As you know, this is a great time of year to write helpful posts for your tribe about how to stay healthy during the holidays: what to eat, how to manage stress, fresh ideas for their families.

While you’re creating content to support your health coaching clients, I’m here to show you how to keep your business healthy through the holidays!

It’s way too easy to get distracted this time of year. And it’s OK to take time off from your business, in fact you absolutely should. But there’s a difference between scheduling time off from your business and honoring those boundaries, and just ignoring your business until sometime in January.

Schedule time off

Whether it’s a day or two around Christmas and New Year’s (that’s what I’m taking!) or a full two weeks or even a month, decide what you need to enjoy your family celebrations this year and relax and rejuvenate before the new year begins. Block that time off, let your clients, colleagues and family know, and stick to your schedule.

Bonus Tip Use your business tech to firm up your boundaries: an online calendar is the BEST way to make it very clear to your clients – and yourself – when you’re available for appointments, and when you’re not. Let your website, shopping cart and online scheduler keep your business running while you’re sipping eggnog by the fire. There are so many ways to automate – use them to your advantage all year long.

Take stock before you take off

Take some time to reflect on 2012. Focus on what you excelled at this year, what you’re thrilled about and all the good you did for others. Consider the things you didn’t get done and if they still sound like fun to you, move them forward to your 2013 goals list. This isn’t about berating yourself for what you didn’t get done, but really appreciating yourself for all you did do.

Now create a clear intention for the new year – not a list of 50 things you want to do – but a guiding thought to align yourself with. This may be your word, or words, of the year. Getting grounded in this way before holiday time off will make it so much easier to start up again in January with a sense of clarity.

Bonus Tip Finish preparations to launch a special product or service designed for the holidays or the new year, and get it automated and ready to go so your business can start 2013 strong. Enjoy watching your list and your bank account grow, even while you’re baking cookies with the kids. Get the support you need to make it happen.

Honor your clients

If it feels good to you, create a holiday thank you for your clients and partners this year. Don’t do it because you “should”, that will only create more stress and not be as effective or authentic. Do only what feels aligned.

You might send handwritten cards, or use a service like sendoutcards.com and have your VA set that up for you. You can offer a holiday sale on your services and gift certificates. Consider what you could do to make your clients’ holidays more fun, more healthy and less stressful than ever before.

And it’s OK if your holiday offer becomes a New Year’s offer if it just doesn’t fit into your busy holiday life right now.

Bonus Tip Offer a free ebook or teleseminar geared towards supporting your clients through the holidays. You might also offer one of your products at a special rate, promoting it as a gift idea to help your clients complete their holiday shopping.

My gift to you

The end of the year can bring you down if you’re looking back at it with critical eyes. Instead, hold the truth of “I did my best and I’m awesome” and look at your accomplishments through those eyes.

Now consider – objectively – the goals that remain unfinished. Ask yourself “how would it feel to complete that goal in 2013?” Check in to be sure you’re still aligned with the idea, before you recommit to it.

I am certain that at least one of your unrealized goals has “tech terror” written all over it.

How do I know? Because all of my clients experience this – including me sometimes!

It is my wish for you that you’ll stop letting tech terror hold you back. Reach out for the support you need. You can train yourself, have someone teach you or adopt the mindset of the successful business owner and hire the right experts to set you up right (saving you endless time, money and frustration).

I’m here to help. It’s what I do.

In 2012 my clients launched new books, home study programs, teleseminars, info-products and detox groups, raised their rates and attracted their ideal clients, let go of website shame and launched a custom website that reflects who they are, built their lists with ezine systems and social media pages, and finally started reaching blogging.

They learned how to lead teleseminars, the difference between categories and tags, how to use their Facebook page, why AWeber’s awesome, the freedom an online schedule creates, how to write content that inspires their ideal clients to take action… and much more.

There’s no denying the importance of the right tech to help you grow your business and simplify your life. If you’re ready to discover what’s possible for YOU with the right tech foundation and coaching, get in touch today.

Schedule an Awesome Tech Breakthrough Session now and save up to 25% on all Awesome Tech Packages purchased by Dec 31st. I can only offer these low prices to three new clients this month, so get on my schedule pronto.

I’m super excited to hear your great ideas and show you how my team and I can bring it to life for you!

To your awesome biz,

Stay connected to grow your business and simplify your life in 2013! I’m busy creating FREE teleseminars and training webinars with you in mind, and I want to make sure you don’t miss anything. So click here now!

As this year comes to a close, reflect back on all you have to appreciate: the success you attracted, the ideas you created, the lives you touched. See yourself and your business through a positive lens (there’s always good stuff to see if you allow it!)

While you gather in dinner conversation with friends and family, tell the story of what’s going well for you and what you appreciate.

You may be tempted to focus on what’s not working, what you’re worried about, what you feel you failed at. It’s easier, somehow, to recall our failings and forget our successes.

Without a doubt, you enjoyed success in your life, and in your business, this year. Put your attention and energy on what went well, and what you want more of, and not on the rest.

Make a quick list of the good stuff you created in your business this year. Maybe it was…

• the great comments your blog post got
• all of the new people who joined your Facebook page
• your favorite clients and the success they’re having
• a speaking engagement that went better than you expected
• finally starting your newsletter or blog
• overcoming your fears to create your first teleseminar series
• writing content for your new website
• exceeding your monthly income goals more than once
• shifting your success mindset to allow your business to grow
• hiring a coach, an assistant, a bookkeeper, a tech manager
• discovering ways to simplify things
• letting go of something that was no longer serving you

You’ve had many successes this year – big and small – so take the time to appreciate how far you’ve come!

Love and appreciation are identical vibrations. Appreciation is the vibration of alignment with who-you-are. Appreciation is the absence of everything that feels bad and the presence of everything that feels good.

When you focus upon what you want – when you tell the story of how you want your life to be – you will come closer and closer to the vicinity of appreciation, and when you reach it, it will pull you toward all things that you consider to be good in a very powerful way.

Abraham-Hicks

I have such appreciation for you, my readers, my clients, my colleagues, my coach, my team, my family, my friends – and myself – for all of the success I enjoyed this year.

I am looking forward to continuing to support you and your business in the year to come.

Wishing you a very happy holiday,

Let’s Stay Connected: please click here to join my new Aweber list (I’m finally making the upgrade from Constant Contact!) so you’ll be the first to know about all the new stuff I have in store for YOU.

Coming in 2013: a brand new website for GetAwesomeTech.com, a new book, “Make Your Website Awesome: Discover the REAL Reason It’s Not Attracting Clients and What to Do About It”, and free teleseminars and webinars all designed to grow your wellness business and simplify your life!

Adding images to your blog posts, and other pages of your website, can really add client-attractive appeal. A picture does speak a thousand words, after all.

With the popularity of Pinterest and Instagram, it’s clear social media is more fun with photos and images, too.

There’s a difference though in sharing images on Facebook or Pinterest, and adding them to your website.

You’ll notice most of my blog posts include an image. Ever wonder where they come from?

They do not come from a Google image search. They were not downloaded from somebody else’s blog or website.

I am not the type of person to dwell on the “what could go wrongs”, but there’s something about “stealing” photos and images that never felt right to me. And I never wanted to find out what might happen if the photo’s copyright owner noticed.

Using Stock Photos

Instead I use Stock.XCHNG for free stock images and iStockphoto for low-cost images. Both of these sites are part of the Getty Images family.

iStockphoto has a large selection of professional photographs, is easy to search by keywords and offers many images for under $2. Stock.XCHNG offers images free of charge.

I always start my image search on Stock.XCHNG because free is good, but it’s not as much fun to search this site, and depending on the subject matter you’re looking for, there are less high-quality images to choose from. I often find something that works though.

I turn to iStockphoto when I want a photo of people. Their professional images are just better, and cover far more categories. You can choose to search for images on the low end of the price scale, and when you find one you like, the smallest size is often perfect for a blog post (200-500 px wide works).

To purchase an image license on iStockphoto you first buy a pack of credits ($19.99 for 12 credits), and then you pay for each photo based on how many credits it costs. I stick with 1 credit images for blog posts. I’d expand my price range if I was searching for a photo to use on a book cover, in a logo or other marketing materials.

After I upload the photo to my blog post, I can use the URL to add the image to my next newsletter with a link back to my blog post. Double duty!

When you share your blog post on Facebook, it will catch more attention with a thumbnail of the post image you added.

There are plenty of other sources for stock photos, but these are the two I use regularly for my own blog. My graphic designer often uses ShutterStock when she’s working on custom ebook covers and other graphics for my clients.

If you want to understand more about the ramifications of copyright infringement, read Ryan Healy’s post about the letter he got from Getty Images.

Using Your Own Photos

You can also add photos you took to your blog. It’s great to add pics that show you as a living example of your brand’s healthy living message. These might include images of you with your family, a meal you prepared or an event you attended. Your health coaching clients would love to see how you practice what they’re still learning.

For other subjects, use your own photos sparingly if you’re not so great with a camera. You’re a business-builder, not a blogger, so the look of your blog will lean more towards the professional.

Check Your Business Mindset

Check in with yourself. If you don’t believe your coaching website will ever be seen by more than some friends, colleagues and a handful of clients, then the legal stuff probably doesn’t mean anything to you.

If, however, you have a big vision for your wellness business, you must prepare for thousands (millions?) of people nationwide and internationally to visit your website. With that long-term plan in mind, you want to make choices now that you won’t regret later.

I love colors, graphics and images. If you do too, check out the stock photo sites I recommended and have fun with it!

To your awesome biz,

Got Awesome Tech? Let me show you how to grow your business and simplify your life with the right {awesome} technology. Start by scheduling an Awesome Tech Breakthrough Session today!

The internet can be a scary place sometimes. Visualize your ideal client, finally ready to make a change to improve her life, surfing the net hoping to find a health coach like you. What will she feel when she finds your website?

The feeling you want your website to convey is one of relief mixed with excitement. “Wow, she gets me!”

If instead your website is confusing, unattractive, functioning poorly, not relevant to her or just plain dull, she will quickly look elsewhere.

If one of these non-client-attractive website types describes your business’ site, it’s definitely time to make a change.

Attack of the Clones

Your website has the same depth of humanity as a Stepford Wife. It may feel safer to just say what everyone else is saying, but it will not attract clients. Instead, be you.

If you’re using a cloned, or template, website you must update the content to reflect your voice and your unique message so your ideal client knows they’re in the right place to get the support they’re seeking.

Your website’s homepage can be a personal letter, from you to your ideal client. Write the way you speak, in your ideal client’s language. Speak directly to the fears that keep her up at night.

To showcase your brand and attract ideal clients more easily, you’ll want to build a custom website that reflects your message, your style and your ideal clients’ needs.

Ghost of Websites Past

I get worried whenever I visit a website and click the “Events” link only to discover this coach’s last event was two years ago! Is her business still alive, or is it merely a ghost still haunting the internet?

To keep your business current, your website must always appear current. Ideally, you will post new content to your blog on a weekly (or at least monthly) basis. Unless you host events frequently and consistently, it’s better to use your blog to add posts about events as they come up, rather than have a dedicated Events page.

Create a blog category called “Events” for these posts. That way even if the last event was a while back, there’s plenty of new blog content since then. Visitors to your site will know you’re still breathing!

What A Mess

Nothing is as it appears on these websites. Links go nowhere. The content boggles the mind. Punctuation is horrifically missing. Empty frames appear where images should be.

Sites like these make me feel like I’ve entered an M.C. Escher illustration. Nothing lines up evenly, social media buttons float aimlessly across my screen, pop-ups jump out behind every corner, links take me off to other websites. I don’t know where I am or where I’m going.

Forget bells and whistles and keep your website simple and functioning well. The more fancy widgets and plugins you try to use, the more likely it is that one will malfunction and create a mess of your website. Hire a tech savvy friend or expert to help you clean things up.

Be sure that your website is a user-friendly experience with clear content and links to take action. Have a marketing coach or writer proofread your site for you (be sure to choose someone familiar with the health coaching industry). Test all of your links frequently. Include a call to action at the bottom of every page, such as a link to schedule a Breakthrough Session or to subscribe to your ezine.

Who’s There?

To me, there’s nothing worse than a website full of blinking and flashing little ads. I move as fast as I can away from these websites. And so will your ideal clients.

As a new health coach, you might think adding a wide variety of affiliate ads and network marketing products to your website will help increase your income. All it really does however is leave your potential client feeling “sold to” and wondering, “who’s behind all of this?”

A good website lets the ideal client know they’re in the right place immediately and that you understand their needs and can help. Even though the products you wish to sell may be excellent, flashing ads at a new visitor to your website will scare them away. A website full of ads gives the impression there’s no one behind it, or that you’re hiding, unwilling to really stand for your products.

The ideal client is looking for YOU, not the latest juicer or supplement. They can find those things anywhere.

Get clear on your brand’s message and focus your website around it. If you’re building a private coaching business, put your energy towards marketing your health coaching programs rather than getting involved with every new product you hear about. Instead of splitting your focus – especially in the first year or two of your business – incorporate the products you sell into your coaching programs.

Your products are best used as one of the many “tools” in your health coaching toolbox. Offer tailored recommendations and samples to your clients and they’ll be more likely to purchase products from you. You may even include something, like a cleanse system or a starter set of essential oils, as part of a high-end coaching program.

Use your blog to highlight one product at a time, describing its specific benefits for your ideal client – in your own words – with a link to find out more information or to buy. Sharing your love of these products in a personal way is more effective than littering up your website with a bunch of little soulless ads.

I don’t recommend copying and pasting product information directly from the manufacturer’s website. Maintain the tone of your website (your voice!) by writing product descriptions in your own words.

The Doom and the Gloom

Cancer is going to kill you! Don’t eat that GMO corn! Beware of gluten and soy and dairy and…!!! It’s too much.

As a health coach, you know it all. Hearing about people suffering with health problems when simple changes to their diet can help keeps you up at night. That’s why you’re the health coach. You can make a difference.

Now consider your ideal client. She’s already terribly confused by all the conflicting information she reads about nutrition and she’s scared of getting the same illness her mother had. Don’t make it worse!

Let your website be a refuge from all the madness. Speak in her language; show that you understand her needs and that you can help. Create a safe space. It’s far more effective to educate your clients about what’s good for them and coach them to crowd out the junk, than it is to overwhelm and paralyze them with the same doom and gloom the media gives them… plus all the extra-scary stuff you know as an expert.

Use your website, blog and newsletter to shed light on why leafy greens are good for you and how to reduce stress and get more sleep, rather than continue to list all the health horrors that may await them. Yes, it can help your marketing to stir up their fears a bit as a way to inspire them to take action, but don’t overdo it!

Time for an Upgrade

Pay attention to your ideal client’s experience of your website. Look at ways you can make it more aesthetically pleasing, relevant to your ideal client’s specific needs and action-oriented.

A welcoming website that provides value and makes it easy for your ideal client to get started working with you will help build your health coaching business.

If you’re ready to talk about how a website upgrade can take your health coaching business to the next level, schedule an Awesome Tech Breakthrough Session now. From content creation coaching to custom wordpress websites, I’ve got you covered.

To your awesome biz,

Want More? For quick tips and tricks to grow your biz and simplify your life, join me in the Awesome Tech Community on Facebook now. Like it here!

Just got some beautiful words from one of my favorite clients!

Deanna Hansen developed a unique system of body work called Fluid Isometrics. With her team of practitioners she offers life-changing treatments at her center in Winnipeg, Canada.

Deanna just launched a home study program, 90 Days to a Whole New You, which can teach you how to transform your health from the comfort of your own home!

I had the pleasure of working with Heather Cottrell for the past year. The first thing I really appreciated was her ability to communicate with ease, honesty and direction.

I have worked with many people for my website and Heather was the first person to make me feel like my work was taken care of, and that she had a vested interest in creating the best possible message for my tribe to see. It was so refreshing to have someone excited and so skilled. There was never a moment I felt I wasn’t supported with my needs and everything was taken care of in a timely manner.

I would highly recommend Heather to be a part of any team needing website development and management. She is professional, organized and extremely considerate. Her knowledge and skills stay current so you can be assured you will be receiving the most up-to-date management required.

Deanna Hansen
Founder and Director
FluidIsometrics.com

I upgraded Deanna’s website to make it easier to use for both the visitor and her team. It involved combining essentially two websites – her blog had been created as a separate site – and adding some cool extras, like the blog feature gallery on her home page, and pages where she can showcase her book, home study program and more.

Deanna and her team regularly add new blog posts with great wellness tips, as well as inspiring videos of their patients’ progress.

If you’re ready for a new website, or website upgrade, for your wellness business, get started by scheduling your Awesome Tech Breakthrough Session today!

To your awesome biz,

About the Author: An experienced health coach with marketing training and tech skills? That’s me. Let me show you how to grow your business and simplify your life with the right {awesome} tech.

From Heather: Sharing valuable content with your tribe on a consistent basis is good marketing. But sometimes, you get busy, or hit writer’s block. Check out these ideas to help you stay in touch with your peeps, from Michelle Shaeffer. One tip is to share relevant content from another source, and so I did!

By Michelle Shaeffer

Ever sit down at the computer to blog and the words just don’t come out? Your fingers are poised over the keyboard but the voices in your head are busy telling you that you’ve had a long day, there are a million other things you need to get done and it’s past your bedtime.

On those days, it doesn’t matter how many great sources I look at for inspiration, or fantastic blog post prompts I’ve got, or how many different article templates I browse through. All the great advice about “write in advance” and “keep a list of ideas” isn’t helpful when you’re stuck. Sometimes our brains just need a break and they go on strike until we take some time off to recharge.

So what can you do when you want/need to blog but it’s the last thing you feel like doing and ideas just don’t seem to be coming? Never fear! Here are some simple ideas to help you survive and get a blog post published quickly.

Try Something Different

Sometimes a different medium can be inspiring.

Do an audio post – just record your thoughts with AudioBoo or Cinch.fm and add it to a post.

Do a video post – turn on the webcam and talk, or do a screencast recording with Jing.

Share Something Cool From Someone Else’s Brain

Your brain wants a break. Be nice and give it a break. You could share…

• a YouTube video
• a TED talk video
• an article from EzineArticles
• a resource or tool you like or that’s been helpful for you
• some cool links/bloggers you’ve run across in the past week
• share a post with links to your best past posts on a topic (like your best advice for bloggers, your 5 most popular recipes, the most commented stories you’ve shared, etc.)

Take Time Out & Share It

Give yourself a break. Take a walk. Go to the library. Grab a mocha. Read a book. Do something to recharge your batteries, then share about what you did to get away.

I’d love to see a photo of the sunset where you are. Or that peaceful spot you like to sit and think. It’s probably not what you usually blog about, but it’s okay to show the personal side of yourself and give your readers something to connect with.

Your readers probably need to relax, too, and just might follow your lead and be thankful.

Want to get your message out? I help entrepreneurs with blogging, social media, websites & online marketing. Connect with me on Twitter @MichelleShaeffr or at http://michelleshaeffer.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michelle_Shaeffer

http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Blog-When-You-Are-Exhausted-and-Uninspired&id=6568984

—————

Hey, I’d love to hear some of your best blogging tips.

What gets you writing? Please share below!

To your awesome biz,

For twelve years I lived in a one-room studio with no kitchen sink. Sure it was in a cool Brooklyn neighborhood, close to the city, and my rent was excellent. When I moved in I planned to stay just one year and then find something bigger.

But I let myself get stuck. There were plenty of reasons I stayed there so long, but I can see in retrospect how I had boxed myself in with limiting beliefs.

Some part of me had the idea that a one-room studio was my match. It was what I “deserved” and all I needed. When I first started looking at new apartments last Fall in Dutchess County, NY I found myself most comfortable with the studios at first. “It’s a much bigger studio” I said to myself, “and it has a kitchen sink!”

So glad I caught myself. Self-awareness is essential to creating the life you want.

I quickly decided I wouldn’t settle for anything less than a one-bedroom and went back to craigslist to search again. That’s when I saw a listing for a cute two-bedroom apartment. And it cost just slightly more than I’d been paying all those years.

When I arrived to see the two-bedroom it turned out there were two of them available on the same property. One was small, and one was large.

When I walked into the larger two-bedroom apartment I instantly fell in love. In many ways, it fit the idea in my head of what a “real” apartment looked like. It looked like the kind of place a “grown-up” would live in.

Still stuck in my box of limiting beliefs, I tried to talk myself out of the bigger place. I didn’t feel like a match for it. Like it was better than me.

What an eye-opener!

I can see now all the other ways I box myself in. I had ideas about how much money I could earn. And I was running my business on a seven year old 13″ MacBook (far from ideal for a tech business!)

Becoming aware of this box I chose to lock myself into has changed everything. I made a choice to step out of it.

I’m writing this post on my gorgeous new 21.5″ iMac, from my home office. My home office, the second bedroom of my two-bedroom apartment, is my favorite room in the house. Plus I’m well on track to more than double last year’s income.

And all it took, really, was noticing the tiny limiting boxes I’d built up around me, and leaving them behind.

What helped me notice my boxes and recognize what I wanted instead, was surrounding myself with successful colleagues and hiring great coaches.

Your boxes may have nothing to do with the size of your home, your computer or your bank account. They can be limiting ideas about how good your body can feel, how loving your relationships can be and how much success you can have.

If you’re anything like me and my clients, you probably have limiting ideas about what you can earn in your wellness practice and how much power you have to create the business you want. You may limit yourself by charging too little for your services, by seeing clients at night when you’d rather not, or by always chasing the next new thing, not trusting yourself to stay focused on one thing at a time in your business.

All because you think you should. Should is a great box maker!

Take an honest look at what you believe about yourself and your business. What are the boxes you’ve created for yourself? Once you see them, it’s easier to laugh at the silliness that got you stuck in a tiny apartment with a tiny income.

Step outside your box and see what else is possible!

To your awesome life,

Ready for a bigger box? Are your limiting beliefs keeping you stuck in overwhelm about the tech you need to build your business? Let’s talk about what’s possible when you let yourself think bigger. Schedule an Awesome Tech Breakthrough Session now.

Sometimes my clients ask me a question about something and we both end up confused because they’re not entirely sure what to ask.

They may use the wrong terminology, or may request I do X when what they need is Y.

That’s why I always like to ask my client what result they want, not how they think they want it done.

The other day, one of my favorite clients emailed me a question about her three pages on Facebook. Now, I knew she had only one Facebook business page, so I wondered why she suddenly had three.

Turns out she was referring to her personal “timeline”, her “newsfeed” and her “business page” as three separate pages. I responded with a simple Facebook tutorial and thought I’d share my response with you too, because I’m sure she’s not the only one who gets this stuff mixed up. (Especially with Facebook changing things every other day!)

Here’s how Facebook breaks down:

1) You have a personal profile, now called your “timeline”. The personal profile used to be called your “wall”.

This is where YOU post updates, photos, links, etc. Everything you post on your “timeline” shows up in the “newsfeed” of people who are your friends.

To visit your “timeline”, a friend has to search your name or click on it when you appear in their “newsfeed”. People don’t visit a friend’s “timeline” very often, but when they do, they can also post to your “timeline” (unless you’ve turned off this option).

FYI, your personal profile might still be in the old style, and will automatically be updated to the “timeline” style soon.

How to view your personal profile, aka “timeline”: click on your name, any where you see it around Facebook.

2) You have a “newsfeed”. That’s usually the main page you see when you login to Facebook. This is where all of your friend’s posts, photos and links show up, and also where the “pages” you’ve liked will show up with their status updates, photos, links, etc.

This is where most people interact with their friends – you click like on a post, or comment on something, or click share on something they’ve posted.

Your “newsfeed” is home-base. The left-hand column can be set up with your favorite lists, pages, groups, apps, etc for ease of navigation. Include your own “business page” here as a favorite, and you’ll be able to reach it easily.

How to view your “newsfeed”: click on the Facebook logo in upper-left, or click on Home in the upper-right corner.

3) You may have a “business page”, sometimes called a “fan page”. This is where you post updates, photos, links and anything else related to your business. What you post here will appear in the “newsfeed” of anyone who has LIKED your “business page”.

Again, people who LIKED your “business page” may just see your updates in their “newsfeed” and never visit your “business page”. The more an individual interacts with your “business page” the more often you show up in their “newsfeed”.

An example of a “business page”: Get Awesome Tech

Hope that helps clear up some Facebook basics for you. More questions? Post them on the Awesome Tech Facebook page (that’s the link above) and I’ll help you out.

To your awesome biz,

About the Author: An experienced health coach with marketing training and tech skills? That’s me. Let me show you how to grow your business and simplify your life with the right {awesome} technology. Start by scheduling an Awesome Tech Breakthrough Session today!

Obviously, I like technology. I believe it can help build your business, simplify your life and even make things a lot more fun.

Like everything though, moderation is key. It’s important to enjoy some tech-free moments, days and weekends so you can stay focused on the present.

Ever take a night off from your business and still feel fried because even though you said you weren’t working you were still checking emails on your iPad, texting with colleagues and talking on your cell?

Being present during your downtime, whether alone or with friends and family, is essential to having an awesome life. Otherwise, everything’s going by too fast, you feel constantly over-stimulated and you’re on the road to burnout.

Let’s avoid all that. Check out these 8 tips to help you stay focused from tiny buddha:

Technology pervades our world. From cell phones and laptops to iPods and digital cameras, the average person owns an arsenal of gadgets that, in many ways, simplify life. You can increase your productivity, connect with people quickly, and access information instantaneously—while documenting your every move via tweets and photos to upload to Twitpic or Facebook.

Which begs the question: at what point does technology stop enhancing life and start detracting from it?

Continue reading 8 WAYS TO STAY PRESENT & FOCUSED IN A TECH-DRIVEN WORLD

I stay away from my laptop on the weekends, and I feel so much more sane and focused on Monday mornings. What about you? How often do you take a break from tech? Comment below!

To your awesome life,

About the author: My name is Heather Cottrell and I show health coaches, wellness pros and creative entrepreneurs like you how the right tech can build your business and simplify your life. Let me show you how to make it EASY. Schedule an Awesome Tech Breakthrough Session now (and save $150!).

If you’ve ever taken a ballroom or swing dance class, you know the importance of having a strong lead. In dance, the lead is taken by the male partner. In business, the lead is taken by you.

A strong leader knows what steps they will take next, and confidently guides their partner to move with them. The results are beautiful and the dance feels good for both partners.

Without a strong lead, the partnership fails.

In marketing your wellness business, you must take the lead. Starting with the your first contact with a potential client, through the trust-building process, the breakthrough session, the payment process and in your coaching relationship (and beyond).

One place where many wellness pros fail to take the lead is on their website. It is so important to remember that your potential clients are just as over-stimulated as the rest of us.

If and when they find your site, they likely have a number of other browser windows and tabs open at the same time, and so you have only a few seconds to capture their interest, and begin building a relationship with them.

How do you capture your ideal client’s interest quickly?

With your words. You must let your ideal clients know they’re in the right place. You must write in their language (not your healer’s language) and you must show them that you “get them” and that you’re the right person to partner with to solve their current challenges.

Here’s an example of a strong welcome from my health and life coaching homepage:

Attention young, creative 30- and 40-something professionals feeling frustrated on a daily basis:

Does any of this sound like you?

You know you could be taking much better care of yourself. And deep down you know you’re capable of so much more.

Maybe you find yourself feeling drained and distracted at the office…

What are the first words on your homepage? Do they speak directly to your ideal client in THEIR language?

How do you begin building a relationship with your ideal client?

By leading their experience on your website (and throughout every aspect of your business). What happens when your visitor reads to the end of your homepage? Are you guiding them to take an action?

Think of each page of your website like the page of a book. If you’re reading a book, you know what to do next: turn the page. On a website, it’s less obvious. Do they need to scroll all the way back up to your navigation menu and pick another page to read?

Or have you made it very clear at the end bottom of EVERY page of your website what action you would like them to take next? This is known as a “call to action”.

Your “call to action” can be:

• a link to purchase and schedule a Breakthrough Session
• a link to join your ezine list and get your free gift
• a link to “like” your Facebook page
• a link to email you directly
• a link to visit another page (from the home page to your services page, for example)
• a link to your latest blog post

You can experiment to find what works for you and your tribe. The key is to be clear what action you want them to take, and make it very easy for them to take that action.

In most cases, the action you’ll want them to take is to purchase and schedule a Breakthrough Session with you. You can also have two “calls to action”: one to schedule and one to join your list (“if you’re not ready yet”) or to visit your Services page (“if you’d like to learn more”).

It’s essential not to leave your ideal clients hanging. Always give them a clear, easy way to take an action – on every page of your website, at the bottom of each blog post, in your newsletters, on your Facebook page, at the end of your speaking events and teleseminars, etc.

A strong leader knows who their ideal dance partner is, and asks them to dance.

To your awesome biz,

Need a website makeover? If you’re ready to take your biz to the next level, you need the right website to get you there. I offer three awesome tech packages, including a tech-only package and a VIP program that includes content creation coaching, and all the awesome tech you need to effectively lead your ideal client’s experience. Schedule an Awesome Tech Breakthrough Session now.