Despite our best intentions, time with family and friends often gets pre-empted by deadlines, meetings, business trips, and other obligations. But spending quality time with the people you care about not only nurtures those relationships, but it can also nurture your business because it relieves stress and reminds you of your priorities.

Quality time is all about focusing on the other person and listening attentively as you do an activity you both enjoy or just catch up on each other’s lives (that means no furtive glances at your BlackBerry or your watch as you mentally recap your to do list). Yes, it can be tough to carve out a few hours in an already packed schedule, but it’s well worth it and doesn’t have to be expensive. Here are some suggestions for fun, low-cost activities with family members or friends:

*Group potluck picnic or swap party. Getting together with a group lets you catch up with several people at once. A potluck offers an intimate and inexpensive alternative to dinner at a restaurant, while a swap party lets you clean out your closet or bookshelves while trading with friends. You could donate any leftover items to charity.

*Volunteer project. Giving back to the community is a great way to spend your time, especially when you can do it with your family or a couple of friends. Choose a charity that is meaningful to everyone or alternate who gets to pick the activity to make it fair.

*Outdoor activities. Walking, hiking, running, swimming, or other outdoor activities give you a chance to get some exercise and fresh air while catching up with friends, family, and other loved ones. Being outdoors is also excellent stress relief and aids your absorption of vitamin D. So go hit the park or beach!

*Craft projects. Thanks to the DIY craze, craft projects like knitting, crocheting, scrapbooking, or making your own jewelry are more popular than ever. Enlist the help of a crafty friend or check out a couple of instructional books from the library to get started. (I’m enjoying putting together photos of my father who passed last year.)

*Movie marathon. Choose a few movies you’ll both enjoy from NetFlix or the local library. You could choose a theme such as Fifties Fluff or Brat Pack Attack or just pop in whatever appeals to you and your friends or family. Add some microwave popcorn and drinks for an easy, inexpensive evening of entertainment.

*Board games. Feel like a kid again with CandyLand, smarten up with Scrabble (my favorite!), or fuel your inner mogul with a game of Monopoly. Board games are a great activity if you have kids, but they can also be fun for adults. Puzzles can be fun, too, with the right group of people.

Once you and your family or friends decide on a date to get together, write it in your calendar and treat it like you would an important business appointment: no last-minute canceling or rescheduling unless absolutely necessary. You and the people in your life will appreciate having guaranteed time together to relax and reconnect.

© 2009 Ali International, LLC Self-made multimillionaire entrepreneur Ali Brown is devoted to creating financial freedom for women globally through the power of entrepreneurship. To learn how to create wealth and live an extraordinary life now, register for her free weekly articles at www.AliBrown.com

As a small business owner, it’s important to your success to understand social media’s benefits and why it’s worth the time to learn and make a part of your marketing routine.

So why care about social media right now?

Proves You are a Living, Breathing, REAL Person
It sounds kind of funny but it’s crucial. Humans need to feel they are connecting with others and that their voices are being heard. You can’t really get away with being a faceless entity doing business on the web anymore. Those who are still doing it that way risk alienating those making the buying decisions.

Branding
There is plenty of opportunity to build and make visible your particular brand–while still being human. You don’t need to think of this in terms of the big boys like Starbucks or Pepsi-type branding. It could even just be colors, a logo, your avatar picture or tagline. If you use the tools regularly, each impression strengthens others’ awareness of what your products or services are about. Keep your messages and branding activities consistent and cohesive and you have a powerful way to promote yourself and what it is you offer.

Viral Word of Mouth
Is every friend or follower you have on social sites going to be a member of your target market? No, but it doesn’t matter. If you are providing good content, helpful links and regularly contributing something useful to the community, the viral nature of social media will help push this content through to the people who
need to hear it.

Speed of Results
While building up the ranking of your website takes time and often can’t be predicted, the impact of social networks and tools can be instantaneous.

Traffic
When you list your link in your profile or direct people to your latest post or article it is just another way to drive traffic to your blog or website. I’ve had great results with Facebook and Twitter by looking at the traffic source stats in my Google Analytics page.

Value Contribution
You have something of value to offer others–that’s why you’re in business. The conversational nature of social media makes it easy to engage others in discussions which naturally reveal what you may be able to help them with. Be authentic, stay involved, an give regardless of how much you get back.

It’s Not Going Away
The names and faces of the latest tools and networks may change but the benefits that their interactive nature provides are real and working very well for countless small business owners.

Isn’t it time you discovered that for yourself? :)

© 2009 Communicate Value. All Rights Reserved.

Christine Gallagher, The Online Marketing and Social Media Success Coach, is founder of Communicate Value, where she is dedicated to teaching small business owners and professionals how to conquer the overwhelming aspects of online and social media marketing to increase business and maximize profits. To get your F.R.E.E. 5-Part E-Course and receive her weekly marketing & success articles on leveraging technology, building relationships and boosting your profits, visit http://communicatevalue.com

Inner Diva Dilemma: You never have enough time. And it’s not for a lack of attempt at time management. You’ve tried Schedule A, System Z and every theory in between. The next person to recommend another time management book to you may very well find the book being thrown at them.

What There Is For You To Know:You can’t manage time. Time is a river. The old adage is true. And a river that’s been dammed or boxed in by human hands will inevitably someday break the artificial boundaries and run exactly where it most naturally runs. Your schedule is the same. Appointments run over time. You lose internet connection and can’t do email when you planned. Before you know it, your nice neat schedule is running wildly over the time boxes of 9:45, 10:15 and 1:30 that you were so hoping it would follow.

Go A Little Wild With Time: Back in 1993, I worked in Yosemite National Park and lived right next to the wild Merced River. Wow, was that thing alive! Just standing next to it, there was a life energy you couldn’t deny. The same is true of your schedule when you let the river of time flow naturally through it….

Try It On The Fly: You can keep the little time boxes of your schedule- just like you need a boat on a wild river, they provide a container and some guidance so that you’re not being tossed about willy nilly on the rocks. And…have a little giggle. Chuckle to yourself at the silliness of having thought these boxes would actually run the river. Instead, watch to see how the river runs them.

Now go for a ride. Holding the boxes loosely, follow your schedule as planned while watching where the river of time naturally wants to take you. When it runs wild over your scheduled plan, instead of seeing failure, take a moment to ask, “What’s the natural flow here?” Notice what happens easily in the natural flow and what falls away.

Tips For Troubleshooting: Some boxes are non-negotiable, like picking your kids up from school at 3pm. You can’t “just flow” with that box! Treat these non-negotiables as river markers. Then notice how the river of time wants to flow naturally from one marker to the next. And there’s no pressure to do this perfectly- each time you experiment with Wild River time, you’ll learn a bit more about the natural time river flow.

Let me know how it goes. This is just a taste of a big topic, so you’ll probably have some questions that I’m happy to answer!

This article written by Lisa Hunter of Inner Business Diva.  Find more great articles and get the free guide to Tame Your Never-Enough Cycle… End the seemingly endless cycle of constantly feeling behind!  Easy & practical tips that fit your high-energy, go-getting style. http://www.innerbusinessdiva.com/sexy-time-management/free-articles

Join Lisa (and me!) at the next Diva Business Day to relax, connect, brainstorm, and enjoy a day with other go-getting entrepreneurial woman.  Details at http://www.innerbusinessdiva.com/diva-business-day

Have you ever thought about this question? I’ll admit, when I first started my website design business my concern was only the second half of the question – the “where do I find clients?!” part. Many new businesses focus only on trying to find clients or customers and skip the critical step of identifying their “perfect” or “ideal” customer (also known as “niche”).

Focused marketing will bring you better results. Unless you sell a product like toothpaste, “everyone” is not your market.

Even toothpaste can be narrowed down. Is it whitening toothpaste? Toothpaste for sensitive teeth? Kids toothpaste? Flouride free toothpaste? Each of these different types of toothpaste has a different target customer and should be marketed with that in mind.

No matter how great a marketing campaign is or how much time or money is put into it, if it’s aimed at the wrong people it will not succeed. You could market kids toothpaste to my Grandparents all you want, but they probably aren’t going to buy it, so it’d be a waste of marketing energy. But consider also that you don’t want to target the marketing for a kids toothpaste at only kids. Who makes the final buying decision for kids toothpaste? Most likely it’s mom. So the right target marketing for a kids toothpaste would be… moms. But not just any moms. Moms with children under 10 years old, who live in the geographical area where the toothpaste is available. See how we’ve narrowed down the target market? Keep going further. If you’ve got a flouride-free kids toothpaste, then you’re looking for an even more specific ideal customer.

Apply this to your products. Keeping in mind what makes you unique, who is your ideal customer?

Work at home mom extraordinaire Michelle Shaeffer publishes The Muses Brainstorm, a weekly ezine with tips to help you balance, manage, and market your home based business. If you’re ready for inspirational guidance and bright ideas sign up free at www.thesmallbusinessmuse.com

If you’ve been following me or subscribed to my newsletter for a while, you already know I love article marketing as a promotional strategy.  One place I regularly submit my articles to is WAHM Articles, and you can find more info below about the site.

This week we’ve been authorized to giveaway ONE Platinum membership to the article marketing forum!  In addition, I’ll include a free copy of my guide to article marketing for the winner.  Would you like to enter?  Just post a comment below and we’ll draw a random winner on May 6th then announce it in the newsletter next week.

Many women with home businesses discover that being a work at home mom requires a lot more time, money and energy than they had expected.

If your time and energy is in short supply, and your business needs a boost, WAHM-Articles.com has launched a new social networking community that might help.

The WAHM-Articles Forum helps work-at-home-moms learn how to market their businesses in less time and more effectively by using article marketing. Article marketing is a marketing strategy where you write articles to promote your products and services and let others publish them for free in exchange for a link back to your site.

Many of the members at the WAHM-Articles Forum are experienced article marketers and publishers, so it’s a great place to hook up with website owners who are looking for articles like yours and ask all your article marketing questions.

In the forum, they talk about everything to do with article marketing, including:

-   How to write articles that get more traffic to your website or blog
-   How to use your articles to get more subscribers to your mailing list
-   How to get your article readers to visit your website
-   How to convince those website visitors to buy from you.

Joining the forum is free. There is also a Platinum membership that gives you access to article reviews, article marketing training, and valuable resources and discounts. Platinum memberships are available for an introductory price of $50 a year.

If you want to learn how to get more traffic and sales in less time, I recommend you go to http://www.WAHM-Articles.com/forum and register for a free account.

I’m a member and I’ve already learned a lot from the community there. If you join us, you can discover how to spend less time on marketing your website so you have more time spend with the kids, or on taking your business to the next level.

I’d love to see you there! You can register at http://www.WAHM-Articles.com/forum

Is your website working effectively for you?

It’s your 24/7 sales person – is it representing you well?

Does it reflect the very best of your products and/or services?

Before you invest time & money promoting your site, SHAPE IT UP!

The #1 Question You Need to Answer:  What is the purpose of your website?

Why do you have a website? What’s the goal? What should it be accomplishing for you?

Here are some possible goals for a website:

• to develop a list of targeted prospects
• to sell products or services
• to encourage potential customers to contact us by phone or mail
• to provide product information and/or price lists to customers
• to provide product information and/or price lists to distributors
• to provide customer service (how to use/wash/care for items, etc)
• to provide information to a particular niche or target market
• to strengthen brand recognition

Your website may have more than one goal, and several goals may work together. For example, if your main goal is to sell products or services, then developing a list of targeted prospects who are interested in and need the products or services you offer should be a goal also.

As you “shape up” your website, you want to keep in mind the actions that you want to focus on. If your goal is to sell your products, then everything needs to be centered on that goal and making it as easy as possible for customers to purchase.  Use large, easy to find “add to cart” buttons.  Make it easy to find the answer to questions about policies, payments, and shipping.

If you are focused on building a list, you want to make it easy for customers to subscribe to that list and would take actions such as:

• Create an easy to use subscribe form
• Put the subscribe form in the top area of your site & doesn’t require scrolling
• Put that form on every page of your website
• Request only the essential information you need (name and email) and not name, address, phone, etc
• Offer customers a free gift, download, coupon, etc if they sign up
• Consider designing an image to represent what the visitor gets when they sign up
• Add a privacy statement such as: We will not share your information.

If building a list of prospects is your only goal, then you may even consider having a one-page squeeze type site where the only option a visitor has is to subscribe to your list. Keep it simple!

But if you have a dual goal of selling products/services and building a list of prospects, then don’t hide your store behind a squeeze page.

Whatever your goals are, you’ll find ways to make that easier for customers to do. It should require as few clicks as possible, be as easy to find/do as possible, etc. Don’t make your customers think hard or search around for how to buy or how to contact you. The easier you make it, the more visitors will take that action.

This article is an excerpt from “Shape Up Your Website” — click here for more ways to get your website in shape!

This is a great way to make new customers feel special. Put together a “welcome kit” to send to each new customer that includes customer service resources, helpful information, and promotional details about other products or services you offer.

The “Printable” Customer Welcome Kit

Here are some ideas of what you might include in a printable customer welcome kit:

* A welcome or thank you note
* A brochure about your products or services
* Care instructions for the products purchased
* Additional resources about the topics your customers are interested in
* Business cards
* Referral cards
* A coupon for a special deal on their next order
* A copy of your most recent (or favorite) eZine, with information on how they can subscribe

Package it all nicely in an envelope or similar. Put together a dozen or more at a time and they’ll be ready to go when you ship out your orders.

The “Digital” Customer Welcome Kit

If your products are digital (ebooks, software, or similar) you can create your own version of a customer welcome kit. Just put the items into PDF format for documents and JPG for coupons, then zip it all up.

* A welcome or thank you note
* A brochure about your products or services
* Customer support information (for example, your FAQ on digital downloads and support contact information)
* Additional resources about the topics your customers are interested in
* A coupon for a special deal on their next order
* A copy of your most recent (or favorite) eZine, with information on how they can subscribe

Bonus Idea: Find other businesses that target your market but with different products/services and offer to swap space in your welcome kit.  You include a special deal offer from them to your new customers and they include your offer in the welcome kit sent to their customers.  This allows you to add more value for your customers while also building beneficial relationships with other businesses and reaching a wider market.

Here’s an example from one of my businesses.  I use a hybrid version of printable/digital because it’s so nice to get something real in the mail but the resources I offer are all digital.  When a new hosting client signs up at Creo Communico LLC, my virtual assistant sends a snail mail card that includes a nice thank you note along with a link to a special area of our website that only clients can access.  In the special client area they’ll find discounts for several businesses, free resources, and more.  Each month I add new resources.  I choose things that are easy for me to setup and give away (PDF reports, ebooks, mp3 downloads, PDF worksheets, etc) so it doesn’t add a lot of time or support issues, but that also have value to my clients.  Since my hosting business targets work at home moms, I include resources like marketing ideas, reports on promotion techniques, etc. that will help them build their businesses.

Challenge: Set aside time this week to create your customer welcome kit and put it into action.

Remember, it’s easier to KEEP a customer you’ve already got, then to FIND a new customer! So keep those customers happy by showing them how much you value their business.

Discover the joy of running your own home-based service business… allowing you the flexibility and freedom to be there when your children need you… I’ve done it, and so can you! Download Kimberly Reddington’s popular report “4 Lifesaving Keys to a Successful Service Business for Mothers” by visiting http://www.cereuswomen.com

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organizing coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.