search gives new opportunities to leave your competitors eating your dust. The coach must be there whenever you need them, although thankfully with mobile phones and the Internet that is much more practical.  He or she will provide help as and when needed.  No more and no less. If you would like to explore how that can work for you, why not send us a message.

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Local Business Coach Online

Technorati Tags: Coach, mentor, online, Peter Drucker

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