I’m selling this site and the content will go away. I will probably find a new place for some of the articles, but everything else will go away for now. Thanks for reading and listening to the podcast! It’s been great…

So we know that Internet Marketing is all about driving traffic and creating relationships. How can you turn that into money? There are a few specific techniques that can bring in the bucks, and one thing in particular that you might want to…well avoid isn’t right, but you shouldn’t focus on it too much.

First off, don’t spend all of your time trying to get rich off of Google AdSense payments. Do you realize just how much traffic you will have to generate to get enough money that Google ad clicks is your primary source of income. Let’s just say that you have a blog with AdSense on it, and you get $.10 per click. Sometimes you get less, and sometimes more…this is just an example.

With a cashflow goal of $6000 per month (let’s face it…can you run a business on any less?), you’re going to have to generate a lot of clicks. For the sake of example, we’ll say your average click rate is 2%. That’s pretty high, but I’m feeling generous. Your blog is fairly popular, so you get 20,000 unique visitors each month. Those 20,000 unique visitors have an average of 2.8 pages per visit, so they click around on your site a little bit. That is a monthly average of 56,000 page views per month. With your 2% AdSense click rate, you’ll have 1120 ad clicks. At $.10 per click, that’s $112. Not exactly six grand.

This was just an example, but can you see how much work and traffic it can take to get up to $6000 a month in AdSense income? I’m not saying that you should avoid it — I don’t. But I don’t think that optimizing your site and articles to generate AdSense income should be your only business goal. Use it, but just as a part of the puzzle, and not your only effort.

If not AdSense, then what? CPA, CPL, and good old fashioned sales. CPA means Cost Per Action, and that can be just as simple as someone submitting an email address or phone number. CPL stands for Cost Per Lead. This is where you gather information from an individual and sell that information to a waiting party. Finally, sales are just that — trading goods in exchange for money.

CPA is good because you don’t have to get a person to shell out cash. All you have to do is get them to take whatever action your client, or customer, is looking for, and you’ll get paid. For example, say someone is trying to build up an email marketing list, and they know you are good at driving traffic. They hire you to get people to subscribe to the newsletter, and they’ll pay you $.50 per valid email address. So you get your marketing boots on and drive enough traffic to your customer’s form that 30,000 people sign up with valid email addresses. You earn a cool $15,000, which is a nice chunk of change.

CPL, or Cost Per Lead, is similar to CPA, but a little more in depth. This entails collecting information about a person, and pre-qualifying them for validity, and  interest in a particular thing. I’ll use my real-world experience as an example. I have a CPL site that connects student prospects with educational institution admissions offices. These schools have budgets for getting new students, and are willing to pay for the contact information of people already interested in learning more about what they have to offer.

That’s really the key element of a CPL structure. The individual already has an interest in what is being sold. In this case, education is what’s being sold. My site does the pre-qualifying on an interest level. Someone who is already interested in education gets to my site via Google, or an ad, or something similar. They find an area of study they like, and then find a particular school close to where they live. Then, they request more information.

You see, they are already interested in what is being offered — an education for a particular degree from a particular school. This person is ripe for the sales process. This is what I mean by a pre-qualified lead. The school is happy to pay for this person’s contact information, because they have proven, by filling out an information request form, that they are already interested in what the school offers. Whether or not this person actually attends the school doesn’t matter. What the school pays for is a good lead…someone who might attend the school and pay tuition. Once they get the lead, their sales process takes over, and they pay for the information.

The last way to make Internet marketing profitable is to just sell stuff. Whether you sell digital goods, such as ebooks or a training course, or actual products that need to be shipped, you’ll need to market to sell. In this case, opposed to CPA or CPL setups, you’ll take care of the entire sales process. You’ll get the leads, use a sales process, sell, and then deliver your goods.

The benefit here is two-fold. First, you’ll have total control over the entire sales funnel. This will allow you to fine tune it until you get maximum profits for your efforts. Keeping the entire sales funnel in your control gives you opportunity to refine it to generate more profit. The second benefit is repeat sales. If you are selling something, you have that lead for follow-up sales. You can keep selling to that person. If they like what you have, and have money, they’ll buy your stuff. Remember, it costs less to keep an existing customer than to prospect and land new customers.

Internet marketing is more than just driving traffic. You need a specific purpose. You need a financial goal, and the means to get there. In this article, we discussed CPA, CPL, and traditional sales. Which method is right for you? My business uses CPL and traditional sales. What can you do to make more money with your Internet marketing efforts?

Links:

Education Finder – my CPL educational directory

Zero Friction Marketing – CPA training, with some very convincing (and large) numbers.

Internet Marketing is not some catch phrase or advertising fad. It’s a viable source of generating buzz, interest, and sales. Unfortunately, I think that this phrase has had some bad press due to so many marketers selling junk with it. We can’t really help what some people do or say, so I suggest you just ignore them.

Let’s take a look at the phrase itself for a moment. Internet marketing. Broken down, obviously, that means advertising something online. That’s all it means — nothing fancy. When you look at the application, however, things get more interesting. You see, Internet marketing, due to the very nature of the web, is different than traditional advertising methods.

Internet marketing embraces whatever the Internet is currently, and what it will become in the future. At first, this just meant banner and pay per click ads driving traffic to a sales site. These days it’s something more, and that is why you need to pay attention to it.

If it’s not about driving traffic, what’s it all about?  Internet marketing is all about creating relationships.

This came about because of what is known as new media. New media happened organically, and it has become the standard for communication online. I’m talking about blogging, podcasts, social networks, and human interaction taking place via the web. Internet marketing is no longer about getting your ad in front of eyeballs. It’s no longer about barking at people until someone gives in. It’s about relationships.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll be writing articles focused on certain aspects of Internet marketing. The rules are changing, and what worked five years ago may not do so hot these days. So stick around to get an insight on what works now.

If you are considering making mobile apps and selling them, here’s some useful info. According to the article, free apps are still quite popular (duh!), but users are paying money for apps. This information can help with your mobile app business strategies. Read there article:

App Store buyers spend an average of $9 per five downloads

Your email newsletter should not be some endless sales pitch. You need to give your readers something of value. Do this every single week, and they will be coming back for more. People subscribe to newsletters because they want content, not because they want commercial after commercial.

Fortunately, there’s a way to create valuable content once and then have it automatically delivered to each of your readers, on time, until you tell it to stop. This device is called an Autoresponder. All the best email newsletter services have them, and if yours doesn’t, find a new one. An autoresponder is a message that you write once, and then the system will send it out to your list at intervals you define.

That doesn’t mean the same person will get the same message every 3 days, but that the next automated message will go out when you say it will. I’ll give you an example. Say you have three autoresponder messages set up to go out to your list with 4 days between each message. Then “Ted” comes along and signs up for your newsletter on your website and gets autoresponder message 1. Four days later, he’ll get message 2, and then he’ll get the last message after another four days. Then he won’t get any other automated message until you write some more. He’ll never get messages 1 – 3 again, because he already did. Then when “Susie” signs up for your newsletter, the same thing will happen with her email inbox.

The Real Value of Autoresponders

Besides the obvious benefit of autoresponders being automated, there are two other benefits I would like to point out.

1) Write once, communicate a bunch. Each autoresponder message you write will go out to everyone on your email list. As your list grows, more and more people will read your content. You just write an article once, and it keeps working for you, time and time again.

2) Write a bunch, and keep the content flowing for a long time. I honestly don’t know if all email newsletter services allow for unlimited autoresponders (also called “Follow Up” messages), but the service I use does. This is beneficial because I can spend some time writing and have someone’s attention for years. For example, say I come up with 52 messages that are about two paragraphs long and give the reader a little nugget of useful information. I set each of those messages up as an autoresponder, with seven days between each message. I now have automated messages that will go out to everyone on the list from the time they sign up for one whole year. A year! That’s a long time.

Think of the potential of this. With just a little bit of work up front, you can have an automated system working for you for a long time.

It gets better, too. Some lists are more responsive than others, and like having messages sent to them often. With these people, you might be able to send messages every four days. You’ll have to experiment to find the sweet spot for your particular list.

Imagine what you can create — the trust, the following, your expert status — with a year’s worth (or more) of automated messages. And if even writing 52 messages seems like a daunting task to you, there are copywriters out there who will do it for a nominal fee. If you don’t have the time or interest to do this yourself, hire a professional to do it for you. Then you just take an hour to set up all the messages as autoresponders (or hire a virtual assistant to do it for you), and you’re good to go.

Don’t let this valuable tool slip by unused. Build up a solid base of autoresponders and send quality content to your list every single week. If you don’t have a list yet, or if you want to change to a really good provider, go with Aweber. They are the only service I use, and I highly recommend them.

Build up your autoresponders. Now.

I’m going to be honest with you. When I first heard of Twitter, I thought, “Lame.” But then I came around and saw the marketing and traffic-driving potential of Twitter. So I created my first account and started tweeting. I got into a rhythm after a while, but I wasn’t seeing any real positive reactions from my Twitterings. My account was growing, and I would get some oddball website traffic from it here and there, but nothing significant.

Then I found the Twitter Traffic Machine. This is a system that uses free tools to do two things: Get followers and post automated, quality content to your Twitter account. I’m not talking about spamming your followers here. I mean actual news stories with links to the original story, posted right to your Twitter account. With this system, you’ll provide quality content for your followers. This will also have the added benefit of getting you more followers by simple retweets or people searching for a particular topic.

Can’t I just do all this myself? Yes. After using this system, I thought to myself, “why didn’t I think of that?” It’s so easy, after all, and the tools are all free. Well, I just didn’t think about it, but this guy did, and he made a great system. Use it. Don’t spend three weeks trying to figure all this stuff out on your own. It’s been done for you. Use the system.

Real World Examples

Need proof that this works? I’ll give you some. I have several websites and projects that I want traffic directed to. So I created 4 new Twitter accounts that were tightly focused on what I wanted to promote. These accounts were all brand new, and I wanted to see just how well this system performed with me doing a minimal amount of work. I didn’t try hard, but the results were still…excellent.

I had to cut my experiment short by a few days due to the Twitter DDOS hacker attacks, but I did get some good data. Over the course of seven days (yes, only 7 days of using this system), I had nearly 1000 followers on two accounts. And remember, this is with minimal work. If I had tried harder, I’m sure I could have grabbed more followers. I started tracking the data shortly after starting to use the system and seeing immediate results.

Here are the follower counts:

OSI
Start: 4
Finish: 286
(note: This one only had 5 days before the Twitter outage…I started this one late)

Education Finder
Start: 139
Finish: 991

Cube Escape
Start: 141
Finish: 759

Self-Reliance and Homesteading
Start: 57
Finish: 903

Here are my follower counts as of right now while I’m writing this:
OSI: 420
Education Finder: 1097
Cube Escape: 864
Self-Reliance and Homesteading: 1025

As you can see, these are all pretty good numbers for doing almost nothing. After setting up the automation tasks, I barely touched any account.

This system works. Get it. Use it. Build your Twitter following and start driving traffic to your Internet properties.

Twitter Traffic Machine

Here is the second video preview of my upcoming online store training course. It’s a video showing you what your end-result store could look like, and some basic features it will have. Watch it, then head over to Online Store HQ.

Learn ecommerce the easy way. Head over to Online Store HQ and check it out!

Who doesn’t want to work from home and make good money? I’ve worked for other people, I’ve worked for myself, I’ve worked in an office, and I’ve worked from home. I’ve made good money, and I’ve been flat broke. And I’ve got to tell you that the combination of working from home and making good money is awesome!

Unfortunately, this isn’t easy to do. There is a simple reason for this — lack of knowledge. Just not knowing how to do it is enough to keep you from finding the success you want. But there is good news. There is a program out there that helps a lot of people make money — all from the comfort of their own home.

Maverick Money Makers

This program was created by a guy named Mack Michaels, when he was fed up with working all the time, making too little money, and feeling burnt out overall. What’s different about this program is that isn’t not just some book and video course that you buy, and use (or forget about). It’s more of a coaching program.

It’s a program with video and a supportive community. Personally, I learn more by doing, after watching an example. Sure, I can read instructions, but watching those instructions is so much more beneficial. I’m up and running faster. Doesn’t that sound interesting? Doesn’t that sound like something you can actually learn from and implement?

This is a really interesting program, and something that you may be able to use to earn some serious cash. Think of what you can do with serious cash. What kind of lifestyle do you envision for yourself? Take a look at it, and if it’s right for you, take the first step. Check it out here:

Maverick Money Makers

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to work at home, or at least generate some extra income on the side? I thought so, too, and so I searched for ways that I could do that. My first idea was to sell goods on eBay. Unfortunately, that’s just too expensive for someone with no budget. After doing some research, I decided to start my own online store.

The problem I had with eBay was that I had to pay every time I listed a product. It didn’t matter if it sold or not – I still had to pay the listing fees. It wasn’t long before I started to feel those fees adding up. I asked myself if there was a way to have products for sale online without having to pay money to offer those products.

This gave birth to the idea of my own online store. It wasn’t long before I had one up and running. I was surprised by how easy it was to get going, but I was disappointed in the sales. So I dug deeper, and did more research. Before long, I was making money. I had my own home-based business that generated cashflow with only a little bit of work each week.

It’s not exactly easy, but it’s not really hard, either. Running your own online store can be a great way to earn a little bit of extra money on the side, and then – if you want – grow that side income into a full-time revenue stream.

Running an online store is how I got started in doing business online. Actually, it’s how I got started in business all together. I wasn’t happy with my career, so I started to look for a way out. I wanted to stay at home with my newborn daughter, and still earn enough money to support my family.

If you are looking for a home-based business, but you really don’t know what to do, or where to start, try running an online store. It’s fun, it’s interesting, and the rewards can pay for a new toy, a vacation, or for the future growth of your business.

Here are some tips to help you get started.

1) Create a store using open source software. Your online store doesn’t have to break the bank just to get it online. There are free software solutions out there that rival those costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

2) Sell products that you like. While there are valid arguments for selling certain products based on their own inherent “sellability,” I recommend starting out with items you personally like. That way you will be interested in what you are selling. This will make it more fun, and could make you more successful, too.

3) Learn everything you can about running and marketing an online store. There is a lot of information out there, and you have to sift through it all to find tools and techniques that will work for you.

4) Don’t give up! You might go for a whole year without having a single sale. I went six months before anyone would give me money for what I was offering. I made some mistakes early on, but I learned from them, and learned how to do the right thing. If I can learn how to sell stuff, you can too.

Starting a home-based business is a great experience. I highly recommend it. If you are having trouble deciding what to do, try starting your own online store. It only takes a little bit of work to get it going, and the rewards can far outweigh the investment of time and effort.

To get a jump-start on learning how to create and run your own online store, check out Online Store HQ.

If you are currently working as a copywriter, or if you are looking to start a career as one, I’ve got an article you need to read. It’s on Copyblogger, which is one of the net’s top sites for quick, up-to-date information on copywriting. And it’s got a nice focus on working in the information age, and using the power of the Internet.

Anyway, here’s the article. Read it:

10 Tips for Kicking Ass as a Freelance Writer

Take a look at this first video preview for my upcoming online store training course. I don’t have a name for the course yet, but I’ll think of something. Check out this video and spread the word!

These days, a lot of people are looking for a way to make more money to supplement their shrinking paycheck, or just to start a company of their own. I’ve heard so many people voice their concern about the economy and their complete lack of security when it comes to their own paycheck. Many of them are looking to the Internet for financial freedom.

As many of us have learned by now, the Internet is not some gold mine just waiting for us to grab our riches. Get rich quick schemes are just that — schemes. There’s no easy path. There aren’t any magic formulas. But don’t worry. All you need is a plan, a direction, a little business sense, a bit of training, and you can get started.

When I first got started with my own Internet-based business, I chose eBay. My brother had said something along the lines of “start selling stuff on eBay,” and the idea was born. Long story short, eBay turned out to be expensive. I looked for another route.

I thought, “I could just sell this stuff on my own website and not have to pay listing fees all the time.” I started an online outdoor and survival gear store and I was off.

Money Pouring In?

So many people have this vision of making money on the web as being a no-work cash machine. To be honest, that does happen from time to time. Someone gets a really good idea, then they get a really good marketing plan for that idea, and they make money hand over fist. It’s not the Internet that made that possible, but the great idea and great marketing.

I didn’t make any money at the beginning. I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no real sales training at that point, and no experience. I had more of an “If I build it, they will come” attitude. Well, this isn’t Field of Dreams, and no one bought any of my goods. But then I learned.

I learned how to market, I learned how to build a site that was targeted and easy to use. I went through all the mistakes, spent a lot of money, and failed over and over again. I did all of that, and now you don’t have to. You see, after all those failures and missteps, I started to make some sales. I started to figure it out. Now you get to learn from my mistakes and successes. You don’t have to pull the year-long trial and error adventure that I did. You get to start with a guide for doing it right the first time, and doing doing it all on a shoestring budget.

Online Store HQ

I want to tell you about a new site and a new course I’m building right now, with a launch date set for Aug 1, 2009. Head over to Online Store HQ to get a little preview and sign up for the advance notice mailing list. The course will teach you how to start and run an online store using free, open source tools, and then teach you how to market it using new media such as blogs and podcasts.

The course itself will consist of an ebook guide, and audiobook companion (for you to listen to on your iPod at work), and video training. I haven’t settled on a price yet, but I do know that I’ll be taking pre-orders at a HUGE discount. So get over there, sign up now, and get advance notice of the deal when I finally decide on a price. Don’t wait around, because it will be just a very short window of opportunity.

Here’s the teaser page: Online Store HQ

Starting an online store is a great way to get started with Internet business. It has taught me a lot about running a business and marketing online, and that experience has helped me branch out into other online business opportunities. Start an online store. It’s a great learning experience, and it can be great fun, too.

Check out Online Store HQ now, sign up for the deal alerts, and take that first tentative step toward the lifestyle you want. Because that’s what this is all about…the lifestyle you get with professional and financial freedom.  Sign up today.

Education Finder has been updated. It’s got a new look, a new system, and it will soon have more content. For those of you unfamiliar with the site, it’s a portal to colleges and technical schools. Through that site, you can get in touch with a school’s admissions office, and learn everything you want to know about it, right from them.

So go check it out, bookmark it, and subscribe to the rss feed so you get regular updates. The rss icon is that cube in the footer. Remember, you need a marketable skill of some kind if you want to start a successful business.

Check it out: Education Finder – Colleges, Universities, Technical Schools

Working from home presents many dangers to the solo entrepreneur. I’m going to outline seven of these dangers, hoping that you won’t make these mistakes. You see, I’ve recently moved to working from home full time. Before this, I did a combination of on-site contractor work and working from home. Now that I am at home full time, I’ve come across some trouble spots that could affect your business.

Read these, think on them, and see how these dangers fit into your own situation. If you haven’t yet made the transition to moving from your office to your home office, these items are of special importance.

1. You will be able to wake up when your body is ready to do so. What’s better: Getting enough sleep every night, or sitting at your desk at a certain time?

2. The TV calls. That television is just sitting there, calling you to it with movies, your favorite DVR’d shows, or your gaming console of choice. It’s there and it’s hard to resist. What’s the harm in a little indulgence? NOTHING. Well, so long as it doesn’t interfere with your daily cashflow. I watch TV or play a little bit of my current video game when I’m eating or just taking a break to clear my head. And I do that whenever I need to, not on someone else’s clock. Honestly, what’s the harm in goofing off in front of the TV if that’s what you need to do to maintain your own personal efficiency.

As a side note, I once knew a guy that — I swear — had the word “efficiency” confused with the phrase “work constantly without stopping no matter what.” Now that’s a seriously messed up outlook. If you need to give the TV some attention to give yourself a break and maintain efficiency, do it.

3. Hygiene. What’s the point? When you don’t have to be anywhere, why shower or brush your teeth? Until you can’t stand your own smell, is there really a point? OK, a couple of things come to mind: Cavities, fungus growing in weird places on your body, and burning holes in your clothing from your stench and the aforementioned fungus (also bacteria). Basically, you will become gross.

Don’t worry, though. You can shower and brush your teeth whenever you want. I usually wait until mid-morning. I get up, take some coffee, goof off, work some, then clean myself up. It works. Don’t neglect your personal hygiene, but keep in mind that you can do it whenever you want.

4. You will be tempted to buy things with all that gas money and lunch money you no longer have to spend. Those two things add up to a lot. What are you going to do with that extra money? Go out to eat every day anyway? Blow it on a new $60 video game each week, and then buy a bunch of candy just because you can?

No. Although all that is tempting, you should instead invest that money in your business. Either just save it as operating cash, or spend it on marketing.

5. You’re going to have time on your hands. Crave interruptions and useless meetings? You won’t find any here. When you work from your home office, you don’t get distractions or time wasters. You just get your work done and then live the lifestyle you want with all the “free time” you create by cutting out the nonsense.

6. Your stress levels will decrease to unheard-of levels. Never before has your stress been so low. This can cause some people to panic, as they are used to being in a state of “near-stroke” all the time. If you find yourself panicking, don’t worry. Just take a moment, watch some TV, take a nap, and forget about it. You’ll feel better. Not having to deal with all the crap associated with the modern workplace can drastically reduce your stress levels. Your body may react…strangely, but don’t worry. It will pass. There is hope, and you can learn to live with your decreased stress levels. People do it every day. You can, too.

7. What are you going to do with all that earning potential? That’s right, now that you are working from home, you can remove that earning cap previously placed on you by your corporate overlords (aka your “Boss”). How much you earn is up to you, and how much you pay yourself is also up to you. There are no limits except those you place on yourself.

If you haven’t yet broken free and started to work from home, make it your primary life goal. It’s so much better on the outside. It really is.

This is going to be largely theoretical, but bear with me. This should make sense to you by the end. You get paid at your job, right? Are you losing money by being there, getting paid?

Maybe.

How can you lose money while you are getting paid? Simple: If you could be making more outside your job, then you are potentially losing the difference between what you could be making and what you are making. If your earning potential is more than what you are currently earning, wouldn’t your time be better spent elsewhere?

Let’s run some numbers to put this into perspective. We’ll say that you are the following fictitious employee in this example situation:

• Job: 3D Computer Animator
• Status: Employee of mid-sized company
• Pay Rate: $20 per hour
• Time on the job: 8 hours + 1 hour lunch + 45 minute round-trip commute

$20 per hour for 8 hours is $160 per day. But your day isn’t just 8 hours long. Once you add in your lunch — which is part of the work day — and your commute, your day ends up being 9.75 hours long. When you look at the total time of your work day, you are really making $16.41 per hour, instead of $20. If your commute was an hour each way, your hourly rate would be even less. Remember, your commute and lunch break are really part of your work day because they are part of your daily money-wheel routine.

So, if you are making $16.41 per hour, how are you losing money? Well, literally speaking, you aren’t losing money, but you are losing potential earnings. I’ll explain.

Say that you hear about a guy who does the same thing you do, but he gets paid $100 per hour. When you find out about this, you want to know all the details. Since you’re only making (let’s round up) $17 per hour, you find the possibility of making $100 an hour very interesting. Upon further research, you find out that this individual works as a freelance computer animator, and he’s so busy that he turns away work.

Even more interested now, you dig a little deeper and find out that there is a whole market for independent computer animators. Furthermore, they make anywhere from $30 – $150 an hour, and sometimes more (I have no idea if this is accurate…remember, this is just an example). Even at the low end, freelance computer animators make more than you do. And this is where the concept of earning potential fits in.

After doing some research, you determine that your current skill level warrants a rate of $55 per hour. This puts you somewhere in the mid-range as far as rates go. If you were to go freelance, your starting hourly rate would be $55. Right now you are making $17 an hour, so this jump in pay — even when taking taxes into consideration — is big.

You then decide to test the market to see if jumping to freelancing full-time is a viable option. You create an online portfolio, business cards, and join a couple of freelance job sites. After a bit of work, you manage to land and complete a few small jobs. You have some extra cash in your pocket, and you’re feeling pretty good about it. After seeing the volume of work out there you’re capable of completing, and at your current rates, you determine that it’s a viable option.

The following week, while sitting at your desk, a thought strikes you: “I’m losing money right now.” Technically speaking, you aren’t losing money, because you’re making $17 per hour. What you are losing is the potential earnings of $55 per hour. This nets you a total loss potential of $38 per hour. That’s a lot of money that you are potentially losing.

You’ve already proven to yourself that you can make more money per hour by working freelance. Theoretically, every hour you spend at your “job” loses you $38. Could you use that time more wisely? Is keeping your current employment the best thing you can do for your own financial security?

Based on these example numbers, I feel safe saying the answer is no. Ultimately, it’s up to you. You’ll have to decide if your earning potential is enough of a change to push you to take action. I encourage you to take a long look at your situation to see if you could be better off by yourself. If you could be earning more, what would the smart move be?

My own experience is this: Working freelance got me more money per hour than working for someone else.

Thinking about starting your own business, but you don’t know where to begin? Start here, with this episode of Cube Escape.

In it, I talk about 7 simple steps to getting starting with your own business. Listen to them, put them into practice, and start on the road to personal and professional freedom.

Download the episode here: Cube Escape #17: An Introduction to Starting a Business

Do you have growth plans for your business for the coming year? I’ve got plans for mine — I have plans for steady (and substantial) growth for this coming year. What are you going to do to grow your business?

I’ve got a couple of things cooking that I am going to work on and launch in the spring. Why this spring? Why not at the beginning of the year? It’s simple, really. Spring is when all new projects should start. I say that because it just matches well with the season.

Spring is when life starts showing its face again out there in what I like to call “nature.” You are familiar with “nature,” aren’t you? You do get out and enjoy the trees, grass, and a breeze rustling your hair? When spring starts, life starts to show up all around you. And with that life comes positive energy. Life is all around you and everything is new. It’s the perfect time to launch a new project.

I’ve got a couple of things I’m working on right now — getting them ready for a spring launch. If you don’t have any plans to launch anything this spring, I encourage you to think of some. Find a nice quiet spot and just start thinking. Before long, ideas will start to flow so fast that you’ll need to start filtering them. Pick out one or two good ones, get them ready, and launch them in the spring.

Focus on growth in 2009 for your business. Everyone is saying the economy is down and we’re in rough times. Try to think of it in another (more positive) way. Gas prices are down so low that most of us have an additional $25 – $50 each week to spend. From this perspective, the economy is looking up!

Find some new growth-oriented projects, plan them, and launch them in the spring.

It’s important to get enough rest and relaxation. Why not start right now? The holiday season is upon us, and I think it’s time for some R&R.

You’ll also learn the best time to start on your new projects. And…it’s not the first of the year. Dump your New Year’s Resolutions and try this instead.

Here is the link I mention in the professional training section:

Programming and IT Training Programs

Download this episode: Cube Escape #16

Anyone ever tell you to get a job? Have you ever said those words to yourself? I have before, but not any more. I’m going to share with you just a little bit of the outlook I’ve developed over the last few years…relating specifically to getting a job.

You see, I have rejected the system. I’ve done this for one simple reason: It doesn’t work for me. So, why not adapt to it? I am pretty flexible. But I’m not going to adapt to that way of life. Why should I let someone else’s seemingly arbitrary idea of how my life should play out run my day to day existence? I reject the system.

What about you? How do you feel about a “job?” My mom — well rooted in the Industrial Age — is alwasy asking me about benefits and insurance. What’s the big deal? Why should I have a job to get health care? Do I really need some corporate “parent” to take care of me? My mom always asks, “what about benefits?” when I tell her about running my own company. She’s always talking about health insurance.

For those of you wondering, yes, there are plenty of ways to get affordable health care without resorting to getting a job or going on welfare. But that’s a topic for another post, so I’m not going to go into it now.

What I want you to do is to change how you think, and how you react to certain situations. Don’t count on some company to take care of you. Instead, take care of yourself. You’re not a child any more. In our society, we have become dependent on some institution — someone is always going to be there to take care of us. They give us a check, they give us health coverage, they give us this and that…but for what? A just-barely-enough paycheck?

I reject the system.

Change your mode of thinking. When times are tough and you need some money, don’t say, “I need to get a job,” or, ” I need a better paying job.” You should be saying things like, “I need to start my own company,” or, “I should expand my product line to increase my monthly cash flow.”

What I’m suggesting to you is self-reliance. Take care of yourself and dictate your own future.

Episode 15 of the Cube Escape Podcast is all about the importance of finding rest and relaxation, especially for the new business owner. I talk about…

• Why you need rest
• How to go about making yourself rest

And then I move into this episode’s professional training section. This time, I point you to a school where you can learn Massage Therapy — for those of you who are interested in starting a Massage Therapy clinic as a business.

Here is the link to the school in the Los Angeles, CA area: American Career College.

You can download the episode here: Cube Escape #15

Setting up an email newsletter on your site is pretty easy. Previously, I explained why you should put a newsletter on your site: here and here. Now I’m going to give you simple step-by-step instructions for doing it yourself. Don’t worry. If you have any trouble, there are plenty of freelancers who can do it for cheap.

Step 1: Sign Up with Aweber

When dealing with email newsletters, there’s a lot to keep track of. Spam laws, subscriber metrics, autoresponders, and so on can eat up a lot of your time if you try to do it yourself.

Sign up with Aweber, and they’ll take care of all the details for you. Aweber is the only newsletter service I use, and I’m very pleased with them. They take all the work out of managing an email newsletter.

Once you sign up, the very first thing you should do is read the Get Started Guide. Look for it at the top of the page, to the right.

Step 2: Realize That Your List is Your Friend

According to every single Internet Marketing guru I’ve ever talked to or listened to, email newsletters are the best thing you can do to grow your business. Fortunately, setting up a list is easy.

If you haven’t set up your Aweber account yet, do that before you continue: Aweber signup.

Step 3: Create a Web Form

Start your list by clicking Add New in the upper left area of your management page. Alternatively, you can just alter the default list, which comes with every Aweber account. Make sure you follow all the instructions and set up the return email address and such.

Then, hover over List Settings and click on Web Form. Click the button that says Create New Web Form, follow the on-screen instructions, and you’ll be ready to go.

Once you get it set up, you’ll get some javascript that you can insert into your page code to display the form on your site.

Step 4: Set Up an Autoresponder Series

The next step is to set up autoresponders. These are messages that are sent out to your subscribers. The first one will go out immediately after they confirm their subscription. Then, if you have more (which is highly recommended), they will be sent out automatically at intervals you choose. So, if you set up some messages to go out four days apart, they’ll do it. You can find the autoresponder creation area by hovering over Messages and clicking Follow Up.

I recommend a welcome email to be sent immediately, and then six or seven messages spaced out every three to eight days. These messages probably shouldn’t sell right away. They need to provide information of value to your readers so they A) don’t unsubscribe, and B) start to see you as an expert on the subject.

Step 5: Create or Acquire Your Free Sign-Up Bonus

To get sign-ups, you really need to offer something for free, like an ebook, report, or how-to guide of some kind. People don’t like giving out their contact information for no reason. Give them some incentive. You can upload it to your web server and link to it from your welcome message.

When people see a free bonus for signing up, they are more likely to do so. When you keep sending them valuable information, your prospects are less likely to unsubscribe, and more likely to buy from you in the future.

Step 6: Create Your First Broadcast Message

Once you have at least one subscriber, you need to start creating Broadcast Messages. These are going to be special announcements and your regular newsletter. Basically, anything that doesn’t qualify as an autoresponder should be sent out as a broadcast.

Broadcast messages are sent out at once — and just one time — to every member of your list, old and new. To set one up, hover over Messages at the top navigation area of your Aweber admin page. Click on Broadcast, and you’ll end up on your broadcast messages page. Here you will be able to view your past broadcasts, as well as create a new one.

Just click on the Create Broadcast Message, and make it. You can use just plain text, plain HTML, or you can use an HTML template to create some great-looking messages. Create it, save it, test it, and then send it out to your list.

Step 7: Test and Tweak to Maximize Sign-Ups

Having an email newsletter is all about creating a relationship with your readers, listeners, and prospects. Your goal should be to have as big a list as possible. The more people you have that want to hear what you have to say or offer, the more success you’ll find.

Just like any marketing efforts, you’ll need to test and tweak until your results get better and better. Never stop testing, and never stop improving. Some ways that you can test your sign-ups and list is to change the offer, change the way you ask for sign-ups, and change the location of the sign-up form.

If you find something that increases your sign-ups, stick with it for a while and then start looking for ways to improve it.

Bonus Info: How I Went From Zero to Several Sign-ups a Day

On one of my sites, I went from zero sign-ups to several a day. I have an online shop that sells outdoor and survival gear, and I was getting anywhere from 150 to 200 page views a day. Not much traffic for a shop, and I wasn’t getting anyone to sign up. So I made some changes and things started coming together.

First, I offered a free ebook with the purchase. The sign-up form was on the bottom of every page, and it didn’t get anything. No one signed up. I quickly decided to do something different. So I did some research and borrowed some strategies from more successful list owners.

Since I wanted to promote my shop, I decided to offer a coupon as the sign-up bonus. Everyone that signs up gets a 15% off coupon they can use once. I created a lightbox pop-over form (a lightbox is a cool effect…check out my shop to see it), and also kept the form at the bottom of the page.

I started getting sign-ups the first day. After a little while, I began to get three or four sign-ups a day, with about the same amount of traffic. I get at least one a day still, and my traffic is increasing, too. Additionally, those coupons have turned into sales…which is good. Overall, I’ve seen an increase in traffic and sales, and the only thing I’ve done is institute an email newsletter.

Do it now if you haven’t already. It’s worth a few minutes of your time.

Extra Bonus Info: Where to Find Help When You Need It

And if you don’t have any idea how to do this, or if you just don’t have the time, hire someone to set it up for you. Go to Elance or Guru.com and find a freelancer to do it for you. You should be able to find someone who can set it up quickly and for a reasonable rate.

If you don’t have an email newsletter on your site(s), you need to start now. Get a newsletter going, start collecting leads, and grow your business.

Aweber is the only service I use and recommend. Use them and you’ll be happy.

Say you’re a blogger, writing about whatever interests you. Then you hear about some people making money with their blogs. Why not you? That’s what crosses your mind, but does the thought go any further?

Can you make money with your blog? Can you create a network of blogs designed to both inform and engage the reader and pull money in your direction?

Yes.

But how? My first foray into Google AdSense netted me about $2.46 after the first 6 months. My dreams of making money were quickly dying. But then I learned a few things. I learned that there’s more to blogging that writing stuff no one cares about and throwing Google ads around it.

Real money – serious amounts of money – can be made by blogging. But you’ve got to know how to do it, and you’ve got to have the right system…a system set up from the beginning to pull prospects and money to your blogs.

The funny thing is that everyone can do this, but not a lot of people will. Do you know why? Because it takes some work. Making money with blogs isn’t a scheme, and it’s not life of luxury (well, not at first…). It’s work. But you can get paid handsomely for that work, and enjoy what you do every day.

I’ve just finished reading Blogging to the Bank by Rob Benwell. It’s pretty good. I’ve been blogging for a while now, and I still learned some stuff. If you haven’t been blogging for long, or if you’re totally new to blogging, then this book is definitely for you.

You can take the concepts in this book, apply them to your own situation, and start making some money. You might not make money right away, but you can do it. You can create a blog, or a network of blogs, that turns a profit for you.

Wouldn’t that be nice? I remember when one of my sites started turning a profit. It was small, but it was greater than the operating costs, and I loved it.

To get that sense of joy and the satisfaction of a job well done – not to mention the cash! – just go get Blogging to the Bank 3. I really don’t think you’ll regret it.

Get the book. Use it. Profit.

Starting with the next Cube Escape podcast episode, I will be adding training tips. What I mean is that I will be picking out a particular industry / job / business area and discussing how you can break into it.

Some people really want to be stylists, but they don’t know what to do. Others want to be freelance web developers, and some want to run their own video production company. But they don’t know where to start.

I’m going to be talking about some industry areas that I think fit well into the Entrepreneur / Self-Employed arena. I’ll pick one out for each podcast, and then talk about where you can find the training for that industry. This won’t dominate each podcast episode. It will be more like a “training tip” in each podcast.

Training is important. Whatever you want to do, you’ve got to have skills. I haven’t yet decided what industry I’m going to talk about in the next podcast, so you’ll just have to listen to find out.

This episode of Cube Escape is all about email newsletters! You’ll get an overview of what an email newsletter can do for you, your site, and your business.

I also talk about a previous post I made as part of a two-part series about email newsletters. Make sure you read it, because all of this information ties together. Here is the post:

Two Reasons Why You Need an Email Newsletter

Read it, listen to this podcast episode, and stay tuned for the next article in the series.

If you want to get started with email newsletters right away, here is my recommendation for an email newsletter service (it’s the only one I use):

Aweber

Start using newsletters to grow your community of customers and prospects!

Download this episode here: Cube Escape Episode 14

Oh, and here’s the outdoor gear shop I mentioned at the beginning of the show: BDR Gear

An email newsletter performs two vital tasks. It helps you create a relationship with your customers and prospects, and it establishes you as an expert in your chosen niche. Why is this significant? Because, in the end, it will mean more sales for you.

And that’s really what you’re after, isn’t it — increased cash flow? I’ll talk about each benefit in turn, and then relate them to increased cash flow.

Create a Relationship

A newsletter helps you create a relationship with your customers and prospects. It does this by maintaining contact with people who have asked to hear from you. But this can’t be just any contact. Your content must relate to the reader in some way, and the information needs to have inherent value. Otherwise, they are just going to unsubscribe.

With regular, informative contact, your subscribers will become fans. The reason is simple — you give them valuable information for free. When your readers come to see you as a source of good information, they will be more open to offers you present them. Instead of just “some guy” trying to sell them something, your prospects are going to see what you have to offer in a different light.

Set Yourself Up as an Expert

After you’ve been viewed as a source of reliable information for long enough, your audience will start to view you as an expert. When you become viewed as an expert, your audience will see you as one of their favorite sources for information in your niche.

I can attest to this myself. After reading two blogs for a while, I came to view the writers as experts on blogging. Now, whenever I need information about blogging in particular, I look to them for information. They are Darren Rowse of Problogger and Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur’s Journey. They are my go-to guys for blogging info.

Remember, even if you don’t see yourself as an expert, your readers might. Don’t underestimate their faith in you and what you have to say. In the end, you’ll end up becoming something of an expert anyway. That’s what happens after you write about a subject (or perform a service) for long enough.

Once you’re viewed as an expert, things will start looking up. And, as a result, your audience will want what you have to offer, and buy what you recommend. That will translate into monthly cash flow.

In my next post, I’m going to tell you how to set up an email newsletter on your site. But if you want to get started right away, sign up with Aweber. It’s the only email newsletter service I use and I love them. Sign up now and get a free 30 day trial. Go here to check them out: Aweber.

In part two of Cube Escape’s Internet business series, I talk about Intenet Business Mastery and the Internet Business Mastery Academy. If you do nothing else, listen to this episode, then go get all their free stuff. Your online business ventures can only benefit from what these two guys give away for free.

Here are the links for what I talk about in the episode:

• Internet Business Mastery (for the podcast)
• Design Your Ultimate Internet Lifestyle (definitely click this one!)

You can download this episode here: Cube Escape 13

Don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter (on the right) and the podcast (in iTunes).

Everyone can use a little boost, and I think that most of us can use some improvement in the “quality of life” area. I know I can. And if you’re stuck in a job you hate (or just really, really don’t like), then you can use a boost, too. Do these five things today — or tomorrow if you are reading this at night — and you’ll probably have a better day.

1) Go outside and spend some time there. We humans used to spend a lot of time outside, and since the sun is good for us (Vitamin D), we should all spend more time outside. Go out there. Unplug for a while and soak up some rays.

2) Spend one-on-one time with a family member. Take the time to have some 1 on 1 time with some member of your family. If you live alone, call your parents, a sibling, your favorite aunt, or someone similar. If you literally have no family, spend time with a friend. If you don’t have any family or any friends, stop reading right now and go meet some people!

3) Treat yourself to a delicious meal at a restaurant. Good food is great. It just makes us feel good. Get some really yummy food. Induldge yourself just a little.

4) Laugh out loud. That’s right. Laugh. Watch a funny movie. Go see a funny show. Do or watch something that really makes you laugh. Make sure it’s really good, because I really want you to laugh hard.

5) Get lots of sleep tonight. Most people these days don’t get enough sleep. Sure, you can function just fine on too little sleep, but you won’t be at your best. I’m not going to tell you how long you should sleep. Even though there are some generalized guidelines, everyone is different. For me a good night’s sleep is 9 – 11 hours solid. What about you?

There are your five tips. Do them often, and if you can squeeze all of them into one day, do it. It will make your life just a little bit better. You’ll get that boost you need to get through another week until you free yourself.

If you have anything to add, or have something that works really great for you, leave a comment. It can be anything: Pizza, sex, serious dramatic movies, walking your dog — whatever gives you a boost. Tell us about it!

It’s nice to have a primer for making money online. In this episode of the Cube Escape Podcast, I talk about The Rich Jerk’s ebook. I like to think of it as an introduction to making money on the Internet. I find it useful to take some of what the book recommends and then apply it to my situation and goals.

Here is the link to The Rich Jerk website I mention in the show:

The Rich Jerk

Download this episode

Affiliate marketing amounts to two channels of income for you. What do I mean by “two channels?” I mean that you can make money by promoting other company’s products, and  you can also have affiliate marketers promote your products.

If you’ve never done any type of affiliate marketing, I recommend that you start by promoting other people’s products. It’s easy and free to get started. You just sign up with an affiliate network, select some products to promote, and start promoting.

I’m going to be honest with you. Promoting affiliate products is hard. Plenty of net “gurus” will tell you it’s easy, buy what they really mean is that it’s easy to set up. Making money at it takes practice and patience. But it can be done. Here are a few things you can do to get started.

First, join Clickbank (for free) and get access to promote all of the products offered through their system. Then find products that you think you can promote. It’s best to find products that are related to your site niche. For example, if your site is about fishing, look for affiliate products relating to fishing — like a how-to guide or something.

When looking for products to promote, it’s important to find something good. You don’t want to promote junk to your audience. If you do that, your audience will just shrink. To find something good, you should either purchase the product yourself or find a lot of objective reviews about it. If you don’t think it will be a good buy for your audience, don’t promote it. Don’t just promote products to make a buck. Remember that you need to provide value for your audience in general. Promoting affiliate products is no different.

If you have your own product, you can increase your sales by enlisting the help of affiliates. They will promote your product and you won’t have to pay them unless the prospects they send your way make a purchase. Start out with Clickbank and move up from there. Here is the page for learning more: Clickbank Publisher.

If you want, you can even take your affiliate marketing up a notch by hiring Affiliate Announce. They offer comprehensive programs for promoting your products. Check them out here: Affiliate Announce.

If you want to create your own affiliate tracking network, there is software out there to help you. Keep in mind, however that this may be a bit technical. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it. Here are a couple of affiliate software solutions for you: My Affiliate Program and iDevAffiliate. I don’t know anything about them, so be sure to do your research (I found these two with the always-useful Google).

Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money on the web. Take some time and see if you can create an affiliate marketing strategy for yourself and your Internet properties. And if you can find a way to combine affiliate sales income with products you produce, then what you sell could keep generating money for you for a long time.

Give affiliate marketing some serious thought. Many marketers have created a lot of cashflow by leveraging the power of affiliate marketing. Why not join the group?

In this episode, I talk about the importance of keeping your focus on any business venture — new or ongoing. I also give a real-world example, from my own life, which communicates why it’s important to keep your focus.

Oh, and tips are included in this one. Five tips to help you keep your focus.

Download the episode here: Cube Escape #11

I’ve been cooking up ideas the last couple of days. And these are ideas that will directly benefit you! As you know (or maybe not if you’re a first time reader), I’m all about helping you move from employee to entrepreneur. I want you to run your own company.

That’s what all this upcoming content is going to focus on. But it’s not going to focus on starting up just any kind of company. If your dream is to open up your own restaurant, or massage therapy clinic, or something like that, this stuff won’t apply to you directly. Of course, you should still check it out — you never know where you might hear an idea you can use in your own life.

This upcoming content is all about starting a business tailored for the Internet. So stay tuned! I’ve got episode 11 planned and will be recording it soon. Then episodes 12 and 13 will be all about Internet business. And you’ll also hear about this new “how-to” course I’ve just started working on. It will take me just a little bit to put together, but I’ll let you know when it’s ready.

And if you want in on the early notifications and discounts, sign up for the Cube Escape Newsletter (over on the right). Don’t wait around…take the steps you need to take to get control of your future and start your own successful company.

Keep your eyes peeled for that next podcast!

Picture your goal – your light at the end of the tunnel. What do you see?

When you think about how you can improve your life, you have to start with your vision of the future. Picture a future where you are doing what you want, when you want, and how you want. Don’t worry about how you are going to get there right now. That will come later. What I want you to focus on is your image of your future.

Not everyone wants to create a business where they get up and go do a job. Some people want to do business on the Internet, from the comfort of their own home. Is that you? Do you want to create a successful and automated company that runs online, leaving you the time to do what you want with your life?

Imagine not feeling the day to day dread of going to the office.

Imagine not having a “case of the Mondays.”

Imagine not feeling the Sunday evening blues.

Imagine being in control of your life and your future.

Seem like a pipe dream? It’s not. You can have the lifestyle you want. All you have to do is make it happen.

Learn what it takes to create success by seeing and building your ultimate Internet lifestyle:

The 3 Pillars of Designing Your Ultimate Internet Lifestyle

Don’t wait around for something to happen to you. Make it happen.

In this episode, I talk about the importance of maintaining your motivation.

Maintaining your motivation can be hard. I know it can be rough sometimes. Websites have no traffic, your business isn’t getting any sales, and you don’t know how you’re going to pay the bills.

It’s easy to get frustrated. Don’t let that stop you.

Tips to help you stay motivated:

• Remember Your Goal
• What does your ideal lifestyle look like?
• Take positive action in your business (can be anything, really…just be proactive)

Download This Episode, listen with the player below, or subscribe through iTunes.

In this third and final installment of Cube Escape’s How to Blog series, I’m going to tell you about two things that are key to your blogging success: Traffic and Money.

Generating Traffic

Generating traffic to your blog is tricky, and usually slow. Very few sites get an instant hit of traffic. Unless you have a lot of money to pour into promoting your blog, you’ll have to do it the old fashioned way.

First, you need to write what is known as “pillar” or “core” content for your blog’s topic. Core content articles are posts that describe how-to do something, define something, or list out characteristics of something (the “something” is related to your blog topic). This article you’re reading now is a core article in a series of core articles. If you’re site is about knitting, you could have a “how to knit” article as some core content for your site.

Social networking is another way to get people to notice your blog. Unless you have great core content articles, the search engines won’t be enough to drive sufficient traffic to your site. You’ve got to tell others yourself. Social media is the best way to do that. Here are some sites to get you started:

Technorati – This is a huge blog site / search engine. Get an account and claim your blogs here. You may or may not get much traffic from Technorati, but it’s a great way to get started telling others about your blog.

Stumble Upon – I get a lot of traffic from people “stumbling” onto my site. What I do is stumble my site and then stumble each of my posts individually. Once I do that, those posts start to get traffic from other people with interests similar to my post. It’s really handy.

Facebook – This is just a basic social networking site, but it’s no where near as spam-oriented as MySpace. I don’t even use MySpace anymore because of the whole “spammer’s paradise” aspect of it. Facebook is clean and simple. Use it for your passive promotion efforts. When I say “passive,” I mean that you should just post what you do, and not try to shove it down everyone’s throat.

Twitter – Kind of a micro blog where you can post what you are doing in 140 characters or less. Once you get a fair amount of people following your tweets (a tweet is a Twitter post), you will start to get traffic from this service.

Tweet Burner – A separate site from Twitter, but its service posts directly to your Twitter account. Basically, this is a service where you can shrink long web addresses into short ones, then post it right to your Twitter account. Tweet Burner also tracks how many users click on your tweet web addresses. It’s a handy metrics tool.

Entry Level Blog Monetization

When you start getting some traffic to your blog, you should think about some basic monetization strategies. There is no sure thing here. But generally speaking, the more traffic you have, the more money you can make.

Start off with Google Adwords. Head over to Google and check them out. It’s easy to set up and get started. Adwords works like this: Set the size, type, and color scheme in Google, then copy and paste the generated code into your blog code (like in the sidebar or something – seek professional help if you need it), and then wait.

The funny thing about Adwords is that it doesn’t work for every site. Well, it’s simple and typically works, but sometimes there is no real money made – just a few cents here and there. This can be true even with sites that have a lot of traffic. Test it and see if it works for you.

Beyond that you can join affiliate networks, like ClickBank, and start promoting products that your readers might be interested in. You will get a percentage of each sale that you refer. This is not hard to set up, but it can be hard to make money with affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is the topic for another article entirely, so I won’t be going into the details here. Just know that you can make money by promoting other people’s products…if you do it right.

Using a Blog to Funnel Online Prospects to Your Offline Business

You might think that this last section doesn’t apply to you – if you plan on running an online-only business. Still, you should read it anyway. Good ideas sometimes come from odd places. Maybe you will see something you can implement in your online-only business.

If you already have an offline business, a blog can serve as a traffic funnel from online interest to offline sales. I’ve seen it happen before, so I know it works. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Email Marketing – Using an opt-in form on your blog, you can build an email marketing list you can use to send informational articles about your niche or industry and special promotions designed to drive sales. For example, once a month you could send special store-use coupons to your email list to generate some extra sales.
• Coupons to Print Out – Like the email coupons, you can have a section on your site to hold coupons people would print out and take to the store. Without the coupon, maybe no sale, but with the coupon…who knows? You don’t lose any money, but you might get more sales.
• Generate Interest in General – Sometimes all you need is more exposure to get more business. A blog can be a great way to do this. Tell the world about your business, special events, and such. You can also post a “Frequently Asked Questions” page where prospects can learn more about your company without tying up your customer service staff.

These are just a few ideas. Use your imagination. The Internet is still young, and blogging is even younger. Help it grow with good ideas.

In Conclusion…

Now that you’ve read all three parts of Cube Escape’s “How to Blog” series, you’re ready to tackle your own project. You’ve learned what a blog is, how to set one up, and how to promote a blog once it’s set up. What are you waiting for? Go promote yourself!

Oh, and in case you missed parts 1 and 2 of this series:

• How to Blog – Part 1
• How to Blog – Part 2

In this episode of Cube Escape, I talk a little bit about Lifestyle Design. This episode is particularly timely because, although I wrote the notes for this episode two weeks ago, just today I found a great resource for helping you design your ideal lifestyle. But I’m not going to tell you anything about it. You’ll have to listen to the podcast for the details.

Here is the book I mention in the episode. Pick it up today.

Download the episode (mp3)

Design Your Ultimate Internet Lifestyle

Here is a good article I came across while reading Copyblogger. It’s all about selling, and like I’ve said before, it’s hard to be in business without selling. So basically, you just need to read it.

It’s a quick read:

12 Tips for “Psychological Selling”

What Do You Want to Write About?

The first thing you need to decide before you set up your blog is your topic. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or unique. Your topic just needs to be something you are passionate about. Something you love.

Make your blog topic as focused as possible. For example, if you want to write about dogs, don’t make your blog topic “Dogs.” Choose your favorite breed, or maybe even your favorite dog characteristic, and make that your topic. Having more focus will force you to really tighten up your writing and bring in more readers who are interested in your particular topic.

To Domain or Not to Domain

Once you have your topic, it’s time to make a choice. Your first option is to set up a web hosting account with a web hosting service, register a domain name, install blogging software, and start writing. That’s how this blog is set up – I have a web hosting account. When I started this blog, I registered the domain name www.cube-escape.com and installed the software.

If that’s too much for you, or you don’t want to invest any money to begin blogging, there are free services. With these services, you create an account, select a theme, and go. It’s easy. Here are the two most popular free blogging services:

Blogger – This one is owned by Google, so you know it’s rock-steady. You can even sign in with your existing Google account (if you have one).

WordPress – WordPress is one of the top names in blogging. Not only does it offer a free service similar to Blogger, but it also has stand-alone software you can download and install for free on your own web server.

With both of these services, you will create an account, name your blog, select a theme, and start writing. Your domain name will end up looking something like this: iheartpugs.wordpress.com or guarddogstories.blogger.com (I just made those two up. If they are real blogs, I have no idea).

If, however, you want to register your own domain, you’ll need to set up a hosting account first. I recommend Hostgator. They have great customer service (instant online chat can really help if you get stuck installing your blog software) and an uptime guarantee. Based on my personal experiences, it’s the best web host for the money. Check them out here: Hostgator. Remember to register a domain name that is like your chosen blog topic, preferably with keywords in the domain (like iheartpugs.com or something).

I use one blogging platform for all of my domain sites, and I recommend it above all others. It’s free, it’s easy to use, highly customizable, and easy to install. WordPress is the way to go. There are other software packages out there that have blog-type features, like Drupal or Joomla, but if you want a blog, go with WordPress. Download WordPress here. I’m not going to go into the technical aspects of setting up a hosting account and blogging software right now, because that is another topic entirely. Fortunately, it’s all easy, and there are instructions both at WordPress, and, most likely, in your web host’s help files.

Another option is TypePad. It’s not free, so this won’t appeal to everyone. This is a paid service that is aimed more at small businesses (and big ones, too, I guess). I don’t use it, since there are really good and really free options out there, but you should still take a look to see if it is something you might want. Check it out here: TypePad.

What Are You Waiting For?

Don’t wait. Get started right now. Becoming a good blogger isn’t about reading all the blogs you can to really get a handle on how it’s done. Instead, learn blogging by blogging. This is especially true if you ever hope to monetize your blog. You have got to learn how to create a good blog with interesting content that people will want to read.

Pick out something you love, get a blog started, and start writing!

The third and final installment of this “How to Blog” series will be about traffic generation and entry-level blog monetization.

If you missed part 1 of this 3 part series, check it out here: How to Blog Part 1.

A blog is an automated system for easily getting content on the web. So easy, in fact, that anyone who can run word processing software can run a blog.

The Technical Specifics

A blog, or “weblog,” is an online journal with posts displayed with the most recent one first. All of the posts are categorized and displayed in reverse chronological order.

Blogs are run by blogging software, which is installed on a web server. Many web hosts have blog software you can install with a hosting package, or you can hire someone to install it for you. Another option is to join a blogging service and have everything done for you. Don’t let this technical stuff bog you down, because you’ll get the specifics later.

Why Are Blogs Great?

1. Ease of use
2. You can let the world in on what you want to say
3. Search engines love them
4. More importantly… readers love them

If you’ve got something to say, a blog is the perfect platform for you to start saying it. Not only will your friends and family have a place to read your writing, but so will the rest of the world. In addition to attracting readers, you can also establish yourself as an expert in something.

Say your blog is about knitting, as opposed to just being a diary of your inner most thoughts. Then let’s say that you are really good at knitting and write blog posts about how you became good at it. Throw in some how-to posts, some pictures, and you’ve got a site that says to the world, “I know knitting.”

Once you do that, you have some monetization potential.

Now that you know generally what a blog is (Hint: you’re reading one right now), you’ll want to learn how to set one up. That’s part two of this three part series.

Stay tuned for the next installment: How to set up your blog.

Episode 8 is all about adding online features to you offline business. Even if your business operates exclusively offline, you still need to have an online presence.

Need some ideas to get your business online? Listen to this episode to help get the ideas flowing.

Download the mp3 here.

Oh, and don’t forget to sign up to the Cube Escape Newsletter for weekly articles and tips to help you grow a successful business.

If you haven’t read any of the Rich Dad books, you need to. They are all about financial literacy and now to use that literacy to build up the asset column of your balance sheet. The Cashflow Quadrant the second book of the Rich Dad series (after Rich Dad, Poor Dad), and it talks about becoming financially free.

Kiyosaki discusses how most people are in either the ‘E’ quadrant or the ‘S’ quadrant, yet rich are not in those quadrants. After reading his explanations for all of it, I agree with him. The four quadrants, as he describes them, are: ‘E’ for Employee, ‘S’ for Self-Employed, ‘B’ for Business Owner, and ‘I’ for Investor. The book is about moving from the ‘E’ and ‘S’ quadrants over to the ‘B’ and ‘I’ side of the diagram.

If you want to be financially free, reading this book is a necessity. He discusses the importance of creating a self-sustaining business system, as opposed to just creating another job for yourself. Being currently self-employed myself, I see the value in this. Personally, I’ll be working to move from the ‘S’ quadrant over to the ‘B’ quadrant — fully — over the next few years.

Get the book, read it, and increase your financial literacy. There is even a great tip on how to lower and/or eliminate your consumer debt. It’s super easy and it’s included in the book. Your future may very well depend on your implementation of the ideas presented in this book. But if this is your first introduction to the Rich Dad series, start with the first book:

Once you have read that (or if you have already), get the next book, Cashflow Quadrant:

Of course, you can also buy them both and read them back to back, instead of three years apart like I did. Pick them up today.

I’m a fan of gadgets, smart phones, iPods, and all sorts of things like that. So, naturally, when I heard that the first Google Android-based phone was being released upon the public, I was curious. You see, I’m at a bit of a phone crossroads right now.

My current carrier, Alltel, has been great. I have had no real problems out of them (though I wonder if that trend will continue since they have been bought out by Verizon) in the several years I’ve been a customer. My contract is almost up, and it’s time I enter the smart phone territory.

Most of my business takes place online, and almost all of my business communication does as well. I need something that has full online capabilities. Naturally, the iPhone is one way to go. After all, I have an iPod Touch, and I love it. There’s also the Blackberry, but they don’t have an app store that I know of. That is one of Apple’s best features, and I use it regularly for my iPod (it’s now a PDA with great music playing capabilities, renamed The AwesomePod).

That’s one reason why Google Android phones look so interesting to me. Google plans on having an app store for Android apps. From what I hear, it will be more open and user-friendly than the Apple app store, but that alone isn’t reason to go with one over the other, in my opinion.

I think that the software will eventually be about the same. If that happens, one will have to pay attention to the hardware to find something that suits their needs. This is where Apple’s iPhone blows the T-Mobile G1 out of the water. Specifically, I’m referring to storage space. The G1 comes with 1GB of storage (I think it’s an SD card), but the base iPhone has 8GB of storage. That space difference is very important, especially considering that the phones are priced similarly.

On the other hand, if the G1 does use SD cards for memory, you could just upgrade to a 16GB card from newegg.com for cheap.

I’m going to sit and wait to see what happens. The iPhone and AT&T’s data network is proven. The G1 and T-Mobile’s data network need some time to prove themselves. Then there’s also the issue of other phones coming out with Google Android as their operating system.

Any predictions?

Episode seven is up! This episode deals with creating a success plan, tells you why you should create one, and then gives you a real-world example (mine). Remember that it’s not only important to have a goal, but also to have a plan of action. Goals don’t mean much if you don’t know how you’re going to achieve them.

Download the mp3 here (right-click, then “Save As”).

Enjoy!

The Cube Escape Podcast is going to have a little format change. Instead of producing sporadic episodes that are 20 – 30 minutes long, I’m going to start making shorter episodes.

I’m going to shoot for episodes that are 5 – 10 minutes long, each containing one actionable topic. I want to just give you one tip — something you can do right away, or tuck away for another time. I’m also going to create these episodes more often. Right now, I have no schedule, and the episodes come out around two weeks apart.

I think this change will help, you, the listener, take more productive steps to creating success in your own life. But don’t worry… if you like long, detail-rich content, I’ve got something up my sleeve for you, too.

I’ll be producing my first short and focused episode soon. I’ve had a cold the past week, so recording my voice would have been silly. I’m all better now, so all I have to do is decide on a topic, record, and post it for you.

I’ve come across a new video social networking site. It’s not exactly new, but it’s not known widely enough to be commonplace yet. At least, it’s not as popular as YouTube… I’m talking about Viddler.

I came across it while reading a health and wellness newsletter I subscribe to. I went and checked it out and immediately saw the benefit. I’ve joined and have started posting some videos (one business-oriented video and a couple of personal ones).

I’m going to take full advantage of the social networking aspects of the site to help get some exposure and brand-building going on. I encourage you to do it, too. Social networking is a great way to get exposure to your products and your brand. Video networking sites, such as YouTube and now Viddler, can help you, too.

Naturally, you’ve got to have some video. If you don’t have a video camera, try your web cam, the video feature of your digital camera, or just borrow something. Get yourself out there — start small and then build up to something that will work for you.

Click here to go to Viddler.

This episode of Cube Escape focuses on business structure, and why you need to have a solid structure to succeed.

Disclaimer: This podcast does not constitute legal advice. It is just my opinions based on my own personal experiences starting a business. Before starting any business adventure, be sure to speak with an Attorney and an Accountant.

Here’s what I talk about:

• Business structure overview
• Corporation and LLC
• Asset protections
• Tax leverage
• Paperwork and finances

Resources mentioned in this episode:
Book: Incorporate & Grow Rich!

Website: Education Finder – Education blog with links to schools and more information

Don’t forget to sign up for the Cube Escape newsletter! Free stuff, great info …don’t miss out!

Download the episode

Based on my own observation, it seems that may people don’t want to just jump into a business. They seem to want to slide in, gradually transitioning from one career to another. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. It’s what I did.

If you are interested in photography, and have thought about starting up your own photo business, I have some good news. You don’t have to wait around while you slowly build up enough capital to invest in thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

You can get started with your own photography business with the same digital camera you’ve got now. Follow the link below to learn how:

Start a Photography Business

I know it’s been a while, but I have been busy! I’ve got some rough notes written for the next podcast episode, and I should have it recorded and up in a day or two.

This episode is going to be about business structure. We’ll look at a couple of different structures and dispel some myths. That way you can make a more informed decision…after talking with your accountant, that is.

If you are just kicking around the idea of going into business for yourself, you need to read Loopholes of the Rich by Diane Kennedy. The subtitle is “How the Rich Legally Make More Money & Pay Less Tax.” Quite an appropriate title.

Diane Kennedy is a very successful CPA, and boy does she know her stuff. From start to finish, this book is all about making you and your company as tax-leveraged as possible. Did you know that — if you run your own corporation and work as an employee — you can pay yourself a childcare expense? This book is filled with a bunch of tidbits like that.

Worried about the issue of double taxation? If that is why you aren’t going to start your own company, you need to get this book. If you manage your business right, and take full advantage of what the IRS gives to you, double taxation will just become some horror story told around a campfire.

Another worry I’ve come across while talking with people is the issue of liability. With the proper business structure, liability can be reduced or eliminated. Diane covers all of that in this book. It’s a quick and easy read, but it is loaded with information. I’ve read it once, and I’m going to have to read it again so I can get new ideas for running my business the best way possible.

Make a lot of money, and pay less taxes…all legally. Sounds good to me. Here’s a link to the book on Amazon.com, so you can check it out for yourself (just buy it):

Loopholes of the Rich: How the Rich Legally Make More Money and Pay Less Tax

I’m starting on a new article that should be of interest to anyone who has a business-oriented presence on the web. SEO copywriting is very important in today’s online market. There are just too many things competing for attention. Your site has to stand out. One of the ways you do that is with a little bit of SEO copywriting.

If you haven’t yet subscribed to the Cube Escape Newsletter (over there on the right), then you should now. I’m writing this SEO article for the newsletter, so you should sign up if you want to read it. And then there’s also all the other content you’ll get from the newsletter. Sign up today!

>>> On the right >>>

- This episode is an intro to selling, and I’ll talk about the basic principles of selling.

What Have I Been Up To?

- Writing an ebook
- Reworking my copywriting site
- Researching new business opportunities

Main Segment:

- The key to selling is understanding the difference between features and benefits
- Features and benefits explained
- People buy for emotional reasons, but those reasons must be backed by logic
- Selling is persuasion
- Don’t be like the cliché salesman!

Useful Resource:

- The Copywriter’s Handbook, by Bob Bly. It’s a great tool to learn some secrets of writing for the purpose of selling something. Persuasive writing that can turn into cash.

Check it out: The Copywriter’s Handbook, Third Edition: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells

You can download this episode here

Do you use Quickbooks? Peachtree? Open Office Spreadsheets? Post-it Notes?

I’m curious what everyone uses to keep track of their finances. I use a mix of Quickbooks (even though their registration requirements are excessive) and Excel spreadsheets. What do you use?

Post a comment with what you use and why. If you don’t have a business, just post with your personal finance record-keeping preferences. I’m curious to see what everybody else uses, and why they chose to use it. I’ll start.

Quickbooks: Had a lot of great features. Good for a small corporation.
Excel: Needed some custom expense and profit tracking, so I just built it myself.

Your turn…

In this episode of The Cube Escape Podcast, I talk about resources! Specifically, I mention three books that will serve as a primer to becoming an entrepreneur. Read these books and you’ll have a solid feel for the knowledge you’ll need to start and keep a successful company.

I also talk about an online resource for getting some in-demand skills that you may need to start your company, or take your career to the next level. Skills mean more money, and highly specialized skills typically command an even larger payday.

The three books:

• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
• Loopholes of the Rich: How the Rich Legally Make More Money and Pay Less Tax
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money–That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!

The online Resource:

Education Finder

Download this episode Here

Business gotta get paid. It’s all about the cashflow, after all. No cashflow, and your business can dry up fast. I came across this great little article about getting clients to pay invoices. Sometimes it’s rough. I’ve been stiffed in the past, and I’ve had to bug clients a few times to get them to pay me.

It’s a quick read with good, simple information. Read it here.

I took a short, impromptu vacation, and I recommend all of you do that from time to time. It’s all too brief, but refreshing just the same. And, naturally, the vacation explains the recent lack of content… I’ll be back on it in the next day or two.

I’ve read a few business books in my day, and I thought it was time to write some reviews of them. I’ll write a review of each book and place it here in the “Book Reviews” category so you can easily find them.

I’ll review books that meet the following criteria: 1) I have read the book; 2) I think the book will benefit you (the readers) in some way; and 3) the book deals with some aspect of business. Since, no matter one’s specialty, an entrepreneur must be fluent in all things business, it’s good to read up on the subject. Read all you can about everything you can.

If you can learn a lot from others, you can save yourself some mistakes. Keep an eye out for the first review!

In this episode, I talk about Niches. What is a niche, finding your niche, why it’s important to have a niche, and so on. I give some practical advice for niche exploration, and then follow it up with a little business/training opportunity I came across that I think you might enjoy.

Here is the Internet Business Opportunity link.

Download this episode here.

When do you know it’s time to walk away? Is it when the boss/client is not going to pay you? Now, I’m not talking about getting stiffed. In my opinion, getting stiffed is grounds for never working with that individual again.

But what if you are told — or just expected — to work extra and then, when you ask about extra pay, the question is just deflected? Well, pardon my French, but that’s bullshit. When a boss or client plays too close to the chest, as they say, that means they are probably just leading you along. If you ask a simple question, and the reply is something along the lines of “It’s just between you and the deadline,” then there’s a pretty good chance that they have no intention of paying you extra. And if they start putting words in your mouth, then you need to act fast.

Naturally, some projects or arrangements account for any overtime. Some do not. Some work arrangements are just loosely strung together with something that works. If you are a salaried, exempt-class employee, you’re out of luck here. But if you are a freelancer, with a loose verbal agreement, don’t work late, or on the weekends, without premium compensation. If overtime isn’t covered in any written agreement, then don’t fall for that trap. Negotiate compensation or don’t do it.

If you have to walk away, walk away. I think it’s better to walk away then to get walked over by a stingy boss or client. Remember, there’s always more work out there. Don’t settle for crap. Remember that it’s your paycheck and your career.

Oh, and one other thing, if the job is making your stress levels and blood pressure skyrocket, you probably need to get out, and get out fast. No job is worth dying over… not even a little dying, day by day. Find something that works for you, not for your boss or client.

We all have bad days, for any number of reasons. I was having a bad day this morning. Things were just going rough. No worries, though, because after I caught myself wallowing in my bad day, I focused on my goal and the stress just went away.

Whenever you feel stressed about your job, or your business, or even the balance of your checking account, just focus on your goal. Put an image in your head of your perfect day and focus on it. Stop what you’re doing and center yourself on that mental image. Focus on your goal — on where you’re going — and the stress will just melt away.

Bad days happen. Don’t let them ruin your day. When you catch yourself having a bad day, take a moment to center yourself and you’ll be fine.

In this episode, I discuss the concept of vocation. I wrote about this in my last post. I ask the following question:

• What is your calling?

You get to learn about my calling, and get some practical advice for figuring out what your calling might be. Download the link, listen to it here, or head over to iTunes and subscribe.

Download MP3

Today, most people think of a vocation as what they do for money. I think that time and a century or so of misguided work environments has diluted that word. Many people interpret the question “What is your vocation?” as “What is your job?” I think we, as a whole, need to take another look at that word.

The word vocation comes from old Latin vocatio or vocacio, which means a call, summons, or calling. Quick reference here.

These days, it seems that whenever someone thinks of one’s “calling,” they are referring to a spiritual calling of some nature. While that definition does apply, a calling can be anything. And it doesn’t have to come from some higher power, either. A calling typically comes from within you.

What is your calling? What is it that you are calling yourself to do? Sit on the couch? Sure, that’s nice and relaxing, but it will get boring after a few weeks. You’ll have to do something or you’ll waste away to nothing. Do you know what your calling is? I just recently figured mine out, but I’m not going to share it here. You’ll have to listen to my next podcast for that.

To figure out your calling, you may have to do some deep digging into yourself. You might have to think back to your teenage years to learn what you did that made you happy. I heard someone once ask what you would be doing if no one was paying you. What would you be doing? If you have no idea what your calling is, start with this question and then dig deeper: “What would I be doing if no one was paying me?”

“Just one more book, and I’m ready.” Do you say that to yourself? I used to. I didn’t get tired of reading, and I still feel like I don’t have enough information or ideas. But I was ready to start.

Are you ready to start? There comes a time when you need to start. This is no time in particular, but you’re going to have to start sometime soon, so why not now? Action produces results. Reading does not. I’m not saying that reading is bad. I love to read and write, and it’s one of my favorite methods for learning new things.

What you need to do is take a look at the reading you are doing now, and the next few books you have on your must-read list. How much time is all that reading taking out of your schedule? Could you be using that time to start your business or grow an existing venture? Is reading and learning theory really the best use of your time, or are you ready to apply some of that theory to yourself?

I say it’s time for you to start. It’s time to move from theory to application. You can read and learn along the way.

In this episode, I ask and answer the question, “Why start a business?” There are many reasons why one should start a business, and you don’t have to be unemployed or quit your job to do so. I explore the reasons behind starting a business and then give a little homework assignment.

Here are some my key points:

• Freedom
• More Time
• Much Higher Income Potential
• Control Over Your Career
• Your Job Right Now Is Destroying You

You can either listen here, or get it from iTunes and listen to it on your iPod. I’ll be submitting it to other directories in the very near future, so keep your eyes peeled if you are a non-iPod sort of person.

Download Episode

As promised, I have reviewed The Rich Jerk’s ebook and audio commentary. Get it because it’s inexpensive (cheaper than most business books, but actually capable of helping you produce results), and good. It’s not the most informative ebook I’ve ever read on internet business and marketing, but it’s not meant to be an all-inclusive how to do everything book.

The Rich Jerk states as such in the book. Basically, it’s a short, quick guide to making money online, without all the fluff. It’s short enough to read in one sitting, so, theoretically, you could download it, read it, and start implementing it’s advice all in one evening. The audio commentary (an optional upgrade) is quite beneficial. Areas of the book are explained and examples given to clear up any confusion or head off potential questions about an area of the book.

This book isn’t for everyone, and it’s not meant to be. Nor will everyone want to use all of the techniques The Rich Jerk talks about in his book. But that’s OK. Pick and choose a couple of items / techniques from the book and get started right away.

This ebook is cheap, and if you upgrade to get the audio commentary (which he may discontinue at any time), it still costs less than most new-release DVDs. So, buy a new DVD or buy a book that could change your financial outlook for years to come? Two hours of fun, or what could amount to years of constant cashflow. Which one do you think I would pick?

The bottom line is that the book is inexpensive and packed with some easy-to-implement ideas for making money online. Buy it, read it, and then do it. The worst that will happen is that you hate it and get your money back. The best that can happen…?

Click here to order.

Forex is short for Foreign Exchange Market. It’s basically a currency market where traders trade currencies around similar to trading on a stock market. Not exactly the same, but similar. See wikipedia for a more detailed explanation of forex trading. You will also see some interesting numbers if you scroll down a bit on the page.

Can you make money on the forex markets? I bet you can. If you pay attention to the news just a little bit, you will hear about the falling value of the dollar, the yen, or the rising value of the euro and so on. Stock traders make money, why can’t forex traders make some, too? I bet it’s quite possible, and even downright probable at times.

Click here to learn more about forex trading.

Here I am in my new office, and let me tell you…it’s cozy. To a degree. My posture will be better writing here, due to the semi-ergonomic setup, but there’s not enough light, and it’s a bit cramped.

You see, I’m in my bedroom closet. My previous arrangement (writing with my laptop on the edge of the bed if it wasn’t in my lap) was taxing on my back. This seems to be much better. I’ve got my laptop on top of my two-drawer filing cabinet. It was already in the closet. I just push the clothes over against the wall, open my laptop, and I’m ready to go.

This is temporary until I get my new office in a few months. Well, until we get a new place in a few months. I run my office out of my home, and right now there are six of us in a three bedroom house. There’s no room for an office, so I make do. One of the criteria I’ve got for whatever place we end up getting is a dedicated office.

Some of this closet stuff is already getting in the way of my left leg. So I’m going to have to fine-tune this arrangement.

If you think that you don’t have the room to start a company that is to be run from your home, think again. If you have a laptop and a lap, you can do it. Sure, it’s not the best workplace arrangement, but it will do. Besides, if you run your company efficiently, you won’t have to work much. By the way, that’s one of the topics I’ll be exploring in the coming months here on Cube Escape — Working as little as possible to get the most amount of cashflow. Remember, cashflow should be the goal of any solid business venture.

I bought The Rich Jerk ebook, and I’ll be reviewing it here after I read it. I glanced through it last night after it finished downloading, and it seems all right. I’ll read it over the next week or so and let you guys know what I think.

If for no other reason, you need to go to this site for it’s interesting approach to marketing. The “Rich Jerk” claims right at the top of the page that he’s “better than you,” a claim that made me smile.

He says that he’s going to show you how to make money, in simple, easy steps, unlike other work at home packages. I haven’t looked into his system yet, but I want to encourage you to follow the link and read the page. It’s pretty good stuff. And if he can show you how to make money, then consider it a bonus to the entertainment you’ll get from the site.

Click Here to view the page.

OK, now I’ve got a new theme up that seems like it might be a good one. I’m going to test it out for a while, tweak it, and then decide if I’m going to keep it or not. Once I decide that it’s the theme for me, then I’ll work on upgrading to the most recent version of WordPress.

At some time before or after that, I’ll have the newsletter subscription ready. I’m not sure which I will do first, but I’m sure I’ll do one of them.

Feel free to leave comments about the theme or the site in general.

Cube Escape has a couple of changes coming soon. First, I’ll be finding a new theme for the site. This theme has been pretty good to me, but I think I want something a little more flexible. Instead of spending the time to edit this theme or write my own, I’m just going to find another one that is freely available, or pay someone to come up with one for me. As a part of this new theme process, I’ll also be upgrading to the latest version of WordPress. The one installed now is pretty old…

The other change that will be here soon is more of an addition than a change. I’m going to start a business opportunity newsletter. I figure that it’s time that I stop droning on about what I’m doing and start to offer some more value to you readers. I’ve found, based on the search phrases used to find this site, that many people are looking for a way out. So I’m going to start a newsletter that will highlight some possible ways out of the cubicle farm.

How soon will these changes be coming? I’m not sure. I’ve got a few other high-priority projects I’m wrapping up right now, so I might have to wait until I’m done with those. Just keep checking back every hour of every day until you see the changes. Then subscribe to the newsletter.

Oh, and in case you’re interested in how I know what search terms readers use to find this site, it’s StatCounter. It’s a great, free tool for tracking your web traffic. If your web host doesn’t offer good software, check them out. Even if your web host does offer great tracking software, check them out anyway. It’s a good service and you might like it.

Running a business isn’t for everyone. Some people are scared to death of it — the work, the responsibility, the investments. Others are just comfortable in their jobs and don’t want to leave. Some think that they are so far in debt they feel they can’t afford to take the risk of running a company that might fail.

These are all valid concerns. In my opinion, running a company isn’t for everyone. Not everyone’s brain is wired that way. I would venture to say that most people’s brains are wired that way at birth, but get unwired through the American education system. But that’s not really the point of this post.

What I’m really trying to get at is the fact that it’s not for everyone, but I still think you should give it a shot. In my opinion and experience, running a company and making money for yourself is much better than working for someone else to make them more money. In fact, that was my first clue that I needed to be out on my own.

At the time, I was working for a large, international corporation as a software engineer. I wrote a program that would save thousands of man-hours of work every year, making an entire warehousing operation more efficient. I thought to myself, “I wrote this program that is going to make this company more money, and I get paid how much?”

I didn’t get paid much. Not enough, at least. It was at that point that I knew I needed start my own company. Doing what? I had no idea. I just knew that I needed to do something.

Not everyone gets that feeling. Some people have, quite honestly, great jobs. Jobs that give them a fat paycheck and loads of personal satisfaction. If you fit into that group, then maybe running your own company isn’t the right step for you.

But I do still think you should give it a try. A little something on the side, if you have a little time and a little energy, can add some nice padding to your bank account. You might love your job, but if you can find some way to monetize a hobby of yours, then you can start a side business and earn extra money. If you live in America, you could always use some extra cash. The price gas, health care, and everything else that is out of control won’t cause so much stress with extra money.

Running a company is right for me. Though it’s not the sense of “I’m the boss!” It’s more a case of seeking personal freedom and satisfaction. I want to work on my projects that make money for my company. Additionally, I value the needs and accomplishments of the individual over those of the team. I’m also a very self-motivated, independent person. One thing I’ve noticed about corporate America is that they don’t care much for self-motivated, independent people. A manager looks for a good employee more often that a driven individual. At least as far as I have observed, that is.

Now that I’ve taken the plunge to working for my company full time, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sure, it’s hard, and I have to work far too hard, way too often. Sometimes I don’t know if an invoice will be paid, or from where I’m going to drum up new clients. They usually just land in my lap by chance (higher power?), and then I work with them while looking for more clients.

I work for myself, and it’s almost everything I thought it would be. Almost everything because I still have to travel to the job site for my current big project. I would rather do the work from my own home office, but we can’t have everything all the time, can we?

What type of person are you? Do you fit in a job best, or should you start your own company? Do you love your job, hate your current job, or hate any job you’ve ever had? What about personal satisfaction? There’s more to work than money, after all. If there is anything inside that head of yours telling you that you might be better off on your own, maybe you should listen.

That voice in your head might be right.

If you want to jump in the business of ecommerce, opening up an online shop might be the thing for you. Many successful (and a few flat-out rich) internet entrepreneurs got their start selling goods online. Some started with eBay, while others opened up a shop that catered to a niche they really like.

Think it’s too hard to start an online shop? Think it will cost too much money or take up too much of your time? I’d be lying if I were to say those questions were without merit. The truth is, it can be expensive, it can be hard, and it can take more time than there is in a day to get the job done.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. I’ve been selling goods online successfully for a while now. I started out really, really, really small, and have grown from there. Here’s what’s great about my experience: I started my business with $250. And almost half of that went to the cost of incorporating! So if you don’t have much money, you can still start your own ecommerce business.

The key to starting an ecommerce business with little investment capital is dropshipping. Dropshipping is simply offering goods for sale that you don’t store at your location. Once a customer places an order, you ship it to them directly from the wholesaler’s warehouse. People have been doing it successfully for years, and some have made millions at it. If you want to start your own internet shop, you should seriously consider dropshipping. You’ll be able to start a retail shop without having to carry inventory.

I found a resource for wholesale dropshippers. Check it out: Click Here!

I picked up a 16gb iPod Touch this weekend. I got it basically to be a PDA with great music capabilities. I wasn’t really sure how the PDA functionality of it would compare with a traditional PDA. After using it for a few days, I can already tell that it will be invaluable as a business tool.

If you have employees, get these for them instead of some other device. If you are on your own looking for something with some basic PDA functionality, get one of these. It can’t do it all yet, but with the release of the iPhone SDK, it’s only a matter of time before it can.

Not only have I been listening to my music collection on my iPod (AwesomePod, really), I’ve been listening to marketing podcasts, checking up on my business projects via wifi hotspots, and keeping all of my “todo” notes in one little place. Now that my “notes to self” will be in one location, as opposed to scattered and lost, I’ll have no choice but to get stuff done.

I highly recommend this product as a business tool. It’s not just for entertainment any more. Business training podcasts, videos, and applications can make you (or your staff) better at what they do. I’m already getting some good ideas listening to business podcasts. I think the device will pay for itself quickly.

Check them out here.

Working for yourself is great. I recently read an article in MacLife (I think that was the one — it was on a stack) that said a bad day working for yourself is better than a great day at the cube farm. That’s paraphrased, of course. While that is not universally true, I have found that it’s true for me.

Working for yourself isn’t without pitfalls, however. If you run your own company, even if it’s a one-man show, you have got to be organized. This is coming from a guy who started out disorganized and is now trying to do it in bulk. Sure, I had all the legal paperwork requirements met, held annual meetings, kept minutes, and so on. But basic bookkeeping, among other things, just piled up.

Now, after two years of financial struggles, I’m getting ready to hire my first employee: Me. Even though it’s me, I’ve got to do paperwork, pay monthly payroll taxes, and all that stuff. I decided it was time to stop organizing in bulk spurts once every two months, and devise a system that consists of weekly and daily tasks.

Since I’m one who favors chaos over order (by just a little bit), this is difficult. I haven’t devised any system yet, but I think it will be best if I could just do a little bit every day, so that it doesn’t seem like much at all. I’ll need to take some time and create a meticulous file-system, and get my new version of Quickbooks Pro set up properly to make tracking everything easy.

All of this would be so much easier if I had a large desk all to myself. But I would need a bigger house first.

A week ago, while eating pecan pie, I had a revelation. For it to make sense, however, I’ll have to explain something. You know all the sports that so many people in this country seem so obsessed with? I don’t like them. I find them incredibly boring. I never knew why, exactly. All I knew is that they bored me to tears.

Football, basketball, baseball, sports news, all of it — bores me. I never asked myself why, because I didn’t care. When I was young, I tried watching to see if I would get into them. My father would watch Monday Night Football every week, and just about any other NFL game that was on. Friends talked about watching “the game” all the time, as if I would just know what game that was. I tried watching, but I couldn’t do it. I would just say, “this is lame,” and then do something else or change the channel.

When eating my pecan pie last week, a thought just popped into my head. It’s because it’s a team. I don’t care about the team. I started to think about all the sports I didn’t mind watching, and even find a bit entertaining, and they are all individual sports. I value the goals, efforts, and accomplishments of the individual over that of the team.

I’ve been in large meetings in a large corporation and seen everybody in the room nodding their heads and going along with really bad ideas because it’s “what we’re doing.” If it’s what “the team” does, they did it. I don’t understand that. Well, I do know. Those people probably value the needs of the team more than the needs of the individual.

Which do you value more, the individual or the team? There is nothing wrong with either preference, but if you find that you just don’t fit in anywhere in the corporate world, that might be the reason. If so, you might be better off on your own, working freelance in your chosen profession.

I don’t fit, so now I work for myself. Others might not fit but keep at it because they have a great paycheck. And then there is that large group of people known as “team players,” who seem like such odd creatures to me. I work better on my own. Do you know where you fit?

By Caleb Rogers

Business degrees are versatile. They might just be the best kind of degree you can get if you want to succeed either in the corporate world, or as an entrepreneur.

Imagine, for just a moment, a degree which can immediately give the you the basic qualifications for most entry-level positions in the non-labor work force. Some fields that immediately come to mind are: Management, Human Resources, Purchasing, Marketing, Sales, and even Accounting or Bookkeeping. When you think about, is there an industry that has no managers, sales force, or bookkeepers?

Whether you work in an office, a factory, in local government, or just about anywhere else, a degree in business can be very useful. This degree becomes even more useful when you realize that you can focus on particular aspects of business. Not only can you get a general business degree, most schools offer specialized business degrees as well. For example, business degrees can focus on management, sales, marketing, and just about anything else in business. The benefit here is that your degree choice will be more tailored to specific positions, making your chance for employment that much better.

Degrees don’t come cheap, but it’s important that you see this as an investment – an investment in your future. Like any investment, finding the right business degree for you is a matter of dedicated research. Unless your local community college has a stellar reputation, I would advise you to take your time and look at all available options.

Higher education typically gives you three routes from which to choose: Attend a local college, find an online school you can attend from anywhere, or relocate to the school of your choice. Research schools and programs, as well as online and traditional education campuses, and find a business program that is right for you. After you have found a few schools in which you are interested, find a way to make them work for you financially. Remember that government subsidized student loans are always an option.

When you decide on a school and a business program, whether it is generalized or highly-focused, make a plan that you can see through until the end. Then, once your degree is finished, doors will open, and your employment options will be great. Remember that just because you will have a business degree, you won’t necessarily have to wear a nice suit to work every day. You will have options. That is the value of a business degree. Options.

Find a business degree program in your area and create some options in your career.

I haven’t written anything here for a while because I’ve been working hard on a project. Too hard, any observer would say, but it had to be done.

I’ve finished the first development milestone (which was also the biggest) of the redesign of my career education directory. All other projects went on hold until that milestone was reached. Now that I’ve reached it, I’m taking a well-earned break before doing any other work on anything else.

It’s taken me a couple of weeks of near-constant work, but I’ve managed to make some really good improvements to the site. On the back-end, I’ve made it really easy to get schools up and active. Now the directory will grow at a much faster pace than before. On the front-end I’ve made some cosmetic changes that were needed. The layout is wider so each page can handle more content with less scrolling. I’ve also introduced some better SEO practices. The pretty flash header is also gone, but that’s OK. Naturally, my current search engine rankings will get bumped a little here and there, but that’s OK, too. It seems every time you touch a site your rankings change. Of course, if you leave your site alone, the same thing will happen.

I’ve also improved the user experience. More details of each school will become known earlier in the search and browse process. This way, the user will have to read less to learn more. A handy thing for those people who prefer to read less. I also introduced some more search functionality and paved the way for a couple more to be added later.

There’s plenty more to do, and I’m tempted to just do it and get it out of the way. But…that would not be a healthy decision. I’m tired, over-worked, and need to spend some time with my kids! So I’m taking a break, and then setting a work schedule for myself that will be much more relaxing. I had to work extra-hard and really fast, and now it’s time to calm down and relax.

Go check out the new Education Finder, bookmark it, and tell all your friends about it.

Not all work places are created equal. Here are some signs that it might be time to leave yours behind. Disclaimer: I have not personally experienced all of these, but I have experienced some of them. Others I have just observed or thought up in my brain.

1. You count the days until the next weekend, but you start during the current weekend
2. The General Manager is Bipolar
3. You fall asleep at your desk every day, several times a day, despite the fact that you got enough sleep and have consumed five large cups of coffee during the day
4. You walk around the office all day quoting Milton from Office Space
5. Your company institutes a blanket surveillance and search policy, completely ignoring and violating your personal rights to be secure in your own clothes (Nazis didn’t last for a good reason)
6. Your blood pressure spikes when you look at the clock and see that only three minutes have passed since the last time you looked at the clock
7. All of your coworkers get excited every time the company has some new program or policy, and you can’t help but think that they are all completely insane
8. You wake up two hours before your body is ready to wake up, and you do this every day
9. The boss says, “Praying at the end of every meeting isn’t enough.”
10. Every time you read a new Dilbert comic, you say, “That just happened to me last week!”

I’m 31 and I’m going to retire this year. Bold claim, isn’t it? Well, it’s true. But let me back up just a moment so you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. In general, the American work force is completely lame. Now, I’m not talking about any individual workers or groups of workers or anything like that. I’m talking about how we work in this country. It’s not natural, and I’ve just had enough of it. I’ve been in the workforce long enough. This year, I’m going to leave it.

I’ll be working until I die, but this year I’m leaving the “work world” behind. My business will make enough money so that I will leave the workforce forever and do what I want to do. Sure, I’ll still have to work, but to me, one can work and be retired at the same time. To me, being retired simply means you’ve left the silly American way of work behind and moved on to something wiser and more natural.

Enough of that…to my ventures! I’ve got my company set up to run its fiscal year along with the calendar year. So, with the new year comes new things. Here are some things I’ve got in store for 2008 (I’ve already begun, by the way): Music, writing, and teaching.

Chaoscube Music: An independent music shop for purchasing DRM-Free and Royalty-Free digital music, sound effects, and ring tones. The main purpose of this site is to provide royalty-free music for independent game developers and small shops. Sure, I’ll sell to the big guys, too, but my focus will be the little guys trying to turn out great games that also happen to have soundtracks. And ring tones are just added in as a bonus. Everyone likes them and they are fast and cheap.

Cynical Tutor: Web programming video training. This site will sell training videos geared to the newbie web programmer. The new programmer will purchase the videos, download them, and learn various tricks of the trade, from simple database interfacing to building fully-functioning Content Management Systems. Plenty of freebies, too.

Education Finder: This one isn’t new, but I’ll be making some improvements to it. It’s a decent site, but I’ve got to make it better. The informational and revenue potential for that site is huge, and I’m not going to let it fall shy of it’s potential.

Caleb Rogers Copywriting Services: Copywriting, ghostwriting, blogging, ad writing, web copy, and just about anything else that can be written shall be written. Well, maybe not The Great American Novel, but stuff that will help others make money will be written. The site is still in development, but look for it to go live in two to three weeks.

There are also some other ideas I’m toying around with. I’ll bring those up as they move from “toying around” to “going to do.”

I’ve been quite busy lately, working, Christmas shopping, and whining about how much I need a vacation. The vacation is coming soon, but it’s only a week, which is 1/600 of the actual vacation I need.

Let’s see what that actually is, since the number 600 just popped into my head while typing. Well, that’s 11.54 years, which is a mighty fine vacation if you ask me!

I digress. I’ve got some plans for the coming year… Money-making plans. Business ventures — maybe adventures is a better choice of word. I won’t tell you all about them right now. Instead, I’ll tell you about them as I implement them. Let’s just say that my current ventures are making money, but could be making more, and I’ve got some ideas to tap into other markets as well.

Some may say that if I do too many things, nothing will be good. Whereas that might have been true in the dark ages, we have the internet now. My plans will work out something like this: Create machine, plug machine into internet, let internet do the actual work while I maintain machine. Maintaining a few machines isn’t really much work, and will add some variety to what could be an otherwise bland week. So you see, it’s not really spreading my focus out thin, so that nothing gets enough attention. It’s just creating machines that make money while I rest. Sure, I’ve got to maintain them, but that’s no big deal. I’ll keep my machine count down to a manageable level and everything will be fine.

Making money on the internet isn’t really hard, but it’s not easy either. I would say that it’s somewhere in the middle. I’ve definitely had some false starts and bad ideas, but I’m getting the hang of this now.

Businesses need computers. It’s just a fact of competing in today’s market. You need computers, and those computers need to be fast and reliable. Slow computers slow down your work, and computers that crash make you want to throw them out the window. I know… I used MS Windows systems for years.

Get a Mac. If you work by yourself, get a Mac. If you have employees, get a Mac for everyone. Since the introduction of OS X, Macs have been top-class systems for just about any use. The only problem has been software. A lot of commonly used software wasn’t on the Mac platform, or didn’t work quite right.

Well, times are changing, and with the new incarnation of OS X, Leopard, smooth sailing is ahead. The OS is light, powerful, and flexible. The dual core Intel processors are fast and can handle any application out there today. Application compatibility is at what seems to be an all-time high.

Some arguments against the Mac are founded in ignorance of the current product, and also the business market dominance of Microsoft products. Now, let me back up a step and say that Windows-based systems aren’t horrible. There are many great applications on the platform, and Microsoft has come a long way in keeping their product from crashing all the time. But they’re just behind in the game. Leopard blows Vista away. There’s really no competition.

Another argument I’ve heard is that Macs are expensive and PCs are cheap. Well, that’s not exactly true. If you judge this argument on price tag alone, sure the PCs are cheaper, but that’s not really the whole story. Those cheap PCs are cheap for a reason: They are built with cheap parts. The cases are not sturdy… the motherboards crap out more often because of lax production… basically the parts are like buying an “economy” car instead of a nice Acura or similar. Better parts, better car. Better parts, better computer. That’s the Mac. And when you compare similarly constructed PC systems with the Mac, the price argument goes away. In fact, Mac blows the PC away in this category. Take the middle ground MacBook that currently costs $1299. You get so much for your money it’s almost embarrasing for the MacBook’s competitors. Use the link below to check out Macs current offerings and see what I’m talking about.

Everything considered, the Mac is the way to go for business, creative, and personal computing. In my opinion, the only area in which the Mac is still lacking loads of software is gaming. But even that is changing rapidly. For more details and to see just what Apple systems can offer you and your business, click the link below. Learn, choose, buy, and be more successful.

Apple Computers

I have branched out into another area of promotion: Podcasting. I haven’t really decided on the specifics yet, but I’m not worried about it. I’ll get it all worked out soon.

The podcast I have is in the iTunes podcast directory, and can also be found on my career education directory. Here is the podcast page. The general theme of the show is commentary about life, careers, and education. But really, each show will end up being whatever I want it to be. I’m not going to limit myself to just those topics. Sometimes I like to freestyle it.

So check it out, and be sure to subscribe to it via iTunes, or whatever is your preference. I’ll probably have a weekly show/talk, and then supplementary material uploaded whenever. And don’t fret about the quality. I’ll get a proper setup and nice software soon.

I’ve been where you are now… Stuck in a dead-end job just so you can get enough money to pay the bills (maybe not even that). You want out, but you don’t know what to do. Well, let me talk to you for a moment about becoming a freelance web designer.

Set your own hours, work in your pajamas, and enjoy the fact that your work is literally what you make it. You might have to work long, hard weeks, but you’ll also get to take a day off at a moments notice if you want to. Want to close up shop three hours early and go rent a bunch of B-grade horror movies? Go ahead.

You can do that with just about any freelance business, so you’re probably wondering why I mention web design. Well, I mention it simply because it’s easy to learn and there’s some pretty good demand for design skills. Web design falls into two broad categories: Graphic Design and Programming. I’ll talk about programming in another post.

There just aren’t enough good, trained designers out there. I can program my way around just about any database or system, but when it comes to graphic design, I’m just lost. That’s how a lot of the web is right now. Visually lost. If you have any design skills or a design eye — no matter how miniscule — get some design training.

If you have base skills and talent, professional training can put you above the weekend warrior web designer. Your work will look professional because you will be a professional web designer.

I’m a writer and a web programmer. I trained in those areas, and in those areas are where my strengths lie. Don’t just trust your insticts when it comes to design. You need to learn. Learn what works and what doesn’t, and what the design trends are now and will be in years to come. Do that, and you will be well on your way to a successful freelance web design career.

If you don’t know where to look for that kind of training, or if you don’t even know what’s out there, check out the art and design schools at Education Finder. There are traditional and online classes, so your chances of finding something are good. Find a school, learn more about it, and get started on your career. It sure beats working in a cube all day long.

I had set a deadline for myself to have the first draft of my current copywriting project done by the end of this week. Well, that was officially yesterday. It’s not done. Nothing is done on it. I did absolutely no work on this project the entire week. No worries, as it’s purely academic. Real money would have meant real work would have really taken place.

I just started back on it tonight, but I didn’t do any actual work. I’ve been reading through the project specs and thinking of research possibilities. I could only come up with four sources off the top of my head, so I’ll have to do some more digging around to find more usable data.

On top of that, I really need to get a base site together for my copywriting services. I have a site, but it’s little more than a placeholder. I need to get some actual content and real information up there. I suppose that even though I’m technically still learning, I should go ahead and offer my services for the world to use. I do have some cashflow generating copy out there on the internet right now. So maybe I’m not really learning, but just learning more, and how to write more better. See what I did there?

Yeah, that’s it. I’m just furthering my training. Time to sell!

I am going to be experimenting with marketing via YouTube. I have a few ideas, but I need some time and some software to implement them. However, I have already begun. I created a quick little commercial and uploaded it to YouTube. You can see it here.

Nothing fancy. I was more interested in seeing how it would work than putting out a quality commercial. But don’t worry, if you want to see some good content, I can do that. I’ve just got to buy some software and maybe some hardware first. I’ll be creating commercials and instructional videos for my career education directory.

I’ll post more links when I get some more videos up. And I’ll also keep all of you informed of any traffic improvements via YouTube.

In my last post, I said that I had planned on getting my current sales letter project to at least 1st draft stage. But, here it is, Wednesday night, and I haven’t done any real concrete work on it. And…it’s getting close to quitting time for the day.

You see, I work to much. Even though I have some lofty goals, I am making myself get some rest and relaxation every day. Gotta stay healthy after all! I just looked at the clock. It’s quitting time.

I think I’ll go relax with some video games and my little one.

I’ve got a project waiting to be written, but it’s just sitting on my dresser collecting dust. Actually, it’s my wife’s dresser, but let’s not fret about semantics. Ready for the tired line?

I’ve been busy. I’ve been doing so much other stuff, my copywriting assignment (class assignment, not work assignment) has gone to the good old back-burner. At least I’ve still been writing some. I have been writing articles and web copy, so my brain is getting plenty of writing exercise. I’m even going to write a story next month (go ahead and guess what for…), and the side benefit of that will be an exercise in my creative brain muscles. That will help out with my copywriting, too.

I have, however, set a deadline for myself. And that is to have at least the first draft of this sales letter done by the week’s end. Since it’s Monday right now, I’m not worried. I had some net connectivity issues this evening, so I didn’t do the research I was planning on… Oh well, I’ll get it knocked out tomorrow and still have the rest of the week to crank out the first draft.

No problem.

I have got to drive a lot of traffic to my career education directory. As of the time of this writing, I average 20 – 30 unique visitors every single day. These visitors result in around 75 or 80 page views.

I need about 2000 unique visitors a day. So…how do I do that? I’ve got to figure out how to drive that many people to my site every single day. My numbers are getting better and better, as the site’s content grows, and as I work on my internet marketing. But I need to put the traffic into overdrive.

Any ideas?

I have been writing a lot lately, honing my craft, and I have even been published. I have been published at Ezine Articles, an online article repository where each article submitted receives editorial review. I don’t get paid for the articles, but I do get exposure, and some good internet marketing. Additionally, my articles are included in the Ezine Articles RSS feed, which means they can be picked up by others who want to publish my articles in their own ezine.

You can check the articles on my author bio page.

Making money online isn’t as easy as all those commercials make it out to be. “It’s easy!” or “Visit this website today!” Yeah right. Like that’s all it takes. It’s hard work. There are no easy paths to a successful online business.

It’s just like a regular offline business, really. You have to have a good plan, and work your tail off to implement that plan. You have to invest time and money in both a good product and a good marketing plan. You’ll need to have accounting and perhaps legal advisors at some point, too. There’s a lot to it and you’ll have to work a whole lot to bring it all together. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

Anyone can start an online business and be successful. Sure, you may try and fail a few times (as I have done), but don’t let that stop you. Just this morning I made $22…all from doing nothing! I set up a system online and it does the work for me. That is what’s so great about online businesses. You will have a large workload up front, getting it all set up, and then let it do the work for you. Just monitor it, make improvements and changes as necessary, and let the money roll in. Not bad a bad deal when you think about it.

To get you started, take a look at this Online Money Making Directory. On that site you will find information and opportunities you can use to create your own little online empire. Get started there and get on your way to having a successful online business.

To many people, internet marketing is like the mysterious box in the corner, secrets known only to a few select individuals. A lot of people have a website, but who else knows about them? How many visitors do they get each day? Page views? Unique visitors?

Say you have a product or a group of products you think you can sell online. Lots of people have online shops, after all. And some of those shops have millions and billions of dollars of sales each year. Why can’t that happen to you?

It can.

But it’s not going to happen just because you have a store on the internet. Big deal. There are countless thousands of stores online. How many of them turn a decent profit? Money doesn’t show up at your door…you’ve got to go out and get it. No one is going to visit your website if they don’t know about it. Sure, you’ll get a few visitors here and there, but anyone can get visitors by chance. To be successful online, you’ll need to drive regular, significant traffic to your site.

And how do you do that? Well, you need to market. Internet marketing isn’t some mysterious dark art from some ancient secret society. Anyone can do it with a little help. To get professional help, check out Majon International. Follow this link to learn about their Internet Marketing services.

If you need help with your online marketing efforts, check them out. They have some great services to drive targeted traffic to your site. Services include opt-in email marketing, increasing your site’s in-bound links, ad services, and more. Click that link to find out more! Prices are decent, too. Give them a shot and see how much your traffic increases!

If you are going to start your own company, or move up within your employer’s company, you would do well to get some business training. The best way to get your feet wet is with a business school. Nothing beats experience, but getting good business training is the right place to start. So I’m going to point you at two schools, one online and one brick and mortar.

For online business training, look at Capella University. It’s where I did my graduate work, and they do a pretty good job. It’s flexible, there’s a lot to the degree programs, and they are professional about everything. Check out Capella if you’re looking for an online business school.

If you would rather have a live classroom experience, check out Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University. They have over 70 campuses throughout the country, so there’s a good chance one of them is close to you. DeVry University has a good reputation, and their graduate studies arm is no different. At Keller Grad, you’ll get the same type of training you would receive at a big-name college.

Your best option is to check out both schools, to see what each has to offer. So go to it.

Direct response marketing is simply an advertisement that asks for an immediate response. It doesn’t ask the prospect to sit around for a month. The letter specifically asks the prospect to do something right then, as soon as they are finished reading or watching the ad.

It seems to me that the majority of direct response advertising out there is in two arenas: Infomercials and Sales Letters. Not everyone is up at 3:00am watching infomercials, but everyone gets “junk mail” delievered to their door.

Sales letters make up a pretty big industry. And with the widespread use of the interenet and email over the last decade, the industry just seems to be getting bigger (Look up the Direct Marketing Association for stats). I’ve decided to give it a go myself.

Yesterday I initiated a little test campaign for my direct response marketing skills. I wrote an email that will be mailed out to quite a few prospects off of a targeted, opt-in list. The email asks the prospect to click through to my site, Education Finder, and find information on a school or program that interests them. It doesn’t just say that I have a site, but rather asks them to visit it right away.

The mailing will go out during this next week, and I’m quite eager to see the results. I know that my sales letter skills are pretty weak right now, but they’ll get better with time.

A bonus to this type of marketing is that I will know exactly how many people clicked through. I will be able to count exactly how many propects responed to my email, and how many of them converted on my site. Exact numbers. That’s just good data.

When first starting out in a service-oriented business, it may be tempting to start work on a project with only verbal instructions from a client. Get it in writing first. Without the documentation, the project may get muddled, and things can get ugly.

Let me give you an example. In this example, you are a freelance web designer. Say a client wants you to build a website, and wants you to start on it right away. This client gives you some general ideas about the look and functionality of the site, and you say you’ll get right on it. With just a basic idea of what you need to do, you start developing a site skeleton for the client. Then, the next day the client sends you payment in full for the project, saying they just want to get that payment out of the way.

And then the problems start. You’ve got the full project fee in your hand, so there may be the temptation to slack off, since you don’t have the payment motivating you. But that’s not the real problem. The problem lies with you not being able to complete the project because you don’t really know what you’re supposed to be doing. The client never gave you full project specifications. So now, they have paid you for something when you aren’t really clear about what it is you need to do. At this point you’ll really have to push for those website specs.

The problem, as far as I’ve experienced, is that some people see what they want clearly in their head, but have trouble communicating that vision. In this example, the client might know exactly what they want, and can visualize it just fine. But the client did not communicate that to you in a useful manner. If project-necessary details are not coming in, you are going to have to work hard to get them. If you do not, a couple of things can happen.

The project can stretch out. Without a defined scope, the client can request revision after revision. You’ll finally have to say enough. Which, unfortunately, can be met with, “Well, that’s not what I paid for.” Without the project specs in writing, this can turn into a mess…fast.

Or…The client isn’t happy with your work, though you did the best you could with what you had. Any future work that comes down the pipe is given to someone else. Losing a client like this might be a blessing, but it can impact your cashflow.

The client may also ask for a full or partial refund, or a credit for free work, because the project is taking so long. The fact that you tried and tried to get project details from the client won’t matter to them. They know what they want and what they paid for–and in their mind, that’s all that matters. Nevermind the fact that no project deadline was set.

Don’t let any of this happen. Even though the problems in this scenario are coming from the client, they could have been avoided if you had simply insisted on getting everything in writing. Taking the payment in advance isn’t really a problem, but the rest of the scenario is inviting disaster.

Let’s review. Before you start working on any project from a client, get the project details in writing. Agree, and get in writing, how much you are being paid, and for what, exactly. Don’t settle for something like “The pay is for a website” in some email. Get details…as many as possible. This way, the client knows exactly what they are paying for, and you know exactly what you need to do to finish the project. Set a deadline and get it in writing, and then, only after all the paperwork is in place, should you accept an advance payment.

I have some personal experience with this, so let me just say that neglecting the initial paperwork is not worth the headaches. If you’re just starting out, I know you’re eager and want to start generating cashflow. Just be patient and do it right.

I’ve had a lot going on. Too much, in fact. But now I’m slimming it down. I’ve finally found my focus, and now I’m going to move forward with it. I suppose a little background information is in order…

I don’t like working a regular job. Maybe that’s due to the fact that I embarked on the wrong career, but it might just be a facet of my personality. I just don’t like being an employee. Sure, I’ve had “issues” with authority for as long as I can remember (a genetic trait — my two year old is the same way), but my natural rebellion isn’t why I don’t make a good employee. I learned long ago to temper that.

I just don’t fit in a job. Reporting to work at the same time each day, wearing appropriate attire, leaving work at the same time each day, not getting stuff done during the day that needs to get done… I could go on and on. One day, it occurred to me that the work I was doing was simply putting money in the pocket of my employer. Lots of money. Why wasn’t I working to put that “lots of money” into my own pocket? That seemed the logical course of action to me. It made more sense to me than just sitting at my desk working as some nameless part of a giant corporate machine, making it richer while I get a barely functional salary.

So I set off. I played around with several small business ideas, trying to get out of the corporate world. And for you readers who are wondering, there’s a world of difference between a corporation, and “the corporate world.” Just so you know. Anyway, I tried all sorts of things, trying to make money so I wouldn’t have to go to a regular job every day.

Here I am, today, finding my focus and moving toward it. I tried online retail sales. I didn’t exactly fail miserably, but after a year online, I shut down my store. It didn’t mesh with my focus, and would take much more work and time than I had to make it what it needed to be, so I decided to drop it.

You see, I’ve known what my focus should be for quite some time, but how do you monetize writing? You see, that’s me, and that’s what I like to do. I write. It’s what gives me a sense of reward and accomplishment. Writing a 40,000 word book from my little desk (even for no money) gave me so much more personal sense of accomplishment than any project at my “real job.” So here I am, finally figuring out to how to make money while writing.

Copywriting, business communications, resume writing, and other such work is out there everywhere. So there’s my focus. I’m dropping everything that doesn’t apply, and moving forward with my writing business. It’s what I want to do, and I’m putting all of my efforts toward that goal. No more splitting my time between this or that…and ending up nowhere. Too many forks were in my road in the past, but no longer. Now I know where I’m going. Now I know I’ll get there.

Do you have a blog, informational site, or forum? Would you like for it to pay for itself, and maybe even generate a little bit of profit? Web sites cost money to host, they cost money to fix (if you have to hire someone to fix it), and they cost money to promote.

An easy way to get started is to sign up with Google AdSense. This is a keyword based ad-serving service, which displays text or image ads based on the content of your site. There’s no need to fuss about the ad or do a lot of set up work. Just choose your size, the kind of ad you want, and then place it on your site.

The money doesn’t just start to roll in, mind you. Your site has to have the traffic. Many people can go an entire year and only earn five bucks from their AdSense ads. But don’t worry about that. A lot can go into monetizing your web site. Stay tuned for more!

If you want to get some education online, whether you need to get ahead in your current workplace, get a better workplace, or just need more skills, check out eLearners. Use this little search box to narrow your choices down, and follow it and see what kind of online education solutions look good to you.

As many of my regular readers will know, I still have a day job. Thus, I must still deal with the rigors of the corporate world. I just had a somewhat unpleasant experience (quite ridiculous, actually), and I wanted to steer any managers out there from this type of behavior.

Last Friday, at the end of the day, the whole team had a meeting to discuss the gameplan for the following week (this week). We set specific goals for fixes, improvements, and innovations. Despite the fact that I have a natural aversion to meetings, I found this all rather reasonable.

However, that reason flew right out the front door this morning when my boss called another meeting, first thing Monday morning. The last thing we did on the very last day of work was discuss our plans. Then, the first thing we did on the very next day of work was discuss our plans. We had to repeat what we had said, despite the fact that it was still written up on the whiteboard, a mere three feet away.

Managers, please don’t subject your staff to such ridiculous behavior. If something had changed over the weekend, another meeting would have been justified, but nothing happened. It was as if my boss had simply forgotten what we talked about, and was too lazy to look up at the board and read it. The meeting was ridiculous, and half of the staff left shaking their heads and muttering amongst themselves how stupid our boss is. If you take this type of approach with your direct reports, that may be what they say about you behind your back. As a manager, can you really afford to have a staff that doesn’t respect you?

Trust your people, give them a task and let them do it, refrain from holding redundant meetings, and let your actions command respect. In other words, be a good manager.

I remember the days when I was just getting ready to graduate college, and I started sending my resume out to everyone that looked interesting. Guess how many calls I got. That’s right, none. I didn’t know what the deal was, since I had written my resume according to the guidelines I found in a little pamphlet my university’s career center gave me.

After graduating and still not having a job in my field, I decided that I needed to take a look at everything and figure out what was causing the problem. Was it me? Was I dumb, impersonal, or horrible at writing cover letters? Could be, but what I found was that my resume was horrible. It was dull, didn’t highlight any of my strengths, and was merely a listing of what I had done. So I went on the hunt for information, found what I needed, and wrote a decent resume. Before I knew it, I was getting calls.

A good resume can be the key to getting that interview. With so many job candidates out there, your resume has really got to stand out if you want to get that meeting. Writing that stellar resume, however, can be quite a task. Different industries will need different information on the resume, or perhaps the same information presented in a different way. The resume must be focused on the position and industry for which you are applying.

Since writing such a resume can be difficult, it may be worth your time to get some professional resume writing help. If you need some help, check out Pongo Resume: Pongo Resume – Create. Publish. The best resume wins.

In my area, the job market isn’t so great, and I suspect that’s a trend in many parts of this nation. Stand out in this job market, get a great resume, and land the job you’ve always wanted.

I’m getting ready to increase the advertising for my educational information site, Education Finder. The site has enough content on it to handle the increase in traffic and not scare everyone off.

I plan on taking a more focused approach, using specific educational programs and degree types for my advertising campaigns. I will also bring the other two main search engines into the program. I will have search keyword ads running on Google, MSN, and Yahoo.

With this wider range of search engines displaying my ads and my focused approach, I think I will see an immediate increase in traffic to the site. I’ll let you know how it goes.

A better job and a better life. I think I speak for most when I say that it’s something I want. Maybe running your own business isn’t for you. I know that it wasn’t for me until recently. If it’s not for you, don’t worry. There are still other options out there.

If you’re stuck in a dead-end job, with no real hope of a future, it’s time to start looking for a new one. I’ve staying in jobs for no other reason than just being too lazy to look for another job. But I wasn’t happy with what I was doing, I was barely making enough money to pay the bills, and I was just bored all the time. That’s no way to spend your days. I’ve recently come across a job search portal that looks promising.

Follow the link, sign up with WorkTree, and find a future that’s right for you.

We all need goals to strive toward. Sometimes these goals are quite lofty, but if we think creatively and dedicate ourselves to reaching these goals, we can. I have recently set a rather lofty goal for myself, and I aim to reach it. I want to earn $100,000 by the end of July.

It’s the middle of April right now. At the time of this writing, I have three and a half months to make it. That’s not much time at all — especially since I’ve never made that much money before in any short period of time. One hundred thousand, divided by three and a half months is $28,571 and change per month. Wow. That’s a lot.

Why this goal? Well, naturally, I’m tired of working a regular job. It’s such a waste of my day, day after day. But I’m not going to blow that money. I’m going to invest it in some good real estate so that I can start generating some passive income. Then, I’ll keep the business momentum up and live the life I want to live.

That’s my goal. What’s yours?

On my Google personalized home page I noticed that today’s “how-to of the day” was entitled “How to Lose Your Fear of Being Fired.” I thought that sounded interesting, since I work in what I will call a hostile work environment. So, I read it, and then read another article linked from it, and found it useful as well.

I thought I would share. So, How To Lose Your Fear of Being Fired and How to Deal With a Bad Boss. I’m sure there are many that have been in one of these two situations… enjoy.

If you want to compete and succeed in today’s markets, you need an Internet presence. It doesn’t matter if you run a small company or if you sell nothing. You need something out there for people to look at.

I know that not everyone does this, but if I hear about something that interests me, I head straight to the computer to look up more stuff about it. If I find nothing online about the subject, I’m surprised. Don’t leave your potential customers or business partners surprised that you’re not online.

Get a website, even if it’s just one simple informational page with a phone number and email address. You need a presence online to compete in this technological economy we’ve got here. The first thing you’ll need is a web host, and that’s really what this post is about.

I’ve had a few web hosts in my day, and while most were all right, one has really stood out. I’m still with them today — 1 and 1 Web Hosting. They’re great all around, and offer a wide variety of affordable hosting packages to meet your needs.

This is it, click the link above and choose your package. Not only do they have a great user control panel, they also have a lot of included features, very competitive prices, and great support. If you have a technical question, you get personalized help with your particular question, and from an actual person.

You won’t be running blind with 1 and 1, you’ll have a great system with daily backups and a great support staff. I’ve been using them for just over a year, and I haven’t had a single bit of down time. Maybe I’ve been fortunate, but I have a feeling that they’re just good at what they do.

So, get a reliable web host, get a site up and running, and grow your business. Because that’s what this is really about — your business and your future.

I know that not everyone reading this blog wants to run their own business. I’m sure that some of you simply want to improve your station in life. A better job is one of the best ways to do this.

Nothing beats experience, but education runs a close second. Get some education whether you want to change your career entirely, or just want to be more qualified for that promotion you’ve been eying. So get your experience by finding some quality education.

A good resource on the net for higher education and careers is Education Finder. From there you can find schools, programs, scholarship information, and even get some job hunting advice. So check it out and get on the road to your future.

This advice I give from my own personal experience: Pace yourself when running a business.

Running a business, especially if it’s a one-man show, is a lot of work. Don’t let it overwhelm you. You have got to pace yourself so that you don’t run out of energy, drive, or ideas later on. It’s not too healthy to ignore your family either.

It will be hard, but you need to set a schedule for yourself and stick to it. For example, you set up an eight hour work day, and then only work eight hours. Your family needs some time with you, your brain needs a break, your body needs some exercise. I know firsthand how much work is involved when you have your own business. I also know that a schedule fits more into the category of guideline than rule. If you break your schedule, whether it be out of necessity or vigor, that’s fine. Just don’t make a habit out of it.

Working constantly will wear you down. Some symptoms I had when I was worn down included insomnia, elevated blood pressure, lethargy, and probably an irritated wife (though she never admitted it). So get some relaxation, spend time with your family, and your business will be better for it.

Let me start off by saying that I really have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve read some stuff and I’ve been told some stuff, but that’s about it. No real world experience for me to draw on for this. Oh well. Business by the seat of my pants, right?

Spring is here and I’ve been adding merchandise to my online shop that matches the season: Tee shirts, sunglasses, caps, etc. That’s all fine and dandy, but I’ve got to get some marketing in place to move those goods. I’ve got some marketing vouchers from my web host, 1 and 1, so I think I’ll make use of them with this push for spring-time gear.

Since I don’t really know what I’m doing, or how to write ads that sell, I’m just going to have to wing it. I’ll look at some examples and create some basic text ads for my store, and see what happens.

I know that there is more to internet marketing than running keyword search advertising, but it’s a good and affordable start. I’m going to see where it takes me.

According to Dictionary.com, to micromanage is “to manage or control with excessive attention to minor details.” Is this a bad thing? YES! Basically, it creates a workplace of dissatisfaction and distrust, and it keeps workers from doing their work.

In a professional environment, professionals are hired to complete tasks. They are typically hired because they have some knowledge or expertise in the subject at hand. Why then, I wonder, would a manager get in the way of professionals working their profession? I’m sure that in their mind there is some valid reasoning, but I propose another explanation: Ignorance.

They just don’t know any better and they don’t know how to be good managers. Good managers let their professional employess perform their profession. Good managers do not micromanage every little detail of a project, then change their mind and micromanage the changes. Micromanagement shows a lack of management and leadership skills.

I bet you’re wondering why I sound so passionate about this, aren’t you? Well, I still have a day job and my boss does nothing but micromanage. That’s what he spends his days doing, and gets little else done. Sometimes I wonder why he ever asks anyone’s opinion, if he’s already got his own ideas, and plans on micromanaging these ideas into existence. Ideas aren’t bad, really, but he has no clue what he’s talking about. He tries to control every little detail of something he is not qualified to control. I wonder why he bothers hiring professionals if he is not going to listen to their ideas, born from years of experience.

We just had an episode a few minutes ago, and I came away from that with a supreme lack of confidence in my boss’ ability to lead his company. I’m not even confident that he can keep it out of bankruptcy. However, there is a positive aspect to this otherwise degrading experience: I have another instance of “what not to do” when managing people.

It’s kind of funny, actually. Of all the professional management training I have recieved through either corporate training programs or paid-for education, the most valuable lessons I have learned come from incompetent managers. So keep an eye out for those types. You could learn a lot from them.

I’m getting ready to do my corporate taxes now. I’ve never done it before and I wonder just how different the experience will be from filing personal taxes. I suppose I’ll have to pay the taxes instead of getting some back, but beyond that I don’t know. This is a new experience for me.

I’ve been keeping decent records, and have kept all relevant paperwork, regardless of how insignificant it might seem. Who knows? Something insignificant might come in handy.

Since I barely made any money, and don’t have any complex deductions or depreciations, I think I’ll just use the online Turbo Tax product for small corporations. It looks like it will work and be cheaper than going to an actual accountant. So, I’ve got to do that for the Federal and the State taxes, and I also have to pay a franchise fee to the State. I’m not really sure what that’s about, to be honest. I knew about it, but didn’t know if it applied to every company or under what conditions the tax would become due.

It looks like it’s for everyone across the board, and is calculated as a percentage of gross income or something. I only remember that if that percentage amount is below $150, I still have to pay $150. For a company as small as mine, that’s a lot.

OK, I may be able to quit my day job and work from home full time. I’ve got a pretty steady client that would like for me to dedicate more time to her sites. If we can negotiate a decent rate, I’ll do it. I’m just worried that she won’t be able to afford some type of regular pay schedule for me. Maybe she can, maybe she can’t. I’m willing to give her a chance.

If I can work at home, I will save so much money and so much stress. I figure that I won’t have to fork over $300 a month for gas, and $200 per month for a babysitter. That’s a house payment right there!

Now, I know what you’re thinking…how will I be able to get any work done if I have some baby at the house running amok? Well, I can do it. My toddler is nearly two years old, and she’s got her own interests. I can set my laptop up in the living room, with her drawing in the middle of the floor, or playing with her building blocks, or whatever. I wouldn’t be the first parent to run a business while raising a child.

Not only will I save myself $500 a month, but the money that does come in will be to my company. That means that I’ll be able to use it in the most tax-advantaged manner, instead of letting the government “take their share” before I even see it. Seriously, it’s my money, why should I not get a say in how it gets utilized? I’ll have to employ myself officially, because I will need a paycheck to pay the bills, but I’ll use the money as efficiently as possible.

I’m looking forward to the experience.

SEO is an acronym meaning Search Engine Optimization. Simply put, it entails all efforts to move your site up on the major search engine results. Doing this is no easy task. Search engines actively work to counter SEO efforts, so that their search results are as natural and representative as they can be.

How does the small business owner improve his or her site rankings in the search engines without overdoing it and being penalized? There are a few simple steps you can take to get some decent search engine results. I’ll try to keep the geekspeak down to a minimum.

The first thing you want to do is make sure you have good meta tags for each of your web pages. If you open up the source for your web pages in a text editor, or web editor like Dreamweaver, you should see two tags up at the top which contain the phrases “meta description” and “meta keywords”. These two tags describe your site for the search engine spiders. In the description, put a short sentence or two describing your site. For the keywords, less is better than overdoing it, so shoot for around ten site-relevant keywords, separated by commas.

Once that is done, take a look at your site URL in the address bar of your browser. If it looks something like this, www.yoursite.com/1/xy/9-0/file.html, then you might want to rework your directory structure (or folder structure, depending on terminology). Putting site-relevant keywords in your URL will help with your search engine rankings. Especially if your addresses look like my cryptic example above.

Here’s what I’m talking about: www.yoursite.com/dogs/bulldog-article.html. If someone does a search for articles on bulldogs, you’ve got a much better chance of being seen with such a descriptive URL.

Next would be to make sure you have relevant search keywords contained in the text of your site. That means that you should use some plain text (styled as you like of course) to describe the contents of your site. Search engines like good copy, and they can only tell that an image is an image, so writing out your copy with text would be the way to go.

Something that will hurt you in your SEO efforts is irrelevant keywords, such as popular search terms that have nothing to do with the content of your site. In addition to that, don’t submit all of your site pages to the search eniges, especially using some automated software. Don’t worry, the search engines will find it. Submit your base URL (www.yoursite.com) to Google, Yahoo, and MSN, and then leave them alone.

I say leave them alone, but there’s really one more thing you should do. Sign up with Google to use their webmaster tools. Then, get a sitemap of your site, tell Google about all of it, and sit back and watch your rankings improve.

Something to keep in mind is that keeping your rankings up is a never-ending battle. Don’t sit back for too long. Someone is always going to be better than you, so don’t be surprised if some site jumps ahead of yours or dethrones you from the number one position, should you attain it. Just knock them off and get back up there.

The main thing to remember is that you need to create your site for the users, not for some lifeless search engine spider. Create a site that people like, and they will link to it, return often, and your rankings will rise.

Got a story about starting or running your own business? Just contact me with the article in the body, and I’ll see if it’s a fit for this site. I don’t have the funding to pay for it, but I will credit it as being yours, and won’t ask for any copyright or anything. Just send it to me, I may publish it, and you’ll get some exposure (great for new writers).

By the way, the link above goes to the contact form on my design site, so don’t worry if it looks different.

Well, my freelance venture has begun. Maybe I should say adventure instead. This is really uncharted territory for me. I can do the job, but getting freelance work–really selling myself and getting some cashflow–is something I’ll have to learn.

I’ll be doing freelance web design, in all sorts of flavors. I’ve got a little starter site up right now. It’s not yet much, but you can take a look at it here.

My goal is to do this fulltime, leaving my ”regular job” for those interested in such things. I would rather work for myself, save the commute, and have the benefits of running a business. Getting there is the challenge.

How am I going to drum up enough business to allow me to quit my job and work for myself full time? Here’s my plan right now: Get my freelance site indexed by the major search engines, buy Google ads, and start bidding on jobs I find on various freelance job boards like getafreelancer.com, guru.com, and such.

This is where I’m at and where I’m going. I’m hoping to be free of my employment shackles by this summer, but I have a feeling that the seasons will change rapidly for me this year. We’ll just see how it goes.

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. Well, I’ve been busy getting my business going, and working, and relaxing with my family. So, there really hasn’t been much time to write.

I’m having to pull out of something that helped me out in the beginning but is now just being a drain on my bank account. My store, BDR Gear, drop ships products. I have no inventory at the office–I call it inventory management.

Anyway, I have two distributors, and one has a plethora of products. Their system works most of the time and their prices are acceptable. The only problem is that it costs forty bucks a month. It’s just not worth the investment to me. So, I’m cancelling my membership.

I believe that it’s smart to know when to quit. If something is not working, why keep pumping money into it? My other supplier has great gear, good prices, and ships really fast, so I’ll focus all of my store on their products. I’ll have to make some adjustments to my store, but I think this will work out better in the long run. Lesson learned.

Well, I turned Google AdWords back on a couple of days ago. It was pretty obvious that my traffic was down. I unpaused my ad campaigns and the traffic began to flow. My numbers were back up within hours. So my little experiment, though not really scientific, gave me some good data. I’ll keep the ads running.

Well, I’m conducting a little marketing experiment over the next few days. I’ve paused my Google AdWords advertising to see what kind of effect that has on my traffic. I think I’ll keep it paused for three days and see what happens, then go from there.

Yeah, I know that three days isn’t exactly a scientific experiment, but it will give me an idea of the traffic consequences. When I first started using AdWords, I noticed a large jump in my unique visitor counts. Since I started, however, I have made some positive changes to my organic search efforts, and have had some good results from that.

Basically, I just want to see what happens. I don’t spend a lot on AdWords right now, and I want to know how much of an effect my miniscule advertising budget is having on my site traffic.

So, I’ve got a new theme installed to see if I can fix the Mac viewing issues I wrote about in the post immediately preceeding this one. I’ve got a Mac right next to me, but there’s stuff sitting on it and I don’t want to move it right now. I’ll do some configuration of this theme before I look at it on my little iBook of yesteryear.

I just noticed that this site does not display correctly on a Mac. Well, it’s the WordPress template, to be precise. Still, it would be nice if it displayed as I mean it to. It’s screwed up in both Safari and Firefox. I’m going to have to fix it, and that may entail a completely new look. We’ll see. Don’t be surprised if this site looks very different in the next couple of weeks.

I know I haven’t posted in a while, but there’s a good reason for that. I’ve been really busy improving the content of my store. I got a new dealer account, so the range of products I have to offer is growing by a factor of 2 (estimation).

Doubling the size of my catalog is no easy task, and I’m far from done. In addition to that, I’ve got all of my regular activities to take care of: Processing orders, advertising, checking traffic and its source, bookkeeping, and strategic planning. My days are full.

But…I still need to make time to write. Writing all of this stuff down will not only aid my efforts to make a better business, but it may help some intrepid web surfer looking to start his or her own business. Learn from the mistakes of those who went before you. And that would be me, by the way…the guy making all the mistakes.

Whatever you call this season, it all boils down to one thing: presents. Well, I know that there’s more to it than that and the meaning runs deeper, but this is what we see all around us. The Christmas rush…everyone trying to buy as much as possible for as many people as possible.

So, in step with the season, I’m increasing all of my efforts. Not only am I running a bunch of sales experiments on eBay, I’m also more actively advertising my online shop as well as increasing the size of its catalog. I’m hoping to have a decent sales season. Though, since I’m new to this, I’m not really sure what to expect. I guess I’ll find out.

Sales aren’t going so well right now. But, I’m not going to let that get me down. I’ve still got a lot to learn about a great many things. I’ve also got some improvements to make to my store. I’ve made so much progress that I’m satisified with what I’ve done.

I’m just not too satisfied with how much money I’m making right now. I could be doing better. But…I think this will push me to improve and learn.

Well, it’s not really paying off yet. But, I’m getting a lot more traffic. More than I thought I was going to get, actually. My budget is quite low, but I’m still getting some good, qualified leads.

Now that the ball is rolling, I’m thinking of ways to improve my click-through rate. Basically, I’ll need better-worded ads and also a budget increase. I’ll increase the budget after I make a couple of sales (generated from the ad leads). I’ll keep the status quo for a couple more weeks and see how it goes. According to Jay Levinson, author of Guerrilla Marketing, one must be patient with marketing efforts and not give up on them too soon.

I’m a patient guy.

The advertising has begun. Since I’m an internet business exclusively, I thought it was only logical to start out with the most well-known and probably most widely-used advertising arena, Google Adwords. I just started two little advertising campaigns last night, so we’ll see how it goes.

Though my budget is limited, I’m going to  experiment with other online advertising sources as well. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Oh boy is this difficult. That place is quite competitive, and it is hard breaking into that market. Sure, my sales copy is not the best in the world, but I’m getting better. I think it’s my images that are killing me.

Since I started my business, I have attempted to sell a few items on eBay approximately 15 times, maybe 20. I have failed to sell each time. At first it surprised me, since I had sold personal items without difficulty in the past. I have read articles, purchased and read complete books, and still nothing. My timing is good and my products are quality items. But my sales copy is written at my level (novice copywriter), and my images are horrible.

For some reason, eBay’s image resizing software doesn’t like my image size. Their thumbnails are fuzzy and the products end up with jagged edges. Sure, the full-size image looks clear, but who’s going to scroll down that far if they see a poor presentation at the top?

Pictures, pictures, pictures! I’ve gotta get a better camera. I know pictures are not my only weakness, but they are my most glaring. I’ll fix those first…when I can afford a new camera.

Sometimes I have to remind myself to keep focused on my goal. It’s not so much that I fear losing focus of my goal, it’s more a case of everything getting in the way.

Here’s the story. I work full time, commute two to three hours each weekday (depending on traffic), buy groceries, cook for the family, manage the household finances, and run a business. My days are pretty full.

The thing is, I can’t really skip out on anything right now. If I let my wife do the shopping and cooking, everyone will have little fudge snacks and soda every day for most meals. Not exactly healthy. So here I am juggling everything, and it’s easy to slack off for a day.

I could tell myself that there’s plenty of time, and I can get the work done tomorrow. Well, I don’t tell myself that because there simply isn’t enough time. I feel like I’m cutting corners already. There’s so much work to be done building this business, so I can’t slack off there. I can’t slack off in my family life either, because family is number one.

Sometimes it’s hard, but the goal must always remain in focus. Focus helps us humans acheive great things. And great things I shall accomplish.

As you, my faithful readers, already know, I have an online store. Making this thing appeal to search engines has been quite a chore. And I’m far from done. Well, to be honest, I’ll probably never be finished. Search engine optimization is an ever-changing beast. What worked last year may not work this year.

I’ve learned a lot, but I have much to learn. I would still place myself at the novice skill level regarding SEO. Even still, I haven’t had my novice-level implementations tested because my site hasn’t been crawled by the top three search engines since I made the changes. I’m hoping there will be some positive effects.

I’ve been behind on my paperwork, and I got a little notice from the state Department of Finance Administration. I’m not in any trouble–they were just telling me that I needed to file my paperwork, or I would have to pay extra taxes. A late fee, actually. I guess that would be the paperwork laziness tax.

Well, I got it all done this evening, but the situation did bring an issue to light: Paperwork needs to be done regularly. I have read that many new businesses are horrible about their paperwork. I suppose that is because they are new to it and don’t yet have a system in place. I encourage you to get a system into place if you don’t already have one.

Thankfully, I didn’t have very much paperwork. If I did have a lot of paperwork, however, it would have taken up quite a bit of my time. I don’t like things taking up my time. In addition to that, more paperwork means more of a chance for mistakes. From now on, I’m going to keep on top of my paperwork. I just have to devise a system.

Writing sales copy for the products I sell has been something that has just slipped away from me. I guess it’s because I really don’t respond to sales copy or sales persons very well. I really don’t care what they say, or what is written, unless it answers a direct question of mine. The features of a product are enough for me. After all, that’s what will get the job done, not some foofy dream about how something will help me win back more time each day.

Still, I’ve got to revamp my entire sales angle because I’m not moving enough product. I sell quality products, but I don’t really sell them, so people who do not think like me don’t get interested in what I have to offer. If you want to see what I mean, head over to my store and read a bunch of the product descriptions (they’ll only be up for a couple more days, as I am currently rewriting them). They’re not that good. Of course, feel free to purchase several items–the holidays are right around the corner (shameless self-plug).

Selling benefits is something that is not easy for me, since I’ve really got to work my brain to come up with some good sales copy. And I can’t hire anyone to do it either, since I’m not selling enough to afford it. It’s all on me! We’ll see how it turns out.

I’m having to be quite creative with my marketing efforts. I have a very, very small advertising budget, amounting to an average of $10 a month. Now, I do realize that if I put more money into my marketing efforts, I’ll be able to do more and thus reach more people and convert those people into customers. But, my budget is so tight right now, that I really can’t afford to do more. When I start making more money, the marketing budget will be the first to grow.

For now, I’m networking and blogging to get exposure. I also use business cards creatively–they are basically discount coupons for my website. I’ve also begun to dabble in online classified advertising, but so far haven’t had much of response. Though, it’s still too early to tell if it’s effective or not. I’m going to put some ads in the back of topically-related magazines, and set up a budget to use Google Adwords. There are some other content-relevant text ad systems that I can look into as well.

Basically, I’ve got to be really careful with my marketing, becuase I don’t have much money to spend on it. However, this doesn’t worry me because I’ll learn a lot about marketing and writing effective copy.

I don’t have a typical business plan. I’m not saying that I have no plan, just that my plan is not going to be found in the standard format, and doesn’t really contain the numbers and projections typical of a cookie-cutter business plan. I’m not advocating that you do what I have done, but I am going to tell you that you need not box yourself into some textbook methodology of document creation.

I planned, and I planned a lot. I wrote pages of thoughts, plans, and potential monetary stages. I wrote about how I wanted the business to grow, and what directions I wanted to head. I wrote no real marketing plan, just general thoughts and a general direction. Why did I do that? Isn’t marketing important? Yes, it’s very important, but I already knew that I would have no real advertising budget, and no real method of raising money, so I saw no need to work that into a document.

Now, I know that some of you will say that if I had only planned it, I might have been able to raise the money or get a loan. Yeah, right. A bank loan me money? No, no, that won’t be happening for a while. Four words: College credit card trap. Yeah, I fell for it. Oh well, I had no money sense back then. Still, I’m not yet ready to approach a bank. Besides, I need to learn how to do this on my own, starting with nothing. I’ll learn more that way.

My business plan contained some of the standard business plan information, but none of it was in the standard format. And it’s a better document because of that. I have heard or read the following so many times, “You have to have a business plan or you are going to fail.” Or, “Without a plan and direction, how will you know where to go or what to do next?” Those are, of course, paraphrases and mashing together of all that I have heard over the years. I found them quite restrictive and closed minded. Well, there are more ways to create a plan, and I chose to do it in a way that worked better for me.

When working on your business plan, which you need to have in one form or another, keep in mind that what works great for someone else may be a complete waste of time for you. What you need to consider at this stage of your business planning is what works best for your business and your mind. If your mind works on Track A and your business plan is written on Track B, what good is it going to do? Will you even read it after you write it?

Plan your business and your direction. Just do it in a way that you can easily understand and adapt to whatever comes your way.

So, about this job I’ve got…No, I’m not selling out my plans of being free as an independent business owner and investor. I’m just paying the bills while I move to that point in my life.

This job will be good for me. It’s a small company in a growth phase, getting ready to lay out some new stuff for the world to see. I work directly with the company president on many things, and what I do has a measurable impact on the company. Not only will I get hands-on experience with life in a successful small business, but I will make a difference in that company. I am confident that I’ll learn a lot while there, so I’m glad to make the drive into work each day.

I’ve got to cut this a little short because I’ve got to cook for my starving children!

Anyone wondering why there have been no updates for nearly a week? Well, I got a regular, 9-to-5-type job that involves a commute and so on. Soon I’ll explain what this all means and how this job fits into my master plan. Maybe I’ll write about it tomorrow. Maybe I will write about it on a day other than tomorrow…

I’d like to say that my college experience was just like everyone else’s, but I doubt that’s the case. I think I was one of the select few that went to college just to go to college, having no real direction or desire to do anything.

I went with a specific goal in mind, but I did not want to work, so I failed my hard classes and changed my major to something less hard: Officially Undecided. I started out majoring in computer science, but after dropping the first class due to failing every test and assignment, I figured that my brain just wasn’t wired for that kind of thinking. The truth, as I see it now, is that I wasn’t ready to do the work required to be successful in that field.

So I went on a path, wandering around the various colleges at my university. I moved from computer science to undecided. From there I moved to study psychology. I stuck to that one for a year and really liked it. However, I didn’t want to go to grad school. In psychology, there aren’t many job opportunities for those with only bachelor’s degrees.

I made a somewhat lateral move and changed my major to criminal justice. I stuck with this one for a while–maybe two years. Though, I was a horrible student. I got Ds for my first three classes before I realized I wouldn’t graduate with those kinds of grades. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Maybe I just didn’t care. It was the wrong time to be in school for me,  but I was there, so I kept on taking classes.

After some time, I finally tried programming again and figured out that I could do it. I guess my brain matured enough to think like a programmer, so I was successful. I changed my major, yet again, to computer science and pushed forward. I was still pretty lazy about school work, but at least I put forth enough effort to pass.

After seven and a half years, I graduated with BA in computer science, accompanied by a minor in criminal justice. My GPA was barely good enough to get out of there. As a result, the job offers flew to everyone else. Well, not everyone. At that time, the tech job market had really cooled off. I guess stock market bubble bursting can do that.

Even though I graduated, I was totally unprepared for life after college. Sure, I had been working full time while going to school, but heading into a career changed everything. I was so excited to get a high-paying job doing really cool programming with state-of-the-art systems. Then reality happened and no one hired me for a while…almost a year.

My first experience at a corporate-level programming position ruined everything for me. It was so horrible that I have flashbacks of that cubilce, sleepwalking through the day while repairing aging software systems.

I spent a long time looking for another job, but I found nothing. They were all the same to me: Cold, inhuman, and wrong. I decided that I did not belong in that world, and decided to strike out on my own. More on that later.

I don’t know if I’ve got a typical work history or not. When I talk to others about what they have done in life and where they have worked, their story differs from mine. Maybe I just went about it a different way…

I did not work at all during high school, and that includes summer jobs. Sure, I did some things here and there for money, but was officially unemployed until I was 18 and out of high school. Surprisingly, I had a tough time finding a job in the fast food industry since I had no work experience. Can someone please tell me what experience is relevant to flipping burgers or pushing buttons on a cash register? Counting? Showing up to work? I was surprised how long it took to find a job in that industry. When I finally did, I landed a delivery boy job for Round Table Pizza, a west coast pizza chain with some really good pizza.

I worked there for three months before quitting without notice. I was bored with it. My departure was evidently a surprise to everyone there. Apparently, it was common practice to give an employer two week’s notice before leaving a job. You learn something new every day. Either no one thought to tell me that, or I wasn’t listening. Both options are equally plausible.

Did I tell you that I was running a business and teaching school at the same time? Well, not exactly the same time, but there was some overlap. I was at that time self employed as a certified personal fitness trainer, which assisted in landing me a teaching job at a private school. I suppose California law allowed for private schools to hire whomever they wanted.

I guess I met some minimal requirements, because I got the job. On my father’s advice, I had written a proposal to the school board, asking them to hire me and purchase some fitness equipment so I could teach general weight lifting and fitness to the 7 – 10 grade (the school was K – 12) students. I was awarded the position and paid in what amounted to slightly salted peanuts in cash form. I taught the whole year, and it was really, really bad. I was 18 and just out of school, so I guess that’s my excuse.

After that year, it was off to college! In my next post, I’ll tell you readers a bit about that experience, since it’s relevant to my flight from the cubicle life and into the real world. Following that, it’s on to my work-wandering, where the real root of this quest is found.

I must say that I’m quite pleased with Avery and a recent product of theirs.

You see, I went to Staples with a very simple MS Publisher standard TEMPLATE to make some business cards. I was ready to give in on some of the coloring options (like make the artistic brackets the same color, as opposed to the current black on the left and gold on the right). I could go with all black, or even drop the brackets all together.

Before you accuse me of printing ignorance, let me say that I do understand that professional printing is very different from desktop publishing. However, what I was told wasn’t exactly acceptable.

Here’s a paraphrase: Hmmm. The best I could do is 4 colors for $115 (1000 cards), but we don’t have that shade of green, or the gold, and they won’t do the fade [a simple gradient that my 8 year old kid can replicate].

The result: I left and went to Wal-Mart. I picked up another color ink cartridge for my printer, and then headed over to the printer paper section and found my saving grace. Avery now puts out a thicker weight business card sheet, with NO PERFORATIONS. Anyway, I just printed a test page, and only a trained eye could tell the difference between my cards and the “economy” cards from a professional printer.

The card sheets are #28877. Head over to Avery or to your local office supply store and check them out. For those of us on a very tight budget, being able to print some quality business cards on demand is a nice strategic advantage.

Disclaimer: These cards may not be new, but they’re new to me. I also won’t be held responsible if you buy the product and then print extraordinarily ugly cards.