LEONOR HERRERA

When it comes to daily habits that breed success, being organized can’t be understated. Getting your environment organized and keeping it that way will pay off in big ways.

Some people experience issues with being organized isn’t due to having some organizational block, but it’s more about not really understanding that there are better ways to get organized for success than just putting things away and being uncluttered.  

Here are some ways to think about organization so that your entire environment is set up to make success easy for you, whether at home or work.

• Use Your Planner – Whether you use electronic or paper versions, you can’t beat incorporating the habit of using a planner into your daily life to help you be more successful. When you have it all in one place, you can easily look at your days, weeks, months, and years and make the best use of that time. Don’t rely on memory. Write everything down you want to...

Picture yourself in a perfect world, in your perfect office, running your perfect business. What’s your role? Do you have team members or are you still doing everything by yourself? How much money are you making? Do you have products? Do your clients rave about you?

Yes, our perfect worlds are goals certainly worth aiming for but if you’re still a solopreneur who’s doing every job by herself, it’s time to sit and learn the importance of these three words. Understanding and implementing these three little words will alleviate your stress and help grow your business. Truly!

1. Automate

Plenty of admin tasks can be automated nowadays, which frees up time for you to focus on money-making ideas. Set up automatic monthly payments for recurring business expenses. Set up labels and filters for your email inbox. Collect customer data with forms on your website. Create automated email responses when people send in customer service inquiries. Use an autoresponder to...

Many people dream of working for themselves, being their own boss, and having the freedom to only take on clients and projects they love.

What they don’t realize, though, is that there is a huge difference between building a business and being self-employed.

Business owners scale their income. Self-employed people trade dollars for hours

Business owners leverage the skills and talents of others. Self-employed people rely only on their own skills.

Discouraged yet? Don’t be. Every business owner started out self-employed. Just don’t stay there. These tips will help you build a sustainable business instead of just another job.

Don’t Try to Do It All Yourself

Building a sustainable business requires that you leverage the talents and time of others. While it might seem cost-effective to simply do everything yourself—especially in the start-up phase when you likely have more time than money—it’s a path to burnout and stress.

Instead, separate your...

When it comes to leveraging your time, automation is the sharpest tool in your toolbox. It allows you to get more done in less time, and to smoothly move people through your funnel.

For many small business owners, though, the one area that’s often overlooked is your website.

Use Your Blog to Build Your Mailing List

Like any smart business owner, you likely have opt-in forms on your website. They’re in the sidebar or maybe the footer, and you might have a pop-up to capture attention as visitors are about to leave.

But do you have a solid call to action at the end of your blog posts? When a new reader is finished consuming your posts, she’s primed to learn more. Give her the opportunity by offering an opt-in at the end of each post.

Even better, make it a logical next step by creating a related offer for each post. Called a content upgrade, these offers typically consist of a simple checklist or worksheet, and capture attention by providing even more...

Want to know what sets the uber-successful apart from the wannabe entrepreneurs?

It’s not money, or brilliant ideas, or even powerful friends.

All of those things (and more) are nice to have, but they’re not a requirement of success. What is a must-have, though, is a good attitude. Without the proper mindset, you’ll constantly be battling your own brain, and that’s exhausting.

• You’ll allow yourself to believe your ideas are no good
• You’ll remain convinced that you aren’t smart enough
• You’ll be certain that someone else did it (whatever “it” is) better

And before you know it, you’ll have talked yourself right out of launching your new program, asking for a JV partnership, or writing your book. In no time at all, you’ll be back at your day job, working away on someone else’s business because you don’t have the confidence to create your own.

But a simple mindset change can make all the difference.

...

As a freelancer, you may be constantly dealing with sales pitches, proposal writing and price negotiating for each and every job.

Unfortunately, if you don’t win the job, you’ve lost that time and energy with no pay to show for it.

And if you did win the job, chances are the price of your work and the scope of the project had been negotiated down to fit the client’s budget.

Not exactly a win-win.

Does this sound familiar? If you are a freelancer, then you can probably relate to this endless cycle.

It’s the life of a freelancer. And while it’s great being a freelancer and working for yourself, the extra work that can go into getting a client job and negotiating the fee can be exhausting.

The idea of productizing your service could solve this problem and completely transform how you run your freelance business.

So, what exactly is productizing?

Productizing is the concept of removing billable hours and systematizing your processes, all while charging...

The key to building a successful blog is consistency. The best way to have consistency is to formulate an editorial strategy that you can stick to.

Staying consistent is hard in the early stages of a blog when not many people are reading it yet, but it’s key to building the framework for blogging success.

Here are some tips to help you get your editorial strategy started!

Create a plan

Sit down and think about what your overall goals are for your blog. 

Whether you can write one blog post a week or four, schedule into your editorial calendar. Make sure you are being realistic with the amount of time you have to devote to your blog.

It’s better to commit to one article per week and stay consistent then it is to start off with four or five per week only to drop off the calendar completely for several weeks.

Once you determine how many articles you plan to post per week, choose your posting days and stick to it!

Grow your email list

Building an email list full of...

You're ready to get out of the corporate grind and start a business from home. You want to help people and have freedom and flexibility in the process.

You're ready to take the leap and make the dream a reality.

And it can be if you do it correctly. Here are three mistakes to avoid as your start your own business.

1. Find Clients, Not Jobs

When you decide to become a service provider, you need to think like a business-owner, not an employee.  

It’s tempting to take on part-time or freelance “gigs” where the client is dictating your pay and your working hours. By doing that, you have basically traded one job for another.

Whatever you do, set your rates, set your boundaries (aka work hours) and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It’s okay to negotiate, just make sure you are not settling and always stay in control of your decisions.

As tempting as it may be when starting out, be selective about your clients. Only work with people who respect your...

If you’re just starting your blog or online business, then you are probably aware that one of the first things you want to do is build your email list. Your email list is extremely valuable, and you want to take very good care of it.

But first, you need to build it. And that takes consistent action, valuable content aimed at a particular group of people – or niche, and a compelling reason for people to join your list (your opt-in offers).

There are some creative things you can do to jumpstart your list-building efforts besides the typical regular blog post. Here are 10 ideas to help you get your list-building juices flowing.

1. Lead Magnets

Offering a lead magnet with every blog post is a great way to build your list. It requires a little extra work, but the payoff will be huge if your lead magnets are valuable to your readers.

A lead magnet is a giveaway that your readers will have to opt-in to your email list for in order to...

If you are starting a home-based business or trying to grow an existing service-based business, then having a quality website is going to be an important piece of your marketing plan.

These days, a quality website doesn’t have to cost you thousands of dollars. You can start by setting up a WordPress site and choosing a quality theme to showcase your brand.

Keep in mind that your website should be generating leads for you. Putting up a low-quality site with the wrong messaging could hurting your business more than helping it.

Here are the seven elements to help make your website appealing to potential customers.

1. Say what you do and who you do it for, in a clear, concise way

Make sure that what you do is clear on the homepage. For example, “Virtual Assistant Services for Busy Entrepreneurs” is a clear, concise tagline that states exactly what you do and who your ideal client is.

If you offer services to a specific niche, such as writers or real estate agents or...