Creating a Business in 5 Easy Steps

Many people, who decide to start a business, often have no idea where to begin or what steps to take. However, we’ve devised a set of 5 general steps that will set your business on a path to success. We will cover topics such as naming your business, obtaining web hosting, establishing a business space with an online fax service, legal structuring, and provide you tips on how to obtain more clients.

1. Your Businesses Name

The first impression your business will make on the public is its name. When future business owners sit down to create their business name, they often spend too much time trying to come up with the perfect name. This is a mistake. It’s not necessary to spend a lot of time on this because it can always be changed in the future. Just make sure that your business name is unique, easy to spell, and has a simple pronunciation.

2. Getting a Domain Name

Once you have your business name, setting up a website is a good idea.  To setup your website, you will need to have a domain name.  Ideally, your domain should be the name of your business or something that tells people what you do.  Once you have a domain name, you should go to a web-hosting site and check for availability.  If the name is available, then you should look at any additional customizations that you want to add to your domain.  For example, some of these customizations can include bandwidth, private registration, and variations of the domain.  After you fully customize your domain, simply pay and the domain becomes your “web property”.

3. Setting Up Your Business Space

Once you have the domain and the website is in development, you need to start setting up your business space.  To setup your business space properly, you will need a business phone line, a business address, and a business fax number.  When first starting a business, many people setup their personal and business space as one.  This is fine, but if you ever want to move or separate the business from the personal then you may have some problems. The most common examples include business document reprinting, legal document editing, and client information loss. In addition to the physical space, you will need a virtual space. More specifically, your business will need to setup an email inbox. There are two ways to do this. You can go to a free email website such as Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail. The other option is to direct your emails to your web-hosting site.

4. Forming a Limited Liability Company

When you thought about starting a business, you probably thought briefly about legal protection and benefits. One of the most common business legal structure that people choose is a Limited Liability Company (LLC). Some of the benefits of becoming an LLC include favorable tax treatment and limited liability.  When your company becomes an LLC, it’s eligible for an Employer Identification Number, which allows you to open a business bank account, take out a loan, and buy insurance.  There are other legal structures that may fit your needs better than an LLC. These structures include sole proprietorships, limited partnerships, general partnerships, and corporations.

5. Networking

Every new business must work hard to get clients.  A strategy that is used by many people is email marketing.  To do this type of marketing, you can get an email marketing service like GetResponse or MailChimp.  The prices will vary depending on what you want.  It’s recommended that you compare a few services before you buy, so that you may receive the best service for the best price.

After you have worked through these 5 easy steps, you should be set on a path that will allow your business to flourish and become successful.

The Easiest Way to Make Money Online

This is a post by contributing author Bamboo Forest.

I’ve been blogging for a couple years now and except for a few affiliate sales from ads, consulting is the only way I’ve made any money from blogging.

Ways to make money that might make you cry

If you told me that to make money I’d have to build websites, acquire thousands of emails for my list, have a hundred thousand monthly unique visitors for Google ads, or write an amazing eBook that must compete with the zillions of other eBooks already on the market, I’d cry.

I’m not saying you can’t use the above methods to make serious money. But these methods are some of the most difficult ones with the steepest competition.

There’s just got to be a better, more immediate way to make money from blogging.

And there is.

Method to make money that won’t make you cry

To be a consultant all you need is a website and a PayPal account.

I’ve recently become a consultant through a website called Email Life Coach. This site is an extension of one of my blogs.

People hire me to help them with their life issues.

I reasoned that there are zillions of life coaches out there, but how many email life coaches are there? After all, there are definitely people who don’t feel comfortable chatting on the phone but still want advice for their life. And I decided to fulfill that demand in a compelling and elegant way.

And while I haven’t gotten rich from this business yet, I’ve certainly made far more money than anything I’ve ever done online to date.

What kind of consultant you could become

For starters, there needs to be a demand for the kind of consulting work you want to begin. Other than that, the sky’s the limit.

You could consult others on how to improve their copy and tweak their site so they get more subscribers.

You could consult people regarding their relationship issues.

You could consult people on how to make it in Hollywood.

You could teach people Japanese.

The possibilities are endless and it’s up to you to find something that’s in demand that could gain you profit.

It goes without saying that your blog needs to be focused on the subject you’re going to consult on. Your blog will act as a funnel to your business.

What mediums you can use to consult

The number of mediums you can currently use is really exciting.

You could be as simple and low tech as I am and use email.

Or you could do something more sophisticated such as making a client a YouTube video or chatting with them online and using a camera so you both can see each other face to face.

There is even software available now where your client can see everything on your computer, which could work well for tutoring or teaching web design.

What’s required to consult successfully

While it’s really easy to start a consulting business, you can’t be mediocre at what you do and expect to get lots of customers or repeat business. Trying to do the aforementioned just isn’t honest when people are paying you money.

I don’t recommend you put a ‘Hire Me” on your blog until you feel completely confident that you can offer what your service will advertise.

For example, I read a book that I found particularly helpful multiple times before I started my Email Life Coaching service because I knew I needed to become more knowledgeable about personal-development before I could help people on a higher level.

How to set your price

I recommend that when you’re starting out you keep your rates low. The reason for this is twofold:

1. When starting out you have zero experience, and you’ll get better at consulting as you go. In the early stages you’re not qualified to ask for a higher fee.

2. Having a lower fee will help get your business rolling. Get enough business and do a good enough job and word of mouth will soon become your ally.

Why consulting is so enticing for potential customers

Because nothing beats the allure of personal attention.

For example, if you read an eBook, as amazing as it may be, it’s covering a subject as a whole and not being laser focused on your specific needs.

But when people hire a consultant they’re getting their exact concerns catered to.

You always hear A-List bloggers say that you need to solve people’s problems if you want your blog posts to go viral. Well, as a consultant, you’re in the business of doing nothing but solving people’s problems and in the most intimate way possible.

The down side of consulting

While consulting is the easiest way to make money, it’s not without challenge.

Daniel has already made the point that selling anything online is difficult and selling consulting is no exception.

Consulting is not the kind of profit model where you can make money in your sleep. On the contrary, with consulting, any money you make is the result of you working directly with a customer which is time consuming.

While you by no means need a popular blog to make money with consulting, you do need to have some kind of an audience. Having a strong presence in the search engines can also help you find clients. Additionally, consider having a YouTube channel to showcase your knowledge which can help you tap into an even greater audience and more potential customers.

Tips to help your consulting business thrive

Always give a money back guarantee. When offering a full money back guarantee you’re removing a huge barrier to entry. Potential customers will feel secure that if they hire you and aren’t satisfied with your service, they can easily get their money back.

Since I’ve launched my email life coaching service I haven’t had a single person ask for a refund. I doubt I would have had any business at all had I not offered a full money back guarantee.

Think about it… would you hire someone you’ve never worked with if you knew that even if you had a terrible experience you could never get your money back?

I wouldn’t.

It has been said in the business world that you make most of your money with repeat customers. It requires significant effort to find new customers, and much less effort to maintain the customers you already have.

You should reward repeat customers with a discount to promote repeat business.

Currently I charge 35 dollars for new clients and just 30 dollars for repeat clients for my month of change package.

If you’ve been trying for a long while to make money from blogging and haven’t seen much more than a few dollars trickle in, maybe it’s time to give consulting a try.

About the Author: Bamboo Forest is a professional Email Life Coach, helping people work on something in their life over the course of a month through email.

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Writing Content Rich Articles with Powerful Anchor Text

Every business has a customer base. And the job of writing web content for this customer base is often a daunting task, particularly if the business is a specialty or niche business. Who are the customers and what are they looking for? What do they want to spend? How do they want to acquire the product or service? Do they want to buy online or simply just do research? These are just a few of the questions web marketers need to ask before diving into content creation.

Niche business web content should shoot to answer those questions or cater to revealing the answers, all while influencing the reader with a call to action (“Buy this product, use this service!”) Doing research on who will be visiting the site, who might potentially end up there by accident, and what their needs and wants are can help direct the content strategy.

Intermix Useful Advice with Your Own Backlinks

A very effective way to create content for a niche business is to build a value-added blog, intermixing useful tips and advice with links back to the store or website. For example, an office furniture company may post a useful “3 Tips for Buying File Cabinets” article to their blog, then hyperlink popular search phrases like “fireproof filing cabinets,” “office storage,” or “lateral files” to the products they have to offer. The reader clicks on these terms, is brought to the business’ website, and, once there, hopefully looks around, working through the different categories of product offerings, whether they realize they need those items or not. The results can be a new customer, new referral or, at the very least, increased traffic to the business’ site.

As with any website, using key words and search terms in product category headers is key as well. In the instance of a furniture company, using the generic term “chairs” would not be as effective as using “office chairs,” “ergonomic chairs,” or “used office chairs.” Being as descriptive as possible without narrowing the term to the point of being non- searchable is important. It’s a balancing act, and becomes easier with experience.

Think Like a Customer When Writing Your Content

While writing targeted copy can seem perplexing and confusing, it’s really not difficult. Remember to keep the potential customers’ needs in mind, consider what and how they might be thinking and develop useful content around those ideas. Pepper your content with links to the business’ website or products, and strive write “notice-me” content that will get plenty of social media attention. This strategy is sure to help increase site visits…and hopefully business!

This guest post was written by Liberty Kontranowski, a freelance writer with hundreds of articles published online and in print. She regularly writes content for a business which specializes in cubicles and discount office cubicles.

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How Does Personal Branding Fit in With Your Business?

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Have you taken the time to sit down and decide what your business really is? Most people never really think about it on the level that I want to share with you today. Ask any business person, whether online or offline, and most will tell you their business is delivering information, or a product or a service. These are things you do in your business but your real business is you. You are your business. If people don’t like you or feel compelled to buy from you, then you really have no business. And it may be time to figure out why it is people aren’t buying from you. Maybe you have a great product, but if customers aren’t drawn to you for some reason, they will never know about your great product or service.

In many cases you need to sell yourself before you can sell your product or service. You do this by branding yourself. You also need to brand your business entity, but it’s just as important to brand yourself. I’ve ran across several marketers with personal brandings; the mostly sane marketer, the sweetie marketer, the sassy marketer (my own personal brand.) These are titles you remember and makes it easy to find in a search. You may not remember which product or service they offer, but if you can remember their personal brand, you can find their information real quick. You need a personal brand to sell yourself. If you can’t sell yourself, chances are you can’t sell a product or service either.

The second thing you should realize is that your business is a people business. It’s people who are looking for your information and become customers. If you’re not getting up-front and personal with your audience or target market, it’s likely they will find someone else who they can relate to on a personal level.

We all have days that we post to our blogs or websites and leave out our personality, but if you want to continually reach your audience you need to give them something to keep coming back for. Information is great and content is king, but customers are looking for a more personal experience these days. Many businesses, especially brick and mortar businesses, have forgotten about the personal experience with their customers.

I purchase a lot of information and content from online sources. I look for high quality materials but I also purchase from people who have marketed themselves with a great personality. I look at how they’ve branded themselves as much as I do at the quality of their product or service.

If you’ve left personal branding out of your business model, it may be time to go back to the drawing board and inject yourself into your business plans.

What have you learned about how personal branding affects your online business? Does it make a difference? Please share your thoughts and opinions.

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The Times They Are A Changin’…Again

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People who do business on the Internet or actually run a company in cyberspace soon get used to the idea that what’s the norm one week will crumble and blow away like dust the next. There are no other traditional values on the web except for maybe the fact that the only way to get really good leverage with any search engine optimization techniques or other kinds of advertising you use is with good content.

For those of you who think I’m just harping on and on or promoting my own services, I can still rest my case with the recent article that was forwarded to me from dmwmedia.com. It seems that Google has fresh plans to crack down on low-quality content and just general spam that brings down the overall opinion of text that gets written on the Internet.

“We have seen a slight uptick of spam in recent months, and while we’ve already made progress, we have new efforts underway to continue to improve our search quality,” Matt Cutts, a principal engineer at Google wrote.

That means once again that you’re going to need professional content and an expert at the helm who knows how to couch and link proper keywords around text to entice your readers to take action and be driven in the direction you want them to go. There’s little doubt now that the Internet after 10 years has become a viable form of commerce and the people who write for it on a continual basis have been at the forefront of the burgeoning industry.

However there are more changes on the horizon than just with what gets written and these include the vehicles that will be the predominant way you see content. Recent statistics point to the fact that there are 234 million Americans using mobile devices and a study by Deloitte also points to the fact that the PC isn’t  the only kid on the block anymore when it comes to IT devices that get  the message out.

The applications industry  proves  the point as well with the Apple App Store, Nokia Ovi Store, Google Android Market and BlackBerry App World all doing brisk business . The Google Android Market has grown six times to about 130,000 applications that  are available on the market today.

It all means that mobile advertising will become even more of a must in the coming year than it has been before. Getting the word out on the goods and services that you’ve got for sale will mean that you’ll need to be acquainted with this technology because even business heavyweights like Deloitte are predicting that the tablet will replace the PC soon as the preferred method to get information for executives on the go.

It shouldn’t come as a shock that the times they are a changin’ again and if you want to stay ahead of that ever shifting and bending technology curve so you can get to the clients you need to, you’ll need to get good content and the latest mobile applications working together.

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Corporate Blogging Insights From C-Suite

Corporate blogs (and blogging in general) get run through the ringer of “Is it a dead art?” to “It’s essential for online success!” and all stops in between. Many fear blogging due to concerns about time, risk / reward, exposure and the list goes on.

eMarketer brings us a corporate some insights from a survey done by Blog2Print (an interesting idea, btw). Here are the reasons why big companies blog according to CMO’s.

The most prominent reason might well have been named “If you can’t beat’em, join’em”. When you say that you are essentially “giving in” to do this then you wonder just how sincere or genuine the effort will be moving forward. I think it is safe to say that if there is passion behind a blog the chances of success through reaching the other goals desired goes up exponentially. But hey, it’s not often we confuse Fortune 1000 companies with passionate companies is it?

As for the attributes of what makes a corporate blog a success? Well, they seem to be a little more in tune on this one.

In the end, it is true that part of the cost of doing business today is having a business blog. It’s the expectations around the blog that are what need to be examined or even taught to most business people. The ‘build it and they will come’ approach (referred to here as the Filed of Dreams Method) doesn’t fly. The “Let’s make this a pure sales vehicle’ approach is obvious and unattractive.

What most markters should be concentrating on is the entire ecosystem of the online space that the blog is a part of (Oh brother, did I just type that?). In plain English, it’s just a part of the bigger puzzle. It’s a way to get links, it’s a channel to get some play in the social media world and it’s just another way to simply do business.

Is a corporate blog a requirement for success? I would say not. It is a requirement, however, for greater success in the digital business world we all live in today.

Your thoughts?

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Big Good Tips From A Little Book And Other Stuff

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There’s lots of advice for writers out there today—books on how to write and what to write about, where to submit your work and how to get your literary foot in the front door when you want to be published. Some of the advice you can get is helpful and some is just thinly disguised advertising designed to get you to buy something someone has to sell.

It all comes around full circle in the end to a little book that I got way back in the day when we worked on typewriters and smoked in newsrooms. The Elements of Style by William Struck and E.B. White is a timeless manual for anyone that wants to be a writer because it is clear and concise and it tells you what you need to know about expressing yourself with the written word and leaves out what you don’t need.

And that brings me to other stuff. Has anyone else been following the social  media trending that been going on lately? I just read a study from the business experts at Deloitte that said while a fair percentage of new and forward thinking business is looking into social media, a large percentage still don’t understand what it’s all about and what kind of ROI they can expect on their investment. That makes me wonder if this is a real tool for business to use or just a fad that will slip from prominence eventually.

From a seo standpoint, Facebook or Twitter can drive traffic to your site but you need to be aware of the fact that these social media sites don’t work with keywords and links in the same manner that traditional seo does. Still, if enough people are talking about these sites being the next big thing, then they are bound to be some kind of self fulfilling prophecy in the sense that business will continue to flock to them regardless of their seo effectiveness.

So all that brings things back full circle. Regardless of whether you want to write for the social media or the seo world, you need to know how to write well. The medium doesn’t really matter in the end, it’s the message that counts. So here’s a few more techniques that you can use to make sure that your words attract attention.

Self editing always helps. I’ve just read an article that says you should read aloud when you’re proofing and only use a spell checker as a first screening. Remember too that Less is More. Usually the best way to write something is with the fewest words

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Watching Out For Shoddy Business Practices

Anyone that works on the Internet will be able to tell you that while there are virtually limitless business possibilities available for writers and bloggers, there are also a lot of people who do shoddy business on the web and are out to take your work away or pay you nothing for it.

Last year I noticed there were more than a few of these snake oil salesmen out there and even though I’ve learned over the years a few things to avoid, sometimes your only recourse is to cut your losses and start looking for another client when one of these people cross your path.

Hired Guns Without Any Bullets

Although it’s not always the case and you should not take this piece of advice as gospel, it’s quite often true when a company or individual you are working for hires some kind of a consultant or editor to oversee your work, it’s a red flag. Just this past year I lost a lucrative contract in Toronto to somebody whose resume reads like he might be a programmer or a comic book aficionado or some combination of the two, but I didn’t see him as qualified to take over the social media and blogging he did. That happened as soon as I’d got the blogs running for the firm in a professional way. Watch out for these hired guns. They don’t want qualified writers hanging around but they like to learn from you.

That brings me to another point concerning social media and the less than qualified hackers who come along and often convince business owners they can get them the traffic and Google rankings they are looking for. Social media is the latest thing in Internet advertising if only because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy but it certainly attracts a fair share of people who convince naïve business owners that it’s worth a lot of their hard-earned money. It is, in a way, but unfortunately it has also become the domain of a bunch of scammers who charge exorbitant amounts of money for maintenance on Facebook or Twitter that’s really a lot more affordable when they use a professional writer.

Sample Sorrows

I’d like to be able to sit on the mountaintop and tell anyone who’s ever written a sample blog or article and then never got paid for it, ‘I told you so’ but I’ve fallen prey to the same creeps who ask for these samples and then take off with your work. Here’s a great way to get around those prospects who ask for 200 to 400 words on a subject to ‘test’ your skills:

• Make sure you have some samples on your website. Understandably, that could be hard since you’re more than likely ghostwriting and the client wants to adopt your work as their own, but there are usually smaller clients who don’t mind you using your work or at least a link to it. Then anyone who wants a sample can be directed to your website.
• If you’re just starting out and don’t have a good resume yet, the best thing you can do is get the right contact information from the client to check their credibility. Ask for a telephone number and give them a call over Skype or the other VOIP system you use to make sure they have nothing to hide and look for something more than just an email address for contact information.

The Internet is like any other business in that you’ll meet all kinds. While an overwhelming majority of your clients will be upstanding people who pay on time, you do need to be on guard for others who use questionable practices.

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How I Use My Blog as a Fulcrum and You Can Too

Every now and then the “a blog is not a business” meme will come around again. Each time someone will challenge me about it.

Look, I agree. A blog is no more a business than a book is a business if you want to be strict about it. But why does it matter?

Rather than worry about definitions, let’s understand what is really important.

• Can a blog make enough money to provide an income? Yes. Blogging is the source of my income.
• Is blogging a route to earning an income long term? Yes. I have been doing this full time since 2005 and I earned a side income before then.
• Will every blog or blogger make an income? No, many bloggers do not even try, and many fail just as many businesses fail.

But what about that blog versus business thing? It isn’t going to go away so what is it really about?

A blog used for business is a means to an end. The blog is not the business but it does fuel a business.

Just as a really good business can be built around a magazine (just ask Felix Dennis) a successful blog can be the engine behind a decent business like mine if you get a lot of things right even if you make a bunch of mistakes (and I do, constantly).

Most of you will already be aware that my approach is indirect monetization, making money because I blog rather than from it necessarily. I make money more “business to business”, sharing my knowledge and experience to grow an audience of people who know like and trust me. I call it “Authority Blogging“. Darren is pretty much the poster child for the other kind of blog income, direct monetization, but as you will see if you check out his more recent income reports, even though he still makes a significant amount of profit from things like Adsense, his approaches to making an income are becoming more and more indirect.

How my business makes money

If we look at my income from last year it comes down to this list. I don’t share amounts, that’s just something I don’t do, but it has always added up to enough so far and I hope it continues.

1. Programming, site build and web development – These are the things I started out doing in the early 1990′s but I mostly stopped doing in 2o10. I still get called on to do this occasionally but I just don’t have time and there are a lot more cost competitive people out there.
2. Consulting, mentoring and coaching – My face to face consulting ended last summer when I traveled down to work with Darren. I cancelled my appointments and dropped the bombshell that I was moving to Canada right after Blogworld. That could have gone better but I still do remote consulting and coaching. While most friends and productivity gurus prod me to stop “selling my hours”, I love client contact and the grounding in reality this gives me. I would hate to be working in a theoretical world, I need my ideas to be tested in real world projects. Coaching is incredibly rewarding when you see your clients make progress and grow their freedom, lifestyle and businesses.
3. Speaking and training – People are often shocked to find out a shy introvert like me enjoys teaching and speaking. Speaking to large groups does scare me, but I get a kick out of passing on experience and knowledge. Hopefully I can do more workshops and speaking in 2011 now we are starting to settle into our new location. With speaking you can get paid directly or indirectly, just like blogging. Recently I got more serious about not being taken advantage of and making sure I got compensated for expenses, time and opportunity costs associated with all the preparation and travel involved. With training there are workshops where people pay for a ticket and tailored where a company pays for you to come and teach. The only workshop I was involved in for 2010 was the Melbourne Problogger workshop which was great, but wasn’t really intended to be a big money maker. Online events are a growing source of income, though.
4. Digital Products – The way I do my own digital products is labor intensive to set up but provides an almost passive income after the fact. There are also affiliate sales, though I don’t really do a lot of that because I focus on only recommending products that I can stand behind. Increasingly this category is becoming a priority source of income. It was the thing that kept the business running for the latter half of 2010, and has helped a lot in the past with family health crises and other occasions where I couldn’t work for any significant time period. While I have had some lovely clients who have been very understanding, even so you don’t want to have to rely on loyalty and generosity to keep your business afloat. Having an income detached from working hours is a life saver.
5. Writing – In the past writing used to be a major source of my income, but now it is vastly reduced. Partly because of the “selling hours” thing which is always difficult when you don’t have many hours to sell, but also because I pulled out of all the niches that didn’t contribute to my core communities. As well as time spent writing there is also all the time keeping current in all the many subject areas you are writing for. Something has to give. I haven’t written for a print magazine for a long time now, and apart from a chapter for a social media book, the Problogger second edition was my last book in print. I do enjoy writing, I just need to find a way to fit it back into my business workflow.

You will notice I do not list how I make money from ads. I have made money from ads in the past. I’m trying to think if I made any in 2010. It’s not really my approach to online income.

For the first time 2010 saw me not make any money from software or online services. In fact as of December 2010 I don’t currently have any continuity income. Also in 2010 I didn’t have any physical product sales. These are things I aim to fix in 2011.

The WHY behind the HOW

Why I can make money this way is more important than the how in my opinion.

This brings me to the point of this article.

My blog is the source of my income. What I build here with this blog is the trust of an engaged audience and enough authority to offer advice, products and services.

I don’t need massive traffic to earn a living, just to attract the people who want what I can offer and are serious enough to invest in my solutions. This means I don’t spend all my time writing blog posts, I work on my business and blogging is part of that. Go back a few years ago I had the tiniest of lists but I provided a good enough experience and my customers got results so that my business grew.

Blogging has helped me grow my network which has lead to terrific opportunities and joint ventures. I would blog if this was the only benefit I saw.

Rather than pitch, cold-call, write proposals and suchlike, I create content that attracts the right people, I share that content and interact, and I build community and participate in others. Some of these activities are me doing a whole bunch of work for free but I believe you get back what you give. That’s not the whole story though. If you take another look at my income streams you will see a bunch of things I do where I am getting paid to publicise my blog.

With a small amount of effort I can produce big results. My blog is a fulcrum.

The secret is to blog strategically.

Summary

Blogs are not the only answer. Before blogs people still had similar businesses, perhaps built through being an author, working the speaking circuit and newsletters. Blogs allow me to do all that but in addition call on more modern tools and online communities.

Spend some time thinking about how what you do fits into your business. Are your activities attracting customers or are they distractions from what you should be doing.

How does blogging fit into your business? Are you seeing results? Do you have plans for 2011? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments …

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Your Biggest Investment: Time and Dedication

One of the biggest problems we see when trying to teach and motivate others to make money online or start their own business, is that they won’t put in the time and effort. Usually it’s because their either too lazy and not dedicated, or just expect to see immediate results…. but why should you expect immediate results? Whether you run a retail store or a web site, business is business and the same principles always apply, you need a solid structure and plan to make anything work.

In times like these, a situation many of us have gone through, is furthering our education. How many of us will go to college for two, four or even eight to twelve years… then graduate, just to try and pay off the debt from the last several years for the remainder of our career, and maybe even lives? Imagine the amount of success individuals could have if they put this same work and effort into starting/running their own business or online marketing campaigns, as they had for college.

You can’t simply walk into a high paying career right after high school and expect a job, and running a business should be looked at the same way. College is a very expensive way of investing in yourself and planning for the future. The truth is, students graduating from college, now have more debt than ever. A recent report shows students graduating from college are now leaving with over $20,000 in debt. Double or even triple that number for higher education such as Masters and PHDs…

Am I saying college is a waste of money and time? No, but a great majority of affiliates and internet marketers have passed on college and even dropped out to bigger and better things. It’s take a certain mentality and drive to be successful in business, but those dame principles can be applied to anything you try and achieve. The point I’m trying to make, is that whether you are aiming to work for a fortune 500 company, or run you own business, they all require the necessary mindset and time/work investment to reach your goals.

Anyone who says money doesn’t make life easier is lying. Money is great, but your time and dedication is the difference between getting to where you want to be versus where you are headed.

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Does Your Business Card Leave a Lasting Impression?

What makes a good business card stand out from the crowd? Last week I wrote an article on my blog over about “How to Create a Memorable Business Card“. The point of the article was the let your mind get creative and to come up with a really unique idea for your next business card. After all, once you leave from a conference or networking session and have a bunch of business cards in your pocket from everyone you met, most of the time these are just thrown into a box and never looked at again. Should someone look through their business cards one more time before never seeing them again, wouldn’t you like them to stop on your card and say “wow, that’s really cool. I would like to know more about this person.“. It may not happen all the time, but having a lasting impression is priceless.

Today I went to get a car wash, and when I went inside to pay, I saw they had a huge board for local businesses and people to post their business cards. I looked over the board and most of the cards were very generic and nothing really stood out when look at the board as a whole. Most cards were white, a few had logos and even less had an actual picture of the person it was for.

Having a business card that really stands out and grabs attention would be a perfect example here. I’m sure 50 to 100 people pass this board every day and maybe glance at it for a second, and the chance of having one of these cards stand out from the crowd is slim to none.

What are some ideas you have, or might have seen for making a business card stand out from the crowd?

PrintRunner Business Card Winners Announced

Last month we held a contest for BloggingTips.com readers to win a free set of business cards from PrintRunner.com. The winners have been selected and posted below.

SELECTED WINNERS
———————————–
Mark – theappgeek.com
Kevin – myeatclub.com
Jacque – stanwoodplayschool.com
Benjamin – epiclaunch.com
Kevin – financiallypoor.com

If you were one of the lucky winners, please reply (using the email you entered/left a comment with) with your full contact information and using the contact form on this site. Thanks for entering!

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How to Create a Memorable Business Card

After you leave a conference or meet with anyone that might lead to future business, your business card is the gateway for future contact and how you will be remembered. It’s important to have an exciting, professional and creative business card. The majority of business cards that are collected after a conference are thrown into a box and never looked at again. However, if you make a killer business card, you and your business are that much more likely to be remembered. Here are a few ideas and notes to remember for your next business card design.

1.) Use Your Real Picture or Memorable Logo
Personally, I have the big Zac Johnson cartoon guy on all of my business cards. It’s actually become quite a recognizable logo/symbol over the years. For anyone that doesn’t have a memorable mascot or logo, I would highly recommend adding your picture to your business card. I know when I come back from a conference and look over my business cards, I will see a few and remember the name, but not the face to go with it. Having your face on your business card makes it impossible for anyone to forget who you are!

2.) Add Social Networking Links
No longer is it about adding your full company mailing address, but instead what your social networking links and tags are. It’s becoming a must to your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn urls. My favorite method of online contact is through AIM and EMAIL, so don’t forget those as well.

3.) What’s On Your Back?
Having a solid white background on your business card is just plain and lazy. Why pass up on the opportunity to grab even more attention and creativity to your business. Over the years I’ve used the back of my business cards to show different site properties that I own. I’ve also seen other business cards have calendars, fun designs, funny athlete stats and note pad lines. Add anything you like, and don’t be scared to get creative… do something original and get even more attention for yourself and your brand.

4.) Size Matters
When you are collecting business cards at a conference, you may find that your little stack of business cards aren’t stacking so perfectly. This is because people are getting more creative with their business cards and making them in a wide variation of sizes. Sure, it’s plenty annoying when you are trying to stack all of your collected cards, but they definitely stand out from the rest and grab your attention.

5.) Paper, Plastic… Metal!
You can simple, creative or very plan with your card design, but one of the best ways to get noticed is to have high quality business cards made out of metal or plastic. These cards can run a few dollars each, but will leave a lasting impression that will make others want to show your cards to their friends. If cost is an issue for you, only hand out these premium type of cards to your best potential contacts, and hand out your regular cards to everyone else.

Whether you are designing your next business cards, brochures, company flyers or anything, make sure that you take the time to make your work stand out and be more than just another business card tossed into a box after an event.

Feel free to share your business card design in the comments section, or talk about some of the coolest business card designs you’ve received over the years.

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