As a result of all this crazy activity I’ve got a ton of fun design work booked, and we’ve got a few fantastic web projects in progress as well.  It’s amazing what a flood of business our networking, social, and learning activities generates.  And it’s such fun too!

So while I’m busy catching up to taking care of business, and preparing a special treat for all of you who wanted to blog but didn’t know where to start I’d like to just offer you this time sensitive offering:

My friend Jane Tetley, of On-Site! Computer Cleaning (www.onsitecomputercleaning.ca) has a new marketing campaign about to launch which includes a mailout of several thousand pieces of print mail targeted specifically to local businesses.  With such a sizeable campaign in the works to promote her free demo, she is expecting to be handing out an increased number of gift baskets to many of these businesses in the near future.

Her company will hand deliver your advertising, in their gift baskets, for FREE…click here to find out how!  At the above link Jane has provided a detailed and clear outline of how the gift basket promotion works, and if you have any questions she will gladly answer them.  To get your advertising out there while the campaign is fresh you should talk to her right away.

Have a great week, and stay tuned for my upcoming piece on blogging for busy entrepreneurs.  I’ll break it down into  into easy to handle bite sizes, and show you the basics of accessing a blog, posting to it, and jazzing up your posts.

To my hosts & hostesses in Calgary, and all our friends & family who worked it in to see us during our crazy schedule…

Thanks Comments
Myspace Comments – Myspace Layouts – Host Images

While there were a number of speakers with differing topics of importance, more than anything else the prevailing message that stood out to me was: Dare to dream – and be tenacious!

Even though we are currently in times of global difficulty, change, and economic stress, that doesn’t mean you should let it rule your outlook.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve caught myself forgetting to dream, in response to the prevailing message that things are tough right now.  Really – who says?  Are they truly any tougher than before?  And is it because of the “economic crisis” that they are tough?

Don’t buy into it…there is no less money or opportunity in the world than there was last summer.  I’ve personally had to take a step back and evaluate my own dreaming of late, or lack there of.   We’ve actually just come through a few years of great success for a growing company, and I’ve transitioned from being a solopreneur to partnering with my husband on a full time basis.  Not to mention, we’ve also grown to include other bright specialists in our business, to bring greater value and key services to our clients.  We’ve relocated our family and the business twice in less than 8 months!  In reality the challenges that we’ve faced have little or nothing to do with the “recession” – they’ve been the natural result of our daring to live our dreams and leap toward what we want without reservation.  We’ve been doing it despite fear!

That we have been able to work together to support ourselves, and move our family to a beautiful little lakeside city where I’m much healthier IS living the dream.  But does acknowledging that you are “living the dream” you had mean you stop dreaming?  In an effort not to forget gratitude, and to be thankful for what we have, I realize that I had mistakenly stopped dreaming…I had unwittingly stopped looking beyond where I am to where I want to be.

Now is the time to refocus your dreams.   If you’ve achieved your dream, grow it, refresh it, reshape it.  Instead of looking only up to the point of staying afloat and covering your needs, look beyond…see what you dream of, write down what you aspire to, and know that if you can dream it you can achieve it.  Despite reality, who says you can’t dream it and bring it to being?

I am a firm believer that you get what you focus on – so what are you focusing on?  If you keep your eyes firmly focused on “making it through”, you’ll do just that.  Is that all you want for yourself, or do you want more?

Whatever your business, wherever you want to go in life, this applies to you.  If you want more, then look beyond – it’s not ungrateful of you, it’s the magical combination of gratitude and your growing and ever-changing dreams that create your reality!

Typically I go into these consultations with curious anticipation of what special nugget of information about the client I am going to come away with. This time, I came away with something that was of great value to my business, in addition to clarity as to how to proceed with her web project.

Because I knew we were meeting to discuss the project in person I didn’t send out my usual forms, I kept them to physically give to the client when she arrived so that we could look at them together before she took them away to work on. Much to my surprise, when I handed her these documents her reaction wasn’t one of “Oh really – I have to do this?!”

In fact she became very excited, and vocal as she looked through them and found that what I had given her contained not only the information gathering forms we use, but also a 15 page workbook of sorts that I have compiled specifically to help entrepreneurs walk through the process of understanding how to create key marketing message pieces that will then be very useful to them in bringing together their website content. She was excited and immediately very positive about the idea of being able to take these forms and an additional resource document away to play with. What a great reaction!

But what’s more, she made the suggestion that I really should use a folder with our company branding on it, and start physically mailing these packages out to our prospective clients as we start the information gathering phase. It was her opinion that it would make a lasting impression, and she actually went so far as to say she is the type of person that when given a folder by a business she will keep it and from that point forward put any other relevant project documentation in that folder. She will see it over and over…and during the project she will likely leave it out in her office where other people will see it. She even went so far as to say that she’s reused similar folders in the past, keeping them around for years. Talk about a brand building opportunity!

TIP: In a PDF rich world, we sometimes forget to use paper forms at critical stages – while we have our own reasons in our business for using forms that we have our new clients physically fill out we hadn’t really considered the impact that they might make if delivered as a comprehensive and physical package.

You bet I’m on the hunt for a folder that will suit our purposes!

My challenge to you: Consider how much you rely on PDF’s and how you might use print forms for greater impact at particular points in your business processes.

If you would like a FREE copy of our workbook titled “BUILDING A PROFITABLE BUSINESS WITH THE RIGHT WORDS, TOOLS & STRATEGIES”, come visit us at www.catchthis.ca where all you have to do is fill out a very simple request form by clicking the link , and we will deliver this useful guide directly to your email box.