Everybody’s doing it.

Google a business associate. Google a potential partner. Google someone you might hire. Google a potential blind date.

No matter who you meet, everyone’s Googling each other to see who people are, and if they’re everything they claim to be.

For business owners, this is a practice that we must turn into a weekly habit for our own name, company, websites and keyword searches. Googling your name will serve a variety of purposes such as…

You’ll see how often you’re published in the media.
You’ll discover if anyone has blogged about you lately, so you can comment on their blog and reply to their kind posts. (This is an easy way to be on top of things in a timely manner, as it’ll look like you have sophisticated software that finds your name/company all throughout the internet.)
You’ll uncover if anyone is trashing your name, or misrepresenting you. (And quickly resolve the matter.)
You’ll even find if your competitor has “lifted” something from your website to use on their site, due to the “wording similarity” between both your websites. (Then you can take necessary action.)
You’ll see how many pages deep your name, website or keywords your identity is listed on, which will motivate you to blog more, and submit additional articles, quotes to the media or general PR.
Afterall, if everybody is Googling you, aren’t you curious what they’re seeing/reading about you when they do?

Time. It’s what every small business owner wants more of. We all wish there were 8 days a week so we could get more done. Right?

Well – thanks to the Internet, more and more business owners are getting business done, meeting new prospects and getting more clients faster than ever before with the use of online networking sites.

Two popular online networking sites that allow business owners to get to know a business contact before ever having an initial conversation are Ryze.com and Ecademy.com.

Both websites allow users to post their profile for free, including their picture and a link to their website, and they each offer additional fee-based upgrades for serious online networkers to use.

While Ryze.com is primarily U.S. based, Ecademy.com is predominantly filled with European business professionals, but both include professionals from all over the world.

Not only are these sites saving business owners from the time-consuming activities that traditional, in-person networking events consume, they also allow you to tap into a global community of business vendors and clients.

While both of these networks allow anyone to join, it’s best if you’re invited by someone with a large network to take advantage of the “networking trails” created by the software that drives these online communities.

A great example of hese networking trails are seen at the top each user’s Ryze.com profile page, with arrows pointing in either direction, telling you who knows the person you are looking up.

Professionals who are serious about doing business with the best vendor love this feature because it allows each visitor to see “who knows who” in order to research whether the new contact is a reputable business owner. Illustrating the concept of “six-degrees of separation” between you and anyone in the world.

Another online networking site that allows women business owners to network, without ever having to leave their home is IVWCC.org (International Virtual Women’s Chamber of Commerce.)

Members of IVWCC.org aren’t your typical “stay at home mom businesses” that may have been popular in years past.

Instead, IVWCC.org is filled with business professionals ranging from Virtual Assistants, who help other small business owners run their business without having to hire an in-person assistant, to Mortgage Brokers and Coaches just to name a few professions, with one thing in common - they’ve all learned how to set up their business model to be able to serve their client from anywhere in the world.

Harvard MBA, David Teten of Nitron Advisors, LLC, co-authored a book The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals with Online Networks with Scott Allen, Texas-based co-founder of the Web site OnlineBusinessNetworks.com that describes how to take advantage of this rapidly growing way to do real business online.

Teten shares several types of “Social software” a professional can take advantage of in order to do more business online. Software that allows you to analyze, build, and leverage your social network. Examples he gives are: “Blogs, relationship capital management software, social network software, web conferencing, email lists, chat, instant messaging, Internet telephony, and virtual communities.”

Scott Allen offers a fantastic Guide to Online Social Networks, Social Software, and Business Communities in addition to a 6-week TeleClass that helps professionals learn how to utilize the most popular sites that connect business people online.

“These networks offer far more effective ways of finding people than a general web search engines, and there’s tremendous value just in being able to not only find people but to be found. It takes minimal effort to set up your profile in a site and it offers low cost, high potential value,” reports Scott Allen.

High value is right! Talk about time saving activities! Especially when you compare it to traditional in-person networking events.

Calculate how long it takes for you to prepare for an evening networking event, get in your car, find a parking spot, stand around eating fried pu-pu’s that you’d never include in your diet regiment, especially since you’re required to skip the gym because of this late night in-person networking event all while you’re trying to search around find the right people that you need to connect with in order to do more business.

Gasp! Hold on one second while I catch my breath!
Then consider “online networking” where just one of your conversations can reach hundreds of people in a fraction of a second – all real time.

Instead of driving all around God’s creation to meet a half-dozen people who may or may NOT be the right contact that you need for your business at the moment, you could be sitting at your computer in your home office while you participate in online discussion groups, adding value to topics relevant to your business and connecting with the right people, at the right time - all because you’re able to scan “who’s who” and “who knows who” in each participant’s profile before ever engaging in an online conversation.

Now THAT’s what I call SWEET! This is Time Mastery at its best.

Consider the fact that one conversation at an in-person networking event ends there. Whereas a conversation on the Internet remains forever. And it’s potentially positioned in front of thousands perhaps millions of online networkers from around the world - today, this week, and the months to come.

So… if you really want to save time and meet more potential clients and vendors than ever before - go to Ryze.com or Ecademy.com right now and begin by posting your profile. Feel free to ask me for an invitation, or just use the links in this blog post to get you directly to each of these online networking sites - and begin Power Networking!

About the Author:
Deborah Micek is a Business Development Coach at RPM Success Group Inc. Gain access to expanded articles at www.GetCoachedForFree.com

This article was recently published in the Business section of the daily Hawaii Newspaper, The Star Bulletin.

Have you ever gotten into a rut in your business where all you could think about were problems?

When that happens it can cause you to feel out of control, unfocused and totally unmotivated. And that can impact your performance, personal fulfillment, and your profits.

All too often, small business owners get caught up in the day-to-day operations and get into the mode of focusing only on problems. This dangerous mindset makes it tough to see how small challenges can be turned into opportunities.

But with the right psychology, you can quickly overcome challenges. This is how successful entrepreneurs turn problems into profits centers.

Here’s a simple 5-step, five-minute process I share with my business coaching clients that will put you back in control of your focus, and give you a boost in your performance and profits.

Ask yourself the following five questions.

Step 1: “What’s great about this challenge?”

Once you begin to use this system, your brain may answer, “What are you nuts? What’s GREAT?! NOTHING!”
But if this happens, understand you’re at a critical point in the process. It’s where all growth starts. So you must stick with the process and answer the question. Otherwise, you’ll create a pattern of always feeling “stuck”.

Step 2: “What’s not perfect yet?”

Identify what needs to be changed with a proactive/positive mindset. Program your brain to focus on solutions to the challenge, instead of focusing on the challenge itself.

Step 3: “What steps am I willing to take to make it right?”

Lay out the plan you need to overcome your current challenge in order to turn it into an advantage. If you don’t follow through on this step, don’t expect to have your challenge disappear all on its own. Specific action is required from you.

Step 4: “What are the ‘red-flags’ that can help me prevent a similar situation in the future?”

Getting warning markers will keep you from taking actions you DO NOT want to do, and will actually prevent problems from creeping up in the future. Answers to step three tell your subconscious specifically what TO DO instead.

Step 5: “How can I make the steps I need to make this fun?”

Increase your opportunity for success. Discover how you can have fun while taking action to get what you really want. Take time to come up with fun ways to take action. Make it a game. Link positive actions to rewards you’ll give yourself.

Now it’s your chance to put these five simple steps into action.

Let your competitors think like the herd as they keep their head buried in problems. With this new series of questions, you now have an unfair advantage that’ll have you transforming challenges into opportunities and growing by leaps and bounds as a result!

To learn more how you can master this process and many others that will equip you can bridge the digital divide and transform your small business into a click-and-mortar powerhouse that delivers the profits, personal fulfillment, and free time you want. You can do it guaranteed in just 12-months with your membership in the www.BusinessOwnersCoachingClub.com

© Copyright 1999-2005 by RPM Success Group ®, All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form without the express written consent of RPM Success Group ® is prohibited. You may use this article/post in it’s entirety as an RSS feed without previous permission, so long as it is published in it’s entirety with all copyright notices. Call RPM Success Group toll free at 888-334-8151 for offline reprint permissions, or by email editor@rpmsuccess.com.

About the Author: John-Paul Micek and his partner Deborah Cole Micek are Business Growth Coaches. They help small business owners like you, achieve profit-doubling growth in one-third the time it would take to do on your own.

By now, if you’ve followed the recomendation made in the last post to subscribe to the “Advanced Business Blogging” blog, you’ve been getting all sorts of ideas on what type of blog to create.

But if you need to know exactly how to create your own blog to get started with this rapidly spreading secret of increasing website traffic, all you need to do is use this link to watch the video and quickly learn in 10-minutes or less how to start your own blog.

Enjoy! And be sure to come back and post a comment to celebrate the creation of your first blog! :+)

Happy Blogging!