Here are a few tips to help you:

#1 – Start small. Even making small everyday decisions will help you accomplish the bigger goal. Small decisions such as what food to eat at a restaurant are not to be underestimated. A good way to start is the next time you’re eating out, look at the menu and decide what you’d like to eat. Then put the menu down and don’t change your mind. Don’t ask your companions what they’re having and base your decision on that – make the decision on your own and then stick to it.

Small steps like this can be empowering and help you to tackle the bigger decisions to come in the future.

#2 – Approach decisions logically. Many of us tend to make emotion-based decisions rather than logical ones. In business this can spell disaster. A good way to help you approach decisions in a logical manner may be to write down a list of pros and cons.

Simply grab a sheet of paper and label one side pros and one side cons. Then list all the good and bad points of your choice. Logically think through your comments and then make your decision. This way you can leave emotions out of the equation and concentrate purely on the facts.

#3 – Cut yourself some slack. Making decisions is a skill which can be learned but even pros don’t always make the right choices. Realize that making decisions effectively takes confidence and is a great first step, but your decisions may not always be the right decisions. If you happen to make the wrong decision, give yourself a break and take comfort in the fact that you thought out your decision clearly and logically and made the best choice possible at the time.

Being a good decision maker takes time and practice. However, it’s a worthwhile skill to develop. Making decisions regularly may help build your confidence level and also help people know where they stand with you – two great entrepreneurial qualities.

One of the easiest ways to develop marketing mojo is for a business owner to fully know their product. What are the product’s best features? What can the product do that the competition’s product can’t?

Setting mini marketing goals can be a fun way to stay on track. Constantly setting and meeting new deadlines will help raise confidence and that will definitely get your mojo running.

These mini goals can be based on tasks that need to be done, such as writing your monthly newsletter or spending an hour doing some social networking. They can also be based on new things you would like to learn.

Learn By Doing

One of the best ways to build your marketing mojo is to just do it. Instead of spending hours of your time reading up on the latest marketing techniques and then debating over which will benefit your business, try different ideas out as you go.

By testing the waters yourself, you can better judge what is going to be worth your time and what needs to be tweaked to suit your product.

Don’t be afraid to experiment or modify marketing ideas that you have discovered. Changes to the standards are what give companies an edge in their marketing strategies.

Even if the tactics you test out do not work for you, analyze why they didn’t quite pan out and see where you can build on the strengths and weaknesses. Those with real marketing mojo learn from their mistakes and downfalls, creating a better plan for the next effort.

Watch Pros In Action

Feed off the marketing mojo of others to help build your own. Watching the marketing strategies of those who have already found success is a great way to build your business’ arsenal. What works for them just might work for you as well.

Networking with other business owners both in and out of your own industry can really pay off with new marketing tips and ideas. Ask for their advice or just keep an eye on what they are doing to present their own product to the world.

Set goals for yourself, try out new ideas, learn from others and above all, have fun with your marketing efforts. Before you know it, you’ll have your own marketing mojo working and will be reaping the benefits of your success.

So one of the key questions marketers have always ask is, "How do I increase the response to my mailings?" In this first part of a two part article, you'll learn 25 of the 55 excellent techniques for making sure your mailings pull a stronger response.

Not all of these techniques will work for every mailing you create. The key is to review the techniques whenever you're planning a mailing. Pick the ones that apply to your situation and put them to work. Your bank account will be glad you did!

1. Carefully target your audience.

Sales volume can be directly connected to your ability to accurately identify your most likely customers. If necessary, create different versions of your package tailored to each specifically targeted audience.

2. Solve your customer's most irritating problems.

Most customers don't buy products, but they do buy solutions to problems that plague them. If your product solves a critical problem, pull out all stops to let your customers know.

3. Help your customers achieve significant goals.

This is the complement of the prior point. If you can clearly show that your product or service will make your customer's lives easier or better, your sales volume should shoot straight up.

4. Focus on your customer's needs, not your product.

Customers have limited interest in your product or company. But they have unlimited interest in their needs, solutions to their problems, and making their lives better. Concentrate on fulfilling their needs through the use of your product or service.

5. ALWAYS stress benefits.

Always concentrate on how your product will benefit your customers-both logically and emotionally. Hit the right hot buttons and your sales will skyrocket.

6. Repeat your key benefits in the beginning, middle, and end of your email, letter or brochure.

Tell your readers once, tell them again, and then tell them one more time. Remember, people buy benefits, not products.

7. Use the "4 to 1" rule.

Your sales copy should contain four "you's" to every one "I." Customers want to hear about their number one priority-themselves. One of the best ways to convey that you understand your customer's needs is to use plenty of "you" language.

8. Use a stop-them-in-their-tracks headline or first sentence.

Some letters and emails benefit from a headline while others don't. Either the headline or first sentence must be very powerful in order to convince your prospects that your letter is worth reading.

9. Use sub-headings liberally.

Subheads help break up long blocks of copy. They also act as a "hot point" outline to pull the reader through the key ideas of your email or ad.

10. Seize the reader's attention immediately.

Don't waster space building up to your blockbuster points. Start with them. You have only a paragraph or two to convince your prospects to keep reading your letter. Give them what they need to make sure they continue.

11. Flatter your reader.

These days people are much more sophisticated when it comes to advertising. They know that you got their name from a mailing list. You can turn this fact to your advantage by suing this kind of copy.

12. Share some "inside" information.

Direct mail offers a perfect opportunity to appeal to a person's need to feel special. An ideal way to do this is to share some exclusive information. Make it clear that this offer is being made only to them.

13. Issue a personal letter from the President.

People like to deal with the person in charge. Using this type of personal message builds confidence.

14. Never end a sentence at the bottom of a page in a sales letter.

Always use a broken sentence to carry your reader forward onto the next page of your letter or email.

15. Feature the offer.

Everyone loves a good deal. Your job is to design an irresistible offer and make it a key focal point of your letter or email. A strong offer can often be the extra incentive that will convert your "maybes" to real live orders.

16. Give something away for FREE.

Free samples, trials, demonstrations, consultations, or information are all exceptional ways of getting customers to give your product or service a hands-on try. Sometimes that is all it takes to close the sale.

17. Run a contest.

Give away a free enrollment in your seminar, a free subscription to your newsletter, or anything else that appeals to your buyers.

18. Use a special "before the price increases" offer.

If you plan to raise your prices, make your regular customers a special offer at the old price for a limited time.

19. Repeat your offer.

An irresistible offer can overcome customers reluctance. State it at least twice in your email or letter, and again on your order form.

20. Make a time-limited offer.

Offer a special deal for a limited period of time. And do just that-legally you can't continue a time-limited offer indefinitely.

21. Base your offer on a limited supply.

A close-out of your inventory can create strong demand. A limited supply offer can be used to designate exclusivity and prestige.

22. Offer a special deal to the first 100 people who order.

Or the first 25, 50, 250 and so on. But remember, the key here is to keep it to a meaningful limit as an incentive for customers to act quickly.

23. Make a charter offer.

This approach is ideal for new products, subscriptions,and service agreements. If your product isn't new, consider starting a membership club and offering charter members special benefits.

24. Make a "last chance" offer.

Last chance at this price, inventory close-outs, and last chance before a model change can all be used to successfully win more orders.

25. "Buy 1 get 1 FREE" always outpulls "2 for the price of 1."

Although the savings are precisely the same, the first format sounds like the customer is getting a better bargain.

As mentioned in the beginning, not all of these techniques will work for every mailing you create. The key is to review the techniques whenever you're planning a mailing. Pick the ones that apply to your situation and put them to work.

In part two you'll learn about boosting the pulling power of your mailings.

In the meantime you have plenty of ideas to apply in your marketing. So go to work and try them out!

Recently there was a news item from the Orlando, Florida area regarding Yellow Pages. What makes an ubiquitous book like the Yellow Pages a news story? Exactly that! They are everywhere! Evidently, at least in the Orlando area, something is going to be done about it.

It doesn't matter if you are a small business owner or a consumer, you have the same problem. Which book do I use? The consumer is only going to keep so many Yellow Page books and a business can only afford to advertise in a few. Of course both parties are looking for the same thing — Results! Either you want to find what you are looking for in the Yellow Pages you decide to keep – or – you want sales from the book you decided to advertise in.

The interesting part of all this is that many consumers and some very tech savvy business owners have already solved the problem. They stopped using phone directories and have opted for a faster, less expensive option.

What is it?

The Internet! If you go to your favorite search engine and type in the words "yellow pages" you will find over 450,000,000 results. Whatever you want to know about Yellow Pages from online to offline is there. Of course you will find many online Yellow Pages to help you find anything from A to Z in your area also.

If you are a business owner and you are not online with your business now, you should be looking into it immediately. The costs are dramatically lower and if you do it right the results are great. The buzzword that you have to familiarize yourself with is "local search". What that means is if someone in you area is looking on the Internet they will type in something like "Barber, Specific City, Specific State" and you want your barbershop to come up.

Statistics are now showing that there are more people going to their computers than picking up their Yellow Page Book. Most people will do an online search for products and product reviews before they go to make their purchase locally. Just think if you could be the business that answers their questions, gives them product reviews, and the business where they go to buy what they want.

Orlando, Florida may be on to something. But do we need government in the market telling consumers and business owners how many Yellow Page books they can have? The market is already making its choice. Yellow Page advertising is getting very expensive, and putting an ad in all of the books is impossible. Consumers aren't using Yellow Pages like they did in the past. So you can bet in the near future you will see many of the Yellow Page books going out of business as business owners go more and more online to attract customers.

The savvy internet marketer is learning how to use this powerful marketing method to grow their business and make valuable contacts for the future.

Of course this also means making more money if you do it right. Let's take a look at 4 ways to use social media marketing to make money online.

1. Blogging is a very strong way to combine various forms of social media marketing all in one place. If you do not have a blog you are losing ground to your competitors who do.

2. Social bookmark your blog posts to create traffic from social directories and as search engine bait for search engine traffic.

Be sure and use a quality blogging platform such as WordPress. They offer a terrific plug-in that makes social bookmarking a blog post very simple.

Social bookmarking gives you a way to get backlinks to your blog very quickly. You should be bookmarking to social directories such as Technorati, Digg, Stumbleupon, and Propeller.

Also go get a Twitter account and learn how to make friends and use it to drive traffic to your blog. This is fast becoming one of the top social sites online.

3. Video such as You Tube is becoming a favorite way for bloggers to add some excitement to their blogs, but it is also much more than that.

Many bloggers are also easily creating videos and putting them online on their blog. This is a very powerful form of social media that is giving your visitor what they want. Many people are a product of the TV generation and like to learn by watching as opposed to reading.

4. Discussion forums are a great place to make friends and sell products if you do it right. They can also be an excellent place to create joint ventures and millions of dollars are sold online now because of these.

There is much more we could say about social media including social networking in places such as FaceBook, My Space, and many others. The bottom line is making money online via social media all comes down to finding a way you enjoy and then mastering how to use it to your business and personal advantage.

The big question concerning starting an auto repair business, besides what you will work on, is how you will market what you are selling.  Marketing is the way that business owners turn their products and services into the “need to know” name in the business.  Learning marketing takes a serious effort and the sheer volume of information available can be overwhelming.

All of the aspects of marketing these days that are available can have your head spinning in no time.  What do you do first?  What is the best kind of marketing for your business?  How do I go about niche marketing?

It seems that the more you read, the more questions you have.  When are the answers supposed to come?  Marketing can be intimidating when you are just starting out and it is all a bunch of foreign concepts.

What is the first thing you think of letting people know about your business?  Take an ad out in the local newspaper.  Well, you can take out ads on the Internet too.  Advertise on another person’s website.  By using an affiliate program, they will advertise on your site as well.

Do you write?  If you have a way with words, you can parlay that into another marketing area.  Good web content on your website will keep people coming back to read what you have to say.  But that content can be read and turned into a podcast or filmed and turned into a video to be marketed.

To do all of this, you need to read some more.  It seems like everyone knows the strategies but you.  In fact, they had to read and ask questions and learn just like you do.  There is no shortcut to learning marketing.  Everything that you learn builds on everything else.

One way to not go so crazy is to learn one area and learn it well.  From a brief description of each marketing strategy you can judge if it is right for you to start.  After you've gained confidence with one strategy, begin on another and another.  Taking marketing one step at a time is a great way to accomplish what you want to do with your business without losing your head.

Business is a combination of talent and hard work.  The talent can only take you so far, so begin by doing your homework.  Every business benefits from advertising in some form or another.  The key to becoming a name that people can trust is to let them know who you are and what you stand for.  Here are a few marketing mistakes that, if avoided, will spare you much grief and money.

1.  Not having a marketing plan.  What is a marketing plan?  It is the way that you will go about promoting your product or service.  Just like you wouldn’t begin to get serious about your business without a definite plan, it is best not to approach the marketing of your product without a plan.  When a product is promoted well, sales increase.

2.  Putting all your eggs in one basket.  This old saying seems to work in a lot of situations and marketing is one of them.  You may find a strategy like email marketing that has been successful for you.  But, don’t base your entire marketing plan on that one strategy.  In order to grow, diversification is the answer.  By not exploring other options, your business will become stunted in no time.

3.  Ignoring the value of networking.  For business, networking is invaluable.  It is the way that entrepreneurs get together to pick each other’s brains.  During these “meetings of the minds”, partnerships are struck.  You can find someone who will complement your business with a new idea.  Joint ventures mean more profits for everyone.

4.  Working as a force of one.  All businesses need support in some form.  There are not enough hours in the day to do it all and still make money.  Outsourcing can be your best friend.  You can outsource for practically anything that you need.  Hire someone to design your web page, answer your emails, and organize your invoices.  When these tasks are taken care of, more time can be devoted to marketing the product in new and creative ways.

5.  Cutting back on your marketing budget.  When business is slow, we can panic unnecessarily.  We want to save as much money as we can until things pick up again.  Since business is down, we might decide that we don’t need to advertise as no one is buying.  That is the worst mistake we can ever make.  This is the time to use our extra minutes in the day to beef up that marketing plan to appeal to a wider net of customers.

Have you already made some of these marketing mistakes?  In this world most things are fixable.  Begin again, but this time with the knowledge of what not to do.

The busiest season for most auto repair businesses is the winter.  When your auto repair business has defined highs and lows, capitalize on those highs by working a strategy during the lows.  Here are five tips to help you prepare for the busy season when business is slow.

The slow period is not a time to panic or take a break.  Business will pick up and you can be ready with a few simple preparations.  As an auto repair shop owner, seeing the big picture is a constant struggle.  But, we must continually work on our perception to see into the future.  Without the benefit of a crystal ball, use the five tips below.

1.  Beef up your mailing lists.  The heart of any business is its customers.  Be sure that your website has a place for visitors to leave their information so that you can communicate with them.  Let customers know when you add new features to your website and your storefront.

2.  Develop an email campaign.  Most people who are linked to the Internet have an email account.  If they are like me, they probably receive a ton of junk mail also.  But, they do check the titles of all the mail to see exactly what it is.  Use that to your advantage and create directed emails with catchy titles to peak their interest.  Don’t send too many — just enough to keep your name in their memory so that they think of you when the busy season rolls around.

3.  Find new clients.  We always put out feelers when we are starting our business to create a customer base.  Once we have something to start with, we forget that this is still a useful way to bring more clients in.  Were there potential clients who didn’t come on board initially?  Sending cards to these potential clients lets them know you are still interested in having them on board.

4. Networking, networking, and more networking.  There is never a time that networking is not in fashion.  You never know who you might meet.  Maybe your auto repair shop could benefit from a partnership with a new supplier or wholesaler who is willing to dropship products for you.  Setting the wheels in motion when business is not so demanding puts you in the position for the big payday when the business picks up.

5. Learn a new skill.  Business is about meeting the demands of the customers.  A customer who can get all the services they need from one provider won’t want to deal with one who only offers one service.  Increase your services and more clients will come.

What are you doing in the slower periods?  Preparing now for the future will pay off handsomely.  Let the ideas flow and lead you into new directions.