Stop Playing T-Ball With Your Business and Shoot For The Major Leagues

November 2, 2010 by

If you’ve ever read a book on how to start a successful business you’ve probably been told to “set realistic goals that you know you can accomplish”. Well that’s great – for those who aren’t entrepreneurial. Many entrepreneurs (including myself) aren’t satisfied with being mediocre at something and in my book “realistic” and “mediocre” essentially mean the same thing.

Here’s the problem – realistic goals don’t get you to the big leagues. In baseball if you set realistic goals you play little league and that is about it – you never pursue it any further because hitting the majors just isn’t realistic.

Don’t Nickel and Dime Yourself.

I used to set realistic goals, and I accomplished them. One day I started setting ridiculously high goals, and guess what? I accomplished those as well. Then it all seemed to click. I realized that what seemed “realistic” to me was simply what I already knew how to achieve. My unrealistically high goals weren’t really unrealistic at all I just simply didn’t know how to achieve them and had to make myself work harder along the way to figure it out.

Why waste time focusing on increasing your revenue by 10% over a 3 month span when you can shoot for 100% and push yourself to really innovate – many brick and mortar business rules don’t apply on the internet and this starts with scalability.

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How I Started My First Business For Less Than $50

October 7, 2010 by

The internet is the great equalizer when it comes to business. As I write this, college kids with hardly a dime to their name are starting companies that will change the way the world works. Meanwhile big traditional businesses with billions of dollars continue to struggle to turn a profit online. There have never been so many young millionaires and billionaires in the history of mankind and we have the internet to thank for that.

With that said you don’t have to be the next Mark Zuckerberg to kill it online. I started my business in college, at the time I had around $400 in my bank account, I didn’t have a secret savings account or a bunch of money put away for me that I could invest. I needed most of the $400 to pay for rent and food but I still managed to start my first business as a poor college kid with very little money to my name.

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How To Make $100,000 A Year Blogging – For Real

September 27, 2010 by

In this series of posts I will walk you through the methods I have used to create multiple blogs generating over $100,000 a year each.

When I first started out blogging, I was hoping to make a few hundred dollars a month to spend in college. However as I starting to put more and more time into building my site I soon realized that the potential was much greater than that.

If you’ve read my other posts, you’ve probably noticed that I like to talk about building a sustainable online business. To quit your job you must have a sustainable business that is going to continue to bring in revenue month after month. I’ve found that the best way to achieve consistency with online revenue is through blogs and organic sites that continue to grow each month. Every now and then I will make more from doing media buys and other forms of online marketing, however blogging has been my number one money maker in the long run.

Many people would probably just love to quit their day job and start making a full time living from blogging overnight – and this is what many ebooks and make money online scams out there will promise.

However my business was not an overnight sensation, and you will find that almost everyone with a legitimate online business will tell you the same thing. It requires hard work and a lot of persistance (that may be an understatement).

I love to talk about mindset because in the end the people who make it in this industry all have a similar mindset. For me this wasn’t a problem because I never had a “real job” working for someone else. For those of you who have been an employee for a long time, it can be a bit more difficult.

Once you have the right mindset you are ready to build out some sites.

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Are You a Honda Civic or an Aston Martin?

September 10, 2010 by

The world revolves around perceived value.

One of my previous business partners was a major player in the auto industry for a long time, her family owned a network of car dealerships (she runs a blog here). Hilary taught me about the concept of “perceived value” and how people are willing to pay much more for something they perceive as being more valuable, even though there is no more physical value (materials). Sure an Aston Martin is hand built, but does it cost close to the $250,000 price tag in materials to build? Probably not.

This goes for most, if not all high end cars. It has been reported that Porsche makes $26,000 per car sold – all perceived value. Why can Apple charge $500 more for a computer than their competitors? Exactly.

The same goes for the online world. There are social media consultants out there who charge $200 a day, but I know of one who charges $22,000 a day. How does he get away with it? He must do a few seriously impressive magic tricks right? Chris Brogan can charge whatever he wants because people will pay it. He’s become a master at building value for his services through his blog and speaking engagements.

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How A Grocery Store Has Improved My Online Business

September 9, 2010 by

Wegmans is a name that has quickly become popular in the northeast and throughout the country. Before Wegmans moved into this area the grocery stores were lackluster at best (anyone who has shopped at a Giant before will confirm that), and grocery shopping was never something that I looked forward to.

Then Wegmans came to town and everything changed. For those of you who have never been to a Wegmans you’re missing out. It’s not just a grocery store, it’s an experience. Similar to how Apple has redefined retail stores – Wegmans has redefined grocery stores by creating a unique experience that keeps customers coming back.

The Wegmans Model

The first time you walk into a Wegmans, you have an awe moment at the size of the store, and the amount of different unique areas it has to explore. The store near me includes a full restaurant, bar area, and a huge prepared foods section that is larger than most grocery stores. This is all before you even get to shopping for your actual groceries.

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The Complete Guide to Hiring and Managing Blog Writers

September 25, 2009 by

One of the first, and most important things I figured out when I started blogging full time is that hiring a team to write for you can be much more profitable than doing all of the writing yourself. Two or three writers can manage to crank out way more content than I could flying solo. The best part is that the writers begin to pay for themselves very quickly, here’s why:

  • Having multiple writers allows me to increase the content of my sites at 2 – 5x the rate that I could when writing articles myself (depending on how many writers I hire). More content and more frequent updates equals more traffic which leads to more revenue.
  • I now have more time to spend on marketing and promotion. Many successful bloggers will tell you that when first starting a new site, 70% or more of your time should be spent on marketing and promotion.

Many people decide not to hire writers because they worry about the quality of the writing. My philosophy has always been that if I can do it myself, I can probably hire someone to do it better than I can, for less than the cost of my time. The trick is to give the people that work for you all of your expectations up front, and not to settle with anything less than what you outlined initially. If the writer ends up writing on the wrong topic, make them rewrite it. If the article isn’t formatted correctly, make them reformat it etc.. There are always going to be bad hires out there but most people do just fine with clear instructions.

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