When trying to grow a business, one the hardest things to do is say to no to any kind of new revenue. Cash flow is so important in the early stages of development that many people will accept any type of new business out of fear that the next lead may be a while. This thought pattern will actually lead to stagnation or worse, a decline in revenue.

In order to grow your business, and maintain your sanity, you must learn to say NO. Saying no to potential new clients is something they do not teach in business school, and in the real world of entrepreneurship, is very difficult.

At Bourn Creative, we have experienced growth year after year, and one element that continues to thrive is that we actually have become more selective on who we choose to work with. I know that seems a little backwards, as clients are also choosing to work with us, but let’s face it, clients shop around, so why shouldn’t you?

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Including marketing and advertising legal disclaimers, with your online and traditional marketing campaigns, is not only a good practice but in many cases are also legally required by the Federal Trade Commission.

All legal disclaimers for products, programs, or services that you are marketing should be clearly visible on the same webpage or printed marketing piece that your items are described.

I have gathered the following marketing disclaimers as examples to consult when crafting your disclosures with a professional legal advisor.

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I have a pet peeve. Okay, maybe I have several pet peeves. But this one I see all the time, and repeatedly from some and it drives me nuts!

You know the people, the ones that never miss an opportunity to tell you that they rank number one on Google for all of the keywords relating to their business.

Yeah. Right. Sure You Do.

I know for a fact one of these so-called Google Braggers uses this line to woo new clients who don’t know any better… Ah the illustrious promise of the Google Promise Land.

Here’s my problem with that. Those statements 99.9% of the time are FALSE!

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Last week Brian wrote about the worst direct email marketing tactic we’ve seen in a while and on Monday I received probably one of the worst introduction emails I have ever received – if you can even call it an introduction.

I read the email, re-read the email and again and at the end I still wasn’t quite sure what the sender was asking of me! But I think the sender was asking me to either meet him for a sales pitch or provide free coaching.

Here’s the problem with “cold calling” using direct email marketing: you can’t hear the tone of voice, you have a hard time reading between the lines, and you can’t clarify and ask questions easily.

In this post, I am going to share the email I received with you, I am going to critique it and share some insights on what a stranger would think reading it, and I am going to provide a rewritten version of the email that I would have liked to have received.

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Ok. I woke up this morning, grabbed my phone to do a quick scan of my email, and check in on Facebook and Twitter. Last night I posted the Infusionsoft’s Biggest Fan article and I shared it on my social networks.

When I checked in with Facebook this morning I saw that a friend of mine commented on the post (Don’t go looking to see who posted it. I deleted the comment so there wouldn’t be any embarrassment), and here’s what he said:

“Email Marketing is Outdated! Just FYI!”

I couldn’t believe I was actually reading this statement. I actually laughed at the ridiculousness and ignorance of this comment. Was he serious? There was no way he could really think that right? I was a bit more than surprised and had to tell Brian what I just read.

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The marketing team over at Infusionsoft is a pretty smart bunch. In an attempt to find some happy customers to feature in their marketing and to get some great free advertising, they’re holding a contest to see who is Infusionsoft’s biggest fan.

Well, Guess What? Infusionsoft’s biggest fan is me!

Yes, we do a lot of online marketing strategy and planning for your clients, but we also manage all of the implementation from email marketing, to website marketing, to information product marketing and more.

Every client seemed to have a different combination of tools they were using and as a result, I have worked with a lot of different service providers. Some used a combination of QuickBooks and Constant Contact, some used a combination of 1ShoppingCart and aWeber, some used PayPal and iContact. The different combinations of tools were immense. But there was one thing that was consistent in all cases – the fact that they needed (and were paying for) multiple service providers.

One client was even paying a virtual assistant more than $2,000 a month to manage her list and keep it current between her shopping cart database and her email marketing provider’s database.

When Bourn Creative decided to focus on proactively marketing and growing our business, I knew that I didn’t want any of the solutions that my clients were using. It was a pain in the butt to manage marketing lists across multiple systems and they were spending a lot of money trying to do it efficiently.

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I subscribe to a lot of email newsletters, and I know that trading my email address for free products, videos, and reports would subject my inbox to a steady stream of email messages with an intended up-sell…

But the email I got the other day really irritated me and inspired this post.

A while ago, I opted in to this person’s website who is a self-proclaimed social media expert (who I will not disclose out of privacy concerns) with my first name and email address and watched the free video, which wasn’t that good and didn’t really provide any value. The free video was just a lame sales pitch.

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Several business do one thing that absolutely drives Facebook users crazy and it is using a Facebook Personal Profile for their business instead of a Facebook Business Page, which is what a business page is meant for.

Now I know the idea seems simple enough, and easy to understand, but for some reason I continue to receive Facebook Friend Requests from businesses as I am sure you do as well.

Look – I can’t be a friend to a business offline, but I can like a business and be a fan of the business. Facebook operates the same way. People use profiles, businesses use business pages.

Note to businesses: Using a profile for your business means you created a FAKE PERSON and a FAKE PROFILE. A Business doesn’t have a first name and last name. A business doesn’t have a birthday. A business is not a person, so please don’t fake like it is. You can be reported for creating a fake profile and you run the risk of having the profile shut down and frankly irritating other people.

So why are so many businesses using Facebook incorrectly? Well, I truly believe that it’s not their fault. It’s because Facebook doesn’t make the information about creating a business page easy to find and they confuse people further by referring to Facebook Business Pages as Business Profiles in several places! In fact, I get asked all the time from long-time Facebook users, “How do I create a Facebook Page for my Business?” and some of them have been using Facebook for years and can’t find the information.

In this post, I am going to clarify this whole topic for you and provide you step by step instructions on how to create a Facebook Business Page.

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A lot of businesses seem to get confused about how to use Facebook for business. So first, I want to clarify that this post is referring to Facebook Business Pages or Facebook Fan Pages as they used to be called and not personal profiles. On personal profiles you have Facebook Friends and on business pages, you have Facebook Fans.

When setting up a Facebook Business Page, a Facebook personal profile is required because each page has to have an administrator that owns the page and is in charge of the page.

Once the Facebook Business Page is created, additional people can be added as administrators for the page. For example, both Brian and I are administrators for the Bourn Creative Facebook Business Page.

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I always say ask and you shall receive… and a friend of mine posed this question to me on Facebook just last night: “How can I hide my Friend List on my profile?”

Others ask me, “Why would I want to hide my Facebook Friend List from “Everyone” or even from my other friends.”

Well, to some Facebook has quickly yet another place for spammers to hijack email addresses and “harvest” friends.

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Unless you live in the middle of nowhere with no TV or internet access, it is impossible not to have noticed all of the noise surrounding social media marketing, particularly Facebook.

Chances are, you have a Facebook profile, and maybe even a Facebook business page, and are trying to figure out how to remain social to build quality relationships, but still use it effectively for marketing.

While effective marketing on Facebook is a mystery to many entrepreneurs, one way that I manage my Facebook friends and who I market to on Facebook is by using lists.

Recently Facebook announced that it had reached 500 million users worldwide, up from 100 million from only two years ago, and at any given time I have around 4000-4500 Facebook friends linked to my profile. The number fluctuates as I accept new friend requests and quietly unfriend some other people.

Facebook friend lists have been the absolute best tool to help me manage my relationships on Facebook.

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At every conference, workshop, or seminar I go to, there are always some great pearls of wisdom that stick with me after the event.

You know the ones I am talking about – the nuggets of information that – when you’re not taking notes – make you sit up, grab your pen, and write it down because a light bulb just went off in your head…

Well, I didn’t go to all of the breakout sessions and missed some of the main stage action because I was busy meeting up with my social media buddies, but I did get to hear some amazing keynote speakers.

I’d like to share some of their wisdom with you:

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