Welcome to Ask Kyla, an advice column for small business owners who want to practical steps for a thriving (uncomplicated!) business. Readers submit anonymous questions and get practical, actionable answers about marketing their online business, from Canadian marketing strategist and business…
5 profitable Instagram captions for online businesses
My business strategy clients often worry about if Instagram is right for them. Where do you even start with creating profitable Instagram ideas for business? My answer is that if you like spending time on any form of social media,…
Nine Tools for Small Business Owners and Bloggers
I have a confession: I’m a tools and services junkie. I love trying out new things, seeing what works and what I can add to make my work run smoothly with less effort. When I see the words “tools for…
Build hype through a new launch campaign – without annoying your list
One of the main concerns that I hear from clients when we work on the email marketing aspect of their launch campaign strategy is that they don’t like launching because they’re worried about annoying their list. No matter how big…
A simple tool to organize group coaching and mastermind calls
This year I’ve had the opportunity to host group coaching calls, create mastermind groups with friends and lead mastermind groups as part of courses. It’s energizing and fascinating, and it’s also created interesting problems to solve. Since I’m an overachiever…
Five Minutes to a Better Blog: Make Your Blog Bio Fascinating
There are a lot of things to keep track of when you have a blog, and over time something is bound to get lost in the shuffle. But when you’re the only person fanning the flames, when you leave any…
Scripts to make customer phone calls simple and stress-free
When you’re a small business owner or freelancer and your clients start asking if you can stop emailing and have a phone meeting… well, leading customer phone calls can seem really stressful! For service based business owners and freelancers, leading…
Wondering How to Credit Images On A Blog? A Simple Formula for Bloggers
There are some questions that always seem to come up in my conversations with my web design clients and blogger friends again and again. Some of them are complicated. “How exactly do you make a living online?” is a question…
Let your little blog change your life
There are a lot of bloggers who have been doing their thing for a long time. I should know; I’m one of the guilty parties! I’m also a pretty practical lady, so most of the time I share tips and…
Publishing ≠ marketing
One of the misconceptions that I run into out there is that undermarketing always creates the same result: not having enough clients or customers. And it’s so not the case! Now, that’s often the most obvious problem because it’s so…
Blog Post Checklist: Five things that pro-bloggers do after they hit publish
Like any blogger with… *ahem* well, a pulse… when I write a great post, I want to make sure that I get as much value as possible from that hard work. What you might not know is that what you…
20+ creative marketing ideas for your small business
One of the things about marketing that makes it feel so complicated is that beyond publishing, SO much of it takes place behind closed doors. When I started writing and speaking about how marketing isn’t the same thing as publishing,…