Have you heard about the English chef Heston Blumenthal? This is how wikipedia explains Heston’s cooking style..”Heston is famous for his scientific approach and has been described as a culinary alchemist for his innovative style of cooking.

Heston has a regular TV show airing in Australia called Heston’s Feast. In this regular show he creates a banquet of meals for a group of people, usually a mix of journalist, actors and actresses.

Heston doesn’t just make a meal, he creates something so unique its amazing. He blends science, history and food to create something totally unique.

I have grouped some of the memorial meals he has created on the show, there is either a link or a pic for you to check it out;

Curry Ice Cream,

Edible Wall paper

Absinthe Jelly that glows in the dark

Totally Edible Victorian Garden

I could seriously go on, every show I have watched has left me in awe of this chef. I admire how he does his due diligence and explores historical recipes or travels around the world for particular ingredients for a new receipt.

How does Heston’s extraordinary cooking relate to an online entrepreneur?

After every serving of food for his dinner guests on the show he watches his guests reactions on a TV in the kitchen. He watches his guest reactions and their feedback on the taste of each meal he has created. It doesn’t matter how long it took him to research the meal, where he had to travel to collect the ingredients, he waits with baited breath on his guests reactions to gauge how successful the meal was. That’s what I admire about Heston, with all his expertise he brings it back to the basics, he is cooking for a group of people and its their enjoyment that matters over everything else.

When marketing your products on line, sometimes it feels like you have run a marathon but every piece of content you create,each post on Twitter or Facebook is all a test. You are only deemed a success when you provide substantial value to others. Anything else short of this is curried ice cream going wrong!!

Be bold, take action.

Ally

P.S. How about a sip of a drink from Alice in Wonderland…Heston created individual layers of the following flavours; toffee, hot buttered toast, custard, cherry tart, and turkey. )

Tagged with: online entreprenuer

Filed under: Entreprenuer

How does an online business owner target customers that purchase regularly, want to be advocates of a businesses to people they know within their network. A customer that chooses your products/services regardless of how price competitive you actual are to your competitors? Is customer loyalty just a myth?

Consumers are spoilt for options and this makes a purchasing choice more complicated then ever before. Think of how much time it takes to decide on purchasing a new mobile phone or even just a humble tooth brush. There’s lots of businesses out there making advertising noise to grab your attention. It comes from all angles 24-7. The plus for the consumer is there is so much choice why would you even bother being loyal to any business? The problem with all these gimmicks, a discount etc is the customer doesn’t feel any sort of emotional connection. At any minute if this customer only concerned with price for example finds a better deal they are out of here…. So what creates the magically carrot at the end of a stick that a customer can’t ignore and will be drawn to constantly?
Through any advertisement or branding of a business a potential customers gets a sense of what the business does, how they do it and why they do what they do.
The problem is a lot of businesses lead with the what and the how and not with the why.

The best example of this concept I can share with you is Apple Inc. Part of Apple’s worldwide appeal is they lead with their ‘why’. You may of not even noticed it before, ultimately its when a brand and consumer have the same values that will inspire the consumer to use that product/service because it reflects the type of person they want to show to the world. Picture a person you would consider an Apple user.

I pictured a person who questions the status quo, a creative person, someone who likes to think outside the box and is innovative.

How different was my description to your description? Here is how Apple Inc like to show how different they are to their competitors.

I think the first ad in these series of ads really speaks volumes, check it out…it only runs for one minute.

I have not even started to uncover the surface of this topic, I highly recommend you read, “Start with Why” by Simon Sineck. Not only can it help you with what’s important for your business it will help you amp up your passion and help you feel more inspired and focused online business owner.

What is your businesses why? Not just your businesses story about how you started but why your business exits? How do you convey this in your dealings with your potential customers?

Let me know if your feedback about Simon’s book if you have read it.

Regards,
Ally

P.S. I am not an affiliate of Simon’s products, I have met him and he is an inspirational leader.

Tagged with: Leadership • Simon Sinek

Filed under: Entreprenuer • Getting online business started • Personal Branding

Amateur paid online advertising is like playing the pokies at a casino.

While your having fun spending money, you walk out of the casino with a distinct empty feeling (especially in your wallet). Facebook and casinos will give you rules to abide by but won’t increase your chances of winning the jackpot or converting more leads to sales. So you need to know how you can stay on top of your game by spending your advertising dollars wisely.

In a previous post in July I mentioned I was going to attend Social Media Short Cut Facebook Advertising training session with Facebook Guru Zoe Deluca. Slight changes to topics covered but a valuable session nevertheless.

I realized the other day I hadn’t provided you valuable information from the training session so I’m exposing the best Facebook marketing secrets I’ve discovered for you now.

Facebook marketing secrets revealed…

Test, test and test again- Don’t blow your budget on one or two ads, break up your campaign by creating 3 – 15 ads at once (budget dependent) and once Facebook approve your ads monitor closely by watching your CTR(click through rate) rating. Stop the ads that are not performing well within 1 – 2 days and continue to monitor. By stopping the ads that are not reaching a higher CRT your saving money because Facebook will charge you a higher rate the less successful your ad is which means if no one is clicking on your ad they have to make more effort to show it more and charge accordingly. On the flip side ads well received by the Facebook community reduce in cost.

Split test age groups. Think of the difference between a 15 year old’s likes and dislikes to a 20 year old. Then do the same for a 30 year old to a 40 year old. Age differences can influence the success of your ads. Break up your ads to cover two years to 3 year intervals to help you find your Facebook golden years.

Create 15 ads instantly and for free. The application called http://app.keybrokersocial.com has a template style format that is compatible to Facebook and helps you create loads of ads and post to Facebook. It’s a paid service but you can get 15 free ads to upload a day. And would still be cost efficient if you were planning on creating more than 15 ads per day.

In summary the application called http://app.keybrokersocial.com can help you;
Create multiple ads in an instant to help you test the effectiveness of your ad campaigns.
Test the performance of your ads i.e. Isolate small incremental age groups, pictures, headlines etc.

Ensure you always monitor your results in the early stages and stop ads not performing well. Hopefully you have picked up from this blog post that a big Facebook marketing secrets is testing your ads for their effectiveness based on their performance.

How helpful are these tips? Is there anything specific your looking for in relation to help with Facebook PPC ads that I haven’t covered?

Ally )

Tagged with: Facebook • Facebook Advertising • Facebook Advertising Apps

Filed under: Facebook Advertising • Social Media

Hi,

for those of you looking for the free ebook I promised you here it is….

Think and Grow Rich

Tagged with: free ebook

Filed under: Mindset

It could easily be considered a 21st century style gold rush.

People from far and wild claiming they’ve found ‘gold’ online in the form of income using social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and Linkedin.

Every new entrepreneur, online or offline business owner naturally is lured into using social media for free advertising for their business.

This stirs a gold rush style frenzy of people lining up to use social media sites to promote their business but is it all hype?

In all this hype there are important facts that seem to be unclear for a new entrepreneur or business owner;

How do you turn a friend or follower into a paying customer?

How much time daily should you spend promoting your business on social media sites?

Quick tips I have personally learnt using social media marketing;

Ask as many open ended questions to encourage conversations with you group. This will allow their friends to notice their conversations and want to participate.

Only spend 10% of your time promoting your products or services, spend the rest of the time providing valuable information to your readers. Providing valuable information will help convert a friend to a paying customer.

Create a definite split between your personal profiles and your business. This will help you share appropriate information with your family & friends and allow you to share business related information with a separate group.
Here is a video to explain the difference between a Facebook Fan Page and Profile.

There are lots of social media sites. Don’t try and spend time on ALL, select 2 or 3 and focus on these sites only. It will be too time consuming to manage your profiles on all.

Select this link for Seth Godin opinion on social networking.

(He must know what his talking about, he has over 122,000 fans on his Facebook page )

“Networking is always important when its real and its also a useless distraction when its fake”. Seth Godin.

What’s next? Where can you get the right strategy for your business and reduce the learning curve and time wasted?

I recommend any training led by Zoe deluca.
Zoe has a series called Social Media Short Cut. And specializes in social media training for business.

I met Zoe in November 2010, I believe Zoe can help you because Zoe created her own online business with limited funds, a full time job, her partner working interstate AND with a truck load of kids ( I think between Mark and Zoe they have 3 or 4 kids) purely by using social media. This picture L-R Zoe deLuca, Mark Wyatt and I.

For all you Aussies out there looking to learn from one of Australia’s real social media experts, Zoe is holding live training sessions in QLD and Sydney in July 2011.

Sydney Session
Secret Social Media Business
Where: Club Bondi Junction
When: 22nd of July 2011
Time: 10am to 12:30pm.
Select this link for further information

Select socialmediashortcut.com for further details for QLD session details.

I’m going to the Sydney session, so stay tuned I will summarized what I learnt and get back to you shortly after.

Be bold, take action.
Ally

Tagged with: Facebook • modern day gold rush • Secret Social Media Business • Social Media • social media marketing • Twitter • Zoe deLuca

Filed under: Social Media

Hi,

It’s been a long time but I’m back!!

Are you thinking of owning your own web based business and not sure what to do or where to start?

What is the best product to sell?

Should I have my own website?

And most of all, your not sure who to trust?

I was compelled to write my first ebook because I wanted to share with you a powerful piece of advice that highlights what I believe a true leader should sharing with people they care about who want a different level of success in their life.

Here is your exclusive free copy of Live Beyond Nine To Five’s ebook entitled
The Closet Entrepreneur by Alison Bova
‘What is the secret to becoming a successful entrepreneur?’

I would love to hear your feedback.

Dedicated to your success,

Ally

Filed under: Entreprenuer • Getting online business started • Mindset

Hi,

I met an interesting wolf the other day.

He was fury, wasn’t a good looking young man that turned into a wolf at any given moment, he was the
Wolf From Wall Street author Jordan Belfort.

Here is a quick introduction.

Jordan has had a very interesting life to say the least but what I like about him is his never say die entrepreneurial spirit.

I have created a squidoo lens for you with a series of Jordan’s videos based on a speech with Virgin Australia he completed in 2009.

Its called A Lesson For New Online Entrepreneurs: ‘Don’t Judge A Wolf By its cover’.

Watch the videos from the squidoo lens and let me know what you think of Jordan as an entrepreneur.

Dedicated to your success,
Alison Bova

Filed under: Mindset • Personal Branding • World Domination

Hi,

If there is one thing I would like you to take away from my blog posts and articles is…you need to be the leader who naturally draws people to you and your business. You lead by inspiring others, allowing them to choose to work with you. This creates an intense loyalty amongst your customers, a loyalty that won’t be swayed by other products, people or services like a devoted fan who only listens to their favourite music groups and travels far and wide to see all their gigs.

I created a blog post at betternetworker.com for you called Why Is Leadership Skills Important For Your Online Business?

Let me know if you relate to leadership and owning your own online business in the same way as I do? If you don’t, how to do relate leadership to owning your own business?

Dedicated to your success,
Ally

Filed under: Entreprenuer • Leadership • Mindset • Working From Home

Hi,

i have created a new post at Better Networker called ‘Seven Reasons Why Its Time To Ditch Your Corporate Job and Work For Yourself’

I think the most important part of the message I want to share through this post is there is no right or wrong way its all about creating your way. If your in a corporate job and extremely unhappy then do something about it, you do have other options that may suit you.

Do you think generally that people are unhappy with their jobs and are looking for different alternatives?

Dedicated to your success,

Alison Bova

Filed under: Mindset • Working From Home • World Domination

Your at party, the music is loud and most importantly your having a great time. You take some photos of you and your newfound friends and think it’s a good idea to post them on Facebook later when you get home. It will be great for social media friends to see you living ‘la vita loca’.

Have you done this or the thought crossed your mind? I know I have.

It’s what I like to call the lure of the most silent but deadly trap there is for an online entrepreneur productivity? Thinking your being productive as you waste time on Social Media sites.

It’s called the Social Media Trap.

Diane Darling who wrote ‘Networking for Career Success’ defines networking as ‘the art of building and sustaining mutually beneficial relationships.’

I believe there should be no difference from ‘real life’ to online networking. If your spending more than 30mins a day on social media and are getting under ten free leads you may need to access your approach altogether.

The trap with Social Media is a new online entrepreneur can get all excited and distracted with the total amount of friends, the volume of feedback being received. People can spend a lot of time daily keeping count of all this instead of stepping back and putting Social Media into perspective.
What’s your return on investment in relation to time spent on Social Media and quality leads to your business?
What are the amount of leads you would like to receive per day and how many should be flowing through via your social media channels?

List of Social Media do’s and don’ts for an online business owner;
Don’t
There is only two but these two along will make people remove you from their group of friends and I promise you, they will never buy from you if you behave this way.
Don’t spam your friends with unrelated sales pitches messages constantly in any format. You will look needy and unprofessional.
Don’t create groups and include people without offering an invitation first. (They should decide if they want to be a part of your group). Why would they want to join your group, your being pushy.

Do’s
Start a conversations by asking open ending questions i.e. What, where, when, how and why about what’s important to you.
Find ways to genuinely help your friends online so you can create meaningful relationships.
Share your opinions on any topic and ask for your friends opinion.
When providing a link for your affiliate product/service, explain how it has helped you.

Now there is a fundamental behaviours that underline why the don’t mention impact the way you are perceived and I will discuss this in more detail in my next blog post.

Here is a video from Seth Godin in relation to mixing Social Media and business.

What is your advice for a new online entrepreneur?
What are you top do’s and don’ts when interacting on Social Media?

Dedicated to your success,

Tagged with: online entrepreneur productivity • Seth Godin • Social Media • Social Media Trap

Filed under: Social Media

Is Tony Robbins really serious?

Can someone be that motivating ALL THE TIME?

Its safe to say, sometimes-motivational quotes, seminars and books can be a bit cheesy.

But in all seriousness…

To obtain a higher level of success in your life beyond your previous experiences, you need to do what you have never done before.

And that can mean…an attitude adjustment…

Are you focused on creating a different level of success in your own life?

To evolve we need to acquire wisdom, then practice what we have learnt and consistently correct our emotional patterns and thoughts before we can bring the level of success we want into fruition.

Its not easy, a life time of patterns need to be broken down and altered slowly, one at a time. We are all different so the time frame for everyone alters.

Another way you can help shape your thoughts is by capturing quotes, new beliefs and attitudes that you want to foster. You may read something that is really profound and want to refer back to it in need.

Its called a Wisdom Journal.
Here’s a picture of mine..

Do you own one? Ok, my Wisdom Journal is girly…but your Wisdom Journal doesn’t have to be, you could have a sophisticated leather bound book or a journal with ancient Japanese art on the cover.

I think its quite private but I have shared my Wisdom Book content with my husband to share with him my new goals, aspirations and beliefs I want to make my own and also to give the other person an opportunity to share theirs with you.

I have put together ten life and success principles I believe are the foundation of building success in your business and personal life. I hope they get you thinking about your principles and what matters to you…

1. Time is your most valuable and limited resource, don’t waste it.

2. Don’t let your emotions blind you to reason. Breathe deeply, let it pass. Reaccess what caused the emotion to start.

3. Never make permanent decisions based on temporary circumstances. If you do, you will regret it.

4. Take time to gather all the facts because second-guessing leads to disaster.

5. Consider the consequence of each action, Ask yourself, “Am I ready to handle this right now”.

6. To honest with yourself, what are your strengths, and weaknesses in business and life. Actively work on refining your strengths and improving weaknesses, be open to receiving feedback.

7. Surround yourself with sharp people and draw on their gifts without being intimated by their expertise.

8. Talk time to consider all options. What may look good today may not look good tomorrow.

9. Understand you can’t fight successfully on every front so choose your battles carefully. Some things are not worth fighting for.

10. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

Bonus principle…

11. Treat everyone how you would like to be treated.

Do you have your own set of principles?

Do you have 3, 5 or 20?

What are you most highly valued principles that are not listed.

This is not a set list, over time as I learn and evolve I will add to it.

Dedicated to your success,
Alison Bova

Tagged with: life and success principles • success principles • Wisdom Journal

Filed under: Mindset