As I posted previously, I don’t want to do that here. I’m not interested in regurgitating someone else’s marketing theories. And you probably don’t want to read any more posts about them.

What I do want to do is write honestly about my CURRENT EXPERIENCES as an entrepreneur. I want to blog about what it feels like to juggle my caregiving duties with my business schedule, my fears about putting myself out there, my insecurities about money, as well as my setbacks and successes.

In short, I want to do what few entrepreneurs are willing to do. I’m going to get naked (figuratively). I’m getting brutally honest.

So the first thing I want to share is that I struggle emotionally with charging for my work. This is about my unhealthy relationship and torrid history with money, not about the quality of my work. I design kick ass websites. It’s the money issue I struggle with.

I grew up in a family where love and money were too often substituted for one another. If I only spent $20 on a Christmas present for a family member (even when I was a teenager making minimum wage), I was often told, “Is that all I mean to you? I thought you loved me more than that.” Even now, Christmas is an emotionally challenging time of year for me for that very reason.

I have struggled with earning enough most of my life. So much of it is, no doubt, tied to my own self worth. Intellectually, I know I’m a good person, a loving, caring, compassionate, intelligent, creative person. But at a very deep level, there’s some damage that still hasn’t yet healed. Some lingering doubt. And it expresses itself in my fear of asking for what I deserve.

Recently, I enlisted the help of Wendy Reese of Peace in the City. She’s helping me get in shape physically, as well as address some of my deep-seated emotional issues. Part of my assignment is journaling (no, this isn’t my actual journaling here), which I haven’t done in years. But I think it may help. We will see. And getting in better physical shape (yes, round is a shape, but it’s not the shape I want) can only make things better, too.

Expect a lot more honest sharing on my ongoing experiences running my own business. I hope other entrepreneurs will benefit from my sharing. Being an entrepreneur can often be a lonely business, especially for sole proprietors. But I want you to know, you’re not alone out there.

By actively creating good karma through helping out others, you naturally overcome the resistance people have toward buying. People are more inclined to buy from those who are generous with their time and knowledge.

It’s All About Attitude

Perhaps one of the biggest marketing mistake entrepreneurs make in how they market their businesses is in their basic attitude. Specifically, their focus is on what they can get rather than how and what they can give.

Sure, maybe our product or service helps our clients, but that’s not enough to get someone to buy or even give us a second look. We have to build (and by build I mean earn) a reputation that we are generous with our time and our knowledge.

Who Would You Choose?

Let’s say you want to hire a contractor to enclose your back porch. You’ve narrowed your search to two people that your friends have recommended. You decide to interview each of them.

Contractor A wants to charge you just to discuss the project, though you manage to get him to agree to a 30-minute free consultation. He listens for a while and then starts making suggestions for some costly add-ons you aren’t really interested in. He insists that it’s an all or nothing deal.

Contractor B is happy to sit down with you for two hours. He listens attentively and then offers a few different ways the project can be approached, offering the pros and cons of each approach (durability, costs, ease of future upgrades). He’s happy to leave some samples with you (at no charge) to allow you to make up your mind.

One of these contractors is a giver, the other a taker. One generous with his time and knowledge, building good karma as a result. The other is controlling and trying to nickel and dime you to death. Bad karma! Which one would you hire?

People Are Attracted to Good Karma

Now think about your business. How can you be a real giver toward your prospective customers? It’s not enough to say I have a product and it’s good. Or I have a service and it solves a problem. Your competitors can say the same thing.

You have to brainstorm ways that you can be a giver, so much so that it creates a reputation for you. How free are you with giving away your time? Do you help educate people (and not just about your product)?

Put It Out There

Let’s say you’ve published a science fiction book that you need to promote. Sure, you can give away a free chapter. But a free chapter is like putting your hand out. Sure it’s some free content, but there are obvious strings attached. You can’t get the whole story until you pay me.

But what if you volunteered for a program helping kids build robots or learn something else related to science? How about an all-girls rocketry club? Or doing lectures at your local library on the lives of astronauts or classic sci-fi authors or the search for extremophiles in the depths of the ocean?

Your audience will ask what you do for a living and you say you write science fiction. How likely are they to buy your book? More so than if you showed up with your hand out.

Brainstorm Your Good Karma!

Brainstorm how you can create good karma for your prospects! Focus on your target market and their interests, and how those interests intersect with your skills. Don’t be afraid to think big.

Two hours spent volunteering your time to a related subject can be more productive sales-wise than the same two hours spent at a networking group or sending out emails or press releases.

I Am Blessed to Have You In My Life

I have such awesome friends. When I had to say farewell to my beloved cat Panda, you were there for me with your words of support and encouragement. When I celebrated my 15th sobriety birthday, you were there to cheer me on. And when I was stuck for a week in the hospital last Christmas, you sent prayers and made me laugh (which hurt after the surgery, but I still appreciated).

Long story short, my life is better because you are in my life. I mean that sincerely. Even if we’ve never met in person, the fact that you’re my friend on FB, or on this blog, or some other media, means that I am renewed by what you share. I am so grateful for that.

I Want to Show My Appreciation

I know times are tough right now and money is scarce for a lot of us. And I want to help you out. So I’m now giving 5% referral fees to anyone who refers a new client to me AND another 5% to the non-profit of your choice. So if you refer a client who hires me to design an awesome website, a kickass logo or a mind-blowing Facebook landing page, I will give you 5% of the initial job and another 5% to breast cancer research or marriage equality or building schools in Africa.

If the job is for $1,000, you get $50 and your charity gets $50! If the job is for $4,000, you get $200 and your charity gets $200. All just for referring a new client to me. Just be sure to let me know you referred them!

It’s All Good

Those of you who have hired me know I always go the extra mile for my clients. If I could, I’d do it for free because I so love helping people. So when people refer clients to me, they’re doing their friends a solid, supporting their favorite charity and putting some cash in their own pockets.

So spread the word and help me pay you back for your support.

Here are nine things to consider to make sure your web presence is up to par.

1. Flashing Is A Crime

No, I’m not talking about showing your tits at Mardi Gras or dropping your Speedo at Pride. I’m talking about websites that use Macromedia Flash for animations. While it’s not technically illegal, it ought to be.

Don’t get me wrong! I’m all for using animations. Obviously, since I use it a bit judiciously myself. But there’s a problem with using Flash to achieve the effect. About a third to a fourth of your visitors are viewing your site on a machine that doesn’t have Flash enabled. This includes folks using the very popular iPad and other Apple products.

So instead of seeing your beautiful site in all of it’s glorious animation, they see a big blank box wherever you’ve used Flash. This can prevent visitors from navigating your site, so they go somewhere else.

How can you tell if you’re using Flash? If you open your site in FireFox, click on the Add-Ons menu then click on Plugins. Look for the line that says “Shockwave Flash”. Click on the disable button. Now pull up your website. If there’s something missing (like your navigation bar or your banner or your entire site), then you’re probably using Flash.

Most animations can be achieved without Flash but using JavaScript. If you don’t know how to do that, it might be best to replace Flash elements with static text or images.

2. Looks Like A Redneck Wedding Invitation

I’m talking about blocks of text that are center-aligned. With the exception of wedding invitations, text should either be left-aligned (aka left justified) or right-aligned (aka right justified). When you center paragraphs of text, the result is always something that looks unprofessional.

People judge companies by their websites. An unprofessional website tells your visitors that you are not professional, that you’re sloppy and careless. If you don’t want someone getting that impression, make sure that elements are either left-aligned or right-aligned.

3. You Got No Style

Your website should tell a story, but it shouldn’t look like a novel with large blocks of uninterrupted text. With today’s short attention spans, you have to have eye-catching section headings, with images and lots of white space (aka negative space).

Use font size, distance, colors and alignment to show how different elements are related and to keep everything from running together in a big field of gray. This can best be achieved by using cascading style sheets (CSS). This helps to create a consistent look across multiple pages.

4. Doesn’t Play Well With Others

These days, web surfers have a wide choice of browsers including Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and (cough) Internet Explorer. They also have a wide range of operating systems including various versions of Windows, MacOS, iOS, palmOS, Android, etc. And then of course, there are screen sizes and devices to consider. How well does your website look on all of these? If your website uses HTML5/CSS3, what happens when people view it on older versions of IE?

Note: IE version 9 is fairly compatible with HTML5 elements, but requires users to have Windows 7. This means that people with Windows XP may be looking at your site with IE8 or older.

5. You’re A Whore

I know you’re not. But maybe your marketing plan is. What I mean is that if you don’t have a defined niche, you trying to appeal to too many people. It means you are competing against a lot more competitors, as well.

If someone asks you who your target market is, and you say “Everyone”, you’re a market whore! I promise not to tell your heart-attack-prone mother, but you really need to do something about it if you plan to stay in business.

It’s much easier (and cheaper) if you focus in on a narrow (and ideally under-served) segment of the marketplace. If you sell shoes, target a specific market like basketball players or seniors who like to walk or artsy fashion trendsetters. Otherwise, no one will notice you.

6. You’re Taste In Music Sucks

I’m sure you have wonderful taste in music. But if your music starts playing the second your home page loads, you may be sending people away to other sites. Maybe they’re at work and don’t want their coworkers knowing that they’re surfing. Or maybe they really do think your taste in music sucks.

The same goes with videos that play instantly. No body likes to be surprised with sound coming from their computer unexpectedly. If you really must have a video or audio on your page, give visitors the option to play it when they’re ready.

The one exception to this is businesses in the music industry. But again, your visitors will appreciate it more if they decide when and if to listen.

7. You’re A Bit Slow

Remember me talking about short attention spans? If your website takes more than a couple of seconds to load completely, people are going to say “Forget this bitch” and move on to your competition’s site.

What slows down a website? Dirty code like what you sometimes get with sites designed by Dreamweaver, MS Word, or some other WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) program. Lots of large graphics also puts the brakes on load times.

8. Can’t Find Sh!t

Have you ever been to a website looking for something specific, but the navigation menu makes no sense? How long before you went to another site? Not long, I’ll bet.

I’ve seen websites with multiple, unrelated navigation bars that only served to confuse visitors. Do click on this button up here or that link down there? Do I need to do a search for a keyword?

Make sure the navigation on your website is logical and easy to follow. Otherwise, visitors will get confused or frustrated and go visit your competition.

9. You’re English Are Terrible

We all make typos. My big downfall is mixing up homonyms, words that sound alike, but have different meanings, like your and you’re. And spellcheck doesn’t help in those instances, because both are legit words.

But if you want people to hire you or buy your product, you don’t want your site reading like a Chinese tech manufacturer website. Learn to speak proper English and have a trusted friend proofread your work. Otherwise, you end up looking like an idiot. And who wants to hire an idiot?

In the late 1990s, just having a website at all meant you were cutting edge and someone to take seriously. But websites have evolved along with the technology on which they are viewed. If you want to have an online presence that generates money for your business, your website needs to look professional, be easy to navigate, not piss off or confuse visitors and provide the information that your target market is looking for.