Personal

This last Monday, I was having a coffee at the Williams Coffee Bar on Trafalgar and Dundas, in Oakville, writing an article for this week’s ezine, when an email came in from “Writing That Works” announcing the APEX 2008 Awards.

I eagerly opened it, because this year I entered my biweekly ezine, Contacts2Clients, in the competition.

As I was reading through the list of winners I felt like I was 18 again. I remember, a long time ago when I was going through the list of students who made it through the entrance exams to university - going one line at a time, hoping to find my name on the list.

Unlike the university list, the APEX awards list was much shorter, however my name was last, because they sorted it by business name, and Your Ezine Coach, as you can imagine, comes pretty close to the end of the list.

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I’m now an award-winning e-newsletter publisher!

If you’re publishing an e-newsletter, I’d highly recommend you enter the competition for 2009.

To celebrate this honour, I am giving away five (5) free Email Service Account set up, worth $199 each to 5 people who sign up for any monthly email production package or coaching.

You’ll have to call me or email me to set it up. You will also receive this added bonus - free Massive List Building Platinum Package - a value of $37.

Call me at 1-905-844-4247 (Mon-Fri 10am-4pm EST) to get your spot.

Things have been a bit crazy here at YourEzineCoach.com since my wife reluctantly decided to try on the entrepreneurial hat for size. We now share “my” office and I can tell you, it’s working out quite nicely - better than I expected, to be frank

After less than 3 months since the decision was made to start up her own business, work is now coming in regularly. I might even say she’s my lates success story! That’s because we used email marketing to get her business off the ground.

I have to say that my wife turned out the be one of my toughest clients. Not in the sense that she was difficult, but because she a reluctant entrepreneur. Although I keep telling her it sure beats working, it’s hard to let go of the perceived job security that 20+ years of corporate career brings.

In case you’re interested in professional digital photo retouching, or know of a professional photographer who might be looking for a virtual digital assistant take a look at her site PhotoRetouchingPro.com

I am happy to announce that my cat, Micko, is recovering nicely from his surgery. The vet needed to remove both of his canines, and two more teeth as they were badly infected. Micko is only 12 years old, if he’s lucky he can be with us for another 12 years.

A number of my subscribers have responded to my special offer, and I thanked them personally, so if you were one of them, you should have received a “thank-you note” from me by now, in case you haven’t - Thank you!

Last Saturday my wife and I went to town for André Rieu’s fabulous concert. Although we live only 45 minutes from downtown Toronto, it took us 2 hours to get to the Skydome (I refuse to call it by its proper, new name “The Rogers Centre”). Good thing the concert lasted for 3 hours, so we only missed the first 45 minutes! What a show, if you like classical music with some spectacle mixed in for good measure, see if you can catch it next time.

As I was preparing this issue, I was battling with my kids, who, although they stayed home because of being sick, seemed to posses the same kind of energy as when completely healthy. Oh, if only we could bottle that energy, we’d be rich!

Here’s from my family to you and yours: We wish you all the best in the New Year! In business, all the fresh leads you can throw an email at, and all the repeat business from existing clients you can handle. May it be the year when you take your biz to the next level. But more importantly, may you and yours be happy and healthy, because no amount of dollars, rupees, or euros will make any difference unless you have those two.

Cheers and see you in the New Year!

In most countries, September is the time kids return or start school. Last week I took my son Luka to his first half-hour visit with his old kindergarten teacher. Yesterday he went to school for an hour, and on Wednesday, he’s in for half-day. Only on Friday does he go for his first full day of kindergarten.

He’s very proud of being a ‘Senior’ this year, and he’s thrilled that most of his old friends from JK are going to be in his class this year, too.

This “go slow” (re)entry to the school system seems like a good idea you could apply to your business, too. Let’s say you meet someone at a networking event, or even at a social function. I wouldn’t recommend that you go into “full frontal assault” and try to convert this prospect to a client on the spot.

Instead, offer to sign him up to your ezine, or some sort of resource that will allow your prospect to get to know you first. If you do it gradually, and create arelationship first, when the time comes to convert your prospect to a client, your chances of success will be much higher.

Last Saturday my wife and I took the kids to Ontario Place, Toronto. It was a rainy day, but that didn’t stop us from having some fun.

Too bad it didn’t rain in Greece, where lives are being lost to wild fires. Please consider contacting your local Red Cross or similar organization to help with relief.

Just returned from a week-long vacation! At least once a year we visit Ted and Irene’s Birch View B&B, near Lion’s Head, smack in the middle of Bruce Peninsula (Ontario). This elderly couple make us feel like family.

The kids and our dog had a blast on the sandy beaches of Lake Huron. In a couple of years we’ll be able to venture to the other side of the peninsula, where the colder, deeper waters of Georgian Bay beckon with their majestic beauty. OK, I got carried away a bit here, but it’s a really gorgeous place

Back in April, just after Earth Day, I wrote about switching my house (and my biz) to Bullfrog Power, a green energy retailer. Now that the summer is finally delivering higher temperatures I feel much better turning on the A/C knowing that the electricity it uses comes from 100% renewable sources.

Recently, to reduce my family’s carbon footprint even further, I purchased offsets for our vehicle emissions, through the Cool Drive Pass program. We’re now almost carbon neutral - how about you?

Not all of our efforts should go towards reduction, though: As ezine publishers and email marketers, we want to grow our list of subscribers, not reduce it. Today’s article should provide some effective means of achieving your list-building goals.

July 1st is Canada Day, a public holiday in this country. My family celebrated it by going strawberry picking and making home-made jam on Saturday, then on Sunday we spent the day doing fun things with the kids around town.

Monday we took the kids to African Lion Safari, a special kind of zoo where you can actually drive your car among the wild animals. Since baboons have no fear, they climb up on passing vehicles and sometimes take souvenirs with them, like wipers. Worst yet, they sometimes leave their own souvenirs on the cars! That’s why we opted for the bus tour

It took us almost half an hour to even get in the park, and that with five lanes coming in! Same thing with every tour – throngs of people = long waits. That’s what gave me the inspiration to this issue’s main article: driving traffic to your web site.

If generating traffic to your site feels like a hard nut to crack, implementing some or all of the ideas presented here will surely create a steady stream of people lining up to see you site.