1. Does PR Rank actually matter to you? Why?
2. What PR are you expecting for your site?

I have great respect to the new voice behind John Cow.com now for helping me think and realize of better and bigger opportunities that I would have never thought of otherwise. Yes folks, I will be launching my online business next month. I will tell you more about it on my next post. It will be important because you will get to see WPTD’s direction from now on. Also, if you want to know the reason behind this move, you can check out my personal blog.

After filling out the registration form, I have also ordered the official WordCamp Philippines’ Shirt, which I hope to wear on the event. I chose the maroon color although I’d probably buy the blue one too! I also wish contribute all my WordPress Themes so that they can include it in the kit.

Here are the generous sponsors for this event:
- i.PH: the Domain for Individuals
- Free Online Flash Games
- Wazzup Manila Philippines
- Real Estate CRM
- Real Estate Website Designers
- Orange County Real Estate
- Auto Insurance Quotes
- Lane Systems Inc.
- RedMedia
- Orange County Business Lawyer

Surprise! Once again WPTD brings to you another exciting contest! Get a chance to win the trendiest gadget that has been rocking the blogging world - the Flip Mino Video Camera. This contest is graciously sponsored by the best Affiliate Network in the planet, Market Leverage.

How to Join:

Step 1: Subscribe to the Feed! *compulsory

Step 2: Blog About This Contest *compulsory

(a) Copy and Paste Contest Details >> click here for html code <<

(b) optional: add a paragraph or two containing any of the ff suggested topics: (1) why you think wpthemedesigner.com rocks! (2) why you think marketleverage.com is the best affiliate network in the planet (3) why you want to win this contest.

Use this image if you want on your post (feelfree to hotlink): 125, 550width, 450width, 400width, 300 width

Total: 10 points

Additional Points

Sign-up for Market Leverage under WPTD. If you have not joined Market Leverage yet, then joining this contest would be the most opportune time to do so. Besides, you get a higher chance of winning this contest. What could be better than that, huh? Click Here, you will be automatically redirected to the sign-up page. I will be able to verify it, so no worries.

Bonus: 5 points

Contest Prizes

1st Place - Flip Mino Video Camera
2nd place - $100 ML Reward
3rd place - $50 ML Reward

Contest Ends on August 17, 2008. Each point counts as your name being put down once in a randomizer using random.org

Goodluck!!

I have opened the discussion with the following questions:

1. What are the hardships you have encountered being an Online Entrepreneur?

2. If you could give an advice to Newbies who wishes to take the same route, what would it be?

So I took the time to ask some respected Bloggers that I admire myself. You see, they are all talking from experience and this could simply serve as a motivation to all of us most especially those who are just starting out.

Yaro Starak of Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

One of the hardest parts of being an online entrepreneur is being social outside of your business. When you are your own boss and you work at home, unless you create social activities and look for things to do outside of work, it can become a one-dimensional lifestyle. My advice for someone just getting started in Internet business is to find a balance between the work you do and the fun you have outside of work. Yes, working is fun too - but that can’t be all you do or you won’t have anyone to share your successes with.

John of JohnChow.com

The biggest hardship would b staying motivated in face of not seeing any return. When you’re working by yourself without the support system of a typical workplace it can be hard to stay focus on the task at hand. This is where taking time out to network with other like minded people can really come in handy. I belong to many local and Net based networking groups. It’s a great way to exchange idea, keep your focus and stay motivated.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net

There are many challenges to overcome including: Finding your voice, Finding a topic to write about, Developing a readership, Dealing with unexpected hits from outside factors (like being de-indexed by Google out of the blue), Personal attacks, Work life balance self doubt.. the list could go on but I’d depress you. Advice: Take a long term view - it doesn’t happen over night and takes a lot of work.

Chris Garrett of Chrisg.com

I think the main answer to this would be the lack of security. In a full time job you have, at the very least, the illusion of security. A steady pay cheque, nice package of benefits, all that. When you are any kind of solo entrepreneur you have to provide for yourself.

This is why my advice would be to not give up the day job until you have a safety net in place and have a good idea you will succeed in still being able to pay your bills.

The Noob of Bloggernoob.com

The hardest thing about trying to make money online is that you have no one telling you what to do. It would be a lot easier if someone would dictate things to you, especially when you get started. Being productive with your time in the early stages is the only way to success. If you are not productive, your site won’t get traffic or make any money. Most then likely you will quit. I think that’s the biggest problem with most bloggers. They quit.

My advice to newbies would be this. Give yourself enough time to test out the waters. Don’t expect to make thousands in your first week or month. Be realistic. Online business should be treated like a business. Most businesses don’t make a profit until months, even years. Why would it be different with an internet venture?

Paul of InspiredMoneyMaker.com

I can summarize the three main hardships I faced as:

(1) Truly connecting to what I loved to do. I am a “scanner” by nature so I love to learn a lot of different things instead of focusing on just one. Narrowing down my focus to stick to teaching one thing online took a lot of soul searching and help from my coaches. It took a while, but I finally realized that the passion I truly loved and wanted to pursue online was helping / teaching people how to make money doing what they love; and so I launched InspiredMoneyMaker.com.

(2) Funding. Building a business when you have a large reserve of cash is one thing, but trying to build an online business on a shoe-string budget can be challenging. I built InspiredMoneyMaker.com on a very small shoe-string budget. It’s been a challenge, but it’s helped me to get creative with my marketing and forced me to tap into other ways of promoting myself besides just buying advertising.

(3) Time Management. I run my InspiredMoneyMaker.com Blog totally part time in the evenings and on weekends, outside of my regular “job”. This required me to sacrifice certain things like playing video games, watching TV, going out with friends to focus my time on building an online business. So far it’s been well worth it, and I really enjoy the process. A lot of times I hear people say they have “no time” to build a business because they already work full time etc. yet when I ask them a few simple questions I find out that they somehow have plenty of time to watch endless hours of TV, sports, movies, go out and party, etc. In reality, they probably don’t “make time” because they haven’t figured out #1 yet – Who am I and how do I truly connect to what I love to do? If you don’t know what your passion is, you’ll distract yourself with “crap”.

Advice: If you can truly connect to what you love to do, find a way to creatively get around the “I have no money” issue, and the “I have no time” issue, you’re ahead of 99.99% of the people out there.Once you’re in that 0.01% to get to the point where you’re making money online, read my blog.

JohnCow.com

Two things come to mind as the biggest hardships
1. You can not please everyone
2. There is no magic tool

When you first start dealing with customers or even just subscribers, you are going to frustrate and plain and simply, piss off some people. Even though your intentions are 100% pure, someone will interpret it the wrong
way or just be in a bad mood and want to tear you apart. They will even threaten to blast your name all over the internet and the list goes on and on.

The bottom line is you can not make everyone happy and by focusing on the one or two people who are always miserable. You will not only run yourself down but you will also be ignoring the rest of your customers. I am not saying ignore the issues but do not take them personally and realize that some people will just never be happy.

The second thing is there is no magic tool that will take all your problems away. I used to struggle by always thinking there was some magic formula I must be missing or some tool others must be using that I still need. I would spend hours scouring the clickbank directory and opt in to every email list hoping to find it. What I did find was that I was wasting time searching for something that was not there and so I removed my name from all but a few lists (the ones that actually offered info) and then looked at what I had and how I could use that to make money. That was the biggest turning moment in my online career and was what helped me be able to quit my job and run my own business.

***

My sincerest gratitude to all of them for taking the time out to answer those questions. I know they have a zillion things to do and still they have imparted their advice and valuable knowledge. Thank You. - ChiQ Montes

***

Discussion: Which advice can you mostly identify with? What are your own struggles that you wish to overcome?

However, I must admit that it wasn’t an easy road to take. I remember being a hardworking member of mylot.com where I needed to make 500 posts just to get $10 from them. My Designs used to sell for only $25 per piece and was expected to create more than a dozen websites to get paid $250 on a monthly basis. After about a year, my earnings have improved exponentially and so have my working habits and attitude.

There is no room for complaining. If you know someone earning a minimum of 4 figures ($x,xxx) monthly, I’m sure they didn’t do it overnight. However, you do not need to repeat the same mistakes they made. Do take note and study the strategies that have worked for them.

What I am trying to say is that, if your blog is currently earning $10 per month then just hang in there. Don’t quit right away. Keep on publishing new content, run a fabulous contest to gain traffic, give away freebies to gain back links, learn basic html and continuously optimize your site.

Research for more ways to Earn Money Online and then apply them right away. Don’t get trapped with the dilemma of information overload only to end up not implementing things you’ve learned.

Experiment. Experiment a lot. Don’t pressure yourself to do things perfectly right away. Be open to the possibility that there could be ventures that might fail and yet that’s okay because you learn from it.

Over deliver. If you do freelancing then this is the perfect way to retain your clients and keep them coming back to you. When you make your clients happy they end up not having any qualms when you need to ask for their recommendation. You must know that word of mouth remains to be an effective Marketing Strategy.

Keep on Learning and Innovating. Make sure you are always thinking out of the box to meet the rapidly changing demands in your niche. As for my own experience, I always make it a point to be aware of my readers’ feedbacks. In fact, the comments you make on my themes are actually being considered for an upcoming theme that I release.

Most importantly, work smarter and not just harder. If you have five (5) income streams at the moment then it is only reasonable to focus more time and energy to projects that bring in more money and consider delegating or outsourcing other projects at hand.

Discussion:
I would like to open the comment area for discussion. What are the hardships you have encountered being an Online Entrepreneur? If you could give an advice to Newbies who wishes to take the same route, what would it be?

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