Small Business Branding and Marketing Advice and Commentary
A Big thank you out to all who participated in this draw. I literally took all your names, put ‘em in a bowl, swished them all around and came up with a winner.
The winner is Regina Baker! Congratulations Regina! You’ll need to contact me within 3 business days to smallbusinessbranding @ gmail.com We have more giveaway’s coming so be sure to keep an eye out for them.
Some fun news today! We have a special giveaway from Kelly Manuel who is the PR Manager at Corel. You can follow her on twitter here https://twitter.com/kellylm.
Kelly contacted me recently to do a cool giveaway for CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 Valued at $429.00 USD. It was super easy for me to agree to host a giveaway here at the blog. 
So here are some details about CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4.
1) You get 10,0000 high quality clipart images
2) 1000 high resolution digital images
3) 80 professionally designed templates
4) Over 1000 OpenType and international fonts including 75 Windows Glyph List 4 fonts and 10 single line engraving fonts
5) Over 2 
hours of training videos
Basically you can create very professional results with this product for your creative projects. I see also that you can tag your files which is pretty cool.
To Enter
1) Post a comment on why you’d love to have this
2) Contest ends and Winner will be announced Monday June 29th, 2009
3) Winner must pay for shipping costs
4) We will email the winner on Monday, prize must be claimed within 3 days or we will choose another winner
Also, for those who don’t win, you can download a free trial here.
Thousands of people struggle to publish a website on the web every day.
Some want to make millions overnight while others want to start a legitimate home based business. Still others want to just find a voice by blogging.
The massive size of the web has made it a playground for the newbies and the experienced alike but with millions of people making up your potential audience, how do you differentiate your website from all the others?
No matter what your purpose is for having a website, you want it to look appealing and welcoming. The visitor needs a reason to stay to read what you have to offer otherwise they are just one more hit in your stats, never to be found again.
One way to get your website published quickly is to use a DIY web page builder or templates. Choose a design, add your copy, and hit the publish button.
You’re officially a webmaster!
But if you do not have an eye for design your page layout might confuse your reader about where they should look first. Or the graphics included in the templates might look unprofessional and not really convey your message to your readers very well.
Confusing a reader should not ever be part of your plan and if you are online to make money, customers need to be assured of your professionalism prior to buying from you. Using a below standard web page builder might just turn away people instead of bringing them closer to making a sale.
I always recommend using web design software to all my coaching students and others who are new to the online world. This one program has helped me grow my business immensely and has certainly paid for itself multiple times over during the years.
This is the king of DIY web builders. Every design and copy element on the page is within your control but the developers have already paid professional web designers to create the hundreds of templates available to use.
The actual layouts are very professional and pleasing to the eye, which will help navigate your reader through your site while also establishing you as an expert in your market.
Xsite Pro is a one-time investment but now business owners are not stuck using a sub par program getting sub par results. Xsite Pro gives you the professional website that you want – and need – to be successful online.
Is it time to take a review of your own website? What does it say about you?
Many of my peers in business are looking for ways to increase their opportunities and help others in the process. One of my fellow charter members of MOOB, (Mind Our Own Business), Marcia Hoeck has put together a telesummit featuring a dozen high profile speakers on being your own boss, throwing up that shingle and giving it a go. The fantastic thing is that they’re not charging a few thousand or even a few hundred dollars for this series of a dozen interviews. The fee is only 37 bucks USD ( a few cases of beer – at least here in Canada). They are also donating a portion to KIVA to help fund small business in developing countries.
Marcia herself has had year over year success for the last 25 years. She is engaging and a great friend. I’ve already signed up. I’ve been in business for at least as long as Marcia, and I learn new stuff all the time. The “Corporate Entrepreneurs Unplugged Teleseminar” – Check it out.
Once you’ve read the splash page, come back and tell me what you think? Marcia would love the feed-back.
A quick note if you’d like a fast way to get your blog on mobile phones.
First off, I bought the domain, “TheBrandCorral.mobi over at goDaddy.com and then forwarded it to the feedburnerlink of my existing blog.
Now when a reader enters www.TheBrandCorral.mobi in their mobile phone, up comes a list of my articles. Clicking on an article (in my BlackBerry) gives them two choices. View Description or Read Article. Choosing Read Article, gives a terrific mobile friendly version of my blog including graphics and all my side bar information.
That’s it.
I haven’t been on twitter all that much lately due to being sick this last week (which is why this post will be a short one) but today I’m at least up to the computer and went inside my email management Aweber to send a broadcast out to my email list.
While I was in there I noticed that you can now twitter your broadcasts at the same time over to twitter, cool.
(you can read the story at Aweber here)
A couple things of notice:
1) You can only do this for broadcasts only, not follow-ups
2) You can only send with one Twitter Account, this may just change in the future.
There’s some other fun things I’ve also added to enhance my twitter business building experience that I’ll soon share. If you want to follow me on Twitter you can here: http://www.twitter.com/veraraposo
I’ve secured interviews, events, and build relationships with Twitter. Fun!
Our Success Mindset Report will show you how to plan for success & keep a positive mindset. Get this report now when you sign up below. Just enter your name & email address:
