One American Writer

Decisions, decisions, and IBM news

Here's news!  This is too high-tech for me, but for some start-ups, this is a real boon!

IBM Launches Global Entrepreneur Initiative to Help Start-Ups Capture New Business Opportunities

All of the resources and minute-by-minute news can be so distracting!

When you work for someone else, the big decisions are easy.  You don't have to make them.  When the decision makers decide what to do, they instruct you to do your part.

You are really good at doing your part.  You are good at deciding what to do and how to implement the plan you form.

But when you work for yourself, all decisions are yours.

How do you make a decision and stick with it?

How do you NOT change your mind every other day?

I assume lack of confidence plays a part in this as it does in procrastination.

I was going to pay my grown daughter to illustrate my updated book, but today, I called her and said, "You know, I can buy art online very inexpensively.  What I need most is DIRECTION and accountability.

I may use a BaseCamp project management product or we may go really low-tech and just use a list on paper, but the plan is that she will call me to be sure I've met my self-imposed deadline each day.

Of course, that brings me back to the question, Deadline for WHAT?

Well, I haven't updated the book yet.  I'll do that first.  There.  That was easy.

If you, too, are having trouble making big buisness decisions (or, I should say, BIG small-business decisions), try this.  I'm going here right after I post this entry:

WikiHOW article on How To Make Decisions.

And if you need to be distracted because the decision-making process is making you buggy, here's a site I just found that looks useful:

HomeBasedBusiness.com, a social network for like-minded people.  Boy is it hard to find good info among all of the hype!!!

This business failed. Will yours? Will mine?

We MUST learn from others.  "Good judgement comes from experience, and often, experience comes from bad judgement."  (I find that attributed to Rita Mae Brown but SHE was quoting someone long dead -- anyone know who?)

How many marriages could be saved if folks used that wisdom?  I mean saved from occurring.  

Here's one kind soul who shares his failed business info.  Lessons Learned from a Failed Business: Part One

Like I say in my book (How to Make Money While You Look for a Job), DON'T SPEND MORE THAN YOU CAN AFFORD TO LOSE.  AND DON'T MORTGAGE THE HOUSE, DANG IT.

America's Small Business Summit is Coming

Anyone attending the US Chamber of Commerce event in DC in May? America's Small Business Summit is May 17 to 19, 2010.

We-hell, at over $500.00, I won't be attending.  If I were strongly motivated to go, I would approach it as a journalist and cover it for a local publication.  Maybe I will.  Where's my motivation (looking under chair)?

Here's a spot to submit your new biz to be covered in the Chamber's magazine.  You can read about how other small businesses are meeting their challenges in these hard times, too: USChamberMagazine.com/business-profiles.

Should you join the US Chamber?  Should I?  More later.

Dust Off Your Home-based Business

I remember my clean office, my clean, neat office cubicle.  I look around my home-based office and see one big difference -- at the office, we had a cleaning service.  I need every advantage I can get if I'm going to work for myself, and that means keeping the place clean!  But where to find the time???

According to an Ashland City Times article this week, Home-Based Businesses are on the Rise, but we knew that, right?  What I wonder is, how are folks making it work?

This, from the Wall Street Journal, is two years old, but I'm going to read it as soon as I post this entry.  Working for Yourself Can Have Its Challenges.

This article (part of a nine-part series on making the leap to self-employed) from GroundReport.com is also not new, but it still applies.  FEAR.

I'm getting braver day by day, so once I find the time to keep the clutter down, I'll be feeling like a real business person again!

Be brave, stay encouraged and CLEAN YOUR WORK SPACE,
Donna D. Buskirk

Double Duty for your Blog Posts

Doing research for another blog post, I searched (Google) on "confidence booster" and the FIRST result was from 5 years ago.

It is a short article posted on SearchWarp.com, which to me says that SearchWarp.com does a GOOD job of search engine optimization.

So if you're going to write articles (once you get the hang of it, a short article is the SAME as a good blog-post), you might try that site. 

NOTE: Maybe the reason they're effective is that they confirm their writers can write.  You have to submit a sample.  But again, you WILL become effective as you learn to blog.  If you HATED English class in school, change it up.  Make your own English/writing class FUN as you perfect your skill.  It WILL pay off.

When your content is really solid, it can do three jobs for you:

1. Blog post
2. Freelance article
3. Content for your next book.

If you get paid for a freelance article, the publisher will purchase the rights to it, so THAT content cannot be used again.  Carefully read the copyright arrangement at SearchWarp.com (or other article-submission sites).

Back to English 101,
Donna D. Buskirk
Freelance Writer/Producer

Write Like a Writer

Excellent post from the ProBlogger titled How to Blog When You're Not a Writer.  Thanks, ProBlogger.  This blogger does everything right (check out his blog's layout, calls to action) -- and because your business HAS to blog, I recommend that you subscribe to his email newsletter.

I know you're busy, but even if you ignore most of his emails and read one a month, you'll be way ahead of the game.

I wondered how non-writers were dealing with having to blog, and his post (link above) gives VERY good info.  I beg to differ, though -- Darren Rowse might not think of himself as a writer, but the man can WRITE. 

He just didn't know he could.  His solid tips will help YOU get over your "I can't do it" fear, and here are my additional tips to help you write like a writer:

1. Keep a pen & notebook with you at all times.  If you have a long commute, keep a recorder handy so you don't take out an entire lane of traffic trying to jot down a blog-post idea inspired by radio news.
2. When you get to your computer, log into your blog right away.  Write fresh and fast, then edit a bit (not too much or you lose the original energy).
3. Think of your blog post almost as an email to your target audience. You are writing for current and potential customers and the media.
4. Make a point related to your product or service...something to help them solve a problem related to your product or service, or related the field you serve.  Don't JUST write about what YOU offer. If you sell advertising for a newspaper, you CAN blog about how to buy radio time as part of the mix.  Surround the account with your wisdom and they will return to you for advice.  You gain trust by helping them with their broader issues.
5. RELAX.  Blog readers don't expect every blogger to write like a writer, and you will improve as you go. 

Simply write a few SHORT paragraphs, do the spell check and post the entry.  Write blog posts daily or three times per week. 

If the posts are well planned and not too seasonal, you could repurpose the content later into an e-book or self-published book.  In that case, though, DO pay a professional editor to get the content into shape.  Book readers DO expect you to write like a writer.

IF YOU GET STUCKIf you sit down to write without a notebook full of ideas, and you suffer writer's block, use my favorite tip from Ken Atchity's books.  If you can't think of something to write, write anything.  Type, "Mary had a little lamb, His fleece what white as snow, and everywhere...”  At some point, your brain will say, "OH, OK, IF WE'RE GOING TO WRITE ANYWAY, I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETING TO SAY!"

After you are more confident in this process, or right away if you're brave enough, ask for friends you trust to tell you the truth if you should continue to blog or pay someone else in the company to blog instead.

If it were singing instead of writing we were talking about, I would HAVE to pay someone else to sing for me.  I was wondering how non-writers were handling blogging, and the ProBlogger post is a great answer.  But if you write like I sing, you really should pay a blogger who CAN write. ;)

Writer Regards,
Donna D. Buskirk

P.S. When you are about to write an email or post to a discussion group, make it a blog post instead!  I was about to share this link with fellow students in my online course (U. of San Francisco Master Certificate in Online Marketing), but I realized I need to blog, and this post is the result.  So don't email...make it a bit longer, and post to your blog!  You'll get the hang of it, and the payoff should be more visibility for your company and more sales! -DDB

Mega Job Fair and Entrepreneurship Expo

For those of you willing to travel where jobs and entrepreneurs are even more plentiful than in RTP, hear this:

Fairfax County Hosts Mega Job Fair and Entrepreneurship Expo!

Free, free partking, no pre-registration.  I MIGHT be there.  I'm right down the street now (Fairfax, Va in the Washington DC area), and I might just head back here for this event, to cover it and participate.

From the release linked above:

2010 Mega Job Fair and Entrepreneurship Expo will be held:

• Saturday, March 27, 2010
• 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• Fairfax County Government Center
• 12000 Government Center Parkway, Fairfax, VA 22035

Admission and Parking are free.

Let me know if you're going!
Donna D. Buskirk
DonnaBuskirk.com

Write a Book to Promote Your Biz

Write your book to make money, but not from book sales.

Stephen King makes money from book sales (and I recommend his book for novelists, On Writing), but chances are, your book won't make much of a profit.

Guess what -- most books in bookstores don't make much if any profit.  (Read A Broom of One's Own by an author in NC who still cleans houses for a living after having two novels published.)

You can, however, make many more contacts and gain clients when you write a how-to book and use it as your brochure.  

See my Squidoo lens about writing freelance articles (http://squidoo.com/MyFreelanceWriter).

To write your book, I recommend A Writer's Time - A Guide to the Creative Process from Vision through Revision by Kenneth Atchity, and I strongly recommend the services of an industry professional to help you through formatting, editing, illustration and marketing.  Henry Hutton, one of the founders of Lulu and owner of PublishAndSell.com has years of insider knowledge and contacts.  He is local to the Research Triangle Park area in North Carolina, USA and, of course, offers training on-line so he is accessible to you no matter where you are.

In today's climate, your business needs every edge it can get.  Buy a pack of index cards and start that book right away!

See you later, you writer you,
Donna Buskirk
DonnaBuskirk.com

Increase Web site traffic

I am in a lecture (University of San Francisco online course, Master Certificate in Online Marketing) mentioned favorably in a Wall Street Journal article, and I found this resource (multi-tasking, of course) on quick tips to increase traffic to your Web site: http://www.pandia.com/features/design.html .  Really good read with solid quick info.

Bottom line?  Write for people first, and for search engines second.  In other words, humans first, spiders last.

Here is a GOOD example of a BAD site ... they CLEARLY wrote to increase search-engine results.  Maybe they'll give a few spiders a good haircut...I'm not popping over for a trim:

http://www.mancinideparis.com/hair-cut-Alexandria/index.html

-Donna Buskirk

Link to solid tips to increase Web site traffic

I am in a lecture (University of San Francisco online course, Master Certificate in Online Marketing) mentioned favorably in a Wall Street Journal article, and I found this resource (multi-tasking, of course) on quick tips to increase traffic to your Web site: http://www.pandia.com/features/design.html .  Really good read with solid quick info.

Bottom line?  Write for people first, and for search engines second.  In other words, humans first, spiders last.

Here is a GOOD example of a BAD site ... they CLEARLY wrote to increase search-engine results.  Maybe they'll give a few spiders a good haircut...I'm not popping over for a trim:

http://www.mancinideparis.com/hair-cut-Alexandria/index.html

-Donna Buskirk