Sometimes being self-employed sucks.

You spend every waking hour (and some sleeping ones, too) working on your precious business – it’s your baby, your lover, your ever so slightly co-dependent best friend.

You spend so much time and energy on it that your real baby, lover, and best friend complain that there is nothing left for them.

But you can’t help it – you are obsessed. You are determined to share what you got with the world.

And sometimes people love what you’ve got, love you, and shower you with roses and orders and blog comments and 83% organic dark chocolate.

And sometimes? Sometimes, not so much.

Sometimes it’s dead quiet out there and you feel a tad exposed. You troll Twitter and everyone’s tweets are so peppy, all about how great their businesses are doing, you start to feel a tad bad. The story line, “What was I thinking?” starts sucking you in. Read More

I just released some paper productivity planners, and the reason I’m telling you this is not because I want you to run over and buy them – though that would be cool – but instead because I’m going through the very thing that I’m going to be telling you today.

Few people actually like writing sales pages, and it doesn’t matter whether they write long sales pages or short sales pages – there are plenty of things we’d rather be doing. When you think about it, though, it’s easy to see why we hate it: writing your sales page causes a lot of overwhelm and Stuck because you know that the success of your sales is riding on that one page.

All of your hard work is resting on that page.

Your mortgage might be resting on that page.

Your credibility is resting on that page. Read More

This is the first of a four part series on How to Blog Like Shakespeare. Stay tuned to see where the other parts are!:

1. How to Write For New Readers
2. How to Write For Regular Readers (at Remarkable Communication)
3. How to Write For Expert Readers (at Productive Flourishing)
4. How to Write For Three Audiences At The Same Time (at Copyblogger)

Whether you love or hate Shakespeare, you’ve got to respect the influence he’s had on Western literature. But today, we’re not going to sit back and respect what he’s done for Western literature – we’re going to see what we can learn from him about blogging.

One of the reasons that Shakespeare has been so influential is because his works are understandable at multiple levels; every mature reader can get something out of reading his works. This is no accident, though – he was first and foremost a playwright, so he had to craft his works so that people from the different levels of Elizabethan society would enjoy them. After all, they were paying to be entertained, not educated. Read More

Editor’s note: This is a post from Melinda Brennan of WAHM Biz Builder.

I hate spam. I receive something like 250+ emails every day, most of which is spam. Fortunately my spam filter kills most of it before it gets to me. And then there’s the emails that aren’t actually spam, but should be. Because they’re marketing without permission.

Permission Marketing is when a person says “Hey, I want you to email me and tell me about all the cool stuff you sell”. Do you see the connection here? This person gave permission for you to market to them.

If they don’t outright give permission, if the person hasn’t actively said “Yes” then you don’t have permission and your emails can be considered spam. Spamming is a really good way to get your itty biz blacklisted and have all your emails, both good and bad, sent automatically to a spam blocker or deleted forever. Clearly this is very bad for your marketing and sales. Read More

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Ali Hale, of Aliventures.

I don’t know you, but I’m willing to bet that you have some project that you’d love to get completed.

Maybe it’s that back-of-an-envelope idea for a business that you spent an evening discussing with mates in the pub … and that you think you just might be able to “make it” with.

Or that new direction for your current business, that you need to research and plan for … and which you’re still no closer to than when you first thought of it.

Or perhaps it’s a skill you want to learn, which will require twenty or forty hours of study.

Whatever it is, all you need is a few clear days, perhaps a week or two, and you could do it. You know that. You’ve known that for months, maybe years. Read More