You don’t have to be an extrovert to be good at selling. In fact, there is no better time to be an introvert than today. With the advent of email marketing, automatic sales pages, and all the technology behind selling today, it’s an introvert’s paradise.

1. Processes Are Your Friends – When you create a sales funnel, it helps you create a process for selling. Follow the process and you’ll make the sales easier, without a lot of pressure on you or your customers.
2. Automation Does What You Can’t – A wonderful tool is to automate follow-up emails and information to your leads, allowing you to nurture them. You’ll set it up and basically forget it.
3. Mind Your Numbers – Always study the metrics. These numbers mean a lot and will tell you what you need to focus on next, as well as what is working and what is not working. People don’t like to hear it sometimes, but selling is a numbers game. If you learn that you need to make twenty contacts to make one sale, you can find more ways to make those contacts.
4. Focus on Relationships – Introverts don’t like to talk about themselves, which is good because it’s all about them. Build up the relationships you form on social media, in email, and in person by focusing on building a good relationship more that selling to them.
5. Please the People – Again, it’s all about what you can do for them. As an introvert you probably like taking care of other people. Pleasing them will feel great to you and not like selling. If you have a great product or service that solves problems for them, you’re going to feel good telling them about it.
6. Use Your Listening Skills – We have two ears for a reason, but you may have thought you had to do a lot of talking to make a sale. The truth is, the more you listen, the more you’ll be taught by your client how to make the sale.
7. Be a Resource - The more helpful you can be to your audience, the more resourceful you are about sending them the information that they need to move through the buying cycle, and the more likely you are to make the sale.
8. Delay the Sale but Ask for the Close – Don’t be in a hurry to make the close. Yes, you will need to ask for the sale via your calls to action, but you don’t have to rush it or push the customer. It probably won’t feel natural to you as an introvert and honestly the customer doesn’t like it either.

There is a science to closing a sale and if you study that science, you’ll have a lot of success. Don’t allow anyone to say that introverts can’t sell. Many introverts are great at selling, even better than extroverts because they’re not as forceful and people like them.
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2016!  Excited for this year!  Thank you for your feedback and suggestions.  Please keep them coming.  My direct email is doreen@doreendilger.com.   Wishing you a productive day! 

Sometimes you just need to make some extra cash and make it fast. You already have products and/or services that you market to your audience and there is no time to come up with something new. So, how can you boost sales for quick cash without adding anything new or doing anything time-consuming?

1. Add Complementary Services – Figure out how you can make the item even more desirable to the audience by adding a complementary service or product to the original offering. For example, if you have a services business, up the ante by adding a little extra work to the service.
2. Extend Your Demographic – While normally you want to niche down your offerings to very specific people, if you can offer the same items to another audience without many changes, do it now.
3. Enter a Joint Venture – Getting access to other people’s email lists and audience, is the main reason for entering into a joint venture. Get with some other people who offer complementary products or services to yours and host a webinar together.
4. Have a Limited Time Bundle Sale – Mix and match your products or services in a brand new way for a limited time. Make it something that your audience will really want and that they really need, and you’ll have a winning combination.
5. Incentivize Your Affiliates – If you have affiliates or sales partners, give them a big incentive to start selling more. A prize for selling a certain amount, or for selling the most, will encourage them to promote you even more.
6. Offer Extras to Your Existing Clients – If you have a client list, reach out to them with a special sell for only existing clients. Ask them to double their order for 1/2 off the second order, or some other discount you can afford to offer.
7. Accept New Payment Methods – If you’re currently only offering limited payment methods, find out from your audience with a survey what other options they’d like. Sometimes just giving them a new way to pay makes all the difference.
8. Offer Payment Plans – If you have a high priced item, offer a limited time payment plan, or sign up for PayPal credit so that your customers can get what they want today without having the full amount of money.

 
These easy ways to boost sales for quick cash can make a huge difference in your business and your bottom line. You’ll find that you can actually give yourself a raise anytime you want to use any of these methods.
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2016!  Excited for this year!  Thank you for your feedback and suggestions.  Please keep them coming.  My direct email is doreen@doreendilger.com.   Wishing you a productive day! 

When you run a home based business, you will eventually need to hire a bookkeeper. If you’re not a bookkeeper yourself, you’ll want an expert to keep track of your cash flow, manage payments to contractors and employees, and make sure you getting every home based business deduction you can take by law. But, if you’re not a bookkeeper, how do you know what to look for?

1. Certification – It doesn’t take much to get a bookkeeping certification and shows that the bookkeeper is serious. In fact, if they have the certification you can likely skip over the test mentioned above.

2. Experience – Make sure that your new bookkeeper has more experience than you. Even a new bookkeeper who hasn’t gone through an entire yearly cycle with a client will be confused and may make mistakes that experience will prevent.

3. Good Communicator – A person can have all the skills in the world, but if they’re not good at communicating with you then they will not be effective. Make sure that your new bookkeeper knows that you want them to take charge and tell you the rules and regulations regarding your accounts, not the other way around.

4. Good Problem Solver – They need to be good at figuring out problems that may come up in the course of each year. For example, if you work in the cloud, how good are they at figuring out the technology involved?

5. Understand Your Niche – Bookkeepers usually work in a particular niche, the reason being that there is so much to know that one bookkeeper can’t know everything. So, concentrating on a niche will help them know more about the ins and outs of how to keep your books in the most up-to-date manner.

6. They Take CE Courses – Bookkeepers that are certified are required by the certification entity to get a certain amount of continuing education credits each year. Even if you choose someone who knows what they’re doing but isn’t certified, the fact that they continue their education should mean something.

7. Meet Deadlines – A bookkeeper should know the importance of meeting deadlines, especially those set by the IRS and local taxing authority. Ask them if they’ve ever missed a deadline and if so why, and what did they do about it.

8. Entrepreneurial Mindset – Most business owners don’t need a full-time bookkeeper. If you hire a contractor who works for several other businesses, they need to have a mindset that makes them a fellow business owner, not an employee who is following orders.

These critical things to look for when hiring a bookkeeper will help you avoid a problem with the bookkeeper later. Having a bookkeeper is a life saver, but the wrong one can kill your business.
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2016!  Excited for this year!  Thank you for your feedback and suggestions.  Please keep them coming.  My direct email is doreen@doreendilger.com.   Wishing you a productive day! 

As a home based business owner, you know that you need to network. You know networking will help you get to know people, build relationships, and even build your reputation as an expert if you know what you’re doing. To be successful with networking, avoid these common mistakes.

1. Not Having a Goal – You should create a goal for general networking but also for each networking channel, be it online or offline. Before any event, write down the goal you want to achieve. For example, you want to connect with at least three new people, so that you know when you leave if you’ve been successful or not.

2. Not Being You – Many people think that because they have a home business, they need to exaggerate and make themselves look bigger and better than they are. But the truth is, you simply need to be yourself because it is you that makes your business and offerings special.

3. Not Listening More Than You Talk – You were given two ears and one mouth for a reason, therefore practice mindful listening. Repeat back to others what you heard, mirror their thoughts, and ask appropriate questions. They’ll actually remember you more this way.

4. Hanging Out with Competitors – While you do want to get to know your competitors, you will make more sales by networking with the people who need what you have. Commiserating with colleagues is useful, but it won’t increase your sales.

5. Not Pushing Your Boundaries – Going to events can be scary, but it’s important to push your boundaries if you want to grow your business. You can start slow with online events, and then move slowly into offline events.

6. Acting like a Wallflower – Don’t go to an event and stand in a corner all alone. Mingle and get to know people. A good trick to help you accomplish this without getting sick is to volunteer to be a greeter at the event, handing out name tags, or something else that requires you to speak to people.

7. Being the Last One Standing – At any in-person event, you want to make your exit before the last minute. Being the last one at an event can be a sign of desperation. Instead, leave people wanting more.
 
8. Having No Energy – When you speak to people, project your voice but don’t yell, and show some likeable energy about you. You want people to feel good when you talk to them.

Common networking mistakes that home business owners make can be avoided with just a little bit of knowledge and planning. You can be very successful with networking as a home business owner. Today, most people don’t have an issue working with someone who has a home office, so you can go into any situation with confidence. The important thing is that you can do what you say you can do and follow through.
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2016!  Excited for this year!  Thank you for your feedback and suggestions.  Please keep them coming.  My direct email is doreen@doreendilger.com.   Wishing you a productive day! 

Most people make New Year’s resolutions that they promptly drop before the month of January is done. But, if you learn how to choose goals that really have a chance of coming to fruition, and understand that goals need action behind them to be achieved, you’ll make this next year one of success.

This six-step process will help you choose goals for the New Year that really do have a chance to become true.

1. What Did You Accomplish This Past Year?
Starting your planning session with the positives from the past year will help get you into a better frame of mind. If you can see that you’ve accomplished a lot of what you set out to accomplish, it will give you the driving force to keep going with some of those goals that may still lie just out of reach.

2. What Did Not Go Well Last Year?
More than likely you made some goals that you didn’t achieve. It’s good to look at those items and try to determine why you didn’t reach them. Were they realistic goals? Did you make a good enough plan to ensure you met each goal? Did you make too many other goals so that you simply did not have enough time?

3. Make a Short List of Things You’d Like to Accomplish in the Coming Year
Now make a short list of no more than five things you’d like to accomplish this coming year. You might pick something you’ve already been succeeding at that you want to continue for the New Year, or you might choose some things from the list that did not get accomplished. You may also choose to add completely new items to the list.

4. Make a List of Things You’re Going to Stop Doing
One reason some New Year’s goals aren’t accomplished is lack of time. Therefore, you need to make room for the new goals. This requires that you make a list of things you’re not going to do anymore that will give you time for the new goals. For example, let’s say one of your new goals is to exercise 30 minutes a day, and last year you read 30 minutes a day. You might choose to end reading for the year in favor of exercising.

5. Refine Your To-Do List with Real Plans of Action
Here you’ll take your list of five and move it down to one or two things you really and truly want to and need to accomplish for the New Year. The way you’ll do that is to actually plan each thing out. You obviously want to accomplish these items by the end of the year, so start at that date. Then, moving backwards, make a plan of actions you need to take each day to actually achieve your goals.

6. Put Everything in Your Calendar
No plans will happen if they’re not down on paper or a digital calendar. Each step you need to take should be in the calendar. That way, any given day when you wake up in the morning, you simply look at the calendar and find out what you need to do. You don’t need to even focus on the end result, only what you are doing today or this hour.

These six steps will help you reach any goals that you want to for the New Year. Remember, it’s all about narrowing down what really matters, making realistic goals that you have time to work into your already busy day, and then scheduling everything for success.
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2016!  Excited for this year!  Thank you for your feedback and suggestions.  Please keep them coming.  My direct email is doreen@doreendilger.com.   Wishing you a productive day! 

​Before you embark on starting a home based business, it’s important to do some self-evaluation to ensure that you’re on the right track for your business idea. Being brutally honest is part of the process of getting started. Answer the following to help you make your decision. Don’t hold back; be honest.

1. Are You Self-Motivated? – Are you able to set schedules for yourself and get things done on time without having someone else set the schedule for you? When you work for yourself you are going to have to determine the processes by which things get done. Can you handle doing that? If that’s a weakness for you, can you get help and hire a business coach?

2. Discover Your Why – Figure out why you want to start a home based business. If it’s to be rich, to be able to sit on the beach all day, or to “have more time,” then you’re fooling yourself and you need to find a different type of job. Sure, eventually you may have more flexibility and control over your time, but when you first start you’ll work harder for free than you’ve ever imagined you could.

3. Be Realistic – You may not have a boss technically anymore, but depending on what type of business you start, you may suddenly feel like you have many bosses. For example if you become a virtual assistant, you’ll likely have 8 to 10 clients who all think they’re your boss. You’ll have to find a way to balance this fact with your expectations.

4. List Your Resources – Before starting a business, list all your current resources, whether it’s software and tools or people who can help you. This resource list will help you to ask people to help you, and will help you know what you have going for you right now.

5. Do You Play Well with Others? – You might think a home business means you don’t have to deal with anyone else, but often times the opposite is true. If you know that you have difficulty with others, you may want to choose a home business to start where you don’t have to deal with people as much.
 
6. You’ll Need to Wear Many Hats – When you start a business you may have to be the bookkeeper, the laborer, and the marketing expert. This is how it is when you own your home based business; you do what needs to be done at the moment it needs to be done, even if it’s something you hate. Sure, you can outsource but when that falls through, you must do it.

7. Do You Have Enough Experience? – When you think of the type of business you want to start, are you truly experienced enough to do it or should you start at a different level to move up to what you really want to do? For example, if you’ve never had a successful home based business, you can’t coach others to have one.

8. Do You Have a Good Relationship with Money? – When it comes to making your own money in a home based business, you’ll have to become an expert at money management. Sometimes you will feel as if you’re working for free; other times the money will seem to be on autopilot.

9. Do You Understand the Competition? – One aspect of choosing whether you’re right for a home based business is to look at your competition. Determine whether or not you can deliver at least as well as them, with your own twist.
Not everyone is cut out for having a home based business. Some people need the structure of a place to go each day in order to be successful. It’s imperative that you are real with yourself during your self-evaluation.
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2016!  Excited for this year!  Thank you for your feedback and suggestions.  Please keep them coming.  My direct email is doreen@doreendilger.com.   Wishing you a productive day!