It’s IAWBO’s birthday but YOU get the gifts! In addition to all of the valuable goodies inside the Virtual Birthday Gift Bag (did you get your yet?) you’ll enjoy 30 days of How Does She Do It? Interviews on the blog…

Today’s How Does She Do It? Mentor is Susan Daffron of Logical Expressions Inc.

http://Twitter.com/susandaffron
http://www.linkedin.com/in/susandaffron
http://www.Facebook.com/susandaffron
http://www.Facebook.com/LogicalExpressions
http://www.Facebook.com/NAPRP

How long have you been in business online? Since 1995

Tell us about your business: My company Logical Expressions offers tools, advice, education and support for authors and “indie” self-publishers. We offer services to help people write, publish, or promote their books, and we also publish our own line of books, software, and information products on a wide range of topics. (Our eleventh book will be published in late fall.)

We work exclusively with non-fiction authors and publishers. Generally our clients are entrepreneurs who want to use a book as another income stream or as a way to demonstrate their expertise and generate leads. Our Publishize System helps people self-publish books in a cost-effective way using print-on-demand printing.

My favorite clients are those people who yearn to share their message with the world in the form of a book. They want to publish a book, rather than an ebook or any other product because they love books and understand the impact being a “”real”" book author can make on their life and business.

We help our clients make smart publishing choices and make more money. The publishing world can be complex; we help simplify the process. Our mission is to help you profitably publish a quality book that makes a difference in both your life and the lives of your readers.

What does being a woman in business online mean to you and what is your favorite thing about it? The freedom to “make my own luck.”

Before I started my business, I worked in the Land of Many Cubicles. I realized quickly that I hated almost everything about Corporate America and that the glass ceiling and unfair pay scales were real.

Rather than try and fight that system, I jumped off the treadmill. I’ve never regretted it.

At this point, I’d no longer be a “good little employee” so returning to the traditional workforce is not much of an option. After 15 years of being in charge of everything, I’m really used to running the show. Given my outspoken nature, I’d instantly get myself fired if I had a standard j-o-b.

Who or has been your greatest mentor and how have they impacted your success? My husband and business partner James Byrd is my mentor, friend, and soul mate in every way. We always call him the “logical” half of Logical Expressions and his rational nature balances out my more “expressive” side

In addition to being my spouse, he happens to be one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, and being able to bounce ideas off him has been and continues to be invaluable. We formulate strategies and plans, then work to implement them. Everything we have accomplished in our business and our life is because of both of our efforts.

What is the one achievement are you most proud of so far and why? Living the life we imagined. James and I started Logical Expressions to enable us to live the life we wanted to live. For us, that meant leaving the city and moving to “the trees” (as we call it). Our epiphany happened on a mountain vacation in 1994, when we realized that if we had a modem, we could work with clients anywhere. Two months later, we started our business, and in 1996, we realized our dream of moving to a log house in the middle of the forests of Northern Idaho.

Our mission to continue living here means we have spent a tremendous amount of time learning about marketing and online business both for ourselves and for our clients. Because we can’t depend on the local economy to support us, we have used writing and online marketing to earn money. We call ourselves “techno-homesteaders” because we make our living from a rural location using technology.

Over the years, we have discovered that books have been the best way to make us stand out on a national (and even international) level, even from our location deep in a forest, just to the left of the middle of nowhere.

What does “authentic in business” mean to you and why is it important? To me, being “authentic” means being honest and not pretending to be someone I’m not. For years we have worked with clients following one simple rule: “do what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do it.” It sounds so obvious, but too many companies don’t seem to “get” it.

Following this simple rule whether our clients 20 or 2,000 miles away is a key to our success. We believe that is why we are still working with quite a few of the same clients we were when we started Logical Expressions in 1995, even though the services we offer have evolved multiple times over the years. Our clients know they can depend on us, no matter what type of work we are doing.

What is your favorite & most effective marketing strategy that you use to grow your business? Written content. Now with blogs, more people seem to understand that both search engines and human beings like well-written helpful articles, but we’ve been writing articles to bring in leads since we launched our first Web site in 1997.

In 2000, my husband James wrote a “content management system” for our articles that we still use for many of our article sites. We saw the need for blog software before blog software actually existed, so we wrote our own.

How do you stay off (or minimize the extremes) of the proverbial “cash flow roller coaster”? I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise, but publishing books and has helped our cash flow dramatically. Switching more of our income to products was all part of a “master plan.”

About 4 years ago, our company offered only services (Web design, programming and graphic design). We realized that the idiocy in the real estate marketplace was going to cause a big problem down the road. As it turns out, we were right.

After living through the “dot bomb” recession of 2001, we knew that consulting is often the first thing to be cut when things fall apart. So we opted to put a lot of our online article content into book form.

I decided back then that I would self-publish books, learn the best process, and then write a book that explained what I did and offer consulting about the process. My award-winning ninth book Publishize: How to Quickly and Affordably Self-Publish a Book That Promotes Your Expertise is the result of that plan.

How do you achieve work-life balance? We crafted our business so that we could have a balanced life. Freedom and flexibility have always been and continue to be important goals. More than once, I’ve read, “I work to live; I don’t live to work.” That definitely describes me. My business is just one aspect of my life.

Getting closer to some people’s businesses has given me an insight into how rare work-life balance really is, even among people who claim to be making enormous sums of money. The more I see of other people’s businesses, the more I cherish what we’ve created with our life here every day. As Suze Orman says, “people first, then money.”

It sounds like I’m making it up, but partly because of where we live and partly because of how we structured our business, I experience far less stress and am happier than almost anyone I’ve ever met.

Are there times when I work harder than others? Absolutely. Like during the Self-Publishers Online Conference SPOC) in May when we host 15 teleseminars in 3 days. It’s a lot of work.

But, every day (even during SPOC), we take our dogs out for two walks through our 40 acres of forest. We cook fabulous vegan food. My husband bakes artisan bread and in the summer, I spend time puttering around in my huge organic garden.

The way we structured our business makes it possible for us to live here and have the flexibility to do these things.

Our business makes our lifestyle possible. If I don’t spend time enjoying that lifestyle, I figure what’s the point?

What is your favorite technology that supports your online business and why? Technology is just a tool. Having been involved in online business since the days of 9600-baud modems, I can safely say that almost everything I see now is just a variation of something that went before. (For example, Facebook is conceptually similar to CompuServe, except with prettier graphics!)

The most important thing that supports my online business is not any “technology” but ideas. My creativity is the one thing I always have that no one else can replicate.

In my case, I get some of my best ideas by reading. I know it’s old fashioned, but my best “secret” to success when I’m casting about looking for new perspectives or insights related to my business is to go to the library.

I know going to the library is not as sexy as some great new gadget, but it works for me. Get things out of your head and on paper.

Whether you write with pencil and paper or prefer to put the information into your computer, when you have an idea or a plan, you need to write it down somewhere.

I have a paper (yes paper!) to do list that sits in the center of my desk in front of my monitors. Every Monday I print out a blank form and fill it out the old fashioned way — in pencil. You can what my form looks like here:

http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=278

It’s really low tech; anyone can use this idea! By focusing on your most important activities every day, you can accomplish even big projects like publishing books or putting on an online conference.

What is your best productivity tip? Doing something is better than doing nothing.

Many people get so caught up in worrying about what they don’t know that they enter into analysis paralysis. They get “stuck.”

The sad thing is that when you get stuck, the book inside you is left unwritten, the business you wanted to start is left unstarted, and the life you wanted to live passes you by. Weeks turn into years and you’re left wondering what happened.

When you accept the fact that you will make mistakes, getting past analysis paralysis is easier. Accept the fact that you will never know everything you need to know before you launch a product. There will be typos in your book. Someone might criticize your writing or you. It’s going to happen. Get over it.

What has been your biggest breakthrough, mindset shift or top lesson learned so far? If you want to accomplish great things with your business, the first step is to just get out there and DO something.

Remember to claim your Birthday Gift Bag!
http://www.iawbo.com/giftbag

It’s bursting with 30 EXCLUSIVE GIFTS (not available free anywhere else) hand selected by our team of experts for success-driven women like you!

As a matter of fact, Susan has contributed her How to Turn Your Blog Into a Book (the right way) Audio.

If you saw the movie Julie and Julia, you probably have dreamed of being “discovered” by a Big Book Publisher. But the odds of some mythical publishing honcho running across your blog and offering you a huge advance are slim to none.

There is another option however. Take all that fantastic content you’ve already written and turn it into a book yourself. Listen to Susan Daffron and James Byrd as they discuss how to turn your blog into a book the RIGHT way.

(A $27 value and remember this is just 1 of 30 gifts in the bag!)
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Get YOUR Gift bag now!