All Entries Tagged With: "business"
Tips for Starting A New Business
A wise man once said "Perseverance is a great element of success; if you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate you are sure to wake up somebody."
I was having a very intriguing conversation with a close friend today. I will not disclose names as to protect the privacy of the individual but this person was talking about their dream of starting a business. As I was conversing with this friend, I realized the fire and passion that stirs up in an individual when making mention of their dreams and aspirations.
In fact I was so motivated, to say the least, in listening to the passion, drive and determination that was radiating through our conversation that I decided to write an article on this topic. Sometime ago, I learned that there is great power in dreaming big. There is a necessity in having a goal and keeping that flame lit and not letting it fade away.
I have gotten many responses in various venues such as myspace from people who desire to start a business as well. Then it dawn on me, there are so many people who have an entrepreneurial spirit and want to do something passionate outside of a 9-5, but they don’t know how or where to start. Then on the other hand there are some people who with a snap of the finger know exactly what they want to do, they have the fire and the drive but for them it is a matter of when to start.
I am a firm believer in searching deep down inside and finding out what you like to do. Previously I wrote an article entitled: "Find Your Passion…It Will Change Your Life." In this article I went on to explain the idea of discovering and focusing on your passion and allowing that passion to be a window for success.
Success can be described in many ways. Many would relate success to the idea of being financially independent. Others might relate it to achieving a goal that may not necessarily be money driven. For many, success can be just the idea of taking one step after another and not stopping until you reach the ultimate goal, (in other words, having many small goals inside of the ultimate goal).
The Ultimate Goal
Personally, I like the big picture, I like being able to envision the ultimate goal. However, I also like setting small achievable goals within the ultimate goal. There is something about having a goal to achieve, it gives you something to look forward to. You should strive to never be complacent always be striving for something better.
The ultimate goal that I’m relating to in this article is the idea of owning a successful business. Although the ultimate goal is to own a successful business indeed, I believe it would be a good idea to set smaller goals within the ultimate goal.
Start Small
Many people who want to own a business may be intimidated by owning a business. It is safe to say that many people believe that owning a business entitles them to take on a big executive type, franchise, CEO type role.
It’s a good idea for aspiring entrepreneurs to map out a plan of the business. For instance, maybe you have discovered a passion in arts and crafts. After discovering that passion and deciding that you would like to expand it to an arts and craft profession, take out the time and map out a plan for that what it is you are looking to achieve.
By asking yourself a few questions you will come up with a well thought out detailed plan for your business. Such questions to ask are:
- What is the mission for the business?
- What are you looking to achieve in your business?
- Perhaps you are looking to get into a business of selling arts and crafts, ask yourself what venues am I looking to sell my products in? Do I want to market and sell products online or do I want to go brick and mortar.
These are a few questions you want to ask in an attempt to taking the steps to achieve the ultimate goal.
After mapping out a plan for the business it would be a good idea at this point to study ways of putting your collected ideas into action. You can do this by doing a search on how to start a business. For instance, if you are looking to market your arts and craft business online, you may want to do a study on what avenues are available to promote your products.
A personal business website is a great way to market your products and promote yourself. There are other markets such as ebay and amazon. Many successful entrepreneurs have come about through marketing products through ebay and amazon but you have to keep in mind the cost of selling on ebay verses owning your own website. You might want to do some comparison studies between the two and weigh the options of which would be better, to market on ebay and amazon or through a website.
Cost of Starting a Business
Another overwhelming factor that plays a part in taking the first step to start a small business is the cost of starting a business. Although it may vary, depending on what type of business you’re looking to start, most entrepreneurs will look to spend anywhere between $1,000 to $5 or $10,000 to start a business, but again you will want to do some studying for yourself to find out what it will cost start your own business. The biggest part in discovering the cost of starting a business is having a detailed plan of what you’re looking to achieve, I can’t stress enough that without a detailed plan it will be hard to come up with an exact estimate.
I choose to look at, the business start up cost as an investment. For instance, buying a home is one of the greatest investments you can make because of equity that can be built from it. $1,000 or $10,000 is a lot of money I would agree, but it is a worthwhile investment because one the benefits of starting a small business is your ability to earn a 100% return on your investment. There are many government grants for starting a new small business or business loans in which you can apply for but make sure you study up on the right type of grant or loan because there are many scams out there.
Taking the First Step
As I mentioned earlier, there are some people who want to own a business but don’t know what they want to do, but on the other hand there are others who know exactly what they want to do but for them its a matter of when to start.
I know it takes time in getting the funds of starting a business, but the first step to achieving the goal isn’t in paying the business cost and opening the doors of your business, the first step is in developing a business plan. You will be surprised at the encouragement you feel once you get plan mapped out on paper. Once you see the overview of your business on paper you will feel the sudden urge to take the next step in getting your business started. By doing this you will be on your way to the success that you’ve always yearned for.
To your success,
Jarrod Clark
Partnership Your Way To The Top
Gathering business partners is a great way to expand your business. Circle yourself with a close circle of entrepreneurs with the same goal in mind and share common ideas amongst each other.
I can not express the importance of partnership and building relationships with individuals. Some days we all need encouragement and it just takes a boost to get back in our element of what we do best. Having a close knit team of individuals circling you and encouraging you to do your best is the way to achieve success in any business. It’s good to know that when you are having your days when you are feeling a bit less than up-to-par that there is a team of people there to motivate and encourage you to strive your best in any area of your business.
As I mentioned, teamwork is one of the best ways of achieving success in a business, it also has it perks in other areas. Maybe you’re not looking to hire a whole slew of people to work in your business but you are nonetheless seeking help. Consider having a couple people to partnership with you rather than paying them to work for you. Doing this will take much of the burden off your shoulders.
Perhaps you’re not good at accounting. It would be nice to have a partner in business with you to do your paperwork, handle your bills and bring a sense of organizational structure to the business while you focus on the contacts and direct sales part of the business.
Collective Ideas brings a Collective mind set
Having a partnership is a perfect way to run an efficient business. With a collective group of people in a business you’ll find that a collective group of minds will benefit the overall business as each individual will bring something unique to the table and provide a different perspective in certain areas of your business.
Instead of taking out business funds to pay entrepreneurs to work for you. Consider offering them in as an addition to the company and allow them to generate more revenue for the company by taking on some of the direct selling aspect of the business. With more entrepreneurs generating money for the business it creates a synergy that can’t be created with just one person alone. For instance if you are running a network marketing firm. Take sometime to have someone working side by side you in an effort to generate more money collectively. Between the 2 or 3 of you, you will making more money collectively for the business than just one of you alone. That will be great for residual income.
Networking through MySpace
MySpace is a wonderful way of networking and meeting other entrepreneurs. The response that I have gotten on MySpace from others just wanting to share ideas working for a common goal is outstanding. It can be very encouraging when I get messages from others on MySpace.
I talk a lot about building long lasting relationships with others.
I have come across many people on MySpace with wonderful ideas. Many times people want to pitch their business opportunity to you on MySpace. I totally understand that because as an entrepreneur in network marketing, I see the benefit of marketing through MySpace and when building relationships there comes a point in time when the question arises of what our businesses are all about. I personally would rather approach people without pitching a sells pitch out of respect. However I do like to hear what they have to say because I see it as a learning experience. I do believe that reaching out and learning from others is key in building your business.
Find your Niche on MySpace
There are many ways to find your target crowd on MySpace. One of the ways is going to the MySpace groups tab at the top of your home page. There you can search groups by categories. Someone like myself might click on Business and Entrepreneurs, but if you are into health and fitness, you might click on something like Health, Wellness, and Fitness. From there you can see a listing of all the groups under your selected category. Another great tool to explore is the MySpace forums. You can go in and read what other entrepreneurs are saying about a particular topic. You can also start your own topic in the forum which is a great way to gain an audience and get others to reply to any questions that you might have about an issue or concern in relevance to your business.
Studying to gain knowledge
Take out some time to study and learn new ideas and techniques for yourself.
I think about many college students and as they go off to college and study in the hopes to build a great career. They are studying for a brighter future and a better paying job. It would be very difficult for a student to become a doctor when they don’t know anything about medicine. Being a doctor is one of the highest paid professions in the world but there is a lot of studying that goes into achieving the title of being a doctor.
The same thing goes for business owners and entrepreneurs. I am a firm believer in the saying "What you don’t know can hurt you." Much of the success of being an entrepreneur comes from gaining knowledge. The more you learn the more you can apply to make your business thrive and make your goal more obtainable.
It is very important to study and gain exposure. As you build your business it can be rather difficult just keeping up with everything that you need to do in order to be in operation. However, I can’t stress enough the importance of studying to better your knowledge in business building. When searching for entrepreneurs to partner with observe the positive mind set of the individuals. Always look for someone who sees the glass as half full. Owning your own business doesn’t guarantee that the everyday business ventures will be smooth and easy. It’s important to keep a positive outlook on the issues that you will encounter in your business and it always helps when you are surrounded by people of the like mind set.
To your success,
Jarrod Clark
Staying True To Your Target Niche
Choosing a topic avenue and clinging to it can be a challenge in itself throughout the early stages of article writing. Often enough, as bloggers it’s really easy to slip away from our objective blog topic. When formulating your blog, fixate on a topic that will appeal to the type of audience you are seeking. If you do this right from the start it will benefit you in the long run.
You may want to choose a general theme, topic wise, for your blog so that you have room to level a more numerous audience and gain more connections to your blog but not such a general topic that you wind up forfeiting the very market that you shooting for.
For instance if you are writing about health, and you happen to be a fitness instructor who is writing an article about the importance of an aerobic benefit, you will want to choose something a little more specific. Comparatively, you may want to try health and fitness or fitness tips as a keyword. You can settle up on any keyword you want, the main focus here is to narrow it down to a specific keyword.
Just a side note
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Try using a free keywords word tracker by going to: It lists them in order from which keyword has the highest search rate to the least search rate. The higher the number under the searches column the higher number of search engine results you will find for that keyword.
Keep in mind it’s a good idea to choose a keyword that is somewhere down the middle. You don’t want to choose a keyword that is too competitive that you find it rather difficult to rank well with in the Search Engine Results Pages. However, you do want to choose a keyword that will benefit you with a high enough number of traffic to give you a sufficient amount of traffic coming to your article |
Staying Focused
After coming up with a keyword niche that you feel comfortable using as a theme for your blog, hone in on that keyword and center the topic of your whole blog around your keyword. This is why it’s important not to choose something to narrow as you will have more blogging room. You will want to optimize your article pages with those keywords including proper keyword density. Read my previous blog Search Engine Optimization for tips on optimizing your page in a way that search engines will easily pic up on your page.
Keep in mind that you must focus on writing good article content and not focusing too much on the traffic. Remember there are thousands and thousands of people keying your keywords as search terms into search engines looking for your information. All you have to do is focus on presenting them with the information they’re looking for and before long you will notice your audience growing.
Once readers come to your site and see good quality content, they will be enticed to come back for more articles. It is up to you to stay focused on the topic of your blog.
I chose to insert an excerpt of Robert Frost’s poem "The Road Not Taken" below as a prime example because I thought it is the perfect analogy to the journey we take in the beginning of designing a blog. Don’t be afraid to experiment with new and interesting ideas. You never know what works for you until you take a risk and branch out or should I say take "The road less traveled by."
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"…Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— And that has made all the difference." - Robert Frost |
Much of starting a blog is all about experimentation. Before you settle on a topic you will find yourself varying from topic to topic until you find a topic that is comparable for you to settle on. Once you settle on a topic, cling to that topic and you will began to see a major growth in your audience.
To your success,
Jarrod Clark
Persistence Is The Key, Remember your “Why”
Two to three weeks is what it takes to make or break a habit, they say. What happens when the excitement dies down. It’s so easy to get caught in the excitement of a new business. As an entrepreneur, I have to stay in my zone and not let the excitement of the business die down. As anything that we put our minds to do gets old, so will owning a business. Many business owners will get discouraged, at first, when they don’t see the profits coming in.
One thing that is key for many entrepreneurs is write down your "Why" when making the decision to start your own business. Could it be financial security? Could it be to have more free time? Whatever your reason for seeking out entrepreneurship, take out the time to write down your why. Having your why is essential because it is so encouraging to go back and look at your reason for starting your business venture.
It is important to remain encouraged and be persistent. One of my favorite saying is consistency creates results. It take more than two or three weeks of doing something to see results. I would relate owning your own business to making a decision to have a child. When you have a child you have to take so much into consideration. You have to ask yourself, am I ready? Am I at a place in my life where I can devote a lot of time and attention to this business? Am I ready to make financial investments into this business?
If you have to follow-up on your customer base or prospect be diligent and following up with them consistently. Have a set plan every day of what you will be doing and how long you will be doing it. Although, in network marketing for instance, many things happen spontaneously. You will get calls from your prospects or your customers and sometimes you have to stop and take the call. It’s important to keep in mind to have a set plan for your time. Being organized and managing your time well will cut down on much of the stress of business operation.
Many entrepreneurs will realize the responsibility of owning a business only once they get well into the business and will become overwhelmed. I am here to encourage you to be persistent. 
Keep your why in a place where you can easily access it. After looking over your why you will be reminded of why you made the decision to start your business venture. Do not allow your efforts to get laxed. Make a conscious decision to work diligently in every area and avenue of your business and keep in mind the goal that you are trying to achieve. By keeping a good mind set and staying positive you will see much progress and then will you achieve your ultimate goal.
To your success,
Jarrod Clark
Why Should You Host Your Blog?
I have had a couple scares with my blog and I know the horrible feeling of loosing all of the blogs. Fortunately for me, the point at where I lost my blogs, I was within only the first month of starting my blog, so I didn’t loose much but the feeling was nonetheless very uneasy. The fault was none other than my own, due to an attempt to upgrade my blog site. I apparently tampered with some of the configurations in the control panel of my blog hosting site. In other words I’ve done something that I shouldn’t have done.
This blog is a spin off from a previous blog post of mine, "The Benefit of Backing Up Your Blog." In the risk of sounding redundant, I will skip the whole reprimand about how you should save a back-up copy of all your blog posts. Although it’s a good idea, I will not elaborate on that idea. I will allow you to take a look at that blog post to get an understanding on why you should back-up your blog and the benefit of doing so.
It was from this mistake that I learned to seek guidance next time I make an attempt to upgrade my blog. I realize that the learning process of developing a blog is in experimenting and trying things out. All of the changes that are done to my blog are done by me, I don’t have a webmaster.
That said, WordPress is a very safe and convenient resource for blogging. And hosting your WordPress blog is the best thing that you can do. If I can use an analogy to describe the importance of hosting your blog site, I would say that the difference between hosting your blog and using a non-hosted blog is the difference between owning an insured restaurant verses owning an un-insured restaurant.
If your restaurant burns down overnight the insurance will pay to have it rebuilt, however if you own an un-insured restaurant, which most restaurant owners are too smart not to have insurance, the cost of the rebuilding will be your out of pocket expense, thats if you decide to rebuild.
There are many people who own free, non-hosted, blog sites and there are some very successful non-hosted blogs with very worthwhile content on them. Blogger.com is free to sign up, however Blogger.com is an example of a non-hosted site. It doesn’t allow outside hosting capabilities. There are many stories of people who have had there content taken down by the Blogger.com due to unknown reasons. This is where the benefit of hosting your blog comes in hand.
WordPress is free to use as well and it allows you to sign up for free. However, the great thing about WordPress is that it allows external hosting capabilities. By personally hosting your blog through an external hosting site, you have total control over your blog. Where as with blogger for instance, the company has the option of removing your blogs at their discretion. When you host your own WordPress blog, you have total control of your blogs, WordPress can’t remove content from an external hosted blog.
I will say this in Blogger’s defense, there have been many successful blogs that have come about through Blogger. Many blogs have been in existence for many years now through Blogger. Blogger won’t remove your blog for no reason, they have terms and conditions that they have to abide by. If you breach the terms and conditions they will remove your blog site. If you own a blog through Blogger, make sure you read the terms and conditions and make sure you are abiding by them.
I would encourage you that if you are into serious blogging, it is a good idea to host your blog site. It gives you the assurance and total control of the existence of your blogs. I personally use Hostgator to host my blog and I pay about $7.98 per month and it is well worth it. I simply view it as as added insurance for my blog. To find a list of web hosting sites go to webhostingfever.com.
To Your Success,
Jarrod Clark
411 on personality types
I have come across many helpful tools that have helped me in business building. One of the many tools that have changed my life is when I came across Mentoring For Free. Mentoring For Free, or MFF, is an organization founded by Michael Dlouhy, that helps entrepreneurs to be successful. In MFF we teach people how to think not what to think and that they are perfect just as they are, they do not have to change who they are to be successful. I have learned a lot about myself and dealing with other people from this program. One of the things that I have learned is that everyone fits in 1 of 4 category personality types. In M.F.F we have a color system that we use to easily identify these personality types. If you are familiar with the 4 personality types, you may recognize them as Phlegmatic, Sanguine, Melancholy and Choleric. In MFF, we use a system of colors to relate to the 4 personality types. Our system is as follows:
- Phlegmatic = Yellow
- Sanguine = Blue
- Melancholy = Green
- Choleric = Red
Every person is described as being either open and indirect (yellow), open and direct (blue), self-contained and indirect (green), or self-contained and direct (red).
Yellows
Open and indirect means that you are open with discussing your feelings with others but you don’t find it easy telling others exactly what you want from them. When you ask a yellow a question they will answer it openly and indirectly. For instance, if you ask a yellow how was your day? A yellow might enthusiastically say something simple like, “My day was pretty good!” Their answers are usually short and they answer the question straight and to the point. They usually do not disclose more information than what is needed. We describe this type personality as the yellow or phlegmatic type personality and they make up 35% of the population. The yellows are the nurturers in our society. They are usually the teachers, nurses and counselors. They are giving and caring. They give more time for others then they do themselves. They are the best listeners and the best friends. When dealing with a yellow as a client, ask them about their family. They will love it if you tell them how your child played soccer from the age he was 5 all the way until they were in college.You may want to mention such things as team work and team building with a yellow, they love to discuss topics about working together as a team. Don’t talk to them about money, not at first, because a yellow doesn’t want to be sold, instead just focus on building a great relationship with the yellow.
Blues
Open and direct means that you are comfortable discussing your feelings with others and you have no problem telling other people exactly what you want from them. A blue displays these character traits.When a question is asked to a blue, “How was your day?” a blue might say something like, “Oh yeah, it was great! I went shopping and I took my children out to the play ground. Oh and by the way my nephew is getting married next month …” and on and on and on. A blue answers the question openly and keeps going on and on, divulging more information than what was asked, henceforth they are very direct. With a blue you usually have to stop them to ask another question. The blues make up 15% of the population. They are the salesman, they love to sale. They love to have fun. If it’s not fun, then the blue is not there. They are the risk takers.They are the bun gee jumpers, the race car drivers and they are always on the go. When talking to a blue about your business talk about how much fun it would be to make money with you. Describe how fun your product is. Anything that is fun grabs the blues attention. Don’t discuss too much money with a blue, rather stick with such topics of fun and excitement as it relates to your business. If you do discuss money with a blue, give a brief synopsis of your compensation plan but keep it simple. When talking to a blue talk fast and loud. Talk faster than they are talking, they will love it!
Greens
Self-Contained and indirect means that you have a hard time expressing your feelings with others and you don’t usually tell others what you want from them. These characteristics are that of a green type personality. When a green is asked the same question as the yellow and the blue, the may say something in a somewhat mellow, blunt manner tone such as: “It was cool, didn’t do nothing much.” Meanwhile they will sit there and analyze in their mind why are you asking them how their day was. They may wonder what are you really getting at. Greens are analytical, they are very organized and they love data, data, data….and then some more data. They are perfectionists and they think they are smart in a sense of they think they know the answer to every question. The greens are our professors, our arithmeticians and our scientist. They make up 35% of the population. When talking to a green lower your voice tone and talk slower. If you come to a green talking fast and loud as if they were a blue, the green will shut you out and immediately think that you are trying to sell them something. Greens do not like to be sold, they like to analyze the data and figure it out for themselves. When talking to a green it would be good to send them a few web sites as overview. Tell them that this is preliminary data for what they need to know to be in business with you. Discuss the entire compensation plan with the green. Talk money, money, and more money until the green is blue in the face. They love numbers and data.
Reds
Self-Contained and direct means that you don’t usually express your feelings and you have no problems telling others what you want. The reds exemplify these character traits. When asking a red the same question above, the red will not tell you at all how their day went. If they do tell you it will be a short, to the point answer and immediately the red will, in return, take control of the conversation. The red will have the guts to ask you “Why do you need to know how my day went, that has nothing to do with what we are discussing.” The red will want to get right down to the business. They do not like chit chat. The reds make up 15% of the population. The reds are our leaders, our attorneys and our managers. They do the hiring and the firing. They are demanding and they love to be in control. When doing business with a red do not think that you are going to advise them of anything. The red’s motto is, It’s My Way or The Highway. When talking to a red let them do the business their way. Talk about money with the red just as you would with the green except, only talk big amounts of money with the red and keep it simple. When talking to a red do not give them more information then they need to know, they don’t like it.
It is possible to determine what type personality the person has within just a few seconds of talking to them. The key is to listen to the person when they are talking. Knowing the information contained in this blog helps us to effectively determine what the person needs and wants. It’s important to note that red is the only one of the 4 colors that actually likes to be sold. Statistics show that 92% of the population does not like to be sold. So when talking to your prospects keep in mind what you’re listening for when conversing with them. You want to determine if they are open or self-contained. Once you determine that, you will then want to determine whether they are direct or indirect. For more in depth information on the colors go to JarrodClark.SuccessIn10Steps.com and download the free Ebook, “Success In 10 Steps.”
God bless,
Jarrod
