Was a mess here last week so we'll try to do better :o) - Tuesday we'll resume the goal discussion.

A very informative article on when people open emails and how it varies by season.

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2927

Tim

Completely forgot that Monday was a holiday - spent most of the day goofing off with my daughter. Tomorrow we'll resume our goals discussion.

Hope everyone enjoys the weekend - if you haven't done so make those goals we talked about earlier in the week.

Hopefully your goals are going well - today the goals you're going to write down have to do with your finances - different than your business - think personal, retirement, debt, things you may really want - you could also put here. Don't just say out of debt - say exactly how much ... ex. I want to pay off my debt of $22,000.00 in five years or seven or ten etc. Another ex. I want to buy (pay cash) for a new Hummer in five years. You get the idea, now go for it.

Next week we're going to work on turning these goals into a reality (think turning mountains into molehills)

Did you get those goals written yesterday - if not .... STOP... Do not pass go and don't keep reading. Do that before you continue. Each step builds on the last.

Today - using yesterdays template - write five long range goals you want to accomplish in your family life. Sometimes it hard to quantify love - but you could have a goal like - In ten years I want to have enough money saved for my childs education at the college of her choice. (Insert that dollar amount somewhere in the statement).

Five by tomorrow.

Today we're going to work on making our first long range goal. By now you should have some notes on where you want things going in various areas of your life. Today we're going to think about business for a moment and make our first long range goal.

You should remember that you don't want to be vague - in other words grow my business beyond my wildest dreams, while that may be good we want some solid numbers. Provide better customer service would be a good goal - but again there is no way that you can see if you achieve the goal. So a good goal would be - In 5 years I want to increase my business by 500%. ... or In 5 years my returns / refunds will decrease to 0.1%.

So today write five long range goals for your business.

Hope you enjoyed your weekend. We'll be talking more this week about goals... if you haven't done your homework from Thursdays post - get with it!!

Have a great Monday.

Saw this interesting article this week. Its about standards and function - but the main tidbit I got from the article was this.

"Yahoo's Tim Mayer said speed is a major concern, and to ensure fast loading page the company uses standards to reduce file size. Tim went on to say Yahoo's crawlers prefer fast loading sites and that they really don't put a lot of emphasis on validation. They have not seen a correlation between validated sites and good quality relevant sites. "

You can view the entire article here -
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3482116

We hope you have a wonderful weekend - don't forget your goal homework.

We've talked a bit on making goals - and the benefits of making long range goals - so what areas should you make goals in. Don't worry next week we'll set to work on actually making goals.

Your business
Your health
Your wealth - this is different than business - when do you want to retire... how do you want to retire.
Your family -
Spiritual -
Yourself - what would you like to learn how to do - what hobbies would you enjoy - if you could go anywhere where would that be

Now write these headings down on a sheet of paper -
Your homework for the weekend is to jot down some general things under each heading - think 5 or 10 years from now. Dream BIG!!

Have a good one.

Yesterday we talked a little about creating goals and the proper format - today we're going to be talking about long range goals.

The goal ( :o)) of goal making should be to provide you with some steps that you can take daily to meet them. In order to do this the first thing we need to do is create some long range goals. Like we talked about these can be dreams but they need to be specific as to amounts / times. These global goals don't have to be as specific as short term ones - think 5 or 10 years down the road.

So a good one might be - I want to double my business income in five years. I want to be able to pay for my child's college tuition in 10 years.

Tomorrow we'll talk a bit about the types of goals.

The next couple of days we're going to talk about some goal basics.

To create a good goal it must have the following components -

1) It must be clearly defined - losing weight is not a good goal - lose 10 pounds by June 1st is. So it must have
a) Specific - think numbers
b) Time - must have a time limit
c) Clearly defined - make more money in my business - that isn't clearly defined - make $1 million dollars by next year is - but not really as clearly defined as I like - we would call that a global goal. Get 20 new customers in 6 months is a great goal.

Lets think a bit about Global Goals - these are long range goals or dreams that you may have.

Homework - keep thinking about goals - but start focusing now on your global goals a bit more - where would you like to be in ten years from now.

More tomorrow.

This week we're going to begin an in depth discussion of goals - if everything goes well.

If you haven't done so yet make sure to check out the start of our goals guide which you can find in the last issue of our ezine.

http://www.blitzpromotions.com/blitz246-febr05.htm

Next week we're going to be talking about goals - so make sure that you stay tuned.

Got this in the email this morning and it's an excellent article on how USA Today gets more subscribers to its newsletter. With a little tweaking it would be valid for almost any business.

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2907

Have a wonderful weekend.

Tim and Lisa.

Now you should have a list of sites to contact for possible links -

1) Review their site for how to link - many of them will include clear instructions - ie how to link, who to contact, if you qualify for the link etc.... by the way - you need to make sure you have this included on your site, it will make your life much easier.

2) Contact them using the information they provide in #1. Make sure to chart on your spreadsheet when you contacted them, put their link up, when they put yours up, etc.

If they don't provide that information -

1) Contact them using a contact form or email address - make sure to
a)Address them by name if possible.
b) Explain how / where you will link them.
c) Mention something about their site that lets them know you visited.
d) Include your - link information, how to contact you, what to do if they have questions.

Then do it - it's not fun, it will take a while, but it does help.

Tim

An excellent article that reviews the things we've been talking about can be found here -

http://www.marketposition.com/mp-1204.htm#ONE

One note when you get the part that talks about links to get first - you can also use those directories as a good starting off point to gather links.

Gather sites that are in similar categories as your site.
Then go to the sites / review their links page and gather some more.

It's usually much easier to gather numerous sites before actually contacting them.
When you gather the site information make sure to get -

URL-
Site Name-
Page rank -
How to link -
Contact Information -

Tomorrow we'll talk some about the contact process.

Tim

We just posted the Feb. edition of our newsletter - when you get a chance make sure you read it. This week we'll finish Weds. and Thurs. with the how to get links series and next week we'll start working on creating goals.

Here is the link to the newsletter -
Enjoy -

http://www.blitzpromotions.com/blitz246-febr05.htm