Monthly Archives: March 2016

Podcast: Heather Bestel and the Happiness Garden

During this podcast I had the pleasure of speaking with Heather Bestel. Originally from Liverpool, home of the Beatles, Heather made the conscious decision to move with her husband, Peter and young daughter, Zoe two hundred miles away to South West Scotland to pursue the dream of downshifting, simplifying and reducing stress. The result was a positive one in that they changed their lives and Heather got her business off the ground as an online entrepreneur.

Heather and I connected online way back in 2007, and she credits me with helping her to keep it simple, stay focused on her goals, and to avoid the bright, shiny objects that sabotage so many entrepreneurs. Her business and programs continue to grow and you can learn more about her “Happiness Garden” here. When she describes it in great detail during this podcast you will know that it is an inspired undertaking that is worth your closer inspection.

I truly love the way Heather has chosen her life’s path. She says that her life is quite wonderful, by design, and that she goes out of her way to keep it that way. It is a very simple life and she likes things simple, as I do. She has all she needs and is grateful. She makes sure to have balance and everyone around her is happy. Part of this includes having husband Peter working closely with her as her tech guru and being able to travel with daughter Zoe as she pursues a career in music. None of this would be possible if they had chosen more traditional jobs and careers.

I know you will enjoy this podcast interview as you get to know Heather Bestel. And consider joining her one year program in the Happiness Garden!

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Connecting With Key Influencers to Grow Your Business

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Key Influencers – Connect With Them to Grow Your Business

Did you know that fewer than five percent of people in any community or organization account for more than ninety-five percent of all positive events, growth, and happenings in that community or organization? These people are known as the “key influencers” and can be valuable to you and/or your business or personal goals.

This morning I met with a group of women from my Zonta Club in Santa Clarita. This is an amazing group of dedicated business women working towards the common goal of advancing the status of women around the world and I am honored to be among them. They are also extremely active in this community. We had a new Zontian with us today and I spent over an hour discussing with her how she could get her new business off the ground.

Anne (not her real name to protect her identity) is a former classroom teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, like I was. Even though she has lived in the Santa Clarita Valley for more than thirty years, the time constraints of her career kept her from volunteering or getting to know people very well over this period of time. When she resigned from teaching last year she decided to dedicate her life to empowering women through a variety of techniques she has used personally. I asked her how she was getting the word out about the Retreats and courses she wanted to offer and that’s when our discussion became a serious one.

Anne and I discussed how she could best use her time to network with the people who would not only understand what she wanted to do but would also be able to help her get in front of the exact people she wanted to serve. The goal is to position yourself as an expert, one day at a time. I told her that Zonta was the perfect place to start, but to also expand her reach throughout the community in a logical way. I then invited her to my Rotary Club meeting so that I could introduce her to the other members.

I work with people all over the world who have a message they wish to share with the world, and a huge part of this is connecting with the “key influencers” where you live. I recommend becoming a “local celebrity” so that you can begin at home and then move in concentric circles to the outer edges of the world. This strategy is quite effective and gives you both the credibility and the visibility to build a lucrative business and to make a name for yourself.

As we sat together on this crisp spring morning, Anne and I began to create a plan that would work well for her. Even though she has a standing commitment to a group related to her topic that meets every Wednesday evening through the end of the year, she agreed to consider missing it on the second Wednesday of each month in order to attend the monthly Zonta business meeting. This will keep her connected to these powerful women (AKA “key influencers”) with and from whom she can learn and grow. She also wants to do more public speaking and we brainstormed ideas on how to make this happen, first within the city and later to the world.

I also recommended that she consider joining Rotary, involving her husband by attending Friday night dinners at the Santa Clarita Elk’s Lodge, and looking for volunteer opportunities in our community. Attending one event every month, whether it’s social or for a non-profit puts you in front of people you might otherwise never have met. She now has a calendar that is quickly filling up with opportunities and she sees things quite differently than she did just twenty-four hours ago. Anything is possible when you have a solid plan and a mentor to guide you.

Networking and volunteering are both offline methods for connecting with your community and building a business. Online strategies include blogging, offering webinars and other online trainings, writing a book, and speaking at events around the world. Social media is also crucial to the mix, as it allows for you to connect with these key influencers much more frequently. Please let me know if you have further questions on anything I have discussed here.

Info Product Creation in 6 Easy Pieces

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This is a guest post from my good friend and colleague Dennis Becker on the topic of Info Product Creation – tips that can change your life.

Do you know just how easy it is to create products that target and solve just one problem – a problem people are willing to pay like crazy to solve?

You can build a fantastic business with those “mini” info products alone… and many people have. If creating 1-day products is your ideal business model, don’t stop
now.

But, maybe you’re ready to take things to the next level.

The real, big money is in higher-end products. The big money is in having a well-oiled product funnel. Consider the products that your favorite, most successful marketing
idols have for sale.

They probably have some free products, low-end products, high-end products, and maybe even coaching and consulting… something for every learning and spending level.

They do that because it works.

I have an incredible number of products out. Some follow the 1-problem model and others are much more comprehensive and higher end. I have created these products for a reason–it’s because it serves my audience well and results in a fantastic income.

I urge you to continue building your information product empire.
Develop some more comprehensive, high end products along with your easier, less expensive products. Once a customer buys one of your 1-problem products, they’ll be
more likely to know, like, and trust you, and then be willing to invest in something more substantial… if you have something like that…

…which you definitely should have, otherwise YOUR customer has just realized that they want and need more specific information, and they might pay for that information somewhere else if you aren’t ready to help them.

Develop a funnel that will grab more traffic, net more sales, and have your customers buying product after product from you.

There’s definitely a secret to making it all work.

The cool thing is that it’s actually easier than you expect to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. It’s the secret of becoming successful with your own info product funnel. It’s the secret of combining low end and high end products to build a huge list and make a full time income online.

The trick is to take a bird’s eye view of your business so you know
exactly what you’re looking at.

What does your eventual, successful business look like from a distance? You have to know what your goal is to get where you’re going. But then, you have to break it down. If you don’t, you’ll get overwhelmed. It’s time to break product creation, driving traffic,
building a list, and making sales into super-simple steps that will add up to something big.

It’s actually easy to build a complete info product business.

I’ve been developing info products for a number of years now, and have helped many others find their success. It wasn’t always easy, but I’ve broken the process down into 6 easy pieces and put it in a Training Guide (that link gives you a special price because you’ve responded to this guest post – normally the price is $20 higher.)

This is a complete, start to finish business model that can absolutely help you find success with product creation.

Imagine living the life you want to live… this is how it happens.

Picture yourself earning money day and night. Imagine what it will feel like to change your life and the lives of others. How much could you earn if you had a great list, great contacts, a great product funnel, and great success?

There is one thing marketers forget about when they set out to create their info product empire…

What they tend to neglect is the motivation and mindset.

That, in my experience and opinion, is absolutely key. If you aren’t motivated to follow through, you won’t. If you don’t believe in yourself and have strong goals, you’ll never achieve them. That’s exactly why I’ve made that the first module in my 6 Easy Pieces Of Product Creation course.

People tend to be too scattered and unfocused. This Easy Piece all but ensures you carry through with everything it takes to become successful with your own products. If I had to start all over again from nothing, I’d follow these 6 Easy Pieces to very quickly find success again.

Download Your Six Easy Pieces Training Here

What are the 6 Easy Pieces?

1. Motivation
2. Simple 1-day products
3. Powerful, surprising high-end products
4. Incredible sales techniques
5. Unstoppable traffic
6. Advanced methods for newfound success

I’m going to show you how to get motivated, set goals (and reach them), create simple products in just 1 day, create high end, high earning products, easily make sales, drive traffic, and build your list. I also include some “secret sauce” techniques that you’ve never seen anywhere else.

Grab 6 Easy Pieces of Product Creation Here. Dedicate yourself to this, and you can succeed.

Dennis Becker

Please disregard the strikethrough text on each of the links here. It’s a tech issue I’m working to resolve. The links work and lead you to the discounted page for this training from Dennis.
Connie Ragen Green

Online Marketing Tips Podcast: Affiliate Marketing Tips Online

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Affiliate Marketing Tips for Online Entrepreneurs

This most recent podcast is a discussion of affiliate marketing tips that will allow you to have a stream of online income as you build your business as an entrepreneur. I explain this business model as one in which you “recommend what you love” to others who would most benefit.

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. In other words, affiliate marketing is recommending what you love in return for a commission. My all new course on this topic, Really Simple Affiliate Marketing, will be available by the first week of April.

I shared exactly what you need and what you don’t need as an affiliate, and which platforms are typically used by product creators to attract the best affiliates. This episode also includes a Study Guide, which you may download here. It’s the one dated March 18, 2016 and is two pages long. I recommend printing it out and saving it for a reference guide.

The first step in affiliate marketing is to make the decision to pursue this as a business model, and the next step is to choose a niche to work in and promote products. Next comes the process of carefully selecting the people and products you will recommend. We also discuss the importance of creating and marketing content regularly to build your credibility and visibility as an affiliate marketer. It was in 2009 that I was first referred to as a “Super Affiliate”, a term used to describe someone who can help you launch your product or course in a major way. I was in Austin at the time for the Traffic & Conversion Summit and that impacted the way I thought about my online business in a way that changed my thinking forever.

Are you ready to be surprised? Recently, I have introduced a new feature during these podcast training calls. I will always have the latest course or program, either one of my own or one offered by someone I highly recommend, at my Surprise! link. Check it out today and see what I am recommending this week. If it’s not my own program, product, course, or live event then it’s always from someone I know, trust, and highly recommend as a great value to you as an online entrepreneur.

I certainly hope these affiliate marketing tips will be beneficial to you as you grow your business. Online entrepreneurship is most definitely a worthwhile goal.

Are you already a part my list community and receiving my daily email updates and training? If not, please give me your first name and primary email address in the form on the right-hand side of this site. If you are brand new to my podcasts, you will be interested to know that this specific training call, as well as all of the calls in my podcast series is intended to teach you and other new online entrepreneurs how to take your business to the next level quickly and effectively, and as a way for me to share my exact methods, techniques, Case Studies, secrets, and advice on creating a profitable and lucrative online business using the ‘multiple income streams’ approach. People on six continents have now discovered that starting an Internet business is the very fastest way to achieve both time and financial freedom, as well as to great success in all areas of your life, and you need help to get there quickly. That’s why I started this online marketing tips podcast for my community.

You will see that each podcast session is first recorded live as a teleseminar, and then repurposed into a podcast to extend my reach to the world. Please join my list (opt in on the right) to be included on these calls, and be sure to introduce yourself and share your site for optimal exposure for years to come! Also, check out my Podcast Show Notes site to see how you can subscribe at no cost to both of my podcasts, and please leave me a review on one or both of them if you are so inclined.

If you would like to get started earning income online right away then I recommend affiliate marketing as the stream of income that will allow you to “earn while you learn” You may now pick up my popular training on winning affiliate contests and other online marketing tips for only seven dollars at Affiliate Contest Secrets. This training regularly sells for $27. Use the discount code CONTEST to bring the price down to $7. This training has been completely updated for 2016 with the latest information, strategies, and Case Studies for you to use in your own business.

Please be sure to leave your comments below so that I may get to know you better and to serve you as you continue your journey as an online entrepreneur. Getting started with an online business will change your life forever and my reward is your massive success!

Subscribe To My Online Marketing Tips Podcast Today!

Internet Marketing Six Pack

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The Internet Marketing Six Pack Course

When I came upon the idea of starting an online business I didn’t have a clue as to where I should start. In search of an outline or step by step model or instructions, I finally came to the conclusion that I would have to spend the time to figure it out all on my own. With the help of a few mentors I then created my own information that people all over the world have now benefited from. At the beginning of 2016 I turned these years of experience into The Internet Marketing Six Pack. This is the culmination of what I have learned, refined, implemented, and taught since coming online as an entrepreneur in 2006.

The course is broken down into six modules and includes:

Getting Started as an Online Entrepreneur
Two Models – Affiliate Marketing and Information Product Creation
Content Creation, Publication, and Syndication
Credibility, Visibility, and Joint Ventures
Technology for Online Entrepreneurs Made Simple
Advanced Strategies, Techniques, and Business Models

The idea of starting online with affiliate marketing continues to be an excellent one. Most of us come to the Internet with very little background in marketing or product creation, and the idea of being able to promote and recommend other people’s products and courses just makes sense. It is with this model that I was able to “learn while I earned” and observe firsthand what made online entrepreneurship work so well. This business model also enabled me to cultivate and grow my relationships with some of the top marketers in the world.

Creating information products first seemed like a difficult task, but later on I realized that I was simply sharing my knowledge, insights, and experiences in a specific area with those who wanted to know more about the topic. Once I had this idea firmly entrenched in my mind I was off and running as a successful inform product creator and marketer.

Building and increasing my credibility and visibility came more naturally to me, even though there was no social media during my first year on the Internet and I knew little about what I was working so hard to achieve. By turning myself into a writer I was able to share my messages with the world and get the word out about what I was doing and how I could be of service to others. This started with submitting two hundred fifty word articles to the article directories. Soon I followed with weekly teleseminars and short videos. Every single day I expanded my reach with what I was writing or recording. My view of what was possible changed as I became more productive and my online income increased dramatically.

Some joint ventures followed, and these were typically with people whom I had met at live marketing events. Dr. Jeanette Cates and I created courses together, followed by a half dozen live events. These ventures gave me an opportunity to observe how things were done more professionally than what I was accustomed to in my own business.

The technology had been challenging since the very beginning, so when I teamed up with “The Technology Tamer”, as Jeanette was known at the time, I had discovered a method of helping myself learn while also helping others. Together we created, implemented, and taught technology in a way that made it all more simple and effective in setting up a business on the internet.

Authorship came with the publication of my first book in 2010. It was entitled Huge Profits With a Tiny List – 50 Ways to Use Relationship Marketing to Increase Your Bottom Line and was based upon strategies I shared within my articles and blog posts. Once I had published this book I was seen and perceived in a much different way than I had been previously. I had arrived.

What have your experiences been since becoming an online entrepreneur? Which areas do you still need help with in your business? How may I best serve you?

Team Building Techniques for Entrepreneurs

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Effective Team Building Techniques

Even though I work alone as an online entrepreneur, the truth is that I couldn’t do what I do without the help of other people. These people are part of my team, and I value each one of them for what they bring to my business. Teams rise and fall on culture, leadership, relationships, attitude and effort.

During the early 2000s I attended a series of courses and workshops meant to enhance personal development and self growth. One of these was called “Warrior Camp” and we were divided into four teams of about twenty-five people each. These exercises and activities were an excellent way for me to build my confidence and rise to the expectations of my teammates. After almost a week I was forever changed and understood the true meaning and value of team work.

Great teams have a great culture driven by great leadership. Relationships are meaningful and teammates are connected. The collective attitude is very positive and everyone on the team works hard to accomplish their mission. It’s all about teamwork. Sometimes you are the star and sometimes you help the star. If want to be truly great you have to work as hard to be a great teammate as you do to be a great player. When we work hard to be a great team member we make everyone around us better.

Your team doesn’t care if you are a superstar. They care if you are a super team member. Three things you control every day are your attitude, your effort and your actions to be a great teammate. It doesn’t matter what is happening around you and who you think is being unfair. Every day you can focus on being positive, working hard and making others around you better. If you do that great things will happen. One person can’t make a team but one person can break a team. Stay positive!

Make sure you don’t let energy vampires sabotage your team. Post a sign that says “No Energy Vampires” allowed and keep them off the bus. Most importantly, decide to stay positive. While I was working as a classroom teacher for twenty years I allowed people to drain my energy almost every day. It wasn’t the children, it was the adults. Looking back I would have handled these situations much differently.

Great team members hold each other accountable to the high standards and excellence their culture expects and demands. Team beats talent when talent isn’t a team. Great teams care more. They care more about their effort, their work and their team members.

Are you building great teams in your personal and business lives? I hope these team building techniques are helpful in your quest for excellence.

Online Marketing Tips Podcast: Live Marketing Events

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This most recent podcast is a discussion of the value in attending live marketing events, as well as how content marketing can be of great value to your online business.

I shared several stories about live events, including the first time I attended a large marketing event in Atlanta, why the questions people ask at live events are more important than what is discussed, and how to actually earn money both while you are at the event and immediately after returning home. Live marketing events connect you with like-minded entrepreneurs with whom you can do Joint Ventures and brainstorm your thoughts and ideas. My next live event is Weekend Marketer Live! in Los Angeles at the end of April, 2016.

We also discuss the importance of creating and marketing content regularly, how to “blog your book”, and how content can build your online business more quickly than anything else you do. Remember than content can be written, audio, or video, or even a combination of these to reach people with different learning styles and preferences.

Are you ready to be surprised? Recently, I have introduced a new feature during these podcast training calls. I will always have the latest course or program, either one of my own or one offered by someone I highly recommend, at my Surprise! link. Check it out today and see what I am recommending this week. If it’s not my own program, product, course, or live event then t’s always from someone I know, trust, and highly recommend as a great value to you as an online entrepreneur.

Are you already a part my list community and receiving my daily email updates? If not, please give me your first name and primary email address in the form on the right-hand side of this site. If you are brand new to my podcasts, you will be interested to know that this specific training call, as well as all of the calls in my podcast series is intended to teach you and other new online entrepreneurs how to take your business to the next level quickly and effectively, and as a way for me to share my exact methods, techniques, Case Studies, secrets, and advice on creating a profitable and lucrative online business using the ‘multiple income streams’ approach. People on six continents have now discovered that starting an Internet business is the very fastest way to achieve both time and financial freedom, as well as to great success in all areas of your life, and you need help to get there quickly. That’s why I started this online marketing tips podcast for my community.

Subscribe To My Online Marketing Tips Podcast Today!

Characteristics of a Successful Freelance Writer

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How To Become A Freelance Writer

This is a guest post from the talented and savvy Ron Douglas and Alice Seba.

You may have heard it said that anyone can become a freelance writer. While this may be true to an extent, the ones who make it for the long haul stand out from the crowd. Outside of having writing skills (a MUST), these are the 3 key characteristics that will help ensure your greater success. If you don’t have these skills perfected, there are steps you can take to improve them and we’ve included tips for you below.

Successful Freelancers Stick to Their Schedule

As a freelancer it’s tempting to play hooky. When you’re the boss nobody knows if you’re working or playing. In fact, your client doesn’t really care as long as you get your work done and respond to them promptly. However, as you already know, things happen. If you wait until the very last minute to work on a project chances are that’s the day you’re going to be sick. That’s the day your internet is going to go down. It’s very stressful and often puts you in a situation where you have to ask the client for more time. That’s not a good way to earn repeat business or referrals. Sticking to a schedule accomplishes a few things. The first is that it helps you stay relatively stress free. This is important or you’re going to get burnt out quickly. Your schedule also helps you plan for play time. Finally, sticking to a schedule helps you remain professional. Make sure you schedule your work hours and prioritize client work. Figure out which times of day are your most productive and take advantage of that. And most importantly, don’t take on more than you can manage and make client satisfaction a priority.

Successful Freelancers Know Their Market

It’s very important for you to know your customer inside and out. What do they need? Why do they need it? How can you offer them the best value possible? When you understand your market, your customer, then you can offer them exactly what they need. It makes being a freelancer much easier and more profitable. But more than that, they know how to target their IDEAL CLIENT. The client who is going to be easiest to work with, value your time and pay you well. We include detailed training for you in our WriterHelpWanted membership to help you identify those best clients for you.

Successful Freelancers Actively Market Their Skills

Rather than sitting back and waiting for new clients to come to them, a successful freelancer markets their services and seeks customers and projects. Marketing isn’t something everyone loves to do. However, if you want to make money as a freelancer it’s important to market your services. Additionally, if you enjoy your freelance specialty and/or niche then marketing is actually quite fun. It’s easy to get busy with clients and then forget to continue to market yourself, but marketing is an important part of your business. Make sure you: * Help your client identify the ongoing needs they have for your service and show them how it will help them grow their business. * Ask for referrals and actively follow up with those referrals. * Build relationships with other freelancers, so you can refer work to one another It can be very rewarding to be a freelancer and if you’re already freelancing, you know it can also be quite challenging. Approach your freelance career as if you were creating a business…because you are creating a business. Plan your business. Create policies and procedures. Establish a system of working that balances work and free time. The more professional your freelance business is, the more successful you’ll be.

Want to Write for a Living?

WriterHelpWanted.com co-founders, Ron Douglas and Alice Seba, recently got together to discuss the 5 obstacles that keep most writer from earning a good living from their writing. Click here to access this eye-opening recording.

How to Attract Ideal Clients for Your Business

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How to Attract Ideal Clients

Learning how to attract ideal clients is important, but the first order of business is to figure out who your ideal client actually is. When you figure that out you’ll be able to create better products and services, based on exactly what they really need and want. There is an easy way to get started with market identification.

Niche It Down – You want to start with the tiniest potential market that will think what you are offering is perfect for them. While this feels strange to find the smallest market, counterintuitive even, the fact is you can expand later. But right now you want to identify the smallest market who wants what you are offering and get to know them.

Understand Your USP – Next work on understanding your unique selling point also called a unique value proposition in other words – why you? Why are you the one to provide this product or service to the small narrow audience you determined above? Work on explaining that while also keeping in mind that the audience needs everything couched in how it helps them.

Offer Free Samples – Gain access to your audience that you’ve identified by offering a free sample of what you can do for them. Ask for feedback on your free sample from this audience so that you can make your offerings better. Knowing what they feel and think can help you develop better products and marketing materials in the future.

Sketch Your Customer – After you’ve tested your niche audience with your free sample, and received feedback, you should be able to get a good idea of exactly who your customer is enabling you to create a persona of your ideal customer. You want to know, their demographics, what do they do on a Sunday night, and more. Anything you can learn to help you create a complete customer sketch or avatar is helpful.

Repeat – As you go through the motions of niching down, defining and understanding your USP you’ll be able to improve your customer sketch over time. Keep doing it, and keep learning because no group stays completely the same. Their values may change over time as a group.

Your ideal customer, as identified, will become very important going forward. As you continue to learn about them, you’ll be able to identify more problems that you can solve within your expertise, thus, creating a very powerful product creation cycle that works in concert with your marketing plans.

How to Determine If a Client Is the Right Fit

If you have a service based business over a product based business you may have to work a little differently to get the right clients. You’ll do “all of the above”, but you’ll have the added step of speaking directly with the client and working with them one-on-one. You can do this in a few different ways.

We discussed a freebie, and if your client liked the freebie and now wants to move forward to working with you, it’s best to start with a small or short term project. During project ask yourself the following questions.

Is This Your Area of Expertise? – Even if you think you’re a jack of all trades, the best way to work is to choose a particular area of expertise and market those skills. Don’t too much of everything will dilute your worth and actually work against you. Choose an area to focus on and stick to that with your clients.

Does The Client Accept Your Terms? – As a contractor and not an employee, it’s imperative that a client accept your terms and your process as how things will be done. It should all be spelled out in your contract and understandable to you both. This will be a big sign as to how well you’ll work together. Don’t feel compelled to make changes if it’s something that will make you miserable or interrupt your systems.

Are the Client’s Expectations Realistic? – As you interview the client, you’ll be able to tell if their expectations make sense. The best way to find out is to ask them what they expect the results of your relationship to be. If they have pie in the sky unrealistic notions you can correct them before you start.

Does The Client Follow Your Process? – If you’ve developed systems (which you should have) then when you try to explain them to the potential client is it easy for them to understand? Do they want to follow it? For example, if you use Basecamp, are they willing to sign in and learn it and use it?

Are You Invested in Their Success? – When you talk to the potential client and get an understanding of what they are doing, does it excite you? Do you want them to succeed? This is an important component in ensuring that you’ll be happy working with the new client. If you don’t like what they do, don’t respect it, and aren’t excited about it, it will be hard to be invested enough to do a good job.

Taking this time to test the client’s responsiveness and the overall fit between the two of you is an important way to ensure that taking on the client long term will pay off for both of you. If you start with a short term project you can get through it well, probably even earn a good testimonial out of it even if you don’t move forward and work with the person long term. If you’re finding that you don’t mesh with the people you’re attracting you may want to create a customer avatar to help you hone in your marketing. What other questions may I answer for you on how to attract ideal clients?