What have I been doing this last couple of weeks to move my business and success forwards? Warning:  Quite a lot of navel gazing in this one but you might learn something from my ramblings!  It helps me think, get clear and I love it when my favourite bloggers do it, so I do occasionally.

Sarah’s reign of terror continues *grin* with ruthless systemisation and pruning of my emails and she’s doing a great job of starting to get the customer facing systems organised.

She’s insisted that, while there are not TOO MANY members yet, my internet marketing mentoring programme is renamed as neither of us could actually say Business Brand Blueprint out loud (try it, it’s hilarious!) so in order to bring it in line with my “done for you” internet marketing services company “The Business Success Factory” we are calling the mentoring programme “Business Success Factory” too, as it more clearly describes the outcome for the members.

I’m still um’ing and ah’ing about what I want to do with my life / deliver online, going forwards and Sarah’s doing a great job of keeping me focused on one of my pet phrases which is…

“Just because you could, doesn’t mean you should”

And this is one of my repeating Entrepreneurs Traps.  We all have them….think about yours for a moment!

From Joseph Jaworski’s great book “Synchronincity: The Inner Path of Leadership” they are The Trap of Busyness, The Trap of Feeling Responsible, The Trap of Over-Dependency and I’ve just added the Trap Of Could Versus Should!

I am capable of doing so many different things, that I sometimes get sucked in by the entrepreneurial opportunity, rather than remembering to ask what would give me joy to spend my days doing.

Writing is definately one of those things I enjoy and find easy, once I get started….a mentoring conversation with one of my clients revealed that he had a signup on his blog that said “Top 7 Tips on Writing A Successful Business Plan” but he hadn’t got around to writing the tips yet…..so I did, that morning.

You can read them here
http://nicolacairncro.wpengine.com/?p=2295

I got a unique and hopefully thought provoking blog post out of it, he got a free gift for his subscribers.

I resolved this week to post something, at least one thing on my blog every day, and it’s working, my traffic is starting to climb steadily.  I will top 100 visits a day shortly and thats good, considering I only came back to paying this blog some attention in February, my attention having been 100% focused on The Money Gym blog previously.

1. So writing & blogging, yes.
2. Monetising my blog – yes, to a point.
3. Providing interent marketing services myself (or even outsourcing to a team and managing that) probably no.
4. Passing referrals for that, onto trusted providers and earning a small commission, probably yes.
5. Creating and selling products – depends on the level of technical / graphic design skill required.
6. Recommending great high quality products created by other people I know, like and trust, yes.
7. Speaking – definately yes, love that whether it’s keynote speaking or “platinum speaking” where you make an offer.
8. Write the two more books I have inside me if I could get clear enough to focus.
9. TBA
10.TBA

Um’ing and ah’ing about offering internet marketing services to local businesses (they want it but are they ready to pay for it?) so I’ve scaled back on my local networking a bit.  Although I was quite enjoying it from a social point of view, it was a shocking time-suck and the horrendous weather hasn’t helped.  Who wants to get all dolled up and walk outside into a downpour.  What happened to the summer eh?  (I’m starting to get pangs for Stoupa again).

If I’m to be a pro-blogger, I’d better start thinking about monetising my site and this ezine, so I’ve added a “recommended resources” page and sidebar, and I’ve added a “your ad here” box to that sidebar with a link to some info about sponsorship and advertising opportunities on my site.  Haven’t settled on rates yet but I might just look at what Yaro Starak and Michael Dunlop charge, adjust my rates according to my traffic over theirs and bob’s your uncle.

I’m not even sure about the mentoring via a membership site now.  It seems that, no matter how much value you try and provide, there is a shorter membership life than I anticipated from my experience with The Money Gym where folks stayed in for a year minimum and often stayed around for several years.  In internet marketing memberships, with people dropping off due to all sorts of reasons, like their life getting in the way, work commitments, their broadband being too slow to cope with online video or even, in once case their local broadband terminal being blown up!!

I know I should expect that and not care, but I do care. I get emotionally invested in my clients, no matter what level they are at, and I hate it when I lose one, no matter what the reasons or how nice the email explaining why (how lovely that they bother, actually!).  O dear, another Entrepreneurs Trap right there!

I remembered how much I enjoyed working for short sharp burst of three months, working on a one-to-one basis, with weekly phone calls with top level mentoring clients, so I put out an email to see if there was still a demand for that at the moment and while I’ve had some enquiries the jury’s still out.

Then right at the end of the week, on Friday lunchtime, as the rain poured down relentlessly, one of my mentors skyped me and caught me at a bit of a frustrated moment, he picked up on that and offered me a quick skype mentoring session.

He’d been through a similar re-alignment of his focus and activities recently and remembered well how he felt as he went through what my business partner Judith called her “Fertile Void” (read about Judith’s experiences here >>>>) when she experienced the same thing late last year.

As we talked about what I enjoyed doing, one of the things that came up was doing the Marketing MOT’s for my blog readers.  Absolutely love doing them, they are quick and easy (techie speaking) and they deliver great value.

I don’t feel responsible for whether they put my ideas into action (another of my Entrepreneurs Traps) so it’s just great.

He came up with a brilliant traffic generating idea, that will add loads of value for the sheer joy of it, and which could turn into a product eventually.

Very cool.  So I’m putting it into action immediately.

Watch this space.