This is a guest post by Henri Junttila from Wake Up Cloud.

Do you want to generate more traffic to your blog or website? Do you want to increase your subscribers, sales and fans?

It can be done, but only if you’re prepared to work hard. You’ve probably heard people say that article marketing is dead. I’m here to tell you it’s not, because I’m currently using it successfully.

There will always be people that proclaim that everything’s dead. Google Adsense is dead, blogging is dead and whatever else.

These are the people that have failed and want something to blame. Increasing traffic to your blog and website is extremely simple with article marketing, so let’s get started, shall we?

What is Article Marketing?

For me, article marketing simply means writing short 300-400 word article and submitting them to EzineArticles. Why EzineArticles you might ask? Because they are the biggest article directory on the internet.

I think I’ve heard Chris Knight, the CEO of EzineArticles say that they receive over one million unique visitors per day, which means lots of exposure for your articles.

You can probably find as many article marketing strategies as you find people. Okay, maybe not that many, but it can be used in so many different ways. The main benefit of doing article marketing is getting targeted traffic to your website.

My Background

I’ve been involved in trying to make money online since 2007, but it took me until 2009 until I really figured it out and got my first profitable niche website off the ground. In July of 2009 I fell in love with article marketing.

I like article marketing to so much because of the simplicity. All you have to do is write articles and submit them and you will get traffic. There are of course other factors, such as using the right keywords and converting your visitors, but I think you get my point.

Finding the right keywords is fairly easy though and I only use Wordtracker and the Google Adwords Keyword Tool for that. I have primarily used article marketing to drive traffic to my affiliate websites, which has allowed me to build an income large enough for my girlfriend and me to live on.

I even taught article marketing to my girlfriend. She’s not making a lot, she just crossed $300/month in passive income, but she is slowly building up. Making anything happen online takes time and hard work.

My Traffic Stats

Here you can see my traffic stats for one of my presell sites. I don’t want to reveal what it is for obvious reasons, but you can check out my girlfriend’s site further down below in this post.

This website has only one page and it educates visitors, which is what you want a pre-sell to do. Leave the selling for the vendor.

Now, just to make things clear, I’ve submitted articles to EzineArticles for almost 9 months now pointing to this website. I have practically left this website alone now, and it is continually earning me money.

As you can see, the traffic goes in cycles. Sometimes it is up, and sometimes it is down. This is hard work, but once you get things rolling, it gets a lot easier. I think Pat would agree with that.

Why Should You Use Article Marketing?

I personally think it’s an extremely effective way of driving traffic to any part of your website that you want. Specifically your own products, services or affiliate reviews.

Imagine if you had a review on your blog or website about, let’s say, Hostgator and you know you convert 1 in 100 visitors. That means that if you can write and submit enough articles, you can start making one daily sale.

Then you have other companies who offer recurring commissions, which simply means that you will get a commission for the rest of that customer’s life.

It’s not always easy to guest post or build traffic to your website when you’re new to all of this, which is why I think article marketing is the perfect fit.

It allows you to practice your writing, while at the same time drive traffic to your website and make some extra cash, if you are able to convert your visitors, but that is a whole other topic.

My 4-Step Process to Making It All Work

The way I use article marketing is extremely simple. I’ve noticed that the simpler I can keep things, the more I get done and the more money I make.

Now, I want to throw out this disclaimer: this is not an overnight process. I have worked extremely hard for almost a year until my income started to grow to four figures and beyond.

I have no doubt that this process works, if you’re ready to work hard. I have taught it to a handful of people. Those that follow the instructions and work hard, succeed. Those that don’t, well, I think you know the answer.

1. Write. I start by writing a short article around 300-400 words. I have submitted a lot of articles during the year I’ve been serious about this, so I’ve learned to write very fast. When teaching others, I’ve noticed that the main thing keeping them from writing more articles are their mental blocks. When you’re writing, avoid being a perfectionist and just get the article out there. As long as it gets approved and is of good quality, you’re doing fine!

2. Submit. After I’ve written my article, I submit it to EzineArticles. I’ve tested submitting to many article directories, but my results have showed that the most effective way for me is to just use EzineArticles. I get the most amount of traffic by doing this. I could waste time submitting to other directories, but I choose not to. The very small increase in traffic is not worth it to me.

3. Traffic. All of the articles are approved by human editors on EzineArticles and they are constantly increasing their standards, so Google loves them. Once your article goes live, you will start receiving traffic to your website or blog. It isn’t a huge amount of traffic, which is why I recommend you keep writing each and every single day. As you keep writing, you will get better and faster, which will lead to more traffic.

4. Convert. Last, but definitely not least comes the part where you have to convert your traffic. This could be anything, such as converting them to buying an affiliate product, your product, becoming a subscriber or even buying consulting from you. This process is all trial and error, because you have to figure out what your visitors like and don’t like. You can see an example of a landing page that my girlfriend uses on her natural flawless skin site.

The best thing you can do is look at how the site is set-up. It starts by identifying a problem, then goes on to educate the visitor on what works and what doesn’t, and finally makes a recommendation.

If you decide to go down the affiliate route, I highly recommend that you only promote products that you have personally used and really like. For example, my girlfriend uses the products that she promotes every single day, and would recommend them to any of her friends and family.

I have tried promoting products that give a big commission that I’ve never tried, but in the end it just doesn’t feel right. I want to improve people’s lives with the recommendations I make, and that is where I’ve found the most success. Pick a product you really like and be honest.

How to Get Started Right Now!

Once you know what you want to do with your traffic, it’s easy to get started. All you have to do is sign-up to EzineArticles and start writing articles.

Remember, this isn’t an overnight process. Shoot for being consistent and having a routine. If you can write 3-5 short articles a day consistently, you will see excellent results within a year.

Yes, I said a year. Of course it depends on how hard you work. You could write more articles and get the momentum going faster. You could then start outsourcing your articles and leverage the income you’re making. This is what I did and still do.

So many people fail online because they expect rapid results, but the results only come when you put in the work and the only way you’re going to work hard is if you love what you do. I recommend you find your passion, or at least something you’re semi-passionate about before you start!

With all that said, here are 4 steps you can take right now to get going:

1. Review. I’m going to take an affiliate review as an example. Before you start submitting articles, put up a blog post where you review something you really like and include an affiliate link or two in the text. Make it an honest review. Add video if possible!

2. Sign-Up. Go ahead and sign-up for EzineArticles. It’s completely free and your account will available almost immediately. You get 10 article submissions when you first start out then your account gets reviewed and they usually give you 15 more and if you’re really awesome, you get to platinum status, which means that you get unlimited article submissions and they review your articles within 24-48 hours.

3. Keywords. I know you’re probably anxious to get started, but remember to do some keyword research so you can see what people are searching for. If you’re reviewing a hosting service, you should write articles that are closely related to hosting, such as “how to find the best web host”, “where to host my website?” and so on.

4. Write & Submit. When you’ve got a list of keywords, you can start writing and submitting. This is the part where most people fail. You have to keep submitting and being consistent with your article marketing if you want to see results.

5. Test. When you’ve got everything rolling, I recommend you keep testing your review page to make it convert better. You may even want to try different affiliate promotions and products and see what people resonate with. It’s all trial and error, so just get started!

About the Author: Henri Junttila is a lifestyle superhero, who writes about financial freedom and self improvement for conscious people over at his blog: the Wake Up Cloud. Make sure you check out his free e-course on how to find your passion.

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How to Boost Blog and Website Traffic with Article Marketing

(And in case you are wondering, the infomercial was P90X.)

The Issue

The subject of our discussion was my work schedule. The problem was: I didn’t have one.

As someone who has been somewhat successful online thus far earning a passive income, I do have the ability to work less hours, and if I really wanted to, not work at all. However, having this freedom to work whenever I want has put negative thoughts in my head about adhering to an actual schedule.

Why would I want to “force” myself to a schedule and work during specific hours of the day, when I have the freedom to work whenever I want?

I now know the answer.

The Problems

There were a few problems with the lifestyle I was living prior to this life-changing conversation:

1. It was hard to decipher when I was working, and when I was not.

Because I wasn’t on a schedule, it was often hard for my wife to know exactly when I was busy, and when I was not. Sometimes I’d be in my office doing work related things, and sometimes I’d be in my office doing non-work related things. If she wanted to talk about something, or needed some help with the baby, sometimes I’d be in the middle of something important, and sometimes I wouldn’t. It was tough for both of us.

2. Work was never “done” for the day.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, working from home is tough. It takes a lot of discipline to really clear your head of work-related items when you’re not working, because those work-related items can so easily be done at any time of the day.

Although my current income streams only require just a few hours of work per week, I spend a lot of my extra/free time working on new projects to diversify and expand my passive income portfolio. Because of this, I feel like I could always do more work. And that’s exactly what I ended up doing.

I compare it to a piece of artwork, or a painting – how do you ever know when it’s finished? It just seems like there’s always more you can do to make it better.

Not having a schedule made it really hard for me to stop.

3. Randomness.

Not adhering to a schedule = total randomness.

This is a tough one, because a lot of us want to break free from that 9 to 5 schedule where it seems like everyday is exactly the same (I was there not too long ago). But at the same time, it’s that schedule that keeps a lot of our lives sane and less chaotic.

With a different schedule every day of the month, you can imagine how hard it was for my family and friends to understand when I was available, or when it was okay to plan certain things that may involve me one way or another. Now, especially with a baby in the house, sticking to a schedule is more important than ever.

The Solution

My wife and I (civilly) came up with a solution for this dilemma. It’s basically a two part solution:

1. Create a schedule
2. Separate work stuff from non-work stuff

Creating a Schedule

It was obvious that I needed to create a schedule, again not only for my wife’s sake, but for my own as well. Both she and I would then have a clear understanding of when I am working and unavailable (except for Emergencies, obviously), and not working.

Before creating a schedule, I gave myself some guidelines:

• I didn’t want a straight 9 to 5 schedule.
• I wanted a long lunch.
• I wanted to allocate time on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday night to write blog posts for SPI, since I know that’s when I write my best material.
• I want the schedule to be flexible, meaning I could trade time here and there throughout the week.

The nice thing is that if I don’t have anything to work on, I could really easily just scrap those hours for the day and not worry about it. However, if I do have work to do, we all know exactly when that work is supposed to happen.

Separating Work Stuff from Non-Work Stuff

How many times during the day are you actually working when you’re supposed to? Probably not as much as you should.

I wasn’t.

In fact, after literally keeping track of everything I did during a normal day, I noticed some rather disturbing issues, especially when it came to checking my emails, checking website stats, opening my Facebook account (personal, not the fan page), and reading the news.

Basically, I did a lot of non-work related things when I was supposed to be working. On the flip side, I was working (or thinking about work), when I probably shouldn’t have been.

So, how did we solve this problem?

It may sound a little odd to you, but I purchased a new MacBook Pro laptop computer.

Here’s why (and no, it wasn’t because I wanted a new laptop. That wasn’t even on my mind until this came up):

The computer in my office (an iMac) is where I did everything, including all of those personal things. It was hard for me personally to keep those things totally separate. By buying a laptop that is specifically just for personal, non-work related items, I can more easily focus on work when I’m supposed to work, and not be tempted to work when I’m doing personal stuff.

Furthermore, because the laptop is portable, I can literally separate work from non-work stuff by keeping the office and the computer in it off limits during non-work hours.

I deleted all of my personal email accounts from my mail client on my work computer. I imported all of my personal bookmarks and files into the laptop, and deleted them from the iMac. All of my instant messaging and chat software (excluding Skype, which I use for business only), has been transferred as well.

In the past couple days, living with this new setup, I’ve begun to notice major changes in my life, both in how much work I’m actually able to get done, as well as how I feel when work is “done” for the day. I’m more able to enjoy time I spend not working, and life just seems that much better now.

My Final Thoughts

I’m really glad my wife and I had this discussion, and I think it’s one that everyone should have because it’s really easy for work-related things to get out of hand, making us forget sometimes why we’re really working in the first place.

And even if you’re single, it’s important to understand these principles too. Especially when it comes to knowing when work is done, so you can really enjoy your time to play.

If you do any kind of work from home, do you work on a schedule? How do you make sure you keep business and non-business related things separate?

Thanks you so much for your support, and I hope you found this post valuable as a blogger, entrepreneur, employee, husband, wife, or person.

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The Most Important Conversation I’ve Had About My Business Ever

Call me crazy, but I love to watch infomercials. Why? Because it’s a totally free marketing lesson that we can apply to what we do online.

If you think about it, the whole purpose of an infomercial is to get a direct response from its audience, hence the term direct response television, or DRTV for short. Isn’t that the kind of marketing you and I are interested in? Getting a direct response from our audience?

Whether you’re just a blogger, or selling multiple products online, we’re all trying to follow a similar model:

1. Grab people’s attention and make them stick around.
2. Connect deeply with people through their desires, emotions, wants and needs.
3. Make our audience perform some kind of call-to-action (i.e. comment, opt-in, click on an affiliate link, or make a purchase).

Furthermore, the infomercials you see on television are optimized to the highest degree – they weren’t just randomly put together. In fact, they’re the result of proven formulas, months of production and a long history of sales data, all with the goal of engaging the most people and making as much money as possible.

There’s a lot we can learn from infomercials.

Before a Product Goes Nationwide

Before any kind of product goes nationwide on an infomercial, it’s first tested in a much smaller area to see what kind of ROI (return on investment) it’s getting. If the numbers look good, then (and only then) does it go full steam ahead.

For example, if a company spends $10k on a media campaign and gets $20k in return, then they’ve got a winning product with a 2:1 ROI. All they have to do is pump more money into their campaign, and more money comes back in return (i.e. spend $100k to get $200k). If the product fails to produce a positive ROI, then there’s no reason to spend any more money to go nationwide.

In a very Tim Ferris-esque way, we can run similar tests using advertising platforms such as Google Adwords or Facebook, at a much lower price. If you’ve got a product you’d like to test (or even just a product idea), you can run a small ad campaign to see if you get a positive ROI. If not, then you better be glad you didn’t waste money on a full-blown campaign. If you get a positive ROI, then it’s time to take it to the next level.

When You Watch Your Next Infomercial…

If you’re up late one night, or just happen to pass an infomercial while flipping through the channels on your television, take a minute (or 28 minutes and 30 seconds), to study exactly what’s happening. Don’t get caught up in the actual product, but instead look for the strategies that they use to hook people in:

1. Demonstrations:

Keep your eyes open to see exactly how the products are used, and how easy they make it look.

Ease of use is a huge because why would anyone want to purchase something that’s hard to use or complicated. Remember that when you build your next website, or when you want to create your own online course or membership website.

2. Calls to Action:

I dare you to watch an entire infomercial and keep track of how many calls to actions you hear.

A call to action is simply telling (not asking) someone to do something, and infomercials are full of them! There’s no better way to get someone to call a number than just saying: “Please call 1-800…”.

On the same note, there’s no better way to get someone to leave a comment on your blog than just saying: “Please leave a comment…” or something of that nature.

“Click here to subscribe…”

“Join me on Facebook…”

“Follow me on Twitter…”

“Add to Cart…”

You get the idea.

3. Pricing

A few things to notice about the price:

First, you’re going to have to wait a while until you hear the actual price. The price is never mentioned until way later in the infomercial because they want you to stick around and get hooked on the product first. If you get hooked, then the price won’t matter as much.

Sometimes, you’ll see infomercials where they don’t even tell you the price until you call in. It’s the same idea, but by calling in you’re becoming a super targeted lead for their product because you’ve made the effort to dial in, which has an effect psychological on whether or not you’ll actually complete the purchase.

Secondly, pay attention to the “lead up” to the final offer. Price comparisons with “similar products” and massive price reductions are often what’s mentioned before finally revealing the actual price. Why do you think they spend time doing that?

These pricing methods are the exact same pricing methods people use online for their products. I’ve used them myself, and even prices on Amazon show an “original” price and a reduced price.

And More…

I could go on and on about infomercials because I’m that much of a geek. But, I invite you to watch a few of your own and see if you can find some interesting marketing strategies and tactics being used.

Be careful though, because sometimes these commercials are so good, you might end up buying something as a result. Hah!

Anyways, in my next post, I’m going to highlight one of my all-time favorite infomercials, and break it down and show you exactly why it’s so successful, and what we can learn from it.

Any guesses?

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Your Next Free Marketing Lesson is in an Infomercial

The year was 2003 and I was living in my hometown of Wallingford, Connecticut.  I was working full time for my cousin’s janitorial company.  This job pretty much consisted of cleaning toilets and mopping floors at local medical facilities.  Needless to say, I was not where I wanted to be in life at age 31.  My one bright spot in life was a girl that I was dating, the only bad thing about dating her was the fact that I rarely had any cash to take her out.  In fact, most of the time she was the one who wound up paying for the cost of our dates.

One day I stopped by her apartment and she told me it was over – she simply could not date someone who never had any money.  Devastated, I called my friend to meet me for a beer.  Over drinks, my best friend gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten.  You see, for years I had been talking about moving to L.A. to try and become an actor.  This always seemed like more of a dream than something that I would actually pursue.  My friend said to me “Why don’t you go to L.A. to do acting?  You are always talking about it.  At this point, what have you got to lose?”  He was right.  I had a shitty job (literally!), no girl, no money and I was going nowhere fast.  It was that night with my friend that I decided to “go for it” and pursue my long time dream of becoming a working actor.

Within two weeks I made the trip to Los Angeles.  I had only $1,600 to my name and most of this money was basically a line of credit on a Visa card.  I subletted an apartment the size of a large closet and I hit the pavement running.  I was going to get acting work.  I had to get acting work, because if I didn’t – I would soon be on the street.

Day after day I had the same routine.  Get up, submit myself to the Breakdowns (casting calls), mail twenty headshot mailers to agents, register with the background casting agencies, spend two hours on my acting skills, read every acting book I could, go out and knock on doors.  My routine was like clockwork.  Day in and day out I did everything possible to try and get paid acting work.

At first, I was booking roles as a non-union background actor and I was earning a nominal $54 for 8 hours of work.  After a while, I started to get commercial non-union background work that paid $125 for 10 hours of work.  One night, while on the set of the Tom Cruise movie Collateral, I caught the break I was looking for.  Michael Mann instructed me to say a line and I was literally standing across from Tom Cruise.  I mustered up the confidence, said my line and before I knew it I was being whisked away to a production trailer to sign my first SAG day player contract.  Although my line did not make the final cut of the movie, I did make the final credits and I earned a good day’s pay and some great residual income.

This was the big break that I needed.  From this small role I was able to join the Screen Actor’s Guild, I got signed with a Hollywood agent and the work just started to flow.  I went on to work on tons of commercials, films and television shows.  I never landed any huge roles, but I became a full time working actor.  My goal was never to become a “movie star” – I just wanted to be a working actor and I loved spending my days on set.  Even when things were going great, I never stopped my consistent pursuit of acting work.  Like always, I spent each day submitting myself to the casting directors and honing my craft.  Things started looking up, I began dating a girl who would soon become my wife and I was able to support the two of us from my acting earnings alone.

I caught another break when I booked a principal role on a Barclay’s bank commercial and this was to be my first SAG national commercial.  I was on set for only one day and my scene in the commercial is literally about 3 seconds long.  The commercial is called “Invisible Building” and you can see it here.  (I am one of the businessmen sitting in the boardroom while the lady looks at the helicopter.)

A few months after the Barclay’s Bank shoot, my wife and I were heading out to dinner one night and I stopped at my mailbox to get the mail.  I was surprised to find 17 checks awaiting me in the mailbox. I came back out to the car and my wife and I took turns opening up these checks.  We were hysterical with laughter as we opened each check for random amounts.  One check would be for $2,000 and the next would be for $600 – these were the residuals from my Barclay’s commercial.  All in all, we opened about $6,000 worth of checks that day.  This commercial ran for two years and every three months I would go to my mailbox and come home with another batch of checks.  I was amazed that I was getting paid over and over again for a day of work that I completed months ago.  This was when I fell in love with the idea of residual income.

Flash forward to 2010 – my wife and I have since moved to suburban Colorado to provide a better place than L.A. to raise our two sons.  I still pursue acting, but it is more of a hobby than a career.  During my time in L.A. I was able to earn between $80,000 and $110,000 a year from my acting earnings alone for five years straight.  The fact is, my unwavering determination and the continuous pursuit of acting work is what made me a success.

Before we left L.A., I decided to start a blog called Residuals and Royalties.  I am still addicted to finding legitimate ways to create residual income, just like the money I made from acting.  I wanted to blog about all of the possible ways to create residual income or earn royalties.  But my blog started out very different than my acting career.  At first, I had good intentions – I was posting almost daily and eager to watch my blog grow.  Most of the time I was too busy checking my Google analytics numbers and looking at my measly Adsense earnings to even bother focusing on making my blog better.  Needless to say, after a few months my initial eagerness had worn off.  I started posting much less often and the blog soon sat stagnant collecting dust.  For months I gave my blog very little attention and I even considered taking it offline.

Then one day, I was online looking at all of the successful bloggers – Darren Rowse, John Chow, Shoemoney and of course Pat Flynn – I realized that I too could get to this level of success.  I just needed one thing – consistency.  Why hadn’t I put the same amount of time and effort into my blog as I did my pursuit of paid acting work?  Surely, becoming a successful blogger can’t be as hard as becoming a working actor.  I read on Yahoo last week that almost 500,000 bloggers are now making their primary living from their blogs!

Why couldn’t this be me?  From that moment forward – it was ON!  I have begun posting 5 to 7 times a week, I am researching my blog postings in greater depth, I am responding in a timely manner to every comment I receive, I am writing monthly earnings reports and I am consistently coming up with new ideas to help my blog succeed.  In one month my blog’s Alexa ranking climbed from 860,000 to 169,000.  I even had 1,012 unique visitors in one day this month.  I learned that just like becoming a working actor, becoming a successful blogger is all about consistency, quality and determination.  So let it be said – my blog WILL succeed and I will become one of the top bloggers.  If it takes me one year or five years, I will be unwavering in my goal.

If you have started a blog, project, business, class or any new endeavor – consider learning from my mistakes.  Persistence and commitment almost always payoff no matter what you are pursuing.  I wish I had someone to teach me this lesson when I first started my blog – who knows, I may have already reached my goal of having one of the top blogs in my niche.  I think deep down, each and everyone knows what it takes to succeed – we just have to apply what we already know to our everyday lives.

I’d like to thank Micheal-John once again for this awesome, inspiring story. For more information about Michael-John Wolfe, I recommend visiting his blog at Residuals and Royalties. Cheers!

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From Acting to Blogging – Consistency is the Key

I, on the other hand, don’t have any full-time VAs. I only hire providers and pay them on a per project basis. I’ll tell you why in a second, but there’s one thing I need to address first.

The topic of hiring VAs is a touchy subject for many, especially when it comes to outsourcing overseas. There are obviously two sides to the argument: on one side, hiring for cheap virtual labor overseas takes potential jobs away from those in the U.S. (or your respective homeland), who may be in need of work. Additionally, the labor can be very inexpensive, almost to the point of being ridiculous and unfair to the eyes of many.

On the other hand, some businesses could not survive with hiring people in the U.S. to do similar tasks that cost much less to accomplish overseas. And at the same time, the low wages that are being offered are actually competitive and comparable to wages in that particular country.

There’s much more to the argument than that, but before I go on, let me just say that this post is not a debate between whether or not hiring virtual assistants, overseas or not, is a good or a bad thing. To tell you the truth, I’ve hired designers and developers here in the U.S., and I’ve hired people overseas as well. I’m just hoping not to start a debate in the comment section of this particular post, but if you must, by all means.

Anyways, back to why I hire VAs only on a per project basis.

There are two mains reasons I do this:

1. I don’t want to manage a full-time VA.
2. I want to hire the best VA for the specific job I want accomplished.

Managing a Full-Time VA

I know a lot of internet marketers and entrepreneurs who have full time VAs working for them, and they love it. I also know a lot of internet marketers and entrepreneurs who have full time VAs and are struggling to keep them busy.

Managing a full-time VA is tough. If you can get to the point where you’ve setup systems and procedures and your VAs automatically know what to do, then that’s awesome. That will help your business become more passive. Getting there, however, does take a lot of work.

I’ve witnessed many VAs be let go just because the person who hired him or her couldn’t keep up, or simply didn’t have the time to keep them busy. You don’t want to replace the tasks that your have your VA doing with time spent managing your VAs.

For me, I’d rather focus on exactly what I need to focus on, and nothing else. If I have a project that needs to get done (website design, SEO, iphone apps, etc.), then I’ll hire a VA just for that specific project. Once the job is finished (website design is done, I’ve reached a certain ranking in Google, the iPhone apps are finished), then my time with that particular VA is finished as well, and those are terms that are understood by all parties from the beginning.

Yes, I know I could benefit from hiring a full-time VA do “continuous” jobs for me, like article writing, SEO, and things of that nature, but again I’d have to spend time continuously managing their tasks to make sure they are done correctly and on time, as well as spend time managing the finances of the relationship as well. Maybe I could hire someone to manage the VAs, but then who would manage that person?

Specialty VAs

With a Full-Time VA, you’ll often find yourself teaching the VA what you want him or her to do. It can be time consuming, and the fact is that in this case, you’ll rarely find that the VA will go above and beyond what you taught.

When hiring on a per project basis, I know (based on the qualifications, feedback, recommendations and portfolio of the person I hired) that my VA is nearly perfect for the job, and someone who already knows what to do. I’ll obviously have to give that person a scope of work, but I’ve never found myself having to teach someone I hired how to do the thing I hired them to do. That just wouldn’t make sense!

Furthermore, for almost every project I’ve outsourced, the specialty VA I hired has gone above and beyond the scope of work. For example, my website designers for The Smart Passive Income Blog (the incredible team at BlazerSix) did much more than I had originally asked for, especially when it came to the backend of the blog and making my life as the admin for this site much easier for me to handle.

Hiring a VA for a project doesn’t mean you cannot hire them again. If you love what they did for you, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go back for them, or at least ask if they are available. In many cases, these one-time hires will become your “on-call” business helpers, because they live from project to project and would love to establish a long-lasting business relationship with you.

Before I finish up, I just wanted to remind you that there is no right or wrong way here. Again, this is just how I decided to work with VAs. How you plan to work with VAs is totally up to you.

How do you work with VAs? Have you had good experiences with who you’ve hired?

Thanks for your support. Cheers!

p.s. If you’d like to get automatic updates of new material here on The Smart Passive Income Blog, you can simply subscribe to the RSS feed!

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Here’s Why I Don’t Have a Full-Time Virtual Assistant

As you probably already know, each month I write a blog post that details my income for the previous month. I do this not only to help me keep track of where my earnings come from and the health of my businesses, but more importantly to share with you what I’ve done that may have an effect on any increase or decrease in earnings, and what I’ve learned along the way, so hopefully you can learn what do to (and what NOT to do) too. I hope you enjoy this month’s report.

Important Going-Ons in February

Personally, a lot of great things have been happening.

Keoni, our newborn son, just turned 2 months old and he’s already beginning to “coo” (baby talk), smile and even laugh. He’s double his birth weight and just seems to be growing at an alarming rate. Although I can’t wait for him to be able to walk around and hold actual conversations with us, I know that I must embrace these moments because they definitely won’t last long.

Also, if you’ve read my last blog post, you’ll see that we’re finally settled into our new place, which means I now have my own office!

Super stoked!

I have about 128 square feet of whiteboard space on the walls to work with for brainstorming, productivity and anything else you can think of that a whiteboard would be useful for. I’m sure once Keoni turns 2 or 3, he’ll be all over the bottom portion of each of those dry erase boards.

Most of February was dedicated to moving in, and I did take a week off from work entirely just to paint and move, but I did do some business related items, which I’ll talk about below.

iPhone Apps

Once again, I’ve been really energetic about iPhone apps lately. My iphone app company, LOLer Apps, has seen a dramatic increase in sales the last two months, without even lifting a single finger or spending a single penny on advertising. Plus, with some rumors about the iPhone finally being opened up for Verizon, that’s totally going to increase the number of iPhone users out there and the number of eyes searching for apps in the app store.

Because of this, we’ve been coming up with some new ideas for the LOLer Apps brand and we’ll actually be submitting the framework for at least 4 new applications to a team of developers. That will double the number of apps we have in the app store already, and hopefully do more than just double our income.

Our primary market is tough (the entertainment category in iTunes), but if we can crack some of the top lists, we could potentially see upwards of thousands of dollars a day. This possibility has always been there, we’re just waiting for that one “golden” app to get there for us. We have some golden ideas, so I guess we’ll see what happens. Wish us luck!

GreenExamAcademy.com

My main business at greenexamacademy.com has actually done a lot better in February than I had anticipated. If you remember from my previous income report, I had mentioned that the company that administers the exam that I have an eBook and audio guide for has come out with their own study material as well.

Well, apparently that hasn’t had much of an effect on my business, as you’ll see in the numbers below.

Now that I’m in my new office, I would like to devote more time to testing different types of sales pages to try and optimize my conversion rates. I’ve seen a number of websites lately “mimic” the Amazon.com style sales page, even using the same buy now button that Amazon does, and it seems to be increasing sales in some niches.

The reasoning behind this is because a lot more people are comfortable buying on Amazon.com, so a sales page that mimics Amazon.com’s sales page style will evoke a sense of comfort into potential buyers and possibly increase click-throughs and sales. I’ll definitely keep you informed when I do perform these types of tests.

As far as what I did in February on the site – absolutely nothing beyond the hour or two I spend simply answering customer emails and responding to comments.

The Smart Passive Income Blog

I’ve slowed down a bit of the promotion for this blog, at least compared to last month which was filled with interviews and features all over the place (including an interview on Problogger.net!). However, I’ve still been receiving a lot of requests for interviews from other bloggers and I haven’t been turning those down because I really enjoy doing them.

Probably the coolest thing that has happened as of late is related to my Free eBook Guide and Newsletter. In just about two months, I’ve seen about 1800 downloads of my eBook, which means about 1800 people have subscribed to my newsletter, which seriously blows my mind.

My goal for the year (the entire year of 2010) was to have at least 1000 newsletter subscribers, so I already crushed that number. I really have you to thank for that, and I must say that I’m quite proud of the exclusive content that I provide in the newsletter itself. There are several weeks of killer, pre-written material already in the newsletter, and I keep adding to it on a weekly basis. Oh, and by the way, currently there are no affiliate links and I’m not selling anything in the newsletter.

If you have yet to sign up for the newsletter,  you can do so by filling out your name and email address in the green box on the right-hand sidebar. You’ll also get a free copy of my eBook, eBooks the $mart Way.

I think it’s time for some numbers:

GreenExamAcademy.com Product Sales:

• Ebook Only: $1207.95
• Audio Only: $104.85
  
• Ebook + Audio Package: $1,648.20
• Total: $2,961.00
  • Last Month: $2,689.35
    
  • Difference: +$271.65
    

• eHow Earnings:
  • Total: $145.36
    • Last Month: $131.09
    • Difference: +$24.27
      

• Affiliate Earnings:
  • Total: $4,552.12
    • Last Month: $4,997.75
      
    • Difference: -$445.63
      

• iPhone Applications:
  • Total: $2,435.90
    • Last Month: $2,448.44
    • Difference: -$12.54

• Private Advertising:
  • Total: $50.00

• Gross Total in February: $10,114.38
  • Last Month: $10,266.63
  • Difference: -$122.25

Another fantastic, diversified, consistent month of sales. Although it was a bit less than last month, there were 3 less days of earnings in February since the 28th is the last day, so on a per day basis, I actually did better.

Again, for my greenexamacademy website, my eHow earnings, a portion of my affiliate earnings and the iPhone apps, those earnings are almost all totally passive, meaning I don’t actively trade the hours that I work to earn that money. The work was already put in when I created those businesses or wrote all of the eHow articles that I’ve written.

I do put in a lot of hours of work each month, but it’s mainly on writing content for you on this blog, and promoting SPI to the world. It’s what I like to do, and I’m glad my other businesses allow me to do that.

Things I Learned in February

Here are some important, relevant things I’ve learned in the past month:

1. Always Over-Deliver

I’ve learned that you should always do whatever you can to over-deliver. If you over-deliver, you “over-impress”, and you’ll see results that go beyond than what you’d normally expcect.

It’s been in my nature to over-deliver on everything that I do, as you probably can tell, but it was only recently when I consciously over-delivered in my free eBook, eBooks the $mart Way, and saw the amazing response to it that I realized that this is how I’ve become so successful, so fast.

With my LEED website, for example, I first over-delivered on both the free content and customer service that I provided to people hoping to pass the exam. After that, I over-delivered on the eBook that I wrote, and then later on the audio guide that I created. As a result, word spread, and my earnings just naturally grew.

With this blog, I think you would agree that I over-deliver quite a bit, and that’s probably why you’re still here with me today.

Just think – in any part of life, what consequences can come from putting in just a little bit more time, effort and care into something?

2. People appreciate the little things

Along the same lines as “over-delivering”, I’ve noticed that online especially, people really appreciate the little things that you do.

Even with the recent growth of this blog, I’ve been trying my best to continue responding to almost every single comment, and I think people have been noticing that. You’d be amazed at how many emails I get from people just thanking me for replying to their comment on my blog.

And what if I grew even larger? What if I had 300 comments on each blog post? Yeah, it would be more difficult for me to respond to each because it would take more time, but because it would be harder for me to do so, I can imagine people being even more impressed if I actually did do it. It would definitely set me apart from the big guys, who are often non-existent in the comment sections of their blog.

So my point here is this: people notice everything and are thankful for all the things that you do, no matter how little or how big they are.

3. A Company’s Best Friends

I’ve been in contact with my bookkeeper and CPA the last month making sure all of the books are square so we can be ready for a stress free, no-hassle tax season.

With all of the businesses that I have running, you can imagine it might be kind of confusing about how I keep track of my income and how all that stuff works. Well, I can honestly say that hiring a bookkeeper and a CPA to help me understand everything was the best decision that I’ve ever made.

Each month, I export my Paypal accounts, my business banking accounts and my online shopping cart numbers and send them over to my bookkeeper. She inputs it all into Quickbooks and categorizes and organizes everything for me. Awesome.

My CPA handles all of the tax stuff including filling out all of the forms, what to write-off, and properly submitting the forms to the IRS. I’ll write a blog post about how I handle my business finances later in the month, but I just wanted to give them props because they are taking away a lot of what I know would be stressful for me to handle.

I do, however, ask a lot of questions about why things are the way they are so I can learn along the way. I don’t want to just hand everything off to them and say that’s it, because I do want to understand what’s going on and check to make sure things are being done correctly.

Plans for the Future

Besides the new iPhone apps and the sales page optimization and testing that I’ll be doing on my LEED website, I do have a new startup in mind that I’d love to get off the ground.

I don’t want to talk much about it now because I’m still in the research phase to see if it’s even viable and how profitable it could be, but if it does start to happen, you can be sure I’ll take you though the process with me. I will, however, give you a small clue: the business I would like to create could possibly help you and your blog/online businesses as well.

I know…not much of a clue, but I’ll keep you filled in on my progress.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s income report. Here’s to a fantastic, profitable, healthy and happy March 2010. Wishing you all the best and nothing less than success.

Cheers!

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My Monthly Report – February 2010

I was planning on shooting a video tour of the new office, but the battery on our camcorder needs to be recharged. I guess our newborn is taking up all of the camera time as of late.

So, here are some photos, along with some descriptions of what you’re looking at. It’s not completely finished, as I’d like to add some trim around the white boards on the wall, some framed pictures, curtains, and some plant life too.

Below, you’ll see my desk, which is a black glass, “L” shaped workspace. That’s my iMac in the corner, along with my tablet and pen and a notepad to jot any quick notes down as I work. The corkboard on the wall will be used for motivational pictures and quotes, like my favorite one: “The harder you work, the luckier you become.”

The red color is actually called “Library Red”, from Behr. I love it!

Here’s a closer up view of my iMac, along with my iPhone and a small cube thing that holds pictures of my family. My printer is right below the iMac, and I like to use it as a foot rest…lol.

These are the sliding doors to the closet, but what I did was use “Dry-Erase Paint” (thanks to those of you who suggested it!) on the entire door, and now I have two ceiling-height dry erase boards that I can use for brainstorming! It sort of reminds me of those whiteboards that my teachers and college professors used that slid in and out of each other.

I didn’t use the dry-erase paint on the walls because the walls have to be perfectly smooth, and I wasn’t about to spend 8 hours sanding the textured wall down. The doors were originally an off-white color, which you can still kind of see through the dry erase paint. It doesn’t effect the use of the door as a whiteboard though.

And lastly, on the wall behind my desk, I installed the white boards that I bought from Home Depot for $11.74 each. I had them cut down each board to 6′-8″ in height, which matches the height of the door opening. Again, I’ll be adding trim around the boards so it looks more congruent with the door trim.

And that’s it!

Whenever you see a new post on this blog, this is where I wrote it. Hopefully some awesome, profitable businesses will be born in this room too. I’ve got a lot of whiteboard to work with, and I can tell you that at this very moment, 3 are already full of information, ideas and outlines.

Anyways, thanks for taking the time to join me today. Have a happy, safe and healthy weekend, and I’ll see you again on Monday.

Cheers!

p.s. I was originally going to call this room the Idea Room, but someone suggested that I call it the “Pat Cave”. I dunno…LOL!

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Snapshots Of My New Office

1. Re-Evaluate Your Goals

On a piece of paper (yes – paper), write down where you want your business or blog to be a year from now. Think about the following when doing so:

• Number specific items, such as:
  • earnings
  • traffic
  • sales
  • subscribers / followers
  • etc.
• Non-number specific items, such as:
  • authority
  • design
  • happiness
  • lifestyle

So often, we get stuck in the routine of just doing things, that we forget exactly why we’re do what we’re doing. Re-evaluating your goals will give you that boost of energy you need to get things done, and possibly even help you realize that you need to do things a little differently to get to where you want to go.

2. Visit Your Homepage for the “First Time”

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – first impressions are HUGELY important, especially online. You’ve got less than 10 seconds to make a new visitor decide to stick around, or else they’re going to leave.

So, what can we do?

Role play.

Pretend to be a brand new visitor to your site. Go to your homepage and run through the following questionnaire in your head:

1. What do I notice first?
2. Can I understand exactly what the site is about without scrolling or clicking anything?
3. Have I seen other sites like this before?
4. How easy is the website to navigate?
5. What seems to be missing?

By quickly answering those 5 questions, you can easily see what kinds of things need to happen to improve your website. Maybe it’s just as easy as making some fonts larger, or taking away some annoying advertisements or popups.

If you find that any of these changes will take less than 5 minutes to, do them right now. If it will take you more than 5 minutes to do something, make sure to write it down or put it on a to-do list so you can catch it later.

3. Check and Correct Crawl Errors

Using Google’s Webmaster Tools, you can see if there are any errors on your website that you can fix right now.

Step 1: Visit Google’s Webmaster Tools.

Step 2: If you haven’t already, setup a Google Account (if you have gmail, you’re good), and verify your website address. To verify, you’ll have to “add new site”, and either use a meta or html page on your server to verify your website. (They walk you though how to do this).

Step 3: After you’re all setup, click on your verified website and on the right hand side, you’ll see a section called “Crawl Errors”. What happens is Google’s bots that crawl through your website keep track of any errors that they find along the way for you, which may include broken/dead links, or links that people should have access to, but for some reason don’t. You can click on each individual error and find out exactly where it’s happening, and correct the problem right away.

4. Grade Your Website

An even more thorough way to check the health of your website is to get it graded by a site such as Website Grader. It’s free (and you don’t even have to enter your email address like they ask you to), and it spits out a nice, lengthy but easy to understand report about your website and the things you can do immediately to make it better.

For example, if your meta data or website descriptions are too long, it will tell you (and by how much). It also checks your RSS feed, social media, your image tags, and a whole bunch of other things you should have optimized on your website.

Try it out, it’s free!

5. Ask Someone a Question

No matter what level you’re at with blogging or online business, you’re always going to have questions that you’d like to have answers to. I have questions all of the time, and I’m not shy about going to someone more experienced than me for an answer. More often than not, I will hear back from them.

It’s easy, and you can do it right now. Don’t be shy. When you think about it, what’s the worst that can really happen? You won’t get a response back?

Boohoo.

6. Shoot a Video

That’s right. Turn on that camera that’s connected to your computer and shoot a video of yourself right now.

What are you going to talk about?

Anything related to your blog.

Spend 5 minutes shooting an unedited video, and upload it to YouTube. After it’s uploaded, make sure you have relevant keywords in the title and in the tags section, and make sure to write out your entire URL in the first line of the video description. Blast it to all of your social media buddies without a thought.

In Tim Ferriss’ The Four Hour Workweek, he likes to give us exercises that we can do that help us step out of our comfort zones. This needs to happen every so often in order to make real progress and take bold actions.

For example, one of his exercises is just to lay down, flat on the ground in a public place, and look straight into the air. It might sound weird, but if you can do that, just imagine what you can do in front of a crowd when you’re talking about something you love and are passionate about.

Shooting a video on a whim like this will help you learn how to step out of your comfort zone, and it’s good practice for public speaking.

7. Spend 5 Minutes to Thank 5 Of Your Customers, Subscribers or Readers

Going the extra mile to just say thanks to someone for no particular reason can make someone’s day. Not only will those 5 people remember who you are just a little bit more, but you’ll never know, one of them may come back and repay you somehow later in the future, just for being extra nice.

Like in happy, successful relationships, it’s the small little, unplanned gestures that make the relationships really special.

(cheesy, I know…)

8. Test Something

You should always be testing something on your website or blog.

Always.

Using Google Optimizer, split test something important on your page and wait to see the results. Even if you’re not selling anything, you can still test conversion rates for subscribership, email opt-ins, and even click-through rates for various links on your site.

If you don’t know about Google Optimizer or exactly how to use it, you can read more about it here at How to Run Free Split Tests Using Google Optimizer (this was a blog post I wrote in 2008, but it’s still good!).

9. Turn Off the Distractions

Distractions are all around us (especially those of us who blog and work from home), trying to stop us from progressing and getting things done.

First, understand what those distractions are. Secondly, conciously make an effort to turn them off, and only turn them back on once you accomplish something and reach a particular goal or finish something that you meant to finish.

For me, I specially have to turn off my Twitter client, as well as my Mail program, so I don’t get notified of a message in the middle of doing something. Also, I put my phone on silent, and sometimes work in full screen so I’m not tempted to click on certain icons.

In the same sense, I consciously think about what’s helping me progress, and what is not. Sometimes, what I think is helping me isn’t doing much for me at all. I take the 80/20 rule, figure out what that 20% is that’s making a difference in my business, and I work on that.

As a great internet marketer once said, “You gotta starve the horses, and feed the stallions.”

10. Follow Up With Your Audience

Whether you have an online business selling some kind of product, or just a regular ol’ blog, you can always benefit by asking your customers or readers what they would like to see improved.

Seriously, if you ask, they will tell you.

Send an email to your previous customers (you’re keeping track of their email addresses, right?), or your email list (you have an email list, right?), or even write a blog post asking for suggestions on how to make their experience a little better. Remember, it’s all about your audience’s experience, not your own.

This is how I finally ended up with a website design for this blog that I love. I went through a previous redesign, asked what people thought, and I got great feedback from you, which is all that really matters.

With my LEED customers, I usually send an email every two months asking my existing customers how their studying was going, and if there was anything I could do to improve my study guide.

Not only will this help you figure out what you can do to improve your business or blog, but it will show everything that you care enough about them to ask.

So there you have it. 10 things you can do right now for your online business or blog. If you’d like to help me out, please feel free to leave a comment, or retweet this post on Twitter.

Thanks for your support, and wishing you all the best!

Cheers!

p.s. Here’s to my son’s 2 month old birthday!

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10 Things You Can Do RIGHT NOW to Improve Your Online Business or Blog

A few years ago I started a wedding photography business. It felt like a natural thing to pursue — I loved photographing people, loved weddings, and wanted to be my own boss. It seemed to have the potential to morph into a full time business that would free me from the 9 to 5.

So for a little more than 2 years, I had a wedding photography business on the side while I worked a full time job. Here’s why I closed the business, and how I decided that an internet-based business was everything I wanted instead.

The Facts

In some respects wedding photography was everything I had expected: fun, creative, and exhausting. But I quickly realized that the only part of it that I actually enjoyed was shooting the photos. That was the easy part.

The hard parts?

Getting customers and making money.

I barely shot any weddings. The ones I did shoot were nice, but there just weren’t very many of them. For 2006, my gross receipts were $16,942. After expenses and costs of goods sold (wedding albums and prints), my profit was $3,108.

That profit of $3,108 was my entire pre-tax payfrom the business. I wasn’t taking a salary, despite working an average of 12-18 hours shooting each wedding, and spending 30-40 hours color-correcting photos and designing an album after each wedding. My husband helped me out too at the weddings themselves, so there was also his time to consider.

In addition to those hours, I spent a significant amount of time meeting with potential and existing clients, participating in bridal shows, following up on leads, creating sample albums to display at the bridal shows, filling out sales tax forms, picking up albums from UPS, getting prints made, taking continuing education classes, attending association events, updating the web site I’d created for the business, etc.

I figured it up one day and discovered that I was making less than $3 an hour. I’d give you an exact figure here, but I was so depressed at the number that I blocked it out.

The next year was even worse. My gross receipts for 2007 were $6,120. My before-tax profit for 2007 was $234. (No, there isn’t a zero missing.) I spent part of 2007 winding down the business, and closed it in 2008.

Lack of Customers

I had no idea just how hard getting customers was going to be for me. Naively, I thought people would look at my photos, like them, and hire me. What really happened though was that people would look at my photos, like them, meet with me, and…not hire me.

I was not a good salesperson, probably due to the fact that I had social anxiety. Thankfully, I got treated and am now completely over it. But trying to run a business that is dependent on a constant stream of new clients when you’re afraid to make phone calls or talk to people you don’t know was hard. It was also a bit off-putting for the potential clients, because I was a nervous wreck. The ones who hired me probably just focused on my photos.

Plenty of Expenses

There was also the matter of overhead. Luckily, I didn’t even consider renting out a space to meet clients in. I was bootstrapping the business, so I met clients at our home and shot bridal portraits, engagement photos, and the wedding photos on location.  But expenses were still extremely high. Advertising is key when you’re just getting started in that kind of business, and it’s not cheap. There are ads in bridal magazines, mailers, and bridal shows to pay for, at the bare minimum. Advertising is especially important when you are in a saturated market like I was. I also used Google Adwords, submitted my business to every directory I could think of, and optimized my web site.

Other expenses included web hosting, my cell phone, international calls & shipping costs (one of the  album companies was in Italy), errors & omissions insurance, dues to professional organizations, the prints and albums themselves, equipment rentals, a new higher-resolution camera, software, etc.

Misconceptions

The worst part for me (other than the ridiculously low pay and the lack of clients) was that people have this idea that wedding photography is an easy job, and that you get paid a small fortune for just a few hours of work. They couldn’t be more wrong. It’s physically exhausting work, takes long hours, and you don’t make a fortune unless you are one of the top people in the world.

You CAN make a decent living, but you have to really love what you’re doing and be very good at getting clients. One or the other is not enough. You also need to outsource parts of the business, or become much faster than I was at things like creating albums.

Even then, you’re committed to a schedule that is pretty much set in stone. After all, people aren’t usually flexible about the dates and times of their weddings. This means things like taking a vacation must be planned out anywhere from 6 months to a year in advance — and every time you’re gone, you’re potentially losing money.

Coming to My Senses

Around the same time I was getting my wedding photography business off the ground, I started a blog for fun. I wanted to get focused on my finances and practice writing something every single day, and I thought a personal finance blog would accomplish both goals.

A funny thing happened with that blog. People started contacting me out of the blue and buying advertising. I made about $3,000 from blogging in 2006 without even trying to make money. Let me repeat that: I literally did not try to make money with the blog at all. The only costs I had for blogging were the domain name and hosting. (Less than $80 total for the entire year.)

So, let’s see…I could work insane hours and have a ridiculous schedule for about $3,000 before taxes, or I could spend a little time each day writing an article on a money-related topic and earn that same $3,000.

What would you do?

Yeah, it was a no-brainer.  Freedom + money + helping others +  improving my own personal finances + plus having a life won hands down.

I’ve seen the light, and internet-based businesses are it.

The Present

Since then, in addition to continuing to blog, I’ve designed a debt snowball app called Pay Off Debt for the iPhone and Android. I did some of the work on the app myself (writing the spec, creating some graphics & testing the app) and paid to have the programming done.

For the first time, the money that arrived (and stayed!) in my bank account last month was more than the take-home pay from my job. Admittedly, the take-home pay from my job is very low because I have so much taxes and retirement taken out, but this is absolutely a step in the right direction. I’m excited about the future, because I believe the rewards will increase exponentially – especially now that I’m actually putting in the time to work at making money with an internet-based business.

It’s a toss up as to what my favorite thing is about internet-based business. I’m not sure whether it’s waking up and seeing money just appear in my account, being able to work from ANYWHERE there’s an internet connection, or interacting with readers, customers and other entrepreneurs. I guess I don’t have to pick a favorite.

The Takeaway

What can you learn from my experience?  No matter what type of business you may have or be interested in, it’s critical to do your homework. Get a good idea of exactly what will be required to be successful in the business, and make sure that you have (or can get or pay others for) the necessary skills to make that happen. Don’t let excitement and a desire to make things work blind you to clear warning signs that the business might not be right for you.

Analyze how the business will fit into your lifestyle. Whether or not you’re into “lifestyle design” a la the Four Hour Work Week, you still have a life, and it should be the style of life that suits you. Lifestyle design doesn’t have to mean planning mini-retirements and learning foreign languages. It can mean having the freedom to spend time with your family or to do other things that you enjoy on a regular basis. Think about how your business will impact your life. (If you love to travel on a whim, don’t start a business that requires you to have a schedule that’s set in stone.)

Pay attention to the numbers. Track your expenses and your income. It might be nice to have $2700 or $3500 pay days, but if you’re constantly paying a steady stream of smaller expenses out at the same time, you might not actually be making any money. (Or worse, you might be losing money). Keeping track of the totals on a regular (and frequent) basis will help to avoid that. Tracking and analyzing any other relevant metrics is important too. Make sure to charge enough for your time and effort.

Since your time is valuable, fail fast. I believe that most entrepreneurs are serial entrepreneurs for two reasons: our brains are constantly coming up with new ideas, and not all of the ideas are workable. In fact, many of them are not. Focus on one idea at a time. Persist in the idea you choose to implement long enough to really give it a chance to work, but move on to the next thing if it becomes apparent that they aren’t.

Not every business will be a success, but you can learn something from each one. Analyze what worked and what didn’t work, and use that knowledge to improve the next one.

The ones that are successful will be worth it.

I’d like to thank Jackie once again for sharing her valuable and motivational story, and I encourage you to visit her website, MoneyCrush, for more about loving your financial life and reaching your goals.

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Why I Closed My Service Business to Start an Internet-Based Business

This is the second part to my two post series about starting an LLC. In part 1, I talked about the pros and cons of starting your own business. Part 2 will walk you through exactly what you need to know before you apply.

Here’s that disclaimer again: I am not a lawyer, CPA or any kind of professional. I simply share my own experiences about how I did things, and the actions you take based on what I say is not my responsibility. As always, you should seek advice from a trusted professional before making these types of decisions. Thanks!

Let’s get right into it.

Before you apply for any kind of business structure, whether it’s an LLC or a Corporation, you’re going to need a physical business address.

You should not use your home address.

Why?

Because you want to keep your business and personal activities as separate as possible. There could be consequences involved by mixing the two together. This is exactly the reason why you should also create a business banking account after you receive your paperwork from the state.

So what can you do?

You basically have two options:

1. Lease a physical office with an address.
2. Get a mailbox at a local UPS Store (or equivalent).

#1 is not really an option for most of us who are just working from home on the internet. The best thing you can do to get your business address is to rent a mailbox from a local UPS Store, or any other type of place that has mailboxes, except the Post Office.

When submitting your application for your business, you’re not allowed to use a P.O. Box number. However, when you rent from a UPS Store, you can simply turn your mailbox number into a “Suite” number, and the address will totally fly. In fact, that’s what was recommended to me by the person working at the UPS Store.

So, if I ended up getting mailbox #111 from a UPS Store on 222 Main Street, my physical business address might look like this:

222 Main Street, Suite 111

Alternatively, you could use #111, Unit 111, STE 111 – it’s up to you. I like to use Suite because it sounds pretty awesome.

Renting out the smallest mailbox for 6 months will cost you about $147.00. You could get a better deal (per month) if you go with a longer contract.

Also, make sure to bring two forms of identification, which is required to get a mailbox – at least from the UPS Store.

What You Need to Know for Your LLC

In this section, I’ll take you through the kinds of questions you’re going to have to answer as you sign up for your LLC, specifically through LegalZoom, however you’ll need to know these things anyways if you decide to file on your own or hire a lawyer to do it for you.

The Name of Your Company

First, you’ll have to come up with a name for your company. The name is totally up to you, however there are a few restrictions that I’ll quickly note for you here:

1. The name of our company must end with “limited liability company”, “LLC” or “L.L.C”. (Mine is Flynndustries, LLC).
2. It must not contain the words “bank,” “trust,” “trustee,”"incorporated,” “inc.,” corporation,” or “corp.,” or “insurer” or “insurance company” or any other words suggesting that it is in the business of issuing policies of insurance and assuming insurance risks.
3. It cannot be the same (or almost the same) as any other reserved or registered LLC.

That last one is a biggy. In order to see if the name of your company (or one similar to it) has already been used, you’ll have to check with your Secretary of State records. To do this, simply type in the following into a Google Search field:

“name of state” secretary of state business name search

Example:

Conveniently, if you file through LegalZoom, they will do this check for you. You can enter 2 alternate business names just in case your first choice has already been taken or looks similar to an existing business name.

The Federal Tax Identification Number

The Federal Tax ID Number, also known as an EIN (Employer Identification Number), is basically the equivalent of a social security number for your business. You’ll be asked by Legalzoom whether or not you would like them to help your LLC apply for an EIN.

You absolutely need the EIN in order to create your business, obtain your business banking account, and get paid. You have the option of having Legalzoom apply for one for you (for a fee), or simply have them prepare the IRS forms for you (for a smaller fee), so you can send them off yourself.

Update: You can also apply for your EIN online through the IRS website. It’s relatively simple and you get your EIN almost immediately.

Thanks to Jay Thrash, a commenter below for this helpful tip.

Who Will Be Your Registered Agent?

Most states require that any business entity must designate and maintain a “Registered Agent“.

A registered agent is the person designated to accept official documentation if the LLC is “served” with a lawsuit.

The agent must either be:

1. an adult living in the same state that you formed your business in (although again P.O. boxes are not acceptable); or
2. a company registered with the Secretary of State in the same state that you formed your business in.

If you form your LLC in your home state, any one of it’s members could become the registered agent for the company. That being said, there are some advantages to having another person or company act as your registered agent:

• First, it adds an extra layer of privacy, (since the registered agent’s name and contact information are publicly available), and;
• Secondly, this ensures if your LLC is named in a lawsuit, no one will surprise you at home on a Sunday night with court papers, which would totally suck.

I understand that much of this is probably new to you and it’s a lot to think about, but that’s why I’m here. There’s more, so lets keep going!

How Will Your LLC Be Run?

Before we move any further, understand this terminology related to LLCs: A “member” is the same as an owner of the LLC. There may be more than one.

If the LLC is managed by it’s members, then it’s owners are responsible for running the company.

If the LLC has a specific manager, then the appointed manager (who doesn’t necessarily have to be a member), is responsible for running the company, not the members.

For those of you who are going at it alone, you’ll simple have one member (you), and the company will be managed by it’s single member (you again).

If you’re confused by any of this, don’t worry. Again, LegalZoom does a great job of explaining everything (which is how I learned all of this by going through it several times myself!), and personally it justified the slightly higher fees than simply filing for the LLC on your own.

Capital Contribution and Percentage of Ownership

If you’re a single member LLC, this part is easy. You simply enter how much you’re going to initially contribute to the company, as well as the percentage of ownership, which is 100%.

If you have other members, then this becomes a little more difficult. Hopefully, you and your partner(s) have spent time talking about percentages of ownership and how much each of you are contributing to the company.

This will have an impact on how you share your profits, so if you haven’t already done so, be sure to work things out (civilly) with your business partners before you get to this point.

How Do You Want Your LLC to Be Taxed

You have two options here.

You can be taxed as a pass-through entity such as a partnership or sole proprietorship, or, you can be taxed as a corporation.

If you choose to be taxed as a partnership (for multi member LLCs) or sole proprietorship (for single member LLCs), then the LLC itself does not pay taxes and does not have a tax return. The LLC owner(s) report business losses or profits on their personal tax returns.

If you elect to be taxed as a corporation, then you may go through what’s called “double taxation”, meaning the profits of your corporate first get taxed at the corporate level, and then again on your personal tax returns.

There is some additional paperwork needed to fill out (provided by Legalzoom), if you do choose to be taxed as a corporation.

How Long Will You Have to Wait Before You Actually Become a Business Entity?

After you answer a few other questions and submit your application to LegalZoom, who will then process the information you provide to the State, you’re looking at an average of 20-35 days before you get any type of paperwork back from the state, which includes your EIN, your Articles of Organization and Operating Agreement, which are all required by most banks in order to get a business bank account.

When I helped my friend start his own business the other day, LegalZoom said that the Secretary of the State (this is in California), was actually back logged with new business applications, so there would be a bit of a delay. I don’t know if that’s a good thing (because new businesses are starting up), or a bad thing (because there just isn’t enough personnel or effort into helping Californians start their own business), but either way, it’s going to take awhile before we hear back. Wait time will obviously vary between States, but it won’t happen overnight.

How Much Will it Cost You?

Well, the answer depends on which options you choose on LegalZoom.

LegalZoom has three different packages: the Economy Package, the Standard Package, and the Express Gold. You can view exactly what is included with each package here, but all you really need to officially start your business is the cheapest package, the Economy Package, which costs $149.00 + any state fees.

When I started my first company, I was really excited so I decided to go all out and purchase the Express Gold package. It was pretty cool because I got a nice looking folder with my company name embossed on it, a seal stamp (like the one shown on the picture at the top of this post), and a CD-rom with a bunch of business and legal forms, but honestly none of that stuff is required, and I’ve never used most of that stuff.

With the Economy package, the Federal Tax ID number, the Registered Agent service, and fees for the state of California, the total comes to just over $500.00.

No, that’s not cheap. And yes, you could probably get it done for less money by doing it on your own. However, I feel that the price is fair because of the education I received while I was filling out the application, as well as the excellent customer service and help that LegalZoom provides for us new business owners.

That’s just me though, and exactly how you proceed is totally up to you. I’m just simply sharing my own experiences hoping that you’ll learn from them in one way or another. As always, you should seek professional advice before making any business decisions regarding the formation of your company.

I hope this 2 post series about forming an LLC has helped some of you as you begin to take what you do online to a whole new level in 2010.

Lastly, to all of you non-U.S. readers, I know these last two posts do not really apply to you, but hopefully you can get a glimpse as to how these kinds of things work in the U.S. If any of you have any similar posts or resources for starting businesses in other countries, please feel free to share, as I’m sure other people are as curious as me.

Thanks everyone, and I’m wishing you all the best. Have a great weekend!

Cheers!

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Become a Fan of the Smart Passive Income Blog on Facebook and join the conversation!

Thank you so much!

The Details Behind Starting an LLC For Your Small Business – Part 2