It’s time to step up on my soapbox and rant a little about a topic that keeps rearing its ugly head lately. Maybe you’ve tripped over it too?

Business etiquette. I know, I know, you’re probably groaning and thinking - Really?? Yes really.

Here are a few examples of what I mean:

Do you answer an email or call from a prospect or client or vendor in a timely way? Or put it off and ignore it for whatever reason?

Do they respond to you or do they ignore you?

Ever contact a prospect after a lengthy valuable consultation only to have them vanish into the ether?

Today I sat with a friend who is so strong and committed, and working hard every day to stay positive, in the face of unimaginably daunting personal and familial crises. She is courage under fire.

About a decade ago, our son dealt with severe injuries from an accident, lengthy rehabilitation, and relentless daily efforts to find ways to cope with what would turn out to be chronic challenges. He is courage under fire.

Every day we see business owners face unexpected ‘fire’ aimed at their businesses from changing laws, unpredictable economic climate, fickle or disgruntled customers, intense competition. To deliver value and quality to their customers and continue to grow their business, they never give up, they just evolve. They are courage under fire.

As a young girl, I was always attracted to stories. If an article in a book, magazine, newspaper, or mail piece began with a story, I was immediately engaged. If I was engaged enough, I would keep reading that article after the introductory story ended.

I’m not so young anymore but I’m still more likely to be engaged by a story in something I’m reading than something that just jumps in from the get-go. If I’m engaged, I’m more likely to buy. And as a business owner, that’s the bottom line, isn’t it?

Blogging is rampant. Many blogs are treated by the bloggers as a visible place to spill their opinions. But sprinkled in amongst the gazillion bloggers out there are a relative few really good bloggers.

Some members of the New England Infusionsoft User Group that we facilitate told us, in a recent survey, that they need more help getting their Infusionsoft application to do more work for them. So we decided to post all the resources we could think of here.

Infusionsoft recognizes the need for robust training to support their customers, along with the fact that different people learn differently and have different timelines and availability. For those reasons, Infusionsoft offers a wide variety of options for you:

Video Library (free)

• help.infusionsoft.com/training/videos

Virtual Academy (free)

• help.infusionsoft.com/academy

Social media for business - what are you doing to promote your business using social media? Consider if your business B2B or B2C because it can make a difference which social media platforms you concentrate on. Should you be focusing your efforts on LinkedIn or Facebook?

User Group member and social media expert Tim Ludy was our guest presenter today at the New England Infusionsoft User Group meeting. Tim answered questions and gave advice to those of us at the meeting about creating an effective plan to achieve our social media goals.

With the July Fourth holiday breathing down our necks, it was a small group but full of questions and discussion as usual. We have asked Tim to come back to speak to the full group at the September meeting about getting measurable results using social media for your businesses. He will be available to answer questions then too, so bring your social media challenges for Tim!

August is our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY meeting for the New England Infusionsoft User Group so you can expect some fun stuff in addition to some new Infusionsoft and marketing how-to’s. See you there!

We wish you all a safe, fun, and Happy Fourth of July!

Customer service is a pet peeve of ours. The other day I ran into our favorite grocery store to pick up a few things and had a shock. To set the stage, you need to know this grocery store is not the bargain store in our area and they blatantly pride themselves on their stellar customer service.

Anyway, I went to the deli and duly pulled my numbered ticket. There’s one other customer at the deli counter, standing near me, and currently being helped. So I figure I’m next. Especially since there are several deli employees chatting together at the far end of the counter.

Wrong.

BLOOD PRESSURE MONITOR - FAMILY LITE (Free)
This app allows you to record blood pressure, weight and heart rate

BLOOD PRESSURE WATCH (Free)
With BP Watch you can record, track, update and delete blood pressure values. It also captures the time of the blood pressure.

HEALTH TRACKER PRO ($3.99)
Track blood sugar, blood pressure, resting heart rate, and body mass index. Features color-coding, graphs, and allows you to email your records to yourself or your doctor.

“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone,” according to brilliant mathematician and scientist Blaise Pascal.

As a child prodigy who showed innate genius in 17th-century mathematics, Pascal was allowed by his father to sit as a silent on-looker in the presence of the great mathematicians of the time. This so inspired him that he went on, at the tender age of 16, to develop his famous 'Pascal's theorem', earning recognition from the famed mathematician Descartes.

So, what's the point? The point is you.

Joomla + Infusionsoft = WOW!

Our brand new product to integrate Joomla and Infusionsoft is out of beta testing and launching really soon so watch for more information.

If you have a Joomla website (or if you need more functionality than WordPress provides) and you want to offer a membership component that integrates with Infusionsoft, slick and smooth, keep an eye out here and check back next week for more details!

If you think you don’t need a niche for your product or service, think again. In a recent Wall Street Journal article about the fashion industry, I read about a couple of guys who started a very, very niched business. No, they aren’t fashion designers. Previously in jobs that were peripheral to the fashion industry, they saw a need that fashion brands had and figured out a pretty slick way to meet that need.

James Nord and Rich Tong founded Fohr Card and launched it in January 2013. It’s a database of fashion bloggers who have successfully engaged their readers (see my earlier blog post about engagement) to the point where they have significant and measurable influence in their market. These bloggers sign up to be included in Fohr Card’s database, signing over the login information so Fohr Card can collect actual, real time data on their influence using social media and other statistics.

Brand companies like Juicy Couture, Samsung, and Kate Spade pay handsomely ($1000/month) for access to this measurable data. Prior to Fohr Card, they had to rely on bloggers volunteering their stats, and trust that the bloggers stats were true.

I was reading the September 5th issue of the Wall Street Journal and came across an article on how Procter & Gamble have been introducing premium versions of their products, some at significant (greater then 50%) price increases over their normal counterparts. That lead me to thinking, do you have a premium product or service? If P&G can sell a premium version of paper towels at higher prices, you can certainly do it in your business!

There are many reasons and strategies for having a premium level of your products and services, but the biggest is that there are always some buyers that want the premium package no matter what. If you don't offer them one,  they will be disappointed. So give them what they really want! Premium products should not cost nearly as much as the increase in price, that is they have a higher profit margin. Do you think that P&Gs Bounty DuraTowel actually costs 20% more to make, equal to the 20% more it is priced? You can count on not.

Another strategy is to use the super-premium level as a way to compel your prospects to take the level you really want them to take, next level down.

It’s said our purpose here on earth is to create, and I see achievement as simply stepping into our best creations. Whether it be making a million dollars, or making our most delicious batch of cupcakes ever, achievement inspires. It encourages us to keep bettering our best and also excites others to reach for the stars as well.

When you have conquered a goal or challenge that once seemed impossible, you feel on top of the world, and with that comes an enormous sense of pride and satisfaction. But that’s not all. Success is energizing and a huge self-confidence booster, as you realize what you are really capable of! So achievement breeds more achievement. For each goal you achieve, view it as the first step into a much bigger venture—it’s the end of one journey and the beginning of many more. And one great way to stay connected with your success is to RECORD it.

We are very, very sloppy with language.

Consider the word “can’t”.  People use it often, casually, and, mostly, inaccurately.

As in: I just can’t seem to lose weight. Actually, barring a genuine medical disorder, the odds against somewhere in the 25,000 to 1 range, anybody can, in fact, lose weight. There’s no mystery to it whatsoever. Reduce calorie, fat, and empty carb intake, add exercise. The accurate word replacing can’t here would be choose. I just seem to choose not to lose weight. I choose to remain fat, ugly, unhealthy.

We just got back from InfusionCon2013 aka ICON2013 and were wow'd once again. This annual conference of Infusionsoft users, consultants, and vendors was packed full with Infusionsoft news and business growth strategies.

The Infusionsoft Spring Release, to be rolled out this month, will take your productivity to a whole new level.

My Day - Organize your day - or your sales teams day - using My Day with tasks, appointments, and calendar at your fingertips.

Quotes - Finally a simple way to quickly and easily send a quote for your product or services to your prospect or client. And track it all within your Infusionsoft app.

Interactive List View - Pull up a contact and check out the new integrated tasks and options. Awesome.

GroSocial - the newest acquisition by Infusionsoft. GroSocial makes it incredibly easy to build professional fan pages and promote your business on Facebook and Twitter. Bring your key employees when you access the Kickstart program, no extra charge.

Branding Center - The new central location in your Infusionsoft application to easily make all your default templates (email, landing pages, web forms) display the same branding for your company. Fabulous. Productive. Consistent.

New Template Builder - (See me jumping up and down with excitement?!!?) Finally what we've all been waiting for. New editor. Squashed bugs. Easier navigation. Smile on my face.

Infusionsoft Marketplace - This is a new and unique FREE marketplace with a library of marketing campaigns and content that you can download into your app with the click of a button. End-to-end campaigns. Pre-written landing pages, emails, and forms. Can you say jumpstart?

New Campaign Reports - Newly enhanced to include a date or date range.

New Lead Source Performance Reports - New Trending report to track your leads and their activity.

Interactive Product Training - These are new training tutorials to help get you or your staff up to speed on Infusionsoft features, enhancements, and best practices.

Join us at our User Group meetings in April and May for more detail, discussion, and Q&A on the Spring Release - 1st Tuesday of each month. Register here.

John Wooden, a Basketball Hall of Fame coach, said, "Don't let what you can't do interfere with what you can do."

Henry Ford Sr, founder of Ford Motor Company, when challenged on his lack of detailed how-to knowledge on manufacturing cars, answered that he only had to push a button and have 6 people in his office who knew how to get it done.

Plugging the gaps in your skills or interests with an expert is critical to your success. We do this all the time in our personal lives: we hire landscapers, dry cleaners, caterers, mechanics, housekeepers, tailors, you name it. (Although some of us could take a closer look here too.)