The Magic of Writing a Great Blog Post

Writing a Great Blog Post is Like Mixing A Potion The Magic of Writing a Great Blog Post You’ll have to forgive me: Pumpkin Spice has blown up, the weather is starting to get cooler (at least in the mornings) and I’m re-reading Harry Potter, so I’m on a bit of Fall/magic kick right now.  But, if you’ve watched any magical movie or read any fantasy book I’m sure you’ll stick right with me on this one. In this blog post, I am breaking down, how to write a great blog post.  Ironic right? Maybe not.  With the advent of platforms like WordPress, Weebly, Wix and Blogger, it’s easier than ever to have a blog.  But with this ease, comes competition.  Now that it easier than ever to have a blog, everyone is doing…

Starting Your Business without Bumbling Your Budget

Don’t get so wrapped up in the Now That you Bumble Your Budget Confession: I’m not a numbers person.  I never have been.  It was an aspect of starting my own business that I was a bit nervous about.  Ok, in the spirit of full honesty, there was a lot I was nervous about.  But managing a budget totally on my own was daunting.  I made sure that I was very organized, tracked all of the costs involved, which included registering my business name, incorporating, setting up a business bank account and more. Starting the business sets you back about $300 in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Opening a Business Checking account with PNC didn’t cost me anything, but I had to have a $100 deposit to open the account, and then keep a minimum balance of $1,500 to avoid penalties or fees.  Then…

5 Email Marketing Tips

5 Email Marketing Tips So you don’t make mistakes, and for when you do! Email Marketing is tricky.  You have to select the right option so that you don’t overpay for a service provider yet get exactly what you need.  The MailChimps, ConstantContacts and Emma’s of the world are great at helping you send the emails, but crafting them is another story.  Emma helps here too, but for a service fee.  Don’t worry – there are plenty of marketing bloggers, like myself, that have your back. What Makes a Great Email? Ask yourself? What kind of emails do you like to read? I’m partial to those that provide information, make me laugh, and provide me with value – like sales and discount codes or little freebies.  I’m going to take a wild guess and say that you probably…

Learning Your Worth

Learning Your Worth Fanning Your Fire of Self Belief In this post I want to talk to you about something very raw and very real.  So far, I think I’ve been pretty candid about the struggles and elations of starting a business.  In this post, I want to help you by showing you the importance of learning your worth, of fanning your fire of self belief. One of the the hardest parts of starting my own business, was a hurdle of my own creation.  After six jobs that lasted only a year or less, and a few attempts to start something of my own, I began to embrace self doubt.  My friends, once you let self doubt into your life, it’s one of the hardest things send packing.  We just installed new counter tops – so let me try this example.  Dabbling in self doubt is…

How to Capitalize on Popular Hashtags

How can you Cash in on trending hashtags? Hashtags are here to stay, learning to embrace them can have a positive impact on your social media strategy. You know that hashtags are here to stay when they are being written into almost every comedic show and movie being made – even kids shows have characters dropping hashtags in conversations.  Whether you love them, or loath them, using them in your social media posts can be a great way to help you reach your target audience and increase your brand awareness. But how do you know which hasthags to use? How many of them should you use in a post? These, along with many others are great questions to ask when considering using hashtags as part of your social media strategy.  While there might not be a wrong way to use hashtags, not using them well can make you look silly…

Positive Politics

Positive Politics Getting Social about Politics The closer we get to the election, the more political messages we are bombarded with.  We get them in commercials, billboards, phone calls, text messages, emails, people going door to door, and now we’re even getting them from our favorite brands.  I’m telling you right now – that I don’t care what side of the isle you’re on, I hate when the brands I like get political. Why?  Because it’s divisive, it singles people out and makes them feel like they are not a part of what that brand stands for.  Recently I watched a popular website’s instagram get very political.  Now this shouldn’t have come as a surprise, because this particular website had voiced messages that very clearly let their followers know which way they leaned when it came…

10 Tips for Your Desk Space

10 Tips For your desk space What your office, your desk, or your workspace looks like, can affect your ability to get the job done.  You work hard, so hard that you might not have the time to stop and think about what your desk looks like, or what’s on the walls around it.  That might be OK for you – or that might be stifling you.  I’m the later type of person.  My work space, and what it looks like definitely affects me and by extension, my ability to perform my job. My last job was in the Law and Finance Building in Downtown Pittsburgh.  They were having our new office space customized so we moved into a temporary office space on another floor of the building – and it was like stepping into the 80’s.  It felt a bit like an office…

I called it Writer’s Block

I called it Writer’s Block But it was really fear. Reading Liz Giblert’s Big Magic taught me something very important about my life and about myself.  Yes you learn something from most books, but when I learned this important lesson from the accomplished author, tears welled up and I felt a cathartic release.  Someone understood me.  She understood, on a very real and personal level what I was doing to myself.  I am not alone in these feeling.  In fact, there are many people like this all around the world.  It was incredible. Before reading her book about creativity and living a creative life – which she calls big magic – I would have told you that the reason I was no longer creating art, working on poetry or doing anything else that involve self expression, was that I didn’t have the time and…

Check out and Recharge

Check out for a little while And recharge your brain! Do you ever feel burnt out? Does it feel like the font of your creativity just dried up and left you in search of a new source? It happens to all of us, especially when you are starting your own business.  Actually, it’s bound to happen to you when you’re running your own business because you are doing so much of the work yourself, rather than being able to delegate certain things to others.  Rather than get frustrated or search in vain for ways to dig a new wellspring of creativity, check out for a little while and recharge your brain. In this post, I’m going to share with you my secret for recharging your brain, and I promise, it doesn’t take a week at an all inclusive exclusive resort or a…

How Starting Your Business is Like the Olympics

How is Starting Your Own Business Like participating in the Olympic Games? The Olympics have been on my brain quite a bit lately.  They kick off on the day after my birthday (Which is today by the way). My niece has chosen the Olympics as a theme for her August birthday party.  And two of my sister Alumni from Oakland Catholic are competing in the games.  All of this reminds me of my mom’s favorite quote growing up.  My mom had never played a sport, being one of eight kids there wasn’t much time or money for each of them to play a sport.  My grandfather was a doctor and worked long hard hours in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood – and well my grandma…with eight kids to chase, she didn’t have much time either.  My mom did and still loves to…