Entrepreneurs are strange creatures! We hop from great idea to great idea, often not stopping to dig into how to actually DO the last great thing. Well I have the secret to stop the entrepreneurial madness – do the first thing first!

I know, that is not glamorous. There are no shiny pieces or exciting opportunities. All that will happen is that you will get something done! 

Here are some first steps for different marketing opportunities I know entrepreneurs are interested in (I talk to lots of them EVERY day):

Starting a Blog for Entrepreneurs

Starting a blog is NOT hard, there are tons of free platforms for people to use like www.wordpress.org and www.blogger.com. These are GREAT for business owners if all you want to do is have a brochure site and interact with people. The thing that it will not let you do (easily) is generate leads. It is very hard to integrate forms to feed your database.

You guys know I am all about feeding your database, right? SO if you are going to use your blog for business, I would recommend a self hosted wordpress blog! The cost of having someone set one up for you is about $500 including 5 blog posts and all your normal pages written for you (About us, contact us, etc.). There are also hosting and domain costs, I like godaddy.com for this – they cost about $75 for both for a year. So for under $600 you can have a fully functional blog up in a couple of weeks. If you would like to learn more…visit www.businesswritingink.com and talk with my friend Mary Dado about how to get started! That is your first step!

Social Networking for Entrepreneurs

Everyone keeps hearing how using social media will grow your business but how do you get started? Sign up for an account at Facebook or Linked In or any other site and start making friends! I have included links to ones that I am a part of and, since I am a friendly girl, will ALWAYS accept your request to connect if you are a business person!

• Facebook - http://www.facebook.com
• Linked In - www.linkedin.com/in/taradactyl
• Twitter - www.twitter.com/taradactyl 
• Plaxo - http://www.plaxo.com 
• iWomanLife - www.iWomanLife.com 

So how do you get people to join your networks? Here are some ways that I use!

I will be talking about these more in the coming weeks, BUT if you like what you see here, make sure you sign up for my Marketing Newsletter for Entrepreneurs – my readers got this info days ago and got about 5X as much of it!!

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I have LOTS of ideas! I spend about 20 hours a week reading different articles, magazines, websites, blogs. I attend masterminds and classes. I reach out (deliberately) to new people who do things differently than I do and try to understand what makes those things work.

So how many ideas do I implement a week? Not as many as I would like!

I think that I am above the curve but nowhere near where I would like to be – sigh. So many great ideas, so little time. So what should we do to make more use of our good ideas?

1. Write them down! I cannot tell you how often I have had a flash of pure brilliance, thought out an entire business and marketing plan, figured out how I was going to spend the gagillions of dollars it would make me AND THEN FORGOTTEN IT ALL! Because it was SO brilliant, I figured that I would remember it. I would be able to hold all of the pieces in my head and then…life happened. The toilet broke, the car needed oil, the dog had to be let out – whatever I had thought about left me. Now don’t get me wrong, I still had the concept, but all the goodies that I had with my intial concept slithered away. Now I am stuck with a GREAT IDEA that I have to think really hard about. It seems less fun. I am trying to recreate rather than innovate. 
2. Prioritize – So now you are writing your great ideas down! YAY! Darn it, you have about 30 and your list keeps getting longer. You are starting to get overwhelmed with the amount of work that these ideas will take. STOP! You cannot do all of your great ideas at once. Someday when you are fabulously wealthy and have an assistant and your assistant has an assistant you will be able to do nothing all day but follow your whims, but right now you will have to limit the amount of things you have time for! Pick two things a week that will make a difference to your business and make sure you do those two things! Write them on the top of your daily planner pages and don’t do anything else extra until those are done. Some will be able to happen within the week and some will be ongoing. If they go over the week timeline, assess at the end of the week if they are still one of the two things that will make an impact on their business and see if they should stay on the list.
3. Make Friends – Now that you have a plan for your two things, what do you do with your leftover ideas? Should they shrivel and die just because you are not able to get to them? NO! Let them free to help the world be a better place!!! Okay, I know I am out of control here, I will reign it in a little…:) There are some things you can do to keep those ideas going – share them, get help, work together. If it is a great idea that you will never use but you know someone who would benefit from hearing it, tell them! If it is a great idea that you would like to use but will NEVER have time to research and develop, share it with a friend who can help with the legwork and you both can benefit! If it is an even bigger idea than that?!?!?!?! Work together with a group of people who can share your vision and chunk out pieces. THEY can put part of it on their two things to do list and the idea can keep moving forward if you all work together!

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