It’s Monday morning (again). You glance at the kitchen clock and gulp down a cup of coffee while attempting to put on your clothes at the same time and realize that you only have 5 minutes to get your 5 year old dressed and ready for school, not to mention you still need to pack her lunch. Not soon enough do you remember that you were warned the previous Thursday by your easy-going boss (not!) for being late the third day in a row.

Sound all-too familiar? Hey, no one said being a working mom would be easy, but here are 5 steps to help you achieve that delicate Monday morning balance:

What's a promotional freebie? A promotional freebie is something you can give to your customers, visitors or subscribers. Giving away "freebies" is an excellent marketing tool. Who doesn't love freebies? Having something to offer your visitors or ezine/newsletter subscribers for free can be very helpful. Often giving away freebies will increase your website/ezine numbers.

1. Give free gifts to all new customers.

2. Hold a special that every customer that orders a certain dollar amount gets a free gift.

3. Offer a free gift with every order.

4. Give a free gift to anyone that refers you or your service.

5. Give a free gift to the person that was referred.

I know we are all on the look out to try the newest marketing method or jump in to another way of promoting. Before you do start some new method of promotion, read this first.

Not only will this help you stay better organized, but give you direction as well. Follow these steps to build a better business right from the start.

1. Make a list
Start by making a list of what ideas you would like to put into motion. Go over your current marketing plan. Do you have a newsletter? Build it more. Do you have a website? Tweek it so it converts better. Do you book parties? Set a goal to book more. Regardless of what methods you are working on, focus on building on them.

2. Organize your list
Take your list, and put those ideas in order and decide where you should start. For example, let's say you have a personal website you want to work on, a newsletter, and you also want to work on bringing more visitors in to the site. Your first task should be working on the website to make sure it's pulling in enough sales. Working on increasing your traffic is going to be a waist of time until your site is working like it should.

Since most of us are always online and our business is online, we often forget the importance of advertising our business offline. Print advertising can be one of the best forms of advertising for your buck. Why? Well, with print advertising it's in the form of hard copy and is always in view of your potential customers. Thats just one small example. Think about your daily newspaper...try hiding that in your email box! The following are just a few hints and ideas for you to consider before you place an offline advertising campaign.

Expiration Dates
You want to be sure to include an expiration date so that the possible customer sees that there is a limited time BUT don't make the date to end too soon. Why? You want to give an "extended expiration date" on printed material especially because for one thing printed material has a chance to "lie around" longer, it may not be the "right time" for the possible customer OR they may know of someone else that may be interested in what you're offering. Give them time to pass it on or "come back later".

This is one of those topics which never goes away. No matter how many times the subject comes up, it's not long until we are spammed. The following are general guidelines to follow.

It's NOT acceptable to:

- Email your entire address book ads
- Forget using a mailing list
- Forget reading guidelines on groups
- Offer "great ways to make money" to someone that didn't ask for it

Basically put, s*pam is a message you send to profit yourself which they don't want. They didn't ask for it, they don't need it. It doesn't matter how great your specials are or how wonderful your business opportunity is. There are millions of great website and opportunities on the internet, and even if you think your's is the best it may not be to someone else.

1. Open eBay and PayPal account (free)

2. Start selling things around their house to get their feet wet, build up feedback points and get experience (free, plus it MAKES you money)

3. Go to library and get books on beginning HTML, Web design (for beginners) and Creating graphics for beginners (free)
Search on the Internet for a free HTML editor (web page creator) and free graphics editor.

4. Running out of stuff to sell? Go to your local thrift shops and buy up all BRAND NAME childrens clothing for like .50-1.00 each and sell them in batches. Buy up all video games, DVD's and even VHS if the VHS's are priced at LESS than $2.00. List them and charge $4.50 for shipping and handling.

5. Use Stamps.com to print the postage and you can hide the amount of postage on the label so no one complains). This covers any packing material and your time packing and going to post office. I am TIRED of shipping cost complaints. Do these people email amazon.com and compain they were charged $6.95 for something that cost them .50 to ship? Go to garage sales, buy up and resell.
(Cost - Free to open account and FREE postage to begin with plus a free scale)