Internet Business Guide

For First-Class Progress

Category: Internet Business

  • Using A CMS For A Content-Rich Website

    It was when I visited my good friend, Daniel Levy, in Paris that I heard of the term CMS for the first time.

    If you’re now wondering (like I was) what the heck CMS means and for what it should be good… outspoken it means Content Management System, and it can be useful for organizing and managing content that you publish on the Web. Here’s what Wikipedia says about it…

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system

    There are free or open source and paid content management systems available.

    Up to that point, I was using Macromedia/Adobe Dreamweaver for my websites (except for this very blog). But when Daniel and I were talking about the future of my Blue Baby, MyGermanCity.com, a travel related content-rich website, and the plans I have with it in terms of features and number of pages, his reaction was: “You need a CMS!”

    “CMS?” I asked.

    “CMS,” he said. He then went on and explained what CMS means, what it is, does, and the advantages — and possible disatvantages — of using one.

    It made sense to me so I went ahead and researched both costly and open source top content management systems. One tool I used was the CMSMatrix.org, although their database was — and still is — partially outdated. (Showing WordPress version 2.2.1 when the current version was 2.6? That’s a huge difference.)

    I also went to OpenSourceCMS.com, but take it with a grain of salt since feedback is marbled by spammy comments of users and partners or owners of the respective software.

    Additionally, there were at least 40 reviews and reports whose URLs I purged; though I’m sure you’ll find them using Google’s powerful search engine. ;-)

    This entire research (plus testing, and testing, and testing…) took me almost three months.

    Which content management systems did I test?

    In alphabetical order:

    There were a few more, but due to the fact that I removed them from the test domain within a few minutes — or did not even bother installing them due to detailed reviews — I avoid mentioning them here.

    Daniel also mentioned the name CMS400. At that time, the company behind this software, Ektron, did not provide prices on its website (hmm…). And when I contacted an Ektron representative, all the person did was ask questions… still no price.

    End of conversation.

    At the time of this writing, Ektron does provide prices on its website, starting at a whopping $5,000 per URL for the Standard Edition. But what I would have needed would have been the Professional Edition for which it says, “Ask your sales person for details.”

    Sure…

    You can see that I was not necessarily after a free or open source content management system. No CMS is “for free.” You always spend time (= money) and energy figuring everything out and familiarizing yourself with it. Or you have someone else do it for you, in which case you spend money, too.

    Of course, I could have outsourced this task. The thing though is that I wanted to familiarize myself with it to know whether I want to work with it for the next few years, and to see which is the best or most appropriate CMS for MyGermanCity.com.

    At one point I narrowed it down to Joomla! and Drupal with tendency towards Drupal. The thing was I would have spend at least $1,500 just for transitioning the existing template alone. Plus, I also needed someone for setting everything up.

    What actually pushed me away from it, however, is the lack of plugin development (which they call modules).

    You need to understand that modules are being developed for certain main Drupal releases (ex., 5 or 6) since the main Drupal versions are backward INcompatibel. Now, there were a couple modules that I needed upfront or soon, but they were not available for version 6. So I would have been forced to use Drupal 5 instead. Not that bad, perhaps, but what if I want or have to upgrade from 5 to 6?

    That’s a huge task, they say.

    This got me to remove both Drupal 5 & 6 from the test domain.

    OK, then I was ready to use Joomla!.

    Gosh, what a software… really impressive, speaking of customizability and features available right from the start! I even was about to fall in love with it (buy me a t-shirt!), but then…

    Writing a simple content page, publishing it, and trying to access it on the Web (using the URL alias, not the ugly dynamic URL), displayed a 404 error… WTF?

    The thing was this: If you do not assign a page to a left or right hand navigation bar, a Category, or a Section, you canNOT see the page on the Web using the pretty or search engine friendly URL!

    End of discussion. What a pity, but Joomla! was removed from the server within a minute.

    Another possible CMS was the Bitrix Site Manger. Again, it does have a cost upfront, but this can be compensated by the fact that most tools are already included. This may save you a lot of time later on.

    As an example, one developer I got in contact with said that Drupal can do the same things Bitrix Site Manager does. The difference in terms of cost?

    Almost non-existent.

    I would have paid a similar amount of money for either CMS. The Bitrix Site Manager as it’s being shipped plus transitioning the theme: up to $3,000 altogether. Letting a developer set up Drupal, hand-code and/or customize certain modules, and have another or the same developer transfer the existing XHTML/CSS template to Drupal: up to $3,000 altogether.

    Someone may argue that the Bitrix Site Manager does have a whole bunch of features built-in — tools one would need to develop for a Drupal powered site first. Plus, the assurance that Bitrix will maintain and improve those tools further since they’re part of the whole package, whereas one may need to hire a developer for maintaining and improving a Drupal powered site.

    So again, both may sum up to an equal amount of time/money.

    The thing that made me uninstall the Bitrix Site Manager was that file names are supposed to end in .php. They did say that it should work without the .php, but my testing consistently displayed nothing but error messages.

    Another point was that this software is fairly complex (installation consists of thousands of files and folders), and, again, the need of someone to convert the existing site template to the Bitrix Site Manager would likely amount to up to $1,500 (which one may pay for a new but not for transitioning an existing custom template).

    Next station was ExpressionEngine, which was recommended by the gentleman who created MyGermanCity.com’s site template — a coder extraordinaire, Pat Heard.

    I can code HTML and CSS on my own, but Pat does it better, he does it in lightening speed, and he’s an expert in JavaScript.

    If you’re ever in need of a first-class coder — one who exceeds your expectations — I highly recommend Pat Heard of fullahead.org. Let me warn you though… he’s usually booked out for weeks if not months.

    Now, he did not only recommend EE, he also gave me a very important tip:

    The choice of CMS is highly personal. Usually, once someone has invested the time to learn WordPress, TextPattern, Joomla, etc., they’ll swear up and down that it’s the best out there.

    His comment set me up brilliantly. It made me look beyond the reviews of “raving fans.” ;-)

    Back to ExpressionEngine…

    The backend looked promising. Somehow, I felt comfortable right from the start. Plus, they promote their excellent forum and staff. Sounds good. They further promise to be extremely flexible. Also good. But then…

    You CAN customize the layout to your hearts content. The downside, though, is that it affects the URL structure of your site!

    As a side note: You can, somehow, program the software (or add something to the .htaccess file) to remove those template related words from URLs, but they strongly recommend you to not do that. “Extremely flexible?”

    The other CMSs also just didn’t make it. e107 is too plain and doesn’t meet my needs; eZ Publish was a bit difficult to get to work, plus I couldn’t figure out how to do certain tasks; and Mambo — I dismissed that one, somehow… (doesn’t it lack development power now that some of Mambo’s previous core developers are in on developing Joomla!?).

    That was the point where the thought of using WordPress as a content management system started to grow. But before that… “let me give MovableType a chance”.

    First off, they consistently announce which websites use their software, and I don’t care who is using what. What interests me is what a software can do for me and my visitors, and its momentum in terms of development.

    Long story short, what got me uninstall MovableType were mainly two things:

    1) Somehow, it stands on its own. URLs with underscores?? And you have to be a registered user to enable things such as showing your own image next to your own comment?

    2) To me it seems as though their marketing and vision is blurred and fuzzy. One day they decide to have this price; another day they decide to release MovableType as open source — with limited features over MovableType Pro. Yet another day they decide to remove those limitations and have the open source version match exactly the Pro version. Yet another day they change the price structure, again.

    What about consistency and a clear plan?

    Another thing that underscores my thesis is that their staff often writes mt.com or mt.org instead of movabletype.com or movabletype.org. Laziness (or fuzziness) can lead to strange destinations… ;-)

    Enough said; on to WordPress.

    But can it do what I need it to do?

    I quickly realized that it can, and much more.

    • Custom page templates without altering the URL.
    • Custom breadcrumbs navigation (and many more custom fields) by utilizing the Custom Fields options when creating pages or posts.
    • Customize the file name structure to your heart’s content. You could even add any file extension to it, if you wish.
    • Compared to other CMSs, to create a WordPress template is very easy and pretty straight forward. In other words, the transition from a static XHTML/CSS template to a WordPress template was done within a few hours — by myself, a PHP newbie.
    • The momentum and professionalism in terms of development and improvement is unmatched. Really impressive. New version after new version; plus, plugins are consistently developed and improved. And if not, it should be comparably simple to create a new custom plugin or alter an existing one — or to find someone who can alter or create and maintain one for a reasonable price.
    • WordPress with its array of plugins may save you thousands of dollars in comparison to certain other content management systems.

    That’s about my decision of using WordPress as a content management system for a content-rich website. :-)

    —Marcus Hochstadt

  • Finding Your Profitable Market

    When in search for a product or service to sell online (or off, for that matter), you must take some steps to get the perfect market (or some call it niche) that will have a high desirability in today’s marketplace. The public must want it! :-)

    Normally, you’d research the supply and demand of a market first, then locate the product that market is demanding specifically. But let’s take a look at starting with the product first.

    So how do you find that perfect thing to sell in your Internet business endeavors? There are many workshops that offer advice and recommendations, but it’s really you that has to come up with an answer. It’s crucial to find something that will give you a good chance at success.

    First, get a list of products or services that are potential items you would like to market. Each thing on your list should be something you have some knowledge about… Don’t try and sell ski boots when you have never been skiing or have even looked at a ski boot. Of course, if you absolutely LOVE ski boots, you can always learn all about them! :-)

    That brings up the other point… and one brought up by almost every seminar ever given on the subject—find something you love! When you are going to be spending hours and hours of your days (and sometimes nights) setting up your Internet business, working on building traffic and getting things moving, and this for the next 3-5 years, you better enjoy what you are doing.

    So… the items you put on your list should be products or services that reflect specific skills or aptitude you have, hobbies you are interested in, or things you know a lot about. You can add items that you have a high interest in learning, too. Just don’t make the runway for takeoff too long by needing to devote a lot of study to the subject first.

    The idea is to leverage and improve your strengths, not your weaknesses.

    Break down your list into three sections. First, list all the things you enjoy doing, such as baking, drawing, traveling, etc. Then list all the things you are good at doing… which could also overlap the first list. Now list your unique skills, perhaps playing the piano, computer programming or the like. And finally, list all the things that you have a lot of knowledge about.

    Work out for each thing on your list what could be a product or service entailing the action involved with each one. This will at least give you some ideas—maybe really interesting and unique ideas at that!

    Let’s say you came up with a product to sell such as fishing equipment. Some folks feel more comfortable to narrow the product/market down to something less competitive and more specific than “fishing equipment.” Perhaps you could just sell reels, lines or rods. Now you will need to find out if there is a market for this product. You instinctively know that there is, but research it anyway.

    Find out how many out there will be your competition (or possible future partners). How much demand is there for the product? And is that demand high enough to sustain a business? Is it just too low, go back up a step or two until the demand number gets exciting. And ask yourself how you could create something unique—something that could be a Unique Selling Proposition that would make you stand out from the competitive crowd?

    Turning your product or content rich Web site into a profitable Internet business venture is really doable if you are doing something you love, you are selling a product that is in high demand, and you stand out from the crowd in what you offer. You’ll have fun running your business every day, and will know how to handle customers’ questions effectively.

    What an adventure!

    —Marcus Hochstadt

  • Freebie Seekers

    Freebie seekers are those looking for free stuff. And who doesn’t like getting something for nothing? Everyone has tried at some time or another to enter those sites that offer free samples, free reports or e-books. Who hasn’t put their contact information into some form so they will be entered into a contest to win a free vacation?

    Apparently, the term “FREE” sells. People who do marketing know this. They put this word in headers of their site, and in all their ads. This goes to show there are lots of people out there searching for free stuff. I mean, doesn’t it tickle your fancy when you see: “I have something for you that will increase your profits by 500%. And you don’t have to pay a dime! It’s free! Click here!”

    But consider this… When freebie seekers come to your site, whether contractors, partners, students, etc. and are looking for something free—it’s rare they do anything profitable for you. Studies show, it’s a sad fact but true, you will find complaints increase. Why do they complain about something they got for free? Who knows, but it happens. Besides, they aren’t motivated to take action.

    I feel that those who seek things (like tools, advice, reports, etc) that cost nothing are a different kind of people. They’re a different breed of cat than someone looking for something they need and who are happy to pay money for targeted information and great products or services. I can say that even though I, too, was a freebie seeker myself. :-) But no more! Here’s why…

    There are countless Web sites where you can download a “Free Report” for only signing up by entering your e-mail address. You may think, “Oh, I’ll get some emails from them, but what the heck.” Then you find your inbox deluged with junk mail offering a wide variety of products, all of them claiming you requested them. What really happened is that they harvested your email address by offering this report or e-book or whatever, and then they turn around and sell your address to others. Or at least upsell you on their more expensive products or services.

    Not only that – but think about it… what happens with that Free Report you downloaded last week or 2 years ago? It’s still sitting there on your computer, taking up hard drive space and unread, isn’t it? That’s the crux… because you didn’t have to pay something for the item, generally you won’t put the tips and strategies revealed in the report(s) to use. You won’t act upon them. It seems as though you don’t feel as if they are truly valuable.

    I’m sure people take to heart those things they pay money for. If you pay $30 or $100 or even $1,000 for something, you will have a different mindset. You are much more likely to act upon the information you paid for. You will take the tips and strategies and put them to use.

    This is not to say there aren’t some freebies that are completely genuine, filled with great information that you can implement in your business. But the real question is—will you put them to use? Or will you let them sit there with their interesting icons on your desktop?

    —Marcus Hochstadt

  • Good Internet Business Practice

    When running an Internet business, it’s important to maintain good business practices, just like when having an offline storefront establishment. The major difference in operating online is that you have a much larger market—and therefore potentially can do many times the business that you would be doing locally. All the more reason to keep your business practices up to snuff! :-)

    An example of how you can go off the rails in your business practices is this…

    Say you are communicating to customers via email. You should treat email as if it was a handwritten letter. Sign it! Otherwise how does the person receiving it know who you are? Then how do they address you when they write back? “Dear Ghost”? Or “Dear you-won’t-reveal-your-name”? Or “Dear you-want-me-to-visit-your-web-site-and-search-for-your-name?”

    You won’t be using letterhead with email, so the best way to handle that is to have not only your signature at the bottom, but the name of your company and your contact information, too. Or perhaps a great, catchy headline making them want to click through to your Web site.

    The same goes for greetings. Don’t just start messages with “I wanted to write to you about your last purchase…” Use their name in a proper greeting, “Dear John,” and give them some respect. In your offline business, you would never write a letter to a business associate and fail to use a greeting at the head of the letter, would you?

    In a store or office, when a customer comes in with a question or complaint, it gets answered right away. You can’t turn away someone standing there in front of you. Even phone calls are answered and you deal with the person on the other end.

    The same goes for an Internet business. The communication methods will often be different. They will usually email you or fill out an online form. These have to be handled rapidly.

    When you don’t answer communications right away, you can lose a good customer. They wonder if you are really there at all, or if you are really serious about your business.

    Perhaps you went out of business. They don’t know. It’s not like calling a company and hearing a voice on the other end stating the company name and giving you the option of speaking with a live person.

    Truthful and accurate descriptions of your products or services are a must, too. If someone can walk into a physical store, they can inspect the merchandise for themselves.

    They can’t see the actual item online, so you must be able to substantiate whatever claim you make as to its appearance, ability to do any function, etc. To advertise a product otherwise would be misleading and can result in less sales and countless refund requests.

    Offline, when a store gets unsolicited referrals from a “competitor” it is likely that competitor becomes a partner in that you also refer customers to that store. Do the same online.

    Does someone recommend and link to one of your products? Recommend and link back to one of his/hers, at least to his or her Web site!

    Bottom line? Run your Internet business with all the care of one offline, and you will be respected for your good Internet business practices… and likely get more business through word of mouth!

    —Marcus Hochstadt

  • This Domain Name Has Expired

    No, not mine, but I just visited a blog of someone I know and he has links in the sidebar to some of his products. When I clicked one of those links in order to visit that site (and to see the sales letter of that product), I was redirected to another domain which displayed the message: “This Domain Name Has Expired”.

    Isn’t that nice? Imagine you create a product and start promoting its URL using different marketing techniques, and all of a sudden you stop making sales because “the domain name has expired”… Ouch!

    It’s not the first blog I saw that happening. So may I ask you this…

    Did you make sure to have your domain names set to auto renew? If auto renew is unavailable, did you mark your calendar as to when to renew the domain(s)? You may lose a lot of money otherwise.

    Another message I see fairly often is “Bandwidth Limit Exceeded”. This is another thing that can kill your Internet Business. I would check your cPanel regularly as to how much bandwidth you usually use. And when you reach the limit, you may wanna use another hosting package or check another hosting company!

    Besides, have someone to check your Web sites regularly, perhaps every day, to see if they are still live. Or use a hosting company that guarantees an uptime of at least 99% if not 100%.

    Thought you wanna know and perhaps check the health of your Web sites now. ;-)

    —Marcus Hochstadt

  • The Importance Of An Internet Business Plan

    The Importance Of An Internet Business PlanSo, you have this wonderful new idea for an Internet business—many have one—but web development and technology move at breathtaking speeds. Do you really have time to put together a business plan?

    Of the millions of Internet businesses that have opened in the last few years, how many of these put together a detailed business plan, or even a blueprint? It’s a small percentage. Most new online businesses think preparing a business plan is a waste of time, and by the same respect, over 80% of all new businesses fail, often in the first year.

    You have the vision, you may have lofty expectations of what you want to achieve, but do you know how to get there?

    There is no “one fits all” solution… Every business—and every one—is unique, even for companies within the same sector. Plus, if you have a successful business offline, that doesn’t guarantee the transition online will be easy, and there are extra considerations when you start any business on the internet.

    The primary purpose of any business plan is to give your business direction. In order to move forward, you need vision, planning, research, and goals. Not only do you need to convince yourself that your idea is viable, but a business plan will also convince others. Let’s say you want to raise capital, then your bank manager or potential investors will also need to see a detailed business plan.

    The Internet is also a valuable source for finding templates and advice for your Internet business plan, so here I am going to outline the need of a business plan rather than the content, and if you still think you don’t want a business plan, come back in one year and let’s see how you performed. ;-)

    Writing a business plan forces you to analyze every aspect of your proposed business venture and whether you use ten or twenty sections to get you there, it puts your vision down on paper, proves your understanding of the business, highlights any hurdles you may not have expected, and ensures that the overall idea is realistic.

    Key Issues To Outline

    Your Mission

    Explain your new business and what you want to achieve. What are you currently doing that makes you believe you can make a success of?

    Explain in detail what your business does, detail your products & services and illustrate your goals. Developing a Web site also requires further planning. What do you want to achieve from the front end, your user interface? Is this an e-commerce business, or do you just want to promote your business or services? Do you want to generate hits or want users to sign up for membership? What do you want your clients to see and do?

    Express your vision and the keys to its success. (I personally use and highly recommend Mindjet’s MindManager Pro for this.)

    How Will You Get There?

    What resources do you have available? Are you using your own expertise, or will you be using employers or outsourcing work? If you have a successful business away from the internet, how will you make that transition online, and what effect will it have on your existing business?

    How will you create your Web site and what resources do you have available? When a web designer starts work on your site, you will need a blueprint of how your site comes together, and how the pages are organized and integrated.

    Outline your marketing strategy, your pricing strategy, and your plan to promote sales.

    Analyze your competitors and explain what will give you the edge, while at the same time list possible partners. Take the time to plan for contingencies, too. Show that you are aware of possible hurdles and how they can be overcome.

    Include timelines, goals, and explain where your Internet business will be in one year, five years, and ten years time, or within a scale that suits your business.

    Back Up Your Information

    If you think there are thousands of customers for your business, prove this figure and provide an up-to-date market analysis. You must include projected sales figures, cash flow and profit and loss forecasts. Not only will you need this to raise capital (in case you want to), but it provides you with a budget and planning tool to measure your progress.

    Finally, top it all off with an executive summary. This is like the blurb on the back page of a novel. Summarize your Internet business plan and explain it on one page, which will be the very first page. When approaching investors and bankers, it should encourage them to take the time and read through your Internet business plan. It ensures that you can encompass all your facts, figures, vision, and your mission into one statement.

    —Marcus Hochstadt

  • The Anatomy Of Hurdles

    The Anatomy Of HurdlesOn a daily basis, you may encounter several different hurdles… They distract you from the job at hand and frequently slow you down, but quite often they are an expected part of your working day.

    It’s the bigger hurdles that present a challenge; they creep up through neglect, or bad planning, and can be extremely detrimental to your Internet businesses success.

    So how do you define an Internet business hurdle? A challenge to one company can be a disaster to another. No wonder they are called a roadblock to success.

    Let’s see… An Internet business hurdle may…

    Impede Advancement

    Unforeseen hurdles can slow down the progress of a project. They increase man hours, and affect its profitability, which has a continued effect throughout your Internet business, and the necessary excuses distill confidence with your customers.

    Dictate Choices

    A hurdle can force you into changing direction. When you plan and choose the direction your Internet business needs to move in, an unexpected hurdle limits those choices and may force your Internet business in a direction that would not be your ideal or first choice.

    Block Avenues

    A hurdle can also block avenues or possibilities completely. A roadblock to success is a common description for a business hurdle. For some hurdles, there may not be a way forward.

    Cause Discouragement

    When projects do not work as planned, or unforeseen hurdles block progress, the effects on morale are harsh. It’s very disheartening for managers and staff to not see a project through to fruition and can cause owners to neglect their Internet business rather than face further disappointment.

    Affect Cash Flow

    Most hurdles can have an effect on cash flow, when customers are slow to pay bills or sales drop, it’s increasingly difficult to pay your own suppliers and creditors. Bad financial management means that serious hurdles, like unforeseen tax bills, will also drain your resources, plus losing staff to sickness, family problems or other employers is another hurdle which slows down your advance and adds more expense with recruitment and training.

    The Solution

    To overcome Internet business hurdles, plan for them. When you create your initial Internet business plan, you have to implement plans for contingencies and analyze every potential hurdle. Risk Management needs to continue throughout the life span of your Internet business, and every new project and investment needs planning to control it and predict future outcomes.

    The more you plan, the less Internet business hurdles you will face, or the smaller their impact will be. And when they appear, they are expected and you know the appropriate action.

    Let’s look at the number one hurdle, lack of sales, and see how planning can prevent this problem:

    How Well Do You Know Your Market?

    In Internet business, you need to analyze your potential markets, and know how to reach them. If trends suddenly change, you need a plan to move with them. Your old marketing strategy may have worked once, but you need to keep up with the changing market. Never sit on your laurels. Reach out to your customers, reward loyalty, and actively promote and analyze new ventures.

    Look At Your Performance.

    If you cut corners on your production or service, your customers will soon realize. Plan your pricing strategy, and review and test it continuously. Is your price too expensive to be appealing, or are your prices too low? Most businesses do price themselves too low, which may win a short term popularity vote, but affects the performance of your overall Internet business and its “Net Worth” and can rarely be sustained.

    Look at, and evaluate you customer services standards. These standards should be outlined in a plan and upheld regardless of the circumstances. Bad customer service is usually the number one reason your customer does not return.

    Has Your Product Reached Its Lifespan?

    Trends change continuously. The latest gadget on the market may earn you millions, but it will not be around forever. If you have based your business on one product, you will need to know what to do when this product reaches the end of its life-cycle. Do you have other products to replace it with? Or do you update old products to be “the latest” again?

    Bottom Line

    There are far too many hurdles to list here, as every Internet business is unique with its own set of risks, but planning and prevention are paramount.

    You may not think you have the time, but that’s something else you need to overcome and plan. And when your Internet business stumbles over that last hurdle you failed to overcome, you will have all the time in the world to analyze it then and eventually start over.

    Having said all this, I want you to remember a quote I use quite often…

    If something doesn’t work, do not adjust your goal, adjust the action steps towards that goal.

    —Marcus Hochstadt

  • I Made $13,692.59 In Profits Last Month, So What?

    I Made $13.692,59 In Profits Last Month, So What?When we want to master something in life, we go to someone who is a proven master in what we want to master ourselves, right?

    When we want to become good parents, we learn from people who have succeeded at raising kids. We wouldn’t be listening to people who haven’t had kids yet, would we?

    When we want to learn how to get rich, we would learn from people who make the amount of money we want to make in the area that excites us. We wouldn’t listen to poor people would we, even when they are our best friends?

    When we want to become healthier and substantially improve our fitness, we would hire a fitness coach, like Pat King, someone who has the body shape and fitness we are aiming for. We would not listen to people who are consistently overweight, would we?

    When we want to succeed at picking up girls, we would seek advice from seduction experts, like Bobby Rio and Mike Stoute. We would not in the world ask someone who hasn’t had a girl in bed for the past three or so years, would we?

    When we want to cook the most delicious food in town, we would learn from a master cook who won national prizes and competitions. We would not be asking someone who’s eating fast food every day, would we?

    When we want to attract whatever we want in life, we would learn from someone who miraculously attracts whatever s/he wants and knows the secret, like Dr. Joe Vitale. We would not ask someone who has only unfulfilled wishes, would we?

    While the above sounds familiar and makes perfect sense when reading it, why in the world do so many people NOT follow the above rules in their everyday life?

    For example, I recently read a post by Bill from theblogentrepreneur.com claiming that blogging would be a bad way to make money online. What? He calls himself a blog entrepreneur making $1,000/month but states it would be a bad idea? Bill, nothing against you personally, really, but I suggest you go ahead and change your blog title. Not only that though…

    Bill says he aims for time freedom (I agree) and that blogging would take too much time (I do not agree.)

    I read that all the time. People make statements and have beliefs based on their own limited experiences and circumstances. For instance, Bill claims that “any Problogger will tell you that they probably work as much on a blog as they would at a regular job.” Oops! How many probloggers did he ask? It seems to me he didn’t ask any or else he would probably think differently.

    From my own experience—and I did ask a problogger I personally know, my Mentor James Brausch—probloggers work much less on their blogs than you might think. James, for example, works only 1-3 (one to three) hours per week, sometimes even less (i.e., none!)

    Now, you might be asking how is this possible, working only 3 hours per week while making tens of thousands of dollars at the same time? This question is commonly ask by people who still have employment thinking in their mind. I had this myself for many, many years, and I am so happy to finally get rid of it piece by piece.

    I learned that in order to succeed online and make thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars per month you need to delegate as many tasks as possible. I call it High-Profile Outsourcing. (Frankly, I’m still working too many hours myself, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel! ;-)

    Feeling intimidated at the thought of having to regularly write blog posts? Find and hire excellent ghostwriters! Have a task on your desk for a couple weeks that you hate to do? Get a virtual assistant! Would it take you days or even weeks setting up and maintaining a Web site? Get a good coder, someone who does it in hours instead of weeks!

    Bill could turn his $1,000 into $10,000/month if he would go beyond his own circumstances and get rid of his limiting beliefs.

    If something doesn’t work, don’t adjust your goals, adjust your action steps.

    The dangerous thing is that Bill gives blogging advice in that he pretends blogging would be a bad way to make money online. It may be a bad way for him but surely not in general. Why not turn that belief into another direction?

    For example, Collin LaHay recently changed his blog’s focus from make money online to Web site marketing strategies. I tend to agree with him. He gives excellent marketing tips which I follow regularly. Though, he says he lacks proper results when it comes to teaching how to make money online, since he makes only $500/month, hence the change in blog title and focus.

    The thing I want you to take home is this… Follow advice from people who are successful in the area you want to master. Or in other words, when you want to master something, learn from a master, not a beginner.

    Feel you’re not having enough time to do all the tasks at hand? Perhaps you should get rid of the tube! That alone will save most people several hours each day. The next step is to realize that multitasking is insane. Focusing on one task at a time is what moves you forward considerably.

    Feel frustrated because you only make a mere $50 or $100/month while spending 320 hours at the same time? Perhaps having all those AdSense ads and affiliate links up is the wrong way to do it, or you present them in a barren way, or you just need more traffic. Or… perhaps you should create and sell your own products and build your own customer list instead.

    Additionally, avoid the temptation of doing everything on your own and start to outsource!

    If you feel you are not ready yet to teach someone something, think again. There is something you know that others don’t. The Internet is being used for finding information and products. People spend billions of dollars to get what they want. I know there is something you can help others with.

    Create a Web site, get targeted traffic, and create and sell your own products or services, or recommend excellent products using the companie’s affiliate programs.

    Don’t feel ashamed to sell something to your audience. Some people act as if it would be dishonoring to sell products to your readers. That’s an insane virus these people need to get rid of! Your audience does not only expect you to give them your “secrets,” you have the damn responsibility to do that and train them!

    You know how to lose weight? Of course your audience is eagerly waiting for your products teaching them how to lose weight. Create them and sell them to your readers!

    You know how to make money online? Of course your audience is eagerly waiting for (your) products teaching them how to make money online. Give them what they want or else they will buy them elsewhere!

    You know how to build and enjoy an incredible relationship? You guessed it… Your audience is eager; they will buy your products on how to build and enjoy an unforgettable long-term relationship.

    You love to travel and know a country or place from the inside out? … Exactly…

    That is—in essence—how I made $13,692.59 in profits last month, and my blog has been a good part of it (which I run part time.)

    —Marcus Hochstadt