Hubby brought this cartoon home from work several weeks ago.  I had intended to post it earlier with quite a few LOL and HA HA HA’s  and ROFL, but never quite got around to it.

Lately though, I’ve been feeling both sides of this.  The Darling Daughter, 12yo, has been on school holidays for the last two and a half weeks.  Hubby was home ‘sick’ last week with a bad back, and a couple of days this week with the flu (no, not man-flu thankfully, just ordinary flu).

So in the last few weeks I’ve launched the Two Hour Business Plan in the middle of finding time for a 12yo on holidays, looking after an injured/sick husband and then the lovely generous man (hear the sarcasm there?) decided to pass his revolting germs on to me.  Gee, thanks honey.

Self Pity and Woe Is Me is not what today’s post is about though.  Today I thought I’d have a chat about blogging with a business and list some resources that I use.  Some of the links are affiliate links, so if you end up buying any of these I might make enough to buy a cup of coffee, with cream.  Maybe.

Business blogging

I’m going to assume that everyone reading this knows what a blog is and what RSS is.  If not, feel free to email me and ask.  No, it’s not a silly question and you wouldn’t be the first person to ask me.

What’s your blog’s purpose?

Blogging is really useful for your business but it’s not a golden ladder leaning against the wall of huge profits.  It takes time, effort, technique and purpose.  It can also be a huge waste of time for very little ROI (Return On Investment).

Before you go putting all that work into your blog, you have to know why you’re doing it.  Here’s some of the things that a well-written blog can do:

- attract potential customers

- improve your website’s SEO (as long as the blog is on the same domain as the site)

- show people that you know what you’re talking about

- build a community of like-minded people through comments and discussion

- advertise sales, specials, new products

Know why before you start

Too many people jump into blogging for their business without a clear direction and purpose for it.  Just like everything else in business you need to know what result you’re working towards, so you know when you’re on track and if it’s working or not.

Know what you’re doing and why, and then aim every single post towards that purpose.

Readers aren’t buyers

I’m mainly talking to those who sell a service here, although this is still true – albeit to a lesser extent – for those who sell physical products.

Your blog readers aren’t your clients.

The majority of people who read your blog, subscribe to your RSS, comment on your posts – they’ll never buy from you.  This tends to be a shock for a lot of people, it sure was for me, when you’ve put in hours and hours and hours writing posts and then you realise that the readers aren’t actually buyers.

The majority of your readers are there for the free content.  There’s nothing wrong with that, and business blogging is still a great way to spread the word of what you do.  But if you’re looking at several thousand readers and wondering why they’re not buying – welcome to reality.

Readers don’t look at your website

The majority of readers never visit your website after the first hit, when they subscribe to your RSS.  So you can update your site to your hearts content, fill it with ads, promote every product under the sun and your readers still won’t know about it.

If you want your readers to know something, put it in a blog post with a powerful headline.

Partial feeds mean non-readers

So when a lot of people realise the above fact they decide to make their RSS feed only partial, meaning that RSS subscribers will see the first paragraph and have to click through to read the remainder of the post on the website.  Yay!  More hits on the site, better SEO and people see your site and ads, yes?

No.

Statistics show that partial feeds actually reduce readership.  Your first paragraph is going to have to be absolutely riveting and compelling to get people to click through.  Most readers won’t bother.  But if you have a full feed in your RSS – meaning the entire post is there in the reader or email – then most people will read it.

So why bother with blogging?

It’s a pretty depressing picture here isn’t it?  The readers don’t buy, they don’t visit the website and they don’t read partial feeds.  Why bother putting the effort in?

Because blogging will draw more people to your site.  It shows people what you can do and gives them confidence in you.  Used properly, blogging will attract the right people and get them recommending you.  It’s a great tool, but that’s all it is, a tool.

Use blogging wisely and with a clear purpose, and it will help grow your business.

Blogging Resources

Here’s some resources to help you get the most out of your blogging.  They’re all ebooks that I have bought and used myself.

31 Days to Build a Better Blog

31 Days to Build a Better Blog is a downloadable e-book designed to help you revitalize your blog by giving you 31 tasks that will all help to turn it into the page view powerhouse you’ve always dreamed of.

Each day in the project contains:

A Task – something to DO that day.

Teaching – each day you’ll be given great instruction on both the WHY and HOW of the task of the day.

It’s normally $39 but when I checked the link for this post I noticed it’s only $19.95.  I have no idea how long this price is valid for though.

On a side note, I’m looking to run a blogging workshop during August for those who are interested in developing their blogs using this ebook.  It’ll be free (but you have to purchase the ebook), and I’m still working out the details.  If this sounds like something you’d be interested in please let me know in the comments.

Beyond Bricks and Mortar

Taken from the Beyond Bricks and Mortar sales page:

The Practical Strategy to market your Offline business using Online tools

Beyond Bricks and Mortar gives you the solid footing you need to access practical, useful information on how to blog for your business – when your business isn’t online.

Beyond Bricks and Mortar fills the gap when you’re standing confused on the edge of the online world, unclear on how to bridge it for your physical business, and wondering who’ll tell you how to do that.

This is an amazing book written for those who have physical businesses with an online presence.

How to Build a Professional Blog

How to Build a Professional Blog – the Quick Start Guide to Plan, Launch and Profit with your own Successful Blog.

$47 value, and absolutely free.  Gotta love that! 

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Behind the scenes here at SuperWAHM we’ve been working very hard on our latest product.  In fact it’s so good that we’ve given it it’s very own website!

Business planning for people who hate planning.  An easy step by step guide to writing a business plan that has been designed specifically for the needs of micro and at-home businesses.

If you’ve thought of writing a business plan and not known where to start, thought you didn’t have the time, or were overwhelmed with all those budgets and forecasts, the Two Hour Business Plan is for you.

You’ve got two options, the basic option which is the audio’s, the workbook and the bonuses, or you can purchase the Two Hour Business Plan PLUS two consulting/coaching sessions with me for less than the normal price of the two sessions.

Check it out and see what people are saying: http://twohourbusinessplan.com

This week’s Interviewee is Rebecca Tham from Bean Sprout Bubba.  If you’ve got a baby in nappies (diapers) or know someone who has, and you’re at all environmentally conscious, then you need to check them out.

1. Tell us a little about yourself, your family, whatever you’re comfortable sharing.

I’m Rebecca. I came to Australia from Malaysia about ten years ago to study at university, met my husband, got married and now live in Bunbury. Together we have two children, and one more coming in October 2010.

2. Tell us about your business – what you do, how long you’ve been running, who your customers are?

My business is an online store called ‘Bean Sprout Bubba’ based in Bunbury WA, Australia. The store has been running since August/September 2009. Initially I started out making and selling the ever-reliable Bubba J nappies, one of the darkhorses in Australian modern cloth nappy (MCN) history, then progressed to retailing other quality modern cloth nappy brands, nappy helps and baby slings that were reputable and reasonably priced.

3. How did you get into that particular business?

I started using modern cloth nappies (MCN) in December 2006, a month after my first daughter was born. I really loved using them, though at the time I knew no one in Bunbury who used MCN.

Business-wise, it all started in March 2008, when I became a modern cloth nappy demonstrator for a reputable online nappy store based in one of the eastern states of Australia (we’re still friends by the way!)

Over time I noticed that being in Western Australia, my clients’ orders were taking a long time to arrive here from my demonstrator-store. I started to dream about having my own store in Bunbury WA in order to give a better service to my customers.

In March 2009 I heard that the Bubba J modern cloth nappy label was up for sale by the previous owner. I bought it over, made a few changes and Bean Sprout Bubba was born.

4. What’s the worst challenge that you’ve experienced in your business, and how did you overcome it?

The worst challenge was not knowing how websites worked.

I had to do a tonne of research and bear a huge learning curve to learn how web hosting, domain names and html worked. I also learnt a lot about open-source software, how to do minor tweaks here and there, and how to use simple graphics software to generate images for the online store.

5. Tell us three things that no-one knows about you.

1. I’m Malaysian by citizenship. My husband and children are all Australian citizens.

2. I tend to do things in our family a little differently and rather unconventionally to the rest of our families of origin, much to the relatives chagrin at times!  Cloth nappies, breastfeeding, daily routines, business ownership, work/business at home, home education, the list goes on.

3. Though I have university degrees in Nutrition and Food science and Health Promotion, and a TAFE qualification in Dental Nursing, I did not work in those fields. Instead I have worked as a library assistant at a private school, tried home DIY when my house was built, helped my husband set up his business, been a landlord and now a business owner.

6. What has been your biggest success that you’ve had in your business? What was it that made that happen?

The biggest success so far is seeing the birth of my new nappy label, ecoBumba. I could only have done it with the help and support of my testers in Bunbury. There will be further innovations with both Bubba J and ecoBumba in the coming months and years, which I hope to be future successes to look back on when I’m older.

7. If you didn’t have this business, what do you think you’d do and why?

I would probably continue on doing what I did before: bookkeeping for hubby’s business, housekeeping and childcare, knit/crochet/sew whenever I wanted to… but I would be bored, really bored, with life.

I like to challenge my mind and keep it active. I have many ideas running through my head most days, so who knows, I might have started something totally different to nappy-making bust my boredom. Even now, I’m considering whether to homeschool my girls on top of everything I’m doing already. I love to be busy and occupied

8. What’s the biggest mistake that you see newbie business owners making?

I think the biggest mistake is not having a plan or system to work with in order to see results in the business. This leads to pricing too low/high, oversaturating the market with product, and then overworking to try to move product, leading to possible burnout.

9. Coffee or Tea?

Tea

10. How many hours a week do you put into your business?

I put in between 15-20 hours a week into the business. Much as I love to sew nappies, about half this time is taken up by administrative tasks like packing orders, writing on my nappy tips blog, updating the store and Facebook, answering emails and so on.

11. How do you fit those hours in? Eg: school hours, early mornings, late nights, kids in daycare, around my other (paid) job?

I fit 1-2 hours of sewing or admin tasks daily when the kids are down for their daily afternoon nap. They usually go down together, what a blessing! Then another 1-2 hours at night time after the kids go to bed. My husband and I usually sleep rather late so we still have time for each other.

Occasionally I am able to fit in 30min to about an hour for simple tasks, when the kids are up and playing together. I try to keep weekends free, otherwise it’s another 1-2 hours over the weekend when my husband is at home.

12. What’s the weirdest/funniest thing that’s ever happened to you? (business or otherwise)

I’m not sure if this is funny or weird, but my girls have the innate sense to start screaming or shouting when I’m on a business related call! Even when they were content with whatever they were doing at the time. Other calls are spared from this treatment… don’t know why?

13. Is there anything else you’d like to say or add?

Fear of failure often cripples mums who have dreams and visions of big things.

‘Sikit-sikit, lama-lama jadi bukit’: an old Malay proverb meaning “a bit of sand, piled up little by little, would become a hill in time”.

Break it down step-by-step to make it all doable, release that fear, and see where it can lead you to.

This week’s interviewee is Joy Randel, from Dazzle Dog Delight.  I had no idea all these things were available for dogs until I saw her site (I’m a cat person) and it was almost enough to make me want a dog.  Joy has a great heart for helping homeless dogs, and she donates a large percentage of her profits to the SPCA.

1. Tell us a little about yourself and your family?

My wonderful husband and I have an eight year old daughter. We also have a Labrador retriever greyhound mixed dog. We live in the San Francisco Bay Area and enjoy the temperate weather. We live in a city but we are only about ten minutes away from a wooded redwood regional park that is hundreds of acres. We spend time each weekend taking long family walks either through the regional park or along the San Francisco Bay.

2. Tell us about your business – what you do, how long you’ve been running, who your customers are?

I am the CEO of Dazzle Dog Delight. Dazzle Dog Delight is dedicated to passionate dog owners by providing gifts for the dog who has everything. Every purchase you make helps a homeless dog because we donate 5% of our profits to the SPCA. Our customers pamper their dogs with designer collars, leashes, bed, toys, clothes, etc. We have over 800 items in our store.

3. How did you get into that particular business?

Dazzle Dog Delight was born out of love and necessity. Prior to Dazzle Dog Delight I worked as an IT manager for numerous companies managing large web development projects.

At home, the family dog always had a starring role. First it was my black Labrador Kincaid and now a Greyhound-Labrador mix, Rocket.

I found time with my family and dog more rewarding than my job and when the economy turned sour and layoffs were abundant, I thought “hmmm, maybe getting laid-off wouldn’t be so bad.” I found that out for real when the cost-cutting arrived in a memo.

I combined my passion for dogs with my IT knowledge and created Dazzle Dog Delight. The hours are long and there’s not nearly as much support staff, but the employees and customers always wag their tails – a reward rarely found in my old jobs.

4. What’s the worst challenge that you’ve experienced in your business, and how did you overcome it?

The worst challenge I experienced in my business was not having enough time in the day to do everything that needs to get done. I overcame it by setting up a system where I do specific tasks at certain times of the day.

I plan my week out ahead of time and decide how each day is going to be segmented for that specific week. Each week I re-evaluate and make changes. I also set up a goal board so everything I do has to meet one of my goals or I don’t start doing it.

5. Tell us three things that no-one knows about you.

1) Travelled and walked across Macau.

2) I drove across America twice.

3) Once was a dog in a former life.

6. What has been your biggest success that you’ve had in your business? What was it that made that happen?

My biggest success has been being able to contribute my profits to the SPCA. I am determined to make sales because it benefits a non-profit organization that I believe in.

7. If you didn’t have this business, what do you think you’d do and why?

If I did not have this business I would be doing fund raising for animal shelters. There are more and more homeless animals as people lose their jobs in this bad economy. The shelters need all the help they can get.

8. What’s the biggest mistake that you see newbie business owners making?

The biggest mistake that I see newbie business owners make is that they do not plan. They do not have a business plan and they do not have a marketing plan.

9. Coffee or Tea?

Coffee

10. How many hours a week do you put into your business?

I am putting 40 hours a week into my business.

11. How do you fit those hours in? Eg: school hours, early mornings, late nights, kids in daycare, around my other (paid) job?

I work many late nights and early mornings before my daughter awakes and after she is asleep.

12. If you were a Superhero, what would your super powers be?

If I were a Superhero my super powers would give me the vision to tell the future.

13. What’s the weirdest/funniest thing that’s ever happened to you? (business or otherwise)

The weirdest thing that happened to me is that the dog walker I hired turned out to live in a home that I had lived in two years earlier.

This week’s interview is with Sarah Lee from Speedy Cartridge, located in Australia.

1. Tell us a little about yourself, your family, whatever you’re comfortable sharing.

My name is Sarah, mother of two absolutely gorgeous kids. My girl, Amelia is three and I also have a son Aaron who is one almost two.

Things I love are my family, cooking, EATING (LOL), and travelling. My work prior to becoming a work from home parent was in the accounting field of the financial services industry.

Now with the knowledge of my husband and my own ambition to become a work from home parent, we have recently reached this point of beginning our very own business.

2. Tell us about your business – what you do, how long you’ve been running, who your customers are?

Speedy Cartridge specialises in the sales of printer cartridges, inks and toners. We offer the choice of genuine cartridges or compatible cartridges which are backed by a 100% money back guarantee and offer even greater savings.

We don’t have a shop and are not a franchise so we are able to offer our customers a better price than retail as we don’t have the addition costs of these things to cover therefore pass these savings on to our customers. We only recently just got up and running, but this business has been in the minds of my husband and I for so long, its amazing that we are actually up and running now, feels very surreal.

So far, we are building our customer fan base on Facebook and we have had some great customers so far, willing to give us a try and we are very grateful for that.

3. How did you get into that particular business?

My husband has a lot of knowledge in this area. He is qualified in printer repairs and knows a great deal when it comes to cartridges. My family always said he should do something for himself so we could gain from his technical knowledge and me being out of work with the kids was the starting point.

4. What’s the worst challenge that you’ve experienced in your business, and how did you overcome it?

Probably just issues with getting money together to pay for advertising. We just decided to take it slowly, and build it up as we go.

6. What has been your biggest success that you’ve had in your business? What was it that made that happen?

Our first sale, it was very motivating and exciting for us. All the lovely work at home mums who send their enquiries to us also give us such a sense of motivation and the lovely work at home mum who was the first to give us a shot! Facebook made this happen, and a lot of networking.

7. If you didn’t have this business, what do you think you’d do and why?

I would still be trying to think of a way to earn some money from home and stay with my kids. Or I would be starting to think about doing a refresher course in finance and accounting so I could return to my previous career once my kids go to school.

8. What’s the biggest mistake that you see newbie business owners making?

For an online business, it would be letting off some steam in their FaceBook status bar. I think people need to be careful of that as it can give a real insight to the person behind the business.

9. Coffee or Tea?

Tea

10. Wine, Beer or Champagne?

Champagne

11. How many hours a week do you put into your business?

I don’t have a set amount of hours I put into it. I put as many hours as I can and when I can. I mind my two children at home so if they are asleep or busy and happy then I sit down and work on it.

12. How do you fit those hours in? Eg: school hours, early mornings, late nights, kids in daycare, around my other (paid) job?

During the kids nap time (when that ever happens!), when my husband is home or during the day when the kids are happily occupied.

13. If you were a Superhero, what would your super powers be?

I would like to be able to fly!!

15. Is there anything else you’d like to say or add?

Be sure to think of us next time you need cartridges, ink or toners for your printer.

Three very different disciplines, yet they’re often confused and the terms are used interchangeably.  Coaching is not Consulting or Mentoring, and vice versa.

Coaching

Coaches don’t tell the client what to do. They facilitate the client finding and implementing their own solutions.

-          What do you want to do?

-          What’s the fastest way to get there?

-          What will that give you?

-          What is it that’s stopping you?

-          How are you going to do that?

-          Where has this been an issue in the past?

-          How have you been perceiving this as a problem up until now?

Just like you get a Personal Trainer to work on your fitness, your Coach does the same for you.  They’re the motivators, accountability expert, communication expert and personal cheer squad. They’ll stretch you and ask more of you than you thought you could do.

Coaching is huge for CEO’s of private companies, including fortune 500 companies, Senior Management in the Public service and Leadership executives.  If leaders at this level in business benefit from coaching don’t you think you would too?

No matter what field of coaching it is, life, business, executive, whatever, the process and strategies are the same – it’s the focus that is different.  Coaching is designed to provide clients with a greater capacity to produce results and a greater confidence in their ability to do so.

Consulting

Consultants offer information and advice, gained from working in that particular industry.  They focus primarily on externals — processes and activities that outsiders can observe and monitor.

A Coach will ask you what you want to achieve and what you need to do to reach your goals.  A Consultant will look at the goal and say “This is what you need to do.  Do X, Y and Z by this date”

Consultants are often hired by the organisation and their focus is on the organisations goals whereas Coaches work with individuals – again often hired by the organisation – and their focus is on developing the individual.

Mentoring

A Mentor someone who is in your field but a lot further ahead than you. They’ll guide you, teach you, introduce you to others. They’ve been there and done that, you’re basically following in their footsteps.

Mentors will introduce you around their networks and help you move up the ladder.  They can be personal mentors, business mentors, or for any aspect of your life.

What am I?

I’m a Certified Professional Coach, and I also do some Consulting, and a bit of Mentoring at times.  I’m a member of the International Coach Federation and State President of the Canberra Branch of the ICF.

< rant >I do tend to get on a soapbox when people use the word ‘Coaching’ when referring to ‘Consulting’ –just because someone is a good Consultant doesn’t make them a good Coach.  Professional Coaches undergo intensive study and training to become qualified and develop their coach-specific skills. < / rant >

EOFYS – End Of Financial Year Sale

If you’re Australian and watch any free-to-air television then you’ve probably seen the ads for EOFYS – including having that annoying but catchy tune now running through your head.  We’re having an EOFYS here at SuperWAHM too, but without the annoying jingle – just a whopping discount.

Up until midnight on 30^th June AEST (that’s Australia time) you can get 40% off everything on sale here at SuperWAHM.  Yep, that’s the ebooks and the One-on-One Coaching, all with 40% off.

Simply use the discount code “EOFYS” without the quotation marks, and update the cart to receive your discount.

You only have 48 hours until the Financial Year ends so hurry and get your discount now!

A brand new feature of SuperWAHM – I’ll be posting an interview with a different SuperWAHM each week.   To kick off the first interview we’ve got Alison from Alison’s Soy Candles and Melts.

Tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Alison and I am 28. I live in Sydney, Australia, with my gorgeous husband, and 3 children aged 8 years, 19 months and 6 months.

Tell us about your business and what you do.

Alison’s Soy Candles & Melts have been running an online store for around 7 months.

Previous to that I sold on ebay, madeit and at local markets.  We sell soy candles and melts and specialise in wedding and christening bonbonniere and also sell DIY kits so you can create gorgeous candles yourself. We have lots of different customers nationwide and are also selling in 2 retail stores.

We love to create different things also and at the moment our “Cupcake” melts I can hardly keep up with!

How did you get into that particular business?

I have always loved crafts and handmade things. I have dabbled with so many different crafts and so candle making was at first just a new hobby that I quickly fell in love with.  It is relaxing for me and a bit of time out from our busy lifestyle.

After buying some soy melts years ago at a local market, I ordered my first batch of raw materials and then went from there. My family and friends love being my guinea pigs for new products and fragrances.

What’s the worst challenge that you’ve experienced in your business, and how did you overcome it?

Time is probably my biggest challenge – being a WAHM is harder sometimes then people would think but I have a pretty good system in place at the moment and my husband has designated a whole working space for all my things in the garage so when I need to do orders I am out of the house and in work mode.

Tell us three things that no-one knows about you.

I used to be a fitness fanatic and work out 6 times a week, when I was a teenager I used to tell everyone I was never getting married or having children!!! haha lol

I don’t eat vegetables or salad – I am a MEATATARIAN!

What has been your biggest success that you’ve had in your business?

I have had a lot of success I guess for my type of work – It was exciting when we received a rather large order from New Zealand, and we have just introduced some lines into 2 retail stores so that’s a success for us!

Patience and being persistent has made our small business successful and learning not to get down when you have slower weeks because usually following a slow week we end up with our biggest the next!

If you didn’t have this business, what do you think you’d do and why?

I would probably be back at work slaving away in a cafe and not getting to enjoy my children the way I can now

What’s the biggest mistake that you see newbie business owners making?

Copying – since we started our small online business so many other small or new business simply copy packaging or ideas that we have had.

Try to be creative and come up with new or different things to what are on the market and you will have more success that way.

Coffee or Tea?

Hate them both and I don’t drink alcohol either.

How many hours a week do you put into your business?

I usually spend around 10-16 hours a week online, and answering emails etc and between 4 plus hours creating depending on demand week by week.

How do you fit those hours in?

Most of my creating is late at night from 9pm when all the kids are asleep and the house work is done.  My 2 youngest have good sleeps in the days and that is when I finish or pack orders, answer emails etc.

If you were a Superhero, what would your super powers be?

Honestly to have enough food and clean water in the world for everyone. We are spoilt rotten in Australia and its sad to think that we make out sometimes like we live in poverty because interest rates go up or groceries or fuel are more expensive but when you look at the whole picture their are families that go days without food, and clean water and that don’t have houses let alone cars. It’s crazy.

Is there anything else you’d like to say or add?

I am loving the support for WAHM and dads at the moment. It is great to see.

This one of my favourite posts that was originally published early last year.  Now updated and edited to be even more good-er.  Enjoy!

I was cleaning the shower the other day.  This is something I do regularly.  Once a year is regular, right? Just kidding – I clean it a lot more often than that.  While sloshing water around and scrubbing the tiles it occurred to me that cleaning the shower is in many ways like marketing your home business.

Read through and let me know what you think.

Firstly it needs to be done regularly. I once lived in a house where we thought the bottom half of the shower door and side was frosted glass, and that round bit on the floor was anti-slip coating.  About a week or so after moving in, I cleaned it.  Yes, it was ordinary clear glass underneath and plain tiled floor.  Yuck.

If you clean your shower regularly, it’s easy.  If you market your business regularly, it’s easy.  Consistency in small efforts is a lot easier and yields much greater rewards than neglecting it and having to put in hours of backbreaking, gut-wrenching work.  It’s much easier to keep up than to catch up.

If it’s done wrong you could end up with a greater mess. Sloshing buckets of water around may be great fun, watching it splash, however it has a tendency to, well, splash.  And go everywhere, generally all over the bathroom walls and floor – outside of the shower.   Or it just rinses the walls and floor and doesn’t actually clean anything.

You can spend as much money and time as you have on marketing, but if it’s not directed to the right people, if it’s not solving a problem for them, if it’s not compelling them to buy, then it’s a waste of time and money.  Know why you’re using a particular marketing tactic, do it right, be focused and see the benefits. Make sure you’re marketing to a niche and not a demographic.

Use the right tools and know why you’re using them. You wouldn’t go to clean the shower with the vacuum cleaner would you?  Or with a leaf rake?  Of course not, they’re tools for other tasks.  You go into the shower with some kind of cleaner, cloths to wipe, some way to rinse off the walls, bleach to clean the tiles if needed, maybe a squeegee.  You know precisely what you’re doing (cleaning the shower) and the appropriate tools that you need to do that.

This is where you need to know your target market intimately and thoroughly, inside and out.  Why do they buy?  Where and how do they buy?  What solution does your product provide?  How do you market specifically and directly to these people?  What medium do they use (online, magazines, forums) to find out about products and ask questions?  There’s no point putting an advertisement in the financial times newspaper if your target market loves parenting forums.  Don’t put money into any form of marketing just because someone says you should.  Know how it relates to your market and what result you expect from it.

It takes work and planning. You clean the walls before the floor.  Put bleach on the tiles (my apologies to the environmentalists here) and let it start working before you begin to scrub.  And no matter what product you put on the glass and tiles, it still needs some elbow grease to be spotlessly clean.  With cleaning, as with marketing, you need to plan the best order to do things.

You can’t sell a product and then tell the customer why they need it.  The customer needs to be educated about what it does and why they want it.  You, the business owner, need to make this happen.  Customers don’t come up and say “I want to buy this widget, what does it do?”.  Nuh uh.  Customers see your marketing, which tells them how your widget solves their problem and world peace at the same time.  And then they come to buy.

And lastly you need to be committed. If you just give the shower a quick swipe over with a dry cloth once a month  then you might think you can call it ‘cleaning the shower’.  But is it really?  If you put an ad in the cheapest magazine once a month, is it the ads fault that no one buys?  I have a friend who often tells me that she wishes she could have a profitable online business.  And then goes on to tell me how she’s not interested in writing blog posts, or going on forums, or spending money on upgrading her website.  She’s not committed to the process or the work required.  If your business isn’t profitable, or not as profitable as you’d like, check your own commitment and activity levels first.

What do you think?  Are you using the right tools in the right way to clean your shower as efficiently and effectively as possible?

I’ve received some emails lately and had a couple of discussions with clients on setting up passive income so they only have to work a couple of hours a week.  This is a topic that seems to keep rearing it’s head, and there’s a lot of myths, rumours and some truths floating around on what passive income is and what it does.

What is passive income

It’s where you create a product once and sell it forever.  Set it up on your website with your shopping cart and people buy it from you without you having to do any more work or spend any further time on it in the future.

Ebooks, e-courses, recordings, reports – they’re all forms of products that lend themselves well to passive income.

Affiliate sales is another form of passive income, however in this post I’m focussing just on the sale of information products as passive income.

What makes passive income passive?

Think Tim Ferriss and his Four Hour Work Week – he recommends outsourcing everything in your business to India, setting up some streams of passive income and living happily ever after without having to do any work.

It’s a great theory, and very attractive at that, after all, who doesn’t want to have money coming in with no effort? But when you really start looking at what’s involved in so-called ‘Passive Income’ it’s not the mecca of riches that it’s purported to be.

Yes, it works to a certain point.  But not as well as the get-rich-quick guru’s would have you believe.

It’s not really passive

You’re going to put a lot of work into the product to begin with.  A good product that will sell over time isn’t going to be thrown together as fast as a blog post.  Nor is it something that you can hand off to a VA or copywriter to produce 100% for you.  YOU are going to have to put time, effort, hours, blood, sweat and tears into creating a kick-ass product.

You’ve got to promote it.  Sure, there’s the initial launch and promotion that everyone expects to have.  But what’s after that?  Once you’ve launched it, how do people find out about it afterwards?  Google searches and adsense/adwords?  Not techniques that I’d want to be relying on exclusively.

Today’s product won’t work tomorrow

Information and products become redundant over time – often a very short time.  Technology and knowledge advances and a advice that worked well only a few months ago may now be totally useless.  You’re going to have to update your information and products and keep them current.  How often you update depends on the product.  The point is though; you can’t create a product and expect it to sell long term in a constantly changing world.

If you’re planning to make your main income from passive income then you’ll need to be constantly creating new products to sell and updating older products.

You can’t outsource everything

If you’re in a business for the long term then you’ll have to spend time building your business yourself.  You can’t outsource your knowledge and experience.  People who buy from you are paying for YOUR knowledge and experience, in a form that they can learn from.

It’s one thing to use a copywriter to turn a ho-hum piece of work into a great selling ebook.  It’s quite another to be paying someone from India a pittance to write an ebook for you with information gleaned from a google search.

If you’re looking to build a community, build long term trust and loyal clients who love your product, then you can’t outsource the substance of your work.  You’re the one who is going to have to put in the mental effort required to create the products to sell.

So am I for passive income or against it?

Yup, the tone of this post has been fairly negative hasn’t it?  Information products as passive income does work, however it’s not a way for you to sit back and take ten months holiday a year while the dollars pour in.  Anyone who tells you that it’s that easy is a snake oil salesman.

Heck, I have information products for sale on this site – that’s passive income like I’m talking about in this post.  I’ve also got thousands of dollars in information products on my computer and my ipod.  I’d be a real hypocrite if I said they didn’t work.

What I am saying is that information products aren’t a get rich quick scheme.  It’s a way – and a good one at that – to leverage your work and maximise the return on investment of your time.

If you’re going to do it well though, then you’re going to have to work at it.  It’s not set and forget, it’s continually tweak, upgrade, innovate and create.

What do you all think?  Do you sell information products?  Agree or disagree with what I’ve said?  Come and comment and let me know what you think.

This is a Guest Post by Catherine Caine

I once worked in technical support for a webhosting company, supporting 200,000 small business customers over the phone. I learnt a lot.

• I learnt how to configure every email program ever.
• I learnt how websites work.
• I learnt that a LOT of people are scared of technology.

Ten times a day I’d hear the line: “I’m just not any good at that technical stuff!” Sometimes it would be said with an embarrassed laugh, sometimes with weary despair. One woman sobbed over the phone because she didn’t know how to use FTP* for her plumbing supplies website. (* FTP means File Transfer Protocol = how you upload files to your web site/server)

Does that seem strange to you?

We’re not worried about admitting we know nothing about photography or mechanics or aerospace engineering. Why does computer-related ignorance fill us with shame? Why do we label ourselves as “not good at that technical stuff”, when we use a hundred technological devices every day with no problems, from programming the TV to updating our status in Facebook? (Note from Melinda here: I call in my 12yo daughter when it comes to programming the tv.  LOL)

I’m going to share with you one of the most powerful things I learned to combat my fear.

Websites 101

Do you know what a website is? Can you describe it? For the longest time I couldn’t. I visited dozens every day, checked my email and did my banking on them and I couldn’t tell you what I really was using. It was scary and overwhelming! How could I learn anything about websites when I didn’t have the faintest idea of how they worked?

But I learned. Here’s my definition:

Websites are a tool for conveying information across networks. At one end, a powerful computer called a web server stores a number of files. When I want to visit a website, my computer (my iPhone counts as a computer in this case) sends a request to the web server that stores the files for the website. The web server transmits the requested information across the internet (the largest network in the world). When the files arrive on the my computer, I can see and interact with the website using my web browser (Firefox or Internet Explorer or Safari). If I click on a link in the website – say, to look at a different page – a new request is sent to the web server and in return more information is sent back to my computer.

Too techy? I have a non-tech version.

I want to know whether that new movie is any good; my friend Steve always knows about movies. So I look up his number in the phone book and give him a call. I ask him who the director is and he tells me. I ask if the acting is good and he tells me. When we’re done, I hang up the phone.

In this case, Steve is the web server: he contains the information on the movie. We need a connection to exchange the information, which is the phone. (Without the phone, I can’t ask Steve anything.) He also has a unique identifier, the phone number, that reaches him alone. And each time I ask a new question he provides more information.

For me, that is a good mental model of how websites work. It explains a number of other ideas intuitively:

• I can’t visit a website when I have no internet connectivity because there’s no way to make a connection between my computer and the web server.
• But, if I recently visited the website, the files might still be on my computer. That’s why I can see the page I visited most recently, even when I’m offline.

And I can build on it to make bigger ideas:

• Right, HTML is a way to wrap up the information so I can read it in my web browser.
• Oh, IP addresses are an identifier to tell all the web servers and computers apart from each other. Like a phone number.

Once I had a mental model, learning about websites became much easier. I could add more information and it had somewhere to slot into. And that’s good, because there is a LOT of complexity with websites!

The wires and boxes

• Servers: the powerful computers that store all the files of a website
• Networks: the hardware and software that allows servers and computers to communicate

The geeky code bit

• Languages: Languages like HTML, PHP and CSS that encode the information and its display
• Software: Pre-written packages, written in those languages that perform complex functions like managing your content. Like WordPress
• Design: Altering the look of a website with images and layout

The business part

• Social media: Content that changes as visitors interact with it
• Marketing: Selling, persuading and informing people over the internet
• Content: The words, video and images that you provide

Sound overwhelming and scary? If you look at it all together it is!

But 95% of the individual components are as simple to grasp as the idea of me calling Steve to ask whether the movie is worth watching. Once you have a good mental picture of the relationship between the parts, learning about websites is simple.

Just focus on adding one piece at a time. It gets much easier as you go along.

And in no time, you’ll never say, “I’m not good at that technical stuff!” ever again!

Catherine teaches people how to grow an awesome website and then high-fives them. Today is the first day for her new resource, Awesome Fear-Wrangling: tame your website fears, grow your kick-ass website. Ironically, she’s petrified about it.