One way is to create custom tabs of information for your Facebook business page.  You may need to enlist the help of a website expert to do this, but we’re going to give you the basic steps.  It may be helpful to share this information with your webmaster when asking about this service.

First, you must be logged into your Facebook account.  On the news feed, there is a menu on the left.  You may have to expand the menu where it says “More.”  There will be an item entitled “Ads and Pages”.  Click on that link.  Then choose the page you are interested in and click “Edit page.”

Then choose “Applications” from the menu on the left.  This will show you a list of applications currently active on your page.  You want to add an application.  The application is “FBML – FBML”  It may be listed on the bottom of the page as a suggested application.  If not, you will have to choose “Browse more applications” to find it.

Once you find it, you will want to choose “Add Application”.  Once the application is installed, you will see it on your list of applications for that page.  If you choose, “Go to application”, it will take you to the application settings.

Now this is where it gets technical.  You can give this tab a label in the field entitled “Box title.”  Then you must paste HTML code into the larger box.  This code must conform to the rules laid out by Facebook for its FBML (Facebook Markup Language).  For more tutorials click here or here.  Click here for another good tutorial with great examples.

To make this work, you must have the images used in your new page hosted on a web server somewhere.  When you include the code, you must include absolute reference to the images, such as: http://www.myhosting.com/images/facebook.jpg

Use this Facebook test console to see if your code works before posting it to your page.

To find a qualified web developer, check the Women With Moxie website!

There are many options for working professionals to get degrees.  Many colleges now offer online degrees that require only short residencies on their campus.  To take online classes you obviously need a computer or access to a computer.  You also should have high speed internet access for the best experience.

To earn your online degree, you will be required to read textbooks, the same as if you were attending classes.  You post assignments online for your professors and interact with your fellow classmates and professors through discussion boards.

There are advantages and disadvantages to taking online courses.  While you can generally work around your job schedule, it is just as rigorous as attending regular classes and often requires daily interaction.

The other option is to take the leap and enroll at a local college as a full- or part-time student.  For people who require a more structured learning environment, this is often the best option.  Many colleges offer executive programs on the weekends or in the evenings for working professionals.

Whatever option you choose, embrace the opportunity to learn!  You are never too old and often more prepared to get more from the experience when you’re older.

Be sure to verify that the school you choose is accredited by looking it up on U.S. Department of Education website.

Having a free or low-cost event at your business is a great way to get people in the door.  Making it fun and informative is essential, and there should always be light food and something to drink.  If you do give away wine at the event, be sure to also have something non-alcoholic for those who don’t drink.

Consider giving the event a “theme” – this always makes it seem more appealing.  If you’re a kitchen store, hold a knife sharpening knight and call it “Living on the Edge.”  If you’re a clothing store, hold a fashion show and call it “Fashion with Passion.”  Be creative!  And think about what potential customers might find interesting.

Involving a non-profit is another way to appeal to people.  You can donate the proceeds of the event to a non-profit or have a 50/50 raffle or prize raffle.  Often other businesses will be happy to donate gifts for a raffle in exchange for their business name and information being announced at the event.  Putting their brochures out is nice, too.  Be sure they are not competing businesses to your own or each other’s.

As the economy continues to contract, people are more choosy with their money, so making sure the event is fun and worth people’s time is essential.  If there is an educational element to the event, that is a bonus.

Don’t plan the event alone – recruit at least one other person to bounce ideas off and help with the leg work.

Most importantly, don’t be aggressive with selling on the night of the event… especially if folks paid to get in.  This event is to showcase your business and your products.  If someone buys something, that’s great, but the hope is that they will return now that they are more familiar with what you do.  (Or they may send their friend who is a better fit for your products.)

1. Not having a business plan. Components include:
   1. Defining your target market
   2. Recognizing, comparing and defining your products and prices to your competitors.
   3. Being aware of rules and regulations.
   4. Understanding your COGS (cost of goods sold) and gross margin.
   5. A launch strategy and marketing plan.
   6. A cash flow analysis realistically defining sales projections and the expenses associated with them.
2. Being under capitalized: it takes money to research, develop, launch, promote and build your market. If you don’t think about this and plan for it you may end up with your home equity gone, credit cards max’ed out and no money to finance that big order when it finally comes in.
3. Not pricing correctly right out of the gate. Not enough room for returns, deductions, or enough room to market and promote.
4. Falling in love with your product and thus not thinking clearly when getting into the business.
5. Not understanding how to work with and manage independent sales organizations. They don’t all cover every channel of trade. Know where your product should be and then hire the appropriate contract sales team to get you there. You should not abdicate the responsibility for your sales to anyone, but remain open and curious about how to get your goals met.
6. Wasting your time on small orders that end up costing more than you make. Have minimums.
7. Not having a good accountant, financial partner, bookkeeper. Keep good records.
8. Not having the right people working for you.  Hire good help to compliment your strengths and offset your weaknesses.
9. Using up all the profits.
10. Changing packaging too often.
11. Not changing your prices when needed.
12. Chasing unfeasible product concepts.
13. Not using a coach, mentor or other business pro as a sounding board.
14. Not recognizing that the word “specialty” doesn’t have to make it the highest priced items on the shelf.
15. Forgetting that sampling is the best way to gain a customer base. Make enough product for sufficient sampling.
16. Not joining industry trade associations.
17. Not forming a network with other people in your industry. Learn from others’ experiences.
18. Growing so fast that you can’t keep up with the consumer demand and thus ending a business that could have been triumphant rather than bankrupt.
19. Not checking State laws regarding some ingredients in products.
20. Being in business with family without a legal agreement; making concessions for family members.

Comments are the collective input from Deb Mazzaferro’s network in the specialty foods arena and have been condensed for easy reading.

Deb Mazzaffero offers coaching and consulting for the specialty food trade.  She brings 30 years of sales and marketing experience in the specialty food trade to her coaching and consulting business, which she started in 2001. Since then she has worked with more than 90 companies in the specialty food trade to develop, implement and execute their sales strategy. Deb holds a bachelor’s degree in retail business from the Rochester Institute of Technology, has studied at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, Calif., and is a certified Sommelier. She is a graduate of the International Coaching Program of the Gestalt Center for Organization & Systems Development.

Contact Deb to discuss your business needs. Call 941-359-8599 or email Deb@CoachMaz.com. You can also visit her website.

A fantastic application I recently became acquainted with is FourSquare. It is an application you can put on your laptop, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPad or other portable device. The application allows you to “check in” at the various establishments and locations you visit during the day. Say you go to Starbucks. Once you get there, using your FourSquare application, you “check in.” Checking in does several things. First, if you’re so inclined, it lets your friends know where you’re hanging out so they can come join you. Second, it lets that venue or business know how many folks are checking into their establishment. (There is also a way to check in at a venue in stealth mode – for those with something to hide.)

Checking in also gets you points and badges. For instance, if you are the person who checks in most at a certain business, you become the “Mayor” of that establishment. Along with a certain sense of pride, this can have great implications for businesses. (You knew I’d get around to how this could benefit your business, didn’t you?) If you know that folks are using FourSquare to check in at your business, you can offer specials to whoever is the current Mayor. (Do you see where I’m going?)

Folks can then compete to be the Mayor by visiting more often. By viewing your venue on the site, you can see who’s been there, who’s there and what they’re saying about your business.  You could offer FourSquare specials to all who check in between certain hours (your slow hours). It has huge implications for encouraging folks to get out of their chair and come into your brick and mortar building.

I would recommend visiting FourSquare to find out how your business can benefit.

Find your venue.  If it’s not there, you can add it.  Click the “Are you the manager of this business?” link near the top.  Then advertise to your customers that you want them to check in using FourSquare.

1.  Have a strong opening – I often begin with a question to immediately engage your audience.

2.  Continue to engage the audience by asking them questions during the presentation.

3.  Remember – less is more.  Better to be ‘short and interesting’ than ‘long and boring’.

4.  When stating something you want audience to remember – repeat the phrase at least once.  Example:  “93% of all women are dissatisfied with the quality of their lives.”     I repeat, “93% of all……”

5.  Smile and make eye contact with individuals in the audience. This makes each person feel you are speaking directly to them.

6.  Add humor – entertain the audience and make them laugh.

7.  Organize the presentation – strong opening, body of presentation filled with interesting details, and wrap it all up at the end with a strong close.

Esther Bird is a Certified Life Coach and owner of Bright Future Coaching.  After nearly 28 years in corporate America, she made the decision to become a coach and help women improve the quality of their lives and small business owners to be more successful.  She received her coaching training and certification from the Life Purpose Institute in San Diego, CA.

Contact Esther to schedule a complimentary coaching session.  Call 941-266-9578 or email brightfuturecoaching@verizon.net.   You can also visit her website.

1. Become an expert in your field – If others see you as an expert, clients will want to work with you. Make others aware of your knowledge and experience, become the expert in their eyes.

2. Develop a network and communicate with them – Be sure to communicate to your network regularly. This will keep you in their minds and when they need your service, they will remember to call you.

3. Schedule business development – Make time for marketing yourself and your business. Put it on the calendar and do it consistently. During scheduled time for business development, turn off the phone and don’t answer emails. Concentration on the task in front of you.

4. Know your niche of customers and market to them – Spend all your time and energy directing information to your niche. Don’t make the mistake of trying to be everything to everyone. Attempting to market to everyone is too difficult.

5. Follow up – Never neglect this important task. When you meet someone at a marketing function, follow up as soon as you can. If you say you will call someone, do it when you say you will. This is a vitally important part of being seen as reliable. Reliability attracts clients to you.

Without clients we have no business. Without business we have no income.

Esther Bird is a Certified Life Coach and owner of Bright Future Coaching. After nearly 28 years in corporate America, she made the decision to become a coach and help women improve the quality of their lives and small business owners to be more successful. She received her coaching training and certification from the Life Purpose Institute in San Diego, CA.

Contact Esther to schedule a complimentary coaching session. Call 941-266-9578 or email brightfuturecoaching@verizon.net. You can also visit her website.

First, is there a demand for your passion? Generally, if you love it enough, the money will come, but not if it’s something like gerbil husbandry or chipmunk training. Be realistic. Do some online research into up-and-coming fields where jobs are in demand. Does it follow a trend in your area? Can you make your passion marketable?

Second, do you have the necessary skills? If not, you might consider taking a class or going back to school. Perhaps it’s something that a few great books and a seminar would remedy. Be sure you can perform the tasks of the job. Loving to do something does not always equate to doing it well.  (Practice makes perfect, though!)

Third, what do you need to start pursuing your passion? Make a list. Funds, education, time, connections, information, research, travel. Write down everything you can think of that will be necessary to achieve your goal. Then figure out what you already have and what you still need.

Fourth, gather resources. Take your list of necessities and figure out how you will attain those which you do not already possess. Come up with a realistic time-frame for acquiring everything you need. Are there things you can start doing now, like initial marketing tasks?

Fifth, go for it! Put your all into making your vision a reality.  Do what you love!  Do it with passion!

Sixth, don’t give up! It’s likely going to be a lot of work to transition your life from something stable to something a bit more uncertain, but if you truly put your heart into it, you can make anything happen!

First, don’t over-tweet. Much like with Facebook, people become overwhelmed when you make too many posts.  (I hope I am not too guilty of this.)  If you continually post 15 things in a row, several times a day, people will likely stop reading your entries.  They simply will not have the time.  Instead, choose the most important few things per day to post.  Fewer posts hold more significance each.

Second, include a link. Generally, the point of marketing is to either get people to your website or get them into your shop.  Often, getting to your website is the first step in getting them to your shop (if you have a brick ‘n mortar).  Twitter has a neat feature that automatically shrinks your URL to fit your post.

Third, don’t mix business with pleasure. If you have strong political or religious views, don’t tweet them in the same account you use to share sales, discounts and industry news.  Unless, of course, you only want customers who share your views on the world.  Generally, it is good business to keep the two separate.

Fourth, use hashtags (#). If you’re tweeting about an event or topic that’s trending, give it a #hashtag.  It will help when searching for certain topics.  (Example:  What does everyone think about #windpower?)

Fifth, integrate your social networking platforms. Using the Twitter application on Facebook, you can have your tweets posted as Facebook status updates automatically.  This saves time.  Also, post your @handle at the end of comments you post.  This will help people engage with you regardless of where they found your content.

Sixth, interact with others. Don’t just go on Twitter, post your stuff and leave.  If you want folks to follow you, you should follow others as well.  Retweet posts that you like and comment on ones that interest you.  It will go a long way toward building relationships.

First, go to the top right corner of your Facebook page and choose “Privacy Settings” from the “Settings” dropdown menu.

Next, choose “Profile” from the resulting page.  You will then see a list of settings for various aspects of your profile.  Because someone can only be your Facebook friend if you approve or invite them, those folks should be people you deem relatively trustworthy with your information.  Therefore, you should set all the options for your profile to “Only Friends.”  That way, random people and total strangers won’t have access to your information.

Be sure to click “Save Changes” when you are done.