“A Law of Life that I live by is believing in yourself and not letting anyone put you down. There have been more than a few times in my life where I didn’t believe that I could do something because someone else said that I couldn’t or I doubted my abilities. Once, in a soccer game, my team was down by 9 and we started not to believe that we could win. The other team showed really bad sportsmanship and kept saying how bad we were and that made my whole team low in spirits. After we lost the game, I realized that if we had believed in ourselves we could have at least gotten closer to the other team or maybe even won. I know that if we had tried our hardest we would have felt a little better about losing because we would have known that we did our best.

A famous quote by Eleanor Roosevelt that reminds me of this game is “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”. If we hadn’t listened to them or not have let their words get to us, we would have believed that we could win. I completely believe that no one can make you feel like you are worth less than them unless you let them.

Sometimes, my little brothers and sister say that I’m a weirdo or something else that my mom doesn’t want us to call each other. My dad asks me if I am a weirdo and I say ‘no’. I know now that he was asking if I believed them and not myself. You know the saying “Stick and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. I think that is completely wrong. Words can hurt you, but it is whether or not you choose to believe them. If someone is calling me bad names, it does hurt me and I don’t like the names they call me, but I try not to think of myself as any of those things.

Anything is possible unless you believe something is impossible.”

-Katie, 6th grade

As 2009 draws to a close, it’s become very apparent that 2010 will continue to be an extremely challenging year for businesses seeking new customers, and new ways to market and advertise their brand and services. As well, the ability of Northern Virginia and DC-area professionals to effectively learn and leverage new Online Marketing and Internet New Media/Web 2.0 skills is hampered by the current lack of expert yet cost-effective, local and hands-on Internet Marketing/SEO training. Add to this the dizzying proliferation of Social Media publishing and analytic tools, the rapid change in the search engine technologies and video media industries, and the quickly-growing competition for eyeballs and click-throughs from the web – it’s about time for some local solutions.

Local Internet Marketing and Media Workshops

KME Internet Marketing (KME) in the DC metro area is holding the first of an upcoming series of professional Internet Marketing and Media Workshops on January 29th, 2010 – from 9AM to 2PM, at Trivision Studios in Chantilly, VA.

KME is the region’s industry leader in providing cost-effective yet engineering-grade solutions for online marketing, social media optimization and analytics-driven Internet marketing management. Trivision Studios is a full service global creative design, branding and media production group, operating a 12,000 square foot, state-of-the-art studio facility complete with staging, lights, cameras, two-story loading dock, meeting space, media room, and omnimedia edit suites.

Our special guest Workshop lead is Melanie Alnwick, an instantly-recognizable local DC TV anchor, reporter and journalist. Melanie will be providing significant insider-knowledge and guidance regarding attracting broadcast media attention to your business and story, preparing for interviews, producing and submitting highly-effective video for broadcast or online business purposes. Kelly McLaughlan, CEO of KME Internet Marketing, will lead sessions on SEO, PPC and Google Analytics. Trivision Studios will provide corporate branding and web video production and distribution expertise. Ted McLaughlan – Enterprise Information Management and Media Architect – will provide professional insight into Digital Asset Management and Internet Media Distribution.

What You Get

This packed 5 hour hands-on Internet Marketing and Media workshop will deliver a package of information and guidance you can immediately use, including:

• Online Branding and Creative Design
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Website Reporting (Google Analytics)
• Digital Asset Management, Optimization and Distribution (RSS) – for Advertising and Marketing
• Pay-per-Click (PPC) Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Local and Regional
• Social Media Optimization and Reputation Management – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube
• Online Web Video Production and Optimization
• Harnessing and attracting Broadcast Media Exposure

There simply doesn’t exist a more comprehensive, experts-led, cost effective or personally-tailored workshop event in this area for business owners, marketing and communications managers, journalists, new SEO/SEM professionals or other technology and new media practitioners. Don’t bother with online, out of state webinars or academies, online or offline degrees costing thousands of dollars from questionable sources, community-center seminars by industry amateurs, or other less-than-professional sources for a rapid, intense and ultimately valuable infusion of truly local Internet Marketing and New Media knowledge.

• Where should I post my advertisements online?
• What are the short and long term priorities for better search result rankings, for my website?
• What are the keys to successful PPC investments?
• Is my marketing budget being spent wisely, integrated and balanced across relevant channels?
• How can I make sure my brand supports my marketing goals?
• How do I use reports and analytics to support my marketing objectives?
• How much time should I spend on Social Media, and why? Can or should I do this myself?
• Can my web designer deliver SEO services?
• What should I do to get free, effective exposure for my business in the press or news?
• What should be in my marketing videos?

We’ll explore these questions and collaborate in the workshop sessions to arrive at the best answers for you and your business in the Northern Virginia, DC or Suburban Maryland region. You’ll get some immediate answers, some strategies to follow and resources to help.

Who Will Benefit the Most?

• Local and regional business owners whose websites haven’t demonstrated success in drawing highly targeted traffic for more sales
• Affiliate marketers who want to increase conversion rates by getting their product pages to come up higher in search results
• Webmasters, graphic designers or photo/video experts who want to offer their employer or clients more comprehensive services – not just website building, creative design or basic media products
• Bloggers, writers and journalists who need their content distributed and ranked high in search engine results
• Anyone who wants to make a career change – to work in-house as an SEO/SEM specialist or begin SEO consulting by learning the latest SEO techniques
• Marketers, Advertisers, Communications and PR professionals in a highly competitive industry who are under pressure to increase their brand’s visibility to reach the correct audience, while keeping costs under control

Take charge of your business marketing and advertising budget, get involved in the Web 2.0/Social Media evolution, promote and protect your brand on the Internet!

For more information about the KME Internet Marketing and Media workshop, including upcoming dates, times, location and registration, visit KME Internet Marketing – SEO Training and Education.

Why is this important? Many reasons, ranging from the economy forcing Seniors to re-initialize careers and jobs, the incredible potential for at-home income-producing opportunities made possible via Internet tools and social media, and simply the desire of many Seniors to continue “giving back” or at least leveraging lifelong skills and experience for the good of their community, family and business networks. All the communications, education and community advantages the Internet provides Seniors aren’t a new concept – but the real need, and real opportunities, to forge a new or extended career at home by leveraging Internet new media capabilities is a relatively unexplored topic.

All over the Internet are loads of “opportunities”, scams and entreaties to engage Seniors in all kinds of “Work at Home” activities (i.e. WAHS; “Work at Home Seniors”)…but most are day-to-day jobs or taskings, with little equity-building potential (in terms of income or knowledge) and short shrift given to leveraging and creating value out of past career experience and long-term relationships. Typical Work at Home Senior opportunities do not yield lasting value for Seniors, or their partners and families.

To truly create or extend a real career at home, as someone who may have retired from the daily grind, and is looking for low-impact but highly intellectual pursuits, the first step is not an online job search, or even an online “Web 2.0″ training course. It’s really what we call a “knowledge management” exercise…Basically, if you were to categorize the kinds of subjects you know most about, the type of people and organizations with whom you’ve got relationships, and the specific skills you’re good at on the Internet, what would these be? For example (thinking about a particular family member):

Topics:
- Retail Marketing
- Salesforce Effectiveness and Management
- Merchandise Management
- Retail Business Planning
- Retail Buying Process

Relationships:
- Retail Buyer’s network, large companies (like JC Penney)
- Retail Chain Managers, regional
- Retail Entrepreneurs
- Business School Alumni and families

Skills:
- Outlines and Plans
- Business Models
- Research
- Speaking and Oral Presentation

With this sort of inventory (this particular person is what you’d called an “untapped reservoir of potential”), it’s not too hard to fashion a strategy for “packaging” these knowledge assets and skills, and creating a marketable product online (either to sell or to contribute to another business) as a career-extending opportunity. It always helps, though, for Seniors to align themselves with, or take advantage of, persons who understand Internet Marketing and Social Media – both for training and exposure of their “packaged intellectual assets”.

With the right initiative and enthusiasm (extremely important!), a little knowledge management structure, and some help with Internet media tools – it’s not too hard to imagine thousands of Career at Home Seniors flowering every day on the Internet.

Send us some information about your background (or that of your own grandparent) – we can help provide some structure and advice to the senior career at home pursuit.

In his October 2009 Newsletter, James Bowles, Washington DC’s leading Executive Business Coach and career transition consultant, outlines the facets of your personal “brand” and reputation – that stand to scrutiny when you’re not around. What do people say about you when you aren’t around? Or more importantly, what does your boss, current (or future) client, or other key stakeholders and partners say about you when you aren’t around? For example, in a compensation review meeting (when promotions to key positions are being discussed) or simply when your work and additional opportunities to hire (or fire) you are being considered?

The things that people say about you when you are not around is usually called your reputation. A better way to think about it is that it’s your personal “brand” – and this is one of the biggest factors in your ultimate success on the job, with clients and around your community. Here’s the good news: for the most part, YOU completely control it! Here’s the challenge – to control it appropriately, you may need some essential business coaching, to learn some essential facets of personal brand marketing, reputation management and talent management (a.k.a. “human resource management”).

Three things make up your brand – your skills (i.e. what you know), your experience (i.e. what you’ve done well), and your attitude (i.e. how you act). These are the things that others remember and discuss when the conversation becomes about you, without you. However, having a great brand may not be enough by itself – like any developing brand, marketing yourself is required. Key stakeholders need to know your skills, experiences, and attitudes…so check around. Who needs to know, who do you need to influence? It’s wise to make your brand known to everyone, but it’s crucial to know who will be making the decisions you care about. Also, it’s important to know who influences the decision makers.

Once you know them make a list – then determine the following:

• Have they heard of you?
• Do they know you?
• Have they seen your work?
• Have they been positively impacted by your work?
• Do they know what you want to do?

Work through this list, thinking of how you can have an impact on the decision makers. Turn the answer to these questions to “yes, absolutely!”. Find ways to work on projects that they care about, or be on teams that work on their projects. The key thing here is that the relationship needs to be give-and-take. Do something positive for them to establish your brand, and maybe they will respond by helping you down the road. Quite literally, the most powerful force for successful career change and accomplishment for executives and business leaders is active personal marketing and partnership with stakeholders to obtain feedback, reflect, and act upon it.

This sort of internal “reputation brand marketing and management” is essential in your career, especially if you’re seeking a career change or in fact re-entering the workforce from a layoff, as a Mom returning to work, or establishing new independent career goals. If in fact your career change results, like so many of these do actually do, in reliance on decision makers and stakeholders you don’t actually know (for example future clients or employers learning about you on the Internet), your personal brand and reputation management actions require a degree of Internet Information Marketing and Management skills. This is to ensure you come across the way you desire when people search for you, or your services, on the Internet, in social media channels, or through business and information directories.

For more information regarding DC Business Coaching, Executive Leadership Training, and HR Talent Management, contact James Bowles, Washington DC Executive Coach and HR Consulting. For more information regarding Personal Online Marketing and Reputation Management, contact KME Internet Marketing.

Continue reading about “The Word on the Street (About You)”…

She says:

“As a stay-at-home mom running a home day- care business, I struggle with the question, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” Six years ago, I left my telecommunications career to stay home with my children. I grapple with my career options as I realize my youngest will enter fi rst grade next year. I’ve toyed with the possibilities of labor and delivery nurse, genetic counselor, and accounting. The jury is still out. “

That seems to be typically what happens as we migrate back through the WAHM/CAHM and possibly to Employee status…lots of possibilities, lots of potential career choices. My advice? Inventory your skills, contacts, experience, interests – and get busy with work that enables you to leverage some or all….

And it’s an especially fun challenge to, each week, “trip the brakes” of the grocery store’s financial management systems!

The system I’ve been using this past year is part online “Grocery Game“, and part home coupon management – and it adds up to BIG savings, especially when supermarket prices are rapidly declining (see today’s Washington Post) and coupon values are increasing.

In the past few weeks, every time I’ve been to the store with my coupons at-the-ready, I’ve caused problems – the “discount threshold” after the coupons are run is evidently exceeded, and the store manager has to come and approve my order. For example, my bill is $280, with discounts reduced to $130 – it’s usually a savings of more than 50% that trips ‘em up and sounds the alarms, and this is becoming a regular occurrence, and mission.

That extra $150 every 2 weeks or so goes directly to the purchase of things like printer toner, ISP charges, paper and other home office supplies – though sometimes get diverted (way to much, actually) to children’s birthday party expenses.

Let me know if you need more details and tips on reducing your food bill, consistently, by 50% or more.

We asked: “What can be done to further encourage, support and maintain the rapid growth of women-owned businesses in this region’s business tax districts, in a manner that also supports work-life balance for dual income families?”

This question regarding working women is especially apropos here at the Fulcrumpoint, which is all about transitioning from full-time Mom to having a full-fledged Career at Home.

Read more about the question, and a great answer from Creigh Deeds…specifically for working women in Virginia, but equally enlightening for CAHMs or WAHMs in any state.

Now I’ve got 7 and 1/2 pure working hours a day in front of me – a clear, broad horizon of endless business growth possibilities and professional growth to look forward to. Maybe even a trip to the Hair Cuttery. Already I’ve indulged in the luxury of mid-day client meetings (offsite!), straightening up the accounting process, buying a new printer, twittering with intent – i.e. all the basic home office block-and-tackling that typically wilts under the onslaught of daily childcare.

It’s really unbelievable, looking back, how much didn’t get gone while I actually had hours and hours each day to myself – before the kids. Now I’ve got this very focused window of entrepreneurial opportunity every single day, all to myself – that’s a transition I’m truly looking forward to.

This is a DC-are based business started recently that promotes home exercise techniques, videos and community targeted at Moms, Women and stay-at-home parents…and it’s especially helpful for those of us returning to career work at home (typically a very sedentary activity, working mostly on the computer, phone, blackberry). The trick is to work exercise routines into your daily patterns of housework, cleaning, home chores, etc. It’s actually very surprising how little effort, but how much benefit, comes from a few squats, press-ups and leg lifts – in between the laundry and emails.

Brigette and Jenny have totally cornered the market with their idea, expertise and attitude – it’s up to us CAHM/WAHMs to now put these exercise routines to use, and ramp up our collective working at home energy burn!

One other point, this type of consistent, incremental and integrated exercise during the day is especially useful if you’re training for some kind of race (like a triathlon or road race) – I’ve found it really difficult to maintain a consistent training schedule with the very hard-to-plan and competing demands of family plus work. When the training regiment simply isn’t possible – a few in-home exercise and tuning techniques combined with the rapid-fire, “good-enough” housework that goes on, can really help maintain flexibility and muscle tone. SqueezeItIn.com is a very important addition to my weekly exercise choices – as it should be for most other WAHM/CAHMs.

From James Bowles’ “Washington DC Executive Coaching” site, August Newsletter:

Positive attitudes drive business results.
I had to go to the doctor’s office for my annual cholesterol check the other day. Getting blood drawn after fasting for 12 hours was not exactly a highlight of my week. When I got there, there were 6 people ahead of me, so I had to wait almost an hour. But when I finally was called, the nurse had a lot of energy, and took the time to chat and joke with me. She laughed and smiled through the whole procedure, and had cartoons taped to the wall to read while she worked. Before I knew it I was done and on my way to work, with a Snoopy band-aid taped to my arm. I had forgotten about the wait altogether.

On the way, I stopped to celebrate my health with a fast food breakfast. (Yes, fast food was my first stop after a cholesterol test). When I ordered, the cashier barely looked at me. The people putting food on the tray looked tired and bored. They handed my order to me without a word. These people were not enjoying their morning.

I bet that you run into these situations every day. What’s the difference between these two situations?

The nurse was intentionally inflicting pain to a steady stream of people who really did not want to be there. Most were probably in a hurry, and like me annoyed that they had to wait. She could have very easily taken on a surly demeanor, but she chose to make an effort to engage and have fun. By doing this, she made the whole experience more relaxing. This not only helped her customers, but I’m sure that it helped reduce the stress level of her job, too.

The fast food clerk on the other hand was providing delicious (if not healthy) food to willing people, and chose to be unhappy about what she was doing. I bet that she is counting the minutes until she gets off of work.

The key word here is CHOOSE. There are a lot of things in life that are not within our control. However, your attitude is one thing that is almost totally within your control. Each of us chooses how we respond to what life throws at us every day. Those choices have an impact on your own internal mindset, and an impacts those around you. You can choose to have an attitude that helps your situation and has a positive impact on others, or you can choose the opposite. In any case, you have ultimate control over your attitude and resulting behavior.

Just to clarify, choosing attitude is not the same as choosing emotions. Emotions come and go naturally. Part of being human is experiencing and dealing with emotions. Choosing attitude is about how you decide on an appropriate reaction to those emotions, and how you treat others as you experience them. It’s certainly not about always being happy, since displaying sadness and anger are sometimes totally appropriate.

Victor Frankl, the famous author, psychologist, and holocaust survivor said it best when he said that “Everything can be taken from a man but … the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Read more….