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Social media marketing and Facebook marketing in particular has literally replaced blogs that business owners have traditionally relied on to promote their businesses. It is not surprising that every business, both small and large, now strive a strong presence on Facebook to take advantage of it’s over a billion registered users. Facebook has indeed become a major business promotion platform because of its many social media tools that you too can effectively make use of for business success.

There are certainly several strategies that you can employ to effectively advertise or market on Facebook. However, not all available strategies can be of benefit to your advertising campaign. A suitable Facebook business strategy for success depends on your type of business, size and amount of budget you are prepared to incur to advertise your business. Below are just some of the most popular and effective Facebook business strategies for success.

Off-Line Engagement

You do not need to restrict your Facebook advertising to Facebook users. Off-line engagement through event postings can create a viral wave about your business so long as you make use of such postings correctly. The secret lies in creating irresistible events that anyone cannot resist. You need to do this by crafting enticing headline, proper description and sending out irresistible invitations.

Virtual Keepsakes

This is a very effective strategy you cannot afford to ignore especially during and after an event. You need to take photos during events, photos that you eventually post on your Facebook business fan page. You can easily create a post-event buzz by inviting those who attended your event to tag themselves. The strategy has a long-term in effect as it keeps your fans coming back to your fan page to not only see their images but also to engage with your business.

Facebook Discussion Forums

This strategy is effective when you do not have a support forum on your traditional website. You can easily drive visitors from your traditional website to your Facebook fan page from where they can access necessary support. Managing the forum (under Discussion) is very important because you need to check new issues on a regular basis so as to give solutions where necessary.

Ad Promotion

Creating your business ad is a very effective Facebook business strategy for success. That should however not be the end of your advertising. You need to go a step further to promote your ad to a specific segment of Facebook users to enhance your success. You indeed have the opportunity to target Facebook users according to their age, location and interest among other demographics.

Photo/Video Collection

Many business owners advertising on Facebook have traditionally relied in posts and events to engage their Facebook page fans. Being creative can be a very effective strategy in promoting your business. One way to do this is to engage your fans in various activities. For instance, you can create a contest where your fans take photos/videos with your brand at special locations and ask them to upload the same to your Facebook fan page or to such other sites as YouTube. The positive effect such a contest can have on your advertising efforts can simply be rewarding.

As earlier indicated, there is simply no uniform Facebook business strategy for success that suits all businesses. You need to analyze your business with the aim of ascertaining what effective strategy to employ. Strategies available are not limited to those indicated above. There are certainly many others. The good thing with these strategies is that you do not need to spend a fortune to employ; you can indeed employ most of them at no cost.

A promotion is a way of drawing attention to your business whether it be through advertising or other means. Special offers, sales or contests that are not normally available usually produce impressive results. It is an effective way for any business to draw in new potential customers and to retain existing customers.

By running periodical promotional offers that are fun and interesting, you are keeping your business fresh and alive. But more importantly, you are showing your customers you want to help them save money, thus making them feel special and appreciated.

The ideas for promoting your business are unlimited. Be creative and make your promotional offers fun and unique. Encourage interaction with your customers to make them more memorable.

Below are ten great ideas that are sure to pump up your sales and produce profits! We all know the standard discounted prices, bogo, and other sales but by putting new and fun twists on these proven tactics you are making them fresh and exciting!

1. Silver, Bronze and Gold Tickets – Hold an Olympic Event. Let everyone know that each and every customer will receive a silver, bronze or gold ticket with their purchase. These tickets allow the customer to save a good amount on any following orders or offer instant savings with the ticket.

For example:

Silver Ticket = 25% Savings.

Bronze Ticket = 35% Savings.

Gold Ticket = 50% Savings.

These numbers are just examples of course and can be changed to suit your business or you can use a dollar amount instead of percentage.

2. BOGO with a Twist – Put a fun new twist on the old BOGO standby. With each BOGO purchase, offer a certain amount of points depending on the amount of purchase. When the customer reaches a certain amount of points, offer him/her a free item of a certain value, or a gift card, etc. 50 points = free $10.00 item; 100 points = free $20 item and so on.

3. Business Card Codes – Put special discount codes on your business cards. Let people know they will need the business card when they make the purchase to get the discount. This is a good way to get people to take and keep your business card and could lead to many new customers.

4. Refer a Friend – Offer a gift or discount to anyone who refers a friend. Offer a discount to the friend for any purchases as well as a gift card, or coupon to the customer who referred the friend. Make the discounts a percentage of what is purchased. Or offer so many rewards for the purchase, depending on total of purchase. Each level of rewards gets a larger discount or gift. You could also hold a refer a friend contest. The one who provides the most friends or highest friend purchases will get a substantial prize.

5. Trivia Contest – There are very few of us who do not like trivia. Post a new trivia question each week. Customers must come in or email/text their answers with a special code found on your website or in your newsletter. At the end of the month offer a prize to the one with the most correct answers. Or, in the case of several people getting the same amount of questions correct, enter them into a drawing for the prize with all runners-up getting a smaller prize. There are so many fun ways you can offer trivia as a means for your customers to save money.

6. Name a Product – Hold contests for naming your products, coming up with flavors, choosing colors, etc. Many successful companies hold promotions such as these and they produce huge results.

7. Customer Appreciation – Have a customer appreciation day. This can be done online or offline. Have refreshments, games, prizes, contests, etc. Offer demonstrations of your products or services and have a Q&A session afterwards. Really be creative and make this event special. Obviously, online and offline events will be different but either way, your customers will know you appreciate them!

8. Customer of the Month – Take the old employee of the month idea and use it for your customers. Rewarding loyal existing customers is just as important as getting new customers.

9. Scavenger Hunt – Provide people with a short list of items and for each item the customer brings in or sends online, they will get rewards, points, dollars off, etc. For an online scavenger hunt, the person must find the items on a website and then have them provide the link. These items must be unique so they are not too easy to find. Of course, you don’t want them to have to work too hard. Just have a light, fun game to bring some interest. Your customers will enjoy seeing how many items they find and how much they win for finding them.

10. Daily Special – Have everyday be special for your customers. Each day offers a new savings. For example: Monday = $5.00 of this item. Tuesday = Save 10% on everything and so on for each and every day. If this is too much for you, just do it one week out of the month. Make it work for you, your business and your customers!

The above ideas can certainly be adjusted to fit whatever business you are in or details can be changed to suit your needs and your customers’ needs. These few ideas in no way encompass all the possibilities of how you can attract new and existing customers. But, hopefully, they will get you started and your creative juices will start flowing for more successful promotional ideas!

People love to get free information so using a free tutorial to share your knowledge is a great way to promote yourself and your business. By doing this, you will be establishing yourself as an expert and building your reputation. Then when people need products and/or services, you will be the one they trust and believe.

Divide your tutorial into lessons, one for each day of the tutorial or ecourse. Once you get your lessons written up you want to set them up individually on an autoresponder. There are many autoresponders available for free and for a fee. Some hosts may have autoresponders available as well. WordPress also has autoresponder plugins.

Let’s say you own a home décor and furniture website store. You could set up an ecourse on how to successfully paint a piece of furniture. Your lessons would be something like this:

Lesson 1: Choosing the Right Paint

Lesson 2: Preparing the Piece to Be Painted

Lesson 3: Painting the Piece

Lesson 4: Maintaining the Finished Look

After your lessons are completed, you can set them up to go out each day in a row or separate them by a day or two. It would depend on how many lessons you have and how long you want the tutorial to last.

Separating the information into lessons works better than sending all the info in one mailing because it keeps your name and business fresh in the mind of the potential customer.

When writing your lessons, sprinkle in information about your business and what you offer but try to make it fit into the tutorial so it doesn’t appear too. Offer special discounts for signing up for your ecourse/tutorial.

Be sure to place your contact email in each and every lesson and let the reader know you are readily available if they have any questions or comments.

Another good idea is to have a preceding thank you note with an introduction of yourself and your business along with a summary of the tutorial. This would precede the first lesson. And then once the course is finished you would have another thank you going out encouraging them to visit your site for much more information and to contact you if they have any questions.

You could also let them know about your special deal or discount they receive for taking the course. Be sure to add your social media links so they can easily follow you.

Make them fun as well by adding trivia or little games along with the lesson. Keeping people interested can sometimes take work but it is well worth the time and effort.

If you have any other tutorials, list them as well and be sure to ask them to sign up for your mailing list. These details will go a long way in building the foundation and relationship needed to gain the customer’s trust and patronage.

Once your tutorial is complete you want to start promoting it so people can start signing up.

Add it to your email and networking group signatures:

FREE 4-day tutorial on painting furniture

place your URL here

Promote it on your social media pages and promote it often.

Offer it to your newsletter subscribers and post it on your website/blog.

Advertise it with ad swaps.

Put it on your business card and/or flyers.

Integrate it into your resource box when guest posting or submitting content.

Tutorials can be educational and fun so use them to your advantage and let them help increase your sales and build your business.

Digital marketing is all about making the client website or other web resources search-engine friendly. It is all about enhancing the ranking of client websites or other web resources in the various search engine results pages. If a website has enhanced ranking in a search engine result page, it implies that it attracts more and more web traffic. If the website is meant for commercial purposes, enhanced web traffic in it contributes to lead generation and sales. Thereby, through proper digital marketing of a web portal, one can ensure business profitability. Digital marketing is incomplete without search engine optimization or SEO. In this context, it is relevant to add that SEO is of two types and they are on-page and off-page. This blog is an honest attempt to discuss the various off-page optimization tactics that the web marketer must do to enhance the visibility of client websites.

Off-Page Optimization

As the name suggests, Off-page optimization has everything to do with optimizing a web resource like website, externally and this means that not focussing on internal work associated with the website. The seasoned web marketer can do such type of optimization by means of link-building. The concept of link-building is to pass the website link using blogs, articles, press releases, and other content posted on other websites. Then, optimizing the posts in a manner so that the contents along with the website link attracts more and more audience. This is important because of the enhanced chances of lead-generation and lead-conversions to sales.

Link-Building Strategies

Following is a list of link-building strategies that web-marketers usually follow:-

Write Blogs

Digital marketing professionals can write blogs relevant to the business, themselves, or with the help of professional content writers and post them in more than one blog posting website. When they do so they also pass the link to the client website. In this manner, the client website gains visibility in the various search engine results pages.

Write Articles

Web marketing professionals can write articles relevant to the business and post them in various articles posting websites. Common article posting websites include EzineArticles, article base. The SEO professionals also pass the link to the client’s website along with the posts. This increases the visibility of the client web portal.

Do Blog Commenting

If you are pondering on increasing the visibility of your website then you can visit relevant websites online, check relevant blog posts, and do blog commenting. While passing blog comments make sure that you pass the links of your client web portal.

Post Forums

There are a number of forum posting websites available online. As a seasoned digital marketer you can register with some of the forum posting sites and post forum contents along with the link to the client website. In this manner, you can attempt to increase the visibility of your client website.

Questions and Answers

There are a number of questions and answers sites and you can post questions, answers on relevant topics, pass the link to your client website along with the answers.

Social Bookmarking

There is a popular social bookmarking website available online. These include Twitter, Stumble Upon, Dribble, Reddit, Digg, and many more. As a digital marketing professional, you can post on social bookmarking sites and do search engine optimization activities.

Post in Social Media Websites

There are a number of social media websites online and they include Facebook, LinkedIn, to name a few. You can post content on these websites. While posting contents you can pass the link to your client website. This enhances the visibility of your client’s website.

This blog focuses on few Off-page SEO practices. Apart from those discussed above, there is available a wide variety of other Off-page optimization strategies that the seasoned digital marketer uses to enhance the visibility of the client website or web-resources.

IT’S FREE

Yep, that’s right, it’s completely FREE. There are no paid upgrades or premium listings, you just need to create an account, fill in your business details and verify you’re the business owner and you’re ready to go. Verification is accomplished by having a postcard sent to the business address with a verification code which you can then input and verify your listing, this process normally takes around 2 weeks, and if you make any changes to the address you will need to reverify.

Increase Your Visibility

Considering the cost, GMB is probably the best of all the listings and directories, in the UK we have companies such as Yell and Google Map Pack ListingThomson Local, who claim to produce miraculous results in bringing in leads and sales for a ‘small’ fee. With GMB though, you can easily show as the first business for your area in the local map pack with a well-optimised profile, including images, opening hours etc. this, in turn, means that more customers will see your company online and should then increase your website traffic, calls and walk-ins depending on the type of business you have. What Yell and Thomson Local won’t do is give you that level of visibility for free.

Make It Easy For Customers to Get in Touch

Depending on your type of business you will value certain business interactions differently. I prefer to receive phone calls, while other businesses will prefer people to physically visit their store. What GMB does is make sure that your contact details are clearly visible to anyone who sees your business either as part of the map pack or the knowledge graph (more about these later). As part of the map pack, you get your company name, phone number, reviews, locality and a map marker showing your location, plus the options to visit your website or get directions to your business.

It’s Constantly Evolving and Growing

I’m not entirely sure how recent the new features are but I’ve only just started seeing them on the profiles I manage in the UK. The most interesting new feature which is available on some profiles is the ability now to create blog posts, including a featured image, up to 300 words and a button to link to your site, offer or anything you fancy. These can be also used for creating specific offers or events. Another recent feature has been the ability to add a description for your business, plus you are also able to add your services to your profile (I’m not too sure where the services actually show up though).

An Online Gallery for Everyone

Your GMB listing can act as your online image portfolio, allowing you to add a seemingly unlimited amount of photos to your profile, including adding your company logo and cover images, you can also tag each photo by location, such as interior, exterior, at work, team, and identity, and even add videos to your profile. One key feature that many businesses will find useful is the fact that customers can also add photos of your business as well, which is especially useful for many tourism and events based businesses. This gives you the chance to really showcase your business online with product images, interior images or even images of your team hard at work.

Collect Reviews

One thing that a lot of potential customers will now look to for confidence in a brand are reviews, and Google My Business does an excellent job of giving customers a platform to leave a review about an experience working with a company or a product or service for a company. Business owners can also easily respond to reviews which helps to build a rapport with your customers, especially if you value repeat custom.

Insights and Knowledge Graph

What Google does really well here is it provides you with valuable insights such as how many people have viewed your business, where they viewed it and what actions they took. It’s obviously not as comprehensive as something like Google Analytics but it’s interesting to know the details of who’s viewing your business profile. The knowledge graph panel also seems to be constantly evolving and it is shown usually when you type in the name of a verified business, it uses Schema markup for a lot of its data and can also show your reviews, social media profiles, a platform for customers to ask questions about your company and also shows your business description from your profile.

Our businesses also differ in terms of interface with clients. If you do “business to business” transactions, the number of people you interact with on a daily basis may differ from someone whose business relies on interacting with consumers. Appointments may be more practical in some instances than others. You have to tailor-make how you manage access to your particular situation if you are to eliminate distractions. Having said that it is important to note that some people do not mind spending the whole day at the office entertaining friends, visitors, and casual acquaintances dropping into the office whenever they feel like it. Do not be that kind of person. It sets the wrong kind of example to junior staff and can harm one’s productivity because these people take up time that you do not have and besides you want to cultivate a professional environment.

The demands of the day are enough to fill the eight working hours available unless if you tend to stay back and play catch up. How do you stay competitive in the market if there is no separation between work and play? Anybody serious about success and achieving effective results will put boundaries that are clear so that there is no confusion. Entrepreneurs are more susceptible to this especially when the workplace is easily accessible. The fact that you are your own boss even puts more responsibility on you to maintain self-discipline and self – management. I have written a whole book called, “Achieve More through Self – Leadership. In it I walk you through the practicalities of how you can get better results through managing self.

Appointments are an important way of not only managing time but managing life. They help you become more structured and productive. Some people seem not to be able to honour their appointments. I once attended a job interview that was supposed to start at 10:30am. By 11:30am there had been no communication about what was happening or when the supposed job interview was going to take place. I decided at the point that this company was probably not good enough for me to join because if you don’t respect people’s time you probably do not respect them.

You may be saying appointments are just not for me yet you never rock up at the doctor, dentist, lawyer or hairstylist without an appointment. Why is that the case? Because you simply won’t see the dentist without an appointment. They have given you conditions acceptable to them. We tell the world around us how to treat us by what we allow.

Some people are always available when you want to see them. If you are always free to see people at short notice, you are probably not that organized. The one who owns a diary will manage the one who doesn’t own one. Why? Because the one without the diary is always available, even though he is very likely to forget important meetings, dates and engagements because of a lack of organization. I used to have a boss who kept a diary and whatever you promised to do in the line of work, he would write down, including the day and time you said he would have it by. You would of-course forget because you didn’t record it like he did and when the time to deliver comes, guess who would be found wanting. It was then that I decided that I do not commit to an action that I am not willing to write down because, what’s written gets done!

You may be saying, “what if my business feeds off the “walk-ins? The fact that your business relies on walk – in customers should not be an excuse for disorder. Sometimes those who drop in unannounced may indeed be potential customers, suppliers, cold-calling salespeople, and even worthwhile business contacts. There is nothing wrong if the call is beneficial to you and your business but I believe there must be a structure and way of doing things that follows certain pre-set principles. I remember seeing a poster in an office that said “if you don’t have anything to do please don’t do it here”. It’s humorous yes, but true. Appointments help to structure your day and helps you allocate time to what’s important. This means you can focus on your most important asset: the paying customer. There is nothing as bad as walking into a place wanting to do business and staff are inattentive because there is just a demand on their time. I am more understanding if the personnel are not busy entertaining social visits at work.

In conclusion, you know your business situation better than any of us. All we can do is make recommendations that will enable efficiency that leads to growth. Some of you may actually need a personal assistant who will put order in your office and focus on the things you are not willing to do that will enable to focus on the highly value things you ought to do such as running a business.

Do you think successful people are just plain lucky?

Successful people did not become successful because they were lucky.

They did not achieve success by accident. Being at the right place at the right time, meeting relevant people, reading the appropriate book, did not come about accidentally or by luck.

Luck is brought about by Labour Under Correct Knowledge.

Successful people prepared themselves. Instead of giving up on anything they started and wanted to achieve they got stronger by learning more.

Success is a methodical, orderly and deliberate process of deciding what you want to do with your life, what are the steps that you need to undertake to get you there, and lastly what you will do once you get there.

One of the most important aspects, if not the most important aspect to success, is the ability to visualise your successful outcome and stay focused on it until you achieve it.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited.” – Albert Einstein

Successful people understood the potential power behind knowledge, yet they also understood that, for them to close the gap between where they are and where they wanted to be, they would have to piece together the enigma that is most often referred to as “life”.

They had to build a picture, a vision, of success in their mind, and then go about taking action on creating that envisioned life.

In much the same way, you have to be serious about your present and future, you need to have the knowledge that is required so you, too, may close the gap: you need to be and remain determined to devote yourself to taking massive action to build your business of succeeding in life.

You, too, will need to see the end, your dream and destiny that you desire in your mind’s eye. It is up to you to take the necessary and relevant action to make it all happen. It’s just like going to the doctor with a particular health problem.

The doctor may prescribe a medication for you to take four times a day, yet he cannot be there with you to ensure that you are taking the medication.

It comes back to deciding to be responsible for your life.

Have you noticed how it all stems from that one attitude? Being responsible for your own life.

Your success, your being responsible 100% for you to live your dream life starts here.

When you accept 100% responsibility for yourself and your current life situation, you will have the power to move towards those things you truly desire in life: which is success in all areas of your life.

This life-changing article is about possibilities and opportunities, knowledge and tools. It will help expose your unique course in life.

It will inspire, support and motivate you to excel, to do what successful people do, to have all that successful people have, and to become a shining example of a successful person.

Here, you’re not being told what you couldn’t do, instead you are being told to shoot for the stars. And above all, you are being shown how to shoot for those stars.

“A person is what he thinks about all day long.” – Emerson

Interesting thought, wouldn’t you think? So much so, it’s worth repeating: “A person is what he thinks about all day long.”

Success and happiness cannot happen if you possess the same old thoughts and beliefs.

If you do not change your mind, if you do not get rid of the unsupportive thoughts and beliefs, you will inevitably remain stuck in your old ways. Not much, if anything, will change.

Let’s give you a quick overview on how change comes about:

Your BEHAVIOUR, how you act (or perhaps do not act), controls your success or failure. Your ability to attain high levels of success is dependent upon your actions and behaviours. Your results are the outcome of your behaviour. Now let’s consider where your behaviours come from and what controls them?

Your FEELINGS command your behaviour. Every action that you take is first filtered through your feelings that reside in your subconscious mind. How you feel about something determines what you do and how well you do it. So where do your feelings come from?

Your ATTITUDES create and influence your feelings. Your attitude is your perspective from which you view life. Whatever attitude you have about anything will affect how you feel, which, in turn, affects how you act. Where do your attitudes come from?

Your BELIEFS create, control and influence your attitudes. What you believe about anything will determine your attitude about it, which will create your feelings, and then which will direct your behaviour and action. Belief patterns are so powerful that two people who are in the same situation could perceive things completely differently. It only requires us to believe what we see and how we see it. We all have thousands of beliefs – big and small. And where do your beliefs come from?

Your THOUGHTS create, control and influence your beliefs. Your thoughts are real and are immensely powerful. Everything you accept from the outside world and everything you feed yourself from within is a product of your thoughts. Everything starts as a thought.

So, it goes without saying you need to learn to control your thoughts. And when you do, you will automatically control your beliefs, your attitudes, your feelings and, consequently, your behaviour and actions.

The big secret to success:

Learn to control your thoughts and you will influence your behaviours and actions. It’s all a mind-set. That’s what we’ve been saying all along.

Success is predictable and is not achieved by accident.

Have the mind-set of the successful people and you will achieve success. Believe and it is yours!

“There is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.” – Joel Osteen

Science of success experts have concluded that the brain is a goal-setting organism.

That is fantastic news for us: for whatever goal we give to our subconscious mind, it will work for us day and night, 24/7, to achieve it for us; to make it a reality.

The principal breakthrough that scientists made was that we do not need to waste our precious time and effort trying to change old thoughts and behaviours: we just simply create new ones.

And the other discovery they made was that we can continue to create new thoughts, new memories, new behaviours, new skills, and learn new things for as long as we are alive on this earth.

Now, with the new discoveries in recent years, it has been scientifically proven that our capacity to achieve and succeed literally has no limits.

Our brain has the capacity to continually learn during our entire lifetime.

Our brain can form new thoughts, can have new memories, and can learn new things by the millions, no matter what your age is. By the millions.

That’s how many new things we can learn, that’s how many new skills we can learn, that’s how many new thoughts we can have, that’s how many new behaviours we can adopt.

This is encouraging because there is no limit on your capacity to achieve new things.

No limits whatsoever for the human brain to learn, memorise, develop, achieve and perform at higher levels than ever imagined. It makes no difference what your age is: you are capable of learning anything new that you want to learn.

That adds to what we spoke of earlier: no more excuses.

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X

Your brain has the capacity to achieve way beyond what was ever thought possible. So now is the time to break out of your limited thinking and start dreaming big and imagining unlimited possibilities.

Becoming successful is not impossible.

It is a choice you make through a decision. Every day, step-by-step, you may climb the mountain of success if you’ve decided to do so, if you’re committed to accomplish what the others think impossible.

Design your future now.

Prepare to receive what you desire.

Thanks to the phenomenal advances made in cognitive science and the development of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), personal change, personal transformation, has come a very long way.

In fact, personal growth is no longer a mystery.

NLP has brought to light that change, transformation and growth can be fast, reliable, and even fun. It has shown us that we do not need to spend thousands of hours slaving away to increase our creative-thinking abilities.

By practicing a few simple exercises and applications, you can start your creative juices flowing, and you may even amaze yourself at the quality and quantity of good ideas that you can come up with to expedite your success.

It can allow you to achieve something you seek within days and months as opposed to years and decades. That’s the power of the progress science has made on how the brain works, and also how you can have your mind to be your best ally in achieving anything you want.

Learn to live as you like by no longer living as you dislike.

Are you ready to get on the road to success and fulfilment?

Bear in mind, much like everything else in life, success requires practice and massive, consistent action.

“Success doesn’t mean the absence of failures; it means the attainment of ultimate objectives. It means winning the war, not every battle.” – Edwin C Bliss

Do you feel as if you’ve outgrown your circle of friends? Perhaps you do not feel safe or understood any longer. There may be fewer and fewer things you can share with people in your habitual circle, and it leaves you feeling lonely or isolated. If so, you are not alone. Welcome to one of the core dynamics of continuous growth!

As we continue to evolve, many of us struggle with a sense of not quite fitting in with our traditional community or tribe: we may have expanded or changed beyond the borders of tribal norms, and no longer find the same sense of belonging there. Other members may have tightened the tribal rules to foster a sense of security. As a result, we may feel a sense of disconnection or alienation.

In truth, each one of us belongs to many tribes simultaneously: there is your original tribe – the family you were born into – and then there are all the communities of choice you have joined: your work tribe, your social circles, your faith-based community, your neighborhood, and more. These communities are not static; they are in continuous flux because they consist of individuals who are in continuous states of change. When there is a lot of change happening in either the individual or the community, a sense of dissonance results.

How are we to deal with this? First, it is important to recognize that tribal allegiances were historically forged for survival. They were adapted over the course of centuries to ensure the safety and survival of the group. Survival required that individuation be sacrificed for the trade-off of security.

In modern society, the tables are flipped. Whether we enjoy it or not, change is essential for survival at every level of being. The pace of change is driven by technological advances and happens with increasing rapidity: sociologists estimate that more change has taken place in society over the course of the past 100 years, than in the totality of the previous 6,000 years. Individual adaptation now is a requirement for survival, and the pace of individual change does not always match the pace at which our various tribal communities evolve. The resulting dissonance can cause intense friction and pain.

Dissonance also results from confusion between the concepts of ‘connection’ and ‘community.’ We tend to equate one with the other, when they really relate to different qualities. Connection relates to connectivity: the objective physical technology or media that enables us to build community, but which does not represent the quality of that community. Connectivity simply offers the opportunity to connect with others through internet, texting, phone calls, or any other social networking options.

Community is the result of building relationship through meaningful interaction over time. There is no shortcut; it is a process that develops when bonds of trust and intimacy are nurtured and honored.

And here lies a caveat: When we confuse connectivity with community, we depersonalize the sacred nature of true community and start relating to people as objects. Instead of developing intimacy over time, we collect friends on social network sites or try to buy people’s allegiance. Yet friending is simply an act of connecting; it does not create intimacy.

In fact, social experiments indicate that technologically dominated connectivity results in alienation and social collapse over time. In a groundbreaking social experiment conducted by Josh Harris, one of the founders of social networking on the internet, he found that the more people’s private lives were exposed by 24/7 technology, the more their sense of intimacy and relationship deteriorated until the community collapsed in violence and self-destructive behavior.

It is time to revisit our concepts of community so we can create tribes that offer a true sense of intimacy and belonging.

In his 1987 book, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, psychologist M. Scott Peck described several core characteristics of true community. Beyond the obvious components of inclusivity, commitment and participatory consensus, Peck pointed out the quality of embracing diversity through realism. When each member contributes their unique viewpoint from a place of humility and goodwill, the community benefits from a broader perspective in which to better grasp the full context of a situation. In other words, mutual tolerance helps members to embrace one another’s different viewpoints as an integral part of the whole, instead of imposing a forced compliance to groupthink or cohesion.

In an environment like this, members experience and express compassion and respect for one another. They allow others to share their vulnerability, to learn and grow, and to express who they truly are. When conflict arises, they learn to resolve it with wisdom and grace. Members listen to and respect each others’ gifts, accept each others’ limitations, celebrate their differences, and commit to find solutions together rather than to fight against each other. Indeed, the true spirit of community is the spirit of peace, love, wisdom and power. The source of this spirit may be seen as an outgrowth of the collective self or as the manifestation of a Higher Will.

Does this description of community sound spiritual to you? It is indeed, because Spirit is the common denominator among all of us, regardless of how separate we feel from others.

As human beings, we often experience a socio-economic sense of separation from others because of different opinions, beliefs, expectations, language, culture, or interests, since each one of us expresses these in a way uniquely different from anyone else. And still, we continue to differentiate! In this ongoing process, we continue to evolve or devolve in response to life. A community that felt like a good fit last year may no longer work today; the places where we felt embraced, now may suffocate us. Over the course of a lifetime, we can expect to outgrow and change allegiances to many of the tribal communities we once belonged to.

And yet, when we transcend the layers of physical appearance, mental beliefs and socio-economic conditioning, we find in the presence of Spirit a common denominator in everyone around us. Perhaps it is time to expand our tribal definitions to embrace a spiritual community that includes all of mankind as children of God.

Mother Teresa admonished her nuns to see Jesus in every leper they encountered, to find His presence as they looked into the eyes of the homeless. When we can look past the issues that divide us to find omnipresent Divinity in each other, we will uncover the foundations of true community.

Spiritual community transcends all socio-economic borders, beliefs and backgrounds. It is inclusive because it operates on voluntary self-responsibility and mutual compassion, and its doors are open to everyone.

Building this type of community takes time: time to listen, to hear, to respond and to participate. Take a few moments to read the description of spiritual community again. Then, make time in your life to foster that type of connection with people who matter to you. You are one of the architects of community in your life, and you can participate in building a tribe where you belong.

What would happen to you if your home life was more organized than it is right now? Can work-life balance be achieved? What are the tools at our disposal? Could scheduling appointments and keeping them at home help us save time and prioritize?

What is the challenge we face? I sometimes find that time spent at home can be the busiest time, especially in the times we live in. Imagine someone working from home, home-schooling children, and sometimes even doing a side hustle. Imagine also the full-time home-based entrepreneur. How do they manage to do all they need to do in a day?. We are living in a time when many entrepreneurs and even company employees have adopted work- at – home culture. This comes with its challenges as the lines become blurred between home and work. These blurred lines and constraints on the limited resource called time result in over-worked, under-rested, burnt-out individuals. Whilst good time management has been encouraged and indeed, embraced in the workplace, I believe more needs to be done in changing the mindset for the elusive work-life balance to be achieved.

What are the tools at our disposal? To manage time effectively at home, there are many interventions one can employ including setting goals for the day, prioritizing wisely, setting a time limit for every task, organizing oneself, and instituting the discipline of appointments. Yes, an appointment at home! We can spend time pontificating on the pros and cons of each intervention, however, I believe we need to focus on appointments and see how this can powerfully change the course of one’s day regardless of whether it’s a workday or weekend. Life is busy as it is without any intrusions. The question is how do you handle the one who announces that they are at the gate. These can be friends, neighbors, a salesman of some product you do not even need. I am not promoting regimentation here but rather a culture of filling your day with what’s important. Everything that we succeed at is because we carefully plan and execute it. I am a firm believer that you cannot manage time if you do not manage yourself thus I implore you to incorporate planning and appointments into your repertoire. I am not talking about something I do not do. I have to achieve many things in a day therefore I set appointments with my work, others, and myself.

Could scheduling appointments and keeping them on the home front help us save time and prioritize? Whereas we have established that it is a normal business practice to set appointments and keep them, we need to abandon the liberal open-door policy of allowing all and sundry to have access to us as and when they please on the home front. Please understand where I am coming from. We each have greatness within us but for us to achieve it we need to culture great habits. Employing the use of appointments at home and seeing only those people you had agreed to see removes non-essential encounters especially during the most productive hours. I know this will vary with culture, geographical region, or even level of affluence, whether you live in a low density or high-density residential area, but doesn’t negate the need to be organized and effective. Controlling access determines how organized you are and how well you will work and rest when the time for scheduled rest comes.

What do we need to do differently? We need to be disciplined and diligent, learn to say no, now is not a good time, let’s make an appointment for next week. What are the benefits of this approach? You are not always fire-fighting to meet deadlines, You are not always tired because you have not taken time out to rest. You have set aside enough time to spend with your loved ones or a loved one. If you are a busy person, I am sure you appreciate what I am saying. Whether it’s time to work uninterrupted, family time, or “me-time”, it takes some kind of order to enjoy it.

I am not saying that those that come unannounced are bad people. No, not at all, they probably are people you enjoy spending time with. Nevertheless, there must be prior communication so that you can attend to your visitor(s) when it is convenient for both you and them. It can be quite disrupting and a whole day can just pass by without achieving anything that you had planned to do.

As we grow older we begin to appreciate that rest and recovery need to be scheduled. The fact that I am relaxing doesn’t mean that I don’t have anything to do. One therefore cannot assume that just because you are at home you are available. Maybe you have scheduled that time to rest. That is important. You need to make an appointment with yourself, spouses need to also set aside time for each other. Parents need to schedule a time to spend with their children. When you have some sort of order in your life you determine who sees you and who you see. It also means that your relationships will be healthy and that makes you a happier person.

In conclusion, I believe that the work-life balance can be achieved. There are many tools at our disposal just like it is in the workplace.I believe we could do more and be happier if we are disciplined enough to make only the commitments we can keep.I am certain that setting appointments and keeping them at home help us save time and prioritize.