Ways To Have A Successful Online Business

Some people say online business is very difficult, I think that is a load of non sense because I believe anyone can do it.See the thing is most people do not know how to do to it and just think that once they read one book the will be able to make a six figure income.Well this is far from the truth my friends because if you are not a master at marketing online then you will not be successful.You have to increase your working hours at home and make them more efficient.Finding the right coach and the right books to read and get your knowledge is one 75% of the battle.This is how the majority of the gurus succeed in working an online business.

If you already have computer and internet knowledge this will help out a lot.If you do not then it is not the end of the world you are just going to have to pay a little more money to get work done for you.This is really very simple once you know the ins and outs of the business and the rewards are most powerful then any job you can get.The most common problem most people will have when starting is focus.Making money online and working from home is a great adventure when you learn how.It is a lot of fun and you get to work for yourself.

Okay now you know a little bit about the online world but this is probably the best way and the way a lot of people are getting rich through eBay.Become a master affiliate.Now to get good at being an affiliate you are going to have to do a lot of reading.Check out all the affiliate and Google adwords informational products.

Determine the types of skills that you have that will translate well to an online position.Because there is so much competition, you really need to know what your strengths are when you want to work from home online.This requires a lot of discipline because there are many distractions when you work from home online.Make sure you treat your online job with the same respect and dedication that you would any other job.

Knowing how to become self employed can be as easy as knowing where the work at home jobs are found.Some of the best work at home jobs are being done by people who looked and looked until they finally found their own dream job.One huge benefit of work from home online is the global marketplace you will have access to.

It's important to understand that ANY business online can be successful as long as you learn it, practice it, and master it.A big and maybe the most important benefit you'll gain by working from home online is the lifestyle.No matter how you choose to spend your time and money, working from home online will give you all you need to experience your dream of freedom.The first step you are taking today in creating an online income is going to sound very simple to you.

You will read a lot of articles and blogs saying that it is easy to make money online.This is the biggest line of bs I have every heard in my life.It is not easy it is actually pretty freaking hard.I think a lot of people want to make the big bucks online but are not willing to spend the money to learn the business.They just jump in the water with out testing it.See the gurus on the other hand have read 10-50 books about affiliate marketing or starting your own informational product, books on pay per click, etc.
People love to blame it on the one book they bought or the one membership site that join.It is not that at all.

People do not treat it like a brick and mortar business.Normally you would have to go to school to be good which cost anywhere from $15,000-30,000 a year for 4 years.You have to buy a business which cost another $100,000 to 500,000.So right now we are looking at a minimum of $160,000 but people do not want to spend $5,000 or less to learn about the business.

So we are going to go on and I am going to state that most online business fail not because they do not have enough money it is because they knowledge of the subject is poor.So for this reason people should not be mad at the book they bought and return it to get there money back.They should just buy more books and get as much information as possible.

Okay, if you spend at minimum $60,000 for college and the national average for people that graduated college is $47,000 then what would make you think you can only spend $47-$197 and make $1,000,000.This is the best ROI you are going to get because if you do get a couple of books and read them inside and out there is no reason you will not be successful at online business.

About the Author

Melissa is an established online marketer who has learned many tips and techniques about online marketing and she wants to teach you what she knows.

For more information please visit http://www.thesecret2onlinemoney.com

Relaited Links:

• Tell Your Business Book's Story To Everyone . . . But Spend Little
• Starting A Search Engine Marketing Firm
• E-Book Marketing: Best Information about any Question

How to make money without really trying

Picture this: Online video generating excitement
GTD improvements
(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- When word of a whites-only scholarship at Boston University hit the media last fall--drawing coverage from bloggers and biggies like ABC alike--Daniel Kovach smelled opportunity. His goal: to boost traffic to the website he runs, Scholarships Around the US.

So he paid a writer to crank out "The White Man's Guide to Getting a Minority Scholarship," which reveals that some schools do offer scholarships to "nonblack" students--and added it to the mix. Then Kovach planted a link to the article on recommendation site Digg, where it jumped to the coveted front page.

That, in turn, led other sites to link to the article. And Kovach landed a top search ranking on Google (Charts) for phrases like "white man scholarship."

Such timely strategies have helped Kovach turn his year-old site into a $10,000-per-month cash cow (see correction below). Not bad for a 26-year-old who works about an hour a day out of his townhouse in Raleigh, N.C.

Media outlets have, of course, always exploited offbeat events and stories to drive traffic. But today it's easier than ever to profit from a surge of interest in a particular topic. Some people simply aim for 15 minutes of Web fame and make a few hundred bucks by setting up a site around a topic, loading it with Google pay-per-click ads, and working social sites to link to it.

But others, like Kovach, are making bigger money by tapping the cultural zeitgeist to draw more people to an existing site.

Kovach's windfall is more surprising given that he started with a terrible domain name: http://www.scholarships-ar-us.org/. It's difficult to remember, and no one would ever type it directly into a browser. The domain's appeal--and the reason Kovach paid $1,000 for it--was that residual links pushed it up high in Google search results.

And that was better than starting from scratch. For $900, Kovach hired a designer to give the site a simple and authoritative look. He found freelancers on the Web to write items on topics from essay writing to sports scholarships. He mapped out what categories the site should include.

Each step of the way, Kovach milks trends big and small. He says he spends about 15 minutes a day culling education-related articles from Google News, scanning the headlines in search of anything that might help him stoke traffic.

"You have to sift through it all," he says. "No one is going to hand you pieces of trend gold." And he uses Google's Keyword Tool and Wordtracker--services that show what phrases people are searching--to figure out which parts of his site to beef up.

When Kovach discovered that people regularly search for scholarships for "twins," "tall people," and "left-handed people," he added a section about each. "There are hardly any real scholarships," Kovach explains, "but we'll give the searcher any information they want."

Sometimes all it takes is one smart move. Darren Barefoot, annoyed by a swell of media coverage about the virtual world Second Life, created a parody of it-- getafirstlife.com. (The subhead: "Your world. Sorry about that.")

Barefoot launched his site in January, submitted it to recommendation sites, and sent it to a few bloggers; it worked its way up Digg. Soon he was enjoying his own little windfall: 350,000 visitors in 30 days, and roughly $1,000 from Google ads--ironically enough, ads for the myriad businesses and services that cater to Second Life users.

"This was a fire-and-forget project," says Barefoot, a public relations exec in Vancouver, British Columbia. "But I've made enough money to make it worth my time."

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of money that Kovach's website, Scholarships Around the US, pulls in. It is $10,000 per month, not per year.

[via cnn.com]

Distance Education Helps You Get Ahead.
Six reasons why most home based businesses fail

Ads That Push the Envelope

Mommy Makes Money
Health improvements

Ads that have impact are like nitroglycerine. Handle them properly and they can move mountains for you; get careless with them and you’ll blow yourself up.

The worst thing you can do when you’ve written a powerful ad is to show it to your friends and ask their opinion. Put an ad on trial and every juror will judge two things: Could this ad offend anyone? Was it entertaining?

Consequently, most ads aren’t written to persuade; they're written not to offend. But the kinds of ads that produce results make us answer yes to these three questions: Did it get my attention? Was it relevant? Did I believe it?

Ads that twist our attention away from what we’d been doing are always a bit annoying. This is why ads that get results also get complaints. Learn to ignore complaints from controlling people, or your ads will forever be emasculated.

Were you slightly offended by that last statement? That's exactly the kind of statement that'll get complaints. But it'll also get results.

I once wrote a radio ad that included the line, “That just ain’t gonna happen.” My client, a diamond jeweler, received two letters and four phone calls from irate listeners who claimed he was contributing to the erosion of the English language. One of the letters concluded, “How can our children hope to learn proper grammar when the leading advertisers of our city speak incorrectly? I must insist that you withdraw this ad from the airwaves immediately, or my friends and I will have no recourse other than to discontinue shopping in your establishment.”

By the time my client had received the fifth complaint, it felt to him like the sky was falling. But then I reminded him that one of our goals was to be perceived as less formal and less intimidating than other diamond jewelry sellers. I told him, “These few complaints are simply part of the price we must pay to win the heart of the common man. And the common man believes all jewelers are snobs.”

I won the argument. My client continued the ad. Traffic and sales went up by 28 percent.

Later that year, I wrote the same client an ad that said, “Buy her the diamond she’s been dreaming of since she was a little girl.” Men responded exactly as we'd predicted, but we also got two letters from women who felt somewhat belittled. They said they were doing very well, thank you, and didn’t need any man to buy them diamonds.

I immediately sent the following ad script to my client: “This is Richard Kessler of Kesslers Diamond Center. I suggested in a recent radio ad that every man should buy the woman he loves ‘the diamond she’s been dreaming of since she was a little girl.’ [pause] What was I thinking? This nation is full of women who can and do buy diamonds for themselves, and we want to be their store, too. Gosh, I feel like a knucklehead.”

That apology went a long way toward winning the hearts of independent women throughout the city. We soon began to see an increase in traffic from women purchasing diamonds for themselves.

Why did I respond to the two complaints from women after ignoring the six complaints from the defenders of English grammar? Although only two women took the time to complain, it seemed likely thousands of other women felt the same way when they heard the ad. The defenders of English grammar, on the other hand, probably represented only themselves and a dozen other people. Also, an apology to the women was consistent with our goal of being perceived as less formal and intimidating than other jewelers. Transparency and honesty in admitting your mistakes is very reassuring to potential customers.

You can, however, go too far when advertising. When handling the nitroglycerine of a statement with impact, always avoid: racial stereotyping, obvious sexual innuendo and matters of religion or faith.

If you avoid these three categories of insult, you’re not likely to do your company damage. But if you've committed a genuine blunder, follow these guidelines:

1. Apologize for it openly, sincerely and transparently in the same medium in which the offence was made.
2. Send a handwritten apology and thank you to the person or persons who brought the faux pas to your attention.
3. Don’t make excuses.

My jeweler client, a genuinely nice guy, had a fabulous year. During the week after Christmas, he aired the following ad. See if it fits the image of the rest of his campaign.

The hardest thing about being a jeweler is that you never know how big a store you should build or how many people you should hire to work in it. No matter how small you build it, there will be plenty of times when it’s empty and you’ve got no customers at all. And no matter how big you build it or how many people you hire to work there, there will be times when you’ve got more customers than you can serve. And that’s even worse.

This is Richard Kessler of Kesslers Diamond Center. If you came to Kesslers during the holidays and found way too many people ahead of you, I hope you’ll accept my apology. We work hard to ensure that every person who walks through our door has a magical experience, but sometimes we fall short of the mark. This year, my New Year's resolution is to find new and better ways to make sure that you have a relaxed and pleasant experience at Kesslers Diamond Center, no matter when you come to see us. I’m Richard Kessler, and I really dowant to be your jeweler.

We didn’t include a street address or phone number because that would have commercialized the ad and made it seem insincere. Do you have the courage to run two or three ads like these a year? If so, go write some ads that get attention, drive traffic and generate complaints.

---

Roy Williams is Entrepreneur.com's "Advertising" columnist and the founder and president of international ad agency Wizard of Ads.

Easy Way To Lose Weight
Dumb Advertising Moves to Avoid

Ads That Push the Envelope

Immigrants big in tech startups
Lose Ten Pounds in Ten Days

Ads that have impact are like nitroglycerine. Handle them properly and they can move mountains for you; get careless with them and you’ll blow yourself up.

The worst thing you can do when you’ve written a powerful ad is to show it to your friends and ask their opinion. Put an ad on trial and every juror will judge two things: Could this ad offend anyone? Was it entertaining?

Consequently, most ads aren’t written to persuade; they're written not to offend. But the kinds of ads that produce results make us answer yes to these three questions: Did it get my attention? Was it relevant? Did I believe it?

Ads that twist our attention away from what we’d been doing are always a bit annoying. This is why ads that get results also get complaints. Learn to ignore complaints from controlling people, or your ads will forever be emasculated.

Were you slightly offended by that last statement? That's exactly the kind of statement that'll get complaints. But it'll also get results.

I once wrote a radio ad that included the line, “That just ain’t gonna happen.” My client, a diamond jeweler, received two letters and four phone calls from irate listeners who claimed he was contributing to the erosion of the English language. One of the letters concluded, “How can our children hope to learn proper grammar when the leading advertisers of our city speak incorrectly? I must insist that you withdraw this ad from the airwaves immediately, or my friends and I will have no recourse other than to discontinue shopping in your establishment.”

By the time my client had received the fifth complaint, it felt to him like the sky was falling. But then I reminded him that one of our goals was to be perceived as less formal and less intimidating than other diamond jewelry sellers. I told him, “These few complaints are simply part of the price we must pay to win the heart of the common man. And the common man believes all jewelers are snobs.”

I won the argument. My client continued the ad. Traffic and sales went up by 28 percent.

Later that year, I wrote the same client an ad that said, “Buy her the diamond she’s been dreaming of since she was a little girl.” Men responded exactly as we'd predicted, but we also got two letters from women who felt somewhat belittled. They said they were doing very well, thank you, and didn’t need any man to buy them diamonds.

I immediately sent the following ad script to my client: “This is Richard Kessler of Kesslers Diamond Center. I suggested in a recent radio ad that every man should buy the woman he loves ‘the diamond she’s been dreaming of since she was a little girl.’ [pause] What was I thinking? This nation is full of women who can and do buy diamonds for themselves, and we want to be their store, too. Gosh, I feel like a knucklehead.”

That apology went a long way toward winning the hearts of independent women throughout the city. We soon began to see an increase in traffic from women purchasing diamonds for themselves.

Why did I respond to the two complaints from women after ignoring the six complaints from the defenders of English grammar? Although only two women took the time to complain, it seemed likely thousands of other women felt the same way when they heard the ad. The defenders of English grammar, on the other hand, probably represented only themselves and a dozen other people. Also, an apology to the women was consistent with our goal of being perceived as less formal and intimidating than other jewelers. Transparency and honesty in admitting your mistakes is very reassuring to potential customers.

You can, however, go too far when advertising. When handling the nitroglycerine of a statement with impact, always avoid: racial stereotyping, obvious sexual innuendo and matters of religion or faith.

If you avoid these three categories of insult, you’re not likely to do your company damage. But if you've committed a genuine blunder, follow these guidelines:

1. Apologize for it openly, sincerely and transparently in the same medium in which the offence was made.
2. Send a handwritten apology and thank you to the person or persons who brought the faux pas to your attention.
3. Don’t make excuses.

My jeweler client, a genuinely nice guy, had a fabulous year. During the week after Christmas, he aired the following ad. See if it fits the image of the rest of his campaign.

The hardest thing about being a jeweler is that you never know how big a store you should build or how many people you should hire to work in it. No matter how small you build it, there will be plenty of times when it’s empty and you’ve got no customers at all. And no matter how big you build it or how many people you hire to work there, there will be times when you’ve got more customers than you can serve. And that’s even worse.

This is Richard Kessler of Kesslers Diamond Center. If you came to Kesslers during the holidays and found way too many people ahead of you, I hope you’ll accept my apology. We work hard to ensure that every person who walks through our door has a magical experience, but sometimes we fall short of the mark. This year, my New Year's resolution is to find new and better ways to make sure that you have a relaxed and pleasant experience at Kesslers Diamond Center, no matter when you come to see us. I’m Richard Kessler, and I really dowant to be your jeweler.

We didn’t include a street address or phone number because that would have commercialized the ad and made it seem insincere. Do you have the courage to run two or three ads like these a year? If so, go write some ads that get attention, drive traffic and generate complaints.

---

Roy Williams is Entrepreneur.com's "Advertising" columnist and the founder and president of international ad agency Wizard of Ads.

Upstart Aims to Soup Up
Bob Parsons' Rules Of Success
Commit And Immerse

Using the Competition to Boost Your SEO Performance

Developing a Marketing Calendar
It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle - make the change.

When it comes to getting higher rankings in Google, the competition can seem fierce. This is true--unless you're in a niche market where it may be easier to predict or manage the outcome of specific search terms.

If you're in the competitive real estate, health and beauty, or general medical supplies markets, you probably wonder how a company can get and then stay on the first page of Google's search results year after year. Top listings in search engine results pages--also known as SERPs--are considered the mother-load for search terms with significant amounts of traffic. The results are free, and if done right, you could become very successful online.

Competition is both a challenge and an opportunity in business. In SEO, your competitors can be the most valued source of data. When performing competitive research, the goals are to discover:

• How entrenched a competitor is and how hard it is to unseat them;
• The competition's SEO skills; and
• Link prospects, so you can trade links, host articles and do reviews.

Let's go through the steps for analyzing where you stand compared to the competition, using "mortgage loans," a very competitive search term, as an example. We refer to this as a tier 1 keyword, since it's the top search term within this category.

1. Determine link popularity. Go to Google, type in the tier 1 keyword and pick the top three ranked sites. Then go to marketleap.com and use the link popularity checker to see how your site compares in terms of incoming links to the top three sites from Google. Look for sites with the highest Google rankings and lowest amount of incoming links. Keep in mind that MSN records the highest number of back links--incoming links from one website to another--but also pay attention to the Yahoo! results, since it's the best linking engine to use for link review. Also, Google recently updated its Google webmaster tools and has enhanced its link tracking system. Make sure to get an account and compare the results with the others in this step. Write down all the numbers.

2. Find sites to target. Next, go back to Google and enter "allinanchor: mortgage loans." This restricts the results depending on the number of links coming into a site based on that key word phrase. This will help determine which site to target links from.

3. Review link counts. Go back to Yahoo! and enter "link:www.yourbusinessdomain.com" and review the number of results with the numbers from Marketleap in the first step. Note that Yahoo! orders the list by power, or the sites with the most links coming to them. Those sites are the most important to target and are likely to have a good page rank. At this point, you'll know how much work you have ahead of you. If it seems impossible, start by looking at the fifth step about keyword research to narrow down keyword selections and start again.

4. View source and "on page" SEO factors. Once you've found the top list to target, go to each of the sites and review the source code. That's done by selecting menu choice "View: Source" in Internet Explorer browsers and "View: Pagesource" in Firefox browsers. Make sure to review the title, description, meta and H1 tags on the sites. They should be programmed as discussed in my previous column, "10 Steps for Increasing Visibility Online." Some handy SEO tools can help you validate your work, including SearchStatus, a toolbar extension for Firefox and Mozilla, and SEO for Firefox. They can help you indicate quickly whether the competition is doing things right.

5. Perform keyword research. Use the search term suggestion tool at inventory.overture.com, which is one month behind in data results, and look for keywords and their permutations with a good search volume. Any number more than 20,000 to 30,000 is a good average. Continue looking at the tier 1-type terms until you spot an opportunity to build on. Use other tools like Google keyword tools, keyworddiscovery.com. Use the keywords you select in this step by adding pages to your site, a common SEO practice.

6. Consider conversion rates. Finally, visit the competitive sites and compare them with your own. Do they have content, flow and site structure that encourage conversion? Are the sites easy to navigate? Do they emphasize call-to-action statements like "download a white paper," "sign up for this newsletter" or "buy this product now"? Look to see if they are using long tail keywords, such as "mortgage loans for police officers in Los Angeles." If they are, then you should consider doing so, too. Misspellings in text on your page also can work, but be careful not to confuse your visitors. A little trick is to include them in a PDF or Word document. Search engines, specifically Google, spider PDF and Office documents.

Competitive research is a serious SEO exercise for gaining advantage online. Having the tools, capabilities and expertise are not enough; you also need to look at traditional media--print, radio and television--to learn what the competition is up to. Fight back with more pages, more content, improved design and source code, and more incoming links with diverse descriptions. Use tools like UrlTrends to track your progress and SpyFu to look at advertising costs, giving you an indicator of your competition's activity, spending and strategy.

Don't forget to open their spam e-mail marketing messages that you receive. You may learn something by studying that material, however painful. Also review what they send you through the regular mail and discover ways to improve your own campaigns, both offline and online.

Only an alert internet marketer with a keen eye toward the competition will win in today's online business space. Remember to use patience in the most competitive marketplaces and continue using what you've learned here.

Jon Rognerud is a recognized authority on the subject of search engine optimization and has spent more than 15 years developing websites and marketing solutions at companies like Overture and Yahoo!. His website provides a wealth of informative articles, resources and complimentary e-mail courses on everything you'll ever need to know about SEO and search marketing.

Right Diet's Tips
Google Adsense Tips, Tricks, and Secrets

A Spartan's Guide to Business

http://eat-healthy-every-day.blogspot.com/

When the movie 300 recently debuted, making more than $70 million during its opening weekend despite having no big-name actors, Hollywood was stunned. Many people have speculated that what attracted the audience was the over-the-top violence, the naked women and the special effects.

Maybe that helped--a little. But director Zack Snyder's film about Spartans bludgeoning Persian soldiers in a fight to the finish is also a business parable.

No, seriously. If you squint a little--and you probably will during some of the beheading scenes--the story resembles what an entrepreneur often faces when competing against a big corporation. It also offers some insight into what it takes to be an effective leader, inspire employees and create a recognizable brand. And, yes, this film can be ugly, but that's sometimes the nature of the business world.

Business Lesson No. 1: Your CEO needs to be a strong leader.
King Leonidas is as resilient as they come, in both the film and the actual historical battle that took place in 480 B.C. between 300 soldiers of Sparta, Greece and the Persian army. Although Leonidas is a warrior, he treats his family and friends as equals. His wife, the queen, is a partner, and he's smart enough to solicit her advice when it comes to business matters. He also spends quality time with his six-year-old son, teaching him the business (i.e., showing the little bugger how to fight).

But when Leonidas suits up and goes to his day job--vanquishing bloodthirsty enemies with his spear and shield--he's focused on what's best for the business and his employees; in this case, the kingdom and his soldiers.

Sure, his competitor, King Xerxes, through messengers he sends to Sparta, makes some powerful arguments for combining the smaller organization with the larger corporation known as Persia. For instance, if the merger goes through, Leonidas would be allowed to live, and his employees wouldn't have to see their families enslaved or worry about getting their limbs hacked off. But while Leonidas appears to mull the offer over, he's concerned that his people's way of life (think office culture) and his freedom to make independent decisions won't be allowed to thrive.

He firmly declines the deal by spearing and then throwing a bunch of Persian yes-men into what appears to be a bottomless pit.

Leonidas next prepares to stop the growing threat of a hostile takeover. He seeks approval from some grotesque oracles (his board of directors) to take 10,000 Spartan soldiers to fight off the Persian army, but he is rebuffed. And so, like all good entrepreneurs, Leonidas finds a loophole. He informs fellow Spartan colleagues that he's taking a walk, bringing 300 of his top-flight employees as body guards, and goes off to complete his business plan--to fight the Persians at the narrow cliffs of Thermopylae and frighten the immense army into fleeing.

Business Lesson No. 2: Train your employees and foster a culture that promotes loyalty.
The Spartans had a grim but effective process for making sure their society only contained healthy children. (If you don't already know what that process was, you probably don't want to). To put it mildly, their organization only accepted the best and brightest employees, who were trained and molded into effective killing machines. It sounds gruesome, but it's handy when your business involves protecting your community from a foe that aims to crush you.

Arguably, loyalty may be the most important aspect of a successful team. At one point in the battle, Leonidas and Xerxes meet up. The Persian ruler tries to reason with his foe, asking how Leonidas can possibly defeat him when "I would kill any of my men for victory."

"I would die for any of mine," replies Leonidas, suggesting that an employee who knows he's valued is going to fight harder for the company's survival than a miserable grunt in the firm. The king has a point. His 300 men are effective at killing what must be thousands of soldiers in the first few hours of the battle. And it's not that surprising. Xerxes literally walks all over his employees; but in Leonidas' enterprise, his staff takes ownership and pride in the company and has a stake in the firm.

Business Lesson No. 3:You need to have a strong brand.
Leonidas is no fool. He knows that his 300 men and several hundred more Athenian soldiers who tag along can't completely destroy the Persian army, which outnumbers the Spartan force at least 1,000 to one. But he figures that if the Spartans live up to their reputation by ruthlessly and efficiently killing the Persians, the enemy might flee. In other words, Leonidas saw the Spartans as a brand.

Leonidas is an early marketer, fully understanding the power of words and images. When Leonidas and his men literally build a wall of corpses they know their enemy will see, it's an advertising message to the rest of the Persian soldiers that come their way: The Spartans are a company of men you don't want to encounter. They clearly hope the message will spread by word of mouth.

Later, the Spartan CEO tells his competitor, Xerxes, "The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many, and before this battle was over, that even a god-king can bleed." And because Leonidas recognizes how important it is for the general public to understand the Spartans' unique brand of power and will, he sends a messenger back to Sparta to tell the tale of their fight. Leonidas appreciates that even if he and his 300 men don't win this particular battle, educating the public about the company will help the Spartan brand endure long after he is gone.

The brand, in fact, has endured so well that almost 2,500 years later Hollywood made a movie about this battle. If you haven't seen 300 yet, be sure to study these lessons and then go see them put to use in the movie. Do that and you may suck all the joy out of watching a blockbuster action movie--but you'll wind up with one heck of a business.

[via entreprenuer.com]

The World Is Flat : A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
Couple lets Web visitors choose their next hometown
Baking: From My Home to Yours

How to Deduct a Home Office

http://eat-healthy-every-day.blogspot.com/

NEW YORK -- One of the most tempting but also terrifying small business tax deductions is for a home office _ deducting the cost of operating out of your home can help you save on taxes, but complying with IRS regulations can be a little daunting.

Accountants say the good news is that the deduction, which used to be considered a fast way to an audit by the IRS, doesn't raise red flags with the government as it did in the past. Still, business owners often make mistakes trying to claim the deduction that can grab the attention of the tax authorities _ something every taxpayer wants to avoid.

Stephen Fishman, an attorney and author of "Home Business Tax Deductions" said a common error company owners make is to try to deduct space in their homes that has both business and personal uses. That won't fly with the IRS.

"You have to use the space in your home exclusively for business," Fishman said.

An office with PCs and a fax machine isn't the only way to take advantage of the deduction for using your home for business. If you manufacture goods or store inventory in your home, the space you use for that can also be deducted. The same applies if you run a business like a day care center or nail salon in your home.

You don't necessarily have to have a separate room for your office or business space, but taking the deduction is less complicated if a room is indeed set aside for business purposes. For example, it might be hard to convince the IRS that the home office in part of your family room is never used by your children to do their school work or play computer games.

Whatever the space is, it must be regularly used for your business. It doesn't have to be your only place of business, however.

An owner with a home business can deduct the expenses used to maintain the business space _ the portion of utilities, mortgage interest or rent, insurance, repairs and maintenance and other expenditures that can be attributed to that space. One of the big pluses of a home business deduction is that you can also depreciate the portion of a residence used for business; normally, a residence cannot be depreciated.

To determine how much of their expenses they can deduct, most owners divide the total square footage of the home by the square footage allotted to the business. For example, if 5 percent of a house was used for a business, and the owner had $5,000 in expenses for the entire house, then $250 could be deducted.

But square footage is another way owners can run into trouble with the government _ for example, if it appears to the IRS employees examining your return that your home business space is too big for the kind of business you operate, they may question the size of your deduction.

If you're thinking of claiming the deduction, you need to get yourself educated about the IRS' requirements. The first thing you should probably do is download and carefully read IRS Publication 857, Business Use of Your Home, from the IRS Web site, http://www.irs.gov. There are also several small business and home business tax guides available in bookstores that can give you a grounding about the deduction.

Also take a look at the IRS form you'll need to file, 8829, Expenses for Business Use of Your Home, and its accompanying instructions. They can also be downloaded from the IRS Web site.

It's probably a good idea not to try to claim the deduction without consulting a tax professional. Jeffrey Chazen, a tax partner at the accounting and consulting firm Richard A. Eisner & Co. LLP in New York, noted, "there are little quirks you have to look out for" with a home business deduction.

For example, he noted, if you've been depreciating the space for your home office but now sell your home, you'll have to "recapture" the depreciation, or adjust the profit you made on your house to account for the tax break you already received.

Another, important quirk: Your deduction cannot be larger than the net profit you make. But you can use the excess to offset profits in succeeding years.

Chazen suggests that now, as you're preparing your 2006 tax return, isn't the time to be thinking about the home business deduction for last year. If your business space didn't already meet the requirements for the deduction, you can't shoehorn it in after the fact.

You can, however, start working now so you can claim the deduction for the 2007 tax year.

300 by Frank Miller, Lynn Varley
Celebrity Castoffs - How To Make Money Selling Used Celebrity Clothing
Robin Williams stand up comedy part 10

Internet Marketing - Search Engine Optimization - Google

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Freelancing


Google Boys. Andrew Hazen, President of Prime Visibility speaks with Google Boys regarding Search Engine Optimization and Marketing.
Microbusinesses find huge benefits in outsourcingWhat Offers Work Best In Direct Mail Campaigns
Teens and media: a full-time job

How to make money without really trying

Three Business Rules You Should NEVER Violate

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- When word of a whites-only scholarship at Boston University hit the media last fall--drawing coverage from bloggers and biggies like ABC alike--Daniel Kovach smelled opportunity. His goal: to boost traffic to the website he runs, Scholarships Around the US.

So he paid a writer to crank out "The White Man's Guide to Getting a Minority Scholarship," which reveals that some schools do offer scholarships to "nonblack" students--and added it to the mix. Then Kovach planted a link to the article on recommendation site Digg, where it jumped to the coveted front page.

That, in turn, led other sites to link to the article. And Kovach landed a top search ranking on Google (Charts) for phrases like "white man scholarship."

Such timely strategies have helped Kovach turn his year-old site into a $10,000-per-month cash cow (see correction below). Not bad for a 26-year-old who works about an hour a day out of his townhouse in Raleigh, N.C.

Media outlets have, of course, always exploited offbeat events and stories to drive traffic. But today it's easier than ever to profit from a surge of interest in a particular topic. Some people simply aim for 15 minutes of Web fame and make a few hundred bucks by setting up a site around a topic, loading it with Google pay-per-click ads, and working social sites to link to it.

But others, like Kovach, are making bigger money by tapping the cultural zeitgeist to draw more people to an existing site.

Kovach's windfall is more surprising given that he started with a terrible domain name: http://www.scholarships-ar-us.org/. It's difficult to remember, and no one would ever type it directly into a browser. The domain's appeal--and the reason Kovach paid $1,000 for it--was that residual links pushed it up high in Google search results.

And that was better than starting from scratch. For $900, Kovach hired a designer to give the site a simple and authoritative look. He found freelancers on the Web to write items on topics from essay writing to sports scholarships. He mapped out what categories the site should include.

Each step of the way, Kovach milks trends big and small. He says he spends about 15 minutes a day culling education-related articles from Google News, scanning the headlines in search of anything that might help him stoke traffic.

"You have to sift through it all," he says. "No one is going to hand you pieces of trend gold." And he uses Google's Keyword Tool and Wordtracker--services that show what phrases people are searching--to figure out which parts of his site to beef up.

When Kovach discovered that people regularly search for scholarships for "twins," "tall people," and "left-handed people," he added a section about each. "There are hardly any real scholarships," Kovach explains, "but we'll give the searcher any information they want."

Sometimes all it takes is one smart move. Darren Barefoot, annoyed by a swell of media coverage about the virtual world Second Life, created a parody of it-- getafirstlife.com. (The subhead: "Your world. Sorry about that.")

Barefoot launched his site in January, submitted it to recommendation sites, and sent it to a few bloggers; it worked its way up Digg. Soon he was enjoying his own little windfall: 350,000 visitors in 30 days, and roughly $1,000 from Google ads--ironically enough, ads for the myriad businesses and services that cater to Second Life users.

"This was a fire-and-forget project," says Barefoot, a public relations exec in Vancouver, British Columbia. "But I've made enough money to make it worth my time."

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of money that Kovach's website, Scholarships Around the US, pulls in. It is $10,000 per month, not per year.

[via cnn.com]

How To Only Pay For Leads That Result In a SaleWant to Close the Deal? Try Chatting with Customers Online
Bob Parsons' Rules Of Success

A Spartan's Guide to Business

Celebrity Castoffs - How To Make Money Selling Used Celebrity Clothing

When the movie 300 recently debuted, making more than $70 million during its opening weekend despite having no big-name actors, Hollywood was stunned. Many people have speculated that what attracted the audience was the over-the-top violence, the naked women and the special effects.

Maybe that helped--a little. But director Zack Snyder's film about Spartans bludgeoning Persian soldiers in a fight to the finish is also a business parable.

No, seriously. If you squint a little--and you probably will during some of the beheading scenes--the story resembles what an entrepreneur often faces when competing against a big corporation. It also offers some insight into what it takes to be an effective leader, inspire employees and create a recognizable brand. And, yes, this film can be ugly, but that's sometimes the nature of the business world.

Business Lesson No. 1: Your CEO needs to be a strong leader.
King Leonidas is as resilient as they come, in both the film and the actual historical battle that took place in 480 B.C. between 300 soldiers of Sparta, Greece and the Persian army. Although Leonidas is a warrior, he treats his family and friends as equals. His wife, the queen, is a partner, and he's smart enough to solicit her advice when it comes to business matters. He also spends quality time with his six-year-old son, teaching him the business (i.e., showing the little bugger how to fight).

But when Leonidas suits up and goes to his day job--vanquishing bloodthirsty enemies with his spear and shield--he's focused on what's best for the business and his employees; in this case, the kingdom and his soldiers.

Sure, his competitor, King Xerxes, through messengers he sends to Sparta, makes some powerful arguments for combining the smaller organization with the larger corporation known as Persia. For instance, if the merger goes through, Leonidas would be allowed to live, and his employees wouldn't have to see their families enslaved or worry about getting their limbs hacked off. But while Leonidas appears to mull the offer over, he's concerned that his people's way of life (think office culture) and his freedom to make independent decisions won't be allowed to thrive.

He firmly declines the deal by spearing and then throwing a bunch of Persian yes-men into what appears to be a bottomless pit.

Leonidas next prepares to stop the growing threat of a hostile takeover. He seeks approval from some grotesque oracles (his board of directors) to take 10,000 Spartan soldiers to fight off the Persian army, but he is rebuffed. And so, like all good entrepreneurs, Leonidas finds a loophole. He informs fellow Spartan colleagues that he's taking a walk, bringing 300 of his top-flight employees as body guards, and goes off to complete his business plan--to fight the Persians at the narrow cliffs of Thermopylae and frighten the immense army into fleeing.

Business Lesson No. 2: Train your employees and foster a culture that promotes loyalty.
The Spartans had a grim but effective process for making sure their society only contained healthy children. (If you don't already know what that process was, you probably don't want to). To put it mildly, their organization only accepted the best and brightest employees, who were trained and molded into effective killing machines. It sounds gruesome, but it's handy when your business involves protecting your community from a foe that aims to crush you.

Arguably, loyalty may be the most important aspect of a successful team. At one point in the battle, Leonidas and Xerxes meet up. The Persian ruler tries to reason with his foe, asking how Leonidas can possibly defeat him when "I would kill any of my men for victory."

"I would die for any of mine," replies Leonidas, suggesting that an employee who knows he's valued is going to fight harder for the company's survival than a miserable grunt in the firm. The king has a point. His 300 men are effective at killing what must be thousands of soldiers in the first few hours of the battle. And it's not that surprising. Xerxes literally walks all over his employees; but in Leonidas' enterprise, his staff takes ownership and pride in the company and has a stake in the firm.

Business Lesson No. 3:You need to have a strong brand.
Leonidas is no fool. He knows that his 300 men and several hundred more Athenian soldiers who tag along can't completely destroy the Persian army, which outnumbers the Spartan force at least 1,000 to one. But he figures that if the Spartans live up to their reputation by ruthlessly and efficiently killing the Persians, the enemy might flee. In other words, Leonidas saw the Spartans as a brand.

Leonidas is an early marketer, fully understanding the power of words and images. When Leonidas and his men literally build a wall of corpses they know their enemy will see, it's an advertising message to the rest of the Persian soldiers that come their way: The Spartans are a company of men you don't want to encounter. They clearly hope the message will spread by word of mouth.

Later, the Spartan CEO tells his competitor, Xerxes, "The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many, and before this battle was over, that even a god-king can bleed." And because Leonidas recognizes how important it is for the general public to understand the Spartans' unique brand of power and will, he sends a messenger back to Sparta to tell the tale of their fight. Leonidas appreciates that even if he and his 300 men don't win this particular battle, educating the public about the company will help the Spartan brand endure long after he is gone.

The brand, in fact, has endured so well that almost 2,500 years later Hollywood made a movie about this battle. If you haven't seen 300 yet, be sure to study these lessons and then go see them put to use in the movie. Do that and you may suck all the joy out of watching a blockbuster action movie--but you'll wind up with one heck of a business.

[via entreprenuer.com]

Does Copywriting End After The First Sale Is Closed? Here Are Some Interesting Success Stories To Suggest It Keeps Right On GoinCell: A Novel
76 Smart Tech Solutions (part II)

Marketing to Moms

7 Habits of Business Success

Most of the best businesses and products for moms come from moms themselves. Your experience as a mom should help you identify with your customers, but realize not all moms are the same. How you market to them may be as important as the product or service you offer.

For business owners, the $1.6 trillion "Mommy Market" is well worth pursuing. In the book Trillion Dollar Moms, Maria Bailey and Bonnie Ulman teach you how to take advantage of this lucrative market. They describe three generations of moms: baby boomer moms, Gen X moms and Millennial new moms. If your company is still marketing to soccer moms, you're missing two-thirds of the mom market.

Their book examines how recent generational shifts have impacted the buying behaviors of today's mothers and moms-to-be. Moms today want high quality and are proud to admit when they get a good price. That's part of why you're seeing more designer items at stores like Target and K-Mart. Most moms surveyed by Bailey and Ulman say they feel advertising is not geared toward them and many feel that advertising is offensive.

With all of that in mind, here are some tips for appealing to this key demographic.

• Focus on networks. When marketing to moms, you need to take advantage of the networks they build. Moms love to talk about what they're buying, so if you have a good product or message, the word will spread. Virtually all new moms join some sort of play group or support group, so it's wise to get your message across to these members.
  
  
• Embrace technology. Never before have so many moms researched a product or service online. Moms don't have time to go to stores to shop around, nor do they want to bring their kids to the store if they don't have to. A good website and high search rankings are essential to being found and reviewed by the mommy market. Ideally, moms should be able to easily purchase your product online.
  
  
• Offer education. Moms use the internet to educate themselves. Offer valuable content that moms can reference as a way to bring them to your site. Moms spend more time online than they do in front of a TV.
  
  
• Save them time. Moms will all agree they need more time. Focus on the time savings benefits of your product or service, and it'll score points with moms. Moms are expert multi-taskers and crave the ability to do more in less time.
  
  
• Get to the point. Tied to lack of time, moms want marketing that gets to the point. Offer free shipping or a quick deal, but don't ask moms to spend time reading about your product or service. If you're offering a discount, show the price they'll pay. Don't ask moms to figure out what 10 percent off will be. If you have a product, show a picture; don't give a lengthy description.
  
  
• Market to the individual. Yes, we're all moms, but we're also different. Some moms stay at home, some work at home, and some work away from home. Be careful that your marketing message doesn't make a blanket statement that would leave someone out. Don't assume all moms are home watching Oprah.

Want more information on marketing to moms? There's a Marketing2Moms course offered by Moms in Business. It's a 16-week e-mail course that'll help you understand and market to today's mom. Marketing to moms is becoming somewhat of a science. It's surprisingly well researched and has very concrete solutions. With moms holding the purse strings of household budgets across the country, make sure you're sending the right message.

Lisa Druxman is Entrepreneur.com's "Mompreneur" columnist and the founder and CEO of fitness franchise, Stroller Strides. Druxman is also a nationally recognized speaker and author, and is considered an expert in thefield of fitness, particularly pre- and postnatal fitness. For more information on how to launch or grow your Mommy Owned Business, e-mail her about her Mommy Owned Business Academy atlisa@strollerstrides.com.

Secrets to a Successful Business ContractEnough Bullshitting… Let’s Make Money In 24hrs Or Less!!!
How To Find a Good Accountant

Ads That Push the Envelope

Inventor makes milestone

Ads that have impact are like nitroglycerine. Handle them properly and they can move mountains for you; get careless with them and you’ll blow yourself up.

The worst thing you can do when you’ve written a powerful ad is to show it to your friends and ask their opinion. Put an ad on trial and every juror will judge two things: Could this ad offend anyone? Was it entertaining?

Consequently, most ads aren’t written to persuade; they're written not to offend. But the kinds of ads that produce results make us answer yes to these three questions: Did it get my attention? Was it relevant? Did I believe it?

Ads that twist our attention away from what we’d been doing are always a bit annoying. This is why ads that get results also get complaints. Learn to ignore complaints from controlling people, or your ads will forever be emasculated.

Were you slightly offended by that last statement? That's exactly the kind of statement that'll get complaints. But it'll also get results.

I once wrote a radio ad that included the line, “That just ain’t gonna happen.” My client, a diamond jeweler, received two letters and four phone calls from irate listeners who claimed he was contributing to the erosion of the English language. One of the letters concluded, “How can our children hope to learn proper grammar when the leading advertisers of our city speak incorrectly? I must insist that you withdraw this ad from the airwaves immediately, or my friends and I will have no recourse other than to discontinue shopping in your establishment.”

By the time my client had received the fifth complaint, it felt to him like the sky was falling. But then I reminded him that one of our goals was to be perceived as less formal and less intimidating than other diamond jewelry sellers. I told him, “These few complaints are simply part of the price we must pay to win the heart of the common man. And the common man believes all jewelers are snobs.”

I won the argument. My client continued the ad. Traffic and sales went up by 28 percent.

Later that year, I wrote the same client an ad that said, “Buy her the diamond she’s been dreaming of since she was a little girl.” Men responded exactly as we'd predicted, but we also got two letters from women who felt somewhat belittled. They said they were doing very well, thank you, and didn’t need any man to buy them diamonds.

I immediately sent the following ad script to my client: “This is Richard Kessler of Kesslers Diamond Center. I suggested in a recent radio ad that every man should buy the woman he loves ‘the diamond she’s been dreaming of since she was a little girl.’ [pause] What was I thinking? This nation is full of women who can and do buy diamonds for themselves, and we want to be their store, too. Gosh, I feel like a knucklehead.”

That apology went a long way toward winning the hearts of independent women throughout the city. We soon began to see an increase in traffic from women purchasing diamonds for themselves.

Why did I respond to the two complaints from women after ignoring the six complaints from the defenders of English grammar? Although only two women took the time to complain, it seemed likely thousands of other women felt the same way when they heard the ad. The defenders of English grammar, on the other hand, probably represented only themselves and a dozen other people. Also, an apology to the women was consistent with our goal of being perceived as less formal and intimidating than other jewelers. Transparency and honesty in admitting your mistakes is very reassuring to potential customers.

You can, however, go too far when advertising. When handling the nitroglycerine of a statement with impact, always avoid: racial stereotyping, obvious sexual innuendo and matters of religion or faith.

If you avoid these three categories of insult, you’re not likely to do your company damage. But if you've committed a genuine blunder, follow these guidelines:

1. Apologize for it openly, sincerely and transparently in the same medium in which the offence was made.
2. Send a handwritten apology and thank you to the person or persons who brought the faux pas to your attention.
3. Don’t make excuses.

My jeweler client, a genuinely nice guy, had a fabulous year. During the week after Christmas, he aired the following ad. See if it fits the image of the rest of his campaign.

The hardest thing about being a jeweler is that you never know how big a store you should build or how many people you should hire to work in it. No matter how small you build it, there will be plenty of times when it’s empty and you’ve got no customers at all. And no matter how big you build it or how many people you hire to work there, there will be times when you’ve got more customers than you can serve. And that’s even worse.

This is Richard Kessler of Kesslers Diamond Center. If you came to Kesslers during the holidays and found way too many people ahead of you, I hope you’ll accept my apology. We work hard to ensure that every person who walks through our door has a magical experience, but sometimes we fall short of the mark. This year, my New Year's resolution is to find new and better ways to make sure that you have a relaxed and pleasant experience at Kesslers Diamond Center, no matter when you come to see us. I’m Richard Kessler, and I really dowant to be your jeweler.

We didn’t include a street address or phone number because that would have commercialized the ad and made it seem insincere. Do you have the courage to run two or three ads like these a year? If so, go write some ads that get attention, drive traffic and generate complaints.

---

Roy Williams is Entrepreneur.com's "Advertising" columnist and the founder and president of international ad agency Wizard of Ads.

25 Tips to Improve Your Skype ExperienceHouse of Meetings by Martin Amis
Manage Your Customer Relationships or Perish

"Dead Doctors Don't Lie" and the Many Hazards of Affiliate Marketing

Freelancer Ideas

One day my boss came into the office raving about this tape he'd gotten from somebody. It was "Dead Doctors Don't Lie", a brilliantly crafted pitch for nutritional supplements. And he wasn't the only one... I started getting copies of this tape in the mail, sometimes 2-3 copies a day. For about six months or so in 1996, it was the hottest thing going.

This thing was an MLM deal and the inducement to sign up went something like this: You buy 1000 copies of this tape, you buy a list from us, you mail the copies to 1000 people... ten of them sign up and buy more tapes, and each send to 1000 people.... pretty soon you'll have hundreds of people in your downline and you'll be drinking margaritas on a cruise ship somewhere in the Mediterranean.

Malcolm Muggeridge said "News is old things happening to new people." There are a few things to be learned from this, that apply to affiliate marketing online today.

If the deal was really as good and easy as that, the company wouldn't recruit distributors, they would mail the tapes out themselves. But one of the advantages of an MLM program for a startup company is the company can still make a profit on a sales process that fundamentally loses money. Let me explain.

Let's say the company mails out 1000 tapes at a cost of $1000 and sells $2000 of product and makes a net profit of $100 at the end of the day. They're gonna send that thing out until they run out of mailing lists that work.

Which is exactly how direct marketing companies like Lands End and Sharper Image make their bread.

But let's say they mail out 1000 tapes at a cost of $1000 and sell $600 of product. That's a $400 loss.

It's bad business unless you can convince somebody else to buy the tapes.

That's where the MLM structure comes in. Because all you have to do is make it sound like people are going to make money and they'll try it. And usually recruit one or two people before they've spent a few thousand bucks and only made a few hundred back. And the company still makes money.

Not just on the products. They also sell the tapes.... and they sell the same mailing list over and over again, mailing lists that no "brick and mortar" list broker would touch with a 10 foot pole.

As Harvey Mackay says, "Beware the naked man who tries to sell you his shirt."

Back in the day, I wasn't in "Dead Doctors Don't Lie," but I was a sucker for other things. And the #1 experience that de-programmed me from this stuff was when I started using direct mail to get retail customers for my business.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make the economics work. I could write great copy and do everything just right, and I still lost money. I realized that I was trying to take a fundamentally inefficient business and then make it multiply ("duplicate") with Pixie Dust.

Pixie Dust can be effective for a little while, but the reason MLM companies constantly go down in flames is every single foot soldier is running a business in the red, compensating with borrowed enthusiasm. The whole thing stays alive because someone's churning people through the revolving door.

This has an exact equivalent in affiliate marketing today - other than the advertising medium, things haven't changed a bit. People recruit new people to buy Google traffic every day, so each day new people come into the market and drive up bid prices. The guys on the front lines bleed while generals drink wine hundreds of miles away, safe from enemy fire.

This is most prevalent in the "make money on the Internet" category, where a sucker is born every six seconds. The guy who runs the affiliate programs gets all the profit while all his affiliates just repeat the same failed experiment over and over again.

Please understand, it doesn't have to work this way. Many times it doesn't. It doesn't work this way for McDonalds, where every franchise owner can potentially be successful, and most are. McDonalds works because the fundamental business unit, the single store, runs in the black - so the satellites are profitable too.

This is why it's so important to make your sales funnel work - with traffic you buy yourself - before you ever recruit your first affiliate. As much as possible, you should do everything you can to ensure that your affiliates will be successful. That your sales funnel converts visitors to buyers better than the competitors.

This is also true for any kind of publicity you seek. There are some genies you can rub only once. An endorsement from a major leader in your industry - before you cash in that favor, make sure your sales funnel works. Before you go on Oprah make sure your website does its job.

The few who get all this right before they rub their publicity and affiliate genies and call in their favors make a pleasant discovery. They discover that when the exponential growth curve hits, it HITS, big-time. They discover their niche was actually much bigger than they thought.

At my Roundtable meeting last week in Florida (my $14,000 a year private mentoring group) we were discussing the fact that it's actually easier to go from $50,000 a year to $500,000 a year online than go go from $5,000 to $50,000. It's much easier to be #1 in your market than to be #4.

Once you've legitimately conquered the sales conversion beast, it's a magic carpet ride the rest of the way.

[Via Perry Marshall]

Garden Office