During the last few months, I had been searching and discerning on how to move my online business forward. There is a perception that online business entrepreneurs are easily attracted to the “shiny object syndrome” which is basically following the latest and the easiest push-button strategies of earning an income online.

However, these strategies can be driven by human greed or the “culture of instant.” Sometimes, the priority is not focused on the improvement of the person but the quick mighty dollars that can be had in the shortest possible time.

Christian Values
This aspect of online business, being mindful of people not just income, has slowed my journey down a bit. As a practising Christian, my personal values are of utmost importance in all my business dealings and income creation activities. Part of my journey forward is to learn how to grow the business faster without compromising Christian values. I have to ensure that what I do realistically helps another human being to improve their circumstances and not rob them of their hard earned cash.

For this reason, I only learn from ethical, usually Christian, entrepreneurs and from people who, like me, value trust and sincere desire to help others.

The online business growth may be a little bit slower but the journey will be more fulfilling. There will be real work involved and no promises of instant riches.

As in any income source, online income has to be generated through honest and trustworthy means utilizing real and smart working strategies.

Doing the Basics
The emphasis is on doing the basics and doing them the proper way. Customers are now savvy and clever in discerning between the “get rich quick schemes” and the legitimate and ethical business activities.

Trustworthiness is one of the important elements in my online business now and the future. I have to align my entrepreneurship with my personal values that include trust, leadership, spiritual growth and life balance.

Direction and Products
My business direction will be more clearly personal values-based. I invite you to watch out for the introduction of my products and services that will help you move your online business in a more stable and proven yet inspiring wealth creation strategies.

All the best in your online business journey!

Ros

Have you noticed a new trend that has come out recently? Some of your friends must have posted on your Facebook newsfeed what they like on Pinterest. You must be wondering what it is all about. It is an online pinboard where users can organise and share things they love. Basically, it is a virtual pinboard.

Pinterest allows you to organise and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You may use pinboards to plan a wedding, decorate a home, and organise your favourite recipes. You may also browse pinboards created by other people where you may discover new things and get inspiration from those who share your interests.

And yes, it is another social network. It allows users to visually share and discover new interests by pinning or posting images or videos to their own or to others’ pinboards. Many marketers are interested in using it to promote their products or services. However, Pinterest discourages using it “purely as a tool for self-promotion.”

If you are a business owner, go ahead and use it as another avenue to bring in leads or traffic to your website. Just ensure you measure the effectiveness of this tool as, like the other social networks, it also takes your time away from running your business.

This social network is creating a lot of attention on the net and now boasts a user base of 3.3 million. So there you go. In order to get started, you have to request an invite at http://www.pinterest.com/home

Have a great day!

Ros

It’s the start of the year and time to plan the year ahead of us.  There are a few things that we need to ensure so we are able to accomplish our goals.

Last year, in my hope of moving out of my comfort zone and being more adventurous, for the first time after about twenty years, I decided not to set a one-year goal.

My family and I simply did all the things that should be done.  Although we managed to do a lot of the “have to do” stuff,” we did not accomplish much of our “want to do” things.  We managed to go through the year with the support of family and friends.

This year, I am going back to my goal-setting practice.  If you are a working mom or a busy parent, here are some of the ways that we need to consider when setting our goals:

1. Involve your family.

As they will be the people who will be directly affected by your activities and commitments for the year, have a planning meeting with your spouse.  This could be done over morning tea at home or in a café and could require two or three sessions, depending on what preparations you need to do.

Then, have an informal meeting with the children just to find out what their plans are. If they are too young to have their own plans, ask them for some input on what they hope to do during the year.  Young kids usually want to get out of regular commitments but this is when gentle parental advice or motivation can come in handy.

2. Reflect on the different areas in your life

We need to look at our physical (health), spiritual, financial (wealth), intellectual, vocational (career), emotional and social (relationships) and recreational (creativity) states.

The development of these areas in our lives can help us in our growth and maturity. In addition, they can also impact on our desire to live a balanced life.

3. Write down your goals and create a physical or digital reminder.

Write your goals down on a small piece of paper or index card that you can place on your wallet or personal diary.  This ensures that you can see it daily to remind yourself of what you want to accomplish. This also brings you to refocus and minimise distractions, especially in your schedules.

You may also create your physical or digital vision board. The physical board may be placed next to your desktop or working desk and the digital version can be loaded onto your computer so that every time you turn it on in the morning, the vision board plays.

4. Write down your plan and strategies.

For every goal, write your plans and strategies.  This may involve what you will specifically do daily, weekly or monthly.  For example, your daily To-Do List could include small activities of what you wish to accomplish.  Make sure they are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.

5.     Review your plans and strategies.

You need to review your plans and strategies regularly, such as weekly, monthly and quarterly. Diarize these dates to ensure that they are done.  Do not hesitate to adjust areas that you find may not be helpful in achieving your goals anymore.

6.    Reward yourself.

Every month or every quarter, review your goals to see any positive trends that will ultimately lead to accomplishing the goal at the end of the year. Also, inform the family of the positive signs and trends that concern them and affirm everybody for their contributions.  Devise your own reward system accordingly.

Accept that there will be some obstacles or distractions along the way and you may need to detour or slow down.  Be patient with yourself and the people around you.  As long as you follow your plan, you will definitely achieve most if not all of your goals.

How about you, have you done your goals for the year?  How do you go about doing your goals?  You may share your comments or suggestions below.

Enjoy your goal setting!

Take care.

Ros

This year has passed very quickly for me and my family. Perhaps you feel that yours went by pretty quickly too. It has been a year full of blessings for us and we could not pass this year without celebrating. We organised the 23rd anniversary of our community in Sydney, ran two parish retreats in our diocese, I celebrated my 50th birthday, my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday and our 20th wedding anniversary. All these happened within the last four months! Of course, we could not have done these without the generous support of our friends and community.

We have been very grateful for these milestones and to make our joy complete, we spent some really special time with God in a monastery and in our local church. Then we also wanted to recognise the people who supported us through the years in special celebrations.

Early in the year, I was very fortunate to see my father and celebrate his 50th Wedding Anniversary with my mother. After two months, he passed away. I had to go back to see my mother and siblings as we celebrated Dad’s life and mourned his passing.

It was a bitter sweet year but we made the most out of it. Our main priority as a family this year was celebrating milestones and showing our gratitude.

It is not enough to simply be busy in our many activities – work, children’s school and extra curricular activities and our church and community involvements – but we wanted to stop, be consciously aware and be openly grateful of where God has brought us.

I trust that this year has also been a very memorable and meaningful one for you and I hope that the New Year will bring you joy and peace as you recognise and celebrate your purpose here on earth.

All the best!

Ros

The other day, all of Australia stopped to watch the race.  Every year, most Aussies place a bet on one of the popular horses.  When I was managing an employment services branch for many years, this day would mean a quick afternoon gathering of the staff members in front of a television with some munchies.  There was also a symbolic kind of betting where we would choose a little folded paper with a name of a horse in exchange for our gold coins.  But people around the country would place a bet worth millions of dollars on this day. Last year, a hundred and ten million dollars were placed.  

This year, when the race begun, I was working on my desk … no TV, no bet, no munchies and no one around me. This has been my choice for a few years now. Horribly un-Assie but now that I can have a choice, I have chosen this path. Not just because I do not believe in placing bets for horses, but also because I believe there are other wonderful things we could do using our money.

I would like to share today an infographics on some of the things we could do if we channel our bets to some worthy causes:

Source: DebtConsolidation.com.au

What do you think? I guess if you are not an Aussie, it would be hard to understand this. If you are, choose wisely. Not your horse but your actions.

All the best!

Ros

An information product is any product or service that provides people or customers with information. It can be in the form of an eReport, eBook, audios, mp3s, downloadable audio files, videos, DVDs, teleseminars, webinars, home study courses, coaching, mentoring and others. It is basically anything that packages up information that can be sold.

Majority of people who start a business online create information products to sell and earn an income.

Within the next few days, I will be featuring articles on how to create different types of information products.

Today, I am featuring eReports or Small Reports. First of all, how do you find your topics for your report? Here are 5 Methods to find topics that are in demand in a particular market:

1. Article Directories
Look at popular directories, such as eZineArticles.com, ideamarketers.com, GoArticles.com, articlesbase.com, isnare.com and others.  Within those directories, you then look for articles that are related to your target market. 

2. Amazon.com
Search the book section based on popularity using your market keywords or phrases. This will also give you ideas on your next report topic.

3. Clickbank.com
Search in Marketplace and choose the your category. Look through the first 5 products listed and find the topic that will suit your  particular target audience. You may also find excellent products you can promote.

4. Google.com
Look through the first page and see what products are already created in your niche by your competitors. Check out also the Google ads on the right hand side of the page.

5. News Stand or Agent
Check out the magazines and find popular articles related to your target audience. The topics there would have been researched by the publishing company as the most popular in the current market.

So, these are the five methods that should guide you in your search for a topic for your small report. Now, plan your week and see what you can accomplish in the next seven hours or days.

Keep on blogging while creating your products!

Take care.

Ros

Photo:  photo credit: Ronald Lewis

photo credit: Ania i Artur Nowaccy

Facebook recently announced changes that will have an impact on your social inter-actions and online business. Some of these changes have been implemented and you would have already noticed in your profile pages such as News Feed and the New Smart Lists.

Mainly, there are 5 New Changes:  The News Feed, Smart Lists, News Ticker, Subscribe feature and Timeline.

1. The News Feed

 Top News and Most Recent have been replaced with Top Stories and Recent Stories. Top stories are things Facebook thinks you may be interested in while Recent Stories are all the stories in chronological order. Only status updates, videos, photos, videos, check-ins and posts from applications like Networked Blogs appear in the News Feed. The “Activity Stories” will be posted in the Ticker and the photos will be larger in size.

2. Smart Lists

Facebook automatically creates several lists and your new lists are on the left side bar of your homepage. If you have created your own Friends Lists before, you can merge these lists together. You simply click on your list and then click on Manage List.

3. News Ticker

This is one of, if not the most controversial change on Facebook. Some of your friends who do not like it may have already instructed you to follow a procedure so that their activities will not appear on your side bar. But people who want to have more online visibility love it. It shows on real-time your friends’ likes, comments, friendships, posts, events and subscriptions.

4. Subscribe Button

This will allow your personal profile to be more public wherein you can allow subscribers to see your public updates but you may not want to friend them. If you want to control who sees your posts, go to www.facebook.com/about/subscribe.

5. Timeline

This is the new name for your personal profile page. It will contain all your stories and all your Apps. It is something like your personal scrapbook. On this page, you can update your status and your friends can write directly on your timeline. You will have a large picture of your choice at the top but you will have to do the changes manually. There is also a chance to view your previous activities by clicking on the year and month you wish to review. You can also hide or delete stories, feature a story or change your privacy settings. So far, these are all the changes that will affect your Personal Profile page.

What do you think? Do you like any of these changes?

All the best!

Roslyn

photo credit: MattHurst

Any business needs marketing. Without marketing, there is no sales and without sales, there is no business.

Whether you have an online or offline business, you have to do marketing.  However, the core element of business is a product or a service.  If you do not have these, you can not build a business.  Therefore, you need to identify in the very beginning what you are planning to market and sell.

Once you have identified your products or services to sell, you then need to look at your strategies in marketing these online.  Article marketing,  search engine optimization, affiliate marketing, social media and networking, teleseminars, advertising – including pay per click are some of the methods used to sell products on the internet.

If marketing is an important element or the backbone of business, you need to spend time planning relevant marketing strategies and channels you will use in your business.  Then spend as much time on marketing as you can.  It is recommended that you do something everyday to market your product or service.

So, in your online business, how many marketing strategies are you using? How often do you market your products?  Different strategies work differently on different products.  Therefore, you need to test out what works best for your product or service.

You will know by the results, specifically the sales created, which ones are the most effective for your business.

Keep testing and never give up!

All the best!

Ros

There is one thing that has been disturbing me the last few months. And as a blogger, another big blow came to me the other night. After approving a somewhat spammy comment on my main blog, my content got hacked and the photos disappeared!

I thought that before something drastic happens, I might as well ask my Hosting provider to restore all those missing parts of the blog. I had daily backups emailed to me so I thought this will be an easy job for them. And, guess what? The whole blog disappeared! Not just the photos!

This happened very late at night and I was very tired. I managed to contact the chat centre and spoke to three operators and technicians. They offered to restore the site but it got worse and worse! Not just the site disappeared but all the files! I tried all their suggestions but to no avail. When the operator said that the site is gone and I had to reinstall the theme, I started to imagine all the things that I have to do next. It is going to be quite a long process and this really made me very frustrated. I almost gave up. Imagine, one year of hard work and many nights lacking sleep! Gone in a split second!

However, I kept telling myself that this is not a hobby but a serious project. I simply have to:

1 – continue learning

2 – do better next time

3 – accept the fact that it is done

4 – be patient with oneself (as I made a very simple mistake that anybody can do)

5 – be strong – remember your purpose for blogging

6 – never give up

I was ready to move on and list down the steps I need to take within the next few days to reinstall the site. However, I persisted and told the operator again that “the day before, one of their guys copied the files and even kept the old files. Please have a look at it again.” After almost an hour with him, he managed to get my site back! You can just imagine how relieved I was!

Well, this is a happy ending … for now. But my lesson here is that I need to ensure that the backups I have are the right files and databases. I need to contact an expert who knows exactly how to back up my site completely wherein I can easily restore it.

I recommend that if you have a blog, consider having a very reliable back up procedure. Make sure that you are ready for any eventualities.

All the best in your blogging!

Ros

I participated, for the first time, in the world’s largest run called City2Surf – from Sydney City to Bondi Beach. This year, 85,000 joined in the different categories from Red Start group which included all experienced elite athletes to Orange Start group which included those who were on wheel chairs. The Yellow Start group of 20,534 entrants (which we were part of) broke the Guiness World Record for the most amount of people stretching at once!

It was an interesting event, especially for us, first timers. By participating, I learned a few lessons, including how to achieve a goal:

1. Be prepared
My training buddy and I had to prepare ourselves by undergoing our own training based on the suggested program for beginners. We may not have followed it religiously, but, yes we did some training. This is where all the hard work and the discipline took place when it would have been easy to just sleep in!

2. Identify changes and problems encountered and then adjust

When we changed the time of our training schedule, we noticed that it was much warmer so we almost drank all of our water in the bottle and also got hungry after we did 6 kilometres!

3. Listen to warning signs but fear not

Our training podcasts and people who had raced before warned us about “Heart Break Hill” and the tunnel which could make us claustrophobic. We were aware of these but did not allow ourselves to be paralysed by these thoughts. We continued to train on the hills of our suburbs.

4. Know your limitations

As neophytes who are in our mid-century, we decided to test ourselves if we can initially join by power walking instead of running. We stretched ourselves but not too much. We also trusted that the atmosphere of the event will push us a bit further without much effort. So we took calculated risks.

5. Be positive! Think of the good things that will happen on the day

We imagined it was going to really be a fun day at the event. We decided that we will take in all the beautiful sceneries and the view of thousands of people on our roads.

6. Set a target and decide to be excited about it

Based on our training achievements, we set our target time of completion.

When the event happened, we were pretty relaxed because we were prepared. Yes, we took in the views (even took photos) and the sounds (joined in singing YMCA)!

When we completed the whole 14 kilometres, my running buddy and I realised we were 17 minutes earlier than our target time! We also raised money for charity. Needless to say, we had a fantastic time at the race!

I found that the lessons we learned from this event can also be our guide when trying to achieve any goals in life. If you know your goals in blogging, try to implement these 6 lessons. You may find that you will achieve your goal in no time at all!

All the best!

Ros