We’re shaking things up over here at Bourn Creative! With Brian stepping in as CEO and Operations Manager and the addition of two new team members, Bourn Creative isn’t just about me and my expertise anymore!

We’re updating and upgrading all of our materials and will continue to do so over the next few months as we continue to build the business not only around our clients’ needs, requests, and desires, but around our growing team’s amazing talents and expertise!

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I want to share a little secret with you…

When it comes to social media, it doesn’t matter how many LinkedIn contacts, Facebook friends, or Twitter followers you have in your network.

In fact, guess what? No one really cares!

What does matter, and what people do care about is the value you add to your network and how you contribute to the communities you are a part of.

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This post is the third in a series based on the Ali Brown Shine event in Las Vegas. Check out my previous posts I Didn’t Really Come For All The “Woo Woo” Junk and Billionaire Entrepreneur Coach Makes Social Media Blunder.

One of my favorite things to do after I attend live events, conferences, and seminars is to read through all of my notes from the event and write down all of the most important ones in my journal.

Rewriting those notes and positive words of encouragement helps me remember them. It also helps me reflect a little further on what they meant to me and why I wrote them down.

Today I’d like to share with you some of the nuggets of wisdom I jotted down at the Ali Brown Shine Event, where I not only got to hear from Ali and her team speak, but from Real Estate Mogul & Business Consultant Barbara Corcoran and Academy-Award Winning Actress & Activist Marlee Matlin!

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Your business plan defines what your business is about, what you do, and what you don’t do. Your marketing plan outlines how you’re going to get your customers to buy your products, invest in your services, and join your programs and the actions needed to achieve your marketing objectives.

Over time, the approach to creating and maintaining a marketing plan has drastically changed:

• The OLD SCHOOL Marketing Plan: A really long (think 30+ pages and more!), incredibly detailed plan that sets in stone all marketing actions big and small for your business for anywhere from one year to five years and limits what new ideas can be implemented. This usually ends up on a shelf or in a drawer somewhere and is only referenced and updated once a year.
• The NEW AGE Marketing Plan: A flexible tool that helps you decide what strategies are the best fit for you and your business, that changes and flexes as your business changes and grows, that defines the reasoning and logic behind the marketing actions. It can be one page to 10 pages and is reviewed and updated on a regular basis.

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The very first thing my clients as me when working on their big vision road map and guide book is, “What should I include?”

The answer to this question is different for every individual. You may choose to focus your vision and goals on:

• Lifestyle
• Business accomplishments
• An amount of money or income level
• Professional recognition
• Feelings and emotions
• Personal accomplishments
• Volunteer work

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If you want to achieve your goals, you first have to have them.

About a year ago a very smart business woman asked me, “How are you going to get where you want to go if you don’t know where that is?” That question has stuck with me and now is one of the very first questions I ask my clients when working with them on creating and mapping out their Big Vision Road Map.

After all, how will you know what actions to take if you don’t have a clear vision of what you want to accomplish?

How do you know your short-term goals will help you move forward and toward your big, long-term goals?

The answer to all of these questions starts with the exploration and creation of your Big Vision Road Map, which not only outlines where your journey will end, but how you are going to get there and what possible stops you may make along the way.

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This past weekend we took a family trip out to Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm for some fall fun. I love the smell of fresh apple pies baking, the caramel apples, the miniature stream train that winds through the walnut orchard, and the 67 acres of pumpkins… I look forward to this outing every year!

We usually end up there at least two or three times before Halloween, so I guess you could say Bishop’s has become a yearly tradition. Each year, the Bishop’s Farm re-invests in the business, adding new attractions and improving old ones. And, each year, we come back excited for the traditional train ride, petting zoo, pig races, caramel apples, and to see what’s new!

This year I noticed something different.

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This month I was the featured speaker at the Sacramento Speakers Network Meetup, speaking on the topic of search engine optimization (SEO. The topic was a huge one to cover in a short amount of time, and challenging because the audience is made up of complete SEO novices and SEO experts alike. So I narrowed it down to the top three things that can make a big difference that most websites completely forget or don’t include in their optimization efforts.

On October 30, 2009 at 12:00 pm PST, I’ll be the featured guest on a teleseminar for The Corporate Fugitive. I’ll be interviewed by Chief Corporate Fugitive, Sherri Garrity about why working with a professional designer is important for your business, how a designer can help you business, and how to find the right designer to help you get the results you want. www.corporatefugitive.com.

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How are you going to get where you want to go if you don’t know where that is? How will you know what actions to take if you don’t have a clear vision of what you want to accomplish? How do you know your short-term goals will help you move forward and toward your big, long-term goals?

The answer to all of these questions starts with your Big Vision Road Map.

Your big vision isn’t just a guide to knowing when to say to say no, make a change, or say yes. It is also a fantastic tool to help you stay motivated and track your continual progress.

Simply breaking your high-level vision down into several smaller, incremental steps, can help you change your mindset from “How am I ever going to accomplish all that?” to “I can totally do that!”

Think of it like the game of Sorry.

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If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you’ve probably noticed that your prospects are holding their hard-earned dollars much tighter these days. With the over-saturation of email marketing and infoproduct pitching, you’ve probably also noticed that reaching and grabbing the attention of qualified leads who are ready and able to work with you is becoming more difficult.

The good news is that there is something you can do reach your target audience, get their attention, and convert those qualified prospects into buyers. Almost every marketing professional will tell you the same thing: People do business with people they know, like and, trust. In fact, I have heard this said over and over and several conferences and workshops.

To cut through the marketing clutter and speak to your ideal client, there are three things that you can do right now to build upon the know, like, and trust factor to get more clients and grow your list.

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Just a quick message today! Yesterday it was my birthday (Yes, I’m now 30!) and today I am celebrating my 10 YEAR wedding anniversary. Yes, I got married the day after I turned 20 and now I ask myself, “What was I thinking?” I really should have spread the two apart, but back then all I cared about was getting married, the church had only one day available, and I didn’t want to wait.

For me, I approach my business in sort of the same way. I decide what I want to achieve, I set a date of completion, and I jump right into the planning and implementation needed to make it happen. Ten years ago, I never would have guessed that I would be running my own business and loving every second of it – It took me a while to figure out I was an entrepreneur.

Yesterday I celebrated my birthday with a fabulous lunch at the Bistro 33 restaurant inside the brand new Mercedes dealership in my home town. It was delicious and I highly recommend it if you’re local. With a giant water feature in the shape of the Mercedes logo pouring down from the ceiling of the second story into a planter on the ground floor, the beautiful cars to check out, and the shop and car lot on the roof of the building (not visible from the street, this dealership definitely lives up to the Mercedes standard.

During our long lunch, I had a chance to reflect on the past year and talk with my husband about all of the changes that we have gone through in my business since my last birthday.

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This past weekend, I attended the eWomenNetwork International Conference in Dallas, Texas. To the right is one of the photos snapped of my friends Heather Atherton, Kristi LeGue, and I at the Gala celebration on the first night.

From speakers, to breakout sessions, to networking, this year I truly felt like a powerful underlying message was being communicated – THINK BIG and Invest in Yourself.

Thinking big isn’t just about setting a goal. It is about opening your mind and heart to the possibilities that lay ahead. It is about opening your arms to the universe and saying, “I accept.” Now, what is meant to happen for you may not come at the time you think it should, or in the way you think it should, but it will come when you are ready for it, and when the world is ready for it.

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