The Productive Entrepreneur

Free Seminars from TypePad

Productive entrepreneurs are always on the look out for opportunities to learn new skills or refresh old ones, and the Internet is a great resource for this. There are a number of free teleseminars from reputable companies and fellow entrepreneurs that teach some valuable information. Typepad has a few opportunities coming up in the next few months that you should put on your schedules.

One is a free teleseminar on Blog SEO Basics on April 22 at 2pm Eastern time. Another one I recommend is Business Blogging Best Practices on May 20, also starting at 2pm Eastern.

Even if you have a Web site designer, blogger, or SEO specialist to help you out, you should still be familiar with these topics. It not only helps you understand the importance of SEO and blogging practices to your business, but it also makes you a smart consumer of these services if you don't handle these items on your own.

And, if you're interested in learning more about Typepad for blogging, or for building a Website, try TypePad Basics on April 8 and May 13, and Building Websites on Typepad on May 27th.

What teleseminars have you found helpful?

20 Top Social Media Sites

I'm a huge fan of social media and what it can do for your ability to newtork and drive traffic to your own Web site. If you're looking for the best ways to use social networking to your advantage, check out this blog: http://socialmediablogster.com/?p=409. You'll get a list of the top 20 social networking sites, which will help you determine how you can create a social marketing strategy that works to promote you and your business!

Which social media sites are your favorite?

Who is Twittering?

I've been promoting Twitter as a great tool for networking, and I'm happy to find that there are several other companies that agree with me! About.com's blogger Susan Gunelius started a list of familiar companies and brands that regularly tweet. If you're new to Twitter, and even if you're not, this list will help you find some good examples of how to use Twitter to market your business. And, you can pick up some great business tips and ideas as well!

Click here to access this list.

Who are your favorite companies/brands/people you follow on Twitter?

Go2Web20

The Internet is a truly amazing resource full of helpful an d with plentiful opportunities. You can find tons of legitmate, user friendy, and many times free, applications that can be powerful tools for your business and your productivity. The hard part is finding the good ones! How many times have you run across an interesting and useful program or software product, but don't have time to really investigate it. And then, when you want to find it back, you have no luck?

Well, add this site to your booksmarks - http://go2web20.net/ - it's worth it! This site is an index of nearly every Web 2.0 online applications that exist, along with some other stuff, too. It will help you target exactly what you're looking for. A search for "productivity" shows you results such as Rescue Time, Zoho, ThinkFree, and ActionThis.

What did you search for, and what did you find, that you will use to make each day productive for your business? Drop me a line and let me know!

SearchMe

Here's a cool search tool that can really help you narrow down the sites you want to explore when you're searching the Internet. It's http://www.searchme.com/. It works like a typical search engine, but it produces visual results. So, rather than reading through a short explanation of a site, you get an actual screen shot of the sites that relate to your search. It can really help you be more productive because you can get an immediate picture of whether the site will give you the information you need. There's even a little magifying glass tool to use to enlarge portions of the Website so you can quickly scan a page to see if it's worth visiting the full site.

Give it a try! If you fall in love with it after a few searching, there's a free toolbar you can download to get immediate access when you open your browser.

Track Goals With Twitter

I bet many of you aren't aware that, besides being a great networking tool, Twitter can actually help you track your daily goals. Using this method gives you some public accountability because your followers can see what you're trying to accomplish, and many people need that extra push to keep them motivated throughout the day.

This application is coordinated by http://trackdailygoals.com. Each time you set a goal, post it on Twitter using one of the following hashtags - #dailygoals, #dailygoal, or #tdg. (If you don't know what a hashtag is, you can find out at http://hashtags.org.) The Web site automatically finds those tags and tracks your tweets. At the end of the day, when you have hopefully completed your goals, tweet an update. You can then visit the Trackdailygoals.com, find your Twitter id, and click on it to see your progress. If competition motivates you, you can see the progress of others, too.

Another benefit to posting your goals through Twitter - you present the opportunity for your followers to help you out. If they know what you're hoping to accomplish, they might have some resources they can send your way! Another way to help you gain some productivity throughout the day!

If you try this, give me shout. I'd love to hear how it works for people!

Free Online Marketing Webinars

Here's a great opportunity for those of you looking for some ways to boost your marketing and earn high revenues - and the best part -- it's free!

Infusionsoft is an e-mail marketing company, and they have put together 4 free Webinars for the month of March. Each Tuesday afternoon, you can sit in and pick up a few marketing tips and best practices. The first one is tomorrow! Here are the details:

Mad Traffic
3/10/09 4:00 p.m. EST, 1:00 p.m. PST

• The secrets of power blogging
• SEO strategies to boost your search engine ranking
• What advertising you SHOULD pay for and what to avoid at all costs
• Easy ways to become a social media expert
• And other proven methods for driving mad traffic to your business

Mad Copy
3/17/09 4:00 p.m. EST, 1:00 p.m. PST

• Email subject lines that get opened
• 3 common copy mistakes your prospects hate
• The power of subconscious persuasion
• Effective strategies for building strong relationships with your customers
• And more mad copy skills that close sales and increase revenue

Mad Website
3/24/09 4:00 p.m. EST, 1:00 p.m. PST

• Why your website is critical to your success
• Small changes to your site that lead to large piles of cash
• 10 second marketing and how it affects your profits
• Simple ways to capture qualified leads off your site
• And additional skills you need to create a mad website

Mad Money
3/31/09 4:00 p.m. EST, 1:00 p.m. PST

• How to instantly attract new customers
• Techniques for increasing the profit margin of each sale
• Super successful marketing campaigns that are worth their weight in gold
• How we helped one business double their sales in just 72 days
• And many other ideas for making mad money

Click here to register!

 

Discovering The True Value of Twitter for Business Networking

I realize that with its "social" networking characteristics, it might be hard to convince busy entreprenuers who seek productivity and streamlined processes that Twitter is really a business tool. It's an especially hard obstacle to overcome for those of you with teenage family members who tweet about everything they do in one day.

However, there are tools out there that can give you a better picture of how Twitter is working to promote you and your business. A post today by Darrell Etherinton from Web Work Daily gives you 3 tools that can help you track Twitter's value. So, if you've been tweeting for a while now and wondering if it's worth it, try implementing these tools to get a better picture of business networking efforts.