knowledge

Entrepreneur’s Retreat, July 09 – July 10

by Paul Joseph June 28, 2011 Featured

Entrepreneur’s Retreat, is a part of Knowledge Lounge’s initiative to bring companies and industry experts together for knowledge sharing, idea generation and networking. Some exciting adventure activities along with eminent speakers mark the event. The two days are power packed with insights to help entrepreneurs take their venture to the next level. (Visit Yourstory.in for full news, other content, and much more!)

Tagged as: event, frontpage, knowledge, other-content, yourstory-in

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Pune based Entrepreneur Titash Neogi on Bibkosh, a Knowledge Curation Platform that allows creation, curation and collaboration

by Paul Joseph May 10, 2011 Featured

Tell us about Bibkosh. Bibkosh is a Knowledge Curation platform that allows academics, students and professionals to Create knowledge in the form of notes, pictures, documents, email archives. Curate knowledge from various sources, including social networks and the world wide web. Collaborate with friends, peers and others over this created and curated knowledge. (Visit Yourstory.in for full news, other content, and much more!)

Tagged as: content, frontpage, knowledge, other-content, the-world

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The Mentality Of The Young Entrepreneur

by Paul Joseph May 5, 2011 Featured

My name is Ken Sundheim . I am a 29 year old business owner of an executive search firm by the name of KAS Placement based out of New York City at Herald Square. I started KAS shortly after I graduated from Fordham University , after resigning from a corporate sales job after three months of being at the company. Throughout my writing on Entrepreneur’s Journey, I plan to document how I opened a million dollar business with no experience, no contacts and even more odds against my favor. I want to discuss what I have learned being a 29 year old entrepreneur and what is necessary for the aspiring business owner to become familiarized with. I want to touch on my successes and my mistakes and show the reader what they can learn from both. I am convinced that entrepreneurship and intelligence only have a slight correlation. Anybody can be an entrepreneur, however not everybody is willing to put themselves out there and truly follow their dreams, their heart and use their God-given skills to take what they deserve. I am living proof that anybody can be their own boss. Hopefully, my stories, my knowledge and my ongoing experiences can help at least one individual. How I Started As An Entrepreneur I didn’t grow up and sit through my college classes thinking that if I didn’t open a business, I’d be cheating myself. Instead, my exceptional lack of corporate political prowess at a young age taught me that it’s either entrepreneurship or thirty years of a miserable boss and even more miserable pension. Living in New York City and being unemployed in a great economy at age 25 prompted to me to visit the entrepreneurship section at Barnes and Noble shortly after leaving and, by fate or stroke of something close, I happened to pick up a thirty-page book on staffing, went home and started KAS. The corporate headquarters started out being a studio apartment on the Upper West Side. At first, I did what a 25, 26 and 27 year old would do with a dramatically increased salary. Then, around 28, I began to get serious about growing my firm – albeit from a one bedroom apartment at the time. Now at the age of 29, I own a revenue generating company in New York City, I pay a couple of Manhattan rents, have five full-time, very talented employees whom I care about on payroll, and my firm is currently catching the turning economy, which means more growth, training, management, and whatever may come as well. I live a life that is hard to obtain and that I am grateful to have. The Price Of Success If you think successful entrepreneurship does not come with a price tag, think again. Then think another time after that. At an early age, I feel hardened. I joke a lot with my friends, but when it comes to business, I feel that I don’t smile as much as I would if I were an employee. Being successful is arduous. Being successful is stressful. If you want to be successful at a young age, don’t just read the below, but come to terms with it : this is the mentality that a young entrepreneur needs. If You’re A Rattlesnake, Nobody Pokes You With A Stick It was about a year and a half ago. I had three employees working from my apartment on the Upper East Side. It was a little embarrassing because I run a staffing firm and we would occasionally have candidates come to the “office.” That is, until somebody claiming they were competition sent me a nasty email regarding not having an office. With 48 hours, I signed a two-year, $70,000 lease. I could not sleep. I worked and learned out of anger, out of spite for two days straight. I consider myself a rattlesnake. If you try to whack me with a stick, I bite like a s.o.b. If I want something, I work so hard for it that being on the other team means that you’re going to put in 18-hour days. If it sounds harsh, that’s because it is. I can’t apologize for my style, but the other firms in my space now know better. Nobody is dumb enough to get bitten twice. It’s The Work That Doesn’t Directly Pay, That Pays As a young entrepreneur, nobody is going to hand you a thing. Clients are going to be skeptical of you. The other teams have leverage simply by telling the client who shops around, “We’ve been in business for 15 years.” That means that I was 14 years old when they started. Get used it. So, how do you combat this sentence? It’s simple. Be more knowledgeable and gain better credentials . I started reading a lot of books about every aspect of business, persuasion, job seeking and whatever else the iPad would download. The reason why many younger entrepreneurs seem to avoid this is that it’s not listed on the job description. It is this exact work that helped me to learn how to get media exposure, which mitigates the aforementioned skepticism of potential clients. My writing has been syndicated in WSJ.com , NYTimes.com , Forbes.com , USAToday.com , About.com , HuffPo , AOL.com , Yahoo! Buzz and Yahoo! Finance and just about every other publication. Now, the “We’ve been in business for 15 years,” looks pretty bad when you’ve accomplished 20 times more in a quarter of the time. Once You’re Able To Recruit Them, Treat Your Employees Like Family Any entrepreneur, or for that matter, large corporate entity, lives by effective, loyal employees and dies by turnovers. Unhappy employees are easy to get because they are cheap and they screw up a business. Happy employees are so hard to find and procure because they are a serious expense, but they make a business. I had to recruit employees from an apartment. This was not easy. The first few took a chance on me and for that, I owe them everything. Management for many entrepreneurs is tough. For me, at first it was damn near impossible. I had a lot of growing up to do.  Management takes patience, it takes learning, it takes caring and it takes energy. Jack Welch put it best when he said that before you are a leader, you spend time growing yourself ; then when you become one, you spend that time growing others. As a young entrepreneur, know that your employees are the future of the company. Care about them . They are the ones standing next to you in the trenches and the moment you forget that, you’re in for a very gloomy day. Ethics: Have Them And Stand For Something At the age of 29, you don’t get to own your own business by not making mistakes. I have been called everything in the book except unethical . At the end of the day, you have your word and that is all you have. I have had clients, vendors and others that I’ve come across display despicable ethics, and dealing with them is tough, but you don’t back down. When someone acts in an unethical manner, tries not to pay you (and they will), you call them on it and fight to get whatever they owe you. I recently had to collect over $12,000 from clients overseas that were not paying. Yes. It’s a pain, but as a young entrepreneur you learn that not everybody acts with the utmost integrity . It’s a part of life and it’s a part of business. Say what you want, but you can’t call me “unethical.” Ken Sundheim Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: client, entrepreneur, knowledge, management, mindset, space, writing, young-entrepreneur

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How Helping Newbies Led To Big Profits And A Closing Down Sale (Discount Price Ends Friday)

by Paul Joseph May 4, 2011 Featured

One the factors I like to hammer home to people when they create any kind of information, whether it’s blog or website content, membership content, or any kind of paid info product, is not to underestimate how much of your audience truly are beginners . Everyone starts as a beginner. If you are teaching something that requires any kind of practice or knowledge to become proficient in it, then you have a market of beginners ready to be helped. In growing industries, new people become beginners every day, especially online as more people to turn the web as a source of training resources. When I launched Blog Mastermind in 2007 I intended to create a course that would guide beginners through a process of learning how to build and eventually profit from a successful blog. I remember writing the first few lessons of the course, imagining what it would be like to be at the other end, reading my lesson having no experience at all with a blog. I referenced back to my own beginner phase and attempted to cover all the most important things I had learned that beginners need to know. I think I did a pretty good job of handholding people through the starting phase of blogging in Blog Mastermind (so much so that some people in the first test group quit the program early because they thought it was too basic, forcing me to create a second stream of advanced lessons to keep more experienced people interested long enough to reach the later lessons in the main stream of training). Despite this, I felt that there was one significant limitation that I wasn’t addressing that I knew many beginners wanted – I didn’t offer any video training to show people how to install a blog. Become A Blogger Is Born Although I initially said no to an offer from a reader of my blog to purchase the becomeablogger.com domain name, eventually I came back and purchased it once I had an idea how to use it. It is a good domain name, with good cadence, and a very clear message about what the site is about, given the plans I had for it. My idea was to release videos to show people how to install WordPress, which is something that definitely becomes easier to learn when you can visually see the process presented by someone else. Writing is my strong point, and although I had rudimentary camtasia video recording skills at the time, I didn’t feel I could do a good enough job to create the kind of polished and easy to follow video style to teach people how to set-up their first blog. I didn’t really want to spend the time doing it either, so I decided finding a person to create the videos was the way to go. Enter Gideon Shalwick . Gideon interviewed me in video format, we made friends over a period of a few weeks, and eventually I asked if he would be interested in the becomeablogger.com project. He quoted $5,000 to create the ten videos we talked about and I agreed. It was fortuitous that Gideon, who was learning a lot about online video at the time because it is his passion, was very capable of creating the kind of videos I wanted, and he also happens to have the perfect kind of voice and tone I was looking for – like a preschool teacher explaining to children what to do. I don’t mean this to sound condescending in anyway, but when creating content for beginners it is best you pretend you are dealing with children so you really do cover every little step with basic instructions. This is exactly what Gideon did with the ten introductory videos. We didn’t assume our students had any existing tech knowledge and just wanted to watch our videos and copy what we did and then get a result. The videos were challenging to produce and several times Gideon had to redo a video, but eventually the job was finished. Gideon also produced the very first Becomeablogger.com blog design to host the videos, which was one of the last times he did any web design work. We launched the site, I emailed my lists and told my blog readers about the videos and then sat back and watched what happened. It didn’t take long to see that we had a hit on our hands as the videos reached over 30,000 views in a short period of time, and we weren’t using YouTube as a traffic source at all. It was growing organically through word of mouth. Become A Blogger Goes Premium Due to the success of the free videos Gideon and I decided to team up and form a partnership to create a premium version of the videos that we would sell. We decided to follow my launch formula and market the course using the same methods I used to successfully launch Blog Mastermind (by then I had learned enough about launches that I knew the best format to promote our new course without making previous mistakes). When coming up with a new product it is really important you know who your target customer is , because your offer is derived from this knowledge. If you get your offer wrong, you won’t make sales. I was concerned that Become A Blogger Premium would be perceived as too similar to Blog Mastermind , since both courses fundamentally teach the same thing – how to build a profitable blog . Because of this I wanted to clearly define what made each course unique and different from the other. Become A Blogger was initially created to meet the needs of absolute beginners who want to do the technical things themselves by following step-by-step videos. Blog Mastermind has very few videos, most of the course is text (with audio versions of each lesson included) and I recommend that people outsource technology rather than do it themselves (and hence do not teach how to do it yourself in this course). This is how I saw the key difference, and as a result we would market Become A Blogger to a person who is an absolute beginner AND doesn’t have the money to outsource, so would rather learn how to do the necessary technical steps through video training. Despite doing my best to clarify the positioning of Become A Blogger Premium in our marketing materials I wasn’t sure at all how the course would sell. Gideon and I talked about taking on 100 members as a base level of “success”, where we would be happy to continue to build the course (we launched with about 10% to 20% of the course complete, as per my launch formula, the rest we built along with the first group of members). Anymore more than 100 people would be great of course, but I didn’t want to set expectations too high. We created the launch materials, went through the prelaunch process and opened the program at a charter price of $27/month for six months, raising it to $47 a month after the launch period was over (about two weeks if I recall). Much to my jubilant surprise, at the end of the opening campaign we topped over 700 members, which was incredibly successful, much better than I thought it would do. Soon after we added another 400 members even after the price rise when we conducted another marketing campaign. Within a matter of months we had created a course with over 1,000 paying members and an income stream in excess of $20,000 a month after affiliate commissions and expenses came out. Obviously I was pretty stoked at how successful the course was, and it went on from there to grow to over 2000 members and become the most successful program I’ve ever created based on total number of users. Don’t Underestimate The Beginners This experience taught me several things – Video is a viable and popular format for creating training products. Giving beginners the very basic steps to learn how to do something you might consider easy (and free to learn elsewhere online), is something you can charge money for, especially if you packet it up in a professional presentation. There are a lot of beginners out there – many more than you probably think there are. All these lessons can be applied to your situation. Even if there are plenty of free training resources, or other paid beginner training programs out there, don’t believe that you can’t create a product to target this market. You can pick a new media format or use your unique style or method and focus on beginners and create something unique that people will buy. Become A Blogger Premium Is Closing The story I just told you relates to a period from 2008 to 2009. Become A Blogger has since stayed perpetually available, although we did not do any more significant launch campaigns. Instead we focused on smaller promotions with individual affiliates and relied on existing traffic streams, such as this blog, to attract new members. The sign-up rate dropped significantly after the launches were over (I’ve yet to come across a better marketing method than a launch campaign, but they do take quite a bit of work), however the business continued to deliver a steady, albeit smaller income stream bolstered by affiliate income when we promoted other products and services. Gideon and I decided this year that it’s time to put to rest the current program because we are both focusing on other areas. We will likely replace it with something to service the same market, but that won’t be for a while. The course as it currently is, will be retired this week, and will not reopen. The program however remains full of great training videos, and although some of it has dated, much of the content is still very viable – especially the fundamental strategy videos I created on how to grow traffic and monetize your blog . As one last hurrah before we shut the doors on this course forever, we are offering a hefty discount on the course if you want to grab it before it closes. We’ve knocked over 30% off the price of the premium program, so you can grab the complete course for one payment of $147 (no monthly payments required). There is also an upgrade offer to bundle Blog Mastermind with Become A Blogger Premium (that’s definitely all you will ever need to know about making money with blogs in these two programs), which is also discounted at $200 off the original price . These are both one time fees, not monthly fees, and you get immediate access to the entire program after purchase. The course content will remain available to all new and past members, so although the doors to join will close, all the materials will be online for a long time still, so you have plenty of time to study the resources. You can find out more and join now at the special discount price here – http://www.becomeablogger.com/signup/ Don’t forget the course and sale price closes this Friday, 6th of May at midnight eastern US time . There won’t be any exceptions, once Become A Blogger Premium closes, that is it. Bonuses If You Join By Friday Gideon and I talked at the start of this week about what additional goodies we could give you as enticements to join (you have to have bonuses during a closing campaign!) and we came up with the following, which I think is a pretty cool bonus pack. You score the following SEVEN extra bonuses if you join Become A Blogger Premium during this closing down promo: 1. The Definitive Guide To SEO For Bloggers (by Yaro Starak) This is a comprehensive guide to search engine optimization specifically for bloggers, including 75 link building techniques and my methodology for dominating search results with a blog. 2. SEO In 2011 – Interview With David Jenyns David runs a search engine marketing company in Melbourne and thus has to keep up to date with all the latest SEO techniques. I grabbed him and asked what are the current SEO strategies used today and what has changed (this is a new unreleased interview, April 2011). 3. A Preview Copy of The 2-Hour Work Day Report (by Yaro Starak) This is my latest report, fresh of the press, 86 pages long, due for release later this year. If you want an advanced copy, this is the only way to get it. 4. The Ultimate Guide To Selecting The Perfect Video Camera (by Gideon Shalwick) This guide will save you a TON of time and money. It will help you select the exact camera you need for your exact situation, and prevent you from making costly mistakes! 5. YouTube Hacks For Building Your Email List Presentation (by Gideon Shalwick) This is a 90 minute long presentation Gideon did at an event where people paid 5k+ just to attend! Inside, you’ll learn all the tricks that Gideon uses for building his email lists in the tens of thousands using YouTube. 6. Six Figure Launch Email Sequence Swipe File (by Yaro Starak) This is 96 page PDF contains every email I sent for the prelaunch and launch of Blog Mastermind for the very first release, which netted over 400 members and created a six figure income. Not only do you get the emails, you also get hand-written commentary from me about why I sent each email when I did (you can copy these emails for your launch, or just take bits as you please). 7. Interview With Katie Freiling On The Power Of Social Media Inside this interview, Katie reveals how to easily build your tribe who loves spending money with you, using the latest social media strategies. You can order the course and score all these bonuses here – http://www.becomeablogger.com/signup/ We will send out the bonuses to all new members next week after the doors close. Thanks again for supporting our work and please please please , make sure after buying these products you take action and do something with them. I look forward to seeing you as one of our new members. Yaro Starak Blogging Since 2004 Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: business, guide, interview, knowledge, marketing, money, online, plans, price, time, videos, work, young

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The Entrepreneurial Mindset

by Paul Joseph May 3, 2011 Featured

View from the sidelines by Venkatesh Krishnamoorthy It’s all in the mind. Chandu Nair, founder of eScope Knowledge, told me what kept him going despite coming on the verge of closure of business: “I would call it stupidity. We simply weren’t willing to give up.” Steve Jobs finished his famous Stanford commomeration speech with “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” But stupidity and foolishness should be… (Visit Yourstory.in for full news, other content, and much more!)

Tagged as: content, knowledge, sidelines, venkatesh, yourstory-in

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How I Used My Offline Knowledge To Make Money Online

by Paul Joseph April 15, 2011 Featured

My name is Mark Riddix and I am a registered investment advisor . I have worked in the finance field since my graduation from college and started my own investment advisory firm five years ago. I never dreamed that I would venture into the blogging arena. The Story Begins My path to producing online income was an interesting journey with many twists and turns. I would like to take a little bit of time to tell you about it. I have always had a passion for investing from the first time that I heard about a stock and a mutual fund. I bought my first mutual fund in college and have been investing ever since. Every financial asset interested me so I decided that going into investment management would be a career occupation. I had been working as an investment advisor for about three years and was always coming into contact with people that had questions about investing. My business catered to higher net worth individuals so I wanted to start a site that would address the needs of regular everyday investors. I had the bright idea to create a financial blog . I figured that I could provide a little insight into the world of investing and answer questions that my site’s visitors might have. I named the blog Buy Like Buffett because he was an investing role model of mine and the name sounded pretty catchy. I really wasn’t seeking to make money online. I was just looking for a way to share information about investing with other people interested in the topic. I Start To Blog I proceeded to start blogging and wrote about my thoughts and opinions of different investments. I began blogging part-time and tried to stick to a schedule of writing at least three posts a week. I did this consistently for the first three months and then I started slacking off. I was getting very little traffic to my blog and my interest began to quickly wane. After a few months I started to skip my weekly posting schedule and was blogging only a few times a month. I was close to giving up on blogging because it seemed too time-consuming and pointless. Why bother writing a post? No one is going to read it anyway! I had experienced blogger burnout in my infancy and was not even aware of it. Fortunately, I did not give up and decided to keep blogging for a few more months. I recommitted myself to posting and would write a post at least three to four times a week no matter how I felt. I wrote about all sorts of topics related to investing. I wrote about some of my personal stock purchases and my stock sales. After a few months, I started to receive the occasional email from someone who was reading my blog. That really got me pumped because it meant that someone was reading what I had to say. Making Money Through Ad Networks My readership was slowly growing. I still had not made one cent blogging but that wasn’t my primary focus in the beginning. I was blogging to provide information . It struck me that I could monetize my blog after about six months of writing regularly. I then went in search of ways that I could generate some income. I wasn’t looking to make a fortune. I just wanted enough money to cover my web hosting fees and money that I had invested in my blog thus far. My search led me to a number of different ad networks . I have probably used every single ad network out there. You name it and I tried it. I used Google Adsense , Adbrite , Widgetbucks , Chitika , Clicksor , Linkworth , and Commission Junction . I generated a little side revenue each month from these networks to cover my fees. I made my first ever blogging profit after about a year and realized that there was money in blogging. I was not making a lot of money by any means but even a few hundred dollars is a lot when you are used to generating no online income. Making Money Blogging I began devoting more time to building my site and increased my posting frequency. I started to write a post at least once a day and sometimes twice a day. I spent hours each day writing content, marketing, and promoting my website. I started submitting guest posts to a lot of larger financial blogs in order to build my name in the online financial community. I had 15 different staff writing positions at various financial blogs and churned out content on a daily basis . This gave me greater exposure and only helped to build my brand further. My business was still generating money for me offline and my website was now starting to bring in additional dollars every month. My monetization strategy was finally starting to pay off. The writing jobs were bringing in a few thousand dollars a month and my income from ad networks was increasing. Next, I started running paid posts . I had produced so many posts that other websites were contacting me and asking to run sponsored posts on my site. My blog was seen as an authority in the finance industry. I began by charging $25 to $50 a post and quickly increased that amount to a couple hundred dollars a post . As my site’s popularity increased, I abandoned banner ads, text links, and most ad networks. My focus became on selling advertisements directly to companies . I emailed a few companies in the finance space and began structuring monthly advertising deals myself. Selling ads is simple when you inform companies how they are saving money by paying a monthly fee versus paying for each click. I eliminated the ad network middleman and was making even more money. Making Money Selling Products As my blog’s popularity grew, I noticed that online income was becoming a bigger portion of my monthly household income. My online income monetization strategy expanded to include producing digital and physical publications. I wrote a personal finance book on money management and long term investing. The book has been sold directly through my website and through traditional bookstores. I also produced an investor guide to the Best Mutual Funds. I used my offline knowledge of financial assets to make money online. My blog posts and financial products started to open more doors and I was able to get published in national magazines. I had a few articles run in Forbes . Recently, I had a story about my investing experiences run in the Wall Street Journal and an upcoming story in Black Enterprise next month. All of these opportunities have led to greater exposure for me, my business, and my website. Now I only write articles for a small number of websites and my pay rate has increased exponentially. The next step was to share a lot of the knowledge that I learned from my three years of blogging, so I created a blog detailing my journey to making online income. The blog was self titled, Mark Riddix dot com , and is filled with lots of information on all of the ways that I found to make money online. This site explains all of the ways that website owners can start generating passive income . I also wrote an ebook called How To Make $2,000 A Month Online . Most bloggers may not have the success that Yaro did blogging but anyone can make at least $75 a day online. Making Money Via Marketing My latest venture has led me down the path of affiliate marketing . I have been able to create additional income by reviewing and promoting different blogging products and services on my latest website. I started marketing sponsored tweets, blog reviews, and hosting services. I am careful to only recommend products that I really believe in. As individuals buy specific products through my site’s links, I am able to make a percentage from each sale. Niche blogging has become a new interest of mine. I have started creating a few more blogs catering to specific topics that people are interested in. I have been filling the sites with content and have added Google Adsense and Amazon Affiliates links selling blogging products. These newer blogs will not require me to tend to them daily and should generate their own income. Recently, I have launched an article writing service that provides content for Internet marketers and website owners. I have hired a couple of writers to write the articles so that I can focus more on content management. This business is only two months old and is already bringing in a nice amount of income each month. The money that I make online gives me extra capital to invest and put into the market. My goal each month is to take the money that I make online and use that to purchase more stocks. This plan has worked really effectively so far. My blogging experience has taught me that there are so many paths to making money online that any website owner can benefit from. How Can My Story Help You? One of the things that I would like to get across is the importance of perseverance when trying to make money online. Small hiccups occur from time to time but you should never allow them to deter you from your long-term money making goals. I learned how to make money online through the trial and error process. The exact same thing can work for you. You may find that your site isn’t optimized to sell your own products but is perfect for selling the products of others through affiliate marketing. I have learned that the key to online success is to match the right blogging topic with the right product and the money will start to trickle in. Coming up next on my column here on Entrepreneurs-Journey.com, I will go through a step-by-step process that I used to take a relatively unknown site and attract web traffic and advertisers. I will explain the entire process that I went through and how I launched my plan of attack four years ago. In the beginning finding ways to make money online was not the easiest thing in the world to do but I learned a lot in the process and would like to share my experiences with you. My goal is to make the path easier for the next online entrepreneur who is seeking to find their own path for making money online. One of the things that I absolutely love about working as an entrepreneur is the freedom it provides. You have the freedom to create your own schedule and plan activities around your work. I love being able to open up my notebook and earn money online at anytime of the day or night. Whether you are seeking full-time income or just some supplemental side income, your online business can help you reach your goals. In upcoming posts I will take the time to discuss the following areas: How to Take Your Offline Knowledge And Use It To Make Money Online How to Start A Blog From Scratch How to Make Money Writing For Your Own Site And Other Websites How to Grow A Website From A Small Readership Into A Loyal Following How to Sell Products Related to Your Niche Online How to Take The Money That You Earn Online And Increase It Through Investing Each of these topics is a real passion of mine and played a role in my journey to creating an online income stream. Hopefully by sharing my experiences, I can provide some insight into any questions or issues that you may be having. That way you can be on your way to making money online that much faster. I am looking forward to sharing my ideas with you in future posts and hearing from you as well. Mark Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: entrepreneur profiles, ideas, knowledge, marketing, money, Sponsored, work

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Young Entrepreneur Interview: Sarah Prevette of Sprouter.com

by Paul Joseph March 28, 2011 Featured

Entrepreneurs looking for advice on starting, growing, and managing their businesses have a lot of options online. Of course YoungEntrepreneur.com is a quality source of practical information, a number of entrepreneurial blogs are available to anyone who can perform a Google search, and there is a site called Sprouter.com . Sprouter is (now) a site where entrepreneurs can get their specific questions answered by other entrepreneurs who have been there and made it happen. We don’t all have physical access to great mentors, and Sprouter helps bridge the gap between entrepreneurs in need and successful business people with advice and guidance. We recently caught up with Sarah Prevette, the Founder and CEO of Sprouter.com. Sarah is a true entrepreneur in every sense of the word and always has fantastic advice for those looking to start and build their own business. Enjoy the interview, and don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments section! You recently announced a redesign and re-focus of Sprouter.com.  Can you tell us a little about this new direction? We launched our Q&A functionality last summer, and we’ve been blown away by the response from the community and from expert entrepreneurs who have come forward to provide startup advice. We’ve had some amazing entrepreneurs give their advice on the site – people like Aaron Patzer from Mint.com and Mark Suster, a prominent investor and blogger. We decided to simplify the site to focus on the Q&A platform, instead of offering several services. What prompted the changes you’ve made to Sprouter? When we launched the Q&A functionality it was buried on a sub-domain, ask.sprouter.com. We wanted to bring the Q&A to the forefront of what we do to help entrepreneurs around the world, and make it easier for startups to ask questions and browse through answers. You seem to truly care about entrepreneurs and want them to succeed. What is your philosophy behind this focus? The reason I started Sprouter was because I had questions while building my last business, and I couldn’t find anyone to answer them. Being an entrepreneur can be very isolating, especially if you don’t have a strong network of fellow entrepreneurs, or if you don’t live in a startup hotspot like Silicon Valley. My philosophy is that successful entrepreneurs want to pay their knowledge forward to the next generation of entrepreneurs, helping them learn and succeed with their businesses. It’s been incredible to see entrepreneurs helping other entrepreneurs around the world. What three pieces of advice do you have for a young entrepreneur just starting out? Test your idea. Talk to everyone to do informal market research. Find out if what you think is a need is actually a need. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Take advantage of resources like Sprouter to tap into existing knowledge bases and learn from other entrepreneurs’ mistakes. Network, network, network. The old adage is true – it’s all about who you know. How do you personally define success? I’m not sure there is a definitive end-game success. To me, it’s about little wins every day and ongoing progression. Success is continually elusive – as soon as a milestone is achieved, it’s on to the next one. Personally, I want to feel like I’m contributing, having impact, and pushing boundaries.

Tagged as: business, businesses, entrepreneur, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, knowledge, startup, thoughts

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How I Started Selling Information Online: What It Takes To Become An Infopreneur

by Paul Joseph March 22, 2011 Featured

I’m an Internet infopreneur .  The term itself needs some explaining upfront, so let me begin with that.  An infopreneur is an “information entrepreneur” , someone who turns words (or more specifically, information) into income – in a number of innovative ways.  I’m an infopreneur who uses the Internet as a medium for distributing and monetizing information. How Did This Avenue Of Making Money Online Appeal To Me? It all began when I read a short free report – around 11 pages – by famous author and real estate specialist Robert Allen .  In that report, Bob explained the real value of building a business around information and infoproducts.  Two things about it attracted me immediately. #1 – You can add value to the world through your words. There is a deluge of data all around.  But data, while helpful, isn’t quite valuable.  What’s really valuable is INFORMATION.  It turns what was a noisy cacophony into a melodious symphony, and information is what people in need or search of it will pay you for – happily. #2 – You can get paid forever for work done once. Think about an author who writes a book.  Let’s say it takes a year of hard work to get it finished.  But then, if it becomes a best-seller, it could sell a few MILLION copies over the next twenty years, and the author will get paid royalties all through this time…even if he doesn’t write a single word more! These were the benefits that turned me towards information entrepreneurship. My Internet Infopreneur’s Journey The year was 1995, and the Internet had just come to India.  I was an early adopter, and found myself fascinated at the global reach and access the World Wide Web offered at my fingertips. For the first few months, I simply browsed and learned.  Everything was exciting and fun.  I could read documents from the world’s most famous medical libraries, follow discussions on public forums populated by top specialists in any field, and download reports, read articles and explore websites providing very niche information on diverse subjects. Consuming quickly led to creating.  I built my first website in 1996.  It was about heart disease (my area of specialization as a medical professional) and hosted on the free Geocities server.  That website was a labor of love. I wrote detailed articles about various facets of heart health and preventing or treating heart disease. No thought of making money from it had struck my mind, even after reading the infopreneuring document by Bob Allen. For eight months, hardly anyone read my site.  The monthly visitor count barely hit double digits.  But since then, and until today, I maintain that it is never about “how many” but always about “who” is in your contact network.  One of the people who read my articles was Bob Schulties , whom I later discovered was scouting for writing talent to populate a new website with content. At that time, no one had heard of “The Mining Company” .  Today, many million Netizens know of it as About.com , the Web’s 7th most visited online property! I was the heart disease guide on the service for nearly 2 years.  It was the first time someone thought my content valuable enough to pay me for it, and right from that time, I’ve been paid a lot for my writing!  (In fact, my writing has helped fund my surgical work with under-privileged children born with congenital heart defects, but that’s another story for another day!) Valuable Lessons Even this very early foray I took into infopreneuring has many valuable lessons for today’s beginners thinking about becoming information entrepreneurs.  Here are some: 1.  Be the expert. I doubt if my writing would have appealed to anyone if it had not been rooted in specialist knowledge that was designed to help someone solve a problem.  And we are all experts at something.  Finding that area of special knowledge, and tying it in to a need that exists in the world, is at the root of being a successful infopreneur. 2.  Just do it. Too many people try to figure it all out before they begin.  This can be harmful, because more often than not, you’ll end up convincing yourself about how sure you are to fail!  Instead, if you have a fair idea what you’d like to do, just go on and try it out.  Sure, you might still fail – but even if you do, you’ll learn something valuable. Then again, you just might succeed! 3.  Be patient and passionate. I’m a contrarian in what I teach about information marketing because my emphasis is on following your passion and doing something you like and enjoy.  The rationale is simple.  Meaningful success in writing and information product selling is bound to take some time and effort.  If you pursue topics you are not really engaged with or enthusiastic about, it becomes easy to give up when things go slow or bad.  Be prepared to wait for success.  It will arrive – in time. 4.  Information is precious. Information is the distilled, curated, analyzed, interpreted and collated version of raw data.  The expert infopreneur has the skills and knowledge to go after sources of data, sift through the mess, and come up with the rare golden nuggets – and then present them to an audience in a way that is easy to consume, and of tangible value to them. 5.  Residual income is the goal. Working on a strategy with your information business is important if you’re looking to make it a reliable source of profit and something to scale, develop and turn into a valuable asset – maybe even sell off for a big payday somewhere down the line.  A strategic approach is what turns casual article writing and occasional ebook publishing into a sustainable information product empire that grows and gets more and more profitable over time. It took me ten years to wrap my head around the intricacies and nuances of information marketing.  But for all that time, it was enjoyable, exciting and educational.  That’s the reason I stuck with it.  After gaining so much experience and expertise, I decided to write a book that teaches information marketers the steps along the path. That book took almost a year to finish, but “Think, Write and Retire!” became an Amazon.com Top 100 seller within 24 hours of its launch.  The title was chosen specifically to encapsulate the infopreneur’s dream. “Think” – because you need to plan your strategy, identify your expertise, and analyze your market’s needs.  “Write” – (or record/tape) because nothing happens unless you just do it, create that infoproduct, share your knowledge with others.  “Retire” – because that’s what infopreneuring can help you do, if you want. In another article soon, I’ll explore more specific areas of the infopreneur journey I’ve been enjoying for a decade and a half.  This short report was more of an overview of the process.  We’ll dig deeper into different parts of it, so that you can learn how to be an information entrepreneur too. If you have any questions or issues you’d like addressed, please leave a note in the comments. Dr Mani Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: knowledge, words, world

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Why Creativity And Blogging Are A Match Made In Heaven

by Paul Joseph March 20, 2011 Featured

The aim of this article is to help you (and me) understand how our time in the blogosphere helps us access our creativity and fine tune our creative gifts . It’s also aimed at inspiring you to keep going, to keep reaching for those things you set out to achieve, and to remind you why it’s worth it. When we start out as bloggers, we may have many reasons for doing so, but did you ever stop to consider that among the primary reasons is finding your unique form of creativity and expressing your creative genius? For many of us, this probably doesn’t cross our minds, however, blogging is a brilliant vehicle for finding this stuff out. Finding Our Creative Genius So, here we are, setting out to make our mark in the world of blogging. How do we start? Where do we start? To the best of my knowledge, Yaro always says to write about whatever you really like, whatever floats your boat . That sets the scene for our first act of creativity. When we find the thing that makes us tick, we find our authentic voice or our “element” . This is one of the greatest gifts we can ever give ourselves in life. Our element, or our unique form of creativity, defines who we are . This gives us a level of self-awareness and self-assurance that most of the world is lacking because they’ve never gone looking for it. Being in touch with our truth or our authenticity is so powerful because in many ways, we’re unshakable in this place. It’s a place of inner knowing where we feel sure about who we are and what we’re doing. As bloggers, we have to find it, our success or failure depends on it . Who ever imagined blogging could give us this gift of finding our own creative genius? Brilliant! As many of us may have experienced, there can be a few false starts along the way. Rock star blogger, Alborz Fallah , stumbled along scribbling about a few different things until he hit upon the thing that launched him with significant impact into the blogosphere. That’s all part of finding out who we are and fine tuning our creative gifts. If we knew exactly what we were doing to begin with, there would be no lessons to be learned, and no joy in finding our inner genius. The Benefits Of Creative Genius In Action So, we’ve rattled around for a while and slowly but surely uncovered whatever it is that makes us tick, then we begin to share our wisdom. This in itself is a very powerful act of creativity and the benefits of doing so are almost immeasurable. To name a few of the big ones, in expressing our creativity, we find our tribe and we find our place within that tribe, and we may even find our gifts of leadership in creating our own tribe. When we blog, we share our wisdom/creativity . When we blog, we find our tribe and our place in our tribe, or we create our own. When we express our creativity, we literally send out signals to the rest of the world about who we are, and other people who share similar interests and vibe about the same things will be drawn to you and your creative expression. Then the power of one becomes the power of many, and this opens the floodgates for even greater connection, communication and creativity within the group. Our creativity is the thing that builds our tribe or connects us with an already established tribe and helps us find our place in the world. An extraordinary thing about blogging is that we generally become the Creator of a tribe. Yes, that’s right, Creator, with  a capital “C”! Blogging is a highly creative act , and in doing so, we literally become creators, in myriad ways. It’s possible that whatever your unique creative expression is doesn’t have a defined group of people gathered to connect, communicate and co-create about this “thing” yet. By finding your authentic form of creativity and sharing this with others, you may become a leader for a group the world doesn’t even know it is missing. That’s one of the hallmarks of creativity , bringing to the world things it doesn’t even know it’s missing. Creativity And Leadership How about that? Now we’ve stumbled upon leadership amongst the many brilliant reasons to pursue blogging. Leaders are inspiring and highly creative individuals , that’s what makes them leaders, and that brings us to our next ramble. When we find our unique form of creativity, and share our wisdom within an established tribe, or create our own tribe, we inspire others to do the same. By showing others what is possible through our own actions, we make it real for them. I generally like to think of inspiration as an inside job, that it comes from within. But there are always exceptions and it can also come from others. We’re inspired when we see others reach the goals they set for themselves. Inspiration comes from seeing another person expressing their creativity (in whatever form that may be) and reminds us that we have those same creative abilities . If they can do it, we can do it. Two great examples of this in my life are Gideon Shalwick and Kerwin Rae . I’ve thanked both these men in my book for showing me by their own example, that if I say I’m going to do something, then act on it, my dreams are within reach . I know this is possible because I met Kerwin and Gideon when they were audience members in seminars and conferences that I was kicking around in a few years ago. Both of them have gone onto create their own vibrant and animated tribes, become leaders in their area of expertise , and create extraordinary businesses that give them the kind of life style they intended for themselves and their loved ones. Action Speaks Louder Than Words This seems like a stupid title, given that I’m in the process of writing words, but bear with me! Sir Ken Robinson is recognized as a world renowned expert on creativity, I’m a ridiculously massive fan of his work. He says, “creativity involves doing something, it’s a process, not an event.” Both of these men were similar to me when we first met, with big dreams and strong self-awareness. But they also had an unshakable focus on creating the lives they wanted. Both of them showed me by example that following your dreams and making them a reality is a completely reasonable thing to expect from life if you follow through with action . They did it, then why can’t I? Of course I can! If they did it, so can I. There was no major difference between our creative abilities then, and there isn’t now. We’re all born highly creative , and we share an equal portion of creative power, but we need to be able to tap into our “element” and do the work, and it’s going to be a lot of “work”. But if we’re in our element/zone, it never feels like something we do begrudgingly, we love it and couldn’t think of anything we’d rather do. (Now I’m getting a bit off topic, but Dr.Mani wrote a great article for Entrepreneur’s Journey on this last week.) The only difference in Kerwin and Gideon was they found their “element” sooner, shared their wisdom, and created their tribes whilst I was still kicking around figuring it out. It sure made me snap to attention when I saw how they had accomplished the things we had talked about a few years previously. I realized, I’d better stop tire kicking and do something if I want results! These are perfect examples of inspiration from others who have expressed their creativity and made stuff happen in their lives. As most of us know, Gideon found his unique form of creative expression through blogging . (Rock on Rapid Video Blogging;) This has made it possible for him continue to express his creativity on even greater levels as the influence of his work extends further into the world. Another bonus of expressing our creativity and becoming an inspirational leader is that we have incredible power to incite action and create movements! Who wouldn’t love to be known for inciting action and creating movements? Those things are cool! Just look at the example cited above about Kerwin and Gideon. These guys didn’t just inspire me to get off my behind, they incited me to take action and begin creating my own movement. In their businesses they incite action in the lives of those who are drawn to engage in the activity of their tribe. Gideon and Kerwin create movements in the way their tribes are collectively engaged in activities that are designed by the tribe and the leader to take them to a place they collectively want to go. That is an intensely powerful form of creativity in action and it gets me freakin’ exciiiiiiiiited!!!! Blogging = Creative Genius and Inspirational Leadership In blogging, we can see clearly how this plays out for us. When we find our unique form of creativity and express it, we join or attract a tribe. We may have to spend some time finding whatever it is that makes us tick and also connects us with others . The more authentically we express our creativity, the stronger our influence in our group and the more opportunities we get to express this creativity . The more we finely tune our unique form of creativity and build upon our wealth of self-knowledge and experience, we naturally find ourselves in a position of leadership. Our Leadership role means we can inspire others to express their unique form of creativity, and incite them to take action, and if we do this on a large scale, then we have created a movement! Yaro is doing this right now with the changes he’s making to Entrepreneur’s Journey . He’s created a strong group with shared goals (entrepreneurship, blogging and internet marketing) and we collectively take action to reach those goals. By allowing myself and other writers on his blog, he’s taken on another level of leadership where he creates a space for others to express their creativity . Big ups to Yaro for taking it to another level and stepping into Inspirational Leadership on a whole new platform! As creators, it can be very difficult to let go of your creation and allow it transform into a new expression of creativity. If we can’t let this happen, there’s always going to be a limit to how much our creative expression can grow, because part of being a creative genius is inspiring others to express their creativity . If we refuse to share our creative gifts through Inspirational Leadership , our creative ability can be stunted and weaken it’s power to influence others. Sure, we might still experience some level of creative satisfaction, but we’ll get nowhere near expressing our true creative potential , which always wants to go further and to take it to the next level. So, how cool is that? Finding your creative genius, expressing your creative genius, awakening your leadership potential, inspiring others, inciting action and creating movements. And all this can come from blogging! Was this something clearly laid out in your list of “why I’m going to be an amazing blogger?” Possibly not, but it’s worth adding now if it isn’t there already. And please note, the first thing on the list, the foundation for the whole equation is in your unique form of creative expression . None of the rest happens without knowing who you are and what your unique form of creative genius is. Many of you will have completed my creative character survey to find out where your creative gifts lie. I’ve done some more work on it since the initial launch. Now when you find out an aspect of your creative character in the results, it also tells you how this plays out in your life and what kind of roles are suited to this creative element. This is a work in progress, as I’m constantly learning new things to add to the survey results! For those who might be curious, you can do so by clicking here: Your Creative Success Quiz . Many thanks for reading this article, please leave any comments at the end as I’d love to hear any insights you may have about your own experiences. Cheers, Neroli. Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: creativity, entrepreneur, goals, knowledge, online, person, time, unique, young

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How Not To Be Boring (And Why Your Website Will Thank You)

by Paul Joseph March 7, 2011 Featured

Stuff I read isn’t boring. Do you know why? We as humans, don’t read boring – people ignore boring . For years, I have struggled with boring because of my field (fat loss). I want to be taken seriously. There are so many problems and issues in my field, that the last thing I want to do is alienate people by being too stuffy or academic. My humor and style are not in line with the mainstream, therefore, people don’t  “get it” often. You won’t ever see me write the expression “belly fat” unless I am making fun of someone who writes the phrase “belly fat.” What “Yo Mamma!” Jokes  Can Teach You About Vocabulary I was picking up a reference book in the writing section the other day and saw, “The Yo Momma Vocabulary Builder.” I assumed it was an out of touch attempt at vocabulary teaching for kids. I was still curious enough to pick it up and possibly increase my knowledge of Yo Momma jokes. What I got was a fun surprise and unique read. “Yo momma’s so indigent, when she was kicking a can down the street, I asked what she was doing, and she said “Moving!” The authors of this book could have easily gone into a territory of trying to look like the “cool teachers” rapping about fractions. Instead, they brought an insightful view point and exercise to the subject of vocabulary. The book is made up of those classic words you often see in any SAT study book. But, I guarantee you the lessons and education will go beyond basic memorization and actually teach someone. Boring it isn’t. WTF Can I Eat? I put out an article discussing the topic of foods and the controversy surrounding what is safe to eat . In it, I featured an Xtranormal video I created as a satire on the topic. In the video, I take a jab at how eventually nothing will be safe to eat anymore depending on who you follow for information. These topics in my field are constantly being debated, but rarely supported by legitimate research.  It was a popular article with around 2,500 views of the video and counting. The video is not meant to go viral, I have other videos for that purpose (some with 100,000+ views ). The point was to offer my blog readers something different in a post and make them think. The point was to not bore them, while educating them. My goal was to educate people on the topic of food safety and selection, but also make them laugh at the situation for a moment. In the future, my site will incorporate more of the “less boring” approach. Education and experience isn’t enough, you have to entertain. In blogging, problem solving and entertainment is crucial. If you can combine both, you will have a real winner on your hands. Here are a few examples of blogs that aren’t boring (varying rankings of popularity): Rog Law Fitness – Friend and fellow fitness sexificationer with a new and growing blog. Gapingvoid – Hugh Macleod is a remarkable cartoonist and the opposite of boring. Seth Godin – If you aren’t already familiar with his work – start now. Writer, marketer, and legend. Penelope Trunk – Mom, Careerist, and extremely entertaining in writing and point of view. Steps To Decreasing Your Boringness 1.  Get out of your own way Being boring is safe. Being boring means less rejection, less opinions, and more blending. If you want to stand out, you can’t blend. Big blocks to creativity are uncertainty and fear . One of my favorite things to do is dance. I love all types of styles of dancing and movement. Dancing is an extremely basic thing to do, if you can get out of your own way. Most people feel stupid or hesitate. When something is based on fluid movement, hesitation leads to awkwardness. That awkwardness leads to an unsuccessful dance and more insecurity.  You may not think a blog post is something to get insecure about, but it is not much different to being the first out on the dance floor. If your posting is playing it to safe and bland, it is the same as standing against that wall at your 8th grade school dance. 2.  Surround yourself with non-boring entertainment and education Research shows overwhelming evidence that friends and environment affect everything from obesity to wealth. Who you surround yourself with is in a sense, who you are. If you spend your time reading boring material or surround yourself with people that don’t stimulate your creative thought, it will dull your sharp wit. Have you ever looked at a successful writer’s library? It’s a thing of beauty in which variety and innovation all abound. Maybe it isn’t writing, maybe it is music or movies. But, creative spark needs to surround your life.  The subconscious changes alone will be worth your time. 3. If you don’t know how to think outside of the box, teach yourself There are tons of books and exercises you can use to spur your creative abilities. You can literally teach yourself to be more creative and think outside of the box. If you are intuitive enough to know you need help with creativity, then you can gain true knowledge from sources that help you do that. One of my favorite books period is Thinkertoys by Michael Michalko . This book is filled to the brim (I mean stuffed to the gill) with exercises, anecdotes, history, games and more to get your creativity flowing. It is psychology, art class, math class and business school in one book. I highly recommend the book to anyone for practically anything. Here are a few free exercises and insights into the type of activities there are in the book. Assignment Over the next few days, take note of what stops to make you look. Take notice of what excites you and what holds your interest and then think of how you can apply similar things to your entrepreneurial experience. Leigh Peele Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: entertainment, internet, knowledge, life, small-business, young

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