Better Business | Michelle Shaeffer

Ways to Go Green With Your Home Office

September 6, 2010 By Michelle Shaeffer Leave a Comment

Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes

Support your health and a healthy world by making green choices for your home office.

It’s not difficult to be more environmentally friendly while creating a home office that will reduce your exposure to toxic chemicals, it just requires a bit of planning and thought.

Furnishing & Decorating Your Office

To furnish your office consider shopping for second-hand furniture so you can save it from a landfill. Craigs List, eBay, yard sales, moving sales, your local paper, and second-hand shops are great places to look.

If you’re purchasing new, look for furniture that will last and not need replaced quickly.

For decor you can use recycled and re-purposed items. If you repaint, use a low-VOC paint to reduce your exposure to dangerous fumes.

Building Connections – 5 Reasons to Send a Card to a Potential Client Or Joint Venture Partner

August 25, 2010 By Michelle Shaeffer 2 Comments

Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes

Is there someone you’d like to connect with who could become a perfect client for you, or a great joint venture partner? Building your business is all about building relationships. Try sending them an old-fashioned card through the mail.

It’s always nice to get an unexpected card in the mail and people tend to save them much longer than email or voice mail so skip the digital options one time and grab a pack of real cards from your local store or get your own Send Out Cards account. Most websites include a mailing address in the footer of their pages or on their contact page where you can find their mailing information.

Here are 5 great reasons to send a card to someone you want to connect with. These work best if the person you’re trying to get to know better and build a relationship with is already aware you exist. Think of it as one tactic in your overall connection strategy.

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Filed Under: Customer Service, Marketing Tagged With: cards, connections, mail, Marketing, promotion, send out cards

What Motivates Us?

July 19, 2010 By Michelle Shaeffer 4 Comments

Reading time: < 1 minute

I wanted to share a video today that’s a very interesting look at what motivates us.

Keep in mind as you watch that you’re your own boss, and it’s your job to motivate yourself!

Understanding the way our own minds and emotions work can help us keep ourselves inspired and motivated to work towards our goals.
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Filed Under: Customer Service, Ethics & Green Business, Inspiration, Mindset Tagged With: achievement, Goals, Inspiration, motivation, purpose, rewards

Help Your Customers Love You

July 2, 2010 By Michelle Shaeffer 3 Comments

Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes

It’s worth it to do whatever you can to build a business others can become fans of. Why? Because fans are LOYAL.

My husband is a football fanatic. In 11 years of marriage I think the best gift I gave him was tickets to a Steelers playoff game for his birthday. He had to fly from Alaska to Washington, DC, drive several hours to Pennsylvania, and make quite a trek to get there. But I’m sure he’d say it was 100% worth it. And if the Steelers hadn’t won that game he’d still have been thrilled to be there because he’s a loyal fan.

What’s your favorite sports team? Favorite place to shop? Favorite restaurant to eat in? Favorite author or actor? What is it about those people and places that makes you love them?

Take some time to consider what it is that makes you a fan of the companies, products, services and people that you’re always raving about, and then figure out how you work that into your own business and build your fan base.

10 Things You Can Do in 10 Minutes Each to Move Your Business Forward

June 26, 2010 By Michelle Shaeffer 51 Comments

Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes

I’m writing this from the airport at 7:03pm. My goal is to be done at 7:13pm and schedule this post. I’ve got 30 minutes until my plane boards and I can complete three small tasks to move my business forward. Here are some ideas:

1. Write a quick blog post and promote it.

Jot down some random thoughts about something helpful for your readers. Try a top ten list (like this one!) or top 5 list. You can polish it later and use it as an article, in your newsletter, for a podcast, in a video, etc. Take time to tweet your post and add it to your Facebook status. If you’re using Networked Blogs, it will tweet/update for you.

If you feel overwhelmed at the thought of posting in 10 minutes, check out Michele Scism’s 10 minute blog post ideas: part one and part two.

2. Write a few thank you cards or emails.

Three Deadly Website Sins

June 25, 2010 By Michelle Shaeffer 3 Comments

Reading time: < 1 minute

If you’re serious about building a website that will attract your ideal clients, here are three “deadly sins” you need to be careful to avoid.

1. Allowing Your Ego to Make the Decisions

Is your website focused on YOU or on your customers? Are you obsessed with “shiny objects” or bells and whistles? Is something not working but you don’t want to admit defeat and change it? OH NO!! Ego alert! Yeah, mine does that, too. Sometimes we’ve just got to tell that ego to sit down and shut up so we can make whatever changes we need to so that our websites can be effective.

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Filed Under: Customer Service, Website Tips Tagged With: client-centered, clients, customers, design, ego, websites

What to Do When Someone Steals Your Content

June 17, 2010 By Michelle Shaeffer 21 Comments

Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes

You’ve worked hard on your blog posts, articles, sales pages and other writing, as well as your graphics design, website design, and logo. They’re yours. But online many people think it’s “fair game” to borrow and profit from your work. It’s not okay unless you’ve given your permission.

I saw a video online last week from EzineArticles.com I wanted to share:

Now, here are some tips to help you protect your intellectual property (since you can’t slap people through the internet…).

Wiping off the Marketing Tricks Slime…

June 15, 2010 By Michelle Shaeffer 20 Comments

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

Last night I opted-in for a free report on building website credibility (it’s something I talk about on my blog so I was curious what others were saying).

I actually feel the need to wipe the slime off me after reading it. It just felt wrong to me, and relied on little “almost illegal” (their words, not mine) tricks to build credibility in the eyes of website visitors.

The perspective wasn’t how to BE credible, it was how to APPEAR credible – and I realize after reading it that those are two completely different goals.

There were a few good, honest suggestions like adding your contact info to all your pages. But among the other suggestions:

Add a live chat box, but add it with the knowledge that you won’t make it active or actually allow customers to contact you with it.
Fake testimonials from gurus by making it look like they endorse you when you’ve really just used something cool they said without asking their permission.
Buy a cheap ad in Newspaper X and then add “As Seen in Newspaper X” to your sales page.

There’s more but I’ll stop there. Maybe those aren’t technically lies. You might change your mind and decide to login to be on the live chat sometime (even though you have no intentions of it). A guru might like some aspect related to what you’re promoting (but has never seen your product). If you have an ad in the paper technically you could be seen there.

Do these tactics work? I’ve never tried them. Clients probably won’t realize what you’ve done to sway them to purchase. But do you want to make sales at the expense of your ethics and honesty?
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Filed Under: Ethics & Green Business, Mindset, Online Marketing Tagged With: adam urbanski, credbility, ethics, felicia slattery, gurus, internet marketing, sales, shel horowitz, testimonials

Get Control Over Your RSS Feed

June 14, 2010 By Michelle Shaeffer 7 Comments

Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes

One of the great features of a blog is it’s “RSS Feed.” That stands for “real simple syndication” – but it can be a little confusing and not feel so simple if you’re new to blogging. It allows your fans to get notified when you post a new blog, if they choose to subscribe in an RSS reader. Awesome, right? Here’s how it works for your fans: