Crissy Says

  • Crissy Says

    3 Ways To Market Your Biz With Kindle Books

    Are you looking for a way to market your business online, to a whole new audience? Would you like Amazon to help you?

    Here’s an idea: start writing Kindle books!

    Here are some reasons why this is a good idea:

    Use Your Kindle Book As An Introduction To Your Larger Info Product: If you have any workshops or other info products, take a small portion of that content and use it to create a Kindle Book. You can price your Kindle Book low ($1.99 or less), or even offer it for free. This will make it a no-brainer decision for people. At the end of the Kindle Book, invite the readers to purchase your larger info product or workshop. (you can include the link right in the content of the
    Kindle Book)

    Use Kindle Books To Grow Your Email List: Within the first few pages of your Kindle Book, offer a freebie that people can get for signing up for your mailing list. (you can include the URL within the content) Even if someone only downloaded the free sample of your Kindle Book, they will see this offer and it can really help you grow your mailing list!

    Amazon Will Promote You! If you are an Amazon customer, you know that they will send you emails of recommended products. Once you start creating Kindle Books, they will promote them to their customers! This will introduce you to a HUGE audience that may never have found your site otherwise!

    These are just a few of the reasons I think you should start creating Kindle Books.

     

  • Crissy Says

    Earning Money With Affiliate Programs + Blogging

    Blogging is one way that people make their presence known on the Internet.What started out as simple, online journals in the 90s have become a phenomenon! One way to monetize your blog is through affiliate programs.

    This type of program is great for a blog. Affiliate programs are everywhere now. They range from pay-per-click to pay-per-lead to pay-per-sale. It all depends on what you want to explore. With some of the bigger programs, you are almost guaranteed a profit on the brand alone.

    Finding a Suitable Affiliate Program

    All affiliate programs are not created equal. First, choose one that is suitable for the purpose of your blog. You wouldn’t advertise for hair care products if you blog is about gardening. The program product has to fit your needs.

    Check out the commission structure. If you are going to promote this program, you want it to be worth your while. Many have a structure where you can earn money for your leads and also for referrals. Can you move up? A multi-level program gives you incentive to promote harder for the monetary gains.

    Do you believe in the product? Remember, you are accountable to your readers on your blog. Promoting a product simply for the money would betray them and you would lose your audience.

    Try the products you are promoting. Ask for feedback on the program if you have to. You will be more passionate about the product if you like it.

    Go for the top. Why not Amazon or eBay? They offer popular affiliate programs that can help monetize your blog. Well established programs usually have more resources for the affiliates to use to increase their commissions.

    Affiliate Directories

    This is another way to get going with affiliate programs. This is like a marketplace where merchants can list their affiliate opportunities. You can apply for their programs. Here, though, you may be rejected if your blog doesn’t meet certain criteria such as length of time on the Internet.

    Affiliate programs are an easy way to get started in the area of monetizing your blog. You can sign up for many even if your blog is new and get going in minutes.

  • Crissy Says

    Gaining Traffic From Social Media

    Social media is all the rage. Business owners are smart to tap into these tools to drive traffic to their sites, yet many are missing the mark. Here are some tips:

    1. Offer insight about your industry. When you’re online at your social networking site of choice it’s absolutely important to participate, but how you participate can make all the difference. If you’re merely commenting about what you had for dinner and your new car, then you’re not optimizing the site or your time. Instead, make sure to offer insight about your industry. This doesn’t mean every post has to link to an article or post of yours.

    You can link to relevant content on other sites, offer quotes and data. So while it’s great to share your personality on these sites, it’s also important to establish your credibility and authority. Provide relevant and useful information, and people will automatically go to your site to learn more about you and what you have to offer.

    2. Use attention-grabbing headlines, as well as  comments, controversy,  and how-to statements.

    3. Offer giveaways. People still like getting something for free and you can promote your freebies and giveaways on social networking sites. Reports, online courses or tutorials, blueprints, ebooks and video and audio content are all great ways to motivate traffic to your site.

    4. Use special promotions for your unique social media audience. If you have Facebook fans, consider offering them special promotions for signing up and for being a fan. You can do the same thing if you have a twitter account and so on. Consider giving each new friend/follower a coupon via a direct message to them. That coupon will motivate them to at least visit your website and may turn them into a customer or subscriber.

    Be willing to test and track to see what works. You can create a special webpage to drive social networking traffic to. You can even duplicate that page and use a unique URL for each site you participate on. This way you can track your traffic from each post and from each social networking site to see what works. It’s a great way to gain insight to your audience and to ensure you’re optimizing your time and efforts.

  • Crissy Says

    How Can A VA (Virtual Assistant) Help You?

    Once you start an online business, and start meeting other online biz owners on social media, it won’t take long before you hear the term VA or Virtual Assistant.

    VA stands for Virtual Assistant. A VA is someone who helps you with your business.

    They can take on administrative, marketing, accounting – or any other task that you assign. They are called “virtual” because they work from their own home. Many businesses, both home based and non home based, hire VAs.

    There are many reasons to hire a VA. For starters, it frees up your time and allows you to stay on top of the most important aspects of your biz. For example, let’s say that email takes up a huge chunk of your time. Well, give that task to a VA, and you can focus on creating your products. Do you hate marketing? Hire a VA to take care of that and you don’t have to worry about it anymore.

    Giving the tasks that you do not enjoy to a VA can also make you more productive. It’s common for people to procrastinate on ALL of their business tasks when they know they have to do something they don’t enjoy, such as accounting. So, instead of taking care of other stuff, a person will just sit there frozen. When you hand your accounting to a VA, you’ll know it’s being taken care of and you’ll be able to get “un-stuck” and stop procrastinating on the stuff that needs to be done.

    So how do you find a VA? Well, for starters, ask your business friends for recommendations. Whether they are people you know locally or via online, such as Twitter, chances are, they know a good VA, or can lead you to someone who does!

    Other options include sites like UpWork.com, where you can post a job and people can “bid” for it. They will post the amount they are willing to be paid for it. Don’t just go for the lowest price. Really investigate the person and ask for the email addresses of former clients so that you can get a real opinion of their work.

    You do not have to hire someone full time. You can start with just a few hours a month. You’d be amazed at how much a VA can get done in a short amount of time. And you’ll be even more amazed at how much work YOU can get done with a VA on your team!

  • Crissy Says

    Overcoming Time Management Obstacles in Easy Steps

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    Time management can be the single biggest challenge to working from home and being a successful entrepreneur. Learning to overcome these obstacles can be the key to managing and leading a successful business.

    What are time management obstacles and what causes them? Many things cause time management obstacles including:

    1. Perfectionism – Many people use perfectionism as a crutch; a way to stay busy doing what they know how to do and to let the rest slide. For example, you’re a skilled writer but detest accounting, which means you spend days on a sales letter and your books are so messed up you don’t know who owes you what or how much money you’re making or losing.

    2. Procrastination – This happens for a number of reasons. If you’re facing burnout, then you’ll likely feel like avoiding anything related to your business. However, if you’re facing a task you don’t want to do it’s much easier to procrastinate.

    3. An inability to say no – Guess what; not only should you not be doing everything – you can’t! And if you try to, something’s going to give. You’re not going to be able to devote your full attention to your business-related tasks, they’ll suffer and your bottom line will suffer.

    4. Lack of planning – It’s easy to become caught up in tasks like

    * Social networking
    * Email
    * Phone calls
    * Checking stats and website analytics (This is important but you don’t need to obsessively watch the numbers)
    * Surfing the net, reading blogs and industry information

    One quick email check can turn into a full hour of back and forth email correspondence and before you know it, your entire schedule is off for the day. Planning, and sticking to your plan, helps you stay on track.

    To overcome time management obstacles, consider these four steps:

    #1 – What’s stopping you?

    Look at what’s holding you up. Is it procrastination? Perfection? A lack of planning? What’s getting in your way?

    #2 – Prioritize and set goals

    Prioritizing and goal setting are two very important components of time management. Goal setting is easiest to accomplish when you set a goal that is attainable and measurable and when you break it down into smaller manageable goals.

    Creating a task list is another item that, as strange as it may sound, needs to become a scheduled part of your day and your week. You’ll want to spend a bit of time prior to Monday morning creating a list of tasks and goals for the upcoming week. Keep in mind that some days may be set aside as planning days, days off or meeting days.

    #3 – Schedule your day, week and month

    Make sure you have time to accomplish the goals, tasks and priorities you’ve established. Set aside the time you need by planning your days, weeks, and even your month out.

    To make this process easier, and to lighten your load, there are time management tools like a PDA, desktop scheduling software and the good old fashioned paper calendar, which can help you establish and maintain time management success.

    #4 – Get help

    Finally, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, it may be time to seek outside help. Consider hiring someone to manage the tasks that seem to get in the way. Often these are the administrative tasks. You can outsource them to a virtual assistant to lighten the load. You can also hire a housekeeper if daily chores are a distraction from your business. And don’t forget about technology. Many tasks can be automated.

    Overcoming your time management obstacles is easy when you are able to acknowledge what they are and why they exist. From there it’s merely a process of planning how to overcome them and using the right tools to get the job done.

  • Business, Crissy Says

    Should You Add Coaching to Your Business? Here’s all you need.

    Hi. I’m Nicole Dean from Coach Glue and I’m the first of four guest bloggers who will be visiting Crissy’s home here in the next month.

    Today I want to talk about why you want to add Coaching to your business and what types of entrepreneurs should think about adding this income stream today.

    First, why coaching?

    1. It’s a high-ticket item.

    You can charge hundreds or thousands of dollars, depending on how much time you want to invest and your level of credibility.

    2. It’s high-impact. 

    You can change lives very quickly with coaching. It’s very rewarding.

    3. It’s flexible (that’s a big one for me).

    You can create the coaching program that works for you when you want to work.

    Design your coaching program however you want. Maybe you love Skype calls, or you just want to do phone calls while you’re driving or in the car while you’re in car line waiting to pick up your kids.

    Perhaps you don’t want to get on the phone at all so you just offer email coaching.

    Or maybe you want to do face to face coaching.

    You can even decide if you have to schedule the calls or if you want to do Voxer coaching so you can batch answer your clients’ questions when YOU want to.

    You choose – it’s one of the most flexible online businesses out there.

    4. It’s easy to get started.

    You don’t need much to get started. In fact, you only need three things.

    1. Your brain.
    2. A paypal or Stripe account
    3. This “Coaching Kit” which is free!

    So, who should consider adding a coaching offer?

    1. Service Providers.

    If you are a Virtual Assistant, Web Designer, Video Producer, Social Media Manager, or anyone with a specialty that people are already paying for, you know enough in order to add a Coaching offer to your site. Try it. It’ll take 5 minutes and you never know who will say “Heck yes!” to that.

    2. Bloggers.

    If you’re blogging and have a following, no matter what niche you’re in, there are others out there like you who want to “pick your brain” to get your help. If they’re paying enough, let them pick away.

    3. Influencers.

    If you’re an influencer and have a following on social media that’s larger or more interactive than most, then you can bet that others wish they could ask you questions about how you did it.

    4. Speakers.

    You’ve already got a platform and know how to rock it. Start offering a coaching program from stage and watch people snap it up!

    5. Authors.

    Whether you write cookbooks, pet training books, or even trashy novels (which I love), there are people out there who would love to pay you to answer their questions.

    So why not?

    You’ve got your brain. (Check!)
    You’ve got a PayPal or Stripe account. (Check!)
    You’ve got a following. (Check! Or you’re working on it!)

    The only thing you’re missing is the package of forms to start your business.

    Grab 17 Free Forms to Start and Streamline your Business right here. 

    Hugs and high fives,
    Nicole Dean, Coach Glue

  • Crissy Says

    De-Clutter Your Website & Blog

    When you think of de-cluttering, you probably think of cleaning the clutter in your home — but let’s talk about taking care of some digital clutter. Specifically – let’s talk about your website and blog!  Those things need to get freshened up, too! Here are a few things to consider:

    Links – Linking to other sites when you write posts, create a blog roll, etc are very helpful to your reader. But those links can become broken after time, as pages on other sites get moved or deleted. Checking your links every so often and making sure they are in working order is a good thing to do, and it can also make life easier for your readers. If you use WordPress, this plugin can check your links for you.

    About Me – When is the last time you updated your “about me” page? Go read through it — if it says you are a single woman living in Paris, and since then, you’ve gotten married, had three kids and settled down in Buffalo, it’s time to change your bio! (okay, okay – you probably haven’t been through that many changes, but you get the point)

    Press – Again, this is a page that should be updated! You want the public to view all of your latest press, right? So if you haven’t posted the links to your five most recent interviews, reviews, etc, now is the time to do so!

    Header – Putting up a new header on your site is like going to the doctor for one of those non-invasive mini-peels or laser treatments. It will give a whole new look to your face without requiring any downtime.

    Colors – Look at your site objectively… Are the colors pleasant and complementary? Or are they so garish they make you cross-eyed? So bland that everything blends together? Be honest! If they are less than awesome, it’s time to change ’em.

    Theme  – If you are using a theme that no longer appeals to you or no longer meets your needs, it could be time to change it. Yes -this procedure can be a bit more invasive than changing your header, but you can have a new theme installed and customized with your colors, choice of font, etc in less than a week. That’s really not so bad, now is it?

     

     

  • Crissy Says

    Tips For Using HARO To Get Great Press Coverage

    How would you like to get your biz featured in the national press? It’s a pretty awesome feeling! And of course, the more people who know your business exists, the better!

    What’s the secret? HARO! (It stands for “help a reporter out”)

    This is a service that will send you 3 emails per day, Monday – Friday, with queries from reporters, producers, bloggers, and other people in the media, looking for people to interview.

    You can sign up free here.

    Here are a few tips on using HARO:

    1) Respond as quickly as possible. There are tens of thousands of HARO users, so if you see a query that that interests you, it’s important to act quickly. Waiting until later to respond could cost you a great opportunity.

    2) Read queries carefully before responding. Sometimes the requester asks for specific information. He will likely receive numerous responses, and those that lack the information he needs will probably be weeded out first.

    3) Resist the urge to tell your life story. Reporters aren’t usually looking for a full bio. Stick to the information that is specifically requested in your response. If they want to know more, they will ask.

     

  • Crissy Says

    Why You Should Create A Quiz (And An Easy Way To Do It)

    Have you ever thought about creating a quiz? Quizzes are AWESOME for your business! I’m sure you’ve seen quizzes on Facebook. People love taking them, and sharing their results.

    (Would Buzzfeed even be Buzzfeed, without quizzes?)

    Here are some reasons that you should consider creating a quiz:

    Quizzes Can Help You Grow Your Email List

    Depending on the quiz builder you choose, you may have the option of integrating the quiz with your email autoresponder service (ConvertKit, MailChimp, Drip, etc).

    When people complete the quiz, they can choose to enter in their email to get detailed results. Since by the end of taking the quiz, people WANT to know their results, and that is why quizzes can have a high coversion rate.

    Quizzes Can Be The Beginning Of An Automated Sales Funnel 

    Depending on your autoresponder service, you may be able to assign tags and automations to your new subscribers. You can send them to an email sequence that you choose, based on their result, and send them targeted, special offers. Your quiz serves as the beginning of a sales funnel. How awesome is that?

    Quizzes Can Help You Get Traffic To Your Site 

    As I mentioned above (and as you’ve seen on Facebook), people love to share the results of the quizzes that they’ve taken. When you see your friend took a quiz and got the results they did, it’s only natural to be curious about the results you would get.

    Quizzes go viral for a reason (and this is why Buzzfeed gets so much traffic).

    If you embed the quiz on your site, it’s easy to see how traffic to your site will increase, once people start sharing the link to your quiz.

    I’ve been wanting to create quizzes for a long time.

    I have purchased two quiz builder plugins in the past, including Thrive Quiz Builder and Simple Quiz. I didn’t end up using them, though. Thrive Quiz Builder only offered a few styles, and I just didn’t think they were very good looking. Simple Quiz was anything but simple. That was so confusing to try and create a quiz, I just gave up (and I’m tech savvy!).

    I have looked into even more quiz builder plugins for WordPress, and other quiz building software. There was always a catch. Some didn’t allow you to collect leads, but only in a spreadsheet. There wasn’t a way to integrate your autoresponder, which really defeats the purpose of using a quiz as the beginning of an automated sales funnel. The ones that did allow you to integrate with your autoresponder were pretty expensive.

    After looking, and looking, and doing lots of research, I decided to try Interact.

    The process of setting up a quiz was really easy.

    I took A LOT of screenshots while I set up my quiz, so you could see what it looked like.

    This is what I saw  when I logged in

    This was my first time trying Interact, so I checked the “yes” option

    Interact Walks You Through Setting Up Your Quiz

    I chose to use one of the templates, as this was my first time trying Interact

    You get to select what industry / industries you’re in

    I chose blogging, business, coaching, and marketing. There were LOTS of choices, much more than pictured in this screenshot

    Next, you decide which type of quiz you want to create

    I chose to create a Personality Quiz

    Interact showed me quite a few quiz templates to select from

    I chose the What Kind Of Blogger Are You template.

    I was able to edit everything. The template gives you a great start, and you are able to add your personality into it.

    Now, it’s time to create your quiz!

    This is where the fun really starts.

    With Interact, you can edit all aspects of your quiz.

    I didn’t change too much under “Branding & Styling.” I liked the background color, the font color, and the font that my quiz template used. I did change the button to reflect my brand’s colors, though.

    The quiz template had default pictures for the quiz cover and results. I changed those by uploading my own pictures.

    The questions were easy to edit 

    You can choose to have questions with text options, or you can use images to represent the answer options. You can easily choose by picking “Answer Type” on the top left. One question in your quiz have have text answers and the other can have images. You aren’t limited to making your quiz one or the other.

    I was creating a quiz titled Which Social Network Are You?, so I added a question about selfies. You can add any questions you like for your quiz.

    Then, you add the correlations

    If you look at the previous screenshot, you can see “Edit Result Correlations” in the top right of the screen.  When you click on it, you see the above screenshot.

    You are able to quickly assign which quiz result is associated with that question’s answer choices.

    Remember, my quiz was about matching someone’s personality to a social network. This was my question about whether someone liked taking selfies. If they chose “yes,” I assigned that to the Instagram result. If the person taking the quiz chooses “no,” that option is associated with the Facebook and Twitter results.

    You can add integrations, call to action buttons, and set up social sharing

    Interact has different plans, with different features and pricing. Depending on the plan you choose, you may be able to add an integration with your autoresponder service. This will allow you to collect email addresses and, depending on your autoresponder service, assign tags to your new subscribers. This allows you to send them special, targeted offers.

    You can also set up social sharing buttons.

    Next, you can publish and choose how to promote your quiz

    Interact offers a lot of options to help you promote your quiz.

    I chose to embed my quiz on a page on my website.

    Click Here To See What My Quiz Looks Like (and take the quiz to find out which social network you are!)

    I have been testing and researching quiz plugins and tools for a while.

    Interact was the easiest quiz building tool I’ve used.

    It was very intuitive to use, and I liked that you could start out with a template (it’s always easier to get started when you have a template to work with), but also edit everything about the template, to get a look that is customized to your personality and brand.

    If you are looking to get started with using quizzes to grow your email list, create sales funnels, or get more traffic to your site, I definitely recommend Interact.

    That’s my affiliate link – if you click on that link and decided to try them out, I’ll earn a small commission. Thank you in advance!