Starting An Online Business From Scratch - Latest Comments

Re: Do You Have A Plan For Your Blog?

gronesy — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:46:10 -0000

Hi Kat,

I totally agree that most businesses and product launches die before they happen when people don't do the numbers and make the plan.

The rest of them die when the plan is ignored or not reviewed and adapted to change.

Thanks for joining in the discussion.

Jeff

Re: Do You Have A Plan For Your Blog?

kahthan — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:00:49 -0000

Nice post. Yeah i definitely agree that planning is essential at the start, a lack of proper planning and goals is what makes people lose hope and eventually give up. Of course those goals have to be realistic too.

Market Samurai is an amazing tool and i cant wait for them to start an affiliate program either..

Cheers

Kat

Re: Do You Have A Plan For Your Blog?

gronesy — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:16:33 -0000

Hi Brent,

Thank you for stopping by and leaving your thoughts.

I love Market Samurai and hope you guys open up the affiliate program soon.

Yaro is top shelf blogging at its best.

Best,

Jeff

Re: Do You Have A Plan For Your Blog?

Brent Hodgson — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 01:08:26 -0000

Thanks Jeff! I really appreciate your kind comments in a very well-written blog post.

You're right about Yaro - a smart guy, and someone well worth listening to.

Brent

Re: Are You Getting A Lot Out Of Twitter?

gronesy — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:25:53 -0000

Hi Jared,

Thanks for your thoughts about Twitter.

It looks like your experience has been much like other users in that they've been able to connect with some great contacts but it hasn't yet replaced a traffic source or been directly attributable for an increase in business.

So my take is as long as it's kept in perspective, it can be a useful tool in your toolbox.

Jeff

Re: Are You Getting A Lot Out Of Twitter?

Jared — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:34:08 -0000

1. 3-5/day
2. Haven't used it that long but no for the last month
3. No
4. Not that has resulted in more business but I have connected with some big Twitter users.
5. 8/10

I think its a great service for building relationships. The important part is to follow and try to be followed by the right people. It takes time, don't just mass follow everyone because besides being bad for the site your page will just be filled with tweets you have no interest in.
Things I have found it most useful for are hearing about live interviews online or tv, new sites, thought provoking questions, and just building relationships with fellow entrepreneurs.

Re: Are You Getting A Lot Out Of Twitter?

gronesy — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:39:12 -0000

Hi Tim,

You've hit the nail on the head. So far, my experience has been that the "Elite" do stick to themselves but I also agree that doesn't keep regular guys like you and me from forming meaningful professional and personal relationships.

It does still frustrate me a bit that the very people telling everybody to get on Twitter and follow them often are the same ones that respond to nobody except their exclusive circle. I understand you can't respond to everybody if you've got 5,000 people following you. Ed Dale's video breaking down how long it would take him to respond to even 3,000 meant he would have to spend the better part of a day just responding to them.

I've been following Caroline Middlebrook's lead and working hard to build up my StumbleUpon profile and sphere of influence. This has had a direct effect on my traffic and I'm also building relationships.

I'm ready to put the site up this week and just have a few last minute tweaks before she's live.

Glad to hear you're back in the swing of things after vacation. Hope it was a good one.

Thanks for giving me your insights.

Jeff

Re: Are You Getting A Lot Out Of Twitter?

nlbctim — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:25:17 -0000

Hey Jeff!

Twitter is a great resource and relationship building network. I so agree with you that it's especially helpful for those who already have a large following and takes a "small fry" longer to build up their Twitter mojo. However...

In using Twitter I have seen some very good benefits. To answer your questions I would say that;

1. I try to post daily, and when I'm following my plan up to 10 times a day, but have been very busy lately that I haven't had the chance to.

2. Traffic has increased to my blog, and participation has gone up, but don't think it's a huge jump. I do believe that if I was a bigger "name" that would probably be a much different answer.

3. No Twitter has not replaced any other traffic source.

4. I have made some contacts, but it seems that the Twitter elite like to stay amongst themselves and don't have time for a Superman loving regular guy. The contacts I have made though are down to earth, personable, and straight forward. My working relationship, which is turning into a great personal relationship, with my Twitter contacts is better than some clients I've had for years.

5. I don't know if I'd go as far as rating it with numbers but to say that Twitter is invaluable for building a web presence, building relationships, meeting new people, and for personal accountability.

Hope your new site is coming along great!

Re: Are You Getting A Lot Out Of Twitter?

gronesy — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 23:34:38 -0000

Hi Katherine,

Thanks for responding and letting me know how Twitter is working for you.

How do you use it to build relationships? Direct messages? Simply posting quality links? How do you get the attention of the people you are trying to reach?

Jeff

Re: Are You Getting A Lot Out Of Twitter?

Katherine Reschke — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:37:37 -0000

1. 5-10 times a day
2. Traffic has increased across the board but its not a HUGE jump.
3. No.
4.Yes - and I think this is one of Twitter's biggest benefits.
5. 7/10 - I use it mostly for relationship building rather than a direct traffic source.

Re: Do You Know How StumbleUpon Works?

gronesy — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:21:55 -0000

Thanks for the excellent addition to my blog. Some of these things I had heard before and others are completely new to me.

Do you have a breakdown of which categories are hotter than others?

Re: Joel Comm Releases Adsense Secrets 4.0 For $9.95

gronesy — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:20:00 -0000

Your new theme is very nice looking. I'll be interested to hear from you if your adsense revenue increases or not because to me it looks like the ads are both cleverly mixed in with content but also possibly hidden from visitors.

I have a site I'm working on now using one of the same designer's themes.

I hope you see this message sooner than last and don't forget that Disqus comments show up in Friendfeed and other places.

Jeff

Re: Do You Know How StumbleUpon Works?

theblogger — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 06:42:23 -0000

Alfred Saforo cracked the Algorithm on his blog.
1. A stumble from the same person/IP address, for the same website over and over , will trigger a flag and traffic to this site will reduce significantly up to 90% with time.
2. Stumble exchanges are increasingly ineffective over time, unless the exchanges are one sided and one party is not getting any back in return.
3. One or two isolated stumbles by two or three isolated unused/unpopular stumble accounts will result in little or no traffic.
4. To become popular, a web page once stumbled should receive several Stumbles from well known or good Stumblers within a short space of time . Normally less than 24 hours.
5. Placing your web page/ site in the wrong category using keywords will get you the wrong sort of traffic and will eventually kill of your traffic as multiple users begin to thumb you down.
6. Some keywords carry more traffic than others.
7. The more stumble reviews you get, the more the traffic that will be directed towards your page.
8. A thumb down with a review is of more value than than a thumb up with no review.
9. Stumblers love pictures, they don't hang around long enough for text.
10. After receiving a flood of traffic from Stumbleupon, when your traffic goes down or "stumble's" go to Stumbleupon and buy some traffic. It will kick start your campaign. trust me.

Re: Joel Comm Releases Adsense Secrets 4.0 For $9.95

Acakadut — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:48:50 -0000

Hi Jeff,
Sorry for my late reply. I didn't know you asked until I saw a visit from this page to my blog :D

I just changed my theme & I hope it can give better result.

I'm pretty good with adsense ... I just need lots & lots of traffic :p

Re: Six Lessons To Learn From Roger Federer

gronesy — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:36:11 -0000

Hi Tim,

Good to hear from you and thanks so much for your contributions.
I've been following you on Friendfeed and you have been an incredibly
busy little beaver!

Hope all is well for you and yours.

This was one of those posts that slapped me in the face while I was
watching the match. I'd see either of them make an error and I
started asking myself "how can that not bother him still?" That's
when I remembered that the tennis gurus all say being a top player is
mostly mental. If you don't have the physical skills you won't break
the top 500 but to get from 25 to 1 is 99.9% mental conditioning.

I realized right away this was something I needed to remember in my
own business and I thought others would appreciate the reminder as well.

Thanks again,

Jeff

Re: Six Lessons To Learn From Roger Federer

nlbctim — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:21:52 -0000

Jeff,

Love this post! You have captured some great points from that instant classic tennis match. Even though I only saw parts of it, your post summed it up beautifully. And the comparison to marketing, and even life, is great.

One of the things I've been doing lately is taking risks. Actually taking more of them. I have experienced that taking risks, and learning from our mistakes, is instrumental in building our businesses stronger and for long term success.

And I can see how you are actually putting your posts to work in your own blogging and marketing. Great work. Keep it up!

Re: Further Evidence Multitasking Is Bad

gronesy — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:02:01 -0000

Deb,

I'm sorry but I should have qualified my endorsement by saying that I believe this approach is the best way for Non-ADD internet marketers. I have heard so many people talk about working like a dog and not getting anything done and almost every time it's because they think that having ten projects in front of them means they're making progress when they're really just avoiding doing the things they don't want to.

Other than being suspicious of the diagnosis of ADD in children, I do not pretend to understand the disorder at all.

I will say that I agree to disagree with you that I don't believe in my heart there IS an effective way to multitask. Time and time again, I see evidence that trying to focus one's attention on even two things at once can be disastrous. I'll only cite the increasing public outcry for banning of cell phone use while driving.

Having said that, I will agree with you that everybody processes information in a different way and no one-size-fits-all can work for everybody. I would, however, recommend to my readers that they attempt to limit their multitasking to see if it works for them.

I further agree that not having a plan makes the rest of this discussion a moot point because without a goal the journey gets derailed in a hurry.

Thank you for taking the time to help me consider the ADD-challenged readers. My goal is always to present information I think all readers could benefit from.

Best,

Jeff

Jeff

Re: Further Evidence Multitasking Is Bad

The Story Ideas Virtuoso — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:38:33 -0000

Jeff,

While I understand Toby's point, I have to disagree with the premise. It assumes that everyone should conform to ONE way of doing things. The research people keep bandying about does not take into account, for example, the ADD brain which is wired to multi-task BIG time. It's impossible for someone with ADD to do only one thing, unless that person goes into hyper-focus mode.

The other problem I have with Toby's article is that a lot of things are all lumped together and called multi-tasking that aren't necessarily. By definition, multi-tasking is doing more than one thing at a time.

Taking a walk and talking on your cell phone is multi-tasking.

Watching TV and painting your toenails is multi-tasking (well, not YOUR toenails, Jeff, unless you've gotten into that since we last talked). LOL

Reading a book while eating is multi-tasking.

Tweeting on Twitter off and on, doing research on the 'net, and listening to music or "watching" = listening to something on TV, is multi-tasking.

Flitting from one thing to another is NOT. Now, perhaps some people CLAIM they're multi-tasking when they flit from thing to thing, but that's not the meaning of the term.

There is a kind of rhythm to successful multi-tasking. I've had days where I didn't get anything done because I was too distracted with too many things pulling at me. I admit that freely. But that wasn't because of multi-tasking, unless you count have 15 Firefox tabs open at the same time. LOL

The issue was my not having a plan. When I take the time to map out -- if only in my mind -- what I want to accomplish, I don't spin my wheels in the sand. So the real culprit here is NOT multi-tasking at all. It's not having a plan of what needs to be done.

Now I won't be so arrogant as to say that's the issue with everyone else. Then I'd be as guilty as those who want to throw out multi-tasking because a lot of people don't do it right.

My point is, our brains and how they work and our personalities and their quirks are NOT one-size-fits-all. To unequivocally say that multi-tasking is wrong for everyone is like saying we all should eat only traditional (not American take-out) Chinese food because it's good for you.

Panning multi-tasking is merely Toby's opinion and Toby's personal preference. If it works, by all means people should go for it.

And if anyone is flitting from thing to thing and not getting anything done well, there is definitely a need for either a plan or some other solution.

Let's just not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Thanks for picking this topic and giving me a chance to vent. I feel much better now. *grin*

Deb Gallardo

Re: How Much Is Your Time Worth?

gronesy — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:19:31 -0000

Tim,

Thanks so much for your kind words and for appreciating the mindset shift necessity.

My most sincere hope is that people really act on the information I've provided.

Thank you also for taking the time to set up a page for me to direct them to. I'm saying my prayers.

Jeff

Re: How Much Is Your Time Worth?

nlbctim — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:12:20 -0000

Jeff,

Love the practical, go-do-this aspect of your post. You break it down so that the person reading your post will know what they have to do after they read it. I'm sure that when people read this post they are already formulating a plan (either in their head or on paper) about what to do next.

I also believe that people don't "act" like they want to better their business. Your example of acting like you're making $500.00 a month is spot on. That goes for any amount. Once you hit a plateau there is always another one waiting. To reach it you have to "act" like you're already there. Without being foolish about, of course.

Great post and thank you for mentioning my website. :)

Re: How Much Is Your Time Worth?

gronesy — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:35:15 -0000

Hi Peggie,

It's been a subject on a lot of people's minds. With so many people worried about the economy, the natural tendency is to want to cut back on the cost of doing business. This is especially true of people new to internet marketing.

Thank you for your praise. My one goal is to show that not taking an action such as outsourcing can be much worse for the life of the business. Not only does it pretend to reward the person by supposedly saving them money but it also creates a bad mindset for building a business with.

Jeff

Re: How Much Is Your Time Worth?

Peggie Arvidson — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:57:05 -0000

This idea seems to be floating in the atmosphere. I recently wrote about setting your value on my blog; and recently read another blog on the idea of deciding which of the millions of ideas you should start capitalizing on on Kendall Summerhawk's blog. This is another important part of the equation. Thanks for the clear examples and the reminder that goals and outsourcing help each entrepreneur!

Best,
Peggie Arvidson

Re: Why You Don’t Want To Be A Washing Machine

gronesy — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:42:49 -0000

Hi Becky,

Thanks for your support. Good luck with your site as well.

BTW, does "getting ready to get-ready" mean you're in the research phase? If so, give yourself a pat on the back for accomplishing something and don't fall into that trap of "I haven't done anything until it's finished." Every step is a goal and job well done. Celebrate it.

Also, I would sign-up for Disqus. It is another social media site were you can take your profile with you to all the sites that use it and gain friends and points and do reviews. It's very cool and I've seen a lot of big name sites going to it.

And I don't make anything from recommending it. At least I'm not signed up for their affiliate program.

http://www.disqus.com

Maybe I should take my own advice? hehehehehehe

Best,

Jeff

Re: Why You Don’t Want To Be A Washing Machine

Becky Cortino — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:45:36 -0000

Thanks for this all-ways timely reminder, Jeff!

Great article -- well-done!

All the best in your upcoming site launch. :)

Getting ready to get-ready to do similar, which is why I'm especially glad to read this!

<SIGH>

All the best!
Becky Cortino

Re: TBIP 18: Outsourcing-The Key To Growth And Sustainability

sid — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:35:42 -0000

Hi Jeff,
No need to drive traffic, No SEO. Everything is in the Free eBook!

Best,
Sid.