The last few months have been spent interviewing and mentoring hundreds of entrepreneurs world-wide (as part of my business and also for my upcoming book). At least 90% had some key recurring beliefs that were FALSE!

And that’s exactly why I’ve written this must-read post. I’ve been making waves in my industry debunking many of these myths – I’m about to address 3 of them right now in this article!

Are you a busy entrepreneur who thinks you don’t have time for a love life? How do you expect things to change if you never take action? Last time I checked, FedEx is not in the business of shipping dates to your doorstep. That would be lovely though, sigh…

Whether you want a travel partner, companionship, more dates, a long-term relationship or want to get married, here’s an easy way to start. The good news is that it only takes minutes!

No more excuses. Let’s dive in and debunk the myths that have making your love life fizzle!

Entrepreneur Dating Myth #1: Online Dating is Time-Consuming.

Entrepreneur Dating Fact:

Online Dating can be quick, simple and successful if you have a plan. Try the “30-Minute Email Plan”. Dedicate 15 minutes a day, twice a week, to answering email. For example, Sunday is a great day to answer e-mail if you’d like to have a date lined up for the next weekend. Wednesday is mid-week and by then you may have some offers for the weekend or the following week. Stick to this simple schedule and you won’t get worn out.

Quick Tip – Don’t worry about men who fret if you take 2 or 3 days to read and respond. They are NOT compatible with your lifestyle and they will auto-vet themselves in the process. This is not about playing games – you’re a busy entrepreneur! Patience and understanding are key characteristics your ideal guy must have.

Entrepreneur Dating Myth #2: Instant Messenger is a quick way to connect with a man to see if he’s your type.

Entrepreneur Dating Fact:

Avoid Instant Messenger at all costs because it typically attracts low quality men who waste your time, leaving you exhausted and fed up. There are plenty of lonely (and married) men who will IM chat you forever. Men should be qualified before you give them that amount of direct interaction. A man who is truly interested in you will ask to speak with you almost immediately – or in 2 or 3 emails.

Actually, a quick chat on the phone as soon as possible is the best way to see if there is a connection. Why? It would be a shame to spend weeks emailing back and forth only to find out there is no connection when you speak live.

Quick Tip – Have men phone you first but keep your number private.

During a session, a woman wanted to know how to let a man phone her first without giving out her number. This is a major concern for many women.

I suggest you get a local number from Skype or another service and route it to your cell phone. That way a man can call you first and you never have to give out your private number until you feel comfortable.

Entrepreneur Dating Myth #3: It is hard to meet men during the week.

Entrepreneur Dating Fact:

Take a more creative look at how to schedule your time. Who said you have to go out at night? You can meet during the day. This is a great solution most overlook. You have to eat or take a break during the day anyway, so why not meet for a quick lunch or coffee a 5-minute taxi ride away from your home or office?

It is less intimate, so there is no “date pressure” and you don’t have to “make time”. Plus, if you don’t click, no worries – you have to get back to work.

There you have it – 3 entrepreneur dating myths exposed and debunked. Listen to my complimentary audios to increase your magnetic attraction (in personal and business) download them now at: http://magneticmojo.com

About Rhonda Cort:

With over 10 years experience living and working internationally with entrepreneurs, CEOs, diplomats and influential people on 6 continents, mentor, speaker and author Rhonda Cort unleashes your powerful presence to quickly, naturally and magnetically attract successful, top quality people to accelerate your business and personal life.

Make sure you download Rhonda’s complimentary audios “Magnetic Goddess Secrets” for powerful magnetism in your personal life and the “Mojo Acceleration” audio mini-course for entrepreneurs who want to create an almost instant know, like and trust connection. Download them now at: http://magneticmojo.com

Increasing workloads are forcing people to spend more time in the office, even when the office is at home. This means that many parents are unable to stay involved in their children’s lives as they develop, and are becoming mere spectators instead of loving role models. The result is an undermining of their relationships, higher stress levels, a lack of balance and a generally unfulfilled life.

However, this should not be the case. Working at home allows greater freedom and independence and should result in less time being wasted. Yet many of us fail to successfully make this transition. Discipline is a key factor when running a business from home… and believe me; I know what I’m talking about as I am one of the thousands of business owners who enjoy the benefits and also the challenges of as a home-based business owner.

DISTRACTIONS DETRACT
One of my clients used to run his own successful accounting practice from home. With pre-school children and trying to grow his business, he and his wife used to get very frustrated with the fact that they could never remove themselves from the workplace. They felt their business totally overwhelmed them and caused many challenges which affected their personal relationships.

We were able to identify exactly where their time was being spent and found that there were simple ways they could do more in their growing business and still have a life. Three years later with the growth of their practice they have had to move their business to new premises.

Here are seven ways you can successfully work from home and enjoy the benefits…

1. ESTABLISH A ROUTINE
Structure your day so that it is both purposeful and productive. Decide on a starting and finishing time for your day; allow for breaks so that you work smarter, not harder. Doing this will also allow you to better differentiate between work and home, and will encourage you to be more professional.

2. FOCUS ON YOUR STRENGTHS, OUTSOURCE YOUR WEAKNESSES
Spend the maximum amount of time working on the parts of your business that you are best at. If your billable time is worth $200 an hour, then make sure you spend most of your time on the activities that will produce that for you.
If you don’t want to employ an administrative assistant, invest in a virtual assistant who works off-site. Avoid filling up your day with non-productive activities. Invest your time and money into the right areas of your business; don’t just keep yourself busy.

3. ORGANISE YOUR ENVIRONMENT
Have the right tools and systems to work with - an appropriate chair, desk, computer, filing system. This will make you look, feel and act more professionally. In addition, if a client comes to your home, your professionalism will inspire confidence in you.

4. DECLUTTER THE CLUTTER
A messy working environment which forces you to be continuously spending valuable time searching for things, whether files and emails on the computer or documents in filing cabinets and cupboards, cumulatively wastes hours a day. In fact The Wall Street Journal found that the average white collar worker spends 6 weeks a year looking for things around the office! Clutter is distracting and causes stress, and it is the primary enemy of productivity.

5. LEARN TO SAY ‘NO’
Inform your family and friends of your working hours and that because you’re working from home doesn’t mean you’re ‘available’. If you were in a corporate office, you would not allow your friends to drop by. Enforce these same rules at your office at home.

6. NETWORK TO EXPAND YOUR BUSINESS AND YOUR MIND
Join local networking groups to meet other like-minded business people. Share knowledge and discover new ways of doing things. Check out your local council and chamber of commerce. Enquire about active small business networks.

Join your own trade association and share ideas. An organised business referral group like BNI can also be of enormous benefit to the home based business owner.

And without leaving home you can become part of www.theproductivitycoachingclub.com to stimulate your brain and keep you up-to-date in how to run your business more effectively and improve your lifestyle.

7. TAKE TIME OUT FOR YOU
It can be easy to lose yourself in your work. Take time to ’smell the roses’ and to make human contact. When I’m spending the day working from home, I always go out for a walk at lunch-time. Plan time to have coffee or lunch with a friend or colleague once a week. Go for a walk every day. Have a weekly or fortnightly massage. Visit the gym more often.

THE FINAL WORD
These ideas are simple… and guess what? It’s generally the simple ideas when acted upon consistently that will make a dramatic impact overall in your business and your life. You’ll feel happier and more fulfilled. You’ll also discover extra time in the day that you never had before.

******************************

Lorraine Pirihi, The Productivity Queen, is founder of ProductivityQueen.com and creator of “The Productivity and Profit System™” … the proven step-by- step program that shows you exactly how to work less and earn more! To receive your F.R.E.E. CD “10 Habits of Highly Productive and Profitable People” valued at $47 by mail and weekly how-to articles to increase your productivity and your profits visit http://www.productivityqueen.com

You may have noticed a recent survey I did about what online business owners want and how they want it. Turns out that most people really want to know how to get more traffic to their website.

Whether it is converting your social network onto your list or just getting more eyeballs on your site, there are a few key techniques that work to create a steady stream of quality people checking out your stuff!

1. Drive traffic to your blog. Whether you have a website or you are active on Facebook or Twitter, you want to be strategic about the links you include in your “about me” section. Our 21st century way of doing business is about connecting and conversing. So your blog is going to be a better choice to carry the “conversation” than your website. Conversely, directing people to your blog over Facebook is also the better choice because this brings them closer to you, gives them a taste of your business and your brand, and allows you to actually track the visitors and the subscriptions.

2. Post on your blog often. I recommend at least 3-5 times a week. You want to include short tips and relevant information to your market. The more you post, the better the search engines like you and the more valuable you are to your market.

3. Share other people’s content. Review blogs daily and note valuable content. When your competition posts something of value, review the post on your site with links back to his/her site.

4. Guest blogging. Allow other qualified experts the ability to post quality, unique content on your site. This allows you to be the hub of information in your industry. Allow your guest blogger to include a “resource box” at the end of the article/post with a link back to his/her site. You can also be a guest blogger on someone else’s site. Make sure that the blog is complimentary to your services as you do want to attract people interested in what you have to offer.

5. Article marketing. This is my favorite strategy for driving quality traffic. You can post your article on various “portals” or directories that host your articles for people interested in republishing your content for their own newsletters or publications.

It sounds like a lot of writing, but don’t forget that you can repurpose your articles to be used on multiple sites. Make sure to repurpose at least 30% of your content so that Google doesn’t knock you down, but also so that you customize your content for the different readers. And create a system around when you post, what you post and where you post. This will help you keep track of what you are doing and how much time to spend.

In the internet world, there is an overwhelming amount of information at our fingertips.

But I want to know what kind of information you really want to learn in order to build your business and your lifestyle the way you want them. Plus I want to know specifically how you want that content delivered.

Here is a quick 2 minute survey to get your feedback…

Click here to take the survey.

It’s the New Year and people are making resolutions. A good friend of mine shared his philosophy about New Year wishes and I agree. Have a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year—IN THAT ORDER!

So THAT is MY New Year’s resolution. I intend to be happy, stay healthy and prosper this year. What is YOUR resolution? And what steps will you take to make that happen?

Contact:

Jacki Wojcik
The UpLevel Agency
866.615.8150
jacki@uplevelagency.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 22, 2008

Award-Winning Business Coach, Kelly O’Neil and Social Media Expert, MaryPat Kavanagh Team Up to Take BiztechDay By Storm

Expert Duo to Speak at Genius Desk During Small Business Technology Expo;   O’Neil To Moderate “How to Make Your Blog, Video, Podcast, Social Network Viral” Panel (more…)

According to my friend, Lorie Gonzales, networking is more than just “working a room”. It is about forming honest sincere relationships that benefit you, the other person, your careers and your lives. It allows you to connect not only with other people, but with new ideas and information, better business practices, job opportunities, potential customers and vendors. The following are ten steps to effective networking. I have added how each step should be achieved in the virtual world of “social networking”.

•  Adopt an attitude of self-confidence and start with a positive attitude.
  • ¨       “Meet the people, meet the people, and meet the people.” In other words, mingle; don’t spend all your time with just one or two guests.
  • ·         ONLINE: In social networking, if you aren’t having conversations with your new connections, then you are just standing in the corner. If you wouldn’t do that in a live networking event, then don’t do it online either.
• The number one rule is “Attraction vs. Promotion”.
• ONLINE: Set yourself up to “attract” the right people. You do this by “wearing the right clothes. Oh yeah, we are online. So you do this by sharing the right information. Share info about YOU, not about what you do.