Posts Tagged ‘Christa Patchen Wagner’
Thursday, August 27th, 2009
We all started businesses to have more time and life balance, right? But what they don’t tell you is as a business owner you work harder and many times for less money than having a salary job. I remember the days of working 8am – 6pm, collecting my fat paycheck every two weeks and leaving work at the office every night. Those days have been gone for a while.
That said, I love being an entrepenuer and owning my own business. Sure it takes a lot more time that I had originally thought, and the pay sometimes isn’t as consistent, but the good news is I work when I want and get to travel as often as I like and don’t have to ask anyone for permission. I love that.
Sometimes though, burnout sets in and it;s time for a change. How do you know when its time? Here are a few signs:
- You dread getting up in the morning and have a tough time getting out of bed.
- You dread going to be bed because you have to work again tomorrow.
- You dread Monday and its just Friday evening.
- You just can’t get excited about work or anything related to work.
- You complain about work a lot.
- You are making excuses as to why you’re not making more money, getting new clients, etc.
- You have a hard time imagining what the future holds for you and your business.
- You feel frustrated often due to work related issues and events.
Business owner burnout is common. Even when you love your wo
rk, we all go through times when we just want to quit or give-up. Our next A Red Bench Business Training Expert is Pam Narvaez of Direct Effect Coaching will talk us through Reinventing Your Career.
There are signs to know it’s the right time to make a change, listen to them rather than feeling angry and frustrated. Click here to register.
A Red Bench provides business training and classes to professional organizers and small businesses.
Tags: A Red Bench, Angela Ploetz, Business Training, Christa Patchen Wagner, Christa Wagner, Pam Narvaez, Professional Organizer Business, Professional Organizer Courses, Professional Organizer Education, Professional Organizing Classes, Professional Organizing Training, Red Bench Program, Teleclasses
Posted in Grow Your Business, Teleclasses | No Comments »
Thursday, August 20th, 2009
A question we get all the time is should I have a blog or a newsletter. Well, you may not like the answer because its both. The good news is you can use these two amazing tools together to help you stay in touch with existing clients as well as increase your visibility on the web. And no joke every time we send out the newsletter, traffic increases to our website and we experience a boost in sales to our professional organizing classes, our audio recordings or our eBooks and forms.
During our social media event, called
Embrace Social Media, we learned the first step to using social media and online communications is to have a blog. Using Word Press or Blogger you can have a free blog up and running in no time. This is an important first step because this allows you to own all of your intellectual property. When you post on Facebook and Twitter, you don’t own that material. So having a blog gives you real estate online and its all yours. Also a blog increases your web visibility with well done search engine optimization.
I know what you’re thinking I don’t have time for both a blog and a newsletter. But these tools can easily work together for you. Blog a few times each week, or write all your blogs at one time and schedule them like I do, and then use the blog posts for your newsletter articles. Now, you are not recreating the wheel, but rather leveraging the same information in multiple formats. Brilliant! You can use the posts as an article, a tip series or a promotion. Get create and leverage what you already have on hand. If you would like to receive our newsletter, email us at info@aredbench.com with “Add to newsletter” in the subject line.
A Red Bench provides training and classes to professional organizers and other service based businesses.
Tags: A Red Bench, Angela Ploetz, Christa Patchen Wagner, Christa Wagner, Embrace Social Media, Professional Organizer Business, Professional Organizer Courses, Professional Organizer Education, Professional Organizing Classes, Professional Organizing Training, Red Bench, social media
Posted in Grow Your Business, Marketing, social media | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
It goes without saying we are all putting more information online than ever before. I have a rule of thumb that is don’t say or do anything I wouldn’t want my mother to read or see. But there are a lot of subtle ways we share much more information than we even think.
Here is a great article called Online social networking: a fraudster’s dream come true! Take a minute to read and protect yourself from hackers, fraud and identity theft.
Wanna learn more about social media and how to use it effectively? We will launch the Embrace Social Media, a TeleSummit Audios and Transcripts one at a time or you can get all eight very soon! More details coming soon!
Thanks to Canadian based professional organizer Jacki Hollywood Brown for letting us know about this article.
A Red Bench provides training and classes to professional organizers.
Tags: A Red Bench, Angela Ploetz, Christa Patchen Wagner, Christa Wagner, Professional Organizer Business, Professional Organizer Courses, Professional Organizing Classes, Professional Organizing Training, Red Bench Program, social media
Posted in social media | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
Are you using social media, but not really sure why and not seeing much benefit? Keep in mind the process can take time and turning friends and followers into clients does not happen over night. But there are a few ways to speed up your results.
Since we offer training to professional organizers, and other service based professionals, we had to get some answers on this new phenomenon that is changing the way small businesses market their business. We had an Embrace Social Media, a TeleSummit a few months ago and it was a huge success and I learned so much on each of the eight expert calls
. How to use LinkedIn to find and make new connection and how to use social media and still manage to get all your other work done.
Our Embrace Social Media, a TeleSummit Audios and Transcripts will be available soon, so stay tuned or email us at info@aredbench.com to be the first to hear of their release. But in the meantime, here are a few of my own takeaways from the event.
- 90% Is Showing Up: One of our experts, Dan McComb on the topic of the The Social Media Phenomenon, said show up and be consistent. If your going to start a blog or post on Twitter then do it consistently. You can decide what that means for you, but show up and be present with your social media usage. By doing so you will more quickly become a trustworthy expert people come to rely on.
- Enjoy It: Like everything else, you don’t have to to anything you don’t want to. Expert Nancy Marmolejo, whose topic was How to Turn Followers Into Fans (and Fans Into Leads!) With Social Networking said be sure you’re enjoying social media or people will not find you genuine. Social media is very transparent and people can see right through you, so be genuine and either like what you’re doing or leave it.
It’s up to you if you want to participate, but there is a lot of opportunity out there and the world has certainly become a lot smaller with so many friends waiting for more information.
We will launch the Embrace Social Media, a TeleSummit Audios and Transcripts one at a time or you can get all eight very soon! More details coming soon!
Tags: Angela Ploetz, Christa Patchen Wagner, Christa Wagner, Dan McComb, Nancy Marmolejo, Professional Organizer Courses, Professional Organizer Education, Professional Organizing Classes, Professional Organizing Training, Red Bench, Red Bench Program, social media, Social Media Training, Teleclasses
Posted in Grow Your Business, In The Know-What's Hot In Organizing, Marketing, Teleclasses, social media | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
On our monthly class for professional organizers, and other service based businesses, we spoke to Sales Expert Helen Graves. The topic was How To Sell Without Being Salesy Or Feeling Like a Pushy eSalesperson. What was interesting is Helen is a shy person and used to hate sales. She was afraid of it and found herself not selling any of her products regardless of the business. The problem wasn’t her product or business, it was her. 
On the class Helen shared her sales template she uses with every perspective client and now has a tremendous record of success and sales. One of the questions that came up on the class was not being assertive enough. The professional organizer said, “If I sense a person is not interested, or even on the fence, instead of trying to pull them back on the fence and over, I back off and give them too much opportunity to say no. I then lower my price too much in an effort to pull them back on, thereby compromising myself and my service.”
Helen responded by saying when we pull back or don’t have confidence in what we are selling, the person on the other end can sense this energy and therefore pulls back and loses confidence as well. Consider this the next time you are in a “sales” situation. Are you asking for the business? Are you pulling back or lowering your price? It is the product the problem or you have some work to do on your sales approach.
The business training class with Sales Expert Helen Graves is now available on our website. Search for How To Sell Without Being Salesy Or Feeling Like a Pushy eSalesperson.
Tags: A Red Bench, Angela Ploetz, Christa Patchen Wagner, Christa Wagner, Helen Graves, Professional Organizer Courses, Professional Organizer Education, Professional Organizing Classes, Professional Organizing Training, Red Bench
Posted in Grow Your Business, Marketing, Sales, Teleclasses | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
We are hearing a lot about social media these days. It’s a topic that certainly can stir some emotion. Some people have jumped in with both feet and others are avoiding it like the plague. We have been using social media for a little while now and I have to say I am finding the blog and Facebook enjoyable and worthwhile, but I still have so much to learn.
Since we offer training to professional organizers, and other service based professionals, we had to get some answers on this new phenomenon that is changing the way small businesses market their business. We had an Embrace Social Media, a TeleSummit a few months ago and it was a huge success and I learned so much on each of the eight expert calls. How to use Twitter effectively and not lose your mind, how to create content around keywords and the do’s and don’t of a blog.
Our Embrace Social Media, a TeleSummit Audios and Transcripts will be available soon, so stay tuned or email us at info@aredbench.com to be the first to hear of their release. But in the meantime, here are a few of my own takeaways from the event.
- Engage People and Be Interesting: My best status updates are the ones where I pose a question and get lots of answers from my friends. This has been the beginning stage of several information products I have in the works. By asking interesting questions you get people to engage and participate with you.
- Listen: Don’t just talk all the time, listen to what’s going on, make comments and contribute. A great thing to do is send people Happy Birthday wishes to let them know you are thinking of them.
It’s up to you if you want to participate, but there is a lot of opportunity out there and the world has certainly become a lot smaller with so many friends waiting for more information.
We will launch the Embrace Social Media, a TeleSummit Audios and Transcripts one at a time or you can get all eight very soon! More details coming soon!
Tags: Angela Ploetz, Business Training, Christa Patchen Wagner, Christa Wagner, Embrace Social Media, Professional Organizer Courses, Professional Organizer Education, Professional Organizing Classes, Professional Organizing Training, social media, Social Media Training, Teleclasses
Posted in In The Know-What's Hot In Organizing, Marketing, Teleclasses, social media | 2 Comments »
Friday, August 7th, 2009
We are so excited that our bridge line is nearly full for our Free call on Monday, August 10th called How We Get The Right Things Done (Without Going Crazy.)
Here is what we will share on the class:
- How we run multiple businesses, projects and streams of income (without going crazy).
- How we carve out time for what matters most.
- Our PERSONAL CHECKLIST of what YOU can do to take back your time, right now!
- How you can decide what is most important this and every week.
- We will also share the one action that has made a huge difference to our business and personal life.
Register here and let us know what you think after the call. We look forward to working with you!
Tags: A Red Bench, Angela Ploetz, Christa Patchen Wagner, Christa Wagner, Professional Organizer Courses, Professional Organizer Education, Professional Organizing Training, Red Bench, Red Bench Program, Teleclasses
Posted in Grow Your Business, Teleclasses, Time Management | No Comments »
Thursday, August 6th, 2009
As professional organizers, we are always looking for new products to share with our clients and here’s one I came across the other day (from a friend on Facebook). The company is called SpiceTable and the product is SpiceCare; a spice storage system.
With the SpiceCare system, “You keep spices them fresh and simplify storage–in containers as distinctive as the spices they contain.” The SpiceCare System is sold as a convenient boxed set or as individual containers, allowing you to build the perfect size spice collection for your needs. Extra screens, lids and labels are also available to help you manage and organize your growing collection.
SpiceCare could be a potential product choice for clients with limited storage space, clients who needs to see things to know they are there and clients who enjoy aesthetically appealing products on their kitchen counter. Check it out and let us know what you think!
Tags: A Red Bench, Angela Ploetz, Christa Patchen Wagner, Christa Wagner, Organizing Products, Professional Organizer Training, Professional Organizing Training
Posted in In The Know-What's Hot In Organizing | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
It goes without saying that social media is changing the way we market ourselves. All of a sudden we can get our message to so many more people for virtually no cost, but our time. Since we offer training to professional organizers, and other service based professionals, we had to get some answers on this new phenomenon. We had an Embrace Social Media, a TeleSummit a few months ago and it was a huge success and I learned so much on each of the eight expert calls. How to use Facebook effectively, how to turn followers into fans and how to manage my time, yet still use these amazing and ground breaking tools.
Our Embrace Social Media, a TeleSummit Audios and Transcripts will be available soon, so stay tuned or email us at info@aredbench.com to be the first to hear of their release. But in the meantime, here are a few of my own takeaways from the event.
- Start with a blog first. If you are heading down the path of social media, the first step is to get a blog so you own all your intellectual property. If everything you write is on Facebook or Twitter, you don’t own your material. Create a blog and then link your blog to the various social media tools. For help getting started purchase and listen to our class called How to Plan, Build and Promote Your Blog with Blog Expert and 2 Time NAPO Conference Speaker Rich Brooks.
- Add Value: If you are using social media solely for the purpose of personal use, then sure post that your child just pooped himself. But if you are using social media for your business think about how you can add value and what would attract people to your. What problems or challenges do your followers have and how can you provide some help and solutions.
It’s up to you if you want to participate, but there is a lot of opportunity out there and the world has certainly become a lot smaller with so many friends waiting for more information.
We will launch the Embrace Social Media, a TeleSummit Audios and Transcripts one at a time or you can get all eight very soon! More details coming soon!
Tags: A Red Bench, Angela Ploetz, Business Training, Christa Patchen Wagner, Christa Wagner, Dan McComb, Nancy Marmolejo, Professional Organizer Courses, Professional Organizer Education, Professional Organizing Training, Red Bench, Red Bench Program, Rich Brooks, social media, Social Media Training, TeleSummit
Posted in Grow Your Business, In The Know-What's Hot In Organizing, Marketing, Teleclasses, social media | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
We wanted to thank Lorrie Gazette for her very nice and much apprecaited testimonial. Lorrie purchase and listened to the Powerful Needs Assessment Teleclass. I had to write and let you know how great I thought it was. I’ve taken many Teleclasses since starting my business 3 years ago, and this was one of the most content-rich classes I’ve heard in a while.” 
Lorrie is the owner of Creative Order &
Design in Texas. She is a member of NAPO, a Certified Professional Organizer & Home Stager and Certified Relocation Transition Specialist
Thanks Lorrie. We hope to work with you again soon!
Tags: A Red Bench, Angela Ploetz, Business Forms, Business Training, Christa Patchen Wagner, Christa Wagner, Lorrie Gazette, NAPO, Powerful Needs Assessment, Professional Organizing Classes, Professional Organizing Training, Red Bench, Teleclasses
Posted in Grow Your Business, Information Products, Teleclasses | No Comments »
