The Business Builder 101

Yes it’s a form of squid but it’s also a very cool networking tool.. I’ve spent a few hours creating a few lens’s

Here’s the one for this site:  http://www.squidoo.com/thebusinessbuilder101

Here’s a video on how to set up a lens:

If anyone has some tips for Squidoo I’d love to hear ‘em.

Lisa

I’ve chosen a Freelancer from www.guru.com to write the e-book.

Now I need to take photos of some poor examples of advertising for the e-book. So many examples when I’m not looking for them!

We had a webinar with Alex a day ago. 6 hours??? This man should be the spokesman for Red Bull!

Analogies of oil rigs and fish. It did make a lot of sense. I’ve been checking out other students blogs. There are some great blogs out there. so now I’m going to start posting on them to tell them that.

By the 24th (tomorrow) I’m going to go and check out the top ranking sites for business building for small business to see what I’m up against and how I can do it better.

What I did do which has so far been a waste of money was paid a site to get me traffic. I was supposed to receive a report but never did. Shonky! When I find the site i’ll post the link here so you can avoid it.

I’m not so sure that putting your details up on a bunch of clearly “set - up” sites is a good thing for long term traffic.

One of my old Tenants (a hairdresser) now does piercing. Both fall under the beauty category but what happens when a client decides to start screaming whilst their belly button is getting pierced? It’s done in a  little room with no roof that surely will put a dampner on any scalp massage in progress! One of the major things wrong with this business is that the shop front is very open. A full front of glass so you walk past and you can see everyone sitting in their chairs with hair in all states of unstyled and dripping wet to full rollers.
I don’t know about you, but when I get my hair cut I prefer not to sit in a glass box where everyone can see my messed up/washed/wet hair. I conveyed this to the Tenant when they first opened - hence why I only went there once. I offered to put up a false wall at the owners cost to provide some privacy. A year on and I think the wall may be on it’s way now.

Think about your business from your customer’s perspective. Would you like to sit exposed in a hair salon having a really bad hair day prior to being styled? To claim that no one screams when they are getting their body parts pierced is ludicrous.

Why is the Tenant going into another beauty stream? Why does any business owner diversify?  Generally because they aren’t making enough in what is supposed to be their “expertise”. What does a customer think when they see their local carpet shop begin selling ceramics? “Danger Will Robertson Danger!” The customer, if they have half a mind will immediately think the business is not going so well. Will that put faith in them to want to place a carpet order with you? It may be a bigger detriment your business than the small amount in sales gained by selling a completely unrelated item.

Moral of these stories? Don’t diversify just because you’re going out the door backwards.  Do what it is you’re supposed to do well. Figure out how you can provide value to your customers. How can you get them to walk in your door? I’ll be giving you a sneak preview of some of the tips and tricks from my e-book so stay tuned!.

Ok one thing I did learn from all the things I’ve read and Alex has also suggested this.. For a really successful online business you need to provide your own content. Reselling other people’s work unless you get it completely re-written, just wont cut it. I have so many bad e-books from all the freebies given away when purchasing e-books. Although the most exciting one was “gifts in a jar” you can actually cook a cake in a jar and heat seal it so it stores for ages! Sorry got a bit carried away.

The self proclaimed “gurus” out there say that you should write about something that you’re passionate about. Or that you know about. Preferrably there’s a market for it as well.

So I’ve decided to write an e-book to help small business. I’ve gone to www.Elance.com and www.Guru.com which are sites where you can get someone to do anything from writing articles for your blog to writing a program to designing a logo.  It might just be me but I’ve found Guru to be the better of the two in terms of proposals received for my project. Elance they are either really expensive or you get the writers in India contacting you with a 67% rating. I’m down to two potential writers so in a day or so i’ll decide on who gets the project.

Back to self employed small business owners.. I hope in this climate some of them finally seek the help they need before it’s too late! After managing Tenants for over 11 years I’ve seen some great and some not-so-great business practices out there.  The biggest thing a small business owner that’s in trouble can do for a start is to take responsibility for the state of their business. Thats a rather large pill to swallow. Once they realise maybe they don’t know it all, the turnaround can commence.

With a background in Marketing I’ve seen some really bad branding, signage and overall presentation. I don’t believe these things have to cost a lot of money, plus I’ve got a lot of ideas on how to reduce overheads, they are tried and tested in the business I was in.

The e-book should be ready in 4 weeks (not so sure what Christmas will do to the timing)

In the meantime if you’re interested in online marketing get yourself a copy of the free e-book I’m giving away. It gives a lot of tips and hints on how to build your list.

It’s been an interesting few months.

In October I decided that I knew enough about the internet that I too could make money online. How hard could it be?  With 1000’s of people out there willing to sell you their information and each with their own slant.. Complicated!

After spending over A$800 on e-books claiming their systems would make me a fortune, I now own 8 domain names. It was so much fun going to www.adomainname4you.com and picking a domain name that I could own. Such power! Surel

So after making these mistakes (luckily I made a lot in a short amount of time), I finally came across someone great. His name is Alex Jefferys. He really wants his students to succeed. After all the emails I’ve received thanks to buying so many useless e-books I am now a bone-fide expert on online bull-shitters. (excuse my French) So I got as many refunds as possible on the e-books I’d bought.  Now Alex’s course is the only thing I’m concentrating on.. To download a free e-book on Alex’s system click here

Follow me on my journey to making my first $1 and beyond online.