Distractions and Your Online Business

Want to know a big problem with running an online business? They’re online.

Yep. They’re on that big, huge, distraction-filled wonder of our day, the Internet. The one with all the blogs, and social bookmarking sites, and YouTube, and online games, and…well, maybe I should stop here. Otherwise, I’m going to start indulging in one of my worst habits, which is getting distracted by all the things I can find online.

Distractions have eaten hours of time I could have probably spent doing something more productive, like building my business. If you let them, they’ll do the same thing to you. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do if you’re as distraction-prone as I am.

• Earn your fun time.
  If you enjoy doing something online that’s always on the back of your mind while you’re online, force yourself to accomplish your daily tasks first, and earn your fun time. There’s far less guilt that way, and you actually accomplish something.
• Learn from them.
  You know some web sites or fun things distract you. Find out what makes them that way, and see if you could apply them to your online business. That way, you might be able to put your otherwise frivolous distractions to use in making you money.
• Restrict them.
  Only allow yourself so much time in a day to indulge in your online distractions. That way, you don’t find you’ve Stumbled or Dugg for hours on end to the detriment of your business.

Distractions are everywhere online. Don’t let them get in the way of your business. Manage them, and you can make your money and live a little too.

CashMaps - Systems That Help You Make More Money Online

I have been swamped this week with the Olympics, but I wanted to let you know about something REALLY cool that Rich Schefren recently released. It’s called “CashMaps“.

Bascially, CashMaps is a monthly newsletter that reveals the systems that Rich uses to build his online business. If you want to build an online business, Rich’s CashMaps is something you should take a look at.

Click here to check it out for yourself.

7 Causes Of Procrastination Exposed!

Procrastination is like venomous poison for anybody who owns and runs a business. Sometimes it can get so bad, all we do is stare at the computer screen for hours on end while we mentally beat ourselves up to will a clever idea into our brain.

If you fight against this monster from time to time you know exactly what I mean. You might even have felt the urge to throw your computer out of the window because you got so frustrated at your lack of ideas.

I know how this feels and I can tell you, it’s not a good feeling. But over time I have come to recognize certain procrastination causes and I’m going to expose them to you one by one.

By knowing what could be the reason behind your inability to produce kick a** content on time, every time, you might be better armed next time around.

Procrastination cause #1: pressure

Pressure is hardly ever a good thing. Ok, some of you might actually get off on stress, but for the rest of us, we rather have a time and a place for every task we do. Plus, multitasking has been said to be quite ineffective anyway.

By limiting pressure, you will clear the mental head space and make room for the more important aspects of your business.

Procrastination cause #2: clutter

That nasty word! Office clutter is perhaps one of the biggest reasons we procrastinate. I’m sure you can remember times when your office desk was neat, kind of like a Zen style advert for organized media gurus.

This is the situation you want to experience every single day. If you currently struggle with clutter, get organized. Use apps, employ a secretary, or even a virtual VA. It will be worth your time or money; since working in a clean environment is beneficial for our creative juices.

Procrastination cause #3: hunger & thirst

You might be laughing at this, but I have come to learn that on many occasions when I felt lethargic and couldn’t be bothered to work, it was due to not being hungry. I often find myself totally lost in my work and before I remember to eat or drink, some 5 hours have gone by in a microsecond.

Thirst is another major cause for procrastination. If you don’t drink enough, your brain will become sluggish and procrastination will settle in.

Maybe you want to get into the habit of keeping a glass of water at your desk (safely of course) to remind you to drink often.

Procrastination cause #4: loss of interest

If you find yourself consistently procrastinating over the same issues or topic it might be a sign of underlying issues. Perhaps you lost the drive for the subject, or you feel inadequate to fulfill the required job.

Either way, it might be time to look closer at the why and then go about finding a solution.

Procrastination cause #5: lack of quality sleep

While some of us can function perfectly with about 5 hours sleep every night, most people can’t. I’m taking a wild guess here, but I would think that most of you fall into the 7-8 range.

The point is, unless you sleep enough for your body’s needs, you will find yourself consistently tired, moody and hard to motivate.

Procrastination cause #6: lack of adequate rest

You can’t just keep working like a robot. Every one of us needs time off. Time off work, preferably in a total different environment.

Sometimes I get into my extreme mode. I work and work and work….. and guess what? Work some more. While this is great for a while I soon find myself totally and utterly burned out. I do need my time away from the computer (my office) as much as anybody else.

If you think you are superhuman, think again. You too need a break.

Procrastination cause #7: interruptions

These are by far the worst causes of procrastination because they are often outside our control. We don’t know that hubby is wanting to discuss his latest recipe right when you are in the zone. neither can you possibly know that aunt Mary is calling you just as you entered a very creative working spell.

It’s true, we can’t know these things, let alone foresee them.

But what you could do is eliminate the possibilities of distractions while you work. Switch the phone to the answering machine. Tell your family you are working and for gods sake close your email client and chat.

Making small changes and taking control

Rome wasn’t built in a single day and neither will you manage to go from procrastination victim to Zen warrior of GTD. All it takes is small steps, one at the time.

Procrastination mustn’t be something you “just experience“. You can beat it.

Think Your Customer Support Doesn’t Matter?

Do you think that because you are selling something on a mini-site that your customer support doesn’t matter? If you do, you really need to correct that misunderstanding right now. I guarantee you that your customer support and desire to answer their inquiries will directly affect whether or not they buy from you again, and I’ll give you a recent offline example.

In the past few months, I spent a couple of thousand dollars with a company I won’t name, believing they could help me. In truth, it all started out quite well. Then, they sent me a false notice that they couldn’t continue with their service because I hadn’t done something I had, and it all started going downhill. Not good when it costs a customer thousands of dollars for you to perform that service.

Now granted, your product or subscription site probably isn’t going to cost someone thousands of dollars, unless you sell training programs. However, if you’re apathetic to customer emails, or your computer does something screwy and starts throwing out false panic attacks like the one I received from the company above, chances are you’re going to create negative publicity. That means you can forget things like referral sales or testimonials. In short, your customer service, however simple it may be, makes a difference.

Here are just a few tips on customer service:

• If you get an email or other communication from a customer, answer it.


• If you have a lot of different services/sales sites/subscription sites, set up a central ticket site (http://www.askjonleger.com is a good example of this), then point all the support links on all of your sites at that one site. Customers can fill out and track tickets, and you only have to go one place to support them.


• Support your customers after they purchase from you.


• Find out what your customers think after they sign up, buy, or leave. This will help improve your service and keep future customers happier.

It only take a little bit of bad to annoy a customer, and you’ve probably experienced it for yourself as a customer facing bad service. So don’t deliver it in your online business.

Purposeful Blogging - A Must For Business Owners

Blogging with a purpose. What does it mean and how can we get the most out of it if that is our aim? I ponder this question quite often to be honest. When I first came online I didn’t have a purpose except to make money. Little did I know what it actually takes to make money.

Well, fast forward 4 years and I have learned a lot. So much so that I could easily write 20 ebooks. No, scrap that, hundreds of them. I’m consistently surprised and amazed at how much information I can cram into my brains on a daily basis.
Sometimes I feel my brain has to burst for sure.
But no, it just keeps working, soaking up usable scraps of info and reminding me about them when I need something fast.

If we look at it closely, our mind is like a huge machine. Quietly filing away information bytes until we need them. Storing them on hidden shelves.
Getting back to the blogging with purpose idea though I noticed it helps to know what we really want out of life. Admittedly most of us are consistently re-inventing ourselves. There is nothing wrong with that since we learn and adapt throughout a lifetime.

The best thing about writing a blog is that we can always change direction. After all, it is ours. We make it our own and stamp our own distinctive character onto it. While this kind of helps (since we don’t have to worry), it does still make sense to blog with a purpose since it is saving us huge chunks of time.

Just imagine what would happen if you were to change directions on your blog all the time. Chaos! Plus you’d also loose most of your readers for sure. Blogs have that distinctive trait to attract a certain readership, depending on the topic of course.

While most bloggers change their direction at some stage, many wouldn’t dare to do this too often, me included. Unless of course we start a new blog.
But doing this will only cause us to waste a lot of time. Time we could use to actually grow our blog with a purpose. Whether this time is utilized with link building, adding more posts or using other means to further blog traffic is irrelevant.

Purpose blogging is in my humble eyes a must if you want to build a corner stone blog for your business. For many business owners blogs are the number one means to connect with the world. Their blog is the window to their shop, their business.

For these business owners purposeful blogging is more important than for a diary blogger who simply wants to have some fun. To blog with purpose could include any of the following:

• keyword focused posts
• driven advertising
• networking in the right circles
• blogging on topic
• blogging to a strict schedule
• using prizes, give away’s and competitions to attract more readers

Whatever your purpose, you need a structure. Whether you focus on any or all of the examples before, you need to know what your blogging purpose is.

When I first started my blog, I did it with the intention to journal my journey as a freelance writer. My aim hasn’t wavered much, although I did eventually stop blogging on wider topic group and started to narrow my focus on freelance writers (both new and established), writers and entrepreneurs instead.

This change of focus has paid off with regards to help brand myself as an established and knowledgeable freelance writer, which of course I am by now. To further sweeten my decision, I am fortunate enough to be able to help many aspiring freelancers with my advice. This in fact has always been my blogging purpose too, I just needed to narrow my blog’s focus some more to move further in this direction.

As you can see by what it has done for me, a blogging purpose could make a huge difference to your blog, your business and ultimately your life.

So, tell us, what is your blogging purpose?

The Frugal Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs come in all sizes and shapes. They approach their business with a goal, something that works for them and while some manage to work to a strict schedule, others explore and learn along the way. The frugal entrepreneur however has one thing in mind.

His main objection is to run his business frugally to ensure faster success. But what exactly does this mean?

Wikipedia says frugality in philosophy can have several meanings. For starters, it could be considered a virtue, or a spiritual discipline by some cultures or even environmentalists, while others see frugal living as a result of mistrust.

In business, frugality equals the usage of available resources and making them last longer. Entrepreneurs, especially young ones need all help they can get in the beginning stages of their business. What better way to become pro-active and choose the do-it-yourself approach.

While I was thinking about this concept, I wondered whether business frugality can indeed help us attain success faster or not? Join me on my mind trip to see what conclusions I have reached.

Being an entrepreneur myself I can only look at this from my own perspective. While this might be similar to some of you, others might not agree with my views, which is fine. I think we have to do what is right for us, regardless of ideas, options or desire.

My journey to business frugality

When I first started out online I was a total greenhorn. I think it’s safe to say this. Since I was born in the flowering 60s, I never learned how to use a computer at school, let alone did I realize there was an Internet available to me in the 90s. To say I’m a late starter is quite accurate.

So in some ways I can be forgiven to be blinded by this massive online world and all the opportunities that lie at my finger tips when I finally saw the bigger picture.

To be honest, while everything seemed rather exciting it soon became massive overload. And after soaking up everything I learned, saw and heard on the net I soon found myself burnt out, close to financial melt down and disheartened with my lack of advancement.

Spending myself out of pocket

The major problem for me was my desire to know everything. I soon realized that it is impossible. On my quest to find online riches I bought every dozens of eBooks, courses, plus memberships. Every time I did I felt a little closer to my goal which of course I so wasn’t.

In reality I was kidding myself while spending my hard earned money on a lot of useless stuff. Then when I failed my MLM business I had no other options than to either go back to a job I hated (which I did for about 7 months) or get really serious and make it happen.

The dawn of frugality

That moment was the beginning of my business frugality. I stopped buying into every new product launch. I also stopped buying into all the hype I saw online.

I started to knuckle down, look very hard at what I REALLY wanted from a home business and went about doing it, step by step.

My frugal mind helped me since I went from spending between $2000- $3000/month to spending about $150 for my business costs. Mind you, the massive difference was mainly due to me quitting my MLM business. Company tools, events, lead management systems and phone bills kept those expenses astronomically high.

When I look back now I’m still shocked at having spend so much of our savings. Despite this shock, I also know that if it wasn’t for my MLM business I wouldn’t be doing what I do now. You could say I made peace with myself and learned from my mistakes along the way. Was it costly? Hell yes it was as you can see quite easily. But I’m thankful I made the switch when I did, otherwise I might be living in a rented house rather than my own today.

On being frugal

In short, my decision to become business frugal has meant the difference between my business success and my earlier failure. Maybe I needed to be learning this very hard lesson in order to become 100% dedicated and serious. In retrospect, I probably did.

From where I stand, it certainly does help to have a frugal mind as an entrepreneur. There is no room for wastage and much error as every single one will cost us dearly.

Does this make sense to you too? Do you employ a frugal mind set in your business or couldn’t you care less about this? Let us know please.

Business Success vs Friendship

Yesterday I had a really worrying conversation with a friend of mine. He voiced a concern about another mutual friend who he feels has been avoiding him for quite some time. The trouble is, this second friend is actually quite successful in her business ventures. Naturally the question arose whether she was actually putting her success before her friends needs to keep the friendship going.

While I don’t know their history and it isn’t my business to worry about them, I certainly started to ponder the question in general terms.

How do we as a business person value friendship, once success has taken hold in our business?

I could bet most people would answer this saying they certainly value their friends, regardless of their business success. However, while this is certainly true for myself, I wonder what really happens to some people once their reach the pinnacle of their respective business.

For starters, people might become so involved in their business affairs they simply forget to make time for their friends. They could also be so bombarded from other not so successful people asking for help which of course takes a huge chunk of time out of their working day.

So many possible scenarios come to mind which all negatively affect our friendships.

My friend also mentioned some people’s need for even more money once they are on top of their business, regardless of their friends.

This leads me to believe that most “common” people actually believe the following to be true – that once we become wealthy, we don’t really care about our old friends anymore and simply concentrate on earning even more money.

I suppose this belief of mine has further been fueled by many conversations I had in the past with a wide range of people. Most of us grow up thinking being equals nastiness. You know, we feel rich people have no character, they simply don’t care about “us” the “common” people anymore, since they have so much money to burn they hardly have time to foster their old relationships.

While I personally think this to be utter rubbish, I actually know many people who belief just that. Most of these people are children of middle class families, having grown up with this common “hate” for rich and successful people.

I’m also a middle class child and I know this to be true because my parents instilled this belief into me when I was younger. I know they didn’t mean it out of spite, they simply believed this to be true without trying to understand while some people might react like this but most never would, because a lot of people feel the same way, hence a common belief is born. When I started to involve myself with a lot of personal development I learned to understand that this wasn’t true.

But, regardless of my own belief in this matter I still wonder how people actually react once they become financially rich and how do others who previously knew them perceive them to be in their new found wealth.

See, it could also be the “common” people’s jealousy kicking in. They are upset, jealous, angry, etc. because they are still stuck in their 9-5s while the rich person has created a new reality.

I suppose I could offer a lot more thought on this scenario, but I really wanted to hear your thoughts on this matter. How do you feel about the business success vs friendship situation?

More importantly, where are you right now in this regard? What is your reaction, your experience with this. 

The Grass Isn’t Always Greener On The Other Side

A common attribute many people share is the belief that the other side is more fun, hence the saying “the grass is always greener on the other side.” While this might be true for certain aspects of life, it doesn’t always ring true for business.

In fact, I beg to differ and throw a total different viewpoint out here. I believe that the reason most people never succeed online is because of their beliefs. See, most budding entrepreneurs start out by following a dream. Often that dream isn’t strong enough and as a result they fail.

This is nothing out of the ordinary and should always be expected. Not all of us are made from the same resilience and depending whether we can sustain ourselves through our beliefs, our abilities and our actionable activities is down to the individual.

But the majority of online business seekers are those who start off by following a certain principle. That might be a book they read, a person who teaches them a certain way, or an idea they find really cool and suitable for themselves.

In the beginning stages of all businesses we have the building blocks. Once we get over that initial hurdle and really start going we experience major setbacks and smaller hurdles that need to be stepped over in order to get ahead.

And here is where the problems begin for most.

While some few with a mighty vision and plenty of passion keep powering on, the rest will start looking over the neighbors fence when things start to toughen up. We start to admire the color of his grass and wonder how in the world we can’t get our grass to be as green and healthy, all the while forgetting the fact that our neighbor has been tending to his grass for a good while longer than us.

This will quickly lead to frustration and self doubt. We start to question our abilities, our motivation and the why? I can tell you right now, unless your why is big enough, this will be a tough nut to crack.

Looking over the fence to compare ourselves with others is a very bad idea. Comparison can never be fair as the other person will always have a different mind set, ability and will power than us. No two humans are exactly the same and we also don’t come from the same background.

So how in the world can you expect to be as good as the new kid on the block who grew up with entrepreneurial parents, powering on past you to success, while you stem from a middle class home and never knew what personal development was before you read an online article.

Comparing ourselves in such ways is a sure fire way to failure and throwing the towel. Don’t do it. You are destined for greatness if you only believe so. We all are.

Another problem is the start – stop mechanism in which many “would be” business owners run their business. They start – look over the fence to find a quicker way to become successful – and stop. Then they start with the quicker way to become successful and find that it isn’t so easy after all and guess what – they stop. This destructive cycle will continue to spin until you learn to focus your energies and your vision.

Once you clarify your vision and keep your focus, your business will improve – guaranteed. I think that is proof enough that the grass is certainly not greener on the other side, even if we tend to believe so.

How To Work Successfully From Home

Working from home poses its own challenges for people who do, namely working in a somewhat lonely environment, deciding on whether to shower, dress for success or simply working in our PJ’s. Either way, whatever we do, it does require some form of control and measure to get things done in a timely matter.

The biggest issue work at home entrepreneurs have would probably fall into time management and staying on track of our goals. After all, it is only too easy to get sidetracked with important visits, movies, game nights, shopping, outings and what not.

I’m sure that if you fall under the label “self employed, working from home” you have your very own demons to wrestle with at times (or had in the past at least).

What were your biggest issues and how did you grasp them in the end?

When I first started out in my first home business, I always dressed up, brushed my teeth, combed my hair and did everything else I was supposed to do to run a successful home business.

After all, working from home is no different than working for a boss, except of course that we are the boss. Or so I thought… soon enough I learned that following the same behavior to get ready for work than if I was actually going to an employers premises didn’t really work out as I hoped it would.

All the nice suits, cool hairstyle and mint fresh breath didn’t get my work done, did it.

No, I learned that instead of living that pre-cut life of doing things this and that way, I was better off to focus on the actual tasks at hand and really stay the course.

Since nobody is watching over our shoulders except perhaps our spouses and clients (if we have them) it is a challenge for many entrepreneurs to stay on course of their self imposed work schedule.

Perhaps that is why it is so easy to make excuses, since we “only” work for ourselves.

To do that you would only kid yourself and risk your own lifeline and success. After all, if we make too many excuses nothing good will ever come out of it.

Don’t you agree?

So what is the secret to keeping the focus without falling prey to daily distractions while working from home?

Personally I think the most important part of running a business from home is to set targets. But not just any targets. They have to be in bite sized chunks to stay manageable. It also helps to factor in distraction time every day.

In the years I have been online I finally learned that no matter how many tasks you set yourself every day, you will fall short of them on most days due to unforeseen distractions. As long as you allocate extra time for this, you won’t have any issues. I also learned that setting myself too many targets never works out so I keep them in a manageable way.

What works for me is to take 2/3 of my working day and plan it out while leaving the rest free for the less important work that has to be done regardless. This has worked really well for me over the past year.

Maybe you have your own tips on how to work successfully from home.

Setting Milestones For Business

Online entrepreneurs have something in common. Our desire to succeed has made us take our financial destiny into our own hands with the idea of becoming financially successful one day.

While success can mean many things for each of us, a common measure of success is managing to become financially independent of an offline job and have the freedom of working from home. While working from home is generally associated with the American dream, many entrepreneurs fail to set proper milestones in their business to get ahead.

It is too easy to become complacent while things are going well, but not setting targets that help us to grow would be like committing business suicide.

The first step is always the hardest since it often involves a tremendous amount of courage, trust in our abilities and mojo to get even started.

Fear of failure holds back many would be entrepreneurs and unfortunately this common human trait will hold these folk back from ever experiencing the power of failure. Yes, that wasn’t a misprint since failure is ultimately responsible for our successes. Without failure we very rarely grow and without growth, there won’t be any success.

Depending on what business you are involved in, you will have to set different milestones on your journey to financial abundance. To give you an idea, I have listed the goals I achieved along the way so far and how I advanced my own business by striving to meet them step by step:

• Starting my own freelancing business – check!
• Earning $1,000 month – check!
• Earning a full time income (minimum of $2,000/month) – check!
• Becoming a pro-blogger – check!
• Networking with other writers and webmasters – check ongoing!
• Taking on other writers (outsourcing) – in progress…
• Earning enough to help my husband quit his job – in progress…
• Building niche sites to pay me residual income for years to come – in progress…
• Working mornings only, while living “my dream life” for the rest of each day – in progress

Ultimately, the last statement is my largest dream. Being able to run my business from anywhere in the world and not having to work all day long every day. My dream is to earn enough money for both myself and my husband and be financially free to work anywhere I please, living the lifestyle of an LIP.

Here is what you can do to determine your very own business milestones.

I’m sure you’ve heard the terms:

• short term planning
• medium term planning
• and long term planning before

These are common denominations when it comes to setting goals and getting things done. The thing is, while for one of you short term means this week, for others it means the next three months.

It really is hard to throw all into the same bucket and depending on the nature of your business, short term really does mean today. If you are in an industry that deals with fast changes like money, real estate or trends for example, today’s hot deal could be stone cold tomorrow. Entrepreneurs in these particular industries have to set different goals than a writer like myself.

Also, often our goals have nothing to do with money but a simple measurement.

Measurements are needed regardless of the business you are involved in and could relate to any of the following and anything else for that matter if I have forgotten to mention it here: time, money, grades, recognition, education, positions, the amount of clients you have, the amount of employees you have, etc.

I’m sure you understand what I mean by now. Unless we use some kind of measure in which to advance our business with, it will be really hard to move ahead.

Measurements evoke another most important attribute. This attribute is called focus.

Without focus most of us would barely be able to earn a dime to support ourselves online, let alone our family. Focus is what gets us out of bed in the morning and keeps us pushing on toward yet another goal when the going gets tough.

As you can see, setting milestones is barely the first step we take when we embark into entrepreneurship. Milestones are a constant evolving matter that power us toward the dreams we always had.

My Meeting With Wendy Piersall Of SparkPlugging

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of meeting Wendy Piersall of Sparkplugging (formerly eMoms at Home). It was a real pleasure to meet with her in person after being online friends for about a year now.

Wendy is very altruistic and would love to help everyone work from home. She recently made major changes to her blog and even changed the domain name from emomsathome.com to sparkplugging.com. She has done amazing things with her blog and I highly recommend you go check it out.

I may talk more about some of the things we discussed at a later point in time, but the main thing I took away from meeting Wendy is that she sincerely wants to help people learn how to work from home for a living.

Before I go, here is a picture of the two of us from earlier this week:

The Importance Of Business Branding

Branding is all around us in many forms and faces. Whether you are shopping, watching TV or browsing the Internet, everywhere we go these days we are directly influenced in our decision making process by the effects of branding.

Most people aren’t even aware that their minds are gently (or in some instances aggressively) influenced by clever marketing. They end up buying this and that because something they heard or saw stuck with them. It could be a tingle that keeps playing every time you switch on the radio, or that huge electrical store who annoys you with their repetitive ads.

I’m sure you’ve had your own fair share of getting annoyed at some of these ads, but when you think about it, we often tend to drift toward exactly those businesses we always get annoyed about when we need something in particular.

This is due to a combination of smart marketing and business branding.

It starts with the look

We too can achieve this by branding our name or business name all over the Internet. So how do we do this without spending thousands of dollars like the big corporations do?

It’s easy. We use a blog. My preferred choice is the WordPress platform because it is the perfect content management software (CMS) to design a WordPress blog that actually looks like a website.

This site can be your very own branding tool and with a bit of money invested ($100-$500+) you will be able to get a unique site that is your face for the world to see.

First impressions always count, whether we meet someone in person or see their works on the Internet and those initial seconds can be the difference between a long term contract or no work at all.

Regardless of the business you own, you need a proper portal (portfolio) in which to represent yourself. While this might be a given for some, many business owners oversee this most important point.

Your vision counts

Try to find a designer who can take your vision and put this into reality with a custom made theme. I recently did a total make over on my Portfolio site and ended up paying under $300. This was well worth the investment because since the changeover I already gained 3 new clients!

In effect the theme has already paid for itself several times over.

Regardless whether you are working for yourself in a one man/woman show, or are the CEO of a huge corporation, if you have a web presence, you need branding!

Here is what you’ll need to consider before contacting your designer:

• What color scheme do I want for my site (a mixture of 2-3 main colors work best)
• What kind of navigation do I need (traditional blog design, newspaper design, simple page with no sidebars)
• How do I portray myself? Is it more with a direct approach, or more subtle with occasional hints at who I really am?
• Do I want my photograph, a logo, a slogan or all of these combined on the site
• What is my maximum budget?
• Is the site going to be stationary (set) or will I actually use it to blog on too?

The more you can work with your designer in regards to the final result, the better he/she can work with you. It really pays to contemplate these things before you rush into any decision as your site/blog will be your online business portal (portfolio) for a long time to come.

Make it last.

Conclusion

Branding my name from early on into my business has helped me to gain recognition from top Internet marketers. Using a professional design has furthered this to catapult me into a bigger league now and this is being reflected by the new clients I attract.

In my next post I will actually go into the second stage of branding and what you can do as a blogger, business owner to draw traffic to your site. This is something that can be done by anybody, irrespective of money or time.

As long as you are aware that one of these commodities will need to be invested, you will be fine.

If you have questions, or like to know how you can get your own theme, feel free to comment below.

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