Business is NOT a 4-Letter Word

by Debi Auger

You're probably wondering just where the hell I've been. The last post I published was called The Danger in Being Passionate About Your Work and it was about burnout. I had a severe case of it and, when I wrote that, thought I was headed for recovery. I was wrong. Turned out to be one hell of a year.

So I needed to take some time; to really look at that; evaluate the situation; and be real about why it happened. That involved a lot of hard truths. I had to have some really painful heart-to-hearts with myself. 

I had to sit my ass down and, like it or not, admit that working with artisans, just was not working out. As a matter of fact, it was frustrating me to bits, completely draining my energy, and was the main contributing factor to the burnout.

A whole lot of soul searching and difficult decisions were made. I want to share them with you because they affect you. You've probably already noticed some of them. 

For starters, I had to accept defeat and let go of the artisan organization and plans for a 100% handmade marketplace that I mentioned in the Burnout post. Unfortunately, the overall plan didn't gain traction and was turning into a lot of wasted time and money on my part. I knew the plan was sound, so I needed to let go of the project. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. 

I still love artisans and their work. I still love coaching artisans... and work beautifully with some of you. Some of you are the perfect clients for me to work with. And I've enjoyed seeing your progress.

But, unfortunately, that's not typically the case. I usually end up feeling like I'm banging my head up against the wall. It makes me CRAZY when I spend valuable time working with a client and getting results (it does take a bit of time!), just to have them turn around and go right back to doing exactly what we agreed WASN'T working before! Not only does that negate any progress we made, but it wastes a whole lot of time and effort. 

Similarly, there's been a scramble since Facebook essentially killed organic reach (was announced last fall). However, I've been talking about this... and solutions for it... for FOUR years! But most didn't want to listen... or take proper action. Now businesses are being lost. It's frustrating to watch.

But too many are content to whine and set up Facebook groups that end up being nothing more than a perpetual pity party. Fine if that's what you want to do. But it's not going to change anything. You're complaining to the wrong people... to people who can't do a damn thing to change it. YOU are the only one who can change things for yourself.

Life isn't always fair unfortunately. But it IS about choices. You can either choose to stay where you are, or to change. Accept responsibility for where you're at. Forgive yourself for it. Stop complaining. Stop hanging out with complainers. And create the life you really want to have! It CAN be done. And I want to work with those who are ready to do it.

So I've created the niche I want to work in... creativepreneurs. 

You'll see soon that I have a pretty broad definition of what a creativepreneur is, and it includes many industries. 

The important thing to note is that my focus is on the -preneur part. I want to work with creatives who have, or want to have, a business and are willing to learn and do the work required to succeed. 

I want to focus my energy on those of you who are serious about your business; the implementers and action-takers; the real go-getters among you; those of you who are ready to kick ass, take names and change the world. So now I'm also much more selective about who I'll accept for one-on-one coaching.

I'm looking for creatives who are willing to get down and dirty and do the work, because I want to see you have major breakthroughs, reach your goals and be wildly successful.

Success means different things to everyone. I want to get to know you, my true Creativepreneur peeps, and learn what success means to YOU. So I can help you achieve it.

And you CAN.

Because you know business is not a 4-letter word.

You know that you need to get your ass out of your workshop and do business-generating activities if you want to have a successful business... and you're brave enough to put yourself out there!

You also know that sales and marketing don't have to make you feel icky. (And if you don't, let's talk about that.)

Honestly, I enjoy business stuff. I truly am The Online Business Passionista. I LOVE online business and the possibilities it holds for anyone willing to embrace it.

I don't require that you love it. But if you're not willing to learn business, you WILL NOT find the success you seek. Because even though you don't have to like business, you do have to do business.

Over to you. All of this is for you. So talk to me. I'm listening. What do you need? What does success look like to you? Tell me in the comments below.

Much Success,

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Inspiration From Around the World - Blog Challenge Days 8 and 9

by Debi Auger

Day 8 Challenge: A Day of Rest! (and, yes, for me this is a challenge)
Day 9 Challenge: "Whose online business do you admire most and why?"

Day 8

Today was a day of rest. Thought I'd better acknowledge that so you don't go crazy looking for Day 8 ;-) Whew! A much needed bonus for me. I'm not used to blogging daily... hence why I am not keeping up here (so this was really just one less day to catch up on... ssssh!). But considering the fact that I don't usually do anywhere near this many blog posts, I'd say I'm doing pretty damn well and I'm proud of that.

Day 9

Whose online business do I admire most? Wow. There are so many people that I could mention here and no possible way I can choose just one. 

Natalie Sisson 

Yup, Natalie herself is right at the top of my list for sure. And no, I'm not kissing ass. I seriously don't think anyone else ever could get me to blog every single day. See, that's the inspirational effect she has on her audience. It's awesome to see. She delivers top notch information and coaching, of course. But the way she engages and inspires her tribe is truly something to strive for. And the avid support and response she gets in return is fantastic. I hope to have that kind of relationship with my Awaken Dreams community someday!

Sir Richard Branson

I also greatly admire Sir Richard Branson. I'm a multi-passionate entrepreneur and I see him as the ultimate multi-passionate entrepreneur so I find him incredibly inspiring. I love his philosophy of business as a force for good; that the purpose of business is to make people's lives better.

There are 3 other people that I absolutely adore. I've been blessed to work with them, love to follow them, devour their stuff and have learned an enormous amount from them.

Natalie MacNeil

Natalie is the Founder of She Takes on the World. She is the Mindset Queen and, along with Natalie Sisson in WE Mastermind, helped me get my mindset on track for greatness. I love her go get 'em style and I'm deeply inspired by her work. I enjoy watching her She Takes on the World TV shows.

Bernadette Doyle

Bernadette is the Founder of Client Magnets. She's someone who has, in many ways, done what I'm trying to do, both personally and professionally. She's genuine and down-to-earth, while at the same time not afraid to give you the tough love and tell you to put your big girl panties on because she truly cares about your success.

Matthew Kimberley

Matthew is the Head of the Book Yourself Solid School of Coach Training and Author of How To Get a Grip (great book!). I love the combination of laughing and learning and have not seen anyone more the master of having you laughing your ass off while learning critical sales and marketing information than Matthew. He's also a productivity ninja (and we've already discussed here what a productivity nut I am) so, of course, I thoroughly enjoyed his ebook How To Be Really F**king Productive, too. 

So Many Awesome Entrepreneurs

I've been blessed to meet, work with and mastermind with so many wonderful people along my journey in business online. I've engaged with people around the globe, expanded my horizons worlds beyond what they were before and I think that is my favorite part of this.

And You?

Who do you most admire and why? Tell us in the comments below.

Much Success,

_______________________________________________________________________________

I'm writing this post as part of Natalie Sisson's 30 Day Blog Challenge during which I'll follow the path she's laying with inspiration and challenges for daily blog posts. I hope you'll enjoy coming along on this journey and share your own in the comments every day. If you'd like to participate in the challenge on your own blog, just click one of the links here and you'll be taken to the page with all the details. Cheers!

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How Liking Ladders Will Decimate Your Facebook EdgeRank and Hurt Your Bottom Line

by Debi Auger

Have you ever had something happen on Facebook that made your jaw drop and really rubbed you the wrong way? It happened to me recently. I witnessed an event that really irritated me. It's not the first incident of its kind; as a matter of fact far from it. Something similar happened to me a while ago and it irked me then, too.

So why am I telling you about it? And why the outburst on my (personal) Facebook page... the kind you've never seen from me before? Because it's as relevant to your business as any other one with a business page on Facebook. Because they're exactly the types of things that happen when people go about willly nilly liking pages just to get reciprocal likes and increase their fan count.

A friend of mine, and fellow artisan, was holding an event and received a really rude comment from a "fan" of her business page. And, yes, I did feel the need to step in and have my say about it... I'm opinionated ya know ;-)

Essentially besides telling her she was rude, I pointed out the fact that the wonderful thing about Facebook is you control what you see and that, if she wasn't a fan of her work, she shouldn't have liked her page in the first place. I feel that was a fair assessment because her comment was extremely rude, insensitive, insulting... just plain nasty.

Why Would Someone Like a Page They Don't Like?

When people are focused on getting as many fans as possible, they often participate in "liking ladders" (also called tagging sessions and a number of other names). And this is the kind of thing that can result from them. People go around liking pages that they couldn't care less about, then later, when things are posted, there's backlash.

In addition to the negative situation that occurs between people in these instances, there are Facebook repercussions as well. That person will at the very least now unlike the page. Obviously they should unlike the page. However, the act of unliking is one of Facebook's negative engagement triggers so now a hard-working small business owner's page has been negatively impacted when in reality the person probably never should have liked it in the first place.

Asking For Trouble

There are two things that I'm really tired of seeing because, by participating in them, you're just asking for trouble. And I see them over and over (at least 5 times just today!) so I think they need to be discussed. There are two scenarios I repeatedly see:

     1) "Liking Ladders"

     2) The suggestion of "hey let's all like each other's Facebook pages and get more likes" that I keep seeing on Facebook, LinkedIn and in forums and groups all over the place.

No, no, no, let's NOT!

Why?

EdgeRank. That's why.

EdgeRank and What It Means for You

I've discussed EdgeRank here before and how it affects business pages; as well as the new changes to it that take into account negative engagement.

If you look at Facebook (or any other social media site for that matter) as a numbers game; all about how many likes you have, you're completely missing the point of having a Facebook page in the first place. Gathering likes from people who have no interest in you is absolutely worthless. And not only that, because of EdgeRank, it will come back and bite you in the ass.

You want passionate, engaged and loyal fans on your page. Not people who end up asking you why you're showing up in their feed!

How Liking Ladders Will Decimate Your EdgeRank

Unfortunately many people consider liking ladders to be networking. They're not. I admit I participated in a few of them when I first started on Facebook, before I knew better. 

In case you've never heard of this, they're basically an event, usually involving a pretty large group (I've seen these things last hours!), going around liking pages and leaving their own page info to get a reciprocal like, most of the time with no further exploration of the page being liked... at that time or in the future.  

You're usually required to like every page in order to participate and therein lies one of the biggest problems. This causes people to, in the moment at least, like pages they have no interest in. They don't care about you, will most likely remove you the next day and if not, they'll hide you from their feed. Either way Facebook's negativity radar has been alerted and it will hurt you. 

Imagine a ladder of 100 people all come and like your page tonight during one of these events. A few of them actually like you and stay. But the other 80 unlike your page... all within a short time frame. Whoa... EdgeRank is going to hammer you!

Another Risk of Participating

There's another risk you face as a participant. If you like and comment on too many pages in quick succession, Facebook sees it as spam and you'll end up in hidden posts or worse... Facebook will block you (put you in a time-out). I've seen people put in time-out for 30 days!  Not a good place to be if you're trying to run a business!

Another No-No While We're At It

And, since we're looking at engagement and ways to stay out of trouble, another thing I've stopped completely is giveaways on my Facebook page. And I don't just mean the kind we used to all run before Facebook "ruined our fun" a few years ago. I don't do them using the Facebook-approved apps anymore either. Because they cause the same effect that liking ladders do. 

People find your giveaway via the app and all of a sudden you get a large number of likes from people who want to win whatever it is you're giving away. The problem is they're often just looking for anything they can get for free, then you never hear from them again, or worse... they stick around for the wrong reasons and start causing drama on your page. Either way, they're not very likely to become a paying customer. So your EdgeRank suffers for no good reason.

TIP → When I want to hold a giveaway, I do it for my newsletter subscribers and fans of my page and I hold it on my blog. Yes, that's my way of making sure the proper people are rewarded with a giveaway and that Facebook isn't telling me how to do it.

To Do or Not To Do

Sometimes you can find great pages, items and people by participating in these things. I met some awesome people this way. But I don't think it's worth the risk. There are better ways to accomplish the same thing.

I seriously caution against joining ones that require you to like every page you visit on your "trip around Facebook" for the reasons I mentioned.

Also, these events waste precious time that you could spend networking in ways that are actually beneficial to your business and will produce results, not just likes.

Grow Your Likes Organically

You're much better off to grow your likes naturally. It will be slower but you'll end up with fans who have a genuine interest in you and your product/service and be more likely to engage with you on your page.

It's the engagement that's important.  Likes don't help your page as much as lack of engagement will hurt it.

Protect Your Bottom Line

If you have a business, Facebook can be a huge opportunity for you to attract leads and even make sales. So don't be careless by participating in activities that can have a negative effect on your presence there.

If you play with finicky Facebook's fire, you're going to get burned. And ultimately it's your bottom line that will suffer. Possibilities:

        • EdgeRank... and therefore page views and interaction... decreases which causes a complete negative snowball effect.

        • You could get put in Facebook time-out... for a long time.

        • You could have your page shut down all together.

And remember... there's really no way to contact Facebook. I've watched this happen to people and there's no way to argue your case. You're at their mercy.

So let's agree...

        • NO liking ladders

        • NO mass liking campaigns of any kind

        • NO unapproved giveaways that violate Facebook's policies (even better... reward your true fans by doing them elsewhere)

        • GROW LIKES NATURALLY

So How Do I Do That?

1. Give people every opportunity to connect with you and invite them to!

     • buttons on your website, blog and any third party selling site that allows you to share them (like ArtFire)

     • a written invitation on relevant pages of your site (I.e. Home page, About page, FAQs page, Contact Me page, etc.)

     • a standing invitation, using buttons or other means, in your newsletter (You are publishing a newsletter right?!? If not, we need to talk!)

     • an invitation every time someone buys from you (I send it in my shipping confirmation/thank you email.)

     • cross-promote your social media accounts on other social media accounts whenever possible (I.e. put all your links to your website, blog, ArtFire, Etsy, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc on your Facebook About page)

2. Network with people and make friends which will normally result in the mutually supportive act of liking each other's pages. The key here is "mutually supportive!"

Networking the Right Way

Networking is something you should be doing and it can be very beneficial to both you and your business in many, many ways if you do it correctly.

Find groups of people with similar interests, ask to join and get to know the people in them. 

Do your own "Liking Expedition"... use Facebook's new graph search to type in things you're genuinely interested in and see what comes up. Go explore those things... people, pages, groups, etc... like those that you're truly interested in. 

Join groups that interest you. Introduce yourself. Make friends. Network with those people.

I run and belong to several Facebook Groups and you can find them for just about anything under the sun. For example, I run a Color Combo Challenge Group where we vote on a color palette each week and come up with a design in our medium including at least 3 of the colors in the palette, then reveal them in the group the following week. The purpose is to challenge artisans to work with colors they don't normally use and combine colors they wouldn't normally think to combine so they can grow in their work.

I also belong to several Mastermind Groups. And I started the aWAEHQn dreams Mastermind Group so you could reap the benefits of a Mastermind Group specifically geared toward artisan entrepreneurs. Mastermind Groups are a great way to network with like-minded people who will support you and your work.

My Solution and Recommendation

My solution... I don't like pages of people I don't know unless I genuinely like what they sell or what they're about. Period.

You need to follow best practices and look for ways to BOOST your EdgeRank if you want to be successful on Facebook. So be careful out there ;-)

And yes, absolutely, if you like me, and my mission and message resonate with you, by all means like my page. I'd LOVE to hear from you!

There are all kinds of fun and unique things going on on Facebook and all around the world wide web. Join in!

Much Success,

Share your thoughts...

Entrepreneurship Is Perfect for the Unemployed Who Can't Find Work

by Debi Auger

Welcome to Part 6 of my "Entrepreneurship is Perfect for..." Series

Are you unemployed and unable to find work? The US unemployment rate is 7.8%. There are over 12 million people unemployed in the US right now. The hardship of extended unemployment is beyond description.

If you're one of the ones who has found yourself in this situation, you may want to consider entrepreneurship as an option for yourself. If successful, you will have work for yourself and may even be able to create jobs for others as well.

Entrepreneurship is going to play a vital role in our economic recovery; because small businesses play a huge role in economic growth.

Women-owned small business are becoming a much larger part of that growth.  "Forty years ago, women owned just 5 percent of all small businesses. Today, women own 30 percent, a total of 7.8 million companies generating $1.2 trillion a year in sales."

A report by the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute in 2009 argued that women will create between 5 and 5.5 million new small business jobs by 2018, more than half of the new small business jobs anticipated.

If you have found yourself in the ranks of the unemployed, have a sit-down with yourself and do some soul searching to determine if entrepreneurship is a viable option for you.

Could you start your own business doing what you used to do? Do you have a hobby you could turn into a business? Do you have an idea for a product you'd like to develop?

It can't hurt to add it to your list of options and take the time to explore the possibilities while you continue your job search. You may just decide that another "job" is not what you really want.

One thing I've found is that entrepreneurship puts you in the driver's seat. It gives you the control and really does let you create the future you want to have. And it's amazing.

You don't need to be an artisan to take this course. It's a lifestyle business planning course in which I'll be doing Niche Selection Workshops for those who aren't sure exactly what they want to do/offer. So, if you think it's something that might interest you, stop over and learn more about the Program. But don't wait... registration closes tonight at midnight. I hope to see you there :)

And if you have any friends or colleagues you think might be interested in the Program, please share with them as well. I'd appreciate any help spreading the word :)

Much Success,

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I Want to Know What YOU Want to Know

by Debi Auger

Some very exciting things are happening here at aWAEHQn dreams headquarters! I'm putting together some really fabulous stuff for you.

And I'd like your help. I would like to know what YOU want to know... what YOU need help with... what keeps YOU up at night in a worried frenzy??

Feel like sharing?

I've made it quick and painless for you. And I have a few ways you can do this so pick your favorite. Here's a super-quick poll:




I purposely posted the poll with the results because I want you to see something very important... you are NOT alone. You're not alone in your struggles. You're not alone in your worries. And you're not alone here either :) 

But I'll tell you what... you ARE in the right place. So I hope you'll come back often, follow along, share with me and the rest of the community (your comments are always welcome), join us on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, tell your friends and take an active roll in making your dreams come true.

If you have other artisan friends, I'd LOVE it if you'd share this poll (http://bit.ly/RRcUJ5) and tell them about aWAEHQn dreams so they can join the community, too.

If you have a few minutes, you can fill out a survey. It's in 2 parts in case you're pressed for time; the first has 3 questions (http://bit.ly/adscsolve1) ; and the second has 6 more, the URL for it is at the end of the first survey. It's a good start to get you thinking about your business and what you want out of it.

And, of course, you can shoot me an email or message me on Facebook, or any other way you choose to get in touch.

Thank you!
And, yes, I'll be sharing the results ;)

Much success,

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