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1 in 4 Baby Boomers Believe “Hashtags” Should be Taught in Schools, According to Recent Google Survey on Social Media Grammar and Punctuation

Do you think hashtags should be taught in school?

It’s an interesting question, and we were curious ourselves, so we conducted a survey and had well over 1,000 respondents. The results? Kinda surprising.

One-in-four Baby Boomers believe hashtags should be taught in school. In this post, I weigh in on what this means for companies who market to the Baby Boomer generation — as well as rural consumers and those earning less than $75,000…

Strategic Planning for Solopreneurs: From Vision to Implementation [Video Interview]

Some people call me the shortest woman in marketing. It’s true, I never quite reached 5′. And there are probably still a few rides at Disneyland that I can’t legally get on.

I’ve heard people whistle “It’s a Small World After All” as a I walked by… and I’ve heard just about every short person joke on the planet.

Including someone who once gave me an incredible complement – you know the kind that makes you light up… then asked, “Do you want to know who said that? The American Midget Association.”

Yup, I’ve heard it all. But what I’ve come to realize is that it’s often the small things – the small minute-by-minute choices we make each day about how to spend our time and focus – that transform our lives into what we want them to be.

While it’s essential to have a big vision for your business and life, it’s even more essential to take action each day to get there.

In this video, Sheila Davis interviews me about my strategic planning process.

The biggest takeaway I shared with her is that strategic planning is not just something you do each year or each quarter, but something you do every single day as you decide what to do with you time, minute by minute and hour by hour.

It really is the sum total of all those small choices that lead you towards the life you want and allow you to achieve your goals.

Strategic planning is not something that happens once a year, but something that happens every day.
It’s the small choices we make each and every day that change our lives into what we want them to be.

So my question to you is: what will you do today to create the life and business you imagine?

The Secret to Getting Focused: 37 People Share their Biggest Takeaways from the 30 Day Get Focused Challenge

I challenged my community to a 30 Day Get Focused Challenge starting August 26th.

The result?

466 people signed up to join us and 287 participated in our vibrant Facebook community.

If you’ve ever struggled with finding focus or balance in your life, then keep reading.

These courageous people showed once and for all that it’s possible to change your habits and behaviors in just 30 days.

Here are some of the biggest breakthroughs, ahas, lessons and realizations that were shared along the way:

My favorite part of this challenge is that this is NOT just a get more done on your To Do List. It IS creating an individual schedule that includes all the parts of your life that are important to you… including flexibility and adventure.

We are creating our life manifesto, so to speak, not carving in stone a rigid never ending list of tasks to complete no matter what. Yeah Marisa, you are challenging us around our beliefs as well as our use of time, energy, schedules, free time, me-time, task time, and our values.

Oh, and many of us (me included) are getting to look at our resistance to being told what to do….even if it is by ourselves. Lol ☺

– Monique Wells

Niche vs Tribe: How to Get Known (and Get Paid) for Who You Are

When Tad Hargrave asked me what was missing from the conversation about niching, I had no idea what I was going to say.

I mean this is a conversation that’s been raging for years as more and more emerging entrepreneurs start building businesses online.

I thought to myself, “it’s all been said before.”

But, then I realized, it hasn’t.

There are actually two ways to differentiate yourself in the market:

1. One is to NICHE or go narrow with what you do and who you serve — to become known for that one thing.

And only that one thing… (at least to start).

This is about creating a well-labelled front-door into your business so everybody knows why they’re entering. You’ve got the boulangerie, the boucher, the fabricant de bougies. Or the baker, the butcher and the candlestick maker.

2. The other is to create a brand, to craft an extraodinary experience or evoke a set of feelings and associations that nobody else can.

To draw your line in the sand and stand for something so powerfully that your ideal clients flock to you, literally building a TRIBE around you.

In this 44 minute video interview, founder of Marketing for Hippies Tad Hargrave grills me about niching, tribebuilding and just how to be awesome.