All Entries Tagged With: "entrepreneur ideas"
The Power of Personal Branding For Entrepreneurs
"People don’t join companies. People join people" are the illustrious words of Michael Dlouhy, founder of Mentoring for Free, an organization that provides entrepreneur ideas for entrepreneurs in the network marketing industry by teaching them the right way to approach their prospects. I agree whole heartedly with these words.
Network Marketing, or Multi-level Marketing, is among one of the highest trends in the work-at-home industry. Network Marketing allows entrepreneurs to earn an impressive income by building an organization of people. Through network marketing entrepreneurs not only earn income through building an organization of like-minded individuals, but they have the opportunity to promote and sell products for various companies in an effort to be compensated for royalties on the services of those products.
| No matter how impressive the compensation plan, it is all about who is giving the presentation… |
Unfortunately, many individuals who are being recruited into companies are being told to sell, sell, sell & recruit, recruit, recruit. Without any prior experience in sales or recruiting, it has become frustrating for newcomers in this industry because of a lack of training. Granted, many companies do provide their organization with a game plan of how to recruit and sale by getting everyone on the weekly conference calls and telling them to make a list of their closest friends and family, give them the sales pitch and "close the sell."
Many of the top notch gurus in the network marketing industry live by the sell, sell, sell & recruit, recruit, recruit rule. Their is such a thing as personal branding or building personal relationships with prospects. The first thing that prospects look for when joining a network marketing company is who is doing the presentation. The prospects will query upon this seemingly insignificant but very substancial question. Which leads back to the first statement in this article:
People don’t companies. People Join People
No matter how impressive the compensation plan, it is all about who is giving the presentation. The compensation plan falls a few points down the list of things that prospects are looking for when joining you. And while the numbers can be very intriguing, the compensation plan is not the ultimate concern. When you first pick up the phone and get acquainted with the prospects, they are subliminally pondering questions such as: Is this someone I like? Can I count on this person? Can I trust this person? Can this person help me to be successful?
Many times network marketing companies will tell all of the newcomers to 3 way their prospects in with the upline due to the lack of experience on the newcomer’s behalf. This is not such a good idea. It has been said that much of the deciding factor for the prospect joining you is your ability to answer their questions personally.
Avenues of Personal Branding
I make mention of MySpace quite a bit in my blogs because I see Myspace as a great way to market yourself. I personally use MySpace and I get a great response from people inquiring about what I do. Often enough, the people I have encountered on MySpace are already in a business and are trying to sell me on something or they are hungry for something and they are looking for tips and ideas on how to become an entrepreneur, which was my inspiration for starting this blog.
Many times I will just ask them personal questions, inquire about their background, or ask what it is they are looking to do in an attempt to determine what to recommend. Ultimately, MySpace is a great networking avenue to communicate with other like minded individuals and build long lasting relationships.
Online blogging is a great resource for putting out information for readers to view what you have to say, but it is also a great avenue for building relationships with your audience. By placing quality content on your site and staying consistent and publishing blogs at least 2-3 per week, you will gain an audience to your blog which will in turn gain you exposure to more prospects looking for something that you have to offer.
Personally I don’t offer my business opportunity on this blog site. I choose to focus solely on publishing quality, helpful content to entrepreneurs who are looking to take their business to another level. In fact, I can’t count the number of responses I get from people who visit my blog site expecting to get a sales pitch or be sold on something. The very response I get is "Why don’t you make mention of your MLM company at all on your blog?" People are literally surprised that I don’t mention a company, a product or a compensation plan of any sort.
I must admit, I do use some form of monetization on my blog but it is very minimum, and my blog content is not centered around those products. I do want to stress that the purpose of my blog site is not to sell individuals on a company but to provide useful information and tools for entrepreneurs.
Remember focusing on building long lasting relationships in your organization is a must. For more tips on how to succeed in your network marketing venue visit JarrodClark.SuccessIn10Steps.com and download the free e-book Success In 10 Steps by Michael Dlouhy.
To Your Success,
Jarrod Clark
What Would You Do If You Knew You Could Never Fail?
Seeing is believing… entrepreneurs are usually optimistic individuals by nature and many entrepreneurs have a high belief level to aspire in their business endeavors. They have the ability to see the glass as half full even in the face of adversity. They don’t have to see the end result in order to believe that only a good outcome will be the end product.
Many people who are not as ambitious may not realize their true potential to achieve what may seem impossible. What if it were foretold that tomorrow you will win the lottery in the amount of 2 million dollars. What would you say? What if someone told you that in 5 years you will be the CEO of one of the worlds most major corporations. Would you believe it?
What if…
What if we could all reenact the story of A Christmas Story by Charles Dickens, not to say that we are all scrooges of course. I will be the first to admit that the word "Bah humbug" doesn’t exist in my vocabulary, but just imagine if you could take part in a real life Christmas past, present and future, only you’re looking at your entire future and not just your Christmas futures.
The Dream
Let’s fantasize here for a moment. Imagine that you had a dream and in that dream you were a major positive force in your community. You reach out and helped so many people and had major influence. Envision yourself coming to a wonderful dream home and driving a fancy car or two.
You have awaken from that from that dream only to find yourself in a negative state of mind of disbelief that none of the things in the previous dream could never happen to you even if you tried. You are in a negative state of mind because it felt so good to achieve so much and accomplish so many goals with in the dream that it felt to good to be true. You wish you could achieve those accomplishments.
The Confrontation
As you prepare to get out of bed, you are confronted with a spirit… a spirit such as the ghost of "A Christmas Story" This is not a spirit of life’s past, neither a spirit of life’s present but a spirit of life’s future. After announcing himself, this mysterious spirit leads you to a time in the future where you are able to witness the same achievements and prized possessions that you just dreamed about.
Your belief is now strengthening
Assuming that you’re still dreaming you’re not fully convinced that these things are achievable on your behalf but your belive is now strengthening. You are now seeing the affects of the hard work that you’ve put in to arrive at this level of success. You don’t know how you got here but all you know is that you are witnessing a whole new lifestyle that you never believed you would have.
After awakening once again, you embrace a brand new day with a totally positive outlook and a more powerful belief level in your abilities. In your dream you were able to see and feel what it is like to overcome obstacles and have a life of success. Your belief level is stronger, you now feel empowered because you’ve had a dream. A dream that you believe in so strong that you are willing to take avenues beyond measure to make that dream come alive.
It’s amazing that looking at the picture from the future end of the spectrum you are able to see the result of the hard work but you don’t know what you’ve done to achieve the success. Where as, from a present day stand point, you can envision the dream with a faith and belief so strong that you realize that you won’t stop until you reach your goal. You know what it takes to achieve the success but you can’t experience that tangible part of dream.
I am here to tell you that you can achieve anything that you put your mind to do. Think for a second, what would you do if you knew your could never fail? The question is would you believe in yourself? Perhaps you would make an effort to start your own business. Maybe you would invest in the stock market or start eating healthier and exercising.
I pose a lot of "What if" type questions throughout this article because my aim is for you to examine your ambitions. True self belief comes in realizing that you can indeed succeed at anything that you set your mind to do. It all starts with putting one foot in front of the other and going for what you want. It does take a dream to spark up the passion and want for success but it shouldn’t take a "spirit of life’s future" to come and show you the end result, your belief should be at a level that you approach everything you do with ambition knowing that you can only succeed.
The sky is the limit and It’s never to late to make a change for the better. James 2:20 says that "Faith without works is dead…" The most difficult part of starting a business is putting one foot in front of the other and shooting for the best. Once your belief level is such that you know you can’t fail in your business or whatever your aspirations maybe, making the first steps will put you much closer to your goal. Keep striving and aim for the best. Remember to keep a consistent prayer life and a positive mind set and you will find through a consistent prayer life you will realize that you can never fail.
To your success,
Jarrod Clark
WordPress Plugin WassUp 411
We’re not re-inventing the wheel here, we’re merely just tweaking it a bit. The popular WordPress plugin WassUp is more than just a thrifty gadget for online blog sites, it provides a bit of 411 on the whens and the where-abouts of your blog site traffic.
Accessing the maximum potential of what the WassUp offers us, and using it to our benefit, can be a helpful tool in optimizing our blog site.
Today’s blogging entrepreneurs go through all the steps in optimizing their blog sites and with a little help from all the impressive plugins, it is a guarantee that our blogging experience will be more pleasurable. It’s no wonder WordPress has gained the credibility that they’ve rightfully earned. With the creative genius of quite a few WordPress plugin inventors, we have access to the perfect WordPress plugin tool WassUp.
Got WassUp?
Compatible with WordPress versions, 1.4.9 - 2.5, WassUp has taken many WordPress users by storm. By installing itself as an additional tab in the WordPress administration area, WassUp provides blog site traffic information to WordPress users indicating when and how often a visitor visits your site. It also provides detailed information such as what sites refer your visitors, which search engines referred those visitors to your blog, the visitor’s IP address, search engine spider, S.E.R.P and Keyword..
I must say it took me a while to really understand and appreciate the usefulness of WassUp. While it was very helpful to be able to see how often I have a visitor and how they were referred to my site, I did not maximize the full potential of the plugin until I recently analyzed every specific detail of the information that it provided me.
It is nice to be able to keep a track on your site traffic progress, which ultimately was the reason I downloaded this plugin, however I want to share with countless entrepreneurs out there an idea that sparked my attention as I was analyzing one of the great features that this plugin has to offer.
I do understand, as a blogger myself, the importance of optimizing your site and keeping tab on how well your blog is ranking with the selected keywords. However, in addition to my chosen keywords, I found it interesting that my site is ranking fairly well for keywords and keyword phrases that I didn’t know it is ranking for.
The aha moment
As we all know, when someone is looking for information on a particular topic, they go to a search engine and type a keyword phrase based on that topic. That being said, wouldn’t it be nice to know how well your site is ranking with keywords that you didn’t even know you rank for.
If someone goes to google and keys in a keyword related to your site and they see your site in the Search Engine Results Pages (or S.E.R.P) and they click on your site, WassUp will let you know what keyword the visitor used to find your site. Which I think is a helpful tool when keeping tabs on what keywords your site is ranking well for. I was able to find quite a few keywords and keyword phrases that are related to my site. These keywords are very similar to my main keyword, only they differ in a slight variation.
WassUp will also tell you what S.E.R.P page those keywords will appear on. It turned out that many of the keywords that I discovered through WassUp were keywords in which my page landed on the first page of those Search Engine Result Pages.
WassUp is free and available for download at http://www.wpwp.org/
To Your Success,
Jarrod Clark
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
