Workism.com

When you’re working for yourself, you might find that it is VERY easy to get distracted. I’m not talking about the TV distracting you…I’m actually talking about work distracting you!  You might be working on one product…but then you read about something else that could help you make a lot of money, so you put the product aside, and start to work on this new website.  Then, before that website is done, you hear from a friend about a certain type of blog that will make you money, so you put the website aside, and start that blog.  Now it’s been 6 months, and you don’t have anything finished…you just have a partial product, website, and blog.

Where does that leave you?  Right back at the beginning.  You haven’t made any money, and don’t really have anything to show for your time.  If you kept to a plan though, you would see that you should follow through with one thing before you start the next.

If you write out exactly what your goals and plans are, you will be able to make sure you finish one thing before starting the next.  This will really help you in the long run!  If the idea you heard about is so great, you can do it when you have free time - once what you are working on is finished!

It will really help you save a lot of time!

I was reminded this weekend of something important: Always have your business cards on you.

My husband and I were going to a holiday party at the house of one of our friends. The last thing I thought would come up was business, so it never even occurred to make sure I had business cards on me. Plus, between the two of us, one of us usually had a card or so on hand.

So boy were we caught off guard when the host was telling some friends about our business, and they were asking about the website and the URL, and we realized we didn’t have a business card to give them! We hope that they remembered the name, but let’s face it, it was 11pm on a Saturday night, so who knows if they will remember!

If we had the business cards on us, we might have gotten a whole bunch of new people to stop by and join the site! The fact that we had many business cards just sitting in our house (less than 10 minutes away) only made it worse.

So I just want to remind everyone, especially during this holiday season where you will probably see more people then usual, always make sure you have your business cards on you! Don’t have any you say? There are 2 quick ways to get them.

The first is to use Vistaprint. They offer 250 free business cards, you just have to pay shipping.

The great part about them is you can easily make a very professional looking business card in under 5 minutes. You can choose from many different designs, and write whatever you would like in the text.

The only negative (if it bothers you) is that on the back of the card, it does say Vistaprint.com on it. Truthfully though, who cares? For free business cards, I don’t mind if it has their website in small print on the back on my business cards. Plus, not many people look at the back - and if they do, they’ll just know where I got the cards.

I have business cards from them, and really like them.  They look like they were professionally designed, and I am proud to give them out to advertise my business.  Plus, 250 cards is a lot, so you will always have them when you need them!

If you want more control over your card though, and want to design every little part, you can always go to Staples/Office Depot/Etc and buy blank business cards.  You can then go home, find some software to design your own, and print them out.  This is great if you want to do something that is a little different, and if you want to have your business cards that day!

No matter how you get them though, just make sure you always have a few with you.  You never know when it will come up and you could get new business, just because you had your card on you!

If you’re trying to make some more income on your website, you might want to take a look at BountyCPA. I just joined them recently, but they have a lot of CPA (Cost per Action) offers you can use.

If you don’t know what a CPA is, it means when someone takes a specific action - such as signing up for a free trial, subscribing to a newsletter, or buying something fro a site - you will get paid. You will be told beforehand what the action has to be. But it’s a great way to earn a little extra money on your website.

Rich Schefren has just released part 2 of the Attention Age Doctrine. It’s 94 pages, and while I haven’t finished reading it yet, so far it’s great. Everything I have ever read that was written by Rich Schefren has been great, so I recommend reading it when you get the chance. It’s completely free, but will only be available for a short time. So download it now, and read it when you get the chance.

If you are a looking for a way to make money on the Internet, you can create your own product.  If you have a lot of knowledge in a certain area, what better a way to earn an income than to share the information with others? 

There are three main ways you can create digital products to sell on the web:

• E-book:  You can create an electronic book that others can read on the Internet.
• Audio:  You can create an audio file - such as an interview between two people that others can listen to either at home, or on the go.
• Video:  You can create a video so that others can not only hear what you have to say, but see examples, or a step-by-step on how to do something.

The great thing about creating digital products is that you only have to create them once, and then you can sell them forever.  If you set it up right, it can all be done automatically.  This means that while you are sleeping, someone could buy your product and the product would be delivered right then to your customer.  When you wake up the next morning you will see the extra money in your account, and not have to do anything since everything was already done automatically!  By having your own product, you get all of the profits, instead of having to split them with someone else. 

If you are looking for an inexpensive way to earn money on the Internet, this is a great way.  You will need to pay for a domain name, and get hosting…but other then that, all the money you earn is pure profit.

A great way to make money on almost any website or blog you have is by using Google AdSense.

If you already have a blog or a website that gets traffic…but wish you could earn money with your website, Google AdSense is the perfect solution.  With Google AdSense, some ads that are related to your site will show up on any web pages you put them on.  Since the topics will be similar to your site, some of your visitors may be interested in the ads and click to visit the sites.  Whenever someone visits one of those sites, you will earn a little bit of money.  Over time, this can add up!

If you don’t have a website…it’s still not a problem.  Think of a topic that you are very passionate about, and create either a blog or content site.  If you give people good and helpful information, they will visit your site.  Once they are there and read what you have to say, they might be interested in visiting some of the sites on the ads.  Again, if they do, you will earn a little bit of money.

Another great thing is that you don’t even need to spend any money to create a site like this!  If you want to start a blog, you can go to blogger.com and create a blog for free.  You can then put AdSense on that, and then you are set.  You can have a blog that earns an income, and you didn’t even have to spend any money to do it!

Google AdSense is really a great way to monetize a site, especially when you don’t have anything to sell, but have some great information to share with the world.

Writing up that last post yesterday reminded me how much I now rely on one piece of free software - KeePass.  In KeePas, you enter all of your logins, passwords, and the URL’s that are associated with them.  It then makes it very easy when you come to a site you need to log into, you just double click on the login or password field, and it will copy the login or password to your clipboard for 10 seconds, giving you just enough time to paste it into your browser. 

Since almost everything has a login and website these days, there are a lot of passwords to remember!  Especially since you really shouldn’t re-use the same password over and over.  So it can be hard to remember 10 or more passwords.  With this program, you just have to remember the password to get into the program itself, and you’re set.  This is good though, because if someone uses your computer, they won’t be able to get into your password file. 

I really recommend this free software - especially if you belong to as many affiliate programs as I do!  It really makes things a lot easier.

When you are looking for a way to monetize your business, or even start one, why should you consider joining one or more affiliate programs? 

First let’s talk about what an affiliate program is.  Many times in business, when you help another person or company sell a product or service, they will give you a small percentage of the profit.  Basically, you get money for sending the business in their direction, since they would probably have not gotten the business if you hadn’t pointed the customer in that direction.  There are many companies that are more than happy to share their profits with you if you spread the word about their website.  You can become an affiliate of the company, and when someone buys something through your link, you will get a portion of the profits.

Now, you might be thinking…why would I want to help someone else sell a product, when I can make more money if I sell my own?  Here are a few reasons it can be very profitable to join affiliate programs:

• You don’t have to figure out a product to create, or spend the time doing research, designing, and creating the product.  You have already made products right there to promote!
• Many of these companies have spent countless dollars trying to figure out how to best market their products.  This benefits you since many times you can just use their advertising on your sites!  You have the use of these great advertisements without having to spend the time or money to get them created.
• Many affiliate programs are for companies you have heard of before.  Let’s be honest…do you think it will be easier to sell a product you created - when no one has ever heard of you, or a product from Target, Circuit City, Barnes & Noble, etc? 
• You will get many products and companies to promote at just the click of a button!  Then instead of just the one or two products you created, you can promote many products, in any categories you want. 
• It’s an easy way to make money off of a website you already have.  Do you have a site about your favorite hobby?  Well you can join an affiliate program for a company that makes products for your favorite hobby, and put them on your website.  Then, when other people who are passionate about the same hobby come visit your site, they may purchase these products.

It can be very profitable to join an affiliate program.  On Monday I’ll share with you some of the many affiliate programs that exist, and what I think about some of them! 

When you work at home, you might feel like you don’t have some of the same tools that people have at big businesses, because you aren’t willing to spend the money.  The truth is, there are many tools that can help you with your business that are free.  Here are some that can help you:

•  Vitalist - This is a great tool for helping you keep track of lists.  It will also let you divide the lists into different tasks and projects.  There is even a section for waiting on others, so you can put that in as well if you are waiting for someone to get back to you.
• TaDa List and Remember the Milk - These are two other list based programs.  Since everyone likes creating lists differently, you might like a different one of these then someone else might.
• BaseCamp - This is a project management tool.  It will let you keep track of lists, deadlines, and milestones.
• Google Calendar - This is an easy way to keep track of appointments.  You can even share this with others so they can see when you are free and when you have plans.  Since this is online, you will be able to see your appointments on any computer, even if you are not at home.
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets - If you don’t have Microsoft Office, but still want to use word processing and spreadsheet tools, this is a great option. 
• Pear Budget - This can help you with your budgeting and help you keep track of your business expenses.

There are many applications that you can find free versions of, so many times you don’t need to spend any money in order to get the tools that can help you with your business.

As you may know, Joel Comm’s Instant AdSense
Templates are the world’s most popular templates
and site building system, providing thousands of
smart internet entreprenuers with the tools and
resources they need to create revenue-generating
sites quickly.

And now, Joel has given me permission to provide
you with a free sample of his best-selling templates
that you can download instantly!

Download Here

Click that link and you will find a page with five
free gifts, courtesy or myself and Joel!

You don’t have to buy anything.

Just click the link and you will receive five brand
new niche website templates, ready for you to
customize and use!

Joel has included header graphics, a collection of private
label rights articles and five template sets in five
different formats so you can get started right away!

This is hundreds of dollars worth of brand new custom
templates that you are going to get for absolutely
nothing.

There’s no hook.  No catch.  No committment.  And you
may even get an opportunity to receive more templates
at the lowest price ever offered!

So click this link now and download your free
templates…

Download Here

NOTE: This generous offer will NOT stay live forever.   Joel told me it can be pulled at any time, so be sure you get it while you can!

If you want to start making money without spending a dime, this is a great way to start!!