Donna Maria

Design your perfect lifestyle business!

Latest on the Blog

Turn Customers Into Members

3 Ways to Turn Customers Into Members The Secret to Brand Loyalty and Repeat Sales Did you know that treating buyers like members is a great way to encourage brand loyalty and repeat sales? You see, a customer is a customer. She is great, and you appreciate her. But a customer will not help you build a sustainable business. Only a repeat customer can do that. So, why not incentivize your customer to become a repeat customer by treating her like she's more than a customer? Why not ... Read the Post

What I Learned at The Focused Leader

What I Learned at The Focused Leader What I Discovered at Michael Hyatt's One-Day Event I recently attended The Focused Leader, a one-day intensive hosted by author, speaker, and leadership expert Michael Hyatt. It was such an unforgettable experience that I thought I'd share a bit about it with you. In order to provide you with as full a view as possible, I'm going to cover the venue, the format, and the content. The Venue The venue was The Factory at Franklin, a former stove ... Read the Post

33 Membership Business Ideas

Tiny Books™: 33 Awesome Membership Business Model Ideas I love discovering new membership business models. It's fascinating and inspiring to see how people from all walks of life leverage their passions, proficiencies, talents, and gifts to create income on their own terms through a recurring revenue membership business. Since I am frequently asked to share how my membership business model at Indie Business Network works, I thought I'd hunt down some additional ones to introduce you to, and ... Read the Post

Six Figures From Home

Tiny Books™: Six Figures From Home How I Used the Internet to Build a Six-Figure Membership Business While Raising My Children The longer I lead the Indie Business Network, the more questions I get about how I built and sustained it as the first (as far as I know) subscription-based recurring revenue membership business on the Internet. The newest addition to my Tiny Books™ collection of publications answers that question, and it's available to you for free for a limited time. I wrote ... Read the Post

I Am Becoming: Michelle Obama

What I Learned at Becoming: An Intimate Conversation With Michelle Obama We Are More Alike Than We Think I returned from from Cleveland yesterday, after attending Becoming: An Intimate Conversation with Michelle Obama, former First Lady of the United States. The event was one of the most inspiring I have ever attended. It was also one of the most fun, since much to my surprise, I ended up being featured on a local television news segment because of it. (My interview on News 5 Cleveland is ... Read the Post

Facebook and Instagram

Why I Don't Care That Facebook and Instagram Are Down My House is Not Built on Rented Land I was on my way back from a meeting earlier today, when one of my team members texted to tell me that Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were down. She forwarded me an article, which I have not read. The headline said the sites were down for "maintenance." If you believe Facebook just shut down the three biggest social media sites in the world for maintenance on a Wednesday afternoon with no ... Read the Post

Book Club: Free to Focus

Book Club: Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt Achieve More by Doing Less As great as technology is, it also has the huge downside of being a massive distraction. Leveraging technology without being intentional and focused usually spells disaster for you, in life and in business. But it's not just technology that threatens to prevent you from making your entrepreneurial dreams a reality. It's also just regular life. As a mom who leads a business from home, I have a million things pulling ... Read the Post

7 Steps to Recurring Revenue

7 Steps to Recurring Revenue A Proven Path to Freedom, Fun, and Finances Recurring revenue is all the rage today, but when I launched the Indie Business Network in January 2000, the term didn't really exist. Up until then, no one had ever led an online business with a recurring revenue model. I actually think I am the first one to do so. I had no road map. While I didn't know exactly how I was going to make things happen, I did know exactly what I wanted to make happen. I wanted to make ... Read the Post

20 Easy Blog Post Templates

Tiny Books™: 20 Easy (And Fun!) Blog Post Templates Never wonder what to blog about again! In over a decade of blogging, I have published 2,096 blog posts in categories ranging from Success and Entrepreneurship to Social Media and Leadership. While I rarely have trouble coming up with new blog post topics, I do find myself starting at the occasional blank screen. If that still happens to me after over a decade, it's no surprise that newer bloggers need a jump start when it comes to ... Read the Post