Create an Awesome Home Business

Freeloaders and Avoiding Responsibility

Martin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:30:50 +0000

Another excellent article from Nathan Hangen this week, with which I totally empathized.

It continues the theme I referred to here with the point that there’s a ‘freeloading’ mindset today.

Along with ‘freeloading’ I would add ‘responsibility avoidance’. And it’s not healthy.

I see it reflected in so many ways.

It’s the kind of mindset that the British Airways union leaders demonstrated before Christmas when they tried to organize a 12 day strike over the holiday period.

Had that strike gone ahead it could have done irreparable harm to BA’s financial health, quite possibly resulting in its going into liquidation.

Apparently the thought of their employer going into liquidation didn’t weigh too heavily on their minds – presumably because they had the safety net of social security.

No, the unions were concerned with their rights and making sure their members didn’t have to work too hard. ‘It isn’t right, Guvnor’. ‘We have our rights’.

What about the company’s responsibility to make a profit, provide a return for shareholders and financial income for its employees? What about the employees’ (and unions’) responsibilities in that scenario? And what about the employees’ responsibility to provide for their families?

Talk about getting priorities wrong!

Another example affected me directly a couple of years ago.

I was part of one of those direct sales business opportunities (that I’ve since learned to steer well clear of) and someone signed up through my link.

I did actually make money from that business, but I didn’t like the way things were done. Way too much hype and a focus on the wrong things, so I got out of it.

But it was possible to make money from it.

Anyway, this person signed up. They did it while I was asleep one night. They did it purely on the basis of reading my landing page and making a decision to get involved with the business.

It was entirely their decision, without any persuasion from me (I was asleep) or anyone else (as far as I’m aware).

And it didn’t work out for them.

So they processed a request through their bank that resulted in SafePay (another thing I steer well clear of) refunding their initial investment and all the subsequent monthly payments.

And they did this by simply removing that money from my account without any prior notification to me.

I was totally floored.

I was floored by the fact that SafePay were legally able to do something like that without prior notification to me, and I was floored by the person in question refusing to accept responsibility for their own decision.

I’ve always lived by the principle that if I make a decision it’s my decision, and I own responsibility for it.

Including if it turns out to be wrong.

Making a decision, for me, includes assessing the downside and deciding whether I’m prepared to accept that if it doesn’t work.

It does not involve me saying ‘it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work – someone else will pick up the tab’.

I think something’s wrong when a society has built in so many protections for people that they no longer accept responsibility for their own decisions.

And one of the fundamentals of succeeding in business is a willingess to make decisions and take full responsibility for them. However, they turn out.

OK – rant over!

Some Recommended Blogs for Internet Marketers

Martin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:33:31 +0000

I have a confession: because I’m building a new travel site I’ve not had time to research, plan and write my usual article for today.

So I’ve pulled together the top 5 blogs I follow on a daily basis.

These are the places to which I turn for inspiration and guidance. Some of them I’ve followed for a number of years, a couple of them only for the past few months.

But all of them are written, owned and managed by people I respect enormously for what they’ve achieved online. They’re all people who not only talk the talk, they walk the walk too.

Note that some of the links below are affiliate links. That means that if you sign up for something I’ll get a bit of beer money.

Here they are, then – the top 5 blogs I follow on a daily basis:

Firstly:

Brian Clark’s CopyBlogger. This is (if I remember correctly) the blog I’ve followed the longest. Initially I followed CopyBlogger because I needed to learn how to write for the web, but over the years it’s developed into a remarkable place to learn about content marketing.

In addition to their daily copywriting tips, Brian and co-editor Sonia Simone, plus selected cohorts, have released a number of top class educational products including Teaching Sells, the Remarkable Marketing Blueprint and, most recently, The Third Tribe.

Secondly:

Seth Godin’s Seth’s Blog. Another blog I’ve followed for a long time, Seth imparts short but unbelievably succinct messages each day focusing on Marketing, Business and Mindset.

Seth’s books include the Purple Cow, The Dip, All Marketers are Liars and 10 more. He’s also the founder of Squidoo.

Thirdly:

Nathan Hangen’s Nathan Hangen. I only discovered Nathan’s blog recently as a result of a guest post he did on CopyBlogger, but that post hooked me and I’ve followed him for a couple of months now.

Nathan is still in the Military but he’s been combining his duties in the forces with the development of the online business he’ll be starting full time once his term ends in a few more months.

Everything Nathan does is action focused – meaning he gets stuff done. One of the difficulties many face (including me) is converting plans and ideas into reality.

Everything Nathan writes about is practical and action focused – and he shames me into action whenever I’m in procrastination mode

Fourthly:

James Chartrand’s Men With Pens. Another blog focused on copywriting, it comes at it from a different angle from CopyBlogger because it focuses on off line writing (including novels) as well as writing for the web.

Articles come out 2 or 3 times a week and are packed with detail. I usually keep these articles on one side to read over the weekend because they’re longer and require (deserve) more time and focus than I usually have during my work week days.

Finally:

Darren Rowse’s Problogger. A practical blog focused specifically on the business of blogging.

A large portion of Darren’s articles describe his experiences as he develops and tries new things on his blogs (both Problogger and Digital Photography School). It’s like you’re watching over his shoulder as he grows his blogging businesses.

He’s incredibly open with information, often publishing traffic reports displaying the results of different techniques he’s tried.

Darren recently launched his 31 Days to Build a Better Blog course and work book, and the Problogger Community – a forum linked with his blog.

OK – those are the top 5 blogs I follow on a daily basis. If you have others you’d like to bring to our attention leave us a comment!

Crowdsourcing: An Interview With Connaxis

Martin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:09:58 +0000

I’ve set up a new category on this site for interviews.

I plan to do one (possibly more) each month with people who offer a service or have experience and knowledge that would be interesting and valuable if you’re running an online business.

These interviews are intended as a resource for you. There’s usually no financial gain for me, although occasionally I may refer to products or services for which I’m an affiliate.

In those cases I will make my affiliation very clear.

I mentioned in my disclosure that I do not do paid product reviews. I also will not do paid interviews.

So, kicking off the monthly interviews is Stephan Vassen of Connaxis.

Connaxis created and operates Guerra Creativa, a community platform specializing in crowdsourcing. This is an innovative and highly cost-effective way for entrepreneurs to outsource parts of their business.

They particularly focus on outsource services for Web Design, Graphic Design, Flash, 3D, Animations, Games and Video.

So if you’re considering outsourcing any part of your online business, or getting good cost-effective work done for the online component of your bricks and mortar business, this may be interesting:

Me:

First of all, Stephan, many thanks for giving up your time to talk to us (me and my readers!) about Connaxis and Crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing as a concept is certainly new to me and it may be new to many, so firstly – what is it?

Stephan:

Crowdsourcing is a new concept that belongs to the 2.0 Web phenomenon (or interactive Web), where the website content is not generated either by the company or the webmaster, but is a joint collaboration between users.

We can really take advantage of it due to the remarkable improvement that it offers to software development and any other online activity.

We won’t find a single professional or a group of people searching for new solutions anymore, instead of that we will have entire communities working on the development of a product. All of this has been possible thanks to the incredible growth of the internet.

Me:

Can you give us a bit of history on Connaxis? How you came up with the idea and what your plans for the future are?

Stephan:

Connaxis is a company specialized in creative outsourcing, in other words, creative services subcontracting.

Our services are related to web design, graphic design, Flash, 3D, animations, games and video. Our services quality is guaranteed by our Consulting, Programming, Internet Marketing and Support departments.

We are located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which is becoming the center of many global companies due to the highly qualified human resources and the abundance of creative dexterity available here.

We developed Guerra Creativa, a 2.0 platform that offers design solutions though the crowdsourcing process.

Thanks to its success, we are planning to extend Guerra Creativa’s services and functionalities to turn it into a reference website for all Hispanic designers.

Me:

What benefits does a small business owner get from using crowdsourcing as a way to get things done?

Stephan:

The fact that crowdsourcing is based on a community’s activity means that there are a huge variety of possible solutions to a single problem at our disposal, related to design, in Guerra Creativa’s case, or any other issue. This does not involve an additional cost.

Me:

What about the people who are the resources in a crowdsourcing model? Meaning the designers, in the case of Connaxis – what are the benefits to them of becoming involved in a project like this?

Stephan:

The main benefit for the designers involved is the opportunity to get freelance jobs, from their homes, without schedules and according to their availability.

Additional to this is the potential for establishing professional relationships with companies from all over the world. Many young people without work experience have the opportunity to show their talent and develop their work through Guerra Creativa.

It’s also used by professionals to show their services, thanks to the way the internet facilitates international communication.

Me:

How does it all work – meaning if a designer wanted to become involved with Connaxis how do they go about it? Are there any specific qualifications they need?

Stephan:

If a designer would like to be part of the community and participate in contests, they only have to sign up on Guerra Creativa’s webpage. There’s no specific requirement in order to do so.

They can start creating their personal portfolio and interacting with other members of the community right away.

Me:

And how would someone who wanted to get a design done go about it? What steps would they need to take, how much would it cost and how long would it take?

Stephan:

Everyone needing a design solution can launch a contest in Guerra Creativa.

In order to launch a contest the requirement is to complete a form describing the design task and the price they want to pay for the work. There is a commission of 6% to 10% on top of the prize money.

Once they launch the contest, with a minimum of 4 days duration and maximum 30 days, Guerra Creativa’s community will start to work on it submitting different design proposals.

The contest holder can see and rate all the designs, communicate with each designer to make suggestions, adjustments or to add features, just like the normal design process.

The difference is that instead of contracting one design studio, they have an army of designers at their disposal!

Me:

Thanks Stephan – and if someone wants to get in touch and set something up what’s the best way to do that?

Stephan:

Just visit the website. Everything’s set out there and it’s pretty easy to follow.

And if you have any questions just drop us a line through the ‘Contact’ page.

Me:

That’s great and, again, many thanks for your time!

Stephan:

You’re welcome – the pleasure’s all mine!

Look out for another interview soon!

If You Want to Make Money Online Sell Something

Martin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:01:59 +0000

A statement of the obvious? Not necessarily.

When I first started researching the idea of working online I found a gazillion sites offering me ‘foolproof’ systems that would ‘guarantee’ to have me earning thousands a week by this time next month.

And none of them involved a product.

Many (if not most) of the MLM or Direct Sales type businesses I’ve seen, some of which do have good products behind them, focus on signing up new members.

Not on the products.

Adsense is a popular way for people to monetize their sites but, again, no product. Plus, if you’re going to make money from Adsense you usually need to do a LOT of work for a paltry return.

And, as soon as Google changes it criteria, your income can be cut off. Overnight.

So what’s my point?

To have a sustainable, profitable online business you must build it around selling a real product or service.

The primary off-line businesses I can think of that built an income based on complicated, non-product related deals are the banks.

And look what happened to them 18 months ago.

Successful, sustainable off-line businesses sell good products that add value to people’s lives. And it’s no different online.

It doesn’t matter whether your product is an information product, software, a membership site or a service. As long as it adds value and meets a market need, you’ll have the basis for a good business.

How to get a product to sell?

Actually, getting hold of a product to base your business on is not that difficult.

Here are 4 ways:

Create your own.

If you’re a programmer or have specialist knowledge in anything, you can create a software application or an information product (an ebook describing how to do something) and distribute it online.

Sell someone else’s product.

Affiliate marketing is well established and a lot of people make a lot of money from it.

Places like Clickbank, Commission Junction and ShareASale are great places to find products to sell and they have very good support for affiliate marketers (particularly Commission Junction).

With affiliate marketing you’ll earn a commission from the product owner for each sale referred by you.

Buy the re-sale rights to someone else’s product.

In this model you get to keep all the revenue from each sale. The downside is that where people are selling re-sale rights the products, as they stand, are often not good enough for you to make a living off.

You need to edit and add your own value to them and, before you do that, you need to make sure the re-sale rights enable you to do so.

Sell yourself.

Set up and run a membership site focused on your skill area or simply sell yourself as a consultant

So pick an area you’re interested or expert in, and research your market. See what kind of questions people are asking and what kind of problems they have.

If you know how to fix their problems develop your own product to do so.

Otherwise, find a product that fixes their problems, via one of the other methods above, and build a business around it.

And, once you’re ready to build your business, this article on how to start an Internet Marketing business will be useful.

Money? Fame? Or Both?

Martin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 03:27:33 +0000

What do you really want for your blog?

If I’m to believe Johnny B Truant’s message it isn’t your first answer.

And I do believe him because, honestly, the answer I’ve given myself for a long time is not the real answer either.

I’ve spent months (years, actually) focused solely on building up traffic for my blog. So my answer to anyone asking me what my goal for my blog is would have been ‘traffic’, or ‘readers’. (And more of both).

But I’d have been wrong.

What I really want from my blog is an income.

And the light-bulb moment for me reading Johnny’s guest post on Problogger, was the realisation that I don’t necessarily need thousands of readers before I can earn money.

I do already earn a few pennies from here, mostly from my consulting gigs and promoting Thesis. It keeps the lights on, but I definitely want more.

Johnny sets out 5 principles that will help you to earn money from your blog when you don’t have a hernia-inducing mailing list or a mountain of readers.

So what do you really want from your blog?

If it’s money, his article is well worth a read – see it here.

Mistakes to Avoid When Launching a Website

Martin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:40:01 +0000

A couple of incidents recently reminded me of two important principles when it comes to launching websites:

Firstly: KISS

Secondly: GIOT

KISS stands for Keep It Short and Simple

GIOT stands for Get It Out There.

Despite my best efforts, the project I’m currently leading here in HK is in danger of failing because of KISS – or the lack of it.

Since the start of the project (a new eCommerce site, and the first for this company) the message to the Marketing team has been:

‘Come up with simple offers, that are easily understandable by visitors, will enable us to launch a bug-free site and which we can develop as we gain experience’.

All of which has been ignored.

As a result, the project timeline has been compressed as the developers attempt to meet increasingly complex requirements and the site, which is due to launch in about 10 days, is currently buggy and unreliable.

I do realise this is pretty usual with this kind of project. But that doesn’t lessen my frustration!

Keep It Short and Simple

It doesn’t matter whether you’re launching a mini-site to sell an eBook product, or a full fledged eCommerce site.

It has to work when you launch it. Flawlessly.

It doesn’t matter if the design is not quite right, or the copy could use some polishing. But it must be easy for customers to follow and it must work.

If it crashes, or if customers can’t understand your offer, or if whatever they need to do next is not clear, you’ll lose the sale.

Get It Out There

We set a very firm deadline for this site launch and we’ve adhered to it rigidly.

The reason is because it’s all too easy to keep tweaking, with the result that you never get anything launched at all.

With this project, we could already have added months to the launch date if we’d attempted to accommodate all the requests that have come up.

They’ve all been captured and an initial release schedule developed, but we haven’t moved the launch date.

And, again, that applies to any site – large or small.

Even if you’re launching a 4 page mini-site, keep it simple, make sure it works and get it out there.

Websites evolve over time – all mine do and I’m sure yours do too.

It’s only natural. New technologies become viable, design fashions change and we all update our sites to keep them contemporary.

So you’re never going to launch with the perfect site and you’re always going to be making changes.

So just keep it simple and get it out there.

You’ll have plenty of time after launch to refine it, and you’ll have the benefit of experience and user feedback to help you.

I Hate These People

Martin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 03:51:35 +0000

It’s such a shame that people like this can’t channel their skills into something worthwhile, instead of screwing up other people’s PC’s.

A friend called me on Saturday morning because his PC had caught a Virus. Could I help him sort it out, he wanted to know.

We met up just after lunch and I switched on his PC to be met by a typical warning sign in big red letters, telling me that his PC was infected and we had to download a specialist anti-spyware application.

No surprise there.

Then one of those Windows nag balloons opened up at the bottom right of his screen. It told me that Windows had discovered the PC was infected with the Worm.Win32.Netsky virus and it was going to download and install the latest anti-spyware application to clean it.

It was very well done, that one. Made me read it a second time. But, of course, Windows doesn’t have its own anti-spyware application.

Then a warning popped up telling me that the Windows Firewall had been disabled. That was a genuine warning – it had been.

So I tried to switch it back on and got a message telling me the application had been infected and, therefore, disabled.

Hmm – the first alarm bell sounded.

It got worse. I tried to access the Internet so I could install Malwarebytes – no luck. All network connections disabled.

So I ran a full scan of his PC with his antivirus application. It ran at roughly half the speed it normally does and found nothing.

Next I decided to grab the Malwarebytes set-up file off my PC (had to run home and get it) and install it on Robert’s PC from a USB Memory stick.

No luck there, either. A message popped up telling me I had to format the disk (which was rubbish because I’d been using it for months) and, when I tried to format it, got the application disabled message again.

My next thought was to get Malwarebytes onto his PC via Bluetooth – and you can probably guess the result.

So I went online with my PC and looked up the Worm.Win32.Netsky virus and pulled up an article on how to remove it manually.

Only to discover that there were no relevant files on Robert’s PC. It wasn’t Worm.Win32.Netsky at all, they’d sent us on a wild goose chase.

So the only thing left was to get the data off the PC and reformat the disk. A pain in the butt but it worked.

As much as I hate these people (and I do), I have to respect the thoroughness of the job they did. But what a shame they couldn’t channel their skills into something worthwhile.

And, in case you’re interested, Robert’s PC was infected by one of the UPS spam emails that have been floating around for a while. He’s recently ordered some stuff from the UK and was expecting delivery, so when he saw the UPS email he opened it.

And got zapped.

Moral of the story: install one of the top Internet Security applications (not just anti-virus), install Malwarebytes (that’s a brilliant application) and, if you’re going to open an email from someone you’ve not corresponded with before, check the email headers.

Make sure the ‘From’ and ‘Reply to’ email addresses look genuine when compared with the ‘From’ display name.

Why Do You Blog?

Martin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 07:04:25 +0000

Interesting article on Nathan Hangen’s blog this week: There’s More to Life Than Blogging.

In it he asks why you blog and suggests you should know the answer before you start.

It reminded me of the number of times I’ve seen this question (or something like it) on Twitter:

“I just started a new blog – what do you think I should blog about?”

I guarantee that people asking that question will not be blogging 3 months from now.

If you’re going to start a blog you need to know why you’re starting it. If you don’t, it won’t be a blog – it’ll be a passing fad.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s for fun, your personal enjoyment or for business. Make sure you know what it’s for.

Here’s my reason for blogging

I started this blog specifically to enable me to attract visitors from the widest range of sources possible, so that I could introduce products and services that I market.

To date it’s doing its job, which is good, but as I’ve become busier I’ve started to wrestle with another problem that Nathan touched on: scalability.

I have a limited amount of time each day that I can devote to earning money: 24 hours, less some time for sleeping, eating and all the other bits and bobs. Let’s call it 8.

And blogging is not a very efficient activity if I look at it purely in terms of the amount of time I’m hunched over the keyboard versus the money it brings in.

My consulting gigs, which are one of the streams of revenue that my blog brings me, are not efficient either, because all I’m doing is hiring myself out for an hourly rate.

It’s a 1:1 ratio, whereas what I really need is something that’s a 1:many ratio.

So my plan, for a while now, has been to develop and launch a membership site off the back of this blog.

The membership site has an enormous amount going for it as an online business model:

You get a regular monthly income from member’s subscriptions. Preferable (in my eyes) to the stop-start revenue streams you get from a product-launch model
The bigger it gets the more you’ll be able to get keen, enthusiastic members to help with things like moderation and content development. Plus experienced members will help new members – it happens in all membership sites, and when it does you’re starting to develop scalability
It’s a business you can constantly evolve to meet the changing needs of your members which, to me, is highly satisfying.

Blogging (as I’ve said before) is hard work. But having that end goal in mind is the reason why I push through the times when I just don’t feel like it.

It gives me the motivation and the kick up the butt I need to keep at it, when all I really want to do is go out and play.

So if you’re blogging for business what’s your end goal?

You need one, and you need to be sure it’s something that’s more scalable than simply blogging.

Let us know in a comment

Banned for Life

Martin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 11:44:06 +0000

You’ve been banned for life by Google. No recourse, no further discussion.

That was the opening message in an advertising pitch I saw recently for a book on Google Adwords.

And it annoyed the hell out of me.

It’s the kind of advertising that gives Internet Marketers a bad reputation, and yet it obviously works or people wouldn’t continue to use it.

But let’s look at reality.

Can Google ban you for life? You personally?

No. How could they enforce it?

They could terminate your Adwords account, but you could change ISP’s (to get a new IP address), change your hosting provider (another new IP address), get a new PC (to remove any tracks), open another account in a different name, with a different credit card, and you’re back in business.

You could even get a proxy if you wanted to.

And, at the end of the day, Google wants your money.

The way they deal with someone who doesn’t play by their rules is to give your campaigns such a low quality score that you’re paying 10’s of dollars a click.

The simple fact is Google can’t ban you for life because they could never enforce it.

And, even if they get all shirty and de-index your site, you can still go through the tons of information that’s available in Google Webmaster’s Tools to learn what they like.

Then you can fix up your site and ask for it to be re-indexed. As long as it meets the guidelines, you’ll be back in business.

So when you see advertising that’s based on scaremongering stop and think things through logically. And if you’re new to the game ask someone who’s been around for a bit.

I can almost guarantee that the claims being made will be wildly exaggerated.

Why Should Expertise Be Free Just Because It’s Online?

Martin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:27:49 +0000

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions.

I’m continually making resolutions to improve the way I do things, so what’s so different about January 1st?

But two articles recently caught my interest and, since it is January, they’ve provoked the closest thing I’ve come to a New Year’s resolution.

It’s about being paid for my expertise.

This article on Men With Pens and this article on CopyBlogger both question the ‘tradition’ and wisdom of free information online.

And, although I heartily agree with the sentiments of both articles, we who work online only have ourselves to blame.

We’ve created a rod for our own backs and it’s not going to be lifted any time soon.

The problem is that blogging started as a personal diary (free to set up and free to read) and steadily moved towards commercialism.

When people started monetising their blogs it produced quite a backlash. From what I’ve read, that is, because I wasn’t blogging at the time.

Then came social media – which was an even easier way for people to create online diaries and, in addition, to hook up with friends. And that was free too.

Bloggers and Internet Marketers soon cottoned on to the potential of promoting their products or services through the social media – but that produced an even more violent backlash (I was around for that one).

People were banned from Digg, not allowed to advertise on Stumbleupon and had their pages suspended from HubPages.

All those (and more) happened to me.

By the time Twitter came along marketers had cottoned on to the need to be super low key with any promotional activities they tried.

My own approach has been to monitor questions people are asking about WordPress. To write blog articles when I find a common question and direct people towards the articles when the question is repeated.

My blog articles are not promotional. They are all aimed at providing useful information to people.

But I’ve been slagged off a number of times on Twitter for doing exactly that (providing useful information) because they saw it as me promoting my article.

Somebody asked a while ago whether anyone knew any sources of educational WordPress themes.

Although I didn’t know specifically of educational themes, I do have an article on here with links to nearly 2,000 themes on different theme sites.

So I sent in a reply that said exactly that: No educational themes that I can point to directly, but there are links on here to nearly 2,000 themes and you may find something you like among them.

I received a barrage of abuse in reply. Telling me that I knew there were no educational themes in that article (err – yes, that’s what I said at the outset), that what I did was out of order and that I was just trying to get links to my page.

I wasn’t – but so what if I was?

What’s wrong with trying to let people know about my work? If they don’t like it they can leave at the click of a mouse.

This blog takes a lot of work, all of which I do myself. I enjoy it, so I’m not complaining about the work.

But the result of my work is to provide information that will help other people to improve their lives.

Just as I’m trying to improve mine.

The fact is, though, we’ve created this monster: the culture that everything online is free and anyone who dares to promote their work or charge for it is a charlatan.

So what can we do?

There are several things that I’ve resolved to do as part of this almost-resolution:

I’m going to continue to provide as much value as I can (for free) wherever I am online, be that the social networks or on this blog
I’m going to stop under-valuing the knowledge and expertise I’ve built up. Yes, I’ll provide as much value as I can, but after a certain point it will become chargeable
I will ignore the howls of protest when I point people to articles that contain useful information
I will set up a more regular routine of promoting good sources of information on my various sites. Yes – I will attempt to get more links to my pages

You see, we can’t beat this monster. We have to work round it.

That means that we have to continue to provide good quality, valuable information for free.

But we have to learn where to draw the line between free and chargeable.