Newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our newsletter!
(You'll confirm your email in the next step!)

How to Stay Subscribed to my E-zines

I am so excited about all the changes and improvements that are in the works for us at BusinessMomMentor.com We have been keeping our fingers to the keyboard this summer to develop even better products, systems and support for YOU to be able to simplify your life as you grow your family and your business with (as my son would say) “simultaneous action”!

One very important change is taking place with the BusinessMom Technology team. We are changing data base managers for our subscribers. What this means to you is that if you haven’t already gotten into my NEW system you need to jump right on this!!! My apologies in advance if you have already renewed your subscription in your quest for a more simplified life, but just in case you are a “procrastinator” (I’m sure you were really just on vacation or sunbathing) when I sent my earlier messages, I’m going to keep reminding you for a little while. I’d absolutely never forgive myself if you (my loyal and delightful reader) were accidentally dropped off my list and never received another SMARTcut!

You may have read in my blog recently that I had met Don Aslett, America’s #1 Cleaning Expert. He is a Cleaning Machine. His college “job” turned into a Spotless EMPIRE over the last 40 or 50 years and I am bubbling to be able to bring his tips, know how and wisdom straight to your computer screen.Don agreed to let me interview him on the subject of CLUTTER recently and I am going to share that with you as my special gift for helping me transfer your subscription to my new system.

CLICK HERE TO GET AUDIO & STAY SUBSCRIBED for more SMARTcuts

Need some new business clients? Attract, Not ATTACK!

As an Army wife I moved often and what this meant for me as an independent BusinessMom was always finding new clients in my new locations. I never had friends and family to start networking with so I learned how to “attract, not ATTACK” prospective customers. While other direct sellers were going “Mauling” (scouring the Mall for new leads) I found a softer approach.

Speaking to strangers can be intimidating for many women. After all, we are told to “mind our own business” and “don’t talk to strangers” as we grow up. Now, as an independent business woman the growth of your customer base depends on your ability to do just the opposite! So how can you get over fears of rejection and feel comfortable meeting new people? I have 5 Simple (SMARTcut) steps! Each step can be done for a few times or several weeks, depending on you! You’ll know when you are feeling confident enough to move to the next one.

Step 1- Begin to scan for the people you would LIKE to meet and have as your customers. Do they match your ideal client description? Do they look friendly? After all, you are independent and that means you can CHOOSE who you work with unlike the clerk behind the counter. Just look around and choose a couple of people you’d like to talk to….if you were brave enough…which you aren’t!

Step 2- Now that you are able to pick out your prospects, think about what you would say if you started talking…which you are NOT going to do right now! I suggest something outside of your business. Sincerely compliment her cute shoes or handbag, talk about her beautiful baby, or how you love this short line to check out today. Remember right now just THINK about the opening comment. That’s all you have to do for now.

Step 3- Ok, it’s time to get started. Remember this is just the time to make a casual remark without any connection to your business. Practice actually starting a short conversation as above. That’s it. Just see how this person responds. I have done this work for 15+ years and I promise you no one has ever pulled a gun on me! The worst case (and it’s good to think about how you’ll handle it) is probably a rather cool grunt of acknowledgment. No problem. Just look for someone more friendly in the future.

Step 4- Once you can casually talk to a stranger it is time to make a baby step toward connecting them to your business. I find the easiest way is to come bearing gifts. Choose some small sample, business related goodie, or make a coupon on your computer. I never ask permission to give my gift. I say something like, “You have been so (sweet, fun to talk to) that I’m going to give you a (gift, sample, coupon). Put it right out there and almost automatically your prospect will most likely take it. Now unless your prospect suspects you are handing out “X” rated pamphlets on the streets of NYC, she’ll probably take it. Again, worst case…what if she rejects your gift? Be prepared with your response so you aren’t shaken. The easiest ones are “oh, no problem” or “you are welcome to give it to someone who would enjoy it”.

Step 5- Now you are ready to really start a relationship with this lead. You have mastered giving gifts like you were a Fairy Godmother, so now all you have to do is get some contact info on this person. Once I have given my gift successfully I say as though I was doing her a favor, “I’ll be happy to put you on my mailing list. Here, just fill this out.” At this point you hand her a pen and your information card and divert your eyes so she can fill lit out. She MAY decline (rare, but it does happen) again, be ready to have a casual, “no big deal” reply. More likely however she will give you her info since you don’t appear to be a stalker or kidnapper.

Congratulations! You have just made contact with a prospective new customer. Now you must understand this is like going fishing. Some will be real “catches” and others will be “throw backs”. It takes quantity so enjoy being the GIFT FAIRY and meeting some great people! Oh, one more thing. After you have departed flip her information card over and make a note of the date, place and something that will help you remember her when you follow up with a call, note or invitation.

LOOKING FOR SOME SERENITY IN YOUR BUSINESS?

Back to school time is just around the corner. Now wheter you thot summer was too short or would never end, it soon will be time you are ready to get your business running smoothly again. I’ve spent my hot summer days creating a streamlined course that will show you how to quickly and easily make your office time effective so you will have time for your family (and maybe some for yourself too!). If you want to make sure you get the earlyl bird details and an inviation to my FR^EE Business Serenity Preview call then register here:

Yes, I want all the SERENITY I can get!

Would your Business Like to be a BusinessMom Affiliate?

As the BusinesssMom Mentor I love to connect with women who are looking for SERENITY and PROSPERITY as they grow a family simultaneously with their independent business.
I am in the process of launching my October Business Serenity program along with a very generous Affiliate program. You may have a business working with clients that fit my niche, if so, do both of you a favor and get us connected! Here is a special link to get on my list to receive all the late breaking newsy details about my Affiliate Program Info .

SMARTcut to Blog Tips

My BusinessMom Blog contains tips, techniques and “wisdoms” (I hope that’s a word!) to help smooth out overwhelm. If you, being an official BusinessMom or not, are looking for some ways to have your life simplified, I hope you will drop by and leave me a comment or two. You can even subscribe to Feedburner to deliver my posts to your email automatically. My main website is BusinessMom Mentor where you will find, not one, but 2 NEW FR*EE business SMARTcut Offers!

In the early 1980’s Debbye had 2 children under 2, an Army husband, and life was eating her alive! No dinner ready, messy house, sticky floors, etc. She was overwhelmed and then she started a home-based business. What WAS she thinking?!

For survival, Debbye designed a system to organize life’s many repetitive activities, plan meals and streamline shopping. Soon friends and family wanted to know her SMARTcuts^TM systems. She began teaching local workshops and eventually published “Organizing Without Agonizing” in 1988.

Experience has made her a great resource for the BusinessMom who finds herself swallowed up with the demands of running a household, corralling kids, expanding business, teaching Sunday school and leading Scout troops simultaneously! After creating her own entrepreneurial ventures and over 25 successful years in internationally-known direct selling companies, Debbye became the BusinessMom Mentor.
She now enjoys speaking, teaching and believe it or not even loves making “house calls” for Miracle Makeovers. Her passion is mentoring BusinessMoms around the globe to find the SMARTcuts^TM to simplify life and create “serenity and prosperity” for their businesses and families. It’s good to know that there really is a way to not only survive, but succeed!

“Are You Sick of Me Yet?”

When sending out promotional emails to your list (I prefer to call them your fans), do you ever ask yourself, “How many is too many?”

It’s a great question, and the answer might surprise you.

Because in my experience, it’s not the frequency of the emails but what’s in them that determines how welcome they’ll be in someone’s In Box.

One of my clients recently paid me a great compliment in this regard. Let me tell you what happened.

I had just finished a successful email campaign for my “How to Write Effective Call-to-Action Press Releases – Even If You’re Not a Writer” seminar. When all was said and done, I’d ended up sending out nine (count ‘em, nine) emails in just 14 days. Now when I see that written down in black and white even I think, “Wow, that’s a lot of emails. Wasn’t I worried about bugging people?”

Truth be told, yes, I was just a little bit.

But here’s where the compliment (and the moral of the story) comes into it.

When I shared with my client how many emails I’d sent out and how pleasantly surprised I was that I hadn’t gotten even one complaint, she replied, “Oh! If you’d asked me, I would have said you only sent out about three or four. I got something valuable out of each one, so I looked forward to getting them.”

And that, Dear Reader, is the beauty of connection marketing at its best.

When you communicate in a sincere and genuine manner AND when you make sure to share valuable information with your readers (please note: requests to “buy my program” don’t qualify as valuable), the people receiving your messages are happy to get them.

So how do you accomplish those twin goals of authenticity and value? Here are 3 guidelines to help you:

DON’T focus on what’s in it for you. DO think about how to solve your potential client’s special challenge and trust that exactly the right people will respond.
DON’T be afraid of giving too much away. DO consider how you can help your reader, even in some small way.
DON’T worry about being “professional.” DO strive to always speak and write in your own unique manner (while staying within the bounds of good taste, naturally).

The goal of any truly successful marketing campaign is not to make a sale. (What?!) The much smarter goal, in my opinion, is to strengthen the bond you have with your fans. Because fans don’t need convincing, they just need opportunities to buy.

Doesn’t that sound easy?

Helen Graves, Grand Poohbah of Crackerjack Marketing & Website Strategy, is an expert at showing independent entrepreneurs how to get more clients with less stress. Besides writing captivating website copy that prompts visitors into action, she also teaches you how to create a genuine connection with your marketing so you can consistently turn potential prospects into paying clients.

To find out more or to sign up for her free mini audio seminar, “7 Quick & Simple Ways to Get Your Website Working Hard — So You Don’t Have To,” visit Helen at www.CrackerjackWebsites.com.

Got Mom Vibe?

By Kim Estes

Mom Vibe- we all have it. It is that instinctual feeling we may get when we are around certain people and places. Sometimes you get a positive Mom Vibe about something. Other times, not.

Many Moms go happily along with a good Mom Vibe (ohhh, it just felt like the right time to buy that purse!) but sadly the Not So Good Mom Vibes don’t get the same reception. In fact, most adults ignore those inner “uh-oh” feelings they get when faced with an iffy situation. So what should you do when your inner Mom Vibe is sending you red-flags, giving you the heebie-jeebies or just a subtle feeling that something “just is not right”?

Listen to it.

Law enforcement will tell you, if something does not feel “right” it probably isn’t. Go with that gut feeling!

With hyped up media stories about predators and abductions, parents are left scared and often too afraid to talk to their kids about personal safety. Parents often don’t know how or when to talk to their kids about personal safety! Yet, one of the easiest personal safety strategies is to listen to your gut, your instinct, your “uh-oh” feeling, your Mom-vibe and to teach your kids how to listen to theirs.

Teaching your kids about personal safety is easier than you think and you don’t have to use scare tactics to do it!

Easy (non-scary) ways to start talking to your family about personal safety:

Help your kids identify their “uh-oh” feeling by talking about it! Just as you might say to your child “You look angry” or “You are so silly today!” you can also label the “Oh-oh” feeling. An example might be “You seemed nervous around that dog today. Did you have the uh-oh feeling about petting it? I know I did”. Helping your kids identify their “oh-oh” feeling and letting them know that other people get the uh-oh feeling too helps them to learn to identify the Uh-Oh feeling and respond to it. Let them know that if they get the “Uh-Oh” feeling, they need to find their safe adult and talk about it.

Support them. When your normally chatty and socially outgoing child is suddenly apprehensive and clinging to your leg when they are in the presence of a particular person, do not force them to be affectionate or social. Your child may be picking up on a cue that you are missing.

Advocate for your child. If your inner Mom Vibe is sending out a warning signal to you, listen to it. If that person sitting at the park, the new camp counselor, or the idea of allowing your child to play at a particular persons house, is suddenly setting off your mom Vibe alarm, pay attention to it. Don’t send your kid off to play at someone’s house or leave them in someone cares if something does not “feel right”.

Listening to your inner mom-vibe is not always convenient, and certainly can be awkward. Learning to listen to your inner Mom-Vibe is important, so don’t ignore it!

About the Author: Kim Estes is the co-founder of the non-profit organization: Parent Education And Child Empowerment (P.E.A.C.E of Mind) www.pomwa.org . Kim has worked with parents for over 12 years, educating them on various parenting topics. Kim and her cohort in crime prevention, Sabrina, help liberate parents from fearful parenting! Through non fearful techniques and easy to apply parenting strategies they help empower families to be safe.

REUNION: A study in health and observation

By Melissa Ackerman

Recollect (Realization) -

I was suddenly reminded of my increasing age and mortality by a phone call informing me of my impending thirty year reunion. Images of friends lost and once loved danced in my head along with long forgotten feelings of anxiety that accompanied each day of high school attendance. It was all part of the package of being a teenager. After thirty years, was I ready to meet these old experiences in my newly middle aged body?

Exercise -

In addition to the phone call, the reunion committee also established a new web site designed specifically for the 1978 graduates. It gave us an opportunity to reconnect with old friends we hadn’t heard from in thirty years and those we’d seen on a fairly regular basis. We posted pictures of family and of ourselves for the whole class to see. Having the web site created an excitement and anticipation for who the new site members from the class of ‘78 would be each day and who we still needed to find and invite. My first reaction was to not attend. I wasn’t in great physical condition in fact, to some, I was down right fat. Like everyone else, I wanted to look healthy and successful to meet up with all my high school acquaintances! It’s one of the biggest reasons given for not attending a reunion, the thought about not fitting in, or adding up to expectations, even at our age, was overwhelming. However, with the web site came groups organized by members focusing on areas of interest. One of my friends started a Greatest Losers Club to get members out and moving to either loose weight or just to encourage each other towards a more healthy life style. Suddenly we were talking to each other, going for hikes and impromptu walks, and getting excited about the party six months away. Besides, seeing pictures of my classmates helped me to dispel beliefs that any of us were anything less than beautiful.

CommUnity -

Perhaps our class was a little tighter than others but, for whatever reason, we began to connect, to talk to each other, and reach out with warmth and affection to people we barely knew anymore. My personality brightened and I began to smile more. Here was a group of wildly diverse and yet similar people who genuinely wanted to know about each other and touch on those memories so much a part of who we are. Classic rock blared from my car radio and I began to plan for this momentous once in a lifetime event. All of my old girlfriends were planning to attend and we began chatting regularly. Half of us were spread out across the United States while the other half had never left our hometown. Although we couldn’t really pick up where we left off thirty years ago, we resuscitated our friendship without missing a beat. 1978 didn’t seem so very long ago and memories, both good and embarrassing, flooded back at odd moments. The greatest realization was that our comradery still existed and for a brief moment in time we once again listened to each other’s needs and reached out with a shoulder to lean on or a pat on the back for a job well done.

ANxiety -

Despite all the fun of getting to know my classmates again, I still felt an overwhelming anxiety about the event. It’s intimidating to walk into a crowd of people at any party but to walk into a group you may or may not recognize is another one of the main reasons reunion attendance is avoided. Suddenly all the old nervous butterflies return that plagued my stomach at high school dances and events. I may be nearly 49 years old but those thoughts were as fresh as yesterday when I contemplated the reunion. Luckily my girlfriends decided to meet and go together, how much more high school girly could we get? Plenty. Next came the pondering of what former boyfriends would look like since most of them didn’t post a picture. Not only was that entertaining but helped to alleviate some of the body image anxiety if not ramp it into the next galaxy.

Ultimately it was a tremendous experience and an all around good time. The fact that we were alumnI of a high school in a close knit California community was made apparent by our ability to generate new relationships from old acquaintances with little effort. We were proud of our school and our classmates, all of them. Because we were tOgether in heart and reminiscence, relationships abandoned and undeveloped in high school flourished with new conversatioNs of a shared memory over a cool glass of wine. And as for the old boyfriend, he was still 6′3″ and looked like a chiseled Mark Harmon complete with grey sides and a stunning smile.

Melissa is the mother of a six year old little girl, Madeline, and the wife of a former ship captain. She and her family just moved to Maine a year ago from Monterey, CA to experience a change in lifestyle and become middle aged entrepreneurs. After 22 years of teaching, Mel (Melissa) needed more time with her family and so she and a friend started Dancestones.org; the business of giving comfort through Maine’s rolled stones. Reading and Writing are her deepest passions- when she’s not collecting stones in remote areas of Maine!

HIV and YOUR Kids

Birds + Bees + Kids
Amy Lang, MA

The rate of HIV infection in the US increased 3% among people aged 13 to 24 in the last three years. It went from 13% of all new infections to 16%. Youth of color and young men who have sex with men continue to be most at risk.

The US Office of National AIDS Policy has estimated that half of all new HIV infections occur in people younger than 25 and that half of these occur among young people between the ages of 13 and 21.

What does this have to do with your kids? You may have preschoolers or are working hard to convince your kids to wait until they are married to have sex, and think this doesn’t apply to you, but it does.

What’s going on? Well, the experts are saying several different things might be at play, but it’s not entirely clear.

When it comes to young people, it may be because of the wonderful new treatments for HIV and AIDS - people are living longer with the disease - viral loads are medicated down to next to nothing. This is so great for people living with this infection.

What’s not so great is that kids may be seeing this and thinking, “If I get HIV I can just take meds and I’ll be fine.” Forgetting that this disease will eventually kill you and taking medication every day isn’t fun - there are side effects - and it’s not cheap.

And you know teenagers think they are invincible, so it’s not going to happen to them, right?

There is some thought that abstinence only programs, where there is no discussion of STD/HIV or prevention is also to blame.

According to the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance 2007, condom use has gone down, and this was during the same period of time the number of abstinence only programs increased.

Coincidence? Probably not.

It seems like I write about this a lot and I guess it’s because it scares me. I am terrified for my child and for yours.

And I am terrified about the state of our country when it comes to our sexual health on the whole.

What’s that saying? We’re only as strong as the weakest link.

Your kid will have sex one day and it might be with someone who looks healthy and is, but also has HIV.

Don’t think “not my kid.”

Don’t be the weak link.

About the Author: Through her business, Birds + Bees + Kids, Amy Lang teaches parents how to talk to their children of any age about sex, love and relationships. She has a 16-year history as a Sexual Health Educator, a Masters in Applied Behavioral Science and loves to help people learn about this vital part of parenting.