If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

My last post was about switching from a traditional job to working for yourself online. I touched on some basics needed to accomplish this task. For me, all of this started when I quit my day job and set out to work for myself online, inspiring me to write about The Top 10 Reasons to Quit Your Job. There are countless reasons to quit your job and start having fun, but how does someone make that jump from the rat race to living out a dream?

November 2006 is where my dream started. I was driving beet truck for a local farmer during harvest season, looking for jobs to apply to and setting up interviews. I listened to the radio a lot while driving and picked up a show by Dave Ramsey, the get out of debt guru. He inspired me to make life changes in order to get out of debt and live a more fulfilled life. After reading some of the books he recommended, including some of his own, I came across a book called, 48 Days to the Work You Love. I have mentioned this book a couple of times because I will gladly buy this for anyone graduating from high school or college. The book doesn’t give you any answers about what jobs you should work, but it does ask the right questions. Over the next year and half, I worked to achieve my goal and quest to pursuit the career of my choice.

When I say I tried all the wrong ways to make money online, I mean it. I did the blog with Adsense, tried to sell ebooks, eBay drop shipping (including the book), and many others. I thought because others were successful at doing those things that I would be able to replicate their work. I was able to an extent do what they did but ultimately it cost me much more time and effort than I ever got out of those ideas. I always knew I wanted the flexibility and lifestyle that the Internet business could provide, but I was doing the business of others and not myself. It wasn’t until I figured out that doing what you are really passionate about is the key to succeeding both on and offline in business. You truly have to love what you do and be willing to do it even without a paycheck. If you can honestly wake up in the morning and want nothing more than to get to work you have found what you love. I can’t even sleep in anymore because I will just lay there thinking about the things I can do for the day.

For myself, I found that I love solving problems. I have know this for a long time but never capitalized on that ability to help negotiate my way through the situation until its resolve was complete. I also knew that I love working with people and helping to meet their needs (the go to person). What I did was merge offline business with business online. I have been helping local groups and businesses be found online. Most have a website but that site is not easily found in their local markets. I help define people’s goals and target for their businesses online. In our local market, this is a completely untapped niche. I can’t name anyone in town who really has a clue to accomplish these tasks for a business (some claim but don’t deliver). The last two months have brought a lot of business in for me and I find that each day I love what I do more and more. I think it is so much fun to help people like this and in an untapped market there is a lot of opportunity to grow.

The biggest part to remember with all of the information you digest while beginning your quest to work online is to live out your dream, not the successes of another. Unless you can separate your quest for money apart from a fulfilled career, it will have a short lifespan. Ask yourself the right questions:

• What are my favorite hobbies? (Passions)
• What do I know a lot about or seek to know a lot about (investing, housing, SEO, puppies)?  (Drive / Motivation)
• What are my talents (talking, writing, production, media, technologies)? (Leverages)
• What do I get fulfillment out of (helping others, adding value, sharing, teaching)? (Purpose)
• Who do I most want to work with (kids, businesses, charities, sports, car enthusiasts)? (Market)

Find your target market and build a product for it. Always have a plan and a goal before you start something online. My goal for this blog was to reach others and build a network. Don’t build a blog and try 10 different methods of making money from it, you’ll waste your time. Build a product or service for your target market, not a market for your product or service.

Popularity: 14% [?]

How to make the switch to working online is going to be a short series on how to move from your 9-5 job to a life of freedom and flexibility of working online. This is how I made my move and how you can too, no BS involved.

First, it isn’t working online but rather playing online and earning money. If I did not love getting up in the morning doing what I am doing, I wouldn’t last a month. The biggest hurdle you have to overcome while pondering the thought of working online is to ignore what others have done to make money online and to do what you love instead.

When people first start out online, they look at the likes of John Chow and Jeremy Schoemaker and think, “I can do this.” What most people realize after about a month of trying is it doesn’t work out that way. Earning money online can be a lot harder than it appears.

First Step:

Start! I know that seems basic, but it is amazing that most people only think and talk about making a life change for the better. So get going and do it! Learn about the different ways you can make money online and what you are capable of doing.

Second Step:

Find what you love to do. Motivation is a huge factor in success. When you love your work, you aren’t working. Having fun is probably the most important aspect of doing what you love. Besides loving what you do, you will often know a lot about that particular niche, adding even more to your credibility and knowledge to the trends in that market. Knowing as much as you can about your niche market gives you the edge on top of the passion to pursuit it. It amazes me that even after blogging for a short period of time you will see so many other bloggers come and go as they slowly give up on their pursuit of money. It’s a pursuit of a dream that will carry you through.

Third Step:

Phase into your online work. I didn’t just wake up one day and start working online. I started by reading blogs. Then I started subscribing to blogs that I liked. I opened up a free blogging account on Blogger.com and other sites, learning the skills of creating a fluid site online. I learned how to and how not to make money online (selling ebooks is not going to get you anywhere unless you know how to market online well). Make the shift from part-time Internet entrepreneur to full-time self employed Internet marketer. Start small and allow yourself to have a life outside of the Internet and your work. As you grow and expand online, you will have to be the judge of when to quit your day job and pursuit your online business. I did this after roughly 4-5 months. I timed vacation and paychecks to give me the most coverage and financial buffer I could. This process wasn’t easy and I had to live on next to nothing for a few months in order to accomplish the transaction. I recommend saving as much money as you can before this part or already be generating a steady income stream from your part-time online ventures. Both are good ideas.

Fourth Step:

Find a balance in your life and establish a routine. It is a whole new world to work for yourself. There is no longer someone making sure you are accomplishing your work. You have to be your own boss. Treat your time as a commodity that you can no longer take back. Time is no longer worth a fixed dollar amount. It is equated in the terms of value added. You now get paid on performance and the value that you provide. It no longer matters how long it takes you to accomplish tasks in order to get paid but rather how much value you provide your customers. Never cheat your customers on value. You may find that in order to generate the income you want, you only spend 4 hours a day working for it. It is important to find that balance and treat that time like it is pure gold, because it is.

Fifth Step:

Diversify. The days where you set up a store front and sold hardware supplies to local people are fading fast. In a world that changes in a matter of minutes online, you cannot afford to be stagnate. As soon as you start generating a decent income from your flagship blog or virtual business, you should be creating the next. When you have 4-5 different but related businesses online, you protect yourself from failure due to lose of income. If one of those businesses or income streams disappears, you still have others to carry your through until your next idea is put into place. The winds of business change so quickly online that no one knows for sure what the next year will bring. If people claim to know, they are lying.

Sixth Step:

Give back. Giving back is a crucial part of business and branding. Giving back doesn’t always have to involve money, it can be in time to help charitable causes, giving advice to others, talking with and answering questions from customers, sending thank you cards and notes and just about anything else. Never forget where you were at one point, and remember to give credit to those who helped get you there.

Popularity: 15% [?]

If you have never visited or read any of Seth Godin’s books or blog posts you must. I enjoy the insight and practical ways he presents marketing and business.  Here is a quote:

“There’s a huge gap between most how-to books (cookbooks, gardening, magic, etc.) and business books, though. The gap is motivation. Gardening books don’t push you to actually do something. Cookbooks don’t spend a lot of time trying to sell you on why making a roast chicken isn’t as risky as you might think.

The stakes are a lot higher when it comes to business.

Wreck a roast chicken and it’s $12 down the drain. Wreck a product launch and there goes your career…”

It would be a great idea to spend some of your free time diving into some of his blog posts, even better if you have the time to read or listen to some of his bestseller books.

Today I leave for the family cabin in the Marble Mountain Wilderness and I shall return with some pictures, hopefully tomorrow night.

Popularity: 13% [?]

I like to throw in a funny post every now and then to end the workweek on a good note. I stumbled upon this prank gone bad on Youtube and thought you would enjoy.

As for the whatnot. Jason over at Blogtomic.com interviewed me about blogging and life, you might enjoy learning a little more about myself and my motivations for blogging. You can find the interview here. Also Ty from Ty’s Blog posted his first video blog post today and I think you might like it. You should head over and check it out.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Hitting the Blogging wall is just like writer’s block, it happens. I am going to give you a few tips to move past the slump and increase your productivity.

1. Take a break. No, seriously, step away from the computer and do something that has nothing to do with your blog. I suggest at least 2 days away from your site and social networks. Humans have a terrible tendency to get tunnel vision while doing the same thing repeatedly. In order to free your mind and allow your thoughts and passion to build up again, you have to step away. I know that it’s hard to let your email go for a day or two, but honestly, if the world is going to end, you will hear about it before you get to your email.

2. Remind yourself why you started blogging in the first place. I started blogging about marketing and the ideas that surround it because I love to problem solve, and I also love to think outside the box. When I approach a problem, I like to look into what is really happening and see if there is a better way to go about it. I have no problems completely scrapping something and moving on if the idea is flawed to begin with. For whatever reasons you started blogging, go back and examine those reasons and see if you simply aren’t just off course. When we get in the habit of doing things we don’t love to do, we subconsciously find ways to sabotage them.

3. Set goals. Goals are a great way to give yourself focus and challenge you to accomplish things you would normally consider out of reach. I love goals and use them all the time to keep me on track (see. Goals are a great marketing tool). The way my brain works, it doesn’t take long before I am off in la la land wondering how I got there. Goals keep me grounded. I post goals for getting out of debt, benchmarks for our blogs, weight, trips, money, moving and just about anything else. Ty’s Blog recently did a post about goals and I couldn’t agree more. I am the number one advocate of goals when it comes to getting things done.

4. Don’t forget your notebook. I just ran a post about the uses and advantage of a notebook, here. I can’t say enough how handy all of those random thoughts and scribbles come when you are stuck for writing. I know all I have to do is open up that notebook and I could make a dozen blog posts from its contents. One of my favorite things my girlfriend Lindsay and I do is while driving we brainstorm blog ideas and topics. Last weekend when we went backpacking, we probably came up with 15 or so different blog posts to work on. When it comes time to sit down and write posts, they are practically done. All you have to do is find pictures and fill in the blanks like ad Libs.

5. Read other blogs. I use Google Reader and probably subscribe to 30 different blogs. Although not all of the blogs are in my niche, I care a lot about them. When I am stumped or feel like I just don’t know what to talk about, I can see the trends others are doing and follow suit. I will rarely blog about the same product or service others are talking about, but I will look at the marketing mechanism behind it and talk about that.

6. Build your network. I am sure I don’t have to tell you about the advantages of networking your blog, but just in case, I will. If there were a blogging 10 Commandments, number 1 would be networking. I am not saying to go out and pick up every new social networking site and widget that comes your way, but use the ones you are already a part of. I was a member of Digg and StumbleUpon long before I started blogging. Make sure you are well rounded in your networking approach such as being a member of forums, blogs you admire, Entrecard or the like. If there are people involved, that is where you need to be.

7. Build your relationships. This is a lot like building your network but with a twist. Networks like Digg and Stumbleupon are pretty impersonal and apart from throwing some love back and forward, they don’t really do much else. Instead, establish relationships with others that are like minded. Max from Zedomax.com gave me some great advice. He told me to visit a number of blogs consistently and participate on those blogs. I bookmarked about 50 blogs that I frequent about every other day. In just a couple days, I gained RSS subscribers, comments, traffic and started building lasting relationships. Now things are getting to the point where guest posts, sharing traffic, promoting, comments and even taking care of others blogs while on vacation are becoming the norm.

8. Listen to music or a motivational speaker. I love techno music and use it to energize me to action. I even wrote a post about it. Listening to techno music isn’t the only way to get motivated. Each person knows what one type of thing really gets the juices flowing, causing a new surge in productivity. For you, this might be a motivational speaker, a book, movie, play, sunny weather or something else. Tap into that power and motivate yourself to action.

9. Bring yourself into your posts. Believe it or not, people really like to get to know the author of what they are reading. This is why we love stories of triumph and conquest so much, because we can identify with the person. Don’t hesitate to talk about yourself and your experiences. People like knowing that there is a human being behind the blog and like to put themselves in his or her shoes. Share a little bit of yourself in each post. You won’t regret it.

10. Ask for input. This is probably one of the most overlooked things in the blogging world. If you are not sure what to do or what angle to take on a certain subject, feel free to ask readers. This accomplishes many things, including establishing a relationship with your readers, opening your eyes to different points of view (yes, people think differently), helping you solve problems or questions and making everyone get involved. Even if your readers aren’t getting involved in an open discussion, they are participating mentally, which will probably lead them to enjoy your blog more.

With all of that said, what would you like to see more of on the Unconventional Marketing Blog?

Popularity: 19% [?]