Working at home, alone with one’s computer and to-do list, seems like the ultimate manifestation of the American dream of successful self-employment. In the corporate world, how often do we roll our eyes at the fifth unwanted visit from bored co-workers in the space of an hour, or chafe at the time spent in mandatory (yet pointless) meetings, and heartily wish we could have just one afternoon of uninterrupted time to finish that project?

Just the thought of working quietly at home, comfortably clad in sweats rather than restrictive “office wear” and sipping a cup of fresh coffee for a change is enough to evoke a feeling of peace and tranquility that lasted until we realize with a start that we are still at work, laboring under glaring fluorescent lighting, drinking what passes for coffee in this reality and listening to the idiot in the cubicle next to you humming loudly enough to cause your client on the phone to ask you to turn down your radio or to at least tune it in to the station properly.

So one fine day, you leave the corporate world for the freedom and excitement of a REALTOR® entrepreneur. You look forward to reaping the benefits of your own hard work, rather adding value to some corporate entity whose leadership team thought that giving you a paper certificate acknowledging all your contributions to the company was adequate compensation while your former boss receives a five-figure bonus for “empowering” your good work.

But you’re not bitter, and as a matter of fact, you’re quite exhilarated at the prospect of working for yourself, and anticipate with pleasure the productive workdays and the sense of accomplishment that you’re sure you will have after each day’s work.

But then it doesn’t quite turn out that way. Oh sure, you wear sweats and drink good coffee, but somehow days slip by and your work still isn’t done, or your business isn’t growing like you thought it would.

You decide that your office supplies aren’t adequate so you drive to the office supply store and wander for hours, finally staggering out with hundreds of dollars of paper clips, pens and file folders that you thought you needed, but now survey with a sick feeling that perhaps you’ve overspent today, both your budget and your time, so you drive through the fast food place for a quick burger, and find you still don’t want to go home and face that blank computer and a phone that doesn’t ring.

It’s only been two months, but you’ve already gained 12 pounds and seen every episode of “Dr. Phil” since you quit your job. You’re beginning to worry that you’ll never get your business off the ground, and the thought of returning to the corporate world suddenly doesn’t seem quite so repellent anymore, although you get a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach at the thought of job hunting, or worse, crawling back to your old job.

Let’s face it, you’re not in a good place, but you don’t have to stay there, and you don’t (necessarily) have to scuttle back to the corporate world with your tail between your legs.

Here are 10 suggestions for organizing your workday that will give you the feeling of control and help you succeed in your efforts to develop your home-based business.

1. Create a separate, distinct workspace. Having a space that is devoted to work helps you concentrate and stay organized because all your supplies and materials are right there.

2. Get ready for work each day as if you expected a visitor. No, you don’t have to be dressed up, but you do have to be showered and in clean clothes.

3. Set your office hours, and stick to them. Work can be never-ending if you’re always putting it off to do household chores, run errands, or watch TV. You can probably accomplish more at home since you won’t have as many interruptions and meetings, so don’t feel guilty about working fewer hours, but do work them. Don’t waste time surfing the internet.

4. Learn to work with your natural strengths and inclinations, and you’ll find your days become much more productive. For example, if you’re a morning person, schedule mentally arduous tasks in the morning, and meetings in the afternoon. Create and stick to a business plan.

5. Book appointments to do all your work, including your marketing and administrative tasks. This helps you make sure that everything gets done, and gives you a realistic idea of how much time you are spending on building your business.

6. Create hard copy files or binders with important documents for your business, and keep them in plain sight for easy reference. You’ll need a business binder with a list of your vendors (phone, ISP, web host) along with your account numbers and access codes, plus your business license, insurance and banking information. You’ll also need your business and marketing plans within easy reach so that you can review them often.

7. Create standard responses for common transactions. For example, create scripts or letter templates to welcome new clients, confirm meetings, or for sales conversations. This saves time, helps you maintain your standards, and keeps you calm when you receive an unexpected call from a prospect.  (Create standardized packages for new buyers and sellers.)

8. Create daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly financial goals, and review them daily. Yes, it sounds like lot, but once you create these goals, all you have to do is check them each day to see if you need to make modifications in tomorrow’s schedule. For example, if your sales are down today, schedule sales meetings or calls for tomorrow (and do them!). Constant attention to your financial goals really does help you prioritize your daily actions, and you’ll be surprised how quickly you learn what works for you.

9. End each workday with 30-minutes of goal setting and planning for the next day, and general clean up. You’ll be glad you prepared your schedule the next morning, and you won’t have to face a messy desk at the beginning of tomorrow’s workday.  (OK, those that know me well know my desk is still messy – but it’s MY mess and I know where EVERYTHING is.)

10. Hold yourself to your own standards. Find yourself making a lot of personal phone calls, running errands, or taking long lunches when you’re supposed to be working? Ask yourself if you would accept this behavior from someone you were paying to work for you; if not, then stop it, because you are paying yourself (or you should be). Just because you are the boss doesn’t mean you are exempt from your own standards.

Approaching your home-based business like a job is really all in your attitude and your work habits. When you focus on your daily goals, you can leave your office feeling comfortable about what you accomplished each day, and you won’t stay awake nights worrying about whether you are getting enough work done, because you are.

Carpe diem,

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I was asked by a friend to “pinch-hit” for his weekly motivational email, so I dug through my old files and found one of the “e-farming” emails I had sent out to my database back in, get this, Sept. 1999.  It’s a “Chicken Soup for the Soul” type of story but thought I’d post it here because it is just as applicable now as it was 10 years ago - I hope you enjoy!

Because of Who You Are
by Ray Whiting

When I was growing up “common courtesy” was … well, it was common. Young boys and girls were taught manners, how to eat properly, how to address their elders, how to conduct themselves in public, “Yes, please,” “No, thank you,” and all the rest. Then came the Feminist Movement. Then came Generation-X, then Y. Nobody knows what’s coming next, but somehow common courtesy went out with the trash, apparently.

Story has it that a young man reach around a women to open and hold the door for her. She huffed on through and said, “You don’t have to hold the door because I’m a lady.”

The boy looked up and said, “No, ma’am… I did it because I’m a gentleman.”

In this day and age it seems more common that we make a value judgment of a person before us, and, depending on our assessment, we extend or withhold certain courtesies.

How sad. Such behavior says, “I think you are worthy of my attention” and to another, “I’m going to ignore you.”

I’m sure we can all make distinctions in how we behave toward the CEO of the bank, versus the street person sitting against the wall outside the bank.

I recently read about a minister who preached a series of sermons on how people might conduct themselves toward others, regardless of their apparent station in life or outward appearance. It seemed to be well received. As the series was ending, one cold Sunday morning the people gathered for church, stepping over and around a wino sleeping on the sidewalk near the church. His rumbled cloth hat was pulled down over his face, his trousers were torn, shoes without laces covered feet without socks, and an empty liquor bottle was barely covered in a paper sack on the sleeping man’s lap. A threadbare and dirty coat wasn’t buttoned, showing a bare-chested man, clearly at rock bottom in his life.

Some of the people clucked their tongues at the obvious drunk, others hugged their children closer as they gathered into the warmth of the church. No one tried to wake the drunk, invite him indoors, or even offer an extra coat. After all, the organist had begun her work on the keyboard, and church was about to start. The people sat in their pews, the organ played on. A ten minute wait turned into fifteen and then twenty minutes. When all the people were seated and growing very impatient, they heard the sanctuary doors pull open once more. All heads turned to watch the drunk man stagger toward the front of the church, his head bobbing under the ragged hat still pulled down over his face.

People pulled their coats around them as if he might bump them in their pews. No one said a word as he made his way to the platform. A gasp was heard as he stepped up into the pulpit… raised his head … removed the hat … and revealed that it was the minister himself. The final sermon of that series was delivered without ever saying a word. The minister simply stood in the pulpit, looking at his parishioners one by one, then signaled they should stand for the closing prayers.

When we treat people according to what we think of them, it’s because we feel powerful enough to judge others, but that behavior speaks more about us than it does about them. Our worth as a person isn’t threatened by the status of another, but we often treat people as if it were. But when we treat each person as worthy, it is because of who WE are, not who we think they are.

The only person I can ever know for sure is ME. The rest is just conjecture and opinion based on outward impressions. I try to treat people based on who I am — having an honest measure of self-esteem; I can extend to others the same courtesies I believe I deserve myself. The better I know myself, and the higher I value myself, the better I will treat others because of who I am, regardless who they may seem to be.

And, it’s funny. Human nature being what it is, when we give people the courtesy of treating them with dignity, even if they seem to be base and low in demeanor, they will rise to the occasion. For all we know, WE might be the only one able to see them as worthy human beings, the only ones giving them room to grow in their own self-esteem. Treating people because of who we are is a far greater gift than allowing first impressions to control our behaviors toward others.

Carpe diem,

So you emailed me, and waited patiently for me to reply, but I didn’t.  Hours went by, then days, and finally more than a week (or a month) had passed, and you were still waiting for some sign that I had received, read, or at least noticed your message.

But, no such luck.  No response, no reaction, no nothing.  And perhaps you felt mad, disgusted, offended, hurt, or just plain disappointed that I ignored you.

Bummer.  I feel your pain, because I’ve been there, too.  But if I didn’t respond to your message, you deserve to know why, and here’s the deal.

Basically, I did not recognize your email as “real” email.  For some reason, it looked like spam or junk.  My filter may have helped me come to that conclusion, but a variety of other reasons could have contributed to my decision to hit the Delete key before opening and reading your message.

After having worked with many clients, as you can imagine, I get a lot of email.  Despite a great filter, I still get a lot of spam, so I have to exercise my best judgment when choosing which emails to open, and which to delete.

Here’s what I consider spam:  Unsolicited sales information (no, I do not need Viagra or super vitamins), pleas for help from complete strangers (sorry, sire, but I can’t provide you with my bank account number so you can move your fortune out of the country before the natives get really restless), and viruses (yes, I understand that you are a complete but unrecognized genius but I don’t care, you pimply-faced snot-nosed hacker rat; get a life!).

Good friends can send me information that I might find amusing, helpful, or just something I need to know, but so far nobody I know, like, and trust, has tried to sell me Viagra, get my bank account number, or give me a computer virus.  Complete strangers have written to me and become clients, friends, and valued colleagues, but we connected because I could tell at a glance that their email messages were legit.

So it’s not all email, just certain stuff that throws up the red flags in my inbox.

Here are my criteria for automatic deletion, and if you recognize yourself, my apologies for nuking your message:

No sender name or identification.  If you haven’t bothered to set up your email properly so that your name appears as the sender, it is dangerous for me to open your emails.  Either you are a spammer, or you are so techno-phobic that you might make bad decisions regarding your own computer hygiene, so my computer is at risk when accepting messages from you. Uh huh.

Unfamiliar (and weird) sender name.  Would you open an email message from Misalliance M. Checkbook?  I wouldn’t, and you shouldn’t either, unless you want a virus.

No subject line.  Again, a potential problem, unless I know you personally and know you to be so quick on the draw that you consistently send out messages before writing the subject line.  Otherwise, no dice.

First name only in subject line.  If I don’t already know you, I will assume that your message is spam unless the subject line tells me otherwise.  If I am undecided, I will check the properties of your sender name just to see who you are, and if I don’t know you, I hit the Delete key without another thought.

Obvious misspellings in the subject line.  Again, if I already know you, chances are I will open this email if the misspellings make sense, but if I don’t know you (or at least recognize your email address), that message with the weird spellings and punctuation goes right into the Deleted Items folder.

Sender name as subject line.  OK, I know that some of you sent me messages with your name as the subject line, but so does every rich widow, deposed prince, and exiled sheik in the world who wants my bank account number, and I am not willing to read one more of those messages.  Not that I ever fell for the I-need-you-to-hold-my-50-billion-dollar-fortune-while-I-fight-the-forces-of-evil story, but I am offended by the very nature of these messages, and refuse to open them.  If your message got nuked with that trash, now you know why.

My name or web address as subject line.  Oh please!  Could it BE any more obvious that’s it’s a solicitation?

Nonsensical subject line (usually in all lower case).  Bottom line, I’m not so curious that I am willing to be inconvenienced, bored, or annoyed, so this ploy doesn’t work for me.

Lewd or objectionable subject line.  I don’t like to think of myself as a prude, but I do not appreciate lewdness, bigotry, racism, or intolerance from anyone.  Bye bye!

A RE: or FWD: in subject line from a sender I don’t recognize.  If I haven’t already been in touch, why would there be a RE: in the subject line?  Clever monkeys, these spammers.  Same with forwards; why would a complete stranger forward a message about some great deal to me?

It goes right to my Junk Mail folder.  Yes, once in a while I catch a “real” email in my Junk Mail folder, but often I just nuke ‘em all after a quick scan.  Hey, I’m busy!

OK, not all ignored email is spam, and here a couple of special cases with explanations:

I didn’t get it.  It could happen, and it does.  Even mail I have sent myself from home doesn’t always make it here, so please give me the benefit of the doubt on this.

Unsolicited newsletter.  Here’s the deal: I get a lot of newsletters.  A LOT.  And I have the majority of them sent to my newsletter email address, so that I can read them at my leisure, and so my inbox does not overflow with email.  But for some reason, some people who get my business card at a networking event or whatever feels justified in adding me to their mailing lists without my permission.  I find this…fatiguing.  So fatiguing that I will unsubscribe or just hit Delete. 

My email bounced back because your mailbox was full or your ISP doesn’t like my ISP.  Why can’t they all just get along?

You wrote just to tell me how much I stink.  Well, you’re entitled to your opinion, just as I am entitled to mine, and my opinion is that flaming emails (and the like) are simply not worth acknowledging. 

So there you have it (or not).  Every once in a while an email gets lost in my inbox (sorry about that), or I think I’ve responded when I haven’t (hey, human here), because for the most part, my intentions are good. 

Are we good now?

Carpe diem,

I got this from a friend of mine who is the president of an ad agency a few days ago in his weekly email to friends and clients – as true as it is in his world of glitz and glammer, it just as true in ours…

“Whatever pace you move at, try moving at the pace of appreciation”.

My wife once said to me, “Honey, you need to move at the pace of appreciation.” Her quote, not mine. In that moment, I forced myself to slow down, way down, to see what was in front of me and it was my amazing wife. She looked different to me in slow motion. For the moment, I saw past my busyness and was at total peace downshifting into a gear where I could see “clearly,” which inherently is the pace of appreciation. It’s a slower place than we’re used to, but the peace, productivity, perspectives and power that reside there make it worth the investment. Move at the pace of appreciation today.

Can you try to take his advice for just tomorrow?  I did today and it has been amazing how much different life looks, the wonderment in all of it.  So many things go by unnoticed – unappreciated.  Life can be so much richer than we experience, so much deeper than our daily business allows.  Drink deeply from the blessings of a sunset, the smell of a rose, and the beauty of those you love.

Carpe diem,

I had one of those “teaching moments” with my middle son.  Cody is a very bright kid who, through a series of unfortunate circumstances developed autism when he was younger.  Through dedication, hard work, and no short measure of God’s providence he has recovered to about 90%.  His only remaining quirk is his compulsiveness which is rooted in his emotional swings. 

He was ranting about it being his turn to do the dinner dishes and I used the opportunity to Carpe diem (seize the day).  I shared with him one of the greatest lessons in life – your feelings are not always your friend.

We, as part of modern American culture, have confused the role of emotion and passion in our lives.  Yes, passion is a great thing.  I would even dare to say it is an essential thing if we want to live a life that dares to venture past mere success and into significance. God designed our emotions to give us drive and color the worlds we live in.  But our emotions must be directed and filtered through our head first.  Just because I feel something doesn’t make it true.  Truth by its definition is not relative. 

I have seen many adults fall into the same trap Cody found himself in.  He was being led by his emotions.  When we let our emotions make decisions, we almost always will find ourselves down the wrong path.  If we look back with a perspective based in honesty I’d be surprised if we didn’t find almost all of our personally created catastrophes rooted in emotional reaction.   Look around you – what is an extra-marital affair?  What is the crux of being buried in debt?  What is really at the bottom of those bad relationships?  And I won’t even get started on the root of procrastination at work (or the gym for that matter).

Cody decided to check his feelings and made the right decisions to change his attitude and perspective.  He came back 5 minutes later with a smile and reported that he now felt happy, because he had done the right thing.

Carpe diem,

How do you talk to yourself?  No really, when no one else is around how do you find yourself communicating with the person in the mirror?  Do you wake up and great yourself with a celebratory round of applause or do you stumble into the bathroom rub your eyes and bemoan how the scale is not cooperating and it “looks like it’s going to be ‘one of those’ days?”

I won’t try and impress you with my extensive knowledge of Neuro-Linguistic Programming or the importance of the root word of “Logos” in the Original Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament.   What I will say, is that despite my understanding of how it works, I know that what we say and how we say it are really important. 

I don’t pretend to understand the intricacies of the internal combustible engine of my car, but I have become fairly proficient at turning it on and getting to where I need to go.  Words and how we use them are just as important.  Now, please don’t hear me say you need to lie to yourself, that is delusional and they have medication for people who live in fantasy worlds.  But do hear me say that you need to really watch the negativity that is not constructive and productive.  Do hear me say that you need to see yourself in a better light.  Do hear me say that you, despite your faults, should be celebrated because, if nothing else, you bear the fingerprint of God. 

Tomorrow set the alarm to go off with a CD full of applause, welcome yourself in the mirror and be thankful for another day, and relish every moment that you are alive.  Walk out your front door ready to Seize the Day and watch how your world will change for the better.

Carpe diem,

1. Pull don’t push, people.
2. Get input from the team – What do you think we should do?
3. Cast the vision and make sure everyone understands where it is you’re heading with the business.
4. Acknowledge and appreciate people.
5. Put people in the right roles.
6. Understand your team and build systems around their roles and strengths.
7. Set expectation and then give people the freedom to get the job done in their own way.  Remember, there’s more than one way to sell real estate.
8. Mentor without judgment and in complete honesty.
9. Don’t blow off steam with your team.
10. Don’t hire an audience to impress with your flair; hire achievers.  With that said, don’t hire people with more potential than you have space on your team for.
11. Be intentional, about where you’re trying to grow, because it’s easy to be enticed by opportunities all over the place.
12. Establish solid boundaries so that the professional relationships with your team member always come first and the personal relationships second.
13. Make sure your open-door policy doesn’t give your team members the impression they can interrupt you whenever they want to.
14. Don’t let your “l can’t lose” attitude allow you to exhaust yourself trying to save people who aren’t getting the job done.
15. No longer hire challenging people; hire great people who have challenges you can work with them on.

Carpe diem,

Every once and a while I get something that is just too good not to share. Dean is a fellow Master’s Program Graduate and is the CEO of one of the finest Ad agencies I’ve ever been exposed to. I received this article last week from him and thought it dovetailed into the branding series I wrapped up this last week. I hope you enjoy Dean as much as I do -

Fact: No major player in the B2B or B2C space makes a marketing move without research and planning. That’s why they’re the majors.

Ever hear of a company that launched a successful new business campaign without aqualified, measurable plan? It does happen, as does winning the lottery, but the odds are about the same. Fact: No major player in the B2B and B2C space makes a marketing move without research and planning. That’s why they’re the majors. They discover the path of least resistance and the path of highest probability and often know before a project is launched if it will succeed and how well. The good news is you don’t have to be a Microsoft® or Proctor & Gamble® to market smart.

Perhaps you’re thinking that research is expensive and marketing plans sit on shelves. A fair assumption; but the truth is you will profit immensely from the planning process if it is completed and executed correctly. Guaranteed!

The first step to serious brand and business development success is to discover the who, what, where, when, why, and how of your market and your competition. The next step is to form a measurable, quantifiable and executable plan… a realistic plan… one that will stimulate best thinking, make best use of your resources, identify new marketing opportunities, and turn them into manageable, measurable results.

The “Who” in the planning process clarifies with whom you will partner to develop and execute the plan. Who will the key employees be on your planning team and what will their roles be? Who are the necessary marketing vendors? Who are the affiliates, investors and consultants who will be needed for this collaborative effort? In the “who” equation, talent level is critical, so work with the best you can get.
Your growth and your sanity depends on it.

“What” implies your position in the market from a corporate or product/service perspective. Define and/or create value propositions that your audience can only get from you. And please, kill the “more of the same” that exists in your market by differentiating your brand.

The “Where” question identifies where you will market. It could be to the end-user, channel-partners,
affiliates, and people or groups that are talking to the same people you want to talk to. This is your database, and the phrase the “database is the business” couldn’t be more relevant than it is today. Ample time should be spent in this process as company turn-arounds and better bottom lines have occurred simply by identifying, stratifying, prioritizing, and approaching the proper markets.

“When” is simply the time frame to execute the plan, usually an annual event with specific tactical timelines for each project. The value of the timeline is that it provides foresight to integrate marketing mediums, translating into improved marketing effectiveness and the accountability needed to keep your plan and your people on track. A plan without detailed timelines is a fantasy.

“Why” gets into the vision of the company, the philosophy, the mantra. It shows up in the emotion of your people who hopefully, have been given a purpose worth 110% participation. For example at Strata-Media, our promise is that “our clients will never spend more with us than we make for them.” Hence, we’ve branded ourselves “The ROI AgencyTM “, and trademarked the phrase “Think ROITM”. It’s a mindset we establish with everyone who has contact with the agency and a commitment we can get our hearts around.

Lastly, “How” refers to the tactics you will use to develop the marketing mix of sales and sales promotion, advertising, public relations, and branding into a single integrated program for coordination at all marketing levels. Planning allows you to test these tactics and refine their use and their effectiveness, which means over time, you’ll be doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t and your marketing will be optimized.

To sum it up, if you want to market smart, you must create a plan, work the plan, measure the plan, refine the plan, and finally, reap the success that even the most basic plan will bring. “It’s not rocket science; it’s a simple commitment to plan.”

Carpe diem,

“It’s not enough to be the best at what you do; you must be perceived as the only one who does what you do.”

- Jerry Garcia

All good agents have some amount of obsession with developing their skills so that they can become the best at what they do.  Part of it is the innate competitive edge within sales people, part the natural bent to excellent customer service with those that spend their days endeavoring in a service profession.  But the GREAT agents have learned that excellence alone isn’t enough.  They understand that they have to position themselves not as an expert but THE expert. 

My guess is that there are more than a few other real estate practitioners in your market.  With a plethora of choices for your potential consumer, your success in real estate depends on standing out from the crowd.  You must learn the art of branding and positioning that allows your ideal clients to perceive you as THE ONLY one who does what you do.  It is one of the most important pieces of your business and your very survival depends on it.  

Carpe diem,

You’ve done it.  You’ve written an article that has been printed in a newspaper or magazine.  Congratulations!  You did well.  But now what?

That’s right; now what?  Today’s newspaper or magazine is tomorrow’s recycling, but that doesn’t mean that the life of your article is over — far from it, as a matter of fact.

That piece you’ve written and gotten published, whether it is a top 10 list, book review, article, or “think” piece (like an editorial or letter to the editor), still has lots of promotional juice left in it if you know how to squeeze it out.

Here are just a few things you can do with your published works, once the rest of the world has moved on to the next edition of whatever periodical has published your piece:

Tell the world about your published status by posting your piece on your web site.  You can either post a PDF of the article, or a link to the publisher’s web site (assuming it is on their web site), or you can post the original copy you submitted along with a mention of when and where it was published.

Frame it.  That’s right, make a nice clean copy on archival paper, lay it out nicely to fit on a single page, and frame it like a photo.  Hang it proudly in your office or reception area, so that your visitors who missed your piece when it was published can see what it looked like, and be just as impressed (if not more so) than the readers who stumbled over your article in the first place.

Copy it.  You can use the layout you created to frame your article or the PDF you made for your web site to make copies.  Include the banner of the paper or magazine, along with the date, so that it is obvious when and where your piece originally appeared in print.  Be sure to add your contact information as well, because you never know who might end up with a copy (and they might want to contact you).  Use both sides of an 8.5×11″ sheet of paper if you have to, but make it look nice. 

Use the copies in your press kit (which is now growing with the addition of your published pieces), so that you have proof that your expertise is recognized by some third party (such as the publisher).

Mail copies of your article to your clients with a short note and a special offer.  For example, you might write:  Did you see my article in Tuesday’s paper?  I’m celebrating my fame with a special two-for-one offer (coupon enclosed).

Copies will come in handy for getting business, too.  You can include a copy with your proposal, bid, or sales information to demonstrate your expertise. 

You might also use it to get back in touch with prospects who haven’t committed to working with you yet.  Just send the copy with a business card and a short note that says something like: Hi Prospect, Did you happen to see this article in the Business section of the Times on Saturday?  I know you are interested in [whatever you wrote about], and thought you might like to see this.  I’ll be in touch soon!  Best regards, Your Name.

Submit the article for publication in other media.  Yep, once you’ve published it in one publication, others might be interested in reprinting it.  Distribute your piece to online article banks, EZines, and information sites for reprinting.  Or submit it to the newsletters of your trade associations or networking organizations.  Very often, they are looking for content, and since your article has the endorsement of the publication that published the first time, it might look mighty good to others.

Send it out as a press release.  At the very worst, nothing will happen, but other media could pick it up to use as a filler piece.   And there is always the possibility that an editor might be looking for an expert with your background, and may call you for an interview.

So whatever you do, don’t just let your published article fade away.  Use it again and again to get the most from your work.  You’ll raise your credibility in the eyes of your clients, prospects, and the world.  And you’ll have something to remind yourself of how good you can be when you put your mind to it.

Carpe diem,

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