Looking for a professional font for your website design or advertising graphics?  Check out http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/Design/Fonts/75-free-fonts-for-professional-design.html for 75 great options.

With just a bit of work and creativity, you can transform your home office into a space that you feel energized by and enjoy spending time in.

Remove and Declutter

Give yourself permission to declutter your space and remove anything that makes you feel anxious or that you’ve been tolerating but don’t love.

Organize Everything

Take time to plan out what you need in your space, then organize it in a way that supports your needs. Arrange your various office furniture (desk, shelves, storage cubbies, etc) so it’s easy to access what you use most frequently.

Keep your office supplies and desk organized as well. You’ll save time, feel more relaxed, and enjoy your office space more when you know exactly where things are.

Artwork to Inspire

Beautiful things on the walls can lift your spirits or serve to keep you centered and focused.

You can often find inexpensive frames at secondhand shops or discount retailers. Just replace what’s in them.

Some ideas for budget-friendly wall decor include:
- your own photography
- artwork by your children
- recycled postcards or calendar pages
- inspirational quotes

Another great way to inspire yourself with wall decor is to create an inexpensive vision board or story board with items and photographs significant to your own personal journey and goals.

Create an Ambiance

Surround yourself with the scents and sounds that help you feel motivated and strong.

Consider these items for your office:
- candles
- incense
- reed or oil diffusers
- soft music

Add Life

Bring life into your home office space and you may find it improves your health and productivity. Live plants bring beauty into your space and clean your air. A goldfish (or other fish) can help you relax.

What are you waiting for? Create your home office sanctuary and make your space a place you love.

Running your own small business can be a bumpy road. Many small business owners go through moments were we aren’t sure we can succeed or that we are “enough” (good enough, smart enough, talented enough, etc).

Overcome the confidence crisis! Create your own positivity file. It can be a folder on your computer, a folder on your desk filled with printed papers, a special box, a bulletin board on your office wall, or whatever else you’d like to use. It’s a place where you can keep things that are positive and remind you of your value and accomplishments.

Ideas of what to include:
- Customer comments or testimonials
- Pictures of your favorite projects
- Awards, reviews, etc.
- A profit statement from your best day/month/year in business
- Comments from your colleagues
- Your own notes on projects or clients you feel you made a difference
- Accomplishment journal

If you’ve been in business for a while you probably already have many of these items and will just need to gather them.

If you need help building things to including, here are some suggestions:
- Join LinkedIn or Merchant Circle and invite your clients to leave you reviews
- Send an email to a few of your favorite clients and ask if they’d be willing to write a testimonial for you
- Look back through your project files and find the projects that you enjoyed working on, whether for your own business or in a previous employment position, and include those in your file
- Start an accomplishment journal and write down something positive you accomplished each day — small or big, doesn’t matter, anything that you were successful at will help you boost your confidence

Next time you feel that confidence slipping, allow yourself time to acknowledge the feelings, then pull out the positively file and refocus on the reasons that you have to smile and be confident.

Would you like to republish this article on your website or in your ezine? I’d be honored! Please include this at the end of it with my link:
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.

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade!

I’ve been awarded the Lemonade Award by Tammy of the ParentZone blog.

Visit Tammy’s blog for articles, healthy recipes, tips and more.

Here is how the Lemonade Award works…
1) You must link back to the person you received the award from.
2) You have to nominate 10 bloggers who are deserving of this award!

So, here are 10 blogs I nominate.

• Organising Queen – http://organisingtips.blogspot.com/
• Create a Thriving Business – http://createathrivingbusiness.com/
• The Savvy Entrepeneur – http://blog.cristinafavreau.com/
• Article Writing & Marketing Tips – http://wahm-articles.com/blog/
• Beneath the Rowan Tree – http://beneaththerowantree.blogspot.com/
• August Afternoon – http://www.augustafternoon.com/blog/
• My Happy Crazy Life – http://myhappycrazylife.com/
• Virtual Freedom 4 U – http://virtualfreedom4you.com/blog/
• My Direct Sales – http://mydirectsales.com/
• Freelance Mom’s Blog – http://freelancemom.com/blog/

Put your blog promotion on auto-pilot with these “set it once then forget it” promotional strategies.

Submit Your Blog to Blog Directories

Once you’ve requested a listing, you’re done!

http://www.blogcatalog.com
http://www.bloghub.com
http://www.blogarama.com
http://www.blogexplosion.com
http://www.blogflux.com
http://www.blog-search.com
http://www.blogbunch.com
http://www.iblogbusiness.com
http://www.quickblogdirectory.com
http://www.bloglisting.net
http://www.blogrankings.com
http://www.weblogalot.com

Ping When You Post

If you’re using Wordpress, it’s probably already set to ping rpc.pingomatic.com Add that to your ping list if it’s not there already. Ping-O-Matic will receive your ping then let lots of other sites know you’ve updated your blog.

Offer Your Readers an RSS Subscribe

Techno-savvy readers love RSS feeds they can subscribe to.

Add Social Bookmarking and “Tell a Friend” to Your Posts

Just download, install, setup, and then the plugin of your choice will add the social networking icons to every post on your blog.

Connect to Social Networking

Using social media you can syndicate your blog content to reach your social networks.

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

A marketing plan gives you a basic guide for your marketing for the year. By looking at your marketing 12 months at a time you can plan for seasonal promotions, work to combat any traditionally slower times for your company, and keep your business supported by always having at least one or two forms of marketing working for you.

With your marketing plan in place you won’t have a holiday or event sneak up on you and think, “Oh! I could have done a really cool promotion!”  Instead you’ll have your promotion planned and you can be ready to take advantage of holidays and other seasonal opportunities.

As you plan your year, choose a few marketing tactics per month and remember that some will require continued time commitments (blogging, social networking, your newsletter) while others are more of a one-time project (donating a book or working a charity event, issuing a press release).

Once you’ve put your plan together, be sure to review it monthly and look ahead so you’re ready for what you’ve planned.

Download the free “Quick & Easy Marketing Plan” template below and you can have a basic marketing plan done in less than an hour!

Click Here to Download the Free
Quick & Easy Marketing Plan Template

Secure passwords are critical if you want to keep your website, your email, your social networking profiles, and everything else online safe.  Here are some free sites where you can generate more secure passwords:

Random.org
http://www.random.org

Password Bird
http://www.passwordbird.com/

PC Tools Password Generator
http://www.pctools.com/guides/password/

By Christine Kloser

Have you ever wondered why some people succeed and others fail? Maybe you’re discouraged that your colleague’s phone is ringing off the hook and your phone hasn’t rung in weeks (or months). Believe me; I know what it’s like to be there. For years, I used to look all around me and see abundant success for others… and wonder if it was ever going to happen for me.

Deep down inside, my Divine Self, knew the answer was a resounding, “YES!”. But, on the surface, sometimes the situation seemed so dismal my human mind doubted that I’d ever see my dreams come true. I knew my doubt was part of the reason why I experienced challenges in my business, yet I didn’t know how to release it and surrender completely to my Divine entrepreneurial journey.

Then, I realized that I hadn’t yet DECIDED I was going to succeed. I hoped I would, I imagined I would, I prayed I would, but I hadn’t decided I would… succeed. Once I made this powerful decision to succeed, everything changed. My hope changed to belief, my imagination transformed into reality and my prayers fueled my actions.

If you feel like it’s time to put the power of decision to work for you, and your business… listen up. Here’s a simple 4 step strategy for making your Divine decision to succeed.

Step 1: Assess Your Situation

Before you begin any journey, you first need to identify where you are. In this step, you’ll set aside some time to reflect on your current situation. Then, you’ll look directly at your current circumstances, even if they’re unfavorable. A full evaluation of where you are (spiritually, financially and personally) establishes a starting point from which you can leap forward.

Step 2: Get Clear on What You Really Want

Next, once you’ve taken a look at your current situation, set it aside. And, allow yourself to create a clear vision of what you really want for your business, and your life. Don’t worry about “how” you’ll realize the vision; simply get clear on what it is. When creating your vision, it ought to be something that makes your heart sing; something that increases your energy when you think about it.

Step 3: Decide to Experience What You Really Want

Now, make the decision to experience your vision. Sometime this step will be a very subtle, simple shift in your being. Other times, this step will be a monumental moment that you’ll remember for the rest of your life. Sometimes it will be a private moment between you and God; while other times it will be a public experience when you proclaim to others what you’ve decided for your life. Whatever way your decision is made, one thing remains the same… from that point forward everything changes.

Step 4: Demonstrate Your Decision

No decision is complete without demonstrating your decision in the physical world. (Warning: This is the most common step where people stop.) Once you make a powerful decision, it lacks ENERGY until it’s backed by tangible action. Demonstrating your commitment to your decision by taking a specific action, is the most important (and sometimes the scariest) step to seeing your dreams become realized.

This four-step strategy is very simple to follow, but simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy. At times, making the decision to succeed can feel gut-wrenching, especially if it means having to let go of something you’ve been attached to for a long time (this happened to me when I decided to succeed). But, no matter what decision you face, when you follow this four-step strategy, your decision will propel you toward your dreams.

And, for those of you who’ve already made the decision to join me, Neale Donald Walsch, David Neagle, James Twyman and Marianne Williamson at The Freedom Formula Experience January 22-25 in Los Angeles, CA… I guarantee it will be the BEST decision you’ve ever made to learn how to consciously create your six (or seven) figure business next year!

If you haven’t saved your seat yet, it’s time for you to DECIDE!  (Especially since the payment plan expires THIS FRIDAY.).  Just go to: www.TheFreedomFormula.com/experience to save your seat today.

© 2008 Christine Kloser

Christine Kloser, best-selling author of The Freedom Formula, helps small business owners put soul in their business and money in the bank.  If you want to discover how to integrate more spirit into YOUR business, then you’ll want to get my F-R-E-E_ CD, “The Top 3 Ways to Tap Into the Biggest Trend in Business Ever.”  You can request this special CD by visiting www.FreeedomFormulaExperience.com.

Need a quick picture edit?  Don’t feel like opening Photoshop or PSP?  Just surf to www.resizr.com, upload your photo (from URL or your computer) and click to go to their editing interface.  You can resize, crop, and optimize in just a few clicks.  Simple.  Free.  Very cool.