product review

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Kim’s {Current} Favorite Resources

This week, I wanted to bring you some of my favorite people – I know each of them personally and they’re unique skills and gifts help me feel grounded, productive, and happy. None of these are affiliate links – just a complete gift.

030717-Colin1. “Roaming Free” Celtic Music CD
I have the pleasure of knowing Colin MacLeod PERSONALLY – and having heard him perform live. His “Roaming Free” CD is one of my go-tos when I need inspirational background music that doesn’t have words AND gets me unstuck!

2. Tips from the Queen of Self-Care
I’ll be the first to admit I often try to take on too much in too little time – and I end up feeling the squeeze. That’s why Pamela Zimmer is my go-to for all things self-care. Pamela knows that not all women (gasp) think that self-care has to do with spa days or sleeping in; she helps you find what’s right for you to keep your tanks fuled!

030717-DrSarah3. “5 Steps to Bust Through Procrastination and Overwhelm and FINALLY Get Your Writing Done”
This procrastination-killing system is brought to us by Dr. Sarah Reiff-Hekking, a Time Matters Expert. Knowing what to do and getting it done are two different things – and this is the training that bridges the gap!
Keep Reading!

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Product Review: Evernote

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I don’t remember who exactly turned me on to Evernote – but whoever it was, I sincerely thank you! Evernote has become an integral tool to my business and was especially helpful when I was working full-time in the tax office. I was finally able to stop emailing myself links for resources and articles I wanted to read, but instead, add them to a Note.

About Evernote

Here’s how Evernote describes itself:

As one workspace that lives across your phone, tablet, and computer, Evernote is the place you write free from distraction, collect information, find what you need, and present your ideas to the world.

Which is a fancy way of saying, it’s a piece of software that you can load across all your platforms (smartphone, tablet, and multiple computers) that you can use just like a word processor to create documents, called Notes. And then these Notes instantly sync up across all devices.

I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t use Evernote to its full capacity! Since I now (thankfully!) work from a single work-space at my home desktop computer, I’m less worried about syncing information between different devices and locations. Right now, I don’t even have Evernote installed on my phone!

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Product Review: Writer’s Blocks

I’m a HUGE fan of anything that will spark creativity, storytelling, and basically just get me unstuck in my writing. Even though I primarily write non-fiction, sometimes taking an hour or so to work on a fiction piece can just get the words flowing.

And sometimes just THINKING about fiction stories will do it!

Just so we’re 100% clear: I think fiction is way harder than non-fiction. I have the greatest respect for fiction authors. And since my video project is within a week of being completely finished, I’m rapidly running out of excuses to avoid starting the novel.

So when I got an email from Writer’s Digest saying that they had these little six-sided dice guaranteed to get your writing juices flowing, I was all in.

They are very similar to a tool I made a million years ago called a story machine. Basically you come up with two decks of index cards, one with occupations and one with situations. Pull a card from each deck and whamo! write a story about it. The problem was that I had to come up with the ideas for both decks of cards. AND, after playing with it for a while, it wasn’t really a “random” story. It just wasn’t easy enough to create permutations.

Enter “Writer’s Blocks”

030414-WritersBlocks

There are four six-sided cubes:

Green – genre
Orange – plot twist
Red – protagonist
Blue – plot archetype

Sounds pretty straight forward, fun and easy, right?

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Putting Product Reviews on Your Blog

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I think one of the best types of articles I can post to my blog is an honest product review. And I’m not talking about a review for a product or service that you’ve contacted and begged them to send you a sample so you could write about it! (Although that type of review can be a ton of fun!) Nope, I’m talking about writing an honest review for a product or service that you use every day in your business.

Why?

Because I get asked all the time for my opinion about a service I use or how I do something. And I ask others for feedback and suggestions all the time as well. For example, just yesterday, I asked one of the business groups I belong to on Facebook for a recommendation for a service I could use to record a phone call with a client. Several options were tossed out but what really stood out was the comment: “Try XYZ. I’ve had great success and they’re easy to use.” Hello! Personal validation.

This wasn’t a suggestion from somebody who typed into Google: “What’s the best way to record a phone call with a client” and then gave me an answer. I can do that myself! It was a recommendation from one client of XYZ company to me.

What’s the difference between a testimonial and a review?
First off, a testimonial is posted on the other person’s website. Secondly, while giving testimonials is a GREAT way to gain exposure, thank a company for their product, and extoll all it’s virtues, a testimonial is by nature one sided: only the positive. A review, on the other hand, will talk about all the things you love about the product or service but also what isn’t so great. Maybe you love everything about it EXCEPT that you can only reach the customer service on Monday mornings from 9-9:45 am. Or that the software loads slowly. Or it has great functionality but only comes in three colors.

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