Greetings. May I start by introducing my self I'm Mrs Joanne underwood. I live in Peoria ill. And to date I have been at my wits end trying to get funding for my small business its a small business no employee's I'm not wanting that right now. Its a Christian based gift/floral designed business for the black community. Which I would be the first to have the type business I'm planing I'm the wife of a pastor also. And I'm incorporating a bible study class in this business. As well other needful Christian items for adults and children. Gospel reading material gospel music floral deigns wedding and theme parties for any age where I got to the home to decorate and set up along with arrangements sold in my store. For the church office home or business I have a in store gift wrapping service that I started last year got great response. People want that because they don't see it any more. The list of services goes on. I have a web site if you care to see it. It is gifted-woman@7p.com where I show case my services. I have tried every thing I know to get funding as I do not have any money to start. But through faith and prayer I still continue to get things lined up tax-I-d and the likes so when I do find a person willing to listen and help me I will have every thing in place I have even gotten site of the building I would like to have for my business. I'm talking to local churches seeking help. But its hard here in Peoria ill no one wants to help you the way is blank. All the e-mails and letters I have sent have netted no reply form any one the only reply I got was from senator Oboma's office when I asked why it was so hard to find a grant. But that was a year ago when I did that and I just heard from the this year,so please any help or information you may be able to give me would be appreciated. I look forward to hearing from you hoping you can steer me in the right direction to some one who can help I do not have a dime to start any where, but I know this is winner and I'm no quitter I know this is a good business if it were not it would not be so hard getting started. Thank you in advance for your kind and thoughtful attention Mrs Underwood.

I had a coaching session yesterday with a young woman who came to see me because she wanted to start her own business. I always get excited about meeting with entrepreneurs. When our session started I asked her what type of business did she want to start and told me that she wanted to start two different businesses and attach them together. One of her businesses was an event planning business and the other business was a cupcake business. I personally could not see how these two businesses would work out unless her company would be planning cupcake events. She said that wasn't trying target kids, so I was really thrown off with the cupcake idea. So my advice to her was this. 
 
1. Apples and Oranges Don't Mix 
 
2. She had to make a decision on which of the two business ideas she was really passionate about. 
 
3. She was advised to learn more about her market 
 
4. She was advised that she needed someone on her team who had knowledge about which ever business she decide on. 
 
A lot of entrepreneurs make this same mistake. They have so many ideas and they want to do all of them at once. In reality you can do them all, but not at once, because if you try to do them all at once nothing is going to get done. You need to be able to focus on your business so that you can grow. If you are stretching yourself between two or three different businesses they will all suffer. 
 
Now if you are looking to add another income stream try and come up with something that will compliment your core business, this way you won't feel like you are starting a totally new business. 
 
 
Audrey Bell-Kearney is the President of Sister Inc Network and the author of The Sister Inc Blueprint For Starting And Running A Successful Business. She can be reached at 973-762-4300 or Audrey@Sisterinc.com http://www.sisterinc.com

I love the Internet. People are making millions of dollars everyday on the Internet either by selling products that they own or being an affiliate for someone else and selling their products. I do a lot of Internet marketing for my business. It wasn’t until about a few months ago that I took affiliate programs serious. I know that there are a lot of people who make a ton of money just selling other peoples products, so I decided to sign up for some of these affiliate programs. I only joined the ones that compliment my website and the business that I am in. I also joined programs that I use to help me market my business.  
 
Well I am excited to say that from my first program I earned $0.46. I know that this is just a small amount of money, but I earned that money doing absolutely nothing. I posted some ads on my Sister Inc blog at www.SisterInc.blogspot.com and that is all that I did. Someone must have stopped by and clicked on one of these ads and I made $.46. If that did not excite you, then let me tell you about the next payment that I received. I use a program called Audio Acrobat. This program allows you to record information interviews, trainings and seminars right from the comfort of your home and then make them available from your website and other places that stream audio. Well I am always telling people about Audio Acrobat because I love the service. I got an email saying that I had a new referral. I had forgotten all about the fact that I had joined the affiliate program until I get this email. So I decided to sign into my Audio Acrobat to see if I had made any commission and sure enough I had made $26. Well I was so excited, I decided to write this article and share this excitement with all of you. I know that some of you will read this article and ask why am I so excited about making $26.46 and my answer to you will be this. I earned that $26.46 doing absolutely nothing but signing up to some affiliate programs adding the codes either to my website or my blog and that’s it.  
 
The reason I wanted to write this article, is because I know for a fact that there are thousands of affiliate programs out there that you could join and 95% of them are free to join. I bet that you can find an affiliate program about something that interest you and set up a simple website or blog and start marketing that site making some extra money. Amazon.com has an affiliate program that you could join. Then there is Clickbank.com which is where you can find thousands of ebooks and digital products that you can sell and make a commission. Here is two that I think you may like and you can get a FREE CD http://AJBK.TheSecondTier.com/ freedvd. Check out this one also to see how much you can make 
http:// N7R7yT5P.12monthmil.hop.clickb ank.net.  
 
Don’t take my word for it go to the internet and read some of the affiliate marketers success stories and get inspired to start making some extra money with affiliate programs that you like. 
 
Audrey Bell-Kearney is the owner of Sister Inc. She is the author of The Sister Inc Blueprint For Starting And Running A Successful Business. She can be reached at Audrey@sisterinc.com or by calling 973-762-4300 or visit t

I was feeling a little funky today. I was having a real hard time focusing. I couldn't figure out what I should be doing even though I have a schedule. I call this the Entrepreneur Blahs. Sometime this will happen to you. I think that as entrepreneurs we think that we should be doing something all the time when in reality, you have to take a minute to stop and be still just so you can focus.  
 
One of my goals for my business is to try and blog everyday. I try to do this early in the morning when I am fresh and can think clearly. Well today wasn't one of those days when I woke up clear and feeling full of energy. Right now as I type this it is about 3:50 eastern standard time. I will give myself credit that even though I started late I still accomplished this daily goal.  
 
The funny thing about Friday which is today is that I had said that I was going to make that my fun day, but being the workaholic I am, I find this really hard to do. I feel so guilty when I am not doing something towards creating a successful business. My goal is to become a millionaire by the end of this year. So when I roll into 2009, I will have achieved a very huge and important goal for me. This will be good, because my daughter is graduating from high school and off to college in the fall. 
 
So that's my spill for today. So I guess my message today would be to give yourself permission to take a break.

By Audrey Bell-Kearney 
 
One of the best ways to get your name out there is through PR. Some people have mastered the skill of PR and have actually used what’s called guerilla pr to get mass exposure for their business. When you are trying to find ways to get noticed you have to think outside the box and strategically. If you are not in the position to hire a Publicist, then you will have to learn all that you can about how to use pr. That’s what I did.  
 
My Case Study 
 
When I started my first company, my partner and I did not have a clue about marketing or pr. We just jumped right in and started doing a business that we did not know about as well. We quickly realized that we needed people to know that our little doll company existed. I remembered a book that I had read about 3 years earlier called The Personal Touch by Terrie Williams. Terrie Williams was a publicist for top mega superstars like Eddie Murphy at the time. In the book she made some really good points about giving everything that you do the personal touch and also how to think outside the box so that you get noticed. So when I started this new company with my business partner I read the book again and from this reading I came up with a guerilla pr idea that got my company written up in a national magazine. So I am going to share with you what I did. 
 
We were new and trying to get our name out there, so I decided to put together this pr plan that would help us. Here is what I did. 
 
1. I went to the library and the book store and I pulled all of the magazines that I wanted my company to be featured in. I find out who were the editors and wrote down their names and addresses. 
2. When I thought about doing this plan it was a few days before Valentines Day, so I went to the 99 cents store and purchased candy, small white gift boxes, tape and Valentine gift wrapping paper. 
3. Then I went home and typed up a press release and put it in the box with the candy. I warped the boxes so that the back of the boxes was left open for the address. I put together 20 boxes like this and mailed them off. 
 
What Happened Next! 
 
Well I got a call from a national magazine called Emerge and they wanted to run our story. I was so happy, but before they could actually run the story the magazine folded. But it did not stop there. The story then got picked up by another magazine called Heart& Soul. They called me to tell me that they wanted to run the story and I was elated. They sent out their photographer and he took the pictures for the magazine story in my apartment. They ran almost a half page story under their Sisterhood Network section and our picture was right there on the page with song diva Kelly Price. We got major attention and it just kept coming. So now you can see how powerful guerilla PR can be. 
 
Audrey Bell-Kearney is the President of Sister Inc Network and the author of The Sister Inc Blueprint For Starting And Running A Successful Business. She can be reached at 973-762-4300 or Audrey@Sisterinc.com http://www.sisterinc.com

By Audrey Bell-Kearney 
 
If You Build It They Won’t Come 
 
So you’ve started this business and you are so happy. You have a nice website and some products and you are going to make millions. Now two or three months have passed and you start to feel that pinch because not only are you not making millions, you’re not even making a dollar and you start to worry. I can almost bet you that you are not marketing the business effectively. When you start a business you must market it. I don’t care how nice your website is or what a great product you have, if no one knows about you, then you really don’t have a business.  
 
Marketing will be key to your business success, so the first thing you need to determine is who wants to buy what you are selling? Once you have determined this you have to develop a plan to let your future buyers know that you have something that they want. Then you have to actually take action on your plan.  
 
You know who your market is and you are ready to take action. You start marketing and your sales are slowly coming in, but you want to ramp them up more, so this is where guerilla marketing comes into play. I am going to give you five guerilla marketing ideas that you can implement and for cheap. 
 
1. Get a magnet for your car to put on the side doors ( I had this one) 
 
2. If a you don’t want magnet then you can get a name plate to put on the back of your car ( I now have this one) 
 
3. When I go to the gym I wear a t-shirt with my company name and logo on it and this always start conversation 
 
4. Speak for free. That’s right I said free. Whenever you speak to an organization or church for free you great exposure and an opportunity to perfect your speaking skills. If you have a product to sell, you also get the opportunity to sell your product to the people in the audience. 
 
5. Create your own holiday. This can be a great marketing technique and a lot of fun. Can you just imagine having your own holiday and making it known to the world so that they can celebrate? 
 
These are just a few guerilla marketing techniques that you can use to grow your business, but there are so many more. The general idea is to take your marketing step by step using a strategic action plan. 
 
Audrey Bell-Kearney is the President of Sister Inc Network and the author of The Sister Inc Blueprint For Starting And Running A Successful Business. She can be reached at 973-762-4300 or Audrey@Sisterinc.com http://www.sisterinc.com

By Audrey Bell-Kearney 
 
As we close out the last quarter of 2007, we can reflect back on how business was for the year and then create a vision for what we want to see happen in 2008. So I wanted to share 10 helpful tips with you for preparing your business for 2008 
1. Visualize in detail what you want this year. Be very specific and write it down on paper. 
2. Create a goal list for what you want to see happen for 2008 
3. Take a look at your business to see if you are hitting your target market. If you are not then, take some more time out to see just who your target market is. 
4. Write out your marketing plan for 2008. This is why it is really important to know who that market is so that your plan can be geared toward them. 
5. Get rid of all unnecessary stuff. For example books, papers, old business cards etc. Just clean house. Another thing you may want to do is to take a look at money that you are spending on services that you don’t use. I did this recently and realized that I was spending $450 a month on services that I have not used since the day I signed up for them. Now I can take this $450 and reinvest it back into my business 
6. If you are working alone, you must build yourself a small team. This will help you move forward, because members of your team can take on projects that you don’t like and are not good at. 
7. Find some partners that can help you grow your business. This may be someone in a non-competing business. The two of you can cross promote each other. 
8. Do some networking this year. Create great relationships. After all great relationships help your business grow, because people do business with people they like. 
9. Educate yourself on your industry. If you want to be an expert in your field you have to stay on top of the things that are happening. You must make a commitment to yourself that you will continue to learn. Buy videos, go online and read about what’s happening, go to the library, go to workshops, get on tele-seminars, buy training CDs and subscribe to industry magazines and publications. Do whatever you have to be that expert that people seek out in your field. 
10. Surround yourself with positive people. I can’t tell you how important this is. When you are around positive people your mind set will be positive. If you are around people who aren’t doing anything but complaining and moping around, this will bring you down and make you unproductive. Find positive people who are doing the things that you like or things that are similar and surround yourself with them. 
 
Happy New Year 
Audrey 
Audrey Bell-Kearney is the President of Sister Inc. and the author of The Sister Inc Blueprint For Starting And Running A Successful Business. For more business questions or to book Audrey for a speaking engagement email her at Audrey@sisterinc.com or call her at 973-762-4300

As we close out the last quarter of 2007, we can reflect back on how business was for the year and then create a vision for what we want to see happen in 2008. So I wanted to share 10 helpful tips with you for preparing your business for 2008 
1. Visualize in detail what you want this year. Be very specific and write it down on paper. 
2. Create a goal list for what you want to see happen for 2008 
3. Take a look at your business to see if you are hitting your target market. If you are not then, take some more time out to see just who your target market is. 
4. Write out your marketing plan for 2008. This is why it is really important to know who that market is so that your plan can be geared toward them. 
5. Get rid of all unnecessary stuff. For example books, papers, old business cards etc. Just clean house. Another thing you may want to do is to take a look at money that you are spending on services that you don’t use. I did this recently and realized that I was spending $450 a month on services that I have not used since the day I signed up for them. Now I can take this $450 and reinvest it back into my business 
6. If you are working alone, you must build yourself a small team. This will help you move forward, because members of your team can take on projects that you don’t like and are not good at. 
7. Find some partners that can help you grow your business. This may be someone in a non-competing business. The two of you can cross promote each other. 
8. Do some networking this year. Create great relationships. After all great relationships help your business grow, because people do business with people they like. 
9. Educate yourself on your industry. If you want to be an expert in your field you have to stay on top of the things that are happening. You must make a commitment to yourself that you will continue to learn. Buy videos, go online and read about what’s happening, go to the library, go to workshops, get on tele-seminars, buy training CDs and subscribe to industry magazines and publications. Do whatever you have to be that expert that people seek out in your field. 
10. Surround yourself with positive people. I can’t tell you how important this is. When you are around positive people your mind set will be positive. If you are around people who aren’t doing anything but complaining and moping around, this will bring you down and make you unproductive. Find positive people who are doing the things that you like or things that are similar and surround yourself with them. 
 
Happy New Year 
Audrey 
Audrey Bell-Kearney is the President of Sister Inc. and the author of The Sister Inc Blueprint For Starting And Running A Successful Business. For more business questions or to book Audrey for a speaking engagement email her at Audrey@sisterinc.com or call her at 973-762-4300