What’s Your Why?

Take a moment to stop and think about your business purpose. What is your why?

Your purpose is a reason beyond your products and services. All businesses, especially new businesses, should have a clear message about their purpose. Your business can benefit from having a purpose because it guides your every action and decision.

Having a purpose let’s you vocalize what it is you are actually doing. This provides clarity in those moments we all have where we stop in our tracks and think, “Wait, what am I doing with my life?”

In Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t (affiliate link), Jim Collins asks the three questions:
1. What am I most passionate about?
2. What can I be the best in the world at?
3. Now, how can I make money?

When you are starting your business, focus on these three questions. Take your time before you jump in to ensure your business aligns with something larger than yourself.

Before I started Boundless Marketing, I was pretty clear with myself about defining my personal values, but still in the first year, I often found myself working with other business owners who just didn’t align with those. I remember one phone conversation I had the day of my brother’s wedding where I was being reamed out for saying I would be unavailable, even though I had submitted all agreed upon deliverables a day early. I should have had then foresight to fire this new client on the spot, but alas, it took 7 more months of walking on eggshells before I finally broke free and trusted that I could in fact turn down business if it was going to cause me anxiety.

So what are my values, you may ask?

Health, Relationships, Creativity, Knowledge, and Challenges.

How can you figure out your own values?

The Value Driven Business: The Simple Strategy To Create A Business You Love (affiliate link) offers a simple framework to incorporate your values into your business.

We also are working on a tool to help you sort through your own values. Please enter your name and email below to be kept up to date on the progress of this tool, which you can then use for free for your own business and clients!

 

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Are You Unemployable?

One phrase that always comes up when I’m chatting with my friends and colleagues whom own their own businesses is “I am just so unemployable.” Why do so many business owners and freelancers believe they are unemployable? Let’s dissect this below:

  • We recognize the value in knocking off top priorities and checking out for the day.
  • We are comfortable going for a run, walk, hike, lunch date in the middle of the day as a way to clear our heads for fresh perspective.
  • Even though we’ve traveled to Europe, Mexico, and across the US, we haven’t taken a REAL vacation in years.
  • We don’t understand why people bog themselves down in minute tasks that should be outsourced.
  • 98% of the time we don’t set an alarm in the morning (if you are a morning person) or go to bed at a decent time (if you are a night owl) because we know when we get the best work done in our daily schedule.
  • We choose only to work with clients who understand that sometimes little Suzie or Johnny needs to come to our meetings.
  • We cut out time every week to further our own education.
  • When we feel the most successful, our values are aligned with the work on our plate.

I don’t know, if I had an employee like this, I think I’d jump for joy! The problem is that so many businesses require 8 hours a day. It is a way to build a strong culture and often those who are first into the office and last to leave make a lasting impression on management about how committed they are to the organization. Surely as an employee, you can’t outsource those small repetitive tasks – or can you?

Running your own business takes perseverance. Every day you need to make a choice about how you will spend your time. It’s easy to get side-tracked by “shiny object syndrome” or those small tasks that don’t actually result in return. But if you jump all in, you may in fact find that you will never be employable again.

Do you find yourself thinking that you are unemployable even though you work harder than anyone else you know?

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The Truth About Repurposing Content

70% of small businesses in the US are owned and operated by a single person.*

As a solopreneur, how on earth are you supposed to create enough content to fill 365 days in a year? As a small business where you wear multiple hats everyday, how are you supposed to create enough content? No matter what systems you have in place there simply isn’t enough time in the day to create a new piece of content every single day of the year.

So, what should you do as a small business to make sure your followers remain educated and in tune with your brand?

The number one thing you can do to streamline your posting is to repurpose your content.

Wait, what? This is an incredible time-saving tip that often is overlooked! Your Twitter followers aren’t necessarily the same as you LinkedIn connections and your newsletter list may not include your Facebook fans. Though you don’t want to publish duplicate articles in such a way that Google will penalize you, repurposing is much more than copying and pasting a blog post on multiple article websites.

Brochures and Traditional Media

We all still have some sort of ‘traditional’ marketing. For some this is in the form of flyers, brochures, presentations, newspaper articles, and even commercials in networking groups. Each of these present an opportunity to reuse content.

Flyers & Brochures

Grab the headers and images from these to create social media posts. You can additionally create a quick blog post with the content from the brochure.

Presentations & Interviews

What an incredible source for content. Create videos from your presentations and audio from your podcasts. You can then create a blog post that features these, as well as the transcription of the piece (hint use an app for this). Slides from your presentation can be turned into standalone social media posts and the videos can also be turned into lead-generating freebies.

You may even find that some aspects of the presentation or interview provide prompts for more in depth articles. Run with it!

Blog posts and articles are meant to be reused! Think of a typical blog you write, is there a list or bullets? Do you break the content up into multiple segments? Are there different ways to phrase the blog title? Your blog post can be recycled as social media posts and shared to other networks in its entirety.

Commercials from Networking Groups

If you really want to take control of your content calendar, you should plan out your networking group introductions. Typically these 45 second elevator pitches end up being last minute decisions, but if you plan ahead, not only will you see results within your networking group, but you also will create a new social media post for your business each week! Just as with interview questions providing prompts for longer blog posts, you may find people are especially drawn to one elevator pitch, pay attention and it may turn into a great article!

Blog Posts

Blog posts and articles are meant to  be reused! Think of a typical blog you write, is there a list or bullets? Do you break the content up into multiple segments? Are there different ways to phrase the blog title? Your blog post can be recycled as social media posts and shared to other networks in its entirety.

Using Blogs for Social Media

The first week you publish a blog post, you should also share it to your social media channels (e.g. Facebook Business Page, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, etc). Did you know that there are numerous services that can do this for you? We automatically share published blogs to our social media accounts utilizing wordpress plugins and Zapier or IFTTT. Using these plugins, you can decide which pieces of your content should be shared and how it should be structured.

After the posts are automatically shared, re-share the post the following week. The featured image can be shared on Pinterest and Instagram, whereas the blog title or a quote from a blog can be used on the other social media networks. But, that’s not it … If your blog contains the ‘Top 7 Ways to …’ SHARE each of the points as a post and link back to the blog. If your blog contains easily identified sections (as in you are using header tags as discussed in a recent blog on SEO and your blog) take each of the headings and share it as a social media post.

THEN, after a month or two, cycle back through your blogs and reshare them.

Blogs in Newsletters

Have you ever sat down to write a newsletter and found that after 45 minutes you still had a white screen? Newsletters can be difficult to put together because they are a personal communication with your tribe. Rather than trying to create fresh content for your entire newsletter, use your recent blog posts to provide valuable and educational content to your recipients.

A typical newsletter could include a brief (2-3 sentence) introductory greeting from the owner followed by top articles that you’ve published since the last blog.

Blog posts and articles are meant to be reused! Think of a typical blog you write, is there a list or bullets? Do you break the content up into multiple segments? Are there different ways to phrase the blog title? Your blog post can be recycled as social media posts and shared to other networks in its entirety.

Publishing Blogs on External Sites

On LinkedIn Pulse (Articles) and Medium.com, you can also copy and paste the content from your blog in its entirety as a way to share the information with your networks and position yourself as an expert in the field. LinkedIn currently doesn’t allow this through apps, but Medium.com has an API that allows numerous apps to automate this process.

Rewrite Old Blogs

The last step here is to actually rewrite and update old blog posts to keep them relevant and then start the sharing-cycle all over. When you rewrite an article, you can expand on ideas or just make the article more relevant to the current industry landscape. You can also combine older, shorter blog posts to create longer ones that tend to rank higher in organic listings.

Repurposing Images

Images drive digital engagement. Don’t shy away from reusing product images, event photos, or other pictures that relate to your business. The same image can be used multiple times with different captions, text overlays, and in blogs, newsletters, and social media posts. The repetitiveness of the images, provided you aren’t posting the same image every single day, can increase your brand awareness.

Time Savers for Repurposing Content

Time savers for repurposing content. The best time to repurpose content, believe it or not, is actually when you first click "Publish" on your blog. How so, you might ask. When you publish a blog, you already know how many subtopics or bullet points are in the post. Additionally, you've just created images to enter into the blog.

The best time to repurpose content, believe it or not, is actually when you first click “Publish” on your blog. How so, you might ask. When you publish a blog, you already know how many subtopics or bullet points are in the post. Additionally, you’ve just created images to enter into the blog.

Using tools like Hootsuite and Buffer, you should create the various iterations of the the social media posts that link back to the blog. Schedule these to be posted at different times during the day and different days of the week. Then move forward a month or two and create copy and paste a handful of the posts to be republished. On Twitter specifically, it is absolutely okay to publish the same post multiple times. On your other networks, consider the number of followers or fans before scheduling the same post or similar posts multiple times in a row.

Reusing and repurposing content is the number one thing your business can do to ensure you have enough content to fill 365 days of the year. By following the ideas laid out above, you can ensure your brand remains on point and that you still have time to focus on the aspects of your business that require daily attention.

How else have you repurposed content for your brand?
The Truth About Repurposing Content: 70% of small businesses in the US are owned and operated by a single person.* As a solopreneur, how on earth are you supposed to create enough content to fill 365 days in a year? As a small business where you wear multiple hats everyday, how are you supposed to create enough content? No matter what systems you have in place there simply isn't enough time in the day to create a new piece of content every single day of the year. So, what should you do as a small business to make sure your followers remain educated and in tune with your brand?

(eCapital: 20 Small Business Facts Your Might Not Know)

The Truth About Repurposing Content: 70% of small businesses in the US are owned and operated by a single person.* As a solopreneur, how on earth are you supposed to create enough content to fill 365 days in a year? As a small business where you wear multiple hats everyday, how are you supposed to create enough content? No matter what systems you have in place there simply isn't enough time in the day to create a new piece of content every single day of the year. So, what should you do as a small business to make sure your followers remain educated and in tune with your brand?

The Truth About Repurposing Content: Your complete guide to recycling and reusing blog posts as marketing collateral

 

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Internet Marketing: Power of the “Wall”

The other day I was speaking with a new client and she brought up an interesting point . . . have you ever thought of this? Years and years ago we used a “wall” to communicate with the world.

People would write on walls and rocks telling their stories, telling about their journey, what to expect and educating each other. Now millions of years later we have started to use a “wall” on Facebook and Twitter to communicate; sharing our stories now, what we have learned, how we can educate and help people across the world. Obviously our way now is a lot faster and e bit easier. Interesting how things come around.

What’s that saying, “don’t reinvent the wheel”?  Thinking of how a “Wall” has always been a way to communicate across the world to others, back then it took a lot longer and was much more artistic in a way.   Now we have the world at our finger tips and we are only a “wall” post away from communicating with people all over the world.

When I entered the Internet Marketing world it seemed so surreal to me, being able to send emails, instant messaging, pictures, documents, etc so fast and being able to do business with people all over the world.  They did not even have to be in the same city as me as the internet it allows us to do business everywhere! That is the beauty of Internet Marketing, we are able to now grow our businesses nationwide and build those relationships in order to do that.

Internet Marketing can work wonders for your business if you provide a service that you can do from anywhere or have an online store that people can order from anywhere. Have you ever read the book “The 4 hour work week” or “Beach Money”? These books talk about being able to have an online business where you can work from wherever you are and all you need is a computer and internet access.  They talk about setting your business up in such a way where you are earning residual income so you do not have to be sitting in front of the computer 24/7 working. If you set up your Internet Marketing plan correctly,  you can do this with your business as well!

I challenge you this week to take a look at your Internet Marketing strategy and see if it includes the following things:

  • Social Media Plan (Facebook, Facebook Page, Twitter, and LinkedIn)
  • Have a real blog (wordpress or blogger)
  • YouTube Channel
  • Posting Blogs and video blogs at least once a week
  • Using other online tools like; Google Maps, Yelp, Four Square, Plaxo etc.
  • Making sure you have your backlinks set up to your blog ( You can use Squidoo for this)
  • Educating people via your blog posts and social media posts

If you need help figuring out an Internet Marketing plan I would love to assist you. I look forward to seeing more of you online.

Power of the wall

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Reasons Why Social Media Should Be Your Secret Weapon

Technology has transformed how entrepreneurs connect with their clients, customers and stay on top of the industry. Generally speaking, most businesses use social media to promote their business and boost their sales. Some even use it to make a difference and allow their business to grow.

Now, entrepreneurs have to understand that this social media craze is not just a fad. As a matter of fact, it can be considered as a secret weapon if you know how to implement it correctly. Here are a few reasons why you should get on board.

Keep your customers up to date

You may be able to send out promotional emails, display ads on newspapers or even nab radio and television spots in order to let your customers know about timely announcements, but if you wish to do it quickly, you can always turn on social media.

If you are to think, your social media followers are the same people who have indicated a willingness to be kept informed on all the events and promotions that your business will hold.

Customer service

Living in the digital age, we have reached the point where the use of social media for customer service is not only suggested, it is required.

Social media serves as a helpful and interactive platform that allows businesses to connect with their customers and respond to their concerns and questions in a timely manner. According to a survey, which was conducted by the Social Habit, 42% of the respondents who attempt to contact a company through social media expect a response within an hour; while 32% of which expects a response within 30 minutes.

Humanize your brand

Of course, people are only interested to do business with people. The goal of social media is to allow your personality to shine beyond your company’s logo.

By maintaining an active presence on social media, you are giving your consumers a chance to get to know you and your brand better. This type of behavior invites loyalty, garner authentic relationships and increase trust.

Reasons why Social Media should be your secret weapon: Technology has transformed how entrepreneurs connect with their clients, customers and stay on top of the industry. Generally speaking, most businesses use social media to promote their business and boost their sales. Some even use it to make a difference and allow their business to grow. Now, entrepreneurs have to understand that this social media craze is not just a fad. As a matter of fact, it can be considered as a secret weapon if you know how to implement it correctly. Here are a few reasons why you should get on board.

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Asana vs. Trello: Project Management Application Comparison

Choosing a project management tool as a small business can be quite challenging. The tool should be able to grow with you and integrate into other systems. Especially with remote team members, you need to make sure everyone is on the same page and that you have the ability to take a snapshot quickly of the progress of each project. For a long time, we used Google Spreadsheets to keep track of contractor activities, but soon found this to be too much of a nightmare as we grew. We’ve discovered Asana and Trello to be incredible resources for us and our client teams with whom we are working.

Though we all wish Salesforce was within our budget, Trello and Asana both have free platforms that you can utilize as you are just starting out. This blog compares the free versions of Asana and Trello to help make your project management app selection process easier as you are starting out with your business. 

A little background on Asana

Asana is a popular task management app that strives to manage team’s internal coordination. It has a simplistic UI design with the following features:

Asana for Task List and Project Management

Tasks: Tasks are the items that you need to complete or remember. They are organized into three groups: Today, Upcoming, and later. Each task can:

  • be assigned to one individual, but the task can be saved to multiple Projects. So, if two projects rely on the completion of a single task, you would include this on each.
  • have subtasks that relate to the main task
  • include tags for each sorting and organization
  • have set due dates including recurring due dates
  • have comments and descriptions making it easy to specifically communicate regarding one item.

Projects: Projects are made of all the tasks within one project. You can separate the tasks out into different Sections within the Project. The free version of Asana allows you to create 3 Projects. You can either view the tasks within a project as a Bullet Point checklist or using the Kanban system, which utilizes board to display the information.

Organizations or Teams: These are the divisions within Asana. An organization is everyone with a set business email address and then they can be broken out into teams. Within the free platform, you belong to one team, but can also have a personal workspace.

Drawbacks of Asana

Though Asana is a simplistic, it can be difficult to sort through which tasks are due when, specifically with recurring tasks. The future iterations of a task do not appear on your list or calendar until the current iteration is complete. Additionally, the integrations with other applications typically only works with the paid version. Lastly, sub-tasks can be difficult to work with as they can lose their connection to the parent task. For many projects, we’ve moved these subtasks to parent tasks and just named them to make it clear they belong grouped together.

A little background on Trello

Unlike Asana, Trello is a task management app that only uses the Kanban system to organize projects. It is much like using sticky notes on a white board to create a visual display of upcoming, in process, and completed tasks.

Trello for Kanban Project Management

Some features of Trello:

Board: A board is a process in development or a project underway. It is made up of Lists and Cards.

List: A list is a way to divide a board into different categories. These appear as a vertical stream of cards. We typically use each list as a step in the development process including lists for work in progress, needing approval, and complete.

Cards: Cards divide a list into the specific items that need to be completed. These can be made of checklists, uploads, descriptions, notes, and comments, and can link to documents and images. For each card you can:

  • add members
  • use labels for organization
  • create checklists
  • assign due dates (not recurring)
  • subscribe, copy, and archive.
  • move the card from one list to another until it reaches completion.

Drawbacks of Trello

Though I love the simplistic feel of Trello and how easy it is to visualize your progress, it does become a little messy once you have multiple cards, lists, and boards. When multiple people are assigned to numerous cards, you may lose track of an item that is your responsibility to complete. Lastly, our team has a lot of recurring tasks, making Trello inefficient for us to use as a management system.

Final Thoughts

I personally like both Asana and Trello, however we do utilize Asana for managing our own tasks and those for our contractors. This is because you can view items as a list, as calendar due dates, and as boards. Trello really only allows you to view the items through the boards (the Kanban system). Yes it’s great that you can move items between boards easily, but at the same time having that calendar functionality to see when a project is coming up and the ability to see a chart of the progression of a task is a great asset to have for your team. Also, we utilize the recurring due date function within Asana. 

Either free platform will work for a small team to manage their tasks and I highly recommend checking them both out. Be sure to let us know which you decide to use for your business!

Asana vs Trello | Business management with Asana | Business management with Trello | How to use Trello for business | Use Asana for business | Project management tools | how to manage projects | Free software project management | Tools to make business easy | Project management tools for small business - Trello vs Asana

Asana vs Trello | Business management with Asana | Business management with Trello | How to use Trello for business | Use Asana for business | Project management tools | how to manage projects | Free software project management | Tools to make business easy | Project management tools for small business - Trello vs Asana

Asana vs Trello | Business management with Asana | Business management with Trello | How to use Trello for business | Use Asana for business | Project management tools | how to manage projects | Free software project management | Tools to make business easy | Project management tools for small business - Trello vs Asana

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25 Blog Topics for Your Business

Let’s face it, coming up with blog topics is difficult even for the most creative writer. This blog post covers 25 blog post ideas for your business!

  1. Your story and the story of the business: This personal information draws readers in a helps to put a face to your business. Through being authentic, you can help to build lasting relationships with clients and prospects.
  2. Provide look into the behind-the-scenes of your business: Are there any projects you are working on? How about any insights into how you structure your day? A post like this, again, shows your personal side, but also works to teach others with less experience how they can manage their time more effectively.
  3. Feature one of your services or products: Your services and product pages can only share so much about the specific product or service. Use your blog as an avenue to dig deeper.
  4. Dive down deep into your values: Business nowadays is all about showing your authentic self. Your values help others to truly understand your why and what it will be like to work with you.
  5. Feature an interview with a professional in your industry: Not only will this be educational for your readers, but you can also benefit from connecting with another professional in your industry. LinkedIn can provide a great first touch for these interviews.
  6. Compare two apps or pieces of software that you use: If you are like most business owners I know, you have tried a hanndful of apps from tools to schedule social media posts to CRMS, accounting software, and more. Highlight the pro’s and con’s of two different apps for your readers.
  7. Write an informational post about a service you offer: Rather than just featuring a service, provide a case study and what people can expect from using your services.
  8. Create a checklist for how a reader could implement a service you offer: With so much free information online, it is okay to give away some information about how you do business. This checklist should be pretty robust, but doesn’t need to include EVERYTHING you do for your clients. An example is with our Blogging eBook.
  9. Review a book about your industry that you recently read: Book reviews show that you want to stay on top of industry trends. It not only provides a resource for your clients to learn more, but dives into some of the interests you have within your business.
  10. Explain a misconception in your industry: Everyone likes myth buster posts! Take the time to explain a misconception you often hear from your clients and the truth that you have seen.
  11. Answer the top 3 questions you receive from clients: We all receive questions from our clients and prospects. Though a FAQ page can answer many of these questions, you can also write longer answers in blog posts!
  12. Share a free resource: PDF’s can create an incredible way to capture someone’s contact information. Using PowerPoint, you can create a hig quality pdf for the download.
  13. Explain the secrets to your business:
  14. Identify your ideal client and tell their story
  15. Interview one of your mentors about what makes them so successful
  16. Share a testimonial
  17. Feature another service
  18. Create an infographic
  19. Explain a misconception in your industry
  20. Highlight important events in your business
  21. Feature one of your employees/teammates/contractors
  22. Tell a story about your background and history
  23. Share your brand mission
  24. Explain the meaning behind your name
  25. Write a blog post listing topics to write about 🙂

25 blog topics for your business

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Surefire Ways to Skyrocket Your Facebook Engagement

Most business owners use social media to connect with current and potential customers. After all, it’s free, and people are already using it. So why not take advantage of it, right? But with so many businesses vying for people’s attention, posting updates every now and then is no longer enough to maintain an active Facebook page.

Making small changes on what and how you post can help boost your page engagement.

Here are 4 ways to skyrocket your Facebook engagement.

Share something funny

People use social media for entertainment. Many of them would log in to their social media accounts during their lunch break or after office to de-stress. Sharing something funny with your Facebook fans will help lighten up their mood. Go ahead and give people a good giggle.

Boost your best posts

So you have just recently published a new blog post. You share it on Facebook to spark some engagement and drive traffic to your website. Sure, it will work. But if you’re looking to reach a wide range of audience, then we suggest that you boost that post.  You don’t need to spend a huge sum of money in order to get that post in front of your target audience. Just give it a modest boost of $25, target your audience and you’ll see a tremendous increase in likes, comments and shares. Plus, traffic to your blog or website will also increase.

Timing is essential

More than half of the American adult population are active on Facebook. Given the number of people that post every minute, your posts would be buried in a very short span of time. As such, you want to make sure you that you post when your fans are online. There are several online tools that allow you to schedule your post, so you don’t have to wait for a specific time before posting something on your page.

Ask a question

One of the easiest ways to start a conversation with your fans is to ask them a question. If you own a restaurant, you can ask them what food they usually order when they visit your place. Another option would be to ask what they want you to add on your menu. Find a way to leverage in people’s needs or interest.

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Reasons to Power Your Website with WordPress

Having a business website offers a lot of advantages. For one, it makes it easier for potential customers to find you. A clean, professional website gives people an impression that your business is doing well. Once you gain their trust, you can easily turn visitors into paying customers.

The problem is that most business owners tend not to consider setting up a business website because they think it is a complicated process and will require a lot of money. Luckily, there are several website builders available in the market that makes the process a lot easier. WordPress is one of them. With WordPress, designing and launching a website is a breeze.

Still not convinced? This blog post will help you make an informed decision on why you should use WordPress to power your website with WordPress.

Grow your site as your business grows

WordPress started out as a blogging platform. Today, it has evolved into a dynamic content management system. You can add unlimited amount of blogs, photos, posts and pages to your site. You can even add some plug-ins to extend and expand the functionality of your site.

Easy to use

For those who are looking for an easy way to set up a business website, WordPress would be a great place to start. It is one of the most popular website builders, and is extremely easy to use. In fact, you can build your website in under an hour. No coding required. Plus, they have thousands and thousands of free themes, which you can use to change the look of your website. Now, all you need to do is to add your content. It’s that simple.

Search engine optimization

Search engine loves WordPress websites. Even before you add plug-ins into your site, WordPress has already done the hardwork to ensure that your website gets crawled. This will give you headstart in ranking your website.

But please don’t expect your website to land on the first page of Google just because you have WordPress website. Of course, you also need to put in some effort to increase your search engine ranking.

Save money

A lot of small business owners are hesitant to build a business website because they think it’s expensive. But the truth is you don’t need to spend a lot of money to set up a website. In fact, you can set up a WordPress website for free. The only real cost is domain and web hosting.

Since WordPress is easy to use, you can easily make simple updates to your site yourself. You no longer have to pay your web designer to add new blog posts or new pages. Thus, allowing you to save money in the long run.

 

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