Our featured guest will be Shama Kabani–president of The Marketing Zen Group, a full service digital marketing firm that serves clients around the world.  She has been dubbed the “master millennial of the universe” and “an online marketing shaman” by Fast Company, and was listed as one of Business Week Magazine’s ’Top 25 Under 25′ entrepreneurs in North America.   

Register here: THE NEW FACEBOOK -GREATEST WEB TOOL!

Social media has the capabilities to take your business to new places, but you have to understand how social media interacts with your existing marketing plan. You might be posting to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube many times each day, but do you know eactly how this is benefitting your business? Are you sure that you’re using these powerful social media tools smartly and effectively?

Check out our next live Teleclass on Wednesday, July 28th at 8 PM EST entitled “Step Up Marketing Using Social Media” with social media expert Tia Singh and learn how to take advantage of this amazing technology. Tia has used social media to take her business from the ground up, and will teach you the tips that have made her a success. By the end of the call, you’ll be equipped with 3 social media steps you can implement immediately in your business! Click here to register for our next call.

We’ve opened our conference offer to everyone in our database.  For three more days you can purchase 2 Audio Recordings and get 1 Free.   Offer ends May 31 at midnight and coupon code is Conference2010.
 
We have over 50 Audio Recordings to choose from and many may apply towards your continuing education credits.  Click here to see our audio library. 

Keeping Track of CEU’s? 
Depending on your services and scope of work, A Red Bench Audio Recordings may apply towards your continuing education units.  With each audio purchase you receive a certificate of attendance upon passing the class quiz.  Calls are 75 minutes long and may count as 1 CEU.  

Of the 16 categories, however, it was not technology that posted the biggest rise but, rather, financial institutions, with a 12% growth, compared to half of that for tech. Only beer and fast food, with increases of 10% and 1% respectively, showed positive, with the other 12 sectors dropping. It’s worth comparing the list with Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2010.  

The report–its methodology is explained here–has a lot to say about social media and how it affects a company’s brand–especially for those in the tech sector. The BrandZ list didn’t feature Facebook in the top 100, but it slipped in at 20th in the tech rankings. The site, however, featured large in the report, and is seen as a crucial tool in how the big firms will increase their reach using social networking sites. 

Its advice to budding Jobses, Brin/Pages, and Zuckerbergs is to forget about philanthropy (not something, whisper, that either Apple or Facebook is known for) and embrace responsibility, to see mobiles as the new billboards–RIP Don Draper–and that successful brands are built from the top down.

How does this relate to your small business?  If your branding was as strong as your organizing skills, you could drastically increase your revenue.   Once you create a powerful, compelling brand, business comes to you instead of the other way around.  To create a compelling brand purchase audio recording with fellow organizer and brand expert, Krista Green, called Get Noticed, Be Remembered.  You’ll learn how to communicate your values, personality, talents and unique skills to create your own personal brand and influence the way others perceive you.  Brand is not only for the fortune 500 company, perception is everything.

It was one of the most fun days ever.  We went through all my clothes, drank wine, laughed and just had fun.  My husband is thrilled because now I don’t have to bother him every morning asking him how the same old outfit looks.  As if it looks any different than the 30 times prior I’ve worn it.  I have a few things I need to buy to complete the wardrobe, but I now with them help of our teleclass and my friends, I know how to put clothes together in a whole new way. 

Additionally, they taught me a little trick that is pretty helpful.  Since I always gravitate to the same item, they said instead of organizing my closet by clothing type and then color to only organize it by color.  So now all my black clothes, or brown or red, or blue, or whatever color are in one place regardless of whether they are a shirt, skirt, jacket or pants.  So the next time to go grab the same blue shirt I wear all the time, I will see the other 10 blue shirts with it and the pants opening my mind to many more outfits.  Its a pretty good idea.

So if you find yourself saying you have nothing to wear, give our teleclass a listen and apply what you learn to your closet.   Darcey says, “If you are your own brand then your wardrobe is your logo.”  Best part, as an organizer, using what you learn on this call you can help them project the image they want to portray and use this class as a CEU.

To set up a paper filing system in your home or office, we recommend FreedomFiler.  Its the best paper organizing system we’ve found and we’ve used it with hundreds of clients. 

For more help Conquering Paper Clutter, attend our next teleclass on February 17th.  As a follow-up to our January call called Helping Clients Manage The Paper Crisis (available to download on our website,) we want to have a more specific class on paper that tends to cover the desktop, the dining table and kitchen counter.  We call this action paper and there are so many different ways to help your clients deal with their action paper.  Join us on our continuing education call, where we will we will take you through a step by step process to create action files that will Conquer Your Clients Paper Clutter forever.

• Toss ATM, bank deposit slips and receipts for everyday and minor purchases after you’ve checked them against your bank statement. 
• Product solicitations for things you aren’t ready to buy.
• Old magazines, books, and articles you haven’t referred to in the last twelve months.
• Old research materials and literature.
• Duplicates of documents.
• Previous drafts of letters and proposals.
• Information you already know.
• Business stationery you no longer use.  (Keep one or two sheets in a history file and toss the rest.)
• Early drafts of creative writing (unless you really do refer back to them).
• Newspapers.  If they are more than a week old, they are ancient history.
• Junk mail.
• Expired coupons.
• Coupons you won’t use.
• Outdated schedules or planners.
• Old greeting cards (unless they contain a very special message, select your absolute favorites).
• Invitations to past events.
• Expired warranties and service contracts.
• Instructions for items you no longer own.
• Expired insurance policies.
• Investment and banking brochures that are available online.
• Business cards from people whose names you don’t recognize.
• Old tourist brochures from past vacations.
• Road maps you haven’t referred to in ten years.
• Solicitations from charities you don’t intend to give to.
• Recipes you haven’t tried in three years.
• College notebooks and textbooks.  (If you can’t part with them all, keep a box of your best papers and reports and let the rest go.)

*  A Red Bench is not responsible to lost, misplaced or discarded information.   

Want some additional help managing your client’s paper piles?  Attend Helping Clients Manage the Paper Crisis, attend our next teleclass on January 27th.  There is still time to Register! 

Is This Your Desktop

Over the years, I came to recognize two commom issues with paper: it comes into our homes or offices in droves, and we have no idea what to do with it once it arrives.  Where do you put it?  How long do you keep it?   I get these questions daily.   And what about the computer, wasn’t that supposed to help with paper clutter?  Not really – the computer age has increased paper use by 60% over the last ten years.   

We will be tackling many of these common questions on our next teleclass on January 27, 2010, called Helping Clients Manage the Paper Crisis.  But from now until then, I want to pose a challenge for you and your clients.  Ask them to SORT and TOSS one small pile each night between now and January 27th.   The problem with paper is we don’t know where to start and so we never do.  Start small.  Look at the counter, the dining room table or your desktop.  SORT and TOSS one small pile from one location each night and you will be blown away at how much you can get done. 

If you want to learn more about how to Helping Clients Manage the Paper Crisis, attend our next teleclass on January 27th.  Register now! 

Here are some of the benefits:

• Tax papers are available when needed, year after year.
• Never have to clean and re-organize your files again; eliminate the need to set up new folders and re-label files each year.
• Learn to evaluate your paper and assign a home based on how it’s used.
• Know when to toss paper; no more fear of letting go.
• Keep a centralized place for family and property records.
• Color-coding allows for simple retrieval. 

For more paper organizing solutions, attend our next teleclasss on January 27, 2010, called Helping Clients Manage the Paper Crisis.