 |
 |
|
Posts from the 'Entrepreneur Diaries' Category
September 28th, 2007 by Lani Voivod
 He was for us. In fact, we believe Mr. Adam Urbanski is a marketing god.
I know this because I’ve been reading his ezine for years, and Allen and I worked with him in an intensive mentoring relationship from June, 2006 - June 2007.
During that time:
- We each attended TWO of his 4-day, mega-focused, and information-loaded bootcamps.
- We each took part in TWO closed-door Platinum Mastermind pow-wow sessions involving Adam, a private hotel conference room (the first one) and a hotel suite (the second one), and fewer than 5-8 other entrepreneurs and small business owners
- We had monthly one-on-one coaching/mentoring calls that lasted 1-2 hours
- We had monthly group Mastermind calls (always around 2 hours)
- We’ve listened to and read a ton of his audio programs - including interviews, strategy-focused trainings, and much more.
 I also know this because I’ve spent hours and hours talking to him in person - watching, listening, learning, engaged in conversation, looking into his eyes, and seeing how he treats and interacts with others, including his wife and kids.
Adam’s the real deal. He’s passionate, fast-thinking, and whip-smart. (He’s got a silly side too, but he tries to keep that under wraps in front of casual acquaintances.)
For the purposes of this blog post, you need to know this about Adam:
He knows Internet marketing inside and out. He lives and breathes it. He scrutinizes it, condemns its abusers, champions its honest and genuine players, and builds his knowledge base continuously, passionately, and with the purpose of teaching other like-minded professionals a better, more profitable way to build their own businesses and lifestyle.
The reason I’m ranting about Adam like this is because I just read one of his emails. It was a message promoting his new Business Navigator System. As with most (if not all) of Adam’s communications, it was conversational, straight-forward, and offered some grounded reminders and the “simple” essentials of building a successful business. Check out this snippet:
Here is the simplest formula for success in any business:
1) Find a market that has a specific problem you can solve
2) Develop a unique solution to that problem
3) Build a machine that generates leads and converts them into first time customers
4) Convert first time customers into life-time clients
5) Maximize profitability by developing new products or services to further help your clients
In its simplest form this is the same formula I’ve been teaching and implementing for my students for over seven years now. And everyone who follows it reaps big rewards.
You what’s interesting about this? While your business is unique it’s NOT different - and this same formula will work for you. Just look at any successful company - now that you are aware of it, you’ll immediately notice they use this formula too.
Now that’s pretty basic stuff, right?
But it’s astounding how easy it is to get away from those “basics” and get distracted with all the other pings, pop-ups, and dot-compromises of doing business these days - which means integrating your brand, products, and/or services into the online arena.
I encourage you to check out Adam’s Navigator System. He’s currently accepting applications for his year-long program that starts in November.
If you want to grow your biz, learn more than you’ve ever learned about marketing and biz success in a 12-month period, and meet other savvy, goal-focused entrepreneurs who will help you improve your game (and profits), Adam Urbanski is the guy who will lead you to your destination.
 Oh - one more thing. I’ve also taken the time to write this post because Allen and I hit a milestone yesterday, and we know we owe a lot of that milestone to Adam’s tutelage.
Yesterday, we deposited the client check that put us into the Six-Figure Club for 2007. We’ve still got three months to go, and business has never been better. (Neither has our working - and marital! - relationship, by the way.)
We would not have hit this milestone if we hadn’t invested the time (or money) with Adam. Sometimes you just have to take the plunge to move forward to the next level. Adam’s offering this opportunity to a lucky few.
Give it some serious consideration.
(And THANK YOU, Adam, for all your help, patience, guidance, smarts, and support.)
Posted in Dances With Gurus, Entrepreneur Diaries | No Comments »
This entry was posted
on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 10:52 am and is filed under Dances With Gurus, Entrepreneur Diaries.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 11th, 2007 by Lani Voivod
Sometimes I actually (often unintentionally) take a step back at the life Allen and I are creating together and have a good laugh at what I see.
With all the big rocks AND minutiae that we microbusiness owners have to deal with on any given day - from meetings with clients to meeting project deadlines to wrestling with fussy printers to making sure we don’t forget to take our dog/office mascot for a walk…or else! - it’s easy to get so wrapped up in the to-do’s that you forget to appreciate the ta-da’s.
So here’s last evening’s “Ta-da!”:
Joey at my desk, taking care of his www.Webkinz.com pet, a little green frog named Supersonic:
Allen at his desk, wrapping up the last few details of the day:
Our dog Buddy, snoozing away in the corner:
And the sign I just bought on a whim (and Allen risked his life to hang by standing on a twirly office chair), to remind us what it’s all about:
And the thing that’s REALLY blowing my mind this morning is that by this time next month, there’ll be a newborn baby boy in the scene, too. *Gulp.*
Ahhhh, this IS the good life… 
Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries, Microenterprises R Us | No Comments »
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries, Microenterprises R Us.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 13th, 2007 by Lani Voivod
We’ve got this client. It’s a good-sized company in a specialized field bringing in about $10 million of revenue per year, with hopes of doubling, tripling, and quadrupling that figure as soon as possible.
They’ve been talking about getting a blog up and running all year. They’ve heard the benefits from us and from others. They’ve hemmed and hawed. They’ve groaned and stalled.
Last week Allen wrote their marketing gang an email, hoping to find a way to get their blog up and running as quickly and easily as possible, once and for all. He led off by using us as a first-hand example:
First, a blogging testimonial. In July of 2006, the Epiphanies, Inc. website had just over 1,000 unique visitors. In July of this year, we had 22,667 unique visitors.
Of our marketing content activity during that time, blogging was the A#1 item, with a dash of article marketing and a press release or two thrown in. It took about three months before we started seeing the upward curve, but boy, has it been steep ever since.
If you want to drive more traffic to your website, blogging has to happen. Period, paragraph.
Now, that year between July ‘06 and July ‘07 has flown by. We’ve been soooo busy (and yes, a tad overwhelmed) learning better ways to: assist clients, manage our time and commitments, leverage our passion and know-how, and “be the tide that raises all boats” (one of Allen’s favorite sayings!), we’re just now realizing the implications and advantages of such a wonderful traffic increase.
More and more often, people are letting us know they’ve learned valuable things from our blog, or they’ve enjoyed an entry or three, or they found us recommended on someone else’s blog or site, etc. It’s a little scary (”What do they know? Which entry did they read? Did I share anything embarrassing? Was there a typo? Do they really think I’m lame?”), but so is business, right?
Our blog is imperfect.
It’s an unapologetic work in progress. About half of the things we had hoped to add and implement never made it to fruition.
And yet…
We’ve made connections through our blog; been published in a wonderful book alongside award-winning authors and laudible experts in the fields of writing, marketing, and creativity; and created a searchable, indexed history of the information we’ve learned and the ideas we’re passionate about.
As business owners, we all know the pain and frustration of tabling soooo many hopes and initiatives because of lack of resources - like time, support staff, money, energy, etc.
That being said, not a week goes by during which one of us doesn’t sigh a big fat sigh of relief that we started blogging when we did, and we’ve got an easy, wicked cheap way to connect our approach, advice, and musings with the online world.
As our own implementation of the other marketing tools and tactics we recommend to friends and clients gets a little bitty bit better every month, we realize how lucky we were to have gotten at least one big marketing ball rolling - the blogging ball - especially the one that’s delivered the most OOMPH for the effort.
Soooo, what are YOU waiting for? 
Posted in Blog Bits, Entrepreneur Diaries, Tools to "A-Ha Yourself!" | No Comments »
This entry was posted
on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 7:05 pm and is filed under Blog Bits, Entrepreneur Diaries, Tools to "A-Ha Yourself!".
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 9th, 2007 by Lani Voivod
Sometimes owning your business can distract you from other, um, more pressing life matters. More often than not, those other life matters eventually decide to press back - on your uterine wall or bladder, for instance - until you give them the props they deserve.
So here’s the official announcement on our “A-Ha!” Blog:
 A-Ha! I’m 34 weeks pregnant!
For those of you not swimming in the amniotic fluid of pregnancy’s finer details, that means I’ve got about six more weeks to go before something flailing, squinty, and prolific in poopage comes out of my body, one way or another.
Allen and I couldn’t be happier about this upcoming event, and our nearly-five-year-old son is revving up to be the world’s best big brother.
However, as spousal-preneurs who depend on each other to advise on, produce, and tag team projects, planning, and workload, things can get a little sticky.
First of all, there’s no deadline more real and less forgiving than the one attached to an umbilical cord. It WILL happen, you CAN’T ignore or extend it, and once you pass it, you WILL NOT be able to go back to the way things were.
For married business owners, that means we still have to:
Generate revenue, make clients happy, plan for the upcoming weeks, months, and years, BRAINSTORM new and better ways to bring in income, make clients happy, and plan for the upcoming weeks months, and years…and we have to do it all while brain damaged, sleep deprived, and obsessed with bodily fluids and functions - both baby’s and mother’s - that don’t make for polite dinner conversation.
 It wasn’t until a week or two ago that Allen and I finally stopped ignoring my ever-growing midsection and started hyperventilating. Where are we putting this new human being? Should we buy him clothes? How old does he have to be before it’s safe to spike his breast milk with Lunesta?
There’s a corner in our attic with a bunch of baby stuff in it, but I have no idea what’s there. Allen has wanted to bring it all down many times, but I keep telling him we need to finish all the household projects we’ve been putting off for the last 3 1/2 years before we invite more chaos into our happy yet humble living space.
Soooo…
We’ve knocked down walls, painted and re-carpeted rooms, made several trips to Goodwill, reorganized medicine and linen cabinets, become basket converts, shifted all big-boy toys from bedroom (soon to be shared) to playroom, transferred most of our home-office files and furniture to our newish out-of-the-home office, and created a guest room for anyone who wants to sleep at a house alive with the precious cacophonies of a crying newborn.
And somehow, through it all, we’ve managed to make more money by the end of June of 2007 than we did in all of 2006. That’s not to say we’re not paying for some of the next-level investments and “learning it the hard way” misadventures of last year, but we’re definitely making progress.
We’re proud and grateful that we’re still in business together.
More importantly, we’re still married.
MOST importantly, we’re proud and grateful to be HAPPILY married.
 When we said “I do!” nearly seven years ago, we had no idea it would involve as much as it has come to involve. Who does?
Money, kids, home repairs, personal hygiene vigilance, insurance policies, quick-fix casseroles, payroll taxes, holidays, lawn mowing, Pokemon, office space, play dates, and pillow talk involving marketing lingo…
Honestly. We had NO idea.
In retrospect, that’s the biggest blessing EVER. Which is probably why we’re just getting around to admitting we’re close to the launch of Baby Boy #2.
If life has taught us anything, it’s that we’ll figure it all out along the way. And no matter how challenging the “figuring out” part can be, we prefer to do it together.
Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business | 5 Comments »
This entry was posted
on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 7:02 pm and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 26th, 2007 by Lani Voivod
I’ve been thinking about how the whole “follow your bliss” and “believe in your dreams” philosophies fit into the more left-brained business-minded world. There often seems to be a gap between that pristine, optimistic birds-eye-view of living a fulfilling, passion-fueled life and that other little matter of actually making enough money to afford some of life’s perks…like exotic vacations, or luxurious homes, or (depending on your financial goals, fears, or circumstances), toiletpaper.
Are “dreams” too impractical to monetize? Do financially successful people ultimately have to sell their souls, squelch their visions, and give up on a life of giddy authenticity in favor of a more practical and utterly PAINFUL path to a bounteous bank account?
In other words, does the call to revere and pay attention to your dreams have a place in “The Real World” of mortgages, stock portfolios, and investment funds?
According to the following quote by success guru and Think and Grow Rich author Napoleon Hill, they very well could hold the key to your purpose and ultimate prosperity:
“Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate accomplishments.”
(In case you don’t know Hill’s story, he spent 20+ years following a recommendation by legendary gazillionaire Andrew Carnegie, interviewing more than 500 of the wealthiest people in the world for the purpose of determining their “secrets” - what makes them tick, how they think, what they all have in common in terms of their approach in life and business.)
“Blueprints” are detailed plans, which determine actions, which produce results. The above quote takes the la-la-concept of dreams and suggests there’s actually a PRACTICAL use for them. So many overly serious professionals roll their eyes or snub their noses up in the air whenever they hear someone start yapping about “dreams” and “passion” instead of “profit & loss statements” and “bottom lines.”
Dreams DO make money. As long as you don’t allow the dour dreamless to tell you otherwise.
Posted in Dances With Gurus, Entrepreneur Diaries | 1 Comment »
This entry was posted
on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Dances With Gurus, Entrepreneur Diaries.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 4th, 2007 by Lani Voivod
You can learn a lot about yourself from your bathroom. Especially from the reading materials hanging around near your commode.
On my way through our downstairs powder room - which connects our laundry room with our son’s tornado-struck play area - I caught a glipse of this spatter of magazines, just waiting for one of us to entertain ourselves during our next home office pit stop.
Seeing this strange mix of potty fodder designed to entertain and inform pseudo WIRED, ENTREPRENEUR PARENTS with GIANT aspirations and a soft spot for guy pulp (GQ’s Lindsay Lohan spectacle) made me realize just how divided our attentions are these days.
Mingling life, love, parenting, and business is no easy task. But boy, it makes for a diverse reading library!
(By the way, if you haven’t checked out Wired mag lately, you gotta give it a try. This month’s “Get Naked and…” issue is all about “Radical Transparency” as a business success strategy for CEOs and minions alike. March’s issue was all about our entertainment “snack culture,” where everything we consume - from videos to music to games to information - is in tiny, mini, micro, and “bite-sized” content pieces. The articles are always good ‘n hip and right on target. Oh, and they’re interesting and fun, too. :-D)
For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business (and get creative AND effective with your own marketing efforts), sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!
Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business | No Comments »
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 31st, 2007 by Lani Voivod
For corporate cogs and cubicle dwellers - both of which Allen and I have been, and we value those experiences very much - there are Big Days shared among friends and colleagues who live in the same dimension.
These Big Days are akin to internal holidays when they’re good (like Quarterly Bonus Day, for instance), or D-Days when they’re bad (like End-of-Quarter wrap-ups, when everyone’s scurrying around submitting documents and reports and reviews like rabid jackals on crack).
But small biz owners and solo-preneurs often don’t have a posse with whom to share our Big Days. The world turns on its axis and the sun rises and sets just like every other day, and no one but our team or business partner (if you’re lucky to have either) is even aware of the Big Days of our lives.
Getting profiled in the media for the first time. That’s a Big Day. So is depositing your first $1,000 in your new business account, hiring your first VA, having your first five-figure month, speaking at your first industry event, having your first six-figure year, etc.
It’s these *tiny* milestones that become the drivers - the little “Yippees!” in your head and heart - that remind you why you started on this challenging path in the first place.
Today, Allen and I are having one of these Big Days.
I know this because of the butterflies in my stomach, the cocktail of anxiety and excitement in my spleen, and the “What if’s?” flying around in my cranium.
January 31st, 2007, is the day we’re finally (FINALLY!) releasing our first FOUR information products out into the world.
We’ve been serious about creating info products for ourselves (instead of for our clients) since last February, when we cut the chord of dependency with a few “safety” clients we knew weren’t working for us anymore.
We put our heads down, invested in training, got support, geared up for success, then…
…Had dozens of false starts, procrastinated, let fear get in our way, postponed, took several steps backwards, fought, cried, lamented, watched goals come and go, let other priorities take the front seat of our lives and business, and then wondered aloud for the millionth time why we couldn’t just complete what we set out to do, which was create quality information products for people like us, so they wouldn’t have to suffer the same learning curve we’ve had to.
Lucky for us, we happened to connect with another business owner (who is now our dear friend Kevin Skarritt), and Kevin had wanted to create info products, too…but he had been too busy running his company to make room for another intense project.
Late last month, we took the plunge together and did the only thing that guarantees forward motion and accountability - we put the offer out to the public and pre-sold the information products that have been stuck in our brains, throughout our notebooks, and inside folders on our computers for way, WAY too long.
And after weeks of scrambling, cursing, praying, planning, working long, LONG hours, giving up favorite TV shows, pastimes, weekends, and sleep, we’re less than four hours away from having them DONE (at long last!) and OUT to those beautiful, smart, supportive, savvy, trusting, wonderful professionals who’ve pre-ordered the “Business Breakout 2007″ package we’ve created.
Even now, Allen’s with Kevin dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. There are last-minute details you can’t know or anticipate until you go through this deliverable process at least once…and even then I’m sure new incidentals always pop up. I’m minutes away from putting my darlin’ angel son to bed, but I just had to get a blog post out to mark this auspicious occasion.
The truth is, I don’t know how Allen and Kevin have been pulling the hours they have. I’m in awe of what we’ve accomplished. I can’t believe how much we’ve done in such a short time. I’m proud of the finished product (at least, the “finished” draft I saw earlier, that Allen and Kev were STILL adding to!), and I’m so so so grateful to finally be crossing over the line, from “Boy, I’d like to create our own info products some day” to “Us? Oh yeah -we’ve got several info products…and they’re really really GOOD!”
I started having this giddy feeling of accomplishment a few nights ago, when we were finishing up the outline and script for our fourth and final product. It was some time after one in the morning. I was punchy and desperate to finish up so we could finally go to bed. Allen was in a no-nonsense/conserve energy mode - the likes of which I’d never seen him in before.
 The scene was so amusing to me I snapped a picture with my camera phone. (I think it’s the requisite Ben ‘n Jerry’s container that sets me over the edge. What a solo-preneurial cliche!) I guess I could sense I’d want to sanctify the Big Day a’comin’.
And now, I’m doing just that - with said picture of my bleary-eyed husband and a big ol’ blog post.
We all have our own pictures of success. For me, I think this one’s going to do just fine.
For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business (and prepare you for YOUR Big Day, whenever that may be), sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!
Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries | 2 Comments »
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 9:57 pm and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 31st, 2006 by Lani Voivod
For solo professionals, entrepreneurs, and small biz owners everywhere - this one’s for you:
Ahhhhhh….2006’s come and gone - time to put your game face on
Looking back, you’ll likely see a manic-type of history
Little leaps and giant FLOPS, spurts of “Go!” and wicked “Stops!”
Bank accounts that flow and ebb, big advancements on the Web
So many ways to live your dreams, but nothing’s easy as it seems
Alas, you face another year, determined to flourish! Banish your fear!
Ready to do whatever it takes - mash insights with action, see what it makes
And while you’ll surely flop ‘n leap, reach some goals and lose some sleep
Seize opportunities far and wide, yet still cringe when others slide
May you always have some room to wiggle - and never, EVER forget to giggle!
Happy New Year, friends!
And if you doubt laughter’s clout, bite your tongue and check this out…
P.S. Want a little help getting 2007 off on the right foot! Well, hop on over to http://www.gonutsin2007.com/. Why? Because you’ll get to download a dynamite (and FREE!) special report we co-created with Acorn Creative. It’s an 18-page primer revealing a secret sauce that’ll help your profits soar in 2007…PLUS show you how to maximize your 7 major marketing opportunities while building deeper relationships with your clients (and get a bunch of new clients, too)! Don’t miss out!
Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries, Mood Boosters | 1 Comment »
This entry was posted
on Sunday, December 31st, 2006 at 9:54 am and is filed under | |
