Either way, I’m sharing my favorite articles of 2010. This isn’t complete and I know I’m missing a few, but here they are:

Etsy – Etsy has a newsletter that publishes GREAT articles about quitting your day job, being an entrepreneur, etc. I have been a subscriber for a while now and I’ve been very pleased by what they dish out. They scour the web looking for interesting blogs that will help inspire their sellers and community. I find the range very helpful. Here are a few that have stood out in the many…

http://www.etsy.com/storque/craftivism/random-acts-of-kindness-kind-over-matters-pursuit-of-positiv-11048/

http://www.imaginativebloom.com/2010/11/24/how-to-identify-your-ideal-customer-by-april/

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/11/where-do-ideas-come-from.html

http://www.fastcompany.com/1691558/5-takeaways-marketers-could-learn-from-mr-rogers

http://www.copyblogger.com/creativity-killers/

http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/the-moment-you-speak-to-the-world-you-speak-to-no-one/

http://www.longerdays.com/blog/2010/09/3-step-process-for-quickly-overcoming-burnout/

http://www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com/2010/09/07/the-4-ps/

http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/55-quotes-creativity-innovation-action/

Craft MBA – Megan Augman

http://www.craftmba.com/2010/12/06/etsy-community-commerce/

Women In Business – I think everyone should have this on their wall!

http://www.womeninbusiness.com.au/_blog/Style_and_Substance/post/manifesto/

Duct Tape Marketing -

http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2010/12/10/accentuate-the-negative/

Whitehot Truth -

http://whitehottruth.com/business-wealth-articles/ode-to-the-entrepreneurial-spirit-an-apology-to-9-to-5rs-everywhere/

Heartmade Blog –  I recently stumbled on this site and it was because of this newsletter posting that I keep returning (although I still don’t know what to make of the blog or whether I will be a loyal reader); Don’t get me wrong, I do like Mayi a lot and respect her for being out there doing her thing. Whether I remain as a reader or don’t, here’s what inspired me…

http://www.heartmadeblog.com/

You Don’t Need Magic to Run a Successful Shop

Believe it or not, successful online shops don’t happen overnight. I know, I know, we would all like to think otherwise, that a Fairy God Mother can suddenly appear + fix all our problems + transform our shop’s into a hit. That would be pretty sweet, but since that probably ain’t happening anytime soon (or in our lifetime), let me share with you a pretty awesome plan B that will seriously impact your shop’s success fast!

Now, come closer. Just a little closer please. I’m about to reveal my top 5 tips to running a successful shop, right here on this newsletter. Call it my secret weapons if you will. These tactics have really worked for me + I’m confident they can work for you too. Plus, I just love success stories, especially from hard working + passionate creative folks like yourselves.

I don’t want to keep you waiting so let’s get right to it, shall we? Drum roll please!

My top business success secrets disclosed:

1. Listen to the little voice inside your heart. Yeap, I typed that correctly. I didn’t mean head, but heart. Be aware about your feelings + ask yourselves the hard existential questions “Am I happy, really happy doing what I’m doing?”, “Am I doing what I was destined to do?. The rush of the everyday tends to dilute our emotions. Tip: Don’t be an android + don’t be afraid to feel + listen to your heart. I promise it will take you far when you embrace it.
2. Be a real person. Doing business online can sometimes feel a little cold, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Allow your customers to “see you”. Put a picture of you in your profile + write a heartfelt about page + tell your story. Allow your customers to easily identify with you, the person, not the shop, but actually I real skin + bones + heart pumping human being. Tip: The more your customers can identify with you, the more likely they will buy from you.
3. Brand + brand + brand. It must be the communications major in me or all that marketing jargon I learned in college, but the point is I’m a strong believer in the power of branding. Everything you do must support your brand + big idea + story: your logo + business cards + blog + boutique + craft booths + tags + note cards + packaging + bags + anything + everything that your potential customers see must be branded. Your clients should be able to see + feel + smell + hear your brand from a mile away. Tip: branding is very very powerful. Use it! It will be your biggest ally!
4. Take yourself seriously. Get yourself an office space + buy the best supplies you can + hire a professional to help you do what you can’t + seek help + open an online shop. Don’t wait for your big break. Don’t wait for anyone to approve of your less than common career path. Don’t wait until Oprah invites you on her show to take yourself seriously. Give it all you’ve got! Turn off the “I’ll do that when I’m rich” mentality. Tip: take yourself seriously + have the gut to make the important decisions your business needs to grow.
5. Surround yourself with love + support. I’m not good at asking people for help. Luckily, I’ve been extremely fortunate to have a loving family + boyfriend + friends around me to take care of me even when I didn’t even know I needed to be taken care of. I really couldn’t have gone this far without having loving people around me. Tip: Surround yourself with loving + positive + inspiring people. They will be your fortress when you are weak + your cheerleaders when your triumph.

These are just simple things you can do for your business that can really REALLY make a difference + no bibbidi bobbidi booo magic is actually involved.

xo,
Mayi Carles

The Mogul Mom – I am NOT a mom, well there’s a child I adopted in Ecuador, but I’m not really a mom. However, that doesn’t mean that this blog doesn’t ring true for us non-moms. She’s smart and with a few businesses under her belt, I’ll take her word for it any day!

http://www.themogulmom.com/2010/10/strong-brand-image/

AND finally, drum roll please…..

The Art of Non-Conformity – anything on this site really, but I discovered Chris Guillebeau earlier this year and he’s been one of the greatest forces in my life…

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/how-to-get-paid-for-what-you-love/

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/if-you-love-something-you-have-to-protect-it/

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/transitions/

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/get-excited-and-change-things/

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/the-four-burners-theory/

There are  A LOT of writers that I’m leaving out and there are a lot of articles that I’ve read this year and marked or saved because they just rang true with my thoughts and my wants, but I don’t have them at hand. The articles above have all made a mark and I suggest you check them out.  I think moving forward I’m going to work on doing a monthly list of articles that I’ve enjoyed so that maybe you will enjoy them as well. What a plan!

There are lots resources out in the web that gives very good guidance on how to integrate social media into your marketing plan, especially for small business. These are all focus on small businesses and very good read. Some provide 101 guides on how to use social media platforms and some provide great guideline on how to properly integrate social media. Here are a few that I liked. Enjoy.

Let’s Talk: Social Media for Small Business written by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing.

It’s time to go Social  featuring Brian Solis.

Generating Small Business Customer with Social Media Marketing by HubSpot

Have questions about how to implement or integrate social media to your business? Email me or leave a comment.

Once upon a time I had a best friend. We would always go out to Borders and Starbucks and do Tarot Readings for each other; okay, it was more me doing Readings for her and her attempting to figure out how to do it. Our relationship came to yet another halt last month. She didn’t give me a reason why; even when I said she wouldn’t tell me. It was all too strange.

Now there is so much more to this story and relationship that I wish I could explain . . . but it would take so much time to explain. So I’m keeping it simple. But today–I had a really bad day–I texted her asking if I could talk to her for a while because I needed someone to talk to; I needed a good friend that understood me.

She said we couldn’t be friends anymore and it was too late to fix anything. So I asked if duct tape could fix it. I said I’m sure I could find some on eBay! Haha! I asked because my Physics in Entertainment & the Arts Professor just used it today in class to hold a laser in place and he was going on and on about how duct tape holds the Universe together.

She told me: “No, it can’t.” But I wish it could. I wish I could fix whatever went wrong in our relationship. I wish I could get my best friend back. I miss spending 3 hours in Borders with her to the point where when we leave our necks feel permanently stuck from looking at the titles of books. I miss her texting me at 4AM to ask “Hey, are you still up?” even though she knows my phone goes off loudly every time she texts me so it’d wake me up anyway. I miss all the times we would spend singing in my car to old choir songs. I miss her.

This is how my heart seems right now.

I know everything happens for a reason and I believe something is to be learned from this experience. But I hope that she is also meant to come back into my life. I don’t know if she will. She probably won’t. But, still, I wish, hope, and pray that she returns.

Believe me when I say that this girl is one of my soulmates. I can tell we have had many lifetimes together. I know some were romantic relationships. I feel that I was also her Mother before and possibly Sister once or twice. I can tell because that’s something that I feel in this lifetime for her that I don’t for other friends. I’m naturally protective of my friends; but with her it’s almost as if it’s multiplied by 10. But I can’t help but wonder: “What is our purpose for each others lives in this lifetime?” Maybe it’s to help the other grow like in our past lives. But in this one . . . I guess it’s more temporary.

Now you may say, “Natasha, maybe you aren’t soulmates.” You know that friend you have where you just know what they’re thinking. It’s like that. Often during our Starbucks stays we would sit there and try to think of what the other was thinking. This could go back and forth several times before it was broken. One time I just kept guessing it right. Some, yes, may have been easy to just guess. But the last one which even freaked her out ended it all because it got too creepy for her. You can’t say I can do this because I’m Psychic or whatever because she is the only person I can do this with. And it’s not like we’ve been friends for 10+ years. We barely knew each other when we figured out we could do this. There are times where we could almost speak telepathically, it seemed. She’d ask a question and I’d just glance at her and think of my reply; and she would know my reply.

I don’t want to be mean, but I do want to let my feelings out (as that is what I made this blog for). She needs to get over herself and tell me what went wrong so we can try to fix it. I don’t understand how one minute she can tell me that I’m the only person she can be herself around . . . and then a week later she throws our relationship away as if it were nothing.

I hate to see this friend go. I love her dearly. I can only hope that this time apart will be short but to learn a lesson. I hope we can be friends again at some point. So all I can do is end this post with a line from our favorite song to harmonize to while singing in my car: “I know we’ve come so far, but we’ve got so far to go.”

Natasha

This article was first published as How to Promote an Event Using Social Media on OPEN Forum by John Jantsch, Founder of Duct Tape Marketing (Jul 16 2009).

There are dozens of sites and services set-up to help you promote events such as webinars, seminar, workshops, grand openings and product launches. While these tools are indeed online you can get benefit employing them for local offline events as well.

Use MeetUp and create a group surrounding your event – this might turn into something very valuable to do on an ongoing basis and create a nice way for you to build a local community.

Publish your event to some of the bigger online events calendars such as Yahoo’s Upcoming or Eventful. These sites have geography built in and help promote events that are near users.

Create multiple Facebook pages or twitter accounts just for the event and post relevant information by building local followings through twitter search and Facebook Groups.

Do a series of interviews with participants in the event or to tease out bits of content that will be presented. Record these interviews as postcasts and post them on your event pages, submit to iTunes and offer them to others to run on their sites. Just make sure it’s great content.

Upload transcripts from the interviews or slides you intend to present to sites such as DocStoc, Scribd, and Slideshare.

Include quick videos and photos of before, during and after the event and host on YouTube and Flickr for added exposure.

Submit press releases before, during and after the event to sites such as PR Web and PitchEngine.

Cross post as much information from all of this activity to all of your social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and twitter as all allow links to videos, audios and photos.

The short-term impact of working a system like this to promote an event or launch is greater exposure and hopefully greater participation, but the long term impact for future events may be the real payoff. As you get better at this kind of social media routine, you’ll find momentum building through search engine traffic too.

(image from podcastingnews.com)

In the book “Duct Tape Marketing” by John Jantsch (subtitle: “The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide”), there’s a paragraph in Chapter 2 titled “What You Really Sell.”  Here’s an excerpt of that paragraph:

“Here’s the funny thing about business. You don’t sell what it is you claim to offer.  You sell what the eventual buyers think they are going to get from your product. For instance, insurance sales folks don’t sell insurance; they sell peace of mind.  Chiropractors don’t sell neck adjustments; they sell some form of relief.”

Virtual event platforms sell a lot of things.  To some degree, the term “virtual events” is an injustice (or misnomer), based on the wide variety of applications supported by today’s platforms.  In fact, I wrote previously in a “virtual events futures column” that the term “virtual events” would disappear by 2011.

I don’t know whether my 2011 prediction will come true, but I do expect that by later this year, the “virtual” qualifier will start to be dropped, in favor of broader names.  With that being said, and in the spirit of Duct Tape Marketing, here’s my Top 10 List of what virtual “events” really do:

1. Sales Pipeline Fueler
   
2. Learning Platform
3. Analyst Relations Venue
4. Product Launch System
5. HR Recruitment Engine
6. Partner Community Enabler
   
7. Corporate Training System
8. Content Distribution Platform
   
9. Revenue Generator
10. A Marketer’s Ultimate Dream

Each of these terms better describes “what the eventual buyers think they are going to get from your product” than the term “virtual event.”

Share with us your thoughts – when you “purchase” a virtual event, what is it you’re really getting?

1) Strategy before tactics

Determine a marketing strategy and then build your marketing activities around delivering on the strategy.

2) Narrow market focus

Stop trying to be all things to a very large market. Concentrate your marketing efforts on a small, niche market and become the dominate player.

3) Differentiate or compete on price

Find and communicate a hook that allows your prospects to easily see how your firm is different from everyone else in the industry and price comparisons go out the door.

4) Marketing materials should educate

No one likes to be sold to. Create brochures, websites and other forms of communications that allow your prospects to really experience your expertise.

5) Advertising is a 2-step process

Let your prospects get to know you through advertising that invites them in for a gift, free analysis, and useful information. Get permission and then sell.

6) Embrace technology and the Internet

The Internet provides your small business with a powerful way to automatically find, connect and server your clients and prospects.

7) Live by a marketing calendar

The best way to move your marketing forward as you run your business is to create a calendar and schedule marketing activities every single day.

I admit my expectations were quite high given all the positive press to date. In a post for Mashable.com, Brogan narrowed down exactly what he liked the most about Batch Book:

I like that it’s solving a need of mine: getting my social media “friends” into a database where I can actually reach out to them the way I want.

John Jantsch, one of the leading small business development and business planning experts in North America also gave it two thumbs up:

The killer feature, in my opinion is the elegant way that it also gives you the ability to bring into a record that person’s social media activity.

You get the picture. Renowned small business experts like Jantsch and social media community experts like Brogan have sung the praises of Batch Book. And built-in social network insight reporting seems to be what those who really like it love the most. The company itself seems to practically hang its hat on this feature.

Maybe I’m being overly critical but the important first part of contact-centric social media monitoring that involves bringing into a record a person’s social media profiles is something Batch Book could do a lot better.

Here’s specifically what I mean. Here are two examples of profiles I tried to create for two people – Avinash Kaushik and Paul Miller – I don’t know much about other than the insightful things I’ve read from them online. I wanted to learn more about them, their social footprint, and follow the other insights they are sure to share in the future.

So, when you first go into a contact record in order to start adding contact details you see a “Search Social Network” button, as you can see below:

I was delighted when I first saw this button but my enthusiasm quickly subsided after I tried it.

Here’s an example of my search for Paul Miller’s public social network accounts. Note that I did enter Paul’s individual work email address before doing this search.

As you can see, Batch Book pulls up a list of profile accounts that might be associated with the contact record you are creating but (1) does not narrow it down as well as it could and (2) does not include as many social networks as it might.

In fairness to BatchBook, they do offer a nifty feature called Super Tags which enables you to manually add social network account URLs associated with your contacts.

But having seen what contact-centric social search tools like Gist.com can do, I was hoping for more sophisticated profile search technology from Batch Book too.

Having said all this, there is one option with Batch Book that I figured might reverse my disappointment with the limited social profile account search capabilities. It’s something with which readers of this blog will already be familiar:

It’s Flowtown.com and it too has taken the small business email marketing world by storm. For good reason, in my opinion. For those who don’t know, Flowtown is a service that, to quote from the Batch Book website

uses your contacts’ e-mail addresses to search through social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others to create a media rich social profile of all of your contacts… Use Flowtown with BatchBook to easily build and maintain relationships across multiple social platforms.

I had a feeling that the integration that Batch Book offers with Flowtown would resolve the issue I’ve outlined above. At least, that is what I was hoping.

In order to integrate with Batch Book, though, I had to upgrade to a paid Flowtown account which starts out at $17 per month, which I did.

I then tried out the service on one of the contacts above and here’s what I got:

So the integration definitely solved problem #1  (not narrowing things down enough) but I was a little disappointed still that only 3 social network profiles were included and nothing else.

What even more interesting is that Flowtown itself does a spectacular job of building a complete profile of someone as long as you have their email address. With just an email address, Flowtown came up with the following in a matter of seconds:

Do you see all of the blanks that Flowtown just filled in?

Let me list them:

Please chime in here. Social CRM is hugely important for today’s marketing and PR professionals and its in our best interests to share ideas with one another to help inform the decisions of those who are building the exciting social business technologies of tomorrow.

Full Disclosure: Neither Batch Book nor Flowtown are clients of VMR Communications, LLC or Hugh Macken.

The Influencer Project

Last week I attended the shortest marketing conference ever: The Influencer Project. The virtual event brought together 60 digital innovators and asked them to speak for 60 seconds about increasing your influence online. Speakers included some of the top thought leaders in digital media today. Here are some that I was excited to hear from:

…and in case you didn’t catch it…

I’m a big fan of MacGyver. You know, that 80′s action hero who could make use of common everyday products and retrofit an escape plan or rig a gadget of some kind to do some amazing things.

“If you don’t have the right equipment for the job, you just have to make it yourself!” – MacGyver

I actually use that MacGyver mentality in my marketing.

I take bits and pieces of great marketing nuggets and reassemble them into a makeshift money grabbing piece that I use to escape financial pitfalls in my business.

Yeah, okay it’s not a rubber band and a peanut shell, and I’m not sweating bullets in order to diffuse a bomb… but the principals still apply.

You see, when you have a MacGyver mentality you learn to put what you have into a life saving perspective and create scenarios where your marketing is the gadget that saves your business’ life.

“A good relationship is a lot like a car. If you want it to work smoothly, you gotta put a lot of work into it and have the right tools.” – MacGyver

Marketing is all about getting your message out to the right prospective customer and using it to build a relationship with them. Think of marketing as the car (the vehicle) that transports your customers back to you. If it’s not running smoothly…well, I think you know what happens.

Duct tape required!

Adding some duct tape to your marketing may give it that “sticky feel” and get your piece noticed…hmmm… no just kidding! Although…it just might work!

I take headlines from newspapers, gossip mags, financials and even junk mail and I clip them and put them into a file labeled…”Mac” (a refence to MacGyver). I print out copy from websites I visit that exemplify outrageous marketing and I put them into the Mac file.

“It’s kinda interesting how you can put one thing with another and cook up the right formula for stayin’ out of trouble.” – MacGyver

When I run into a situation that calls for some “out of the box” creative thinking I grab the Mac file and work some MacGyver magic. Pulling and plying, swiping and plugging, combining aspects that will get noticed and help me avert a marketing crisis.

Until next time,

“Live with passion”

Rob Anspach

www.robanspach.com

P.S. Imagine what you can create when you start to think like MacGyver.

John Jantsch recently wrote on the topic of “Profiting from other people’s content”. He says…

“Don’t be alarmed by that title — I’m not talking about stealing content for gain, I’m talking about adding the filtering and aggregating of content to your content consumption, creation and sharing routine.

Pretty much everyone has bought into the idea that they need to produce lots of valuable content in order to build the trust and search engine eyes of today’s online prospect. One way to supplement your content strategy while still providing lots of value, is to get good at finding and filtering other people’s content that your prospects and customers will find useful as well. (Done right, the other people will thank you for giving a wider audience to their content).

It should go without saying that giving credit to the original source and full attribution to the author when appropriate is a must.” Source: Profiting From Other People’s Content | Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

John talks about “consumption, creation and sharing routine” — my mantra is ‘listen, publish, promote’ which is a little more elegant in my book but we’re both trying to say the same thing and use an alliteration in the process. If I were John, I might go for ‘consume, create, communicate‘ — in fact, I might start using that instead. Either way, the point is that gathering good content effectively and commenting on it is a great way to build your personal brand. I’ve been using this strategy for years — most recently, I amped it up by using Posterous [another tool that John advocates] and saving more content directly to my blog instead of shared bookmarks as I used to do. Here are the results:

I think the results are really quite good for an ‘army of one’, don’t you? I do all my ‘creation and communication’ as a result of my daily ‘consumption’ — because my system is easy to implement and use, I work it frequently. I call quoting other sites ‘curation’ and my rare original thoughts ‘creation’. The curation works to draw people to my creation. Does it work? You betcha [you're reading this, aren't you?]. The average person drawn into my blog through effective communication reads 3.3 pages and spends 2:52 minutes on the site, while only 4.75% ‘bounce’ to another site. Over 71% are new visitors…

Jantsch goes on to give three tactical implementations of his ‘profiting from content’ suggestion. They are…

“Make yourself a better resource

Creating a habit of filtering content related to your industry, products, competitors and customers will make you better at what you do, allow you to keep up with trends and give you data to help you build deeper relationships with customers.

Share content to draw attention

Pointing out useful resources and good finds is a great way to build your social media and blog followings. Consistently sharing relevant links and sharing them on Twitter is a strategy that many find helps them be seen as follow worthy. Creating a once a week blog post roundup of good stuff is a great way to add content and keep readers engaged.

Filter personalized content

A more advanced strategy is to use your filter skills to create your own industry research briefs. If you specialize in several market niches you can create laser specific new pages and email newsletter roundups that feature the best of what you find each week. You can even use RSS technology to deliver dynamically changing web content password protected for your best clients.” Source: Profiting From Other People’s Content | Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

Clearly, John and I share a lot of the same ‘common sense’. He goes on to list 10 different resources [you can follow the link] you can use as tools to find other people’s content. One of them — Kurrently — is one I’ll have to add to my toolkit. For me, however, this is where we part ways. My paradigm is “Google Reader is the answer. Now what is the question?“.

I use Google Reader like a tactical nuke. It’s the one tool I use to manage the ‘rest of the internet’ and I use it like a virtual newspaper or better yet, news bureau, where I manage hundreds of little newsbots that do my news aggregation for me. I have 5 great ways to get relevant content into Google Reader and they include most of John’s 10 tools — it’s just that in my book, Google Reader is the one tool that rules them all. It really is the driver in my ‘e1evation workflow’ outlined below. Either you get it and you can use it or I can help you implement it but the point is that if you have a brand and you want to build it online, we can help…

btw, you think John will be upset about me ‘Profiting From Other People’s Content’?

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Blogs

* Seth’s Blog
* Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist
* Six Pixels of Separation
* Duct Tape Marketing
* Small Business Trends
* Gaping Void

I read others, but these will really get your marketing To Do’s charted. But that’s just me… Look for communities of your target market and join their conversations, whatever the website and/or medium . You can also look for these communities on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Set up Google Alerts and follow specific keywords, trends, discussions. Find blogs nestled within and start reading.

Books

* Pamela Slim’s Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur: The kick in the ass that started it all.
* Seth Godin’s Linchpin: Changed everything I thought I knew about what it means to be an indispensable commodity, at work and in life.
* Seth Godin’s Purple Cow: Build the awe-inspiring product that changes the game and watch it sell itself, instead of exhaustively marketing a shitty product.
* Jason Fried’s (37 Signals) Rework: I’ll read this one day.
* Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start: I bought it out of fear of starting a business and not having one of Guy’s books, let alone this classic. I’ll get to it sooner or later.
* Chip & Dan Heath’s Switch: More about changing people’s mindsets within a company but can be applied just about anywhere.

Startup Communities

* Ultra Light Startups: They have a site and a blog, but they also meet once a month. First hour has people stand up and pitch their business plans (you need a website and need to be the founder/pres/owner in order to pitch). Next 60 minutes has a panel that talks about a certain topic; e.g. SEO, social platforms… mostly tech-oriented. Great for networking. I met a client there.
* LinkedIn: Aside from the obvious, it serves up and connects you with startup groups from all corners of the entrepeneurial map. One I belong to is OnStartups (which also has a blog)
* Lavapeople: Just joined this one… another entrepreneurial playground, allowing business owners to network, pitch their busisiness, all that jazz
* Startup Nation: Great community with bulletin boards-style communication combined with lots of FAQs, documentation, references, etc

Business, Techy, Financial & General Administrative Services & Tools

* FreshBooks: QuickBooks what? FreshBooks is the simple, clean interface Microsoft could never dream to cook up. Add clients, team members, billable tasks, projects. Track and invoice time. Add contractors and sub their time out. Create professional-looking invoices. All web-based.

* Simply Invoices: Want something even more lean and straight-forward than FreshBooks? Simply Invoices is your accounting answer.

* Basecamp: Maybe it parlays nicely into the fact that I do Project Management for clients, but I think anyone building a business could leverage this organizational tool. Invite your team to use it, post messages, write & manage To Do lists, send messages, share files, set milestones. It also has a ton of add-ons and integrates with financial tools like Freshbooks and Simply Invoices.

* Grasshopper: Set up virtual, toll-free phone (or local) numbers which can then be routed to physical landlines or cell phones, with unlimited extensions. You can set up greetings and away messages, manage your calls online, receive textual voicemails via e-mail or SMS. You can even set your own on-hold music… I wasted at least 45 minutes picking a song “everyone would love”. I came up with Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic”. I like it.

* Mint: This is more for personal finance balancing, but I’m sure any business owner would appreciate having all of their accounts (bank accounts, credit cards, income, loans, etc) in 1 snapshot. You can set up budgets, research spending patterns and get general financial advice and money-saving tips. Not sure whether them being bought out by Intuit is a good thing, yet, but I suppose we’ll keep a close eye.

* WordPress: My blogging software of choice. There are others, if you even like to write, but WordPress has all the features I need. If blogging is more your core business, you can download their application, install on your servers and skin it to look like your own site. I did this on FastenFinder.com (site will be up soon..).

* Adium (Pidgin for PC): If you live and breathe by instant messaging communication like most geeks do, these IM clients aggregate all the big protocols (Yahoo, GTalk, MSN, AIM, etc) under 1 roof. It doesn’t integrate with Skype, which is another must-have IM client, if for nothing else, it’s VoIP calling capabilities which allow you to make free long-distance (read: international) calls fo’ free.

* VMWare: If you’re on a Mac but need to still run Windows, VMWare is as good as it gets. Parallels is nice runner-up.

* Dropbox: There’s no reason to lose data if your machine takes a shit. Dropbox makes it mindless to backup and sync your files. Just download the light app and it will back up all files on their secured server, which you can then access from another Windows PC, Mac or Linux operating system, as well as from mobile devices. You can get a free 2 GB account or get serious with a 100 GB paid account.

* Balsamiq Mockups: More a tool for the IT consultant, project manager, business analyst or web designer/developer.. Balsamiq is a refreshing tool, run on Adobe Air that lets you create painless wireframes. If you don’t know what those are, you don’t need this.

* XMarks: Backup and sync all of your browser bookmarks. If you lose your computer in a mudslide, no worries about trying to figure out all of those “favorites” you visit daily; just install XMarks and grab your bookmarks from their server. The Firefox plug-in is probably the way to go

Speaking of web browsers, I recommend Firefox, especially if you’re a customization freak like me. Some acceptable alternatives include Chrome or Safari (Macs only). If you use Internet Explorer you need a beating).

* KeePass (KeePassX for Mac): Password manager. With somewhere around 400 online identities, a techy bastard like me obviously can’t live without it.

* LastPass: Password manager specially for websites. I suggest going with the Firefox add-on.

* Google Apps for Business: Google docs, e-mail, calendars, video and sites empowering and securing your business. Not sure what else to say. If you have any questions getting your business migrated onto this platform, ask. I’ve done it all for both of my businesses, Melfast and a client. It’s awesome.

* Gmail: Speaking of Google, Gmail is their email client. I really see no need to use another client. Tons of features, settings, add-ons. I love it so much I have 5 accounts, but then, I’m weird.

* Gmail Manager: And for those psychos out there like me, this little Firefox add-on gives you dashboard like viewing and control of your 10 million different Gmail accounts.

* Flux: A retina-saver if you’re someone that stares at a computer 24/7, flux adjusts your screen brightness/contrast based on the time of day. I haven’t had a headache since I started using it. +1 for flux!

* Pandora One: Because if I didn’t have music throughout my work day, I would be in the asylum. And while you’re at is, go grab the Bose Quiet Comfort headphones to dull out the retards yelling and bitching around you. Pandora One is the paid app which means no commercials and endless skipping of crap songs. There is also a free version.

Not too long ago I saw duct-tape marketing guru John Jantsch speak at the Social Media Club of Dallas. I really do admire these entrepreneurial guys in the social media marketing space who have managed to morph their marketing savvy and strategy into an actual, lucrative businesses. Chris Brogan wrote something recently in his blog about a tangible tool called “booth tag” by Bill Finn —sort of a social media commodity that impressed him as a proof-of-concept for trade show interaction.

“Marketers are service providers. They make
things that stop the moment they stop (normally).
Yes, they make ads or whatever, but those
are in service of other people.”

Brogan is right on target here. Monetizing services is tough. It’s really only sustainable if the service in question enjoys a very high perceived value, and the gigs keep coming. Attorneys and doctors have managed to ratchet up the hourly rates historically, but even they are feeling the pinch of the limping economy. I have come to believe that so much of business and even success, in general—is directly related to “discovering”—a precise brand of enlightenment that allows one to see when and how to leverage an idea, product, relationship, or service into a broader application. It’s a canny awareness that positions you at the right place and right time with the right preparation. It may even be unconscious. Theologian Frederick Buechner talks about this on a much deeper and spiritual level. “Listen to your life,” he counsels. “See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. For in the end, all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

We all tend to go through our moments, our days, or months, and our years—and sometimes, even our lives on auto-pilot—numb to who we are and disengaged from our own realities. We become so caught up in “doing” that we often stop “being.” Only when something major, even cataclysmic, occurs that rattles us to the very core do we start to examine our raw, vulnerable, exposed souls in the harsh light of the storm’s aftermath or in the ongoing tumultuous sea of stress and upheaval. Then, we may ask, “Who am I?” “What am I here to learn?” “How is this series of events informing my journey?” More important, “What the heck should I do now?” “How can I make the money I need to support my family and still care for critically ill parents?” These are all understandable questions, but it’s frightening to feel so uneasy in your own skin at such a seasoned age—when you are supposed to have it all figured out. What’s that schmaltzy song about clowns—“Isn’t it queer? Losing my timing this late in my career. . .”

Socrates said, “Beware the bareness of a busy life.” How timeless is that? How apropos for 2010. And how easy it is for feelings extreme loneliness to engulf us in the waves of hubbub and chaos—even with so many well-meaning people around. There always seems to be so much to juggle, so darn much that demands our attention—especially as a single mother of two teenage boys (one college-bound, I hope); a herder of a dog and two cats; a niece of an 86-year old infirm aunt, who is all alone; an ex-wife, still engaged in an awkward tango—and the daughter of two recently incapacitated parents. The sandwich generation, a double-decker, and I’d definitely say I’m in a bit of a real pickle.

Back to the paying attention part . . . Just where do we start? How should we be? How have you handled the most difficult transitions and challenges in your personal or business life—as individuals, as family members, and as communities? How did you get through? How can we support each other in these difficult times when the path seems so unclear and the outcomes so murky? Share your thoughts.

Elaine Gantz Wright writes about social media and self-discovery. Contact her at elgantz()yahoo.com.

I’ll be doing a webinar on using Posterous to establish thought leadership tomorrow at noon. It’s not too late to sign up…

As an example, I’ll profile who I think is the ideal customer of Synchronicity Theatre:

• Female
• Professional
• Well-educated
• Household income of $75,000 or above
• age 30-60
• liberal
• active member of a socio-political civic organization and/or corporate women’s affinity group
• living within the neighborhoods surrounding 7 Stages Theatre

Think about the focus this provides to the marketing initiatives.  Immediately we know which blogs we should be reading and leaving comments on, which organizations we should be partnering with, where we should be setting the Artistic Director up with speaking engagements, etc.  Being this specific does not mean that we are turning away politically moderate stay-at-home moms or men right out of grad school.  But, those niches aren’t our ideal patron.  Our ideal patron will jump fully into our mission and revel in every nuance of it, understanding immediately the power and purpose of our company.

I challenge us all to take a moment with our key staff and construct the profile of our ideal patrons.  Then, for the entire next season, commit to targeting this patron in every way we can.  Notice nothing I listed above costs marketing dollars, but if you have the money, put some of it behind this experiment.  Plan out your key metrics now and track them against your general outreach and this targeted campaign.   Back to The Referral Engine, Jantsch lists these four goals as good measures to start with:

• Lead generation:  For our purposes, let’s count this as how many people you are getting your message in front of with each campaign
• Percentage of leads converted: How many folks from your initial list actually buy a ticket / attend an event?
• Cost per customer acquisition: This is important!  How much did you spend per converted customer for each campaign?
• Average dollar transaction per customer: How many tickets did they buy and at what price point?

I would like to add one more indicator:

• Total income generated per customer acquisition for the season: I contend that your ideal customer will come back more often than the general target.

Come on, try it with me for a year.  Let’s report back at the end of the 2010-2011 season and see how we did.

Teaching every new employee everything you can about your organization’s marketing strategy, marketing plan, positioning, messaging, ideal customer, products, services, and brand attributes just makes sense when it comes to creating ambassadors for the organization…

… Smart companies make sure every employee understands how to spot an ideal customer, how to properly introduce the company’s story, and how to spot trigger phrases prospective customers use, and clues they give, that mark them as potential ideal customers, even if selling isn’t a part of that employee’s job description.

This basic training should be implemented at the outset and consistently and repeatedly reinforced.

This should be taken even further within an arts organization.  Not only should this information be communicated to employees, it should be part of the orientation for the board, our artists and technicians, and all volunteers.  In fact, I propose that every time Jantsch uses the word “staff” or “employee” throughout the book, we should automatically include board, artists, technicians, and volunteers.  We need to be harnessing the power of everyone that contributes to our organization.

I know what you are thinking, “What actor/designer/carpenter/usher is going to take time to read our marketing plan?”  The answer is, they won’t.  So, it is our job to get this information to them in a simple, engaging, easy-to-spread way and to give it to them in bite-sized pieces over time.  Here are some ideas, please share your own in the comments:

• Find your “one word” (from Dave Charest) and use it to sharpen everyone’s focus
• At the initial orientation (and in the information packet you should be providing already) include a section about marketing:  what’s your org’s voice? where are you maintaining a presence (online and off)? who is your ideal customer?
• Make everyone’s role in marketing EXPLICIT.  Most people can’t take hints.  Tell them straight-out that they are the front lines of communication for the organization and that it is essential that they share their knowledge and love of the company.
• Provide everyone with timely and consistent updates on how the marketing strategy is going.  You are probably already providing a financial “dashboard” to the board at each meeting.  It is time to do the same for marketing, but don’t save it just for the board!  Let your staff, artists, technicians, and volunteers know exactly what is happening with your most important measures (ticket sales, Facebook friends, email click-throughs, promotion redemptions, re-tweets, blog mentions, Google ranking, etc.)  Pick 4 things you are going to track and have specific goals that you can communicate your progress on clearly and consistently.
• Highlight folks in the organization that are going the extra mile to spread the word.  We already do this for our major donors, it is time recognize the evangelists in our organization at the same level.

Marketing is not a dirty word, it is the life blood of engaging folks in our organizations.  It isn’t about the hard sell, it isn’t about interruption and pushing.  It is about communication and desire fulfillment.  How we sell the idea of marketing to our potential evangelists is as important to our success as how well we sell tickets.  Go forth and market!