What’s your list of resolutions? As a freelance blogger and small business owner for over 15 years, here’s my list of top New Year’s Resolutions for small businesses — feel free to comment below: 

#10 — Go green…

#9 – Stop smoking…

#8 – Lose weight: Fire your worst clients…

#7 – Get organized…

#6 — Exercise your body and mind… Read more.

Illustrated by Fritz Wall. Written by Gil Zeimer.
Narrated by Steven Favreau. Apologies to Clement Clarke Moore.

‘Twas the night before networking when all through the bay,
BNI Embarcadero members were preparing for Schroeder’s Café.
The referral slips would be placed on the tables with care,
In the hopes that Giver’s Gain would soon be giving gain there.

Our members were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of crispy bacon danced in their heads.
Jerry was in his Pumpkin suit, Bart wore his Giants cap,
They’d just settled their minds for a long winter’s nap.

The next day on Front Street there arose such a clatter,
We sprang from our chairs to see what was the matter.
Away to the windows flew the members of our chapter,
We tore open the shutters. We thought it was a disaster.

The San Francisco sun was framed by the morning fog
Its mid-day luster looked like a simmering yuletide log.
When, what to our wondering eyes should appear,
But a hybrid sleigh and eight tiny Power Team reindeers.

With a little old driver, so lively and quicks,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nix.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!
(WITH DENNIS’ ACCENT)
“Now, lawyers! Now, technies! Now, B2Bers and Relocators!
On, Brokers! On, Beautifiers. On Financiers and Marketing Makeovers!
To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

And then, in a twinkling, we saw on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each Power Team’s hoof.
As we drew in our heads, and were turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nix came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with bratwurst and soot.
A big bundle of referral slips he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

St. Nix said, “Referrals for each good little girl and boy!
In hopes that closed business will bring you lots of joy.
So with a stroke of a pen on the referral slip
Referrals went to all and expecting no tip.

There was one for Dan Wheeler and both of the Kate’s.
Even one for the Real Estate Lawyer Bob Gates.
A few for Seph Paul because Santa’s shop is a mess.
One for Joui Turandot to teach Marty Wall how to dress.

There was a logo for Lauren Deane Evans and for Likoma, a site,
Plus a new project that Gil Zeimer could definitely write.
St. Nix knew a company whose phones were a wreck,
So he referred them to Bart Saling of B2B Tech.

A new house got Adam Barnum some dough,
It needed upscale décor from Steven Favreau,
They’ll also consult with architects Larson-Shores,
And fund it through Kevin Casey of Guarantee Mortgagors.

Tom Redmond could list it then sell the house, too.
There are so many jobs that our members can do.

But if there’s a workplace problem with some hanky panky,
Anderies & Gomes are who you should you spanky.
And if St. Nix had a problem with a pill called Cialis,
He could put in a call to Christopher Morales.

Insurance reps are always part of the mix.
So that got three more referrals from old St. Nix.
One was for Jerry Becerra, or that’s what I’m toldt,
With others to Carlos Ramirez and Richard Reinholdt.

With a long day of schlepping, St. Nix’s back was a burn,
So he referred himself to Dr. Jamie Stern,
Writing referrals gave him carpal tunnel syndrome,
So he made an appointment with Adam Wiscombe.

He gave referrals to Amy Harcourt, Jessma Evans, and Avakian, JC,
Plus Joe Markert, Kenji Oshima, and Mike Heylin, the Mac and PC.
He called out Mischa Purcell, Adrienne Dale, and Phil Siegel,
As well as Ray Simon, Daniel Kim and Brittany Pettengill.

There was Dan Joraanstad, Dan Chomko, and Margaret Shebalin,
Kathy Olberts, Wendy Parker, Jerry Bayer and Wayne Allen Cameron.
Isabella Schwarzinger, Seth Tajbakhsh, Reno Fernandez and Linda Gordon,
Plus Julia Ten Eyck, Sergio Rosales, John Kalin, and Rob Appleton.

If some of St. Nix’s families needed banking, trusts or immigration,
He mentioned Ron Micuch, Heather Stoneman and Angela Warren.
And let’s not forget Kay Heatherly, Shianne Lombard and Cathy Cohn,
Because without all of them, St. Nix would never leave home.

And when his long day was done, St. Nix’s teeth needed preening,
That got Dr. Michael Hack a slip for teeth cleaning.
And for a new member who never had dance cards, Mr. Joe Blow,
Instead of referrals, he got a big heaping lump of coal.

Finally, St. Nix sprang to his hybrid sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But we heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all at BNI Embarcadero, and to all a good-night!”

As an active networker, I’m always following on referrals. Here’s one that turned into ongoing projects.

Lauren Deane Evans is an art director, friend and colleague. Her company is Good Looking Ideas and we’re both members of a networking group at BNI Embarcadero.com. A few weeks ago, she told me that someone looking for writers for a new Intuit Small Business Blog.

I jumped on this opportunity because I’mve written about 1,500 blog articles about advertising, marketing, sales, and travel as blogs for myself, clients, magazines, etc., and sent them links to justify my credentials.

Most important of all, their writers needed to be WordPress experts. I’ve learned this platform through my work with Bradley Charbonneau of Likoma.com, another BNI Embarcadero member.

A week later, I got the gig as a contributing writer and am now cranking out up to five articles a week for Intuit, which is also a long-time client of mine for direct response copywriting. Here’s the URL for my articles, so please visit the site, read some of them, and make a comment.

Some of my recent posts are:

• “Virtual Companies: How To Compete With The Big Boys“
• “Top Five Halloween Businesses: Profiting From The Great Pumpkin“
• “Barter 101: Trading for Services“
• “How To Get Enough Sleep When You’re Running The Show“
• “Top 5 Startup Mistakes” and
• “How We Beat a Bigger Company At What It Does Best“.

Wearing a variety of hats — from straw hats for golf to knit caps for skiing to neoprene caps for scuba diving –– I’ve traveled through 40 US states and throughout the world to write:

• Quarterly enewsletters and Websites for Red Sail Sports from 2002 to 2009. This included  redsail.com, then separate sites for each of this largest resort based diving and watersports operator in Grand Cayman andAruba. For the latter, I had a spectacular visit filled with scuba diving, snorkeling, parasailing, lunch and sunset catamaran cruises, and more. Read Watersports Paradise Found.

• A year of monthly enewsletters and promotional emails for All Nippon Airways.

• Print ads for Frontier Airlines that helped an ad agency in Dallas win the account –– even after I left Texas and moved back to the West Coast.

• The initial website, three Annual Reports and miscellaneous brochures for Hawaii Air Ambulance.

• Shore brochures for Alaska, Mexico and the Caribbean for Princess Cruises.

• Weekly ads and radio commercials for a three-year span for Caesars Tahoe Resort Casino, Nevada, to promote its wide variety of stellar entertainers.

• Ads and outdoor boards for the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Download English Grill PDF.

• Fact Sheets and Guest Service Directories for Hilton.com.

• Ads for the Monterey Marriott in Northern California.

• Over 20 magazine articles as a freelance travel copywriter for Scuba Times, Alert Diver, Adventure Journal, Sport Diver Interactive, Dive Pacific Magazines, Asian Diver, Dive Travel, Undercurrent’s Traveling Diver’s Chapbook, Marin Independent Journal, S.F. Chronicle and L.A. Times about diving in Maui, the Turks & Caicos Islands, Australia, Kosrae (Micronesia), Baja California (Sea of Cortez), Aruba, Florida, The Bahamas, Monterey (CA), Belize, and other tropical, warm water destinations.

•  Newspaper ads and radio spots for the Westin San Francisco Airport Hotel. Download Benchmark Grill PDF,

• I’m also the managing editor for www.vagablond.com, a luxury ezine for travel, shopping, food and wine, where I’ve posted over 1,400 articles since 2005. Some of my favorite articles include:

• Kool, Klassy Kimpton: Hotel Monaco Denver

• Show Me The Monks’ Key: Kruisheren Hotel, Maastricht, The Netherlands

• South Beach Cool Meets St. Barts Calm: Ku´Luxury Hybrid Hotel, Anguilla

• This Is The Winter Of Our Discounts Sent: Europe on Sale, Expedia.com

• Love Your Boutique Hotel? Buy It at Kimpton Style Program

• The Paws That Refreshes: Pet Friendly Hotels

• Where To Get Drunk In Disneyland: Club 33

• Dinner And A Thousand Stars: Canyonlands by Night & Day, Moab, UT

• Cathay Pacific Airways; First Class In A Class By Itself

• The Bride Wore A White Wetsuit: Caribbean Weddings, Cozumel, Mexico

Read more of my Vagablond.com posts.

The article below if from the October 26, 2007 Snap.com newsletter. Snap is a great Webtool that you can easily load to your site to show snapshots of any site you’re linking to with video audio, RSS and more in a just single line of javascript .

Download the Snap.com Newsletter PDF.