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Good day to everyone, and I hope that each of you made the most of last week and weekend to spend time with family and friends vs. in front of the computer. I know I did. On the 4th, a few friends and I managed to go out to the lakes and enjoy the beautiful sunny day and nice weather. I got to brush up on my kayaking skills (by that I mean I have no skills, so anything is an improvement). Needless to say, I didn’t get sun burned thanks to some SPF 50 :). Overall it was a lot of fun, and I wish every weekend this summer was like that.

Over the past two weeks, blogging for me has slowed as I have been working on other projects. Don’t worry, I will be back on track very shortly as the dust settles a bit, but until then I am making the most of the nice weather.

HBO series on John Adams

I rented the 3 disc HBO series about one of America’s founding fathers and 2nd president of the United States. If you have never seen the series, I would highly recommend watching it. I do not think I could have picked a better time to watch that series with the 4th of July in full swing and remembering our (America’s) stand against tyranny. It is not often that a country and government is formed conscientiously (prior to wars and coups). The best part of the series if recognizing that our founding fathers were no more perfect as humans than any of us today. Experience History.

Have a happy 4th, and I hope everyone blew things up responsibly.

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This last two weeks have been quite busy for me and my business. It would seem that everything happens about the same time and for that I am thankful. I have secured a number of contracts with local businesses and have a  few more pending. As I was remembering everyone who has commented on this blog, I felt like listing everyone on a page dedicated to my supporters. I will be updating the page as new people become a part of the Unconventional Marketing blog. Some may recall that I did a post similar to this a little while ago, here. I really would like to keep the list updated and more accessible for visitors to find. All it takes to get listed on the Supporters page is to comment or guest post on this blog, starting with guest posters.

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Over the last few days I have been running a series on how to make the lifestyle change to working online. Here is part 1, part 2 and part 3.

The hardest part about making the switch from, say, a traditional 9-5 job to working for yourself online, is the ability to stick with projects and even more importantly, letting them go. Since starting out online, I have participated no less than 10 different ways of making money online over a 6-month period. I have made money or broken even on pretty much everything, but the downside was the amount of time invested in some of these ideas. Nothing beats the time when I planned on writing and promoting ebooks. I wrote wrote and wrote, only to discover I really didn’t want to do that type of work. It was too labor intensive on the front end and there were no guarantees on making any money from the ebooks themselves.

Think of your bottom line and how much time it is worth in order to earn that money. If you spend a lot of time just to earn a little return, you are fighting a losing battle. On the other hand, if you have to spend 100 hours without seeing any profit in order to make much larger returns, that is the better deal. Most of successful work online involves more front end work and higher rewards after the time, energy and effort are put in. This is why most make money online schemes don’t work, because they promise the returns before the effort. Rarely is this ever true. Like I said in the earlier posts, there is no magic bullet. The key is determining when to hold onto those projects and goals as they start costing you more money and time than you had planned or anticipated for. For me, I like to make a plan and return to that plan even if it is just mentally to reassess where I am at in the process. If I feel directionless and unmotivated, it is probably because I have strayed from my original plan or I am realizing the cost benefit ratio is changing.

I really don’t have a set guide for when to drop a project and when to keep it. I spent about 1 year working on an ebook site to help unpublished authors and ended up putting the idea on the shelf. That was a really hard thing for me to do, especially after all the work and time invested. Fortunately, I had only invested a tiny sum of money into the project, mostly due to the limited budget. The project could have easily cost me a lot. It was a hard choice to tuck the idea away, knowing it would probably never see the light of day again, but I had a couple quiet secessions with myself. I really dug deep and asked if that project was something I really wanted to pursuit, or did I want to cut my losses while they were still minimal and move on? I chose the latter and have been thankful ever since.

On the reverse side, I made the choice to stick to my guns and pursuit other ideas that have paid off much more in the long run. It is a hard choice to stick with a dream as you are watching your bank account dip into the double digits territory and just hope that some of the auctions you have on eBay are enough to carry you through til things pan out. It was slowly becoming a reality that I might have to pick up a part-time job to make sure I was able to pay my bills. Just for future reference, potatoes are $.67 a pound, hard not to be able to eat when some food is that cheap. I truly loved what I was pursuing and was going to stick with it until the last possible second. After being humbled by an extremely tight budget fit for a college student it did not take much to feel rich. This is why it is so important to be doing something you really love and would do even without pay. When times get hard, that desire to continue on will be the driving force to carry you through. What separates most successful people from others is the ability to make it through the dip, because I can promise you there will be dips when you start to question your sanity.

If you have forgotten what sunlight looks like it, might be time to reconsider how much effort you are putting into your project. I made the decision to have the freedom and lifestyle that working online allowed. Recently, I made a trip to visit and help family for 3 weeks, and nothing changed as far as my business was concerned. In fact, I saw a slight boom in business while away. This is not always the case, depending on the kind of work you have chosen or are preparing to choose online. My goal was not to choose a line of work that I had to babysit on a regular basis but rather work that molded to my desires and lifestyle goals. Lifestyle design is a really important aspect of choosing what online ventures you pursuit. If you are interested in lifestyle design, I highly recommend Tim Ferriss’s 4 Hour Work Week.

Having determination and a love for what you are doing is vital for making it through the rough times when things are highly uncertain. I lived off of about $800-900 a month for a few months in order to realize my dream of working online and the flexibility it brings. This is another reason to have a financial buffer while you make the switch. My reasoning of quitting my job and jumping in head first was to force myself to really work from day 1 at making money. I made a sign and posted it right above my computer that read “will this make you money?” For me, it was sink or swim, because there was no way I was going to return to my previous job, and I was willing to do anything to avoid another job just like it. This was not the easiest way to make the switch and being young without many liabilities aided in my ability to approach my new career this way. I would highly recommend for anyone else thinking of making the switch to really analyze your situation and make the proper preparations to ensure your success. Mostly, that involves saving a lot of money or phase out the old job while phasing in your new career as it becomes more profitable.

I can’t encourage you enough to pursuit your dreams, whatever they are. The neatest thing about those dreams and the things that you love is you can make good money doing what you would do for free for a friend. The biggest thing is asking the right questions and really targeting the people you most want to work with. I love helping small businesses because I can relate with so many of them and their desire to succeed in what they do. I get a sense of reward and accomplishment watching others succeed and knowing I was able to assist them in their efforts.

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This is the third post in the series on how to make the switch from your 9-5 job to full-time work online. Part 1 and Part 2 here.

I know everyone wants the magic bullet or the secret elixir to making money online, and the truth is I don’t have it. The most I can do is tell you what I have done and the things not to do in order to make the switch. The best part about not being able to tell you how to make your money online is that it will not limit you in your pursuit to do so. The sky is the limit and when you find your niche you’ll watch your business returning more than you ever thought possible. I don’t have to remind, but the Internet can deliver more customers to your business than being located in the most expensive and trafficked intersection in downtown Manhattan. Here are four lessons to keep in mind while discovering your calling online. Hopefully they will reduce the bumps along the way.

First:

Wait before you act. I am sure most of you were like me and discovered how some others were making their money online and decided to do the same exact thing in order to make some cash. You have to give yourself a breathing period before you act on those urges and more importantly before you spend money. Here is a simple rule: For every $100 you are about to spend, wait a day. The average wage is about $10 an hour and $100 is roughly 1 days worth of work. Before you spend that money on something, ask yourself if it will help you in your quest to making money online. Wait, think about it for a day, then if you still think it is a good idea, go for it. Even if that idea doesn’t pan and make you money back, you had the time to properly analyze the information and hopefully did a little more research and soul seeking. You’ll be surprised how much money you will save when you employ this tactic of waiting.

I love to read both online and offline and when I get into the mode of one idea or another I want to jump on it while it is fresh and seize the day. This is particularly dangerous online because of all of the information and plethora of ideas available from all sorts of people who claim to have made it big online with whatever technique they are promoting. Don’t forget they got rich promoting those ideas and encouraging that “I can do anything” emotion.

Second:

Ask for someone else’s opinion. When I say most of my friends and family don’t know what I do online, I mean it, they don’t. The reason for them not understanding what I do is simply because their generation was not immersed in the age of the Internet like my generation was. But business is business and marketing is marketing both on and offline. I know there are a lot of different techniques, but the basic principles hold true in both worlds. Before you set out to make your millions online, tell someone else how you plan on doing that. On top of telling them, ask for their opinion and listen. More often than not, you will have to explain things like you are talking to a 5th grader, not in disrespect but in order to bring understanding of what it is you are planning on doing. If it is a get rich quick scheme or sounds to good to be true, you will probably see that in your discussion. Listen and heed those warnings. Don’t get defensive with question after question. A one-hour discussion with another person can save you hundreds of hours of work and more importantly wasting your time. The Internet is full of ways to make money online, but if you can’t name one person who has done that to make money, it is probably because no one else has.

Third:

Develop a leather skin. I know after that last point you might think this is counterproductive, but I am referring more to the criticism you will for sure get. I was fairly lucky in the area of criticism. Most of my friends and family have come to expect that I would try and do things others typically don’t. With the help of family, I bought a house at 19 to rent out the rooms while going to college and many more atypical things. Other people are not so lucky when it comes to criticism from their support group. It is hard to combat that negative energy and comments while you aim for your goal. Most of that criticism comes from a lack of understanding on their part. Take the time to sit down with them and explain your logic and method you are using to obtain your goal. Hopefully that will squelch the criticism, but it is not guaranteed to do so. The truth is those criticizing your idea normally care about you and don’t want you to fail trying to obtain some lofty goal they don’t understand. In this case, the more they know about your goal and method, they will probably start supporting you in your endeavor.

If talking fails to rally the support you need, surround yourself with others who have the same type of goals you do. Find a forum or small group that is aiming to do what you are doing, and join the community. Others might not understand your need to go after these goals, but your new friends will. Make your intentions known, and see who is in support of them. Those are the people you should develop a strong relationship with.

Fourth:

Draft your ideas. Like doing an outline for a paper in high school, it is still important to map out your plan of action and develop the idea. The last thing you want to do is get caught with your pants down in the business world. Having a clear thought written down with the steps you want to take will save you a lot of time. As you truck along on your online ventures, it is easy to get sidetracked and lose focus. Having your plan or goals down and in a visible place will bring you back to where you need to be, much like the Constitution is for the United States (bad example but you get the idea). Goals and visions change all the time, and that is okay. When you feel the project is going to take you in a new direction, simply make the changes to your business constitution.

On a final note, I wish it were easy to tell people how to live and make money online, but it isn’t. The most I can do is give you a set of guides and some time saving methods to help you along in your quest. I have had to learn the hard way more often that not even though I had the counsel of others that had gone on before me. I still tried the same stupid techniques guaranteed not to make you money and wasted countless hours doing so.

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Lately, I have been reading through the book Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz and have come to really admire how simply he lays out word of mouth marketing. If you haven’t read his book, you should. Without further adieu, here are some ideas offered in the book:

1. Find the people who will talk about you

The people with enthusiasm for your message is a great place to start, but if you don’t already have people willing to talk about you, how do you get them? First, start by doing a lot of commenting either on blogs of in forums. As you build your presence, people will repay in kind and talk about either you or your product. As long as you are open and genuine, you will build a following. After some time this, following will continue to build itself. Another way to get people to talk about you is to have a product that is remarkable. Having a remarkable product can’t be fake. It has to be real, otherwise the backlash will highly outweigh the benefit of trying. People love Macintosh because of the product, not because Macintosh paid them to go out and say good things about the company.

2. Give them a reason to talk

This is the reason that you want to find and target the edge of your market. When you market to the edge, you are offering a product or service that no one else is really doing. When you offer that product, it gives people a reason to talk about it because not many people have heard of it or used it. When a product is good or exceptional, people can’t help but talk about it. Everyone has an opinion and most people like to voice their opinion when it comes to something they think they know better on. Why do people love talking about the newest gadget every time they get one? It’s because not many other people have them yet.

3. Help the message grow

In the world of blogging, this would be the Tell a Friend button on your posts or the easy submit buttons to your favorite social network sites. This would also be the weekly newsletter people can get in their inboxes and easily forward to their friends and family. What about a free coupon for a friend as your customer is walking out the door? Talk about a great way to get either your customers or their friend to return to your store. If they don’t use it, you aren’t out anything. If they come back, you probably have gained a couple customers out of the deal. What have you got to lose?

4. Participate in the conversation

People love to feel special and important. If someone feels like they are in the know or part of a special group like a beta tester is, they will find ways to tell others about their status. So give people that option to be a part of the “in crowd” and tell them all you can about the new features or open things up to Q&A. In turn, they will relay that message and knowledge to others. As the flow of conversation happens, more trust is built and ideas are shared resulting in a better service and product while including your customers in the discussion.

5. Record what is happening

Of course I don’t think it is entirely possible to record or track everything that everyone says about you or your product, but there are a few useful tools out there. I love using Google Alerts (GOOG)to find the new happenings about my selected keywords. Every day I get an email that lists different Google news of blog posts found containing my selected keyword. Some days I don’t get anything from a specific keyword, but when Google finds something it is sure to let me know. Another option is to open up your own forum to help people with their issues or questions. As membership grows, the forum will give you a pulse of the sentiment for your product.

Word of mouth marketing usually takes a little more effort and thought to ensure it is properly executed. Even then, you can’t be sure that it will work out the way you intended. It is impossible to say how people are going to react to different products or ideas, and giving them the microphone can be a double-edged sword. With that said, always remember to be honest in your marketing and tactics. If you aren’t, it will probably bite you in the….

Have you had a successful word of mouth marketing campaign? Go ahead and share it with everyone.

*Don’t forget about the contest for the best business card design for Unconventional Marketing worth $50, you can enter more than once.

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