The Blog Mastermind program focusses on five areas:

1. Blog set-up and internal optimisation
2. Content creation
3. Traffic generation
4. Monetisation
5. Advanced topics

It makes sense to work through it in this order because you can’t progress to the next wihtout having done the former.  For instance, you need a blog before you can create content, and you’d be wasting time and effort if you don’t optimise your blog before you start building it up with content.  Without content, there is no point generating traffic because it is content that will keep your readers coming back.  If your readers have nothing of value to read, they won’t come back and the traffic you have created will be wasted.  Without traffic, your monetisation options are limited so there’s really little point in looking at monetisation until you have some traffic to your blog.

The homework from lesson number one of Blog Mastermind is to set up a Wordpress blog on your own domain.  Although you can use any other blogging platform, using Wordpress offers some great advantages that you don’t have with other blogging platforms.  Likewise, you can also use hosted blogging platforms like blogger but you don’t control the blog and if something were to happen to the blogging platform, you would lose all the work you put into your blog that you built up from scratch. 

So point to note - host your own blog and make it a Wordpress blog.  I used Bluehost because they offered one click installation for Wordpress and they offered one of the best packages I had seen.  The domain came free with my Bluehost subscription and the registration was all done for me.  It doesn’t get easier than this.

The second part of lesson one requires some background reading.  It is a prerequisite to have read the Blog Profits Blueprint before progressing further with the lessons.  The Blog Profits Blueprint is free to download and you don’t have to be a Blog Mastermind Member to get it.  I’ve read it once before (about a year ago) and it is packed full of very useful information that anyone can implement on their blog to increase their blog earning capacity.

Click here to download the Blog Profits Blueprint

Click here to join the Blog Mastermind Mentoring Program

I created Babylicious when I first signed up for the Blog Mastermind Program.  Babylicious was originally a free-hosted Blogger blog called Baby’s Diary.  Although Babylicious is now my focus, I still occasionally blog on Baby’s Diary because it contributes to my monthly income.  It might not be much but at this current income level, it is still something I can’t let go of.  Perhaps when Babylicious really takes off, I will phase out Baby’s Diary completely.

Whether it is a multi-billion dollar empire, such as Bill Gates’ Microsoft, or the tiny mom-and-pop convenience store on the street corner, cash is the life blood of the business.

In today’s uncertain economy with ever rising interest rates, many small businesses with limited financial training are having problems staying alive, let alone prospering. In fact, 63% of new businesses don’t survive six years — and most work-at-home people fail within 6 months!

The primary reason is bad cash management. To many self-employed people neglect their cash flow until it is too late to recover. Suddenly, presto! it ’s back to your office job! We don’t want that to happen.

So the big question is: will you be able to manage your cash flow effectively? If you are not sure, then you are on shaky ground.

Les Masonson, author of Cash, Cash, Cash: The Three Principles of Business Survival and Success, says cash flow is all about, “getting the money from customers sooner, paying bills at the last possible moment, concentrating money to a single bank account, managing accounts payable, accounts receivable and inventory more effectively, and squeezing every penny out of
your daily business.”

Let’s break down Masonson’s tips one at a time.

FAST COLLECTION

In your business, you should collect money as fast as you can. To do so, try these four things:

(1) Try to speed up customer orders by having them fax their orders to you.

(2) Send out your invoices the same day goods are shipped, not a week or two later.

(3) Indicate on your invoice when payment is due, and specify the penalty interest for late payment.

(4) Consider using a bank lock box (post office box strategically located near customers to reduce mail time) to collect your mailed checks from customers across the country. You lockbox bank picks up mail around the clock including weekends, processes the checks and credits your account. (Note: this last step is probably more appropriate for businesses grossing more than $25 million annually. You may not be there yet, but keep it in mind for when you get there)!

DEPOSIT CHECKS FAST!

This seems only obvious, but it’s extremely important. In fact, here are Masonson’s six sure-fire suggestions for getting the fastest availability on deposited checks.

(1) Always deposit checks the same day they are received. Don’t hold checks until the next day because you lose one day’s float. Key point: you can lose three days of float by not depositing Friday’s checks until Monday.

(2) Obtain availability of 0 to 2 days on deposited checks. Don’t let your bank give you the customer availability of 1 to 5 days. Be persistent. Ask the bank for its “availability schedule” and scan it to be sure you’re receiving fast availability of two days or less.

Each bank has its own availability schedule. This is used to assign check availability to consumers, business (commercial accounts), and large corporate accounts. Availability is the number of days until you can use the money deposited by check as cash. For example, a $1,000 check deposited today and assigned a one-day availability can be withdrawn as cash tomorrow.

(3) Don’t deposit checks in a bank’s Automated Teller Machine or use the Night Depository since you have no evidence that you actually deposited the checks you said you did. Remember, you only receive a receipt that shows the time and dollar amount on the deposit at the ATM, and you get no
receipt at the Night Depositor.

(4) MICR encode your customer’s checks (using a machine that prints magnetic ink on the bottom of the check) with the dollar amount before depositing them in the bank if you deposit more than 500 checks per month. Banks charge 3 to 5 cents less for each encoded check. Used encoded machines cost about $1,500. (Check your Yellow Pages under bank equipment for dealers). Besides saving money, you may get another benefit: faster check availability.

(5) Ask you bank about its deadline for receiving availability on deposited checks. Some banks may require a deposit of an encoded check by 2 p.m., even though the bank is open to 5 p.m. Make sure you make this deadline, otherwise you lose one day’s float.

(6) Before using a bank’s ATM for check deposits, find out the bank’s availability deadline. Some banks have a 12 noon cut-off time which means that any checks deposited later are considered to be deposited the next day! In that case, you lose an entire day’s float, even though you did your bit to get the checks cashed.

HAVE A SUPER TIGHT ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE POLICY

Many people think it is no big deal to neglect accounts receivable until bills are collectible. This is bad cash flow policy. Here are seven excellent tips for handling accounts receivable:

(1) Check the financial health of a new customer before offering them credit. One way of doing this is by using a rating service, such as Dun & Bradstreet (1-800-234-3867).

(2) Ask a new customer for five business references and don’t neglect to call them.

(3) Don’t offer too generous discounts, such as 3% for payment in 10 days. A better rate is 1.5% cash discount. It costs you less.

(4) Charge a “late fee” of 2% per month to customers who pay late and charge back customers who take discounts after the discount periods.

(5) Follow up on late payers with phone calls and letters. These may seem a bit extreme, but the first letter should go out the very day the amount is one day late! After 30 days late, start this sequence:

– send out a letter from your attorney
– turn over the account to a collection agency
– use a collection attorney

(6) Don’t send out new merchandise if bills remain unpaid. Remember that bad debts hurt your bottom line! Be vigilant and try to get at least periodic payments from slow payers.

(7) Instruct your bank to automatically deposit “returned checks.” Ask your bank if they offer Return Item box service. If they do, then use it to redeposit your check and charge back the bank return item free to your customer.

These seven steps are tough and unrelenting, but they may make the difference between a positive cash flow month and a sluggish month for your business. It may seem a bit hypocritical to demand swift and exacting payment, and then do what we suggest next. But just remind yourself, all (almost) is fair in love and war and business.

DISBURSE YOUR MONEY SLOWLY

Just the opposite of collecting at the earliest possible moment, you should never pay a day sooner than you have to, unless you get a discount for doing so. A lot of people believe in staying ahead of bills and paying them as early as possible, but that’s just poor cash management. You want to keep your money in your hands as long as you can. Here are five suggestions to slow down your disbursements:

(1) Pay your invoices on the last day they’re due, not before.

(2) try to mail your payment on Thursday or Friday to pick up a few extra days mail float over the weekend.

(3) Use business credit cards for travel, lodging, meals, and small expenses for yourself and your employees. With credit cards you typically don’t have to make payment until 25 days after receiving the statement. Use this float by investing the money. In total, you can typically keep your money invested for 45 days from date of purchase.

(4) Don’t issue advances to employees. Have them use their personal credit cards or business cards, if you provide them

(5) Consider setting up a remote disbursement checking account in another state to extend the check clearing float by at least a day. This practice is used very successfully by 17% of large companies. The downside of this practice is that some vendors may complain about their delayed availability on their bank deposit. But this can be overcome by mailing them their checks one day earlier.

Now, many small businesses neglect to reconcile their monthly bank statements or assume that the bank never makes a mistake. Banks do make mistakes, and you must stay on top of your disbursement to control your cash flow. If you are one of those people who simply can’t stand to
balance you check book, you can use a bank’s standard account reconcilement services for a low monthly price — $30 to $70 base charge and 5 to 7 cents a check. When is it best to use a bank’s reconcilement service?

Here are six suggestions:

(1) When you have a monthly check volume of at least 500 checks.

(2) When you need specialized reports.

(3) When you are currently performing your own reconcilement.

(4) You can find software at a reasonable price that meets your needs.

(5) When you don’t have your own PC or any other kind of computer system. (We already warned you about that).

(6) When you have no staff to do it, or time to do it yourself.

NO EXTRA MONEY IN YOUR BANK ACCOUNT

Many businesses make the mistake of keeping too much money in their bank accounts to pay for bank services. This money could be used more effectively elsewhere — such as to pay off a loan or to invest at a more competitive rate. Many businesses have no idea how much money to leave in
the bank or what alternatives they have to compensate the bank. Take some time to find out what your minimum balance needs to be.

GET AN ACCOUNT ANALYSIS STATEMENT

How do you know how much money (bankers refer to this as “balances”) to leave in your checking account to pay for bank’s services? That’s a question that more business owners should be asking themselves.

(1) First, get a price list which shows how much your bank charges for services like account maintenance, checks deposited, checks paid, stop payments and wire transfers.

(2) Ask the bank to send you a monthly “Account Analysis Statement.” The analysis statement contains the average balance levels for the month — both the ledger and the available balance — as well as a listing of services used, their transaction volumes and cost. This statement should be obtained in addition to the regular monthly bank statement.

(3) Look at the account analysis to see whether you are overcompensating the bank. Then pull out any excess funds and invest them in a high-yielding money market mutual fund, for example.

A word of advice: Smaller banks may not know what you are talking about when you ask for an account analysis. Larger banks often offer such a statement, but you have to ask for it. And don’t let them charge you for this kind of statement since it is only an invoice.

INVENTORY IS NOT CASH

Every item you have sitting on your shelf should eventually be transformed into cash in your bank account, and the sooner the better. As long as it’s inventory, it’s basically dead weight. If it is not moving, you’re not having cash flow.

Here are six recommendations to minimize the cost of your inventory:

(1) Attempt to forecast as accurately as you can the day, week and month what you expect to sell.

(2) If you are dealing in more than one item, determine which item accounts for 80% of your sales. Then minimize ordering other items that are selling poorly or infrequently.

(3) Determine how fast you can get inventory, once you order it. Try to order as late as you can. Some firms can use “just-in-time” inventory which enables them to receive their order the day they need it.

(4) Determine your economic order quantity and don’t order too much inventory just to save a few pennies.

(5) Shop around and make sure you are getting competitive prices.

(6) Develop a policy for determining what is obsolete inventory, and how you can get rid of it. The best way to get rid of dead inventory is to sell it whatever you can get for it, even if that’s only 10 percent of what you paid for it. At least it will generate cash flow.

DON’T FORGET CONTINUITY SALES

Once of the most exceptional ways of controlling and improving cash flow well into the future is by employing something called continuity of sales or services.

Continuity sales are simply a contract to purchase products or services on an installment basis for a fixed period of time.

That may sound complicated, but in practice, it actually is not. The best example of a continuity sale is a magazine subscription. 12, 24, or 36 issues delivered each month for X amount of dollars. The bigger the subscription, they better deal you get. The publisher gets more money up front, and the customer gets a better deal in the long run.

Continuity can apply to anything.

Let’s say you own a dry cleaning business. How about an annual deal to clean 5 shirts or blouses per week for set amount of money? Get people to pay your for the entire week up front for a lot of fast cash flow. You’ll trade a discount for getting business, but you’ll ensure a steady cash flow for months to come.

Continuity works with just about any kind of product or service you are offering, from dry cleaning to to your personal consulting service.

You can structure payments for continuity sales on almost any basis, but it’s best by far to go for complete payment up front. After all, the discount is based on a customer’s commitment, and they’ll be a lot more committed with their money on the line.

LICENSING AGREEMENTS

After all is said and done, if you were to list the assets of the company you have created, you’d probably include your inventory, equipment, accounts receivable, equity, and so on.

But by this time, especially if you have been reading carefully, you have something more — something that is not necessarily a physical “thing” such as cash or inventory.

If you’ve been a clever business person, you have come up with certain ads that have outpulled your competitors. You have developed policies and procedures that have kept your returns and refunds the lowest of any around. Or you may have come up with a money-making technique that is completely unique. If so, you are potentially sitting on fast source of cash.

You can license the rights to use any of your specialized techniques or assets to other non-competitive businesses. You can do it for a flat fee, a percentage of profits, on a royalty basis, or any other way that makes sense to you. You can also conduct seminars to teach your techniques to
other would-be work-at-home entrepreneurs and charge whatever the market will bear. It’s easy to generate an extra $5,000 a month and much more on the lecture circuit. While you are getting paid to spread your knowledge, you will be drumming up more business.

The knowledge you have in your head right now could very well be worth a lot of money. It’s only a matter of you looking within yourself and at your successes to see how you can transform it all into real, hard cash.

Are you wondering what the hottest franchising trends are? Much of the recent success in that area is traceable to two demographic trends: Americans are getting older and feeling pressed for time. Doesn’t sound too bright, but it means booming business in franchising circles.

Now I am by no means a Franchise Guru. I’ve never owned one, worked for one, or even considered one and for good reasons.

First, when I started my publishing and publicity business I wasn’t flush financially enough to pay the “freight” on a franchise. Secondly, it seems too much like working for another corporate business to me. Things are done their way or no way, and you work for two – you and the piece the company takes. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be your cup of tea, because many entrepreneurs love franchises.

I’m not going to expound as a franchise expert, but rather I’ll give you the facts about the hottest ones to look at if you like franchises. Despite the status of the economy it seems the most stunning growth in franchises in 2004 has been in the senior-care segment. Seven senior-care companies ranked in the top 500 in Entrepreneur magazine have grown a total of 370 units in one year, and almost 39% in the past year.

Experts say that despite the large increases, this market hasn’t peaked yet. By 2010, 39 million Americans will be 65 or older, and that’s almost 20% of the North American population. About 30% of non-institutionalized seniors live alone, per the Dept. of Health and Human Services Administration on Aging. Many of them need extra help at home or companionship.

As the nation ages and boomers turn 60, this segment of the population will grow. “Elder care will replace child care as the number one social issue,” predicts Jeff Huber, vice president of Home Instead Senior Care – a franchise that grew from 356 to 448 units this past year.

The next hottest area is kids. Parents want their kids to have fun and be well-educated and will spend money to ensure this in good times and in bad. Children’s products and services segment of franchises have grown steadily over the year and become one of the top 5 overall categories in term of unit size in 2004.

What’s changed? Spending on children is now being fueled not only by baby-boomers, but by Generation X – a group that has $736 billion in spending power. Another change in the market in the past 25 years is the increase in dual-career families. According to some in the industry, this is an ideal time to enter the education sector of franchises for kids.

Kids’ fitness programs are also growing. Caryn Burnier, franchise sales director with Stretch-N-Grow International, says they have added 50 units last year. “We expect to see more children enrolled in fitness programs in the coming year,” says Jerry Perch, vice president of sales/marketing for the 92-unit Kinderdance International Inc. franchise.

Last, but not least, the tech industry is rebounding from its nose-dive in the past. This is because there is an increased dependence by people and businesses on their technology. People need advice on what to buy and what not to buy, and what is the proper solution to their particular need.

Computer Moms International Corp., a training and support provider, has seen a shift in its client base since it started 10 years ago. The greatest demand for services from the Computer Moms group has shifted to the business market, and the group added 30 franchises last year. The experts claim that the demand for quality full-service training and tech support is vast now and expected to become greater.

Following on the heels of those three areas are franchises in the area of Home Improvement, Fitness, Income Tax Preparation, Business Consulting, Specialty Ice Cream, and Coffee. So, if you’re in the market for a franchise type business pay heed to the up-and-coming hot leaders and let somebody else go for the 7-Elevens.

Because we have no idea what type of personal crisis may await us – an ugly divorce, debilitating disease, or ailing parent/child/spouse, we must be prepared. Just as you plan for advertising and promotions, you must plan for life’s surprises.

Paul Krasinski, founder of Lion Strategy Advisors, New York, suggests finding somebody NOW who can take over your responsibility and carry on for at least 20 days. He/she needs to be someone who can communicate well with staff and command respect, and may or may not be the person you feel closest to in the company.

Once a personal crisis hits, Krasinski recommends “full disclosure” to your employees. This avoids the feeling of being hit by a bomb, and that business will go on as usual. In case you think this doesn’t work, let me give you a case history.

Dana Weidaw, 28 and president of her own PR firm had only been in business 1 year when she tested “full disclosure” with her employees. She was diagnosed with an aneurysm which required a surgeon to drill through her skull. She had just landed her first major client and was publicizing a major hockey arena. If all didn’t go well with the project, this client could turn out to be her last.

Before missing 7 days of work, Weidaw prepped her full-time employee, another agency she was working with, and her client by sharing the nitty-gritty details of her crisis. She assured them everything would run according to plans and smoothly in her absence, and found that everybody was willing to work around her crisis. Weidaw found that, by nature, people are very sympathetic.

A word of caution though, you need to know when to talk. During and after a crisis – full disclosure is great. If you’re “contingency” planning though, it might be prudent not to advertise that if your personal life goes in the tanker good old Gary or Suzy will be in charge. Your employees may needlessly dwell on why they weren’t picked to run the show instead of them. Above all, you don’t want to cause widespread distress or distract your staff from day-to-day operation.

Just as surely as you plan for financial allocations for your business, always have a crisis plan in place. This may need adjustments from year to year as staff leaves and are replaced, so when planning for each year’s business needs include your crisis plan.

Certainly the female population of today is much better off than their mother’s or grandmothers, but obtaining financial support/loans isn’t viewed by bankers any differently than it is for male entrepreneurs.

If your entrepreneurial dream requires a bank loan, the process isn’t any easier if you’re a woman or a minority. The only slight advantage is that there may be additional lending sources available if you’re in either of these categories. But you still have to sell the lender on your business and means of repayment.

Both male and female executives in the corporate arena have much in common in terms of professional aspirations. However, the playing field is far from being equal. A survey was done by a non-profit research group called Catalyst recently. Male & female executives at 1,000 of the largest corporations in the U.S. were surveyed and more than half of the women said that they aspire to a CEO position. They were even willing to make sacrifices such as delaying a marriage and/or children, and that very willingness shouts to us that the field isn’t equal.

Other survey results were as follows:

• 49.5% of all employed managers and professionals are women, but they still tend to manage only other women.
• The highest-paid female executive still earns only 68% of the salary paid to her male counterpart.
• Firms that include women on their senior management teams showed greater improvement in corporate performance.
• 62% of the firms that included women on their senior management team saw their market share grow, compared with only 39% of companies with no female senior management.

Advancements in technology should help ease the movement of more women into leadership. Computers enable women to work more flexible hours and better balance work and family commitments, which is not expected of their male counterparts. (How equal is that?)

So-called feminine leadership traits will grow in importance in the 21st century, according to more than 160 international companies and 75 senior executives’ view of their firm’s progress toward gender equity.

Most respondents, predominantly male, predicted wide-spread abandonment of the “command and control” managerial style for a more “team-oriented” approach. That doesn’t seem all that bad to me. I can think of a lot of companies that could use more teamwork and less monarchy leadership.

These business gurus saw this new style as requiring skills that are “more feminine than masculine,” thus giving an edge to female managers. However, another 15-year study has shown that female managers are no more inclusive or democratic than men when making workplace decisions.

As grim as these facts might be, I don’t want to discourage any prospective female entrepreneurs. We female business owners know that we may have to work twice as hard for half the recognition and pay, but ladies – statistics show we’ll outlive our male counterparts.

We know that any woman who is a wife and mother and also in business, could do the job of two air traffic controllers without breaking a sweat even as the airport burns to the ground.

Dear Derek, 

I put up my first website a year ago. And I’m
embarrassed to say it’s making less than $100 per
month. Now, I’m writing to you because I’m very
frustrated with my website’s lack of progress. It’s
pathetic. But that’s not the half of it.

You see, my inbox gets flooded with offers every week
from different Internet marketing gurus. Each one
promising me riches. Each one promising to show me how
to make more money online. And in many cases I took
the bait.

I order their product.

After downloading it, I’ll spend a little time going
through it and then I soon get distracted by something
else.

So the new product I just purchased ends up sitting on
my hard drive, collecting dust. Another $500 down the
drain!

As I look back over the past 12 months, I’ve spent a
small fortune on different products that promise to
teach me the secrets of “making it” online.

Frankly, I’m feeling overwhelmed with information
overload. And what’s worse, I haven’t made a dollar
more.

As if that’s not enough, my wife is pissed off with
me. Look, I don’t blame her. She sees me spending all
this money and doesn’t see me producing any tangible
results.

Bottom line, I’m in a horrible rut and I was hoping
you can point me in the right direction. What advice
do you have?

Jeff Thompson
Dallas, Texas

Does this sound familiar to you?  I’m sure it does for a lot of internet marketers out there.  I know I’ve been guilty of taking up too many projects at one time, trying to juggle everything when I don’t even have 24 hours in a day.  In the end, I end up with a half-baked job out of all of them rather than creating something great out of one.

They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for different results.  Well, I’m going to change what I’ve been doing and do things a little differently to see if I can improve my results.  To ensure that I’m accountable for my actions, I’ve decided to blog about it here.  Consider this series of blog posts my real life case study if you will and let’s see what I can make out of it in one year’s time.

One of my biggest passions in life is writing.  Out of writing stemmed the passion for blogging.  It has also been my dream to make a living out of something I enjoy doing.  After hearing so many success stories from professional bloggers, I am keen to add my name to the growing list.  If I could make a replacement income out of blogging (I’ll take what I used to earn at my last company as my bench mark - which is approximately USD2k/month not including benefits and bonuses), I’ll officially consider myself a professional blogger.

However, this isn’t going to be just another blog about how to make money online.  This is going to be an account of my own personal journey towards becoming a professional blogger.  Do I currently make money online?  Yes, I do.  Is it a replacement income?  No, it is not.  At least, not by the standards of what I used to earn - $2k/month. 

Taking a leaf out of John Chow’s book, I’m going to blog about how much I’m currently earning from my blogs.  This is purely to serve a benchmark to for me to work against.  I currently have 12 blogs online, most of which are monetised in one way or another.  In combination, they earn me anywhere between $400-600/month (which is probably about how much a fresh graduate can expect to earn locally, although it isn’t an amount I could possibly live off).  The bulk of my income comes from three of my blogs - two which are pretty much automated and one which requires me to write to in order to make money.

Around about August 2007, I signed up for Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind Mentorship Program.  Although I had the best intentions to really work at it to achieve the target income of $5k/month, I ended up like Jeff Thompson - I eventually got distracted and didn’t really get very far.  However, what little I did do (and believe me it was very little) was enough to convince me that Yaro’s mentorship program was the real deal because the bulk of what I earn now is all due to the tips I picked up from Yaro’s course.  So if you’ve just started a blog with the intention of monetising it or you have a blog but aren’t making much money, I really recommend signing up for Yaro’s Blog Mastermind Mentorship Program.

Where I went wrong was that I had too many blogs and I wasn’t prepared to let any of them go while I concentrated on making one of them a success.  At the same time, I allowed myself to get sidetracked by the promises of other programs that would help me make money online.

My plan now is to take the best blog that I currently have - Babylicious - and focus on making it my professional blog.

Where most blogs about making money are case studies on blogs about making money (John Chow, for example), the case study you will read about here on Internet Home Businesses Blog is one about making money from a blog about parenting.  I honestly don’t know where this is headed, but stick with me and we’ll find out.

The concept of Job Sculpting as defined by career experts, Timothy Butler and James Waldroop, in the Harvard Business Review, is that good people will stay only in jobs that “fit their deeply embedded life interests—that is their long-held emotionally driven passions.”

To adopt this strategy, spend a lot of effort listening to your company stars. For each one of them, try to identify what life interests are dominant with them, and then offer them the assignments that satisfy this interest. It may mean simply adding another assignment to the existing responsibilities, or it may mean switching one set of tasks to another employee. It may even require moving your “star” employee to a different position altogether.

To learn what kind of interests you’re looking and listening for, use these 8 identifiable areas:
1. Application of technology.
2. Quantitative analysis ability.
3. Theory development and conceptual thinking.
4. Creative production.
5. Counseling and mentoring.
6. Managing people and relationships.
7. Enterprise control.
8. Influence through language and ideas.

If you have a top employee who has been working in the area of customer service, but lately seems dissatisfied, after talking with him/her you might learn they would rather be dealing with the vendors. Your star might be just the answer you’re looking for to find that latest innovative product that could be added to your stock (conceptual thinking), and employee B would rather interact with the customers. By a simple switch of responsibilities, you have two happy employees that feel they’re now contributing to your business and not just putting in time for a paycheck.

It’s always more cost effective for the business, and better for employee morale to keep your existing employees happy with their careers. It takes a toll on your business when you have to fill an empty employee spot with a newcomer who has to be trained in the way your company functions.

Time is money, and time used to train a brand new employee is the highest cost of doing business. However, the time spent by you to find out what will keep your top producers happy to be working for you – is the best investment you can make in your business.

Some interesting trivia compiled by Clark Consulting has to do with that business giant, Donald Trump:

• Percentage of professionals surveyed who say it’d take more than the prize of $250,000 for them to intern for Trump was 38%
• Percentage who say that Donald himself couldn’t pay them enough to work for him was 27%

How well do you perform as a boss?

• Percentage of workers who would cover for their boss if he/she made a mistake was 46%
• Workers who wouldn’t cover for their boss was 45%
• Men who would cover for their boss was 51%, women was 40%

What do your workers think?

• Workers who say not asking for help when they need it is the biggest mistake when networking is 37%
• Not keeping in touch with contacts was thought to be the biggest mistake by 25%
• Not thanking people for their help was considered a mistake by 22%
• Percentage of workers who burned their bridges with past employers was 13%

How do Americans about work?

• Those who feel as though they live to work rather than work to live equals 34%
• Citizens who feel our culture places a higher value on success at work than success at home was 74%
• Those who felt that the American value of hard work and long hours has had a positive effect on our culture was 33%

How about the opinions of female workers?

• Percentage of women working for privately held businesses owned by women was 52%
• Women working for privately held men owned businesses was 38%

We owe those enlightening figures to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, and from the Census Bureau we find that:

• In minutes, the average length of an American’s commute to work is 24.4
• The average commute in North Dakota, the state with the quickest drives to work, is 14.8 minutes.
• The percentage of Americans who drive to work is 77%
• Those who car pool is 10%
• Those who use public transportation is 5%

Now that you’re armed with all those figures and statistics, the next speech you give to your favorite organization can be peppered with some fascinating trivia.

This may not seem like a very valuable business article often forget in our zeal to be a success that there must be time made for laughs. Every once in a while we must remember what Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.”

The next step would be just to get started on it! Start writing creatively, from your heart, not just spitting out facts on a paper. People are reading your eBook because they do not want to read and search for information located everywhere about a specific topic. They want a concise, easy to read; interesting eBook they can print out and curl on the couch with. It goes without saying that no one should ever plagiarize; not only is it unlawful, it is disrespectful.

Always spell check and edit your work by reading it when you have finished. Polish it off by organizing each chapter into an eBook. Come up with a savvy title that catches the audience. If you really enjoy this line of business, you could do this full time and quit your day job.

You can get free advertising by giving away free expert content to relevant sites itching for some new, fresh content. Web site owners are always looking for fresh content. Make sure you write a bit about the author and your web site or product. As long as it is not competing with theirs, they will not mind. You can post on these sites:

www.ezinearticles.com
www.freesticky.com
www.ideamarketers.com
www.findsticky.com

You can become an active expert in a newsgroup that is industry related. A newsgroup is an online forum where people share information and common interests. When you post, you are literally talking to your potential customers. These people do not want to be sold something; they want information from gurus, about the topic they are interested in. Make sure you have a sig file, or signature and start establishing relationships and prove your expertise. Stay with newsgroups that do not accept advertisements. This is also a great way to gather feedback from your website, straight from the horses’ mouth. You can reinvent it if you need to and fix it accordingly. When you post informative articles, people will begin to look forward to your posts, and eventually you may want to direct these people to your brand new newsletter.