Listen in – and if you want to attend one of the upcoming training events… AND you get your ticket through my link, I’ll be thrilled to give you a 30 minute consultation after you get back from the event to help you keep moving forward!

Here’s my link (and you’ll get a SWEET deal!)

http://www.sahmwriter.com/nitro

Here’s the interview:

Here’s one service my firm offers that clients LOVE. Especially Internet Marketing clients. Their dirty little secret is that many of them don’t really have their keyword research done. Oops!

So, here’s the tool I use EVERY DAY and love. It’s a free trial – and they’ll offer you a discount if you decide to purchase. If you purchase through my link, you’ll get access to a training video I’m creating in the next week on how to find search terms with high search volume and relatively low competition. (When you do this for clients, you can EASILY charge $200+!)

So, why would you do keyword research for a writing client?

1. SEO begins with keyword research. Without knowing your best keywords, trying to drive traffic to a site (and traffic ultimately translates into money) is like walking around with a blindfold on and hoping you reach your destination. Some clients (I won’t name names) I’ve worked with decided it was good enough to just copy and paste their competitors’ keywords and go after them. Of course, that might work okay if their competitor is a fully-trained and brilliant Internet Marketing genius. Let’s just say… not so much.
2. Clients generally either don’t know how to do keyword research OR they just don’t want to. I’m not going to kid you and say it’s a laugh a minute. But it’s not hard to do, either. It’s just not as exciting as, say… walking across a bed of fiery coals or breaking a wooden arrow with your bare throat. But getting paid a couple hundred dollars for running some research IS fun, right?
3. By adding value to what you offer your clients, you step away from the world of being a commodity and into the role of trusted advisor and consultant (read… you make more money more easily). There are thousands of writers out there who will happily write a whole book for a buck. You will NEVER compete against them for price. Don’t try. You’ll be miserable and broke. Your ticket outta there is to educate yourself and add more value to your client’s experience in working with you.

OK, so the trial is free – and there’s a bunch of training IN the program… plus I’ll share my mad keyword research skills video with you, too if you decide to purchase.

Sound good?

p.s. You COULD do some of the research functions in Market Samurai using Google’s free tool – but not some of the most important… and it would take you twice as long (at least).

p.p.s. For the Freelance Writing Bootcamp students… you’ll get access to this new training automatically – when it’s ready, I’ll load it into the site. Mwah! (kissy sound)

Andrea – a life coach and incredibly gentle but sharp businesswoman.
Laura – a gutsy single mom who’s just earned her MBA and is going places.
Linda – a banker who’s got the kind of heart that makes people feel safe being open.
Marion – an EFT practitioner who’s got a God-given talent for seeing where people are stuck and helping them move (and my accountability partner).
Wendy – a professor and dancer with a heart for service and hospitality.

These are my “Power Women World Domination Society” (it’s kind of an inside joke) mastermind group.

Each Wednesday night at 8 EST, we’re all on our conference line going through a list of accountability questions about our online businesses. What did we do? Where are we stuck? What can the group help with to move us forward? How are we celebrating our wins?

And then there’s my Mastermind from Samurai Camp – Chad and Jackie. We’re on the phone every Thursday morning at 9 EST (6 a.m. for them!) praying together, supporting each other as we stand in our God-given purpose in service to others.

I love these people – and know they love me.

If I’ve learned one thing during the past few years – between attending personal development seminars with Klemmer & Associates and internet training seminars with Nitro Marketing (which is a lot like K&A with computers! and now I’ve got several friends from K&A who are learning how to get their message out to the world by using the internet – and they’re coming to Nitro events!) – it’s this:

Life and business are a LOT sweeter when I surround myself with people who love me enough to tell the truth.

The friends I’ve made in these places are largely responsible for me being here on this blog, sharing what I’ve learned. They remind me that my message can (and has) changed lives. They push me off the fence when I get stuck in perfectionism or analysis paralysis. They root for me to succeed. They remind me to rest. They are absolutely precious to me.

It wasn’t always this way. For years, I’d been the Lone Ranger. I chose this business in part because it meant I could work from home, for clients I’d rarely speak with and probably never see. I prided myself on being sort of “flat lined” emotionally – and barely able to remember the last tears I’d shed.

For people who’ve only known me for the past few years, they’re probably cracking up. If there are tears flowing, they’re probably mine first (or maybe Linda’s : ) ).

And if I’m sitting around pouting, spinning my wheels, or frozen in indecision – you’d better believe these people will knock some sense into me! And I’ll do the same for them.

See, on our own, it’s easy to take ourselves out of the game rather than push through to success. It takes a real friend to tell you what’s really going to support you in moving forward rather than diving into the pity party with you.

Do you have people like this in your life? Do you want some? This is another reason I love going to Nitro events – I meet more people like this each time, and I see the students connect with people like this, too. Come join us in Orlando next month – you might not leave “just” with an online business; you might also leave with friends you’ll keep for life.

I think there are a few of my buddy passes still available – but not many. Check it out here.

See, first – there’s the piece about investing in your education.

I’d like to talk a moment about that. See, this is something my grandfather always told my dad, and my dad always told my brother and me… Your education is like a train ticket. If you invest in it, you can go as far as you want to go.

Your education is something no economy can impact, nobody can steal, you can’t misplace it, and it doesn’t crash like the stock market. Investing in yourself is far wiser than investing in real estate, stocks, or bonds. That’s because your ROI is under your own control. You take action on what you learned, and you’ll gather a good harvest.

BUT…

Only if you implement.

If you’re like me, you’ve got an embarrassing number of ebooks on your hard drive, a shelf full of “I’ll-get-to-them” books, and worst of all, a brain brimming with great ideas that may never see the light of day.

Investment in Education + Implementation = Success

Look, I shudder to think how much I’ve invested in the past 4 years I’ve had my writing business. But every penny’s been worth it because of how far I’ve come. You wouldn’t even believe some of the client’s I’ve got now (I pinch myself!) – who count on me for one thing: what I’ve learned and learned to implement.

There have been some programs I’ve gone through where it was clear all the company cared about was making sales.

There are others where their commitment to seeing their students succeed is crystal clear.
(That’s the kind I’ve modeled mine after.)

Choose carefully – invest in yourself – and implement like nobody’s business. You can’t lose.

Ouch.

OK, seriously. Ouch.

I never thought I had a tendency toward perfectionism.

• If you could see my house some days, you’d know what I mean. I’ve never been the type who scrubbed and cleaned until you could do surgery in my home without worry of germs.
• Pretty much every day is Casual Friday around here. Shorts, t-shirts, flip-flops – that’s the usual uniform.
• Probably have some typos in my blog (no need to point them out, thanks!).
• My Nutella addiction has left me with a few extra pounds : )

But, perfectionism rears its ugly head other ways…

• Do you struggle to actually get your projects complete and delivered on time?
• Does it take you forever to write an article because you keep editing it before you even get it on the screen?
• Do you fail to celebrate your accomplishments?
• Do you beat yourself up about stuff you don’t get done?
• Are you uncertain of the worth of your skills and talent?
• Are you hesitant to promote yourself and your business?

There’s a lot more… but you get the idea.

For me, one big area where perfectionism has taken a toll is in the new format I’m working on for the writers mastermind program. It’s finally come to me how to do it so you benefit like never before (more on that later).

As long as you focus on perfection, you’re going to be miserable.

Instead, focus on implementation. Learn something – then do it. Preferably within 24 hours.

It never fails – when one of my mentors tells me to do something and I do it right away, I see a bump up in my business. When I stew and stall because it’s not perfect, I end up stuck (and so does my income).

So, where are you stuck in your writing business because of perfectionism? And what are you going to do about it?

Surprising words from one of my mentors. He’s got this incredibly sharp mind and is known for being able to take a single idea and sketch out a multi-million dollar business map for it… on a single sheet of paper. Knowing he couldn’t possibly DO all of these ideas, he kept them in a file cabinet – and recently sold just a few of them for tens of thousands each.

OK, first of all, I’d like to have a mind for business like that! Wouldn’t you?

And second, if ANYONE could successfully run a super-complicated business, it’d be him.

But I’ve heard him say it again and again. People will get into these long, complicated questions about doing this or that online to make money. Time and again, he reigns them in and reminds them: Keep it simple!

Same thing for your writing business.

There are a ton of ways you could get off-track into something complicated. But if you keep it simple, you’ll make a ton of money – and keep your sanity.

Confession – as I was writing this post the first time around, I was going to show you about a dozen ways you could make money writing, and a product teaching you how to do each. The blogging process got really complicated because I had a gazillion tabs open… and crashed my browser. : )

So, where are you complicating things in your business?

You’ll know you’ve complicated it when:

• You can’t seem to take action
• You’re starting to stress out about your projects
• You’re not getting results
• You’re obsessing over some element of your business that’s not directly tied to making money
• You’re studying stuff and NOT implementing
• You’re becoming argumentative rather than productive
• You can’t explain what you do in 10 seconds or less
• You’re exploring obscure ways of making money online instead of following a proven system (because it seems too easy to actually work)

Hey, been there!

Want to meet my mentor? Join us on the third weekend in March in Orlando. You’ll learn a LOT, but you’ll also amaze yourself seeing how simple it is to make money online.

Nope, haven’t lost my mind. Bear with me.

Have you ever boiled lobsters before? What happens?

They try to get out of the pot. They struggle and climb and grab and tussle. Eventually one starts to make some progress. It grabs hold of the rim of the pot and, inch by inch, emerges from the boiling water.

And then another lobster pulls it back in.

Can I be completely honest with you here?

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, getting emails from me, thinking about learning how to earn money writing, but have yet to take action… it may be time to tune out the lobsters.

The lobsters are those folks in your life who tell you:

• It’ll never work.
• You can’t do it.
• It’s probably a scam.
• Nobody’s going to hire you to write for them.
• You’ll fail at this (just like when you…)
• Just settle for what you’ve got.
• What makes you think you’re so special that you should get to do what you love for money?
• and more

People love the “security” of keeping things just the way they are. Change seems risky. They don’t want to go through change in their lives – and change in your life is just about as threatening.

So just like lobsters in a pot, they try to pull you back in as you begin to climb out. It’s not always that they’re trying to keep you stuck – they may think they’re protecting you.

But here’s what I’ve experienced, and what I hear from dozens of people I’ve taught how to build their own writing business:

I was my biggest lobster.

And once I pushed past my own fears enough to catch a glimpse of what “could be” if I’d be willing to trust myself to build a business using the skills God gave me… it worked. My focus, determination, and regular usage of anti-lobster earplugs (still with me?) has enabled me to provide for my whole family… and has generated enough work to keep a whole team of writers busy.

So, what’s at stake? (or steak! now that I’m thinking surf and turf!)

Listen to the lobsters, and:

• Stay stuck
• Stay at a soul-sucking job that’s not even beginning to tap your unique talents
• Stay in a situation where you feel yourself diminishing rather than shining

Or, shut them up, take action, and:

• Spend your days using a talent that’s highly-prized and well-compensated
• Pursue your passion and purpose, using your wordsmithing skills to create all kinds of possibilities
• Break free from the confines of being told when and where you must work and how much you can ever hope to make
• Create the life you long for, however that looks for you

There are two ways I can help you with that – but I can’t do it for you (and I wouldn’t rob you of the thrill of accomplishment, anyway):

1. Build your own freelance writing business.
2. Build an information marketing business.

My passion has grown from wanting to get paid to write to wanting to help you set yourself free from the pot of boiling water. I can’t help you if you choose to stay in there – but if you’ll climb out, you’ll amazed by what you can create.