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“To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.” — Mark Twain

“Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?” — Steve Jobs

“Nothing is certain except death and taxes.” — Benjamin Franklin

“Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.” — David Dixon

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.” — Groucho Marx

“A clean desk is a sign of a cluttered desk drawer.” — Author Unknown

“When you’re up to your armpits in alligators, it’s hard to remember to drain the swamp.” ― Ronald Reagan

“To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer.” — Bill Vaughan

“Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.” — Mark Twain

“A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.” — Bob Hope

“The light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off due to budget cuts.” — Author Unknown

“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.” — Howard Aiken

“While money can’t buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.” ― Groucho Marx

“A picture is worth a thousand words but it takes 3,000 times the disk space.” — Author Unknown

“Aim low, reach your goals, and avoid disappointment.” — Scott Adams/Dilbert

And if you need even more levity to get through your work day, I highly recommend some Demotivators from Despair.com

The next time you look at your website keep some of these questions in mind:

How does your content read on the page?

Is the text legible, large enough to read on a monitor or tablet? Is there enough contrast between the color of the font and the background it sits on?

Is the information on your site easy to find?

Is the most important content accessible in just one or two clicks of the mouse or is it buried 10 pages deep?

Where is your navigation?

Is the website’s navigation consistent in location, order and titles?

Can the visitor, and your potential clients, find your contact information?

Is it easy to find the name of your business, it’s phone number and address?

Does the visitor have a clear call to action?

Do they know what you want them to do with your website? Subscribe to a newsletter, buy a product, call for information?

Do your own testing

For an inexpensive way to test your site’s usablity, ask a co-worker, friend or spouse who has little to no experience working within the website to look at it. Ask them if they can find certain important information that you want your potential clients to find on the site.

Then ask them what they thought of the overall experience. Was it easy to find the information? Did they get suck? This experiment can be very eye opening on how effective your site is in gaining potential clients.

Feng shui is the practice of balancing energy in a space for good health and fortune for the people living and working in it. There is a lot of information out there from different schools and practices making it confusing on what to do or not to do.

I have found over the years that some tips work, others do not, and a lot of it is just common sense. Like marketing your business, if you do not see results with feng shui you need to try something else. So I came up with a few tips that are quick and easy to implement.

Desk Location

Make sure when you are sitting at your desk that your back is not towards your office door. You want to make sure you can see people who are coming in. The best position for your desk would be diagonal from the door and facing it. That is the “power” position.

Wealth Corner

Bring prosperity and money luck to your business by enhancing your wealth corner. To locate the wealth corner of your office, stand at your door facing into the office. The back far left area of the office will be your wealth corner. The wealth corner of your desk would be the back left area when you are sitting in your chair.

Place a plant in that area to represent growth of your finances. Practitioners suggest a jade plant because the leaves look like coins but any healthy rounded edge plant will do. Important papers, cash boxes, or check books can also be kept there.

Organization and Clutter Busters

Clutter and mess not only waste your time but also make the energy in your space “stuck”. New business opportunities and growth can’t happen if you are “stuck”. Clear out broken or unused items from your office. Throw away old paperwork you no longer need. As you go through this process you might notice that your office feels fresher, more energetic, more ready for new opportunities.

Try out these tips and see if you notice any results with your business.

Allow People To Subscribe

You want people to read what you are writing. Make it easy for people by allowing them to subscribe to your blog on your web site. From there you can decide if you want them to get an excerpt of your latest post with a link to read more on your site, or to get the full post in their email box.

Consistency Is The Key

Frequently adding new posts to your blog does several good things for your web site. First, adding content brings the search engines back to your site and improves your site’s page rank. It gives the search engines access to more keywords for visitors, and potential clients, to find your business. Plus, frequent posts keeps your visitors coming back to your site to read your content.

Knowledge Is Power

Sharing your knowledge in your blog posts helps your clients and places you as an expert in your field. Don’t be afraid to share what you know, thinking that people will take that information and do it themselves. Your information will actually help put potential client’s fears to rest knowing that you have the knowledge and skills they need for their project.

What Your Graphic Designer Needs to Know

Make sure you let your graphic designer know a few key things about that ad you need, other than just what photo(s) and text you want to use. The designer will need to know:

• size of the ad,
• whether the ad needs to be in full color or black and white,
• what dpi does the magazine/newspaper ask for the ad to be in,
• and what the finished file type will be needed. Usually a PDF is requested, but they can give you the specifics.

What You Need to Do

Keep in mind that you don’t want a lot of text to clutter up your advertisement. You want the design to be appealing and eye catching since you will be competing with other ads or articles on the same page. You also don’t want to have so much text that your graphic designer needs to put it in 5pt type to get it all in. Make sure the advertisement has a clear message about what you, or your company, does or sells.

And Don’t Forget…

• to add your company logo and/or name,
• contact information,
• business address, if applicable,
• and most importantly, don’t forget to add your web site address.

You might want to think about setting up a special web landing page to direct the advertisement viewers to. Doing this allows you can track conversions, or how many people went to your web site after seeing your ad. You will get a better idea of the amount of revenue you received from clients seeing your advertisement and whether it’s worth continuing with that publication, message or style of ad.

Social Media

Once your advertisement is completed consider placing a JPG of it on your business Facebook page. It will reach a new audience and potentially increase the mileage of your ad.

For graphic and print design, all photos need to be in a high quality format to look crisp, clean and professional when it is printed out. Web sites do not benefit from that same format. In fact, high quality photos can make things worse.

Photos For Graphic And Print Design

High quality print format photos are usually in 4 color, CMYK, at least 300 dots per inch (dpi) and in TIFF format. These are optimum settings for most print projects. It is always a good idea to check in with your printer to make sure. The file size for these photos are normally very large, ranging in the multiple MBs, and can take a long time to download when transferred by email or Internet.

Photos For Web Design

Photos for web design are easier. They only require 72 dots per inch (dpi) and are RGB instead of CMYK. This significantly reduces their file size without causing a loss of photo quality when viewed on a monitor or tablet. The smaller file size is very important for screen load time of your site.

Preparing Photos For A Web Site

There are three different file types that a web site will accept: JPG, PNG, or GIF. Each of these file types are used for certain applications on a web site. JPG will be the one you will use the most for photos as it gives a good balance of photo quality and file size.

Troubleshooting Photo Quality

If you save your photo and it looks pixelated on your web site it could be the quality of your JPG. When saving a JPG notice the Quality slider, usually found to the right of the Save for Web feature in Adobe Photoshop. A quality of 20 will give you a small file size but a more pixelated poor quality look to the photo. A quality of 60 or higher will give you a larger final file size but a crisper photo for your site.

This web site is built using WordPress and updated weekly with Sarah’s latest radio broadcast on various relevant health topics.

Check out the website at bottomlineonyourhealth.com.

What would you miss if a tornado, lighting strike or fire hit your office today? In light of Hurricane Sandy and the wild fires in Colorado, would you be able to start your business up after a natural disaster? Could you start up your business right away or would you have to start from scratch?

Being in a tornado prone area, I am used to preparing for the worst. Here are some tips to help keep your business going after any kind of disaster.

• Inventory items in your office with a camera. Make sure the date stamp will be on the photos. Remember to open all drawers and take pictures of their contents. Keep this information in a safety deposit box or uploaded online for easy access when your insurance company needs them. Consider doing this every year.
• Keep credit card receipts for large purchases handy, this includes all of your computer and electronic equipment, for proof for your insurance company.
• Make sure your insurance coverage covers all of the hardware, software, supplies and furniture in your office.
• Backup company files with a secure online system like Sugar Sync, Box.net or even Dropbox. Back these files up daily. If you back up files on a removable hard drive for quick grab and go access, remember that if there is a disaster and you are not in your office you could lose that hard drive. Off site backup is better protection.
• Make sure copies of your most used business documents are backed up as well so you don’t have to rewrite them.
• Keep your access information (user names and passwords) for your off site files handy so you can get to them from any location. If you have to evacuate you can at least get to your business files.
• Make sure you have the contact information for your insurance company, credit cards and bank so you can get back to normal faster.
• Safety deposit boxes are not rated for very hot fires so talk with your bank to find out how protected your information would be.

Direct Marketing With Email Newsletters

Email marketing is a very focused way to “push” information to your customers and prospects. It is a sales oriented means of communication. Because of this an email is a great way to directly contact your customers about your various products and services. It is also a more effective way to generate direct sales.

Content in email newsletters tend to be more about your company, new products you are now offering, sale notices, or case studies.

If you decide to use email marketing, make sure the email highlights just one product or service at a time. Make sure you don’t just mention your brand new offerings. Remind them about your tried and true products, and your available core services. This strategy will help keep you in their minds.

A good rule of thumb is to send emails every month but not more than twice a month. You want to be on your customer’s mind but not annoy them in the process.

Indirect Marketing With A Web Site Blog

A blog is a more passive means of marketing. You are creating information that will draw new prospects to your site and your business through search engines. It is an effective content management strategy for your web site, creates quality keywords related to your business, which get found in search engines, and brings your site traffic and new customers.

With a blog you don’t directly communicate with your customers. It is a great way to build a brand, become known as an expert in your field and find prospective customers.

Blog posts tend to be smaller and more frequent than email newsletters. Write about various topics that your prospects would be interested in, and make sure you add in a post once in a while about your company’s products and services.