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A Blogging carnival is a world web phenomena where bloggers that are doing interesting or exceptional blogging can get free publicity within their own work sphere. It is similar to a magazine, in that it is dedicated to a particular topic, and is published on a regular schedule, often weekly or monthly. Each edition of a blog carnival is in the form of a blog article that contains permalinks links to other blog articles on a particular topic. If you would like to participate in the next Work Connexions blog carnival or synchroblog then click to read more …

If you would like to participate in the next Work Connexions blog carnival or synchroblog (Synchronised Blogging, or synchroblog, where a group of bloggers agree to post on their own blogs on the same broad topic on the same day.) then drop us an email or leave a comment in the blog entry of this news.

1. Have a backup plan

Vital business information is stored on your computers. Make a point of checking that your backup plan is up to date and that you perform a recovery test at least once this year. When your computer hardware fails, you need to know that recovery is possible.

2. Update your business plan

Once a year, revisit your business plan - if you don’t have one you’ll find it is worth the effort to make one. There’s a good starting point here

3. Streamline your administration

Well run administration can make a huge difference to a company. You can always find room for improvement. Examine the way that work flows through your company, find and remove the roadblocks first, employ IT technology second.

4. Sort out your email

Make plans to deal with timewasting SPAM. Depending on your business sector, there are legal aspects to email use and storage that must be considered. Create an email management plan.
Oh, and sort out your inbox, you know you need to.

5. Watch the cash flow - carefully

get your accounts up to date, and keep them as close to real time as you can. If you don’t have an accounts package, then you should consider purchasing one this year - but don’t do it without skilled support and advice.

6. Train your staff

Focused training for staff will contribute to the success of your business, but make sure that the training matches a business goal.

7. Don’t maintain the status quo

The business environment changes all the time, your business needs to change to match it.

8. Update your website

If you do, make sure that it is standards compliant this time around. Your old website probably doesn’t work in many of the new browsers that have been released since it was last updated. A well planned Search Engine Marketing campaign might also help to improve the effectiveness of your website.

9. Don’t ask how much it costs, ask what value it adds

Work out the value to your business before making a purchase. If the value is greater than the purchase cost, then go ahead.

10. Tidy Up the workplace

Because you know you should.

And finally, please let us know what your top ten business resolutions are…

About the Author:

Rob Mercer is a Director of KDR E-Business Limited, which provides IT Management services to small and medium sized enterprises. Rob has a Masters Degree in IT and is also a member of the British Computer Society. He has over 25 years experience in a variety of IT roles and industry sectors. Despite this he can still converse in English, a fact much appreciated by his customers.

The best type of posts you can make, particularly in a service industry, is successful case studies.

• What was their situation like before?
• What were their goals or problem?
• How did you work with them?
• How did everything work out?
• …

Most clients would be glad of the publicity, you just need to speak to them and get permission. Obviously some will not want specifics mentioning (particularly figures) or even to be named. That’s all fine. What matters is results and that you provide enough detail to be believable.

Talk to your clients about it and you won’t get into trouble. Going behind their backs is when you start getting into the sticky stuff.

The same is true when you want to write about exciting happenings in your own business. I imagine bloggers at Apple and Microsoft have a real hard time keeping mouths shut. There will be policies on what can and can not be talked about. If not, get some. Fast.

Many companies have footers on their emails

• NOT to be repeated or reproduced
• OK to email to company
• OK to email outside company to specified individuals
• Freely distribute

You can do the same and add a tick box for blogging if freely distribute doesn’t cover that.

Most business niches have news, tactics and events that are safe to blog about. This though is mostly filler. You can get that stuff anywhere. To make it more valuable you need to dig deep and find your hook or angle on it.

The best solution, if you haven’t already got a rich source of content to draw on, is to create some news. Could you run a competition? A survey? Interview some industry figures?

These don’t need to be massive ventures, scale to fit. While one past client of mine had a terrific success year on year with a global survey that was mentioned in television and newspapers around the world, another simply surveyed their own clients and as well as producing an excellent PR story also learned a great deal about what their customers look for and feel.

Bottom line you need to answer the question; “Could this have appeared on a competitors blog with no major changes?“. If the answer is yes you have a bland post and you need to work on it some more.

Just remember you can be interesting without being unprofessional. Focus on your reader. What is useful to them? How have you or your products helped people and businesses just like them?

Most of all, what makes you different to all the other businesses they could go to?

Visit Chris at http://www.chrisg.com/

The reason mentors are important to have in your life is because they have the experience to guide you to your destination. They are a person to fall back on…to pick you up when you are down or are there to support you when faced with some type of adversity working to achieve your goal.

I have many mentors of my own in all different industries. They have helped me so much in showing me what books to read, how to do certain things that most people don’t know about, and really have told me, “Scott if you need anything don’t hesitate to ask.”

Knowing I have these mentors to always go to gives me peace of mind as I head into graduating next year. While most people are worried where they are going, and how they are going to get there…I personally feel like with all the mentors that I do have…I have nothing to worry about…

Now…I know nothing is going to be handed to me on a silver platter…nothing is ever that easy…but what I do know is this…If I ever need any advice, or guidance, I have the confidence in the mentors that I have to help me along the way.

So you are probably sitting there thinking….Ok Scott…You have all these mentors, but HOW DO I start building my network of mentors.

I would like to share with you what I did, starting the summer after my freshmen year.

1. The first thing that I did was write down all of the business people, and influential people that had some sort of influence over a particular industry that I knew I wanted to be involved in. I chose the industries of Real Estate, Entrepreneurship, Network Marketing, and Creative Ways Of Investing. These were contacts that my father and mother knew.

2. The second thing I did was either call them or send them an e-mail that sounded something like this. “Hi Mr. _____ I hope you are having a great day. I wanted to contact you because I know you are in ___________ industry. I think I may have an interest in being a part in that industry down the road and wanted to talk to you about your past experience in it. I know you are a very busy person, but would appreciate any time you could give me to talk about how you got to where you are today.
I am also in the process of creating a group of mentors to help and guide me along my life path and was wondering if you would have any interest in helping me in my journey.

3. After sending that e-mail I let the powers at be take control. Now you don’t have to use this e-mail word for word…even though you have my permission…but really speak from the heart when writing e-mails to those who you plan to contact.

4. The reason an e-mail like this is so key is because 1) You are being REAL with them…2)By you going to THEM and asking THEM you are stroking their ego…3)More likely than not they will want to help you because THEY KNOW exactly where you are because they have been there BEFORE.

5. When you schedule a time to get together be sure to be presentable, but comfortable at the same time. A mentor in my opinion is just a real specialized friend…you don’t have to show up in a suit…just a collared shirt or something dressy casual. I know it sounds kind of corny but thats just how I see it. When talking with them, remember my post about how people LOVE to talk about themselves. I believe it was the post about Essential Keys To Networking Effectively

Ask them everything about them…How long they have been in the industry they are in, how long they have done it, what did they do before? Etc Etc.

You will find as the conversation progresses you will be starting to ask questions like…
How did you overcome this obstacle.
What do you attribute your past success to? Do you have any guidance for me as an up and coming _____________.

What books would you reccommend that I read to help me along my journey.

Trust me they will want to help you! You just have to have enough guts to ask them.

Think about it…If you were in their position wouldn’t you want to help someone who reached out to you?

If any of you need any help whatsoever in contacting potential mentors I would be happy to help you. Just contact me by eamil at CaliforniaEagle@cox.net

Seth was founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, an interactive direct marketing company, which Yahoo! acquired in late 1998. He holds an MBA from Stanford, is a contributing editor to Fast Company magazine, and was called “the Ultimate… (more)

He is also one of our recommended resources.

1) Spending your time on revenue-producing activities

2) Marketing your business

Your time is valuable, so you shouldn’t waste it on mundane tasks that someone else could easily do.

You should be spending half your time generating income for your business. This might include things like servicing your clients and creating products.

The other half of your time should be spent on marketing to grow your business. That might include activities like writing articles and press releases, doing speaking engagements, writing and publishing an ezine or newsletter, advertising, relationship marketing, networking or Internet marketing. Any activity that is designed to bring you more clients or more sales.

But what about “all those other things” that have to get done?

All those administrative business tasks like paying bills, invoicing clients, going to the bank, picking up office supplies, fulfilling orders, monthly bookkeeping and clerical tasks like filing?

Or all of those household tasks like grocery shopping, cleaning your house, and doing laundry?

Find a way to delegate “all those other things”

…so you can focus your time on your top two priorities. If your time is worth $50 an hour or $150 an hour and you are spending it on $10 an hour tasks, it just doesn’t make sense.

What if you can’t afford to hire help?

I was in this boat for a long time myself. My mentors kept telling me to create a team and delegate. But I thought I couldn’t afford to. When I finally took the leap of faith and began assembling a team, my entire business and life changed.

I went from being a lone ranger doing everything in my businesses (yes, it was very tiring!) to a team that includes a bookkeeper, CPA, attorney, virtual assistant, writer, art director and production artist, media buyer, web developer, product manufacturer, fulfillment house, computer technician, real estate partners, property management company and others I’m sure I’m forgetting about right now.

No, I don’t have an office with all these people on staff.

I am still a “company of one.” These people are partners that I pay for specific services when I need them.

And I’ve enlisted the help of my family with the household tasks and hired housekeepers so I don’t have to spend my valuable work hours or my precious free time on these activities.

Yes, I still do some things I probably shouldn’t.

But the point is, over the past two years, I’ve learned to find experts and utilize their services to help me grow my business.

And even though I thought I couldn’t afford to hire a team…

Now I can’t imagine running my business (or my life) any other way. And paying for this help has never been an issue. Because the time they have freed up allows me to focus on my top two priorities, which has grown my businesses.

Your Marketing Step

Look around. Are you trying to do it all yourself? Are you running your business as a lone ranger? Are you spending time on activities that someone else could be doing?

If you are, I encourage you to step back and re-evaluate how your business is structured. And create a structure and a team that will allow you to spend your time on marketing and revenue-producing activities. And then watch your business grow!

Want to see how I spend my time? Visit my blog to find out!

Debbie LaChusa created The 10stepmarketing System to make marketing your own business as simple as answering 10 questions. Learn more about this unique, step-by-step system and get a free Marketing E-Course when you subscribe to the free, weekly 10stepmarketing Ezine at http://www.10stepmarketing.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Debbie_LaChusa

To some extent, the answer lies within the internal structure of the business. Taking the org. chart into acount, to determine where social media should live, a business might ask questions such as these:

1. Who is most likely to understand the use of social media and then to use it in ways that benefit our customers, our employees and our business most?
2. Who has the time, budget and expertise to create engaging communications?
3. Who is least likely to use social media to market and sell products?
4. Who is most likely to use social media to draw customers into conversation with us; thereby, developing loyal customers, brand evangelists and new customers who appreciate our efforts to give them a voice?

These questions are the basis for the internal discussion. Whoever the business chooses to host social media, they must be excellent writers, they must be creative, they must have access to everyone within the business, they must be familiar with the customers and the communities in which the business has locations, and they must be trusted as open and honest communicators. Furthermore, they must have the courage and the ability to challenge managers and executives who want to turn social media into a bottom line tool.

Yes, social media, if done correctly, will result in return on investment in a variety of forms, including an increase in loyal customers who buy more and who talk positively about the company; an increase in the ability to produce more innovative and better products and services based on customer feedback; the ability to improve the company at every level, again based on customer feedback; and an increase in new customers as they learn about and come to trust the company.

That is the 10,000-foot view of where social media should reside and what to expect from social media. But like any strategy, before launching social media as part of your communications mix, every business should analyze the tools to understand what they do and how they may be used and how social media is and is not the right fit for your business. Using these communications tools is not to be done lightly.

My best advice is to study every detail and discuss all the pros and cons. And then if you decide social media is a good fit for your business, launch the tools internally first. Get employees from every functional area involved, and ask them to be your sounding boards. As in most things, employees know your customers best, and they will contribute incredibly good suggestions and recommendations, if you engage them and give them buy in.

For more information about Lewis Green visit him at http://lgbusinesssolutions.typepad.com/solutions_to_grow_your_bu/