Wake up Now Canada

Quick update: 

(since I’ve been MIA! – sorry …. but THANK YOU for the messages and connections!)

— Two weeks ago, I joined Wake Up Now 
— 4 days in, I met my goal for that month (business goal)
— I have printed saved $200+ dollars in groceries
— Various FREE products (like ones mentioned below this post)
(approximate value in FREE … $300+)
— My business is now free – plus write offs

This does not summarize the value in the Taxbot software,

Finance area or the Languages I can choose to learn.

Here’s my video (work in progress!)

My southern neighbours are also saving in gas and their cell phone bills (22%!!)
Why wait? Join us today!
I have learned the true value in leadership. Tapping into each others strengths …. growing …. learning …. TEAM.

I’m not only a business owner for this company .. but a satisfied customer!
Relevant things, I use, every single day. (and I haven’t even mentioned the travel deals – crazy!! – I’d be happy to show you)

So let’s be honest, you’ve been thinking about it, watching a little bit, messaged me about it for info, seen the growth, wondered why you haven’t started yet …. Quit watching – TAKE advantage. It’s there, in front of you, the first step is the hardest … I know.

I can’t wait for what my team will have going for this month!

Join us

Have an amazing weekend!

Pinterest – Really?

My new addiction … Pinterest!

 

[originally posted November 2012]

True story.

I blog a lot about social media. I’ve been active online for approximately 10 years – give or take – now, when I say active ….

I’m talking, yahoo spaces, myspace, msn (<– what teenager didn’t have msn?!), aim, blogger, etc etc. 

More recently my social media preferences include Twitter (@catskaos) and ……… Facebook (Catherine Nikkel).

Tonight … I may have stumbled upon a new addiction. Pinterest! (@empowerourtime) <- user name … Pin me! I wonder if that’s the lingo … still a work in progress, or shall I say addiction in progress.

Pinterest?!

Yes!! … It’s funny, I opened a Pinterest account months ago, spent a day or two “pinning” the life out of it, then never went back. Wasn’t my thing at the time I guess. What changed? Believe it or not, a Facebook conversation!

Side note: In the process of putting together a FREE Twitter training video “the interpersonal way” … so started researching some Twitter stats … in 2011 the average amount of tweets sent per day, per day I said, 150 million!! – since then they estimate those numbers have grown by approximately 180% <- that’s HUGE!

….so was talking to one of my teammates about this video I’m working on and he made a thought provoking comment in response to my amazement on my new found Twitter fact ..

“yup..and still pinterest is the fastest growing site for traffic.. So many options and opportunities” – O.G.

HUGE!

Pinterest growing faster ?! Could this be true?

Yup. Very true. So I did the only logical thing … re-activated my Pinterest account and got involved! I took immediate action. I want a piece of this pie – especially with so much to go around! (side note, pie is my favourite dessert – coincidence?)

 

In any event … I’m on a Pinterest kick right now – we will see how I can find my niche in likely one of the fastest growing social media platforms going right now.

Numbers don’t lie by the way.

So thank you O.G. … for your thought provoking comment … and subtly encouraging my Pinterest rampage!

Who’s joining me? Seriously … don’t wait. GET ON THIS ASAP!

Hit me up when you get on … Let’s “pin” soon!

[since the original post, I have also created the following video for marketing with Pinterest]

Online Marketing

If you’re new to this whole online marketing 
world like I am … you’re not alone.

[This was a post I wrote back in September 2012 – it’s amazing to see that I share the same vision, with a lot more”oomph” and knowledge – but felt it still worthy of sharing with my new audience!]

I truthfully had no real clue what I was getting myself into, or if I was even going to enjoy it. This is what I  knew. I enjoyed being online … and I was slowly getting into the marketing world as a promoter with Visalus.

So I started chatting with a few people online, listening to their stories of the online marketing world and they told me about this site “Empower Network”. Very low buy in with valuable information, and knew it could help me boost my primary Visalus business. I decided at such a low rate (I came in at $25.00) what did I have to lose.

Then it got real. I was an online marketer.

I had no idea even where to begin. Write a blog? I can do that. So I did. Day one wrote my first blog. “Twitter vs. Facebook“. To this day, a month later, I cannot tell you why I started there aside from they were two things I was familiar with online.

An important piece for me in the whole marketing process, what I did not want to spend too much money. I was entrance level, learning the ropes. It only made sense to start where I was familiar with. Then I joined Google+, followed by LinkedIn …. I was starting to get the hang of things. The online lingo if you will ….

I was an online marketer in the making.

As weeks went by, I started to exhaust my personal network and I spent more efforts creating new networks. If I can tell you anything …. Create NEW networks and expand those networks. Crucial in this business. Critically important to move forward. Talk to everyone! Everywhere!

It is key to the puzzle. Marketing online with everyone.

I started looking through various free sites where I could market my business(es). Craigslist, Kijiji, Facebook Groups, Online forums, eZines, in addition to my already existing Twitter and Facebook.

I have spent no more then one hour a day (given that this is only on a part time basis for me) …. have made my money back and made additional money that I have been looking into co-ops (previous blog) among other marketing ventures. Point being? You can start very inexpensive and grow from there rather quickly. Now please know I have only scratched the surface in my ventures and am always looking for new ideas, suggestions and comments. If you have some feedback that would be awesome! Love to hear from you – catherinenikkel@gmail.com

Don’t forget to Tweet me and Find me on Facebook!

Wanting to know more on how you can get started on your own online marketing venture? Connect with me 🙂

 

Why Guest Blog?

Let’s start with what is a guest blog …? Well it’s an opportunity for you to share your writing on another persons blog and/or website. If I had to guess … 90% of people guest blog for the following reasons 1) Traffic 2) Subscribers 3) Brand awareness and Exposure. Perhaps you’re wondering how this works or why this works – I wondered myself when I started on my blogging venture …. Simple really – you write content for another persons website – with permission you’re able to plug in either your own opportunities, websites, etc which in turn will create traffic and links to your site, as a result gaining you more traffic.

As bloggers – we want traffic.

I absolutely suggest writing a guest blog on a consistent basis, not only when you’re launching a new product or selling a new opportunity. This marketing strategy plays a huge impact on creating back links to your own site. This is a good thing.

Tips for choosing where and how to Guest Blog effectively

Research High Quality Blogs to guest blog: The first thing you should do when trying to use guest blogging to build quality links to your blog is to look for high quality blogs in your niche. You won’t get the same results by submitting your guest posts to just any blog. You need to make sure the blog you are submitting your guest article to is constantly indexed by the search engines, you need to ensure it has a lot of authority backlinks and, if possible, you need to ensure it is properly ranked in the blogosphere. This shouldn’t really be a problem, since you can start with some of the top blogs you read in your niche.

Research and Solidify Your Articles: After knowing which blogs you will write for, you should make use of the technique I learned from Richard Legg above by researching to see which of your articles get the most traffic from the search engines and which keywords bring the most traffic to these articles. Once you have these keywords you should then optimize the title of these articles for your desired keyword while at the same time optimizing your meta description for the best click-through rate from the search engines. Doing this will ensure you don’t waste your guest blogging efforts building links to articles that can hardly rank.

Write Unique Articles: Once you’ve located which articles are best for you the next thing you should do is to start writing unique articles specifically for the blogs you researched. Since every “good” blog that accepts guest posts allow you to include a link below your guest post, you should then make use of the right anchor text (which in most cases is the keyword you want to rank for) to link back to that particular article on your  blog.

(via Bamidele Onibalusi)

I am always open to new guest blog opportunities!

In case you are too …. please feel free to connect with me! I suppose I should also consider letting you in on another tip – Make money for your blogs! Consider joining me on my journey here with Empower Network …. 100% commissions to those who join you on your blogging journey – only logical if you’re blogging anyways right?

Check it out here! —> CLICK

 

 

Building Quality Teams for your Business

 

I recently read an article by Michael Zipursky, he is an expert in the field of business consulting. Over the past couple months, I’ve really taken a liking to his style of teaching and coaching and this recently article of building quality teams – quickly – for your business struck me as one of his best to date.

 

Now, how important is building quality teams?

Super important and we can touch upon that later, but today I wanted to focus on the building piece – assuming you already share my idea of your team is everything to your business! (If you don’t share this thought process yet – please consider it!) Throughout the post, Michael stresses the idea of outsourcing. As I’ve become very familiar with this thought process from several leaders in my present business.

The old-school idea that outsourcing work all goes to some poor person in a 3rd world country that can’t speak English is crap. Some people complain that outsourcing doesn’t work and that you can’t find specialists or skilled people that can do the job right. And that it ends up taking you more time to explain what needs to be done than for you to just do it yourself.

Michael also makes some suggestions on work you should outsource and work you shouldn’t. Let me illustrate that for you. Keeping the focus on building quality teams here, and the advantage outsourcing will serve for that purpose.

Do outsource the following:

• Data entry
• Research
• Editing/Proofreading
• Audio/Video Editing
• Design work
• Administrative help
• Programming

Do NOT outsource the following:

• Strategy
• Business planning
• Marketing
• Sales (sometimes outsourcing is fine)
• Generally anything that involves detailed knowledge of your business or market.

There are several websites that you can use to hire contractors. Michael and his team use oDesk most of the time (others include Elance, Freelancer and others).

[To read a step by step on the oDesk sign up, please visit Michael’s complete article here]

I hope sharing these strategies with you has been helpful and you’ll find simple enough to take action in for your own business.

Outsourcing allows you the ability to grow your team without letting other things get in the way. Your time is valuable, you I’m sure, like me, want to grow your team but maintain the same level of service you did when you started. Grow your team and build more leaders!

Do you have any outsourcing suggestions to share?

Any thoughts on the important of building quality teams for your business? On the flip side – perhaps you’re searching for that “quality team” … you’re in the right place then!

Lastly, when you are ready to join our team connect with me. Click here to sign up and get in touch right away – I want to connect you with some of the best training and bonuses with my team available! (at no extra cost I should add)

We see the value in building quality teams – quickly.

Reaching milestones & making memories

 

From the time that we are born, there are a variety of milestones we are expected to meet and surpass. There are ranges of time that things “should” happen. We are programmed to believe we should walk at this time, talk at another, sit up, roll over, play strange and the list continues. Recently I was left wondering, do those same milestones expectations exist as we grow older, I came to the conclusion of yes. Yes we are expected by “this age” to graduate high school, move on to post secondary, find a life partner, marry, and have children… retire. I’m going to suggest these milestones have no consistent age in today’s society and I will also suggest some of these milestones may never be reached.

Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory. (Susan Brownell Anthony)

 

Memory versus Milestones

I had one of these very moments this week. I’ve always enjoyed writing – English was likely one of my best subjects through school which was odd since I was a French Immersion student. I’ve generally always had the ability to throw my thoughts down on paper (or computer) and convey the message I had decided upon in my mind. Over the past few months I’ve been writing, posting on my blog, guest writing, submitting, pinging, you name it – and this week it all made sense why.

I had reached one of my milestones upon my recent journey of being an author, a writer. I had the pleasure of watching two of my articles be published in Niche Webazine. One article was “Blogging for Business” and the second was an article on “Bullying and what to do about it”.

I would love if you took a moment to check out my latest milestone or better yet, memory. —->> Click Here.

Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.
(Rose Kennedy)

Call it what you want – but I’m reaching milestones and making memories.

I am always open to new opportunities to make memories – so please connect with me. If you would like to join my team and our journey of memories … please get in touch today.

Much success to you ….