Bankruptcy to Millionaire

Well it’s Monday! And it’s going to be an incredible week. And I’ve been thinking about tons of things to write about… most of which I will get to this week. But I wanted to do a brain dump today. I’ve had so many thing rushing around inside my head.

Here are todays Random Thoughts:

I’m reading a ton more on the internet. I spend most of my time with my laptop on my lap during all my free moments “trolling” the blog-o-sphere. I’m reading tons of neat thoughts and ideas.

My favorite blog this week is by far Nate Whitehill’s. I love his blog for a number of reasons:

1. He’s successful
2. He’s my generation. I forget that there are achievers in my age group. I’ve known so many “talkers” and so few doers. It reminds me I need to keep surrounding myself with successful people. (Which reminds me I need to set up that meeting with Spliced Media, guys if you read this, I’ll be in touch.)
3. His writing and his thoughts are fantastic. And reminded me that I need to concentrate on providing value, and NOT trying to monetize right away. Which explains why I took down all the ads. Those can wait.

My blog is slowing gaining some momentum. But I’ve learned when I don’t post everyday, I lose a TON of that momentum. I missed two days last week, and I my visitors dropped from apx. 100 unique visitors a day, to about only 25 a day. YIKES! Time to remember not to miss a day!However, I’m slowing gaining fans on Technorati and other social networking sites (if you like what you see. Please let me know! And add me to your friends list on any social networking sites). I even have 4 feed subscribers!!! :LOL:

My (albeit) meaningless Alexa Rank is just below the 1mil mark. Up from the 2mil mark it was before. By the end of my first three months blogging I hope to be in the top 100,000.

As mentioned before, I’ve taken down all the ads, and am more concentrating on building a readership. It is not worth trying to monetize for the 6 cents a day I was making! After 3 months I’ll consider placing ads, or maybe trying some affiliate deal. ONLY after I’ve gained the faith and trust of my readers.

I am slowly trying to make this blog “my own”. I’ve added my own header “logo”. I don’t LOVE this theme. I’d like to find a design I really like (and/or hire someone to design one to my needs). I’ve never used a WP blog before, so changing and updating things is a slow process for me. But I’m figuring it out.

I need to more clearly define what I’m blogging on. I need to do a ton more thinking of my “purpose”. I’m thinking I’m going to define it with “Personal Development, Entrepreneur Thinking, and Personal Success”. These are where my passions are, and I think that’s what I’ll try to stick to. So my readers know what to expect.

I need to be more honest and upfront with my readers. I was just reading, that presenting your flaws, make you that much more credible. I know this deep down. But sometimes I have problems admitting my “flaws” on a daily basis. I am going to concentrate on being more open and honest on a daily basis.

That’s about it for today! I have some fun stuff to talk about tomorrow! So I’ll see you then.

Ok, a quick admission:

It’s Friday and it has been a crazy week! So I spent a little while just ingesting information. Reading everything that pops on my screen for the last two hours has been quite enlightening. I’ve learned several amazing things and found several amazing resources.

But on thing that immediately jumped out at me: THIS BLOG IS UGLY AND BORING!!! So many other blogs have awesome formatting. Amazing pictures. Stunning ideas. They can be truly mesmerizing.

Through building my profile on Stumbleupon I ran across this WONDERFUL blog:

http://thinksimplenow.com/clarity/5-keys-to-simplifying-any-concept

Her blog is about simple. Being simple. And acting simple. And the blog is beautifully simple.

So I vow to make this blog not so UGLY over time. Time to start upgrading and proving even more valuable and inspirational information.

Have a great weekend everybody!

I have so much planned for this weekend! I am going to be taking massive action on a couple of projects. The first of which is an Affiliate venture I’m pretty excited about, based in the Dog Lovers World. It is something I hope to build over the next few months. Culminating in a venue where dog and pet lovers and trainers can hang out and discuss all sorts of things. I’ll update you on Monday with my progress.

I also have this copywriting project I’m working on. That I hope to make a ton of headway on this weekend as well.

Other than that I have a few quick announcements:

I’m now a moderator over at the Did You Smell That dom COM Forums. So if you’re into making money online and discussing ideas and concepts with like minded people head on over and join the action of this start up community. It’s a ton of fun and I think you’ll learn a lot from the folks over there.

Also, you may have notice on the left Sidebar. There is now and option to receive B2M updates in your email box. Don’t worry I will never share or give away your email address to anyone.

Have a great weekend everybody!

This will be quick. I have a lot on the agenda today. But I just wanted to say thank you to all my readers!

This blog is expanding WAY faster than I ever thought it would. I was hoping one or two people would stop by and say hi. And just after two weeks, I had over 70 people stop in just yesterday!

I’m really ecstatic that you all are enjoying following me on my journey. And I appreciate the input you’ve given me. I have loads of things to talk with you about all next week. I just have to take a quick plunge and get these things done. So I can share me experiances.

So thanks again! And I hope everyone had a GREAT Halloween!

I find myself at times having trouble “pulling the trigger”. I’ll so often get 90% of the way there. But that last 10% can seem so arduous. So time consuming. So difficult. That I’ll get stuck. Stalled. Or worse: Give up!

YUCK!

I hate it when I do this…

I just need to pull the trigger! I have an adwords campaign that’s 90% completed. All I basically have to do is upload the page, and pull the trigger. But I keep stalling. I keep putting it off. I keep “forgetting” to get around to it. I put the campaign together about 3 days before I launched this blog. And it sits there for close to two weeks untouched. 90% of the work done.

I haven’t implemented something on this blog like I wish I had by now (opt-in reminders, specifically) .

It isn’t for lack of knowledge. Lack of time. Or anything like that. I think it comes down to one simple reason.

Fear of Failure.

Because if I don’t pull the trigger. I can’t fail.

YIKES! Lets stop this today!

From now on, I’m going to pull the trigger. I can’t be paralyzed by the fear of failure. To become a success I must, overcome this fear. Because logically I realize that if I take ACTION and I FAIL… SO WHAT!?

Not only am I no worse off than I was before I failed. I’m one step closer to finding success. And that by definition is a success to me. I have then succeeded in finding out what doesn’t work!

Are you paralyzed by the fear of failure? Are you scared to take the plunge? Just decide. Today! You’re going to stop putting it off. And TAKE ACTION NOW.

I’ve heard this statistic before. And it seems to come up every now and then: 90% of small businesses fail in their first year…

It’s some absurdly huge percentage like that. The sad reality is a huge majority of small businesses fail in their first year of being in business. (And probably even a larger number of online businesses)

But in all reality they didn’t fail in their first year. They fail on day one. The day most businesses open their doors they’re doomed to fail. Not because “statistically” most are doomed to close. That’s like the guy that brings a bomb on a plane, not to blow up the plane, but rather he noticed statistics showed that it was nearly impossible for two people to bring a bomb on a plane. Much greater than just a single person bringing a bomb on a plane. Therefor if he were to bring one, it’s statistically impossible for another to have brought one on a plane too…

(Hell… with all this “bomb on a plane” talk. I’m probably on the Homeland Security watchlist)

Anyhow their doomed not because of: bad management. Bad bookkeeping. Poor financial backing. Etcetera and so on… Yes this could be a factor. But more likely they fail because they don’t have:

DIFFERENTIATION

You MUST set yourself apart from your competition. Because in todays market, you’re almost certainly going to have some sort of competition.

You MUST give your buyers a reason to buy from you, work with you, or use your product, other than that other guy down the street.

If you don’t, what reason do they have to use you? Because you’re “better”. Because you’re “nice”. No.

And not only do you have to be DIFFERENT, you have to be different enough to be compelling enough to pull your clients away from your competitors.

The first thing most small businesses do to set themselves apart is make themselves “cheaper” than the competition. This can work. But most likely it’s a death wish for your businesses instead think about setting yourself apart by not being cheaper. Brainstorm by starting with some of these ideas:

• Become exclusive
• Offer products or services that are “outside the box” from your normal products (think: the first guy to offer WiFi at his Coffee shop.)
• Expand your product or service line
• Adding a personal touch
• Giving stuff for free
• Offer discounts for products that relate to yours, that you don’t offer (joint ventures, cross promotions)
• Market to the affluent
• Look at what your competitors are doing. Don’t do that. (Note: Use common sense.)

You can get your haircut anywhere. But a salon that offers you a choice of your favorite cocktail, and an iPod with a diverse selection of music gets my vote.

A coffee shop, can sell me a cup of coffee once. But one with internet access will probably get my refill business on the weekends.

I can get my picture taken anywhere. But a custom portrait studio that promises to take more time, and more photographs, indoor and outdoor, digitally enhanced, with photographers that are more experienced than any others in the area… I would pay for that privilege.

If a business can truly accomplish being DIFFERENT enough. It CAN’T FAIL. It can only become a huge success.

If every new business can answer and follow through with their answers to: “What makes me different? What makes me better?”

We’ll see a new statistic soon enough.