The other day I was perusing Mashable and I found this video by Seth Godin in which he explains how businesses should change their focus in the down economy. It is short, but worth watching.

If you don’t know who Seth Godin is, he is the author of many popular business books and a speaker with appearances at Google, TED and a number of charities. Godin popularized the topic of permission marketing.

What advice do you have for online businesses and other startups in this down economy?

It has been exactly one year now since I wrote my first post. Funny story: Vinay Menon was the first person ever to comment on one of my posts. I became friends and have kept in touch with him and his business partner, Anthony, over the past year through our mutual interest in exotic sport cars. In November of 2007, I was fortunate to meet Vinay and Anthony at the Blog World Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. How many people can say that they actually met the first person to ever comment on their blogs? I can.

Let’s recap a little bit: I came across the entire concept of blogging back in November of 2006. Wow, that feels like SUCH a long time ago! It was after I had first moved down from Seattle to Phoenix, Arizona, and I was becoming more and more dedicated to producing a sustainable income from the Internet.

I was also a “MySpacer” at the time and enjoyed socializing with my real-life friends online. That was all about to change.

My Motivation

It soon was apparent that there were no real professional and and business benefits from MySpace. I deleted my account, and later that month started doing Internet research on Mark Zuckerberg (creator of Facebook). I was fascinated with how someone his age (he was 22 at the time, just like me) created such an incredible Internet empire from his dorm room.

Researching Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg led me to a Valleywag article about Mark and Kevin Rose (creator of Digg). To make a long story short, I ended up on Digg, and eventually stumbled upon John Chow’s blog, who, at the time, was gaming his way to the front page of Digg for days at a time.

John’s blog was the first “blog” I had ever read. What I liked about the blog was that this was a personal account of making money online. This was exactly the type of information I was looking for. Not only that, but John had (and still has) a fun and easy-to-read writing style. He had written quite a few articles by that time. I remember reading his blog voraciously, with each post becoming more knowledgeable about the various aspects of advertising, domaining, SEO, affiliate marketing, and e-commerce.

John wrote some fantastically useful posts in his first six months of blogging, many of which contain the fundamental knowledge of a lot of the various ways to make money online. If you ever get the chance, I recommend going back and reading some of the October-November-December 2006 posts on John’s blog.

Seeing John’s success made me even more motivated, although not to make money off my blog – I was most interested in using my blog as a journal to document my learning and hopefully teach other people about different aspects of Internet specialization such as SEO, domaining, web design, and branding.

Establishing an online identity in order to run a business was certainly one of the major goals of blogging. Why? People are much more likely to do business with you if they have a sense of who you are and whether you are trustworthy. Obviously, it was much harder to do business and get an audience when I was a new blogger. Now, a year later, I feel as if I have a true community of like-minded professionals.

The Six-Month Game Plan

When I think back to what helped me the most, it was having a six-month game plan for establishing my online identity. Six months is a long time in the Internet world, and a lot can change in that time span. At the same time, six months is short enough of a time that if clearly planned out, significant goals and life transformations can be launched.

When I first started blogging, one of my sub-goals was to generate more business for my web design company, infinFX. My plan was that after six months of blogging, I would be running a 100%, self-sustaining, Internet-based web design firm. Little did I know that infinFX would have to morph into Unique Blog Designs for this to come true. Either way, sticking with my blog for six months made it much easier to accomplish that next goal.

How long have you been blogging? Why did you start blogging? Do you have a six-month game plan for your blog? How has blogging helped your business? I look forward to hearing!

In four hours, I will be flying from Phoenix to Las Vegas to attend the Pubcon Webmaster Convention. The main reason for my attendance is because Unique Blog Designs sponsored Shoemoney’s Party Like A Search Engine Rockstar contest. The winner of the contest was Laura Martin, who also appeared on The Next Internet Millionaire.

There will be a lot of cool people at Pubcon including Craig Newmark (of Craigs List), Richard Rosenblatt (who helped broker the deal of MySpace and now owns a domain empire) and Matt Cutts (of Google). Guy Kawasaki will also be moderating on a search engine panel.

Just like my recent trip to Blog World Expo, I am sure this will be a great networking opportunity.

Of course I will be posting a massive amount of photos over the next few days, and hopefully I will get the chance to blog from Pubcon, as well.

One of the hardest things to do with any time-consuming enterprise is take a break. As most of you know, I haven’t blogged very much over the past 3 months. This is not due to my disinterest in blogging, but only my new obsession with business development. I have always been kind of an all-or-nothing type person and it’s always been hard for me to balance work/play and taking time for myself. I feel like I keep learning the lesson to balance life in order to be the most productive.

Since the inception of UBD (last August), Matt, Josh, and I have been working 7 days/week and 12-15 hours/day to build the business. It has been both incredibly fun and stressful at times. Stressful not because I don’t enjoy the work, only because I have cut out all other distractions in my life. This includes saying GOODBYE to partying, working out, watching TV, and any other type of non-business activity.

Have I regretted any of it? Not for one second. These past few months culminating with BWE have been some of the most exciting times of my life. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. That being said, there are a lot of ways I could have managed my lifestyle better and that includes taking more time for myself.

What do I classify as taking time for myself? Working out is a great example. Sitting in the same space for 8-hour shifts is something that most people want to quit their jobs so they can stop doing, but the fact is that working for yourself oftentimes means spending WAY more time in front of the computer. That makes it that much more important to get physical activity.

It is uncommon for Matt, Josh and me to spend less than 12 hours a day working on the computer – and that means not reading Digg, playing computer games, surfing the net, or any other type of non-work behavior. Just sitting and working.

Getting back to what I was originally saying, nothing burns off stress more than working out. I worked out for the first time in three months tonight and it felt damn awesome. We all used to be regular gym rats working out 5x/week, but again, since my new obsession with overworking, I have not worked out once.

It’s Tough To Break Away When In The Zone

Anyone truly dedicated towards a cause knows that it is especially difficult to break away from work when you are are on a roll, or “in the zone.” In other words, when working for any sustained period of time at a particular task, productivity increases exponentially over the work period. I notice I don’t reach my “in the zone” period until about 45 minutes into a task, but once I have reached that point, I can sustain my in the zone activity for several hours at a time.

Breaking away from what one feels as incredibly productive time is very difficult. Crossing A LOT of things off a to-do list is a great feeling, but what separates the almost successful from the really successful are those who manage their time more productively. Oftentimes, increased productivity comes not from working more, but from balance and managing time better.

If you were to spend all day doing one thing, would you want to be just “kind of” successful or extremely successful? I have done some interesting things, but real success is gauged over a long period of time, not a few months. I have been blogging consistently since January of this year and to me, that is a better indication of success than running a business for a just few months.

Taking Time For Myself: Trying To Get Back Into Blogging

Blogging is another task that can be incredibly fulfilling. After all, blogging is what got me where I am today. I would have never stopped working at my day job, developed relationships with fellow bloggers, and started UBD if it were not for consistent blogging since January of this year.

I have said time and time again that consistent and quality blogging can have tremendous effects on one’s life. My only wish is that I had spent more time blogging over the past three months. That is something that I plan on taking more seriously as we are starting to streamline many of the processes of our business.

I could never get burned out from doing what I most enjoy, but taking time for yourself in business is a valuable lesson that I have been trying to learn for a long time.

How about you guys? Do any of you workaholics feel like it is next to impossible to break away from your in-the-zone time? Golf, blogging, working out? What do you do when you take time away from business?

About 3 weeks after first I redesigned John Chow’s blog (mid-September), my business partner, Josh, stumbled upon a tradeshow devoted entirely to bloggers. Being that we had just started UBD and we were starting to experience some early success, we decided it would be an incredible branding opportunity to exhibit a booth at Blog World Expo (BWE), which was held November 8-9 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Immediately upon hearing about the event, we called up BWE and spoke to the chief organizer, Rick Calvert. We all know that on the Internet, word travels fast. Since I had redesigned Shoemoney’s blog shortly after John Chow, Rick knew exactly who I and UBD were and he kindly invited us to speak and showcase our company at BWE.

I have never been to Las Vegas, despite living only a 4-hour car drive from the city. I also have never been to a trade show, let alone exhibited a company at one. Two months of preparation went into our attendance at BWE.

Drive Up To Vegas

Our drive up to Vegas started Wednesday morning at 2am. It took us about 4.5 hours to get to Las Vegas. The drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas is beautiful. We crossed over the Hoover Dam! It reminded me of that scene in Transformers.

As you can see, Matt slept the whole way up.

How Did It Go?

Blog World Expo was probably the most awesome time I’ve ever had. There are few words to describe the non-stop excitement our team had been feeling over the past week. To put it simply, attending and exhibiting Blog World Expo was one of the coolest things we have ever done. The opportunity to present out company and network with like-minded individuals was unquantifiable.

Meeting John Chow and Shoemoney the day before the Expo was awesome!

We stayed at the Las Vegas Hilton which is right across from the Las Vegas Convention Hall. It was a perfect spot and several other bloggers were staying there, such as Zac Johnson and John Chow.

The Las Vegas Hilton

Start Attending Tradeshows NOW!

I strongly encourage anyone who wants to be successful in an industry to start attending tradeshows. The people you meet and the things you learn are well worth the cost of hotel, travel expenses, and conference passes.

For geeks like me who spend 12-hours a day, 7 days a week working online, meeting new people in real life is something that doesn’t happen as much as it use to. Funny as it was, BWE was the opportunity to meet a lot of other people just like me.

Bloggers Are Legit!

Ms. Danielle was right on when she said “bloggers are a legit group of people.” It was awesome to meet people who I had felt like I had known for a long time. In reality, most of the people I am close to online, I have only known for a few months.

Kickin’ it VIP-style with Gary, Matt, Josh, Dave, me, Danielle and Darin

After the expo each night, I was able to hang out with a select group of friends that I have known online for a while now including: Ms. Danielle, Anthony, Gary, Vinay, Chris, Greg, Darin, Prija, and especially Shoemoney, Neil Patel and John Chow.

The Expo: WAY Cooler Than Expected

The actual Expo was not only productive, but also surprisingly a ton of fun. Like I mentioned before, we secured a booth for BWE in September, so it was very exciting to present our company face-to-face to so many people. We brought my 30″ Apple Cinema Display and Matt and Josh’s two 28″ displays. We used our screens to showcase some of our recent client work.

Meeting John Chow and Shoemoney

The two people I wanted to meet most at Blog World were obviously John Chow and Shoemoney. John Chow was the FIRST blog I ever discovered (on Digg in November 2006). Shoemoney’s blog has always been a favorite of mine, as well. In fact, even during my busiest times where I’ve spent zero time on the blogosphere, I have never gone a day without reading either of their blogs.

Both Shoe and John are extremely nice and down to earth people. They are just as interesting and entertaining in real life as they are on their blogs, if not more so. I am looking forward to attending more tradeshows where they are present, such as Pubcon and CES. In fact, in only 3 weeks from now, UBD and I will be back in Vegas for Shoemoney’s Roll With The Search Engine Rockstar contest at Pubcon.

Prija From Blogging The Movie

My buddy, Prija from Blogging The Movie, was also exhibiting at BWE. I first met Prija a few months ago when he and his PR rep, Huy, drove out to Arizona (from SoCal) so we could design his blog in a day. Within 10 minutes of meeting Prija, I could instantly tell he was going to be successful because of his incredible and energy and passion for his business venture. It is great to meet other young entrepreneurs with big plans and the guts to see them through.

As you can tell, Prija got the Toyota Scion which he will be using to promote the movie and as a giveaway to one lucky winner. According to Prija, Blogging The Movie is coming along quite nicely. Check out the official teaser…

Meeting Two Longtime Friends

Anthony Carbone and Vinay Menon were two of the first people to start reading my blog back in January of this year. Like me, they are both serious exotic car fans, and they run a popular exotic car photo sharing site called MadWhips.com. In March of this year, we created an automotive blog together called Carzi. Needless to say, I have been good friends with both of these guys since January and that is years in Internet-time. It was awesome to finally meet these two dedicated and motivating individuals. It was like I have known them for several years the first time we met up and got to chatting. Look out for big things from these two!

Conclusion

Overall, BWE went WAY better than expected and we had very high expectations. It was an incredibly positive experience. Thanks to everyone who added to its awesomeness.

I met a ton of cool people who I have known online for quite a while now, so it was like meeting old friends for the first time. It is crazy that the Internet can bring people together before they ever meet. Once you know someone online, meeting them in real life is more natural AND exciting!

The John Chow Blogger Dinner – THANK YOU, John!

Danielle taking a picture of me taking a picture of her…lol ^_^

I would like to say thank you to everyone who stopped by to visit our booth. I had a great time chatting with many people including:

• Scott Wainer
• Andrew Bennett
• Nathan Sanburg and Fred Winchair
• Wendy Piersall
• Matt Mullenweg

Myself and Wendy Piersall (eMom) at Blog World!

As I mentioned before, I strongly recommend that anyone who wants to be successful within any industry attend as many tradeshows as possible. This is true for many professions especially tech and Internet-related ones. Other tradeshows which come recommended are Pubcon, CES, Affiliate Summit West and SES. Tradeshows such as Blog World Expo are awesome learning and networking opportunities that no one should miss.

I am a trade show addict now. See you at Pubcon.

Other great Blog World articles from my clique:

• Gary Lee: Blog World Expo Nights
• Ms Danielle: Too Legit to Quit: A BlogWorld Expo Review
• Zac Johnson: John Chow Blogger Dinner
• Darin.cc: Viva Las Vegas
• John Chow: Blog World Expo: John Chow Blogger Dinner
• Blogging The Movie: Blog World Photos

With all this talk lately about the dream of a shorter workweek, it just convinces me how much spin dominates consensus. One only gets to the 4-hour workweek after years of insanely difficult work.

Even though everyone has dreams of the 4-hour workweek, the fact is that 99.95% of those who have been successful have had to (at least, initially) endure much more than even a 40-hour workweek. That being said, why would someone want to work less if they enjoy what they do? Perhaps an even better and more useful question is, “How does one get to the place of enjoying work?” One answer to that lies in learning how to create opportunities.

When Opportunities Present Themselves

I used to be frustrated because I thought I never had any opportunities. In reality, my attitude was all wrong and kept me from seeing the opportunities before me. Instead of being frustrated, I decided to create my own opportunities. My blog has helped me to accomplish that to a tremendous extent. Consistent blogging has the potential to lead to hundreds, if not thousands of new opportunities everyday. Every new opportunity that has arisen for me in the past few months has been a result of consistent efforts at creating opportunity.

My goal for the past few years now has been to create and develop a successful Internet startup. Over the past eight months, I have remained extremely focused on this goal and have been using my blog as the networking tool to further my progress. I believe the key in becoming successful lies in learning to both seize AND create opportunities. For example, I had been planning to launch Unique Blog Designs for several months prior to designing John Chow’s blog. UBD was an opportunity I created. Obviously, I had a wonderful opportunity to launch UBD when I seized the opportunity to design John’s new blog. Does that make sense?

Creating opportunities enables one to seize more opportunities: it’s the snowball effect. If you can master that, your life will feel like never-ending good luck. In reality, luck is a by-product of capitalizing on opportunities. Recognizing this motivates me to work harder.

The Sixteen Hour Workday

Ever since the launch of Unique Blog Designs, my business partners, Matt Blancarte, Josh Mullineaux and I have been running a bootstrapped office out of my room. Don’t let the large screens fool you, our work is not just fun and games. For almost 3 weeks now, we have been working 16-hour days on what has quickly become an all-consuming business.

Am I serious? 16 hours a day? Here is our typical daily schedule:

1. 1:00 PM: Wake up. Check email.
2. 1:30 PM: Go to the pool. It is 100+ out here in Arizona. The pool is a great way to wake up. Not to mention, aqua skimming challenges are pretty damn fun!
3. 2:15: Lunch/breakfast.
4. 3:00-9PM: Get to work. Usually consists of designing, correspondence, strategy and marketing meetings, other administrative work.
5. 9PM-10PM: Go to gym to work out to relieve stress.
6. 10PM-8AM: Back to work.
7. 8AM-1PM: Sleep and then back to work.

This is what happens 7 days a week, no joke.

24/7 Vacation

Funny thing is that even though we work so much, oftentimes, I feel like I am on a 24/7 vacation. Obviously it is because I enjoy designing and building our business. Work to me is not work; it’s fun. Everyday we are getting closer to our goals, and that is why I work 16-hours a day. (Maybe I should go back and read my article on why balance is important!)

The New Shoemoney

About a week ago, right after the launch of UBD and the redesigned John Chow theme, I received an email from Shoemoney who was interested in updating the look of his blog.

Shoemoney wanted to retain his basic layout, but polish it up with some web 2.0 goodness and add a few new features. Shoemoney is somewhat of a PHP guru so we were able to get his theme coded, tested, and configured real quickly.

What you see above is the finished product. You can read more about the design here.

Special thanks to Shoemoney for the design opportunity and also thanks to my super-awesome WP coder, Chris at PSDChopstick.com.

As many of you know, last week, I launched a new online business. Developing this business has allowed me to experiment with some new direct marketing techniques which I have only recently learned about. One specific example is releasing a free ebook in order to promote your blog or business.

John Chow, Jane May, and Mitch Harper all do this. All are also successful bloggers and entrepreneurs. Obviously, there has to be serious benefits to using a free ebook to promote your blog and business.

Increasing Conversions

There are many ways to encourage people to take action towards a desired task. One of the most common is giving away something for free in exchange for people signing up for an email list (free newsletter). People who are signing up for your email list are referred to as “opt-ins.”

Recently, my business, Unique Blog Designs, distributed a free ebook. Why did UBD give away a free ebook?

The Advantage of an Ebook

An ebook is a unique way to distribute information. Unlike a blog entry, which is available to everyone, an ebook is essentially exclusive information depending on the terms of its distribution. In our case, the ebook is only available to those who sign up for our email list.

The ebook that UBD launched was titled, “5 Simple Tips To Improve Your Blog.” Like I said, we released the ebook to encourage people to sign up for our email list. I will talk about the advantages of an email list another time, but the point is that the free ebook is a means to an end and an opportunity to show your customers that you offer valuable information.

Of course, it’s best if the ebook you are releasing contains highly useful and applicable information. If that is true, then you are showing potential customers that they can associate “quality” and “usefulness” with your brand.

Time To Produce an Ebook

Many people think that writing an ebook is a time consuming process. That doesn’t have to be true. The free ebook UBD released is only 8 pages, but contains highly applicable information that new bloggers can use to improve their blogs. That ebook only took around 2 hours to write. It is well worth the investment in time considering it will certainly increase our opt-in rate.

Not only that, but giving away something for free has a lot of power. It shows your potential clients that you are willing to go above and beyond the normal expectations of doing business. This in of itself makes releasing the free ebook a worthwhile investment.

Increase Conversions

The fact is that by giving something away for free, you are increasing the conversion rate (number of opt-ins) for an email list. Mitch Harper of Interspire even says “every blog should have an accompanying ebook.” If Mitch says that, it’s good enough for me.

If you are interested in receiving the free ebook, “5 Simple Tips To Improve Your Blog,” then visit Unique Blog Designs and sign up for the newsletter.

Networking is something everyone does, whether they realize it or not. We are always constantly meeting new people in an effort to better ourselves and to solve the problems we encounter, whether they be personal or professional. As I said recently in this space, I have found that it is much more efficient to network with people online than it is in real life. People online seems to be more friendly and willing to share their experience and knowledge. Through my blog and other efforts to network online, I have met a lot of great people over the past few months.

I have compiled my top five reasons for networking online.

1. No one knows everything. The fact is that most people have one main area of expertise and are less skilled in other areas. The owner of an e-business has to take on many different jobs and tasks. Though I have learned many skills in the past few months related to running a business, in truth I am a business novice; there are many situations that I don’t know how to handle. Thanks to my network of friends and supporters, I am almost always able to find the right advice from someone who has experience in a specific area.
2. New opportunities for business ventures. Just because you live in Hong Kong and I live in Arizona doesn’t mean we can’t work together! Networking business people and entrepreneurs is something the Internet does very well now through social networks such as LinkedIn and PartnerUp. These networks are the stomping grounds of successful people and those who are looking to become successful.
3. Market yourself before you ever meet. One of the best things about blogging is that you are able to market yourself and your abilities prior to interacting with others. If you convey a professional, dedicated, and serious online persona, people will seek you out for knowledge, business opportunities, and work!
4. A global perspective. Let’s face it. Despite how much we think we know, we know precious little in the global scheme of things. We are fortunate that the Internet brings together diverse people and cultures. Who do you think knows more about marketing in China – I or someone from China? That being said, there are fundamental similarities we all share, and a love of the Internet and business is something I have used as starting point to find common ground with people all over the world!
5. The perfect candidate is out there. All of us who have started or run our own business know the difficulty of finding the right person for the job. We all have an idea of who the “right candidate” is, but in the traditional hiring process, we hire only those who are local to us. The Internet has changed all that; businesses are now being started and becoming successful without its employees ever meeting each other!

Conclusion

If you have not started chatting with people in your community or network, I highly recommend that you begin doing so. And by chatting, I mean using an IM client, such as Skype, Gtalk, MSN, or AIM. I use all four of those to keep in contact with between 30-50 people, all of whom I have “met” in the past 4 months. Some of the best business advice, tips, and strategies I have received have occurred in instant-message conversations.

I strongly believe “What goes around, comes around,” otherwise known as Karma. By sharing your knowledge and advice with others, you generate good will that comes back around to you. The potential for generating goodwill is virtually unlimited through online networking. New eggs are hatched constantly that may determine your path and success in life.

Why is the PageRank so beloved and cherished by all that is Geek? Basically, when you have a higher PageRank, you can sell your text links on it for more money. There is also a bragging factor that comes with saying “I have a PR 8,” for instance. The higher your PR, the easier it is to sell links and make money from your blog. Also true is that the higher your PageRank, the more Google considers your site to be an authority or relevant for given search terms.

Last April, I experienced my first PageRank update. Wow, was it exciting! First of all, there was probably a period of two weeks where everyone was expecting the PR to hit any day. I encountered many sleepless nights in anticipation (JK). Finally, the PR hit, and everyone seemed to be able to breathe again.

Before the last PR, I never had any sites above a PR 2, so I knew that with all the work I was putting into my blog posting and networking was bound to pay off. To my pleasant surprise, my blog was awarded with a PR 5, which I was VERY happy with. Many, if not most new blogs with a decent number of links only only hit a PR 4 on their first update. When I got my PR 5, I was able to almost instantly sell out of my text links.

Have You Been Preparing For The PageRank?

Anyone who has experienced one PR update before knows that they could have better prepared for it. What do I mean by prepared? Preparing is done by building links from other high PR sites to ensure you receive as high of a PR as possible. I have learned a lot about SEO in the past few months, and I am now more efficient at building high quality backlinks and optimizing my sites for high search rankings and relevance. Where are some good places to build links?

• Blogroll Exchanges
• Forums and Message Boards
• Free Directories
• Social News Sites (like Digg, Del.icio.us)

It’s What You Know AND Who You Know

It’s very important to have a super solid understanding of SEO in order to begin an effective link-building campaigns. This is best accomplished by reading the SEO Book from Aaron Wall. Aaron pretty much covers every single detail you need to know to be able search engine optimize any web site. I hope I made that clear – you must first fully understand SEO before just aimlessly building links.

When I first started my blog last January, I did not know anyone online. Consequently, I didn’t know where to build links and I didn’t know anyone to do link exchanges with. Thanks to my blog, I networked with and some amazing SEO folks. Several people have helped me build high quality links and provided me with great advice on how to better rank for given search phrases.

What am I saying here? Make an effort to get to know someone who is experienced in SEO or SEM. There is a lot to learn from these experienced individuals and many are happy to share their knowledge with you in exchange for link exchanges.

It’s Not Too Late

The PageRank update is still a few weeks away, so still have time to do those last minute link exchanges and directories submissions. Remember, the more links from higher quality sites, the better! Good luck!

This post was sponsored by PhotoshopStar – Free Photoshop Tutorials.

By the way, sign up for my newsletter! (See top of right sidebar.)

Are Your Friends Helping Or Hindering Your Success?

Since I’ve been a little kid, I have had big aspirations. I have also always wanted to take my friends along with me on my journey to success although I never considered whether they were having a positive or negative effect on my goals until recently.

Who we choose to surround ourselves with can have an enormous impact on who we become and how we live our lives. I am not talking about just from a business sense either – the right people can have a tremendous impact on your life in every way.

Before I moved to Arizona, about a year ago, I was doing a lot of partying and hanging out with people who weren’t helping me reach my goals. Basically, I used to surround myself with people on the sole basis of if they were “fun” to hang out with. When I moved to Arizona, I had the chance to start fresh. I now only hang out with my best friends (and luckily, business partners) Matt and Josh.

A Lot Can Be Accomplished In A Short Time

Many people who know me probably would say I am a “hard worker.” The fact is I haven’t always been a hard worker. In actuality, only since I’ve started my blog have I started to see any bit of success at all. By surrounding myself with like-minded and similarly focused people, I have been able to make incredible progress, both personally and through our businesses.

When all of your influences are motivating and positive, you will be amazed how much energy you have to work hard to be successful. Surround yourself with the right people and a lot can be accomplished in a short amount of time.

Pain Before Pleasure?

Most people around my age (early-twenties) spend a lot of time socializing and not otherwise using their time wisely. Once I started hanging around the right people, I realized that this is not how I wanted to live my life. I would rather sacrifice “fun” now by working hard now and be able to have the “fun” later. This is effectively known as living “pain before pleasure,” a saying that my best friend Josh swears by.

I think he is right. I know from personal experience – it’s easy to get caught up in a highly social and non-productive lifestyle. I chose to let go of relationships that did not better me as a person. Since then, I have been able to accomplish goals I would have never originally considered possible.

Surround Yourself With Similarly Passionate and Motivated People

There are many benefits to blogging, but one of the best is being able to surround yourself with like-minded people. There is a lot of power in talking regularly to passionate and motivated people. I have met a lot of great people through my blog who I chat with quite a bit including:

• Anthony Carbone
• King Nomar
• Josh Buckley
• Matt @TakeMoreRisks
• Jane May
• David Wilkinson
• Mitch Harper

All of those people have been a great source of support and encouragement. They are all people I would have not known otherwise if I hadn’t been blogging.

Align Yourself With The Right People

My best friend and business partner Josh also recently touched on this subject in a post entitled You Are Who You Hang Around. Josh says:

The concept of surrounding yourself with great people in a business sense mirrors the lesson my parents taught me about friends. You will hear this concept mentioned often from successful business persons and leaders.

Surrounding yourself with the right people should be key for everyone, but it becomes especially crucial in the business world. Networking and associating with established business people who have experience can provide far more education than sitting inside a classroom. I have learned an incredible amount about business proceedings from one of my new business partners, Steve. One of the ways you’ll know if someone is the right person is when you find yourself challenged, growing and learning more because of that relationship.

Conclusion

As I said earlier, there are an unlimited number of paths to success and also unlimited complexities in becoming successful. I think it is very important to be constantly aware of some of the bigger aspects including goat setting and surrounding yourself with the right people. The right people are important not just from a business sense, but also from a personal one.

Have you guys had particular friends who have changed the way you live? A special business partner who somehow made it all happen? Write back and tell me about it.

When I first decided to go into self-employment, I felt some excitement, but there was also a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. For instance, I wasn’t sure if I was going to have any work the next month. Every day is unpredictable and you never really know where you will be a month from now. Luckily, I made it past those initial speed bumps which can potentially dissuade people from the entrepreneurial lifestyle and instead force them to opt for the predictability of a 9-5 job.

Like I said, I felt a lot of anxiety when I first quit the grind. However, that feeling was soon replaced by excitement as I started to take more risks.

I can’t remember where I heard this quote, but it goes like this: “When you feel anxious and excited at the same time, you know you are doing something right.” This basically equates to the fact that risk-taking is perhaps the most worthwhile and promising thing you will ever do.

People are afraid to fail and that is why they don’t take risks. I’ll tell you from personal experience: Right now, my business partners and I are in talks to secure funding for a risky new business venture. I’ve alluded to this project several times in previous posts.

The new venture is building websites on International Domains (IDN’s) for China. Taking this project on will mean we will have to table all of our other business projects at this time. That is scary because I am now giving up predictable income for possibly big, but unpredictable income.

As risky as it all is, I know I have to take these risks to see the big rewards.

This is going to be a short article, but I really wanted to pass along what I’ve learned from this recent experience. If you want to see big rewards, you must take big risks. This is what I have been doing and it is so damn cool, it’s scary.

The Power of Breaking Up Your Goals

If you break up your bigger goals into smaller steps, you should be able to accomplish these smaller steps on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. For example, if your goal is to pay off a credit card balance of $2000, divide that goal into 10 steps of paying off $200 each time.

How many times have you made a daily or weekly to-do list without accomplishing all of your items? I know that I used to do that quite a bit. I would write out all my goals on my computer, and then a week later, come back to it, and realize I forgot to do several things on that list.

Why Do We Forget Our Goals?

Think about all of the times you have made a mental list of things to accomplish the following day. How many times have you actually done all of those things? Quite often, people simply forget their mental lists.

When you make a to-do list, often it is something you type up on your computer or write down on a piece of paper. Unfortunately, we do not always carry these lists with us during the day. What if you could have a constant reminder for your daily goals? Here is the trick:

1. Every night, before you go to sleep, write down on a piece of paper (not your computer) 5-10 goals you would like to accomplish for the next day.
2. Tape that piece of paper somewhere close to your bed so as soon as you wake up, you will be reminded of your goals.
3. Once you wake up and get dressed, fold up that piece of paper and put it inside your pocket. You could even stick it to your coffee mug, or on your rear view mirror. The point is to be constantly reminded of what you made a goal to do that day.
4. Once you accomplish the goals, cross them out. Do not throw away that piece of paper until all of the goals are accomplished or you have reassessed the need for them.

The Constant Reminder

The power of this technique is you are keeping focued on the goals for that day. At night, you can reassess and plan for the next day’s goals. Since most us do not have our computers with us at all times of the day, by having your list in your pocket, you will have a constant reminder.

No matter what you accomplish each day, whether you complete all your goals or not, it is very important psychologically to end your day by recognizing and emphasizing your successes. Too often we give too much weight to what we haven’t done and thus become too demoralized to do what still remains to be done.

I wanted to take this time to fill you in on some my recent business developments. As many of you know, I am working on several ventures with my business partners, Josh and Matt. I made it clear a few months ago that I want my businesses to be case studies. Additionally, a huge part of blogging objective is to provide an inside perspective into the world of young entrepreneurs attempting to make their mark in the business world.

Our current business ventures include:

• infinFX: our web development and hosting operation
• Scottsdale IT: the database & network configuration operation
• The Scottsdale Review: online local business journal (featuring reviews of restaurants, shopping and night life)

We are also working with a local startup developing several hundred web sites for Chinese domains. That is who I am developing the 500 websites this month for. I will be talking more about that a little later.

A few months ago I told you about the benefits of offline business development and one of our new ventures, The Scottsdale Review, which is going to be an online journal for our local town of Scottsdale, Arizona. My plan was to use The Scottsdale Review as a case-study of a business from conception to reality.

Our plan was to hire journalism students from Arizona State University. They would be able to write for us and receive school credit. In turn, we would have quality writers at no expense to us. Unfortunately, we have had quite a few setbacks over the past few months trying to get this business off the ground. The main setback is that the director of the journalism school has failed to return our phone calls despite numerous attempts at making further contact.

Getting in touch with the journalism director is obviously a key component at getting this business started – we are not in the position to be investing a lot of money into it, so we were counting on the students to supply us with original and interesting content for the journal.

We have even gone so far as to contact multiple people from the journalism school and no one has called us back. It has been very frustrating, to say the least. In this situation, facing so many setbacks, many people would just as well give up and decide, “it wasn’t meant to be.” That being said, we have big plans for The Scottsdale Review and are unwilling to throw in the towel.

Despite being very busy with other ventures, we are still trying to contact the right person to get the confirmation that we are good to go. These kind of frustrating situations must be confronted with determination. Every potential setback is another opportunity to become more persistent and see this through. We are more motivated than ever to make this work and we will not let anything stand in the way of this venture materializing.

If you would like to read more about our plans for The Scottsdale Review, you can do so here. I will definitely be updating you with our progress here soon. The moral of the story: never let anything stand in the way of your dreams. Never give up, under any circumstances.

Why Is Goal Setting So Important?

Ask anyone who is successful if they set goals. I guarantee every person will tell you that they set both short and long-term goals. Goal setting is not difficult – anyone can do it. The difficult part is following through on your goals and not getting discouraged when you do not meet them.

Ankesh Kothari recently posted an easy trick to achieve all of our goals. What’s the trick? It’s simply writing down your goals. Ankesh says:

“Writing down goals is nothing but a filtering device for your brain. You will focus more on the things you’ve written down as your goals. And you will jump on them when they present themselves as opportunities.”

Set a Timeline For Your Goals

Goals are just dreams if you don’t give them a timeline. That is why it is so important to set both short-term and long-term goals. I like to set weekly, monthly, and yearly goals. If you can, write down the exact date you expect to accomplish your goal.

Of course, you need to be realistic when setting a timeline for your goals. You can’t expect to become a a millionaire within 6 months if you have no plan of how to do it. Many goals, due to their incredible magnitude, require their own detailed action plans in order to accomplish them.

Several of my goals have ten or more steps I need to take in order to accomplish them. Several of those steps have several additional steps, and so on. The more specific you are, the more you are increasing the chance that your goal is not just a dream, but a plan of action.

The Power of Blogging About Your Goals

There is a lot of power when you combine goal setting and blogging. First of all, by blogging about your goals, you are effectively writing them down, which is the necessary “trick” in order to ensure you are taking your goals seriously. Secondly, by sharing your goals with the blogosphere, you are opening yourself up to a whole world of encouragement and support.

Of course, another plus to blogging about your goals is that you are putting some pressure on yourself to accomplish them in order to prove to your readers that you not only set goals, but you accomplish them. Setting and accomplishing goals is a process of progress, so what better venue to document this than your blog?

Additionally, there are not many topics more exciting to read about than a personal journal of someone’s journey success. Isn’t that primary reason we are all here, to learn from each other? What are blogs, really? They are personal journals of our trials and tribulations. Your blog probably is the best place to be chronicling your progress and goals.

What Happens If You Can’t Meet Your Goals?

There are always reasons why we can’t accomplish our goals. However, if you are serious about being successful, you better have a good reason why you didn’t meet your goals.

That being said, I have a confession: I didn’t meet one of my goals last month. These were two of my main goals for May:

1. Hit 200 RSS subscribers. I surpassed that goal. My count is at 300, currently.
2. Send out direct-mailings for infinFX. I did not accomplish this goal. The reason being that, currently, I have more projects on my plate than I can handle, including a new business venture which is taking up 80% of my time.

If you didn’t meet your goals, sit down and figure out why. Maybe the goal was not timed realistically, or perhaps something else more important came up, such as in my case. Whatever the goal is, if you are serious about accomplishing in, do not stop at anything until you do.

My Goals for June

Now that it is June, I am ready to set a few new goals for the month:

1. Hit 400 RSS subscribers. I think this is absolutely possible. At the beginning of May, I only had 150. I ended up doubling that last month.
2. Host another blog contest. My 1000th Comment contest was a great success. I will be hosting another contest at the end of this month. I expect a lot more people to enter this time.
3. Make my posts even more readable. In my recent post, 5 Ways To Make Your Posts More Readable, I talked about several ways to improve the layout of your posts, thereby making them more “readable.” I believe that by making your posts more readable, you are helping to ensure that more people read each one of your posts, despite whatever the topic or length might be.
4. Finish all of my current work for infinFX. This is going to be the difficult part. Between my work for the new startup, infinFX, and blogging, I have no life. It will a difficult task to make this happen.
5. Develop 500 Websites. I know what you are thinking, “Nate, are you crazy?” The answer is yes, but not for that reason. Recently, in my How Blogging Has Changed My Life post, I told you about a new venture I was starting to work on. Part of my job at this new startup is to develop 1500 search engine optimized web sites. I will be explaining this more in detail later, but, yes, 500 websites this month is my goal. Thankfully, I will have some help.

Conclusion

Everyone loves to dream about becoming successful. How many people actually turn that dream into a reality? Imagine that feeling – you did it. You set out to accomplish your dreams and you did. Those that “do it” say it is the most incredible feeling you could ever imagine.

So, what are you waiting for? Stop dreaming and start planning. The world is your oyster. You need to plan out every detail and give it a date. I want to hear about your goals. Tell me, and let’s see if we can help each other accomplish our goals, and ultimately, make our dreams come true.

Everyday more people are living out their dreams. It’s time to start planning.

The last four months have changed my life. Those who knew me four months ago would say that these changes have resulted from taking my fate into my own hands. However, it’s actually more complicated than that.

I have always been an “all-or-nothing” kind of guy. I have to put 110% effort into what I am doing or I find no use in doing it. When I first moved to Arizona 10 months ago, I took a job as a Mac Specialist at the Apple Store. Even though I was only working part-time, I was also going to school full-time, and between those activities, I had no time for my true passion – developing businesses, especially infinFX, my web development company.

Needless to say, I had to make changes and to do that, I had to quit Apple. Luckily, I have no family responsibilites and I had some money saved up, so that justified my taking a chance. However, quitting Apple was still a big risk for me at the time; I had no other source of income besides the occasional web project. I decided, however, that if I was going to put my “all” into infinFX and our other businesses, I had to do it now.

Quitting Apple gave me extra time to focus on building my businesses and networking myself in the local community. This extra time also gave me an opportunity to focus on my blog – something that I had been wanting to do for several months. After I started reading John Chow’s blog last summer, I knew that blogging had enormous potential, but I never realized how much or what kind of potential it had for me, until recently.

My Original Reasons for Blogging

My initial reason for blogging was to showcase my professional work – including my client projects and professional interests, such as web development, SEO, and business development. I knew that if I could create something worth reading, eventually the right people would seek me out and I would either find more client work or future business partners.

I was certainly aware that John Chow had made $3,500 from his blog in January (which is small potatoes compared to now). However, the real reason I wanted to blog was to meet and surround myself with like-minded people.

Looking Back: A Profound Inspiration From an Unlikely Source

About a week after I started blogging last January, I met 12-year-old problogger, David Wilkinson. At this point, David was quite the experienced blogger at 12 – he had been interviewed by the BBC several times, and he knew a lot of the industry gurus personally. David came across my blog about a week after I started it.

At the time, David was enjoying great success with his blog, TechZi, a tech-news site which was then hosted on Blogspot. Eventually, David and I got to chatting and he had a profound impact on me. Here he was – a 12-year old kid — who could write better and was more motivated to achieve great things than most people thrice his age.

I was so impressed with David’s motivation I offered to help him get off Blogspot and onto a fully-customized WordPress blog. He was so thrilled that I did this pro-bono, he proceeded to send web-dev business my way.

At that point, I had been persistently networking myself within the local Scottsdale community and soon enough I started getting more and more client work. This was a great start to supplementing my infinFX income and has led to the point I am at now, where I am receiving 1-2 new referrals per day. Back in January, that number was 1-2 per month! Now, I am busier than I have ever been, and for that, I am very thankful. I am now able to comfortably live off my income from infinFX and my other businesses. That being said, recently, another business opportunity has arisen prompting me to step aside from infinFX and focus on this new venture full-time.

Moving On To New Ventures

I never would have thought that I would have to step aside from infinFX at its busiest time ever. Luckily, I have a very trusted and excellent designer ready to take on work as I begin this new venture.

Coincidentally, this new venture is a direct result of my blogging efforts – the individual with whom I am working found me through my blog and proceeded to contact me out of the blue.

I will not go into detail just yet, but I will say that this venture involves the international market, and I will be blogging about it in the days and weeks ahead.

At this point it goes without saying that my blog has changed my life. The people I have met have had a profound impact on me and my businesses, including the opportunity to work in a new market that I would not ever have thought of independently.

So, what is the moral to this story? Perhaps it is that every decision you choose to make, no matter how big or small it may seem at the moment, could have quite the serious impact on your life. Even though I took a big risk by quitting Apple and have managed to do well since then, I know good timing had a lot to do with my success. I am also very thankful for the blogging community who has been so supportive of me in this time of trying new things. I’ve learned the more I give, the more I receive.

Nothing comes easy, and if it seems like it will be hard work, it is probably worth doing. As I explained in my previous post about why most blogs don’t last, starting a blog is a relatively easy task these days. However, following through and putting your all into it requires consistent effort, but can lead to endless possibilities. You can never predict the kinds of people or places that it will lead you to. The real “gold” in blogging is not in the money, but what happens beyond the blog.

Well, it is now May and I am officially going on my fourth month of blogging. The past three and a half months have been great – I have managed to crank out 106 posts and there has been 847 comments, so far. I am currently averaging around 140 or so RSS subscribers per day. My goal by the end of May is to have that number around 200.

My First Contest

I will be hosting my first (2-part) contest this month – I am giving away $25 of cash as well as a blog review and 1 hour of my graphic design services to two winners. More on that in my next post.

Before I get into the details of the contest, I want to talk a little bit about the latest PageRank update and what I have planned for May.

PageRank Update Finally Here!

As most of you have now witnessed, Google finally awarded us with the long awaited PageRank update. My initial prediction of a PageRank 5 came true, and for that I am very thankful.

However happy I am with my PageRank, it appears Google’s PageRank logic is not entirely sound. A few well-known bloggers did not receive the PageRank they were expecting. For example, one well-known blogger who has been blogging almost as long as me and has just as many backlinks, only received a PR 3. On the other hand, another friend of mine who doesn’t have one-tenth the backlinks and hasn’t posted to his blog in almost 2 months received a PR 4. Go figure.

How about you guys? Are all of you happy with your new PageRank?

Top Commentators Reset

Since it is now a new month, my Top Commentators has been reset. Since my blog is now a PR 5, I expect the Top Commentators action to heat up a little more.

Don’t forget – on a blog with a higher PR, your anchor text matters THAT much more for SEO… You are free to use whatever anchor text you want as long as it is not offensive to anyone.

For more information about ranking for specific keywords, see my latest post about how to rank for specific keywords.

May is Marketing Month For My Businesses

This month, I am going to put some serious effort into marketing my web development business, infinFX, and my IT consulting firm, Scottsdale IT. I have a 3-part marketing plan I am going to execute over this month.

Part 1 – Direct Mailing: I am going to be designing and mailing out 2000 postcards to local Scottsdale businesses advertising our various services. Direct mailing is some of the cheapest and most effective marketing a business can do. I recommend it highly to anyone who owns any kind of consulting business.

Part 2 – Lead Generator & Free Website Wellness Checks: I am also going to implement a lead-generation program into the infinFX web site so it will be easy for potential clients to request a quote. We are also going to begin offering free Website Wellness Checks to local businesses who already have a web site. A great way to get the attention of potential clients is to to give something away for free. Website Wellness Checks will not only be free, but very useful, as well.

Part 3 – Free WordPress Templates: The third part of the marketing plan is to begin releasing free WordPress themes designed by yours truly. This will help add some more backlinks to my companies as well as being useful to my visitors.

I will be sure to keep you guys updated over the next month as to how these marketing methods help my businesses. In the next few days, I am going to show off the first design of the postcard I will be mailing out in the next week.

The next month will be very exciting for me and I look forward to sharing my progress with you!

By the way, don’t forget to check out my $50 Cash Giveaway Contest!

Being self-employed is not for everyone. This kind of lifestyle is certainly a riskier proposition than working at a traditional job. I have just recently become self-employed. Before that, I had been working odd jobs and running my web-dev business, infinFX, on the side, since I graduated from high school in 2003. It was frustrating because I had very little time to market the business between work and school. I would often have to work 10- to 14-hour days between work, school, and marketing in order to make any business progress.

I was thinking about the steps necessary before I was able to quit my day-job at Apple and focus soley on my personal enterprises. Here are 5 steps I took to become self-employed:

1. Write out a clear plan for your life after you quit your day-job. There are many ways people can earn money on their own and many ways that they can spend their time when they are making their own schedule. It is absolutely mandatory, however, that you have a set-in-stone plan for how you are going to spend your time daily and what your 3-, 6-, and 12-month goals are.

2. Create some short-term security. Ideally, you should save up to 6 months of living expenses. When you first quit your day-job and start working full-time for yourself, you are no longer able to depend upon a regular pay-check. You may get paid one month and little the next. This is why it’s important to have a healthy savings in case the money isn’t there one month.

3. Become super committed. You must be prepared for the fact that the first few months of being self-employed are not easy and are not predictable. Be prepared for short-term failure and be willing to learn from your mistakes. Several times over the past few months I have considered getting a part-time job as I have been worried about insufficient revenue from my personal ventures.

4. Focus your energies. When a person becomes free to make their own schedule, he often becomes lazy. Traditional jobs provide a solid daily structure to many people – they know when they have to wake up, leave for work, eat lunch, etc. When that structure is taken out of the daily regiment, chaos may ensue. This is where your game-plan comes into play. Resist the urge to get comfortable and realize that being self-employed is often much more work than a traditional job.

5. Realize you are not going to become successful overnight. The rewards of self-employment are much higher, but so are the risks. It has taken me 3 months to see some financial benefits of self-employment. Persistent networking enabled me to secure 7 new clients this month.

As I stated earlier, self-employment is definitely not for everyone – some people simply prefer the predictability and security provided by a nine-to-five job. Others, such as myself, would rather set their own schedule and take the risky plunge into self-employment.

Do The Pros Outweigh the Cons?

In my experience, the pros of self-employment absolutely outweigh the cons. Self-employment has many benefits, including setting your own schedule and (generally) higher pay than working for a company. However, it may take a while to see the perks. In my first few months of being my own boss, I feared that I would spend a great deal of time networking and marketing and see very limited returns. It has only been in the past month that I have started to see the benefits of self-employment. Being completely in control of my success is a great feeling and it has motivated me to work even harder to achieve my long-term goals.

The other day I received an email from a loyal reader, Mike, asking me how I decide on naming a particular business.

Naming a business is usually one of the first steps in developing your business plan, and it is crucial that you give this step proper time and thought.

The name is essentially the first thing people hear or see when they first come into contact with your business. It is very important the name be 1) memorable (brandable), and/or 2) clearly communicate your company’s purpose.

Let’s first take a look at a few examples of business names which have become both very memorable and/or effective at communicating company’s purpose:

Google: If no one knew that Google was the biggest search company in the world, no one would have a clue what the company does. Google’s advatanges lies in that it is such as memorable name, so much so that people have started using it as a verb. How many other companies can you think of that even ryhme with Google? I can’t think of one.

Microsoft: Unlike Google, if no one knew who Microsoft was, they would probably have a very good idea of what they do – they create software. While it may be easy to argue that Microsoft is a brandable name, this is because it has been widely known name for the past 15-20 years.

McDonald’s: McDonald’s is a great example of a corporation that is so brandable, that people have developed nicknames for it like “Mickey D’s.” Accordingly, many of the food items have been branded in a way that also includes the company name, “Big Mac,” “McNuggets,” etc. It is interesting that although the name McDonald’s isn’t necessarily so memorable, it is the image they have attacted to it that is.

Choosing a Good Name

Communicating Purpose: You can be traditional and develop a company name that clearly communicates your company’s purpose. For example, my local business journal is called “The Scottsdale Review.” Anyone who came into contact with the name would have a very clear idea what our business does – it provides, business, shopping, and local nightlife reviews.

Creating Brand: You can also try to be unique in your company’s name and create a memorable brand. However, you must realize there is a high-risk, high-reward factor in developing an out of the ordinary name. If you create a business name that is too obscure, people may not remember it. On the other hand, if it is easy enough to pronounce and say, it can be extremely effective.

If you choose to go the route of creating a unique name, something that has worked for many businesses is combining two words together. For example, for my web development business, infinFX, we combined the words infinite and FX (effects). While it may not be the easiest to say, it is easy to visually remember.

The Dot Com: The Web 2.0 age has given birth to many unique company names. Flikr, MySpace, YouTube, all of these are unique names that have become easy to remember and in some way communicate the company’s purpose. Not only are all these company’s similar in that they possess unique names, they also own their dot com address.

Conclusion

With the Web being such a powerful marketing force, I will only choose a name if I can secure its dot com address. Every business I have, I own the dot com address to it. That is the reason that branding has become so important for all of these Web 2.0 startups – not only must they posses their dot com address, but they also much have a unique enough name that their dot com address is still available.

It’s no secret. Being self-employed is not easy. If you are managing a consulting business, finding new clients can sometimes be difficult. If you are providing a product, all of the steps required to launch the product can feel like mountains. I am sure if you asked successful entrepreneurs like John Chow or Mitchell Harper how it was to start their own businesses and make them succesful, they would not say it was easy. I can’t even begin to tell you all of the frustrations I have experienced over the past few months that comes with the unpredictability of self-employment. However, I am also sure if you asked John or Mitch if it was all worth it, they would give a resounding YES!

I have been self-employed since early January and I am currently developing several online and offline businesses. As per my reader requests, this blog is going to focus more on my business development and quest to become a succesful entrepreneur.

The other day I wrote about the benefits of offline business development. I also talked about my new case study, The Scottsdale Review. Here are the updates to that project…

The Scottsdale Review

Last week, my business partner, Josh, met with the director of the journalism school at Arizona State University to find out if we could hire journalism students to write for our publication. The main advantage of hiring journalism students initially is that 1) the students will be able to receive school credit for articles they write for The Scottsdale Review; and 2) it will save us the cost of paying for content. Of course, once we sell advertising and the business becomes profitable, we will hire several students as full-time employees. One of the school’s requirements is that they work for us a minimum of 10 hours per week. This is a great opportunity. We faxed a job description to the head of the journalism school and are waiting on a response to determine our next move.

Scottsdale IT Consulting

Another business we have been working on for the past few weeks is our IT consulting business, aptly named Scottsdale IT Consulting. We already have a dozen or so clients we work with on a regular basis. The goal now is to expand our business enough so that we can hire several technicians.

One aspect that differentiates us from other IT consulting companies is that we also offer home-based computer training. We are looking to expand this part of our business, and on Wednesday we are going to call several retirement communities in the area to let them know of our services.

Moral of the story: if you are newly self-employed and lack clients, go out and find them! I moved to Scottsdale from Seattle just 8 months ago and did not know anyone other than my roommate and business partner, Josh. Thanks to my dedicated networking efforts and several key referrals, I now have more than a dozen clients with whom I am working with on a regular basis.

I strongly believe in diversifying one’s business interests across both online and offline ventures. Many of you know that I am actively working on several other offline businesses in addition to my web development company and domain investing group.

Perhaps the greatest aspect of online business is the limitless marketing scalability. Instead of depending solely on local customers, you can reach anyone with an Internet connection. This, however, is also one of the downfalls – the face-to-face factor is removed from the transaction. Even though you can find the best deals on electronics online, many people prefer to drive to Best Buy and talk to a person before they make their purchase. In my case, even though I reach hundreds of people everyday through my company website, 95% of my clients are local.

Here’s another example: I have a dozen or so local clients who I occasionally do IT work for. The fact is that these are very simple jobs – setting up a network, installing a printer, etc. These people could easilly find the solutions to these problems by doing a little bit of Internet research. However, there is a human touch that you can not get from just doing Internet research, so these people prefer to hire me to come to their home or business and help them face-to-face. Even as more and more people use the Internet everyday to satisfy their needs and do business, there will always be those who prefer to work directly with people face-to-face for a majority of their business transactions.

Enter my first case study: The Scottsdale Review. This is going to be a hybrid online-offline business. We are putting together an online journal for the local residents of Scottsdale, Arizona which will feature information on nightlife, reviews of restaurants and shopping, interviews with local business owners, and news about Scottsdale’s booming economic and commercial development.

The great thing about The Scottsdale Review is that we will get the chance to extend our network locally, by meeting and interacting with our hired journalists, the residents, and local business owners. That is the offline benefit – our direct network of connections will increase significantly. Also, many of these business owners may need web sites and IT work, and guess what? We do that too.

Another benefit is that, in my experience, it is always more effective to close deals face-to-face, as opposed to through the Internet. We also plan on selling advertising to local businesses. It will be much easier to find businesses locally who want advertise, instead of just hunting them out online.

Of course, there is an online benefit, as well, and that is we are able to syndicate our content to everyone in the Phoenix-metropolitan area with little to no overhead costs. Not to mention, if anyone across the globe is interested in Scottsdale, they are also able to log on and check us out.

Once our business becomes profitable, we are looking to develop a print publication to compliment the online journal, as well. This is a few months down the road though, but should also provide for an interesting experience syndicating content the old-fashion way.

Over the next few months, I will keep you updated every step of the way about The Scottsdale Review. I think it will be a very interesting experience because we are working both on and offline, as well as networking with local residents and businesses, and syndicating our content to a large audience.

In conclusion, to anyone who is looking to start an online business to replace their physical job: don’t forget about your local community. There is a lot of power in face-to-face negotiation and can also provide for a great way to expand your network and increase your ties in the community.

I’ve received a few questions lately about how my web development business, infinFX, got its LLC and why we chose to go that route.

A limited liability company (LLC) is a form of business entity that is separate and distinct from a person, like a corporation. The LLC is often described as a hybrid between a corporation and a partnership (or sole proprietorship).

For a small business, the main advantage of registering as an LLC instead of as a corporation is that you are only taxed once, since it is considered the owner’s primary source of income. Of course, once your business is registered, as either an LLC or a corporation, you now can write-off the tax expenses of items such as company lunches, computer equipment, and gas mileage, if they are used in the service of the business. By subtracting these expenses from your profits, you will now owe less in taxes.

An LLC also allows for the limited liability protection similar to that of a corporation (i.e., your risk is limited to the amount that is invested in the LLC, and personal assets beyond that are usually protected).

We registered infinFX as an LLC through IncFile.com, which offers business incorporation solutions. The cost of registering varies per the company you use, as well as your state, but the total price we paid was around $500.

Many people think that they need to see an attorney to register their business, however, this is not the case. Of course, it is always recommended that you consult the appropriate legal and accounting specialists, IncFile can take care of the filings for you and save you the attorney fees.

If you have ever seriously considered working part or full-time for yourself, I highly recommend you register your business as an LLC.

I just finished a new web site for a non-profit organization in New York City by the name of Cultural Media Collaborative.

Cultural Media Collaborative, Inc. is a production organization dedicated to creating films, television programs, DVDs and live events, specifically designed to increase and enhance public awareness of music, art and culture.

They are doing some amazing work and have just finished an interesting piece entitled, “The Resurrection of Gustav Mahler.”

Their web site took a while to finish, but the president and artistic director, Jason Starr, is very pleased with the result.

Here is what Mr. Starr said about my work on the project:

infinFX and its artistic director Nate Whitehill did a magnificent job designing and constructing our corporate web site. With their seemingly limitless patience, all of our stylistic and practical needs were addressed on time and in budget. Combining the eye of a visual artist with comprehensive technical expertise, infinFX created a web site that is both beautiful and enjoyable to interact with. We highly recommend them!

Thank you to Jason Starr for the opportunity to work with this wonderful organization! I wish the best of luck to them!

Visit the web site of Cultural Media Collaborative and let me know what you think.

If any of you are interested in having a professionally developed web site put together, my web development company, infinFX, specializes in web sites which are aesthetically-pleasing, functional, and optimized for search engines. We offer competitive pricing and flexible payment plans. Please contact me if you are interested.

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I was recently contacted by a Phoenix, Arizona-based company called DotVentures. I wrote about DotVentures a while back because I saw their commercial on MSNBC and was interested in their innovative way of developing and selling domains.

Last Tuesday morning, I, along with my two business partners, Matt and Josh, met with the president of Dot Ventures, Matthew O’Brien. Mr. O’Brien also owns a search marketing company fittingly called Searchmarketing, LLC.

DotVentures is one of the first companies I have seen that treats domain investing as a business. My business partners and I currently own around 160 domains. We started a company to help sell our domains called Dot Com Moguls. Naturally, we were interested in meeting with DotVentures to find out how they could help us market and possibly develop our large collection of domains. DotVentures is conveniently located only a few miles from us, here in Scottsdale, Arizona.

DotVentures is unlike traditional domain brokering firms, in that their main purpose is NOT to simply broker the sales of domains. Instead, they help domain investors create value in their domains by developing them into microsites which produce sustainable income and build traffic over time. A few years down the road, they assist in brokering the sale of these domains for a huge ROI.

DotVentures currently owns thousands of domains in a portfolio worth an estimated 50 million dollars. They anticipate their portfolio will be worth over 1 billion dollars in a few years. This is testament to the incredible growth domain investing will see over the next few years.

Although they are still in early stages of development, their primary company objective is to allow individuals to invest in their portfolio of domains they own. After a client makes an initial investment, their search marketing company, Searchmarketing, LLC build an SEO-optimized website using patented technologies designed to generate traffic and produce monthly income. The client keeps all of the monthly income from the domains. After a few years of generating sustainable traffic to the domain, they help broker the sale and split the profit with the client 50/50.

Shortcomings of Traditional Domain Parking and Web Development

Mr. O’Brien has been in the web development business for over 15 years. He has had a great deal of experience and made several key observations about its shortcomings and how it could be improved upon.

According to Mr. O’Brien, despite having a profitable development company, it is difficult to achieve large-scale growth when you are employing other web designers. You can only hire so many people to work on so many projects. Also, completing web sites from scratch can be a very time consuming process. The limited scaleability of web development companies is the reason we have not seen the emergence of any leading, large-sized development studios.

The other shortfall with the current state of the web development industry is in the concept of search marketing. When you build a web site from scratch, it has no back-linking and no page ranking. Generating consistent traffic takes many months if not years. This is also true for domain parking. It is very difficult to get Google to display high page rankings for parked domains.

To help better understand this concept, think about this metaphor: One does not buy a physical retail location because of its numerical address – 123 Park Lane does not mean anything. One buys a physical retail spot because of the amount of traffic it or its surrounding area receives. As Donald Trump says, “Location, location, location!”

Having the best domain in the world means nothing if you do not have any page ranking or traffic. Building traffic and page ranking is a very time-consuming process.

Opportunity to Improve Domain Parking and Web Development

The future of web development is no longer going to be about registering a domain name and building a web site from scratch. It is going to become the process of taking a preexisting domain name that already receives traffic and then turning it into a prime location for a business. Selling highly-trafficked domains will resuilt in a much higher ROI for the investor than developing a web site from scratch.

Searchmarketing and DotVentures are unlike any other web development companies out there right now. Searchmarketing has built several patented technologies which generate page content and a useful web site automatically. Think about taking a collection of parked domains, and instantly attaching unique content and an attractive design. This is similar to WhyPark’s service, but Searchmarketing promises a far more interactivity built into these domains. For example, imagine having an instant social-networking web site built into a parked domain. Now, when you properly SEO-optimize these sites, you have the potential to get much higher page rankings and an increase in return visitors.

Many people agree this is the direction web development is going in – instead of parking domains or building sites from scratch, web sites will be developed into vertically-marketed portals which provide far more value to the web than a parked page or a static web site.

I have read of similar ideas from only one other person, a man by the name of Richard Rosenblatt. Mr. Rosenblatt helped broker the deal of MySpace to Newscorp several months ago. He now owns a company called Demand Media which is reportedly working on similar technologies. It will be interesting how Mr. O’Brien and Mr. Rosenblatt’s companies change the worlds of web development and domain parking over the next year.

An Exciting Time is Upon Us

Over the next year, I am sure you will hear about DotVentures and Searchmarketing if you have not already. Like I mentioned earlier, DotVentures is already running commercials on MSNBC. Now is the perfect time to get into the business of domain investing. Mr. O’Brien also talked about working with domainers who already own a large collection of domains, like us.

My web development business, infinFX, will be working with Searchmarketing, LLC over the next year to develop a handful of our 160+ domains into profitable microsites. We are also in talks to possibly license their patented technologies to help increase traffic and pagerankings for some of our existing web sites. We will keep you updated over the next few months as our relationship with DotVentures, LLC and Search Marketing, LLC pans out.

It seems like domain parking will soon be a thing of the past. That means we could see a major improvement to the quality of the Internet over the next few years.

What do you think? Is domain parking and traditional web development going in the same direction as the dodo bird? Cast your vote in the new poll (see the sidebar, to the right).

For more information, visit:

• Dot Ventures, LLC
• Search Marketing, LLC

I’ve spent the past 2 hours rewriting and redesigning my Web Enterprises page. For those of you who are not familar with my businesses, myself, along with a couple business partners, are currently developing 5 separate businesses, with a few others in the works. This may seem like a lot for a 22 year-old who is still in school full time, and you are damn right. My time outside of school and business is pretty much nonexistent. However, business development is my true passion, and I would not spend my time in any other manner than creating my future.

Many people are comfortable working for someone else their entire life. I am not. Ever since I have been a little boy, my self-employed and very successful father has encouraged me to break away from the norm by starting my own business and creating my own future. Many good conversations with him over the years has left a strong imprint on what I consider to be “true success.” To me, true success only comes from clearly defining where you want to be, and then taking every step necessary to work towards that goal. My goal is to be financially independent by age 30. This does not imply that I would stop working at that time. Far from that, I love what I do and want to develop businesses for the rest of my life. There is no greater satisfaction that seeing my ideas turn into reality. And then turning that reality into one of ultimate success.

Anyways, I added a logo-banner for each of our current startups and a more detailed description of the business goals and current state of affairs. By the way, we are VERY close to hiring part-time employees for each business, so if you notice a startup that you are particularly interested in, and you’ve got great skills, please contact me ASAP. I would prefer locals, aka the Phoenix-Scottsdale area, but I would be willing to consider long distance relationships depending on what you bring to the table.

Check out My Web Enterprises and let me know what you think.

That’s all for now.