While doing some of my market research for the $100 a day blogging project, I compiled the following list of sites that deal with the topic of making money online by taking my targeted phrases and tossing them into Google and then sifting through the results.

I weeded out the spam and the sites that were not really on topic (for example there were lots of sites that were resources for offline businesses wanting to go online, which I removed, as opposed to information about starting or developing a web-based business, which I included.) I also removed sites that sucked of which there was a surprising number, considering that I only looked at the top 10 results for each of these coveted keyword phrases.

In most cases I used the site’s (or the page’s) title tag as the anchor text. This way you can see if they are actually targeting the phrase that they rank for.

Phrase: information products

Searches per day: 12

• Information Products – An overview of e-book and info product creation.

Phrase: Internet business

Searches per day: 952

• How to Make Money on the Internet – an overview at About.com’s online business site.
• Internet Business Blog – James D. Brausch’s site which is the blog for his Internet business products (I own and use many of them).

Phrase: make money online

Searches per day: 1511

• Make Money Online – John Chow’s blog
• Make Money Online – A highly monetized blogspot site
• Make Money Online – ProBlogger.net by Darren Rowse
• Make Big Money Online – A blog about making money online
• Make Money Online – A very informative site with no obvious monetization – should we trust them?
• Make Money Online – A well done Squidoo Lens optimized for “make money online” (an important SEO lesson there.)

Phrase: making money online

Searches per day: 298

• Make Money Online – A nice blog about work at home opportunities

Phrase: ways to make money online

Searches per day: 223

• New Ways to Make Money Online – Web Worker Daily

Phrase: Internet marketing

Searches per day: 2931

• Serious Internet Marketing Services – More a marketing service for established businesses, some nice tools and good info.

Other Notables

• Earn Money Online – Earner’s Blog, a daily read of mine.
• Internet Business Blog – Yaro’s excellent blog about making money online with a Internet marketing bent.
• Niche Marketing – Andy Beard’s very high quality site about online business topics.
• Underachiever Life – Ed Dale’s blog, he rambles off topic,but he’s got $5m in the bank so he’s allowed to be distracted.
• Tropical SEO – primarily SEO, but lots of good online business information too.
• Copywriting Tips – must read for online entrepreneurs…the essential skill of selling with words.

Summary & Omissions

I’ve never spent this much time scouring the Google SERPs on a single topic before and I have to say that the results returned were much lower quality than I would have predicted (I can only guess what the Yahoo and MSN results would have looked like, but I assume worse.)

Either the phrases that I’ve searched on are somehow ambiguous to Google or there really aren’t many high quality resources for these terms.

I suspect there are a lot of other blogs and sites providing valuable information (without just pushing frantically on their own agenda.) If you know of any please leave a link in the comments, as I was really hoping to compile a relatively thorough list of sites with solid “make money online” and “online business” information.

Another part of the cause of the poor results is that a lot of people who do put out good information (Rich Schefren comes to mind, but there is also John Reese, Jay Abraham and others) brand their own names rather than targeting a keyword.

The other angle on this market that doesn’t show up in the list but is a part of the puzzle are the various high profile online business products: StomperNet, Click Flipping, Day Job Killer come to mind but there are many others, which try and target the same audience with a pay for info model.

Top 12 ‘Make Money Online’ Sites According to Google is a post from: Art of Money

I know that when I took psychology class in university there was something about this kind of thing, but I recently discovered it in my own life, so I thought I’d give you the non-textbook version. It’s the second time that I’ve seen it play out, so I know that it is real and I’m begriming to understand it well enough to express it.

At the bare bones level it goes something like this:

1. Jon sets a goal to do something
2. Jon starts taking massive action towards his goal
3. Something painful or uncomfortable happens during the process of working towards the goal
4. Jon loses interest in the original goal
5. Jon sets a goal to do something else

The truth is that it has happened more than twice. In fact it has probably happened dozens of times in my life; the same cycle.

Awareness is the Key

What has happened twice is that I’ve become aware of relationship between number 3 and numbers 4 & 5.

I was watching Mark Knopfler on TV and was thinking about what it took to reach the level of success that he had attained.

Clearly a large part of it was sustained focused action; in short he practiced the playing guitar and writing songs a lot.

Here’s My Version of the Psych 101 Part

I know now that there is a part of my brain/mind/psyche that is just doing it’s job. As a kid I fell down the stairs. I learned that attempting to run down stairs while not paying attention was not really smart. If a kid touches the stove their brain begins to warn them about touching things that are hot.

There is a part of ourselves that is trained to avoid pain…it’s just doing it’s job.

Unfortunately, through our (mis)guidance, this defensive mechanism has become deformed. For whatever reason, I’ve trained this part of myself to intensely attempt to have me avoid so called painful experiences, even in situations that are actually necessary for learning or working towards success.

Off the top of my head I can’t think of one good reason to consciously avoid emotional pain or discomfort. While avoiding physical pain may save your life, avoiding emotional pain only inhibits it.

Re-Train the Brain

Now that I can see what has happened I do have hope that I can finally re-train my defense system and that it will allow me to go forward and begin to achieve longer term goals. I crave to be able to work through projects or situations that require taking a punch or two.

In my mind that’s where the real gold in life is.

It’s worth it to examine the patterns in your life and to gently question the root causes. This particular pain protection mechanism is common with money and work issues, but also shows up a lot in relationships. As soon as it gets uncomfortable people numb out or begin to blame the other person; looking for a way out.

The riches in life go to the folks who can sustain long term energy towards a goal or dream, so figuring out why you can’t or won’t is an extremely valuable undertaking.

How Self Reflection Can Overcome Failure is a post from: Art of Money

I just discovered that Jim Collins’ site (yes that Jim Collins) has a whack of free .mp3 lectures by Jim that are available for free download.

Some good stuff there, including:

How do you do “Stop Doing?” 

Money is a commodity; talent is not. 

You don’t need to be big to be great. 

Getting people off the bus. 

GE and the process hedgehog. 

Give them a listen or download to your iPod at JimCollins.com 

Raid Jim Collins’ Audio Library is a post from: Art of Money

My favorite Art Of Money entry is, hands down, Jon’s post on Flipping The Switch. 

Why?  Because it rang true for me also.

I have always flirted with entrepreneurship.  I ran businesses during high school.  I had much more to learn so I went to university.  Then I ran a business during a semester off.  Still had much to learn.  Graduated.  Tried another business.  More learning needed (oh, and cash, that was always a given).  Got a corporate job.  Ran part-time businesses on the side.  Job jumped around, ending up in an entrepreneurial environment (in a large Fortune 500 company no
less).  Did some consulting.  Fell in love with project management (which is similar to serial start ups).  Still had my side gigs. 

Then one day, after flitting back and forth with “am I an entrepreneur?”  “am I not an entrepreneur?” I knew.  My self definition had changed.  I was an entrepreneur (simply looking for a successful business idea).  The switch had flipped.

And at that point, I could no longer work in the cubefarm full time.  I was fortunate.  I had been told by other entrepreneurs that this day would come so I had saved my pennies.  I also had part-time businesses that brought in income.  I knew there was always work for short term project managers with a finance background.  I could walk away.

I still take contract gigs in corporate from time to time (keeping my toe in the water so to speak) but the difference is I’m a mercenary.  I’m a gun for hire.  Want me to stay an extra hour?  Then don’t just ask, pay me to do so.  I have other opportunities waiting for me.

And because I see myself an entrepreneur, I also see the opportunities.    

***This guest post has written by Kimber. Who blogs on No Limits Ladies and K’s Blog. 

Jon’s Job Exit Tip – Flipping the Switch is a post from: Art of Money

Jon had a great post about a month back on business planning. In it, he compared launching a business to taking a trip.  One of the things we need to figure out is who to take along with us.

There are the obvious answers, business partners, suppliers, customers, the moneymen, and yes, the much talked about…mentors but a group is often left out. 

The Fans. 

But, you ask, isn’t a fan the same as a mentor?  Nope, a mentor is the voice of reason.  Sure he builds you up but, when needed, he also squashes you back down.  He doesn’t let you dream the big, often unrealistic dreams powering most entrepreneurs.

For that, you need a fan and you do need at least one.  Having a fan provides a powerful psychological advantage.  Sports teams believe this so much that they even pay some of their fans (cheerleaders).  The home team advantage?  Largely due to the number of fans in the stands cheering.

How To Use A Fan

Note: fans are not for business or career advice.  Fans are for emotional support only.  When you get so beaten down, you can no longer stand up straight, you talk to your fan.  You don’t take action on her words.  She’s there to give you the confidence and hope so you can look for the answers elsewhere.

It should be clear to you and your fan what exactly her role is.  Tell her that you only need positive words, that you’re relying on her support.  I’ve played this game long enough that I ask outright “Am I a mentor or a fan?”  Once again, the roles are not the same.

Fan Knowledge

Does a fan need to know the ins and outs of your business in order to do her job?  Another no.  Want some examples?  Cheerleaders in the NFL spend the entire time with their backs to the field.  They don’t watch the game.  My hubby is my biggest writing fan yet he doesn’t read my blog posts.  It is actually easier to be a fan if you’re not an expert.

Yes, fans are an important part of your business team.  But don’t take my word on it.  Ask Stephen King.  He credits his number one fan, his donut making, poetry writing wife, for literally rescuing his career from the trash.  

***This guest post has written by Kimber who, as a fan of mine, has provided invaluable encouragement (and more) to me and my business ventures ever since the day we met. She blogs on No Limits Ladies and K’s Blog. 

The Fan is a post from: Art of Money

I’ve been watching the latest Rich Schefren video called Startup To Freedom: Prescriptions To Gain Momentum (free – no email squeeze). In a recent blog post Rich asked his readers, “What’s holding you back?“. Then he sorted through the 543 comments and broke them down into various categories.

You’ll need to watch the video to get the others but the one that really amazed me was, “not enough funds.” Actually the reason cited is common and doesn’t surprise me at all, many times while facing a problem with my blog network, or just wishing I could make things happen faster, I’ve found myself saying…”if only I had an extra $50k to put into this.”

Would You Trade 5k for 100k?

The reason most entrepreneurs don’t find the money they need is because they lack confidence in their business

The way Rich explains it on the clip is great. He asks the questioner if they could trade, guaranteed, $5k for $100k, if they could come up with the $5k?

Of course most people could; credit cards, friends whatever, most could find $5k for an automatic 20x return.

I know I could come up with my desired $50k if I was CERTAIN it would turn into $1m.

Rich points out then, that money is not the problem… as a lot of great (and even very large) businesses are started for $10,000 or less; the problem is lack of confidence.

The key part of the equation is that the entrepreneur doesn’t drop down their own money or struggle to find it because they lack confidence in their business. OUCH, too true.

Maybe Lack of Confidence is a Good Thing

When I first heard Rich’s assessment, and realized that it rang completely true for me, I was depressed. But then I thought about is some more and realized that is was just normal instincts. The fact is that I don’t really know if my blog network will produce any decent return for the money or time that I have invested into it.

It’s completely normal, to want to minimize my outlay give a weak possibility of return.

Prove your System!

Based on these revelations there are only two types of businesses: proven systems and unproven systems. Once the system is proven to produce: 1. revenue and then 2. profit, it is appropriate to increase the amount of outlay dramatically at each of those milestones.

The goal then is not to try and raise money to solve problems, the goal is to prove the system can produce money. If you don’t have enough money to prove your system, then scale back or simplify the prototype so that it can be developed and put into use with less resources.

This whole lesson is a great revelation. What I love about it is that it takes away one of my biggest excuses and puts me back into a place of empowerment with my business.

Prove the return and the money will follow…wasn’t that a movie?

Do You Really Need Money to Start a Business? is a post from: Art of Money

I was one of the ones disappointed by Rich Schefren’s webcast a couple weeks ago from his live event in Florida. Rich promised a new video to make up for the confusion on the webcast and today that new video (series) has been released.

It is worthwhile content, again putting a unique and focused light on building a business. I’d say the series, after you watch the first one, you can provide an email to see the others, is as good as the Internet Business Manifesto and original at the same time.

I’m tempted to join the coaching after seeing these, but I have a hunch that it is sold out again.

Rich Schefren – Startup to Freedom Videos.

Let me know what you think.

- Jon

Rich Schefren – Startup To Freedom Video is a post from: Art of Money

I need a new logo for my city blog network, and I was going to use a traditional logo service like My Logo but I thought it would be fun to get the network bloggers involved in the process so I decided to go the SitePoint Marketplace and run a logo contest.

The process has been really interesting so I thought I would share my experience and the tips of what I’ve learned:

1.) Wide Variety of Entries

You’ll get a wide variety of entries, which is mostly a good thing. You can expect a wide range of quality too, but traditional logo companies often charge by the number of concepts that you will receive, so to get 25 or 30 original designs presented to review is a fantastic luxury.

2.) Put Up Enough of A Reward to Attract Good Bids

The base reward for a logo competition on SitePoint is only $100, but My Logo charges $199 minimum so I was afraid that if I went with the minimum that I wouldn’t attract any real pros, so I made my competition $160, which seems to have done the trick, as I have received some great entries.

3.) Review Existing and Past Contests

Check out the other current and past logo contests. While you look at them, take a look at the quality of entries (especially in relationship to the amount of prize money offered).

Look at the summary and detail descriptions of the project…borrow heavily from the ones that are really well done.

Pay attention to the feedback give to the designers, as this is a key area to getting a logo that is a good match to your business.

4.) Give Clear Instructions

Vague or loose instructions will ruin the contest. I could have spent more time defining what I wanted. It’s good to have a basic idea of colors, and even some examples of styles of logos that you are wanting.

The more you can narrow down the focus for the designers at the begriming the more energy they can spend refining design rather than struggling to figure out what you want.

5.) Communicate With the Participants

It seems like the designers are very eager and by providing updates as to your thinking and by quickly answering questions, you will encourage more and better quality entries.

Creating a logo is a process that involves the logo contest sponsor and the designer working together to hone in on a winning concept. The designer can’t do it without your participation.

6.) Get Other Eyeballs Involved In Your Decision

With the large number and wide variety of entries that you’ll get, it’s easy to dismiss a good concept based on your first impression, so get some other people to take a look and give you feedback.

I’ve had the bloggers on my network and my wife take a look at the submissions and I definitely discovered that a fresh perspective helped me see potential new directions that were valuable.

7.) Be Grateful

These people are doing quite a bit of work purely on speculation, so even if some of the entries are really lame, be kind.

It is likely they are students or even young kids involved (alongside seasoned pros) so really attempt to keep this in mind and offer constructive criticism.

Summary

The major thing to realize in comparing having a contest like this versus hiring a traditional logo designer is that you are going to have to be much more involved in the process, which means a lot more of your time.

The advantage of paying the price of more involvement is that you’ll get a much wider variety of concepts and points of view on your ideas than any one designer could ever provide, at a much lower cost.

The ideal I guess would be to use a contest like this to create and build a relationship with someone that works in a way that you can rely on and use over and over. I’m not sure that this method of getting work done is efficient enough to be used consistently, but it is fun and I’m sure that the quality of the final design will be much better than if I had use a traditional service.

You can see my logo contest,which is still in process and I’d love to hear any thoughts that you’d like to share about the logos being presented (which one would you pick?) or the process in general.

- Jon Symons

7 Tips for Running a Logo Competition is a post from: Art of Money

This week’s Carnival of Entrepreneurs is up at The Dragon Slayer’s Guide to Life.

If the name of that website isn’t enough to get you to take a peak, then maybe 37 quality articles written by current and aspiring entrepreneurs will light a fire under ya. Of course there’s a hidden gem from yours truly.

Check out edition number 8 9 of the Carnival of Entrepreneurs.

Carnival of Entrepreneurs – Feb 7 2007 Edition is a post from: Art of Money

For a long time I wanted to have a real business, as opposed to just playing around trying to make money online.

In November, I launched the Home Turf Media blog network and I knew that it was exactly that. Finally, I wan’t chasing the latest money making opportunity, I was attempting to create something with lasting value.

However I noticed something interesting since November. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my blog network and it is a pile of fun trying to make it grow and turn it into something great, but every morning since I flipped that switch and put the “help wanted” ad on ProBlogger’s site, I wake up and the first feeling I have is something akin to:

fear and dread!

The thought that comes next is something like, “what the hell have I gotten myself into?”

Only time will tell if this is a voice of sanity in my system, attempting to save me from a losing proposition or just an ill-trained security seeking fragment of consciousness luring me back to the mind numbing comfort of the rat race.

While chatting with Liz, and mentioning the morning fear that I experienced, she turned me on the the following video from Steve Farber which validated that experience as a necessary component of leadership and success.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Is Fear Essential for Leadership and Success? is a post from: Art of Money

Getting back to my series of lessons learned while making money, it is time I dove in to the biggest lesson provider and money making adventure of my life so far.

It was in 1991 when I got started making primarily one of a kind pieces of artsy furniture. A couple years later, fed up at making $5 an hour making art and sick of working in restaurants to pay the bills, I began to transition away from making high end furniture to making small and more affordable home decor objects.

I began to learn the basic lessons of retail commerce. For example, I found that the lower the price the more units I could sell. This was partly due to the economics and partly due to me being the worst natural sales person in the world; therefore I began to specialize in low priced items which were in the impulse purchase price range of below $30.

One of the ideas I had was to make photo frames [don't forget this is the early - mid 1990's when people still printed out photos]. Photo frames at the time were all pretty much brown stained wood. The ones I came up with at first were my own hand whittled versions of what was already available.

Lesson Number One – Market Feedback

The first big lesson began to occur when I first displayed the frames on my table at the Vancouver Public Market. The lesson is that there is nothing in the world fantastic as market research with a live audience for product development.

All you have to do is listen and they’ll tell you exactly what you need to do to be successful. I guess you also need a thick enough skin to be able to handle the people who are abusive or insensitive and to be able to carry on when it feels bad…but if you can weather that, then the feedback is awesome.

As soon as I put my frames out for public consumption, people began to buy them. They would beg me to sell my prototypes and half-finished duct-taped samples. They practically wouldn’t take no for an answer!

The other amazing thing that happened, over and over, is that they kept asking me if I would paint them bright colors. They wanted bright red, yellow, green and blue photo frames!

How bizarre I thought, but having the paints already at hand I from my artsy furniture period, I began to comply.

Sales went through the roof. I remember at a craft show in Toronto, the biggest and most competitive one in Canada I believe, I had a line of 15 people, each with an arm load of my frames. I couldn’t resist, even though I was sieged trying to take payments and wrap purchases, to just stop for a minute and drink in the feeling of that crazy demand for my product.

During one 30 day period I worked 14 hour days, 7 days a week and made over $30,000 in sales. Not bad for a one man operation.

Could it Get Any Better?

It turns out it could. At a major craft show there are not only public buyers, but store buyers who are looking for cool and new merchandise for their stores.

One after another, small shop owners approached me wanting to order my photo frames. That was great, but then a buyer for a major retail store came a long and wanted to place an order to put my frames in 50 stores! And that was just a starter, or trial order!

In my head I did the math and that was a really nice big number she was offering to purchase. However I also did the math of my time, and that’s where my mental circuits began to fry. It just wasn’t possible. I had to pass up on the bonanza.

The Result of Saying No

In the next year funky photo frames exploded into retail stores and companies like Umbra stepped in to fill the need. Three years later Ikea was selling knock-offs and another year after that I saw a reasonably similar version of my original photo frame at a dollar store for $2 [mine had been $20].

Through some magic of luck and timing I was at the absolute exact right place at the exact right time with the exact right product, but I couldn’t cash in.

What’s the Real Lesson?

Looking back of course I wish that I had borrowed money, fired up a factory and begun to pump out as many of my frames as possible. Being the first to mass market a new product concept like that would have been a huge money making opportunity. No doubt about it.

But was it reasonable that a young guy with training as an artist and no business experience and no contacts could scale up something like that?

I don’t think so, that isn’t the lesson. In my reality it really was impossible to go from were I was at to a company of the kind of size that would be needed to fully leverage that opportunity.

The lesson learned, and it is a big one, was that I should have asked for help or advice. In my brain it was impossible, because I asked the question:

“Can I quadruple my production when I’m already working 14 hours a day?”

Clearly the answer to that question is no.

The right question was:

“How can I quadruple my production when I’m already working 14 hours a day?”

If I had asked myself the second question rather than the first, then I would have answered, “I don’t know.”

Then I could have asked other people, people who had experience with things like that. I could have kept asking it until someone helped me move forward…but I didn’t and now looking back it is sad to me that I chose to retreat from that opportunity.

The big lessons in this story are, ask the right questions and ask them to the right people. If you are creating a product, ask your customers what they want.

If you have a business opportunity, ask business people.

A valuable set of lessons, even though I continue to struggle when it comes to seeking help, I can say that I do get it now and that it is impossible to accomplish very much while hanging on to the concept of being an island.

What questions do you wish you had asked?

Have you ever missed out on a killer opportunity? If so, what lessons did you learn? I’d really like to know I’m not alone on this

Story Links:

• See the River City Decor website in Archive.org – images of my products included. No, I don’t have any clue where the yellow “Click Here Now” stuff came from. My site had a white background.
• One of a Kind Show – Canada’s largest craft show.
• Granville Island Public Market

- Jon Symons

P.S. this article is a part of my “Ways I’ve Made Money” series.

Lessons Learned – The Make or Break Decision is a post from: Art of Money

Today I received an email from Sean Wise announcing a way for entrepreneurs [sorry I assume this is for Canadians only] to move to the front of the line for the popular venture capital show Dragon’s Den.

…those looking to apply to be on Dragons’ Den Season Two have an interesting opportunity to “get to the front of the line” through a contest the CBC is sponsoring with Profit magasine.

It is called the Pitch4Profit_contest and it started last Friday. Entrepreneurs upload a 90 second elevator pitch (video or audio file), outlining what their business does and why its needed. The 3 best pitches (as decided by viewers and judges) get a chance to pitch the Dragons during the tapping of season two of the Dragon’s Den.

Good luck with the pitch, if you apply make sure you drop a comment an with a link so we can check it out and give it a vote.

You may also want to check out:

• Sean’s site Inside the Dragon’s Den
• What I learned when I met Sean Wise last fall.

Pitch4Profit Contest – Fast Track to the Dragon’s Den is a post from: Art of Money

I have to hire someone to do a bunch of installations of WordPress. This raises an interesting question as it seems to put me into a choice between hiring someone I know and trust or someone who is a pro and experienced WordPress person. A possible third option would be to outsource it via eLance or Scriptlance for a much lower cost.

The problem is to do a full site roll out, this person would need to have many passwords and the potential for damage to my business is pretty high.

I think favoring long term thinking is usually the best way to go, so I went with hiring someone I can trust and investing the time to train them [they do have a technical background].

As a side benefit, while I love working on an online business, it is refreshing to have someone come over to my house to work with me in person.

What I am learning is, where is the real value in a circumstance? It looks like I need someone to install WordPress, but I also need someone I can trust. The first has a pretty low value and the second could make the difference between a good night’s sleep and a nightmare or the ability to enjoy a vacation or to be tethered to a laptop.

Just like everything else in business it come down to leverage and scale and I’m learning that even concepts like trust fall under these two pillars. Trust can be leveraged and scaled out a lot farther than just getting a task completed.

- Jon Symons
Newbie at business building.

Hiring – Go with Trust or Experience? is a post from: Art of Money

A couple weeks ago I took aim at Pipeline Profits. Just to clarify it wasn’t because I thought what they were selling didn’t have value, it was because the way they were selling it was designed to create false hopes and liberate people from their money; whether the system was right for them or not.

I found out about the Pipeline Profits system from Andy Jenkins of StomperNet fame who earned an “unsubscribe” from me for the way he pumped up the hype on this latest Internet Marketing flash in the pan.

A Good Marketer Sees Opportunity in Everything

John Reese must have felt the same as me, but rather than opening up his blog and pounding out a post taking shots at the Pipeline dudes, he thought, “Even though this thing is being over-hyped and people are getting more and more skeptical about being fleeced by Internet Marketers, what if there is good material in there. How can I pass that value on to my clients and not be affected by the backlash?”

Here’s a few clips from the email that John sent out:

And you’ve most likely seen a few of the videos by “Buck
and Brock” who allegedly brought in over a million bucks
in 90 days using some new ‘twist’ on list building.

(I’ll reveal what they are actually doing in a moment.)

Anyway, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t mentioned
them or promoted their upcoming course…

Well, there’s a good reason for that…

I THOUGHT THEY WERE FULL OF CRAP!

And it continues…

Well, I just found out *I WAS WRONG* about ALL THREE
of those things and feel a bit silly now…

This past weekend, I met Buck and Brock (the guys everyone
are talking about) at an invitation-only seminar in San Diego….

Buck and Brock seemed very nice and I asked them if
they’d have lunch with me so I could pick their brains –
I was really ‘curious’ to see what they were up to and
what they were really doing.

and then…

Essentially what they’ve done is identified three major “kinks”
in the usual process that needed to be overhauled:

1. All co-registration suppliers are not created equal — not
by a long shot. They started running test campaigns
with a lot of different suppliers and found the small few
that provide the best leads — i.e. the ones that buy stuff
at a much higher rate than the others.

2. If you don’t know what content and ‘approach’ to send
the new leads *INSTANTLY* when they request your
information you might as well as kiss your advertising
dollars goodbye.

3. By knowing how the real co-registration industry works
behind the scenes (tons of brokers involved) they figured
out how to eliminate the usual “$10,000 minimum buy”
so new lists can be quickly generated (and more importantly)
TESTED for much, much less — i.e. without much risk
before you ‘ramp up’ the overall process and generate
a HUGE number of subscribers.

So the bottom line is, I’ve checked these guys out and
they’re OK. They’re legit, they know what they’re doing,
and you’d benefit from what they can show you.

That’s how a real pro handles a problem, turn it into an opportunity. John realized that maintaining the trust he has built with his email list subscribers is the number one priority.

You do that by not just pumping something because it can make you big money but rather you actually check it out and make an honest recommendation. John Reese just took all the hype and insinuations of easy wealth and tossed it out the window; where it belongs.

Then he rolled up his sleeves and found the real business value in the product and, knowing that it would only be interesting to a small percentage of people on his list, he focused on getting the value into the hands of the folks who would benefit from it…not on making as many quick bucks as possible.

If you are going to check out Pipeline Profits <– this is John Reese’s affiliate link…he deserves the commission. You may also want to hop on his list at Marketing Secrets.

Pipeline Profits – Let’s Take Another Look is a post from: Art of Money

I’m finding the transition from an employee or even self-employed mentality to a business building mentality to be a bit like dancing underwater.

What is relatively simple to do as an employee or one man shop becomes a whole new ball game, with layers of complexity in a real business.

A Real Business is all about Scale

An example is setting up a simple WordPress blog. In the last couple days, I’ve been training someone to do the setups for me on the blog network.

I could set up a blog, including modifying the header and hooking up all the plugins and accessories [FeedBurner, StatCounter etc] in less than an hour, maybe half an hour if I had performance enhancing substances.

Instead of doing that I’ve been creating a document that someone who has never heard of WordPress can use to go from site concept through to finished and tricked out Home Turf Media city blog; without having to ask me any questions.

It will probably take me about 25 hours work to create one document for this. I’m trying to roll out 10 new sites, which means that it has taken me about 3 times longer to produce the document than it would have to just do all the work myself. Then I still have to pay someone to do the actual work!

That’s what scale is about though. Scale shifts most of the costs of the business process up to the front, and then pays [hopefully] huge dividends when the process is repeated over and over at a much lower per unit cost.

The break even point of my document is roughly about 25 sites; but everything after that, is virtually free.

Why Building a Business is Like Dancing Underwater

My blog roll out document is one quick example. Now imagine EVERYTHING you do and apply the same thinking to it. Even creating a document needs a process behind it; a document template, a naming convention so you can find it when there are 200 of them, etc.

What it comes down to is the everything you do is probably 5 or 10 times more difficult and time consuming than if you were just to go and do the task.

Why There are So Many Self-Employed People

It takes discipline to not just “get it done.” Currently I have 10 bloggers waiting for sites and the only way I can make any money is to get them online and writing. Needless to say I like money; especially for things like paying my rent and eating, so there is a very real pressure to move forward.

Experience tells me that it’s a dead end street to give in to that pressure. To maintain my discipline and stick to creating systems that can scale beyond my own efforts goes against a life time of behavior patterns, but I think it is worth it.

I would guess that most people will bend, like I did in my first couple businesses, to that pressure and dive in and begin to work “in” the system rather than “on” it. That will relieve the pressure, bring money faster and severely limit the upside potential of any business.

My Goal

Here’s the thought that motivates me:

If I died, could someone, with no special skills, be able to read the password for my computer from my will, log on and run my company without missing a beat.

I admit is sounds like a pipe-dream, but really it is an essential target to hit. Since I now have 4 [soon to be 14] people who rely on me to get paid. That means that everything must be automated [yes, you can automate using people] and documented, and there needs to be a map of how to navigate and apply that documentation.

Does anyone have any tips for documenting processes in a way that is easy, yet comprehensive?

Is it possible to reach my goal in a small company?

Is it a waste of time to even try for something like that?

Should I just focus on trying to make money and sort out this kind of stuff after I have actual earnings?

Leave a comment an let me know what you think.

- Jon Symons
Feeling like an underwater dancing fool.

Building a Business is Like Dancing Underwater is a post from: Art of Money

Now this article is going to date me so for all you young Internet whipper-snappers who are reading this, hang on to your hats – here comes a history lesson.

When I was about 11 I got my first job as a paperboy – I know that is a terribly politically incorrect term, but that’s what we were called back then. These days I’m sure the term is more gender neutral.

Paperboy, was a completely awesome job. As I was thinking back on which jobs to include in this series, I realized that it may have been the best all around learning opportunity I ever had.

This job had it all terms of business skills. These days the system is completely different, but back in the seventies when I was delivering newspapers it really was a franchise type system.

Sales

When I wanted new customers or to make more money, I had to go door to door and cold call, asking people if they would like to subscribe to the local daily paper. That was hard, but I guess at age 11 I wasn’t quite a self-conscious as I would be doing the same thing at 22.

Distribution

Six days a week, at about 3pm all the “carriers” as we were called, would meet at the Barnett Highway drop-box collect our bundles. This was a big newspaper and carrying 30 of them at a time, on a Saturday, could sometimes feel bone-crushing on my small frame. Port Moody was an extremely hilly town and a bike wasn’t
any help, most of the time would be spent pushing it up a hill or trying to not crash or go out of control [loaded with papers] on the way down.

Another aspect of distribution was to constantly be thinking about ways to improve the time it took me to do the route. The path followed had been taught to me by the person who had the route before me, but because I used to spend so much of my time exploring forests and green belts in my town, I was able to shave significant time off of the delivery schedule with a few strategic short-cuts through the forest. Remember, the population wasn’t as dense as it is today, these routes spread over several miles.

Helpers

One thing I remember about delivering the paper was that my friends often wanted me to play hockey or football but I had to go directly after school each day and do my route. What I learned was that if I presented it just right, I could get them all to help me with my papers and finish my job in about a quarter the regular time. It is an important skill learned to be able to motivate people to help you out – and no I didn’t pay them.

Obstacles

Besides the weather, there were only two obstacles: big kids and dogs. I don’t recall ever having anything really bad happen, but there was one particular “big kid” who liked to threaten and torment me.

One day, while I was complaining about it at home, my mom said, “just look him in the eye.” I took her advice the next time we crossed paths and sure enough the pleasure he seemed to glean from tormenting me deflated like a balloon with a slow leak. Standing up directly to confrontations has served me very well ever since.

Dogs turned out to be pretty much the same story. I can’t remember who told me, but someone said that a dog only barks if they know you’re afraid. So I would just act confident and realize that they were probably more bark than bite.

The other skill learned with dogs though, if I really did feel threatened, the paper went on outside of the fence – learning proper boundaries of what is acceptable and what isn’t. In case you’re wondering these papers were too meaty to be folded like the way the kids in the Hollywood movies do it. If you practiced though, you could hold the rough end of the paper and aiming the fold at the doorstep you could kind of project [slide it edge-wise] the paper to the doorstep from about 10 or 12 feet away.
This tip saved time and also avoided some dog confrontations.

Getting Paid

When I delivered papers, I had to do my own collections. So at the end of every month as I delivered the papers, I also stopped at every house, banged on the door and collected for that month’s deliveries.

Then I received an invoice from the newspaper [The Vancouver Sun] that I need to pay. Whatever was left over I got to keep. Sweet! As I recall, I delivered 30 heavy papers, over a couple miles of hills, 6 days a week for about $30 a month.

Looking Back

As I look back, being a paper boy really was an amazing job. All of the elements of a real business were present and they were lived and learned everyday.

The only problem was that I didn’t really know what I was learning. What would have made this the coolest job ever would have been for the paper, or some community organization, to help us realize what we were really learning.

A tiny bit of business theory and reinforcement for the kids doing these jobs and you would have had mini entrepreneurs at age 13 ready to transform their lives…never looking for traditional jobs. For me it wasn’t until I hit age 30 that I really put myself in a position with as much business potential as I had in that paper route.

- Jon Symons

P.S. this article is a part of my “Ways I’ve Made Money” series.

Ways to Make Money – A Paperboy is a post from: Art of Money

I was reading over Yaro’s business timeline and it got me thinking about how I got to this point of my life. Yaro’s version, I printed it out, is about 17 pages long and I’m a lot older than he is, so I’m going to have to edit the story dramatically or Greenpeace will be after me for needlessly killing forests … and we wouldn’t want that.

Therefore, what I decided to do was to look back at all the various ways that I have earned money in my life and see what skills and lessons I’ve taken from each one.

Here’s what to look forward to in the coming days [no not weeks].

The Paper Route

• Dodging cars, dogs and bullies to make a couple bucks a week

Unionized Factory Worker

• Always look busy, but don’t work too hard

Duradeck Installer

• From $6/hr to $50/hr subcontractor

Waiter / Bartender

• A taste of the underground economy

Tree Faller

• Sorry Mr. Greenpeace, but the money was great

Construction Worker

• Cutting concrete at 20 below zero

Screenwriter

• Never sign a contract where you get paid after the words “Net Revenue.”

Wood Furniture Artist to Picture Framer

• “What do you make?” I asked the 70 year old man standing in front of me. “Mostly sawdust” he replied.
• Part One – The Make or Break Decision, my chance to go big and get rich…did I pull it off?

Systems Analyst

• My brief career as Dilbert

Online Entrepreneur

• The last couple years trying to play nice with Google wearing hats of various shades of gray.

That should keep me busy for a while. There were some meaningful lessons learned in each and every one of those jobs. The time-spans spent in the jobs range from one day to 11 years.

Obviously, I’ve been cursed with a rather short term view of things career wise and only now, in my mid forties am I getting the value of taking a longer term outlook on making money.

It’s like I said to a friend of mine recently, you may not be committed to anything beyond getting out of bed the next day [he has suffered from the same job cycling syndrome as me], but despite that you probably are going live for 35 or 40 more years; so commitment is not really an issue. You are committed to having to earn enough for food and clothing a shelter for a long time to come, whether you like it or not.

If you take a wise approach to it the path can be made a lot easier.

I know that I have got it now and I do take a long term view and know that sticking with one direction is the easiest way to leverage my time to greater earnings.

A look back at all the mistakes made and valuable lessons learned seems to be really appropriate right now and I hope you find it interesting and informative.

Please do join in on your site and send me a link – even it’s just one post. I’ll save them all up and include them all at the end, or on each post if there are enough.

Watch for the Paper Route…coming soon,

- Jon Symons

Update:

• Kimber from No Limits Ladies has joined in with Selling Vegetables to City Folks.

Ways to Make Money – Lessons Learned From Jobs I’ve Done is a post from: Art of Money

There have a been a couple Carnival of Entrepreneurs in the last 2 years, but Ben from Startup Spark has taken up the project and he’s doing it right this time.

I submitted my Internet marketing cautionary tale, Pipeline Profits: Tempted? If so You Aren’t Ready to Be Rich! to this weeks edition and I was very pleasantly surprise by the quality of the Carnival of Entrepreneurs
Edition #4.

The Picasso Award *

The award goes to Trusted Adviser for his story Trust Tip 3: The ABC 20 Question Rule which is great advice and particularly relates to me. The story outlines some basic tips to develop a curious attitude to transform from being self-oriented to customer oriented:

But most importantly, your self-orientation will drop. Self-orientation is the biggest factor affecting personal trust—if your objectives, goals and focus is on yourself, then to that extent, customers and clients won’t trust you. As well they shouldn’t. Being constantly curious transforms self-orientation into customer focus.

The Matisse Award

This award goes to The New Marketing World for his practical explanation – Product’s Life Cycle: How Long You Have to Sell. I love good clear concepts presented well. They are some of my favorite blog posts in general and this one is a classic example:

The product’s life cycle is the term used to understand the life in which the product still appeals to consumers. Eventually the product will get old and need replacing, will be surpassed by new products, or will no longer be of interest to consumers.

The Basquiat Award

This award could be given for the title alone. On J. Timothy King’s Blog he presents What Chocolate Says About Entrepreneurship. It’s a review of the movie Chocolate, which I haven’t seen, but I’ll be looking for it after reading Timothy’s review:

But the story of the movie Chocolat is about something greater than catering to the lowest common denominator. It’s about passion and innovation. It’s about being an entrepreneur, about independence and self-actualization. Vianne represents this entrepreneurial spirit, which is why I identified so fully with her character.

That’s it for my first look at the Carnival of Entrepreneurs I hope you’ll take a minute to check it out.

- Jon Symons

* P.S. I’ve decided to use more references to “art” on this site, just to mess with Google a bit. Google consistently sends traffic to this site for art related searches, primarily because of having the word in my domain name [a good SEO tip there - even when there is little reference to a word if it is in the domain name a search engine will give the site "weight" for it.]

Best of the Carnival of Entrepreneurs is a post from: Art of Money

A little peak into the world of Mr. Snowman the venture capitalist.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks to Sean [aka Snowman Dragon ] for sharing.

Snowman VC: “I’m Gonna Need a Latte” is a post from: Art of Money

Last week I went to a free seminar put on by the local Business Link.

Quick tangent: in my city there is an excellent resource for entrepreneurs called the business link…probably deserves its own post, but you may want to be on the lookout for small business support from you municipal or state/provincial government. Micro business has a huge impact on the economy and government is beginning to recognize that impact in the form of powerful support tools for small business.

The talk was called “How To Work ON Your Business, Rather Than IN Your Business.” Now as someone who practically sleeps with Michael Gerber’s, The E-Myth Revisited under my pillow I was very familiar with the concepts presented in the talk. Even though I have read the book numerous times, getting lost in “technician” tasks remains my number one challenge in my business.

Definition of A Successful Business

I liked the presenter’s definition of a successful business:

1. has predictable profits
2. doesn’t require the owner to be present

My personal definition left out #1, but of course it is a very good one as it touches on all kinds of management and budgeting issues that are essential for a great business.

We heard about all the activities that the owner of a successful business should not be doing and why…all stuff that can be found in the E-Myth.

But there was a couple take-aways that I’d like to share that made the seminar very worthwhile for me.

Systems

A manager creates and manages systems, not people. A manager always needs to keep this in mind. Any problem in a business needs to blamed on a system, not on a person.

The manager must spend their time improving systems, not dealing with individual problems.

Expertise

When you are looking to get technician tasks off of your plate, think in terms of hiring expertise rather than hiring a person.

This is one that has caught me recently. I have struggled to find a “clone” of myself to help me with my blog network, but really I should be defining a roll that requires a specific expertise and then someone with that skill set to fill the roll and perform the task.

Building a Business is Like a See-Saw

There is a strategic business activities on one side and technician activities on the other end. In my business, I’m sitting on the ground, playing see-saw with only a few grams of weight on the other side of the board…I’m on the technician side…natch.

So the goal isn’t to look for and try to hire a perfect clone of myself to sit on the other side and take all the technical tasks off of my plate. The goal is to gradually identify and then find someone to take responsibility for, the tasks which have the greatest return on an outsourcing investment.

The speaker suggested that I identify tasks and categorize them in a couple ways:

• how much pain they cause – for me I hate bookkeeping, so it is completely worth it for me to pay someone else to take that headache away.
• the direct effect on the bottom line – if a task costs x dollars but brings in xx dollars then it is an obvious one to outsource.

For my blog network the break even point is probably around 30 sites. With the pilot project well underway with 4 sites, it isn’t that tough for me to see all the things that I will need to get off of my plate if I’m going to manage a network of 30 sites.

It is one of the advantages of thinking big…you can’t fool yourself into believing that one person can do everything. To be honest it has been overwhelming at points, even with 4 blogs.

Like a good see-saw game there needs to be a balance between the two business forces of production and strategy. It often feels like production is the most important because it seems like that’s where the money comes from, but if you look as successful businesses, it’s the strategy that has made them great.

Related Reading

• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael Gerber
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim Collins
• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by Renée Mauborgne & W. Chan Kim
• Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono

Jon Symons
Playing see-saw in my business…so you don’t have to.

Working On Your Busines – Rather than In It is a post from: Art of Money