business tips | Tanya Smith Online

How to Spot an Email Scam Online

March 1, 2013 by Tanya Smith Leave a Comment

Since I've been doing business online for quite awhile, I've learned to recognize signs of email scams related to my business pretty easily. Every now and then I get one that almost has me though. This week, I found one in my inbox that said someone through an Asia Domain Registration was planning to trademark my domain name and that I needed to contact them to confirm if I'd given permission. It looked like this: Looks like a legitimate … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Acumen For Solopreneurs, Online Tools for Business Tagged With: business online, business tips, Online, online identity, scams

Top 20 List to Get Prepared for Your Next Business Conference

February 15, 2013 by Tanya Smith Leave a Comment

Recently, I attended the NAMS9 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. NAMS stands for Niche Affiliate Marketing Systems and this community of entrepreneurs typically have an interest in some form of marketing business online. Now I've been to a whole lot of business events the last ten years or so but this one was special for a number of reasons. For one thing, I had the opportunity to meet 3 people who have been in my circle of influence online … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Acumen For Solopreneurs, Personal Growth & Development Tagged With: business conference, business tips, customer, manage time, Personal Growth & Development

Interview with a Legal Expert: Tips For Watching Your Brand’s Back On Pinterest

September 24, 2012 by Tanya Smith Leave a Comment

In this 20 minute interview, I'm speaking with Attorney Aurelia Mitchell-Durant of AMD Law Group (http://amdlawgroup.com) about Pinterest and the key issues service providers need to be aware of when using this social tool. Aurelia is an expert in international branding for businesses, as well as brand protection. Some good stuff here. (Note: I also share a shameless plug for you to check out my Pinterest Guide for Business :) … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Branding, Social Media Tagged With: brand protection, business tips, interview, online identity, social media

Branding To Get Your Emails Read

June 2, 2012 by Tanya Smith Leave a Comment

An easy way to think about branding is that it's your public image. You're consistent, you're an expert, and it's clear what you can do for people – this is what your brand (hopefully) tells people about you. So it’s pretty important to think about branding in everything you do, including the emails you send to your list. After all, your emails are your touch points with your subscribers and they should showcase your brand. Things to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marketing Your Brand, Personal Branding Tagged With: business tips, communication, email management, email marketing, marketing, online branding, Personal Branding, Personal Branding for Business

How to Develop a Smart Marketing Plan for Your Online Business

May 4, 2012 by Tanya Smith Leave a Comment

There’s a pretty well-known online marketer whose favorite quote is “Hope is not a marketing plan”. In other words, you can’t just pick a marketing strategy and “hope” it will work. Instead, you have to put together a detailed marketing plan where you lay out your bevy of strategies for meeting your business goals. I don't mean a comprehensive list of daily tasks...rather, it's about breaking down each tactic you want to use and the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marketing Your Brand, Productive Strategies Tagged With: business plan, business systems, business tips, critical success factors, marketing

How to Use Google Calendar to Organize Your Schedule

January 19, 2012 by Tanya Smith 2 Comments

I don't remember what life was like before Google Calendar. Oh yeah, I was constantly reminding my husband of what to do, missing birthdays, juggling paper and online calendars. I knew there had to be a better way and thank goodness, there was. I started using GCal (Google Calendar http://google.com/calendar) about 2 years ago. At first, I underestimated what it could do for me but eventually I started seeing all kinds of possibilities … [Read more...]