Imagine Your Reality

The latest episode of Social Media Coach is up. In it I discuss the thorny issue of Return on Investment and social media and field several questions from a caller.

Next week’s show will air at 3pm PST and will focus on Facebook and what kind of profile you may need.

Imagine Your Reality Radio is returning next week with an interview with Overmortal Technology’s President Michael Szul on Thursday at 4:30 Pm. If you own a business and would like to be intervied, please contact me.

Have any questions about social media for your business or how to develop a killer business/marketing plan? Contact me for a free consultation.

Are you networking effectively? How to turn your natural network into your referral system

The stereotype of the networker is a person who has a drink in one hand, business cards in the other, and an elevator speech at the ready, and ready to move on once s/he has gotten your card. But is that what networking really is?

Networking is creating meaningful, and helpful relationships where everyone wins. Forget all the hype about social networking or chambers of commerce or the stereotypical networker. Networking isn’t just about online social networking sites such as twitter and linkedin. And it doesn’t just involve going to a chamber meeting or other type of in-person networking event. Networking involves learning how to create relationships with all the people you know, so that you can help all of them, even as they help you!

In this workshop, you’ll learn how to make networking fun, my process for organizing and matching your connections in your network, and learn to shift your thinking from what you can get for yourself to how you can give and help others and be very successful as a result!

In this class you will learn:

• What networking really is and what it means to give.
• How to recognize a networking opportunity in any conversation.
• to mesh your natural network with your business network and have everyone benefiting from it.
• How to listen and make connections between the people who need something, and the people who can help them.
• How to shift your think from me to we.
• Fun techniques you can use to liven up your networking groups

Date: Friday, September 11 2009

Time: Noon to 2pm

Price: $35, LUNCH included

Location: Bravo! Publications 630 B Avenue Lake Oswego OR 97034

To register please rsvp with Taylor Ellwood at Imagineyourreality or register at the Imagine Your Reality Website.

This weeks radio interview is with Barbara Saunders from SECP.

What’s Your Cause?

While I spend a lot of time in this newsletter focused on writing articles about businesses and how a business can grow, or about writing and how to build a marketing platform, I also think it’s important to sometimes look beyond the professional and focus on the service aspect, specifically what causes you support.

What is your cause? What is a social, environmental, political, or economic issue you believe in that requires some form of activism and participation, in order to create some changes in the world? Having a cause can help you find some clarity for your life and your goals, because the cause provides you perspective outside of yourself, your clients, your family, and friends. It connects you to an issue that touches or effects more than just the people you know, and may sometimes effect more than just people.

I have a few causes that I believe in and focus on. I believe in contributing time to taking care of the environment, whether it’s planting trees and other plants or pulling out invasive species. I believe in teaching people about economic activism through networking, and how that can be used to promote genuine change and collaboration. And just recently I’ve started researching information about African Elephants, because I want to donate some of my finances to help out elephants.

What’s your cause? What do you believe in? What can you do to support your cause?

Upcoming Classes:

How to Use a Blog to Promote Your Business

When: Tuesday, April 14 2009 6-8:30pm

Where: 1562 Se Tacoma St. Portland or 97206

Cost: $75.00

You’ve heard of blogs, online journals where people write about different subjects and can sometimes use them to market your business, but how does it work? In this class, I’ll explain what a blog is, how it can promote your business and how you can automate it.

In this class you will learn:

• What a blog is
• How to set-up a wordpress or blogger blog
• How to use feedburner to automate your blogs
• What blog directory sites to get on to promote your blog
• How to get your blog entries onto Twitter
• How to use blog widgets with your blog
• How to let people subscribe to your blog by email
• How to make your blog professional and tasteful

How to use Linkedin and Biznik to promote your business

When: Tuesday April 21st 2009 6-8:30pm

Where: 1562 Se Tacoma St. Portland or 97206

Cost: $75.00

Linkedin and Biznik are two of the more popular social networking sites available to professionals and entrepreneurs, but often I hear that people aren’t sure how to use these sites or how they will get you clients. I was once even told that someone thought that Linkedin was just another job hunting site. In this class, I clear up the confusion about these sites and show you how to automate them.

You will learn:

• How to set up a profile on Linkedin and Biznik
• How to use the Status update on Linkedin
• How to use the Question and Answer forum on Linkedin
• How to use Biztalk on Biznik
• What the groups feature is and how to use it on Linkedin and Biznik
• Why the recommendation/compliment can be helpful for growing your business.
• Why writing an article/putting on an event can be useful for raising your visibility.
• The protocol for inviting people into your network

How to use Facebook and Twitter

When: Tuesday April 28th 2009 6-8:30pm

Where: 1562 Se Tacoma St. Portland or 97206

Cost: $75

Facebook and Twitter are two social networking sites which are increasingly becoming prominent in the social media world, but how can you use these sites to grow your business, and is it really worth your time? I’ll explain how to use and automate these sites, so you can grow your business and still have time to live your life. In this class you will learn:

• How to setup a profile on facebook and create a fan page for your business.
• How to create an event listing on facebook.
• How to balance between personal and professional on facebook.
• What twitter is and what tools to use to make twitter useful.
• How to set up an rss feed from your blog to twitter via twitter feed.
• How to automate your status updates to different websites so you only have to update through twitter.
• The etiquette for using Twitter

How to use Plaxo, MySpace, and i-list

When: Monday May 4, 2009: 6-8:30pm

Where: 1562 Se Tacoma St. Portland or 97206

Cost: $75

When people hear about MySpace, they may think of teenagers and rock bands, but did you know that Seniors and Baby Boomers are increasingly using it? Learn how to use MySpace to reach that part of your client base, while also learning about Plaxo and how you can automate your presence on it. I-list is a site which allows you to list events on Facebook, Twitter, and other sites, as well as promote those events to your contacts on your email. In this class you will learn:

• Learn how to set up a profile on Plaxo
• Learn how to automate Plaxo
• Learn how to set up a profile on Myspace
• Learn why MySpace is for more than just kids and why you may need to use it to grow your business.
• How to post a blog on MySpace
• How to use i-list to announce your events to craigslist, facebook, gmail, twitter, and other social media sites.
• How to set-up a profile on i-list.

RSVP Taylor at imagineyourreality@gmail.com or 503… to sign up for the class.

Cost per class is 75 USD. Total cost for all four classes = 300 USD. If you sign up for all the classes, when you first RSVP me, I’ll give you a special rate of 250 USD for all four classes.

The latest  radio interview was with Christine Richards of Blackbelt Business Solutions. I’m taking a short break from the radio show, but will have a new interview in the near future.

My latest article on Biznik is about the topic: When does online social networking become too much?

How can I help you Grow your Business?

As a business coach, one of my challenges involves explaining how I can help you grow your business, in a way that provides you a concrete sense of the value I’m bringing to you and your business if you engage my services.

I will do the following for you:

1. I will provide informational and practical classes that help you understand topics such as online social networking, marketing your business, and how to create a message that speaks to your skills and strengths. More importantly you will come away with practical skills you can implement immediately, that will help your business grow sooner than later.

2. I will continue to blog and provide radio shows and videos regularly with insights on how to grow your business, while maintaining your overall life quality.

3. I will introduce you to other people and networking sites, which can help you make connections, and grow your business in the process.

4. I will offer you a free 30 min coaching/consulting session on how to grow your business.

5. I will offer quality freelance editing and writing services that provide you a message which represents you professionally and tastefully.

6. I will show you how to automate your business processes so that you spend more time living your life and less time scrambling for business.

There is a catch though. Once you have this information, you have to be ready to implement it and make it part of your business plan. I can provide support, suggestions, and advice, but you have to actually use it in order to grow your business.

Taylor Ellwood

http://www.imagineyourreality.com

Upcoming Events

I will be offering workshops in the near future on online social networking, blogs, and marketing suggestions for how to grow your business.

Welcome to the New Year. I recently did a teleclass on goal setting for 2009 and when I noticed how much everyone else seemed to be benefiting from it, I thought I’d also apply the exercises to myself. As a coach, it sometimes is easy to get so caught up in helping other people out, that you forget to help yourself out, and yet if I don’t help myself, I can’t be as present or helpful to other people who come to me for help. Below, in one of my other experiments with raising my business I present to you my vision board for 2009.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGHussJcJwU]

My latest Article on How to Automate Your business to live your life can be found on Biznik.

I wish all of you a happy new year. On Thursday January 8th, I’ll be doing an interview with Angela Wilkinson, the intimacy coach.

This week’s radio show is with Marie Daniels from Meoutloud. We will be learning about communication and how to present yourself better. Next week’s radio show will be a half hour segment from myself about the concept of Giving to Get (an apt one to consider as it’s just about time for the holidays).

The Importance of Following Up

Whenever I go to a networking event or do public speaking, I always make it a point to follow up with whoever is new the very evening that I’ve met that person. I don’t wait until morning, because chances are if I wait that long I’ll forget to do it and worse that person may not remember me. Afterall with networking you generally only have a few minutes to make an impression. Even with public speaking, or perhaps especially with public speaking it’s important to follow up while someone has a good impression of you. You want to make your impression extend beyond the time that person met you or interacted with you, for as long as possible.

The other day, I was meeting with a potential client and he remarked to me that the main reason he met with me was because I had followed up with him so quickly. My following up with him told him that I cared enough to want to make a connection, regardless of what the outcome of that connection would be. Accordingly he was willing to meet with me and learn more about my business and how it might help him.

Whether you run a business or have written a book, or do anything else, it’s important to follow up. It’s true that with all the social networking sites and email that people get it can be easy to get overwhelmed. And of course you do need to know when to filter out the extraneous emails which aren’t relevent to your business. However, taking time to follow up is important. It can mean the difference gaining some business or fading into the background and letting someone else do business with your potential client. This is also true for authors. I can’t tell you how many times writing back to someone to answer a question really made that person’s day and likely helped me sell a couple books down the line.

No matter what business you are in, the relationships you create in that business are what makes it successful, or makes it fail. Following up can make a big difference and show people that you are reliable and consistent!

Upcoming Teleclass

Setting your Business Goals for 2009

When: December 22^nd from 5:30 to 6:30

Where: From the Warmth and Holiday Cheer of your own home!

How much: FREE!!

Register for the course at http://www.imagineyourreality.com/schedule.html or call me at 503-869-0163

It’s coming to that time of year when you evaluate your life and the direction its going in. It’s also an excellent time to evaluate and assess your strengths and weaknesses in your business as well as what goals to set for the new year. In this one hour course we will assess your strengths and weaknesses in your business so that you can set realistic goals for the next year.

WHO is this class for: Anyone who is a small business owner or is someone who offers a service and needs a client base to support that service.

WHY do I want to take this class? Because I will help you get clear on your goals for the year ahead, help you create a vision board, and also provide strategies that get you oriented toward growing your business this coming year.

How do I know this class isn’t a waste of my precious time? You’ve got my three free coffees guarantee. I will buy for you and two of your friends a free cup of coffee if you haven’t learned anything new about setting your goals for your business this coming year.

Register today at http://www.imagineyourreality.com/schedule.html

This week’s radio show is with Steven Savage and Bonnie Walling from Fan to Pro. Next Week, I’ll be interviewing Marie Daniels from Meoutloud.

Products and Services

Products and services are the lifeblood of a business. Without one or the other or ideally both you can’t even have a business. A product is some kind of material good that provides something for people who want to use it. A service is an interaction between you and a client, where you perform some action for that client.

As an example when I offer a free half hour strategy session to potential clients, I am offering a service. If, I also offer an e-book on my site, I am offering a product. It’s important to have a good balance between products and services in whatever business you do. While writing and selling an e-book may not generate tons of income, it can still be an excellent residual income generator. At the same time, person to person interaction is priceless precisely because people feel important when someone is interacting with him or her.

A successful business cultivates relationships with people by judiciously offering a good mix of services and products that will meet client needs and also make those clients feel valued. Whether you are a writer offering a workshop or a small business owner writing an article with tips on how to do something, every product and service should have an end goal of either cultivating the relationship you have with existing clients or starting a relationship with a new client.

The other thing to remember about products and services is that it’s important to ask yourself: What can I do to improve my products and services? There is always something you can do to improve what you offer. Be on the lookout for that improvement so that when you can offer it your clients appreciate you for it.

Your services and products are what makes your business succeed, whether its business as a writer or some other business. Make them shine and people will remember you.

Free Teleclass: When you know it’s time to publish: How to let go of your writing

When: Dec 8 5:30-6:30 PM PST
Where: From the warmth and holiday cheer of your own home
Cost: FREE!!
Register at my website or call me at 503-869-0163

Are you one of the many writers who can’t stop revising or editing your book, no matter how good it seems to be? Do you find yourself starting new projects and continually putting off that time when you’ll finish a manuscript and get it ready for publishing? Are you writing a 50,000 word novel each year, but not doing anything with it? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then this workshop is for you. In this workshop I’ll explain how you know when it’s time to let go and send your manuscript off to a publisher.

WHO is this class for: A writer, author, or anyone who wants to learn more about writing or publishing.

WHY do I want to take it: Because in this class, I will explain why it’s important to know when to let go of your writing and take that next step, getting it ready for publishing. I’ll show you how to let go of your writing and also show you how you can determine when your writing is ready to get published.

I’m a published Author and a Managing Non-Fiction Editor for a small press. I know the ins and outs of publishing and writing, and I want to help you get your writing published.

If you’re worried that this will be a waste of your precious time, you’ve got my famous four cups of free coffee guarantee. If you don’t learn something new about writing or publishing I will send you a certificate for free coffee for you and three of your friends.

Register today at my website

Next week I’ll be resuming my radio show with an interview with Steven Savage and Bonnie Raith about Fan to Pro, which is a blog that looks at how to take your fan interests and turn them into professional jobs or businesses.

Each week I’ve been focusing on a different facet of business and what makes that business successful, but for this week I want to focus on something else, which I consider to be just as important, though not as often voiced. I want to focus on Thanksgiving…Not the holiday Thanksgiving, though obviously that lends itself to the theme of this week’s newsletter, but the act of giving thanks.

I’ve said before, as have many others, that the key to marketing is relationships. But stepping away from that business perspective, I’d also say that the key to any relationship of any type is based on appreciation of what each person brings to the relationship. No one likes to be taken for grant or not considered and yet it is very easy to do just that, especially in a culture where the focus is on being an individual as opposed to recognizing the integral relationships of family and community.

Thanksgiving is a day, in the U.S. where we are show our Thanks. People gather with family or friends for one day out of the year to see each other and share time and perhaps genuine thanks for each other. Yet how often do we take time to share that genuine appreciation every day to the people who are important to us?

In business, it’s important to follow up, to show genuine concern and interest in your client, but it’s equally important to show that same concern with the other people in our lives, with family and friends, our children and our parents, and our wife or husband. So today when you celebrate Thanksgiving, but more importantly tomorrow and each day after, take a moment to express how grateful you are to the people in your life.

Happy Thanksgiving. Have a safe holiday and lots of fun.

I’ve focused a lot on Attitude and meaning and other concepts which I feel are core to making a business successful, but now I want to start focusing on some more pragamatic applications which are equally as important when it comes to running a business.

The first aspect to consider is leadership. Whether you are a manager in a company, or a small business owner, or just someone who organizes local events, leadership development can play an important role in how your business grows and in how you develop your other strengths. Leadership can occur in different forms and contexts, but for leadership to work in any context or form, you need to understand what a leader does and does not do.

A leader does not micro-manage. In other words s/he doesn’t watch the every move of the people beneath him/her. If you have someone micro-managing you that person likely doesn’t really know how to lead and is too focused on trying to do your job to do his or her own job.

A leader does not offer destructive criticism. That kind of criticism destroys morale and undermines the efficacy of a business.

A leader does trust the people that works for him or her. S/he will offer just the right amount of information needed for a project and then let him/her work on that project, without constantly monitoring the person. A leader delegates responsibilities to the appropriate people.

A leader offers constructive criticism and good ideas to help the people doing tasks work better and more productively. Constructive criticism doesn’t focus on what’s wrong without offering feedback or a solution. Constructive criticism provides a forum for the expression of everyone so that a solution can be reached.

A leader, in the community, is someone involved in looking at the welfare of the community and asking how s/he can provide a direction to improve that community. The leader may be a public speaker, or the leader of a networking group or something similar. The leader looks for opportunities to give to the community, as well as provide structure for the development of the community.

When running a business, a leader is somebody who is never out of the spotlight. People look to the leader to provide them direction, certainty, and belief in the vision that informs what all of them are doing. A Leader can be vulnerable and honest about that vulnerability, but s/he must also show a willingness to take charge despite that vulnerability.

Being a leader involves knowing the people you work with as well as the people who interact with your company. A leader doesn’t restrict access to him or herself and considers everything carefully. S/he knows that what makes a leader is not just his/her own abilities, but also the will of the people who look to him/her to guide them.

My Interview with Abigail Doherty of Radiant Animals. This was a fascinating interview about the consciousness of animals, contemporary energy work techniques, and how animals can help us be more aware of our effect on the environment.

****** The role of Meaning in Attitude

On Thursday, Imagine Your Reality Radio will be interviewing Abigail Dougherty at 9PM Pacific Standard Time. Tune in to check the show out and call-in.

******

The last couple of newsletters have focused on attitude and how important it is for running a business. Today I’m writing about fear, and how much fear can either motivate us to fail or motivate us to succeed.

When fear is usually written about, it’s written about as a negative experience that causes people to fail. The image we get of fear is someone who lets that fear control him or her. The person shakes in fear, and stops whatever tasks and gives up. It’s certainly true that fear can motivate us to fail and give up. Who hasn’t felt a moment of fear and wondered, “Can I really do this?” When we encounter fear in this way it can certainly be daunting to experience and may cause us to question our ability or sense of self.

However fear can motivate us to succeed. When a person feels fear because s/he doesn’t have a job, that person can be motivated to go out and apply for jobs. When a person feels fear because his/her business isn’t doing as well as s/he wants, that can also motivate the person to get creative about to promote the business.

Fear only becomes an obstacle when let it become an obstacle. We have control over fear, precisely because we do feel it and it is a reaction. When you feel fear, stop yourself from immediately reacting and ask yourself, “How can I use this fear, this emotional energy to my benefit?” Undoubtedly you will think of something that you can put that emotion toward that is healthy and beneficial.

In fact, this principle is true with emotions in general. Every emotion a person feels is a two-edged sword. Even happiness can sometimes result in a negative experience. There is no definite standard for when an emotion is positive or negative. If there is any standard, it is the actions we take, the choices we make, which determine the good or ill an emotion can cause us. So the next time you feel fear, don’t let it stop you in your tracks. Use it to motivate you to success!

Taylor Ellwood
Imagine Your Reality Coaching
503-869-0163
“I help Writers get published and small businesses attract great clients!”