Bloom Search Training

The Mommy

The Art

Lissa Rankin - The Doctor

Lissa Rankin is more than the sum of her parts. She is her own brand. As a practicing gynecologist, well-know artist, published author, business-woman, wife and mother of a three year-old daughter she can no longer live within the confines of the word “doctor” or “mother”. She is, as most of us are (or hope to become), a complete person. And complete people cannot be defined by titles alone.

Lissa Rankin is just Lissa Rankin, as Oprah is just Oprah. And you know what I mean when I say “just Oprah”.

Through a series of conversations, she helped me clarify a concept I already knew but didn’t really understand. She showed me what it means to be a successful woman, and reminded me that the most powerful women cannot be defined by just one title. That any woman can be her own brand, because life and career are not separate for most women. A career can be an extension of your life, and your life can be an extension of your career. Lissa allowed me to put a face to what it means to be a fantastic, complicated and successful woman.

She told me about her own struggle to define herself and her career, and her conclusion was simple. “I’m not sure where I’m going, but I know I’m on the right path,” she said.

She has learned, you can’t define a woman’s success by just her title. She will always be more than a “doctor” or “entrepreneur”. These are titles that just don’t tell the whole truth. Careers, as in life, are a journey and not a destination. You can’t hold it all in with just one title.

We have all watched famous women re-define their careers publicly. Heidi Klum – From model to businesswoman to television host and star. Maria Shriver – From journalist to first lady of California. Oprah – From journalist to talk show host to actress and television network-owner.

These women have transformed their careers, never just sticking with what they are good at. Sticking to what they know. They have taken risks, grown their careers, and changed their lives in the process. Yet, somehow, I thought this career metamorphosis was limited to the famous few. I thought that when they do it, they must know what they are doing. They must have a plan.

Having met Lissa, I see now, they are probably just evolving like the rest of us. Just trying to stay on the right path, even though they are not sure exactly where it will lead. These women can no longer be defined so easily. They are more complicated than that, and their lives and careers cannot be summed up in just a title.

Women have always been known as multi-taskers. Jugglers of children, homes and careers. Women like Lissa and Oprah; they are paving the way for the rest of us who just simply cannot be defined. And for these women, they will always be their own brand.

Lissa Rankin is a successful doctor, artist and author. She recently launched “Owning Pink: A Girl’s Guide to Living Authentically and Embracing Being Female”. This business will evolve, as with everything she does. I can’t wait to see what she does next. I wish her all the happiness in the world.

I talk to so many entrepreneurs every day who ask me the same questions about which online resources to use when starting a small business. Therefore, instead of writing out my resource links over and over, I decided to write it out here. So here goes:

GoDaddy - Register your domain name with them, and use them for hosting as well. Great prices, great customer service.

Google Adwords - Advertise your products using Google adwords. I’m a trainer, I can teach you

Search Marketing Research -Use some of the free tools Google and Trellian provide to research how much search volume exists for your products and the keywords you intend to use to market them.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox

http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html

http://www.websitegrader.com/

Competitive Research - http://www.adgooroo.com/

Good, inexpensive website templates - http://www.templatemonster.com/

Networking - http://www.ladieswholaunch.com/

Public Relations - http://www.helpareporter.com/

I’ll keep this list going as more resources come to mind. Please let me know if you have some fantastic online resources that are super useful for entrepreneurs.

Google has released some fantastic training videos that are super useful for anyone interested in learning more about search engine marketing. I have embedded a couple of the videos into the blog so you can watch them right here. You can access all the videos on Google’s YouTube Playlist as well as on YouTube’s Google Business Channel.

Below is a video about the basics of account management. There are some great questions and the search marketing trainer does a great job of answering them:

This video is great because the search marketing ng Ttrainer talks about tracking and measurement, which is the KEY to making search engine marketing work. If you have ever had doubts about whether or not to bother adding the tracking code to your thank you page, this video will show you why tracking is so essential:

I had a good discussion with a client yesterday about search engine optimization and paid search marketing. I suggested that if she is going to concentrate on search engine optimization that she would need to build out the pages on her site. This seemed to worry her a bit, and I understand. Building out your site can be a tedious process, and to be honest, it does take time. But it’s not as difficult as you may think to build out the content on your site. Therefore, below I have listed some examples of page topics you can develop for your site:

1.) Add a testimonials page. This one is easy. Just ask your best customers for a brief 1 to 2 sentence testimonial on the quality of your service. Or, make it even easier for them - write the testimonial yourself and then have them approve it.

2.) Write about your product or service in detail. If you are selling earrings, write about the quality of the earrings. Write about how and where the earrings are made. Are they antique? Were they made using an interesting or artistic process? Whatever it is that makes your product or service unique, take some time to write about it and add as many pages to your site.

3.) Have a blog - Having a blog has become a bit of a cliche over the last couple years. Everyone has a blog! But really, if you do have the time and commitment to your product or service, you really should be writing about it often and a blog is the perfect place to spread your knowledge. One thing to remember, if you are going start a blog for the purpose of helping you with your websites search engine rankings, the blog should reside on your websites domain. This is actually really easy to do using WordPress, and if you are a GoDaddy customer you can actually create your blog and incorporate it into your site directly through GoDaddy. If you are unsure how to go about doing this, call GoDaddy directly. Their customer service people are great, and they will walk you through it step by step (but if you get a bad rep, just call back a little later and speak with someone new

4.) One quick rule to follow as well - be relevant to your topic. Make sure that what you write about is relevant to your website. I’ll be the first to admit that I am not always on topic on this blog. But it’s a blog, and I try to make it fun. But when you are developing new pages to be included directly on your site, it is important that the content is relevant to what the main theme of the site is.

I hope this information helps you get some fresh ideas for developing the content on your site. Please submit any questions you may have in the Q and A section of the blog.

Danielle Jarvie, UpStyle Founder

The first time I met Danielle Jarvie at a Ladies Who Launch meeting I thought “that’s a girl with style.” I looked down and saw myself wearing the same sad jeans and t-shirt I wear everyday and thought “I wish I could look like that!”

Then I found out what she does… she’s an Image Consultant. What a perfect job for a woman who always looks, well, perfect. I was inspired by her style, and the fact that her career seems to so perfectly match her own self image, so I asked if we could spend some time talking with her about what makes her tick. I wanted to find out if the classic yet artistic image she was exuding on the outside would also reflect her inside. It does. Her answer, “I want to help people feel better about themselves.”

Of course! Looking good is about so much more than clothes and make-up. It’s about how you feel about yourself, and Danielle has figured out a way to make a business out of making people feel better about  themselves by making them feel better about the way they look. Through her company, UpStyle, she has figured out a way to use her own gifts to make her clients feel a little better, a bit more confident.

I asked Danielle how she finds the right style for her clients. Instead of thinking about how Danielle thinks the client should look, she talks long enough with her clients to understand the answer to one predominant question, “When you walk into the room, what is the image that you want to convey.”

It’s an important question to ask ourselves, not just in terms of our style, but in our actions, words and our energy. Above all else, it’s important to know what your own gifts are. The first moment I met Danielle, I recognized that she had a gift for style. The fact that she is using her gift to make clients feel better about themselves is priceless, because she has found a way to make a career out of using her own gifts fully. What a positive way to build a business.

If you are looking for some inspiration from some savvy business women who really made it in business (the tech sector in particular) this article on CNN Money is great. It features some very savvy female business leaders who work for high tech companies. The article talks about the chances they’ve taken and the lessons they have learned. This article gave me inspiration this morning, so I wanted to share it with the rest of the lady launchers who just might need a little inspiration today.

Angel Island is on fire right now. So sad! I actually spent this whole morning walking down by the Marina watching the planes from Fleet Week perform right over it! It makes me wonder if maybe all the planes flying over the island could have caused a spark that set the fire. Anyway, I posted a couple pictures of it below. They are not great, but SFGate has posted a some good pictures.

Photo of Fire on Angel Island, 10/12/2008 10:56pm

Finding the space to breathe when it feels like there is such an urgency around everything in life is hard for me, and many women in business who feel like they need to do it all, all the time. I have a tendency to feel the need to tackle every problem, fight every fight, and learn everything there is to learn right now. Not tomorrow or next week. Not at some point in my life before I die. But right now. And I used to think that everyone was like this, and that it was a personality trait that was somehow necessary for survival. That if I did not go full steam ahead all the time, then time was being wasted.

However, after having several long conversations with a great group of female business owners that I know, I was reminded of two very important things 1.) I’m not alone in feeling like the world is going to fall apart if I’m not “on” 100% of the time 2.) They also reminded me to just breathe, and find the space that is always there. That sometimes, when it feels like everything must be done NOW, the best thing to do is to find the space to breathe.

I used to think this was silly. That after this and that and all the other hundred things are done, then, only then, do I deserve the right to breathe and relax. But what this group of women reminded me of is that my most creative ideas, the most inspired thoughts come when there is space in between the thoughts. That space to breathe is not a luxury, and it’s not something that can wait for another day. The space to breathe is necessary, all the time. And I was reminded that the space is always there, it’s just a matter of clearing your mind enough to find it. Because unlike most other things in life, the space to breathe is free, and infinitely available to everyone, at any time. It’s just a matter of searching for it, because it will always be there when you need it.

Thanks Ladies Who Launch!

It’s Fleet Week, and today the planes were out and showing off the best of the best. Roy got some great pictures that I’m sharing below.

Seeing the Blue Angels in action is amazing. From our roof top, we could actually see the pilots inside the cockpit of the planes! It really made me think, how much focus and dedication it must truly take to do that kind of work. When you are within inches (or maybe feet) of the pilot in the plane next to you, what goes through your mind?

Enjoy the pics:

As I’ve said before, I love watching Warren Buffett. I may not know much, but I do know that when you don’t know what to do, do what the smartest person you can think of is doing. Right now, in this financial mess we are in, Warren Buffett is the guy to watch. Therefore, in case you are interested in what the Oracle From Omaha is saying, watch this video.