-Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.- Mark Twain

During the course of your business career you may build a team or many teams to help you to achieve your goals, but you will always be a solo performer. To alter that quote from the Godfather, it is personal and it is strictly business. You must look at your business as being all about you. Your drive, your dream, your determination to achieve you goals against what real does amount to the entire world. It may not be that way, but you have to look at it that way.

Running a business is a choice. This choice is made by a single person.
The type of business that it is was a choice made in the end by one person. Yes you may had asked others for input. you may have done a great deal of market research before coming to a decision, but in the end your business was a solo creation.
How you run your online business is also a series of day to day and moment by moment choices. Once you accept that it, for better or worst like a marriage, will always come down to your commitment to the business and the course that you have charted for it you will be well on your way be being a success business person.
Enjoy this time in your life. Going from building a business to having a successful one is where most of the fun occurs. Do not focus on the destination, focus on the good times that happen along the way. That is part of the reason why you wanted to be your own boss. Why you started your own online business.

Please take a moment to like this post on stumbleupon.

The Business of Choosing Content

One of the questions that comes up most often is why do I write about the things that I do.

In other words, how do you select content for your website?

The answer is that need dictates content. When I need something for one of my websites I find a service that can provide this and then I test drive it. Of course there are things like hosting that I had to do some heavy trial and error with before making a selection. My first real website that I owned was this one. I purchased this domain name cannonexcel7 from the best domain provider in the business, Godaddy. They were having one of their sales and I brought two domain names at the price of 2.99 each. At the time I thought that once you had a domain name you were set. I knew next to nothing about hosting and that was a problem that took months to work through. I asked a ton of questions. I talked to tech support at Godaddy and watched a bunch of instructional videos on Yolutube. After all of that I ended up not using Godaddy for my hosting. I used Hostgator and I still use Hostgator to this very day. They are the best at providing hosting for a domain and their customer service is twenty four hours a day and all questions are answered without the usual attempts to up-sell. They allow me to build as many wordpress websites that I can provide content for and they do this for less than ten dollars per month.

When running a business cost certainty is extremely important. You have to not only know your numbers, but be sure that those numbers will remain constantly for at least twelve months ahead. Hostgator did that for my businesses.
That is the reason that a great deal of the content that I write is dedicated to Hostgator and Godaddy and the services that they provide. In other words I promote their businesses because my business would not exist without them. You would not be here reading this without the skill and quality of service provided by those two companies. There will be companies and services that make it easy for you to do business. Someday, maybe many years down the road you will thank them for being there with what you needed when you needed it most.

Thank you for visiting my site for the first time or returning to it. Please take a moment to like this post on stumbleupon.

The Passion That Drives Your Business

“Nothing is as important as passion. No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate.” -Jon Bon Jovi

Businesses are the world’s most hidden love stories. The ones that endure over the long term are those businesses, whether online or brick and mortal, that are the great loves of the owner’s lives.

How often has it been said that you are married to that business or that business is your baby?

This is why businesses fail for the same reason that marriages fail. They fail because the ones involved are just going through the motions. They are phoning it in rather than committing to doing their very best each and every day. This is the case of once you have him or her you start to take them for granted. They or in this case your business will always be there, but just like in any other type of relationship it is a thing that evolves over time. You have to adjust day by day. Adding new elements and removing those that hinder growth.

For the last few months I have taken my online business for granted. The websites like this one I have hardly touched. I allowed them to run on autopilot. That was part of the original design and I am proud to say that they were able to survive on their own and send money home each week, but they have not grown. Like any other relationship only with care and attention can growth continue.

Today I would like for you to take a few minutes to look at your business. Try to be honest with yourself. Answer the hard question and accept the answers that come back. Are you and your business in a thriving loving relationship or is the relationship on the rocks?

Your job as a business person begins and ends with the word competition.

You are competing with every other business in your chosen field. Sitting around and waiting for things to happen is the worst thing that you can do. You must always be engaged and proactive. Picture yourself in a row boat on a raging river. Would you sit back and trust the currents to take you where ever they were racing toward or would you hold fast to the oars and row with all that you had in you every time that you sensed trouble?

Have you been sitting back and hoping that things would come your way?

Have you been trusting to luck?

I got news for you. There is no such thing as luck. You make your own luck. The businesses that thrive do not do this because they are luckier than the rest. They thrive because they are run by men and women who constantly adjust and adapt to whatever situation that the new day presents.

You are going to have to learn how to out hustle the competition. To grow your business you are going to have to do try new things and be willing to fail. We grow and change by constantly trying new ways to approach the problems that confront us each and every day.

What I want you to do today is to examine your business. Figure out what you are doing well and what you could do better. Come up with a plan to correct your weakest areas and move as quickly as possible to make those corrections.
Does this sound hard?
Easy or difficult does not matter because in the end we do what we must do to not only survive, but to thrive. Good luck with your online business and take a moment to like this post on stumbleupon.

-Business and growing jobs is about taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving. It is about dreams. Usually, it doesn’t work out exactly as you might have imagined. Steve Jobs was fired at Apple. He came back and changed the world.- Mitt Romney

I would add to that quote that Steve Jobs was an employee when he got fired. Apple was his creation, but instead of being in total control of it he allowed others a piece of the action. This cost him a job the was given back to him and once he took control again he made Apple his business. Something that he was in control of and could steer in the direction that he wished.

If you have a job then your boss is in charge of your future and the direction of your life.

I built this website for those who wanted a business. Your business can exist along side your job.

Once it starts to generate more income than your job does on a monthly basis it is time to consider putting that job behind you and becoming a full time business person.

This site was designed to help the online business person to build and then grow their business. I looked at doing this through by taking many roads. You can grow it by finding new supply lines. You can grow it by building a customer base and then learning how to retain those customers. You can grow it employing other to help you. I have tried to introduce services and to readers and to show them what these services can do for them. Some have taken my advice and others have dismissed it. Today we will begin again. Starting today this site will go back to basics.

We are going to grow a business.

The goal of this growth is to make money.

The goal of making money is to achieve financial freedom.

“Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you.” —Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO

You have a vision of the business that you wish to create. You know what it is that it is suppose to do. How it is suppose to do this and how quickly it is suppose to do this. You know what this business, whether it is an online business or brick and mortar, is suppose to provide as a return on the investment of your time and effort.

This is the difference between being someone who goes out to buy a business and an Entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is someone who is pursuing a dream or a burning desire rather than a pay check.

how to build a website in minutes

The entrepreneur is a world changer. Perhaps you will not end up changing the entire world, but you can change your world. You can become the person that you have always believed that you would become through the creation of your business.

The form and scope of that business is going to be largely up to you. Bill Gates dreamed up microsoft. Harland Sanders had a unique recipe for fried chicken that has become the chain now know as KFC. The shape that your dream will take is in your hands.

I would like to thank you for visiting my site and to ask you to like it on stumbleupon. Good luck with your business.

Today will be a quick talk about ebay.

Most, if not all of us, began life as an online seller at Amazon or Ebay. I learned a great deal there and I have to admit that if not for their business practices I might not have ever grown as an online business person. I might have stayed there, happily selling. Believing that I was actually in business for myself rather than being nothing more than an employee of the company.

So many of us who have moved on to build our own online businesses have done so because of ebay suspensions or restrictions. I wish I knew what I know known when I started. I am going to offer you guys a few pieces of advice and it your take this advance then you will be prepared for the day that ebay or Amazon changes the rules and you become a victim of these changes.

First thing that you need to do is learn to keep proper records. Keep the names addresses and emails of every single customer who purchases from you. This is list building.

Secondly you need to build yourself a website. A website that mirrors Amazon or Ebay. A website that features all the items or services that you have to offer. This website is your actual business and your job from that point on is to feed it new customers and to do everything possible to retain the existing customers.

The third thing that you must do is to grow your business through adding new products and services to your business. The best way to do this is to visit sites like liquidation.com, government auction.org and varies wholesale overseas sites such as lightinthebox.com.

Thank you for visiting this site. Please take a moment to like it on stumbleupon and to share this post with a friend.

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
– Steve Jobs

Sooner or later every one of us who own and operate an online business is going to have to deal with opening our own store front. Some of us have store fronts open at over a dozen online sites. You could have one at Ebay, Amazon, Ecrater, Ebid, and any number of others. I have one on more than one facebook page and a few of my blogs. Store fronts are important. You would not open a brick and mortar store without including a counter and a register so why would do so with your online store.

How do you add a store front or checkout to your own website or blog?

The answer is that you can do it by adding a simple buy now button from paypal or you could do something more permanent and something that would offer your customers many different options to pay for your item and/or service. The best business practice is to allow your customer to pay you any way that they wish. Some want to use the debit or credit card. Many people have issues with paypal. Frozen accounts and restrictions have left them in search of other methods to pay for online items. Installing one of the top online checkout systems to your site would be the best way to go. Try some of them out until you find the one that suits your needs the best. Many of them offer free trials.

“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”
– John D. Rockefeller

Running an online business is like running any other business it is about trial and error. If we are not trying new things then we are not trying hard enough.
That will be it for today. Please take a moment to like this post on Stumbleupon.

Good luck and have a nice day.

I have a great offer on my ebook Powerselling After Ebay. For a simple social media share you can get it at a 25% discount. Check it out by clicking the image below.

People First, Good For Business

-“In business, sir, one has no friends, only correspondents. ” – Alexandre Dumas

People are the single most important factory in whether your business thrives or fails. If you are running your business all by yourself then the state of it is all down to you.

Understand that these people, whether they are customers or employees, are not your friends. Take it a step further. If you are the only employee you cannot afford to be friends with you during business hours. Be harder on yourself than you ever would on someone who you are writing a check to each week. People are your problem and the solution to that problem. Understanding people and the rolls that they are to play in your business is part one of building a great business.

Becoming a people person is good for business. Understanding the part that people play in your business is great for business.

How do you become a people person? Two things you must do. Tell the truth. Expect the truth. Always tell your customers and your employees the truth. Truth builds trust and trust builds loyalty. Loyalty both from those who work for you and those who do business with you. Expecting the truth is the first step to always receiving the truth. Once people understand that truth is the number one currency in your existence they will begin to deal in it. If they see your business, your products or services as valuable they will have no real choice. Consider people and their importance to you and your business both in the short term and the long term.

That will be it for today. Please take a moment to bookmark this post and to add me to your google plus.

Tell The World About Your Business, Press Releases

Tell The World About Your Business

There is more to running an online business than just building a website and filling it with items and information. Your business is only as strong as the following that it can generate.

You need others to know about your business and the brand that you are trying to build. You need your customers to tell future customers about the business. You need the world to know that you exist.

TK2MGZ9BUPHS

There are thousands of way to do this.

Today I would like to suggest to one one of the most cost effective ways to get the world out about your online business.

You can do it through press releases.

You do not have to have a degree in journalism to do this yourself. Once you learn the basic format of a press release you can knock one off in less than an hour the first time around. You can hire others to write them for you. You can get this done at the site Fiverr for five dollars. There are free services to release them along with great pay services. What you choice to use will largely depend upon what it is that you need the release to achieve and how many people that you wish to reach with the press release.

Below is a quick video on press releases.

You can test out a trial at this link for the next two weeks.

Tell the World about Your Company with eReleases! Get $25 Off on Any Service from eReleases.com by using Coupon Code: STAR-25L.

Press releases are a very powerful tool and over time they will become a part of your overall marketing plan.