Focus Guide: Small Business Marketing

Focus Guide: Small Business Marketing Written By Connie Ragen Green "Do for a year what others won't, Live forever the way others can't." 1 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Table of Contents Introduction... 3 Small Business as a Business Model... 3 Using LinkedIn for Business... 5 SEO for Local Business Marketing... 6 More SEO for Small Business Marketing... 8 Marketing Comes First... 10 Social Media Marketing Strategies... 11 Networking for Small Businesses... 13 Non-Profits and Fundraising... 14 Teaching in Your Small Business... 16 The Small Business Marketing Model... 17 Summary... 19 Resources... 20 About The Author... 22 2 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Introduction When I came online in 2006 I had no idea it would be necessary to learn so much and to wear so many different hats as an entrepreneur. I blogged. I created an information product. And I helped a family member get his new handyman business off the ground by doing for him what was beginning to work for me. Within a couple of months he discontinued all of his paid advertising and paid me instead. What I was doing for him would last for much longer than his tiny print advertisement in the local newspaper or a few paragraphs in a monthly magazine. Soon other small business owners were asking me to market for them and my income jumped dramatically. I was on my way to a six figures a year business and I loved what I was learning and doing. These days I no longer market for small businesses in this way, but I do teach a course on how you can get started with this proven business model. This past decade has moved me far out of my comfort zone and on to a place where anything is possible. If you are willing to devote some time to improving your skills in marketing and in other areas to help small businesses, your journey of entrepreneurship will be more joyous and you'll walk with a spring in your step. I promise. Let's get started... Small Business as a Business Model My first client when I began marketing for local business was a family member who had just started a handyman business. He had been laid off from his job and needed to earn income quickly to support his family. What he had not anticipated was the fact that print advertising was so expensive. 3 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

I was in the first year of building my online business, so I offered to set up a simple blog for him and to use some of the techniques and strategies I was learning in order to help him be found by Google and the other search engines when someone did a search for his keywords and the city he was living and working in with his handyman business. He did not have a budget to pay me, so I agreed to not charge him as long as he paid for the website domain, hosting, and a few other costs. With that I began to market for him a couple of times each week. The results were nothing short of miraculous! His phone began to ring and within two months he had cancelled his advertising with the local newspaper and the magazine he was running ads in each month. It turned out that marketing for local business was something I could do well. Soon I had several other clients who were paying me to do the same thing for them. One was an insurance agent, another was a dentist, and then I added an attorney and two brothers who were plumbers. It wasn't until I began teaching others about marketing for local business that I realized the impact of what this could mean for an entrepreneur. If you have been following me for awhile you might remember a couple named Sue and Bernie I used to talk about. Sue and Bernie were teachers I knew back when I was working as a classroom teacher. When they retired we remained friends and saw each other every month or so. One evening they were talking about how nice it would be to go to Bernie's Army reunion, but that they couldn't possibly afford the airfare and hotel cost. He was a decorated World War II veteran who had served his country selflessly and just wanted to stay in touch with the men who had served alongside him who were still alive. That's when I realized they were living month to month on their retirement checks and were barely scraping by with their expenses. That's when I began teaching them about marketing for local business. They had a friend in real estate they practiced on for a few weeks, and then they took on a paid client who was an interior designer. This led to two more paid clients and soon they were earning about twenty-five hundred dollars a month in their spare time. They loved doing the work together, and their clients love having more business as a result. And I forgot to mention that Sue was almost eighty years old at the time and Bernie was already in his late eighties when they began. Anyone can do this and it's always going to be a win-win situation. 4 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Using LinkedIn for Business At the beginning of 2007 I joined a site called LinkedIn. I wasn't at all familiar with it at that time, and as a new online entrepreneur I hoped it would be beneficial in some way to my business. This was back when Facebook was only for college students, Twitter was just getting off the ground, and social media in general was unheard of by the average person. I saw that LinkedIn was a site for people in the corporate world. It was stiff and formal and not very interactive. It was more of a directory back then for professionals to list themselves and to post their resume and other pertinent information. I can remember filling out the questionnaire as slowly and carefully as possible so that my listing would not be rejected for mot being up to par. If I didn't understand or have an answer to one of their questions, I just wrote something that sounded proper and would be innocuous overall. Then I came to a screen where I had to verify my email address, and that's when it happened... Evidently I had checked a box I did not intend to check and suddenly the LinkedIn site was going through my personal email addresses to find people that I knew who members of their site were already. Within a period of about three minutes they had sent automatic invitations to about twenty people in my contacts. I was mortified when I realized that just about all of these people were members of my Rotary Club, an organization I had joined just months before. I was actually afraid to attend the next Rotary meeting, but I showed up and tried to blend into the wall. What would these professionals think about someone just getting started as an online entrepreneur joining the LinkedIn site? And then one Rotarian came up to me with a big smile on his face and shook my hand vigorously. "I see we're connected on LinkedIn", he said. I mumbled something back to him but was cut off by someone else coming over to say the same thing. They were actually excited that I had joined them there and I was quite relieved. LinkedIn has changed dramatically during this past decade. I believe Facebook was the biggest influence, but the leaders at LinkedIn were smart enough to roll with the tide and everyone has benefited. And when it comes to marketing for local business, gaining visibility in the marketplace, and increasing your credibility as a professional, LinkedIn marketing just makes sense. These days I have thousands of first level connections on LinkedIn, which translates to over thirty million people from around the world in my network. And these people are serious about life and business and all things related to entrepreneurship and success. 5 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Connecting with like-minded people instead of random ones on Twitter and other social media marketing sites is definitely worth its weight in titanium, in my opinion. If you haven't joined already, do so now. Add your photo right away, and be sure to allow LinkedIn to find the people in your contacts who are already members. I have a huge following and extended reach on the site and consider it to be a primary source for information and connections to other professionals. Social media may have changed over the years, but networking and connecting with others remains a valuable endeavor. SEO for Local Business Marketing When you think of SEO for local business marketing, what comes to mind? SEO stands for search engine optimization, and the idea is to use the phrases directly related to the local business you are working with in order to have them rank at or near the top of the SERPs (search engine results pages) when someone is searching on Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Let's break this down into actionable steps that will make a difference for you and the local businesses you serve. I continue to describe blogs as being "your home on the internet". So it just stands to reason that a blog would be an effective tool for maximizing the SEO for local business marketing. With so many options to choose from, you'll want to know which ones make the most sense for the local business you will be marketing for online. Here are just some of the ways for the business to be easily found when a prospect does a search for what they are looking for: Domains Title tags Images Let's begin with a discussion of domain names for local businesses. The idea here is to use the specific type of industry along with the location. This will give you options like DallasChildrensDentist.com, or the reverse of that, ChildrensDentistDallas.com or ChildrensDentistinDallas.com. I also use "the" in the beginning when the others are not available, such as TheDallasChildrensDentist.com. Don't be too creative here because your goal is simple to get the industry and location out into cyberspace for the right people to find what they are looking for specifically. 6 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Another point I'd like to share in regards to purchasing domains for SEO for local marketing is to make sure to purchase them for at least three years. This is known to boost your credibility within the search engine ranking system. Most cities also have neighborhoods within them, so depending on the local business, you may want to purchase neighborhood specific domains. Domains such as LakeHighlandsChildrensDentist.com or UptownDallasChildrensDentist.com may be appropriate, but not in all cases. My neighborhood of three thousand people is known as "Plum Canyon", but it is highly unlikely that any of us would search for services using that phrase as the location. This is a prime example of the importance of knowing your community and its smaller components before you begin to use SEO for local business marketing with your clients. Title tags within each post are crucial to your search engine rankings. Within your WordPress site you have the ability to use tags 1 through 4 for your content, with one being the largest font and highest relevance. Use these wisely and sparingly for optimum results. Adding images to each page and post on your site not only makes the site more aesthetically pleasing overall, but also assists with SEO for local business marketing clients. Be sure to name each image with the keyword phrase you are optimizing for, as well as setting it to open in a new page and attached to the primary website for the local business. I like to spend a few hours taking lots of photographs of the business I am marketing for so that I have them at hand when blogging and creating relevant content for them. As you can see, SEO for local business marketing can be achieved by taking action in a consistent manner over time. Most local businesses will not have someone as dedicated as you are to this task, so right there you will have a clear and distinct advantage over all others who claim to be marketing for local businesses in their community. 7 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

More SEO for Small Business Marketing SEO for small business is big business, especially if you are using SEO (search engine optimization) to get ranked by Google, Yahoo, and Bing for your keyword phrases. I have taught these principles in the past and wanted to expand upon them and add some additional strategies as well. The topics I will share with you here are around some of the most effective ways to increase your chances of being found by your prospects: Videos Relevant content Resources Testimonials Google purchased YouTube in November of 2006, and soon after our videos hosted on channels within that platform began to show up as SERPs (search engine results pages) when we searched by specific topic. I remember thinking at that time (I had just come online and started my business as an entrepreneur) that this could be extremely helpful 8 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

for someone like me to be found for my keywords amongst a sea of experienced marketers. Yet due to my inaction, it would be almost a year before I took advantage of this strategy. Once I began doing SEO for small business clients in my community I jumped on the bandwagon and set up channels on YouTube for each of them as well as myself. Over time you will find that your videos go up and down in the search engine rankings, but overall this is an excellent use of your time and efforts. Content will always be king, online and off, and relevant content has never been so crucial if you are doing SEO for small businesses. Think of your online content as a full time sales forces that attracts the right clients to you and to what you have to offer them. Rain or shine, no matter what time it is, someone in the world can locate you and take the first step towards doing business with you. When you think of it in this way you can see that relevant content placed strategically around the internet can build your business quickly and efficiently. Providing valuable resources to those you serve is also a part of SEO. For small business sites this can take many forms, including sharing the people and products you are using in your own business. You may even offer these through your affiliate link, if that is possible. Including testimonials in your sales copy, on your website or blog, and even in your email messages is effective and helpful to those making a buying decision. Make sure to ask for clear, results driven testimonials, and ask them for their permission to make small changes if necessary. This allows you to add your keyword phrases in such a way as to be helping your SEO. Here is an example: "When I first brought my six year old to Dallas Children's Dentist Dr. Smith, she was scared about the procedure. She calmed my daughter down and explained how she would be pulling her baby tooth in just five minutes with almost no pain. This was exactly what she needed to hear and it was all done quickly and painlessly, especially for me. Thanks, Dr. Smith for being the best children's dentist in Dallas." SEO for small business can be a simple way to grow your business quickly. Use some of these strategies and let me know how they are working for you and if you have any other questions. 9 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Marketing Comes First If you are a small business owner, is marketing yourself and your business something you think of regularly? My experience shows that marketing is essential for local businesses, so the faster you embrace this idea and put it into practice as a strategy the more likely you are to reach and exceed your goals. During all of the more than twenty years I worked in real estate before coming online in 2006, I gave almost no thought to marketing for local businesses, whether my own or someone else's. In fact, other than taking the required course on marketing in order to sit for the Broker's exam, I knew very little on this topic. To me, marketing meant making cold calls and sending out postcards to the homeowners in the area I farmed. Once I had a live prospect in front of me I gave no more thoughts to marketing until I had no clients again. I would put my stack of postcards and stamps, along with my reverse phone directory back into my filing cabinet until I was once again desperate for clients. Fast forward a few years, and once I became an entrepreneur I began to have great respect for marketing and all that it had to offer. So I quickly became a student of all types of marketing and learned first how to use it to help market for local businesses. Instead of looking for reasons to stop marketing, every day became a new opportunity to reach out to new prospects through marketing. People connected with me and I made sales. This was fun! I want you to think of yourself as a marketer, first and foremost. With that at the forefront of your mind you will be able to take action on exactly what needs to be done in order to get your name and your business out in front of your prospects, customers, and clients in a way that shows you in the best light. And now that so much can be done online to reach people on a global level, marketing for local businesses and for businesses that serve people around the world can be accomplished in record time and with minimal expense. Here is how to begin: Purchase some domain names that include the name of your community, as well as your business or industry. Examples would include domains such as SaugusAutoParts.com or ChildrensDentistinCanyonCountry.com. And remember to always buy the dot com extension, because that is what people will naturally think of when they visit Google and want to remember your website. Add a blog to your main site so that you can post information about your business and what it has to offer those living in the community who need your products or services. Blogging is the single most effective method to market for local businesses. You will want to include your own original content on this blog, as well as guest posts and curated content. 10 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Connect with a non-profit that is in alignment with your core values and beliefs. Share why you chose to work alongside the group or groups you choose and how their mission and vision is in alignment with you and your business. I chose to work with Rotary because they serve people both locally and around the world. I wanted to be a part of something much larger than I could ever do on my own. Get active on social media. Again, use the name of your community and industry to identify yourself. Then locate as many local businesses as possible and begin interacting with them. Again, have fun with this and decide in advance how much time you will devote each week. My rule is no more than fifteen minutes per day on social media, and many days I am not on any social media platforms at all. Yet my numbers continue to grow and I'm able to connect with the exact people I want and need to meet. By now I hope you see that marketing for local businesses is essential for local businesses and that it is not a complicated process. Implement the steps I have included here and see how quickly you experience some tangible results. Much of this can be easily outsourced to people who create content and manage social media to market for local businesses. I am happy to give you a referral to those I have trained and worked with personally in this regard. Social Media Marketing Strategies Using SEO for small business marketing with social media just makes sense. SEO stands for search engine optimization and makes the online world go 'round. Leveraging the power of social media as a part of your overall marketing plan is a brilliant enhancement to this strategy. This has been my observation over the past decade, as social media SEO marketing has gone from its infancy to where it is today as a rock star strategy. The idea here is to set up profiles for yourself, your own business, and for any businesses or non-profits you are helping with marketing. As much as possible, use the name of the company or organization, along with their location in the profile name. For example, I work with a non-profit that provides rides home for teenagers who are not able to drive themselves for one reason or another. They are located in Santa Clarita, which is also referred to as SCV (Santa Clarita Valley) and so the best name for them would be SCVSafeRides to identify them on the various social media platforms. When someone 11 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

searches for them on Google, Yahoo, or Bing they are much more likely to find them through these keywords. Twitter is one of my favorite social media platforms when you are using SEO for small business marketing, branding, and name recognition. This is due to the fact that all tweets are indexed by the search engines and that you and your Twitter feed become an archive of information about you and the business you are working with online. Use your main keyword phrase at the beginning of your tweet for best results, such as "web sales copywriting is best explained as selling your products and services on the internet - more details at xyz.com", allowing plenty of space to come in under the one hundred forty character limit. On Facebook, use your keywords to lead off your posts, and post to your business page first. Then share it elsewhere, including your personal page or wall. This allows your post to have a much better chance of being indexed by the search engines so that people searching for that specific information may be able to find it easily. I find that over time this becomes much easier, as the search engines get used to your posts on your business pages. Be sure to include Instagram, YouTube, and Google Plus on your list of social media sites where SEO for small business will benefit you or the businesses you are marketing for online. In particular, Instagram is growing in popularity rapidly for all demographics. You may have to be creative here, but it's worth the time and effort to reach this massive audience. I'm using a site called Canva to create images with text. SEO for small business social media tactics and strategies will change over the years, but creating relevant content to share with prospects and customers will never go out of style. 12 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Networking for Small Businesses An excellent strategy is networking for small business marketing, whether you are working to get more clients for your own small business or helping other local businesses with their marketing. Before we go any further, this is how I am defining "networking" in this case. Networking refers to and can be defined as interacting with other people to exchange information and develop contacts, especially to further one's career. This strategy has been around since the beginning of time, so let's bring it into this millennium with a discussion of how to go about networking for small business that is both time and cost effective. Let's discuss three strategies here, including service organizations, Chambers of Commerce and specific trade organizations, and more general groups within your community. Each of these has a place in your plan for networking for small business, both your own and others you may be marketing for locally. If you've been a part of my online community for any amount of time you know that Rotary was an integral part of my success story. After searching on the internet for volunteer opportunities in my city when I was first starting my business in 2006, Rotary kept showing up in the search results (SERPs). I attended my first meeting during the summer of 2006 and joined that fall. Rotary is an international service organization that connected me with the movers and shakers in my community. Kiwanis, Elk's and Lion's are also service organizations that are worthwhile to connect with to market your small business. Even though I am not a member of my local Chamber of Commerce, attending and participating in their ongoing trainings, business events, and social gatherings is a way I get to know what's happening with businesses new and established in my city. If I am marketing for a local business, I bring the business owner along with me for networking for small business marketing opportunities. Working side by side in the community and supporting each other is the way to grow and market your local business. Depending upon the nature of your business, there will be local groups that make sense for you. I'm still a real estate broker in California and stay involved in their activities on a regular basis. Each year I volunteer for a golf tournament fundraiser and love driving the golf cart from one place to another to serve those who are playing that day. You may have to do some research, and I have found that asking others in that profession or trade is the best way to connect and then be able to use networking for small business. More general groups within the community would include friends of the library, fundraisers for local non-profits, and neighborhood meetings. You never know who you will meet at these events and soon people will get to know you as both someone who cares about improving the community as well as a professional or tradesperson who cares about their needs. You will find many of the same people volunteering and 13 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

participating over and over in your city or town, and that's the best way to enjoy networking for small business as a growth and marketing strategy. Non-Profits and Fundraising Whether you are a small business owner or you market for local businesses, getting involved with non-profits and fundraising will make a difference in your bottom line. Once people in your community see that you care about causes that are important to everyone, you will be perceived as someone who is helping to make your community a special one. I learned this quite by accident when I began volunteering and joined my local Rotary Club as a way to get to know others in my community. At this time I had just begun marketing for a family member's small business and did not see any connection between my business and helping out in the community by volunteering and taking an active role with fundraising for a variety of causes. Early on I had agreed to help out with a fundraising event that brought several nonprofits together. That evening I met a variety of local people, including a dentist, an electrician, and the owner of a small hardware store. Purely a coincidence, I had invited my family member, a handyman for whom I had just begun marketing to join us. Within an hour I saw the relationships form, and by night's end I had a new outlook on the part that getting involved in non-profits by volunteering and fundraising played in the community at large. Within two months the handyman's business took off, as a result of referrals and friendships made that evening we were all working together to raise money for some local causes. And I began getting calls as well, mostly to help established local businesses develop an online presence. Find a local non-profit whose mission resonates with your core beliefs and values. Attend a meeting and see what you can volunteer for right away. Get to know the other members and share what your business is about as well. Doesn't it just make sense that we would feel more comfortable going to a dentist or having a handyman in our home after we had worked alongside them on a worthwhile project? 14 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

And after you have done this several times, consider joining the group of organization you have been volunteering with. See if there is a way for you to sponsor a fundraiser or be a part of an upcoming event. So many events attended by local business owners are almost directly related to their business. For example, a home and garden show raising money for veterans can be an excellent fit for a handyman. A fundraiser for the local hospital or a medical clinic is a good fit for a dentist or chiropractor. It's all connected if you see it this way, and even if it doesn't seem like it at the time, your volunteer and fundraising experiences will always show you in a good light within your community. The handyman continues to meet his neighbors at these events, and soon they are calling him to repair a kitchen faucet or to install a ceiling fan. Get involved in non-profits and fundraising and your small business will flourish. 15 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Teaching in Your Small Business Teaching in your small business is an excellent strategy for exponential business growth. This model has been used successfully by brick and mortar businesses such as Home Depot, Nike, and Apple for many years now, and online businesses such as Aweber and Google have done the same thing. The concept is a simple one; teach your prospects and clients how to use your products and they will be much more likely to purchase them and become repeat customers and raving fans. Home Depot teaches us how to paint and install tile. Apple teaches us how to use their phones, tablets, and computers. Aweber teaches us how to become masters at email marketing. How can you do this in your own business to increase sales and build greater rapport and trust? Let's explore some ideas here. If your business is exclusively offline, choose a time once a month to allow prospects and customers to learn from you. Perhaps you are an attorney and can help people to form their own trust or to understand the probate process. As a plumber, you could teach how to keeps drains unclogged or how to choose a low flush toilet. The idea is to start the conversation and help people to better understand the work you do for them. Even though most of us do not want to think about walking the probate route without the help of a qualified attorney, we do want to know what is involved and how the process works. You would help alleviate our fears and concerns and to explain the truth about any preconceived notions we have. And most of us will not be installing our own toilets, but we would like to know what our choices are and also how to keep hair and other debris from clogging our drains needlessly. Small business owners and entrepreneurs are natural teachers in that we help others to navigate the waters we have already mastered. It's simple a matter of choosing which topics to teach and to invite your community to participate. Make a list of the services you provide for your current clients. What part of that process is confusing? What do you wish someone already knew before their first meeting or consultation with you? How could you teach them some basic skills, empowering them to have the confidence to move forward with the process you are helping them to learn? Once you can answer these questions you are ready to set a time to start teaching in your business and to schedule your first class. I highly recommend that your classes be free, at least at first. Once you have done them for a few months you may want to charge a nominal fee to attend, and then allow them credit in that amount if they fire you for your services within the next couple of months. This creates a relationship that is based on mutual respect for your time and knowledge. 16 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Teaching in your business is not a new concept, but it may be new to your business model. Embrace this idea and share your time and knowledge in a way that will open the door to even more clients and customers, now and in the future. The Small Business Marketing Model When I started my online business in 2006, my dream and goal was to write and sell ebooks on a variety of topics and create information products to sell online. When a family member needed my help getting his new business off the ground, I was more than happy to step in and use the marketing strategies that were working for my ebooks and digital information products business for his business. Soon I had two other clients and I had added marketing for small businesses to my growing list of business models. This was just over a decade ago, when you had to sell small business owners on the importance of having someone market for them. The recession hit the economy hard, and those who did not market did not survive. These days I am finding that local business owners in the two southern California cities I call home are anxious to have skilled marketers assist them in this area. 17 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Choose a close friend or family member to work with for thirty days. As I did with my family member, he did not pay me for my time during that first month. He did pay for the costs involved, such as domain names, hosting, and tech work that needed to be done to set everything in place. After the first month, charge the fees you have decided upon in your new business. Attend networking, trade, and service organization meetings and events to connect with the small business owners that could most use your help. Have some simple business cards printed (don't do this yourself) that include your name and contact information. Let the people you meet know exactly what you can do to help make their phone ring with prospects wanting to do business with them. I started marketing for small businesses with blogging and other content creation, SEO (search engine optimization), social media marketing, publicity, and videos for their YouTube channel. I was learning how to do all of these tasks and activities for my own online business, so it just made sense to practice on them. The results were positive and brought them new business so they were more than willing to pay me well for my time. Soon I was asked to write a column for a local magazine and I continue to do this once a month to share my knowledge with others and for the exposure. If you are interested in helping small businesses with this lucrative business model, I would encourage you to get started right away. It's a noble effort to help our economy in this way. The people I have helped continue to thank me for my help and we have become friends and colleagues in the process. Set up your own blog, use SEO in your content, get involved with social media, send press releases for your business, and then use of this as an example of what you can do for small businesses with your marketing skills. When you partner with these local business owners you will both benefit and prosper for years to come. 18 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Summary So, there you have it - some ideas and strategies on helping small businesses to make their phones ring by marketing for them as a business model. What conclusions were you able to come to on your own after reading these articles? Also, I would love to hear from you about your own challenges, struggles, successes, and experiences with small business marketing and everything associated with it. Connect with me through social media or by simply hitting "reply" to any of my emails. They all come directly to me and I will be able to answer you within a day or two at the most. And please do consider attending one of my upcoming live events, retreats, or workshops. I host them in southern California at different venues throughout the year. Your success is my greatest reward. Online entrepreneurship is a true gift and a blessing to me and to everyone I know who is building an online business. To Your Massive Online Success! Connie Ragen Green Connect with me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/conniegreen Check Out the How To Market for Small Business Course... 19 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Resources My Online Marketing Incubator Mentoring program is at: (http://theonlinemarketingincubator.com) - Work with me personally, as well as with my current students and mentees. These programs include the opportunity to speak and present at one of my live events, as well as an invitation to be a part of one of the Retreats I host several times a year in Santa Barbara, California. Really Simple Sales Copy will help you to become proficient in writing your own web sales copy to sell your products, courses, and services online. Hosting: http://connieloves.me/a2hosting - easy to navigate, c-panel hosting for everything you need to set up technically for your online business at a fair price. Autoresponder service - http://connieloves.me/aweber - the most popular and easy to use system for staying connected to your subscribers at a fair price. Membership Site Plugin - I have this installed on more than forty of my sites and I know the creators personally, as I was in a Mastermind with them for several years while they were creating and perfecting Wishlist Member - http://connieloves.me/wishlist How to Market for Small Business (http://howtomarketforsmallbusiness.com) - a training course I teach and present along with small business and offline marketing expert Ron Tester, this is an excellent way to start earning income quickly while honing your skills as an online marketer. My "Really Simple" series of online training courses continue to be one of the best investments you will make into your business. Email me for a twenty-five percent discount coupon for the course that best suits your needs. Subscribe at no charge to my two award winning podcasts on itunes. Details at: http://podcastshownotes.com or check them out at: Online Marketing Tips - http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast//id591740909 If you need high value PLR (private label rights) content I recommend: Alice Seba Free PLR, Alice Seba Facebook Ads and Social Media Graphics (Free Download) Ronnie Nijmeh Self-Help PLR (Free Download) Coaching Sticky Glue Done For You Coaching Programs Alice Seba and Ron Douglas Free Writing Templates Dennis Becker 8 Reports You Can Use As Your Own Sue Fleckenstein a new addition to my list in 2017, Sue continues to WOW! me with her content 20 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

Trainings I recommend for learning how to get started right away with selling physical products on Amazon and other e-commerce sites are from two people I continue to learn from personally: Jessica Larrew runs her Amazon business from home with the help of her husband and young son - http://connieloves.me/sellingfamily Jim Cockrum has been selling physical products and teaching others how to do it for over ten years now, longer than anyone else teaching this business model - http://connieloves.me/pac Visit my two main blogs to see what else I am up to at any given time. They're at: http://hugeprofitstinylist.com http://connieragengreen.com Listen to my most recent audio training at: http://askconnieanything.com My books on entrepreneurship and more are at: http://connieragengreenbooks.com - check out my most recent titles to see which is best for your goals. Affiliate Disclaimer: Many of my recommendations are provided through an affiliate link. This means that I personally use each product, course, or training I recommend and that it has received my "Green Seal of Approval". At no time will you ever pay more, and many times I have negotiated a special pricing so that you receive additional benefits through my link at no additional cost. 21 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com

About The Author Connie Ragen Green is a bestselling author, international speaker, and online marketing strategist who is dedicating her life to serving others as they build and grow successful and lucrative online businesses. Her background includes working as a classroom teacher for twenty years, while simultaneously working in real estate. In 2006 she left it all behind to come online, and the rest is history. She makes her home in two cities in southern California; Santa Clarita in the desert and Santa Barbara at the beach. In addition to her writing and work online, Connie consults and strategizes with several major corporations and some non-profits, as well as volunteering with groups such as the international service organization Rotary, the Boys & Girls Clubs, Benevolent & Protective Order of Elk's (BPOE), the women's business organization Zonta, and several other charitable groups. As the 2016 recipient of the Merrill Hoffman Award, presented to Connie by the Santa Barbara Rotary Club, being honored with this award has strengthened her resolve to serve others around the world in any way she is able to by using her gifts, talents, and experiences in a positive and sincere manner. Please pick up one or more of my books as a way to get started on the path to online entrepreneurship. If you're not sure where to begin, simply hit "reply" to any of my email messages and I will respond to your questions promptly. 22 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com