Today’s quick sales tip video will help you get more of your proposals approved by challenging you to pick up the phone immediately after submitting your bid.  Rather than giving your prospect a lot of space and time to review your proposal, I have found it to be much more effective to call them immediately to answer questions or review the details.  Try it for yourself and see what I mean!

Check Out These Other Sales Tip Videos:

• How To Get More Out Of Skype & Video Conferencing
• Why Closing the Proximity Will Increase Sales
• Why Multitasking Is Hurting Your Business

IT IS NO SECRET that I am of the belief that life and work aren’t really separate, but rather bleed into each other with no thought for boundaries.  As such, today’s topic is about life throwing curveballs.  It seems lately that everywhere I look the people that I connect with are experiencing genuinely challenging (and unexpected) circumstances.  Like one friend who is grappling with the pain of an unwanted divorce.  And another struggling to figure out how to be a solo mom while her husband is unexpectedly shipped overseas for several months.  Or the other who was just blindsided by an unanticipated job loss.

From these friends, and others, I keep hearing some familiar phrases:

• “I just didn’t see this coming.”
• “I’m so tired; I can’t do this.”
• “I’m just so angry right now.  Angry at life.  Angry at my husband/wife.  Angry at God.”
• “I’m afraid that something else bad is going to happen.”

They Say Life is Hard.  So Why Are We Still So Surprised When They Are Right?

Needless to say, I can relate.  I’m guessing you can as well.  It doesn’t seem to take many years on this planet to start experiencing the disappointment of living.  And for all that we hear about life being hard, it still manages to take us by surprise when it is.

Certainly for me, one of the biggest curveballs life has thrown was the news that we were likely to never have children.  To say that the news sent me reeling is an understatement.  I knew that life wasn’t going to turn out the way that I expected…and yet I still expected it to.

So, how do you deal with these curveballs when they come up?  How do you keep your business moving forward when you find yourself landing in a spot you never anticipated?  How do you juggle relationships and responsibilities all the while managing emotional stress?  Well certainly I don’t have all of the answers, and I’d much prefer to dodge the curveballs altogether.  But when that isn’t possible, here are three things that have worked well for me:

Three Things To Try When Life Throws You A Curveball

1.  Take it one day at a time.

I know this advice is cliche, but it is unequivocally the most practical method for dealing with curveballs.  Why?  Because our natural tendency when things get hard is to worry.  We worry about how long the hardship will last.  We worry about how it is impacting others.  We worry about it will mean for the future.  The simple truth is that worry doesn’t help…ever.  Personally I have found it to be very liberating to let go of tomorrow’s concerns, particularly when I’m disappointed with life.  And letting go helps me to reserve my energy for the day at hand without siphoning off portions of it for the future.

2.  Journal

Some of us are born journalers, and for others it is a hit-or-miss habit at best.  Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, I believe journaling is helpful during stressful times in life because it takes the concerns and worries running through our heads and puts them into tangible, concrete form.  Once concrete, we are able to think more objectively about problems and emotions, and it becomes easier to release the ones that aren’t helpful.  And journaling doesn’t have to be pages of paragraphs; it can be lists or collages or maps or doodles–whatever works best.

3.  Take Solace in Routine

One of the most difficult side effects of life’s curveballs is that they tend to make us feel out of control.  This is why I like routine for stressful times.  There is something very grounding about practicing the same habits everyday, particularly small habits like making the bed, keeping the car tidy, and working out.  Though these things can seem insignificant against a tide of other, larger issues, and though they require even more energy to do when times are hard, these small routine tasks can provide an anchor and sense of restored control.

What have you done after catching a curveball?  What has been the most helpful thing for you during a challenging or stressful time?

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I AM GOING TO SHARE a productivity tip that I recently read that seemed so obvious I rolled my eyes.  “Everyone knows this,” I thought to myself.  “This isn’t even a tip.”  I’ll admit that for a moment I almost abused the author and the publisher for printing something so blatantly apparent.  But I wrote it down anyway in the notebook I use to keep a record of what I’m reading and then filed it away.

A few days passed and I noticed that my mind kept returning to this tip.  I found myself thinking about it again and again.  I realized that though blatantly apparent, I needed this tip.  Like knowing that I should eat more vegetables but still having sandwiches for lunch, I knew this tip but wasn’t applying it.  Maybe the author and the publisher didn’t deserve my abuse after all.

So what was it?  What was this obvious strategy for getting more done?

Now if you’re rolling your eyes, I can sympathize.  This is, indeed, blatantly apparent advice.  But perhaps you are like me and sometimes know what you should do without actually doing it.

The Challenge Of Identifying What Is Really Important

The first part of this strategy seems easy on the surface but in truth identifying what is most important is not always a simple process.  For instance, sometimes urgency masquerades as importance, especially when the urgency is on the part of someone else–like a client, boss or co-worker.  Likewise, sometimes there is a battle between the stuff that usually gets done today and the stuff that you should do today so that tomorrow (and the day after) are more successful.  Or there are the things that make money today, and the things that could make even more money down the road.  Which ones win priority on the to-do list?

After wrestling through these questions, and others, I have actually found a very effective and simple way to determine what is the most important thing to do.  It works like a charm about 95% of the time for me and only requires one question.  But I’m not going to share my secret today–you’ll just have to come back next week to find out what it is.  (Trust me–you’ll want to know this trick.)

Combating Distraction & Diversion

The second part of this strategy also seems simple on the surface, but like the first, it is easier said than done.  A lot easier.  Why?  Because we humans of this advanced modern era are very easily distracted.  Our thoughts wander.  Our internet browsers wander.  And our tasks wander.  Just the other day, for instance, my car “wandered” its way to Qdoba for lunch without me even noticing.  (Well…maybe I noticed.)

Since reading The Most Obvious Strategy For Getting More Done That You’re Still Probably Not Doing I’ve come to realize just how much wandering and distraction I allow during my day.  It’s been a bit astonishing to notice how frequently I’ll start a task and then get diverted from my course.  Usually the guilty trigger is a new email in my inbox, or a phone call from a client, or a trip to get more hot tea.  Even more frequent are the mini-mental-breaks my mind takes while it’s working on something.  I could, for instance, be busy crafting this week’s email newsletter and find my mind diverted a half-dozen times on things like what’s on the menu for dinner, how I should respond to a party invitation, or what my friend meant when she said we needed to talk.  All of this distraction adds time to my task, and sometimes succeeds in diverting me altogether.

Finishing Is Harder Than Starting

Furthermore, beyond distraction I have observed that completing tasks can be grueling on my willpower.  Most of the time I just don’t feel like getting all the way to the finish line.  There is a certain amount of discipline and thoroughness required to complete something and I’m often found lacking.  I don’t believe I’m alone in this.  Follow-through is challenging, which is why so many of us habitually start things we don’t finish.  Like running a race, there is a lot of energy that accompanies the start of something…and far less available to finish it.  I’ll confess that at times it has felt almost herculean to complete that important to-do item, and many times I burn out before I cross the finish.  Of course I’m working on some tricks to make this easier as well, and hope to share them as they become clearer to me.

Are You Ignoring The Obvious?

The main reason I have for bringing your attention to The Most Obvious Strategy For Getting More Done That You’re Still Probably Not Doing is to pique your awareness.  Often the path to change is to identify very simple solutions…and then why we aren’t following them.  For me, once I acknowledged that I wasn’t practicing what I knew to be true, I started to observe all kinds of behaviors that were keeping me from staying focused on the right things.  And that knowledge has helped me to find a few solutions that will lead to new habits.

What about you?  Is this strategy so obvious that you’re overlooking it?  

WHEN MY HUSBAND AND I were shopping for homes several years ago, we challenged ourselves to look beyond the carpet and paint and furniture and to focus on the bones of the homes we were looking at.  Did the rooms flow together well?  Was there a logical and intuitive flow for traffic?  Was there enough natural lighting?  Did the main living areas optimize air flow?  These were some of the questions we asked, and part of our criteria for choosing the right property.

Of course this strategy is commonsense, and one that many people practice when shopping for a home.  I found it, however, to be a little more difficult than I originally thought.  Unsurprisingly, the other stuff–the furniture and carpet and colors–was hard for me to overlook.  I was often distracted by the look of the space in a way that kept me from paying attention to the bones beneath the top layer of style.

This distraction is something that I have observed repeatedly since that time, only with websites instead of homes.  Though we know that the bones of our site should be solid and functional, we often find it difficult to focus on them.  Rather, the top layer of style–the images and videos and layout–competes for our attention, tempting us to overlook important details.

In other words, the bones of your website matter.

In Part One of this two-part series I talked about using a quick and easy tool to help you see the bones of your website.  These bones are what Google sees when it comes to your site, and they help to create the structure and flow that your site needs to function well.  I encouraged you to spend a few minutes on a simple exercise that helps you to take an inventory of your site when it is stripped bare of your images and layout, and to make notes of any areas that could use improvement.

For today’s conversation, I want to highlight three specific actions that you can take to improve the bones of your website–both for your visitors and for Google (and other search engines).  These are likely tips you’ve heard before but they are important and thus warrant repeating.

Three Tips for Improving the SEO Bones of Your Website:

1.  Use alt tags for your images.

I love to communicate with images on my website, and think that they really boost the quality of my blog articles and web pages.  But since Google doesn’t see them on my website, I need to provide more information about the image, particularly if I’m using it to make a key point.  To accomplish this, I use the image alt tag as a way to describe the image using keywords.  This extra step (which admittedly I sometimes forget to do) takes only a few seconds but it provides more information about the image and improves the searchability of my site.

2.  Repeat image content in the body content.

In addition to the alt tag I also will often repeat the information contained in a graphic within the body of my article or webpage as well.  So, for instance, if the image says “What Does Google See On Your Site” (like the one in this article), I will repeat those words (or a variation thereof) somewhere within the paragraphs of the article, too.  The repetition reinforces what the article is about, and supports what I’m communicating in a graphic through text as well.

3.  Use header tags.

I like to think of header tags as the “Main Point, Sub-Point” cues on my site.  In other words, I use them to channel my 10th grade history paper skills.  Why?  Because the truth is that your high school teacher knew a little something about communicating effectively.  In order to do so, structure and logic are important.  Most of our written communication follows this pattern of title, subtitle, etc., and Google follows this pattern as well.  In fact, header tags are one of the main ways that Google can decipher what your article/webpage is really about.  For instance, the header tags I’ve used in this article let Google know that this is an article about SEO and not an article about shopping for a house.   Without header tags, Google (and my readers) might get confused.

Of course there are other important considerations for SEO, too, like using alt tags for links and getting inbound links.  But in my experience, taking small bite-size steps is the best method for improving your website.  Toward that end, then, I have a quick 5 minute exercise for you complete:

But This SEO Stuff Is Boring

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t particularly like stopping to create alt tags and header tags.  I would much rather create some fun images, write my post using clever words, and then publish without a second thought.  Likewise, I also think that carpets and furniture and paint are much more interesting in a home than whether the rooms ventilate well.  Traffic flow and window placement is boring, too.  But sometimes the boring stuff is the important stuff, and in the case of websites this is absolutely true.  After all, styles come and go.  With websites, as with homes, it is the bones that endure.  Making sure yours are good is worth the time.

For other helpful website and blogging tips, visit HERE–

For this week’s sales video I share a helpful video conferencing or Skype tip that will make a stronger connection to your clients and customers.  This tip is to look at the camera when you’re talking or listening to a client instead of looking at their face on the screen.  By looking at the camera, you’ll ensure that your customer sees you making eye contact with them, which helps you to communicate more deeply and effectively.

For additional sales tip videos, visit here–

RECENTLY I HAD A DISCUSSION with some entrepreneurial friends about work/life balance, and one of them made a comment that the 40-hour work week is a modern construct that doesn’t really reflect the true nature of work.

Her words were like music to my ears.

She touched on a subject that I’ve wrangled with ever since leaving my 9-5 job 5 years ago, which is that the 40-hour work week is a hard mold to break.  Even now I still find myself striving to put in an 8-hour day, and feel like I’ve not done justice to my business when I don’t.  But the reality of business–whether you work for yourself or in an office for someone else–is that productivity and workload ebb and flow.  My experience firsthand is that my work never fits neatly into 8-hour daily pieces.  Rather, some days require 10 hours and others just 3.  Some weeks I easily max out above 40 hours, and others I coast in at 20.

Furthermore, my motivation and productivity ebbs and flows as well.  For instance, I’m always energized, creative and industrious during the spring and fall months, and notice an appreciable drop in motivation when the hot summer months or cold winter months arrive.  I’ve come to accept that this rhythm is very human, and am even trying to make accommodations during my “high seasons” to help me ride through the “low” ones.

Yet, in spite of this ebb and flow experience, I still find myself drifting back into a 40-hour mold–or least measuring my productivity by its standard.  Why do I do this even when I don’t have to?   My answer is that cultural pressure is influential, and that habits are hard to break.  Thus my goal is to gradually break this 40-hour habit and find a new mold that fits me and the true reality of how I work and how I want to work, one non-8-hour day at a time.

What are your work rhythms?  Do they ebb and flow?  What patterns have you observed and how do they match or conflict with the 40-hour mold?

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Willpower is like muscle: it gets tired the more you use it.

This understanding of willpower makes a lot of sense to me, and explains why I find that Mondays and Tuesdays are far more productive for me than Fridays.  Or why it is much easier for me to get in a run in the morning than in the afternoon.  Up until recently, though, I’ve been rather passive about this trend, letting it happen naturally without much thought, or actually working against myself by delaying difficult things.  Armed with this new knowledge, though, I’ve recently been experimenting with my willpower, and trying to leverage it when it is strongest.

For example, since I know that it becomes harder to do things that require willpower as the day progresses, I’ve started scheduling my most difficult work tasks before lunchtime.  I’ve also scheduled my healthiest meals and my exercise time in the mornings.  And I’ve intentionally delayed activities that are easy and require little to no willpower for later in the day (or later in the week) when I know that my self-discipline is likely spent.  The results so far have been motivating: I’ve noticed a boost in my productivity during the whole day–not just the morning; my tendency toward procrastination has decreased; I’ve maintained better health habits; and I’ve enjoyed my afternoons and evenings more.

Of course there are a lot of other ways to take advantage of your willpower when it is strongest, but these have been the simplest for me to try as a starting point.  I encourage you to try them and see how they work for you–

Do you make it a habit to do hard or easy things first in your day?

For other articles on how to boost your productivity, click here–>

AS A SPEAKER, I receive requests to come and talk to groups about websites and blogging, and during those talks I often mention how important it is to incorporate images into webpages and posts.  I give this advice because the internet is becoming increasingly visual, and visitors are looking for photos, graphics and images that please the eye and illustrate concepts or products.

There is, however, one glaring exception to this trend: a specific visitor who doesn’t care how your site looks.  This visitor doesn’t see graphics or images or videos.

This visitor is Google.

Needless to say, Google is one of your more valuable visitors, and it is important to pay attention to what Google’s bots see on your site because it is much more restricted than what your human visitors are viewing.

What you now see on your page is roughly what Google’s bots see.  Without your images and your styling you should be left with your important headlines, descriptions and keyword phrases.  You should also have your information organized somewhat like your high school terms papers were written, with the information presented in titles, subtitles, and supporting points.  These are your h1, h2, h3 (etc.) tags, and you’ll recognize them by how big or small they are (h1 is biggest and then size decreases).  This lets Google know which words and phrases are most important, and also helps it to categorize and list your content in a logical fashion.

Here are a few questions you want to ask as you quickly view your site:

• Is it clear what my site is about without my images and styling?
• Do I provide enough information for Google to index my site appropriately?
• Are my keyword phrases present?
• Is my information organized and laid-out logically?

Often we find that we are communicating more through visual aids than we realized, and that we aren’t giving Google as much information as it needs to index our content properly.  This quick exercise is a good reminder for us that though the “face” of the internet is increasingly visual, text still runs the show behind-the-scenes.

Stay tuned for Part Two of this post where I’ll share some tips for improving your site based on the results of this exercise–coming next week!

How does your site look without images and styles?  Is it Google friendly or not?

For this week’s quick sales tip video I challenge you to Quit Multitasking when you’re on the phone.  If I had to pay you a dollar for every time I’m tempted to check my email or Facebook while talking to a client or prospect on the phone, you’d be on vacation right now in Fiji.  In other words, it’s hard to give our undivided attention, but worth the effort.  Your customer deserves it, and you’ll make more sales and have happier customers (and family/friends!) if you do it–

For more Sales Tip Videos, Click Here–

“Oh, that must be so nice working for yourself.”

This statement always causes me to pause.  If you’ve ever worked for yourself, I’m sure you can understand the reason for this pause.  Because the truth is that it is nice to work for yourself…until it isn’t.  Of course there is the financial risk, the income that ebbs and flows, the uncertainty.  This is simply part of the deal when you launch out on your own.  Additionally, there is another aspect that I find particularly challenging as an entrepreneur, and it is this:

There is no clear line between work and life.

What I mean by this is that work is always there, calling to me.  I don’t ever “leave” the office at the end of the day because the office is my home.  I don’t have “work hours” because technically any hour can be work.  And when I’m unwinding at the end of day with a movie or a book, I can always hear my to-do list beckoning to me in the back of mind, feeling ever-so-slightly guilty for not getting more done.

Setting Boundaries With Work Takes Discipline

Of course successful entrepreneurs and business owners learn that boundaries must be set.  Work hours can be established and maintained.  Office space can be rented elsewhere.  To-do lists can be locked away.  But the difference is that when you own the business you have to set and enforce all of these boundaries yourself, which requires a lot of discipline.  Discipline I took for granted when I worked 9-5 and let someone else set the boundaries for me.

In an effort, then, to make the often-blurry line between work and life more black-and-white, I have considered a few strategies.  They are as follows:

ADMITTEDLY I institute these strategies to varying degrees of success based on my workload and discipline, and I still spend more than half of my time feeling like “life” takes a backseat to work.  But just as entrepreneurs must manage the financial risk of their business, so also it is worth the effort to try to keep the lines between work and life from getting too blurry.  After all, one of our greatest motivations for working is so that we have the means to enjoy life.  I don’t want to focus so much on the means that I forget to live the life.

Do you have any additional strategies for keeping work and life separate? 

For additional Business is Personal posts, visit here–