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Investing in Your Business…and Yourself

April 30, 2010 By 4 Comments

I’m not embarrassed to say I have struggled a lot in my home business. I started with nothing but what I already had available. I was trudging along, but I kept seeing some of those who started their business at the same time passing me by. Why? What were they doing I wasn’t? They were willing to invest in their business and I wasn’t.

Times were tight when I started my business sure, but we aren’t talking about big investments. I could have come up with $15 for an eBook or monthly membership. With a little planning, I could have come up $50, $100 or $200 for a training class. It wasn’t about the money, it was my state mind. What if I spent that money and my business failed? It didn’t take long to figure out if I didn’t spend that money my business was going to fail.

After I started spending a little coin here and there, great things started happening. Every training class I took introduced me to new people and added new services to my list. Every eBook I read boosted my confidence in my abilities and taught me more tricks of the trade. I can’t think of a single investment I have made that didn’t give me a return on my money.

I don’t jump on every bandwagon for a new product. I still do my research on the “expert’s” background, experience and reputation. I have my business budget set to allow a certain amount for investments. I choose wisely.

With the confidence and skills I gain from each investment, my bottom line increases. The profits are allowing me to invest in some bigger things I want and need. I see my business growing everyday and I can now see myself on a level playing field with others.

There are still a few investment holdouts I have known from the beginning. They still aren’t willing to invest and they are still struggling. Some are on the verge of failure and some have already thrown in the towel.

Take a look at your business budget this week. Find a way to start saving back even $10 per week to invest in your business and yourself. Think of it as your “virtual gas money.” You may not be making a drive to the office everyday, but these investments are going to get you where you are going.

Filed Under: Internet Business Training, Running an Online Business Tagged With: ,

Blogging for Traffic

April 28, 2010 By 1 Comment

The majority of us bloggers struggle with building a reader base when we first start blogging. Having a blog marketing strategy is imperative to our success. I mention in a previous post my plans to take the Blog Marketing Mini-Course offered thru VAClassroom. As with the other courses I have taken through them, this one is a winner.

It is a self-paced course broken down into 9 25-50 minutes videos. The first section covers on-site optimization; effective blog tactics, keyword optimization, and there is an entire video dedicated to installing and setting up suggested WP plugins if you use WP or are thinking about switching.

The second section covers off-site optimization; general blog submission, post-specific submission, building communities, money making and promotional tips. There are also 2 recorded discussions available and as always their resources are over the top. The set-up and checklist guide is 51 pages walking you through setting up and optimizing a WordPress blog (a lot of stuff here even I didn’t know) and there is a resource guide for both sections. You also get access to their Marketing Ning community to get help and there will be a discussion call available after the course is over.

Even though I have been blogging for awhile, I still learned a lot from this course. There are a lot of things I had HEARD I need to do, but no one has ever explained how or why (so I just never did them). They break everything down and explain what you are doing, how to do it and why you need to.

The areas I learned the most from where the SEO section and the Community Building. I have done a lot of keyword how-to research and I still picked up some great tips here. We all have heard the importance of blog commenting and building communities and relationships, but I never could get a thumb on where I needed to be in order to connect with my audience and potential clients. Now I know why and how to change that.

Anywho, if you have a little spare coin to drop, this is a great blog marketing strategy course. I still need to conquer the theme customizing section, but that is for a day when I have a lot of time and patience. One bad thing about VAClassroom is when you have taken a course they give you good discounts on some of their other programs. I tend to be a compulsive learner, so they need to keep their discounts to themselves when it comes to me. As always, they offer a 30-day return policy.

Filed Under: Blogging Advice, Internet Business Training Tagged With: , , , , ,

The New Ezine Plugin

April 26, 2010 By 3 Comments

Any home business owner, blogger or affiliate marketer has heard the importance of article marketing in building links and lists. The introduction of the new Ezine Plugin makes that marketing strategy a whole lot easier.

When I first started this blog, I submitted a few articles to EzineArticle. They still are providing me with traffic so I can see the benefit, but the process takes time. Between blogging and working, article submission got put on the back burner.  That was only until they released their WordPress Ezine Plugin.

I am usually the last one to jump on the bandwagon for a new product, but this is one I couldn’t pass up. The plugin allows you to submit posts from your blog without having to leave your site. You pick the category you want it submitted to and it pulls the title, content and tags for you. You can use your existing Resource Box or customize one. You can make changes to your article, such as removing links, without having to change your blog post. You can also validate the submission to make sure it passes the guidelines.

You will need to configure the plugin to link up with your EzineArticle account. The process doesn’t take but five minutes. I chose eight good posts that didn’t have the visibility as a blog post I would have liked and submitted them. Painless.

Within 24-48 hours everything was approved without incident. A couple were bringing me traffic within a day or two of approval. Three of them are currently being syndicated on other blogs with my happy little links back to my blog and website.

If you are using WordPress as your blogging platform, give this nifty new tool a whirl. For now I am sticking with prior posts that aren’t highly keyword optimized to give them a chance to do well on their own. Maybe that’s the opposite of what I should be doing, but there is still a lot I’m learning here too.

You can read more about the EzineArticles Plugin and download it from your Author Tools on EzineArticles.

Filed Under: Blogging Advice, Online Business Tools Tagged With: , , ,

Danger Ahead! Too Big, Too Fast

April 22, 2010 By 6 Comments

The other day I told you about my bi-annual mini-hiatuses. During last business breakthrough session I actively sought out a couple of new businesses and blogs I thought had huge potential. My reason for doing this is to watch as an outsider and see how they implement and handle success or failure. A little case study I guess. You can always learn a lot from others’ mistakes and successes.

I could see their vision and what they were hoping to accomplish. I saw a huge desire to succeed. I saw them growing exponentially over the months. Then, something went horribly wrong.

I asked myself, “How could his happen?” There was such drive and motivation. Where did it go wrong? The answer didn’t actually come from within, but from someone else who was also watching one of my choice subjects. They got too big too fast.

We all want success to come quickly, but often that comes at a very high price. When we implement all of our marketing avenues, revenue streams and business models at one time we can find ourselves truly overwhelmed. There are not enough hours in the day to keep up on everything. At least one thing, if not all, is going to suffer.

It is hard to accept, but sometimes the best route to success is slow and steady. Implement one thing at a time and see how you are managing. If everything is still running smooth, add another piece to the puzzle. If you can’t keep up, get it under control before adding something else.

We all want success and we all want it to come as painlessly and effortlessly as possible. Take things slow and steady when initiating your success plan to avoid a possible business implosion.

Which route did you take to success; slow and steady, or all at once?

Filed Under: Running an Online Business Tagged With: , , ,

Go Big, or Go Home

April 19, 2010 By 6 Comments

Every six months I try to schedule a mini-hiatus. I cut back to the barebones in billable hours and use my month of “downtime” to revisit my current revenue streams to see what is working, what is not, add the next pieces to my success puzzle and do any maintenance, revisions or training that need done.

My husband was kind enough to remind that the next scheduled hiatus is only 2 months away. That means it is time to kick things up a notch and make sure my reserve money is set aside. My mantra for the coming months, “go big or go home.” That doesn’t really fit as I am already at home, so I guess we need to revise that to, “go big or go back to a j-o-b.”

That mantra is truly fitting to any of us working from home. We need to live it everyday. If you are only doing the minimum in your work at home business, sooner or later you will find you are too far behind to catch up. You need to set your sights high and constantly be working towards those goals. If you are just skating by thinking you will figure that all out later, you are setting yourself up for failure.

Take some time this week to wake up your imagination. What is your vision? Where do you want to be business-wise next year, or in five years? Most importantly, how are you going to get there?

If you have a business plan, take some time to see where you came from. Does that plan still fit? Is your mission and target market still the same? Revise that business plan or start one if you have not made one up to this point.

If you know where you are going, it is a lot easier to figure out how to get there.

Filed Under: Working at Home Tagged With: , ,

Work at Home Communication Tips

April 15, 2010 By 9 Comments

Working at home can cause a lot of obstacles when it comes to communication. Chances are you aren’t sitting at your desk 24/7, even if that is what some expect. It is imperative to any online business to provide a timely response to any inquiries. Here are a few tips:

Email – In the virtual world, most communication is done via email these days. It is important to answer emails in a timely fashion. If you are unable to answer emails within 12-24 hours, it is always nice from the contactor’s point of view to know what to expect. This can be done by adding a note to your Contact Page saying something to the effect, “All emails will be answered within 48 hours with the exception of weekends and holidays.” This lets them know right away when to expect follow-up.

Phone – When I am working on a client’s project, I try not to allow their time to be interrupted. If I have to stop and start, that is going to cut down on efficiency. Even if it is just a few minutes to get back in the groove and remember what I was doing, that is time the client is going to be paying for. For that reason, I don’t always answer the phone. Phone calls can be dealt with in the same way as email. Have your outgoing message set a timeframe for response.

Comments and DMs – If you are blogging and marketing via social media for your business, fan page and blog comments and twitter DMs can be easy to put off. This is big no-no. Spend 15 or 20 minutes at the end of each day to check your marketing avenues for anything that needs addressed. Leaving questions or concerns floating around without responses doesn’t look very good. If you have a spam filter on your blog, check it often. I find a lot of comments in there that are not spam. You don’t want followers thinking you are blocking their comments.

I don’t claim to be perfect and at times I have let things slip through the cracks. My public apology goes out to Super Follower Renee. I had every intention of getting back to you on your question left on the tribal syndication post. I forgot! Thanks for following up with me.

This list is just as much for me today as it is for you. What tips do you have for keeping up on communication?

Filed Under: Running an Online Business Tagged With: , ,

It is Blame Someone Else Day…Seriously!

April 13, 2010 By 6 Comments

In case you didn’t know, today is Blame Someone Else Day. Feel free to take full advantage of today as it only comes once per year. Here’s my shortlist of people I’m blaming.

1. I built a couple of pages for my husband who has recently become interested in affiliate marketing over the weekend. Those pages are already on the first page of Google. Needless to say, I’m a little jealous. I’m blaming Lynn Terry for teaching me so much more about SEO than I knew when I built my own sites.

2. I’m still pouting about my late start in the passive income stream I discussed yesterday. Here I choose to blame my German-Swede heritage. I have heard my entire life how each nationality is known for its stubbornness. My grandma even had a plaque on her wall when I was growing up that said, “You can always tell a Swede, but you can’t tell him much.” Obviously this is not my fault. It is in my genes.

3. I’m super tired this morning. I was up before the crack of dawn and decided I might as well do something productive, like blog. I blame my husband who had to get up at 3:30. (I wonder if I will find time for a catnap today.)

4. I have had some really unproductive days lately. I’m still getting things done, just not as much as I would like. I blame social media. If people weren’t tweeting and posting all these awesome blog posts, I think I could get everything on my To Do List done relatively quickly. But nooo, somebody always wants me to read something.

Looking back at my list, it looks like I only have myself to blame. But not today! Today is gets put on someone else. I’ll blame myself tomorrow.

Who are you blaming today? Be careful. What goes around comes around.

Filed Under: Working at Home Tagged With:
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