Recently I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Dr. Carolyn Miller of the blog talk radio show Getting Good at Life. I got to share my tips for increasing your bottom line in 2012. It was a rewarding experience and I feel fortunate to be able to have shared my insights with those who are looking to increase their bottom lines in 2012.

Dr. Carolyn Miller is a psychologist, speaker and life coach who has a passion for helping others live the best life possible. For nearly 20 years, Dr. Carolyn has provided consultation both nationally and internationally in her work with businesses, government, non-profits, churches, and universities. Dr. Miller skillfully employs psychological, inspirational and strategic approaches to her mission of personal empowerment.

We discussed how in 2012 smalls businesses struggles with really making their presence known. Branding was difficult for small businesses because many did not know how to brand themselves. I shared my tips on how to make a change in 2012 and become prosperous.

So what are you going to do in 2012 to get your brand into the minds and hands of your target audience?

Check out this radio chat below to learn more about my thoughts and tips that will make a difference in the small business world in 2012:

You’re an expert. Did you know that? Think of the times that people ask you for advice based on your profession. You know your stuff. That’s why people come to you. There are plenty of people out there who need your expertise. It’s about making connections and networking.

Now there is a place where experts come together for a common cause; sharing their knowledge with others. That place is called Maven. Mavin is not just a way to network. It’s not just another social platform. At Maven, members not only get a platform to share what they know but it’s another outlet to make money. People are constantly looking for experts to assist them. They are even willing to pay for that expertise. Maven is your outlet to getting what you know in the hands of others.

Maven members come from all professions to include: attorneys, physicians, accountants, social media experts, mechanics, and more. You’re in business because of what you know so why not take our expertise to a whole new level? Exposure is valuable and building your reputation is valuable. Maven is the platform to get you to where you want to be. Learn more about Maven by clicking here. Today is the day to make your presence known. Maven will help you do just that.

Today there are numerous businesses starting both online and offline. When you are creating a strategic plan on how to run and market your business are you including a virtual assistant (VA) in that plan? If not then you are missing an important piece of the puzzle.

VA’s are helping businesses all over the world run smoothly and effectively. What is a VA? A VA is someone who works remotely or virtually as it is coined from an environment away from your place of business. VA’s traditionally work from their homes and work part-time and full-time.

What can a VA do for you? A VA can do anything that a traditional in office assistant can do outside of meeting people face-to-face. Here are just a few of the things VA’s can do:

• Typing
• Answer Calls
• Web Design
• Graphic Design
• Send Emails
• Email Marketing
• SEO
• Project Management
• Coordinate Meetings/Travel
• And more………..

Va’s can save businesses money and time. VA’s come from all over the world. This means that you can have workers across all time zones. So what does that mean for you? It means you can have people working for you 24 hours a day; 7 days a week. So even when you’re business is technically closed and you’re at home asleep you can still be productive in your business with your VA’s hard at work for you. In addition, since VA’s are mainly independent contractors who are considered self employed, you don’t have to worry about taxes, insurance and workers compensation. Be sure to consult the IRS to ensure that you are following the rules so you know when and if you need to turn a VA into an actual employee.

Your strategic plan for your business is your manual to success so why not make sure that you have all the pieces of the puzzle in place including a VA.

As you continue hearing about Google’s new social media network called Google Plus (Google+ or G+), one can’t help but wonder how it can be used for business. Currently, the environment is set up for personal use only as Google continues to develop the business component of their network. Although it is still in BETA, Google+ comes packed with a lot of power.

What are the basics of Google+
To get started on Google+, the list was created below to help you boost your efforts:

• Make sure that you check your Google Profile to ensure that it is complete with your information. Tell people who you are, what you do, who your ideal client is and who you would like to do a joint venture with.
• Be intent on building relationships to grow your inner circle. By building relationships, you will enrich your experience on G+.
• When sharing information with others, don’t just push out links to your websites. Share relevant news articles or blog post from reliable sources.
• Participate in Google+ Hangouts so that you can get to know other users face-to-face via video, audio, and chat.
• Create circles that are based on topics that will help you organize your G+ friends. Some of the common circle that you should create are: Hangout, Friends, Family, Acquaintances, Celebrities, Clients, and your Team of people.

List of people to follow on Google+:

This is a starter list with a mixture of well know people and those you should get to know. As you add them to your circles:

• Bradley Horowitz (VP Product Development – Google+)
• Chee Chew (Engineer Director – Google+ Hangout)
• Natalie Villalobos (Community Manager for Google+)
• Sarah Hill (Newscaster – Google Hangout during live newscast)
• Mohamed Mansour  (Developer – Chrome extension for G+)
• Trey Ratcliff (World traveler & photographer)
• Bob Cleveland (Software Engineer – Google+)
• Michael Mozart (JeepersMedia – YouTube Broadcaster)
• Aliza Sherman (Internet Pioneer, Speaker, and Mobile Marketing Pioneer)
• Lorelle VanFossen (Consultant and trainer with WordPress, social media, and blogging)
• Kim Beasley (Social Media Tool Coach)

How does social media fit into the marketing plan for your business? Do you understand the role of social media and how it can impact your business marketing? Watch the video below to learn how MC Hammer has used social media to start trends and manage his marketing via social media.

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Have you been looking for an event that will stimulate your brain, stretch your social media efforts, and strenghten your online presence? Then you definitely should checkout unGeeked e’lite that is coming up in Chicago (May 12-14, 2011) and is hosted by Cd Vann a.k.a. @thatwoman_is. Also, I will be doing a live interview with CD, via BlogTalkRadio.com where she will further share her passion about social media, marketing, and branding for businesses.

unGeeked invites attendees to learn how to leverage their internal and external marketing and branding campaigns. Our Discussion Leaders cover topics that will assist departments such as Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising, Customer Service, Sales, Human Resources and Legal with engaging, storytelling and conveying the authenticity of the brand, whether it be to your customers (Product to Consumer) or to your clients (B2B) or to members (not-for-profits).

For special discount use the code unGeeked Retreat (case sensitive) and SAVE 10% or less than $195.00 to attend unGeeked e’lite at the early bird 3-day (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) ticket price.

I recently interviewed CD regarding unGeeked and below is the results of this interview:

What is unGeeked and why the new format?

The format is intimate less than 125 attendees and we are formatting a new style of engaging with attendees called the Socratic style of presenting.

What is the Socratic style of teaching?

The Socratic style of presenting is a spin on the Socratic style of teaching. It’s said that students learn best when they are given an opportunity to really engage in a back-and-forth style of conversation not only with other students and peers, but also with their teacher. Teachers are encourage to spend less time using presentation tools and chalkboards and more time sharing their knowledge and expertise on a topic with the students.

Why the need for the Socratic style of presenting?

unGeeked uses this same principal for unGeeked attendees. Our attendees are all Owners, CEO’s, Directors or Managers. Our attendees are well beyond the basics of understanding how to use digital tools. They are interested in strategies, case studies, best practices. And more importantly they want to share what they are doing and why it works. They want to go beyond the constraints of a 10 minute Q&A session.

Attendees walk away with more, learn more and are able to back to their desk and apply immediately what they’ve learned. But it also provides those attendees who are doing it right with a feeling of affirmation and the encouragement to move forward successfully with their projects.

How do you select your Discussion Leaders?

I approached potential Discussion Leaders by asking them are they willing to use the presentation style I am trying to implement. Most “speakers,” don’t want to go beyond the traditions of using Power Points and 10 minute Q&A sessions. These are the Discussion Leaders I don’t want at unGeeked. They are not engaging the audience in conversation — they want the audience to listen as they drone on about their latest book, clients and other accomplishments. That is not what the attendee has paid to come see. Well, at least not at unGeeked.

Why don’t you care for Power Points or Prezi tools?

They are crutches. They limit audience participation. They place a time limit on engaging via Q&A. And more importantly, they are chocked full of bullet points that are often confusing and lead to no real solution.

How new is unGeeked Retreat?

We will be one year old in June. We are a true non-funded start-up.

What are your goals?

To change what we expect from conference and events where thoughts are shared. Also to initiate the need to create better communication between attendee and Discussion Leader and Discussion Leader and attendee.

Why attend unGeeked?

To learn. To affirm and share best practices. To engage with Discussion Leaders who are also authors, thought leaders, internationally, nationally and regionally recognized consultants with proven best practices and strategies. To create future alliances. To absorb knowledge.

During my research for Twitter tips to share with my readers, I found a great article by Victoria Wells entitled “5 Twitter strategies that get your brand noticed“. As you venture into branding your business on Twitter, keep in mind that you should create a plan that will help you stay on track.

Below is an excerpt from this article and would definitely suggest that you read the entire article so you can learn about some really great tips to help you grow your business.

If you’re a small business owner, you probably know that social media is a powerful tool to get your company noticed. While many businesses turn to Facebook or websites for social networking, Twitter is often forgotten because companies simply don’t know how to use it effectively.

Fortunately, David Rogers at BNET offers five ways to get your company noticed using Twitter.

Here they are:

1. Direct sales. If your company offers daily discounts, you can use Twitter to get the word out. Companies that have found success with this technique include Dell with its@DellOutlet account and Amazon with its @Amazonmp3 account.

Click here to continue reading the article

 

So I logged into my PayPal personal account to check the status and to make updates to my account. To my surprise, $897 was stolen from me twice with a fee of $1 charged twice. I couldn’t believe my eyes and thought that I had logged into the wrong account somehow.

Immediately, I called PayPal to get the issue resolved. I felt that it was an injustice and I also felt violated. My first thought was, “How could someone get access to an account that isn’t associated with anything, anywhere on the internet?”. I have to admit that I’m surprised how efficiently everything was handled by PayPay because they did and excellent job assisting me.

My angel in disguise name was Pat (operator #42205). She was very calming, reassuring and knowledgeable regarding how to fix the issue. I asked her if there was an extra level of security that I could add to my PayPal account and she said…

To add an extra level of security to your PayPal account, you can have a randomly generated Security Key in addition to your email & password. The Security Key can be sent to you 3 different ways: via credit card, flob or texted to your cell phone. Every time you log into PayPal, you will be prompted for a new Security Key that will be generate for you on the spot. Click here to checkout the PayPal Security Key option.

I am so thankful to Pat (operator #42205) for doing such a great job at handling everything and smoothing out the rough areas. I’m going to send an email to kudos@paypal.com to let them know how much I appreciate all that Pam did to assist me.

The final solution…

The person at the receiving email address was sent a notice that they received a fraudulent payment and was asked to refund the money to me. If it is found that this was a part of the fraud, they will be prosecuted by PayPal. If they refund the money and it’s found they were not part of the scam then I don’t know what will happen to them. As a matter of fact, all persons found to be part of this fraud will be prosecuted. I was told that it could be resolved immediately if the person refunds the money to me or could take up to 10 days to receive my money back otherwise.

Andy Beal Founder of Trackur.com Shares His Knowledge of Reputation Management & Internet Marketing on Your Passionate Business BlogTalk Radio Show

The featured guest for Your Passionate Business show on July 15 at 4 pm CDT/5 pm EDT is internationally-renowned consultant, author, and speaker Andy Beal. Andy specializes in online reputation management and Internet marketing.

Considered one of the world’s most respected reputation management experts, Andy has worked with many brand-leaders including Motorola, GlaxoSmithKline, Lowes, and NBC. His advice is trusted by ABC News, BusinessWeek, Inc. Magazine, Forbes, and more.

Andy’s current projects include his book Radically Transparent: Monitoring & Managing Reputations Online, his blog Marketing Pilgrim, SEM Vendor & Trackur.com’s social media monitoring tools. Follow Andy on Twitter by visiting http://Twitter.com/andybeal.

Your Passionate Business BlogTalk radio show is your source for information to reinvent and compete in 2010. Special guests share their ideas on how to thrive in a changing economy along with how you can collaborate with them to grow your client base in 2010. You will learn from entrepreneurs in the field of business development, PR and marketing, coaching, sales, HR, tech and more. Visit http://www.blogtalkradio.com/kimbeasley to listen to Andy Beal’s interview as well as future interviews with other guests.

SUCCESSFUL INFOPRENEUR SHARES HIS KNOWLEDGE OF CREATING INFO PRODUCTS ON YOUR PASSIONATE BUSINESS BLOGTALK RADIO SHOW

Antonio L. Crawford, CEO, Top Book Sales Inc., Publisher Kaizen Publication LLC and founder Strateginomics™ Wealth Building Seminars will share his knowledge of developing info products to create a new income stream for your business during the BlogTalk radio show “Your Passionate Business” on Friday, July 9, 7pm CDT/8pm EDT.  Aspiring infropreneurs can tune in to learn how to create info products that sell.

The genius of an info product is how easy it is to create. It doesn’t require you to create a physical product. You just need to share your knowledge and experience in the form of eBooks, white papers, videos, podcasts, e-newsletters or other digital information formats.  They can be downloaded from your site without you having to pay for materials to create them.  People are constantly looking for information to improve their personal and business lives.  Smart entrepreneurs who are looking for ways to add more value to their companies jumping on the bandwagon to package their knowledge.

Crawford is the publisher and author of several books including The Quest for Wealth, Henrietta the Hyena, CX Loan Solution and Creating Multiple Streams of Income with Information Products.  Known internationally for his ability to identify solutions using process improvement techniques, he uses his skills to help writers, authors, infopreneurs and business owners increase their overall marketing and sales performance. Crawford teaches seminars and workshops across the nation to show participants how to develop their ideas using performance based production models.

Your Passionate Business BlogTalkRadio show is your source for information to reinvent and compete in 2010. Special guests share their ideas on how to thrive in a changing economy along with how you can collaborate with them to grow your client base in 2010. You will learn from entrepreneurs in the field of business development, PR and marketing, coaching, sales, HR, tech and more. Visit http://www.blogtalkradio.com/kimbeasley to listen to Antonio Crawford’s interview as well as future interviews with other guests.