12 Days of Christmas Extravaganza Day 10 Welcomes Kim Eldredge & Nancy Seeger

The 12 Days of Christmas – The Great Holiday Networking Extravaganza, hosted by Jill Hart and Diana Ennen, is an unprecedented opportunity to learn from some of the best entrepreneurs, best-selling authors, and small businesses who share tips for success and secrets to how to have a profitable business. Daily interviews go behind the scenes to share not only success tips but also how these entrepreneurs are reaching goal after goal.

INTERVIEW with KIM ELDREDGE

Kimberly Eldredge is a successful independently published author with 11 books published in print and for Kindle and Nook. She helps entrepreneurs take the content they’ve already written and transform it into a book through Assisted Self-Publishing. Kimberly also helps overworked, overwhelmed business owners get their blogs written through her ghost blogging services.

Contacting Kim:
http://www.OnTheBeachPublishing.com
(928) 636-6588 – Office
(928) 713-0779 – Cell
hello@onthebeachpublishing.com
https://www.facebook.com/OnTheBeachPublishingLLC
https://www.facebook.com/kim.eldredge
https://twitter.com/KimEldredge

Tell us a little about your business?
On The Beach Publishing specializes in helping entrepreneurs write and publish their books. Once your book is written you have instant credibility and authority in your market, something to sell from stage, and an entry level product to attract people into your programs. Services include copy editing, ghost writing, formatting, cover design, and full-service publishing for eBooks and paperbacks.

What are some of your top tips for success?
Don’t be fooled by the word “book”. Your book doesn’t need to be a 300 page manuscript! Often times you can take content you’ve already written for your blog or newsletter and use that as the framework for your book. Being a published author will open doors to speaking engagements, attracting new clients, increasing your credibility but most of all, you’ll have the AMAZING feeling of being a published author.

Can you share with us two of top ways you market?
I have an active, well-qualified email newsletter list of 200+ subscribers that receive weekly emails. I am very active on Facebook (business and personal) to answer questions, provide value, and make new connections. A lot of my marketing is through Facebook! I have (as of 7:30 11/22/13) 674 likes to my fanpage and 1,757 friends.

Are you planning any special holiday promotions?
I’ll be offering my “Publish Your eBook Blueprint Home Study Course” at a discount ($75 off) for Christmas. I’ll be using a marketing theme of New Year’s Resolutions (Become a Published Author) as my platform. This will be offered through my website, Facebook, newsletter, and my affiliate program.

What goals do you have for the New Year?
I’ve given notice at my “day job” in my dad’s tax office. My last day will be April 15, 2014. My goals are to help 5-7 entrepreneurs become published authors (before April 15), enroll 5-6 new ghost blogging clients each month (January – April), grow my newsletter to 1,000 subscribers, add video to my website and sales pages, and hold my first telesummit. The telesummit will most likely be held in May.

How do you normally obtain those goals?
I believe that hard work can only take you so far. I actively practice gratitude thanking God daily for all the abundance in my life. I also believe that real connections are priceless – even if you don’t become each other’s client a real connection can help both parties get clients, achieve their goals, and share successes. Every day, I strive to make a consistent growth in my life: business, relationships, and spirit.

How do you make your business unique & profitable?
I could easily be a Jill of All Trades. But I don’t! I keep my focus to two things: publishing and ghost blogging. I am passionate about making sure that my publishing and ghost writing efforts are in line with my client’s overall marketing and branding plan but I don’t branch out into providing blog set-up services, webmaster services, design services, consulting, etc. I COULD do those things, I know how, but I stay focused. I feel that this better helps my clients!

Any additional tips…come on give us a few secrets to your success!

Be PASSIONATE about what you write about. That joy will come through.
Only work with people who have the same level of passion as you do. When I get on the phone with a client, passion is the #1 thing I’m looking for. If I don’t feel that she is passionate about her business, I don’t take her on as a client!
Anyone can tell a story – not everyone can write! It’s completely okay to hire an assistant to help you with the writing.
If you don’t LOVE techie stuff then don’t worry about formatting your book yourself. You need to spend your time, passion, energy and creativity doing what you love. Hire out the stuff you don’t!
Never stop promoting yourself. If you don’t toot your own horn nobody else will do it for you. Be PROUD of your book – and share your accomplishment with the world!

Have any comical stories you’d like to share about your time in business?
Not for THIS business but I have a doozy for TheOutdoorPrincess.com. (A bit of background – I write books about outdoor recreation which is how I got started in publishing. Folks from TheOutdoorPrincess.com kept asking for advice and how-to’s and if I’d publish their book for them so I started On The Beach Publishing to accommodate!)

I was searching after a geocache in Lake Mary near Flagstaff, Arizona. I had to swim out to a buoy and climb down the anchor chain to retrieve the cache. After a dozen failed attempts I was swimming back to shore when I DROPPED my dad’s $40 waterproof flashlight in the lake! And here’s the real kicker! It’s all on film! I was filming a YouTube video on Extreme Geocaching for my blog.

Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WE2y32hxhE

Tell us a little about your holidays and how you spend them. We love to get to know the people behind the business, so please do share.
My mom’s parents are still alive and living on their own. They’re both 86. So Christmas and Thanksgiving are spent in Tucson, Arizona with them. Papa Charlie is too impatient to wait for breakfast on Christmas morning and will get us all up at 6! He’d get us up earlier if Nana would let him! Normally, we take turns opening gifts so it lasts longer and we can all see what everybody got. Except for Papa! He goes first because he’s the oldest and frankly, at 86, he can’t afford to wait!

(His words, EVERY YEAR, not mine!)

Growing up, my favorite holiday was Thanksgiving. Not because of the turkey but because of Black Friday. Every Black Friday was spent around Nana’s dining room table making 40 dozen tamales, from scratch. There were three generations at the table working together – speaking a mix of Spanish and English and Spanglish. I was the gofer – washing the ojas (corn husks), filling the bowls of masa (dough), timing when the tamale pots would begin to steam and when they’d come off the stove, re-filling coffee cups, getting snacks, and packing up the cooled tamales for the freezer. It was a LONG day of work but it was always so much fun. NOTHING beats a tamale fresh from the double boiler – not reheated.

Tell us about your free download.
To help you get started on your self-publishing journey, and to clarify why you need to self-publish your book, Kimberly Eldredge of On The Beach Publishing has written a brand-new eBook “5 Self-Publishing Misconceptions: Debunked!”

Tell us about your giveaway.
Are you frustrated that you don’t update your blog enough?

You know that you need to update your blog weekly. You know that a blog is a great way to engage your prospects and clients. You know blogging builds credibility. And, you know blogs are one of the best ways to share your passion with the world.

INTERVIEW with NANCY SEEGER

Nancy Seeger, the owner of Arts Assistance, believes website design is part of the marketing toolkit that attracts your audience. Now in its seventh year, Arts Assistance’s client roster consists of various professional disciplines including a GRAMMY Artist, bloggers, coaches, nonprofits and small businesses.

Nancy lives with her husband and daughter in Northern Virginia just outside Washington DC. She and her husband are originally from Michigan and still consider themselves Michiganders. Bring on the snow!

Contacting Nancy:
http://www.artsassistance.com
http://www.artsassistance.com/contact/
https://www.facebook.com/ArtsAssistance
http://www.twitter.com/NancySeeger

Tell us a little about your business?
I make websites and what I especially enjoy doing is designing websites that is designed for a client’s audience. Pretty pictures or a template “off the shelf” just isn’t marketing to me, it must be relevant to the audience otherwise it is just decoration.

What are some of your top tips for success?
Learning is crucial, you have to realize you need to continually update your skills. That means following the best in your industry, attending conferences and taking courses. It can be a lot of fun!

Can you share with us two of top ways you market?
I find sharing tips through newsletters and blogging to be very effective. Give value to your audience, with only a little bit of selling.

Are you planning any special holiday promotions
(class link: http://www.artsassistance.com/webinar/take-website-next-level-class/ )

My class “Take Your Website to the Next Level” is open for early registration rate during December for $97. For do it yourself folks who manage their own websites, I’ll be sharing techniques web designers use to really put on your best front and protect your website.

What goals do you have for the new year?
In 2014 I’m redoing my website to refine my branding so it is more relevant to my audience. My lovely background pattern is meant to communicate to concert musicians who may recognize older concert hall wallpaper, unfortunately it is just pretty to everyone else. Looking forward to publishing a new branded look!

How do you make your business unique & profitable?
I spent most of my adult life either as a musician or an arts manager for orchestras. My performing and marketing background help me to focus in on the audience so designs communicate with them. I credit that background to keeping the audience in mind in everything I do.

Any additional tips…come on give us a few secrets to your success!
Outsource, outsource, outsource! You may be able to do a lot of things yourself but as you get more successful, you need to delegate administrative and marketing or even bookkeeping so you can stay focused on income generating activity. I learned this one late, many business owners try to do everything – it will hold you back as a business.

Have any comical stories you’d like to share about your time in business?
I don’t have a funny story to share but maybe you share a quirk? I like white noise – lots of it. If I’m designing I will have music on but for other tasks – I like rain, coffee shops, or thunderstorm background noises. Not sure what it is but really helps me concentrate. Here are a couple you might enjoy:

Rain – http://raining.fm
Coffee Shop – http://coffitivity.com

Tell us a little about your holidays and how you spend them. We love to get to know the people behind the business, so please do share.
I am really looking forward to seeing San Francisco the second week of December which my friends tell me will be all decked out for the holidays. I’ll be there attending a web design conference, did you know folks at those types of conferences normally wear jeans? Love it!

Tell us about your free giveaway.
Watch the video “Top 10 Visual Mistakes With Websites” presentation I did in October. It is available only in December!

Additionally, if you sign up for my newsletter for weekly tips, you can also watch my video on target audience design (no worries it isn’t techie.)

Happy Holidays!