The Business Builder 101

Guru was great.. Until I gave a Freelancer my project. I paid the first installment on the 15th December. Heard nothing. Emailed them on the 23rd to ask what was happening and was told the person was on holidays so they couldn’t see his file.

I sent an email 2 days ago and got a lot of excuses why I hadn’t been contacted but that the e-book is almost ready! Not that I’ve seen anything of it.

Do I sound a bit annoyed? I am! lol

Definately won’t be using this Freelancer again.

On a happier note I’ve had 6 articles published by ezinearticles.com

I have two contributors of articles for my new website thats about to go up in a few days. (www.amindbodyandspirit.com)

I have e-books being written by two experts in their fields. Another is going to do a training course, and there’s another e-book coming from another expert in the next 4 months.

I guess I need to get this website up and running.

I discovered a program PPC spy it’s a free download that shows you exactly what keywords the PPC advertisers are using, how much their spending and how many clicks they get per day on what words! You can get the free download here

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.

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.