 By now you've all heard about the incident at HUG High School. There was a student with a knife. Campus police disarmed the student by shooting him in the shoulder. Lawsuits and drama ensue. But wait! The date on this post is December 5, and the actual event happened on December 7. And Linda from Facebook claims the event was planned for the 6th, and the media prepared for a big conspiratorial showdown. Web designers modify dates on the web all the time. We backdate social media posts, blog posts, and any assignments that were supposed to be completed by a certain deadline. We can even modify the dates of an email (it's tricky and not sustainable, but yes, it can be done). Web developers have the power to time travel. Here, I just traveled to the future:  Or did I?
The media has certainly given us enough evidence to think that everything they pump out is a massive lie, but in this case, we're just seeing journalists take advantage of Google's indexing rules. Most likely the news websites prepare the framework for "Today's Hottest" article in advance (just like they do with the paper version). They don't know what's going into that slot when they prepare the framework, they just know that the hottest story is going there. The date can be manipulated so that Google recognizes that story as "the story that broke first" and other journalists will refer to that story as the "seed" article and draw from it. That's just media strategy. Not conspiracy. When in doubt, ask your neighborhood web designer! She'll be the first to join you in the bunker if something is truly amiss.  Many business owners run into some confusion when it comes to setting up and managing their Business Fan page. Let's break it down into easier to understand concepts! Your Facebook account is like YOU. It's unique to you, and no one is supposed to use your identity except you. Just like your face and signature give you power over many things in the real world (your bank account, your kid's school, the DMV)--your Facebook account acts like your personal, verified signature and can give you access to many different online accounts. Your Business Fan Page is something completely different. It might belong to you, you might have the ultimate say over it, but--teachers, nannies and other individuals can manage it. Yes, it's just like your child. But this is a child you can hand off to a nanny without any guilt. Because let's face it--this stubborn child DID come with a manual, and Waking Girl has read it! :)  When giving access to your Fan page, we don't need your personal account information. That's like giving away your social security number--and should only be done in dire circumstances!! Waking Girl handles Business Fan Pages for many of its clients. Just like with a baby-sitter, there is a protocol for assigning responsibilities to care for your kid. Give us the keys to your house, NOT the rights to your identity. We are not looking to adopt your baby.  Often times we learn that a client has two Personal Facebook accounts. That is the Facebook equivalent of masquerading with a stolen identity and fake ID. This can get BOTH of your accounts shut down, and can even alert child protective services to remove the rights to your metaphorical kid!!!!!! Who knew? Should I be panicking right now?! You might be asking ^. Nah, it's just Facebook. It's not THAT serious! Steps for Facebook Success:
  Question: How can I expedite my online marketing through blogging? We received this question from a client that writes hefty proposals for multi-million dollar government contracts. When we realized that the client is an avid writer (they write proposals that dwarf most John Grisham books), we gave them the instructions on how to get writing, and GET RESULTS! Here is an idea task list to expedite your marketing efforts: Blog like a crazy person (blog as much as you can, as much as you want, every day and night)
DON'T WRITE DIRECTLY IN WEEBLY. Because technology.
BLOG CONTENT BANK (feel free to add your own key phrases!):
SOCIAL MEDIA BLAST
Now that you have your content ^, you can send it out to the masses. To post on Facebook or Twitter or Linkedin: Click on the Blog Title of your post. It should look like this: http://www.wakinggirl.com/business-proposal-writers/business-proposal-writers-in-san-francisco-ca NOT: http://www.wakinggirl.com/business-proposal-writers/ Copy & paste the link and include your opening thoughts. NOT just the link. You can include the opening paragraph or two: We are a content consulting company specializing in new business proposals. Our staff of writing, graphic design, and subject matter professionals work side by side with you to craft and price winning solutions. Or say something like: I had a lot of fun writing this article on the Top 10 Tips for Talking Trash. Somebody dared me to do it, and I did. And it was awesome. You'll never believe #7. Or: This is a must-read for business owners in the construction industry. Tag your construction owner friends (or just print it out and mail it to them, because they're not on Facebook). START THERE- and let us know how we can help!  There are a billion ways to monetize your blogging brilliance. You may not be able to support yourself or family when you first get started (true in any business), but with perseverance and a little strategy, you can at least supplement your income and see what's possible.
Possibilities: Google Ad revenue. You can add Google ads to your website. It takes a little patience to set up, but can give you an immediate return on your blogging bliss. Google: Google Adsense to set up an account and get started. Google Ad Strategies: -your audience needs to be the kind of people who click on ads. I built a website once for gamers. The website was a calculator that helped gamers gauge their risk in making different moves in the game. It was awesome. And useful. And gamers would pull up that site and keep it open all day. But they never once clicked on an ad. Meanwhile, I put ads on a site for Republicans, and oh boy--they went nuts clicking for the whole 17 hours the ads were up. The (elderly) Republican leaders were trying to figure out how ads for Democrats ended up on their site! So they clicked and clicked and clicked to try to get to the bottom of things!! Whoops! Made about $25 before they realized I had the power to remove "the liberal blasphemy" from their site. My most successful Google ad experience brought in about $100/month for several years (with almost no attention given to the website after the initial setup). The website was for a niche product, and customers were being driven to the website from other websites and marketing methods. People clicked on ads because they were in the market for a product, and the ads were generally related to their product search. Product Placement. Ever wonder why someone is drinking a Diet Coke in a TV show? Product Placement! Coca Cola will make more money by influencing people to drink their product, than by telling them directly. Use Product Placement with Trade to get started. Want to get your hair cut, but can't afford the best salon? Ask the salon if you can do a trade--a blog post featuring your hair experience with links to their salon site, in exchange for a hair cut! Tip in cash, please! Once you have a big enough following, you can ask for real money for these sorts of blog posts! SEO. Offer blogs for SEO purposes to local businesses or businesses that hit your niche market (for a fee). Do a story about how awesome a company, service or website is--and include some helpful links to their website in the copy. It's really important that you link properly, or else your blog will come off as spammy, or it won't be effective for your ad client. Effective Linking: -When you're talking about a web design company, link the important words about their SEO services like this. -Do not link like this: wakinggirl.com -And don't bother to link like this: Waking Girl is cool. Link the words that people would use to find the business in a Google search. That will indicate to Google that "Waking Girl" is a "web design company" and offers "SEO services." Ask for a one-time fee or a monthly fee, or a set up fee + monthly fee (businesses will benefit as long as the blog post is up and traffic is coming to your website). Ads. Run your own graphic ads on the sidebars, footers or headers of your website. Ask businesses or organizations to supply graphics that fit the space, and then charge a monthly, quarterly or annual fee for sharing your web space! Websites generally charge too much for graphic ads. Words are actually worth more than pictures in a blog. The only time an ad would be more worthwhile is if your EXACT readers should be the EXACT customers for the ads. So--if all of your single, mom friends in Mobile, Alabama are reading your blog, then a graphic ad for a Singles Speed Dating event for Moms in Mobile, Alabama would make sense. For ads, go for sponsorship. Who just wants to support you and identify with you to help you out and be a friend? Is there a Women's Crisis Center or a Church or a MicroLoan organization that speaks to you? See if they want to smack their logo on your website for a small monthly fee. If you really want to benefit the organization, take the time to write a proper blog post about them, too! What to charge. Google ads: Google will decide! Product Placement: use this to trade whatever you can trade! Hair care, kid's activities, restaurants. Look for companies that have some extra time or product on their hands, and want to help you get started! SEO: If you write up a full, engaging story on a business, that's worth at least $50. If you use some SEO, and target relevant businesses for your audience, that's worth as much as you can sell it for ($75, $100, $250). I prefer low set up fees with ongoing monthly fees ($50 + $5/month, and yes, you may pay for a year at a time). Ads: $5/month to $500/month. Seriously--the sky is the limit. Try to give people both an ad AND an SEO blog post AND a product placement experience! Important next steps: Keep writing. Quantity! Go! Keep writing! The deeper you allow people into your life, the more valuable your blog will become. Plug into your audience. Seek out Facebook Groups that feature your target market. Who is your target market? People just like you! Find your people! Check in with your sponsors. Follow up regularly with anyone contributing to the cause; communication will help you find new ways to help, and that will ultimately boost your bottom line! :) Blogs: the gateway drug to your new business.  I'm surrounded by business coaches and the industry has one magic formula called "THE SALES FUNNEL." Catchy, right?
Every once in awhile I get caught in the click-bait of a sales funnel and sign up for an email newsletter. Recently one of those emails explained what a sales funnel is. I almost gagged. For those of you who haven't heard the concept, a sales funnel goes like this: Billions of people are out there, and through offers and promotions, you'll catch maybe a hundred or a thousand of them. Then, through frequent harassment (email newsletters) you'll narrow it down to 10 interested people who might want more information. And eventually they'll want a Discovery Call (that's just a phone call where you find out if they can afford your services). And then you sell ONE promotional package to one lucky winner who pops through your little funnel. And then you create the package, and perform the services. And hope the customer doesn't dispute the charge on her credit card. And rinse, repeat. Wow. That's a lot of funneling for ONE sale. Let's take a look at how the process can work if you just flip the funnel over:
At Waking Girl we do not use lead generation funnels, we do not send out solicitous newsletters. We do not waste our energy on trying to win you over before the sale. We save our energy for going above and beyond for our current clients. Rather than turning thousands into one client. We've taken ONE client and turned her into thousands of clients. Thank you, Antique Angel Wedding Chapel, for being our first VIP client!  We are thankful for the cornucopia of businesses that have blessed us with their knowledge, wisdom, and enthusiasm. We wanted to give you a sample of some of our favorites! These businesses offer products and/or services in the Reno and Northern Nevada area. We invite you to get creative and find a unique one-of-a-kind gift for everyone on your list! Want to buy locally, but don't know how to turn house cleaning or live entertainment into a Christmas gift? Just ask! We can help! Thank you, Reno, for giving back with your gifting this year! Activities, Trips and Tours: Clear the clutter with something to do! EntertainingFor the Kids (and Kids at Heart) Health, Wellness & BeautyFine Art, Customized Art--prices ranging from $5 to $5000 For the Gun EnthusiastHome Improvement Good Eats, Drinks and Catering for your Holiday Party Over 21 CrowdFor the Business OwnerFor the Auto Fanatic Charities to SupportNeed a place for your Pets for the holidays? Do you love your Local Businesses? Like and Share below! :)  An issue escalated, and I took the time to email each of the 3 parties individually, with their own unique email that pertained particularly to him/her.
Why? Because I care. Too often we think that including everyone on an email thread will make us seem helpful and informational. Unfortunately, your readers don't see it that way. While everybody likes a good mystery, business owners don't want to read through a 5 email chain to decipher why they got one, too. Reasons you may have gotten that email: 1) The sender wanted to tattle, and thought Showing was better than Telling 2) The sender was attempting to be efficient 3) The sender simply doesn't have the technical skills to send you a pertinent attachment without the extra fluff 4) The sender feels powerless, but found the mighty Reply-All button 5) The sender is preparing to go to court (with you), and this email chain is about to make its way into evidence (sorry Judge!!!) None of these are good signs! How to de-escalate and communicate the issue efficiently: 1) Step away from the issue for a minute (hour or even a day). Take a deep breath. If you're panicked, you'll do something crazy. 2) Have the facts clear in your head (just the facts; not those pesky opinions) 3) Send a clear and concise email to each party. If you gotta "show" the facts, copy and paste the relevant portion of the email and explain: "I was confused about the direction to take, because of Bob's email: Bob said: I love unicorns!!!!!" 4) Give a resolution in each email, pertaining to each party: Sally, let's go forward with moving the project deadline to the 30th! Bob, let's talk by phone tomorrow at 3pm to figure out the unicorns! Pat, we are handling the project and will notify you when we're ready for the rainbows! 5) Don't be afraid to pick up the phone! Sometimes we can get on the same page faster with a phone call. Many business owners receive hundreds of emails a day (and I'm not talking about spam). These are real emails that require a response or an action. Forcing people to read through all of YOUR mail, too, is disrespectful and inefficient. If your organization requires ALL parties to read ALL emails, you won't be able to grow. If it is absolutely necessary to share all emails, change up your process. Instead of replying-all, just get together and play "office" in the same room together. Designate a reader, and when an email arrives, the reader can go ahead and share the details in real time! As a group, you can collectively reply. Your email address can simply be: thecollectivevoice@companyname.sarcasm  In order to bring consistency to one of our favorite websites, we created a form for the client to fill out for inputting new information. The website features different Tours, and departure and arrival times are key to the operation. We were getting inconsistent formatting in the times (2pm, 2PM, 2:00 PM, 2:00 AM, 2ish) and a typical Date/Time field didn't give us the programming functionality needed to automate other features of the website. Who knew it would be so hard to Google a list of times for a dropdown menu? I share this list here for anyone else who was trying to find a simple list of times to include in a form! Copy/paste at will! 5 Different Time Choices to Choose From: To combine any of these columns, copy/paste each set into ONE column in an Excel sheet. Then sort! Paste into Notepad to keep the list format. Then paste into your website. Need to include some HTML? Do a Replace-All in Notepad: Find: AM Replace with: AM <br><li> Replace-All Find: PM Replace with: PM <br><li> Replace-All
 You go to work every day. You punch in. You punch out. You carefully label your lunch and don't meddle with other people's office supplies. You're a good worker. You look in the rear view mirror before walking in to greet your colleagues and tell yourself hopefully, "Maybe today is the day I'll get a raise." Sorry. Ain't gonna happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever--not like that. Raises don't just happen. They don't just fall out of the sky. They're not rainbows. They're not unicorns. Raises do not come to those who wait. But why not? I deserve a raise, don't I? I dunno, DO you? A business owner has a lot on the line and quite frankly, often doesn't know if *she* is going to get a cut from month to month. You were hired because a business owner needed help; and hiring you was probably long overdue, but once you were hired, the business owner realized, "Shoot. How am I gonna afford to feed all these people AND train these people AND pick up the slack when they tap the snooze icon too many times? Can I raise my rates? Can we find a more innovative way to do business? Maybe I can just stop sleeping for a few months." Rainbows and unicorns don't just fall out of the sky for business owners either. Every business owner dreams of the day when a new hire knocks assertively at her door, enters, sits down and says the following: Boss Ma'am, I would like to present a plan I've been thinking about. I noticed that Teddy, Bill and Sally are awesome at organizing and generating content. I also noticed there is some down time when we're not on the phones from about 10am-11am each day. I was wondering if we could take over the social media work that Big Mega Co. has been handling for you during that time each day. I hope you don't mind, but I went ahead and looked at your contract with Big Mega and according to Section 14 we can pop right out of that contract at the end of this month. It looks like you're paying Big Mega about $800/month. Would you be willing to give me a raise of half that amount to handle the management and responsibility of this task? Sold. Done. Immediate raise. Promotion. Partner in the company by the end of the year. But I'll take over the social media for my company. Do I get a raise now? No. Getting a raise isn't about taking on more tasks; it's about taking on more thinking. A small business owner's brain looks like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory--on steroids. If you can handle just one chocolate slide, that frees her brain up to make more blueberry bubble chutes. I like chocolate slides. Do I get a raise now? Are you handling the responsibility to the extent that the owner would? More? Better? Beyond? Then, yes! A small business owner is in a place of being able to hire others because she has exceeded her customer's expectations and her company has grown. Her products and services are in demand. But considering we're not ready to clone business owners (yet), she has the unruly task of hiring/contracting, training and praying to God that her new team will love her clients just a fraction as much as she does. How did my boss exceed expectations? She did what the client *would have asked for*, if the client knew such a thing existed.  How can I exceed my boss' expectations?
The same way. Stop looking at your work as a job, and start looking at your work as a service. You are in the business of helping your boss, boosting her profits, and reducing her costs, and above all--easing the Willy Wonka chaos. Thinking in this way immediately increases your value. If you're there to HELP your boss now you can offer to do tasks beyond your job description. You can even offer to help with things that are fun for you, but clearly a chore for your boss. But my boss makes a lot of money; shouldn't I get a fair cut? The reason a boss will love you forever if you waltz into her office with a money-saving or profit-boosting proposal is because you're paying attention. You probably know exactly how much money you cost the company and how much money you make the company. Just because the boss is invoicing lots and lots of dollars doesn't mean she's taking any of it home. Companies rarely make tons of money over night; there are debts to be paid, investors, mistakes, blood pressure medication, and it all adds up. Instead of looking at your paycheck with a "gimme gimme" mentality, go get the facts. Find out if your boss has been coming out of pocket to keep you on the team, and more importantly--if your ideas can boost the bottom line! But what if my ideas offend the boss? Then it's time to start your own business. You have the confidence and the know-how to be an entrepreneur! Give your two week's notice and get to it! Ok, ok, I'm not quite ready for that--but can I work for you? You tell me! How can you help me? What's your pitch? What's your proposal? You've visited my website, you've seen my rates. How can you add value to what I'm already doing and tame the explosion of berrylicious goodness in my brain? Can't wait to hear it! :) Angela Refsland, owner of Waking Girl Web Design worked for a small business over a decade ago, and asked for not just one raise, but two! After just three months, she noticed an ongoing problem and found a solution. She presented the solution, offered to implement the solution for more pay, and it was an immediate YES from the boss. Know what happened? Her colleagues resented her for it, because they had been waiting for 6 years for rainbows and unicorns. The work environment became too hostile so she asked to be switched from an employee to an independent contractor (no more taxes being taken from her checks), and have the freedom to work from home. The company agreed! And from there--it was an easy step to venture out on her own.  We were excited to see so many Waking Girl websites represented in the 2015 Best of Northern Nevada contest! Congratulations!! YOU make your business great; thank you for letting us tag along for the ride!
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