Posted by Ben Jones on June 11, 2007
Every entrepreneur has dreams of developing financial freedom through their business. However, you have to ask yourself at what point are you independent and how much will this freedom cost you. Success cost something and most of time the price of success cannot be measured in dollars and cents. My experiences have caused me to measure potential business opportunities differently.
I now consider how much time the venture will cost me in comparison to the amount of money I will make. Freedom for me is more about time than it is about luxury. As Yaro Starak states, I would rather make “$5,000/month working 2 hours per day than make $10,000/month working 10 hours a day.” It’s all about what is important to you. If you view potential business opportunities this way it will help you to make business moves that will enhance your life as well as your bank account.
Greed vs. Accomplishment?
There are some people who would rather work the 10 hour day for more money. They may just possess a drive to get more; or for these people, money may be freedom. Now I must say that most people who prefer this method are simply greedy, but there are some who do it simply because money, for them, signifies accomplishment. In this case it is totally understandable. We have all contributed to this way of thinking. It is common practice to see large houses and luxury cars and immediately give a certain level of respect to the owner of them. Therefore, most people are motivated to obtain “things” rather than personal freedom.
True Freedom
I used to be one of those people until I began to try and achieve this status and realized that I was not happy. So I now choose to participate in ventures that yield a high return for a limited investment of time. I am constantly on the look out for these types of opportunities. I have attempted several money making ventures that I eventually quit because I just didn’t want to make the kind of time commitment that was required. The lure of the million dollar business initially attracted me to those opportunities but I soon recognized that I would rather make less money and have more time.
The “Store Owner Lady”
I was recently talking with a colleague who told me about a lady he recently met that owns a dollar store. He spoke about how she was 1 of only 2 employees in her store that was working that day. She was running around, noticeably stressed, attempting to be the manager and an employee at the same time. She would often go into the back in order to complete office work and return to the floor to work the cash register when lines backed up.
This lady is obviously not in a situation to leverage her time effectively. The store is probably not be making enough money to hire more employees, so she is required to work extra hard in order to maintain her income. This is absolutely the worst way to make money (other than being in a cubicle). This all goes back to Robert Kiyosaki’s “Cash Flow Quadrant”, which clearly expresses that the most efficient way to make money is by owning a “system” instead of a “business”.
The “Store Owner lady” has the right idea by choosing to own her own business but she obviously did not take the time to evaluate what this type of “freedom” would actually cost her. So, while we all endeavor to seek financial freedom, I encourage you to make sure that your entrepreneurial path leads to your desired end. Be blessed and Leave your Comments…..
Posted by Ben Jones on May 23, 2007
I have been avoiding this series of posts since I started this blog because I didn’t think that they would be much fun to write. However, I feel the time has now come to start to discuss business models. Therefore, I will devote my next few posts to discussing Sole Proprietorships, Partnerships, DBA’s, LLC’s, Corporations, and S-Corporations. These will each be individual posts and should shed some light onto which model would work best for you.
The first business model that I will cover is called a Sole Proprietorship. Sole Proprietorships are the most common form of business. The two main reasons for this are because they are the easiest to start and they require the least amount of start-up money. Sole Proprietorships are simply businesses that are owned and operated by one person. So anybody who decides to offer services in exchange for money, and are not incorporated, are sole proprietors.
Con’s of Sole Proprietorships
In a sole proprietorship all responsibility and liability fall back on the owner.This is one of the major drawbacks of this business. It forces you, the owner, to take responsibility for any losses incurred by your business. I advise you to give a lot of consideration to that one fact. Especially considering the high failure rate for new businesses. To take this a step further, your business taxes and personal taxes are not separate. You will be taxed, at the personal rate, for money made from your business.
As a general rule, tax laws are very lenient on businesses. However, you get none of this benefit as a sole proprietor. You are actually being penalized because it is like having more personal income to owe taxes on. This is why I encourage people to incorporate. Every method of incorporation offers more benefit than a sole proprietorship. Most wealthy people incorporate non-operational companies just so that they can reap some of the tax benefits that come with owning a business. So why would anyone who owns a fully functional business not take advantage of this?
In addition to that, sole proprietorships do not provide any name recognition or protection. In most states, a sole proprietor cannot legally conduct business in any name other than their own. The minimum that is required for businesses in most states is a DBA. DBA stands for “Doing Business As” and does not provide any tax benefit. It just lets your governing state know that you are the tax payer for the business operating under that name. (I will post more details about DBA’s later this week)
You have probably noticed that I haven’t given many pro’s of starting a sole proprietorship. That is because I do not endorse this method of business. I do think that it is O.K. to start a business as a sole proprietorship if you do not have the funds to incorporate. But I suggest that you incorporate your business as soon as possible. Most incorporation fees are no more than a couple hundred bucks but it is more than worth it. Especially if you intend to make a lot of money. Nonetheless, there are a few advantages of this model so I will close this post by listing the Pro’s & Con’s.
Advantages
Minimal Business Knowledge Required
Personal Tax Advantages
No sharing of Profits
Low Start-Up Cost
You are Sole Decision Maker
Disadvantages
Unlimited Liability
If you are not working, you are not being paid
Difficulty in Raising Capital
No Name protection
Minimal Chance of Tax Benefit
Posted by Ben Jones on May 15, 2007
I read a pretty interesting post today over on
BloggingTips.com. It was actually a guest post from Mani Karthik of
Daily Dose of Internet. The title of the article was the
Top 5 Mistakes I Did When I started Blogging. Despite the obvious grammatical inaccuracies in the title, this was actually a good article. There was nothing particularly deep about the article but it was very re-assuring to someone like me who is new to blogging. The author kind of re-iterates many of the things that you already know but does touch on a couple of things that we tend to overlook. In my opinion the most useful point of this article was when the author wrote about selecting a blog template that i viewable in all readers and who’s HTML scripts are easy to navigate by search engine crawlers. The latter of those two points is a major one. I am pretty cautious about what codes I place in my HTML template because I don’t want to place any kind of code that may make my blog more difficult for search bots to crawl. Anyway, go and check out the article and let me know which parts you find useful.
Posted by Ben Jones on May 10, 2007
Advertising with Google Adwords can be one of the more rewarding methods of advertisement for any campaign. However, using Adwords takes some knowledge and can become very expensive if the correct techniques are not applied. So I’ve created this 5-tip manual as the completion to the few Adwords tips I have been giving out in the past. This manual should help the novice or more experienced Pay Per Click marketer take their Adwords campaigns to the next level.
My initial experience with Google Adwords was not a very good one. I made every mistake possible with my campaign. I simply found out which keywords were most popular and I tried to bid whatever dollar amount necessary to get me into the top spots in search results. Well, needless to say, that method costed me a lot of money and I never got enough clicks because my budget would not allow me to get a high number of clicks at the amount I was paying per click.
After a few weeks of attempting to make this method work, I decided to give up. I knew that I needed traffic to my site but realized that I didn’t have the budget to keep paying high prices for it. So I began to learn everything I could about Adwords and how people utilize it. I read books, blogs, anything I could to get information that would help me to create a successful ad campaign. I the constructed my new campaign using a few simple methods that proved to be priceless. So, lets get right to them.
Method 1: Evening the Playing Field
This first method is one that I have given before. I like to call it “Evening the Playing Field”. This technique is fairly simple and will save you tons of money. The purpose of this technique is to avoid the expensive price of the more popular, broader keywords. So the idea is to find a bunch of slightly less popular keywords that will cost you less per click.
One way that we can do this is to utilize the names of industry competitors as keywords and allow your ads to be seen when someone searches for that company. This method works very well because you are stealing customers from your competitors and you will be paying a lot less money per click because the companies name will not be as popular as a traditional keyword.
Example:
I own an bookstore in North Carolina and want to use Google Adwords to advertise my website. Instead of paying ($1.50 per click) for keywords like “bookstore, books, etc…” that get 400,000 searches per month, I would bid($0.25 per click) on keywords like “Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc…” that get 20,000 searches per month.
As a result, I place much higher in the search engine results page (SERP) because of less competition for the keyword and will ultimately save tons of money while seeing more traffic.
Method 2: Capitalize on Your CTR
To properly understand this method, you need to understand how Google decides where to place ads in search results. Google uses a ranking formula of Cost-Per-Click x Click Through Rate to determine where ads are placed. So, what this means is that even if you bid $1.25 per click, a low click through rate will cause your ad to get low placement in search results. However, the reverse, which is the basis of this method, is also true.
So how do we use this information to our advantage? Well, what I started doing is setting my maximum CPC higher in the beginning of my campaign so that I can place higher in search pages. Once my CTR has increased from the higher ad placement, I lower my maximum bid and still maintain decent ad placement in the SERP(search engine results page). One other thing that I do when using this method is I capitalize the Title of the ad for the first couple of days. Google prohibits capitalization so they will disable your ad after a couple of days until you change them to lowercase. By this time, the capitalization along with the high ad placement has earned you a high CTR. I don’t recommend using capitalization because it is against Google’s “terms and conditions”, but it is something that I did for a day or so just to boost my CTR.
Method 3: Misspelled Words
A lot of people misspell words when typing their search terms. So it is usually beneficial and a lot less costly to bid on common misspellings of search terms instead of the actual term itself. This method is pretty self explanatory so I will not go into to too much detail. However, I will say that some keywords are misspelled so often that they may be searched for jut as frequently as the correctly spelled term. Be sure to do your research and make sure that you take advantage of these blunders.
Method 4: Turn off Content Matching
I found this trick to be very helpful with my pay per click campaigns. Google’s content matching feature will display your ad for searches that Google deems are “relevant” to your site.The problem is that Google will have a much broader idea of what is relevant because they exist to make money. So your ads end up being displayed for searches that have nothing to do with your site. As a result, your CTR (Click Through Rate) and conversion rates will suffer. (High CTR’s are essential to getting better rankings in search results)Who wants to pay for clicks that they have no chance of converting?….No one! Your conversion and Click Through Rates should increase once you turn this feature off. Then your ad will only be shown when someone searches for your keywords.
So log into your Google Adwords account, put a check next to your campaigns and click the “Edit Settings” button. Once your inside the “Edit Campaigns” screen, you will scroll to the right and uncheck the box next to “Content Network”. Save your settings and watch your ad campaigns soar!
Method 5: Exclude Negative Keywords
Negative keywords are words that you identify that you don’t want your ad to be displayed for in Serp’s. For example, if you are selling basketballs, you don’t want your ad to be displayed when someone searches for “free basketballs”. So, you would add the word “free” to your negative keywords list. This is just another way to make sure that the only people who click your ads are people who are actually interested in what you have to offer. Therefore, you don’t waste money on clicks that you have no possibility to convert.
Bonus Tip: Use Exact or Phrase Matches
Google defaults your ads to “Broad Match”. This means that your ad will be displayed whenever someone searches for anything similar to your keyword. Therefore, you will have a higher probability that someone will click your ad that is not looking for your product. So I recommend that you use the “exact” or “phrase match” feature. To use the “exact match” feature you must place each of your keywords inside a [] symbols when selecting keywords. To use the “phrase match feature, you must place your keywords inside quotation marks.
That’s all the tips for now. I hope that you found something to help your ad campaigns. Don’t forget to subscribe to my feed, bookmark us, and leave your comments.
Posted by Ben Jones on May 9, 2007
I am busy writing a pretty meaty post that I’ll publish tomorrow so I don’t have much to publish today. However, I do have a nice piece of information for you guys. It’s an excellent opportunity to get a build more traffic for your website or blog.
The opportunity is a blogging contest hosted by Darren Rowse at Problogger. The winner gets a prize of $1001. All you have to do is write a post about “Top 5″ whatever. It can be about the “Top 5″ anything(ex:If your site is about radios, you can write a post about the “top 5 brands”).
Everybody who submits a post will get a link on his page so its worth it even if you don’t win. Visit Problogger to see contest details.
Posted by Ben Jones on May 8, 2007
Paula Mooney has created a list of the salaries of top bloggers. This article is very well put together and seems to be pretty factual. There were a few surprises in this list and there are several things that we can learn from it. The first thing that I noticed was the deviation between the top earner and the average salary of the list. It let me know that there are a few bloggers who are doing extremely well but the rest of the pack are all well below those bloggers.
The amount of money made by the average blogger on this list did not wow me at all. It actually let me know that there is still tremendous room for growth in this industry. It also reminded me that making money from blogging is very difficult and that money can’t be the only reason that I do it. This is no problem for me because I am starting to love the blogosphere. One of my many joys is exploring content from other blogs on my feedreader. Anyway, check out this article and remember to leave comments because she has the “no follow” feature turned off and you can gain some search engine juice.
Oh, and my Pistons are dominating Chicago! Game 2 Score: 108-87! Yes, you read it right! The second blow out in a row. I expect us to lose 1 in Chicago but the series is ours. We now own them!
Posted by Ben Jones on May 6, 2007
As most of you know, Google’s Page Rank has become extremely important for websites. It basically ranks you on how important/popular your blog is. Advertisers use it to determine whether how much an advertisement on your website is worth. So, I’ve found a pretty cool way to increase your page rank.
Most blogging platforms automatically have “no follow” tags in comments section as a default so that search bots do not use the links from commenters to increase page rank. This helps to discourage people from spamming your blog with comments. Well, there is a movement going on right now where select bloggers have removed the no follow tags from their comments section so that other bloggers get some PR juice when commenting on their blog.
Learn about how this can increase page rank at Paula Neal Mooney’s blog. Also join the “D-List” movement by following the directions below. Remember to visit all the sites listed and leave relevant comments in order to increase you PR!
***Begin to copy here***
1. Write a short paragraph at the beginning of your post and link back to the blog that put you on the list in the paragraph. This isn’t a suggestion. You need to break up the duplicate content. Someone took the time to add you so the least you can do is give them an extra link back.
2. Copy the list of originals below COMPLETELY and add it to your blog. If you would like a different keyword for your blog then change it when you do your post and it should pass to most blogs with that keyword.
3. Take the adds from the blog that added you and place them in the “Originals” list.
4. Add at least 1 new blog that you KNOW us using the DO FOLLOW plugin to the list in the “My Adds” section. (Add no more than 5!) Let the people you’ve added know, so that they can keep the list going!
5. Leave relevant comments on the blogs listed and get a link back to your site thanks to Do Follow!My Adds:
Paula Neal Money
Ugh!!’s Greymatter Honeypot
Original List:
Entrepreneur Guide
Fuzzy Future
Solo Technology
GeekySpeaky
Simple Kind Of Life
3DayMom
BuyMeBlog
The Hockey Dad
Midlife Musings
Utterly Geek
Whatever I Feel Like
My Dandelion Patch
Surviving NJ
BizMark Tech
Two Dog Zoo
TDZ Travel
Body, Mind & Solar
MidLifeMusings
HomeBizBlogger
Confessions of a Housewife
Andy Beard
Randa Clay Design
Posted by Ben Jones on May 3, 2007
Almost everybody should know about this by now but John Chow is offering anyone a free backlink in exchange for a review of his site. His blog that helps people to make money online. For those that are not aware, John Chow dot com is one of the most popular blogs out there. If you review of his blog, he’ll link to it in his next batch o backlinks. A link from a site of that caliber should definitely help to increase your page rank. Even though tons of people have already taken advantage of his offer, he is still running this deal. So if you feel that his site is relevant to yours, you may want to take advantage of his offer.
Posted by Ben Jones on May 1, 2007
Traditional business owners have more than enough obstacles to overcome in order to become successful. “History” is one of the major ones as 50% of new businesses fail within the first year and 95% fail within the first 5 years. Home business owners, for obvious reasons, have even more obstacles to overcome. Therefore, their success rate, though it cannot be properly tracked, is much lower. So what can you do as a home business owner to help your business beat the odds? Well, keep the commandments(the ones in the Bible and these):)
1) Be Professional
The reason why this is the first on the list is because this is always a problem with home businesses. People usually find it difficult to maintain the same level of professionalism at home as they do at a 9-5. But believe me, professionalism is key to your success as a home business owner. Do not let the fact that you are at home, instead of at a storefront, cause you to run a bush league operation(like most people tend to do). You have to place yourself on the level of your competitors. If you are professional and thorough, your customer won’t even know that you are working from home and won’t care either. That’s the way it should be. So be sure to maintain a high standard for the work that you do. It’ll pay major dividends in the long run.
2) Separate Business from Pleasure
You have to be able to separate your business hours from your personal time. Take it from me, getting the two of these mixed up is both very easy and very costly. How many times have you been at home and had lots of things planned for the day but ended up not getting much done? You go to bed wondering where all your time went. I can tell you exactly what you did all day. Ready:
9:00AM-rise and shine
9:15AM-check email(with intentions to start working)
11:00AM-Realize that you’ve been surfing the web for an hour & haven’t done anything
12:00PM-Lunch Time (make a sandwich and watch TV)
12:15Pm-Shower(hopefully) 
1:00PM-Back on the computer, ready to do business
1:30PM-A little tired, wanna take a 30 minute snooze
2:45PM-Wake Up, back to work
3:30PM-Kids Come Home from School
3:30-9PM- Making Dinner, lunches for tomorrow, helping with homework, breaking Up fights, and telling yourself that you will process that last order as soon as your done.
10:00PM-Fall asleep at the computer(dreaming about all the things you’ll accomplish tomorrow)
You can imagine how long your business will remain open if your days continue in this pattern. So be sure to set aside time when you are doing nothing but work. Preferably at a time when you are home alone, free from distractions. Make sure that anything else you need done, gets done before or after your business hours. Nuff said…
3) Location, Location, Location
Your business needs it own space. If you do not have an office in your home, I suggest that you at least get a computer desk and arrange all of your business valuables around that. This is important because it helps to keep you focused on your tasks. You can be a lot more professional if you are not constantly reminded that you are at home. Believe it or not, ambiance is major. I learned this valuable lesson while in college. For some reason, I got a lot more studying done while in the library rather than lounging in my bed. It will also help the other people in the house learn to identify when you are at work and when you are at home. After a while, they will learn to give you your space while in your little office. Then you can go to your desk every once in a while just to get a break!
4) Demand Respect
Don’t sell yourself short. The minute you pay your incorporation or DBA fees, you are officially a legitimate business in your industry. You must demand the respect of your competitors as well as your customers. If you present yourself as an incompetent small company, you will be treated as such. You must speak with authority like someone who knows what they are doing and who is fully capable of conducting business. Don’t be afraid to put your name out there with the larger companies, I guarantee you that they too will come to respect you if your businesses quality attracts customers.
5) Spend Less, Make More
This is a pretty self-explanatory tip but I will expound on it anyway. A lot of new owners are so excited to have a business that they go to Wal-Mart and buy out the whole office section. That’s absolutely not necessary and not very wise. I wouldn’t max out that Staples card just yet(There’s no easy button:)). Be frugal with your spending in the beginning. I guarantee you that hard times are coming and you will want to sell that $300 chair and $4,000 laptop when they arrive. It’s OK to buy things that are necessary to complete or enhance your core competences, but that’s where it should stop.
6) Build Relationships
Very, very important! You must build relationships with your competitors and key industry leaders o that you stay in the know about things that effect your business. Some of these individuals may like you and start to help send business your way or provide helpful hints about how to advance in the industry. Trust me, people are usually more loyal to people than they are to companies. Secondly, and most importantly, you want to be sure to build a relationship with your customers. This is the only way to ensure that you get repeat business and it keeps you in tune with the needs of your customers. As a small, home based business, this is one advantage that you have over the juggernauts. You should be able to identify with the customer a lot better than the corporation that has 50,000 employees. The execs of those companies will never be able to address the needs of each customer and customers want to do business with people who care about them personally. They can’t address their concerns with the CEO of the large companies but they should be able to address them with the President/Founder of your company.
7) Separate Accounting
Be sure to keep your personal funds and your business funds separate. It is very tempting to get your companies money mixed up with yours(especially when they are kept in the same account). I suggest that you open a business account and make sure that business funds go into that account. Only draw checks from the business account because they are easy to check and you are much more conscious of spending when you don’t have cash in hand all the time(women especially):). Your company needs to maintain financial stability even when you are not. Therefore, business funds must be kept separately. Set yourself a salary that you can live with and stick to it until your company can afford to give you a raise. If you constantly dip into your profit, you have nothing to grow your business with and nothing to carry it through hard times. Thus you will never reach the stage when your business can afford to increase your pay. Struggle now, Rest Later!
Monkey See, Money Do
Yup you guessed it! Success is duplicatible, so make sure that you don’t let your competitors leave you behind. Everyone copies everyone, so if you see a technique or practice that could work for you, copy it. Add it to what you are doing because I guarantee you that they will duplicate your next big breakthrough. Of course, you always want to maintain your own identity as a company but if you want to compete you have to at least make sure that you can offer what’s current. For instance, “What was the first fast-food restaurant with a $1 menu?” NOBODY CARES! All people want to know is, “does your restaurant have one?” If you do, they may be more inclined to choose you over another company. If you don’t, its an easy decision. Don’t make it an easy decision. Many home businesses fail because they fail to keep up with what the rest of the industry is doing. Being small as a company can’t be an excuse for being left behind.
9) Business is Business
Oftentimes friends and family, who are all well-intentioned, will hinder your business from being successful. It is OK to allow your friends and family to benefit from your labor. However, “free stuff all around” every time they enter your premises is not a good way to get this done. Believe me, all those freebies add up pretty quickly. So keep an eye on the “benefits by association”. Friends and/or family are usually your first employees also. This is another area where they can hurt your business more than they help it. You will find that some people will come to work late, leave early, and do absolutely nothing in between. They have no fear of being fired because of their personal relationship with you. You have to make sure that your acquaintances know that business is business and that you will protect the well being of your business like any good owner should. Even if it means releasing them from their duties with your company.
10) Visit “Ben Means Business”- The Entrepreneur Guide
This probably should have been #1:). Visit http://www.ben-means-business.com/ as often as possible to keep up with what’s new in the world of entrepreneurship. Also, go there to find motivation, get answers, or just do some leisurely reading. Subscribe for free and make sure that you don’t miss a single article.
home business, small business, entrepreneurship, work from home, internet entrepreneurship, startup
Posted by Ben Jones on April 28, 2007
Traffic, Traffic, Traffic! Your site is absolutely ineffective without it. The discussion about how to produce traffic to a website is one of the more overly examined topics on the web. However, it is still the one subject that nobody seems to really know much about. Misinformation is extremely common in the world of SEO.
There are only a few things that we know for sure about SEO. One of the things we do know is that quality backlinks will do a lot for your search engine rankings. Emphasis must be placed on the word “quality”. Backlinks from well-known sites with subjects relative to your site’s will immediately increase your search engine ranking.
HOW TO GET A QUALITY BACKLINK
On the other hand, your site could actually be penalized for backlinks from irrelevant, worthless websites. It’s a very touchy system. With that said, one of the blogs that I frequent is offering a backlink to any site that will review it. It is a pretty popular blog (Technorati top 14,268), so a backlink from this site could be beneficial to you if your site’s topic relates to e-commerce, e-marketing, e-(you get the point)
.
This blog is full of good information which is why I keep it on my reader. It is supposedly written by a “13-year old” so the grammar is sometimes incorrect but the content is always valuable. My point is that if you need backlinks you may want to do a small review post just to get a backlink from a popular site. Visit his blog to see how even a 13-year old can make money online.
