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On a weekly basis, I have the opportunity to work with 50-60 Executives and Middle Managers from various corporations. I am consistently amazed how few of these professional men and women really understand the importance of their
 personal brand. Most of my clients are in leadership roles managing programs, projects or departments within their organizations and I get the chance to work with them in their real-life, everyday work setting. I see how they interact with their staff, peers and customers. I facilitate meetings and strategy sessions and have the opportunity to witness how they present information and ideas to others.

It’s clear to me that many professionals have not embraced the concept of
 personal branding. When you really understand the impact of your personal brand in the work setting, it will guide how you speak, act and interact with others. Here’s the reality,
we are all Brands! If you aren’t branding yourself in the workplace, you can be assured that others are doing it for you. Your personal brand allows you to differentiate yourself by consistently demonstrating and articulating your unique value proposition.

What do people think about you? What are you known for at work? When your name is mentioned in a business setting, do you believe that there is a positive feeling about your value? Wouldn’t it be great to have your name “buzzing” positively around your office?
 Have you created the type of footprint in your organization that would even generate a good “buzz”? Word of mouth is the most powerful force in our professional careers. In today’s complex, global economy—buzz is king. If people like you, respect you and have a good experience with you (or hear about you from someone else) they hire you, promote you and put you in creative roles.


Why is your Personal Brand Important?

Your personal brand adds value to an organization. A corporation’s brand is enhanced by hiring and retaining staff with strong personal brands. To be effective in business today, you have to be your own marketing and advertising firm. Every day, your number one goal should be to 
launch a marketing campaign for the brand called YOU! Your brand gives you visibility, credibility, influence and connects you to people on multiple levels within your organization. This makes you a valued commodity in the corporate world.

Just like a product brand, people develop a feeling about you, almost as soon as they meet and interact with you. Their perception continues to be shaped through ongoing interactions and observation of your work. Eventually, when co-workers and superiors see you or hear your name, something registers in their minds, positive or negative. It’s up to you to make that feeling positive.
Your work alone will not create a strong brand, because branding is about more than the tasks that you perform.


So what signifies a Strong Personal Brand?

• Instant Recognition

• The Perception of Value

• Trust in terms of Quality, Dependability and Effectiveness

• Positive Word of Mouth

• Standing Out above the Rest – Competitive Advantage

• Professional Appeal – Others Seek Your Advise and Support

Every week, I see hard-working, talented people miss out on business & professional opportunities. They are overlooked because people either don’t know them or don’t have that instant positive feeling about them or their capabilities.
 Building a personal brand will help you move out of the trap of toiling away in obscurity to getting the recognition and advancement you deserve.

Wherever you are today in your professional life, you can start sending strong, positive signals that will reach beyond your day-to-day work tasks and create buzz about the overall value that you bring to the table. It begins with
learning how you are personifying and communicating your brand and what you need to do to improve.
 If you don’t think enough people are talking about you in a positive way, find out why and start to change that today. You can immediately begin to figure out what it takes to create a distinctive role for yourself—you can create a message and a strategy to promote the brand called 
YOU!


I was almost the victim of Vampires this past weekend!  You are probably saying huh, what, she is “crazy.” Actually, I was the victim of vampires for a few hours and then I was nursed back to life and snapped back into consciousness!  I’m still recovering actually as I type this post.  In business, people are always going to judge you.  In network marketing and MLM, people are going to judge you even more!

If you are a Jerry DRhino Clark fan, you know exactly what I’m talking about and I encourage you to read his article titled,  “ BEWARE OF THE SPIRITUAL DRAINING, ENERGY ZAPPING, TIME WASTING, DREAM DESTROYING, EMOTIONAL DEPLETING VAMPIRES” after you finish reading my blog post of course.

What is so sad is that if you are reading my blog, 95 percent or more of the people that are presently in your life fall into this category of vampires that want to deplete you, suck the life out of you and keep you down on the level that they are on.  What is even sadder is that you probably don’t even realize it! You go to church with them, dine with them, work with them, play basketball with them and you may even be sleeping with them!!!  This is their purpose in life!  What are the characteristics of these people you ask?  Well let me see….they are the dream stealers and killers, the joy stealers and killers, the pessimists, the negative, the know-it-alls, the gossipers, the 1 uppers,  the holier than thou folk, the nose turner uppers, the business owner that is praying for a profit but attempting to give you advice, the ones that drive Mercedes Benz but lives at home with momma in her apartment (lol, I see you - Yes, I am talking to you, lol), the really good looking folks that dress really nice that you see out at every function, as well as the not so good looking ones that don’t dress so nice that you also see out every function and the list goes on and on!  Typically, these are people that are hurting!  People that are hurting cannot help you or your business.  Their major purpose is to see that you hurt along with them, though they would NEVER admit this.

So I always say, “look at who is judging!”  If the person that is judging you is not in a place that you would want to be in and/or has not accomplished the things that you want to accomplish, why on earth would you ever let them affect the dream that you are after?  Always stop and ask yourself, have they run their own business and turned a profit, have they been successful in network marketing (meaning made money), have they been successful at anything for that matter?  If they haven’t, you have no business allowing the words rolling off of their tongue to enter your ears.  If you allow it to come in, you’ve just become a victim of a Vampire.  Dismiss it with ease and keep chasing your dream!  After all, this is the only way you will ever make it to the finish line.  Look at who is judging….they got a lot of freaking nerve!  So not sexy!

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Importance of Business Branding

Business branding is not just a one-time process. Rather, it is something you work on and build up over a period of time. After all, branding reflects your reputation as a business enterprise. Along with your efforts to create and manage your brand is the efforts of trying to build and protect your relationship with the customer base.

One of the best ways to establish the prominence of your brand in the market is by remaining consistent with the message that is conveyed by your marketing efforts. Refrain from claiming to produce bold and large scale promises. Your customers will easily remember when you fail to deliver in those promises. You could easily lose that reputation that took you years to build. Therefore, you need to pay attention to exactly what you need to do (and what not to do) if you want to turn that trust you have created amongst your customer base into increased sales.

Campaign for Brand Awareness

Since every brand is distinct, you must also utilize varying approaches in communicating the brand's message across to its target market. This part entails immense creativity and a certain level of sensitivity to the needs of your prospected customers.

If you are not sure how to do this, you can take hint from other highly successful brands in the market. Study how they utilize their brand and what strategies they employ to get more people drawn into their brand. For instance, you can work on an emotional campaign, which is something that is rather difficult to do. But once you are able to establish that, then you could potentially increase your sales. One important thing to remember when you are using an emotional campaign is to always speak the truth about what your product is about and what it can do that will benefit your target market.

Tips for a Successful Emotional Campaign

If you decide that you want to appeal on your customer's emotion as your business branding strategy, then you need to consider various aspects that'll make it work. One way to effectively do that is share a story. This story could be fictional or not, but it should have some relation to the brand you are trying to campaign on. The idea here is to be able to produce some sort of personal improvement or progress by using the product.

If possible, base the emotional campaign on the brand itself, not just on the product. That way, you'd be able to produce a distinct campaign that will easily set you apart from competing companies. Then, whatever this message that you use in your campaign, try on remaining consistent with that. You can use different methods and campaign variations, but the message must remain the same in all of your brands.

After you have finalized your campaign, verify every bit of detail that is included in the campaign, whether you are using it for TV or print advertising.

Preserving Business Reputation

The brand recognition phase is over and now you have to utilize ways to preserve your company's reputation. It must involve taking notes and analyzing of your company's actions and how the customers perceive those actions, in relation to their satisfaction about your brand's performance and some other related factors.

Again, sensitivity to your customer's needs and using your brand to address that is one of the most effective measures toward business branding. As you go forward in your business efforts, try to learn more about effective business branding strategies to expand the reach of your brand in the market.

Facebook has become the new battleground for parents and teens –a place where teens are trying to gain more independence and parents are trying to keep them safe.  When it comes to ‘Friending’ your parents, not all teens are ready to click the “accept” button and feel having their parents become part of their online community is similar to having their parents read their diary.

Some parents are opting to not step foot onto this virtual battleground and are choosing to not even attempt to become Facebook ‘Friends’ with their children.  As a security expert, this is a move I do not endorse—in fact, I sit firmly in the camp that becoming your child’s Facebook ‘Friend’ is one of the key ways to keep them safe during their teen years.

Why?  Here are 3 reasons why it is important for parents to become Facebook ‘Friends’ with their teens:

It allows you to monitor your child’s online activity and conversations in a very real and honest way.  They know you are there, they invited you in—it is not as if you are sneaking into their room and looking through their drawers.

It helps deter the posting of inappropriate messages and photos.  Before a teen posts a message or photo they will be thinking ‘is this something I would want my mom or dad to see?’  If the answer is no, they won’t post it—keeping them from making what could be a very big mistake.  In addition, if you do see inappropriate messages or photos being posted, this is a great way to begin those somewhat hard conversations with your children.

You get valuable insight into what is happening in their offline world.  Not that you need (or want) to know how many times Susie broke up with Billy, but just seeing what your child is posting and/or is having posted to their page, gives you a glimpse into what is happening IRT (In Real Time).  This may explain changes in behavior and help encourage offline discussions.

Let's Protect our Teens

www.proectyourteens.com

www.securityfirstassociates.com

This BBWO sponsored post is brought to you by mycontentplanner.com.

There’s a pretty well-known online marketer whose favorite quote is “Hope is not a marketing plan”. In other words, you can’t just pick a marketing strategy and “hope” it will work. Instead, you have to put together a detailed marketing plan where you lay out your bevy of strategies for meeting your business goals. I don't mean a comprehensive list of daily tasks...rather, it's about breaking down each tactic you want to use and the process you’ll put in place for its implementation.

Start With Your Business Model

Not every marketing strategy will work with every business model. You’ll hear lots of promos about “proven” tactics, but that doesn’t mean they are the right ones for you. First, examine your own business model then outline some of the characteristics of that model and your market, including:

• A detailed description of the key features of your target customers
• Where customers will come from - is it organic search, paid search, joint ventures, offline sources, affiliates, etc.?
• What are the buying triggers for your prospects buying triggers? Where or when do they usually make a purchase decision? For example, it could be from a personal referral, a product review, a trusted expert's endorsement, through surfing content sites, through email suggestions, etc.

What Are The Most Popular Marketing Strategies?

Now, look again at your business model and the most popular marketing tactics used by your competitors and what I like to refer to as "role models of excellence". How do they convert from prospective client to paying client? For example,

• Do they have sales pages that lead to freebies that put prospects into an email series
• Do they host regular free teleseminars that include a special offer at the end
• Are they using straight SEO and traffic generation
• Are they engaged in multiple joint ventures and recruiting affiliates

Which Attraction and Marketing  Strategies Will You Focus On?

If you try to do several marketing campaigns at once, it's hard to do either one of them just right. It's probably better to focus on one to start with. Test it out, see if it’s working, and then look at adding more strategies. There are endless methods to choose from. Try choosing the easiest marketing strategy so you can put it in place and get moving straight away. You should always have at least one easy tactic you can use that doesn’t require a lot of thought and planning. For example, you can create an autoresponder series that starts every time a person signs up for your list. It’s a very passive form of marketing that requires almost no attention once you have it up and running. Then you can start planning out more campaigns.

Try Working Backwards

In order to put your marketing plan down on paper (or computer), start by looking at all the steps involved from the end result back to the first step. What are the activities you need to complete in order to implement and maintain each strategy? Now put those steps into order by priority and use a process you can follow. Which steps are interdependent? Which ones need to be managed first? You can even use a mindmap to lay out a visual of the process, which makes it easy to move things around. Freemind is a great, free tool for creating mindmaps on PCs. SimpleMind is another one that works well on iPads (this is one I use frequently) and it has a desktop version as well. You can export any of the mindmaps to a pdf so that you can print them and post them by your computer.

Make sure you set deadlines for achieving each step in your marketing plan.The success of much of your strategies will be dependent on a specific timeframe, like the length of time between emails or follow-ups. Get it on your calendar and set firm dates for yourself. Your marketing plan will help you determine what actual tasks you'll need to do from day to day. For example, if you know that your emails need to be set up in daily intervals, then you’ll need to put the outlining and writing of those emails down on your to-do list every day. Just don’t make the big mistake many impatient, overambitious marketers make by trying to do everything at once. Focus on a single strategy at a time, set deadlines, and follow it through to success.

Introducing our PWP feature of the week, Courtney Crosslin. Courtney is the creative owner of, haveAwonderful. After a tough divorce, Courtney explains how she had a mini breakdown and moved across country to start a new life. She began dating and sharing stories with her colleagues who began asking her tips on how to enjoy being single and begin dating again. Eventually, her advice turned into her business. She is now a successful work from home mom and coach offering outings, mock dates, image consulting, and date planning for divorced men and women looking to get back on the dating scene. It was a pleasure hearing Courtney’s story and inspiration to take her pain and make it her gain.

1. Tell me your story. What were you doing before you started your own business?

Before starting my own business and getting married, I worked in IT sales. After getting married, I was a stay at home wife and mother.

I've since divorced, traveled, learned to love life, and I'm happily dating.

2. What made you want to start a business and what is your mission?

I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I remember other kids playing house (changing dolls, grocery shopping with the little plastic carts, cooking, etc.), I never really did that. I would always figure out a way to play corporate woman. I'd shuffle papers, hold meetings and hand out money. I'm not sure where it came from, but my Mother says that I've always been bossy -- but I know I got it from her, my Grandmother and Great Grandmother.

I run several businesses, but my mission has always been to make a difference. Be it teaching a small business owner how to update their website or a divorcee how to enjoy dating again. I just want people to learn how to haveAwonderful...

3. What inspires you? What keeps you motivated daily to keep growing your business?

Life inspires me! I love to travel and meet new people. My love of travel definitely came from my parents. We (they) were master road-trippers. My Father (who passed away from cancer 13 years ago) was a master storyteller -- and I loved that about him -- and to this day, I'm a sucker for a great life story.

I've always been and have felt blessed. I've had a good life. I have an amazing family, a great circle of friends and I've never been seriously ill. This is something that I'm grateful for. As I've gotten older, I have realized that not everyone can say that. Therefore, I feel like I have a responsibility to do good and work hard. That notion alone, keeps me motivated.

I'm also madly stubborn. My Mom says that as a kid, I would physically shiver when she would say "No" and that I would always follow her "Maybe" responses to my questions with, "Maybe yes or maybe no?"

4. Do you have a mentor? Who is it and why? Do you believe it is important to have one?

I can't say that I have one mentor, but I do have people in my circle of friends whom I trust and go to for professional advice. I have an accountability partner and friend that I meet with once a week and I value that relationship like the air I breathe. Since we're both entrepreneurs and work from home, it's good for us to have someone to check in with to discuss our goals, wins, losses and challenges. We keep each other on track.

So, I would say an accountability partner is very important! I guess a mentor is too as long as they have the time to help you get where you want to be in a manner you want to get there -- hopefully ethically.

5. What would you tell someone who wants to get involved in your line of business but doesn't know how to get started?

Research, find a niche and just do it!

6. What advice would you give to someone with an entrepreneurial spirit?

If you're already out there pursuing your entrepreneurial dream, keep at it.

If you're just getting started (or are afraid to start), understand that you will have good days and will have a lot of bad days. You HAVE TO be fearless and tenacious. Oh, and watch the movie "Random Lunacy”.  It's a great movie about what can be accomplished with very little and the worst thing that can happen is that you hit bottom -- but you're still alive to fight another day.

Courtney’s story is a true testament of how to make the best out of a difficult situation. If you are looking to revive your self-esteem and confidence because of a failed relationship, I would encourage all of you to contact Courtney. You can visit her website at haveAwonderful.com. Follow her on twitter @haveAwonderful and contact her office at 914-816-1129. And in the words of Courtney,

haveAwonderful…

 _____________________________________________________________________________________

Be someone’s motivation and tell us your story! To be featured on PeopleWhoProsper.com email Tamara@garrisonprosperitysolutions.com. Put PEOPLEWHOPROSPER in the subject line and share a little about yourself.

Three Quick and Easy profitable Twittering strategies

What are your thoughts about using Twitter for business?

Twitter has been misunderstood by many, however, when used effectively it can lend itself to be a very empowering tool for any marketing endeavor. And then that all takes into again your goal(s).

I’m going to share four profitable Twittering strategies with you below. You don’t have to try to use everyone of them, however, do pick at least one to either refresh if you’ve tried it or start using.

Strategy #1 Generate Anticipation – Build Up To the Launch Event

Have you ever watched a launching campaign of another business owner? Or let’s take for instance a new movie. You’ll see preview after preview and maybe even fast food chains and others join in by merchandising as part of the launching campaign.

Twitter is a great way to help create anticipation. Post sneak peeks, samples, and links to content promoting the product before it is launched. Part of a successful launch is the anticipation of the new product.

Strategy #2 Offer Special Incentives

Consider making a special offer to your Twitter followers. For example, if you’re releasing a new service you can give your Twitter follower 10% off if they send you a direct message or a reply with the word #yourbusinessname in the message. Not only do you generate more awareness for your offer you’ll also generate sales for that new service and ultimately profits.

Of course you want to add scarcity to the mix. You can limit the offer. For example, limit the promotion to the first 100 who reply or retweet.

Strategy #3 Got a list? Want a list? Grow Your Opt-In List/Community

Whether you’re launching a new product or service you can begin to grow your list using Twitter. You can accomplish this by offering a free giveaway and teasing it on Twitter with a link to the opt-in page. You can also publish a blog post or article with a call to action in the article that sends readers to an opt-in page. Tease and link to the content on Twitter and watch your list grow. I don’t mean spam your followers but keep in mind the 60/20/20 ratio.

Okay here’s a bonus => Strategy #4 Publish Content

Have you ever seen other business owners provide content that offers part of a solution to a problem with a call to action that leads to a complete solution? This is a strategy used by many. The call to action is subtle and not aggressive. Merely a “Visit LINK to learn more about…” type of link.

The link then leads to either a squeeze or sales page for a product or service. You can use Twitter to promote the content and drive traffic to that content and thus ultimately to your sales or squeeze page.

Which one of the strategies mentioned will you use to increase your visibility and amp up your manifested desired results?

How would you like to learn more from me about experiencing social media success using Twitter?

I invite you to join me for my Twitter for business training. “I Rock Twitter and You can Too” is my Twitter training and it’s free!

Click here to register and secure your place for this Twitter for Business training. Can’t make the live call? Register and a VIP notice will be sent to you with the replay link.

Happy Monday!

Browse the list below to review the latest smart business tips, tools, and todos brought to you by members of the BBWO Community.

First Announcement: What's Your Business? If you would like to submit your business to be reviewed for possible feature on the 2012 BBWO50 Women Entrepreneurs click hereto submit your business.

Web Business Truths:
As busy women entrepreneurs many of us have learned quite a bit about what it means to run online businesses. Click the link below to review my truths and share your own:
Turning Tens into Thousands: How to Successfully Sell Lower Priced Items Online

Musical Motivation
Art. Deal recently posted Go Get It!, new music video from Mary Mary. Go Get it! Your Time is now to go and get your blessings!

Discover 7 Ways to Rock the Web and and Improve your Web Business
Join me live, this Thursday on blogtalkradio show WandaAfterDark, click here for details.

Join the latest discussion's on BBWO:

• Lakisha wants to know: What are the best ways to advertise your business?
• Denitra needs help with her business plan.
• Previous Popular discussion: What are some ways to advertise your business?
• How to Start Up and Stay in Business
• Fall in Love with Yourself the Second Time
• What About Us - Moving Starring Jasmine Guy
• How Many Ways - Recharge Your Business Today

LaShanda Henry

p.s. Join us at She Rocks the Web and connect with BBWO members like Pam Perry, Jai Stone, Katrina Harrell and more! Don't miss your chance to join my power circle. See you there.
http://www.sherockstheweb.com

This is my web business truth, what's yours? In the comment box below share something you have learned about building an online business.

Post a comment, blog link, and/or video.

This video series inspired by She Rocks the Web, SistaSense 3 Day Weekend Workshops: http://www.sherockstheweb.com.

Yesterday I had a great conversation with a dear friend about how she is ready to step out on faith and move towards opening her business. I was so excited to hear that she was ready to start because she has shared that she has had this passion since grade school. However, as we began to discuss what her next steps were she was giving herself a deadline to the end of summer for brainstorming. I feel like this is a lot of time to squander for brainstorming. Well, let me put it this way, if I were passionate about something like starting a business, it wouldn’t take me 3 months for the initial brainstorming. So, I shared with her how to break it down and brainstorm in a timely manner and get moving on her business:

1. Get a trusty notebook

... and highlighter. Here is a picture of ONE of my brainstorming notebooks. I take it EVERYWHERE (as you can tell) because I never know when I am going to get a brilliant idea. I have an Ipad as well, but there's something about the good ol' fashioned pen to paper that is convenient and gets a lot of creative juices flowing. Now, that works for me. Find what works for best for you and USE IT! You may have a better memory than me :) and can remember things easier. You may enjoy typing or using a stylus better. But whatever it is, use it and have it with you at all times. EVEN when you sleep! You never know, you may come up with great ideas while you are dreaming! Have that notebook/Ipad/journal handy to record those things immediately. You can ask my husband how many times  I wake up in the middle of the night to write stuff down (of course he doesn't like it) but it's what I have to do to get the information down fresh.  So get a trusty notebook.

2. Research your target market

This may take you a little more time than jotting ideas down but it's very key to your success. The web defines a target market as a group of customers that the business has decided to aim its marketing efforts and ultimately its merchandise.  If you research and discover there isn't much need for your business, you may have to revamp your services or think of some other ideas. However, you may find that there’s at tremendous need for your business in a certain market or industry. Therefore, you will know to move forward with your plans. Research by calling certain businesses or people you know and conducting surveys that will give you direct answers.

3. Find out what others are doing

After you find out who needs your services research companies that are in the same industry look at their pricing, website setup, which market they are trying to capture and make yourself a competitor. You want to be better than everyone else so how can you set your business up to be better? Feel free to even call companies and ask them questions as a “potential client”. Check out their customer service and what they offer and strive to be better.

4. Plan as far as your mind will take you

If the industry you plan on going into has potential for franchising or to become a corporation make your plan up to that point. Come up with your company name, your corporation name, and your franchise name. Come up with how the company would operate as you expand. Are you starting with partners or will they come later? Are you going to start with a blog and move to a website? Are you going to eventually have employees, etc? All of these things need to be a factor in your brainstorming. Always have a plan so you know where your business is heading.

5. FINALLY, Answer these 2 questions:

Why are you going into business?

Why would someone want to do business with you?

I consider myself a go- getter. When I am passionate about something, I cannot rest until it is in fruition. That is what I expect from the people I work with. No need to give yourself a year or two to get your business off the ground if you are working day and night. No, everything won’t be figured out by the time you open your doors but life is about learning lessons. Pricing, customer service, invoicing, etc. may be trial and error. The key is to start getting customers through the door. Otherwise, who knows if you’ll ever start your business? If you wait too long you may lose your steam and your business idea may fade away. So, start brainstorming today and get started tomorrow!

Tamara Garrison-Thomas

www.garrisonprosperitysolutions.com

www.busy925.com

The buzz is building on She Rocks the Web 2012, so if you miss it don't say I didn't tell you. Just in case you haven't heard this is the first SistaSense 3 Day Weekend Workshop happening here in North Carolina for the sistas in my circle who are ready to walk, run, take a bus, plane or train to get down here so I can help you with your web business and we can have a GREAT TIME rocking the web! We will cover your blogs, your websites, your marketing, your sales, your videos, your information products and everything in between! This is all about getting down to business and we get to bond over business with a few surprise activities and social media jam sessions!

Quick Run Down: Early Bird Registration Ends in about 5 Days Space is limited to 10 - 15 women The Event Date: June 15th - June 17th The Venue: the Aloft Hotel in Chapel Hill, NC Early Bird Registration is 50% off All Registration Ends May 15th Bring A Friend and the two of you save $200

Have you watched the videos? I recently released my new "Rock the Web" video series with highlights of some of the topics to be discussed at She Rocks the Web including: View new videos posted on SistaSense How to Close the Deal and Make Sales Online Better Blogging and Video Production / Promotion Simple SEO Strategies How to Recharge Your Business 30+ Sales Triggers to Improve Click Through Rates

If you have any questions let me know. I am looking forward to seeing some of you in the mix.
Official url: http://www.sherockstheweb.com
Let's Rock! And Remember - space is limited so be smart and register now.
LaShanda Henry

I have stop ranting online and never really have done one on my blog, but that will change today. So why now, it’s because I have something to get off my chest. I feel like if I don’t do it now, I just might explode. Plus if I ever get told or text something similar to what spark this post, I can just send them here and hopefully they will get it. It will be my 2012 (and beyond) version of “Talk to the Hand!”

“You ain’t got no job man!”

I am not the female version of the character Tommy from Martin. Yes, I know I no longer work a traditional 9-to-5 job. Yes, I know I not longer get up in the morning and head into the city to work in my gray cubicle. This is something I am well aware of. I am EMPLOYED; self-employed, meaning I work for myself. I still have to pay taxes, people. I do the same thing I was doing that doing at my former traditional 9-to-5 job. The difference now is, instead of solely working for one company, I work with several different individuals/entrepreneurs/small businesses. I once had steady pay and I will have it again. Please stop counting me out.

Read the rest of my rant.

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Hello  Powerful one!

Imagine having time with an empowering Mentor and Coach to focus on your vision, goals and strategies all for increased manifestation of your desired results. Aren't you worth it?

Give yourself the luxury of uninterrupted focus on your vision, goals and strategies with my Free Bonus.

The official launch of The Extraordinary Woman Extraordinary Life Home Study Program with Bonus live calls is next week and when you enroll with the full pay investment you qualify to receive a FREE Virtual VIP 1/2 day with me. Yep! You read that right, however, there are only a few slots left and that's only because I opened up a few more. 

Here at Black Business Women Online we strive to focus on solutions that can help you and your business. Keep reading for the latest tips and solutions for today, but 1st a quick reminder - early registration ends in 7 days for She Rocks the Web, 3 Day Weekend Workshop hosted by LaShanda Henry (aka SistaSense). URL: http://www.sherockstheweb.com

1. (video) Two Ways to Recharge Your Business
2. The Art of Branding
3. 3 Ways to have a Successful Week
4. Easy ways to Steer Traffic to Your Website
5. 7 Ways to Rock the Web
6. How to Close the Deal and Increase Sales
7. 13 Ways to Build Your Superstar Platform
8. 7 Basic Tips for Effective Goal Setting

Enjoy these member posts and videos. Also click hereto join our latest Facebook Social Roll Call and let the BBWO Community know what you are working on today.

More to Come!
LaShanda Henry

p.s. Don't forget to go watch the Rock the Web video series and register for She Rocks the Web 2012 (space is limited. URL: http://www.sherockstheweb.com

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What is Internet Branding?

Internet branding is one strategy that business owners can employ to establishing their position in the marketplace. Even well-established companies are investing on creating an online brand reputation since internet branding strategies have also produced massive impact on a brand's effort to expand. This is most important these days wherein the internet has taken on a significant role in the everyday lives of the consumers. Hence, you need to utilize it as one of the means that you can communicate your message to them.

With internet branding, you are basically utilizing the tools provided by the internet as a leverage to all your marketing efforts. The objective with using the internet as a medium for promoting your brand works the same way as any other branding methods, which is to increase the demand for the products in your brand.

Importance of Internet Branding

Every business owner is aware of the benefits that a good brand can make for your company. Since the brand is basically what distinguishes you from any other companies that offer the same product or service, you must execute your branding strategies properly to produce the results you want. Take a look at some successful brands in the industry, who have become so distinct to the point wherein their names have been associated with a certain product. This is what business owners must try to aim for.

In business terms, this is referred to as brand positioning. It establishes the main locus of your product to the target market. Therefore, you will be utilizing the specific features that makes your product distinct from the other and use that as a focus of your message in the internet branding effort. Indeed, product differentiation and product positioning are closely linked to one another. These are two basic ploys that you can utilize in your internet branding strategies to “own” a segment of the market and produce a loyal customer base from that.

Is It Worth Investing In?

Several companies and brands have worked so hard on establishing their brand and yet they fail to look into the possibilities of producing an online brand. Hence, they lose that advantage to other brands who worked on appealing to the consumers and making their offer known.

However, if you opt to embark on an internet branding strategy, you must not also neglect the positive value or message that you are trying to impart with regards to your company. To sum it up, a good internet branding strategy is worth your investment. So, don't just go right into an online campaign for your brand. It must be something that is a product of your thorough evaluation and planning.

What About Small Businesses?

Despite the large impact of the online industry in people's lives these days, it is only projected to grow in the years to come. Hence, this makes the internet an even more reliable avenue to expand their marketing efforts. The best thing about the internet is that it provides an even playing field for big- and small-time businesses to promote their brand. Even new businesses can utilize the internet as a means to position their brand and make their existence known in the market. So, it's no longer new these days to have new products or brands introduced online as it is one of the fastest growing industries today.

And yet, the benefits of offering your products and brand to a larger market is beneficial for small time businesses since potential buyers can focus only on the quality of service and performance. By maintaining the value and continually differentiating your product, then internet branding will offer several potential benefits for your business.