Home Business Blog

Networking events and face to face interaction are awesome in my opinion. It let’s you actually meet the people you usually deal with online and meet many more people as well.

If you’re a somewhat outgoing individual it’s very easy to meet many many like minded individuals at one of these events. Sadly just meeting the people and chatting isn’t all you need to do. Once you’ve gotten home with 150-500 business cards your work has basically “just begun”.

Many people send out notes the day after; I have nothing negative to say about this approach. It does show ambition, seriousness as well as dedication. The reason I don’t is a) I’m not that organized and b) I’d rather let the dust settle for a bit. Right after any event everyone is sending the follow ups and it’s easy to start prioritizing while putting some on the back burner.  Why not wait a few weeks until all the “hype” has died down and they will have better time to read your follow up note and maybe action something from it?

I have about ~250 cards I need to get through. In order to do this I’m going to pick out (at random) 5-10 cards a day and over the course of the day just follow up with them. It will take a while to go through all of them but there is no big rush. If it was something URGENT and you had agreed upon it at the conference it would be taken care of. This is just a follow up to keep a contact you’ve made. After all if you took the time to meet, exchange ideas and cards it’s probably someone you don’t want to lose touch with correct?

When writing follow ups; make them as personalized as possible. I can TELL when I get a group email sent individually to me. If you genuinely have no clue who they are except for a card in your hand; send one slightly less personalized but definitely including their full name etc…

Long and short of it is; take your time and write quality follow ups.  Even if you don’t write quality follow ups just make sure you DO follow up. Sadly just meeting people and getting their cards isn’t the full process.

Do you have a mountain of cards?  Get on it now and start slow; before you realize it you’ll be done and your network will of grown considerably.

Wishing you all a great day; especially if you’re working from home!

Not making much money online? Want to know why?

The reason is simple it’s because you’re lazy and running your blog like a hobby you’re sorta into. Imagine if you ran a business with the dedication you currently put towards your blog? Chances are it would fail to be profitable as well. Sound familiar?

I have a newsflash for myself and everyone. Blogging is citizen journalism. Whatever niche you’re in you’re competing with journalists. People who are really into the topic and gain satisfaction in releasing the latest and greatest news from the industry or writing in depth pieces on topics of interest to that niche. That’s where the money is at in blogging; being at the forefront of journalism online in your niche.

Why do you think so many Make Money Online blogs go nowhere?

A) because the author doesn’t make any money themselves

B) The author gets his / her “stories” from other larger popular blogs and regurgitates them

C) The author is quasi committed to the blog; the occasional update coming at varied times and nothing really written in an authoritative manner. (Do you write in that manner when you don’t know what you’re talking about?)

Next let’s talk about Social Media. I’m sick of hearing about how it improves traffic / this / that. Yeah it does to some extent but it’s ultimately just an ego booster. So many people so happy with Stumble Upon traffic or something similar. I’d go as far as to say I’ve never EVER had a conversion from Stumble Upon. Twitter has brought in some decent visitors but if you factor in the time I’ve spent on twitter the conversion rates would be one heck of a good laugh if that had been the intended purpose. I use twitter because I like it; if you’re going to signup only to drive traffic to your blog / site. Better ways to use your time.

Look at your activities online; are you working or just doing your “thing”. What’s “Your Thing” you may ask? Well for some it’s checking sports, stats from websites that have made no sales, scrolling through forum posts to find?? what is that we’re looking to find?, reading bloggeries and following the links from one site to another, starting an idea getting a roadblock or seeing something else that looks good and then going after that abandoning the first plan, find something else repeat.

I’d go as far to say that MOST people online who aren’t making a dime have an incredible arsenal of online time wasters. Also traffic from most sources is just an ego stroker. Something to brag to other geeks about through instant messenger or on some forum where you’re trying to act cool.

So now assuming you did put some content together, built that small “Build a Niche Store” or whatever else… It’s time to promote!I think there are a few types of web users such as promoter, tinkerer and the helpless.

Promoter: The kinda guy who will start yelling from mountain tops to anyone who will listen about the new site they have that is still UNDER CONSTRUCTION. You’ll get visitors and a bounce rate that would make a sophomore on scholarship grin ear to ear. Nothing like a good score from 85%-95% when we’re talking bounce. Not.

Tinkerer: Flip it around to the other type of person who spends ridiculous amounts of time online, may have web related health conditions coming down the pipeline and still makes no money… This is the type of person who will spend an entire weekend redoing a theme to a site that has no audience. These people rarely launch ANY new projects because they are so busy working inside the project that it NEVER gets done because it’s NEVER perfect. These are the sites that you find that look professional but nobody has ever heard of them; heck how did you even find it? This person is the polar opposite of the promoter. If they could meet in the middle something might happen; sadly you’re usually one or the other.

Helpless: This is the web user who has convinced themselves that they can’t make money before they even try. Everything is overwhelming, they have no clue about any technologies so chances are most web talk sounds like latin to them. They need to take it slow but they just want to make money. If they have some money and drive they are a consultants jackpot. They’ll spend stupid amounts for someone to install wordpress at the click of a mouse or for some theme that they can’t edit. They either get conned by consultants or never get anywhere because they are suffering from information overload. SADLY these are usually the people with enough life experience on a topic to make a worthy site.

Who is Making Money with Blogs?: Most people making money online are NOT doing it through a blog. Every niche has their big boys who are pulling in the majority of the money for the niche. They have older, long established blogs and usually treat their online ventures like a business. Also they usually sell you something they made like an ebook or something. Typically they aren’t just making it off adsense or pay per post.

Who is Making Money Online?: A friend of mine was selling a large site on sitepoint and I brokered the deal. In the process I chatted with a few gents that had pretty hefty domain portfolios and had the pleasure of picking their brains. I learned from them which I guess I had already learned but never realized that content sites typically don’t pull in the bank. Content is good to get someone who is interested in your niche but it’s commerce sites that make $$$. People looking for content are typically doing just that; looking for free information. Where we got the crazy idea that we’d monetize all of it I’m not sure. Obviously some niches are easier for monetizing content traffic then others.

This is how I believe people are making money online:

1) PPC w/ Affiliates: They make an affiliate site geared to SELL; then advertise it with pay per click on major engines.

2) Affiliates w/ Article Marketing: Make an affiliate site geared to SELL; then write articles that are precursors to your items for sale. Let’s say you sell a cream that clears an embarrassing condition; you write an article about how embarrassing the condition is highlighting why it’s embarrassing; what others would think of it and at the end a link to your STORE. The point of the article should be to give them what they were searching for but also to buy NOW from you.

3) Advertising: This is where MOST think they will earn and sadly it’s the HARDEST to make a living from. There are probably a billion +++ sites online and the top 1,000-10,000 get 90%+ of the traffic I’d say.(kinda like the world gros income sadly) Most of us go to the same sites everyday and its the same sites that others go to. Building a massive hub if isn’t easy; neither is making a tone (000’s a month) from advertising. Part of the reason with advertising is if the advertiser doesn’t make money first month they cancel. Now if the advertiser running an affiliate add on your site keeps re-registering doesn’t it tell you that they are making more from the ad that you are charging so why don’t you stop charging for the ad and put your own affiliate banner up?

4) Consultants: Some are good, some are bad, some are selling snake oil. For the most part if these consultants are such pros why aren’t they busy doing it? Why aren’t they making passive income and living on a beach? When hiring consultants I’d say never hire someone who sells a dream. Hire someone who performs a service; the more defined the better. For instance if you need something coded hire a coder. Need someone to build your link portfolio? Hire an SEO with a track record etc… Need an article written about an obscure medical condition? Hire a Doctor who creates content. Just make sure you’re paying someone with a track record who is performing a service / delivering a product that will help you achieve your goal.

This has turned into quite the Monday morning rant hasn’t it? To sum this all up; if you’re building a blog treat it / run it like a business or you’re wasting your time unless you’re purely doing it for fun. I’m talking about making money online though. Start looking at your time spent online. If making money is your goal are you using your time well or are you simply just wasting it? Every hour you spend online is something you could of spent doing something else. Do you have people in your life that you don’t spend enough time with because you’re “working” towards nowhere?

Take a look at your computer habits; where your energy is going and what you’re getting from it. If making $$$ online is your goal; the majority of your time should be spent planning, researching, planning before you ever pick up a mouse to start building the first line of code. Treat it like a business and make a plan; not like a hobby that will miraculously start paying your bills. YOU’RE DREAMING! The computer is simply a tool that many of us treat as a hobby for it’s other functions. To put this in perspective imagine waking up every morning and running to fetch your hammer and hammering nails in everywhere but towards no end? Your loved ones will ask if you would like to hang out and you’ll say “I can’t I’m working”; are you? What’s the point. If you’re using the computer because you like it / enjoy it fine; do that but don’t fool yourself that WORKING on the computer and PLAYING on the computer are the same thing. They’re not.

You have to accept in life that not everything is easy. You have to accept in life that if you take the path of least resistance you’ll end up in the largest pool at the end with the least options. You have to realize and accept in life that anything worth doing takes effort.

It’s sad that so many people take the “effort” to go to work everyday but don’t go that extra 2% and make a lunch or cook a dinner. I mean if you buy a coffee or two a day, buy lunch out ~5-8$+ and then when you get home have nothing in the fridge because you were too lazy the night before so tonight you’re lazy and order in or go do pickup. Does this sound familiar?

I think many people go through phases in their life; one phase is that of the beaten down path to nowhere of least resistance. It’s so easy all you have to do is NOTHING and go for the ride. The sad part is this easy do nothing ride always has an abrupt ending usually saddling the voyager with financial stress, problems or even ruin.

Life is about being better everyday; it’s about putting your energy into productive things that make you money and having the mindset of preserving the funds you receive for your energy. Why waste your energy all day at work just to throw the output around like it’s abundant? We’re a society living with unlimited wants and scarce resources. Read that again if you hasn’t sunk in because it’s true.

Energy via physical or mental labor is all we really have on this planet to earn for us until we’ve gotten to a position where you hire others inputs or your own outputs have amounted to such a substantial sum of money that it will work for itself and you.

It’s been a while since I was studying Economics but I do remember that Labor + Capital are the only real inputs we have control over in our lives to create outputs. It’s funny how we can be too lazy to cook dinner yet immediately forget that the $ we spent on takeout was earned earlier that day via physical or mental labor that predominantly is not of our choosing. You can like your job but if you made substantial income or had enough capital chances are you would spend your time differently wouldn’t you?

Take the challenge today. Make today the start of the rest of your life. Make today worth it. Make today the first day that you get home and lie your head on the pillow and say I played the game of life the smart way.

We become bored and tired with life through working sometimes so it’s so easy to slip away and just waste the money you worked so hard to obtain. The powers at be WANT this to happen to some extent. Imagine if everyone had an empowered mental attitude / perception? Imagine a world where the majority of people managed their financial lives similar to a way that some of the largest corporations do; cutting costs and finding cheap sources for the products and services they need.

We’re lazy and that is the problem. We love conveniences and most of us waste our money day in day out then complain about how working life isn’t so hot or envy someone who has discipline. Statistically more people reasearch their products online then purchase them at a retail store. What the heck!? Why not try them on at retail store then order them online and wait a week… Did you go to the store naked? Of course you didn’t and chances are unless you’re leaving on a trip tomorrow you don’t need that consumer product that you just bought and paid not only the store owners rent, profit, fees etc…

I’m rambling now but you get the gist of what I’m saying. We’re our own sovereign society inside us. We can complain how the powers at be waste their money and spend aimlessly but why do we have to follow the same path of least resistance? Some of you may be doing a good job but I assure you; you could be doing better.

Ever wondered where your life would be if you became the person you are inside instead of just a mold of what other people around you are doing or who you’ve been led to believe you are through years of education destroying your ambition and training you to push paper in someone else’s dream?

Are you living your dream or are you just a cog in someone else’s. I’m working on an uber niche project which is going to be fun and hopefully profitable. I’m done taking the easy route.

Want a quick example of how these concepts affect everything in life from your finances, relationships, health you name it? Look at this blog I didn’t post for a few days; sure I was on business but I still could of made quick posts and I did spend time online. Looks what’s happened; about a week ago we had 240 subscribers; now it’s down to 197 of you loyal ones(thanks). In life everything is growing or wilting; sadly many of us go to work then throw it away so we’re just spinning our tires and wondering why we don’t have more.

Make today the best day you’ve ever had. No more tomorrow because remember that all you ever have now or ever will is the moment of NOW. If you don’t feel like doing X now you won’t feel like doing it in another “NOW” moment further down the road as you’ll probably also have the regret of if I had done this where would I be. Stop wondering.

Sorry to burst your bubble but moving forward and growing takes some work. You know when you’re in the path of least resistance and you know when you have that special edge working. When you lay your head on the pillow tonight I want you to say “wow; I moved forward today in many ways”. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m done taking the path of least resistance; it never did bring happiness and wealth and you know what; it never will.

It’s your day; your life; your destiny. Make it everything it can be because there are no second takes. Furthermore forget your past as there are no such thing as failures. Everything is a success as it’s a successive step towards who you want to be. Believe you me regardless of how bad you have it success breeds success and small steps quickly turn into giant leaps.

Have an awesome day and if you can relate to this leave a comment or subscribe to our feed or share this with the social media bookmarks below.