Who Are You?
When your life changes in a radical way, what do you rely on to keep yourself moving forward? That's a good question to have a solid answer to, I believe. Many people define themselves by the accumulation of their material belongings, their careers, or their family roles. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, unless it is the primary method you use to define yourself TO yourself. Take a young parent who immerses themselves in the very important job of being the best parent they know how to be. This can include a lot of sacrifice, especially in the early ...
Ready … Set … Goals!
As you're taking down the tree and visiting relatives are checking the status of their flights back home, it is clear that another holiday season is winding down. Like it or not, another year has passed and it is time to think about how to make your next year the best one you've had, so far. You work hard every day to build your business but, if you don't feel your business is where it ought to be, it may be due to the fact that you've been so swept up with tactical matters that you haven't really stopped to ...
Are You and Your Business Partners Oceans Apart?
We've all been taught to avoid the truth if we fear that our news has potential to upset someone whom we like and respect, but being honest about your feelings doesn't mean that you have to be tactless. If we understand and appreciate that everyone has varying degrees of skill with regard to handling feedback, and that they aren't always in control of their emotional responses, there's always a way to talk over any issue and reach a reasonable compromise. Honesty is the best policy and, in my humble opinion, a lie by omission causes the most harm. The world would ...
Anyone Can Install Wordpress … Right?
If you are using Wordpress as a basis for your business website, you'll expose yourself as a newbie, possibly open yourself to online security risks, and lose potential SEO benefits the software provides if you don't take time to learn how it works. While it is true that installing Wordpress is simple, setting it up correctly contributes to your website's success, which also has an impact on your business success. We're talking business here, right? I do acknowledge that there are many extremely successful bloggers who established blogs on free sites, like Blogger, before Wordpress came of age. These days, sites ...
Business Styles and Personal Productivity
Recently, a newsletter arrived from a self growth website which explained dysfunctional personal productivity personalities. Because productivity styles can mean the difference between entrepreneurial success and failure, I've taken some time to analyze this topic and provided some tips and techniques that have worked for me in overcoming some of these productivity inhibitors. Scrappers are people whose offices and desktops look like modern art with a collage of post-its and paper scraps. While conventional wisdom accepts that a cluttered desk is an indication of a cluttered mind, disorganization can result in missed deliverables and over-commitment. If this is your style, whether you are ...
Matt Mullenweg: Entrepreneur with a Vision
Wordpress was awarded the 2009 Open Source CMS Award last month. Not only is this a great honor for the software, it validates a decision I made to specialize with this CMS years ago and all of the recommendations that I've made to website clients for the past several years. Wordpress is a powerful CMS and, with the improvements introduced during the past year and this award, it is crystal clear that the software has stepped up to the plate for consideration as the basis for any website project. [caption id="attachment_661" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Wordpress Wins 2009 Open Source CMS Award"][/caption] Many of ...
Listen, Learn and Earn
It is too bad that most Internet Marketers don't understand the mechanics of a human-to-human sales relationship. If they actually had to talk to their prospects and customers, rather than dwelling in a two-dimensional world, would this improve their income potential or diminish it? Building relationships takes time and attention, no matter which way you spin things. Developing rapport and gaining an understanding of each other ought to be a mutual effort or the equity of the relationship becomes uneven. Just as an expert should not condescend to a customer who doesn't know all the ins and outs of their area of ...
The Secret about The Secret
James Arthur Ray was featured on Nightline this week. It seems that some of the participants of his Spiritual Warrior Retreat, held in Sedona in early October, died in a sweat lodge exercise at the end of a grueling week of motivational activities. The sweat lodge exercise was mandated after the people had spent days in the beautiful canyons of Sedona, without food or adequate rest, to connect with their inner truth ... supposedly. Human physiology is fragile. It didn't seem at all odd that some people might have been dehydrated and unfit to go into a sweat lodge for hours ...
Stretching Your Mind Can Change Your Life
Personally, I find it enjoyable when something occurs that seems synchronous to events in present time. The other night, such an event occurred. While rifling through papers in my desk drawer, an old fortune from a fortune cookie surfaced. It read: One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. Not only is this synchronous, it also is quite profound in its simple truth. Once we are introduced to a something new, and the idea takes root in our minds and inspires us, it is virtually impossible to operate as we did before we made our important discovery. ...
Is Television Really Bad for the Mind?
At a recent networking meeting, the presenter included bullet items of methods they used to enhance their business lead generation on their slide presentation. One of the items on the list was to watch TV. This is a tactic they use to become part of the social conversation. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, watching television during prime time hours is not strictly a waste of productive time. Your prospects and customers watch TV. While they are going about their daily lives, they chat with others about what they've seen. Some even look up information on the internet during or following ...
Flash Forward with Business
Flash forwards are used in movies to interrupt the continuity of the story line through the narration or portrayal of some future episode. If we liken our mental gymnastics to a movie or play, our daydreams are nothing other than flash forwards. Similar to the great new TV series on ABC, some of our imagined scripts are pleasant and some are less so. Either way, the film director in our minds has set the stage and played out events that are expected, projected or imagined to occur in the future. The polar opposite of a flash forward is a flashback, which are ...
Striving for Mediocrity
In my ongoing study of internet based businesses, I've subscribed to many newsletters and met online acquaintances through Skype. Occasionally, I will receive a Skype broadcast or email message inviting me to something like this: Subject: Up to $15 per hour This is something to get excited about! Here is a way that you can make $15.00 per HOUR by simply clicking on ads. I just did this tonight. This is not your standard fly by night, run of the mill, surf site where your money gets tied up for weeks or even months so please hear me out and read this carefully. I'm ...
Human Capital and Local Economic Constraints
In my work as a freelancer and service provider, I frequently find myself in competition with overseas talent whose rates don't even meet minimum wage requirements in the United States. While I am all for supporting the global economy, it is impossible for me to meet their prices. Sometimes my clients decide to go for the lowest cost bid, even though they would prefer to work with me ... or so they say. And sometimes my clients return to me with a partially completed project and a story to tell. What is funny about this is that there are also overseas ...
Everything’s Relative! (The Relevance of Blogging to your Online Brand)
It's true; I came of age during the 60s. While this places me in some people's stratospheric age groups, my age is merely a number to me and I'm thrilled to have grown up in such interesting times. Being a Baby Boomer surrounded by Hippies and other sorts of rebels brought many ideals to my purview ... some more palatable than others but each of them born from a cry for freedom by my generation. After recently re-theming my GetIncomeBlog.com, my interest in writing to it has been renewed, along with the traffic that comes to my site. I use several ...
What is Leadship to an Entrepreneur?
Leadership is a topic of interest when one is working for a wage. In that context, a leader is defined by rank, company holdings or some other arbitrary definition of success. When the transition from wage-earner to entrepreneur occurs, leadership takes on a little different connotation. The life of an internet entrepreneur varies by their interests, passions and motivations. It is entirely possible to build a lucrative business that requires no more than you, an internet connection and time. If the product is not digital, you certainly will become embroiled with inventory management, packing and shipping. Maintaining a high level of ...
Career Cogwheels and Cul-de-Sacs
There is little doubt that times are tough. Personally, I know many people who have been out of work for extended time periods, have been forced into bankruptcy, or have lost their homes through foreclosure. All their stories are all very different but, in every instance, the root cause was attributable to the fact that they held onto some belief that doing things the way they'd always done them would continue to work ... a definition for insanity, in some circles. Personal belief systems can keep us stuck so why not turn that to an advantage? Believe that change is critical ...
Laughter and My Story Marketing?
Listening to the Prairie Home Companion program today, I experienced a bit of home sickness. The program aired from the Minnesota State Fair. As Garrison Keillor spoke of fall, apples, harvest moons, and the fair, all the sights, sounds, and smells from my home state and that event rushed to my senses. These are all pleasant memories. You can take the girl out of Minnesota but you can't take Minnesota out of the girl, I guess. Garrison Keillor is a delightful story teller. He may even be remembered with the likes of Mark Twain, eventually. His stories have a way of ...
What’s in a Name?
Frequently we forget the importance of Brand Equity. As internet marketers, that brand is not a business opportunity or a company we may have chosen to represent. While those things may assist us to get income, they are tools we use. By carefully managing the online image that is our name, we build potential for a future we cannot envision today. Nothing is more important than protecting our online brand image. It may seem a little obsessive, but I set up Google Alerts for my name years ago after learning that my Real Estate clients were Googling me. That also heightened ...
What Do We Do to Get Income?
When we consider the amount of time we spend imagining and pursuing success, is the accounting a fair balance? Putting it another way, do you spend too much of your time working to get income? Pondering the difference between what we want and what we have can lead us to inspiration. The gift of human ingenuity and creativity is a blessing. That is the truth. There is joy in bringing our ideas to life. Hours of refining our vision, laying out a plan for monetization and developing our product bring great satisfaction. The aroma of success lingers with each accomplishment along ...
Analyzing Competition for Entrepreneurial Success
Many times throughout the past year, this blog has recommended some form of due diligence prior to entering any business. The last post was much more focused on business basics and recommended tools that have assisted successful Fortune 500 companies to perform structured research prior to initiating new strategies. As a seasoned entrepreneur, it is clear that having knowledge of business basics provides a competitive edge. Regardless of the scope of your vision, if your intention is to use it to obtain financial freedom, having a solid plan is an important tool. As a former colleague of mine once opined, a ...
Strategic Analysis – An Entrepreneur’s Best Friend
When you are disappointed by anything, what are your tactics for overcoming that feeling? Not so long ago, my grandson answered that random question in this way: "Oh ... I just look out the window and take some action." My curiosity was satisfied through further inquiry. The action that this astute 6-year old boy takes is to imagine that he has gotten what he wanted to have. Without thinking too hard, he knows how to do something that many people have paid money and invested many hours to learn. My grandson mentally rewrites the story so it ends in a way that ...
Internet Entrepreneur Mindset
The other day I overheard an actor in a movie say that it was necessary to earn a viewpoint before speaking about something with authority. The truth in that statement felt profound. As an internet entrepreneur, encounters with people who purport themselves to be experts at something they haven't experienced can be amusing to expose in a private conversation but it is alarming to imagine that people who aren't savvy enough to ask the same questions might be seduced into believing that they've found an individual who can lead them to success. Allowing for the benefit of a doubt, it could ...
Intentional Changes
Recently, I glimpsed images of the skyline from my birthplace in Minnesota. The scenery from my former home town in Minneapolis was interesting to see again for it is a pretty town ... during summer months. While I watched the images, I reflected on time spent there. So much has changed since moving to California last year! Probably the most challenging thing to overcome is the advice of people who believe they have found the "right" answers. They have ... for themselves. Putting distance between myself and my well-intentioned friends and colleagues who had known me in the past has proven ...
Starting Over in Your 50s
The other day a pal of mine indicated that people in my generation would not survive long enough for me to pursue an idea unrelated to business that I had imagined. We got a good laugh about that but their feedback caused me to reflect on other matters that baby boomers are facing, specifically reduced income caused by long-term unemployment. People born between 1946 and 1955 are referred to as baby boomers, or more specifically older baby boomers. Demographically, I fall into that group. Ours is largely a generation of rebels who cast aside social norms during our development years. We ...
Occam’s razor and internet marketing
The other night, while watching a movie entitled "Contact", the dialogue referenced a principle called Occam's Razor. Call me crazed, but I'm always pondering the aspects of internet marketing that I hear people complain about most frequently. When I considered Occam's Razor, I suddenly realized that this principle covers most of those complaints quite handily. Wikipedia describes Occam's Razor in this way: "The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory." Now, let's test this principle against some complaints I've ...
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube?
Those in business are well aware of the power of having a website. More recently, the utilization of social networking sites for business promotion and lead acquisition is gaining popularity. Because social networking takes time, companies that are serious about their business success have decided to hire paid staff whose sole responsibilities are to connect with prospects and customers to drive traffic to company websites using social networking techniques. While considering this idea, I took some time to conduct a little statistical analysis using Google's nifty search trend analysis tool. This link provides research about search trends for 5 well-known and ...
Life as an Internet Entrpreneur
When your life changes in a radical way, what do you rely on to keep yourself moving forward? That’s a good question to have a solid answer to, I believe. Many people define themselves by the accumulation of their material belongings, their careers, or their family roles. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, unless it is the primary method...
As you’re taking down the tree and visiting relatives are checking the status of their flights back home, it is clear that another holiday season is winding down. Like it or not, another year has passed and it is time to think about how to make your next year the best one you’ve had, so far. You work hard every day to build your business...
We’ve all been taught to avoid the truth if we fear that our news has potential to upset someone whom we like and respect, but being honest about your feelings doesn’t mean that you have to be tactless. If we understand and appreciate that everyone has varying degrees of skill with regard to handling feedback, and that they aren’t...
Recently, a newsletter arrived from a self growth website which explained dysfunctional personal productivity personalities. Because productivity styles can mean the difference between entrepreneurial success and failure, I’ve taken some time to analyze this topic and provided some tips and techniques that have worked for me in overcoming some...
It is too bad that most Internet Marketers don’t understand the mechanics of a human-to-human sales relationship. If they actually had to talk to their prospects and customers, rather than dwelling in a two-dimensional world, would this improve their income potential or diminish it? Building relationships takes time and attention, no matter which...
Read More Posts From This CategoryHow to Market and Brand Your Business
If you are using Wordpress as a basis for your business website, you’ll expose yourself as a newbie, possibly open yourself to online security risks, and lose potential SEO benefits the software provides if you don’t take time to learn how it works. While it is true that installing Wordpress is simple, setting it up correctly contributes...
Wordpress was awarded the 2009 Open Source CMS Award last month. Not only is this a great honor for the software, it validates a decision I made to specialize with this CMS years ago and all of the recommendations that I’ve made to website clients for the past several years. Wordpress is a powerful CMS and, with the improvements introduced during...
Personally, I find it enjoyable when something occurs that seems synchronous to events in present time. The other night, such an event occurred. While rifling through papers in my desk drawer, an old fortune from a fortune cookie surfaced. It read: One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. Not only is this...
In my ongoing study of internet based businesses, I’ve subscribed to many newsletters and met online acquaintances through Skype. Occasionally, I will receive a Skype broadcast or email message inviting me to something like this: Subject: Up to $15 per hour This is something to get excited about! Here is a way that you can make $15.00 per HOUR...
Frequently we forget the importance of Brand Equity. As internet marketers, that brand is not a business opportunity or a company we may have chosen to represent. While those things may assist us to get income, they are tools we use. By carefully managing the online image that is our name, we build potential for a future we cannot envision today. Nothing...
Read More Posts From This CategoryHow to Make Money Online
As you’re taking down the tree and visiting relatives are checking the status of their flights back home, it is clear that another holiday season is winding down. Like it or not, another year has passed and it is time to think about how to make your next year the best one you’ve had, so far. You work hard every day to build your business...
We’ve all been taught to avoid the truth if we fear that our news has potential to upset someone whom we like and respect, but being honest about your feelings doesn’t mean that you have to be tactless. If we understand and appreciate that everyone has varying degrees of skill with regard to handling feedback, and that they aren’t...
If you are using Wordpress as a basis for your business website, you’ll expose yourself as a newbie, possibly open yourself to online security risks, and lose potential SEO benefits the software provides if you don’t take time to learn how it works. While it is true that installing Wordpress is simple, setting it up correctly contributes...
Recently, a newsletter arrived from a self growth website which explained dysfunctional personal productivity personalities. Because productivity styles can mean the difference between entrepreneurial success and failure, I’ve taken some time to analyze this topic and provided some tips and techniques that have worked for me in overcoming some...
Wordpress was awarded the 2009 Open Source CMS Award last month. Not only is this a great honor for the software, it validates a decision I made to specialize with this CMS years ago and all of the recommendations that I’ve made to website clients for the past several years. Wordpress is a powerful CMS and, with the improvements introduced during...
It is too bad that most Internet Marketers don’t understand the mechanics of a human-to-human sales relationship. If they actually had to talk to their prospects and customers, rather than dwelling in a two-dimensional world, would this improve their income potential or diminish it? Building relationships takes time and attention, no matter which...
Read More Posts From This CategoryRSS Updates
This is a guest post from Anne Wayman, who is a freelance writer, ghostwriter and blogs about writing at aboutfreelancewriting.com, a blog for freelance writers. She’s also taken all three of Yaro’s programs, Blog Mastermind, Membership Site Mastermind and Become A Blogger Premium (yay Anne!) So You Want To Hire A Writer? Until you’ve actually...
In the previous article on living the 2-hour workday I introduced the concept of travel buffers, cash created either through saving or selling assets that is designed to give you a buffer of capital you can comfortably spend if you need to while you travel. Travel buffers are mostly for piece of mind so you can relax while you travel or use in case...
All the evidence I’ve seen shows that positive thinking and confidence improves performance. In anything. Give someone an easy math problem, watch them get it right and then they’ll do better on the ensuing standardized test than someone who just failed a difficult practice test. No, positive thinking doesn’t allow you to do anything,...
Click here to download the audio-only MP3 [ 64 MB ] Andrew Warner is passionate about entrepreneurship and loves talking with his fellow entrepreneurs. He came to my attention when he recently interviewed Gideon Shalwick on his current blog, Mixergy, which features tons of great video interviews with leading entrepreneurs. Andrew has a great story...
The local youth theatre troupe recently put on a performance of Grease. It was a high-spirited outing, with terrific performances and it was a great way for them to spend a month or two over the summer. I was amazed to discover, though, that the budget for the rights to the play were $3,000. That’s pretty steep for a high school production of...
Enormity doesn’t mean really enormous. It means incredibly horrible. The problem with enormity in marketing is that it doesn’t work. Enormity should pull at our heartstrings, but it usually shuts us down. Show us too many sick kids, unfair imprisonments or burned bodies and you won’t get a bigger donation, you’ll just get averted...
New media isn’t the perfect marketing medium, and it won’t be until we find the magic beans. TV had magic beans for forty years. For forty years, anyone, even a complete moron, could make a lot of money using TV ads. Buy enough ads, don’t screw up, you’re rich. The hard part was buying enough ads, but once you did that, victory...
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