Key Business Partners, LLC

I watched a movie that I haven’t seen for a couple of years, however, I remembered that it had a really good message. The title of the move is Music of the Heart with Meryl Strepp. Gloria Estefan & Angela Basset.

The movie is about a women who find herself without a job and needing to care for her 2 boys when her husband suddenly leaves her.

One of the most pivotal scenes in the movie is near the beginning when she (Meryl) is sitting at her mom’s kitchen table. She is in disarray by the events of her husband’s absence and as she sits taking sips of coffee, she asks her mom, “What am I going to do now?” Her mom says, “You get a job now. It doesn’t matter where, you just get a job anywhere.” She stops drinking her coffee and she says, “Well, I don’t need to do that because he will come back.” Her mom looks at her and says, “Just get one anyway.”

See at first she (Meryl) get a job at a gift wrapping store. She seems to enjoy it enough however it doesn’t “sing” to her heart and it doesn’t really help pay the bills to much. I mean, she doesn’t want to stay at her mom’s for too long (you know what I mean).

Now, I have to be completely honest with you here. I started dinner at this time so I didn’t see the transition she goes through…however…

The importance of what she does is still there….she realizes that she LOVES to help others learn how to play the violin. Playing the violin gives her the greatest joy and she wants to share her passion and heart desire with others. So she decides to go to her local school and teach violin to the kids.

Now at first…she can only be a substitute for the music program. She goes through some tribulation with the doubters, “haters”, and disbelievers of what she is doing, why she is doing it and such. However, she stands her ground because this is what she should and wants to be doing in her life.

Fast forward about ten years later….the school district decides to start slashing the budget and wants to cut the art and music programs from schools. Her program is one of the program that gets dropped. Well, does she allow that to defeat her, NO! she fights back and gets others to help her. She finds that throughout the years all the people’s lives that she touched by teaching these kids violin.

So, I would like to ask you—What is the Music of your Heart? And how are you being sure others are able to listen to it?

This is a listing for the Who’s Who Directory of eCommerce Women –so why are you waiting any longer?

Oh yes, and did I tell you….the listing is FREE!

Yes, I did say free!

Heidi Richards Mooney (one of the most giving people I have ever met) is putting together a Who’s Who Directory of Women Business Owners.

To find out the details….please go to Heidi’s post on WE Magazine blog.

You can see that others (on the AndHowtoReachWomen blog) are talking about this Who’s Who Directory too (so jump on this opportunity while you have the chance!

As this year is already 1 month deep, I thought I had better get this post out there before it gets too much later.

I wanted to share my FAV list for 8 Must Have Business Tools (your own personal key business partners…hehehe) for 2008!

Paypal
- If you are seeking to find an easy, convenient and secure way to invoice clients and receive payments, paypal is the way to go. All you need to have is a valid bank account and you can set up payments for your products and services through Paypal. There is a small transaction fee when processing the fees back and forth. I believe it is about 2% on your received payments. But I personally believe it is so worth it because it is so worry free for me.

Skype – This is a internet communication system that allows you to make and receive phone calls over the internet. Oh yes, I almost forgot….for FREE! Yes, you read that right…F.R.E.E. It is so great. I have a hard time wondering how they are allowing me to call over seas for FREE but hey, I am soooo NOT complaining. It is fantastic.

Basement Ventures – This used to be called Free Teleconferencing.com however, they changed management and owners (I believe). Anyway, this company does provide teleconferencing services (again, it is FREE). You can register to have an account and within about 10 minutes you can be up and running with a call in number and pin to start a whole teleseminar series for your business. How cool is that!

Wordpress – This is just one of the many blogging formats you can utilize for your business. I personally like this better because I find it to be very user friendly. (And it is also because it is the only one I have ever tried.) So the others, such as Typepad or Blogger, might be just as easy and user friendly. With a blog, you can set it up like a website (having a static home page) or have it set up like a journal (recent blog entries on home page) and the big plus to having a blog as your website format, you can be placed in the control seat with updates (or you can have your assistant do the updates for you).

Aweber- When you have an online business, you need to build a client list either by creating a newsletter or promotion products such as ecourses, teleclasses, or seminars. Aweber is an autoresponder system contributing to building a customer list for business owners. Aweber is a low cost program allowing the online business to reach customers on an ongoing basis when promoting a product, service or event. The cost for aweber is about $20/mo.

Survey Monkey – While growing your online business, it is important to gain the opinions, wants and needs of your potential clients or target market. One of the best ways to do obtain this information is by conducting surveys. Survey Monkey is a FREE services that allows online business owners to create simple surveys. It will create the html code for you to send via email or place on your website once the survey is complete. Survey Monkey also collects the results for you.

Color Cop – Have you even been on a website and really liked a certain color and wish you could have it on your site or newsletter but didn’t know the color code to use. Well, with Color Cop, you can. Color Cop is a nifty little software program that you can download and then keep it on your desktop so you have it handy when needed. Oh, yes, and this is FREE as well. Color Cop has a “eye dropper” feature you can drag and click on any page you see and find out what the color code is and then you can go (or your virtual assistant can) into the cpanel and update the color.

WE Magazine-This is the official magazine for The WECAI Network(tm). This magazine is FULL of useful resources and helpful articles for all women business owners and entrepreneurs. I am proud to be one of the Editors at Large of this fine business magazine.

Well, the simple answer to this is probably YES!

However, you are confused with ALL the various places to go, hang out, people to meet….man oh man. How do you get through it all?

First, take a few deep breaths.

Secondly, have a clear vision of what you want to say to your audience (your target market). Is your vision to focus on your newest product or service? Are you searching to gain more visitors to your blog?

Next, be aware of where your target market hang out. This step really allows you to decrease the vastness of the world wide web down to a obtainable realm for you to handle a bit better.

A place to go to for more exposure online is Blog Carnivals. If you have a blog, by submitting blog posts to blog carnivals, it allows other people to know about you, your business and your expert.

If time seems to FLY by and even finding the time to do blog carnivals seems impossible, please contact me and we can talk about setting up a blog carnival package.

I recently brought up the topic of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace on the HER Mastermind Ryze Group led by Heidi Richards.

It was interesting to me to find out the responses. Great conversation!

http://www.ryze.com/posttopic.php?topicid=926345&confid=1654

Please feel free to share your thoughts about these social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace. Do you use them for your business? Why or why not?

Woohoo! I was thinking today of what I could do to honor National Time Management Month and then it was sent to me.

I had to share this great list of 137 Ways to Increase Your Productivity from Dawud Miracle. (One of my posts were included in this list -yay!) Ok, in order to help with time management, I will share 4 tips I found on the list. And then when you are scheduled in more time to come back to the link—you can read more of them. Thanks Dawud for the inclusion!

Kathie Thomas – talks about utilizing Google Alerts as a business tool.

Colleen Wainwrightshares her 1 TOP tip for productivity—keep things tidy. Hey, and she is a Virgo like me! I like her already.

Vlad Zablotskyygave 4 great tips to his ultimate guide to productivity. It goes from prioritizing, taking time off to rest his mind, finding the positives in your mistakes (LOVE that one!) and love and live life to the fullest!
Wendy Piersallof eMoms at Home added a few helpful tips as well. Such as forming your own mastermind group, knowing yourself (invest in yourself), create systems that work for you.

Ok, do you want one more….I will include mine tip on productivity. I do feel that it is a good tip. Enjoy!

Online promotion can be a scary thing to “tackle” for online business owners however, it doesn’t have to be. With the increasing popularity of sites like Facebook and MySpace, social networking has become a popular way to gain exposure and increase promotion efforts online. And it doesn’t have to become overwhelming or scary.

Laura Spencer at WAHM Momma wrote a great post about social media sites I would like to share it with you.
In this post talks about the different approaches to social networking. What are your reasons for getting involved with social networking? What is your ultimate goal by being a part of these social networking sites? Is it to become a top contributor to get noticed? To build a “business community” for yourself?

I do believe that you should have a plan when going into social networking because like any of these places…it is quite easy to get “wrapped up” in it and then you are left, overwhelmed and confused if it really works.

My suggestion is to create a social networking schedule for you and your business. And if this task is a bit too daunting for you as well, please contact Key Business Partners and we can work with you to set up a targeted social networking schedule for you and your business that won’t make you crazy.

Social bookmarking sites helps with organizing your “ongoing list” of those websites you want to get back to on an regular basis. Katherine Reschke had a nice post about social bookmarking sites with her “Social Bookmarking…what it is and where to do it” post.

I would also recommend creating a blog and/or website visit schedule for you and your business. This allows you to create a blog community to increase your exposure online and great way to use “soft innovation” (term used by renowned author Seth Godin) to increase online promotion.

You can contact Key Business Partners can create a Blog Rounds Schedule for your business to help with online promotion.