If you’ve gone through the supermarket or drug store lately, you’ve probably come across a display ad for Calgon soaps. Most of these ads feature attractive young women with dreamy expressions on their faces and the catchphrase: “Calgon! Take me away!”

And if you’re like many of us, the ad probably inspires thoughts of a well-deserved vacation. The cold weather many of us are facing, the deadlines and the pile of work we have waiting for us back at the office, don’t help turn our thoughts away either.

So what type of vacation will it be this year?

Featured Resource this week - Infusionsoft User Group

Infusionsoft User Group - Meet with small business owners and Infusionsoft users like you to discuss marketing tips, sales advice and discover new ways you can use Infusionsoft. The User Group we facilitate meets monthly in Westborough, Massachusetts - members drive up to 1 1/2 hours to attend. Won't you join us? Click the Logo above to sign up. (If you live too far away to attend, click the link anyway to find out about a User Group in your area.)

What happens at an Infusionsoft User Group?

• Meet with other Infusionsoft users in your area.
• Discuss using Infusionsoft, strategies and tactics.
• Gather new ideas and share product feedback.
• Share helpful sales and marketing tips.
• Plus so much more!

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Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day because it helps you start your day out right, giving you the nutrition and energy you need to get things rolling. Just like breakfast, hitting your Q1 goals will help you get things rolling for your business. Your Q1 success is the foundation to base the other three quarters of the year on, and while finishing strong is also important, getting off to a fast start is even better.

So how are you doing with those early goals?

All business owners are faced with challenges, particularly when it comes to sales and marketing strategies. You have questions about emails, automating and lead generating. You wonder if your content is fresh, if your social media is social enough, and most of all, are you doing any of this stuff right and would it matter if you didn't.

If that weren’t enough, the old ways of marketing you’ve learned aren’t cutting it anymore. Now you need pictures and video and new ways to tell a creative story about your product. You shake your head a little bit. You’re a businessperson, not Steven Spielberg.

 Christmas and New Year’s Day have come and gone, and with them, the color, the celebration and the good feelings seem like they’ve gone as well. Now there is an endless stream of gloomy winter days in front of you.

If the winter doldrums are getting to you, maybe it’s time to consider closing up shop and getting away to the country’s biggest party this side of New Year’s Eve— that’s right, we mean Mardi Gras. Sounds great, right?

If only.

“There’s a big difference between a satisfied customer and a loyal one.”

    —Shep Hyken

When a customer walks out the door, we hope they’re satisfied that they received good value for their purchase price and that they’ll be coming back. It’s the basic goal of any business.

However, if your business is going to thrive, you need more than that. You want them walking out the door so delighted with your company that they’ll tell their family and friends about you and praise you to the skies in online reviews. It’s the kind of hidden advertising money can’t buy. 

Are you sentimental about Valentine's Day? Do you get a little misty-eyed when you think about spending time with a sweetheart? Or maybe it’s the romantic dinner, the cards and the flowers? You know - the whole mushy thing?

Or are you the more pragmatic type? Do you see the holiday as a money-maker for the greeting card guys, and are mostly excited to see the chocolate go on sale February 15th?

If you’re a business owner, it pays to be a little bit of both.

No matter what business you’re in, whether you know it or not, you’re also in the business of learning. Even if you’re an experienced pro who’s ‘been there, done that and have the t-shirt to prove it’, there are still plenty of things you might not know. And even if you did somehow know everything about your chosen industry, things change. 

Why go?

Lead magnets are as old as time. They are at least as old as selling and advertising. We definitely didn't invent them in our era, even though they are a frequent topic in discussions of Marketing 101 to marketing trends.

First let’s be clear what a lead magnet is, and isn’t.

April 15th.  It’s a day that’s become seared into the memory of millions of taxpayers each year as they eagerly gather their forms for that nice big refund or perhaps wait until the last minute to make their reluctant contribution to Uncle Sam’s coffers. But depending on how you’ve organized your business, there may be an even more important date on your calendar: the corporate tax deadline on March 15th.

For some types of businesses like sole proprietorships and some single member LLCs, the middle of March is nothing more than another day on the business calendar. However, if you’ve set up your business as a partnership or an S-corporation, you may want take the advice Julius Caesar so flippantly ignored and beware the Ides of March.

Featured Resource this week - Digital Product Delivery

Digital Publishing for eBooks and Downloads

DPD is an easy to use digital publishing platform for selling and delivering downloadable content. Upload your products to DPD and start selling in minutes. With DPD, all sales are paid directly to you with no per-sale fees, bandwidth charges, or commissions.

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Featured Resource this week - XtendIn

We LOVE this! XtendIn is a Google Chrome Web Browser Extension that extends ActiveCampaign / Infusionsoft / Xero Web Application Interfaces with a variety of features. (Get a 90-Day Free Trial, then inexpensive subscription - worth every penny!)

Check out others who we recommend - solid vendors and products that could benefit your business today.

Featured Resource this week - Grammarly

Grammarly is the world’s most accurate grammar checker. 

Grammarly makes you a better writer by finding and correcting up to 10× more mistakes than your word processor.

Check out others who we recommend - solid vendors and products that could benefit your business today.

Featured Resource this week - Call Monitoring with Infusionsoft

Call Monitoring Integrated With Infusionsoft!

Novice marketers focus on getting the lead, but experienced marketers know that the job is only done when dollars exchange hands. You can cut the cost of generating a sale by 50% or more when you monitor and track how well incoming calls are being handled.

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Featured Resource this week - Copy Doodles

Handwriting and hand-drawn enhancements have been used for years in advertising and marketing because they are a proven way to grab attention and increase response and readability. There is NOTHING out there that matches the quality, expertise and level of support you get when you become a CopyDoodles member.  Their extensive library of direct-response marketing graphics features thousands of hand-drawn CopyDoodles, which can be easily downloaded to your computer and placed on any of the online or offline marketing pieces you are working on in a snap.

Check out others who we recommend - solid vendors and products that could benefit your business today.