Do you want to start an online business?

June 29, 2010 by JD · 6 Comments
Filed under: Business, Musings, Personal, Site Build It, Success and Failure 

I haven’t been posting to this blog nearly as much as I would like, and you may already know the reason. If you don’t, the short story is that I’m battling cancer and lots of days I don’t feel like doing much of anything. However, the good news is that I’m stronger than I was for the last six months and I believe I’m making progress every day. Hopefully, in the near future, I’ll be able to resume blogging on a regular basis.

I was thinking about the topic of having an online business earlier this morning.

For the last year, I haven’t really been able to do much work, but I continue to get enough income through past efforts to keep my various websites and communities moving along while I concentrate mostly on kicking this cancer’s butt. It really is true that I earn money in my sleep and on days when all I feel like doing is sitting on the porch and listening to the birds and watching the wind rustle the leaves on all the trees that surround my home.

Over the last ten years, I’ve earned a living through my marketing business, even though there have been lots of ups and downs.

It allowed me to work from home and care for my elderly mother for about seven years, and it has kept me afloat for the last couple of years as my health problems took over the majority of my attention.

On Thursday, July 1, I’ll turn 58 years old and I always contemplate what I want to do differently during the next year of my life as my birthday approaches.

Interestingly enough, I find that there isn’t much I want to change other than getting healthy, again. As soon as I’m strong enough and able to think straight, again, I want to resume my marketing business, doing pretty much what I’ve done for the last decade.

That’s pretty remarkable for me. I rarely go that long without becoming disinterested in what I’ve been doing and wanting to try something new.

I love living here in the mountains and working from home. I love it that hundreds of people view my websites every day and enough of them purchase from my recommendations that I still generate some income, even when I’m unable to work.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not generating a lot of income and the last few months I’ve been mostly breaking even, but that still keeps all my websites alive and prevents the loss of all the hard work I put in the last few years.

If I were able to really work on the sites as I did a few years ago, my income would be rising every month and I look forward to doing that again within the next year or so.

If I had been working on a job the last few years and got this sick, I think I would be quite a bit worse off than I am now.

I love being self-employed and I love earning revenue for work I did months or years ago.

What about you?

If something unexpected happened in your life, would you have anything helping you economically? Even if things are going great (and I hope they continue that way!), do you ever wonder what it would be like to work from home and do something you love every day?

I know hundreds of people who are doing just that. Most of them are doing a few similar things in terms of promoting their businesses, but almost all of them are doing something that is interesting to each of them. In other words, they’re not a bunch of lemmings trying to follow the herd and eek out a few dollars here and there. They’ve identified something about which they’re very interested, even passionate, and they’re working to build an online business around that topic (or those topics).

Some are approaching their online business from one direction and others are coming from a different direction, but they all share some common traits: intelligence, a vision of where they want to go, a plan on how to get there, motivation to accomplish what is important to them, the willingness to study and learn what they need to know, and an unflagging belief that they will succeed in reaching their goal, eventually.

That belief is very important.

Life almost never goes in straight lines. We have a series of highs and lows and often have to retrace our steps to find a new path to take us where we want to go when we encounter the detours that life throws at us.

Many years ago, Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich said, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

That has been my motto for almost 40 years, since I first read that book in my late teens.

I’ve proven to myself over and over that I can achieve what I want as long as I can clearly see it in my imagination, can develop a plan to achieve it, and then take action to accomplish each step in that plan.

In fact, I’m dealing with my cancer in the same way. I intend to kick this cancer’s butt and regain my health within the next year. I intend to resume working in my marketing business and doing the things I love.

What do you want to accomplish during the next year of your life?

Another of my mottoes is, “A year from now, I will be better than I am today.”

Sometimes I don’t achieve that goal, but, so far, I’ve always bounced back when life knocks me down a peg or two.

You can do the same thing.

I hear many of my friends and people with whom I come into contact say that they want their own business so they don’t have to commute to work and be subject to someone else’s dictates.

Yet, over and over, year in and year out, relatively few of them ever take the steps to achieve that goal. They don’t analyze what they want to do or make a plan on how to get there. They don’t identify the milestones and take the steps every day to reach those goals.

The next year, they are no closer to their goal than they were the last.

Does that describe you?

What steps have you taken in the last year to get you closer to what you want out of life?

Have you done all that you could to get there?

Why not?

What is stopping you from making your dream a reality?

Is it lack of money? That’s just an excuse. Lots of people with no money have worked hard and made their dreams real.

Is it lack of knowledge? That’s also an excuse. The entire world’s knowledge is available to you through your computer.

The same is true for just about any excuse you can throw up to explain why you are no closer to your goal than you were a year ago.

Do you really want to do what you think you do?

It’s a hard question to face. Perhaps you’re more interested in the fantasy than the reality.

Maybe you think that owning your own business and working from home is like living in paradise.

Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t.

When you own your own business, you, alone, are responsible for everything that gets done and everything that doesn’t. The hours can be longer than working a job, especially in the first few years of starting it. The pay can be less than working a job, but sometimes the lack of commuting, buying business clothing, eating lunch in a restaurant, and all the other expenses related to working for someone else can be reduced when you work at home so the resulting net loss may not be as much as you might think.

I’ve worked many long hours planning and building my online business and I’ve had successes and failures along the way.

Most of my income came through affiliate marketing and that was drastically reduced when North Carolina’s legislature passed new tax laws and some of the major businesses with which I was affiliated canceled my relationship to them. For example, for years I received income from Amazon.com for recommending products that I knew to be useful and a good value. When people would click on the link to the product and purchase it, I would earn a small commission.

When the tax law was passed, Amazon and others canceled these affiliate relations with me (and all their other affiliates in NC) and *poof* there went one of my major sources of income.

Did I quit?

No.

Did I wallow in self-pity?

Yes, I did, but only for a few days.

Then I turned my attention to developing a new plan for earning an income and it was working well until I became too sick to continue with it. But, I haven’t thrown out this plan, it’s still in place and I’ll pick it back up as soon as I can.

That’s one of the major reasons that I need to keep my existing websites online until the day I can resume marketing them.

I know people who are blind or deaf or handicapped in other ways who are still able to build a business and work at home. Some are making ends meet, others are supplementing their other incomes, and a few are doing very well and earning more than they ever earned working for someone else.

On the other hand, some people I know learned that being self-employed really wasn’t what they wanted to do. They found that they liked working at a job, despite some of the things they didn’t like about it. This helped them to understand what they really wanted from their lives and now they don’t waste as much time daydreaming about the “grass is greener” aspects of being self-employed.

Before I ramble on much longer, I want to come to the point of all this.

Having your own online business may be a very good thing for you, or it may be a disaster in the making. It all depends upon you. Can you identify what you want to do? Can you develop a plan to achieve it? Can you learn all the technical things you need to know to make it work? Can you avoid the distractions that abound when you look for ways to make money online? Are you self-directed and motivated to achieve something, even if the rewards may follow only after two or three years of hard work?

Can you work to build something for the future, or do you want your rewards right now?

It all depends upon you, and I can’t offer you any advice if you really don’t want to do what’s necessary to build your business. I don’t know any shortcuts that work, and the whole idea that it’s easy to make a fortune on the Internet is just a big lie some people tell you to get your money.

Ten years ago, I didn’t know who to listen to and who to avoid. I didn’t know what advice was sound and what was just thrown out there to separate me from my hard-earned money. I didn’t know who genuinely cared whether I did well and how to tell them apart from the sharks that are always circling the online marketing newbie.

So, I tested the teachings of lots of people. I spent money and time learning their techniques and following their advice. Most of those experiments were big fat flops. Only a few really proved to be worthwhile and one stood out head and shoulders above all the rest.

You’ve heard me say this many times before, but I’m going to say it again, Ken Evoy, founder of Sitesell, is the real deal. He cares for his customers and works very hard to help each of us build our individual businesses online.

He wrote best selling ebooks to help us build our online businesses and now he gives them away for free. For example, here’s where you can get a free copy of his best-selling ebook, Make Your Site Sell!

(If you collect ebooks and never read them or put into practice what you learn, then don’t bother downloading Make Your Site Sell!, because having it on your harddrive and not doing anything with it is a waste of your time.)

For the last few years, he’s concentrated on making Site Build It! the best system for building online businesses and tens of thousands of real people are following his guidelines and most of them are building successful businesses in niches they love.

Does everyone succeed with SBI? No. I don’t believe everyone succeeds using any set of tools, but more people do well when they follow his advice than they do following anyone else I know and I’ve been researching this topic for over ten years.

Of course, I don’t know everything, so there may be others out there, too, but I don’t know who they are.

So, as my next birthday quickly approaches, I’m happy to see that I don’t intend to do much differently in my business other than dropping a number of experiments that did not succeed (and which were not recommended by Ken Evoy, by the way).

I’m going to concentrate more on my SBI sites and much less on the others, including my blogs, like this one.

What am I going to do for my birthday?

I’m going to stay home and celebrate it in peace and quiet, and then the next day, I’m going 100 miles to have a liver biopsy and radio frequency ablation performed on the spot in my liver that may be a result of my colon cancer, and may not be.

I’m taking the next step in the process to regain my health, and that’s at the top of my to-do list this year. I intend to get healthier and stronger so I can continue to work from home.

What am I going to do for YOU for my birthday?

I’m going to tell you how you can download Ken’s ebooks for free (you don’t even have to give your email address). Yes, those books are a few years old, but the information and advice in them is still valuable.

Even better, I’m going to give you access to the SBI Action Guide.

This is the same guide we follow when we subscribe to SBI 2.0, and you can learn the same things we do. However, unless you subscribe to SBI 2.0, you don’t get all the tools, support, articles, tips, and help from the members-only forum.

You do get a step-by-step guide in what to do to identify your niche, compare it to others, choose the one that’s right for you, and information on how to research and build your business.

You don’t get access to the keyword brainstorming tool, the keyword database functions, nor the sitebuilding tools.

For one or two percent of the people reading this, the information you’ll get from reading the Action Guide and watching the video version of it will be enough for you to use any tools you want to build a successful business.

For a few more percent, you’ll be able to adapt what you learn and use something like WordPress to build a site. Before you invest the time and effort in doing this, have you read Sitesell’s page comparing blogging versus building a hierarchically-organized website?

The rest of you would be better off, deciding if this is something you really want to do, and if it is, then purchase an annual subscription to SBI and give yourself one year to start building the online business you dream of owning. Work on it some every day and you may be amazed at what you can accomplish in as little as a year from now.

Is it free?

Of course not.

Is it affordable?

Absolutely. An annual subscription to SBI costs $300 and that’s less than a dollar a day. Most of you waste more than that and don’t get any nearer your dream.

Is it the only way to succeed.

Of course, it is not.

Is it the way for you?

I don’t know. You’ll have to decide that for yourself.

I know that I’m a satisfied customer and host two sites using SBI. In a few minutes, after I publish this post, I’m going to renew my annual subscription to Murphy Gold so it will be ready for me to continue promoting select small businesses in Murphy, NC, a place I love living, as soon as I’m strong enough to do it.

I started Murphy Gold last year on my birthday after identifying a new direction I wanted to take following being canceled as an affiliate for Amazon and others.

If this cancer hadn’t interfered, I be much further along with the site, but I’ll get back to it as soon as we finish kicking this cancer’s butt to the curb.

It was my birthday gift to myself last year and will be my birthday gift to myself, again, this year.

As I said before, my birthday gift to you is access to the SBI Action Guide.

If you really want to do it yourself, and not make use of the tools that SBI offers, at least give yourself the advantage of the free Sitesell ebook downloads. Learn what you need to do, before you go searching for the tools to do it yourself.

I know I’d like to have back all those months I wasted trying other ways to build successful websites. My SBI sites may not be the prettiest, nor the flashiest, nor have the latest three-column designs, but they work. They attract thousands of visitors and they are easy to navigate. The only thing they lack is all the extra pages I have in my head and don’t have the energy to create right now, but that will be coming in the next few months as I continue to get stronger.

Now, it’s up to you.

Do you want to start an online business?

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-28

June 28, 2010 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Twitter 

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-21

June 21, 2010 by JD · Comments Off
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Do you need a job?

June 19, 2010 by JD · 2 Comments
Filed under: Business, Musings, Twitter 

I have been self-employed for most of my adult life. I like being in charge of what I do and responsible for what gets done, and what doesn’t.

During much of this time, I had a full- and/or part-time job, as well.

What can I say? I like working.

Over the years, I’ve talked to lots of people, both self-employed and folks with jobs. I find those who are self-employed are more in control of their lives and live under their own set of rules.

I’m like that.

If I want to take some time off in the afternoon and catch a movie matinee, I don’t have to ask an employer.

If I’m tired and want a nap, it’s okay.

If I want to play loud music and work all night, I can do it.

I really like being self-employed.

Yes, there are some down sides, too.

If something has to be done, I’m the one who has to do it, even if I don’t enjoy that particular task.

If something goes wrong, I can only look in the mirror and point a finger at myself.

The bills get paid first and if there’s any left over, then I get to spend some of it.

It’s hard to get and afford health insurance if you’re self-employed.

It can be harder to get a loan.

I think in a lot of ways, it’s a personality thing.

Some of us would chafe from living in the workforce harness all day for years on end. I just can’t imagine working in the same job, for the same company, for years or decades.

I admit it. I’m not the best employee in the world, and I like doing things my way.

I just don’t think I could ever work 20 years doing the same job, even with promotions. It’s just not how I’m wired.

There are some upsides to being self-employed.

I got to thinking about this when I saw a Sitesell tweet from Kevin that links to a blog post titled, “27 Reasons Why You Should Never Have a Job.”

I agree with most of those reasons and resonate with some of them.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-14

June 14, 2010 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Twitter 
  • Good morning, friends. It's been awhile since I've visited Twitter and I miss talking to you and reading what you are saying. All the best. #
  • Good morning! Cat got your tongue? ( or fingers! grin) #

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Finding the RSS feed for your Facebook status updates

June 11, 2010 by JD · 4 Comments
Filed under: RSS Feeds, Social Networking 

I use RSS feeds quite a bit to keep track of what I have said and to learn what my friends are saying on their blogs and social networking sites.

One thing has been bothering me and I just haven’t had enough energy to track it down and implement it until this morning.

In the left and right columns of this blog, you’ll find several RSS feeds showing recent updates on several of my blogs and several of the social networking communities I manage. It makes it easy for me to visit this blog and see at a glance what is being said on my other sites.

So, what’s been bothering you, JD?

I’ve been wanting to add the status updates I’ve posted to Facebook, but I didn’t see an easy way to find the feed. I’ve looked at the source code for my Facebook profile page and saw no evidence of an RSS feed, so I would just let the matter drop and/or forget about it.

This morning, I decided to give it another go. To make it easy on myself, I decided to see if anyone else had solved the problem. No use reinventing the wheel, right?

I did a simple search on Google for “Facebook RSS Feed” and found the answer to my question on the very first page returned in the search results. (Gotta love that!)

On TechLifeWeb.com there is an article: How to find your Facebook Status RSS feed.

Apparently, Facebook has changed how this works, but the updated information in the article helped me find the RSS feed I was looking for.

So, I came here and added a new RSS widget to the right column and pasted in the URL of the feed.

It didn’t work.

I knew the feed was working, because I could view that URL in Safari and see all the recent status updates I’ve posted.

Then I looked closer at the URL. When I changed feed:// to http://, the RSS feed widget correctly displayed my status updates. You can see them in the right column of this blog.

It’s not a huge thing, but it’s difficult to find.

Facebook makes this more difficult than it should be, but it’s still possible to make use of it with a little digging.

All the best,

JD

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-07

June 7, 2010 by JD · Comments Off
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  • Just uploaded a new video on MurphyConnections.com http://ning.it/aaUiDz #
  • Just uploaded a new video on MurphyConnections.com http://ning.it/c2JAB1 #
  • I just updated my Squidoo page: Site Build It, a revolution in website design, hosting, and promotion / http://tinyurl.com/4324sx #
  • New: Jun 5, Adjustable Dumbbell Workout: It's up to you whether to get into bodybuilding program or not. But gener… http://bit.ly/cLPQr1 #
  • I'm eating dinner and enjoying the sounds of a passing thunderstorm. What are you doing? #

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The entire Sitesell company is now tweeting

June 6, 2010 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Promote Your Business, Site Build It, Social Networking, Twitter 

Sitesell, the company behind Site Build It!, took an interesting step forward in social networking this weekend. The entire company will be tweeting using the Sitesell account and individuals will be identified by a hashtag at the end of their tweet.

Here’s a link to the Sitesell Twitter feed.

This is a really cool idea, and I like how they’ve implemented it.

For example, Ken Evoy, the founder of Sitesell, is identified by #Kenfounder, the unidentified technogeek known as Help Elf is known as #Helpelf, and so on.

There are 130 people working for Sitesell and they are located all over the world, each working from home. Now, we’ll get a chance to learn more about the different people and what they’re doing, both personally and as employees of Sitesell.

Individuals in support, coaching, education, management, programming, and other departments will now offer their tidbits, insights, and updates about what they’re doing to make SBI continue to be the best way to build a small business online. We’re used to Ken having an RSS feed of his forum posts, and Erin, the affiliate program manager, also has an RSS feed.

Now, everyone in the company effectively has an RSS feed of their tweets by searching on their hashtag.

The one problem I see is that on the Internet, people being what they are, others will attempt to confuse the issue and co-opt the goodwill that Sitesell has earned over the last decade by using the hashtags that individuals there use. The difference is that Sitesell employees will be tweeting from the @Sitesell account and identifying themselves with their hashtag. If you see those hashtags used on a different account, don’t let it fool you.

As far as I know, this is the only company that is approaching Twitter in this fashion.

How can you adapt this approach for your business? Set up a Twitter account for your business and let your employees post to it, identifying themselves with their own personal hashtag.

This is going to be an interesting experiment in company-wide tweeting and I’m looking forward to seeing how it evolves over the coming months.

Want to follow Sitesell: Sitesell Twitter feed.

All the best,

JD

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