It’s been a joyous ride and I have learned so much as the creator of NewBizBlogger.com but I feel the time has come to move on to what’s next for me… what I’m being pulled to do.

It’s not a decision that has come easy for me and I don’t take lightly what I’m giving up in order to step up and continue to evolve as an entrepreneur and business owner.

But sometimes in life you have to let go of something in order to get present to new possibilities in life.

I have learned so much as the creator of NewBizBlogger.com and I’m extremely proud at what I’ve accomplished. I’ve connected with so many amazing people … many whom I know will take that next step with me.

No regrets. Just completely grateful for what I’ve taken on and for those who have stood by my side through the process and have grown along with me.

So what’s next?

Well , I’ve decided to put my energy and focus on growing my new site PackageYourGenius.com which I’ve decided is more aligned with my message, who I want to serve, and the areas that I’m most passionate about.

Think of it as NBB but in a smaller, more focused, and intensive scale.

How does this apply to you and what can you expect?

Over the course of the next couple of weeks I will begin to make the transition presenting people with the opportunity to connect with me at my new site and social networks.

Update: Please Note: For simplicity – all articles published as of May 16, 2012 will remain on this site to give visitors access to the well over 200 articles, audios and videos; although no new articles will be published on this site from this day forward. Future trainings will happen on the new site, packageyourgenius.com

The new site will apply to you if:

• you are an entrepreneur committed to sharing your message, skills, and knowledge with others
• you understand the importance of learning online marketing to help leverage your business efforts
• you want to learn more about info product creation and how to package your genius and share your gifts with others
• you understand that it all starts with your mindset and are committed to tackling that bad boy
• you want clarity and focus in your business
• you can appreciate straight talk and understand you sometimes have to get your feathers ruffled to motivate you to take action
• you want to learn how to make the heart to tech connection and turn your passion into a viable business

If any of this sounds interesting to you than buckle your seat belts because it’s my commitment to be the catalyst to take you to the next level of YOUR business.

It has been my privilege and honor to be by your side with starting and growing your online business. And as I said before I am truly grateful to have had loyal readers as yourselves.

If you would like to connect with me at my new site and networks, simply click on the icons below:

I look forward to continue being of service.

Warmly,

Despite the rise in popularity among those who shop online, online business still operate from a slight disadvantage. But with a quality business logo you can easily combat the intangible nature of online shopping, building your brand for growth and profitability by shaping it around a clearly defined core image. It is easier than ever to come up with ideas for a logo there are sites where you can look at 1000’s of logo ideas – Free Logo Services, Dribbble and many others. And if that isn’t enough of a reason, here are five more benefits to creating a unique logo design for your online business.

1. Creates a tangible image to substitute for a physical location. Many times the experience provided within a physical location helps define a product or service. In an online shop, this practice is replicated through the layout of your website and the images you use to represent your business.

2. Defines and positions your brand. Figuring out who your core market will be is often the first step in business. By identifying their attributes, as well as the dimensions that define the space occupied by your product or service, you can use those defining words and images to create a logo that genuinely speaks to your target demographic.

3. Easily reflects your unique selling point (USP). Further clarifying your service offering, a professional logo design will highlight the best parts of your product or service and, in particular, those aspects that differentiate you from your competitors. If done properly, you can use a business logo to position your company as a leader rather than a follower. More specifically, a good unique selling point implies that the product or service you deliver has absolutely no substitute.

4. Key tool that can tell the story of your brand. Further capitalizing on the aspect of experience, a logo for your online business helps connect you with your customers by enabling them to identify with you on a more personal level. Through images and words, you can create a business logo that draws on the positive associations related to your brand.

5. Vital for promotion through social media. There’s simply no way around it: as an online business, you have to participate in social media. Platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are essential to reaching your customer base and maintaining a continuous state of contact. This is where a logo is often most effective, unifying all of your marketing efforts under a single umbrella that directs customers back to your online store.

Though any business could benefit from brand recognition and a well-thought-out user experience, these aspects are far more vital to an online business that typically struggles to compete with the physical contact a customer receives in a brick-and-mortar location. But by unifying your offering around a simple, direct logo, you can create a brand image your customers will remember… and return to.

• Every had the issue of keeping track of conversations with your clients?
• Inundated with emails going back and forth and oftentimes something getting missed in the process?
• Looking at client consoles that are charging anywhere from $67plus/month to use their systems?

Let me just put it out there, if you have a regular stream of clients that pay you handsomely then this post may not be directed at you. However, if you are still in the beginning stages of working with clients and would like to learn of an easy, FREE, system to working with one-on-one clients effectively, then this may be an option for you to look into.

• No more endless emails.
• No more lost conversation or miscommunications.
• No more paying out the ying-yang to host your client interactions.

All you need is WordPress and a bit of creativity.

Here are the topics covered in this video:

• Install WordPress and creating a client hub
• Types of information to put on a client page or post
• Benefits of making it a post as oppose to a page
• How to password protect your page or post
• Using the commenting system to communicate with your client

Resources:

• ReplyMe Plugin
• HostGator Web Hosting
• WordPress.org

Note: Don’t currently have a WordPress website? Check out my WordPress Training Workshop on all the training you’ll need to know to get your site up and running in less than 24 hours!

In my video training on How to Create a WordPress Client Hub Part 2, I go into much more details on customizing your client hub.  In this 31 minute training video, I touch base on the following topics:

• How to customize your site for your clients
• How to create a category to host all your clients
• How to password protect your posts
• How to create and embed a Google calendar
• How to add private videos using YouTube and AmazonS3
• How to break up pages using the next function

To gain access to this training video, simply go to Online Business Head Start Club and sign up as a member. This membership is currently FREE. With your membership you get:

• Monthly video training sessions and expert guest interviews
• Downloadable mp3 and mp4 links
• Handouts and worksheets when applicable

Look forward to seeing you inside!

Image Credit

Here’s how to begin the process of dusting yourself off and moving forward:

1. Don’t place blame.

It can be easy in any moment of perceived failure to seek out someone or something to blame. If only those sixteen-year-olds you hired had been friendlier to the customers. If only gas prices hadn’t just gone up. If only your husband would have been more supportive by taking on more responsibilities at home. There are always a million and one excuses to be made for things that don’t pan out the way you imagined. Unfortunately, this is only a waste of time and a distraction from doing the dirty work of picking up the pieces. Besides, at the end of the day, the success of any business falls squarely on the shoulders of the business owner.

2. Figure out what went wrong and move on.

Once you have finalized your decision to stop business operations and have had a chance to mourn the loss, you absolutely must look back and discover the root causes of your business’s failure. This is no time to get heated or feel defensive. Take stock of every decision that was made with an objective state of mind, as if you are decoding someone else’s business plan. If you absolutely can’t separate yourself, hire an expert to look at what happened and provide an honest opinion. It’s important to determine exactly what mistakes were made so you can prevent them from happening again. Once you figure it out, move on and don’t look back.

3. Share your learning experience with honesty.

If a business has failed, one of the main reasons entrepreneurs find it difficult to pick up the pieces is because they feel their entire reputation has suffered in the process. When you start a business, you are suddenly busy marketing the idea to friends and family, encouraging acquaintances to try your services, and inviting everyone you know to launch parties and online deal sign-ups. It is perfectly normal to feel embarrassed that what you have put your name on has just not worked out. Instead of hiding from the facts or skewing the truth, take the opportunity to be honest with friends and family about what has happened and what you learned in the process. If you come from a genuine place, everyone you know will be happy to jump back on board when you get going again.

4. Take advantage of the chance to renew your goals.

When life has crashed and burned around you, it can feel as though the first thing you need to do is build everything back up exactly as it was before. But, the truth is, after the dust has cleared and the rubble has been towed away, there is no better time to renew your goals, your life, and yourself. Grab this time in your life as an opportunity to change everything that hasn’t been working and renew parts of yourself that you never knew were there. Maybe your business didn’t work out because you were not truly passionate about it. Figure out what you actually want, and, once you do, take of running toward newer and loftier goals.

Necessity

In the offline world, normal business hours will be from 9 AM to 5 PM. If a customer wants to place an order after 5 PM, it is not possible. Here comes the website with its unique advantage that it can process orders on 24 x 7 basis. Everything is automated. While you sleep, the website still functions conveying some information to a distant customer or processing an online order. This is a small example to understand the usefulness of web presence. Web presence has been accepted form of business presence adopted by every kind of business in the world. In this scenario, it is essential to select a web hosting platform that sustains your business by supporting your web presence on 24 x 7 basis.

It is very much required to understand the available web hosting technologies. It is also required to understand the available web hosting plans offered by various web hosting companies. As you are aware of various technologies and hosting plans, you will be able to select the most appropriate plan for your peculiar business needs. In this way, you will not waste your time, money and effort.

Available features

• In order to deliver service to your customers, your website should be protected from all kinds of interruptions. Specialized web hosting service providers can achieve this distinction by deploying your website at multiple geographical locations. Even if there is an issue at one location, you will get uninterrupted service as your site will be alive by being present on another server located at a different location. You can avail this option from web hosting service providers when you are running services that cannot be interrupted at any cost.
• You should have enough disk space and bandwidth to store data and to enable speedy access to your web pages by a number of visitors at any point of time.
• The web pages should load fast and they should have the capability to load in any kind of browser including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer.
• You should be able to install the database of your choice. By going through the web hosting plans offered by various web hosting service providers, you can understand whether a particular database that you are considering will be supported or not.
• It is important that you should be able to contact web hosting service provider on round the clock basis. A customer/Technical support at a phone call distance will certainly encourage you to hire the service as it will be a great moral support for you.
• You should be able to scale up your service. As your business grows, you should be able to respond to more number of customers. This necessitates higher volume of disk space and bandwidth. The migration should be seamless without having any impact on the services offered by you.
• There should not be any restriction on the number of email accounts that you can create with your domain name.
• If there is heavy demand for resources present on your website, you may want to shift from shared hosting to a dedicated hosting service. Dedicated hosting gives you more flexibility. However, you should deploy dedicated technical personnel to handle various day-to-day tasks.
• If you are going to run shopping cart applications on your website, web pages should be able to process required scripts. Further your hosting should support Secure Socket Layer (SSL) implementation.
• You should be provided with a decent control panel and a dashboard to control settings that pertain to your website. The ability to install various plugins will enhance your web presence. You will be able to optimize the content posted on your web pages as per the search engine’s recognition criteria. You will be able to send and receive emails automatically by installing specialized software. All this is possible if there is compatibility between the software that you intend to use and the web hosting platform.
• The web hosting service provider should take care of the security of the server. The data should be backed up at regular intervals of time. Firewalls and anti-virus software should be installed on the server to foil hacker’s attempts.
• Even though periodic maintenance is required, the downtime should be less and manageable. Your business cannot afford long hours of ‘no show’ of your website.
• Usually, your site statistics could be monitored through the tools provided by the web hosting provider. In addition to that, you can install your own set of tools to monitor various statistics that happen on the website.

Conclusion

It is essential to figure out your exact web hosting requirements. It is not only the budget but also the quality of service that should dominate your decision. By going through the features mentioned above, you will be able to take a better decision on your web hosting requirements.

Michele, what inspired you to start Online Business Head Start?

OBHS was a program that was lingering in my head for some time. I wanted to be able to provide content to other entrepreneurs and online business owners that was valuable yet exclusive at the same time. It was important for me to offer content that was not readily available anywhere. This is why I focus much of my attention on guest interviews. I myself find it very useful when listening to interviews of those whom I respect and admire and wanted to provide the same experience to my members.

What goals do you have in mind for Online Business Head Start?

My goals for OBHS are long and wide! Although it’s still at the infancy stages, that is, it hasn’t been around for very long, I foresee an amazing community of online business owners congregating together to support one another in their ventures. My plans for the future is to create an infrastructure that supports forums, content sharing, and cross-promotions.

I’ve recently become a gold member of my site. For the readers who aren’t familiar, can you give them some details on what being a paying member helps them with?
Sure!  As a member, you get access to on-going training in all areas of starting and growing an online business.  This can cover many topics from marketing tips, resources to help you automate your business, best practices, leveraging your time, setting up speaking engagements, search engine optimization techniques, social media tips, etc.. Being a member is going to allow you access to the resources, tools, and insiders’ secrets to expedite your efforts by learning topics such as these from those who’ve already had success with them.

We are facing a number of changes on the horizon, including another update from Google. Do you feel it is going to become harder to run a successful Internet business in the near future?

I think we are just at the tip of the iceberg with having an internet-based business. More and more businesses are gravitating to the web in order to leverage your efforts. Will this increase competition? Sure. But for the savvy entrepreneur and business owner that stakes a claim sooner than later and continues to define and redefine their message, what they stand for, and what is it they offer that their competitors don’t, I believe will become the industry leaders. All in all, don’t wait… act now!

Michele, I wanted to let you know that I think you have chosen some really great experts speaking to these topics. How do you find such amazing people to work with?

Thanks! These experts are people whom I’ve established relationships with that I believe are not only leaders within their industry but also have proven systems, processes, and knowledge that has allowed them to be ahead of the curve in their business. These are people who have paid their dues and are able to share their winning formulas with others.

I noticed the first couple resources you listed were about content creation. Would you say that content creation will be an underlying theme of your site?
Content creation is definitely a dominant theme for sure, but it’s just one of many important categories that I will be presenting on OBHS as the site progresses. I also believe that touching on areas of mindset and self-development are extremely important topics and I plan to cover these times more in the near future.

Your tagline is “replacing struggle with clarity, fun and ease!” What inspired you to create that tagline?

Simple. Struggle was for the longest time has been a strong presence in my journey. Getting to where I am now in my business has been a challenging one. Mostly because for a long time I had chosen to do it on my own online. Then I had my big aha moment one day – I realized that was addicted to struggle! It was all I knew. It was what I had witnessed my parents doing growing up. I decided that it was time to put that old limiting belief to rest and take on a more empowering one.

Replacing struggle with clarity, fun and ease it what resonated most with me; mostly because it was what I had desperately wanted in my life and in my business. One of my first courses of action was to begin to invest in myself and take on mentors and coaches and begin to learn their shortcuts.

Realizing you ALWAYS have a choice on how you want to run your business (and your life) can be enlightening. You can choose struggle or you can choose fun and ease. I recommend the latter.

If you had to take a swing at it, what would you say would be the one biggest problem that your community hopes to address?

I love this question and it is probably the reason why my business has evolved over the past year and I have found myself coaching entrepreneurs quite often in one particular area – and that is with gaining clarity and focus in their business.  With information so readily available adding to the noise on the internet, it has been that much more difficult for those running an online business to gain clarity on what their message is and how to effectively expedite their efforts using online marketing.

Shifting your focus to that of a problem solver and getting crystal clear on your message, that is WHAT is it you stand for, WHO is it that you help and HOW you help them, in very specific details, is going to be the key to unlocking the door to your success.

To get your FREE audio training on The 7 Step System To Boosting Your Online Business Efforts™, please subscribe to the Online Business Head Start Club. Click Here for more information.

Here are 3 of the top ways of how your business will benefit from content marketing. 

Branding Building

As a new small business owner developing your brand identity is critical.  Without the budget for major advertising campaigns it is important to find a channel that allows you to create brand awareness within your target market.  Did you know that after reading original content on a website 60% of consumers feel more positive about a business?

Tip – To help you get started, try answering the most common questions asked by customers at your business.  If they are asking them in person, then they are most certainly asking them on the web.

Consumer Education

As consumers slow down the buying cycle it is important to help them along in the process.  By educating them about your industry, products, or services they will quickly become more confident in making a purchase.

Tip – Write content that is engaging, educational, or entertaining about your business or industry.  By creating articles of the best of’s, the top 10’s, how to, etc your consumer will begin to see you as the place to get there questions answered instead of just Google.

Competitive Advantages

By creating valuable content you will begin developing a competitive advantage over your competition.  As the size of your resource database grows so will your credibility with your audience.

Tip – Remember that gaining influence and credibility over an audience takes time.  If I told you could be on your way to a key competitive advantage by committing roughly 2-3 hours of time each week to gain that advantage should be a no brainer.

Understanding how your business will benefit from content marketing is critical before you get started.  Once you truly see the value not only will your business benefit, but so will your customers.  You may know everything there is to know about your business, but your customers don’t know that.  It’s your job to show them that you are an expert that can answer their questions and fulfill their need.

What are you doing to educate your customers in order grow your business?

But let me tell you a story about faith.

About four years ago as I was sitting on my couch, a stay-at-home mom looking at my son and wondering what his future would be like and how I would contribute to that, I began to think that it was time for me to step it up. I had rolled the dice a few times in the past years in starting a business, but nothing ever quite panned out.  But I was eager to give it a go again. Because I had…

FAITH.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to create. But since I always had the entrepreneur spirit, it really didn’t matter what I created at the time as long as I was creating “something”. I eventually settled on opening up an e-commerce site selling used kids clothes, which I called Thrift 4 Kids. I put in my hard work, learned as much as possible on how to create a website, advertise it, optimize it for search engines, keyword analysis, marketing, and so forth, and four months later I was open for business.

Cool!

Within six months I was getting customers, building my list and had landed on the first page of Google for a relatively competitive keyword.

Awesome!

However, a year or so into this venture my heart felt very heavy and I was exhausted! Right around this time I began getting request from friends to create their websites. Up until this point I had only created my website using zencart (an e-commerce software) and although I had learned quite a bit I was nervous about creating websites using other types of software. But I was excited about the prospect of creating websites as this was something I really enjoyed when I was creating mine. So even though I had my doubts I took a leap of …

FAITH!

Soon afterwards I began NewBizBlogger.com, closed up my e-commerce shop and began taking on clients who needed help getting their online business started. As my blog and network began to grow and as I began to grow, I eventually realized that helping people get their online business up was great, but once again my heart felt heavy.

There was something missing.

Ever feel like that? Like there is a missing link, but you just can’t put your finger on it?

About year into my new business venture I was blessed with my first “coaching” client. This was someone who actually had a website up already. She had paid someone nearly $2000 to create her website, but was completely lost in how to get her online business going. She was frustrated and stressed for sure. She kind of new what she wanted to do, however she lacked direction and knowledge on HOW to do it.

After my first meeting with her, I became crystal clear where her issue lied; and that was with lack of clarity and focus.

A month or so later I was once again blessed with another client and after speaking with her extensively on the phone, I realized her issue – clarity and focus.

Hmm… seeing a pattern here.

Since then I have take on a few new clients and spoken with many potential clients about their businesses and their struggles. And almost all had that same common issue - lack of clarity and focus in their business on many different levels.

Right around this time I was struck with inspired thought. Ever have one of those? When all of sudden an idea hits you and you feel “this is it!” This is what all this *stuff* prior has led me to. The e-commerce site to NewBizBlogger.com to creating websites for clients to coaching clients in their business. This sequence of events had led me eventually to that one inspired thought.

My purpose is to work with people to gain clarity and focus in their business by helping them get clear on their message, what they offer and who they offer it to. Thus PackageYourGenius.com was born.

So once again I had to call upon…

FAITH!

You see each step I have taken has led to me another step. However as I took each step, I was blinded to the step after that. I had no idea that looking upon the face of my son that day would spark my interest to start an online business. I had no idea that that business would spark my interest to create this blog and help people start their online business. I had no idea that this site would lead me to coaching that eventually would lead me to my next step; in working with entrepreneurs and small business owners to gain clarity and focus in their business and use information marketing to expand their efforts.

I ultimately came to realize that without clarity and focus you will always have a cap on your business growth. How do I know this? Because it had been my journey and that of many others.

We all want certainty. Certainty that what we are doing is the “right” thing. Certainty that we are making the “right” choices. Certainty that the energy we put into our efforts will pay off. But at the end of the day, certainty is an illusion.

There are no certainties in life. What you have today may be gone tomorrow. What you thought was the “right path” may turn out to be the wrong one. This is why when all is said is done

FAITH

… is what’s going to keep you going.

KNOWING that you are being led to a path the is right for YOU! Have faith that there are no mistakes as long as you continue to listen to your inner voice and go with your inspired thoughts… even when they seem scary. Continue to take the next inspired thought even when you know that in the process you may have to give up something you’ve worked so hard on.

So know that when the going gets tough and you are on shaky ground, it is in having FAITH that you know you are on the path you are supposed to be on. Because once you lose faith, what’s left? Sceptism, doubt, fear.

Your thoughts?

A little blast from the past, just for fun … enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’re targeting an audience in a specific country, do a bit of research to make sure your color scheme isn’t sending the wrong message. Below is a chart that compares each of the eight basic colors (yes, I know white isn’t a color — humor me!) and their symbolisms across the world.

Color Psychology in Web Design – Don’t Rule It Out Completely!

Don’t get me wrong — traditional color psychology should still play a vital role in web design. With a fine arts background, I had to take a color theory class while in college. One of my projects revolved around Robert Plutchik’s wheel of emotions. His wheel associates basic emotions to colors. My project, a chart of portraits where the model depicted the eight basic emotions, reinforced Plutchik’s theory.

Each of the eight basic emotions on Plutchik’s wheel coordinates with one of eight basic hues — the purest and brightest form of color. Each pair of hues and emotions fades and becomes less intense. For example, the red hue portrays rage, lessening down into anger, and finally annoyance. The chart below lists each pair of hues and emotions.

Choosing a Color Scheme

When deciding on a color scheme for your website, you should consider both color symbolism and color psychology — and depending on what part of the world you live in, they may even been the same thing. Let’s take McDonald’s website for example.

The primary colors on McDonald’s website are red, yellow, and white. While red evokes a feeling of anger (which may be so for parents whose children constantly beg for Happy Meals), some view red as a color of excitement and energy. As you can easily see from the smiley face on the Happy Meal box, yellow evokes a feeling of happiness. Since it is a US-based franchise, the white signifies a sense of cleanliness and purity — a wise move to steer away from the fact that most of the food served isn’t exactly healthy.

Now let’s take a look at another well-known brand’s website: Marlboro cigarettes.

Being another US-based company, figuring out what the colors mean on this site is simple. The brand represents cigarettes and tobacco, a huge health hazard. Red evokes a feeling of danger and rage while black reminds viewers of death. On the bright side, at least they aren’t pretending to be something they’re not!

Since I don’t want to end a blog post on the thought of death and illness, let’s look at one more example website: Ford, another well-known brand.

Although there isn’t an actual color scheme to Ford’s website, the designers were wise in choosing the colors they did. Set on a natural landscape with a bright blue sky (amazement, peace, trust), vibrant green grass and mountains (nature, luck, apprehension), and a blacktop road (power, rebellion), they carefully places three different colored vehicles.

What do these websites make you think of? What are some other websites with dominant and obvious color schemes? What do you consider when choosing a color scheme for your website?

But I’m on a quest to crack the code…

Sounds a bit ominous doesn’t it?

A couple of days ago I wrote a brief article on the Top 10 Blogs Rocking It This Week! In this video I’m going to take it a step further and analyze why these sites were able to successfully created a buzz around these blog articles.

Now just let me point out that I understand that their may be many factors involved; there’s rarely a single factor that contributes to the viral effect of a blog article. Some of these factors may be:

• Trending topics
• Social Media
• Controversy
• Site popularity
• etc.

But I still feel these articles are worth being analyzed and hopefully I’m able to point out something to you you hadn’t considered previously.

Shout out: Wanted to give to Barry Wells from Barry-Wells.com a special shout out. He is currently running a video challenge that has prompted, and for a lack of a better word nudged, me to create this video.

Video Overview:

Click here to view the embedded video.

What are you thoughts on what makes a great blog article?