A lot of people are talking about the law of attraction now that the book The Secret has become such a big success. Do you believe in the law of attraction? Some people live by this law, others think its BS.

I’m not a law of attraction, “cultist,” I am a big believer that you can attract things into your life. It’s not a science, and it doesn’t work if you don’t feel deep down that you deserve these things, but it does work! Perhaps like you, I started noticing this “phenomenon” many years before I realized there was something called the law of attraction, and I am amazed at how it works.

Coincidence, or the law of attraction at work?

Though 3,000 miles apart, David and I met when I sent him an email to let him know about my copywriting services at the exact moment that he was online searching for copywriters for some of his clients. Was this a coincidence, or the law of attraction at work?

Over the years I feel that I’ve brought quite a few things into my life with the law of attraction but the strangest set of things of all was a 1971 Volkswagen pop-top bus and a tool set.

Back when I was hitchhiking across the country and free as a bird, I had a little notebook that I used to write down observations. Though I was living in a tent and had pretty much nothing, something I really, really did want at the time was a 1971 Volkswagen pop-top bus and a tool set. I wanted it so bad that I made a page of things that I wanted in the notebook and wrote just those two things on the page.

A few months later, my then boyfriend at the time and I traveled up to Oregon to visit his estranged father that he had not seen in years. Though he had been a mechanic, his father was managing some apartments and had started a new family. Ironically, one of the tenants that had recently moved out had just given his father his non-working 1971 Volkswagen pop-top bus in exchange for a rent debt.

Glad to see his son and knowing that we needed a vehicle, he offered to fix up the bus and give it to us! In a week or so, he had it running like a champ and had even spray painted the engine a bright funky yellow and gave us a brand new tool box to go with it!

Hocus Pocus, or The Real Deal?

Is the law of attraction real or just a series of coincidences? Do you feel as if you’ve ever “manifested” anything into your life with the Law of Attraction? What are its boundaries?

More Posts on the Law of Attraction

The Law of Attraction in Business

Responsibility and the Law of Attraction

10 Easy Steps to using the Law of Attraction for Manifesting Prosperity

Tags: Hangout Cafe, General Business Issues by Adam - 13 Comments »

Create Business Growth has made it into three top 100 lists. We are in the top 100 Business Blogs, the top 100 SEM and SEO Blogs  and the top 100 Marketing blogs.

Thanks to all of our readers and a special thanks to Christine who makes sure that we keep getting out great content.

Tags: Announcements, Business Building, Special Thanks, Marketing by Fred - 2 Comments »

We close out each week with our “Who Said That?,” where we give some link love to other blogs and regular websites that we feel you may find interesting.

Let’s get started!

How to Sabotage Your Goals with 47 Simple Words

I’m a huge believer that the language we use greatly influences what we are capable of. We literally train ourselves to believe what is and what is not possible by the language we use in our own self talk. In this post, Lodewijkvdb has compiled 47 words that sabotage your goals. Replace these words with actionable words of ownership and it is amazing how much more you will instantly become capable of and how things that seemed impossible before suddenly have a solution.

Estimating a Writing Project

Though the author Beth is a freelance writer, this post is essential for any freelancer or project manager that quotes a price based on the time it *should* take to complete a project. Projects always seem to take longer than we think they will. Sometimes, we can misquote so badly that our hourly rate is comparable with a fast food employee! This must stop and Beth will show you how.

Convert your Old Posts into A Full Sales Campaign

You spend a lot of time writing for your blog – why let those older posts go to waste? This post at CashQuest.com gives some ideas of how to blow the dust off of those older posts and turn them into money.

7 Can’t-Miss Ways To Kick-Start The Writing Habit

Dave Navarro started this started to share 7 ways that he uses to get his creative juices flowing before sitting down to write. However, 660 Diggs and 79 comments later, this post has become a massive database of ideas from bloggers and writers around the world! If you can’t find some inspiration here, it might be time to pack up your domain name. If you use a strategy that you don’t see listed here – be sure to add it!

Money for Entrepreneurs - The Best of the Web

I literally find myself laughing out loud whenever I read a post from Naomi at IttyBiz. Her knack of seeing the plainly obvious and her sense of humor makes this blog such an enjoyable read – this is one you’ll want to come back to over and over again! Naomi has rounded up her picks from the web about how entrepreneurs can find more money in a post laced with plenty of humor.

If you would like to show people your post was featured in “Who Said That,” you can copy the following code and paste it at the bottom of your post: <a href="http://createbusinessgrowth.com/who-said-that/581"><img src="http://createbusinessgrowth.com/who-said-that.jpg" alt="Who Said That" border="0"/></a>

Tags: Who Said That? by Adam - 5 Comments »

No doubt there will be someone, at some time who will dish up a nasty comment on your blog – how do you handle it? I did  think that the best way to handle it was just to leave it there because doing otherwise would be somewhat biased. But now I’ve stated to rethink this after seeing some comments on other blogs.

When I read something really nasty on another blog I feel empathy for the blogger, but I wonder if leaving those comments there might place a damper on their reputation. Should you allow allow your reputation to be compromised in your own publication?

Two Type of Negative Comments

I think there are two types of negative comments. One that offers legitimate push-back to the stance you are taking in your blog post. The other is the Negative Nellie that seems to leave the nasty comment for no good reason other than to stir up controversy.

I wouldn’t suggest removing comments that counter your arguments just because you don’t like what they don’t agree with you – there is great value in this both to you and readers. But what about Negative Nellie?

So should you delete the negative comment? Offer some sort of response?

For example, magazines often publish reader responses to previous articles. A good magazine will publish both positive and negative feedback. But I don’t recall seeing many high quality magazines that publish out and out rants based on unfounded logic.

Liz Strauss told me during our interview that many people have some fear of commenting on blogs because it opens their ideas up to scrutiny.

As a blog publisher, it is your role to set the tone of your blog. If your goal is to provide a positive atmosphere where people feel comfortable leaving comments, this type of negativity in the comments section could dissuade others from participating in the conversation.

If a person who would like to engage in the discussion sees that you allow people to leave nasty comments, could this dissuade them from joining in? As the publisher of the blog, is it our responsibility to set the tone for what is and is not acceptable?

What Other Bloggers are Doing

Marketing Profs Daily Fix
Ignore ‘em or Embrace ‘em? How to Handle Negative Blog Comments

Tech Forward
Negative Blog Comments - Keep Your Focus!

Here’s a funny one… I don’t see myself using this… but I think the concept is hilarious for the right blogger
Young Go Getter

What do you think?

What is the best way to handle those few nasty commenters and why?

Tags: Blogging by Adam - 6 Comments »

I wanted to share with you some amazing information that I just found from Dave Navarro - not music rock star Dave Navarro who was married to Carmen Electra - the blogging rock star Dave Navarro, a contributing writer to Jon Phillips Freelance Folder.

Dave has an awesome writing style and always offers tons of great ideas on Freelance Folder.  Today I found an excellent resource that he has created on time “management.”  The reason I say “management” in quotes is because Dave has a completely different perspective on this this overused term:

It (time management) is just a poor choice of terms because it implies that you can have leverage over time … which you can’t.  What you can manage, however, are the results you get from your time. You can manage those like crazy. And when you get it right, you can do practically anything.

He promises that by the time you finish this special report, you’ll know

• Exactly How To Create a “30 Hour Day”
• The #1 Commitment All Master Time Managers Make
• What Your Next Step To Success Is

You can get the report called “How To Get 30 Hours A Day” here.  You will also have access to other pieces of his 30 Hours a Day audio coaching program including an MP3 called “The 10 Critical Skills Of Painless Time Management” as well as access to the 30 Day Challenge members forum.

All free to help you get more out of your life and reach your goals faster

Dave clearly states on his report that “you Will Not Be Sold Anything In This Report. So Open Your Mind, Remind Yourself Of Your Potential & Get Ready To Learn.”

So enjoy - hope to see you over at the 30 Day Challenge Forum where I am signing up as soon as I finish this post!

Tags: Time Management by Adam - 3 Comments »

We close out each week with our “Who Said That?,” where we give some link love to other blogs and regular websites that we feel you may find interesting.
Let’s get started!

First off – I want to give a big congratulations to Pat Doyle who quit her job this week to pursue her entrepreneurial dreams.  You are awesome Pat – best of luck to you!

In this extremely comprehensive post titled Creating a Prospect List for Traffic and Links, Dosh Dosh explains the his own strategies that have made earned him a reputation as a top blogger.  This is my favorite type of post – offering complete and actionable tips that you can walk away with and put into practice immediately.

Remarkable Communication asks: what problem are you solving?  Can you quickly come back with a well versed answer to the real-life problem that your blog or business solves for others?

Andy Beard explains Why Blogs Suck and commenters join in the conversation to share their experiences.

Michael Martine of the newly renamed Remarkablogger has recently did 5 Free Quick Blog Reviews that are EXCELLENT.  These aren’t your average reviews.  In my opinion, every single blogger can learn something very important from these reviews.

The 5 reviews are:

Free Quick Blog Review: Caroline Middlebrook, Livin’ Online

Free Quick Blog Review: DCS Media

Free Quick Blog Review: unTECHy

Free Quick Blog Review: MarcoRichter.net

Free Quick Blog Review: Theme Playground

Michael is also offering blog reviews like these for $100.  In my opinion, this is a fantastic value for such an intuitive and helpful review.

Have a great weekend!

If you would like to show people your post was featured in “Who Said That,” you can copy the following code and paste it at the bottom of your post: <a href="http://createbusinessgrowth.com/marketing/who-said-that-friday-october-19th-2007"><img src="http://createbusinessgrowth.com/who-said-that.jpg" alt="Who Said That" border="0"/></a>

Tags: Marketing by Adam - 8 Comments »

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you may know that I can get obsessed about all things entrepreneurial. First the 4 Hour Workweek – and now this show The Big Idea with Donnie Deutsch!

I rarely watch TV, but every weeknight at 7:00 I get the kids into their room, turn off all distractions and intensely watch this show. If I was tired before the show, I’m pumped up beyond belief afterward and usually end up staying up way too late having big ideas – it’s great!

Last night the topic was Renegade Entrepreneurs. Among those featured were the creator of Paul Mitchel Products and the creator of Spanx undergarments.

From Living In a Car on $3 a Day to Billionaire With a Simple, Overlooked Marketing Strategy

The creator of Paul Mitchell hair products used to live in his car, run with motorcycle gangs, and was told by a teacher that he’d never be successful at anything. But then made billions with a smart marketing concept. At the time, all hair care products were sold on the drugstore shelves.

His idea was to create great product and then ONLY sell it through salons – encouraging those who had their hands in hair all the time and who people trusted with their hair to recommend the product. He promised them that they would never, every sell them out and market to the drugstore shelves. The rest is history.

How can you give a powerful group of referrers exclusive rights to sell your product?

A Woman Who Takes Extreme Measures to Get Her Product Noticed Ends Up on Oprah

Sara Blakely, the creator of Spanx slimming undergarments: Sara knew she had a great idea. She called up the buyer for Nordroms and said – if I fly out to meet with you, will you give me 10 minutes to show you my product? When she got there, she took the buyer into the bathroom with her to show her OWN before and after transformation with Spanx.

The buyer loved it and agreed to stock the product.

However, Nordstrom only gave the product a tiny spot in a sleepy corner of the store. Renegade entrepreneur Sara knew she had to get the product in front of more people. So she went to Target and bought some clear display props, snuck around Nordstrom and put the display cases on the counters – her plan was to make the supervisor working ASSUME that this positioning had been approved by the last supervisor on duty!

She then took it a step further… she bought another clear display case at Target, filled it with Spanx and had her brother drive her to Nordstoms. She ran in, taped the display case up where it would be visible to customers on the escalator, and ran out. Wow!

It worked. One of Oprah’s buyers saw the product and bought it, Oprah loved it and featured it on the show, and the rest is history.

Lesson – Have fun, go against the grain, don’t take yourself too seriously, and don’t be afraid to color outside the lines! It’s the renegade thinkers that refuse to settle for average that make it to the big time!

Tags: Marketing by Adam - 6 Comments »

I want to share with you a story about persistence that I heard on my favorite show The Big Idea with Donnie Deutsch last week. This story has moved me so much that I’ve thought about this every single day, several times a day since I heard it and am still in awe of this woman’s resistance to give up!

Michele Hoskins decided to create a product out of her great grandmother’s syrup recipe. After she had it formulated and packaged, she took the products to local grocery stores, asking them to stock the product and if they sold, she would invoice them. This worked well, but she had bigger ideas. Her goal was to get the syrup into Denny’s restaurants.

She got in touch with the right people at Denny’s and they told her no. But that did not stop her. She made it a habit to call them every single Monday at 10:30am for TWO YEARS!

When Denny’s hired a new CEO, they told him about this woman who called every Monday at 10:30. “What does she want?” the CEO asked. “She wants us to use her product,” they replied.

This was during the time that Denny’s was suffering from a blow to their reputation after being sued for treating African American’s poorly in their restaurant in past years. Michelle Hoskins happened to be African American. The CEO was baffled that these people had turned her down for so long – this is exactly the kind of business partnership they needed!

Not long after, Michelle had the contract with Denny’s and now she is a multi-millionaire.

This is not about Michelle getting a lucky break because she is an African American. This is a story about how situations change, executives change, and organizations change - A story not about being in the right place at the right time, but being in a place ALL the time and being persistant enought to WAIT for the right time. to come - Proof that one ’small’ voice repeated enough times can add up to a big impact - perhaps more than a ‘big’ voice only spoken only once.

Would you have had the persistence to be told NO by the same company every week for two years? I wouldn’t have. But which one of us has a multi-million dollar product placement with a gigantic national corporation? After hearing that story I am seriously restructuring my own tolerance for rejection and my idea of what it means to be persistent.

Tags: Marketing by Adam - 6 Comments »

Trading Card Style Business Cards from Show Off Cards – LOVE THESE!

“Another bloomin’” Graphic Designer

Internet security expert

Consultancy Firm

Steve Wozniak’s metal business card

Web Developer – A different type of message

Personal Trainer

How about a chance to win some cool business cards designed by a professional designer? The team at entrepreneur’s blog Young Go Getter has partnered with the very cool graphic design company Orange32 to offer 5,000 free business cards to the winner of this contest.

If you’re interested, be sure to check it out this week - the contest ends this Friday October 19th!

Tags: Social Networking by Adam - 15 Comments »

We close out each week with our “Who Said That?,” where we give some link love to other blogs and regular websites that we feel you may find interesting.

Let’s get started!

How He Generates a Six Figure Internet Income

How often do you ask yourself – can REAL people actually make money online? Sure there are the Shoemoney’s and the John Chows, but what happens if you DON’T become a phenomenon – how do people do it?!? Here’s a no BS, open and honest look into what it takes to earn a six figure income from someone you’ve probably never even heard of.

How To Avoid a Google Penalization with Your Blog Contests

Blog contests are an outstanding way to generate awareness about your blog and gain new readers. David Airey’s latest contest was a great success, helping to push his subscriber count to over 2,000. But along the way, Airey learned a valuable lesson about being penalized by Google for a strategy he used in his blog contest. David was kind enough to share his experiences so that you don’t have to in his post “How I Reversed My Google Ranking Penalty.”

7 Ways to Overcome the Fear of Failure

I would suspect that fear of failure is responsible for killing more dreams and thwarting more potential success stories than any other force on earth. Perhaps it’s holding you back? Pick the brain has published an incredible post with 7 ACTIONABLE items you can do to overcome the fear of failure.

Can you Handle This Much Personal Power?

If you’re looking for some reading to keep you busy over the weekend – here it is! Pinblocks personal power blog carnival includes 48 links to some inspiring posts on the topic of personal power and success in the Personal Power Blog Carnival.

Are You Taking Advantage of Leverage to Accomplish Your Goals?

We all understand the power of leverage when it comes to lifting heavy objects – with the right leverage system, a 90 pound woman could easily lift a 2000 pound vehicle off the ground. Leverage, defined by Wikipedia is: “a small force applied over a long distance is the same amount of work as a large force applied over a small distance. The trick is converting the one into the other.” Bunk Price at Lifestyle Maverick has written a useful and thoughtful post about applying this principle to your business success in his post, “Leverage: Fancy Business Word or Staple of Life?”

Have a great weekend!

If you would like to show people your post was featured in “Who Said That,” you can copy the following code and paste it at the bottom of your post: <a href="http://createbusinessgrowth.com/who-said-that/who-said-that-friday-october-12th-2007"><img src="http://createbusinessgrowth.com/who-said-that.jpg" alt="Who Said That" border="0"/></a>

Tags: Who Said That? by Adam - No Comments »