Sharing My Secret…

I’ve written a lot about a lot of products and services over the years and today I want to share a tip about a service I’ve been using for many years — a company that allows you to share products you have created. I say they are the best kept secret in my business and they are responsible for all my custom products!

I don’t have an affiliate deal with them. I just am sitting at my desk today thinking, “Where would my business be without them?” and I am feeeeeeeeeeling grateful.

What I love about this company, Vervante (http://www.vervante.com/) is how easy they are to work with and how quickly they make my products ready for distribution, send out my products and handle any problems customers may run into.

Prior to using Vervante I was spending my valuable time duplicating CD’s and DVD’s or having to pay virtual assistants to do this task. Then someone had to go to the post office and ship things out. Having Vervante not only gives a professional look and consistent look to all my products it gives me full service support, helps me establish my branding, and takes a load off my mind as every order is automatically fulfilled by them as they come into my shopping cart!

Here’s another reason I recommend Vervante (http://www.vervante.com/ ) … they also print all my products on demand! I don’t have to pre-pay or sit on huge inventory. I teach all my clients and coaching students and business owners that the only way to publish these days is using on-demand publishing and distribution for their books, CDs, DVDs, training and coaching programs, and information products. Vervante allows you to share your products with the world by having high quality products at super competitive prices.

In fact the company takes great pride not only in producing high quality products it also has helped hundreds of my clients see their dream of being published come true.

You can contact them here: customerservice@vervante.com or sales@vervante.com and although there is no affiliate relationship please tell them I referred you so they will know how much I value their services.

If you have any questions about Vervante, just post them in the comments below. Or, if you have suggestions about other services, please share them.

Sell Higher Priced Products

To be very financially successful in your business, it’s important that you begin to sell higher priced products and services. This allows you to create a lot more income with less sales. Think about it, if you were selling an item that’s $1.00 and you wanted to make a million dollars, you need to sell a million of them. But if you were selling an item that was $1,000.00, you’d need to sell less of them. $10,000.00, even less.

It’s important that you begin to take a look at higher priced products or services that create value for your clients, that you can add onto. This is the best way to serve your clients on a better and bigger level and to make a lot more money while creating a lot less sales. Enjoy the process. It works.

Tips for Small Business Loans

Nowadays a lot of people are looking for small business loans, and it makes sense in this economy. I always look at SBA http://www.sba.gov, the Small Business Administration – for the best advice on loans, and they actually have four loan programs right now. Each of them has a very specific purpose. I’m going to recommend you actually go to their site and study some of the programs so that you can figure out what kind of loan you might qualify for.

One loan program that I’m familiar with is the SBA Loan Queue. What is that? It’s money that President Obama signed in, I believe it was September of 2010. It’s the Small Business Jobs Act – and so there’s money there with the Small Business Administration helping to finance small businesses.

The second one that I know about is 7(a) Loan Program. That’s financial help for your business, and it does have some very specific requirements.

The third loan is one that has been around forever; it’s called the CDC/504 Loan Program. What is that? It’s long-term financing, and it’s to develop the economic growth within a community. Lots and lots of my clients and people that I have coached over the last 30 years have gone in that direction.

Then the fourth is a microloan. If you don’t know what a microloan is, it’s a smaller, short-term loan to a business that certain businesses can qualify for.

Again, I want you to go to http://www.sba.gov and check these out. I just want to familiarize you with the options for small business loans. These are four very, very available for you, and you ought to check them out, get some information and see if having a loan is right for you.

How to Hire the Right Attorney

Many of you need to have an attorney for your business. Unfortunately, the way that most people search for one doesn’t really do the service justice. A lot of people look in the phone book or online. In my experience, you can’t really make a valid decision to hire someone as important as an attorney in that way.

What I recommend you do is go for referrals. Go off of personal referrals, business referrals of other people who have used attorneys that they’re pleased with. You may also get referrals from your local or state chamber of commerce, and if you belong to any organizations or associations with your particular industry, that’s another good place to get referrals.

And finally, if you belong to any networking groups, I would ask the other business owners for folks they’re satisfied with. When choosing an attorney, choose someone whose personality also matches the kind of person that you want to work with. Hope those tips are helpful.

Are You in the Right Industry?

One of the major things that you have to focus on as an entrepreneur whether you have selected the right industry. How do you know? First of all, do you have any talent, experience or skills in that industry? Second of all, are you well known in that industry? Do you have any known expertise in that industry? Do you have credibility or people that you can piggyback on for credibility? And third of all, do you have passion? Is this really what you want to be doing?

It’s okay if you can’t answer those questions positively, because there’s so many other things you can do. It’s much better when you match your expertise with your passion in an industry where you have credibility. It makes it easy and effortless to grow your business. Right now, do a check in. Are you an expert in the field or do you have expertise in the field, where is your passion, and do you have people that you know in the field that you can contact.

How to Start a Business With No Money

Do you want to start a business but you just don’t have the money? You’re probably thinking, “How could I get started with no money?” Well, there are a lot of ways. First of all, work from home. You don’t have to invest in an office, and you could actually have meetings at places such as Borders, Barnes & Noble, or Starbucks. You don’t have to have any employees. So until you start making money, you don’t need to be spending money.

The other thing is you can get free legal advice and free business advice. How can you do that? You can barter with people who provide those services, or you could go to http://www.score.org.

The other thing that you can do is run a business online. It’s very easy to not spend a lot of money. For starters, you can get a domain name, set up a blog for free with WordPress, and you can join Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for free. You don’t need a logo. Believe it or not, I even tell people that I work with individually, you don’t even need business cards. We use something other than business cards that costs no money.

If you don’t want to get a merchant account with a credit card, just go through Google Checkout or PayPal. There’s a way that you can get a shopping card if you want one that’s not very expensive, or you could even, if you have physical products, you could do it through a Yahoo store.

If you get into a business where you coach, train, teach or consult, think about setting up a WordPress website. You can talk about your experience and use a lot of testimonials.

If you are going to sell books or CD’s, you can self-publish them at http://www.lulu.com. They do print-on-demand, there’s zero up-front cost for inventory.

You can even use your webcam. Create educational video products, or you can use a digital camera. If you want to record your screen, you can use Camtasia or for Mac users, there’s iShowU.

Don’t bother investing. If you don’t have money and want to start a business, don’t invest in a retail location.

Another inexpensive way that you can advertise your business is through a Meetup group. Go to http://www.meetup.com.

You can install a toolbar that’s called StumbleUpon toolbar, and then you can also see what other things are out there that really teach you about the kind of business you’re in.

If you do want to get business cards, Vistaprint is very inexpensive. You can use Craigslist to post your offers.

Think about doing videos on YouTube. You can share the videos out there with something like TubeMogul. You can put articles out there for free with EzineArticles.

For just $10.00 – very inexpensive – you could try and use Google AdWords.

I’ve given you a ton of ideas. My response to those of you going, “I want to start a business, but I don’t have any money”: Come on. If you really want to start a business, go ahead and do it. There’s a lot of ways to do it. Get started.

How to Deal with Burnout as an Entrepreneur

Unfortunately, as an entrepreneur, at some point you may face burnout. I mean, quite frankly, that’s what happens. It’s just normal.

First of all, don’t panic. It’s not the end of the world. It’s just something normal and natural that a business owner goes through.

What can you do to prevent burnout? Set some small goals is a great idea. Set these goals, even if it’s a tiny objective of getting a few things done. Spend some time visioning, really juicing yourself up and amping yourself up about what you got excited about in your business to begin with. Go out and reward yourself. Reward yourself for things that you’ve done in your business that you’re proud of and happy about.

And finally, spend some time with your customers. They’ll remind you of how valuable your business is to them. Accept the fact that burnout is normal. You’re human. We all go through this, and we just need to re-light the fire and get our inspiration back. Don’t panic, burnout is something that you can rekindle.

Exciting News!!

As the day of my Disciplines of Thriving Entrepreneurs event draws closer, I have some exciting news to share!!

I have decided to make my event FREE. That’s right, you can learn my tested and proven business strategies at no cost.

I decided to do this because I am so extremely passionate about teaching small business owners and entrepreneurs, like you, how to be successful. I wanted to take away and doubts or uncertainty that this event isn’t perfect for you! And you still have the opportunity to help a young girl in need! All donations will go to help Danielle, a 17 year old girl suffering from RSD.

My hope is that by making my event free, you will have no reason to not attend! Disciplines of Thriving Entrepreneurs is an event that will help you understand what differentiates the 5% of successful entrepreneurs from the 95% that fail! You can’t afford to miss it!

Don’t hesitate to sign up :)

Disciplines of Thriving Entrepreneurs
Friday February 25, 2011, 10:00-5:00pm – venue is Plymouth Meeting, PA.

Click here to register and to learn more: http://www.terrilevine.com/event/

My Business Growth Training Program – $1 Trial

Every day, I talk with business owners who may already be quite successful, but are still struggling. Maybe they’ve hit a plateau and they feel “stuck.” Or maybe they’ve hit a rough patch and they’re feeling down about it. Or maybe everything is humming along smoothly – yet they’re anxious about the future.

It’s all those business owners and entrepreneurs out there that inspired me to put together my business growth training program. I have put my life’s work into this, and I am SO excited to share it with all of you!!

As you can imagine, after personally working with more than 5,000 business owners in 239 different industries, I’ve discovered hundreds of proven business growth secrets. In fact, I’ve invested more than half my life – not to mention tens of thousands of dollars – to create and perfect business growth strategies that actually work in the real “hard-knocks” world of business.

I’m so happy to share this with you, that I want to offer you the chance to test out my business training program for only $1! I know this program is perfect for you, but sometimes you just need to try it out first. What do you have to lose?!

Try my Business Growth Training Program for $1!

To learn more and to get your $1, Click Here: http://www.terrilevine.com/trial/

My Event: Disciplines of Thriving Entrepreneurs

I would like to personally invite you to attend an event I am holding on February 25th. All monies collected are going to a great cause.

I want you at this event, and I want you to bring at least one other person with you! I promise, commit and guarantee they will receive huge value as will you.

All proceeds are going to support a young girl suffering from RSD. Danielle is 17 and before she bumped the outside of her knee, she was an amazing young entrepreneur with a gift for helping children with ADHD and Autism using her horses. She is a beautiful human being with so much love and compassion for others. She has been affected by RSD for 1 1/2 years. She has been on a crazy nightmare in Rhode Island. Danielle was hospitalized, paced in leather restraints, her room stripped of all belongings and a guard placed at her door because she was in severe pain.

This is a video of the pain the hospital made her stay in for 10 days. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3rUoRsDjyI

Here is the link to Danielle’s website where her mother posted the blog about it. http://tinyurl.com/daniellesblog

Having suffered from RSD myself from an injury I received a few years ago, I hate to think of the pain that a child suffers from each day with this disease. All proceeds from this event will go to Danielle to help her get the medical care she needs.

This event is titled: Disciplines of Thriving Entrepreneurs

This event is perfect for you! You can be a fledgling entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, my event will help you understand what differentiates the 5% of successful entrepreneurs from the 95% that fail!

What makes some entrepreneurs more successful than others?
What disciplines do they do that let them achieve a breakthrough and take their business to the next level?
What does it mean to be a thriving entrepreneur?

To me a thriving entrepreneur is one who has penetrated or overcome an obstacle – in this case overwhelming odds of failure! – and has achieved a sudden advance or a notable success in his or her business. Do you want to be a thriving entrepreneur? Do you want your colleagues, friends and family members to be as well?

YOU have to attend this because it is critical to your success.

I want you to share this day with a fellow business owner or entreprenuer!

Attend the Disciplines of Thriving Entrepreneurs and I promise to share insights on how you can achieve a super successful business. This is happening on Friday February 25, 2011, 10:00-5:00pm – venue is Plymouth Meeting, PA.

And I’m giving you a special deal!!

To learn more and to register, click here

http://www.terrilevine.com/event/