Scott Thrall's Blog

If you work from home, chances are you already know that you’re really pulling “double duty”. You probably work on your business while doing the laundry, corralling the kids, or fixing dinner… and let’s not forget all the phone calls from family and friends expecting you to run errands or just “go out” for an afternoon of fun.

One of the hardest parts of running a home business is separating your work from your family and social life. Here are six proven ways to keep your home life running smoothly while keeping your business on track.

1. First, create a work schedule and stick with it. It may be tempting to answer personal calls during the day or take business calls after-hours, but doing this actually shows that you’re expendable – not dependable – and people will take for granted that you’ll “always be there” for any little things that come up. Even though family comes first, stay true to your business hours and resist the urge to chat with friends or pick up groceries during working hours.

2. Your friends may consider “working from home” an invitation to chat during the day or just go out for coffee or shopping for an afternoon. Make it clear that your business hours are just that – for business. Leave personal calls for after-hours, and you’ll find that your friends will gradually accept your schedule without feeling slighted.

3. Just because you have to set up a work schedule, doesn’t mean that you have to keep the same hours as everyone else. One of the benefits of working for yourself is setting your own hours to fit your most productive times. Whether you’re an early bird or a night owl, you’ll find that you’ll get much more done when you’re attuned to your body’s own natural rhythms. Some people work in the morning, take a break in the afternoon when the kids are home from school, and work again in the evening. Schedule your work time when you feel the most productive and you’ll find that things get done easier, faster and better than when you were dragging along during those same rigid work hours that everyone else has.

4. If getting after-hours business calls or work day personal calls is a problem, it helps to have a separate business phone line, or at least an answering machine or voice mail, to take the incoming calls. This also gives your business a more professional appearance to clients than if you and your family make and receive calls from the same phone line.

5. If at all possible, try to separate your “home office” from the rest of your home. If you don’t have the luxury of a separate room, a room partition or screen can be just as helpful. This also serves as a visual cue to family that you’re working and shouldn’t be bothered.

6. Dress and act professionally while working. Some people find it helpful to dress in casual business attire during their working hours. This reinforces that just because you’re working from home doesn’t make you any less of a professional. Answer the phone with your name, or business name, and keep your children off the phone during business hours. Also, spend money investing in the tools you need to do your job right. A cell phone, fax machine or even a budget computer can help turn your home office into a true workspace.

If you follow all of these tips and stick with them, chances are you’ll find a routine that not only makes you feel productive and active in your business, but also projects the message that you mean business – literally!

Effective internet marketing begins with the business plan. One of the reasons that franchises are such a popular offline business model is that they present a plan for making hamburgers or tutoring kids. Having a plan is one of the most important things in business and a key component of effective internet marketing.

The first thing I want to ask you is whether you want to have an internet marketing business or an internet marketing hobby. There’s nothing wrong with making a couple hundred dollars a month doing something that is kind of fun. But it’s not a business. It’s a hobby. Effective internet marketing means treating it like a business.

The first step of your plan needs to be your long range strategic goals. How much do you want to be making? What are your resources to get there? Steven Covey made popular the saying “begin with the end in mind.” That means, look down the road 5 years or so and find out where you want to be. Then you can plot backwards what milestones you need to meet to get there.

Your plan should be divided into long term (5 year), mid term (1 year), quarterly, monthly, and daily objectives. This way, you stay on track.

Additionally, you need to develop systems for everything you do. If you plan to outsource your article writing, set up a system for everything from hiring your writers to how they deliver the content to you. If you systematize the plan, you will get better results. One person posted a question about why his writers never gave him titles to the articles. A responder asked him whether he had asked them to. If you have a system in place, when you bring on a new writer, he or she will know exactly what you expect of them.

Effective internet marketing also means developing a budget and sticking to it. Internet hobbyists buy every WSO or course on the market. They dabble in one thing, listen to an ecourse, buy a domain name they never use, etc. Someone who is marketing on a business developed budget will buy only the things he or she needs to move their business forward.

As you put together a real business plan for your internet marketing business, you will find that you are making a lot more money. It stops being something you are playing at on the evenings and weekends and starts to take shape as a “real” business. Pretty soon, you will find that you can leave your day job and make the online world your primary source of income. Many people have done this before you. More, though, have played at it, and said, “internet marketing doesn’t work.” Those are mostly people who didn’t have any real plan.

Do you want to have a hobby or a business? The answer to that will determine how successful you are. Always remember that effective internet marketing is a business and you need a plan.

Way too many people believe the Internet is a place to get rich quick with no effort or sweat needed. You just publish a web site and poof you have a home business. Please do not hold your breath waiting on results from an Internet business started with that thought process. Home business owners turning blue or choking are signs that they did not read this article.

The good news is starting an online home business is worth every second it takes to do it right. Imagine being your own boss for incentive, then use your brain and motivation to make it work. The lack of time will always be a factor in creating your business, given the fact we all have jobs, kids, family or some other distraction. To add more time to your business day use the proven techniques and strategies not shortcuts!

Imagine being able to sit down at your computer and find your home business already built in a box just waiting for you. By using content sites and article sites, you can easily find ready to go ebooks, software, products and even complete web sites, ready to build a business with. They just do not include the marketing any business requires.

Take a tour of sites like Quite Your Job In 90 Days, Surefire Wealth, and Affiliatenaire. You will find ideas and solutions for any home business. None will be successful overnight. Success takes considerable effort and motivation and it all starts with you and a great idea.

And do not overlook your greatest asset which is the skill and knowledge you already have. Business online takes passion and chances are passion on the job got you many years of experience that you can easily share for profit. The book “Make Your Knowledge Sell” can be found on any search engine. Get a copy of it and see just how much money your knowledge can make.

Many topics and themes great for home business and affiliate sales have already been built. Take advantage of that by joining sites that sell content and ideas you can modify to suit your specific purpose. These days you can start a home based business in just minutes to hours, but above all things, have a marketing plan before you start. Then use content sites, article sites, and proven marketing tactics to get the job done.

In all cases however, the lack of an action plan is the fastest way to a home business failure. “Look before you leap” is a well known phrase and the answer for faster home business profits.

Don’t be fooled, gathering the right information on learning how to sell online is priceless. Seriously, nearly every website on the Internet has one goal in mind: how to make money and spending as little money out of pocket possible.

In order to crank out some serious cash, you need a simple plan of action. In addition to that, you must possess willingness and desire to just start. Consider taking baby steps in the direction of your goals.

Here’s the kicker: Learning how to sell online can help you say goodbye to your full time job if you have the right tools and information. Instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop, be prepared to take the action necessary with a positive attitude towards success.

Cash is king, so it is to your benefit to write down and make known in clear fashion your goal for every aspect of your Internet business.

What I am talking about is setting boundaries that include your spouse, your web designer, and your assistants, if any.

Here’s something else. To get your goal to stick like glue, make your statement the start up page when your computer boots up. On top of that, you can convert your goal into a screensaver. As if that’s not enough, read your goal to yourself at least 3 times daily as you complete tasks throughout your home and business.

Mark my words; you will need to learn the basics about finding a product to sell. But your ace in the hole comes from marketing products online, and building a website.

But that’s not all, learning how to sell online means having a tough skin and being able to adapt to change.

One more important thing is that you should consider creating a blog to help your business grow.

Use your blog to promote any product you are selling. Stay ahead of the game by adding content every single day.

What this means is casual visitors who will happen upon your website will then become regular visitors when they see that you add new content each time they come to your blog or website.

Now, listen to this very carefully. Churning out a profit online will be a lot easier for you if you are able to find a mentor who has already done what you want to do. A mentor knows the pitfalls. In fact, they already have a business plan in place that you could model after. In essence, they can answer any questions you may have.

Pound for pound, learning how to sell online is all about taking action. When you first set a clear goal, and then take the necessary steps to see this goal realized. It really is just that simple.

Rcommended: Alex Jeffreys latest thing…for free

What could be better than building an income stream that you feed once and pull money out of for ever?

Oh yeah, heheheh, thats the idea of internet marketing.

Take the best of a “continuity site” (also read membership), affiliate marketing and the idea of MLM; toss them in a funnel organize them and presto EIS (evergreen income stream).

Here, in a nutshell, is the plan;

You build a fixed term membership program.
Drive traffic to it.
Convert that traffic to customers AND affiliates.
Help your affiliates drive customers to your membership program.
Convert those customers into your affiliates.
Repeat.

Tony Shepherd calls it Perpetual Motion and has a free report laying out the process.

Get the report by clicking here.

There is a distinct possiblility you are losing subscribers and don’t even
know it. You could be letting potential subscibers to your opt-in list leave
your squeeze page without getting an opportunity to join.

I don’t know about you but I sure do not need this.

I can only speak for Aweber, because thats all I have ever used. So this
may or may not affect you, you will have to do a little homework.

If your autoresponder service offers a “Javascript Snippet” to add your
autoresponder code to your squeeze page…You could be presenting
a blank page to potential subscribers.

Here’s what is going on:

Firefox is becoming a very popular “Web Browser” especially among the IM niche.
The most popular pluggin downloaded for Firefox is called “AdBlockPlus.”

This awsome pluggin blocks all kinds of advertisements
which slow down your internet browsing. It blocks banners as well as javascripts
that power advertisements. SO it will also block your opt-in form.

What happens is your squeeze page will be BLANK except for the little portion
that asks for name and email (or whatever you choose to ask for when you construct
the form at Aweber). So now you are sending potential subscribers to a blank page
that asks them for the gold you want.

How do you get around this? Simple, opt for the HTML Version and paste that in
like you do the javascript.

Don’t deliberate…decide get on over to your squeeze page and change out the
javascript snippet for the html code.

You have heard it a million times, maybe even multiples of that…

The Money Is In The List
I would like to add, it is in a well groomed or maintained list.

What I mean by that is; Your list is initially only a bunch of “opt-ins.”
You can draw opt-ins to your list, but they will just occupy
autoresponder space.

They become “a list” when you develop a relationship and trust factor.
You must become a living breathing person to the individual behind
the email address.

That only happens over time and is refined each time you contact the
people on your list.

So with that in mind;

One good way of jumpstarting a list (especially in the IM niche),
or giving it a quick boost is through JV Giveaway events.

Now don’t buy the hype of getting a gazillion new opt-ins from a single
event, but you can get a substantial number of opt-ins.

In a nutshell here is how they work;

-You join as a JV Partner
-You post a freebie
-Someone sees and likes your offer and opts-in to your list to get
the “freebie”

Two factors play in to give you the best opportunity to build your
list this way.

-One is who is sponsoring the JV Giveaway event.
If the sponsor is well known then that in itself will attract traffic to
the event which can translate to opt-ins for you.

-The second is the quality of your freebie.
Your freebie has to be enticing and have good value. You will be
rated by your freebie, its the first exposure to you and your business
ethics.

Where do I get these quality freebies?
-Make your own
Making your own could be as simple as converting a PLR product to
building it from scratch.
-Buy a product with giveaway rights.

Lately I have been getting my PLR and MRR products from here

==> Master Resell Rights

(Yeup its a membership site, but I just cant say enough about it.
And lately I have noticed it seems to be the source for products of
a number of other PLR/MRR membership sites.)

I have found a number of items that can be used for these events and
offer an ability to upsell.

There is a grand giveaway event starting the middle of November here

==> 100 Percent Giveaway

The administrators put this event on yearly and I had very good
results last year with it.

The upgrage, which allows you to triple your exposure is less than
$10.00, which you do not have to go for (I did on this event) There
are other benefits if you do which you can read about at the site.

After you get the new opt-ins to your list you should share who you
are and what you can do for your newest members. Do this through an
autoresponder series or newsletter.

Then you too will be able to echo…

The Money Is In The Maintained List

There are many “Traffic Guru” wannabies who evangelize blog commenting something like this… “Commenting on blogs is one of the top ways to drive hoards of traffic to your site…just surf the BIG blogs leave a comment and the gods will bless you with a traffic jam equivilent to New York at quitting time. ”

What hogwash….Well it tends to be for most internet marketers.

Because most people go about commenting on blogs completely wrong.

If you simply speed post comments on popular blogs to get drive by traffic, you need to cease, pull over and rethink. What are you offering the resultant drive by traffic? Do you have great content waiting? With nothing to make it stick on your blog, where will it go? You may find that there will be a traffic surge, but it will be others coming to laugh at your pathetic attempts.

You will fare much better and for the long term if you concentrate on putting good solid useful content on your blog.

Those fliting visitors that exit as quickly as they arrive do nothing for your sites rankings, and they are not becoming regular visitors that develop a trust and respect for you. You will never get the opportunity to monetize that traffic.

So how do you make blog commenting work in your favor?

Make your comments valuable. The traffic generated will come to your site because it is interested in learning more from you. Then back up your comments with great content that is valuable.

Your ultimate goal is to develop a relationship with your visitors. That positive relationship is what turns your blog into an income stream.

So what do you think? Am I on target or off my rocker?

How are you using your blog to pull in profits right now? Chances are you’re doing what 90% of the marketers out there do and simply have a blog where you post great content and then periodically promote affiliate products or CPA offers. After all, that’s the commonly ‘prescribed’ method of making money by blogging.

While that does work, to a degree, there are more advanced methods that could be way more effective. One of these is: Leverage.

Even if you have no introduction whatsoever to leverage, you’ll find that you can use your blog as part of a plan that uses it to perfection. In fact, the only thing you need (apart from your blog, of course!) is an eBook product of your own. Without your own product you’ll find that you can carry out this plan in different ways – but it won’t be as effective.

So let’s say you have an eBook. Were you to just go about marketing the ‘normal’ way via your blog, you’d probably dedicate a post or two to it, and maybe even set up a sales page. However, you’re not going to do that. Instead, you’re going to take that eBook and extract a chapter that you feel is particularly interesting, and make it into a 10 page report or so.

Now you have two products: An eBook and a report. From that report, you can then create blog posts that talk about various topics that are covered in the report itself. Try to aim for around 5 or so. Each of these blog posts should be aimed at eventually leading the reader to the report itself, which you’re going to be giving away for FREE when your readers sign up to your list.

Basically, this means that when people read your blog posts, they’ll have the option of finding out more by simply signing up to your list and downloading the report for free. In the report, there should also be an option to find out even more by purchasing your eBook!

See how you’re now using a linear plan for marketing?

Truth be told, you could branch things out even further, and create various other blog posts from your eBook itself to promote both the report and eBook. By not promoting the eBook directly though, you’re going to be simply ‘providing value’ to your readers, and it is far less likely to come off as simply trying to palm products off onto them.

At the same time, you’ll be building your list and starting to be able to market more and more products as and when you come up with them.

Using this strategy, you should be able to pull in far more profits from your blog simply by maximizing the effectiveness of your marketing. That in itself will set you apart from the minnows of the marketing world, and let you swim with the big fish!

If you’re tired of barely scrapping by and are ready to finally make some money online with blogging, you need to check out Bloggers Payback:

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