When you have effective time management skills in your business and your life, you create more positive results in a shorter time. Time is money and particularly in home business, people struggle with time management and often feel overwhelmed. The outcome is an inefficient and ineffective business, leading to lower income and less satisfaction than is possible.

Time management is the most common nemesis of home business owners. When you work in an office setting there is a predetermined structure. At home, you make the rules. It’s lovely to work all days in your PJ’s, eating peanut butter from the jar while you sit at your computer. But unless you combine that with proven time management exercises and make the effort to develop effective time management skills, your lovely days at home will be spent spinning your proverbial wheels.

Working at home requires that you focus deeply on tasks that are going to move your business to where you want it to be. You need to eliminate distractions, create action plans, develop excellent boundaries and steer clear of “busy work”, ie: thinking that twitter, fb and returning emails is true creative “work”.

The master of Time Management is my friend and colleague Michael Wilson, of Best-Marketing-Strategies. Mike and I felt compelled to offer a time management presentation as part of our Accelerating Success Webinar series. We know that time management is a big stone in the road for many. We know that there are solutions that are relatively easy to put into place and will blast you business forward. We invite you to join us at Accelerating Success for the Time Management Presentation. Just click on the link below and grab your seat for this powerful class, which begins on July 28th!

Accelerating Success Webinar – Time Management Presentation

How does this translate to your blog, the center piece of your online marketing efforts?

When you develop relationships with people offline, you do so with a give and take sharing of information. The connection builds through the sharing of value, ideas, experiences. Your blog allows you do the same thing online. Relationships are developed with your readers and if you offer them delightful tidbits that feed their needs and their soul, they will come back again and again to hear what you have to say.

Learning how to be a good blogger is crucial to a successful online presence. You can be excellent at PPC (pay per click) and other forms of advertising, but you lack an online home if you don’t have a blog. People want to know about you. They want to feel good about the person they are doing business with.

Often I’ve clicked on a PPC ad, and landed on someone’s opt-in page. What do I do then? I search around to try and find out who owns and page. I google them and see who they are and what is the essence of their message. If I like what I see, I go back to the initial landing page and opt-in. If I don’t find a blog where I can get a feel for the person, chances are I won’t opt-in to their list.

You may have heard me talk about my friend Ann Sieg. Of all the strong leaders in the online network marketing world, Ann stands out for many reasons. She is a mature woman who has raised her children with many of the same values that I bring to my family. She is sincere and steadfast in her convictions. And she is an intelligent and powerful business woman. I always enjoy our conversations, whether in person or on the phone.

I like this video that Ann just sent me about the power of blogging. I think you’ll like it too.

Click here now to play video

Today I returned from five days of traveling with my daughter. We traded the still cool air of the high Rocky Mountains for almost 100 degree summer heat in mid-Texas. It was a good trade for those of us tired of still wearing sweatshirts and fleece. The trip, being of an intense family variety, left no time for computers or writing. The preparation left me behind in setting up my daily strategies to be sent out in my absence.

Do I feel bad? Yes. I even struggled for a time with working on the computer in the hotel lobby, rather than engaging in the here and now. In the end, I chose to be present. 100% fully present. And that, is the realest daily success strategy I can share with you.

In our busy multitasking world, it has become a rare thing indeed to stay focused on the details of each and every moment. That’s what I did on this trip. I stayed in the present; stayed in the moment. It reminded me what a gift it is to give oneself fully to the events and emotions inherent in each minute of the day. It reminded me that the same focus is so crucial in our business life, as well as our personal.

The REALEST daily success strategy? Be mindful in all that you do. Give attention the those you are with. Bring your entire self with you, when you engage with others.

This is a powerful gathering of people, all focused on developing, teaching and training others in how to grow a strong, substantial network marketing business by focusing on online network marketing. There’s nothing negative about this. In fact, it will be the event of the years in terms of education and connection.

Katie Freiling is the ONLY woman in the entire line-up of presenters. And so here is my thought and my challenge. As the No Excuses Summit takes its place as a top notch gathering and becomes (hopefully) a yearly if not bi-yearly event, I want to challenge top women in the industry to get on that stage…or we create our own!!

I know and you know that there are women just kicking it in the industry. They are teaching and building massive downlines. They’ve developed courses, webinars, ebooks and more. The men running the No Excuses Summit are not the only ones who know how to do this stuff and do it really well. Women in the Internetwork Marketing industry need to stand up and be counted and recognized for the value they contribute and the unique, powerful manner in which they do business.

Commit now to being on stage one year from today! Stand up and be counted. Write it below in the comments section. (BTW–it does not have to be the No Excuses Summit..in fact…a Summit for Women only is in the works…but that’s still a secret….Hhhmmm…)

Involving oneself in network marketing means opening ones mind to possibilities that before were outside any realm of thought. You cannot actively and passionately pursue network marketing success without being forced to confront a variety of structures that once were taken at face value and now are questioned from every angle. In doing so, your mind re-examines paradigms, people and presumptions.

Anytime the human mind is motivated or instigated to rethink previously held ideas and beliefs, everything begins to change. One cannot explore their world view without that viewpoint shifting in the process. As one of the most egalitarian business structures in capitalistic society, network marketing is dangerous for those who previously relied on excuses and a victim mentality. There is no place to place the blame, if the road to financial freedom is based 100% on effort and determination.

The caveat of course is that blame can be placed on inadequate products, unfair compensation programs or greedy corporate owners. And yes, that does happen in this industry as it does in many. But most of the time, lack of success and the reasons fall squarely on the shoulders of the individual who didn’t take the action, make the sacrifices and drive relentlessly towards the goal. And this is where the dangers of network marketing truly are revealed. Because money is made based on amount of hard work, those who are used to getting paid just for showing up are lost. People who believe the “join now and we’ll build under you” headlines are rudely awakened from their dream state, when no instant money shows up on their doorstep. The danger of network marketing for many Americans is that doing well financially in this industry requires that one face the truth of a nationwide business model and a worn out economic paradigm that is no longer working for the majority.

There are other dangers as well, as evidenced by the large bruise from the car door. Network marketing can become consuming because it is fun! Talking to people from all over the country and the world; creating business relationships along with tools and trainings; motivating others to reach for their dream and then giving them the means with which to do it, can become intoxicating. In that mindset, it becomes easy to to miss details that are not related to the spinning, rapidly expanding world of ones network marketing organization. Thus, one has to consciously be aware and reign in those thoughts so as to remain both safe and engaged in the world outside of business. Whether you are an MLM professional or this is your first year in network marketing, what a wonderful problem to have.

In the world of entrepreneurial ventures, there are many women but far more men. In the specific arenas of internet marketing and inter – network marketing most of the people you see at the top are men. What is that about? Are men more capable than women in this area?

I think think not. In fact in this article I am going to make the case that women in general have a better grasp on the fundamental skill sets that are needed by entrepreneurs, than they are generally given credit for.

Again from Wikipedia: “Entrepreneurs choose a level of personal, professional or financial risk to pursue opportunity.

Entrepreneurs tend to identify a market opportunity and exploit it by organizing their resources effectively to accomplish an outcome that changes existing interactions within a given sector.”

My hypothesis is that men are more visibly particularly in the internet entrepreneur world due to a number of factors. The most visible internet marketing men dove into the industry in their 20’s and have spent countless hours obsessively immersed in the mind-set and technological minutia of online marketing. Many (though not all) of those that are most familiar to many, were able to do this because their other responsibilities at the time were not great. Specifically no families and no children to care for on a daily basis. Those who did have children and families also had a wife.

I am not trying to be sexist here. There is a reality that is just fact. But here is the flip side. The fortitude, multitasking abilities and communication skills that are necessary to succeed at the highest levels of entrepreneurship and to sustain it for the long-term, are those that women are particularly well suited for.

Sticking with the world of online marketing in the network marketing arena, women have what it takes to be on top of this world. Technological knowledge is important, but more important is the ability to interact well with others. Network marketing is a people business and many people in the industry need and benefit from an understanding mentor to hear their needs and respond with a mixture of compassion and action oriented education. In my experience with my team, women grasp this manner of relating more easily than men. The men I work with want to focus on the hard skills, while the women enjoy the casual conversations and the consultative method of developing relationships.

Women first entering the network marketing and internet marketing world, might be overwhelmed by the prevalence of men at the very top levels and wonder if in fact they have what it takes. In my humble opinion, women have what it takes in multiples. Throughout history, women have been the strength, the rock, the person who held the family together through great hardship and trials. Women are uniquely qualified to create a vision and then see it through every step of the way, from birth to maturity. Isn’t that what we do as mother’s throughout our lives?

In the definition above, entrepreneurs succeed “by organizing their resources effectively to accomplish an outcome”. As women and mothers our lives are spent organizing resources..many resources for many people all at one time. We have the ability to herd 4 children into the car all equipped with lunches, water and sunscreen within just a few minutes, all while holding a crying baby and cleaning dirt off the cat’s feet. Some men can do this as well – of course they can – but many (like my husband) prefer to steer clear of that type of situation and arrive after everyone is buckled in and happy.

Women do not need to posture and be the “alpha” in the same way as men. The competitiveness is not as much in our nature, thus making powerful collaborative efforts, that much more productive and sustainable. Working collaboratively in this 21st century economy is the keynote to success. Do women entrepreneurs have what it takes? Absolutely!!

Share your powerful woman story in the comments below!!

Keywords are the things that people search for when they are looking for a particular type of information. That’s the simple part. The harder part is that simple keywords have an incredible amount of competition. Large companies and powerful bloggers with huge followings have grabbed onto most of the more simple keywords and the little guy or gal does not stand a chance in that competition. But do not despair. There is hope.

Start with a list of words and phrases that most accurately describes what your content is about. Play around with different versions of the same idea, for instance: work at home moms, moms working at home, how moms work at home, be a work at home, how to be a work at home mom, etc…. I like to go ahead and “google’ the different variations just to see what my competition looks like. I also pull up the pages that come up in the top five or six slots and take a good look at the other keywords that they have chosen. You do this by clicking on “view” above your browser bar and scrolling down to “page source”. I add these words to my list if they make sense.

Now the real fun begins. Start with Googles free keyword tool (www.googlekeywordtool.com). Then start putting the words and phrases from your list into the search box and see what other words Google offers. If you check in at www.google.com/sktool you will also be about to see how many searches each word gets per month and how big the competition. What you are now doing is called keywork research and it is the basis for any good search engine optimized campaign.

In addition to Google, there are other free keyword search tools and many that you pay for. Wordtracker has a free version, but you may quickly get frustrated unless you upgrade. Because keyword research is a combination of art and science, and because it takes time..a lot of time..many skimp over this most important step.

If that’s you, you may be struggling to have your blog posts or websites actually “found” in a search, and thus you are not benefiting form the traffic that you could be getting. I found a secret weapon for my most important projects that I use only selectively. There is a phenomenal service available from the guys over at Social Media Science that will do very in depth keyword research for you, including domain name suggestions and an analysis of your competition. Because of the cost involve, I save this for very special and specifit projects. But by using the service occasionally, I have also be able to learn from them and use their results and a guideline for the projects I research on my own.

Make friends with keywords and you will find all you marketing efforts will pay off much more easily. Increase your understanding of short tailed and long tailed keywords to expand your options and your reach. Some my best SEO results have come from using long-tailed keywords, which are a bit harder to research but also have much less competition. Good luck and don’t hesitate to contact with questions.

Recently I had that experience.

You probably are aware that
we all view the world through our
own filter. That means that our
reality is really a mixture of fact
and perception.

I have been holding back for many
months now on some actions that
needs to be taken to grow my business
at the speed that I want.

Many years of my life were spent as a
professional student. One Bachelor’s Degree
and two Master’s Degrees to my name
totalling 8 years of higher education after
high school.

I was much younger then (weren’t we all?!)
And I played the grade game very well,
earning a 3.8 and a 4.0 average respectively
in my two graduate programs.
Little Miss perfectionist.

Fast forward 25 years.
They say in internet and network
marketing, that anything worth doing
is worth doing poorly.

In other words..just get it out
there and worry about making
better as you go along.

So back to my big judgement
error…

I was blessed this week to be
the recipient of 40 minutes of
private coaching with a one of the
top internet marketers in the country.
I won the session through sheer tenacity.

So Mr. X Marketer took my world
view and turned it on it’s head.

I’ve been holding back from
shouting from the mountain tops.

I’ve been waiting to announce
to the world.

I’ve been postponing taking
MASSIVE ACTION with a
company that I partially OWN
because…..

The company website is still
under construction.

That’s it.

A website that is not up to
my slightly snobby perfectionist
ideals has prevented me
from going out and fully engaging
in the activities that will substantially
grow my business.

Do you want to know
what Mr. X Marketer told me?

He said that most people will not
care as much as I think they will.

That most people will understand
the value of being at the birth
of a company and will see the
unfinished corporate site as
just a small thing..and not a
concern or a worry.

It is MY filter, MY perfectionism
that was clouding my judgment
of the entire situation.

The advice from Mr. X Marketer…
“Go out and start shouting
from the highest peaks!
Hold back nothing as you
tell the world about your
passion. Make sure everyone
knows your story..and why
you’ve spent 18 months
developing this particular
company from SCRATCH!

Stop worrying about this one
small thing and start taking
MASSIVE DAILY ACTION.
The company, product and the
commission structure are so
authentic and unique…you
need to share this NOW!”

The beautiful thing about a mistake
like this is that it is immediately
correctable.

I have changed my mind-set -
changed my perception.

All of a sudden my business
plan that has been a bit fuzzy,
came into very sharp focus.

That’s it.
Unstuck.

2 -3 new business
partners per month is
about to jump to 3-5
new business partners
per week, just by changing
my focus and getting out
of my own way.

PS…I’m liking what Mike Dillard has just
created. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look
at this 4 minute video. The guy is a master
at helping people get unstuck.
http://bit.ly/overloadfix

I’m not saying that it was ever easy. Like any business done right and well, network marketing is not easy. What I am saying is that it was simple. Simple means that it was lacking in complexity. The actions needed were clearly defined and the order in which they needed to occur were also well delineated.

Let me tell you a story and you tell me if this sounds familiar.

Mary decides she wants a home business. She goes to the internet and types in “home business opportunity”. What comes up is over 52,400,000 entries on a Google search. If you are the lucky marketer of the day, one of the entries in the top 20 out of 52 million, is yours.

Mary finds your page and clicks through, landing on your capture page. She’s intrigued and curious. Even though she’s a bit nervous about giving out any personal information, she puts her name and email into the little box, looking forward to receiving a free report on how to start a successful home business.

You happen to be pretty good at follow through and when you receive Mary’s name in your auto responder you pick up the phone and call her. She’s excited to hear from you and you talk for 20 minutes. Mary agrees to look at some information about your network marketing company. To make a long story short, after a few more calls and emails, she joins your opportunity.

Now Mary is excited to learn how to do this business. In fact, she too wants to develop leads like you did, by being on the first page of Google and having people opt-in. Mary has little knowledge of the internet besides how to check her email. Here’s where it starts to get fuzzy….

You know that Mary has a lot to learn before she can generate leads on her own online. Luckily for her, you offer a coaching club and a lead co-op for your team. But you also know that Mary needs to have some quick success and that means getting in front of live prospects as soon as possible.

Mary’s education about how to build her network marketing business is a mixture of traditional offline prospecting methods combined with exposure as to how to marketing online. Mary is doing her own research and self-educating as well, and begins buying into programs that sound great.

Become the Hunted, Not the Hunter; How Three Friends Went From $0 to over $2 Million in One Year by Generating Our Own Leads; The Renegade Network Marketer.

Within six months Mary has become the victim of Fuzzy Thinking. Her network marketing business is stuck. She is unclear as how to best spend her time and thus much of her energy is inefficiently spent trying to master lead generation through social media, online branding and large quantities of online content creation. Occasionally Mary calls a prospect she met at the mall or the post office, and just as occasionally they are interested in learning more. She is barely covering her monthly qualifications and her team is not growing.

It is a well known fact that most of the top successful network marketers personally speak to at least 20 NEW prospects per week. Many speak to over 100. It takes awhile to be generating those kinds of numbers online. Yet Fuzzy Thinking keeps you from taking the necessary action to make these numbers a reality.

Fuzzy Thinking keeps you stuck. Fuzzy Thinking makes it very difficult to know what your action plan should be each and every day when you wake up. Network marketing used to quite simple. You knew what had to be done each and every day.

Well here is secret….

You still know what needs to be done each and every day. Now you just need to unwind yourself from the haze of Fuzzy Thinking. Are you generating large numbers of leads from your online effort? If not, you need to do two things today!

1. You need to find a way to talk to at least 20 new people each and every week. If you don’t know how to do this TODAY, get help immediately from your upline or a coach.

2. You need to work with your upline or a consultant to steamline your online marketing plan, so that you are both efficient and effective.

A well structured marketing system can be addressed in just a few well organized hours every day.

But right now you need to get unstuck in your network marketing business, and the easiest way to do that is to step back…assess what is working and what is not…get some help in areas that you are struggling…and recommit to interacting with at least 20 real live people who are open to learning about your business opportunity, each and every week.

There are some piece that
are missing…some expected
outcomes that are not occuring,

I remember once, back in 2003
sitting in the living room on
Christmas Eve with a 12 page
instruction manual and many metal
pieces, screws, washers, etc…

The end result was supposed to
be a tricycle and all the pieces
needed to become a tricycle
in the next hour…

As any good instruction follower
I read every page; every step; sorted
all the parts and organized them.

I got all the tools from the garage
and laid those out as well.

OK, I’m ready now.
Starting at step one in the instruction
manual, I began putting the tricycle
together.

Base, body, axles, wheels, hubs..
This was not so hard
And then…uh oh.

It was almost done,
It looked like a tricycle,
But it didn’t move.

The front wheel spun
freely but the back wheels were
frozen. What happened?

Often people’s online
marketing system is very
much like my tricycle

Do you have all the
pieces in place, looking
just like the picture…

But it’s not “going”?

The tendency at this point
is to do more..more
blog posts, more tweeting,
more articles…more of the
same, hoping that more
is the answer.

I did that something similar
to that with the tricycle.

I reread, redid, re-tightened.

In the end, it was good that my
daughter was young enough to
not notice that the pretty
red trike didn’t move
on Christmas morning.

She loved climbing on and off
and ringing the little bell.

At the bike shop, the tech
quickly diagnosed problem
in the hubs, remedied it
and we were rollin’!

To do so, he had to go
back to the beginning
and re-access the situation.

In you marketing,
if you are not getting
the results that you expect
and desire, my recommendation
is to stop.

Stop. More ineffective
action will get you more
of the same..nothing.

This is the point where
you need to step back
and then find a way to look
at your system with new
eyes and new insights.

Whether you hire a consultant
to help you do this…or team
up with a friend to look over
each others plans…you need
a new set of eyes to move
you out of stuck and into
results.

Do it today.

Find a partner and
review what you’ve got.

The fix might be glaringly
obvious, just like the hub
was to the bike mechanic.

First in a series of online
marketing solutions.
Before you click off,
get your name in the
Updates Box on the right
side of this page so you
don’t miss the piece
of information that
could catapult you
to network marketing
stardom!