Sometimes you need money right now.

Maybe you’ve spent all your savings, used up all your credit and you’re about to get evicted from your home if you don’t make payment in the next two weeks?

Maybe you’d just feel a whole lot better if you had a bit more cash right now?

Either way… here are some short term strategies for make money very quickly.

These are not sustainable business models. They are quick short-term strategies to get you out of a hole.

I hope you don’t need them!

1. Sell stuff on eBay

You’ll probably have heard of this enormously popular auction site.

eBay brings together buyers and sellers, makes the transaction nice and easy, and takes a cut of each transaction for its trouble.

They make a big song and dance of the fact that you have thousands of dollars of unwanted stuff lying around the house that you could sell on eBay.

It’s probably worth finding out whether or not they’re right.

Have a root around your house.

See what you can find.

You could probably live without that fancy stereo system that you haven’t figured out how to connect together after your last house move.

And you’ve always hated that colored glass kingfisher.

So you’ve gathered together some stuff to sell. Now all you need to do is sell it.

But first you need…

An eBay profile with positive feedback

People on the internet are untrustworthy.

A lot of people share this belief. And for good reason.

Unless you have a documented track record of Not Ripping People Off, you’re probably going to find it hard to persuade people to give you money over the internet.

It’s very very difficult to sell anything on eBay if you don’t have positive feedback as a trustworthy eBay buyer and seller.

So how do you get good feedback?

Here’s a few suggestions:

“Borrow” a friend’s profile.

Know a good friend with an impressive eBay profile?

Cool. Ask your friend to submit your listing for you.

This isn’t a long term solution, but we’re after quick money here.

Buy a load of really cheap stuff

eBay doesn’t make it immediately obvious whether your feedback relates to buying or selling things.

You can therefore build up an impressive eBay profile by buying a lot of really cheap stuff. After a couple of weeks, you’ll be good to go.

Use an eBay listing service

There are a number of companies that will do all the work for you. You drop of your stuff and they will take the photographs, write a great advert and sell your stuff using their super-feedback-powered Power Seller Profiles. The only downside is that they take a significant percentage of the sale price for their efforts.

Got the profile? Great now we need to photograph the stuff and write the listing.

My advice?

Get a book from the library about selling on eBay

Selling stuff on eBay isn’t rocket science but there are better and worse ways to go about it.

eBay has been around for a long time so there is a lot of good advice out there. Go to the library and get out a couple of books. Don’t buy a dubious internet information product when you could get something better for free at the library.

It’s going to take some time, but that’s probably one thing you have quite a lot of right now.

Do this okay and you’re almost certain to get money.

Do it badly and you probably still will – just not quite as much…

Next idea…

2. Buy stuff cheaply and sell it on for a higher price somewhere else

I’ve identified an awesome business model.

It goes like this:

1. Buy things cheaply
2. Sell the same stuff for more money somewhere else.

Yes. I am a genius.

Right now, though, we’re after a quick turnaround. And, as you might have only a few hundred dollars left on your credit card, we want to be sure that there’s a hungry market for the stuff you’re going to sell.

So you’re going to want to do some market research.

Have a look on free classified ad websites like Craigslist. Items on these sites usually sell for higher prices than you can pick them up on eBay or in clearance sales. Find out what’s popular and appears to be selling well.

Then try to pick these items up cheaper on eBay, at clearance sales or other marketplaces.

This one can be easy if you have a hobby you know about which you know an insane and unhealthy amount.

Next idea…

3. Sell old books on Amazon

You almost certainly have a number of books sitting around at home that you’re never going to read again.

Amazon makes it really easy to sell this stuff without having to write an advert or really put in any work whatsoever.

It really takes no time at all.

Go to their website to find out more. Just be careful that you don’t lose money on postage and packaging costs.

Next idea…

4. Sell your services

What useful things could you do for people in exchange for cash?

Can you:

• write or edit articles?
• help people tidy organize their office?
• create or customize websites?
• do graphic design?
• do coding (computer programing)?
• mow the lawn?
• trim hedges?
• babysit?

The list is endless…

Now is the time to get in touch with all the people you know, tell them what you’re doing and tell them you’re offering large discount based on your current circumstances.

Put an advert up on Craigslist too whilst you’re at it.

Next idea…

5. Sell websites

If you do business on the internet you might have a few half-finished or otherwise neglected websites hanging around.

Did you know that you can sell these for cash, especially if they specifically target a well-chosen keyword or two and a high Adsense pay per click price (read this article on niche websites if this makes no sense right now.)

Search for “Website Flipping” for more on this strategy.

Don’t worry. You’re going to be okay.

JJ Jalopy.

Three reasons:

• not enough people are interested in the thing you’re trying to sell
• not enough people want to pay for the thing the you’re trying to sell
• not enough people want to pay high enough prices for the thing you’re trying to sell.

Yes. I know. I am a genius. Thanks.

Unfortunately, people often figure out this not-enough customers deal a bit late, sometimes after they’ve invested years of effort and invested heavily in their product or service.

This makes me sad, because a lot of this “wasted” effort could easily be avoided with a small amount of simple market testing.

That’s why I made this market testing video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Awesome as it was, this video generated a large number of questions. There’s only so much you can explain on YouTube in 5 mins.

I want to give you a complete Market Testing Kit for small online businesses.

It’ll show you step by step how to determine if there are enough people who want to buy enough stuff for enough money. I’ll show you how to do it without spending anything.

I’ll also show you how you can actually make money as you test your business idea, without even creating a product or service yourself.

Who will benefit from this?

This is will be of great value to anyone who does business on the internet, or wants to get started.

This is for you if you’re:

• thinking of starting a small online business, but have no idea how to do it.
• looking to move into another market
• an established business owner who can’t quite attract the number of customers you’d like
• looking to narrow your target market
• looking to widen your target market

What will be in it?

There’ll be videos and worksheets and checklists. I’ll even throw in a few lightning bolt flow diagrams too.

Sounds great. When can I get it?

Here’s the thing…

It’s going to take a while for me to make it.

And it’d be super embarrassing if I spent ages creating a market testing kit that didn’t have a market.

Wouldn’t that make me look like an ass?

So I’m asking you, my beloved and trusted blog reader, for your opinion.

I know I haven’t given you a huge amount to work with here. We’re in pre-testing, people. (That’s how I justify this page looking like ass.) BUT… I’ll shortly be throwing together a little sales page for Google visitors. It’ll be more detailed (and probably ever-so-slightly sleazier) than this little description here. I’ll point you at it when I get a chance.

But for now… if you think this rocks and you’re interested in finding out more, then please add your name and email address below and click submit.

Shortly afterwards you’ll receive an email asking you to click a link to confirm. Do this and you’re registered and good to go.

I like a clean inbox as much as you do. I won’t use your email address for anything other than information about this product. And I won’t do that very often.

Thanks for your help and support!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. I have some INCREDIBLY EXCITING NEWS coming soon. Stay tuned!

Traditionally, businesses have spent a large amount of money trying to attract the consumer’s attention.

Seth Godin called this interruption marketing. The idea was that the marketer would find out where the prospect his likely to hang out (often in front of the TV!) and grab their attention by shoving an advert in their face.

The head of a marketing genius...

Interruption marketing techniques included unsolicited direct (junk) mail, television, radio and billboard advertising.

Back in the day, attracting people’s interest with interruption advertising was a simple but expensive business.

If you could put a repeated television advert out to the whole country then pretty much everyone would know who you were within a few weeks.

Nowadays, though, more information is thrown in our faces than ever before.

This is mostly due to one thing… The Internet.

And what has been the result for the marketer?

Well… consumers have become much more sophisticated in their ability to ignore traditional marketing messages.

Attracting interest in the modern world has become more complicated (as there are more messages competing for our attention), but potentially cheaper.

Why cheaper, you say?

Because we can now use modern web strategies such as blogs, websites, social media (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter), article marketing (Ezinearticles, GoArticles) , user-generated content sites (Squidoo, Hubpages, Tumblr)

Implementing these strategies is very cheap and even free in many cases. All it takes is the time and effort needed to build up a presence on the internet using these tools.

In this model, we allow people to find us by providing the content or information they are already looking for.

So, once our customer has found us, what are the next steps?

Well, before we do anything else, we must get permission to carry on the conversation with the customer. This could be done by asking the customer to sign-up to a newsletter, like the Jalopy Gang V.I.P. list.

Mr. Godin calls this permission marketing. He describes the concept like this:

Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.

Source: Seth’s Blog

The next step is to build trust with the customer.

You do this by doing what you agreed to do, providing huge amounts of value and generally helping people out with their lives. You can do this by providing your customers with helpful things, like this article here!

Then, and only then, can make them an offer to buy something awesome that will help them.

And of course, you’re not quite done yet…

The final (and ongoing) step is to nurture and grow your relationship with the customer through your continued open and helpful communication. This is how you create raving fans and loyal, appreciative customers.

As you develop your marketing, keep asking yourself how you move your customers along this path.

You’ll want to develop a complete understanding of exactly how this process works for you.

Ask yourself this:

What exact steps would a total stranger need to take to become one of your biggest fans and a trusted and appreciated customer?

See you soon!

JJ Jalopy.

Or why SEO is the most tedious thing in the world.

Have I got a nerdtastic treat for you today OR WHAT?!

Like any self-respecting narcissist with a website, I track my visitor statistics in painstaking detail.

One thing I’ve been noticing recently is that the amount of traffic I’ve been receiving from web searches has been significantly down, whereas the amount of returning visitors has been significantly up.

For a while I focused on the latter of these two observations, happy that you like me enough to come back. (Thanks, by the way. I like you too.)

And I kind of forgot about the first bit, writing it off as one of those things.

The world of the internet is pretty predictable most of the time.

One of the things I love the most about business on the internet is that it’s pretty easy to predict what is going to happen.

Let’s think about how someone gets to a website from an internet search:

1. They have a question, problem or a thing they want to find out about.
2. They type a relevant phrase into Google, Bing or one of the other (crappier) search engines.
3. A list of results are returned, matching your search.
4. The user picks the one that looks like it matches their query the best.
5. They get to your site. They’re either happy that they reached your awesome and information-rich resource, or they’re pissed that your website is a great big pile of spammy nonsense.

Pretty straightforward, right?

Now, there are two things that we can work on in order to get more people to our websites.

1. We can work on making our webpages appear higher up the search engine results pages (SERPs).
2. We can work on making the title, description and summary details more relevant, interesting and clickable.

Both these points are generally lumped under the banner of SEO. Or Search Engine Optimization.

SEO is the most tedious thing in the world.

It’s a fact of life that if you abbreviate something enough it becomes really boring.

SEO is one of those things. Every hormonal teenager on the internet thinks they’re an SEO expert. Do an internet search for proof.

Really, there is nothing magical about SEO. It’s simply the art of structuring your website and webpages in such a way that they are appear high up the list of possible search engine results for certain key phrases that you expect people are likely to search for.

These key phrases are generally called keywords, even though they are usually composed of more than one word.

Google decides what to return on search results pages based on:

1. How the keyword phrase appears in your webpage.

Ideally you’ll want the keyword phrase to appear in the URL (the address you type in to get to the webpage), the title, description and in the main body of your text.

Ideally you’ll want the keyword phrase highlighted in bold, or in a header at some point. And you’ll want other webpages (they can be on other pages of your site) linking to the page with the keyword in the link text.

You’ll also probably want these keyword phrases to appear in the META tags of your page. If you don’t know what this means then don’t worry. We’ll cover it a bit later.

Many people think that having your keyword phrase loads of times in your webpage helps too. I think they’re wrong. Even if they’re not wrong, doing this will make your articles read like crap and people will think that you’re weird.

2. How important Google thinks your website is.

Google has favorites.

It decides how much value your website has based upon some magic and mysterious criteria that Google puts on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.

It also decides, based on the links between the pages of your website, which are the most important pages on your site.

It sums all this up in a thing it calls PageRank. No-one really knows what this is, but you can get an estimation of it from 0 to 10 by installing Google Toolbar on your computer.

Here are some factors that affect your Google Page Rank:

• The age of your website
• How big it is
• How many other websites link to it
• How much Google likes those websites that link to you.

3. Other stuff

There are many other verified or hypothesized search engine ranking factors. You probably don’t need to worry about them. Here is a good place to start if you’re interested.

Fine. But I can’t really be bothered with all this. I just want to write cool stuff that helps people and makes them laugh.

Yeah. Me too.

I find this SEO stuff a bit ick really. I want to concentrate on writing cool stuff, not on gaming the search engines.

Thankfully, the search engines rules are set up to look for cool stuff (as opposed to spam.) So if you’re writing lots of cool stuff, then you’re really halfway there.

All you need to do, is add a few little tweaks to help the search engines to realize what you’re stuff is, and to realize that it’s cool.

If you’re running Wordpress, then something that will help you a lot is the All in One SEO Pack Plugin.

It does a lot of useful stuff for you, so you can concentrate on making good stuff. The only thing you need to do is have a think about what your keywords should be and put them in the relevant places. Then let the All in One SEO Pack Plugin handle everything else for you.

Cool. So how to I install it?

Go here.

And follow the instructions.

Configuring the All in One SEO Pack Plugin

The All in One SEO Pack Plugin is not one that you can just install and leave alone.

In fact, the reasons that my website search traffic had started to suck was that, on upgrading Wordpress to version 2.8, my plugin had resorted to its default settings. The result was that my search result titles and descriptions now looked like ass and no-one was clicking on them.

So here’s how to set things up so your search traffic will rock.

Here’s how mine is set up:

The final bit – Overriding the defaults for specific posts

Now you have everything set up then you can leave everything alone and never really worry about it again, if you like.

However… the plugin also allows you to override some the default title, description and meta tags for each post and you’ll want to do this for posts in which you’re targeting a very specific search term.

These settings appear in the Wordpress Visual Editor, as shown below:

Go Forth and Optimize!

You now have the power within you! Go forth and optimize your website!

Rock on!

JJ Jalopy.

Yep. It’s that time of the week again.

Relax. Pour yourself a glass of your favorite drink. It’s time to talk about our issues. You and me. In a non-creepy, constructive kind of way, without a sleazy old therapist in site.

None of this...

Have you ever had thoughts like this?

Aaaarghhh…What if my business all goes horribly, horribly wrong?

Aaaarghhh…What if everyone realizes I’m rubbish at this stuff and laughs me out of business?

Aaaarghhh…What if I have to listen to my Mother telling me that she always knew I should never have quit my job for the REST OF MY LIFE?!

Aaaarghhh…What if I run out of money and I have to scavenge for food in the trash?

Aaaarghhh…What if I can’t afford to feed and clothe my family and it’s all my fault?

Aaaarghhh…What if….

Fear of failure.

It’s a bitch isn’t it?

It’s a big heavy bitch that ties you down and stops you from doing the things you love, living your dream and being so happy that you do star jumps in the street and give sweets to strangers for no reason other than it makes you smile.

I want those strangers to have those sweets so we’re going to sort this out – as much as we can – by talking through it together.

We’re going to break this topic down into two main fears (although they’re really one and the same).

• The fear of looking silly
• The fear of starving / dying / your whole life falling apart

This week we’re going to talk about the former.

Overcoming the Fear of Looking Silly

I hate looking silly. Don’t you hate looking silly?

Sometimes the fear of looking silly rings so loud in my head that I don’t do something I really want to do.

Why?

Because I’m worried that I’ll look like a tit. Or I’m worried people will think I’m stupid. Or that they’ll realize that I’m not actually cool after all…

We hate being embarrassed and, naturally, we try to avoid it. (We’re good to ourselves like that.)

This is… that feeling often rings louder inside our heads than the drive to do the thing that we love. And we end up missing out.

Perhaps you’re putting off staring that business doing the thing you love because you’re scared it all go wrong and people will think less of you?

Perhaps you’re putting off really promoting your business because you’re scared it’ll put you in a limelight that you’re not ready for?

This is totally sensible and totally understandable.

But I know it’s not what you want…

I know you don’t want to be a slave to your emotions. I know you don’t want your fear of looking silly to get in the way of doing what you love.

I don’t want that for you either. I think you’re brilliant and I don’t want to deprive the world of your brilliance.

How do we overcome fear of failure?

Well first of all let’s recognize that it’s not the failure or looking silly that you’re scared of, per se. It’s the emotions associated with these things. It’s the desire to avoid guilt, shame, or any other emotion that you think you’ll experience that is stopping you from taking action.

Yeah. Great JJ. Thanks. You just changed some words around. Is this supposed to make me feel better?

Well yeah. Kinda. Because it now pushes the issue back within your control.

Although it might not always seem this way, you create the emotions you experience. And by changing the way you interpret the world you can change the emotions you experience.

So many people will give you useful reframes. If you think about failure in a different, more positive way, they say, then you’ll feel better about it all.

Some powerful reframes that you’re probably fed up with hearing about

1. Failure is really just feedback.

Most successful businesses were pre-ceeded by a stream of attempts that didn’t quite work out the way they were intended.

When people talk about this they usually mention Thomas Edison, who made six zillion shitty light bulbs that didn’t work before he stumbled across the final design. If he’d given up along the way then we wouldn’t have America’s Got Talent, they say, as if this were a bad thing.

If you find something that doesn’t work then you’re really one thing closer to something that does. You don’t have to try that thing again. It didn’t work. See? A useful learning experience.

2. The only way to fail is to not try your best.

It didn’t work out, but you worked hard and you did your best? Well you can be bloody proud of yourself.

(This one came from Tony Robbins.)

3. Your business is really just a project.

This is a powerful frame that my mentor, Kevin Hogan, introduced me to. The idea is that what you call your business, that thing you do, is really just a project.

You’ve had projects before and you’ll have projects in the future. You’re trying one out at the moment. It’s not really a big deal if it fails because it’s only a project. Your Mother-in-law might not be so smug about telling you you should never have left your job if she knows it’s just a project.

Clever, isn’t it?

If you can truly convince yourself to believe these reframes then these will help you enormously.

But here’s what to do when you can’t convince yourself of the above

Most likely you won’t buy into these reframes in the short term. You might have heard a hundred times about Thomas Edison’s thousand attempts at a bloody light bulb, but rationalizing to yourself that failure is a valuable feedback mechanism can be somewhat of a stretch when you’re right in the middle of your little freak-out storm.

And whilst it might be empowering to believe that your little business is just a project.

Just try telling this to your body when it’s gripped by panic.

It probably won’t listen. In fact, it’s more likely to yell back at you “shut up Tony Bloody Robbins. I’m too busy freaking out to listen to your feel-good mind-trick crap right now.”

And then it’ll carry on freaking out.

If you’re anything like me you don’t want tricks, techniques or advice when you’re in one of those moments. You want gin. Or Valium. Or more furniture to throw at the wall. The value of a well-placed reframe is not obvious to you mid-meltdown.

So go easy on yourself. Realize that, despite your best efforts, you’re not going to think your way into a position of unlimited self-esteem straight away.

Or ever, really…

So learn to recognize the emotions that you’re running away from and accept that it’s okay to feel them.

It’s okay to worry that your business is going to fail and you’ll feel ashamed. It’s okay to worry that the person you’re about to call about a joint venture is going to be dismissive of you and you’ll feel embarrassed.

It’s okay. We all feel like that sometimes.

Allow yourself to feel what you feel. And stretch out in whatever way you can. You don’t need to “get over it”. You don’t need to jump out of your comfort zone. Just do what you can do right now. Stretch a little, if you can. Next time will be easier.

So how do you feel?

I hope you got a little something out of that. It made me feel better anyway! ?

Join me next Saturday for another installment. We’ll be talking through the fear of having to feed your family with scraps of half-eaten food you stole from the trash. Or something.

Take care!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. Look. This was really bloody long. I love you lots and lots for reading this far and I hope you enjoyed what you read.

I’d like to invite you to sign-up to my V.I.P. list. You’ll get free email awesomeness just like this delivered straight into your emailbox every week, except when I’m horrendously hungover.

You can even reply to the email and talk to me. We’ll probably end up best friends. Put your name and email address in the boxes below if this sounds like something you would like!

But I don’t have any clients and no-one seems to want my products.

But you’re moving? You’re taking regular, consistent action?

Yes. But I feel like it’s not working. I feel like I’m wasting my time. I feel like giving up.

Growing a business takes time.

Most fail because their owner gives up before giving the business a fair chance to succeed.

The people who succeed are not the smartest. They’re not those with the best ideas. They’re not the most talented.

They’re those that take regular, consistent action.

Those that don’t give up.

Those that keep going.

The next e-mail you write and the next phone call you make will make a difference.

Keep going. You’re doing great.

JJ Jalopy.

Happy Fourth of July!

I had planned to write this post last weekend.

I had also planned to send out my awesome and much-hyped (by me) Jalopy Gang Newsletter to my beloved V.I.P. list.

Instead I sat on a beach in the South of France for about 12 hours in the blistering heat and drank enough premium French Lager to kill a horse. (And a burly, hard-drinking one at that.)

Don't ask...

Predictable results ensued.

I am never going on another bachelor weekend again.

So… I’ve been away for a while. This post almost didn’t happen. Newsletter awesomeness didn’t manifest. And God wept.

But NOW I’m back….

And it’s time to talk about our issues. You and me. In a non-creepy, constructive way with no seedy old therapist bores in sight.

None of this...

The introductory story about the man with no name.

An unnamed client recently came to me to ask for help in promoting his business on the internet.

(He’s doesn’t actually have no name. He has a very lovely name, in fact. It’s just that I’m not telling you what it is.)

He has a small but successful offline business, and he’s looking to expand his marketing efforts online. Good for him. This idea gets the Jalopy Seal of Approval. (You can have one too for a small donation into my Paypal account.)

He’s getting a website designed. It looks pretty flash. It’s even made of Flash.

That’s a cool looking website, I said. Do you have a blog?

No. I don’t want a blog, he replied.

We’ve spoken about blogs before, me and he. He knows that I believe that the blog is the pinnacle of awesomeness when it comes to non-pushy, value- and relationship-focused internet marketing. This is true for a million reasons I have bored him with previously, and a million reasons that I’ll explain to you in my forthcoming product How to Use the Internet as your Faithful Marketing Love Slave.

So I stared at him blankly until he elaborated.

I don’t have time to maintain a blog, he replied.

The reason you don’t do something is rarely because you don’t have enough time. If something is important enough to you, you’ll make time for it.

<<Blank stare>>

<<Silence>>

I don’t have anything original to say.

What I have to say is boring. People won’t be interested in that.

And I don’t write very well.

And I’d run out of things to talk about.

And I don’t like putting myself “out-there” so personally. What if everyone realizes I’m not as much of an expert as I’d like to pretend? What if everyone realizes I’m weird or thinks I’m a screw-up?

Great. Now we were actually getting somewhere

So let’s talk these through together, one by one…

Hello. My name is

Objection 1 – I don’t have anything original to say.

We started to address this in our first small business therapy session.

It’s not true that everything worth writing about has already been written about by someone.

But it nearly is.

So does that mean you can’t write about it too?

Must every point you make be completely and totally original? A unique and perfectly-formed gem of knowledge spawned from your mind only?

Of course not!

What’s important is that you say what you have to say, in your own voice, at the right time.

In doing that, you’ll change lives.

Don’t believe me?

Okay. Have you ever heard something that you’ve heard a hundred times before, but for some reason, this time you hear it, something really clicks?

Why is it that the same information, presented slightly differently, only sunk in when you heard it described in a certain way, by a certain person?

It’s because that person was able to describe it to you in a way that you could uniquely relate to.

There are people that need to hear what you have to say. From you.

And you owe it to them to be yourself, to tell your story, to spread your knowledge.

Next…

Objection 2 – What I have to say is boring. People won’t be interested in it.

Yes Sir. I'd love to read your NASCAR blog.

There are many massively popular blogs that I find mind-numblingly tedious.

What does this tell us?

Well… it either means that I’m a poor judge of blog quality…

…or it tells us that different people like different stuff.

Have you ever done any random, un-targeted web browsing? (You should. It’s an excellent procrastination aid, if nothing else!)

If you have, then you’ll know that there’s a huge amount of unoriginal, pointless, yawn-inducing stuff out there. And it’s very very popular.

Which means that there must be a whole ton of people who like unoriginal, pointless, yawn-inducing stuff.

Or rather, a whole load of people who like the stuff that I think is unoriginal, pointless and yawn-inducing.

Someone will like your boring stuff. I promise!

Now, maybe you’re worried that no-one will show up to read your blog?

That’s a different issue. And a largely practical one.

Getting people to read your stuff is largely a function of how well you promote it. If you promote it well, people will come. And even if I might think it’s tedious, irrelevant and unoriginal, other people will not. They’ll visit and they will return.

There are more than enough weirdos on the internet for your weird blog to have a weird audience of its own.

There. Doesn’t that make you feel better?!

Next…

Objection 3 – I don’t write very well

I know how this can feel.

I love good writing. I’m attracted to some of my favorite blogs predominantly because of their unique and creative writing style.

Sometimes, when I’m reading a beautifully written blog such as www.copyblogger.com, a little voice appears in my head – the one that says:

JJ – you’ll never be this good. Why don’t you just give it up?

And part of that voice is correct. I probably will never be that good. I probably could be, were I to really work at it, but that’s not my focus.

Sometimes my ego and my desire to be the best at everything stops me from remembering why I am blogging in the first place.

I’m not blogging to become a great blogger. Or even a great writer.

I’m blogging to help people to succeed with their small home businesses. I’m blogging to help people leave their day jobs and do something that inspires and excites them. I’m blogging to promote my services and forthcoming awesome products.

Well yes. Indeed.

The best writing style for a blog is a conversational tone. Imagine your average reader is in front of you and talk to them as a friend.

If you can write the way you talk when you’re having a coffee or a beer with a friend then you’ll be a great blogger.

Next…

Objection 4 – I’d run out of things to talk about

I strange and wonderful thing starts happening when you start writing.

Ideas seem to be born out of nowhere.

You’ll be writing a post and you’ll get ideas for five more. If you make it your intention to come up with ideas for blog posts and then go about your day, you’ll be surprised at how many great ideas pop into your head.

Give it a try.

Next…

Objection 5 – I don’t like putting myself “out there”. What if everyone realizes I’m not as much of an expert as I’d like to pretend? What if everyone realizes I’m weird or thinks I’m a screw-up?

Ah yes.

You’re going to be writing about yourself and you’re scared that people might find out that you’re not perfect.

Yeah. Makes sense. Because we love people who claim to be perfect, don’t we?

We really connect with them, don’t we?

We feel so appreciated and understood when we’re around someone who says they’ve never made any mistakes in their lives, don’t we?

You see where I’m going with this…

Good.

Your story will give someone hope. Your story is the reason people will finally understand what they haven’t been able to understand so far from anyone else.

Your story is the reason people are there, reading a blog and not an encyclopedia.

Be honest. Be yourself. Rock the world.

<<Deep breath>>

That was good. I enjoyed that.

It’s been lovely. See you tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. If you enjoyed that then you might want to sign-up to my V.I.P. list. You’ll get an email newsletter every week (except when I have heatstroke.) Sign-up now and get it tomorrow!

Today we’re going to do some coaching math. (Put an S on the end of that if you feel like being British for the day.)

Don’t worry. It’ll be nice and easy. And I’m going to hold your hand every step of the way and tell you that you’re doing great.

So… let’s pretend my star mentoring client and imaginary blog sycophant Life Coach Marjorie comes to me with the goal of making $100,000 a year from coaching next year.

Superstar Life Coach Marjorie!

That’s a good goal.

Marjorie’s a great coach. She’s the best, in fact.

But without a concrete plan showing how she’s going to make that money, it’s unlikely that Marjorie is going to wind up achieving her income goal simply by being brilliant.

Thankfully, Marjorie and I are a great team. She’s a life coaching superstar, and I’m an annoying guy who makes her write dates and numbers on piece of paper until it looks like some kind of plan.

And this is a good thing. Because the plan is going to show Marjorie how she can go from zero to $100,000 a year.

So we write $100,000 at the top of our piece of paper. This is our target. We brainstorm how we’re going to get there…

My regular coaching rates are $200 a month, explains Life Coach Marjorie.

Great.

I think I can probably maintain 10 clients a month on average over the year, she goes on to say,

So let’s write that down (pretending that taxes, expenses and other undesirables don’t exist…)

10 Coaching Clients per month @ $200 = $2000 per month = $24,000 per year.

Cool.

But it’s not quite $100,000 yet.

Marjorie could try to reach her goal, by doing on of the following:

• coaching 50 people a month
• increasing her rates to $1000 a month

Fortunately, Marjorie is smarter than that.

And she has been listening to me when I harp on about the value of producing information products to support her coaching service. She thinks it would be a good idea to write a small downloadable eBook on goal setting.

I do too.

This downloadable book will:

• provide a nice customer entry point for people who aren’t yet ready to stump up the $200 for Marjorie’s coaching
• increase her credibility and establish her as an authority in the personal development / coaching field
• make her money

Marjorie thinks she can write the 20 page book and get the design and distribution sorted out in a month.

She’ll sell it as a $19 download. She estimates that 40 people will buy it every month.

40 eBooks per month @ $19  profit = $760 per month = $9120 per year

That’s pretty good going for a month’s work.

Marjorie thinks she has another book in her. This one is going to be a larger, more comprehensive affair. It’s a manual for housewives who want to get back into work.

She thinks she’ll be able to write it and get it on the market in 3 months. She’ll sell it as a $69 download, with an option to pay extra postage for a printed version. She thinks she’ll sell 20 copies a month.

20 Printed Books per month @ $69 profit  = $1380 per month = $16,560 per year

As Marjorie is the greatest coach in the world, she thinks it’s only fair to impart some of this magic on other coaches. She decides to record a CD program with recordings of real coaching sessions. She takes on a few new coaching clients at reduced rates on the agreement that she may record the sessions. She asks her friend’s son to edit the sessions on his computer. She arranges for a fulfillment house to manufacture and distribute the CDs on her behalf.

This takes 2 months.

She sells the CD program for $150. Due to the small expected volumes it costs $15 to manufacture and ship the CD sets. She expects to sell 10 CD sets a month.

10 CD Programs per month @ 135 profit = $1350 per month = $16,200 per year

And if we add this up we come to:

Total projected, 6 months into plan:  $65,880 per year.

So far in our plan we’ve covered 6 months. Marjorie is well on her way to reaching her target next year.

We’ll stop here, but Marjorie might want to go on to write some new eBooks, start a subscription service, run tele-classes or produce another high-end physical product (or two.)

All of these will provide extra income. The introduction of new customers via an increased channels will result in more repeat business, and many of the numbers above can be expected to grow.

This is an interesting model to play with and think about and it’s a good basis upon which to build a plan…

…but don’t believe the numbers in this example. We’ve made some pretty huge assumptions here. All products have a limited shelf life and there are many other costs which have not been considered in the model.

I think the most interesting thing that comes out of this is the realization that the one-one-one coaching model is not very scalable. I’d advise everyone, coaches or otherwise to be on the lookout for ways to supplement their income. This is where the money lies…

Be creative. You rock!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. If you’re interested in more thinking along these lines, you should check out Andrea J Lee’s awesome book Multiple Streams of Coaching Income.

If you get it using this link here, I’ll receive enough money to buy myself a lovely cold beer. And that would be nice, wouldn’t it? Especially on a summer day like this. Go on… I’m a happy drunk, I promise…

How are you? It’s so good to see you again – it’s been a while.

I had a fantastic time in Monaco, thank you very much.

But I’ve been in bed for the last two days. The combination of too-much-sun and not-enough-water will do that to you, it seems.

Ouch

So, as I was hallucinating in bed last night, trying to shiver my way to sleep, I got to thinking about why most people’s mini-businesses don’t succeed.

What is the difference that makes the difference? I thought to myself, because I liked the way it sounded.

The difference that makes the difference is indifference, I replied, because I was high on sunstroke and I liked the way that sounded even more.

But I knew it didn’t make sense. Certainly not in this context anyway.

So I pulled myself together and searched my brain for a more helpful question. If I wasn’t going to sleep, I might as well do some productive thinking.

What do people most need to help their businesses thrive?

That’s better.

I don’t think it’s more information, I replied. Most people know a few things they could be doing right now to move their business forward, get more clients and stuff.

(And if they don’t, they should click on that link for a few very simple suggestions.)

The problem is that they’re not doing them.

Bingo.

What people most need is to actually do the stuff they already know they should be doing.

Brilliant! A stroke of genius.

If there’s a Nobel Prize for the most obvious and naive piece of business advice then I’m first on the shortlist.

I went to sleep.

So, why aren’t they doing these things?

Well…

Because some of the things on that list are rather unsexy.

Because some of the things on that list are a bit scary.

And, quite frankly, they’d rather be drinking margaritas, eating biscuits in bed, or flirting with the hot teenage gardener.

One for the laaaydeees....

Not that those aren’t useful and enjoyable activities. I’m sure they are. It’s just that they aren’t going to help your business grow. And then you’re not going to be able to afford those margaritas.

I want you to have all the margaritas / pool boys / hot nannies / ice-cream (delete as appropriate) that you desire.

But first… I want you do some of those things on your list.

(NOTE: I’m well aware that I’m the only one who uses under-the-covers margarita and biscuit binges as an excuse not to follow through on tedious marketing tasks. I’m sure your excuses are much more socially acceptable and involve kids, chores and family responsibilities. Unfortunately, these things are not as funny to me so they don’t get much of a mention today. Thanks.)

So here’s what we’re going to do…

(It’s pretty cutting edge.)

What I want you to do, is to pick a few items you know you should be doing (borrow some of these, if you need.)

Then write each of these on a single day on your calendar.

And then do them on that day.

Let your calendar be your coach. It’ll tell you what to do and it tell you when to do it. You won’t even have to think about it. Just do it.

If you think this is the most obvious and condescending piece of advice you’ve ever heard, then you’re probably right.

But I can’t overemphasize the importance of getting the basics right. Most mini-businesses fail because they never really get going. The key is to start moving, and keep going.

Thanks for putting up with my nonsense today. I’ll see you tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

People are rarely looking for more information. In fact, often they feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information at their fingertips.

They are looking for exactly the right information at the right time. And they are looking to have it pre-approved by someone they trust.

Do you satisfy this need for your customers?

Have you established trust with your customers?

Do you keep your customers’ problems in mind at all times?

Do you filter relevant and helpful information, share it with your customers in a consistent way, and let your customer know you’re helping them out?

Good! Well done you.

See you in Monte Carlo, you lovely information filter, You.

JJ Jalopy.