Tag Archives for " entrepreneurship "

19 Choosing Your Online Business Model

There are many internet- based business models to choose from, however, they are broken down into two types – low traffic and high traffic.  My personal online business falls in the low traffic category, however, that will change to be a combination of both once my new program is launched.

Since there is a large learning curve on the internet, it’s a good idea to start out with a low traffic model.  Service based businesses are considered low traffic.  A sales site such as an ecommerce store is a high traffic business because the volume of traffic has to be high in order to make money.

Examples of high traffic business models includes low price products, the sale of merchandise, ebooks, videos, webinars, online courses or a combination of all of those.  It also includes paid subscriptions to newsletters, ezines, community membership sites, affiliate marketing, adsense sites and blogging.

Low traffic business model examples include mid to high priced products or training courses, coaching, consulting, freelancing, speaker services, and higher priced services, membership sites and others.

As you can see, there are similar types of models in both the high and low traffic categories – the higher priced your service or product, the less traffic you need to make money.

Let’s take a look at the six most popular models of online businesses.

1.     Blogging

A blog is simply an online journal of sorts.  You decide how many times a week you are going to post a new article, then write something to post on your blog.  Through Google you can add advertisements to your page, called AdSense.  The idea is that you drive traffic to your blog and they click on the ads and you make money.  The drawback is that for you to make money doing this, you have to really understand SEO and Google rankings, or hire someone that does.

My blog is a page on my website http://www.julianeiman.com/blog where I post articles relating to empowering teens and young adults to become entrepreneurs.  The majority of my articles are geared toward this topic.   I do not use Adsense though.  My blog is an addition to my online business rather than a business itself.

Right now I am not consistent with how often I post an article because I’ve been busy creating a new program.  However, I participated in several blog challenges where you post a new blog every day and other people comment and share your blog with the goal being to increase awareness of your business and traffic to the blog.  I used the posts from two of the challenges to write this book and my first book, 31 Powerful Lessons Empowering Teens and Young Adults to Develop an Entrepreneur Mindset.

2.      Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is where you make money through commissions from selling other people’s products.  This works if don’t have a product of your own to sell.  However, be aware that affiliate marketing is a high traffic model.  The person whose product or services you are selling has all the systems in place, you sign up with them, get your personal affiliate code, then hit the internet to promote their product.  I am an affiliate for the Word Press Store and for several coaches who sell expensive programs, or what’s commonly called big ticket products.

Once you drive traffic to their business, it’s up to them to make the sale and you receive whatever commission they are offering.  I earned two $1000 commissions when two people signed up for an online course that cost in excess of $3000 and I receive commission from time to time when someone uses my link to purchase the Word Press Estore, the Affiliate Software or other products.

You can do affiliate marketing through Clickbank as well.  They have a large database of products to choose from.  Find several that interest you, sign up and start promoting.

3.     Information Products

People that create and sell information products are often called Infopreneurs.  This is where you are selling information products that teach people how to do things.  For example, “How to Market Online,” “How to Buy a Car,” “How to Cook Chicken.”  The topics are only limited by your imagination.  You can also sell information products that are created by others if they have the resell rights attached.  Make sure you have permission to sell someone else’s work before you do.

You need to develop some skills to be an infopreneur.  You need to be able to either create or locate products with great content that people want.  You need to be able to drive traffic to your site in order to make sales, and you need to have some sales ability in order to convince people that this product is a good investment and will help them either solve a problem or learn how to do something.

Once you have these skills, you are in a position to make a nice income as information products are the top selling products on the internet.

4.     Ecommerce Sites

An ecommerce site is online retail store.  You can create your own store front of buy one from a company that is already set up.  This is called a “turn-key business.”  A turn-key business is like an online franchise.  The person you buy they store from usually has additional fees aside from the purchase price so do your homework before deciding to go this route.

Ecommerce sites are more difficult to position in terms of ranking in the search engines because they don’t often have fresh content.  You might want to add a blog to your ecommerce site so you do have fresh content and are consistently updating.  You can sell your own products if you have them to sell, like shoes, or car products, musical instruments, jewelry and just about anything that is legal.  You have choices here too.  You can keep your own inventory, or use a drop-shipper.  A drop-shipper is a company that stores the product and ships it for you.  You receive the order from your customer along with payment, you send an email with the order to the drop-shipper and they mail it out and charge you their price for the product.

I don’t recommend ecommerce as a way to start online if you aren’t already experienced in retail sales.  This type of business has a large learning curve and there is a lot involved, including returns, replacing broken items, knowing if there are restrictions to shipping certain items to certain states and a lot more.

5.     Provide Services

Providing services through an online site is known as freelancing.  You have to have a skill that you can promote in order to be a freelancer.  If you can write, do graphic design, know programming code, design games or be a virtual assistant (an online secretary or business manager), you can build a successful business as a freelancer.  You can also coach other people if you have the know-how and experience in a particular area to do.

There are drawbacks to freelancing such as having deadlines to meet.  If you aren’t disciplined and can’t meet deadlines, then this isn’t for you.  I used to freelance my writing services and believe me, it was a struggle sometimes to meet a deadline.  I never missed one, it just isn’t professional and you won’t get repeat business.

There are many places where you can list yourself as a freelancer.  I used to use Guru.com and elance.com.  Now there’s Fiverr as well where you provide a service for $5.  That gives the customer an almost risk free way to use your service and if they like you, you will have repeat client at full price and perhaps some referrals as well.

6.     Membership Sites

Membership sites seem to be trending as a business model right now.  Basically, they are a community that you provide an online site for, that people pay a fee to be a part of.  They are a lot of work because you have to continually update your information, add new content and keep up with your subscribers.  People can cancel their subscription at any time so your income could be inconsistent.

My business is going to have a membership site soon; however, there will be no charge for the site, at least in the beginning.  I will start the site as a Facebook group.  Membership will be limited to those people who have completed the certification process to coach my new program, Monetize Your Passion: Empowering Young Entrepreneurs to Start a Business, as well as their teen and young adult clients that have completed the coaching program.  The group will offer a place where both coaches and clients can make connections, network, find answers to their questions, marketing ideas, mentors and further learning opportunities.  Through this site, I hope to provide the support that is required long after the coaching program is complete.

I hope this helps you on your journey to choose the type of online business model that will be right for you.  As you can see, it can be complicated and require a lot of research and work on your part.  Are you willing to do whatever it takes to get a business up and running?

Do you have a clear picture of the areas of your life and business where change is required?  It might be time for a reality check so you can discover those areas where you are incomplete or could improve.  If are subscribed to my blog, then you already have Julia Neiman’s 2 Step Reality Check to Discover and Overcome the Hurdles That Stand Between You and Your Dreams.  If you don’t have a copy of the Reality Check, simply enter your name and email in the box at the top right side of the page and it will be on it’s way to your inbox in seconds.

6 Develop Your Business Plan

A business plan is a necessary basic strategy to run and grow your business.  This plan can be a simple strategy or be very detailed, depending on how your mind works and you how detailed you need to be for yourself.

There are many different styles of business plans including all the way from a one page outline style plan to a very long plan with several pages for each section.  You can include simple steps in outline form, or all the way to including charts and graphs for growth projections.

Whatever style or level of complexity you choose, your plan should include the following elements (in section 1)

•   your mission: why does your business exist?

•   your vision: where is your business going?  What impact will it make on the world?

•   your values: what do you stand for?

•   a business profile: what are your products and services?

In section 2 you want to create one-year goals and three-year goals.   Your goals should include strategies for each of the following areas:

Management and Administration.  Will you need to hire any employees or team members?  An assistant or business manager?  Include a job description and goals for each team member.

Outsourcing.  Will you do everything yourself or will you “outsource” the work?  The more work you outsource, the more time you have to be creative and do the work you love and started your business to do.  Outsourcing projects include web design, social media expert, copywriting, bookkeeping and others.

Customer Service.  What kind of service are you committed to?  How will you achieve it?

Business Planning.  How often will you review your plan (monthly, quarterly, twice a year)?  How will you reassess your goals if necessary?

Bookkeeping and Accounting.  How will you keep track of your income, expenses, profit and losses, payroll?

Other Professional Services.  Will you need a lawyer to help you incorporate or draw up nonprofit documents?  Will you need a human resources manager to set up an employment program?

Technology.  Who will manage your database?  How will you ensure your technology always remains cutting edge?

Products and Services.  This is where you create a detailed plan for the products and services you have decided will be in your product funnel.  What will you create and in what order will they be created?  What is your pricing plan for each produce?  Will you repurpose the product (use an original product for something else?

Marketing.  What is your plan to market and sell your products?  This section is critical.  Without a strategy for marketing your products you won’t sell them.

Website/Blog.  Will you have a website that you use as a storefront?  How many pages will it have and what is the purpose and content for each page?  Will it be just a blog where you write about a particular topic and monetize it by using paid advertising?  Will you review other people’s products and get paid a commission (affiliate marketing)?

Joint Ventures.  What is your plan to create marketing partnerships with other people in your area of business?  Who do you want to partner with and how many partnerships do you wish to have?

Affiliate Marketing.  Affiliate marketing is where you sell other people’s products and services.  What kind of products do you want to sell?  Who’s products will you promote?  How many?  How will you find them?

Social Media.  What is your plan to create visibility on the internet?  Will you have a Facebook page, post videos on YouTube, be on Twitter and Pinterest?  Who will manage these sites for you?  How often will you post on these sites?

The financial section of your plan should include:

Income Projections.  This part can be scary, however, it can be fun too.  Set your desired monthly income then break it down by product sales.  Once you decide on what you want your income to be, you can figure out how many products you need to sell to meet the goal.  Hopefully you will have priced your products before you get to this section so this will be easier to accomplish.

Expenses.  Last but not least by any means are your expenses.  How much will it cost to run your business?  Will your website cost you money?  Will you have an autoresponder, use a shopping cart or other service that has monthly charges?  Remember that many services are free to use and you need to do your homework.  It’s is possible to run an internet business for under $30 a month.

Now that you have a good idea of what needs to be included in your business plan, you should decide on what style of plan will suit your business best.  If you are going to use your business plan to find investors and otherwise raise money, you will need a fairly detailed plan with a lot of information.

If you are going to have a simple, straightforward internet business that does not require investors, then a simple plan meant to keep you on track will work just fine.

What is in your business plan that I might have missed?

The Get Stuff Done Tool is still available as a free download.  Leave your name and email address in the box with the red arrow at the top-right hand side of the page and get the free download now.

Have you obtained your copy of 31 Powerful Lessons: Empowering Teens and Young Adults to Develop an Entrepreneur Mindset?  Click here and get your copy now.

8 Who is My Competition?

Question #6 on the Junior Achievement List of 20 Questions to ask before deciding on starting a business is Who is My Competition?

To figure this out, there are other questions you need to ask including:

• How many are there?

• Where are they located?

• What products/services do they offer that you do not?

• What products/services don’t they offer that you can?

• What is their advertising strategy?  Where are social media do they advertise?

There are several great things you can learn by researching your competitors.

• You can potentially avoid the same mistakes they’ve made.

• You can gain information that will help you with the decisions you’ll need to make about where to locate your business, what to charge for your products/services and what advertising strategy might work for you.

How do I find out about my competitors?

You need to do research about the industry your business is positioned in.  You want to find out how many other businesses like yours are operating within your city or county, or on the web if you are a computer based business.

According to Johnston Community College in North Carolina, “Customer research will guide you to where your potential customers are shopping and why.  As part of your competitor research, you may want to ask potential customers survey questions geared to discover information about the competition. If they currently use products or services like yours, where are they buying them? What are they paying for them? What do they like and dislike about your competition?”

Once you have identified who your competitors are, be sure to visit their web site if they have one and their social media sites.  Follow them on Twitter and Facebook and Pinterest and other sites.  You can learn a lot from  their web sites and social media sites. For example, they may have information about prices, services, locations and contact information. The look and features of the web site itself will give you an idea of your competitor’s professionalism and quite possibly about their resources.

You might consider calling your competitors directly asking the kinds of questions a customer/client would.  Those questions could be about the prices they charge, the types of products and services they sell, turnaround time for service and anything else you need to know.  If your competitor has a storefront, visit it for ideas about products and advertising.

Another way to find out about your competitors is to talk to others who have had dealings with them including their customers, other businesses who had dealings with them and their suppliers if know who they are.   You can find out what kind-of service they provide, how well they work with their suppliers.

The Johnston Community College has the Competitors Worksheet available to help you identify and document your competitors.  Take great notes and refer back to them when trying to create your business plan and marketing strategy.

This lesson is meant as an overview.  You will have to do some research on how to do the research.  Try asking Ehow.com how to research competitors, how to do market research and how to do industry research.  You will have to use google and other search engines to decide on the key words you’ll need to use to find your competition.

At this point, you’ll need to ask yourself again, “Are you committed to your dream and to doing whatever it takes to make it happen?”

Have you obtained your copy of 31 Powerful Lessons: Empowering Teens and Young Adults to Develop an Entrepreneur Mindset?  Click here and get your copy now.

The Get Stuff Done Tool is still available as a free download.  Leave your name and email address in the box with the red arrow at the top-right hand side of the page and get the free download now.

2 Why am I starting a business?

Question #3 on the Junior Achievement’s list of 20 questions to consider before starting your business is “Why am I starting a business?”  This is an essential question that you must be able to answer.  Your why is the motivating force behind your business and should guide all the other decisions you make.

Matt Hunckler, who blogs about business startups, said, “A good business is simply a tool to help you lead the life you want to live. And, done right, your business can be a way to leverage the change you want to see in the world.”

What’s your “why”?

Starting a business and making a go of it is hard work and requires that you sacrifice some other things in your life.  If you’re willing to make those sacrifices and you are committed to your dream, then you need to make sure you are building a business for the right reasons.

Paraphrasing Matt Hunckler again — To define why you’re starting a business is one of the most empowering things you can do.  Your why is what inspires you and the people on your dream team, it sparks action, and breathes purpose into everything you do.

You can find your why by asking yourself these four questions:

• How and why do I want to change the world?
• How does starting a business mesh with my personal values and beliefs?
• How will that business help me live a more fulfilled and purposeful life?
• Why do I want to run a business?

Does your business “why” align with your personal “why”?

Build your business in such a way that it empowers and inspires yourself and others.  Make sure that your business is authentic and in integrity with your beliefs and personal values.  Build it with systems and routines that motivate and sustain the effort needed to overcome all obstacles and to persevere.

So I ask you: Why does your business do what it does? What value do you provide? How do you (or will you) do that thing better than anyone else in the world? And why is that important—to you and to the world?

To purchase a copy of 31 Powerful Lessons: Empowering Teens and Yound Adults to Develop an Entrepreneur Mindset, click on the Resource Button above then look for Buy They Book in the pull down menu.

To obtain a copy of the Get Stuff Done Tool, enter your name and email information in the box with the red arrow on the top right side of the page.  Get yourself organized!

12 20 Questions to Answer Before Starting a Business: Empowering Young Entrepreneurs

By this time in our series, you should have identified your passion.  If not, you’ll need to take time and go back through the exercises designed to help you do that.  If you still don’t find your answer, ask the people who are closest to you what they have observed makes you happy while you are doing it.  Keep at it until you figure out what you are passionate about and can create a business with.

The next step is to think about how you’re going to build a business around that passion so you can love what you do all the time.

There’s a lot to consider.  Are you going to sell products that you create, or products that someone else has manufactured?  Are you turning your hobby into a business?  Who will be your customers or clients?  How will you reach them?  Will your business be based on the internet or will you have a what is often called a brick and mortar business, meaning a physical location in an office, warehouse or storefront?  Do you have the skills to stay in business or do you need to learn some new things before you start?

You can see that there are a lot of questions you need answers to before you can move forward.  With that said, I’m a big believer  in just jumping in and going for it once you know what you want to do.  However, what you are jumping into will differ with different types of business.

The organization called Junior Achievement has provided a list of questions for you to consider while trying to decide how to build your business.  We will be discussing some of these questions as the series continues, however, there are some things that you will need to find the answers for yourself.  There will be a resource page at the end of the series with links to some organizations and blogs that can help you learn what you need to know to start a business.

Do you already have answers for any of these questions?

As I said, there’s a lot to think about.  If you aren’t willing to take the time to consider these questions and do the research to find answers, then you might want to reconsidering starting your own business.  In order to be successful in business you must be committed to doing whatever it takes to make it work.

The focus of the Empowering Teens and Young Adults to Develop an Entrepreneur Mindset series is going to be on developing an internet business.  Most of these questions apply to internet business, however, they may not all apply to the business you want to start.  Making it happen is on the internet is easier than building a brick and mortar business.

In each post for the rest of the series we will be considering information that you need to know to find answers to some of these questions.

Have you been able to answer any of these questions for yourself yet?

Don’t forget to leave your name and email in the box on the top right side of this page to receive the FREE entrepreneurial tool, Get Stuff Done.

8 Build Your Dream Team

Once you have identified your passion and decided on the business you want to build, it is essential to build a dream team.  A dream team is a group of people that will help you make your dreams come true.

You should include at least one mentor on your team who can help support you with guidance and encouragement at various steps along the way in building your business.  That mentor can be a teacher, a local business person, a family friend, an advisor the local Junior Achievement chapter, or a member of your family.

The most important skill that you must develop in order to put your dream team together is the ability to communicate your vision and ask for help.  Here are a couple of steps to help with that:

•   Communicate the vision for your business as clearly and with as much passion as possible.

•   When you ask for help, make a specific request.  The more specific you are, the more likely you will receive the help you are asking for.  On the other hand, if your request is not specific or if you are asking too much and people aren’t clear on what you are asking of them, they will probably refuse your request.

Here’s an example of two ways to make the same request:

1.   Can you pet sit for me?

2.   Can you pet sit my dog this weekend from 5:00 Friday night until  noon on Sunday at my home?  I will pay you $50 plus provide food for your meals?

Which of these examples is more specific?  Which one would you say yes to?  Why?

If people say, “No” to your requests, politely ask them why they can’t help you.  Maybe they need more information.  If you provide more information and they still say no, ask if they know someone who might be able to help you.  Don’t forgot to thank the people for their time.

When deciding on who to approach to be on your dream team, ask yourself these questions:

What friends can help me?

What family members can help me?

What friends of friends can help me?

What friends in my school community can help me?

Who in my local community can help me?

Which associations or organizations can help me?

Who are people I can go to for support?

Who are people I can ask for advice?

Who are people that I don’t know yet who can help me and how can I connect with them?

Next, make a three column chart with these three questions:

What do I need                   Who am I going                  What am I going

help with?                            to ask?                                   to say?

Answer the three questions.  Remember to be as specific as possible.

To help you find the right approach, write a short blurb, what some call an elevator pitch that gets your point across as quickly as possible.  Write your dream in 25 words or less then practice saying it out loud.  Practice it on a friend or family member and ask for feedback.  The more feedback you get, the better your presentation becomes.

“When you begin speaking your dream and enrolling others, your dream can become bigger and take on new forms, and all kids of opportunities will show up.” Marcia Wieder.

33 Using the Ultimate Blog Challenge to Write “Pick From The Passion Tree”

It’s very exciting to be joining all of you in the October 2012 Ultimate Blog Challenge.  For those of you who don’t know, I address the crisis of youth unemployment by proposing that we guide our teenagers and young adults to develop an entrepreneur mindset.  My first book, 31 Powerful Lessons: Empowering Teens and Young Adults to Develop an Entrepreneur Mindset is currently on sale as a digital book and as a perfect bound paperback book at my website and will soon be on Amazon.com and Kindle.  I wrote that book during the last Ultimate Blog Challenge using the daily posts as the foundation for the book.

Using this new blog challenge in the same manner, I plan to write the second book, Pick From the Passion Tree in what I call the Empowering Young Entrepreneurs series.  It is my sincere hope that you will read the posts and share your constructive criticism, positive feedback and any ideas you have that will enhance the topic I’ve written about.

I am also accepting guest posts about how to decide upon and start a business and other entrepreneurial ideas appropriate for teenagers and young adults.  Steve Eason has already provided a guest blog post about selling solutions to the customers’ pain.

I’m looking for exercises designed to help youth focus on identifying their passions and how to make decisions on how to build a business around those passions.  Checklists would be useful as well as free resources that young people can access to help them build their foundation and start down their path.  Some of these guest posts may be included in the new book (with your permission of course).

Additionally, if you have any advice you would like to share directly with young people, I would be happy to consider those posts as well as real stories of other successful, young entrepreneurs, both for the blog and possibly for the book.

There is no particular order to the posts as I have not yet organized what content will be in the book.  I do know that we’ll have some reality check exercises (two that I’ve already posted on this blog during September), some exercises for our youth to identify what they are passionate about.  The book will include information on social media, blogging and other business building blocks.

I am looking forward to reading and commenting on as many of your posts as possible during the course of the challenge.  It’s nice to meet you and it will be nice to get to know you.

8 Build Your Business Around Pain Relief: Solutions Sell

Today’s article is by guest blogger Steve Eason of

Ingenious Internet Income

You’ve probably been asked this question a few times from family and friends:

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I remember my answer was that I wanted to be an astronaut.  Growing up in Florida, I had the unique opportunity to watch the Space Shuttle launch in school on television and then run outside to watch the plume as it rocketed into space.  Your answer was likely a little different, but usually it was something like a fireman, a policeman, a nurse, a teacher or just like my dad.

If you were asked that today what would your answer be?  According to recent surveys, close to 80% of those asked were dissatisfied with their jobs.  That’s over 123 million people in the US that are dissatisfied with what they do for a living.  Will you be one of them?

The greatest thing about Internet Marketing is that you can do what you love to do in a way that is helpful to others and make money doing it.  What a great combination.  Unfortunately so many people who hear me say that, just can’t comprehend how that it could be possible.

Today I was out getting my haircut and the stylist asked her usual conversation starting question of, “Are you on lunch from work?”  My answer was, “Sorta.  I work from home so my schedule is flexible.”  Then I was able to talk a little about what I do for a job, which is writing and teaching others how to build a business online.  You could tell that she was surprised and slightly interested in what I had to say, but she really had no idea that you could even do this.  I had a chance to share with her a little about what could be accomplished no matter what you were interested in.

It occurred to me that there are so many people out there that just don’t know what you can do with an online business.  As I was heading home, I was listening to a podcast on Internet Marketing, and there was a statement that resonated with me.  The statement encapsulated the idea that I’ve been working on with my business that I just never could put into words.  This statement summed it up quite nicely.

“I’m passionate about improving people’s lives.”

That just sums up what I’m doing and what I’m focusing on with my business.  I’m working to help improve people’s lives through my work.  By providing the best information I can to help as many people as possible, it begins to build a relationship that ultimately serves the greater purpose of helping others.

Creating a business that you love

How do you go about building a business around a topic or interest that you love?  What I’ve often suggested is to start by looking around you, at what you already enjoy doing in your free time.  I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve heard about someone starting an online business around their hobby or interest and having people practically knock down their door to buy.

Let me share with you a secret that if you follow it through to the end, will help you build a business that will allow you to do what you love to do and make money doing it.  It’s fairly simple, yet so many people fail to really go all the way with it.  And I will be the first to admit, I am one of those people.  Here it is and try not to be underwhelmed when you hear it.  Find the pain.  Yep, that’s it.

What does this really mean, to find the pain?  It means to look closely at your hobby or interest and see if you can identify something that is causing the most pain and then create or research a solution for that pain.  Just consider what you like to do and think through what you think is the most frustrating part of doing that hobby.

Let’s look at Remote Control (RC) Planes as an example.

If someone is interested in learning all they can about RC Planes, what are the common questions that they are going to have starting out?  What are the tools that they will need to get started?  Who are the best manufacturers for parts?  Are there any groups or clubs that they should know about or be introduced to?

Just consider a new person to your hobby or interest, and all the questions that they are likely to have.  Providing the answers to their questions is an entire course that you could create and sell.  People go to bookstores all the time and purchase a book that helps them understand how to get involved in specific hobbies.

What about the people who have been involved with RC planes for a longer period of time.  Could it be that they have something that has been a pain point in the hobby that they would love to have solution for?  You could find a local hobby group and ask.  You could also find a forum online that is actively discussing the hobby and then listen to what they are saying.  Figure out what is causing them the most frustration and then find a solution for that pain point.

Maybe you have learned how to program software and you hear that they would love a tool to track all the parts for their hobby or they need an app to record scores when attending RC airplane races.  What about an online resource that helps them track and organize RC airplane races for the community?  Create that tool or app with input from the local group and then sell it.  If that group likes it, it’s likely that other groups will as well.

When talking with people about their pain points, there is one recommendation that stands out above all others.  When trying to identify what those pain points are, you have to ask questions.  Lots of questions.  The most important questions you can ask during this discovery process are the following two questions.  What else?  And tell me more.  Well the last isn’t a question, but what it does is keeps them talking about what is frustrating.  Keep asking those questions until they run out of things to say.

By asking these questions and others you will start to understand their market and hobby, which helps to you be able to define the problem.  If you can define the problem even better than they can, then they will just naturally assume that you have the solution to the issue.

Here are a few more questions that you can ask which will help you further define the problem:

What are some of the things that make you want to throw your “X” out the window?  (X being the hobby, computer, etc).

What do you consider to be the most important activity in regards to your hobby?

Are there any pains associated with that?

What are the problems that cost you the most money?

How often does that happen?

This process is about trying to find out all you can about the subject in order to gain a better understanding so that you can define the problem.

Even if you already have a product you are selling or service you are providing, if you’re not seeing results, take a look at your product and start asking yourself the questions above.  Have you answered those questions?  Do you understand the problem better than your customers?  If people aren’t paying for your product, it’s likely because there isn’t enough pain associated with the problem that you’re trying to solve.  Take a step back and start from the beginning and make sure you’ve clearly defined the problem in the first place.

I hope this helps to open your eyes and gets you thinking about how you can start solving problems around you.  No matter what the niche is, there are problems that drive people crazy each and every day.  Problems that are costing people loads of money and time.  Never discount the value of saving people time.  Sometimes saving time is more valuable than saving money.  If you accurately define the problem and come up with a solution, you can build a successful business around that product.

Steve Eason is a professional blogger, internet marketer and social media enthusiast located in the Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina area.  Find out more on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.  Or visit Ingenious Internet Income for more great information.

steve@ingeniousinternetincome.com

23 Become An Inspiring Leader

Can you explain to people WHY you do what you do? What moved you to start your business? What makes you get out of bed in the morning?

Author Simon Sinek describes what he calls the Golden Circle of Communication. According to Sinek, communicating the why first is communicating from the inside out and “people don’t buy what you do, they buy WHY you do it.”

He presents this key to becoming an inspiring leader in a Ted Talk which you should listen to, it’s brilliant.

Sinek explains that your best customers and clients buy from you or hire you because they believe what you believe. He reminds us that Martin Luther King didn’t give an “I have a plan speech,” he gave an “I have a dream speech” and within that speech he talked about what he believed.

People didn’t necessarily connect with Martin Luther King the man, they connected with what he believed because it was the same thing that they believed. He believed that people should be treated equally under the law and that was his why.

The why that drives me forward is that I believe that all teens and young adults should have the opportunity to have the life of their dreams regardless of their life experience or current circumstances, and in light of the current economic situation, I believe we need to help them find alternatives to jobs.

Why do you do what you do?

20 Perserverance – The Essential Key to Success

Perseverance. A fitting topic to end a successful challenge with. Perseverance is the essential key to achieving success in anything that we do. You can learn all the skills you need, take all the steps you need to take, but if you don’t stick with it, you’ll can’t possibly succeed.

It has been a pleasure to go through this challenge with all of you.  I look forward to following some of your blogs in the future.

Let’s take a look at what perseverance is and how we put it into practice.

What is perseverance?

• Perseverance is commitment, hard work, patience, endurance.
• Perseverance is being able to bear difficulties calmly and without complaint.
• Perseverance is trying again and again.

You show perseverance when you:

• Give up your television or gaming time to spend hours working on your homework or building your
business
• Try to learn a new skill that is very difficult but you don’t give up
• Keep working even when discouraged
• Come from a home where there is fighting and unhappiness but you still try your best
• Have missed a week of school but you work hard to catch up
• Are at the end of a difficult race but you cross the finish line
• Save money and make sacrifices to buy something
• Spend hours practicing on your music or craft or sport
• Study and work hard to raise your grade
• Try out for something you weren’t successful at the first time

Put perseverance into action

• When something starts to bother you, wait as long as you can before you express frustration.
• When something doesn’t work right, try again and again.
• Don’t lose your temper when something upsets you.
• Always finish what you start.
• Keep working at something that is difficult until you complete it.
• Don’t give up on difficult jobs or situations.
• Focus on someone or something that ordinarily makes you lose your patience and try to understand
it (and don’t “lose it”).
• Work a little harder or a few minutes longer on a task that you do not like.

Here are two quotes from two men who persevered through many difficult times. They were both courageous men who literally had the weight of the world on their shoulders. Luckily for us, they weren’t quitters.

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. Albert Einstein

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. Franklin D. Roosevelt