Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Great Advice: Just Get Started

Monday, January 21st, 2008

Kelly McCausey shared some awesome advice for people who haven’t yet begun their internet business but who want to do so… if you haven’t read it yet, go see it here.

I echoed Kelly’s words in my comment. Last week I stated that I was also committed to improving my existing projects and sites this year instead of beginning anything new – but that doesn’t mean I won’t experience growth.

Content site #1 (not in terms of how old it is, just that it’s the first one I’m working on improving) has already seen an increase in affiliate sales and activity (in the form of emails from subscribers). I’m stoked about that. :-)

Make Everything Better

Thursday, January 17th, 2008

Everyone’s been talking about their goals for 2008 lately. When Kelly posted that she has made some BIG changes in her business in her efforts to keep focus and that she wanted to improve all her existing projects this year, I decided to share my own goals.

I’m also devoting this year to improving my existing projects. Nothing new!

I shared this goal with the ladies on Moms Morning Show last week as well as my fellow Mom Masterminders, and it seems that a few of us have a similar idea. I did release a new product this month, but it has been in the works since last month, and it is being sold on an existing site that fits my target audience and larger goal, so it doesn’t count. ;)

However, for the remainder of the year, I will not do any of the following:

  • Buy new domains
  • Launch new products
  • Start new websites

I recently finished up my 2007 financials/paperwork and was happy to see that I did double my income from 2006. And as I wrote about earlier, I unloaded a bunch of sites and projects and still didn’t see a decrease in my income (which I was actually expecting!).

So, I’m even more determined to continue reaching my current target markets with the products and websites I already have. To that end, I’ll be spending one month on each of my existing projects just improving and tweaking.

Thankfully I have the ladies at Mom Masterminds to give me their feedback. I’m also going to post my progress here so that hopefully you can benefit and also share your thoughts.

Just off the top of my head, here are some of the things I plan on doing:

Content Sites

  • Review the home page. Is there a strong call to action? Good copy?
  • Look at my autoresponders. Are my thank you pages recommending a product? Read the emails that are scheduled to go out. Do I need to change anything? How are the affiliate products converting? Do I need to update any redirects?
  • Look at stats from AdSpy and see how I can tweak the Google ads for higher clicks.
  • Do keyword research and see what hot products or pages I can add.
  • Write articles to promote the site and improve traffic and search engine listings.
  • Continue providing informative free reports to drive traffic and affiliate commissions.

Products

  • Tweak sales pages and track results of changes made.
  • Provide affiliates with more resources (more articles, ads, reviews, reports, etc)
  • Write articles to promote products

What about you? What are your goals for 2008 (post your blog url in your comments if you like) and how are you going to bring those about?

Before your file your taxes for 2007….

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

here is a tip you can’t afford to miss.

Kristine McKinley is a CPA who helps wahms learn how to maximize their business profits and (legally!) pay fewer taxes. This is one really cool tip that you can take advantage of:

Hiring the kids to work for you and reduce your own taxable income.

You know what? I read this ebook and thought, my parents have been doing this for years! When my sister and I were younger, they paid us to answer phones and do bookkeeping stuff. Not only did it look good on my resumes but it also saved them a pretty penny. ;)

Kristine makes it easy with step by step instructions on how to take advantage of this, even including links to forms you can download for free (you’ll need them come tax time).

==> Go here to learn how to hire your kids, tax free, to work in your business and save on your tax liability.

Focus: This unsubscriber could teach me a thing or two

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

I’ve said before on my blog that people who unsubscribe from your newsletter can be a good thing for your business.

For one, they can teach you what you might be doing wrong. If all your unsubs say the same thing like: “Your newsleter is crap!” then that’s pretty valuable information.

They can also teach you who your target audience is. If they all say something like: “I’m not a Mom with young kids”, you know that you’re mostly talking to Moms of young kids.

You can even make money from your unsubscribe page. And, sometimes unsubs can teach you something entirely new.

Last weekend, I wrote as a guest on Kelly McCausey’s blog about focus. Focus for me is like a journey, not a destination. Just when I think I’ve focused, I realize I need to refocus!

Awhile back I got an unsubscribe message from a subscriber. It read like this:

Comments:
Please understand, this has nothing to do with your product so much as it has to do with my focus. I am becoming accutely aware of the fact that too many options available to me is only a distraction. You are not the first and only marketer I have recently opted out from.
I have recently chosen two directions on the Internet in which to begin my Internet marketing, and two is overwhelming already. I have to sacrifice from one just to work on the other. Three would certainly be out of the question: Although your product does look interesting…but I think I would go into information overload if I took another step forward with anyone eles’s offers.
I wish you the best in your endeavors.
Take Care.
Sincerely,
John Doe
First of all, aren’t my subscribers nice? :-) He took the time to write a long explanation almost as if he cared about my feelings. But the point is, he realized something very valuable:
That listening to too many people or going in too many different directions would make him lose his place in his marketing efforts.
Pretty smart marketer. ;)
What have you done recently to focus? Or re-focus? I sold a website and am moving completely away from one of my markets. What about you?

Phase Two: Vote For The Winner – MommyHobby

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

The voting is officially closed for Mommy Hobby! Now the fun begins. Who should win? Please read the comments on the first post and let me know who you think the site should go to.

Let me say that I was very impressed by some of the entries. We got some really heartfelt comments and it’s obvious that these women feel strongly about the topic. We even got a poem in the comments!

So ladies, who should win? Let’s “meet” our contestants before the voting commences, shall we?

  • Bron Mitchell of Australia is a mom of 3 who loves crafts and comes from a long line of crafters
  • BusyMe! aka Loreena Walsh is the poet of the group

  • Melamom is into scrapbooking and has a scrapbooking business
  • Moon Dancing Nana is a grandmother who enjoys making toys from organic or recycled fabric and clothing
  • Sarah aka Hot Mommy enjoys making crafts to sell at local fairs
  • Tricia Ann Gardner of GardnerDragonFlyDreams enjoys many hobbies and has big plans if she were to win the website
  • Kelkat is a homeschooling Mom who believes crafting “is about expressing yourself in a new and creative fashion that actually leaves a part of yourself with the item”
  • Yvette Medina of MelaMom
  • Anna Campbell of Women Business Owners says that “life is but a hobby”
  • Heather of FairyMe, an Atlanta Mom (my homegirl!) of two girls

Please leave your comment below and tell me who you think should win and why. Have fun!

Don’t Forget: Membership Site Free Call

Monday, September 24th, 2007

Just a reminder in case you haven’t signed up already for Lynette and Kelly’s FREE Membership Site call. Sign up here.

If you’ve ever considered launching a membership site as a brand new business or a new avenue of your existing business be sure to listen in tonight. A membership site practically guarantees that you will earn consistent residual income in your business.

The call is tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern so don’t hesitate. :-)

Phase One: Who Gets MommyHobby.com?

Monday, September 17th, 2007

Have you listened to WahmTalkRadio yet this morning? If you’ve read this blog much in the last few weeks or are a subscriber to my newsletter (sign up box on the right if you’re not!), you know that I’m participating in Kelly’s FlipThatWebsite project.

She has worked her magic on an old site of mine that’s been seriously neglected, and now it’s vastly improved and ready for a new owner! The site is MommyHobby.com. If you want to know all the cool stuff Kelly has done to the site to make it ready for a new Mommy, go listen to the show.

So now it’s time for me to give it away! Here’s step one:

Leave a comment below explaining why you should be the new owner of the site. As Kelly mentioned on the show, we’re looking for someone who is serious and passionate about this topic of hobbies, and not for someone who “needs” a website.

Then in one week I will invite others to vote on the contestants.

Quick! Get typing :-)

Internet Marketing Cheapskate

Thursday, September 13th, 2007

Hey, I’m all about investing in my business. I’m also all about frugality. :-)
So I love it when I can snag a good deal. Here are a couple of frugal finds that pertain to internet marketing that I thought I would share:

Kelly McCausey is holding a teleseminar that will teach more about starting your very own membership site. A membership site is my next project, and if you want to earn more residual income, get on this call. I’ll be on it with you!

DealDotCom is a new site where every day, an internet marketing product will be showcased at a discount. If I’m going to buy IM products to grow my knowledge and skills, why not get a discount? I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of deals I can snag and you can too!

A Monthly Schedule for Business – Works for me

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

Last week and then again this morning on the Moms Morning Show, I shared that I found a work schedule that was really ‘working’ for me. Kelly McCausey urged me to share it, so I am doing that now, and I hope it helps you.

One day I was brainstorming how I could be the most productive with my work time. I was sitting at Barnes and Noble with a huge notebook in front of me and had running around in my head the concept of interruptions, flow, and stuff like that. I’ve heard over and over that it takes your brain 15 minutes to recover from an interruption. Of course, I probably won’t eliminate interruptions entirely for some time while my kids are small, but one way to minimize self imposed interruptions is to focus on just one thing for an entire day.

Now, there are certain things that I do daily, regardless of my bigger picture or whatever project I have going on. I blog on this and my other blog every day, for one thing. I write a to do list in the evening for the next day. And I have some things that take place on a weekly schedule for my podcast.

I sat down and thought about all the individual things an online marketer does, and put them into 4 basic categories:

Content
Progress
Promotion
Analysis

Then I assigned one week to each major theme. So my monthly schedule looks like this:

Content, week One
Progress, week Two
Promotion, week Three
Analysis, week Four

I actually devote 8 days, not 7 to the first 3, so that the least amount of time is spent on week 4 (from 4 to 7 depending on how long the month is).

What do the 4 categories mean?

Content refers to growing my virtual real estate. So that would include:

  • Downloading my plr content from the membership sites I belong to
  • Deciding where it all should go and editing then publishing it on websites, blogs, and in autoresponders (I outsource much of this)

Progress refers to things that grow my information business like creating a new information product or special project. It also includes writing and editing reports and using those to build my mailing lists or grow my affiliate income. If I don’t have a product to work on, this is when I tweak and improve an existing site.

Promotion refers to marketing. This is the time for writing articles (I send them to a VA for distribution) and press releases (ditto). I also actively find new affiliates during this time.

And finally Analysis. This is the time for analyzing my website stats and seeing what’s working in terms of traffic generation, analyzing affiliate sales and seeing what I want to promote or drop for next month, do organizing like updating my affiliate link document (where I keep my affiliate links and log in info) and bookkeeping.

One thing I’m liking about my new system so far is that I never have to wonder what to do next. My brain is kind of at ease because I know what’s going on for that week. Even if I forget to write my to do list, I know what to tackle that day when I sit down at the computer, and I focus on that main thing for the entire week.

I hope this helps someone else, it’s working great for me!

Recruiting, Selling and Targeting

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

A subscriber wrote this question and said I could post the answer here.

Hi Carrie,

Thank you for sharing your free ecourse, so I can learn more about you before I buy. And that is what I want to do with my website. But, when I sit down to write my homepage, I always feel like I am being preachy – rather than friendly.

How do I introduce myself and my mission without sounding like a know-it-all? I am working toward getting people in my MLM businesses, too. So, figuring out how to work that in, is not easy either.

DeAnna

DeAnna, I think that is an important question, because if you’re not careful you can confuse or turn people off with a message that confuses them or that comes on too strong. This is what I would recommend:

Don’t try to do two things at once.

In my opinion, it would be best for you to have one website that spotlights your product line, that gives valuable information about your product line and helps lead your customer to a buying decision. And another separate site designed to recruit for your business opportunity. Let me explain it this way.

If you walked into the health food store to browse the selection of blue-green algae in order to make a buying decision, and a sales person walked up to you, how would you feel if the conversation went like this:

Salesperson: “Hi, welcome to Shiva Foods. Can I help you fill out your application?”

You: “No, I’m here to look for a good blue-green algae supplement, can you help me find one?”

Salesperson: “Yes, the blue-green algae is on this shelf. But are you sure you don’t want to work here? You can get a discount.”

You: “No thanks, I just want to buy the blue-green algae. Can you tell me the difference between these two brands?”

Salesperson: “Sure (goes into explanation of the benefits of each brand of blue-green algae). Now, when you’re ready to start working here, I can help you get an appointment with the manger for an interview.”

You: (With increasing irritation in your voice.) “No, I SAID that I wanted to buy the blue-green algae, but I think I’ll just go to the grocery store to get it. Maybe someone will help me without trying to make me into a salesperson!”

Then you leave the store.

Now. I don’t mean to say that you shouldn’t be engaging in recruiting for your business. Thousands of people are out there on the internet who are looking for a network marketing opportunity. What I’m saying is that when people want product, sell them that. When they want a business, sell them that. Don’t confuse and distract them.

Using the above example, if you were looking for a way to earn extra income and walked into the health food store to get an application, you would be equally irritated if the employees kept trying to sell you product. The time for that is after you’re hired and need to have more knowledge of the product line.

I hope that helps and I wish you all the best in your business :)

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